Making It Happen: 4 Small Things that Can Start Something Big

Starting with this post, my TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) tags will go at the start of my posts.  If you're looking at past posts, and are balking at the walls of text, scroll to the bottom for the Cliff Notes.

TL;DR: Every big change needs to start somewhere, and it's entirely possible for a teacher to initiate some very significant changes without having to take on a formal leadership position.  Find some like-minded allies with whom to form a positive, forward moving sub-culture.  Be evangelists, encourage connections, meet to create, and advocate for yourselves.

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Earlier in the week I, along with my colleagues from my own high school and our sister school across town, had the very good fortune of watching a screening of the documentary Beyond Measure, directed by Vicky Abeles.  The film, made by the same group who produced Race to Nowhere, beautifully framed some of the 21st century transformations that are taking place in the United States, as both K-12 and post-secondary schools grapple with the reality that traditional models of education are not serving students.

Among the many things I appreciated about the movie was seeing the struggles that some of the schools experienced as they tried to make their shifts from traditional to progressive practices.  One school was challenged with getting their kids to move beyond minimal, completionist efforts, while another navigated the pushback from students who felt there was insufficient direction and focus in the progressive methods rolled out to them.

There were many messages in the movie that were profound, but to me this one was particularly important: no transformational journey is completed in one step, and in fact no transformation is ever really complete.  As I discussed in my last post, evolution, adaptation, and growth are continuous processes that never truly see an end date.  They are part of life's journey, and education is but a small subset of that essential truth.

In each of the cases in the movie, the parties reached a critical point in their paths where the barriers seemed significant and the paths forward appeared to diverge.  Or more accurately, a point was reached in the journey where a decision had to be made whether to continue forward or turn around and go back the way they had come.

I have stood at this decision point countless times in both my career and personal life, so I can certainly identify with the emotion and uncertainty experienced in these moments.  In the film, we were able to see these schools soldier forward and stay true to the principles and decisions that had brought them to accepting a need for change in the first place.  I suspect that the presence of a few film crews roaming their halls and recording their journeys may have played some small motivational role in encouraging the teams to stay their courses.  Nonetheless, I found myself framing those struggles in the context of my past attempts at breaking through the growth ceiling, as well as the current journey I am on.

Immediately after the film, I tried to tune in to some of the conversation that took place between the educators who came to watch.  By and large, the ideas in the film were praised and appreciated, but I know it will come as no surprise to say that there was also an undercurrent of reluctance.  You couldn't miss the occasional "that's a good idea, buuuuut..." in the various conversations taking place around the room.

I'm not going to shock anyone by suggesting that meaningful change in education can be glacial in its pace and that part of the reason for the slow pace is the reluctance of individuals within the system to adopt new behaviors and new mindsets.  Having now participated in public education for over three decades, however, I feel that I can hesitatingly say that the nature of the revolution taking place today is, in fact, different than other changes we have seen in the past.

I think what makes things particularly difficult today is that the changes that are needed are quite foreign to many teachers, and they are changes that are required in more than a single classroom in order to have their best effect.  These two features contribute to an "inertial well" of practice that tends to drag us back to what works and what is familiar when attempts at change don't produce the results we're looking for.  I completely get it because up until a few years ago, I was as much of a "yeah but-er" as anyone.  Unable to overcome the early challenges of a new practice, I would often revert back to what I knew.

But my tune has since changed.  What's made it change has been the experience with working more closely with other educators.  What's clear to me is that meaningful, lasting change requires an alteration in culture, and cultures are made by more than one person.  To do what needs to be done, we need allies in the revolution.  Strength in numbers is a thing, and in education it is certainly no different.

Once we've accepted that, the question then quickly becomes one of "how?"  I can't pretend to have all those answers, but I do have some thoughts on the question of "how to start?"  And that might really be the more important question right now.

I'm going to assume that if you're reading this, you're one of the change-minded folks.  Perhaps you've already made the switch in your classroom and are putting learning first and students at the center of your practice.  But if we're going to get them to truly realize their potential, it will be better if you have some allies beating the same drum and that you're not doing it alone.  How do you get that going, then, as a rank-and-file teacher on the same "power stratum" as your colleagues?

Here I present 4 ways to get the shift started where you teach:

1.  Set Aside Your [insert barrier here] for Being a Change Evangelist

Whether it's from modesty, fear, lack of confidence, not wanting to be a pest, or whatever, too many of us with good ideas and strong principles just keep them to ourselves.  There are a host of reasons for this, but whatever they are, we need more people to get over it and spread the word.  Some just need to get out there and do it.  Others might need some guidance.  Great by Choice by Jim Collins or perhaps Mindful Leadership by Maria Gonzalez might be some good places to start.

It's important to realize that you don't need to have all the answers.  You just need to get the conversation started.  Invite a colleague out for coffee, and ask them what they'd do differently if they didn't have [insert systemic challenge here] holding them back.  Ask a few like-minded colleagues if they want to discuss a book or article with you.  Send an ally a TED Talk like this beauty by Will Richardson, and ask them what they think.

Gather friends and allies.  You don't have to preach to the masses, and you don't need to ruffle any feathers that are disinclined to being ruffled.  Find those who are looking to be found.  They're in every building, and they may be more numerous than you suspect.  Remember that we all started out wanting to make a difference and to be great, and don't be ashamed of wanting something better for you and your students.

2.  Encourage Others to Get Connected

Tweet.  Then talk about things you saw on Twitter that were great.  Tell your colleagues about a great blog you read.  Forward it.  Maybe even blog yourself, and ask a trusted colleague to give you some feedback.  When you encounter someone who claims they don't [insert relevant platform for making connections here], decide if that's a person who's open to new ideas.  If not, smile, shrug, and walk away.  If so, ask them why.  Suggest they consider it.  Tell them how that thing has been helping you.

The bottom line is that you shouldn't be the only source of "How To" and "Why Should We."  There's plenty out there, but not everyone is looking for it.  If you want some fellow revolutionaries along for the march, maybe show them where the muskets are stashed.

3.  Start a Creation Lab or a Design Team

Jennifer Hogan on her blog, The Compelled Educator, describes this practice as a way to carve out time to let teachers learn tech.  Whether it's new tech or any other instructional practice, simply inviting people to hang out and try new things can be really powerful.  In my last post I suggested checking out some resources at Stanford's Institute of Design to help frame a design session.  There are certainly others.  The Buck Institute for Education, for instance, has a plethora of PBL tools to help educators navigate the wide expanse of design ocean that is Project Based Learning.

Rather than trying to digest these tools and resources by yourself, see who else in your building or district might be willing to tackle them with you.  You don't have to be in the same department, grade, or even school.  Share your challenges, empathize with theirs, and work on designing solutions to them together.  If they happen to be shared challenges, that's fine, but it isn't a prerequisite.  And you just might find that fresh eyes on the problem will see it more clearly or from the angle the brings on the solution you couldn't find by yourself.

This doesn't have to be a huge time commitment.  Whether it's a short focussed session every other week or something more robust in the monthly or semi-monthly range, a lot of great ideas and great plans can materialize from a relatively short time investment.

4. Advocate for Yourself

Being a team player is important.  We've all had to suck up a tough teaching assignment, an inconvenient supervision, or half a dozen other pieces of time-draining minutia that are necessary realities in the profession.  Some folks make a fight of things like this.  Others don't.  Among those who don't, some complain anyway.  This isn't what I'm talking about here.

I'm referring to figuring out what you need in order to move towards making a bigger difference for kids in your building.  Is it a particular approach to Professional Learning?  Is it a prep that aligns with another teacher who is having an important impact on your practice?  Is it the chance to create a "school within a school" where you can prototype some next-level strategies?

Ask for these things.  Find some other folks who want those things too, and ask them to ask for them as well.  The "squeaky wheel gets the grease" idiom comes to mind here.  I prefer a turn on that phrase that I think is a little more positive and a little less about being a complainer: "Give the fast cars the most gas."  I can't give proper credit for the quote because I can't recall where I heard it, but it was certainly in reference to the notion that those who do more deserve more, and they shouldn't be afraid to ask for more.

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The lynchpin holding down all these strategies is that they work best in groups.  Whether a team of two or twenty-two, you're more likely to be an agent of systemic change if your ideas represent more of the system than just one teacher.  As it was in the movie our staff viewed, once you get moving there will be hiccups and hurdles.  Having more people invested in the success of the project ensures that the hurdles are more likely to be overcome.

Margaret Mead said to "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has."  I'm inclined to agree.

The other distinct advantage of having more cooks in the kitchen is that more people can cook... literally!  I much prefer a meeting when there is food.  Shared responsibility and vision is as important in snack generation as it is in a work project!

What would you like to see happen in your building?  What change would you make if you had the power to make it exactly as you wanted it?  What ways are you finding like-minded teammates in your journey, and what are you working on together?  Please share in the comments.

Next post: how to move past the early steps and get more stakeholders on board.

Vive la revolution!
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Grow First: 5 Ways Teachers Can be 21st Century Learners

Socrates said that "true knowledge is knowing that you know nothing."  I've known a philosophy major or two who bristled at this paradox, citing the assertion as "ridiculous nonsense."  I doubt Socrates was being literal when he said this.  To me, this quote embodies one of the essential needs in education today: a growth mindset.  I believe that the essence of Socrates' declaration is that as soon as you've got things "figured out," growth ceases.  In some areas, that might not necessarily be the worst thing in the world.  I think I'd be fine with having "basement framing" figured out.  Sure, I might not discover new, more efficient and effective means of framing my basement, but at least I'd be able to frame my basement!

Education should necessarily require evolution.  Societies, and thus the students who live in them, continuously evolve.  We educators bear the responsibility of preparing students to exist within these societies, and thus as they change, so must we.  The old cliché "if you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards" applies in education at least as much as it does in business and in foot races.

I suspect that all educators know this on some intuitive level, but to a few, the constant need to change can be an uncomfortable reality.  We've all been subject to the "new initiative," some mandated-from-upon-high addition to our work load that defies common sense and produces little meaningful good in our classrooms.  If the frequency or scope of these decrees is significant, it can jade even the most optimistic of teachers and cause us to become skeptical of any form of deviation from the status quo.  But it does not alter the fundamental need for adaptation to a constantly shifting societal landscape.  Nor does it alter our individual obligation to be the best we can be for the students we are charged with teaching.

Educational systems as a whole lack for a growth mindset.  Politicians may pay lip service to reform, but, systemically, things tend to stay the same more than they tend to change.  I think it is we teachers who have the greatest power to lead an inertial shift that brings about meaningful change within schools and our individual classrooms.  If we ensure that each of us is operating with a growth mindset, the system upon which we operate will necessarily reflect that.  Much has been written on this subject, including a whole book that I will admit I'm still meaning to read.  What I have gleaned from the edusphere about growth mindsets thus far, however, is that when they are fostered in our students, we see greater resiliency, increased likelihood of overcoming setbacks and failures, and more long term success.  I need to assume the same would be true of similar habits of mind in teachers.

As it is with most things, our ability to encourage a skill, a habit, or a mindset in others is often directly proportional to our own ability to understand and demonstrate that skill, habit, or mindset.

If we're going to preach growth, we should practice growth.

And before I get excessively preachy myself, I will freely admit that this has been a hard line for me to follow personally.  In being reflective of my own practice, I've discovered a good many behaviors and thought patterns that directly oppose the principles of growth and meaningful professional development.  I don't want to dwell too heavily on all the ways I'm doing things badly, but I think it's a useful endeavor to share a few of the behaviors that I know I need to work on in order to improve and grow as an educator.  See if there are any here that you can relate to.

In reflecting on my practices as an educator, colleague, mentor, or mentee, I have at times...

• dismissed opinions or viewpoints that are contrary to my own without first considering them objectively, honestly, and with an open mind.
• been closed off (at times to the point of hostility) in both language and posture with others who have given me feedback that was anything less than ideal.
• been reluctant to engage with stakeholders outside my class (parents, colleagues, admin, etc.) out of fear of being judged or criticized harshly.
• made pedagogical/instructional choices that offered a lesser value to students based on my own reservations about how I would be perceived by a group (students, colleagues, admin, parents, public, etc.).
• avoided pursuing a potentially meaningful strategy or plan because it required admitting a deficit in my own knowledge or ability.
• was dishonest about something I said or did in a class in order to either to gain some manner of positive reward (prestige, esteem, etc.) or avoid some manner of negative repercussion.
• avoided seeking feedback about my teaching from students out of fear that the feedback would be less than ideal.
• gave up on or disengaged from something (a technique, a teaching strategy, an initiative, etc.) much earlier than was warranted by its level of difficulty, resistance, or failure.
• derided a colleague's practice in the presence of another colleague with the ulterior motive of elevating my own status.
• entertained criticisms of a colleague by students for no real purpose beyond "gossiping."

That's a pretty rough laundry list and probably isn't even complete.  But I can't honestly espouse a mindset of learning, growth, and continued positive transformation if I can't emulate parts of that mindset, one of which is acknowledging the ways in which we sabotage our own growth.  Once we are able to be mindful of our own limiting behaviors, it becomes possible to reverse them and their effects.  It isn't easy, but the payoff can be limitless.

From there, we then can examine all of the things we hope for and try to instill in our students.  Each of those goals and outcomes should be features that we have either instilled in ourselves, or at the very least are trying to.  Do you want your students to be innovators?  In what ways do you innovate as a teacher?  Do you hope your students will become effective collaborators with one another?  Where does collaboration take place in your practice?  What does it look like when it is most effective?  

There has never really been a point where ongoing learning wasn’t a critical part of a good teacher’s job. But there may also never have been a point where such a significant shift in mindsets among educators was necessary. There has perhaps never been a point where having a growth mindset as a teacher has been more critical, both for our own needs and for helping students meet theirs.

To that end I present a few approaches that I think can help us to achieve these ends:

1.  Let's open our practices to our colleagues.

Whether you've been teaching for 20 years or 20 days, critical feedback always has the potential to be transformative.  Constructive peer feedback has been transformative in my own practice, and I am convinced it should be a vital part of any systemic transformation.  Seeking out a regular mentor/mentee relationship, finding opportunities to team teach (even if only briefly), or simply asking a colleague for some feedback about a lesson over a cup coffee can all offer a wealth of potential.

In their book Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School, Mark Barnes (@markbarnes19) and Jennifer Gonzalez (@cultofpedagogy) suggest using what they call a Pineapple Chart. The pineapple is a symbol of welcome and hospitality, and the pineapple chart is a mechanism that is used to let colleagues know when they are welcome in one another's classes.  Being able to entertain critical feedback of our practices may be humbling and unnerving.  However, coupled with a structured feedback system, such as the Critical Friends Protocol, the potential for growth is tremendous.

2.  Let's use design frameworks to help each other identify critical outcomes and the paths for achieving them.

The folks over at Stanford (I hear they're smart there) have been putting together some pretty nifty tools in their Institute for Design.  What's cool about their approach is that you don't need to be an expert in a particular field in order to be helpful to people in that field when using these design strategies.  Participants in their workshops and classes come from a wide range of backgrounds and are able to use basic design architecture to give and receive tremendously useful ideas and feedback.  Take a look at one of their crash courses to get a sense of how a group of people can help each other innovate and create.  Applied as a tool for instructional design (or just about any other educational endeavor), great things can happen.

3.  Let's advocate for personalization of our professional learning.

The educational establishment is coming around to the notion that one-size does not fit all for our students.  The same sentiment needs to be applied with teachers and the way we approach professional learning.  Are you an administrator or a jurisdictional leader?  Ask yourself how your approach to professional learning emulates what you want to see teachers in your school(s) do with personalization in their classrooms.  Are your teachers passive recipients of common PL offerings, or is there capacity for teachers to construct and implement growth plans in ways that are individually meaningful to them? One-size of professional learning does not fit all teachers any more than one-sized teaching fits all learners.

If you are a teacher and find your professional development to be narrow, unfulfilling, and unrelated to your practice, you probably aren't alone in the way you feel.  We're all very capable of grousing and complaining about how useless a particular talk or in-service training session was, but are we ready and willing to craft an approach that obsoletes the model we're so quick to complain about?  In a fully realized 21st century school, we imagine students empowered to the point where they are able to script their own learning outcomes and paths to achieving them.  Before we are ready to work within such an advanced model, perhaps we should consider how we might script our own professional learning outcomes.

Find allies (strength in numbers after all), develop an alternative (otherwise it's still just complaining), and make your pitch with humble honesty.  I don't know too many administrators so draconian as to deny a reasonable request at self-improvement, particularly if the requests are sincere, well considered, and detailed.  For those who are stymied, perhaps we can put our heads together and develop some strategies for navigating (and in some cases toppling) barriers.  Maybe a topic for a future blog...

4.  Let's engage with the world outside our school's walls.

That you are reading this blog means I'm "preaching to the choir" on this one.  I'm becoming a bit of a broken record with regards to advocating the cultivation of critical relationships outside the school community, but it's something I don't think can be overstated.  It's a big world out there and a connected teacher will be much better able to connect students.  YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, blogs, podcasts, and webinars have already joined literature and conferences as staples in the connected educator's arsenal of professional resources.  More tools continue to surface regularly, including collaboration tools like Voxer, Blab, and Periscope, allowing teachers to connect with more colleagues, more educational partners, and more ideas than ever before.

5. Let's not worry about getting it perfect on the first try.

We want our students to reflect, revise, and refine don't we?  We need to do it too.  Our first attempt at doing things differently might not produce all the results we're looking for right out of the gate.  As in all design processes, iteration will be necessary.  We have to take the time to be reflective with as much objectivity as we can muster, work on getting the approach right, and not simply falling back into the habits of comfort and control.

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Growth isn't always easy, but when it's sought in earnest and achieved, it is tremendously fulfilling.  Ghandi said to "be the change you wish to see in the world."  For an educator, no sentiment could be more relevant.

TL;DR: The first step to developing growth mindsets in our students is developing them in ourselves.  Innovate, collaborate, self-advocate, reflect, refine, and accept critique in your practice, and you will be much better at helping your students do all of these things.

Vive la revolution!

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Why Innovation?

The word innovation comes up a lot in educhatter these days.  Entire books are written on the subject.  We have apparently already closed the door on the information age (can we really call it an "age" if it only lasted 20ish years), and are now told that we live in the innovation age.  Educational literature abounds with a push to produce innovators in my country and abroad.  But what is the big deal with innovation anyway?  How many people in a society do we really regard as being "innovators?"  Sure Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg did some pretty spectacular innovating, but there's only so much room for the Apples and Facebooks of the world right?  We can't ALL be innovators, can we?

Before making a case for innovation and practices that generate more innovation in our schools and more innovators from them, we should make sure we're on the same page with regards to what innovation IS.  Innovation often gets mixed up with creativity, and I think the two words are used almost interchangeably.  This isn't that big a problem.  Personally, I think both matter, and the two concepts interact with one another in many ways.  That being said...

Innovation is the act of changing something that already is (methods, practices, policies, products, etc.).  It is fundamentally an alteration of what currently exists.

Creativity is the act of creating something that never was.

The distinction isn't tremendously important, and the two words are typically listed as synonyms of one another in the thesaurus.  For whatever reason, however, it's "innovation" that seems to get more play when we hear about the kinds of people society apparently needs more of.  You see this word routinely in business circles.  Where creativity often gets ascribed to artistic practices, innovation is apparently the quality that we need to cultivate in our youth if we are to stay competitive in the global economy.  Personally, I think the two concepts are tightly intertwined, and the common distinction of creativity (art) and innovation (practical stuff) is a false dichotomy.  Whether creative or innovative, our next generation is well served if they are either or both.

So why then should innovation matter so much in our classrooms?  I once had a lengthy discussion with a colleague where he asserted that most kids don't really need to be innovative, and that the notion distracted from their real needs.  He argued that the skills most of them actually need are learning how things are currently done in a particular field so that they can get a good job in that field, do what is needed of them by their employers, and thus, stay employed.  Innovation was for the elite few students capable of making it in the world "on their own" and that these kids will likely emerge regardless of the system they are educated in.  Suffice to say, we disagreed.  If he had made that argument in 1967, or even maybe 1986, I think he would have had some data to support the argument.

In 2015, however, that just doesn't hold water.  Businesses and corporations have come and gone for decades.  That's nothing new.  What IS new is the pace at which new processes, new technologies, and new markets emerge, both on local scales and on global ones.  Microeconomic platforms such as Esty, Kijiji, and Teacher Pay Teachers multiply daily.  The appetite for all things "new" and "improved" around the globe grows unabated.  The world of work today is not what it was 20 years ago and is almost unrecognizable from the economies of our parents' generation from which it has evolved.

There is a prevailing myth circling the internet that some large percentage of jobs that our kids will hold 10 years from now will not have been invented yet.  This same ridiculous claim was made 10 years ago, and other folks who are much better at research than I am have demonstrated that this is very likely to be false.  The trend, however, that isn't being talked about in seminars your school's career counsellor is attending is the growing rate of contract work over traditional employment.  In Canada, the US, and other developed nations the shift toward temporary contract work is unmistakable.  More and more people are having to market themselves as a brand throughout their adult lives over selling themselves as employees a few times throughout a career.

This reality requires that a much greater percentage of the working public needs to have the ability to stay abreast of their fields, whether they be in software development or spot welding, without the support and ongoing training of an employer to spur on innovation and growth.  Contractors must continuously learn and adapt as they transition between contracts and markets in order to stay employed.

And in economies that are narrow the need for diversity, innovation, and skill agility is more apparent than ever.  Albertans should be clamboring loudest for changes in our educational systems.  Our ability to train future oil executives and future righands is pretty well established.  But in the bust times of our boom-and-bust economy, the level of panic and stress in this province is palpable.  Do Albertan parents really want their kids to be subject to the same rollercoaster rides the majority of our economy lurches through roughly every seven years?  And this doesn't even touch on the notion that one day, perhaps a day closer than we might want to imagine, we could be facing a global reality where oil simply isn't the thing we use to power the planet any more.  This could arise because oil becomes obsolete or because the damage that is done by the practice of burning hydrocarbons becomes so glaringly atrocious that we have no choice.  What then of our need to innovate when we must reinvent an entire provincial economy?

When we couple this reality with that of exponentially increasing computational power in our technological systems, the future looks even more uncertain.  In the mid 20th century, automation replaced millions of middle income blue collar jobs, transitioning the middle class into predominantly white collar careers.  Today, technology is replacing many of those white collar careers as well.  For instance, computers running AI software can now take the place of journalists in preparing news copy, which represents only the tip of a very large iceberg.  Even teachers may be subject to the shift towards automation.  A teacher who acts only in the capacity of Information Dispensary is already long past obsolete, with MOOCS and YouTube able to easily and at least as effectively (if not more so) take the place of the average Stand-and-Deliver-er.  We too are not immune from the need to innovate and adapt.

Albertans, and Canadians in general, can continue to trundle along riding the rails of our resource-based economics that have driven our nation since its inception.  If we're smart, however, we will recognize that a changing world will offer changing opportunities.  We have as much at stake in keeping our planet humming along productively as any other nation on this planet.  Globally, we must eventually figure out how to feed and water tens of billions of people, provide energy to all of them, keep disease at bay, and find harmony and happiness in a global village that is cramped and angry in many of its parts.  We are long past the point at which turning the environmental ship entirely back to a sustainability setting is realistic.  We must invent ways to reverse inevitable damage being done to our atmosphere, oceans, and land.

And all of this will require innovators.

So why not us?  Why would we leave this to other nations to shape?  My answer is a simple one: we shouldn't.

Instead, let's teach our kids how to DO things again.  Let's give them an opportunity to work on problems that matter in their lives and in the lives of the world around them.  Let's show them that trying something, failing at it, going back to the drawing board, and trying again is worth it.  Don't think they can?  Just watch your kid try to nail a trick on his skateboard.  Iteration is ingrained within us.

Perhaps we should reconsider the question we ask of every young person regarding what they want to do when they grow up.  Maybe it's time to start asking them what they want to do right now.  Yes, many of our kids will say "play hockey," or worse: "play Facebook games." Heck, most days I want to play hockey and Facebook games!  But if, within our schools, we foster cultures of creation, of innovating and generating solutions to compelling problems, we'll also get to hear them reply with things like "write a story," or "build a robot," or "make a difference to people on the other side of my school's walls."

We need innovation right now.  Not sure how to start?  I'll recommend Tony Wagner's Creating Innovators as a great place to begin.  Then the next step is to get some dialogue going in your school and in your community.  We need more people starting and engaging in these conversations with urgency and agency.  And then we need to get moving on that revolution.

How do you foster innovation in your own classroom?  How does your school encourage innovative practices in its students?  Its staff?  Comment below or Tweet me your thoughts!

TL;DR: Creating innovators gives our kids and our economy the best chance for a bright future.  Being innovators gives us teachers that chance as well.

Vive la revolution!


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Coasters Optional: Are These Exciting or Frustrating Times?

Depending on the kind of teacher you are, right now might either be one of the most exciting or one of the most frustrating times in education in decades.  If you are a teacher who has found a high degree of comfort in what you do, feel that you are effective at it, and are operating in a fairly teacher-centered ("traditional") learning environment, you probably find current edu-culture  and edu-chatter to be pretty frustrating.  You're hearing a lot of talk that doesn't fit with your teaching paradigm, a paradigm that already looks and feels like it's working very well.  All this 21st century business is just another ill-fated attempt at fixing what isn't broken.

And you have a pretty good idea what I've got to say about that, don't you?  I'm going to try to convince you of how wrong you are and that you should come over to my line of thinking about changing the educational system and being a completely different kind of teacher, right?  Well don't get too defensive just yet.  I mean... yes I am going to do all that, but I don't think that your view of things is without validity or merit.  The other day I gave a trigonometry lecture and handed out some worksheets.  Pretty traditional.  I don't think you are the embodiment of evil because that's how you principally operate, especially so if you've never been offered a compelling reason to do it any other way.  I get it.

If anything, I feel like I'm the "bad guy" here, not you.  From your perspective, what you've been up to has worked pretty well and there isn't any good reason to fix what "ain't already broke."  I, on the other hand, actually think that it IS broken, and I nevertheless teach quite traditionally sometimes.  So it seems I'm being a hypocrite, and some days that is honestly the case.  I don't always practice what I preach.  I should point out before moving on, however, that I'm working daily on not being a hypocrite.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  Back to you, though:  Presently, you're probably hoping that everyone will leave you more or less alone and just let you do your job.  You work hard at it, and you do it well, right?  Well here's what I'd like you to do:

Ask yourself honestly if yours is the job that needs doing for your kids right now.  If you're a high school teacher, and you're well established and effective, you are probably very good at getting students into college or university.  I'll be frank when I say that as a young teacher (fresh out of university with an Ed degree that followed a BSc in biochemistry) I had a very university-oriented mindset, which had a profound impact on my teaching for years.  I placed a tremendous amount of weight on getting my students ready for university, regardless of the grade I was teaching, and regardless of how university-bound my students seemed to be (teaching them all that way gives everyone the chance to make it, right?).

Today, scrutiny of our post-secondary institutions is growing, as we start to understand how poor a job many of our research-based universities are doing in the teaching and learning department.  There is a wealth of literature damning the quality of post-secondary education, particularly in the US.  Our statistics in Canada are slightly better off, partially because we place a much higher emphasis on vocational training and certification programs that actually get people jobs here, but the university graduate game isn't everything it's cracked up to be north of the border either.  Only a quarter of Canadians get Bachelors degrees these days, and of those, roughly half of them report getting jobs that are in their fields.  Scrutiny of teaching practices here reveals similar findings as in institutions around the world -- quality teaching is not the top priority of our "elite" universities.  Don't get me wrong here.  I'm not saying that we shouldn't be sending kids to college.

What I am saying is that if you're a teacher who is highly adept at getting your students to win at diploma exams or SATs and AP finals, that's great.  But you're really only serving a thin slice of students and that slice could probably be served just as well (if not better) by folks with more tech and more pizzazz who post educational videos on YouTube.  Like it or not, your skill set has been obsoleted by the internet.  For all you know, Salman Khan might be more responsible for your students' test scores these days than you are.  So unless you've got retirement within striking distance, I think you might want to consider taking a sip or two of the progressive Kool Aid.  We've got work in store.

On that note, I mentioned two groups of teachers at the beginning of this post, and I'd much rather talk about the other bunch: the teachers for whom these times in education are so exciting.  For those teachers willing to consider that the current educational paradigm does not serve the current societal paradigm, we have no shortage of opportunity laid before us.  We are tasked by our children to create an education that serves all of them and not just the thin slice destined to get a degree and work within their chosen field of study.  We are asked to prepare them for a world that will demand unprecedented levels of innovation, civic engagement, and creative solutions to very real problems.

That might sound particularly daunting, but I'm here to tell you that while daunting it may be, it also has so much potential to be fulfilling, energizing, and empowering.  I don't know many teachers working right now who aren't struggling with the fact that we can feel the erosion of our ability to make a difference in our traditional teaching.  One of the reasons I started teaching was that I felt I was a good story-teller.  But like most people without a Hollywood budget to back them, my ability to entertain my way into good teaching has been utterly usurped by the stimulation rich 21st century.  I can barely compete with YouTube and Facebook, much less 24 hour streaming movies and the few hundred new video games uploaded to the iTunes and Google Play stores every day.

Recreating education places us squarely back in the role that most of us imagined having when we joined the profession: difference makers.  Designing the shift that will connect more of your students in your classrooms with real-world problems, creative endeavors, and opportunities to explore and innovate will give all of them the chance to have rich, rewarding lives both in their time with you as students and after they leave your building.  That process won't be easy, but it can be every bit as thrilling and engaging as the experiences you hope to give your kids.  We want our students to find their passions and then to pursue them vigorously.  Shouldn't we be doing the same?  Educating students effectively is (or at least was at one point) each of our passions.  And right now we have a chance to innovate, create, and problem solve just as we hope our students will.  Personally, I find that process richly rewarding, challenging though it is.

I've tried to outline ways that teachers could start making steps toward positive transformation in earlier posts.  I'm excited to report that I'm not just a peddler of my own snake oil, but a customer as well.  Building Futures is but one step on the road to revolution.  I look forward to reflecting on the transformations that me and my colleagues are working on crafting in coming months and years.  For now I'll end this post with a final suggestion, something that I've alluded to before as being vital to the revolution:

Whiteboards and Watermarks.

It's not just the name of the blog.  It's where the journey begins.  I've heard the term "EduCoffee" or "EdCafe" before.  Whiteboards and watermarks is the same idea; I just don't feel the need to limit the beverage choice to coffee.  My personal preference comes from the malted beverage family.  Here's how it goes:

1. Find some friends, allies, collaborators.
2. Get some "whiteboards" (pads of paper, laptops, chart paper, whatever you like).  
3. Pour yourselves a cup, a mug, or a glass of whatever excites your palettes.  Some of those beverages may have cause to leave a watermark or two.  Coasters are optional.
4. Discuss.  If you could do it the way you wanted in order to give the maximum number of kids the maximum number of opportunities to have rich, rewarding educational experiences, what would that look like for you?

Who knows... yours just might be the discussion that changes the game for an entire generation.

Exciting times indeed.

TL;DR: If you want to do things "the old way," I'm afraid you're running out of time where that's going to be OK.  Make the switch now, and come join us on an exciting wave of innovation and creative design where we teachers literally get to help change the world for the better!!

Vive la resistance!!

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Cuz 'Murica

In light of the Obama administration's recent decision to limit testing in public schools, I feel I need to get a little bit Stars and Stripesy with my post today.

I have more than a passing connection to education in the United States.  For a start, although I was educated entirely in Canada, I am the oldest of 6 children, 4 of whom did most of their K-12 in the US, along with all their post-secondary schooling.  I have dear friends who have moved to the US for work and are now navigating the educational waters in California and Texas.  And I even have a close friend running in next year's State House of Representatives election, where education will be a critical campaign issue in the great state of Minnesota. All the best Lindsey! I've been a member of the US-based National Science Teachers' Association for most of my career and attended Regional and National Conferences south of the border on a number of occasions, meeting educators and making connections throughout the States.

I'm no expert on the American education system by any means, but I think I can safely say that I've done more than my fair share of that all too Canadian of pastimes: America-watching (at least as far as education goes anyway). Gawking at our southern neighbors is almost as Canadian an activity as watching hockey and making a Tim Horton's run. And let's be honest about what we Canucks are most excited to see from the world of Americana: mention of anything even remotely Canadian. For instance, the day before our recent federal election, HBO's "Last Week Tonight" had John Oliver (ironically, not an American) devoting 20 solid minutes of his weekly monologue-ing to the Canadian parliamentary race.  My Facebook feed blew up, as our entire nation positively vibrated with uncontrollable giddiness at the acknowledgement of not only our existence, but recognition of a national election outside the insanity of their own national election!  I'm willing to wager that of the roughly 5 million YouTube views that bit has logged, 95% of them are from Canadians who just had to see it one more time.

So my point here is that I've got both a personal and a cultural interest in paying attention to all things education in the US.  And like a typical Canadian, I can't help but compare.

When I first started attending conferences in the States as a young science teacher, there were a couple things that immediately struck me profoundly:

1. Everyone in the US seemed to be doing different things.  This positively blew me away.  No one could really describe a coherent curriculum to me.  Teachers from Washington had different curricula from those in Texas, California, Colorado, New York, etc.  It's worth remembering that this was back in the early 2000s before No Child Left Behind (NCLB) had really sunk its teeth in and long before things like Race to the Top and Common Core had made it on the scene.  What made this especially weird to me was that I was already aware of the fact that America has one of the most mobile cultures on the planet.  They move a lot.  And the fact that their state (and even school) objectives varied so much seemed really counter intuitive given how likely it was that kids would bounce around between schools and states. 
2. There was SO MUCH STUFF.  The vendor floor at even a small Regional Conference was always jammed with companies of every size peddling educational aids, tech, texts, and toys.  I remember being absolutely floored by textbook publishers ready to hand over full copy samples of their science textbooks (not just little chapter samples).  Never would that happen  at a Teachers' Convention north of the border, even when it was exactly the same publishers in attendance.  There was clearly a lot of money in American education.
3. High school "down there" seemed easier -- or at least required less discrete, detailed knowledge from kids than our students were responsible for.  My 12th graders were doing work that looked more challenging than some Junior College course work that I was seeing my siblings encounter.

At the time, Americans (and Canadians for that matter) were well into a slow and steady decline in performance on international test scores.  Beating us both were a number of Asian nations and a European or two.  My province plodded along making occasional mention of some areas that needed improvement on an international scale, but changing almost nothing about educational practice over most of the last 16 years.  The US, on the other hand, pushed all their chips in on standardized testing as Bush's NCLB took hold and shaped mainstream education in the 50 States from that point forward.  Then when that bet didn't seem to pay off, President Obama decided to go double-or-nothing on Race to the Top, bringing the free market to bear on education by financially rewarding "good" schools and punishing "bad" ones.

The results from this outsider's perspective have been painful to watch.  The hand wringing and ballyhooing in response to the continued downward trends in international comparisons, particularly in the maths (yes, pluralizing math is completely valid, isn't that right Britain?) have made for quite the spectacle on mainstream media and in educational discourse south of the border.

When I first started in the profession, I can remember smugly thinking how fortunate I was to not have to ply my trade in the States, as I visited with colleagues in places like Seattle, Denver, and Salt Lake and listened to the plight of teachers working in what they described as a disjointed and wayward system.  With everything that has transpired in American education since, you might think that my disdain would be doubly strong today.  But that would depend very largely on what part of American education you were asking me about.

In all my travels south of the border (and there have been many more beyond the occasional science convention), one thing that continuously strikes me about the US is how natural folks seem to be about starting up business ventures.  The willingness to try one's hand in the entrepreneurial arts seems to be encoded somewhere in the American genome, as I find it to be far more pervasive among the general population than it is in Canada.  And American educators are no exception.

As the drive for more high stakes testing and better performance from schools has morphed American education into a grim caricature of its post-WWII self, pockets of innovative counter-culture have begun springing up throughout the US.  Reformist school initiatives have blossomed in nearly every state.  Magnet schools, charters, public and private reform initiatives, and teacher college transformations with progressive reform and student-centered principles as their underpinnings are blossoming throughout the country.  And for every "next-level" school that opens or transforms itself, there are 1000 teachers who are starting their own transformations with blogs, podcasts, product launches, software development, web curating, e-commerce, and all manner of innovation.  For a country that is supposedly losing its ability to educate innovators, it sure seems to be producing some pretty innovative stuff in the Edu-sphere these days.

The next great American revolution is well under way.  If things catch on ubiquitously, there is absolutely no telling what the US could accomplish.  If reform movements that are already generating hard data on their efficacy and effectiveness are able to be duplicated in a large scale fashion, the United States will most assuredly lead the global economy through the 21st century.

So what might that mean for Canada?  We are also faced with defining our role in a global economy, and one thing that is almost certain is that the resources upon which our nation currently generates a large percentage of its wealth are finite.  We may be content in Alberta to allow oil and gas to pay for a large percentage of our present, but our future will demand diversification.  One could argue that our present demands it as well.  So too will our children.

We can continue to stratify our student populations into "future oil executives" and "future oil drillers," but one day this dichotomy is going to break down.  We can either latch on to the wave of innovation generation that we're seeing our neighbors to the south begin to undertake, or we can find a model that more closely aligns with the cultural trajectory of this country.  What we can't do, however, is to continue pointing the battleship forward in the hopes that it will sail our children into a comfortable middle class future.  The signs are already far too clear that the status quo will not serve indefinitely.

TL;DR: Where American education is bad, it is very bad, but where it is good, it is very very good!  If the States can scale up the good, their nation will undoubtedly be the global economic leader on the planet for decades.  If they can't...  Who knows?  Either way the rest of us developed nations should be paying very close attention to the good stuff, if not emulating it outright.

Vive la revolution and God Bless America!
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Google Can Have It

There's a sentiment in educational reform that makes me uncomfortably twitchy every time I hear it or any of its subtle variations in the edu-chatter.  It goes something like this:

"Knowledge is expanding so rapidly, we can't possibly know what kids will need to know in the future, so we're better off teaching them HOW to learn, and not what to learn."

I'm all for taking a few healthy quaffs of the educational reform Kool Aid, but I find myself compelled to spit this particular mouthful back.  Or at the very least, wanting it to be something a little more palatable.  One of the reasons that I reject this sentiment is that it is painfully old.  John Dewey made similar remarks before the turn of the century (the twentieth century that is) when he said that it is "impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now" in advocating for education of character and the general qualities of intellect over knowledge sets that continuously evolve ("My Pedagogic Creed," 1897).

The notion that knowledge outpaces our ability to acquire it should be completely self evident.  More will be discovered about the mating habits of South American reptiles next week than I will ever learn (or want to learn) in a lifetime, to say nothing of the rest of the infinitesimally large body of disciplines in which facts accumulate daily on this planet.  That there will be more to learn than can ever be known is patently obvious and has been for as long as there have been people.

You know what hasn't changed very much in the last hundred years?  The starting points of knowledge that are necessary in order to one day actually live on the leading edge of knowledge generation.  Physics and astronomy, for instance, have seen some pretty amazing advances in the last few years, and the folks at the forefront of that work are getting to see and do some pretty amazing things.  But no matter how well I impart the HOW of knowledge acquisition to my students, none of them is going to get to do cutting edge particle physics without first knowing what a neutron is.  There is still some intellectual capital out there that some of our kids are going to want to acquire if figuring out how the universe is put together happens to be something that they want to do.  That's just as true now as it was 50 or 100 years ago, and the speed of new information creation doesn't make the old information obsolete.  One is dependent on the other.

Something significant, however, has changed in the last 20 years or so that we should be acknowledging as far more significant than the pace of present day academic endeavors: accessibility of the knowledge.  Growing up in the 80s, there were generally three sources I could go to in order to find stuff out that I wanted to know: school, the library, or to someone who already happened to know what I wanted to know.  Regardless, finding things out was generally more of a hassle than it was worth if you didn't have one of those sources readily available.  You just had to be content with not knowing.

Oh how times have changed.  I often say to people that I live in "the future."  I mean the kind of future I watched or read about in science fiction.  No we don't have flying cars or hoverboards, but I can take out a device small enough to fit in my pocket anywhere, any time and find out just about any discreet fact I want with the swipe of a finger.  The segment of my psyche that still exists back in 1985 is absolutely blown away by this.

So what does any of this have to do with teaching?  It tells us that, effectively, everyone already has access to the intellectual capital we've been peddling for the last hundred years.  Our position as knowledge gatekeepers has been utterly usurped by Google.  Knowing should theoretically be ubiquitous.  We are commodity traders of a commodity that just saw its supply go through the roof.  Worse, many of us still haven't recognized that the crash in our market has already happened and we're still trying to shlep a product that few need and even fewer want.

What makes this the essential era for progressive reform is that the information that has always been outstripping our ability to access it has now actually become completely accessible.  Our kids have more information available to them than any generation in history.  Making them mentally store some of it from time to time does have a few practical uses, but what they really need is more opportunities to navigate and use it in meaningful ways.  By "meaningful," I mean at the very least "meaningful to the students" and ideally also "meaningful to the society in which our students exist."

Like many teachers, I will certainly add my voice to the call on curriculum developers who have not already done so to revisit their works while considering that the intellectual capital we were meant to impart to our students in the last decade is now free and more readily available than ever.  The knowledge transmission portion of our jobs has been outsourced.

In the absence of sweeping curricular changes, however, we teachers need to find ways to allow students to do the things we are meant to teach them instead of to merely find out about those things.  If there exists knowledge worth possessing, let's make sure our students can experience the real value of that knowledge, and not just its ability to generate a particular grade on a report card.  To do that, we will need to shift our practices away from just planning (a purposeful ordering of a sequence of events, typically with a clear destination in mind) and move toward designing (a complex and creative process that combines thoughtful choices with a purpose that often doesn't have a clear destination at its end).  And to do this effectively will require not only a shift in thinking about how we're doing things, but a team effort to make it happen.  How will you find your team?  Or to ask the question more formally...

In what ways can collaborative design practices be generated in departments/schools where the practice is not already built in to the culture of the department/school by teachers? by admin?

TL;DR: The rate of new discoveries is not the reason we need to change teaching; the rate of information transmission is.  If Google can transmit knowledge, then teachers need to switch from "Knowledge Dispenser" to one of "Knowledge Navigator."  That's not going to be super easy, so we should really try to do it together.

Vive la revolution!!
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The Thing About Tests - Final Thoughts

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies." —Groucho Marx

In the context of government issued testing, I feel this quote is fairly on point. But I also admit that I don't think I've got much to offer in the way of functional alternatives. Testing serves a variety of goals including performance measurement, admissions standards for certain institutions, and teacher accountability. But I can't honestly say that I think these goals are all being served well by current testing regimes, although I will say they're being served efficiently. Machine-scored testing is cheaper and faster than every other practical (or impractical) alternative.  Although government issued standardized testing seems to be the proverbial rented mule of educational discourse these days. If the buzz is to be believed, these tests are antiquated, overused, and worthy of a sound beating and a trip to the glue factory.

I get it. For those readers not from Alberta, I can tell you that as far as Canadian provinces go, we have historically taken our government exams pretty seriously. Up until fairly recently, we tested students in grades 3, 6, 9, and 12 comprehensively in all core subject areas. Until last year, our 12th grade Diploma (exit) Examinations had the highest weighting in the country with 50% of the marks in each matriculation course devoted to a highly comprehensive final test written in one or two 3-hour sessions at the end of a semester.

Over much of my career, I have taught a number of the courses that had these tests awaiting my students at their conclusion. To say they have had an impact on my pedagogical choices would be an understatement of monumental proportions. I would go so far as saying that not only did they dictate the nature of teaching in those particular classes, their ever-present shadow on high school culture has informed my and my colleagues' practices even beyond the courses and grades in which these exams appear. In fact I would even say that Diploma Exams have shaped high school pedagogy more than any other single influence in Alberta high schools over the last 30+ years.

Now is the point in the post where you might expect me to go into a lot of detail summarizing all of the reasons why these things are the embodiment of evil. Blah blah high stakes, yadda yadda only tests a very limited number of things, blah blah unfair to kids. I'm not going to bother. It's been done to death, and if you're reading my blog, chances are good that you're already drinking the "Standardized Government Tests Are Awful" Kool-Aid. And the reality is that I'm no great fan either. It's been many a semester where I've consoled a student who had a mental lapse, that led to self-doubt, that snowballed to panic, that led to a bad result, and necessitated a re-write 5 months down the road when the material would be even less fresh.  They're no fun.

Instead I want to discuss what I think we should be considering, as teachers navigating these tests, in the context of education reform. Firstly, lets put ourselves in the shoes of the folks who tell us these things are a necessity: our elected officials and our Education Ministries (Departments). Last year my province spent over 6 billion dollars on educating people in Alberta. That number is dwarfed by the budgets of larger provinces and states across the border. It is money that is generated by citizens and businesses that both use these services and benefit from them. Do we need some manner of process to measure the effectiveness of our education systems -- to justify how and why we're spending billions of dollars of taxpayer money on these things? Absolutely.

But we need to make sure that the tests measure what they need to measure while at the same time having our system do what the system needs to do: prepare students for a productive and rewarding life after high school.  As I have said earlier, the goals of measurement and the goals of assessment don't always align.

So how, in the mielieu of reform, can we reconcile the need for these tests with superior pedagogy?

1. Firstly, we need to stop preparing kids for 12th grade exams from the first day they walk into high school (or even earlier if that's what is happening).  The notion that we have to teach kids how to take the tests is fine, but that doesn't need to be an every day occurrence.  If your course doesn't have a big standardized test at the end of it, don't pretend that you need to get them ready for the test in the next course that does.  Be clear and purposeful in identifying the competencies that have direct transference into that next chapter.  Make the methods in teaching those facets the exception and not the rule.


2. If you're teaching a class that has the big state test at the end of it, ask yourself seriously how it's going to be used.  Grade 6 Provincial Achievement Exams have no bearing on whether your students will get into the "good" junior high or the "bad" one.  How seriously does your school or division take the discrepancy reports at the end of the year?  Is your job actually on the line?  I'm not advocating "going rogue" and ignoring the test or letting your kids tank because it doesn't matter.  I'm simply suggesting that if the presence of the test is a barrier to transforming your teaching practice, make sure that the test is actually a barrier and not simply a convenient excuse.  Then ask yourself how long you really need getting your kids ready for that test.  Does it take the entire semester or year?  Work on finding the minimum amount of time that actually needs to be devoted to test prep, and fill the rest of your time with the best learning experience you can muster.
   
   Or better yet, get real with your learning team and take on the challenge of designing effective strategies that meet the demands of a 21st century, student-centered learning environment that also helps kids to succeed on the tests.  I freely concede that such a goal is substantially easier said than done, and nearly laughable for some courses (I'm looking at you Biology 30).  However, even in the most overloaded-with-content courses, we still need to acknowledge that a strictly stand-and-deliver method is pedagogically ill-advised, particularly in an era of ever shrinking attention spans and ever increasing options for sound teaching practices.


3. Join the growing ranks of activists who are campaigning and petitioning to have the nature of state exams changed to better reflect their purpose and scope.  The message is being received.  Alberta has made recent and significant changes within the Assessment Branch.  More work is needed.  If this is an area that matters to you, get involved.  Teacher's unions, education advocacy groups, school board councils, and even direct communication with government agencies and elected officials can all be part of the equation.  If they can't be eliminated, let's at least pursue an agenda that offers room to meet some objectives by alternative means, continue to reduce the conflation of measurement and performance ranking objectives, and an assurance that the tests continue to test what is actually needed in academia and industry and not just what an ivory-tower curriculum manager thinks is needed.


4. Work toward giving the powers-that-be a convincing argument that there is a better way to educate our youth.  Much of what we do is done because that's "always how it's been done."  If we can work towards finding the system that obsoletes our current one, the tests will have to adapt or go away.  Help make the argument that they need to be changed by being the example of "the better way" and by helping to spread that way.  Join the revolution!

TL;DR:  State tests are a drag, but right now, they're a necessary drag.  Worry about them less when they don't affect you directly, a little bit less when they do, and help to convince those who need convincing that there's a better way.

Vive la resistance!

The Thing About Tests - Part 2

Some frank conversation about testing is desperately needed.  I'll start:  I loved test time in my "traditional teaching" life.  More than any other reason, a test period represented an extra prep.

There.  I admitted it.

I'm not happy about that.  I'm not proud to say it.  But if I'm being honest, I have to tell you:  I never had a problem handing out a 40 question multiple choice with 4 written response test.  That's going to take 60 to 90 minutes, and for that time period every kid is going to be quiet and focused.  Ahhhhhh.  Sweet relief.  Get a little marking done, maybe sort out the next day's lesson.  Oh! My friend just updated his status on Facebook?  Chimichangas are great.  Right on bud!  Maybe I'll just scroll down a little more... Haha!  Cats are so funny. <90 minutes later> "All right everyone, turn in your exams!"

You elementary teachers reading this are probably rolling your eyes right now.  Don't get that down in Grade 1 hey?  Sorry folks.  I still don't know how y'all do it.

What's my point?  The scenario above exemplifies the main issue that I presently have with the ways tests are traditionally used: too often we are conflating interests that have no business being put together when we test students, and in doing so we have the potential to do our kids a disservice.  The extra "motivation" I had to test kids likely played a role (even if subconsciously) in things like frequency of testing and test length.

Is a 90 minute test always the best approach for every set of learning objectives?  I'd be lying if I said that question factored into my decisions very much back when I created tests that, to this day, still sit in filing cabinets back at my school.  Instead, the structure of my school's bell times dictated how long my tests were.  Enough questions to keep the kids who take the longest to need most of the class, but not so many that you have a significant number of students unfinished at the end of the period.  The "sweet spot" would see the last kid hand their paper in right before the bell.  See what's wrong with that design?

It serves the adult in the room, and not the students.

And there's the criticism that the anti-testers have a right to hang their hats on:  Testing is all too often not about learning.  It's not that tests are invalid, or that they can't test for certain things, or that they put too much pressure on kids.  All those issues are hotly debatable.  The main issue with much of traditional testing is that too many aspects of the testing aren't designed for the students.  The testing is mostly for us, the adults.  It exists so we know if we're doing our jobs properly.  It exists so we can assign numbers to kids that are culturally adopted and easy to understand.  It helps us rank and sort them.  It helps us more than it helps them, at least insofar as learning is concerned.  None of those things are necessarily bad or wrong (as I pointed out in an earlier blog), but "crossing the streams" so to speak is exactly what's got testing in all the hot water it's in right now.

I recently read an article from 2014 by Linda Flanagan that described this phenomenon in the greater context of grades as a whole.  In the piece, she highlights our societal obsession with measurement.  I would like to distinguish measurement from assessment in much the same way Flanagan does in her article: To me, assessment is what I do in my class with individual students to get a barometer on their learning.  Measurement is what is done to large groups of students, whole schools, entire jurisdictions, etc.  Measurement is the thing of standardized government exams, and it typically occurs in conjunction with assessment.  We find out what our kids know at the same time that we evaluate them and make decisions about their futures.  A lot of "traditional" testing in classrooms (including my classic 90-minute "40 & 4" tests) is actually just bad measurement disguised as assessment.  My suggestion here is that the practice of conflating the objectives of measurement and assessment is what is causing a lot of the problems that surround the "to test or not to test debate."

So do I think we should throw tests out the window altogether?  Absolutely not.  I don't even think it's necessary to throw the measurement brand of testing out the window.  Let's just start making steps toward making testing for learning the greater emphasis over testing of learning.  These aren't new concepts by any stretch.  I remember a vigorous discussion with my fellow student teachers on the topic when I was still in teacher college in the late 90s.  Unfortunately the conclusions reached in our discussions (mainly that testing for learning is better) got quickly set aside in the cultural milieu of real-world teaching.

And testing for learning is not the only aspect of the testing paradigm that needs an overhaul.  To illustrate, I'm going to attempt to describe one class in particular that I think much more closely approaches the way good testing should look:

Alicia is a high school science teacher with an 11th grade Physics class.  Her class has a strong emphasis on inquiry and project-based learning.  Currently, her students are attempting to navigate a design challenge where they must construct a machine that launches a spherical projectile.  Most students are choosing to construct either catapults or trebuchets.  One group works on a ballista, while another is trying to craft an unusual hybrid of a baseball pitching machine and a skeet launcher.  Students must use physics principles to accurately predict the landing sites of their projectiles, determine launch and land velocities, and describe energy changes.

The project challenges students to investigate and understand important concepts in Physics, such as Kinematics (the study of motion) in two dimensions, Dynamics (the study of forces), and Energy.  The students must work collaboratively and creatively to construct and refine their devices.  In order to fully complete the task, the students must learn which data is relevant, how to gather it, and how to calculate the expected trajectory and landing positions of their projectiles.

Alicia has scaffolded this learning into her project calendar.  She provides the students with resources to investigate these concepts independently, but also builds a lesson schedule into her project calendar.  Students have the option of attending her lesson on projectile motion calculations where she demonstrates and works through examples with students.  There is formative work for students to practice the concepts.  Students may choose formative work that meets basic expectations for competency in the course or more challenging practice material, depending on their aspirations and aptitude. To ensure that students are meeting the learning objectives, she has also created a summative waypoint exercise.  Students are not allowed to perform the first set of formal trials with their device until all members have demonstrated at least a minimal understanding of the concepts -- in other words: The Test.

The test consists of three questions, all written response.  The nature of these questions are all well known by the students in advance of the test.  The questions are constructed to hit on the fundamental concepts in the topic, not necessarily every single potential learning objective.  Students write the test when they are ready, and may write it as many times as necessary to meet the standard.  While it sounds like it would be pretty easy for students to cheat, the kicker here is that no two tests are precisely the same.  Alicia has a skeleton form that acts as the backbone of the test, but hand writes subtle alterations in to each exam so that no two tests will ever be identical.  They all test the same concepts, but with slightly different questions.

That may sound like a lot of work for Alicia, but each test only takes her a few seconds to prepare (she jots down 6 numbers and three words into blanks on a templated page).  Construction of her tests takes far less time than the full period quizzes and tests of her previously more traditional teaching practices.  Her grading here is also much different than the typical testing paradigm.  Using protocols for communication that she established early in the course, she can tell at a glance how proficient the student is in a variety of competencies.  She doesn't need to know what the correct answer is.  She only needs to see how the student is tackling the question to know if they are "getting it."

Did they apply the appropriate principles?  Are they setting up their formulas correctly?  Is their flow of ideas logical?  Are they communicating their learning clearly?  Are they using proper conventions and notation?  She can rate each student in their competencies with just a quick scan of the test.  Rather than marking it in detail for right/wrong, she is assessing the student on what they can do and what they can't yet (granted many kids want to know if they "got it right," but that doesn't take too long to figure out either).  

Here "failure" is simply a waypoint in the process.  Where there are problems, she can address each student at their level individually.  She can also leverage the collaborative needs of the groups, as there is a degree of motivation for students to have everyone on the team understanding the material (teammates can tutor one another in their respective difficulties).  Students are also asked to be metacognitive regarding their testing.  They rate their own difficulties in tacking the questions, their tendency to guess, and their confidence in their process.  All of this provides valuable information to the teacher with one-glance efficiency.  She can structure follow-up activities in response to individual and overall performances.

Creating and grading these tests are time savers for Alicia.  The tests take a fraction of the time to write than a lengthy full-period exam.  She's far more likely to adjust and modify them from year to year rather than reuse them unchanged for decades.  She spends less time assessing them, and students take less time to actually write them.  The tests are sufficient to give her clear roadmaps on how to direct each student's learning and extra time she and the students have can be spent shoring up problems and mastering content, rather than simply moving on to the next topic with holes in some students' understanding.

Here is is a laundry list of features in Alicia's class that I think are particularly critical in regards to testing:

• Testing serves learning.  It doesn't mark the end of the learning cycle, but rather a midpoint.  It is assessment first and either measurement (as I described the term earlier) secondly or not at all.
• The opportunity to correct learning deficiencies identified through testing is built in to the process.
• Testing can be personalized, tailored to the abilities and needs of individual students.  (And before you discount this point as being pedagogically unsound, we should have a discussion on the critical differences between "equal" and "fair.")
• It is efficient and agile.  It serves its purpose without dominating the agenda.
• Testing doesn't monopolize the raison d'être for learning.  Students learn for reasons other than "you'll need to know this for your test."
• Testing is neither the backbone nor the default for assessment in this class.  It is one tool among many that is used only when it makes sense to use.  Tested objectives are purposefully selected for their alignment with the nature of testing and the benefits it confers to the learning.  A great many other learning objectives are assessed and evaluated using other methods of assessment.

It is worth noting that there are other components of Alicia's teaching that make her classes vitally effective beyond just how and why she tests.  Those components complement her design choices with regards to testing.  Her class is student-centerered, emphasizing projects, problem solving, and critical thinking.  But it's worth noting that she still teaches -- Alicia is a skilled facilitator and students genuinely enjoy her lessons, whether it's 4 students partaking or her whole class of 34.

It's also worth noting that this course happens to be highly academic.  It is part of the springboard that will launch many students into upper academia where testing will be the norm.  Alicia also teaches a vocational science class to 10th graders, and tests are almost completely absent from that course.

What's absent in the scenario above is the role of the measurement brand of tests.  Where's the government exam in the equation above or the high-stakes final exam?  Well that, my friends, is its own can of worms, and (given the existing length of this post) demands I save it for next time.

TL;DR: Testing isn't education's Great White Whale.  If it's used primarily to support learning and is one amongst a number of useful assessment tools, it can have a lot of value in any classroom, even the predominantly student-centered ones.

Vive la revolution!

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