Opening Faculty Meetings: The Simulations

Embracing Diversity in Learning and Teaching

SIMULATIONS
The purpose of the simulations was to get everyone actively engaged in experiencing what it is like to have a learning issue where something that is normally taken for granted does not function as expected. The simulations also helped get everyone in gear for the workshops that would follow. There were four simulations in total, and each one is listed and explained below.

Simulation 1
A short story is going to be read aloud to you and you will then be asked to respond to some questions about the story. The story will also be displayed on the screen.

Once upon a time, in a country called Clarita, there lived a gadious bemple named Chup. Chup lasied Mormie and together they goppered and morted throughout the dotter of Clarita. Clarita was a rablited fott. From every wesson and vaxter, Chup and Mormie could hetter numally. It was a duffours webbe!

• In what country did Chup live?
• Who lasied Mormie?
• What did they do together, and where did they do it?
• What was Clarita?
• What kind of webbe was it?
• What type of genre is this?

Okay, now for the second set of questions.

• Describe the image of a “gadious bemple.”
• What does the author suggest when she says “Clarita was a rablited fott?”
• What do the verbs “goppered” and “morted” suggest about the view of life shared by Chup and Mormie?
• Explain where the author might be leading us when she writes it was a “duffours webbe.”

This simulation reflects the problems of a student with poor vocabulary. They may be dyslexic, have attention issues, be bilingual or have language comprehension weaknesses. As teachers we can be fooled because we feel that they can answer some questions but just don’t seem to get it when we ask more higher level questions. We then make the assumption that they aren’t very bright and perhaps shouldn’t be in our school–when in reality, they need some intensive work in vocabulary development and support for their reading. These same students may be able to memorize vocabulary for tests but not hold on and inculcate it into their repertoires.

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Simulation 2
Please use your paper and pencil to do either A or B as described on the screen. It is your choice which you do, but you MUST use your NON-DOMINANT hand for writing.

(A) Write 3 sentences about your summer. As you write, make the following letter replacements:

every /a/ becomes /n/
every /t/ becomes /b/
every /i/ becomes /h/

(B) Or, solve this problem on paper, and reverse every number so that you are writing its mirror image:

382 x 546 = ?

The reason this is frustrating is that you are not getting the kinesthetic feedback to and from the brain in your non-dominant hand. The reversal of numbers or letter substitutions simulates the lack of automaticity that the writers with graphomotor issues have. It takes over a thousand motor movements to operate a pen or pencil and only two to use a keyboard. And with a keyboard there is no issue with remembering how letters and numbers are shaped.

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Simulation 3
We are going to put your working memory through the mill. Pay close attention to the next set of directions because you cannot write them down. You must rely on your working memory to carry out the instructions. We all have long term and short term memory, and we also have working memory.

Working memory is the memory we have for holding on to information while we are using it, such as holding a phone number in your mind while dialing it. Working memory plays a critical role in school, particularly in the areas of written expression and multi-step math problems. Now we are going to do a math activity.

Put your pencils down; this is mental math!

• Choose any 3 digit number whose ones and hundreds digits are different.
• Reverse the order of the numbers.
• Subtract the smaller number from the larger one.
• The result will always have 9 as the tens digit. The other two digits will always add up to 9.
• Now reverse the digits of the result.
• Now add that number to the one before it.
• The final number will always be 1089.

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Simulation 4
This last simulation also requires you pay close attention and listen carefully.

Visit the PBS site Misunderstood Minds and locate the link for Auditory Activity, then click try it just below Listening to Directions. Follow the directions on the window that opens.

The fact that the teacher’s voice became muted with the background noise is a very common situation for those with either auditory processing or auditory attention issues. They cannot distinguish the salient voice and focus in on it. These students usually tire easily as they struggle to hear all day long. They benefit from Fm systems and fortunately for us, carpeted, small classrooms.

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EXIT CARDS
At the conclusion of each workshop, participants were asked to respond to three prompts on an index card. All of the exit cards for all of the workshops, including the book and movie discussion, were collected and collated into a Google Doc where they were organized by workshop. There emerged several themes which will serve as the topics for our follow-up sessions during the Fall.

The Exit Card prompts:

• List an Ah-ha moment that you had.
• List one question that did not get answered.
• List one topic about which you would like to know more.

Opening Faculty Meetings: Intro to Simulations

Embracing Diversity in Learning and Teaching

For this second day of opening faculty meetings we wanted to set the tone for what would follow, which was two sets of 45 minute workshops. Keeping in mind that just about everyone was still in a summer mindset, gradually making the transition from summer mode to a fixed schedule, with far less time for being active, and we knew what we had to do. Engagement was the name of the game!

As folks entered the auditorium they were greeted with upbeat music and a continuously looping slide show displaying some 40 people – many of them well known, including students at our school – who have learning differences. We could detect definite “I didn’t know…” comments in response to seeing some of the better known faces on the screen.

Below are our introductory remarks. I invite you to pick up a pencil and piece of paper, and join along!
———

INTRODUCTION TO THE SIMULATIONS

Good morning and Welcome back!

You will now need a piece of paper and a pencil. If you do not have one, please raise a hand.

We are going to take a moment and do a little sketching. Please turn to look at a colleague sitting next to you. You will have 30 seconds to draw each other. Begin now! [If you click the image of the person's face, you will be taken to Tim Brown's TED Talk on creativity and play, from where the drawing idea was taken.]

[30 seconds later…] Okay, pencils down! Hear that laughter? That is the sound of serotonin and dopamine being released in your brains, two of the “feel good” neurotransmitters, which are generated in your affective network and prime you to pay attention. You remember those three neural networks we talked about yesterday – the recognition or sensory network, the affective aka emotional network, and the strategic network, the all-important executive functioning area of your brain that some say is more important than IQ.

By the way, please hold on to the paper and pencil, as you will be using them again.

As a community we read Kristi’s book this summer, and it was part of our inspiration for yesterday’s and today’s activities. As Candy and I met regularly with Kristi throughout the last school year, we couldn’t help but think about the variety of learners amongst us, both the students AND the adults.

Robert Fulghum, the very author who wrote “All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”, summed it up quite nicely when he wrote the following [which comes from It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It]:

image comes from Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight TED Talk

[the brain] I have one of these things between my ears. It is made up entirely of raw meat at the moment. It is fueled by yesterday’s baloney sandwich, potato chips, and chocolate milk. And everything I am doing at the moment-everything I have ever done or will do-passes through this lump. I made it; I own it. And it is the most mysterious thing on earth. Now I can kind of understand the mechanical work of the brain – stimulating breathing, moving blood, directing protein traffic. It’s all about chemistry and electricity. A motor. I know about motors.

But this three-pound raw-meat motor also contains all the limericks I know, a recipe for how to cook a turkey, the remembered smell of my junior high locker room, all my sorrows, the ability to double clutch a pickup truck, the face of my wife when she was young, the formulas for E=MC squared, and A2 + B2 = C2, the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the sound of the first cry of my firstborn son, the cure for hiccups, the words to the fight song of St. Olaf’s College, fifty years worth of dreams, how to tie my shoes, the taste of cod-liver oil, an image of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and a working understanding of the Dewey Decimal System. It’s all there in the MEAT.

One cubic centimeter of brain contains ten billion bits of information and it processes five thousand bits a second. And somehow it evolved over a zillion years from a molten ball of rock, Earth. ….The Mystery of Mysteries is present and it includes us.

The single most powerful statement to come out of brain research in the last 25 years is this: We are as different from one another on the inside of our heads as we appear to be different from one another on the outside of our heads.

Look around and see the infinite variety of human heads – skin, hair, age, ethnic characteristics, size, color and shape. And know that on the inside such differences are even greater – what we know, how we learn, how we process information, what we remember and forget, our strategies for functioning and coping.

Add to that the understanding that the “world out there” is as much a projection from inside our heads as it is a perception, and pretty soon you are up against the realization that it is a miracle that we communicate at all.

It is almost unbelievable that we are dealing with the same reality. We operate on a kind of loose consensus about existence, at best.

From a practical point of view, day by day, this kind of information makes me a little more patient with the people I live with. I am less inclined to protest “Why don’t you see it the way I do?” and more inclined to say “You see it that way? Holy cow, how amazing!”

Our goal for this morning is for all of us to look deeply into the learning process for our own sake and for the sake of the people with whom we work. As learners, we are all on a continuum, intelligence is not fixed. Science has proved that intelligence is incremental and the more you learn beyond your formal schooling, the healthier your brain will be later in life. Armed with this understanding, our affective networks become willing partners in the learning process. Carol Dweck is going to expand upon this.

Each of us has strengths and struggles that are unique to ourselves. When we acknowledge that in ourselves and others, we can move forward to collaboratively help each other be the best that we can be. We are going to take a few minutes now and do some simulations to get us thinking about a few types of struggles that learners – be they kids OR adults – can have.

[stay tuned for the simulations in the upcoming posts]

Opening Faculty Meetings

Embracing Diversity in Learning and Teaching

THE BRAINSTORM
In the last weeks of May, the MS Learning Specialist and I had a brainstorm. We had been part of an eleventh grader’s independent study project – me as the advisor and Candy as the content specialist –and had just received copies of the end result of the student’s project: a guide book for students (and also teachers) about how to make it through an independent school as a student with a learning difference. Our brainstorm was that every teacher in our school should read the book, and while we were at it, how about offering a series of workshops that would open faculty eyes to the diversity of teaching and learning. Within a day, using Google Docs, we had generated a proposal.

THE GENESIS
It has long been a dream of mine to organize professional development for faculty that provided opportunity to think about learning and teaching while also engaging in activities that were outside of the typical academic realm. Many years ago, an art teacher, upon hearing this description, provided the perfect slogan for my idea: Synapse Sensations. Keeping in mind that last year my school focused on a year long theme of diversity, including the diversity of how people learn, and you will understand why we first brought our proposal to the Director of Diversity, who encouraged us to present the proposal to the next level of adminstrators. And just what was our proposal? To have one day of opening faculty meetings be devoted to workshops covering a multitude of topics related to teaching and learning. We included an opening day movie to set the tone, and a closing Student Panel session to wrap up the activities.

With the Director of Diversity’s accompaniment, it was an easy next step to the Assistant Headmaster, who took it to the next level and returned with approval for our proposal. With just days to go before folks would disperse for the summer, we asked 25 faculty if they would be willing to co-facilitate various workshops. All 25 said yes, and there began a summer of small study groups based around each workshop.

THE PROGRAM – part one
On Wednesday afternoon, September 2, our full faculty and staff watched the documentary A Touch of Greatness. This movie covers a decade in the teaching career of Albert Cullum. Teaching in the 1950s and early 1960s at an elementary school just a few miles from our school, Cullum was a practitioner of experiential education. You can read more about him and the film on this PBS site. By the way, it turned out that one faculty member had known Cullum, and another had Cullum as her fifth grade teacher!

While we ad libbed a bit, what follows are our introductory comments along with the accompanying images we displayed.

——————

Welcome back from summer vacation!

Tomorrow morning we will explore the diversity of learning and teaching by participating in workshops and hearing from some students. If you haven’t already done so, please sign up for two workshops on the sheets in the PAC Lobby. And here’s a short-term memory test: tomorrow morning please bring with you to the PAC a sheet of paper and something to write with. Thanks!

The movie you are about to see is about one man who taught in our community during the 50s and 60s. We are often told that what we remember about our teachers tends to be not what they taught us, but how they treated us. However, that’s not the complete story. If a teacher was really great, you remember how they treated you and also recall how competent they made you feel in their class.

We are fortunate today to be teaching at a time when there has been an explosion of research into the science of how we learn. Neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists are producing a plethora of information and studies from which we can draw. Like any new information, we need to be responsible consumers, but this new information has much to offer in terms of making the teaching environment more productive, efficient and conducive to learning. In 1996, Linda Darling-Hammond was quoted in a Newsweek article making the statement that: Our school system was invented in the 1880s and little has changed. Can you imagine if the medical profession ran this way?

So much of what we are doing in this program is based on current understandings of how the brain learns.

Everything we are going to do this afternoon and tomorrow morning will tap into the three major Neural networks of your brain. David Rose, one of the architects of Universal Design for Learning at Harvard, describes these as the recognition, affective and strategic networks. [images come from Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning]

The recognition network uses attention and all five senses to take in new information, which is exactly what you are all doing now.

The affective network taps into your emotional brain, which facilitates the storage and recall of information. In fact, the structures in your mid-brain (the hippocampus, amygdala and thalamus) are storage centers for memory. All human emotions are processed in this area of the brain and effected by neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and norepeniphrine.

This limbic system is the chemistry and drama department of your brain. No learning can take place without the use and consent of the affective network because your brain is only interested in what is relevant to the survival and well-being of its own organism.

The last network is the strategic one. If the affective network has decided the information is relevant, the strategic network decides what to do with it.

Al Cullum, the teacher in the documentary you are about to see, was a master of knowing the benefits of tapping into the affective network to create a more rigorous, accessible and engaging curriculum. We are not endorsing this teacher or his style as the one way to teach, but rather as a model for thinking about different approaches to teaching. We find this movie inspiring; some of you may find it provocative. Either way, this documentary, we are sure, will tap your affective network.

Dyslexia – The Shaywitz’s morning talks

Go ahead, say the word out loud: Dyslexia. Dr. Sally Shaywitz says part of the problem in dealing with this learning difference is that people are reluctant to use the word. By using the term, the learning difference becomes something tangible that can be dealt with. Indeed, as a result of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), scientists have “taken a hidden disability and made it visible”.

What, exactly, is Dyslexia?
Most people I’ve spoken with tend to think of dyslexia as a difficulty with reading. They are correct, to a point, but there is more to the definition.

Dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty in reading, in relation to intelligence, motivation, education or professional status. (S. Shaywitz)

This “unexpected difficulty” is what makes life frustrating for children and adults who have dyslexia, because people with whom they interact – parents, teachers, colleagues – often do not understand dyslexia. A common response on the part of a parent or teacher is that the person [who has dyslexia] is not trying hard enough, or needs to do more work. Further complicating the issue is that dyslexics tend to be intelligent and can have a high IQ but a low reading score. Thus, someone who appears to be intelligent but not able to keep up with the work load is branded as being lazy or not interested. (The data for this comes from an ongoing longitudinal study, conducted by the Shaywitzs, that measures reading and IQ over time.)

What causes Dyslexia?
Dyslexia can be, but is not always, genetic. The odds are that if someone in a family has dyslexia, a parent, sibling or child may also have it. No one specific gene has been identified as the dyslexic gene, and it is thought that a number of genes each “contribute a tiny amount”. The result, as seen in countless fMRIs, is that specific areas of the brain are impacted by simply not turning on in the process of trying to read, and this “disruption of the posterior reading system is universal” across cultures and languages.

Humans are hard wired for speaking but not for reading. Someone with dyslexia can pick up information using modalities other than reading (hearing, seeing, touching…), process that information and learn from it, remix it, and make use of it. It is when they try to use reading as their source for taking in information that their difficulty manifests itself.

Our brains are plastic!
I’ve written extensively about brain plasticity. What it means is that our brains are able to change; indeed, they change as we learn. What this means for dyslexics is that intervention can change the brain of a dyslexic, and the earlier the intervention, the better. The process of reading is broken down into myriad steps, and there are specific programs designed that teach non-readers how to tap into these specific steps.

The parts of the brain that are impacted (“disrupted”, as the Shaywitzs call it) deal with being able to read rapidly, automatically, and engage in pronunciation, spelling, and meaning. These last three are in the occipito-temporal area, which is the rear left side of the brain. “Non-impaired readers tend to base their reading on sound; dyslexics base their reading on memory.” Just imagine how overtaxed your working memory would quickly become if you had to rely on it for the bulk of your reading. If you can imagine that, then you can begin to understand why intelligent people who are dyslexic can readily become wiped out from the process of reading, particularly within a demanding school environment.

Good teaching can change the brain the way neuroscience cannot – non-invasively. (B. Shaywitz)

Additional Resources provided on a conference handout by the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity:

• The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity
• Overcoming Dyslexia by Dr. Sally Shaywitz
•  The Dyslexia Knol by Dr. Sally Shaywitz
• Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
• Bookshare.org

• Professor Garfield – for kids
• Teachers’ Lounge at Professor Garfield
• SparkTop.org – for kids

• What Works Clearing House – “scientific evidence for what works in education”
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)

• Parents Education Network – “coalition of parents collaborating with educators, students and the community to empower and bring academic success to students with learning and attention difficulties.”

Summer Sharing and Paring

It’s vacation, June 21, and officially the first day of summer. It’s also been an extremely rainy June, providing me more time indoors than at the pool. Last year by this time I was swimming daily half miles in our neighborhood pool; this year the weather has allowed just 3 swims since the pool opened on Memorial Day. It’s been somewhat likewise with our kayaking.

Rather than get frustrated, I have used the time to majorly clean up and out my files, papers, desk and email. There is something immensely satisfying in seeing my load get lighter, in overfilling a garbage pail, in organizing my Google Docs into folders, in paring down my collection of books. I like the act of organizing; heck, I volunteer to organize professional development at school!

So I’m starting the summer by paring down, but also by sharing. Here are some goodies to ponder for the summer.

HOW DID I GET INTO THIS PLACE?
In my experience, most tenth graders do not decide they’d like to write a book and then not only follow through with their plan but self-publish and have the book sell over 100 copies within hours. However, this young person is not your typical tenth grader. In fact, she is now a high school senior as of her last day of school a few weeks ago!

Back when she was in tenth grade, Kristi decided she wanted to pursue an independent study project as an eleventh grader, the project being to write a book that would serve as a guide for students with learning differences to help them navigate the world of high school.

While Kristi’s book is written for students at the school she attends, and where I teach, it is applicable to any student who has a learning difference and struggles with the process of school.

I had the privilege of being Kristi’s advisor throughout the process, which she initiated as a tenth grader, several months before her independent study proposal had even been submitted. The result of her fastidious organization and preparation is an 80 page book that is eminently readable and packed with useful content for both students and teachers. How Did I Get Into This Place? is available for purchase, which is exactly what my school did for all 170 faculty, staff and administrators as summer reading.

THE DANA ALLIANCE FOR BRAIN INITIATIVES
The Dana Foundation is located in New York City, at 745 Fifth Avenue. The Foundation provides resources, both in print and online, including The Dana Guide to Brain Health, a wiki that “is a practical family reference from medical experts.” In addition, the Foundation sponsors events such as the Learning and the Brain conference, “reports news, supports scientists, and supports arts education.” A senior project manager at Dana was most helpful in providing 40 copies each of two publications (Staying Sharp: Memory Loss and Aging, and Your Brain at Work) for me to hand out at the April CAIS conference at which I presented.

THE YALE CENTER FOR DYSLEXIA & CREATIVITY
Who knew this center even existed! A colleague first introduced me to Yale’s center sometime in the spring when the center advertised A Special Conference for K-8 Independent Schools – Dyslexia & Creativity: New Research & Implications. The conference registration filled up quickly, and my colleague and I wound up on the waiting list. The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity has a worthy mission “to uncover and illuminate the strengths of those with dyslexia, disseminate the latest innovations from scientific research and practical advice, and transform the treatment of children and adults with dyslexia.” I leave you with another part of the center’s mission:

Dyslexia is often spoken of as a hidden disability. What is not at all appreciated is that dyslexia can be also a hidden source of great abilities and frequently unrecognized powers.

p.s. Ah, the SUN is out and I am going to go for a swim!

6/22/09 UPDATE: I missed the swim – sun was only out briefly, but the “sun” was shining on the Yale Conference wait list, and it turns out my colleague and I will both be attending the conference!

In the words of others: Reynolds & Sousa

GARR REYNOLDS
I’ve mentioned Garr Reynolds before, so many times, in fact, that he is even included in the Tag Cloud at the right. Garr writes an informative blog about presentation design at Presentation Zen, and while I initially found his writing (both his blog, and his book of the same name) enjoyable and accessible for learning about presenting and design, he often includes references to, and whole posts about the brain. So it is with his June 17, 2009 post The power of emotional contagion. Garr does a lot of traveling and presenting outside of Japan (where he lives). This current post finds him visiting Tivoli Gardens after presenting in Sweden, and he writes about mirror neurons, yet another topic that figures in my Tag Cloud.

DAVID SOUSA
A colleague who I met at the AIMS Technology Retreat twittered me an article in ASCD by David Sousa: Educational Leadership – Brain-Friendly Learning for Teachers. Sousa, who has also written an information packed book How the Brain Learns, discusses professional development that is geared towards learning for the participants. He references current brain research and provides practical suggestions designed to help make PD opportunities useful rather than onerous. Especially since I am knee deep in co-planning a full day’s worth of opening meetings for the fall, this article is a welcome “hand to the forehead” reminder of what will make the day worthwhile.

Digital Wave – Smart Board Conference

There are now some 70 Smart Boards installed at my school; a large investment in interactive white boards, to be sure. We’ve been providing related professional development for faculty since 2007, both during our June workshops as well as during the school year. About eight months ago, I mentioned to my husband that our faculty (yes, we are at the same school) would benefit by talking with faculty who are using these boards at other schools. Nothing like a healthy discussion and sharing of ideas with colleagues! The result of that discussion was just a few words uttered by my husband along the lines of  hosting a conference; kind of like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney shouting “Let’s put on a show” in the movie musical Babes in Arms.

The result of our discussion was the Smart Board Conference hosted at our school on Tuesday, June 9. Eighty-eight faculty from 23 schools registered to attend, and on the day of the conference there were ten students (grades 8 through 12) on hand to assist with the sessions, plus our vendor, his boss, and a representative from the New York City Smarttech office. We provided continental breakfast and lunch, along with the location. Attendees came from schools in New York City and Westchester, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Morning sessions were organized according to subject areas: The Arts, Library & Media, Math, English/Language Arts, Science, Humanities, Languages, and two groups of K-4 lower school teachers. Each group had a faculty facilitator, five who kindly volunteered from other schools and four from my school, and each group had a student assistant, with the larger lower school group having two students. The primary goal for the morning sessions was to share lesson ideas and plans, what works (or doesn’t), and to for each person to cross-pollinate their learning by talking with faculty from other schools.

The afternoon sessions were organized by topics that had been suggested by people when they registered for the conference. My goal was for the afternoon sessions to have a quasi-unconference feel, and to that end, during lunch, I encouraged people to take charge of their own learning as they broke out into the afternoon groups. Also during the afternoon, our vendor and the Smart Tech representative provided demos of the Smart Table, the Smart Response, the Smart Document Camera, and the Notebook software.

Our students, who were the primary presenters the day before, were at the conference to provide a second set of hands. However, true to the collaborative nature of the day, many of the students also gave demos and shared their perspective as the primary consumers of this technology.

Overall, the conference was a success! I requested feedback in a follow-up email, and received many useful suggestions that will be considered for incorporation next time I organize a conference. Some of the suggestions included:

• having a marker board available for doodling and sketching notes and ideas
• putting out Legos (Zometools would work also) for people to randomly and collaboratively tinker and build
• organize sessions to accommodate differing familiarity/ability levels
• have facilitators for unconference sessions (would that take away from the unconference nature?)

Just imagine the dining room below packed with 100 people. You can click the image for a large version of the panorama taken by Riley K., one of our student assistants.

Digital Wave – Students on Tech

This has been a remarkably productive and enjoyable week of professional development. Special kudos to those brave and incredibly PATIENT students who were on the other side of the help desk, helping us get up to speed on their favorite tools.

Hands on work, lots of time to practice, good company and able, caring facilitators and teachers are the best elements in a successful PD experience. They have all been readily available! (Head Librarian)

I thank you for all your support! What sources of information you were for me, as well as for the participants. Your ability to jump right into any situation… you were eager, polite, and so friendly.… each and every participant thanked me over lunch, telling me how wonderful you two were, and wondering how RCDS had such nice kids…with fabulous backgrounds in technology. (3rd Grade Teacher and Facilitator at our Smart Board Conference)

…thank her for empowering our students. Yesterday’s student sessions were amazing. I learned so much about Twitter, Pulse Pen, I-Phones, Facebook, etc. We have an incredible number of incoming 9th graders [and 10th graders] who are going to amaze you with their knowledge of technology! The world is ever changing…use our students to help adapt to all the changes. You won’t be sorry. The students are so easy to work with and they enjoy helping. (US Math Teacher)

These students were/are AMAZING!!!!! I went home thinking a few things: Like, why are they still in school when they could easily be running their own corporations, and …how can we keep up with them? …and…we have much to learn about the world of tomorrow from them! Thank you, I loved every minute of learning from you!! (MS Learning Specialist)

Thanks…for recruiting and organizing this talented group. I attended Monday’s workshops and came away with a better understanding of how students are using and enjoying technology. These students piqued my interest in expanding my own use of the internet and technology. Thanks to everyone for all the time you put into preparing and presenting your technology insights. (Art Department Head)

I attended some of the Monday workshops and am totally impressed with the students’ knowledge as well as their poise and superior pedagogical skills. They were amazingly patient, knowledgeable, interesting, relevant, intellectually curious, and with-it. I want to sign up for any future workshop that may be offered by our students. (LS Learning Specialist)

Well, the faculty reviews above should give you a glimpse into the reception of our faculty to the Students on Tech sessions this past Monday. Seven students kicked off Digital Wave by sharing their favorite apps with faculty in thirty minute sessions. The goal was not to proselytize, but rather to answer the question “Why I use this app (or tool)?” and give a brief demo of it. In addition to the applications already mentioned, students covered Google Docs, Tech Tips (an in-house podcast created by one of the students), iChat, and blogging.

I am so proud of these students, who presented like professionals and managed to model best practices of presenting, sharing some impressive slides that would make Garr Reynolds quite happy. (I think that some of the students may have learned their presentation skills from years of watching Steve Jobs keynotes.)

As if Monday didn’t keep them busy enough, these students returned on Tuesday, along with three others, to assist in our hosting of a Smart Board Conference. More on that tomorrow!

The Montessori Approach

I am reading Theories of Development – Concepts and Applications, Fourth Edition (2000) by William Crain (turns out there is a Fifth Edition (2005). My friend and colleague, who happens to be our Middle School Learning Specialist, loaned me the book knowing I would find it interesting, and so far, she was correct!

I have never taken an educational theory course, but do have twenty-seven years of teaching experience to inform my reading of this book. First up in my reading (choosing by interest and not sequence) is Maria Montessori (1870-1952). I had not realized that she hailed from the 1800s. My limited knowledge of Montessori practice was based on general conversation with other educators and occasional snippets that might have appeared in the news.

Of particular interest was listening to a Dutch friend describe her Montessori teaching experience years ago in Amsterdam. Along with another of our Dutch friends, she was responsible for starting a Montesori high school in the Netherlands, in order for the younger Montessori-taught students to have a follow-up school to attend.

The Montessori approach is hands-on and experiential, with each child progressing at their own pace and pursuing their own interests. Children are not simply small adults – they learn and think in ways quite different from adults. The process of learning includes “sensitive periods” identified by Montessori as “genetically programmed blocks of time during which the child is especially eager and able to master certain tasks.” In their order of appearance, these sensitive periods include:

• order – everything in its place and a place for everything
• details – noticing the minutia
• use of hands – tactile, kinesthetic control and exploration of the world
• walking – the learning of which Montessori likened to “a kind of second birth” which the child does for the sake of doing, and not with the intent of getting any place in particular
• language – “the child absorbs language unconsciously” and this process of acquiring language is universal, regardless of geography or culture

The teacher’s role is to simply facilitate the natural developmental rhythms of each child as they progress through their sensitive periods. Additionally, the teacher structures the leaning environment to foster a student’s free choice in deciding what to explore, with a focus on independent learning without the need of external motivators or reprimands. The materials in a Montessori environment scaffold in skills levels and include Nature as an important component.

Montessori found that young children easily plunged into deep concentration when engaged in a task that interested them, and by extension, for which they were developmentally ready. Her practical philosophy was to provide an environment to support this natural form of learning. However, the provision and encouragement of such an environment relies upon a strong set of guiding principles, the deviation from which does not seem to have been encouraged or accepted.

Next school year I intend to find a Montessori school to visit and observe. Meanwhile, this Davidson Film will suffice.

The International Montessori Index – a rich source of schools and details of the philosophy
Maria Montessori – pictures and biography
North American Montessori Teachers’ Assocation
Google Timeline for Maria Montessori –  an interesting search result (Did you know Google could provide this type of result?)

Ideas

Intangible. Can’t touch them, but you can try to wrap your head around them. For me, I need a reason to ponder an idea. It doesn’t have to be a practical reason, but it has to be a reason that gets my head in gear and focuses it on thinking.

At the recent CAIS and AIMS Tech Retreats, we did a lot of pondering of ideas, in particular, ideas about optimal conditions for getting adults to learn. The focus of my CAIS session was how adults learn, and at AIMS it was professional development and collaborating with colleagues, but the topics certainly overlap. In both instances, an overflow of ideas emerged from group brainstorms.

At CAIS we used index cards to collect ideas, one item per card. You can read more about this activity and see pictures here, or get a summary of the ideas and see the related wordle here. 

Anytime you ask teachers to generate ideas about how adults learn, you are bound to get a combination of thoughts based upon themselves as both learners and teachers. The result is a well-rounded list of suggestions, which I entered into a Google Doc. There are any number of ways that this list could have been organized, and if I have the opportunity to try this exercise again, sticky notes may be substituted for index cards so that people can play around in real-time with categorizing the feedback.

The almost thirty participants touched upon the major components necessary for adult learning:

• having a reason to learn
• feeling in control of the process
• being in a safe environment
• tapping prior knowledge 
• appealing to emotions
• providing an experiential component
• setting aside time for reflection

as well as accommodating varied learning styles.

After looking over their ideas, what, if anything, would you add to their brainstorm list?