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  • 06:00:09 am on September 10, 2010 | Comments Off on Creation of New Knowledge | # |

    “Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” -B. F. Skinner

    The standardized assessments we often use to judge the success or failure of students & schools is based largely upon the ability of students to mechanically regurgitate facts. Most teachers would argue that knowledge and facts are two different things.

    “New knowledge” does not necessarily mean bringing brand new information into the world (although it could!) The new knowledge we speak of refers to ideas and understandings that are new to the student. The powerful part of the phrase comes earlier though, as we say “Creation” or “Construction” of the new knowledge.

    Our lives are an ocean of raw information that exists in the form of facts, figures, rules, information, images, ideas of others, and other stimuli. Some of what we encounter fits with what we already understand. Some does not. In these cases we have to evaluate whether this new information is valuable to us or not. We know that real learning happens within this process of thinking critically about information and constructing our own understanding.

    How can we foster this process of creating new knowledge? By starting with the ideas of the students, instead of starting with facts as they are generally understood outside of our classroom. (Like in the textbooks or on the internet.)

    We can begin by asking the big, worldly questions that spark interest or discussion amongst students, instead of beginning by presenting information that is already evaluated (by the world) and presented as fact. “Why is grass green instead of blue?” “Why don’t more people choose to live in rural Nebraska?” “If you started a bank, why should people use yours instead of another one?”

    At that point we step out of the way and allow students to put their own ideas and thoughts out there, then we guide them through the process of investigating their own ideas. Are they accurate? Are they supportable with facts? Do they have any data? Has anyone else had a similar idea? Where can they do further research?

    We never really “own” knowledge until we know something well enough to debate its’ merits or teach it to another person. If there has not been a significant use of technology up to this point in your project, this is where the technology could step in. Using presentation tools, movie making software, animations, drawings, writing, video cameras, or any other technologies available in your building, ask students to explain their ideas and findings to an audience.

    Creation of new knowledge does not have to take the form of a project, and student use of technology is not a necessity. You can start a lesson with a video clip and ask leading questions. You can use a magazine article, a piece of music, an old saying, any sort of thinking device that piques the curiosity of students. The act of beginning a lesson with a question instead of a statement causes cognitive dissonance – a gap in knowledge. As human beings, your students will be compelled to tune-in and pay closer attention until they figure out the answer. It is the critical thinking process of getting there that holds the power. This can be accomplished in the span of a single class period in many cases.

    One way to evaluate whether students have gained new knowledge is to pre-test. A formative assessment before they begin can help you with informed instruction methods during their new learning while offering a baseline of information to compare against with post-lesson assessment.

    The assessment of new learning can also come from the products created by the authentic assignments you asked them to complete. The task you have as an evaluator is not to be distracted by the products themselves. You are looking for documentation of learning, not technology use. Specifically, you want them to include the data that they decided was not useful, and why.

    Another crazy idea might be to ASK your students. At the end of the lesson, ask them to write down what was covered in class today that they already knew, and what they feel like they understand now. It sounds simple enough, but students love the opportunity to tell you what they already knew, and that makes it easier to tack on what they (perhaps begrudgingly) learned today.

     

  • 06:00:07 am on September 9, 2010 | Comments Off on Divergent Thinking Opportunities | # |

    “I reject your reality and insert my own!” -Adam Savage

    For the exact same reasons that we need to introduce opportunities for creative expression and use an inquiry model we also need to go out of our way to create situations in which divergent thinking is rewarded and valued. Situations in which there are many right answers are few and far between in our traditional educational system.

    Divergent thinking can arise in many ways. For example “brainstorming,” the process of generating as many different possibilities as possible, without giving any one idea a great amount of focus, is a divergent thinking exercise. After spending as much time as is needed to brainstorm a set of ideas, we often review them and place them back into categories, a convergent activity.

    Divergent thinking also ties into metaphorical learning, in which there are no right or wrong answers and students are left to prove their ideas by supporting them with their knowledge of the subject. This divergent, or metaphorical knowledge often comes about when students are asked their opinions on a topic. This type of processing promotes real learning in a way that mechanical regurgitation of facts does not.

    Evelyn S. Zent, an instructor at the University of Washington, suggests the following types of activities for stimulating divergent thinking in a classroom; brainstorming,journaling, freewriting, mind (or concept) mapping. Luckily, there are technologies that make each of these methods much easier or more engaging.

    • Brainstorming can happen on websites like WallWisher or via google forms.
    • Journaling can happen (either publically or privately) in a blogging tool.
    • Freewriting can happen with word processing applications on your desktop, or in Google Docs.
    • Concept mapping software exists in desktop tools like Inspiration or Kidspiration as well as websites like bubbl.us.

    Beyond these situations, we can promote divergent thinking by asking divergent questions. These are questions in which students are asked to predict, hypothesize, infer, or reconstruct. These often include phrases like:

    • If… then: “If the South had won the Civil War, what would be different about Nebraska today?”
    • Imagine/Suppose: “Can you imagine a world without animals? How would it be different?”
    • Predictions/Guesses: “What would President Lincoln say about the immigration issues we’ve discussed if he were alive today?”

    These sort of questions are well suited to being answered creatively through video responses, musical compositions, parodies, reenactment in alternative settings, script writing, poetry, etc.

    The evaluation of any creative endeavor by students should be focused upon the learning on display, not on the use of the tools or the quality of the final products. (Unless the core subject is the use technology.) If the student has not synthesized the information and presented new ideas, the prettiest pictures or fanciest slideshows, or most inspiring movie soundtracks should not convince you that learning took place.

     

  • 06:00:16 am on September 8, 2010 | Comments Off on Opportunities to Express Creativity | # |

    “Creativity is the permission to be original all day, every day.” – Peter Reynolds

    “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never create something original.” – Sir Ken Robinson

    Sir Ken Robinson is one of a growing chorus of experts who help us to see that the education process in America stigmatizes wrong answers so much that we rob our students of the opportunity to be genuinely creative. Yet we know that creativity is the highest level of intellectual behavior (see updated Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives). Any opportunity that we as teachers can present students to honor their innate willingness to put new ideas out for consideration should be embraced.

    There is a rich palette of technological tools available to students in schools today for creating the types of products we have never experienced before. Drawing and painting software, presentation tools, video cameras, audio recorders, sound editing tools, word processors, these are all opportunities for a student to express their learning in a differentiated ways.

    When focused on creativity, you might benefit from NOT discussing what kind of product students will make, instead focusing on what they intend to communicate to their audience. Once that is established, discuss possible modes of delivery. Bernajean Porter is a thought leader in this area, and you can find more information on this type of instructional process at her site  http://www.digitales.us/evaluating/index.php .

    Porter also focuses on the evaluating of projects that rely upon creative thinking. She suggests that we do not get distracted by the quality of the product. Instead, we should assess the rigor of learning on display within the product. You want to look for examples of original thought, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking, forced relationships, formulation, design, and development.

     

  • 06:00:28 am on September 7, 2010 | Comments Off on Ethical Use of Information | # |

    “The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.” -Zig Ziglar

    The Internet makes access to information as easy and common as breathing. As adults, and Educators, we have a strong sense of intellectual property, and the ethics of what is appropriate use and inappropriate use of the information we collect. Students do not possess this understanding innately. We must model and instruct our students in these areas.

    Certainly this topic includes the issues around plagiarism and proper citation, but it also encompasses copyright and evaluation of resources for bias and appropriateness.

    While we as Educators work under a veil of “fair use” protection in our face-to-face interactions with students, it is imperative that we model and instruct students on copyright related issues. This includes imparting of the understanding that the person who creates something new (writing, photographs, music, art, etc.) is the owner of that intellectual property and can decide how others are allowed to use it.

    In our current “digital age” where access to student access to powerful tools is prevalent, this is a two way street where students are both the consumers of products created by others, and increasingly the producers of new objects covered by copyright in their own right. When the idea of copyright as it applies to work THEY create is first presented to students, this abstract concept of intellectual property and Copyright becomes much more concrete and able to be internalized. An understanding of Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/about/what-is-cc) is valuable, and an appropriate avenue for opening this dialogue with students.

    Once there is a general understanding that the words of others are “owned” by others, a discussion on plagiarism is made real for them. Even then, when copy/paste is so quick and easy, students often do not feel that taking someone else’s words is “theft” or “fraud.” It is our role as educators to assist them in this understanding (http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html)

    To ensure that plagiarism is a non-issue in your room you can actively cultivate a climate where the skill of locating and evaluating relevant information and attributing it properly is valued. Another appropriate idea is to design assignments that make plagiarism less possible. For other tips on combating plagiarism you might find this link interesting (http://virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm).

    The ethical use of information begins with evaluation of the source materials. A significant amount of this process is covered under the subject of “media literacy.” Determining the credibility of information on the internet is one of a larger set of modern medial literacies. If you are interested in learning more you might appreciate the work of Howard Rhiengold (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/rheingold/detail?entry_id=42805).

    Kathy Schrock maintains a good list of links and worksheets for the classroom teacher dealing with issues of critical evaluation (http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schrockguide/eval.html) though you will find many other examples of these services online.(http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-credibility/assessing-credibility-online-sources.shtml)

    Evaluation of the skills of students in the area of ethical use of information is generally behavioral. Did they plagiarize on their report? Did they properly cite the photographer who took the image they used in their presentation? Did they evaluate the primary sources they found online using any form of critical tools?

     

  • 06:00:43 am on September 6, 2010 | Comments Off on Collaborative Learning | # |

    “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” – Vince Lombardi

    At its heart, traditional collaboration is about grouping individuals to work on a common task so that their fates are intertwined. The strengths of one benefit all in the group, and through having our fates intertwined we learn to work together and capitalize upon our individual abilities. In the largest, most general sense, this is true in every case. However, technology is a prism that separates collaboration into various hues.

    Collaboration can now involve communication tools like E-mail or Instant Messaging. Online discussion boards become a place for ideas to be born, evolve, mature or dissapear.

    Collaboration can be done in “real time” despite geography. Free video conferencing tools like Skype or iChat allow for people in different places to converse face-to-face.

    Document repositories like Student DocuShare allow for organization and order to be made of the various digital resources created when everyone is working different aspects of the same project.

    There are online tools like Diigo and NoodleBib that allow for shared annotation and bookmarking of websites, that can flow neatly into bibliographies at the bottom of a Google Doc with sharing turned on so that many can contribute to a single document – editing and revising as the document is being written, whether the students are sitting beside each other in a classroom, or in separate living rooms across town.

    Tools like “Wikis” allow all members of a group equal ownership of a single published document, each person contributing a smaller piece of a larger puzzle.

    Publishing work on the web opens the door to continued learning after the “final draft” of a piece of work through the comments left by peers or the general public. The idea of collaboration is never purer than when strangers expand each other’s ideas in this way.

    Without technology present, collaboration might look like partners or small groups working together on an assignment. With technology present you have to ask yourself the question – what will the gadgets we have access to allow students to do that they would be unable to do without them?

    In this internet age, collaboration with technology should introduce the ability for students to interact with people outside of their circle of acquaintance. Beyond the classroom, across grade levels, outside of the building if possible. (via Nicole Badgely, Arnold, NE)

    When assessing the impact of collaboration you should hold the completed work to the same rigor you would if it were done by an individual. However, collaborative skills as described by the Parntnership for 21st Century Skills show that students:

    • Demonstrate ability to work effectively and respectfully with diverse teams
    • Exercise flexibility and willingness to be helpful in making necessary compromises to accomplish a common goal
    • Assume shared responsibility for collaborative work, and value the individual contributions made by each team member

     

  • 06:00:43 am on September 2, 2010 | Comments Off on Inquiry Process | # |

    “Tell me and I forget, show me and I remember, involve me and I understand.” The last part of this adage is the essence of inquiry-based learning. Inquiry implies involvement that leads to understanding. -Joe Exline

    “Memorizing facts and information is not the most important skill in today’s world. Facts change, and information is readily available – what’s needed is an understanding of how to get and make sense of the mass of data. Unfortunately, our traditional educational system has worked in a way that discourages the natural process of inquiry. Students become less prone to ask questions as they move through the grade levels. In traditional schools, students learn not to ask too many questions, instead to listen and repeat the expected answers.”
    (via http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/inquiry/index.html)

    Inquiry process is not a single unique method or strategy. The scientific method is an inquiry process. Six Sigma, Franklin Covey and other business models use their own inquiry tools to drive decision making in organizations. The important common trait of any inquiry process is that it all revolves around the process of learning through questioning. Developing essential questions drives the process. The end point is not the concern. This method of learning is natural and empowering, and powerful at any point, though it happens to fit particularly well in project based learning opportunities.

    “Establishing an essential question provides the impetus for investigations and research. If properly stated, the essential question has a dramatic impact, evoking a passionate level of interest as well as a firm commitment to persevere until a satisfying level of understanding is reached.”
    -Jamie McKenzie (via http://questioning.org/mar05/essential.html)

    For more information about “Inquiry Based Education” you can begin with the Wikipedia page on the subject.

    Lincoln Public School’s Library Media Services are very interested in inquiry based learning, and in September 2010 Jamie McKenzie, a national author and proponent of this learning method, will a few days at LPSDO working with staff members. If this is an area that intrigues you, please contact your school’s Library Media Specialist for more information on what he had to share.

    When assessing student work within an inquiry based project, you have a range of possibilities. Learning journals, products (demonstrations of mastery scored with rubrics,) conferences and presentations of newfound knowledge to peers. More information may be found at http://inquiry.illinois.edu/php/assessment2.php

     

  • 12:50:23 pm on September 1, 2010 | Comments Off on Introducing “21st Century Themes” Into Classrooms | # |

    Whether you are consulting the best thinking of the
    • U.S. Department of Education
    • International Society for Technology in Education
    • American Association of School Librarians
    • The Partnership for 21st Century Skills
    • The updated ‘Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives’
    • …or almost any other educational technology minded Journal, Association, website or blog,
    you will hear a clear message that our current model of institutional instruction is not nearly student centered enough. Furthermore, as the The Partnership for 21st Century Skills states in their mission statement: “There is a profound gap between the knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century communities and workplaces.”
    Therefore, we must endeavor ourselves, when possible and appropriate, to introduce these themes into our classrooms. Common threads across all of the associations and reports listed above are:
    • Inquiry Process
    • Collaborative Learning
    • Ethical Use of Information
    • Creation of New Knowledge
    • Opportunities to Express Creativity
    • Divergent Thinking Opportunities
    • Addressing Areas of Passion for Students
    Over the next few days I hope to post my thoughts on these themes, ideas for what it may look like in a classroom, and tips for assessing learning in these situations.
    I’ll state up front that I am NOT an expert in any one of these areas, though I have more experience in some than others. I encourage you to post your thoughts, corrections, additions, arguments, etc. I’ll learn from all of it!

     

  • 12:52:25 pm on July 21, 2010 | Comments Off on Active Learning | # |

    “Is the tech coordinator for the district getting up and saying, ‘I’ve got a way that you can do your lectures in a much more interesting fashion, we’re going to learn all about PowerPoint,’ or is the tech coordinator getting up and saying, ‘Kids will be much more excited if they’re helping you construct what they’re learning, and so we’re going to learn about wikis.’ Because people—whether or not they’re fans of 21st century skills—will typically agree that 21st century skills cannot be taught through presentational means, they have to be taught through active learning. And so if, at any level, if you’re going to advocate for 21st century skills, you basically have to advocate for a shift in typical pedagogy along with that. ”

    ~Chris Dede
    Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies, Technology, Innovation and Education
    Harvard Graduate School of Education

     

  • 05:47:02 pm on May 28, 2010 | Comments Off on From the Principal’s Notepad | # |

    Dear Rousseau Families,

    WHEW! Can it really be the end of another school year? This is the time of year when, stopping to catch our breath, it’s important to look back and reflect on all we have accomplished before setting goals and charting the course for next school year. I am incredibly inspired and couldn’t be more proud when I hear each grade-level team share their results of a year of hard work and dedication on the part of teachers and students. What we know by looking at the results is that more students at Rousseau School are achieving at higher and higher levels. How does that happen? It happens because of an intense focus on learning. It happens because teachers are clear about what we want students to know and be able to do, and because we use frequent assessment to monitor progress along the way. It happens because of strong instruction that helps students meet rigorous district and state standards, and extra time and support that’s provided if they’re not quite there yet. I believe we’re getting better and better results because teams of teachers collaborate, share, and plan and parents support school and learning at home. It’s been a very good year for learning and growing and I thank ALL, students, teachers, and parents, who do their part and more to make it happen!

    We’re making progress!! Renovation will continue at full speed throughout the summer with nearly every area of the school building involved. As a result, the main office will be relocated to the far northeast corner of the building. Summer office hours will be from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The geothermal well field is complete and soon the lower playground will be sporting a new crop of beautiful green grass, ready for play in August!

    In keeping with our focus on quality teaching and learning— right up to the final bell! – your help in assuring that the last week of school is safe and educational is appreciated. In anticipation of the final days, please see that your child does not bring shaving cream, silly string, markers, hair dye, body glitter, or any other nuisance items to school. I will contact parents should students bring such items or come to school dressed in a manner that might cause disruption to the learning environment. Our goal for the last week of school is a business-as-usual climate. We will continue to expect students to conduct themselves as they have all year – in a safe, respectful, responsible manner.

    Our heartfelt THANKS & BEST WISHES to the following staff members who will not be returning to Rousseau School next year:

    • Mrs. Dee Reifschneider
    • Mrs. Carin Appleget
    • Mrs. Mary Gourlay
    • Mrs. Chris Grantham
    • Mrs. Jody Rudd

    The following staff members will be in new assignments for next year:

    • Mrs. Kristi Schirmer – Coordinator
    • Mrs. Nancy Coren – 5th grade
    • Mrs. Shelley Mattson – 2nd grade
    • Mrs. Stephanie Schultz – 2nd grade
    • Mrs. Paula Smith – Resource (returning from a leave of absence)

    Thank you, again, for your kind support and active involvement in our important work at Rousseau School – to help students LEARN at high levels, THINK interdependently, and LEAD with character. We couldn’t do it without you! This summer, keep school skills sharp by including daily time to read and write in your child’s busy schedule AND… find plenty of time to rest, relax and have fun together. Be safe! See you in August.

    Warmest regards,

    Sue Braun

     
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