Mediating Sharing Behaviors

Welcome to the next installment of my not so weekly podcast series.  This podcast discusses the need to developing sharing behavior in the classroom.  The post was inspired by a section from the the text Beyond Smarter.  I started of the podcast with the following excerpt.  As always your thoughts and feedback is appreciated.

In our world- a world in which there are many situations of social alienation, where individualism is increasingly valued, and is, at times, extreme, the ability to share experiences with our fellow human beings and to participate in their experiences is most necessary and desirable.

In our day, the need and readiness to share with others our experiences and to participate in their experiences is an adaptational necessity.

    

    
  
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Feeling of Competence

I am in the middle of  reading Beyond Smarter Mediated Learning and the Brain's Capacity for Change (Feuerstein, Feuerstein and Falik).  Chapter Seven is about fostering positive attitudes towards learning.  One of the parameters discussed in the chapter has to do with creating a feeling of competence.

The following importance is assigned towards this development:

For human beings to act with confidence, meet challenges, and cope with situations that are now for them, they must feel they are competent to control these situations- to overcome difficulties, become familiar with the new and unknown, and approach them with the expectation they will master them (p.50).

How do we go about cultivating a feeling of competence in schools?  What could more important than building a sense of competence within every learner.  Take into consideration the rapid rate of change that has come to characterize our world.  Students have to become familiar with the new and unknown and approach change with the faith that they can be successful.  As much as we want students to be successful in the now, it is important to develop the skills and dispositions that can ensure achievement for decades to come.

Think about where a sense of competence is raised most in classrooms.  A sense of competence is translated when assigning grades.  Again I turn to Beyond Smarter to highlight a point- 

In many contemporary schools, across a wide diversity of cultures, it is considered that the best way to get children to achieve is to evaluate only their products and to give them proficiency marks for them.  This approach often has a negative impact on the feeling of ability... If the marks do not reflect either the students' immediate level of functioning of the level of improvement that they achieved in relation to their initial performance, they will offer no sense of accomplishment other than a general comparison to their peers, which can exaggerate feelings of incompetence (p.51).

Are assessment systems found in most contemporary schools supporting inspiration and growth or creating a spiraling scale of negative feedback?  The better inquiry to engage in is how do schools construct feedback systems aimed at imparting feelings of ability and competence?  Additionally, how can greater value be placed on unique growth?  Think about the need to situate learners where they can observe and comment on how they have grown.  There should be a balance between providing constructive commentary and presenting avenues where learners can recognize success and develop faith in their abilities.

Expression of Interest

 I would like to thank @maryannreilly for sharing this video during her presentation on Instructional Rounds.  The video was developed by the principal at Coburg Senior High School in Australia. The purpose behind the video was to present context for a cohort of educators who were conducting an observation of Coburg Senior High.

The entire presentation is worth watching.  However, I would pay particular attention to the principal's explanation of how students apply to the school and the initial meeting that transpires between families and members of the Coburg staff.  In addition to taking a series of standardized tests, incoming students have to complete an expression of interest survey.  The survey asks students to share personal information such as classes they like and dislike, career interests and skills they have developed.  Students also take a multiple intelligence tests.  All of this information is collected and reviewed by families and members of the Coburg faculty and serves an anchor when discussing a unique learning plan.

After listening to the principal at Coburg Senior High I could not help but think why not us.  At Coburg students are entering into a new learning environment.  However, as opposed to entering devoid of any academic or social history, incoming learners at Coburg are accompanied by a collection of unique and genuine data and a highly personal learning plan. The same process could be mirrored at any school.  As a high school administrator I see tremendous value in sitting down with 8th graders to build a comprehensive profile.  Think about how teachers could benefit from access to detailed interest surveys and cognitive profiles.  Additionally, think about the scheduling process.  A true pathway through high school can be crafted when this level of personal information is shared.

Let me know what your thoughts are about the video.  I'm curious if others are motivated by some of the structures in place at Coburg Senior High.

Creating an Environment for Self-Reflection

Wanted to share some thoughts from two formal observations I conducted this week.  Both observations embraced elements of a self-paced learner centric environment.  After conducting these observations I was moved to see a strong connection between the need to nurture self-paced classrooms and thoughts offered by Will Richardson.

In a post What Do We Absolutely Need to Teach?, Mr. Richardson says the following:

So I’m trying to push my own thinking here a bit, and I’d love some feedback. If I believe (and I do) that school should be more about letting my children find and solve their own problems with others, create and share meaningful works about the ideas they care about, and develop the dispositions they need to be powerful, patient and passionate learners, then what are the fundamental bits of knowledge or skills that they need to do that?  But if we are to redefine our value in schools, and if that redefinition moves us away from creating kids who are learned toward, instead, the development of learners, what does each child absolutely have to know and be able to do?

I am curious to hear what others have to think about how we best go about developing learners.

   

   
   
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Writing A Story

Next installment of my not so weekly podcast series.  How would you go about answering the following questions for your school?

• If you were to compose a story based on the data, whose voices would be privileged?
• Not heard?
• Not sounded?
• What is needed to change the narrative?

   

    
  
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Taking a Page From Feuerstein

I spent all of last week as part of a district-wide training session.  A selection of K-12 educators convened to investigate Professor Reuven Feuerstein's research into cognitive modifiability.  The week-long session provided insight into Professor Feuerstein's work and introduced the cohort to portions of his Instrumental Enrichment Program.  The training session instigated conversations between educators across the K-12 spectrum.  Exchanges were not limited to specific building or grade level, but instead, gravitated towards examining issues from systematic perspective.  Inspired by the work of Professor Feuerstein, an open forum developed challenging traditional structures associated with public education.

I would like to think that I was active in reflecting on and questioning traditional structures.  To an extent, the training session was an initial step in introducing educators to dynamic assessment and mediation.  The cornerstone of Professor Feuerstein's research is that the human organism as open, adaptive and amenable for change.  Through an effective mediated learning experience, mentors can modify learners, emphasizing autonomous and self-regulated change.  Feuerstein started his work in the 1940s with children who were orphaned or separated from their parents as a result of the Holocaust.  His work continued to include those who were mentally and physically challenged.  The end result has been an intervention program designed to enhance the cognitive skills necessary for independent thinking and to sharpen critical thinking with the concepts, skills, strategies, operations, and attitudes necessary for independent learning.

As mentioned before, Feuerstein's work sparked exchanges about the redesign of schools.  First off, how well do we know our students?  Before assessing, from a content standpoint, what a student knows, it is imperative to develop a profile detailing the strengths and weaknesses of each learner.  Without this information it would be a challenge to assess academic struggles and to effectively mentor students.  Also, a system needs to be in place where information about a student can travel between teachers.  It almost appears that a student starts from scratch as they move between grade levels.  Outside of surface related information that can be accessed through a district-wide data system, there needs to be a portal where teachers can archive notes and observations.

I think another piece to help share information about students in ensuring that work is transparent.  The power of an e-portfolio cannot be minimized. Just consider at the high school having students maintain and contribute content towards a personal public space.  A student could offer reflections, publish finished product and generate feed back from a legion of followers. It would be interesting to examine an e-portfolio from the perspective of observing intellectual growth and what interests a student pursues during their high school tenure.

As much as school is about kids, do we really have a system where we can get to develop detailed and rich profiles of students.  This comment is not offered as a criticism of educators, but rather questioning both the expectations for communication, the manner in which information about a student is exchanged between educators and also, what data is deemed important.

Creating a Platform for Student

Next Installment of my not so weekly Podcast series.  Thoughts about why Wikipedia has succeeded and what we can learn from it.

   

   
   
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