Tag: learning

Things I Know 161 of 365: There’s a whole lot of awesome out there

No shame in saying that I felt a loneliness drifting through me. Funny how it was, everyone perched in their own little world with the deep need to talk, each person with their own tale, beginning in some strange middle point, then trying so hard to tell it all, to have it all make sense, logical and final.

– Colum McCann

Tim and Tanya like to have a reason to have a party. Last Saturday was a great example.

The invitation was open.

The event was named – The Day of Awesomeness.

The rules were simple – come join the fun, be ready to share some part of your awesomeness with the rest of the guests. Anything was fair game.

Seriously, that’s what we invited people to.

Thinly veiled by Tim’s birthday and my approaching departure, the day was really about awesomeness.

It lived up to its name.

Emily and I led the guests in about 10 minutes of improv warm-ups which had everyone moving and laughing.

Roz taught us the proper way to make frosting and frost a cake.

Tim taught us both the timeline of life on Earth as well as the difference between oaken and unbaked Chardonnays.

Marcie taught us how to draw a portrait that looked like a person more than it looks like a Peanuts character.

Steven taught us about industrial exhibit design.

Tim’s sister Meg hosted a round of trivia built around Tim’s life.

Most of the people in attendance were my colleagues at SLA. We do a tremendous job of speaking the same language of SLA every day. Our thinking on benchmarks, core values, backwards design, ethic of care and the many other components of the school is largely in sync.

For the day of awesomeness, we got to see and share the other passions that drive our lives. Much to the boredom of everyone else, we could have sat around and talked curriculum or policy. We could have tweaked classes or completed cross-curricular planning.

We didn’t, and we were better for it.

I wrote a while ago about the idea of passion-based PD. This was as close as I’ve been able to get to seeing it in action.

It was a concrete example of the best kind of learning I can imagine. “Here, I think this is fun and interesting,” everyone was saying, “Can I help you try it out?”

And we all agreed to give it a try.

We cross-pollinated our passions.

The next time I sit down to consider my perspective on an issue, I’ll remember Marcie explaining that most people draw the eyes of a face too close to the top when our eyes are really about halfway from the top of our heads to the middle of our faces. I’ll let that inform my understanding of the fact that how I am perceiving something and the actuality of what is in front of me are often wholly different.

The same is true of the people in front of me. Understanding Roz’s love of baking connected to her passion for physics helps me see her more completely. Frequently I worry about regressing to the same myopic view of others in my life that I had as a student in middle school. It was this view that made it so jarring when I saw one of my teachers at a Schnucks or Applebees.

How did they exist outside of school? Were those jeans they were wearing? Did I still need to raise my hand to talk to them?

The Day of Awesomeness reminded me that we teach children, and we do so much more. We have passion for our profession, and we have passion for our lives. One need not supersede the other. In fact, the more our passions intermingle, the more enriching it can all become.

I definitely see more days of awesomeness in my future. Consider this a standing invitation to attend.

Things I Know 143 of 365: I failed Tuesday

Do or do not. There is no try.

– Master Yoda

I failed Tuesday.

Standing in front of a few hundred people, I failed.

As the setup to what I wanted as a teacher from “21st Century School Design” I had turned to what I knew – students.

Namely, I want school design to imagine places that inspire students to wonder and create.

To set the tone, I’d prepared the brief video below from my student Thea. She created it as her product for the Building History project.

I gave it a great introduction – explaining the project and the fact Thea chose to create a product I could have been absolutely no help on.

The last words before clicking play were probably something like, “It’s pretty amazing.”

Nothing.

Well, not exactly nothing. The sound accompanying the video was playing. Something was happening. If you watch the video, though, I think you’ll agree the sound wasn’t the most impressive bit.

I stopped the music.

“You’ve just seen me fail.”

Laughter from the audience.

“I knew I was going to fail at some point up here, I’m glad it happened so early.”

I meant it.

Walking up on the stage, I knew I’d packed music, photos, links and more into my presentation and that any of it could have failed. I’d created the possibility of failure as well as a space in my head where I would be fine with that failure.

The failure was actually more to the point of what I wanted to illustrate. I want school design to create spaces where both teachers and students are willing to try new things without the fear of failure.

Thea had been told to choose whatever medium she thought best for presenting her project. Both Diana and I told each of the students we wouldn’t be mandating a specific tool and wanted the students to have free reign.

We worked as diligently as we knew how to create a space where students knew we’d help them back up if something new they tried kicked them on their butts.

I left the high possibility of failure in Tuesday’s presentation because I worry teachers aren’t given that same space to play and learn.

It’s all well and good for the students to be lifelong learners, but it’s nothing we’d necessarily want for ourselves.

Even in the instances where teachers are ready to play with ideas and try new things, they often haven’t had the spaces prepared for them by colleagues and administrators that would give the experience the chance to progress from failure to learning.

If we’re programming students to play school and not simply play, its because we’ve done the same for generations of teachers.

If you want classroom where students are challenged to be critical thinkers, problem solvers and wizards of the ingenious, then we must create schools where teachers are trusted and expected to do the same.

Patrick Larkin wrote the other day that he wants his faculty to be willing to relinquish more control as they head toward a 1:1 laptop program. While I think Larkin is on the right track, many of the other principals and district leaders I’ve heard say this never take the question any deeper.

If they want teachers to relinquish control and stop fearing failure, are they also willing to relinquish control and remove some of the stressors leading to their teachers’ fears?

I made a conscious decision as I took the stage Tuesday that I would be fine with whatever failures came my way.

I was able to make that decision because I’ve had a string of principals who supported my instinct to play and a family who was offering their support long before that.

If we want our teachers to give students room to play, we must give our teachers that same room.

Things I Know 135 of 365: Processing matters

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

– Peter F. Drucker

My friend Darlene earned her master’s in counseling. Never one to do things in a small way, Darlene’s degree is in Adventure-Based Counseling.

In the two years we worked in the same school and the eight years we’ve been friends, Darlene’s made one point about ABC over and over again: The activities are only only useful if you process them with the kids.

Darlene’s processing mantra of choice was, “What? So what? Now what?” asking the kids what they noticed about the activity, the implications of what they noticed on their success during the activity and what they would do to move this new knowledge into practice in their daily lives.

At SLA, we introduce students to inquiry thinking by taking them along a similar line of questioning: “I noticed…Iwonder…What if?”

As I’ve been considering caring lately, these questions and other iterations thereof have been striking me as increasingly important from both an academic and socio-emotional point of view.

On a recent flight, I sat next to a grandmother who was flying home after watching one of her grandsons graduate. I confessed to being a teacher and we felt silent again as often happens with the edd and flow of airline conversation.

“You know, every child needs at least one good and important teacher in their life,” she said, pulling me back to the conversation.

“More than one if they’re lucky,” I said.

“Mine was in ninth grade,” she said, “He told me, ‘I’m going to transfer you out of my class because it’s not quite what you need,’ but he also took the time to explain why.”

We talked for a while about how much it meant to her that the teacher explained to her why another class would be a better fit.

Now in her 70s, it is the processing she carries with her as the memory from both of those math classes. The processing of the why of it all turned out to be the greater moment of learning for her.

I suspect it influenced how she interacted with her own children – taking the time to explain when they asked the omnipresent, “Why?”

Darlene is right, what we do is only as useful as our effort to process it with our students. The processing takes many forms such as giving a response more detailed than “Good answer” in class or providing words rather than numbers when filling out a rubric.

Not only is processing in this way helpful to my practice as a teacher, it’s helpful to my students in their acquisition of the language of learning.

I’m a little cagey on the idea of teaching students to learn. Teaching students the language of learning and how to express the ideas and progress inherent in their learning – that I can get behind.

Things I Know 117 of 365: I am going to Harvard

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.

– Samuel Johnson

Mid-March, I found out I was accepted to the Harvard Ed School’s master’s program in Ed Policy and Management.

Toward the end of March, I had an idea for helping to overcome what appeared to be the largest hurdle to actually attending the program – paying for it.

While the idea didn’t make up the difference, it did subsidize approximately 11 percent of what I needed to attend.

As it became clear my audacious goal was just that, I started to become as knowledgeable as I’ve ever been about student loans.

Somewhere in there were more frequent phone calls home than I’ve probably ever made since moving out.

I’ve decided to do it.

I’m going to Harvard in the Fall.

I’ll be honoring my commitment to those who graciously donated to Chasing Harvard. I’ll also be proud owner of some substantial student loans.

I want this.

A great deal of my decision was made when I attended the open house for newly admitted students. Admittedly, I was (and still am) cautious about some of the rhetoric coming out of the school. I was worried I’d have no one with whom I would connect, that SLA and schools like it would be an impossibility in the minds of people I met.

I did meet and hear from some people with whom I adamantly disagreed. I also met and heard from people who thought deeply and passionately about many of the same ideas I hold dear.

That is the kind of environment in which I want to learn.

I’ve always sought a plurality of ideas. My most invigorating conversations are those with people who will argue against me just as ardently as I argue against them while both of us are seeking to understand.

I am not so naive as to believe I’ll be entering some sort of modern Lyceum. All I hope for is a program of study where my ideas will be challenged and where I am free to challenge the ideas of those around me. I’ve found that.

Also key to my decision is the ability to cross-register in the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Law School – you get the idea.

I want that.

While I realize I’ll be limited to the number of outside course I’ll be able to take, I want a program that allows me to blend my learning about education’s ecosystem with learning about other intellectual ecosystems.

As those systems interact and blend more and more, I want to study and understand those interactions.

I want this.

What scares me, what I don’t want, is to leave SLA.

I’m sure I’ll write later about what I’ve learned and what it means to leave. This is about where I’m going, not where I’ve been.

Let me just say that it is a testament to the people I learn alongside every day how difficult it will be to leave.

In the end, I turned to Samuel Johnson’s thinking in “Rasselas.” Trying to understand happiness and how to acquire it, Johnson’s protagonist learns reaching for one thing means giving up another. In the end, one must make a choice and be content.

I am.

Things I Know 110 of 365: She broke her self against the diatreme

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong in the broken places.

– Ernest Hemingway

You don’t need to know what a diatreme is to understand this. All you need to know is that Sam cried when she got to the top.

Far from the familiarity of Philadelphia’s sirens, horns and more vocal pedestrians, Sam had hiked with our group to the top of the diatreme.

A few days earlier, she’d flown on her first plane and hiked into the Grand Canyon and out again.

She was well outside of her comfort zone. Well, well outside.

When she arrived at the summit of the diatreme and sat with the rest of the group as cereal bars were handed out and water was encouraged, one of the other adults on the trip motioned that I should look at Sam.

I turned my head to find Sam, chin on her knees, sobbing.

She had just done something completely outside of what had ever been asked of her, and it hit her.

She was hot and tired and in a foreign space eating a cereal bar.

I turned back and nodded acknowledgement.

I didn’t sit next to Sam and comfort her. She didn’t need that from me.

One of the river guides from our trip was sitting, rubbing her shoulders.

Sam knew she was surrounded by people who cared for her. She knew she was safe. She knew we would take care of her.

I didn’t sit next to Sam because that’s what caring for Sam looked like in that moment.

Putting my arm around her and telling her things were going to be ok wouldn’t have made things any more true.

What’s more, as she was pushing herself to do more than she thought she could, Sam needed to know she was there to reassure herself, that she was enough.

I will encourage students (anyone, really) as much as I possibly can and as much as they need.

In that moment, sobbing in the shadow of a 12-foot limestone boulder, Sam supplied her own encouragement.

Friday, as we floated the last few miles of our trip, Sam and I were on the same boat.

She started talking about hiking the diatreme.

“At some point, I just got angry and decided I was going to do it,” she said.

By the time the group was ready to head back to the river, Sam had composed herself. Still visibly raw, she had a look on her face that was part determination and part frustration. The exact mixture of the two parts was fluctuating as she walked.

I picked up a round, flat volcanic stone – a perfect skipping stone.

“Look at this,” I said, “Isn’t this a great rock?”

I handed it to her, and we kept walking.

As we unloaded from the van tonight after driving from Flagstaff to Phoenix, Sam was talking to another of our students and said she still had the rock, that she’d kept it with her.

I’m an advocate of leaving only footprints and taking only pictures. I’ve said it dozens of times over the last week.

More than a small part of me, though, is perfectly fine with Sam bringing that stone back with her. She battled the diatreme and some lesser version of herself. Let that rock be the trophy of her victory.

Things I Know 55 of 365: It’s good to be treated like a professional

Proposition 4: Teachers think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.

– National Board for Professional Teaching Standards

Sydney’s been giving me trouble the last couple of weeks. She’s a fine enough student. Her grades are decent. She her contributions to class discussion have been average with occasional sparks of insight. She has a fine circle of friends – no one in the upper reaches of the high school hierarchy, but fine enough kids.

Still, Sydney’s been rubbing me the wrong way.

She’ll make comments in the hallways that she isn’t happy with how I run class.

Whatever.

I decided to put an end to a project a couple weeks ago. The kids were making a go of it and working on it, but I didn’t see it going anywhere. So, I shut it down.

Sydney didn’t like it. She wrote about it on her Facebook wall. That, combined with some pretty critical conversations I overheard her having with other students in the hall, really ticked me off.

Then, when I was teaching the other day, Sydney just had to raise her hand and ask why the class needed to follow a direction I’d just given. She said it didn’t make sense and questioned the reasoning behind it.

Right there, in front of all my students, she questioned my authority as the educational leader of the classroom.

I’d made the choice because, in the end it would be easier for me to keep track of things, but I’m not beholden to explain anything to this child.

I ignored her and moved on.

A few minutes later – completely separate activity – Sydney’s hand is in the air again.

She wants to know why I’ve just announced I’ll be sending a portion of my class to a tutor down the block from now on.

I want to get up in her face and yell, “Because some of you are too hard to teach, and you make me look bad when I try. Teaching’s hard, so now you’re someone else’s problem.”

But, I don’t owe her anything.

The next day, I meet Sydney at the door and tell her to take her things to the little office next to my room for class.

During class, the group of students working with Sydney on a class project ask if they can go ask her for her notes. I tell them no and encourage them to stop thinking of Sydney as part of the class.

Later, I hear they still talked to her when they saw her in the hall.

I get an e-mail, two phone calls and 10 text messages from Sydney’s parents that night.

They want to know why I’ve moved Sydney out of class.

I write them a letter explaining Sydney hasn’t been using her time in school safely, particularly her classtime.

I manage all of four sentences and stick the letter in the mail.

Of course, never satisfied, Sydney’s parents call the school, talk to my principal, e-mail me (several times), call me (several times) and text me (several times). Not only that, they must have some sort of phone tree for parents who want to make asinine complaints, because I starting getting bombarded by way too many overprotective parents who “want to know what’s going on.”

Tuesday, I sent Sydney’s parents another letter letting them know I’d be conferencing with her today about how she wasn’t making the classroom environment a safe space with all her “Why this?” and “What about that?” comments. I also let them know I wasn’t particularly pleased she’d been talking with them about what should have been an internal classroom matter.

I mean, I’m the teacher. I know what’s best. Otherwise, how could I keep victory in the classroom?

Things I Know 18 of 365: I don’t facilitate

Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.

– Colleen Wilcox

If I hear another keynoter say today’s teachers should really think of themselves as facilitators, I might retch.

If another peer in my grad class writes about giving his students the opportunity to learn, I might ask him to step whatever the online equivalent is of outside.

If I have to sit through another inane argument about what constitutes 21st Century Skills, someone’s losing a pinkie.

Let me be clear.

I teach.

You see, I’m a teacher.

While there is an element of facilitation in what I do, I’m not setting up shop in the ballroom of the local Holiday Inn to help my students unlock the power within and encouraging them to buy my book and accompanying keychain on the coffee break.

This is serious work, let’s not side-step it in order to pick up the cross of the semantic argument.

Yes, I’ve seen the inspiring videos telling me “counselor,” “parent,” “coach,” and “listener” are all words for teacher.

No.

“Teacher” pretty much takes care of it.

Yes, it’s a noble profession. I’m proud to do what I do each day. Let’s not cheapen it by pretending the word’s not enough.

What truly is not enough is giving students the opportunity to learn.

Having a school in their neighborhood gives them the opportunity to learn. Being born gave them the opportunity to learn. Stubbing their toes gives them the opportunity to learn.

I give my kids and education and I do it by teaching.

Calling it something else make it sound soft. It makes it somehow less than.

“What do you do?”

“Me? Oh, I give opportunities.”

“What are you Willy Wonka?”

Take two.

“What do you do?”

“I teach.”

“Thank you.”

As much as a lesson will include student choice, it will also include moments where following the instructions means doing work that is mentally uncomfortable. I ask them to do things they do not want to do because I do know more about some things than they do.

I’m not so ridiculous to believe I know more about them or their lives than they do. But, I do know more. My knowledge is of value, and I work to find the best ways to teach it. Their knowledge is valuable, and I work to find the best ways to learn it.

Some people call the best ways “21st Century Skills.”

For a while there, I was all wound up in the whole 21st Century Skills rhetoric. It’s a sexy turn of phrase. Once every hundred years, the global community looks into the future of the next 100 years and divines the skills that will prove most valuable.

I’ll have what she’s having.

When I was in high school, I watched my stepfather and uncles build a house because they wanted to see if they could. They’d never done such a thing before. They read, they researched, they asked around. They tried and errored and tried something new.

The thing is, they did this all in the 20th century.

Wait, there’s more.

If they had attempted to build a house in, say, 1905, some of those skills would have been the same, but some would have been remarkably different.

Same century, different skills.

Mind = Blown

This is all to say those who believe in the importance of teaching our students to ask the right questions and construct the right plans for uncovering the information they need using the tools available today lose more than a little control of the argument when they timestamp what they’re talking about.

“21st Century Skills” offers up a flimsy rhetorical piñata.

“Problem solving” lives in a lockbox even Al Gore would find amazing.

Hi, you’re doing it wrong: Reflection

As I’ve explained, I started my master’s program a few weeks ago. Through an online program, I’ll have a Master’s of Teaching and Learning in Curriculum and Instruction in 14 months. It’s my first time in an all-online learning environment. They’re doing it wrong.

I’m a reflective guy.

Seriously.

I journal. I blog. I seek peer advice. I seek learner advice. I even took a job teaching at a school where reflection is one of the core values.

If I were any more reflective, people would wear me whilst biking at night.

When I looked at my last few assignments for this first grad school class, and saw they were all about reflections, I was, in a word, giddy.

Then, I read the assignment descriptions.

For the assignment titled “Course Reflection,” here’s what was asked for:

The purpose of the Course Reflection is to give you the opportunity to reflect on what you have learned in a specific instructional block and how this knowledge relates to the core propositions. The reflection is written in narrative form with all the conventions of English language. It is a personal document you are willing to share with others.

The reflection summary has distinct sections in which you provide different information. The first section is a reflection on how you applied the most important topic/issues presented in the instructional block.

The second part is a reflection on your personal growth. The emphasis should be on application of knowledge you have experienced as a result of what you have learned in a particular block. This is the most personal part of the reflection. You might discuss application of knowledge to your classroom or a change in your philosophy.

The “core propositions” referred to in the first graf are the props set forth by the National Board. They drive our program. I kept waiting in the course for the chance to discuss and debate the propositions. If it’s what we’re working toward as the goal, we should, perhaps, think about them rather than accept them as though handed to us from the mount on stone tablets.

(No offense meant to the National Board. BTW, nice mount.)

As a reflective assignment, not bad. Really.

I mean, it was due a week before the end of the course, but I’m sure they didn’t really want us to reflect on the whole course.

The rubric was a little odd:

The course reflection exhibits clear, concise, thoughtful, and substantive evidence of the learner’s professional growth, with superior and insightful articulation of expectations or evidence of improved teaching and learning in the classroom.

Sounds good at the face value. My learning, though, wasn’t due to the content of the course or the teaching. The bulk of my learning took place in my thinking about the structure, delivery and pedagogy of the course itself. I’m a better teacher because I looked at the course as a case study.

Because of the tone set within the course, though, I couldn’t say as much. I said what they wanted to hear.
I’ve received no authentic sign that Educational Specialist was worried about my learning or teaching. Assigning work that asks questions about my learning and teaching, yes. Actually curious as to how to improve my practice, no.

You’d think one reflective assignment would be enough. Silly.

The last assignment of the course was a reflection on the learning surrounding the inquiry-based project we’ve been working on throughout the module.

A little sidenote on the project for those of you playing at home. The project is designed for the course when it’s taught during a school year and the learners in the course are, you know, teaching. For the summer session, we pretended. Not quite the same.

In the “Helpful Hints” doc we were given, ES stated:

Using the Reflective Self-Assessment section for each lesson plan, analyze more completely what might be successful and what might not, if and how you might accomplish your goals and objectives, and if you think your implementation plan will help you resolve your problem statement.

Some mental gymnastics there, no?

The guiding questions were a little silly as well:

  1. How were my goals and objectives met?
  2. What were my “aha!” moments and/or successes?
  3. What did not go well and/or was not as successful as I had hoped?
  4. What needs improvement?
  5. What would I do differently next time?
  6. What will I do again?
  7. What were the key concepts I learned?
  8. What did others see that I did not or could not and how will I use that
  9. intelligence to continue to refine and improve my teaching?
  10. What did I learn about my own teaching?

Number 5 was certainly the easiest: Next time, I would probably put all of this into practice rather than teaching it hypothetically.

Again, that’s not what I wrote. I wrote what they wanted to see.

One more thing about what they wanted to see.

In the second half of this second course reflection, we were asked for more references:

  • Include a complete reference list of all the resources you used for the entire inquiry project.
  • Follow the guidelines found in the most current edition of the American Psychological Association (APA) format and style manual.  Please put the original 15 sources at the beginning of this section then add the additional sources after the 15 original sources.
  • MINIMUM 22 sources.  15 sources from Assignment # 1 and 7 new sources. The 7 new sources should be 5 from our class material and 2 OTHER.

I don’t know why.

The part that positively made my head explode happened in the final bullet point. Seven more sources? I mean, I like prime numbers as much as anyone, but, why? For the final assignment of the course – a reflective piece – we’re to manifest 7 new references for work that was already done? What’s the reasoning for the 5-2 split? And adhere to APA style, but post the most recent sources at the bottom?

I’m not given to conjecture often, but my guess would be that this new ordering process is so ES can count sources. I mean, I’ll do it, but, why?

Reflective work from learners can provide some intensely rich feedback for the teaching of a course and any corrections that might need be made. We’ve actually read quite a bit about this as part of our studies in the course.

This isn’t effective reflection. Absent a safe and open learning environment, reflection has become another version of, “What does the teacher want to hear?”

Hi, you’re doing it wrong.

Don’t you dare tell!

Week 3 began Monday with a debriefing meeting at the Edunova office. Our partners in-country partners on the projects in Cape Town, Edunova works with a select group of schools to build technology literacy skills in teachers. Mainly, their responsibilities entail SMART Board training as well as your standard office suite of tools.

Last week, they did so much more. As I wrote, Khanyiso and Mlungisi designed and mostly led the sessions on building multimedia projects and their role in the curriculum. They did a superb job mixing theory and practice so that the skills could move from the week of workshops to teacher practice.

In some ways, Edunova’s hands are tied. As a non-profit, funding is connected to the deliverables their benefactors are looking for. Moving from literacy to deeper integration strategies is a jump.

Beyond all that, this team wants to make the jump.

Between last year and this, I’ve seen a remarkable change in the willingness or confidence or comfort with talking to teachers about integration vs. just working to transfer skills.

The temptation, for me, then becomes handing over resources and lessons and tips and tricks.

That has value.

Two weeks from now, when I’m on the other side of the ocean, the value drops.

The same ideals I hold in my classroom –  asking rather than telling, letting people fall and then urging them to get back up, realizing progress looks different for everyone, play is most important – are the ideals I’ve gotta hold to here.

Handing over is easy and painless in this case.

Learning, as usual, is painful, uncomfortable and beautiful.

Helping means asking questions and facilitating the search for answers.

I’ve gotta write that on the back of my hand this week.

Teachers aren’t the worst audience

Khanyiso, Mlungisi and I were in charge of leading the session on multimedia in the classroom Wednesday. It was the afternoon and the usual grumblings about too much theory and not enough practice had begun in a small contingent of teachers.

They were ready for some hands on.

To get us started, I pulled up Schooltube and Teachertube to grab a few examples. The first was not so academic. The second, though, led to some interesting conversation about how the use of multimedia ICTs could be of use in the classroom.

The teachers could see how learners would be required to incorporate learning across multiple areas of study to create a short video on a given topic.

We’d talked about this in the theory portion of the week when discussing the importance of collaboration.

The teachers could tell how creating multimedia products would require learners to do new things using new tools.

We’d talked about the Literacy, Adaptive and Transformative levels of ICT integration earlier in the week, so they were able to point it out and use the language.

The teachers discussed what it would take to locate the information the learners had used in the sample video.

We’d talked about information literacy and search strategies earlier. A trend was forming.

If I’d been a different kind of fellow, I would have noted how all the theory was necessary to name the practice and discuss it using common language. If I’d been a real jerk, I would have pointed out how important the part they were complaining about was proving to be during the part they’d been clamoring for.

I’m neither of those types.

Instead, I said things like, “If you remember what Chris said about refining search terms in his session earlier…” or “What’s the difference between the transformative learning in this example versus the adaptive learning Cyndy talked about Tuesday?”

Teachers, it’s been said until it needs not be said anymore, are the worst audience. I don’t know how much I agree with that.

Teachers are learners. We make assumptions they’re inherently more willing to listen to someone else drone on and on than children. They’re not.

They’re learners.

Yes, the stages of development are different, but they still have learning styles, they still need to move, they still need to be engaged. And, learning, oftentimes, is a difficult and uncomfortable process for them.

I love it.