21st Century Learning

NSDC and TQ Research Outlines Strategies for Spending your Stimulus Dollars

This was posted on the NSDC Website- felt you might find it s interesting as I do.

The Department of Education has outlined initial guidelines for three components of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding: the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, Title I, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). You can find detailed information about the guidelines and the distribution of funds through www.ed.gov.

In addition to distributing monies quickly to avert layoffs and stimulate job creation, a key principle that will guide the use of ARRA funds is improving student achievement through school improvement and reform. The Department is emphasizing improvements in teacher effectiveness and equitable distribution of qualified teachers as well as providing support for the nation's lowest performing schools. Specifically, the legislation identifies developing teacher leaders as coaches and instructional leaders as one possible strategy. Therefore, these funds have the potential to significantly impact the reach and quality of professional learning for all educators. Given the time constraints surrounding this legislation, the funds must be used on one-time investments vs. programs with ongoing commitments. Most importantly, these funds must be applied in ways that demonstrate to the investors --the public -- a significant improvement in teaching and learning in schools.

In consideration of these parameters, NSDC has outlined some strategies that we believe have potential to meet these expectations:

• Prepare more instructional coaches by developing the knowledge and skills necessary to support improved educator practice and student learning.
• Prepare more teacher leaders to advance the NSDC definition of professional development.
• Contract with one or more external consultants to provide one-on-one technical assistance to principals to create new master schedules that enable collaborative teacher teams to engage in professional learning two or more times each week.
• Identify and support demonstration sites to serve as models of excellence in implementing effective professional learning.
• Provide two-years of intensive coaching and instructional leadership support for principals in low-performing schools.
• Provide two-years of intensive technical assistance and support for leadership teams in low-performing schools.
• Conduct a Professional Learning Audit; organize a local task force to critically review and assess the purpose, form, and results from professional development in the school district. Similarly, administer and use the results of NSDC's Standards Assessment Inventory.
• Organize, facilitate, and support volunteer teams of teachers who want to pilot the continuous cycle of improvement described in NSDC's definition of professional development. Contract with one or more external consultants or institutions of higher education to document and assess each team's experience.

Special Edition of TQ Research and Policy Update
http://www.tqsource.org/publications/specialEditionMarch2009Update.pdf

Excerpt from this edition-

Providing Quality Professional Development and Career Options
Professional Development
Although there are many professional development opportunities made available for educators, the question remains whether these opportunities are targeted to improve teacher effectiveness. Targeted professional development requires the creation and implementation of a quality teacher evaluation system, as discussed below. The remaining challenge in professional development is to determine what opportunities states should offer and require. If a quality evaluation system is in place, information should be available to guide the offerings based on areas of challenge within the teaching community—either areas of individual challenge or topics from which a larger teaching population can benefit.
Examples of professional development focused on individual challenges include the following:
•Training and support to strengthen content knowledge
•Training in pedagogical techniques

Examples of professional development beneficial to a larger teaching population include the following:
•Research or technological advances or brain research advances that could affect teaching and learning
•Information or training specific to the context in which educators are functioning—large populations of English language learners or schools with a large population of culture/ethnic diversity.
Consistent findings enumerate the characteristics of quality professional development. When analyzing their professional development offerings, states should ensure that they embody these characteristics:
•Intensive and ongoing
•Job embedded
•Job relevant
•Linked to school vision and mission

Career Options
Too often career options for teachers mean that advancement in their careers takes them out of the classroom. School districts and states should implement career opportunities that provide roles and opportunities for expert teachers that allow them to share their experience, knowledge, and skills to benefit the school and classrooms.

These types of roles could include the following:
•Creating teacher leadership opportunities in which teachers have a voice in policy and practice
•Utilizing excellent teachers as mentors

Creating Learning Communities
Numerous content- and pedagogy-related professional development offerings already exist in states. Increasingly, however, the creation of learning communities or communities of practice is identified as a positive professional development experience for teachers. States should work to analyze the policies and requirements in place for professional development and the processes by which they determine what professional development to offer and whether it has the characteristics listed above. In addition, states should consider whether they are too narrowly defining professional development in a manner that precludes the creation and support of learning communities and other collaborative learning opportunities for teachers.

Powerful Learning Practice Meets the Mark
The work Will and I are doing through Powerful Learning Practice meets most of these requirements. If you are looking for a strategic way to spend your PD dollars this may be a way to do that not only meets the NSDC's criteria for best practice but is grounded in Teacher Quality research and results in transformational change.

21st Century Workforce Readiness

I had the opportunity recently to facilitate a group of business, education, political and community leaders in a discussion about developing a workforce ready group of graduates in the 21st Century.

I was given the task of relaying the experience. I have decided to share with you to see if you agree or disagree with these leaders' ideas and action steps and why. I encourage you to read and weigh in in the comment section below. I look forward to your responses.

Executive Summary

Newport News Public Schools is moving quickly to address learning in the 21^st century, its barriers and its possibilities, and kicked things off for 2009 with a 21^st Century Leading and Learning Conference.

As a precursor to the conference, held Jan. 9-10, 2009 at Heritage High School, global and regional leaders in education, business and religious organizations met to brainstorm together 21^st century learning concepts in a Global ThinkTank. 

An electronic global panel discussion kicked off the day’s events with an impressive group of thought leaders from Scotland, Thailand, and the U.S. logging in to Elluminate, a webinar software platform, to share their ideas and answer questions. Bios of the guest speakers can be found here. An archive of the conversation that took place can be found here.

In the following facilitated discussions, leaders were given a chance to voice their opinions about what they saw as barriers to implementation of 21^st Century workforce readiness and a re-culturing of our curriculum to meet the needs of today’s changing student.

Through the economic lens, business leaders expressed a need for 21^st century students to not only be prepared for the technology of the changing world, but to still grasp soft skills needed in the workforce, such as problem solving and leadership skills.

Education leaders saw disconnect between teacher preparation programs and the changing learning environment. High stakes testing was seen as another barrier to learning in the 21^st century.

“That accountability hinders the changes in curriculum and teaching practices needed to impact instruction, problem solving, literacy…”

“If pass rates are high, teachers/students feel a certain sense of fulfillment, but the SOLs are a minimum competency assessment. They are not enough to prepare kids for the future.”

A major theme from the breakout sessions was the disconnect between education and relevance.

“Students need to have the tie in – that what they are learning has relevance to the career they choose.”  

“When kids fall in love with learning it’s because they see the relevance.”

Leaders in the sessions admitted fear as a big barrier to 21^st century learning – the fear of change, of trying something new. This fear hinders the modeling necessary in 21^st century learning.

“Everyone needs to model from top down. . . .Principals model to teachers, teachers model to students, etc.”

After the facilitated discussions, leaders were asked to come up with proactive recommendations to the barriers addressed. From this long list, leaders filtered and organized their recommendations under different categories and then ranked the categories by the most important in their opinion. Some of the top ranked categories included leadership development, cultural awareness, professional/teacher development, partnerships/community involvement and student curriculum.

Empowering educators through leadership development, building relationships and cultural awareness, training and modeling were some of the most recommended steps to overcoming the barriers.

Out of the discussions recommended action statements emerged:

- Inventory the technological skills already available in the division to identify and address gaps. 

- Ask students to teach the teachers how they use technology and how they see these tools being used in a classroom.

- Allow teacher experts to train other teachers so there is no additional cost involved in the training. The business community can also provide in-kind support by providing training in these technologies.

- Build cultural awareness and infuse relevance into our instruction by teaching educators and students the facts of our global economy and community. 

- Teach educators the importance of and how to build their own online personal learning networks as a 21^st Century networking literacy leveraged for student growth.

- Teach students how to develop their own personal learning networks and discriminate information value and organization.

- Use technology to access and examine current events from various world perspectives through original sources and global connections.

- Teach the whole child by using inquiry driven approaches that reexamine curriculum through a 21^st Century lens.

- Work on belief systems, so that they produce citizens who can meet the challenges of this world with confidence and embrace all its people with compassion.

- Develop leadership networks that collaboratively function as professional learning communities to address and solve barriers to learning. These networks would include administrators, teachers, school staff, community and business leaders, and student leaders in the district, state and world.

Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Lead a Group
In addition to the facilitated focus groups that addressed 21^st Century issues, one group of community leaders also had the privilege of interviewing a special guest and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Rebiya Kadeer. A copy of the transcript of her interview can be found in Appendix E.

To review all data collected at the Global ThinkTank please refer to the following appendices:

Appendix A – Participants List- Removed

Appendix B – Round Robin Discussions

Appendix C – Categorization of Ideas

Appendix D – Crafts of Recommendations

Appendix E – Interview with Rebiya Kadeer

Appendix F – Panel Discussion Archive

Appendix B – Round Robin Discussions 

After breaking down into groups, participants engaged in round robin discussions of the barriers to 21^st century learning. They responded to the question, “Thinking in terms of the skills, knowledge, abilities and opportunities needed to prepare today’s students for the 21^st century workforce – what are the barriers that are currently keeping this from happening in our classroom and community?” One participant acted as scribe for the group, recording responses, while another facilitated the discussion. The notes from these discussions are reprinted below.

Group A

Round Robin Notes:

Financial Constraints are a barrier especially when we look at the technology budget. 

 There is not enough investment from all of our organizations.  Exposure and experiences are another part of 21^st century that our students are not getting.  Critical and Creative thinking is a big part of children’s learning.

We got away from the basic skills.  We still need to be able to read, write and do multiplication tables.  Attitudes start at home and are nurtured at school regarding the importance of learning. No matter whether their disposition is to go to college or not, these skills are important and you are not a failure if you don’t go to college.  And students ought not be stigmatized because they want to be a carpenter.  We ought to help kids know what they want to do and then help them do it and not stigmatize them if that means they don’t go to college. 

We are only allowing kids that can’t do to go to vocational classes. 

NNPS has the burden of raising children because of societal issues.  So now schools have to be responsible for social development too. 

Skills, Attitude and Disposition don’t cost a lot of money.

We underestimate kids’ ability to learn.  Expectations build the attitude that is needed. 

There needs to be a better cultural awareness across schools and business and finances need to be available.  Students need to be geared towards their interests not just college.  Tools to help students know their interests are needed and the finances to provide them need to be there.  

You can’t just work with the students and then send them back out in the community.  It needs to be a community effort. 

Young people have built their own community through technology.  Social networking, texting, etc.   We need to pick up on the skills our kids have and build on that with kids. 

As an instructor and parent, I am dealing with fear, not knowing what the kids are doing.  Amazement at kids’ ability to write a report, listen to iTunes and  text all at the same time.  How uncomfortable are educators and parents. 

Importance of educating our community…

Money is a problem.  We don’t have enough equipment.  Teachers are afraid that they are going to break the equipment.  They have to have critical thinking skills.  We are bad about the SOL’s but they have to be able to think.  It is more than rote memorization. 

 Consensus Issues:  Money issues, Critical Thinking, Tapping into the knowledge base of students around technology.

Group B

 I asked the question in the classroom of how our bureaucracy hinders us.  “Every school should be looked at as an independent franchise.”  So students and staff in the building has a sense of ownership.  Mediocre has become acceptable in this country.  I’m a stickler for more independent in the public structure.  Empower the individual school.

The current structure is interrupting the learning potential.

I’m coming from a different background.  I’m new to education.  “My insight is four years out of high school.  I wish I had this in my high school.  Why didn’t we have smart boards in high school or college?”  A lot of school board members are stuck in how school s use to be.  If we focus on that point that people are still involved in this process.  Teachers and students will be more willing to learn. A fear of learning something new seems to prevent the progression of the 21^st century concept.  A Student’s perspective.

Kids who start of in school are excited in the elementary level and by the time they get to high school they are brain dead.  “Why am I learning this?” Teachers have technology in front of them, but they don’t have the role models to know how to use it in the workforce arena because the have nothing to relate to. “We have to train our teachers to learn and teach in a different way.”  Relationship, relevance and investment.  When kids fall in love with learning it’s because they see the relevance.

A lot of what kids learn in the old way of learning is not relevant to what is happening in the real world.  It doesn’t mean necessary learning technology it means teaching kids so it’s meaningful. “We tend to teach kids how we were taught.”  Change is feared. Our perspective is what limits our growth.  One of the largest bearers is not teaching kids collaboratively. 

“For us to see this type of education is amazing.  We do not sit and discuss education in China.  In US a child can study any subject they chose.  That is not the case in China.   The Chinese education system only praises the Chinese government.”  Embrace change! American students should understand how fortunate they are and become global citizens to see how they can make the world a better place.  Later I was in prison for speaking about lack of human rights in education.  It is very important for me to let the children know in America how fortunate they are.

Besides the global competitive gap we need to get our kids to understand the global haves and have-nots.  We have to compete and support in service projects, awareness projects, etc.

Change is the wall that we need to overcome. “If we introduce it the right way it enables one to overcome the obstacles.”  Everyone needs to model from top down. . . .Principals model to teachers, teachers model to students, etc.

What points of consensus emerged in the discussion? The need to learn, teach, train and communicate not only within our community but throughout the world.

On which points were the participants’ responses divided?  none

On which points did participants reveal a wide range of responses?  Student learning, cultural awareness, exposure and appropriate modeling, best practices

Group C

In the classroom, too much emphasis on lower levels of learning due to standardized testing occurring- incredible peer pressure for kids to fit in instead of being individuals. “Kids need knowledge” but we teach facts, but not how they connect to their world.”

A barrier for SPED pop is transition. I like European out of the box thinking. “Keep the bar up, but we know were the students is heading.” Look at the child’s ability and go that track. Train them so they are vocationally sound by the time they exit school (rather than pushing them to be college bound – when we know they may not be). 

A barrier I see is a conformative mentality. We have lost the sense of being an individual. It is not sportsmanship or working as a team. WE have lost a sense of civility. We are not working in teams or offering assistance. Emphasis on SOLs, NCLB, - schools, teachers, principals are evaluated on how kids score on a mc test – critical thinking skills is missing. “The soft-skills of team-work and problem solving need to be part of our education to be ready for the work force.  We need situational leaders in addition to supervisors, etc. Know when to lead, when to step back, be cross-functional”

Barriers:  homelife – a major part for students who don’t have the support structures at home = community issue

School issue = playing the blame game on parents/community

Not all children learn the same way – we teach like they only learn one way. We teach in the same classroom environment as the one from the civil war. We need to convert the methodology of teaching to using the tools kids use today. = relevance!

Kids don’t believe their teachers care about them. So many distractions/baggage in the classroom. Teachers need to be thoughtful and think in terms to being able to relate to a particular student who is different or struggling…the teacher is influential –one of the most influential people in children’s lives. Engagement between teacher and student is critical piece. All the kids aren’t likeable – but they are all human beings, need to have a future. I am not casting aspersions on all teachers, but teachers need to get into the lives of kids – go beyond the content.

Kids cannot relate what they are doing in the classroom that day to the future. There needs to be a connection – this is why dropouts occur. Serious systemic challenges

Serious concern with the SOLs being the end all, be all of education. And it shouldn’t be.  If pass rates are high – teachers/students feel a certain sense of fulfillment – but the SOLs are a minimum competency assessment – they are not enough to prepare kids for the future.

Not enough articulation between colleges and public schools – teacher prep programs. 1^st year teachers often enter the teaching field ill prepared for the reality of teaching and learning in the 21^st century. There is also a disconnect in the classroom in the classroom to the real world = relevance.  There is no questions about the fact that we have different societal practices as before but we cannot let community “situations” interfere with teaching kids.

Global, 21^st century is exciting, but we have to pedal furiously like ducks on a pond.

Lack of training, experiences and connectedness between teacher prep training and teaching reality.

From a SPED perspective, one of the barriers is isolation. If you are the only teacher certified in a certain disability in a building, it can be very isolating.   The emulation exercise could be an interesting way to connect people via technology.

Lost sight of vocational side of education (for SPED students). Unrealistic expectations for students based on their abilities.

The preparation of elementary school teacher = 20 hours of elementary ed. We only test knowledge, not can the teach the knowledge. Does that teacher know how to communicate to that kid and teach him?

Deficit model – we cannot give up on the children, let them drop out and it becomes a community problem.

 Teacher quality is critical – do they know the content? Do they know the pedagogy?

Key barriers

“Trust, communication, team work, caring and vision are missing”.  Issues: “we can’t give up on kids”

We can predict a roadmap of a student (in school, in community) – we see it coming – there needs to be something we can do to prevent it from happening.

Prisons predict future jail population based on 3^rd grade reading pass rates of the SOL.

Most issues were agreed upon by all----

Group D

Barriers to 21st Century Learning

 Guiding Question: Thinking in terms of the skills, knowledge, abilities and the opportunities needed to prepared today’s student for the 21^st century workforce, what are the barriers that are currently keeping this from happening in our classrooms and community?

Respondent 1:

Part of barrier in our community – most of the businesses in our community are not global minded at this time – fear if school system goes ahead, businesses are not going to be ready for the students when they come out of school, her company builds buildings and the global market doesn’t impact what they do on a daily basis – is a progressive student going to be satisfied with what her company has to offer,” I can see there being problems”, students coming out today seeing everything as flexible time as opposed to working standard hours – doesn’t feel there is currently a demand for a supply of technologically advanced students – are they going to be more attracted outside the city of NN – not opposed to what the education system is doing just afraid of the outcomes

Respondent 2:

Colleges and university teaching 1950’s education – works with leadership and universities to redesign teacher and leadership programs – colleges and universities not training teachers to teach in 21^st cent mindset – works with school division leaders as well – just redesigned the principal leadership program – school districts are far ahead of colleges and universities – until we get colleges and univ.’s in line with school divisions, were not going to get there

Respondent 3:

One barrier is our history and educational bureaucracy – not preparing teachers as we are preparing students – 21^st cent. Learning is larger than just the tools – values and work ethic – that is part of the 21^st century skill set as soft skills – schools are still subscribing to minimum competency based standards that is scary concept– economy is a barrier to the success of 21 c learning over the net few years

Respondent 4:

– this area loosing many of its best and brightest – the numbers support that concept that there isn’t as much of a demand – we loose a percentage of our brightest college candidates to other states because the jobs aren’t here – while we focus so much on the tools of technology, there is a loss of values, social skills, personal interactions, teaching respect, but we can’t loose sight of trying to help our students learn how to get along – the heart of how we learn to move our schools forward

Respondent 5:

Education is critical to him – rapid technological advances – cultural lag in applicants that come forward, technology advances exponentially and inversely with students who can use them, analytical abilities not there, lack of motivation – problem with work ethic – no long term goal setting – need to have desire to excel and overcome learning shortfalls, lack of emphasis on why a solid education is important, students need to have the tie in of what they are learning has relevance to the career they choose, need to have long term goals and objectives instilled in kids early, HS diploma doesn’t guarantee students have the skill sets to perform the tasks, students having difficulty passing national exams, goes back to elementary school and the parental support system – we need to look globally, technology is just a small sliver – more emphasis needs to be placed on the soft and human skills – need to have long term objectives and goals, need to realize that college is not a universal goal

Respondent 6:

-emphasis on values and work ethic cant be overstated, starts in preschool with the early education and early intervention, spend years trying to catch up, in many cases they don’t have parents who are educated and realize the importance of all of these skills, reading comprehension and math are critically important need to have other skills before you can really use the technology, people who don’t have the confidence to learn the technology are always playing catch up need to be able to play catch up through self-directed learning, we need to be teaching are children make sure you have enough money to make good decision

Respondent 7:

Key barriers – high stakes accountability testing, when you look at needed competencies that accountability hinders the changes in curriculum and teaching practices needed to impact instruction, problem solving, literacy numeracy, people are beginning to see the importance of that

What about the children who are not going to need 21^st century learning sk

Appendix C – Categorization

After a round robin discussion of barriers to 21^st century learning, participants tackled the task of coming up with proactive solutions and steps to addressing those barriers. They were asked to think in terms of the questions: What’s working now? What’s missing? What can individuals/organizations do? And other innovative ideas not related to overcoming barriers.

Participants then paired up to discuss their steps and find common ideas. After sharing in pairs, participants organized their ideas with sticky notes under different categories, from leadership development to finance and budget issues, among others. After the steps were categorized, participants voted which categories were most important or pressing. These ideas and categories, as well as the weight each category received, are reprinted below.

Leadership Development - 16 Dots

·         Empowerment

·         Great leadership team

·         What about kids who won’t need the tech (21^st) skills to make it in life?

·         Basic skill sets missing: 1. Reading comprehension 2. Math skills 3. Analytical capability

How to motivate students? Need to have desire to overcome

·         Communicate, trust, teamwork

·         Leaders should be able to identify with subordinated as peers

·         Rapid technological advances- cultural log to utilize the advances need to have students

Cultural Awareness - 26 Dots

·         Relationship building

·         Give students an understanding of world

·         Cultural awareness between teachers and students who all “other”

·         Involvement in local and global community

·         Engage stakeholders in global conversations with other cultures to learn from each other

·         Solutions: 1. Create pen-pals in other countries 2. Websites/email/chat with foreign students live under dictatorship countries 3. Teach students about the unfortunate situation of children in other countries 4. Invite representative of foreign student groups to speak on campus 5. Visit the countries of less fortunate children 6.create a textbook on the lives of third world children

Professional Development/ Teacher Development - 27 Dots

·         Training

·         Professional development is learning differently

·         Individuals do- pair with each other to learn new strategies

·         Missing- knowledge of new ways of teaching

·         Teacher internships in business

·         Professional development that is on-going

·         Continue to focus on ways to develop good teachers

·         Teach adults how to be willing to accept empowerment

·         Top-down modeling

·         Overcoming barriers bring higher ed teacher prep programs into 21^st century

·         Teacher training that models that “one size does not fit all”

·         Create teacher candidate residencies in classes of highly effective teachers known for 21^st century skill teaching

·         Must start with the teachers

·         Professional development commit to lifelong learning

·         Develop appropriate professional learning programs for educators

Partnerships/ Community Involvement - 15 Dots

·         Effectively integrating community based programs into schools (mentors)

·         Community participation in schools- let students know what employers expect

·         Higher ed partnering with school districts to solve problems through data collection, analysis and research. Using college students in a clinical model and fieldwork based learning.

·         Increase utilization of social workers and community workers in collaboration with educators

·         Community partnerships are working

·         Invite community members to solution focused meetings

·         Increase community partnerships

·         Build more business partnerships

Student Curriculum - 18 Dots

·         Reprioritize education goals- career goals. Focus on students interests, abilities vs. only “college” goals

·         More class time

·         School-wide global awareness projects

·         Use other tools of assessments (e.g. something different from SOLs) that don’t bog down actual creative teaching- make classroom learning fascinating not repetitive.

·         Basic computer classes in elementary schools

·         Allow students to “educate” students

·         Development of career pathways

·         Expose our students to the human network by giving them a chance to interact with others and the world around them including the use of technology of course but also giving them the chance to see the outside world physically not only on a screen

·         Continue efforts toward differentiation of technological learning

·         Distribute lap tops to students

·         Let kids finish course as they learn it and do something more

Critical Thinking - 10 Dots

·         We need to teach critical thinking skills

·         Focus on lifelong vs. finite/terminal degrees

Engagement of Legislators/ Policy Makers - 9 Dots

·         Work with state legislators and policy makers to change ideas and needs of schools to prepare students

Parents - 8 Dots

·         Increase parental involvement

·         As individuals- learn what’s new- pay attention engage in the unknown

·         Encourage parents to keep in touch with teachers all of time when things are going right or not

·         Telephone call from each teacher to each parent at the beginning of the year

·         Parent involvement

Data Driven Decision Making - 5 Dots

·         Collection of data- not good at analyzing the data

·         Missing- assessments that truly measure what’s important- critical thinking

·         Allow more “independence” for schools

Collaboration - 7 Dots

·         Organizations, educators and community leaders must be open to what works for individuals

·         Teach openness-be open to new ideas

·         Business leaders to help contribute to school computers

·         Create action plans centered around skills needed for success in a society

Finance/Budget - 4 Dots

·         To look at the budget differently

·         Rally public support for our public school initiatives for 21^st century technology

External Resources - 4 Dots

·         Apprentice programs

·         Get rid of textbooks

·         Lap tops to be signed out just like books

Character Development (Soft Skills) - 2 Dots

·         Missing: Soft skills, etc, needed in place? Early development and continued emphasis

·         What’s needed? Etiquette classes as a “required” elective

Early Childhood Education - 2 Dots

·         More early childhood education

Set the Stage-Defining

·         Acceptance of change

·         “21^st century learning” needs to be defined so that everyone can understand exactly what it is without misunderstanding. Misunderstanding=fear=conflict=not productive. Must understand in order to implement and be successful.

·         Reduce the fear by giving a global definition of 21^st century learning

Relevance - 15 Dots

·         Real world education. Relating curriculum to jobs.

·         Organizations make their needs as employers known- join the conversation- help shape the education of their future work force

·         Establish a career emersion program to highlight career opportunities in a non college career path- i.e. Fire Cadet Program

·         Making teaching relevant to today’s learner. i.e. technology/flexible schedules

·         What do/will business need? Now and for the next 100 years!

Communication - 11 Dots

·         Explore learning through collaboration with and without use of technology

·         Effort of teachers/administrators

·         School districts are working together and sharing ideas

·         Open line of communication parent/teacher

·         Now? Kids can “text” 24/7 and think it is the best way to communicate

·         Proliferation of virtual schools

·         Communication between the community and school

·         Home visits

Appendix D – Crafting of Recommendations

 As a final activity, participants again formed their groups to craft specific recommendations for the school system to address barriers to 21^st century learning. Each group’s notes and recommendations from this discussion are reprinted below. Group B interviewed Rebiya Kadeer at the conference and their notes are included in Appendix E.

Group A

Inventory the technological skills already available in the division so that you can then identify the gaps. 

Have students teach the teachers how they use technologies and how they see these tools used in a classroom.

Allow teacher experts to train other teachers so that there is no additional cost involved in the training.  Also, the business community can provide in kind support by providing training in these technologies.

Group C

Cultural Awareness:

Build cultural awareness by teaching educators and students the facts of our global economy/community and infuse relevance into our instruction.

Teach teachers understand how to build their own personal learning online networks so it can them be disseminated to the students.

Teach students how to develop their own personal learning networks – discriminate information

Use current technology to examine current events from various world perspectives.  – ie. Change up the URLs to see what other countries’ perspectives are about the same issue.

Clash of values – disenfranchisement – look beneath the jacket – from disadvantaged to ‘different”

Teach the whole child….

Work on belief systems – can every child learn

Group D

Leadership network,

recognizing leadership qualities

community leadership

educational leadership

Objective

Develop leadership network that includes administrators, teachers, school staff, community and business leaders, and student leaders; that collaboratively function as professional learning communities to address and solve barriers to learning

Action Steps – Option I

Research current models of PLC’s and compare information             

Develop a school and/or district leadership team

Develop a clear communication system to share information, etc. with all stakeholders

Empower leadership team members and distribute leadership responsibilities

Build capacity within the school/district that encourages and ensures sustainability

Action Steps – Option I

Identify the stakeholders in the school community who should be invited to participate in the network.

Identify barriers to the target

Empower members of the network to lead data collection analyze the results to network and all stakeholders

Provide recommendations/approaches to solve the problem or remove the barrier

Appendix E – Rebiya Kadeer

Rebiya Kadeer, Chinese businesswoman and political activist, attended the conference and participants had a chance to work with her in a small group. Participants interviewed Kadeer, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, about her life, which included being tried and imprisoned in 1999 until 2005 when the United States pressured for her release. The following are notes from that discussion.

Concept: Reform

We would die for freedom in China.  I think that’s why your people take things for granted.  We take nothing for grant in my culture.  It’s a very unique culture.  We have our own music.  In our culture women are trained to cook.  We have respect for animals and we have stories related to these animals imbedded in our culture. 

The Chinese government could wipe us all out.  People would be detained if they learned a foreign language.  By being multi-cultural students can learn about any cultural.  They have the opportunity and privilege.  There are less then 1,000 Uyghurs in this country.  The government separated their people throughout China to keep them from forming strength.  Her two sons are in prison because of what she is doing in this country.  All her grandchildren were kicked out of school.  In China the entire family is punished when one family member does something wrong. 

Were you limited because of tracking or because you are a female?  I was limited because of my families’ social class. 

The government strips you naked of your freedom, your religion, your rights to force you to become Chinese.  The Chinese government is trying to wipe out our language.

Professors, teachers, professionals were fired and forced to become janitors or unemployed because they could not speak or teach in Chinese.

How was she able to create a business?  When the former Chinese president was in place he allowed for a few lower class citizens become business owners in an attempt to become wealthy.

Appendix F – Panel Discussion

 An electronic global panel discussion kicked off the day’s events with an impressive group of thought leaders from Scotland, Thailand, and the U.S. logging in to Elluminate, a webinar software platform, to share their ideas and answer questions.

 Biographies of the guest speakers can be found here:

http://21stcenturylearning.wikispaces.com/NNPS+Symposium

An archive of the Elluminate session can be found here

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/recording/playback/link/meeting.jnlp?suid=M.B35EA4F8E3D03B8032D6C429C65CB0

2007 recipients of the Technology Leadership Research Award

For those teacher leaders who served as mentors in the ENDAPT project last year or the year before, I wanted to share some good news!

 

The content analysis research Dr. Chris Gareis and I did on the computer mediated conversations that took place within our online mentoring community for novice teachers has won a prestigious award!

 

The formal announcement is here:

http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2007/09/2007-recipients.html

 

This award is co-sponsored by the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE) and the UCEA School Technology Leadership SIG.

 

Chris and I will be giving a presentation on our paper at the UCEA conference in November
Recently, I completed year two of the research following the same methodology. The results were amazingly consistent with year one's finding even though it was different mentors and a different cohort of novice teachers.

 

Please join me in applauding the TLN and VA Forum mentors for all they gave to those first year teachers. This award is theirs.

AACTE Teacher as Researcher

59th AACTE Annual Meeting & Exhibits
(American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education)

FROM VISION TO ACTION        

February 24-27, 2007        
Hilton New York

Had a great time at AACTE this year. This was my second time presenting at this conference! Last year was in California, this year New York and boy was it cold! I even got to drive in  a snow storm on the way home. Lots of over turned cars on the highway and in the ditch.

Before presenting, I attended the Teacher Leaders Network's presentation. I sat on the original steering board for this organization and currently serve as a Senior Teacher Leader Fellow.
It was delightful to finally meet Renee Moore and Ariel Sacks. I had been collaborating with them online and know their ideas well, but had never met them f2f. Ariel confirmed my belief that teacher leadership potential can be nurtured and developed from the preservice experience. She is a three year novice and was incredible. Nancy who also presented is a long time friend and collaborator, it was good to see her again.

Today I got this in a newsletter from CTQ, the parent organization of TLN.

Teacher Leaders Forecast the Future of the Profession

TLN members Nancy Flanagan, Renee Moore, and Ariel Sacks recently shared their expertise with the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). Presenting at the AACTE annual conference in New York City alongside Center for Teaching Quality founder and president Barnett Berry, the teachers engaged an audience of education school deans, administrators, and faculty in a conversation regarding possibilities for the teaching profession in a digital world. Specifically, Nancy, Renee, and Ariel explored the potential of virtual educational communities like TLN to share best classroom practices, analyze current research, strengthen induction and mentoring processes, and facilitate high-needs instruction.

Review their AACTE presentation (PDF) here.

The session was awesome. Barnett included Dr. Gail Ritchie (also a TLN member) and me as part of the discussion being led by the three featured teacher leaders and the conversations were lively and engaging. I was even thrilled to hear myself mentioned in each of the three teacher's presentations. How humbling. Many of the professors there were very supportive of teacher leadership.

ENDAPT- Electroncially Networking to Develop Accomplished Professional Teachers

My paper presentation was on the research that Dr. Christopher Gareis and I did around online mentoring. Our paper is still under review, however, below is our slideshow sharing the result for our descriptive, quantitative study we did using a content analysis methodology. The mentoring took place in a virtual learning community. We are replicating the study this year. And I will expand the study to include various virtual learning community environments with a different a priori design for my dissertation in the fall. If you would like to see the small photo set I took in NY, here is the Flickr stream.

Giving Back to the Profession

Still thinking about Connectivism

"When connections are weak...not more research, but better connections are needed," according to George Siemens.  I teach a variety of ICT courses to preservice teachers at The College of William and Mary. One of the common projects I have included in each course I have taught for the last three years is an electronic mentorship. The motivation behind this assignment is to help beginning and preservice teachers to build their networks.

Terry Anderson at the recent  Connectivism conference, spoke about design-based research theory and methodology. I walked away from his presentation thinking of what I do through the electronic mentorships as a form of intervention. I had never made that connection before.

MENTORING AS A NON-TRAINING INTERVENTION has grown rapidly in the last twenty years. From teacher education to aerospace, from financial firms to community foundations, mentoring       relationships are increasing in popularity, and have a variety of designs and outcomes. But thinking of mentoring in terms of a networking strategy needs more exploration.

Research has shown mentoring can promote teacher effectiveness. Successful mentoring experiences can lead to beginning teachers’ increased contentment with and proficiency in teaching, and, as a result, the professional development of mentored novices is more noticeable than their non-mentored counterparts (Spuhler & Zetler, 1994, cited in Thomsen & Gustafson, 1997).  Mentoring programs that promote teacher effectiveness recognize that early-career teachers must arrive at a place in their professional growth where practical experience and professional wisdom provide a secure foundation upon which to draw as they make their ongoing pedagogical decisions (Berliner, 1986; Ralph, 1998; Shulman, 1987).

Teacher Prep
One of the strongest attributes of William and Mary's teacher preparation program is that they pair preservice teachers with the same cooperating teachers throughout their field experiences right up to their student teaching. It provides consistency and an opportunity for a seasoned teacher to know their novices needs, strengths, and weaknesses.  However, this relationship can prove to be a challenge in that it doesnt give the students access to a diverse support network: diverse in ideology, pedagogy, and global perspectives.

By  requiring preservice teachers to participate in an online mentorship experience with highly accomplished teachers from around the world they are able to get the diverse perspective they need. In the past, the mentors involved in my project, while top educators in the field, didnt necessarily use technology in instruction. My justification was that the purpose of this experience transends any particular web-based tool.  I also wanted students to use electronic communication tools as a way of networking with highly accomplished educators that could offer "just in time" advice that wouldnt seem evaluative in nature.

Each of the technology experiences are embedded into content students need to learn to be effective in the classroom. This semester, I decided to take a different twist by choosing mentors that are both highly accomplished teachers from around the world but who also understand the importance of using Web 2.0 tools and other technologies in their teaching. My thinking was that the focus would be on both technology and best practice through a global lens, that would also help prepare these students for the changing demographic they will find in their classrooms, while at the same time showing them the value online networks can have on their growth and developing practice.

Mentor Roles and Outcomes
The role of mentors is to to weigh in on the discussion by commenting, clarifying, and asking probing questions of the mentees to stimulate their thinking. They post when they are asked a specific question or something posted by someone else resonates with them. However, many feel free to post much more than that.

In the beginning, the mentors see the opportunity as a way to "give back" to the profession and collaborate with other mentors in improving the profession a few teachers at a time. However, it becomes clear early on that the mentorship experience is as much about moving seasoned teachers along a developmental continuum toward improving teacher leadership, as it is about a one-way communication strategies to impart mentor to novice knowledge. The collaborations fast grow into a learning ecology with as many mentors professionally communicating with other mentors as novices communicating professionally with other novices -in addition to traditional mentor to novice communications.

This semester, a few days into the networking experience, several first time mentors with my project shared how the experience was impacting their ability to reflect upon their own practice.
These two comments occurred in Skype conversations with mentors who teach on the other-side of the world from me.

[2/5/2007 7:00:28 AM] P says: Hi Sheryl - how are you ?? The
conversations going on in the Tapped In room are very interesting - greatly
enjoying contributing  - thanks for inviting us to join.
[2/5/2007 7:03:50 AM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: I am so appreciative of
your time and effort
[2/5/2007 7:04:52 AM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: It will be awesome for all
of us I think-- to see how things are done in different places in the world.
[2/5/2007 7:05:03 AM] P says: It's quite good to get time for
us to reflect on practice as well - as you don't get much time when you are
actually doing it!!!
[2/5/2007 7:05:25 AM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: That is what many mentors
have said.
[2/5/2007 7:05:34 AM] P says: I think the collaborative
aspects of web 2.0 are quite awe inspiring
[2/5/2007 7:06:12 AM] P says: I am off for lunch now following
my morning maths class - take care
------------------------
[2/9/2007 3:29:41 PM] A says: Hey Sheryl- Just a note to say I am loving the debate in Tapped In. One of the first things I do when I get home is check the conversations- as you say- it is helping me think more clearly about things by sorting out what I think about the debate in my own mind. Thanks for the invite- it's great.
[2/9/2007 3:30:12 PM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: I am so appreciative of the time you are putting in
[2/9/2007 3:30:17 PM] Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says: You are quite awesome.
[2/9/2007 3:30:36 PM] A says: It's good for me!
----------------------------------------------

This note came in an email from another mentor not living in the US.

Hi Sheryl,
just letting you know that I have already learnt heaps from participating in
this.  The student questions have given me time to reflect on my own
practices, so thanks to the students.  Then reading responses from other
teachers around the world and knowing exactly where they are coming from is
heartening.  Too often, staff have looked at me as if I had rocks in my head
when I made suggestions about using technology, but reading other teachers
uses of mp3 players in Kindegartens is what I have had in mind for quite
some time.

There are many gems here and I look forward to participating as best I can.

Thanks,
J
--------------------------------------------------------

The networking of preservice teachers with accomplished teachers who not only understand good pedagogy, but who are comfortable collaborating in a virtual learning community has positive outcomes for everyone. The learning is universal; each member builds upon the ideas of the other and the ideas grow and change within the community. The amazing thing is that participants are at very different stages in their development and yet everyone is learning something.

Generally, the mentors are encouraged to give reasoned advice that could be applied globally. Obviously, there is much US terminology thrown about as most of these students will be teaching in US schools. However, I think it is important for the students to understand just how flat the world really is in terms of learning and how by making global connections we all grow.

Tapped In
I use Tapped In rather than blogs and wikis (although they do create and use these tools as well for other objectives in the course) so that these students can be candid and not fear anything they say will be used in an evaluative way. Tapped In is a "walled garden" in that what is said in our group is not broadcasted to the search engines. It has been my experience that this aspect creates a feeling of community and trust in our groups.

The Networks Tend to Merge

The most interesting aspect of using online networks is how they feed and inform each other. For example, out of my preservice group mentoring grew ENDAPT, a mentoring project done with William and Mary first year teaching alumni and the Teacher Leaders Network (TLN). TLN is an online group of teacher leaders from around the US and Canada that have been communicating and collaborating for the last four years via a web page and listserv. Amazing things have grown out of that group. So it was a natural for me to include them as mentors both with my preservice teachers and the ENDAPT project.

In helping to lead the ABPC 21st Century teaching and learning project in Alabama, I connected with some excellent teachers who were growing in their ability to use Web 2.0 tools to collaborate online. It was natural for me to invite them to be involved as mentors in my projects.  As one of the conveners for the K12Online Conference, my network grew to include educators from around the world who were beginning to heavily influence my thinking in educational reform. Again, I invited them to join the learning communities in Tapped In and modeled for my students the importance of building on collaborations. Other mentors came from my network connections made from reading blogs and comments.

Viral Effect
Now it is clear to me that as my network has grown a viral effect has been at work. My networks have merged pulling participants from one group to another and back again. A true learning ecology.

Is it not exciting to live in a time such as this?

Photo credit: http://www.ladiesinred.org/images/dec04/connections%20006%20(2).jpg

 

Interview onEdTalkLive

Had the exciting priviledge of being interviewed by Steve Hargadon for his EdTalkLive show.
EdTechLIVE's weekly webcast interviews series by  Steve which focus on educational technology. His goal is to produce a library of recordings that provide good, brief introductions to different educational technologies that can be implemented in the K-12 school environment.

I was most impressed by his interview style which resulted not only in an effective exchange of information, but his pacing enable me to throttle the rate at which I answered-- a new experience for me, as often passion takes over when I talk about this topic and I talk way too fast. :) 

For those of you who do not know Steve, he has his hands in many incredible projects.

• School 2.0 Wiki
• EdTechLive.com
• SuppportBlogging! Wiki
• EduBloggercon
• K12Computers.com
• LiveKiosk.com
• PublicWebStations.com
• K12 Open Source Wiki
• TechnologyRescue.com
• Infinite Thinking Machine

Here are the show notes (from Steve's blog) for our interview as well as the links to the podcasts. Please share your reactions in comments. I'd love to hear your take on what we discussed.

Listen to the the Interview in MP3 format
 Listen to the Interview in Vorbis OGG format

Show notes:

• Sheryl is a technology and education consultant and adjunct instructor in the School of Education at The College of William and Mary, and she was one of the organizers of the recent K12 Online Conference.
• Right now, Sheryl believes, we are in a place where computing in the classroom is really going to take off.
• She feels that it is a moral responsibility of teacher-leaders in the school to figure out how to access the tools of the web and help students to learn to use them in a safe environment. (Again, I'm fascinated with the contrast of Larry Cuban's views here, and also with the apparent difficulties that grass-roots technology efforts face in school decision-making.)
• "You can't give away what you don't own." Until school administrators are experiencing the benefits of the new technologies, there cannot be more widespread adoption of them. (This touches on the point above.)
• The students of today don't have a choice as to whether or not they will master the skills of the read/write web (and being collaborative and self-driven)--if they don't, they will be left behind in the work world.
• The magic of Web 2.0 in schools is individual growth toward the sense of being "self-actualized:" students can be transformed by being able to write things that others are interested in reading, and by being able to collaborate with others.
• The "Golden Question" right now is: can tie these new tools to student achievement? She believes it they can be, but it's very hard to measure because of all the other variables.
• Sheryl points out the need for balance: when you use any pervasive educational strategy (not just the new computer technologies), you need to make sure that there is a marriage between the passion that is generated with a rigorous education. This should be a deepening of learning, and be challenging. "Rigor and passion."
• Many students are going to be coming to school already well versed in the read/write or participatory web. Her experience has been that they are often motivated learners from these experiences.
• Sheryl talks about moving from the "Information Age" to the "Age of Conceptualization." I'm not sure I know what the "Age of Conceptualization" is...
• The most gifted students are good at the way school is played right now, and they can have the hardest time adjusting to a learning environment that is cooperative and self-directed. It is the kids who have struggled previously that really benefit the most by being able to use these technologies. (This goes along with Sheryl's desire to bring computing resources to homeless youth, and her belief in how important this will be for them. See below.)
• She sees more of the writing tools being used in the classroom--blogs and wikis--but not as much podcasting.
• The real skill needed by teachers and students will be the ability to be our own "digital age librarian," knowing how to access, select, and synthesize all of the available information. We need to tap into the power of "self-directed interest."
• On homeless or transient children:  Sheryl is a living example of breaking the cycle of generational poverty. If we don't empower these children with the same technologies that the affluent child will get at home, then we are trapping them in their poverty. Homeless children move around a lot, and often the teachers are unaware of the true situation at home. After the interview, Sheryl and I talked at length about creating a program for teacher mentoring to homeless children, and the providing of computing resources at homeless shelters (see www.PublicWebStations.com).

Electronic Mentoring

I have been writing lately; a literature review and project description for a collaborative study I helped to design and implement around electronic mentorship. I dont think I have ever really described the project here so I thought I would share. We recently finished year one of the project and have finished our content analysis. We are in the process of submitting our paper for publicaion. I'll let you know when it is released.

Teaching has been described as the profession that eats its young. In an effort to address the support and growth of novice teachers,the College of William and Mary and the Teacher Leaders Network partnered to bring together novice teachers and accomplished teacher leaders in an online mentoring community.(TappedIn)

Current research reveals that up to one-half of new teachers leave the profession within five years and that the most important variable in the academic achievement of students is the quality of their teachers. Clearly, novice teacher retention and development are priorities. More intensive mentoring of novice teachers is increasingly seen as a way to address these needs. Teachers in quality mentoring programs tend to be better able to serve their students, more satisfied in their professional roles, and more likely to continue in the profession.

ENDAPT- (Electronically Networking to Develop Professional Teachers)
The ENDAPT project began as a pilot in the fall of 2005 as an offshoot of a preservice group- mentoring initiative that I was using in my education courses. Dr. Judi Harris  became interested in launching a one-to-one component similar to what she developed in Texas and the project was born.

ENDAPT’s design and functioning are based upon online mentoring research and practice that have been ongoing since 1993 in the Electronic Emissary Project and since 2000 in WINGS Online.

Through a grant from the state department of education and at the request of the newly formed ENDAPT committee, I recruited several of my colleagues (National Board Certified and other highly accomplished K-12 teachers from around the country) who had prior e-mentoring experience in my  preservice courses to serve as online mentors to first year novice teachers who had recently graduated from W&M's teacher preparation program.  

The virtual mentorship project took place in a customized group mentoring environment constructed in a virtual learning community called Tapped In (www.tappedin.org). Inside the virtual “room” core discussions took place in a common arena, among all mentors and novice teachers—usually in an asynchronous manner. I facilitated and also served as the virtual community organizer. It was my role to stimulate and prompt discussion when needed through the posting of various discussion threads related to the needs of a beginning teacher. Over the course of the project, the participants (both mentors and novices) continued to respond to facilitator designed “starter prompts” as well as create threads of their own. As the project progressed, mentors and novices initiated most of topics (threads) of discussion; the dialog contained in these discussions were built around the “just in time” needs of the beginning teacher.

Private conversations were encouraged via private email exchanges between mentors and novices, and development of a dedicated area for one-on-one mentoring situations is being implemented as part of the project’s scaling for the 2006-2007 academic year.

Participants were recruited from recent school of education graduates through a letter explaining the project goals that was sent in both hard copy and electronic form. Potential candidates were offered a monetary incentive in return for agreeing to answer several online surveys about perceived needs and experiences around the professional support for teaching they received and to participate by posting a minimum of at least once per week during the academic year and at least six times during the summer of 2006.

The novice teachers consisted of five elementary, two middle and four high school teachers. Two of the novices were reading specialists. Most of the beginning teachers in the program taught in Va., one was teaching in Florida and another in Arizona.

The eleven mentors were hand selected from a national group of teacher leaders.   There were six elementary, three middle, and two high school mentors. They lived and worked in Alabama, California, Flordia, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia.

As individuals they had 5-31 years of experience among them, with 20 years being the average. In terms of expertise, many of them have served as Teachers of the Year in their school, district, region, state or in a national capacity. They all are National Board certified. One is a Danforth fellow and several have been officers or presidents of state professional associations, served on state and national commissions, operated as department, team, grad-level chairs in their schools and have received various other awards from professional associations.

Year one of the project took place over a ten month period that coincided with the traditional school year. During September through October we recruited, did orientations to the virtual environment, and trained mentors. The training more of a refresher as the mentors selected had been trained previously to work online with preservice teachers in another project. We launched the virtual mentoring project in October calling it “ENDAPT” - ENabling new teachers to ADAPT to—and to adapt—the complex, ever-changing contexts of education as teacher leaders and in service of student learning. The acronym ENDAPT stands for Electronically Networking to Develop Professional Teachers. In December we conducted our first survey and in March–May we began our development of the content analysis methodology used for the research, conducted the second survey and concluded the group mentoring.

The most rewarding moment in the project for me happened on the very last day. One of the novice teachers, a young man with enormous potential, had revealed in his posts toward the end of the program that he wasnt certain if he would return to teaching. Passionate dialog took place between this young teacher and the mentors. It was obvious we all felt it would be a huge loss to the profession if he quit. On the last day he made this post and I knew the pilot had been successful.

The end.
Posted on Jun 1, 2006, 3:05 PM
 last edited on Jun 1, 2006, 3:05 PM   
 
 Today it ends. When the bell rang at 11:28 am, the students walked out the door for the last time this academic year. Tonight is graduation. Tomorrow is a work-day. Done. And my friends, what a ride it has been. Ask me how it was. My response: I have no clue- I'll let you know in a week or two.
 
 Regardless, from a deep place inside, thank you all. It was very reassuring to know that you were available to run to when my world was collapsing. Your input has been internalized and has shaped my approaches this year. As I look forward to reflecting this summer, know that your input and our conversations will be one of my primary sources for material.
 
 Again, my sincerest thanks.
 
 Matt
 2nd year teacher.

When I saw 2nd year teacher I jumped up and down. And marveled at the fact they pay me to do what I do...