engagement

Deep Learning with Fahrenheit 451

I recently completed the EdX course in Deep Learning – highly recommended, by the way! – and the culminating project for those of us taking the course for credit was to post the outline of a lesson or unit crafted using deep learning techniques and principles.

I reworked a unit I used to teach regularly to my 8th graders when we were reading Fahrenheit 451. This is definitely an improvement on the original. Feel free to use or adapt as you’d like.

Course: Literature
Grade range: 8th-10th 
Central text: Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

In this integrated unit pulling content from multiple disciplines to support its central questions, students will engage deeply with core issues arising from Bradbury’s famous dystopian view of America given his front-row seat on McCarthyism in the 1950s. Bradbury envisions a nation so lost in its wall-sized TV screens and in-ear music stations, that few people know or care about the grinding, endless war or the pervasive government censorship that removed from citizens’ view any book that might make them “unhappy” by introducing dissenting viewpoints.

Central questions (students may suggest others and the class will select three)
• What defines a meaningful life?
• Does technology enhance or diminish humans’ enjoyment of life? Are we the masters of technology, or do our devices master us?
• What should we as a society do with ideas we disagree with, condemn, or dislike?
• When facing a crisis decision, what values anchor your choices?

Unit Introduction:
DAY 1: As a class, we will review 7-12 headlines drawn from a wide variety of American fringe “news” outlets, from Breitbart to Mother Jones, on a controversial recent topic. (If I were teaching this unit in the spring of 2017, I’d probably use articles related to President Trump’s “Muslim ban.”) The key here would be to have several articles that presented their content with a strong bias or offensive, incendiary language.

DAY 2: After reviewing the headlines of the articles as a group and inviting students to ask questions about the underlying current event (to make sure everyone had at least a foundational knowledge), I will ask students to pair up. Each pair should select whether they want to argue for these media outlets’ having Constitutional freedom to publish their slanted news, or to censor some or all of the “news articles” we reviewed earlier.

The pairs will write out their position at the top of a large sheet of butcher paper (CENSOR! or FREEDOM!) and then list at least 3 arguments to defend their position at the time. We will hang these lists around the classroom so the students can see the general “mood” of their classmates at the beginning of the novel.

Students would be welcome to cross out their reasons or change position altogether as they read by marking the changes on their posters and signing the date and their initials.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Reading and responding (2 weeks)
During the two weeks the students are reading Fahrenheit 451, we would use a variety of methods to access the novel’s content, including sustained silent reading, audiobook or read aloud, short improv skits to re-enact the content just read, character journals, and reflective journaling.

Students would be expected to finish the novel by 5 large “chunks” using their choice of reading method and responding in their preferred way at least 4 times during the two weeks.

Discussions: Socratic discussion (1 week)
The class will brainstorm central questions once we reach the end of the novel, working from the starter list of my core questions (see above) and adding/subtracting/refining as they saw fit until the group agreed on at least three questions they wanted to explore through Socratic dialogue.

Depending on the size of the group, we will create an inner circle of students who discus and an outer circle of observers. These two groups will switch roles the following day, and the Socratic discussions would continue until all three core questions had been explored. Students will vote at the end of each class period whether they wanted to spend an additional class period discussing that topic.

During the Socratic discussions, the observers should use pen/paper or an app like Padlet to keep track of the topics in the conversation, and the branching ideas. Save 10 minutes at the end of each period for all students to review the discussion graphs and vote on one or two to hang on the wall as a record of the Socratic discussion.

Optional homework assignment or wrap-up activity: “Write in response to today’s discussion, highlighting points of agreement/disagreement to your own views, and identifying questions or problems you’d still like to address.”

Culminating project: Collaborative policy-making, peer feedback, and presentations

After the discussion, students will collaborate in groups of 2-3 to develop a policy statement on one of the three central questions. The specifics here will be up to the group in conjunction with teacher guidance, but groups would be required to elicit feedback from at least two other peer groups during their planning and development stages.
The peer feedback form could include these questions:
1) What is this group’s policy idea?
2) What one thing could they do next to improve (not necessarily change or fix) their policy?

Groups would work independently to research their topics as needed and to communicate with experts in their relevant fields. (The teacher would facilitate these introductions as needed). The goal is to promote deep engagement with the question, including exploratory talk, logical examination of the issues and counter-arguments, and interaction with external experts (whether in person or through reading position papers, watching interviews, doing a Skype interview, etc).

Finally, groups will present their policies to the class, with as many “experts” on hand as can attend.

Wrap-up:
Student pairs will revisit their original censorship/freedom posters to discuss whether their views have changed. As a class, the teacher will facilitate a discussion where students generate questions they’d like to explore on their own sometime, and what key ideas they will take away from the unit as a learning experience.

What can writers learn from hockey players?

A great article about what writing teachers can learn from street hockey games: that over-engineering lessons takes not only the fun out of students’ learning, it robs students of the freedom and responsibility to own their own learning:

I’m starting to think that my assignments are over-engineered.

Source: The Benefits of Disorganized Learning | Just Visiting by John Warner

Meaningful Work, in the classroom and beyond

Meaningful work is an idea valuable to the classroom as well as to business. It’s getting more attention in the business world as Millennials enter the work force demanding jobs they want to do even at entry level, and as more mature workers realize the paycheck isn’t the bottom line value if the work itself is dull and uninspiring.

In the classroom, teachers are often working under tightly prescribed guidelines for outcomes and goals. Finding a way to make the classroom tasks meaningful in some situations can be a challenge.

For years I taught Latin to middle and high schoolers who were less than thrilled about the course. (Often it was required.) I could stand on my head or do a song-n-dance everyday to make it “fun,” but really, the hard work of learning a language (especially one with as many technical details to master as Latin) requires —you guessed it— hard work.

This good post at Buffer offers a few ways that individuals can take charge of whether their own work is meaningful. Teachers can adapt these strategies for the classroom and also call learners to mindfulness about their work. We can teach kids how to find meaning in the mundane — because even the best, most meaningful careers include quite a bit of the mundane.

Meaningful work for everyone: the 3 conditions that lead to your best work (Buffer)

Making room for introverts

The six biggest mistakes of managing an introvert – Quartz.

^ Good read.

There’s been a lot of good popular writing lately (online magazines, usually) about how to work with introverts without misjudging them for the very qualities that make an introvert an outstanding employee: thoughtful, reflective work.  It’s not hard to accommodate the particular needs of introverted folks:  give them a chance to think before demanding an answer, provide peace and quiet, retool the way you form teams for collaboration.

The individual learners who make up our classroom communities can benefit from similar accommodations:

  • Create physical space in your classroom for those who need to be a little further from the action, and places where those who need peace and quiet to work can find that.
  • Insert time and space between questions and answers — for example, ask a (chewy) question but make everyone jot down answers on a paper or in a journal for a few minutes before allowing the class to respond. This gives people time to process, and introverts often prefer written communication to off-the-cuff answers.  Allow students to read what they’ve written if they prefer.
  • Consider pairing introverts together for group projects. You’ll encourage them to step forward as a pair or team to do presentations or other “public” work instead of being overshadowed by the extrovert in their group.
  • Allow your coursework to ebb and flow between quiet personal work and busier, louder, more active engagement.  It doesn’t have to be a learning zoo all the time.  Model introspection and taking time to think before speaking.
  • Encourage groups to talk as much as they need for making decisions or analyzing the problem at hand, but encourage them to move into developing ideas (individually, perhaps, and then returning for a group discussion) and individual implementation to allow introverts a break from personal interaction.

There’s an equal danger, of course: that school, with its rows of desks all in a line and emphasis on order and rigor, can squash extroverts just as much as it wears out the introverts with public speaking and constant collaboration.  For the extroverts, being forced to sit down, shut up, keep quiet, stay on task, stop bringing up new ideas — all of that reinforces the idea that only the boring, orderly kids are going to do well at school.

So – as always – lesson design must accommodate both.

Article: This Is What a Student-Designed School Looks Like | MindShift

This Is What a Student-Designed School Looks Like | MindShift.

^Amazing example of how student-directed, independent learning can offers students rich opportunities for deep, engaged learning. This high school has found a way to open up this kind of experience for students who want it, without restricting it to “high achievers.”

Recommended read.

via This Is What a Student-Designed School Looks Like | MindShift.

How Dissecting a Pencil Can Ignite Curiosity and Wonderment | MindShift

Cool read! Applying design thinking principles, the maker ethos, and curiosity to very mundane activities, across the K-12 curriculum. Real teachers, real examples, and really encouraging!

How Dissecting a Pencil Can Ignite Curiosity and Wonderment | MindShift.

via How Dissecting a Pencil Can Ignite Curiosity and Wonderment | MindShift.

Teachers Shadowing Students: Doing What Students Do

Teachers Shadowing Students: Doing What Students Do.
via Te@achThought

^^ Yes, this.

Wish I’d thought of doing this myself when I was a young and inexperienced teacher. It would have re-formed my teaching practice and propelled me toward more student-centered learning, more movement, more engagement, less lecture, less of me talking.

In the classroom, we regularly ask students to behave in ways that adults would never put up with.  We demand high levels of engagement that  none of us are ever really willing to offer in meetings or PD sessions.  We expect students to be “always on” though we ourselves would refuse to work under those demands.

Viewing our students as image bearers with all of the responsibilities and privileges that brings ought to shift our view of how students sit in classrooms, how they engage in learning.

Read her post. It’s well worth your time.

Should the children be in charge?

Wired Magazine is usually one of my favorite sources for tech news and innovation. But a recent article about “alternative education” left me very disappointed. 
Let me elaborate.
First, the article — it’s not long, and you really need to read it before we can talk about it:
Go ahead. I’ll wait. 
*gets another cup of coffee*
****
I’m all for education reform and innovation.  I don’t know how our current system got in this mess, but the double-punch of over-reliance on standardized test data as indicative of success + the new push to bludgeon teachers and students in the name of the Common Core will decimate student interest and success unless we stop the train and get the kids off.
I also think our system needs a variety of schools in place. Kids aren’t a “one size fits all” proposition, you know?  Perhaps most could thrive in good public schools (especially if teachers were free of all the bureaucratic crap so they’d have more time to teach), but I like the experimentation of the alternative schools (like Montessori) who offer everyone a chance to see other options in action.  Sure, private education has its own litany of problems – these schools can be insular, provincial, unregulated, and open only to the affluent.  But we need alternative schools.
The Wired article could have taken time to really explain the foundational assumptions that undergird test-driven education and the wide variety of alternative education models. Instead, the author serves up a lukewarm collection of faulty connections and assumptions.  Really, folks, I was so disappointed. 
Paloma, the brilliant Mexican student in Sergia Correra’s classroom, is an outlier.  Her story is what the author uses as his primary narrative proof of the way child-centered classrooms offer the only true path to unlocking kids’ full potential.  
Problem is, no educational initiative should be built on kids on the extremes — unless you’re talking about remediating students who have fallen behind or dealing with the unique needs of the gifted / talented subset. 
The author gives us a bait-and-switch:  As he writes about Correra’s tentative steps into letting students “teach themselves” (one legitimate technique in constructivist education), he focuses on Paloma’s role in helping the students figure out new concepts.   The implication is that child-centered learning, will lead to unlocking the Palomas in every classroom. 
But that’s not every teacher’s experience.  By statistical definition, above-average and gifted students should be rare.   You’ll probably always have students who can innovate and direct their peers toward further learning — and good teachers should facilitate that form of collaborative learning.  But that doesn’t make child-centered learning the hero of the story.
*****
I guess the red flags hit my consciousness in the center of the article, where the author told Sagata Mitras’s computer-in-a-wall experiment in an Indian village school.  He gave students a computer with molecular biology materials and let them figure it out on their own.  They slowly mastered the material (with “mastery” defined by their performance on a multiple-choice test).  This has launched him into creating a new kind of school. 
There will be no teachers, curriculum, or separation into age groups—just six or so computers and a woman to look after the kids’ safety. His defining principle: “The children are completely in charge.”
Mitra argues that the information revolution has enabled a style of learning that wasn’t possible before. The exterior of his schools will be mostly glass, so outsiders can peer in. Inside, students will gather in groups around computers and research topics that interest them. He has also recruited a group of retired British teachers who will appear occasionally on large wall screens via Skype, encouraging students to investigate their ideas—a process Mitra believes best fosters learning. He calls them the Granny Cloud. “They’ll be life-size, on two walls” Mitra says. “And the children can always turn them off.”
See that warning flag in my mind?  *whoosh*  I’ve got a whole forest of them hitting my vision. 
See, I spent a decade in middle and high school classrooms doing some pretty innovative things. I know what it means to get out of the way and let students start constructing meaning from the raw materials of a discipline. 
I also understand the weakness of our human nature — our passion dries up once we hit adversity; we lose motivation when an obstacle blocks our path. 
If we put the children completely in charge, haven’t we abdicated our role as teachers? 
*****
I’m not taking aim here at legitimate strategies of learning grounded in sound research and educational theory.   But the Wired author would have you think that Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, and many other alternative educators of the 20th century would agree with Mitra’s idea or recognize it as sound educational practice.  I don’t think they would.  
Even Finland, the poster child of education reformers (and bane of public school policy makers who are tired of hearing about how awesome Finland’s educational system is) doesn’t structure its schools so that kids simply wander around self-paced.
It’s true that our current educational system was rooted in the Industrial Revolution, so it’s set up to churn out obedient workers who can learn a limited range of skills.  That’s something the Wired author drives home, and I appreciate the reminder of why we need a change so desperately.  Reams of standardized tests cannot teach kids to be innovators.
*****
Some bottom line thoughts: 

If biblical principles underlie the way we view the teacher, the learner, and the environment of education, then we must recognize the elements of our world and our nature that affect the educational process:
— Teachers and students, as image bearers, bring into the classroom an incredible capacity for creativity and exploration
— But we are also broken by sin and live under the effects of the Fall. Our minds are darkened, our natures are warped, and even this whole world “groans” under the weight of human sin.  So we aren’t on a level playing field, even when Grace is at work to save us and this world from evil. 
— The Gospel changes us, and it affects the very structure of how a classroom works. [This is a big idea, and if you want a rich explanation, read Donovan Graham’s book Teaching Redemptively.]
— Teaching is a subset of discipleship. As such, the teacher is not a “master” or a taskmaster or someone who collects knowledge as a thing to pour into the heads of waiting students. But the teacher is someone special in this equation of education, not a hindrance to “real learning.”
— Left to ourselves, few of us will make good choices.  Sometimes, sure.  But the more immature we are, the more we need guidance and boundaries.  Kids don’t parent themselves, and they shouldn’t be expected to teach themselves either. 
We need innovation in education. Desperately. But it needs to be a wise innovation.  And I think Wired missed the mark on this one by writing an article that’s more sensational than helpful. 

Link: We Must Do More Than Just Engage Our Students

Approaching the task of teaching from the perspective of Grace means I have to be ok with giving up some of the control that makes an authoritarian classroom feel comfortable for the adult in charge.

One of the best bloggers out there on this subject is Pernelle Ripp

Well said:
We Must Do More Than Just Engage Our Students

Giving students a voice is not the hard part in education; listening to it is. You have to realize that when students tell you that something is boring, boring may mean that they just don’t understand, boring may mean that they are having a bad day, and yes, boring may mean that it is putting them to sleep. To facilitate a community where students actually have the guts, because it is indeed about guts here, to tell you how they feel about what you are doing — that is the sign of ultimate success in my classroom.  Not the grades, not the test scores, but the kid who raises their hand, looks me in the eye and says, “Excuse me, but could we change this, please?”