Quitters Never Win?
November 16, 2007 by scottshephard
As technology integrationist, I am inclined to be frustrated from time to time. To me, the word “progress” means that teachers are using technology in powerful and creative ways and that they are working to further their understanding of both the technology and their students. Why the frustration? I’ve found that progress is hard to measure. I’ve also found that when progress happens in education, it happens slowly. We seem resistant to change and I see evidence of this all the time.
I am presenting on 5 topics between now and Christmas. All staff are required to attend 3 of the 5 sessions. Yesterday, I presented to about 25 members of our staff on social networking. I have come to believe that if our 1 to 1 initiative is going to work, we need to understand our learners better. I also believe that once we understand our learners better and understand their needs, we will realize that we need to change the way we teach.
So I start with social networking. But before I even begin, I get an email from a long-time colleague who asks,
Could teachers be asked about what topics they want to be a part of?? A few topics on your list don’t get me as excited as they do you. (and don’t take that as a personal attack)
I respond to the author and to the whole staff,
Obviously, I care about what teachers would like to learn as much as you probably care about what your students would like to learn. But, as you know, educators have concluded that there are some things all students (willing or not) should know. That happens to be my premise for four of the five sessions that are offered. I believe we all care about the social networks our students inhabit, the way 15 year olds learn and what 21st century skills young people should have. But we could no doubt learn more.
I’ll let you in on a something that shouldn’t be a secret. I think we will begin to use technology better when we understand our learners better. That’s why we should improve our understanding of social networks and the so-called “millennial” learner. Internet safety? Windows movie maker? Classroom management? Why not?
I’m not at all offended by this question but it’s clear that some aren’t interested in learning about the 21st century learner.
The 6th time I present is 4th block and it is my biggest group. I am pleased to see people present who haven’t been present in my room for close to a year. But, I remember, this is a captive audience and a captive adult audience is a little unnerving. One teacher comes in late and seems grumpy. Overall, however, the teachers are attentive and have good questions. I think I am making progress.
I am in the middle of talking about how this generation communicates (cell phones, facebook, blogs, email) and one teacher says, “I can’t tolerate students who will send me email but who won’t talk directly to me!” (this is a paraphrase of his comment). I say, “You help me make my point - they are differently than we are. We need to try to understand this.” I’m not sure he believes me.
I woke up at 2 am thinking about yesterday and my occasional frustration. My mission is to help teachers integrate technology into their teaching. But the technology should only be used to augment the teaching. And the teaching should be centered on problem solving, collaboration, and creativity, to name a few. Of course, we need to learn factual things. But if all teachers do is talk, pass out worksheets and then give multiple choice tests, we really don’t need laptops, do we?
I guess that what it comes down to is that I think I’m foolish to believe I can quickly change how things are taught. Like our legends and myths, our pedagogy has been handed down from generation to generation. Its the only thing we know, and, to many, it has become sacred. And, in many ways, our pedagogy is institutionalized.
Once and and while, I yearn for my own classroom because I crave more tangible results. But then I visit with teachers and students and see that things are changing. But change happens slowly and those trying to lead change need to maintain their convictions and they need to be patient and realistic in what they expect.
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You raise two issues for me as a teacher: “How do I incorporate technology in my teaching?” and “How do I teach?”
I think about the repository of human knowledge and how much of that student’s have had access to. How impressive must it have been in the third century to walk into the Library of Alexandria? Even into my early twenties, I remember how impressed I was with the idea that the Library of Congress had a copy of every, EVERY publication copyrighted in the US and always wanted to visit to see that wealth. I remember researching for debate in the early 1980’s and how much information I could access at the library at USD; in a few hours, I could get material that would take me a week to read. In college, I remember being told about some of the physics going on in different research facilities, but not really knowing specifics on what they were doing or how it was going for them or the conclusions they were making and abandoning. The teacher was once the sole repository of knowledge for the students. Next a few resource books are added. A library is added. Audio and video are added. The good teachers integrate those additions; lessons include materials from outside sources; lessons include listening to a speech from President Roosevelt declaring war on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor; lessons include watching a documentary on multiple-personality disorder; lessons include watching Finding Forrester after reading Native Son to explore Richard Wright’s premise that there is a Bigger Thomas in every Black man. Now I have most all literature, most all audio recordings, most all video available to use in class. I can show my class pretty well anything to make a point. I can bring the world and its recorded history to my class should I choose to. An integrationist mentions a Taylor Mali poem and I show Mali performing it to my class because I like how he manipulates language for effect the way ee cummings did (who we just happen to be reading in class that day). I think as teachers we like to show what we mean – technology lets us do that.
Technology has allowed me to fill the gaps I have in my knowledge. I can look up facts I need before (or while) I captivate my students in yet another of my enthralling lectures, or I can skip the lecture all together and have them read the information themselves from another source and use the class time to discuss/reflect/process that information. We are too quick to condemn lecture; to listen to the educational gurus now, teacher ought to apologize for the disservice of giving information to their students; “sage on the stage” is an insult. As teachers, we are experts; as teachers, we do know more than our students know; as teachers, we do understand more than our students understand; as teachers, we do not have to apologize for passing on that knowledge and understanding directly. We are too quick to accept that a teacher does not need to be strong in content knowledge to teach effectively.
I believe in drill and practice as a part of teaching. I not only have the ability to use worksheets but also now have new technology to supplement those worksheets to create a more interactive drill and practice.
I believe in class discussion as part of teaching. When students do not contribute EVER to discussion, I should be making them participate – be that through boosting their confidence or calming the loud boys so their voice can be heard. Some have had success here with technology. With or without the technology, to goal is to have voices heard (not to create more noise).
The laptop specifically has allowed me do have alternatives for assignments in class. We used to do a straightforward yet simplistic character worksheet for The Great Gatsby to understand the main characters. Now students produce a movie where they combine multi-media content with excerpts form the novel to show characterization and create tone for each character.
I believe in students working together in groups for projects. I still have projects where three for four students will be huddled around a three foot by eight-foot piece of paper, drawing, writing, putting information together in a new way. Sometimes they are huddled around a laptop; I am not sure one is better – just different.
Start a charter school. Give every student a laptop with full 24/7 access to the internet. Then add no teachers. Let the students learn what and when they want to. Of course, give them each a copy of the state standards – that’s key to educational excellence. Let that simmer for four years and what would you end up with? The computer is not the crucial component in learning.
Technology clearly is a valuable component of a class because it supplements my methods.
What I continue to struggle with is how to get students to see that the default of the laptop is information/learning, not games/entertainment. I have had some of the brightest junior students in class and year after year, when they have a “free” moment or have “finished” an assignment, their first inclination is to use the computer to play – not even e-mail, where you could make an argument for purpose, I mean flash player games: N. These are the kids who are supposed to know better. These are the kids who are supposed to appreciate what they have access to and ought to be thrilled at a chance for self-directed exploration on topics of interest to them. Instead, times is used to memorize the nearly endless repetition of up/down/left/right/space bar combinations to complete a level; then memorize the sequence for the next level. They feel justified: they are “done” with the assignment. When I asked my Accelerated class to research the causes of the Great Depression and how people were affected by the new economic factors in the US, arguable the brightest Junior from last year after 13 minutes was “done” and so had moved on to N. Where did a sixteen-year-old young woman get the idea that thirteen minutes of skimming Wikipedia (not a jab at Wikipedia) brought her to a full understanding of the economic conditions of the Great Depression, its causes and the effect it had on people? That is the failure of the one-to-one initiative: it did not change the educational mindset. It has not yet brought students (and teachers) to the realization that you are NEVER “finished.” It has not brought us to the mindset that learning is better than N (or Halo, or Tetris…).
Furthermore, technology is the student’s access to information outside of class. The availability for enrichment is now without bounds. How much is being utilized by our students? Are they dashing home after school, giddy with the anticipation of finding out more about life of Ernest Hemingway and finding more of his works to read? Has giving them the access given them the will? That is where I fault us. We knew the will did not exist (in most), so how have we fostered that will to learn? Have we created “life-long learners,” or at best used laptops to create homework completers? We gave them the bottle and just expected them to rub it until the genii appeared.
Television is a medium that has incredible potential for education. I dare say that many of our students learned basic reading and math skills from Sesame Street. I still know the Preamble of the Constitution and the parts of speech because of School House Rock. That is not to diffuse a damnation of the time students spend watching TV because we know that not all TV watching is educational; I would say the vast majority of time spend watching TV is not educational. Giving each student a TV is not an answer to making him or her smarter (although it would have that potential in theory and if correctly applied). We expected the laptop to be different knowing the TV paradigm was in place?
Bad teaching is not a defacto fault of technology. Both given and absent any technology, there can be good or bad teaching going on. As foolish as the expectation that we can have brighter students by simply putting laptops in their hands is the thinking that we can make better teachers by the presence of those same laptops.
That teachers are not reaching the students is a shortcoming of the teachers. That this happens and that it continues is a shortcoming of the administration. Principals and higher administration ought to be taking time to guide teachers to a better understanding of better teaching practices – not just en mass propagation of the newest educational bandwagon, but a truthful look at individual teachers and teaching methods and effectiveness THEN looking to improvement.