I’ve been having some great discussions about teaching and learning lately.

Our Head of Upper School and I did some planning for fall recently, and we talked about what we want teachers to think about before they begin to use technology in their classrooms. This was a natural follow-up to our end-of-year discussions about essential questions and curriculum, but it led into how to teach writing. And we realized quickly we had very different visions of “good writing” and how to teach it.

And then there’s Jeff, one of our AP history teachers who often responds to articles I send out to the faculty, and I love it. He emails with thoughts, questions, and mostly challenges to my thinking. We talk about student-centered vs teacher directed learning, rigor, creativity and collaboration, along with how technology can seamlessly enhance (or get in the way of) what happens in the classroom.

I am a big-picture person, and I love nothing better than reflecting on these ideas.

But after these discussions, I often find myself wondering whether my colleagues think my thoughts about education are out in left field. If I were to collect a stack of my favorite authors and thinkers, the names would include Dewey, Kohl, Kohn, and Holt. Am I a progressivist? A constructivist? I promote Understanding by Design and Problem-based Learning. And if I were able to live my life over again, I probably would have home-schooled my sons, giving them flexible learning opportunities.

And yet I love the classroom.

I don’t want to be the kind of person (reference to the image above!) William Brody discusses in his Johns Hopkins Commencement speech. Yet, I am passionate about wanting students to be engaged in the learning process, and I am always looking for opportunities to learn more about how to make that happen, even if the ideas make people (and me) uncomfortable. I like the way Michael McKinney ends his post:

Keep an open mind. He adds, “It’s OK to question ideas and beliefs other people insist are true.”

In the end, it’s all about the conversations and what we take away from them. We need to keep pushing and questioning each other as we search for best ways to help our students learn.

Image: ‘believe‘
www.flickr.com/photos/12023334@N02/2052931999

Re-thinking how students learn and how teachers teach is not a new subject. Piaget influenced us to move toward student-centered learning in the 1970's and 80's. I remember taking education courses in the early 70's and also being heavily influenced by Ivan Illich, John Holt and Jonathan Kozol among others. I wanted my students to be self-directed, and I wanted to be the kind of teacher that created learning opportunities that meant something.
The reality is, though, my classroom management often took precedence over my teaching. Having to ensure 30 students were "getting it," I often fell back on tried methods of control: seats in a row, teacher in the front, "let me tell you what you need to know." And as educators, we all made many mistakes–remember open classrooms that changed the design but not the pedagogy? Sad.
Journalism, however, was a different story. With real-life application, student editors serving as mentors for other students, a monthly product (the newspaper), and an audience, the class became for me a vision of what learning and teaching could be. We took great pride that in 1988, our newspaper staff designed our paper with Pagemaker on one of the first Macs, long before our local paper moved to computer-assisted design!
I would constantly ask myself–how can I move this practice of learning to my English classes? I had moments that worked, but overall, I ended up back in the traditional role of teacher directing her students, and students spitting back whatever information I deemed important.
Fast forward to 2002, and my role as Director of Technology at an independent school about to embrace a 1:1 program, and suddenly I could see putting into practice all I believed about teaching. I believed the laptops would truly enable this paradigm shift that I had been unable to accomplish myself in a traditional classroom.
Ah, if only it were that easy.
Time management, differing philosophies, and lack of professional development all played into why our success was spotty. In classes where teachers saw the technology as transformative, the laptops enhanced student learning. In classes where teachers had little time to learn how to teach with technology or simply viewed the laptops as distractions (or had no laptops), fewer changes were seen.
This year, our Head of School asked me to resume my role as instructional tech coordinator, but he asked that I do it full time–with no distractions of other classes, managing of budgets, or technical hardware support.  With his support, I wanted to approach technology in terms of 21st century learning, as this was also the year the internet exploded with a wealth of opportunities for sharing and connecting for teachers and students.
What a year it has been. I've outlined many of our successes in earlier posts, and with teachers willing to take huge leaps of faith using some of the tools of student engagement, we've seen strong examples student-centered learning. I've learned much from our great faculty.
I hope next year's Powerful Learning Practice with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson will help take us to the next level. As Sheryl says, "the pace of change is going to demand us to unlearn and relearn."
Our school is also undertaking a shift in our schedule, one that will allow time between classes for students and teachers to meet, share, plan, work, and think. More reflective time for all–if it works as it should.
I am encouraged by discussions from Carolyn Foote here, Patrick Higgins here, and Antonio Viva here, and I am filled with a new enthusiasm, a belief that we can help students face a future of rapid change.This is a long post, but I also want to share some suggestions Viva lists in his post to "catapult innovative teaching and learning in the 21st century":

1. Design rooms that are properly equipped and can function as
   flexible spaces to support different teaching modalities. Rooms should
   not focus on one method of teaching versus any other. Create rooms that
   are designed to meet different purposes.
2. Rethink traditional scheduling practices – Rooms should be signed
   out and used as they are needed by a group of students and their
   teacher. Rather than continue to schedule classes as we currently do,
   consider creating teaching clusters where groups of teachers have
   access to these different rooms when they most need them.
3. Create comfortable, well equipped and contemporary faculty work
   rooms. A teacher who has their own classroom finds it very easy to
   become isolated and close their door and teach. Making spaces available
   to teacher groups/teams where faculty can collaborate, obtain resources
   and materials, make phone calls and get snacks and good coffee, cold
   beverages and talk with one another can encourage colleagues to design
   and create innovative curriculum and teaching strategies with one
   another.

Much to think about. I love ending the year on a positive note.

Image:www.flickr.com/photos/44124472651@N01/47169667

I was getting somewhat discouraged the weeks before break.
There was that student editorial in the school newspaper asking that teachers stop assigning so much work with technology. Then a few random comments about tech overload from teachers frustrated me. Finally, because exams and grades were around the corner,  people seemed too busy to even answer emails. I wondered if I had been taking the right approach in trying to motivate and encourage people to use technology as a strategy in their teaching.
But a break is a wonderful thing.
Today, our second day back, brought several teachers to my door asking for help with Voice Thread and Google Earth. An email I sent today announcing a PD opportunity for RSS and Google apps was answered with 5 teachers signing up –two weeks ahead of time. I had a great meeting with the student I am mentoring for senior exhibit. And the discussion I had with the head of our upper school about teaching and integrating technology left me feeling supported, excited, and energized.
Ok, then. Back to work everyone. We are on track!

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I recently started a ning network for Virginia independent school teachers, and within hours, my friend HIram pointed me to another network for independent school teachers in general. Demetri has done a great job that satisfies a clear need. I may end up spending more of my time there, as discussions about technology in teaching and learning are beginning.
Yesterday, someone talked about what we call ourselves, what our title means to other teachers. She advocated for taking  "tech" out of the title. I understand her thoughts, as I’ve been grappling with similar feelings at my school. How do people perceive technology coordinators? Sure we can fix printers and help find cool projects, but is there more?
I commented with this:

I still prefer teachers to see me as kind of teaching "coach," one who
advocates for using technology to improve the way we all learn. I try
to model the concept of lifelong learning; I know I’ve learned more in
the past few months than I’ve learned in a long time, thanks to the
connectivity of the internet and the proliferation of tools we use to
learn.

That being said, I don’t consider myself the expert. When I visit other teachers who are using technology so effectively, when I hear them engaging students, I am envious. I want to be a student in their class! I hope I model what I think works best–all of us learning together, working together, creating together.
So what’s in a name?