Bud the Teacher

In today’s podcast, recorded during my drive home from ISTE’s final activities, I talk a bit about Tuesday and Wednesday of the conference.  There’s talk of the filtering panel I was fortunate to get to sit on, Howard Rheingold’s resources on crap detection, and also some of my thinking about how we must work to model the things that we want to see in our schools.  Always.  I thought ISTE was a good and useful conference.  Thanks to those of you who made it so for me.

Direct Link to Audio

So yesterday was the first ever ISTE/TIE Leadership Bootcamp, an event that I was happy to get the chance to assist with.  Before it gets too far away from me, I thought it’d be useful to get a few thoughts down about the day, events like it, and what’s next.

The event itself was pretty straight forward – get a bunch of smart people together and talking with each other, as well as sharing some suggestions for how we might best move forward in our various leadership capacities.  Prime folks ahead of time and invite lots of folks to come along in various capacities.  The frame of thinking about leadership as communication I thought was a good one, although perhaps understated.

Of course, at the Leadership Bootcamp, “leader” was defined pretty broadly.  As it should be.  There were teachers in the room.  Superintendents.  IT staff.  Librarians.  Plenty of other folks.  Point being – leaders aren’t just the folks running the ship there’s plenty of leadership for all of us to be engaged in and doing, no matter our roles and/or job titles.  Jeff Piontek got the day started, but I didn’t feel like we were in high gear and rocking and rolling until the first presenters got going.¹

From there, it was a non-stop roller coaster ride of content and conversation across several strands.  Of course, the best part of the day for me was the fact that twice folks were put into roundtable groups to process what they were hearing, seeing and thinking about.  I don’t think a formal “Stop.  Write.  Reflect.” component makes it into our professional learning opportunities.  But, as Chris reminded us during his lunch keynote, if you believe something’s important, but you don’t have it built into the structures and schedules of your organization, then you don’t really think it’s terribly important at all.²

The protocol for the roundtables wasn’t too complex, but it’s worth sharing.  So here it is.  Help yourself to it if you find it useful.  Here’s the graphic organizer that we used to help structure folks’ reflections.  Just a few minutes in a very busy day, but I think those were pretty important minutes.  If you were there, I’d be curious as to your take on that portion of the day, specifically.

The day ended with a panel where we were challenged, and rightly so, to figure out how to keep building momentum and moving forward to make the positive changes that we believe we should be seeing in education.  Chris even suggested that it might be time for a string of little events, Educons everywhere, as a way of keeping things moving.  I like that idea, and it’s one reason why we began Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation three years ago. ³

I hope that little events like the Leadership Bootcamp keep happening.  I hope that folks who attended saw that, yeah, they might could organize such events, too.⁴  The resources, in terms of schedule and process, are freely available.  They need only be used. ⁵  Again, if you were there, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the event.  There will be a follow up webinar to talk through what folks did with the day in October – I’m looking forward to that.⁶

Thanks to all of the presenters and facilitators and behind the scenes folks who made the day a useful one.  Special thanks to Michelle Bourgeois and Alison Saylor for co-ordinating the entire event. There were aw awful lot of really smart folks in the group. Let’s hope it, or something even better, happens again.  Lots.⁷

If you were there, let me know how it went and what could’ve been better.  Or tell ISTE directly – they’ve set up an evaluation survey for your feedback.

And now, on to ISTE.

1. And, I’ve got to be honest, I still don’t understand the “I wrote a book on blogging, but I don’t find it to be valuable and so I don’t do it” position that I’ve now heard Jeff articulate a couple of times.  I hope that I can hear more from him on that at some point, not because I think everyone should have a blog, but because I think if you’re going to value something enough to write a book about it, specifically one that encourages folks to use that thing, then perhaps you should be engaged in that thing, at least from time to time.  Help me understand that if you can. [↩]
2. And writing as a learning tool is terribly and wonderfully important, which is why I’m sitting here writing right now rather than heading off to visit or do something else. [↩]
3. Maybe it’s time that event became Learning 2.0: A Colorado Educon, instead.  I’d be okay with that. [↩]
4. “No one is coming to save us,” Chris says.  He’s right. [↩]
5. Which is, of course, the hard part. [↩]
6. Although, I worry, as I usually do, about whether or not folks will attend.  Seems to me like as much as people say they want to engage in longitudinal PD, it doesn’t happen much.  We seem to have “one shot day” stuck in our brains, and may, by then, have moved on to other things.  Let’s do better. [↩]
7. And, heck, across the street was another group of really smart folks at EduBloggerCon – it was too bad that the events were held at the same time – but it was neat to see so many people moving back and forth between the two.  I was one, if only briefly. [↩]

The Digital Learning Collaborative, a project I love and spend ever more of my time with, will be taking a large cohort of teachers through the work of conducting teacher research on and in their classrooms over the next couple of years.  That’s pretty exciting to me, for teacher research has been in my blood since I was a preservice teacher working as a graduate assistant with one of my favorite teachers ever.  And in the current climate, strategies like teacher research have much to offer teachers as professionals and as voices in educational conversations.

If you don’t know much about teacher research, I’d recommend you start with this handy little quickread.  And, of course, here’s the definition that I work from:

So here we go.  And here I go, as well.

It seems only fair and fitting that, as we facilitate teacher research for others, I engage in a teacher research project of my own.  This is slightly unusual – my “students” in this case are the teachers and students of the school district where I work.  My classroom is spread out over fifty buildings and miles and miles of physical territory.  Further, I work more and more in online spaces, so my classroom includes those spaces, too.

What to look at?  Well, that’s the easy part, I think.  Since I went to work in technology, two spaces have consumed much of my time, our Virtual Campus, a district-wide implementation of Moodle, as well as St. Vrain Blogs, our district’s WordPress MU-powered blog engine, also open to the district as a whole.

I wonder about how these spaces change classroom practice.  I think about how writing, and more generally, composition,  becomes an extension for learning, particularly when there is a public audience for the work.  Who is using these spaces?  To what ends?  How do the use of blogs and online courseware change the experience of teaching and learning in my school district? (Does anything change?)  How are teachers using spaces like these?  Is the learning day extended? What kinds of writing are happening in these spaces? To what effect?

Those are the questions¹ I’ll start with.  As for data – well, we’ve got lots to look at.  The blog engine itself is a public repository of the use of these tools.   What are the ethical implications of studying, in public, a public space where learning is taking place?  I plan to blog my research log, a tool that I’ll use to keep my reflections and observations about what I’m seeing and learning as I study these questions.  In addition, I anticipate that I’ll conduct interviews with people using these tools in my quest to understand their impact.  I intend to publish these recordings, as well, prior to my analysis of them.

One question – and it seems a silly one – but should I start a separate blog over in the district blogging engine to collect all this work, or should I separate it a bit by placing it over here, at my place? I’m leaning towards creating a space there.  But I’m still thinking.

So, um, here goes.  Wish us luck.  If we do this right, we’ll be telling lots of the stories of our classrooms that don’t get told.  And, ideally, we’ll be getting better at teaching and learning through the process.

1. They started as these. [↩]

This is first draft thinking if ever such a thing existed. And it’s selfish. And personal. And close to home.

Ani goes to Kindergarten in the fall, so we spent the winter investigating schools around our town. We were looking for places that felt right for us – evidence of care and thoughtfulness, ties to particular district programs that we think are valuable or hope that Ani will have an interest in in the future, that sort of thing.

We settled on a short list of three elementary schools in our school district, the district where my wife is also a teacher. One of the schools, our first choice, was full up and we didn’t get selected into it. Of the two that remained, it was a draw. Until I attended parent nights. I could tell that both schools cared about kids, but I had a real concern about one of the two schools: the use of Accelerated Reader (AR).

While I was at the parent night where I learned about the school’s use of AR, I tweeted some of my questions and concerns, and began to hear back from many people about the pros and cons of AR.¹ Actually, that’s not true. There were a few lukewarm responses. But most of the replies, many of them private, were about bad² experiences that folks and their children had with the program. Phrases like “it sucked the joy out of reading” were sent to me by friends, colleagues, and near strangers from all over my Twittersphere.

And I swore to myself, as I listened and thought and considered, that I wouldn’t expose my daughter to such a program.

And yet, Ani will begin next year in that school, where AR is a large piece, according to the principal, of the formative assessment used by the Kindergarten teachers.³

That said, I’ve got some baggage around Accelerated Reader and programs like it. And I worry that my baggage is unfounded, particularly when people I know and respect choose to use the program. I don’t get it. And that bugs me.⁴

I know that motivation that springs from external sources isn’t terribly motivating when the external motivator is gone. In fact, I know that such external motivation can decrease one’s intrinsic motivation for the thing that being fiddled with. I was reminded of the tension between what I know about motivation and what I see thoughtful people doing when they use AR when I stumbled across this article in Time on Saturday.

The piece is a profile of some work being done by Roland Fryer, Jr., an economist at Harvard, to see what effect money can have on student performance. The angle that’s interesting is that he’s not looking at how to incentivize teaching – he’s looking to see if financial incentives can impact learning. Specifically, he’s paying kids to do certain things. And it’s fascinating work, for several reasons.

For starters, he ran into considerable trouble from grown ups when he proposed doing such studies, in part because folks (like me) get hinky whenever you talk about paying kids to do well in school.⁵ More on that in a moment.

I’m also curious because of the way he set his tests up – there are several different models in his study, ranging from paying 2nd graders $2/book to do some reading up to paying high school students a certain amount for every good grade they earn.

The author of the article, Amanda Ripley, does a good job summing up some of Edward Deci‘s work on motivation, which I’ve relied on in the past:

The most damning criticism of Fryer came from psychologists like the University of Rochester’s Edward Deci, who has spent his career studying motivation. Deci has found that money — like other tangible rewards — does not work very well to motivate people over the long term, particularly for tasks that involve creativity. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that rewards can have the perverse effect of making people perform worse.

A classic experiment in support of this hypothesis took place at a nursery school at Stanford University in the early 1970s. There, researchers divided 51 toddlers into groups. All the kids were asked to draw a picture with markers. But one group was told in advance that they would get a special reward — a certificate with a gold star and a red ribbon — in exchange for their work. The kids did the drawings, and the ones in the treatment group got their certificates.

A few weeks later, the researchers observed the children through a one-way mirror on a normal school day. They found that the kids who had received the award spent half as much time drawing for fun as those who had not been rewarded. The reward, it seemed, diminished the act of drawing. So instead of giving kids gold stars, Deci says, we should teach them to derive intrinsic pleasure from the task itself. “What we really want is for people to value the activity of learning,” he says. People of all ages perform better and work harder if they are actually enjoying the work — not just the reward that comes later.

In principle, Fryer agrees. “Kids should learn for the love of learning,” he says. “But they’re not. So what shall we do?” Most teenagers do not look at their math homework the way toddlers look at a blank piece of paper. It would be wonderful if they did. Maybe one day we will all approach our jobs that way. But until then, most adults work primarily for money, and in a curious way, we seem to be holding kids to a higher standard than we hold ourselves.

1. I also recorded a podcast about the experience. Give it a listen if you want to learn more. [↩]
2. terribly, horribly, awfully, no good, very bad [↩]
3. This post isn’t about the school, or their methodology. I’m excited to have Ani go there, although I am nervous about the experience. We’ll stay on top of it. I hope. [↩]
4. It fills me with terror and anxiety, actually. If I’m wrong about AR, what else am I wrong about? And AM I wrong about AR? [↩]
5. And we might be right to get hinky about such things. [↩]
6. I’m butchering the conclusions – you should really read the study for yourself. I’m planning on it. [↩]
7. Or a pizza, or a toy, or a whatever [↩]
8. Big suppositions, but I’m thinking out loud here. And about to ask you to help me think out loud better. [↩]

During the St. Vrain Valley School District‘s school board’s meeting this week, our boss, Executive Director of Instructional Technology Joe McBreen, shared with the Board a draft of our freshly revised and significantly re-written policies regarding computers, responsible behavior, and the Internet. The policies are still in draft form, and will change a teeny bit between now and formal adoption by the Board, but we wanted to share those drafts with you now, both to keep you posted and to help you prepare for the changes they contain.

If you’d like to watch the Board conversation regarding the policies, here’s a link to that video. The portion of the meeting regarding these policies begins at the time code 119:20 where Joe discusses the policy drafts.

You can find the three policy drafts here:

EHC (Overall philosophy statement) PDF

EHC-R (Responsible Use Guidelines) PDF

EHC-E2 (Student Responsible Use) PDF

We are pretty excited about a couple of things in these revised policies. For one, we’ve tried to re-write them in simpler and easier to understand language. For another, we are starting each list of responsibilities with positive actions, rather than a big list of “Don’ts.” And, of course, we are emphasizing behaviors over specific technologies in all of the documents, as we know that technology will change, but responsible behaviors and high expectations shouldn’t. Also, you might notice that we’ll be moving, in the future, to allowing students and staff to connect their own personal devices to our network for educational purposes.

We’d love to hear what you think about these draft policies; again, we’re excited about them. Please drop us a line in the comments. Remember that these are still drafts until approved by the school board.

(Cross-posted from the St. Vrain Instructional Technology blog)

One of the projects that I’ve been working on this year, but I’m sure I haven’t spoken about in this space, is the TIE/ISTE Leadership Bootcamp, a conversation about how communication practices can affect change and serve to support leadership in schools.

It’s an interesting event and a pretty good conversation, and still pretty new.  Perhaps you’d like to join us there, as we’re talking about ideas that have come and gone through this blog over the last few years.  Joining the community is free, and you’re more than welcome to come on in.  In fact, I’m hoping that you will, because I suspect you have something to offer that conversation.

I was fortunate to be asked to give the opening preconference virtual session back near the beginning of the month.  You might want to watch that to get a sense of the Bootcamp.  Larry Anderson will be giving the next one on April 14th, and there are a couple of other great preconference speakers lined up, too.

See you there?

Just a short update – a little earlier today, I received a phone call from Justin Hamilton, one of the press secretaries behind @EDPressSec.  He is in the process of getting some answers to some of my questions and asked me to pass along that he and the Department of Education ARE indeed paying attention.  And are terribly busy.  (I understand both of those.)   It was a good talk.

I look forward to those answers and appreciate the phone call.  After we resolve this inquiry, I’m eager to discuss how we might help the Department use social media in the future.

I’ll update more as I know more.  Thanks to him and to all of you who are asking questions and politely engaging in this issue.

I continue to ask of everyone I can speak with in Washington and in Congressional and government offices alike: What is the rationale for eliminating funding for the National Writing Project? It is a simple question, or it seems to be. But I can’t get anyone to answer it beyond broad strokes of “local and state redundancy” and “no significant impact” on students. Since I don’t understand how a national network can exist at the local or state level, and I have evidence to the contrary on impact on students and teachers, I’ll keep asking. It just doesn’t make sense.

An added wrinkle is that one of the folks that I originally started asking the question of is now, apparently, unwilling to talk to me at all. Here’s the story.

Every day this week, before and after work, I’ve left a message with the Press Office of the Department of Education asking for an answer to my question for the rationale behind the elimination of the National Writing Project from the 2011 proposed education budget. On Tuesday morning, I had a very nice and pleasant exchange with one of the women who answers the phones at that line. She was polite as I explained my request, as she read it back to me, and confirmed my phone number and e-mail address. She asked me when I’d like a response. I told her five PM that day, which is a typical turnaround for a media response. She said someone would get back to me prior to that time. She also asked me what news organization I was with. I informed her that I was a blogger, and she said okay.

No one returned that call.

But I’m stubborn I understand how busy people are. So, Wednesday morning, I called the press office back and, as luck would have it, the phone was answered by the same person. She remembered my question, and pulled up her notes. She had my phone number right. But I didn’t get a call back. I asked her why. That’s when she informed me that, as I wasn’t a member of the press, I wasn’t entitled to a response from their office. That floored me a bit.

I asked her to explain who told her that. She put me on hold, and after a few moments, returned and explained that Sandra Abrevaya, one of the folks who manages the office’s Twitter presence, fielded the request and informed the kind phone answerer that she should “only pass along (messages) if he is a reporter.”

I asked the receptionist, who again would not give me her name, so far the only person in the entire Education Department who has actually spoken to me on the phone, if she would get a definition from Ms. Abrevaya as to what constitutes a “reporter.” (I’m thinking that I sure am “reporting” this conversation and my experience.) I have yet to hear back.

I was referred to a general question and information line, which was actually quite helpful. If you’d like to inquire about an educational issue, you may have the best results by calling 1-800-872-5327 and pressing 3. Then again, it might not be THAT useful, because I’m still waiting to hear back from the person to whom I was referred from there, too.

I guess I’d have to express my disappointment in the Department of Education’s Press Office, and specifically Sandra Abrevaya. As one of the folks behind the @EdPressSec Twitter account, she has been, presumably, receiving my replies and requests for information about the National Writing Project rationale for more than two weeks. My voice messages for about a week. And she chose to ignore them. Because I’m not a “reporter.”

We cannot accept a government that simultaneously leverages social media to get their message out but ignores the messages of its constituents. I’m not willing to quit asking my question because I’m not a “reporter.” So, again, here’s what I’d like to know:

What is the rationale for the elimination of the National Writing Project? What is the information that was used to make the decision? Who is the person or persons who ultimately made the decision, and how would they answer others’ data that suggest strong results?

Why is that such a hard collection of questions to get an answer to? Seems like they’d certainly like to hear from us, but not talk to us.

I’ll keep trying. Maybe you will, too.

photo credit: Bud the Teacher

I sent slightly different versions of this letter to my legislators this afternoon. (I didn’t ask my senators to sign on to a House letter, for example. Nothing substantive.) If you support the National Writing Project, I hope you have done, or will do, the same. I would have written sooner – but this all happened as I was getting acquainted with Quinn. This is one of the first times I’ve been able to put fingers to keys in order to compose more than a few tweets. (Again – the iPhone is NOT the right long form writing device.)

Speaking of tweets, I should talk a bit about my latest gentle request for information from @EDPressSec, the official Twitter account for the U.S. Department of Education’s Press Office. It’s now been more than a week since I started asking why the ED had decided to eliminate the National Writing Project’s funding. I still don’t have an answer. As Zac has accurately pointed out, the press office stated in their 2011 press release on the appropriations proposal that programs removed were done so either because they “duplicate local or state programs or have not had a significant measurable impact.”

I don’t get it, and I have requested that @EDPressSec provide me with the data that they used to make the determination that a national network could be duplicated at the local or state level, or that the NWP has had no “significant measurable impact.” I’m hopeful that they’ll provide me with that information. Soon. But, if not, I’m asking my legislators to help me get that data. Seems like the right question to be asking. Thanks to those of you who are asking it along with me. The question should be easy enough to answer, and my fingers are crossed that this is certainly some big misunderstanding.

(If you’d like to see the entire conversation between myself and @EDPressSec, I’ve created a Twitter account and favorited the exchange. Start at the bottom and read up. I’ll keep updating as the conversation continues. I hope it’ll be productive. I really do respect that the press office is on Twitter, and I hope they work to create more opportunities for teachers and policymakers to actively be in meaningful conversation.)
________________
Dear Rep. Markey, Sen. Bennet, and Sen. Udall:

I have grave concerns regarding the proposed elimination of the National Writing Project’s federal funding from the current Education Appropriation Bill. I cannot tell you of a program that I believe is more essential to good teaching, learning and thinking in our schools today.

In light of that opening, I am writing today to seek your assistance with two items:

1. I would like for you to show your support for the National Writing Project by signing on to Rep. George Miller’s Dear Colleague letter of support for 2011 funding for the NWP.
2. I have asked the press office, via Twitter, of the Education Department for information regarding why they removed funding for the National Writing Project from their appropriations request. I need your assistance in obtaining that information, as they don’t seem able to provide it to me. I was hoping your office might help me navigate the issue.

I work as an instructional technologist for the St. Vrain Valley School District. Prior to my transition to providing professional development to teachers in a district support role, I was a classroom language arts teacher for five years with the same school district. I am certain that I have experienced no better model of professional development than that of the National Writing Project. Since I first learned of and participated in a local project at Colorado State University, my students have benefited from my exposure to the NWP, as have the hundreds of thousands of teachers and millions of students similarly impacted by their programs.

Writing remains essential to student and societal success. The National Writing Project, through its network of local affiliates spread out across the country, makes a substantial difference for students everyday. We would be foolish not to support them.

(My colleague, Zac Chase of Philadelphia, PA, has written a brief letter explaining some of the data regarding NWP’s success. You can view that here.)

In Colorado, three NWP-affiliated local writing project sites work to promote the same ideals of teachers teaching teachers. Each of those programs would be in jeopardy if not for the support of the national network and their matching funds.

I do hope that you will consider signing on to the “Dear Colleague” letter.

I would be happy to speak further with you about the National Writing Project. I’d also love the opportunity to invite you and/or your staff to a NWP or CSUWP event in the near future. There’s always room for more writers. We’d love to see you.

I look forward to discussing navigating the Department of Education’s decision process soon.

Sincerely,

Bud Hunt
Instructional Technologist
St. Vrain Valley School District
Teacher Consultant
Colorado State University Writing Project

I tweeted a possible title for this post out earlier tonight, and hurt some feelings.  Understandably.  My apologies – that wasn’t my intention, and sometimes my mouth gets ahead of my brain.  I have nothing but the highest respect for the Science Leadership Academy and my friend and colleague Chris Lehmann.  I think he’d agree with me on what I’m about to say.  We’ll see, I guess.

This weekend, 500 or so folks will descend upon Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA for the third Educon conference.  It’s a wonderfully neat school, with a phenomenal staff and a fine bunch of students.  I’ve been to the school twice, and am in constant contact with teachers there.  They’re my teachers and colleagues and, in some cases, friends, and I think the community and educational opportunities offered there are nothing short of what I would hope for my own children and for all kids.  Simply outstanding.

That said, I guess I’d like to offer a suggestion or two to the folks who will be paying close attention to Educon this weekend, and who otherwise hold SLA up to high esteem. (And I’m one of those folks.)  Take it for what it’s worth.

The Science Leadership Academy is not The Promised Land.¹  No place is.²  The school is a place, a special place, that people made, and that is a response and a reaction to its contexts, geographical, political, social and otherwise.  It is not the only place where great things happen for and with kids, and it is not the only place or way that kids can learn.

You probably know some people who can make great things.  You might be one of those people.  Actually, let me say that again, and slightly differently – You most likely ARE one of those people.  But you have to act like it.  Simply fawning over the achievements of someone else and regretting that you live somewhere else isn’t a useful reaction.

So much of what I see right after a place like SLA is praised is a laundry list of reasons why the praiser’s school/community/whatever can’t be like SLA.   I don’t get that.  Of course your school won’t be like theirs.  You aren’t in downtown Philadelphia.  You don’t operate in the same space.  Your families are different.  So, for that matter, are you.  But that’s not a bad thing. It’s okay.  I live and work in Colorado.  There is opportunity here, too.

Chris and his staff built a place that made sense as a combination of the places they came from, the places they were, and the places and ideas that they wanted to build with.  They made the place.  Together.  With their students.  And you can make a place, too.  But it’ll be different, deliciously, brilliantly different, from SLA.  Not because they’re better than you, or you them, but because good schools are about context and environment and about taking what you have and what you want and striking a balance and working very, very hard. Good schools are about people honestly and intentionally working together very purposefully.

Good schools are not about taking another’s model and applying it without serious consideration to your own local environment, or about lamenting that you are not someone else. That’s irresponsible, and doesn’t honor a fine example.

So as you’re enjoying the school culture of SLA, a place that I would like to be visiting and learning from/with/in this weekend (and I kind of will be), I hope you’ll move past the “Wow,” and towards the critical eyes of “Huh.  Why does this work?  How might I make something work in my own context(s)?”

Because, we all know, imitation, and not worship, is the highest form of flattery.  Imitation without serious thought as to how to make and sustain change in one’s own situation is not useful.  And doesn’t actually honor the fine model that SLA might be for you.

You, too, can make special places.  In fact, you may already have.  Good on you.  Talk about them.  Tell us how you did it.  Help us, as Chris and SLA do, to figure out that there isn’t one way to do school well.  There are many.  And we need them all.

1. I don’t believe that the folks at SLA say such things.  But I see and hear them from admirers. [↩]
2. Again, plenty of folks seem to believe otherwise. [↩]