Why Can't High School be More Like Kindergarten?

Last week I had the opportunity to visit some of the elementary schools in my district. These schools are all Waukesha One schools(1:1 iPad) and the Instructional Technology Coordinator team wanted to get a feel for what is happening across the four schools that were part of the first wave of student’s having iPads.  

Admittedly, I am not in elementary classrooms very often.  My focus has been improving teaching and learning at the high school level.  So, when I was given the opportunity to learn more about what elementary teachers and students do in a day I jumped at the opportunity.

I had a lot of great ah ha moments. Elementary kids are so polite, they all seem to adore their teachers, and the pace of the building is much different than in a high school. But, here was my major takeaway from a great day of learning, why can’t high school be more like kindergarten?

 It is a question I find very interesting. Think about the learners at the elementary as they compare to their high school counterparts...now strip away the obvious developmental differences. Are these two learners all that different? Next, think about the elementary classroom/school vs. the high school classroom/school and you see major differences in how the schools, are run, staffed, and what they look like from a design perspective.

Have you ever heard the saying, or seen the poster, that boldly states, “All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten”? Well, I modify it somewhat and proclaim “ The way I want to see all classrooms I saw in Kindergarten”.

Here is what I saw in Kindergarten classrooms at two great schools:

1.  Students were focused on learning.  It seemed to me that they were excellently trained in the "art of routine".  There was a certain buzz to the classroom that made me feel like learning was the top priority in class.

2.  Stations rule.  For most of the time that I visited Kindergarten students were working in learning stations.  They had a specific task and were working with purpose, but were also given a choice on which and where tasks were to be completed.

3.  Physical space was used to enhance learning.  These classrooms were not rows, but they were designed in a way that learning in smaller, more personalized groups could happen naturally.

4.  Relationships were key between students and adults.  I had to ask one of my colleagues who the teacher was in the classroom.  There were at least three adults in all of the classrooms I visited.  Who were these adults?  Aids and volunteers that were critical to learning.

5.  The teachers and students were not phased by our presence.  I felt almost invisible in a Kindergarten classroom.  

6.  Manners ruled supreme.  Treat others how you want to be treated is called the golden rule for a reason, and it was on display in Kindergarten.

7.  Kids wanted to learn.  There was a deep curiosity attached to learning in Kindergarten.

The question I keep coming back to is how can we see more of this in the high school classroom?  Certainly, we do see some of these things at varying levels at high school, but I was so impressed that ALL of these things were in all of the Kindergarten classes I visited.

I am sure many of my high school colleagues will quickly come back and say things about content, rigor, and seriousness of the high school classroom that simply are not a part of Kindergarten.  To them I would say this:  Look at the list.  Tell me why we can’t adopt ALL of these things in the high school?

Moving Beyond Substitution: Innovative Use of Book Creator Climbs SAMR Ladder

If somebody promises gains in student achievement as a result of the purchase of 1:1 computing devices or of introducing an app in your district/classroom, it's fair to say they may be feeding you a line.  However, when a teacher shares an educationally relevant, SAMR climbing use of that same tool or app, pay attention. Student achievement is likely to follow!

Recently a teacher in my district, Emily Hernandez, shared one way she uses the Book Creator app for iOS that pointed to an educationally relevant, instructionally appropriate use of the app.  If you are not familiar with Book Creator, it is a way to develop interactive, multimedia-incorporating ebooks/iBooks on the iPad.  It is a simple, easy-to-use app that could very easily be overestimated due to its apparent simplicity.

Ms. Hernandez, though, saw the potential in the tool because she dared to think differently about how her students would utilize the app to demonstate knowledge in her foreign language classroom.

Foreign language students need to demonstrate a wide variety of language acquisition skills, measured primarily through their ability to write and speak the language.  This is traditionally assessed via written works and through the use of conversation and oral presentation with classmates and instructors.  

In Ms. Hernandez's application of the Book Creator app, she was able to utilize these two assessment techniques to demonstrate the students' knowledge to date.  Through the use of written text in the eBooks students created, as well as through the ability to record audio and place audio files into the eBook (a feature built into Book Creator), Ms. Hernandez achieved Substitution by having students do something they had always done, only now using technology to do it.

She climbed the SAMR ladder another rung, though, through the meaningful incorporation of audio, images, and written text into a singular demonstration of learning.  Using the medium of a "published" eBook as their palette, students were being asked to provide written text, were asked to record and supplement that written text with an audio version of that text, and were able to incorporate meaningful images that supported the key themes and messages of their eBook.  Here the teacher was taking advantage of the benefits of the technology built into the Book Creator app, as well as the student's pre-conceived notion of a more professional level of communication in a published book, to gain efficiency and to add authenticity to the demonstration of learning.  This is clear evidence that Ms. Hernandez had now achieved Augmentation on the SAMR ladder in her use of Book Creator.

As we move into Modification, it is important to understand that the key focus must be on how the teacher changes the lesson design or demonstration of learning to take advantage of the functionality and efficiency the technology provides.  Ms. Hernandez decided to make student reflection a key component of this project, allowing students to continually reflect on their "performance" based upon teacher feedback to inform their future learning.  In her lesson design, she allowed students to return to the eBook to make changes prior to final publication. 

The stroke of genius that Ms. Hernandez conjured was in using AirDrop and/or Google Drive (both export functions are natively available in the Book Creator app), functions that allowed the student to share the "draft" of their eBook with the teacher, as well as the audio recording function of the Book Creator app, to provide that feedback.  As students shared the draft of their eBook with the teacher, the teacher reviewed it on her iPad in the Book Creator app, added a page for audio feedback in which she spoke her feedback to students, shared it back with students using the same AirDrop/Google Drive method the student selected, and then allowed them to continue working. While that feedback could have just as easily been spoken to the students in class, the ability to use Google Drive and audio record provided four key advantages.  

• The students could work on the rough draft of the eBook at any time and "turn in" that draft as soon as they were finished.  Ms. Hernandez could do the same with the feedback.  This creates an ability to provide just-in-time feedback to students as they meet natural finish points, not just on a once-size-fits-all, pre-determined collection date.
• The feedback was recorded, meaning that both the students and Ms. Hernandez had a record of the feedback provided.  This becomes valuable to the students as they make suggested changes and alter their final product, and it becomes valuable to the teacher as a way of measuring growth from previous iterations of a similar work product.
• Through the drafting process, Ms. Hernandez reinforces the concept that language acquisition is about a process of learning and growing, not a unit of study that is explored and then completed or forgotten.
• Students create a lasting product that demonstrates their understanding at a given point in time.  This can be posted to an electronic portfolio, shared at conferences, or later revisited and revised as the students grow in their language acquisition.

Ms. Hernandez's work should be applauded, as it is an incredible reminder that the simplest of tools, used in meaningful, thoughtful, and creative ways, can really transform the way that our students perceive and experience the journey of learning.

End-of-life reached on "Snow Days"

It's official. I am now a full-fledged, fun-hating, joy-stealing grown up.  This post angers my inner child, but the writing is so clearly on the wall here that I'd be foolish not to take the opportunity to say something obvious.

Snow days, or cold days that cause the cancellation of school (which we have experienced plenty of in Wisconsin this January), finally have reached an end-of-life status and will be retired from the childhood educational experience in the next few years.

With the flood of student take-home devices, a fairly robust set of tools for developing online curriculum, the omnipresence of connectivity, and the ease of synchronously connecting with a teacher via a web conferencing type experience, the inability to physically make it to school will no longer hamper the ability of teachers to conduct students through a planned learning experience.  

While it will not look or feel exactly like "school as usual," the reality is that much of the infrastructure is in place, or is being put in place rapidly, to make school cancellations fodder for nostalgic "In my day" stories as I reminisce with my children.  As in, "In my day, we would wake up extra early on the snowiest days of the year, rush to the television set, and wait for the name of our school to roll across the lower third of the morning news."  Heck, even that sounds dated compared to the fifteen messages my family received this week when our three schools decided to cancel school due to the cold (and no, that isn't hyperbole -- we literally received fifteen different forms of communication combined).

In my district specifically, the devices are always available to students and staff.  The resources for hybridized learning experiences are being built out rapidly in our learning management system.  The connection between students and teachers via a web conferencing solution is a flip of a switch away (turn on Google+ for our secondary students, or build out our WebEx solution and expertise to make that the tool of choice for web conferencing).

Perhaps the missing piece for us today is the web connectivity in some students' homes.  However, looking at the partnerships forming between local businesses, support missions/groups, and some of the big telecom companies, even connectivity in student homes will soon be a concern of the past.

So kids, enjoy your last few "No School" days while you still can.  It's fairly clear that those, too, shall soon pass.

Don't worry, though.  You may just get them back in another form.  Can anybody else imagine a "No School" day due to a network outage?  Note that prediction here!

(I can imagine ill-willed school children feeding energy bars and Monster Drinks to sweet little squirrels to turn them into ravenous, cable chewing rodents willing to chew through any fiber connection in order to bring down the school network and "earn" students a "Network Outage" day off of school.)