I have actually started this post a number of times in my head. I am not sure why it has been hard for me to get out, but it has. I am glad that it has. That just means I have been pondering it, and we all know when I ponder it’s a good thing. Right?
Let me set up quickly what has been fascinating about it. My son asked to spend a week at Camp Invention in Coppell, TX. We wondered what it would be like for him since it was sponsored by the US Patent Office and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He spent the week tinkering. He loved it and learned tons about thinking his way through processes. Then I headed off to New Hampshire and a week with Gary Stager, Sylvia Martinez, Paul R. Wood, Peter H. Reynolds, and Alfie Kohn just to name a few at the Constructing Modern Knowledge Conference. What the week boiled down to for me was about giving kids time to tinker and learn. I returned home for a few days and then headed to Austin for Thinkfinity training. First site that pops up for me during the investigation time? Yep, more tinkering: Invention at Play.
Now, I’m not going to go to the extremes like some and say the entire day should be letting the kids tinker. There has to be direct instruction for them to build their learning from. What I will say, though, is that kids DO need time to tinker (I say tinker because play just doesn’t cut it even though the kids will think they are playing). They do some of their best learning while tinkering and exploring. Why can we not give them concepts and send them to the Lego bins to come back with a contraption that demonstrates the concept learned? Application is a much higher level than just comprehension, and create is the HIGHEST level of the new Bloom’s chart. We as educators have always said that if you can teach it effectively, then you understand it. Why not let the kids take a concept, create something with that knowledge, and then teach it to the class sharing why it is applicable to what they designed and built?
Does this take time away from direct instruction? Sure, but isn’t the learning at a deeper level allowing us to not have to reteach the concept again and again? Besides, when a student asks about the concept later in the school year, some other student in the class is going to say, “Remember?! That is when so and so built the ____ and_____.” Get it? The kids are making the learning connections and reteaching each other. Sound like real life? It’s getting there. I would say it would benefit our kids much more and prepare them for the Dell’s, Eastman’s, militaries, and Apple’s of the world to hire folks who have spent time trying out things, failing, rethinking, retrying, failing, rethinking, retrying, … You get the picture. Shall we bring up Google’s 20% rule of employment once again? Sounds like it should be a mantra for education (for students and teachers).
Now, one thing that struck me as odd at Constructing Modern Knowledge was my reaction to Alfie Kohn. Many consider him a great mind in education. My less than enthusiastic reaction wasn’t due to the fact that he failed to answer a simple question about his college degree (I asked what it was in and he told me it would take too long to explain. What?!?). It was more on the fact that, while he has great ideas, he fails to recognize how the system works (or more likely refuses to accept). The gist of his argument is that teachers created the system we are in and are the only ones who can fix it.
Well, not exactly. Neither of us can argue the other in the ground over it because it is from opinions based on a number of facts that we draw our views. My view is that teachers did not make the problem. We followed the law that told us to prepare students for tests that the state would be giving students. How we respond to that law controls how we teach in our classrooms. Some lend themselves to a more test-prep environment, while others have a more open structure where students do more authentic work with less worksheets involved. But, nonetheless, we are following the law here. Not giving the tests is NOT an option if we wish to maintain employment.
Alfie’s view seems to be that if teachers just decide to change, then the system will be forced to change. Uhm, idealist? In my view, yes. Alfie says that those of us who praise our students for doing well on these tests are just adding to the problem. Yeah, I did not like that comment either. Instead, he feels we should ask the student…ready for this… “So how do you feel (or what do you think) about your grade?” My complimenting the student is doing harm while his analyzing them like a psychiatrist is good? Really? I hear his parenting books are built around this same type of concept. I do not think I will be buying or reading them anytime soon. I like the way my wife and I parent just fine. To turn our son into some walking research project just doesn’t do anything for me.
Let me say that Alfie’s views of what should happen in the learning realm of the classroom are pretty strong. I disagree with his view on homework where he boldly states that there has NEVER been research that shows that homework is beneficial. I am guessing these itemsdonotcountasresearch to him (personal note: Glad to see Marzano agrees with me that Kohn misrepresents the research findings). One of those links even researched the research and found that out of twenty studies completed on the effectiveness of homework, fourteen showed benefit while only six did not. I do want to state that I think a little homework is good, though. Twenty math problems over the same concept is too much if the same can be done in five. If the kid is getting the five wrong, why keep adding to the problem with fifteen more? At the same time, five problems is enough to know whether the students gets it or not. Reading self-selected pieces of literature for ten or fifteen minutes a night is a good thing. Minimum numbers of AR tests (or points or whatever) per week is not. And so on. You get the drift. Basically, hours of homework every night is ridiculous, but limited practice of subjects is not. Let’s just not let it take over the family life. No, I have no intention of getting into a debate with Alfie about these things. I am just reflecting on what I heard and my views in comparison. I have a job and family to attend to. Spending countless hours (more) finding ammunition for a debate that will effectively go nowhere is a waste of both of our times. He is obviously set and secure in his opinion. Same here. Moving on.
But what Alfie says about kids needing time to explore the concepts they have learned (with thinkering and such) is spot on. We learn more when we have that type of time. If we choose the object, then we are going to be more engrossed in the learning that goes with it. Deeper levels of learning, too.
So what did I get out of all of my weeks of travel in July and early August? How about this:
Gary Stager’s favorite phrase is, “So what?”
His views on ANYTHING can upset anyone with thin skin, but he does it to make you think more deeply.
He and Sylvia have a lot of Legos.
Lego Robotics make great learning tools outside of the competitions many students enter. Just unstructure the learning around them and turn the kids loose.
Alfie Kohn has some good ideas on student learning (overlooking the homework issue here) and some warped views on child rearing (IMHO) and student motivation.
He also thinks teachers control the entire education world. That will only happen when teachers start voting en masse.
Peter H. Reynolds is one awesome dude. I would love to have him visit our students in person or virtually. He has an amazing talent and a wonderful personality the students and teachers will love.
I wish Peter spent a few hours teaching us to be artists even when we think we are not. Release the right brain, folks.
John Stetson is one very bright person. It was good to have someone around who knows gear ratios like the back of his hand.
Dr. Cynthia Solomon (from OLPC fame) is one of my new favorite people. Ever. She is like a female Gary Stager with a grandma’s personna (don’t be mad, Cynthia). Her quick wit, challenging questions, and wonderful insight make her one great person to be around. Besides, sarcasm befits a Harvard grad.
The most important take away is that we MUST give our students more time to tinker and think their way through the learning and creative processes. It will take time for them to get use to the opportunity, but they will hate it if you take it away. Consider it. If we go from no time to even one hour a week, it will be progress.
I look forward to my continuing conversations with the great folks I met at all of these events. Sylvia and I already have a few plans in the works to better prepare our middle school science students through reflecting on their learning in a meaningful manner. I cannot wait to share that project as we move through it. I expect Gary will throw in a few “So what?” ’s just to drive me forward even more. In fact, I count on it.
Image Credits:
I took them all at the MIT Museum - 1. Great Wall of Ideas 2. Mantra for the Great Wall of Ideas 3. Hologram at MIT Museum
The key goals of The Commons on Flickr are to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world’s public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer.
You’re invited to help describe the photographs you discover in The Commons on Flickr, either by adding tags or leaving comments.*
You are going to find photos from some really awesome resources. How about:
Flickr invites you to be a part of the experience by adding descriptions to images that you are familiar with. Some photos that have previously been listed with no information have had the back stories filled in by either the person in the picture or family members who were familiar with the history of the photo. This could prove valuable to those studying writing, art, history, humanities, or geography. I am sure there are many more content ties than that.
In case you are wondering what the above pic has to do with this post, only two people would know the back story (and a colorful one it is) about this image shot at the world famous Rutt’s Hut. An 80 year old historic location like that wants the stories to live on. Flickr is allowing just that through the photo history offerings from these museums. We should take advantage of the first person narratives many of them offer. I would say many or all of them would make for great story starters for young writers who are stuck or just like the challenge of creating their own back stories.
Having used wikis with my middle school students, I can say the transition is not a difficult one. They enjoy the opportunity to use technology, but they really appreciate the opportunity to work on a document from anywhere with the help of others regardless of being together or separate.
I remember a recent project. I specifically told this curious bunch of students I had in certain class that I was subscribed to the wiki via RSS and received all updates and changes. Furthermore, the wiki would tell me who changed what and when and also allow me to revert to previous versions. Anyone caught defacing others pages would be using School 1.0 to get his or her project finished. I had not seen any issues with the wiki through the first week, so I thought I was home free and the world was a happy place (my world anyway).
Then late Saturday night happened. I started getting notifications hand over fist about edits occurring on one certain site. Instead of looking at the changes in the feed window, I quickly navigated over to the wiki to shut down access to whatever terrible thing was taking apart one of my group’s hard work. I knew the offender had logged in with a student ID, and I was sure to confront him/her about it on Monday. So, I get to the wiki and start looking around the pages being reported as edited. Nothing. They looked fine to me. I could not see the difference from what I would have expected at this point.
So I went into the history to see what the kid was up to. And then it hit me. Editing. He was editing. This ESL, only in the country three years, never talks in class, speaks broken English kid was editing the work of his peers (one of which was one of my top students). He cared enough about his group’s work and its appearance to the public that he wanted it right. Were all of his corrections accurate? No. But most were, and he was doing English VOLUNTARILY on a SATURDAY night. That is what wikis and collaborative work is all about. I shut my machine down to go to bed knowing that my work had been a success. Even if he was the only one who chose to go the extra mile, he CHOSE to do it. That made it all worth it.
My students used the wiki to aide each other in weak areas. They found missing parts in their own work and asked others to help them by adding to it. Some took the initiative, others did not. But they all favored the Web 2.0 version over the School 1.0.
Online collaborative word processing sites (wikis, Google Docs, etc) allow people to share and mold and create and recreate information and ideas. It is an awesome opportunity. These people may never meet, but their ideas will. Their intellect will collide and combine in a virtual environment that will change the real world. This is powerful. Our students deserve to at least learn how to harness this power on a local basis, because after high school they will run into it on a global basis.
Thinking. It is the one thing all of us either don’t do, take too little time to do, don’t have the time to do, or just plain don’t know how to do. So how are we expected to put more time into an already tight school day schedule.
This and more is part of our quest for knowledge at the Constructing Modern Knowledge conference here in New Hampshire. Our first day was loaded with theory, shared wisdom, and even some practice.
Paul Wood and I visited the MIT Museum on Sunday with Gary Stager. Among the things we found were some truly awesome feats of engineering from Arthur Ganson. An incredible thinker and visionary himself, Ganson had multitudes of examples of his “tinkering” on display. When you look at these items of work, you might wonder why someone would spend so much time creating these little glorified table decorations. Some might say, “Why?” I say, “Why not?”
The physics, engineering, math, research, and above all, thinking involved in these pieces of work is astounding. One can look at each and decide it is a simple machine. True enough. But what is so simple about the entire process from vision to creation? Not a whole heck of a lot. Take a look at some of these things in the short videos I shot:
These babies are like throwback to what I did with Legos, but I didn’t have the motors and, oh yeah, Ganson’s worked. But, now I’m an adult who can think, and by golly I want to make one of my own. So, when it came time to “tinker” during the exploration appointment of the day, Paul and I decided we wanted to replicate the rice river piece utilizing the Lego robotics kits, some rice, and a handkerchief. This is what you get with a couple of southern folks get together and attempt to think really hard (pics and video):
Videos:
So there you have it. Three minds, a few cups of rice, a hanky, and some Legos. One simple machine. Maybe we made Ganson proud. Maybe not. But what I do know is that we thought our way through this entire process as a group, out loud, internally, through trial and error, with outside comments, and with pride.
We thought.
We designed.
We created.
We thought some more.
We redesigned and recreated.
And then we thought some more.
Yep. It was a wonderful day, and I’m pooped. Can’t wait until tomorrow. We promised Tally from Israel that we would do whatever project she has dreamed up tomorrow. We might need to rethink that decision. That girl is some kind of smart.
I have blogged about this before, I think, but there have been some enhancements to the site that makes it worth repeating. The Storyline Online site is one where stories are narrated by actors and actresses. It is an awesome addition to the classroom.
The addition I have seen is the activities to download that go with the books. Very nice. Wish I had these when I taught first grade. I counted twenty-one stories as of today.
The screen capture above is Amanda Bynes reading The Night I Followed The Dog. Very. Funny. Book. Take a look at the site and see what it can do for you.
I was perusing some links posted to Del.icio.us by Wes Fryer, who is in my network. He posted some really cool children’s literature links where one can read the books online without paying. I like this method because it gives ESL students plenty of practice with literature they might not have already come across, that have diverse themes, come in both fiction and non-fiction, and are available with any internet connection without having to go to the children’s section in the public or school library.
Now, I don’t teach ESL, but I really think this would make good practice for the students. It can be self-paced and allows students to use personal choice in their own learning. That has to be a good thing for students working hard to adjust into a country that probably already scares them.
“a zoo at night” “a thief” “no one wants to help your character”
Those are the three story components given to me by the Interactive Plot Creator found at Writing Fix just in case I could not think of a story to write on my own. Winner of Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers 2008 award, this is a wonderful little tool that offers your students a way to get out of the “I don’t know what to write about” slump they always seem to be in. Give it a whirl. Seems to me a neat use of just this feature would be daily/weekly writing time where you put the site up on the VGA and the kids all learn at the same time what will test their creative writing juices. It could even be turned into a circle story where everyone starts their own and passes it to the right after a set amount of time. It would be an interesting twist seeing as everyone has the same three components (setting, character, and plot) yet end up with entirely different stories.
By the way, you will also find plenty of other pertinent tools that will help in your writing classroom:
This site is created by the Northern Nevada Writing Project which is a part of the National Writing Project. I had a chance to meet these folks a few years back at the NCTE conference in Tennessee. They are extremely dedicated and are focused on improving the way writing is taught and viewed in the classroom. Their tools work write along your NWP, New Jersey Writing, or 6 Traits training. Trust me when I say, this site will change the way your students view writing in the classroom and how you create lessons for your students.
Many folks like to introduce themselves at the beginning of the school year sharing who they are and what their philosophies are for the classroom learning environment. Kids just love this part as well (yeah right).
This is the most painful part of the year for me. At the elementary level when I taught first grade, they were zoned out from me within minutes. They just wanted to hit the centers I had set up. At the secondary level in the middle school classrooms, they sat politely because they knew the drill. First five or ten minutes of each new class was the “Hi, I’m Mr. Floyd, and….” part of the class. Boring. I try. Lord knows that. I just do not have the artsy fartsy bones in me.
Then, I come across folks like Beau Bergeron. This kid (23 years young) has a wonderful sense of conversation. I am more than happy to learn from those younger than me when they are so dadgum (Texas term) creative. I guess I can blame testing for my lack of creativity since it all started when I was in school (thanks H. Ross Perot), but probably not. Anyway, I digress. Take a look at what Beau has created below and enjoy. Most of all, take some time and think through the first impression YOU are going to create when the kids and parents come this year. I realize James Dobson says, “Don’t smile until Christmas.” But what impression do you want the kids to get about what your expectations are? I want to set the bar high and have them live up to them. When they see I put more energy into the classroom than I have to, hopefully they will do the same. It’s worth a try. Realize what you do speaks so much more powerfully than what you say. First impressions. Then, when you are ready to work on your own, shoot me an email. Let me know what I can do to help you create yours.
Enjoy Beau’s mind and imagination. PS - Realize he played this video on the white shirt he wore to the event.
For those of you interested in historical photos for units, writing prompts, documentaries, and more, the Smithsonian Institute has loaded quite a bit of their content to Flickr. See the collection here.
Need some online quizzes to help your kids (K-12) get more practice with math concepts? Then ThatQuiz has the answer for you.
Go to the site, choose a math category to fit your needs, and practice away. Students do not have to register. If you just want their final scores, they can always print out the screen when they finish the quiz. Free is always a great price, especially when the product has as much value as this one.
Students will find practice in these categories with MANY subcategories:
Integers
Fractions
Concepts
Geometry
I know my 7 year old will be trying out the concepts portion this summer to stay in mental math shape.
I have blogged about this before, I think, but there have been some enhancements to the site that makes it worth repeating. The 
WritingFix’s Left-Brained Writing Prompt Collection
Need some online quizzes to help your kids (K-12) get more practice with math concepts? Then 
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