Category: pedagogy

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

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365-6

Recent online conversations about rules and pencils have me thinking about my own teaching career.

My assigned summer reading before college was Ivan Illich’s book, Deschooling Society. That was 1970.

Before I graduated, I had read John Holt, Jonathan Kozol, and Herbert Kohl. As I moved into the classroom, these people shaped me as a teacher. At least in my head.

Yet, the system often wore me down.

That’s not an excuse, though I know it sounds like one. Fitting a square peg in a round hole isn’t easy. So I struggled to find ways to move around the structure and give choice to my curriculum and flexibility to my teaching style.

But now as I look back, I see that I was afraid. I was fearful of breaking rules, coloring outside the lines, of teaching in ways I knew would most benefit my kids.

Mostly, I felt alone. That was before the internet. Before learning communities. Before transparency. It was difficult to find like-minded people who shared my philosophy or desire to practice differently.

And then my world changed.

In 1986 I bought my first computer. A few years later, I began to use computers with students. A Mac to layout our school newspaper, a PC with PowerPoint to enable kids to create presentations, the text-based world wide web that allowed me to chat with someone in Switzerland one day. My teaching didn’t change overnight, and moving to an independent school did give me more flexibility. But having access to technology and the internet is what truly affected my teaching practice.

Jump forward to 2004, and suddenly I was blogging. And finding community. And support.

You know the rest of the story…because it is also your story. The connections have allowed us to find each other. Networking has enabled us to garner support for our “radical” ideas (tell that to Ivan).

My last year in the classroom helped me change even more.

A conversation with my cousin this summer validated my feelings. Her children attended a high school that requires no set curriculum and no grades. This is my niece’s second year in college. And although she struggled somewhat to convince colleges of her merit (she had no traditional AP courses or typical transcript from a standard school), her personal interview and portfolio sold her colleges and gained her acceptance into her school of choice. Her recent Facebook status read: I LOVE my college.

Freedom to learn works. Illich said this in 1971:

educational webs which heighten the opportunity for each one to transform each moment of his living into one of learning, sharing, and caring

Pretty amazing, huh?

We are better together. That’s the mission statement for Powerful Learning Practice, the folks I’m working with now. It’s like I’ve come full circle.

I can’t change the world, but…

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I once told Sheryl Nussbaum Beach I didn’t feel moved to change the world.

We were chatting about all things education–and how some folks are comfortable presenting to large crowds (I’m not), and some feel compelled to change the world of schooling (I wasn’t).

At the time, I felt that my personal line in the sand, which I drew in the sandbox of a classroom, was enough. I could individualize instruction, buy netbooks for my kids, create an inviting atmosphere, offer a variety of ways to assess children, and focus on what worked.

I became comfortable in my own small, corner of the world.

And then last spring, I found myself taking over conversations in department meetings, dinner parties, and family gatherings. Whenever the chats turned to school (and specifically social media), I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. My frustration with how we “do” schools bubbled over. During our last week of vacation, my uncle turned to me mid-rant and said, “Ok then, how do we fix it? How do we make schools better?”

I didn’t have all the answers, but I found myself listing everything that matters to me: giving students voice; empowering teachers to work together and reflect upon their practice; offering choice in curriculum and ways to learn; allowing charter schools (with proper direction and guidance) to flourish; changing the way we sort and rank students.

Ok, so I care. Changing the system seems overwhelming at times, but it’s worth it. Our kids deserve more from us.

These are the folks I’m following these days, watching and learning from them:

Coalition of Essential Schools

Big Picture Schools

Ideal Schools

IDEA

Not perfect, perhaps. But at least they are doing the work and not just talking about it. Who else should be highlighted?

and the research says…

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The Zotero group started by Wendy Drexler is often where I look for research regarding issues that interest me. Today, I had a focused discussion with a friend on whether teachers’ personalities made them embrace or more resistant to change, especially related to using technology to enhance student learning.

(As an aside, I should say I support student-centered, inquiry-based teaching and believe the use of social media offers opportunity for collaborative, global learning. If classrooms are teacher-centered and the discussions are focused on gadgets and not pedagogy, then technology is often a waste of time and money.)

After I left her office, I wondered if there was any research supporting our discussion. Sure enough, I found this (unfortunately in a PDF), a study from 2004. Here are some highlights (my emphasis):

Research has found that the personal beliefs and dispositions of teachers may relate to or predict successful technology integration. Honey and Moeller (1990) assert that teacher philosophy (student-centered versus teacher-centered) affected one’s ability to effectively use technology in the classroom, in that student-centered teachers were more successful. MacArthur and Malouf (1991) determined in their case study that teacher beliefs and attitudes greatly influenced how computers were used in the classroom. Other personal variables, such as self-competence and willingness to change, have also been shown to be closely related to computer use among teachers (Marcinkiewicz, 1994). Albion (1999) states that teachers’ beliefs, specifically self-efficacy beliefs, “are an important, and measurable, component of the beliefs that influence technology integration” (p. 2).
Furthermore, this study noted that willingness to spend time outside contracted hours also contributed to technology use in the classroom:
…this study suggests that the teacher attributes of time commitment
to teaching and openness to change combine with the amount of technology
training to best predict classroom technology use. The process of learning
to use technology requires time—time spent in training, but also time spent
playing with and exploring technology. This willingness to commit time to the
technology learning process may be represented by one’s willingness and commitment
 to spend time beyond the typical work week to prepare instructional
 activities. As such, this result suggests that time is essential in becoming a technology
using teacher, but also that technology use may predict time commitment
to teaching.
This last suggestion gives me pause:
As a result, a teacher who approaches technology professional development with an attitude that is open to change and is committed to spending time outside of training to further explore technology may be more likely to use technology in the classroom than one who attends training with ambivalence and a lack of time.

Now I realize that one study isn’t necessarily the answer. But all of this makes sense as we determine how to best help teachers develop their own professional development online through social media and in “unconferences” where the onus is on the individual to contribute and learn. For those waiting to be spoonfed or who are unwilling to change, the effort may not be worth the trouble.

Teacher Dispositions as Predictors of Classroom Technology Use
Journal of Research on Technology in Education, v36 n3 p253-271 Spr 2004