Mid-Life Teaching

Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. - Dante Alighieri

First lines of the Divine Comedy.


Recently I realized that this blog might frustrate a new teacher. She might be looking for what to do tomorrow, how to manage a rowdy class or how to deal with the countless little details of teaching. After eleven years in the teaching business, I find that I have gotten more philosophical about how what I am doing is affecting those I am doing it to.

I have lost the straight path. The answers don't really come easily anymore. I find I like to do things like write blog posts instead of grading lab reports.

However, as a teacher and a hiker, that where the trail ends, the adventure begins. And teaching, thankfully, still feels adventurous.

Tech tools: Twitter in the classroom

Me: "I'll send you an email."
Student: "uh...I don't check my email."
Me: "Ever?"
Student: "Ever. I just delete everything."

Email is sooooooo 2006. At least you would think so if you asked many of my students. Teachers use email and it represents the pinnacle of high tech for many of us. However, an increasing number of students (it was 2 in a group of about 15 in a recent poll of mine) don't really use it. Certainly not for their personal peer-to-peer communication.

Sometimes teaching is about getting others to change. Sometimes it is about changing yourself and the way you do things. I decided to try something different. I am trying to get the students in the club I advise to set up Twitter accounts. This way I can get messages to all of them at once and the messages can "push through" the digital haze into their phones. I will still do email. As a matter of fact the Twitter updates will be sent as emails to the students as well.

If you feel so inclined, answer this question in the comments:

How could you have students use cell phones for your class to learn better, more authentically or more collaboratively?

I actually put my Twitter feed up on this blog (look right.)

It's all just a big experiment....

Tools and Techniques: Google Spreadsheets

I am not a fan of high tech. I am not a fan of low tech. I am a fan of appropriate tech. However, appropriate technology has become more and more difficult to peg. I find myself osscilateing between all and nothing much the way a chronic dieter swings back and forth between celery and cupcakes.

That being said, I have discovered a great Web 2.0 application: Google Spreadsheets. Actually, I have known about it for some time but it took a while for me to use it in my classroom. I had to play with it first and get comfortable myself before trying it on my kids. As a science teacher, I feel very strongly about data. The message I try to pass on to my students is this: more is better.

Google Spreadsheets is one of Google Docs suite of tools that makes pooling the data of a group of students really easy. Primarily because I (the teacher) don't have to do it. They take responsibility for it and get to learn a very simple, very useful tool for online collaboration.

From now on, I think I am going to use it for students to upload their data after every lab. That way they can compare their results to that of the students in all of my classes. It changes the whole idea of an outlier. Instead of one of a group's data points being "off," those students now have a broader perspective as to what is actually in the acceptable range of data.

Caveat: Google spreadsheets can sometimes be a bit buggy. Initially, it kept hanging up. I found that if you refresh the page it eventually works and autosaves to the spreadsheet. In the end, all of my students posted their data without many problems.

Feedback and Critique

This post was inspired by two things. I have to grade papers this weekend. Also, I recently bought a copy of Real Simple magazine and read an article on How To Handle Criticism.

Grading papers is both the most time consuming and the least satisfying part of my job. Maybe I am naive but the inventor in me thinks there has to be a better way. I think that about most things, there is always a better, more effective, more efficient and/or more beautiful way to do most common jobs.

I would like to create a protocol or technique for turning grading into a much more collaborative and social enterprise. More Facebook, less rubric. I am not sure how to do this but it would accomplish several different goals.

First, it would be a better educational experience for the student. The giving and receiving of feedback are essential skills and the recognition of quality (in work, in products, in communication, in design, in argument etc.) is very important to internalize. Grading/critique by self and peers (in consultation with me, the teacher) would really facilitate this.

Second, this would make the process of grading more "authentic." Let's face it, most assignments (at least from the perspective of the student) are totally contrived. Try as we may as teachers, I think this will be the way of things in many academic subjects for a while. However, if you know you will have to face up to your own work and hear about it from your peers, that authenticates at least the assessment part of the assignment. I am a middle school teacher and it seems like the social world is all-important to most of my students.

Third, selfishly but not unimportantly, it would reduce a teacher's grading load. How would this benefit the students? Why should they care about this? They may not. However, it would make me (speaking for myself) a happier person, and allow me to devote more time to lesson planning, thinking about teaching, blogging, etc. These are all the creative and intellectual endeavors that drew me to education in the first place. There is nothing that makes a teacher better, in my opinion, than to be a learner. There is a lot of integrity in it and it allows us to empathize with the students.

Brain Rules

In my last post I mentioned a few books that I have been reading. Of these, probably the the one that has had the biggest impact on how I think about teaching has been Brain Rules by John Medina. I think about it as the owner's manual that we were never given on how to operate our own brains.

Medina is not alone in his focus on brain-centered learning practices. Robert Marzano and his colleagues had begun working on research-based practices in the late 80's. However, he breaks down the function of the brain with regard to learning into 12 discreet rules, each of which has huge implications for teachers and learners.

His book states the 12 rules and then goes into detail about each (that's why I am not going to do that here.) Even if you don't want to buy the book, there is a companion website that does a great job of supporting the book with videos and images. The book comes with a DVD that has even more content than that on the site.

Dr. Medina is also interviewed on one of my favorite podcasts, FitnessRocks, by Dr. Monte Ladner and they touch on the effect of exercise on learning.

Here are my personal take home points:

• In the Attention chapter, where I think teachers will get the most bang for their reading buck, he discusses the importance of putting emotional important into his lessons, he does this with stories. However, he breaks up his lectures into 10 minutes segments, beginning each with an emotional hook. His own personal experience as a professor has shown this to be a good interval to work with.
• In the Exercise chapter, he stated that research indicates that exercise actually helps both grow new neurons and new connnections between existing ones. This is a function of the substance BDNF (brain derived neurotropic factor). This is a throwback to our evolutionary past. We evolved as highly mobile, active problem solvers on the savannah of East Africa. The average early human traveled 20 km per day. Our brains thrive under similar stimulation today.

• Medina ends each chapter with a list of "ideas" for real world exploration of the topics in each chapter. I found this feature both interesting and frustrating. While I agree with his desire for more research in these areas, I am a teacher and teachers are very practical people. In a future edition, assuming there has been more research in these areas, perhaps he will include more concrete suggestions.

He mentioned the need for classroom teachers to collaborate with brain researchers to break through to the next level of understanding on these topics.

Is this something you would be interested in?

My summer reading

I like to do some professional development reading over the summer. So far this summer, I have read 2 great books and am working on several more.

I have read

Brain Rules by John Medina and The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. I am also working on Death By Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, What are you Optimistic About by John Brockman and Getting Past No by William Ury.

A long walk

I just walked 17.4 miles. I went from Becket, MA to Lenox. I had always wanted to do a really long walk. This qualified, but I would even like to do longer. Apparently paleolithic people averaged 20 km (12.4 miles) per day. As I walked I thought about this blog and a changing of the gears. I think that it needs to be more of a reflection than a prescription. Let's face it, I am writing this to benefit myself and, hopefully, my teaching practice. If others can gain from it, all the better.

I filmed my walk on my Flip Video camera. I got one from my school earlier in the spring and I am trying to figure out how to use it and ultimately use it in class.

I have a lot to talk about given all the reflection time I have had this summer. Stay tuned...

The World Science Summit '08

Right now I am reporting from the World Science Summit in the Low Library of Columbia University. This morning they have already awarded 3 brand new $1 million prizes called the Kavli prize. They have been given to top researchers for their discoveries in nanoscience, astrophysics and neuroscience.

Brian Greene and Michael Bloomberg have also given some great introductory remarks. And, finally, the panel that just spoke on "The Big, The Small and The Complex" has just spoken and included 3 Nobel Laureates along with NYU neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux.

What does this have to do with the craft of teaching? It is like being surrounded by movie stars for me. This is truly an infusion of excitement into my teaching life at a time in the year that otherwise would be occupied with thoughts of grading the students' last lab report of the year, cleaning up the room, equipment orders, evaluation and other year-end tasks.

Never underestimate the value of breaking out of your teaching routine to rub elbows with your field's glitterati.

The Value of Experience

"We live in a world that is information-rich but experience-poor."

This was a quotation from a friend of mine and I think it is right on. Check out the podcast I created in collaboration with my school which expands on the idea of experience as cornerstone of good teaching and learning.

Writing: how should it be graded?

"What we need to figure out is how to get the kids to write more, but grade less."

This was one of the opening lines an English teacher said to a group of us teachers gathered in the faculty room this morning. This might be the Holy Grail of not just English teachers but all teachers. I know as a science teacher I have thought the same thing with regard to lab reports.

Writing is not only a tool for communication but it is a tool for thinking and understanding.

There are a lot of questions that this brings up:

• What does the student gain from teachers commenting on their writing?
• Are there certain types of students who get more out of the comments than others?
• What is the place of peer editing?
• What are the other issues we should be looking at?
• How can we optimize our grading time and effort?
  

Teaching is a craft.

Before I was a teacher, I was an Outward Bound instructor. I led trips of various lengths: anywhere from a day to 3 weeks. I also worked with a wide variety of people: investment bankers and juvenile offenders, children of the affluent from all over America to children of the indigent in the South Bronx.

I had a chance to learn from the students on these courses, but I learned even more from the course directors and veteran instructors who trained me. One such person was David McGough. He was not only brilliant but, more importantly, he was wise. He was the first person to discuss teaching as a craft.

He chose to think of it as such because it was both an art and a science. There was a "right" way to structure a lesson in order for students to maximally retain the information. At least there were best practices that could be followed. A good teacher has to know, developmentally, where their students are at. That is science.

However, at least half of teaching is an art. It takes a tremendous amount of heart and soul. The stickiest parts of the process--beginnings, endings, misconceptions, disagreements and disconnections--require an artful touch. This is often where those with a strong socio-emotional intelligence excel.

I have to admit, part of me likes reinventing the wheel every year. It is too much work and an inefficient way to use one's time. I know. My wife certainly knows. She sees the same frustrating show every year. However, this process keeps it fresh for me. I suppose that is the art side of teaching in action, re-creation.

And, as much as I don't like to admit it, when it comes to designing my classes, re-creation is sometimes recreational.