Here is the video discussion that I created about the future of teaching and education as thought of by Teaching 2030. Teachers should be more involved in the decisions which impact them, but teachers are humans too. This means that there are limitations to what we can expect for them. They need a healthy work-life balance too. They also make decisions that are in their self-interest and not necessarily best for the system as a whole. The education system needs a balance between policy pundits and teachers. Even better, the education system needs to focus more on students.
Everything’s changing so fast. In 50 years, education may look very different than it does today. Schools, the traditional hubs of teaching and learning are changing their offerings, rethinking their aims, and sometimes even becoming obsolete.
A short open letter to teachers and administrators on making waves in education and practice.
As you like minded folks are already well aware, learning is no end in itself, but is instead a journey composed of many formative moments. If that learning is to be lasting, either for days, weeks, months, or years, learners need opportunities to access the knowledge they’ve constructed and filed away, to bring it back to the surface, and to let it be tested, manipulated, and built upon through new experience and reflection. As educators, we of course are concerned with instruction, but we’re also (and should certainly be) finely tuned to those moments where that constructed knowledge is brought out of the cabinets of the mind. Informally it happens in discussions and conversations when a learner attempts to explain a concept or listens and responds with a question. Formally it takes place during quizzes, tests, quests, worksheets, labs, rehearsals, etc. Knowledge construction is happening all the time, and as a teacher of numerous students you don’t always have the opportunity to give the type and/or form of feedback that this specific learner may need at that exact moment in the ways that will maximize the impact of her learning. Instead, because you’re only one human whose been charged with impacting the learning of so many, you might engage in practices which help us (as teachers) to believe we’re effectively managing the learning of all our students, partly because these practices have been handed down to us by generations and generations before us, and why wouldn’t they be effective! We, of course, are intentional about how we make use of our class time and the work we assign for when the students aren’t in class. However, when we begin to take a second look at some of those activities and practices, a truth is revealed: they are simply conventions that our predecessors have designed and adopted and subsequently handed down to us. And part of the reason they were designed in the first place was with the intention of ‘managing the learning of many students’.
But what I wonder is this: are those same practices the ones that are going to best help us ‘facilitate learning for everyone?’
Do we think they’re effective because those practices have always been used, or do we think they’re effective because we know that the interventions we use are actually better than others?
There are two forces in the last 60 years that have really forced us to take that second look at how we’ve been accustomed to designing experiences in the service of learners. The first is the rapid development in technology of all kinds. In about a century’s time, we’ve gone from a world of mechanical industry to a world where robots produce most of our goods. In about half a century’s time, we’ve gone from a world where the most powerful computer took up an entire room to a world where the 4.5 inch slab of plastic and metal in your pocket can do more than 500 of those rooms combined. The second force of change cannot be possible without the first: that force comprises developments in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and educational research. We have a more accurate picture now of how the brain works and how humans learn than at any time in history, and the scientific models of learning are only just beginning to truly take shape. This confluence of technological development in addition to the developments in the learning sciences will only continue to form and transform other areas of the contemporary global marketplace. In some ways it has already impacted our work here and there in schools: — the types and frequency of professional development around 21st century competencies and skills, the introduction and experimentation with different forms of learning environments, etc. From what we’ve seen so far, I think we can be reasonably assured that in the coming decades the places we call “schools” will look and feel different from the ones we grew up in and were schooled in. In some ways that’s already the case.
The heart of the matter lies in connections: we cherish and are protective of the time we have with students, because we know that the relationships we form during those hours, days, months, and years, are the bedrock out of which we nurture a child’s development, whether that’s intellectually, morally, socially, or whatever. Growing as a practitioner-educator today in part means understanding the ways that forces of technology and learning should impact the experiences we facilitate for our young people. And it’s because those same forces will be the ones that today’s learners will need to leverage in jobs that certainly don’t exist today, in transformed organizations that are already in the process of responding to a new kind of world, and in a future that only the young people today will have the capacity to envision.
These days articles are published everyday about the disadvantages of technology in education. Will Richardson recently tweeted about his frustration that the media always make the argument “black and white, rather than right time, right place.”
I cannot argue with the fact that technology has made my life easier (even if it’s only made it easier to live a life where I’m a slave to technology).
I have a class of 9th graders headed to the Metropolitan Museum today. In preparation for the trip I was able to go on the Met’s website, examine the items on display in the Greek & Roman galleries, then easily take these kinds of screen shots to put into their assignment sheets:
Using the Met’s website made life much easier for me. First I could make the assignment more exciting for the students by assigning them each a unique artifact instead of assigning everyone the same artifact or asking them to choose an artifact (and hope that it fits the criteria I’m looking for). Second, I was able to preview the collection and choose the most relevant pieces without having to travel into the city and spend the day looking at the Met (some might consider this a disadvantage), and third, the Met not only tells you exactly what’s on view in the galleries, but also in which gallery a visitor can find the piece, so my kids won’t be aimlessly wandering the galleries without a clue where to look. And to think I did this all from the comfort of my living room at midnight last night.
Now my kids have something of a scavenger hunt in the Met, with an interesting assignment attached: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JvMPrHLm1thb5HSq_z7m3wo0FFhiTtuihiptrbCwL9Q/edit?hl=en_US
I hear educators say that “Technology is a tool and we have to use it wisely to achieve our outcomes” in schools. We decide what we want our students to know/understand/do and find the technology that best suits that type of learning. Targeted Technology Use. Sure, sounds nice, and perfect, but crucially: it sounds manageable.
But, it’s also true that the technology will change us. Any tools we use always end up transforming us: the way we think, the way we do business, what we expect from ourselves and others. (Read Sherry Turkle’s book Alone Together)
In that sense, I’m all for thinking about how we can best anticipate the ways in which technology will change us once we integrate it effectively into the classroom. You see, the bad is always going to accompany the good. Certain dispositions or skills or content knowledge will have to be sacrificed if we want our students to authentically and wholly be transformed through 21st century education.
Mostly, we need to have clearer vision of what we want our students to be able to do, how they should think et c. We’ve heard a lot about critical thinking, creativity, flexibility, curiosity, collaboration, self-directed learning, the coaching model, teachers as guides, inquiry driven learning, the science of memory, neurocognition, etc.
Gosh; THAT school doesn’t sound like mine (and likely never will). Maybe parts of my classes sound a little bit like it, but it’s an upstream run for this fish.
The problem is dealing with the loss of control.
21st century learning is not about someone telling you what’s important, it’s about discovering that on your own. It’s about being inspired to know something, being able to figure out how you can find the means to learn it, it’s about learning and mastering it. But one thing it’s not about is training for a particular trade, which is essentially what our current system of education has been set up for. To give people access to broad swaths of knowledge which they can then choose from as they narrow their focus and choose career paths.
But teachers and schools are no longer the keepers of that knowledge. It’s readily available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.
So what is our job all about?
This is the question we need to answer, and until we do, for many educators, students, parents, institutions, it’s going to feel like we’re waiting for the fog to lift. And in the meantime, as we’re lost in it, we’ll grab on to all the devices we can and tell ourselves it’s about finding the right tools for the things we want to do, which are based on the things we did before, which are pretty much the things we’ve always done. By seeing technology as a tool, we convince ourselves that this transition is going to be easier and that we’ll be in control every step of the way.
I think we hate to admit that we’re lying to ourselves, and we need to face the truth, recognizing that the waters are troubled and there’s no easy bridge across them. Only then can we really plan for what the future holds in store.
By the same token, simply teaching kids how to use iMovie or MovieMaker is not enough. Rather, a twenty-first-century student needs to be able to carefully consider the audience and the purpose of the message before settling on the appropriate medium to use – and, yes, even consider what grammar should and should not be used in crafting the message.
And technology skills need to be infused throughout, as it is so much a part of the way people communicate, work, and play in 2007. It is not enough for students to know how to use this technology tool or that one; they must also be able to select the right tool for the job and be so well informed about current possibilities that they can select the best one for the current job.
Yes, these twenty-first-century skills are a big deal, and we need to make sure our kids, our teachers, and even our schools work towards their mastery. But I suggest that we not forget about, and that we even take time to champion, what I am beginning to call “any-century skills” and their integration with the now oh-so-popular concept of twenty-first-century skills. For an example of what I mean here, to better understand the importance of knowing about scissors, about the complexity and power of those simple tools, check out this analytical discussion of surgical scissors.
Some examples of what I consider any-century skills are thinking, caring about oneself, caring for others, perseverance, making careful choices, listening for understanding, and being able to understand human potential and frailty. And what about being able, as I discussed at the very beginning, to use books and scissors?
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle talk about STEM as being critically important. “But the number of champions in Congress for STEM ed has actually gone down” in recent years, Brown says.
Lubell would like the federal government to prioritize STEM in the same way, say, the National Institutes of Health prioritizes finding ways to diagnose, prevent and cure human diseases. If not, he argues, the more than 20 percent of American children who live in poverty will continue to see the STEM education achievement gap widen.
“Certainly they don’t have access to the same kinds of facilities, the same quality teaching, the same science curriculum that other children have. We’re essentially writing off almost a third of our population,” he says.
Two photographs of the Borromean rings. The picture on the left is similar to the Borromeo crest, while the one on the right is an even more symmetric configuration.
Are you or do you know any qualified teachers who might be looking for teaching opportunities this summer? Do you have experience teaching middle schoolers and/or high schoolers about programming, video game design, app development, or wearable technology and electronics?
If you do, message me at http://thelearningbrain.tumblr.com/ask. I might have the perfect opportunity for you at the summer school of a well known prep school in the northeast.
If you’re an Education tag editor, could you boost this please?
I think the most uncomfortable piece of this new information landscape for educators is that many of them don’t know what learning looks like when students use these tools. They think simply because they have the ability to learn about things that aren’t necessarily the traditional disciplines and content, that those students are not doing valuable learning.
This article from NYT talks about an interesting experiment in merging classroom and virtual learning. Looks a lot like an experiment I tried last spring with my 9th grade cultural studies class.
If many schools seem intent on containing students’ online personas and use of social media, Dwight is trying to set them free — to blog, animate, make movies, design video games, make robots, and go forth in the networked world headfirst.
“If we don’t take this time to teach them how to behave online, something will happen,” Mr. Kolani said. (He did not mention it, but the behavior of certain elected officials came to mind.) “We want them to participate online in order to have a legacy of good things about them online.” And there’s the fact that a lot of college and university level work will be increasingly online and collaboration oriented.
When Mr. Kolani arrived at Dwight in 2005, in a traditional head of information-technology role, the technology curriculum focused on more traditional skills building — like Microsoft Office and Web page design — and using technology as a creative outlet (think Adobe Acrobat to make movies).
Last year, the school hired two more teachers to join Mr. Kolani, and the three overhauled the program.
“We took best of all and made it a linear progression,” Mr. Kolani said. “We wanted the skills to build year after year.”
Now students start in sixth grade with a digital citizenship and ethics unit — dangers of cyberbullying included — followed by an introduction to blogging, which requires them to “blog regularly as a means of self-assessment and reflection,” Mr. Kolani said. (The first thing they reflect on is the class itself, with the hope that in time, the reflections become more sophisticated, like the import of social media to the Arab Spring.)
There’s a video unit in which students tell a story and film it, and a foray into robotics. Mr. Kolani said he recently heard shrieks of delight from a student who made his robot follow a line of tape.
When possible, technology intersects with other classes: Sixth graders studying Greek history, for example, used the Google SketchUp tool to examine ancient architecture.
Seventh graders might use the same tools in a more advanced way, perhaps using SketchUp to design their own buildings. They design video games, and they animate.
By eighth grade, they are using Prezi, an online presentation tool, to make their own mandalas, Buddhist and Hindu presentations that require them to frame themselves with four “gates.” For another unit, they pick one piece of technology, like an implantable cellphone, and research how it has evolved and predict how it might continue to evolve. There’s more video gaming, and as the students get older, more independent projects.
Every year takes them away from the local and more toward the global, Mr. Kolani said, reflecting the school’s use of the International Baccalaureateprogram. “We’re an international school with a focus on looking globally,” he explained. “We realized we could take the same technology that we would use to look at our neighborhood to explore the world.”
