In their new vision for public schools, Randi Weingarten and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are right: students need more active, human, hands-on learning. They need projects, movement, collaboration, civic engagement, career-connected experiences, and chances to tackle real problems.

That is the strongest part of the AFT’s 10-point plan. The emphasis on career and technical education (CTE), experiential learning, and preparation for the future of work deserves attention. If we are serious about preparing students for modern careers, students need learning experiences that reflect the tools, practices, and expectations they will actually encounter beyond school.

The 10-point plan’s name, “Devices Down, Eyes Up, Hands-On,” may sound appealing, especially to adults exhausted by distraction, low-quality screen use, and Big Tech overreach. The problem is that it aims at the wrong target. Devices are not the enemy of active learning. Passive, drill-and-kill learning is.

A drill-and-kill worksheet on a Chromebook is still a worksheet. A lecture with a slide deck is still a lecture. A multiple-choice test on a screen is still a multiple-choice test. Technology did not create passive learning. In many cases, it exposed how much passive learning was already there and made it easier to scale.

Not every lesson needs a device. Rather than considering whether screens are up or down, the better questions are: what are students doing, why they are doing it, and whether the tool helps them learn, create, connect, solve, or demonstrate understanding.

The AFT plan includes several worthwhile ideas: stronger privacy protections, independent research, limits on manipulative technology, more hands-on learning, and adequate public school funding--all of which is important. But when the frame becomes “devices down,” schools risk confusing a management strategy with a learning strategy.

While the plan’s name is misguided, it is worth looking at each of the 10 points directly. Some parts are right, some need a better frame, and others would create the opposite of what our students and schools actually need.

What follows is where the plan gets it right, where it falls short, and why “devices down” is not the path to meaningful learning.

Point 1. No screens for pre-K through second grade

The AFT calls for no screens for students in pre-K through second grade unless there is a compelling reason, such as support for a student with special needs.

The instinct is understandable. Young children need play, language, movement, stories, relationships, manipulatives, exploration, and hands-on learning. They do not need to spend large parts of the day watching videos or completing low-level digital tasks.

But “no screens” goes too far. A child passively consuming content is not doing the same thing as a child using literacy tools to hear a story, build vocabulary, practice phonics, illustrate writing, translate a word, enlarge text, or share a recording with family. Those are different experiences and policy should treat them differently.

Accessibility should not be treated as an exception or afterthought. Some students read, write, listen, speak, translate, caption, enlarge text, dictate, or produce work more effectively with digital tools. That includes students with disabilities and multilingual learners, but it also includes students who may not have a formal accommodation. A policy that says “no screens unless you have special needs” can unintentionally stigmatize the students who benefit from access.

The standard should be higher than “screen or no screen.” Screens should be purposeful, adult-guided, developmentally appropriate, and never allowed to crowd out human interaction, play, movement, stories, and hands-on work. That is more demanding than a ban. It requires educators and policy makers to consider thoughtful choices.

Point 2. No student-facing AI in elementary schools

The AFT also calls for no student-facing artificial intelligence in elementary schools, supervised AI use for older students, and a ban on social companion chatbots for students under 16.

Most would agree that social companion chatbots do not belong in elementary schools. Schools should not help companies simulate relationships with children. But banning all student-facing AI in elementary school is too broad. There is a difference between a child forming an emotional attachment to a chatbot and a teacher using an AI-supported tool for translation, accessibility, vocabulary support, feedback, or differentiated practice under supervision.

There is also a difference between using AI to avoid thinking and using AI to strengthen thinking. Responsible AI use should start with the learning goal, not with the tool. Teachers need to help students understand when AI supports learning and when it gets in the way.

Young children should not be using AI freely. However, that does not mean they should learn nothing about AI or never encounter an AI-supported learning experience. They need age-appropriate digital and AI literacy: this includes what responsible and appropriate use is, how it should be questioned, and how to think critically before tools are placed in front of them without context.

Avoidance is not preparation. Guardrails, judgment, and age-appropriate instruction are.

Point 3. Redesign schooling around active and career-connected learning

This is where the AFT plan is strongest. Active learning, project-based learning, experiential learning, and career-connected learning should be at the center of the conversation.

If students are bored, distracted, and disengaged, the answer is not simply removing devices. The answer is to design learning worth paying attention to..

This matters most in CTE. Students preparing for healthcare, media, construction, design, engineering, business, computer science, culinary arts, public service, or green energy will not enter device-free workplaces. They will use digital tools to research, design, diagnose, communicate, manage projects, analyze data, create media, document work, collaborate with teams, and solve problems.

If we say we value career-connected learning while making “devices down” the default, we are sending mixed messages. Modern CTE requires meaningful technology use. Students should not just learn about careers, but practice with the tools of those careers in authentic ways.

Every lesson does not need a screen. But when a device helps students do the work more authentically, collaboratively, creatively, or effectively, putting it away makes no sense.

Point 4. Build literacy, numeracy, and civic engagement

Students need strong literacy, numeracy, and civic engagement. But “devices down” is not how students build those skills for the world in which they live.

Students need to read deeply. They also need tools that support vocabulary development, translation, accessibility, feedback, publishing, and access to high-interest texts at different reading levels. Learning to write in a world with AI, or using a strong digital reading platform well, is not the same as random screen time.

Students need number sense. They also need opportunities to explain their thinking, use data, create tutorials, and learn from one another. When students create a video explaining a math concept, they are not just answering a problem. They are making their thinking visible.

Students need civic knowledge. They also need to understand how algorithms, misinformation, surveillance, platforms, AI, and online communities shape public life. Digital citizenship is civic education now. It cannot be treated as an extra lesson after something goes wrong.

A device-down approach does not teach students how to evaluate information, protect their privacy, manage their digital footprint, communicate responsibly, or participate thoughtfully in online spaces. Schools should recognize students are in these spaces.

Point 5. Focus on well-being

The AFT is right to connect learning with student and family well-being. Students do not learn well when they feel unsafe, unsupported, isolated, anxious, sleep-deprived, or disconnected from school.

But well-being is not simply a screen-time issue. If students are struggling, schools should look at schedules, relationships, homework loads, sleep, movement, food insecurity, school climate, mental health support, family communication, social media, and the habits students are developing in digital spaces.

Digital well-being belongs in the curriculum, not just in the device policy. Students need to understand how notifications affect attention, how platforms are designed to keep them engaged, how to protect their privacy, how to communicate respectfully, when to disconnect, and when a face-to-face conversation, movement, rest, or quiet focus is the better choice.

A ban can make adults feel as if they acted meaningfully while leaving the deeper issues untouched. The goal should be healthier learning environments and healthier digital habits, not simply less device access or fewer minutes with screens.

Point 6. Protect academic freedom, intellectual property, and educator judgment

Educators should not be handed technology because a vendor made a good pitch. They also should not be blocked from safe and useful tools because policymakers are scared. Academic freedom matters. Teachers should have the professional judgment to decide how their students learn best. That includes the ability to choose when a digital tool supports learning, when it gets in the way, and when a mandated curriculum or platform is not serving their students well. A district-approved tool is not automatically good instruction. A required platform is not automatically the right fit for every learner, lesson, or classroom.

Educator judgment should be central, but teachers should not be left alone to evaluate every app, platform, privacy policy, accessibility claim, AI feature, and instructional promise. That is not sustainable, and it is not fair.

Schools need trusted public-facing reviews, privacy ratings, accessibility information, safety indicators, AI risk assessments, and quality signals that help educators make better decisions before tools reach students. Common Sense Media, ISTE+ASCD, Digital Promise, and similar organizations have all contributed pieces of this infrastructure, but the work is fragmented, unstable, and unevenly known.

Teacher judgment matters most when it is supported by reliable information and respected in practice. The answer is not to tell every educator to vet everything alone, but to build stronger, transparent systems that help educators understand risk, quality, accessibility, privacy, and instructional value, while still trusting teachers to make the final instructional call for the students in front of them.

Point 7. Establish a gold standard for AI safety and privacy

Schools should demand strong safety and privacy protections from AI providers. Companies that cannot meet those standards should not serve K-12 education.

Student data should not be the price of participation. Schools should know what data is collected, how it is used, who has access to it, how long it is retained, whether it is used to train models, and what happens when a tool is discontinued or sold.

This is where clear standards matter. Schools need transparent contracts, strong data rules, parent communication, accessibility review, bias testing, security review, educator training, and ongoing monitoring. They also need the will to say no to tools that do not meet the standard.

Safety and privacy standards should not become a back door to blanket avoidance. The right response to risk is governance. If AI is going to affect the future of work, schools need to teach students how to use it safely, ethically, and critically. That starts with adults making informed decisions before tools are placed in front of students.

Point 8. Create an independent research consortium

There needs to be independent research on AI, screens, and educational technology, research that is not funded by the industries selling the products. Schools have been flooded with products that make big promises and provide thin evidence. Too often, districts are left to figure out impact on their own while vendors move on to the next sale.

Some useful work already exists through organizations such as Common Sense Media, ISTE+ASCD, Digital Promise, and the EdTech Evidence Exchange. Again, the issue is that this work is scattered, unevenly used, and not always connected to the decisions schools make every day.

The research questions also need to improve. “Are screens good or bad?” is too shallow. We should be asking which kinds of screen use support learning, which kinds undermine learning, for which students, at what ages, under what conditions, with what teacher support, and for what goals.

Passive consumption and active creation should not be treated as the same thing. A student scrolling through entertainment content is not doing the same work as one using a device to interview a community member, analyze data, produce a podcast, translate materials for a family audience, or document a science investigation. That is why the goal should not simply be more research. Educators do not need another disconnected report that treats all screen use the same. They need trusted evidence they can actually use to make better decisions about tools, teaching, and learning.

Point 9. Adequately fund public education

Public schools need adequate funding. That includes staffing, facilities, professional learning, mental health supports, libraries, arts, athletics, career pathways, accessibility tools, modern infrastructure, and technology that works.

It also includes the basics too many people skip over: reliable WiFi, adequate bandwidth, devices that function, enough technical support to keep systems running, and clear guidance on how to use educational technology well. It is not enough to hand schools devices and platforms and then blame teachers when the infrastructure, support, or instructional guidance is not there.

Too often, schools are told to prepare students for the future while being funded for the past. That is especially damaging for CTE. Students need access to current tools, not outdated simulations of work. They also need educators who have the training, support, and time to use those tools in ways that strengthen learning rather than digitize old assignments.

The AFT is right to warn against AI and vouchers becoming another excuse to defund public education. But this is also why the “devices down” frame is risky. Wealthier families will still provide access, tutoring, devices, AI tools, enrichment, internships, and networks outside of school. If public schools pull back from teaching students how to use modern tools well, students with less access outside school lose the most.

That is not equity. That is retreat.

Point 10. Tax Big Tech

The AFT calls for a tech tax on Big Tech earnings and some business operations to address harms and disruptions caused by technology and AI.

A real argument exists for that. Technology companies have profited enormously from public attention, public data, public infrastructure, and public institutions. If their products create costs for schools, workers, communities, and the environment, they should not get to externalize those costs while public systems clean up the mess.

But a tech tax should not become a substitute for better education policy. If money comes from Big Tech, it should support public-interest goals: independent research, educator professional learning, privacy enforcement, accessibility, digital citizenship, AI literacy, CTE infrastructure, and public accountability.

It should not become another funding stream that sends public dollars back to the same companies with minimal oversight.

The better frame is purpose first

The AFT is right about a lot. More hands-on learning. Stronger privacy protections. More scrutiny of Big Tech. Better protection for children from manipulative platforms and simulated relationships. A renewed insistence that education is human work.

But “devices down” is the wrong goal. It makes the device the problem when the deeper issue is often learning design, adult guidance, infrastructure, privacy, safety, and support.

Devices can distract students. Notifications distract. Poorly designed platforms distract. So do boring lessons, unclear tasks, weak relationships, irrelevant assignments, and classrooms where students are asked to comply rather than think.

Removing the device may solve an immediate classroom management problem, but it does not prepare students to manage attention when the device comes back. And it will come back. In college, at work, in civic life, in relationships, and in nearly every modern career, students will need to focus, create, communicate, and make good decisions in technology-rich environments.

Students need explicit practice with digital well-being, attention management, purposeful tool use, and knowing when technology helps and when it gets in the way. They need to learn when to close the screen, when to use it, when to silence notifications, when to collaborate face-to-face, when to use AI, when to question it, and when to do the thinking without it.

Sometimes devices should be down. Students should discuss ideas face-to-face, build with their hands, play outside, conduct experiments, write privately, make art, and listen to one another without a screen in sight.

Other times, devices should be up. Students should use them to research, create, collaborate, publish, translate, document, code, communicate, design, get feedback, and solve problems.

The goal is not more technology or less technology, but better learning, healthier habits, and students who know when and how to use the appropriate tools to think, create, communicate, collaborate, and solve problems.

The future of learning should look, feel, and be different for students and educators, says Christine Anne Royce. Royce makes this case in a chapter she wrote in the new book Futuristic Insights on Education Components: How education can meet the demands of an ever-changing world, published online by The Regional Centre For Educational Planning, an organization formed by a partnership between the United Arab Emirates and The United Nation Educational and Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In her chapter in the book, which is composed by chapters written by various education experts, Royce argues that “the future educator will be less a conveyor of information and more a facilitator of learning experiences that foster critical thinking, creativity, and adaptability.”

However, this transformation requires rethinking how we train teachers and prepare them to implement these forward-thinking processes, says Royce, co-director of MAT in STEM Education at Shippensburg University and a past president of the National Science Teaching Association.

Recently, Royce shared highlights from Futuristic Insights on Education, which is free and available online, and other advice on making modern classrooms more friendly, inviting, effective, and future-ready. For Royce, that starts with how we educate teachers and facilitate these types of practices at a cultural level.

1. Truly Be A Guide On The Side

“We, as a society and field, need to redefine the teacher's role,” Royce says. “Teachers must transition from being content deliverers to facilitators who guide students in developing critical thinking, creativity, and adaptability for a future that doesn’t yet exist.”

Many educators don’t argue with this premise. Even so, many of these strategies are not implemented, or only implemented on occasion.

“We may say that we do this with terms like 'guide on the side,' etc., [but] we need to restructure how we teach to fully embrace this idea,” Royce says. “This means that we need to help students apply the knowledge and skills they have learned.”

Often, doing this involves incorporating teaching philosophies such as flipped and active learning, place-based learning, and problem-based learning into teacher education programs.

2. Forget Memorization

Memorizing for quizzes and tests is an aspect of teaching that Royce would like to see deemphasized in the future.

“Traditional memorization must give way to developing problem-solving, inquiry-based, and project-based learning approaches that engage students in real-world challenges,” she says. “When students are asked to engage with content using these types of skills, it also prioritizes the 4Cs: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.”

She adds, “If we truly structure the learning process in this way, it will help students to also become lifelong learners, which is needed due to continuous technological and societal changes.”

3. Break The Status Quo

Many educators are familiar with these types of strategies but are often unable to implement any because they have to cover specific content or prepare students for standardized tests, Royce says. Another barrier can be that teachers worry that if they fully adopt the “guide on the side” approach, their classes will be misinterpreted by their higher-ups or parents. Royce herself has experienced this.

“I ​​had one former principal tell me that my classroom does not look like learning is happening because students were not in their seats taking notes, with my quizzing them throughout,” she says.

She adds that the field should move away from this type of thinking. “Teacher preparation programs need to focus on teaching strategies that break the cycle of ‘the status quo’ or the ‘teach the way we were taught’ approach,” she says.

Royce has many strategies in mind for doing this, including reimagining clinical or field-based experiences to include mentorship in innovative classrooms where facilitation is modeled and having new educators learn about exciting teaching techniques from across the globe.

4. Make Traditional Lessons More Innovative

To see this type of thinking in action, Royce shares an example of an intermediate lesson on weather, geared to middle grades.

“In the traditional approach where information is conveyed, the teacher might present a slideshow on types of clouds, define weather terms, explain the four seasons, and show a video about weather patterns,” Royce says. “Students take notes and complete a worksheet matching cloud names to images.”

Meanwhile, the same type of assignment will look totally different in a classroom that utilizes both place-based and three-dimensional instruction in science, Royce says. In this type of classroom, the teacher will pose questions to students such as:

• Why are there more clouds in the morning some days?
• How does our local landscape (mountains, rivers, urban areas) affect the weather?
• Can we predict tomorrow’s weather using what we see today?

“With these questions, the students are asked to keep track of their own understandings as they record local sky conditions, temperatures, cloud types, using observations or photos, and any precipitation. Students then compare their data, identifying patterns and differences,” Royce says.

This and activities related to the exercise allow “students to construct understanding through direct engagement, critical thinking, and collaboration, guided by the teacher, not directed by a lecture, outline, or notes," she says. "This method empowers students as investigators, with the teacher facilitating discovery and making the content relevant and memorable.”

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The science of learning can be implemented at the classroom, school, or district level, says Margaret (Meg) Lee, Director of Organizational Development for Frederick County Public Schools in Maryland.

Lee, who also serves as an advisor for evidence-informed practice at Academica University of Applied Sciences in Amsterdam, has led efforts to incorporate the science of learning at Frederick County Public Schools over the past decade. Since instituting the science of learning approach, the 48,000-student district has seen rising test scores and a shrinking achievement gap.

The science of learning is the practice of applying cutting-edge lessons from cognitive science, educational psychology, and neuroscience to the classroom with research-backed practices that have been shown to increase student learning.

That may sound complicated, but it’s not as difficult to incorporate as one might think, Lee says, and can ultimately save teachers time.

Here are Lee’s top tips for educators looking to follow the science of learning.

1. Learn How People Learn: The Difference Between Working and Long-Term Memory

The first step to incorporating the science of learning is gaining a better understanding of how students (and all people) obtain new knowledge, Lee says. This means recognizing the difference between working memory, which is impermanent, and long-term memory, and then engaging in classroom activities that help students move new information from the former to the latter.

2. Retrieval Practice

One research-backed way to move memories from working to long-term memory is through retrieval practice, a strategy in which students go back to material they recently learned in multiple ways at multiple times throughout the class. This requires students to retrieve the new memory several times, forcing them to remember and think about it in effortful ways.

“Forgetting and remembering is actually a part of learning,” Lee says. “Students should have time to recall information, and they should actively recall information."

3. Have Students Translate Their Learning

Part of retrieval practice is having students “translate” what they learned by engaging with it in different ways.

“If they've read about it, I want them to write about it,” Lee says. “If they've written about it, I want them to act it out. If they've thought about it, I want them to talk about it. That translation from one mode to another is really important for learning.”

4. Real-Time Assessments

A key part of the science of learning is making sure students leave each lesson or class with a correct understanding of what they just learned.

“You don't want kids to practice and consolidate and sleep on information that's not right,” Lee says. She recommends some type of formative assessment that gives teacher the opportunity to correct any mistakes in real-time.

One example of how to do this is by giving students mini whiteboards, spot quizzing them, and having them write their answers out so a teacher can immediately see who is getting the concept and who needs more work.

5. Understand Emotion Affects Cognition

It’s important that educators understand that emotions are linked to cognition. The more unwelcome and unsettled a student feels, the less likely they are to learn effectively.

“If they don't feel safe and they don't feel a sense of personal agency in a classroom, it may really impact the way that students learn,” Lee says, adding that this is why the science of learning is so important for supporting student equity.

6. Avoid Time-Consuming Tasks That Don’t Help Students

Time is valuable for teachers, so Lee doesn’t like to see them spend it on tasks that don’t impact student learning. For example, elaborate slideshows may not help students learn, and may even hinder learning by causing cognitive overload for students, she says.

Another mistake is creating lessons that cater to different learning styles. Even though the idea of learning styles has been debunked, Lee says the myth won’t die, and some teachers still spend time developing various versions of a lesson to appeal to different learning styles.

7. Honor Teacher Knowledge

Lee stresses that many teachers already incorporate these strategies, having realized the effectiveness through experience. She says that those looking to encourage more adherence to the science of learning in their districts should honor this knowledge.

“Many of the strategies that we're asking them to use more often are things that they're already familiar with that may just need a tweak, or they may just need to be elevated and done more frequently,” she says.

For educational leaders, focusing on this preexisting knowledge can help get buy-in around the science of learning.

“When you approach people with a deep respect for the work they already do, and the knowledge they already have, and you say, ‘Hey, this may be an opportunity for you to make your teaching more effective for kids and more reasonable for you and your work-life balance,' I don't know that people say ‘No’ to that,” she says.

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Since the emergence of ChatGPT, there has been much talk in education about artificial intelligence (AI) apps and tools. As you are probably aware, much of the discussion has been focused on how AI will replace teachers and how students will use AI to write their papers and complete assignments and projects. 

While both of those issues may have some merit, it is important to reshape how we as teachers approach the use of AI in the classroom as we enter the new school year. AI is here to stay and will be a part of our students’ future, so we need to account for it in our instruction and their learning.

Here are some new pedagogical practices that you may want to adopt around AI during instruction, student engagement, and assessing learning.

AI Pedagogical Practices: AI for Instruction 

When it comes to AI and instruction, creating new approaches to accommodate it is going to be necessary. For example, we can develop lessons and activities that involve ChatGPT that involve critical thinking and make it less likely that students simply rely on AI for an answer. We also can model for our students how to use AI ethically and effectively as part of their learning, writing, and research processes. Students can even be shown how to use AI for tutoring and personalized academic support.

Beyond branded AI platforms, teachers already use different technology tools that rely on AI to put together and share content with students when planning and during lessons. In fact, we use Google Slides, Canva, and PowerPoint to put together presentation materials, and all of these have some AI features that provide background templates, images, and/or editing features. Duet AI within Google Workspace Labs has started to make a suite of AI-generated tools available that will be helpful to teachers during lesson planning and facilitation.

If you also want to include teaching students about AI, Google Arts and Culture has a robust website dedicated to AI and its connection to the real world that would be a nice complement. 

For instruction itself, ChatGPT can be used to prepare for class by generating lesson plans, quizzes, and more. 

AI for Engagement  

As you are aware, student engagement is an extremely important part of our pedagogical practices. After instruction, we must allow students the time, space, and resources to explore content in exciting ways. 

The good news is that AI has already been incorporated into many tools that are excellent for engagement. For example, Google Earth provides a great way for students to be immersed into 3D and aerial views of places around the world, which is a perfect engagement complement in a social studies, geography, or anthropology class and even virtual field trips. 

Game-based education apps also provide AI-supported engagement opportunities. For example, Roblox and Minecraft use AI for creation and include bots, and both tools are just getting started with generative AI capabilities. 

By letting students know that AI technology has made all of these opportunities possible, you can help them to embrace AI as part of their creative learning processes.

AI for Assessment 

It is not easy assessing learning for dozens (elementary school) or hundreds (middle/high school) by one teacher. If we want to be able to meet the individual needs of learners and maintain a sense of their progress, we need to use systems to support our practices.

Fortunately, we can incorporate AI into our assessment practices by relying on the use of education apps. For example, both Quizlet and Kahoot! use AI algorithms to support question development in some capacity, and Conker uses AI to create quizzes. In addition, the automation within these types of apps is supported by AI, particularly in assessing learners’ facility with content, moving students forward to more advanced content when questions are answered correctly, and providing additional tips and instructions when questions are answered incorrectly. 

By making the use of AI as part of your overall assessment practices, you can leverage real-time and efficient data points on how students are progressing and track if they are meeting learning objectives and discover which specific supports they may need. 

Again, AI is going to be part of our students’ future. You can still follow guidance on preventing cheating by students, yet you should also embrace AI in ways that would amerolitate the need to do so, such as by creating more complex assignments that can’t be answered by a simple AI prompt. Instead of coming up with policies prohibiting its use, leverage the positive aspects of it to elevate teaching and learning experiences for yourself and your students, while previewing what is to come.  

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Ask any educator why they chose to become an educator, and answers may include “To inspire the next generation,” “To impart learning on young minds,” or “To instill the love of learning in every child.” But what exactly is the love of learning, and can teachers instill it in their students? 

The Positivity Project suggests that when a person masters new skills and topics on their own, they have expressed a love of learning. Bard College in New York calls out “the Love of Learning” on its website by posting, “Love of subject is measured by the extent to which a teacher spends time, of his or her own accord, working on scholarly endeavors in his or her chosen subject.”

Measuring the love of learning can be as easy as taking a personality test online. In 2003, a dissertation entitled “Defining and Measuring the Love of Learning” was published and represented an attempt to create a tool to measure the love of learning. There were weaknesses in the methodology, but evidence suggested it could be possible. 

Montessori education is probably the best example of demonstrating the love of learning through how the classroom is designed and the students interact with the environment and their work. Many traditional classrooms attempt to allow students to personalize their learning journey but are often sidetracked by ensuring students are prepared for standardized assessments.

Instilling a Love of Learning 

Instilling this love in our students can provide many benefits and have long-term effects on their future careers. A love of learning can: 

• Increase curiosity 
• Improve abilities 
• Build courage 
• Enable you to enjoy work more 
• Encourage out-of-the-box thinking 
• Provide a positive example to others 

This list represents what can be seen in almost every lesson a great teacher presents, however, teachers building their greatness may need assistance. 

Some ways to address the love of learning in the classroom might be to provide hands-on learning experiences within the lesson, enabling students to explore options and possibilities as they are challenged to solve a problem. Another may be to share your passions with your students and let them see how exciting it can be to have a passion for something that you strive to know more about daily. 

Making learning fun sounds easy, but it has to be fun with intention, so finding interesting activities to incorporate in your lessons, or different approaches to introducing the subject matter, can be ways to liven up lessons. For example, Socratic seminars are taught through discussions to help engage the students in meaningful dialogue to increase curiosity and challenge thinking and can certainly make a lesson more interesting, especially on less dynamic topics.

Modeling the Love of Learning 

Ultimately, the best way to encourage your students to love learning is to model your love for learning and teaching, and be supportive and encouraging as they struggle to master concepts. 

John Miller’s recent book Love and Compassion speaks to educators attending to love and compassion through their teaching. It suggests that teachers can teach basic skills without love, except there must be love to make a real difference in a student’s life. 

It is always important to remember that to love others, you must first love yourself, and, as teachers, we must love what we do. Teachers who feel loved exude love through their work, which affects all they come into contact with. Love is the major difference between teaching as an art and science. Let there be love!

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Flipped classroom pioneer Jon Bergmann’s new book, The Mastery Learning Handbook: A Competency-Based Approach to Student Achievement, serves as a guide for teachers looking to embrace the mastery learning pedagogy. 

While flipped learning is not essential to mastery learning, Bergmann says the two pedagogies work well together and he utilizes both as a science teacher at Houston Christian High School. He also advises other schools in implementing both approaches as a sought-after educational consultant. 

The Mastery Learning Handbook was released in October 2022 and provides a blueprint for educators on how to plan for and implement mastery learning in their classrooms. 

Mastery Learning Doesn’t Stigmatize Slow Learners

“We teach kids that if you learn fast, you're smart, and if you learn slow you’re dumb,” Bergmann says. “I think that's a false statement. But that is basically the way education is set up. Mastery helps alleviate that problem because we're going to honor kids who learn slow. Slower doesn't mean you can't learn, it's just you learn slower. So why do we expect all kids to have everything mastered on Tuesday when the test is?” 

However, he says educators should remember that learning at a different pace isn’t the same as learning at your own pace. “If students learn at their own pace, some won't have a pace,” he says. “So you have to give them some kind of a calendar so that they can move through at a reasonable pace.” 

Mastery Learning Allows Multiple Chances for Success 

Much like a new driver who takes their driver's test and fails is given the opportunity to retake the test, mastery learning students often are given multiple opportunities to prove they have learned course material. 

In his classes, Bergmann manages this with the help of technology by creating large test banks. Each student gets a randomly generated unique test each time. 

However, multiple attempts do not mean unlimited attempts. For example, some of his mastery learning colleagues create three different printed tests on the same material or give students two or three opportunities to pursue a project or paper. 

“Most students don’t want to take a fifth and sixth test,” he says. “Three seems to be kind of the max for most kids. There's an exception or two who might need a fourth [try].” 

Usually, no more than three attempts are necessary for the student to demonstrate mastery. “If they're struggling on number two, we're going over this in some detail, so that they're successful on their third attempt,” Bergmann says. 

Mastery Learning is Not All Or Nothing 

Educators interested in incorporating mastery learning into their classes can start small with perhaps a mastery unit or two, or a mastery component to a unit. This is a good way for educators to dip their toes in the pedagogy without being overwhelmed, Bergmann says. 

Certain portions of classes in some topics may not lend themselves to the different-paced learning at the heart of mastery. “If you’re studying Macbeth, then one of the things you want to do is have Socratic dialogue or some kind of dialogue that's whole group, so you don't want the kids on different pages. You do need them all having read chapter eight, or whatever, so that they can have a deep discussion about the protagonist, the antagonist,” he says. “But if you're teaching a skill, there's nothing better than mastery, and all of us as teachers are teaching skills in what we do, some to more extents than others.” 

Mastery Learning is Hard to Implement From The Lectern 

A full-on flipped classroom is not a precursor to incorporating mastery, however, incorporating mastery effectively often means embracing some elements of flipped teaching philosophy. 

When Bergmann works with schools as a consultant, one of the first things he does is advise educators to eschew exclusively lecture-based classes. “I need to get the teachers away from the front of the room,” he says. “Because mastery learning can't happen if you're lecturing every day.” 

Doing this requires an educator who is well-versed in the topic they are teaching and is willing to embrace the challenges and joys of switching gears while working with different students. “I see my job as a wanderer,” Bergmann says. “I wander around the room and help kids. And some kids are on this topic, and some are at this topic, and I've got to sort of flip my brain 100 times in a class period because each kid is at a slightly different level.” 

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A global study of the future of education by Google for Education has identified three key education trends: 

1. A rising demand for global problem-solvers 
2. The skill sets required for work are evolving
3. Embracing a lifelong learning mindset is necessary 

For the research, Google for Education collaborated with Canvas8 and American Institutes for Research to conduct a global study in 24 countries. The report, the first of a three-part series, draws on interviews with 94 educational experts and two years of peer-reviewed academic literature and a media narrative analysis.  

To Jennie Magiera, Global Head of Education Impact at Google, the research affirmed what many educators are already doing. “I found this whole report deeply validating for me, in saying, ‘Yes, the way that I was teaching was right,’” says Magiera, a veteran math and science middle grader teacher who worked in Chicago Public Schools. “It wasn't me just going off to left field and being creative for no reason. It was really goal-oriented in supporting my students in getting ready for success as they enter the workforce.” 

Education Trends: The Need for Global Problem-Solvers  

“As we think about 'global,' oftentimes we're just thinking about global such as geographic. We're using 'global' in this trend, both in terms of the space – I am Jenny from Chicago, but I'm also Jenny of planet Earth of the entire world – and also global as my whole self, like that whole child learner concept,” Magiera says. 

To bolster this more holistic approach to education and the term "global," teachers should focus on helping students understand their place in the world and how their actions impact others. “We want to make sure our learners have a support system so that we can give them positive support when they're in difficult circumstances, so that they can feel confident and secure in their own space as their own self,” Magiera says. “That then allows them to have empathy with one another and with their neighbors, both local and global.” 

Building New Skill Sets 

“By 2025 we'll see 97 million new jobs created, and 85 million existing roles disappear,” Magiera says. “When you hear that you can immediately go to the 85 million roles that will disappear, and be like, ‘Robots are taking over the world. Skynet, the Terminator.' No.” 

However, look closer at those numbers and you’ll realize that the net gain will be 12 million new jobs. “There's a huge push, obviously for computer science and making sure that we're supporting students and understanding the new digital languages of today and tomorrow,” Magiera says. “The World Economic Forum identified the skills with growing demand for employers within the next few years and they named analytical thinking and innovation, active learning, complex problem-solving, critical thinking, analysis and creativity, originality, and initiative.” 

Teachers can prioritize these skills by incorporating the real world into the lessons and exercises they assign. “Having been a middle-grade math and science teacher, when I think about that, I could teach math in a lot of ways. I could give my students a packet of worksheets and be like, 'Do 100, practice sets of multiplication,'” Magiera says. “Or I could give them authentic real-world situations that require them to utilize mathematical knowledge, like multiplication, and engage them in problem-solving.” 

Adopting teaching approaches such as project-based learning and phenomenon-based learning can help foster these desired sills.

Developing a Life-Long Learning Mindset 

The report predicts that as many as half the children born today living in some countries will live to be 100. As the lifespan increases, Google for Education’s report calls for expanding the learning span as well. 

For educators, that means continuing to learn new skills during their career as well as helping students realize that learning is a lifelong pursuit. Magiera would emphasize this to her students through classroom guests. “I'm a big fan of modeling, and I'd love to bring real-world examples into my classroom,” she says. “I brought in a friend's father who was an architect, but he started off in a completely different field and had three or four different chapters and acts to his life where he had different careers and he was variably successful in each.” 

Magiera’s sister, Kat Cho, is a New York Times bestselling author of young adult science fiction and fantasy, yet began her career as a cancer researcher. “I've had her speak with students about following their passions and being open to change,” she says. “It’s that growth mindset versus that fixed mindset that educators are constantly trying to teach children. It’s not, ‘This is who you are forever. This is the way it is,’ but that growth mindset of ‘It's always possible to change your skill sets, your identity, your approach to things and what you're good at.’” 

• 5 Edtech Research Trends & Needs For The Future
• Does Growth Mindset Work

Phenomenon-based learning is a teaching method that engages students in learning by grabbing their attention with a real-world “phenomenon” that sparks their curiosity. 

Examples of phenomenon-based learning include a class studying decomposition by researching what happens to garbage in their community, or examining hard-to-believe real-world occurrences that can only be explained by science such as the story of a tortoise that crossed the Indian Ocean. 

The idea is that these types of real-world stories are complex, wacky, and/or intriguing enough to encourage all students to start asking questions and form deeper connections with the material. 

Tricia Shelton, chief learning officer at the National Science Teaching Association, and Mary Lynn Hess, a K-5 STEM resource teacher at Goldsboro Elementary Magnet School in Sanford, Florida, share advice and best practices for incorporating phenomenon-based learning in the classroom. 

What is Phenomenon-Based Learning?  

Phenomenon-based learning has grown out of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), practical research, and real-world connections. “The focus of this new vision for science education is for kids to see see science not as a whole bunch of facts, like knowledge in the abstract, but to see science is something they can use to better understand their world or solve problems, especially in their communities or in the context of their experience,” Shelton says. “We define phenomena as any events in the world that an individual feels like they need to explain, either because they're curious, or because they have a problem they need to solve. We’re positioning phenomena as the driver of what is happening in the classroom.” 

Rather than discourage students’ natural curiosity the way traditional science textbooks or tests can, phenomenon-based education engages it. 

“There’s no deviation from curiosity when you’re in my classroom,” Hess says. “It's so evident on our campus because kids will come and knock on my door in the middle of the day, [and say] 'Look what I found, look what I found.' They're just so excited and curious about the world and the way it works.” 

Phenomenon-Based Learning Advice & Tips

When starting a phenomenon-based lesson, it’s important to provide time to expose students to the phenomenon at the start of the lesson. 

“Give kids the opportunity to observe the phenomenon, think about it deeply, but then ask their own questions about it,” Shelton says. “Because questions are really personal to everybody.” 

The individual questions students have will also drive their connection and engagement as the instructor guides the exploration of the science behind the phenomenon. 

Shelton says instructors should also study phenomenon that make sense for their school communities. For instance, a school near the coast in Florida might be able to engage with marine science in a way that wouldn’t make as much sense for a school in Denver. 

It’s also important to remember that not all phenomenon-based learning lessons resonate with students. “Teachers need to be prepared that sometimes they put something in front of kids, and it doesn't work the way it's supposed to,” Shelton says. “That's okay. But they shouldn't try to force that through. They just need to try a different phenomenon at that point. Because that piece of the kids having those personal questions and finding it relevant is a must-have.” 

To limit the likelihood of a phenomenon not resonating, Shelton advises using pre-tested phenomena from other teachers. The National Science Teaching Association has a number of phenomenon-based learning resources including its Daily Do science lessons. The NGSS also has a number of resources dedicated to phenomenon-based learning. 

To make sure the phenomenon she uses resonates with her students, Hess builds her lessons on their passions. “Find out what interests your students and go from there,” she says. “I find a lot of kids are interested in life science, or they'll find something outside. We have this invasive plant that's around our campus, and every year we do a collection of [the plant]. And they'll come to my back door with just handfuls of them and big smiles. I can tell that they are fully committed to helping the environment.”

• Rethinking Learning Spaces: 4 Strategies for Student-Centered Learning
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While pursuing teaching degrees, educators are introduced to various learning theorists and their insights about how people learn best. Some familiar names include Piaget, Bandura, Vygotsky, and Gardner. 

Although understanding these learning theories is still important, aspiring educators also need to become familiar with theories, models, and approaches that provide insight on how technology, social media, and the internet impact learning. Digital learning theories and approaches, such as RAT, SAMR, TPACK, Digital Blooms, Connectivism, Design Thinking and Peeragogy help teachers develop curricula that gets students to use technology to research, curate, annotate, create, innovate, problem-solve, collaborate, campaign, reform and think critically. These are skills outlined in Shelly Terrell’s Hacking Digital Learning Strategies with EdTech Missions.

Digital learning approaches consider what students are currently doing online and allow teachers to design curricula to help students gain the digital skills they need to thrive in a digitally connected world. 

Below are some useful links to discover more about these approaches. 

1. The RAT Model

The RAT model is a way of looking at technology and how it has or has not altered instruction. The “R” stands for replacement, and in this mode of instruction technology is just replacing a previous tool for instruction but in no way changing the instructional practices or learning that occurs. The “A” is amplification, which refers to when class instructional practices remain the same but the use of technology increases the lesson’s efficiency and effectiveness or reach. The “T” is transformation, and is when technology is used to reinvent certain aspects of instruction in new and innovative ways.

2. SAMR

The SAMR model stands for substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition, and looks at four tiers of tech implementation. Educators frequently have a tendency to focus on the first two tiers, essentially converting previous instructional practices into a technological format: for instance, recording a lecture and posting it online, or posting PDFs of previously printed materials. The second two tiers entail using technology to more fundamentally change instruction. 

3. The TPACK Framework

TPACK stands for technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. The framework examines the interplay of three grouped areas of content knowledge (CK), pedagogy (PK), and technology (TK), and explores the ways these areas intersect. While it is often compared to SAMR, these are quite different models, with TPACK being a less linear way of thinking about incorporating technology into teaching. 

4. Digital Blooms

Bloom’s Taxonomy was created by Benjamin Bloom and his collaborators in the 1950s as a framework for categorizing educational goals that is often depicted as a pyramid with each level requiring higher levels of thinking in order to achieve mastery. Over time, the original nouns used by Bloom and colleagues were replaced with active verbs. Now at the base of the pyramid is the word remember, and it builds up in order to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. The new framework has also been updated to incorporate technology.  

5. Connectivism

Introduced in 2005 by George Siemens and Stephen Downes, this learning theory holds that students should learn how to combine thoughts, theories, and other information in a useful way. The theory builds on the idea that technology has increased the speed of our access to information, and our constant connectedness should be harnessed to help students make choices about learning, collaborating, and learning from diverse sources, including sources on social media. 

6. Design Thinking 

Popularized by tech companies, design thinking takes engineering and artistic processes and applies these to other fields, such as education. Using this framework, educators and students can identify challenges, gather information, generate potential solutions, refine ideas, and test solutions. This framework can be helpful for department, school, or team planning, as well as class planning or for individual lessons. 

7. Peeragogy

As any educator can tell you, there’s nothing quite like peer learning. Peeragogy, also known as paragogy, is a collection of best practices for peer-to-peer learning that seeks to help educators overcome some of the obstacles to effective peer learning such as peers who don’t produce useful and/or supportive feedback. 

Resources

• What is RAT? by developer, Dr. Joan Hughes
• SAMR and Digital Blooms resources by Kathy Schrock
• The Peeragogy Handbook with founder Howard Rheingold
• The TPACK Framework
• Design thinking is a process for creative problem solving

Challenge: Explore one of these digital learning theories to see how you can make at least one change enhance the way you integrate technology.

The original version of this story was cross posted at teacherrebootcamp.com

Shelly Terrell is an education consultant, technology trainer, and author. Read more at teacherrebootcamp.com

Personalized learning is being prioritized in districts, schools, and classrooms across the country yet educators don’t always mean the same thing when they use the term. 

“Personalized learning means lots of things,” says Bill Bass, Instructional Technology Coordinator for Parkway School District in Missouri. “The idea that it is just one definition is really tough to get your arms around.” 

A recent survey conducted by PowerSchool as part of its Education Focus Report confirmed this by showing a variety of perceptions when it comes to the idea of personalized learning. 

Defining Personalized Learning

When it comes to defining personalized learning, 54 percent of the 1,194 respondents said it meant “differentiated instructional strategies based on student.” Respondents were asked to select all the terms that applied and 43 percent said personalized learning was “using data to drive instructional practices and shifts.” Another 43 percent said it was “using adaptive learning technology to empower student learning.” 

Additionally, 36 percent said personalized learning was “elevating student voice and choice in learning,” 34 percent said it was “incorporating cultural relevance into instruction,” and 28 percent of respondents selected “competency-based education.” Overall, 54 percent also selected “all of the above" (respondents could select multiple options so the totals add up to more than 100 percent).

Ryan Imbriale, vice president of Education Solutions for PowerSchool, says that in addition to the survey, focus groups that were conducted as part of the report highlight the differing definitions around personalization. “When you talk personalization, it's everything from differentiation that happens in the classroom to using data to make decisions about an individual student or groups of students and elevating student voice,” he says. “And it's about using technology. And in addition to that, it's all of the above."

Bass, who is quoted in the report, agrees. “Personalized learning is this idea of we want to create learning opportunities for students that are going to be of high interest to them, that are going to be self-paced to a certain extent and allow our students to get to mastery,” he says. 

In addition, personalized learning puts students in the driver's seat. “One of the things that we can get to is helping our students identify the things that they love, that they're passionate about, and then capitalizing on those interests in order to help them find their way, whatever their way is,” he says. 

Personalized Learning in Practice  

To implement personalized learning in Bass’ Parkway School District, an elementary school is dedicated to the practice. The school serves as something of an educational incubator for educators district-wide who get the chance to see what personalized learning looks like in practice. 

“What we're doing is we're giving our teachers permission to expand beyond what they would normally be doing in a more traditional classroom,” Bass says. Students at the school are encouraged to make their own meaning out of the work that is being done, project-based learning is emphasized, and student voice and choice is facilitated. In addition, student learning outside of the classroom is celebrated and multiple forms of assessment are explored to give students choice in how they demonstrate their learning. 

The hope is that having these practices centralized at one school will encourage other schools and individual educators to adopt these. “It creates multiple points of entry at the teacher level, as well as at the building level, in order to take things that align with what they're doing in their building already, and then layering on top some of these personalized learning attributes,” Bass says. 

When it comes to exploring personalized learning and student voice in education, Bass says it’s important for educators to remember students have inherent abilities. “In education, we're pretty arrogant when we say things like, ‘We're going to give our students voices,’” he says. “The bottom line is they have a voice, we just have to provide them the opportunities in order to use that voice and to develop that voice.”

• What is Project-Based Learning
• Creating a Culture of Innovation at Schools

Innovation is getting a lot of buzz in education today. The Innovator’s Mindset launched an introspective movement on innovation in education, and the momentum continues. However, innovation isn’t innovative. 

The word comes from the Greek word innovationem, which was introduced in the 16th century as a noun of action, meaning “a new idea, device, or method.” The 17th century wasn’t kind to innovators, they often got their ears cut off, or worse, after presenting an idea that was out of the ordinary. 

Benoit Godin has extensively researched the history of innovation and notes that the 19th century associated innovation with science and industry. Economist Tyler Cowan, another enthusiast of innovation, suggests that our most innovative time in history spans from 1870 to 1940. Think about how unbelievably creative and powerful that period was for the U.S. economy. If we look at 1870 to 1940 in education, the innovation included: 

• Establishing the U.S. Department of Education. 
• Passing the 14th Amendment (which is significant in Brown v Board of Education). 
• Establishment of higher education institutions: Meharry, Tuskegee, Morris-Brown, and Stanford. 
• Establishment of the National Education Association. 
• Establishment of National PTA. 
• First Montessori School in the U.S. opened in New York state. 
• American Federation of Teachers is established. 
• American Education Research Association is established. 
• Passing the Smith-Hughes Act (funded agricultural programs and vocational education and was repealed in 1997). 
• Progressive Education Association was established and focused on reforming education. 
• Introduction of the fountain pen. 
• Classical Conditioning study by John Watson. 
• Gestalt Theory was introduced. 
• The longest educational study known to last (75 years) began at Stanford University.  Louis Terman studied the concept of "intellectually superior" children. Now known as gifted.  
• Reorganization of Secondary Education. 
• John Dewey published Democracy and Education. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. 
• Nursery schools are established in Maine and New York (today known as Bank Street College of Education). 
• Piaget published The Child’s Conception of the World. 
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale was developed and introduced as the first intelligence test. 

It is important to note that much of this innovation continues to influence how we operate in the field of education today. We lean on these works to conduct schools, research, establish policy, and design learning. So it begs the question, what are we doing today that our future generations of educators will be able to lean on? We spend a lot of time talking about the mindset of innovation, but what has the outcome of that mindset been for our students? 

Our students deserve the very best we have to offer them, including imagining a school system or a learning environment that meets their needs while stimulating their abilities. Does their schooling experience look much different than it did in the late 18th century, other than changing out some of the technologies in use? Embracing a mindset that is forward-thinking, creative and open to testing new ideas, willing to make mistakes, and trying again, and being collaborative and future-focused, is certainly beneficial but how does it truly bring about innovation in a school? 

An innovative culture may bring new ideas to a school, but something has to enable or enact those ideas. School boards, governments and other political forces are pushing back on innovation under the guise of trying to improve outcomes. In fact, the Washington Post declares, “Political battles are now a central feature of education.”

As we start the school year in 2022, we need to orient our faculties to think differently and take unconventional approaches while considering the student’s perspectives. We must inform all of our stakeholders of the research that supports our decisions as well as outline how outcomes will be measured. 

This is the dawn of our innovative age in education. Groom the innovative mindset in your building or district and make that mindset actionable to show your community just how innovative you can be for 2023. Now is the time to offer future generations some wonderful work to lean on! 

• Crossing the Mastery Gap
• Updating Bloom’s Taxonomy for Digital Learning

Editor’s note: As a teacher, it is never a bad idea to “use the force” in the classroom. 

We don’t mean that in the literal sense of moving things with the power of your will, but instead we’re talking about drawing inspiration for yourself and students from a Star Wars film and TV franchise that has shaped pop culture since 1977. 

Our recent May the 4th Be With You: Best Free Star Wars Teaching Ideas continues to be popular, and with the launch of the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” miniseries on Disney+, we’re sensing this might be the content you’re looking for. 

Educator Adam Schoenbart originally shared these teaching lessons from a galaxy far, far away. 

1. About Mentorship, Star Wars Is 

I wanted to look at Star Wars through the lens of the teacher. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s the mentors who define the saga more than the heroes. The mentor archetype teaches, guides, and trains the hero to prepare them for their journey. While the hero grows and develops throughout their trials and tribulations, it’s the lessons of the mentors that shape that growth. Think Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan, and of course, Yoda.

2. Student and Teacher Success, One and The Same They Are 

When the mentor succeeds, the hero succeeds. Sometimes the hero needs to outgrow the mentor and take control of their own journey. And sometimes the mentor fails and isn’t able to prepare their hero for the world ahead. Often, the hero grows to become the mentor and the mentor needs to once again become the hero.

3. Value Education, A Jedi Does 

The Jedi realize the value of the teacher and place careful thought, purpose, and time into developing the young heroes – like we teachers do with our students. Still, no matter how hard we try, we’re not always ready or able to reach them all. Both Jedi and high school students have flaws. Sometimes they are symbolized through looks and actions – such as Anakin’s switch to the red lightsaber of Vader – and other times these are more complex. Some of our teachers are unprepared, such as Obi-Wan was with Anakin, and sometimes they leave our lives too soon, like Qui-Gon Jinn.

4. Always Pass on What You Have Learned 

With experience, though, comes success. Obi-Wan failed with Anakin and succeeded with Luke, teaching us to become more powerful than we ever imagined. Yoda, a leader and warrior in the prequels, fulfilled the trope of the reluctant mentor and reclusive hermit both before he taught Luke to master the force. When Obi-Wan falls, it’s Yoda who guides Luke on his way from Padawan to Master and Jedi Knight.

5. Take All of Yoda’s Advice, You Must Not  

Contrary to Yoda and his grammar, we need to try, grow, and sometimes fail. But the mindset shift matters: when we push ourselves to do and strive for more, the only failure is not to try at all.

6. Additional Resources, These Are  

I highly recommend Was Yoda a Good Teacher by John Spencer; his graphic was featured above. You can also check out Was Yoda’s Advice Any Good Psychologically? by Kyle Hill, Yoda’s Top 3 Words of Wisdom by Henrick Edberg, or What Makes Yoda So Good? How to Be an Effective Mentor by Ray Smilor.

This story was originally cross posted at aschoenbart.com.

• May The 4th Be With You: Best Star Wars Teaching Ideas

Montessori schools are the brainchild of Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator who pioneered a new approach to education in the early 1900s.

Montessori espoused the then-revolutionary concepts that children should be taught in mixed-age groups, have the ability to direct their learning, should be spared tests and formal grades, and should learn in a comfortable environment tailored to their size and needs.

Over the years, many of these ideas have made it into the educational mainstream, with practices such as mastery education, student-centered learning, and differentiated learning becoming a point of emphasis in many schools. Classroom design trends have also led to school leaders to create inviting spaces specifically for children. 

The disruptions of the pandemic have made some parents more open to change, building increased interest in certain circles for Montessori schools. However, misconceptions and misunderstandings about the schools persist. 

1. Montessori Schools Aren’t Only For the Wealthy  

“A lot of people still see it as an educational model that, for whatever reason, is only for affluent people,” says Sara P. Suchman, executive director of the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector. 

While it's true that there are many private Montessori schools with tuition prices that may make attendance unfeasible for many children, there are also more than 550 public Montessori schools serving more than 200,000 students in the U.S. Suchman’s organization works to promote these public schools and increase access to Montessori education. 

“We are here to say loud and strong that you don't need to be affluent for a Montessori classroom to offer an amazing education for your child and for your family,” Suchman says. “There are public schools that people aren't aware of and they're growing. And our work is to keep them growing so that there's more accessibility for more kids and families.” 

Research shows that a Montessori education helps to level the field for all kids, she adds. 

2. Montessori Schools Don’t Give Students Total Control

Montessori schools emphasize student choice but it’s not taken to the level many people assume, says Sonya Hemmen, head of school at Ross Montessori School in Colorado. 

“We believe that parents and most of the general population still believe that Montessori means children get to choose everything they do. This misnomer is unfortunate for Montessori,” she says. 

Instead of complete free reign for children, Montessori schools provide “freedom within boundaries.” This means setting clear expectations and ground rules. “An example of how we provide this to children at Ross is the work plan,” Hemmen says. “Giving the young learners a framework for which Montessori work subjects are made available to them to guide their day is this concept in action. When prepared adults help guide children in this way, they become part of the child's daily reflection on their own productivity and discuss with them how their productivity is developing.” 

3. Montessori Schools Do Utilize Technology But Differently  

In Montessori schools, 3- to 6-year-olds don’t use technology but older students will use it in a manner modeled on how adults might utilize it – as a tool rather than as a replacement or even a supplement to a teacher. “You won't be doing a software program to learn how to read,” Suchman says. “But you may be doing research online. You may be using PowerPoint or creating graphs in order to communicate your learning.” 

She adds, “Montessori is also about adapting to real life and learning real-life skills and technology is a real-life skill.” 

In other schools, computer programs are often used to help teachers provide students with individualized learning experiences because, without those tech tools, the teacher wouldn’t have time to provide individualized instruction. “In Montessori, the materials serve the same purpose as how teachers are using screens in other classrooms,” Suchman says. “The Montessori materials encourage kids to work independently for a longer period of time, which allows the teacher to then be working with other students individually.” 

4. Montessori Schools Have Evolved During the Pandemic  

Some Montessori schools pushed to stay in-person because of the hands-on nature of the learning that takes place. Those who went remote had some advantages because teachers were already familiar with offering differentiated learning that met students where they were in each subject. 

Whether offering in-person, online, or hybrid learning opportunities, Montessori schools, like all schools, have evolved with the times. 

“We've had to get creative with schedules to accommodate germ cohorts and minimize the number of adults who mingle with each classroom,” says Erin Beaudette, director of student services at Ross Montessori School. “Throughout this process, we have been able to identify some concerns with enrichment programming, and our intervention team has become so much stronger. Each interventionist has a more diverse skill set than they did two years ago, and the children in need are being served more effectively.” 

They’ve also had to respond to mental health challenges. 

“The social-emotional needs of our students and families are greater than before,” Beaudette says. “Out of necessity, we have made connections and gone to training, and stepped out to support students and families in new ways. Sadly, we do not believe the social-emotional needs are going to slow down anytime soon. Thankfully, I feel we are more equipped to handle this growing need.” 

• Educators Moving Away from Seat Time for Mastery-Based Education
• How Downtime and Free Play Help Students Learn

The pandemic has changed education but exactly how is still being determined, says Peter Griffiths, associate superintendent of Wichita Falls ISD in Texas. 

“We're not done with COVID, but things are starting to thaw,” Griffiths says. 

During the early months of the pandemic, teachers and administrators rewrote the playbook for education overnight, stretching themselves to the max. In contrast, this school year has been marked by an attempted return to normalcy, however, Griffiths doesn’t believe education will ever truly go back to a truly pre-pandemic mode. 

“Once you stretch a rubber band, it's a little easier to stretch again,” he says. “I think that right now we're at the point where we want to be the plain old rubber band and not stretch, but come 2022-23 you're going to start seeing us stretch a little bit more with more planning as far as virtual classrooms and remote go.” 

Accountability is Back But There’s Also More Support

During the chaos of 2020, educators were able to give students a lot of leeway, however, that has had to be reeled in this year, both at the classroom level and beyond. Texas has annual academic accountability ratings for its public school districts and schools that were temporarily put on hold last year, but now educators and students need to prepare for its return. 

“Accountability is back,” Griffiths says. “We told everyone this year was going to be more difficult and we were right.” However, next year has the potential to be even harder still. “I'm concerned about ’22 to ‘23 because I think we still have a little bit of grace this year. I don't think we're gonna have as much grace next year.” 

School leaders will need to prepare district staff, students, and parents for this shift back to pre-pandemic expectations. 

However, the district leaders understand that students and their parents, as well as school staff, have had a difficult time during the pandemic. To help all these stakeholders move forward, school leaders have developed a multi-pronged approach. Rather than suspend students for acting up in class, as might have been done in the past, the district’s director of social-emotional services works with a team of restorative practices specialists who help students thrive in class. 

Parents who are struggling are also referred to community health specialists for support. District leaders have encouraged teachers who need it to seek therapy and remind them that mental health treatments are covered by their health insurance. 

The Evolution of EdTech Tools

Wichita Falls ISD had a leg up on many districts at the start of the pandemic when it came to tech. 

“We were already a one-to-one district before all this. We were already using Google Classroom,” Griffiths says. “And so once we had to go remote in the spring of 2020, we didn't have as much pain as others.” 

Even so, the forced remote and hybrid teaching encouraged many educators in the district to more fully embrace the tech tools available. “A lot of teachers really liked Google Classroom, and that technology,” Griffiths says. 

This more tech-friendly experience has been mostly positive, but Griffiths says there have also been instances when it’s gone too far -- such as one recent classroom he visited in which everything had been gamified to the point where some lessons were lacking substance. “We still need to make sure that we engage our students and it's meaningful,” he says. 

Going forward, educators will have to learn to find the right tool for the right lesson. “We've got to make sure that we're using a hammer to hammer, we're not using a hammer when we really need a screwdriver,” he says. 

Online Education

Learning which students and classes are best suited to online options will be one of the goals of the COVID thaw.

“What we discovered was that our high-flying students are the ones who can handle this,” Griffiths says. “A foundation class, for whatever reason, the students might not have the same structure or discipline to be able to do it online because there is a certain amount of discipline to be able to successfully navigate the remote work.” 

Two new high schools are currently planned for Wichita Falls ISD, and online education will be taken into account in the designs. “The high schools will be built for a very technology-rich campus where we expect kids to be online,” Griffiths says. “They don't need to be at school, they can go to Starbucks, or the corner, wherever, and do their class.” 

Griffiths says this year and next will help the district fine-tune how best to use online course offerings to supplement in-person education. “We're going to start diving into, “What does that world look like?’” he says. “So by the time these new schools open in 2024, we'll have those systems in place.” 

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A recent EduCause conference included a wonderful graphic (above) that perfectly describes where we are in education today. It lays out three categories institutions fall in as they are rebooting post lockdown. 

The chart is focused on IT issues but the question can be asked of all aspects of educational systems: Are we going to restore, evolve, or transform? 

This is critical as we are entering the second semester of our post-lockdown year and a question that will determine your overall approach to educating students in the years to come. Consider the freshman of 2019. They have yet to have a ‘normal’ school year and they are sliding into their senior year next year. Not only have they not had traditional high school years but their college experience will be very different now than it would have been before COVID. 

So, what does a school or district need to look like as we peer into our education crystal ball?

Here are a few trends coming out of COVID that may help us determine the next steps.

Blended Learning

Blended learning has been referenced as an instructional approach since the mid-2000s, however, but COVID helped districts take a deeper dive into it. When you consider the model, think of it as a continuum in which online is at one end and face-to-face is at the other. Many districts that were in the middle (referred to as “hybrid” in the continuum) during and post lockdown are seeing the benefits of the model. Research suggests that significant academic gains occur when teachers utilize blended learning methodologies [See Christensen Institute for research findings]. This approach is predicted to be widely adopted and perhaps even become the norm for teaching.

Social and Emotional Learning

Districts that are typically large and urban pay close attention to social and emotional learning models. CASEL is one of the best-known models and is widely adopted in these schools. Lockdown created uncertainty in the lives of most students around the world and their social and emotional well-being takes center stage as we begin to reorient them to schooling. Some federal funding is designated for the well-being of students and districts are taking advantage as they determine how to balance health and wellness with academic outcomes. 

Assessment

The disruption of assessment was probably one of the bright spots of the lockdown. Many district leaders have argued that high-stake assessments don’t accurately measure student outcomes and some states have taken the cue and designed alternative ways to measure progress. The post-lockdown era will accelerate modifications to high-stake models. Not taking away the accountability but considering the most effective ways to accurately measure student growth rather than a snapshot in time will ultimately lead to better outcomes. 

We are at a pivotal point in education today. We can return to the way we’ve always done things by restoring our previous practices or we can truly transform and become something bigger and better. What path will your district take? 

If any of these three trends resonate with you, let us know by Tweeting us at #TLTechLive and sharing your post-lockdown stories of success!

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“We can’t wait until things get back to normal.” That’s a common phrase uttered in and around households all across America. This pandemic has forced us to rethink many of the things we normally do over the course of our day, from online grocery shopping to dining out. Education has seen probably one of the most disruptive changes to traditional learning during this COVID-19 pandemic. 

With all of the disruption, public attention has shifted to helping students recover from “learning loss.” As with many of my fellow educators, I find this phrase to be extremely negative. There are students who were displaced academically by this pandemic (especially those in underserved communities). But to say it was all a loss is deficit thinking. It focuses too much attention on where we have been, not where we need to go. 

We are NOT going back to normal in K-12 education. That would be a disservice and a waste of all the new skills educators have learned. All that technology leaders have been advocating for in schools for the past decade came to fruition rapidly when schools shut down in March 2020. Now that schools are providing devices and access like never before, we have a massive opportunity in front of us. Focusing on learning loss doesn’t build off of this increased access for students. 

I think it’s time for a new phrase. 

I did some digging to find the word that would acknowledge the past but also drive change for the future. It just so happened I was searching while waiting for my car to get serviced when the phrase slapped me right in the face. 

We need Learning Realignment. 

Here’s the definition of realignment:

“The action of changing or restoring something to a different or former position or state” -- this was the phrase that I was looking for as it identifies the changes that we need to keep moving forward. 

So, keeping with the automobile analogy, here are 5 ways to realign learning. 

1. Replace Spark Plugs 

Gone are the days of students showing their understanding by just turning in a written paper or diorama (don’t get me wrong, I love dioramas). This shift to online learning has really shown all that’s possible in a blended learning environment, especially around student outcomes. 

Unfortunately, we still tend to navigate to the things we know. 

So, instead of writing a paper, the student writes a Google Doc. Or instead of creating a tri-fold poster board, it’s a Powerpoint presentation. Students can now demonstrate their learning in so many ways. 

Here are just a few:

• Create an infographic 
• Code a game
• Invent a prototype
• Create an animation
• Participate in an online debate
• Make a movie
• Write and perform a rap
• Design a virtual world (aka, a fancy online diorama)
• 3D print a solution
• Record a podcast

I recently witnessed an amazing creation by teacher @TriciaFugelstad using EyeJack (now AR Academy in the app store). This tool allows kids to create their own augmented reality overlays on everyday objects or images, which can be a deeper dive into a topic while adding a layer of extra engagement. As most schools are Chromebook schools, I was excited to hear they have just developed an AR extension for education as well. A tool such as this represents the possibilities of differentiating how students demonstrate their understanding.

We need to be preparing kids for their future and creating opportunities for students to demonstrate a variety of skills. Recently, the World Economic Forum met to list their Top 10 Job Skills of Tomorrow, which includes innovation, resilience, creativity, critical thinking, and active learning. As schools move forward, they need to identify ways to embed these skills in the day-to-day life of students. We shouldn’t limit learning to only technology that we are comfortable with as that, in turn, limits the students.  

Enjoying this article? Carl Hooker -- and others -- are presenting live and in-person at Tech & Learning's Regional Leadership Summit in Orlando on Jan. 24, 2022 (the day before FETC begins). 

Superintendents, CTOs, CAOs, instructional and district tech leaders, please join us to share and discover the great education work going on in your area. More info and register here 

2. Check Batteries

The past 20 months have taken a toll on teachers. The great resignation is a real thing in many businesses but especially in education. Increasing stress, anxiety, and pressure on an already overworked and underpaid profession might be some of the biggest drivers of this. The additional duties, learning standards, and high-stakes tests while dealing with a “time famine” could also be a major issue. 

Whatever the reason, educators need to recharge their batteries before getting back on the road. This is especially true in my area of expertise, professional learning. Requiring teachers to attend training when they are already stressed doesn’t create an optimal learning environment. Instead, we should be looking for asynchronous options for those pressed for time. 

Any time I’ve been in a school district, I make sure to get into a classroom to teach a lesson. Administrators should be the instructional leaders in a school or district, however, they spend a lot of their days making major decisions that impact learning in the classroom and don’t always get to see the effects. By substitute teaching in a classroom, they get to witness the impact of their decisions while also allowing teachers to take an extended break. 

The other thing instructional leaders can do is re-assess the current district goals and pare back what they don’t need. This “strategic abandonment” of old initiatives can be freeing for staff who already have a lot clogging their head space. Chances are many initiatives and missions changed when the pandemic hit, so now is the time to re-prioritize what is important in your district going forward.

3. Check the Oil

One of the unintended consequences of the pandemic was that teachers had to really scale back much of what they were teaching and prioritize which standards were most important. This reduction in curricular load allows students time to dive deeper into topics rather than just taking a surface-level approach to learning. 

When you check the oil in your car, you have a dipstick. In schools, that dipstick is assessment. Most that we give in schools are fact-based, synchronous assessments meant to check a student’s knowledge. While those have a time and place, it shouldn’t be the only way we measure student growth. Using asynchronous, collaborative projects and building in time for the student to explain their thinking makes learning less about the product and more about the process. 

One thing I really struggled with as a teacher was providing time for reflection. Taking just a few minutes at the end of the day or week for students to reflect on their learning has a major impact on what they retain. The psychological impact of reflection and experiential learning was a major driver of the Kolb Learning Cycle. Creating opportunities for students to reflect and then tracking those longitudinally should be the norm. 

In our schools, we used Bulb to create ePortfolios for students, parents, and teachers to track that longitudinal growth. By doing this in an ePortfolio platform, students can reflect on their learning while also building a digital resume of sorts for when the time comes to apply for college or enter the workforce. 

All of this means we have to change how we assess students and shift time focused on standardized assessments. In Rethinking Classroom Assessment with Purpose in Mind, the authors point out that there are three primary types of assessments taking place in the classroom. Assessment OF learning, assessment FOR learning, and assessment AS learning. The more that we can allow time and strategies for students to own their learning through assessment will largely impact their learning journey.  

4. Change the Filters

This isn’t about internet filters or actual air filters, though both have a place in schools these days. This is more about changing things that filter creative thinking in the classroom. That change can happen physically and mentally. 

I’ve always believed that the most flexible learning environment isn’t necessarily one that has a lot of expensive furniture or fancy technology. It exists right outside your school doors. During the pandemic, many schools threw energy and effort into expanding their outdoor learning spaces. My own daughters helped remake logs into chairs as part of their Girl Scout project. The benefits of being outside (whether permitting) include an increase in vitamin D from sunlight and more oxygen to the brain. 

Adults also need a change from time to time. Some of my most effective professional learning takes place outside the school building as well. Taking staff to alternate locations to learn rather than uncomfortable library chairs or terrible cafeteria lighting is impactful. When asked to provide feedback, staff have mentioned the feeling of “thinking differently” when outside of their school building and “more focus, because I wasn’t worrying about my classroom down the hall.” These psychological effects on adult learning is also why I think the in-person conference will always carry value in professional development. 

The other filter that needs to change is a mental one. We need to remove the filters we put around success and failure. Creativity and curiosity are important by-products of risk-taking but in environments where that is stifled, it can be crippling to innovative thoughts. I’ve always believed that students won’t take risks unless their teachers take risks. Extending that a bit further, teachers won’t take risks unless leaders take risks. 

We live in an era of public scrutiny which pushes schools toward conservative approaches in instructional practice. The opposite should be happening as without failure and risk-taking, creativity is drowned in a sea of unoriginality. 

5. Balance and Rotate

The final component in this realignment builds upon all the other parts in this tune-up. Before the pandemic, schools largely relied on a single mode of Instructional delivery. Australian thought-leader Brett Salakas cautions that when you have only one method of getting instruction, learning is at risk should that method be cut off.  

Traditional, lecture-based, synchronous face-to-face instruction is one way to deliver instruction, however, as we learned from the pandemic, it isn’t the only way. Terms such as “virtual” and “remote” have now entered the vocabulary of learning models. We learned that some (hybrid/concurrent) might not be the most ideal way to teach and learn. Some students thrived in an asynchronous online environment and some struggled. The truth is the previous lecture-style model also worked for some kids but not ALL kids. 

We should also no longer be bound by the restriction of physical geography. My oldest daughter is in 7th grade and would love to learn Italian as a second language. Unfortunately, her middle school does not offer the course but one across town does. The traditional fix for this is bussing her across town to the other campus for the course, but why not set up a lab for kids to be taught virtually by a variety of teachers in the district or state. Heck, why not take it a step further and let students learn Italian from a teacher in Italy. 

Some innovative curriculum providers are starting to realize this new virtual model may be a strategy going forward. For example, Rex Academy offers a completely browser-based computer science curriculum meant to break some of the lack of inclusivity in the field. Any teacher can use the self-paced curriculum and they also even offer an online instructor. 

One of the biggest challenges recently is the lack of teachers to actually teach a computer science course. Schools have minimum enrollment requirements that are needed to make a class and often don’t have the staff available to teach it part-time. If companies can offer a high-quality computer science curriculum and teachers to schools, then it shouldn’t matter whether you have one or 100 students interested in the course. 

So where do we go from here? The traditional models of education have been put to the test and slightly broken as a result of the pandemic. Teachers are exhausted, students are stressed, and we are on the brink of a personnel crisis when it comes to hiring. Using some of the lessons we have learned the past 20 months, schools and districts need to realign some of their classic beliefs of what education should look like. We’ve been given a unique glimpse to some of the possibilities of what a flexible future educational model could look like. Now our only question is do we take the wheel or continue to let the car drift off the road?

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Deep work is one of those mysterious talking points we assume should be part of our learning environment but we may not know quite why, or more importantly how to get kids there. 

We live in a loud world. A lot of "noise" surrounds us, and not the kind that blares in our ear. Rather, there are a tremendous amount of distractions all around us, from phones to social media to the latest crisis or drama unfolding, and this is the enemy of deep work. After all, deep work is defined by Cal Newport as the “activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limits.”

It may seem obvious that gaining a state of deep work focus is valuable because tasks get done, but the value far exceeds simply checking off a to-do list. Consider that deep work is highly satisfying because of the tremendous sense of accomplishment associated with it. This is far more significant because the anxiety and stress brought on by being distracted away from deep work is both so tempting and so detrimental.

A profound sense of accomplishment is a major contributor to the human condition and a monumental antidote to anxiety, stress, and trauma. I have written about this (Leading Schools Through Trauma) and outlined both the cost of trauma disrupting fulfilling work, and the ways around it. 

Here are some quick, stackable in-class interventions that can help your students (and you) break through the disruptors of deep work and back on track toward highly rewarding accomplishments.

Coffee Talk 

I have a confession: As I compose this story, I am listening to background coffeehouse sounds on my headphones. The reason? Listening to coffeehouse sounds puts me in an intensely focused state; one that sets the stage for finding that sweet spot that distracts me away just enough from the unimportant external stimuli (i.e. my phone pinging) and toward brain waves (alpha and theta) concentration that strike a perfect equilibrium for high focus and deep learning. 

Tonal sounds are a quick and effective solution to in-class options that promote the kind of motivation perfect for learning and pushing above a current level of understanding. You can find coffeehouse sounds anywhere on the internet, such as YouTube; these are ideal for having students fulfill independent or whole-class work focus.

Breathing for Optimal Learning 

Since anxiety is the enemy of optimal learning states, reducing stress and the effects of trauma are the ideal counterpoint. Various breathing techniques are available and I recommend the 4-7-8 method. 

When we breathe deeply and systematically, we activate stretch receptors around the diaphragm linked to the parasympathetic nervous system; this is especially true with the 4-7-8 method because we pause for 7 seconds in the slightly stretched position for a stronger rest-and-digest effect. Visually following this is beneficial for learners needing a quick minutes-long fix, at sites that show the learner the expansion and shrinking happening.

Social Media is Everywhere 

Accepting that social media is integrated actively into the lives of our students, as well as for us adults, means we should not try to avoid it or try to teach students to ignore it. The likely outcome is that you will be ignored! 

Instead, help students understand that negative feedback loops in social media are detrimental to concentration levels that induce deep work, and satisfaction. In fact, social media makes us less intelligent if we do not recognize the dangers of negative consequences. 

Teach students that social media can act as a support network in certain ways, such as an Instagram study demonstrated, helping young women properly discriminate between fantasy highlight reel images and the reality that others share with their own imperfections. This is empowering, and allows learners to step away from the powerful negative narratives that tax their minds beyond their sense of accomplishment and success.

Employing one or more of these techniques that support deep work will help students become more successful, motivated, and well adjusted. In an era where we are surrounded by distractors that tap our most primal and destructive thought processes, this matters even more. See students succeed due to technology support, not in spite of it!

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Teaching local politics, especially during election season, can be challenging. Doing so in this hyper-partisan era is nearly impossible. Too often United States government topics and national politics distract from our diverse 50 state and more than 89,000 county and local governments. But we need to distinguish the differences as well as respect experiential learning approaches to teaching local politics prior to municipal elections. 

State and local government is hardly taught in high schools and it’s rarely required at universities. As an American Politics subfield within political science, state and local government gets little academic attention. But large state university systems offer courses since their capital governments pass significant legislation. Texas, California, and New York public institutions have various classes and several textbook publishers include chapters about these respective states’ politics.

But how can educators teach local politics? To begin, I assign a basic text such as Terry Christensen and Tom Hogen-Esch’s “Local Politics” and a general state and local government textbook such as Christopher Simon, Brent Steel, and Nicholas Lovrich’s “State and Local Politics” as well as Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” on community engagement activities. 

I also focus on local media so students recognize community issues. But this requires some innovation. Reading area newspapers, following independent online news sources such as patch.com, listening to local radio, and watching local evening news, are starting points. Social media can be helpful too, especially Twitter and Muck Rack. Local reporters usually have accounts and post news immediately. I suggest students follow journalists’ accounts and subscribe to online news sites since some offer student subscription rates.

Sources to consider:

• Assigned readings from local politics texts 
• Local newspapers, independent sources such as patch.com 
• Social media, especially reporters’ Twitter and Muck Rack accounts 

For the first class, I have to cover media literacy through news sources and social media. Addressing editorials and opinion pieces is a must since some students confuse op-eds for articles. We also discuss local issues such as public safety, education, and economic development. When we share similarities among municipalities, topics are hardly abstract. Students learn how public officials address these concerns differently or similarly. And by inviting public officials to discuss these issues with students, especially during online classes, it all leads to a spirited dialogue. 

As a local politics class, we have to discuss the electoral process. In order to participate in closed primary elections, I mention that one must declare their party affiliation to the local registrar of voters. I emphasize that voters can split-ticket or select candidates across party lines in general elections. But students regularly suggest it’s unfair for unaffiliated voters, as many are not registered with a party. Students can consider Democratic or Republican parties, but in some municipalities there are Green, Libertarian and Socialist parties. 

Students should know the differences and consider candidates as well as party platforms. In most municipalities there’s one dominant party, and primary elections are often the presumptive election before a general election.

Course themes:

• Following current state and local issues 
• Periodical, media literacy, and social media discussion 
• Political party primaries, state and local party committees 
• Invite elected officials for class discussions, especially for online sessions 
• Students attend in-person or online municipal board or party committee meetings 
•  Students complete public meeting reports and share their findings with the class 

States and municipalities have different political party systems. Connecticut, for example, has local party committees that nominate and endorse candidates for their party line before a primary election. These local conventions distinguish endorsed candidates versus petitioning candidates. I require students to attend and write reports about party committee or municipal hall meetings so they recognize partaking in the process matters. Since many meetings are online due to the pandemic, students can view these sessions. In fact, a journalism faculty colleague and I conducted a comparative analysis about area municipal hall online meetings. 

When students complete their reports, they discuss their findings with the class. They are struck at the generational gap of officials and participants at these meetings. I respond that older voters generally have more time if they are retired and they share resources and networks for campaign donations. Plus, national issues tend to gain younger voters’ attention. Thankfully, a student or two are involved in a local party committee or municipal board, and they reinforce my point that their engagement can make a difference. Some also intern for local candidates by registering for upper-level internship courses, which is effective for networking and career development.

Ultimately, I find experiential learning can be inspirational for my classes. When students share their experiences, I cherish their learning through directly connecting with local politics. 

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In 2006, Dr. Brian Beatty taught the first Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) course at the Instructional Technologies (ITEC) graduate program at San Francisco State University. The course was offered as a way to bolster enrollment in the program while not decreasing the in-person experience of students already enrolled. 

Today, Beatty is the associate professor of instructional technologies in the Department of Equity, Leadership Studies and Instructional Technologies at San Francisco State University and has long helped other instructors design HyFlex courses. 

Prior to the pandemic, the hybrid model, which allows students to choose whether to participate in a course either online or in-person on a weekly or daily basis, was gaining increasing traction in higher ed and had been offered in select instances in K-12. Since then, the model has exploded in popularity. 

Tech & Learning spoke with Beatty, who shared his thoughts on what HyFlex has looked like during the pandemic and what its future could be in a post-pandemic world. 

What's Working

“The faculty resistance in the past to teaching anything online is starting to become less,” Beatty says. “We're finding that we can have some success teaching online, even when we don't want to teach online, that a lot of our students can be good online learners even when they don't want to be online learners. That opens up this opportunity for us to provide another access path to students.” 

The pandemic disruption has also allowed some educators to spend more time focusing on the process of learning, Beatty says. “When they have the freedom to do that and they've got some support about using different technologies, they're actually recovering some of the creativity that we used to have an education that was largely lost in the high-pressure, high-stakes testing world that we kind of created over the last 20 years or so,” he says. 

What Isn't Working

“What's not working well right now is when the teachers are forced into this synchronous-only kind of environment and everything's focused there without adequate preparation,” Beatty says. “One of the challenges I've seen is that it's hard sometimes for teachers and administrators to put the resources, the time, the energy, the effort, the money, into preparing to do this well when we don't know exactly how long this goes.” 

If a school or university officials believe something such as a HyFlex model is valuable long term, administrators should put together a strategic process around adopting those strategies and plan on investing time and money into implementing them effectively, he says. 

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Classes 

When designing his own classes these days, Beatty tends to think about the asynchronous vs. synchronous experience rather than online vs. in-person. 

“What works for me is when I don't focus so much on the reliance on the synchronous experience as being the only thing that learning comes from,” Beatty says. By being overly focused on in-class learning, he believes that he may have been missing out on guiding the learning outside of class, where students actually do the most learning.  

He says realizing this changed his perspective on teaching. “Even when I had a bad experience in the class, I didn't have to say, ‘Well, okay, I guess we're not learning anything this week.’”

Time Management for Instructors 

HyFlex courses require educators to conduct regular class meetings and build robust asynchronous elements as alternatives to class meetings. Doing both of those things can be daunting for educators who were squeezed for time even before the pandemic. 

Beatty says instructors should attempt to create a reasonably good asynchronous version of a course but don’t need to build the perfect version. Instructors then need to block out time to respond to forum posts and other online components of the class the same way online students need to schedule time to work. He advises a mindset of, “I’m learning how to teach differently, and I'm reserving this time for that. So maybe I'm not going to be part of that committee.”

The Future of HyFlex in Higher Ed and K-12 

Beatty believes post-pandemic HyFlex models will continue to be more popular at higher ed institutions, particularly in graduate programs and at smaller institutions that are looking for creative ways to enroll more students. 

In K-12, Beatty doesn’t see a widespread movement in which schools will allow students to choose whether to attend class in person or online asynchronously, but he believes there will be more openness to the concept on an as-needed basis. 

“It could be a situation in which the schools and the teachers will say, ‘Well, actually, there's this pocket of students that can't be on our campus for this particular term or this period of time, but we can still serve them in our classes.’” 

He adds, “It could be a way to keep students participating, even when they can't be there in class, rather than just saying, ‘Okay, you're gone for two weeks because your family's taking you on vacation.’”

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With remote learning continuing to be in effect for many schools, teaching a hands-on subject such as science is a challenge for educators. Not being able to allow students to experiment, test, and explore firsthand, however, has encouraged new teaching practices.

In Orange County, Florida, science teachers have gone back to basics in a way, according to Veronica Franco, former STEM Gifted Education Teacher and STEM Futures Director. Unable to participate in on-site school experiments, students explore their neighborhoods and backyards in science-based scavenger hunts that involve identifying flora and fauna. Teachers also assign project-based tasks, such as coming up with ideas to help a local farmer with his excess strawberry harvest. 

Students are also encouraged to explain science concepts to family. “The conversation about helping adults learn is our science inquiry component,” says Franco. “If they can teach it, that's a great assessment tool and way to prove their understanding of the material. They are also discovering, investigating and if they can teach it, that's really going full circle.”

Adapting to the New Classroom

When teachers are preparing to teach science remotely, they need to be reflective and understand that they can’t take their traditional classroom with students sitting in front of them and simply replicate that online, says Dr. Christine Royce, a former National Science Teaching Association (NSTA) president who also is a professor of teacher education and co-director of MAT in STEM Education at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania.

“Science teachers need to ask themselves what has changed? And then, 'What do I need to do to adapt to that?'” says Royce.“They need to consider what the big ideas are and what the students need to do rather than just replicate what’s being done in a traditional school day.”

Science educators need to continue pushing exploration and engaging students in discussion. Ideally, students would use equipment themselves to perform experiments, says Royce. Depending on the students’ age level, however, a teacher can provide a video of a hands-on exploration of, say, chemistry or physics, and encourage students to ask questions, investigate, and use data sets to make sense of what they’re seeing. 

As mentioned earlier, teachers can make use of the outdoors, such as having students watch how leaves blow or how marbles roll down a sidewalk. “You can have young students go out and engage with simple materials that they find around the house,” says Royce. “If we want to experiment with friction, for example, it can be any kind of ball, and you’re going to have different outcomes, the observations of which will be very powerful for students to discuss.”

Such activities also tie into phenomena-based learning, which is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards and encourages students to drive learning through wonder and discussion. “It doesn’t require students to only be in a classroom,” says Royce. “They can go collect information on their own and then come back and share it when they are in a synchronous classroom.”

In a remote environment, asynchronous learning time can be used for investigations, and synchronous learning sessions can focus on group discussions, says Royce. As with in-person learning, it’s critical that educators continue to guide students to wonder why something happens, and encourage those discussions in groups.

“Asking 'Why?' is very powerful because it helps the student put their own pieces together in their mind, and correct things in their own mind, because they have to discuss it with others,” she says.

Embracing Edtech Tools

For teaching science remotely, Royce recommends a number of tech tools, such as:

Flipgrid - “Sometimes having students verbalize their understanding is more effective than writing it out,” Royce says.

Idea Sketch - Allows students to record their own ideas.

Jamboard - If students are typically given cards associated with animals or organisms in a food chain, for example, those cards can be put into a Jamboard and they can still manipulate the cards electronically.

Whiteboard.fi - Allows a teacher to create one document and then give each student their own version to manipulate, and then offers sharing for discussion. 

Teachers need to figure which tools are best for them, and then allow their students to become comfortable using each one, Royce says. 

Best Practices for Teaching Science Remotely

Some best practices to consider when teaching science remotely, according to Royce.

Discussion is important and needs to be facilitated during synchronous classes. Students being involved will help them connect their own ideas and ask questions of others. 

Keep what is shared online simplified. Learning online is a heavier cognitive drive, says Royce, so focusing on the key points will help facilitate student thinking, reasoning, and discussion.

Help students become the architects of their own learning. Teachers still have to develop the content and sequence, but the students should be in more control of their learning, including executive management functions such as time management and task completion. “When students become more involved in the process, it’s going to be a tipping point at which we see more investigations, more questioning, and more interest in their learning when we go back to the classroom,” says Royce.

Additional Resources

•  NSTA: Distance Learning Resources 
•  NSTA: Daily Do 
•  STEM Teaching Tools 
•  CSSS Community Projects 

There’s no time like the present to consider new learning models, according to Donna Teuber, K-12 innovation consultant. 

During Tech & Learning's recent Virtual Summit, Teuber shared that she had been teaching teachers remotely for most of the past year. Over the last six months, she has been training teachers who are not comfortable with technology on how to make the transition to remote learning. Teuber worked in Richland School District Two outside Columbia, South Carolina, until a year ago, so she has plenty of empathy for educators who are struggling to transition to technology-infused teaching.

See the full session here

As an educator working with design thinking and innovation for the last ten years, Teuber believes this moment is an opportunity to take the best of what we have currently and incorporate it into a design for the future. It is time to create new ways of defining problems with empathy and then to prototype and test them. Teuber recommended thinking about what teachers and schools offer from a service mindset. 

Every educator’s role is changing, there are new rules for almost everything in virtual learning scenarios. Collectively, we need to think about how to get unstuck and move forward in this moment. A need exists to redesign school services, such as serving meals, meeting state mandates, and giving teachers planning time. “To make new changes stick,” said Teuber, “we have to first become unstuck from the ineffective systems that we’ve created.”

Currently the pandemic is forcing schools to make changes to respond to the needs of students and teachers, and there is a design process uniquely suited to this moment.

The Service Design Process

Teuber recommends using a service design process to think about how to solve current problems. This root cause analysis works well when bringing together a team—even on Zoom. 

Think of the process as a tree with the tree representing the problem: The impact of the problem is in the branches above and the cause of the problem is in the roots below the surface. In considering a new challenge, such as how teachers balance asynchronous and synchronous learning when students are fully remote, Teuber suggests asking “Why?” five times in succession to drill down to reveal the actual problem. Each “why” gets you closer to the real root of the problem.

The service design process within learning environments means reviewing a service with a specific mindset and tools, according to the Learning Space Toolkit. You want to consider the service from the customer’s perspective, focusing on users and their needs first, and working iteratively with steps and tools. An initial step is to clarify who the service is being designed for. Then teams work through the five-step service design process together:

1. Vision—values, philosophy, and goals to provide direction and guide decision-making
2. Personas—the motivations and behaviors of your users
3. Location plan—determining what services are offered where, when, and by whom
4. Journey map—mapping service use over time, and identifying touchpoints in the user experience
5. Blueprint—guidance on delivery of a service across different channels for staff and systems

Teuber advises thinking about the key moments of the experience you want to create—such as a field trip. Instead of the current state of things, you are really looking at a future state. To be successful, what will things look like from the student/teacher/parent perspective when you recreate the field trip experience?

“Think about service design as the front of the stage,” says Teuber. “For example, think of Starbucks—what is going on behind the stage for the coffee buyer to have the best experience possible?”

Choose moments that are high value or unique that you can focus on to make the moment of service the best experience. Some of the current questions for schools are:

• How to have the best lunch experience while abiding by social distancing guidelines?
• How do schools still build community and opportunities for collaboration?
• How can we connect students socially at meal times, in the media center, or at outside recess?

Best practices for this process include:

• Discover needs through interviews, observations, and surveys
• Build a cross-functional team (beyond silos)
• Determine vision and goals for your program to inform your design process
• Use personas to guide journey mapping
• Focus on the key moments of service delivery

Everything in schools needs to be redesigned now, says Teuber. Focusing on the high-touch moments will make it more meaningful for everyone involved. 

Resources

• Service Design Blueprint
• Learning Space Toolkit
• This Is Service Design Doing
• Orchestrating Experiences: Collaborative Designs for Complexity

COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on education worldwide, which has brought to light the profound need for remote learning. 

But how can you prepare for next school year when there are so many unknowns? In this Tech & Learning Remote Learning webinar, Dr. Kecia Ray talked with school district leaders about how they are designing an infrastructure that supports blended learning, including providing the training and content to ensure continuity of education for their school communities next year. The conversation ranged from handling uncertainty and addressing digital equity to creating opportunities and shifting pedagogy.

Watch the on-demand version here

Key Takeaways

Staying focused. Sam Edwards, Technology Integration Specialist for Parkland School District, talked about how they have been trying to provide all the tech support so teachers can focus on pedagogy. Having one platform for the entire district allows that to happen. Professional development has been strongly encouraged, with time set aside each day for virtual training sessions. And with no assessments to worry about, teachers have been encouraged to try new approaches to instruction.

Staying connected. “We may be socially distant, but we don’t need to be socially disconnected,” said Kellie C. Ady, Senior Director of Instructional Strategy, PowerSchool. Being able to connect with other educators in the school community is important to supporting one another. At first, educators were reactive but now is the time to be proactive, most likely in a blended environment. 

Handling uncertainty. “Education is not in crisis. People are still learning, just not the traditional way,” said Robert Schuetz, Technology Coordinator, Palatine High School, Township High School District 211. The human side of education is being brought to the forefront, and is critical right now with so much uncertainty. The district is trying to be flexible, nimble and prepared for what’s going to happen. The uncertainty has forced everyone to ask critical questions and put on our learner hats. “We have problems to solve,” Scheutz said. “And no one has all the answers right now.” The pandemic has allowed educators to put aside less important things, such as assessment, to focus on the actual learning.

Addressing digital equity. Scheutz also discussed how the pandemic has brought attention to the serious access and device issues that exist for many schools and students. “Internet access often varies greatly from home to home,” said Schuetz. “Now is the time for leadership to get together to make sure everyone has access.” Finding ways to provide WiFi for an entire district may be part of the solution.

“Digital equity is one of the critical issues of our time,” said Tracy Smith, Assistant to the Superintendent for Operations, Parkland School District. The district has been focusing on purchasing and distributing devices to ensure all students have access to the many online learning resources available. “Our goal No. 1 was to make sure everyone was connected,” Smith said.

Re-imagining learning. “In education, time has been a constant and learning is the variable,” said Smith. “But with remote learning, it’s an opportunity to make time the variable and learning the constant.” Some learners are race car drivers and others are on ponies, but they all get there, she said. Remote learning allows students to become independent learners and supports cognitive learning. 

Special ed needs. How to better support students with special needs, specifically after the return to buildings, is a developing story, said Ady. Being able to stay connected via video and audio has been critical and essential for special populations, said Schuetz. 

Staying connected. Having the combination of asynchronous and synchronous communication tools, plus a live help desk, to assist with technical needs has been great for Palatine High School, said Schuetz. At Parkland Schools, the administration building has been transformed into a tech repair center, according to Edwards. Leveraging discussion board answers to build FAQs that are accessible for parents is a good strategy, said Ady, as many of the same questions pop up over and over. 

Evolving pedagogy. “We need to go from engagement to investment,” said Edwards, adding that students have to take a role in becoming involved in how their learning is delivered. “We need to bring in students to ask them what’s not working in terms of pedagogy,” agreed Schuetz. “They need to be part of the conversation.”

Lunch 'n Learn with Tech & Learning

This report is part of Tech & Learning's District Leadership Lunch ‘n Learn Roundtable series, hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray. In this series, districts from across the U.S. share their strategic plans, the challenges they are facing, and the creative solutions they are using to support students and teachers. Access previous webinars and register for our upcoming events here. 

Lunch 'n Learn Roundtable Recaps

• Research-Informed Practices for Blended Learning
• Flipping Virtual Classrooms for More Impact
• T&L Webinars

Innovative educators understand that there is more to learning than processed worksheets and tests. That's why real-world tasks and assessments are finally making it out of just the elite schools and are becoming more prevalent in mainstream education. 

At the Tech & Learning Leadership Summit experts in the area of technology and education came together to discuss a variety of topics including how technology supports bringing real learning experiences to the classroom. 

G.R.A.S.P.S. Model

One model popular among attendees was one adapted from Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe.  It is called GRASPS, which is an acronym standing for:

G: Goal

• Provide a statement of the task. Establish the goal, problem, challenge, or obstacle in the task.
• Possible sentence starters:
• Your task is to… The goal is to… The problem or challenge is… The obstacle to overcome is…

R: Role

• Define the role of the students in the task. State the job of the students for the task.
• Possible sentence starters:
• You are… You have been asked to… Your job is…

A: Audience

• Identify the target audience within the context of the scenario. Example audiences might include a client or committee. 
• Possible sentence starters:
• Your clients are… The target audience is… You need to convince…

S: Situation

• Set the context of the scenario. Explain the situation.
• Possible sentence starters:
• The context you find yourself in is… The challenge involves dealing with…

P: Products or Performances

• Clarify what the students will create and why they will create it,
• Possible sentence starters:
• You will create a … in order to… You need to develop a … so that 

S: Standards

• Provide students with a clear picture of success. Identify specific standards for success. Issue rubrics to the students or develop them with the student.
• Possible sentence starters:
• Your performance needs to… Your work will be judged by… Your product must meet the following standards… A successful result will… 

Note that it is unnecessary to use all or even any of the sentence starters. You can replace a prompt with your own. These are provided to help the learning designer think about the task. Generally one sentence starter can be used to write 

cross posted at The Innovative Educator 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

Back in the day, Madeline Hunter ruled.

I never actually met Madeline but for a time, it was like we were joined at the hip. College of Ed professors loved her. Principals loved her. Teacher observation and evaluation tools loved her even more. And so all of my early teaching years were focused on her theories and lesson plan designs.

For the non-Boomers in the room, a quick review of Madeline’s design:

• Anticipatory set
  Do something that introduces the lesson, hooks kids into wanting to learn the lesson, and establish your objectives for the lesson.
• Direct instruction
  Foundational knowledge – the facts, ideas, and skills – is delivered to the students. Usually some sort of lecture, video, or reading.
• Guided practice and application
  The teacher helps students apply what they have just been taught.
• Independent practice and application
  Students apply the learning on their own.
• Assessment
  The teacher measures how well students have met the objectives.

It’s not like this is terrible instruction. Making it clear to kids what our expectations are is good. Finding ways for them to collect and organize foundation knowledge? Good. Independent application? Absolutely. Done right? Pretty darn good.

But like a lot of things, Madeline’s best intentions rarely made it into actual practice. Back in the day, I was usually okay with step one. I could hook kids into content. But after that? Not so much.

I ended up teaching like I had been taught. How the teachers down the hallway were teaching. Direct instruction to me meant lecture, the occasional video, and a lot of assigned readings. If there was any guided practice and independent practice, it usually involved lots of homework and worksheets.

I got better. I started doing more hands on projects and cooperative learning. But there was still a lot of direct instruction. And while the projects were engaging and kids enjoyed them, I didn’t work super hard at making them relevant or tying them to big ideas. So I had a fun class but I’m not really sure students walked any out any smarter than when they walked in.

As my own kids entered and left social studies classrooms throughout their 13 school years, it became clear that they were having similar experiences. There were some hands on projects and occasional awesomeness (thanks Mr. Robb.)  But they still experienced a lot of direct instruction and “independent” practice in the form of study guides and worksheet packets.

So.

Is it possible to take the best parts of Madeline’s model and adapt it to a world that needs our students to be engaged, informed, and knowledgable citizens? I think so.

For the last year or so, a group of us have been getting together to revise our current state standards. The focus is all about encouraging teachers to incorporate application pieces into their instructional design. And finding ways to tie that application to big ideas that are relevant to their students.

This means clear overarching ideas, better compelling questions, historical thinking skills, and summative assessments that give students flexibility in developing products that address the compelling questions. It’s this last piece – the doing, applying, authentic piece – that we want teachers and kids to focus on.

Here’s a draft version of an infographic we’re messing around with:

I get that some of this won’t make sense without access to the actual draft document. But the idea is simple. Give kids a great compelling and relevant question aligned to a big idea like Choices have Consequences. Help them access evidence that addresses the questions. Design an authentic task that lets them answer the question. And along the way, incorporate effective and proven instructional practices.

Done.

But like Madeline’s model, having a simple infographic doesn’t mean easy. What can it actually look like in practice?

Explore some of these resources:

• Stanford History Education Group
  The gold standard in history inquiry best practices.
• Honing Our Questions to Deepen Historical Learning
  Love this article about creating great question and integrating them into lesson design.
• Doing Social Studies
  The KCSS blog – lots of ideas and strategies.
• Read Inquire Write
  The people behind RIW started at SHEG and are taking things in a slightly different direction that I like. One of my new faves.
• C3 Teachers
  I love love love this site. Inquiry Design Models are the next big thing and support what the Kansas standards document is doing. Question. Evidence. Critical thinking. Make a claim that addresses the question. All in one neat package.
• PBL Works
  Problem-based learning is what good instructional is all about.
• DocsTeach
  The National Archives interactive take on historical thinking.

And then go and follow these teachers. You’ve got national and state level teachers of the year. You’ve got amazing users of tech. You’ve got proven conference presenters. They’re all rock stars. And they all love talking best practice so don’t be afraid to chat them up.

• TJ Warsnak & Derek Schutte
  High school teachers who are literally redesigning how to do school. Find some of their #buzzworthy examples here.
• Jill Weber
  Was a great middle school teacher. Now a great high school teacher. She blogs at A View of the Web.
• Nathan McAlister
  2010 National Gilder Lehrman Teacher of the Year. He cuts up cow legs to teach the Civil War.
• Emily Snyder
  Killing it at the high school level.
• Lori Rice
  Elementary social studies genius. Find her newer stuff at The Educator’s Room and the older stuff at Doing Education Differently.

Make Madeline proud.

cross posted at glennwiebe.org

Glenn Wiebe is an education and technology consultant with 15 years' experience teaching history and social studies. He is a curriculum consultant for ESSDACK, an educational service center in Hutchinson, Kansas, blogs frequently at History Tech and maintains Social Studies Central, a repository of resources targeted at K-12 educators. Visit glennwiebe.org to learn more about his speaking and presentation on education technology, innovative instruction and social studies.

I really like Diving and Investigative Questions. In fact, I like them so much more than Essential Questions. You might ask why? I think it just might be my affection for the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy. You may remember that in the revision the different levels were changed into action. In fact, I strongly believe that learning is a verb and is based on action. Take away the word “Question” and both Driving and Investigating are wonderful verbs loaded with action. The word “Essential” standing alone is only a word devoted to describing… a colorful but inactive adjective.

Another reason I am fond of “Driving and Investigative Questions” is that they allow students to work together in the amazing process of divergent thinking. As students bring this process around to identify answers and ideas that finally converge, they are suddenly back on the path to even higher order divergent thinking. It is amazing to watch students become aware that answers can bring on even more questions. Seems to me that it is a lot as if they are moving up Bloom’s Taxonomy.

I believe that both DQ and IQ allow students to take part in real inquiry and research. If the question is Google-able then it probably is not deep inquiry. Now, using advanced Google skills to find answers that create more questions fits the bill for common core skills. Literacy that is built to comprehend, analyze, compare, contrast, and make meaning of nonfiction across the disciplines is essential. Take a look at portions of standards educators must facilitate with students. These really do sound like some great inquiry action that can be found on the super highway of Driving Questions.

Last,  I like “Driving and Investigative Questions  because there are  so simple, that they can be difficult to construct. Let me explain. The Driving Question or Investigative Question in Project Based learning and STEM can be often the hardest concept to get across to teachers. Even after a workshop devoted to PBL… questions will come across my email asking for help in constructing and refining the Driving  or Investigative Question.

Writing The DQ and IQ’s For Student-Centered Learning In PBL, STEM, and Inquiry 

Why are driving and investigative questions so difficult? Perhaps it is the powerful and simple concept they ride upon in a world where teachers have been taught to use so much of their “educationese language” Educators must work at being aware of the important standards in their content area without blurting them out. It is at this point that educators come across that often talked about the idea of uncovering, not covering, the standards.  Educators are so often told to practice this methodology but are seldom told how to do it.

This is the power of the Driving and Investigative question and its importance in PBL and STEM. The question must be simply stated so that students can uncover the content standards themselves. It should not give away the contents standards which students may not really care about. It should engage the students and create wonderment through relevance to their world. It should drive them to “uncover the standards” Through carefully planned PBL and STEM the teacher then facilitates this learning experience. The added bonus of building important 21st-century skills is a natural outcome. In order for students to “uncover the standards” they will need to communicate, collaborate, think critically, and provide creative thought.

Examples comparing an Essential Question to a Driving or Investigative Question:

EQ: Can you describe a typical food chain for the herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores in the deciduous forest biome.
DQ/IQ: How can we as authors write a restaurant storybook menu for animals that live in the forest ?

EQ: How are measurement skills and our knowledge of math and geometry related to building a dream park with a given set of dimensions and budget?
DQ/IQ: In what way can we design, plan, and pitch a needed park for our community?

EQ: What are the characteristics of the planets in our solar system in regards to atmosphere, surface, and composition?
DQ/IQ: How can we, as NASA scientists, write a proposal that recommends which planet should be explored by the next space probe?

DQ/IQ: How can robots provide automation and use computer programs and code to deliver a given task?
DQ/IQ: Can we program a robot to …. ?

EQ: Can we name the various reasons that the American Colonies declared independence from England?
DQ/IQ: How might we write and produce a play that could be used today, or in our countries early history, to show why the colonies should (or did) declare independence? 

Keep in mind that the Driving or Investigative Question may take on many names. The important point is that it drives an investigation based on student owned inquiry. It really is the very first step in providing students that opportunity to not just answer the question, but come up with their own inquiry. 

 Next Post: Facilitating Student Questions 

cross-posted at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com

Michael Gorman oversees one-to-one laptop programs and digital professional development for Southwest Allen County Schools near Fort Wayne, Indiana.   He is a consultant for Discovery Education, ISTE, My Big Campus, and November Learning and is on the National Faculty for The Buck Institute for Education. His awards include district Teacher of the Year, Indiana STEM Educator   of the Year and Microsoft’s 365 Global Education Hero. Read more at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com.

You’re right. Most New Year’s resolutions are made closer to the actual New Year. But it’s [almost] still January . . . so I’m good, right?

And it’s never too late to make a few 2019 social studies resolutions. Best place to start? Asking questions about our current practice, especially during this middle of the year period: What’s working? What’s not? What do my students need? What resource needs to be phased out? How can I get better?

The middle of the school year is a perfect time to think about these sorts of questions. In that spirit, here are five New Year’s resolutions every social studies teacher should make:

1. Focus more on problems and process

I talked about this just a few days ago and I’ve been harping on this for years. But we all need to hear it – especially in January and February when it might seem easier to just lecture and give kids some questions to answer.

Kids need problems to solve. They need evidence to solve them. They need to develop the skills needed to mess with that evidence. They need to work with others to create solutions. And they need the opportunity to share their solutions. Content will always be important. But we need to be intentional about finding a good balance of content and historical thinking skills.

And after a lengthy conversation this morning with Steve Wyckoff around the idea of using badges as a way to focus on social studies competencies, I’m reminded again of the importance of teaching process skills.

Need some examples? 

• Stanford History Education Group lessons
• Read.Inquire.Write
• DocsTeach lessons
• National Archives: Teaching with Documents
• CaseMaker and DB Quest (New Library of Congress inquiry model tools)
• Library of Congress Teacher Page 

2. Apply for summer professional learning opportunities

We should never stop learning, never stop honing our craft. The cool thing is that there are a ton of groups out there who are dying to provide free professional learning. Some of my faves? Gilder Lehrman. Ford’s Theater. Goethe Transatlantic Outreach.

Need some more?

• Professional Learning Opportunities  (Massive spreadsheet compiled by Stefanie Wagner from the Iowa Department of Education.)
• Goethe Transatlantic Outreach
• National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) summer programs
• Gilder Lehrman summer programs
• Ford’s Theater summer programs
• Foundation for Teaching Economics summer program
• National Geographic professional learning resources 

3. More intentional civic engagement

Ok. Most of us have probably dropped the ball on this one. Seriously. Twenty to twenty five percent of Americans can’t name the three branches of government. We have the lowest voter turnout of any modern democracy while at the same time voting rights are being curtailed across the country. And we seem to believe just about anything some 18 year-old Russian kid posts on our social media feed.

It’s not completely our fault. But . . . it’s a little our fault. We need to be much more intentional about finding ways to support both the content and process of Civics – whether we teach Civics or not.

Try these tools:

• Stanford History Education Group civic literacy lessons
• iCivics
• Generation Citizen
• EagleEye Citizen
• Kid Citizen
• Engaging Congress
• Voting Rights, Women’s Equality Day, & Constitution Day
• Civic Action Project 

4. Use social media to grow your PLN

We can all use a hand now and again. A question answered. A resource shared. A strategy explained. And we all have a Personal Learning Network. But social media has the power to expand that network exponentially. (That’s a math term meaning “a lot” or “a bunch.”)

So explore Twitter or Pinterest or even something like GoodReads. Because the more people that we can connect with, the smarter we get.

Need a kickstart? 

• Twitter chats are your best friend. So why are you ignoring them?
• Twitter Chat Basics 

5. Try something scary

As the K-12 education system morphs into one more focused on process, problem solving, college and career readiness, and truly preparing students for their future, we need to change as well. And that can be scary. It might mean changing lessons or adapting resources. It could mean integrating more technology into your instruction. And I guarantee that it means shifting control of learning over to your students.

This semester? Try something new. Something different. Something that you’re not quite sure how it’s going to turn out. One teacher said:

Need a few ideas?

• Google Expeditions
• Use more fiction
• Boy Scout Badges
• Greet kids at the door 

cross posted at glennwiebe.org

Glenn Wiebe is an education and technology consultant with 15 years' experience teaching history and social studies. He is a curriculum consultant forESSDACK, an educational service center in Hutchinson, Kansas, blogs frequently at History Tech and maintains Social Studies Central, a repository of resources targeted at K-12 educators. Visit glennwiebe.org to learn more about his speaking and presentation on education technology, innovative instruction and social studies.

Verso Learning, provider of classroom feedback and collaboration tools, will be showcasing their education tools at this year’s upcoming FETC conference.

In its latest update, Verso has added a new feature designed to collect student-to-teacher feedback at the end of a lesson to enable formative assessment. Exit Tickets elicit student responses to questions related to a lesson or activity and provide the teacher with immediate feedback on the extent to which their students have understood a learning intention, what strategies were most effective in the lesson, and how the students felt about their learning. 

Verso also enables teachers, coaches, and mentors to share insights and provide structured feedback for other teachers. Teachers build lessons using Verso’s lesson builder, then use feedback from  those sources to refine and improve their pedagogical approach and lesson designs. 

At FETC, Phil Stubbs, Verso’s director of  education, will be presenting two sessions about how this cycle of feedback gives students ownership over their own learning:

Using Vocabulary to Design the Journey from Surface to Deep, a collaborative workshop demonstrating research-based strategies for transferring ownership of learning from teacher to student and developing deeper connections to learning

Collaborative Classrooms: Surface to Deep in 50 Minutes, focused on simple strategies to more fully engage students in their own learning. 

I have written to annoying lengths about my love for the connection between the 5E Inquiry Learning Cycle and Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey.

The below diagram outlines the serendipitous connections between these two cycles well:  

In preparation for a professional development workshop I facilitated yesterday, I created a lesson planning templatebased on the above connection that I am very happy with.

My hope is to use a copy of the template for each cycle I create in my biology and chemistry classes for the upcoming semester. 

Unlike previous templates I have used, this one leverages a Google Slide template, as a planning, rather than presentation document. The flexibility of editing slides, embedding video, etc., makes Google Slides an incredibly flexible medium.

You will notice that each of the five phase of the 5E/Hero's Journey cycle hyperlinks to an associated slide. I love this feature as it creates a contained pedagogical cycle, allowing the teacher to focus on each phase individually, IN THE CONTEXT OF THE WHOLE.

As an educator, this connectivity is very comforting, and as Jon Stewart said: "A structure that allows for creativity". You will notice that each slide has two portions: 1) Lesson Procedure and 2) Technology integration.

By "tagging" the technology on as an afterthought, this template forces the teacher to first think pedagogically (How does this procedure serve the inquiry cycle as a whole?), then procedurally (How will I make structure the class to accomplish the goal of the specific portion in the cycle?) and finally technologically (How can I leverage technology to make this lesson even more efficient, productive, meaningful, etc.?).

Thus, technology serves the pedagogy by simply following the template. An ideal teaching tool IMO. Click here and "make a copy" of the template for your own use. The template is also embedded below for ease of viewing. Enjoy!  

cross posted at www.cyclesoflearning.com

Ramsey Musallam teaches science and robotics at Sonoma Academy in Santa Rosa, California, with the aim of fostering inquiry-based learning environments fueled by student curiosity. He presents widely on sparking student curiosity and teaching with technology. Musallam is a Google Certified Teacher, a YouTube Star Teacher, and a Leading Edge Certified Teacher. Watch his TED talk here and read his blog at www.cyclesoflearning.com.

“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?”

― Charles Bukowski

You remember that person you were, right?  You finished up your educator preparation program and honed your belief statement as a teacher. You were bright eyed and ready to take on anything education was going to throw at you. You wanted to meet the needs of ALL students - those who struggle, those who soar…  Your hope was to affect change for ALL students learning in your classroom. 

So, are you doing what you set out to do? How do you know? Are you getting better at it? How can you measure that?  Being an effective educator in the 21st century is complex, and challenging, and requires constant self-evaluation. Luckily, there are many ways technology can help teachers see themselves and their practice more clearly. 

Pick Up The Phone

The most powerful reflection tool at your disposal is the phone in your hand. Using your cell phone as a “mirror” helps you to see things you might miss when you are in the moment. Prop your phone up on the chalk tray, or on a tripod and start recording. Here are some ideas you might try: 

• Record yourself during the presentation of a lesson. 
• Record students while you are presenting to gauge engagement 
• Record from the BACK of the room for a different perspective.
• Capture audio and/or video during small-group work you facilitate
• Capture audio and/or video during independent small group work
• Use Time-Lapse to collect footage over longer periods of time

What data are you looking for? The options are endless! Percentage of Teacher vs. Student talk; number of movement breaks; how many students come and go from the room; percentage of on-task behavior; your tone of voice; your rate of speech; how varied your questions are; who you call on and how? What’s your average wait time?  How much are you on stage as opposed to guiding from the side? Have fun with it - this data is for YOU!

Survey Says!

Tech-powered survey tools are easy for you to design and for others to answer. I used to send home surveys to families using SurveyMonkey, but Google Forms and other tools can do a great job as well. Asking consistent questions over time allowed me to see trends, growth, and opportunities for more growth. I wanted to know what families thought about our classroom culture, our unique homework policy, my communication skills, their child’s comfort level, the level of rigor, and the quality of feedback I gave on student performance. Some questions were very difficult for me to ask because I had less confidence in my skills, but I needed to know the answers. The results from these surveys changed the culture of teaching and learning in our classroom for the better. I halted some practices and expanded others. The bonus was the fact families loved being asked!

A Report Card for Me!

There are so many ways to gain a clearer view of what we’re doing as teachers (and leaders). A favorite of mine was a “Report Card for my Teacher.” Students would anonymously “grade” me (either digitally or on paper). The only requirement was having to fill out ALL of the comment boxes, as I told them that’s where the learning opportunities were. I did this several times a year while I was a teacher, and the results (especially over time) were always worth reading.

Why? Because, thankfully my students were honest! I received low scores on giving students grades they “earned” so I worked harder on rubrics and expectations and models and feedback. The one I took to heart the most was whether I knew what was going on in the room. Teaching (and leading) takes SUPERHUMAN vigilance. We need bigger ears and more eyes. But, students were sharing how sometimes I missed things during unstructured times. I could not have students think the adult in the room was unaware of everything going on, so I worked hard to change that. I am proud (and EXHAUSTED) to say my scores improved significantly over time, but that improvement only came with the stark realization of just how aware we have to be. And I thought I already knew that. I did not. 

Write About It!

Some of my most reflective experiences happened while I authored our classroom blog. I never had a “typical” classroom newsletter containing updates about lunch menus, homework and field trips. I tried to dive deeper and reflect on what was happening in our classroom and how that was changing all of us. I believe writing reflectively made our classroom more transparent as well. Consider these options to share reflections online:

Blogging/Website platforms - Any one of them will give you a chance to share your voice and ideas along with your insight. Whether a Google Site, WordPress, Wix or Weebly, you can’t go wrong. Start small and your posts will grow.

Podcasting - Once again, there are many tools you can use to share recordings online. My latest favorite is the Lookwide app -- a micro-broadcasting tool where you can easily and frequently share short audio clips straight from your phone.

YouTube/Video - Sit down in front of your camera and create a reflective video (or a series of them!) on a topic you are seeking to improve. Share with co-workers, families, friends, or your PLN and ask viewers to share insight and add their own experience to the conversation.

Trust in your PLC

Your professional learning community can be a HUGE resource when you are seeking feedback and clarity in your reflections. Reach out and connect with those around you to ask for support and advice. I even consider my mom part of my PLN. She volunteered in my classroom for 10 years and saw things I could not. She was EXCELLENT at giving feedback. Whether you are emailing, texting, Snapping, Tweeting, Podcasting, Facebooking, Instagramming or Starbucking, you are networking socially to broaden your perspective. The only wrong way to do it is not to do it at all.

Who Holds Your Mirror?

Who holds your mirror? Your students? Their families? Your co-workers? Your administrators? Do you see what you want to see, or do you see what they see? Where in the blur between do you assure your better intentions are being actualized? 

Over the years, my students have changed. They are the teachers in my district. They are my workshop attendees. They are all of you. Am I honestly reflecting on who I am with them? Am I meeting all of their needs?  The feedback I solicit and read after workshops, presentations, trainings and articles matters significantly. I take notes for future courses and try my best to see all comments as an opportunity to grow. I record my presentations and watch them back, looking for areas of improvement... Did I describe things clearly... Was I aware of what was going on in the room?

I want to see my efforts reflected in those surveys; in those recordings. And if they are not, then I must bravely consider what those mirrors show me. As professionals who came into this field with our eyes bright and hopes high, I know we can be fearlessly reflective and bravely strengthen our skills towards better and better practices together.

 After 10 years as an elementary teacher, Suzy Brooks is the Director of Instructional Technology for Mashpee Public Schools in Massachusetts. Additionally, she provides professional development and hands-on workshops for educators at local, regional and national venues. Her work in blended learning, student engagement, and social media has been featured by EdWeek, NBC News’ Education Nation, Instructor Magazine, Intel, ISTE, ASCD, and the NEA. Currently, Suzy is a visiting lecturer at Fitchburg State University, a MassCUE Pathfinder and the Massachusetts ASCD President. Suzy holds a B.S. from Bridgewater State University and a M.Ed. in Instructional Technology from Lesley University. 

Recently I stumbled upon a series of videos called "5 Levels of Difficulty". In each video an expert explains a difficult concept in 5 levels of increasing complexity: 

Check out a few examples of these videos below:  

I was inspired by this video series for a few reasons. First, it reminded me how explaining a difficult concept to a novice and expert audience simultaneously requires deep conceptual knowledge and how listening to such an explanation helps to build simultaneous conceptual and mechanical knowledge of a concept. Second, it motivated me to reimagine how I assess my students. 

[Link External Page to a Specific Google Doc Section]

Keeping the above in mind, for our unit on Cellular Respiration in my freshman Biology course, rather than assign a traditional topic exam, I decide to create a variation of the 5 Levels of of Difficulty videos shown above that will serve as the assessment for this topic. In short, students will  create similar videos explaining Cellular Respiration at 3 rather than 5 levels of difficulty.

I am hopeful that this assignment will force student reflection on the conceptual end of Cellular Respiration during levels 1 and 2, and mechanical knowledge/application of content during level 3, as well as applications of the content during level 3. 

I have embedded a document  that explains the intricacies of the assignment. Click here to view the spreadsheet where student "3 Levels of Difficulty" scripts and videos will be collected.   

cross posted at www.cyclesoflearning.com

Ramsey Musallam teaches science and robotics at Sonoma Academy in Santa Rosa, California, with the aim of fostering inquiry-based learning environments fueled by student curiosity. He presents widely on sparking student curiosity and teaching with technology. Musallam is a Google Certified Teacher, a YouTube Star Teacher, and a Leading Edge Certified Teacher. Watch his TED talk here and read his blog at www.cyclesoflearning.com.

The Reading League, a Central New York nonprofit organization that trains educators on evidence-based practices to improve reading instruction, has received a grant of $4 million to expand its programs nationally. Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation has awarded the three-year grant, along with a $5 million pledge for an endowment fund.

The Reading League will use the grant to expand its mission of increasing the awareness, understanding, and use of evidence-based reading instruction to improve literacy rates in the United States.

[Classroom Tips for Teaching Vocabulary with Keyword Searches]

For more information, visit The Reading League’s website at www.thereadingleague.org.

Gale, a Cengage company, has aligned its PD eBook collections on GVRL with The Danielson Framework for Teaching.

With Gale’s PD collections on GVRL, educators access thousands of digital titles that support the Danielson Framework for Teaching from top PD publishers like: ASCD, Corwin Press, Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc., Solution Tree, Stenhouse Publishers and Times 10 Publications.

[DIY Professional Learning]

With Gale’s new PD plus framework alignments educators can:

• Access personalized resources aligned with teacher evaluations: get titles that are digitally aligned to teacher evaluation and assessment guides like the Danielson Framework for Teaching.
• Browse aligned titles by the Danielson domain or dimension: breakdown by domain and dimension helps teachers and administrators zero in on the right content for professional development and self-assessment.
• Access content from top PD publishers: gain unlimited and simultaneous access to content from PD publishers like ASCD, Corwin Press, Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc., Solution Tree, Stenhouse Publishers and Times 10 Publications.
• Customize collections: use GVRL’s customization portal to further align titles within collection(s) to additional domains and dimensions to meet collective goals, or when choosing to bring in titles from additional Gale collections that are not aligned.
• Collaborate: use G Suite for Education and Microsoft Office 365 tools to save, share and download content, including highlights and notes.

To learn more about Gale’s PD alignment with Danielson Framework for Teaching, visit the PD plus framework alignments webpage.

I spent part of last Monday working with the awesome staff of the Eisenhower Foundation at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Library and Museum. They hosted 18 teachers from around the state during a week long focus on using primary sources across the curriculum.

Part of our time together was spent talking about non-traditional primary and secondary sources. The teachers were all used to using texts such as diaries, speeches, and photographs. So it was fun sharing about stuff like artifacts and audio clips. But it was even more fun playing with virtual reality tours.

I’ve shared about virtual reality before. And if you’ve been around History Tech much, you already know that I’m convinced about the power of VR tours as part of learning.

There were some interesting conversations around primary vs. secondary sources and what really makes a virtual reality tour a primary source. And, of course, we talked about possible teaching strategies and activities for using VR as part of teaching and learning. The best question that came out of the discussion was:

Is it possible for teachers or students to create our own tours like those in Google Expeditions?

Don’t ya love that? I mean, consuming VR is great. But creating VR? Even better. When kids move past consumption to creation and innovation, good things are happening.

The problem for many teachers and students has been the creation tools available for VR have been clunky, expensive, or unworkable in the classroom. But things are getting better.

A newer tool called Poly / Tour Creator now gives you and your kids the ability to create Google Expedition like tours without a lot of fuss. Plus it’s free. And because it’s also a Google tool, it works great with your inexpensive Google Cardboard VR viewers.

What’s not to like?

You can get an idea of what a Tour Creator tour looks like by checking out these examples:

• Browse through this eight scene tour titled Pioneer Life on the Prairie. Be sure to explore the hot spots embedded throughout the different scenes.
• This is a quick three scene Tour of a lookout in the Kansas Flint Hills.

Is this type of tour hard to create? I made the Flint Hills tour in less than 15 minutes using Google StreetView images. So . . . not so much. You and your kids can knock this out without a lot of trouble. This is the whole idea – having kids move up Bloom’s and across SAMR to the creation / synthesizing stage.

Here’s the cool thing. The created tour works on multiple platforms. If you viewed the two samples listed above on a laptop or Chromebook, you get the basic virtual reality view. You’re able to pan around, up or down, and click on any of the hot spots. But . . . if you view any of these tours using a smart phone, you have the option to enter the 3D version of the tour by clicking the Cardboard icon in the top right hand corner.

You’ll get the two stereoscopic screens. Insert your phone into your Cardboard and . . . boom. Instant 3D VR tour.

To highlight any of the hot spots or images embedded in your tour, simply aim the dot in the center of the screen at the hot spot and click the Cardboard’s trigger.

Explore the Tour Creator Gallery and check out the different tours available. (Be sure to click the ever present Google hamburger / three line menu in the top left corner to browse through different categories.)

Ready to make one of your own?

Go back to the home page and click the blue Sign In button the top right hand corner. Enter your Google account information. Then click the purple Create a Tour button in the middle of your screen. (You will need to do this on a laptop or desktop.)

This takes you to the Tour Creator page. You should see a button to create a New Tour and Templates. Click New Tour.

Give your tour a title. Type in a brief description of your tour. Drop in a cover photo. Select a category. Click Create.

The screen will change slightly with an Add Scene button popping up in the lower left corner. Click that.

[Google Adds New Classroom Features. Use Them Responsibly.]

By default, you’re taken to a Google StreetView map. You also have the option to upload a 360 degree photo – we’ll get to that. For now, type in a place in the search box. You should see the yellow StreetView man on the map. Drag and drop him wherever you want. When the yellow guy is where you want your view to be, click the Add Scene in the bottom right.

I used Gettysburg.

Edit your scene by naming it, editing the location if needed, and adding a brief description. This is what your users will see when they view your tour. Now for the cool part. You can insert hot spots, narration, and background audio.

To insert a hot spot, click Add Point of Interest. Drag and drop the white circle that appears anywhere on your photo. Type in a title and a description for your hot spot. To insert more hot spots, continue to click the Add Point of Interest button. You can also create image hot spots. Click the image icon below the description. Insert your image into the box that appears. Want to add audio narration? Click the speaking icon. Insert your audio file.

How sweet is that?

You can also drag and reorder your Points of Interest. This becomes the order that they appear to your users. Continue adding and editing scenes until your tour is complete. Click the blue Publish button in any scene to finish your scene and make it available for viewing. Choose Public or Unlisted. (Unlisted means your tour will not appear in search engines or the tour gallery. You can still share the tour’s link or embed the tour on your own site.)

After publishing your site, it will appear in your Tour Creator account along with the rest of your tours. Hover over your tour to view or edit your tour. Viewing your tour gives you the ability to Share or get an Embed code.

View the Civil War Battlefield tour we just made:

Easy peasy.

So you should already be thinking about the possibilities here. You can use Tour Creator to generate resources for your students. Flipped classroom materials. Study guides. Hook activities. How about creating a tour that asks your kids to figure out location based on contextual clues? Maybe your scene descriptions provide hints to the location. Have kids “race” to discover the location first.

Maybe all you do is create another piece of data that supplements other primary and secondary sources. We know how powerful 3D VR can be for engaging students with your content.

And the cool thing is that you can use your tours with on all sorts of devices. Google Cardboards with phones would be my choice but the tours are still powerful on laptops, iPads, and Chromebooks.

But I think Tour Creator is perfect for having kids develop their own tours. Rather than you creating a tour of Civi War battlefields, your kids should be doing that. Require story boards for every scene. Ask them to generate citations for their sources. What photos will they use? Why those photos? What hot spots and descriptions will go with each scene? Have them create and collect audio and narration for different scenes.

And . . .once they have their research complete and storyboards worked out, use their Google accounts to create their own Tours. Share them on your web site, highlight them via social media, and score them using an adapted digital storytelling rubric.

Ready to go deeper?

Download a 360 camera app such as FOV. Ask students to use the app to capture their own 360 degree photos. (There are other options out there.) Upload those to Tour Creator instead of using Google StreetViews.

We all love VR tools like Google Expeditions. But using Tour Creator gives you and your students the ability to go beyond simply consuming content to creating it.

cross posted at glennwiebe.org

Glenn Wiebe is an education and technology consultant with 15 years' experience teaching history and social studies. He is a curriculum consultant for ESSDACK, an educational service center in Hutchinson, Kansas, blogs frequently at History Tech and maintains Social Studies Central, a repository of resources targeted at K-12 educators. Visit
glennwiebe.org to learn more about his speaking and presentation on education technology, innovative instruction and social studies.

“We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.”

Elbert Hubbard

As a second year teacher, I remember being very excited about leading my students to participate in a project-based learning activity. With great enthusiasm, I ran down the hall to see a teacher, much my senior, that I greatly respected and I wanted to share with him how excited I was. I was a bit taken aback and confused how negatively it was received. I soon realized that sometimes the things that we do with our students when they are a little out of the box can be perceived negatively by our colleagues. I realized that while enthusiasm can be infectious it is not by default, attractive to others.

As innovators and early adopters of emerging technology we often find ourselves in the situation to help our colleagues. How do we best help them to understand the value of new technology and how it might benefit their students lives (rather than how might it help my fit into their classroom). How do we ask colleagues to adopt technology and help them to adapt the technology without putting our hands on their keyboard or their mouse and doing it for them. It’s important to adopt the sage wisdom of the old proverb: “If you fish for a man he will eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish he’ll eat for the rest of his life.” This mantra in education particularly in adopting emerging technology is incredibly important. It is important that we help our colleagues to understand the value of the technology and how the technology can be used. This is best achieved through vicarious experience, guide-on-the-side coaching, and the right frame of thinking. We cannot approach supporting our colleagues with a mindset that says “Ugh. They are doing it wrong!” perhaps followed by “AGAIN!” We must do our best to understand the context in which our colleagues operate, what motivates them to teach, and how we might serve them best.

While we may be leading the adoption of innovation, we must take on the role of a guide, explaining to our colleagues where we are going, why we are going there, and what we hope to see when we arrive. It is easy for us to think “Save time, see things my way!” But this will not foster an innovative school culture. At times an innovator will have difficulty persuading those they know, after all an innovator is not without honor except within his home.

Innovation is an amplifier, it will amplify the good and bad of our teaching practice. Subconsciously, most of us recognize this amplification, which contributes to our fear over technology adoption. As champions we must learn to put ourselves in the shoes of a late adopter or laggard, then try to help them along. Empathetic understanding and leveraging real, meaningful relationships can not only promote adoption of innovation but can inspire for positive change.

The constant for all teachers is students and their learning needs. All teachers hope that they can make a difference is what can contribute to their decision to continue teaching.1 One researcher quoted a beginning teacher, as saying, “I’ll need a sense of success, not unqualified constant success, because I know that’s completely unrealistic. But, overall, you know, on average, that I’m making a difference for kids and that they’re learning from me.”1 The teacher’s desire to feel successful with his students was echoed by many of the teachers who chose to stay in the profession with their school community.1 A very healthy faculty room conversation would be about why we became teachers to begin with. I regularly encourage anyone in education to think about this as a reminder of who they are and how that informs the expectations they hold on themselves to prepare students for a different future.

ARCS Model

There are certain key stages which are important to helping others to adopt emergent technology and innovativeness in general. These concepts can be conceptualized in the ARCS Model: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction.2 Think if these as a process, starting with getting their attention and moving toward their satisfaction that they can do it.

Attention

When we relate the relevance of using emergent technology in the classroom we must describe how adoption is advantageous. Emergent technology can increase workflow efficiency for both teachers and students. For example, a paperless classroom takes time and energy to begin, but a teacher who makes over 100 copies a day might find themselves saving a significant amount of time if you consider the time it takes to stand by the copier over a year. Time savings and workflow efficiency are super important for educators but they need to see what you mean as well. Seeing others perform new, or threatening, activities without adverse consequences can generate expectations in observers that they too will improve if they intensify and persist in their efforts. Finally, in this first step, take into account your delivery style and method, newbies can easily conjure up fear-provoking thoughts about their ineptitude and can rouse themselves to elevated levels of anxiety that far exceed the fear experienced during the actual threatening situation. Take it easy, go slow.

Relevance

The adoption anything new must first be framed by something old, something familiar, and then advantages should be explained. For people to try new things and begin to adopt innovation, they general frame their understanding around how it relates to their previous practice and that they feel a need/problem. For example, VCRs allowed us to record, play, fast-forward and rewind, but the tape was not usable after many showings and sometimes the tape ripped. DVDs allowed us to also record, play, fast-forward and rewind but the digital quality remained constant… unless you scratched your DVDs. YouTube videos can be recorded (added to a playlist), played, fast-forwarded, rewound, they do not lose their quality and we can upload or own. Thus the advantage of using YouTube is framed around our past adoption. When we take the time to persuade our colleagues about adoption we are providing them with context-based application effective action which makes them more likely to mobilize greater effort than those who are not persuaded, but told.

Confidence

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” — Michelangelo

Emergent technology can be pretty complex, to be told that things are going to change every 6 to 18 months3 can be overwhelming to those who have yet to embrace innovativeness. We need to help people to aim high by creating a safe environment to try new things. When we work with colleagues they must feel comfortable to fail in front of you and learn with you (guide-on-the-side). We know that failure is the greatest teacher, but we are so afraid of it! Through a productive struggle, we can help our colleagues to personal mastery experiences with something new. Leveling the difficulty of the task will allow for early successes which yield increased attempts at more difficult tasks later on and eventually leading to a decision to adopt.

Satisfaction

What does it mean to be successful at adoption? What does it mean to do something right or correctly? A teacher’s efficacy belief is a judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning.4 Research has shown that a teacher’s efficacy is related to how teachers’ decisions are made, how goals are shaped, how planning and organization are implemented, and how teachers react in the classroom and relate to students.4 In addition, teachers with high self-efficacy embrace new ideas and methods for teaching.4 In developing a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward an innovation, an individual may mentally apply the new idea to his or her present or anticipated future situation before deciding whether or not to try it.5 The strength of people’s convictions in their own effectiveness is likely to affect whether they will even try to cope with given situations.6 Satisfaction resides in the willingness of the teachers being studied to adopt the technology and apply it to their professional settings.

SAMR Model

One of the most powerful ways to have a discussion with colleagues regarding technology adoption and pedagogical-shift strategies is the SAMR Model.

[Game-Based Learning Yields Empathetic Understanding]

We start by Substituting our existing strategies for one that are supported by emergent technology, we then Augment the strategy when we find that technology can improve (rather than replace) the strategy, next we use technology to Modify the strategy, and finally we Redefine the entire strategy when we find technology may offer us a better way of doing things. Simply put, the SAMR Model helps each of us to rethink individual lessons, units, and instructional practice. For example, we can take a paper worksheet-packet, make it digital, then use tools to annotate on it, then redesign the activity with a slide deck or video, and finally we create a brand new activity, different from where we started. For the teacher and student workflow SAMR might look like these examples 8:

Professional Development: Designing, Developing, and Implementing

Professional Development offerings can be the catalyst of positive change. We have spent a great deal of time in this book discussing adopters and who we are in the story. Understanding ourselves and our colleagues can yield context-based, empathetically considerate, professional development opportunities.

A combination of the SAMR Model and the ARCS Model are excellent for developing professional development offerings. When planning a training session there are a few things from the ARCS model to consider…

1. Attention: arouse interest and curiosity
   1. Described:
      1. Stimulate perceptions (surprise, uncertainty, novelty, juxtapositions).
      2. Engage inquiry (puzzles, questions, problems, dilemmas).
      3. Create variety (different kinds of examples, models, exercises, and presentation modalities).
   2. Examples:
      1. incongruity, conflict
      2. games, roleplay
      3. hands-on/minds-on methods
      4. questions, problems, brainstorming
      5. videos, mini-discussion groups, lectures, visual stimuli, storytelling
   3. Reflection: How does an instructional leader’s enthusiasm change attention?
2. Described:
   1. Stimulate perceptions (surprise, uncertainty, novelty, juxtapositions).
   2. Engage inquiry (puzzles, questions, problems, dilemmas).
   3. Create variety (different kinds of examples, models, exercises, and presentation modalities).
3. Stimulate perceptions (surprise, uncertainty, novelty, juxtapositions).
4. Engage inquiry (puzzles, questions, problems, dilemmas).
5. Create variety (different kinds of examples, models, exercises, and presentation modalities).
6. Examples:
   1. incongruity, conflict
   2. games, roleplay
   3. hands-on/minds-on methods
   4. questions, problems, brainstorming
   5. videos, mini-discussion groups, lectures, visual stimuli, storytelling
7. incongruity, conflict
8. games, roleplay
9. hands-on/minds-on methods
10. questions, problems, brainstorming
11. videos, mini-discussion groups, lectures, visual stimuli, storytelling
12. Reflection: How does an instructional leader’s enthusiasm change attention?
13. Relevance: relate to experience and needs
    1. Described:
       1. Allow audience to select or define goals, give examples of goals, discuss value of goals.
       2. Adapt to what the audience wants to cover or how to cover it
       3. Use familiar communication modalities, relate goals to something familiar such as prior knowledge or experiences
    2. Examples:
       1. paraphrase content, use metaphors, give examples
       2. ask audience to give examples from their own experiences
       3. give audience choice in how to organize what they learn, explain how the new learning will use students’ existing skills,
       4. explain or show “What will the subject matter do for me today?…tomorrow?”
    3. Reflection: Reflection: How do teaching models, field trips, portfolios, and student choice change relevance?
14. Described:
    1. Allow audience to select or define goals, give examples of goals, discuss value of goals.
    2. Adapt to what the audience wants to cover or how to cover it
    3. Use familiar communication modalities, relate goals to something familiar such as prior knowledge or experiences
15. Allow audience to select or define goals, give examples of goals, discuss value of goals.
16. Adapt to what the audience wants to cover or how to cover it
17. Use familiar communication modalities, relate goals to something familiar such as prior knowledge or experiences
18. Examples:
    1. paraphrase content, use metaphors, give examples
    2. ask audience to give examples from their own experiences
    3. give audience choice in how to organize what they learn, explain how the new learning will use students’ existing skills,
    4. explain or show “What will the subject matter do for me today?…tomorrow?”
19. paraphrase content, use metaphors, give examples
20. ask audience to give examples from their own experiences
21. give audience choice in how to organize what they learn, explain how the new learning will use students’ existing skills,
22. explain or show “What will the subject matter do for me today?…tomorrow?”
23. Reflection: Reflection: How do teaching models, field trips, portfolios, and student choice change relevance?
24. Confidence: scaffold success of meaningful tasks
    1. Described:
       1. Set clear goals, standards, requirements, & evaluative criteria.
       2. Give challenging & meaningful opportunities for successful achievement within available time, resources, & effort
       3. Encourage personal control, show or explain how effort determines success (personal responsibility = achievement).
    2. Examples:
       1. allow audience to choose goals
       2. allow small steps for achievement
       3. give feedback & support
       4. provide learners with some degree of control over their learning & assessment
       5. show that success is a direct result of personal effort
       6. give confirmatory-corrective-informative-analytical feedback rather than social praise
    3. Reflection: Reflection: How do clear organization and easy to use materials change expectations for success?
25. Described:
    1. Set clear goals, standards, requirements, & evaluative criteria.
    2. Give challenging & meaningful opportunities for successful achievement within available time, resources, & effort
    3. Encourage personal control, show or explain how effort determines success (personal responsibility = achievement).
26. Set clear goals, standards, requirements, & evaluative criteria.
27. Give challenging & meaningful opportunities for successful achievement within available time, resources, & effort
28. Encourage personal control, show or explain how effort determines success (personal responsibility = achievement).
29. Examples:
    1. allow audience to choose goals
    2. allow small steps for achievement
    3. give feedback & support
    4. provide learners with some degree of control over their learning & assessment
    5. show that success is a direct result of personal effort
    6. give confirmatory-corrective-informative-analytical feedback rather than social praise
30. allow audience to choose goals
31. allow small steps for achievement
32. give feedback & support
33. provide learners with some degree of control over their learning & assessment
34. show that success is a direct result of personal effort
35. give confirmatory-corrective-informative-analytical feedback rather than social praise
36. Reflection: Reflection: How do clear organization and easy to use materials change expectations for success?
37. Satisfaction: build a sense of reward and achievement
    1. Described:
       1. Support learning applied in real-world or simulated context with consequences
       2. Provide feedback after practice to confirm, analyze, or correct performance
       3. Apply consistent consequences for meeting standard consistent evaluation criteria
    2. Examples:
       1. avoid over-rewarding easy tasks,
       2. give more informative feedback rather than praise or entertainment value
       3. use practical examples related to audience interests award certificates for mastery of skills
       4. provide testimonials from previous audience about value of the learning
       5. give evaluative feedback using equitable criteria
    3. Reflection: Reflection: Why does social praise not work as well as informative feedback in creating satisfaction? How do rubrics change satisfaction?
38. Described:
    1. Support learning applied in real-world or simulated context with consequences
    2. Provide feedback after practice to confirm, analyze, or correct performance
    3. Apply consistent consequences for meeting standard consistent evaluation criteria
39. Support learning applied in real-world or simulated context with consequences
40. Provide feedback after practice to confirm, analyze, or correct performance
41. Apply consistent consequences for meeting standard consistent evaluation criteria
42. Examples:
    1. avoid over-rewarding easy tasks,
    2. give more informative feedback rather than praise or entertainment value
    3. use practical examples related to audience interests award certificates for mastery of skills
    4. provide testimonials from previous audience about value of the learning
    5. give evaluative feedback using equitable criteria
43. avoid over-rewarding easy tasks,
44. give more informative feedback rather than praise or entertainment value
45. use practical examples related to audience interests award certificates for mastery of skills
46. provide testimonials from previous audience about value of the learning
47. give evaluative feedback using equitable criteria
48. Reflection: Reflection: Why does social praise not work as well as informative feedback in creating satisfaction? How do rubrics change satisfaction?

In an effort to understand why teachers continue to teach in a challenging career I once conducted a survey of 75 Middle School teachers asking them to identify why they stayed in their profession.13I was looking for attributes about success and I had tributes that they identified that set them apart. But what I found was many of them valued relationships with their colleagues more than most other outside factors. These findings are parallel with teachers who were identified in a federal study on teacher mobility as “movers” or “leavers” described teaching in isolation as one factor that contributed to their dissatisfaction. Movers left the schools where they worked in isolation for schools where colleagues interacted and shared ideas for teaching. Those teachers, titled “settled stayers”, described their supportive colleagues as a reason for their decision to stay at their school.1 Studies on the impact of colleague support on the retention of teachers have found those beginning teachers provided a common planning time with colleagues and a scheduled time to interact with colleagues on instructional issues had a 42% less likelihood of leaving as opposed to staying and a 25% less likelihood of moving as opposed to staying.9 Through my experiences working with schools, I found that directors of technology and key decision-makers seeking to roll out emerging technology, find a great deal of success when they have themselves positive relationships with their colleagues and with their employees. Our social-connectiveness is very important.

But let’s focus on boots and the ground, let’s focus on working side-by-side as a coach, as a guide, as a trainer, and more importantly, as a friend to our colleagues who have a little bit of difficulty adopting new technologies. Professional Development in education has the responsibility of promoting teacher growth in a valid and practical manner. A community of teacher-learners can effectively promote this growth beyond what simple in-servicing (alone) can accomplish. Workshop and other in-service events are magnified by collaborative, shared-experiences. As teaching professionals we need to learn, share, and collaborate with their peers, we need to feel successful and believe in our ability to succeed.

Our work as champions of innovation must be informed by the best practices examples provided through peer coaching and mentorship programs which can be high effective, when they provide collaborative atmospheres. Like championing a cause, mentoring is a professional role that requires professional renewal, enhanced self-esteem, more reflective practice, and leadership skills. The knowledge and skills that experienced teachers acquire as part of mentor training and practice is continual professional growth.10 When mentoring is viewed as a peer coaching requiring teachers to plan, demonstrate, and practice new instructional practices in a collaborative manner, schools may find less fragmentation, less teacher isolation.11 As we discussed previously, if you are alone in your professional journey, you are doing it wrong. Mentoring programs for teachers should serve to offer deliberate psychological and professional development conditions necessary for the development of teacher knowledge, skills, and dispositions, thus increasing teacher retention through effective, efficient mentoring. Champions, mentors, and peer coaches must develop their understanding of building helping relationships, effective teaching practices, effective coaching practices, and how to work with adults.12

As we think beyond working with one colleague at a time, we must begin to think about developing our culture. The best practices found in effective professional learning communities (PLCs) can help us significantly. PLCs can be defined at multiple levels (local, state, national, and international) in multiple contexts (team of teachers, building staff, school district of teachers, group of common content teachers, etc…) yet the focus of every PLC must be to explore three major questions: What do we want each student to learn? How will we know when each student has learned it? How will we respond when a student experiences difficulty in learning?14

There are five major attributes of PLCs:

1. Supportive and Shared Learning – the collegial and facilitative participation of the principal, who shares leadership (and power/authority) through inviting staff input in decision making.
2. Collective Learning – application of collective learning to address student needs.
3. Shared Values and Vision – a shared vision that is developed from the teachers’ commitment to student learning.
4. Supportive Conditions – time scheduled for teachers to come together to learn, make decisions, problem solve, and create work exemplified by collaboration.
5. Shared Personal Experience – a peers helping peers process, based on a desire for individual and community improvement founded in mutual respect and trustworthiness of the teachers involved.

These five major attributes are reflective of Bandura’s (1977)6 performance accomplishment, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion and emotional arousal. Clearly the research shows repetitive themes in community building and job satisfaction for teaching professionals.

The teaching can be a lonely profession complete with isolation and the close-my-door-and-teach mentality. Yet, the wealth of knowledge and experience that can be accessed through well structured professional development and collaboration opportunities. This takes effort on the part of the teachers, administrators, and institutions of learning, but the effort will yield positive results. The Reciprocal Nature of Inspiration: Inspiring Others Will Inspire You.

Image Credit: Chris Stein, a superstar Teacher, and illustrator Extraordinaire!

Source Notes (in order of use)

1. Johnson, S.M. & Birkeland, S.E. (2003). Pursuing a “sense of success”: New teachers explain their career decisions, American Educational Research Journal 40 (3) (2003), pp. 581–617.
2. Keller, J. (1987) Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction are developed in John Keller’s ARCS model of motivational design.
3. “Moore’s Law – Investopedia.” https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mooreslaw.asp. Accessed 18 Apr. 2018.
4. Tschannen-Moran, M. & Hoy, A.W. (2001) Teacher efficacy: Capturing an elusive construct, Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001), pp. 783–805.
5. Rogers, Everett M. Diffusion of Innovations. 5th ed. New York: Free, 2003. Print.
6. Bandura, A. (1977). Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change. Psychological Review 84 (2), 191-215.
7. Puentedura, R. The SAMR Model http://hippasus.com/resources/sweden2010/SAMR_TPCK_IntroToAdvancedPractice.pdf
8. Based on: Schrock, K (2013) “SAMR – Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything.” 9 Nov. 2013, http://www.schrockguide.net/samr.html. Accessed 20 Apr. 2018.
9. Smith, T.M. & Ingersoll, R.M. (2004). What are the effects of induction and mentoring on beginning teacher turnover?, American Education Research Journal 41 (3) (2004), pp. 681–714.
10. Hanson, S (2010). What Mentors Learn About Teaching. Educational Leadership, 67 (8) 2010, 76-80
11. Reiman, A.J. & DeAngelis Peace, S. (2002) Promoting Teachers’ Moral Reasoning and Collaborative Inquiry Performance: a developmental role-taking and guided inquiry study. Journal of Moral Education, 31(1), 51-66.
12. Dotger, B. & Reiman, A. 2006-01-26 “Measuring Fidelity and Concerns in the Process of Implementing an Innovation” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education Online. 2009- 05-25 fromhttp://www.allacademic.com/meta/p36187_index.html
13. Shippee, M. & Dotger, B. (2010) Perceptions of Success for Teachers: The Role of Mentor Programs. (unpublished).
14. DuFour, R. (2004) What is a “Professional Learning Community”? Schools as Learning Communities. Educational Leadership 61(8)
15. Hord, S. M. (1997) Professional Learning Communities: What Are They and Why Are They Important. Issues… about change. 6 (1). Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) Austin, Texas

cross posted at micahshippee.com

Micah Shippee, PhD is an out-of-the-box-doer, a social studies teacher, and a technology trainer. He works to bridge the gap between research and practice in the educational sector. Micah explores ways to improve motivation in the classroom and seeks to leverage emergent technology to achieve educational goals. As an innovative "ideas" person, Micah likes to think, and act, outside the box. Micah is motivated and energetic, taking a creative approach towards achieving goals. As an Educational Consultant, and Keynote Speaker, he focuses on the adoption of emergent technology through the development of an innovative learning culture. Micah believe that innovativeness is the pedagogy of the future.

Wisdom Amouzou shared his approach to developing a community high school with education leaders across the country at the Tech & Learning Leadership Summit in Denver, CO.

His approach consists of these four phases:

1) Participatory Research

2) Mission, Vision, Values

3) School Model

The Community Design Team consists of 23 students, 8 parents, 6 community members, and 10 educators who came together twice a month for dinner meetings where every member had an equal voice in providing input into the school’s model and design.

The Community Design Team created the below schedule consisting of five components:

Here is what each component consists of:

Fun
Examples:

• Performing Arts
• Sports
• Chess
• Travel abroad

Here is what a student schedule might look like:

Here are the three truths that make up why this approach is necessary:

Empower High School will open in fall 2019. You can learn more at EmpowerHighSchool.org.

[Freebie & Ideas For Parent-Teacher Conference Success]

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several books and her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

All the MCU fans out there know that this phrase was first used in the 1962 Amazing Fantasy #15 issue and then later by Uncle Ben in the 2002 Spiderman movie.

But history nerds know that different versions of the phrase have been around for much longer. Winston Churchill. Teddy Roosevelt. And this guy – Henry W. Haynes from the public library of Boston in 1879:

The possession of great powers and capacity for good implies equally great responsibilities in their employment. Where so much has been given much is required.

So.

Yes. Google has added some new features to Classroom. And yes. There may be a need for them. But . . . we need to use these new features responsibly. Yes. These features will make life easier for teachers. But here’s the problem.

Like any edtech tool or feature, these new Classroom additions can be abused, focusing not on historical thinking skills but low level learning. Focusing on teacher centered, standardized learning rather than student centered, authentic learning.

Especially the one feature that has most caught the attention of teachers.

Locked quizzes.

Soon you’ll be able to keep your students focused by creating locked quizzes using Google Forms while in Classroom. Meaning once started in the Form, kids will not be able to leave the tab or open other windows. (Right now, this new lock mode only applies to “managed” Chromebooks that your school has full control over.)

Yeah, I get it. It’s fairly easy for kids to “cheat” while asking them to complete online Google Forms and other types of digital assessments. Kids open another tab or browser. Do a quick Google search. Find the answer. Check the box. Copy and paste. Ace the quiz. And tick you off in the process.

[7 Free Edtech Things. Cause Free Edtech Things are Always a Good Thing]

So Google finding a way to lock down a Google Form quiz delivered in a Google Classroom course seems super handy. And it is.

But think about it for just a minute or two.

What kinds of questions are most used in a Google Form assessment? Yup. Multiple choice. True or false. Fill in the blank. Basic low level kinds of questions.

So if all we’re doing with the new and improved locked quiz feature is to make it easier for us to create and assess a low level test of multiple choice questions, well then . . . what’s the point? If all we’re doing is creating learning and assessment opportunities that are not high level and authentic, then maybe we’re all in the wrong business.

Marco Torres once asked a room full of social studies teachers to describe their curriculum and instruction. After hearing long lists of dates and places and people and events, he came back with another question:

If I can Google everything you just said, what value are you adding to the learning that takes place in your classroom?

At the 2013 ISTE conference, Will Richardson asked a similar question:

If we’re asking questions kids can answer on their phones, why are we asking the questions?

So . . . take full advantage of the new locked Google Forms option that’s rolling out thus summer. But be careful how you use it. What can that look like?

Easy answer?

Yes. Use it to measure basic understanding of content knowledge. It’s up to you to decide whether to actually record that data as a grade. My suggestion? Don’t. Use it for formative assessments, not summative. Low level questions mean low level impact on actual grades. So use the Form as a way to help kids see gaps in their knowledge base not as a way to add data points to your grade book.

Harder answer?

Think about SAMR and historical thinking opportunities. I’m guessing you know about SAMR – using edtech tools as Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. I love Sylvia Duckworth‘s version:

Using a locked Google Form to measure foundational content knowledge is simply substituting an online Form for a paper and pencil MC test. Move along the SAMR continuum – use the Google Form to modify and redefine how kids use and share information. Make it more interactive. More authentic. More student driven.

So try some of these ideas:

• Primary Sources evaluation / Argumentative writing
  Create a Form with primary sources embedded. Ask kids to use their historical thinking skills to evaluate the sources and create an argument using evidence found in the sources. Your documents can be typical kinds of things such as diaries and speeches. But don’t be afraid to have kids look at
• Media Based Questions
  I love the idea of embedding multimedia such as photos and videos into a Google Form. Not sure what MBQ is? This older post can help.
• Writing prompts
  Create less complicated prompts in your Form. It could be an exit card. A response to a class conversation or. It could even be a response based on small group discussions.
• Text-Based Interactive Fiction / Non-Fiction
  Using Google Forms, you and your kids can create simple versions of interactive fiction / non-fiction without any coding skills at all. Check out a quick Gettysburg example and one on the Oregon Trail. Then head over to a tutorial for creating your own.
• Explorable Explanations
  Bret Victor calls Explorable Explanations an umbrella project for ideas that enable and encourage truly active reading. His goal is to change people’s relationship with text. People currently think of text as information to be consumed. Bret wants text to be used as an environment to think in.

You’re getting the point. Don’t let the ease of use with a locked Google Form move you away from doing what’s best for kids. Great power = great responsibility.

And if you’re curious, there are a few other new additions to Google Classroom. These are a lot harder to screw up:

• Create and reuse assignments and questions in one location. Organize the assignments and questions by grouping them into modules and units. Teachers can plan their curriculum for the semester by reordering work to match their class sequence.
• Google introduced a new collapsed view of classwork items so teachers and students can see more content on a page. This will help the Stream become the conversational hub of Classroom between students and teachers.
• View all teachers, students, and guardians on the new People page. Teachers can view, add, and remove students, co-teachers, and guardians in one handy place.
• Control general Classroom settings in one place. Teachers can edit the class description, change the course code, manage Guardian summaries, and set the class location. They can also control how students post and comment on the Stream page.

cross posted at glennwiebe.org

Glenn Wiebe is an education and technology consultant with 15 years' experience teaching history and social studies. He is a curriculum consultant for ESSDACK, an educational service center in Hutchinson, Kansas, blogs frequently at History Tech and maintains Social Studies Central, a repository of resources targeted at K-12 educators. Visit
glennwiebe.org to learn more about his speaking and presentation on education technology, innovative instruction and social studies.

“Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” – Billy Graham

Think: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or Star Wars, every good quest-adventure story has a team of contributors, each with a special skill set that contributes to the team’s successes. They fumble about lampooning the human experience on their way to epic saga-like success. We are often engaged by both their plight and how we can relate to them. A key character in these stories is the hero, or champion.

If you are reading this blog post it is likely that you are the champion, my friend, and that you will keep on fighting until the end, since there’s no time for losers, cause you are the champion of the world…. but I digress.

Champions

Many champions feel more like an imposter than an expert or leader. Perhaps it is this feeling that drives champions to keep learning and growing toward mastery. The mastery for the future is not in a tool or workflow solution, it is found in innovativeness, in the champion’s ability to change.

A champion is someone that is instrumental in successfully guiding projects through the approval hurdles: displaying persistence, expressing strong conviction in the innovation, and involving key individuals.1 In our quest for innovativeness we can embrace this role for ourselves and/or find allies within these ranks. The adoption of an innovation by an organization is more likely if key individuals (champions) are willing to support the innovation.2

This willingness is extremely important. We can very easily take the role of bystander in our school community. The bystander effect3 is a scary aspect of the human experience that we must all work against. It explains to us that we may look at a problem as “not ours” or that “someone else will take care of it.” This is a paralyzing condition that actively works against positive change in our schools. Champions are just the people who believe in positive change.

Champions are the organizational mavericks, they exist within a system but are given autonomy to explore alternative, creative solutions. They can be transformational leaders, who harnesses support from other members of the organization.2 The impact of a champion on both the adoption and sustainability of an innovation is undeniable. Selecting individuals who display these particular champion behaviors can increase the probability that adoption of innovation occurs.1 A champion in the organizational adoption process is someone who possess the certain attributes and skills. Champions are credible experts and planners that can network well with colleagues since they are perceived as sensitive to colleagues needs by demonstrating an objective approach to finding meaningful solutions. An innovation champion must be tenacious, assertive, decisive and should instill passion and positive thinking in the innovation process.4

[Game-Based Learning Yields Empathetic Understanding]

Adopters

You can take a personality test, a learning style inventory, or even a which-character-are-you quiz, but I would argue the power of meaningful self-perception. Perhaps a better title for this chapter would be “Who do you think you are?” It is extremely important that we recognize our strengths and weaknesses in our professional practice, such recognition can lead to real, positive growth. While you may take up the role of champion as a general way of perceiving your fit within your school system, we may find ourselves identifying with one adopter category or another when discussing emergent technology. We call these categories: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards.5 Adopter categories can be illustrated on a bell curve on the basis of innovativeness.

Innovators: “Lets do this!”

Innovators are interested in new ideas from outside of established local social system. Able to understand and apply complex technical knowledge. Innovators must be able to cope with a high degree of uncertainty about an innovation at the time of adoption. Innovators are risk takers, they learn from failure like a gamer.

Early Adopters: “Describe the value in it and how to do it and I am all in!”

Early Adopters are invested and respected in the local school community. They are cautious and want their efforts informed by research if not best practices. Early Adopters are not known for risk taking, but have a reputation for well-thought out execution of emergent technology. Change agents seek this group out a local voice missionary for speeding the adoption of innovation. 

Early Majority: “Show me my colleagues using it and I will try it too.”

The Early Majority adopt just before the average person making them an important link in seeing the adoption process successfully take off. The Early Majority wants to employ best practices based on the experiences of Innovators and Early Adopters. They will make the necessary changes but do not want to go first.

Late Majority: “I am a team player, I will support this but I probably will not be the best at it.”

The Late Majority adopts just after the Early Majority. They adopt sometimes due to economic pressure, peer pressure, or both. The Late Majority must see the innovation as already being successful before they adopt. You might call the Late Majority our “team players” since they are willing to join the other adopters once they realize it is for the greater good. The Late Majority may not be super excited about technology of any particular kind but they make the change for the benefit of their school community. 

Laggards: “I am not convinced this will benefit my classroom. I have done fine without it.”

Laggards are near isolates in the school community. Their point of reference is past practice and past perceived successes. Laggards must be positively certain that a new idea will not fail before they can adopt. They are concerned about being blamed if the innovation fails to yield expected results.

A review of these adoption categories is relevant for several reasons, it will help us predict how our colleagues may feel about adopting emergent technology, and this review will help us understand how to find Early Adopters who often have respected Champions in their ranks. Further, these adoption categories help us to better understand the sphere of influence each adopter has. For example, an Innovator can inspire Early Adopters and potentially some Early Majority, but would be hard pressed to motivate a Laggard. Why? Innovators can be seen as people doing some pretty far out there stuff, beyond the skill set of later adopters. Innovators, by definition are risk takers, they accept failure in a ways that make some people uncomfortable. This is why Early Adopters often serve as more effective Champions, they make up a larger percentage of people and have a reputation for a more measured approach to adoption.

Derek Siver’s Ted Talk “The First Follower: Leadership Lessons from a Dancing Guy”6 illustrates the importance of Early Adopters in the Adoption process (If you have not seen this three-minute video, please check it out). Siver’s explains that a Leader (Innovator) has the guts to stand out and be ridiculed, but that does not start a movement. The First Follower (Early Adopter) who joins the Leader validates the movement (Adoption) and makes it appear less risky for others to follow. These Late Adopters model their behaviors of after the First Follower, not the Leader. The movement gains momentum and then we see a real shift in cultural adoption. In this account, we must understand that the Leader treats the First Follower as an equal, as a co-leader.

Additional key roles include opinion leaders who have informal influence and change agents who positively influence innovation decisions. Change agents work to develop a need for change on the part of the client, establish an information-exchange relationship, diagnose the client problem, develop an action plan, implement, and shift the client from reliance on the change agent to self-reliance.5,7

Decision Making

If you are a decision maker for a school or organization there are multiple types you might consider which affect the adoption of innovation process. These types might even be considered steps toward adopting innovation: (1) Optional innovation-decisions, (2) Collective innovation-decisions, and (3) Authority innovation-decisions.

Optional innovation-decisions: The choice to adopt or reject an innovation is made by an individual independent of the decisions by other members of a system. The individual’s decision can be influenced by the norms of the system and by communication through interpersonal networks.5 An example of this may be a teacher from a school choosing to go paperless at their school while their colleagues continue to teach with paper.

Collective innovation-decisions: The choice to adopt or reject an innovation is made by consensus among the members of a system.5 An example of this may be like the above-mentioned person, except at a department level choosing to go paperless.

Authority innovation-decision: The choices to adopt or reject an innovation is made by a relatively few individuals in a system who possess power, high social status, or technical expertise.5 An example of this may be where upper-level leadership has decided their school community will go paperless so they will no longer purchase printers, ink or service photocopiers.

As a leader, if you were to allow your Innovators and Early Adopter, the flexibility to make optional innovation-decisions. Their successes may naturally lead the Early and Late Majority joining them in a collective innovation-decision. Finally, it may take the authoritative approach to move the Laggards forward in the desired adoption.

If perhaps you were to approach this same list of categories with topics like Virtual and Augmented Reality, the Maker Movement, Coding, and/or Robotics… you may find yourself in a different adopter category. The Maker Movement’s Innovator may also be the Robotic’s Laggard, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all learn and grow at different speeds and in different ways. Identifying the value of emergent technology within the context of our classroom needs and content is the first step toward becoming a change-agent in our professional communities. The level of perceived relevance in our classroom will likely inform our adoption category and approach with any innovation. Once a specific innovation becomes a seamless part of our classroom we have reached the pinnacle of innovative adoption.

Image Credit: Chris Stein, a superstar Teacher, and illustrator Extraordinaire!

cross posted at micahshippee.com

Micah Shippee, PhD is an out-of-the-box-doer, a social studies teacher, and a technology trainer. He works to bridge the gap between research and practice in the educational sector. Micah explores ways to improve motivation in the classroom and seeks to leverage emergent technology to achieve educational goals. As an innovative "ideas" person, Micah likes to think, and act, outside the box. Micah is motivated and energetic, taking a creative approach towards achieving goals. As an Educational Consultant, and Keynote Speaker, he focuses on the adoption of emergent technology through the development of an innovative learning culture. Micah believe that innovativeness is the pedagogy of the future.

Source Notes

1. Howell, J., Shea, C., & Higgins, C. (2005). Champions of product innovations: Defining, developing, and validating a measure of champion behavior. Journal of Business Venturing, 20(5), 641-661. Retrieved from: http://www.sciencedirect.com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/science/article/pii/S088390260400075 8#
2. Greenhalgh, T., Robert, G., Macfarlane, F., Bate, P., & Kyriakidou, O. (2004). Diffusion Of Innovations In Service Organizations: Systematic Review And Recommendations. The Milbank Quarterly, 82(4), 581-629. Retrieved from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0887-378X.2004.00325.x/full
3. Darley, J. M. & Latané, B. (1968). “Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 8: 377–383. doi:10.1037/h0025589. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9c2f/63826605843d83fd08f56fbf75790cf74614.pdf. Accessed 17 Apr. 2018.
4. Daily, Alisia (2014). “Social Innovation and Innovation Champions: An Analysis of Public and Private Processes.” Diss. Virginia Commonwealth U, 2014. Abstract. VCU Scholars Compass, n.d. Web. <https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=4460&context=etd>.
5. Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). New York: Free Press.
6. Sivers, D. “Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy | Derek Sivers.” https://sivers.org/dancingguy. Accessed 17 Apr. 2018.
7. Clarke, R. (1999, Sept). Roger Clarke’s innovation diffusion theory. Retrieved from http://www.rogerclarke.com/SOS/InnDiff.html

The journey of the educator is much like a quest. We strive to successfully gather the necessary skills and knowledge loading our brains and backpacks (teacher toolkit) with what we think will best benefit our students. But like any journey our supplies and frame of thinking need to be constantly refreshed, a state of constant change (innovativeness). Our supplies might be a new instructional strategy or program, but often the newest thing is perceived as a form of technology.

What is it about technology that compels us to believe it is a necessary component for a well-rounded education? We inventory how much of it we have, how many times it is used, and ask ourselves if we need more of it? Maybe we should stop and ask ourselves exactly what is it that we are talking about.

Perhaps you are feeling a little overwhelmed about trying to keep up with the latest technology and the newest thing for your classroom or school? Did you know that the pencil, the original 1:1 device, took nearly 100 years to be widely adopted in education?

It seemed that with each new decade, the 20th century brought some new thing for the classroom.

But the critical eye would notice that much of these tools would remain, overlapped in purpose, for a long time. Much of our instructional practices today have been informed by these tools, rather than good pedagogy informing how to use these tools. We must allow technology to amplify good instructional practice, rather than tell us what good practice is. Overtime cost of new technology have been reduced leading to an increase in accessibility, but accessibility does not equate to need.

To accept that incorporating emergent technology into our students’ educational experience is indeed a major step for successfully preparing for our future. But beyond that, the struggle comes between deployment and employment of new technology. To deploy is to distribute, but to employ infers activity in which one engages.

We use the word technology in the most simple sense to mean a tool used by mankind to achieve certain goals. Yet, the modern dictionary focuses on a different aspect of the word, pointing out that technology transcends a physical object and infers application, capability, and methods of accomplishing a task, in short, new technology might be thought of as a better workflow.

Educational institutions at every level struggle with the effective and efficient uses of new devices, new strategies, new workflows. Schools easily assess the quantity of instructional hardware but often express concern that the devices are just not being used. We must move past the 20th-century bravado which pointed to the quantity of computers we possessed and grow to foster learning communities where technology is simply the workflow we use to produce powerful learning experiences and the platform we employ to provide our learners with voice. Yes, we still boast about quantity, we have just changed our language and now say “we are a 1:1 school.”

Our concerns about how, when, and why instructional technologies are being used are merely symptoms of a greater problem, we need to foster a culture that embraces innovativeness. The word innovation refers to something new or to a change made to an existing invention (product, idea, or field), like the invention of the telephone led to the innovation of the smartphone. Can we begin to think about schools as inventions in need of innovation? We must frame our thinking around our school culture, as a collective understanding about where we are and where we need to be.

A school culture that embraces innovativeness is a group of people who chose to frame their thinking around change. Recognizing the need to dynamically approach innovation, in the form of tools and interventions, and realizing they will never arrive at a place where they can rest on the laurels of past successes. The idea of innovativeness is both exciting and scary: cutting-edge applications of emergent technology, embracing failure as a necessary component of the learning process, trying new things and falling in love with the process… but this mindset becomes an expectation, the way we now operate is, no cruise control, no this-is-the-way-we-have-always-done-it, we now are always changing.

[Game-Based Learning Yields Empathetic Understanding]

So why choose this path? Why choose a state of constant change… the way of innovativeness? The path has been chosen for us. In the case of emergent technology, we cannot assume a static approach to teaching and learning is productive, we must consider technology to be dynamically changing, and thus triggers consequent changes in how we function. It is difficult to confront, but we know that our high-tech smartphones and tablets are the lowest form of technology our students will ever know. Simply integrating new technology will not change our practice, adopting a positive approach to innovation will lead to a paradigm shift. Innovativeness is the pedagogy for the future.

Image Credit: Chris Stein, a superstar Teacher, and illustrator Extraordinaire!

cross posted at micahshippee.com

Micah Shippee, PhD is an out-of-the-box-doer, a social studies teacher, and a technology trainer. He works to bridge the gap between research and practice in the educational sector. Micah explores ways to improve motivation in the classroom and seeks to leverage emergent technology to achieve educational goals. As an innovative "ideas" person, Micah likes to think, and act, outside the box. Micah is motivated and energetic, taking a creative approach towards achieving goals. As an Educational Consultant, and Keynote Speaker, he focuses on the adoption of emergent technology through the development of an innovative learning culture. Micah believe that innovativeness is the pedagogy of the future.

In past years I always had students create either a blog or a website to publicly share their work and curate their progress. Click here for an example.

While I believe deeply in students archiving their work in a public space, after reading Show Your Work, an outstanding book by Austin Kleon, I began to put an incredible amount of pressure on myself to empower students to create beautiful space to showcase their work.

In short, I lost track of the pedagogy, in replace for aesthetics. It's not Austin's fault. It's mine. Please read his book, it's hecka inspiring.

I reflected on the lack of improved student metacognition despite my enhanced portfolio systems, and student comments such as "Do we have to do another portfolio post. I never look at it...".

I began to ask myself: What really actually works? (in my classroom, with MY students).

I remembered another comment from one student specifically: "Can we just put everything we did in this topic in a Google Slide presentation. It's SO much easier to include pictures and videos...".

[3 Ways to Simplify, Streamline, and Empower Your Lesson Design]

No way! Kleon calls us to share our work in a space we are proud of. Nobody is going to look at your Google Slides! Your work needs be in a beautiful website to be taken seriously!

Again, aesthetics before pedagogy. Not a good choice.

This year, I am putting down my tired attempts at doing what I think is the most "innovative" approach, and following my gut regarding what I feel and my students feel is the most impactful!

I am taking my students advice.

I created a Google Slide template for each unit, including spaces for students to link all of their major work (Labs, Case Studies, etc.) and a template for built in student reflection.

Click here to access the Google Slide portfolio template, and click here to access our class website which will house "view only" version os the portfolios.

Yes, not as beautiful as Weebly, SquareSpace, WIX, or even the NEW Google Sites. Ironically however, in just two days of class, I am already noticing a shift in student focus on the project at hand, and not where or how they report it.

cross posted at www.cyclesoflearning.com

Ramsey Musallam teaches science and robotics at Sonoma Academy in Santa Rosa, California, with the aim of fostering inquiry-based learning environments fueled by student curiosity. He presents widely on sparking student curiosity and teaching with technology. Musallam is a Google Certified Teacher, a YouTube Star Teacher, and a Leading Edge Certified Teacher. Watch his TED talk here and read his blog at www.cyclesoflearning.com.

Today, Nearpod and New Teacher Center announce a new partnership that will provide teachers research-based professional learning opportunities. This new approach aims to provide live, connected learning experiences to teachers through a digital platform.

Workshops are organized into series, including: Creating Equitable Learning Environments, Fundamentals of Play and Foundations of Social Emotional Learning.

[Back-to-School Tips: Setting a Positive Tone From Day One]

New Teacher Center, a national nonprofit focused on improving student learning by accelerating the effectiveness of teachers and school leaders, has partnered with states, school districts, and policymakers for over 20 years to design and implement programs for mentoring and professional development. Nearpod’s PD compliments this evidence-based programming by providing teachers with access to professional growth opportunities.

In 2014 I wrote what would be my most popular blog post ever. Little did I know what impact (both positive and negative) this post would have in the educational world. Part of the popularity of the post was due to the Sean Junkins created infographic that accompanied the post. For the most part, people tended to look at the infographic and pass judgement on whether or not these were things that teachers “should” do in the classroom without reading the blog at all. All that to say – Congratulations! If you are reading this post it means that you have taken the time to click on a link before just looking at the infographic.

Seeing that the world and education has changed (especially in the areas of technology, privacy, etc), I thought it might be a good time to rewrite the post before the start of the 2018 school year. Before I do that, a few disclaimers:

1. I know that this is an ambitious list. We need ambition to move the needle in public education.
2. While I love my friends in other countries, I’m not as familiar with their laws, so for the purpose of this post, put on your U.S. hat.
3. Yes, technology costs money. Money that we are sorely lacking in public education. That said, I’ve tried to differentiate some items on this list require little to no money, just a growth mindset.
4. The purpose of this list is not to shame teachers into trying EVERYTHING on the list. My hope is that it will generate one or two ideas for a teacher to try this year.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to my 2018 version of “21 Things That Every Educator Should Try in the 21st Century”. A handful of these are carry overs from the 2014, but the majority are not. Many of the updates come from trends I’ve seen not only in education but also in the workplace like these Top 10 Skills Needed for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (from the World Economic Forum). Oh, and of course, check out the accompanying infographic as well…just be sure to read the full post before passing judgement.

[The Marriage Between IT & Curriculum]

1. Post a question of the week on your class blog

One of the best ways to engage student (and family) interaction with your classroom is to have a class blog. While these are becoming more common, I like the trend of having a weekly student “guest author” write up the ideas and learning objectives discussed in class. This is also a good place to discuss appropriate commenting behavior on blogs and websites.

2. Have a class twitter or Instagram account to post about the day’s learning

Just like a blog only smaller. One of my Ed Techs (Ashley Pampe) actually created a “Social Media” team on her elementary campus. She vets and reviews all their images and blog entries before posting, but it’s an effective way for students to learn appropriate posting behaviors before they dive into the middle school world of social media. Ask parents to follow the account so they can also get a little insight into the happenings of the school day.

3. Create an infographic to help review and understand information

Infographics have become a part of everyday society. People are looking for information quickly and visually. Creating an infographic to review content is a powerful way to help those students that are visual learners. Taking this one step further – have students create an infographic as a way to convey their information on a subject. There are many free online tools out there to help with this but my favorite is Keynote (now with built in icons – it’s what I used to make the infographic for this post)

4. Debate a topic virtually and face to face

Lately the internet and social media have become a stomping ground for people to share their opinions, often in ways that they wouldn’t in a face to face conversation. We need to have students understand this medium as well as how to have an educated argument in person. Creating an environment where cordial discourse is encouraged and modeled, will help our youth as they enter what appears to be an increasingly tumultuous online future.

5. Go paperless for a week

Let me define paperless here as “no worksheets”. I do thinking taking notes in a journal or Sketch-noting are valuable for learning, but for this I’m thinking more of the daily minutia. The idea behind this challenge is see if you can figure out ways to make things more digital. Maybe instead of a newsletter you print and send home, you write a blog or send a MailChimp? Or instead of asking kids to write and peer-edit each other’s papers, you ask them to share a Google doc? If your students don’t have devices, then challenge yourself to try this personally for a month…it’s much harder than you think.

6. Have a “No Tech Day” to reflect on our use of technology

Technology and devices have become engrained in much of what we do on a daily basis. The notifications, alerts, constant connection can do some harm if not properly balanced. For this challenge, have a day without technology. Then, have your students reflect on the experience the following day. What areas did they find a struggle? What did they notice about their daily routine?

7. Bring Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the Classroom

Many teachers already do this with the use of Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. These “digital assistants” are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to A.I. and are becoming more prevalent in the homes around our country. Some questions to ask your students might include – What impact will these devices have when it comes to future learning? How might hey help us in the future?

8. Fly a Drone (and discuss it’s impact on society)

Not all of us have access to drones, so flying one in your classroom or outside on the school grounds may not be feasible (or legal in some cases). However, there are several examples out there now showing us how drones can help usand how they can hurt us. One thing is for certain, these are not going away anytime soon. With that said, a question for students is, what impact do drones have on our privacy rights and what legislation exists out there today around drones?

9. Facetime with an expert

With so many resources and experts available, it only makes sense to bring in someone from “the real world”. This not only creates interest in the topic, it adds an air of authenticity. Use Google Hangouts, Facetime, Zoom or Skype to reach out to a content expert to share their thoughts around a particular subject or topic. If you can, record it and post it to your class site or embed it on your blog to generate discussion at home.

10. Produce a class Audio podcast

Have students create a podcast highlighting classroom activities, projects or students. To get it to the web quickly, post it to Soundcloud or use a tool like SoundTrap. For the more advanced user, use a podcasting site like Podbean.com and actually get the podcast posted to iTunes. That way mom and dad can listen to the weekly recap while going on their evening walk or driving to work.

11. Take a Virtual Field Trip

Want to check out Machu Picchu? Maybe visit Mars? Why not take your class on a virtual field trip? The increase in ways to see virtual worlds via tools like Google cardboard and Nearpod VR, have helped bring this access to schools without the high-end cost usually associated with VR.

12. Create a classroom full of student entrepreneurs

What better ways to encourage teamwork, collaboration and global thinking that to introduce students to entrepreneurism to solve real-world problems? This past year, one of our middle schools did just that by wiping away the bell schedule and spending time with student teams identifying issues with the school and proposals for how to fix them. Expanding this to local, state or national level help introduce students to the design thinking and project-based learning to solve actual issues.

13. Design and deliver a presentation

This may seem like something every teacher can already do, so I’ll say that this challenge is more about working with students on the art and science of an effective presenting. Being able to communicate a point or idea effectively is becoming more and more of a lost art. The “3-legged” stool approach to balancing a presentation (content, slide design, delivery) can be an invaluable skill for all students going forward in life. While I prefer the use of Keynote, there are many effect tools out there that students can access to create and present from. One word of advice…take it easy on the bullet points.

14. Identify fake news and internet bots

With the current political climate and the increasing use of bots to sway public opinion, we need to help students identify what is real and what is not online. This goes far beyond “fake news”. It can be something as simple as understanding the angle of a post based on its title to identifying real people versus robots on twitter. The good news (or bad news) is that there seems to be an example of this happening every day in real time.

15. Establish a space for student voice

Student voice (and choice…coming up later) is something that classrooms of the 20th century really struggled with. A teacher may ask for feedback or an answer to a classroom, calling on those with the courage to raise their hands. What if some truly incredible ideas were out there but students were too shy to share? Using tools like FlipGrid (free for educators now), you can ask for each student to give feedback to a question or even submit an online poetry slam around a scientific fact.

16. Practice mindfulness in your classroom

There is a lot of hype around mindfulness in schools, some of which is true some of which is not (see #14). While the impact of mindfulness on test scores may still be open to debate, there is value taking a pause and reflecting on the now. Technology can hinder some of that, but short of banning all tech (see #6), we need discover life balance in this new “instant-on” world. Give your students 1-2 minutes to stop, breathe, reflect, and simply “be present” every day. You may find it helps their learning as well as behavior on those dreaded rainy days or test-taking days.

17. Utilize robotics to tell a story

The fourth industrial revolution will definitely feature more and more robots in our world. Use of robotics in the classroom is currently relegated to specialized elective classes or maybe a Friday afternoon of free time in a maker space (see #19). The common misconception around these tools are that they are too pricey and one-dimensional for regular classroom use. By using low-cost robotic technology systems like Trashbots, schools can now have a wide array of materials for building robots and better yet, using them in a variety of subjects other than math and science. Why not program your robot to re-enact a moment in history? Or maybe have it tell a story?

18. Augment reality in an old textbook

As witness by the Walmart raiding of Merge Cubes, Augmented Reality (AR) is becoming a new way to engage learners. However, buying a bunch of these may not be possible for every teacher. Luckily, on the back shelves of classrooms and libraries exist rows and rows of old textbooks, some of which are still in regular use. By using an augmented reality tool like HP Reveal (formerly Aurasma), you can breathe fresh life into those old textbook pages. Take a graph and make it interactive or hover over an image to reveal a more in-depth video on the subject. While AR may seem like “flashy” technology, coupling its use with existing materials can be a cost-effective way to increase engagement and deeper learning.

19. Build a maker-space for hands-on learning

A maker space is not a new thing. It used to be called “shop class” when I was in school. However, unlike its 20th century relative, maker spaces today can be built into the classroom environment. They allow room for exploration, design, and iteration. And here’s the best part for schools struggling with funding – they can be almost free and require little to no technology. A trip to the local hardware store can yield some donated materials as a trip up to the attic to dig out those old childhood legos. Much like practicing mindfulness (#16), having hands-on learning activities can increase retention and help encourage creativity.

20. Become an activist for a worthy cause.

If the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge can teach us anything, it’s that sometimes a little creativity is all you need to awareness to a cause. Whether it’s helping a country in need or finding a cure for a disease, our new connected society can be a powerful thing when galvanized for good. Participating in a global project (see #12) gives students perspective on their own lives while helping others with their life challenges.

21. Let your students drive the learning

While you could do all of these challenges by yourself, the real power comes in letting students own a piece of it. They have the curiosity and the digital acumen, it’s the teacher’s job to give them instructional focus and empowerment. We live in wonderfully connected times. Despite all of technology’s perceived misgivings and the apocalyptic fears that we are losing ourselves as a society, why not use some of this power for good?

Just know that as a teacher in the 21st century you ultimately hold the key to unleash this creative beast. So try something on the list this year that may force you a bit out of your comfort zone because there is no better way to learn than trying.

Just be sure to share your successes and struggles when you are finished as learning in isolation helps no one.

cross posted at http://hookedoninnovation.com

Carl Hooker has been a part of a strong educational shift with technology integration since becoming an educator. As Director of Innovation & Digital Learning at Eanes ISD, he has helped spearhead the LEAP program, which put one-to-one iPads in the hands of all K-12 students in his 8000-student district. He is also the founder of “iPadpalooza”- a three-day “learning festival” held in Austin annually. He's also the author of the six-book series titled Mobile Learning Mindset, a guide for teachers, administrators, parents and others to support and embrace mobile learning in our schools. Read more at Hooked on Innovation.

I believe in trying things out… investigating… testing… researching… practice what I preach… modeling…

So, when George Couros announced, he was trying out an #instagrambookstudy of his book The Innovator’s Mindset, I had to step up to participate.

I have never participated in a book study on Instagram, but I am curious to find out:

• how does my reading change?
• how do the contribution of others via the #innovatorsmindset‘s hashtags or comments influence, complement, extend, amplify, change me reading of the book ( disclaimer: this will be my second round of reading the book)
• can I try to amplify my skills and fluency of reflection and metacognition via visuals and videos?
• how does curating via Instagram contribute to learning, perspective, community reading?
• experiment with Instagram’s new TVchannel
• how can I envision using an Instagram book study to support the now literacies?
• how about new forms? new forms of reading, reflecting, connecting, communicating, learning, documenting?

Innovator’s Mindset Introduction #innovatorsmindsetintro

Writing an introduction forced me to refine my elevator pitch who am I as an educator, author, blogger, coach and consultant. For now, I am happy with:

My passion is to bridge the gap of being considered literate in the 20th century to suddenly finding ourselves illiterate in the 21st century and learning how to learn all over to teach and educate children who will live to see the 22nd century! We have to practice what we preach and try new forms of learning to become literate in online spaces and continue to gain fluency.

Uploading to my Instagram TV channel for the first time

Chapter 1 #innovatorsmindsetch1

This quote connects to the notion of the evolution of what we consider “being literate”. What skills to we need to be able to read and write and express and communicate our ideas effectively? It’s time to make choices in education. What do we keep? What do we throw out? What do we Upgrade? (as @heidihayesjacobs asks as frequently) #innovatorsmindset#innovatorsmindsetch1

Chapter 2 #innovatorsmindsetch2

“Learning to recognize and create new and better opportunities for our students is what matters” By @gcouros – It takes practice to know what to look for and RECOGNIZE new forms of opportunities that amplify learning. Being connected to others who are making their “ new and better” opportunities visible helps with the fluency of recognizing.

[Our Notion of Being Literate or Illiterate Calls for an Update]

Chapter 3 #innovatosmindsetch3

I am a firm believer that we need to experience new forms of learning for ourselves in order to ask our learners to learn in #newforms The same applies to administrators and their faculty … modeling transparently AND openly needs to become the norm as we are all pioneers in uncharted territory! #innovatorsmindset #langwitches #instagrambookstudy

“Administrators often encourage risks while refusing to take chances themselves. Taking risks is also different from “openly taking risks,” where your team can see that you are willing to out of your way to be an innovator as well.”

Chapter 4 #innovatosmindsetch4\

In #innivatorsmindsetch4 I was zoned into the concept of sharing. @gcouros talks about the difference between being a classroom teacher and a school teacher, who is willing and strategically sharing with colleagues their work… I want to add the global teacher to amplify the reach of colleagues and learners who we most likely will never meet… the mindset of a global teacher knows we only will advance and innovate in education when we step up and contribute and share our thoughts, ideas, and work on a larger scale to connect with others. #innovatorsmindest #instagrambookstudy#langwitches #documenting4learning

Chapter 5 #innovatorsmindsetch5

#innovatorsmindsetch5 As I am reading chapter 5 of the #innovatorsmindest , I am reading through the lens of #documenting4learning . When @gcouros says

“My own example of learning helped me connect with my own staff and ensure they saw that I had credibility as a learner myself.”

It reminds me how important open and transparent learning is in order to model for our teachers, colleagues and student learners. And yes(!) it does contribute to the credibility of ourselves as learners.

Chapter 6 #innovatorsmindsetch6

#innovatorsmindsetch6 -I think we need to be more outspoken, visible and transparent in constantly sharing HOW MUCH the world and culture affecting learning is constantly changing ( exponentially) around us. It does not seem to be enough to mention it every once in a while, everybody returns to their classroom and schools to slip back into their tried and true old ways. We need more evidence of learning in #newforms , we need artifacts that capture the change.

“Would schools become a place that is truly developing learners who are flexible and agile in a world that is constantly changing?”

This concludes week 1 of the Instagram Book Study. Check back next week for post 2 to document the study and for my reflection on learning.

cross posted at langwitches.org/blog

Silvia Tolisano is a Curriculum21 faculty member, author of the book Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and founder of the Around the World with 80 Schools project. Read more at langwitches.org/blog

If anyone has noticed, I have subtly changed the byline of this blog, for it once stated:

"Technology, Teaching, and Public School Advocate"

and now it simply states,

"Thoughts on Education, Literature, Politics, and Philosophy of Education."

Not that many even I feel I have to explain myself. Why the change? I lost my religion, or stated differently: I have increasingly began to feel as if "Technology" already has enough advocates and needs more critics.

While I am sure no one really pays attention to such things, I have increasingly felt that the "Ed Tech" evangelists have become less critical of technology, and in some ways have come to believe that it alone offers the "salvation of education" and our students. I myself could so be judged from my various blather on this blog as one of the "technology-faithful." Yet, time, experience, and thought has cost me my own uncritical faith in the power of the PC (or the Mac) to lead to educational paradise.

[False Promise of Social Media: Confessions of a Former SM Evangelist]

Neil Postman, that powerful critic of technology himself, perhaps had in mind the malady that inflicts the current "Ed Tech" world and education when described something called "Technopoly." He stated that "technopoly is a state of mind," and that it consists in the "deification of technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes it orders from technology." It also causes the "development of a new social order," leads to the "rapid dissolution of much associated with traditional beliefs," and sees technical progress as our "supreme achievement" as well as the means by which all our problems will be solved. To me, it would seem that Postman was actually describing the basic tenants of the current "Ed Tech" religion that in some appellations appears to be a "fundamentalist religion."

Don't get me wrong, I still embrace my iPhone and PC, for they allow me to do things that make life richer, easier, and efficient. I am no Luddite. But I have become a heretic of sorts when it comes to all this uncritical promotion of everything tech in education. The tenants of "ED Tech" fundamentalism should be questioned, and every time some educator, keynote speaker, tech salesman begins to sell their wares or promote their ideas, it is time lay aside our personal enthusiasm, or friendships, and our techno-enthusiasm and ask the heretical questions of whether what is said is really truth of dogma.

I no longer adhere to the doctrine that "deifies" technology as the answer to all our educational problems. I also no longer think that "disruption" and "innovation" with technology is always a good thing. Are we really trying to improve our students' education or are we simply trying to promote technology for its own sake. Perhaps we are also only using technology to promote ourselves instead of what is truly beneficial for our students. Do we really think more and better technology is going to finally educate all our students?

Dropping the "Technology advocate" part of my byline was important to me. Technology needs no advocate but our students do. There's enough commercial and tech industry salespersons and techno-fundamentalists out there advocating for the technology. What is sorely needed are us techno-heretics, who have a sober view of technology, and who are willing to question the tenants of Ed Tech fundamentalism.

Technology can either be tools that we use to enhance our lives and the education of our students, or they can become that which directs our lives. I choose the former.

Postman, N. (1993). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. Vintage: New York, NY.

cross posted at the21stcenturyprincipal.blogspot.com

J. Robinson has decades of experience as a K12 Principal, Teacher, and Technology Advocate. Read more at The 21st Century Principal.

If you're an innovative educator, the news about teacher effectiveness having little impact on student achievement is no surprise. The Gates Foundation spent a whooping $575 million buckaroos, when they could have just been listening to teachers who knew better.

The work that is necessary to support student learning is easy to understand and hard to implement. It begins with Maslow's seminal work on human motivation. Any good teacher knows his hierarchy by heart.

[The Key to Differentiated Learning - Develop Student Experts]

Gates mistake was moving directly to the top of the pyramid. The foundation neglected to acknowledge that we are teaching so many children whose basic needs are not being met. First, we must address that. It is unacceptable that in districts like the one I work there are staggering numbers of homeless children. In every city, but especially one of the wealthiest in the nation, it is unacceptable that having a home is not a right. There are large numbers of children that are being raised without a father. The men need to step up. There are also many children not being raised by their mother or father. Hundreds of thousands of children bounce from home to home to group home to residential treatment center in foster care. Of course, children who live with their parents may be suffering from abuse or simply the high level of anxiety school pressure puts on many students today.

Help comes in the way of providing the basics for our students: Stable homes. Safe and security. Food. Climate control (i.e. heat and air conditioning). Time for naps if necessary.

It means revamping teacher preparation and professional development to include: Supporting children living in trauma. Guidance counseling. Psychotherapy.

But it doesn't end there.

Even after we do all the work it takes to provide the basics for our children, many schools still don't have it right. What's next is belongingness and love. Devoid of that we will continue to see kids in gangs and victims being murdered.

There are several school models i.e. Agile, Big Picture, or Democratic Schools that know how to achieve this and the answer is simple!

Smaller student to teacher ratio. Period.

And, it's not just class size, but also class load. Research tells us that no teacher should ever have to teach more than five different classes. If they do, it is impossible for them to help students develop that relationship or belongingness.

Our students and colleagues should be our family. In Big Picture Schools they outline the keys to student success. Small size, intimate advisory system, and insistence on parent participation all lead to making the school feel like a family and several features extend these connections and family feel even after graduation.

Lisa Nielsen writes for and speaks to audiences across the globe about learning innovatively and is frequently covered by local and national media for her views on “Passion (not data) Driven Learning,” "Thinking Outside the Ban" to harness the power of technology for learning, and using the power of social media to provide a voice to educators and students. Ms. Nielsen has worked for more than a decade in various capacities to support learning in real and innovative ways that will prepare students for success. In addition to her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator, Ms. Nielsen’s writing is featured in places such as Huffington Post, Tech & Learning, ISTE Connects, ASCD Wholechild, MindShift, Leading & Learning, The Unplugged Mom, and is the author the book Teaching Generation Text.

Yesterday, baby Savvy and I interviewed Rafranz Davis (@RafranzDavis), a strong, passionate voice transforming education. Rafranz Davis has also agreed to let me share her story in a new book series, EdSheroes: Women Transforming Education with their Resilience. We asked her what inspired her to become a teacher and she shared this incredible story about tutoring others in math at church. You also have to listen to why she is so passionate about the K Pop group, BTS. It is truly inspiring. Check out her interview below! Catch all of Savvy’s interviews on this blog and on Twitter (@ShellTerrell and via the #PassthescopeEDU hashtag).

[Incredible Giveaways Whether You Are at #ISTE18 or #Notatiste18]

cross posted at teacherrebootcamp.com

Shelly Terrell is an education consultant, technology trainer, and author. Read more at teacherrebootcamp.com.

A couple of years ago I compiled a list of ed tech-related qualifications available to schools and other institutions in the UK. I've now updated the list, and it's available in the form of a spreadsheet for subscribers to my newsletter, Digital Education.

[Teachers? We Don't Need No Teachers!]

The spreadsheet is a macro-enabled Excel workbook, but works on other platforms and without macros allowed, it just loses a bit of functionality. But it's still very usable.

Read more.

Terry Freedman is an independent edtech consultant and freelance writer based in London, England. He publishes the ICT & Computing in Education website.

I have to say that I am becoming increasingly frustrated at the number of people who think that because young people seem to know about technology and how to use it or code it, then by default nobody needs to be taught anything about it.

For example, a few years ago at some awful coding promotion event, a 13 year-old girl who had taught herself programming stood up and said teachers should be learning about coding from pupils. The worst thing about this was not the naivety of the statement, but the fact that most of the adults in the room applauded. Presumably they were all autodidacts in everything who also went to school to teach their teachers.

[Do We Really Need More Innovation?]

Another example occurred recently. I attended an event about artificial intelligence given by a teenager who had taught himself all the coding required. On that basis the person in charge of the project lectured me on how teachers ought to be taking a step back and letting the kids get on with it, and also asking the kids what they think of their teaching and what they would like to be taught.

I find this sort of thing annoying for four reasons:

Read more.

Terry Freedman is an independent edtech consultant and freelance writer based in London, England. He publishes the ICT & Computing in Education website.

When you enter Dr. Lou Lahana's Tech Cafe at PS/MS 188, you aren't entering a classroom with a teacher preparing students for the future. Instead, you enter a space where social activists are working hard doing the real work of making the world a better place today addressing causes about which they are passionate. Lahana is a self-described passionate educator in search of technology to support talent development and social action in teens.Here is how he does that.

If students aren't sure about which cause they want to address, that's okay. Dr. Lahana has collected research and resources on numerous causes such as those below. The resources are always being updated by Lahana and the students.

Once the issue and tool are selected, students use them to select their own project and tools to make real-world change. But how does Lahana manage to conduct a class where students own and lead the learning? Where every student may be working on a different project, with a different tool?

The Key to Differentiation

Dr. Lahana's key to differentiation is the students. In Lahana's class it is students who rise up as the resident experts. Lahana's job is that of a conductor and environment creator. He points the students to the right resources and experts in coding, jewelry making, clamation, music and movie making and more. Then he ensures students have the environment conducive to learning. This means there is a sound studio to make music, a wood working area, sewing machines to create wearables, a place to bake clay for claymation, 3D printers and more.

[Keep Students On the Cutting Edge of Learning]

In short the students are empowered to own the learning and help one another to make the world a better place.Here are some of the projects students have addressed.

Gun Control

Students organized to march in support of those affected by the Parkland shooting and against the NRA. These 5th-8th grade students created compelling signs, marched, and listened to speeches. This movie which captured the event features a song performance by one of Lahana's students, Kayleen who used Soundtrap to create her song. Her track is available for free download at: soundcloud.com/techbrarian/sets/social-action-1

Building A Greenhouse

This student wanted to address animal cruelty in the food industry by creating a greenhouse that produces fruits and vegetables students at the school can eat rather than meat. He used a 3D printer to prototype the greenhouse. He used the woodworking tools to make planters for the greenhouse that currently stand in the school's schoolyard with plants.

Tolerance for Wearers of the Hijab

This student knew that other students didn't understand her and possibly misjudged her because she wore a hijab. She decided to make a movie inviting others to wear a hijab, explain how they felt, and she explained what it meant to her.

Deter Cigarette Use with a Smoke Detecting Shirt

This student wanted to address the dangers of smoking. He coded an Arduino to create a shirt that can detect smoke. When it does, it lights up with sayings to embarrass the smoker such as "stinky breath," "yellow teeth," or "lung cancer."

Your Turn

What do you think? Are there ideas here you could consider using with your students? Are you already doing this type of work? What excites you about it? What challenges do you see?

Lisa Nielsen writes for and speaks to audiences across the globe about learning innovatively and is frequently covered by local and national media for her views on “Passion (not data) Driven Learning,” "Thinking Outside the Ban" to harness the power of technology for learning, and using the power of social media to provide a voice to educators and students. Ms. Nielsen has worked for more than a decade in various capacities to support learning in real and innovative ways that will prepare students for success. In addition to her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator, Ms. Nielsen’s writing is featured in places such as Huffington Post, Tech & Learning, ISTE Connects, ASCD Wholechild, MindShift, Leading & Learning, The Unplugged Mom, and is the author the book Teaching Generation Text.

AltSchool today announced the addition of 12 more districts and schools to its partner network. AltSchool’s partner network connects hundreds of teachers representing every type of K-12 institution, from large urban districts to small private schools. AltSchool’s personalized learning platform helps teachers provide student-centered education using any curriculum.

AltSchool began developing the platform in its own school network in 2014, which are lab environments where pedagogy experts, classroom teachers, engineers, and designers co-create the tools.

New partners for the 2018-19 school-year include:

1. Paramount Unified School District’s Odyssey STEM Academy (Paramount, CA)

2. Palm Springs Unified School District (Palm Springs, CA)

3. Phase3 Lab School (Redlands, CA)

4. Revo Academy (Thousand Oaks, CA)

5. Sisu Academy (San Diego, CA)

6. The CUBE School (Denver, CO)

7. The W.I.D.E. School (Missouri City, TX)

8. Christina Seix Academy (Trenton, NJ)

9. Lamplighters Yeshivah (Brooklyn, NY)

10. Luria Academy (Brooklyn, NY)

11. The Mead School (Stamford, CT)

12. The Discovery School (Jacksonville Beach, FL)

Learn more about the program and how to partner with AltSchool to personalize learning at https://www.altschool.com/partner-schools.

Speaking in generalities and platitudes is easy. But living out the hard things in life is rare. Believe me, I’m guilty as the next person and am working on my own ignorance and faults.

An ever-growing passion of mine is to seek out people that I disagree with and yet can have productive conversations. Even if a conversation is not possible, at least reading/watching/listening to those ideas and beliefs can be fruitful. My premise is that the many of the people I see online would like to believe they are open-minded and yet are so easily offended that they rarely if ever seek opinions and ideas that would contradict their own. We know the echo chamber exists and it’s not always a bad thing, in fact, it’s important to surround yourself with those who support and encourage you. At the same time finding a few folks who will push you, challenge you and straight up disagree with you is the sign of a mature, healthy learner; the kind of learner that educators ought to ascribe to.

via GIPHY

As I said, I’m sceptical. Easy to talk about being open to new ideas, harder to seek them out. As I scan my feed, I’m always intrigued when thoughtful disagreement occurs. It’s a rare find. One of my favourite examples of this is a long-standing podcast called: A Christian and an Atheist. They’ve recorded over 100 podcasts over the past several years.

So who pushes your thinking? Sometimes it’s important to name names.

I asked this question recently and here are the results. As I suspected, I didn’t get many responses. While many thought this was a great question, I think when it comes down to it, it’s hard for many to come up with a list or even a name of those who challenge their thinking. I made it anonymous so no need to reveal your personal beliefs.

In the spirit of modelling and practising what I preach, I included one of mine on the list but thought I’d share a few other names as well.

Jordan Peterson I agree with his ideas about free speech. Not sure about his thoughts on privilege. He’s an odd mix of brashness and yet occasionally shows a humility about his own thinking.
Paul Bennet Raises many issues in education that plenty of people are thinking but philosophically I think we differ greatly. Good to hear his perspectives.
Sam Harris Super smart guy. His worldview is vastly different than mine but insightful nonetheless on a broad range of topics.

[Stop Worrying About the Achievement Gap]

I think it takes some very distinct characteristics to allow yourself to appreciate, acknowledge and learn from people you don’t always agree with. Things like:

Self Esteem: It’s important to feel somewhat confident in ourselves. Those who feel somewhat fragile are less likely to engage in ideas that challenge them. In addition, without a healthy dose of esteem, it’s too easy to let a challenging idea become personal.

Time and space: I’ve mentioned often how Twitter and even Facebook are typically horrible places for any kind of civil discourse. Online, in general, is a real challenge for nuanced discussion. Taking these discussions offline might be the best thing we can do. However, finding the dissenting ideas online is highly useful.

Seek understanding, not victory: This is a tough one. If we do have a strong belief, it’s so tempting to want to try and convince others. Holding back and working to listen and understand is very difficult. By not stating your best case, you aren’t conceding victory. It may be that some will interpret your silence or lack of debate as such, but swallow your pride a bit, in the long run, understanding will serve you better. I want to give a shout out to Tim Childers. Tim is about the best I’ve seen at trying to engage in meaningful political discussions on Facebook. Always respectful, always thoughtful, always seeking to learn.

Dismiss personal attacks: This is a difficult one particularly if you feel you’re being attacked personally. However, with time and space, work to parse out the argument to seek its validity. I recently had my students examine a few online discussions and highlight the comments that were of a personal and attacking nature and those that were actually legitimate arguments. I think that’s a skill we all need to develop.

Look for commonalities: In almost every heated conversation be it political, religious or educational, the focus is on the differences when in reality most times there is a fair bit if not a great deal of agreement. Certainly, the differences are what make for the discussion in the first place but perhaps listing and seeking what is agreed upon is important to develop a level of respect and even collegiality. In fact, I don’t think it works if you find someone who is completely opposite. You have to have some common ground. I think it’s important to establish that up front whether you do that internally or collaboratively.

There are likely many characteristics than this but these some of my thoughts. Cognitive dissonance is not something we always enjoy but I believe it’s part of the human experience and one that in the end, makes us better.

cross-posted at ideasandthoughts.org

Disclaimer: This weblog contains the opinions and ideas of Dean Shareski. While there may be references to my work and content which relates directly to my work, the ideas are mine alone and are not necessarily shared by my employer.

Dean Shareski is the Community Manager of the Canadian DEN (Discovery Educators Network) and lecturer for the University of Regina. With 24 years of experience as a K12 educator and consultant, he specializes in the use of technology in the classroom. Read more at ideasandthoughts.org.