I'm taking a break from Spreadable Media because I'm at iNACOL this week. Palm Springs is beautiful! Here is a picture I took while here:
One of the 1/2 day sessions I went to discussed the emerging blended competencies. You can find a link to those by looking at the iNACOL resources. The mindset part, which surrounds the rest of the thinking, is what I found interesting. Here is the mindest iNACOL looks for in blended teachers (which I think works well for online, too...):
- entrepreneurial spirit, creativity, imagination, and drive
Orientation toward change:
- embrace change
- embrace ambiguity
- change in response to student’s needs
The document moves to qualities, which includes:
Qualities -
Grit
- Persevere
Transparency
- open and frequently share successes, failures, challenges
Collaboration
- balance individual with team and proactively seek to learn from and with others
We ask for a lot of these qualities from the students. I'm glad iNACOL brought up some of these qualities and mindsets needed from the teacher perspective. In particular, the ability to embrace ambiguity and be flexible strikes me as important. Embracing ambiguity means not seeking to order everything too quickly, and being okay with multiple interpretations of an event and a little bit of flux. This goes against our nature - we want to organize - to look at clouds and see things we understand.
Here is a video from IDEO about embracing ambiguity:
The video brings up some key emotions about ambiguous situations - there can be fear, discomfort, and frustration. Realizing that is natural may help us remember SCARF with no just our students but with our teams.
What stands out to you about the qualities and mindsets? Let me know - I think this is an interesting conversation...
For the next couple of weeks, I'm focusing my posts on reflections from the book Spreadable Media by Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green. I chose this book because of the relevance to our desire to create engaging and meaning learning experiences.
In his introduction, Jenkins defines spreadability as "the potential - both technical and cultural - for audiences to share content for their own purposes" (2). If you've created or shared a funny meme like this one I made:
then you have spread media. Sites like memegenerator make spreading media easy and fun. My question as I read this is, what should be spread? When is the right time to get maximum benefit?
To add a further wrinkle, Jenkins moves into the distinction between "stickiness" and "spreadability." Stickiness, a concept mentioned by Gladwell, refers to content that attracts attention and engagement, a term focusing on numbers of hits on a page or mentions. Spreadability differs from stickiness because spreadability focuses on making connections. One could not track all the uses of the meme above because so many generators offer this as an option. Even without generators, several users could create them on their own. Another difference lies in the fact that spreadability leads to participation in unanticipated ways. Stickiness, as a rule, provides only one kind of experience. For example, when I shared this link on Twitter taking people to a quiz identifying their medieval alter ego (I was a princess, which made me laugh out loud), I showed the quiz to be sticky. I did forwad the quiz, and many others can take the quiz and share, but the only experience we can have is taking the quiz. I can't change the quiz or remix the quiz immediately into a new quiz (even if I get a link the tool).
Here's more - watch to see what King Arthur, Kony 2012, and other texts have in common:
According to Jenkins, both should exist. In a "world where citizens count on each other to pass along compelling bits of news, information, and entertainment, often many times over the course of a given day," the tendency to forward what sticks and remake and circulate what spreads seems almost organic (12). This means, in the world of education, I need to think about what should stick with them and what I want them to spread. I also want to engage students in the metacognitive practice of thinking about sharing in either form. Jenkins writes, "people make active decisions when spreading media, whether simply passing content to their social network, making a word-of-mouth recommendation, or posting a mash-up video to YouTube."
So, what needs to stick? To me, the list would include:
Learning targets - what do I want my students to leave my course knowing, understanding, doing?
Improved communication - I want my students to be able to share their knowledge and passions in an articulate and profound way
Significance - I want my students to understand the "so what" of my course
What needs to spread? To me that list would include:
Significance - I know it's in the list above as well. Things overlap, and that's okay.
Transfer - I want the students to know how to spread the learning targets of my course to their own lives, other courses, the world, etc.
Reflection - Metacognitive thinking on their part about what they share and why
How can I start? Here are some ideas:
Discover the extent your group feels comfortable participating within culture. In my online learning course for teachers, I begin the participatory learning course with a survey to do that. Yours would fit your situation. Here is my survey:
Discover the comfort level of your group with spreadable tools. In your survey, you could add a few questions about spreadable tools such as meme generators, social media proficiency, etc.
Design with participatory experiences in mind. As the book discussion continues, I'm looking forward to more ideas about this.
What do you think? What sticks? What spreads? Do students sometimes leave with topics sticking that you did not intend to stick? Why? Comment below - I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Yesterday the weather was really bad, and it happened pretty quickly. My father offered to pick up my daughter because he was closer to her, and I remain grateful that he can be that flexible. When I texted my daughter, I thought I was pretty clear,"Stay put. Grandpa will be there to pick you up in 15 minutes." Somehow, things got lost in translation. Many text messages and a phone call later, she understood the simple instruction. Why was it so hard? I felt like this:
The thing is, my daughter normally not like this. She's usually fine with simple messages, and she's pretty reliable. So, why as she struggling?
One problem may have been that she was stressed. I texted her at the end of the day, the weather was bad, teachers were not letting students leave, and chaos surrounded her. When that happens, even simple directions seem hard. Here's why:
I made assumptions about her day, those assumptions were wrong, and the result was mutual frustration. When similar things occur in teaching, what other assumptions am I making? Looking at this further, here are some overall assumptions about our students that can cause frustration and impede progress. Don't get me wrong - I want my students to struggle, but I want them to struggle with ideas and questions and problems, not navigating the task.
1. Students Today Do Not Want to Read - In many situations, I hear that students do not like to read. I think the issues is more that some students do not want to read what we want them to read. Penny Kittle's work shows that given the opportunity, students can and will read extensively. A recent Pew study confirms that students read quite a bit, more than some adults. With this in mind, we need to find a way to bring that reading back to us. When can we provide them with opportunities to choose what to read? How can we use their own reading to work on the skills of a reader? What can I think about when choosing content that will be engaging for the reader and still convey what I need?
2. Students Do Not Need to be Taught Tools - Ever since the emergence of the term "Digital Native," the assumption has been that students already know all the aspects of technology. We could assign a product to be made on a specific tool, and focus on the product, not the tool. In reality, our students may or may not know the tools at hand. New terms, including "digital refugee" and "digital explorer," better define relationships to technology. Taking time to understand the comfort level and experience base regarding technology, as discussed in this article, helps us ease that frustration level on both ends. Providing choice in terms of representation of knowledge and interaction with content, like within the UDL guidelines, also helps students work with familiar tools and spend their time with content.
3. Students Do Not Socialize Enough - Students socialize differently, but they continue to socialize. Creating the equivalent of the water-cooler conversation, for example, does not resonate with them because, as stated in the Beloit list, the water cooler isn't a gathering place anymore. Each year when Beloit publishes their list, the insight into the mindset of that year fascinates me and reminds me that we have very different worldviews in some ways. Use of social media changes how, when, and why students want to connect and discuss. This site collects work we gathered for a couple of presentations that show not only how teens socialize but how some experiences leverage this to engage students in learning.
4. Students are Too Egocentric - I think it can be easy to see the students on a device as a retreat, even a retreat into themselves, but many times the students are reaching out. A recent millennial survey shows these students want to reach out more, feel as if they are doing good, and make a difference. The study continues that students seek personal fulfillment. The Decreasing World Suck foundation, and the study with the same name, shows similar results. Asking them questions and using that input to reshape our design will help with engagement. This research from the Schlechty Center contains questions for students and other helpful tools.
The next time, before I get frustrated, I'm going to try to figure out what assumption I have wrong about the situation. Sure, I can keep repeating myself, just as I did with Catharine, but that gets us all nowhere.
Too often, I finish a task, put away my materials from it, and start thinking immediately about the new task before me. Last night, I finished another chapter in my dissertation writing, and I went right into an outline for the next one. I didn't even mention it at home or at work. I just saw it as a part of an overwhelming whole and moved on.
In talking to a colleague today, I realize I shouldn't have done that. I should have told my family (they were all in the room). I should have told my friends at work. Heck, I should have tweeted it or put it on Facebook. Why? Because celebrating the steps, the small successes is important - and often overlooked.
Do we do this in our courses? Probably somewhat. There are some busy times of the year when we all are just trying to get by. I think, though, that celebrating those successes would actually make us feel better when we are doing what seems overwhelming. Take a look at this video where complete strangers shared their successes:
In our district, we try to celebrate Strategic Design successes on our Strategic Design in Action website, which is regularly updated. On this site, we celebrate amazing learning experiences, provide a means for any stakeholder to nominate a bright spot in the district, and run a twitter feed showing how our goals and beliefs look in real life.
What about in our courses? How can we celebrate the successes? How public should that be?
I'm not sure about all the answers to this, but here are some thoughts: Badges - my Creative Writing course runs on badges. Some indicate mastery of a module, but others are spontaneous. They include being a good communicator, being insightful, and other qualities I want to highlight. Those badges show up on their profile for all to see. Twitter - we can celebrate successes more publicly on Twitter. If the person we are celebrating is also on Twitter, tagging that person can encourage others to chime in and celebrate as well. Padlet / Lino / Whiteboard - we could have a space embedded for people to paste successes on the wall. This way the students could have some say in what gets celebrated. We may find out more about their lives, and this will certainly build the relatedness needed. Synchronous Sessions - early time in synchronous sessions could be used to encourage people to share successes of their own or of others in the room. This will build community, which is also so important. Showing gratitude - with successes comes the idea of sharing gratitude for someone who did something that really meant something to you. That's a celebratory-worthy act as well. Even paying a gratitude visit can be worth discussing and celebrating. Specific, Positive Feedback - in our opportunities to provide feedback, I think we can celebrate what the student does well. I think this can be more celebration-worthy when the student shows significant growth in a certain area. For this to be a celebration, I think the more specific the better.
As we move from one module to the next, from one unit of study to another, from one project to another, what can we stop and celebrate along the way?
Many of us have taken personality quizzes on Facebook or other sites. Buzzfeed, in particular, holds many popular ones. In this clip, Ellen takes a quiz on which queen of comedy she would be:
Ellen asks an interesting question in the clip. Basically, she wants to know why finding out what kind of pizza slice we might be helps us in the world. Likely, knowing that I'm a particular type of pizza won't spring to mind when I'm facing a difficult problem. Knowing that won't help me make an important decision, or explain a particular reaction (other than when it comes from pizza). Pizza slice aside, how can finding our role in a popular television series, film, book series, or play benefit us at all?
In Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins discusses the need for role play. In discussing the Sims, a favorite of my daughter's, he wrote, "nothing is ever just a game. Games have consequences. Games also give us an opportunity to break out of the roles and actions that we might be forced into in real life" (231). I don't want to go down the trail of games in general, mainly because I already have before. In this case, I want to specifically look at the benefits of role play.
A recent Mind Shift article discussed the use of role play in a college course. And, of course, the article mentions a book to add to my wish list. In the article, the students reflect on a long-term use of role play to cover content. Students brought up engaging aspects of this kind of learning experience that included engaging the competitive spirit in some, engaging curiosity to learn how to play the appointed role in others, and more lively discussion.
Structuring a course-wide role play can be difficult to design, and may not be practical for some high school courses. In some high schools, student populations change, which makes a sustained role play hard for students with schedule changes and new students. Here are some smaller possibilities:
scenarios or simulations - these can be on a small scale as a beginning of class activity or a review towards the end. Here is one I wrote to review SCARF.This is more indirect role play, but people can read out the parts (that's what we did).
short skits to explore an idea - when done using a protocol (here is the protocol we used for the observers during SCARF role play where teams could tag in and tag out when it was their turn).
creating personality quizzes to help students with choices - one of our VLA teachers created a great personality quiz to help students see which book may be more to their liking, but this possibility can go beyond the book into types of writing, projects, etc.
creating or using personality quizzes to begin discussions of texts or other content - if we are more like Elsa in Frozen, for example, what does that say about her? about us? do we even agree?
finding online simulation games where students can role play in a content-oriented situation, explore possibilities, discover consequences, and reflect
I'd love to hear how other people use this strategy for engagement!
I was intrigued by some of the coverage over Scotland's upcoming vote. Many journalists covered the economic and political ramifications of a free Scotland, but PRI's The World used a different angle: the ramifications of the flag. You can read the story at this link to PRI.
I had not thought of the ramifications to the flag, or of the process needed to change a flag. The complications involved in discussing how a nation's identity and makeup change over time can provoke a lot of reflection.
Just the presence of a flag can produce an effect called priming (talked about in this article). We've already done that in our classrooms. We spent much of the first weeks crafting welcoming documents, breaking the ice, and trying to show students our expectations and what matters most to us.
Just like the presence of the flag, we have to keep priming the students. We need to keep reminders present in our online, blended, and traditional classes. We do this through establishing and reinforcing the community building we started those first weeks. We can look at what we post on our walls / site, what sayings we repeat, and what we demonstrate we value based on emphasis and assessment.
Giving the students a chance to build the norms and expectations of the class helps them create a sense of ownership and belonging as well. Strategic Design includes this kind of co-creation, and students enjoy these opportunities. For example, when Kid President asked for input on how to make things awesome after his video, he got a ton of responses that became part of the conversation:
I like ending on a high note with Kid President, because he reminds us that what we say and how we act sends a message about us, our course, and what we value. I think you all are awesome! I've enjoyed getting to see the great things you are doing and look forward to more conversations.
As the school year comes to a close, I often begin to start reflecting as I put away some of the work of the year. It's just second nature for me to start thinking about how I would redo an activity or make a new connection.
This link contains a taxonomy of reflection from Peter Pappas. He also has entries for the reflective student and the reflective administrator.
I also value input from participants. Whether it is from an online survey or a Post-it note exit ticket, I can reflect on their perceptions and find ways to revise that will bring more engagement and meaning. Grant Wiggins recently surveyed students about their coursework. He has done a series of blog posts about the student responses.
This link takes you to the open-ended answers to the question, "I learn best when the teacher..."
Because some similarities in the comments immediately appear, I wanted to put their remarks in a Tagxedo to see what words were repeated. Here is the result:
Some of the student input matches our student surveys. Students want hands-on activities. They want things to be interesting, interactive, meaningful, and relevant to their lives. They want to participate in the learning process in a more active way.
Because we'll be presenting at ISTE in June, we've made a site for our resources about learning in a participatory culture. You can access it here.
This summer my goal is to find more ways to respect those voices by providing more participatory experiences in the courses I help design. It can mean more work up-front, but I'm eager to see how it pays off with the students once they are in the course.
It's Friday, and because the post is about music, here is my song for the beginning of the weekend:
Music has always played a large part in my life. My mother works as a Director of Music and has played the organ in many amazing places. I remember as a child being up where she practiced, sometimes turning the pages. Growing up, I learned to play the piano, the oboe, and the guitar. I'm very glad that my children enjoy playing music and listening to it as well.
Over the last few years, my mother has taught Music Appreciation at the college in her town. She also teaches a great class on occasion for teachers: using music in the regular education classroom (I know I'm getting that title wrong, so I'm not capitalizing it). During one visit, she asked me to speak to the soon-to-be teachers about how I weave music into the classroom, so I'm sharing some of that today:
Playlists - For years I've kept playlists for different units of teaching. In it, I kept things such as:
- thematic connections - popular music for older texts to breach the distance of time and help students connect. For example, when talking about Chaucer and courtly love, students often thought the rules about jealousy and instant love were ridiculous. For them, extreme jealousy = stalking and physical symptoms of love seem silly. But when I play something like this:
Or this:
They begin to rethink how we talk about love culturally. Asking them to go find their own examples and compare them to depictions of love in Chaucer or in the rules of courtly love help as well.
- cultural connections - In Beowulf, for example, there is mention of the woman who "sang sorrowful" during his funeral. Letting them hear a version of a keening song, for example, helps them understand the context of the singing in a deeper way:
- changes in point of view - one popular form of expression in participatory culture is to write songs and stories from a different point of view than that chosen by the author. For example, in the Harry Potter world, here is a song from the Ministry of Magic from the point of view of Voldemort and Lily:
On a more academic note, collecting songs with different points of view about war, such as "The Green Fields of France":
to contrast with a song such as "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition":
with some modern songs today about the effects and beliefs about war can add a new, emotional layer to facts that might seem dated and too far away to be relevant.
- content review - For me, there is nothing better than historyteachers when I wanted content review. I could show them this about the plague to just give them the little bit of information I needed before reading "The Pardoner's Tale" and ask them to be ready to share what they think the most important thing to remember about the plague might be to spark discussion:
Or this after Beowulf to ask the students to evaluate the song and determine if the song highlighted what, to them, were the important messages of the text:
- content enrichment - When moving into Romanticism, students struggle a lot with long, abstract texts like Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Even though Coleridge provides his own version of Cliff's Notes to sustain the reader, students struggle with the overall concept. What I wanted them to understand with this poem, and with Walton's experience in Frankenstein, was the relationship between the sailor and the sea. I wanted them to understand the mystery, the danger, the pull the sailors feel. For that, I used a variety of sailor songs including "The Sailor's Prayer" (this isn't my favorite version but I like it without instruments - try the one by Pandora Celtica - it wouldn't load):
or "The Mingulay Boat Song"- this is by a local group that unfortunately no longer performs:
or the song "White Squall":
- creating a soundtrack for in-class reading - For sharing important moments, I tried to find appropriate soundtrack music, which helped the students remember but also emotionally connect. A lot of people today are creating battle mixes while playing video games, so this is a great connection for them. So, for example, with Beowulf's fight with Grendel, I would play battle music from a mix such as:
After going through my playlist with them for the unit (I'd never hit all the songs in the playlist), I'd show them the list and ask them to make their own. I received great examples that I added to mine over time. The Ministry of Magic addition, for example, was from a student.
Figurative Language - Music can reinforce ideas about figurative language in a variety of ways. Here are some of the ways I've included music:
- tone - It's important to note that music alone can change the tone of a piece. Music can help students develop a vocabulary of tone words, because some can describe how music feels more easily than words. In looking at how tone can change dramatically, I like to choose two very different versions of the same song, such as Europe's "Final Countdown":
With Laibach's version of "Final Countdown":
I choose Laibach intentionally because they have done covers of this as well as songs by Queen such as "One Vision" for a deliberate reason that has a lot to do with music and tone. Their story is fascinating and can be found here, where an article calls them the "unlikely godfathers of Occupy and Anonymous" and here.
Another fun way to explore tone is with the very popular YouTube tendency to remake trailers into a whole new genre. For example, here is a realistic, original trailer for Cinderella:
and here is a remix with scenes from the same movie but altered music and selection of images:
Students can generate tone words and describe how the music changes the tone. Later, students can create their own sets of trailers or other pieces for tone exploration. This ability to play and remix cultural pieces is another component of participatory culture that students identify with and enjoy doing.
- allusion - Allusions are our conversational shortcuts. We use allusion to bring in cultural knowledge without having to explain certain elements that would distract from the main point. While expanding their allusion vocabulary so that students can better participate in those conversations, I often used music to support the notion that these kinds of terms are everywhere. By far, students enjoyed this one the most and often danced in their seats:
But there is also Enter the Haggis's "Icarus" which goes well with Breugel's painting and Auden's poem - really showing how an allusion can appear in many forms and how texts can carry on a dialogue over time. There is a long instrumental beginning, so it's a good time to show other art depicting the Icarus story:
After a few examples from me, the students are off and running. They begin to see and hear the allusions everywhere, which is what I want. We collect examples in a forum, musical or otherwise, and I ask them to bring in music that depicts an allusion, like thirty pieces of silver, to see if other classmates can determine the meaning underneath.
Research abounds discussing the benefits of music in classroom learning. Vh1 collected much of it for their "Save the Music" campaign, and that can be found here. While it focuses on formal music education, some of the quotes also discuss music and learning in general. Here is an article that discusses wider uses of music in forms such as the long-popular Schoolhouse Rock pieces (my daughter was humming the one for the Constitution as she took her test just last week) to modern rapping with math. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics offers a grant for using music to teach math in early grades. The American Historical Association provides this resource for using music in a social studies setting and illustrates how to incorporate music in a variety of ways, including like the example of different points of view I listed above. Finally, this Edsource article shows how the California State Standards called for implementation of music.
Even with online learning, our team talked about music implementation just a week ago, and we all shared a variety of strategies. Sharing music with the students helps forge a relationship and can show them new sides of our personality. While teaching content, to start a collaborative session, or as a creative opportunity, finding ways to weave music into a course brings a new layer to the content itself.
This week time seemed to just elude me - everything took longer than it should have. Whether it was working on a particular site or just trying to print, all of it took longer than I expected. Last week, time was the enemy. I felt like this teacher who just wanted to get out simple directions and got waylaid in the process:
To be productive, I had to reprioritize, which means the usual Friday posting is getting done on Saturday. I know I'm not the only one who has had weeks like this. Because of that, this week I wanted to post about ways to save time:
- Changing the work - so all can work smarter not harder - This article from Edudemic lists some of the more popular technology tools out today. Within the description, you can see all the different ways teachers use these tools to not only engage students but also to improve the overall working of the class.
This site provides technology solutions to several aspects of a teacher's life that eats a lot of time. Some of them seemed obvious, but there are some interesting options out there I had not considered as well.
- Working on what matters -
When reading about best practices, where do they tell us to emphasize our time?
What work do we invest in that brings the best results in our students and in our own work as educators?
For example, this study by Allingham and Belanger reveals student opinions about teacher feedback. Based on this study, and others since with similar results, teachers can see where to spend their time providing feedback in a way that improves writing and where to spend less time because the feedback is not as effective.
In addition, what kinds of formative assessments can quickly inform you as the educator how the student is managing the content and where/how the teacher can provide additional support? This site and this site look at technology and formative assessment and suggest different options depending on the goals of the implementation. This site lists others but does not provide as much information. We can use formative assessment to guide the process, allowing us to work on what matters. With help from some of these tools, that information can arrive to us quickly and in a variety of ways.
- Realizing limitations -
Finally, this article comes from a site in the UK devoted to strategies for time management for teachers. In this particular post, the article talks about achieving a sense of balance and knowing our limitations. For me, this meant letting it be okay to leave something until tomorrow. The world kept spinning, so I guess some things really can wait...
I am a huge fan of Chaucer's blog posts and tweets. When he made this post earlier in the month celebrating "Whan that Aprille Day," I knew I wanted to find a way to participate. No longer in the classroom, I struggled with a way to encourage the revival of dead languages. My Master's work focused on Anglo-Saxon riddles, and I wrote an article for publication focusing on a tale in Canterbury Tales, so those languages in particular hold much interest for me, and I am focusing on these two languages. Kenneth Burke once wrote in Counterstatement that remoteness from what is being studied can impair the ability for the audience to connect with the text. This means that students enter already predisposed to find no relevance in older languages or their stories. We have to work that much harder to not only find the relevance, but also to hopefully inspire a love for these languages.
With that in mind, I wanted to post this week about ways to participate in "Whan that Aprille Day" within on online / blended setting for Middle / High school:
- Let students listen to the languages - Because many students read translations, they do not know what the languages sound like. Letting them hear the language, preferably more than once by someone who knows the language well enough to use inflections and emotions when reading the words, helps the students gain a new awareness of the text. Here are some options:
One example is Bagby's Beowulf. Here is an excerpt from the opening lines:
In the past, when I've shown this excerpt, my students (and my own children) were transfixed. My son watched the whole DVD. This clip gives them a sense of how this text was a story told to an audience, and it reminds them that the storytelling piece of this helped determine structure.
Michael Drout's Anglo Saxon Aloud site contains recordings of Drout reading Anglo-Saxon texts and includes poetry, prose, saints' lives, and more.
For Middle English, examples include this video from historyteachers introducing Canterbury Tales with a recitation of the prologue:
Another approach with a direct recitation of Chaucer can be seen at this site, which was an early entry celebrating "Whan that Aprille Day." Finally, there is the rap:
After viewing some recordings, the students can make their own and include an excerpt from the original language. Like the last two videos, the students can strive to bring the context for the recitation into a more contemporary setting that shows the relevance. For Middle English, the students can consult the pronunciation guide here.
- Exploring manuscripts - This site allows viewers to explore manuscripts. I think letting students see how the original works look on the page, when possible, provides another opportunity for the students to connect with the text, author, and audience. This site offers ideas for teaching with manuscripts. Finally, this site uses Thinglink to introduce the Anglo-Saxons, but I think that Thinglink would be a great place for students to analyze a manuscript or images of a manuscript. I could see an image from Chaucer's prologue with an analysis of the pilgrim and the devices Chaucer uses in his description.
- Progression of translations - Some frozen texts can be examined as the language changes over time. By looking at the progression of language, students can visually watch the words change and morph into modern wording. This site from Rice shows the progression of the Lord's Prayer from Anglo-Saxon to modern English. When there is no ready-made progression, even a dual language text can remind students of the original language while reading a translation. Here is one for Chaucer's Prologue and here is one for Beowulf.
- A study in translation - The act of translation requires the translator to make choices. Students often do not notice the choices involved in the translation of a text because they only see one translation. Starting with a read of the original text (preferably something short like some of the Exeter Riddles), students would then examine 2-3 translations of the riddle. Together, they would then discuss how choices made by the translator produced different meanings or different perceptions of the riddle. Because riddles require thoughtful translation in order to solve the riddle, they prove a good resource. Here is a riddle read aloud:
For Chaucer, here is a recitation of the description of the Pardoner from Chaucer's Prologue to Canterbury Tales:
The description contains a modern translation, but one can be found here and here as well. Discussing the nuances involved in translation is a great way to encourage language and build commentary about specific language choices. To extend the presentation of The Pardoner further, students can look at his relic trade. What would be a modern example? Do we still have relics? Do some still try to sell fake relics? A clip from Pawn Stars showing how we value items held or written by important people and the forgery surrounding those items can help put this in perspective.
I can't wait to see Twitter tomorrow and find out how others are celebrating #whanthataprilleday.
This week I was struck by this blog post from Ewan McIntosh. He pulls information from a new book about creativity coming out next month from Pixar and then connects this to education. It's very worth the read!
In the post he cites the work of DylanWilliams and unpacking formative assessment:
McIntosh brings out of the article the need for rules and norms. I think sometimes we skip that part, but group-created norms brings a sense of ownership in the decision making process of the discussion that would not be there otherwise. I've accumulated some resources on this at this Livebinder site (code: communicate2learn). Here is a Tricider I've made for the Creative Writing class so that the class can decide together how they will set up peer review.
McIntosh also highlights the role of the producer during a feedback session, explaining that the Producer captures the feedback for the Director and then helps make it specific and useful. This focus on feedback fits with the third point Williams makes that feedback should move learning forward.
I think some protocols can help with this. This site lists many, many protocols based on the goal of the discussion, and they can work with groups or students or teachers. In an online setting, this article lists protocols that require a sense of reflection and diving into an idea before contributing and then being silent. While many are not meant just for feedback. In many ways, they are providing feedback during the idea-generating, meaning-making stage.
Additionally, this article from ASCD discusses the timing of feedback: when it is most productive, how to deliver feedback for the best results, and what kind of content within feedback drives the student towards moving the ideas forward. I like her "Tale of Two Feedback Choices" in the end.
McIntosh ends with the student input. I love many comments the students made, especially their desire to be more involved, share ideas, and take risks. How can we open up our designing of learning experiences to those student voices?
Earlier this week, I read the MindShift article "Are we taking our students' work seriously enough?" and the first paragraph really struck me, especially the phrase, "participatory projects had a distinct air of tokenism." Basically, the paragraph continues, we provide students with moments to participate, but those opportunities do not transform the class or the work on the class in meaningful ways.
The article moves to Hart's Ladder of Participation, which can be seen at this site. Basically, the higher
Hart's Ladder of Participation Image from:
http://www.whydev.org/moving-beyond-tokenism-to-make-youth-participation-a-reality/
up the ladder, the more participatory the students. We have to move almost half-way up to ladder to reach any sense of true participation at all.
Admittedly, Hart's work typically does not apply to schools. The MindShift article does discuss how some schools thinking on higher rungs of the ladder produced pretty amazing results.
Within the educational setting, I think we have many opportunities to take the students seriously, and in online learning I think we have the same potential. Here are some of the things I'm thinking about in this vein, but I am nowhere near finished:
Class Norm Creation
I know that class time is precious, but taking the time to co-create the norms of the classroom environment shows students that you take them seriously. This can happen at any age:
Valuing Different Approaches to Knowledge Construction
I never want my students to feel that their participation does not matter to the working of the course or the work of the course. Using the UDL guidelines help with my lesson design, mainly because the guidelines remind me about the importance of honoring multiple pathways to representation, expression, and engagement. Specifically, I want to incorporate more:
Student Goal-Setting -
Within the context of the course, I want to work with students one-on-one to help them create their goals and then support them as they achieve them. I don't think they necessarily have to follow the SMART format, but I like what SMART stands for. Either way, I want them to be an integral part of the process.
Meaningful Choice -
I want to provide my students with opportunities to make choices that matter in the course. Asking them to choose between a Power Point and a Prezi does not matter as much as choosing how they learn and how they provide evidence of learning. I've learned that the more I open up the opportunities, the more invested the students become in the learning experience. I get a lot less of this:
Instead, I get more pieces like this from the Please Understand Me Project I did with tenth graders. Granted, several entries are not stellar, but many of them provided the students with choice, voice, and a meaningful topic.
Providing an authentic audience -
The affirmation design quality in Schlechty's thinking is about an authentic audience. Instead of creating an artificial audience or only making the audience the class or the teacher. The students need to hear affirmation from us, but they also need to hear it from the people who matter to them. We need to help that happen as often as possible. Schlechty talks about affirmation briefly here.
When I hear scarf, I immediately go to pop culture, the house scarves in Harry Potter, mainly because I saw so many students wearing them, and Tom Baker's Dr. Who. In the case of Harry Potter, the scarves were part of their house identity on campus. It aligned them with other housemates immediately.
David Rock created the SCARF model for collaboration in 2008, and it is a fundamental part of coaching. In some ways, this model can work as the Harry Potter model: using SCARF, you can understand the causes of a barrier to collaboration, reduce the problem, and then align so that the group is harmonious. You can read the article here that shows the brain-based thinking behind the science and an in-depth description of each piece of the scarf.
You can also watch him talk about it here:
For this post, I wanted to look at the elements of SCARF and talk about how we can identify them quickly and reduce the barriers in the way of learning. I also want to key into which of Schlechty's Design Qualities address the components and some of the tools possible that can help.
S - Status Description: According to Rock, status is about "relative importance, 'pecking order.' and seniority" Threat to status: A threat to status means a reduction in potential or importance to the person, and Rock writes that it can "generate a strong threat response." Once this has happened, the person may shut down. This can happen through a well-meaning suggestion or Ways to reduce threat: Let people give feedback on themselves (self reflection)
Provide some opportunities for formative assessment that is not tied to a grade and that the student can use autonomously (but that you can have access to)
Make available all summative assessment tools (rubrics, etc.) so that the student knows all the time how s/he is being assessed and what mastery needs to be shown
Communicate often - show students where they are, what they have learned, and that we have noticed their growth Design Qualities: Protection from Adverse Consequences, Affiliation, and Clear and Compelling Standards Tools: Google Drive can provide a way for students to collaborate, reflect, and revise easily. Spaces such as Padlet can create a single space for students to share ideas in a non-threatening, non-graded way. Tools like Padlet or Lino can be a safe place for students to play with ideas before committing to a larger focus or product. Announcements in the course that can show visually a public acknowledgement of an accomplishment will go a long way as well.
C - Certainty Description: According to Rock, certainty structuring work so that the brain can "know the pattern occurring moment-to-moment." This allows the brain to predict, and this lets the brain focus on other things. Threats to certainty: Unclear expectations, unexpected obstacles in the completion of a task, implementation of big changes without clear guidance
Ways to reduce threat: Break large ideas or products into smaller, attainable steps
Celebrate early successes
Recognize and reward growth
Help guide large ideas and visions into a plan with action steps Design Qualities: Clear and Compelling Standards, Organization, Choice, Authenticity Tools: Introducing students to organizational options at the beginning of the course will help them start organized and (hopefully) stay that way. Encourage them to choose the method that works best for them, and offer some examples of products such as Popplet, Evernote, Google docs, and many more will help students find the right tool for their thinking and working styles. Further, providing multiple pathways to engage with and present content helps provide certainty. For more on this, consult Universal Design for Learning and see the breakdown here. Growth can be rewarded using badges, either internally if the LMS offers it or externally through something like Mozilla. Badges can be given at certain expected achievements and given at unexpected moments when the student does something remarkable.
A - Autonomy Description: Rock calls autonomy "the perception of exerting control over one's environment" and the perception of choice. This is the opposite of being micromanaged. Threats to autonomy: lack of control, excessive management, being forced to collaborate, no choice in collaborators or roles in group work Ways to reduce threat: Provide flexibility when possible
Allow room for choice in an authentic way (not overly limited choice with no read meaning)
Spend time with class building so students feel more connected
Provide opportunities for student goal-setting, norm creation, and product planning within set boundaries that will enable success and learning Design Qualities: Choice, Authenticity, Protection from Adverse Consequences Tools: Providing authenticity means providing students to work on things that matter to them. Finding compelling questions and allowing students to choose how they want to answer them gives them the authenticity they want and increases autonomy because they have contributed to the design and process of their learning. Sites like Tricider help students weigh in on anything from controversial questions to class norms and processes. Building lists together in places like Pinterest or Learnist let students add their unique voice and have it recognized. With sites like Wiggio, students can work alone or in groups and set the times to collaborate when it is good for them.
R - Relatedness Description: According to Rock, relatedness is a sense of belonging and feeling a part of the group. The opposite of this is feeling lonely. Relatedness is also connected to feelings of trust. Threats to relatedness: always seeing the others as a competitor, lack of communication, lack of opportunities to connect to classmates, the teacher, or the learning Ways to reduce threat: Provide opportunities for class building, especially early in the course, that is not tied to a grade and clearly intended to begin a feeling of relatedness
Encourage social connections by sharing stories, photos, etc.
In large group settings, form smaller groups or teams to build more connections Design Qualities: Affiliation, Affirmation, Protection from Adverse Consequences Tools: Building connections in any class helps with the feeling of relatedness. Creating spaces on places like Padlet, Mural.ly, or within the LMS to share ideas, place images that are important to them, and share their work with the people inside the course and outside the course who matter can help students feel connected. Connecting students with the outside world when appropriate during the course of their learning will also help.
F - Fairness Description: Rock describes fairness as a sense of reciprocity or evenness. If an exchange does not seem fair, people are less likely to experience empathy or relatedness. Threats to fairness: feeling that rules are being applied differently for some, feeling that top-down directives are being applied unilaterally regardless of context, feeling that another does not act in accordance with stated values or beliefs Ways to reduce threat: According to Rock, these actions help - Increase levels of transparency
Increase communication
Establish clear expectations in all situations
Provide students with a clear voice in procedures and norms of class Design Qualities: Clear and Compelling Product Standards, Product Focus, Authenticity, Affiliation Tools: Creating more transparency in a class helps all students. This can be done with open access to materials, notes and other resources. This can also be done with clear explanation of the objectives to cover, an available rubric to show how the work will be assessed, a suggested pacing guide to show how much time to allot for the work at hand, and regular feedback about progress and expectations. Most of these products would reside within the system at hand, but communication can happen in a variety of ways in addition to within the course. Use of tools such as Twitter, Remind 101, and others can help keep the students prepared.
Recently I showed a group of teachers this clip from a previous episode of The Amazing Race:
The task seems simple enough, yet almost every team failed to complete the task on the first try. Why? Some were not attentive to detail in general. Others were in too much of a rush. Others approached the situation already stressed because they were behind and let that overwhelm them. Some of the ones in the end saw the others have to return and did not learn from that experience, as they made the same mistake.
This reminds me a lot of more educational situations. We all have moments when we think our directions are clear, but our participants / students seem to get tripped up in the directions. By getting caught up in the directions, they lost any joy or sense of meaning in the actual experience.
Some of this loss of joy had to do with the competitive nature of the pursuit. In an educational setting, there are very real deadlines and outside pressures as well, both on the students and teachers. Had those pressures been removed, would they have been more attentive? Would they have taken their time? Would they have reflected on what happened to others and applied it? I'm not sure.
I do think that this fits in with the fear of taking risks for both students and teachers. Fear of failure based on looming deadlines and fear of the outcome not meeting expectations is part of one of Seth Godin's "four horsemen of mediocrity," and can be a powerfully paralyzing force. To alleviate this, Schlechty uses the Design Quality Protection from Adverse Consequences. It means taking the time to establish a culture that appreciates risk taking and sees failure as part of a meaningful learning process.
One way may be to encourage curiosity, as Ramsey Musallam suggests in this TED talk:
Another way is to work to free our experiences from the barriers that create frustration, such as the ones discussed in the article "Analysis of Communication Barriers to Distance Education." Here are some of the barriers mentioned and some approaches we could attempt to stave off frustration:
- Technical - Can we create a Knowledge Base (this is our growing one) for students with solutions to a variety of problems presented in a variety of ways? Some may want to learn by video, while others appreciate the step-by-step guides. Either way, a repository 24/7 of suggestions for typical issues may help.
- Social- Students report that it is important to feel connected to the teacher and other students in their courses. How can we create moments that build group connectedness? Here is a link to some online icebreakers. These icebreakers can be fast - we can use a took like Padlet where participants can comment quickly in a variety of ways without having to make an account.
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Motivation - A motivated student will persist even when challenges arise. Where can we offer choice and flexibility to our experiences so that students will stay motivated? Where can we provide them with opportunities to take ownership on the management of the course? Here is the Tricider I set up for a future Creative Writing course. After looking at Peer Review forms, this site is for them to start having conversations and then eventually build their own form.
- Lack of experience with a technology tool or medium - This is a common barrier. Prensky and others remind us that we may be working with digital natives, but that does not mean that they inherently know the ins and outs of all tools. They may be more likely to investigate and explore the tool, but some will still need help. This article discusses the need for awareness of the wide array of comfort with various tools. That brings us back to the Knowledge Base.
- Belief in more traditional models - Some students have been very successful in more traditional models. I will never forget when my son told me to stop interfering because he "liked the worksheets." He didn't necessarily feel he learned more that way, but he liked the ease and lack of deeper thinking required when it came to classes that did not hold his interest. When looking at the model of engagement, he was not saying he was engaged. He and others, though, find rewards in being strategically compliant, and the fear of risk taking can overwhelm some of them.
The more we can remove the roadblocks, the more we can engage and spend our time on the real work of the experience at hand.
