Author: Paige Couros

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Training vs Learning

A blog post by Katie Martin

I recently shared this graphic on Twitter, which resonated with many of you and I wanted to share an excerpt from my book, Learner-Centered Innovation, where this graphic came from.

A school leader shared with me that, although she felt her school offered ample professional development, she was frustrated that they hadn’t seen a dramatic shift in the classrooms. She had hoped to see an increase in students solving authentic problems and using applications for deeper learning experiences. Instead, students used technology to upload and share information or to complete assignments that looked very similar to the work they had done without technology. In response, I asked the leader to describe a typical professional learning day. She told me that, in every after-school meeting, she showed teachers how to use different apps; in fact, she constantly shared tips on new apps and tools she came across. What puzzled her is that the teachers seemed encouraged in the meetings and even shared their own ideas.

As we dug deeper into why the training wasn’t translating into the classroom experience, she realized that her teachers were doing exactly what she had modeled for them: they were using new tools to do the same activities and teach the same content they always had. Although they liked learning about new tools, they hadn’t been modeled or used in a way that connected them to student applications for different or deeper learning.

I always cringe when I hear the word training used to describe educator professional development. Training happens to or is thrust upon people. Learning, on the other hand, is a process of developing knowledge through authentic and relevant experiences. If professional learning is ever going to be effective in bringing about change for students, it must shift away from something done to educators toward a process of creating a culture of continuous learning cycles and problem solving. There is a time to learn new skills or specific programs, but professional learning can’t end with information; content is only the beginning. The following table depicts common experiences that differentiate training from learning.

Shifting the Focus from Teaching to Learning

In education, we have a lot of systems that run smoothly because we have been doing them for years. The problem is that when we work with the same people, doing the same things, ineffective practices are rarely challenged or changed. Traditions and habits don’t inspire new ways of thinking for educators or for students. Here is an example, and I apologize to any English teachers reading this, but I have been in too many conversations about whether The Outsiders is an eighth-or ninth-grade book and have mitigated arguments between seventh-grade teachers about whether or not to teach Farewell to Manzanar. And if you know English teachers, these conversations can become heated. This same scenario plays out in many contexts, whether it is the play that is done every year or the unit that has to be taught in the fall because it has always been that way. One of many problems with these arguments is they are about territory and preserving the status quo, not kids, what they are learning, and why. If the comfort and preferences of adults become the priority rather than what’s best for learners, students miss out on powerful learning opportunities connected to their goals, questions, and interests.

As a result of doing what had always been done, when I was the literacy coach for our school, we noticed that many students were going through their day without the opportunity or expectation to read. Many students were performing below grade level on standardized tests and struggled to read the textbooks and assigned novels. Attempting to support students, teachers had resorted to creating PowerPoint presentations to summarize and convey key facts; books were read aloud, and teachers played recordings of novels so everyone could follow along at the same pace while short passages and multiple-choice worksheets were widely used to assess comprehension. We came to the realization that, if our students never read on their own or made meaningful decisions for themselves in school, they were going to struggle with these things out of school. While we grappled with this very real issue, our professional learning consisted of disparate events that offered no help. The English language arts department wanted to do better for our students, but I also knew that if they knew a better way, they would have been doing it already. We needed to learn new strategies to improve, and we had to shift the culture to focus on our desired student outcomes and align how we were designing and facilitating the learning experiences.

To achieve our goal of increasing reading practice and ultimately literacy, our English department had to shift our meeting structures from examining what we wanted and what we were teaching to reviewing student work to find out what they were learning. We wrote a proposal to our principal to purchase a copy of the book 7 Strategies for Teaching Reading for each teacher in our department and requested stipends for the teachers to meet regularly after school for eight weeks. The total cost of our request was less than $ 1,000 ($ 100 per teacher and $ 20 for each book). We read the book and came together after school to engage in collaborative conversation that allowed teachers to experience the new strategies in their own reading and learning. We then planned ways to support students in their diverse classes. Each week, we independently read about a new strategy, rotated modeling lessons for our colleagues, and collaborated on a plan to put the new ideas into practice. One distinction here is that we did not create a plan for one specific lesson; we thought about how to integrate the new strategy across various lessons and develop multiple iterations of the strategy to inform our practice. To ensure we were working to close the knowing-doing gap, we partnered up each week to observe each other and learn from the variety of methods we were each putting into practice. At the beginning of our weekly meetings, we shared what we were learning. The open reflection not only allowed us to create a culture of transparency in our team but also pushed us to try out new ideas and build off one another’s successes and challenges.

We shifted our conversations from what content and page number we were teaching that week to what we were learning and how we could impact student outcomes. This also meant that we had to bring evidence of learning from all students connected to our desired outcomes. We had to move beyond the spreadsheets and percentages to actually understand what was happening in our classrooms. We spent our time digging deep into our problems of practice, looking at student work, and interrogating our practices to ensure we were truly meeting the needs of the learners.

While our English department worked together to create better learning experiences for our students, reading about and discussing new ideas was critical for our growth. As we explored these new approaches and ideas, we began to rethink the traditional teaching of a class novel. We created more opportunities for choice and designed opportunities for students to grapple with text to make sense of it. We moved from designing learning experiences based on the content and page number we were teaching that week to how to design learning experiences that empowered our students and helped them develop the skills to become better readers, writers, and speakers. By being willing to make changes in the way reading and literacy had always been taught, we improved outcomes for our students.

Learner-Centered Innovation

Learner-centered innovation is not just about creating something new but doing something that yields better outcomes because of what we have created. With that in mind, we asked questions like, “How do we know that our idea is working?” and “What is the impact on desired student outcomes?” When we focus our efforts on what we want to accomplish, not simply the metrics or data from an isolated test or standards but on the type of student we want to create, we might find that our meetings and our learning experiences become more impactful.I would love to hear about examples of what you are doing to create job-embedded cycles of professional learning and the impact it is having!

To learn more about making the shift from training to learning, check out Katie Martin’s book Learner-Centered Innovation.

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Seven Stages in Moving from Consuming to Creating (A Post From John Spencer)

I used to believe that creativity began in the mind. Ideas popped in and people responded externally by making things. I would get frustrated when students came into class having only used technology to consume rather than create. I would beg them to take risks creatively. Make something different. Be bold. Branch out even if you screw up. Just be bold.

However, things began to change when I had my own kids. I noticed that from a young age, creativity was inherently social. It often began by seeing, hearing, and experiencing first. Often, it included copying something that an adult was doing. As the kids grew older, I noticed a similar pattern. Though they were wildly creative, each one of them went through a process of noticing, exploring, copying and finally finding their own way.

It has me thinking about my own experience with creative work. When I first got into drawing, I copied the styles of other artists. When I first got into poetry, I copied the style of my favorite poet. When I first wrote a novel, it was essentially fan fiction — albeit at a time when no one knew that term. I have noticed similar trends among students. They often go through a phase of copying and mash-ups that occur before creating something truly original. As a middle school teacher, I saw this trend in art class, wood shop, in writer’s workshops, and in STEM labs. Now, at the university level, I see this as a progression that often happens as students learn the art of teaching. They often observe and copy before they move into creating from scratch.

The Importance of Critical Consuming

Like I mentioned earlier, creativity doesn’t always happen with a flash of inspiration. When you look at makers, they are often critical consumers of the same type of work they create. Chefs love great meals. Musicians listen to music. Architects often visit new cities and tour buildings to find inspiration. There’s this ongoing cycle of critical consuming, inspiration, and creative work. As they create more, it leads to a deeper ability to consume critically, where they find more inspiration, and the cycle continues.

This is why I reject the idea that students should be creators rather than consumers. Consuming isn’t inherently bad. However, what we want are for students to be critical consumers so that they can become makers. And often, this requires a journey from awareness through critical consuming and then eventually creation. For this reason, I’d love to share the seven stages from consuming to creating that we featured in the book Empower. 

The Seven Stages from Consuming to Creating

I’ve been thinking about stages that I notice as students move from consumers of media to creators of media. I admit that this is not very scientific. There might be a better model out there that explains this phenomenon. However, here are seven stages I see students go through as they shift from consuming to creating:

#1: Awareness

Sometimes this is a passive exposure. You hear a style of music being played in the background and it seems unusual. After a few months of it, you find yourself thinking, “I kind-of like this.” Next thing you know, you’re choosing to listen to indie-fused techno-polka. Or maybe not. Other times, it’s more direct. You watch a particular movie or you see a production or you read a book and suddenly you’re hooked. Note that this is why I will never fully embrace completely choice-driven learning. Sometimes students need to be exposed to new media, topics, themes, and skills. And, the things that initially seem odd become intriguing and that when you move into the second stage.

#2: Active Consuming

In this phase, you are more likely to seek out the works that you are consuming (whether it is art, music, food, poetry). You aren’t yet a fan, but you start developing a taste for a particular style and you find yourself thinking more deeply about whatever work you are consuming. Notice that the term “consuming” is pretty loose here. A student might “consume” by playing suddenly getting into a new game they learned in P.E.

Sometimes this phase is more focused on the aesthetics and sometimes it is more focused on practical utility. A student might think, “Wow, that’s actually pretty fun” or she might think, “That’s actually kind of useful.” Either way, they are actively seeking out and consuming in this phase.

#3: Critical Consuming

Here, you start becoming an expert. You see the nuances in both form and functionality. It’s in this phase that your taste becomes more refined. You begin to appreciate the craft involved in making what you are consuming. You are able to distinguish between good and bad quality. When they are consuming media, this is a phase when they are truly becoming adept at how to find accurate and useful information.

#4: Curating

After becoming an expert, you start picking out the best and commenting on it. You collect things, organize things, and share your reviews with others. In this phase of curation, you are both a fan and a critic. curation goes beyond simply collecting items online. The best curators know how to find what is best by immersing themselves in a niche area while also making surprising connections between ideas in seemingly unrelated worlds. Curators find specific excerpts that are relevant at the moment but also timeless. They can explain the purpose, the context, and the necessity of what they are citing.

#5: Copying

This is the part that drives me crazy as a teacher. After developing a level of expertise on a particular work (or artist or style) students will literally copy it. So, a student who is an amazing artist insists in drawing, line-for-line, a manga work. A student who geeks out on bridges decides she wants to make an exact replica of another bridge. A student gets into food and never deviates from the recipe. Until . . . suddenly something changes. A student branches out and modifies the copycat work. There’s this spark of creativity that happens as they start to think, “Maybe I could try something a little different.”

This, in turn, leads to the next stage.

#6: Mash-Ups

Sometimes this looks like collage art. Kids combine elements from various favorite works that they have curated and make something new. Sometimes this looks like fan fiction. Other times, it might mean taking an idea from one area and applying it to a new context — which can often look incredibly creative. So that kid who is copying manga begins to experiment with a few styles and adopt a visual style from multiple sources. That writer whose work seems derivative starts to borrow structures from multiple authors in unique ways. Over time, students begin to find their own unique voice and it leads up to #7.

#7: Creating From Scratch

This is the stage where students start taking the biggest risks and making things that are truly original. While the ideas are often inspired by the previous six stages, this is where a student finds his own voice. It’s the stage where a student grows in confidence to the extent that she is able to take meaningful risks.

The Journey Varies from Person to Person

So what does this look like in a classroom? When I taught middle school, I had students explore and critically consume video games. They debated which games were the best and why. From there, they moved to copying examples of games on Scratch, then doing modifications and mash-ups of games. Finally, they moved to a place where they created something new on their own.

I admit that these aren’t lockstep stages. For example, when he was younger, my middle son got really into Pokemon, and went from the second stage (active consuming) into the third, fourth and fifth stage simultaneously. It wasn’t incremental. It was more of an “all at once” thing. Similarly, people sometimes begin at the second stage by intentionally seeking out a new form of art to consume (second stage) with a critical eye (third stage).

Other times, people skip stages. Someone might go from falling in love with a novel (second stage) to creating fan fiction (sixth stage) without ever copying anything (the fifth stage). On the other hand, I have almost always skipped the mash-up stage, preferring to move from copying a particular style to jumping out and finding my own voice.

This isn’t a formula so much as a general framework that I have used to help me remember that the jump from consuming to creating is more often a journey than a jump. However, the key takeaway is that students need time and opportunities to consume critically and walk through these phases on their own.


Listen to the Podcast

If you enjoy this blog but you’d like to listen to it on the go, just click on the audio below or subscribe via iTunes/Apple Podcasts (ideal for iOS users) or Google Play and Stitcher (ideal for Android users).

To read more from John Spencer, check out his amazing book Empower (co-authored by A.J. Juliani).

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HOW TO EMPOWER STUDENTS WITH ONE SIMPLE PHRASE (THAT CAN BOOST STUDENT EFFORT BY 40%) -A post by AJ Juliani

Daniel Coyle, the author of The Talent Code, recently looked at a study on feedback from teachers. This study showed that one simple phrase could boost student effort by 40%. I was shocked when I read this, but in the back of my mind I was already guessing what the phrase would be…and I was right on the money. See for yourself:

A team of psychologists from Stanford, Yale, Columbia, and elsewhere recently set out to explore the question: What’s the secret of great feedback?. They had middle-school teachers assign an essay-writing assignment to their students, after which students were given different types of teacher feedback.

To their surprise, researchers discovered that there was one particular type of teacher feedback that improved student effort and performance so much that they deemed it “magical.” Students who received this feedback chose to revise their paper far more often that students who did not (a 40 percent increase among white students; 320 percent boost among black students) and improved their performance significantly. (See the study here.)

What was the magical feedback? Just one phrase:

I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.

That’s it. Just 19 words. But they’re powerful because they are not really feedback. They’re a signal that creates something more powerful: a sense of belonging and connection.

As a teacher, my students always responded when learning was presented as a challenge. Specifically, a challenge that I “expected” they would reach. This phrase (and the effect of 40% more effort) is so important.

Are we teaching pre-service teachers about simple things like this? Are we focusing professional development on boosting student-teacher relationships?

Are we focusing professional development on boosting student-teacher relationships?

When we talk about moving away from compliance-based education to one where students have voice and choice, it still matters what the teacher is doing and saying in every class.

Relationships are one of the most impactful ways to empower students to pursue their own passions, interests, and futures.

But, in order to be empowered, they must first believe in their abilities to pursue those dreams.

With one simple phrase, we can continually build the mindset that they can do anything, and the possibilities are endless.

How to Empower Students with One Simple Phrase
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Three Important Things (and One Promise) from Reclaiming Our Calling

A post by Brad Gustafson, author of Reclaiming Our Calling

Many of us are feeling a tension in education. We’ve been asked to prioritize student achievement above the human beings doing the actual achieving. Fortunately, there is hope. It is possible to prioritize relationships while also helping students achieve lasting learning.

Reclaiming Our Calling tackles this tension head-on. The book contains powerful classroom stories and strategies to support the heart, mind, and hope of education. It is written differently than most professional development-type books I’ve ever read, but I’ll let you decide whether that’s important or not.

Here are three things that are really important (and one promise):

1. Reclaiming Our Calling is based on the belief that great teaching begins with relationships and connectedness. This doesn’t mean we refuse to prioritize content and accountability; it just means we refuse to disregard everything else that’s important. 

2. More than a book, we have an opportunity to connect and take things deeper. I’m intentionally focusing on people who want to work together to create more meaning and connection in this work. If this sounds important to you, I’d invite you to join a small and mighty group of mission-driven educators who are in the #UndergroundBookClub. You can sign-up HERE. We collaborate on weekly missions and are creating a child-centered ruckus together. If you’re already a member, please consider sharing this blog post with one colleague you care about on a deeper level.

3. This is not a book for everyone. It is for educators who believe they have been called to teach (which is drastically different than “just teaching”). This doesn’t mean we don’t do jobs as part of our calling; it simply means we understand the gravity of the lives we’re entrusted to teach.

4. My promise to you is that by engaging with the book (and others who are doing the same), we will help you navigate the tension many of us are feeling. We will help you hold on to all that’s right in education, leverage your strengths, and elevate your voice so you can help others who may need your support.

Thank you for trusting me enough to read this post. Please consider purchasing the book on Amazon. I don’t take your time or trust lightly. If you’re interested in reading a few of the blog posts that have been written in connection to the book (and feedback that truly touched me) you can check them out below:

I’m looking forward to working together on what we can do right now to take back teaching.

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Math Recess

“Let’s play math!”

In the theme of recess, where a treasure chest of balls, ropes, and toys would be kept for children to play with, this book holds a deep and imaginative collection of fun mathematical ideas, puzzles, and problems. Written for anyone interested in or actively engaged in schools—parents, teachers, administrators, school board members—Math Recess by Sunil Singh and Chris Brownell shows math as a playful, fun, and wonderfully human activity that everyone can enjoy… for a lifetime!

“Math Recess is a breathless ride!”

—Kimberly Morrow-Leong, NCSM 2018 program chair, author of Mathematize It!

“I absolutely adore this book. With clarity, power, and exuberance, Chris and Sunil spell out and make concrete what it means to play.”

—James Tanton, PhD, founder of the Global Math Project

“Here’s to the dabblers. The tinkerers. The fantasizers. The curious ones who believe math education can and should be about play. Here’s to the humanity of friendships that lead to mathematical love. Sunil Singh and Christopher S. Brownell are bold. Go, be bold with them. All are welcome.”

—Mary Kemper, president of the Texas Association of Supervisors of Mathematics

“Through rich storytelling and powerful examples, Singh and Brownell make the clear case for upending math education as we know it and replacing it with an ideology we can all embrace: Mathematics is and can be deeply learned through play.”

—Denis Sheeran, author, Instant Relevance and Hacking Math

“Disruption begins with ‘Re.’ Rather than trying to fix a broken system, it is time to reimagine a new one, and Math Recess completely satisfies my appetite for destruction.”—Brian Aspinall, educator, author of Code Breaker and Block Breaker

 

Math Recessis available on Amazon! Join the conversation online using the hashtag #mathrecess and connect with the authors at @mathgarden  and @cbrownLmath on twitter. 

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4 Shifts To Move From Teacher-Centered To Learner-Centered

A Post by Katie Martin, Author of Learner-Centered Innovation



I have been fortunate to visit classrooms around the country over the last 5-6 years in a variety of different capacities (check out what I saw last year). Through these visits, and in conversations with many educators, students and parents, I have seen tremendous shifts in our education system.  This paradigm shift from teacher-centered to learner-centered is changing how we see learners and their critical role in their own learning now and throughout their lives. Education Reimagined highlights that in this paradigm “Learners are seen and known as wondrous, curious individuals with vast capabilities and limitless potential.” 

Here are 4 shifts that I have increasingly seen in many schools as they move to learner-centered.

Shift 1: From Standardization to Personalization

To be clear, when I say personalization it is not about programs and technology, which can often be conflated.  Although technology can and does enable personalized pathways, the power of this shift is when the learner has the agency to make choices and learn in ways that meet their needs, not simply clicking through a program. This shift for me comes down to how we see learners and get to know and value them as individuals rather than a cohort of kids moving through school.

Experiences that change how kids learn in schools today rarely come straight from a textbook or program. They come from teachers who know their learners and design experiences to meet their needs based on the desired learning objectives. In spite of our understanding that no two people are the same, many systems have prioritized (and even demanded) overly structured lessons for every student to meet the same objective at the same time in the year, regardless of the individual’s unique strengths, interests, or questions.  As we better understand the learning theory and celebrate the diverse talents and passions that individuals bring to the classroom, I am encouraged to see many systems move away from strictly following the textbooks and one size fits all approach to teaching and learning.  I continue to see more educators and systems designed to empower learners to understand their unique strengths, ask more questions, and pursue their goals to chart their personal paths.

Shift 2: From Compliance to Learner Agency

Learner agency is about moving students from passively responding to acting with purpose to reach a desired goal or outcome. When students have an authentic purpose and audience beyond their teacher to share what they are learning, they are more motivated to learn and often go above and beyond.  I am excited to see more schools moving toward structures that empower learners to share and drive their learning process through portfolios and student-led conferences. Opportunities for learners to share their work beyond the teacher in student-led exhibitions can be powerful to ensure students have an authentic audience and are doing work that has value.  

We can teach necessary skills while creating experiences that allow learners to take ownership of the process. Learners have access to an abundance of resources and experts that enable us all to learn in ways that extend beyond the expertise of one teacher or classroom. By tapping into those resources, we can create more experiences that can allow students to apply their newly learned skill in ways that are meaningful and relevant to them and others.

Katie-Martin-LCI-Quote-1

Shift 3:  From Product to Learning Process

Grading is a battle for many teachers and students but this process steeped in tradition and often fails to communicate what a learner knows and can do.  I love this reflection from A 7th grader who shared his experience in a blog post, Dear Report Cards, You Suck, that exemplifies a major challenge with assessment procedures and reporting of what students know and can do. He says he realized that he is actually a B student, not a D student because of how he got to show what he knew and how his work was assessed.

The only reason you can easily read this is because of my best friend, spell check. My spelling difficulties make my handwriting hard to read. In the past, I’ve done most of my writing in a textbook without revisions. So, of course, I was going to get a D.

Having access to technology has changed my world. Being able to type my work and click on a red line to fix a wrong word has suddenly made my work correct. Feedback is another extremely helpful tool. When I was stuck or when I’m just finished, I used feedback to fix the things that were wrong or to add things that I may not have thought of. Feedback is an awesome tool!

When we only focus on the end result, we fail to communicate to learners the importance of sharing ideas early, getting feedback, and revising things to improve.  If we don’t honor the learning process, we communicate that we either get it or we don’t. And as a result, we are negatively impacting learner’s confidence, creativity, and investment in their own learning and growth. Increasingly, there is a focus on failure in the learning process and it is certainly part of it, but the bigger picture to me is acknowledging that success isn’t black and white. Learning is a process and it takes time, effort, and growth to achieve success, even when we don’t see it.

Shift 4: From Delivering Content to Authentic Application

We all have a finite amount of resources and are accountable to meet specific objectives within a given period. Foundational knowledge and skills need to be developed, but we also need to balance these foundational skills we want all students to attain while allowing for authentic application of those skills and content. I recently shared this example of @msnunenkamp ‘s 5th grade class  where instead of completing a packet and filling in worksheets, they did research to better understand the impact that humans are having on the environment and created a Public Service Announcement (check it out here) to help others understand and so something to improve the environment.  

In a strictly standards-based paradigm, our learning goals are primarily the standards or subsets of standards. While this is a good start, many employers, vision statements, and basic common sense allude to developing productive and empowered citizens instead of mastering isolated content and standards. We need to prioritize learning experiences that not only develop knowledge but also attend to the skills, interactions, and mindsets we know are critical for students to develop to be successful in our evolving world.

These shifts give me hope as I see so many educators focused on what’s best for learners. Creating the conditions that allow educators to be nimble and create learning experiences that reflect the context and the resources to best meet the needs of all learners is the greatest shift of all.