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When I am writing for this blog, I am very aware that there is an audience who will be reading what I write. Sometimes it is simply a handful of people who read an individual post and sometimes it is hundreds, but however many will eventually read it, I know when I am writing that they are there. I am presenting my ideas to the education community, made up of administrators, teachers and students of education. I am sharing my voice in the ongoing dialogue about how to improve education in the 21st century.  I never hit the Publish button without carefully reviewing what I have written, because I know that that audience is there. The Save Draft button is my friend, giving me time to read and reread to make sure that when it is posted, I will feel like I have spoken as clearly and articulately as I can.

The same is true when I am preparing my lesson plans. I know that what I create impacts my students. They are the “audience” for what I am doing. If I am creative and clear in what I plan, then my students will have an easier time learning the material and become more engaged in the learning process. They are the reason why I rethink each lesson every year, honing it to match the group of students that I have this year. I don’t think about my lessons in a vacuum, but with the faces of my students in my head.

The challenge of Project Based Learning is to create that sort of experience for the students and their work. In a standard classroom, students work to produce a product that is judged by a teacher and given a grade. Sometimes it is shared with other students in the class, but the work has no life beyond that moment of evaluation. When planning for PBL work, there is a critical need to identify an authentic audience, one for whom the work of the students will have value and by whom the work can also be evaluated.

The work could be to create a picture book for an elementary class that communicates about a topic that has been researched, the planets or a Roman centurion, symmetry or verbs. After working together to gather their information, the students then create their book. with the elementary students being their target audience. They might look at pictures books around similar and different topics to their own. They could interview an elementary class to find out what they enjoy in picture books. The students are creating their book, knowing that it has a real audience, one that will either enjoy what they create or not be interested in it. That audience impels the students to a deeper and richer engagement in the work.

They know that after they have shared their book, they will learn whether or not they were successful. As they talk to the elementary students, they will hear how their work is evaluated by a real audience. Was the book fun to read? Was it too hard or too easy? Did the illustrations help? Did they learn about the topic being discuss? The older students want their book to be a success. A group of 2nd graders is a much more powerful force moving them towards excellence and their best work than simply a teacher with a grade book.

The audience can also be a panel of parents or community leaders, artists or other teachers in the building. It simply must be people who can given an informed response due to their personal expertise or experience. When studying the growth of cities, the students can design a city and then have city planners come in to listen to their ideas. Bring in members of the town council to listen to ideas about violence and safety. Ask someone from the local museum or waste treatment plant to visit. There are any number of people who could support the work of the students; in many cases, they just need to be asked. Knowing that “real” experts are going to be looking at their work is very powerful for students. It validates their efforts and gives significance to each step of the process.

The audience can also be contacted through email and letters, writing a proposal or an opinion to a lawmaker or town official also provides authenticity to the work. Having done this with students in the past, they are excited about the writing process, but they often do not get personal responses, so if the final product involves a letter, I would also have some sort of forum where each group of students presents their position to an audience to receive more immediate feedback.

Finding the audience is a significant part of the planning for an effective PBL, one that can cause the level of engagement and excitement about the project to greatly increase. As I have been thinking about having an audience for my students’ work, it has made me rethink a lot of my planning. I find myself asking, “Why would they care about doing this work?” more than I ever have. Before, they did the work because that was the work that I gave them. Now it is time to develop effective Driving Questions and genuine audiences!

I spent last week in Napa at the first PBL World, a 5 day training by the Buck Institute for Education on Project Based Learning. While I had read a lot about PBL, there is nothing like five days of learning and working to bring it to life. The national faculty from the Buck Institute were there to lead 3 day workshops, PBL 101, on the basics of what a PBL project looks like and how to begin to think about changing standard curriculum into those kinds of projects. There was also work time, so each teacher was able to test out our new understanding and ask questions when we hit a wall. Thursday and Friday were then devoted to projects around specific topics. On Thursday, I went to one on building critical thinking into project and then one on PBL in language arts on Friday.

I was particularly struck with the challenge of creating Driving Questions that serve as the focus of the project. These are not teacher focused, but rather they serve to energize and engage the students.  The standard Essential Questions that most of us learned in college or graduate school are replaced by questions that reach out to the students. They present a challenge that meets the students where they are, with their interests and needs. It draws them forward to complete a task. They create a place where the content of the class meets with real world relevance as well as relevance for the student. As a history teacher, I found the challenge to connect my historical content with the “real,” present today, world.

A significant aspect of a good Driving Question is that it creates collaboration. They often start with the words, “How can we….,” which forces students off of the sidelines and onto the playing field. We are going to create something. We are going to develop the skills and understanding to develop an answer to the question. Along the way, we will have a lot to learn, but it will be part of learning the 21st century skill of collaboration.

When it came to writing my own Driving Question, I decided to try to write one for the initial unit of the 7th grade history class. It is a unit that looks at two questions: What is history? How do we study history? It is a unit that the students have enjoyed in the past, but the more that I thought about it, the more I realized that it was because I had created fun activities that they learned from without really realizing that they were learning. I realized that to have it as part of a PBL, I needed a Driving Question that caused the students to start the work, knowing the goal rather than stumbling on it. They need to be more in the driver’s seat of their learning.

My initial attempt at this, which was done in the Critical Thinking workshop led by Jill Acker, came out as “How can we show why it is important to study history?” When I showed it to Jill, her response was immediate and cut right to the heart of what I needed to understand.

“Why would a 7th grader want to study history? Why would they care about it?”

Wow, my only response was, “Because they have to take a class in it.” I had no reason to think, on the first day of history class, that this question would excite any one of my students.

Back to the drawing board! Jill kept asking me questions, pushing me to think more deeply about the content I wanted to be learned and about my students. I slowly made my way forward. To Jill’s credit, she knew how to push me out of my comfort zone without leaving me stranded. She probed, encouraged and then when I was stumped, helped me to find the language that I needed. A great educator! She made me uncomfortable without making me feel alone or discouraged. A definite role model for moving students forward! It can be easy to back off when a student becomes ill-at-ease, rather than continuing the pushing with all the necessary support.

The end result of the work was: How can we, as ethnographers, understand people? Ethnographer was a new word for me. It is someone who studies the customs of people and cultures,  and is Jill’s and now my, favorite new word! What was exciting about this was that it allowed me to create a study that started with the students. The first part would be about learning about themselves and then move beyond that to look at how they observe people in the world and then how we learn about people in the past. Middle school students love to think and talk about themselves! I could have them to reflect on their strengths and challenges and then learn new tools for supporting their learning.

Crafting the Driving Question is the challenge. It has to draw students away from passive learning. When they care about finding the answer, then they are energized and willing to take the time and give the energy to do the learning.

Saturday was an amazing day! It was the third edcamp philly. What had started as a small but daring dream two years ago has become a global movement with over 100 edcamps being held around the world. As the organizers were getting set up, at 8:00 on a Saturday morning, teachers started arriving. As soon as the doors were open, in they came, eager to learn and share with each other. More and more until there were over 150 of them, gathered together.  An edcamp is not for any kind of credit; there are no certificates or medals to prove you came. It is simply for the joy of learning and of growing as an educator. Teachers reaching out and walking together! And they kept coming! Just watching them arrive made the day! They gave up a truly beautiful Spring day to do something for the students that they teach! They know that there is more to learn and new ways to grow and improve, and they are passionate about being their best. Most importantly, they are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. I love being able to be part of something so inspiring!

As breakfast was served, the teachers introduced themselves to each other and began to discuss what they are passionate about or where their challenges lie. The sign-up board for sessions slowly became populated with ideas for topics of conversation.They ranged from how to use iPads in an elementary classroom to Twitter for Newbies; from teacher productivity to flipped classrooms. The purpose of an edcamp was brought to life as teachers connected. It is a day for each teacher. If you want to lead a session, there is a chance to do that. It can be about whatever topic you want to talk about. If you want to learn, there are sessions upon sessions in which to do that. The “Rule of Two Feet” is the law of the day. If a teacher finds herself in a session that is not actually about what she needs or wants to learn about, it is expected that she will leave and find one that does. It is not being rude; it is about learning.

My favorite session, with the disclaimer that it was done by students from my school, was on using social media and augmented reality in the classroom. Part of what was fabulous about it was the degree of knowledge and engagement that the students had for their work. Their Digital Media class is connected with their Latin 3 Honors class, and the goal was to use digital tools to develop ways to support the learning of the Latin 1 students in 7th grade. This group of students were clear models of the best of 21st century learners. They had been presented with a challenge and using the Stanford Design process had worked their way through to a solution. It took time and a huge commitment on their part to the process, but they had achieved their goal.

They created a Tumblr page with images and links. They made games using Gamestar Mechanic, and they used a program call Aurasma that works a bit like a QR code to make connections between an image and a website or document.  This presentation and one at Emerging Learning Design conference were their final. They needed to demonstrate that they understood the process and their product. It was amazing to watch! Three cheers to their teacher, Giselle Furlonge, who guided them on their journey!

So keep an eye out for an edcamp near you! You will learn and grow, plus just have a lot of fun! Be sure to mark the calendar! It could easily change your practice! Also, if you are interested in leading an edcamp, there is a new edcamp foundation to support your work. Feel free to contact us! We would love to help you.

April is a wonderfully challenging time in the classroom. As the days get longer and the air begins to warm, the end of the year suddenly begins to feel like a reality. And while the students are counting the days until Summer with eagerness, I find myself counting them with a sense of dread. How can I possibly complete all that I set out to do with these students in the few days and weeks that are left? In September, it felt like a lifetime that we would spend together, growing and questioning. There was space for endless possibilities. I searched all of my resources for new ways of connecting the students to their learning, testing and developing what I found to match it with the needs in the classroom. Twitter and now Pinterest were endless sources of inspiration and encouragement. 

But then comes April with its ticking clock of minutes left to accomplish all that I had dreamed. While I know at the beginning of each year that I wouldn’t really solve all of the problems of each student, I never cease to reach for it. Every good teacher that I know does. We are idealists, always striving to open doors or simply windows for our students. If one strategy doesn’t work, we try another. We talk to colleagues and share ideas. April, however, shines a light on the ways where we didn’t have success, bringing into focus the ones for whom our best efforts simply haven’t been enough.

One of the challenges of April is to not give up, to not simply pass over them because we have already tried our best and it didn’t work. They are still struggling in spite of our efforts. It is a critically important time of year for continuing to give hope to the ones who continue to fail. Our message can’t be one of frustration, but of encouragement. We have to keep trying, even when our Bag of Tricks is empty. Each student needs to feel seen and heard. She needs to know that I want her success as much now as I ever did, in spite of the barriers and distractions that she puts up. Students sense our faith in them or our frustrations with them. April, when we are tired and can become discouraged ourselves, is a time to remember our highest ideals for each student and avoid allowing the looming End of the Year to let ourselves off the hook. We must still give our best and challenge them to give their best.

It is a tremendous challenge, because April and May hold so many demands and distractions. There are always special events and unexpected changes in schedule, which disrupt the flow of energy towards the work at hand. They are usually wonderful events, but the impact has to be taken into account. The students often need to be encouraged to refocus on their work, which in itself can take time and energy. Then there is always a mountain of work to be assessed and reflected upon before the final comments of the year. All taking place while there are bright sunny days and warm air, pulling all of us, both students and teachers, away from focus and work. 

So on we go! May your April and May be full of hope and joy in learning! 

I read this blog post today and wanted to pass it along. Teaching is a job that , unlike doctors, lawyers and engineers, people assume they could easily do. They know what schools look like from personal experience and think that it doesn’t take much to accomplish the tasks required. And,  if we do our jobs well, it can seem almost effortless. Classes run smoothly, with engaged students and peaceful teachers.

The complexity is often overlooked. I love this portion of the blog post:

“Teaching is simultaneously instilling in a child the belief that she can accomplish anything she wants while admonishing her for producing shoddy work…

Teaching is convincing a defiant teenager that the work he sees no value in does serve a greater purpose in preparing him for the rest of his life.”

We are encouraging dreamers and inventors. We are supporting creativity and passion. We are bringing light to dark spaces and opening doors to closed rooms. We are seeking to remove the boundaries that limit each student, whatever the original source, so that each one can be the best that he or she can be.

We have to meet our students exactly where they are and  then build lessons that not only hold their interest but develop their understanding and ability. Sometimes, the purpose of the lesson is to simply practice necessary skills, but that has to be within a larger context that the students understand. We have to provide enough of the metacognitive framework to help them grasp why they are doing the work that we set before them.

Part of the challenge is to combine rigor and resilience with engagement and a love of learning. I find that I often build lessons that accomplish one or the other, but that the challenge is to create ones where students want to keep trying, even when they struggle at first, where the level of challenge matches the abilities and encourages involvement rather than creating discouragement!

Clearly a job not anyone can do without training, lots of practice, and a heart as big as it can be!

I went to a great session at ASCD on “Brain Based Strategies to Redesign your Classroom,” led by Agnes Matheson, a high school language teacher at the Westminster School in Atlanta. With a middle school teacher, she had worked with Robert Ryshke from the Center for Learning to use her classroom as a source of research.

Her main point was that not all of the minutes of a class are the same. There are times when students learn more than at other times. She began an investigation into how the brain works followed by observations of her students. To start with, she had a fellow teacher observe her class and record when the students began to lose their focus on the work at hand. After a series of classes were observed, they saw that after 20 minutes, no matter what the task, the students became distracted and their attention wandered.

Matheson then tried an experiment. She introduced new material at three different times in her class: at the beginning, after 20 minutes, and during the last 15 minutes. She waited three days and gave an ungraded quiz to see how much had been retained. The results were startling and will change the way that my class is organized.

When the material was introduced in the first 20 minutes, there was a 60% retention of the information with no other learning time. In the next 15 minutes , the middle of the class, there was a 30% retention, and in the final 15 minutes, there was a 45% retention. The first 20 minutes and the final 15 were the “sweet spots” of learning for students. They took in and retained information the best during those time.

I realized that I do not organize my lessons to match this research at all. I tend to think of the classes as building to a learning place in the middle of class. The beginning is the time to review and introduce whatever is going to happen that day. The middle is the work of the class, with the end as a reflection and organizing homework time. Matheson suggested that class start with the new material and the challenging learning. Then after 20 minutes, shift to review or a more physical activity that will re-energize the students, pair work or multimedia work. The end of class can then be for a closure activity that reinforces and extends what has been learned or it can be a time for introducing new material, something I never do.

This is a radically different way to thinking about a class. I want to experiment and see how it impacts my classes. I tend to shift activities regularly, but this research will change what gets done when. That middle time will no longer to the time when the most important work happens! Very interesting!

Passion is contagious! It radiates out to all around and if they are willing, invites them to share the wonder of discovery and growth. Educators who are passionate about their work and the students that they affect are some of my favorite people in the world. They bubble over with excitement when they discover a new way to improve the learning that happens in the classroom. They are generous with their successes and honest about their mistakes. The goal is about the students, not about them. They work harder than almost anyone I know, hours after school and on weekends, over breaks and through the summer. They are constantly seeking to learn and grow more in order to improve their practice. It is their passion that drives them, passion to reach every child.

I spent yesterday downtown at the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) conference, and I had the privilege of  having lunch with the two people who were given ASCD’s Outstanding Young Educator Award this year.They are both inspiring and engaging people, deeply committed to meeting the needs and aspirations of the students under their care. One is an elementary school teacher, and the other is a superintendent in Arkansas.

Liliana Aguas is a 2nd grade teacher from Berkeley, California. Her love of the work that she does is infectious. Her eyes sparkled as she told us about how her class is organized and the projects that she does with her students. She teaches in a dual-language immersion program, where 50% of her students are native English speakers and 50% are native Spanish. She teaches in Spanish approximately 80% of the time.

Liliana never intended to be a teacher; she was training to be a scientist and assumed that her life would be spent in a lab, investigating insects. She loved Science since she was a girl. One year in school, her teacher taught the class how to start a bug collection, which she loved and added to up until the time when she went to college. She assumed that that early passion would be the one that directed the focus of her career. So she mainly studied Science while at Berkeley.

All of that changed her senior year in college when she unsuspectedly took a class from Professor John Hurst. It was an Education class, and she was challenged to create and then teach a Science unit for  4th graders. Clearly the class itself opened her eyes to the challenges and rewards of teaching. In the process of learning about teaching and in developing her unit, Liliana discovered an even deeper passion than her love of science, one that changed her path completely. She looked for teaching positions and was hired by the school where she had taught her science unit. Then after two years in the classroom, Professor Hurst encouraged her to return and get her Masters, which she did.

Liliana’s passion grows out of her understanding that scientists are born in elementary school. She said that when adult scientists are asked what made them choose their field, the vast majority point to a teacher that they had, not in high school or middle school, but to one in elementary school. However, most elementary school teachers are not trained in Science and often want to avoid it, not feeling comfortable with their own understanding.

Liliana decided that the classroom was her path, that she wanted to be the one who made science come alive for young learners. She wanted to create lessons that allowed them to investigate and explore, make hypotheses and test them. She calls it a “hands 0n, minds on learning environment,” a phrase I love. It is often called “hands on,” but to add the “minds on” makes it that much more powerful. The students are being challenged to be fully involved. It is not just accomplishing the task, but about thinking while it is being done. So in the midst of bugs to watch and plants to smell, students are tackling new investigations daily.

ASCD chose a wonderful educator to honor in Liliana! Listening to her speak, her eyes bright with excitement and pride in her work, was inspirational indeed!

Wow! This is Number 100!

I started this journey of writing about my classes and my own learning in a digital world two years ago. I think if I had known that there were going to be 100 posts to follow and then more beyond that, I might have been to intimidated to start, but like most challenges, it was mastered one single step, one blog post, at a time.  Each one has not been too much to do, and so I have stuck with it, thinking about my students and their lives and my teaching with it strengths and weaknesses. I am grateful to all of the people who have read what I have written and especially to those who have left comments.  It has been a wonderful conversation and has caused me to not only reflect on my practice but to push it to be the best that it can be.

I have found that writing this has linked me to a global network of educators, educators who are passionate and dedicated. Teachers do not have to blog to be dedicated, but I have found that the ones who are writing are also regularly pushing themselves to make what happens in their classrooms be the best that it can be.  Every day someone is taking a chance, trying a new strategy to improve the learning in their classroom better and to engage their students more. It isn’t the same person all of the time; it is a community of adventurers. Sort of like a flock of Canadian geese, each of us taking a turn at the front, breaking the wind and leading the way, then moving back to be one of the followers. We are all moving, all trying; sometimes it is groundbreaking and sometimes it is merely staying true to the vision and moving forward.Writing this blog reminds me that I am part of that community, that I am not alone in these endeavors. Reading other educators blogs does the same thing. I learn from them, and I share with them.

I have tried to share both my successes and moments of wonder as well as the challenges and moments of defeat, the problems for which I can’t find a solution or the days when the lessons just go all wrong. That is the life of a teacher. We never have full control over what happens in our classrooms. Students enter with all of their own energy and needs, plus the impact of the earlier parts of their day. They may have had success or been in a fight with a best friend. Whatever has happened to them comes in to meet the lesson that we have planned. It is our job to orchestrate it as well as we can, giving attention to each student as much as we can, and creating a learning environment for them all at the same time.

It is all a journey, one of wonder and laughter, one of discouragement and pain. I am grateful for the push to reflect on what I am doing that writing this blog has given me. It forces me to think about what I have done and what I am doing with a keener eye. It is definitely a milestone to have reached 100. I am looking forward to sharing the next 100 with you!

As I have written before, I believe in memorization. It is an important skill, and while learning it, students learn a lot about themselves as learners. The first part of the process of teaching memorization is to introduce a variety of strategies for learning the required facts. I love teaching them to create songs, do a dance, write it in the air, whatever works for them. This year, when we got to the point where I focus on this, I had a completely different experience than I have had in the past. In other years, I had them read and annotate a text. We discussed it; they took notes. I taught them some strategies for learning the information and gave a quiz. It was pretty straight-forward “school,” usually a moment of simple success for the girls. There was no need to make judgments or defend their ideas. They simply memorized and showed control over the information, an important History skill.

Now, enter the world of No Grades. The beginning was similar to past year’s, but then it all began to shift. It was the first “quiz” of the year, where there were true Right and Wrong answers. They were clearly agitated by the very fact of the quiz. “This class doesn’t get grades. How can you give us a quiz?” I explained to them that the quiz was a first step in working with the information, but that until they had learned it and memorized it, they couldn’t move onto the next step. The quiz was simply to show them if they, in fact, knew the facts.

I set the quiz up online and allowed each student to take it 4 times if necessary to get it all correct. They took it and the first time, many of them got fewer than 50% correct. The online quiz told them that and suddenly they were furious, at me.

“We aren’t supposed to be graded! It’s not fair!”

When I probed a bit, I discovered that because they weren’t getting a grade, they felt comfortable reading over their notes a couple of times as a way to study. Without the pressure of a grade, they didn’t feel the need to verify that they actually had learned it well enough to demonstrate control over the facts. It wasn’t really that they were being lazy; they just had a situation that wasn’t following the rules as they knew them. As the only ungraded class that they have, it is natural that if they have to make a choice between the graded quiz in one class and the ungraded work in mine, they would choose to put their attention towards the graded one. That is how they have been taught.

Their work for me felt comfortable and safe, and therefore studying by reading their notes over a few times seems like enough. No pressure, no panic to succeed.

Suddenly they were faced with a percentage that they could easily translate into a grade, and they were angry and felt betrayed, in some way.

“I thought you said we weren’t getting a grade.”

It took some hard conversations to work through to a place where together we began to create an understanding that there can be safety while there is learning, that the work of learning, ongoing and daily, still needs to happen. Some of the work will be fun and feel easy, and some of the work will be challenging and call for real effort. Unfortunately, memorization and having control over a body of information is the latter.

I gave them a week to take the quiz again; most of them had it memorized and completed within another day.