Perceptive readers of this blog (er, maybe using the plural there is presumptuous) will notice that the tagline has changed. Though I will still have a bent towards technology and gifted education here, because both of those are passions of mine, I decided the change was in order for two reasons.

First, from the start my posts have often ranged beyond those two topics into other areas of education, and I always felt awkward writing outside of my declared focus area. The new tag more accurately reflects what I write about and why.

Second, I have begun to realize that teachers can no longer afford to be just teachers.

[Cue Don LaFontaine:] In a world where tests reign and textbooks rule, one tireless soul has the power to turn a ragtag bunch of kids into a lean, mean, learning machine: The Teacher. [Thank you. That will be all, Mr. Fontaine.]

Before we can be teachers, though, we must first add two other titles to our resumes: learner and designer.

Learner

Any teacher today who believes that learning ended after graduate school needs to take another look at the profession and the world. The pace of change is accelerating. The students who sit in our classes are needier and more diverse than ever. Information and knowledge are growing exponentially, far faster than anyone can possibly keep up.

As a teacher, I was asked daily to teach things to my students that I knew little or nothing about before I had to teach it. As an administrator, I’m asked to run programs about which I know far less than I need to. New ideas about how to teach appear in journals and blogs every day. Scientists have learned an enormous amount in just the last ten years about how the brain learns.

If I am not before anything else a learner, if I do not dedicate myself to always getting better at what I do and how I do it, I have already lost before I even start. I can’t afford to rest on “it was perfectly fine last year.”

Consider this: the primary thing we want students to get better at is not multiplication or grammar. It is learning. If we’re not learning experts ourselves, how can we possibly expect to teach someone else how to do it well?

Designer

We can’t leap from being a learner to being a teacher, though. That’s like leaping from “I want to build a house” to buying lumber and a hammer and starting to nail things together. We might get a workable structure out of it in the end, but it’s going to take far too long and cost far too much.

In the middle is of course a design process. For years, teachers have left the design to others. We use curricula designed by curriculum experts, textbooks designed by publishing companies, classrooms designed by architects, and procedures designed by administrators (or perhaps worse, committees).

I don’t believe this is practical any longer. All of those designers know their particular fields. But few of them really focus on students, and none of them know our particular students. Teachers have to have the understanding—and the guts—to take charge of the design process.

So much of what we do with kids is available for us to mold to meet their needs. I’m not suggesting we throw out everything and begin completely from scratch. Although that might be reasonable if you are starting a new school, for example, it isn’t practical for most of us. Instead, I look at everything I have been given as a work-in-progress rather than a finished product. The curriculum is a framework, the textbook is a resource, the classroom is an open space. Before any teaching can take place, the environment, the materials, the lessons, the content must be thoughtfully and deliberately designed with a particular group of students in mind.

Students stand outside our classrooms, waiting to enter a place where their unique qualities are celebrated and where the teacher has taken the time to create something that fits them, that works well, and that leads to better understanding. Only The Teacher, with her new alter egos, The Learner and The Designer, has the power to make that all happen.

This will not be pretty. This will not be organized. This will not be thorough, or analytical, or even insightful, perhaps. There will be no links, or references, or resources.

I haven’t had time to process much (if any) of what I’ve absorbed in the last two days, and I’ve probably missed more than I’ve managed to catch. As I have time to go back and review my notes, revisit the sessions (thank you Elluminate!) and think about all that I’ve learned, I’m sure I will come back and share. But for now, it will just have to be raw and unpolished.

First, Educon really and truly is as advertised: it’s all about the conversations. Some were deeper than others, some were more formal than others, but all of them were worthwhile and helped me grow.

There are so many things I will take away from this conference (besides that I will be back and next time I’m bringing more of my friends with me). I think the biggest is the power of a PLN. I would not be here if it weren’t for the network of people with whom I have interacted online through Twitter and Second Life over the last two years. I wouldn’t even know about it, and it happens in my own backyard every year!

I was stunned at how many people I already knew here—and that none of them were people I’d ever met before Friday. All of my connections with people here (and there were dozens) were online.

And that’s the second thing I learned: online makes a huge difference…but it will never replace face to face. Having a live, focused, extended conversation with a flesh-and-blood person is such a different experience. Even when I “know” someone online, to talk to them in person, as I had the opportunity to do with many people this weekend, is so much richer. Now that I have added that dimension to all of these relationships, now that there is a real face and a real voice and a real presence to attach to the virtual ones, the conversations I have from this point on with them will maintain a depth that they never had before.

And that’s the third thing I learned: face to face isn’t enough any more. None of these people work with me. None of them live near me. (Well, actually one of them lives a couple blocks over, but he might be moving soon.) If this conference were all we had, the conversations we started this weekend would now be over. But since I already have relationships with them in my online network, we can continue the discussions, elaborate and extrapolate on them, take them in new places and put them into action.

I can’t recall the context, unfortunately—it may even have been in a conversation about Educon—but I remember someone recently using the analogy of drinking from a fire hose in reference to an experience they’d had. That’s what Educon was like for me. A barrage of information, ideas, challenges, thoughts, new paradigms gushing uncontrollably past me. I gave up trying to collect it all about ten minutes into the first panel discussion.

But even what I was able to grab was so rich and rewarding that it will take me a while to process, and some of it I may not be able to act on for a while. Those few drops are still powerful enough to significantly affect my thinking and hopefully will translate into action in my job and in my life. Over the next few days and weeks I will try to go back and gather a few more of the drops that I missed. My PLN will help me find even more of them.

If I had to boil it down to one takeaway from the weekend (and I can’t, there are too many, but I’m going to be obtuse and try anyway), it’s this: Don’t be afraid to do. Everyone here who is doing innovative, exciting, challenging things with students and schools is a practitioner making it work in a real world and a real situation that has the same kinds of constraints and complications that we all do. They are not miracle workers, and they are trying, struggling, and often failing. But they keep doing because it’s going to mean more kids learn more.

Perfect doesn’t happen. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

It’s a line you’ve probably seen on ads for sports equipment:

Better Tools for Better Performance

A debate is swirling among many people in my PLN about what’s more important: the tools and technology, or the teaching and learning. Before I begin exploring examples of great technology tools to use with gifted students, I thought it would be worth exploring, since it is directly relevant. The crux of it can be summarized in this exchange I had recently with Tony Baldasaro (@baldy7) on Twitter:

	geraldaungst: IWB [interactive white board] requires new ways of thinking about teaching & learning, too
	baldy7: @geraldaungst I think it promotes old ways of thinking
	geraldaungst: @baldy7 It does encourage the “stand and talk” mode. What tools would you rather see?
	baldy7: @geraldaungst Any tool that allows students to connect with others – ones that help them collaborate and develop their own PLN
	geraldaungst: @baldy7 I agree completely–but what is on your particular list of “must have” tools?
	baldy7: @geraldaungst I’m not a “tools” guy – more about culture and pedagogy , we need tool independent thinking b/c connecting tools r ubiquitous
	geraldaungst: @baldy7 Good point, but can’t good tools amplify good pedagogy? (By tools I mean hardware or software, and not necessarily electronic)
	baldy7: @geraldaungst I think that gr8 pedagogy amplifies good tools more. Put Ted Williams bat in my hand, I’m still striking out.
	geraldaungst: @baldy7 But give Ted Williams a tree branch and he won’t do much either.

The basic debate is which matters more: having good teachers or having good tools. I think many districts invest in new technology for the same reasons they often choose curriculum materials that are marketed as “teacher-proof”: they hope that the one-time cost of the equipment will be an investment that pays off in better learning regardless of what teacher is using it.

But as Tony points out, simply handing a fabulous piece of equipment to a mediocre teacher doesn’t instantly transform that teacher into a star player.

On the other hand, there is a real reason that outstanding performers, whether they are athletes or musicians or computer programmers, seek out and use the highest-quality equipment: it elevates their ability to perform. Sure, Ted Williams could have hit brilliantly with a $10 bat. But he hit better with his custom-made, Hillerich & Bradsby 35-inch, 33-ounce blonde ash Louisville Slugger model W166.

Is technology in schools any different? What affects learning more, the pedagogy or the technology? Or is it the synergy of the two that makes the most difference?

Can giving them new tools spark a desire to learn in teachers who have stalled? Does the necessity of learning how to use the tool translate into better instruction and better learning in students?

I don’t have answers to these, and I’m not even as certain of my opinion on them as I used to be–which is part of the power of these conversations and the reason I appreciate following a variety of people with different viewpoints. What do you think? What has been your experience? I’m interested in pursuing this more, even as I delve into my plans for talking about what tools and methods will be useful for gifted education.

First a disclaimer: If you read that title and thought, “Oh cool, another list of [sites/games/activities] I can plug into my [instruction/centers/homework/busywork] to keep my gifted kids [challenged/engaged/occupied/from bugging me],” then this is not the post you were looking for.

Next a confession: I tend to find those sorts of posts disappointing at best and discouraging at worst, for several reasons:

• They are often a collection of what Alton Brown might call “digital unitaskers”: sites and software that do one narrowly-defined thing, sometimes very well. A good example is the often praised SpellingCity.com. While it does spelling drill extremely well, that’s all it does. At their worst, unitaskers do something that is done just as well (or better) by other tools. If there is anyone in the world who actually needs the banana slicer pictured above….
• They tend to focus on sites filling a niche. If you’re teaching dental hygiene, for example, HealthyTeeth.org has some great resources. If you’re not, then my mentioning it won’t help you much.
• The sites linked in these posts frequently amount to little more than textbooks with animation or automated drill-and-practice. Check out the 4-H Virtual Farm, a well-designed, engaging, colorful site which is very appealing to young children. Unfortunately there is little for students to do beyond clicking links to read paragraphs about aquaculture or view videos of people training horses. A few sections are slightly interactive, but the student’s role is almost completely passive.

Don’t misunderstand me. There is a place for all of these kinds of tools. I myself have used them, and even created one when I didn’t find the niche tool I needed. My problem is that they are overhyped (“This is the greatest site for 3rd graders ever!”) and improperly used as prefab filler or busy work.

What I want for my gifted kids, though, are more opportunities to participate in high-level activities with depth, and to have experiences they could not have on their own in the classroom. I want my students creating, evaluating, proving, arguing, defending, persuading, constructing, investigating, interpreting, predicting and imagining.

Those tools are out there, and I am aware of many of them. My New Year’s blog resolution is to find more and share them with you. Here are a few of the kinds of tools that I will talk about over the next few days and weeks. Most of these are not new—my goal is to discuss the particular aspects that make them ideal for teaching gifted students. Tell me in the comments what else you’d like to see, or if you have used sites that allow the kind of open-ended problem solving I’m looking for.

• Blogging
• Wikis
• Podcasts
• Interactive Fiction
• Internet “Hoaxes”
• Web Design and Programming
• Virtual Environments

[Note: as I create the posts, I will come back here and modify this list and create links to the specific topics. This will then become an index of sorts to the related content.]

Keteleeria tree stolen from the Washington Park Arboretum

Last week a tree was cut down in Seattle and is probably now sitting in someone’s living room, wrapped in lights, festooned with glittering ornaments, and draped in tinsel. This would not be much of a story, especially in December, except for the fact that the tree in question was an exceedingly rare specimen of Keteleeria evelyniana, a conifer native to China, that had been transplanted ten years ago to the Washington Park Arboretum. The staff arrived on December 9 to discover that overnight someone, presumably looking for a free holiday decoration, had removed the tree.

Asked about its appearance during an interview on NPR, the plant collections manager for the Arboretum, Randall Hitchin, said, “In general aspect, it looks like a conifer: tall, dark green, symmetrical.” Sort of like your run-of-the-mill Christmas tree? “In the dark,” Hitchin replied.

Gifted children can be like the K. evelyniana. To an untrained eye, or to those who don’t know the difference (or care to know, as in the case of the tree thief), most gifted kids look like your typical, run-of-the-mill kid. In a classroom of students, it is often easy to miss the unique qualities that make them stand out, that make them rare specimens.

Gifted students, like the rare tree in Seattle, have unique needs. They have an often unappreciated value that can seem surprising to some: in their attempt to save sixty or seventy dollars, the arboreal bandits destroyed a $10,000 treasure.

But the real issue isn’t that we so often miss the value of our gifted students. It isn’t that we have a few rare gems to pick out from among the ordinary stones. The issue is that we even consider any child to be a “typical” or “average” one. Every single person in every single classroom is a $10,000 treasure. Every student has unique interests, abilities, needs, and talents. Every child deserves to be nurtured, respected, and cared for.

So why do gifted students deserve special treatment, then? They don’t. What they do deserve is to be treated as the individuals they are. They deserve to be taught at their level, at their pace, respecting and nurturing their unique qualities. Just like every other child in the classroom. If we don’t, we run the risk of allowing someone to come in and destroy our own rare trees.

The staff at the Arboretum are still mourning their loss because the tree is irreplaceable.

So are our children.

It is important for teachers to get feedback from knowledgeable observers. A good supervisor will help you elevate your practice, hone the skills that are already sharp, and identify the areas where you have allowed lax habits to seep in.

Even the best supervisors can only visit a few times a year. Having peers watch us work is helpful, but making that happen is often a logistical challenge. We could videotape the lesson and watch it later, but that too is often complicated and time-consuming.

We often forget the team of observers that is readily available: our students. Ask your students regularly to tell you how you are doing. They’ll tell you. In excruciating detail.

Even better, do what a colleague of mine did the other day, perhaps without even realizing what would result: Ask your students to teach. It was fascinating to watch as students took on the persona of the teacher, then walked around the room, shushing other children, gesturing, and explaining. We saw, in sometimes frighteningly accurate mimicry, the precise methods and mannerisms that the teacher uses on a regular basis.

If you really want to find out what you do well—and will dare to find out what you don’t—put your students in the front of the classroom.

When I first moved to Bucks County, I knew the major routes to get around the area. I could, by rote, drive from my house to my in-laws’ house. I could also drive from my house to the school where I worked. I could flawlessly and efficiently travel those well-worn paths and arrive promptly at my destination.

One day, I received a simple phone call from my wife: “My parents are making dinner for us tonight. Just come straight from school and meet us there.”

Not a problem. I left work at my usual four o’clock and with traffic arrived a little after 5:30 PM.

“What took you so long? Did you have a meeting after school?”

“No, I left as soon as I could.”

“But it should only take a half hour.”

“That’s impossible. It’s more than that just to our house, then another 40 minutes to your parents.”

“Um, no, dear. There’s a more direct route.”

Turns out I had driven a half hour south only to turn around and drive a nearly parallel route back north to their house. If I’d just gone east instead, I wouldn’t have had to sit through that light four times.

The problem wasn’t that I didn’t know how to get there. I didn’t get lost, I didn’t get confused. I did what I knew how to do. The problem was that I only knew a very specific path and had no idea how the various routes related to each other or where my destination was related to my starting point.

Learning the route is easy. Learning the whole map is hard.

It is a great temptation in teaching to teach students the route instead of the map. It’s faster, simpler, and more often than not produces the right results.

We can’t give in to that temptation, though. I recently taught a lesson about estimation to a group of fifth grade students. They had memorized a multi-step procedure for transforming a number into its rounded version. I quickly discovered, though, that like the students could do little more than mindlessly play back the recording of the algorithm. Many of them got the steps confused, or missed some, and since they had no idea how the process fit into the greater picture of what they were trying to accomplish, they didn’t recognize that there was a problem. When I asked them to explain what rounding was for, for the most part, their answers were along the lines of, “To get a rounded number.” Several committed the common error when asked to estimate a sum of adding the two original numbers then rounding the answer. Most used the words “rounding ” and “estimating” interchangeably.

All of this could have been avoided if the teachers in second, third, and fourth grade had taken the time to build an understanding of the function and purpose of estimation, to explain that rounding is just one tool in the estimating toolbox, to build in number sense and develop mental models of what is happening when we round. Before introducing the algorithm.

As I found out the hard way driving to my in-laws’ house, the shortcut is only shorter when it is used in the proper context.

I am soon going to need a new car. The one in this picture would be just about perfect. Care to donate to my replacement fund? Yeah, didn’t really expect so.

So why is it that you’re not willing to help me get the transportation I need? Because you can see that what I’m asking for is really a want. It may very well be that my car needs to be replaced soon, and having reliable transportation is in fact important to me, but there’s no real reason I need to spend almost $67,000 to get it.

The distinction between wants and needs is not always so clear, especially when it comes to educating our children. In the years I have been a teacher and a parent, one of the most frequent sources of conflict between parent and school has been disagreement about whether something is a need or simply a want.

When these conflicts arise, it’s helpful to step back and refocus on goals. While we would all love to have a Lexus education for our children, sometimes the Chevrolet is sufficient to accomplish the job.

A few thoughts to consider when you find yourself on either side of a difficult discussion about what a child needs in school:

• Remember that this is about the student. Focus on the goal you have agreed on. If there is no defined goal, then back up another step and talk about that goal before trying to plan for it.
• Remember that everyone involved in the discussion is fighting for the same thing, ultimately: the welfare of the child. Rather than being opposing forces in a battle, think of everyone at the table as being members of the same team with different specialties. Being on the same team means that we all win or lose together.
• List all of the options being considered, as well as any options that were rejected. Consider each in light of the goal, and from the student’s perspective. Often by putting things down in writing, we gain clarity about the difference between wants and needs.
• Be honest about the strengths and weaknesses of each option. No plan is perfect.
• Avoid compromise. Although it is sometimes a necessary last resort, compromise often patches together bits of incompatible plans and creates something that is unworkable. Instead, aim for consensus.
• Sometimes there is no best option—just a collection of good ones.
• Consider asking the student for his or her input. Even young children can often express what they need in a way that helps cut through a disagreement.
• Don’t ignore the emotional responses of the parties involved. If a parent, classroom teacher, or student is strongly opposed to a plan, no matter how excellent it may be, it is not going to be implemented as designed, and it will likely fail.
• Everyone should walk out of a meeting feeling like they were heard and understood, and that the agreed plan is satisfactory, at least on a trial basis. Persuasion is fine, but if anyone involved feels like they were badgered into agreement or backed into a corner, no amount of effort on the part of the other parties will make it fully successful.

What other ways do you focus a conversation about how to meet the needs of a student?

I’ve decided that I’m going to begin this school year with my students by letting them dream. I have several reasons for doing it, not the least of which is that it gives me a chance to get to know a little more about each of them and what makes them tick. Mostly, though, it will be a reminder for me of who I’m doing this for and what my focus needs to be. It’s a way of staying centered on the students—instead of being centered on the curriculum or my interests or the district assessment plan.

There are many ways I could go about finding out my students’ dreams: I could ask them about their goals in life, for example, or places they’d like to visit. An interesting idea occurred to me, though, when I started thinking about my district’s plan to build several new elementary schools.

What if, I thought, the planning process were to begin with the dreams of students? What if we asked students to imagine the perfect school? No preconceptions, no “can’ts” or “won’ts,” just the unhindered imaginations of the people for whom the building is being designed?

So that’s just what I’m going to ask my students next week when they return to school:

For our first discussion topic, I want you to imagine that we are going to try and create the perfect school. Think about some of these questions to help you get started. You don’t need to answer them all—these are just to get your brain going:

• What kinds of things would we learn?
• What would the schedule be like?
• What would classrooms look like?
• What other spaces and rooms would you include?
• How would the classes work?
• Would students work alone or in groups? Sometimes, or all the time?
• What kinds of projects and homework would we have?
• What didn’t I think of that you want to ask?

I will find out a lot about my students this way, much of which I will be able to use when I’m designing learning experiences for them. It occurs to me, though, that we might gain a lot of valuable insights if we started every instructional design process this way, whether it’s constructing a new multi-million dollar school or planning next week’s math unit. I’m not suggesting that we respond to every whim and fantasy they come up with, but just to take them all seriously. Just because a seven-year-old asks for pony rides during recess or a fourteen-year-old wants video games in the cafeteria doesn’t mean there isn’t some legitimate need that we need to consider when planning the space. If most of the students say there should be less (or even no) homework, we shouldn’t simply dismiss it as adolescent whining, we should look hard at our policies and the rationale behind them.

I know that I will take every response I get from students in my survey seriously, and may even consider sending them on to the committee that is planning the new schools.

What if we began everything we did in education with the dreams of the students? It won’t solve all of our problems, but we might learn something that would help. Why not start your year by finding out what your students want? Share what you learn in the comments.

Thanks to my network on Twitter I saw two TED videos yesterday that got me thinking about (and then rethinking) my ideas about teaching and learning. (Incidentally, if you haven’t spent any time perusing the TED site, take some time right now and do it. You won’t be disappointed. I’ll wait.)

The first came to my attention through Matt Perman’s blog, What’s Best Next. Daniel Pink recently gave a talk called The Surprising Science of Motivation.

Though his talk is geared at business leaders, it has obvious applications to education. The key idea here is that extrinsic, contingent motivators only improve performance when the task in question is narrowly defined with a clear goal and obvious route to achieve it.

The problem is that we want our students to learn how to solve non-obvious, messy problems that don’t already have optimal solutions. But our curricula, our system, and our teaching methods are still based on (a) transmitting knowledge and wisdom from experts to novices through (b) rote application of routines and skills, using (c) extrinsic motivators such as grades to increase student performance. We operate our school systems and manage the employees the same way. We may paste new labels over the old cover, but the fundamental structure and philosophy remains the same.

Almost universally, according to Pink, the social science research of the last forty years says that higher incentives lead to worse performance. So what does that say for our system that is based on increasing performance by rewarding the top performers? Pink summarizes it this way:

Traditional management is great if your goal is compliance.

This leads me to believe that the underlying purpose for the education system in the United States (and likely elsewhere) is to facilitate compliance rather than learning.

Pink offers an idea that seems radical, but I think has some potential for schools: 20 percent time. In companies like Google, the employees are permitted to use twenty percent of their time to work on anything they like—complete autonomy. In companies that have used it, a significant amount of the “real work” ends up getting generated during the 20 percent time.

What would this look like in schools? Students would have the equivalent of one day per week to spend on learning anything they choose to learn in any way they choose to learn it. Complete autonomy. Teachers would be a resource to support the learning instead of directing it. No one would say, “No, you can’t do that in school.” Students would have the freedom to choose the tools and means and sources of learning.

Critics will say we have hardly enough time as it is to cover the required material. Giving away one-fifth of the school year would be madness! Maybe then it’s time to seriously rethink what is “required.”

The flip side of this is that we will still have core content during the other eighty percent of the year that some students will have no interest in learning. If the traditional incentives don’t work, how do we get students to be motivated to learn?

The second video I saw inspired me and gave me a glimpse of what teaching might look like if we move away from those extrinsic motivators. Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, speaks on Music and Passion:

Zander says something that is as true for teachers as it is for conductors:

The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful. My job was to awaken possibility in other people. If their eyes are shining, you know you’re doing it. If they’re not shining you get to ask this question: “Who am I being that my children’s eyes are not shining?”

I have to become a conductor. I don’t transmit knowledge to my students. I only have the ability to make students powerful, to awaken possibility in them. They are already learners. I just have to frame the content, the questions, the ideas in a way that makes them passionate about learning it. Easy? Hardly. Important? Absolutely.

Test scores, incentives, and other extrinsic motivators probably aren’t going away. But as an individual teacher, when I turn my attention to those, I lose sight of my real job. Instead I must ask myself every day

Are their eyes shining? If not, who can I become so that they do?