In this module we learned about the Big 6, a scheme for problem-solving. As an educational tool the Big 6 is a helpful organizing scheme for lesson planning. First, it forces you as a teacher to think through what you want your students to do. Second, it teaches the students a process for handling and processing information to produce a desired result. It is very similar to the McCain model (4Ds), but McCain deals a lot with setting up learning situations as problems. The Big6 assumes you already have a problem. The Big6 model deals more with finding and evaluating the sources of information, which is one of the most important steps for our google-prone students.
I will use the Big6 to organize and plan projects. I probably will not convert to this structure at this point in the year, as I have already begun using the 4D model, but in the future I can see using it. Definitely I will use the lesson plan model as a tool, and share it with other colleagues.
One concern I had doing the Big6 lesson plan was the amount of comment and explanation I had for the first to and last of the steps. There has been so much discussion in this module about the need to help students evaluate sources, find good sources, etc. Yet I look at mine and it seems like a very non-descript part of the process. Perhaps this is because I haven’t walked through it with my students. I have always provided them great detail on what I expect from them, evaluation criteria, and project details. I have not worked as much with this class on where to find information and how to evaluate it. Perhaps that is the missing piece for me.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Ill-structured problems and discrepant events create opportune learning experiences
I began work on this module by reading McCain cover to cover. I’ve been waiting since the beginning of the course for my book to arrive, and when it finally did I plopped down and tore into it, underlining and highlighting. I had to put it down at intervals to digest and think about how this would apply to the class I’m teaching (New Testament Bible). How would I start using this approach to teach a very content-rich course with lots of information and not lots of application? Maybe I would have to change the approach, focusing on the content and ignoring the direction, approach, and conclusions the text leads to.
It seems like a silly question – the point of the Bible is not to be a fact-book, but rather a book to provide answers to life’s biggest questions. It should be easy to apply the PBL model to the content! The problem is that our students spend lots of time immersed in these sorts of situations – in youth group or Sunday School they talk about the application stuff more than the historical background of the books and people in the Bible. And while I doubt they ever dig into it as deeply as they might with a McCain type of problem, or a highly thought-out PBL lesson, they spend lots of time talking about how to apply principles, not learning facts and details. I volunteered to teach the course because I feel there’s an enormous hole in Christendom – we are very disconnected from our history, we don’t know our history, which means we really don’t know who we are. I want my students to be top-notch scholars – I want them to understand the application, but I believe to do that they have to understand the context(s) in which the book(s) was written in order to be ably to really apply the stuff. If they learn how to approach the historicity of a book, how to discern what the book is teaching based on its historical context, then apply that to their lives, they can take that with them anywhere. The problem is twofold: the textbook is full of facts and historical background (with some application), and the class meets twice a week. Each “chapter” of the text is easily processed in one class period. This means the temptation to simply waltz in, start the next ‘chapter,’ and neatly wrap it up at the end of 45 minutes is VERY strong. In fact, one could teach the class with very little prep (provided you have a decent grounding in the subject matter). And the students are well-behaved and moderately interested, plus I’m a good classroom manager, so you could bore them to tears and not have any evidence of it.
However, I decided that for the remaining weeks before Easter, we will depart from the “chapter to chapter” approach and look at the broad theme of Acts 12-28: Paul’s missionary journeys and the growth of the church beyond Palestine to the Gentile world. Having taught social studies for seven years, plus two more years of 6th grade self-contained, I immediately thought of planning a trip – let’s retrace Paul’s missionary journeys! OOOHH!! Lots of pictures, fun stuff – then I thought, “Wait a minute. I don’t even know where all he went on those journeys. I have a map in the back of my Bible to show me that. Besides, what’s the point of knowing it, other than winning a Bible trivia contest or something? No, that is not what I want them to learn.”
Then I had to wrestle – what did I REALLY want them to learn?
• Paul is largely responsible for spreading the Gospel beyond Jerusalem to the Roman world
• Paul’s writings form the basis for much of what we teach in churches today
o What we are to believe about Jesus and God
o How we are to function as believers in a local body
What was the enduring understanding I wanted them to keep with them forever?
• Christians in the time of Paul faced many of the same problems we face today
Knowing that the material after Easter Break is going to deal with how the book of Ephesians specifically addresses problems of past and present, I wanted to lay a strong foundation for the students to understand the historical context of that book. I also wanted them to understand that Paul wrote to a bunch of different churches, and that each of them was different and had similar yet different problems and situations. So I began crafting, and came up with the following list of specifically what I want them to know:
Choose one of the cities Paul wrote to and know:
-modern-day state of the city-why a church probably developed in that city (geographical etc)
-what that church was like (ethnicity, size)
-what problems that church faced and why (historical)
-how Paul encouraged / advised the church to deal with their problems
-how that advice or those principles apply to us today
I want a paper product (or a PowerPoint) and an oral presentation
Here’s the ill-structured problem, presented as a role play:
“Hello, I’m Pastor Dan. Several of the members of my congregation want to take a trip and visit cities the Apostle Paul wrote letters to. So I’m coming to you as travel specialists to request some information. I want each of you to choose one of the cities Paul wrote to. I want to know what that city was like when Paul wrote to it. I find that if someone can step into the shoes of someone who lived long ago, then they have a much better appreciation for what that person went through, what they wrote, and what they experienced, which means they can much better apply what that person has to teach us to their lives. That’s what I want. Any questions? Or is there anything else you can suggest you should tell me?”
Of course this is ill-defined, as McCain suggests, and after 15 minutes or so of Q&A they’d hit all the points of what I wanted them to do in the first place – but THEY came up with is, so it’s THEIR project.
Then “Pastor Dan” left, and Mr. Penn returned. At that point I asked what Pastor Dan had to share with them, if they wrote down details (some had), and explained, as McCain does, how they can “have power” over me by recording details specifically. So they spent the remaining few minutes comparing notes. Next time Pastor Dan will be back to clarify and verify, signing the contract.
OH – I forgot to mention the forms. Since we’re 2/3 of the way through the year I decided to provide them with the “Define” and “Design” forms. I’m not sure about the time sheet. I told them they could use another form to do their work if they liked, but the form I provided contained the information they needed to be sure they had.
EXPECTATIONS
On Tuesday I expect to see several fairly complete definitions of the project, some will be extremely vague. None will be complete entirely. However a couple of the students will remember enough to know what to ask to clarify (“Did you say you wanted…?”). I expect several will be raring to get to work on the project without actually defining & designing – and I expect to get complaints about having to go through the process. But I expect at the end of it several at least will see the value in it. I will need to build in a period to process the experience with them. Since I wanted to give them maximum time to work, I made the due date March 13. I may offer extra credit to those who present on the 11th so we can have time before break (March 17-21) to process. Otherwise we’ll just have to process after. I plan to force them to come up with the 4 steps, the 4 Ds, before I post anything spelling out the steps.
I expect the research part of this project will be the easiest for them, and probably the best – the pictures, the facts – the stuff you can Google. The application part / lessons you can learn, those may be trickier. Maybe what I need to do is modify the project – “Confer with Pastor Dan” and decide that the application piece should wait until after break so we have time to really dig into that… I’ve got to think more about this.
This is in process – we’ll see how it goes!
It seems like a silly question – the point of the Bible is not to be a fact-book, but rather a book to provide answers to life’s biggest questions. It should be easy to apply the PBL model to the content! The problem is that our students spend lots of time immersed in these sorts of situations – in youth group or Sunday School they talk about the application stuff more than the historical background of the books and people in the Bible. And while I doubt they ever dig into it as deeply as they might with a McCain type of problem, or a highly thought-out PBL lesson, they spend lots of time talking about how to apply principles, not learning facts and details. I volunteered to teach the course because I feel there’s an enormous hole in Christendom – we are very disconnected from our history, we don’t know our history, which means we really don’t know who we are. I want my students to be top-notch scholars – I want them to understand the application, but I believe to do that they have to understand the context(s) in which the book(s) was written in order to be ably to really apply the stuff. If they learn how to approach the historicity of a book, how to discern what the book is teaching based on its historical context, then apply that to their lives, they can take that with them anywhere. The problem is twofold: the textbook is full of facts and historical background (with some application), and the class meets twice a week. Each “chapter” of the text is easily processed in one class period. This means the temptation to simply waltz in, start the next ‘chapter,’ and neatly wrap it up at the end of 45 minutes is VERY strong. In fact, one could teach the class with very little prep (provided you have a decent grounding in the subject matter). And the students are well-behaved and moderately interested, plus I’m a good classroom manager, so you could bore them to tears and not have any evidence of it.
However, I decided that for the remaining weeks before Easter, we will depart from the “chapter to chapter” approach and look at the broad theme of Acts 12-28: Paul’s missionary journeys and the growth of the church beyond Palestine to the Gentile world. Having taught social studies for seven years, plus two more years of 6th grade self-contained, I immediately thought of planning a trip – let’s retrace Paul’s missionary journeys! OOOHH!! Lots of pictures, fun stuff – then I thought, “Wait a minute. I don’t even know where all he went on those journeys. I have a map in the back of my Bible to show me that. Besides, what’s the point of knowing it, other than winning a Bible trivia contest or something? No, that is not what I want them to learn.”
Then I had to wrestle – what did I REALLY want them to learn?
• Paul is largely responsible for spreading the Gospel beyond Jerusalem to the Roman world
• Paul’s writings form the basis for much of what we teach in churches today
o What we are to believe about Jesus and God
o How we are to function as believers in a local body
What was the enduring understanding I wanted them to keep with them forever?
• Christians in the time of Paul faced many of the same problems we face today
Knowing that the material after Easter Break is going to deal with how the book of Ephesians specifically addresses problems of past and present, I wanted to lay a strong foundation for the students to understand the historical context of that book. I also wanted them to understand that Paul wrote to a bunch of different churches, and that each of them was different and had similar yet different problems and situations. So I began crafting, and came up with the following list of specifically what I want them to know:
Choose one of the cities Paul wrote to and know:
-modern-day state of the city-why a church probably developed in that city (geographical etc)
-what that church was like (ethnicity, size)
-what problems that church faced and why (historical)
-how Paul encouraged / advised the church to deal with their problems
-how that advice or those principles apply to us today
I want a paper product (or a PowerPoint) and an oral presentation
Here’s the ill-structured problem, presented as a role play:
“Hello, I’m Pastor Dan. Several of the members of my congregation want to take a trip and visit cities the Apostle Paul wrote letters to. So I’m coming to you as travel specialists to request some information. I want each of you to choose one of the cities Paul wrote to. I want to know what that city was like when Paul wrote to it. I find that if someone can step into the shoes of someone who lived long ago, then they have a much better appreciation for what that person went through, what they wrote, and what they experienced, which means they can much better apply what that person has to teach us to their lives. That’s what I want. Any questions? Or is there anything else you can suggest you should tell me?”
Of course this is ill-defined, as McCain suggests, and after 15 minutes or so of Q&A they’d hit all the points of what I wanted them to do in the first place – but THEY came up with is, so it’s THEIR project.
Then “Pastor Dan” left, and Mr. Penn returned. At that point I asked what Pastor Dan had to share with them, if they wrote down details (some had), and explained, as McCain does, how they can “have power” over me by recording details specifically. So they spent the remaining few minutes comparing notes. Next time Pastor Dan will be back to clarify and verify, signing the contract.
OH – I forgot to mention the forms. Since we’re 2/3 of the way through the year I decided to provide them with the “Define” and “Design” forms. I’m not sure about the time sheet. I told them they could use another form to do their work if they liked, but the form I provided contained the information they needed to be sure they had.
EXPECTATIONS
On Tuesday I expect to see several fairly complete definitions of the project, some will be extremely vague. None will be complete entirely. However a couple of the students will remember enough to know what to ask to clarify (“Did you say you wanted…?”). I expect several will be raring to get to work on the project without actually defining & designing – and I expect to get complaints about having to go through the process. But I expect at the end of it several at least will see the value in it. I will need to build in a period to process the experience with them. Since I wanted to give them maximum time to work, I made the due date March 13. I may offer extra credit to those who present on the 11th so we can have time before break (March 17-21) to process. Otherwise we’ll just have to process after. I plan to force them to come up with the 4 steps, the 4 Ds, before I post anything spelling out the steps.
I expect the research part of this project will be the easiest for them, and probably the best – the pictures, the facts – the stuff you can Google. The application part / lessons you can learn, those may be trickier. Maybe what I need to do is modify the project – “Confer with Pastor Dan” and decide that the application piece should wait until after break so we have time to really dig into that… I’ve got to think more about this.
This is in process – we’ll see how it goes!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Implementing 21st century skills in my school
It´s a foregone conclusion that schools need to have up-to-date technology in place if our students are to be successful. I hardly think one would find disagreement. Nor do I think any parent or educator would disagree that students need to know how to use the latest technology. How is the issue.
Funding is an obvious problem, but not one I want to address here. We have to assume that someone will wise up and provide the funds needed to make the necessary changes. We must spend our time and resources planning what needs to change, and how we will implement the changes.
First, schools must motivate teachers to learn and use technology. I don’t think this will be successful if it is forced. Naturally some teachers will be better at it than others, some more intrinsically motivated than others, but that is the nature of teaching: not all teachers are good teachers. A combination of incentives and professional development offerings would be a good start. Saturday sessions, with incentives to attend, could be offered to bring the techno-immigrants up to speed with such basics as the Office package, Windows, e-mail, basic internet use, etc. Ample training on technologies used by the school should be offered as well – how to post to the school website, use the electronic gradebook, etc. After a couple of years this kind of thing must be mandatory, possibly requiring teachers to demonstrate proficiency at various technologies before being promoted to a new salary scale.
Once the majority of teachers are fluent in the basics, move on to more advanced technologies. Begin with things they can use right now in their classrooms. Digital cameras and photo software, creating websites, things that will enhance what they´re currently doing. This will warm them more to the idea of increasing their use of technology. Once they like it and get comfortable with it, they´ll wonder how they ever lived without it and hopefully want more of it. Administration can encourage the use of technology by circulating memos electronically – accountability and follow-through are important to ensure all staff members are checking e-mail regularly.
Simultaneous with this training, a task force should be convened to plan and strategize what new technologies should be implemented at the school, along what time frame this should occur, and how they should be implemented. This team should include in their plans a design for implementing 21st century skills, not just adapting new hardware and software. This would be the trickiest part, as it would require faculty training or retraining, not just installing hardware. As stated before, incentives and positive motivation would be the best way to get faculty buy-in. Sending key leaders within the school to conferences or devoting professional development time to raising awareness and building momentum would be good ideas. At any rate, you have to convince the faculty that this needs to happen, and they need to see that the leadership is committed ideologically, logistically, and financially to making it happen.
One the 1-10 scale we are a school hovering between 4 and 5. I think most students fall in that area, as do most teachers. I don´t think this is because we as a school are working towards the goal of being a 10, I think it is just a fact of who we are and who our students are. We could just as easily be a 1 or a 10. We have no direction in this area.
For us, getting faculty buy-in will be the hardest part. We have a young, fairly untrained staff. They feel overwhelmed by our current curriculum writing processes. We have a director that seems to have little sense of direction in this area (to be fair she inherited this position, along with its problems, a year ago). Morale is low or negative. Talk of change raises hackles. Getting them on board is key, and will be our biggest challenge.
We are most advanced in our use of 21st century tools. Since most of our staff is young, most of us are comfortable in techno world. We use web services to post grades, lessons, and homework, to communicate with parents. This is not a barrier for us. Also, our technology is pretty up-to-date, and we have opportunities to partner with businesses in the community to bring in more advanced technologies. Budget is a challenge, but if the need were presented, I believe we could find donors. So obtaining equipment isn´t a huge deal.
For me to lead by example I need to become more fluent in the technologies that enable collaboration: wikis, google documents, video conferencing. I have a facebook site and I have used instant messaging quite a lot, but I am not fluent in them and don´t find them useful for what I need to do or who I am in life.
Funding is an obvious problem, but not one I want to address here. We have to assume that someone will wise up and provide the funds needed to make the necessary changes. We must spend our time and resources planning what needs to change, and how we will implement the changes.
First, schools must motivate teachers to learn and use technology. I don’t think this will be successful if it is forced. Naturally some teachers will be better at it than others, some more intrinsically motivated than others, but that is the nature of teaching: not all teachers are good teachers. A combination of incentives and professional development offerings would be a good start. Saturday sessions, with incentives to attend, could be offered to bring the techno-immigrants up to speed with such basics as the Office package, Windows, e-mail, basic internet use, etc. Ample training on technologies used by the school should be offered as well – how to post to the school website, use the electronic gradebook, etc. After a couple of years this kind of thing must be mandatory, possibly requiring teachers to demonstrate proficiency at various technologies before being promoted to a new salary scale.
Once the majority of teachers are fluent in the basics, move on to more advanced technologies. Begin with things they can use right now in their classrooms. Digital cameras and photo software, creating websites, things that will enhance what they´re currently doing. This will warm them more to the idea of increasing their use of technology. Once they like it and get comfortable with it, they´ll wonder how they ever lived without it and hopefully want more of it. Administration can encourage the use of technology by circulating memos electronically – accountability and follow-through are important to ensure all staff members are checking e-mail regularly.
Simultaneous with this training, a task force should be convened to plan and strategize what new technologies should be implemented at the school, along what time frame this should occur, and how they should be implemented. This team should include in their plans a design for implementing 21st century skills, not just adapting new hardware and software. This would be the trickiest part, as it would require faculty training or retraining, not just installing hardware. As stated before, incentives and positive motivation would be the best way to get faculty buy-in. Sending key leaders within the school to conferences or devoting professional development time to raising awareness and building momentum would be good ideas. At any rate, you have to convince the faculty that this needs to happen, and they need to see that the leadership is committed ideologically, logistically, and financially to making it happen.
One the 1-10 scale we are a school hovering between 4 and 5. I think most students fall in that area, as do most teachers. I don´t think this is because we as a school are working towards the goal of being a 10, I think it is just a fact of who we are and who our students are. We could just as easily be a 1 or a 10. We have no direction in this area.
For us, getting faculty buy-in will be the hardest part. We have a young, fairly untrained staff. They feel overwhelmed by our current curriculum writing processes. We have a director that seems to have little sense of direction in this area (to be fair she inherited this position, along with its problems, a year ago). Morale is low or negative. Talk of change raises hackles. Getting them on board is key, and will be our biggest challenge.
We are most advanced in our use of 21st century tools. Since most of our staff is young, most of us are comfortable in techno world. We use web services to post grades, lessons, and homework, to communicate with parents. This is not a barrier for us. Also, our technology is pretty up-to-date, and we have opportunities to partner with businesses in the community to bring in more advanced technologies. Budget is a challenge, but if the need were presented, I believe we could find donors. So obtaining equipment isn´t a huge deal.
For me to lead by example I need to become more fluent in the technologies that enable collaboration: wikis, google documents, video conferencing. I have a facebook site and I have used instant messaging quite a lot, but I am not fluent in them and don´t find them useful for what I need to do or who I am in life.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
How will CCA meet the challenge of teaching 21st century skills to 21st century learners using 21st century tools?
We are at the early stages in everything but 21st century tools and learning content. The MILES assessment rates us as transitional in the area of learning and teaching, and that may be partially accurate. Perhaps the strongest thing we have going for us is a young teaching staff unafraid of technology. We also have an administrator who wants to make us a better, stronger school, and sees technology as a big part of that.
Critical factors to making progress: teaching the teachers. We are a young school, so young, in fact, that we don’t have documented curriculum. We are in the process of writing our scope and sequences and one day will move on into standards and benchmarks. This is a beneficial process, but it’s meeting lots of resistance from our young staff, partly because they are confused and frustrated (lack of experience), partly because it’s forcing us to define what we will teach and what we think is important rather than simply teaching what we like, which was the MO up until a year or so ago. The challenge will be presenting the need to teach 21st century skills using 21st century technology in a way that isn’t overwhelming. Since there’s so much transition happening already with the curriculum process, I think it might do them in.
One obvious area of concern would be the director and the board, but I’m not sure this will be a huge challenge. I passed several of the articles we read for this course on to my director, and I think she’s wise enough to see the need. Our board, too, is made up of business people, so I think they’ll be supportive. But our priority at this point is to get organized and functioning, THEN we can start thinking 21st century. I think we’re three years away from being able to really rethink things. It’s never too early to start people thinking, but to look top-to-bottom at the program and make revisions, too much for now.
A major barrier is our location. Our teachers will need professional development, and probably some cheerleading, to get through the major transitions this kind of overhaul will entail. There’s nobody else down here thinking 21st century in the way these articles describe. We have few, if any, local models. Yes, the internet puts the world at our fingertips, but is anyone doing online mentoring to walk people through the process of 21st century skill implementation? Where will our professional development come from? Additionally, who on our staff will be the advocates for change? Will it be possible to get that one teacher whose passionate about changing to get the others on board?
Critical factors to making progress: teaching the teachers. We are a young school, so young, in fact, that we don’t have documented curriculum. We are in the process of writing our scope and sequences and one day will move on into standards and benchmarks. This is a beneficial process, but it’s meeting lots of resistance from our young staff, partly because they are confused and frustrated (lack of experience), partly because it’s forcing us to define what we will teach and what we think is important rather than simply teaching what we like, which was the MO up until a year or so ago. The challenge will be presenting the need to teach 21st century skills using 21st century technology in a way that isn’t overwhelming. Since there’s so much transition happening already with the curriculum process, I think it might do them in.
One obvious area of concern would be the director and the board, but I’m not sure this will be a huge challenge. I passed several of the articles we read for this course on to my director, and I think she’s wise enough to see the need. Our board, too, is made up of business people, so I think they’ll be supportive. But our priority at this point is to get organized and functioning, THEN we can start thinking 21st century. I think we’re three years away from being able to really rethink things. It’s never too early to start people thinking, but to look top-to-bottom at the program and make revisions, too much for now.
A major barrier is our location. Our teachers will need professional development, and probably some cheerleading, to get through the major transitions this kind of overhaul will entail. There’s nobody else down here thinking 21st century in the way these articles describe. We have few, if any, local models. Yes, the internet puts the world at our fingertips, but is anyone doing online mentoring to walk people through the process of 21st century skill implementation? Where will our professional development come from? Additionally, who on our staff will be the advocates for change? Will it be possible to get that one teacher whose passionate about changing to get the others on board?
Friday, February 1, 2008
Welcome & Intro
This blog contains my thoughts and reactions to what I'm learning about preparing students for the 21st century.
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