The Tempered Radical

Classroom Technology and the Motivational Herring. . .

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a group of preservice teachers about 21st Century tools.  In the course of my presentation, a participant asked, "So are you always on the lookout for opportunities to use digital tools in the lessons that you're teaching because they're so motivating to kids?"

My answer:  Heck no! 

(click to enlarge)

 

Download Motivationalherring

Instead, when I'm teaching a lesson, I'm looking for opportunities to engage my kids in a study of motivating content.  For middle schoolers, that usually means a study of a concept connected to fairness.  Justice and injustice simply resonates with tweens, doesn't it?  That kinda happens when you're the last one in the shower every morning, you're stuck sitting in the back seat for a decade, and you have to wait until your older brother gets off Facebook before you can surf the net for the latest Hannah Montana video!

I'm also looking for opportunities to engage my kids in good conversations.  The way I figure, trying to SHHUUSSHH 12-year olds is an uphill battle at best.  After all, in most situations, the one doing the talking is the one doing the learning----and besides, any living creature willing to hang out around urinals in a middle school bathroom just to steal a few minutes shooting the breeze has a determination to connect that I'm never going to squelch! 

danah boyd said it best in this blog post when she wrote:

School is one of the few times when [students] can get together with their friends and they use every unscheduled moment to socialize - passing time, when the teacher's back is turned, lunch, bathroom breaks, etc.  They are desperately craving an opportunity to connect with their friends; not surprisingly, their use of anything that enables socialization while at school is deeply desired.

Listen to that language and tell me it ain't true:  They are desperately craving an opportunity to connect.

Long story short: The digital tools that I use in my class aren't motivating.  Instead, it's the content that I select, the questions that I ask, and the interactions that my students share with one another that are motivating.  Start a conversation on hate---like this one----or on why the world turns a blind eye towards inequality----like this one---and students will wrestle with deep issues in a way that just might surprise you. 

Ask students to reflect on the deeper meaning behind my boy Pythagoras' theorem, and you'll have a bunch of dead air on your hands, no matter what digital tool you're using!

The teachers who count on blogs, wikis, Voicethread, Skype, Animoto, Emodo, Blackboard, Youth Twitter---or any of a thousand other products that come and go---ALONE to increase engagement fall for what my buddy Dina Strasser calls the "motivational red herring."  Digital tools do nothing more than make ongoing conversations efficient and approachable.  They give kids a chance to participate in a school culture that continues to discourage participation. 

As my friend Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach has been telling me for decades, motivation begins and ends with good decisions made teachers who know both their content and their kids.

(Image credit: Baltic Herring by Visulogik, licensed Creative Commons: Attribution)

Bringing Learning to the Rubes. . .

Hayes Mizell has been one of my professional heroes since the day that I churned through his book Shooting for the Sun: The Message of Middle School Reform in about 6 hours.  Hayes always seems to find the insights that I overlook and shares them in a way that makes me think.

I just found a new blog that Hayes has started for the NSDC and was blown away by the first entry that I read.  In it, Hayes talks about a flaw that I've fought against in teacher professional development over the course of my career.  He writes:

Verbs are powerful. They not only describe an action, they also suggest the intent that drives the action. When educators talk about professional development, they frequently use the verbs "provide" or "deliver" (some foreign English-language newspapers use "imparted"). This usage suggests one person possesses professional development and gives it to another person, like a package or a tool.

But professional development is not a commodity (though some vendors market it that way). No educator develops as a professional because someone "delivers" learning to them. Professionals grow by actively seeking new knowledge and skills, by reflecting on their experiences and learning from the experiences of others, and by practice.

Hayes couldn't be more accurate when describing the general attitude around teacher professional development.  A false---and incredibly frustrating---belief that teachers must sit in sessions delivered by "experts" in order to grow as professionals still exists in education no matter how much smoke we blow about professional learning communities or communities of practice.  While we talk a good talk about the ability of teams of teachers to learn together, little real value is placed on any kind of professional growth that teachers pursue on their own.

Need proof?  Then consider these two events from my own career:

Reflections on Readicide. . .

Sitting here the morning after our four-day conversation with Kelly Gallagher on how ineffective reading practices are harming the kids graduating from our schools, I'm trying to sort out exactly what it is that I've learned. 

Like any good opportunity for growth, I suspect that I'll be mentally wrestling with this issue for weeks, but here are some initial thoughts that I know I'm going to hold on to:

I'm not alone:  Coming into this conversation, I was pretty embarrassed about my own instructional decisions.  You see, I have changed what it is that I do in my classroom in an attempt to produce results on standardized tests---and I feel horrible about it.  My decision was based on the pressure that I seem to face each year when it's discovered that my students have the lowest scores on the hallway, but testing pressure is just plain difficult to ignore in today's accountability climate.

From the sounds of it, dozens of other teachers are struggling with testing pressure at any given time.  While that should probably leave me saddened or angry, at least I know that I'm not alone.  Readicide is real----and it requires a collective response because it's an issue affecting schools in every corner of our country. 

That leaves me confident that practitioners and parents working together might just be able to build enough political will to drive change.

Readicide is a community---not a classroom---issue:  If you go back and look at the comments that I leave throughout our conversation with Kelly, I ask the same question a dozen times:  If the solution to Readicide depends on individual teachers taking individual actions, then can we really count on seeing scalable change across schools and communities?  After all, when decisions are left up to individual teachers, we're virtually guaranteeing that some students will be left behind while others will benefit depending on which room they're assigned to in August.

For me, that means any attempts that we make to improve reading instruction have to be systematic.  Learning teams working together need to examine the kinds of opportunities that their students have to interact with text.  Media specialists have to design ways to create book floods for every classroom.  Principals need to decide just how much professional freedom and flexibility that they want to afford the instructional experts in their buildings, and parents need to make sure that school efforts extend into the community. 

Ending Readicide is one of those issues that depends on everyone---not just classroom teachers.

Leadership--as always--remains the forgotten key:  In an overlooked comment near the end of our conversation, a participant named FlitterFly mentions how important the support and modeling of her principal has been in driving change in her building.  That comment has been lodged in my brain for the past 24 hours because I realize exactly how true it is. 

Here's what I mean:  School leaders have been sending mixed messages about reading instruction for the past decade.  "We're all reading teachers," they'll say while cutting student access to electives and slashing the time that students spend in social studies and science.  "Sustained Silent Reading is important," they'll say while sitting behind their desks answering email during their building's collective reading hour.  "We care about more than test scores," they'll say while panicking when numbers are published by the press.

Until building principals, district superintendents and local policymakers buy in to the idea that we're killing reading, nothing is ever going to change.  And that's frightening.

Now it's your turn to reflect: If you downloaded Readicide or stopped by our conversation this week, what lessons are you walking away with?  What ideas resonated with you?  What do you still need to wrestle with?

Most importantly, what do you plan to do TODAY to improve reading instruction in your building or in your community?  We can't just walk away from this conversation and return to business as usual, can we?

On a side note:  While commenting is now closed, know that our conversation will be available for viewing until the end of time!  You can share the link----found here----with anyone at any time who you think needs to learn a bit more about what effective reading instruction should look like. 

(Image credit:  Wrestling Redux by Available Light, licensed Creative Commons: Attribution)

Final Day: Readicide Conversation

It's hard to believe, but TODAY is the last day for participants to jump in to our conversation (see here) on reading instruction with Kelly Gallagher---author of Readicide: How schools are killing reading.  After three days of brilliance from dozens of commenters, I feel good about what we've learned together.

If you haven't had a chance to stop by yet, you might be interested in the following strands of conversation:

On the first slide, Attila Uregen wonders whether we can really blame Readicide completely on schools when he writes:  "Reading , as form of entertainment, enjoyment and the assimilation of knowledge is being killed by technology innovations as well as home life to a greater extennt...Don't you think?"

On the third slide, Patty McClune argues that surrounding kids with text should not be left to classroom teachers alone.  School and public libraries are perfect places for beginning the kinds of lifelong book floods that Kelly describes in Readicide.  Patty writes:  "But I also think it’s critical for students to become familiar and comfortable with the culture of libraries so they can take ownership of their book selection in and out of school. Sort of the same idea as if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish he can feed himself for life."

On the eighth slide, FlitterFly and I start to wrestle with an interesting question:  How will building principals react to the kinds of instructional practices that Kelly recommends in Readicide?  After all, without their support, we're in trouble!

On the last slide, Kelly and Alice Mercer are working through an interesting concept together:  Are students capable of reading entire novels?  Is it possible that some of the reading troubles we see in schools might just be a reading endurance issue instead of a reading comprehension issue.

So stop by Voicethread today, huh? 

Find a way to contribute to this conversation before it closes to comments tomorrow morning!  While you'll always be able to access the dialogue and share the link with colleagues, today is your last chance to lend your thoughts to the collective knowledge we're building together. 

Day 3: Readicide Conversation

You know something:  Y'all are my favorite people on the planet!  Every time that I drop by our conversation with Kelly Gallagher (see here), I have my thinking challenged in a meaningful way.  In fact, I'd argue that our conversation has been my favorite professional learning opportunity in months. 

Very cool.

Here's some highlights from yesterday's conversation:

On the first slide, Terry Smith---a new participant to the conversation---talks about a benchmark reading program that his district requires of teachers and students.  Apparently, teachers sit with each child in their classrooms for 20-30 minutes reading short passages and assessing student ability.  "All this teaches my students," argues Terry, "is that short passages are all that we value."

On the third slide, BP Librarian challenges Kelly:  "The hole that I see in Readicide," she says, "Is that you don't mention the role that school librarians can play in promoting reading."  BP's thoughts are echoed later in the conversation where participants ask Kelly to explain what the ideal partnership between classroom teachers and school librarians should look like. 

On the fourth slide, the Brain challenges Susan Jones----who teaches a college readiness reading class to struggling freshmen:  "I wonder if college expectations are changing the way that high school teachers are teaching reading----and if so, how?"

And on the last slide, Alice Mercer wonders whether or not there can really be one approach to selecting text for students, noting that Kelly advocates for the return of novel studies to classrooms while many classroom teachers have been pressured into using shorter selections of text in the classroom. 

If you haven't stopped by our conversation yet, you should!  Here's the link.  I guarantee that you'll learn something.

If you have stopped by already, here's your day three challenge:  Rather than posting something new to the conversation today, go in and find a comment made by another participant to respond to.  It could be something that made you think.  It could be something you completely disagree with.  It could be something that you want to know more about.

Make today a day of interaction by interacting with an existing participant. 

After all, that's what good collaborative dialogue looks like in action, right?

Day 2: Readicide Conversation

Yesterday saw Radical Nation join together with Kelly Gallagher for the beginning of a four-day focused conversation on the state of reading instruction in our classrooms (see here)----and the conversation has been nothing short of amazing.

Some quick highlights:

Bill Gaskins asked whether or not reading instruction has appropriately changed with the times, adjusting to the reality that online reading is becoming an increasingly important part of our children's lives.  What impact should this have on the way we teach reading, he wonders.

A brilliant participant who I've decided to call Sister Lionfish (Rat-fro-con-lionfish) has started a strand on the importance of "giving students permission to fall in love with nonfiction reading again."  She's a science teacher who is working hard to teach reading in her classroom.

Another participant named Chapman noticed a trend in her classroom:  Students have grown comfortable with some of the mind-numbing instructional practices in our reading classrooms.  We're currently trying to figure out why that happens. 

On our final slide, Clix has asked an incredibly important question for every reading teacher to consider:  How do we know whether we are overteaching or underteaching the novels that we tackle in our classrooms.

A pointer for participants:  Many users have asked whether it is possible for one person to leave more than one comment on each slide.  The answer is yes---and I hope you will!  Ongoing dialogue between participants around one concept is what makes a conversation healthy.

When you do, though, you won't see a new icon added around our focusing quote.  In order to keep a slide from getting cluttered with icons, whenever a participant adds a second comment to a slide, Voicethread adds the comment to the conversation without adding a new icon. 

Other participants will know that you've added a second comment by looking at the timeline found beneath each slide, where they will see a new yellow comment tab.  They will also see a yellow box surrounding your icon.

Here's to hoping that you'll take the time to stop by our conversation before it ends on Thursday!  Not only will you learn a ton....we'll learn a ton from you!

Conversation on Readicide Begins Today!

Here it is, Radical Nation: The first day in our four-day conversation on the state of reading instruction with high school teacher and noted author Kelly Gallagher, who's new book Readicide:  How schools are killing reading and what you can do about it is being released by Stenhouse this Spring. 

Interested in joining the conversation? 

Then click this link:  Enter Readicide Conversation

You might also be interested in this set of suggestions on how to make digital conversations work for you and this set of directions about how to sign up for a Voicethread account.  Don't forget that you can still download the complete text of Readicide by visiting this link.

If you struggle at all with your own Voicethread login, you can use this generic login that I created this morning:

Username: readicide@wcpss.net

Password: readicide

You'll find a small box in the bottom left hand corner of the presentation that will let you change to any of a range of generic identity icons.  The only hitch with using this generic login is that only one user is allowed to login under an identity at a time!  If you struggle to get in using the generic login, consider waiting for 20 minutes and then coming back. 

 

Something to know about navigating Voicethread conversations:

While working in a Voicethread conversation, participants can choose to hit the "Play" button at the bottom of any particular slide and watch the conversation around that slide from beginning to end.  That's probably the best strategy the first time you stop by our Readicide conversation because you'll get to hear my opening questions, Kelly's initial responses, and the initial thinking of other participants.

As you revisit pages, however----something you should do once or twice over the course of the week to see how conversations are developing----you can click on new icons surrounding the quotes that you are interested in to hear new comments that have been added.  You can also click on individual comments in the "Timeline" bar that appears at the bottom of each slide.

By doing so, you won't have to listen to every comment every time that you stop by our conversation!

Let's knock this out of the park, huh? 

Take some time in the next four days to add what you know, to allow your thinking to be challenged and to challenge the thinking of others.  Be committed to walking away from this conversation with new evidence and information that you can use to influence the parents, teachers and principals of your buildings. 

Reading instruction has to change----and the first step in change is building knowledge! 

Voicethread can help us to do that together.

Readicide Conversation Tips. . .

So who's planning to stop by our Sunday through Thursday conversation with Kelly Gallagher on the state of reading instruction in the standardized-test driven classroom?  I know that Kelly's new book changed my thinking about what I do in my classroom---and I'm hoping that a conversation with other readers will only add to my commitment to change.

If you are planning on stopping by---and if you've never been involved in a digital conversation before---here are a few tips and tricks to keep in mind:

Make a commitment to being a productive participant:  Digital conversations---like any good conversation between colleagues---are only as valuable as the contributions made by their participants.  That means if you're stopping by and you have something meaningful to add or a really interesting question for everyone to consider, take the time to make a post!  Lurkers----or participants who quietly listen----are learners, too. 

It's just that their silence is a loss for the rest of us!


Listen first, comment second:  Speaking of listening, it is impossible to underestimate how important it is for participants in a digital conversation to review the comments made by other participants in a strand of conversation before making a new post!  Listening accomplishes two key tasks:  First, you might find a question asked by another participant that you can answer, building a bit of digital karma with the group.

But more importantly, if you don't review the comments made by other participants, the thoughts that you add might be off-topic or the questions that you pose might have already been asked.  Without listening first, you end up being that kid in your third block who raises his hand and throws the flow of the whole class out of the window by sharing something completely bizarre!


Skip the simple responses:  If you think about face-to-face conversations, there are TONS of simple responses exchanged between participants designed to show that one listener agrees with/acknowledges/disagrees with another.  For example, I probably say, "Yeah, Yeah," or "Right, Right" ten times when talking with my peers to let them know I'm listening. 

(When I'm completely jazzed, I tend to shout "Straight up, brotha!" while standing on a table, but that's a different conversation altogether.) 

Those kinds of simple responses only clutter a digital conversation with tons and tons of comments----so most people don't bother adding them.  The advice I always give is to make sure that every comment you add is a meaningful contribution to the conversation----asking a question, responding to a listener, challenging a thought, turning things in a new direction. 

That way, learners aren't swamped by simplicity. 


Remember that there is no ONE expert:  Digital conversations are incredibly cool because they bring together people from around the globe who all have different backgrounds and experiences.  It is that collection of backgrounds and experiences that adds richness to digital conversations. 

The media specialist from Australia may have some incredibly cool examples of how to solve a common problem in your classroom.  The math teacher from Wisconsin may have a question that challenges you to think about things in a new way.  The principal from Columbia might articulate a thought you've been wrestling with for years.

Take advantage of the "collective intelligence" in a digital conversation.  Don't expect one or two people to ask and answer all of the good questions.  Instead, interact----because interaction means we learn from everyone. 


Find and follow strands that interest you:  I surveyed my kids not long ago about why they enjoy digital conversations, and one theme repeated time and again:  Digital conversations---unlike whole class conversations---allowed students to focus on strands that challenged their thinking and to ignore strands that were boring.  As one of my boys so eloquently explained, "In our digital conversations, I don't have to listen to Emily blather on about horses for an hour!"

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?  When you're in a whole group, face-to-face meeting, you're forced to listen to conversation that might just mean nothing to you.  Quickly, you tune out and end up disengaged and unmotivated.

(Think: Faculty Meetings!) 

Digital conversations are different because you get to CHOOSE the strands of conversations---and the commenters----that you want to follow.  When I'm involved in a digital conversation, I NEVER read every comment or respond to every participant.  It's just too time-consuming to be valuable.  Instead, I find one or two topics that catch my interest and I invest my time and energy into those questions. 

Anyone else have tips and tricks for participating in digital conversations that you want to share?  The way I see it, the kinds of conversation that we're going to share from the 18th through the 22nd are going to become more and more common in the professional growth of teachers, so learning how to navigate them is something we've all got to master!

(Image credit:  Weekend Reading by Gracey, licensed Creative Commons: Attribution)

A Sneak Peek at Readicide. . .

So here it is, Radical Nation:  The beginning of our conversation with Kelly Gallagher about reading instruction in America starts today (a day early, mind you!  Figured no one would complain) with a link to download his new book Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It. 

Here's the direct link:  Download Readicide. 

You can also find more information about Readicide on the Stenhouse website by visiting this link.  (BTW: We should be thankful to both Kelly and Stenhouse for making this conversation happen!)

To focus your reading, consider the following questions:

Kelly is passionate about what he calls the 50/50 approach to teaching reading:  50% of the reading that his students do in class is academic and 50% of the reading that his students do in class is recreational.  Is this an approach that would work in your school?  Why or why not?

At one point in Readicide, Kelly argues that reading teachers shouldn't teach the reading.  Instead, they should teach the reader.  What do you think he means by this?  Would it be a fair summary of the entire book?  How well do the teachers in your building follow this advice?

What instructional practices does Kelly argue against in Readicide?  What instructional practices does he argue in favor of?  What percentage of time do students and teachers in your school spend engaged in the ineffective practices that Kelly describes?  What percentage of time do students and teachers spend engaged in the effective practices that he describes?

In our evidence-driven world, advocates for change in education can't merely argue on passion or intuition.  Instead, they need tangible evidence to prove that their practices are effective.  What is the most convincing evidence you can find in Readicide that schools are killing reading?  How will you use this evidence to drive change in your own schools or communities?

At times, Kelly is hard on schools and teachers in Readicide---arguing that we need to be more proactive in standing up for responsible instruction.  How do you feel about that?  Do teachers need to take ownership over the current reading crisis in our country?  What barriers prevent you from standing up for change?  Does Readicide provide any tools that you can use to take action?

Clearly, the reward that teachers care about the most are the moments when we know that we've touched a child in a positive way, helping them to succeed in an area where they've struggled.  Think about a moment like this during your teaching career.  What was it that 'worked' in that situation?  Can the lessons learned be stretched to other students?  Why or why not?

So dive in, huh?  Building your understanding of effective---and ineffective---reading instruction will make you a better practitioner, and building your knowledge of the evidence supporting the argument that schools are killing reading will make you a better advocate for change.  This is simply a conversation that we can't ignore.

And make plans to join us at some point between January 18th and January 22nd for a focused conversation with Kelly about reading in America.  You can learn more about our conversation by rereading this post from the Radical.  A link to the live conversation---being hosted with a digital tool called Voicethread----will be posted here in my blog on the morning of the 18th. 

1 in 7 U.S. Adults Can't Read?

Considering our upcoming conversation with Kelly Gallagher on his new book Readicide (see here, here and here), I thought the findings of a 2003 survey of adult literacy skills released by the National Center for Education Statistics were completely fascinating.  Poking around a bit led me to these disturbing conclusions:

• There was little change in the adult literacy levels between the time of the first National Assessment of Adult Literacy---conducted in 1992---and the second survey conducted in 2003. 
• Double digit drops in both the prose literacy (searching, comprehending, using information from continuous texts) and document literacy (searching, comprehending, using information from noncontinuous texts) of Hispanic Americans were noted between 1992 and 2003.  
• The average prose literacy scores for adults between the ages of 25 and 49---prime working and earning years---dropped from 1993 to 2003.  
• Only 5 percent of the 16-18 year olds and 12 percent of the 19-24 year olds surveyed in 2003 were rated proficient in document literacy.

Considering that "proficiency" includes the ability to perform such commonplace tasks as comparing two competing viewpoints in editorials, interpreting a table showing the connections between age, blood pressure and physical activity, and computing and comparing the cost per ounce of food items, I'd say that we've got something to be concerned about, don't you?!

I think the statistics that I found the most interesting were connected to the literacy performance of students graduating from high school and college.  From 1993-2003, the literacy scores of high school graduates dropped by 6 points and the literacy scores of college graduates dropped by 14 points. 

Those numbers just sit wrong in my craw.  I mean, with all of the emphasis that we've placed on reading instruction in the last decade---including something like a billion dollars to implement "proven reading practices" in schools---how can it be possible that the students graduating from our schools are leaving with such a poor handle on the very skills that are most important to their future success? 

Is this evidence of an underinvestment in schools?  What about communities?  Are they doing less to support families, causing children unnecessary personal struggles that interfere with reading?  Should we redirect our efforts from supporting early readers to supporting adults who haven't mastered basic literacy skills?  Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Could this somehow be a reflection on the poor quality of teachers in our country? 

What about a reflection on the poor quality of instruction in our country?

Are the two connected?

These are the kinds of questions that Kelly tackles in his new book, Readicide: How schools are killing reading and what you can do to stop it----which will be available for download here on the Radical this Thursday (January 14th).  They are also the kinds of questions that we'll tackle in our focused 4 day conversation with Kelly, running from January 18th through January 22nd. 

I hope you'll join us.  This is a conversation that practitioners need to grab a hold of and own. 

(Image Credit:  Wikipedia T-Shirt by Quartermane, licensed Creative Commons: Attribution)