This week, to close out our work in CEP812, we explored the idea of Passion Quotient and Curiosity Quotient through reading Friedman’s (2013) piece, where he expresses the importance of “develop[ing] skills that are complementary to technology rather than ones that can be easily replaced by it.” The article really got me thinking about the kind of student I want to foster, and what I want to emphasize within my classroom in order to achieve that. I immediately thought of EdLeader21’s graphic of Student A, Student B, and Student C, essentially showcasing the evolution of what skills are being emphasized in schools. I strive to always develop a Student C, who not only achieves content mastery (or “I.Q.”), but also, more importantly, obtains 4C skills like creativity and critical thinking, along with global competencies and self-direction (P.Q. and C.Q.). I model this through my own desire to be a lifelong learner, to fail forward, and to continue to innovate in the classroom. The Thinglink I created delves further into the ways in which I integrate technology tools and resources to instill passion and curiosity in my students. I linked several documents and websites in the Thinglink, and will also link them here with explanation:
It is important for students to be content masters, having a breadth of knowledge on core curriculum standards. The link above shows our curriculum snapshot for fourth grade.
Critical thinking and problem solving are necessary for solving problems in which there is more than one solution, and argument and explanation are necessary. The Open Response Checklist I created gives students guidelines for articulating their thinking on paper, and becomes the form for our peer critiques.
Collaboration is a critical skill for real world success. Scaffolds like group contracts help my students plan for how they will operate as a group, resolve conflict, and get the job done!
Creativity can be fostered by high-quality project-based learning (PBL) where students see themselves as creators of content, designers, and researchers. The Buck Institute provides tremendous support to PBL.
Students must be globally competent, aware of others’ ideas and well-connected to the world. Global Read Aloud and Mystery Skype are just a couple ways I work to develop this competency.
Self-direction is often a difficult skill for students to adopt, but an important one. I teach GRIT lessons at the beginning of the year to show kids how to take charge of their own learning.
I believe it is so important that we take a step back from the nitty gritty of our daily lessons to see the big picture of the whole student we are trying to develop. While I.Q. is important, P.Q. and C.Q. are what makes education matter to the student and make it last a lifetime. If we can spark their curiosity and passion, they will have the winning skill set to take on any academic challenge!
Throughout the CEP812 course, my Think Tank has been focusing on how failure is perceived in schools, and how it could be better leveraged as a means of learning. With educational institutions and practices becoming more and more focused on “getting it right,” instead of persevering in the face of an obstacle, it is more crucial now than ever to resolve this wicked problem. Below, I share my infographic detailing the causes of this problem, and our group’s white paper detailing a proposed multi-faceted solution. We hope to inspire others to take action to change the perception of failure from crippling to empowering.
Prior to focusing in on infodiet this week in CEP812, I hadn’t thought much about how the information I consume on a daily basis is really catered towards me. While I like to think that I use a wide variety of sources or networked affinity spaces to inform my thinking, I realized that most of my current ideas, at least education-wise, are coming from my Twitter feed, Facebook, Google, Pinterest, and blogs; and while information from these sources seem vast, I am quickly realizing their shortcomings. The people who I “friend” or “follow” often confirm my own perspectives and support my same beliefs. That makes sense, as most of the people I surround myself with or admire as thinkers predominantly share my passions–that’s probably why I am drawn to them to begin with.
Watching Pariser’s (201) TEDTalk, I was taken aback by his comments about how two people’s same Google searches came up with very different results. I always knew sites like Facebook tracked what you click on to customize ads, articles, and stories towards the individual, but I always thought of search engines as impartial. This worried me to think that all along as I have thought I was unbiased in my online research, I could have been consuming information skewed towards my own perspective. I was really drawn to Pariser’s graphic of sorting information not just by relevance, but by importance (to the world), how uncomfortable it is for the viewer, how challenging it is to dissect, or how different of a perspective it offers. I really wish there was such a thing as this check-off menu when I search through my infodiet!
I added three new sources to my infodiet this week, the first of which promises to extend my thinking on my wicked problem of practice: failure as a learning mode. Mindset Works offers a different perspective on fostering growth mindset–an actual program (Brainology) to teach kids how to use and grow their brains. While I had mostly been thinking in terms of adjusting grading of assignments/rubrics, allowing kids to see the merits of failure in the academic sense, this site opened my eyes to actually taking time out of the curriculum to teach kids about brain science and allowing them to see that, scientifically, they are capable of growing their brains. This was scary to me at first to think of taking away precious academic time, but I look forward to seeing how this type of thinking could benefit me and my students.
The second source I added was Burkins & Yaris’ blog that directly challenged my viewpoint on kids needing to consistently read at their guided reading level. While our Lucy Calkins Reading curriculum dictates that students must read at their level in order to gain the skills needed to move to the next level, and most every colleague in my building echoes this, this blog made me think about the benefits of giving kids more independence, and how that could affect their sentiments toward reading.
Lastly, I looked at Learn Like A Pirate, which pushes student-led classrooms and student leadership. While I always work towards student-centered classrooms, I have been leery of giving up total control and letting the students truly lead. This site offers ideas as extreme as having a day where the teacher does not talk at all, but rather observes as the students lead the entire day. While this idea seems radical to me in my school where there is an urge to control and scaffold the students’ day, this is where education needs to go in order to foster autonomous, collaborative individuals, so I look forward to seeing where this and the other sources can push my thinking!
References
Pariser, E. (2011, March). Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles” [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles
In thinking about the wicked problem of students’ view of failure, and how it is often not perceived as a learning mode, a visual representation seemed a perfect way to portray this complexity. There are many factors that contribute to students’ perception of failure, and many ways that perception manifests itself in students’ mindsets, work ethic, and general affect. I created an infographic this week using Piktochart to attempt to convey the severity of this problem. I am looking forward to continuing to brainstorm ways in which this problem could be solved.
This week, I created a survey to collect data on instructional technology integration at my 4th and 5th grade building in Saline, Michigan. The results were very intriguing, and will help inform decision-making about future professional development. I was interested to see most of my staff’s confidence in their technology integration skills, but also some areas where we can improve the depth and quality of technology integration to really push our students to creation and significant task redesign. View my analysis here.
This week in CEP812, we read a selection of James Paul Gee’s The Anti-Education Era. Below is my essay response to one of Gee’s thoughts on the topic of human memory. I discuss the limitations that the human memory has on one’s ability to act smartly, and give my thoughts on how this could play out in the classroom. I welcome comments and discussion on this topic!
For this first week of CEP812, I explored a digital tool, Duolingo, and its ability to enable an English Language Learner to thrive academically, particularly with vocabulary development. A huge problem of practice with students learning English as a second language is that their lexicon is limited, thus their ability to take in the curriculum and content is hindered by the fact that they are missing key pieces of information within directions, story problems, and certainly any texts themselves. I have a student in my classroom this year who reads at a Fountas & Pinnell level C, when the average in my class is level R. Because he is still learning how to read, while my other students are all reading to learn, this makes it extremely difficult to target any small group instruction/minilessons/reading conferences toward him, as we don’t have materials or curriculum available to teach basic reading skills, and none of the other students would be working on this skill.
That is why I think Duolingo would be a wonderful tool for assisting students like this with vocabulary development. Individual students could work independently on this site, while others did independent reading or conferenced with peers or the teacher. The tool offers a variety of methods and modalities for mastering vocabulary: oral, written, visual, auditory, and more. Plus, it offers a native speaker, individualized instruction at one’s own level, and feedback on responses.
As Ou Yang and Wu (2015) note in their study on mixed-modality learning strategies for second language acquisition, “For students who study English as a second language (L2), vocabulary learning is always a primary concern and plays a key role.” They also maintain that students require at least 2,000 words to maintain conversations. For reading and writing, students would need access to even more. Thus, vocabulary knowledge and size clearly influence students’ abilities in all four important language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It is therefore a very important problem of practice to address these vocabulary-building skills with our English Language Learners so as to set them up for success in the rest of their academic careers.
In addition to offering individualized instruction and the ability to differentiate, Duolingo gives students multiple points of access to the vocabulary being taught. Starting with pictures to supplement the vocabulary words, Duolingo then moves to word recognition, and then typing both English and the L1 translations. Audio feedback accompanies both the vocabulary teaching and the answers that the students are inputting. Students can hover over the L2 words to hear them pronounced, and try them on their own. Proper grammar and accents are also emphasized. Particularly with academic vocabulary, students need multiple means of accessing, as terms often take on a different meaning in an academic sense. For example, when talking about “rounding up” in math, ELLs must know that this is not actually referring to anything round (as in a circle), or even rounding up cattle, but rounding a number to a specific place value.
I think that by giving learners multiple ways to encode the information, and to produce output, this tool truly enables the learner to work toward vocabulary proficiency. Ou Yang and Wu’s (2015) study supports this, as their findings indicate that the use of mixed-modality vocabulary learning strategies (VLSs) via the use of educational technology can improve the vocabulary learning outcomes and retention of English Language Learners. They used a variety of strategies including imagery, grouping, word cards, etc. on an online program called MyEVA to test whether one modality or a mix would prove more effective. Not only did the multi-modality VLSs work best, but learner preference input also proved helpful. Another factor influencing the outcome is the frequency with which the learner uses the technique. I think this is hugely important for the use of Duolingo, as with any assistive tool. The more frequently the student uses it (with fidelity and consistency), the more effective it will be.
Below, in my screencast demonstrating the use of Duolingo, you can see all of these features in action. This tool’s affordances truly work to effectively target vocabulary development in English Language Learners. I look forward to trying it with my own student!
References
Ou Yang, F. C., & Wu, W. C. V. (2015). Using Mixed-Modality Learning Strategies via e-Learning for Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition. Educational Technology & Society, 18 (3), 309–322.
Throughout the CEP811 course, many beliefs and ideas I had previously been exploring were validated. I also feel I have more vocabulary and research to back-up the theories that underlie those beliefs, and can talk more intelligibly about the principles of creativity, technology integration, and the Maker Movement. These ideas are all now swirling around in my head, much like the word cloud above, and are finding their way into my unit plans, professional development planning, and professional conversations as we speak! Some core ideas and new thinking that developed throughout the course, that I will carry with me in my work as an educator are as follows:
“Everything is a remix.”
I really liked our work Week #1 on remixing, and it got me thinking about repurposing, and how there really is no “one perfect thing” to solve any educational problem or fill any specific void. It is our job as educators to manipulate what is out there to serve our (and our students’) specific needs. Pulling from a variety of sources and combining, re-configuring, and unifying when needed is really the power of creating something novel, effective, and whole.
2. “Does it reach for higher-order thinking?”
This became my mantra as I explored my Maker Kit, and puzzled over how I was going to create a lesson that included the kit, but not in a forced way that could easily just be replaced by an “old school” equivalent. As I discussed with classmates during the maker conversation, the power is in having the students create and innovate with the materials to demonstrate their understanding of any concept. It’s not the content that matters as much as the approach, and giving students ownership.
3. PBL & the Maker Movement
I started to really see the connections between these two entities Week #3 when we got to do some outside research on collaborative problem-solving. Because my school and district are invested in integrating project and problem-based learning into our curriculum, I was particularly interested in the links between the two. I found that the core principle of sustaining inquiry and investigating through play and experimentation really characterized both concepts. Students creating unique, authentic products to display their individual understanding, and incorporating standards from multiple subject areas, as well as emphasizing college and career-ready “soft skills” all contributed to success.
4. Assessing creativity
This last week, I really appreciated being given the time to think critically about assessment and creativity. I have always been interested in giving meaningful feedback to students, and have found a lot of variance in the assessments of creativity that I have seen in the field. The articles and information presented this week gave me a lens through which to view the current assessment methods I use, and allowed me to further my thinking on this topic.
Cutting across all of these core ideas, however, are the tools that we explored in the course that I look forward to using with students. I can see a multitude of uses for my Makey Makey kit in the classroom as we look at circuits, applications to computer science, etc. Additionally, I want to find ways for students to use an infographic to display their understanding of a topic in a concise, audience-friendly way. Designing space also turned out to be a very high-level concept that I could see a variety of applications for in the classroom for students to gain ownership over their space. Finally, WeVideo was a great way to combine sound, images, words, and videos to create a powerful statement. I could see it being used for book trailers, science presentations, and a million other uses. I’m looking forward to processing the ideas developed in this course and pushing onward in the MAET program!
“Assessment” is certainly a buzzword nowadays in education, as many conversations tend to revolve around standards, Common Core, testing, etc. Though many are opposed to the standardization, rigor, and length of some of these assessments, I for one really appreciate authentic formative assessments for learning (as opposed to summative ones-of learning) as a means of providing meaningful feedback for students, and as a way to inform my next teaching moves. Especially in maker-inspired lessons and units, assessment can be particularly powerful to gain insight into creativity, problem-solving, and engagement. As an educator charged with the assessment of student learning, I would assess creative problem solving during maker-inspired lessons in the following ways:
Provide a rubric with meaningful criteria, and in some cases, exemplar products so students can understand the expectations and frame their thinking for the product.
Provide opportunities for the products/presentations to be authentically evaluated by an audience with real investment in the output.
First, on the topic of rubrics, Wiggins (2012) provides a thoughtful commentary on many educators’ worry that rubrics equate to objectivity, and that a subjective topic such as creativity cannot be assessed effectively using a rubric: “This is a worrisome misunderstanding: students are coming to believe that rubrics hamper their creativity rather than encouraging it. That can only come from a failure on the part of teachers to use the right criteria and multiple & varied exemplars.” I agree that by using the RIGHT criteria and providing different forms of exemplars, rubrics can actually spark creativity and innovation, rather than stifle it. When students know the expectations and guidelines for a project, they then know just how far, and in how many directions, they can expand their creativity, and on what spectrum their product will be viewed. I modified some of the 4C (Creativity, Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking) rubrics from my district last year to create a rubric for our U.S. Regions project where students researched one of the five U.S. regions, created a 3D symbol to represent many aspects of their region, and lighted the symbol using their knowledge of electrical circuits from Science:
The rubric provided students with enough guidelines to be successful at incorporating all aspects of the task, but open-ended enough that they could take the task in many different directions. As Gee (2010) notes, drawing a comparison to video games, students need time to “play” first, before viewing an “instruction manual,” or in this case, a rubric. In this way, I allowed students the opportunity to dive into researching their region and exploring the materials for the symbol, before viewing the rubric and beginning construction.
An example of a rubric in what some may view as a more objective subject area, I recently worked with my students to come up with a checklist for our Open Response Tasks in Math. This is a highly creative task where students explain their mathematical thinking on an open-ended problem, and then respond to others’ solutions as well. We found that the checklist gave students options for how they could represent their understanding (diagrams, number sentences, words, pictures), and thus led to a very wide range of explanations.
Secondly, as our school and district move more in the direction of Project-Based Learning, two of the criteria on the Gold Standard Wheel for PBL are authenticity and public product. As I have been designing projects for my students this year, I have been trying to consciously view the end products with the lens of authenticity to a real-world career, as Isslehardt (2013) mentions in his report on a school district transitioning to PBL. In writing guiding questions, I have tried to begin with “Students as scientists will…” or “Students as historians will…” in an attempt to give students a specific audience to gauge their work towards. I have also tried to bring in outside resources (community members, people working in the field of study) to both help frame and kick off the project for the students, and to be a part of the evaluation process.
For example, I revised my U.S. Regions project from the year before so that the end product would be planning a road trip through one of the regions. Thus, students would have to think about a logical path through their region so as to hit the most “attractions,” be cost-effective, and responsive to climate. As they create travel promotional videos, I am involving a friend of mine in the film industry to both introduce persuasive film and help assess the projects. The authentic audience will be parents choosing which road trip they would take, as families would naturally be the ones digesting this type of information and making these kinds of decisions–assessing engagement. A think aloud of my revision process can be found here:
As far as authentic audiences for math, I have found that filming videos of mathematical responses is a very authentic way to assess students’ understanding of mathematical concepts, and their audience becomes their peers. Before students can record their explanation for a learning quest in math, they must share their response with a partner, and then with me to ensure they have left no gaps in taking their audience through the mathematical process.
All in all, if provided with effective rubrics and and authentic audience, assessments of creativity and problem-solving can be particularly meaningful–for both students and educators!
References
Gee, J. (2010, July 10). James Paul Gee on Grading with Games. Retrieved November 30, 2015 from https://youtu.be/JU3pwCD-ey0
When we were tasked this week with creating an infographic to provide context and background on some aspect of the Maker Movement, my first instinct was to somehow create a persuasive piece to show the benefits/affordances of #MakerED. Then, I started thinking about all of the ways that my school and district are already moving in that direction and incorporating aspects of making into our curriculum, and decided I would showcase the three pieces to the Maker Movement: Makers, Making, and Makerspaces, as per Halverson and Sheridan, and how they are tied to frames of thinking, mindsets, and activities that we are already engaged in as a staff and community. Combining visual elements with short bits of text allowed me to drive home the main components of Making, while allowing some of the graphics to speak for themselves. Please view the infographic below, and feel free to leave feedback!
Sheridan, K. Halverson, E.R., Litts, B.K., Brahms, L, Jacobs-Priebe, L., & Owens, T. (2014) Learning in the making: A comparative case-study of three maker spaces. Harvard Educational Review, 84(4), 505-565.DOI: 10.1037/13273-003.
amcwebster 