Leadership Day 2009: Fearless Learners

(This post is being written in support of Dr. Scott McLeod's Leadership Day 2009)

New Jersey is in the process of changing their high school graduation requirements. (I have blogged on this previously). The state has also recently updated its new core content curriculum standards for 2009. To introduce these standards and to "prepare administrators to get students ready for the world of work and college in the 21st century", several summer professional conferences have and will take place.

These conferences are hosted by the NJDOE and special guest presenters include either Alan November or Ian Jukes; both well know technology evangelists and futurists. This past week I attended one for these sessions featuring Mr. November.

Mr. November shared that "Learning is a social endeavor" and he felt that "...schools do not foster all the social experiences we should." He implied it was administrator's jobs to change that. I agree with his first point and I need to modify the second. Learning is a social experience and most would agree that collaboration to attain and present knowledge is one of the keys to understanding. However, schools by their nature are social. However, the social piece isn't usually highly academic. What I think Mr. November meant was that schools should turn the need and drive for kids to be social (both live and virtual) into academic learning experiences. This includes traditional experience as cooperative learning and Project Based Learning as well as new technologies like blogs, wikis, social networks and more. It is the job of the principal (and higher admins) as chief learners to encourage and convince teachers that this kind of learning and tools are not only helpful, but research based and necessary.

November continued to share that there are several key skills for leaders to have. They include:
-command of information
-make people into a high performing team
-many tech tools to enhance teams (i.e. google docs)
-be "Fearless learners"

I agree with all of those things. I especially like the phrase "fearless learners".

The piece I found disheartening was that this presentation was coupled with a description by the state of new end of course standardized tests in multiple subjects that all high school students will need to pass to graduate, along with talk of the other tests that students take Grades 3-8 as part of the NCLB requirements.

We have a disconnect here. I applaud the state for bringing in forward thinking speakers to inspire our principals and to make them think. The message is convoluted when the same meeting uses high stakes testing as the end goal.

My thought on leadership day is this: be a fearless learner, stay grounded in reality by doing what needs to be done now, but work towards what should be done in the future.

Learning in Florida through a Giant Video Games for High School Students

A doctoral student colleague of mine, Polly Bergen, teaches for the Florida Virtual School. When I saw her two weeks ao, she shared with me that FVS launched a new program called Conspiracy Code.

This program (which costs millions of dollars to develop BTW), uses an online video game/simulation to teach US History. Here is the description from the website:

The Premise
High School students will develop a deep understanding of American History as they control Eddie and Libby; fictional characters in an espionage-themed adventure set in the fictional, near-future metropolis of Coverton City. In the game – or course – students must build their knowledge of American History in order to stop a vast conspiracy that is threatening to erase and change the course of history.

The Learning Process
As students collect clues, they are given many opportunities to process what they are learning at increasingly-higher levels. They strengthen higher-order thinking, written communication, problem-solving, and collaborative skills through:

1. Playing engaging concept practice games
2. Responding to a variety of question types
3. Writing assignments and essays
4. Completing authentic game-based assessments
5. Participating in discussion-based assessments

Students test their knowledge during in-game challenges, engage in student-to-student collaborations and discussions, exchange information with peers (similar to group projects), and eventually use their knowledge to complete culminating mission assessments, each step eliciting a higher-order analysis of the material.

It runs for 36 weeks and is a single player game. Students still take regular exams, but this is a pretty radical shifts from the way school is "done". (As if FVS totally online high school wasn't revolutionary enough!)

Would your high school go for something like this, especially if the research proved it was as good or better than "traditional" classroom instruction?

New NJ Graduation Requirements

Today is our high school's graduation. Due to the torrential rains we've been having for the last two weeks including today, the ceremony will b held in the hot and stuffy gymnasium. Not comfortable. Hopefully the speeches will be mercifully short. (See my previous post on graduation speeches.)

Quite coincidentally, the New Jersey State Board of Education announced its approval of the new graduation standards designed to, in their words, "prepare students for the 21st century". What are these changes you ask? Online courses? 1:1 initiatives? Professional Learning Communities for Students? Infusion of Web 2.0 tools in school. Ah....no.


To graduate high school in New Jersey, one must now (in addition to previous requirements):

• Take 3 years of math, including Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry.
• Take 3 years of Science including Biology and Chemistry
• Take an economics course

To prove that you have mastered the subjects, students will have to take a state administered end of the course exam. If you don't pass the test, you don't graduate.

Commissioner Davy also announced that this is an unfunded mandate. There will not be any additional funds to prepare students or teachers.

Great. Kids will be ready for the 21st century because they have to take a few more tests. Look out India and China. Here we come.

Photo Credit "Graduation" by Danette5 on www.flickr.com

Laptops and Fertility

A warning out this week from several scientists. If you are a male laptop user who is trying to (or plans to) have children some day, keep the laptop off the lap!

Here is the article.

The Real Graduation Speech We Should Give

In this time of high school graduations, middle school graduations, 5th grade "promotion exercises", Kindergarten "move up" ceremonies, and even Nursery School Graduation, countless numbers of graduates and their parents will be subjected to speeches filled with reminiscing and advice aimed at the graduates. Some will be funny, some introspective, some personal, and some boring and immediately forgettable.

When I was a principal, I used to give some of these speeches.

Regardless of the speech, I have always felt that we were giving them at the wrong time. The end is not the time to give the inspiring speech to go forth and work hard, make a difference, and move mountains. Instead, we should be giving this speech to students at the beginning of their experience. Kindergarten, 6th Grade, and then again in 9th Grade. Perhaps again in Freshman year in college.

For students starting high school, here is what I would tell them.

Learn like your life depends on it.

The purpose of school is not to get good grades, pass tests, become proficient or advanced proficient on some state exam, or to memorize facts. Talk to people at their 5, 10, or 20 year reunion. They will not speak of tests or homework, but of relationships. They will talk about teachers who made a difference, friends they shared experiences with, or team mates they worked together with. You will hear about collaboration. Know that you shouldn't go at it alone, nor should you have to. The world works by people working together. Learn to work with others, especially those who are different than you to solve everyday problems and challenges.

Learn to solve problems, because that is much of what you will face in the next four years and beyond. Some might be small and insignificant, and some might be life altering, but regardless of the problem, you will need data to do a needs assessment, skills to look at the data, the ability to plan long and short term to address it, and follow through to see how it went. Chance are, you will do this collaboratively.

Nothing comes easy. If it does, it probably isn't worth it and probably won't make you stronger, smarter, or better. Make yourself better. You are worth it.

Experience new things. Your life is not all about you town, TV, and media. Experience things that you wouldn't do if left to your own devices. School with help you with this. Appreciate art, literature, world languages, equations, science and other things that you know you wouldn't do unless you were "forced" to. Much like the vegetables or fish sticks your mom forced on you as a kid, you might find you like it and it is good for you.

You have four years left to be insulated from the world. A place to be safe to explore, experiment, try new experiences, forge new relationships, and to see what your mind and body can do. Take advantage of the opportunity. Good luck.

Learn like your life depends on it.

The Value of the Diorama

When I think back to my elementary school days, shoe boxes were vary important. Not for storing shoes, but for building dioramas. These were teacher assigned projects, probably with the purpose of designing a project based learning experience and a degree of hands-on learning. I remember "doing" a project on the desert where I filled a shoes box with sand, added a few plastic lizards and did a presentation on Gila Monsters. I honestly do not recall much about these large lizards, but I do remember the shoes boxes. Shoe boxes with green army soldiers, matchbox cars, or a modified barbie doll that I "borrowed" from my sister to be a Greek Citizen in toga. Again, did I remember anything from the project?

Fast forward thirty plus years. Now an administrator, I walked the halls of one of our schools and found a collection of similar shoe box dioramas. The kids (and their parents) must have spent hours on the shoe box, and a few moment on the index card explaining what it is.

Now, I know the P.R. value of this. It looks great in the hallway when kids and parents pass by. However, from a knowledge capital, would kids learn as much about Washington crossing the Delaware by looking for websites, talking about it in class, actually visiting a local pond or river and taking a boat ride? I think it is time for the shoe box to go.

What do you all think? Is there value to this kind of assignment or am I just being a curmudgeon?

A Cool Place for Hands-On Learning: The Intrepid

I am fortunate to live close to New York City. A few weeks ago, my son and I had the opportunity to go and check out the newly renovated Intrepid Museum in Manhattan. The Intrepid is an aircraft carrier that saw action in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. It also aided in the recovery of U.S. Space Capsules. There is lots of history on the boat.

I remember visiting the Intrepid as a kid myself, but wasn't terribly impressed. At the time, there wasn't much to "touch". There was a lot to read and to hear, but as a kid, you learn by touching and doing. I'm pleased to share that with the renovation, they have made the Intrepid very hands-on learning friendly. Check out some of these things they have on the hangar deck:

• A lifeboat simulator where you can climb into a lifeboat and feel the pitch of the waves as you ride in it. Attached is a a description about oceans, currents, and waves.
• A computerized flight simulator. You can climb into the cockpit of an fighter jet and using a joystick and a computer simulator program, try to land a plane on the deck of the carrier. It is much harder than it looks in the movies. I crashed when I tried. My son came closer, but he crashed too.
• Planes and helicopters that you can climb into the cockpits or patient pods of medivac helicopters.
• A simulator where you put on astronaut gloves and try to do routine tasks like tie shoes or bounce a ball.
• An exhibit about the kamikaze attack on the Intrepid. While the movie and sounds play, the room fills up with fake smoke to give you a real sense of what it is like to be in a fire below deck.
• Sailor bunks to climb into
• Create the amount of thrust needed to launch a plane off a catapult or pump seawater out of the bilge.

Suffice to say, not only was my son (and I) engaged the entire time, there was a great deal of learning going on. As we know from teaching, when it gets "dirty" (hands on) there is a higher change for learning and retention.

If you are in the New York area, I urge you to check it out or recommend it to your students. (They give a teacher and a student discount with ID)

Big Brother (or Your Parents) is Watching

I saw an ad in our local paper, the Star Ledger for a new product called "The PG Key".

This USB device, which looks like a flash drive, allows parents to track where their kids are going on the internet by recording key strokes and site visits. If the user tires to remove the key from the machine, the machine shuts down the internet.

Interesting concept. I see the following:

Pros:

• Parents can more closely monitor where their children or going on the web and as a result, help their kids to make better choices.
• Kids who know they are being monitored will then hopefully make better choices on their own.
• Cost is not excessive. (I believe it is under $60.)

Cons:

• Demonstrates that parents don't trust their children
• Takes some of the onus away from parents to have good communication with their kids
• Kids who know they are being monitored at home can access the sites somewhere else they aren't being monitored.
• Who is to say that a devious student (or adult) who wants to get passwords and other data from say, school computers, couldn't use this device to cause mayhem at a school or other public facility?

Valuable tool or a poor excuse for parenting?