Category Archives: teaching

Open Online Experience Registration Begins

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This year has been the year of MOOCs for me, and it seems the rest of the world. I started with DNLE at Stanford, the first MOOC I actually finished. (My first MOOC was edfutures with Dave Cormier in 2010 but I kind of petered out after 6 weeks)

In September I started working with Alec Couros and his many co-conspirator on #etmooc. I learned a lot about designing a connectivist MOOC. I put that learning to work right away in designing the Open Online Experience (#OOE13).

Over the past month or so I and 40 other educators have worked hard to develop OOE13. OOE13 is a 10 month course starting in September 2013 and ending in May 2014. There are two main goals of OOE13. The first is to help educators learn and develop the skills necessary to integrate technology into the classroom. The second is to help educators create and nurture connections that will continue through and beyond the experience.

The experience is specifically designed to parallel the school year. Which at first seems like a very long course, but in reality is a short 9 week course stretched out to allow busy working educators the time necessary to explore each topic without putting undue burden on their lives. We also hope it will become a theme for some groups as they work together during the year. We hope you will join us during the journey.

It isn’t necessary to register for the course, everything should flow through our wiki (http://ooe.wikispaces.com/), but to get the full effect we ask you to register here, or here.

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Khan on the changing role of teachers.

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Watch this video. I hear him saying first off, ‘here, be a facilitator or a coach stop being adversarial.’

When teachers have done this in the past they have had to continually convince parents and administrators that they were actually teaching.

 

What do students want in math class? They want a teacher who will show them how to do the work. If you don’t they complain that you are not teaching. then parents come in and complain. Then admins ask why you aren’t teaching. Finally, one kids fails a test and it is the teachers fault for not teaching.

 

Common core and accountability leads to teachers who teach by showing, not those who facilitate or coach.

 

If you truly want to encourage teachers to facilitate, and I hope you do, then reward teachers who do this. Don’t wait for the end and reward only teachers who have students who score high on a test. Don’t observe teachers and mark them down because students are struggling, (making noise and often moving around and or arguing with each other), a coach doesn’t do work for a player, s/he knows they must be persistent.

 

If teachers are changing from deliverers of content to facilitator of knowledge then allow them to do that. Stop looking at the end product. and start looking at the process.

My sons are Makers. Are You Ready?

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Inspired by Scot McLeod and his blog post My son is 8. He’s a maker.

I encourage you to follow up and make your own post.

My son is 7. He is a maker. He spends hours building elaborate worlds in Minecraft knowing they will be destroyed because we don’t  have the full version, tonight he will make another one. 4plus4

My son is 5. He is a maker. He builds cities out of trains and Hot Wheels. They block the halls and cover the furniture.

My son is 7. He is a maker. He draws pictures of children playing, Angry Birds flying, and pigs hiding.

My son is 5. He is a maker. He builds forts out of cushions. He hides under blankets and dares me to find him. He runs around the house with a blanket cape flowing behind. legos

My sons are 5 and 7. They are a makers. Will Their classes enable them or quash them? Will their teachers inspire them or suppress them? Will their schools nurture their brilliant divergence or force them into a convergent, one-size-fits-all model?

My sons are 5 and 7. They are a makers. their world-changing skills and talents never will be reflected in an educational world of worksheets, end-of-chapter review questions, course exams, and bubble tests. How will you accommodate and recognize their gifts?

My sons are 5 and 7. They are a makers. Are you ready?

 

RESPECT Discussion

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I’ve talked to a fellow Northwestern University alum over the past few months about the Department of Education‘s RESPECT vision document.

A construction project to repair and update th...

A construction project to repair and update the building façade at the Department of Education headquarters in 2002 resulted in the installation of structures at all of the entrances to protect employees and visitors from falling debris. ED redesigned these protective structures to promote the “No Child Left Behind Act”. The structures were temporary and were removed in 2008. Source: U.S. Department of Education, (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For the past year some of the fellows at the Department of Education have been working on a vision for education in this country.

Last May the first draft was released to the public for comment. Over the months the message has been refined. Not as much as I would have liked, but as a vision for the entire country and considering some of the other voices I hear I’m pretty happy with the result

Currently the DoE wants to know what it would look like if this document were implemented as a vision for education. They want your opinion.

During #EdCampChicago I will, if there is enough interest, host a session on what it would like if we did implement this vision in America. If you would like to be a part of that conversation, please download a copy of the RESPECT vision document and read it this week.

 

Thanks

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Competing Philosophies of Education

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Perhaps this is just my view, but it looks like education is slowly inexorably changing and we have two choices competing for the dominant theory of what constitutes a quality education.

technology becomes the teacher.

This is a nice model for the business community, because, eventually, the costs will drop. The basic premise is that if we design adaptive software students can sit in front of a computer all day and just follow the learning program. Costs will be limited to the hardware (less than $1,000), software, ($5 per student), and a person to monitor students (minimum wage). $45,000 for a class of 30, or $1500 per student, $65,000 for a class of 60 or $1,100 per student. Or about 10% or less of the cost to teach a student now.

teachers AS MENTOR / FACILITATOR.

Instead of the presenters of knowledge teachers become the facilitators of knowledge. Experts in their craft who guide students through individualized learning experiences.

  • Teachers of young children focus more on learning milestones and owning the skills that are the building blocks of different subjects.
  • Middle school teachers focus more on developing burgeoning critical thinking skills.
  • High school teachers give students a wide latitude in finding, creating, and solving problems that are central to learning standards.

Students use technology to explore, question, collaborate, practice, and create.

 

Which system of education seems better to you? Why?

If you had the choice which school would you enroll your children?

The Best Teacher

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I’ve read a several times in different articles this week the author saying something to the effect of If a student can learn from the best teachers then why shouldn’t they?

This is a great sentiment, but I find the underlying assumption being that the idea of a great teacher is a person who wrote a great book, made a great discovery, presents a great lecture.

I think they are missing the point. Teachers don’t present the material so much as they set up the learning environment. Teachers facilitate learning.

Sure it could be a lecture, or a presentation, or a power point-keynote, whatever. On the other hand it could be a project, or following a misconception all the way to it’s end.

Teaching is more than filling the empty vessels, it is igniting the fire.

“For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.”
Moralia, On Listening to Lectures 48C (LCL 1.256-259)

Teachers respond to students questions, follow tangents, and allow the student to determine the direction of the class.

On the other hand we can just lock children in the classroom turn on the TV and let them be educated.

Building Safe Online Communities

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I’m developing this for training at my school. I know it is a bit wordy, but I wanted to make sure it would also be a stand alone project. Actually I want it mostly to be a stand alone document. If you would please throw out some comments I would appreciate it.

If the embed is not working please try this link. Building Safe Online Communities.

JIVE Conference

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As many of my friends know this past summer (June 2011) I completed a program at Johns Hopkins University (JHU). The administration program is a partnership with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). I was very impressed with the quality of the program and the quality of the participants.

A few months ago a few of us who graduated in 2011 felt the need to reconnect. Fresh from organizing an EdCampChicago event I was all for helping to organize a virtual conference. The JIVE (Johns Hopkins International Society for Technology in Education Virtual Conference) was born. To listen to the conference please click here.

Welcome screen shot from conference

The purpose of JIVE is for JHU/ISTE program alumni to get together and share with each other some of what we learned in the program and how we are using it today.

 

Our first presentation is from Gayle Cole who has helped in the creation of iwitness. Iwitness is focused on recording the testimony of Holocaust survivors. This is an amazing site that will make a profound impact on many students.

 

Screen shot from iwitness

Screenshot from http://iwitness.usc.edu/SFI/


Our second presentation is from Ann Johnston. Ann has been an Evernote user for years. She shares with us how Evernote can be used to organize a teachers life as well as streamline methods for sharing online resources in the classroom.

Screen shot Evernote

Screen shot from http://evernote.com/

The first conference was great. I look forward to many more in the years to come. Please, enjoy our first JIVE conference. I hope next June we can host another event and you can be a part of it.

 

The Problem with Standards

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Some people suggest that the medium in which we present mathematics is the problem. And I think that is true. However, as with all things that is only one part of the problem.

The Department of Education sees a lack of high standards in schools as the main problem in education.

Politicians, parents, schools boards, and millions of other people see unified standards as a method of solving this problem.

It certainly is tempting. The idea that if everyone would just teach that same stuff then at least we all have a base of knowledge to build upon, to depend on.

If we raise standards by requiring schools to teach specific standards how do we make sure this is being done? The obvious answer of course to raising standards in the quality of education is to set standards and then measure whether we are meeting those standards.

 

Let’s follow the logic:

When people think that a test is the way to measure a students mastery of a standard we think it is a good idea to develop a better test.

When we try to develop a better test that measures specific standards we spend a lot of time looking at those standards.

We write questions with those standards in mind.

It is very hard to write a question that meets a specific standard and only that standard.

We modify the question so that it only includes information or questions for that specific standard.

These modifications change the question from a fair description of real life into some mutant cyborg that scare little children.

Mutant Cyborg Costume front

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