Virtual Education Lessons from 1 Year Ago

 After discussing changes with administrators that we can embrace from covid era education, it seems that revisioning education will have to take more time than I would like. The coronavirus has led to a major disruption to education in that what was normally continued from year to year by each teacher, now had to be re-examined and reevaluated for its usefulness. In the spring, at least at Neenah High School, in Neenah, Wisconsin, teachers posted the targets and assignments for the day. Maybe the teacher made a video of the lesson they normally would have taught in association with the activity of the day, but then it was up to the students to decide how to organize their day. 

Students had more flexibility when it came to how they organized their day. Teachers even declared the time their class would meet. In my case, I would suggest a time and some kids would say,  “I have physics class at that time” so I would adjust the time. 

Throughout the process, students were able to get a real look at what they were interested in and how they work best. Some people flourished because they can organize themselves, or they were involved with something that they valued. Others avoided school work at all costs, or because they could blame their lack of engagement on another issue. Some had real issues with connectivity, having to babysit or other family related activities.  

As we appear to be rounding out the covid era schooling, it is valuable to look at what occurred in the last 9-10 months.

There were vital lessons about themselves and about life in general to be learned from the last nine weeks of school in spring 2020. 

1. Not everything we thought was necessary to teach was necessary,

2. Teachers should be provided freedom in what they teach

3. Students are capable or organizing themselves and their time

4. For those who are not, it was clear early on, which could be addressed by teachers and parents to establish some strategies. 

5. Creating lessons or classes that could take place in 20-30 minutes is possible and probably preferred.

6. A successful strategy was for students to set Individual times to meet with teachers because teachers had time during the day.

Why Go to a School?

 

The coronavirus has supplanted the usual question “What is school for” into “what is the purpose of coming to school?” If the last year has proven that students can learn from home, why have them come to school? Teachers can deliver the same lectures to kids at home. “But kids don’t listen at home. They don’t have cameras on.  They are doing other things during class.” 

Well, they are doing other things during class inside the school as well. Most teachers, albeit in a survey with a small sample size,  have found it is effective to have students in person for two days to prepare for a day of them working on individual work, in the “Wednesday cave,” at home.  The final two days of the week are for reteaching and practicing with the individual material or skill needing shoring up or receiving instruction on common problems with the “cave work” has been proven to be effective by teachers at Neenah High School. Teachers and students feel like the anonymity of being at home and scheduling individual meetings with teachers has been more personal than being in person.  Isn’t it truly “learning” if students can do it on their own?

If it is not to learn, which and be done at home or elsewhere (I talked with a teacher yesterday who has a student who has spent the school year traveling across the United States in an RV, but still “goes” to school everyday.), then why enter a specific building  and go into a specific room to learn information? Because that’s the way it “always” has been done. And it has been successful for people int eh education world and for many parents who want to give kids the best chance at going to a university, who is calling for different skills that those believed to be called for by parents. 

Does the whole thing come down to it being daycare mostly for elementary and middle school kids? How can  it be partially about learning and partially about daycare?

Coronavirus  Neenah High School

Godin, Seth. Footprints On The Moon. Do You Zoom? 2017

Student Reactions to Doing Online Work during Snow Days.

For many teachers who put in many hours gathering artifacts, analyzing data and composing responses, it is a shame that all of that work is only seen (and only can be seen) by a tiny group of people. Here is my attempt to break out of that mold. 


Standard 3 of the Effectiveness Project reads, 
"The teacher effectively engages students in learning by using a variety of instructional strategies in order to meet individual learning needs."

Examples:Annotated photographs of class activitiesHandouts of sample workVideo/audio samples of instructional units

• 1. What did you learn about your professional practice?
  For our Art of Succeeding project, which was centered around genetics since successful genetic traits are the ones that continue. All students researched their family history using ancestryclassroom.com, then wrote a story about a decision or event from their families’ history which led to their success. Students examined character traits like growth mindset, grit, and infinite thinking which provide the launching point for the spirit of success. They developed a leadership style horoscope, examined a variety of popular movies, books and TV shows and categorized their leadership style. Some students examined financial success while others decided to take on the task of determining the success of digital learning days by surveying Neenah Joint School District parents, teachers and students about their reactions to the days.
  For those students who chose to analyze data, they received over 1,000 responses to their survey. From the responses we learned that the majority (64.2%) of students feel they can learn as much or more via digital format as they do in a classroom. This can inform our professional practice in that occasionally including a blended element will be beneficial because some students feel they learn more in that fashion.
  If one definition of the purpose of school is as practice for the rest of students’ lives, and the future of education for everyone is going to include some percentage of blended (or all online) learning in the same grain as LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, Udacity, or edX. By using blended tactics we give our students an opportunity to practice learning in this format in a safe environment, where they can work out the details of some of the most difficult tasks in life: knowing oneself and when one works most efficiently, time and task management, and self motivation.  
  
  
  
  
  
  2. How did you use your learning to grow as a professional or enhance your students' growth?
   To enhance student growth, we will want to provide a wide variety of blended learning experiences for all of our classes, but according to question 7 of the survey of high school students, there is room for growth in having online availability during any digital assignments because only 60.2% of students got feedback about digital learning day work. With no previous announcement or expectation of having online office hours, during one three hour online office hour session, I interacted with 10% of the Arete students averaging 5 emails sent to each. If students know about the availability ahead of time, they would have a greater chance of receiving timely feedback on their learning, which may also boost the numbers of students who feel like they learned more in comparison with a day in the classroom.
  
  
  
  

Help Children Succeed

The American education system was developed over 100 years ago to prepare students for jobs of that time.  So why has that system remained virtually unchanged when our culture and economy have dramatically shifted to an age of information and technology? Most Likely to Succeed is an edu-documentary which will change the way you think about “school” and how it can prepare us for the future.

Join us at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, March 9, 2016, in Pickard Auditorium for a free public showing of Most Likely to Succeed and a discussion with education experts Oliver Schinkten of Linkedin and Dr. Joshua Garrison of UW-Oshkosh.

Learn how the Neenah Joint School District is embracing the revolutionary ideas in the film through the Arete Academy at Neenah High School and how it prepares your children for success in the 21st Century.

"Most Likely to Succeed is a thought-provoking documentary which questions whether our education system is preparing students for the 21st century.  This documentary sparks the conversation that every community needs to have.” Oliver Schinkten, Linkedin

"The 21st century is going to be all about building, creating, and innovating. This remarkable film shows a path of how we can empower all of our children to do that." Sal Khan, Khan Academy

“Incredible! It is the best explanation I have seen of what the issues are with education in America. I have not been this excited about the future of education in a very long time." Craig Mueller, Retired School Administrator

Is It Most Likely to Succeed?

In October of 2015, I went to see the edu-documentary Most Likely to Succeed at the Downer Theatre in Milwaukee as part of the Milwaukee Film Festival.  The theater was filled with people of all ages, and possibly socioeconomic and political beliefs. I assumed that these people came from all over Metro Milwaukee and that we would have a scintillating conversation afterwards. Except we didn't. Ushers cleared the theater immediately after the film because another started 20 minutes later.

In the week leading up to the festival, I watched the trailer and checked out the website for the film and I was impressed with the concepts presented. I followed that with the excellent article from Fast Company Create, which provided extra background information. Despite my background information, I failed to recognize the film magnifies the discussion I have had with my friends for years--essentially that everything in the world has changed except the education system in the United States.

Even while I was still watching it,  I knew we had to screen Most Likely to Succeed in Pickard Auditorium at Neenah High School and that we had to have a discussion afterwards. There are too many questions raised by the film not to engage the audience in discourse and provide a way to debrief, and to hear the perspectives of those with different backgrounds and experiences. I wanted to know what business owners and others in HR would feel about the hiring employees with the skills developed by the featured students. Would they say that memorization was more important than problem solving, collaborating, organizing and being creative?  Would they say that through employee training at their business, group or organization they teach employees the content skills they need for the job, but that they expect employees to come to them with the "soft skills?" What other thoughts would people have about the film, the portrayal of teachers, students, parents and others featured in it. And ultimately, what will people say in regards to the same type of education that we provide in the Arete PBL Academy at Neenah High School?

We have two dynamic speakers who will discuss their experiences with education which emphasizes skills directly applicable to the world. The first speaker, Oliver Schinkten, is a former teacher who felt strongly enough about changing education that he spent a year writing about reforming education, creating instructional videos and traveling the country as an educational activist speaking about the need for education reform.  He found that most people, whether they are in education or not, feel like education needs to change, but just don't know how to go about making it happen. . 

Dr. Joshua Garrison is a Professor of Education Leadership at UW-Oshkosh.  He did his undergrad work at Evergreen State College, a progressive liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. He brings the perspective of having experienced a project based learning environment as an adult and now, as a professor, can speak about the too frequent attitude of students who don't care about learning, only their grades. 

So, as we screen it at 6:30 on Wednesday, March 9 in the Pickard Auditorium, my biggest question is:  Is it likely to succeed in convincing people that education has to change here?  Now? If the film doesn't convince them, then I am hoping the radicals Dr. Joshua Garrison and Oliver Schinkten will be the catalysts.

Learn to Be Disruptive

Seth Godin is one of my favorite authors. He is a disruptive force in the world of business and marketing, but I see his writing as directly applicable and disruptive to education as well. Depending on the situation, clients may be students or parents, bosses might be students, parents, or actual bosses. It is really all a matter of being able to see the connections.

Recently I have started Godin's Freelancer class on Udemy, a place for online learning. The classes on Udemy are not for college credit, but are for general learning of any kind. People make their own courses based on their expertise.

Because we are only in the second year of the program, by my way of thinking as members of our PBL program,  Arete PBL Academy at Neenah High School, all teachers and students are freelancers because we do not have an automatic clientele. Students often join us based on student or parent word of mouth, our presentations at other schools or our public displays of learning.

In the last three days, teachers and students in the program have presented at both Neenah High School and at Shattuck Middle School to inform families about our program. It really struck the  teachers in our program, Suzy Weisgerber, Emily Bennett, Tara Meinke, Lynn Heyn and I how impressive it was that students were willing to give up hours of free time to go to school and talk about how important our program has been to their lives.

One of the most effective lines that our students used while talking with families was, "Do you like tests?" The question usually stopped every kid in their tracks. Every student knows that for most classes and for most tests the goal is to get the highest grade possible and then forget the information as quickly as possible. In response to Godin's suggestions of how to increase demand, by asking that one question our students initiated a need in younger students. I feel it is the need for a way to do school that doesn't include tests.

Students followed that question by telling the story of our program, the way they learn, the learning outcomes both in terms of the academic expectations which all students have and the "soft skills" that they learn as part of how they are learning and showing the evidence of their learning.

Another element of Godin's (@thisissethsblog) freelancer course is to be an instigator, which is someone who decides what they are going to do rather than waiting for something to happen. Our students have instigated change in their lives and are encouraging others to do the same. It will be interesting to see how many students eventually join our program based on the student storytelling and instigation.