This is part of a series of inquiry-based provocations for essential elements of the PYP. For more, click here.
A while back, I shared a provocation to support one of the IB Primary Years Programme Units known as Who We Are. This week, I want to share one that can be used with How We Organize Ourselves. Take a look at this fascinating video to find out how the US went about the problem of an exponentially growing volume of mail.
Provocation Questions:
How are problem-solving and organization connected?
How did the zip-code solution change over time?
How might future zip code solutions impact people?
Why do we keep changing the way we organize systems?
What is our responsibility to keep changing the way we organize systems?
Last month, I followed Pernille Ripp’s 7th grade English class’ progress through a project on refugees. I even pointed to it in a recent post as an example of Twitter’s potential for learning. And on Tuesday, Microsoft shared a beautiful Youtube video of their experience:
After witnessing how all this learning and growing has unfolded, I was saddened to encounter the following comment on the Youtube video:
It’s not the first time we’ve heard this kind of rhetoric, nor will it be the last. The “reading, writing, ‘rithmatic” camp is still alive and well.
However, what those who are of this mindset still don’t understand is that this is English in today’s world.
A world in which current events no longer sit quietly in the morning paper, and instead are loudly debated at all times from the devices in our pockets.
A world in which the negative is amplified and distorted truths go viral.
So when the standards instruct us to “engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly” (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.1), is it beyond English instruction to tackle an issue that is very much a part of their lives?
Or when we’re to teach students to “Delineate a speaker’s argument and specific claims, evaluating the soundness of the reasoning and the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence” (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.7.3), is it beyond English instruction to seek out civility and compassion to help bring clarity to current events fraught with misinformation?
The truth is, we can’t just direct our students to the encyclopedia anymore. The volume and quality of the information our students receive every day from the Internet is staggering, and we simply cannot pretend that it does not shape their learning process. Especially since with greater global access comes greater global citizenship. Thus, dramatic is the difference between asking a student from 1990 vs. 2016 to “Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient to support the claims” (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.8).
In the complexity of teaching and learning today, 21st century educators know that we are tasked to teach our students how to think, not what to think.
Or, as Pernille put it so well herself at the onset of this project,
“My job is not to make you think a certain way, my job is to make you think. So whatever your opinion may be, all I ask of you is to have one based on fact, rather than what others believe. Keep your ears open and ask a lot of questions. That is the least you can do as the future of this country.”
Keep up the great work, Pernille, and all other teachers dedicated to helping their students make sense of this dynamic and exponentially shifting world!
My initiation to the parent side of the school table was abrupt and rather unpleasant. It was the first of many moments over the last two years that would expand my perspective and empathy as an educator. I have been reflecting lately on my old list of things I wished parents would do:
If only parents would…
Practice spelling with their students for just a couple minutes each night.
Check their child’s backpack every day.
Sign the reading log.
Help their child practice math facts at home.
Interestingly enough, now that I have a first grader myself, my wish list for her teachers have very little to do with the list above:
If only teachers would…
See my child as a person–not a benchmark result–first.
Help her con-construct meaning for herself rather than rely on worksheets.
When I examine these two lists carefully, I have a few important takeaways:
My old “if only parents” list was more focused on grades and standards.
My new “if only teachers” list is more about student autonomy and powerful learning.
When I return to the classroom, my new “if only parents” list will undergo at least 2 important changes:
It will be transparent and more collaborative in nature (I hope it will become less of an “if only” list and more of an ongoing dialogue with parents).
It will stop assuming that parents who don’t worry about grades aren’t concerned about learning (because they are most certainly not one and the same).
Getting on the same page as teachers and parents is easier when we stop making assumptions and start finding better communication channels (not just #StudentVoice, but #ParentVoice, too).
I need to make it a point to find out my future students’ parents’ “If only teachers would” lists (ie, while I would personally be inclined to do away with homework altogether, I will be sure to work with parents to find out their thoughts and needs for their individual children).
Do you spot any other tips for me? How have you improved parent/teacher communication?
Last week, I shared an inquiry into tech use provocation that teachers can use with their students to consider its effects on them as individuals, as families, as communities, and as a world.
I also spent part of last Monday running some PD sessions at my old school (one on inquiry, and two on tech use).
The most rewarding moment during my tech sessions was when teacher told me as she left, “You made me think differently about Twitter!” Mission accomplished!
Of course, Twitter is just one piece in the puzzle of effective and innovative edtech, but there really is something special about it when it comes to becoming global citizens as teachers and students! So this week’s provocation is going to consist of examples of how Twitter can impact student learning, a worthwhile possible investigation for both teachers and students…
Example 1: These 3rd graders found this animal skeleton on their campus. Study “Approach C” for their Twitter use example.
Example 2: 7th grade teacher, Pernille Ripp, searching for refugees to Skype with her students. See the breathtaking results of that Tweet here.
I am looking for people who are willing to share their experiences as refugees or working with refugees in a skype call with my students
By show of hands, who else is exhausted by the ping-pong-like opinions on tech use whizzing by?
One side: “We’re disconnected, we’re not missing anything when we cut screen time, our children aren’t getting enough exercise, we don’t carry on proper conversations anymore.”
And the other: “We’re more connected than ever on a global scale, accessibility is growing, we are finding new ways to connect with our loved ones, we are building new literacies.”
“We tend to panic too much about technological change. Maybe this time the technology is, in fact, going to have all these disastrous effects that everyone’s worried about. But children have always been the first adopters of new technologies, and the previous generation has always been terrified when the new technology was introduced…
But school-age children have been gossiping and interacting with one another and trying to figure out peer relationships for as long as we’ve been human. And the way that they’ve done that might have been just whispering and talking in that hunter-gatherer culture, or passing notes in the culture that I grew up in, or texting in the culture that children are growing up in now. I don’t think there’s any particular reason to believe that the technology is going to make that worse or more problematic than it was before.”
So, this week’s provocation is to let those children consider both sides of this tech issue themselves. The first resource is a photo series by Eric Pickersgill entitled “Removed.”
The second is a video I’ve shared before, but that I think would pair well with the above resource for this provocation. The Millennial Rebuttal by Welzoo:
Provocation Questions:
Why do people have different perspectives about technology use?
How does tech use impact your life?
How does tech use impact your family’s life?
How does tech use impact your school/community function?
Sometimes, the toddler refuses to say he’s finished with his cookie, but also refuses to take more than one infinitesimal nibble at a time.
Sometimes, the baby decides the whole afternoon nap thing (which happens to be your blogging time) isn’t his cup of tea anymore.
Sometimes, your first grader just needs a tea party–and by golly, you need one, too.
We make these rhythms and routines for ourselves, hoping to create a sense of order and achievement out of each day. And then we get annoyed when they get out of sync. And we get impatient for things to get “back to normal.”
But maybe that’s never what was normal to begin with.
Maybe, I’m most in-sync when lunch with my toddler takes longer–longer to pretend our fingers are little people dancing on the table, longer to chat about Batman, longer to exchange goofy grins.
Maybe I’m most in-sync when the baby ends up needing to be walked to sleep for a bit and then snuggles down for his nap on my chest in the baby carrier.
Maybe I’m most in in-sync when I’m pouring imaginary tea with my 6 year-old.
The bridge to the world of education here is very short indeed. It reminds me of a section that resonated most in Taryn Bondclegg’s latest post: her description of the internal struggle when it comes to letting go of our careful “plans:”
“Yet I have to admit, I had an internal struggle. The teachery teacher side of me kept saying “Hurry up! Move along! There is content to get to! You are behind your team! Report cards are coming!” While the inquiry-teacher side of me kept saying “Slow down. What’s the rush? Follow your students. Notice the learning that is happening everyday.” “
That word “notice” particularly stands out to me. It seems to me that “hurry” and “notice” are almost always nemeses.
When we hurry to start the day, do we notice who seems to have had a really rough morning?
When we hurry through our lesson, do we notice the thoughtful questions that deviate from the plan (though they might take us somewhere even better)?
When we hurry our assessments, do we notice the growth and small victories as well?
And yes, we do have obligations and content and testing to answer to. But if we are continually rushing to keep up, both as teachers and as parents, we are much more likely to miss the good stuff. The stuff that puts us most in-sync. The stuff that makes us connect most as human beings.
Slow down. Notice. And don’t worry when things don’t go to plan. That’s usually where the best learning and connecting happens anyway.
Digital empowerment through digital citizenship. This will be the main focus of my upcoming professional development training sessions I’ll have the opportunity to conduct at my old school.
Inspired by the idea of providing differentiation in PD, I decided to run one K-2 session and one 3-5 session. Hopefully that will resolve the issue we encountered during last year’s technology PD when teachers of younger students voiced concern over applying more complex resources to their students.
As I reflect on my personal journey with classroom tech application, the good, the bad, and the ugly come back to mind:
Like that time I required every student in my class to create a Prezi for a unit summative assignment. And then we watched them all.
Or when we decided to collaborate on Google Docs by having everyone revise others’ writing pieces and parts kept getting accidentally deleted. (this was before I was aware of the “See Revision History” feature…
Or when I introduced students to Storybird and they created beautiful digitally illustrated fantasy stories.
Or when my students started blogging and sharing their work/commenting on peers, including their quadblogging pals in England and China.
The list goes on and on. But now that I have had time away from the classroom to reflect and research, I’ve gained a couple of key perspectives that I believe will make a big impact on how I use technology with future students:
Digital citizenship is about leveraging our opportunities to enhance connections.
Digital citizenship is more about empowerment than caution.
We teach about identity theft, cyberbullying, and password security. And with good reason. But there is much more to the conversation on what it means to be a digital citizen! As George Couros often preaches, we must “find the awesome, create the awesome.” A Twitter exchange with Edna Sackson further illuminated the idea:
Just as in citizenship in general, the opportunities for good are too overwhelming to wallow in excessive hesitation and fear for what might happen. We are empowered when we are encouraged to see what’s possible, to take ownership over our available resources, and to collaborate positively with other learners throughout the world.
I think one of my favorite aspects of our students developing a strong self-identity as digital citizens is that we can’t fathom what they will do with it. With the exponential nature of tech resources and access, if we give them confidence to explore, create, and contribute, the possibilities are truly boundless.
