Friday, February 19, 2010

The courage to teach, the courage to change

We teach who we are, but we need to make the needed changes to be what our students need us to be to help them become 21st Century skills leaders.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

ISAS CONFERENCE:TEACHING MATTERS-Official blog of the conference at http://21k12blog.net/2010/02/



ENSURING THE SUCESS OF ALL STUDENTS SAMUEL BETANCES: Contact: Samuel@betances.com, www.betances.com; his firm is diversity consulting, and his motto is “strengthening the world of work through diversity.” He will return emails. Find his bio at http://www.aeispeakers.com/speakerbio.php?SpeakerID=92.

Stop stereotypes such as the way he is described when confused as Arab: Arabs:=3B's= billionaires belly dancers, bumps. Laugh and grow together as we deal with the top topics. Remember our President could have been legally own by the first 16 presidents. He was elected by the ballot not the bullet.

Proud blended heritage children! Let’s do not burden our children with the fear of opresion. Teach the children to reject rejection. Do not internalized separation. Schools are middle class places of learning…3500 words instead of 1000-2000 words from street children. Read, read. Read!!! Get inspired that this country-WORLD- does not owe a living, only an opportunity. Empower to have a middle class performance. If you do not read, you cannot lead! Make the impossible possible


YOU CANNOT BE TRANSFORMING UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN TRANSFORMED. Develop the capacity to preach. Read to enrich and to survive. Create coalisions of interest, not of gender. WHATEVER DOES NOT DESTROY YOU CAN BE MADE INTO A STEPPING STONE TO ACHIEVEMENT AND SUCCESS!!!Create teams like "Remember the Titans"

Empower first generation students to have the tools to make in the “middle class” environment. Nobody knows what they want until they know what options they have! Guide inclusive teams across generations and races.



WEBB 2.0: REALITIES NOT A HYPE: Andrew Zucker: has had a long career in teaching and technology, beginning with years teaching at Milton Academy and the US Department of Education.

Take your time, you need to innovate, you cannot keep up with it.”
Write and share what you do globally! Everything is done in nanoseconds!
Transformation= People+process+technology. Change is a process not a purchase

Top three reasons our students’ homework is missing in the new century

I emailed it, didn’t you get it?
Tech support help was down
I had to delete, needed space for iTunes

Digital tools to transform schools: Why Innovate?
Independent schools have a higher proportion of great teachers than other schools!



TSL is significantly less at independent schools, (total student load).
Our schools and teachers have significantly more autonomy and less bureaucracy than public schools

Web 2.0 is still brand new, 1994: First practical web browser. Zucker argued that we are still only just learning. the early web was very slow and very much a broadcast, but it is now interactive and faster and richer and more engaging.

Zucker offered technologies, for free:Video, navigation of records, documents availability… effective use depends on the CREATIVITY OF THE TEACHER

Screen Recordings: This is a way to record video and voice, with a url, to share and email.
www.jingproject.com, www.screencast.com, camtasia (paid) http://www.jingproject.cohetm; SCREENCAST.COM 5 MINUTE limit, screen cast.com
CLICKERS: HTTP://WWWW.ISTE.ORG/CONTENT/NAVIGATIONMENU/PUBLICATIONS/LL
POLL EVERYWHERE poll everywhere.com
Survey Monkey www.surveymonkey.com
Molecular workbench workbench.concord.org
VIRTUAL LAB: Phet.
MOODLE.ORG
CLASSBLOGMEISTER.COM
NICENET.ORG

Clickers are recommended, with a very brief discussion, and ExamView is also suggested, *but which is not free.” Poll Everywhere and Surveymonkey come next, as suggested tools for classroom use.Models and Simulations; Course Discussion and Management Tools Moodle and class blogmeister.

Daniel Pink: Education and the changing world



AUTONOMY, MASTERY, AND PURPOSEwww.danpink.com; twitter.com/danielpink, dp@danpink.com

Biological motivation +Responding to environment+Part of the larger purpose
Education is not a contest to be won. It is a journey of exploration
How are we rewarding? What are we creating?

Rewards get attention in a focused way which restricts our ability to create. The motivation now is different.
The rule for high school students to be successful, in the old model: “Give the authority what they want, and get it in time, neatly.” “The ‘good’ kids comply and the ‘bad’ kids defy but no one engages;” is that school today?

First, the new rules require Autonomy!FedEx Days– An example is a company called Atlassian, in Australia, which provides employees a day when employees can spend their time doing whatever they like, but then have to, the next day (overnight) deliver something new. At Zappos, the call center employees have one mandate, and one only: Solve the customers’ problems. That’s it.

20% time: At Google, employees have 20% time, when they can do whatever they like, and gmail came out of it– in fact, one person at Google says that all the good ideas at Google come out of the 20% time.

Autonomy Ideas for Schools: FedEx days for Teachers. For the next 24 hours, we are going to come up with something NEW to do at school– a new class, a new system, a new process. We could create new projects. YAC organization and projects!!!

For Students: Students would go bonkers during a 20% day– and we in independent schools have the autonomy to do so. For 24 hours, do whatever you want (with some parameters): a new idea, a new offering for the school. Kids would really respond to this kind of autonomy! service-learning in the curriculum!!!

Mastery: Humans are mastery seeking guided missiles. The levels of worker disengagement (in the workplace) are frightening. People are bored. But not in Open-Source– where the engagement is high. Linux, firefox– these are projects that are technically sophisticated creating valuable products for which people are unpaid! Because these endeavors provide a sense of mastery! “Enjoyment based intrinsic motivation, namely how creative a person feels when working on a project, is the strongest and most pervasive driver.” Reference to “Why Hackers do what they do” by Lakhani, et.
HBS researchers, published in HBR recently: “The Top Motivator at work, by far: Making Progress in One’s Work.” Not incentives, not rewards, not bonuses. Search for mastery and making progress is a great motivator.

How to do this for Teachers and Students: Performance Reviews: Nobody likes performance reviews, neither giving nor receiving.
DIY Performance Reviews– Do it yourself. Beginning of the month, beginning of the semester, set out your goals in writing (!), goals and objectives, and then you call yourself into the office– how am I faring? What do I need? What do I need in resources to do my job is better?
Grades ought to be a form of feedback to help you toward mastery. Can we encourage students to do this? (advisors-Congressional Award for Service)
Here is what I want to learn in Chemistry! Then self-assess regularly, and compare self-assessments with those of the teachers. Any great athlete, art, musician: they have ways to self-assess, to measure how they are doing. My question is how can they assess what they do not know...their potential in the course, maybe, but they do not know the content of the course..???

Purpose! We have lost a sense of doing things that serve a cause bigger than themselves. Pink thinks teachers are animated by purpose, more than in ANY other white collar profession in the US.

An idea for determining purpose, from Claire Booth Luce: A great man is a sentence. “The great President are not doing a lot of small things, they are doing one big thing. If you try to do too much, you don’t have a sentence, you have a muddled paragraph.

What is your sentence?” To determine your purpose, you must determine your sentence!

At the end of the day, was I better today than yesterday? Some days the answer is No. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is no. But, it is rarely "no" two or three days in a row.


THE GLOBAL ACHIEVEMENT GAP: Tony's contact information: http://www.schoolchange.org/



Teaching matters, learning matters more, mastery matters most!
K-16: SCHOOL REFORM: EMPOWER THEM TO CHANGE THEIR IDEAS INTO ACTUAL WORK. From the kids in the video:I KNOW THIS KNOWLEDGE, BUT WHAT I AM GOING TO DO WITH IT. IT IS WORTH doing SOMETHING HARD AND BIG EVERY ACADEMIC CLASS BECOMES A PERFOMANCE CLASS

VIDEO EXAMPLE FROM: Quest High School facilitators seek to use individualized knowledge of each student to shape student's schooling and to teach habits of the heart and mind through three core curriculum areas: Academic Foundations are based on state and national standards and include language arts, social studies, fine arts, mathematics, the sciences, health and Spanish. Learner Behaviors are affective proficiencies such as problem solving, critical thinking, self-discipline, social cooperation, communication and citizenship that are essential for student success in school and work. Workplace Tools teach technology and research skills such as computer graphics, word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software. Quest High School Contact: http://www.humbleisd.net/education/components/sectionlist/default.php?sectiondetailid=486&category=0

VIDEO (Must get a copy) SUSTAINABLE LIVING GROUP…Very much like Challenge 20/20 has potential to be.




Tony asked us to answer the following questions after watching the video
What skills are these students learning?
How they are being motivated to learn?
What is the teacher’s role in how they are being asked to learn?

My notes: Senior exhibition: proceess to be a leader and be empowered as a citizen and a learner. More than writing a research paper…something that matters to you…if not is far less rewarding to you. What are the kinds of things that allow you to do that work? Seniors divide into groups. service learning….attached to the research paper
What are you interested in it? Combine them into one…What are you passionate about? What interest concerns you? Then, Interview experts in the community: Professional attitude, phone calls, environment sustainability. They find experts and mentors, they explore what they want to do in life. I saw a clear redefinition of my job-provided that every class has a senior exhibition! I think I now understand the "upgraded" role of YAC!
Teachers as Coaches or facilitators of learning!!!! Students self evaluating with accuracy and without fear: PROCASTINATION, GROUP…COMMUNICATION…IF YOU ARE SLACKING, THE GROUP COMES TOGETHER, SENIOR EXHIBITIONS….THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIETY…THEIR SOCIAL ACTION to REAL WORLD SETTING

Practical suggestions from the lead adult facilitator:
WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE AND HOW SHOULD I HAVE BEEN MORE EMPOWERING?
TEAM OF ADULTS COLLABORATING AND ASSEST BUILDING.
REHEARSAL….MUST BE DONE TO BE. PRESENTATION IN FRONT OF DIVERSE JUDGES
RESEARCH SOCIAL ACTION PRESENTATION EVALUATED BY A RUBRIC
CULMINATING PROJECT: SUCCESS SIGNIFICANT INVOLVEMENT IN EXTRA CURRICULAAR ACTIVITY OR SERVICE LEARNING


Tony's recommendations
Harvard admissions changing: LEADERSHIP, EVIDENCNE OF SERVICE enhanced

Cornerstones of School Reinvention:

1. Holding ourselves accountable for What Matters Most.

Use the CWRA.
Survey recent graduates, and go beyond surveys, conduct video focus groups to show your faculty.
Monitor your student college graduation rates, using the National Student Clearinghouse.
2. Doing the new Work: Teaching and Testing the Skills that Matter Most

Start with the Three C’s: Critical Thinking, Communications, and Collaboration: in every class and at every grade level.
Require all students to do internships and group service projects, and consider
3. Doing the New Work in New Ways

Every teacher on teams for collaborative inquirey.
Video teaching, supervision, and meetings.
I want to see schools using for students Digital Porfolios, from K-12 , publishing each year four or five published, public documents on-line. And then we can link these fine published work to a teacher’s digital portfolio.

The flip video camera is the most disruptive (in a GOOD way) technology for teaching and learning today! We must videotape every lesson, and review them regularly with our colleagues.

A question is asked about how to define critical thinking, and Tony directs people to the Mission Hill School website, a project of the legendary Deborah Meier, which features this discussion of critical thinking. http://www.missionhillschool.org/mhs/Habits_of_Mind.html



REAL PRODUCTS FOR REAL AUDIENCES. http://www.essentialschools.org/ Get rubrics and video from them.

PROJECT BASED LEARNING and INQUIRY LEAENING.. ESSENTIAL QUESTION, a must. WE AS ADULTS HAVE TO ENGAGE INTO INQUIRING LEARNING
Grades: A B OR INCOMPLEETE….MY JOB IS TO GET THEM TO COMPETENCY TO A MINIMUM STANDARD. TAKE TIME TO GET THERE AND RECOGNIZE EXCELLENCE. INCOMPLETE UNTIL student MEETS THE STANDARD.
WHAT DO I WANT STUDENTS TO REMEMBER A Year after …..what is that core knowledge for the development of core knowledge
Engaging the entire community in a conversation ENGAGE THE ADULTS IN A WORLD CAFÉ How has the world change and what our kids need to live there.


First Part of his presentation School change consulting: http://www.schoolchange.org/

DEFINITION OF CRITICAL THINKING: ABILITY TO ASK REALLY GOOD QUESTIONS
How do we parent for kids to become entrepreneurs? The longer our kids are in this school, the less curious they are. The curriculum is test preparation….too much time in content driven…IB is a better system than AP.

Students lack of work effort: Keyser Family Study…They are motivated to be in the Internet…a bad day is a bad internet connection, why? It is is discovery driven learning and innovation. Experiencing learning and connectiveness. There is a global learning gap… Kids in science classes google to see if the information is still good. Engagement with adults: To empower them, to motivate them.

New Habits: Weighing Evidence: What tasks they were given and what students are producing….work collaborative, Qualities of questions being asked…

Do internships and service in groups. Video tape your lessons and sit down with a other faculty to discuss. We need laboratories of innovation… Common time in the summer…FEDEX and 20% in the summer: Strong incentives keeping a job in a jobless market, but most important making a real difference in the kids and through them in the world we live...the sense of purpose.

Critical thinking rubric: Habits of mind. Habits of question asking…A teacher's passion and care about students…the tasks you give, the passion you give, What is going on? What is not? What could be improved?


Introducing Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness: Shawn Achor






Tetrais Effect: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2QNsxXTuuQ. Contact information: http://www.aspirantworld.com/

Traditional psychology is about how we can move depressed people back up to average; but Achor worries that only reduces the purpose and project to only how we help people become average. If we study positive outliers, we can move up the average to a higher place, and help everyone to become happier. We need to stop focusing on ‘getting rid’ of the bad things and focus on “other side of the curve” towards thriving.

Our brains are not just hard-wired for sympathy, but we are also hard-wired for empathy. Just as we pick up smiles and yawns so quickly, and so powerfully, we also can mirror (in our mirroring nuerons) others’ anxiety, stress, sadness. We need to watch for this in our schools.

90% of our longterm happiness is affected by the lens through which people view the world around them, NOT by the actual realities of that world around them. So no matter how fabulous your external circumstances, 90% of your experience will be subject to how you see and feel those externalities.

Harvard is Achor’s focus: “the more I loved Harvard the better I did there:” we need students and teachers to love being in our schools.

So the project we have is how to help people see the world around them. Achor tells of a study of 1600 students at Harvard.




75% of your job success is predicted not by your intelligence, but by your positivity and performance. “If I know your level of intelligence, I can ONLY tell 25% of the reason you may or may not be a success in life.”

Dopamine, the happiness hormone in our brains, turns on all of our learning zones in our brain. A brain primed to be positive has higher success rates than one primed to be negative or neutral. Hapoiness is a precursor of success, NOT merely the result of it. If we can get teachers and students positive going into learning, we can have higher results.

The Happiness Advantage: better secure jobs, better keeping jobs, better productivity, more resilient, less burnout, less turnover, greater sales.

Another wonderful video about the value of joy in the world



Achor makes the point that when these people, happier, go into their classrooms, they are that much more primed to be successful in their day.

How create this happiness advantage?

Raise optimism and success rates for six months, after 21 days of training. 21 days is enough to create a habit.

3 Gratitudes: 2 minutes a day writing what you are grateful for.
Journaling: Five minutes a day about a positive experience.
Exercise
Meditation
Random Acts of Kindness: praise somebody, five minutes day, in a way different from usual.
What is the mental barrier that gets in the way of doing all the good ideas we have learned?

Achor urges people to retrain your brain, using these five tools, which are available at his site here.

THINGS I WANT TO REMEMBER: MIRROW NEWRONS: SMILE CONTAGIOUS, DOPHAMINE Why important: MIRROW NEWRONS BEING ACTIVATED, our brains are linked to one ANOTHER

WE NEED TO FIND A WAY TO BUFFER OURSELVES, BUT NOT TO LOOSE THE MIRROW NEWRONS
HOW CAN WE RIPPLE OUT THE POSITIVE CHANGES…for him going to Harvard: FOCUS ON THE PRIVILEDGE, not focus on the NEGATIVITY…NOT AS SMART AS OTHERS….

THE LENSE IN WHICH YOU VIEW what happens IS WHAT DETERMINES HOW HAPPPY YOU ARE

OUR ATTENTION IS MOTIVATED….if OUR BRAINS are FOCUSED ON THE BAD, THAT IS WHAT WE WILL SEE. YOUR SUCCESS IS PREDICTED NOT BY YOUR INTELLIGENCE BUT BY YOUR BEHAVIOR MATTER! POSITIVE FAMILY SUPPORT SYSTEM

EVERYONE EXPERIENCES STRESS, THEY MANAGE IT IN A POSITIVE WAY