T. Rowe Price's "The Catalyst"

Today I was invited to participate in an event sponsored by T. Rowe Price for their employees to start thinking differently about the manner in which they do their work.  I am one of the 5 speakers and am impressed with the structure of the day.  (Although I wish there were more and longer breaks) It should be a lovely day of thinking, learning and pushing of ideas.  I am speaking on Embracing Failure in a updated and revised form.  For resources related to the talk, please visit the Embracing Failure page.  Specifically, the research from Amy Edmondson is a delightful explanation of the failure conundrum.  As with all things that are uncomfortable, the failure conversation needs some time to age and percolate a bit.  I hope you take the time to read a little and ask questions along the way.

Architecture of Participation

I read this.  Which led me to this. That then caused me to google "Architecture of Participation" to find Tim O'Reilly's post titled as such.  Which then caused me to think about schools, classrooms, learning... the things I always get caught up with in my brain.  I take off on this concept in a way I'm quite sure was not intended by the initial user, but here goes.So.  Architecture of Participation.  When I aim to describe my teaching style and classroom space, I use some squishy language that never seems to properly communicate what is going on.  I think that creating a space where participation is paramount is a critical piece of the puzzle that I am trying to put together.  An example of this is how I approached The State of the Union this year.  The goal of having a conversation during the State of the Union was specifically related to participation.  However, I don't mandate use of one version of participation over another... students could choose to participate in a 'walled garden' with Moodle, or wide open with the #sotu #sla conversation on twitter or not at all (digitally).  All students were sent home with a SOTU Bingo Card of their own making and the goal of taking some notes.  There were multiple levels of participation.  Students could jump into the conversation in a variety of ways.  Some chose not to do anything digitally but rather join the conversation during class the next day with their notes.  There were varied and multiple entry points to participate.As another example of this architecture of participation I offer Citizenship Homework.  Each quarter students are tasked with some goal to complete out in the community.  Quarter One is to go to the polls on Election Day and interview a voter.  Quarter Two is to attend a public meeting.  Quarter Three is community service.  Quarter Four is their choice of any of the previous three options.  The practice is to participate in their community as a citizen.  I feel strongly that people are more likely to understand their community if they participate in it and think that the Citizenship Homework moves in that direction.[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/31837346 w=580&h=326]Untitled from Stephen Holts on Vimeo.On a broader scale, I am hoping that this networked and participatory learning carries on well past the classroom and embeds itself as a part of the student as citizen.  Modeling a variety of entry points to take part in the conversation, participate in the community and build networks of understanding are goals I have for my classroom environment.  The tools that serve this are as old as a meeting notice and as new as twitter.  Blending the old with the new to serve an evolving role of participatory citizenry... that is part of my classroom's 'Architecture of Participation'.What ways does your learning environment invite participation?  What are the varied means for participating?  How do you make welcome the introvert in this participation (that one's for you Tony)?  What do the lessons/activities look like?

Business Unit and Essential Questions

We have been studying the intersection of Business and American History. In studying that we did a number of activities that looked at the New Deal policies of FDR, how the business plans of the GOP candidates compared to the presidents of 1900-1932, how the monopoly and trust-busting of Teddy Roosevelt impacted the economy, and more... We located primary sources, observed the State of the Union, visited the campaign websites for the GOP candidates and more. With these artifacts of learning, I then posed to the students that they needed to demonstrate their learning by answering one of the Grade 11 Essential Questions:

• What causes systemic and individual change?
• What is the role of the individual in creating and sustaining change?
• What is the relationship between the self and a changing world?

Then they use the learning artifacts from the unit to explore an answer.  They can choose to work independently or with a partner and are given two-65 min. class periods to work.  At the end there should be a 'deliverable' that demonstrates their understanding.While not a typical incarnation of inquiry, in that I waited until the end of the unit to introduce the big question, the goal is to apply their learning and create from that information.  Students are questioning the sources they located in pursuit of demonstrating understanding of the link between content and the essential questions.  There are no right answers, only the answers they co-create with their partners and demonstrate through a self-determined presentation format.  Often the evidence of learning is a test in history class, but at the end of this unit students are specifically asked to make meaning of their learning artifacts by applying it to a grade-wide essential question.  At the end of the week, I was able to see how they understood the information as it relates to systemic and individual change.  The skills this approach reinforces - critical thinking, collaboration, presentation, design, inquiry and reflection - are what I consider a large part of what makes a student viable in an ever changing learning landscape.  Most importantly, this was a part of the conversation in a year long investigation of history, rather than a stopping point in the learning.

What If? History

• What if Ben Franklin died in his electricity experiment?
• What if Albert Einstein died before the Theory of Relativity was released?
• What if Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were assassinated?
• What if the Selective Service Act from WW1 was not ratified?
• What if Prohibition was not repealed?
• What if Joseph Kennedy Jr. lived?
• What if JFK did not come to a diplomatic resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis?
• What if Reagan did not survive his assassination attempt?
• What if Britain and US did not have the Revolutionary War?
• What if Nat Turner did not get caught?
• What if Puerto Rico was not a US territory?
• What if Amelia Earhart returned?
• What if segregation in schools was still in effect?
• What if Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, never ‘caught on’ and DDT was never banned?
• What if Osama bin Laden dies in 1980?
• What if Bill Gates’ middle school never bought the computer from a garage sale?
• What if al Qaeda was successful in the car bombing of the towers in 1993?

This is a sampling of questions asked by my juniors in their final project for American History.  Choice of question was completely left up to the students.  Counterfactual or alternate history is a fringe topic amongst academic historians.  However, as a class activity it opens up the world of history for inquiry, investigation and creativity.  The What If? project focuses on the specific engagement of the individual student with a deep investigation of the historical record.  The steps that take the student through the exercise are challenging, couched in research and steeped in creativity.Steps for Executing the What If? Unit

1. Brainstorming for Ideas – Ask students to think back to the most interesting units of study from the past year as a place to start, inquire as to what they are most curious about in American history.  The goal is to establish the Point of Divergence (POD)
2. Spend a day investigating 2-3 PODs for the project
3. Choose one POD and complete the contract for completing the project.
4. Distribute the graphic organizer that serves as a one-stop shop for the pieces of the project to be written down.
5. Students identify at least three primary source documents that PRECEDE the POD to establish understanding of the historical record leading up to the POD.
6. Students use the National Archives Primary Source Document Analysis Worksheets to analyze at least three different primary sources related to their chosen POD.
7. After students are relatively comfortable with the existing history, they then brainstorm three NEW events to add to the altered timeline that results after the POD.
8. Each new event requires students to create two primary source documents to establish the event as ‘real’.
9. Finally, students use all the pieces amassed on their graphic organizer to pull together a multi-media project that utilizes each piece of the evidence real and created in order to represent 2011 as it exists after the POD.
10. Students post their work on their blog and write a lengthy reflection - What did you like about this project? What was most challenging? Describe the most interesting fact or event that you investigated. How do the actions of individuals impact the historical record?  How do systemic changes impact the historical record?  How influential can one decision be in the historical landscape? How could this project be improved? If you had it to do over, what would you change about your process for the project?

Many times over I hear the students say things like… you have no IDEA how much I know about this topic.  They push back when I try to poke holes in their logic with events from the historical record, cite primary sources when I need more proof.  The reflections often are most telling for the learning that occurs during this process, they write:“The thing that I found most fun about this project, was coincidentally the same thing I thought was the most difficult, and that was the fact that there were so many different possibilities. It was very fun to see how different events related to one another, and how changing one could set off this long domino effect about all of history.”  --Dennis“My favorite part of the actual creating of the project was definitely fabricating primary source documents. I felt so cool, like some kind of all-powerful, primary-source-creating being.” – Luna“I liked that I had free control to change something in history. It gave me the opportunity to choose something I was passionate about and change it to my liking. On the flip side, it was hard to pick something to change that would give me the outcome I wanted.” – Ayanna“I really liked the hypothetical part of this benchmark, it left a lot of room for creativity. I enjoyed making my primary source documents and making up a different future for our country. However, Topic choice was definitely the most difficult thing for me.” -  Emma“What I like about the project was that it made me do a lot of thinking and I learned a lot of history by going out on my own and researching the information that I needed.” -- SamThis unit causes my brain to hurt.  This project causes my students’ brains to hurt.  It puzzles, stumps and perplexes us.  Students choose topics poorly but do not realize it until well into the project. I approve a topic that is ‘too big’ and we are challenged to find a way out as the project comes to a close. There are contracts, organizers, analysis, predictions and sweat involved in this project. In the end, each student learns.  Learns content in an intense and curious manner.  Learns skills with an urgency of ‘I need to know this right now’.  Learns their limitations and challenges in the most constructive of ways. This unit pushes me in all these ways and more. It pushes me as a teacher and as a constant student of history to be the type of resource they need throughout this project. This is learning in its most messy and beautiful form.

For Each to Excel

A few months ago I was asked to write for a publication with this question in mind - High standards—personalization. Are these two education trends really in opposition?  After truly procrastinating and torturing myself over the writing I finished it, turned it in, but didn't make selection for publication.  So I have this piece of writing that needs a place to live... its long.  I'm not going to apologize about that, but just be aware.For Each to ExcelHigh standards and personalization are not in opposition.  Standardization and personalization are in opposition.  Holding students to a high standard while also personalizing the educational experience are not only, not in opposition, but really are the nexus where motivation meets productivity.  For the past 15 years I have taught in a rural school in northern Wisconsin, a small town bedroom community outside Kansas City, a school in northern Arizona that was home to many recent immigrant children as well as those coming from the Navajo reservation and an urban school in Center City Philadelphia.With this survey of America and her schools in mind, I am certain what we need at this exciting moment in American education is more personalization, more high standards and little to no standardization.  Why in the era when we are equipped with the technology to truly invigorate teaching and learning with individualized opportunities are we, as a nation, fixated on an assessment regime that squelches innovation, individuality and creativity?  Students and teachers are ready to move to the place where school is more than a holding pen, more than a place to ‘do your time’ but one where true transformation can occur on an individual level for all members of the school community.Inquiry-DrivenThe tools of modern learning allow for students to access and interact with content in ways that were not available to the classrooms of the past.  From manipulating interactive simulations to searching the National Archives, students have more complex ways of processing and analyzing their world.  One way to take advantage of this massive world of information is to move the learning from a place of one-size fits all, to a place of inquiry for each student.  The potential for learning increases when the students are allowed to ask questions within their learning and then given space to investigate, be curious and dig.In the classroom, this inquiry-driven approach takes form in a multitude of diverse projects.  In one 11th grade English class, students were asked to investigate a community need, locate grants that could be used to support that need and then apply for the grant.  In 10th grade science, students were asked to complete a project at the end of the year that dug deeper into a concept from the year-long course about which they remained curious and driven to further understanding.  In 11th grade physics, the students were asked to observe what happened on the city buses everyday, record their observations, and then work to develop new public service announcements about the laws of physics that impact their ride.  The goal was to increase safety for the passengers.Putting interesting concepts in front of the students, challenging them to ask questions, and then giving them space to inquire further is one of the most effective means of facilitating learning.  These are all examples of allowing students to design the end products while holding them to high standards of learning without standardizing the outcome.CreativeStandardization kills creativity.  In an era of constant talk about the need for innovation in all areas of life and the economy, creativity is one of the main qualities that fuels innovation.  We all need to be working to foster a citizenry that can inquire, search out information to build learning and then create original works from that inquiry driven learning.  The days of learning ‘the one right way’ to complete a task and then repeat that task over and over -- is over.Teachers and students are inundated with choice, options, and issues that demand critical but also creative thinkers.  Working with students to develop the skills for this world rather than focusing on access to static content is key.  Responding to dynamic situations that require a student to adjust, reconfigure and rethink while progressing forward fosters a learning environment that invigorates.  One way that this happens at the classroom level is quite simple yet difficult at the same time.  Teachers must stop directing all aspects of the final outcomes of student work.  Typically, students mimic rather than create original work.  Our new learning landscape allows for the teacher to step aside and let students create.  This is simple, yet to give up this level of control requires a shift in the teacher’s classroom role.  Additionally, the teacher must recognize that in letting the students create and inquire, the end product may fall short of what was anticipated.  This is ok.  Allowing the students the latitude to fail should certainly be factored into potential outcomes in this type of learning environment.Creativity involves risk and trying something new.  School is the perfect place to work through that process with the students to reflect on what went well, what did not and how to make changes for future ventures.  I watched a bright and tenacious 11th grader go after a story for one of our history projects.  She called and reached out in every way possible.  She researched and dug and in the end came up short.  When she came to me feeling frustrated and somewhat defeated, we decided to change her project from being about this topic, to being about her process and the difficulties she encountered along the way.  She learned.  It was personalized, and she was held to high standards.  However, it did not look like any other student’s learning.  The educational system needs to start getting comfortable with this variation in learning. To do otherwise sanitizes the educational experience into being predictable, mimicked and flat.Student-CenteredPersonalization allows for ownership of learning and investment from the students.  From a school-wide standpoint there are a number of opportunities to endeavor for high standards as well as personalize the educational experience.  At the Science Leadership Academy (SLA), we employ a 3-year-long program that challenges students to pursue their own interests.  Starting in their sophomore year and continuing through their junior year, students are given Wednesday afternoons to intern, learn, volunteer, and do – we call it the Individualized Education Program (ILP).  Some students enroll in college classes to pursue a subject not offered at school, others are in law offices, businesses, university labs, non-profits.   The sky is the limit.  The school offers a set of options but the student can also propose an alternative and seek out their own tailor-made internship.  These experiences have led students to further investigate a particular career path and for others they realize that they would rather pursue a different path.  College scholarships, admissions, job offers, awards are all potential outcomes for students doing what they are already interested in, but with the time allocated within the normal school day for them to pursue.  This is a key component, making school about life and not just encouraging them to engage in these types of learning experiences ‘outside’ the school day.For the final year of this arc, students are let loose to create a Capstone project of their design.  There is guidance, mentors, check ins and other scaffolded experiences that assist students through a year long project, but the choices of what to create and how to create it are left to the student.  They design, plan, schedule and execute the final project.  This process is meant to synthesize the learning experiences that we build toward as a school.  Our five core values – Inquiry, Collaboration, Research, Reflection, and Presentation – are on embedded as seniors carry out the project.  It is not rare for students to stumble or struggle.  Once again, this is ok.The three-year program asks students to identify their own interests, pursue them,  and create from those interests.  It is a throughline embedded in their learning that values them individually while holding them to a high standard of achievement.  The measurement of this achievement is the work of their own hands, rather than that of a scan sheet.  Talk to any student about their learning at the end of this experience and they will be able to process and reflect at a level that make most employers salivate.  They not only know what gets in the way of their productivity, but how to mitigate for those obstacles and ways to improve the next time they tackle a big project again.  This is learning for the modern age.AssessmentSo now for the inevitable question of assessment.  This type of conversation about teaching and learning always boils down to assessment.  Currently our educational system employs one of the cheapest forms of assessing student work, multiple choice questions.  This standardized assessment, while not horrible, is just irrelevant.  It measures the wrong thing.  Our assessments need to be as dynamic as the learning and relevant to the complex nature of the work.  At SLA, we employ a three-part system of assessment that endeavors to provide a variety of feedback to the students regarding their academic progress.During all four quarters we submit traditional grades just like all the other schools in the School District of Philadelphia.  This continuation of traditional grades allows for our students to pursue placement in top colleges, compete for scholarships and the like.  We do not leave it just at traditional grades, though.  Accompanying the traditional report card for the 1st and 3rd quarters is a narrative report from each teacher.  This two to three paragraph narrative explains the student’s progress, comments on strengths and weaknesses, and suggests goals for the upcoming quarters.  During the 2nd and 4th quarters, a standards-based report card is included with the traditional report card.  The standards based report card comments on specific skill development for each of the subject areas.All of this robust information is collected and shared in a student-run conference with the academic advisor and the parents.  Goals are then discussed and set for the upcoming quarters.  All of this information is logged in our Learning Management System - SLATE - so all teachers, administrators, and counselors can access the data at anytime throughout the student’s four years with SLA.  This system attends to a traditional model while also recognizing that a letter is not the whole story.  The incorporation of these three measurement techniques provide the learner, parents, advisors and teachers with a full circle feedback loop on the individual progress from a holistic, narrative and standards-based perspective.  This is a vigorous model of assessment.  Nothing about this is standardized.  This is personalized and sets a high standard for achievement.ConclusionThe tools, systems and networks available for learning are as unending as are the possibilities for demonstration of that learning.  Holding this process back with a stilted and stifling standardized assessment regime is outdated.  Learning has never been so ready to wrap its arms around differentiation, personalization and high standards.  Standardization gets in the way.Teaching and learning are standing on the edge of unlimited opportunities for robust investigation that invites student interest and passion.  By engaging students in inquiry-driven education, projects to let their creativity shine and space for them to pursue their interests, we can all move forward into modern learning that no longer asks for replication and memorization as demonstrations of learning. Instead, we can move into learning that is dynamic, challenging and interesting.  Sadly, this is not embraced in the broader educational establishment.It takes action to shift learning into this realm.  The status quo is not welcome here.  It is sometimes uncomfortable and messy.  We owe it to our community to work with the students in our charge to not only inform, but value their role, voice and passion within the learning environment.  Start talking, reaching out, developing networks with the stakeholders motivated to re-evaluate the learning environment.  This is literally as simple and complex as being willing to learn in front of our students as we create the classrooms and schools they need.

Visualizing Data Process

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/29922019 w=400&h=255]The video above is a screenshot of the process I went through when endeavoring to visualize voter turnout rates from state to state.  There is more data to visualize and compare.  I am not sure I will use these exact maps, but it is the work process that allowed me to move from wanting data, finding it, making is usable and then visualizing.  Many Eyes is a really lovely, free tool that makes my job and learning easier.  Win.

Thoughts on #nytedtech

Last week I was invited to attend the New York Times Schools for Tomorrow Conference.  One of the reasons I was determined to attend was to interject a teacher voice into a largely teacher-less day of a traditional sit and get event.  The representation of large pieces of the educational puzzle were left off the stage last Thursday.  This concerned me greatly.Here was my response to what could be improved -

The thing I wish more than anything is that this would be more teacher friendly.  This could easily be scheduled during the summer months when teachers have off from school.  In addition, more conversation based sessions would be lovely.  Sit and get for that long was a bit much.  Although I did feel like there was a good amount of time for questions in most sessions, it was largely a traditional model of being talked at.  The issues that are facing the future of education won't be solved by students of teachers or admin or business or journalists... as separate entities, but bringing together significant cohorts of each and free up actual time for hearty conversations could be a nice start.  Sitting the teachers up front was meant to be a sign of importance and I understand that... but then having so few of them actually speaking seemed a bit much.  It was as if we were there to be told that which we already know... because we are in it.  And along those same lines, more students, more students, more students.  I offered to arrange for students from my school to attend but was politely told no.   This could be a truly transformative experience, but fell short in my opinion because of the over representation of corporate voices over those of the actual teachers and students already working in and shaping schools for tomorrow.

And for suggestions for panels or topics next year I responded -

A panel of teachers and principals from schools that are already pushing the envelope would be a strong start.  I would argue that although KIPP is pushing a somewhat successful model, there is little innovative or future thinking about their approach.  There are TONS of schools that are... contact ISTE for suggestions or Edutopia.  We need to talk about the actual day to day that needs re-envisioning... classroom level conversations.  If we are going to communicate with the leaders of government and business, the powerful intersection is when we all talk about possibilities together.  Not just 'at or 'to'.  We can fix this, but it will take a concerted effort to respect all the players.  This year's line-up certainly privileged one side of this over the other and many educators felt the slight.

The NYTimes has a wonderful resource with The Learning Network and I'm not sure I heard them mentioned once.  They have real relationships with teachers and classrooms that could benefit the overall impact of the conference.

Contact the classroom teachers that are innovating at the classroom level.  Contact the leaders of edtech thought.  Please use your position of influence to bridge the spaces between all the stakeholders rather than widen the gap.

I asked a question in each of the sessions.  And in each of the sessions, at least once... someone commented, well that would be a good question for a teacher in the classroom.  *sigh*  We're here.  Highly qualified, dedicated, innovating, National Board Certified... recognized in the education community as leaders in the development of Schools for Tomorrow... and yet, not on the stage.  There were 55 panelists - 2 were in practice teachers.  We can do better. 

They're Gr-r-reat

Maybe it's because I spent three years under the Imagine 2014 plan where 'Great Staff' was one of the strategic goals.  Or possibly because I keep reading about 'great teachers' from the Gates Foundation.  But, boy am I tired of of my chosen profession being described with one of the least meaningful words the english language has to offer. Perhaps I should forward them a thesaurus.I attended the New York Times Schools for Tomorrow conference last week and I also heard references that were equally as pablum-esque to describe the job.  If you want to describe the type of teachers we need the list should be long, complex and involved.  We can do better, much better at finding the appropriate words to describe the job that so many are hoping will 'save' the US economy.  Let's have a real conversation about effective teaching.  Let's describe the people that work with America's youth day in and day out as dedicated, clever, creative.  Perhaps the words tenacious, persistent, dogged, relevant. Anything but the 'meh' word that most notably describes sugary cereal.

The 2011/12 School Year

 This is the fourth year in a row that  I am teaching American History at  the Science Leadership Academy.  When I was hired in May of 2008, I  made a conscious decision to shift  my teaching of history to a fully  thematic approach. In my previous  years of teaching history I would  try to blend the chronological with  the thematic in some hybridized  version of instruction. Switching to  a fully thematic approach was the  right move as I reflect upon the  development of the curriculum.One goal I have always tried to accomplish is to push out as much of my classroom as possible into the web so as to share, refine and grow. This year my goal is to account for each day of the year for both of my classes, which I have tried before and fallen short. With the start of a new year comes the motivation to try again.  Plan to see unit by unit blogging as the year progresses with a daily breakout of activities, journals and links.  I am hopeful that this is the year.  

9/11 Memories

Ten years ago today I awoke in Arizona to the news that the towers had been hit.  I stayed in my house watching TV, a mere 6 blocks from school, until the last possible minute.  When I arrived at school the bus drivers were desperate to know any information I had as they had been collecting students all morning and didn’t have any news.  I shared what I knew.  It wasn’t much.When I came in the door we were asked not to talk to the kids about it.  I paid as much attention to that directive as I did most directives.  Walking to my room I was trying to figure out how to rig up an antenna on my school TV that had no cable access.  Another teacher loaned me a wire hanger.  With a shut door and fuzzy reception, my new class of 7^th graders and I tried to piece together what was happening.  The internet had information, but it was 2001, not exactly the type of access we have today.  After 5 classes of 7^th grade geography, I went home.  I called my family while glued to the TV for the rest of the evening.That was the last day that I watched any footage of the towers falling.  I listened to the radio from there on.  To this day I do not ever need to see the footage of the towers falling.  The image is forever saved in my memory, seeing it again and again is not going to do any good.  I share that with my students when they ask why we don’t watch footage on the anniversary.  There are few things I can’t rally for in the classroom, put on repeat and watch over and over with each subsequent class.  The 9/11 footage is in that unique category.  I just can’t do it.My life has changed dramatically since 9/11/01 – I moved from rural Arizona to Center City, Philadelphia – I was a 7^th grade teacher and now am teaching 11^th/12^th grade – the man I was living with at the time moved on as did I – my siblings went from having 1 child to 7 – my parents went from working to retirement.  I still have the same car, 2 days old on 9/11.  It might be the only outwardly similar piece of my life then to my life now.My day was not that interesting.  But like so many days, I shared it learning with the students in my charge.  The lesson on 9/11/01 was a tough one.  They were simultaneously curious and scared and so was I.  I worried about them as they walked out the door at 2:20pm, many of them to empty houses to watch the footage on repeat.  By themselves.  We processed much of the information over the next few days.  I shifted our focus on Africa to hone in on the history of Afghanistan, trying to build background.  When their parents sat in their seats two nights later for Open House, there wasn’t one question about the syllabus.  They wanted a lesson.  On Afghanistan.  On the news.  On the world.  It was the most unique open house night of my career, when being a parent at open house meant getting informed about the content and not just about the late work policy.I wonder what should be a ‘good’ lesson on 9/11 for classes.  Telling the stories, seeing the pictures, hearing the reports – is this it?  Do we just teach it like anything else?  It feels so much more personal, relevant, big.  I’m not sure what is the right answer, but tomorrow I will once again ask students what they remember of the day, what they think about the nation today and where we will head in the future.We will speak of courage and loss and grief, but also of hope and resiliency and tenacity.  We will remember.

Day One: Melbourne

Day one found me traipsing all over Melbourne CBD (Central Business District).  Here is a walking tour complete with pics from the day!

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&ie=UTF8&t=h&msid=205641307508424196934.0004aa37368fe47e4a820&ll=-37.813005,144.967775&spn=0.016274,0.027466&z=15&output=embed&w=640&h=480]

...and I'm back from the river, again.

Once again I've taken a group of kids on a river adventure. There are times when I have to pinch myself that I get to do this awesome thing over and over and over again. In April of 2002, Josh Armstrong - colleague from my teaching years in AZ - walked into my classroom and asked if I wanted to chaperone a river trip. Before he could tell me the dates, I said yes. I love water... paddling in it, floating along... I led canoe trips in WI at a summer camp for two years - it was delightful. I was excited to get back to the water.Every spring since and the summers of 2007 and 2008... I was fortunate enough to participate in a series of trips with Grand Canyon Youth. One year I was on three trips. (Big Smile) The things that occur during these short snippets of life, unplugged, floating, exploring are those of lifetime memories. For many of the students, this is a one shot deal. For me... it hits the repeat button every year and I cannot explain the level of happiness it brings me.These last three trips with the Philly kids have been hard though. Its not the travel or the arrangements or the money... its that I spend time in Northern Arizona, falling in love with it all over again. It takes a group of the Philly kids about 30 minutes to ask some version of this question, "Ms. Laufenberg, why did you ever leave this place?" and I usually give them some sort of flip answer because its difficult to remember the reasons... as I drive into the San Francisco Peaks, along Rte. 66 and then through Monument Valley on the way to the river. I left Flagstaff for SLA. Specifically. It was and continues to be the right choice, but every year when I leave Flagstaff with the peaks in the rearview, I make sure my sunglasses are on as I choke back the tears. It always feels wrong to be leaving it.The friends I left behind here are the dearest people to me outside my family. This place will always be home to me.Already looking forward to April 2012. When we do it all over again.

Wealth of Resources

I have an RSS feed that delivers me more material to read and consume on a daily basis than I can really take in. As with all things in life, I've developed some favorites in my feedreader and am legitimately excited to see what FlowingData, Information Is Beautiful, and Infosthetics have to share whenever their link shows new material. We teach in an era where the information comes at us a fever pitch, but with that these 'masters of information' are also working to make sense of it all in condensed and coherent fashion. This is how it finds its way into my teaching.Example.Yesterday I discovered this resource from the Guardian.Today a student shared this resource with me from Slate.From a design and presentation standpoint - these are two very different approaches to representing largely similar information. Possible classroom discussions can circle around the manner in which the information is presented, which is better, what each version accomplishes differently with its design choices, etc.From a knowledge and analysis standpoint - you can have the students look for patterns, trends, geographical relevance, investigate sourcing and the like.When the class has looked at the range of events and revolutions, one could challenge the students to investigate the American Revolution (or any other revolution for that matter) and develop a visualization that communicates a similar level of information. Students would be asked to consider the knowledge and analysis portions of their investigation while taking into account the design and presentation discussion that happened as a result of the comparison of the two data visualizations. From here they can draw connections, locate moments of similarity and difference, predict outcome (for the Middle East), create new graphics for explanation, etc. The options for meaningful curricular engagement are endless.Explaining the recent events in a text based format would take days and days and days of reading. Using this type of information communication we can get at the big ideas. Then we can further investigate. This allows not just for knowledge acquisition, but for analysis to occur. This wealth of resources at our fingertips can allow for the classroom to get beyond just the 'knowing' of the information and venture out into the deeper analysis and creation of information as well. This is just too much fun.

LucidChart

(cross posted on Tech for Teachers on teachinghistory.org)Many links and hints and tips and tricks find their way past my screen on a daily basis care of Google Reader, Twitter, and email exchanges with teachers. One day last fall, this video featuring LucidChart came to my attention. I played the video for my students as an example of storytelling, useful in both my American History and American Government classes as they created stories to accompany the research they were conducting. The simplicity with which the tool was used to create organization of ideas to tell a story resonated with them as an option for communicating complex ideas in a visual manner.LucidChart identifies itself as “the missing link in online productivity suites.” The web-based, clean interface allows for the collaborative creation of diagrams and flowcharts for publishing. I recommend this tool as fast, easy to learn, collaborative, and functional on any browser.Getting Started Registering is a breeze, needing only a valid email address. I created a flowchart in LucidChart to detail the steps for getting started with the tool. Many of the boxes are hotlinked—run your mouse over the textbox, and if a hand appears there is a link to explore. (Make sure you have popups unblocked to view the included links.) The tour, examples, forums, and tutorials are appropriately helpful and clear.If you believe that this is a tool that would suit your educational pursuits, there is an educational version that is available free of charge to K–12 teachers and students. For the more tech-savvy, there is also an integrated function between Google Apps and LucidChart. In an email exchange with David Grow of LucidChart he stated,“For K–12, we are committed to always providing LucidChart free of charge so there is no expiration. Also, an educational account is essentially the equivalent of a paid Team account which has all of the premium features! We are eager for more teachers and students to be using LucidChart.”I cannot stress enough that with a tool like this, it will take you a bit of time to feel as though you are a “master,” but you can feel functional almost immediately. The drag-and-drop-style features make it quite intuitive. I created the Getting Started flowchart to demonstrate my own willingness to create and play a bit in the pursuit of encouraging more teachers to do the same.Examples Quite traditionally, my American Government classes work through the three branches of government in their investigation of the American political scene. For the study of the Executive Branch, we look intently at the complex bureaucratic structures developed over time at various levels of government. I find that students often think that the Executive Branch is just the president or governor or mayor, but fail to consider the elaborate web of bureaucracy that the Executive Branch oversees.The end-of-unit project is based on the understanding of a selected bureaucratic “task.” The goal of the project is for the students to actually pursue the task by assembling and filling out paperwork, making phone calls, reading . . . reading . . . reading, and asking questions. At the end of all of it, the partnerships present the body of evidence with the paperwork, but also with a flowchart that details the process by which the average citizen would complete the task. They are to add in links, tips, tricks, hints, and such.At the completion of the project the students had to not only analyze the complex structures of government bureaucracy, but also produce a “deliverable.” LucidChart was one of the best choices of tool for this task because of its simple, web-based, collaborative functions. Being able to investigate, research, create, and then present/publish their findings meant that the learning was not just a creation for in-class sharing, but could be shared digitally and hence more broadly. One of the most functional tasks chosen by the students was completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). As seniors, they are all in the midst of applying for college and now for financial aid. The students that worked on FAFSA were able to share their flowchart with their peers in order to demystify the process a bit.Much of students’ reflection commented on the complicated nature of the processes and the struggle they had to attempt to simplify the procedures down to a flowchart. As a teacher I was able to see the level of research and clarity of understanding in the graphics they produced on LucidChart.Student Examples:* Green Card Flowchart and Student Reflection* FAFSA Flowchart and Student Reflection* Filing Income Taxes Flowchart and Student Reflection

Election Day

For the past three years I have required all of my students to visit the polls on Election Day in November. For each of the years, I tweaked the assignment to stay relevant and meaningful for the different years and types of elections. Today I decided to organize the information into one place that held the unit plan that I use to engage the students in the concept of Political Participation and the work that resulted.The process of having students visit their local polling place and engage with the voting public on Election Day is one of my favorite activities. I call it their Citizenship Homework. The act of crossing the threshold of the polling place, see it in action dramatically increases their likelihood of venturing out later in life when they are of age to vote. I believe in encouraging students to vote but more so, I do not want them to 'not vote' because they are unaware or unsure or uninformed. For some students this activity is one of their favorites and for others it is quite mundane, but at the end of it all, they are learning in real spaces where the real world is functioning. For me... that is #sogood.

The Hurt.

There are moments in the classroom when students allow you to see the most wonderful events and occasions in their life. Those are extremely common in my day to day life and for that I am perpetually grateful.But there are also those days when you see a student so visibly wear their pain. Today I looked straight into the face of one of my most energetic and engaged students and only pain and hurt was looking back at me. This happens, it isn't a rare thing in the teaching profession. But today, seeing that pain was harder than usual. It is still with me as I sit here on a Friday night, packing for a long weekend away.I had to hold onto that student today while they sobbed over the extremely hurtful words yelled at them by an adult that is supposed to love and protect, damaging soul-crushing words. In doing so, some of that pain stuck to me. That is also not new and part of the job. I get that. But for whatever reason, this time, I need this to live somewhere other than just in my mind. As I suggested to the student, sometimes we just need to write those feelings down somewhere so it doesn't bounce around in our heads, continuing the hurt. So here is where I choose to let this live. For now at least, this hurt lives here.

2010 SLA Debate Team

I joined the SLA staff in August of 2008. One of the first things that Chris Lehmann asked me to do, in addition to my teaching job, was coach the debate team. Now, I had been a coach. I coached volleyball, basketball and even two seasons of wrestling (that is a whole 'nother blog post) for the previous 15 years. My first team was a group of 6th grade girls at a Catholic school near my college. They were awesome. I was hooked and coached ever since.When I arrived at SLA there were no coaching jobs left open... or so I thought! I knew nothing about debate except for the informal bickering I've engaged in with everyone I've ever met. That first year was a challenge. The students were young, the league in Philadelphia was new and we were certainly in a building year. The 2009-2010 school year started to see some building momentum and by the end of the year we were competing at the top of the league in the city.We were good, but if we were going to get better we needed a more consistent and solid meeting time to research and build cases. I went to Lehmann at the end of the school year and proposed a Debate class. In my mind, if we were going to raise the level of competition the very busy student athletes balancing the academic rigor of debate along with the demands of their normal SLA classes and jobs. We needed time; Lehmann agreed.Two consistent hours a week for the first semester had an unbelievably positive impact on the performance of the debate team. At the Penn Youth For Debate tournament in early December, we brought a crushingly large team - 9 Debate partnerships went to work for the day debating the December Cyberbullying topic. When the day was over we won 1st - Andre Serrano and Chris Cassise, 3rd - Domnique Miller and Rumman Haq, 5th - Dennis Mawson and Kabbour Riqz and 6th places - Elisa Hyder and Mike Dea. One of SLA's newest debaters, Elisa Hyder, won the award for best speaker overall. No other team came anywhere near placing two teams at the top. I could not have been more proud. Or so I thought.Our winning ways continued with the conclusion of the Philadelphia City League last week. The Serrano/Cassise team (undefeated in 8 weeks of competition) and the Miller/Haq team placed 1st and 3rd again, Andre was one of the top overall speakers and SLA was the top team in the city. Our four top debaters will be getting out of school one day next semester to shadow an Assistant District Attorney and will be honored by the Philadelphia School Reform Commission (the Philly version of a school board) on January 12th.Debate is tough and awesome and frustrating and exhilarating. The 22 debaters that competed on behalf of SLA this past semester performed impressively. I am humbled to get to work with such a dynamic, fun-loving and tenacious bunch. Here's hoping the second semester holds as much fun as the first. Well done, team - well done.

Summertime

I've been a voracious reader since I was quite young. Living in a really small town, on a farm, with only 3 TV channels and no internet left me with some time on my hands. I read. All the time. But in the summer, I really read. I would sit in the hammock in the backyard and read for hours. It seemed to be the one place no one else in the family wanted to be. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I read every book that John Steinbeck wrote, all of them. I don't even remember how I came to acquire them all, but I did and read them all ... chain-reading is what I would call it. Read everything the author wrote. I loved it.As the years passed in college there was less and less time for pleasure reading due to the three jobs and full-time classes. Then, I started teaching full-time... 13 years later I find myself back on the farm, back in the hammock and back to chain-reading. I've missed it. Endlessly reading with nowhere to go and nothing better to do.I wish that I was able to find the head space that allowed me to read like this during the school year, but I can't seem to locate it amongst the meetings, planning, events, conferences, etc. I hope to make it a goal next year to find the time to lose myself in a book now and again (that isn't related to education, history, reform, etc)... DURING the school year.I hope you are finding the time to enjoy our teaching 'downtime', I know I am.

Cheer'reading

Mike Rose's Why School? is a quick, but delightful read.  Reading this book is in the cheer'reading category, as I knew there would not be much to push my thinking.  Rather this book brought new words to the ideas I have held about education my entire life.  I'm not sure that I have ever read something I agreed with more, save (maybe) Rothstein's Grading Education. 

One of my favorite passages:

To affirm our capacity as a people is not to deny the obvious variability among us.  Not is it to retreat to some softhearted notion of mind.  We mistake narrowness for rigor, but actually we are not rigorous enough.  To acknowledge our collective capacity is to take the concept of variability seriously.  Not as a neat binary distinction or as slots along a simplified cognitive continuum, but as a bountiful and layered field, where many processes and domains of knowledge interact. Such a model demands more, not less, from those of us who teach, or organize work, or who develop social policy.  To affirm this conception of mind and work is to be vigilant for the intelligence not only in the boardroom but on the shop floor; in the laboratory and alongside the house frame; in the workshop and in the classroom.  This is a model of mind that befits the democratic imagination.

I come from a long line of workers, farmers, mostly.  The communities that develop around the work of farms, the coordination of schedules, the tenacious work ethic and specific knowledge about the profession is stunning.  Rarely would I tell someone to aspire to a life of farming because of the state of the family farm in America today, but the life is something impressive to participate in and reflect upon.  What I think I liked most about Mike Rose is that he gets how smart, savvy and focused people need to be in all walks of life.  Some of the 'smartest' people I know have callused hands, bad shoulders from logging, and weathered skin.

The sticking point when we try to look at this valuation of variability is when we need to evaluate if the opportunities for those different paths (boardroom, shop floor, labratory, house frame and workshop) are open, equitably to all people.  So it begs the question, do we educate everyone as if they are going to college in the attempt to not discriminate in who has the option to proceed?  Is that the wisest path?  Is there a better way?  Is there a way to equitably open paths for students that want to pursue different careers in a way that doesn't limit them based on SES, race/ethnicity or gender?  If we think the best way to ensure that everyone gets a 'shot' is to continue with a more standardized curriculum, how can we make sure to foster the work of those people that choose work not typically valued, equally by society?

We live in a time uniquely suited for greater individualization/specialization of instruction and yet we move in a more standardized fashion. hm.

Posted via web from it occurs to me...

National History Standards

Before I crack into my ideas about standards, let me state a few points of note:• I love social studies, all of it, the facts, the thinking, the philosophical underpinnings, the minutia. But, my loving of it does not mean that I believe everyone should love it like I do. Rather my job is to try and tell a compelling story so as to encourage critical thinking and analysis in the hopes that students become informed and effective citizens.• I have taught social studies in 4 distinct regions of the country, which influences the manner in which I frame and process this issue.• I fought very hard inside the social studies standards debate in Arizona during 2006. It was eye opening.I closely watch the development of the Common Core standards in English/Language Arts and Math. Inevitably, my mind floats to my own discipline, social studies. As I try to parse out the potential ugliness that may ensue, a few issues occur to me. The largest complicating factor, for me, is best summed up by the fact “that there are simply not enough hours in the day to cover everything everyone thinks is important.” The people, the places, the battles, the bills, the court cases, the trivia of history are often the most difficult to assess value, placement and inclusion in standards.E.D. Hirsch and the Core Knowledge advocates have identified what they believe is most important to teach, to learn, to know about being an informed and well-rounded citizen. Each state has also spent copious amounts of time defining standards for Social Studies at the state level, debating and passing those standards. In each state nothing is more sacred than the local stories, the small town heroes, the state lore, as well as the regional sacrifices and the battles fought on their soil. As I have lived in a variety of American regions, I can say, the locale, the quirks of the region, the racial and ethnic composition make them all distinctly unique. These local oral histories and photos and diaries and newspapers and court records all serve to tell different stories in locally interesting and engaging ways. The stories of Oklahoma are fascinating, but may not be as valuable to the people who tell the stories of Alaska or Wisconsin or Maine. We are one country, yes, but are regionally distinct and notable.America’s story is compelling because it is about the national and the state and the local; that the intervening balance and interplay is complicated. Yes. It’s downright messy. It is a fact that certain pieces of history are more valued than others in different parts of the country. Certain interests that control state boards are both politically and religiously motivated to influence the development of such standards. These conflicts, interests and motivations are hard to reconcile at those levels. Imagine the difficulty with a national envisioning of those standards.Deciding how history and social studies is defined and assessed on a national level is poised to be as divisive a conversation education has entered into in recent memory. This is no small issue, as education is mired in a myriad of contentious conversations about reform and renewal and renaissance. Ohio, Texas, North Carolina and a number of states have been in all out verbal brawls over the statewide standards. When we try to combine those ideas into national standards, I anticipate an exponentially gruesome battle.E.D. Hirsch seems to feel confident that he knows what every American child should know about history. I however, after living in a variety of American regions, am almost as certain that flexibility in content is critical, respect and validation for regional identity imperative and we need to temper a desire to turn my content into a national checklist of facts and dates. We can do better than this and the complex informational landscape demands that we do.I would rather not have national standards in any subject area, but I think the impending push for them will be overwhelming to many states that are cash strapped and desperate, as I anticipate the adoption of national standards will be tied to federal dollars. Having the Common Core focus move past ELA/Math and potentially into Social Studies/History worries me, greatly.Part two of this post will outline how I think we could get this right, if pressed into national history standards. I would love to know what you all think about this, what is the right path, how is this best accomplished, assessed, etc. Colorado seems to have some interesting ideas.(open all included links at once)