Tag: Music

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Teaching Continuity and Change: Crowdsourcing My Lesson Idea

SI-Neg-46-859

I've been invited by the education department at the Smithsonian Institution to do a guest blog post for the museum’s blog using resources from Smithsonian’s History Explorer. I have an idea for a document based question (DBQ) that explores the historic perspective of continuity and change. I thought I’d “crowdsource” my idea to my readers for some feedback. 

Note: the post went live at the Smithsonian blog on Oct 4, 2010  

Premise: The student get to be the historian

I think we often “over curate” the historic artifacts and documents we share with students. For more on that subject see my post:  "Essential Question: Who is the Teacher in Your Classroom?" I want to use documents that students could investigate without much background knowledge. Visual images offer the broadest access for students and I found a great collection of historic bicycles in the “Smithsonian Bicycle Collection.” My lesson would include images of about five bicycles with a brief description and key details. Text description would be limited to allow students to explore the images and draw their own conclusions. I think it makes sense to provide pdf download of historic bicycle the material. I’ve also considered displaying the content as a Prezi – what do you think?

Analytic approach: Exploring continuity and change

Students need experience using a variety of analytic approaches across the curriculum. Continuity and change is a perspective that has a central role in historic thinking. In this lesson, students would be asked to view a series of images of historic bicycles and develop a model for analyzing the features – the elements that changed (size of wheels, gears) and those that remained relatively constant (human powered, seated posture).

Multiple level of Bloom: Moving from low to high
Students would begin with the lower level comprehension skills – what am I looking at? But would quickly move to analysis – what design patterns do I see in bicycles? Evaluation – which are important to my model? And creating – can I develop a comparative model to share my learning?

Relevance: Authentic audience, variable product, peer and self-reflection
I think the target audience for this lesson is middle – high school. I will prompt the students to design a way to explain their model to 3rd graders. (someone other than the teacher that will require them to consider audience and purpose) I won’t provide a graphic organizer. That would mean mean that I, not the students did the comparing. I’d like to leave it opened ended for students to develop their own graphic or text model to express what they’ve learned. Student would be invited to develop different models of comparison and be offered the chance to compare and learn from each others conclusions.

Extensions: Thinking more about bicycles continuity, and change

  • Consider how contemporary bicycles fit your continuity / chance model. Example – recumbent, mountain, fixed gear.
  • Design a bike
  • Apply the continuity / change model in another subject or discipline – fashion, architecture, musical styles, advertising, fictional characters… I could go on, but I hope you see the potential for learning.
  • Technology extension – Student could also be invited to view the world's public photography archives at the Flickr Commons using a  search by "bicycle." They could help describe the photographs they discover by adding tags or leaving comments. The collection includes works from the Smithsonian and other leading international photographic archives.

Image:
A.S. Wieners with 1887 Rudge Racing bicycle
Smithsonian Institution, Negative #: 46-859

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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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Looking for a Pay Phone and a Lecture

Pay Phone
Pay Phone screenshot

Their seems to be a new genre of “Did You Know” video designed to overwhelm us with upbeat music and a relentless bombardment of stats attesting to the whirlwind of technological changes going on in the world.  As if I need a YouTube video to remind me! The video below was produced by the New Brunswick Department of Education. I really enjoyed the opening question it poses – “When’s the last time that you – sent film out for processing, used a pay phone, etc…” It then asks a great contrasting question – “But what about education?”

I was disappointed at the 52 second mark when I watched the film go on to contrast those antiquated activities with the innovations going on in New Brunswick schools.  I was hoping for a different contrast – interviewing students about the obsolete communications landscape of the typical classroom – when’s the last time they were asked to listen to a teacher talk, write down what they heard and then give it back on a test. 

Not many pay phones around anymore, but walk in most schools and you’ll have little trouble finding a lecture.

Notes to my Canadian neighbors: I was impressed with the great things going on in New Brunswick schools. The lecture problem is global. And one more thing … can someone find another adjective to replace 21st century?

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Essential Question: Who is the Teacher in Your Classroom?

Over the last few weeks I've been guiding teams of teachers on reflective classroom walkthroughs. During the course of one of our "hallway discussions" I asked a social studies teacher, "who's the historian in your classroom?" After a bit of give and take, we concluded that in the traditional classroom, the students get to watch (and listen) to the teacher be historian. 

That's certainly what you would have seen early in my teaching career. I was the one doing most of the reading, reflecting and synthesizing of historic material. I thought my job was to distill it all and simplify for consumption by my students. It took me a few years to realize my job was to get the students to be the historians (and economists, anthropologists, etc). 

De Bry Here's a sample lesson that I developed to demonstrate how historic material could be scaffolded so that all students could participate in doing the work of historians –  What Did Europeans "See" When They Looked at the New World and the Native Americans? Seems appropriate with US Thanksgiving nearly here.

It examines European views of Native American and the New World in the Age of Exploration. While it is a rather one-sided account, the documents reveal a great deal about the cultural "lenses" that the Europeans "looked" though. It is designed around an essential question that will engage students in reflection about how Europeans allowed prejudice to color their perceptions. That, of course, invites thinking about how we may be looking at other peoples and cultures today.

The source material contains twenty-five documents in text and image formats – including journal entries, letters, maps, and illustrations. I modernized historic accounts at two reading levels – 5th and 8th grade. (Each contains the same twenty five documents). I selected images which could be “decoded” by students with a minimum of background knowledge so that all students could practice their content reading comprehension and critical thinking skills. A series of six exercises accompanies the lesson to guide students through the process of extracting information from the documents and constructing their own answers to the essential question.

While this lesson is historical, the same perspective applies to lessons across the curriculum – who's the scientist, engineer, artist, nutritionist, mathematician, literary critic, and musician – in your classroom? Teachers are no longer simply “education dispensers” gathering, distilling and delivering information to students. (There are too many other sources that do a great job of delivering information 24/7.) Instead teachers can thrive as “educational architects” who design classrooms where students do the work of constructing meaning. 

Source documents – 5th grade reading level

Source documents – 8th grade reading level

Six activity worksheets

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All Points West 09 Music and Arts Festival – APW 09 Liberty State Park, NJ

My son is on the production team at All Points West, a three-day, 60-band festival this weekend in Liberty State Park in Jersey City. APW 09 opens on Friday August 31st with Jay-Z, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Vampire Weekend as first-night headliners, continuing with Tool, My Bloody Valentine, Gogol Bordello and Neko Case on Saturday; and Coldplay, Echo and the Bunnymen and MGMT on Sunday. Complete lineup here. 

I thought I'd test out Wiffiti, a visualizer that automatically integrates tag-based content feeds for photos and text (e.g. Twitter, Flickr). If it works well, I'll use it to gather and display user-generated backchannel at my next presentation! 

 View timeline or full screen  

 To join the dialogue,  tweet #APW or Text @wif5336 + your message to 87884