B.A. Social Studies
In Missouri, we are seeing the first new state assessments being developed in the social studies in over ten years. I have been fortunate to be a part of the process in the two most recent stages by developing items and working in the content and bias review of those items. The process is difficult work and I can honestly say that I left each day ready to hit the pillow. With all of that said, I have been asked by multiple people to share some takeaways from the process and how it has helped me to prepare my students for the new assessments being piloted this year. Here are my tips: This process began when the state of Missouri evaluated and changed from the Course/Grade Level Expectations (CLE’s) of old to the new Missouri Learning Standards (MLS). This is where quality instruction begins. I encourage you to dive in, and I mean really dive in, to the new standards. In government specifically, I think that you will notice a major shift to include much more history regarding the development of the Constitution compared to the previous standards. This is a major challenge for us in the government classroom as the 9-12 standards do not address the history of the Constitution and Early Republic. There is a major void here that government teachers and schools will need to address. How will we fill in these gaps in the curriculum? I have started teaching more of that history directly into my class, and as a result of my students lacking exposure over the course of three years (8th-11th grade) to that history, I have to assume that that they do not have any background regarding that information. A ton of reteaching is involved, but is necessary if we want to work to be successful on that all important government EOC. With all of this being said, there is plenty of room for discussion pertaining to the processes and principles of government in both world and United States history courses, but this will need to be a serious discussion among departments and curriculum coordinators in districts statewide. In the end, we are asking social studies teachers and departments to prepare students for the government EOC as a result of it being the lone state assessment in the subject in K-12. As it does with any part of our students’ educations, it takes a team effort to ensure that students are prepared for success. Sitting through the process of both writing and reviewing items over the course of two different sessions, the most significant tool used to determine content was the item specifications provided by DESE (click here to find them). In the item writing portion, they were the starting point for development and then in the content and bias review items were compared with them. Specifically, the content limits/assessment boundaries were the most used resource in the room. You need to download them and have them easily accessible for each standard in order to best understand what you need to be providing for your students in regard to content. The specs also inform educators what types of items and stimulus (sometimes specifically) that students will need to be exposed to prior to the assessment. Gone are the days of the fifty item multiple choice test. The multiple choice option is only one of many that item writers have at their disposal. The options for assessment types seem to be endless and students can expect to label images using drag and drop, use drop down fill in the blank items, complete open-ended items, and hot text among others. We will need to prepare our students for this new wave of technology-enhanced questions in order to ensure that they have the highest opportunity to be successful. In order to address this concern, I have started using the Schoology (who I am in no way endorsing) assessment technology-enhanced items. There are other tools available with these capabilities (see this post from “The Techie Teacher”), but I would encourage you to be sure that you are finding and using one to best prepare your students. We need to be preparing our students with the same style of assessment items in order to best overcome what is a potential barrier for success. We do not want our students, our teachers, buildings, and districts to be labeled as less than proficient if the issue is assessment taking ability over the content and curriculum skills. Gone are the days of cramming facts into our students heads--knowing that the First Amendment contains the five freedoms is far from demonstrating an understanding of how they are protected and applied. A significant takeaway for me was that it will be necessary to expect students to move beyond the memorization of facts and concepts. Expect items to vary regarding Depth of Knowledge (DOK) level. In the past, the multiple choice items have reached to achieve level two, but you will see that some items, due to the technology capabilities will climb higher on the new assessment. There is a focus on historical thinking skills and how they can be assessed. Students will be asked to apply their DOK level one knowledge in order to address the items at a high level. None of this is to say that we can move to the higher orders without having the base knowledge, but there is going to have to be a focus in our classes on preparing past the basics.
In the past few years, I have struggled with getting students to submit well-thought out and well-written academic work. I require reading, writing, and critical thinking activities on a daily basis in my classroom and have not gotten the results from students that I was hoping for. The strategy that I have set this year has (so far) been working and my students are producing higher quality writing and communicating what they have learned at a higher level. Instead of hammering out and going over the syllabus on the first day of class, we spent the day getting to know each other, what we enjoy, our passions, and what we are proud of in a brief collaborative activity using NearPod. At the end of last year, I also had students create small posters for the incoming students to take in with "tips to be successful in government class." The students left them on the walls of the classroom over the summer and I included them into the day one activity in a three minute gallery walk. It is interesting that there is not anything earth-shattering on the posters: "take notes," "act your age, not your shoe size," "listen when Mr. Anton talks," "use flash cards to study," "don't sleep," "don't play computer games," etc. It seems to have clicked that taking care of the basic responsibilities of the being a student will help to take care of business in the class. I am also working to better incorporate the use of portfolios to provide students the opportunity to show their growth over time while working hard to provide time for reflection and revision before submitting final work. To begin the course on day two, I had students take a brief citizenship test online--no grade, just for their information--and it was quite amazing how much effort they put in and also how they realized where they stand regarding their knowledge coming into the class. I accompanied this with their first portfolio entry where they elaborated on where they were regarding the quiz compared to where they thought they should be as well as asking them to discuss their thoughts on the purpose of government courses. After they submitted their first revision, we read an article titled, "A Case for Writing Below a Grade 8 Reading Level" (https://www.wriber.com/writing-below-a-grade-8-reading-level/) and discussed that students will be expected to communicate their learning at a high level. In order to do this, I had students revise their work and use the Flesch-Kincaid index to modify their writing below the eight grade level in order to ensure that over half of the United States population would understand it.. Finally, we discussed academic writing and I provided them with the list of writing recommendations that I have put together throughout my career of the most common writing errors by students and had students use it to evaluate their essays. This activity immediately created an atmosphere that reinforces the fact that I want students to make a first attempt, reflect, and revise their work before they are assessed while also placing an emphasis on the soft-skills that I want my students to take with them when they leave. As most schools do, here at Forsyth we have an annual district-wide remembrance ceremony on September 11th. When I look around at the students during that ceremony, I wonder how long we are going to continue doing it as it seems to have lost its impact on our students who simply not have a memory of the events of that day. As a result, our students often struggle to grasp the consequences of the attack on the United States so I really focus on putting together meaningful activities to make it more real for my students. One of the challenges for me is to help students understand the enormity of the situation that took place on 9/11. After brainstorming on the topic for this year’s activity and project for my classes, I decided that it would be valuable for students to participate in an activity that really brought home the human costs at both the individual and societal levels. To start, I provided students with 1”x1” grid paper and asked them, without an explanation, to draw a circle in each of the boxes (each circle had to touch all four sides, and had to be neat to receive credit). This took way more time than I expected, and although students questioned why we were doing this, they went along with it. The next step after completion was to color each circle individually using random colors throughout their pages. At this point, I released the purpose of the activity and assigned students with a set of names to add to each circle from the National 9/11 Museum and Memorial website, using the initials of each life lost in the terror attacks. Finally, students cut out the circles then designed a memorial mural to place in the hallway for all to see.
After releasing the intent of the activity, students bought into the assignment, and I think, really began to grasp and understand the sheer number of lives lost as a result of the decisions to carry out the attacks. The time and effort that went into each individual circle sunk in and students took away, especially after developing the mural, how large the impact was on individuals, families, and the country as a whole. Due to the chronological distance that our students have from 9/11, they often struggle to connect to that day personally. In most cases, they understand the general events surrounding the terrorist attacks and the mass number of casualties, but tend to be disconnected from the impact on individual lives and families. When I had the opportunity to study September 11th at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York with Gilder Lehrman over the summer, I focused on creating a lesson that would help my students make a more meaningful, personal, and emotional connection to the events surrounding that day. Every year our school district remembers 9/11 with a brief flag raising ceremony that always touches me and many of our faculty and staff members, but as I look around at our student body, they generally go through the motions and don’t necessarily understand the gravity and impact that the day that we are remembering had on the United States and the world. I was not directly impacted by the events that day, but watched them live from the classroom where I currently teach (second seat, second row) as a high school senior and was indirectly impacted by the economic, social, and military consequences of the attack on the country. It is the central historical event in my lifetime and the one that shook the world. It’s almost cliche to say that the world isn’t and never will be the same as before that day, but the older I get, the more I understand that statement. Spending five days in New York only enhanced my curiosity and emotional connection to that day. My most significant takeaways from my time spent at the memorial and museum were the number of names engraved into the memorial and the sheer size of the site and footprint of the World Trade Center. I searched for a way to help my students understand the scope of the attack in terms of the material (the twin towers and other buildings) and immaterial (the lives lost on that day). Our students are often introduced to film footage and summaries of the events of that day, but in most circumstances are not connected to it with any emotion. I grappled over the first three to four days with how to communicate the sheer size of the terrorist attacks while portraying each of the 2,996 people murdered that day as individuals. One of the centerpieces of the museum is the Ladder Company 3 fire truck. It is a unique piece that offers so many different interpretations of the event. Size, individuality, sacrifice and randomness each come to mind when reflecting on the artifact as it sits in the void between the footprints of the towers on the lowest floor (bedrock) of the museum. The massive truck suffered major damage, proving that the event was one of large scale. The question about who was on or travelled to the Trade Center on it also comes to mind immediately as they were taking significant risk to save lives. Finally, the truck can be divided into two segments, the rear, where there is moderate damage, and the front, which is absolutely destroyed and is recognizable only as large mangled pieces of metal, showing the randomness of the damage as a result of the attacks. As I walked through the museum multiple times, this piece continued to resonate with me and I kept coming back to it and eventually decided to turn it into an activity for my students to experience. I photographed the truck--not from the typical perspective of taking in the whole, but in segments from one of its rear wheels and tires, then consecutively backing away slowly providing more information to my students for them to analyze until I reached the line between the moderate damage in the rear and complete destruction in the front. These photos were going to be released to my students in the same way in the classroom activity. The activity was still missing the personal connection that I felt with the truck though. In order to find that meaning for myself and my students, I made my way to the memorial and found the names of each firefighter from Ladder Company 3 that died sacrificing their lives in order to save others. The classroom activity began and ended with these photos. When displaying the photos of the engraved names in the memorial, I provided no background, I simply asked my students to find a sheet of paper and tell me what they saw and next, to tell me what they thought. Most of them stated, “names,” then after being asked to provide more detail, they added a bit--”engraved names,” “somebody being remembered for some reason,” and others noticed the drops of water on the pieces of stone. Simply stated though, those names meant nothing to them at the beginning of the activity. The next photo reveals only one of the rear wheels and tires on the truck. It is a bit obvious that it’s a fire truck, leading students to make some basic assumptions. There is very little damage to this tire, only a patch and a small bit of damage in the right side of the photo reveal that there might be something out of the ordinary taking place. The second photo releases the second wheel and tire--it shows more damage as the tire is flat and the wheel damaged. After each of these photos are released the questions “what do you see?” and “what do you think/wonder?” were asked to the students who documented their answers on their paper throughout the entire activity. The next two photos reveal the rear half of the truck slowly. The first displaying the back ⅔ of it, and the second showing the entirety of the rear half of the truck. It is evident at this point that there was major damage to the truck. Students were then asked the same questions as above, but then an additional question, “what would your experience have been if you were here at the moment that this happened?” Then to clarify, “what would you be seeing, smelling, hearing, touching?” Finally, the students were instructed to draw or explain what they think the front end of the truck looks like. It is typically completely different to what the actual information released to them is in the next photo. In the final photo, the entirety of the fire truck was released to the students. In one class, there were gasps, and I think this makes it hit home that the damage was major and they begin asking themselves about the firefighters and making that connection. The same questions were asked, including the one about the experience. To drive the point home, I asked them to compare their experiences between the front and rear of the truck and in another to put themselves at the rear of the truck with their best friend standing at the front of the truck--this drives home the point of the randomness of the events that took place that day. If they were standing near the rear, they would have had a decent chance of living, but would have probably been injured, but if they were only three feet away, those chances of living were greatly diminished. After students were given a moment to process the entire scene, the photos of the names were then presented to them again and they were asked, “now what do these names mean to you?” This was one of the more emotional days in my ten years as a classroom teacher. I think that if you put yourself through the process honestly, you will feel the same way that they did. I was so proud of my students for working through the process and noticing the details, then processing what they felt afterward in a blog post where they shared their experiences throughout this activity. It created an atmosphere of curiosity about the event and we decompressed by opening the floor to questions about the day, the memorial, and the museum. Overall, the activity accomplished the goals of providing personal insight and emotion to the event and changed many perspectives on the events surrounding 9/11. Student Blog Posts: Reflections on 9/11 ActivityThe second of my goals for this year is to successfully implement student blogging into my classroom (for the first see this link: http://basocialstudies.weebly.com/blog/infusing-inquiry-into-pbl-week-1). Three weeks in, I am excited to share that it is going better than expected! Heads up though, it takes a little extra time every week to first assign and allow students to create posts, and a little more time to read through and respond to students’ thoughts, reflections, and learning. Coming into the year, I wanted to offer my students more authentic voice in my class and a way to connect their learning with the “real world.” Across the board the benefits have outweighed the drawbacks. Here are my thoughts on the challenges of the implementation of student blogs to this point. What are the Challenges and Benefits that Outweigh Them?Choosing a Platform:
Two weeks into the year, I can tell you that it took a bit of prep time deciding on the blogging platform to use. There are 10+ great options out there with each offering a bit different options and price points. Eventually, I settled on Edublogs due to the options that it offers for the price ($39.99/year, which seems to be the lowest cost for any student blogging platform) which includes classroom management options that allow the teacher to control all aspects of the blogs/websites but will still allow me to release my students blogs back to them to turn into a portfolio that they can take with them and build on when they leave my class--also a long-term goal of mine. Time: It takes a lot of time to work through 90+ separate blog posts per week, which I will elaborate on below, but If you’re looking to include more student voice in your classrooms, provide an opportunity to informally formatively and summatively assess, and offer more authentic feedback to your students, there seems to be no better way to go. The connections that I’ve made with my students up to this point have been positively affected by introducing blogging to my classroom. The blogs provide a way to get to know students as individuals better than I have ever been able to. Also, I feel that they take their writing seriously due to the authentic audience provided by the opportunity. Grading: This is not the most simple thing to do with the platform that I chose as all pending posts are displayed from most recent submission to least recent. I’ve done a ton of flipping between gradebooks in my SIS system, and at first, when I wasn’t familiar with the students and which class periods they were it, it took a ton of time to get those in. Also, there is the challenge of balancing providing students with the opportunity to write without squashing their excitement to do so. Across the board, my simple explanation and emphasis for my students when they are writing blog posts is that their job is to communicate effectively by using proper writing skills along with proving that they are learning by including specific details. I often remind students that I am using their posts in lieu of other assessments, which typically provides them with the understanding of the purpose and intent of their blogs. Feedback: As I mentioned previously, it is time consuming to provide feedback to students, but the gains in connecting with my students have made it worth it. As we know, learner autonomy and buy in is huge in getting students intrinsically motivated. The only grades that Ihave entered into the grade book at this point in the year are for these blog posts. Nothing else has been necessary, as my students are getting the purpose of activities due to the reflections that I have been asking them to write on a weekly basis. I think that it is helping them understand learning as a process and that they are learning along the way. Participation in class activities has been as close to 100% as it has ever been (in fact, I can’t think of a time when I’ve really had to get after a student to this point to join an activity--just the typical, “make sure the conversation that you’re having is on task” stuff). I attribute this to the fact that my students have received feedback which proves that I’m reading what they write. Reflection and Thoughts After Three Weeks: I’m excited! I was a bit nervous that the students would not take it seriously, but they’ve proven that they are happy to have the responsibility to become digital citizens and understand the power of having a positive public place to share their work. I think that they understand the long-term implications that their blogs can have and their value. It’s exciting to see them take the next step in taking control of their learning and understanding the intent of the blogs as a reflection and public display of their learning. Finally, be sure to stop by fhssocialstudies.edublogs.org and comment on my students posts and work! Based on my reflection of the development and implementation of PBL into my classroom last year, I have decided that one of my two key focuses for this year is to improve and implement stronger inquiry based strategies into my curriculum (the other being student blogging--a subject for a future post). The intent of making this change is to allow my students to have better control over their learning and to begin thinking of research as a continuous inquiry process with the end goal of justifying their opinions and supporting them with evidence. Last year as I developed my project/problem based curriculum I began each unit by providing my students with their “essential question” that would drive their learning for the duration. To begin, we broke down the question into many smaller or more detailed ones. In general, students struggled through the process because they did not understand the purpose of it. I explained it as part of the research process and in general, they played along, looking for the specific number of questions that I assigned for them to put together. We created questions as a group, and in general, the students came up with decent ones, but after all of that, I took those questions, and chose which ones met my needs regarding curriculum and content. I found that I was artificially having my students drive inquiry and we never came back to their questions after developing them. After reading Make Just One Change from the Right Question Institute (RightQuestion.org), I found a new method to try to drive this inquiry process and actually provide my students to take more control of their learning by allowing them to drive the research process more completely. In general, the only variation that I made was changing my essential question into a statement that I decided to introduce to my students as a hypothesis for them to prove or disprove. For example, in my government course, my first unit essential question last year was, “What are the most significant principles of American Government and what are their origins?” I changed that to the statement/hypothesis, “The ideas put into the Constitution by the Delegates at the Constitutional Convention were original.” We spent a week on the process of developing our driving questions. In the end, each class now has developed their own research question, from which each group will begin their research. My students were challenged and highly engaged throughout the entirety of the week and I’m excited to see where it takes us. Here is a summary of the first week of the process and implementation specifically. I encourage you to give it a shot! Day 1: Introduce the “Question Focus” and the “Rules for Questioning” from the Right Question Institute. The Right Question Institute (RightQuestion.org) has gone into great depth to develop a Question Formulation Technique (QFT) which is the basis for the development of this portion of our unit in class. I used their rules for developing questions for students to follow which include the following:
Though I didn’t use their QFT to a tee, I did follow the basic direction that they provide and their rules briefly explaining the purpose of the rules in this activity. Next, I introduced the Question Focus to each class. In the government course, it is “The ideas put into the Constitution by the delegates at the Constitutional Convention were original” and in economics it is “The economy is in better shape now than at the beginning of President Obama’s administration.” In the introduction to how each statement should be used in regard to question development, I explained that the students’ job was to prove or disprove the statement using credible research including data for the economics course and primary sources for the government one and that their questions should drive their research. Finally, the students, in groups of two or three, were provided with as much time as needed to develop questions based on the focus statement. It is a process full of ebbs and flows, students struggled getting through the first few questions, but went through highly productive spurts along the way. As I circulated the room in many cases, they were struggling, then when I came back around they had five or ten more questions down. The key to making this process work is to be involved and constantly remind the students of the rules. In general this can be done in a light hearted way and the process is pretty collaborative and enjoyable for the students. Day 2: Prioritize the Questions and Place on Brainstorming Wall To begin the second day, students were asked to prioritize their questions based on the idea that they were developing them to use in their research, reminding them that their goal was to prove or disprove the Question Focus. In order to help them with this process, in their groups, students evaluated each one individually. Upon completion of that step, they were assigned with the task of choosing their top five and writing them on a note card in Sharpie that was eventually taped to the wall (in our hallway due to space restrictions and wanting to offer audience for their work). Students were also asked to evaluate on their process of developing the questions and to write a blog post to share their thoughts. In those blogs, students acknowledged the challenge and the thinking skills that it took to develop those questions. Days 3-4: Creating the Class Research Question: The final phase of class inquiry consisted of two sections, top question selection, then another round of prioritization. To begin the process of narrowing our research focus, each group was offered the opportunity to vote for the three “best research questions” on the brainstorm wall which now included all of the classes’ top questions using a sharpie to dot their votes. Each group also chose the #1 question that they saw on the wall that they thought would be the best to start research. From that point, the top questions that each group decided was the best were written on the board and shared with each class. From there, they evaluated each one, ranking them from most important for beginning research to the least important of the ones on the board. Each group provided their number for each question and the numbers were averaged to come up with the starting question for the class to begin researching. At this point, each class has decided on their own research direction based on their entire class contribution combined with the contributions of the other section of the course. It is interesting to note that each class chose a different question to begin their research.
Day 5: Introduction to Researching the Questions At this point, the students have understood that this course will be made up of sustained inquiry as a part of their project based units. Therefore, they understood that they were not done asking questions. Although we had narrowed our research focus, I still wanted to offer them the opportunity to personalize the question if they did not necessarily agree that it was the “best one.” For this reason, students were asked to evaluate the class question, then break it down into five more detailed research questions. Finally, students divided up those questions among their group members and were set to begin their basic research with the caveat that they were expected not to answer those questions, but to begin creating a database of people, places, things, documents, ideas, etc. that will direct their next set of questions. It’s awesome to see that the students have taken to the process of developing the questions and that they are wanting to dive in and answer them, but I am still working them through the process of developing research by expanding their net before just trying to answer the question. This will be a continuous process, and I’m excited to see how it continues to challenge them and promote higher order thinking. As a social studies educator and advocate, I am aware that the general consensus is that the United States lacks proper civics education. I agree. In terms of social studies education, including civics education, we are "missing the boat." This has been well documented. In schools, the social studies have been thrown to the side in many instances due to the pressure to perform on math, science, and reading tests.
I am also an advocate of preparing our students for “college and career readiness.” Another focus that the government has pushed over the last decade and one that innovative educators are addressing. Students should leave with higher level thinking skills that will prepare them for their future endeavors and good educators are working to provide them with the tools to do so. With this being said, I would like to discuss the Civics Education Initiative, and its recent adoption in Missouri (among other states). Under the current law (Missouri HB 1646--Signed by the governor on June 22, 2016): “Any student entering the ninth grade after July 1, 2017, who is attending any public, charter, or private school, except private trade schools, as a condition of high school graduation shall pass an examination on the provisions and principles of American civics. The examination shall consist of one hundred questions similar to the one hundred questions used by the USCIS that are administered to applicants for U.S. citizenship. The examination required under this section may be included in any other examination that is administered on the provisions and principles of the Constitution of the United States and of the state of Missouri, and in American history and American institutions, as required in subsection 3 of section 170.011.” I have no problem with the intent of this law and I am a proponent of that intent. The issue that I have is the obvious contradiction that the government has put into place. If the end-goal for our students in K-12 education is “college and career readiness,” I would like an explanation about how a test with “100 Facts Every High School Student Should Know” is preparing them to meet that goal. There is an obvious disconnect proving that our elected officials are consistently playing politics without common sense in mind in many cases regarding education reform and improvement. I understand how a “nea” to this would not be politically savvy and probably was not an option on the table in almost all cases. If you say no to this, you are saying no to stronger civics education. Or are you? I argue that a “yea” narrows social studies and civic education down to a set of “100 Facts” that any student can memorize in a week. As a result of this, what will happen in classrooms as a result? Nothing. Most educators will continue to teach social studies at a higher level than this and in the exact same way that they have been. Social studies once again gets reduced to simply “one hundred questions similar to the one hundred questions used by the USCIS that are administered to applicants for U.S. citizenship.” This initiative in its current form does not strengthen civic education, but instead diminishes it. The role of social studies once again gets sent to the backburner. Instead of providing students with the opportunity to think at a higher level, determine how they are going to participate in the government, along with determining what they believe, they will be taught 100 basic facts. Students are going to miss out on the best and most important part of social studies courses, learning how to decipher what they think and know and becoming key contributors to society and United States democracy. If we want students to become knowledgeable, responsible, conscientious, and civically engaged, is the best way to have them simply memorize these basic facts for a state mandated test? If our goal is to teach students how to think for themselves, we need to get more creative about ensuring that they learn civic values by teaching them to become part of the process. Being civically educated does not mean only knowing a series of simple facts, but by learning how to become an active part of United States democracy. This takes so much more than another required test. In Missouri, our students have been expected to “pass” tests on the United States and Missouri constitutions for decades. I can guarantee that the tests that I, and most other civics educators have developed take into account much more, at a higher level, than the simple set of factual knowledge that the Civics Education Initiative requires. Once again, education has been reduced to a standardized set of questions with an answer that can be memorized and forgotten. If we want real change and reform, we should be looking for innovative ways of teaching and assessing our goals with lasting impact, not another mandated test full of standardized questions to be regurgitated and forgotten. Disclaimer: The views expressed here are strictly those of the author and do not represent those of any organization in which he is affiliated. Text of Missouri HB 1646 Establishing the Civics Education Initiative: http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills161/billpdf/truly/HB1646T.PDF The Civics Education Initiative: http://civicseducationinitiative.org/ http://civicseducationinitiative.org/take-the-test/ Civics (American History and Government) Questions for the Naturalization Test: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Office%20of%20Citizenship/Citizenship%20Resource%20Center%20Site/Publications/100q.pdf Nothing against interactive whiteboards here, but when was the last time that you used yours and its interactive capabilities? Also, nothing against my district or the hundreds of others that placed a focus on putting one in every classroom. Having this meant/means that you have the technology in place to help students to learn, right? The problem isn’t the technology resources. The problem is that our education system does not promote progressive ideology that allows us to find better ways to use it. It does not promote allowing teachers and students to find the best ways to use those resources, but simply says here’s a cool new tool, now use it in the same way that you used magnets on the refrigerator or on the magnetic chalkboard from the 1950’s. If we are honest with ourselves, most of us aren’t using all of this new technology in the most impactful ways are we? Now, think about the billions of dollars spent on putting this technology in the classroom… I know that this isn’t a question that can be tangibly measured here, but I would like to ask it. “How much ‘bang for the buck’ have we gotten out of all of this new technology?” I recently had the opportunity to hear keynotes from two education leaders (at the Greater Ozarks Cooperating School Districts Innovation Summit in Springfield, Missouri--#GOInnovate @GOCSDMO), George Couros (@GCouros) and Will Richardson (@WillRich45). The general message that I gathered and I hope that all else in that room took with them is that our current education system is not structured in a way that allows our learners to gain the skills necessary to be successful in the real-world. One topic among others that drew my attention was that across the board, schools are laden with the latest and greatest technology but are missing educators trained with and willing to learn how to use it to its full capability. I am fortunate enough to work in a district that has a 1:1 laptop to student ratio from grades 5-12. I’m also very proud of the fact that our district has been at the front of adopting this. It is what is best for our students. They need to have these tools in their hands in order to learn how to use them because that is the direction that the global society is moving. Our students will need to have the ability and skills to use computers, tablets, smartphones, and social media in order to get a job, turn it into a career, and be successful at it. Making connections is huge, and social media needs to become a part of our education culture. Remember the age old mantra, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Go back and take a look at the previous paragraph. What is the purpose for providing our students with this technology? Now here is the real question: Are we fulfilling our purpose and goals in regard to providing our learners with “21st Century Skills” (I hate that we are still using this term a decade and a half--16% of the way through it) that they need to be successful? I would argue that as a whole, we are not. Why? Let’s take a look at this from the perspective of each significant group of stakeholders within education. The Students:As the place that all things in education should begin, let’s discuss our students’ perspectives (from what I see in the classroom every day). Why haven’t students bought into using this technology? The real answer, they have. Now, using it productively and having the ability to do so is different from “using it.” Across the board, our students lack models for how to use technology and social media in a positive and productive manner. Shouldn’t one of our missions as educators be to allow them to learn this skill? I’m not talking about creating a course on “Digital Citizenship.” What I’m talking about is instead, using these tools in every course and allowing our students to become digital citizens. I really worked last year to connect my students to others, having them write “research blog posts,” and trying to find people to review them using my Personal Learning Network (PLN), I also brought in Greg Myre (@GregMyre1) via (failed video call) phone with my students as a resource for a PBL unit on current tensions in the Middle East. That was a start. One thing that I took from Couros and Richardson was that I can and should be taking this way further. I’ve started thinking about how I’m going to encourage regular use of social media, blogging, vlogging, writing, etc. in my classes for next year. This makes learning more relevant, more personal, and provides students with a voice. What better way to get students involved in using technology and learning how to take control of their own learning? If we are using technology, but still using methods from the 1950’s, how is that relevant to our students and to their future? The Educators (Teachers and Administration):So, I’m going to throw this out there. I recently did not get an instructional leadership position in my district that I would have loved to have and felt that I would have been a great fit for. I really do enjoy being a leader from within the classroom though, so why did I want this job? Because I wanted share the perspective with others how making a shift in mindset and learning and how incorporating technology with sound pedagogy can make our classrooms so much more successful and enjoyable for everybody involved. Now, was I the right personality for the job (this is where it gets tricky when you’re really evaluating whether you are actually the right fit)? I probably would have ruffled some feathers, which may be a reason that I didn't get it. I expect for all educators to take pride in being lifelong learners--that includes being open, willing, and adaptable in order to do what is best for our learners. Looking around at our district, and mine is probably the same as yours, we have many that do not have the mindset to meet the expectations that I have for them, both as teacher and parent, in becoming adaptable educators that are open and willing to change along with the pace of the rest of the world. In essence, I’m calling out all of my colleagues at every level of education, to focus on and embrace lifelong learning. From my experience, education is one of the few sectors where it is "OK" to be a part of the status quo and it is sometimes even frowned upon to make changes even when it is evidently necessary. Does the old way work? Maybe. Does the new way work? Maybe. What’s the difference in the outcome here? “Maybe.” There is no difference. So, why not try it? There is no right or wrong way to learn or teach, but we need to be working on our craft continuously. So now another “real question.” Why don't teachers embrace lifelong learning, and why won’t they make changes? FEAR. This is where I’m really going to go on my soapbox, so beware if you are going to continue reading. The atmosphere in education currently does not foster growth, innovation, change, adaptability, or choice. There is significant risk involved if you are going to try any of the items on that list. Why? Because teachers are the ones that get blamed. Blamed for accountability scores from high stakes tests. Blamed for a failing school system. Blamed for the United States standing in the global community on those high stakes tests. Teachers lose and get jobs based on their ability to get their students to perform on whatever measurable test that policy makers throw at them. I have been asked these questions during presentations on the implementation of Project Based Learning in my classroom. Each of them really drive my point home here, I think, and really show the ineptitude that our current system fosters:
I typically don’t receive questions other than that. Those who are really curious and are open to making changes are there to see how it looks, how it’s been implemented, to get ideas, and usually thank me on their way out the door. I understand these questions and why they’re being asked. Our jobs are at stake if something doesn’t work. I’m all for accountability, and it’s a topic for another day, but how we assess students, teachers, schools, and districts needs to be THE topic of discussion for our policy makers, which I will elaborate on later. The Parents:When I think about getting my students connected, I immediately wonder what the backlash could be. There is risk involved and a possible (though small if done correctly) negative outcome. The world isn’t all rainbows and sunshine and there is risk in getting our students connected. When I have discussed the 1:1 Initiative with parents in our district, there are a few (though not the majority) who look at the machine that the students have been provided as a negative thing because it has now exposed things to their child that they might not have been exposed to without it. Is it worth the risk? Even speaking with my college friends about what I do, and how school has changed, they are in awe typically. They realize that education is not the same as it was when we were there (I graduated high school in 2002). They realize that school is and should not be done the same way that it was then. That was before Facebook, text messaging, etc. When I explain it to them that way, it seems to click. Also, we are open to how much technology has changed our lives because we have lived it in our generation. We were raised without cell phones and with the original Apple Desktop Computers in our school wide computer lab playing Oregon Trail and have seen it transform to having more technological capability in our pockets than the vehicle that transported us to the moon. As a whole, I think that parents understand the purpose for implementing technology and progressive methods in the classroom, but may not fully embrace it. One of the issues is that there is risk involved in the lives of our children. My son is entering preschool next year. Do I want him to be in a classroom where the teachers are taking chances and messing with things? Of course I do! If I walk into a classroom where he is expected to sit in one place and complete worksheets all day, I will be ticked! I hope that parents become more in tune with this over time as well. There are many parents though that believe that if teachers are doing that, they are using their kid as a “Guinea Pig,” and don’t want their child to be a part of a failed experiment. I understand that sentiment for sure. I feel the same way. My perspective though is that if an experiment fails and my kid sees it, he should learn from it. As long as we are all learning in the process, there is no risk. There may be reteachable moments along the way, but across the board, what is the risk of having our children in classrooms that aren’t making the changes to keep up with the pace of the rest of the “real world?” It's up to the parents first, to understand the reasons that education is changing, then to demand that our children/learners, educators, and policy makers also do the same. The Policy Makers:Yes, I’m going to broach the topic of politics here. Risky move, I know. That being said, they are often neglected when it comes to a list of stakeholders. That being said, they are the stakeholders with the most power to allow our education system to make significant progress. I propose that together, we have open dialogue with our policy makers to share our qualms with the way that the system is set up, especially in the way that it is assessed. In the same way that educators should be adapting to the times, so should our entire system. No complete change can take place until those at the top realize that the answer is not more high-stakes testing to measure school performance or by labeling schools as failing, then taking away funding. Shouldn’t education work be more like the private sector? Who gets the dollars from consumers? It’s a simple economic concept. In order to continue to sell a product, businesses have to adapt. They have to improve their product, offer more choice, and innovate new ways of doing the same thing in order to earn consumer dollars and stay relevant. Why not promote that way of thinking in our education system? Promote innovation, adaptability, learning and support for educators and assess schools and educators based on the skills that are needed most in society for our students to be successful in the long term. I don’t necessarily have a plan or direction, but I’ll think about it, regarding how this assessment model would look, but doesn’t it make sense if we are going to adapt education to the times in the long-term? Finally, I’m calling for our politicians to be lifelong learners as well. I know that education isn’t the only topic that they have to deal with, but I would think and hope that it’s a top five issue for them to think about and address with their constituents. Wouldn’t it be nice if they dealt with classroom educators, immersed themselves in professional development conferences with them and actually interacted with those that are in the classroom on a daily basis? Ask the questions about what teachers really need in order to help our students succeed, and involve ALL stakeholders in the process, not just a select few on state school boards and in state education departments, who are politicians themselves (whether they believe it or not) that have not been in the classroom for decades or ever in most cases. Only then will real changes take place in our education system. The Challenge:I want to leave you with this to consider: Whether you are one or a combination of these stakeholders, how are you going to make sure that you are making the best use of the resources provided to us? It’s going to take a real change in mindset from all involved in order to make real progress in education. How do we open this dialogue in a realistic way and do what is best for our students and communities in the long-term?
Legacy: “Something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past” (Merriam-Webster) My grandfather--Papa as he’s known within our family and even to our family friends--passed away recently and I’ve been looking for a way to process my feelings. I know that this post will not be the most “educational,” but I promise that it will tie in at the end… I also know that we have all been through this same scenario in our lives--I’m not expecting and don’t want sympathy, instead I want to celebrate. I want to focus on the word LEGACY, probably the number one thing that my wife and I have discussed and thought about over the past three years as Papa battled ALS (Lou Gehrig’s). I want to celebrate his legacy.
I have spent a lot of time the last couple of months thinking about all of the great times and memories that we had with Papa and as a family: watching (and usually complaining about) the Broncos with passion, playing cards (and catching him cheating), constantly rhyming about nonsense that somehow made sense, heckling Grandma on a regular basis, telling jokes (both good and bad), letting me mow the pasture into a ball field for my cousin and I to have home run derbies (then realizing it looked terrible, and letting me mow the rest of it--then paying me), and showing me how to take care of an ant problem. Then there’s camping and fishing, which we did as an extended family on a regular basis--there are so many memories of those days sitting around the campfire, being kids, and being together as a family.
Papa left his mark on so many lives… As my Grandma said the night after he passed when I got to talk to her, “he was a good man,” and “he was so proud of all of you (his grandchildren),” I think that explains it all. “He was a good man,” and that is his legacy--that is the legacy that still lives after his passing and will continue be passed down to all of those that were impacted by him. His values and what he thought were always evident. He worked hard and was always willing to give a hand in any way that he could. Along the way, he always left a mark, always improving anything that he could put his hands on--both material and immaterial. Those values were passed down to my Dad, Mom, aunt and uncles, and then to me, my brother, and my cousins, and now, his great grandchildren. He instilled the value of family. He was the leader of his family. He lived for and valued his family. He was proud of his family. That is his legacy. All of this has made me think about the mark that I’m leaving and I hope that this post leads you to think about the same. What will your legacy be? I hope that mine follows the same lines as what Papa left to me, his family, and his friends. I hope that when I get to look back at my life and my legacy, that I will be able to celebrate the fact that I held the same values in high accord that he did: hard work, service, consistent improvement, family. I am in a unique situation to have a drastic impact. As an educator I am allowed to model and teach these values. I get to be a mentor to students and teach them through my actions how to work hard, serve, value others and their contributions, and to better themselves and those around them. My philosophy on education, as discussed in previous posts, encompasses all of these values and is passed on to the group of individuals getting ready to jump into the “real world” within the next couple of years. I hope that when they look back on their years in school, that they will think back to their time in my classroom and the values that they learned there. It’s easy to get sidetracked with content and curriculum and the daily grind, but it’s important to understand the impact that we have on a daily basis in regard to developing our students as people in the long-term. In the grand scheme, our jobs are not about curriculum goals, but about passing on the values that will allow them to be successful (whatever the individual definition of success is) in the end. As educators, our career choice is unique from many others in the fact that we have the opportunity to leave our legacy not only on our family members and co-workers, but on the hundreds of students that will pass through our classrooms, then to their thousands of family members and co-workers. The breadth of our legacy is something to keep in mind when we struggle through a day. The impact that we can have as educators provides us with the means to influence thousands. So, I will leave you with this to consider: What will your legacy be? I just returned from the Missouri Council for the Social Studies (MCSS) annual conference yesterday and I would like to reflect on the experience and my top five takeaways from my weekend in Columbia. I had a great time reconnecting with my Mount Vernon friends (it’s amazing how these friendships have grown in such a short time) and making new connections that all created a positive weekend and professional development experience. Here are my top five takeaways (in chronological order) from the conference: #1: Teachers are Looking for Examples of Project Based Learning
#2: George Washington Is Still the Man!I have already written on the lesson that I planned and executed based on my inspiration from my professional development trip to Mount Vernon (http://bit.ly/AntonGW). Our (Sarah Courtney's, Kris Larson's, Alexis Small's, and my) session began with that activity and included three others that could be used as a way of integrating Washington, but also could be used for so many other historical figures. I think that our attendees left with four great lessons and ideas that they can take and use in their classrooms in some variation.
One person made the same note about the abundance of Washington sessions, but pointed out that every one of them were passionate and different, showing the diverse amount of information and excitement for G.W. gained from the experience in Mount Vernon’s education programs. #3: How to Use Nazi Propaganda in the ClassroomMoving into the afternoon, I attended Rhonda Ireland’s presentation on “Examining Nazi Propaganda.” Rhonda has an evident passion for studying the Holocaust and she is well-versed on the topic. Her session was centered around her experiences with the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (MCHEKC.org). I walked away with a packet full of primary sources that I can use in the classroom. A few of the most interesting documents pertained to Nazi education on the issue of racial education that were very striking and could be used as an introductory activity to use in the discussion of the Holocaust or Nazi ideology. I think these documents would pair well with the Disney film, “Education for Death: The Making of a Nazi.” There is a ton of potential to show that American propaganda was factual in many cases. To me, the most striking part of these documents was how transparent and open the Nazis were in spreading their ideology of hate--something that always astounds me when researching the topic. #4: How to Better Incorporate Photographs as StorytellersFrom my perspective as a high school teacher, I am always skeptical when I walk into a session with an elementary teacher for the reason that there are often methods discussed that are more appropriate for that level than mine. This session was not that way. I walked out with a lesson that I can and will use in my classroom that used photographs and primary source analysis skills to create a timeline. Kathy Wilson and Craig Carson did an excellent job presenting a lesson pertaining to the history of the postal service that could be easily adapted to any historical event or topic. I especially appreciate how it could be used for a local history course where you could have students or maybe a local historical society provide photos to tell the story of the area.
#5: Activity Ideas to Promote Sustained InquiryMy interest in PBL and intertwining inquiry based strategies brought me to this workshop. Paula Keltner provided us with many resources and ideas for use in our classrooms that included primary sources, infographics, op-ed pieces, interaction, and collaboration. One of my key points when incorporating PBL is that there is still structure even though the students are driving their own learning. This session provided activities that I will be able to use in my course as a way to drive and promote sustained inquiry in my classroom. My favorite activity dealt with photographs as inquiry hooks. There were a series of photos on the wall that introduced the idea for the unit that dealt with defining the “American Dream” and whether it is possible to achieve it. We circulated the room and wrote our thoughts on sticky notes based on each photo that helped us to wrap our minds around the differences that perspective has on our views of the American Dream and what it means to have accomplished it or if it's possible. My second favorite, because it is a skill that I have focused on more recently dealt with helping students annotate and see the value in annotation by having the teacher read aloud their thoughts with students as they analyze a text. Personal Bonus: Appointment to MCSS Board of DirectorsI was fortunate to make many new connections over the weekend and was appointed the Vice President of Legislation for the Missouri Council for the Social Studies. This position is perfect! It combines my passion for social studies education with my interest in state and local politics and government. I'm excited to get started and hope that I can provide value to the organization and promote the protection and value of social studies in education.
Will Hamilton: An American Musical change the emphasis of Alexander Hamilton’s role in the development of the United States? Heck yeah it will, has, and should. I haven’t seen the production personally (and probably will never get to), but the soundtrack is on repeat in my classroom (excluding the explicit songs of course), and is playing via Spotify as I write this (the inspiration for this post is the fact that I feel I need to explain every song and scene to my wife along the way). Every colleague that I have teaching history is talking about it on social media and playing it in their classrooms. Why?
Second, it’s crazy cool yo.
In the multiple “Cabinet Battles,” it brings the debate to life that Hamilton and Jefferson actually had in terms of their political views of the newly founded republic and as members of Washington’s cabinet as they battled for his ear and the ears of the public. Third, it’s crazy cool, yo. When I tell my students that the music I’m putting on (during research and work time) is about Alexander Hamilton and is a Broadway musical, their initial reactions are typically, “psh, this is gonna be terrible.” I’ve found that my students end up bobbing their heads to the beat and singing along with the chorus in the end. I think it’s awesome that they can’t help it. Though they may not be listening to the lyrics specifically, maybe the educational value is getting into their minds through osmosis? In general, they didn’t know that history could be presented in such a “cool” way. Maybe as history teachers we should be working to make history as lively as Lin-Manuel Miranda has when we tell these same stories in our classrooms? So, how do I use Hamilton in my classroom, yo? From my personal “historian’s perspective” that supports Washington’s role and viewpoint regarding strong federal power in the development and security of the early republic, I think that we should focus more on Hamilton in our classrooms as Washington’s true confidant, especially as his distrust of Jefferson developed over time. Using this soundtrack and the debate between Washington/Hamilton and Jefferson may be one way of really bringing out the real personalities of our Founding Fathers, bringing them down from the throne of “demagoguery” and making them real and relatable in our students’ eyes. The debates between Hamilton and Jefferson are the same ones that developed into the political thought and debates about federalism that we have today and are seeing become more popularized at this point in the election cycle. I encourage you to listen to, and think about incorporating it into your classrooms. The musical does an excellent job of providing both perspectives, allowing us as teachers to present both sides of the issue equally and allowing our students to discern the opinions they believe in on their own. In September, I was fortunate enough to be chosen for and attend “A Residential Weekend at Mount Vernon” for teachers from Missouri and Kentucky. I have participated in many professional development opportunities in the past and this one is at the top of the list. It was only four days, but was well organized, the group of teachers in attendance were top notch and passionate, and the scholars were professional historians AND passionate educators--a unique and integral combination for a program like this. The education team at the Washington Library does a terrific job providing a program that balances content with pedagogy--something that is often neglected at professional development opportunities which usually focus on one or the other. This post will focus on the same and is the basis for a presentation that I will co-present at the Missouri Council for the Social Studies Conference in February. I have also had a student-teacher this semester, but have stayed as busy as ever restructuring my government course using Project/Problem Based pedagogy throughout and working to become a stronger leader in and out of my district through this blog and the creation of this website. Along the way, I was able to go to the eighth grade because of a welcoming colleague to present a lesson on what I learned at Mount Vernon. As a teacher that has only junior and senior level courses this is a little intimidating, but I was excited to get out of my classroom and present the content that I gained from my time my experience. One of the key ideas that I took away from Mount Vernon was that there was more to George Washington than the typical person thinks about. To prove the point, ask yourself the question: “Who was George Washington?” Your answer? First United States president… General… The guy on the dollar bill… Maybe even the president of the Constitutional Convention… Before my experience at Mount Vernon, this was pretty much all that I ever thought of Washington, and I am actually quite ashamed as a historian that I would be so shallow. I asked the eighth graders this same question with predictable results. Here are some of the “faces” of Washington that the average person misses: landowner (THOUSANDS of acres), slave owner (a complex topic), westward expansionist (investor in a company to build a canal connecting the Potomac to the Mississippi), land speculator, technology aficionado (I’m convinced that he would have owned the latest iPhone for the sake of organization and efficiency), mill owner, distillery owner, progressive farmer, and one who valued education. Our eighth grade teacher does a great job teaching students to work through primary sources lending perfectly to what I wanted to do. I researched and found documents that displayed all of the different facets that I wanted to expose those students to and narrowed them down to key excerpts for them to digest. I annotated them with questions with the intent of teaching students the value of jotting notes while reading in order to analyze and understand text (See below or the "Identity of George Washington" tab). I was impressed with the ability of these students to take transcripts of letters from Washington as well as his Last Will and Testament and summarize the information. From that point, students completed a “George Washington was….” statement and had to cite their evidence from the readings as justification. In the end, they were given a coloring page portrait of Washington, and asked to fill in the background in a way that depicted his identity based on their assigned document. Obviously, the students seemed to get into this part and eventually, they presented their information to their classmates as the basis for other discussions about Washington and what the documents could tell us about the United States during his time. Student Examples: "Based on the primary source, George Washington was a/an....."The most impressive part from my perspective was how students were able to have discussions about some interesting topics. Slavery is a key topic that is also difficult to teach and for students to understand. The students that had the “slaveowner” document wrestled with the idea that Washington freed his slaves in his will, but not during his life. Others also saw that he was concerned for their health and education and most understood that his reasons were for the efficiency of Mount Vernon. They concluded that he was “a good slave owner,” “a hypocrite slaveowner,” and “a nice slave owner.” All of these conclusions led to interesting dialogue and class discussion based on the idea that "good" and "slave owner" don't typically fit together. Finally, I think that students really understood Washington’s identity as savvy business person and entrepreneur, a point that I really wanted to get across. When you discuss that he had a mill and distillery so that he could sell finished products along with diverse investments in raw materials and crops as well as progressive farming techniques it really opens students’ eyes to who he was as a private person. In the end, I think the students really grasped the idea that along with being the first president, war hero, and great leader, Washington was also very normal in the fact that he was a business person trying to make a profit and had other “regular” identities. This focus is important when looking at American History as a whole. Consensus historians often neglect many of these facets and and many of the Founding Fathers lose their human qualities. A lesson like this really helps students to understand that the founders of the United States were not gods, but real people with real issues, struggles, successes, and failures and allows them to connect and realize this fact. I think that’s key to getting students to understand and appreciate history as a story of individual experiences that culminate into the big picture. Personifying a figure with the historical stature like George Washington adds to their understanding of history and hopefully adds to student engagement and interest in the field. Hopefully this post will help you implement a little bit of "G.W." into your courses as a man of his time and a complex figure in the history of the United States. Lesson Documents:
For the past two years, I have opened my room every morning at school at 7:30 with the purpose of creating a place for my students to work and have open access to me as a resource and offer an opportunity to get clarification or to discuss topics in class or outside of class. Friday morning, I did the same, and gave it the title, “Coffee Hour with Mr. Anton” with the intent of it becoming a question and answer session about the test that they had later on in the day… Here’s the issue: NONE of them attended. I had a brief discussion with one student in the hall about the material, but that was the only student that showed up to take advantage of the opportunity to make any sort of effort to improve their chances of success.
So, I asked myself: “What could I have done differently to get students to attend?”
As a result, these are the questions that I have for my peers, and for my students:
I think that we can all agree that student motivation is a major issue in education today, and I would argue that this generation of students will not meet their potential unless something changes. Obviously, the way that we do things is not working in regard to teaching the value of effort. I would also argue, because of discussion with work supervisors and articles that I have read, that these students do not have the skills as employees when they enter the work environment or higher education. The college educators that I communicate with also feel that students generally are not as prepared as they used to be with the skills to be successful. For the sake of our students’ future success, how do we change this? Here are my thoughts: #1: Teaching students the value of learning and education: Somewhere along the line, the opportunity of being provided with a public education has lost its value. The primary purpose of the education system is for students to learn content and be prepared with the skills necessary to be successful when they enter the work environment and be conscientious citizens at the local, national, and global levels. The fact that most students only do the work to achieve a certain grade is the main issue here. In general, students lack the intrinsic motivation for taking advantage of the opportunity to meet their potential because they will work to achieve whatever is “good enough.” So much can be said of the ideas of “grit” and “growth mindset.” Teaching students the value of exceeding expectations should be one of our focuses. I think that we need to focus as educators on the process of creating, and not so much on the end product. The fact that we are beginning to look at the value of grades is a start. I still have mixed feelings about this topic, but I definitely agree with the fact that we need to restructure the way that grading is done. We should focus on personalized and individual growth, but measurement and comparison of students is not necessarily a negative thing in my opinion. After their education careers are over, students will be measured and compared with their peers and be in direct competition with them in the workplace for jobs, promotions, and pay raises. Our focus on grades needs to change though whether it is by determining what they actually measure, or by getting rid of them and going to a standards-based, proficiency approach. The purpose and value of school needs to be a primary focus from the beginning of our students’ educational experience in order to get them to buy in throughout. #2: Teaching students to “never settle:” We need to focus on teaching students the, “get a little better every day” mantra. How do we do this? I think that we are taking a step in the right direction by creating student-centered classrooms with real-world implications and applications. We need to focus on teaching students to reflect on their learning in order to achieve intrinsic motivation, not on the extrinsic motivation of receiving whatever grade is the minimum in their eyes, their parents’ eyes, or the school system’s eyes. This is where it all gets muddled. What is the best way to achieve this in our classrooms and in the education system as a whole? As teachers, we all have students that are on the brink of failing multiple courses and have struggled throughout the entirety of the their education as well as those students that have excelled in all circumstances. By focusing on teaching the growth mindset in our classrooms through modeling, application to our lessons, and discussion, we can do all of our students a service that they will hopefully be able to apply to their futures, whether they are the at-risk student, the “average” one, or the the gifted one. Teaching students to strive to get better may not be the answer to all of our motivational issues, but I think it could have the largest impact in the long-term for their success and the improvement of our education system as a whole. #3: Teaching students “what it takes:” Finally, we all have those students that have plans for their future that don’t mesh with what they are achieving currently in school. For example, the “C” student that plans on going to med school, the “barely passing” student who plans to go on to a four-year college, or the “I get A’s without studying but plan on being really successful at the next level” student. In many cases, we are doing a disservice to our students by allowing them to believe that they can achieve their goals by doing the status quo. To be clear, I am not saying to limit goal setting. I am a "hard to achieve" goal setter in most circumstances. The issue that I have is that we typically encourage setting goals, but forget to discuss the most important part: what it takes to achieve them. When I left for college, I had the same experience. I failed because I had set a goal, but was not prepared (on my own account) for accomplishing that goal. I had breezed through high school and had settled with meeting expectations, but not wanting to get better. I did not learn what it takes to get to where I wanted to be. That is a key disconnect, and if we can make those connections with our students, I think that we can see them make strides in regard to motivation. In conclusion, implementing these ideas and combating student apathy are easier said than done, but we have to address this somehow and we have to start somewhere. We are raising a generation of students that are struggling when they enter the real world because they have not learned or been taught the value in the process of learning, hard work and sacrifice. The key is to teach that the status quo is not enough, and effort can make up for many of the issues that they are facing after leaving school. Before reading, note that this post contains thoughts that are both rational and emotional...
As I write this, I’m watching news coverage on the most recent terror attacks on Paris… I would like to be candid in my views, but will be reserved because I know that as a public educator, I cannot portray my personal opinions and thoughts on government policy in a public forum. For that reason I will write tonight from the perspective of all of those educators who are charged with answering the questions regarding these events on Monday morning. Events like this, where innocent lives are lost, are the ones that are most intriguing to our students and offer the greatest opportunity to learn and discuss the topics of terrorism, national security, and foreign relations. Unfortunately, acts of terrorism have become all too common and are an issue that we will have to deal with regularly both as citizens of a global community and as educators who have the responsibility of providing perspective to our students when events like this take place. I argue that we should have meaningful discussion in response to the events that have taken place tonight. Although I cannot comment on my feelings regarding how we should deal with terrorism and terrorist organizations, it’s our responsibility as educators to be knowledgeable about the situations and events that are taking place worldwide that will affect this generation of students. Our responsibility as educators is to be able to provide information that promotes the ideals of the United States while respecting individual thoughts and beliefs. It is unbelievably difficult to keep the pendulum from swinging one way or another. As educators, how do we promote rational thought in these emotionally charged situations? My answer to this question: We don’t… Instead, we should offer answers that are both rationally and emotionally charged… If we truly believe that our way of life is the best way, then moments like this need to be portrayed, not as just something that is taking place overseas, but as something that is a direct threat to all of us as Americans and our values. I argue that times like this are the times that we should be emotionally charged in our classrooms to discuss American ideals… These are the times that we should be asking the “tough” questions to our students. What does it mean to be American? What role should the United States have in foreign relations? What is the United States’ role regarding terrorism overseas? Questions like these are the ones that have an impact on the future, and are the ones that will be most relevant to our students when they leave school. I am not advocating that we promote a feeling or belief one way or another, but it is up to us to inform this generation of students of the world that they are entering and provide a forum for this discussion. This world is not a world of peace, and as Americans, we need to be vigilant. One of our key roles as educators is to promote and teach our students this vigilance. Instead of teaching students to question the system that we have in the United States, I argue that we need to be focusing on and teaching them that the ideals of the United States are superior to terrorist organizations and the governments that support them. When watching any news channel or evening news show (from Fox News, to CNN, to MSNBC), one topic that is consistently discussed deals with the issue of these organizations recruiting United States citizens. I feel that we need to be honest as educators and be promoters of our system as a whole. We should be calling for and teaching our students responsible and informed citizenship. There is no better time to promote our ideals than in times like these. There should be no room for terror, but only the discussion in our classrooms of the use of those tactics as a threat to our ideals. There should be candid, honest discussion and dialogue with our students regarding events like the ones that happened this evening in Paris. This is the best way to defeat terrorism in the long run. We should not avoid these discussions, but should embrace and encourage them. As a history and government teacher, I understand the concept of sociological imagination and teach the value of perspective when studying history, government, and society. In my contemporary issues course, we focus on and debate the balance of civil liberties with the prevention of terrorism in the Post-9/11 Era. Students study multiple perspectives and are asked the difficult questions: Should racial profiling be used to narrow the field of terrorist suspects? Should torture be used to gain information regarding potential acts of terror? Should preventative detention be used as a method of preventing terror attacks? Should the government be allowed to take personal communication data in the name of national security? Although, this course is an elective, I would argue that it is the most relevant one that students are offered in our district because these debates are the same ones that are taking place between our political parties and are directing the policies of our government. The questions being debated here are the ones that are going to dictate future government policy. It is integral for our students to understand all perspectives of these debates and to have reasonable rationale for their perspectives on these topics. In cases like the ones that we face tonight, there are only two perspectives: one that is correct and one that is incorrect. Taking innocent lives is incorrect, no matter the perspective. As educators, our job is to promote only the correct. I encourage you to have meaningful dialogue with your students regarding these events when we arrive at school on Monday. Meaningful discussion is the basis for democratic society and is the purpose and original intent of the right to free speech. Encourage that discussion in order to prevent others from justifying acts like those that happened tonight in Paris, France. After planning for weeks regarding scope and sequence for my government course with the focus on the Project Based Learning (PBL) model, it was time to execute my plan of action. I had the basic course plan in place, but still had to iron out the details for the first unit, “The Principles and Origins of American Government.” I had outlined the essential question and determined that I would put together a panel of local community leaders to provide an authentic audience to evaluate their findings, so the basic layout for the project was there. Now it was time to plan for the most challenging part for me: letting the students go and allowing them to take control of their own learning. I think this the most significant challenge for most teachers who take on the task of creating a student-centered classroom. I would argue that my classes were more student-centered than most in my district coming into this year. I used the flipped classroom model over the previous two years and feel that I was successful implementing that it, but wanted to take a stab at something different to see what it could do for the learning environment in my classroom.
By being open with them from day one that I was trying something new and by outlining the fact that I had high and clear expectations for their work, my students stepped up and learned what was expected plus, in many cases, more content than I would have provided them with in a teacher-centered, traditional classroom. The most significant factor that got students to buy in was providing them with choice in how they showed what they learned through research and a voice for presenting that material to an authentic audience. Pressure was added (for myself and my students) as I began getting RSVP’s from those who were going to participate on the interview panel. The students got nervous, but I think that forced them to step up. The fact that they were being provided with the opportunity to earn their grades from an outside source didn’t give them the option of turning in subpar work to only their teacher. My expectations in turn became my students’ expectations. For my students to be successful, I had to focus on teaching them the process for self-guided learning. On the first day of the unit, students chose their groups for the project and were provided with the essential question. They participated in an exercise (in the Know-Want to Know-Learned or “KWL” format) where they were expected to list what they knew in regard to that question and what they needed to know in order to answer it completely. All questions were put into their group notepad (which they were provided with by myself) and after a designated amount of time, each group presented their questions to the class where they were ALL written down, word for word, for the class to work off of. They were displayed throughout the project on the board for students to reference if they ran into a roadblock in their research while providing them with a voice in the process. I built and created a set of research questions for students to focus on from their list to guide them through their research. The next challenge was providing students with the guidelines and teaching them how to accomplish research and learning over a longer period of time than they are typically accustomed to. In order to answer each research question, students had to relearn the process of using Internet search tools properly while finding resources that helped them to understand the content. Instead of being provided with resources, students could use whatever worked best for them. Over time, I instituted the rule that students could not ask me “Googleable” questions. Instead, they had to provide me with an answer to their question for me to guide them to another one. This created an atmosphere of “sustained inquiry,” one of the key elements in the PBL model (Buck Institute for Education). Students never completely answered their research questions, because each answer they found led to another question that they could use to better understand the content that they were expected to present in their end-product. Collaborative Inquiry--What Do We Need to Know?" Activity Next, students were provided with structure throughout the process with a set of tasks that they had to complete over a designated period of time. Students struggle, as most of us do, with time management and procrastination. The key to teaching students to use the time provided is to provide them with regular deadlines. Throughout each day, I provided time for students to accomplish a task in a given amount of time before having another task added on. Note that I did not grade students based on whether they achieved that task, but added another one at that point. This was done with the purpose of allowing students to pursue content that they may have spent more time researching because they took an interest in it, or found multiple resources that they needed to search through. Because the groups were assigned with each task, members could delegate the work however they pleased, again providing them with freedom in choosing how to accomplish the tasks at the end. The general purpose of the tasks are to provide students with structure that allows them to see how the research process is done. It provides a framework, but not the exact process for accomplishing each task--that was left to the students and their groups to determine on their own, providing another opportunity to incorporate student choice into the process.
Throughout the research phase of the project, I also wanted to be sure to establish and support the fact that the end-goal was for students to learn the material, not simply to create a project for a grade. One of our key battles as teachers is getting students to understand that the purpose of education is to learn the content and skills, not to only attain a certain grade. In general, grades should measure the content and skills that students have learned, not simply whether they can jump through the hoops. In order for students to understand the value of learning and research, I kept the details of the final product and assignment away from them. They knew that they were doing the research in order to create something, but they did not know the direction that they would be expected go with it until they were adequately prepared with the content to be successful. The only grades put in the gradebook at this stage were for simple record keeping tasks and for self-reflection assignments (again, using KWL format). The focus on the process of research and the motivation to learn from that process allowed the projects to meet and exceed the expectations outlined to students in the end. Looking back on my first experience putting Project Based Learning into action, I found a number of challenges listed over the last two blog posts both during the planning and execution phases. Reflecting on the first project, there are very few things that I will do differently next semester, because I feel that my students were successful in learning the material at a higher level than they have in the past. Through this process, students have proven that they can answer the essential questions in essay format and prove depth of knowledge better than they would have been able to in previous semesters. Until this point, I was not confident enough in my students’ learning ability to evaluate them on an essay test, because I don’t think they learned enough through the process to be successful. Project Based Learning has changed this perspective, and my students have performed at a high level on essay tests in general. All in all, my first experience with Project Based Learning has been a positive one where I have encountered major challenges, but my students have risen to the occasion, in most cases exceeding expectations on their evaluations from outside evaluators as well as through traditional objective and subjective assessments. The data that I have gathered has proven that it is successful and I would encourage other teachers to look at PBL as a method to incorporate into our classrooms. It’s not the only way to do it, but is an option in terms of providing a student-centered, individualized learning environment. Be sure to take a look at the data and project examples that I have collected over the coming weeks in future posts and on the “Project Based Learning” page on this website. As always, please comment or question anything here. Any feedback or questions are appreciated. I would enjoy hearing other experiences from teachers who have incorporated Project Based Learning or another student-centered method for their classrooms. What has worked best for you and what challenges have you encountered? The origins of Project Based Learning (PBL) in my classroom is credited to my spouse, an 8th grade science teacher. She was the first to bring the ideas into our home when she shared all of the challenges, successes, and excitement that she had with it. PBL lends itself to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields extremely well, but is more difficult to incorporate into the social studies, especially American History and Government because most of the content and curriculum deals with events that have happened in the past. The curriculum deals with how the United States system of government works, which students need to understand before diving in and solving the problems that we face through the system (though I would love to teach a “Government II” course, where this could be incorporated to build on content knowledge gained in my course). That was the most significant challenge when making the commitment to implementing PBL in my government course: “How do I get all of the awesome stuff that PBL brings, while incorporating the curriculum and content successfully?” Challenges like this that present themselves while making changes in the classroom keep many teachers from pursuing them. There is a fear of failure. “What happens if it doesn’t work?,” “Will I be wasting my time?,” Or the all important (or not), “What will happen to my test scores?” I decided to take the risk and told myself, "JUST DO IT & LET IT GO."
Most of my study came from the Buck Institute for Education, and their model for project based learning. I immediately understood that the key elements that they included in that model made PBL what it is (“Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements:” http://bie.org/blog/gold_standard_pbl_essential_project_design_elements). That model provided a framework for me to follow, but not the details about how to do it. I also understood that it would take a large amount of time and effort to plan and prepare. The more I looked into it, the more I felt that the change would be worth it. Another major focus of my summer reading and learning pertained to the topics of “Growth Mindset,” “Grit,” and “Soft Skills.” As I continue to dive into the topics even closer, I think that this should be the focus for education in general. My school district’s mission statement falls directly in line with these ideas: “Equipping students for their next stage in life.” Implementing these ideas in the hidden curriculum will benefit our students directly in preparation for whatever they do after they leave school. That is the purpose for education after all. In making the change to PBL, I felt that my students would gain these types of skills while providing choice and voice, and a vested interest in their their schoolwork outside of grades. One of the ideas that I have grown more passionate about over the past couple of years is getting students to understand that education is about learning, not ONLY about grades (again, a story for another day). The results that I have had in my class to this point support the research. Though immeasurable, student engagement is at an all time high. A supermajority (there’s a government term for you) of my class is engaged in their assigned tasks and they also seem to really be enjoying their time in government class on a daily basis. Instead of going through the motions, completing assignments for the sake of grades, and simply being there because they have to be, I feel that the students in this course truly enjoy being a part of it. My experiences to this point have been mostly positive, leading me to become an advocate for incorporation of this pedagogy into more classrooms. My goal is to get more teachers to buy into the concept of this student-centered instruction but also want to make the challenges clear. It’s not easy, but it is worth it, if our primary goal is to create the best learning environment for our students. In the process of reflecting on the process of planning and implementing the first project based assignment of my career, the most significant issue that I encountered was the amount of time on the front end planning, and on the back end putting together assessment data. I think it is necessary to reiterate the previous statement: the “work” for the teacher is done before and after, but not during. I mean this in terms of time spent outside of class. Instead of focusing on working my tail off with direct instruction on a daily basis and coming up with separate lessons to hit each curriculum standard, the primary focus in class is providing guidance for students to achieve the best end-results through the inquiry, research, and creation process that covers multiple standards and allowing student to make connections. Instead of concentrating on direct instruction methods, class time is spent guiding students, on a more personal basis, to achieve their goals for their audience while they LEARN the content largely on their own. They know that they have to show understanding of the concepts in order to present the information to their audience successfully, therefore creating an interest in the process instead of focusing on the end result. The most significant challenge in terms of class time is getting students to understand that they have the ability when provided with the proper tools to be successful on their own account. My time during class is spent encouraging and asking the proper questions to prove this to them. This entire learning environment promotes personalized learning. Students aren’t provided with the blueprint for how to achieve the desired outcome, leaving them with the opportunity to learn in the best way for them. Offering students this choice creates a different experience for them. They understand that their success or failure is a direct result of the choices they make along the way--a learning experience for them that will benefit them in the future. If a student struggles because of their choice though, that is an opportunity for them to learn and be redirected toward becoming successful--that is the role of the teacher in the classroom and the focus of my instruction time with my students during this type of assignment. Instead of providing answers for students, my role in the classroom is to provide and guide them toward more questions with the intent of creating an understandable explanation of the big picture idea associated with the essential question that connects the concepts to each other. Perhaps the most important part of project planning is coming up with an essential question that provides a “big picture” end goal that lends itself to the process of creating a project while presenting research and comprehension of the curriculum and content embedded within the assignment. This provides the structure that students crave and the framework that they must follow. I spent hours brainstorming on pages of a notebook to come up with the questions that I have used. The first step in this process is analyzing standards and identifying those that connect multiple ones. When I sat down to create the outline for my government course this semester, I had to alter the sequence that I have used in the past to address my curriculum requirements and make them work well with each other.
As you can see, there was a dramatic shift in the combination and structure of topics that, in my opinion, make the best connections for students. Also, the units overlap so that students can make connections across all parts of the curriculum. The chosen sequence has a drastic impact on the questions. Units should be designed with the content that makes the best connections and lends to essential questions that promote critical thinking and learning. Instead of looking from the beginning to the end, essential questions should help students focus on the end of the story and finding the reasons for why the story ended the way that it did. It turns the process on its head from a “what happened?” question (DOK 1 or 2), to a “why did it happen?” one (DOK 3 or 4). This is the key to creating a successful project based lesson for students, especially when analyzing the past. The essential question should encompass higher level thinking skills and content knowledge, while offering a multitude of options regarding process which is what makes them so challenging to develop.
As we all know, motivation is key for getting students to invest in their education (and anybody for that matter to better themselves). The idea that they have an audience for their work, outside of their teacher(s), provides them with that motivation. The idea that somebody else is taking an interest in their work, leads to a better product that shows student learning at the end. Pride is a powerful intrinsic motivator. Offering students the choice to present their material in their own way along with an appropriate audience that they respect can be the key source that creates “buy in” for students. Finally, intrinsic motivation can and should be created through the use of collaborative learning and group work. It’s up to the teacher to determine the amount of freedom that students have regarding the structure of groups, but this is another opportunity to provide students with a choice in the direction that they will go throughout the creation of their projects. We have all worked in groups and been the one left with doing a majority of the work while others don’t hold up their end. The challenges of collaborating with others are the same in the work environment making this a valuable opportunity for students to learn how to interact and hold each other accountable. Grading group work is a major issue to consider when preparing to implement PBL. It is difficult to assign grades in group work that also provide individual accountability. Also, the grading structure should encourage the intrinsic motivation that students get from having choice and voice as outlined above. If the goal is to teach students that learning is the objective, not grades, the grading system must provide balance between providing an evaluation tool while not squashing intrinsic motivation. After spending hours thinking about and tinkering with how students would be assessed and graded in the end, I decided that they should be measured on how well they completed the assigned tasks throughout the project, how well they worked in their group, how well they presented their content in the end product, and how well prepared they were for their audience. Again, by offering students the opportunity to have a say in the process, they become invested in their groups. Grading should take individual contribution into account, and in my experience, providing peer evaluation of how well group members meet the expectations of their other group members meets this goal. Grades should also include a self-reflection piece and include information regarding how successfully students navigated the research and creation processes.
Clear expectations are integral, and having a neutral, outside audience allows for neutral outside evaluation that matters to students. Finally, the purpose for the unit test piece is to provide students with the responsibility of making sure that all members in their group take on an active role throughout the process. It is a motivating factor for students to both pull up those around them and work to keep from bringing their group down.
The entire purpose of this post is to help teachers and administrators understand that buying into this style of pedagogy has a positive impact on the classroom environment and, I think in the end, can influence the culture of entire schools, districts, and communities. When students take a stake in their learning, they are more likely to attend school and be engaged in it. The biggest issue is that teachers and administrators need to be ready and willing to take the risks and offer the support that come with making this major of a shift in the way that education is done. The availability of technology makes this readily available and is a valuable tool. Project Based Learning provides students with the skills that they need when they leave for the work environment and employers are looking for people with those types of skills. The ability to collaborate, think critically, and have intrinsic motivation have been lost in many cases in part (obviously, there are many other factors) because the education system has not evolved with the workplace. Creating a student-centered learning environment where students have freedom to learn these skills is integral to their success and the success of our communities as a whole, and PBL offers one method of doing so. The benefits--engagement, critical thinking, buy-in--outweigh the costs--time, effort, and risk. This is why I decided to let it go and jump into PBL. My next post will focus on the challenges and successes of executing the plans that I prepared early on. Be sure to come back to see what I have to add over the next couple of weeks! I would love to hear feedback and/or questions from anybody with experience or thinking about implementing Project Based Learning into their classroom. Please contact me or leave a comment below. In the process of contemplating beginning an education blog, I worried that I wouldn’t have anything to write about and make time for on a regular basis. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I have so many experiences to share because of the nine years that I have spent in the classroom. Currently, the terms “growth mindset” and “reflection” are buzzwords in education and concepts that I am excited to discuss. They’re not new, but if we understand what they mean and how to apply them to our personal and professional lives, they can be key motivators. With the correct mindset and the willingness to improve through reflection, we all have the opportunity to become better professionals and people. For these reasons, I think that it is appropriate for my first post to reflect on my career and how my mindset has evolved and the impact that my experiences have had on my view in my professional role as an educator. Life! Amazing to think about and reflect on. One of the major struggles that we have is balancing ALL of our roles in life. In an effort to balance those roles it is easy to be happy with rolling along, accepting the status quo. Sometimes, I think we are so busy balancing those rolls that we sometimes forget to work on improving our strategies, whether it is in our professional lives (in my case, as an educator), or personal ones as spouses, parents, friends, etc. My wife (also a teacher) and I have this discussion on a monthly basis. We’re torn between our three major roles: spouse, parent, and teacher. It would just be easier if the both of us were happy with what we have achieved professionally and focused on our personal lives. Or, we could be happy with our personal lives and focus on our professional ones. My point here, is that it is difficult to strike that balance. How do we grow in ALL aspects of our lives? The truth is, through trial and error, focusing on the ones that need the most attention first.
My college experience had a significant impact on my mindset, both professionally and personally. In reflecting on my successes and failures throughout my life, I have found that most of my failures can be attributed to the times when I fell into the idea of a “fixed mindset.” When I left for Kansas State with the dreams fostered from my adolescence of becoming an architect, I was not prepared for the freedom that life away from home offered me on my own account. I struggled and found myself on academic probation following my first semester and rejected from the second year landscape architecture program. I remained enrolled there for a total of two years, trying to figure out what my new life plan was going to be while mostly keeping my habits the same. Reflecting on this, probably the most significant and life changing failure of my life, I have come to realize that it was a result of my mindset. I thought I was good enough, without working hard to become better, to achieve my goals. I had rejected the values that my parents instilled in me most. I had lost what had gotten me to that point, enrolled in one of the best architecture programs in the country. My failure was a result of a fixed mindset. My mindset started to change when I was accepted into College of the Ozarks (C of O), a private college near my hometown located in Southwest Missouri that I didn’t want to attend initially. I still wasn’t sure of my direction in life, but knew that I enjoyed the history courses that I had taken throughout high school and in my first couple years of college. I also enjoyed baseball and the thought of coaching intrigued me. So what better career to choose than as a social studies teacher/coach? That was all that I knew. After my acceptance into C of O, my advisor called me one evening at around 8:00 P.M. while still in Manhattan, Kansas. We hashed out the courses and a general plan for the next semester with a history and secondary education major in mind. I moved back home that summer and started classes at a new college. Still with the same mindset. The difference and changing moment for me was the focus that was placed on education at C of O. The culture at the school is different than that of a public university. In exchange for tuition, students work part-time on campus and walk out debt-free (a story for another day). Class sizes are small, and the professors are hired as teachers, not researchers. They have a passion for teaching their students instead of focusing on outside ventures. Coming in contact with the professors in both the history and education departments was in essence life changing. It showed me how to build relationships professionally while knowing and treating students as people who need to be taught how to grow so that they can take that with them. That is the true life skill that we need to focus on in my opinion. Teaching students that their success is related to the focus, effort, and energy that they put into becoming better at whatever they do at every opportunity. Student apathy is a major issue and topic of concern in our entire education system today, just ask any teacher or professor. If we ingrain the idea that school is about growing every single day, this could change their mindsets. How do we do that? I don’t have the direct answer, but I think that it starts with us, as teachers, modeling it to our students. The entire purpose of this (what has already turned into longer than expected) post and blog in general. I want to show my peers, former students, and students how I change over time and the impact that has on those around us.
I was regarded as a successful teacher immediately and was recognized as an “Outstanding Beginning Teacher” from C of O and the state association of college educators. I thought I was doing a great job. In hindsight, I was doing a decent job, but my students weren’t learning as much in my classes as they probably could have. My teaching methods, were "so Twentieth Century." My students were there, but they weren’t engaged. Not for lack of effort on my part, but for lack of recognition that those old methods weren’t the best in regard to getting my students to learn. Also, I was in the mindset that when I get my first year done, I can keep my methods the same, continuing on with the same old pedagogy that my teachers had used along with their teachers, and those before them. I went stagnant. My first couple of years had to have been a drag to walk into my class for my students. I crammed content down their throats, but not into their minds, by forcing them to listen to me and all that I knew about history and government. In hindsight, I didn’t know that much either. If they struggled on tests, I blamed them for not studying. “Why didn’t they get it? It was in the PowerPoint!” None of it was my fault in my opinion at the time, but I questioned my strategies. About three years into my career, I was confident enough in my content knowledge to really start moving away from the whole PowerPoint lecture style that included supplemental primary source analysis and other small projects just to try to break things up. I switched to discussion based direct instruction time. In hindsight, it wasn’t much different. Because students didn’t understand the content, it turned into a glorified lecture. I think students enjoyed my class, but knew that they would be busy with activities that didn’t have any value to them personally. I struggled getting my students to make the connection between the assignments that they had and the content that I was trying to teach. I was trying to get them think more critically, but I was not giving them the tools to do it. I used primary source worksheets, incorporated as many reading strategies that I could, but students still were not making the connections. This disconnect between purpose and value of class activities created an environment where students were going through the motions, much like I was at this point in my career, focused on their grade and end result, but not learning the material. In essence, I was not achieving my personal goals: making social studies interesting and having students learn the content. I became disenchanted with the system, with education, and with my students. I went to work, but I had no interest in working to change my strategies. I felt like it was a lost cause. Why should I work to change if students weren’t willing to accept anything that I tried to do because they saw it as work and didn’t associate any value with what I was trying so hard to get them to understand? This was my struggle and a very trying time in regard to motivation and purpose. I had just earned my M.A. in history from Missouri State. I wanted out and was searching for opportunities to move to another career. I was too good at what I did to be stuck in the classroom with students who don’t care. I know that I’m not the only one that has thought this way at some point in my career as an educator (or any field for that matter). If I was going to remain in the field of education, I had to find purpose and motivation.
The implementation of 1:1 changed my philosophy as a teacher. I had heard of the Flipped Classroom Model, but had no way of incorporating it previously. I started by bringing the mobile lab to my dual-credit American History students every day that it wasn’t checked out by another class. I flipped the class and went 1:1 in that class essentially. My version of flipping is different and is a story for another post, but it allowed my students to begin understanding the value of the information that I was providing because I could make real-world connections to the material and content through my discussions. This class was my pilot for what was to come. I loved preparing the new material for them and they seemed to “get it.” These were some of the best students in school, but still, they were getting it. I think the biggest thing that it showed was that due to the fact that students saw me working hard to get better, they worked hard to accomplish our goals as a group. They understood my goal for them and it meshed with theirs. This was the turning point in my career. I understood that I had to work to make myself better and if I had that goal, it would rub off on my students. Because I bought into the 1:1 pedagogy and ideology so early, I was able to take on a new role in my building and district. I was one of the first to try to incorporate technology lessons on an almost daily basis (due to resources the year before complete rollout). My peers started asking me questions and I was able to tell them about my experiences both positive and negative in trying to incorporate this new learning environment. I had value outside of the walls of my classroom. Now I was able to help my peers if they asked or needed it. I realized that I had become over the scope of a year or two a leader in my district because I had worked to make a change and grow professionally. "I have renewed passion for my role as an educator and truly enjoy my job [...] I get happiness out of the learning process and motivation from the fact that I am at the front of great things in the new age of student-centered pedagogy [...] Being passionate about learning and growing every day has had an impact on myself and my classroom environment. I have renewed passion for my role as an educator and truly enjoy my job (with the natural more trying days). By working to change to make things better every day for myself, my students, and my peers I have found new motivation and purpose in regard to my professional life. I have focused recently more on reflection and improving myself and have turned a corner. I enjoy coming to work and currently spend more time working to create a successful learning environment than I ever have, and I’m happy to do it. I find that the harder I work to grow, my students see that. I get happiness out of the learning process and motivation from the fact that I am at the front of great things in the new age of student-centered pedagogy and the fact that I have experiences to pass on to others. Being passionate about learning and growing every day has had an impact on myself and my classroom environment.
This blog will document this process through reflection on both past successes and failures as well as current ones, with a particular focus on "new" methods such as the implementation of project based learning and the flipped classroom. I hope that anybody who reads this blog will be able to grow as a result of the experiences that I share. |
AuthorBrian Anton currently serves the Purdy R-II (Missouri) School District as the 7-12 Principal after working in the PK-12 Assistant Principal and Athletic Director roles for two years. In the 12 years prior to moving into administration, he served as an award-winning high school social studies teacher. Archives
September 2018
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