Archive for the ‘learning’ category

Integrated Living. Separated Learning? Part 1

June 26th, 2009

(This article, written by Jason Flom, is crossposted on Ecology of Education)

I marvel at my phone. It surfs the internet, finds my e-mail, lets me twitter, takes calls, and gets along well with my computer. It’s a calendar, a stopwatch, a newspaper, and a means of distracting my daughter when she needs distracting. It’s the height of integration (for now). So many systems amalgamated. So many advances in technology blended together.

Yet it serves as only a sign and symptom of a much larger trend: increasing connections.

We live in integrated worlds. Myriad spheres overlap and influence other spheres. As the layers and connections increase, so does the complexity and the reverberations of actions, both positive and negative. While many of use get pretty excited by the integrated nature of our technology, it is the interrelated systems of nations and cultures that pose the largest long term impact.

A short list of challenges in today’s world:

Climate change
The Great Recession
Rising extinction rates
Famine
Poverty
Access to potable water
Basic rights
Education for all

This list is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive. Social and environmental issues run the gambit from site specific challenges to global ramifications. We have about as much hope of cataloging them all as of convincing a 2 year old that whining is an ineffective method for achieving one’s goals.

What’s more, this list isn’t new. Most of these issues have followed (perhaps even pushed) humanity from the savannas of Africa to all corners of terra firma.

So, what’s the point?

The point is this: The complexity of these issues escalates exponentially as the connections and interactions between people and nations increase. Actions by one party potentially impacts others on a much grander scale than ever before. And as the networks grow, so do the effects of our decisions and our patterns of living. (An example of this theory in action: Iranian elections.)

Of course, in this case, the enabling keystone of expanded spheres of influence is technology, which has effectively flattened the world by decreasing the role of proximity as the necessary cornerstone for communication, collaboration, and conflict. (Technology has also exacerbated the divide between the haves and the have nots, but that is fodder for another post.)

The result is that our problems, as people of Earth, are now, more than ever, shared problems. Solutions to those problems cannot be found or enacted in isolation. Want to minimize global climate change? One must act locally and globally. Watching An Inconvenient Truth won’t be enough. Adjusting one’s consumer patterns can make a difference, but real change will happen when a mass of interconnected citizens who demand or create action. (Or a great calamity forces us to rethink.) Technology allows previously isolated groups to join together, for better or for worse, and drive change.

What does this have to do with education?

Everything.

Image: MIT Senseable City Lab

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Posted in Jason Flom, learning, Sphere of Influence, Systems thinking, technology, X Collaboration X Education X globalization X Integration

Learning from Mistakes Takes the Right Feedback

June 9th, 2009

I slammed my foot and, to my surprise, picked up speed. The lawn mower headed straight for the newly planted apple tree in our backyard. The sound of mower blades slicing through a thin tree trunk caught my father’s attention. He strode across the lawn, and I prepared to be banished from the riding lawn mower. But my father laughed.

“Do you know what you did?” I nodded and explained I had stepped on the clutch rather than the brake, freeing the mower to roll downhill and over the sapling. “Okay,” he said, “where’s the brake?” I showed him which was the brake and which was the clutch. Chuckling, he explained, “You’ve got it. Don’t worry about the tree. It was dead anyway. Now we won’t have to look at it. Keep going.”

Mistakes, claims Jonah Lehrer, “should be cultivated and carefully investigated.” To the brain, “Disappointment is educational.”1

Dopamine, a neurotransmitter that influences emotion, provides a sense of pleasure when what we anticipate happening matches reality, but when our expectations are not met—when our actions do not produce the desired result—we feel disappointment. Through disappointment, we gain an opportunity to literally rewire neuronal connections, to learn, but only if we attend to our mistake: “Self-criticism is the secret to self-improvement.”2

Since we learn, in part, by attending to our errors, what kind of feedback should we, as teachers, give to our students?

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck contrasted the results of two different types of feedback. One group of students were praised for their intelligence: “You are smart at this.” A second group of students was praised for their efforts: “You worked hard and look at the results.”

The findings? Students praised for their intelligence became easily discouraged when they encountered difficult tasks and lost 20% of their achievement between pre- and post-testing. These students were only content when they could compare their results with students who preformed worse on tasks or tests. In contrast, students praised for their efforts sought challenge, welcomed mistakes, and increased achievement an average of 30% between pre- and post-testing. Lehrer explains:

The problem with praising kids for their innate intelligence—the “smart” compliment—is that it misrepresents the neural reality of education. It encourages kids to avoid the most useful kind of learning activities, which is learning from mistakes. Unless you experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong, your brain will never revise its models.3

Dweck’s findings mirrors those of Dr. Jennifer Mangels: individuals who believe intelligence is a fixed entity (i.e., you get the intelligence you’re born with) focus on performance and respond to negative feedback (i.e., the identification of an error) by withdrawing and extending little effort. In contrast, individuals who believe intelligence is malleable (i.e., smart is something you become not something you possess) respond to negative feedback with a mastery-orientation, seeking means of correction and learning. Such learners are resilient, responding to set-backs with renewed energy directed toward learning.4

How can we direct student response to feedback so that the mastery-orientation overcomes the performance-orientation? How can we guide student disappointment to careful investigation of mistakes?

Dr. Robert Brooks (2007) suggests couching feedback in “we” statements. For example, rather than telling a student that a response is incorrect and to “try harder,” Brooks suggests, in one-on-one conversation, saying, “This strategy you’re using doesn’t seem to be working. Let’s figure out why and how we can change the strategy so that you are successful.” Such a response invites a careful investigation of the mistake and makes the interaction a problem-solving experience. A classroom environment that welcomes error as a gateway to learning contributes to better feedback responses.5

My dad responded in a way that kept me moving forward in my learning and mowing the lawn successfully for several years. Disappointment led to reflection and investigation, correction, and renewed interest in getting it right. Guess I learned more than where to find the brake that day.

Lehrer, J., How We Decide (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009), 51, 48.
Ibid., 51.
Ibid., 53-54.
Brooks, R., Mindsets for School Success: Effective Educators and Resilient, Motivated Learners. Presented at Learning and the Brain: Using Brain Research to Enhance Cognitive Abilities and Achievement (Nov. 2007).
Mangels, J. A., Motivating Minds: How Student Beliefs Impact Learning and Academic Achievement. Presented at Learning and the Brain: Using Brain Research to Enhance Cognitive Abilities and Achievement (Nov. 2007).

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Posted in Carol Dweck, dopamine, effort, feedback, intelligence, Jennifer Mangels, Jonah Lehrer, lawn mowers, learning, mistakes, Robert Brooks, teaching

"What" and "Where" Enable Learning and Higher Thinking

June 2nd, 2009

By Dr. Kevin Washburn, Contributing Editor

While their research and associated technology can be complicated, the discoveries of neuroscientists often reveal simple principles of brain functioning.

For example, neuroscientists recently traced the flow of auditory data through the brain. As sound waves spark our nervous system into action, auditory data gets sent from lower functioning areas of the brain to higher functioning areas via two “routes.” One route, the “low road,” carries data through the temporal lobe and enables us to identify what we are hearing. Simultaneously, data traveling the other route, the “high road,” moves through the parietal lobe and enables us to identify where the sound was produced.1

Visual data follows very similar routes. The “low road” flows through the temporal lobe and extracts information about what is being seen. The “high road” flows through the parietal lobe and extracts information about where objects are located.2 What and where precede deeper thinking about new data.

What does this have to do with learning? If students are asked to think critically about or apply new information without an opportunity to establish what and where, their efforts will likely yield poor results.

For example, I often observe teachers presenting a sequence of steps that students need to follow to achieve some result. As students practice, the teacher roams the room and checks student work. A student with an incorrect result is often reminded that the steps “are listed on the white board,” and directed to look there to find his mistake. But whose brain processed what and where as the teacher wrote the steps in order on the board? The teacher’s. The student’s brain focused on the what and where of the teacher’s movement and voice, not the material. As a result, the student still lacks the processing of the material necessary to enable higher functioning, such as using the sequence of steps to achieve a result.

However, if the teacher has the students write the steps of the sequence onto index cards and then arrange them in the correct order, the students process the what and where of the new material. Additionally, the teacher can assess the students’ knowledge before they begin making application. Instructive feedback at this point prevents incorrect practice.

Professional literature often refers to this processing of what and where as comprehension (not to be confused with reading comprehension), and some instructional design models recognize its role in effective teaching. Including opportunities for students to identify and sort new instructional material—to identify what and where—enables the higher functioning, such as constructing understanding and engaging in critical thinking, that we’re pursuing.

A simple principle of brain functioning; a necessary element of learning.

1. How Brain Processes Speech. ScienceDaily. http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2009/05/090526140733.htm
2. Berns, G., Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently (Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2008).

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Posted in auditory, comprehension, Education, Gregory Berns, instructional design, Kevin Washburn, learning, parietal lobe, teaching, temporal lobe, visual

Or Is It About the Technology?

May 11th, 2009

By Kelly Hines, Keeping Kids First

A few weeks ago, I published a series of my thoughts on 21st century learning and teaching in a post titled “It’s Not About the Technology.” For a tech integrator and enthusiast like me, it was almost uncomfortable to articulate these ideas independent of technology. As a quick recap, my main points were that educators must focus on the skills of problem solving, addressing the needs of individual students and learning, as opposed to teaching.

This week, Ben Grey posted a thought-provoking article to “Tech & Learning” titled “Why Technology?” As friends of mine in ed tech positions across the United States are losing funding for their departments, and even their positions, Ben Grey’s questions are all the more pressing. As the author of a post titled “It’s Not About the Technology”, what would I say if I were asked to stand in front of a board of education or other decision making body and answer the question “Why should we continue to use and pursue technology in our district?”

Honestly, I would start by taking a quick, informal poll. Where have you received and made most of your recent calls? Your cell phone or your land line? Have you ever by passed a gas station because they didn’t have pay at the pump? Where do you look for information? In an encyclopedia or on the internet?

What do our children need to know in order to be successful in our world? Already in 2009, you must be able to navigate the internet and be savvy about decision making and purchasing. North Carolina’s Department of Motor Vehicles is no longer sending out license plate renewal notifications by US Postal Service. All drivers in North Carolina will have to go online to renew their registration. Our children have to be prepared to live and prosper in this world.

But what are we really talking about here? We talking about standing in front of a decision making body that has to weigh sustainability, budgets, personnel and other political factors. They can easily argue that technology use in the classroom has not been proven to raise test scores. Technology is always changing, so how can we keep up? Opponents say that kids get enough social media at home. So, let’s talk a language that they will understand.

The state of California spends approximately $400 million dollars per year on textbooks. Yes, that’s $400, 000, 000 every year. A university professor I know figured out that his university could hire three full-time teaching faculty positions if the university would go paperless. A particular school system in Maine spent nearly $10, 000 this year on hospital/homebound services, not including labor costs. It costs $200 per person to send a teacher to interactive whiteboard training with particular software companies. Webinars can be included for free for unlimited participants to learn on their own time in their own way. For any governing body, these numbers should be staggering. The great news is that we have the resources to combat these things in a modern, all-inclusive and multi-functional way. Technology.

What do high schools need in order to establish academic credibility? They must offer a high variety of courses in all disciplines. They need to provide opportunities for individual and collective groups of students to pursue independent areas of advanced studies. What do you do when you cannot afford a Japanese teacher for ten interested students or an Advanced Placement Biology teacher for nine motivated students? You coordinate with a community college, university or partnering school to offer these courses to students virtually. How can you provide SAT test prep for students who have to work late and on weekends? You create a free Moodle course that students can access from home at times that are conducive to their busy schedules. How do you provide high quality hospital/homebound instruction for students? You enroll them in a regular education classroom and you have them Skype in to a grade-level appropriate classroom where they can interact with curriculum, teachers and peers to facilitate learning. How do you make sure that teachers are getting “just in time” professional development? You create a series of professional development activities that are collaborative in nature to address the demands of individual teachers on a schedule that meets family obligations as well. How do you create an environmentally conscious school system while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment, toner, repairs & paper? You help students. to learn and share in a paperless learning environment. How do you avoid spending millions of dollars on loosely correlated textbooks that are error riddled and often out-dated before they are printed? You build courses around free, open source resources that are web-based, accessible from all edges of the globe and are easily differentiated to address the learning needs of all students without sacrificing the integrity of the curriculum’s content.

Before systems around the United States (and the world) start cutting technology positions and funds, I hope they will consider that these positions and resources may be exactly what saves us in this time of economic uncertainty. While I will holdfast to my ideas that there are fundamental concepts that must be in place before 21st century learning will be at its best (with or without the technology), maybe it IS about the technology when it comes to best serving our students today and beyond!

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Posted in 21st century skills, Kelly Hines, learning, technology

When is inequality constructive?

April 24th, 2009

By Candace Williams, An Aspiring Educator’s Blog

In the Boston Review article Inequality matters: Why globalization doesn’t lift all boats (via thickculture), Nancy Birdsall clarifies the distinction between constructive inequality and deconstructive inequality:

Distinguishing between constructive and destructive inequality is useful. To clarify the distinction: inequality is constructive when it creates positive incentives at the micro level. Such inequality reflects differences in individuals’ responses to equal opportunities and is consistent with efficient allocation of resources in an economy. In contrast, destructive inequality reflects privileges for the already rich and blocks potential for productive contributions of the less rich.

I’m used to thinking about issues of inequality and social justice on the macro-level. Inequality of social, economic, and political opportunity is one of the reasons why I teach and advocate for the rights of children. What about at the level of my classroom? When does inequality constructive or deconstructive in the context of pedagogies and learning environments? The most pervasive example of inequality teachers and administrators construct is grades. Although many schools try to make grades a reflection of how students are progressing on standards, the reality for many schools, is that grades both reflect and institutionalize tracks and hierarchies. Students with relatively higher grades have access to different pathways and resources than students who have relatively higher grades. There are different reasons why decision-makers at the classroom, school, and district level choose to have grades. In the classroom, I have noticed many teachers believe grades are an incentive structure: students and parents, on the whole, want higher grades rather than lower grades. Many are willing and able to change their behaviors to reflect this incentive.

Are grading I’ve seen examples of constructive or deconstructive inequality? On one hand, they are deconstructive because students are receiving marks on a scale without having access to the same academic and socioeconomic opportunities as their peers. Over time, students who fit into the culture of power and continue to have experiences that are valued by the school get higher grades, while students who do not have these opportunities get lower. The grades of students are compared and opportunities are doled out accordingly. This is deconstructive – the “potential for productive contributions” of struggling students is blocked. On the other hand, I have seen grading practices where the function and reason is feedback. When students are presented with qualitative and quantitative feedback about their performance, and have access to resources to improve, this feedback might alter micro-level incentives for them to engage in the process. This is more constructive than the case given above because the quality of resources and environments we offer children are not a function of their perceived level in academic hierarchies. Other examples of inequalities we construct are our classroom management schemes. They often feature preferred behaviors paired to positive and negative consequences that change a students’ academic and social reality.

Constructive and deconstructive inequalities exist in learning environments. Teachers have control over some of these inequalities, especially classroom management and community building structures. Administrators have more control over grading, curriculum, and tracking. Students also create their own inequalities via social hierarchies that are based on perceived intelligence, beauty, and other factors. Although teachers do not have complete control over the inequalities that manifest themselves in a classroom space, when it comes to the choices we make, we have to ask: “Am I generating inequality? If so, is this inequality constructive or deconstructive?”.

What are your thoughts? Does this distinction hold or does it rely too heavily on capitalist constructions?

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Posted in Candace Williams, Grading, Inequality, Leadership, learning, Pedagogy, teaching

It’s Not about the Technology

April 19th, 2009

(By Kelly W. Hines, Keeping Kids First)

I am sitting here at my laptop, occasionally watching my Skype and Tweetdeck notifications in case I miss something from a family member or colleague, and I’m going to honestly tell you that learning in the 21st century is not about the technology. Blasphemy! my tech-savvy friends are saying. Six months ago I might have agreed, but today I’m more than willing to stand by my words.

We are hearing more and more talk recently about what learning and teaching will look like in the 21st century. What do we need to bring us into the future? What will our children need to know and be able to do? The first thing to comes to everyone’s mind is technology. We need computers. We need ipods. We need wireless connectivity. We need 1:1 initiatives. We need blogs, wikis and podcasts. While I completely agree with the fact that these are innovative tools for teaching and learning, I do not agree that these are the first things we need to initiate change in our classrooms.

Before anything else, the educational community (including state and national organizations, teacher preparation programs, and local systems) must recognize the need to change an overall approach to teaching and learning. The tools mentioned earlier, like netbooks, 1:1 initiatives, and web 2.0 tools, will not be effective vehicles for instruction without an evolution in mindset. Here is a list of four things that every teacher must recognize in order to effectively and positively impact students in a new generation of learning.

1. Teachers must be learners. As teachers, most of us have completed a specialised teacher preparation program. We have passed a test of proficiency in basic educational theory and child psychology. We have demonstrated mastery of our own content areas. Think about the teachers in your building. The years that these teachers have exited these initial requirements span decades. If you put them all in one room, you will probably find that their experiences in these areas were very different. Yet, they are all teaching children today. Teachers today must be perpetual learners who are invested in their professions. We must be up to date on current trends, research and tools. We must know what our students are doing and where they are coming from when they enter our classrooms. This learning cannot just include mandated workshops and occasional required readings. Teachers who want to be truly succesful must be voracious and self-motivated in their pursuit of evoloving understanding.

2. Learning and Teaching are not the same thing. How many times have we heard a colleague say, “I don’t know why these kids don’t get it. I’ve taught it a hundred times.” I equate teaching and learning to a basic physics principle. If an object does not move, no matter how much force has been applied, no work has been done. Therefore, if a student has not learned, not matter how much effort has been exerted, no teaching has been done. Teaching in the 21st century is going to be about working smarter and not harder. It is not about adding to our proverbial plates. We must look at learning as the product of a successful day. Learning will not look the same to all students or all teachers, but it must be the goal.

3. Technology is useless without good teaching. We have countless technological tools at our disposable today. These tools range in cost from free to thousands and thousands of dollars. When we put innovative tools in the hands of innovative teachers, amazing things can happen. If you put these tools in the hands of teachers who are not willing to innovate, money has been wasted. There are arguments against spending the money on interactive whiteboards for classrooms. At approximately $5000 each, you would think these boards would facilitate better teaching. It is not about the board. It is about proper training and mindset of a teacher who is already willing and eager to do amazing things. The lack of comprehensive and curriculum-related professional development for teachers is why schools have thousands of computers that are being used as game systems and word processors.

4. Be a 21st Century Teacher without the technology. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has published a framework for learning in the 21st century. The core outcomes for students include:

1. Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes
2. Learning and Innovation Skills
* Creativity and Innovation
* Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
* Communication and Collaboration
3. Information, Media and Technology Skills
* Information Literacy
* Media Literacy
* ICT Literacy
4. Life and Career Skills

Upon careful consideration, these are outcomes that can be achieved with little technology (excluding of course some components of the Information, Media and Technology Skills). If a teacher can find ways to prepare students with the capacity to be creative and innovative, those children will be well prepared to face the future. Teachers who customize the learning experiences of their students to involve critical thinking and problem solving are doing their students a greater favor than those who misuse technology as a means of facilitating learning. Those teachers who know how to foster communication and collaboration within their classrooms and school buildings are equipping their students with the abilities to apply these core skills to more areas in their own lives.

Now imagine a classroom where the teacher has embraced these principles. The teacher is a learner. The teacher teaches with learning in mind. 21st century skills are highlighted through facilitative leadership. These foundational components of a quality classroom experience will ensure that students value experiential and focused learning. Now if you take this teacher and introduce them to the wonders that technology offers for students, the possibilities are endless. But, it really is not about the technology.

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Posted in 21st century skills, k-12 education, Kelly Hines, learning, teaching, technology