The Real World

The Real World, you know that place when you grow up that you are supposed to go. The place where when you wake up in the morning, put your suit and tie on, grab your briefcase, drink down a cup of coffee and go to work. The Real World where all of our children will go when they are done with the artificial world of school Not the Real World that resides on MTV, but the world in which not only can our children grow up and get a job, but do the job once they get there.  Now, there is this belief, that educators have never spent time in the Real World but rather they were born, raised, and never been allowed to leave the confines of K-12 education, so they have no context of what it takes to be successful in the Real World, only those that are in this real world know what it takes to be there, what must be learned, and how it should be assessed. The result of this is a long list of standards and some really long language-embedded tests. In order to prepare the students, we should have some very scripted recipe-based instruction and tests every Friday. Which, of course, the children can review for on Thursday.

The funny thing is in doing this we are required to create an environment that looks nothing like the Real World. While I have not spent a lot of time in the Real World, I am more of a rarity in education rather than the standard. Our teaching staff is composed of some college graduates that became teachers right away, but it is also composed of former attorneys, engineers, and construction workers. Members of our staff have worked in the corporate world and the world of education. Many of them as they reflect on their professions note how much more work they do now than then. In their former Real World lives often their work ended when they left for the day as opposed to the many hours of preparation and assessment feedback they do now in their evenings.

When they spent time Real World, there weren't many tests. Employees were evaluated on projects and products they created independently and collaboratively. As they worked, there were opportunities for questioning and feedback. Employees worked at different paces, adjusting to meet the demands of the project. Feedback frequently was an ongoing process. Content knowledge was downplayed and effective product design and implementation was praised. This was their Real World, one if we want to prepare our children for we need to rethink what we do in our classes.

In a test happy educational world we need to realize that this form of assessment is the smallest component of Real World experience. Tests will be gate keepers for college and possibly graduation from school. They will occur rarely through our adult lives. While we need to be able to do our best on tests, in the Real World, we need to be able to create products and work collaboratively on projects. On a daily basis, our children will need to be able to work with others, take feedback and adjust what they are doing. They will need to think creatively, research information that they do not know, and integrate it into their products to meet their client and employers needs. As such, in schools, if we want to prepare them for the real world, we need to stop thinking about the grade we are going to report out and instead cultivate project-based learning opportunities that they will need to continuously revise, adapt, and develop. This is Real World. This is a world that can exist in and outside of school. It may not be easily measured by a standardized score, but will enhance our GDP much more than our current study and test methodology. It's a world that is better for our students now and in their future.

State Department Assessment - Spies Like Us

Rethinking the Learning Ecosystem

Special Educators and ELL teachers are awesome. When it comes to content,  they are jacks of all trades, learning each subject area at every level. They find out the information, translate it, and make it meaningful to our neediest students at a variety of levels. These teachers focus on the most important challenges by focusing on each child first and foremost. One of the most memorable Special Education teachers that I had the opportunity to work with was Pam. She knew each of her children's skills, needs, and personalities. Each day she walked in with four bags, 2 in each hand, filled with binders and papers. Often they would be put down three times as she walked the long hall to her classroom so that she could conference with teachers on the way into school. Each day in her classroom multiple student groups would be doing a plethora of activities. Each day, she would walk out with four bags filled with binders, papers, and assessment data as she worked to plan for her next day.

Pam spent many years in our field making a difference for students. She, like so many teachers, was an extremely hard worker who found ways to create connections from the silos of materials that we handed teachers in Social Studies, Science, Reading, Language Arts, and Mathematics. As a leader, mentor, and difference maker, each day she gave all that she had to change the lives of children and families. As district leaders, we certainly didn't make it easy. We purchased materials, this program for Math, that program for Social Studies, this basal for Reading but those Guided Readers go with. Each day, 4 bags of binders went home and 4 bags of binders came back. The digital age in education did not come soon enough for Pam.

So often in education, we confuse the resources with the curriculum. As teachers, principals, and district leaders we frequently say: XXX corporation Mathematics is our curriculum rather than in we are focusing this trimester on Geometry and we will be using tools from: XXX corporation, YYY company, and ZZZ conglomerate. Many of us have bought into the recipe rather than the entrée. As instructional leaders, whether it's because it's past practice, it's easy, or it's what our colleagues are doing, we purchase a recipe and say deliver this and our students will learn what they need to learn. Sometimes that worked, sometimes that didn't either way 10 years later we bought a new recipe book. However, in the digital age, this is no longer necessary. If we focus on developing solid curriculum objectives we can use websites to connect our objectives, our learning targets, our resources, and our assessment tools. We can make those "hyperlinks" that pull together the assessment data we have gathered with the best resources out there to help students master the next learning targets for that objective. These resources no longer need to come from one source, but instead we can choose tools that are the best activity for accomplishing that learning task. We can connect supplemental learning experiences, web quests, challenging games, and videos, to the curriculum objective. And whether we choose a google doc or a web page, we can wrap these great experiences together in one interactive document.

In the educational technology world there is a term called "App-Smashing." It means putting to computer applications together to make a better product. This may be taking a picture with the camera app, adding a voice to the picture using Chatterpix, and then making the product come alive in a video using Explain Everything or iMovie. We can develop learning ecosystems by "smashing" curriculum objectives such as integrating learning topics from Social Studies in with learning experiences in English-Language Arts by explicitly selecting materials that connect those curriculum objectives. The Internet provides a multitude of materials for us, it's simply do we put in the time as district instructional leaders to put the tools together to make this possible.

Pam may have taken 4 bags of binders home each night, generating shoulder pain and back pain, to make a difference for her kids. Perhaps this generation can carry one bag of student products along with their laptop and tablet while even having more resources than Pam did.

Bill & Ted & Lincoln's Excellent Adventure

Structuring for Learning, the What or the Way?

Clearly the field of learning is at a precipice, whether one supports or rejects the current platform of educational reform, things are changing and moving. Both nationally and internationally, the expectations for educational systems and the needs from educational systems are changing. The world that many of us entered school in is simply not the world our current students need to graduate from. If this is true, then why are we still organized and assessed by through the same framework as students were 20, 50, and 70 years ago.

When one walks into most classrooms, anywhere throughout the land, on the board their is a schedule. While the order may vary based on the teacher, the school, and the students, the contents have not changed. The schedule contains Reading, Mathematics, and Writing. As the children get older, it may specifically break out Social Studies and Science. The state mandates each classroom have a certain allotment of instructional time in these areas. The state assesses in some of these areas. The vocabulary itself - instruction a) a statement that describes how to do something b) an order or command c) the act or process of teaching: the act of instructing someone, is focused on "the what". "The what," simple content knowledge and procedural outcomes. The fabric of our educational system. Based on an age old idea, the more you know the more successful you will be. The problem with this, and perhaps most of the focus of most reform efforts, is that the what itself is no longer something of limited access. The Internet has changed this. Mobile technology has changed this. Knowledge is everywhere. Simply framing school around knowledge silos is preparing children for a world that no longer exists. Framing learning standards and assessments around knowledge silos is standardizing education for generations past not generations forward.

Education is on the precipice. On one side of the field is that of the standards-based reform movement, learning experiences based on thorough knowledge and reasoning based on content. On the other side of the field is a group focused on the way, an innovation-based reform platform. This group of technological and instructional reformers are focused on innovation, passion-projects, and genius hours. This group or reformers seeks engagement of students in a variety of activities that encourages children to research concepts, explore ideas, create new paths, and present their ideas. Regardless of the content knowledge, they are focusing on the practice. 

In here lies the question, do we as leaders look at how we will be measured in the short-term through Common Core assessments like PARCC and Smartbalanced? Do we look at our student products in the long-term creating innovators, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, and scientists? Is the learning about the content knowledge and application within a limited, but rigorous, assessment or in cultivating the products of a longer thoughtful process? Depending on what we choose, the very frame of how we schedule each day and the learning experiences within the day change. Is the schedule centered on the 3R's or are the 3R's embedded into some greater learning? In Mike Meyer's old SNL routine, Coffee Talk, he stated the following "The Romanesque Church design was based on the Roman Basilica, discuss." The key question for educators, is it the knowledge of Romanesque church design or the discuss that is the fundamental outcome.

Carpe Diem

Oh Captain, My Captain