learningIT

Trailer for Lord Puttnam’s new film about education.

video link here

(found via Sir Ken Robinson on Twitter)

Stimulating Imagination Through Constraints is an interesting article from Psychology Today. As a specialist teacher who often visited classrooms in the past, I have seen several teachers simply ask their students to “be creative” or “use your imagination” for project tasks. Too bad it’s not that simple. Students will not usually know where to start. Nor would I.

In the classroom we need to be ‘clear and explicit about definitions, concepts and processes.’ Being creative does not simply mean to create something with no limits in mind. Usually such an open task will lead to more frustration and poorer quality of work. How will you then evaluate when all was simply asked was to be creative and imaginative? Providing some constraints can help define the problem and assist in solving the problem in creative ways.

(Read the full article through the link provided above).

Information designer Tom Wujec talks through three areas of the brain that help us understand words, images, feelings and connections. In this short talk from TEDU, he asks: How can we best engage our brains to help us better understand big ideas? (link here)

(Also archived under the “Arts, Learning & Talks” tab above)

It’s my second post today but I really need to share this one. It’s an excellent site a colleague has passed on to me (thanks Brian).

The Mobile Learning Institute’s film series “A 21st Century Education” profiles individuals who embrace and defend fresh approaches to learning and who confront the urgent social challenges that are part of a 21st century experience. “A 21st Century Education” compiles, in short film format, the best ideas around school reform. The series is meant to start, extend, or nudge the conversation about how to make change in education happen.

Here’s a sample of some of the videos (surprisingly, there are no embedding options but they do allow you to download them).

One of my favourites was Larry Rosenstock’s Project Based Learning.

In this film, Larry Rosenstock, describes a vision for education that blends the head, the heart, and the hands. High Tech High embraces learning that flows from personal interests, passion for discovery and a celebration of art, technology and craftsmanship.

Excellent viewing. As inspirational as TED.

“The challenge is no longer finding information but making it meaningful.”

A great article from 2020 Forecast:

An extremely visible world demands new sensemaking

Information proliferation will continue, exacerbating the burden on families, learners, educators, and decision-makers to make sense of vast amounts of data. New tools for visualizing data will require new skills in discerning meaningful patterns. Social media and collaborative tools will leave “data trails” of people’s online interactions — including contributions to group activities, inquiries and searches, skills, digital resources, and preferences (such as playlists, buddy lists, and topics tracked) — and social networks. At the same time, sensors and global positioning systems in devices such as cell phones and car navigation systems will be able to capture location-based information along with health and environmental data. Together these tools will provide a robust, visible “data picture” of our lives as citizens, workers, and learners. Families, learners, educators, and decision-makers will need to become sophisticated at pattern recognition in order to create effective and differentiated learning experiences and environments. Furthermore, new skills in collective sensemaking will redefine forms of knowledge, knowing, and assessment.

• How do ubiquitous, visible data impact teaching, learning, and the assessment of learning experiences?
• How can we use data to enhance human decisions rather than automate them?

How will we aggregate data and make sense of it all? “Educators and learners will need to learn how to participate effectively in an abundant data world.  New ways of seeing, knowing, and communicating will redefine learning environments, roles, and even forms of knowledge, knowing, and assessment. “

Full story here.

Also look at the Explore Visual Literacy area located under Related Topics > Trends.

A few weeks ago I had a casual conversation with a member of my school’s leadership team. We were casually discussing authentic assessments, classroom organisation and the art room (as you usually do). This dialogue has been brewing and percolating in my mind for a while now and has raised some interesting questions.

At my school, when MS/HS teachers are absent, occasionally another teacher may have to cover. These teachers always comment on how enjoyable it is to cover art classes. They say it feels relaxed and the students are usually engaged, motivated and need little monitoring. “It runs itself” they say. Why is this? Surely every teacher wants that! How can the art room work ethic be transferred to other subjects and classrooms? How can schools and teachers tap into this?

What’s different about the art room? Is it because art rooms are usually bigger? Is there some teaching secret we are not sharing? The answer is simply no. Or should I say yes? Of course the argument goes that we provide hands-on experiences and students prefer this. This is true. However, we also need to interest the students to the tasks at hand just like any other subject. Art is no different. Some students don’t wish to be there because they feel they can’t draw (but that’s another blog post!). In our Middle School, students have to take art. Not all consider themselves artists, but they are engaged. What are art teachers doing different?

Several of my students often comment about our projects being demanding. They mean this in the sense that they are challenged to think both creatively and critically. A successful lesson or project to me is one that always leaves me and the students with more questions than answers. All of us have great comments on how we would improve the task ‘the next time’ at the end of the unit during our self-reflections. We encourage this dialogue. This is done formally and casually as a class, in groups and with their seat neighbours. This is done more than once. It’s done constantly. We share idea brainstorms, project ideas, evaluate past student work, look at popular artists and simply chat, talk and discuss. Sometimes the ideas are deep, and sometimes they are superfluous. But the seeds are planted.

We share our techniques and plans for course of action. We then critique them and ask for ways on how they can be improved. Then the students begin the actual task. This is where I begin to float. My job is almost finished. I have almost made myself redundant.

Can’t these techniques be transferred to other subjects? Of course they can and they often are. Naturally, the art room also feels pressure and stress, but it is more of a productive kind. Timelines and expectations are advertised and explicit. There is no secret. Students know the rubric and they know the difference between the levels. Outcomes are known.

Simply, we don’t push. We have dialogue. We try to make it authentic as possible and we have expectations that pull. I teach a fraction of the time and then I guide. One of the things I like most about sharing an open art room and office with my coworker (HS Art) is the dialogue. We constantly share ideas, resources, critiques and feedback. I mingle with his students and he mingles with mine. We don’t find this odd and we are not threatened by it. It makes it all more dynamic.

Do you have an art room philosophy? Is this a myth? Am I speaking in tongues or are you just glad you’re not teaching introductory music?

The last photo is our Middle and High School art room. As you can see, it is also used as a study hall at times.

(Art work: “Surrealist Rooms” done in one point perspective by my grade 8 students Maria H. and Sean D.)

The Lost Generation video has been seen around the world. Here’s an educational one inspired by the original.

And following on from my last post…

IDEO’s Ten Tips For Creating a 21st–Century Classroom Experience

summary:

1. Pull, don’t push.
Create an environment that raises a lot of questions from each of your students.

2. Create from relevance.
Engage kids in ways that have relevance to them.

3. Stop calling them “soft” skills.
Talents such as creativity, collaboration, communication, empathy, and adaptability are not just nice to have; they’re the core capabilities of a 21st-century global economy facing complex challenges.

4. Allow for variation.
Permit mass customization…too often, equality in education is treated as sameness. The truth is that everyone is starting from a different place and going to a different place.

5. No more sage onstage.
Step away from the front of the room and find a place to engage with your learners as the “guide on the side.”

6. Teachers are designers.
Build an environment where your teachers are actively engaged in learning by doing. Shift the conversation from prescriptive rules to permissive guidance.

7. Build a learning community.
Schools should find new ways to engage parents and build local and national partnerships.

8. Be an anthropologist, not an archaeologist.
If you want to design new solutions for the future, you have to understand what people care about and design for that.

9. Incubate the future.
It’s about being in a place where we learn ambition, involvement, responsibility, not to mention science, math, and literature.

10. Change the discourse.
Skills such as creativity and collaboration can’t be measured on a bubble chart. We need to create new assessments that help us understand and talk about the developmental progress of 21st-century skills.

The Carrot Revolution blog featured this article from the magazine, Educational Leadership. I’m glad M. Anderson did. Luckily, my school subscribes to it and as soon as I read it, I forwarded it onto our staff bulletin board. I’ll agree, it’s an excellent read. More and more we read and hear how creativity, design, story and collaboration are vital for success in the 21st Century. I guess many have read Dan Pink and others these days and are taking note. (I will be touching upon this at a presentation I am making in April)

Now, how many of your schools are ready to crumble the academic hierarchy?

Highlighted summary (the article goes in depth with each number):
Eight Guidelines for Teachers
1. Shift from text centrism to media collage.
2. Value writing and reading now more than ever.
3. Adopt art as the next R.
4. Blend traditional and emerging literacies.
5. Harness report and story.
6. Practice private and participatory social literacy.
7. Develop literacy with digital tools and about digital tools.
8. Pursue fluency.

UPDATE: I just noticed this is my 100th post!

Social websites harm children’s brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist (from Daily Mail)

Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.

The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day. Full story here.

The value of teaching 21st-century skills (from The Boston Globe)

THINK strategically. Use technology wisely. Work collaboratively. Communicate effectively. Recognize how the world around you connects to everything you do. Employees are expected to be steeped in these and other skills their first day on the job. In today’s weak economy, the resumes of those who don’t speak the language of the 21st century are quickly passed over. Full story here.

Students tap into technology (from Pittsburgh Tribune Review)

Since 2003, Penzera has invested a great deal into technological advances for her classroom, including “smart” whiteboards to remote-control quizzes and videoconferencing.

English teacher Diane Penzera rarely uses books these days.

Instead, her students at Greater Latrobe High School use their laptops to read “Don Quixote” and Dante’s “Divine Comedy” on the Internet, then organize their notes with a computer program. Full story here.