Tag Archives: learning

The teachers you remember, remember you

It’s a simple formula: Get to know your students and they remember you. They might remember one awesome lesson you did, but in more examples than not, it’s not only about the things they learned but the relationships you’ve developed.

Many high schools are opening with less face time with students and/or shorter semesters. There will be an appetite for teachers to ‘get to business’ and to ‘cover the curriculum’. But the start of the year is a great time to ‘get to know your students’ and to work with them to ‘uncover the curriculum’.

Spend time connecting with students. Let them spend time exploring and discovering what they must learn. Do this and not only you, but also the things you have taught, will be remembered.

What does it mean to be tech savvy?

A number of years ago, I wrote this:

 I am not Tech Savvy! If I had a pair of dimes for every time someone said, ‘Dave, you are good with computers, can you help me with this…” then I could retire early. I’ll explain this with a tangent example: The fact is that I happen to be a very good driver. Put me behind the wheel of a car, even in a snow storm, and I’ll get you to your destination safely. However, don’t ask me to do anything more to the car than put gas or windshield washer fluid in it… maybe check the tire pressure… that’s it! Give me a working computer and I can do pretty good there too! Not because I’m savvy though… just because I spend hours trying things.

Yesterday @AubreyDiOrio tweeted:

And I responded:

Then @RobHeinrichs replied to me saying:

We are all good at different things that we are also not necessarily experts in. Our mindsets really do matter. Our willingness to be patient, ask questions, and tinker also matter.

When I say I’m not tech savvy, it means that I don’t know how to code or do programming. It means I can’t build a computer without a manual, a dozen YouTube ‘How to’ videos, and phoning a friend. It means that when I see an error, I can only fix it with the help of Google… if I can fix it at all. It means I point people to tech support after I’ve failed to help.

Yet I’m asked tech questions all the time. I’m looked at to solve problems that I don’t know how to solve when I’m asked. But I’m willing to put in the time, research, and energy to figure it out… and I’m not afraid to ask for help myself. That’s not savvy, that’s patience and effort, all dressed up to look like savvy… it’s a fun outfit, and you can wear it too.

Getting back in gear

We had an incredible holiday planned this summer before COVID-19 hit the world. A trip to Barcelona, a cruise with stops in Spain and Italy, and a week in Portugal. This didn’t happen, but we still had a wonderful summer with BC based destinations. I had my email vacation auto reply set up, and for the first time in years I really ‘let go’ of work.

This week we’ve already had a few virtual meetings and I have one more today and tomorrow, before kicking it into high gear next week. But I have to admit that these meetings, where we are planning for September, have my mind racing as I think about the new school year.

The biggest things in my mind are:

1. For Coquitlam Open Learning – how do we maximize support and appropriately staff for an unknown influx of students?

2. For Inquiry Hub Secondary – how do we maximize the learning experience while focusing on safety, and also considering possible changes in phases?

In the end, much decision-making is out of individual control as our district makes a concerted effort to meet the needs of all learners. But unlike other schools, COL and iHub are different, and need special attention and considerations.

I don’t have answers to many questions yet, but I’m getting more comfortable in not having immediate answers, in living with ambiguity. But as High MacLeod says, “‘Learn to live with ambiguity’, but do not live in it.”

As we get into gear planning the new school year, I’m sure we are bound to find ourselves with more questions than answers. Patience, thoughtful questions, and priorities around care and safety of our students will help us find a good, supportive path for our schools and our learning communities.

Disrupting higher education

Universities and colleges are going to be around for a while, but two things are disrupting the need for many students to attend an expensive school for four or more years;

1. Targeted Certification

2. Coronavirus

Tackling the second one first, students are questioning the value of what they are paying to go to school, when suddenly most or all of their courses are online due to COVID-19. The interesting thing is that not all of them are going to head back to class and think that the experience is still worth it. Smaller universities are already struggling and if things don’t bounce back, the cost of doing business on a smaller scale are going to force costs to rise. Lower enrolment and higher costs are a double edged sword that some universities won’t survive.

As mentioned, targeted certification is another blow to the modern university. Have a look at this article Google Has a Plan to Disrupt the College Degree. For the cost of textbooks for a semester, Google is providing certification, in just 6 months, in fields where students can come out to decent paying jobs.

A few years back my nephew took an 18-month comprehensive course that cost a lot of money. The program could be paid up front, or by giving up a percentage of salary for the first 2 years after graduation. The skills training was so good and in demand, that most students took the expensive choice of paying up front, knowing they were likely going to land a 6-figure (or close to 6-figure) salary when they came out. It was a hard 18 months, but my nephew (who lives in California) landed a job with a Silicon Valley start-up soon after finishing this program.

Engineers, doctors and nurses, and other professions that require comprehensive certification will still require a university degree for quite some time now, but there is going to be a big shift to certifications and polytechnical schools.

I’m happy to have started higher education with a general arts degree that took me longer than 4 years to get. It was an amazing time. But I was able to get that degree with under $10,000 debt to my name. Many students today leave their first 4-year degree with much much more debt, and only the promise of more schooling before they can find a job and start paying back their debt.

Universities are becoming the place to either get professional degrees, or places for the affluent to spend a few years growing up, or a place for less affluent students to start accumulating debt. Meanwhile, job specific skills training and certification programs are sprouting up and challenging the need for many to go to university. This disruption is coming fast, and I think we are going to see many universities struggle to transition what they look like for a lot of students who will opt out of this path of higher education.

Nostalgic for Twitter of the past

I’m a huge fan of Twitter. I love it enough that I wrote an ebook about how to get started with it. I use it as a learning tool. I connect with amazing people on the platform, and I have made some wonderful friends along the way.

But recently I’ve struggled to stay engaged. It seems that anger is ever present. Fear is a persistent theme. Teachers with limited resources are asking others to help #clearthelist of teaching resources and items they want others to purchase for them on Amazon. I can’t even begin to talk about the vile that surfaces in political tweets.

I’m lucky that I’ve taken the time to create a great Twitter List of people I most enjoy conversing with and learning from. This reduces the distractions of things I don’t enjoy. But I just can’t help but wonder where tools like Twitter are heading, compared to where it came from?

Beyond sticking to my closed list, and ignoring the rest, I’m not sure how I will engage with Twitter going forward? I used to use it to fill me in on news, but the things that trend upward seem too negative. I used to go to my timeline to find engaging articles to read, now I spend more time editing my choices to focus on, rather than actually reading any links.

Maybe I lived in a safe bubble in the early days of Twitter, shielded from everything except my interests in education and learning? Maybe I allowed too much in? Maybe the tool itself is inviting the wrong kind of engagement? Maybe it’s time to take another break?

The Twitter of old was a really special place, and after spending some time on the tool this morning, I’m feeling nostalgic about what it used to mean to me.

How do we get to ‘YES’?

I watched this Peter Hutton TEDx talk tonight and more than one part struck a very familiar chord with me and the things we do at Inquiry Hub.

The part of the talk I want to discus is this one:

“We have a saying that ‘Yes is the default’. So, the firth thing about that is if any staff, student, or parent has a suggestion or a request, the answer has to be ‘Yes’. Unless it would take too much time, too much money, or negatively impact on somebody else.” ~ Peter Hutton

My mantra over the last 8 years at Inquiry Hub has been:

“How do we get to ‘Yes’?”

The reality is that at our school the teachers are always trying to say ‘Yes’ already. Or, they are trying to guide students to a path where ‘Yes’ can happen. If it gets to me, there is already a reason for it to be a ‘No’, and it’s my job to figure out how do we get to ‘Yes’ when a teacher already couldn’t get there?

Here are 3 concrete examples:

  1. Students wanted to put our garden onto the concrete and not just in our courtyard. They were told ‘No’ by the district, because it would be in the way of maintenance vehicles. I had the students go back to the district and ask how far out it could go and not still be in the way? They didn’t get what they wanted, but the small encroachment onto the pavement was a win for them.
  2. In our second year one of our students wanted to grow hemp in our garden. We were a young school, still not fully developed, and our courtyard has no fencing, and is open to the public. I could only see bad (misinformed) publicity coming from this. I suggested a couple indoor plants and the student wasn’t interested. In the end, I could see a lot of downside beyond the project, and felt I had to say ‘No’.
  3. A student wanted to bring his Jeep engine block into the school to work on it. He had his own hoist and equipment. We don’t have the supervision and it would be completely unsafe, and would break all kinds of rules put in place to protect students. This was a hard ‘No’. So, we invited him to bring in anything he could lift without a hoist, and he could work on it with hand tools, or electric tools with supervision. We did have to have a few conversations about flushing gas/oil smells out of the parts he worked on before they came to school. But overall it worked out. We simply couldn’t bring items big enough to crush someone, or their finger or foot, into the school to be worked on.

Our default tends to be ‘Yes’, but that default doesn’t always work. When we can’t get it to work, then next question is, “How do we get to ‘Yes’? The answer isn’t always ideal, but it means something to our community for staff and students to know that we are all at least trying to get to ‘Yes’.

~ Also Shared on Pair-a-Dimes For Your Thoughts.

 

A step behind

I asked my daughter if she saw this new way of cutting a mango?

“Dad, you are so behind on your Tik Tok trends, I saw that ages ago.”

Yes, I’m behind. We all are in different areas of our lives. There is always a new tool, a new approach, a new technique that you will bump into.

The iPhone did everything with one button, now the new ones don’t have a button. People try to put gas in Teslas. Light switches you touch instead of toggle. Apps update, move things around, and add features you need to stumble on to know they are there. And now even the rules for social engagement keep changing.

No one is ‘caught up’, everyone is a step behind somewhere. These days, that’s normal. Things change quickly. Some would say too quickly. But things change, and we catch up.

We just need to give ourselves a little time. We just need to accept some ambiguity and unknown. We need to be unafraid to ask questions. We need to know that it’s ok to feel a little behind… as long as we aren’t stagnating, we are moving forward.

A forgotten dream

Last week I visited my uncle and he reminded me of a dream that I shared with him, 27 years ago, before my move from Toronto to Vancouver.

There is a saying: “To the fish water is invisible.” And that is what my dream was about. I grew up in a pre-Google era, but I had something better… I had my dad. It seemed that no matter what question I may ask, my dad had, and still has, a comprehensive answer. My only hesitation to ask him a question was that I needed to be sure I was interested enough to get his extensive and detailed answer.

The dream was that I was in my bedroom next to my dad’s office and everything was under water. It wasn’t scary, I could breathe. I knew the water was there but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.

What was right in front of me was all of dad’s books that I had never read. 1,000’s of books. My dad has read and given away more books than any 50 people would normally read in their lifetime. From my earliest memories I can remember our house containing numerous bookshelves with books double stacked, one in front of the other, with whole sections having books stacked horizontally, so that 6 or 8 horizontal books could take the place of 4 or 5 vertical books.

And I read almost none of them.

The dream was a dream of lost opportunity. Of being blind to the ocean of information that sat before me metaphorically unseen, and literally unread.

I didn’t enjoy reading until I was in my 30’s. I slowed down again after that, getting too busy, until recently in my 50’s when I discovered that I could listen to audio books while exercising, and walking, and waiting in lineups, and commuting in my car.

We often don’t see the opportunities right in front of us. We often take things, and people, for granted because they are right there.

About 8 or 9 years after I moved to B.C., my librarian at the school I was teaching at did an exchange with a teacher from Australia. That teacher and her retired husband went away almost every weekend during the exchange. In a single year they had visited more of B.C. than I had in almost a decade. In fact, more than I have in over a quarter century of living here now.

We are fish, blind to the water we swim in. Sometimes it’s worth stopping and paying attention to what is right in front of us.

Showcasing their passion in school

I have a friend that is a master craftsmen. He routinely helps me with work, like installing my deck, and French doors to replace a bay window to the deck… And in fairness I should say that I help him rather than ‘he helps me’. I become the inept assistant and he puts up with my help. 🤣

He reminded me today that he got a ‘P’ (Pass) in woodworking in school. The pass was a ‘gift’ that the teacher gave him after he helped clean up the shop at the end of the year. He had the skills to do well in the course, but he didn’t jump through the hoops, making all the simple projects required by the teacher.

This makes me think of the kid who runs her own business but is too busy to do a good job in her Entrepreneurship course. Or the musician that is creating his own music, or artist selling their own art online, but getting a ‘B’ in their respective Music and Art classes because they are just doing what needs to be done in class.

Each of these examples make me wonder:

What more we can do in our schools to showcase the out-of-school passions and interests of students, while they are at school?

With the knowledge that we may be moving to some level of blended learning to start the year in September, this might be an ideal time to ask this question!

Education focussed mind dump

I’m going to do a little mind dump of things on my mind about school, education, life, and learning, in point form – bullet format. Many of these could be entire posts on their own, and I want to share these as placeholders for future development:

  • Teaching is going to be more challenging in the future, but also more rewarding. Yes, technology will replace some teaching… an AI (Artificial Intelligence) based program can teach students who are learning to use algorithms better than a teacher in front of 30 students, when students could use just-in-time feedback and an adjusted curriculum based on their answers being right or wrong. However we are decades away from AI being able to teach problem solving, or critical thinking, or moderate a philosophical discussion. Teaching these things is exciting and can be very engaging for students, but also challenging to do well… this is the true art of teaching.
  • I’m tired of seeing ‘Remote Learning didn’t work’ articles. It is not ideal for every student and it magnifies the issue of privilege, and access to required technology. It especially won’t work when educators need to make the switch with no forward planning. That said, it has made us question a few things we needed to question, like traditional assessment practices for example.
  • Assessment practices needs to change. We can’t rely on information-based content as a means of measuring student success. ie. 1. We still need to know that students can use mathematical algorithms, but we also need to know that they are numerate and understand the concepts behind those algorithms. ie. 2. The so called soft skills that we want to see like critical thinking and collaboration don’t work well being marked in a traditional way. What does a mark of 77% in Creativity mean?
  • Blended learning is the future of learning in schools, and so two things need to change: 1. Block schedules/timetables where the structure is exclusively around a teacher at the front of a room teaching for a set time. 2. “Teach them while I’ve got them in front of me” mentality, where the face-to-face component of the blending is all about teaching as it used to be… Blended learning should be centred around creating ‘learning experiences’.
  • Student voice and choice needs to be the forefront of course and lesson design. Cookie-cutter assignments are not enough. That said, there can be considerable teacher influence and high expectations. A teacher-led inquiry with embedded opportunities for students choice can be much better than not giving students creative constraints (that they might flounder without).
  • We need to leverage blended learning, in order to create collaboration and professional development time inside of a teacher’s workday. The idea of a teacher working in isolation for over 85% of the school day is counter productive to creating a culture of learning at institutions (schools) that should be modelling a learning culture.
  • A well funded, free, and public education is an essential public service. It also has to foster the values we want to see in our world. Diversity, acceptance (not just tolerance), civics, kindness, and charity need to be celebrated and highlighted. Yes, we need to prepare students to function in society, and even be employable, but the most important thing we do in schools is make all students feel like they belong, and we help them become decent human beings.
  • We need to help students be tolerant of others with opposing points of view. We have to show them that despite the desire of attention-seeking news media to polarize ideas into different camps, ideas sit on a spectrum, they are not all dichotomous. And we do not have to agree with different ideas to be respectful of the people who hold them… That said, while “we must be tolerant and accepting of opposing views“, we must also be, “unaccepting of hateful and hurtful acts, and smart enough to understand the difference“.
  • We need to find a balance between ‘open’ classrooms and ‘private’ learning spaces. Students need a space where they can fumble and be less than perfect, having a private space to work out the rough edges of their work. They also need to be able to share what they want out in the open, and with the world. Everything doesn’t have to be on display, and we need to help students discern what is important to share, and what we keep to ourselves.
  • Mistakes need to be legitimately celebrated as part of learning. Failure is part of most challenging journeys, and while we talk about the importance of this, we freak out when students fail in a public setting. Mistakes are ok when we can fix them quickly, but we still admonish bigger public mistakes in ways that do not foster learning. This is an issue beyond schools, we seem to live in a world where everyone is judged (harshly) by their worst public mistake, and sincere apologies are not enough. This has two important, negative ramifications: 1. Public mistakes become something we can’t recover or learn from; 2. We can not be truly innovative when we can’t risk looking bad for our efforts. So many schools, school districts, and even companies, brag about being innovative, but when it is ‘innovative as long as it looks good’, well then all the risk is gone and so is the opportunity to do something daring.
  • Everyone has a right to their opinion, and everyone can share those opinions, but not all opinions are good, and not all opinions deserve an equal footing. Bad ideas can spread very easily these days. People need to be brave enough to speak out against bad ideas… in non-violent ways. We must celebrate the power of dialogue and use our words instead of our fists, if we truly want our society to be better. We have to challenge ourselves to take higher ground and not fight the fight that the spreaders of bad ideas want us to fight. There is a saying, “Never wrestle a pig, you both get dirty but the big likes it.” Bad ideas get unwarranted publicity when the battles get messy… and the weak-minded get fuel to oppose good ideas when those with the good ideas act in bad faith. You do not have to ‘turn the other cheek’ but you do have to act in a way that is decent and good, if you want to fight for things that are decent and good.

… Ideas To be expanded on at a future date.