The Flip: End of a Love Affair

A little over a year ago I wrote a postabout the flipped classroom, why I loved it, and how I used it. I have to admit, the flip wasn’t the same economic and political entity then that it is now. And in some ways, I think that matters.

Here’s the thing. When I recently re-read the post, I didn’t disagree with anything I’d said. Yet my brief love affair with the flip has ended. It simply didn’t produce the tranformative learning experience I knew I wanted for my students .

When I wrote that post, I imagined the flip as a stepping stone to a fully realized inquiry/PBL classroom. And the flip’s gradual disappearance from our learning space hasn’t been a conscious decision: it’s simply a casualty of  our progression from a teacher-centred classroom to a student-centred one.

What is the flip?

The flipped classroom essentially reverses traditional teaching. Instead of lectures occurring in the classroom and assignments being done at home, the opposite occurs. Lectures are viewed at home by students, via videos or podcasts (found online or created by the teacher), and class time is devoted to assignments or projects based on this knowledge. In theory, this sounds terrific.

When I first encountered the flip, it seemed like a viable way to help deal with the large and sometimes burdensome amount of content included in my senior Biology & Chemistry curricula. So many times in the past I had thought what many science teachers must think: “I’d love to do more hands-on activities, but we have to get through the content first.” The flipped classroom might offer a solution.

My flipped experiments

I first encountered the flip in a blog post. At the time, it was a relatively new idea (at least in the K12 world). There weren’t any websites or books devoted to it. And while the particular post I read was actually expounding the virtues of traditional teaching vs. the flip, I thought, “Flipping could actually work.”

My students loved the idea of trying something that very few other students were doing. Some of my students even benefited from watching and re-watching videos. Even so, we used it sparingly. We never moved to an entirely flipped classroom that required my students to watch lecture after lecture, day after day, by video. Even so, when we did “flip,” it felt more like we were juggling the traditional lecture around than moving forward into a new learning paradigm.

We began to shift

As I shifted my classroom from teacher-centred to student-centred, my students began to do lots of their their own research. Sometimes this resulted in them teaching each other. Sometimes they created a project with the knowledge they were acquiring. But the bottom line was that their learning had a purpose that was apparent to them, beyond simply passing the unit exam.

What was my role? I helped them learn to learn. I prompted them to reflect on their thinking and learning, while at the same time I shared my own journey as a learner. I helped them develop skills such as using research tools, finding and evaluating sources, and collaborating with their peers. My goal as a teacher shifted from information-giver and gatekeeper to someone who was determined to work myself out of a job by the time my students graduated.

The flip faded away

As this new way of learning played out over time, my students found they didn’t need me to locate or create videos for them. Instead, they learned how to learn, and they were able to find their own resources. For me, this was a much more important skill than following my directions or using the resources I told them to use.

As this shift occurred, the flip simply disappeared from our classroom. It took almost a year for me to notice it was gone. Instead, our classroom had become a place where students discovered and shared their own resources, while engaging in projects with each other. There was no need for me to assign video homework or create portable lectures. It all happened during class.

Lest anyone think we were able to do this because we learn in a high-tech school, that’s not the case. We weren’t a 1:1 classroom. We used whatever devices my students had, which often was a couple of iPads, a few computers, and student cell phones. There were students who didn’t have a device, so other students shared. We made it work and everyone learned.

The flip is gone for good

While I may not have intentionally removed the flip from my classroom, I would never resurrect it. Here’s why:

1) I dislike the idea of giving my students homework. Really? Yes. Students spend over five hours a day engaged in academic pursuits. I think that is enough. Recently I’ve been reading Alfie Kohn’s book The Homework Myth. He has mined the research on homework thoroughly, and — overwhelmingly — it shows that homework has no long-term impact on academic achievement. That’s likely shocking to some teachers.

But beyond this, I think there’s more to life than being engaged in academics. Students need to participate in a variety of pursuits — sports, music, drama, meaningful jobs — to fully develop all of their talents and discover areas of interest. Furthermore, students need to spend time with their families. What right do I have impinge on this?

2) A lecture by video is still a lecture. This summer I had the opportunity to speak with a superintendent from a division outside of my own. He was curious about the flipped classroom. We were with a group of educators and he asked if anyone present had used it. Since I was the teacher with the most experience with it, I spoke about what it looked like in our classroom. Mostly I talked about inquiry learning and student choice.

At the end, he looked at me and said, “So the videos — did you make your own, or use ones that someone else had made?” My immediate thought was, “you don’t get it.” I was candid: “If you think it’s only about the videos, then you have a really shallow definition of what this could be. The real power is when students take responsibility for their own learning.”

Of course, the reality is that many if not most teachers who opt for the flipped classroom strategy are not pursuing a student-centred approach to teaching and learning. The traditional model of learning is simply being reversed, instead of being reinvented. The lecture (live or on video) is still front and center.

Learning isn’t simply a matter of passively absorbing new information while watching a lecture on video; new knowledge should be actively constructed. When we shifted to a student-centred classroom, my students took control of their learning, and I quit lecturing. I haven’t lectured in almost two years.

3) I want my students to own their learning.  It’s been stated that “At its most basic level, the flipped classroom gives students more control over their educations, allowing them to start and stop or rewind important lectures to focus on key points.”  To me, this isn’t giving students control over their education, although it may be creating new markets for content-oriented videos and related materials.

In our classroom, we sit down with the curriculum, and students actually see what the outcomes and objectives are. We then have a dialogue about what my students’ learning might look like. They have a choice over what order they are going to work on outcomes, how they are going to learn and reach those outcomes, and how they are going to show me what they have learned.

As my students worked with me to invent our own version of student-centred learning, we realized that the three questions every student in our classroom had to answer were: What are you going to learn? How are you going to learn it? How are you going to show me your learning? This became our mantra — our framework for learning.  This is what it means to give students “control over their education.”

4) My students need to be able to find and critically evaluate their own resources.  Consequently, if I’m continuously handing them resources, they are not going to learn this skill. It’s more important for my students to learn to learn than to absorb the content in any video I might make and hand to them, with most of the thinking already done for them.

What did our classroom become instead?

Last year in my Chemistry class, our last unit was on Stoichiometry, which, essentially, is chemistry math.  We had approximately 10 concepts to learn in 8 weeks. Each concept built upon the other, so there was a specific route we had to follow for it to make sense. Beyond that, how we got there was completely open.

I told my students we had 10 concepts to learn in 8 weeks. They could work at their own pace, with whatever resources they chose, but in the end, we all needed to be done in 8 weeks when the semester ended. On the first day we all started in the same place. I had provided a rudimentary outline of the concepts we needed to study on our wiki (which we’d been using all semester to create our own digital textbook). My students chose the resources that helped them learn best. Throughout the 8 weeks, students sent me the ones they considered “best of the best,” and they were added to our online textbook. And it really was “ours.”

What happened over the coming days is that my students fanned out. Some shot ahead because they found the initial concepts quite easy. Others needed to hunker down to really grasp them. My students differentiated their own instruction. They worked at their own pace, since they chose their own resources. They could do extra work at home if they felt it necessary.

I talked to every student every day. I could look at their work, have them articulate their thinking process, and see where they were struggling. I could spend time helping those who really needed it. The thing I find about Chemistry is that many students lack the background knowledge to begin to make the neural connections that are essential for understanding it. Some students experience a great deal of cognitive dissonance, and when they do, we talk about that in the context of their brain development.

To work through the concepts, some chose on-line stoichiometry sites, others preferred pencil and paper, and still others constructed models of their thinking. One student decided to use a traditional textbook. The students who needed to talk through their thinking could do so with their peers or with me.

Essentially, they needed to construct theories as to how stoichiometry works, rather than watching a video and memorizing the equation. As Alfie Kohn states, a learning environment that promotes constructing knowledge “treats students as meaning makers and offers carefully calibrated challenges that help them to develop increasingly sophisticated theories. The point is for them to understand ideas from the inside out.”

That’s how most people learn best, learning things from the inside out, and I don’t think lecture videos promote this.

Was it chaotic?

No. The thing that I didn’t expect was that my students created flexible groups, depending on what they were working on. They found peers who were working on the same concept they were, so that they could help each other. Sometimes they realized who they couldn’t work with on a particular day, and found a different group of peers to work with instead. And to solidify what my students were learning, we engaged in hands-on activities and labs that actually used the Chemistry concepts they were studying.

For the first time, none of my students were left behind. Everyone learned Chemistry. Everyone received credit for the class. And my students became more adept at research, thinking, collaborating, problem solving, and reflecting on their own learning. Everyone finished on time.

It’s not about fads – it’s about ownership

I’ve learned that inquiry & PBL learning can be incredibly powerful in the hands of students. I would never teach any other way again.

When students own their learning, then deep, authentic, transformative things happen in a classroom. It has nothing to do with videos, or homework, or the latest fad in education. It has everything to do with who owns the learning.

For me, the question really is: who owns the learning in your classroom?

What Really Matters.

Today I had the privilege of attending the We Day Saskatchewan kick off announcement.  Saskatchewan will have it’s very first We Day on February 27th, 2013, in Saskatoon!  We Day kicks off a year long adventure that promotes and supports student activism through educational partnerships, curricular resources, a social media community and a plethora of other good things.  Students have the opportunity to earn tickets to the We Day event by participating in one local and one global social justice event or activity.  The aim of We Day is to help create global citizens. The day includes rock stars like Hedley and Justin Bieber and speakers as diverse as Jane Goodall, The Dalai Lama, and Elie Wiesel.  Imagine having your students listen to any of these speakers – the passion, awareness and empathy it would create.

Afterwards, the leaders of three school divisions in our province met with the staff of Free the Children, including Craig Kielburger to find out more specifics about We Day and how it works.  One of the leaders stated, “This is going to be a hard sell.” And then proceeded to list the numerous reasons why.  None of them good.

The thought that popped into my head was, “What?”  And I was faced with the terrible choice that I often am.  Am I quiet? Or am I honest?  I chose honest.  I said, “This isn’t going to be a hard sell. Kids are going to grab hold of this and run, and we’re going to have to decide if we’re going to keep up.”  Then I told them the story of when my students raised almost $23,000 in about 45 days.

That’s what students do when they’re passionate about something.  They make it happen. They make a difference. They change the world.  It’s also the reason why I love working with teenagers. Adults often believe that kids are apathetic.  And in some ways they are.  But I think it’s because we’ve relegated them to the role of consumers of garbage media and cheap merchandise, instead of providing them with life-giving and authentic roles that matter. We need to change that.  We need to focus on what really matters.

Is it our kids discovering what they’re passionate about? That their life matters now? That they really can make a difference, even if they are only 12 years old? And if it is, then we need to do what’s necessary to support that. This is who this generation is.  To be honest, I could care less if my students can balance a chemical equation, if they have no idea about what is going on in the world or feel no responsibility to help others who are in need.

Maybe we need to re-imagine what instruction and assessment look  like.  Maybe instruction can have the energy of  a rock concert. Maybe some of our ideas about teaching and learning are outdated. Two students involved with our campaign to raise money for schools spoke in front of hundreds of people to raise money and awareness.  If someone captured it on video, would it not be a better way to assess a student’s speaking skills than a classroom audience of 20?

I’ve found the reason most students aren’t activists is because they don’t know. And so in my classes, I begin to teach them. Not by yapping at them with a bunch of statistics.  I show them.  My students have learned about the issues that water shortages cause in Blue Gold and the slavery often involved in procuring coffee.  We look at the injustice involved in most of the blue jeans my students are wearing and the human rights issues that have ensnared Walmart – who’s really paying the price for those low prices?  Leonardo DiCaprios The 11th Hour looks at the causes of global warming and the solutions that might change our trajectory.  However, the most powerful video I’ve ever seen is Not My Life.  A shocking and honest look at the problem of modern human trafficking.

As a class, we watch four or five of these videos.  By about the third video, my students usually half jokingly say, “So what are you going to ruin for us today?” Then I know it’s starting to sink in.  The world isn’t quite how they thought it was.  Then I have them find the justice issue that matters to them. Sometimes it takes a bit, but they’ve always found something to care about.  And that’s the difference between activism and slacktivism.  When you care about something you don’t just press the Facebook like button, you do something to change things.

I’ve never done a big, “Let’s change the world” speech.  Instead, I’ve simply said to them, “We all have to be here for an hour. So what do you say we do something that matters.  Something that changes the world.”  I’ve never had a student say no.  And that’s what really matters.

The Difference

Two recent experiences have significantly impacted the way I think about teaching and learning and the importance of student autonomy and volition in our classrooms.

I recently had the opportunity to attend a PD seminar around embedding technology in the classroom.  A wonderful goal, really.  I think embedded tech is important; in fact, I think it should be the status quo in every classroom, every day.  I honestly think there’s little point to tech as an after thought so that we can say we’re doing something “techie”, as if that’s the goal instead of deep, authentic, transformative learning.

As I listened to the presenter, something didn’t sit right with me.  At first I couldn’t figure out what it was. So much of what was being said I agreed with.  Tech needs to be part of the entire learning process; social bookmarking during research, Google Docs to create a common document, collaboration between peers, the creation of technology projects –things that I advocate and have implemented in my own classroom. It wasn’t until talk turned to the importance of outlining  student objectives at the beginning of each class that it hit me — This is a teacher-centred classroom that’s being advocated  — the complete opposite of my own classroom.

As presenter and participants discussed the importance of  introducing students to the days objectives by posting them where students can see them, I thought, “”Why would I do that?” My students know what our objectives are because they’ve chosen them and they know how they’re going to be assessed because they construct the criteria.  Not that they can’t be posted, they can.  But who creates the objectives is even more important than where they’re posted.

And that’s when I realized — it’s not enough to embed technology.  It’s possible to embed technology in every aspect of teaching and learning and it still be a completely teacher-centred classroom.  The teacher in control of what is learned, how it’s learned and for a large part, how students show their learning. This needs to change.

The real power comes when students take responsibility and ownership for their learning — when they become co-creators of their learning experience, rather than their education being something that is done to them. This is where true student empowerment and engagement begins.

The second experience is somewhat along this same line.  It involved my two daughters.  Rebekah, who is 7, and Chloe, who is 4, were playing school. Rebekah was the teacher, and she’d spent a fair amount of time creating worksheets for Chloe. She was really proud of the work and effort that went into these magnificent artifacts of learning. Chloe, in her 4-year-old wisdom, didn’t want to do them. Why? They weren’t any fun.  Maybe we should have more 4-year-olds designing our educational system, but I digress.

Rebekah came to me completely distraught that Chloe wouldn’t jump through her hoops.  So I responded from my own experience as a teacher and said, “Well, why don’t you ask Chloe what she wants to learn about?”

Rebekah looked at me retorted, “That is not what school is like.”

“Well, that’s what my classroom is like.”

Quite emphatically she exclaimed with all of the authority that a seven-year-old can muster, “Well, all the years I’ve been at school I’ve never had a teacher like that.  Miss-so and-so didn’t do that, and Mrs. so-and-so didn’t do that. You sit in your desk and do what the teacher tells you. That’s how school works.” And she stomped away.

I knew the assimilation into factory schooling began pretty young, but I didn’t realize how much it had taken hold by grade 3.  It was honestly shocking to encounter it face to face, especially with my own daughter.  And to try to convince her that there was another way “to do” school was much like trying to convince her that fairies were real. Students aren’t really asked what they want to learn about. That’s a fairy tale.

We need to make this fairy tale a reality. Student-centred learning is powerful, transformative and life changing, for teachers and students.  I’ll be honest, it can be difficult and messy, but once you’ve experienced it, you’ll never go back.

One Thousand Gratitudes

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is
given us.– J.R.R Tolkien

Last June I wrote a post stating that I wouldn’t be spending the summer learning how to become a better teacher. After all, I already spend 10 months a year immersed in professional learning. The past couple of years I’ve come to a place where I want my summers to be about more than being a teacher.  Partially because I want my life to be balanced, but also because I honestly believe the most important quality I have to offer my students is being an adept and critically evaluative learner.  Alvin Toffler states, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”  My summer will be devoted to some of each.

My first summer challenge is developing a life of gratitude. What? I think most people are great at being thankful when it’s slotted on the calendar, like Thanksgiving day, but in my regular day in and day out life, it’s easy for me not to be grateful for all I have.

So although I’m not a journaling person, at least not in the traditional sense, I’ve started a list. My goal is to write down 1,000 things that I love.  Things that I’m incredibly thankful for that make my life rich and enjoyable.  The thing I’ve noticed so far is that the items on my list don’t tend to be “big” things. Most of them cannot be bought. A few examples:

6) The feel & smell of the cool earth as I garden.

18) Freshly picked strawberries –warm from the sun.

4) The freckles on my 4 yr. old daughter’s nose.

19) Driving to work past cows, fields of golden wheat rippling in the wind & expansive skies of blue.

I admit, at this point my list isn’t very long.  I’m still in double digits, but it’s a work in progress.  I write things down as they come to me, or more often, as I notice them. And I think that’s how it’s been most helpful; it’s helped me to stop and notice all that I have. I’m learning to pay attention.

My second challenge is learning about global and ecological economics.  Not the stuffy, academic, theoretical kind — the practical, why-this-matters-to-everyone kind.  I took a few economics classes in university, and haven’t really learned much about it since. However, with everything that’s going on globally, it’s pretty fascinating, and with what might be looming on the horizon, I also think it’s pretty important. Ecological economics looks at the true cost of all we produce and buy. Global economics looks at the intricacy, and quite truthfully the fragility, of our entwined economies. I’m learning that what I do, what I buy, and what I take for granted matters and affects lives other than my own.

Finally, my most difficult challenge is figuring out if our family can actually eat locally.  Seriously. For me, the whole organic, sustainable and local thing really matters. I’ve read numerous terrific books about it over the past couple of years.  And it’s something we’ve dabbled in, going to farmer markets during the summer and shopping occasionally at local organic stores. We’re also pretty fortunate that we already have local, sustainable sources for our beef, pork and chicken.

But now I’m talking the full deal.  Everything local, organic, sustainable. Here’s the thing – I live in Saskatchewan.  And for at least four months of the year, the climate is like frozen tundra, which means salad is off the table for almost half the year and bananas are out of the question.  So over the next two months I’ll try to figure out what does it really look like to eat like this? How do we do that year round? What are the sacrifices our family will have to make and are we willing to make them? These aren’t easy questions, but to me they’re important ones.

So that’s what I’m doing this summer. I’m pursuing the questions that matter most to me. I’m learning, unlearning, and relearning, and likely failing a lot, too, along the way.

A Wicked Problem

We have a wicked problem.  According to design theory, a wicked problem is one that is difficult, if not impossible, to solve because it is ill-defined and amorphous. Consequently, there is no simple or clear solution, or one correct answer.  The “rules” don’t work to solve it.

The problem? Our current education system.  This past weekend I had the privilege of participating in ConnectEd Canada, held at Calgary Science School, a school built entirely on inquiry.  I was able to spend time observing the classes in session, and what I saw amazed me. An entire student body deeply engaged in learning, doing work that mattered, and articulate and aware of the process and their learning. How often does that happen? Not often enough, and that’s the problem.

I went to the conference with one question in mind, “Can this be replicated in any school, or does it need to be built intentionally from scratch with this idea in mind?” I found my answer. I honestly think it can happen anywhere, but a few things have to be present.

Calgary Science School functions as it does because of its culture, and this largely hinges on the administration.  It’s a culture that requires sharing and collaboration, open-ended questions and deep engagement. Schools need administrators that are visionaries not simply managers. Being an administrator shouldn’t be about controlling teachers and students or maintaining the status quo; instead, it should be about unleashing a school’s potential. Maybe we need to start hiring a different kind of administrator than in the past. Maybe earning a Master’s degree doesn’t denote that someone is a competent leader. Maybe we need to start looking for pedagogical leaders who have a deep understanding of what is best for kids, who are able to ask tough questions and have difficult conversations for the purpose of establishing the learning environment our kids need.

So what does this look like? Students need learning environments that deeply engage them in work that matters. Enough with the worksheets. Seriously. Worksheets don’t provide the rigorous environment that our students need for their brains to develop to their full potential, or sometimes, at all.

Kids need experiences that encourage myelination. Quite simply, myelin is the white fatty coating that acts like insulation on a wire and allows signals to move faster, while making it less likely they’ll leak out. However, myelination is a process and much depends on how students use their brains.  Connections that are continually used develop thick myelin sheaths that allow for better brain signals and create thick neural nets. There’s a reason neuroscience has the adage, ”connections that fire together, wire together.” Kids become better problem solvers and more efficient at their own learning, if they spend a great deal of time doing so.

But here’s the thing, neuroscience research suggests that active engagement is necessary for learning. When learning occurs, it tends to enlarge the parts of the brain it continually uses; we call this plasticity. Worksheets don’t do this, nor does sitting in a classroom passively hearing a lecture.  Research has shown that passively listening to lectures doesn’t even tend to alter the auditory cortex.  So how does this happen? Student-centred, inquiry learning.

I get that changing things is hard. I’ve done it, and I’m still engaged in the process. There were times during the transformation of my classroom that the learning curve was so steep I thought I was going to shatter into a million pieces. There were other times it felt disasterous, but here’s the thing, we all survived. It’s hard to change; It’s hard to wrap our minds around something so foreign to the traditional school system so many of us are products of, but our students need us to engage in the hard work.  I’ve found over and over that students are not only gracious during our learning process, they also do amazing things to give us the courage to continue on.

Finally, we need to encourage and support the risk-takers and innovators in our school systems. Too often the status-quo is supported because of the comfort level it affords. As Brian Harrison stated in a recent blog post, “…it is clear to me that we cannot sustain a great system of public education by rewarding those in our schools and systems who do not innovate at the cost of those who do.”  Too often those who are engaging students in meaningful learning close their doors, so they can do what is best for their students. Why? To reduce the backlash from others. I know. I’ve done it, and I’ve listened to the stories of many other educators who have experienced this same phenomenon. If we truly want to do what is best for kids, we need to support teachers who willingly engage the messy landscape of student-centred learning.

The wicked problems ones are the only ones worth pursuing, not only for us, but our students too. Given the chance, my students willing and enthusiastically partnered with me to create the educational environment they needed. It wasn’t easy, but it was entirely worth every difficult moment.

Picture courtesy of cc, flickr: DonnaGrayson

Flipping Bloom’s Taxonomy

I think the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy is wrong.

Hear me out. I know this statement sounds heretical in the realms of education, but I think this is something we should rethink, especially since it is so widely taught to pre-service teachers.  I agree that the taxonomy accurately classifies various types of cognitive thinking skills. It certainly identifies the different levels of complexity. But its organizing framework is dead wrong.  Here’s why.

Old-school Blooms: Arduous climb for learners

Conceived in 1956 by a group of educators chaired by Benjamin Bloom, the taxonomy classifies skills from least to most complex. The presentation of the Taxonomy (in both the original and revised versions) as a pyramid suggests that one cannot effectively begin to address higher levels of thinking until those below them have been thoroughly addressed. Consequently (at least in the view of many teachers who learned the taxonomy as part of their college training) Blooms becomes a “step pyramid” that one must arduously try to climb with your learners. Only the most academically adept are likely to reach the pinnacle. That’s the way I was taught it.

Many teachers in many classrooms spend the majority of their time in the basement of the taxonomy, never really addressing or developing the higher order thinking skills that kids need to develop. We end up with rote and boring classrooms. Rote and boring curriculum. Much of today’s standardized testing rigorously tests the basement, further anchoring the focus of learning at the bottom steps, which is not beneficial for our students.

I dislike the pyramid because it creates the impression that there is a scarcity of creativity — only those who can traverse the bottom levels and reach the summit can be creative. And while this may be how it plays out in many schools, it’s not due to any shortage of creative potential on the part of our students.

I think the narrowing pyramid also posits that our students need a lot more focus on factual knowledge than creativity, or analyzing, or evaluating and applying what they’ve learned. And in a Google-world, it’s just not true.

Here’s what I propose. In the 21st century, we flip Bloom’s taxonomy. Rather than starting with knowledge, we start with creating, and eventually discern the knowledge that we need from it.

Blooms 21: Let’s put Creating at the forefront

In media studies we often look at the creation of print and digital advertisements. Traditionally, students learn many of the foundational principles for creating a layout through a lecture or text book reading, and then eventually create their own.

What if we started with creativity rather than principles? My students start with the standard elements of an advertisement (product photo, copy, logo etc.)  and create a mockup.  Then students evaluate their mock-up by comparing their ads to a few professional examples and  discuss what they did right and wrong in comparison to what they’ve seen.

As students are pointing out design elements that work, we begin to analyze for similarities and divide them accordingly into groups. Most will likely fall into the four design principles of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. At this point, students compile their findings as a class, and only then are the four design principles formally introduced.

Now students can apply what they’ve learned as they return to their own mock-up and fix elements based on the design principles they’ve begun to absorb.

Finally, students research the four design principles to flesh out their understanding where needed, and possibly correct any misconceptions. From this research, students create their own graphic organizer of the four design principles for future reference and to help them remember.  We started with creativity and ended with the knowledge my students have curated. They’ve been engaged with the entire process from start to finish, and my students have make some significant decisions about the essential knowledge they need.

Blooms 21 works great in science

Not only does flipping Blooms work for classes like media studies,  it also blends beautifully with my inquiry-based Chemistry class.

As we study science, I’ve come to realize that it’s very important for my students to encounter a concept before fully understanding what’s going on. It makes their brain try to fill in the gaps, and the more churn a brain experiences, the more likely it’s going to retain information.

When we study ionic compounds, we start with a lab. My students begin by creating conductivity testers out of tin foil, batteries, and mini Christmas lights. Students then create their own lab and test 10-12 different substances, from salt water, to HCL, to sugar water, to check which substances conduct electricity. Usually, about half of the solutions provided do.

I have them compare their findings to how scientists usually categorize these solutions. Sometimes, solutions that are supposed to conduct electricity, don’t.  So providing the results of experts helps them to have more confidence in their own results.

However, it’s not enough to discover which substances conduct electricity. I want them to try to figure out why. With the results my students have obtained, they analyze their findings. By dividing the solutions into appropriate categories, students often discern that the solutions that conduct electricity are made up of two elements and the elements combined are found on opposite sides of the periodic table, such as NaCl. They also realize that solutions that don’t conduct, such as sugar, are usually made of elements found on the same side of the table.

Once they begin to analyze each solution’s makeup more closely, they tend to realize that conductive solutions are, for the most part, made up of a metal and non-metal, whereas solutions that don’t conduct usually don’t contain any metals. Once they’ve exhausted this activity, I introduce the concepts of ionic and covalent bonds to label each category.

Then students re-evaluate their own findings and apply their learning by fixing elements in their categorization system.

At this point, my students research ionic and covalent bonds, either through cooperative research, or by using the flipped classroom model, to fill out their findings with information about the characteristics of each type of bond, such as malleability, boiling and melting points, etc. They’re essentially creating their own notes.

And in English class . . .

Flipping Blooms — putting Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing and Applying first — also works in English.  From what I can tell, it’s likely the easiest route to creating a flipped English classroom. In the past, I’ve struggled to teach my students concepts such as grammar rules and abstract ideas like voice. Flipping Blooms makes this much easier.

I begin with having my students write a paragraph, either in response to a prompt or their own free writing. Next, students, working in small groups or pairs, evaluate several master texts for the criteria we’re working on. How does the writer use punctuation or voice in a particular text? What similarities are there between texts? Students then compare their own writing with each text. What did they do correctly or well? How does their writing differ and to what effect?

As a class, or in their groups, we analyze the pieces for similarities and differences and group them accordingly. Only then do I introduce the concept of run-on sentences, comma splices, and fragments. Essentially, through this process, my students identify the criteria for good writing. From this, we’re able to co-construct criteria and rubrics for summative assessments.

Students then apply what they’ve learned by returning to their own writing. They change elements based on the ideas they’ve encountered.

Students further their understanding by either listening to a podcast, or engaging in their own research of grammar rules. Finally, as the knowledge piece, students create a graphic organizer/infographic or a screencast that identifies the language rules they’ve learned.

I think the best flipped classrooms work because they spend most of their time creating, evaluating and analyzing. In  a sense we’re  creating the churn, the friction for the brain, rather than solely focusing on acquiring rote knowledge. The flipped classroom approach is not about watching videos. It’s about students being actively involved in their own learning and creating content in the structure that is most meaningful for them.

Blooms 21 actively places learning where it should be, in the hands of the learner.

What’s neuroscience got to do with education?

A few weeks ago I completed my Masters in Ed. Technology, and this fall, I have the good fortune to be starting my PhD, at the University of Regina, with Alec Couros. I couldn’t  ask for a better supervisor.  But here’s my dilemma; I can’t seem to find the classes I need.

I’d like to focus on neuroplasticity (the fancy term for how the brain shapes itself, and reshapes itself, as it learns), learning and technology.  But here’s the rub, in education we  seem to rarely talk about the brain unless it doesn’t work “properly”.  Classes centred on the brain at the graduate level in education tend to be Ed. Psych classes, rather than dealing with learning and plasticity or metacognition.

Consequently, I’ve had to look elsewhere for classes.  I’ve literally spent hours scouring the internet trying to find on-line neuroscience classes.  There are dozens of high calibre neuroscience Masters & PhD programs. However, it seems neuroscience is one the few areas not offered in an on-line format.  So, for the moment, I’m stuck as to how I’m actually going to complete this degree.

I’d like to pursue this area because I believe it’s critically important to students and their learning. In my classroom, I tend to use content to teach skills.  I think most content is interchangeable, it’s skills, like problem-solving, collaboration, and critical evaluation that my students need to learn.  Except in one area– their brain.

If we deeply desire the learning in our classrooms to be student-centred, then the most important content they need to learn is how their brain works.  Starting in Kindergarten, all the way through to grade 12.  They need to learn how it morphs and changes as they learn and grow. In math, our students need to learn what the brain is doing when it learns math and struggles with abstract concepts.  And what the brain does when it reads — how the imagination required in stories helps it to wrinkle.  Or when it’s trying to problem-solve and experiences cognitive overload.  Students need to know that cognitive dissonance is perfectly normal, and that neural pathways can be reinforced through practice, or that negative pathways can be reshaped through a process called reattribution.

I wonder how many of our students know that their behaviour is cognitively based and their emotions are biologically based, both are areas that students can learn to gain control over through a skill building process called self-regulation. I also wonder how much the average teacher knows about the brain and how it works.  From the availability of neuroscience classes in most faculties of education, I tend to think, in most cases, it’s very little.

And that’s a problem. Teaching students about the intricacies of their brain fosters self-efficacy and helps them take control of their learning in ways many currently aren’t.   It may help end erroneous thinking like, “She’s smart and I’m not”  or “I’m just not a math person”.  When, for some of our students, their brains simply aren’t ready to do the math.

I believe, if we want our students to be independent thinkers and learners, they need to know how they think and learn. It’s really the most important thing we can teach them.

Photo courtesy of flickr cc: alles-schlumpf

E-Journalism: an experiment

For the past four months, a colleague and I have been working with a student e-journalism team that provided mobile coverage of the 17th Rural Education Congress, held in Saskatoon at the end of March. Our students put in hours of their time editing, re-editing, interviewing, blogging, vlogging, and taking pictures.  In fact, the first night, most of our students were up until 5 am uploading and editing work, and then were back at the conference by 8:00 am. Throughout the conference, we introduced educators to QR codes, including a Lego version that worked, Twitter hashtags, and also created a virtual wall that iphone owners could leave messages on. It was amazing.

In truth, our students did such a remarkable job that when we approached the planning committee of the Early Childhood Education conference, being held in Moose Jaw at the beginning of May, to ask if we could cover their conference, our offer was gladly accepted.  So we’ll be doing it again. But this got me thinking, what if we established a permanent e-journalism team and offered it as a class, so that students can learn the subtleties and nuance of digital writing and publishing, while allowing them to actually use their skills at real events? What if school becomes real life?

I pitched the idea to our Superintendent of Learning, and to make a long story short, I’ll be teaching an online ejournalism course this fall.  Essentially, it will be a pilot project involving a cohort of 12-15 students, from around our division.  Our school division is largely rural, and many of these schools struggle to offer a variety of electives. This may help a bit.

E-journalism will be the first course of its kind for our division. We’re trying to see what the possibilities are for implementing a course like this long term.  While it will be run through Prairie South’s Virtual School, it will have face to face events that students will collaborate on and it will earn students a special project credit.

The class will have three foci: social media, multimedia journalism and global communication. I’m hoping, for each section, to invite experts into our classroom, via Elluminate, so that my students can learn from experts around the globe.  No longer does where someone live need to determine who they receive their education from, or even the quality of the education they receive. Additionally,  for the global communication section, students will collaborate on journalism pieces with students from other parts of the world, providing diverse perspectives to work with. Our world is no longer as small as it used to be. Students will also be required to critically evaluate current events and explore the world of photo journalism.

But here’s the best part, since it’s a special project credit, even though students will learn as a cohort, each student course will be designed and tailored to student interest. No two programs will be the same. Some may wish to learn more about creating multimedia, while others may want to focus on blogging and social media. Each project will have a component designed by the student taking it. Our students need to learn to design their own learning experience. And, of course, part of it is to prepare students to work together  face to face, in a situation that adds pressure and real deadlines – where the cohort will need to collaborate and rely on one another.

I love the idea of school being real life, expanding the boundaries of student learning and thinking, as well as creating new possibilities for future students too. And I’m incredibly fortunate to be part of it, and to be part of a division that is willing to take risks to advance student learning. Another new adventure begins!

The Ethics of Learning

During the past week, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with several textbook distributors. I’ll be honest with you – I hate textbooks. I think they limit student creativity, and do for the student, albeit to a much lesser degree, what our students should learn to do for themselves — that is create personal learning environments.

Not that I think a text is a personal learning environment; it’s not.  Instead, it’s usually a prepackaged summation of all the content someone has decided our students should memorize.

However, in our current digital environment students need to be able to critically evaluate resources and collate the best in a way that facilitates and supports their learning.  Using wikis, blogs, or any other digital platform students can create their own texts complete with videos, notes, links, pictures, etc, tailored to their learning preferences.  A far cry from the standard textbook.

Yet few students have teachers who know how to facilitate this type of learning and others may choose not to.  How do we begin to bridge this gap?

Many textbook distributors offer on-line versions of their text that allow interactive material and student choice. In math, students can access videos and other interactive media that help explain or further explore a concept.  One of the distributors showed us the online version of their English texts. Every section contains on-line supplemental material that allows for student choice and  is frequently updated.  Students can further explore the concepts they are interested in, putting control where it should be — with the student. While I don’t think this is as good as a text custom created by each student, as one of my colleagues wisely states, it’s a start.

Yet here’s the question. How do we get these resources into the hands of students?  Often resources are vetted by teachers.  And too often resource selection is based on teacher’s personal preference, one that likely perpetuates a teacher-centerd classroom, rather than what might be best for student learning.

I wonder if there’s ever a point, as an administration or a division, when you choose to bypass the teacher and directly offer the choice to students — after all it is their learning. Do we choose to offer resources that are student-centred and provide student choice and control?

I also wonder how long it will be until students rebel and demand the education and resources they deserve.

Confessions of a Learning Consultant

I feel like a fake. I don’t really know how to do my job, and that’s difficult. I’ve thought that I should consider changing the name of my blog from Wright’sroom to Lamentations, considering the amount of struggle that surfaces here lately.

I don’t feel like a consultant, and I don’t have any idea what it would feel like if I did.  I don’t remember if I felt this way when I was a beginning teacher –that was awhile ago.  I attend meetings with other consultants, who have an extensive knowledge of their area, and I feel like I have little to offer in comparison.  I think to myself, “I can see why they have their job; how in the world did I get hired?” And I’ve considered that maybe I should just go back to my classroom.

What makes it difficult is that I’ve left a role I knew so well, even in the midst of an inquiry classroom that had just fallen apart. I knew who I was. I had a solid identity as a teacher. I knew and loved my students. But I think the bigger thing is that I had agency. I was able to empower myself to make changes and my students to become learners. I’ve discovered that’s a really important thing.

In my current position, I feel like I have little agency. The question often asked is, “how do we help teachers create student-centred classrooms?” How do we help them make the shift?

I’m not sure how many teachers are aware there’s been a shift. I know for a number of years I didn’t.  I ran a pretty decent teacher-centred classroom, not because I thought it was the best option, for me it was the only option I knew of.

Part of the problem is that we continue to perpetuate the system. Our universities continue to graduate teachers who establish traditional classrooms.  Why? That’s what they know. How many inquiry/PBL/flipped/tech-centred university classrooms exist?  Tech classes are considered electives, and until education programs begin to produce teachers who are student-centred, we’re going to have to continue to help teachers unlearn and relearn this teaching thing.

The other night I was discussing my new position with a friend; he used to be a consultant for the health region.  He posed the question, “If your time was money, where would it best be invested, and are you investing it there now?”

Wow. The first thought that came to my head was, “well, I’m creating an inquiry/PBL wiki.”  But to be honest, I couldn’t bring myself to say those words. They sounded hollow, almost pedantic.  My second thought was, “Really? You think you’re going to create change with a wiki? All the wikis in the world won’t create change.” So instead I mumbled something about needing to think about it.

“If your time was money, where would it best be invested?” This question has haunted me for days. The answer that I’ve come up with is people. Find teachers in the division who want to shift their classroom and invest heavily in them. I think the key to this is being real about what a student-centred classroom is really like.  Messy. Disastrous at times. And likely the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But exhilarating, like you never thought teaching could be.

Start with 5 teachers. Invest in the infrastructure they need. Maybe it’s round tables painted with whiteboard paint, so that students can draw & collaborate, instead of rows of desks. Maybe it’s technology.  Maybe it’s training.  But this in itself won’t make the difference.

The difference is investing heavily with time. Right from the beginning of the year, sitting down and planning the first unit together, walking through what an inquiry, student-centred unit looks and feels like. Brainstorming the possibilities as a team. Facilitating the use of technology. I think once teachers hear the possibilities, they get excited and begin to envision what it can look like too.

Teachers have the same difficulties as our students. It can be hard to envision something other than what you’ve always known.

After planning, team teach the first unit together. It might mean as a consultant being there every morning for the first couple of weeks, so that teachers can learn and grow in confidence, as we facilitate their learning.  So that they’re not left alone when things fall apart, like inquiry classes inevitably do, causing them to retreat to what they know “works”.  Helping with prep. Helping with assessment. Helping students unlearn and relearn, as necessary.

This requires an ongoing, working relationship, and it needs to be a priority. The intention is to slowly work your way out of the job — at least with that particular teacher. That was my goal as a senior highschool teacher. I scaffolded as necessary, and then worked my way out of a job as my students became confident, self-sufficient learners.

To me, this is the solution that’s sustainable in the long run. While it creates small change at first, it holds the possibility of creating lasting change.  And I wonder, if the investment occurred year after year, that there might be a tipping point.

But this idea isn’t easy.  It’s certainly not cheap. And it’s likely only for the brave. There’s also no guarantee it will work.

I don’t think there’s a silver bullet to fix education, to shift classrooms, and sustain change. I think only a great deal of hard work, struggle and creativity will do that.

Photo courtesy of Flickr cc: Martin Gommel