Time to Listen to Our Students: Empowering the Student Voice

On November 15, 2016, the ISTE Administrator’s Personal Learning Network (APLN) hosted a webinar on Empowering the Student Voice.  We asked elementary, middle and high school students, along with an undergraduate and graduate student, to reflect on how they use technology in school and what recommendations they have for their administrators.  Boy, were they candid!  You can access the webinar HERE  if you’d like to hear for yourself.

As I am the co-president of the APLN, I’ve been reflecting on what I heard from these amazing students. I would like to note a few of my reflections here on ye ole blog…

Elementary

The students had a lot to say!  They speak about solving problems and learning from mistakes.  What struck me was their excitement over technology that allows them to compete as if in a game.  The sense of challenge in timed activities or earning badges reminded me that to our younger students, life is a fun game.  They run, throw, climb and create.  Why not tap this inclination in technology such as Kahoot! and Dreambox (both mentioned by name)?

Middle:

I’ll fully own the middle schooler is my child.  And we talk about technology in education A LOT!  What especially struck me about William’s comments is the frustration with teachers telling students “you are the worst class of 6^th graders we’ve ever had.”  His belief that students need experience with technology, but that adults should fully expect students to mess up (or not do the work at all) is right on point.  Students will use technology inappropriately.  They need to learn the social boundaries in a technology enhanced world without physical boundaries.  Digital Citizenship courses are more necessary now that ever!

High School

The academic stakes of school start to gain emphasis with Sophia’s remarks about high school use of technology.  One of the topics she hit upon is the variety of tools used creates confusion for students.  At Brebeuf, we have prided ourselves in allowing faculty to use the tool best suited for the academic content and course objective.  This sounds great for adults, but Sophia’s remarks have me reflecting on how this freedom could be overwhelming for students who already feel pressures of academic rigor and high stakes grades.  Is the primary goal to expose students to the myriad of choices waiting for them around the bend?  Or is the primary goal to create a foundational experience with technology?  Do we expect all students to enter high school ready for freedom or do we build confidence and skills with a slow release into responsibility over the four years?  I am not sure because…

Undergraduate

Fallon is an university undergraduate.  Her comments focused on the necessity of comfort with technology to succeed in college.  She mentions watching her friends struggle with course content, online testing and even bill paying because they did not have experiences in their K-12 education to prepare them for the tech-rich environment of college.  In a seemingly opposite recommendation from Sophia’s, Fallon encourages administrators/teachers to offer as many experiences as possible in K-12 to prepared students for university level studies.

Graduate

Laura Grace was the only student in a truly blended curriculum.  Her courses are mostly online, with some on campus in a traditional classroom setting.  For her, the blended format works allowing her freedom of scheduling, time spent in class and access.

My personal reflections in summary

• Responsible use of technology does not just happen.  As educators, we must be aware of student cognitive development and create experiences with technology to not only support the curriculum, but that advance a digital citizenship curriculum. 
• We have to stop throwing tools at students.  From 6^th grade to graduate school, the panelist mentioned the need for intentional use of technology to support the classroom.  I heard two different themes on the idea of technology for technology sake… One, much like the old days, students know when a teacher is punting and pulling out the old film-strip in the name of “learning”.  Two, an over-abundance of tools can confuse students.  If anxiety is created because a student is unclear about how to complete an assignment, then the learning stops.   We are in the business of creating welcoming environments, not frustrating students.
• Finally, we really have to start listening to students as we make decisions.  The basic tenant of business is to know the customer.  We must listen and know our students.  Jesuits would call this context – who are we serving?  What are their needs?  What are their dreams?  Resources, values and goals?  What works best for their learning?  Students, even as young as elementary school, can articulate answers to these questions.  We just have to empower their voices. 

Take a listen to the webinar – I think you’ll enjoy it (link is public and free to anyone).

Virtual Learning Days and the Winter of '14

 On a cold day in mid-February, The Indiana Department of Education opened applications for their Distance Virtual Learning program.  The application qualifies schools to request Virtual Learning Days to cover closures due to inclement weather.  On February 26, I received the official word that Brebeuf Jesuit was approved for the IDOE Inclement Weather Virtual Learning Option.  In plain words – if we had to close due to snow we could officially take school online and it would count for our mandated 180 days.

In my ideal world, we were going to have at least 9 - 10 months of dialogue, reflection and pilot lessons with the idea of hosting a Virtual Learning Day.  I am most comfortable working in collaborative process which takes a little time.  For better or worse, Mother Nature appeared to have great confidence that we did not need that much time…. Weather predictions for a major snow event began even as I read our approval email.

Context

Brebeuf Jesuit is well positioned to hit the ground on a Virtual Learning Day.  Our faculty have been 1:1 with tablet based PC’s since 2006.  We've been cloud-based with an LMS since the same time.  Two years ago we went 1:1 across the whole learning community with our Bring Your Own Technology initiative (see any previous post).  We are a Google Apps for Education school.  Teachers and students are very comfortable in cloud-based environments. And as you might have read in my previous post, we had experimented most of this brutal winter with keeping the learning moving forward in virtual environments.

But a five day turn around was going to put us to the test on how flexible we really are.  So what happened?  

 Experience – A Timeline 

Wednesday, Feb 26^th….

Receive notice from IDOE that we are approved for Virtual Learning Days. 

I sent out message to faculty and staff announcing our participation in the program.  In consult with Principal, we come up with an outline of expectations.  This was all done by email. 

The email read in part: 

If we would need to take an Virtual Learning Day yet this year, the IDOE is well aware of our infrastructure, access processes and teacher talents in online learning activities.   However, I will need to submit evidence of student virtual learning.  I am requesting the following:

1.       Edline as Home base

a.       Only for classes that would meet the day of Virtual Learning

b.      Announce Virtual Learning objectives by 8:30am the day of school closure via Edline News item on your class page. 

c.       Link any videos, handouts, readings, planned Twitter chats, Google Hangouts, etc. to that News announcement with clear directions of what student is responsible to complete/prepare/produce.

d.      Our future weather closure notice will include directions for parents and students to check Edline for Virtual Learning instructions.

2.       Secondary sites such as Twitter or G+ Community are fine but make sure the News item on Edline is posted first.   This will clearly articulate learning goals to students and parents AND make it easy for me to collect evidence to submit to IDOE.

3.       Be prepared to send me a sample of student work after the Virtual Learning Day.  The IDOE will request evidence of “time on task or learning growth”.   

  

Reflection:  Email is less than ideal… especially in this case as the winter storm was already being heavily discussed.  On reflection, my excitement to share information took over. More face to face conversation, even in the hallway was needed.

Here’s the thing though… almost immediate the brainstorming started to fly. 

Thursday February 27- Friday February 28

Utilizing YouTube video, online discussion forums, readings, flip videos, Twitter, Edmodo, Google Docs and many other resources… the 27^th and 28^th  I spent reading lesson plans, talking on the phone and in the hallway…faculty collaborated...ideas were thrown around...

An Ed Tech Newsletter was created to give further samples to clarify expectations. 

Saturday March 1- Sunday March 2

I watch as News items were posted on class pages in the LMS as requested….we were ready…

Monday, March 3^rd

It failed to snow.

Credit: Bill Watterson 

Okay, to be fair, Indianapolis received 2.7 inches of snow.  Which is not nearly enough to cancel school.   Feeling a little let down, but grateful for a day of face to face interaction, we had a normal instructional day on Monday.  For as Kevin O'Brien, SJ writes in his article The Classroom as Holy Ground:

In Jesuit education, teaching is not just about disseminating information and teaching career skills.  In the vision of Ignatius and other religious educators, teaching is a vocation, a mission and a labor of love...That love reveals itself primarily in the relationship between teacher and student.

Still, I learned a lot over the past week about Virtual Learning Days (beside how wicked awesome the faculty and students are at Brebeuf). 

Clear expectations are key…. Whether faculty time, assignment scope or student responsibility. 

• Consider recommended “office hours” to narrow time online expectations for teachers.  This also gives students the security that they will receive prompt attention for their questions.
• Consider how much is enough.  The idea of a Virtual Learning Day is not to dump 12 hours of busy work in the lap of the students.  Reflect realistically on would occur during face to face class time.
• And yes, students are responsible for the work.  You can hold them to the usual standards of assignment completion.

 Communicate to the entire community

• We were on a time crunch – but still communicated out via our Learning Management System, weekly online newsletter, email and face to face.  Now that we have some time… we’ll be even better.
• Ed Tech Newsletter (follow this link to entire newsletter)

 Look at other school’s sites

• Special shout out to Yorktown Schools who have great examples of parent communication, teacher expectations and student accountability regarding a planned Virtual Learning Day on their website. 

Has your school tried a Virtual Learning Day?  Add your reflections below in the comments... what worked?  what didn't?  The idea of the Snow Day has changed forever with the Winter of '14.  No longer are schools going to consider weather the end of learning.  But let's do it intentionally, with clear expectations, clear purpose, in right relationship ... and safe at home.

So You've Gone 1:1... What's Next?

I remember when my husband and I brought home our first child.   We had prepared for months… reading books, building furniture, attending child birth classes, buying accessories, talking to friends… our entire lives were dedicated to the arrival of this child (and my husband’s PhD coursework so I guess we weren’t totally myopic).  The day came when she entered the world and we were sent home by the hospital staff to begin our lives as a family.  We came home, my husband put the baby (in her car carrier) on the coffee table… and we stared at her…. and we stared at each other… we stared at the cat… and suddenly all the prep was over and we asked “So.Now.What.Do.We.Do?”

Brett Clark wrote a fantastic post about prepping a 1:1 program being like prepping for the arrival of a child.  And he’s total right.  So now that you’ve gone 1:1… what do you do?

• Hint: If you happen to be in Indianapolis at ICE13 on Friday, October 11^th this is our presentation.  Join us!

Taking a page from the research of Elizabeth Heitsch and Robert Holley and their work on the Learning Commons model of library design, there are three main areas to consider in your "What's Next" reflections:  the Physical; the Virtual; and the Cultural.  Let’s try a series of reflections based on your learning environment … what it is like now and how the environment changes through the lens of 1:1.

The Physical:

1:1 will dramatically change how you see and use space in your learning environment.  There is new hardware all over the place needing be connect to a wireless network, print and create.  Also how your learners use the chairs, desks and floor changes dramatically.  We have learned that the 50’s model of desks in rows doesn’t work so well in 1:1.  Students and teachers need flexible spaces to fully engage the capacity of collaboration and access these devices create.  And speaking of creating, students will need creation spaces outside the classroom to continue their experiences. 

Reflect a moment:  Picture your classroom.  See each student with access to a personal device for learning.  What works in the space?  What doesn’t? What would help?

The Virtual:

Every time I think this is the obvious consideration BEFORE going 1:1, I read a post on the State of Indiana Learning Connections that asks for input in digital curriculum/resources AFTER a school district has gone 1:1.  The virtual considerations are more than just digital textbooks… it’s your school web presence, it’s a learning management system or content distribution platform.  It’s creation tools like Google Apps for Education or Microsoft SkyDrive.  It’s social media use like Edmodo, My Big Campus or Twitter.  It’s apps designed to drive the school calendar of events and feedback from families.  As the students of LA schools showed us, students know the power of the device … and they want to harness that power (legitimately or otherwise because they are very, very smart).  These resources will change (improve) every few months. Be prepared to be flexible with upgrades and expect change.

Reflect a moment: What virtual resources do you use now in your classroom?  How does 24/7 access change that use?  What new doors may open?  What challenges may arise within the classroom, the school building, the larger community?

The Cultural:

The most nebulous, but most important of all three, are the cultural considerations and growth possible in 1:1.   Your 1:1 program will facilitate growth in the mission and identity of your school.  That mission statement the committee wrote?  Use it!  These devices are amazing at connecting global learners, creating active citizens, developing critical thinking … all those lofty ideals posted on the letterhead.  You’ll find more opportunities for professional development in asynchronous instruction, webinars, streamed conferences and social media PLNS.  Identify the values of the community and shift those values through the access 1:1 offers.

Reflect a moment: What are the key values of your community?  What are the key values articulated in your mission statement?  How might these be developed in 1:1?

1:1 initiatives do not stop when the devices roll out!  They do not stop with the last formal training.  Arguably, the real work begins after delivery… when the rubber meets the road… when it’s not new any more.  And boy, can it be amazing! 

Click Here For Presentation Slides

Categories influenced by:

Heitsch, Elizabeth K. and Robert P. Holley. “The Information and Learning Commons: Some Reflections.” New Review of Academic Librarianship, 17:64-77, 2011

#BYOTchat #TeachTweet - Another Method of Professional Development

Last week I had the honor of moderating #BYOTchat in the Twitterverse.  We followed the #TeachTweet model developed by our colleagues across the Atlantic, #ukedchat.

What is a #TeachTweet you ask?  It's a series of video experiences on a topic - with reflections related to what you saw, heard or learned discussed through social media (in this case Twitter).  A common experience can generate a discourse community (see my last post) and the 5 videos we viewed together definitely generated some discourse!  The video format allowed us all to walk the halls of schools incorporating Bring Your Own Technology/Device... hearing from actual, real life students, faculty, administrators.  We then used Twitter to discuss, share, reflect and build on our common experience.

To see the whole chat - check out the #BYOTchat webpage.  Posts linking to videos are in red - helps to point out those Tweets in the midst of all the conversation!  Since this is my personal blog, I will shamelessly promote my less that professional video "Faculty Introduce Bring Your Own Tech at Brebeuf Jesuit" (yes, a long way before I get nominated for a Webby... but a gal has to start somewhere).

Lessons Learned in 1:1: Supporting Freshmen Transitions

In conversation with public and private school educators, after questions of how did you build your network (see @jdferries' series HERE)  and professional development for teachers... the next question inevitably is "What would you do differently?"  There are a couple of answers... which I'll cover in the next series of posts.  First and foremost, I have to say, we've learned a lot about freshman study skills and transitions.

No matter what variety of 1:1 (or other educational initiative for that matter) that will change the learning environment of your school, focusing all energies on the existing community (teachers, parents, upper classmen) fails to recognize the incoming members of the community.  For us, ground level conversations in the TRC about October began to illustrate our freshmen were struggling more than usual.  Concerns of low organizational skills and poor time management, a perennial issue, seemed more consistent and cause for concern.  Enough so that for our November Delayed Opening PD session, our principal had the faculty read the University of Chicago's report "Teaching Adolescents to Become Learners: The Role of Noncognitive Factors in Shaping School Performance" prior to meeting.  It's a long report - I'm not going to lie - but critical in analyzing those "soft skills" beyond intelligence that successful students use to navigate school and life.  The five categories include:

• Academic Behaviors
• Academic Perseverance
• Academic Mindsets
• Learning Strategies
• Social Skills

Brebeuf's 5 Day Rotation Schedule

Consider what an average transitioning freshman experiences...a new bell schedule; renegotiation and development of social groups and adult support networks; increased rigor in academic expectations and requirements.  And don't forget the basics... location of the bathroom, cafeteria and bus stop!   For our learning environment add in a Jesuit charism dramatically different from many of our sending schools.

And then we gave them the ultimate distraction... A personal computing device.

Our continuing students had already experienced a year or two of life at Brebeuf and had established themselves in the social and academic learning environment.  Their transaction to 1:1 was less of an upheaval as they only had to contend with one element.

So what will we do differently for the Class of 2017?

• Our Academic Counselors are creating an intentional Study Skills curriculum for our existing freshmen seminar program. Topics include relationship building with teachers, calendaring/note taking/organizational tools and tricks (virtual and physical), time management and stress.
• Revamp of our Freshmen and Parent Orientations to include more concrete elements of expectations and tools for success.
• Freshmen teachers are creating standards of expectations to hit especially hard the first 4 weeks of school to help students establish a routine 
• A summer skills Boot Camp for students interested in getting a jump start on their Brebeuf transition
• A possible peer mentoring program teaming freshmen with an upper class buddy

Notice technology is just a piece of this conversation.  Like many transitions, individuals face different challenges at different stages.  And dealing with adolescents... the range of challenges is tremendous.  By intentionally building in opportunities for relationship and support, we hope to make the experience a little smoother for the Class of 2017. 

Spending Time in the Real World

Ever notice how we seldom complain we are spending too much time in the real world?  There is money to be made clocking, complaining, berating for time spent in the virtual world... but not so much in the face-to-face.  It's conference season in our world... @jdferries and I are stretching our introverted personalities to the extreme.  I thought I'd share some of our real world work - so those of you in our virtual circles don't feel neglected.  That said, we've made tons of new, real world friends!  (Singing that old Girl Scout ditty "Make new friends, but keep the olllddd...one is silver and the other gold)

Indiana Computer Educators Conference

http://www.slideshare.net/lamastej/ice-2012-its-about-what-you-do

A look at how we changed Professional Development from noun focused to verb focused.

JD has the other presentation posted on his side... check out Designing Toward Digital Citizenship: Rethinking Computer Curriculum over at Confessions of a School CIO.

Indiana Non-Public Education Conference (Educators)

http://www.slideshare.net/lamastej/what-byot-looks-like-for-inpea

A photo essay on What BYOT Looks Like at Brebeuf... played before presentation.

http://www.slideshare.net/lamastej/updated-byot-why-we-took-the-plunge-for-inpea

A revitalized classic presentation - looks at our discernment process leading to our 1:1 BYOT learning environment.

What the future brings...

• Today (October 20, 2012 for those of you time shifting) we are off to ISTE's Leadership Summit here in Indianapolis.  Purely observers for this one!
• Next week I head to an undisclosed location in the midwest to be part of an ISACS accreditation team (Woot!  That is one lucky independent school...)
• November 13-18 we'll be at the JSEA Tech Directors Conference in New Orleans - our first keynote... it's going to be EPIC!  I think we'll make a Jen & JD Show episode of it.

And then we collapse into an introvert coma... once revived the blogs will once again flow.  Unless somewhere in the real world I get bored, annoyed or delayed at an airport.  Cheers!

Check Boxes, Real Time Reporting and the Lost Art of Teaching

A while back I wrote about Kenneth Burke’s concept of trained incapacity.  Funny story… my husband went on a cleaning kick a couple of weekends ago and surfaced from the dust with Daniel Goleman’s Working With Emotional Intelligence (flash back to the late ‘90s when business was influenced by education … 1998, the golden year).  On page 44 of this classic is once again the idea of “Trained Incapacity”… but with a twist.  Goleman uses the term to describe Computer Nerds (before being a nerd was chic) who had such specialized knowledge that all interpersonal skills were essentially trained out of them to make room for all the cognitive smarts (explaining @jdferries and his ZERO score in Feeling on the Meyer’s-Briggs Inventory).  The emphasis on the cognitive, the measurable… the right answer trains out the "soft skills" of interpersonal communication, broad scope critical thinking and analysis.

As the selfsame @jdferries and I were discussing the high level of frustration amongst students who resist open-ended, critical thinking assignments (just tell me what you want and I’ll give you the answer!)… which led us on our typical late day, coffee powered dialogue…. ending at the conclusion that we (educators/parents/legislators) inadvertently train students to be incapacitated… we’ve trained them well that there is a correct answer which in turn translates to a grade which reflects mastery of a skill.  JD’s took this further in his parallel post “On Stopwatches...We’ve Trained Them Well”.

At the same time we are training students that the world revolved on single, correct answers...the same educational system is training teachers that there is a single, correct way to teach.  I kept an eye on the Chicago Public School teacher’s strike, happening in part because of an evaluation system attempting to quantify teacher performance on a standardized evaluation.  The same week I was at a meeting of Central Indiana tech directors and PD types discussing how the RISE evaluation system was being translated into computer programs where administrators checked electronic boxes and a teacher’s value is spit out in a spreadsheet.  And then… a vendor cold called (in person, unannounced  – the nerve!) to talk to our principal about his product that promises to cut an administrators workload by 60-70%!  (I intercepted said salesperson as our principal was on retreat and I happened to be loitering at the front desk - lucky him!)

This product promises to AUTOMATE the pre-conference, post conference and teacher growth plan while providing REAL TIME data to Central Office… all while PERSONALIZING the process with rubrics they provide (emphasis theirs – and yes, it’s as ANNOYING in the flyer as it is in this post). It seems we are training teachers and administrators well… To think that there is a correct way to teach.  This correct way can be measured via a computer form, automated into a report that is directly uploaded into a data warehouse to determine teacher performance. 

I argue this insistence of the correct way to teach is creating teachers who are trained to incapacity.  Techs complain teachers won’t try a new technology… of course!  We’ve trained them to wait until some PD trainer comes by and instructs them on the proper way to use the tool.  Administrators complain teachers won’t try a new, innovative educational model…. of course!  We haven’t held a training explaining the 6 (+ 1) traits of the model and how to incorporate the model into the standardized, paced curriculum.  Students complain the class is boring…of course!  We outsourced evaluations to a vendor created rubric which has a box to check that students are “quiet and in order” so classroom practices ensure quiet and order.  We are training the art out of teaching with our insistence on objectively measuring, in the most time efficient manner, the specialized knowledge of the trained professional educator.  And we only have our data driven decision-making selves to blame.

I argue that there is no “right way” to teach.  Certainly not one that can be checked off on an electronic form (although - at least this vendor’s product was cross-platform).  Teaching is an art (and a calling – but that’s another post for another day).  It is influence by who we are as individuals and as a collective body in mission and vision.  In his keynote “When I First Went to School There Was No School” at the International Colloquium on Jesuit Secondary Education, Fr. Agbonkiangmeghe Orobator, SJ asked several times for the audience to reflect on various ideas, all starting with “What if the art of education was… 

 like shepherding and accompanying  those entrusted to us along the path of  knowledge, truth, and discovery?

about making the  impossible possible  – creating new opportunities, enabling latent capabilities, discovering wider horizons, crossing new frontiers, stimulating limitless creativity

a journey of creating community – a community of solidarity, compassion, friendship, and mutual support?”

I suggest you take the time to watch his keynote.  It will change you.  It will change your view of the purpose of education.  I will give you a hint… the purpose is not a correct answer in a box sent in real time to a data warehouse at the Central Office.

Brainstorming at a workshop "If You Could Build Your Ideal School..."

BYOT In the Classroom

One of the many hats I wear around here is Evaluating Administrator.  This year, we have introduced walkthrough evaluations based on Carolyn Downey's Three-Minute ClassroomWalk-Through model.  I must admit, I am having a marvelous time seeing what is going on in Brebeuf classrooms - especially all the innovative uses of technology (although Dr. Sperry rocked it out with a traditional lesson on diagramming sentences with her Teach-Learn method).  And if I am this excited about what I see and hear... well, good readers, I thought you might be too...

Guiding Student Time Management/Responsibility

Always helps to post clear directions as to what assignment is and expectations for delivery (how student is to get assignment to you).  Now that every student has a device - our learning management system (BlackBoard Engage) is a stronger tool.

Example from Ms Hathaway (Theatre) using Edline Calendar : Each assignment is linked to calendar.  Student clicks on day or assignment and is taken directly to Homework Hand-in.

This example is from Ms Haffley (English 12).  She uses outside sites but clearly notes where Calendar, Assignments, Class Blog is located and gives direct link…  

Blogging

This can be done as a “What We Did Today” in  Ms Annee does in BioTech with her class Edublog

 Or in truer journaling as reflection based on experiences with new material… as this photo from previous semester in Mr. Tague’s Genocide course illustrates.  Tool is Edmodo.com. 

Authentic Experiences

French 5 students with Ms Martin (in her words) “are getting more contact time with the language b/c of BYOT.  They are assigned and immersed in the “real language” through almost daily opportunities to engage in listening and speaking skills (they study excerpts from films, popular television shows, talk shows, daily news, radio programs, etc and then re-group to discuss what they learned) and reading and writing skills (they read newspapers, recipes, advertisements – almost anything you can think of that a native person is exposed to!) and then can correspond with each other or students in France about what they have read….”

US History Students in Mr. Lo's class were asked to created picto-notes (taking a concept and illustrating).  Most students used pencil, paper and markers to create artwork after researching online.  Some students animated their picto-notes in Photoshop.

And here's Computer Science (notice all those lonely desktops) with Ms Dugan... collaborative research project on history of computers.

Even the Administrators hanging out in my office get in on the action...(this is what my day looks like - and you all thought I just made up all that stuff on Twitter...)