LATS 2011 Questioning

Learning at Schools 2011 Questioning
Trevor Bond

This was an excellent session, very thought-provoking and informative. I created a Google Doc of my notes which can be accessed here: http://tinyurl.com/BondQuestioning

I lked the levels of questioning which provided a scaffold for both the teaching and assessing of questioning skills. One very good point that he made was the importance of modelling, that by asking and answering poor questions we reinforce them. He has also developed a rubric to aid this assessment. http://question-skills.wikispaces.com/The+QuESTioning+Rubric

Another valuable point he made was the importance of both open and closed questions. There has been a tendency by some to negate the importance of closed questions when in fact they can be very valuable. They can save us a lot of work for example by eliminating some options. Many of the subsidiary questions for inquiry are closed questions and are needed to answer the Key question.

The other main point I agreed with was that inquiry does not always have to involve huge, rich, fertile questions. Yes these are great and once or twice a year a rich inquiry is extremely valuable, but there is a place for many smaller authentic inquiries. An example might be "How can we keep our cloakbay tidy? This might only last a few hours but could something that is really relevant to students and result in a large number of inquiry skills being developed.

Trevor has developed a questioning wiki http://ictnz.com/Questioning.htm which is well worth a look.
Learning at Schools 2011 Trevor Bond - Good Inquiry Good Learning 
My notes can be viewed in a Google Doc http://tinyurl.com/BondGoodInquiryGoodLearning

Trevor made a very good distinction between Celebration of the Found - celebrating what students found out abut the topic and Celebration of the Understood - celebrating what students did with the info http://ictnz.com/Inquiry%20Learning/good%20inquiry%20learning.htm#celebrationoffound These two concepts were coined by Dr Ross Todd

LearningatSchools 2011 Day One Keynote

The first keynote by Scott McLeod I found interesting. The messages he was giving were good ones:
He talked about Disruptive Innovations http://www.claytonchristensen.com/disruptive_innovation.html and how we need to move forward. Most of the presentation could be summed up in the David Warlick quote

“No generation in history has been so thoroughly prepared for the industrial age.”

However I had a certain sense of deja vu. I have been hearing these same messages for the last 6 years if not longer at these conferences. Why are we needing to hear them again and again? Do schools not already have this message?

It is my belief that primary schools at least have got this message loud and clear and most teachers have made the pedagogical shift or at least are well on the way. What many are lacking however is the skills, strategies and confidence to implement this in the classroom.

Moving to a more student-focussed rather than teacher-centred approach is scary for many. It involves relinquishing some control and many find this hard. They need a lot of support as they embark on this journey. Instead of focussing on what we are doing wrong, how about a focus on how we can move forward, what actually needs to happen in the classroon on Monday morning.

This video of a valedictorian delivering a speech against schooling is worth taking 9 minutes out of your day to listen to. For those of us fostering inquiry in our classrooms it is a reminder of why that is so important.

http://www.wimp.com/valedictorianschooling/

Ten Powerful Things To With A Laptop

The first keynote at Ulearn09 this morning was Gary Stager. He had some messages that very much tied in with my thinking.
Gary mentioned the internet being about primary resources. This was one of the findings from my e-fellows research where students were able to go directly to the source of the information they required rather than relying on often inaccurate or biased second-hand accounts.

He talked about when the dominant metaphor for computing is looking stuff up – that this will result in kids looking up inappropriate stuff. Something to think about, although I believe there is a place for using computers in this way to inform their inquiry. Obviously though, in that case it is not the dominant metaphor.

Of his ten powerful things to do with a laptop the ones that resonated the most for me were:

• Share your knowledge
• Answer tough questions
• Make sense of data
• Change the world
• Become a mathematician, a scientist, a poet, a playwright etc.

These fit very well with the inquiry-based approach to learning I am so passionate about. Sharing knowledge is an important use of technology. Computers, and increasingly other technologies such as cellphones, are providing means for students to share their knowledge with an audience far outside their own school. Blogs, websites, wikis, podcasts, Twitter and social networking sites are just a few of the ways students are reaching people outside their school walls.

Students do need to be answering the tough questions. This fits in well with the characteristics of fertile questions developed by Yoram Harpaz and Adam Lefstein in their 'Communities of Thinking' article. These have the following characteristics:

• Open - there are several different or competing answers.
• Undermining - makes the learner question their basic assumptions.
• Rich - Cannot be answered without careful and lengthy research. Usually able to be broken into subsidiary questions.
• Connected - relevant to the learners.
• Charged - has an ethical dimension
• Practical - Is able to be researched given the available resources.

Making sense of data is something that is an essential skill but one that is often overlooked. There is a need for active teaching of the skills that students need to be able to take data, critically analyse it and apply it to tasks.

The last two points made by Gary speak very much to having our students complete real world tasks rather than tasks whose only purpose is to pass a test or tick a box. There is a tendency by some to underestimate what students are capable of. Students can make a real difference, create real knowledge. We need to make sure they have the opportunities to do so and not just regurgitate existing knowledge.

The role of the teacher was emphasised with Gary saying "A prompt is worth a thousand words" when you have:

• Appropriate materials
• Sufficient time
• A supportive culture

This is seems very consistent with an inquiry approach. I have talked before about the need for teachers to provide those prompts for our students.

In Jacqueline Brooks’ book ‘In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms’ she summed this up very nicely:

“Critics contend that the constructivist approach stimulates learning only around concepts in which the students have a pre-kindled interest. Such criticisms miss the mark. Posing problems of emerging relevance is a guiding principle of constructivist pedagogy. However, relevance does not have to be pre-existing for the student. Not all students arrive at the classroom door interested in learning about verb constructs, motion and mechanics, biological cycles, or historical timelines, but most students can be helped to construct understandings of the importance of these topics. Relevance can emerge through teacher mediation. " (Brooks, 1999, p.35)

Gary's website.

Voicethread

I have been very impressed with what Voicethread can do and can also see huge possibilities. Voicethread is a free website which describes itself as "A tool for having conversations around media". I came across the following Voicethread on the Japanese internment camps from WWII done by 4th grade students in the newsletter from Voicethread. This short video explains the project.

Here is the Voicethread:



Another one that impressed me was done by kindergarten students talking about trout hatchlings.



There is an educators' version of Voicethread which provides a more secure environment. There is also a comment moderation option so you can control who comments if you choose to invite public comment. You can find out more about EdVoicethread here and here. There is a free educator version which is worth joining as it gives you unlimited Voicethreads (up to a total of 2GB) as opposed to 3 in the standard version. I think it is worth upgrading to the Pro Educator option for only a $10 one-off verification fee. This gives you a lot more online storage space (10GB) as well as the ability to export archival Voicethreads.

There is also a Voicethread Ning and a Voicethread wiki where as well as classroom examples you can find classes wanting to collaborate on Voicethread projects.

Edtalks Video

Yes I know it's been a while, so don't fall off your chairs in shock that I have made a post. Will be making another one shortly on inquiry dispositions so watch this space.

This one is a bit of shameless self promotion. The video clip can be found on the edtalks site which I recommend you take a look at if you haven't already.


Inquiry based learning from EDtalks on Vimeo.

ULearn08 Day One

Tony Ryan's ULearn08 workshop today on roles for the transformational teacher gave me some much needed energy after a very early start due to cancelled flights. He showed part of the Where the Hell is Matt? dance video which I'd seen before but is worth seeing again.



Some things from Tony's presentation that struck a chord with me were the need to develop awareness of self-talk in our students, developing active listening skills and the need for more educational intrepeneurs, innovating from within our schools.

He asked what I felt was a very valid question about the percentage of time we engage in positive dialogue about education. It is very easy to get caught up with what is wrong. There is so much we can celebrate, with many great things going on in and out of classrooms. We need to share these more.

The Ulearn08 tweets are providing some more thoughts on the conference, some valuable, some not so much . How many pens people have does seem to be getting a lot of attention. Not hooked on Twitter but have made some valuable links with other educators and definitely providing some links to resources.

Just started using Twitter. Have resisted in the past because it seemed to be a place where there was a whole lot of chat about what people had for lunch or similar inanities, but it seems I was not doing it justice. There seems to be a thriving educational community who are twittering. I've already picked ups some useful resources. I think maybe the short posts might suit me better. As you may have noticed I'm not a consistent blogger but Twitter seems a little easier so maybe I'll use it more, time will tell.

I saw a video by Michael Wesch today which is worth a watch. He is the guy who put together The Machine is Us/ing Us. It is called 'A Portal to Media Literacy' and examines assumptions about information and how students get meaning from their education and how they can make meaningful connections.



The video is just over an hour long so you need to set aside some time to watch it. In the video he talks about a project he does with his students and there is also a video about that: 'Twitter and the World Simulation". This is only about 4 minutes long.

While in Helsinki we visited a high school. I was very distressed to hear about the school shooting near Helsinki shortly after my return home. I was pleased to hear it wasn't the school we visited but very distressed that this disturbing trend has moved to yet another country.

The students at the school I visited all looked very relaxed and friendly. There were lots of open areas with tables, chairs, sofas etc where students congregated in their breaks.


All students receive a free lunch at school. The school also had a tuck shop with decidedly unhealthy food for sale. There were however very few overweight students to be seen. This was despite the fact the students could not go outside at breaks on many days.

I am currently attending the Microsoft Innovative Teachers' Forum in Helsinki Finland in late October. This is an amazing city steeped in history and there is some truly amazing architecture. The weather here is not as cold as I thought it would be, around 5 degrees C.
There are over 80 educators here from all around the world and the range of projects is incredible.You can read my thoughts on the conference at the Microsoft Partners in Learning site.
Have a look at the photos below, they were all taken during the day. I only saw the sun on the final day I was in Helsinki and it was quite low in the sky even at mid-day. It was mid Autumn when I was there. To view more photos go to my Flickr page.

If, like me, you have had your doubts or disagreed with Marc Prensky's article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, you should take a look at Jamie McKenzie's latest article in which he not only disagrees with the main premises of Prensky's article but also produces research to support his opinion. Well worth a read.

www.inquiringmind.co.nz

On Monday I attended a one day workshop with Sharon Friesen from the Galileo Educational Network. If you haven’t already checked out their website then I recommend you do. Sharon’s workshop focused on inquiry-based learning. Sharon talked about the key features of inquiry: Creating Knowledge, Disciplined Inquiry and Value beyond school. For a spectacular example of the authentic work being done check out the ‘Nitsitapiisinni - Stories and Spaces: Exploring Kainai Plants and Culture’ project undertaken with First Nation students in Canada.

Well I haven't blogged so much in months - lots of inspiration and the luxury of time! Went to Sharon Friesen's workshop on curriculum. It reminded me of something else our students need. We need to design work for our students that fosters an inquiring mind in our students. Considering the name of my website this was a surprising thing for me to leave out as it certainly would be close to the top of my list.

The other areas she mentioned as needing emphasis, all of which I totally agree with, are:creating knowledge, solving problems and creating products that go somewhere, do something, make a difference.

Jeremy Kedian asked a good question today - "Are we planning for teaching or planning for learning?" His questions on the nature of learning were very thought-provoking. He asked 'What is the purpose of schooling?" and Julia Atkin asked a similar question "Why school? What is your educative purpose?" We need to be asking these questions as we move into a new curriculum. Schools need to find out what their own values and beliefs about learning are before they move into the new curriculum.

More on Ulearn - Helen Baxter's keynote this morning Renaissance 2.0 - Educating the new Leonardos. You can see the mindmap of her presentation on Mindmeister. She made some interesting points about developing the 'can do' attitude'.

I get her point about students not needing to carry knowledge around in their heads as they will be able to find the info they need on their cellphones or whatever, but I do think there will still be some things we actually need to know just to be able to carry on a conversation. We can't be stopping the conversation every couple of minutes - "Hold on I just have to Google that". So students need some knowledge, understanding of concepts and the skills and strategies to find out what they don't know. They will of course also need critical and creative thinking skills and the ability to communicate, and a whole range of other things.

What we as educators need to do is have conversations about what knowledge, understanding, skills etc our students need. This will differ from school to school (and indeed from student to students) so it is great the new curriculum is giving schools explicit permission to develop their own curriculums. Of course some schools have been doing this for a while but for many this is a new concept.

I'm going to spend some time looking through Helens' Mindmeister mind map. Maybe somewhere in there I will find the answer to her question "How do we educate students for jobs we don't even know exist?" I do know however, that if we give students the things I talked about in the previous paragraphs including the 'can do attitude' and a dollop of passion, then we will have made a good start in the right direction.

I'm sitting at the Ulearn07 conference in Auckland. The conference started off with a great keynote from Ewan McIntosh. He made a great comment about not supporting the digital natives/digital immigrants concept which I definitely agree with. I certainly don't fit with Marc Prensky's idea of a digital native, not having been born in the right decade, but I have been using computers for over 20 years and I'm more at home with computers & technology than many teenagers I know.

The points that especially resonated with me were:

Thin slicing - the once-over lightly mentality.

Audience - students used to do their work for their teachers and maybe their classmates and parents, now they can have a potential audience of 1 billion people through the web.

Creativity - Ewan talked about the avenues for creativity that web 2.0 opens up. I liked the idea of the use of Flickr for story telling. Do a search for 5 frames on Flickr where people tell stories in 5 photos. This has amazing potential and I can't wait to try it with some kids.

Authentic goals - Asking the question - what is the purpose of this work? For me I think this is the first question we should be asking before we teach anything and we should be getting our students to ask the same question.

I also particularly liked the his statement "It's not about the teach, it's about the tech".

After this great start I'm looking forward to the rest of the conference.

Great discussions have been happening on the NZCompEd listserv about Creative Commons and open source software. Check out this slide show which arrived on the listserv via the Cool Cat Teacher Blog.

The Kopu Digital Opportinities project, of which I am facilitator, will not be getting rid of their laptops as some schools in the USA are doing: "Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops". This article demonstrates a sentiment best expressed in a quote from Jamie McKenzie's article: "When schools put the cart before the horse - buying technology for the sake of technology without asking critical questions about purpose, use and the classroom impact of such tools - they are inviting disappointment." www.fno.org/jan02/overequipped.html

In addition to not providing adequate PD for teachers, I believe these schools also made a mistake in providing one-to-one laptops. As I mentioned in the Computer Ratios section of my Inquiring Mind website I believe a 1:5 or 1:6 ratio in the classroom is best, made up to 1:2 when needed by mobile laptop pods. I also believe a combination of desktops and laptops works best in the classroom, giving the benefits of both while minimizing their negative aspects.

Too many computers can cause technical difficulties and frustration for teachers and students. Teaching teachers and students how to cope with minor problems so they do not interfere with teaching is very important. Professional development in the use of the computers to support teaching and learning is essential.

At Opoutere School we have been part of the Kopu Digital Opportunities Project for two and a half years and have been using a combination of desktops and wireless laptops in the classroom with good success. We have a ratio of about 1:3, which we increase to 1:2 or better by borrowing laptops from other rooms when needed. We are planning to purchase a mobile pod of mobile laptops to share amongst the classes so borrowing from other classes will no longer be necessary.

Although there have been a few technical issues it is nothing we can't cope with. Each class has students who have been trained to look after the computers and can deal with most issues that arise.

Laptops seem to have a life of about 3 years before they need to be replaced or at least need replacement batteries (and often power cords and CD/DVD players), so there needs to a plan in place for their replacement. We are investigating leasing which may be a useful option. We are also switching to child-friendly laptops which have toughened screens and reinforced edges to minimize damage.

The combination of using inquiry-based learning, aided by internet-capable computers, has resulted in greatly increased motivation and engagement levels from our students (long after the novelty has worn off) and improvements in their information literacy skills, along with many other benefits. We have no intention of throwing out our laptops any time soon.

Cambodia Pt 2
The Microsoft Innovative Teachers' Regional conference in Cambodia was a very interesting experience. The conference was a great opportunity to mix with teachers from other countries and share experiences. It was amazing how many areas of commonality we had. It was also interesting to see how advanced New Zealand is in terms of ICT use in classrooms.

I only visited one school in Cambodia but it was an unusual one. The school was floating on a barge on a lake (Tonle Sap) and the pupils mainly came from the floating village on the lake. They even had a floating basketball court and floating playground. Most of the pupils only attended school for half a day so they could work the rest of the time.

Education is free in Cambodia but only very basic facilities and equipment are provided. The teacher's desk was dominated by a large donation box and all the desks were inscribed with the name of the person who donated them. They had a blackboard, maps on the wall, a few teacher textbooks and a few exercise books but very little else. There was no electricity and certainly no technology. The students were all very friendly.

Teachers earn about $US40-50 per month but the Cambodian government has promised to increase this amount by 15% p.a. and has committed a large amount of its budget to education.

My time in Cambodia was certainly very educational, for both the conference and the experience of the country itself. It is not somewhere to which I would like to return, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to visit.

Don't forget to check out my Inquiring Mind website which is regularly updated.

Singapore Sightseeing

While in Singapore I had a short time for sightseeing and shopping. I loved the markets there, very vibrant and much more 'alive' than the many shopping malls. I did enjoy visiting Sim Lim Square where every imaginable piece of technology was available. The prices seemed to get cheaper the higher we went in the building.

We were in Singapore during Chinese new year celebrations and were fortunate to see one the major parades down Orchard Road. This was truly a spectacular event. People were sitting 3 deep on the road and had paid for this privilege. Those of us who had not paid got to stand at the back but still got a great view, if a little hot and crowded. The crowd was very well behaved but considering the armed police doing crowd-control this was not surprising.

We took a tour of the sites in a double decker bus which gave us a good view. The tour guides spent a lot of time telling us about how Singaporeans believe in racial harmony. Got to see the famous Raffles hotel but decided against a Raffles gin-sling for $21.

There were some real contrasts between the old and new parts of Singapore, the skyscrapers with the older buildings. Also between the markets and the huge shopping malls. Certainly an interesting place to visit.