PROCESS POST: Organizing and Annotating – #MustRead from Tony Wagner: “Graduating All Students Innovation-Ready” #EdWeek

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[Disclaimer: No one but I may want to read this post. Essentially, I am using this space to organize some past posts that I have written – to organize them in relation to Tony Wagner’s recent article about graduating innovation-ready students. The following is like a form of sticky-noting on my blog. But, as I have come to believe, why do this only for myself in a physical notebook…when I could share and possibly help another educational thinker/doer.]

Earlier today, I read a very powerful article about education and innovation – Graduating All Students Innovation-Ready, By Tony Wagner, September 12, 2012 Education Week. The article resonated with me in a way that only a few articles do. Even though I read voraciously, and even though I mark several articles a week “#MustRead,” I only occasionally discover and read one of those top 0.001% pieces of wonder.

In part, I think Wagner’s piece resonated so profoundly with me because I am doing some ongoing work that is providing mental velcro for such a piece of thinking-stimulant. Wagner’s four main implementation recommendations rung in my ears and everywhere else. I myself believe in:

  1. digital portfolio and authentic assessment over traditional, siloed marking and grading;
  2. teacher assessment based on professional learning and growth and evidence of student learning beyond mere “test scores.” Also, I believe admin should do what we expect of teachers and students! [related – Folio]
  3. schools collaborating together, and with business and non-profits, to create R&D for education…and to impact the world more positively now;
  4. learning built on play, passion, and purpose…learning infused with choice and global relevance…learning contextualized with real life. [related – #PBL, #FSBL]

This blog is one of my own R&D spaces…one of my own digital portfolios…one of my own passion and purpose-based play spaces. I have been writing for months on the four topics above. In particular, I engaged in a 60-day experiment about how we might transform school and education (CHANGEd: What if…60-60-60). Tony Wagner’s piece made me recall much of that thinking.

Tony Wagner’s article also further contextualized the exact reason that I left Westminster to join Unboundary as Director of Educational Innovation.

So I am organizing, and I am making some annotations…

Our students want to become innovators. Our economy needs them to become innovators. The question is: As educators, do we have the courage to disrupt conventional wisdom and pursue the innovations that matter most?
.

1. Digital Portfolios and Better Assessment:

“First, I believe the U.S. Department of Education and state education departments need to develop ways to assess essential skills with digital portfolios that follow students through school, and encourage the use of better tests like the College and Work Readiness Assessment.” [emphasis from my highlighting in Diigo]
2. Teacher Effectiveness and Professional Learning:
“Second, we need to learn how to assess teachers’ effectiveness by analysis of their students’ work, rather than on the basis of a test score. Teachers and administrators should also build digital portfolios, which their principals and superintendents should assess periodically.” [emphasis from my highlighting in Diigo]
3. Research and Development Labs:
“Third, to push educational innovation, districts need to partner with one another, businesses, and nonprofits to establish true R&D labs—schools of choice that are developing 21st-century approaches to learning.” [emphasis from my highlighting in Diigo]

4. Play, Passion, and Purpose:

“Finally, we need to incorporate a better understanding of how students are motivated to do their best work into our course and school designs. Google has a 20 percent rule, whereby all employees have the equivalent of one day a week to work on any project they choose. These projects have produced many of Google’s most important innovations. I would like to see this same rule applied to every classroom in America, as a way to create time for students to pursue their own interests and continue to develop their sense of play, passion, and purpose.” [emphasis from my highlighting in Diigo]

#MustRead from Tony Wagner: “Graduating All Students Innovation-Ready” #EdWeek

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Graduating All Students Innovation-Ready

By Tony Wagner,

September 12, 2012

Education Week

Our students want to become innovators. Our economy needs them to become innovators. The question is: As educators, do we have the courage to disrupt conventional wisdom and pursue the innovations that matter most?
.
  1. “First, I believe the U.S. Department of Education and state education departments need to develop ways to assess essential skills with digital portfolios that follow students through school, and encourage the use of better tests like the College and Work Readiness Assessment.” [emphasis from my highlighting in Diigo]
  2. “Second, we need to learn how to assess teachers’ effectiveness by analysis of their students’ work, rather than on the basis of a test score. Teachers and administrators should also build digital portfolios, which their principals and superintendents should assess periodically.” [emphasis from my highlighting in Diigo]
  3. “Third, to push educational innovation, districts need to partner with one another, businesses, and nonprofits to establish true R&D labs—schools of choice that are developing 21st-century approaches to learning.” [emphasis from my highlighting in Diigo]
  4. “Finally, we need to incorporate a better understanding of how students are motivated to do their best work into our course and school designs. Google has a 20 percent rule, whereby all employees have the equivalent of one day a week to work on any project they choose. These projects have produced many of Google’s most important innovations. I would like to see this same rule applied to every classroom in America, as a way to create time for students to pursue their own interests and continue to develop their sense of play, passion, and purpose.” [emphasis from my highlighting in Diigo]

The Chicago strike is bothering me…because of what is NOT being reported as bothering anyone else! #WhatIfWeekly

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The strike in Chicago is bothering me. What if the biggest part of the story were the foregone learning of the students?!

Now, I am not a labor expert, and I am not very knowledgeable about unions. I have an empathetic heart for teachers, and I certainly support our nation’s teachers being treated as professionals.

I am not a Chicago teacher, so I do not claim to know a thing about what it is like to walk even a step in their shoes.

I am no expert on parenting, yet I am a parent for two boys of my own. My heart is sympathetic for the parents of those 350,000 students in Chicago who are stuck in a lurch about what to do with their children as a result of the strike. I know how hard it is for my wife and me to find childcare sometimes, and we have it EASY! I have never had to face whether I would be unpaid or lose my job vs. being able to care for and supervise my children.

What’s bothering me? The way the story is being reported! One of the biggest issues seems to be the childcare issue. I understand that. One of the biggest issues seems to be the treatment of the teachers in their professional contracts. I understand that. WHY ISN’T ONE OF THE BIGGEST ISSUES THE FOREGONE LEARNING OF THE STUDENTS BECAUSE THEY ARE MISSING SCHOOL?! Is school just day care? Is school just for the adults? Nothing I have read so far – and I include just a sampling of the articles below – even mentions what the students are missing in the way of learning from foregoing a day of school…days of school! What does that say about our educational priorities…our news priorities…our narrative priorities?

If you can find an article about the strike that mentions the foregone learning of students – the opportunity cost to their education because of missing these days of school – please put the link in the comments! I would love to read that reporter’s or affected individual’s perspective.

(Reuters) – Thousands of public school teachers marched in downtown Chicago on Monday and parents scrambled for child care during the first teachers’ strike in a quarter century over reforms sought by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and endorsed by President Barack Obama’s administration.
(http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-usa-chicago-schools-idUSBRE8870DL20120910)

Thousands of Chicago teachers rally on first day of strike
By Nick Carey, CHICAGO | Mon Sep 10, 2012

Teachers’ Strike in Chicago Tests Mayor and Union
By , Published: September 10, 2012

In Standoff, Latest Sign of Unions Under Siege
By , Published: September 10, 2012

In Chicago, It’s a Mess, All Right
By JOE NOCERA, Published: September 10, 2012

#EdCampAtl – a great step for educators and learners working to transform school

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On Saturday, September 8, 2012, I attended EdCampAtl (@EdCampAtl and #EdCampAtl on Twitter). At the EdCampAtl website, one can see a table or matrix comparing the structure of a traditional conference with the workings of an EdCamp. Without a doubt, the organizers of EdCampAtl did an amazing job at delivering the system and ethos of the EdCamp “unconference.”

Nikki Robertson (@NikkiDRobertson) and Wanda McClure (@Wanda McClure) were the primary organizers, and they gathered a team they called the Fab5 to organize and host the event. These people are educators who answered the call, “If not now, then when? If not me, then who?” Realizing that no EdCamp existed in Atlanta, they set out to make sure that this city offered such an experience for interested learners. For six and a half hours on a Saturday (and countless hours before), they facilitated the gathering of teachers and administrators who want to make a difference in the education arena. And they did so with a format that allowed for democratic, spontaneous, informal participation.

As the day began, we organized a board of session topics and offerings. There were no forms to complete before the conference. There were no acceptances or denials of session offerings prior to conference day. There was simply a blank slate for a room of educators to fill. It was up to us to make certain that we had sessions worth attending. We ended up with three, hour-long blocks that housed about seven sessions in each block. As people participated in the sessions, if they were not getting everything they needed or if they became interested in another session being discussed on the Twitter hashtag, then they could leave a session to attend another…no offense taken by the session facilitators because it’s not about the facilitators. It’s about the learners (not that facilitators aren’t learners, too).

At the beginning and end of the day, the unconference organizers had arranged for two, short, video-conference sessions – one with Skype and one with Google+ Hangouts – so that EdCamp-ers could see these tools in use, and so that we could benefit from three educators who were not physically present for the day. What a great way to demonstrate that physical presence does not have to be a limiting factor to the school day and one’s learning environment.

After lunch, a “Smackdown” event occurred. For an hour, there were 30, two-minute highlights in which anyone could take the microphone and the computer or doc-cam to show an edtech tool for the classroom or learning studio. We were carpenters sharing our favorite tools…so as to create a better toolbox for the collective. I’m not sure where the name comes from, but a Smackdown is essentially adult Show-n-Tell, which there should be more of in school!

Overall, I enjoyed the day immensely. I feel indebted to those who made such a day possible. Re-read the table at EdCampAtl to get a sense of why I might feel this way. 

I see this movement as a powerful step in the direction of widening the possibilities of the school spectrum. Nevertheless, many of my usual questions remain…

  1. How will the educators who attended create systemic change in the schools to which they return? They gathered some superb pollen on Saturday, but now they have to go back to their schools and make honey with their home hive. How will they do this? Will they have the support they need?
  2. The topics at the event seemed very tactical in nature, and they were technology heavy. I think that is the history of the EdCamp events, as I understand them. As these devoted educators return to their respective schools, will their new learning, excitement, and growth cause them to inadvertently widen the gap that might exist between them and the teachers who continue to teach in the same way that they have taught for 25 years – the same lessons, repeated annually, 25 times? Are schools considering a pedagogical master plan that orchestrates a high-level coordination among these learning and transforming efforts?
  3. Are we stuck in the habit of teacher-student organization? In the three morning sessions that I attended, there was a fairly traditional structure within the sessions. And I helped facilitate two of the three sessions, so I am pointing a finger at myself, too. But there was a typical pattern of one or a few people doing 80-90% of the talking and the “audience” listening. Are we such creatures of habit that this methodology seeps into our way of working – even in a venue of progressive educators? I could have kicked myself at the Smackdown. The “app” I wish I had used in the sessions I helped facilitate is the brain-based, human app of stopping at about 10 minute intervals to have people turn to a neighbor and discuss what they are learning and staying curious about. The ones doing the talking are usually the ones doing the learning, and I did not do a good job at facilitating in such a way.
  4. Are we facilitating such EdCamp-like moments for the students in our schools? What if, on at least some days, we created a blank-slate board on which students could post what they wanted to learn and facilitate? What if we more spontaneously and democratically and informally grouped students based on what they wanted to learn and understand better? What if Show-n-Tell remained a part of school well beyond elementary school?

Yes, I am so appreciate and grateful for Nikki, Wanda, and the other EdCampAtl organizers for stimulating and provoking such learning and thinking in me. Now, I have to do my job to systematize and share – to spread the good work. To help make the honey for the entire, collective hive.

[This post has also been published on the EdCampAtl blog.]

Fill-in-the-blank I can rally behind! Candy Chang: Before I die I want to… #TED

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For years as a teacher, I used fill-in-the-blank. They were easy to check and grade, but they gave the illusion of more-than-multiple-choice. Over the years, I grew weary of fill-in-the-blank…as I grew to care more about what children could dream and think, instead of what they could tell me they had memorized.

This morning, I watched a number of TED talks – those that were released recently on the TED RSS feed. I’m sharing the one I found most powerful. The six minutes and twenty seconds is time well spent as I continue to contemplate how I will spend my life to make a powerful difference in this world.

Is it worth your time?


Candy Chang: Before I die I want to…