by Scott McLeod | Sep 6, 2019 | Learning and Teaching |
Tom Murray has been inspiring a lot of educators to think about what they can do on Day 1 of the school year so that kids come running back into school on Day 2. That’s a great message.
Can we please also remember that we want kids running back into school on Day 37 and Day 89 and Day 138? If we have a great first day with our students and then gradually (quickly?) revert back to fairly uninspiring learning experiences, what’s the point?
School culture, classroom learning climates, and student engagement are year-round issues. What could you do that makes kids come running back on Day 164? (instead of, ahem, counting down the days until the end)
Image credit: Robin Riley
by Scott McLeod | Sep 5, 2019 | Learning and Teaching, Our Changing World |
Calculators. Grammar editors. PhotoMath. Automatic language translation. Some of these mental work helpers (substitutes?) work fabulously. Some of them aren’t quite there… yet.
And now we have this: AI technology that can pass a 12th grade science exam.
on Wednesday, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a prominent lab in Seattle, unveiled a new system that passed the test with room to spare. It correctly answered more than 90 percent of the questions on an eighth-grade science test and more than 80 percent on a 12th-grade exam.
Not only could the software answer recall questions, it also could solve basic logic and inference problems.
Do students still need to know some stuff? Absolutely. Do students need to know the vast amounts of easily-findable minutiae and trivia that we pretend is important and try to shove into them each school year? No way.
The machines are getting better at mental tasks we previously thought could only be done by humans. When will we start asking better questions? When and how will we adapt our teaching and schooling?
by Scott McLeod | Aug 1, 2019 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Leadership and Vision, Learning and Teaching, News and Events, Podcasts, Tech Integration |
Last week my interview with Tom Vander Ark went live on the Getting Smart podcast. Tom grilled me about my law degree(!) and then we got to the core of the interview.
Tom and I talked about school transformation and instructional redesign, during which I uttered this immortal line:
Hope you enjoy the discussion. Happy listening!
by Scott McLeod | Jul 30, 2019 | Learning and Teaching |
If our students get a good grade in government class but leave class as apathetic, uninvolved future citizens… we have failed.
If our students pass the state reading test but never voluntarily read a book… we have failed.
If our students survive math class but end up hating math… we have failed.
And so on…
Chris Lehmann and Zac Chase said in their amazing book, Building School 2.0:
With almost everything we teach, we are always faced with two very different challenges. One, what are we doing to unlock the passions and skills of the 10 percent (or so) of the kids who either already are or could become so passionate about our subject that it becomes their course of study past their K-12 education? And two, what are we doing for the other 90 percent of the kids? Why is it important that they are taking the class?
What are our schools doing to help students find meaning and joy in the classes that they take, not just comply with course requirements? And how often and at what scale? If it’s only a few teachers or classrooms… we have failed.
Image credit: Fail, Kevin Krebs
by Scott McLeod | Jul 8, 2019 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
If your goal for a lesson, unit, or other instructional activity is to infuse technology more robustly, consider these 12 questions from Section D* of the 4 Shifts Protocol. If you like your answers, awesome! Keep doing that! If you’re not where you want to be yet, pick a couple of questions and select your desired answers instead (e.g., Adults Outside of This School instead of Students In This School). Then do a redesign pivot: How could you redesign the student learning experience to get to your desired answers? Brainstorm with some colleagues or a coach about how to shift the two questions you picked toward richer technology integration. Then go do that instead to get closer to your goal!
D. Technology Infusion
- Communication. How are students communicating?
- Alone** / In pairs / In triads / In groups larger than 3
- If with others, with whom? (circle all that apply)Â
- Students in this school / Students in another school / Adults in this school / Adults outside of this school
- Communication Technologies. Are digital technologies being used to facilitate the communication processes?
- Yes / No
- If yes, in which ways? (circle all that apply)Â
- Writing, photos and images, charts and graphs, infographics, audio, video, multimedia, transmedia
- Collaboration. How are students working?
- Alone** / In pairs / In triads / In groups larger than 3
- If with others, with whom? (circle all that apply)
- Students in this school / Students in another school / Adults in this school / Adults outside of this school
- If with others, who is managing collaborative processes (planning, management, monitoring, etc.)?Â
- Students / teachers / both
- Collaboration Technologies. Are digital technologies being used to facilitate collaborative processes?
- Yes / No / Somewhat
- If yes, in which ways? (circle all that apply)
- Online office suites, email, texting, wikis, blogs, videoconferencing, mind mapping, curation tools, project planning tools, other
- Technology Adds Value. Does technology add value so that students can do their work in better or different ways than are possible without the technology?
- Technology as Means, Not End. When digital technologies are utilized, do the tools overshadow, mask, or otherwise draw the focus away from important learning?
- Digital Citizenship. Are digital technologies utilized by students in both appropriate and empowering ways?***
* Actually, the very best ways to integrate technology into your lessons, units, or instructional activities would be to focus on some items from Sections A, B, and C of the 4 Shifts Protocol. Section D just contains some additional technology-related questions to think about. Sections A, B, and C help you focus on the learning, not just the technology, and thus better address the Technology Adds Value and Technology as Means, Not End questions in Section D.
** Working in isolation (no communication with others) or perhaps just communicating with teacher (e.g., call and response)
*** Effective digital citizenship conversations focus on both safe, responsible use AND empowering, participating use. Digital citizenship discussions ideally are natural extensions of and accompaniments to students’ ongoing, technology-enabled work rather than separate conversations or curricula.
The 4 Shifts Protocol is a fairly new resource that helps teachers, principals, and instructional / technology coaches shift student experiences toward deeper learning, greater student agency, more authentic work, and rich technology infusion. The protocol provides some fairly concrete ‘look fors’ and ‘think abouts’ and can be used as both a diagnostic and a redesign tool. For best results, focus on claims and evidence. That is, if we say something is there (e.g., technology adds value), we should be able to point to it and say, ‘Yes, it’s right there and it’s awesome!’Â
So far the 4 Shifts Protocol is proving to be a nice complement to SAMR, TPACK, Triple E, PBL, UbD, and other instructional frameworks. And many educators are using these smaller shifts in existing lessons and units to build the capacity of themselves and their students to do more complex project- and inquiry-based work. The protocol is free and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike International copyright license, so use and modify it as desired!
Let me know what questions you have. Hope the protocol is useful to you!
See also
by Scott McLeod | Jul 6, 2019 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
If your goal for a lesson, unit, or other instructional activity is to have students drive more of their own learning, consider these 9 questions from Section C of the 4 Shifts Protocol. If you like your answers, awesome! Keep doing that! If you’re not where you want to be yet, pick a couple of questions and select your desired answers instead (e.g., Students instead of Teachers or Both). Then do a redesign pivot: How could you redesign the student learning experience to get to your desired answers? Brainstorm with some colleagues or a coach about how to shift the two questions you picked toward greater student agency. Then go do that instead to get closer to your goal!
C. Student Agency and Personalization
- Learning Goals. Who selected what is being learned?
- Students / Teachers / Both
- Learning Activity. Who selected how it is being learned?
- Students / Teachers / Both
- Assessment of Learning. Who selected how students demonstrate their knowledge and skills and how that will be assessed?
- Students / Teachers / Both
- Talk Time. During the lesson/unit, who is the primary driver of the talk time? [who’s doing most of the talking, determining whom/when others can talk, etc.]
- Students / Teachers / Both
- Work Time. During the lesson/unit, who is the primary driver of the work time? [who’s making the decisions about the work time, ensuring progress, etc.]
- Students / Teachers / Both
- Interest-Based. Is student work reflective of their interests or passions?
- Initiative. Do students have the opportunity to initiate, be entrepreneurial, be self-directed, and/or go beyond the given parameters of the learning task or environment?
- Technology Selection. Who selected which technologies are being used?
- Students / Teachers / Both
- Technology Usage. Who is the primary user of the technology?
- Students / Teachers / Both
The 4 Shifts Protocol is a fairly new resource that helps teachers, principals, and instructional / technology coaches shift student experiences toward deeper learning, greater student agency, more authentic work, and rich technology infusion. The protocol provides some fairly concrete ‘look fors’ and ‘think abouts’ and can be used as both a diagnostic and a redesign tool. For best results, focus on claims and evidence. That is, if we say something is there (e.g., students’ opportunity to be entrepreneurial or go beyond the assigned task), we should be able to point to it and say, ‘Yes, it’s right there and it’s awesome!’Â
So far the 4 Shifts Protocol is proving to be a nice complement to SAMR, TPACK, Triple E, PBL, UbD, and other instructional frameworks. And many educators are using these smaller shifts in existing lessons and units to build the capacity of themselves and their students to do more complex project- and inquiry-based work. The protocol is free and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike International copyright license, so use and modify it as desired!
Let me know what questions you have. Hope the protocol is useful to you!
See alsoÂ
by Scott McLeod | Jul 3, 2019 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
If your goal for a lesson, unit, or other instructional activity is to move toward more authentic, real world work, consider these 8 questions from Section B of the 4 Shifts Protocol. If you like your answers, awesome! Keep doing that! If you’re not where you want to be yet, pick a couple of questions and select your desired answers instead (e.g., Yes instead of No or Somewhat). Then do a redesign pivot: How could you redesign the student learning experience to get to your desired answers? Brainstorm with some colleagues or a coach about how to shift the two questions you picked toward more authentic work. Then go do that instead to get closer to your goal!
B. Authentic Work
- Real or Fake. Is student work authentic and reflective of that done by experts outside of school?Â
- Authentic Role. Are students asked to take on an authentic societal role as part of their learning?
- Domain Practices. Are students utilizing authentic, discipline-specific practices and processes? [Engaging in the actual practices and processes that are used by people in that discipline; for example, doing what historians, scientists, writers, artists, business professionals, etc. do, not some artificial or classroom version of that work]
- Domain Technologies. Are students utilizing authentic, discipline-specific tools and technologies? [Using the actual tools and technologies that are used by people in that discipline; for example, using the real tools that historians, scientists, writers, artists, business professionals, etc. use, not some artificial or classroom versions of those tools]
- Research and Information Literacy Strategies. Are students utilizing authentic, discipline-specific research, inquiry, and information literacy strategies?
- Authentic Assessment. Are students creating real-world products or performances for authentic audiences?
- Yes / No / Somewhat
- Contribution. If yes, does student work make a contribution to an audience beyond the classroom walls to the outside world?
- Assessment Technology. Are digital technologies being used in authentic ways to facilitate the assessment process?
The 4 Shifts Protocol is a fairly new resource that helps teachers, principals, and instructional / technology coaches shift student experiences toward deeper learning, greater student agency, more authentic work, and rich technology infusion. The protocol provides some fairly concrete ‘look fors’ and ‘think abouts’ and can be used as both a diagnostic and a redesign tool. For best results, focus on claims and evidence. That is, if we say something is there (e.g., real-world products or performances for authentic audiences), we should be able to point to it and say, ‘Yes, it’s right there and it’s awesome!’Â
So far the 4 Shifts Protocol is proving to be a nice complement to SAMR, TPACK, Triple E, PBL, UbD, and other instructional frameworks. And many educators are using these smaller shifts in existing lessons and units to build the capacity of themselves and their students to do more complex project- and inquiry-based work. The protocol is free and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike International copyright license, so use and modify it as desired!
Let me know what questions you have. Hope the protocol is useful to you!
See also
by Scott McLeod | Jul 1, 2019 | 4 Shifts Protocol, Learning and Teaching, Tech Integration |
If your goal for a lesson, unit, or other instructional activity is to drive deeper student thinking and learning, consider these 8 questions from Section A of the 4 Shifts Protocol. If you like your answers, awesome! Keep doing that! If you’re not where you want to be yet, pick a couple of questions and select your desired answers instead (e.g., Yes instead of No or Somewhat). Then do a redesign pivot: How could you redesign the student learning experience to get to your desired answers? Brainstorm with some colleagues or a coach about how to shift the two questions you picked toward deeper thinking and learning. Then go do that instead to get closer to your goal!
A. Deeper Thinking and Learning
- Domain Knowledge. Is student work deeply rooted in discipline-specific and -relevant knowledge, skills, and dispositions?
- Yes / No / Somewhat
- Deeper Learning. If yes, is student work focused around big, important themes and concepts that are central to the discipline rather than isolated topics, trivia, or minutiae? [Do student learning activities and assessments go beyond low-level facts and procedures? Are students just regurgitating syntheses and analyses provided by an information source or the teacher?]
- Critical Thinking. Do learning activities and assessments allow students to engage in deep critical thinking and analysis?
- Problem Solving. Do learning activities and assessments allow students to engage in complex and messy (not simple) problem solving?
- Creativity. Do students have the opportunity to design, create, make, or otherwise add value that is unique to them?
- Metacognition. Do students have the opportunity to reflect on their planning, thinking, work, and/or progress?
- Yes / No / Somewhat
- If yes, can students identify what they’re learning, not just what they’re doing?
- Assessment Alignment. Are all assessments aligned cognitively with standards, learning goals, instruction, and learning activities? [Standards and learning goals drive everything, including depth of student thinking and the necessary accompanying assessments. Assessments should be aligned to the cognitive complexity asked of students.]
The 4 Shifts Protocol is a fairly new resource that helps teachers, principals, and instructional / technology coaches shift student experiences toward deeper learning, greater student agency, more authentic work, and rich technology infusion. The protocol provides some fairly concrete ‘look fors’ and ‘think abouts’ and can be used as both a diagnostic and a redesign tool. For best results, focus on claims and evidence. That is, if we say something is there (e.g., complex, messy problem solving), we should be able to point to it and say, ‘Yes, it’s right there and it’s awesome!’Â
So far the 4 Shifts Protocol is proving to be a nice complement to SAMR, TPACK, Triple E, PBL, UbD, and other instructional frameworks. And many educators are using these smaller shifts in existing lessons and units to build the capacity of themselves and their students to do more complex project- and inquiry-based work. The protocol is free and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike International copyright license, so use and modify it as desired!
Let me know what questions you have. Hope the protocol is useful to you!
See also
by Scott McLeod | Jun 29, 2019 | Learning and Teaching |
If the ‘authentic work’ we assign our students in class doesn’t require them and their work to get out of the school building (physically or virtually) – at least for some of it – and is always assessed only by the teacher, is it really ‘authentic, real world work?’
by Scott McLeod | Jun 10, 2019 | Learning and Teaching |
Peter Greene said:
… if your spouse says, “I’m looking for ways to make you interesting and appealing,” that is not a good sign.
Once you look at a lesson and ask, “How am I going to make this material relevant,” you have admitted that the material is not actually relevant. If that’s true–if the lesson is inherently irrelevant–then you need to ask a bigger question. Why are you teaching it at all? Because it’s on the test? Because your boss said you have to? These are lousy reasons to teach anything. More importantly, no amount of stapling on pictures of movie stars will convince your students that you aren’t wasting their time, and wasting students’ time is one of the unforgivable sins in the teaching biz.
Know why you are teaching what you’re teaching. Know why the material has value for your students. This is not always obvious, but this is where your expertise in the subject matter is supposed to come in. You’re the teacher–you’re supposed to know what the connection is between your content material and the business of being fully human in the world. If you don’t see a connection, you need to go study and look to find it, or you need to reconsider whether you should be teaching it at all.
Via www.forbes.com/sites/petergreene/2019/06/08/dear-teachers-please-dont-make-your-lessons-relevant
