Tag Archives: education

Jeff Hopkins on the Pacific School of Inquiry and Innovation

Last night I saw this tweet by Jeff Hopkins promoting a new vlog/podcast series ‘School of Thought Victoria‘. Perfect timing since I just finished my most recent audio book and ended up in long drives today. So, I’ve already devoured 3 of the four videos already (I listened, I did not watch,  which is all you need to do since it is a discussion).

So much of what Jeff has shared with Alex Van Tol about the Pacific School of Inquiry and Innovation resonates with me, and what we are working on, and towards, at Inquiry Hub Secondary School. In this series, Jeff is outlining 20 convictions that the school is modeled on. I am looking forward to every one of these conversations.

Here’s what I’ve listened to so far,

Agency:

Inquiry Process:

Learner vs Student:

Subscribe to the channel, and listen to Jeff’s wisdom.

The future of conferences

In the past few weeks I’ve participated in Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings with Jeff Borden and Dean Shareski. Both of them did a great job, but I look forward to doing face-to-face conferences again. Dean recently wrote, ‘The Future of Professional Learning Part 1‘,

“I do wonder if we’ll be more intentional about what constitutes and justifies a great face to face experience and what can be highly effective as a virtual option?”

This got be thinking about where we go with conferences post-pandemic? In response to a tweet about his post, I said,  “I was tiring of regular conferences, now I miss them. I think they will evolve to be more engaging (why travel somewhere for a PowerPoint that could be on Zoom) and I also think we might see more (online) pre/post conference engagement and learning.”

To expand on this idea, I don’t see things like pre-presentations or assignments and tasks being given before a conference (read as ‘not homework’), but I do see opportunities for conversation, interaction with the presenter, and with other conference attendees. I see icebreakers and teasers.  I see feedback to the presenter about what the attendees want. I see presenters providing clear learning intentions and a framework for their talk. I see presenters providing a personal introduction so that instead of the first 5-10 minutes of a 1 hour presentation slot being “This is who I am”, the presentation starts with an activity, engaging people with other people who have already connected online. I see interactive presentations that rely on participants being involved and engaged with the material.

Think about it. Why spend hundreds of dollars in flights, hotels, and food, to go to a room and get a PowerPoint and ‘talking head’ that could easily have been delivered to you at home? When I went to ISTE, my favourite memories are the blogger’s cafe, and meeting friends to do podcasts with (Shelly Sanchez Terrell and Kathleen McClaskey), and the people I went to ISTE with from my district. When I went to SXSW EDU, the people I went with and the podcasts that I did are the only things I remember (David Jakes, Jeff Richardson, and after the conference Miguel Guhlin). The future of conferences will need to be much more about creating experiences and making connections and less about presentations… this was already happening, but now that we have created digital experiences that will compete, the pull of conferences needs to be about enriching the experience and making it worth the effort to travel.

It’s just this

I was speaking to a colleague at work about sleep. She said that she was getting to bed really early and passing out exhausted, and I was saying how I was staying up late not able to fall asleep, even though I feel tired. She pointed both hands up, palms open, and made small circles, “It’s just this“.

I totally understood.

‘This’ is wearing a mask most of the day, and not seeing full expressions on the faces of students and colleagues.’This’ is pausing outside doorways to give people a wide birth to pass.’This’ is being busy, but that busyness not feeling as rewarding.’This’ is not all sitting around the same tables at lunch.’This’ is sanitizing your hands because you touched a door knob.’This’ is limiting students’ plans when we are used to always getting to yes. ‘This’ is knowing that we will likely start next September much the same as we started this school year, and knowing there are still 8 months of ‘this’ to go this school year. ‘This’ is living through a pandemic.

We might have made these adjustments fairly quickly on the outside, but ‘this’ is still not normal, and so it’s draining, and requires more effort than usual. ‘This’ will take a bit more time to fully adjust to. More time, and more sleep… Sweet dreams. We will get used to ‘this’ eventually, and when we do, we will find ways to thrive.

Whose problem is it?

A couple thoughts about assessment:

1. I taught Grade 9 Math for a year then after a year of only Humanities I went back to teaching Math, but for Grade 8’s. After about 5 years of teaching Math 8 I caught myself saying something as I started my unit on Exponents. I said to the class, “Every year this is the hardest unit and the hardest test that I give you.” I had to say it out loud to realize what I was really saying.

What I was really saying was one of two things, either I wasn’t doing a good enough job teaching this unit, or I was giving students much too hard of a test. Looking carefully at the test, I realized it was a bit of both. Because I had taught Grade 9 and new what was coming, when I looked at the test I realized that I was expecting students to know the content at a Grade 9 level… I was ‘preparing them’ for what’s to come. In every section of the test I had questions that started out with basic Grade 8 outcomes, but questions got gradually harder and always ended up with a couple (or more) questions that expected them to exceed what was required in the curriculum.

It was my problem, not theirs, that they struggled. I was pushing them to learn hard concepts at a very high level and testing them so that they all had to be competent at a higher grade level just to get a decent mark. My intentions were good. The outcome and experience for students who were not strong in math were not so good. I reworked my test that year, and some of my teaching as well.

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2. This isn’t one I’ve done, but my daughter has faced this. Last year in her university French course, the professor said, “Nobody gets an ‘A’ unless they are native speakers”. He then proceeded to give my daughter ‘B’s in every assignment, no matter what she did, and what feedback she used to improver her next assignment… that is, until her final exam. In her final exam, the marking was blind (the teaching only saw a number, and not the students’ names). On that exam, my daughter got an ‘A’.

If our job is to teach students, and improve their work, then what are we telling them if our message is, “You aren’t good enough to get an ‘A’.” … Is this not also saying, “I’m not a good enough teacher to help you improve.”? What message does this give to a student who is always striving to do her best and is a high achiever? What message does this give to a student who is struggling? Whose problem is it when every student that comes to your class isn’t good enough for an ‘A’ both before they arrive in class, and also after you have been their teacher for a semester?

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Assessment isn’t just measuring progress, it’s also measuring teacher expectations, and it’s up to us to make sure those expectations are realistic and fair.

The power of a good teacher

Last night I asked this question onTwitter:

I didn’t know that I would become a teacher until I was almost 30, so I can’t say that any teachers influenced me to become a teacher, but I had many that inspired the kind of teacher I wanted to be.

Mr. Lapoint taught me not to be a marshmallow in class, and I started my career telling kids to speak up, go beyond the expected answers, and to not be marshmallows. That said, this motorcycle loving hippie was tough as nails and had high expectations… and scared me a little.

Mrs. Lane taught me to love fiction and helped me find my writing voice. She was one of my favourites and I think of her as inspiring me to be the kind of teacher I want to be.

Mrs. Forster made me appreciate social studies. She also stepped up to coach a sport she knew nothing about, and encouraged me to become a player coach… in a way this was inspiration to becoming a teacher since continuing on as a coach is where my passion for working with kids came from.

Mr. Towe taught me that I have a creative side.

Mr. Harrison made learning fun.

I had other teachers that influenced me and helped me know what kind of teacher I wouldn’t want to be, but that’s not the spirit with which I started this post and I won’t mention any names.

Mr. Greven was never my teacher, but he taught in the high school where I worked as a lifeguard and coach, and he came to work every day whistling with joy. And when a kid was late with an assignment, he would tap me and ask me to nudge the kid, because he knew I had a good relationship with them as their coach.

Overall, I had many good and great teachers, and while they may not be the reason I became a teacher, they gave me respect for the profession, and left me with positive learning experiences.

Teachers make a difference!

What’s on the test?

With students across the world doing schooling from home, teachers are finding it challenging to get authentic assessment. One of the more difficult issues is trying to administer formal testing.

Have a look at this TikTok by @tamarciment:

If you can Google the answer, students will find a way.

If you can Google the answer, is that a question we need to ask questions on a test?

Is a test the best form of assessment over a Zoom call? What are some better options?

It’s tough to navigate this new environment, and we aren’t going to do it perfectly, but these are questions that we should be asking… and our answers won’t just aid us during this pandemic, our answers will also help us when we have all students back in school too!

When is your next workout?

Even without dealing with a pandemic, this is a crazy time of year for educators. I will avoid sharing what time I’m writing this, but let’s just say it has been a long day! I bet 2/3rds or more educators can’t believe it’s only Thursday, and not the weekend yet!

So with all the craziness of September, who has time for a workout?

You do!

Until January 2019, my pattern was to stop working out during my busy times at school, like September and report card time. Then I realized that fair weather fitness wasn’t fitness. I decided that if I wanted to be healthy, I had to be consistent. So I stopped letting ‘busy’ stop me from working out.

The result: more energy, and more to give! More vibrancy, and a great feeling that I’m actually caring for both my current and future self.

Busy times aren’t times to push heavy weights, run longer, or ride faster. Its dedicating small windows of time to self care. It’s about raising the heartbeat, walking when you’re too tired to run, and maintaining a level of fitness at a time when it’s easy to forget to take care of yourself.

If fitness isn’t a priority when you are ‘too busy’ then it’s not a priority. Period.

You deserve to treat yourself better than that. So, when is your next workout?

How long does this need to be?

As a teacher, this was always a tough thing to hear. You pour yourself into a lesson and then get to the assignment and a kid asks, “How long does this need to be?”

I hear this and in my mind I hear an underlying second question, “What’s the least amount I need to do to get this done.”

My response wasn’t really liked, but it was honest:

“It needs to be as long as it needs to be. I’ve read 3 brilliant sentences that said all that was needed to be said. I’ve read three sentences that told me nothing. I’ve read paragraphs that are eloquent and beautifully written, which cover everything needed. I’ve read entire essays that are crap. The length isn’t important, the quality and thoroughness of the writing is.”

If what’s being assessed is an essay, a response should be essay length in an essay format. Beyond that, does length of a response really matter? Does the format make a difference if the message is well conveyed? Does your next assignment require a minimum length, or does it require a response that clearly demonstrates understanding?

Funding education through charity

I got this ad on Facebook today:

So, Facebook knows I’m an educator and is saying, ‘Hey, use our billion dollar company to ask your friends to fund public education.’ – I didn’t click the link, but I wonder if FB takes a cut?

When I go to Twitter, almost daily I see #clearthelists hashtags with tweets like this:

And

Another billion dollar company, Amazon, profiting from people trying to support public education out of their own pockets.

Let me be clear, I have nothing against teachers asking for help to get things they want for their classroom. Most of the educators I see using this hashtag are American, and because most educational funding is from local taxpayers in the US, there are gross discrepancies in funding available to schools based on zip code. Some schools and teachers in those schools really have to work with very little resources.

The reality is that wherever you live public education is publicly funded and there are always limits on what can be afforded. I’d love to get an expensive new 3D printer for our school to replace our aging one, but I also don’t see that as a priority this year compared to other things that I’ll use my budget on. That doesn’t mean that we are poorly funded, that means we need to be fiscally responsible with our budgets.

The thing is, it bugs me that educators, who tend to be connected mostly to other educators, are asking their network of friends to help fund public education, while billion dollar companies profit. That’s messed up.

Locally, there is a company, Finger Food, that has donated considerable amounts of technology to schools to help get kids interested in coding and STEM projects. They see a direct benefit to supporting public education in their/our community and they work closely with district leadership to make sure they are getting the most bang for their donated buck. This is a great relationship, which benefits our community.

Why don’t more companies look at education this way? When educator and family friends of educators ‘clear the lists’ of items a teacher wants for their classrooms, how much does Amazon make?

I remember years ago a big sports company wanted to put their logo on a high school gym floor for a sizeable donation. There was an uproar in the community about advertising invading our schools. My opinion on the matter was not popular. I thought, kids are bombarded by ads all the time, a logo without a tag line is not a big deal… so this is what I’d do:

Yes, for $—— you can put the logo on our gym floor for 5 years, then we re-sign a new contract or you redo our floors to remove the logo. Don’t like that idea? That’s fine, let us know if you change your mind. So, our schools or district sets the terms and companies abide or not, rather than pandering for any money and settling on company terms. Come into our building on our terms.

Anyway, that’s a separate idea to my original thought… and a bit controversial. What’s not controversial is that while teachers are asking friends to support public education, large corporations are doing little to support public education while also profiting. I think there needs to be more companies thinking about how they can contribute to the education of young people. If just 5-10% of major companies were to find ways to donate less than 0.05% – 1/20 of 1 percent- of their profits (that would be $500 on a million dollar profit), think about how well public education could be funded!

AI, Education, and Teachers

Have you ever had a medical scan? Have you looked at the scan afterwards? While it’s easy to look at an X-ray and see a broken bone, something like an MRI is much more difficult to read and interpret. And while an X-ray is a single shot at each angle, an MRI is numerous shots of the same angle in many layers. MRI’s create a massive amount of data for a technician or a doctor to look through. Already there are computers using Artificial Intelligence (AI) that are better than humans at finding anomalies that doctors would want to know about.

In education there are AI tools being developed that can make incredible diagnostic and pedagogical decisions to help a learner. An example is in Math: A student solves a math problem and gets the answer wrong. The AI looks at the error and recognizes it as a common mistake made by a certain percentage of students, and then suggests a tutorial (interactive) video that helps over 95% of students who make that error learn from their mistake. Just in time teaching based on responsive feedback from the learner.

AI can be a great teacher for computational thinking problems, teaching algorithms, and content-based information. If that’s all a teacher did, that teacher could be replaced. But that’s not all a teacher does! Algorithms can inform us of a real world problem, like climate change or air pollution, but they won’t necessarily help us solve these problems.

AI is decades away from being able teach us to be more collaborative, better citizens, or creative problem solvers. These skills are what teachers of the future will focus on. Let AI teach kids the basics of math, but then use that math to solve interesting problems – “The way to teach your kids to solve interesting problems…  is to give them interesting problems to solve.” ~ Seth Godin

We need to help students solve interesting and messy problems, we need to give them voice and choice, we need to help them develop their leadership and collaboration skills. We need to foster creativity, and allow students the opportunity to think outside the scope of questions that have a single answer.

If we don’t do these things in education, then not only are we going to give up our jobs to AI that can teach basic knowledge better than we can… we are also doing a disservice to our students, who deserve to learn skills that make them better, more useful, and adaptable citizens in an ever-changing world.