A Weekend Conference

This past weekend, I attended the British Columbia Schools Superintendent Association’s (BCSSA) conference in downtown Vancouver. There were many speakers focused on Pathways to Personalization: Shifting Practice and Traditions. The speakers included:

There was a fair bit of content in this weekend’s conference, and I won’t share everything here. I do have some thoughts that I will be sharing with staff as soon as I can. Here are a few of the thoughts that I think are important.

 

Questions

The talks generated some questions for me, and I am not too sure I have the answers. Not all questions we ask of ourselves or our students should have a definite right-wrong answer. Leaving some room for ambiguity when asking some questions will help generate some dialogue between people. The questions that came to me were:

  1. What difference am I making in respect to teaching and learning?
  2. What is the difference between a student who is on-task and a student who is engaged in learning? Is there a difference?
  3. Why does British Columbia need an education movement? What are our issues? What should be our focus?
  4. How can we be innovative in education?
  5. How do we add value to the lives of children through our teaching?
  6. Where should learning take place?
  7. What is the nature of the relationship between students and teachers?
  8. What will public education look like in 10 years?

 

Balance Needed

We need to ensure that there is a healthy balance in the curriculum between content and fun. If all our days are only focused on filling the heads of children with content, we will not have a healthy school. If we only focus on games, students won’t progress. We need to strive to find a way of engaging the children in their learning, while providing them with a rich curriculum. Learning doesn’t always have to be fun, but it there is room for fun in learning.

 

Innovation

“You are one of the best school systems in the world. Why do you need to innovate in British Columbia?” ~ Charles Leadbeater.

We need to innovate because our learners are different now than they were 10 years ago. We have a more diverse student population, and they require educators to be adaptive and responsive to their needs. We need to be open and curious to ideas from others, and sometimes look to the past for new ideas. Personalized learning is not new, but we need to help it develop and grow to meet the needs of children today.

We need to all be working together. Many of the best innovations in our world today came from group discussions or collaboration. We can no longer have an us vs. them view of education.

 

Changing Culture

It may be safe to say that we are in the middle of a culture shift in public education. The current lack of progress on the teachers’ collective agreement and the new BC Education Plan may be indicators that we are in the middle of a change.

If we are changing, we will all need to be a part of the change process. This means students, teachers, support staff, parents, principals, vice-principals and everyone else who works with or in the school system have to do their part to help us be successful. Have you read the plan yet? What can you do to help?

What will the new culture in BC’s public schools look like? I am not sure, but I am looking forward to it.

 

One last thought as I sign off for today: “Good questions shouldn’t be answered. They should leave us to ponder.” ~ Bruce Beairsto

Take care.

BYOD

What is BYOD?

BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device (sometimes know and Bring Your Own Technology). We are embarking on a journey of trying to integrate students’ own technology into our classrooms, and some of us are excited about the chance to try.

This morning I met with the grade 7 students in Mrs. La Prairie’s room to discuss this idea and to map out how we will proceed with this at Cleveland. Mrs. La Prairie is interested in making use of technology to enhance the learning, and this was one of the ways we thought would be good to try.

The grade 7’s and I discussed that this may mean a change in our school policy on electronic devices, as well as changing the culture of how we adults react when we see students with their cell phones. Rules were brought up, ideas were shared, and I came to the realization that this is going to make more homework for me.

Our discussions generated some questions:

  • Texting – Is texting out of class time appropriate? What if my mom texts me while I am in class?
  • Videos – Are there videos on our devices that are appropriate for school?
  • Music – Can we listen to music during the day? What music is appropriate for school?
  • Clocks – Can we use our phones to check the time? Only two of us in the class were wearing a watch (funny how it was the two Dougs in the room). Everyone else uses the phone to check the time.
  • Games – Can we use our devices to play games?
  • Agenda books – Can cell phones (with calendar features) replace our agenda books for tracking homework?
  • Handing in Homework – Can we hand in homework electronically?

Some observations and/or concerns were also discussed:

  • Security – Who’s responsibility will it be if the phone goes missing? Sorry, but I cannot own the responsibility. Parents and students will have to decide if they are comfortable bringing them to school.
  • Cheating on tests – They understand why teachers would be concerned.
  • Equity – Is it fair to allow students to bring in their own devices if not everyone has access to one?
  • Adults taking phones away – Sometimes students have their phones taken away when they are seen using the phone (to check time, to use as a mirror). How should students handle this?
  • Appropriate Grade levels – We were unsure of what grade levels this would be best for. Would we have a different policy for cell phones than for laptops?
  • Using Cell phones and Cameras for bullying – I discussed concerns and experiences that I have had with students using text messages to bully someone and why some schools don’t want to try this.

The idea of students making use of their own devices at school is not mine. There are a number of blogs out there discussing using students’ own technology  to enhance learning – The 17 E’s of Excellent Electronic Education Leadership & Schools learn to work with cell phones in class. We also have students making use of their own laptops for writing and recoding homework assignments.

Not everyone is participating yet. I have only discussed this with the grade 7’s in one class. I have not yet had a staff discussion. More time to talk will be needed.

Students won’t have to bring their own device to school if they (or their parents) don’t want to risk bringing something like this to school. This is not compulsory.

A key agreement I did reach with the students was that we should try it, and work together to ensure that it is a successful and positive experience. We agreed to not text each other in school, that devices should be used as agreed upon with their teacher, and that some further discussions will be needed to come up with some new policy. I think that they are willing to miss future math periods to talk with me some more. How kind of them. 🙂

Another key agreement is that our school code of conduct applies to all situations, so students must show care for all students and respect for other people’s property.

For teachers, we are learning (each of us at a different pace) about how to use current technology as a means to enhance learning and engage students. Twitter has provided me with some good ideas that teachers could make use of with their students. For you teachers out there, one blog that was retweeted to me was 12 Tech Tools That Will Transform The Way You Teach! from Caitlin Tucker’s blog.

I am not sure how this experiment with personal devices will go. We do not have all the answers to the above questions, but sometimes you just have to jump in and get started. I am willing to take a risk and try something that will help our students engage in their work. The students seem very willing to help us come up with a new path for technology in schools, and together, we will try and answer questions that come up and work with their teachers on making this a positive experience for everyone.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions and/or suggestions about students using technology.

I am looking forward to our students helping me learn how to incorporate technology into schools. It will be a fun learning journey.

Take care.

Creativity

“My contention is that creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.” ~ Sir Ken Robinson

How we encourage creativity in children?

How do we celebrate creativity?

How do we kill creativity?

View this video from TED2006.

What will we do to establish classroom cultures where creativity thrives?

What will you do at home to support your child’s creativity?

Our children need us to be creative. Are we up to the challenge?

Take care.

 

 

Personalized Learning Stories

Today at school, two of our classes and a group of senior students were involved in a North Vancouver School District video project: Personalized Learning for the 21st Century. This video is being created in collaboration with the Argyle Digital Media Academy.

Students in Mme. Zwart’s class were working on science, and were filmed dissecting chicken legs and learning about the different parts of a leg.  The students worked together in pairs, put their gloves on, grabbed their scissors and got to work, carefully cutting up the legs and identifying muscles, tendons, cartilage and bone.

There was a lot of excitement in the air as the kids were getting ready for the lesson. Mme. Zwart helped the class focus, the students met the film crew, and then the lesson began. A laptop and projector were used to illustrate the steps that the students were to follow, and expectations were clarified. There were several parent volunteers, who helped students stay focused, provided encouragement for all students, and who were able to assist children with their learning and discovering.

Across the building, Ms. La Prairie was working with her grade 7 students on some drama, creating a variety of tableaux scenes and learning the art of expressing oneself without words. The class was divided into seven groups, and the students were all given a scene to present.

After allowing the groups some time for planning and practice, Ms. La Prairie called the class together (I love her Tibetan bowl), the class settled down, and each group presented their work.

Mme. Santarosa brought together a group of grade 6 & 7 students who were interviewed about learning. Students were asked about what was not working in teaching, and what was working. Their answers were thoughtful, and showed how articulate students can be when given the chance.

I twittered a few of the comments, but I will repeat some highlights:

In response to: “What do we need more of in schools?” – “We need learning that is fun and creative.”

In response to, “What does good teaching look like?” – “A teacher who switches things up.” “She makes learning fun and gets to know everyone.”

In response to, “Do you have anything more to add?” –  “It’s the little things that teachers do that make all the difference.”

Today was a fabulous day to be the Principal of L’Ecole Cleveland School. I was witness to students engaged in their learning, and students working together in both drama and science. I was witness to students taking the time to provide thoughtful and well-articulated answers to questions about teaching and learning. I was witness to teachers creating classroom cultures where children want to learn and can try new things.

Everyday I am able to see a wide variety of engaging lessons and activities where children are given the chance to learn something new, deepen their understanding of something they know a little bit about, or demonstrate their creativity.

As a school, we are still working towards understanding and bringing to life personalized learning and meeting the needs of all learners. It will always be a work in progress, and we should always be willing to try new things and look for ways to make learning meaningful for everyone.

Today, I was engaged in learning, and so were the students.

Take care.

Personalized Learning

Personalized learning is currently a significant topic in the teaching world, and it relates to our teaching practices and how we support all learners. Teachers, administrators, special education aides and others are all talking about how we need to understand our students, and how we need provide a more diverse set of learning opportunities to increase engagement and to help prepare our students to be life-long learners.

Here are some links that may generate some discussion or get people thinking about Personalized Learning and 21st Century Learning.

Personalized Learning in BC: Interactive Discussion Guide

Sir Ken Robinson – “Bring On The Learning Revolution”

Born To Learn videos

Please take the time to view the BC Ministry of Education document and view the videos from the above links. Each link will give you something to think about and perhaps spark some conversations about learning in your home.

If you have questions about what you read or saw in one of the videos, I would be happy to chat.

Take care.