For Assignment 3 in OLTD 508, we were given the task of identifying three elements of Game-Based Learning (from James Paul Gee) that attract us or we could see using in our own teaching practice, in addition to defining several terms that flesh out our understanding of the Gaming world and its connections to education. I decided, as usual, to represent my findings visually, but felt the infographic needed more discussion. Here goes. Before I could identify the elements of James Paul Gee's work that appealed most to me as a learner and teacher, I really needed to know more about Gaming and education. I am not a Gamer, though I do (secretly) love competition and enjoy the addition of game elements (i.e. Gamification) into courses that I've taken. However, I didn't have a clear sense of the difference between Game-Based Learning (learning happens while playing the game) and Gamification (game elements are a persuasive element added as secondary to the learning activities).
I could easily see myself gamifying one of my courses. I love the idea of assigning XP instead of "grades" and the personalization that is possible when you start allowing students to pick their own quests and path through the learning. This is all very much in tune with my credo of education, and my desire to honour individual differences and choice while working towards student engagement and mastery learning. . Integration of Game-Based Learning was more difficult for me to envision. My daughters, aged 5 and 7, have been learning how to play chess using the free games and tutorials on Lichess.org, and the strategy and theory involved in learning these skills fits nicely with algorithmic and computational thinking outcomes. The games on Lichess seem to be Serious Games, as the intended purpose is to learn, while the enjoyment that my girls have playing them is a pleasant bonus. My online Biology students could play a Simulation to dissect a frog or explore the human body systems, giving them virtual hands-on experience. To be honest, I haven't put much thought into having my students achieve any learning using a Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) game, whether digital or otherwise. A family friend of mine used elements of Dungeons and Dragons to both motivate his Grade 1 students and to teach mathematics (they raced dragons, and it sounded AMAZING). I know that Minecraft is a popular COTS with educational applications, and that students learn a variety of skills from these and other expertly designed games. Game design and the way this overlaps with good educational design is where I start to get really excited. The best elements of games, such as deep engagement promoting flow, problem solving, learner/player agency and empowerment, achievement of meaningful goals, etc. are all synonymous with great educational design. Perhaps most powerfully of all, successful games have identified ways to motivate the user to play (and learn) for hours voluntarily, which I think is the elusive dream of educational designers. James Paul Gee identifies 13 elements of games that promote good learning, and I have selected three that I think are the most meaningful and applicable to me in my context. First, I was instantly drawn to his Co-Design Principle. One of my primary goals as an educator is to empower my students, and the Co-Design Principle describes the element of games that puts the learner (or player) into a role of agency. Their choices and decisions shape the path of the game (or learning) as much as the choices that were made by the designer originally. In this way, the path and outcome for each player is individualized based on choice. To me, this illustrates the ideal relationship between teacher and learners, where we create the learning experience together and honour the choices and individual needs of the student. I practice this in my classroom already, as each student creates a learning plan for each course, and has agency to choose both the pace, path, and place of learning. Second, I selected Gee's Skills as Strategies principle. I feel strongly that for learning to be meaningful, and for students to be able to transfer learning to other realms and situations, they need to have an understanding of how what they're learning is important, and how it can be used as a tool or strategy. I want to give my students the tools to make good choices and demonstrate their understanding, and one of the key ways to do this is to give them time to practice basic skills until they have mastered them, while also making it clear that the skills are needed to achieve a certain goal. In order for learning to be authentic, I think the problems presented to students need to be realistic and engaging, and need to give students the chance to demonstrate the skills they have been practicing. Problem-Based Learning and Inquiry projects seem like great ways to build the connection between skills and strategies for my students. Finally, as a Linguist, I was drawn to Gee's Meaning as Action principle. I find the act of helping students achieve concept attainment as fascinating as it is difficult, and often struggle to define and help students grasp some of the more nebulous concepts in the Socials and English courses I teach. I think that I intuitively knew that people understand best when we have an example (especially since I frequently struggle to find the right words for a definition), but I hadn't made the connection that people rarely think in words. Instead Gee explains that we build meaning through images, actions, goals, or experiences. This reinforces the importance of hands-on or experiential learning, which is difficult to achieve with online courses, but at least gives me the option to link to a video or an image to help clarify. Perhaps strong learners under our traditional system, which tends to provide more words to act as a definition, are those who are skilled at creating mental images. I could start to encourage students to define words using pictures on a mobile device or computer, or to build the skills of visualization. One example I can think of for this concept is the lesson I have taught many times over on Iambic Pentameter. I think I found it on the internet or in the UBC lesson library back in my early days as a teacher, but it incorporated movement very clearly into a rhythmic understanding of the scansion. Students were to pace around the room, pretending that one leg was made of wood, resulting in a weak/strong stamping pattern. Then they would chant the 10-syllable line (which is also iambic pentameter) "I am a pirate with a wooden leg," using the movement and the words to "hammer home" the meaning. It was fun too, which I think is important in any discussion of how good game design is similar to good learning design. In conclusion, I could spend the rest of my career exploring ways to integrate Gee's 13 principles of good learning design, and I would be a much more effective educator as a result. The power that can be harnessed by integrating games, gamification, and game-based learning into our practices should not be ignored, particularly as they simultaneously engage learners, provide opportunities for deep learning, give real problem-solving experiences with a "win state" to signal success, and teach 21st century digital skills and literacy.
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OLTD 509 had us looking at a variety of innovative ways of thinking: Emerging technology, Emerging Challenges, Emerging Pedagogies, and Sustainable Change. Initially I had envisioned the course being about cool new technology we could use with our students, which sounded fine, but not something that really gets me excited. I knew that the course was gamified, and that intrigued me because I’m always on the lookout for new techniques I can use to engage my students. This is the crux of my teaching interests - I want to know the reasoning behind the choices, and know that anything I’m employing works to help engage students and improve learning. In other words, I need to be able to connect any new ideas, new technology, and innovative solutions to challenges to my credo. As I continued through my studies, I came to realize that I was viewing the material through the filter of my experiences and my beliefs about the world: through my mental models. Reflecting on this framework can give me some insight into my reactions to innovations, as well as my reactions to the behaviours of others. Typically I am slow to jump on board with innovations. I like to have a solid belief in the reasons behind them, and to understand my reasoning enough to explain it, and indeed justify it, to others. This isn’t to suggest that I’m afraid of change - quite the contrary - it just means that I like to take my time with decision making, and to be sure of my choices before I move forward. These realizations had me start to question failed innovations that I have seen during my career, and ask what could have been done differently to increase the chances of success. I imagine that all educators have seen something inspired and exciting just fizzle out and lose momentum. Ultimately I have decided that the success of innovation - and indeed the likelihood of sustainable change - all comes down to leadership and the culture and community that leaders can cultivate. Policy makers and administration have to have the same clarity in their vision that teachers need to have in their assignments and lessons. What are the intended outcomes? What paths can you take to get there? What skills do you need to develop? How will we know when we have gotten there? What does success look like? Just as teachers need to ensure that students know how to use feedback in order to make improvements in their skills and knowledge, leaders need to ensure that teachers know how to make use of the services and supports available to them. There’s no point in spending time and money on support for staff through Pro-D if teachers don’t understand why it’s important and how it connects to something important to them. Just as we need to personalize learning for students, we need to personalize training and innovation for teachers. If we can’t connect, we won’t use it. And perhaps most importantly, leaders need to honour the shared values of the teaching community by taking the time to ensure that any innovations they bring forward fit with what teachers actually want (and that we all understand how it matches). As a student, I was that kid who was always asking why. As a teacher, I’m the same way. Why is this important to me? Why is this something I should invest time and effort in? Why is this better than another option? Leaders need to know the answers to these “whys” - which means they need to have analyzed them first. Here’s my recipe for sustainable success - the elements I think we should strive to include when we’re making decisions for pedagogical change. Reflection is really important for me as a learner. I need to be able to link new ideas to my existing understandings, and formulate them (usually in words or a graphic) in order to really have them stick. For my own learning purposes, I have created an annotated record of my journey through OLTD 509, highlighting my main leadership and culture takeaways from each step. I can picture myself using digital technologies to make a virtual tour through my learning journey in the future, but for now, here it is.
Thanks for humoring me as I take a walk down OLTD 509 memory lane, solidifying my understanding and raising some additional ideas for contemplation as I absorb, integrate, and articulate my learning.
My latest foray into the world of emerging challenges had me looking at “Mental Models” by Avi Luxenburg, which he based on the work of Peter Senge. Avi leads us through a great description and explanation of the way our experiences and upbringing create “filters” through which we view reality - our mental models. He extends this to discussion of how these filters, and the resulting assumptions we make in daily life, can impact those around us, and how they can colour the way we treat others.
As the discussion continues, Avi explains how we can begin to question our filters and assumptions, and improve our relationships with those around us by having greater understanding of the situation. This translates into practical advice we can use to re-frame and become aware of how our mental models influence our treatment of our students, our colleagues, and our families too. Educationally, the possibilities are huge - both for staff interactions with each other and staff interactions with students - and for a deeper understanding of the “big picture” and to plan for and implement educational change more successfully as a result. The possibilities are a better world for everyone (large scale) and a more understanding classroom (small scale). Because the re-framing of reality is something we do on an individual basis, if you decide to do it, it will work. The biggest downside to this plan is that you have to have buy in - you can’t just start “doing” this if you don’t choose to. The barriers are, ironically, people’s own mental models. Admitting that you might be perceiving reality imperfectly is admitting that you may have made unfair assumptions, and not everyone is able or willing to do this. This brings me back to thoughts of the importance of school leadership having a clear vision and the ability to communicate it effectively. My immediate thought is that the analysis of mental models and how they affect our perceptions and treatment of others is something everyone should learn more about. It could help the world become a more empathetic and compassionate place. I strive for both of these qualities in both my personal life and teaching life, as I think they’re central to being a good person. When I was in Grade 12, I helped organize a city-wide Anti-Racism conference for high school students. Our keynote speaker was an unassuming older gentleman, who happened to have survived Buchenwald Concentration Camp. I must have cried through his whole speech, which was gentle, forgiving, and incredibly inspiring. I wasn’t crying because his story was so tragic - which it absolutely was, no doubt about it. I was crying because he made that aspect of history real for me, and he transformed my understanding of reality. I felt like I could no longer trust my assumptions about the experiences and backgrounds of those I saw, for who would expect this kind looking man to have a tattoo on his forearm marking him as a survivor of one of the greatest atrocities in modern history? Since then, I have tried to carry this awareness into my reactions to inconvenience (I scrupulously pull over when an emergency vehicle is behind me, as I think about the person they are hurrying to save), in addition to how I perceive the behaviour of others - especially my students. Although I consider myself to be an extremely logical and skeptical person, I am absolutely empathetic and emotional as well - because I firmly believe in the importance of empathy and emotional connections to the health of a community and relationships. And community and relationships are central to my credo and the kind of learning environment I want to create for my students (and my own children). Our filters for reality vary depending on our experiences, our upbringing, and our cultures. Another word we might be able to use for mental models is prejudices. It is a pejorative term, linked closely to the active cousin of prejudice: discrimination. Self-awareness and rebuilding of mental models (or simply being able to recognize and refuse to act on our prejudices) is absolutely possible, as psychology has proven. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a powerful tool psychologists use to help people change their thought patterns, and through these changes alter their perception of reality (and their lives too). If, for example, you were crippled with anxiety at the thought of someone seeing your messy basement, you could use a “ladder of inference” in the form of a CBT worksheet to help you analyze your reaction, your assumptions, and the reality behind the situation as it exists separate from your filters. Avi explains Senge's argument that strong leadership - in the form of communities that possess a great deal of empathy and compassion for each other - is one of the best ways to affect sustainable, positive change. My gut feeling is that if we could teach these models and how to alter them to both our staffs and our students (and our politicians - not to mention those south of the border), then we could make a better, kinder community. We could create the kinds of communities that "grow and thrive together" (Avi's phrase), and we could, through empathy and understanding, change the world. For my most recent learning quest, I decided I wanted to look at another element of my credo that I have a theoretical understanding and appreciation of, but I sometimes struggle to translate into the online teaching venue. I have written before (link blog post) about authenticity, and how it’s critical when forming solid relationships with students (posers need not apply), and how lending authenticity to your lessons can deepen learning and make it meaningful and rich. In the 2016 NMC Horizon Report (link), pages 22 and 23 discuss the emerging challenge of constructing authentic learning experiences. I enjoyed the discussion, and I am continuing to broaden my understanding of the implications of the systems under which we operate as educators. Let’s start with a discussion of the report, and end with the implications that I envision for the bigger picture. The New Media Consortium start this section of the report by addressing the five barriers to authentic learning experiences being more widespread in schools. Understanding these barriers is the first step to beginning the process of disrupting the existing systems and moving towards transformative educational practice. For example, the current rigidity of curriculum and content is a real barrier to authentic learning experiences - we can’t ignore our mandated obligation to cover certain material in a certain amount of time. Additionally, teachers feel pressure to alter their teaching to prepare students for standardized testing and to meet the demands embedded in the current reporting paradigm. Furthermore, the system demands that we take attendance and that we have certain blocks of time for certain subjects. Moving beyond these restrictions would make huge strides towards being able to create authentic learning experiences. I would also add that one of the biggest barriers to creating authentic learning opportunities is that it requires risk-taking on the part of the educator. Many of us would prefer to stick with what we know will be successful, especially when the school culture is one of achievement (get results!) rather than one that cultivates teaching and learning. I keep using this phrase: “authentic learning experiences”. The NMC Horizon report describes these as “an umbrella for several important pedagogical strategies that have great potential to immerse learners in environments where they can gain lifelong learning skills; these approaches include vocational training, apprenticeships, and certain scientific inquiries” (p.22). I would argue that authentic learning includes more than just the environment, but the mindsets behind the lesson and activity design. There are so many aspects of authentic learning experiences that are clear winners according to the filters of my credo. I want my students to have real-world learning experiences and be ready for higher learning or a vocation. Challenge-based learning honours the individual and their connection to the real world - empowering students to realize that their abilities are transferable beyond the classroom. It is student centered and values the importance of the learner over the importance of the content by stressing metacognitive reflection and self-awareness. This section of the report reads a lot like my credo. I am totally convinced that I need to allow for more authentic learning experiences - and I even have a bit of an idea how to do this in my online classroom (connecting with experts in the field, focusing on critical questions and challenge-based learning with a high degree of autonomy). I love that it is proven to improve retention, which is no stretch of the imagination since making the learning authentic automatically makes it more meaningful and easier for students to actually connect with. I am reminded of Yong Zhao and the notion that if we want to help our students compete in the global market then we need to let them explore their own passions and talents, rather than sticking to the rigid constraints of curriculum. (Of course, this is improving with the new BC Ed plan - once we figure out how to properly implement it). I immediately connect again to a theme I’m seeing over and over again - the importance of school culture and school leadership. For example, there are lots of cool, innovative, authentic learning activities taking place in my school district, but it really isn’t becoming VIRAL (to use a word from “Alive in the Swamp”) and it isn’t becoming sticky. These experiences are more like isolated highlights rather than the norm, and I have a few ideas why. I don’t think there is a strong, universally understood pedagogical underpinning. Individual teachers are trying things that are working, but the "big picture" pedagogy behind them isn’t clear to other teachers. Then because we can't all see the big picture, these initiatives seem like a fad. “We” as a district (or school) aren’t connecting the initiatives and pedagogy to our shared vision or values because we haven’t taken the time to establish our shared values - and this reflects on our school leadership and culture. It is my belief that leaders need to communicate the vision - they need to build a connection and include all staff in it, rather than taking direction from who-knows-where and foisting initiatives upon us. When we see admin applauding individual teachers who are doing amazing things, but we don’t understand the vision or the values or the pedagogical underpinnings, then it risks seeming like favouritism. This can alienate those teachers who are skeptical and less likely to jump on board with something until they really understand why and how it will work. Just as the feedback paradigm is a two-way conversation that needs to have all the partners engaged in it, sustainable change and innovation in a district needs to include all stakeholders and ensure that ALL teachers understand WHY we’re doing it and that it builds upon concepts that we ALL find important - and you can’t actually do this without consulting and building relationships. In conclusion, the deeper I delve into these quests on emerging challenges, emerging pedagogies, and sustainable change, the greater my understanding that to have our systems properly align with the values that I think we educators hold dear, to be properly transformative, we will have to disrupt the current culture and systems and rebuild them anew. Note: image created using easel.ly Formative Assessment is hardly new concept. It’s something we have been hearing about for at least a decade in education, and many of us are trying to implement in our classrooms. However, it’s arguable that this concept isn’t being implemented on a scale that we might expect, considering its high profile and how beneficial it is for learning. So why isn’t formative assessment sweeping our schools by storm? Here’s where I start to be a skeptical teacher - I actually do think we are trying to implement formative assessment. I just don’t think we, as a rule, are doing a very good job of it. If you’re a teacher like me, you’re putting massive amounts of effort into writing quality feedback. You’re trying to state things positively, to give “two stars and a wish” in a manner that celebrates the good points of the student work, and to make suggestions for improvement in a way that is easy to accept and easy to act on. You probably put heart into your feedback, and spend hours doing it. And if you’re like me, you might sometimes be frustrated when it seems like all the timely and quality feedback you’re providing isn’t having the result on student learning that you would have expected. Marianne Stenger (2017) wrote “Maximizing Your Feedback’s Impact”, a practical and useful article that provides answers to why our feedback might not be having the expected effect on learning. “If you want feedback to have maximum impact on learners’ development, then how learners engage with and implement feedback is just as crucial as the quality and the timing of the feedback itself" (Stenger. 2017). This makes so much sense, and it embarrasses me to admit that I had mostly thought of feedback as something I write, not as something students use. It’s a form of communication, and I was only thinking about the speaker - not the listener (or reader, as the case most often is in DL, which I teach). Stenger explains that we need to help our students to become “proactive recipients” of feedback - and my interpretation of this is that we as teachers need to understand the barriers that are getting in the way of students engaging with the feedback, and ensure that our design of the learning environment and experiences encourage and promote quality engagement and implementation of the feedback provided. Stenger lists four tips for improving student engagement with feedback. First, she encourages us to understand the barriers preventing learners from using feedback, which include reasons such as an inability to interpret the language, not knowing strategies to make changes based on the feedback, feeling a lack of agency or that the changes are not achievable, and of course, not having a willingness to engage in the difficult work of implementation. Next she explicitly states that we need to teach students how to use feedback, build opportunities to implement the feedback, and finally to help students see that improvement is actually achievable. Of course there are major benefits to improving student engagement with feedback. The possibilities for this are incredible. It’s all about improving the student experience and enriching learning, and it empowers students to make use of feedback for learning (i.e. the very definition of formative assessment, if you ask me). It also strikes me as a move towards social-justice. Just as we have spoken about the digital divide becoming a “knowledge and skill” divide rather than one of connectivity, this addresses inequalities in the privilege that some students come to our classes possessing (in this case, the academic vocabulary and family support to make sense of edu-speak or assessment language). Improving formative assessment and engagement with feedback is also another way to give students a stake in their learning - another way to provide students with ownership. Students will get so much more out of the quality feedback that teachers are working to provide, and teachers will feel that their hard work is being appreciated and utilized. There are predictable difficulties as well, such as difficulty taking time out of our class time to teach students how to make sense of feedback in the face of having barely have enough time to meet all of the curricular outcomes for a course as it is. The amount of effort teachers will need to put in on top of curriculum and already busy schedules, coupled with the difficulty fitting this in to the current reporting paradigm, could be prohibitive. This article ties really closely to something I’ve been thinking and writing about in my Credo pieces for years (though I didn’t call it my credo years ago), which is that I want my students to be “Proactive Recipients” - to help them develop the ability to gracefully deal with criticism and to implement feedback - both positive and negative - to enrich their learning experience. Stenger lists the fact that receiving feedback can be an emotionally loaded experience for students - it can feel like rejection of them rather than a discussion of their product - and this requires finesse in order to masterfully provide tips and strategies that students can use while not losing face. I’m not there yet, but I definitely think about it a lot. Honestly, I don’t know how to dissociate the emotion from the feedback because it’s something I feel really strongly myself. Interestingly, although I’ve been thinking of this as an important part of my philosophy of education for some time, I have never actually tried to come up with a plan for how to teach it or develop these skills with students in the online environment. I had strategies for in person (rewriting rubrics in kid-friendly language as a group, for example, or asking “what does a _____ look like?” and creating criteria together), but I have really only put effort into what I hope is useful feedback coupled with the explicit ability to rewrite any assignment making use of the feedback I have provided. I overlooked the fact that some students might not want to add to their burden of work by redoing assignments when they can see the list of other ones they need to finish before the end of the course. So here is my big takeaway: IT’S ALL ABOUT DESIGN. Yikes. That means if it isn’t working, it’s my fault, right? Stenger cites Winstone & Nash’s list of SAGE Recipience skills, which is one framework we could use to help students learn how to accept and use feedback.I have identified the elements of design/credo that I need to alter to enable my students to actually use the feedback that I like to THINK is formative. I also need to think about how, in the online environment, I can allow time to IMPLEMENT feedback, which I think means I need to turn away from the “list” of assignments and start using some sort of assessment system that values time on task. But with a huge list of courses that I teach (like, 30. Seriously), the idea of reworking them is OVERWHELMING. But important. But scary. Sigh. Disruptive change, man.
Here are some ideas I came up with that I could use in my online practice to start making change and improving impact of feedback on student learning.
For me, turning my focus away from what I write in the feedback to how the students can interpret and use the feedback is a paradigm shift, and I think it’s probably the largest stumbling block in the race to having formative assessment REALLY implemented in our schools. Ultimately I think learners need to take ownership of their learning if we want them to achieve deep and meaningful outcomes. Giving them the tools to properly engage with their feedback is one way we can empower them to take this ownership. Note: Images created using piktochart. Meet my alter-egos: YESlie and NOlie. In education, as in life, the best things are balanced. Hard work with relaxation. Salty with sweet. Discipline with liberty. I would argue that the best teachers need to be balanced too. I took inspiration for both YESlie and NOlie from my own preferences and predilections. I both cherish and fear change, as I’m sure many of us do, and I appreciate student-centred learning for the way it honours the learner while I also appreciate the need to maintain a classroom environment that is controlled enough to give all students the opportunity to learn without distraction. My ideal classroom would harness the thoughtfulness and order-making from NOlie, and the creativity and enthusiasm from YESlie, with a blend of assessment and instructional styles.
As I continue my learning journey through OLTD, I keep returning to the role of good school leadership in terms of change, both technological and pedagogical, and how important it is that administrators support both the YESlie’s and the NOlie’s on staff, in addition to helping these teachers find their own harmonious teaching balance. Some leaders might be traditional themselves, and need to be sure that they balance “what has worked in the past” with the new and exciting, and that they support the YESlies who might want to try to technology or pedagogies in their classrooms. Some leaders seem to undervalue the NOlies, who do tend to offer real results, and often have the benefit of experience to support their choices. Just because a teacher is traditional, does not mean that he or she is a “has-been” or making poor choices for students. After all, this is the beauty of having a variety of teachers offering courses in schools, as it allows the students to experience a variety of teaching styles and figure out their learning preferences (and that invaluable skill of “getting along with others”). Where does this critical reflection get me? I am a few steps closer to really understanding who I am as a pedagogue, and what qualities I want to bring into the classroom. I better understand that these qualities vary based on context, on students, and frankly, on how I feel on a certain day. Interestingly, this brings me back to my university epiphany, when the then 19-year-old Leslie sat in one of her Pre-Med organic chemistry lectures. I realized, at that point, that they were trying to FAIL us. It was a “weeder” course, and the learning had stopped being fun as they tried to weed out the students who wouldn’t make it to the next semester. I realized that what I really wanted to do with my life was change the world (obviously), and that I loved learning, and if I became a teacher I could combine my passion for learning with my desire to affect change. I had an existential crisis (I actually have these a lot), changed majors, and ended up where I am today - trying to balance the best of what worked for me, with the best of what’s new and exciting, and change the world, one student at a time, in the process. I just (as in three days ago) read “Alive in the Swamp: assessing digital innovations in education” by Michael Fullan and Katelyn Donnelly, and it took me this long to process and really start to understand the implications for my practice, my school, and the system I’m embedded in. Change is scary stuff, and I think I have had to realize some paradigm shifting things about norms in my district, and the types of changes we would have to make and on what scale. Yikes! Are you scared yet? On the surface, this is just an awesome report. “Just” - as though that’s an easy thing to accomplish. Donnelly and Fullan have created what could possibly be the most useful index ever in terms of school technology purchasing, and if teachers and districts follow these suggestions, I would think the results would be positive at the very least, and revolutionarily transformational at best. I guess this is why Avi listed this quest and report as a personal favourite. Now I have to tell you, having it listed as the instructor’s favourite kind of set me up to be hypercritical. I’m a skeptic by nature, and my main method of concept attainment includes a lot of non-examples. For instance, I can best understand what a good school system is by examining all the poor examples in detail. It’s the way my brain works. I’m a bit of a Novi that way (or a NOlie, if you want to extend the characterization to a version of myself). As a result, having this article orient my attention with the question “What does good look like” from the beginning was excellent, as I could use both their positive examples and their negative ones to build a fuller understanding. I worked slowly through the report, taking detailed notes and coming up with at least as many questions as conclusions. It took me hours to read. It took me days to digest. As someone who is normally a fast worker, and a quick thinker, this was different. And it was frustrating. And I think I have left the process transformed. Let’s have a brief nerdy interlude for a minute. I was confused by the central metaphor of “the swamp”. It distracted me. I felt like it was an awesome title, but maybe that was all it was - why include a metaphorical underpinning if it’s not actually underpinning anything? Why refer to the swamp of technological innovation and choices if you aren’t going to flesh it out? Why not just call this “Sustainable Innovation Decision Making Index”? So here’s the sense I made of the swamp. Remember in Star Wars Episode V (The Empire Strikes Back), when Luke has to go to the Dagobah System to find Yoda and learn how to use the Force? He ends up on this murky, steamy swamp planet where Yoda has been exiled, and the whole planet seems to be a manifestation of Luke’s inner turmoil. In order to prove himself as a Jedi, he needs to pull his spaceship out of the swamp - use his mind to pull it out of the muck and mire (i.e. his own turmoil and confusion), and then he can get on with the business of helping the Rebellion stop the Emperor and Darth Vader. I think that as educators, we have to use our minds to make informed decisions, and we have to be able to pull the useful technology out from amidst the muck of the swamp and use it to move forward with the business of saving the universe from the evil forces of the Empire. Or change the prevailing systems to be better for learners in the 21st century, which is basically the same thing. (I probably could have extended this metaphor to Lord of the Rings too, which is my other go-to hero’s journey metaphorical framework). The fantastically practical and easily applied index that Fullan and Donnelly have devised is the method that many of us can figure out which tech needs to be raised up, and which can be left in the mud. I love their focus on pedagogy, which I think is far too often left behind when it comes to tech decision making. They seem to be my credo soul mates when they talk about teachers as change makers, and using education to unlock the passions of the learner. They have enough inspirational, positive, and exciting ideas to get the YESlie in me jumping up and down in excitement, and enough of the flip side to balance it out, and even have my skeptical NOlie side nodding her head in agreement. What a masterpiece. After three days of digestion and contemplation, here’s what I’m taking away from this piece, other than a deep desire to delve in and find out more. Several words stood out to me: stickiness, viral, culture on one end of the scale, and interface, data analysis, and system on the other. Add these together with pedagogy, and here’s what I came up with: Image created using Piktochart The combination of what I’ve called “Cool Factor” - those elements that get everyone on board and excited to sustain the technological innovation - with “Usefulness” - how “delightful and easy” it is to use the technology - with a solid grounding in Pedagogy, are what will, in my mind, keep us “alive in the swamp” and enable us to make revolutionary change in educational systems that benefit teachers and students alike using rational and systematic decision making.
Ultimately, I think it is up to the leaders in our school communities to create this culture and these conditions for success. This is the paradigm shift I alluded to earlier on - I don’t think I really understood how important it is for all of these parts to function together - and how important a role the school leadership plays in this. We can have some teachers on board and excited, but without the ongoing training and support, it will be difficult and perhaps fall to the wayside. Without a current pedagogy behind these innovations, we risk sustaining the status quo but with a more expensive price tag. This is what starts to be scary for me - does this mean I need to take more of a leadership role in my district? If one person working independently can’t affect large scale change (which the authors suggest is necessary for change to be sustainable), then will I have to step out of my comfort zone and start wooing others to my cause? What does this mean for me as a person and a teacher? (Cue existential crisis.) Finally, I have taken some immediately actionable learning away from this quest and report. We need to be able to answer WHY an innovation is pedagogically sound and HOW it will improve teaching and learning before we get excited and try to roll it out. I feel like a more informed consumer of educational technology, and I have some big ideas to ruminate on as well. And I might have to watch a little Star Wars in my spare time to renew my trust in the hero’s journey towards educational reform and positive, lasting change. This blog post from the Harvard Business Review isn’t new - it’s from 2014, and it isn’t even overtly related to mobile learning or video games, at first glance. However, I started synthesizing some ideas - or at least attempting to - partially because I’m struggling with our OLTD 508 inquiry (untethered, I float, like a becalmed ship, astride the tides of change and report cards and “it’s still snowing even though it’s April doldrums”), and partially because I’m avoiding feeling frustrated by my project and choosing to look forward to possible Masters work instead.
I’m repeatedly drawn to the revolutionary - the disruptive. Way back in 501 we talked about Stephen Downes and his theory of how MOOCs could revolutionize education by virtue of their size, their online location, and being free. It could disrupt and dismantle the post-secondary status quo and open up higher education to anyone with a computer and the will to participate. However, I have tried to take part in a MOOC before (on Truth and Reconciliation), and I couldn’t make it through, even though it was incredibly interesting, relevant, and being taught by an acquaintance of mine. It broke my belief in the MOOC as revolutionary because I just couldn’t believe that enough people would buy in for the format to reach critical mass and succeed. This blog post counters the MOOC with something else: Micro credentialing (or as I understood it - tiny modules of content with pointed learning outcomes directly related to the skill you want to gain in order to be successful in the workplace). “By breaking free of the constraints of the “course” as the educational unit, online competency-based providers can easily and cost-effectively stack together modules for various and emergent disciplines.” So here’s my connection - and I’ll pose it to you as a question rather than as an idea that I’ve fully developed (because I haven’t). Is the “chunking” of courses into more pointed tasks and credentials a feature of game-based learning? Is this just Gee’s principle of the Right Information at the Right Time? As I read this article, I kept drawing comparisons to games or quests. Bite sized jobs to be completed by the learner or player. Choosing our own adventure? And to extend this, is this what we’re seeing in the new BC Curriculum for high school English and Socials? In English 10, for example, students must choose any 2 of 5 ELA 2-credit modules. In Socials 9, there are about a zillion content areas that the students could choose to explore in order to meet the outcomes for bigger concepts and competencies. So is the gamification of learning inevitable? I can’t really conceive of a more straight-forward way to structure learning for a room of 32 grade 9 students who might choose 1 of 10 different historical revolutions to study, short of actually limiting them, which seems to violate the spirit of student choice. I wouldn’t like to be the teacher organizing 7 classes of 32 grade 9s who are all selecting content connections based on choice - not without the help of a computer and a framework at least. Scheduling English 10 in a medium-sized northern high school is a nightmare. Admin have chosen to group the modules into pairs (a reasonable solution), limiting students to which they can choose and then limiting them further if their particular choice is backed up against another course they want or need. I anticipate that my flex-ed program is going to overflow with grade 10s wanting to choose the 2 modules that they prefer in the block that suits their timetables. That said, if a bricks-and-mortar teacher had a template that he or she could use to organize the options and track points (this is my project for 508), it could allow students to follow their own quest chain within the confines of a mainstream class. At least, I hope this is the case - I’m still struggling to wrap my head around it (as I complained about earlier on). How do I minimize teacher burnout, maximize student choice, increase transparency, adhere to the spirit and word of the content document, and add in some spicy badges to boot? Gamification. Photo Caption: Teaching is a tough job! And so is babysitting. But they aren't the same thing. Have you ever worried that you could be replaced by computers? That all the tasks you complete on a daily basis could be better accomplished by a machine? If you answered “yes” to these, then you are probably NOT a teacher. Or if you are, then I have some harsh words for you (but don’t worry, they aren’t until later, so you can stop reading now and save yourself).
With the incredible pace of technological innovation that our world and our systems find themselves immersed in, it seems natural that we might start to question whether teachers will eventually be “outsourced” to mechanized or automated service providers. Blended learning is one venue in which we see computer-based learning beginning to integrate itself into the face to face classroom. In this article from the Star Tribune, a Minnesota school district is not replacing teachers who are away with a substitute, and they’re finding that they “haven’t heard it’s not working.” This doesn’t point to a resounding success, but it does raise interesting questions about the value of a teacher on call and the true purpose of a teacher. The students would head to a staffed common area within the school, take out their internet-connected device, and continue working on their course. What are the downsides? First, providing supervision is one of the primary functions of a school. I find it impossible to believe this would work in an elementary school, where students rarely have online content they can access, and where schools are not set up as often with a common area that would have staff there to supervise the children. Second, I can’t see the Union being ok with this development -- TTOCs have been fighting for equal regard from school districts for decades, and have been making real progress in recent years, as evident in the pay scale increases resulting from our last strike. Perhaps most importantly, working as a teacher on call is often the first experience beginning teachers have in the classroom, and it offers a tremendous opportunity for learning and exposure to a variety of classrooms and teaching styles. There are benefits of course, such as the freedom for teachers to just “take a sick day” without the added stress of creating TOC plans - which can actually bring sick teachers into the classroom rather than taking the time they need to get healthy. It would also open the door for students to develop important self-regulation and independent learning skills, and allow districts to use TOC money to fund different innovations that directly benefit students. It would also address some of the difficulties districts have hiring and retaining enough TOCs. This isn’t the only example of how teachers can be “replaced” by technology (or not replaced, as this case may be). In this article from Edutopia, Don Wettrick explores the ways that innovation is leaving some occupations and industries behind, and how school systems need to change in order to avoid being “creatively destroyed.” He states that teachers can no longer be the content purveyors for students, as we have access to more content at our fingertips than ever before. Well, duh. This is really not breaking news, and as much as I appreciate the content in this article, I don’t think that any teachers who are keeping up with current pedagogy believe that it is their sole job to transfer information (harsh words perhaps…). However, unless the current format of reporting changes significantly (baby steps are happening), then teachers really ARE supposed to report on a student’s proficiency within the confines of the mandated learning outcomes, and there will need to be continuous change in how school measures success before students no longer feel the need to memorize content for regurgitation. I would argue that most teachers don’t really want to deliver the content. We want to have the critical conversations, the deep learning opportunities, and the excited students that accompany these. Switching the focus of teaching away from content delivery puts it onto deeper learning and allows for more personalization and individual choice - all great things that fit really neatly into my credo for education. The potential to turn schools into “idea factories” is a really exciting idea that could certainly benefit kids. Wettrick lists a number of really exciting ways we can harness technology to make learning more relevant for students. Examples such as selling 3D printed items on Etsy and participating in bigger conversations on the Web are incredible ways to engage learners and connect to real-world venues. On the other hand, given what I know about privacy legislation in BC (FIPPA), I know that the reality of using all these services that include trans-border data flow and creating user accounts for minors is prohibitively complicated. For most teachers, creating FIPPA compliant consent forms seems like an overwhelming task, and would keep most of us using the services that are tried and true - and that we know we have time for. Ultimately, I don’t think that teachers will ever be replaced by technology because the actual job of a teacher isn’t simple. We aren’t “babysitters” and we aren’t just delivering the content - we’re designing the learning experiences, we’re creating relationships, and we’re helping our students reach their potential in ways that Skynet (err. A.I.? Our robot overlords?) hasn’t even thought of yet. However, my experience teaches me that schools could save a lot of money by “outsourcing” TOCs. I gained invaluable experience as a TOC, but I also know that it isn’t always necessary - such as in my DL/Blended program where there is another teacher in the room most of the time anyway and the content is largely housed online. I wonder what school culture would need to exist in order to have this ‘no sub’ plan work effectively. My DL school with independent superkids works well, but we have all known kids who hear that there’s a TOC and skip class because “nothing is going to happen anyway” or who feel that this is an opportunity to bully an adult instead of just their peers for a change. It would be revealing of deeper problems in school culture around attendance and behaviour to see how the children do when largely left to themselves. This absolutely fits with my credo - teachers shouldn’t just be telling kids what to learn - we should be creating the environment that allows them to explore their passions and learn deeply about the content areas that are both mandated and of personal interest. (Insert report card rant here). IF you create the school culture of collaboration and self-direction and IF you have the relationships and expectations solidified and IF you have taught the children how to learn on their own, then absolutely you can go without an instructor for a day, because the norms will be there to carry the students through their learning without you. The teachers who worry about innovation ‘stealing their jobs’ need to stop stalling and make some changes of their own. Creative destruction and innovation are opportunities we need to embrace. If you're a mom you have probably seen this oft quoted idiom on Pinterest or some mom blog. You've probably been told to take care of yourself and not to overextend yourself, especially when it comes to caring for your family. Mom-burnout is a huge problem, especially in the era of Instagram and lives that are curated to look easy and perfect.
Teacher burnout is a major issue as well, and many of the wise words doled out by mom-bloggers and life coaches can be used to fill your metaphorical cup and keep teachers energized and focused, rather than exhausted and disillusioned. As I discussed in my last post, my intro to teaching was stressful, but well supported, and I continue to have a number of strategies and structures in place to help me maintain sanity, stay healthy, and keep my life/work/family balance feeling manageable. Here's a list of some of the things I currently do to keep myself feeling great: - exercise - individually and in groups - journal writing - family walks - reading (especially fiction) - conversations with friends and family - team-teaching & collaboration - eat well and eat meals as a family - aim for 8 hours of sleep a night - knitting and other handicrafts - cleaning! (Nothing helps you avoid report cards like vacuuming your house top to bottom) - singing and making music - learning new things (using Meludia, taking part in OLTD) Dealing with the stresses and challenges of teaching is similar to dealing with the stresses and challenges of being a mom. You're understaffed. You're outnumbered. You have high hopes and emotional investment in the outcomes. And it's a career choice where you're likely to give more of yourself than is always healthy. Sometimes you need to take a step back, make sure that you're taking care of yourself first, and create as loving an environment for yourself as you would for your children or students. |
Leslie McCurrachEnthusiastic Learner. Avid Gardener. DL Teacher. Archives
March 2018
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