Lessons Learned

Michael Lambert will be joining us for SOS Episode 9: How To Go Deep In Student Learning? Why? where he will share some of his instructional and assessment practices that take the learning deeper and make it more meaningful for his students. Mike will talk about making connections in the brain and in the learning to other areas of study.

One way to go deeper in student learning in a school is to choose concept-based standards and benchmarks that support well-developed Essential Understandings and Questions. By focusing on concepts and big ideas we then work backwards in our curriculum design to choose instructional strategies and assessments that lead our students to discovery learning. In many cases, this will lead to efforts to keep direct instruction limited to skills development leaving most of the learning to inquiry and other constructivist approaches where students apply their research and other literacy skills to find, analyze, reflect upon and create using information that they are in charge of finding.

If one follows this path, it becomes very difficult to try and do the wide “coverage” that many teachers are forced to do especially when the standards are knowledge or comprehension focused. If you really hold yourself to assessments that measure student learning and the learning is student discovered, then you have no choice but to start deleting standards and benchmarks from your curriculum maps. Fewer learning goals frees up the time to go deeper in how we teach our units.

A good place to start reading more about concept-based standards and benchmarks is the work of H. Lynn Erickson.

Looking at the classroom and brain-based learning, there are lots of resources to support our efforts to connect to our students’ minds to engage, make connections and get those “brain pops” of understanding that we want. The more we tap into the brain for active learning, the deeper the learning goes.

Good teaching is about asking big, “fat”, open-ended questions that help students make connections while giving students the time to think and come up with further questions. Jamie McKenzie is a real leader in this area reminding us that it isn’t about the technology, it is about the learning that comes from asking questions and pursuing the answers to them. Technology can support the effort, of course.

As for the question of why we should go deeper in student learning, is it really learning when our curriculum is a mile wide and an inch deep when our students are working to become adept at moving information around? Enough said.

We spend some of our time on the Shifting Our School podcast chatting about examples of “shift” that usually applies to instructional and assessment strategies. Let’s take a closer look at what a shifted school might look like and what drives it.

An Example: Our Episode 8 podcast with Brent Loken about Hsinchu International School offered several examples of how a shifted school is structured and organized to help meet its goals. So what are those goals and how are they shifted from the way many schools do business?

Comparing Non-Shifted to Shifted: Let’s start with the chart that many people refer to when they compare the “normal” 20th century practices compared to what many of us are calling 21st century learning. You can find the chart that does direct comparisons in how schools and classrooms can shift at the 21st Century Schools site.

Focus on Thinking Skills and Being Independent Learners: When we talk about 21st Century Skills we are referring to the skill set needed for our students as future workers and citizens who will in many cases make several geographical moves as well as multiple career changes in their lifetimes. We also understand that there are entire fields of study and occupation that will be totally new as we advance scientifically and technologically. Thus, our focus in schools must be to teach skills that help our students become adaptable and flexible self-learners ready for continual learning.

To learn more about these skills, check out the 21st Century Skills site. A shifted school also works with Habits of Mind life skills to move our students from the 20th century dependent learner waiting on teachers for direction and information to the shifted version of an independent learner using critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, problem solving, and creativity skills to make meaning, collaborate and share one’s own constructed ideas (as opposed to those of the teacher).

Focus on 21st Century Literacies: As we talk about the 21st Century Skills, we also include various literacies (i.e., information, cultural, visual, & media). To get more information on the literacies, see the 21st Century Literacies site. I would add that this list can be expanded as our learning communities talk more about understanding of the different ways we interact with and interpret information. I can say that we use musical literacy in making of video projects working to match the music to the message of the visuals, text and spoken words. The National Educational Technology Standards for Students NETS also contain various thinking and communication skills as well as literacies including choosing the right technology tool for the task and the product to be created.

Other Opinions: The blogosphere is rich with comments about what our schools should be doing. The use of the term “shift” has gained traction as it refers to the movement from an educational system in the U.S. focused on 20th century employment and citizenship needs to one now focused on our ever changing, information-rich 21st century world.  We use the term “Learning 2.0″ to cover what the learning should look like in our shifted schools. Another term providing the same function is “School 2.0″. In both cases the “2.0″ denotes the second or next generation as you might have heard described in Web 2.0 for our current read/write version of the Web. One discussion area where you can read and add to the discussion is a wiki entitled School 2.0 started by blogger Steve Hargadon. Take a look and add your thoughts about what you think a shifted school looks like.