Musings

I checked the website and did not see a topic assigned for the week.  I'm not sure if we're required to do this...I'll just post some random thoughts.
First, I have enjoyed this class.  It has been well organized and practical.  Not a waste of time...a class worthy of my time that has positively impacted my professional practices.  I wish this class occurred earlier in the program.
Last week I had the opportunity to visit the Gwinnett School of Science, Math, and Technology.  It was interesting on many levels.  First, the technology is first rate...every class has two projectors and screens that can be seen from any angle, seat in the class.  The most interesting concept I heard about was the "flip" model of instruction.  Instructors are having students listen/watch lectures for homework and come into class and actually "work" math problems or physics,etc. problems.  The teachers have seen an increase in test scores and student interaction/engagement.  The lower performing students are the ones benefitting the most.  Those students are listening/watching lectures many times before attempting the work.
I love this idea!  I think it is a model more teachers need to try...turn education on its head!

Our task this week is to look at the Georgia Performance Standards for a subject area and evaluate them for critical thinking skills.  I'm deviating just a tad from this and looking forward to next year when we will be implementing the Common Core Standards for Mathematics.  This is a timely exercise as teachers across the United States are studying this implementation and discussing the impact it will have on our classrooms.  Within Georgia, we will have new objectives for each grade K-12.  These objectives are being framed by an expectation for a "culture shift" within many of our classrooms.  In addition to the very specific objectives, teachers are asked to design lessons and create learning environments that reflect the following Standards for Mathematical Practice.

Standards for Mathematical Practice 

1 Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

2 Reason abstractly and quantitatively.

3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

4 Model with mathematics.

5 Use appropriate tools strategically.

6 Attend to precision.

7 Look for and make use of structure.

8 Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

If you look closely at these, you will notice these expectations require the use of critical thinking.  This is the basic premise/directive given to  teachers before they even examine individual, grade level standards.  Wow!  In my mind, the bar has been raised and I see critical thinking as an expectation for every student.  The individual, specific standards address content objectives while these address "habits of mind".

In the fourth grade Common Core Standards for Math, I found a standard that could be taught using technology and critical thinking:  

MCC4.G.2 Classify two-dimensional figures based on the presence or absence of parallel or perpendicular lines, or the presence or absence of angles of a specified size. Recognize right triangles as a category, and identify right triangles

For this standard, I would use photographs of architecture to identify parallel and perpendicular lines as well as angles and right triangles.  These photographs would be projected onto an interactive whiteboard where the initially the teacher could highlight these.  This would be followed by the students using the highlight tool to identify these features in additional photos and defend their choices to the class.  Finally, the students would be asked to work in pairs to locate photographs that illustrate each concept.

This activity would cover 1-4 of the standards of practice for Mathematics in addition to meeting the objective for MC C4.G.2.

Critical Thinking

The definition of critical thinking provided in our reading states" Critical thinking skills refer to abilities to analyze, evaluate, infer, interpret, explain, and self-regulate (Facione, 1990; van Gelder, 2005)."  As I read this definition through several times, all I could think about was that this is the primary goal of education.  We send our kids to school to learn how to read, write, and do arithmetic with the primary goal being the ability to make good decisions in life and defend these decisions.  Everything else in our curriculum is an embellishment or an extra.  We teach our students skills that turn into tools to be used in their critical thinking process.

In my current teaching role, one of my goals is to teach my students "how" to think, not "what" to think.  For example, I guide them in discoveries of mathematical principals, I give them procedures and rubrics to use when solving problems, and I allow them time to think of multiple solutions to a single problem.  At times, they struggle to find solutions and that is permissible-in fact, in my opinion it is desirable.

The largest obstacle to developing critical thinking skills is time.  Teachers often have a schedule that does not have time to simply allow students to struggle through a problem to arrive at a solution.  It is often quicker to point out the way to the solution rather than allow the students to arrive there on their own.  In my view, this is one of the major weaknesses of our current educational system.  We are more concerned with how many facts a student can cram into their brains when we should be focused more on developing critical thinking skills.  If a student knows how to think, they can learn the specifics of what to think.  As a side note, most standardized tests do not test critical thinking skills; therefore, not much time is allocated to the development of critical thinking skills.

Telecommunciation project

One of my favorite commercials features the actress Ellen Page visiting an elementary classroom where students are communicating with each other via a teleconference.  She is amazed at how school has changed since she was a student.  Well...when I was a student, I vividly remember thinking how cool it would be to be able to talk with other students via a television or telephone with a picture.  In fact, I wrote an essay on this topic as something I would like to see in the future.  That was 1972.  Flash forward 40 years...not only is it possible, it is "free" and easy to accomplish!

My ideas:

1.  I would love to have video "pen-pals" for a classroom.  The students could read a book and share a book study.  I think it would be an incredible experience to see how children of another culture view the same book.  Another project could be to collect and compare data.  For example, favorite ice cream flavors or favorite colors.  

2.  Collaboration between teachers via skype or elluminate or a similar system would be beneficial for teachers.  The common core standards will be put in place next year in 48 states.  A staff development session that includes teachers from districts across the country who are implementing the plan would be fantastic.  One of the advantages of implementing these standards is the possibility for collaboration between teachers.  Collaboration within a school building produces wonderful results; collaboration between teachers in other states would be incredible.

As a society, we have only begun to scratch the surface of what we can accomplish using telecommunications.  It is indeed an exciting time to be alive!

E-Learning

E-learning is just a fascinating subject in my opinion.  Whenever I begin to hear about the possibility of e-learning I was skeptical about how it would work.  For example, I could not imagine how a teacher would be able to provide individual, differentiated instruction in a virtual classroom.  After years of reading about it, I became an e-learning student.  My initial hesitations soon fell aside and I fell in love with the concept.  I can easily see how learning can be differentiated and I also see that the focus in this environment remains on the content and instruction.  The classroom management tasks that many teachers find consume much of their time are not necessary.  For example, taking students to the bathroom or lunch...making sure students are seated in a good learning spot (i.e. away from a distracting friend, where they can view the teacher, etc.) The focus is truly on teaching. 
Accessibility is the largest advantage of e-learning.  The ability for students in rural settings to participate in high quality programs, previously unavailable is an example.  E-learning can act as a bridge to accessibility for these students.  In my local school, students are using e-learning to take college courses while attending high school.  The barriers of transportation have been pushed aside by the ability to video conference and participate in a class that is occurring on a college campus.  Before e-learning, this was not possible.
I believe the next big thing in education is the use of e-learning. 
I agree with Egbert that e-learning needs to be process oriented versus content oriented.  A student could simply read a book to get content; however, the interaction with the teacher and student (the process of learning) is essential in any educational environment.  Teaching is all about interactions and relationships that occur between a teacher and a student-whether it is a virtual classroom or a bricks and mortar classroom.

Communication

The chapter in the book is near and dear to my heart.  My thesis for my master's degree was titled "Why are our classrooms so quiet?".  At the time, 1987, communication within the classroom consisted of conversations and the use of cooperative learning groups to foster communication.  Classrooms where students were forced to remain silent and have little or no interaction frustrated me as a student and an instructor.  In this environment, the students with high verbal skills were typically the only ones to benefit.  Fast forward 25 years later and conversations are just one option for communication.

As educators, we value and understand the role communication plays in the acquisition of knowledge.  The old saying "If you can explain something to someone, then you really understand it." comes to mind.  My classrooms have always been filled with "learning noise" because I value the role communication plays in learning.  Technology allows us and our students to communicate in so many different ways.  A few forms of communication available today that come to mind are:

• face to face conversations
• conversations (written and verbal) via skype
• blogs
• texts
• tweets
• email
• google docs
• classroom clickers or voting devices to share opinions
• social media sites such as facebook
• videos

All of these forms of communication can and should be used within our classrooms.  I love that the variety of types of communication allow every student to find a communication tool that is comfortable for them.  No longer is a student limited because of poor verbal skills.  They can choose a text form of communication to relay their ideas.  The collaboration and thus learning that is supported by the variety of types of communication will serve to deepen our students' knowledge.

Creativity

Steve Jobs...RIP. I've been an Apple girl since 1985. My first computer was an Apple IIe and I drooled over the orginal Mac. I have my ipod on in my car, on my break, during my walks. My iphone goes everywhere with me and I even love its camera. Pixar movies are among my favorites. So, I'd say Steve Jobs has had a huge influence on my life. His passing comes not as a shock, but definitely too soon. I found a great quote from him on creativity and thought it would be a nice topic for this creative journal blog. It is from a 1996 Wired article.

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

“Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."

I love, love this quote because I think it touches on the way I think and it touches on one of my core beliefs about teaching and parenting.  As a teacher, much of what I do is give students experiences that hopefully broaden their background enough to allow them to connect the dots in more than a linear fashion.

Background knowledge is severely underestimated in this world.  It shapes each of us in the most profound manner.  A person who experiences joy and delight in school will often seek out further academic experiences.  A person who has been to the zoo will read a zoo book with a much different perspective and understanding than one who has never been to a zoo.  As a parent, I did my best to give my sons a life that was rich in a variety of experiences all in the hopes of creating background knowledge that is vast and accessible.  Both of my sons are creative thinkers and problem solvers and I credit this to their rich background knowledge.  Oh the places they'll go and the things they'll do with their background knowledge serving as a big old trampoline that will catapult them into their future!

Whenever I look at designing anything, I draw upon my background knowledge. I started out in college in the interior design department.  I knew I wanted to create and this seemed a logical choice.  In an art class, I had the assignment to design a wallpaper pattern and show three color variations of the same pattern.  That assignment killed me...killed my desire to be an interior designer.  Why?  I had no background knowledge when it came to wallpaper.  None of the houses I lived in had a scrap of wallpaper and I couldn't imagine what a good wallpaper design would even look like.  My grandfather was a house painter and wallpaper hanger-my father grew up in that business and wanted nothing further to do with wallpaper.  This was before the days of Google and I simply had no examples to consult.  I did my best, turned in a design that was "uninspiring" and gave up my dreams of being a designer.  Background knowledge....never underestimate its power.