Spilling Out …

Had the opportunity to speak with Jill Bolte-Taylor the other day. She is one of the currently rising stars on TED.com with her discussion of her “stroke of insight.” She is a neuroanatomist who had a stroke and recovered. From her experience she is able to inspire us all to rebuild our minds by taking a “step to the right” — this means that we all have the capacity to engage our conscious control over our brain plasticity to build new circuitry compatible with a peaceful and content outlook on life. I wrote about this in so sense at www.vision.org. Look up the special report on the brain. I thank Scott Smith for the heads-up on Taylor. Outlining a curriculum map evaporates into insignificance when we think about the potentials embedded within each of us. We would do better by mapping our own existence, our own patterns of thought, and then excising those that are incompatible with peacemaking and contentment.

Spring break is the time for doing all the work that did not get done. This is a reminder to self - self, get everything caught up over the next 6 days.

The mealworm project has begun. Join the mealworm myspace and be my friend. I am hoping that students will keep their mealworm metamorphosis diary (baby book) online in the comment section of this space. We will see what happens. Send me a friend request.

Online with Sam   The internet makes me concerned.  While our children may be connected, are they retarding in their ability to interact with real people?  Here, I started my camera about a minute after my daughter began breakfast on the internet.�

Technology InterviewTechnology Interview    In this audio interview with CUE President Scott Smith, your host speaks about technology in the classroom and his experiences over the past 25 years. Of particular interest is his philosophy of teaching science – that it must be constructed from the ground up, that is students should be taught the content prior to discussions concerning previous misunderstandings and misconceptions.

The current readings (more assessment, 7 practices, scaffolding) about assessment and feedback driving the teaching and re-teaching are rather mindless, preaching to the choir. Teachers know when information is being assimilated and when it is not. Most of the time, it is not. This is not for lack of imaginative and engaging delivery on the part of the instructor; it is because increasing numbers of today’s students find no relevance to classroom content. Is this because the classroom is not technologically savvy? No. It is simply that there is little reason to learn at all. We live is a “HAVE IT YOUR WAY” culture. Children see little relevance in the material they are required to sit through. Society has bequeathed upon them (and at ever younger ages) the power of choice. Parents can no longer enforce their instructions upon their children for fear of charges of “abuse.” Teachers have even less leverage. It is interesting in all of these readings that most of the research base is post-1980s. I wonder why that is so? Could people not learn previously? Has “learning theory” really helped anyone? Were drop out rates high in the (fill in the date) because teaching methods were uninformed, Neanderthal? No. The bright blubs of the university education department have created a plethora of excuses for the educationally disinclined to remain so. Just as the drug industry has created chemicals to alter the minds of the “restless” and distractible, the educational higher ups have created more ways for students to disfunction — ways to blame this on the teaching. Either we must change the whole of the school industry to match up with the culture, or allow greater choice so that parents who recognize that the current system cannot meet the needs of their children (ie: truly educate them) have someplace to turn.

Content Collaboratively Created is a crazily creepy concept. Certainly the “read-write” web offers an incredible opportunity to improve education, what students can be offered, and what they can independently pursue. The problem that remains, however, is that we really are not in a time of educational change. We are doing the same things (and simply trying to do the same things better, whatever that means — see NCLB) that we have done for more than a century: industrialize school to produce a uniform product. Sir Ken Robinson in his TED talk brings the horror of this home. If you have not watched it yet, do so immediately. (Do NOT wait until the sixth week of the JJ course.) It may well take a generation to get out of what we have been doing in the classroom so that we have children (and their parents) that are able to work creatively and independently such that the resources of the web can truly be maximized. Very few of my students today, for instance, have the basic literacy skills or personal motivation necessary to interact independently with school content. Some do, but I could not gather 30 out of my day to make even one classroom of students who would desire to excel in science using technology. Most kids are just so bored — Why? Not sure — the “switches” are just glued “off.” There are many factors involved, but I believe that most of the students I see cannot be stirred up to achieve anything at this time. Maybe tomorrow. But not now. Figuring that all out is another study altogether.Unfortunately what all of the “big shifts” rely on is greater independence of both teacher and student. It will be very difficult to create a school “system” where open content, “where” learning, conversation, etc. can be systematized. Everything now is moving toward greater control, more testing, more uniformity and less teacher personality and affectation. (The text for the new assessment course was written in 1998! Performance Assessment in the NCLB world? Don’t even think about it. Yes, a decade ago the buzz was individualization. With access to the web, it is still the same buzz, but nothing about the system has changed. It’s all about a score, not knowledge, not the needs of real individuals.) Science and numbers remove emotion and personal connection; affect is too tough a variable. We (meaning the powers that design and control how school functions, again, see Robinson) are scientizing and therefore sanitizing the classroom with scripted teaching, curriculum mapping, standardized testing, API, AYP-bound mandates — all tools of uniformity. Differentiation is simply a background buzz that puts the onus on the teacher if the needs of every individual in an overstuffed classroom of 35 are not met as measured by not all scoring equally on the multiple choice test. I don’t see anything changing. Where are the shifting sands? It seems all locked down pretty tight to me. My hope is that this all will eventually come loose and there will be room again to rebuild how education proceeds. We do need a reconsideration of the implicit curriculum because it is what drives the explicit. And we cannot achieve the things we explicitly want — measured achievement — without a total re-evaluation of how we expect to get there using the new tools available in this new century of education. So of course I agree with Richardson’s statement that “We are at the beginning of a radically different relationship” not only with the internet, but with students, culture, business, and society as well. But all this is not simply about “improving student learning.” That is where his sights a too low. We are in a time where the whole enterprise of education is teetering and able to be changed. I am not B. Obama here, just spouting “change” as a convenient rallying point. The resources that electronic media have opened to us today radically shifts both the form and structure and responsibility of education. It is a move away from the collective, from the big room, from the rote, from the industrial model. It is a move toward an open, independent, creative, individualized model that really can help every person become more complete. Every student can have his own personal teacher. The first should be his parent. The second should be a professional trained to help that individual find his way. The third should be a public building to which all may come to have access to dynamic relationships with other humans both through personal interaction and online relationships with the world at a distance. �

I am intrigued by the idea of this site and what it can do for me in assembling material both for school and for personal projects. For school, if the thing works out as I try it first for my own work, having a place to save bookmarks or course materials could be very helpful. This will be especially true as more coursework becomes internet-based. Right now I see few students interested in using the net as a learning tool, a platform to build an educational connection. Only 18 (but this is a good number) connected to the Curious blog to do some extra credit work. I’ll have to give this all a try for a bit before I can really see how it could play out for students. As for differentiation, I believe anything that provides students with more choices in their work is good. But again, how furling will add to this base is to be seen and a work in progress.

I sure like these RSS feeds! The news one can get. Check out the wonders of the year of the rat. When’s that flight to the Bejing Olympics?

The wiki I set up has not worked out very well. The more I think about it, the less I like the idea of having students post and edit information. But blogging seems to be working, at least a bit. Students are beginning to post answer to an in-class question on the Curious blog site. We will see how this progresses. Still to work on delicious.