Lessons Learned

Differently than children is the obvious answer yet we often don’t remember this when creating professional learning opportunities for teachers. Picture a library or other large room with adults listening to a guest speaker hour after hour. This is a case where adults and children are similar. Direct instruction and passive so called professional development don’t get the job done. However, we continue to follow the model of setting aside a few days a year to rush through a topic of learning that supposedly will meet everyone’s needs. We preach differentiation but don’t apply it to our own peer learning opportunities.

Instead of discussing professional development, I will focus on the learning needs of adults leaving how we design learning communities as an ongoing processes as opposed to one shot PD days.

One of the nice aspects of my instructional technology graduate program was a seminar class where we studied the learning needs of adult learners. The following are some of the main points I remember from the class and from the past few years working with teachers individually and in small groups.

• The purpose of the learning must be relevant and useful.
• The adult learner brings a vast amount of life experience to the learning that in many cases will be applied to any new learning.
• If you really want to connect and lead to buy in, individualize the learning to one to one and small teaching team groups.
• Many teachers sitting at a bank of computers for a PD session quickly forget that there are other teachers in the room. This sometimes leads to their going in different directions which means that the session provider must be diligent in working individually and with the group at the same time. Really look to support technology learning in one to one situations for many adult learners.
• Work with the practices already taking place in the classrooms and build on them by facilitating discussion and sharing from the team.
• Immediate application and on going practice and support of the learning really works for adults.
• Adults need to guide and direct their own learning.
• Adults deserve differentiated instruction that meets their learning styles and learning speed just as all learners do.

My wife Margaret who lead our effort at the HKIS Upper Primary to support differentiation while building on student love for learning, added the following comment to our Shifting Our Schools (SOS) podcast blog. It contains lots of useful advice that definitely lead to passionate learning at the Upper Primary.

Margaret’s comment:

Thanks for the podcast on this important topic.

I’ve been thinking about what nurtures a passion for learning and I agree that creating a culture for exploration and expression is key in the lively elementary school years, as the podcasters expressed. Furthermore, being involved in curriculum writing is where the rubber hits the road and where tech use will become part of the program students engage in to show their learning. It helps to build technology use into the common assessments used at ends of units. It helps when the integrators volunteer to shoulder the load of co-writing the actual documents for instructing and assessing those projects (rubrics). That shifts schools.

I have a couple ideas that tap into children’s natural EXPRESSIVENESS and social nature to fuel passion:

-Building CHOICE into student assignments;
-providing instruction to nurture skills for expressing themselves in a variety of (high tech and –don’t forget–low tech) ways;
- connecting students with other students on their wave length and with their unique interests so they can go farther and deeper instead of just skimming the surface of someone else’s bag (Dungeons and Dragons anyone?);
-helping them to identify their learning style and the technologies that honor learning styles and that showcase their special talents;
- creating a culture that encourages asking questions and taking responsible risks;
- training children on asking relevant, meaningful, open-ended, higher level questions… and giving them the subject-specific vocabulary to analyze concepts in depth “like professionals”;
- connecting students to mentors;
- keeping expectations high (and safety nets strong and nurturing);
- letting students formulate their own questions for research or literature discussion (rather than find the answers to the teacher’s questions);
- helping kids and teachers tolerate “ambiguity” when a clear black and white answer may not exist (success is “an enjoyable, stimulating and question-generating exploration” rather than “getting the answer right and the A”) This can be a cultural hurdle in certain parts of the world…;
- rewarding with the good grade the demonstration of “HABITS OF MIND” (see Art Costa) instead of “correct answers”;
- training students to provide constructive, specific, meaningful and skillfully expressed feedback.

Students need to know there is a “real” audience for their efforts, and so many technologies and the Internet provide them such when traditional showcasing is so limited. (It’s hard for a child to get excited when the paper is only going to be read by the teacher.)

When I worked as a coordinator of programming for gifted and talented students at Hong Kong International School, a great deal of my time was spent setting up “platforms” for students to share their work with authentic audiences (web pages, podcasts, videos, literary magazine, etc.) It was spent making sure strong students had enough complexity, challenge, and choice in the assignments given them, and a peer group that would connect on the same level or theme as them where they could enjoy the sense of “flow” that comes from being on the outer, exciting edge of what they know and can do.

It’s always great to hear what other educators are doing, so thanks for a podcast that connects us to one another on this work that we all care so much about.