Shifting the Learning Process in The Lower School

The focus of our Lower School faculty meeting this week revolved around learning in the digital age; we used our “spring break read” Why School? By Will Richardson to frame our questions and guide the discussion. I was moved by the sense of optimism that filled the room as our teachers embraced the need to adapt our practice in order to facilitate student learning in a way that will better prepare them for the world they will enter as older students and adults. They seemed to agree that we must make school “different.” I left hopeful that positive change will be the result of these ongoing discussions; that we will reach our students in ways that will prepare them to collaborate, create, problem-solve and design a better future for themselves and the world. I see our Lower School team full of courageous and eager facilitators ready to learn along with their students.

These are some of the thoughts, concerns, and ideas that we pondered and shared as we initiated this discussion on learning in the digital age:

·            When passion is ignited in our students and they generate a unique question to investigate, all of a sudden it is time to stop and move on to another subject area.

·            Are school schedules outdated? What should we do about it? How do we create a balance and schedule that meets the students’ needs?

·            As teachers we should keep an open mind, try new things and let go of our need to see the finish line or follow a set path.

·            Let’s embrace the excitement of the students and follow their lead.

·            Should we focus on the skills and not on the content? Does the content really matter? How do we ensure that the skills are both sufficiently practiced and reinforced?

·            Can we consider “deeper” units, spread them out and when able and appropriate bring the “experts” and “specialists” to us to collaborate and facilitate learning.

·            Let’s keep learning and unlearning.

·            The medium is different. Let’s guide students to manage, understand, interpret, process and use the “abundance of information.” Mistakes will be made, but the benefits will surpass the challenges.

·            The meaning of “friend” has expanded for today’s learners. Friends are the experts, authors, virtual friends, classmates and collaborators we meet at school and beyond school walls.

Do these reflections and considerations sound difficult or daring? Not at all, they are realities that come up in conversations among colleagues and/or practices that happen in “small chunks” throughout our days, units and semesters. If we continue to share, discuss, and expand these practices together we will move along this learning continuum towards an “unknown” but surely exciting outcome….

As Will says, school is a valuable place where caring knowledgeable adults are present to support students as they discover their passions and engage in new ventures. We all have a very important role in the lives of students; it is just finding a balanced learning environment that will help prepare our students for their future.

What is your perspective on Shifting the Learning Process for our youngest students?

Immersing Myself in Social Media Feels Like Rush Hour 24/7. Can you help me steer the way?

Destination: Making school an engaging, caring and compassionate place
Objective: Seeking a better social media route

Using social media as a professional development guide to improve education will most certainly yield positive results throughout my school community; especially once more FHS drivers enter the road. I initiated my journey about 9 months ago. I still feel I am utilizing social media more so for myself professionally than for my community. Social media has helped to expand my educational philosophy; has helped me connect ideas to movements and clarify some of my misconceptions. I do share what I learn with others via social media, through personal conversations and through traditional email, however, at the moment I have no idea what the impact on the community has been. Don’t get me wrong; social media has led some colleagues to move in a particular direction.  We have participated in a few school wide projects and divisional projects as a result of what we have been exposed to and learned through social media; we have many teachers reading and writing blogs, and some students are blogging and publishing iBooks, as well. There is also a pretty large group of us that “carpool together” frequently, exchanging ideas and looking for ways to implement them in our school. I know the road toward change is a long one, and that is OK, as long as we keep moving forward.
Let’s get back to rush hour and at this point I am driving on my own, but seeking some advice to make my own professional journey a bit more efficient. I think many of us out there are constantly looking for better traffic patterns or alternate routes. I bury and overwhelm myself with so much information that I tend to skim the surface by reviewing all paths, instead of taking a pit stop or considering a detour. The traffic patterns I have explored are Google reader for my blogs, TweetDeck for my tweets, and delicious to park my favorites, and I use Flipboard as the suitcase for all my apps while on the go. However, I still would appreciate some advice from those experienced drivers, map developers or analysts who could help me reach my destination.

It’s spring break, I am set to refuel, can you help me steer the way? What do you use to navigate, explore fully, park your information, and make rush hour a pleasant experience?

Thanks in advance for helping me refuel. 

Learning and Changing through the Eyes of Specialist Teachers

This past Friday, a group of specialist area teachers (representing art, library, music, PE, science, spanish and technology) and I stumbled upon some open time to get together and talk about educational change, learning, and the impact “talk of change” has on our professional lives. To stimulate conversation I sent them 3 groups of bundled Ted Talks: 
1)  21^st Century K-12 learning from Jonathan Martin http://21k12blog.net/2012/08/11/18-videos-suggested-for-back-to-school-faculty-meetings-and-other-educational-audiences2) reimaging your business from Harvard Business ReviewBlog http://t.co/wQdMJ7rPUA
3) learning from failure http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/03/8-wonderful-ted-talks-on-learning-from.html
It was nice to see that from the 12 of us present, we picked from all 3 bundles. The questions I posed were the following:
•   What surprised, worried or excited you about the topic?•   How does it relate to our work as educators?•   How does it relate to our work specifically at our JK-12 school?
I framed the conversation around our “learning” both from one another and from the resources beyond our school walls. It was an open, un-hurried conversation, where everyone was engaged and left with a positive outlook toward making school better. Some highlights:
FROM THE GROUP:·            We need to develop stronger partnerships that help those who we  receive or send our students to (parents and colleges) understand our vision as a school and the importance we are giving to authentic, real world, skills based education.
·            The school vision should be communicated consistently, thoroughly and across constituents.
·            Break the equation: College = good letter grades + excellent test scores + traditional leadership.
·            How does our college counseling office explain our school? Following a traditional mode or by explaining our uniqueness and forward thinking pedagogy. How should our school be represented to colleges? Can our college counseling office share these thoughts with the JK-12^th grade faculty?·            As a group we value the need to learn from our failures; we grow from reflecting on our mistakes; how do we reinforce this with our parent body?
·            The admissions team should be a voice for our teaching and learning; we want them in our spaces!·            Creativity, play and downtime for students is essential. We must do the best we can to build it into our lessons and programs. This requires flexibility from all.·            We respect, recognize and need organization and structure in our school lives and programs; but we also want more spontaneity and opportunities for creative endeavors in our specialist areas. We strive to find this balance although we are unsure of how to achieve it.
·            We value the resources and global connections we use through Web 2.0 tools, but we believe in the importance of human connections and relationships in our learning.

VALUABLE FEEDBACK I RECEIVED ON WHAT SPECIALIST TEACHERS NEED TO ENHANCE THEIR TEACHING:·            Ability to plan and execute without stepping through so many hoops!·            Freedom to diversify, augment and rethink our programs.·            Don’t over plan and over schedule.·            Provide flexibility  of time when needed.·            Trust us as experts in our field.·            Understand that collaboration happens naturally among us when needed yielding effective results (examples came up in the conversation!)

THE SPECIALIST TEACHERS NOTED THE FOLLOW NEEDS AS MOST IMPORTANT TO THEIR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING:·            More open ended, unconferencing opportunities to work together.·            Time for dialog.·            School commitment toward reflection – allowing time for dialog and other reflection strategies.
·            Slow down, don’t rush (us or the kids!)

Thank you for your time and commitment colleagues – I truly appreciate it!

My Day in JK

The two best days of my year so far have been the Day of Play, a Lower School community experience almost replicating Caine's Arcade, and my full day Friday in Junior Kindergarten. If you want  your daily challenges to go away or you  simply want to view the joy in life, spend your day with 4 year olds; it truly is a day of smiles, fun and laughter, with plenty of learning along the way.

What was really cool was the balance I felt between the "traditional" way of approaching learning and life and the "21st century way." Traditional: It was the first day the students had the "post office" as a center. The students practiced addressing envelopes, and mailing letters and packages. There was also plenty of rhymes, songs, calendar time, choral repetition, listening to stories, and counting the dots on a dice. Following the traditional way of life, I decided to send the Jkers a letter to each of their homes, via the U.S. postal service, thanking them for welcoming me Friday and sharing with them some of my observations. 21st Century: students practiced literacy skills via the Scribble My Story app and reinforced shapes via the Geoboard app; durring the math lesson students collaborated and worked togther to teach eachother about the shapes, as well as to simply help each other understand how to use the iPad app. Junior Kindergarten teacher Leslie Viente shared that she had connected with other Kindergarten teachers via twitter and was organizing a way to Skype with other classes during center time - to see how others around the country learn, and utilize this precious "traditional" block of time. I, too, was tweeting my observations throughout the day, which led to a connection and posting on the "math Learning Center" website from Colorado, and their Pinterst Page, on our use of the Geoboard. I love this balance, embracing new practices while maintaining the "regular way of doing things." Here is my letter to the JK students: -->

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February 3, 2013Dear JK Friends:
Thank you so very much for welcoming me into your classroom last Friday. You are a busy, busy group. I had so much fun and learned a great deal! In centers I learned how to address and mail an envelope. Please check this envelope out and let me know if I set it up correctly. I learned the G sound.  Let me add to your G word list. These are two words that may be helpful for International Week, Game and Ghana. You will be playing lots of games next week! And, did you know that lots of Mrs. Cardell’s clothing comes from Ghana? You can ask her at Inspiration. PE was lots of fun; I have not pushed myself around in the scooter for a long time. It was so cool to try out two new apps with you, the Geoboard where we learned some shapes, and the Scribble My Story, where you were able to dictate and illustrate a story. It was the best Friday ever! See you soon.
Sincerely,
Dr. Isabel

What If?

What If? is something I have been contemplating ever since I started on this journey immersing myself in social media, navigating my thirst for life long learning down a very specific path….. one that enables me, a quiet, humble, introvert, to collaborate, share, express myself and hopefully influence others along the way.
What if?
Specifically, what if my employer had not given me three incredible devices (iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air) to use 24/7, 12 months of the year? What if I did not have a TIS (Technology Integration Specialist) or what I consider to be a personal mentor to ask for help about anything, any day at anytime??!! I truly ask myself this frequently. I am very privileged, and I do not take that for granted. It is my duty, my obligation and my desire to do something with this grand privilege, to educate myself, work to engage others, and hopefully influence change in my school community and beyond.

Why 3 devices? Each I use for a slightly different purpose, and of course uses blend and overlap across devices. As an administrator, my phone has a primary purpose; to use in response to an emergency. I have it with me at all times. Luckily, emergencies are infrequent; its second purpose is for me to maintain efficient communication with my staff as well as with the administrative team. It is also quite handy to record daily events and needs through videos and photographs. If something on the playground or parking lot looks like a safety issue, I can take a picture and send it off to the facilities department. If a student is teaching a jump rope chant in Spanish to a friend at recess I can record it and show the Spanish teacher and make her proud!
I tend to use my iPad as a “movable desk.” I record bus and activity attendance on it; I take it with me on class observations so I can keep up with email as I move through the day, or so I can look something up quickly if a question is posed to me in the hallway. My iPad is also the most comfortable tool to keep up with twitter or read my subscribed blogs on Flipboard. I also play with the various apps all of the students use in the different subjects.

My MacBook Air, on the other hand, is my “moveable office.” My filing system, calendar, notes, organized twitter favorites, to do lists……. everything. Some of these things can be accessed on my iPhone and iPad as well, but I navigate toward the ease of my “MacBook office.”
As I write this I realize what a “novice techie” I really am. I have all of these devices that can do so many things, and I still use them minimally. Meaning I use them ALL OF THE TIME, but not in the capacity that I could or should. I do take baby steps, I always try, and I rarely give up, but I still need to push myself a bit more to get out of my comfort zone and explore new things. It is not only my obligation to use these devices to facilitate my daily responsibilities; I must 1) understand more thoroughly how the teachers and students are using their technology tools inside the classroom and 2) model professional engagement in social media in order to encourage use within my school community.
How did I get hooked on social media for professional advancement? How did I improve? And how will I continue to improve – because I do have a long way to go.

The answer is an easy one. I have a mentor willing, patient, caring and available to lead me down the path I choose to follow. I am not told where to go or what to do, but I am guided depending on my queries. My curiosity, my responsibilities, and my desire to grow professionally lead the way. My mentor has guided me in many different ways, but as the learner I must take the lead, and I always have. My queries vary.

Initially I drafted a list of all the different types of social media I was interested in and explained that my sole objective was to grow professionally and interact with the world beyond my school campus. The list was rather long and included: twitter, blogging, facebook, google+, wikis, google docs……google reader, social bookmarking. My mentor first helped me to prioritize that list, some things came right off, others were put into a specific order….. and one by one I moved forward with her help. In regards to social media my mentor has helped me:
·            Find and subscribe to educational blogs via google reader·            Create my own blog as well as a community blog·            Enter the twitter universe: find tweeps, increase followers, participate in chats,  understand hashtags,   create lists, add picture collages to tweets·            Use Delicious to bookmark sites·            Use Ifft to organize information·            Create a google doc survey and utilize other google docs·            Imbed audio and video into blogs·            Create QR Codes to communicate information·            Become familiar with Evernote  as a record keeping, note taking, recording tool·            Become familiar with Pinterest·            Understand the process of rolling out iPads and Mac Book Airs to faculty and students in an efficient and safe manner.

Through these queries and my own navigation I have participated in a web 2.0 course as well as an 8 week leadership collaborative. Yet, I still realize that I have only scratched the surface, and I expect much more of myself.

I can push myself all the harder, because I know, thanks to my school that I have the tools and support that I need to move forward. I am recognizing my privilege. I know that there are many folks out there that are much further along than I, even though they do not have as many tools or so much hands-on support. I am truly grateful and thus must keep moving down, up, and around this learning path.

 So, what if I had not received the support of my patient, caring, and knowledgeable mentor?
·            My tools would be used some of the time and not all of the time.·            My progress would be as slow as a turtle and not as consistent as a dolphin gliding through the water·            My curiosity could manifest itself in frustration
·            My blogs would be mundane and boring·            My attempts to organize all my discoveries would be a jumbled up mess instead of a categorized list, creative wordle, or labeled Evernote “stack.”
However, most importantly, what if I did not have my mentor at my side? I would not have a friend, colleague, educator, “person,” to share the success, challenges and joys of our lives as educators with or without technology!!

Blog as Portfolio

George Couros’ session on “Blog as Portfolio” brought my initial web 2.0 goals full circle. Creating an eportfolio was at the top of my web 2.0 goal list over a year ago. For better or for worse, it fell straight to the bottom. I understood it; I found it necessary, but I just wasn’t ready to develop it – there was still too much to learn. I  had my reliable paper copies of my resume, professional statement and accompanying documents to fall back on. I am now, however, looking forward to working on that skill and pulling that goal out from the bottom of the pile.

The suggestions and comments made by George and the participants of Leadership 2.0 have helped focus my thinking and have triggered the planning stage. A blog portfolio can be seen as the blue print for a new design – a starting point, or a carefully developed replica of what you are working to complete. In my case, it has ended up being a replica I will work hard to create! 

First, it was important for me to become comfortable in this new medium of social media, interacting, engaging and sharing with others across the nation and globe. Second, I learned that finding my voice through blogging and tweeting took practice and time. It is a unique type of writing; it honors individuality, but can lead to collaboration when interests among your PLN begin to interact.

Blogging, for me is a focused reflection. It is not simply putting thoughts on paper, but centering those thoughts around a specific experience, belief, idea, value, goal, project…… using those thoughts as a self-brainstorming session in order to improve my own craft, and hopefully improve my contributions to the field of education, within my immediate community or beyond. Equally important, twitter provides a forum for engaged conversation – dialog as opposed to a personal narrative blog. Twitter provides the opportunity to question, support, clarify, explore and have fun! Of course, I am still a novice. I know there are limitless forms of expression out there, using info graphics,  Pinterest, and tumblr. for example. The pile is large, and I won’t get through it! However, as I explore I will find the applications and means of expression that best fit my own needs and learning style while simultaneously meeting and exploring with other educators. I look forward to integrating my blog posts, twitter reflections and any up and coming skills into a conceptualized blog portfolio.