Toluu : Weblogg-ed

Weblogg-ed

Learning with the Read/Write Web

Just want to connect a couple of dots between a very thoughtful, challenging essay by Dan Willingham and Andrew Rotherham that was re-released by Educational Leadership just recently, and another snip from Steve Hargadon’s interview with Linda Darling Hammond from last week. I think they frame the really huge problem we’re facing with the current assessment regime that should have us all rolling up our sleeves and setting to work despite the fact that none of our elected leaders seem to have a clue as to what’s best for our kids when it comes to this stuff.

The Ed Leadership essay suggests that while these “21st Century Skills” are really any century skills, the path to “success” (depending on how you define that) is more dependent on having those skills today than ever before. And the greater problem right now is that getting really deep exposure to those skills is at best a hit or miss (mostly miss) proposition for kids in our country today. As the authors say, it’s “akin to a game of bingo.” But there are big hairy problems here regarding curriculum, professional development and assessment. And here’s one part that really resonated:

Another curricular challenge is that we don’t yet know how to teach self-direction, collaboration, creativity, and innovation the way we know how to teach

10 Questions for Arne DuncanAugust 25

1. Can you describe how you personally use technology to access, create and share information?

2. In terms of technology use, what were the most innovative ideas for education that you saw in the Race To The Top applications that you reviewed?

3. The National Education Technology Plan calls for the end of “one size fits all learning.” Do you agree and, if so, what does that mean for students and teachers?

4. The plan also calls for teachers to take part in “online learning communities” and “personal learning networks.” What types of professional development should schools be engaging in to achieve those goals?

5. If you were to counsel teachers and administrators in their participation in these communities and networks, what three suggestions would you give?

6. Do you agree that skills such as collaboration, problem-solving and self-direction (among other “21st Century Skills”) are important for students to develop and, if so, how are current assessment regimes checking for those skills?

7. Do you believe that every student in the United States should have ubiquitous access to the Internet and, if so, what plans are in place to achieve that? If not, why not?

8. According to the National Council of Teachers of English, the following are the characteristics of “literate readers and writers” in the 21st Century. How are you personally meeting these standards?

• Develop proficiency with the tools of

“Disposable Reform”August 23

Steve Hargadon held an interesting interview with Linda Darling-Hammond last week that covered, for the most part, the ideas in her new book “The Flat World and Education” as well as some of her earlier works like “The Right to Learn.” While I was hoping to hear her go a bit more into depth about the role of technology in the reform or transformation of schools, and to also be more specific as to how to get to reforms she says we need, she did articulate a number of compelling ideas around why change is so slow and why it’s so difficult to move the needle on schools here in the US. I’ve snipped three fairly short segments from the full interview that I want to touch on in three separate posts. (Full recording here.)

The first discusses the idea that reforms are hampered by the lack of teachers who can teach in progressive ways, and that replication of successful school models is extremely difficult due to diverse circumstances (some have leadership, money, infrastructure, others don’t) and a political reality that forces us to chan

Who’s Asking?August 22

The thunder clap makes all of us stop. It’s one of those loud, long, rumbling ones, the kind that rolls around in your belly like when you hit one of those hard, deep potholes in your car. It shakes the window panes in the old house, and in that initial crack, we all duck into ourselves a bit, feeling that split second of doom that big summer storms in the Georgia countryside often cause. My kids are throwing the Frisbee in the downpour, and they freeze for an instant as well. I start to tell them to jump inside, here under the porch and wait it out, but before I get the words out they’re leaping the puddles, heading in my direction. Smart kids.

The weird thing is that on every porch that I can see on the block, people are out, watching the rain, listening to the thunder. I don’t know if they’re passing time or just immersing themselves in the strange beauty of the storm, the sheets of water, the muted light, the heaviness of the air. But we’re sharing it, my wet, dripping kids, the dog across the street who’s sticking his nose out from under the tar paper roof of his doghouse, and the old black man on the opposite corner, folded into his porch swing, puffing on a pipe. We’re all watching, and waiting for the break.

Eventually it comes; the thunder rolls are farther away, the rain abates. We pick up the conversation that the noise silenced, the one about our kids and their schools. Miss Frances isn’t listening too hard, I can tell, a

Unlearning TeachingAugust 18

Rather than teachers delivering an information product to be ‘consumed’ and fed back by the student, co-creating value would see the teacher and student mutually involved in assembling and dissembling cultural products. As co-creators, both would add value to the capacity building work being done through the invitation to ‘meddle’ and to make errors. The teacher is in there experimenting and learning from the instructive complications of her errors alongside her students, rather than moving from desk to desk or chat room to chat room, watching over her flock.

I love this vision of teaching from Erica McWilliam, articulated in her 2007 piece “Unlearning How to Teach” (via my Diigo network). I know the idea isn’t new in these parts, but the way she frames it really resonates. And it speaks to some important aspects of network literacy and the teacher’s role in the formation of and the participation in those student networks. At the end of the day, as she suggests in the quote above, we have to add value to the process, not simply facilitate it. Here’s another snip that gets to that:

A further point here – if we consider the student’s learning network as a typ