Author: ianhoke

Conference Like A Champion Today

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Heck, I hate ’em, but it’s been a long time, so the title nod (at least on this post) goes to the guys from South Bend.

I’m here in Prague where drizzle congeals for the 2012 Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Forum, and the fun has begun. Re-connecting with colleagues from around the globe like Bram Faems and many others from the European Forum in Lisbon is great. Other, less expected opportunities have cropped up already, as well.

I have sprung brief, very focused monologues about student-centered, constructivist, project-based learning on several edu-luminaries, including one whom I believe may be connected with the French Ministry of Education. Also, upon some visiting professors of education from a number of European countries. I waxed rhapsodic about Turkey to a Turkish teacher, about China to a Chinese teacher, and about my desire to visit India to several Indian teachers.

I’m in my element.

I also somehow immediately gravitated toward two women who engrossed my edu-nerdhood with extreme prejudice: Suzie Boss, who termed our wee cabal “the anarchist’s table” and Lisa Nielsen, who I watched demolish a Twitter echo chamber this week with guilty schadenfreude. Our conversation was excellent because it ranged from who’s interested in PBL in India to the vagaries of education in NYC to strengths (*gasp*) of the Common Core. Also, I was reminded that not everyone has my personal experiences, and that these personal experiences give me an angle on this big topic of teaching and learning that I care so much about. I tell kids often, as they write college app essays, to plug into their personal history, that which they take for granted, because it’s not what their audience has experienced.

So, dude. Come on. Like, heal thyself, too. OK?

I’m excited about learning new things this week and building some strong connections with smart, interesting people who dedicate themselves to helping children have wonderful learning experiences. Also, I’mma write this one up. So stay tuned.

Oh, Good Teachers Have Always Done That…

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The cliche says: Man, if I had a dime for every time I’ve heard that. One cliched turn deserves another. I’ve been thinking about backwards design and this concept, what good teachers do anyway.

Very rarely do I say, or hear said: Oh, that’s a great idea that I’ve appropriated for serious misuse. But when I make my big mistakes, it is so often thus. Backwards design from an end that is meaningless, or worthless, or counterproductive, or at cross-purposes to colleagues, or ill-conceived will yield a process that takes us all to this barren shore together, a la high stakes standardized testing and the general, shallow outcomes it yields.

Of course, I can find silly outcomes on my own. However, by identifying what I value most, I can find high-value targets for students to hit. Additionally, I can design curriculum that allows students freedom and choice in their journey towards meeting or surpassing such targets.

Even more powerfully, communities and institutions like schools can come together and make shared decisions about what they value, and focus in on that. For example, when politicians decide that critical thinking has no place in schools, we can expose that conversation and have it at the local level where I feel solidly that few parents would argue that critical thinking and analysis is bad for their kids, even while they worry that (thanks to decades of demagoguery) schools may be undermining religious beliefs and the like.

Simple, focused statements of value are clear and transparent. Simple, focused statements of value can create outcome targets that aren’t obscure or scary, leading to paranoia like that reflected in the Texas Republican platform. Simple, focused statements of value can help teachers do what they’ve always done, better.

Everything we do in teaching is based fundamentally upon what we value. We should endeavor to honor these values with names and descriptors so that we can work purposefully in the same direction within our schools and our communities. I bet that’s something really great schools have always done…

Electronic Portfolios, Blogs, and The Imaginary Audience

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Every time I attend a “edutech” conference, I get excited to attend a session about electronic portfolios. Every time, I come away with more questions than answers.

I am a believer in the power of portfolio assessment – it’s the power of turning over goal setting, of building reflective learners, of giving kids more control over their own learning and outcomes. Students in my classes have been required to create electronic portfolios on a variety of blog platforms, currently WordPress. Last year, my colleagues and I created a curriculum for our grade 10 English course that is based on portfolio conferences for the final exam and as assessments throughout the year. It worked fairly well, we tweaked, and now are doing this at both the 9th and 10th grade levels.

However, while these electronic portfolios are open on the Internet, they do not have any inherent “authentic audience.” I get embarrassed for anyone who makes this claim about blogs, that they have a “potential” global audience. Of course, it’s true in theory. But there is a little competition for this audience.

Take you, for example. You are either A) my mum or B) someone who landed here from a Twitter link. I sometimes publicize my blog posts, but I never make lists of 50, 25, or 5 useful ways to do something with a piece of technology, which would increase traffic, possibly. Such posts seem popular. I know this, because I am becoming ever more literate in ways educators in particular communicate online and in ways they self-promote to grow their audience.

You see, blogs don’t come with a built in audience. But this is the point that some people use to trumpet the use of blogs for portfolios and to criticize the use of blogs for portfolios. Blogs are dangerous invasions of privacy. Blogs are powerful global platforms. Neither is entirely true. Both perspectives take our eyes off of the practice of portfolio assessment.

 

Student Centered Grading

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This is a work in progress, building off of my work over the past eight years with students writing rubrics for performance tasks, but I’m examining student-set goals and measurement of progress this year in my Digital Journalism 2 course. So far, these kids have done incredible work in the first six weeks of school. Together, the students have made inroads into a variety of social media – check out Instagram #zispeaceday – and published a vastly improved, though still quite flawed, student newspaper. In a small class of seven, each is following individual interests, asking me questions I’ve never heard in 12 years of teaching English: Hey, Mr. Hoke, I was thinking of writing a piece on mobile phone use in school. Is that okay? Is it okay to write? 

Yes.

Of course, we’ve created rubrics for features, but there’s other stuff: managing social media arms, formulating marketing campaigns, managing peers, publishing photo essays. This week we’ll sit down individually, and students will share what they want to be graded on, and how. I already know they’re learning and that they are making improvements to the products they are creating, but we need to make the learning transparent via their blog-based portfolios and get some reflection going, leading to future goal setting. However, I want the students to feel flexible, able to respond to needs as they arrive, which makes goal setting a tricky prospect. As long as time frames are loose, this should be no big deal.

We’ll see. I’m sure there’s plenty I can’t anticipate right now, but I’m not cynical about the possibilities. This won’t get gamed because the students care about the product, the outcomes. I will have to push them toward professional-quality work by sharing models found online, but together I hope we can spiral up toward better and better products sensibly.

Language, Image, Editing, & Bias: A Quick Case Study

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Chuck Norris and his wife Gena recently published a video urging their fellow conservative Americans to get out and vote to end an “attack” on freedom during this “tipping point” election, because “quite possibly, our country as we know it may be lost forever if we don’t change the course in which our country is headed,” which is “the direction of socialism, or something much worse.” Action on the part of Christian evangelicals is urged by the Norris couple in order to head off disaster. Via a series of quotes from Edmund Burke and President Ronald Reagan, the couple paint a goal of fighting the “triumph of evil,” keeping “freedom” from “extinction,” and avoiding “the first step into a thousand years of darkness.” Pathos aplenty drips from this video, stoking fears among their audience of evil, the other, and left-wing politics. Check it out for yourself.


The language employed in this piece is inflammatory, and often delivered by proxy through out of context quotations. Apocalyptic at times, I thought. Which was why I was a bit surprised by the kid-glove treatment given Chuck Norris by Bill O’Reilly on his Fox News show. It is no surprise that the two share a common political condition, but the soft-serve question and lack of a follow-up question by O’Reilly are quickly subsumed by a series of images – boarded up houses and storefronts – flashed over Norris’s unsupported claims about Obama’s economic policies create a clear tone with obvious implications laid down over a discussion devoid of hard facts (insofar as they still exist today!). This could be the basis of an interesting deconstruction and comparison exercise a la the IB Language and Literature curriculum.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/embed.js?id=1834875062001&w=466&h=263

Watch the latest video at <a href=”http://video.foxnews.com”>video.foxnews.com</a>Some questions to guide students may be as follows:

  • What is the purpose of the “Chuck Norris’ dire warning” video?
  • Who is the intended audience of the Norris video?
    • What words or phrases inform your answers above?
  • How are quotes used in the Norris video?
  • How would you describe the relationship between Chuck Norris and the interviewer in the Fox News video?
    • What words or images support your answer?
  • Does the Fox News piece suggest a viewpoint on the part of the media maker for the topic being discussed?
  • How does the Fox News video use images with speech? Why?
  • What sorts of arguments are laid out in the two videos?
  • In a well-written response, support, defend, or qualify the following statement: The media makers behind these two videos hold independent views on the topic of the 2012 presidential election.

 

What We Talk About When We Talk About High School

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Sometimes, an education blog post crosses out of the Twitter educhat echo chamber, into the larger Twitterverse of politicos, journalists, and ür-parents. Roger Schank is today’s pole vaulter, springing out into the Zeitgeist of our moment, criticizing much that is wrong in high school while engaging in more than a little over-pragmatic, under-intellectual pandering to the lowest common denominator. Hate high school? Here’s why you should, kids. Yet somehow, I feel this isn’t aimed at kids…

Schank writes of English (represent!):

English: this is a subject which has its good points. There is exactly one thing worth paying attention to in English. Not Dickens (unless of course you like Dickens.) Not Moby Dick, or Tennyson, or Hawthorne, or Shakespeare (unless of course, you like reading them.) What matters is learning how to write well. A good English teacher would give you daily writing assignments and help you get better at writing (and speaking). By writing assignments I don’t mean term papers. I mean writing about things you care about and learning to defend your arguments. Learning to enjoy reading matters as well but that would mean picking your own books to read and not having to write a book report. Lots of luck with that.

Do high school students still write book reports? Probably, but that still feels 25 years out of date. Parentheses abuse aside, I can’t quibble with Schank’s points; indeed, I model my English classroom after them. While students don’t write daily, they structure oral, written, or media communication in class most days. The problem with daily writing is that is difficult to ensure quality feedback for each, or most writing opportunities. Daily writing can be longer form, as well, with guided practice from day to day as formative feedback. Again, Schank more or less nails it on all counts. I particularly like the choice reading concept, which I am incorporating more and more into how I teach. Each of my classes includes choice assignments, with the digital journalism courses being almost all student choice. As in math, as in science, students should grow in English proficiency by doing, by critically examining texts and media and by communicating in a variety of styles and genres.

But where Schank’s argument grows facile is its treatment of academic subjects like economics as so abstract as to be meaningless (emphasis mine):

Economics. This subject in high school is beyond silly. Professional economists don’t really understand economics. The arguments they have with each other are vicious and when they economy collapses there are always a thousand explanations none of which will matter to a high school student. What should you be learning? Your personal finances. How to balance your check book. How much rent and food costs. How you can earn a living. What various jobs pay and how to get them. A high school student needs economic theory like he needs another leg.

How to balance a checkbook? I can barely type that sentence without an F-bomb in it, the concept is so ridiculous. Who’s out of touch – the person teaching economics as case studies and the application of theories or the person who still has a checkbook? How can one earn a living? A job. Entrepreneurial application of self. Holes in the tax system, nepotism, irresponsible banking. Spurious reasoning breaks through breathless disregard for all things high school, subject silo by subject silo, and a smattering of fair points are quickly subsumed in a tide what the reader already expects (American education is all bad!). It’s as though Schank has never heard of students doing actual things in school, or working together effectively – it happens, regularly, and it’s not useless learning.

I regularly wish that the discourse around education in America was more constructive. I regularly read shock titles that look good in tweets and witness them leading the discourse. At least Schank didn’t use the words crisis or war. It’s too bad that, as a reaction to responses to this sensible article in The Washington Post, Schank chose the lowest hanging fruit in this blog post.

My Big Open Classroom, An Intro

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At one point last year, during a meeting of my school’s leadership team, referred to as a Curriculum Area Leader meeting, I said “Sign me up.” This is the kind of statement I have been known to make when somebody throws out a wild idea that fits my educational philosophy. Implicitly, I attempt to express support for an idea in this manner. Explicitly, I agree to take part. Which is why I now teach in a classroom twice the size of any other at my school, and why that classroom has no doors, separated from our giant hallways, known as coreways, by a partial wall of glass.

This has positives:

  • Amazing space for flexible furniture arrangements, including a couch and a tall round table with stools
  • An open classroom fits my philosophy and approach – come on in! We’re a community.
  • Classrooms are awkwardly small in our building, which was built to encourage breaking out of classrooms into the gigantic hallways. We get the best of both worlds with the new room.
  • Lots of light!
  • We now have a water fountain in my room, which is great. Hydration is life.
  • We get to play with a new generation Smartboard projector. After three years of trying, I get a regular whiteboard to use! Wahoo!
    • The downside is that I keep tapping the whiteboard with my finger when the beamer is on. The pen is an awkward tool thus far.

Drawbacks also exist:

  • The classroom can become suddenly swamped by noise. For some reason today, the PE teachers were rocking out to AC/DC and the door from the gym to our floor was open. Loud. Two teachers choose to communicate between stairwells – loud. Giggles – loud.
  • Somebody overheard me talking about 50 Shades of Grey in AP Literature, which led to some light teasing. I was making a profound point about genre… 🙂
  • It is now totally impossible to do any high quality recording in our classroom for digital journalism purposes. The ambient noise is too unpredictable.

The coolest thing about this classroom is that it is a leap toward a more open school. I am always surprised by the reticence of some colleagues to have others enter their classrooms; I understand concerns about interruptions, but have never found this to be an actual problem. My guess is that my classes will grow more and more comfortable with class that isn’t behind walls, less likely to be disturbed by people wandering in and out, and immune to the ambient noises. We’ll see.

The coolest thing that happened today, tangentially related to the classroom layout, was that a student asked to sometimes drop by the new Digital Journalism 2 course for help with her writing. We discussed how she could choose to write for some editions of the student newspaper, stopping into the class (which coincides with a free period for most 11th and 12th graders) whenever she wanted feedback from a peer or from me. She was stoked enough by the idea to join in for class today and get a preview of our Basecamp setup for managing the paper. The open classroom sets a tone, reinforced by students opting into some sessions of the course during their free periods. I can’t help but think this sends a cool message to the kids who are enrolled – others want to be here, too!

Certainly, this is a bit of an experiment at school, and I’m honored to be leading the charge. Another colleague teaches two courses in the space, while I teach a full load of five courses there. I will regularly reflect on our experiences as they accumulate.

 

Badges?

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Yeah, it’s pretty obvious. I list toward Blazing Saddles as a cultural touchpoint for the unnecessary nature of stinkin’ badges, but it comes, apparently, from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I feel a little like someone must feel when they find out that the inspirational sayings so often misattributed to world leaders in fact are, rather obviously, misattributed.

Even so, I made badges.

Last year, my AP Literature and Composition course lacked fun. I’m not sure these badges are fun, exactly, but they could be a bridge to engagement. I think they’re definitely not an “addictive learning experience,” but they could be a tool for improving the learning community in the class or beyond. Today I even invited the entire faculty to partake in an Infinite School Year, which doesn’t mean a year of eight Februaries (teacher joke!). The deal for kids with these badges is that they offer a choice of doing something I believe is important in return for a reward that they value. All the students must complete one badge per semester. After the first badge, students get a grade boost per completed badge up to two more per semester, the criteria for which is laid out in a rubric for each badge. The rubrics are far from perfect, as is the lame grade connection. Also, the choice is limited. I can imagine offering a Mystery Badge that allows a kid to design a project, or others like a Context Builder Badge that prioritizes historical research behind a novel like Slaughterhouse Five or Beloved. However, it’s a start.

Toward what? I’d like to establish a different dynamic in this course. I feel compelled, of course, to provide a curriculum based on the AP Lit exam, which often feels like a walled garden. To that end, project based learning is quite difficult to design – or at least it’s hard for me to design. I wonder if these badge projects that give kids an opportunity to boost a grade are classic lipstick on a… not a pig, per se, but maybe a golden retriever?  Lipstick on a golden retriever. Or is this a step toward meaningful projects in this course?

Edu-Drama, and My Response

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In early June, a great friend and colleague of mine, Geoff Grimmer, was abruptly terminated from his position as Principal of Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy. I wrote the following letter to Dr. Sandra Smyser and the Eagle County School Board in response and in support of Geoff. I also attended the public appeal hearing where I spoke in support of reinstating Geoff.  In my remarks, I expressed great surprise at Dr. Smyser’s unfortunate characterization of good principals as “middle managers” and about the power of modeling as good leadership. In my opinion, firing Geoff for being a poor “fit” in the district and for a perceived failure as a middle manager signaled that returning to teach in Colorado would be impossible for me in the future. If one gets fired for success in public education, we have major problems. Happily, the Board voted not to uphold Geoff’s termination and he will return to VSSA this year. 

Dear Dr. Smyser,

I am writing today to express my extreme shock at your failure to renew the contract of Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy’s Principal Geoff Grimmer. Mr. Grimmer is a former colleague of mine and an inspiration to me in my teaching practice as an English teacher and department chair at Zurich International School in Zurich, Switzerland. Mr. Grimmer is an example of an ethical educator who places the whole student firmly at the center of his practice. My only consolation for the loss of such a leading educator to the children of VSSA is that we may be able to lure Mr. Grimmer to our school.

First and foremost, I am surprised at your decision to terminate Mr. Grimmer’s contract. Mr. Grimmer is a nationally recognized leader in education, as noted in coverage by The New York Times of the great success of students at VSSA. Negligence or incompetence on the part of an educational leader is not mentioned by the journalist in this coverage; rather, success and positive innovation aimed at helping students realize their highest potential form the backbone of the article. Mr. Grimmer was also very recently featured in Microsoft Vice-President of Worldwide Education Anthony Salcito’s “Daily Edventures” blog aimed at uncovering “global heroes in education.” Do you disagree with Mr. Grimmer’s view of education as expressed in these two media pieces? Is the vision that Mr. Grimmer expresses so out of touch with your vision, or the vision of Eagle County Schools, that this represents grounds for termination? If so, I would be interested in learning the areas in which you disagree. On your “Office of the Superintendent” page, you state that “Eagle County Schools is an innovative district that pushes the boundaries of what public education can do.” Surely VSSA, created and led by Geoff Grimmer, stands as nationally-recognized proof of such a statement. Is this grounds for termination in the Eagle County Schools?

Perhaps more surprising is that by any objective measure, VSSA is flourishing under Mr. Grimmer’s leadership. As your district reporting on 2010-2011 CSAP results states, “Eighth graders at VSSA and GCMS improved their [math] scores from 55 to 79 and 62 to 77 this year“ and scored “79% proficient or advanced” on the reading portion of the test. Your report goes on to note that VSSA students and 8th grade students district-wide “boasted stellar improvement scores at 79, 76 and 70 percent proficient or advanced.” If such success as measured by the admittedly questionable instruments of Colorado state standardized tests proves grounds for dismissal, have you failed to renew the contracts of Mr. Grimmer’s similarly successful colleagues? Of course, as you declare on your Superintendent page, “We are clearly a district that is serious about student achievement – not just test scores, but meaningful learning that is relevant, interesting and promotes abilities like critical thinking and problem solving. We expect that every student can function at high levels, and we are determined to help them achieve.” As VSSA allows students with exceptional talents to pursue their skills at the highest levels while at the same time employing 21st Century learning platforms to maintain high standards of education, it seems a model for your claim. In the design and implementation of this innovative model for learning and teaching, what failed to meet your expectations, or the expectations of the Eagle County Schools?

Finally, I wonder by what standards you assess your instructional leaders? By the ISTE NETS-A standards for administrators, Mr. Grimmer is an outstanding example of educational leadership in the digital age. Beyond areas previously mentioned, Mr. Grimmer understands key metrics for evaluating success in a diverse, unique environment like VSSA and has clearly utilized them to provide a safe, positive environment for individualized instruction – best practices all around. Per the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium, Mr. Grimmer clearly meets all standards and, most importantly, is a reflective educator and lifelong learner dedicated to continually improving his practice and the learning community under his charge in a healthy, humane manner. Even the inconsistent Colorado Principal Standards provide a steady list of strengths attributable to Mr. Grimmer or areas in which growth can easily be realized. While I am certain that Mr. Grimmer “Exemplif[ies] a personal and professional commitment to ethical conduct and respect for others and their rights,” I cannot be sure that he does not hold the bar for student achievement higher than “Colorado State Model Content Standards” or that he always “Convey[s] respect for the roles of elected officials and administration.” What is unclear in the Colorado Principal Standards are the benchmarks upon which a meaningless abstraction such as respect for elected officials and administration are judged; does the absence of a positive, for example, prove a negative? Of course, ethical behavior and the holding of high expectations seem minimal expectations taken for granted until compelling evidence of their absence is uncovered. In lieu of such evidence, surely it is incumbent upon you, Dr. Smyser, to present findings worthy of termination of employment for an otherwise fine educator.

Dr. Smyser, as an experienced educator yourself, you must recognize the relationship between objectives or benchmarks and judging performance. By measures qualitative and quantitative, Geoff Grimmer is a successful educational leader of Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy. When district leadership suddenly terminates the contract of a successful school leader, especially so very late in the school year and without any prior notice, they risk deeply undermining the trust and authority placed in them by the community, and so should not do so without a volume of compelling evidence. If gross negligence or incompetence was obvious before, why did you not act earlier to mitigate the damage? In fact, such a decision fails to meet all communication and environmental management standards for administrators such as those linked above. For these reasons, and for the children of your learning community, please accept this statement of protest of your decision not to renew the contract of Principal Geoff Grimmer of Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy. You should reconsider this decision immediately and move to renew Mr. Grimmer’s contract today. The health and vibrancy of your learning community demands it.

Sincerely,

Ian W. Hoke

English Teacher & English Curriculum Area Leader

Zurich International School

Final COETAILS Course Reflection – Creating a RUP & Publishing Policy

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Crossposted from ZIS COETAILS Blog

For Course 5, I participated in a group revision and discussion of the ZIS Responsible Use Policy and the corresponding ZIS Publishing Policy via the online platform Basecamp. The result of this project is a revised, single RUP for all ZIS divisions and a unified publishing policy, replacing the policy wedded to the RUP and the policy as outlined on the ZIS blogs landing page.

Initially, we were unsure about whether a single RUP or RUP by division made the most sense. Using Basecamp as a tool for sharing documents and discussions, we came to consensus that a single document made the most sense. The RUP may be translated into more “kid friendly” language at the ECC, Lower School, and even Middle School, but the policy will remain the same. Major changes reflect language around COPPA, which now reflects the letter and spirit of this law as a guiding principal behind the RUP. Additionally, the language has been tweaked to place an explicit focus on digital citizenship and media literacy for students and teachers. Additionally, the Lower School representatives were essential in adding student-centered language to this document, which absolutely represents what schools should be doing with technology.

The publishing policy places new importance upon student responsibility for published materials. Uniformly, staff from each division, students, alumni, and parents found the concept of student-owned product sensible and, generally, a given, which I found surprising. Perhaps we are reaching a new point of perspective on information literacy and “21st Century skill” fluency as a learning community in which the default is online authenticity and ownership, especially in academic contexts. Of course, students and families will be able to opt out of open publication or choose a “walled garden” approach in which they publish behind a school firewall (or veil, perhaps). As safety and visual information privacy concerns exist, they should be possible to address and solve on a case-by-case basis.

Course one and two of COETAILS formed the basis of this revision, but course four provided the inspiration for the project: technology’s catalytic effect upon learning. As my Digital Journalism course evolved this year, students grew independently fluent in a wide variety of ways and reflected non-linear learning in online platforms that I never explicitly taught or tangentially mentioned. Students used Instagram to explore if the iPhone could replace an SLR for journalists and gathered information via Reddit; neither of these arose through me. When students are free to explore digital spaces and create personally meaningful publications as they see fit, they will own them. Digital citizenship, like national citizenship, can be learned best through participation – democracy depends upon it. Maybe citizenship isn’t even the correct noun in this context, because we are focused on building skills for participation that shares, that makes, that adds value, that is ethical, that is honest, and that is above all active. At least in America, citizenship has become too often a passive concept. Maybe we need to shape digital leaders in a new, open, and democratic online community, leaders with the skills to resist corporate and government control of their communities.

COETAILS was a great opportunity to geek out, reflect, and learn. I’m proud that I and several COETAILS mates (I’m looking at you, Allens) worked together to create this new policy for ZIS. I look forward to conversations that follow the reworking of this policy (if they happen) and a student-centered technological paradigm at ZIS.