In the Zone

Posted on November 25, 2010 by boadams1

Being a camp counselor at Camp Sea Gull altered my entire career path. At camp, Captain Lloyd, the camp director, used to tell me, “Bo, you teach kids how to swim; you do not teach swimming to kids.” Captain Lloyd was insistent that we taught children, not a subject.

Years later, my mentor in graduate school, Frank Pajares, insisted that we immerse ourselves in the writings, theories, and practices of Lev Vygotsky. Of particular importance,Dr. P wanted us to truly understand the ZPD – zone of proximal development. The ZPD is that cognitive “place” where a learner stretches to comprehend something just beyond his mental reach. Usually some coaching and scaffolding is required. Here is where learning takes place.

Now, as I reread W. James Popham’s book, Transformative Assessment,I am reminded that formative assessment is not so much an instrument or tool, as it is a PROCESS. Formative assessment provides the feedback for both learners – teacher and student – so that we can stay in the zone…the ZPD. When we are content driven, mere teachers of a subject, we don’t tend to evidence much real caring for the zone. We just have to get through the material. When we use learning targets, formative assessment, and the magic of feedback, we begin to teach the child. We start to realize the importance of differentiation because we are teaching learners who might have slightly different ZPDs.

When we teach a subject, we get the pace and methodology right for some in the class. For others, the material is too easy. For others still, it is too difficult. When we teach children, we pay attention to where they are as unique and individual learners. We require the process of formative assessment so at we can tweak, alter, and adjust instruction so as to stay in the sweet spot – in the zone – as much as possible.

Here is a great article that helps tie it all together: http://www.edweek.org/media/formative_assessment_next_generation_heritage.pdf

One Step at a Time

Posted on November 18, 2010 by boadams1

With the gracious permissions of two extraordinary teachers, who also serve as co-facilitators of our middle school math PLC, I am pasting in a recent e-mail thread that transpired between the three of us, as well as one other teacher who teaches on the Algebra I team. As a school, we are making thoughtful transitions toward student learning that involve more real-life problem solving, project-based learning, and balanced assessment. Often the journey is difficult, challenging, and frightening. This journey forces us to reconsider some habits that we have developed as educators in our twenty-years careers. However, we are not alone, and we don’t have to “change everything,” especially not all at once. We can take one step at a time, and we can do so arm-in-arm with our colleagues.

Quick Cartoon “Commercial Break”

>>> JG 11/15/2010 1:49 PM >>>

Please watch when you can and let’s talk about it.
Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers
http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_math_with_computers.html

>>> DD 11/16/10 11:51 AM >>>

It’s a great talk. I agree with most of what he said. My problem is I was trained the way he says we are inadequately teaching. I don’t know how to do what he says to do. I think you need to understand math a lot more than I do to see most real world connections. I have been hearing this idea a lot; but where is the curriculum? Where are some books that will help guide me to teach this way? If that isn’t on its way, then I guess I need to go back to school or get a new job. It is as daunting as if someone said I needed to take someone’s Latin class over and teach it.

I would like to discuss it in PLC.

>>> JG 11/17/2010 1:02 am >>>

Reading Dan Meyer’s blog offers good ideas:
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/

If you have not seen his TEDNYed talk, Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover, it offers a way to use our current books.
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html

>>> Bo Adams 11/17/2010 5:16 AM >>>

DD,

I respect your thoughts on this, probably more than you even might realize. However, I truly believe that any journey, any journey at all, begins with one step. Just one step can start the path. You have already made MANY steps toward the type of teaching that Conrad describes. In fact, you have been doing it for years. With the support of the PLC structure, I think your Algebra I team has made MANY steps toward this journey.

As a runner, I travel a sinusoidal curve in my training. When I am at a low point, and I am trying to make a run of significant distance, I often pick a short-term point in my vision – maybe a street sign, maybe a telephone pole. I just tell myself to “get to that point.” Then, I pick a new point. Often I feel like Donkey (no comment from any of you necessary) when Shrek was coaxing him across the rickety-old bridge that separated Princess Fiona’s castle-of-captive from the other side of a lava-filled gulf. Donkey made it with encouragement, ONE STEP AT A TIME. He did not have to jump the entire gulf in one fell swoop. [Sorry to mix metaphors!, but I did call myself an ASS!]

SHRINK THE CHANGE. Just pick one thing during one class to try. 20 minutes worth. You do this type of “action research” all the time! You are used to it. You just have to pick the next step in your journey’s path. And you have lots of support in your team and in me!

>>> DD 11/17/2010 11:10 am >>>

That was a great suggestion. It seems simple but I need to remember that when I start to feel overwhelmed. One step at a time.

>>> Bo Adams 11/17/2010 11:29 AM >>>

How would you two feel if I put all of the below in my “It’s About Learning” blog? I could remove your names, or leave them if you don’t mind. I think these emails make for a good story that could help support others.

The Decline of Creativity in the United States

Posted on November 13, 2010 by boadams1

Recently, a parent of two middle-school students sent me a link to a Britannica Blog entry entitled “The Decline of Creativity in the United States: 5 Questions for Educational Psychologist Kyung Hee Kim.” The full article is fascinating, but I felt compelled to copy and paste a large section below. Actually, what is quoted below from the blog is Dr. Kyung Hee Kim’s response to the fifth question. It is a fascinating and thought-provoking (and long) list of things for us parents and teachers to consider if we want to rear and educate creative children.

Britannica: Are there programs or activities that parents and teachers can use to encourage children to be more creative?

Kim: To strengthen children’s creativity, parents and teachers must not only find or develop programs or activities with new techniques, but must first change environments that inhibit creativity. The best creative techniques, or the strongest creative programs, cannot compensate for a culture that crushes creativity. Creative growth demands that we adapt our environments into a creativity-friendly environment. Only through a self-evaluation of our culture to determine the elements that are blocking our children and through the construction of more fertile creative soil can we lead our children to new levels of creative achievement.

Individuals are born creative, some more, some less. Creativity is killed first by parents (especially parents who are perfectionists), then later by teachers, schools, society, cultures, and the like. So before we worry about encouraging creativity, we should learn to preserve it. Research has determined that there are many ways to preserve creativity in our children.

Preserve Curiosity: To preserve creativity, children’s curiosity should be satisfied and encouraged. Most children go through a period when they ask a lot of questions to parents, teachers, adults, anyone where they can get answers. Parents take the brunt of this questioning and at times this gets annoying. However, instead of getting annoyed and discouraging this curiosity, parents should take the time to try to find the answers and, probably more importantly, to demonstrate to their curious children how to find the answers.

Focus on Ideas: I watched a mother criticizing her little son because he drew a dog with red fur. If he had drawn wings for his dog, she would have screamed at him. For her, spelling the right words was more important than having ideas or imagination. In contrast, Cathy who is one of the participants of the Torrance’s 40-year (from 1958 to 2008) longitudinal study still remembers that when she was writing essays in fourth grade, the teachers who participated in the study did not emphasize spelling, but emphasized original ideas in the essays. Thus, parents and teachers may not want to always emphasize getting the “right” answers and or even the correct spelling; they should instead peek into a world of child fantasy, imagination, and inventiveness and encourage that ability. They can always help children prepare for being wrong or making mistakes and correcting those mistakes.

Raise Nonconformists: Creative individuals do not like to follow the rules; they tend to follow their own rules. They tend to question and rebel against established norms. Perceptual and mental-sets, well-learned and habitual ways of thinking, and rules and traditions that restrict individuals’ behavior stifle creativity. Thus, parents and teachers should welcome unorthodox views and accept when children have different ideas or want to be different.

Raise Girl-like Boys and Boy-like Girls: Creative individuals show integration of feminine and masculine components. In our culture, however, sensitivity is viewed as feminine and independence as masculine. Creative children tend to sacrifice their creativity to maintain gender role expectations that parents and teachers imposed upon them. Parents and teachers should welcome girl-like boys or boy-like girls.

Be Playful: Creative individuals tend to have a sense of humor, flexibility, and playful thinking. Parents and teachers should not force children to think and act mature and should provide opportunities for spontaneity and play, playfully engaging students, and encouraging childlike or even silly approaches to problems.

Be Ready for Drama: Creative individuals tend to be restless and energetic. They can be very talkative and have stronger needs for self-expression and a fuller range of emotional expression than other children. They are spontaneous and even impulsive. Highly creative individuals may be hard to live with. Research shows that many children diagnosed with ADHD are creative, and many creative children are misdiagnosed as having ADHD. The very qualities that facilitate individuals’ creative accomplishments can be the same ones that may cause them to have problems. Research shows creativity is punished and discouraged by parents and teachers who perceive creative behavior as inconvenient and difficult to manage. Parents and teachers need to be patient and understanding of the characteristics of creative children, and there are many books and research articles on the subject that may help.

Be Less Protective: Creative people tend to have a somewhat marginalized family background, which means that they tend to be a member of a minority group in some ways (e.g., ethnicity, culture, language, geography, sexual orientation, religion, etc.). This could be because experiencing difficulties psychologically and emotionally may foster resilience, which allows them to become stronger and more persistent than those who are not experiencing such difficulties. Thus, having a perfectly happy and protected childhood can be worse than having an unhappy childhood in terms of fostering children’s creativity. Parents and teachers should not be overly protective of children and prevent them from having difficulties. Instead, parents and teachers should observe and understand the difficulties and be ready to discuss issues with a child.

Foster Independence: Mild parental rejection is necessary for encouraging a child’s creativity because a lightly rebellious attitude leads to more-independent thinking. Enjoying experiences separate from the family, and less encouragement of all family members doing all things together, can encourage creativity. Thus, parents should let their children sleep-over or camp-out without their parents, under adult supervision, but not overly close.

Travel: Creative people tend to be well traveled. Traveling and experiencing places with different scenery or different cultures can encourage open-mindedness and seeing from different perspectives. Living in more than one culture or speaking more than one language can also foster creativity. Parents and teachers should be able to introduce children to different experiences including different places, cultures, food, languages, and different people.

Give Time Alone: Most creative people have needs for privacy or time alone so that they can incubate their creative ideas. It is important for parents to let their children explore their interests by exposing them to different subjects, topics, programs, and areas. However, it is more important for those parents to give their children time alone. In addition, parents who nurture creativity tend not to rely on the use of premature and excessive worksheets and academic material.

Teach in Nonconventional Ways: Creative individuals do not like competitive situations or restricted-choice situations. Thus, allowing choice of topics and variety of assignments is important to encourage creativity. Creative individuals do not like rote recitation, precise performance under time pressure, completion of familiar and repetitive procedures, or classes in a formal manner. Parents and teachers should give children open-ended assignments or components, encouraging brainstorming and intellectual risk-taking, encouraging intrinsic (not extrinsic, because these children will perform when they like to) motivation and persistence, and delaying gratification.

Be Less Clean and Organized: Parents of highly intelligent children focus on visible qualities such as right answers, cleanliness, and good manners, whereas parents of highly creative children focus on less-visible qualities, such as openness to experience, interests, imagination, and enthusiasm. Very organized and clean home environments can stifle children’s creativity. A mother built an experiment room in the basement of her house for her fourth-grade son who liked taking things apart and doing all kinds of experiments. The floor and walls of the room were made of tile so that it could be cleaned easily. Teaching children how to clean and organize is a good life skill, but it should not limit the child’s freedom to explore or satisfy their curiosity. When there is no space for additional room, then parents and teachers can designate a corner or space in which children can draw or build whatever they want and can make a mess.

Find a Friend: Creative individuals tend to have imaginary childhood playmates. Talking to visible or non-visible, non-human-being objects should not be discouraged. Creative individuals tend to have friends who are younger or older than themselves. Parents tend to welcome older friends for their children compared to younger friends. However, not only does being friends with older children foster a child’s maturity and resourcefulness, but also being friends with younger children can foster a child’s leadership skills. Being friends with non-peer group members can foster an ability to see from different perspectives than their peer group.

Find a Mentor: Torrance’s 40-year longitudinal study and other studies found that individuals who are creatively successful have at least one significant mentor in their lives. Introducing children to creative adults, especially those with similar interests as the children, is necessary to inspire creativity. Books, video tapes, and movies (especially good with guided viewing) that depict creative individuals are helpful for creative children with regard to their self-understanding and self-acceptance and for their identity issues and social and emotional needs.

Be Educated: Teachers who claim to value creativity often display a preference for non-creative personality traits over creative personality traits in the classroom. Parents and teachers often say that they enjoy working with creative children; however, when they are questioned about the qualities of the ideal child, these qualities rarely include characteristics of highly creative children. Not only do parents and teachers often fail to recognize the talents of the creatively gifted, but these children are often treated with contempt.

In the U.S, a marriage license is required to get married. But, no license is required to have a baby. Parents and teachers should be educated to understand creative minds. When parents become educated about creativity, they can help their children preserve their natural creativity which I believe is the first step in fostering creativity in our society.

Digital Learning Environments

Posted on November 12, 2010 by boadams1

This week I felt very blessed to explore a few “digital learning environments.” First, on Tuesday, November 9, I attended an event at Greater Atlanta Christian School hosted by Apple, Inc. While I participated in the three-hour, morning session, I gathered some artifacts of my learning. Then, I spent an hour producing this 3.5 minute video.

Next, I enjoyed the encouragement, modeling, and instruction of a colleague as three of us teachers explored graphical blogging, or glogging. In preparation for a devotional that I am presenting next week, I experimented with a glog myself…

1-Buttock School

Finally, in an English PLC (professional learning community) meeting, I was fortunate to be part of a thought-provoking discussion about the possibilities of 21st century learning and the potential dangers of fetishizing technology. From the rich and thoughtful comments of my friends and teachers, I was reminded of the advice that digital learning environments are NOT about the technology. The technology should be like air – virtually taken for granted. The technology is merely a means to the learning – learning about mitosis, Romeo and Juliet, Spanish, writing, graphing, letting the learning move us to one buttock, looking for the ways we can help others’ eyes shine, thinking about how to start a movement. It’s not about the technology. It’s about learning.