"How to Fix Schools"

There will be a new book published in September by a High School student, Nikhil Goyal who states "Learning is messy." In a television interview he also mentions a school that is "working" called Brightworks and is based in San Francisco.

His statement about learning being "messy" rings true to education and art. It's not a new statement though. I found others who have said this, such as Brian who writes a Blog called Learning is Messy. I'm in total agreement that learning does get "messy" but one has to allow students to experiment so creativity can take place. Worksheets and multiple choice tests just will not help this endeavor. If students are not allowed to try things, experiment and make messes then how will they really learn? 

When we talk about being messy, it's not only using materials to create things. We're dealing with students who are in the process of learning and discovering many things, based on their past experiences. When grouped together and allowed to create real world projects, who knows what will rise from the mess.

So now that I've been reminded of the value of "messy" it's time to start thinking of how to create ways for lecture halls full of art appreciation students to get "messy" in a University that is as strict with what hangs on walls as Frank Lloyd Wright was when he designed a house with all its furnishings. 

This could be called a mess but it will be guided by a set of student outcomes that need to be assessed as well as this facilitator/course designer who wants to allow learning to take place. I can't fix schools but I can fix my own classes and allow students to experiment and create.

Reflection: Active Learning

This past week, I have read other student Blogs and also watched many educational videos from TED and YouTube, including the podcast by Cathy Davidson at Berkman Center (suggested by Dr. Bigenho). The dilemma at hand is still how/what to teach students in my University Art Appreciation class which is designed to fulfill particular items shared by a liberal arts education. August is quickly approaching and so is a SACS visit for our separate accreditation. I am the responsible person for measurement and reporting of student learning in art appreciation.  Echoing in my brain are also the words spoken by someone in administration, “what good is art appreciation anyway?”

Advice from many sources is that students need to be active learners and teachers need to be mentors. Other givens are that students don’t like to listen for more than 15 minutes and that lectures can take place outside of the classroom through video or sound files, while students are to be doing active learning in class. We also need to incorporate technology in our classrooms.

After reading evaluations by students I find that students either like art or they don’t. They find my tests and projects fair. Some want to do more hands-on projects while others do not. But here’s what’s interesting: the items I am to measure and judge the progress of students are not the same items that students are asked to measure and besides, how do students know what good teaching entails? Students are asked to measure my teaching effectiveness but the questions are the same for math, science, sociology, criminal justice, education, etc. I have even run across one student comment that refers to a "Mr so and so" that is nothing close to my name.

So if we’re going to try to dictate, organize and measure what students are learning and how effective teachers are at teaching (of course we want to be accountable), then someone needs to decide and coordinate this effort or better yet, trash it altogether in favor of something that works better for students and teachers. Sir Ken Robinson at the ISTE2012 Keynote address put it perfectly after talking about No Child Left Behind. He stated the aim was good but the problem is “a suffocating culture of standardization. What we need is the exact opposite.” Robinson pointed out that if you have two children, even in the same family, they are not the same. “Humanity is essentially based on diversity but our education system is based on compliance and conformity, not on creativity and diversity.” He made this great analogy that if 1/3 of the planes dropped out of the air, or 1/3 of your doctor’s patients were dying we might ask what’s going on and then do something to stop this. But when 1/3 of our students are dropping out of school every year, what do we do?  His answer was to personalize education using technology.

From reading Michele’s Blog last week about Knewton’s Adaptive Technology, the technology is coming for this personalization of learning but I don’t have it yet nor do many teachers I know. After reading Matilda’s Blog about “rote memory” the question pops up in my head, was it useful for me and others before me to know a timeline of famous artists and their technological innovations before being able to have an intelligent conversation about art appreciation? Or is it all right just to explore the principles of art and allow students to learn the material on their own, teaching and learning from each other? Marc Prensky (author of Brain Game), in the panel discussion with Sir Ken Robinson at ISTE2012 Keynote address responded with this: “what do we keep in our heads and what do we delegate and outsource to our machines?” Marc thinks that in the long run, passion is going to lead students to achievement. So if a teacher provides enough material for students to find something they are passionate about then they’ll learn in the end.

Reflection: Projects

My experience working for client projects

I have learned a great deal being involved with others in the process of real world instructional design. First of all the two group leaders of our projects were fantastic and took a great role in contacting the clients and reporting to the other group members. The group leaders also created Design documents and arranged Skype meetings with clients to help with the task of communication so all participants knew what was going on at any time. The process of relaying information was crucial and was done extremely well.  

The group itself was comprised of subject matter experts in all the areas that we were creating the content so that was also an advantage. We did not have to outsource anything and everyone was able to pitch in and contribute to the end product. 

Perhaps the most surprising element of this process was that the whole process, including client interaction was very creative and led us to new knowledge about instructional design. I was so impressed during a client Skype meeting that the client even formulated a very creative idea while talking with us. On the other hand, we had a client who has been supportive of our work and has offered some suggestions but did not like to communicate verbally with us. So this whole process of creating instructional design for an actual client has been beneficial.

Reflection: Creativity

The ISTE2012 conference was a gathering of educator/scholars who use (or want to use) technology in teaching but it included so much more. One common strand that I noticed was the issue that creativity needs to be encouraged in the classroom. According to many presenters at the conference, students are showing signs of becoming less creative as they grow older.  I have heard this example several times (so I don’t know who to give credit to): when you ask kindergartners if they can dance, they shout an enthusiastic “yes!” Ask them if they can draw or sing and you hear the same answer. Then a few years later ask them the same questions and the answer will be a saddened “no.” While this scenario is not true for all schools or children, it is a noted dilemma that some teachers want to address. Others will be satisfied with teaching the same lessons year after year, use the same old worksheets and forcing children to endure a painful education. The issue, I believe is that schools (since their beginning) have also produced teachers that do not realize their own creativity.

I have a magazine article that I cut out from Newsweek a few years back and have planned on using some of the examples in the classes that I teach at the University level.  Today I found the article online while searching for more information about creativity. It’s called The Creativity Crisis and was written in 2010 by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. It features information about an innovator in testing creativity, Paul Torrance and his test that can be given to measure how creative a person is. For 50 years the researchers have kept up with the “Torrence Kids.” According to the article, “what’s shocking is how incredibly well Torrence’s creativity index predicted those kids’ creative accomplishments as adults. Those who came up with more good ideas on Torrence’s tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, college presidents, authors, doctors, diplomats, and software developers.”

In addition to the information on creativity, that I received at ISTE2012, I researched and found a website created by Dr. Curtis J. Bonk at Indiana University School of Education for his class called “Instructional Strategies for Thinking, Collaboration, and Motivation (R546).” His site is filled with free resources about creativity, critical thinking and motivational strategies. One of his resource pages had a link to a film about Creativity in America:Creativity and Learning. In this film the same message resounds: the current need in education is to encourage creativity in schools from pre-school onwards.

Reflections: Educational Social Networking

               After returning from ISTE2012 Conference my head is spinning with ideas to implement that will help students. One idea is that social networking can be a help to students who are considered non-traditional (they have a baby, have to work, etc) and it can also help those who are able attend face to face. Odyssey Charter School, located in LasVegas, NV, began an experiment to see if social networking would help its students. The school tried Facebook first since it was popular but decided to go with Ning since they could have more control over privacy issues facing educators. Ning also allowed participation from students outside the current class that using a content management system would not allow. All the features that Facebook allows, such as photo and video sharing, was allowed on the school’s private Ning social network. “The social network also became a place that motivated students by allowing them to become more connected to the school and the school community.” (Barbour & Plough, 2009) The social network also provided a place for them to socialize any time and any place because they were using an online platform. The article states that “The teachers at OCHS also saw students engaging in social ways they had not envisioned or experienced before in the OCHS environment, such as sharing personal histories, discussing controversial issues in an open and mature way, and generally doing the kinds of things you’d expect teenagers to do in a traditional high school environment (e.g., trying to organize a prom).” (Barbour & Plough, 2009) There were many issues that arose but those were intercepted and utilized as “teachable moments to educate students on being good digital citizens.” (Barbour & Plough, 2009) Basically the experiment using Odyssey of the Mind social network at the high school gave a similar experience as to what they would receive if they were attending face to face as far as being able to connect and communicate with others and have some interaction with teachers. 

                Some schools are using social networks to connect globally. In the article by Michelle Davis, students are shown to be using social networks to connect internationally. (Davis, 2010) The type of experiences that students can receive from social networks set up for education is really very useful.

                I have been experimenting with setting up a Ning network.  Pearson Education even said they'd foot the bill for up to 3 years.

Barbour, M., & Plough, C. (2009). Social Networking in Cyberschooling:Helping to Make Online Learning Less Isolating. TechTrends, 56-60. 

Davis, M. R. (2010, November). Social Networking Goes to School. Education Digest, 14-19.

Reflection: goals, outcomes/objectives

Last week I had started thinking about the task of redesigning my art appreciation class, applying ideas from our text, Rapid Instructional Design by George M. Piskurich.  I recognized that based on my understanding of the reading, the goal for learners should be 100% have learned what was taught, or I have not really taught it. I have the objectives for students that is given to me by administration so my perceived next step is to analyze how to apply the objectives to the learning modules in art appreciation for an 18 week face to face class that is supplemented with Blackboard. Quizzes and some movies and discussions will be housed on Blackboard as well as all PowerPoint lectures and handouts. Next, I will be developing a hybrid and finally, a fully online class. The goal set forth by our division Associate Dean is for each faculty member to to create 2 modules for a class each semester. My goal is to create four.

I could go ahead and do what the author suggests and “take your completed objectives and distribute them to your trainees, along with a list of resources (procedures, books manuals, videos, CD-ROMS, people and so on) they can use to master the objectives. Then leave them on their own to do so” (page 130). The author states that “the two main problems with this shortcut are (1) the availability of resources and (2) the inconsistency in what the trainees pull from the resources.” (page 130) The short cut to self-directed learning would probably be the best for the student/trainees to actually learn the material but since I’m also being paid to teach the class as a subject matter expert, I will be the one to also supply the directed learning tasks in a variety of modes to the students. That way I can measure what they need to learn and determine how well they have learned it.

Listed below are the expected outcomes that were set in place by administration and I will need to adhere to these until the new core objectives are put into effect in 2014. Many have used the terms outcomes and objectives as meaning the same thing and I know not to confuse these two with goals but after reading the text and studying these outcomes, most of them are not really stated very well. Nevertheless, I have to work with them because they are set forth by administration in order to fulfill our mission for the general education core.

I believe that 1a, 1b and 3b are not true objectives because they are not observable and directly measurable but I still need to measure them in my assessment findings at the end of each semester. Also notable is that each item is referring to the “graduate” and not the student who completes my class. So whoever set this up was probably not a good course designer. The following items seem more like goals for the liberal arts program and reflect from both points of view of the program and the student.

[1a] The UNT Dallas graduate will explore English, the arts and humanities, math, the natural sciences, and social and behavioral sciences.

[1b] The UNT Dallas graduate will make connections between different areas of knowledge and different ways of knowing.

[2a] The UNT Dallas graduate will be able to locate, evaluate and organize information including the use of information technologies.

[2b] The UNT Dallas graduate will think critically and creatively, learning to apply different systems of analysis.

[3a] The UNT Dallas graduate will engage with a variety of others in thoughtful and well-crafted communication.

[3b] The UNT Dallas graduate will broaden and refine their thinking as a part of the give and take of ideas, seeking to better understand other’s perspectives as well as their own.

[4b] The UNT Dallas graduate will be able to express ways that exposure to different ideas, perspectives, cultures and viewpoints have enriched their thinking.

[5a] The UNT Dallas graduate will be able to articulate the values that undergird their lives, the UNT Dallas community and the larger society.

Out text explains that “course goals are statements developed to explain what the course will cover.” (page 117) and “objectives let the trainees know what they need to do, tell the designer and the trainer what they  need to do, let higher management know what’s going on, and are the criteria for trainee and course success.” (Page 117) After reading, I realized that I was really not working with a good set of objectives so what the author writes is true: “course designers think they are developing them when they are not,” and “you never truly understand the importance of objectives until you are given the task of developing content and training…”(page 117)

So my first task will now be to actually create some good objectives for my art appreciation class that reflect the mission of the University and also what I am asked to measure by administration that will be used for assessment during our accreditation process. My objectives will be written on the syllabus and will be the initial stage of my design document. So I am now going to put myself in the position of the student, pick the right verbs to create some good course objectives that include standards and conditions, and get to work creating some “SMART” and “SMARTER” objectives (pages 129, 130).

Reflection: Instructional Design

The book called  Rapid Instructional Design: Learning ID Fast and Right   is really helping me to redesign my art appreciation class for Fall. George Piskuich promises that the book will “help you make sure that what is in your program is what your trainees need to learn.” (page 3) So far I have read chapters 1-4 and have already picked up some very useful ideas.   

There are two issues that I have to address for art appreciation since it is in the common core for general studies in a liberal arts program. First of all I need to focus on the learning objectives which have been set forth by the state of Texas. There are now 6 areas (reduced from 37), for each class that is part of the general education core to address:

1. Critical Thinking

2. Communication Skills

3. Empirical & Quantitative Skills (optional for creative arts)

4. Teamwork

5. Social Responsibility

6. Personal Responsibility (optional for creative arts)

Secondly, I have to figure out how to measure these objectives. The art appreciation class that I have been in the process of re-designing needs to help students develop skills in these 6 areas. The state has told me what students need to learn and it’s my job to decide how to design the class so students will demonstrate their learning through art appreciation.  

Over the past three semesters I have designed assignments intended to measure student learning in similar areas and have been collecting data about student outcomes. I have also been offering commentary about what I think is needed to change the outcomes and making follow-up statements in a program that we use called TracDat. The standards for our whole division were set that 80% of students would achieve 80% of a given outcome. After one semester of results, that was reduced to 75% of students will achieve 75% of a given outcome. This seems to be a decent target for general education. However, after reading the text, asking for 75% concerns me because if the saying is true that “you haven’t taught if they haven’t learned” (page 116) then we as teachers in the general education program are not very successful. I certainly wouldn’t want a Doctor that is advising me to have earned 75% in his or her coursework. Of course we’d love for everyone to achieve 100%! I can’t change anyone else or the division plan but I can work on revising my course to be an effective trainer and course designer. When I return from the ISTE2012 conference next week I will also be given the opportunity to create something to share with the division in the Fall. Our Director of the Office of Distance Learning & Instructional Technologies has set aside monetary assistance for me to prepare something to do with "Projects or ideas that impact development or delivery of entire programs or courses across disciplines." So I'm really looking forward to preparing something that is based on this class experience and also the conference.