15 Reasons #EdTech Is Valuable Beyond Student Achievement

When we were planning for 1:1 at Bolivar High School, we had numerous community meetings and invited feedback and questions from our stakeholders. One of the questions that was raised went something like this, "How can you be sure student achievement will increase as a result of every kid having a device?"

And that's a very good question, at least on the surface. It would seem reasonable that if a school is going to spend thousands of dollars on devices, there should be a direct correlation, even causation, in the research to demonstrate a positive effect on measurable learning outcomes. 

That question comes up again from time to time. Our middle school is now also working toward implementing their own version of 1:1.

The research on the impact of 1:1 programs is mixed. Some studies point to flat achievement or even declining achievement, especially with low-income and minority students. Other studies, like Project Red for instance, have found that schools implementing a 1:1 student-computer ratio along with key implementation factors outperform other schools.

But I'm a bit skeptical of studies on either side of this issue. It is very difficult to isolate any single factor or group of factors to show direct impact on measurable student achievement outcomes. There are so many moving parts in what students learn and to what extent they learn it.

I do believe that technology implemented properly CAN have a positive impact on student achievement. But I would also argue that there are many, many reasons to go digital in schools besides student achievement. And I mean student achievement in the narrowest sense. Everything we do is related to student achievement in my view, but researchers and bureaucrats usually examine this factor through a narrow lens of standardized test results.

Since I believe so strongly in the benefits of technology for students, I asked my PLN for feedback on what they believe are the most important reasons to go digital beyond strictly academic outcomes. I summarize the ideas below, and you can also check out their responses in the Twitter Moment embedded below.

15 Reasons #EdTech is Valuable Beyond Student Achievement

1. Essential to learning in a modern world.

Technology is just as essential to learning in today's world as the school library. To be an effective learner in today's world means you're going to be using digital tools to learn.

2. Encourages lifelong learning.

Our school's motto is Learning for Life. We believe in the importance of developing skills that will translate to life. If we want our students to be lifelong learners, they need to understand the role of technology in that.

3. Connects students and schools with the outside world.

These tweets from Ellen Deem and Kevin Foley summarize it nicely. Technology allows us to bring the world into our school, and take our school into the world.

@deem_ellen @DavidGeurin Technology has taken the world into my small school.It has also brought my small school to the world @TheSTEAMakers

— Kevin Foley (@FoleyKev) February 25, 2017

4. Reflects how work gets done outside of schools.

Almost every career, project, or activity will involve technology in some way. Having stronger skills related to technology brings value to most every area of life.

5. Allows for practicing digital citizenship.

How can we expect students to make good decisions and develop into responsible digital creators and consumers if we don't give opportunities for practice in school?

6. Important for teaching digital literacy.

Students need to understand digital literacy as part of overall information literacy. It's not enough to be able to read and write. You need to know how the digitally connected world works.

7. Important for practicing the 4 C's.

If we are serious about teaching communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking, technology is a great vehicle to explore those skills.

8. Kids like it.

I love this response from Melinda Miller. If we are serious about kids becoming independent learners, then learning needs to be exciting and fun.

@DavidGeurin kids like it!

— Melinda Miller (@mmiller7571) February 25, 2017

9. Improves communication.

We gain opportunities to communicate and connect within and outside our school through the use of email, social media, shared documents, etc. 

10. Improves student engagement

Technology can play an important role in increasing student engagement and creating more student-centered learning opportunities.

11. Provides an authentic audience for student work outside the school.

Student work shouldn't be destined to finish in a trash can. It can be saved forever and shared with the world using digital tools.

12. Allows new ways to differentiate learning.

Technology is great for meeting individual learning needs. 

13. It can personalize learning.

Technology can create opportunities for students to pursue passions, make choices, and have their voice heard.

14. It creates efficiency.

With technology, we can use less paper, save time, and overcome the limitations of when and where we learn.

15. It supports curiosity.

Students have questions. A connected device provides the means to search for answers. Someone made the comment that tech has made us less curious. I don't necessarily think that's true.

Question: What are your thoughts on ways #EdTech impacts learning beyond student achievement? I want to hear from you. Leave a comment below or respond on Facebook or Twitter. 

Also, be sure to check out all the tweets from my PLN in response to this topic. Thanks everyone for contributing!

Beyond Student Achievement

        

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3 things to consider when designing professional learning in schools

With a wide variety of professional learning opportunities and a certain limit to the funds that schools can spend on teacher learning and professional growth, it is important that school leaders ensure that the available funds are spent wisely on teachers to improve student learning.

There are a number of things that leaders need to consider when designing the professional development program for their school. Among them, the following stand out:

What are we trying to improve?

This can be a very difficult and contentious question to answer but, most importantly, it should begin with a problem or challenge that our students face. Professional learning should first start with the student in mind rather than the teacher.

It is the role of the teacher to undertake professional learning that best meets the needs of students. Herein lies a problem, in that who decides what the students need? Ideally, a collaborative process should occur with both teachers and leaders determining what is required to better support students together. Occasionally, it may be directed by leaders and at other times it may be driven by teachers.

Furthermore, decisions about professional learning for teachers should be informed by evidence of student learning needs and teacher competency in addressing these needs. This is where things can get tricky, as school leaders and teachers may disagree in what students need and, in turn, what the teacher needs support in their professional learning. Hence, the available evidence on student learning is crucial to resolving potential disagreements. Schools must have teachers and leaders that work together to prioritise student needs and from that point form a plan for professional development.

To what extent do we need to use outside experts?

Significant amounts of money get spent each year on external experts either visiting a school or staff being sent to a conference / workshop delivered by that expert. When funds are tight, a school is restricted in its access to these external experts. Two things can be done to overcome this obstacle:

1. Develop experts in-house to deliver the professional learning. Perhaps, starting with a book study of the work, or research, of an educational expert, a school may develop a focus group who learn together and then work with a wider group of staff in helping teachers grow together professionally. To support the development of home grown professional learning facilitators, the school may put together workshops and guidance on how to present effectively or encourage collaborative presentations and workshop facilitation.
2. Another way to get the professional learning funds to stretch further, is to require teachers who attend external professional learning to present to their peers upon their return and devise an action plan for how that learning will be implemented to support students. This leads to a further consideration.

What is the plan for the implementation of professional learning?

All too often teachers return from professional learning and there is no follow-up discussion about what they learned, or development of a plan that works towards implementing some of the skills and ideas learned at the conference / workshop. Having facilitated workshops, one thing I ask participants to do, is develop a three goal plan towards the end of the workshop, which includes a quick-win / short-term goal, a medium term goal and a long term goal. Beyond just setting the goal should be action steps that the teacher is going to take in order to achieve the goal and the evidence of completion. Having such plans will generate valuable discussions between school leaders and teachers in seeing outcomes from professional learning realised in the classroom. Follow-up conversations are crucial in helping to ensure that new learning becomes habit and ingrained in the teaching and learning culture of the school, so that improvement is enduring.

Without deep discussion between teachers and school leaders, the goals for school improvement cannot be shared and clearly understood. These conversations form the basis for any good professional learning program but the decisions taken must be student-centred rather than teacher-centred, which is a challenge that both school leaders and teachers must address together.

 

Originally posted on the Ed Leader blog

Connect with me @richard_bruford

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“The more innovative I have become, the less classroom management I have to deal with.”

Someone who was reading “The Innovator’s Mindset“, approached me and talked about the impact it had on their teaching and learning.  I was honoured by their kind words, but this statement that she made has stuck in my head:

“The more innovative I have become, the less classroom management I have to deal with.”

Simple yet mind blowing.

Is this not true? Giving student ownership of their learning and thinking about the question, “Would I want to be a learner in my own classroom?”, would create an environment where students are more likely to be a part of their learning, as to separate themselves from the classroom.  This question has never meant to be a “yes or no” answer, but something to have educators reflect on their work every single day.  Thinking about this question daily would only lead to more success in our profession.

In another conversation, an educator talked about their school trying to figure out what to do with student absences in their classrooms. While a group was looking at types of consequences to “deter” absences, this principal was wondering why students didn’t want to come to school in the first place?  We often want to fix others, as opposed to explore our own actions and try to understand what those are leading to.  We should always look first at changing the environment, not the student.

Sheila Vick recently wrote a blog exploring this statement, and providing, “4 Ways in Which Innovative Education Simplifies Classroom Management“. They are the following:

1. Innovative education naturally gives students more choice and autonomy. They take ownership of their learning. This inevitably means that students are more excited and interested in their learning and thus, more engaged and focused on their work. Students are too immersed in their learning to have time for misbehavior.
2. Innovative education is a naturally inclusive approach that respects diversity within the classroom. It is a collaborative approach that allows for varying abilities, strengths and intelligences (think Howard Gardner). A good teacher will work to unearth and develop every student’s strengths and passions and help them to find their purpose within the group. No student is left out. This is also all an important part of their social and emotional learning and it creates a sense of community within the classroom – a community that values everyone.
3. When we give students a voice, choice and autonomy, it also gives the message to our students that we trust them, which helps build the teacher-student relationship. What I have learned about attachment theory over the years, is that people (including students) obey out of a function of attachment. Essentially, we want to do good by those we like and feel connected to. A strong teacher-student connection, therefore usually leads to more positive student behaviour.
4. In an innovative classroom, the teacher becomes a leader and facilitator (versus boss of the classroom and feeder of content). The teacher learns alongside the students. They guide their students in identifying problems and in solving them, including as it pertains to classroom management issues. This more level playing field of sorts, has students less interested in “bucking the system, ” if you will, and more interested in working in collaboration with the teacher on the classroom climate and culture.

Vick goes on to make this important connection:

To summarize, an innovative approach to education results in all students being more included and engaged in their learning. Relationships between the teacher and students, as well as between students are strengthened, which results in the classroom community naturally working better together. Classroom management becomes a whole group endeavour and not just the teacher’s job.

This is not to say that student’s shouldn’t have any responsibility on their own behaviour in the classroom.  I believe that we need to teach students that ultimately they create their own future and that there are some times in school, work, and learning, where things will be boring and we have to plow through.  But this applies to ourselves as educators as well.  We create our own realities. A teacher’s job isn’t to “entertain”, but showing value and meaning in learning, can often help connect the seemingly most menial tasks to a larger purpose.  When we focus on what we control and constantly work towards creating deeper and more meaningful learning opportunities for our students, the impact on our students will be that much more profound.

• September 19, 2016 3 More Critical Questions For the Innovative Educator
• September 8, 2016 The #InnovatorsMindset MOOC Starting Soon! #IMMOOC
• January 12, 2017 Creating Something of Value
• February 17, 2016 Starting From Scratch #InnovatorsMindset
• September 21, 2016 Beyond Knowing

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Sisi: Empress on Her Own by Allison Pataki

I started reading this novel, and I must confess I was a bit confused.  It seemed to start right in the middle of Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary's life.  I quickly realized there is a book before Sisi that begins with Sisi's early life and marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph, and the difficulties she had adjusting to life as an Empress in the stifling Austrian court. I recommend you read  The Accidental Empress before you tackle Sisi so that you may get the complete story of Sisi's incredible life and tragic death.  

With that being said, after a quick history lesson on Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, I was ready to keep reading, and I was impressed at the research Allison Pataki put into this historical novel.  The Austro-Hungarian Empire of the mid 1800's was vast, and a powerhouse.  Sisi's husband, Franz Joseph, was born and raised to be an Emperor.  His mother, Archduchess Sophie ruled the court, and Sisi always felt like a failure, and was completely demoralized when her first two children, Rudy and Gisela were swiftly taken from her arms after birth and raised away from Sisi, with no input from her at all.  Her third child, Valerie (born many years later) stayed by Sisi's side.  She had grown enough backbone to refuse to send Valerie down the same path as her siblings. 

Sisi was known for her beauty and floor-length hair.  People refer to her as the Princess Diana of her day, and that may be so in that both women felt trapped by their lives, and searched for ways to escape.  For Sisi, she often traveled away from court--usually for weeks at a time.  Hungary was her favorite place, and there she enjoyed the peace of the countryside and the forbidden love she shared with Count Andrassy.  Sisi's husband Franz Joseph loved his wife, but so much of their relationship was damaged by the interference of his mother and the demands of rigid court life. She never felt that Franz was there for her.  What had started out as a marriage with high hopes and love had become distant and cold.  

This novel continues where The Accidental Empress left off in 1868 up through 1898, when Sisi was assassinated on a street in Geneva, Switzerland simply because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Sisi's life really was a soap opera, full of forbidden love, political upheaval, and malicious court gossip. Sisi's frustration at being distant emotionally from her children, and her constant roaming around Europe cast her as a very lonely woman who was never able to be happy.  I really got invested in Sisi's life, and even though I knew it was coming, it was still hard to read about her death.  I'm certainly tempted to read more about Sisi, and if I ever get to Austria, I would love to visit Hofburg Palace, Sisi's home in Vienna.  

Thank you to Penguin/Random House for a review copy of this book.  I never knew anything about Empress Elisabeth, so I am very glad I had this opportunity to read about her life.  This is definitely a must read for fans of historical fiction.  

Rating:  5/6 for a well-researched and detailed novel about Princess Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary.  It was hard to put down!





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Teach Like a Barista…Personalization Matters

Teach Like a Barista…Personalization Matters

“Not as much as you pretend.”

Working with groups, I often hear this question when talking about parents and their lack of willingness for their students to use technology.

“What about the parents that do not want their students using technology in the classroom?”

In my last session, what I had said was that these parents who do not want their children using technology, are “not as much as you pretend.” What I meant by that, is that we often use the excuse of parents not wanting their children to use technology, or students having access as an out, not a reality.

Now, do these roadblocks exist? Absolutely. But there are lots of parents, myself included, that would want their children using technology in meaningful ways within school. Do those parents get a say? There are many students that do not live in the most affluent communities, yet still bring phones to school. To many “access” has become a fundamental need.

Check out the updated “Maslow’s Hierarchy”:

Although probably made in satire, it is not that far off.

I would never want a teacher to go against a parent’s wishes for their child, and my response when asked if a parent doesn’t want their own child utilizing technology in the classroom is always the same; “We will still provide a high quality education for your child without the use of technology, but we will also respect the wishes of parents who want the meaningful use of technology for their own children in their learning.”

Too often we create something in our heads as a barrier. Sometimes the reluctance with parents to try new things is a direct relation to the enthusiasm (or lack thereof)  from a teacher. We need to push past ourselves first, if we are going to help others move forward if we are going to realize a new vision for education.

• February 22, 2012 Is our vision too generic?
• October 10, 2014 Blog Posts on Leadership Development
• October 16, 2011 You Should Read… (October 16, 2011)
• October 9, 2013 The Math of Educational Technology
• June 2, 2014 Transformative to everyone?

Source: George Couros

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