Relax. No, really.

Looking for a Way

2009-11-11T06:23:00.004-05:00

A recent post to the NACAC listserv included this plea:

Hello,

I am working at a high school and I am looking for a systemic way to increase SAT scores. Does anyone have any suggestions or methods that have worked in their schools to raise their SAT scores, more specially, in the critical reading section?

Thank you,
(name withheld)
Guidance Department

I'm going to refrain from commenting on the grammatical errors in the query, since we all make mistakes, and go straight to the heart of the matter... what form does "guidance" take at the secondary schools you're most familiar with? Would you want your son or daughter attending a school where "raising SAT scores" was somewhere near the top of the guidance department's "to do" list?

I wouldn't.

The more research is done, the clearer it becomes that standardized tests "do nothing to indicate how a student might enhance a school's intellectual community, nor do they predict whether a student will be successful in a college classroom." (Wake Forest Provost Jill Tiefenthaler)

If students feel that their standardized test results are not on a par with their in-school academic accomplishments, one response is to throw time and money at the problem of increasing their scores.

Another response is to help the students strategize about ways to highlight their strengths while simultaneously seeking out schools that are moving to broaden their definition of "success."

We all take our cues from the families we work with, and of course at the end of the day, these decisions are family decisions. As a parent and an educator, though, I'd select "B"... would you?

(Photo credit: via Flickr,
originally uploaded by Sami Paige)

StudentAid.com

2009-10-05T21:59:00.002-04:00

An overview of StudentAid.com ... love the "free to families whose family income is less than $40,000" feature.

NACAC After-Thoughts

2009-10-03T13:00:00.005-04:00

Image credit: Judy Baxter, via Flickr

Our own session (I'll touch on others' sessions in the next post)

I was so excited that I forgot to take a picture of my own session at NACAC, but this is probably a pretty close approximation. (Seen one conference room, seen 'em all!) The room was full (I found out afterwards that people were actually turned away, sorry about that!), and I think we did a good job of laying out some of the opportunities and challenges that exist for counselors using online tools as they work to help their counselees develop college lists.

I made some great connections. Maxine Grossman of Campus Compare reached out to me before the conference, and even though we didn't manage to talk in Baltimore, we've talked since. The fabulous Shaun McElroy (he of internationalcounselor.org fame) was able to attend our session, and so got to hear the shout-out I'd promised him. And I had a great conversation with Jeff Whorley of StudentAid.com (I have a feeling it was just the first of many).

In the session itself, Scott White made some great points about the necessity of being familiar with the full landscape of available tools. He also made a good case for using different data for different ends, and I know I wasn't the only one who appreciated his observation that this process, while not overly complex, is seriously nuanced. Elise Miller and Robert Morse talked with some specificity about the tools they're responsible for (College Navigator and U.S.News' site), Lloyd Thacker (of the Education Conservancy) passionately exhorted us to reflect on the values that shape our questions, and Cigus Vanni closed with a heartfelt endorsement of the importance of sharing our collected wisdom.

The Q&A was terrific, and in particular I wish I could remember the name of the counselor who pushed through her nervousness to share a GREAT analogy that has helped her frame differences amongst schools. "When you're getting ready to undertake a voyage," she said, "there are multiple methods of transportation available to you. What if some colleges are like a train station, while others are like a carpool. Neither better by definition. But certainly different, and with different strengths." (If this was your observation, leave a comment so I can make sure you get credit.)

There were, as there always are, things that I would have done differently. I'm already thinking about what I might want to try to pull together for next year. But in the meantime I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to connect with a wide range of people on a topic that has become important to me: how do we leverage existing technologies in support of our students making the best possible college matches?

Links From Our Session

2009-09-25T22:31:00.007-04:00

People always want to know, "How did it go?" and I often feel as if I am unqualified to address that question. Here are the facts, anyway: we filled the room, we filled our timeslot, and we managed to have a little time left over for Q&A (always a big goal of mine).

Here are the links we referenced in our panel this afternoon (and the whole slidedeck is available here):

College Board search: http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com
College Lists wiki: http://collegelists.pbworks.com
Shaun McElroy's blog: http://www.internationalcounselor.org
College Navigator: http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator
Naviance: http://www.naviance.com/
College Search Tools: http://bit.ly/collsearchtools
U.S.News: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges
Education Conservancy: http://www.educationconservancy.org
University Accountability Network: http://www.ucan-network.org
Voluntary System of Accountability: http://www.collegeportraits.org
NACAC's Knowledge Center: http://www.nacacnet.org/KnowledgeCenter

As for how it went... I can always think of things that I'd do differently next time, but I think it went well. Were you there? What did you think? What was the most helpful "takeaway," and what marks do you think we missed? I'd love to hear your feedback...

Session D405: College Search 2.0

2009-09-24T22:03:00.001-04:00

(image: "Curious Roy" by Fazen via Flickr)

Hey there.

It's Friday night in Baltimore and I am feeling curious (thus the gratuitous cute kitty pic).

Tomorrow is our session here at the national annual conference of NACAC.

FRIDAY: 2:00pm – 3:15pm
D405. College Lists 2.0
Room 327
Explore how searchable databases, wikis, blogs and other Web-based tools can assist in advising the college-bound student.

* Shelley Krause, Rutgers Preparatory School, NJ
* Scott White, Montclair High School, NJ
* Elise Miller, National Center for Education Statistics, DC
* Cigus Vanni, Cherry Hill High School West, NJ
* Lloyd Thacker, The Education Conservancy, OR
* Robert Morse, U.S. News & World Report, DC

How will it be? Only time will tell. But you can count on a full report here soon. I am so grateful for this opportunity to share my thinking and learn from others as we think out loud together.

Lifting the Fog

2009-09-16T06:28:00.002-04:00

(Image: "Mystic Island" via Flickr)

I'm thinking a lot about all the various search tools that exist out there for students and families as I get ready for a presentation later this month.

Preparing to explain my thinking to others has led me to realize how little I understand my thinking!

So slowly, over the last few weeks, I've come up with a draft of a scoring rubric, which in my world would allow an ideal college search tool to score a 25. Here's how I'm breaking it down:

DATA (8 pts.)

(2) Is the list of schools included comprehensive?

(2) Are the must-have variables there? (majors, size, distance from zip, selectivity)

(2) How's the number of useful variables?

(2) Any advances in quality or uniqueness of variables?

USER EXPERIENCE (8 pts.)

(2) Sortability and/or adjust as you go factors?

(2) Intuitive navigation & decent help?

(2) Looks good?

(2) Save/export info option?

TRANSPARENCY (4 pts.)

(2) user-driven (as opposed to "we know best")

(2) data source? if info collected, how used?

BONUS (5 pts.)

"Best in Class" in any of the categories = 1 pt.

Site designers seem to understand that counselors and/or parents exist = 1-2pts.

Plus any other stuff that just seems worth mentioning/ rewarding

(Highest possible score = 25)

My bet is that I'll have some changes to this after the conversation at NACAC. And then, if I can find the time, maybe I can actually run some of the tools from the College Lists wiki through to see what kind of scores they earn!

Henry Jenkins on New Media's Implications for Teaching and Learning

2009-09-08T06:21:00.000-04:00

more about "Big Thinkers: Henry Jenkins on New Me...", posted with vodpod

Just a little over 8 minutes. Pass it on.

Perfect Storm

2009-08-26T06:18:00.005-04:00

In today's dispatch from the future, we look back on the factors that combined to give the 2009-10 school year the nickname many students of the history of learning in the US now use to refer to it: the Year of the Perfect Storm.

Image via El Brujo+ on Flickr

H1N1 & Budget Cuts

Largely ineffective efforts at curbing the spread of "second-wave/early-onset" H1N1 flu and the resulting hysteria meant that hundreds of American schools were closed for weeks at a time in the fall and winter of 2009-10. The economic downturn had already meant cuts to summer schools and professional development budgets. These circumstances left more administrators, students, parents and teachers than ever before actively seeking out (and at times creating) next-wave ways to facilitate learning.

See this article: USC Undergraduates develop summer education site in response to summer school cancellations

Parents' (and students') increased resistance towards student debt

With more American adults struggling with debt and employment insecurity, parents and students were thinking differently about the realities of taking on more debt in support of a college education. (See Drowning in Debt and Debt Slapped for examples of the kind of information that was available to students and families in 2009.)

US families continued to choose to homeschool their students at record rates.

Families were making this decision not only for religious reasons, but increasingly out of a general sense of frustration with other available options. Through widening social networks, more parents in 2009 knew someone who had made the decision to homeschool one or more of their children. ("The estimated percentage of the school-age population that was homeschooled increased from 2.2 percent in 2003 to 2.9 percent in 2007." ~ National Center for Education Statistics)

Greater transparency of information with an increased focus on outcomes

Families experiencing greater economic pressures were increasingly interested in evaluating their "return on investment" when thinking about education. See Teens Reveal College Choice Tipping Point, which states in part, "Given the prevailing economic winds, and considering the fact that prospective undergrads (and their parents) have demonstrated increasing practicality in their decision-making over the past several years, it’s no wonder that graduates’ career placements weighed so heavily in 2009 college-choice decisions." Responding to increasing questions about "what does this commitment of time, money, and energy get us," colleges began to shift their marketing efforts away from trumpeting the strength of their incoming students to sharing the successes of their graduates. (See PurchaseSUNY's tweets here and here, for example.) And college search engines prepared to include new variables such as "average net cost" and "percent of students graduating within four years" to their searchable databases.

More on-the-ground reporting and sharing at both the secondary and college level served as an accelerant to change.

Finally able to break out of their siloed existence in individual classrooms, learning professionals all over the world created high-powered, self-directed professional development for themselves and in collaboration with the members of their personal learning networks. (See http://www.classroom20.com/, http://teachersteachingteachers.org/, http://lrnchat.wordpress.com/, and http://todaysmeet.com/teachpaperless, for example.)

And that ends today's lesson in learning history. Comments? Questions?

(This post partially inspired
by Shelly Blake-Poch's on-the-ground report, Twitter Has Arrived,
on his fabulous Teach Paperless blog.)

Lose the Training Wheels

2009-08-16T18:52:00.009-04:00

Ways to assist a young person who wants to learn to ride a bike: Project confidence. Enjoy your own bike rides. Install training wheels. Spend time watching other kids riding. Smile encouragingly. Talk about caution, responsibility, and freedom. Model caution, responsibility, and freedom. Practice patience. Take the training wheels off. Promise to keep your hand on the seat. Run alongside. Yell words of encouragement. Start on a straight road lined with soft grass. Apply bandaids and kisses as needed. Require the donning of long pants. Put the training wheels back on. Tell true-life stories about your own learning. Allow breaks. Test the brakes. Watch for signs of returning confidence. Take the training wheels off again, this time for good.

~ ~ ~

This afternoon a friend told me the story of her daughter, many years ago now, falling in love with a school for the performing arts in another state and ultimately moving away to attend there. She made arrangements to stay with the families of several other students in order to make it work. As a sixteen year-old. Trying to imagine making that decision, I said, "It must have been so hard to say yes to that."

"I didn't say yes," my friend responded, "At least not at first. I tried everything I could to talk her out of it; I even dragged her back and re-enrolled her in the school in our town after I visited her at the school she wanted to attend. But two friends of mine sat me down and said, 'You have to let her go,' and they were right. So I did."

~ ~ ~

I am so fortunate. My learning network is well-stocked with thoughtful, courageous people.

In the past few months I've read several blog posts that resonated with me. Each dealt with the idea of supporting children's development as learners in a slightly different way.

In the first, Vicki Davis (aka coolcatteacher) tells the story of a white water rafting trip which she then relates to her goals for the students she works with:

We have got to come to grips with how to take children from walled gardens to a point where they can safely operate in public places before they graduate from high school.

In the second, author Maya Frost (The New Global Student), responds to articles on college search consultants by making an impassioned case for "breaking the cycle of learned helplessness":

When we rely on expensive services to prep kids for top schools, we are telling them that they can't possibly compete in the real world without our assistance — and our money. Parents who want their kids to be able to get great jobs they love after graduation (without their help) are better off teaching their kids how to flesh out an idea, research the heck out of it, and follow the thread that leads to the most thrilling and fulfilling opportunities.

Parents: If you are considering paying for college help, consider what you are saying to your son or daughter by hiring a consultant to do what most families handle without assistance. Think about how you might spend that money in a way that could give your student more opportunities to develop confidence, relevant skills, a clear sense of direction and flaming enthusiasm.

The biggest problem with learned helplessness is that it's contagious and hereditary. Stop the cycle now, and your kids will have a much brighter future.

Finally, just last week I read a post on parenting by C.C. Chapman over at Digital Dads:

What I’m getting at is that you need to make sure that your kids realize that the only way to succeed in life is to always work hard, to be strong willed and be the best you can be at whatever it is that you are passionate about. Yes, there are going to be plenty of people standing in your way, telling you no and gates set up to block them. But, I hope and pray that everything I’m doing with my kids is raising them to be a gatejumper who chases their dreams with every ounce of their soul.

I am interested in how these ideas play out in the real world. Most parents I know would agree with the idea that parenting is all about supporting their children's growth towards independence, but different parents are going to do very different things when confronted with the imagined reality of assuring some kind of "advantage" for their own son or daughter, or with the soul-gripping terror that can accompany the prospect of actually letting go.

Every choice we make is a reflection of the best information we have at the time, as seen through the values we hold. If I am reflective and transparent in my work with students and my work as a parent, will it help me "maintain course" as I move forward?

I want to be thinking, "Will this choice help move this child (student) towards a life oriented towards life-long learning, ethical and deliberate decision-making, and love?"

Or, more simply:

Will this choice move us all towards the day when the training wheels come off?

(Cross-posted at But Wait, There's More!
Hat tips to @sassafrasmama,
@yggiz, @coolcatteacher,
@mayafrost, @jonathanfields,
@cc_chapman, and Malcolm Gladwell)

More Show and Tell

2009-08-13T07:08:00.001-04:00

This Frontline video (~ 20 minutes) explores the role of technology in two different public schools:

What struck me about the first school ( Intermediate School 339 in the Bronx ) was the vision and determination of the principal, as well as the movement of surveillance from physical behaviors to online actions.

The second school's segment (Chatham HS, NJ) gives more of a feel of the tension that exists between old and new ways of doing and thinking.

My students cited SparkNotes' college search engine as one of the ones they were using this year. Why? Because it's a brand they're familiar with.

(Hattip to Martin Ruiz (aka @MartinRuiz),
who tweeted out a link to this video with
the #hackedu hashtag a few days back.)

Personalize Your Learning

2009-08-10T14:02:00.004-04:00

In college counseling, my quality of life is largely defined by the number of students I work with. The smaller the number, the better. Not because fewer students represents less work, but because fewer students means greater opportunities for truly individualized attention.

I enjoyed watching this 8 minute video at lunch today:

School of One Video from NYCDOE Teacher Development on Vimeo.

What do you think? Can we use differentiated assessment and creative thinking about all the different ways we learn to explode some of our existing assumptions? Or is the concrete just too thick?

We Interrupt This Program

2009-08-08T13:43:00.007-04:00

Real posts will resume at some point, I assure you.

But in the meantime, I'm staring at a deadline for the slidedeck that will accompany our presentation at the National NACAC conference in Baltimore in 2009.

So...

... I am currently very busy familiarizing myself with the wonders of Chartle.net

Lovely, isn't it?

Danger, Will Robinson!

2009-07-01T14:16:00.004-04:00

Image via Duane Romanell on Flickr

Do you remember Robby the robot on the TV show Lost in Space? And how charmingly his arms would flail about as he warned of impending doom?

I've been seeing Robby a lot in my mind's eye in the past few months.

First there was the KnowledgeWorks Foundation 2020 Report. Then HASTAC's Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. And now The Opportunity Equation: Transforming Mathematics and Science Education for Citizenship and the Global Economy.

I'm trying to keep up.

"This 2020 Forecast illuminates how we are shifting toward a culture of creation in which each of us has the opportunity – and the responsibility – to make our collective future. People are creating new selves, organizations, systems, societies, economies, and knowledge." (2020 Forecast)

"The university model of teaching and learning relies on a hierarchy of expertise, disciplinary divides, restricted admission to those considered worthy, and a focused, solitary area of expertise. However, with participatory learning and digital media, these conventional modes of authority break down.

Individuals learn anywhere, anytime, and with greater ease than ever before. Learning today blurs lines of expertise and tears down barriers to admission. While it has never been confined solely to the academy, today's opportunities for independent learning have never been easier nor more diverse." (HASTAC's Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age)

"To lead a revolution in math and science education, teachers themselves need opportunities to experience powerful math and science learning." (The Opportunity Equation)

As I read these reports, I feel a conflicting swirl of emotions. Excitement, and concern that there are nowhere near enough school-based folk who "get it."

This is where Robby comes in. The last event in my life that called to mind his panicky, ineffectual, arm-waving response to perceived danger was the arrival of Judith Rodin as the Ivy League's first female president in 1994 when I worked at UPenn.

The reactions of staff on campus to the announcement of her selection were striking. The overwhelming majority of people I knew were thrilled, especially after they had a chance to hear her speak about her vision for Penn. A small but agitated minority of folks were doing their Robby impressions.

These were the people, I figured out, who were afraid that the new Penn wouldn't be a place where they would feel at home. Most of us were excited. (And the women, especially, were sporting ear-to-ear grins.) But a few folks were verging on arm-waving panic. We were confident that our work would continue to add value to Penn in a demonstrable way. The "Robby" folks? Suddenly worried that they might be irrelevant.

I am so grateful that reports on the future of learning are exciting to me. And I hope you're feeling that way, too!

Appalachian Poems

2009-06-19T11:38:00.003-04:00

Here's what I've been working on in every spare moment for the past week or so. Just sent the link (http://tinyurl.com/RPSpoems09) out to all the parents. Very satisfying.

Hacking Education

2009-06-14T20:50:00.005-04:00

Image via Jake Bouma on Flickr

Time magazine recently ran a piece referencing the Union Square conference re: Hacking Education earlier this year, and the way in which that conversation was enhanced via Twitter.

For those folks trying to catch up, here are some relevant posts:

Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson's initial post, Hacking Education.
Fred's thoughts, post-gathering, are at Hacking Education Continued.
See also Jon Bischke's Manifesto, which he put up just before the meeting.
Two months later, Brad Bradshaw posted a detailed re-cap as well as a link to the transcript. There's a reading list up, too.
Recently, Alex Krupp performed a mitzvah by curating and archiving some of the tweets that were flying around during the conference.
And here's an American HS student talking about why he feels our educational system is failing.

Add links in the comments or tag away in Diigo or delicious with #hackedu... I'd love for more folks who are in schools to be a part of this conversation. (Someone made this point before me, but of course I can't remember who now... Vicki Davis, the @coolcatteacher, maybe?)

(And how are YOU hacking education?)

Outsourcing Judgment

2009-06-02T20:57:00.003-04:00

Image: Anthony Turba via Flickr

I received an email last week that read, in part:

I am writing to you to find out if you have a sense of how the individual leadership programs listed in your link are viewed by the colleges. I am doing this research because I am often asked by parents if these programs are worth the cost and I would like to be able to give them honest assessments. I am certain that they all provide great experiences for students who are well matched to each program, and I recognize the importance of this. However, in these economic times I also want to provide accurate information to parents who are making decisions not only for the sake of providing good leadership experiences for their children, but also for the sake of investing in extracurricular experiences that the colleges believe are valuable.

This is a counselor trying to walk a line, pushing back against the weight of a question that pervades many students' high school experiences here in the US. The elephant-in-the-room question is, "What will the colleges think?"

As a college admissions officer, what I looked for in students' extracurricular commitments was impact and intiative. I liked it when I could see that a student truly felt that what they had done had made a difference, in their life and/or in the lives of others. And I was impressed when I could tell that a student had expended some serious thought and/or energy in pursuit of their goal. Finally, because I was familiar with the process of putting together a class in selective circumstances, I cared – maybe more than I should have – about students having successfully competed for inclusion in a selective program.

But I don't think there's a summer program in the world that could all by itself make enough of a difference in a student's candidacy for university admission for consideration of "the question" to be the driving factor.

As an educator, I want to help promote my students' moving towards the thoughts and behaviors I associate with lifelong learners. When faced the "what will the colleges like" question, I think we need work hard not to teach them that outsourcing judgment is a "go to move" when they're facing a decision about what's best for them.

Okay, I'll 'fess up. I've got a copy of USNews & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" on my desk. I pull it out almost every day. But I use it more as a reminder of facts – how many undergraduates does the University of Rochester have? – than as a source of expertise. To someone like me, up to my eyeballs in instantaneous information about any program or school I'm investigating and busily helping to curate the information as it washes over the transom, the much-discussed rankings seem like a kind of lazy collective shorthand, a one-size-fits-all answer to all those folks who ask, "But is it a good school?"

What makes a strong summer program strong? What makes a good college good? And who do you want answering those questions? Call me a wild-eyed idealist, but I think the individual students' votes should carry the most weight here. Some day in the not-so-distant future, they're going to be making decisions about which city to move to, which candidate to vote for, which company to invest in... and as they live their way towards that future, I want to help them build the skills that will be the foundation of their own judgment. Including discerning when it does and does not make sense to trust someone else's. And as much as students (and parents!) sometimes crave the easy clarity of someone else's thinking, I don't think we're helping them when we let them off this particular hook.

What do you say when you get asked "the question?"

(Thanks to the counselor who asked the question,
to Dan Meyer of dy/dan,
and to Barbara Diamond of the KnowledgeWorks Foundation,
whose post today got me thinking about this in new ways.)

Math Wars

2009-05-21T21:55:00.009-04:00

tracks via duesentrieb on Flickr

A curriculum director in a public school district in the US recently posed this question on the NACAC listserv:

...we are preparing our math curriculum to reenter our program evaluation cycle which is a 3 year research and design process yielding a revised curriculum. As we prepare for this endeavor the "Math Wars" have re-emerged in our communities. Specifically, there is a desire, beginning as early as the 6th grade to place students in tracks or on a path to exit from high school with the minimal course exposure being Calculus 1. The motivation for this track is college admissions. I have a large, and vocal group of middle school parents arguing their students will not be prepared and accepted by competitive colleges and universities if they do not graduate with Calculus 1.

My questions/concerns include:

1. Is Calculus 1 an appropriate course to establish as the norm for a high school senior?
2. From your perspectives what are the advantages and disadvantages to this goal?
3. What role does Calculus 1 play in college admissions and readiness?

I've seen students for whom Calculus was an appropriate choice in the junior year (they went on to take multivariable calculus as seniors), and students for whom Calculus would have been a disastrous senior year choice. My sense is that the parent energy around this issue is born out of anxiety or fear. As parents think about the progress of their students through school, they want to imagine a future without limitations. For many of them the college search and application process will represent a re-shaping or narrowing of options, and so the underlying question of "but will this prevent him from getting into the very best colleges" threatens to drive everything.

Doesn't any good curriculum represent a range of choices? Could we say that Calculus would be the most common senior year choice for students who are strong in (or strongly engaged by) math? Is Calculus in the senior currently the "norm" in the district? (I'll confess the term makes me a little nervous.)

No parent believes that their student is one of the ones for whom Calculus would prove insurmountable, but the folks designing the curriculum have to keep those students in mind.

In my (small, independent, K12) school, I could produce a list of the colleges where students who had not completed Calculus had been offered a space. For that matter, I could produce a list of the colleges where our students with a documented learning difference had been offered a space. It's possible that neither list would do anything to assuage parent anxiety, although I would know that each college name listed represented a happy ending.

In general, colleges look for students to continue to challenge themselves as they move through their curricula, particularly in the five academic "solids" (math, English, history, language, science). But for every college where the level of competition would make gaining admission more challenging for a student who hasn't taken Calculus, there are five more where the achievement of a solid grade in Precalculus senior year would be something an admissions officer could point to as evidence of this student's readiness to "hit the ground running" in college.

Parents want us to tell them, "This curriculum will make it possible for your student to attend the most selective schools in the country." What we should be telling them is, "Every student will have access to the opportunity to take Calculus. More importantly, this curriculum will support your student's desire to challenge him/herself. It will make it possible for students to deepen their passions, shore up their weak spots, and explore new territory. It will support their developing self-awareness, and will enable them to develop the skills and habits necessary for life-long learning."

A girl can always dream.

(How would you approach this challenge?
Kind of wishing I was a curriculum designer.)

Whose Choice Is It, Anyway?

2009-05-16T22:11:00.006-04:00

I read the recent Washington Post piece by AP Latin teacher Jane Miriam Epperson Brinley about the anticipated effects of the College Board's decisions to do away with the Latin Literature exam with a sense of deja vu. We'd been talking about this very thing in my school ever since the initial announcement. The immediate and powerful effects that the cancellation of a nationally standardized test can have are not suprising to anyone who works in an American high school. Secondary schools throughout the United States use the Advanced Placement curriculum for their most challenging courses; the courses are supposed to cover college-level material, and the exams are nationally standardized. As Epperson Brinley says, "Because AP exams set the standard of academic quality for college-bound students, high school curricula are often reverse-engineered to prepare students for AP tests." And as a commenter on the NACAC listserv noted, "In large part, parents don't sign their children up for courses which have no national testing to submit to colleges."

I believe that most teachers who teach at the AP level find the curricula rigorous and engaging, if sometimes confining and less flexible than they would like. My argument today with Advanced Placement is not primarily about the curricula (I'll leave that to folks who are actually teaching a full load of academically rigorous coursework), but about the conversation. By signing on to someone else's definition of "what we should be learning" (which is what a curriculum is, after all), are we in schools bowing out of a conversation about what is worth teaching and learning?

When I was studying the history of US educational reform in graduate school, one of the things I came to believe was that any reform effort that engaged a significant slice of people in the school community – whether it was smaller class sizes, mixed-age class groupings, extended school days, or anything else – anything that got people thinking and talking about their shared enterprise was a good thing.

In a secondary school where the educational enterprise is tied to the students' ability to successfully win places in the colleges and universities of their choice, AP curricula and exams offer an alluring "stamp of approval." Only a handful of secondary schools have opted out of this by-now traditional path.

But if, as teachers, we are also modelers of learning, what does it say about us that we are unwilling or unable to engage in an ongoing conversation about what our students need to learn today, and how that might differ from what we thought they needed to learn last year, or the year before that. If high school continually marches towards the holy grail of "college prep," which in turn is dictated by a set of assumptions and understandings about "what colleges want," where does that leave us?

This is the time of year when high school juniors all over the US are thinking about their senior year course selections. We'll be telling them that they need to challenge themselves, continue to make progress in the courses colleges consider to be "academic solids" (English, science, math, history, foreign language), and of course if they've taken AP-level courses in the past, they'll want to continue to do so. Some of the students already have a sense of what kinds of learning they hope to pursue in college and beyond. Others have no idea. But the definitions of success and the prescription for achieving it aren't nearly as individualized as they could be if we weren't taking our orders from external agents.

If we want students to experience themselves as independent, co-creators of knowledge, I'm feeling like we need to get out in front and start treating both ourselves and them that way. I'm sure that in most cases the AP tests are just the "nets" that help great teachers shape their shots. But I'd love to see what a curriculum that is a collaborative on-the-ground effort – taking into account student, teacher, and community perspectives – looks like. Increasingly, students of all ages and interests have the ability to connect with teachers and curricula that do speak to their interests and passions. Our relevancy in schools depends on our ability to be a part of that connection.

(This post was substantially informed by my reading
of Jeff Thompson's recent post, "It is the test! Or is it...",
which in turn was a response to a post by Dr. Scott McLeod.)

Leave A Trail

2009-04-23T06:23:00.004-04:00

Image: One Way by James Traceur on Flickr

I had the great fortune to hear Will Richardson speak this week. (You can see notes – mine and his – here.) As a parent and educator, he shared with us this desire for his children:

I want my kids to be able to create, navigate, and grow their own personal learning networks in safe, effective, and ethical ways.

In the room with me were 50 or so other members of the New Jersey Association of Independent Schools (NJAIS), some (most?) of whom were probably already familiar with and/or open to Will's ideas. The audience was highly engaged, and one of the themes that threaded through our questions for Will was "How can we get everyone else on board?"

I've been thinking about that question ever since. (Will says that the question of "how do we move forward" is a common one within his communities.... "everyone is looking for the lever.")

Will's friend Clarence Fisher is a classroom teacher who "gets it." A recent post on his blog highlighted the power of global connections, and over the weekend, in a post entitled Where Are We Headed, he asked "How are we building the classrooms and learning these kids [current kindergartners] need?"

The list of K12 schools that "get it" with regards to 21st century skills gets longer every day. Scott McLeod ("Dangerously Irrelevant") is helpfully collecting names of schools that are successfully integrating innovative practices on his movingforward wiki, here; add your school if you think it qualifies! Public School Insights is also sharing a wide variety of success stories here.

But I get the sense that the vast majority of educators who "get it" are still lonely in their buildings, and maybe struggling with impatience. (Did you read Steve Dembo's post, "Is Joining a PLN bad for morale?")

Social media rock star Chris Brogan recently offered some advice about how to get from point A to point B within a business context in his "Get on the Right Side of the Fence" post, and that's the point at which my thinking started to crystallize.

We need complete stories, not just happy endings. We need case studies. We not only need to see that evolved schools exist, we need to know how they got there.

So keep learning out loud, everyone! Do not turn back.

And leave a trail, please.

Bloodhound image via J-Dub on Flickr

Scarcity vs. Abundance

2009-03-17T06:26:00.004-04:00

Images: Virgin Dune & Waterfall, by H. Saber & fireramsey, via Flickr

Chris Anderson, author of "The Long Tail," is thinking and talking about a cultural shift, away from a presumption of scarcity to one of abundance.

(There's an even better, longer version up on Pop!Tech here.)

The implied tension between these worldviews is palpable in schools, where we are feeling both; Bill Farren has a great post up about this over at ed4wb entitled Schools In An Age of Abundance.

Bill says, in part:

The implications are interesting, especially as they pertain to schools. If we look at most schools today, we can see that they are still operating under (and often locked into) a model of scarcity. From the bookshelf space in the library to the information that is doled out by professors with limited office hours, we notice that the information, services, and availability to connect with others comes in quantities that are meager compared to what we experience outside of these institutions.

Bea Fields' recent post - Should Teachers Incorporate Texting and Twitter Into the Classroom? - addresses this tension right at the micro level. No matter how we try to kid ourselves about our ability to multi-task, attention is finite. Yet the information available to us is limitless. How do teachers manage the potentially disruptive presence of "the great out there" in our classrooms? At the University of Chicago Law School, the decision was to limit access to the internet during class. A Georgetown professor tells his students they may not bring their laptops to class, and explains his thinking here. Of course that wouldn't necessarily have any effect on texting and tweeting, both of which can take place with only a cellphone connection. My personal instinct would be to figure out ways to periodically throw open the windows and see what the breeze blows in. But then I don't have to worry about covering a previously established set of curricular content areas.

Outside of education the backchannel is here to stay, and there's lots of good thought going into how to make the best of it, notably Olivia Mitchell's "How to Present When People are Twittering"... Not surprisingly, "just tell them they can't open their laptops" doesn't appear a viable solution when dealing with adults. The latest Chronicle article on the subject also touches on the question of when we start treating students as adults. The comment stream raises additional questions about differences between disciplines and about the point at which teachers/professors can/should assume that students are capable of accurately performing the cost-benefit analysis of dividing their attention.

What do you think? What are the variables that matter?

What Will It Take?

2009-03-16T11:31:00.006-04:00

What will it take to move our schools forward towards the goal of developing graduates who are not only digitally literate, but digitally fluent?

Earlier this month, Scott McLeod made a great case for the importance of curricula that support the development of 21st century skills, a robust system of online learning, access to relevant technology, investing in leadership. These are all "supply side" strategies, things that schools and school systems can think about as they work to get themselves out from behind the eight ball when it comes to the changing landscape of education.

I'm wondering today about the demand side. Also earlier this month, Ewan McIntosh asked the question, "Is education's transformation just down to the teachers?" Ewan recommends focusing on broader listening (which of course goes straight to my Quaker heart), and on considering widening the conversations to include not just changes to curriculum and assessment, but to pedagogy itself.

Until relatively recently, most US schools could comfortably assume a level of parental engagement that stopped at the school door, with the pro-forma exceptions of "Back-to-School Night" and "Parent-Teacher Conferences." Unless, of course, your child is struggling or bored, in which case you might push for more regular contacts and updates. Or, I guess, if you're one of those folks (bless you) who pour time and energy into your school's PTA/O.

I predict that this "arms length" relationship, where it is still the norm, is about to get cozier.

What I'm remembering is the time, not so long ago, when applicants for university admission could absolutely count on no admissions officer ever accessing their MySpace or Facebook profile. Ten years ago, no freshman applicant needed to think about what a stranger would learn about them if they happened to be "Googled." Why? Because the wave of those technologies hadn't crested yet. People working in admissions offices didn't have MySpace or Facebook pages; they were totally off the institutional radar. "Google" hadn't yet become a verb.

Now, the young people who populate admissions offices know all about Facebook, MySpace, etc. because they themselves use those sites. They know to Google someone else's name because they periodically Google their own. And their dean just signed up for LinkedIn, finally.

Eventually, parents and teachers like me, who are following the latest thinking with regards to digital citizenship, 21st century skills, great tools for teachers, and personal learning networks via our RSS feeds won't be such a tiny little minority. We're going to turn those "who can bring in cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day" room parent listservs into, "Who wants to join the school's working group around new communication competency standards for our middle school students?" discussion threads.

This is going to be an "I Want My MTV" moment for me, I think. A series of them, in fact. How about you?

(Thanks so much to thought leaders like
Scott McLeod and Ewan McIntosh.
I used to read their work
and understand what they were saying
about three months later.
We're down to two weeks!)

Sugata Mitra at TED

2009-03-11T06:38:00.001-04:00

Some fascinating tests of self-organized learning
(like most TED videos, this one is about 20 minutes long):

(Who are these people at PlopQuiz?
The blog is so interesting.)

Enjoying Dennis Littky

2009-03-10T10:50:00.005-04:00

I've been enjoying the energy and ideas of Dennis Littky this week:

The video is about 10 minutes long. For more the Big Picture schools, hop on over to http://www.bigpicture.org/

Following Up

2009-02-27T16:30:00.001-05:00

Image: Michael Hartford via Flickr

Vicki Davis' post today on the rise of applications with semantic awareness again raises the question of how our digital trail will be judged by others and who we will be, digitally.

Many of us who actively participate in creating digital content have had a moment in which we were surprised – and then not surprised – to find that someone knew something about us that we didn't expect them to.

We're used to our digital trail being disparate and a bit obfuscated... lots of different sites, passwords, comments, images, etc. etc., each in its own little "slot." When the pieces get connected despite that, it sometimes takes some getting used to.

Teenagers have been accustomed to adults being somewhat "mindblind" to their digital trail, since much of it is generated in spaces (they think) adults don't frequent or understand.

But as tools like Typealyzer become more sophisticated and ubiquitous (and as the age of social media partipants continues to rise), there's a good chance we're all going to be deepening our understanding of just how public our shared information is. And the background checks offered by companies like Intelius may begin offering some very different types of background information.

And if you were the dean of admissions at an art school, and someone offered you a product that, based on the latest digital mining techniques, could give you a detailed analysis of a student's visual style without the student submitting a formal portfolio... well, would you be interested?

What about information that claimed to help you assess how an individual student typically responds to challenge?

Colleges already enable students to create "admissions application activity accounts" as early in their college searches as they wish; will they also be looking to collect less explicitly relevant information at some point? Seems like it's getting easier by the day.

Gary Vee thinks that all this information is going to make it easier for people's true nature – good or bad – to show through. What do YOU think?

(Hat tip to Vicki Davis, aka Cool Cat Teacher,
for getting me thinking about this again.)

What You're Looking For

2009-02-19T07:06:00.002-05:00

Image: by Kiri, via Flickr

This is what you're looking for.

If you're working with young people, or the parent of a young person, you are NOT looking for the ways in which they conform to the expectations or demands placed on them.

You are looking for moments like this. When, amidst the detritus turning to loam, a seed planted who knows how long ago becomes a tiny, fragile flower all its own. Chances are that it will look like no other flower you've ever seen.

And when you see this, it's your job to keep it growing.

Forget test prep. Forget expensive summer programs. Think sunlight. Think early morning rain.

Because the path to who we are each meant to be is unknown until it is traveled. And supporting young people to explore what matters to them, what excites them, what intrigues, and what moves them... is the best investment in their future that any of us could make.

(Hat tip to Scott McLeod,
whose post today
got me thinking about this again.)