The idea of a Fedex Day or an Innovation Day appealed to me for several reasons. Some of the things classroom teachers struggle with is providing their students with a well-rounded education, exposing them to new things, while dealing with dis-engaged, bored students who hate school. I’ve pondered such problems on this blog such as student boredom, comparing a totally traditional education to a totally free education, thinking through what is on-task, and tried to see how much socializing teachers can put up with.

I’ve been toying with how I could do such a thing with my students to help them enjoy their public school education and get something out of it. For some reason unbeknownst to me, not all my students enjoy or are fully engaged in the wonderful Science topics that we are studying! And I’m not kidding, the Science topics we study, really any Science topics, are fun to learn about so why not give it a shot and learn something?? So unless I can convince all the other teachers in my grade levels (6th and 8th) to do an innovation day (well, I could try that but usually try things on my own first), I needed something different. As if to offer me just that I start reading on Twitter about 20%. Instead of having just one day for innovation some teachers, following the lead of places like Google, will give students 20% of their time to work on whatever they want!

I read Paul Bogush’s blog on 20% and began to think of what I’ve been brewing. What follows here are my comments to Paul’s blog:

I have been struggling with doing this exact same thing with my five Science classes. I am close, this week or next, to actually introducing this idea to my students. I like your idea because I was going to go so far as to let them work on anything they want even if it’s not Science. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so hesitant. How can I defend giving up 20% of Science instruction when my 8th graders have a state Science test this year? One reason I’ve even considered doing this has been that I still have disengaged kids in my classes. And others that I have to encourage daily to work and learn. And this after I have gone gradeless AND offer them choice in being able to go off on tangents and in how they demonstrate learning. Having iPads and iMacs can be more of a distraction from Science learning than a tool! I’m still unsure which way to go but I an willing to try something.

Here’s Mark Barnes’s response to that:

Although I don’t use the term 20% time, my class is completely project-based. We are working on something similar to this, off and on, all year. I call it the Make a Difference (MAD) project. Students are picking something to do that will improve their world, at the local or global level. All they have to do is include ELA skills — writing, reading and some sort of public speaking. I have constant access and will be supplying feedback all year. Obviously, we have one-day activities that help us grasp all of our course objectives, but for the most part, we’re working on the projects.

My students are not all great at getting on computers and self-directing. You have to do a lot of coaching. I’m constantly walking around, looking in, making quick, harmless suggestions. Sometimes the suggestions are simple and really meant only to re-engage the students. It’s not easy, but in the end, it’s always worthwhile.

Then I thought more on this and came up with:

Okay, Mark, so you too tie their MAD project time to your ELA skills so that they are still learning what you are supposed to be teaching.

See therein is my biggest obstacle. I already offer choice and flexibility but students don’t take me up on it. I either have very few students who are interested in Science or they just aren’t used to having this type of freedom. So the choice I now have is to stay with my program the way it and do pretty much exactly what you described in the last paragraph of your comment or go with my gut, scary as it is, and offer them a truly free passion day every week where they get to explore their passions and use the technology in my room to explore and create whatever they want.

I think I will run this idea by my principal. On the one hand we will lose 20% of Science instruction time if one takes it at face value. But I can easily argue if I free up 20% of their time for them to explore their passions I will have happier students who might just be more on task and learn more during the other 80% of their time.

But then I had to rewrite the response because it went to Paul’s spam and it became the following (btw, Paul did find both my replies in his Spam folder so they are both showing on his blog now):

I like your idea, Mark, of tying your MAD projects to ELA skills. So you and Paul are still having this 20% or MAD time tie into your curricular aims.

I’ve been trying to do just that but it’s been mainly me coming up with the topics of study. Whenever students ask about something related to what we’re studying I offer them the choice to go off in that direction but they don’t take me up on it. So I’m offering them the freedom and choice option but few if any take me up on it. That is why I was considering making that one day a week a true passion day where kids can study anything they are passionate about.

That raises the question/concern of how we could afford to give up 20% of Science learning time to learning of anything. Even though I am not in favor of high stakes, standardized testing my 8th graders are taking the Science state test this year and people will be looking at those scores. If they don’t do well then this 20% passion time will be a great place to lay blame.

I have put things in place to make my classroom a learning environment. I don’t reward or punish my students with grades, offering them feedback instead. I provide iPads, Netbooks, and iMacs for research and for the creation of different products to show their learning instead of giving tests. With all that in place I still end up doing exactly all the things you mentioned in your last paragraph! It takes time to untrain students from traditional classroom “learning.”

So now I’m not so sure. Maybe I just keep plugging away at what I’m doing. I can easily argue that by offering students some time, 20%, to explore their passions during Science class with the high tech tools we have that they will be more motivated to engage in the work we’re doing in Science during the 80% of their time. But I don’t know that for sure. I’d be testing out that theory on this year’s students. And even if they score well or poorly on the Science state exam how can I say 20% of passion time had anything to do with it one way or the other???

I guess if my goal is to have happy, engaged, learning students, regardless of content or standards, then I should go for it. Otherwise, I should stay the course. If I had a group of students for more than one year at a time, maybe a multiage model, then they would have the time to get used to having the freedom to learn and explore WHILE learning Science!

So now I’m less sure than I was. lol

So now what do I do?

On the other end of the spectrum I’d expect to find your typical 20th century, factory-model, industrial age school. There are 30 or so kids in a classroom sitting in desks lined up in rows all facing the front of the room. At that front of the room there is a teacher person lecturing to share knowledge with all the students using a blackboard (or whiteboard) to show examples. The students job is to sit quietly, listen, maybe takes notes, and absorb the knowledge as it is given. If lucky students are able to question the lecture and maybe even start a discussion.

Then there’s the Freedom School. In the Billy Jack movies the students who attend the Freedom School range from the misfits who can’t the town’s “regular” school, Native American children who aren’t allowed to attend the town’s “regular” school or who are bullied so much they’d rather not attend, and kids who are otherwise in the system either by having been arrested, are into drugs, or have run away from home. So these aren’t what might be typically known as high achieving students. At the Freedom School there are what we might call classes. Groups of kids and an adult or more convene to create music, art, dramatic plays, or even learn history (and not just the White man’s history) or maths and sciences. In the movie a character describes the school by saying, “Anything any kid wants to learn they try to teach it to them here.” There are only three rules in the Freedom School: 1. no drugs, 2. everyone had to carry his/her own load, and 3. everyone had to get turned on by creating something, anything. The school was open to any kid with a problem no matter what ethnicity who could come anytime they want, stay as long they want, and leave when they wanted. No questions asked. Kids are allowed to make their own decision. That’s about as far as I can think from the 20th century, factory-model classroom.

The 20th century, factory-model is one many of us are working to move away from. We encourage and write about ways to make our classrooms reflect the 21st century that we are living in. While the Billy Jack Freedom School model is too far from what most of our still traditional schools can do there are lessons we can take away from them. Encouraging kids to create by giving them the ultimate freedom, the choice to even create something, seems like a good take away. What I do like is that even in that school each kid was still required to carry their own load. I wonder what that would look like in my classroom. I’ve written about kids being bored in school and about kids socializing in school because those seem to be barriers to working, which seems to me to be a barrier to learning. I mean if kids aren’t doing something with the material how can they learn the material? But then I go back to do I give them the freedom to learn what they want or do I still force them to learn the topics I’ve chosen and only give them choice within those topics? I mean, it’s still choice to study anything you want about plants when we’re studying plants, but it’s not the same to say study any living thing you want or anything you want.

I keep reading blogs to see what other teachers are doing because I get inspiration to at least not worry so much about “time on task” and “engaged students” when I’ve made my class a gradeless room of learning. How can I be true to being gradeless if I’m still trying to force students to do things they don’t want to do? That being said, I really value the following:

1. Learning, you are here to learn Science.
2. Work. Success comes through hard work. That’s it.
3. Effort. You can improve at anything you want to by sticking with it. Even if it’s hard. If it’s easy ask for more of a challenge or come up with a way to make it more challenging yourself. We are motivated when we’re being challenged.
[My favorite definition of discipline: Sticking with what you don't like to do to learn what you need to be able to do what you want well.]

So can we help students become critical thinkers who question and think deeply while still fostering an ability and desire to create and innovate???

MARC PRENSKY EVENT in American Conversations at Peninsula College, Port Angeles:

The presentation was powerful and frightening all at once. His focus on the next 50 years of technological progress is something most of us are not ready to stand up and face. If you watched any of the footage of the Japanese Tsunami, that is the scale of change that is coming in technology for us and our children.

Ironically, the few teachers that asked questions seemed to get lost in the “scale” of the issue. They wanted him to answer questions like: How to deal with privacy issues in the classroom around technology, or, what happens when a kid drops a technological tool and breaks it??? To me, that was like pointing at one car in the floodwaters of the tsunami and wondering if it was going to be salvageable…

I myself, wanted to know what I should pack in my kid’s jetpack as the techno tsunami washes over us (old school educated)… One thing he mentioned was programming.. He said our kids should already be starting that at a young age. Wow. Now I officially felt stupid. I didn’t even know what language was the primary programming language! From his perspective, that’s like not knowing that English is the primary language of the western world… Can I Google that????

I loved how he COMPLETELY dismissed the “old school learning standards” (that obscene list of blah blah blah that we are supposed to teach our children so no child gets left behind…) That reminded me of the debris wave engulfing the elevated highway upon which a few stranded motorists thought that they had found safety. The wave undercut the supports of the foundation within minutes…

His list of learning standards was way more productive and focused on finding individual passions. Passion is the one thing that he felt would survive the techno tsunami. As he sees it, finding passion (and encouraging the kids to use their techno tools to follow it) is the highest aspiration we should aim for as teachers,

So, just for your information, it seems that this American Conversations program through Peninsula College has scholarship opportunities for teachers. And, it was a very nice opportunity to rub elbows with the private individuals that support higher education… I would go again just to get that lovely global perspective from the speaker, as well as have the opportunity to meet the people who have the vision to make changes!

Your ideals would have resonated well with this group. I have to learn how to text, and get off emails. He told us that Dinosaurs use email! You are a step ahead of me with blogs. Perhaps you are a caveman??? Apparently our kids are all newly evolved animals called Digital Homo Sapien…
Since I want a capital “D” in front of my “Homo Sapien”, I will try to get Marc Prensky’s PowerPoint presentation posted here. This is my first blog ever.

Stream table exploring to learn about how streams flow and landforms form.

After July 20th’s #edchat on the Goal of Education (see archive here) I got to thinking about my goals for the children I help educate. It helped me, with my thinking, to read “Backwards Design and Integrating New Technology” because I integrate technology whenever I can. I need to continually ask myself if what I do with students is aligned with my goals and in line with what they need for their education. A lot of great ideas were brought up during the hour long #edchat but I remained fixated on three words that I took away: Create, Connect and Collaborate. Those three, little words pretty much summarize a lot of what I have my students do. I kept bringing up the idea that as teachers we should help our students find their passions. By encouraging our students to be critical thinkers and to be independent learners and to explore and keep their curiosity and joy of learning we can facilitate discovering of passions. This could take some kids until high school or beyond while some kids know what they want from a very young age. Our job is to NOT stifle our kids love of learning and discovering. We should foster their passions even if their passions change. That’s what it means to be a child.

I have been teaching Science for a while now. I have my students learn by reading, researching and doing labs. Hands on, minds on learning makes sense. My students also discuss and work in small groups to complete projects that can take weeks to complete. Why? In learning a Science concept I’d much rather spend more time on one or two concepts than rush through many concepts. Yeah, a mile deep and inch wide is my modus operandi. Besides, by using multiple methods, labs, reading, listening, observing, creating, and collaborating students stand a chance of getting it (whatever “it” is). I don’t know which method will work with which student. I had 150 students last year! But I stand a chance to helping more of my students learn if we spend time on concepts and learn those concepts in different ways.

With technology my students get to create, connect and collaborate. That doesn’t mean we use technology all the time. We don’t need to. Now I am guilty of trying anything new. If it works I will keep it, if it doesn’t work I drop it. How do I know if it works? I ask my students. If they like something and tell me it helps them learn, I’ll do it again. That happened last year when I set up a Moodle chat to have class discussions. I had a lot of students participate where before I’d be leading a whole class discussion interacting with one student at a time. I will do more of that and next year I will incorporate twitter because I will have enough machines for 1:1 access.

Here are some examples of what students can create with technology. By blogging or sharing their work via a blog or a wiki students connect with other students around the world. So why do I have my students use technology? To create, connect and collaborate so they will think further and hopefully deeply and meaningfully about our topics so they can form their own understandings. I’d much rather have my students creating, connecting and collaborating than sitting listening to me.

Stream table exploration to see how to save homes.

This teacher from Alberta, Canada, has been blogging about topics such as grading and student assessment for a while now. Here are a collection of his blogs on these subjects.

Etta Kralovec on The End of Homework – How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning

Here’s an article on 21st Century Learning: Our Children Are Telling Us How They Want to Learn.

Here’s another good article on how students learn in the 21st Century: Reaching Digital Natives on Their Terms.

Why all the articles on 21st Century learning? Because education changes slower than society. The world has moved past the assembly line model but education is still stuck there for the most part. Read Assembly-line schools from a bygone era for an interesting look at this dilemma.

This is a must see Ted Talk, only 8 minutes, by this incredible young speaker: Adora Svitak: What Adults Can Learn from Kids.

Here’s a blog by a teacher written after a record number of attendees to a webinar with Sir Ken Robinson on his book The Element – Guest Blog: How Passion in Education Can Drive Change. Finding your passion is the not only the way to truly be successful and happy in life, but what I got from the webinar is that by finding our passions we can learn to enjoy the things in life that we must do but may not always want to do. Think of how that relates to education.

Here’s another teacher’s blog after the #edchat and the webinar (we had our regular #edchat on that day about passion in education): Passion in Education and How it can Drive Change.

A group of educators that make up my Twitter PLN (professional learning network) had a twitter discussion through #edchat on education reform. We’ve been discussing the changes that need to be made to our education system to best help our students be successful once they graduate. Tuesday night’s discussion via #edchat focused on what changes are most important in light of shrinking budgets and resources. Here’s an article about the need to change from ESchool News: eSN Special Report: Convergent Education.

And here’s an article with ideas on what can be cut from school budgets – Guest Blog: What Should We Cut?

Here are one principal’s thoughts on school reform: More Thoughts on School Reform.

Here are some things to think about: 21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020.

Enjoy!

Al González

My blog's word cloud via Tagxedo!