Learning On The Job

As a classroom teacher, I hated to be observed. Heck, I hated to teach in a room where another teacher was working, even if they weren’t even paying attention to me? I never could figure out why I felt that way…

Now that I have begun to live my life online — open and transparent, as much as possible — I realize how debilitating that prior mindset was to my teaching. Of course I learn a lot fromthe other great souls who are teaching and living out in the open. But my openness is forcing me to be more introspective and reflective: Why am I doing what I’m doing, and what can I do to make it better? Opening the door to my online persona has caused me to be more introspective and reflective. It has helped me to grow professionally and personally, even if nobody ever reads a word that I write.

I firmly believe that the average teacher’s, well, openness to openness is directly proportional to that of the school’s in which she works. It is a learned behavior that is nurtured by the institution. If a school were to implement a healthy open-door and/or walkthrough policy — with the goal of observation and not appraisal – it would be an easy step for those teachers to begin to share their professional practice to a wider audience.

So why are schools in general and teachers in particular so reticent to openning their doors, either to their parents or their colleagues or to the world? What are they afraid that others will see? Maybe more accurately, what are they afraid they themselves will see?

Image: ‘open door‘ licensed under CC BY NC

From the Science of Willpower by Kelly McGonigal:

Nevertheless, research has consistently shown that most people are not fans of reality when it comes to estimating their own abilities. We tend to overestimate our skills. And, in a cruel twist, the less ability you actually have, the more you think you do.

This common cognitive bias, known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, was first formally reported in 1999 by psychologists at Cornell University. These researchers found that most people overestimate their abilities in many domains, including humor, grammar, and logic. The effect is most pronounced in people who have the least skill; for example, those with a test score in the12th percentile would, on average, estimate themselves to be in the 62nd percentile.

In contrast, people who actually are above average are less likely to rate themselves so highly. Because they know more, they doubt themselves more. They know what it means to be really great — unlike those whose skills are so poor, they can’t recognize competence in others or their own lack of ability. The Cornell psychologists Dunning and Kuger concluded, “Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.”

This seems to be adding some scientific research to a Beginner’s Mind.

There are simply too many technological innovations and social and political expectations for the model to stay the same. In the latter case, we increasingly live in a 24×7 world. I get annoyed when I can’t talk to customer service about a banking problem at whatever time I encounter it, late in the evening, for example. The forces are toward new models, new efficiencies, new responsiveness, and new transparency. Information when I want it, in a form that I want. – Pam Heath, Jensen Heath communications consulting, from The Impact of the Internet on Institutions in the Future (emphasis added)

A while back in September or October, when we were preparing for the spectre of H1N1 and the inevitable school closure (which never happened), I was speaking to a colleague in the math department about the idea of turning the school day on its head: what if the students used their “homework time” to receive instruction and content – through such media as podcasts, screencasts, video lectures – and used their “school time” to work on practice problems (if needed) and investigations.

This was echoed by Dr. Scott McLeod at ASB Unplugged when he talked about the ‘fungibility of teachers’ – what are the aspects of teaching that cannot be replaced or outsourced? Lecturing is definitely fungible. As charismatic and knowledgeable as I am <sarcasm!>, there is definitely somebody else out there who can say what I know a whole lot better than me. The ability to create learning experiences for our students is not fungible. Nor is the ability to effectively facilitate a discussion in order to challenge every student in the classroom.

Will Education ever give students the information that they want when they want it in a form that they want? I know that there are some individuals who are succeeding in doing this already. But will it ever amount to a systemic shift? Will we ever be able to suppress our collective memories of what Education should be and think about what Education could be?

Is Dan Brown on the right track?

This is really more than I was expecting to say on the subject of Beginner’s Mind, but I came across an article from the Guardian – thanks to Andrew Sullivan – on the negative impact of doing good deeds.

In ethical terms, the best never think that they are the best, and those that believe themselves to be on the side of the angels are often the worst devils.

Just change the word “ethical” to “teaching”.

So I’m a bit behind on my writing. What can I say? It’s been a crazy few weeks…

Darren Kuropatwa thinks it’s difficult to be a change agent if you are an expert.

Dan Meyer (sorta) disagrees:

Darren thinks his situation requires more novices when instead it requires better experts. Hungry experts. Experts who empathize with the novice, who constantly re-evaluate their own assumptions from the perspective of a novice, who get outside their own heads as much as possible and as often as possible.

Anytime you think of yourself as an expert – hungry, empathetic or otherwise – you have already put yourself at a disadvantage. The Zen master Shunryū Suzuki said:

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few.

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (p 1)

The most effective teachers are the ones who approach every unit, every day, every lesson like it was the first time. They do not ignore their wealth of accumulated knowledge and experience; nor do they let that knowledge or experience dictate their actions. Rather, they let their current situation – the one they are experiencing for the first time, the one in which they are the beginner - determine the best course of action.

I know from my own experience that my colleagues who have been the most effective and inspirational were the ones who were never fully satisfied with their work. They never seemed to use the same lesson plan twice because there was always something that could be improved. They never saw themselves as the expert and thus able to rest on their laurels; they saw themselves as beginners with many possibilities to improve.

Daniel Pink on incentives and performance:

Some highlights:

As long as the task required only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as they would be expected: the higher the pay, the better the performance.

But once the tasked called for even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward led to poorer performance.

To provide intrinsic motivation, you need to provide:

• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose

There is a mismatch between what science knows and what [education] does. Those 20th century rewards, those motivators that we think are a natural part of [education], do work but only in a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances.

I first heard the terms ‘Coaching Light’ and ‘Coaching Heavy’ when I was reading a post on Difficult Conversations over at Always Learning. If you haven’t heard the terms before, they come from the book Coaching: Approaches and Perspectives by Jim McKnight in a section written by Joellen Killion. She

assert[s] that there are two kinds of coaching – coaching light and coaching heavy. The difference essentially is the coaches’ perspective, beliefs, role decisions, and goals, rather than what coaches do… Coaching light occurs when coaches want to build and maintain relationships more than they want to improve teaching and learning. From this perspective, coaches act to increase their perceived value to teachers by providing resources and avoiding challenging conversations. (p. 22)

Coaching heavy, on the other hand, includes high-stakes interactions between coaches and teachers, such as curriculum analysis, data analysis, instruction, assessment, and personal and professional beliefs and how they influence practice… Coaching heavy requires coaches to say “no” to trivial requests for support and to turn their attention to those high-leverage services that have the greatest potential for teaching and learning. Coaching heavy requires coaches to work with all teachers in a school, not just those who volunteer for coaching services. Coaching heavy requires coaches to seek and use data about their work and regularly analyze their decisions about time allocation, services and impact. (p. 23 -24) (emphasis added)

I have started looking further into this idea of Coaching Heavy. I read the first chapter of the book on Google Books. I found another article by Joellen Killion on the same topic. I found another instructional coach who is making this same transition. After reading the distinctions between the two, I knew that Coaching Heavy is where I wanted to be.

But now comes the hard part. How do I make that transition? How do I engender the required sense of collaboration and preparation required not only by me but by the rest of the staff? How do I impose myself and my new-found interest in Coaching Heavy on those around me? How do I make Technology Integration a priority for others as well as myself?

The first thing I need is a plan of action that takes into account the questions above as well as the culture of my school. When I get to that stage, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions or comments please feel free to let me know.

(Note: I just read that the Laptop Institute is soliciting calls for proposals for their 2010 Institute. Is this something that could work as a workshop?)

Image: Watching the Detecto by massdistraction licensed under CC BY NC ND

Friedman hints at it. Pink implies it (or he might flat out say it; I haven’t finished reading the book!). And now Wolfram|Alpha confirms it: Content is Dead, Concept is King!

There is no point in teaching my students how to become a CPA. There will always be somebody cheaper (and probably better at it) to do that work somewhere else in the world (Friedman). It will be your ability to think creatively that will allow you to flourish in this situation (Pink).

With the launch of W|A, my students now have a resource that will graph lines and find intercepts for them (among other things). My focus is no longer on the computational content; it now has to be on the creative concept. What does the graph mean?  Why is it relevant? It’s no longer enough to ask the students graph something just because: we now need a reason to want to interpret that graph. It needs context and connections, not abstraction and solitude.

I can understand Maria’s point when she says:

It does have the potential to seriously wreak havoc on the way we teach math today if students can simply copy all their work from an A.I. website.  Whether you think that it’s time that somebody forced a change, or whether you think it’s just hype and not really a threat, I think we should all be aware that after today, it exists.

But I think MsMichetti has right idea:

All those graphs, tables, new vocabulary, and more are useless without using Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) to sort them out and make sense of them. Why aren’t we teaching more visual literacy and data interpretation — in every subject area?

Let’s be clear: I am not advocating that students no longer need to learn how to graph functions or do symbolic algebraic manipulation. Of course these types of skills are important, but they should no longer be the main focus of our curriculum. If technology is like air (invisible, abundant and noticeable only when missing a la Chris Lehmann), then why wouldn’t I assume that at some point in the very near future – if not already – all of my students will have ubiquitous access to W|A and its inevitable improvements? What happens when W|A comes out with the killer mobile app that puts this knowledge in everybody’s hands at any time? Why would I fight/resist this change?

The jury is still out on the idea that Google has made us stupid. I’m adding more fuel to the similar W|A debate. But this much is clear: we can never put these genies back in their bottles. For better or for worse, we’re going to have to un-learn our old-school emphases on computation and recall and re-learnhow to harness their powers to focus on interpretation, analysis and synthesis of information.

Long live the King!

image: if i were king by Jason Nicholls
image: Genie’s Lamp by Davic

NOTE: a version of this post first appeared on an internal blog at our school as was inspired by a post by Jeff Utecht.  This post is also cross-posted at Pockets of Change, a new blog that I co-author with my colleague Adrienne Michetti.

With all due respect to Gil Scot-Heron… 

True revolutions are not created or planned. They are organic: they arise when the needs of the masses (students, teachers, and even administrators) outstrip what the dominant establishment (the monolithic entity of ‘Education’) is able to supply.

We are on the precipice of a revolution.  There is a growing number of teachers who realize there is a better way.  There is a change in the demographics of both teachers and administrators as innovators and early adopters of these new technologies take up positions of responsibility within schools. There are groups of students who are becoming more aware of the vast educational possibilities that collaborative technologies allow.

There are two ways for this revolution to be truly initiated: either a watershed event a la the Boston Tea Party, or through a methodical plan of actively searching out the agents of change, slowly proselytizing by example and converting whoever we can whenever we can.  In either case, the goal is to create the critical mass necessary to evoke true reform and revolution in the sphere of education.

Once 50% +1 of a school or even a department are using collaborative technologies in a meaningful and productive way, can the remaining population afford not to? Once the teachers in these trailblazing departments or schools move on to their next destination, as is always the case in international schools, will they willingly go back to the way things were?  These teachers then become the messengers of change as they enter their new schools, bringing with them their expertise and the power of their personal network.

This revolution will be a grass-roots, bottom-up shift from teachers who understand the power of Web 2.0. There should not, can not, and will not be shift in educational philosophy decreed by the powers. That’s not the way revolution works.

Photo Credit: localsurfer