Prairie South School Division Conversations

I'm back trying again.....and while I understand the significance of blogging, I keep finding excuses for not building it into my practice. The most noticeable challenge for a non-techy person like me, is to be okay learning the many technical details that seem to present themselves routinely....I bring new meaning to digital immigrant! The next challenge is the time -- I know, that's not a good reason -- but given the futility of my efforts & demands on my day -- it's a real issue. Finally, who the heck cares what one crazy old educator thinks.....

The use of new tools to change how politicians interact is becoming very prevalent. Our provincial election will reveal a variety of ways that our government embraces social networks.  Here's a few examples of the way the politics in the US is changing:


The Web is Changing Politics (via Will Richardson)

• "The YouTube Campaign" --Jeff Jarvis
  • The YouTube Debates (NCLB Question)
• Barack Obama
• John McCain and YouTube Q&A
• Local politics, too. (Nashua Teachers)
• Impact at MySpace, where the first presidential primary will take place on Jan. 1 and 2, 2008.

The provincial election will be one of the most information intensive

Most of the political parties of Saskatchewan are using these tools as well:

Youtube

• SaskNDP
• SaskParty
• Saskliberal
  

Facebook also has groups for political parties.  Watch for blogs to show themselves very soon for many of the candidates. The internet and particularly the use of read/write tools provides voters with plenty of information and opportunity to make good decisions. This is what makes the election of today different.  Instant access and the power of the voter's voice. Today that means even though most of our students won't be able to vote, they'll be able to ask questions and get answers.  Searching the blogosphere to see what others are saying can also provide insight and debate.

Why not allow your students to explore this and lead them on their way to becoming responsible citize

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Technorati Tags: politics, saskatchewan, election

Project Based Learning Session #1 Oct. 9/07
Host: Prairie South School Division

Teams of twenty teacher & administrators met to begin a study of project based learning. This was the first day of several professional learning days where school-based teams will learn about PBL.

Presenters: Galileo Center, University of Calgary
Janne Edney K-12 + HS humanities
Kandis Saar HS & humanities
Krista Francis-Poscente Math K-12, Research Fellow, PhD student, Inquiry

Work with Teachers
How do we design strong inquiry work with students.
What?s the rationale?
2 things make a huge difference in student learning related to engagement & kind of learning:

• Kind of tasks/work
• AFL more feedback loops you build into the learning, the stronger the learning is
  

Groups talked about qualities of great learning moments in their classrooms.
Characteristics of Learning Experiences that Worked for Students
Distilled list

• Proactive ? student generated & took pride of ownership ? work mattered
• Real world application ? learning things in class to use in the real world with real audience -- the work matters 
• Relevance
• Personal involvement
• Choice ? options
• Creativity
• Going through process of inquiry ? multiple ways of learning/sharing info
• Collaborative
• Control ? different pathways so infinite they enjoy journey 
• Build dissonance/build controversy/pose problem ? look for ways to set up for this, offer ideas that affronts them or intrigues them = snakecharming ? so students can?t wait to get hooked
  

Inquiry too can deliberately set up for these kinds of characteristics.


2 things we can do as teachers ? research is conclusive to dramatically improve learning, it matters :
1. what kind of work we ask students to do
2. AFL


Fred Newmann article

3 broad criteria for authentic intellectual work

• Construct knowledge ? take & do something with new learning
• Disciplined inquiry ? gain in-depth learning of limited topics: coverage; provide sophisticated ways for kids to demonstrate/express learning. This should be part of the design.
• Value beyond school ? production that has significance beyond demonstration of success to a teacher. Whatever the task is, they must produce something with personal, social or aesthetic value.
  

Inquiry Learning (Donovan & Brantford)

Teacher Design
How do we design the 4 areas so it?s manageable?

Inquiry begins with some kind of experience we use to invite students into the work ? problem, issue, controversy ? so teacher sets up initial experience to unleash student curiosity re: topic.

Info gathering ? often, traditionally we stop here. Inquiry takes it further. We?re asking kids to take info & do something with it. Begin to solve problem, investigate issues deeply, take recommendations somewhere.
Teacher designing task ? we consider who could benefit/authentic audience & where the work ultimately will go/to feed it into the world.

Understanding ? what is going to constitute evidence of deep understanding beyond typical assessments.

Cycle is deliberately very iterative. Students will continually bounce amongst the 4 areas. Constant revision, feedback, making & providing corrections to improve the work. This is the space that looks messy for most teachers.

Dispell Misconceptions re: Inquiry

Inquiry Planning

Task: Focus the Inquiry Study
Teacher/admin teams used the Inquiry Planning document & Designing Collaboratively document to develop their focus.

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Darren Kuropatwa of Winnipeg writes,

Once access is cheap, fast and ubiquitous and students have access to all this content at their fingertips we will have to change the way we teach. Teachers will no longer be able to resist changing their pedagogy. There will be no more validity(?) to statements like: "What I've always done works fine. My students are learning from me. Why should I change?"

Many have pondered at the future of the teacher with all the information and technology available. Some wonder if we even need or will need teachers. The answer is, if all they do is provide information, they no; we won't need those types of teachers.

But our best teachers are already discovering that change is critical. Examples exist right within our division of teachers much of the learning and discovery over to the kids and allowing their experience in how to learn be their greatest contribution. This is by no means an easy shift. It means a degree of chaos, messiness and uncertainty. Being comfortable with these things goes against our entire years of schooling, education and teacher training. Maintaining full control of what happens in the classroom has been held in high regard. With relation to the statement above, this may not be so important. To be clear, it doesn't mean a free for all. It simply means that students will need to build their own personal learning environments and it is our job to help them navigate that. The difference is that it will be in new worlds and with new people most of us have never heard of or seen. Real learning is taking place in these worlds. It becomes our job to learn more about them.

The best teachers are learners first. Those will never be obsolete.

To be successful in the world, high school students will need to:

• collaborate anytime, anywhere with anyone
• be independently driven to design & complete work
• learn via partnerships, exchanges, project based learning, authentic learning experiences
• problem solve real situations in real ways & in real time
• habitually use higher level thinking skills
• have adept EQ skills
• be globally & culturally aware
• have sophisticated communication skills
• learn, learn & learn

(Levine, Tucker, Goleman, DiMartino & Caslineda, Orozco & Sattin, ASCD: Educational Leadership, April, 2007)