Jumping in the Open Water--#ETMOOC

My dad said that he learned to swim when my grandfather threw him in the Cape Fear River.  No life jacket. No walking in a little at the time.  Sink or swim.  That's certainly the opposite of how I learned to swim.  I remember clinging to my dad in the pool, screaming at him not to let me go.  I wanted to swim so I could play with my friends, but I was also very afraid.  Finally, my mom enrolled me in lessons at the Y.  I didn't dare scream.  I methodically learned to swim--at least well enough to pass the required swim test at UNC.

There's something to be said for the sink or swim method.  Cautious tip-toeing can consume a lot of time that could be spent on the deep end.  It also allows more time for you to consider all the things that could go wrong.  Being thrown into the water puts survival in your control--certainly terrifying at first, but empowering when you realize you control the speed and direction.  When you get tired, float.

I've joined the #etmooc, a massive open online course about educational technology.  I feel like I've been thrown in the middle of a lake, basically treading water.  I feel pretty comfortable in the webinars and following along on Twitter.  But connecting with others is proving to be the challenge.  For example, at the time of this writing, there are 1,469 blog entries on the #etmooc blog hub.  But I'm starting to swim.

Here's what I hope to learn from participating in this MOOC:

• Tools to empower students to take charge of their learning
• How technology can be an effective tool for personalized learning
• How to address/teach digital citizenship

Here's to staying afloat!

Not knowing whether to laugh or cry

A friend of mine shared the following YouTube video posted by 8th grade teacher R. N. Gutierrez:

I hooted and cackled. We've all probably heard (if not actually said), "When in doubt, choose C."  Use the process of elimination to select between A, B, C, and D.  And how many times have we had our students write about school uniforms and cell phone use? Guilty as charged. 

And as satire is supposed to do, it got me to thinking. Just this week, I received a request for a test-prep book for the new End-of-Course test aligned with the CCSS. How did we get here?  Some like Calkins, Ehrenworth, and Lehman in Pathways to the Common Core, assert that high-stakes testing as part of NCLB has led to flatlined NAEP scores because we have dissected reading into discrete skills, with comprehension taking a hit. Writing instruction became formulaic with a focus on writing for a test rather than writing to think and share.

Then come the Common Core State Standards with its "promise" to prepare all students for college and career.  I like the ELA standards with their clear learning progressions from kindergarten to the College and Career Anchor standards.  But as the Brookings Institute concludes in "The 2012 Brown Center Report on Education":

Despite all the money and effort devoted to developing the Common Core State Standards--not to mention the simmering controversy over their adoption in several states--the study foresees little to no impact on student learning.  That conclusion is based on analyzing  states' past experience with standards and examining several years of scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). p. 5
 

This conclusion is not at all surprising.  Standards and curriculum alone will not impact student learning, rather how the two are enacted does. Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to accountability and testing. I find the sample test items from Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium much better than what we've been using the last decade. I am opposed to tests being the be-all end-all of education. If our focus remains on test preparation rather than college and career preparation, (and likely it will as scores are now tied to teacher evaluation), we will stay mired in the process of teaching students how to "choose C" rather than how to think, communicate, collaborate, create.

The teacher creates the conditions for student learning, not policy makers. I am an educator because I am hopeful.  I believe in the power of public education to help students learn to live a good life.  I choose teachers and their students.  I just hope policy makers choose them, too.

Building the plane while flying it: Reflections on CCSS implementation

For almost two years now, my colleagues and I have been immersed in learning about the Common Core State Standards.  We have crosswalked, unwrapped, powered, and planned.  We've conducted professional development, discussed assessments, and written and vetted units.  And yes, the cliche applies, we've been building this plane as we're flying it.  Isn't everyone?

As we bring our first semester to a close, our district conducted a survey of teachers and administrators to gauge how things are going.  Yikes! Crash and burn.  Scathing comments about lack of preparation, faulty unit designs, and lack of resources.  Even a comment about building a plane while flying it.  If it weren't for emails and conversations with teachers who are excited about student engagement, I would probably retire my wings and quit flying altogether.

After feeling burned subsided, I started reflecting:  You are bound to hit some turbulance if you are building the plane as you fly it.   

Here's some lessons learned from our flight so far:

1.  Flight Plan: Of course you have to consider your point of departure and destination.  Our destination is for students to arrive at College and Career Readiness--not at performance on a high-stakes assessment. We had a pretty solid implementation plan that included all stakeholders.  We used a train-the-trainer model with teacher leaders who helped with pacing and unit designs.  They, in theory, took what they learned back to their colleagues and shared.  We had a feedback loop every step of the way.  But just as airlines experience weather conditions causing flight cancellations, things didn't always go as planned. We need to be flexible with our plans and willing to take an alternate route to our destination, if necessary.

2.  Air Traffic Control:  Clear, multiple-way communication is crucial.  District leaders must share (repeatedly) a unified message about expectations for reaching our destination as well as any changes to the flight plan. School leaders must buy-in to the message and communicate it to school personnel.  Teachers and administrators need to communicate problems encountered so that they can be addressed in a timely manner.  And it doesn't hurt to communicate what is going well, also.

3.  Carry-On Luggage:  Tight budgets don't allow for checked baggage, so we must make do with what can fit in our carry-on.  Vendors abound with products labeled "Common Core,"  and the choices can be overwhelming. We've also discovered that a Common Core label doesn't guarantee that the resource is aligned with the standards.  Before making a purchase, I ask myself, "How will this resource help me teach the standards?"

4. Oxygen Mask:  I've heard many times over from overwhelmed veteran teachers, "I feel like a first-year teacher."  When we feel like this work is getting out of our control, we need to grab our oxygen masks (i.e. our content knowledge and pedagogical skills) and breathe deeply.  We also need to help our colleagues with their masks now and again.  Collaboration is necessary for our success.

There is no direct flight to Common Core Implementation.  There's going to be turbulence along the way.  But the destination's worth arriving to together.

Notice and Note

So I've had this blog set up for over a year, with great intentions to write.  And like many of my former students, I felt like I had nothing worthy to say.  Poor example. Convicted. No excuse.  But in my Twitter ventures, I find gentle reminders by folks such as Steven Anderson and his Web 2.0 Classroom; I'm going to follow the advice--write when you can.  Here I go.

Yesterday, my colleagues and I spent a wonderful day with Kyleen Beers and Bob Probst learning about reading signposts that they describe in their lastest book Notice and Note.  The comment that struck me the most throughout this wonderful day of learning was this: Rigor without relevance is just plain hard.  So true.  Rigor without relevance creates disengagement--painful for both student and teacher alike.

How do we make works by Shakespeare, Henry David Thoreau, and Toni Morrison relevant to 21st Century digital learners? What I learned from Kyleen and Bob is that we as teachers don't create relevance by providing texts that match students' interests necessarily, rather we provide the conditions for reading complex texts so that students create their own relevance for reading.  Simple concept, but not necessarily simple to facilitate.  Fortunately, Beers and Probst have, through years of research, provided tools in the 6 signposts and accompanying anchor questions that not only aid students in creating their own relevance for reading, but also to keep them engaged in close reading.

I encourage teachers who hear their students say things like, "Thoreau is too hard." "Why do we have to read Shakespeare?" "This is boring." to take up Notice and Note and learn how to change students' minds.