Thinking Allowed.

What kids can get out of sports can’t be described any better than this story.

Thanks to my brother who writes a sports blog in Richmond, Virginia for sharing this story.

Man, I love sports.

This blog typically focuses on technology and learning. This time, I am going to branch out into an area that I know less about…art learning.

Last week, a colleague shared an article by Project Zero Principal Investigators Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland.

The article, titled, “Art for Our Sake: School arts classes matter more than ever – but not for the reasons you think“, was a terrific read. (pdf here)

It certainly got me thinking.

Winner and Hetland ask “Why do we teach the arts in schools?”

They argue that despite popular opinion, they had not found causation between arts learning and academic achievement. They cite a Gallup poll that 80% of Americans believe that learning a musical instrument improves math skills.

Winner and Hetland claim that their research in some schools in Boston show that while corelation exists, causation does not. Following up on this and reading around, this gets disputed places, to which they have responded. I’m going to focus on the points in this article.

Interestingly Winner and Hetland refute the commonly held idea ideal that learning the arts improves the math and science learning that schools often focus on in “a test-driven education system”. Instead, art education is valuable for more important reasons:

There is, however, a very good reason to teach arts in schools, and it’s not the one that arts supporters tend to fall back on. In a recent study of several art classes in Boston-area schools, we found that arts programs teach a specific set of thinking skills rarely addressed elsewhere in the curriculum.

They go on to add:

In our analysis, we identified eight “studio habits of mind” that arts classes taught, including the development of artistic craft. Each of these stood out from testable skills taught elsewhere in school.

The other 7 habits are persistence, expression, making clear connections between schoolwork and the world, and in their words, “we were particularly struck by the potentially broad value of four other kinds of thinking being taught in the art classes we documented: observing, envisioning, innovating through exploration, and reflective self-evaluation.”

I have written before about the need for a thinking curriculum – one less focused on content knowledge.

But let’s think about those last four skills: observing, envisioning, innovating, and reflection.

These are the powerful skills that we talk about constantly as required in our 21st Century Learners.

Here’s what Winner and Hetland had to say about each:

• Observing - “Seeing clearly by looking past one’s preconceptions is central to a variety of professions, from medicine to law. Naturalists must be able to tell one species from another; climatologists need to see atmospheric patterns in data as well as in clouds. Writers need keen observational skills too, as do doctors.“
• Envisioning - art teachers were asking questions “prompting students to imagine what was not there.“
• Innovation - “Teachers in our study told students not to worry about mistakes, but instead to let mistakes lead to unexpected discoveries.“
• Reflective self-evaluation – Students are “asked to step back, analyze, judge, and sometimes reconceive their projects entirely.”

These are the skills – the only skills – that will allow our students to change the world for the better.

I’ve done a lot of quoting this post, so I’ll let Winner and Hetland’s words finish it off:

We don’t need the arts in our schools to raise mathematical and verbal skills – we already target these in math and language arts. We need the arts because in addition to introducing students to aesthetic appreciation, they teach other modes of thinking we value.

For students living in a rapidly changing world, the arts teach vital modes of seeing, imagining, inventing, and thinking.

Those who have learned the lessons of the arts, however – how to see new patterns, how to learn from mistakes, and how to envision solutions – are the ones likely to come up with the novel answers needed most for the future.

Image “je dois apprendre aux curieux” by drunkprincess, found at Flickr Creative Commons

Clay Burell started a terrific global network of educators and students called Project Global Cooling.

The slogan:

Cooling the globe with youth, music, YouTube, green schools – and you.

Justin, Kim, and I have joined this network and through the amazing work of Kerry Dyke and the ISB Green Panthers, ISB will be adding our students’ voices to the global voice calling for awareness and efforts for global cooling.

We are in Earth Week here at ISB, with a wealth of activities bringing the school together in its efforts to be more green – all organized by the Green Panthers and supported by the concerned students, faculty, and admin of ISB.

Join us as we stream two concerts of music, performances, student work showcases, and participation in the name of climate change.

Here’s the Ustream link.

Here are the times:

• MS Concert for Climate Change – 1 pm to 2 pm Bangkok Time, Thursday April 24 To be rescheduled
• (the Environment struck back…a crazy storm here in Bangkok canceled school for a day.
• ES Earth Day Festival – 8 am to 2 pm Bangkok Time, Friday April 25th

Photo by aussiegall, found at Flickr Creative Commons

Will Richardson suggests that we need to get educators on board with the read/write web, before we can really hope to make widespread change in education. I commented on his post (as the 100th commenter!!!) that while this is incredibly important, real change can also happen as we continue to engage students in this way.

Of course, a full faculty of web 2.0 fluent teachers is bound to lead to engaged student learners writing and collaborating online, but a growing student group trained in the power of the tools, versed in the possibilities of a world wide audience of readers, writers, and collaborators can also force change.

Secondly, Will also points out that those without a voice online are losing “credibility” with him. His reading is online, his network is online, and he learns online, so if you aren’t online, then do you have something of value? Will is a very smart man, which I’ve said before, but in this case I have to disagree or at least tread lightly. He takes an extreme position to make a point, but in truth there are a lot of educators who don’t blog, wiki, or twitter, but who do in fact engage kids and TEACH. And they get that these tools can be powerful learning devices.

To undersell that voice in a learning network that should include personal contact and professional learning opportunities at our own schools is to miss out on real voices positively influencing children.

On a final note, what I think about most about after reading Will’s post is what to do next?

Will is right…we need to get teachers on board. We need administrators who prioritize this alongside the other priorities of a school, rather than an add-on from the tech guys. But our voices are starting to echo in the spread out, but still small world of the edu-blogosphere.

We blog, therefore we buy-in (for the most part).

The big ideas are good. We agree to complain about the same issues.

Now it’s time to bust out of our discussion of those big ideas that we wonder why people aren’t doing…and start talking about how we are going make it happen.

• What are the best ways to get teachers on board?
• How can administrators be convinced of this need?
• How can curriculum be re-shaped without stepping on the toes of existing content curriculum?

We all agree…let’s start working on the ones who don’t.

Image: Change Direction by Phillie Casablanca, found at Flickr Creative Commons

Okay, it’s complete out-of-the-box thinking time.

Why do schools teach what they do? 

Really, that’s what I’m asking…what’s it good for?

How is the content curriculum that we teach kids helping them?

(And I am not accepting any version of “it prepares them for the next level of school.”)

In older posts on this blog, I’ve written that school curriculum NEEDS a major shift: (whole post here)

21st century learners need thinking skills. They need to be able to find, process, and evaluate information that is EVERYWHERE and always accessible. They need to be able to participate in an interconnected, wired world in effective and responsible ways. They NEED to be taught how to manage/handle/thrive amidst all of the information that is out there and continuing to grow.

Our allegiance to English, Science, Math, and Social Studies as core curricular ideals and the end-all-be-all in student learning needs to make room for higher order thinking, questioning, and information literacy.

And after sharing my thoughts on the NYTimes reported failure of a laptop program, I offered: (whole post here)

Our curricula of content mired in Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies is not preparing students for anything but further education focused on these same subjects.

What students learn needs to be different and how they learn needs to be different.

These are not unique ideas.  Throughout the edublogosphere in varying degrees, educators are talking about the importance of a 21st Century Curriculum (for lack of a better name).

So I ask this question, in light of the shared belief that a 21st Century curriculum focused on thinking, communicating and collaborating skills is necessary for a world in which knowledge is so readily accessible.

What is the point of the way current curriculum is setup?

More specifically, break it down into the classic subjects:

• Why do we learn Language Arts (or English in HS)?
• Why do we learn Social Studies?
• Why do we learn Science?
• Why do we learn Math?
• Why do we learn Art (performing and visual)?

(note:  I stick to these subjects, because Language learning seems to have an obvious practicality, as does Health/PE.)

Is this too bold to ask?  Can we defend what we do as schools?

No more, “That’s the way we’ve always done it” defense.

Out of the box time.

Prove that what we say we value is useful.

Truly no offense intended to any of these subjects and the educators who teach them.  I just want to hear from the experts what the right answers are.

Please feel free to answer any and all in the comments.

Image: “Question!” by Bast, found at Flickr Creative Commons

It’s been a while since my last post.

What can I tell you? It’s been busy.

There always seems to be this guilt that hangs over me when I don’t post for extended periods of time. Like I am letting down subscribers…luckily I don’t have too many (thank you, those of you who are here!).

But not having posted does not mean that I haven’t been involved and getting stuck in. (I also post tech how-to’s on another blog, Talking Tech.)

I truly enjoyed a geek session with colleagues, listening to the Warlick keynote from the K12 Online Conference. We, like many, were active in the live chat which was very rewarding.

Even got a little mention on the 2 cents blog, which was pretty cool. Though, appropriately, it was for something a student said to me, rather than any epiphany I’ve offered.

Figures.

In that same chat online I shared a cool NYTimes opinion piece on Facebook from the students’ perspective. Paraphrasing:

We adults take this networking thing too seriously…it’s all supposed to be fun with our friends.

Definitely a good read.

Then working at home last week, I was twittering at the right time to catch Chris Lehmann’s invite to join his class at SLA in a UStream conversation – a terrific experience that Chris posted about. His students are articulate and offered the best description of the difference between a project assessment vs a test.

Paraphrasing:

Tests are what the teachers thinks you’ve learned based on what they covered, but a project is based on what you need to learn.

(Only more eloquent than that.)

The point was well-made. Students own the learning they do in authentic, open-ended projects. For tests they do what they need to, in order to get a good grade.

And all of this got me thinking…

I worry about getting too far removed from the classroom as an Ed Tech guy or as an administrator. Away from the classroom, we lose touch with the wisdom of our students – the insights into how they see the world and the openings for us to be their educators.

We concern ourselves with the big goals and forget the small goals. We don’t have, often enough, the conversations that allow students to connect with us and us with them. The conversations that show how much we value them and their thoughts.

I think that ALL educators in and out of the classroom need to remember and embrace that they are more than “content delivery devices” or even information facilitators. There is a human connection that must be made with students.

Years ago, I heard or read that so much of teen difficulties come from the fact that they are undervalued in society. In pre-Industrial Revolution days, they were working the farm, contributing to the family. Valued. But now, they have little to nothing to make them feel “of worth”. This was a main argument for Service Learning in schools and I am all for that.

I also think that educators have the power to make students feel valued and worthwhile EVERY DAY. In the way we treat them, the way we listen to them, and the way we ask them what they think.

Chris did this with the students on UStream for us, but I imagine he and the SLA faculty do this all the time with their students. When asked what they valued about being at SLA, these students did not speak of the technology or the technological prowess of their faculty. They spoke of the connectedness and self-worth they felt with their teachers, who genuinely cared about their learning and their well-being.

I can’t say it any better than that.

Technorati Tags: k12online07 warlick practicaltheory education ustream

And many of them were in Shanghai this past weekend.

Having returned from the Learning 2.0 Conference hosted in Shanghai, China, I am still feeling the exhaustion/elation of a conference in which my thinking was constantly challenged, stretched, and inspired.

Thinking allowed?

Try thinking expected.

It’s not often that you attend a conference that is truly up your alley – where EVERY session has more than one workshop you wish you could attend. Where you can’t even attend your colleagues’ presentations for support, because you don’t want to miss out on learning something new or being inspired by someone else. (Plus your colleague needs you to go elsewhere, since he/she is missing a session due to presenting!)

Learning 2.0 was one of those.

Learning 2.0 was one of a kind.

(Maybe that’s not fair, I haven’t been to EVERY conference.)

I’ll end the superlatives here, because it won’t take long to do a search of the ed blog world to find others out there celebrating this event. Kudos to the organizers. You didn’t do it for the kudos, but kudos nonetheless.

So on to the details.

Reminded of what matters by McKenzie.

Inspired by Richardson.

Thought-provoked by November.

Reflective with Nussbaum-Beach.

Bummed that I missed any sessions with Fryer.

Had a blast with all of the participants. Ed Tech Geeks, the lot of us. And it was great!

I experimented with different, very-visual way to take notes at each of the sessions, which I will share next post.

Justin and I presented our new literacy curriculum, which we called Curriculum 2.0, which I wrote about in my last post.

More on this to come.

In the meantime, thanks to all who made the Learning 2.0 Conference such a positive experience.

Technorati Tags: learn2cn curriculum2.0 fryer richardson mckenzie nussbaum-beach november edtech learning2.0

We spend a lot of time at schools talking about what learning looks like.

We design assessment to be authentic, specifically to ensure we see children demonstrate what they have learned in an applied, meaningful way.

We debate and discuss how to recognize learning. Will we recognize it, when we see it?

What does learning look like?

Maybe we think too much.

Today I saw learning so clearly, it almost slapped me in the face.

My 2-soon to be 3-yr old son finally got a shot at our new/old little blue iMac (hard to believe that this model was ever an adult desktop computer!). He was on a Playhouse Disney online game – his older sister was out playing with friends. He simply had to navigate Pluto through a maze to the different musical instruments.

Watching him play this game, his processing was so clear that it was as if you could see into his brain. While his eyes scanned the screen and then looked down at his finger poised above the 4 arrow keys, you could almost hear the loud clap of pieces snapping into place. He would catch himself pushing the arrow too many times or in the wrong direction and he would shake his hands in the air as if to say…whoa, I did too much!

Then he’d make adjustments and correct his path.



Amazing. Awesome.

I sat there, watching him, so proud. Not because he was on a computer and I’m a geek, but because I was watching him learn…my kid was learning. It happens all the time (and I’m proud every single one of those times), but today, it was just so blatantly clear.

I loved seeing him raise his tiny fists in the air in celebration when he achieved his goal (and got immediate feedback – thank you technology). And I loved seeing him want to do more…to practice his newly learned knowledge/skills.



And we think kids on games are bad…why again? (Another whole post…I know.)

But today, I was reminded so clearly what learning looks like. I have not done its power justice here in this post. Maybe I’m still beaming too much with pride to write clearly.

Or maybe it’s something that’s hard to describe, which is why we educators spend so much time laboring over what it will look like and designing just the right assessment tools.

It might be hard to put into words.

But it isn’t hard to see.

You just have to give kids the chance to think.

Then just sit back and watch.