Markey's Musings

What I learned today...again, the power of the student voice.

2012-02-21T19:18:00.000-08:00

Today, I was reminded again how we must allow students a voice in our schools. The best teachers understand this and regularly do this in their own classrooms, but we so often forget it when making decisions that impact the path of a student’s education.

Recently in my role as assistant principal, I have taken to talking to students much more frequently regarding their experience in our school. I have always talked to students, but often in more of an informal setting. It is entirely different to be purposeful about talking to students and allowing them to speak to decisions that have not yet been made. These conversations, when presented to students in purposeful and authentic ways are powerful indicators to students that this is a school that truly has your best interest in mind.

So I urge you, the next time you are in a room with all adults making a decision that will impact the students in your school, take the time to consult them in an authentic manner; often you will be provided with a perspective that you may not have considered.

A few recent examples of how I have attempted to embed this in my leadership practice:

Students invited to lunches with visiting educators to provide insight into our practices.
Students participating in Google + Hangouts with representatives from Google to provide them feedback on their experience with Google Apps on Chromebooks.
Students called on to provide direction for upcoming student assembly regarding our 1:1 initiative.
Students providing input on our current and future policy on whether Facebook should be open in our district.

A special thanks to Natalia, Pablo, Sylwia, Amina, Dana, Morgan, Joey, Edgar, and Anthony for providing me this perspective for our school in the past few days.

Is Google the best choice for the 21st Century School?

2011-09-11T20:19:00.000-07:00

Can your school’s educational philosophy and direction be determined by one question? The question: Is your school a Microsoft/Mac school or a Google School? The question itself, needs some explaining. First, why have I placed Microsoft and Mac on one side of the question as if they are the same choice and Google is the alternative. Well, I did that because I think that is true. As my district is in the midst of researching, discussing, surveying, and reaching out to find out as much as we can about becoming a 1:1 school; I am constantly wrestling with the question of which device/platform is the best choice. As I started this process, I wanted to be less concerned about the device and more concerned about the shift in philosophy that being a true 1:1 school can lead to. What I am now beginning to see is that the selection of the device to a great degree will create your philosophy as a school for you, perhaps without you even realizing it.

So, let’s come back to why I think Microsoft and Mac will have a very similar impact on your school. Microsoft has long been and will most likely continue to be the leading developer and provider of operating systems and applications for the business world. The complexity and depth of their products provide the business world with the power and options to fulfill the needs of that world. On the other hand, the Mac model is to provide a much simpler and cleaner user interface geared more towards creative users and home users that really want and all-inclusive machine that seamlessly integrates their personal computing needs. With either of these choices, schools, often uknowingly, can box themselves into a fairly rigid curriculum. Here are a few of the examples that I have heard regarding why a school has made or should make the choice of Microsoft or Mac:

“Over 90% of the business world uses Microsft, we have to prepare our students for the industry standard.”
“Students can make beautiful presentations with a Mac that combine high quality video and sound.”

These seem like more of a 19th or 20th century view of education, and it could actually hamper a school trying to move toward becoming a “21st Century” school. The largest complaint about the traditional school model is that it is based too much in the shadows and needs of the Industrial Revolution and is not open to the unknown needs of tomorrow. My argument, along with more and more people, is just providing a device and the technology in no way creates a truly different philosophy at your school. It seems to me, that the choice of Mac or Microsoft, So this brings us to why I think Google is the alternative, in general using Google Apps as the foundation for curriculum delivery, but even further exploring the use of the Google Chromebook as the device.

Why Google? To answer this question, let’s first look at the 21st Century Fluencies as defined by Ian Jukes.

When we examine these fluencies, I strongly believe that the instructional means by which these fluencies are integrated into curriculum should be a web based model. If schools continue to make the choice based on Microsoft or Mac and purchasing site licenses for expensive software licenses it will have two negative effects. First, the cost will continue to eliminate 1:1 computing as a viable option for many schools. Second, schools will always be driven by the offerings of the selected vendor and will not be able to adapt to current trends as they happen. Could a school work on information fluency on a Mac and creativity fluency on Microsoft? Of course. Is having a Mac or Windows machine better than nothing? Probably.

But imagine the possibilities, when the initial investment of purchasing a Mac Pro could be more than cut in half but instead purchasing a Google Chromebook. Additionally, think of all of the logistical and technical focus that is needed to handle thousands of traditional devices that all need to be imaged with specific software and the constant concern over battery life. Again, additional resources and time freed up to focus on developing best practices in instruction and integrating the technology. The Google Chromebook is not only designed to seamlessly access Google Apps, but in addition run most applications which are accessible via the web. This along with Google’s focus on a collaborative model, opening the doors to student-to-student collaboration as well as enhanced student-to-teacher feedback and collaboration, makes this model the standout for instruction, logistical concerns, and financial concerns.

So what is the downside to deploying a device that primarily accesses the web? There may not be a uniform content management system. Teachers and students might need to be flexible problem solvers and seek out new ways of doing things in the ever changing world of technology. This sounds a lot like the idea of solution fluency that Ian Jukes has been talking about. The idea that as much as we do not need to spoon feed our students all the information because of it’s accessibility, perhaps the same is true about the tools.

The unthought known of grading?

2011-09-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: this post is meant as the start of a discussion and in no way as a formal suggestion for policy.

Last year when I was sitting in my doctoral program I interview, I was asked the following question, " why did you receive a B+ on your internship?". First of all, my internship was completed three years prior to this question. Secondly, I honestly didn't even remember looking at my grade for this. I responded simply by saying I had a great experience and explained my contributions to the program I interned for. The member of the Doctoral committee who posed this question seemed somewhat disappointed that my answer didn't address the grade received, I didn't much mind. Now I wish I had the ability to answer this question again. If I did, I would have addressed this question slightly differently, perhaps by saying - are you interested in the grading system and where perhaps I didn't complete some non-consequential part of my internship portfolio that had zero impact on what I learned or are you using an unexplained letter grade as a question mark of my worthiness as a thinker and contributor to your program.

But today, for some reason I was thinking about how this situation makes me wonder, what are we doing with our students regarding grading. Are we more concerned with why they received a B+ or C+ or what they learned? I know this question has been asked over and over again, but I wanted to share my take. I have two questions I ask myself about our current system of grading. #1 - Unless you as a teacher are supremely confident in your ability to differentiate the ability of students and quantify it down to the tenth of a percentage point, you probably should not be using the traditional grading scale. #2 - What are we trying to do by having 13 different grades that we can assign students? At some point in all of these calculations and weighting of various assignments to "fairly" assess learning, don't both the student and the teacher lose sight of what is important.

This brings me back to my doctoral interview, was the question about my grade addressing some potential short coming in what I have learned or simply trying to assess my ability to accumulate a minimum of 90% of the total points required.

There is not an easy solution for this issue, especially when we consider how entrenched this system of grading is; but just because there is not a quick and easy fix, it doesn't mean that it should continue to go unquestioned.

Then again, let's keep it positive

2011-08-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

So one thing I have learned as I enter my last month of marathon training, I have a lot of peaceful time to reflect and let my mind wander. Typically on my “short” runs, between 4 - 8 miles, I stay in what typically is my character, thinking about all the many things in my life that I wouldn’t trade for anything. When it comes to the long runs, 18 miles this past Saturday, and the road starts to wear on my feet and knees, occasionally my mind will shift to those macro issues in our society that it is difficult for anyone to grasp let alone solve. On this past run, for nearly the entire 3 hours, I was considering the state of education policy and mandates in our country. It was during this run I came up with what was supposed to be the title this blog post, “Why charter schools are like communism and failing schools should be called failed schools.” This was going to be a bit of a diatribe against all the forces that are seemingly mounting an attack on public comprehensive high schools. If you really want my thoughts on that subject let me know and I will share. However, today I have defaulted to what is more my personality, embracing what is good and pure in our lives and trying to enjoy every moment of it. On that note let me introduce you to three wonderful videos that do just that.

If you are on Twitter and like awesome stuff, I highly recommend you follow Maria Popova - @brainpicker. She constantly is finding the most interesting videos, photographs, and stories out there about people truly living their lives following a passion. Recently she posted three videos from Vimeo, one of my favorite sites, that really capture what I think we try to do in schools with our own students. Each video is only a minute long and follows a different theme.

The first is titled “Move”.

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

The next is titled "Learn."

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

The final short film is titled "Eat."

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

I can't help think something every time I watch these films, which is probably well over 25 times in the past 3 weeks. With one word of text and zero narration, I am completely transfixed on the screen and while watching I contemplate endlessly what the the journey of these filmmakers must have been like and what would have motivated them to put this much effort into a total of 3 minutes of film. The answer I keep coming back to is they wanted to do it. Now to be honest, in the credits of the video it says the three filmmakers were commissioned, but I'm guessing they would have still made their commission without the effort and passion to took to produce these videos. I truly believe there was an intrinsic motivation here, that I think is much more common in all of us, most of all our students, than most realize. When you wipe away the pay, the grades, the applause, the gratitude from others, most people simply do something as well as they do because they want to do it. Of course I believe the converse to be true as well, if someone does not want to do something, they will put in the bare minimum to quote "Office Space". Please refer to this scene for a perfect example of this.

So I guess in the end to summarize, please give your students challenges and opportunities and not just assignments and requirements. Worry less about AYP and more about seeing growth and excitement for learning.

Keep teaching!

Half Full - Time to inject some optimism

2011-08-08T20:41:00.001-07:00

When I woke up this morning, one of the first things I thought about was how was the stock market going to respond to our nation’s complete mishandling of our politically fueled debt “crisis”. So I turned to my Twitter feed to get some inspiration for the day, unfortunately I was faced with a stream of commentary on said debt “crisis” and impending federal forgiveness for the insanity that is NCLB. Finally, I turned my attention to the place where we as educators should always turn to, our students. Today, students were back in the building to begin picking up their textbooks. School doesn’t start for another week but we opened the doors at 8:00 am this morning for teenagers to pick up their textbooks and guess what – there was a line at the door!

Sure, I wish we were handing out ipads or laptops, but we just have plain old heavy textbooks, and these kids could not wait to get them in their hands. Okay, so maybe it is not the textbook per say they couldn’t wait for, but it is most certainly school. Yes, the same public, comprehensive, failing by NCLB standards high school that many in this country want to point the finger at, these kids were at the door like we had tickets to the next Rhiana concert. They can’t wait to get back to their teachers who they know will be waiting at their classroom doors the first day with a smile on their face ready to challenge, push, and support them for the next 9 months.

The bottom line is I think we are in education at the most amazing time in our history, I know it might not seem like it with the federal and state mandates that we are constantly facing. But with all of these pressures and debates comes an opportunity for local school districts to have a common goal and purpose, for teachers and administrators to come together in the name of serving their students the way they know best. Concurrently to this potential synergy of human resources is the exponential explosion of technology resources that provide our students and teachers with opportunities that have never before existed. It is for these simple reasons that I could not be happier to be serving our students in our community and helping to provide them with the best education that we possibly can. Believe me, as soon as I believe we are a failing school I will be the first one calling for change, but looking at those students waiting in line today, I know not one of our teachers or administrators will fail those kids when school starts next week.

Leadership Day Blog 2011 “Let technology open the door”

2011-08-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

To paraphrase Mr. Townshend, (search on Spotify young ones), I think the most powerful aspect of technology initiatives in our schools, especially 1:1, can be that it has the power to shift paradigms in a way that could manifest the change education has long needed. Specifically, I am referring, as so many others have espoused, to the need to teach LESS! How many conferences, books, podcasts, articles, tweets, and so on have said the same thing? There is too much in our standards to possibly cover. So what do we do? We try and cover all of it. Educators, whether it be the writers of national standards or a group of world history teachers in one school have trouble cutting out content they all think is critical.

This is where I believe technology can allow us to break from this age-old addiction to content. It seems this idea of 21st Century skills or fluencies is catching on at some what of a break neck speed as far as change in education goes. My only hope is that enough people in our business are convinced of the need to focus on developing these skills, (which are primarily the same critical thinking skills we have always known to be important), so that it allows the shaving of standards down to what can hopefully become a manageable size. If this can happen, I have no doubt that the real skills in literacy development, mathematical reasoning, collaboration, and creation can improve exponentially as our students have the ability to have a focus and pursue real understanding as opposed to simply a cursory overview.

Using Twitter to create a PLN. on Tildee

2011-07-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

Using Twitter to create a PLN. on Tildee

Standards-Based Grading - Cohort Presentation

2011-06-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

The above video is a narrated presentation for my Research Based Decision Making class. It is meant as a simulation of a board presentation.