ChatGPT for teachers

Last week, I shared a post to give some background on artificial intelligence in general, and the work of OpenAI and their chatbot ChatGPT. You can see that post here. Today’s post is my effort to think about how we might utilize AI within the educational realm.

If you’ve followed my writing for long, you know that I have often talked about teaching as something of a craft. It’s something that educators are bound to refine over time. If you compare the early writing of your favorite authors or earliest works of art by a favorite artist with things they created later in their career, you are going to notice differences. Whether we are talking about being an educator, artist, or anything else, we see that skills change over time. By no means am I suggesting that we remove the craft of teaching, or the creativity that comes from designing lessons that are responsive to the learners in your classroom, but as I start playing with AI like ChatGPT more, I’m finding that there are probably ways that we can use it to carry out some of the tasks that exist in our role as educators.

I’m not completely sure where I heard it, or even what the exact quote is, but it goes something like this:

Between the rise of digital technologies, search engines, and artificial intelligence, content knowledge is cheap. The creativity to take knowledge and skills and combine them in new and creative ways is what future employers will be looking for. We must remember that we aren’t trying to help our students be prepared for the jobs that exist in our world today, but rather we hope to have our students prepared for the jobs that will exist in the future – some of which may not even exist yet! The sooner we as educators can embrace new technologies, the more quickly we help our students find ways to use that technology in new and creative ways.

So, with today’s post, I wanted to think a bit about how technologies like AI might help make the life of a teacher a bit easier. Here’s a quick list of a few things that ChatGPT might be able to help educators accomplish:

1: ChatGPT could assist with creating and generating lesson plans and ideas – While visiting a first-grade class today, I noticed they were learning about text features in nonfiction writing, so I asked ChatGPT to create a lesson plan for me. Here’s what it created (click on the first image, and then you can swipe through the gallery):

Now, depending on the needs and interests of my class, my own personal knowledge of standards, and other information that I as a teacher might have, I would probably make a few changes, but this is something that could certainly serve as a starting point. And the cool thing about ChatGPT is we can ask follow-up questions. I asked the chat to adjust the lesson for a small group that was reading more than a year above the expected level, and it made several changes. Next, I asked for a lesson that was more student-directed. It adjusted by adding in more small group exploration into text features, and less teacher-directed time. With each follow-up, the adjustments made the lesson better in my eyes. The craft of teaching now comes from taking these initial ideas and focusing on how I can make sure that the lesson meets the individual needs of my students.

2: ChatGPT can assist in creating a quiz – I think we all would agree that we’re not going to be giving quizzes to our first graders, but just to test an idea, I next asked the AI to create a quiz that would assess student knowledge from the above lesson. It created a 10-question, multiple-choice quiz with three choices given as potential solutions. At the end of the quiz, it created an answer key. Again, the craft of this can come from adjusting what the AI creates to meet the needs of our students, but think of the amount of time I just saved!

3: ChatGPT can help create accessible materials for students learning English as a new language – Next, I asked ChatGPT to translate the quiz into Spanish. By no means am I fluent in Spanish, but I took enough in high school to recognize some of the questions and answers. I probably would want to check with someone that I knew was fluent (or at least more fluent than me), but at first glance, it seems pretty good. Next, I wondered what other languages might work. I tried Arabic, then Russian – now, I have no idea how accurate it is, but it must be at least as good as Google Translate!

4: ChatGPT can assist in answering questions in real time – As a former science teacher, one of the things that I loved (and at times hated because we could get so off track) were the curious “What if…” questions students would ask. These invariably ramped up during our unit on outer space. Just for the fun of it, I asked what would happen if astronauts could take a rocket at the speed of light from Earth to Mars. Questions like this were bound to happen when we started talking about the distances in space. It shared that it would take just a few minutes to get there but went on to discuss Einstein’s theory of special relativity, the concept of time dilation (where time appears to slow down for the rocket’s occupants), and the fact that the astronauts wouldn’t be able to see anything outside the ship because light would not reach them since they were traveling at the same speed as the light. How often have you had students ask you questions that you didn’t know the answer to? Or that you weren’t sure about the answer? ChatGPT could be a quick way to find an answer to whatever the question was.

Now, as I write this post, I know that I cannot use my school laptop to access ChatGPT – I get an alert that it’s been blocked. As I shared in my post last week, several schools across the country have chosen to block ChatGPT. Is that the right decision? I’m not exactly sure what the answer is. There have always been concerns as we introduced technology into schools. But when we think about school as a system, we also need to recognize that these technologies exist outside of the school setting. Our students will be able to access them when not on the school wifi (and keep in mind, if you work with an age group that has cell phones, they can probably just use their phone on their cell network while they are at school to access AI). If they have access to the technology, we need to start having conversations about how to use it in responsible ways.

I’m a big fan of teaching our students how to use all the various technologies that exist around them to support their learning. The only way we can do that is to also understand the capabilities of the technology and how it can support us in what we do. This is yet another opportunity for us as educators to refine our craft. My belief is that while the blocking of artificial intelligence is commonplace right now, at some point AI will be a mainstream tool that is used daily. Now, I know based on the various opinions that I have seen out on social media around artificial intelligence that this may make some of us uncomfortable.

So, as you think about integrating artificial intelligence into your practice, what thoughts do you have? Do you see benefits? What about drawbacks? Finally, what do you think about schools that are choosing to block AI within their technology ecosystem? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

ChatGPT in schools

Artificial Intelligence – when I hear that, one of the first things I think of is the movie The Terminator. I’m guessing most of us can hear Arnold Schwarzenegger saying, “I’ll be back.” If you don’t know the movie, or you’re too young, Schwarzenegger plays a cyborg that is sent back in time. That cyborg is created by Skynet, which is basically a giant artificial intelligence network from the future trying to take over the world and gather a slave labor force of humans.

What’s fascinating to me is that some of the technology that drives the plot of this 1984 movie seems to be coming to life – artificial life – today. Hopefully without the efforts to take over the world and turn humans into slaves.

At the end of November, a company called OpenAI released ChatGTP to the world. If you aren’t super techy, let me tell you a bit about what that means. Let’s start with OpenAI.

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research lab. The organization’s mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity. They conduct research on machine learning and AI and provide access to its technologies to the public through various products and services. Artificial Intelligence is built on the concept that computers can learn on their own through scouring the web, accessing resources, etc. The organization has been involved in the development of several popular AI-powered tools, such as GPT-3, a state-of-the-art language processing model. OpenAI is also involved in research on the ethical and societal implications of AI and works to promote responsible and safe AI development. Additionally, OpenAI has been active in the open-source community, releasing many of its research papers and tools to the public.

ChatGPT is one of the tools that has been developed by OpenIA. It is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) that is trained to understand and generate human language. Essentially, it’s a computer program that can understand and respond to the text input in a way that mimics human communication. For those of us who have been around technology for a while, you may remember the days when your search terms had to be very specific, and utilize Boolean search terms (AND, OR, NOT, or AND NOT) to combine or exclude ideas to drill down to what you were looking for. Normal human language would rarely find you what you want. Today, search engines like Google can be much more successful in finding what you are looking for when entering searches with natural language. The work of OpenAI and other forms of artificial intelligence have helped make technology easier to use. To expand on ChatGPT, it can be used for a variety of tasks such as text generation, text completion, and language translation. ChatGPT is also used for automated customer service, language education, and more. It’s a powerful tool that can be used to create engaging content, generate personalized responses, and assist in a wide range of language-related tasks.

In my Twitter feed recently, there have been a lot of conversations about the positives as well as potential issues of students having access to ChatGPT. When I was playing around with ChatGPT the first time, I asked it to write a 5-paragraph essay on a book that one of my kids was reading. It’s a book that I’ve read too, so I felt confident that I’d know if it was on the right track. Here’s the thing, the response, was pretty good. Probably not something that would be assessed as a perfect paper – there were some grammar issues and a couple of confusing groupings of words. But if handed in by an upper elementary or middle school student, I wouldn’t be any the wiser.

Technology like this has raised a fundamental question – should we block OpenAI and ChatGPT? Several school districts have already made that choice. But I’d like to remind you that there was a point when YouTube was blocked in many schools. These days it’s used in classrooms all over the world as a learning tool.

About a week ago, New York City Public Schools announced that they would be blocking OpenAI, and in particular ChatGPT on all of their networks and devices. They fear that it does not build critical thinking and problem-solving skills. I’m not sure I completely agree.

Here’s what I’ve found while playing around with ChatGPT. There are some things it does well. The other day I asked it to create a playlist for my workout based on a song I like. It was good, surprisingly good. Then I asked it to create a 45-minute HIIT workout that only used bodyweight exercises. It was decent – I would make some changes if I were following the workout, but it would definitely get me sweaty. Then I asked it to adjust the workout to use a kettlebell and adjustable dumbbells – both of which I have in my basement gym. Again, it was pretty good.

Just for fun, I asked ChatGPT to tell me the story of The Three Little Pigs as told by Michael Scott from the office. In my head, I could hear the correct voice, just the right amount of funny, and just in case you’re wondering, to Michael, the moral of the story is to just go ahead and build your house out of bricks so that you don’t have to worry about a big bad wolf.

On Twitter, I’ve seen other funny exchanges – create a poem in the style of a Shakespearean Sonnet about something in modern day pop culture. It will write computer code for you. And there’s so much more. ChatGPT also has some limitations that they openly share on the homepage. It occasionally generates incorrect information. There have been some issues of harmful instructions and biased content. And it has limited knowledge of any events after 2021.

But for our students, if they learned how to utilize ChatGPT to help with research, AI can help build a solid outline of thoughts. They have to feed the information in, and then think about what they get out. Does it work for their needs? Do they need to edit it in some way? These are critical thinking and problem-solving skills. I don’t think that blocking a resource is always the best solution. Students will have access to artificial intelligence outside of school. They may have access to them as part of work in the future. Part of our job as educators is to prepare our students for their future world, not our current world. It’s something I want to process a bit more.

Originally when I set out to write this post, I intended to get to how we might use ChatGPT in our classrooms, but this post is getting a little long. So, for now, I’ll leave this as an intro to what OpenAI and ChatGPT are and some initial thoughts on the impact of our world and classrooms. Next week, I’m going to delve into some ways that we as educators might be able to utilize this technology in the classroom to support learning. In the coming week, take a few minutes to try logging into ChatGPT (just a forewarning – sometimes you have to wait a bit for the servers to be available, and depending on where you are). See what you can find – ask it questions about topics that are meaningful to you. Can it create a lesson plan for you? Can it give you a new strategy to try with one of your students? Or can it help you create something at home – a recipe for a new type of food; a workout; or a suggestion of what book you should read next based on your current read. If you try it out, share with us in the comments below what you figured out.

#RSIpln – The Riverside Intermediate Personal Learning Network

I know that around our school, or any school, there are a variety of ways that members of the staff go about expanding their knowledge base. For some it may be through conversations with colleagues within the building, some might go beyond the building and reach out to friends around their school district, others may be less social and look for ideas on their own with tools like Google, Pinterest, Teachers Pay Teachers, or other similar resources, and some might just look towards books as resources. Each of these methods have their benefits, but there are also drawbacks – the biggest of which is that we are limited to a relatively small number of resources.

Almost nine years ago, I joined Twitter. At that time, I mostly followed my favorite athletes, some actors, tv personalities, authors, and other pop-culture icons. It wasn’t until quite some time later that I realized that Twitter could be a learning tool that could help me grow as an educator. At that time, I began to see that I could follow other educators, learn from them about what they were doing in their classrooms, and schools, and grow in my own craft. Hence, the PLN – Professional/Personal Learning Network.

Around the 300^th person I began to follow is a guy named Brad Currie, who along with Scott Rocco founded #SatChat as a way to connect with other emerging school leaders. By hearing about his journey on Twitter, I realized that my phone could connect me with educators all over the world. Many of my best ideas have been based on things that I have learned while on Twitter.

Today in our building, we are rolling out a way for all the teachers in our school to expand their own PLN, and find ways to grow as an educator, and as an added benefit, share the amazing things that are happening within our building. We can share with one another, with our local community, and ultimately with the world!

The plan, that I must admit I got from a conversation with John Hochstetler (Teacher Librarian at Sand Creek Intermediate), is to play a massive game of bingo, built around the idea of growing the PLN of each and every person who participates!

Why Twitter? Well, as Matt Miller has shared:

Congrats!

In the keynote at #DitchCon2017, Miller shared that as the lone Spanish teacher in a small rural school in western Indiana, he was struggling with whether or not he was actually able to create meaningful learning opportunities for his students. He then found a PLN through Twitter, and realized there were so many more possibilities for his students. His learning on Twitter led him to begin presenting to countless educators, and eventually writing 2 books for educators. Without the connections he created through Twitter, he feels he would have burnt out, and eventually left education.

It is my hope that through our game of bingo all the people who participate will have an opportunity to expand their own learning, and see that there are ways to get awesome ideas from others (and also have a little fun!). And the best part? By working with my PTO, I was able to get some prizes donated for those who are able to earn bingos! Each Friday of our Twitter Bingo we will do a drawing for a gift card to local restaurants for the teachers who have reached a bingo. At the end of October, we will do a Grand Prize drawing for a really spectacular prize (the details are yet to come, but it’s going to be HUGE!).

So without further ado, check out our Twitter Bingo board! Follow along with the hashtags #RSIpln and #RSIbingo. That way, you’ll see the awesome learning happening at Riverside Intermediate, and hopefully be able to further grow your PLN.

And – for those of you who are already on Twitter, share in the comments below about your own experiences! I know that we have some pretty prolific Tweeters in our building already. Why do you choose to use this as a tool in your classroom? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Maybe you’ll convince a colleague that they should join in!

If you’re interested in seeing the actual bingo board, and the directions on page 2, check it out here: #RSIpln School Year Twitter Bingo

Creativity

Over spring break, I had the opportunity to do some reading, and finished 3 different books that were awesome. One of those books was Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull (the president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios). Primarily, the book is about creativity, but Catmull also describes it as “an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.”

I have been reading a lot about creativity recently. I’ll be honest, I sometimes struggle to describe myself at a “creative” person. I always felt that I struggled in the related arts classes – while I enjoyed going to art class in elementary school, my work was never the type of thing that would have been chosen to hang in the display case outside of the art room. Even today I sometimes doodle in my notes and have been playing with the idea of sketchnoting as a way to increase learning and memory on certain tasks, but those sketches aren’t something that I feel very comfortable to share publicly. While I learned to play several different instruments in elementary, middle, and high school, I have not stuck with any of them beyond my school career. I have a guitar that spends more time in my closet than anywhere else in my house.

6 Cs of Learning But here’s the thing, if I just accept that creativity isn’t my thing, then I feel like I’m doing a disservice to the students whose life I impact. In previous posts, I have shared the graphic to the right. One of the keys to developing kids who are ready for their unknown future is developing creativity, and if we just throw our hands up and say “But I’m not that creative, so I can’t teach others to be creative” then we are not helping them be ready for whatever their future may hold.

One of the first books that I read that really got me thinking about the importance of creativity in teaching and learning was the book Ditch that Textbook by Matt Miller (also the book that got me thinking about starting this blog – one of the ways that I express my own creativity). If you haven’t read DITCH That Textbook, DITCH is actually an acronym for Matt Miller’s teaching model. DITCH stands for: Different; Innovative; Tech-laden; Creative; and Hands-on.

Creative Genius After reading Miller’s book, I was led to Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. Burgess spends a huge chunk of time in this book talking about creative ways to hook our students into our lessons. He believes that creativity is something that can be developed in anyone through practice and effort. I have to say that I agree with him on this one – we can help develop creativity in others by giving them the time, space, and opportunity to use their creative ideas in their learning!

I’ve shared before that I often think of teaching as an art. Developing lessons that are interesting, exciting, and engaging takes time and effort. Some days our lessons nail it, and our kids are totally into it. Sometimes the lessons that we think are going to be “so cool” just fall flat.

In Creativity, Inc., Catmull shares that “If we can constantly change and improve our models by using technology in the pursuit of art, we keep ourselves fresh.” For many of our students, they continue to look at their iPad, their phone, or other pieces of technology, as a tool for entertainment purposes. They can play games, watch videos, and consume in so many ways. While there are times that consumption can be necessary for the purpose of learning, we generally retain so much more when we take our knowledge and create something with it. When we use the technology that our students see as a tool for consumption, and help our students see that they can use it for creation, they can go so much further in their learning. I’ve said it before, technology can be an accelerator that pushes our learning to new heights.

With that in mind, here’s the gentle nudge – think about ways that your students can use technology to create something that would never have been possible without the iPad they have in their hands. Help them to think about how they could make something that reminds them of the things they most like to consume. Then, set them free to be creative.

In Ditch that Textbook, Miller encourages us to think about how to integrate more creativity with the following questions:

Creative: What types of products do you and/or your students consume a lot? How can the role of consumer be flipped to creator? How do you or your students demonstrate original ideas? How can those translate to the classroom?

What are some ways that you have integrated creative thinking into learning opportunities successfully? What are some ideas you have to add a creative piece to what you are already doing? I believe that most kids want to be creative, but they don’t often get the opportunity to in service of learning. When we set those creative juices free for our kids, they will be so much more likely to retain the learning that was going on in connection with their creative thinking.

#IMMOOC Week 2 – The networked learner/leader

Recently I wrote a post about my takeaways from the book The Innovators by Walter Isaacson. One of the big takeaways that I had from that book was the fact that the innovations that led to a digital revolution did not happen in several giant leaps. Instead, innovation takes place through little steps that are layered on top of each other. In addition, most of those tiny steps did not occur because of one person. When you think of the iPhone, who do you think of? For me the first name to come to mind is Steve Jobs. And while he was an important part of the process that made the smartphone a marketable thing for consumers, that idea would never have been possible without the work of so many other innovators in the digital revolution. Names like Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, Robert Noyce, Grace Hopper, and Bill Gates (along with many other innovators) all made it possible for the iPhone to be the powerful tool that I carry around in my pocket every day.

Not too long ago, I was at #DitchCon2017, put on by Matt Miller. During his keynote, Matt put a picture of the Twitter logo on the screen and said “This little bird saved my teaching career.” As educators, we all get into our own little silos and forget that there are lots of other people doing the same work as us. If we forget to lift our heads up and look around, we may miss someone else’s awesome idea that could make learning for our students new AND better.

I have been on Twitter since January of 2010. Initially I joined in order to follow athletes, pop-culture icons, politicians, and people of that nature. One day while I was driving to school, I was listening to Morning Edition on NPR and I heard a story about #Satchat, and I saw a totally new purpose for Twitter (in fact, the first 3 educators that I followed were Brad Currie, Scott Rocco, and Billy Krakower, the co-founders of #Satchat). Suddenly I realized that Twitter wasn’t just a way to absorb information from pop-culture, instead it was a way for me to learn and grow.

Twitter became my new go to for learning. I began seeking out ways to leverage hashtags to find ideas that could impact the learning in my classroom. I participated in Twitter chats and learned from educators who were just as passionate as me. Sometimes I just lurked and listened, other times I dove in and shared my ideas.

Today, I talk to everyone I know about how we can use Twitter (or Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Voxer, etc.) to learn and grow in our own ways. Once I started to participate more in Twitter chats, I began to grow followers. The more followers I had, the more I had to think about what was really valuable information to share with them. I became very intentional in the types of things I post (not that I’d never post a silly gif or my thoughts on the Cubs or Colts). This has led me to seek out high quality information to share, and causes me to be constantly reading, learning, and getting better at what I do.

We all would agree that collaboration helps us all grow. Sometimes it’s great to collaborate with that colleague down the hall, but sometimes it’s awesome to be able to collaborate with someone on the other side of the world. As Couros says in The Innovator’s Mindset, “Isolation is often the enemy of innovation.”

Going back to my lessons from Isaacson’s The Innovators, the best innovations that we will make as educators are not going to happen in giant leaps and bounds. They’re going to happen when we continue to layer our own ideas on top of the other innovators that we are learning from, and we can create truly mind-blowing, amazing, awesome learning experiences from our students! Networking is one of the best ways that I know of that we can do that!

#BookSnaps

This is a BookSnap I created while reading the second chapter of the book Launch by John Spencer and AJ Juliani

If you are on Twitter and follow any of the same people that I do, you have probably noticed people posting pictures of text, sometimes with highlighting, adding emojis, bitmojis, or text, and then posting it on Twitter with their own comments. Normally if you look at the comments, you will see the hashtag #BookSnaps linked to it. Even if you aren’t on Twitter, you can see what people are posting by clicking this link: Twitter #BookSnaps

If you go to Twitter and check this out, you will probably notice that most of the posts here are educators who are sharing their personalized professional reading with their Twitter followers. If you look closely though, some of what you will find is teachers sharing BookSnaps that students created in their classroom. It got me started thinking about how some of you might be able to use them in your classroom. Check out this student created BookSnap that the teacher then added some additional comments to:

This BookSnap was created by a student on SeeSaw and then shared by a teacher.

Most of the ones that you see are using SnapChat in order to create and share. For those of you that know what technology your students are using, SnapChat is a pretty popular app. But here’s the thing, there are ways that BookSnaps could be created using other apps that don’t involve the social network aspect of SnapChat. Any app that allows you to pull in your own pictures and add text, drawings, and emojis could be used in the same way. The student created example to the left was created using SeeSaw. Some other examples that come to mind are Skitch, Google Drawings, various PDF annotating apps, and even Instagram.

Think of the potential engagement for your students if you asked them to create their own BookSnaps. Could you imagine what they would say if you told them to open SnapChat or Instagram in class? In ELA classes, you could have students create a BookSnap when they run into a Notice and Note signpost. You could have them create one to identify the climax in the book they’re reading, or create one based on their own writing, identifying specific plot points.

And don’t say “I’m not an ELA teacher, this doesn’t apply.” I could see real potential for BookSnaps in nonfiction reading as well – identifying the main idea in a science article. Sharing things that surprised them as they are reading about some historical figure. Responding to the 3 Big Questions from Reading Nonfiction by Beers and Probst.

I could even see integration into math class – MathSnaps could be a thing (acutally I just checked, and it is a real thing on Twitter)! You could have a kid snap a picture of the answer to a problem and then add text describing how they came to that answer. Or there could be ArtSnaps, MusicSnaps, or GymSnaps. The limitations are only bound by the creativity of how to integrate this technology.

As for how to share, again, the options are probably endless. If you’re already using SeeSaw, that’s an easy option. Other ideas I’ve seen include Google Slide Decks, a class shared PowerPoint (these options allow everyone can see what BookSnaps other kids have created based on the same reading assignment), or even something as basic as emailing it to you (although a way to share with classmates would make the audience so much more authentic and meaningful). Once kids have shared them with you, find a way to share beyond the walls of your classroom. If you’re on Twitter, tweet it out with the #BookSnaps hashtag – others will see it. You could also put it out on Instagram or Facebook – both have people actively using this hashtag. If you don’t have social media, you could have students print them out and put on their locker, or create a BookSnaps bulletin board.

If you are still at a loss for how you even create a BookSnap, there are some great resources from Tara Martin. You can find her on Twitter at @TaraMartinEDU or @BookSnapsREAL.

On Martin’s blog, she’s also created some how to videos that could be useful to see how she puts a BookSnap together. Check it out here: http://www.tarammartin.com/resources/booksnaps-how-to-videos/

I know I’ve got some creative people in my audience. If you have an idea for how BookSnaps could be used in the classroom, please share in the comments below. My ideas above are simply ones that have come to me in the past couple of days. You might have something that I haven’t thought of – or possibly never would. Let us know!

If you begin using BookSnaps in the classroom, please share them! Use the #RSIHawks or #RSIReads hashtag in your post!

Successful adaptation

I’m not sure how many of you have read the book The Innovator’s Mindset by George Couros. It’s a book that I have referenced in the past, and today I happened to be on his blog and came across a great post that I want to share. Below you’ll find a link to his short post titled “Successful Adaptation.” Click the link to check it out, and then come back here for some closing thoughts:

Successful Adaptation – by George Couros

How many of those contradictions are things that you’ve heard, or maybe even said, before? I feel our steps with the HSE21 Best Practice Model have helped us to attack many of the contradictions, however I still see some of those contradictions within our building.

I know Couros shared his own remix of those contradictions written as questions, but I have a few more questions for us to think about:

What have you created in the past week? Month? Year? Have you shared any of those things with your students? How could our own efforts at creation model that expectation for our students?

What are some areas that you would be willing to give up the expectation of students asking for permission? (assuming they are acting responsibly) How would this promote greater empowerment for our students?

What are the things that you have let go of this year in order to show more of a growth mindset? What are the policies within our classroom or our building that get in the way of the growth mindset?

I want to say again, I am not asking you to change for change’s sake, rather I am asking you to think about how you might change in order to make your classroom a better learning environment for our students. With that, I want to leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Couros:

If you feel up to it, share your response to one (or more) of these questions, or one of the questions from the original quote by Couros in the comments below.

The Apple Teacher Program

How many of you like to play games? Maybe you like board games or card games that you can play with your family and friends. Maybe you like to play video games on the PlayStation or Xbox. Or maybe you are more into games that you can play on your iPad or phone. One thing that has become a trend in a lot of the digital games is the idea of earning badges to symbolize advancement in the game. People love to compete for those badges. Some teachers have even integrated this gamification into the learning process. Today I want to share with you something that Apple has developed that can allow all of us as educators to collect our own badges, and maybe learn some new things in the process.

A couple of days ago I saw a post on Twitter from an educator that I follow saying that he had just earned a new badge in the Apple Teacher Program. I didn’t know much about the program, but a quick Google search took me to Apple’s site with more information about the program (click here if you want to check out the site!).

Reading over the short pieces of information on that site, I learned that through this program you could learn how to use built-in apps to “enhance creativity and productivity” in the classroom. As you complete lessons, you can take a quiz, and if you pass the quiz you earn a badge.

I decided to sign up so that I could learn more about the program. Once I was signed up (almost instantaneous – you sign up with your Apple ID, and then you receive an email with the link to sign in to the Apple Teacher Learning Center), I was able to find links to learning resources for teachers, inspiration for new things to try out, and links to earn badges that are based on the iPad or the Mac. Since we are 1:1 with the iPad, that is where I went first, and without having to participate in any lessons I was able to pass quizzes to earn a couple of the badges.

There are options to earn general badges for the iPad, to learn about productivity, and to learn ways to integrate creativity with the iPad. There are also badges for specific apps like Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iMovie, and GarageBand. When you select a badge you want to earn, you have the option to go to a Starter Guide with tons of information about apps – I just skimmed through looking for things that were new to me. What I also found interesting about the started guide is that it instructed you on how to play with the app in order to learn to use it better. We all know that we learn better by doing! In addition to the starter guide, there are links to online help for the app, or even options to sign up for a live workshop at the Apple Store. Once you feel like you understand the app, you can take a quiz and earn a badge.

In addition to the original options for badges, once you complete all the badges you earn an official Apple Teacher logo, as well as access to additional learning resources and badges. I wanted to share this with you because I found it interesting.

Have any of you ventured into the Apple Teacher Program in the past? There seem to be tons of great (and free) resources that could be used in the classroom. Share with us if you decide to sign up, and then let us know as you add badges to your collection!

What is the “average” student? (Part II)

Last week I shared with you a little bit about the idea of averages. From astronomers in the 16^th century, to the work of Quételet in the 1800s, to Lincoln’s efforts to standardize the military during the Civil War, averages have a long history of being used to understand humans both physically and mentally. During World War II, the research of Gilbert Daniels showed that averages were not a great idea for design of the cockpits of airplanes because no pilot fit the mold of the average man. As a result, the Air Force banned the use of average for design, and began demanding design to the jagged edges. This led to adjustable foot pedals, helmet straps, flight suits, and seats (things that seem like a no-brainer today).

Through the choice to move to flexible design, our Air Force was able to move forward in ways that they were not able to do when design was based on the average. Now I know that some of you probably read last week’s post and may not have seen an immediate connection to education. If you recall, in last week’s post I mentioned Todd Rose, a Harvard professor and a high school dropout, who is doing some interesting research in the science of individuality.

During a TEDx Talk titled The Myth of Average (if you have a chance, this is a really good TED Talk with some real implications for the education of all students), Rose talked about the educational repercussions of using average to design learning. Sometimes our classrooms are like the airplane cockpits at the beginning of World War II. There aren’t a lot of options for adjustments, and because of that, there are students who struggle. Here’s the dirty little secret though – it’s not just the kids at the bottom who struggle in school. When you look at dropout rates, a significant portion of high school and college dropouts aren’t leaving because it’s too hard, they’re leaving because it’s too easy and they aren’t challenged or engaged.

Over the summer I had a video post to the blog titled “An Open Letter to Educators.” More recently I have been reading the book The Boy Who Played with Fusion, the story of Taylor Wilson, a 22-year-old who built a fusion reactor at the age of 14. Both talked about a need to embrace new formats of education in an effort to be more individualized and prepare our students for the real world. The implication I saw was that this individualization isn’t just for the kids that we identify on the low end of the spectrum, or those on the high end of the spectrum, but also for the kids we identify as the “typical” student.

No matter how we might identify our students (typical, below average, above average), our students come to us with jagged learning profiles. Some are strong in math, but struggle in ELA. Others have a talent for memorizing facts in social studies or science, but when you try to get them to think deeper, and solve the problems of our scientific world, they just can’t do it. What if our education system was designed to adapt to the jaggedness of our students instead of expecting our students to adapt to the school setting?

The HSE²¹ Best Practice Model is a great method to get there. Through student-centered approaches, transfer of learning, cognitive curriculum, and fundamental classroom conditions, we can develop an environment that accepts students where they are, and helps to move them further.

As you continue to design your classroom conditions for your students, be thinking about their jagged profile of learning. How are you making the learning environment more flexible? What are you doing for that science genius who struggles with the reading? They may be awesome with the hands-on portion of science, but when it comes time to read and learn about theories, they just don’t get there because the textbook is too challenging for them. Our goal has to be one of constant incremental growth, both for the kids who are struggling in a lot of areas, as well as those who seem to have it all together. Remember, we’re all jagged!

Technology can help us to get there. With an iPad, each of your students has the ability to translate text, look up vocabulary, or even have text read aloud to them. With programs like NEWSELA or Achieve 3000, we are able to have our students read materials that are at the appropriate level for them, be able to understand what they have read, and in turn have an opportunity to grow.

Flexible design in learning is the school equivalent to adjustable seats! These adaptations will nurture the potential of each individual in your classroom. And remember, adaptations aren’t just for those on either end of the spectrum. That kid that you think of as average probably has a jagged profile of learning too, with strengths that we can tap into, and weaknesses that we can target for growth. The adaptations that we’d make for anyone with a label can work for those without any specific label too – and as the teacher, you are allowed to make the choices of what is best for your students!

What might flexible design in education look like in practice? Here are a few ideas:

Get rid of specific numbers on assignments (3 pages, 5 paragraphs, 4 signposts, etc.) and shift to requiring quality work instead.
Allow modifications on assignments.
Create a loose structure for projects to allow more student autonomy in what they are creating and how they are making it.
De-emphasize standardized test scores or other systems where averages are used to judge students.
Let students select the strategies that work best for their own learning (that student who struggles with reading might be able to listen to a podcast or watch a video on YouTube and think just as deeply as that star reader who can learn from the text).
Change the pace so that certain students can finish earlier and have enrichment opportunities and others who are behind can have more time to work and not feel like all they are doing is to catch up.

Now, I know some of these ideas sound crazy, or scary, or hard to put into practice. We can’t change everything at once, but we can move incrementally to try to develop an environment that our students will be able to have more success. Just like setting goals for students to grow, we have to set goals for our own growth, and then take steps to get there.

But isn’t it worth it? Who knows, that kid who is struggling in your class right now might be on the path to dropping out, but they may have the potential to be a professor at Harvard – or any one of millions of other successful paths. They just need to have the opportunity to embrace their individuality!

So what are your thoughts? What successes have you had when adapting to be better suited to the individuality of your students? What challenges do you see in this way of thinking? Let us know in the comments below!

What our classrooms need

Summertime is one of my favorite times of the year. I’m able to spend more time with my family, play with my kids more, and have the freedom to do some of the things that there just isn’t time for during the school year. With all of that fun, I also make it a point to spend some time learning too. During the school year I don’t always have the time to read the books that have been piling up on my desk, or delve deeply into new ideas and ways of thinking. Luckily, the summertime allows just that.

This summer, in addition to the learning that I did on my own, I was able to participate in a couple of different conferences, and the learning opportunities that were provided to me there continued to reaffirm that we are on the right path. Throughout the posts that I have made to this blog in the past year, I have constantly referenced the Best Practice Model. When we look at the HSE²¹ homepage, we see the following statement to describe learning in HSE:

We must ensure that our students develop a strong academic edge through experiences with rigorous academic content and effective information, communication, and technology skills. Our students’ future education and career choices require critical thinking, creative problem solving, and the ability to work together with others to successfully compete in today’s world. In HSE classrooms, students think deeply and critically about content knowledge and complex issues. Students regularly collaborate and actively investigate real-world problems. Hamilton Southeastern Schools is dedicated to implementing curriculum and learning opportunities that build the skills and abilities necessary for our connected society. When students graduate from HSE Schools, they will be ready for their future and equipped for excellence. (from http://www.hse.k12.in.us/ADM/academics/hse21/)

So… What does that mean for our classrooms? Here are some things that I think we all should expect to see in a classroom:

Voice – In the summer before my senior year at IU, I took a class, and the mantra of my professor was “Learning is social!” This is just as true today as it ever was. Our students need the time to co-construct their knowledge. They need time to share their learning, and to learn from one another. Empower your students to speak up in your classroom so that they are able to use their voice when they move beyond the classroom.
Choice – Students need as much choice as possible. Allow your students times to choose what they learn, how they learn, what they produce as a result of their learning, etc. How many of you struggled early in your undergrad years, only to do much better as you moved along in college? Why does this happen to so many? It’s because as a freshman or sophomore in college, so many of your courses are prerequisite, not something you chose, rather something you are required to take. What happened as you got into classes that were more directly related to your degree? If you’re anything like me, you did much better. These are the things you were interested in and the learning was more relevant for you. The choices we give students helps make their learning more relevant!
Time for Reflection – John Dewey is quoted as having said “We do not learn from experience; we learn from reflecting on experience.” That time for reflection is so important! We need to be intentional in building that time in for students, and we also need to build it into our own practice! I know classrooms are busy places, and we are busy people, but a few minutes of reflection allows us to really think about and understand what we have learned.
Opportunities for Innovation – When our students are passionate about something, the learning never stops. If our students are playing a video game and get stuck, they aren’t going to give up – they’ll find a way to beat it (maybe a YouTube video, help from a friend, a cheat code, etc.). How can we create that attitude for learning? Help students to find the curiosities in your subject matter, or give the students the time to explore their curiosity, and then let them innovate in that space!
Critical Thinkers – One of the hallmarks of the educations system has been the idea of compliance – this came about as part of the factory model of education. This factory model and expectation of compliance does not allow our students to be critical thinkers. Our students need to be taught how to respectfully ask questions and challenge ideas of others for the sake of helping us all move forward. Hemingway once said that “Every man should have a built in automatic crap detector operating inside him.” Our students need this skill in these days of social media and internet hoaxes.
Problem Solvers/Finders – While at a Pure Genius workshop this summer I heard a story of a high school student who saw that families who were part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) who were often unable to use their benefits to purchase healthy food for their family. The student began working with the Noblesville Farmers Market to find a way to allow families to use their SNAP benefits at the farmers market. As part of her project, the student created wooden coins that she designed and printed using technology available to her at Noblesville High School. Now families can take their SNAP card to the farmers market, swipe the card for the amount of benefits that they wish to use, and receive market currency in that amount to be spent on items at the farmers market. One thing I know about most kids – they recognize things that they feel are not just. Allow them to identify those problems, and create learning opportunities in the classroom that allow students to find solutions to the problems they see in our world! Then, help them take that learning outside of the classroom.
Self-Assessment – Earlier I talked about the importance of reflection – on the day to day level, that reflection allows us to better understand new information, but on a long term level, that reflection allows us to see our own growth. A portfolio is just one way that students can look back and see their own growth. Students can see where they were and how far they have come. It is a valuable skill for all of us to be able to identify our own strengths and weaknesses. We need to provide students with opportunities to assess themselves. What might a digital learning portfolio look like for your class? If you’re struggling to visualize it, let me know and we can try to come up with a plan that would work for your classroom!
Connected Learning – When we encourage students to be problem finders, we might run into some issues. What if the problem that students want to solve is something you know nothing about? You might feel there is no way you can guide them to a solution. That may be true, but in today’s connected world we can use technology to connect to experts who are able to support your student’s learning. Though Twitter, Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts, and others, our students can create connections that allow them to learn. Imagine if your students were connected with students at other levels with more background knowledge, or maybe even with people who have gone much further. Who would you rather learn about space from? A teacher or an astronaut? With social media like Twitter, that astronaut is only 140 characters away! With technology we can teach students how to facilitate their own learning.

In addition to all these factors, there is at least one other factor to success for our students in the future. Our students need to be good people. I don’t care how smart you may be, if you are unkind and disrespectful you will never find the same level of success. In most schools we talk to students about their actions as a choice. Remind them that it is always important to choose kind (if you follow me on Twitter, you will see the hashtag #choosekind a lot this year!).

What have I missed? What can you expand upon? Keep the discussion going in the comments below! Enjoy your remaining weeks of summer, and be thinking about what you can do to make your classroom the best environment possible for your students!

The View from 518

Category: Technology