Question Mark Phoenix: royblumenthal via Flickr

I think as I age I realize that answers are far less important than the questions. Hey, we all learned years ago that the answer is 42, it was the question that remained elusive. So how do we learn to ask good questions? There are all kinds of pyramids and charts showing various levels of thinking and multitudes of fancy named hierarchies of thought processes. Sure, those all play a role, and are worthy to examine; thinking about how we think is totally up my alley. However the highest levels of thinking are completely pointless if the people in the room don’t feel they have permission to ask the questions out loud.

So what do we do?

This is by no means a polished list, simply my thoughts in the moment after struggling with this concept for a few days. Here goes:

• Everyone needs to feel that they are a stake-holder in the discussion. Why ask questions if nothing you say matters?
• A safe environment, devoid of ridicule, is clearly needed. More vital however is a feeling that you won’t be permanently judged on your ideas as you work through thoughts together. This allows greater participation and exploration. I suppose the word is trust…
• Questions need to be accepted as standard faire and not automatically viewed as a challenge or full dissent. This is particularly of issue in a teacher/student type power balance.
• An ability to disregard the minutiae and focus on areas that have the most impact.
• Time– discussion takes time. Dictating is far more efficient, but ultimately less evolved. If all you do is give answers there is never room left for new questions.
• Attribute value to debate– actively encourage it and the ideas it produces.

We have a lot of married couples at my school (the result of a school so loved that most teachers become “lifers”). It is not uncommon for one member of a couple to express an opinion and the other to counter vehemently in opposition. I adore this, and am amused when others are taken by surprise. I love seeing examples of people who can respect, enjoy and even love one another while simultaneously disagreeing and expressing that disagreement loudly and passionately (in public even!).

I want my classrooms to be a place where ideas matter enough that people get heated about them. Where classmates can strongly disagree on one issue, strongly agree on another and remain friends through it all. I want to be comfortable being challenged by my students, and my colleagues, and know that it doesn’t wound or scar our relationships. I’d bust out some kind of sports metaphor here about opposing teams sharing a pint after a brutal game, but I’ve never played competitive sports, and in my world of ‘academia’ (eye roll) people seem to have a much harder time leaving ‘things on the field’. (woops– I did it anyway)

Here is one of my favourite RSA Animates: Steven Johnson’s “Where Good Ideas Come From”

The concept of hunches colliding until they become something larger than the sum of their parts appeals to me. Now it’s just a matter of creating the spaces for it to happen.

I presented the kids with a set of learning goals for our Shakespeare unit, then we sat in a circle and they discussed how they wanted to learn the material and how they would demonstrate their achievement of the goals. They discussed their preferences, very much within the confines of how they have been taught before. I tried to stay out of it, jumping in only to tell them not to worry about marks and pushing them to explore more unconventional ideas. Once they wrapped their heads around these unexpected instructions, they agreed to focus on learning the play before they agonized too much over what they would produce. Quickly they suggested and agreed upon creating groups based on differentiated learning ( though they lack the terminology) and I think they were a little shocked when I agreed with the suggestion that we start with a film. They actually asked for as accurate a stage version as I could find, although Leonardo DiCaprio is apparently mandatory viewing as well. They began to consider ways to capture the essence of the issues in the play while applying them to a modern context. A few kids asked if it’s still okay to do an essay. I jokingly shouted “no essays for you!” as if I was denying them soup. Of course an essay is a fine choice.

Letting go of a unit so traditionally teacher centric is a challenge. I hope that they will indulge me now and then, allowing me to read to them and marvel at the language. I know some of my reluctance is ego. Students are easily impressed by the ease with which I spout off passages, no book in sight. That’s all the more reason for me to remove myself from the unit. I will offer myself as an expert on the text, but they are the experts on what aspects of the play will resonate in 2012. If I keep claiming year after year it is still relevant then I should have the faith to let them tell me how and why. If they can’t then I guess I’ve been wrong all along.

I have to reassure myself that this is still me teaching them R&J and hopefully it will still smell as sweet.

There are moments when I love my job so much I think I may burst. Moments when I am amazed that this is what I get paid (paid well even) to do. This sunny February Friday was one of those days; I rushed out of school and up to Kitchener for a planning meeting about the TEDx event we are organizing for our Futures Forum group of students from the Waterloo Region District School Board.

March 21st is TEDxWaterloo, hosted at Centre in the Square.  This is one of the largest Tedx events in the world, last year featuring the  likes of Dr Roberta Bondar, Vicki Keith and Abby Sutherland.  The place was packed and the energy palpable.

This year, just down the street at the Chrysalis theatre 300+ grade ten students will gather to watch a live stream of the event. Exciting enough, but we are aiming to recreate the feel of a live Ted event by adding as many authentic interactive experiences as possible.  The folks at TEDxWaterloo have been amazingly cooperative about sharing their resources to customize an experience for these students.

I am hopelessly excited about this. There is a great group of university volunteers who are going to draw upon their connections to create neat displays of innovation for the kids to experience.  Mathew  Ho (of the recent “Legoman in space” fame.)  will come in person after his talk to do a live QA session with the kids.  They’ll get to see a little behind the scenes magic of the main event, via video and a presentation next week by Ramy Nassar the TEDxWaterloo director and co-host.

We are creating a truly amazing event, in true collaborative style and it embodies everything the Futures Forum program expouses.

Before we broke for the Christmas break I gave my classes a schedule of the rest of the semester.  They each got a hard copy calendar of events.  I gave hard copies of the major assignment that was due the first day back. I posted it all online, and gave them access to all the notes, and even classroom “chalk and talk” notes were typed and posted. I went over things with them repeatedly in class, inviting questions, concerns, comments or queries.  (Yes, that’s a redundancy, in multiple ways, but I use the QCCQ phrase as a indicator I am done talking on a subject! It’s become a bit of a silly signature in my classes.)  I was more explicit in the last two weeks then ever before in these classes as a response to their growing nervousness as the end of semester approaches.

One of the deadlines for the students was on January 4th– yes, in the middle of the break.   This was a concession to the nature of the assignment being an interview with someone over the age of 50 about a story that happened prior to the students’ birth.  Many students wanted to use the opportunity of seeing family over the break.  I agreed to be electronically available after Jan 1st.  They start presenting their stories the first day back.

I don’t know how I feel about the results.   Mostly it’s been quiet online.  I have received a bevy of questions from a select few of my students.  I already have a number of interviews submitted and electronically conferenced with those students.

One student has asked a series of questions, and forgot a book at school (I posted the epub of the novel in response).  A lot of the questions I’ve fielded were already answered.  So, if I hadn’t been around, the holidays would have been a waste for this student.  But, obviously his focus was flaky in class.  So am I helping or hurting his learning?  Not sure, but at least I KNOW what’s going on with him.  I think I prefer this to having a student come back unprepared and assuming it was because they didn’t care.  He cares enough to seek help, but now I need him to care enough to find it on his own first!

So here was tonight’s Facebook communique that prompted this post.  I am both pleased and exasperated.  But you know what else?  I MISS school right now– one week off was enough for me, and I am raring to get back in the classroom.  :)

This concept of being available to students outside of class time is not always popular amongst teachers. It was suggested by a colleague this week that the kids are becoming too reliant on being able to ask me questions after class, therefore being shoddy about making sure they are paying attention the first time I explain things. I actually brought that critisism up with my classes and we talked about the idea of voluntary teacher activities and some of the dangers of assuming teachers will never withdraw their voluntary actions. (The conversation included coaching and work-to-rule situations.) This discussion became interesting because as a group we pondered the down-side for both parties involved. I was honest and human about the toll it can take on my family life: my toddler daughter used to close my laptop and say “No more computer Mommy!”, and I am often up way past a reasonable bedtime. The students talked about becoming more patient waiting for a response, and how they benefit when they don’t lose a whole weekend being confused about a project or task. They agreed to be more conscious of using me as a LAST resource and of actively trying to help each other out first. I was impressed with their genuine concern that they are becoming too much of a burden; there was no sense of entitlement from them.

Ulitmately it became an enlightening experience for us all. They know that I care about their success and want them to do well, but that they must take final ownership. The excuse “Well, you didn’t e-mail me back in time.” won’t fly in my classroom, and they understand that boundries will continue to exist. It is of benefit to me when a number of students are struggling on a weekend and I can give a public clarification that will solve all of the problems in one fell swoop. There is less individual panic and fewer repeated questions at the beginning of the next class period. I am also a night-hawk computer geek, so I understand those students who are working on a project at midnight when they run into a glitch. Keeping all of that in mind though, I also need to remember to impose limits on myself, and control how much and how often I am available. It is a negotiation and a balance. As always, transparency with the kids makes all the difference in the world.

I would love to hear your thoughts about out of class availablity– pros, cons and concerns.

I suppose they are pieces of all of those things. Some of which I agree with, and some, not so much.   I find it so disheartening however that students will gauge their entire success, in fact often their whole view of self, on this one little number.    I  despise when student start comparing marks– it negates  their personal journeys.

One student, for whom writing is difficult, received his essay back, glanced at the mark in the 50s  and muttered dejectedly “I suck at English”.    This student had been contributing orally, making connections between ideas, assisting classmates and was generally engaged in course material.   He was reading regularly, without  the threat of bamboo under the fingernails.     He hardly “sucks at English”,  but that essay mark reversed all the confidence he had gained, and the effects broke my heart more than a little.   He had been aware, and proud, of all those other ways he was active in class, yet this one mark– because it was so concrete and definitive, seemed to carry so much more weight.    I tried to mitigate it as much as I could, but emotions are hard to heal, and teens are prone to sweeping generalizations.   Sure, the writing in the essay was poor, but the ideas were starting to coalesce, he actually had read the work in question, and handed in the essay on time.  All  victories.

Those are the things I tried hard to express in the report card comments this year.  I wanted to pull back the curtain, wide, to show all the success that is going on in my classroom.   I wanted my comments to hold more weight than the number they were next to, particularly since this is mid-term.    I hope that whoever reads these comments can see a person behind the mark, because that is what my classroom is filled with:  people, not marks.   My comments were not generic and I hope that the students see themselves clearly reflected in the comments, and recognize that they are not a generic learner.  I hope that for a moment, the mark won’t matter all that much.

There are reasons this makes sense to me.   A full class period to conference with students individually about their essay writing is far more personally productive for both me and the student in question.

I can answer specific questions and give focused, precise formative feedback.    The student is able to directly and immediately apply the feedback and watch their capabilities evolve.  By having multiple sources of content, with flexible access,  it  trains students that there are many ways to aquire information, and no longer does the teacher need to be the vessel through which content flows. I like the idea of teachers working together, leveraging their time and expertise in creating content that is able to stand alone.   This could create such a wealth of resources.   I like the dynamic nature of it; content more flexible and current than a textbook.  Plus, I’m a bit of a video editing nerd!

From a practical perspective I will not be moving to a fully flipped model of delivery any time soon. I do see major benefits to having students access course content on their own time, at their own pace and theoretically in a medium most useful to their way of learning.  It will be a gradual process requiring conversation with the students in the attempt to strike some balance.

One of the struggles is that this concept is strongly associated with tecnhnology, which in itself will limit the number of teachers able to embrace it at the outset.  Student  access to content also becomes something of concern.   There should be measures taken to equalize socioeconomic  disadvantages.   Personally, I think an entire reconsideration of what types of learning spaces we provide students, and what flexibility we provide to them  is in order.  We are moving to full wi-fi and more students are watching all types of media on their ipods or smart phones.  Laptops in the caf, hallways and library are constant.   Many schools are trying class sets of tablets, ipods or netbooks in addition to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) system used in many classrooms.     Students are comfortable learning in a variety of spaces, so providing various learning spaces to fit learning styles seems logical to me.  I have little fear of students using the technology to play the mindless time wasting type games they are prone to when bored in a traditional computer lab.  My hope is that there will be so many cool resources and things to learn, or learn from, that the students will use the opportunities effectively.  I’m a glass half-full kinda gal!

I am just so fixated on getting everyone to explore the amazing opportunity that is afforded by the sudden boom of access to information, resources and amazing tools.  I think that a classroom that provides practice at becoming an independently motivated learner is perhaps the most valuable  resource to provide for students.

A couple things of related interest:

• A popular infographic detailing a flipped classroom model.
• This is a 8th grade science class in Hamilton, Ontario using a flipped model.
• Khan Academy: One of the most well known resources for lessons, particularly in maths and sciences– seemingly thousands of exercises.
• An article in www.dailyriff.com from Aaron Sams and Jon Bergman,  the teachers to first use the term “Flipped Classroom”   This  leads to many great teacher resources.

It’s time for class reciprocation. I hope that by conducting the formal essay unit in a focused and tight way it will give the students an emotional break. Perhaps it will be good contrast to the more exploratory  model we used during first term. I will be entirely transparent about this with the students because I anticipate some productive conversation about style once the unit is completed.   Besides, the highly structured classroom will mimic the structured nature of the formal essay; who can resist the poetry of that?

It’s an experiment, and I’ll keep you posted.

_____

Teaching can not function properly in isolation; not for the student, curriculum or teacher.    Teachers need to collaborate while still challenging each other.    Sometimes that is hard to do.   A school is very much like a family:  you rarely get to choose who is in your department or in the larger context of the  school.  You can love the people you work with, you can enjoy them, but sometimes they don’t push you outside of your comfort zone.  Families accept you as you are, and emotions can run high.  Department structures are not always the best circumstance for innovation or change.  Newer teachers need time to get their bearings and often adopt the pre-existing culture in order to survive in a new place.  There are parts of that reality that are fantastic; acceptance and integration are important things.   However,  cynicism exists where professional development is concerned.   It only takes a few unfocussed, poorly run or misinformed PD sessions to turn an already overwhelmed “new” teacher off the entire concept.   I fear that too often that attitude is also  learned behaviour, perpetuated by seasoned teachers comfortable in the routine of their kingdom, I mean, classroom.

There are fantastic pockets of passion and innovation in each school, if you just ask what is going on in others’ classrooms.  I am perpetually amazed at what is happening within the WRDSB and the wealth of creativity and talent I meet at conferences, working groups and pilot projects.   I am always horrified by how little of it we share en mass.   So often our keynote speakers are external “experts” rather than leveraging our own expertise.  In a world with seemingly endless communication though, it is possible to look beyond your brick and mortar schools to connect with other teachers.   Breaking down the walls of the status quo is possible now to a degree inconceivable five years ago.     If you need a different space to learn, it is certainly available to you.

I am no Pollyanna, it takes effort to create a community of learners.   Time is one of our biggest enemies; being driven entirely by curriculum is another.   I work in one of the oldest continually running schools in the country and revere tradition.  Tradition should not be a  synonym for feeling uncompelled to evolve when faced with change.    We are all faced with change.

So what to do?  Where to go?  If you don’t have time to read a book… well then,  online my friend, online.

Well, you are here, so maybe this is preaching to the choir.  Many people are sharing their classroom victories and struggles in personal blogs.   Look for them.  Hearing authentic voices has such value.

Twitter has provided me the most consistent daily learning.   I get teased about being addicted to my phone.  Not true.  I am addicted to the professional development it provides.   Ten minutes here and there, and every day I have found a new resource or heard a new opinion.    I eat that elephant one bite at a time: while walking the attendance down to the office, in lulls between classes, especially stuck in the grocery line.   (It is illegal to read at stop lights, so I will pretend to be American and plead the fifth on that one!)

If you are frustrated with your daily practice, if connecting with the kids isn’t working and if you are not finding the innovation you need within your building,  then look in a wider context.  We expect our students to go beyond the bare minimum, to seek out an answer to their questions, to ask for help when they need it.   Why should we be held to a lesser standard?

__________

Consider the following starting points:

When you find a resource site look for online forums where people gather to post questions and engage in discussion, not just the premade “printables” online.  Real people, in real conversation=real progress.   Here are a few places to start looking.  Please make recommendations in your comments– crowd sourcing is priceless.

http://www.teach-nology.com/

http://teachers.net/mentors/

http://www.mathforum.com/math_talk_landing.html

I love Twitter–  In any new environment, “lurk” until you get comfortable enough to post yourself.   Follow me, follow people I follow, people they follow.  Use the “Who to follow” feature with key words.   If someone’s tweets are not serving you effectively– “unfollow” and keep looking.  You don’t need to read EVERY tweet or every link.  Consider it like skimming a newspaper.   Check out hash tags like #edchat  #ffpwrdsb   #edreform #edu       Twitter reminds me of my childhood choose-your-own-adventure books: each turn leads to a new opportunity and resource.  I find it the web in its most intricate form.

I’ve known this for years, and thought I had become reconciled.  This year though I’ve tried so hard to be available, to encourage self-reliance, to give them tools to problem solve.   I guess I thought that all of this was working.  To be honest, it probably is.

Kids are kids though…  Today was a rough day, and shook my confidence in what I am doing with my classes.  I have to move past the frustration, the ego and start tomorrow with some solutions.  They took a wrong turn, despite (or maybe because of) the educational “GPS” systems I’ve provided them.  This is a reminder that sometimes we still need to turn to the paper map, and go with a route we know, rather than blazing new territory. (For amusement, check out these GPS Fails! They made me feel better!)

It also reminds me that our classes still really NEED a teacher.  They need us for the encouragement, and sometimes for the painful wake-up call.  I guess this should be reassuring, but it’s hard to shake off what could be perceived as a failure and move ahead.   Since the first classroom opened its doors teachers have known there is a  time for the “dramatic freak-out” on a class.  I had hoped we weren’t going to need that this year.   Boy, did it arrive today  in spades, and I hated every moment of it.

It’s times like these that supportive colleagues are so vital.  They provided a moment of encouragement for me, a safe place to vent the frustration, and concrete suggestions on how to proceed/rebuild.   The human touch is vital for all of us involved in education.   This is why community building within a school is a valid pursuit.

For the record a few students actually came and apologized to me for being unprepared and for letting the class down.

Now I just need to make them understand that tomorrow is a new day; a new journey. We can move ahead, together.   I’ll take back the wheel until they are ready to navigate  on their own.   For a while they  can focus on the landscape, and get their bearings again.   And me?  I’ll make sure to wear my seatbelt.