Tipping Point for Adopting New Practices in Schools

Recently on the LinkedIn group page for the American Educational Research Association a question came up that caught my attention.

What is the “tipping point” for adopting new practices in schools?

The author of the question shared “The One-Third Hypothesis posits that when a third of a group adopts an innovation, the rest of the group would follow.” My wondering was about other people’s experiences with this. What percentage of teachers needs to change their practice before the rest of the teachers in the same school adopt the new practice? How does participating in a teacher learning community help build the incentive or desire to change? Where do the early adopters fit in and what effect do they have on these changes in practice?

What have YOUR experiences been with teachers changing practice? What could you identify as tipping points? Please chime in here and share your experience!

Testing in the Movies and on Television

This blog is primarily for content curation. Sharing what I find with others is important to me. That said, every once in a while something strikes me and I have a need to do more than curate. In light of the climate today regarding testing, teacher evaluation, Common Core Standards and other emotion-filled topics it feels like I may be commenting a little more in the future. Having just read John Tierney’s recent piece – The Coming Revolution in Public Education – in The Atlantic, it does feel like we need to be thoughtful and share our thinking about what is happening in education, and that includes assessment.

Brett Foley and team shared a documentary this week – Testing in the Movies and on Television – at the NCME (National Council of Measurement in Education) meeting in San Francisco. Having worked with assessments for years and having both taken and given a few in my lifetime, I was curious. I watched it all – almost 50 minutes. The trailer (~1 min) provides a clue as to the major topics of the documentary, which include testing consequences, criticisms of testing, test anxiety, studying and test prep, psychometricians and cheating. This documentary covers 40 years of movie and TV clips regarding tests and testing. It conveys the negativity about testing conveyed via the media and where and how public opinion sits with this topic of assessment in general.

Being the advocate of formative assessment that I am, many of these perspectives or concerns about testing disappear in the classrooms and schools where teachers and students are actively collecting evidence of learning on a minute-to-minute basis and using it to adapt both learning and teaching. The day-by-day use of formative assessment strategies integrated into the instructional process help establish a classroom culture where “test” is no longer viewed as a 4-letter word, but rather an opportunity to “show what I know. “

In classrooms where formative assessment is fully integrated, Leslie Lambert tells us it is difficult to tell when instruction stops and assessment begins. This is a far cry from clips in the documentary. And yet, how many of us had an experience or two just like those depicted in the film? What does it take to change public opinion and offer new opportunities and perspectives to the public?

The segment on cheating caught my attention because establishing a culture in classrooms where making mistakes is a part of learning – expected and OK, certainly helps eliminate the need to cheat, along with the pressure to remember. Wasn’t “phone-a-friend” really created for use in the classroom? (smile). And I do have to say that some of the psychometricians I have met are really nice folks, who can speak English and translate statics is such a way that a layperson can understand.

Purpose and use of assessment is always important to consider, along with what educators value and believe as compared to their current reality. There are times when the negativity in the documentary really gives faces to the disconnect between purpose of the assessment and how the data are used. How often are educators put in the situation of using the results of an assessment for a purpose other than was intended by the test developers?

The goal of the documentary is to start public dialogue about the appropriate use of tests. That goal is important for all of us. The dialogue has started on many fronts and it is time for additional voices to be added. Be part of the cacophony about assessment. What are your take-aways from this video? Come back here and let us know.

The blog for my day job focuses on formative assessment, if that is an area of interest for you.

You may also want to check out Raymond Yeagley’s comments on this topic.

Infographics

• For several years now, I have followed Nathan Yau‘s blog, Flowing Data. I own the first book and find his posts both intriguing and inspiring. Recently he shared a couple of intriguing connections.  If you are teaching solar system, distance, space flight, etc. this graphic definitely makes a point for visual learners. Make sure  you let it run to the end…and read the comments along the way. He also shared an interview with Amanda Cox from The New York Times on visualization, some of the skills required, and where the field is headed. I like this tidbit on design: Click through everything – the link in the interview, the blogs at the end of the interview, it is all interesting. In particular the data visualization done by Churchill’s team with string during the war was intriguing.
• HERE has all kinds of data – driving directions, 3d maps of cities around the world – a wide variety of beauty in maps.
• And if you missed either of the first two episodes of The Numbers Game (National Geographic), you may want to go back and catch them. While I’ve done data dives with educators for years, I am positive none of them are like those of Jake Porway (and I would love to attend one of his). Check out his organization, DataKind, and learn how and why they work to bring data scientists and high impact social organizations together to interact with data.

Educational Technology

• GeoGebra is free mathematics software for learning and teaching for all levels. This award-winning software supports geometry, algebra, tables, graphing, statistics and calculus.
• While the topic of OER (Open Educational Resources) is new for some and not for others, it is moving into mainstream education technology conversations. Achieve.org has some useful tools for evaluating the OERs you might find at OER Commons. If you are interested in learning a little more about this topic, check out the recent article in THE Journal.
• David Thornburg is an interesting guy to listen to in person. My first exposure was listening to him talk about Campfires in Cyber Space oh so many years ago. It seems like he was talking learner centered education before many. This recent article in THE Journal finds him talking about “disruptive technology.” (See Disrupting Class by Christensen, Horn & Johnson.)
• Yet another perspective on the Khan Academy and its role in educational reform. My wonder is how do you see Khan Academy relating to TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge)?

 

 

Infographics & Inquiry Learning

• Watch this 6.5 min video about the distribution of wealth in US. It provides some interesting data for thought and conversation.
• Found a couple of new blogs recently with a focus on infographics. Check out I Love Charts and This is Indexed.
• Jessica Hagy illustrates for us How to Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps). My wondering is how we might use simple graphics in the classroom. How might we get students (or colleagues) to think beyond text?
• In my online coaching course we used 6 Word Stories as part of introducing ourselves and building trust. This is an activity I will be using again – for getting to know folks and perhaps for formative assessment. Today I found 3 Word Stories.
• Mind/Shift, the education blog from KQED (an NPR station) seems to have lots of interesting stories. This latest one - Creating Classrooms We Need: 8 Ways into Inquiry Learning – provides 8 steps from Diana Laufenberg’s recent TED Talk. Ideas 1-5 were of particular interest to me.

Formative Assessment…one of my favorite topics

The Classroom Experiment – This 2 part television series from the BBC features the Hertswood School and Dylan Wiliam. This 10-week experiment shows what happens when theory and practice regarding formative assessment meet up in the classroom.  “The results were astonishing; students … made twice the progress as others in the same year group.

If you haven’t been to the Teaching Channel yet, you might find this Stop Light technique interesting. Asking students to reflect and identify what stopped their learning in class today can provide the teacher with useful information to help answer the formative assessment question of “Where is the learner now?”

The entire September issue of Educational Leadership (ASCD) was about feedback, that key formative assessment strategy to help move the learner and learning forward. This article by Grant Wiggins – Seven Keys to Effective Feedback – was part of the issue.

Carol Dweck’s work on fixed and growth mindsets has been impactful for many teachers I have worked with over the past 6 years. That was when I first started sharing her ASCD article, The Perils and Promises of Praise. It is a short read that can really cause educators (and parent) to reflect on what they are saying.  The 4 quick steps Carol shares on her site – How can you can from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? – might be a useful conversation starter.

For my day job, I occasionally post on the topic of formative assessment. The NWEA blog also features posts about early learning and Common Core. You may want to check out the Teach.Learn.Grow. blog.

Bill Zima has a nice post where he implicitly links formative assessment to competency-based education. He lays out 5 things that come from good assessment that provides evidence of learning.

While there are many apps that can be used to support formative assessment in the classroom, these are a couple I have found. You’ll have to let me know how they work, as I have no “I” devices.

• BubbleSheet is an app that allows students to provide answers like an ASR (all student response system) using an iPod, iPad, or iPhone. This is like using ABCD cards on an Apple device. To use BubbleSheet, you must be in a school that is using MasteryConnect.
• Stick Pick takes crafts stick in a cup to a different level. Pick a student at random just by giving your device a shake or tapping the screen. Stick Pick suggests question starters for learners at different levels and also records how well students respond during classroom discussions.

 

Leadership survey and more…

• Take the TEDEd website tour. Every month the number of videos and flipped classroom episodes increases. Topics include: the arts, business and economics, health, literature, mathematics, social studies, thinking and learning and more.
• The controversy continues over the use of video games in education, and guess what? Not all teachers are sold on the benefits of video games as learning tools.
• “PowerPoint on steroids” allows a teacher to create presentations on their iPad, share them with students on their iPads, build in polls/quizzes, collect the data and engage students in a different way.
• From the University of Kent – take this 50-question survey about your leadership style. The results include: authoritarian, procedural, transformational, participative and Laissez-faire. I’d be curious to learn where you fall.
• I’m taking an online course right now and we were talking about building trust online. You might like to check out our thoughts on that topic here.

All about Technology in Education

Douglas Rushkoff ‘s column on CNN speaks to the transformation of the role of higher education with the growth of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Some of his comments echo those we’ve heard other places – Education is about more than acquiring skills…subjects tend to be conveyed best in what might be considered their native environments…Online learning needs to cater to human users…

Is It Really Hip to Flip? in the current issue of THE Journal, offers teachers five questions to consider if they are thinking about employing the flipped classroom model. One of the questions asks teachers to consider the appropriateness of the flipped classroom for their students. Another is about the resources one would use.

The 10 Most Popular Writing Resources Being Used By Students provides insight into sites being used by both secondary and higher ed students. They range from WIKIPEDIA to BIGNERDS.com.

If you like the concept of word clouds and haven’t seen Tagxedo, you will probably want to add it to your toolkit. Word clouds can be directly created from URLs, Twitter and other online sources. Thanks to Barb for sharing this tool and using this blog to make a sample (smile).

Cellphones in the classroom – this is one topic I have engaged in for a decade. Heather Wolpert-Gawron’s comment about the debate being “superfluous and antiquated” is true and her picture of “collateral” for borrowed pencils says a lot. Heather charges us edu

 

cators to “start using real life resources.” What’s your stance?

After reading this blog by Terry Heick, visually capturing ideas on an iPad doesn’t seem too hard, just something you might need to practice. Not having one may make it easy for me to say that. For those of you have an iPad, what do you think?

Angela Maiers combined two other posts to make her blog post about the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers Who Use Technology.

Infographics…Educators Online…Snow Globes

Jeff Clark has taken the concept of analyzing text in some vastly more refined directions than tag clouds and wordles. His recent post – Novel Views: Les Miserables – displays character mentions, word connections, word clouds and characteristic verbs (for primary characters).

Made me curious about how kids would respond to tasks like these – a DIY experiment of how graphs can be represented with paper – not on paper, but with paper. You might chuckle over the “pie chart already eaten” link. Or the origami pieces that represent the world internet usage statistics.

The 2013 Gallup Student Poll on student engagement takes place between Oct. 1 and Nov. 1. Participation is free and interested schools can find more information about the poll here. The 2012 results showed that student engagement lessens with each grade. What leads to disengagement for students in your setting? While many have written about student engagement, the use of formative assessment practices is one way to get the classroom learning team engaged – peers serving as instructional resources, student directing their own learning based on where they need and want to go and the feedback they receive along the way, teachers adjusting during instruction as they learn more about what students know and don’t know.

Renee Jain’s post on resilience connects to a couple of other topics for me – student engagement and coaching. Our cognitive style connects to both, as does self-awareness. Self-awareness is also a piece of formative assessment; students know where they are in their learning and being able to outline the course to get them where they want to be.

John Klugin recommends some free tech tools for educators – enhanced video production, more efficient storage, Slide Rocket – a presentation tool and Symbaloo for establishing a web presence.

Having recently started an online course through Powerful Learning Practice, I was surprised to find this FETC article – Bringing Passion and Collaboration to Professional Development. This quote from Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach in the article – “One of the things I tell [teachers] is that I don’t want you to change anything about your teaching. I want you to change everything about your learning, and do that first.”  Gives you something to consider…

This short report – 8 Helpful Tech Tools for the Common Core - has some useful sites for teachers implementing CCSS.

Are you an educator using Pinterest like me? If so you may want to check this out – The 25 Best Pinterest Boards in Educational Technology. It is clear I need to be updating my boards soon!

This descriptor – The Khan Academy videos made a stir when they arrived on the educational stage. But are they a paradigm shift or an old model in new clothes? – caught my attention in THE Journal. If you are interested, check out The Math of Khan in the latest issue. Peter Kelman’s comments about “amateur educators” are interesting. Both sides of the coin are shared in the article, along with how schools and districts are using Khan Academy.

See your house in a snow globe!?!?! This came from a friend (and you may have already seen it) with this note, “I’m sure they used Google Earth, or a similar program. But it is clever!” But how in the world could this be – from a front view???

Building student ownership…Tablets in the classroom…Measures of Effective Teaching…Teaching math…

Some of you may not have seen this infographic on teachers before. There are a couple of points in the Dr. Olivier’s article that caused me to stop and reflect. Let me know what you think about his comments.

One persistent question in education is how to build student ownership. Take a look at this article about a high school in Alabama who has found some ideas that are working for them.

Meet Jennie Magiera via her tech education blog. I discovered Jennie via an EdWeek chat focused on using iPads in the classroom where she shared some great ideas for all ages. Consider tablets as the “personal whiteboard” of today. While many have not yet discovered the benefit of using small whiteboards for formative assessment in their classroom, this is what is now happening with tablets. Jennie talks about getting student metacognition on the board. This is such a key formative assessment practice – being able to see the thinking, identify misunderstandings, provide (teacher or peer) or generate (student) the feedback and move to the next level of learning.

The latest studies produced by the MET have recently been released. The Measures of Effective Teaching study by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that “Student feedback, test-score growth calculations, and observations of practice appear to pick up different but complementary information that, combined, can provide a balanced and accurate picture of teacher performance…”

For those of you wondering about teachers and their choices in social networks, a new study by MMS Education provides insight into educators’ use of social networking, online communities, and Web 2.0 tools.

One of the nice aspects of Larry Ferlazzo’s blog is that he frequently brings in others. In response to last week’s question – What is the best advice you would give to help an educator become better at teaching math? – Larry posted 3 responses that really caught my attention. Jose Vilson shares his 3 Cs for mathematical answers, which I appreciate. Shawn Cornally’s statement, “Math teachers must give up the love of scheduled quizzes and perfectly spaced exams in favor of an assessment scheme that allows students to show their learning when they actually achieve it.”, resonated with me as well. Larry also took the time to embed Dan Meyer’s TEDx Talk titled “Math Class Needs A Makeover.” Take 16 minutes to watch it – it is worth it. Dan’s comments about reassembling math problems to engage students in mathematical thinking actually have implications for other content areas.