As a child, I grew up in a world that was dominated by left-brained thinking. Both my parents were in professions that required in-depth analytical thinking. The “rule” in my house was: “If you break something, try to fix it. Only THEN come ask Dad for help.” Dad was an avionics engineer and had an incredible mechanical ability. He could fix anything, and he instilled within his children a desire to understand how things work and a hunger to ask questions that clarify thinking.

Looking back now, I realize something I never understood then — what he had instilled was an ability to think critically. Along with creativity, collaboration, and communication, critical thinking is one of the four components of learning in the 21^st century. Unlike the other three, critical thinking is often difficult to reduce to bite-size pieces of understanding and challenging to teach to others.

Several months ago, as I was visiting one of our diocese schools, I was fascinated that a first grade teacher was actually teaching critical thinking to her students within a math lesson. The students had to create number sentences with the numerals of 5, 3, and 2. I was fascinated when she asked for volunteers (in pairs) to come to the whiteboard, write down their first sentence, and then, using manipulatives, prove that the sentence was correct. The other students “voted” whether or not the sentence was correct by either “a thumbs up” or “a thumbs down.”

The addition sentences were easy for the six and seven-year olds. The subtraction ones proved to be a bit challenging. Students could “phone a friend” or “ask for help.” If the partners still couldn’t solve the problem, the teacher intervened with some targeted questions and demonstrations using manipulatives. As I sat there in the back of the room, I was awed by the way the teacher got her students to think and work with one another!

Reflection, Reasons, Alternatives

Shortly after my classroom visit, I came across a website dedicated to teaching critical thinking. Upon diving deeper within the site, it was obvious why this is such a key component to 21^st century learning. Robert H. Ennis, author of the site, suggests three underlying components to critical thinking: reflection, reasons and alternatives.

Reflection always includes stopping and thinking before making rash judgments about the topic at hand. I have personally witnessed deep reflection by many students as they comment and question both within their personal and/or class blogs and wikis and during face to face communication). The use of blogs and wikis make it possible for others within their learning community, not just their class, to question their thinking patterns, thus deepening their learning experience.

It never ceases to amaze me how deep the learning experience can become when ideas are critiqued by others. So many good teachers I’ve had the opportunity to observe understand this concept and invisibly incorporate this within their teaching style.

‘How do you know what you know?’ and ‘Why do you think that?’ are questions that are often voiced by teachers and students alike. This is the core of the reasoning part of critical thinking. Individual thought patterns can be the result of cultural experience and/or a lack of personal experience. Questions like the above, from members within a learning community, broaden perception and deepen understanding.

Today’s learners must be put into situations that help grow global awareness and insight in order to make good decisions personally, professionally, and politically.  These attributes heighten the awareness of the similarities and differences of individuals, thus creating depper insights into what being human is all about.

Finally, in today’s world, learners of all ages need to understand that there are many ways to arrive at a good answer to a problem. They need lots of practice exploring alternatives. I have often said, “There is more than one way of getting to 2 besides 1+1.” This is the creative side of critical thinking.  Students should be given time to delve into questions in order to explore every dimension of the problem or question. This is when authentic, sticky, deep learning occurs.

Overall, I must acknowledge that our schools are filled with examples of teachers doing an excellent job teaching our young people to think critically. As I travel and visit schools and classrooms, I am often awed at the excellence that I find. It’s “Absolutely Amazing!” and all too often unrecognized or underappreciated in a world where so many are quick to be critical of schools without doing much critical thinking themselves.

While running a review session two weeks ago, the students took and then we went over a practice test. One of the practice test questions (from the leading test prep book) was about President Garfield. Only one of our bright, eager students even knew we had a President Garfield. And what this student knew was that he was one of four Presidents assassinated. In making choices about what to cover and what to leave out, my colleagues and I chose to skip past Garfield, spending time in Reconstruction, the Gilded Age and then jumping to American Imperialism in the late nineteenth century.

I have a Ph.D. in History from University of Pennsylvania. I have been teaching US History since 1997! What I know about Garfield is brief:  self-made man from Ohio, compromise candidate for the Republican Party in 1880, worked hard to reform the Federal Civil Service. His successor President Arthur actually signed into law legislation establishing the Civil Service as a merit based system (as opposed to a spoils system). To learn more specifics about Garfield, I can open a browser and do a Bing or Google or Wikipedia search.

Is this what colleges really want students to know?

I don’t want to get into an argument about whether Garfield was a part of US History, or whether the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was a a game changing piece of legislation. The question I want to ask is this: What is it we want our students to learn from their US History survey courses?

Every state requires high school students to take a US History survey course. Given the shortness of the school year and the increasing body of US History (every year we add another year of events, people and topics) we have to make choices. Not so for the makers of the SAT Subject Test. Every event, every President, every person of note is of equal importance and equally likely to show up on the examination. To prepare for any eventuality means moving through the survey textbook at a measured pace, constantly committing facts to memory, reviewing them frequently, and finishing the year with a head full of facts, a knowledge base a mile wide (or at least 300 years long) and a half inch thick. We can hope some of it will stick to the teen brain past the test date.

By using this test in their admissions process, colleges are saying: this is what we want our incoming students to have — heads full of facts.

But what can these students do with these facts? If I were a college admissions director I would want an assessment that sought to tease out a young person’s sense of what it means to be an engaged citizen. As a baseline, this sort of assessment might begin with geography. Where are the Appalachian Mountains and what do they have to do with the Proclamation of 1763? Where is the Grand Coulee Dam and what does it have to do with the Second New Deal? Where is the Rio Grande and what was its importance to the Mexican American War?

Along with geography, I would want to examine what students know about the evolution of the concepts of liberty and equality from the time of the Puritans and Cavaliers through to the present. How informed are they of the ways in which the Constitution has been interpreted and re-interpreted? Then I would want to see how much they know of all those times when citizens came together to effect change — all the 19th and 20th century citizen-led reform movements, including those of Reconstruction and the Progressive Era, to improve the lives of others or reform the government. For instance, I would want students to compare the Bonus Army with the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

If I were representing these respected higher education institutions, I would want such an assessment to measure effective writing and thinking. Then, I would want to know what potential students could actually do with all of this knowledge. Are they active, critical-thinking citizens or passive receivers of information?

That is what I would want to know. How about you?

Act One. The scene is a large conference room. Laptops and iPads litter the tables that stretch from one end of the room to the other. Black power cords snake vine-like over and around the men and women in numerous chairs. They seem to wriggle out from the floor and the table legs and the leather attaché cases, in search of outlets.

At rise, we meet our subject of interest, seated back left, third row. She is by no means a principal character, but merely plays a small part in the intricate backchannel chat ballet that will unfold the moment the presentation begins. She positions her fingertips, poised to weigh in on the discussion, and much to her dismay, the stage fright sets in. Without so much as a keystroke, she slinks into the scenery and then disappears out the backstage door.

Act Two. Three months later. Ditch the conference room, keep the laptop. Add an active Twitter account, a handful of posts on her newly-launched professional blog, and a healthy dose of confidence. Our lowly player has catapulted herself into a more noticeable role in a learning community that is a living, breathing protagonist in its own right: defining and redefining its character with every click. She is replying to discussions within her online learning communities, she is writing blog posts, and she is transparently sharing her successes and failures as a learner and as a teacher. She is even starting her own discussions that — to her genuine shock (and secret pleasure) — have elicited responses and taken on a threaded life of their own, leading to others learning from and with her.

With this, her eyes are opened and her approach to the role she plays in this ensemble is no longer self-centered, riddled with worry about sounding uninformed or being cast aside as useless. Now, she sees herself in the part she was truly born to play, a role into which she has been written and with which many can identify.  She is connected to every other player in a way that allows her to be a source of knowledge as well as an active participant in the shared learning that occurs.

But, with newfound confidence and involvement comes newfound respect and, consequently, responsibility. Eager, she volunteers to write for the Voices From the Learning Revolution blog. I have credentials, she says. A backstage pass. Experience. A writing degree. I can do this, she says. I have found my voice.

And then suddenly it arrives. The stage fright. Again.

It’s me, Stephanie

Our player is me: Stephanie, a second-year fourth grade teacher and novice player on the teacher-tech stage. I could be any one of the many teachers on a similar journey toward becoming connected educators who value life-long learning not only for our students but ourselves. I would venture to say that we all experience bouts of stage fright at some point in our careers, from directors to actors to understudies. It is normal. Expected, even. We ask ourselves the same questions: What do I have to offer that someone else can’t supply? What good will my opinion do? Hasn’t my question been asked countless times before?

At first, these questions were left unanswered. This collaboration thing was hard. I was plagued with Lurker Syndrome, and I resigned myself to thinking that I’d spend the rest of the year watching and waiting, letting this valuable time slip by without taking advantage of what was being offered. Soon, though, through conversations with educators in my PLN, answers began to surface.

Aren’t those teachers smarter than I am? (Some are, of course.) Won’t they fare just as well without my input? (Maybe, but they’ll be better off with it.) Who will benefit from what I have experienced? (Give it a break; no way to be sure, but someone will!) I began to realize that the journey toward connectedness, toward incorporating technology into my curriculum, has not been about the fear itself, but about how to overcome it, and furthermore, how to help others in overcoming it and fully transitioning into the 21^st century educators we were written to be.

I am still faced with stage fright time and time again.  But the professional relationships that I have cultivated with those who have a wealth of varied experience, and the conversations that have ensued on Twitter or other online communities, have given me the tools to confront it, to understand it, and to transform it into the kind of learning and teaching that effects change, promotes transparency, and showcases successes and failures.

Finessing the fear factor

Through several conversations and interactions, I know that some of my colleagues—both in my school and in my PLN–are still struggling with the stage fright. How to stand up to it. How to move past it. And surely there are many other educators who have entered this brave new place called “connected community” with some trepidation. Allow me to share what I have learned in hopes that it helps you to forget the heat of the spotlight and the pressure of a large audience (however difficult they are to see beyond the virtual footlights).

• Start small. And this is true, even if the work you’re there to do is almost done. It is never too late to jump in and it is never too late to learn. In September, when I started on my road to connectedness, I was bombarded with email notifications containing links to discussion themes that in some cases baffled me.  I shut down and repeatedly hit delete. I rarely spent time in the community discussion space and certainly was not an equal participant in our shared learning.  My presence on Twitter was weak at best. Sound familiar? Try this: pick one. One discussion thread. One task.  One tool. Something that appeals to you. That sends that tiny spark. That makes you think twice, if only for a second. Click over. Read. Write. Ask. Reply. Reply again. Trust me when I say that it will be liberating and exhilarating and will give you a sense of worth as contributor of experience, advancer of knowledge, agent of change.

• Gather support. I didn’t even know what PLCs and PLNs were in September, let alone did I cultivate and contribute to one. (They are “professional learning communities” and “personal learning networks,” by the way.) And now, I am not sure how I’ve survived these several years without them. Within these communities and networks, look out for the friendly faces (or avatars). Our Voices editor, with his nudges to get writing, did not let me off the hook, even when I made the excuse of being caught off guard by stage fright and wanted to give up. A fellow Voices writer (Patti Grayson) offered her encouragement and direct support in the comment thread of a blog post we were both following. It happened to be a post about not being afraid to share. These are merely two examples of many that showcase what we can do—together. They are more than just a pat on the back. They are guideposts that seem to say, “I’ve been there. Others have been there. I’ve seen what happens when you get to the other side. Got your back. Don’t give up.” When I find something more valuable than that, I’ll let you know.

• Keep going. In order for the two previous bits of advice to work, moving forward is a must. It takes precious time. And it is hard work. But the feedback, conversations, relationships, and changes that take hold are worth every minute. Make an effort to build upon the simple steps it takes to start. Try new things often and seek support to help you through the learning process. There are many people in every connected community (I am assured by veterans of this work) who are just waiting to help, yearning to offer guidance and share their experiences, and eager to get you to peak performance.

This brings us to Act Three. We’re not the same characters we were when we started. Our roles are being written and rewritten, constantly shifting with each new thing we learn and bring to our teaching. Whether you have been center stage, playing your part convincingly for quite some time now or whether, like me, you’ve been waiting in the wings and are just moving to the edge of the spotlight, there is always time to own your role and deliver your lines.

There is no excuse for stage fright now. In the world of connected educators, Time is always on our side. The learning curtain has yet to close. In fact, it never will. The crowds are cheering and we’re stepping toward the front of the stage.

I think the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy is wrong.

Hear me out. I know this statement sounds heretical in the realms of education, but I think this is something we should rethink, especially since it is so widely taught to pre-service teachers.  I agree that the taxonomy accurately classifies various types of cognitive thinking skills. It certainly identifies the different levels of complexity. But its organizing framework is dead wrong.  Here’s why.

Old-school Blooms: Arduous climb for learners

Conceived in 1956 by a group of educators chaired by Benjamin Bloom, the taxonomy classifies skills from least to most complex. The presentation of the Taxonomy (in both the original and revised versions) as a pyramid suggests that one cannot effectively begin to address higher levels of thinking until those below them have been thoroughly addressed. Consequently (at least in the view of many teachers who learned the taxonomy as part of their college training) Blooms becomes a “step pyramid” that one must arduously try to climb with your learners. Only the most academically adept are likely to reach the pinnacle. That’s the way I was taught it.

Many teachers in many classrooms spend the majority of their time in the basement of the taxonomy, never really addressing or developing the higher order thinking skills that kids need to develop. We end up with rote and boring classrooms. Rote and boring curriculum. Much of today’s standardized testing rigorously tests the basement, further anchoring the focus of learning at the bottom steps, which is not beneficial for our students.

I dislike the pyramid because it creates the impression that there is a scarcity of creativity — only those who can traverse the bottom levels and reach the summit can be creative. And while this may be how it plays out in many schools, it’s not due to any shortage of creative potential on the part of our students.

I think the narrowing pyramid also posits that our students need a lot more focus on factual knowledge than creativity, or analyzing, or evaluating and applying what they’ve learned. And in a Google-world, it’s just not true.

Here’s what I propose. In the 21st century, we flip Bloom’s taxonomy. Rather than starting with knowledge, we start with creating, and eventually discern the knowledge that we need from it.

Blooms 21: Let’s put Creating at the forefront

In media studies we often look at the creation of print and digital advertisements. Traditionally, students learn many of the foundational principles for creating a layout through a lecture or text book reading, and then eventually create their own.

What if we started with creativity rather than principles? My students start with the standard elements of an advertisement (product photo, copy, logo etc.)  and create a mockup.  Then students evaluate their mock-up by comparing their ads to a few professional examples and  discuss what they did right and wrong in comparison to what they’ve seen.

As students are pointing out design elements that work, we begin to analyze for similarities and divide them accordingly into groups. Most will likely fall into the four design principles of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. At this point, students compile their findings as a class, and only then are the four design principles formally introduced.

Now students can apply what they’ve learned as they return to their own mock-up and fix elements based on the design principles they’ve begun to absorb.

Finally, students research the four design principles to flesh out their understanding where needed, and possibly correct any misconceptions. From this research, students create their own graphic organizer of the four design principles for future reference and to help them remember.  We started with creativity and ended with the knowledge my students have curated. They’ve been engaged with the entire process from start to finish, and my students have make some significant decisions about the essential knowledge they need.

Blooms 21 works great in science

Not only does flipping Blooms work for classes like media studies,  it also blends beautifully with my inquiry-based Chemistry class.

As we study science, I’ve come to realize that it’s very important for my students to encounter a concept before fully understanding what’s going on. It makes their brain try to fill in the gaps, and the more churn a brain experiences, the more likely it’s going to retain information.

When we study ionic compounds, we start with a lab. My students begin by creating conductivity testers out of tin foil, batteries, and mini Christmas lights. Students then create their own lab and test 10-12 different substances, from salt water, to HCL, to sugar water, to check which substances conduct electricity. Usually, about half of the solutions provided do.

I have them compare their findings to how scientists usually categorize these solutions. Sometimes, solutions that are supposed to conduct electricity, don’t.  So providing the results of experts helps them to have more confidence in their own results.

However, it’s not enough to discover which substances conduct electricity. I want them to try to figure out why. With the results my students have obtained, they analyze their findings. By dividing the solutions into appropriate categories, students often discern that the solutions that conduct electricity are made up of two elements and the elements combined are found on opposite sides of the periodic table, such as NaCl. They also realize that solutions that don’t conduct, such as sugar, are usually made of elements found on the same side of the table.

Once they begin to analyze each solution’s makeup more closely, they tend to realize that conductive solutions are, for the most part, made up of a metal and non-metal, whereas solutions that don’t conduct usually don’t contain any metals. Once they’ve exhausted this activity, I introduce the concepts of ionic and covalent bonds to label each category.

Then students re-evaluate their own findings and apply their learning by fixing elements in their categorization system.

At this point, my students research ionic and covalent bonds, either through cooperative research, or by using the flipped classroom model, to fill out their findings with information about the characteristics of each type of bond, such as malleability, boiling and melting points, etc. They’re essentially creating their own notes.

And in English class . . .

Flipping Blooms — putting Creating, Evaluating, Analyzing and Applying first — also works in English.  From what I can tell, it’s likely the easiest route to creating a flipped English classroom. In the past, I’ve struggled to teach my students concepts such as grammar rules and abstract ideas like voice. Flipping Blooms makes this much easier.

I begin with having my students write a paragraph, either in response to a prompt or their own free writing. Next, students, working in small groups or pairs, evaluate several master texts for the criteria we’re working on. How does the writer use punctuation or voice in a particular text? What similarities are there between texts? Students then compare their own writing with each text. What did they do correctly or well? How does their writing differ and to what effect?

As a class, or in their groups, we analyze the pieces for similarities and differences and group them accordingly. Only then do I introduce the concept of run-on sentences, comma splices, and fragments. Essentially, through this process, my students identify the criteria for good writing. From this, we’re able to co-construct criteria and rubrics for summative assessments.

Students then apply what they’ve learned by returning to their own writing. They change elements based on the ideas they’ve encountered.

Students further their understanding by either listening to a podcast, or engaging in their own research of grammar rules. Finally, as the knowledge piece, students create a graphic organizer/infographic or a screencast that identifies the language rules they’ve learned.

I think the best flipped classrooms work because they spend most of their time creating, evaluating and analyzing. In  a sense we’re  creating the churn, the friction for the brain, rather than solely focusing on acquiring rote knowledge. The flipped classroom approach is not about watching videos. It’s about students being actively involved in their own learning and creating content in the structure that is most meaningful for them.

Blooms 21 actively places learning where it should be, in the hands of the learner.

Photo: Lecates, Creative Commons

Art: Chris Davis, Powerful Learning Practice LLC

Vancouver students line up!

In my first Voices post, I reflected on my work with students around the world as an online teacher for JETS, our Israeli-based company. The technology is powerful, I said, but what fascinates me most about distance learning is the human reaction to these technology-supported events. I think there is a need, in today’s wired world, to connect to another person far away, living a different, yet somehow similar life.

Another major a-ha for me as an online teacher is the dynamic and potential for group involvement. When I describe what I do to people who are, shall we say, “not connected to the world of web culture,” they are amazed. “You mean the kids can see you and hear you? Don’t they get bored?”

Well, if all they did was listen to me teach, then yes, they would get bored. Wouldn’t you? Which is why I make sure that my classes do not involve lecturing. Obviously, there is discussion. But there is also much more. In fact, I am actually amazed at how much interaction there can be, not only intellectually but physically.

For example, I assigned students in Vancouver, Canada a project to research a site in Israel, share a photo, and state what occurred there 2000 years ago, and what is done there today. After each group of students presented, I gave them 60 seconds to organize themselves, representing their sites, in the correct geographical order; lining up accordingly, without any teacher assistance. A mass huddle and group discussion ensued. “Where is Metulla? Is it higher than the Golan Heights? Is Eilat beneath Be’er Sheva?’

The map of Israel hanging in the corner of their physical classroom, usually neglected, was frequently consulted. In 60 seconds, more or less, a group of very excited fourth graders queued up in front of the camera and happily shouted out the name of their city or town, in order. When I began teaching this group, there was little to no knowledge about Israel’s geography and history. After a few short weeks, how much had they learned — in engaging, stimulating ways!

Student work: Researching sites in Israel - the beach city of Herzliya (click to enlarge)

Online, every voice is heard

For older classes, technology often replaces physical movement (but not entirely! More on that another time). For example, online tools are often used as a key method of communication. Wikis replace whiteboards (and line-ups). The creation of online artifacts and student presentations encourages group work, and ensures that I hear from every student in the class. In a classroom discussion, typically, a few students dominate. In an online discussion, every voice is heard, from shy students and learning disabled ones, even ones with special needs, who might not ordinarily speak out.

There was one incident in a Los Angeles high school of a student who was pulled out of my class after a week. The school administrator explained that she was placed there by mistake. The student was autistic and the administration felt the dynamics of an online class would be too much for her. The course was blended: M, T, W were live video conferencing sessions and Thursday, they completed coursework online.

After a few days, the autistic student was back.

“What’s going on?” I asked the principal.

“Do you mind if she stays?” he asked. “She was placed in a regular class and she said it wasn’t nearly as interesting and stimulating as yours.”

I laughed. She stayed, and she taught us so much. She created beautiful, intelligent movies, PPTs, games, and songs. Her opinion shone through, and I often used her work as an example of excellence. Another shy student who sat in the back and hated to be called on had the most fabulous posts. But ask her to say the same things in class? Never. Online tools provide a level of comfort for students who do not want to be in the limelight. I realize that some of these strategies and web-based tools can be utilized in a traditional classroom setting. They are all the more appropriate for an online setting.

A final lesson learned: Creativity, planning, organization and follow-up are all skills I’ve had to hone in my role as an online teacher. I used these skills when I taught students face to face as well, but I’ve found that ‘winging a lesson’ was much more possible when we were all in the same physical room. I just can’t get away with that in my virtual world.

Travel has never been so easy

Personally, I love connecting. I find my job extremely rewarding, from listening to the opinions of students from all walks of life, to engaging students across many grades (4th-12th in fact) physically, intellectually and virtually. I enjoy my insta-travel with my large screen in my home office. Travel has never been so easy! I click my mouse, and boom: Jacksonville, Edmonton, Houston. I’ve asked educators who don’t interact with other students or locations why they choose not to. Sometimes they say ‘I don’t have time,’ or ‘it’s too much of a bother’ to connect to students or programs elsewhere. Perhaps more guidance can become available from tech staff and from teachers who have connected to other students online and who share their experiences.

[Can you imagine telling someone who has the means to travel 'not to bother?' ]

One aspect of the 21st century skill set involves developing global citizenship skills. Online learning offers a number of methods to develop these skills for our ever changing and connected world.

Online learning seems to me like a bike ride. The destination is the world. Each city is another spoke of the wheel. And the rider? Well, that’s up to you.

One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. — Henry Miller

The world is like a big book. One who does not travel is like someone who reads the same page over and over again. — Augustine

I teach online, through live video conferencing, from my home in Jerusalem to over 20 schools in the US, Canada and England. These schools contract with my company, JETS, for a number of educational courses on global Jewish issues, Israel education and culture, and Jewish Bible and history.

During my time as an online educator, I’ve used a variety of video conferencing platforms, such as Skype, Webex, Adobe ProConnect and Polycom video conferencing hardware. I have taught students in public schools, Catholic schools and Jewish Day Schools and complementary schools, live. Schools use projectors and microphones to ensure quality video and audio performance, the courses are completely interactive, and I have received very positive feedback.

Camel Rider: My daughter Hadas stars in our Ancient Israel videos.

But there is something that catches my eye each time I run a session: it’s the human reaction to these technology-supported events. My children often walk into my home studio and stare at my screen, not knowing if the people they see are in Memphis, Vancouver or London. At the other end, people (both teachers and adults) become very excited about the following:

• My eight-year old son walks in, holding his cat. You have a pet in Israel?

• My five-year old daughter comes to give me a hug in her pajamas. What time is it there, anyway? (Israel is 7 hours ahead of EST, and most of my classes are conducted at night in Israel).

• I share with students in Toronto how the students in Miami reacted to the very same question we are currently addressing: Why did people in ancient times choose to live in a cave? Toronto response: to get out of the cold. Miami response: to get out of the heat, a cave has built-in air conditioning!

These incidents are part of my everyday online teaching & learning life, and they help students feel connected.

Why choose online learning?

Being an online instructor, I am constantly answering questions from my peers in Israel. “Why would they want you to teach their students? Don’t they have teachers?” And I repeat what I’m sure many online instructors have stated before:

• Access an expert in the field.

• Share with your students a different point of view.

• Jewish and Catholic schools have a vested interest in learning about Israeli sites, history and culture from someone on the ground.

These are all valid points and I wave my flag for them every day. But underneath all that, I think there is a need, in today’s wired world, to connect to another person far away, living a different, yet somehow similar life. I love sharing in my students’ curiosity about my life, and I love learning about theirs.

For example: Archaeology is a huge topic in Israel. No highway can be dug, no hospital built, until the Israel Antiquities Authority goes in first and ensures that no ancient civilization is waiting to be uncovered. I wanted to share this idea during a distance learning session with some students in Miami who were studying Lifestyles in Ancient Israel. I suggested they dig up their backyards (they all have big backyards, of course, relative to the apartment city blocks in Jerusalem). “What do you think you will find?” I asked. Blank stares met my eyes.

Oops, wrong question, I tell myself. I’m originally from Southern California. I can reshape this question. I ask “how many of you have swimming pools in your backyard?” Every hand goes up. “Imagine a crew would come in and dig underneath your swimming pools — what do you think they would  find?”

“Create a time capsule,” I suggest, “of what people would find in Miami.”

Students work in groups, tossing out answers, arguing among themselves. Rocks, animal bones, bricks, they propose.

“Now create a time capsule of what we find in Jerusalem!” After a few sessions together, students understand that the list will grow substantially: pottery shards, jewelry, weapons, skeletons, ancient seals and religious artifacts. Students realize how historical Israel is as a culture, how many nations have conquered this region and lived here, and how much there is to gain from studying ancient and modern Israel. When I show them a video of my daughter digging up a jug on an ancient dusty road, the idea comes to life. Another connection has been made. “Did your daughter really find that jug?” they ask. I smile. “What do you think?”

Here’s the video – it’s the introduction to our program about children’s lifestyles in ancient Israel.

My partners and I put many hours of preparation into each of our lessons. Slides, questions, activities and videos are carefully planned and plotted. I get great feedback, don’t get me wrong. But when my online students joyfully greet my children, or watch the sky darken behind me as they set off to lunch, I realize that they are learning, reflecting, internalizing — educating themselves about things I never planned. I marvel that they create these connections independently and revel in the wonderful, wide world in which we live.

Smadar Goldstein will continue her reflections on teaching in the global classroom in her next post.

Images: Smadar Goldstein

Students sit in the test-taking room, with full access to computers and wireless connections. As they work on national exams, they can be seen accessing the internet from time to time. Are the results from this testing going to be corrupted because these test-takers are not isolated from global information resources?

Cheating — or high-tech cheating, as it is called today — what is that exactly? How do we define it? And is it really a problem? Do our old-school definitions of cheating need rethinking?

As I visit schools, speak at conferences, and follow great educators and change agents on Twitter, I hear a lot about the skills young people need now. Seems to me we all agree on certain requirements students need to meet if they’re going to succeed as citizens and workers in the 21st century.

The term “21st-century skills” is generally used to refer to certain core competencies such as collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem-solving that advocates believe schools need to teach to help students thrive in today’s world.  Education Week.

When you look closely at these competencies and think about how students perform on exams, it starts getting complicated. What I am confused about is what qualifies as cheating and what qualifies as a natural aspect of learning today, when students are increasingly expected to apply internet research skills to find specific information in the vast ocean of facts and data.

I’ve been puzzling over this issue lately because my English class at Sandvika High School in Oslo, Norway will be participating this month in a national trial for using the internet during examinations.  The Norwegian Department of Education sent out an invitation to all high schools in February, asking for some innovative “connected” schools to take part. The testing will only involve a small number of schools and students — and that makes it even more exciting to me that my school’s application has been accepted and we now we are all set to participate. Jippi!

What Denmark has learned

Denmark student were not allowed to email each other or anyone else during exams. (photo via BBC News)

When I google exams and internet, the only results I find are references to Denmark. I had heard that they allowed the use of internet during certain exams and while researching for this article I started to investigate the outcome. “Back in November 2009, 14 Danish upper secondary schools made history. They became the first in the world to use the internet during written exams. A 2010 follow-up report by a group of auditors concluded that the experiment was a success. The Danish minister of education is quoted: “I am happy that we as the first country in the world had the vision to let students use the internet during their exams. The internet is an integrated part of students’ everyday lives and education so this development is natural. The experiment shows there is a range of positive effects.” Although the ministry provided few details, it did mention “that students can be tested on central IT competencies like motion pictures and audio effects.”

What went on in Denmark classrooms during the testing experiment? A BBC reporter visited one school and filed this feature report. During the exam, students are limited in their internet use and violating the rules is considered cheating, which can carry a severe penalty. The BBC reporter quotes a student as saying, “It’s possible to cheat but I think we have so much respect and self discipline, so we won’t do it.” Here is the most telling part of the BBC story:

The teachers also think the nature of the questions make it harder to cheat in exams. Students are no longer required to regurgitate facts and figures. Instead the emphasis is on their ability to sift through and analyse information.

 

Minister for education in Denmark, Bertel Haarder, says: “Our exams have to reflect daily life in the classroom and daily life in the classroom has to reflect life in society. The internet is indispensible, including in the exam situation.”

So far so good. If this is a success in Denmark — dating back to 2010 — why aren’t more countries doing this? Minister Haarder predicts: “I’m sure that it would be a matter of a very few years when most European countries will be on the same line.”

The implications for my students

What then are the implications for my students and how will this alter the way they work during the exam? Since Norway’s first experiment involves a small number of students, the exam questions will not be changed in any way. My students will have the exact same exam as other students across the nation — the only difference is that they have full access to the internet. Searching is allowed, communicating with each other during the exam is not. The difference for participating schools is the potential for students to make use of a whole lot of information that doesn’t have to be stored in one’s head.

It’s 2012. The internet has been widely available and expanding exponentially for 20 years or more. Why is looking up information during an exam or test considered cheating? When preparing this post I relied on information found online. That is the way everyone works these days. No one is expected to know or remember all the facts and information available out there.

The world is constantly changing and keeping up with even the most important new content is simply impossible. Imagine writing about global challenges like famine, drought or global warming without being able to look up any information? (These are topics likely to be addressed in the exam my students are taking). Instead of barring the internet, refusing our students access, we should be teaching them how to filter the information, judge its credibility, and use it to build logical arguments and greater understanding.

We should concentrate on getting our kids online and “Net Smart” (as Howard Rheingold advocates in his new book) instead of offline and ignorant. Searching online can be time consuming, and under the pressure of timed exams, my students will have to be very careful about the minutes they spend searching the Net. That is my main concern. Test-takers who will have access to the internet need to practice: Where will I find reliable sources? How much information do I really need? When must I stop searching and start writing? And how do I document my sources?

When I asked my students to write about this on their blogs, identifying reliable sources and unjust grading seemed to be their main concern. They are afraid that since they have access to all this information, they will be judged differently. The ministry of education has promised this is not going to happen, and the teachers grading these exams will be monitored carefully, we have been told.

I have high expectations! I really hope this is taking us, at least in baby steps (my opinion) towards the future. Honestly, I would like to see both communication and collaboration taking place during exams. Those are two highly valued 21st century skills. But that will not be possible unless we change how our examination questions are designed, in radical ways.

Until then I’m happy doing this! I’ll quote one of my students, Susanne, who wrote: “(M)y class is up for exams in English, and we are allowed to use internet on our exam. It’s like music to my ears.”

Ann Michaelsen recently joined PLP’s new international Board of Advisors. She will write a follow-up after her students participate in Norway’s experiment and share some of the experience with us.

Photo credit: (cheating) BigStock

My students and I share poems in VoiceThread and we comment about each other's work

Poetry has always been my favorite genre to teach because afterwards, most of my students believe in themselves as poets.

So it’s telling that poetry was my least favorite genre during my entire academic career. I detested poetry because many poets and poems were forced upon me and my interpretations of the poems were dictated to me as right or wrong. As a teacher, I’ve come to LOVE teaching poetry because I refuse to assume that gatekeeper role.

I believe that in many cases, there is no right way and wrong way to interpret a poem. My students and I interpret poems together.  Now that my students and I are also connected through social media and the Internet, the study of poetry is even better. (I enjoyed throwing out my binder of transparencies!)

I believe that to effectively write in every genre, we need to read like we are writers. During my reading lessons, I guide my students to utilize the reading comprehension strategies of making inferences. I do this as I expose my students to a variety of poets. I read Sharon Creech’s books Love that Dog and Hate that Cat.  In Love that Dog, Jack learns to love poetry after writing about his own loss. The story helps foster an appreciation for poetry in my young readers and writers.

Sharon Creech effectively helps kids appreciate the work of poets like William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, Valerie Worth, and Walter Dean Myers for their power to make us feel and think. My teachers made me read their poems and answer the anthology questions. The grade I got on the assignment depended on how closely my understanding aligned with that of the publisher (and/or my teacher).

Hate that Cat focuses on teaching poetical attributes that historically are not taught in a fun way, such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, consonance, assonance, metaphors, similes and personification. Creech masterfully teaches poetical attributes in a fun and interesting way through the use of mentor poets and poems.

I use Ralph Fletcher’s book Poetry Matters to teach the fundamental aspects of writing poetry while fully engaging my students. He hones in on the three “pillars” of poetry: music, images and emotion. Georgia Heard’s book, Awakening the Heart was an integral book to foster the passion of poetry into me, and then my students. It helps get my kids to write from their hearts.

Nancy Atwell’s book Lessons That Change Writers, has excellent mini-lessons that teach kids the revision concepts that real poets use. She provides great mentor poems to model the strategies and supplies provocative quotes from poets that help me guide my own classroom poets.

How the technology blends in

I decide which of Atwell’s lessons to teach by reading my students’ poems and gauging what strategies they need to improve on. I post every lesson I teach, with mentor poems and quotes, on Edmodo. This way, if a student was absent, or needed/wanted a review, he had constant access to it.

Throughout the entire poetry unit, kids are writing drafts of their poetry. I ask them to prepare to publish six poems following these guidelines:

1. A poem with musical attributes
2. A poem that evokes emotion
3. A poem that uses figurative language
4. a poem that offers multisensory mind pictures
5. A poem inspired by a mentor poet
6. A “free-write” poem of their own choosing.

Students use Google Docs to write their poems. They use the GDocs sharing function to share their poem documents with me and some of their classmates (if they choose). I read their poems (from anywhere at anytime), give them one specific comment, and offer one constructive suggestion to improve their poem that I hope also adds to their poetry writing repertoire.

This is the first year my students have had access to Google Docs. Prior to our utilization of it, I was only able to meet with each student about once or twice per poem due to time constraints. “Conferencing in the cloud” with Google Docs  makes it possible for me to confer with each student much more than twice. Yes, there were a couple of kids I needed to persuade to share their poems with me, and they did reluctantly. But isn’t that always the case?

Google Docs keeps track of the comments kids and I make for each other (and the versions/drafts). Even though previously I had recorded my notes from my conferences with each student, it was hard to organize them very effectively and make good use of them. This year, because of Google Docs, I was easily able to return to the student’s poem and view my previous comments when I needed to remember what I had already suggested. This ability helped me see whether the student failed to understand my suggestion or perhaps just ignored it (both happen).

At the end of the unit, I had students go back and review their revision history. They were amazed by all of the changes they’d made.

Fifth graders like to keep moving!

I believe revision to be the most difficult part of the writing process for fifth graders. They truly believe that their first drafts are perfect with no need to make them better. The poetry unit (and Google Docs) offers a great way for kids to observe first-hand the benefits of revising because there are so few words and it’s easy to see how it changed. This is a fun unit to teach because my students love it and all they are all successful — even those who usually have a hard time adding details to their writing.

As a finale, students upload their poems to VoiceThread (unfortunately, it’s not compatible with Google Docs yet, so they have to copy and paste). As their poems are displayed (see Ella’s VT  and Dylan’s VT as examples), students read their poetry aloud so the entire world can follow along and hear their poetry. The audience can then leave comments via text, video and/or voice message. Students have an authentic audience. And we all know the power of that!

With every turn of the page or scroll through a Reader feed, someone, somewhere, is giving advice on what leaders ought to be. Consider this recent post from passionate teacher Megan Allen who describes for us the qualities she feels “amazing” administrators possess. Or Erin Paytner’s recent post, 29 Things I’ve Learned as an Administrator…So far… I found many of those lessons to ring true for me, now in my fourth year as principal, as did Jeff Delp’s post regarding productivity, priorities, and the challenges school leaders face.

So the articles, blog posts, and books on leadership will keep on coming, because the role of leadership is ever-evolving and increasingly complex with each passing day. (And with each passing mandate.) I enjoy reading the work of leaders in fields outside of education, too. While not every lesson can be translated to the work we do with students, many can, and we should consider them. In a recent issue of Entrepreneur magazine, a piece entitled Leadership Lessons from the Top of the Org Chart by Christopher Hann highlights the successes of leaders who’ve managed to stay at the head of their games, and the philosophies they live by to do so.

Consider Mark Leslie, the CEO of Veritas. One of his top priorities is transparency – making sure that everyone in the organization knows as much information as he does, to squash secrecy and avoid uneven shifts in power. He stresses the importance of trust.

“I believe if you want to be trusted, you have to trust first,” he says. “If you do that, you will be betrayed sometimes. But the value of engendering trust is greater than the cost of being betrayed sometimes. People believed we were going to tell them the truth, be straight, honest, and didn’t think we were going to screw them.”

Further, Leslie makes developing a strong working environment a priority.

“It’s not about command and control. You attract the best and the brightest people and create an environment where they can use their intelligence and judgment to act autonomously.”

Good school leadership: highly apparent & intoxicating

For all of us charged with leading organizations of learning, we know that successful schools are built around a strong, shared culture and community. Clint Smith, the CEO of a marketing firm in Tennessee, offered ideas for how to develop and sustain the often illusive, but always desired, workplace culture. He began by examining the physical environment and ensuring his workplace was one where employees could be productive and feel happy in their work. William Smith, founder of IT company Euclid Elements, highlighted the need for leaders to develop awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses. This requires continual self-examination from individuals as well as the team as a whole.

“We want to get better at designing and developing products. That requires a real self-awareness as a team, and that’s an extremely important part of the culture we want to create — being aware of what we do well and what we don’t do so well.”

The Educon conference in Philadelphia is hosted annually at the Science Leadership Academy. One of my takeaways each year is the way in which principal Chris Lehmann has built a shared culture for learning with all teachers, students, and the community. It is both highly apparent and intoxicating. Bringing the best team on board is an important part of a leader’s role — how the team is managed is equally as important. Mark Leslie agrees.

Mark Leslie, Veritas Sofware

“You have to get great people to come in,” Leslie says. “You have to respect them, give them freedom. You have to provide the mission and the vision: Who are we and where are we going?”

Other leaders featured in the Entrepreneur article stressed the importance of:

• having fun with your teams;

• weeding out employees who don’t want to be team players or don’t treat colleagues with respect;

• empowering and allowing team members to shine and reap the rewards of their hard work; and

• building an organization that is sustainable over time.

With all of these philosophies and strategies in mind, consider this teaser quote featured in the center of the article:

Creating a system that enables employees to achieve great things often comes down to the work of a single leader.

No pressure, eh?

Connected colleagues for the journey

Leslie’s closing words touch upon the realities of leadership, which can be isolating and solitary.

“It’s an old cliche: It’s lonely at the top. It truly is. There’s no one to talk to. It’s a journey of discovery, a journey alone. And you actually have to be comfortable enough with yourself to do that.”

For school leaders such as those I’ve come to know through Connected Principals and other groups in my PLN, I think we have an advantage. While we do embark on many solitary journeys each and every day, we also know we have a strong foundation of colleagues and experienced voices to support us along the path. That’s what it means to be a connected leader.

Lyn Hilt also writes at her personal blog, The Principal’s Posts, where this reflection first appeared.

1st photo: CC license woodleywonderworks
2nd photo: Entrepreneur

This spring, my class is participating in a couple of global projects. One is through PLP (Powerful Learning Practice) as I continue my own professional journey to learn more about using inquiry-based teaching. The other is a Flat Classroom project. Both of these projects involve us meeting and collaborating with other classrooms. These classrooms are mainly in North America, but also included is a classroom of kindergarten students in China who have already stolen my students’ hearts.

Introducing Ourselves

To introduce ourselves to the other classes involved, my students planned and filmed a video of themselves sharing our classroom.  First, we brainstormed some things that the students felt were important in our classroom. (It is always interesting to see the student’s perspective on these things.) Then, each student chose what he or she wanted to showcase in our video. There was a bit of negotiating in this process, but mostly cooperation. Finally, the students all stood by whatever they were planning to showcase, and the video was filmed by one of the students. It took us only two tries to get it right in their eyes.

We ended the video by saying “Now we wonder…who are you?”

We posted the video on our blog, and began asking/answering questions from some of our collaborating classrooms as we all watched each other’s introductions.

Then…serendipity.

An Unexpected Reply

A classroom in Greece (not one of our collaborating classrooms) happened to see our video, and prepared a video response for us, introducing themselves and their classroom. They posted it on their blog. The students spoke Greek in the video, but there were English subtitles which I read aloud to the children. They were fascinated!

Are they speaking Chinese, they wondered?  Are they speaking French? Their letters are upside down!  Look, their lowercase N is a v! Look, apple should be for ‘a’ but it’s for ‘m in their alphabet’!  They have a stage in their classroom!

They were more than a little intrigued.

The Questions Begin

Some of my students' questions for their peers in Greece

We decided to comment on their blog. The students laughed along with me as we tried to figure out which of the Greek words on their blog might mean “comment” so that we could add our thoughts. As a part of our group commenting process, I always have my students think of things that they wonder about the article or video the have just viewed. At first the questions came slowly, but then the deluge began.

Do you have water bottles? Where do you put your backpacks? What kind of trees do you have? Do you have a playground? What kind of food do you eat? Do you have computers at your school?  The questions filled several pages of chart paper.

Since we had too many questions to include in our comment, I approached their teacher to see if she would be interested in a Skype call to answer our plethora of questions. Because of the time difference, we arranged to talk to her from her home. She patiently answered question after question that the children had prepared, and more as the children moved on to new questions that had just occurred to them.

It was magical learning about a place my students had never before heard of and will probably never see for themselves. Learning that was totally led by the students and their interest in that classroom in Greece.  And that learning will continue. The children in Greece, too, have questions for us to answer.

More magic.  More serendipity. I love my connected classroom.