Tag Archives: school

Empowering students

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There is an element of control that needs to be given up by teachers if they are truly empowering students. There has to be a willingness to accept a potential outcome that is less than ideal… An understanding that students won’t always hit the high standard you expect.

This isn’t about lowering standards or expectations, in fact, if you are empowering students you need to make your high expectations clear. Rather, this is the realization that students bite off more than they can chew (or rather can do), and then they end up scrambling to do less and still produce a good product or presentation. It’s an acceptance that a student’s vision doesn’t match yours but their outcome is still good, or (and this is the tough part for teachers) good enough. It’s about mistakes being honoured as learning opportunities rather than as something to penalize.

Empowering students doesn’t happen with outcomes that are exactlywhat the teacher envisioned and expected. Outcomes will vary. Results will be less predictable. But the learning will be rich, authentic, and far more meaningful and memorable for the students… As long as they feel empowered, and are given the space to have autonomy, lead, and learn in ways that they choose.

And while that won’t always end with results that the teacher envisioned or expected, it will always end with learners feeling like they owned their own learning. Shouldn’t that be the essence of a great learning experience?

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Related: Teacher as Compass

AprilMayJune

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One of the biggest challenges in being a school principal is the month of AprilMayJune. Three months that feel like they are condensed into one single month. From here to the last day of school it’s Go-Go-Go… It doesn’t feel like there is a break or a transition, it’s just non-stop action.

Good things will happen, wonderful events will be a big part of this extended month. So, it’s not just a slog, there will be some special moments to come. It’s just that things go so fast, and the pace feels accelerated, and then at the end of June we will look back and we won’t remember anything that delineates separate months from now until then.

To all the educators out there, have a fantastic AprilMayJune!

Google proof vs AI proof

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I remember the fear mongering when Google revolutionized search. “Students are just going to Google their answers, they aren’t going to think for themselves.” Then came the EDU-gurus proclaiming, “If students can Google the answers to your assignments, then the assignments are the problem! You need to Google proof what you are asking students to do!”

In reality this was a good thing. It provoked a lot of reworking of assignments, and promoted more critical thinking first from teachers, then from students. It is possible to be creative and ask a question that involves thoughtful and insightful responses that are not easily found on Google, or would have so few useful search responses that it would be easy to know if a student created the work themselves, or if they copied from the internet.

That isn’t the case for Artificial Intelligence. AI is different. I can think of a question that would get no useful search responses on Google that will then be completely answerable using AI. Unless you are watching students do the work with pen and paper in front of you, then you really don’t know if the work is AI assisted. So what next?

Ultimately the answer is two-fold:

How do we bolster creativity and productivity with AND without the use of Artificial Intelligence?

This isn’t a ‘make it Google proof’ kind of question. It’s more challenging than that.

I got to hear John Cohn, recently retired from MIT, speak yesterday. There are two things he said that kind of stuck with me. The first was a loose quote of a Business Review article. ’AI won’t take over people, but people with AI are going to take over people.’

This is insightful. The reality is that the people who are going to be successful and influential in the future are those that understand how to use AI well. So, we would be doing students a disservice to not bring AI into the classroom.

The other thing he said that really struck me was, “If you approach AI with fear, good things won’t happen, and the bad things still will.”

We can’t police its use, but we can guide students to use it appropriately… and effectively. I really like this AI Acceptable Use Scale shared by Cari Wilson:

This is one way to embrace AI rather than fear and avoid it in classrooms. Again I ask:

How do we bolster creativity and productivity with AND without the use of Artificial Intelligence?

One way is to question the value of homework. Maybe it’s time to revisit our expectations of what is done at home. Give students work that bolsters creativity at home, and keep the real work of school at school. But whether or not homework is something that changes, what we do need to change is how we think about embracing AI in schools, and how we help students navigate it’s appropriate, effective, and even ethical use. If we don’t, then we really aren’t preparing our kids for today’s world, much less the future.

We aren’t going to AI proof schoolwork.

More bubble wrap

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Back in 2009, while living in Dalian, China, I wrote ‘Bubble Wrap‘ about how overly protected we are in the West compared to other places in the world. Here is the first half of the post:

“After a month in China, I’ve come to realize that North Americans live in a bubble wrapped world.
In the ‘Western’ world we walk around oblivious to our surroundings, going about our business feeling safe and secure. I don’t mean safe in the sense of being cautious of others, since in actual fact, I have always felt safe in China (other than in the occasional taxi), and in fact Dalian feels safer than downtown Vancouver or Toronto when I’m out late at night.  I mean safe, in the West, in the sense that there are laws and bylaws and rules in place to make sure that we are ‘protected’ from unexpected harm: Guardrails and warning sign and lit-up crosswalks with pedestrian controlled lighting abound.
In the bubble wrap West we occasionally read or hear about someone who slips right next to a ‘wet floor’ sign or trips on an uneven curb and they end up blaming and suing others: “It wasn’t safe”, “It was faulty”, “The step was too high” or “The railing was too low”. Our day-to-day environment is safe, secure, sheltered… and sterile.
In China, things are different. Pedestrian walkways are a suggested crossing location and give no rights to the pedestrian. White and yellow lines on the roads are mere suggestions for where a pedestrian should stand as cars zip by at speeds up to 60km/hr, the occasional horn blast reminds you not to make any unexpected moves.
Here, doorways have immediate steps going up or down as you cross the threshold. You must walk with your eyes on the curb as a missing tile, or a sudden step may appear, unexpected by Western terms but fully expected here.”

Since then, I think things have gotten worse rather than better when it comes to safety. Case in point, the ban on cell phones in schools that has happened in other provinces and is about to happen in British Columbia. I can understand that they are a distraction, and I have no problem with schools or teachers having policies about using them appropriately and at appropriate times. But when one of the issues being discussed is student protection, a ban is not the answer.

As quoted in the Premier’s announcement:

“Today, kids live with different challenges than they did a generation ago, and they face them all in the palm of their hand,” said Premier David Eby. “While cellphones, the internet and social media help us connect with each other, they also present risks that can harm kids. The impact and influence of these tools is so great, and the corporations so powerful, it can be overwhelming for parents. That’s why we are taking action to protect kids from the threats posed by online predators and the impacts of social media companies.”

This reminds me of the filtering of websites, which I also was quite opposed to, (beyond porn and gambling as easy examples of things that should not be in schools, as compared to social media and web tools that were being blocked at the time). How do we help teach things like appropriate use when use isn’t allowed? Both my posts that I link to relate to issues at school, but here is another, totally unrelated and quite humorous example:

Last night I went to a washroom in a hotel in downtown Vancouver and saw this sign above a urinal.

Seriously?

We need a sign above a urinal… one that flushes with the water running along the walls of the basin we pee in… to remind us not to drink it. Oh, and not only because that’s not a smart or normal thing to do, but because the water is ‘non potable’?!?

Silly warnings, silly bans, silly attempts to bubble wrap the world.

BIG Question Institute Webinar on Inquiry Hub

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Here is the video from the BIG Question Institute Webinar teachers John Sarte, Al Soiseth, and I did on our school, Inquiry Hub Secondary. (On Vimeo)

Here is the comment I wrote on the webinar recording page on the BIG Questions Institute site.

Thanks for the opportunity to share Will, it was great to connect.
Here are a few links that we were going to share that we didn’t get to on the final slide:
http://Educators.inquiryhub.org – Created for the Cmolik award, which we lost out to Peter Liljedahl, mentioned in the webinar.

And our school YouTube page, which includes the ‘How far will you go’ student created video I mentioned.

And a couple posts I’d like to share… the ‘Teacher as Compass’ post that it turns out you prompted with a Tweet… and my ‘Learning and Failure’ post. We didn’t really get to this in the presentation, but one of the things I’m most proud about at our school is how we teach students to embrace would be failures as learning opportunities from which to grow and improve.

Thanks also to all who attended. Happy to share other resources such as our Inquiry courses.
Dave

As always, feedback appreciated, either here or on the BIG QI page.

Join our webinar this coming Wednesday

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This Wednesday, Jan 17 at 4pm PST, please join us to learn about Inquiry Hub Secondary School.  I’m looking forward to connecting with Will Richardson again, I’ve followed him and been influenced by his thinking since I started blogging in 2006. When he suggested connecting for a webinar I knew that I wanted a teacher with me, and who better then my colleague John Sarte. John is a founding teacher at Inquiry Hub, and he has been truly instrumental in developing the vision of our school, and helping us create our unique learning environment. Here are the webinar details, I hope that you can join us!

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FREE WEBINAR: “Inquiry Hub: The Dream, Create, Learn School” with Dave Truss and Dr. John Sarte – Hosted by Will Richardson

Details

Join us for this important overview of a compelling school model that highlights the power of project-based learning.

Inquiry Hub is a small Coquitlam School District (BC) high school that is unique in its approach and delivery. Known as the Dream – Create – Learn school, Inquiry Hub was born out of the idea that students don’t need to spend every minute of their day siloed into individual courses, without any unstructured time. It has evolved into a community of students who work both together and individually to complete the required curriculum while also designing some of their courses and their day around inquiries and passion projects that they want to pursue.

Grade 9’s and 10’s do cross-curricular projects using SCRUM project management, collaborating to get work done efficiently and effectively, and they also take an Inquiry Course designed around developing strong presentation skills and documenting their learning journeys, doing passion projects that they design. Grade 11’s and 12’s construct year-long IDS – Independent Directed Studies courses where they delve deep into their interests.

A key component of the program is DCL time, coined after the Dream – Create – Learn motto, where students are not in a structured class, but rather have unstructured time to work on their class projects, homework and assignments, and/or on their passion projects. Central to this is creating a community of learners who are eager to help each other and who have learned that failure is part of learning. Projects can be too big, too challenging, too overwhelming, but still result in a final product or presentation that exceeds expectations.

Wednesday, Jan 17 – 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM PST

RSVP now to join us for this important session with principal Dave Truss and teacher Dr. John Sarte.  (You’ll need a free membership to Will Richardson’s Big Questions Institute Community to RSVP and join us.)

Mixed emotions

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It’s the last day of the winter break. Tomorrow everyone heads back to school. I always find the last couple days before heading back a bit of a reset. The rush of the holidays is over, and my willingness to start something new is extremely low. In the last couple days I’ve watched more television with my wife than I have the rest of the 2 weeks of the break.

That said, I’m not begrudging the return to work. I’m excited about starting up again. I’m looking forward to seeing students in the building and hearing about their holidays. I’m already thinking about things I want to accomplish this term.

Part of me would love to have another week off, and part of me can’t wait to get back to a regular schedule. It’s a mixed feeling and one that sits heaviest on me on the day before I head back. I don’t always know how to balance the different emotions I feel on this day. I kind of just drift through the day, wondering if I should spend time catching up on things like email, or doing something… anything… that says ‘you are still on holidays – enjoy!’

Inevitably, I end up doing ‘not enough’ of either. In actuality, that’s not true, but that’s the emotional rollercoaster I go through every last day of an extended break.

Is Generative AI “just a tool”?

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Dean Shareski asks,

Is Generative AI “just a tool”? When it comes to technology, the “just a tool” phrase has been used for decades. I understand the sentiment in that it suggests that as humans, we are in control and it simply responds to our lead. But I worry that this at times, diminishes the potential and also suggests that it’s neutral which many argue that technology is never neutral. I’d love to know what you think, is Generative AI “just a tool”?

My quick answer is ‘No’, because as Dean suggests tools have never been neutral.

Here are some things I’ve said before in ‘Transformative or just flashy educational tools?‘. This was 13 years ago, and I too used the term, ‘just a tool’:

“A tool is just a tool! I can use a hammer to build a house and I can use the same hammer on a human skull. It’s not the tool, but how you use it that matters.

A complimentary point: If I have a hammer and try to use it as a screwdriver, I won’t get much value from its’ use.”

My main message was, “A tool is just a tool! It’s not the tool, but how you use it that matters.”

I went on to ask, “What should we do with tools to make them great?” And I gave 6 suggestions:

  1. Give students choice
  2. Give students a voice
  3. Give students an audience
  4. Give students a place to collaborate
  5. Give students a place to lead
  6. Give students a digital place to learn

This evolved into a presentation, 7 Ways to Transform Your Classroom, but going back to Dean’s question, first of all I don’t think technology is ever neutral. I also think that technology need not be transformative yet always has the potential to be so if it really does advance capabilities beyond what was available before. So the problem is really about the term ‘just’ in ‘just a tool’. Nothing is just a tool. Generative AI is not “just a tool”.

We respond to technology, and technology transforms us. Just like Marshal McLuhan proposed that the communication medium itself, not the messages it carries, is what really matters, “The medium is the message”, the technology is the transformer, it alters us by our use of it, it is the medium that becomes the message.

Generative AI is going to transform a lot of both simple and complex tasks, a lot of jobs, and ultimately us.

What does this mean for schools, and for teaching and learning? There will be teachers and students trying to do old things in new ways, using AI like we used a thesaurus, a calculator, Wikipedia, and other tools to ‘enhance’ what we could do before. There will also be innovative teachers using AI to co-create assignments and to answer new questions, co-write essays, and co-produce images and movies.

There will be students using generative AI to do their work for them. There will be teachers fearing these tools, there will be teachers trying to police their use, and it’s going to get messy… That said, we will see more and more generative AI being the avenue through which students are themselves designing tasks and conceiving of new ways to use these tools.

And of course we will see innovative teachers using these tools in new ways…

How different is a marketing class when AI is helping students start a business and market a product with a $25 budget to actually get it going?

How different is a debate where generative AI is listening and assisting in response to the opposing team’s rebuttal?

How different are the special effects in an AI assisted movie? How much stronger is the AI assisted plot line? How much greater is the audience when the final product is shared online, with AI assisted search engine optimization?

Technology is not ‘just a tool’. We are going to respond to Generative AI and Generative AI is going to transform us. It is not just going to disrupt education, it’s going to disrupt our job market, our social media (it already has), and our daily lives. Many other tools, will not be just like the tools that came before them… changes will be accelerated, and the future is exciting.

‘Just a tool’ is deceiving and I have to agree with Dean that it underplays the possibilities of how these tools can be truly transformative. I’m not sure I would have said this 13 years ago, but I also didn’t see technology being as transformative back then. Generative AI isn’t a flash in the pan, it’s not something trendy that’s going to fade in popularity. No, it’s a tool that’s going to completely change landscapes… and ultimately us.

Final countdown

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Two more days until the winter break. Tonight I’ll be at school until 9:30pm or so, because we have a school dance I’ll be supervising. Tomorrow will be a lot shorter, then we have a 2-week holiday. I’ve never been one to countdown, but this has already been a long week and I am really looking forward to the break.

The next countdown is Christmas Day, and I’m cooking a turkey for the first time in years. Then there is the countdown to a trip to Whistler for a couple nights, to new years’s eve, and then to a trip to Victoria for a couple nights.

I’m excited for the two trips because my mom is coming with us and she has never been to Whistler or Victoria. It will be great showing her around, and I’m glad my daughters will have done time with her too.

But first I’ve got to get to the break. Two more school days, one sleep, and the countdown is over. I hope everyone has a wonderful break.

Remembering No Office Day

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I forgot all about this until a Facebook Memory came up a few days ago.

“My ‘No Office Day’ Post , (December 11th, 2010) was inspired by a busy schedule whereby I promised my staff I’d see more of them and then promptly got stuck in an almost all-day meeting. The following day, I didn’t bring my laptop to school and spent the entire day in classrooms. I chronicled my day by taking some photos on my phone and uploading them to twitter with the hashtag #noofficeday.”

That quote was taken from my ‘International No Office Day’ post, at the end of August 2011. I feel like I wrote these blog posts a full lifetime ago. It’s kind of neat that this one No Office Day that I had in Dalian, China became an international event. It was fun to read blog posts, news clips, and even watch YouTube videos about other principals spending the full day in classrooms and not their office.

I just dug this up with a Google search. Beyond the Open-Door Policy, and I chuckle at the reporting which stated I had only done ‘scheduled walkthroughs’ for nearly a month. I tried to visit every classroom every day, and said that visit could be a simple walkthrough, but I didn’t have a formal schedule. I also remember this day getting a bit of criticism too, but I don’t remember the specifics.

Still the experience I shared was a wonderful event, and I love looking back at the pictures I took in classrooms. The fact that it became an event and was shared by many others makes me smile. I think some day early next year I might hold another one of these days. I might only do a morning because my one school is so small, I can hit all 4 grades in 4 blocks… and my online school doesn’t have classes I can join.

It will be fun to revive this day and spend a bit more time in classes with kids.