Author: Peter Pappas

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As NCLB Narrows the Curriculum, Creativity Declines

Newsweek Magazine recently discovered “The Creativity Crisis.”

“… Since 1990, creativity scores have consistently inched downward.”

Creativity is on the decline among our children. Walk into many classrooms and you’ll see why. Our kids are too busy being force-fed a diet of “test-prep” to have any time to explore their learning in deeper, more open-ended approaches. NCLB marches on – narrowing the curriculum to the point that many elementary school no longer have time to devote to non-tested subjects. As if being a struggling learner is not punishment enough, students are pulled out of art and music  – classes that offer hands-on learning and outlets for their creativity. What awaits them is likely “drill and kill’ that doesn’t sound like much fun for students or their teachers.  (Of course, daily reading, writing and application of math should be common to every class. Let music students explore the mathematical elements of rhythm and then journal what they had learned. But that’s another post!)

While NCLB began with the admirable goal of narrowing demographic performance gaps and putting an end to sorting kids on the “bell curve,”  because of its myopic reliance on standardized (we don’t trust teachers) testing – it has failed. And the great irony is that while our students spend endless hours honing their test taking skills, the demand for routine skills has disappeared from the workplace. Anyone know of a meaningful and rewarding career that looks like filling out a worksheet?

What’s needed to restore creativity as the centerpiece of schools? 

Creating requires both a strong foundation in content knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge in new ways – usually across a variety of disciplines. It begins with a firm grasp of the basics and includes analyzing patterns and needs, evaluating alternatives and finally creating something new. When seen as as “a new combination of old elements,” creating is not  limited to the “creative.” It’s something that all students can do.

Learning must engage student in rigorous thinking at higher levels of thinking – analyzing, evaluating and creating. Are students expected to just consume information, or are they asked to create something original that demonstrates their learning? Student must have an opportunity to figure out their own process rather than just learn “the facts,” and be given opportunities to reflect on their work and their progress as learners. For more on reflective thinking see my post: “The Reflective Student.” Readers might also enjoy my post: “9 Questions for Reflective School Reform Leaders.”

In education we have a history of “over-steering.” Let’s hope that that NCLB is declared DOA and that we rediscover a curriculum that sets our students and teachers free to explore a more engaging project-based approach. Our kids are inheriting a world with a host of problems that will require some out-of-the-box thinking and solutions.

I should note that later this week I will be keynoting at a the Project Foundry® Un-Conference – a gathering of 50 project-based-learning educators from across the country.

Image credit:  Flickr / ePi.Longo

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Ninth Grade Academy Planner: Skills + Motivation = Success

I'm proud to have been part of the creation of two small learning communities – a Ninth Grade Academy and a Summer Prep School for at-risk learners. In each case, we first assembled a team of educators to forge a common vision of teaching and learning. Then schools were organized to accomplish this vision.

As a consultant, I've had the opportunity to share my practical experience with educators from across the country. See my website Small Learning Communities that Work for more info.

Last week, I had the opportunity to work with a talented group of teachers and administrators from Helena-West Helena School District in Arkansas. We put the finishing touches on plans for a new ninth grade academy. Their development began earlier this school year with strategic planning and site visits. To get our work started, I sent them this NGA-planning-guide (40KB pdf) in advance.  Their responses were a great starting point for our two-day session. By the time we concluded, we had produced a detailed implementation plan as well as mission, "mantra" and key features. As I reminded the team, you need a concise response to the question you'll get in the grocery store, "So what's this new ninth grade academy?"

Judging from the session evaluations, participants felt ready for the academy launch. 

"This workshop helped us catch the "ah-ha's" that we never thought of."

"The best part was the collaborative efforts, insights and involvement."

"Thank you for increasing the momentum."

"Our roles and goals are now clearly defined."

Mission Statement – Our mission is to create a safe and supportive environment to enable students to make a successful academic and personal transition to high school. The NGA will provide students with the skills and motivation necessary to take increasing responsibility for reaching their college and career aspirations.

NGA Mantra:  Skills + Motivation = Success 

Ninth Grade Academy Key Features

1. Dedicated Space: Located in the 9/10 building on the first hall. Each room in the NGA contains a SmartBoard that will be utilized during classroom instructions. The space will provide a safe and supportive environment to assist students in transition to the high school. 

2. Team of Teachers/Administrators: The ninth grade academy will be led by the principal, Mrs. Davis along with the team of teachers. This staff will be trained and dedicated to working specifically with the incoming ninth grade class. The goal is that each teacher will become familiar with all students academically and personally. This will support the familial environment of the NGA. 

3. Student-Centered Approach to Learning: Teachers will be trained in instructional strategies that support students taking increasing responsibility for their learning. 

4. High Expectations: The NGA administration and teachers will hold students to a clearly defined set of high expectations, both academically and behaviorally. 

5. Curriculum Designed to Support Skills and Motivation: In addition to the state mandated curriculum, a new course designed specifically for freshmen will be instituted. This course will focus on skill development, life-long learning, and career exploration. 

6. Timely Communication to Parents and Community: Online Engrade updates will be available to parents and students. In addition, parents will receive regularly individualized student reports. Via the district website and other district communications, the community will be updated on the progress of the Ninth Grade Academy. 

Photo credit: Flickr: Leeroy09481

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Forget About Remembering, It’s Focus That’s the New Literacy

 
focus page
focus page

The cost of information is rapidly approaching zero. Normally as price of a commodity drops, we consume more of it. But unlike all the other cheap stuff we buy, and then later discard, cheap information demands our attention. Despite all the claims of multi-tasking, we are stuck with a finite attention span. Thus the ability to selectively filter out unwanted information and stay focussed on a task is emerging as a new literacy.

Students are adrift in a sea of text without context.  As the barriers to content creation have dropped, old media (for all its flaws) has been replaced by pointless mashups, self-promoting pundits, and manufactured celebrity. Educators must help students make more effective use of the information that fills their lives – how to better access it, critically evaluate it, store it, analyze, share it, and maintain their focus. An essential goal of the Common Core standards.  For more on how we need to redefine the information flow in school see my post “What Happens in Schools When Life Has become an Open-book Test?“

Recently David Dalrymple, a researcher at the MIT Mind Machine Project, made an insightful contribution to the The Edge Annual Question — 2010 “How is the internet changing the way you think?“ He wrote, 

“Filtering, not remembering, is the most important skill for those who use the Internet. … Before the Internet, most professional occupations required a large body of knowledge, accumulated over years or even decades of experience. But now, anyone with good critical thinking skills and the ability to focus on the important information can retrieve it on demand from the Internet, rather than her own memory. On the other hand, those with wandering minds, who might once have been able to focus by isolating themselves with their work, now often cannot work without the Internet, which simultaneously furnishes a panoply of unrelated information — whether about their friends’ doings, celebrity news, limericks, or millions of other sources of distraction. The bottom line is that how well an employee can focus might now be more important than how knowledgeable he is. Knowledge was once an internal property of a person, and focus on the task at hand could be imposed externally, but with the Internet, knowledge can be supplied externally, but focus must be forced internally.”

If you need a visual reminder of the swamp of information that your students are wading through take a look at this video “InfoWhelm and Information Fluency” from the 21st Century Fluency Project

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iOS 4 Update: Lost All Your Contacts on Your iPhone? Here’s How To Get Them Back

StatsNote: I haven’t bothered to try iCloud yet. Commenters below demonstrate this process works in iOS 5 and with iCloud.

I first posted on this process back in May of ’09. After the release of  iOS 4 on June 21st, I noticed a big jump in traffic to my blog post. So I thought it was time to update the post using screenshots from  iOS 4. 

I sync my iPhone, MacBook and iMac over MobileMe. I like that a change in an appointment or contact on one device shows up on the other two.  But on a few occasions I have opened my iPhone to find that all my Contacts were gone. This calamity mysteriously happened on its own. (I did not make any setting changes to lose my contacts.) But here’s how I got them back. 

Assumption: This process assumes that you are using MobileMe to store your contacts. Before you begin the steps below, I suggest you go to your MobileMe account and confirm that your contact are there. Assuming your contacts are on MobileMe, here’s the way to get them back to your iPhone.

1. On my iPhone I went to “Settings” and picked “Mail, Contacts, Calendar.” All the email accounts you have on your iPhone will be there as choices along with your MobileMe account. See below.
  1_iphone_contacts

2. Under accounts I selected my MobileMe account. You get a list of all the data that MobileMe is syncing. See below.

2_mobile_me

3. I turned Contacts “Off.” (It’s the only sync I turned off.) You get the dialogue box below asking you if you really want to do this. I chose “Delete from My iPhone” since I did not want to run the risk of duplicating contacts. (Remember, that I had already confirmed that all my contact are backed up on my MobileMe account.)

  3_cancel_contacts

4. As the process of deleting progressed, I got this confirmation.

4_cancel_contacts

4. Once the process was finished, I waited a few seconds then I went back to the screen in Step 2 above and turned Contacts back “On.”

Re-synching your contact to your iPhone takes a new minutes – don’t panic!

When I reopened my iPhone contacts,  initially they were all gone. But I could see the sync icon running and after about 5 minutes all my contacts were back. Your time will depend on how many contacts you have and whether your are running on a wifi network. Note on this last step you might have to open and close Contacts a few times to get your iPhone to force a MobileMe sync.

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Student Reflection on Classroom Discussion and Problem Solving

I recently received an insightful comment to my post "Classroom Discussion Techniques that Work – Try This Hollywood Classroom Walkthrough" I thought it was worth reprinting the observation as a separate post.

First some background … my original post used a video clip from "Stand and Deliver" to map the information flow in the traditional classroom. I also used the illustration below (from "Math Is Language Too: Talking and Writing in the Mathematics Classroom" by Phyllis Whitin) to demonstrate how students learn to  "do the math" for their teacher, rather than see math as an opportunity for peer discussion, problem solving or reflection.

Here's the comment to my post that I received from "Pjack." I'm glad to see that at least one student is reflecting on his progress as a learner. (for more on student reflection see my post on the Reflective Student) 

"The way math is taught is can be somewhat disheartening in many cases, as illustrated by that kid's drawing. As a high school student, and one who isn't that great with numbers (art kid here), one of my favorite classes I've ever taken, of all the most unlikely things, was summer school physics. The teacher did a brief lecture, gave us some formulas for how to calculate this and that, put us in groups of our choosing, had us figure out one problem per group in a collaborative fashion, and then present the answer to the class, whether it was right or wrong. The class would then give constructive feedback, and ask us questions, which we would work as a class to answer. The teacher sat at his desk the entire time, willing to offer help to those that asked but otherwise removed. The thing he repeated was, "What you put in to it you get out of it." Needless to say, it was an interesting experience, and one of the first times I did math collaboratively. Sadly, many of the students (soph/juniors in high school) made comments like, "He doesn't teach!" or were generally terrified of this responsibility. Really goes to show how little we feel prepared to take control over our own learning, at times. I notice this sort of teacher-dependency in some amount in almost every class."

Math-student