Category Archives: Project Based

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An Education Summit Meeting For Change!!!

Possibly the most recurring theme that makes the rounds of the edbloggosphere is why the nation, states, school districts, schools and teachers have not been more open to change. Change in how schools do school, embrace technology and project-based, problem-based learning among other possibilities. Is it because things are going so well?

Doug over at Borderland picked up on a post by Clarence Fisher about a “grid” that would apply to classroom change. I threw in my response and Doug replied, but the gem is Marco Polo’s reply. I think he frames the issue magnificently:

a) you have to get agreement or consensus from so many different people, and b) so many of those people never meet or talk to each other.

And

The changes suggested may make perfect pedagogic and psychological sense, but be rejected because parents, teachers and other stakeholders are concerned that the changes may make the school appear “wacky”, and therefore seriously impact the employment chances of students who attend.

I know business people that feel things need to change – as well as some parents, administrators, teachers and obviously the edtech “gurus” who are also spreading that notion ad naseum, – but when does that diverse group ever get together and hash this out? We should probably add some enlightened politicos (is that an oxymoron?) in the mix too. Did I leave an important group out? Students – DUH! Anyone else?

So we’re talking about an Education Summit Meeting for Change! Any ideas? How do we pull this off? I might even talk my wife into letting me pay my way to something like this!

OK – so who’s going to organize and invite and make this happen? I would … but … umm … my plate is full this summer. But I’ll be there, promise! (Was that too obvious a dodge?)

Learning, AND CHANGE, are messy! Too messy?

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CELL-EXLL, SFA, GLAD Are Too Much and Not Enough

Since a few years before NCLB really raised it’s head, standardized testing was already a fact of life for “Title 1” schools (law for “Improving The Academic Achievement Of The Disadvantaged”) and we started to have mandatory “Research-based literacy programs” thrown at us. In my area the big programs have been CELL/ExLL (Comprehensive Early Literacy Learning and Extended Literacy Learning), SFA (Success for All), and GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design)

These programs focus on literacy and English language skills for students that are behind. One positive outcome of how these programs were implemented was that a lot of money and time were spent to train teachers in implementing and utilizing them. Training models included 5 or more days of initial training, ongoing observation in classrooms where the program had already been implemented, and ongoing peer coaching/mentoring. Before, whenever we were given a new program to implement we were given fly-by-night training and support and then to everyone’s surprise the new program failed to live up to its lofty expectations – not the case with these programs – time and money were invested heavily.

So have our test scores gone up as a result? At first yes, but they have not even remotely kept pace with NCLB’s requirements with too few exceptions. Schools, teachers and students have worked hard, the programs were implemented well overall, but we have hit somewhat of a wall as far as raising test scores (and note I’m not even questioning here whether test scores and especially the kind of test scores we are pursuing are the end all we should be held accountable for anyhow).

So why have these programs and the hard work put into them failed to be the savior of our schools? For lots of reasons, and I’m not going to suggest I know all the reasons – but I will suggest what I feel are some of the most telling and worrisome ones.

Number one is that the way teachers are trained to implement these programs makes them WAY too time consuming. Teaching kids to be literate has to be a top priority for sure, but these programs take up the entire day to the exclusion of REAL science and social studies and art and the list goes on. Proponents of these programs will argue that you “integrate” those subjects into the program. Students read about those subjects as the reading material students use to learn to reflect on and write about and discuss – and by reciting poetry and shared reading and looking at pictures of those subjects students learn the science and social studies and whatever. I agree, to a small degree. Integrating those subjects into the literacy program makes nothing but sense – unfortunately it is not close to enough.

For reading and learning to really be accessible and meaningful students have to possess the schema necessary to make sense of what they read and learn about. In my experience, and in my opinion students need real experience like that gleaned from field trips, experiments, projects, art, sports programs, recess and PE – the very things programs like those mentioned above often cut from the curriculum (none of these programs cut these vital pieces by design – it just usually happens – although many Success For All schools either completely cut field trips or schedule one or two a year because of how the program works). The program designers would say you can still do those things – hence the problem. During my own training in these programs I would raise my hand and bring up that we had just seen a “typical” day’s schedule that a model teacher presented and I didn’t see REAL projects and other hands-on minds-on pieces. And every time – every single time the answer was the same – “Oh…you can or could do those things.” NOTE – not you SHOULD do them – you COULD do them. And every single example they presented NEVER included any active learning project, art, etc. – so the message given and received – NOT IMPORTANT!

My point here is that THOSE SCHEMA MAKING PIECES ARE AS IMPORTANT AND NECESSARY A PART OF LEARNING TO READ AND LEARN AS ANY THERE ARE because without them you might as well be reading word lists instead of a book. How long would you last reading a list of words the length of a book?

Learning to read without having those experiences is like learning to fish in your swimming pool – you can cast and bait your hook and reel in a lure and row a rubber raft around a little and maybe even fall in (not that that has happened to me mind you…) but you don’t really catch fish and you don’t spend time in a natural setting or deal with weather or rough water or smelly bait or catching a bunch of fish or none or any other actual aspects of fishing – good, bad or otherwise. In other words you totally miss out on the experience. Too many of the students that attend schools that use these programs have already missed the experience, that’s a big part of why they are behind – they need the experience to make meaning and to get excited about what they read and write about.

Again, these programs are solid programs, I’m not questioning their merits. It’s just that they are not enough and the way they are used now they take ALL the time necessary to get to the hands-on experiences. Not totally on purpose, but that’s what happens. They would be stronger programs if they included much more room for field trips and REAL projects that might go over the scheduled time (oh my!).

Learning has to be messy!

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Uh-Oh! We Might Have Messed Up School Reform! (I Told You So)

From “Are We Fixing the Wrong Things?” By Yong Zhao, – University Distinguished Professor of Education and Director of the U.S.—China Center for Research on Educational Excellence, Michigan State University:

“Creativity—and not standardization—may be the driving force behind an effective education system.”

Just 8 years ago 2 school principals and 2 superintendents from Singapore visited my class. They sat in the back while I introduced a math lesson on sorting, data collecting and graphing M&M’s by color (AIMS activity). As the students got to work in groups of four, the visitors in the back came to their feet and started talking and pointing. Next came the video cameras and a few quick clarifying questions. 50 Minutes later the students went home and for the next 90 minutes I was barraged by questions about the observed lesson. Next they wondered how they could get their teachers to teach that way.
I stopped them at one point and told them I was a bit confused by their interest in how things were done at my school. I reminded them that just the week before their country had, for the second year in-a-row, scored the highest in the world on the TIMMS and my school was rated as “Inadequate” per our ITBS scores. Shouldn’t I be asking them questions? They laughed and explained that their students were good at testing but not at being creative. “America invents almost everything,” they explained, “all we’re good at is taking those ideas and making them cheaper. We want our students to invent and create like that.”

That’s why this section of Yong’s article smacked me in the face:

“Whereas U.S. schools are now encouraged, even forced, to chase after test scores, China, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan—all named as major competitors—have started education reforms aimed at fostering more creativity and innovative thinking among their citizens. China, for example, has taken drastic measures to reform its curriculum. As the United States raised the status of standardized testing to a record high in 2001 with No Child Left Behind, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued an executive order to significantly minimize the consequences of testing (2002). As the United States pushes for more centralized curriculum standards, China is abandoning its one nation—one syllabus tradition. As the United States moves toward a required program of study for high schools, China is working hard to implement a flexible system with more electives and choices for students. As the United States calls for more homework and more study time, China has launched a battle to reduce such burdens on its students.”

And this:

Sim Wong Hoo, founder and CEO of Singapore-based Creative Technology, pointed out this very fact.

“The advantage is we come from a very conscientious culture. You tell our people what to do, they’ll follow the rules, they’ll do it. The downside is they are not as creative. We fixed that by having a U.S.-based R&D team that’s doing more advanced research.” (Levy, 2005)

I mean is this the best example (or worst, depending on how you look at it) of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence? While the decision makers here suffer horrendous test score envy, the countries we are the most envious of are trying their best to be us. Who’s winning? Certainly not our students.

There are several other articles available on Challenging The Status Quo on the ASCD web site.
I guess we were right: Learning should be messy!

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Can Computers Help Schools?

Jay Mathews, Washington Post Education Reporter, delves into the topic Can Computers Help Schools? Mr. Mathews immediately shows his lack of background in educational technology or best practice use of technology when states:

“School districts have embraced the computer age with the fervor of a mother welcoming a new baby. I don’t want to seem like a wet blanket by pointing out there isn’t much data yet showing these new machines and software are helping more kids learn.”

Hmmm … it seems to me that schools and home schoolers invest a lot of money in many tools to help students access learning. Where is the data that shows that pencils or paper help kids learn? What about data showing textbooks are helping more kids learn? We spend more money on textbooks than technology – where’s the data? Is there data showing chairs and desks help kids learn? Chalkboards? Whiteboards? Crayons? Rulers? Compasses? Paint? Blocks? Playground equipment? Copy Machines? … No data? … Then no important learning happened. (Don’t I remember something about not everything important gets tested?)

And then he states:

“In the classes I visit, plenty of students are working on computers. I am happy they are mastering the essential tools of modern life. But I wish there were more evidence that those hours tapping keyboards are making them better at reading, writing and math.”

So students shouldn’t be “…mastering the essential tools of modern life…”? They’re essential tools, but essential tools aren’t important enough to spend time or money on in school? How did teaching handwriting (an essential skill at one time) make students better at reading and math? Any data? What “more evidence” are we talking about here? Could it be standardized test results again?

Why is it that some seem to believe that project based learning and utilizing technology as a tool to get at and enhance learning is antithetical to teaching reading, writing and math? (Echoes of if you’re against the war you don’t support the troops disconnect).

Don’t you love it when people say they’ve “visited classrooms” and that has led them to some great understanding of everything going on there? Like kids are widgets that are all essentially the same and learn the same and have the same issues and that walking through or checking test results gives a clear picture of what’s going on?

Mr. Mathews and way too many others don’t get it that one of the biggest reasons students are behind in reading is because of their lack of understanding of the world around them and the people and events around them. Most of my own students have their phonics and word attack skills down. What makes reading difficult for them is it is boring to read and near impossible to get meaning from what you read when you don’t understand the significance or humor or horror or sadness or history or science behind what you read. And we don’t test the subjects that build that schema and vocabulary the best – science, social studies, art, PE, projects, field trips, in fact we cut them out of the curriculum to push the “basics” for the very students that need them the most (thanks NCLB).

Mr. Mathews is correct – reading, writing and math are essential skills that most students need to master at a certain level to be successful. However there are other skills, competencies and experiences that are both part of mastering those subjects and part of the basic “toolkit” of knowledge we each need to make sense and enjoy and understand life. Besides having strong programs in reading, writing and math, students also require and deserve to have strong programs in the other essential skills of life – you can’t have one without the other.

Learning is messy!

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Being Different Is A Solution, Not A Problem!

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Another example of our “Messy” learning. Being Different Is A Solution, Not A Problem! is a 60 second Public Service Announcement we made for our local PBS station KNPB.

Each group of four students designed a scene in the video after we brainstormed ideas as a class. The ending scene we designed as a whole class. We had Being Different Isn’t A Problem! as our working title, but several students voiced an opinion that it “didn’t sound right.” We spent almost 45 minutes haggling over ideas until one student … a usually quiet, shy student raised their hand and suggested the title we used. It was an amazing moment. He gave his suggestion, I wrote it on the board, the class read and re-read it to themselves and the haggling was over.

5 minutes later I was climbing a ladder onto the roof as they wrote the title in colored chalk on the playground. They love that down angle shot – they put it in every video they design (see the Don’t Laugh At Me video) – I think they also like seeing me struggle with the ladder and climb up there (since they’re not allowed to climb on the roof). 3 takes later we were ready to edit our final draft.

Learning is Messy!

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More Assessment On The Run

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In my post Project Learning – Assessment On The Run I talked about how when you do project based learning you plan the projects to teach specific standards, but students are exposed to and learn a bunch you didn’t plan. I also talked about assessment happening continuously as you observe and listen to your students as they work.

My students have started to build the systems that will support them while they live on Mars (food, communication, oxygen, transportation, recycling and waste, water, recreation and environmental control). As they discuss and design it is interesting and amusing to note errors in thinking and planning. I passed by a group designing a Mars rover and noted that the student making the seats and the person putting the body together weren’t thinking about scale.

I asked the whole group to look at the seats and the body and they really thought they looked good. I had them measure one student in their group sitting in a chair to see how tall they were (about 42 inches). I showed them that if I doubled that height it would be just short of the ceiling in our classroom. “Is your Mars rover supposed to be taller than our classroom?” I asked. They answered that no it would be about the height of a jeep. I asked them how big the seats they had already built would be compared to a student chair and they answered it would be about the same. Then I asked them how many “seats high” was their current rover body and from that they saw how out of proportion they were. By using the seat as a unit of measure they figured out that the rover the one student was making would have been about 35 feet tall (without the added height of the wheels).

Another disconnect was a greenhouse the size of a school gymnasium that was powered by a solar panel the size of the hood of a car (hadn’t considered how much electricity that would make or how much might be required). They did a web search and found a solar panel about 35 feet long and 10 feet wide that said it generated 1000 watts. I explained that would run about 10 one hundred watt bulbs but that a microwave oven might use 750 watts all by itself.

The main difficulty many groups were having was not thinking through the order they should construct things in. What great learning as they would realize they should have painted something before putting it together or just the opposite problem they should have painted after they put something together. I stopped the class at one point and had them note this seeming conundrum.

Learning is messy!

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Working, Breathing, Reproducible, Intriguing Models

Students blogging, creating content, manipulating text, graphics and video, designing and producing projects and all that technology and Web 2.0 has to offer – Wow! It’s so obvious what dynamic, mind stretching and engaging platforms technology, problem-based and project-based learning are!!! Or is it so obvious?

Who gets the most excited and visionary about this stuff? – Probably anyone that might actually be reading this post. I’ll bet few if anyone that isn’t already doing “Messy” learning is checking out this or any other blogs that teach, preach or discuss it. We hear about “The New Story,” or “The Read/Write Web in the Classroom,” but who else but the choir reads, hears or cares about any of it?

The gurus trip around the country and the world physically and virtually to spread the word, but who goes to these conferences or subscribes to these podcasts (or even knows what a podcast is?)? The masses of teachers and administrators looking to be enlightened? No! (well maybe a few, but VERY few) The early adopters that see and saw the implications straightforward are the few and the brave. So the questions have been asked and numerous and various answers have been proposed about how to change how school is done and how using these “New Tools” fit into that scheme and how do we get the message out?

Do the gurus continue to guru? (How do you guru? – don’t ask just try to follow along) Yes, that is certainly part of the equation. Do we continue to blog about it? Absolutely! The conversation is the point! What is missing are the models – the working, breathing, reproducible, intriguing models. We need ongoing models of all the power of what this looks like or we get nowhere.

Yeah I know there are examples out there – but my staff and my administrators and my congressman and senator and school board probably aren’t jetting out to Maine to observe Bob Sprankle’s class or any other of the teachers and students doing this kind of school.

YOU IDIOT!!! – You’re thinking or maybe yelling at your monitor – you and your staff can go to Bob Sprankle’s class or any of a list of teachers using blogs and video and web 2.0 applications – via the web!!!! Yes, yes I know… cool down … I know that. I can pull up one of Bob’s productions – for example his class made a recent vodcast about how they produce their podcasts – way cool – I GET IT!

BUT – (notice I made it a big but) I GET IT! I could run around my school and district showing teachers and administrators Bob’s kids’ vodcast and I might even get a few people excited – but most WON”T GET IT! You can’t just show most people – you have to show them and explain it to them and then answer their questions and then show it to them again and then explain it to them again and then show them how this relates to things they already do – takes the place of this and makes it even better and does this and this and this! I’m telling you they will think the vodcast was kinda cool… would be an interesting thing for their kids to do once if they had the equipment and the time and someone to show them how to do it. But they won’t get it until they experience you doing it and getting them to do it…several times … and talk about it and have them notice their students’ reaction and learning and how they talk about it and how excited their parents get about it. Wes Fryer talks about Face 2 Face – that’s it… that’s what I’m talking about.

So where is everyone that does this? Are there whole schools that do this? Districts? Where’s the list? – we should all post it and send it around – where will people see this that is as easy and as accessible as possible? Is there DATA that goes with any of these teachers or schools or districts that do this? (yeah, I don’t need the DATA but some will require the DATA). Maybe there’s downloadable video of some of this – I know where some is… where’s a lot more? Better yet, are their teachers – “Old School” teachers that have come to this that can speak about what their experience has taught them? I think that would be a powerful “New Story.”

We need working, breathing, reproducible, intriguing models available in many places for many to see and experience to leverage the gurus and the online examples. Should we build the clearinghouse – any volunteers?
Learning is messy!

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Response To: Powerful Beyond Measure

Miguel Guhlin posted a great piece today Powerful Beyond Measure that is a must read. In it he states:

“The words of Isaiah, as Bonhoeffer shared them, are, “He who believes does not flee.” The words strike home as I reflect on education today. For those who can, have fled schools. They have fled our schools and abandoned their colleagues, the children, and moved on to greener pastures. And, who can blame them that they chose to take advantage of the active exit strategy to deal with slow death?”

Those who can have also fled to within themselves, their classrooms – quietly doing what they’re told. Many teachers take on the good little girl or boy persona that they learned as students – it’s how they got their positive strokes, how they were acknowledged – by being good, not rocking the boat. They want to do what’s best for their students, but too many can’t or won’t make that decision on their own. So now in a time that they are being told that what is best is accountability (per NCLB) they fall back on being good little boys and girls – not entirely because they agree with the method, but because they haven’t thought about or discussed what might be better and they wouldn’t be “good” then and that is scary. What if I’m not considered good? When your pay isn’t acknowledging your work then having your work acknowledged is what you hang onto. Not being considered good for any reason then is scary.

This might sound too strong, but it is a similar reaction to terrorism or what Bonhoeffer witnessed in Nazi Germany – don’t rock the boat and draw attention to yourself. Don’t have a public opinion about anything because that might come back and be used against you.

What are the examples many teachers have to follow? Are they being in-serviced and trained and encouraged to use problem-based/project-based learning? Not in my experience – so why would they even think about going that way if they don’t understand or know it? When they read headlines like last weeks – “Computers May Not Boost Student Achievement” – Why would they find themselves pondering changing paths?

The early adopters of project-based. Educational technology driven learning are like those that Bonhoefer saw disappear early on in the Nazis rise to power when they questioned things. They saw the power of changing paths but were swept out of the way as an impediment to progress. Wasn’t NCLB promoted that way? I know, invoking Nazism as an example almost always goes too far – no one is disappearing in the same sense as what happened under the Nazis – but that sense of being swept aside professionally is a very scary line to cross.

Learning is messy!

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Tech Reluctance

One of the differences between teachers that consistently use technology in their classrooms and those that don’t is the reaction when things don’t go smoothly. Many teachers at my school and that I’ve had in trainings give up after something doesn’t work right now. They’ve decided to try something they’ve never done before – they start setting up the equipment, it doesn’t work as they intended, they call me or someone else to make it work, you try one thing (once they hadn’t plugged in the power cord on the hub – it was working within 1 minute of me walking in the room and they were done, forget it) – and often their reaction is that, “Well I won’t be doing this again until it works every time – and maybe not even then. I just don’t have time to have to tweak things or problem solve or learn more and the fact that this didn’t work right now really puts me off tech.”  Its not just me either, other teachers that use tech have the same story.

Part of the issue is that they want to use tech and have a really cool lesson, but spend next to zero time prepping the tech part of the lesson – they just want it to happen. We have had a wireless iBook lab at my school for 6 years and except myself and maybe 2 teachers – almost no one else uses it. I’ve done numerous trainings on using the lab, and I always stress how if you are going to use it with your class you probably want to plan a lesson from me to refresh your memory on its use and to hook up the wireless hub in your classroom (about 20 minutes). Also if it is the first time you have used the lab with your class you probably want to do a 30 minute lesson where you just teach the students how to take the computers out of the cart, turn them on, how to treat them, get on the internet and do a quick search and shut them down and put them away. I’ve had teachers right there say – “oh, never mind then, I just wanted my kids to do some quick research on polar bears – I was hoping to be done in 20 to 30 minutes tops.”

The thing that kills me is that these same teachers will come in on a Saturday and spend 4 hours copying and cutting stuff out and stapling. When we have students use any manipulative we have found that the first time you use it you probably want to give the students time to just play and get that somewhat out of their system – things usually go more smoothly then. But somehow that is only a good idea with inter-locking cubes not technology. Has anyone else out there found this to be true? I have my own thoughts on this, but I’d like to hear from others. Is this part of the culture that holds so many back from using tech and project based learning? What kinds of experiences have you had?
Learning is messy!

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Project Learning – Assessment On The Run

This is the hard part about project-based learning for many people. The very best part, the most exciting learning – the “Magic” of project-based learning is often what just happens spontaneously – the messy part. Yes, you go through the standards and design your project to fit standards – all the standards you need it to address. However, what you learn to look forward to… AND be just a bit anxious about is what you don’t plan.

The issues that spring up between members of a group that you, and they, have to work through. The days that don’t go well lend themselves to discussion about what that was like and how to make it go more smoothly. The great days are even more important to discuss – note with students how fast time went by because they were SO on task. Have students share HOW they discussed things – usually positively – you’ll hear them comment about the student they were at odds with before and how they WERE able to put issues aside and get along and have a great time getting things done that they are excited about and proud of – this is key because you can remind them of that experience and even quote back to them what they said the next time things aren’t going well. You can stop the class for 15 seconds and have them reflect on whether or not time is going by quickly and they feel that “feeling” they felt before – that often gets an antsy class back on track. THAT feeling is like a narcotic…I’m not kidding … kids will remember that and try to achieve it again. Yeah, it doesn’t work every time, but it works often.

There are times that things get ugly. Sometimes, real ugly. Anger, frustration, silliness – students that want to just give up…they don’t care anymore. That never happens in real life …right? Meeting a deadline or producing a play or any other real life project never gets frustrating and adults never blow-up at one another or get into disagreements, right? (How did your wedding planning go?) But aren’t those also the times you end up finally getting something done that you and those you are working with end up the most proud about, and talk about the hard times and how you fought through them? How many students have done much REAL project-based work? From my experience, usually very little to none, so no wonder they are inexperienced and rough.

When things go well, which happens more the more often and the more practiced kids get at dealing with each other. They start to notice strengths and weaknesses of the kids in their group… and one of the great experiences for you the teacher is how you hear them start talking to each other… “You’re better at doing that than I am and while you’re doing that I’ll work on this for you.” “Wow you really did a nice job on that, how did you do that!?” Sometimes they get more done in an hour than they usually get done in a whole day. Students are FOCUSED that usually can’t seem to focus.

As a teacher you have to observe and take notes – written when you can, mental notes otherwise. You have to note the gaps in student understanding and ability – that’s assessment – assessment on the run. Sometimes you find yourself gathering a student, a group, sometimes the whole class, on the spur of the moment to deal with an obvious confusion or total misconception or gap or something you noticed one group just learned that you want them to share with the class. You need to note as many neat things you saw individual students do as you can, including that Tommy didn’t get mad at anybody for a whole hour today, did anyone else notice that? The more you do that, the more the magic happens.

The other big assessment piece I do at the end of each work period is that the students self assess themselves. I have a form that asks them questions about what they personally did that period and they end up assigning themselves a grade and explain why that is the grade they deserve.

Students in my class learn however, that the biggest part of their grade is based on how they worked together in their group. The whole group is getting a D or F if EVERYONE isn’t on task. If one student is off task the rest of the group MUST work in a positive way to find out why they are off track, make sure they know and understand all the tasks they need to accomplish and which ones they are counting on them to get done. If they have done that, and can explain to me that they have done that, and this person in their group is still fooling around or off task, then I get involved with that student and remove them from the group and usually the classroom at that point (this rarely happens if a class is well trained). Note that we have role played how that looks as a class and in groups so everyone knows their roles and how to do that.

Well this has turned into a longer post than I planned, so I’ll continue it at another time.

Learning is messy!