Data Is More Than Understanding Numbers

In my role as an instructional leader for our school district I work a great deal with professional development either through committees or in actual learning experiences with adults. The experience can be as exhilarating as the classroom when teachers have the "aha moment," share new ideas with each other, or quietly jot down a concept that they wish to bring to the classroom. As with any classroom, at times the experience can be frustrating. When you hear the "we can't," "this is impossible," "why would we want to do that." Adult and child learners share many traits and each at a core a desire to be the best at what they do. 

This week I realized after meeting with several groups of teachers that my legacy in this school district five, ten, fifteen years down the road will probably be that I was the guy who integrated large amounts of standardized data into the learning experience of adults and students. Reflecting on this concept, it is natural to ask if this is my goal. Personally I have a passion for numbers. I am the guy who knows Ron Cey batted .275 for the Cubs in 1983, the Bears won Superbowl XX 46-10, that I won my heat as a high school sophomore at conference with a 1:14.6 in the 100 breaststroke and my last race in college was a 2:16.8 in the 200 breaststroke. Each time we take a round of standardized tests, I produce spreadsheets that perform over 1,500,000 calculations for the staff. For some that would make their head hurt, for some obscure reason, I think this is a fun activity.

In reality, numbers tell us a lot, but they only show us a small part of the whole picture. Ron Cey may have hit .275 in 1983, but the Cubs finished in 5th place. The Bears won Superbowl XX 46-10 but many of us were surprised New England scored on that defense as neither the New York Giants or Los Angeles Rams had scored on them during the playoffs. In both of my races, I don't remember what heat I was in or how I faired in the overall competition. Numbers provide insight, but they are only one part of the overall picture.

In order to improve those "numbers," we need to look at the learning itself. As a swimmer, I couldn't go into either training or a race and simply say I want to drop 2 seconds today. That's fun to think about but really impossible to do. I would go into the 100 fly and say, I want to breathe every third stroke, I want to dolphin kick 4 times off the wall in the turn. By selecting tangible goals that I could control in the setting, I worked toward the overall goal of improving my swimming achievement and dropping time in the process. The same is true with academic testing. Teachers and students cannot simply say I want to improve my score by so much. Rather by selecting actionable learning experiences such as "I want to develop my understanding and use of figurative language," the client student and leading teacher can cultivate opportunities for manageable growth in the classroom. This in turn, much like the swimming analogy, will result in overall academic gains.

In graduate school, two types of research are studied, quantitative and qualitative. Statistical analysis blended with stories and reflections in the field. As we look at the "data" regarding our classrooms, there is much more to it than the % of students that met or exceeded expectations. There is significantly greater value to be gained from seeing the experiences and hearing the stories of those in the classroom. This week is our second Board of Education Curriculum Workshop. During that time, I will present to the Board six slides of goals and sixteen wonderful graphs. While the data is impressive and it tells a story of fantastic instructional gains, it is only a fraction of the real story. A more complete version of the real story will be shared the hour before, as the Board of Education circulates from group to group meeting with teachers, students, and our coaching team. Seeing first hand some of the products of their learning, hearing stories of successes and challenges in the classroom, and finding out how their decisions as a Board of Education have inspired change in the learning experiences of the adults and students in our district. It will be these moments, qualitative conversations between board members, students, and teachers, that the real data will come out. My numbers in the hour afterwards will simply be frosting on the cake.

Numb3rs

1 to 1 - Reflections on Halfway Through Our First Journey

Sometimes we blink and we missed it. One moment things are one way and the next the world is different. Things change. Sometimes there are obvious causes and sometimes there is a subtle evolution. Either way, we wake up one morning look out into the classroom and notice that everything is different. Like any marriage, life has a cycle... dating, engagement, wedding, honeymoon, post-honeymoon, and the great journey of married life. Our one to one journey has followed the same pattern. 

Last year we began our 3-week learning lab adventures. Teachers and students choose to go 1:1 for three-week periods in their classrooms. It was a lot like dating. There was excitement, fun adventures, 15 classroom days chock-full of hands-on technological learning. Just like those early days of dating there wer movies, music, creative experiences, and personal expression. It was fun. It was exciting. It was exhausting.

In the late Spring of 2013 our Board of Education approved our 1:1 pilot program. We had the opportunity for over 1400 students to participate in a 1:1 learning experience for a full-year. Like any engagement, couples had to commit. Teachers had to choose to enter as a grade level in their building. As such, each partner had to agree to participate. Some couples were ready. Some choose to wait and observe. Some couples had one partner far more ready than the other, yet both jumped into the journey grasping to each other for dear life. After an application period, we had far more grade levels apply than we could service with our devices, and as such, while some grade levels were ready to jump in, we were not able to approve their 1 to 1 courtship. In the end over 70 grade level teams in 11 buildings became "engaged" in the one to one journey.

As with any wedding, there are far more details in the planning than many of us imagined. Creation of user agreements, determination of the image, opportunities for professional development for interested teachers, dialogues on the SAMR model, discussions of blended-learning environments, imaging over 1400 iPad-minis, cases, chargers, barcoding devices, distribution, parent meetings, and countless details that have slipped my mind. The summer was an exciting and exhausting time. As August rolled around and the beginning of the school year neared we looked like most brides, enthusiastic and near the end of our rope with preparations. In late August and early September, each classroom connected together in the roles of 1:1 matrimony.

September and October marked the honeymoon. Like the early days in all marriages everyone was gentle and sweet with each other. Children explored creatively. Teachers looked to find opportunities to integrate the devices into learning. Parents mindfully watched their children establishing boundaries at home. Some easier than others. Everyone made tepid steps to ensure success. As with all marriages in the honeymoon stage we all put a lot of personal stress on each other to ensure that everything was right and perfect. The honeymoon was a marvelous experience, an experience we all only get once.

As November rolled in, clearly the honeymoon was over. Our teachers realized, rightfully so, that it was impractical to use the devices all of the time. Students realized there were things they liked doing on devices and things they didn't. Learning had clearly changed, but also lives had been changed. Each of us took a step back to personal spaces we were more comfortable with. Children shared more than cool apps for learning. They shared funny comics and images, facts they found on the internet, and the occasional inappropriate email. The newness had worn off and we remembered that whether we were 1:1 or not, we were students and teachers and at times we all needed to remember where the boundaries were.

Since returning from Winter Break, we have clearly entered the married life stage of the 1 to 1 program. That loving, caring, yet practical world of day to day life. No longer do we try to impress on an hourly or daily basis. No longer does someone need to shout out, "Hey! Look did you know we could do this?" Life is perceptibly different. 

I had the opportunity to sit down in with our 1:1 teacher teams in late January and early February. They shared their experiences and perceptions. Learning is clearly different in the classroom than from previous years. Throughout the classrooms they talked about a distinctive difference in the level of student ownership in the learning experience. Teachers have taken the lead in cultivating learning opportunities, but they are clearly no longer the sole distributors of content knowledge. Classrooms have become pluralistic partnerships with students seeking help from students on learning activities in content, concepts, and technological assistance. Teachers have become far more comfortable with understanding that they don't need to know the answer. As instructional staff, we used to always say that there were different ways to do things. With 1 to 1 we now accept a wide-range of learning products through which students demonstrate understanding. Learning has become very interesting with the array of methods and tools students use to accomplish the learning target. 

As I walk through the classrooms now, it is common to see devices out and about. Children use them all the time, but rarely in ways that we imagine. The clearest changes have been in creativity, collaboration, and the level of student ownership of the learning. Although the program is 1 to 1, children uses the devices together a lot. Commonly children have two devices going back and forth while they work on paper in front of them. Children select if they wish to use the device for knowledge resource or product generation. Children can get lost in exploring a concept, perfecting the product, or sharing ideas with their classmates. The classroom is clearly a far more mutually-owned experience. 

It's not perfect. Kids and adults still make mistakes. There are age-appropriate dialogues about citizenship. There are times individuals make bad choices and need to be reminded of better paths. Some parents are still figuring out how to have their child put away the device at home when they feel that they have done enough electronics. However, as we reflect on our qualitative and quantitative changes, the learning environment is better. Our growth in 1:1 classes as measured by Fall to Winter MAP scores both in the numbers of students who met or exceeded their growth projections and the amount of growth they generated exceeded district averages at a higher rate than our traditional classrooms. Our classrooms have become collaborative communities. The products are outcomes of our device choice. The intimate nature of the 1:1 tablet, the level of personalization we have allowed in partnership with each student's parent, have allowed these learning devices to become a part of each-others daily experience. 

In general, our world is perceptibly different. We woke up and realized this is what life is in a 1:1 world. It's not the childrens' world of electronics and games. It's not the teachers' world of content knowledge, homework, rubrics, products, and rules. It's our world, a collective blend of exploration, creation, collaboration, and product development. It is a great place of learning where we all are better off.

Spy Kids Clip: Marriage is a Mission

I Love Toxic Waste

Movie Poster from IMDB.com

As I have mentioned before, I am raising two children, an academic and an engineer. The eldest taught himself to decode at three and a half years-old so he could read the screen for video games and the younger a six-year-old first grade student is just now discovering how to read but can disassemble everything in the house and has fixed the hardware on his older brother's iPad. In them I see so much of my myself, my brothers, and stories of my father growing up. They are wonderful boys with different talents and different gifts. Last night we were driving home from a local diner preparing for family movie night and the proud papa moment hit me. As we were passing around a picture of the selected title of the evening movie, the 80's classic Real Genius, the youngest read Val Kilmer's shirt. Proudly stating "I Love Toxic Waste." Stunned, I smiled. Gratefully reminding myself of the wise first grade teacher at Kingsley School who told me about the Miracle of First Grade, when children magically put together these odd symbols we call letters and create meaning in words and sentences. Grateful to Mrs. Bricker, his classroom teacher at Wilmot School and his Project Success teacher whose name I do not know, who helped him take this mishmash we call the alphabet and cultivate meaning. He did it at his own rate and his own time. He did it with help. He's not all the way there yet, but he really is knocking on the door to become a reader.

It struck me as we watched Real Genius that a movie released in 1985 truly dealt with issues as relevant today as it was then. The movie talks about the impact of a stark focus on academics. It deals with issues of bullying and teasing. It looks at accelerating young minds down a path of strict math, science, and non-fiction literacy. It provides a specific warning about the need to create well-rounded individuals.

Last week, the University of Virginia released a study focused on Kindergarten teachers perceptions of role and responsibilities. The headline of the article says it all: U. Va Researchers Find that Kindergarten is the New First Grade. It points to the push for academics down to the kindergarten level, the lack of focus on social interaction, what my team likes to call "Kindergarten Magic" and heavy emphasis on core instruction. A blogpost reviewing the research took this take: Setting Up Children to Hate Reading. Two perspectives of the same information.

There is this great desire for our children to grow linearly or exponentially. Unfortunately the real world isn't like that. We can establish opportunities for greatness but they need to jump when they are ready. Forcing the path too quickly is dangerous. Children will shut down. Adults will shut down. Frustrations will rise. In the movie Real Genius, they establish the following warning:

Real Genius Movie Clip - Moral Imperative

It warns us of the need to provide balance in both learning and life. A idea as true now as it was in 1985. Even with such a clear warning, when the pressures for graduation mount and the pressures from adults increase. The young geniuses forget their own warnings and create a tool that they find morally reprehensible. The lack of balance in their lives did not allow them to see broadly enough to understand the purpose of their work.

Real Genius - Understanding the Purpose

This is not to say that meeting children where they are at and providing the next level of challenge is unimportant. It is not only true that we need to challenge our students, but it truly is a moral imperative. What is also vital is that we take the time to teach them more than science, math, non-fiction literacy, and content knowledge. We need to teach balance and value, integrating creativity, arts, humanities, fiction, and other essences of life. We need not only "Kindergarten Magic," but magic in every grade. We need to honor creativity, expression, discovery, and at times silliness. We need to teach children to appreciate and find value in each other. At times, we need to teach our children to play. Only with balance can we use great knowledge and great capacity to improve our world.

Perhaps the portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure put it best:

Forescore and....seven minutes ago, we, your forefathers, were brought forth upon a most excellent adventure, conceived by our new friends: Bill and Ted. These two great gentlemen are dedicated to a proposition, which was true in my time, just as it's true today. Be excellent to each other....and....PARTY ON, DUDES!