Category: General

Personalized mentoring

My experience with technology in K12 going way back is based on a model in which individual schools or at least associations of schools provide mentoring, coaching or some form of assistance to educators attempting to engage their students with technology. My model for how this assistance is provided was pretty much informed by the long career my wife had as a technology facilitator. She started in this type of role many years ago so I must admit I am surprised when this type of assistance is lacking. I recognize the importance of having access to someone with considerable skill with multiple technology tools and instructional strategies. The questions I am raising concern whether what I have described is atypical and whether there is a need for an additional level of mentoring/support.

BetterLesson Personalized PD believes the answers to my questions would be “yes”.

I may have already clouded the issue by failing to differentiate the various forms professional development might take. As a college professor, my courses should be considered a form of professional development. However, the issues I present and discuss and the level on which these issues are applied for individual learners in a class is very different from the type of interaction my wife provided. I am likely to offer what the research suggests about a particular practice and discuss both the pros and cons of engaging students with a type of activity. I am indifferent to a learner’s commitment to using a specific strategy and feel they should understand that some with good intentions question that strategy. I pick examples from categories of technology tools and may not pick the specific tool from a category you have available in your classroom.

My wife would have been more responsive to individual teachers in her work. I would also describe what she did as starting from what the teacher wanted to do. It would follow that she would not feel a background of strengths and weaknesses of a given strategy was necessary and that suggestions would focus on the tool the teacher wanted or had to use.

Is there another level? Sure. My wife would have had varying degrees of familiarity with the content area the teacher wanted to implement. She had greater experience with elementary and middle school learners, but worked across grade levels. Because her role was full time she was also more of an observer of teacher practice rather than working from personal experience with the application of a specific strategy within a specific grade and content level. As I understand the proposal explained in the link provided above, some feel there is a need for this greater depth. I can see the argument, I just wonder about the feasibility of the business model.

Strategies for involving teachers in lesson analysis have always made sense to me. Some would likely make more meaningful contributions to such activities than others, but the question is whether compensation should be required or can be provided. One thing about new ventures based on a new model is that someone is willing to take the risk to see how it goes.

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Adding some depth

Here is my proposal that educators diversify their reading lists. There is an expression “Think global, act local” that pretty much summarizes the concern encouraging my suggestion. Every educator faces certain day to day issues and it makes sense that they seek ideas relevant to these daily challenges. So, whether you want to speak like a pirate, hack, code or develop mindsets, there is a book and possibly an app for that. Without meaning to imply a lack of value, these are “flavor of the month” proposals that encourage a different way of thinking about daily practice that may or may not be rehashes of previous ideas. Any trend that encourages reflection is likely a good thing and some variation in classroom activity refreshes the daily experience.

Core problems facing educators are deeper and more systemic.

I am more concerned that public education is being expected to take on problems that originate elsewhere (not a new thing) such as poverty, inequity, and national economic prosperity, blamed for being slow or ineffective in addressing such expectations, and then targeted by politicians and business opportunists with schemes that degrade the great majority of professional educators and divert funds. This sequence creates a downward spiral that feeds on itself and offers justification to those critics unwilling to follow the path of cause and effect.

Here are a couple of recommendations I would encourage for book study and social media comment:

Russakoff, The prize: Who’s in charge of American schools (you will recognize familiar settings and people – Chris Christie, Cory Booker, Mark Zuckerberg – the problem with New Jersey schools and the political solution)

Goldstein, The teacher wars: A history of America’s most embattled profession.

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Be more critical of STEM initatives

I have long disagreed with the unique focus on STEM, the actual STEM needs that should be addressed, and the identification of the issues limiting getting those with potential into STEM careers.

This NYTimes article by Queens College professor Andrew Hacker arguing that the expectation for advanced math courses in high school is misguided encouraged me to combine and restate some of the arguments I have already made. Trends tend to feed on themselves, but education is close to a closed system so what is offered in one area is subtracted from another. It is important to be careful when jumping on a bandwagon.

When I consider what I feel are the most significant problems facing humanity, I am not convinced that many or perhaps even most are issues that will be solved by math, physics, chemistry, biology or coding. The inequities that exist in society, the corruption in the finance sector and our ineffective political system are not STEM problems and require far greater attention. Challenging future generations with the critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity necessary to deal with these core issues is being neglected.

There is no doubt that the science and math problems of our time need individuals of great talent and dedication. Addressing these issues whether as a matter of national competitiveness or human need requires a different approach than “more STEM for all”. A broad focus on STEM is inefficient and does not focus educational opportunities on the individuals best suited to these careers.

I agree with Hacker, the number of students taking advanced math is unnecessary. A greater focus on statistics and research methods (quantitative reasoning) would have far more general value. The general public needs to have the mental tools necessary to interpret the data that we all encounter daily. These quantitative skills are ignored in the main line STEM courses.

Perhaps we should be asking why talented students ignore STEM careers. Why are women so underrepresented in computer science? Why do so many talented college students pursue an MBA rather than a science major? These are the real problems and these issues have more to do with values and social acceptance than the number of courses available. But again, recognizing root causes do not follow from a STEM perspective.

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Nuzzel Improvements

I first became interested in Nuzzle as a way to track the links provided by the Twitter users I followed. I am not a big Facebook users so my experience was limited to Twitter. Nuzzle would provide me a list of the most frequent links included in the Tweets of this group.

This approach made great sense but was not particularly useful for me. The problem was mostly a matter of scale. I did not follow enough individuals to get a benefit from the service. The most frequent links from my friends might total 3 or 4 for a given day. There was little differentiation among the more popular links and I would probably note these links on my own by scrolling recent tweets in my feed and so did not benefit in the way someone who would miss thousands of tweets might benefit.

The folks at Nuzzle probably understood this issue and now offer some new possibilities. Using their “Discover” feature, I can offer a topic I want to explore (say educational technology) and receive a list of “influencers” and popular recent links. Either offers an interesting approach to discovery (as opposed to search). As I understand the role of “influencers”, these individuals might represent individuals with a more productive friend list than my own and I would be able to share what this larger or more prolific group might surface.

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Nuzzel offers many existing categories, but I find using search to identify my interests to be more useful.

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So here, I locate stories and influencer feeds I can follow on the topic of educational technology.

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Coding – Beauty and Joy

In the recent State of the Union Address President Obama made mention of several forward-looking proposals regarding education. Among the advocate changes was the provision of computer science coursework for every student.

In following up on just how this might be accomplished, NPR identified an interesting MOOC Berkeley computer scientist Dan Garcia titled “Beauty and Joy of Computing.

The course emphasis both coding and the social implications of advances in computer science. The curriculum, which is freely available, is used in many secondary computer science classes. The course makes use of Snap which can also be accessed online.

I applaud Prof Garcia for making his content freely available.

The Beauty and Joy Curriculum – Coding and Social Implications

Snap

 

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Balancing STEM

fetcrobota

fetcrobotsbSTEM, STEM, STEM, robots, robots, robots.

I was walking through the FETC exhibit hall looking at what the vendors had to offer and I had a strange thought. I wondered if many of the educators taking in the same sights felt left out. So much of the focus was on coding, robots, and science. What about reading and writing, the humanities, and the social sciences. Perhaps those who might recognize the narrow focus were not in attendance.

Yes, I understand some have noticed that STEAM is also a word and try to use this as a logic to include the arts. Kind of a strange approach, but if that is all you have you give it a try. It is clear where the companies believe the money is at this point. The message the vendors have embraced becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that appeals to parents and perhaps more importantly, politicians. Perhaps educators should be satisfied that politicians see any reason to invest in education. Here we go with another trickle down model.

Yes, I understand some have noticed that STEAM is also a word and try to use this as a logic to include the arts. Kind of a strange and weak argument, but if that is all you have you give it a try. It is clear where the companies believe the money is. The message they bring becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that somehow has appealed to parents and perhaps more importantly, politicians. Perhaps educators should be satisfied that politicians see any reason to invest in education. Here we go with another trickle down model.

I wonder just what problem the emphasis on STEM is supposed to solve. Some see this as an economic issue with science and technology allowing the nation to gain some kind of economic advantage and providing the solutions to some significant problems. I agree, but I just do not see the universal emphasis on STEM for all students providing an efficient benefit. Realistically, most students will not move into STEM careers. If advancing science or technology is the goal, STEM for all is likely less important than offering options for more capable and interested students.

Another argument suggests that technology is part of so many areas of life we need more programs and all need to better understand how technology works. When it comes to the suggestion that coding providing insight into technology-enabled challenges I believe this to be a weak argument. For example, computer literacy is a very different thing from programming. Those promoting computer science make this argument all of the time. It should be recognized that the argument works both ways. Programming is a vocational skill. Many problems associated with technology (e.g., privacy) or even areas of application are really more issues of computer literacy than programming experience.

K12 education is, in reality, a zero sum game.  Increasing a focus on STEM means subtracting time and resources from other subjects. Many of our most serious problems are economic, behavioral, and/or political in nature. The social sciences and humanities folks presently lack strong advocates and can offer fewer sparkly toys to impress parents and politicians. Too bad!

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