We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. ~John F. Kennedy
Anxiety & Engagement
This year at RSI we all read the book The Price of Privilege. I know from follow up conversations with many of you that we see some of the issues that were described by Dr. Levine. I don’t want to go through everything that she shared once again, but one of the things that jumps out at me from that book has to do with the level of anxiety in our kids.
Recently I also read a paper written by Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University. In the study she looks at the mental health of kids just like those you would find in just about any school in the country.
In her paper, Twenge looks at four studies covering 7 million people ranging from teens to young adults in the US. Among her finding: high school students in the 2010s were twice as likely to see a professional for mental health issues than those in the 1980s; more teens struggled to remember things in 2010-2012 compared to the earlier period; and 73% more reported trouble sleeping compared to their peers in the 1980s. These so-called “somatic” or “of-the-body” symptoms strongly predict depression (for more on this study, click here)
In fact, the growth in mental health support in the form of services or medication in the 6-18 age group is somewhat shocking:
I think the writing of Peter Gray, a psychologist and professor at Boston College, sums it up this way:
We would like to think of history as progress, but if progress is measured in the mental health and happiness of our young people, then we have been going backward at least since the early 1950s. (to see the whole article, click here)
I know that mental health is something that we have been talking a lot about in our community and our school. In further reading of the research from both articles, there are differing opinions of the why, but you may notice some similarities.
Twenge has seen a noticeable shift away from internal, or intrinsic goals, which one can control, toward extrinsic ones, which are set by the world and are increasingly unforgiving. On the other hand, Gray believes kids aren’t learning critical life-coping skills because they never get to play anymore.
We have all had the students who had to have the right clothes, the right phone, the right video game in order to feel as though they could fit in. We have also seen students who cannot, without adult mediation, play a game at recess that doesn’t end in a fight.
The increase in anxiety and mental health support for our students is one concerning piece, but let’s add to that another issue. As students grow older, the general trend for all students is towards a lower level of engagement. In a recent post on the blog Dangerously Irrelevant by Scott Mcleod, the following data from the annual Gallup poll of middle and high school students was shared:
I’m going to let those charts sink in for a bit, and leave you here with 3 thoughts. Next week we’ll come back to this topic:
- Mental health concerns in our students are rising.
- Levels of engagement decline as our students grow older.
- Even with increased focus on standards, performance on standardized testing has remained stagnant.
What have you noticed in your classroom? Is there a connection between anxiety and engagement? What strategies have you tried to help students feel less anxious or more engaged in your classroom? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
5 Paragraph Essays & Newspaper Articles vs. Blog Posts & Copywriting
If I were to ask you to write a mission statement as a teacher, what would you write? If it could only be one sentence, what are the things that would be most important for you to share in your beliefs about our students? For most of us, I think somewhere in there we’d say something about preparing our students for the future. That means we have to think about what the future may hold. I know I’ve shared the quote below, but remember what Thomas Friedman says about today’s workers:
While we may not know exactly what the future may hold, we know that there are some things that our students probably will not be doing much of in the future. Stop and think for a minute – when was the last time you wrote a five paragraph essay? ELA teacher please don’t hate me for saying this, but really, when was the last time you needed that skill? I say all of this knowing that when I last taught ELA, we always had at least one research paper that was submitted in the five paragraph format. Now, I agree that there are aspects of a five paragraph essay that are essential – being concise in our argument, having a clear structure for our writing, etc., but are there other formats of writing that could allow us to teach these same skills and at the same time be innovative?
What about another one of those writing activities that appears in many classrooms (including mine in the past) – the newspaper article. Now, I will say that I have a subscription to the Indy Star, and while I can’t say that I ever read it cover to cover, and that there are some days that I don’t get to it at all, I do love having the option to sit down and read the paper. However, the statistics on print media are noticeable. I did a quick google search and found the charts below. There’s less money coming into print media in the form of ad revenue, and the number of workers employed in newspaper publishing has been in pretty steady decline.
Now, I may be ruffling a few feathers here – and by no means am I saying that I think our students should never write a five paragraph essay or a newspaper article, but given the probable lack of a need for those skills in their future, what might be more valuable ways for our students to spend their time? Two things that come to mind – blog posts and copy writing.
More and more, newspapers are trying to reach readers in formats other than print media. I see IndyStar writers pop up in my Twitter feed sharing copy trying to get people to click the links and go the their site. I see news articles online that are formatted more like a blog than a newspaper. Two ways to help our students be able to reach the greater world would involve writing blog posts (like what you’re looking at right now), and learning a little about copywriting (the art and science of writing words used on web pages, ads, promotional materials, etc., that sells your product of service and convinces prospective customers to take action). Now, I know that our students aren’t trying to sell things, but the skills of writing good copy will help our students be better overall writers.
Throughout the year you have heard us talk about the HSE21 best practice model. You’ve also seen examples of the “Less of this, more of this” charts. Again, I’m not saying we should throw out the five-paragraph essay or the newspaper article. But we also need to think with an eye towards the future. What types of writing will be the most valuable for our students when they leave school and move on to a career?
Think about it, a student in your class could write a blog post on something they have been learning about. Other students (or teachers, parents, family members, or maybe even experts in a given field of study) would be able to read and respond in the comments to their thinking. Students would be able to share their blog site with their friends and family members. Parents wouldn’t have to ask the dreaded “What did you do at school today?” because they could have looked at the most recent blog post and say “I saw in the most recent post to the blog that you are learning about …, tell me more about that.”
It’s also been proven through study after study that ELA scores are impacted most by reading and writing across the curriculum (teaching reading and writing skills should not only be the job of the ELA teacher). What a valuable expression of learning it would be for our students to write a blog post about their experiences in math, art, science, or gym (or any other subject!!!). And another great thing about blog posts – they don’t have to be just words. WordPress (and most other blog sites out there) will allow pictures, video, and audio, and if I really wanted to, I could create an entire post from my WordPress app on my cell phone or my iPad.
What are your thoughts on student created blogs? Can you see a way that you could enrich the learning of the students in your class through writing about it? What about copywriting? Curious how it could fit into the writing activities you are already doing? Wanna talk more about this? Share your thought below. We can find a structure to make it work in your classroom!
The Crossroads of Creation and Consumption
What’s the last thing that you “consumed”? Maybe it’s a new series on Netflix, or a great book, or maybe you listened to a playlist of songs you love. All of those could be examples of consumption. Our students are experts at consumption! Playing a game while listening to music, and with something on the TV. I know that often in our classrooms we are seeking to help our students to create something for the world. In your ELA class you might expect them to create a presentation to go with their persuasive research paper. In science it could be creating an experiment that shows some of the scientific properties that you have been studying. In math you might ask them to create a model of some of the geometric shapes you have been learning about. This list could go on.
Oftentimes we think of consumption as fairly low level thinking, while creating is higher level thinking. But I want to challenge that a bit today with certain types of consumption. Recently my family decided that we wanted to have a vegetable garden in our back yard, but didn’t know exactly what that might entail. I consumed information from websites and blog posts to think about where we should put it, and how we would create it. After looking at a variety of options, we decided that we were going to do a raised bed in the back yard.
Next we had to come up with a design. Again, I consumed resources. I jumped on Pinterest and looked at pictures of examples of raised bed gardens. Did we want to use stone or lumber? Once we decided on wood, then it was a question of what kind. My searches on Pinterest took me to various websites that talked about the advantage of cedar compared to redwood compared to treated lumber. The options (and the opinions) seemed endless. Eventually we decided to go with treated lumber. Check out the pictures below documenting some of our process!
I guess what I’m getting at is that all of us have to consume from time to time, and so do our students. Part of 21st Century Learning requires consumption, but I think we would all agree that there is a difference in consumption of a series on Netflix or a book that we are reading for enjoyment as compared to the type of consumption that we do when we want to learn about a new teaching strategy or a project that we want to do at home. That’s where we come in – through guiding our students in how to consume information, we can help make sure that consumption is for the purpose of learning and creation.
What strategies have been successful to guide your students to meaningful consumption? What things have you consumed that have led to additional learning? As lifelong learners, it’s important to verbalize what we are still learning about! That’s part of what I am documenting in these weekly posts, my own learning! Share with us in the comments below things that you have taken in that have led you to create something – for your students, your classroom, your family, or just for you. Or share with us some of the things you students have created!
If you find the idea of creation and consumption interesting and would like to dig a little bit deeper, check out the Ted Talk by Larry Lessig titled Laws that choke creativity. It might lead you to think about consumption a little bit differently!
Selling your content to your students
“Nobody else can make anybody else learn anything. You don’t make the flowers grow. You don’t sit there and stick the petals on and put the leaves on and paint it. You don’t do that. The flower grows itself. Your job, if you are any good at it, is to provide the optimum conditions for it to do that, to allow it to grow.”
I love the quote above from Sir Ken Robinson. It goes with the old saying of “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force him to drink.” Recently I was sitting in a meeting with a wise member of our district curriculum team who pointed out that it’s true you can’t make the horse drink, but you can make sure they are thirsty. Sometime getting our students to learn is a bit like selling them something, and that something is the content you are trying to get your students to learn.
A few weeks ago I shared a TED Talk from Daniel Pink, and now I’m going to use some of the ideas from Daniel Pink’s book To Sell Is Human. Think about how you might take his messages on his career in sales and translate it into selling content to your students.
- Let them tell you why they agree with you. If your students are able to find a connection between your message and their own life, they will take whatever you have to offer. Set up your lesson so that students have no choice but to agree with you.
- Decide whether to pitch with facts or questions. How do you persuade someone to agree with your opinions? Most of us have figured out that basic persuasion typically requires a combination of facts and opinions.
- Remember that your digital audience is wider than ever. Think about the last great lesson you did – if your students were excited about it, you probably had a teammate or colleague asking about it. Word of mouth spreads it from your students to other students, to colleagues, parents, and administrators. And in a digital age those activities can easily go viral. If you have an audience excited to see what’s happening next, they’ll be thirsty for whatever you have to offer.
- Be a servant leader. Relationships! You know it works. Did you have a good experience the last time you bought a car? Some of that experience is because the salesman was able to build report with you, and then followed up on your needs. Students will feel the same way – if they feel there is a relationship with you, they will listen to more of what you have to offer.
- Help people find their needs. One of your jobs as a teacher in this new age is to identify problems for your students to solve that cannot be solved by going to Google. If your students trust you to help them find the problems that need to be solved, they’ll listen to you when you help them learn how to evaluate solutions.
I know that most of us didn’t go into education to be able to “sell” our students information. We want our students to have a desire to learn. But just as we can’t force the horse to take a drink, we have no way to force our students to learn. In addition to the sales techniques listed below, the HSE21 best practice model is a good guide for creating the conditions in our classrooms and the learning environments that will cause our students to be thirsty for the knowledge we have to offer. Work to include the core pieces of the best practice model in your classroom everyday – don’t reinvent your lessons, just find ways to remodel them to bring the aspects that will sell our students on our content.
How have you sold knowledge to your students? What strategies have you used that made your students excited to learn whatever you had to share with them? Share some of your successes in the comments below!
PLNs – Professional Learning Networks or Personal Learning Networks – you choose!
Many of you may know that one of my personal passions is cooking. I learned to cook basic things when I was in elementary school. When I was in 4-H I had multiple county fair champions, and sent a few things to the State Fair. In our house now I do most of the cooking because it’s something I enjoy doing. Over the years I have developed my “favorite” meals that I have found out there and adjusted to suit my tastes, or the tastes of my family. Last fall however, I noticed that I had a series of 10-12 things that we were just cycling through. It was hard to choose anything to cook because I was getting bored with the options I had. I needed something new. Then, I happened to be listening to an interview of J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, the author of The Food Lab, and I knew I had to get his cookbook. The guy was a self-described science nerd who became a chef and uses the scientific method to perfect his recipes – sign me up!
The book is almost 1000 pages, includes awesome step by step pictures and instructions for hundreds of recipes, along with scientific descriptions of what happens during the cooking process, explanations of experiments to find the best option in preparing certain dishes, and suggestions for home cooks to be able to carry out techniques that normally are reserved for professional kitchens. In the several months that I have had the book, we have upgraded our meals in the Behrman household. The only complaint? I think I need to run a few extra miles every week with the food we’ve been eating (it’s been hard not to have a second serving with most of these meals!).
Now, some of you may be wondering what this has with a PLN, but I promise, I’m going to try to make it connect. When you think about what you need to grow as an educator, what comes to mind? Jot down the top 3 things that you think of. Really… Take a moment to jot down those top 3. This post will still be here when you get it done.
Now, if I were to poll you, there would be a massive variety of choices that would make it impossible for any administrator to come up with a school PD plan that would meet the needs of all of you. Instead, here’s what I suggest– think about your passions, your areas of continued growth, and get learning! You could talk to your colleagues about things you’re interested in. There are tons of experts within your building and throughout your district. If you’re looking for someone to help you in a specific area, ask around. Maybe your administrator can point you in the right direction. By sharing our knowledge and sharing our curiosities, we can become an environment that encourages lifelong learning.
You know when you find something exciting! You know when you have an idea that you just have to try out! Just like I became excited about new cooking with The Food Lab cookbook, you can find your own ways to grow as an educator, and hopefully the rest of this post will help with that!
Matt Miller – https://www.flickr.com/photos/126588706@N08/14562418440/in/album-72157645530010989/
A couple weeks ago I shared links to some education hashtags for Twitter (click here to go back to that post). See if there are any that tie to your 3 things you jotted down earlier – want to learn more about standards based learning? #SblChat might be perfect for you! Interested in educational technology? Check out #edtech! For things specific to your grade level, you might want to check out #5thchat (5th grade chat) or #6thchat (6th grade chat). If Twitter isn’t your thing, you might try a search on Pinterest (yes, even I have an account!). You can also search Facebook, and often you can find great videos on YouTube that may help you learn.
If you aren’t quite sure what you want to learn about, then you might have to take some other steps to find a path – you could ask your students what you should learn next. Find out what interests them, what learning methods work for them, or what they’d be excited to do. You could also check the blogosphere. You’ve heard me reference blogs in the past – blogs like Edutopia, A.J. Juliani, Cult of Pedagogy, and The Cornerstone for Teachers are a few that I like. Most of the blogs I have found have been through links from blogs I already followed. If you find a blog you like, subscribe, or use Feedly as a single place to keep track of them all!
I know that some of you may be thinking that it’s the end of the year and you don’t want to mix anything up. Think about it though – wouldn’t it be better to try something totally new with a group of students you already know, as opposed to trying it with a new group of students you don’t know yet? Isn’t it easier to make adjustments to your teaching when one of the variables – students – is a known quantity? Don’t put the pressure of learning something new on your future self! There is no better time to try something new than right now!
Finally, one suggestion that might make some of us a little uncomfortable – seek out people with beliefs that might be different than you. Being brave enough to learn from those who challenge you can be one key to your continued growth. Find someone who challenges you and talk with them with the purpose of understanding their thinking, not getting it to line up with yours – you might learn from them, and they might learn from you.
What things have you learned through your professional learning network? Share with us in the comments below! We’d love to hear about it!
All means all (Part 2)
Last week I shared the following question for us to think about: Should we be worried about whether the kids are ready for the school, or should we be worried about whether the school is ready for the kids? Today I am going to share my experiences visiting a few elementary classrooms here in HSE a few weeks ago. I share these not as a way of saying that our classrooms need to mirror these classrooms, but rather to get us thinking about the learning environments that our students will be coming to us from, and in turn thinking about how the changes at elementary schools might change our practices.
A couple weeks ago I had the privilege to visit FCE and see 2 of the kindergarten classrooms that have transitioned to a Reggio Emilia approach (if you don’t know what that is, click here to learn a little more). A few of the things that stood out to me while I was there: there were no typical student desks or tables, instead there was a large picnic table (that almost the whole class could sit at) as well as a couple of coffee tables, end tables and in one of the rooms, an old dining room table; seating was flexible, there were chairs, stools, benches, tree stumps, and the floor; everything on the wall was student created, the numbers chart, the alphabet, a color chart with labels, and of course student work, I didn’t see a single thing that you would buy at “a teacher store”; all around the room there were stations with questions to get kids thinking, one allowed students to build their own birds nest, another had a mixture of various items in a pan and they could write about their thoughts; this list could go on! We were there right at the beginning of the school day, and when the students came in they put their things away and then began to explore the room. In the time that we were there, we saw high levels of engagement, and almost only heard the student voice in the classroom. I can hear some of you right now – but that was a kindergarten classroom! I agree, but are there aspects of that classroom that could translate to what we know about the developmental stages of our 5th and 6th graders?
The next stop was BSE to visit a 4th grade classroom. When we walked in, students were in the process of coming up with the essential questions for their unit on the Civil War – let me reiterate, Students were coming up with the essential questions. They had been provided copies of various primary source documents and artwork from the Civil War. In addition to the primary source documents, the teacher had also created a Symbaloo (if you’ve never used Symbaloo, click here to see what that is) students could use to navigate to preselected safe websites to research additional Civil War information. As I walked around, students were completely engaged in their work. As they came up with a question they were interested in, they would share with a neighbor. Eventually some of these questions would be written on a post-it and added to the essential questions chart paper at the front of the room. The role of the teacher in this classroom was one of a guide who hopped from group to group checking in to see what they were coming up with and thinking about, and at times asking questions to get them to think deeper.
Both of these classrooms were great examples of HSE21 Best Practices in action. The learning was student centered, highly rigorous, collaborative, and inclusive. So often as teachers at the intermediate level we build our expectations for our students based on where the students need to get to. Intermediate schools in HSE were not originally created to be mini junior highs, and in many districts 5th and 6th graders are still in the elementary school. Again, I’m not saying that we’re doing something wrong, or we need to imitate the examples above, but based on what we know about the developmental stages of our students, what aspects of these classrooms might be beneficial to our students?
What ideas do you take away from the descriptions of these classrooms? Are there things you could see translating to your own classroom? What might it be? How might the physical appearance of your classroom change as you think about the students that will be joining us? How might teaching and learning look different in your classroom based on these descriptions? Are any of you interested in thinking about what a Reggio approach might look like in an intermediate setting? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
All means all
How many times when talking with others in our school do you hear the phrase “We have to get them ready for ____”? You can fill in the blank with all kinds of different phrases – things like 6th grade, junior high, ISTEP, or any one of the other things we are trying to get our students prepared for. It is a valid thing to think about because we do have to prepare our students for the future. However…
How often do you hear the words “We have to be ready for the students that are coming to us.”? In most schools, the environment of the school is set up for one specific developmental stage. I know through conversations with many of you that we have at least a cursory understanding of the fact that our 10, 11, and 12 year old students fall all over the developmental spectrum. It’s one of the things I love about working with 5th and 6th grade students, but it can also be one of the greatest challenges. While not being intentional, sometimes schools set up a system that expect all students to fit within a certain box, and when they don’t fit, it creates struggles for students, teachers, and parents. So the question begs to be asked, is our system set up to meet our students wherever they are in terms of developmental needs?
Think about this for a moment: Should we be worried about whether the kids are ready for the school, or should we be worried about whether the school is ready for the kids?
Next week’s post will share with you my recent experiences visiting a few elementary classrooms. I am sharing these not to say that we need to try to mirror their methods or strategies, but to help us understand the types of classrooms our students will be coming to us from. One of the things that I feel sometimes happens in education is that teachers of older grades sometimes “look down upon” the teachers of younger grades. I think there can be great value in learning from the ways that teachers in grades below us meet the developmental needs of their students.
As we move forward, let’s work towards building our expectations for our students based on where they are when they get to us. We can still strive to move them to where they need to be, but we need to be open to the fact that some of our students do not fit in the box that we have created for them. Some of those outliers may need us to provide extra support, while others may just need us to get out of the way and let them learn.
What strategies and methods do you use to meet the needs of the student who walks into your classroom on a daily basis? Are there methods that seem to help your students who are less mature than the rest of your class? Or, on the other end of the spectrum, what do you do with the students that are much more mature than the others in your classroom? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
The Pedagogy Wheel
For a little over a year now I have had the Pedagogy Wheel V3.0 hanging up outside of my office. I have seen a few of you stop to look at it from time to time. If you walk by today, you may notice that I have changed it to the new and improved V4.1. The pedagogy wheel is based on the work of Allan Carrington. In his most recent role Carrington served as a Learning Designer with the eLearning Team at the University of Adelaide in Australia. While working there, and after leaving, he was thinking about the connections between Bloom’s Taxonomy and the SAMR Model (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition – check out a previous post on SAMR here – Or check out a 2 minute video review of SAMR here), and how to integrate technology that would support different levels of thinking. As he was thinking about that, he thought about the importance of pedagogy being the driver of technology, not the other way around. Sometimes in educational technology we start with an app that we want to use. Maybe we heard about it from a colleague, or our students told us about it. Other times we might have seen the app in use in another person’s classroom, and we decide we want to use that app to accomplish a task. If that is the way you are thinking, you might be doing things backwards.
To truly understand the Pedagogy Wheel, and therefore be able to use it to support the teaching and learning in your classroom, you have to begin at the middle of the circle. When you look at the Pedagogy Wheel above, you will notice a QR Code in the middle. If you scan that code in your favorite QR Reader, you will go to this page: http://designingoutcomes.com/allansportfolio/edublog/?p=874.
If you want to read the whole post, great, but as a brief rundown there is a reference to something that Carrington calls the Graduate Attributes and Capabilities. One of the presenters at a conference that Carrington attended in 2012 was talking about research that had been done within the business sector on what skills employers look for. In the results of this study, they found that the top 15 attributes are:
- Having energy, passion, and enthusiasm
- Being willing to give credit to others
- Empathizing & working productively with diversity
- Being transparent and honest in dealings with others
- Thinking laterally and creatively
- Being true to one’s values and ethics
- Listening to different points of view before coming to a decision
- Understanding personal strengths & limitations
- Time management skills
- Persevering
- Learning from errors
- Learning from experience
- Remaining calm when under pressure
- Being able to make effective presentations to different groups
- Identifying from a mass of information the core issue/opportunity.
What you may notice is that most of these attributes are attitude and values based. The next thing you may notice is that they are skills that may not often be explicitly taught in most classrooms. For our students’ long term success, this list of 15 things is something we need to think about at the beginning of our planning. Once we have reflected on these things, then we can begin thinking about our learning outcomes, activity design, and choosing the technology the works best, which will in turn lead to better engagement and learning.
As you work your way out on the pedagogy wheel, you will notice that the next ring talks about Daniel Pink’s TED Talk on the “Puzzle of Motivation.” Two of my previous posts have been on that topic, so I’m not going to review them, but you can check each one out here: Motivation Part 1 and Motivation Part 2.
Next we work our way out to the Bloom’s Cognitive Domain Categories, with rings for the action verbs and activities that relate to each. In the next to last circle we see how Carrington has placed the 122 apps that are included on this version of the Pedagogy Wheel. In the final outermost ring of the wheel you see how the SAMR model is connected to all the other pieces of the wheel.
So, now that we know what the Pedagogy Wheel is, how can we make use of that knowledge? Ultimately, the Pedagogy Wheel is something that can be used as a tool to help us plan for the activities that are happening in our classroom. Start at the middle thinking about the attributes & capabilities that you’d like students to gain, think a little about how to motivate your learners, and then work your way out on the wheel to meet the needs of your lesson. By starting in the middle, you will be putting the pedagogy in the driver’s seat, and using tech as an added piece of the activity. If you are working towards higher level thinking skills, the Pedagogy Wheel will help you find some apps that may modify or redefine learning in your classroom.
You might also like pdf version of the pedagogy wheel (found here: http://designingoutcomes.com/assets/PadWheelV4/PadWheel_Poster_V4.pdf) because you can click on the apps you see and go to an iTunes Preview page to learn more about the app (in case it is an app you aren’t aware of). I will warn you, not every app on here is free. If you find an app that is not free that you think would be great, check around, there may be free apps that will do similar things.
What are your thoughts on the attributes and capabilities above? How do you help our students to learn those skills? What ideas do you have to strengthen those areas in our students so that they are better prepared for the future expectations of the workforce? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Don’t deny the technology – permanently…
As most of you know, HSE21 has been a multi-year project in which administrators, teachers, parents, and students have been looking at how best to create a 21st century learning experience for our students. Through the program the Best Practice Model was developed, and in time the decision was made to transition to a 1:1 environment as a way to enhance the Best Practice Model. These decisions were made as a result of the changing world around us. As teachers we have all seen more of our students, and possibly more of our own lives, occurring in a digital world.
For most of us, if we see that a child is engaged in a particular activity, we find ways to try to encourage that skill. If your child is coloring on the wall, you may initially be upset, but you may also be tempted to put up a chalkboard, or get an easel that they can use to encourage that skill. Who knows, that kid that started out painting on the wall may turn into the next Picasso or Van Gogh. In your classroom that may mean allowing students to choose what product would best represent their learning.
Now think of our students. The second they walk out of the building they are bombarded with digital options. Smart-phones, tablets, computers, apps, websites, and more are competing for their attention. If we don’t notice that and innovate towards that, we will lose some of our students. The way I see it, more and more, technology is a right for our students in their learning. Are there moments when it may not fit, or they may not use it? Yes! But it’s also important that we all recognize that devices and digital tools are becoming interconnected with our lives and with education.
I have had many conversations with teachers who fear that we aren’t “preparing students for the real world.” How can we accurately predict what that world will look like for our students? I struggle to predict what next week might look like, let alone predicting what the world will be like in 10 years when our students either have entered, or are entering the workforce. One thing I feel confident in telling you: they will need to know is how to use technology in appropriate and responsible ways. If our only solution for poor decisions with technology is to try to permanently take technology away from our students, we are doing them a disservice. Remember, our kids are 10, 11, and 12 year olds, and they are going to make mistakes, but going to the nuclear option of “you can’t use this anymore” doesn’t teach a child anything. However, taking the device away for a period of time, and then having a conversation about the repercussions of their actions creates a learning opportunity for a child.
Sometimes drastic measures need to be taken to maintain the kind of classroom experiences that our students need – things like a temporary ban on technology – but we have to go back to the fundamentals. To be relevant for our student we must use the best tools at our disposal. By avoiding the technology permanently we are missing out on amazing teachable moments.
Thinking about your classroom, where are successes that you have had that would not have been possible without technology? Have there been times that taking the technology out of a lesson has led to better engagement and learning? Share with us some of your opinions!
The View from 518 
