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Teacher Lounge PD?

Posted in Administrator, Alfie Kohn, Blog, Education, Leadership, Ning, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Social Media, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Truth, Twitter on May 13, 2010| 15 Comments »

As a supervisor of Pre-service teachers, I start my first meeting with my students with a list of do’s and Don’ts, High up on the Don’t list is a very important rule for all new teachers: Stay out of the Faculty Lounge. Although it is a gathering place for educators, it is in reality not a place to professionally develop.

The teacher’s lounge or faculty room is one of the most important rooms in a school building for some teachers. It is an oasis from the stress, a place to blow off steam. Back in the day it was a smoke-filled room. (That is a great example of “what the hell were we thinking” items.) It is a social room for faculty. It is the virtual water cooler where those types of conversations take place. It is a place where teachers can voice opinions about education with colleagues. Some schools offer Department offices providing a mini-experience of the same things for department members only, an exclusive lounge.

Then there is the “Dark Side” of the lounge. It is a place for student bashing, teacher bashing, administrator bashing, and finally a place for parent bashing. It is a place where careers can be torpedoed by individuals publicly ridiculing colleagues. It is a place that can be very intimidating to new teachers. It is a bastion of traditional ideas and stories of those who got away with things that could not be done today.

The reality is that, it is not a place for Professional Development. It is not thought of as the place where one goes to discuss the latest methods or research in education. It is not thought of as the place where one would see the latest best practices in a lesson for professional development, or videos of the latest speakers on educational topics. Marzano, Kohn, November, Gardner, Rheingold, and Heidi Hayes Jacobs are not names bandied about in the Lounge. Most people are not listening to podcasts, or viewing webinars, or exchanging links. The discussion of which apps are best for which outcomes is a rare bird indeed. As a matter of fact, many of these terms, or at least the experience of use of these things would be foreign to many, if not most, in the room.

If you did not recognize this description, because your school has no such room, or nothing negative happens in your faculty lounge it can mean only one thing. After four decades of teaching, supervising, and observing in hundreds of schools, I never visited your school. I guess that I should only say that this is a description of a lounge in many schools I have visited. Of course the names will be withheld to protect the innocent.

If the exchange of educational ideas is not taking place in the areas where teachers gather, it must take place somewhere else. Perhaps the district is supplying a time and place for the exchange of ideas to happen. There is always the monthly or bi-weekly Department meeting that occurs at the end of the school day when teachers are always open to new challenging ideas.

If educators are to be relevant and literate in this digital age, these are the types of things that need to be discussed and planned for. If we as educators are not discussing this now, we will soon reach a point where it will not matter.

We are in an environment of people being fed up with status quo. We are in an environment where expenditures of money are demanding higher accountability. We are in an environment where people want more bang for less bucks, more effort from fewer people, more education with less time to do it, more testing for better outcomes with less time to teach, because of more time required for test preparation. No matter how fast that mouse runs there is always more of that spinning wheel.

As I discussed this with my friend, Dr. Joe Pisano, he pointed out that maybe the walls we need to knock down with technology are the walls of the Faculty Room and the Myth of educators exchanging ideas for Professional Development. The box that we need to think outside of is the school building itself. We need to involve educators to engage others on a global network of educators. We cannot count on Districts supplying the time and place for needed discussions to happen. They are not leading us to the needed reform to maintain our relevance and ultimately our jobs.

We need to share our digital collaborative efforts that have educators involved in Twitter, Ning, Delicious, Diigo, Wikis, and any of the web tools out there now or yet to come. We navigate an information-rich environment. We are collaborating daily. We are using Blog posts for reflection and deep discussions. As Educators on the Professional Learning Network we do all of this and benefit by it daily, yet we are a minority of educators. We represent the smallest of fractions of the Millions of teachers who still rely on the Teachers Lounge for relevant Professional Development.

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IWB’s Help or Hurt?

Posted in Administrator, EdChat, Education, Interactive White Board, IWB's, Leadership, Ning, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Skills, Teacher, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Twitter on April 17, 2010| 41 Comments »

I teach pre-service teachers to prepare them for the classroom, but I also try to steer them in directions that will make them more marketable as they look for jobs in an extremely competitive job market. In addition to trying to make them web 2.0 tech-aware, I also require that they do at least one interactive whiteboard lesson. I like to require that the lesson deal with some aspect of Grammar. This tackles two of the biggest hurdles for English Teachers, Tech and Grammar.

Although I require that my students achieve a comfort level with the Interactive White Board, I needed to update my personal knowledge of the subject in order to keep up. At my own expense I signed up for a workshop/conference on the Interactive Whiteboard sponsored by one of the leading Interactive Whiteboard companies. I had limited expectations, expecting maybe 50 educators and a few trainers.

This conference was held at one of the many Long Island high schools which have embraced the IWB technology. There were more than several classrooms with IWB Technology in them. Hence, this was the perfect choice of locations for an IWB conference. There were nine hands-on workshops repeated over four sessions and there were Science, Math, Social Studies and ELA Training classes conducted on both the elementary and secondary levels. There was a product demonstration area set up in the Gym. There had to be 500 educators in attendance. This was a pleasant surprise, a real conference. My adrenaline was pumping away. I was truly excited as I often am at statewide or national educational conferences.

My enthusiasm was somewhat dampened as I engaged educators in conversation and asked two simple questions. Are you on Twitter? Do you use The Educator’s PLN Ning site? The first question elicited not verbal responses, but stimulated what can best be described as facial contortions. The second question was answered by one or two questions: What’s a PLN? or What’s a Ning? I digress however. This is a topic for another post, so, back to the IWB’s.

Two things that I strongly advocate in my class would be creative thinking for students through authentic learning, and the use of technology as a tool for learning. It is no coincidence that it also takes up much of the discussion time in our #edchat discussions. These are major common concerns of many educators today.

Now, I need to address the point of this post. I must admit that I believe that IWB’s are an asset to the classroom. They can seamlessly use web 2.0 applications to engage students in creative and constructive lessons for learning. The important element in this however is the training of the teacher using the IWB. Without training the user, the IWB becomes an expensive video projector or an expensive PowerPoint presentation tool or a very expensive hat rack.

What I believed one of the added pluses to this product was, is the vast library of lessons which are available to qualified users, but, therein lies the rub. We teach that according to Bloom’s Taxonomy, the highest form of learning is creative. A lesser form of learning, although necessary, is remembering. As I attended each of the workshops, which unveiled several very thoughtful and creative examples of previously recorded and now archived lessons, I began to notice a distressingly common thread. Each of the archived lessons addressed the remembering learning described by Bloom and not the creative learning for which we, as educators, should strive. As I watched the trainer of one of the sessions showcase another remembering lesson. I remarked that the creative learning was not on the part of the students partaking in the lesson, but rather on the part of the educator creating the lesson. It would then stand to reason, for the students to get the full benefit of an IWB, they should each be creating lessons to present to fellow students.

I am not saying that remembering lessons have no place in education. They are necessary and must be taught. This is content. However, it is the use of that content for more creative efforts which affords students learning. Remembering lessons should not be the focus of education, that focus should be on the creative.

The danger in the use of IWB’s is the lack of training. If districts place IWB’s in a classroom without training the teacher in its use, that teacher will seek from the library, lessons which have already been developed, most of which are remembering focused. This is a case of doing the right thing with the wrong result. I have been told that there are districts which place these IWB’s in classrooms as incentives for teachers to be motivated. They do not attach it to proper training. Would any of us fly with a pilot who had a 747 placed in his driveway as an incentive to fly a bigger plane without training?

Now here is what set me off today. I was in a workshop using clickers to respond to questions from a lesson. As a formative assessment it was great. They were multiple choice questions which could be instantly analyzed. It is not to be confused with a tool for learning, but rather a tool for assessment in the multiple choice genre of tests. It was in this workshop that the trainer revealed to the group that the company had filed a number of standardized tests which could be used for practice with the use of the clickers. This would offer the data to be aggregated in any way needed for analysis. Some might use the word manipulated. A teacher in the group immediately came to life. He was excited to see that this would provide him material to use for the month of May. That was the month that his district administrators designated as THE MONTH FOR TEST PREPARATION. In my mind that was squandering a month of learning for the sake of test preparation. Then the same administrators ask, why are we failing our students.

I believe in Technology. I believe in support for that Technology. We need to teach our students to be prepared for their world and not one that which we might prefer. We do not get to make that choice. IWB’s with training and support can move our students forward. Kids understand IWB’s and want to use them. It’s the adults who need to be brought along. Creativity should be the focus and remembering should be the support.

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PLN’s, Parties, and Pajamas.

Posted in Blog, Education, Ning, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking, Twitter on February 26, 2010| 41 Comments »

A big problem with getting the word out to educators about the incredible collaboration that is growing and improving among educators globally is the means that we use to communicate this. If you found this post on your own, you probably have an understanding of everything that I will now talk about. The people who most need to see posts like this however, will never see it, unless you, or I, print it out and hand it to them. You may check this on your own with a little informal survey. Randomly select 10 of your colleagues and ask each of them two questions. Do you read Educational Blogs? Could you name two that you read on more than two separate occasions? A simpler question might just be “Do you use Twitter as part of your Personal Learning Network?”

This is a guess on my part, but here goes. What’s a Blog? Twitter, you have to be kidding, right? Who has time for that? I don’t use a computer for that stuff. I read the real stuff from printed sources. I don’t get that “Techy” stuff. I need things to help with my teaching, not technology. I spend too much time grading work, I have no time to play on the computer. I read books not screens, I like the feel of books. I don’t use a computer. I have heard these very words or some variation of these answers even before I began talking about Social Media in education. In your quick little survey I would bet that, if the respondents are truthful, probably 4 out of 10 will be able to name some blogs that they have read. Maybe, some might use Twitter. Well, maybe 2 out of 10.

Recently, I was asked by a very progressive and highly respected District Administrator to speak to some Higher Ed educators to explain the idea behind teachers developing a Personal Learning Networks as a professional tool for teachers. These Higher Ed people were working with Pre-service teachers who would be working in this administrator’s district. He was looking to provide pre-service teachers with the tools that they would need to fit into the vision for which he had for his district. He sees his district as a progressive environment using the tools of the 21^st century for not only authentic learning, but also relevance. This would be a great district for any school of education to have their students placed as teachers. However, as future teachers, they need to be prepared to contribute in that environment.

We decided that since I could not fly from New York to Iowa for a brief meeting, Skype would be the next best thing. I prepared for the conference call by putting on a shirt and tie. I looked great in my Skype screen, the epitome of a higher Education professional. They actually commented how professional I looked on the Skype screen in my shirt and tie. Of course my retort was,” Thank you, but I must admit I am not wearing Pants”. I was actually wearing pajama pants. Of course, they failed to appreciate my humor, and I knew I was in trouble. My impression was that they may not have had much Skype experience. When I asked if they understood what a PLN was, my question was answered with silence. I knew that I was in trouble. I was working my way uphill in my pajama bottoms.

This drove home the very words I have said on several occasions. These are words with a meaning that I often stray from. We tend to lose perspective, as we engage with educators within our Personal Learning Networks. We tend to think all educators are participating with us in this network. The truth is that we represent only a small portion of all educators.

The PLN has often been described as a huge cocktail party. Participants can move from group to group within that party and take what they want or need from a group and then move on to the next group. This is a really clever analogy. The problem is that even though a large number of people are attending the party, the larger percentage of educators never even dressed for it. They are still in their houses sitting around in their pajamas. This does not mean that they are not doing their job. It means that they are not interacting with others at a party.

We see the party as very helpful. We move from group to group gleaning useful information, exchanging ideas, and collaborating with other party goers. The question is how do we get all of those others, the vast majority of educators, to the party? These other educators do not live in our neighborhood. How do we connect with them, since they do not communicate as we do. If we did get them to our party would they benefit from it? Would we benefit from it? Do we have time to wait for them? How do we change the culture?

My frustration is that Personal Learning Networks are treasure troves of educational sources, great ideas, and collaborative educators, and I have no way of getting this concept to the great majority of those who could most benefit by its discovery. Social Media is what we can use today, to link up those people who need to link up, but social media is not yet socially accepted by the masses.

We need to deal with PLN’s in Professional Development workshops. We need to Email links to colleagues who do not use Twitter, Nings, or Wikis. We need to have students develop PLN’s as a source of learning. We need to connect those who need to be connected and then we can all learn as professionals in our pajamas.

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HMWK: Less Value or Valueless?

Posted in Alfie Kohn, Education, Homework, Ning, PLN, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Thought Provoking on February 19, 2010| 19 Comments »

If I had to name one educational author who sets educators off, it would be Alfie Kohn. The Educator’s PLN. http://edupln.ning.com. was fortunate enough to convince Alfie Kohn to talk with well over 250 educators about his views in a live Chat. Alfie is outspoken on a number of educational topics not the least of which is his stance on homework. No matter how Kohn positions it, and irrespective of the research used to support his position, all that some educators ever hear is that teachers should not give homework because it doesn’t improve or in any way positively affect learning. This flies in the face of a traditional tenet of education, “Thou shalt Give Homework”.

Kohn’s positions bring out the best and the worst in some people. One great example of academic debate at its best has been on-going over a period of several days. Two members of The Educator’s PLN, George Haines and Tim Furman have continued the most scholarly, thoughtful, and respectful discussion on the subject of Alfie Kohn that one could hope for. The vocabulary is inspiring. You have to love all those big educational words. All kidding aside, I have great respect for both men and their positions. It is a refreshing change from some of the name calling and disagreeable discourse that I have witnessed in the recent past.

Now that the Alfie Kohn video has been placed on my class’s Ning site and my students have been assigned its viewing, I need to strategize what they should take away from the experience. I am not creating Minnie me’s. I do not want to impose my will and a homework policy on them to guide them through their careers without them understanding or buying into it. After all, I am not an administrator.

Many of my views on homework were not my views through much of my career. Having my own children in school gave me a perspective that I never had in the first half of my career. I have come to appreciate that a student’s day in school begins at about approximately 8 and ends at 3. Many, but not all, are often involved with extra-curricular events for an additional two hours. This puts kids home between 5:30 and 6PM. Work in a little downtime and dinner and it is 8 pm. Of course the student is now ready to work, because it’s homework time. Each teacher has only assigned about 20 to 30 minutes of work, so each teacher feels that the assignment is not too much. That would be okay if the kid did not have five teachers all thinking the same thing. That could be on a given day two to three hours of homework. It is now 11 PM. I understand that does not happen every night, but I must wonder how often does it happen? I do not know an adult who would work those hours for any number of days in a week for no pay. There are actually departments, schools, and districts that enforce homework policies requiring teachers to give homework each and every night.

I am an English teacher. I know that I sometimes have no choice about homework, if I am to get things read. However, if I assign anything more than 10 pages, it probably will not be read by the class. How successful will my lesson be the next day when only half the students read the assignment? If I were to do a formative assessment, I should not be surprised that half the class does not get it. So much for the homework strategy. Another consideration: If I put no value on the homework, kids will recognize it as worthless. I must check it and provide feedback to give it value. Homework without value is more than worthless. It is punishment. Students will view it as working for nothing. How often do we hear “Why should I do that work? He doesn’t check it anyway.”

Skills and drills are important to some teachers and rarely important to kids. Some students might benefit by doing them. What about those who do not need those drills because they have a thorough understanding? How do those students, who do not need the drills, view them? If they clearly understand and can do the work, why are they drilling? Might they feel as if it is punishment? Can we assign the drills to those who need them and not to those who need them not? Is that a question of fairness? How can we say that only some of the students will get homework because they need to drill their skills? Are we calling some of our students dumb (their perspective) ?

I would love for my Methods students to realize that, if homework is important for the teacher to give, it should be important for the students to do. It should be creative and reasonable, because we are requiring overtime without compensation. We would resent that as adults, so why do we expect kids to buy into that concept without pushback? I love the fact That Alfie Kohn, George Haines, Tim Furman and my Methods students all challenge me to think, and reflect in order to amend, or change many of the traditions of education I followed so stringently for so many years in teaching. I only regret that I did not have the ability to do this earlier. That is what motivates me to work with pre-service Teachers. I think I will assign the reading and responding to this post as a homework assignment.

http://www.Twitter.com/@tomwhitby

http://vimeo.com/9511857

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Learning Olympics

Posted in Education, Ning, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Teched, Technology, Thought Provoking on February 15, 2010| 8 Comments »

I was somewhat stumped as to how to engage my Methods students after two snow days and the Presidents’ Day Holiday. My worries were short-lived, since I developed a Ning site for my Methods’ students, so that they could continue learning even without the use of college grounds or a classroom. I am not a tech geek, but a practical educator. I know that I need to engage my students beyond the classroom in time and space.

I have several educational videos on the site, but two served my purpose well. One was an interview with Howard Gardner on Multiple Intelligences and the other was Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom by Alan November. I asked my students to view both videos and discuss the merging of ideas of these educators. To add another dimension, I also said that they may want to consider Bloom’s Taxonomy in their positions. I sat back and asked, How good am I? (Totally Rhetorical)

After the first few responses I began to question my teaching methods. The early student responses were saying that technology was an encumbrance to education. I had one student argue that cashiers could not make proper change unless the cash register told them how much change to give. The argument was blaming the technology for the cashier’s inability to make change in his or her head without the aid of the register. I did not point out that the cashier probably would not have had that job if the technology was not compensating for what the cashier did not learn in school. We sometimes view the same things, but perceive them differently.

Of course, I was upset with the initial responses. I wanted these students to learn what I know and take it further. Based on the initial responses, that was not going to happen. I felt that I had gone wrong in my presentations of technology as a tool in education. How could these students move education forward, if they fail to understand the technology component as clearly as I do? Yes that is totally arrogant on my part, but it is important to me to have my students be relevant. Technology, to me, makes them relevant educators.

This was a little too much to deal with. After all, the Olympic games were going on. I was upset, but I decided to put it aside to watch and enjoy the Olympics. Of course that did not work out. The initial discussions from my students were turning over in my mind. Why didn’t they get it? I know that I taught that technology is only a tool and not the education.

As I watched the Olympics I was thinking of how I could get a redo on this topic of technology as a tool for educators? That was the very moment that NBC, trying to fill a period of time when nothing was going on, did a piece on the garments created for the skiers to keep them warm and dry, as well as massage the athlete’s muscles. It was technology at its best. From that point forward, I honed in on all of the technological advances that helped the Olympic athletes. Clothing, sleds, skis, gloves, skates and anything else that an athlete needed was being tweaked by technology. Technology was the tool to help the athlete complete the event.

That is when I saw it. If learning was the event and students were the athletes what would they need to get to the end of the event? What technology could we provide to get them to achieve the goal. We did not need suits, gloves, or skis, but tools for collaboration, exploration, and communication. If athletes in the Olympics use tools of technological advancement to succeed at their events, then students in schools may use tools of technological advancement to succeed at learning. Teachers are not replaced by the tools, they become the coaches. Much like today’s athletes who participate in various events in the Olympics, students participate in learning. To succeed in attaining that goal, technology is a tool to get the student there. It enables him or her to get there faster and with richer experience then in the years past.

After I came to this realization and what I considered a great analogy, I went back to the discussion page of my class Ning site. I was happy to see a large number of contributions to the discussion. Many of the new entries exhibited a clear understanding of technology as a tool for learning and not the end result.I may have been to quick in my early assessment. Many students were smart enough to quote not only my words from classes, but also many of the wise words from my Blog posts. They were using technology to pump up the professor’s Ego. After all of my reflection and assessment, I may have accomplished my objective with a number of my students without going over it again and beating their knuckles with a ruler. That was the old school method.

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Assess the Assessment

Posted in Education, Merit Pay, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Thought Provoking on February 7, 2010| 15 Comments »

In the movie, On The Waterfront the main character, Terry, played by Marlon Brando had a discussion with his brother, Charlie, played by Rod Steiger. The discussion explained how the big brother talked the younger brother to ignore his beliefs in himself and take a dive in a fight. In trusting his older brother’s advice the younger brother asked, “what do I get? a one way ticket to palookaville You was my brother Charlie, you should’ve looked out for me …”. It is with that image of a discussion in the back of a mob-owned Limo that I will now make this post.

Teachers need assessments. We need to assess what students know, in order to determine what it is we need to teach. We need to assess how effective our teaching is with our students, so that we can move forward, change direction, or go back for a better take. In assessing the learning of our students we can be creative. We can use Tests, Rubrics, Projects, or Portfolios developed in accordance with those who are being assessed, the students. Assessments are both needed and useful tools to an educator.

Now let us look at standardized tests. I cannot address any specific test in any state because these standardized tests are not standard from state to state. We were told at the outset of this test movement, that tests were needed to make sure our education system was maintaining the same level of teaching and learning throughout the country. It would be more accurate to say that was my understanding. So, now we have several different tests, developed separately by various groups across the country, testing whether kids are all at least at minimal levels of learning achievement and calling it standardized.

We should consider how the Test results are applied. We know how teachers use assessments, so let us list the uses of the standardized test results by individuals other than teachers. Administrators use the results for many things. There is funding tied to test results. There is programming tied to test results. There are purchasing decisions tied to test results. Staffing and scheduling are also tied to test results.

Additional applications of the test results would be for political influence. School Board members always pull them out at election time. Superintendents use them at most public meetings. I do not know for sure, but I would imagine, that the test result numbers might be bandied about in contract negotiations with teacher unions. My favorite observation of all would be the use of these results in Real Estate offices. I imagine that some real estate agents have laminated sheets of good test results for districts in which they are trying to sell houses. If the houses are in districts with poor test results the subject will never be brought up.

Now there is talk of tying a teacher’s pay or even the teacher’s continuance in the career to be dependent on these test results. How can that be justified to teachers that have students who must take the test after only being with that teacher a short time. Maybe we could go back in the students academic history and also hold previous teachers responsible. It should be noted at this point that there are some subject areas that are not governed by standardized testing. Language courses, Elective courses, Physical Education courses, Tech and Business courses are among those not requiring standardized tests. How will these teachers be affected by the reliance on tests? Is there a different standard for English, social studies, math and science teachers?

My thoughts now go to when is it that we are doing this testing. Formative testing is an as-you-go assessment. It allows the teacher to reflect and adjust. The Summative assessment is the culminating assessment. How successful was the teacher with the Big picture. In this respect standardized tests are best compared to an Autopsy. I would propose that we need more ongoing healthcare.

I try to teach my Methods students that if they do their job as they are trained and teach kids to be learners, that those kids will do well on any standardized test. They should never teach to the test. Their veteran colleagues however, often tell them the opposite. They tell them that the test is everything. We are judged by the test results of our students. To underscore and emphasize that statement, teaching for the test is not discouraged by administrators.

My quandary: What do I tell my students? Higher order thinking skills are paramount. Follow Bloom and teach through creativity, and assess creatively. Pay no attention to standardized tests, for if your students are learning it will show as success on the test. Am I being Charlie as my students are Terry. With the advice that I give them, will they ask…“what do I get? a one way ticket to palookaville You was my brother Charlie, you should’ve looked out for me …”.

I have no answers, or suggestions for change on this subject because I need more information. Therefore, I believe it is time to assess the assessment. We need to clearly understand our objective and use the assessment to determine if we are accomplishing it.We may need to find other ways to make political statements about education and other ways to sell real estate. Let’s use assessment to determine learning.

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Focus on the Facts

Posted in Education, Pre-Service teachers, Reform, Teched, Technology on January 27, 2010| 8 Comments »

Do Not Look at the Video Until You Complete Reading This Post!

If truth be told, and I always do, I was once the type of teacher that I teach my students not to be. When I need examples of things that one should not to do in a classroom, I need not go far for an example. That being said, I must add, that I was not the same teacher at the end of my career that I was at the beginning. Luckily, I was better at the end than I was at the beginning. Through reflection and instruction and a great many years of experience, I developed, I learned, and I changed. I was happier with myself as a teacher in the latter half of my 34 year, K-12 history.

I did not start out as a teacher. I never took an Education course until I secured a position as a teacher. My Education training came on the graduate level. I was never a student teacher, because it was waived. Since I felt so fortunate to have a teaching job, I was willing and eager to learn. With that eagerness I turned to the veteran faculty members for help in developing methods for teaching. In the 70’s they were all old school. That is probably where the term “old school” came from. My mentors taught me to teach as they were taught, for that is what they knew. It worked for them and it will work for all the students in the future. That is what I was told.

My lesson plans were more historical fiction than plans. I needed to turn something in each week and I was always a week behind. This of course was another time. My tests were designed for speed of grading. I controlled my classes including students and course content. Fortunately, we learn from our mistakes. What we do with what we learn, however, is what ultimately counts. At least that is my hope.

For whatever reason, people hold Politicians steadfastly responsible for whatever first statement they ever made on any given topic. They are not permitted to waiver from their original stand. It seems to be applied even more steadfastly to issues of controversy. Politicians are not allowed to reflect. They are not allowed to consider new information. They cannot rely on new research that might have an effect on their original position. Once a politician states a position he/she lives with it forever.

Teachers are not held to this standard. They do reflect. New information makes a big difference in what they teach. Research affects what they do and how they do it. If all that is true, there is only one factor that stops this from creating change. That would be the teacher’s unwillingness to reflect, consider, and implement change on a personal level. Teachers too often see no need to do so. Changing this factor may take us a long way in changing the system.

Professional Development often does not address attitudes and the need to do things differently. It presents new tools with bells and whistles that may not be complicated, but are often presented in a complicated way. In addition, these tools often have no relevance to what teachers are teaching. That is the way many teachers perceive it. Tech tools are not presented in the context of a lesson specific to the teacher. As always, I will again say this is a generalization and it does not happen everywhere. Since you are still reading this post there must be a reason. It may have to do with all of those other teachers that you may know who fall into this category.

All teachers should be familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy, even though some may need to be reminded of it. If we buy into Bloom, as we should, we accept the fact that the least effective way kids learn is through memorization of facts. The most effective way kids learn is creative thinking. That being established, let us examine the focus of most teaching. What is the focus of most lessons of most teachers? ( you may feel more comfortable with the word many instead of most). If the teacher’s Focus is on Facts, we have a problem.

I know most teachers believe that they are teaching students to be creative. That being the case let us consider the summative assessments, Unit Exams. Are they multiple choice questions? Do the questions ask for fact recall? Are the answers on Scantron sheets or bubble sheets? I am not diminishing the need to know and recall facts. They are necessary. I am questioning the focus of teaching. Memorization of facts may be useful and has its place. The focus of the lesson however should focus on creative learning in order to access the highest level of learning. Authentic assessment might be a better way to look at success in creative learning

Taking this back to Professional Development, if we agree to focus on creative learning, we will need students to use creative tools to research, access, analyze, collaborate and communicate in a creative way. The PD need only teach awareness of tech to the teacher. The teacher will soon ask more detailed questions as the needs arise. Students may become the impetus for learning technology for the teacher. As the students take ownership of their learning, they should use the tech to accomplish their goals. If the teacher is driving the bus there is no need to be able to do an engine tune-up. Students will use tech more and more as the teacher guides them through their tasks. Learning will go both ways. As a teacher I often found myself learning from my students. I still do.

Some may see this as an oversimplification of a complicated problem. If that is so, then refocusing how we teach, and the focus that we use in lessons every day should be a simple solution. Teachers must Reflect, consider and Change. They are not politicians and have the ability to change and grow.

My belief is that we need to change the culture in order to change an Education System. It is a system that often fails the teachers as well as the students. This change can start with us. We are the change. After that we can select something else to tackle. There are enough problems to choose from.

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Does Experience Help or Hinder?

Posted in Education, Merit Pay, Pre-Service teachers on January 17, 2010| 22 Comments »

This is the second Post on my Blog, so I am still working what to say and how to say it. I also have to gage how often to do this. My fear is using up all of my ideas in a month. Then what? My intent is not to offend so many people that my message is never delivered. I also don’t want to sound as if I have all of the answers, because I do not. As an educator who travels to many schools in many Districts on Long Island, I am in a unique position to make observations based on real experiences.

My first considered observation is that Parking is terrible for visitors at about 80% of the schools I visit. I have no idea if that observation will amount to big changes in Education, but it is a pet peeve. I get to do that with my own blog.

I have always enjoyed talking with elementary students about their school experience. Little kids LOVE school. It does seem however, that as they get older and are influenced by the more experienced students with whom they have contact, this educational enthusiasm dwindles with each year. The final culmination of this has been fondly referred to as “Senioritis”. Yes, I know there are other factors too, but they do not support where I am going with this.

This same love of school may, for the purpose of this post, be compared to the Pre-service teachers that we put out each year. Pre-service teachers are student teachers. They must spend several hours of actual teaching in order to qualify for certification. Their great enthusiasm for teaching is evident in most students, but only after the first few days of terror at the beginning. Everyday has a light bulb moment when students see and experience so many of those things they have been theorizing for months and now they get it.

If they are fortunate enough to get a job, they carry that new enthusiasm with them. They understand and employ all that they have been taught. They have energy and a passion for teaching. They are like those little kids in elementary school loving it all. They are into Bloom, Rubrics, assessments, authentic learning, technology tools, pedagogy and they do Lesson Plans.

At that point in their careers they are sponges for everything educational. That is when they are helped along by the experiences of others. How many times have we heard something like, “you’re not in a college class anymore. It doesn’t work like that in a real classroom”. That may be an accurate statement. It probably does not work like that in every real classroom, but why not?

I would almost prefer that the experience of the new teacher would take hold on the Veteran teacher. That enthusiasm and understanding and energy for teaching and learning would become the dominant form of experience for teachers. That might move the change in the system that everyone seems to agree is needed.

Now, you are thinking, “He is nuts, my school is not like that.” I believe that too, but if that were true of every school why is our education system in the shape it is in. What happened to that glow that we all had when we started. Yes, there are hundreds of reasons that an existing negative attitude persists in many, but not all educators. The mere fact that you are still reading this post sets you apart from thousands of other educators who would not have any interest in reading anything talking about improving attitudes in education. Your action of reading this post on a computer also sets you apart from many other educators. These are positives.

Our educational leaders really believe that they are addressing this need to change attitudes by providing an inspirational speaker at the beginning of every school year. That works well for feeling good as you leave the auditorium. For me that inspired feeling never lasted more than a day. There was never a real take away. I would suggest that the thousands of dollars spent on inspirational speakers be used to pay teachers to share best practices. Support those things that educational research tells us really works in the classroom. Allow those teachers who have been successful to share their successes. Do not allow soured experiences sour our new teachers. Use their energy to inject a system that sometimes becomes too lethargic.

Best practices are not necessarily based on experience. We need to establish what constitutes a best practice in the classroom and promote that with every member of the staff. We need to showcase what works and what we expect. We do not need merit Pay. We need to use that money to enable successful teachers at any level of experience share their successes. Additionally, as veteran teachers, we should always consider the advice that we share with our younger colleagues. We are models.

I realize that this is all based on generalizations, so you need not remind me of that. There are places where this may not hold true. It would be my hope that all schools would exhibit the positive attitudes needed for success. I also wish that as long as my wishes are being granted, that somebody does something about the damned parking situation so poor at so many schools.