Theory into Practice

I have been reading a great deal of Marlene Scardamalia’s work in preparation for my final two papers, finding all sorts of interesting links between her theories of knowledge-building and my own observations and thoughts about teaching theatre literacy in the grade 12 classroom. I have also been reflecting on some of the struggles expressed in previous blogs about how I can integrate technology into my classroom in more effective and helpful ways, and what a renewed classroom environment will look like come September.

In her work, Knowledge Building: Theory, Pedagogy and Technology (2006), Scardamalia writes that in a genuine knowledge building community, “the Internet becomes more that a desktop library and a rapid mail-delivery system. It becomes the first realistic means for  students to connect with civilization-wide knowledge building and to make their classroom work a part of it” (p. 98).

A walk in the lovely, late evening prairie gloom brought to mind some of the tools and approaches that I could see supporting my practice:

1.       Post course materials and move toward a paperless environment.

2.       Pool student online research around key questions.

3.       Allow peer teaching as students hone each other’s papers before showing them to me.

4.       Create an online discussion board, and the expectation of a reflective student blog.

5.       Post short instructional videos by me on common teaching trouble spots such as how to write a thesis statement.

6.       Post expert lectures for additional background.

7.       Create links to online simulations like StageStruck.

8.       Create links to supplementary materials like backstage interviews with actors and directors.

9.       Allow for a greater variety of work to be posted in an e-portfolio.

10.   Engage in collaborative learning with students overseas.

11.   Allow for research around problems.

12.   Engage in online debates, possibly with a sister school in India.

13.   Create more varied online presentations and epistemic artefacts such as videos and artworks.

14.   Provide the opportunity for students to ask questions of experts in the field, such as questions about how they might have tackled certain staging issues in their production of a Shakespeare play.

I’ll look forward to trying out a few of these approaches as the months unfold, keen to put them to use in the creation of a knowledge-building community modelled on the practices of literary scholarship. Should be fun!

Schools and the Participatory Culture

Dr. Friesen’s description of the wonderful work being done at Olds School brought our reading of Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture (Jenkins, 2009) to mind, particularly its definition of the phrase “participatory culture”:

 “1. relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement

2. strong support for creating and sharing creations with others

3. some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices

4. members who believe that their contributions matter

5. members who feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least, they care what other people think about what they have created”. (p. 5)

 Jenkins uses the phrase to describe the world of Web 2.0, in which people have switched from being receivers to creators of content. But it could also be applied to the ideals of schooling that we have been talking about in class. If students were allowed to seize their right to an education, were given the opportunity to develop their minds and engage in happy and productive work with their friends, school itself could become a “participatory culture”, and the five facets to the definition would hold true. There would be low barriers to expression; strong support for creativity; informal mentorship from the teacher; meaningful contributions; and strong bonds between students engaged in meaningful work.

What is it that prevents the participatory culture we see flourishing on the web from taking hold in our schools? I suspect that a deep reason is that, institutionally, we are afraid of students and believe that the only way to make them work is to force them to do so – the old industrial model of control.

And yet what is heart-breaking for those of us focussed on the secondary years, is to remember for a moment the joy that motivates student learning in the younger grades. Much of what happens in those early years could be termed as “participatory culture” – the sounds of happy engagement from the well-run classroom are evidence of that.

The challenge for high school teachers like myself is to reignite the joy of learning in our students, to believe in their innate curiosity, and to open our doors to the participatory culture that has so naturally taken hold in other aspects of their lives.

Teaching at a Good School

The discussion in class around the need for teachers to model and foster authentic learning practices in their students, discussed in detail by Edelson and Reiser (2006), caused me to reflect upon what goes on in my own school, and the vantage point I have as both a teacher and as the parent of one of the students.

First, it struck me in one of those light bulb moments that by virtue of being in a class, the student should be participating in the authentic discourse of that discipline. That means no more sterile, disembodied questions, for example, but tasks, questions and problems that cause the student to live the subject. I reflect upon some of the activities in my class, such as “spark writing”, a ten-minute creative writing session that starts most of my classes, followed by feedback that models the sorts of responses a writer would give another writer.

Second, it reminded me of why I have been so impressed by my son’s experience at my school because I see total immersion in the discourse of each individual discipline. In history class, for example, he’s debating with the historians; in English he’s interpreting texts; in phys ed he’s doing a variety of sports. I also see rigour and variety within that academic program, and I see teachers who are subject specialists, all keen to advocate for their position within the life of the student and the school. I had been struggling a bit with the notion of authentic practice, but I now I feel that I have … wait for it … a knowledge of authentic practice.

Still Struggling

... to imagine fundamental ways to restructure what goes in my department's very fine English classes.

At present, the ideal many of us strive for involves the students and the teacher seated in a large rectangle, with everyone facing in. The core activity, particularly in the IB English classes, is the teacher leading a close analysis of a text. Lots of laughter. Lots of great ideas. Kids sharing their thoughts. Teacher making new discoveries along with the students. Lots of links to kids' lives, current events, pop culture. Procative questions. Intellectual engagement. Lots of modelling of authentic practice. Plenty of close reading of text. Lots of collaboration in seeky meaning. An alive, alert teacher, surfing the text with the kids, the majority of whom are engaged - and if someone drifts away, the teacher is able to pull them back in again. Yes, there are other activities, but this is the core, the one we keep returning to.

I see the community of inquiry model at work here, as well as knowledge building, authentic inquiry, and deep learning. Weaker students might not be able to sustain this, but the higher achieving student we have in the IB stream seem to relish it (confirmed, also, by end of year surveys).

The earlier idea about moving through clusters of texts based on key questions certainly makes sense of what we are doing. And I can see how we can do a better job of drawing on online resources, and using the web to foster collaboration and peer coaching around the writing assignments (itself a big shift and a welcome change from the traditional model of "student writes/teacher comments and grades).

But am I missing something else? Should I be thinking of more of a paradigm shift?

Transformative Learning

One of the really interesting aspects of this particular learning experience – two weeks of immersion in Calgary – is how quickly ideas that were entirely new to me not long ago suddenly seem commonplace. It’s actually pretty alarming and disorienting. At this stage in the program I’m having a hard time figuring out what I knew before; what I know now; what I should have known before but didn’t; and what I knew before and was already acting on but had failed to articulate. Some of my biggest discoveries seem suddenly foundational to my thinking, and I’m afraid that when I return to my home institution the discoveries that rocked my world in Calgary will seem commonsense to me and everyone around me and I’ll get some funny looks.

I can see that happening already around the program, StageStruck, mentioned in class yesterday by Dr. Friesen. Developed in Australia, the program puts into practice the theoretical work we have been learning about concerning authentic, collaborative learning environments and deep learning. In the little bit I have been able to glean from some Internet searches, I see that the program allows users to create their own productions online, and link to a forum at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney (thus creating that lovely, authentic connection to real life practitioners). I was planning on writing my two papers for both courses around both sides of such a program, not knowing that it already existed.

In the paper for “Inquiry and Technology”, I was thinking of returning to my largely untapped body of MA research on how the wireless generation responds to live theatre, draw out some of those voices, and consider their position as learners with regard to Scardamalia’s ideas about the knowledge building community.  

In the paper for “Innovations in Teaching and Learning”, I was considering a program redesign for that English class, rethinking how theatre is presented and taught and suggesting that the use of the methods and philosophies we have been discussing could lead students to feel themselves part of Canada’s theatre knowledge-building community as audience members, thinkers, creators and innovators.

The two papers would be flip sides to the same coin; one could actually be an appendix to the other.

The program StageStruck, new to me yesterday, suddenly seems highly apropos, as does another Oxford University Press program mentioned by Pat, in which students can log in to immerse themselves in the dramatic possibilities of theatre. Not using these sorts of programs as an English/drama teacher suddenly seems inconceivable; I feel like I’ve known about them for years; I see how long they’ve been around and I’m amazed, and more than a little embarrassed.

I guess that’s the experience of transformative learning. Wow.

Mid-Point Summary

Today I applied to be part of The Globe and Mail's reader advisory panel on education because I read the paper daily and would love to be part of their internal conversation about the state of Canadian education. My online submission provided me with a good opportunity to reflect upon where I am as a teacher, parent and learner at this mid-point of the Ed D two-week program. It's remarkable how quickly my views have evolved, and I'm grateful to my professors and colleagues for helping me come to grips with some important issues. Here is the submission:

"As a father I continue to see the role that education plays in the lives of young people, its strengths and weaknesses, and the pressures under which it operates. As an English/drama teacher in an independent school I see what teachers and administration working together away from the restraints of the public education system can achieve, but also how even in those circumstances a ministry curriculum and certain teaching mindsets shape and even limit what we do. As a teacher in the both the ministry program and the IB program, I have a good sense of what works in two quite different programs, and the tensions that exist between them. As a student in the Ed. D. (educational technology) program at the University of Calgary, I have been exposed to the ideals of what deep learning should look like, and how technology, which in my experience to date has played only a peripheral role in the lives of my sons and my students, should be put to far better use in allowing our students to collaborate and learn beyond the classroom walls. I would like to be part of the panel so that I can share and discuss ideas with other "Globe" readers and journalists on the evolving state of Canadian education. My experience studying in one province and working in another gives me an interesting perspective on how different jurisdictions tackle the same issues, and sometimes leaves me baffled that there is not more of a cross-country conversation on the best practices that are so clearly within reach for all.

 "One thing that I would change is the role of technology in schools. Provinces - and independent schools - have spent millions on technology without addressing teaching itself. Seen as add-ons in traditional, teacher-centred classrooms, Smartboards are often just glorified projection screens and laptops are over-priced typewriters. When teaching becomes focussed on authentic, collaborative, inquiry-based activities, however, the role of technology changes. Engaged students use the technology to work together, to contact outside experts, to create innovative solutions to real, meaningful problems. I marvel at how my son in grade 7 in a well-run Ottawa Catholic public school, still spends much of his time with pen and paper, listening to the teacher. He's a very, very bright boy, with a caring a committed teacher, but the model they are both laboring under belongs to the 19th century. As a consequence, this pure learner, this model of ambition and curiosity, often comes home bored. The conservatism in education, this reluctance to embrace the possibilities of the world we live in and the tools we have at our disposal, in defiance of learning sciences and classroom research, is the one thing I would change."

Life in the Sandbox: Opportunities ... and a Question

In the chapter “Learning in Activity”, Green writes about how “situative analyses” of the learning environment focus on “activity systems: complex social organizations containing learners, teachers, curriculum materials, software tools, and the physical environment” (p. 79). Referring to Blumenfeld, Kemplar and Krajcik from later in the volume, he goes on to explain that when “learning environments do not support personal identity, learners will not be deeply engaged, even if they manage to maintain focus long enough to complete a classroom activity” (p. 89).

Building our class around this idea of “learning in activity”, the class had a wonderful time exploring a range of technological innovations to build that learner engagement. I was struck by how I would be able to use a variety of these in my own “classroom sandbox” in the fall:

1.      The use of short videos, or perhaps the program “Show Me” to explain key concepts such as how to present a title page or write a thesis statement would allow a key feature of the “flipped classroom” to emerge – allowing time in class to focus on tasks and discussion rather than instruction.

2.      Glogster – what fun! Has potential as a more visual, multi-modal means of presenting information.

3.      Twitter: as my students work through the list of texts we are obliged to study over the course of the year (15 texts between the two years of the IB diploma program), we could follow related Twitter feeds and discuss what we discover in class. During the long Shakespeare study in the fall, for example, student engagement could be heightened with the understanding that the bard continues to spur profound interest and engagement from tweeting scholars. Political issues surrounding other plays could also be shown to be alive through Twitter contact with experts.

4.      Software that allows for questions to be posted and responded to using Smartphones would add an interactive, all-inclusive element to class discussions.

5.      Video-conferencing could be used to great effect to achieve virtual debates with students in other countries.

6.      Class Wikis would allow for easier interaction with and between students.

7.      Use of Twitter, even email, could lead to a requirement that every student at some point in the year, for some text or some assignment, contact and receive advice from an expert in the field.

All of this leads to a bit of a paradigm shift in my classroom, which involves recognizing how the use of technology can make my classes more engaging and relevant to students. Two challenges come to mind. I’ll write about one here, and the second in a subsequent post.

The first challenge is that in the case of IB English, with its list of 15 titles over two years and final, standardized exam, is: how do I create authentic, problem-based generative topics for my students for all those texts so that the technology can be used to accomplish the kind of collaborative learning we have been discussing? Often, we barely have time to get at a text’s main features before it is time to move onto the next one.

In the past, there has been a tendency to say, “Next we will study …” when moving on to the next text. Recognizing that this is about the worst way to introduce a text, I have at least been able to shift my teaching toward the use of “hooks” for each text. This involves identifying a central issue for each text that is of interest to teens. For example, the hook for “A Doll’s House” is “Are men the new ball and chain?” The hook for “King Lear” has been “Why is this play so dark that for many years the ending of the play was never performed?” or “What happens to a king when he gets old and gives up power?” Creative writing and discussion prior to starting each text gets the juices flowing and, I hope, makes students interested in exploring the text in order to get at the issue or question we have introduced. Because I try to choose hooks that might pique the curiosity of teens, the activity goes some way to supporting and building the “personal identity” mentioned in the text. It links the text to the student’s own experiences. It’s a neat moment in the classroom when I can say, “So this is what you think about this issue … now let’s see what the author has to say about it.”

But this is still some distance away from the authentic tasks and problem-based learning. Is this approach best suited to other subjects? How can it be applied to higher level secondary English studies, with its rather daunting list of challenging texts?