Art TEAMS Successes and Lessons in Year 1

 Many teachers have shared that the program is helping them reconnect to teaching, combat burnout, and feel rejuvenated.  In their feedback and reflections, they attribute this to:

● The careful creation of a strong sense of community and trust

● Responsive curriculum design and feeling heard

● Slowness and airiness-a focus on depth rather than breadth, iteration, spiraling curriculum, and being given time for deep thinking and making

● The mantra “Completion is not the goal” (Lucero)

● Movement segments & reconnecting to their bodies as instruments for learning

Movement and reflection: Teacher participants, Team members, and Advisory Board members expressed the necessity of movement and reflection as the key to processing in their learning experiences and communicated a desire to continue movement and reflective practices. One teacher noted, “the movement piece was absolutely essential to connecting all of this together,” while several others shared the impact of having “more time for reflection” and “reflection times” provided opportunities to slow down and process.   

Challenges in project implementation and lessons for moving forward

Keeping teaching artists engaged 

Teaching Artists were engaged during the concentrated summer workshops. During the academic year, their participation dropped off and was considerably more limited. We are working with our artists, board members and the art community to think about ways to productively engage artists throughout the life of the grant.

Recruiting administrators 

In the post-COVID educational environment, it was hard for administrators to commit large chunks of time. As a result, we inverted the relationship and reached out individually to spend time with each administrator in a time they could find. We used our flexibility to compensate for Administrators' rigid schedules.

Grace

After the last two years of teaching during the Pandemic and Racial Reckoning, educators expressed exhaustion, and some were thinking of a career change. The Curriculum we constructed and adjusted took that reality into account, providing choice and “airiness”. As a result, teachers became more motivated and thought less about a career change. The grant had a significant positive impact on well-being and willingness to continue teaching. We will continue to reduce the number of transitions and give more time for the application of content, to expand the amount of time on the task.

What contributions the project has made to research, knowledge, practice, and/or policy. 

The project is in its first year, and we have limited contributions so far:

Conducting a thematic analysis of post-workshop comments, we uncovered four key themes that were identified, including 1) Movement and Reflection, 2) Collaborative Community, 3) Studio Access and Tool Time, and 4) Curricular Revision and Classroom Implementation.  

Movement and Reflection  

Several teacher participants expressed the necessity of both movement and reflection as modes of pausing and processing in their learning experiences and communicated a desire to continue movement and reflective practices. 

Collaborative Community   

Teachers also indicated the benefit of building and maintaining a supportive network through collaboration, specifically through conversation, observing each other’s work, and developing relationships. 

Studio Access and Tool Time  

Teachers shared continued excitement about the development of EMA projects and learning about tools to continue materializing projects. 

Curricular Revision and Classroom Implementation  

Teacher participants revealed a need for increased time with TFU (Teaching for Understanding), classroom implementation, curricular revision, and focusing on subject content. 

Acknowledgments:

Art TEAMs is made possible by the emergent, collaborative interactions between many individuals. A deep gratitude is extended to all who participated in the experience of teaching (and learning) with emerging media and arts, including teachers (Matt Auch-Moedy, Jessica Davis, Maggie Elsner, Sarah Gabelhouse, Kate Gracie, , Sarah Holz, Mark James, Sarah Kroenke, Ryan Margheim, Megan Pitrat, Katie Samson, Melissa Sellers, Amy Spilker, and Jessi Wiltshire,) for embracing ambiguity and vulnerability and expanding into new ways of seeing; administrators (Dr. Lynn Fuller) for holding space and having conversations about new ideas; museum educators (Laura Huntimer) for offering valuable educational resources; teaching artists (Cayleen Greene, Fernando Montejano, Angel Geller, and Isabella Meier) for sharing their creative processes; the advisory board (Megan Elliot, Dr. Jorge Lucero, and Dr. Diana Cornejo-Sanchez) for shepherding the design and development of the program; and the research team (Kimberley D’Adamo, Lorinda Rice, Guy Trainin, HyeonJin Yoon, and Maggie Bertsche, Carrie Bohmer, Mackayla Kelsey, and Gretchen Larsen) for weaving together the many pedagogic and curricular threads of a complex tapestry.  

Art TEAMS Path to Emerging Media Arts

Our project-

Art TEAMS (Supported by the US Dept of Education) focuses on Emerging Media Arts. The methodology we created is focused on a process of self-discovery and making artistic choices within the broader framework of contemporary art. To be honest, I started getting worried that our teachers are not exploring enough Emerging Media. Since we did not force the issue in any way I was not sure what would happen at our exhibitions of learning. As I walked through the exhibits almost all included emerging media arts as part of the exhibition.

What did I learn from our current exhibitions of learning:

1. Trust the process. If we provide choices, options, and tools, inquisitive, creative minds will get there independently. Since the path is natural and unforced it will also become more organic.

2. Trust your colleagues. When knowledgeable others lead, just let the process unfold. 

3. Trust your participants /co-researchers. If there is a path, providing opportunities will let creative minds find it.

4. Letting the process unfold over time. We are so used to reaching objectives at the end of a lesson or a week. But the most complex skills and expressions of learning just take much longer to percolate and bubble up.

Learning Analytics, Validity, and Theory

 This week I participated in the inaugural FLAIEC conference. It was a delightful opportunity to talk with various researchers at different levels and years of experience.

The keynote speakers, who are leaders in the field, have called for a more critical approach to examining the validity of the different indicators. 

Dragan Gašević in his opening keynote, outlined the opportunities and challenges for the advancement of validity of measurement in learning analytics. While Dirk Ifenthaler called for careful processing of the existing literature in an effort to build a valid set of meaningful indicators.

This topic has been central to our group's work. We have long discussions about ways to validly connect the digital traces of learning with reasonable assumptions. The most significant aspect of validity is a robust theoretical set of assumptions. A theory or framework should not be assumed to be infallible. In fact, I believe that we can use our data to confirm or challenge existing theories to develop a better understanding of human learning. 

The abundance of data can lead to overfitting the data to a specific theory. For example, we are currently looking at the importance of Self Regulation (as did many of the papers at the conference). The data fits the theory rather well, with the effect of self-regulation on course achievement significant but entirely mediated by specific learning behaviors. As I reviewed our results, I started wondering about the power of alternative theories. One of our next steps will be to contrast this theory with other theories and see which one fits better with our data and which is more stable across courses and time. 

The theory does not absolve us of the need to check in with more traditional (even psychometric) forms of validity. But for me, a theory is still the key to understanding the data. I am also eager to see what data from our online learners of code can tell us about the development of computer science knowledge, but that is a blog post for another time.

Notes from CSEdCon

Last week I traveled to CSEdCon 2022. As always Code.Org published State of CSE 2022 showing that despite the pandemic progress has been made in a variety of fronts. The two Nebraska representatives (Dr. John Skretta joined me this time) spent quite a bit of our energy learning from the experience of others, and discussing our ideas in meeting the goals outlined in our recent legislation Legislative bill 1112, the Computer Science and Technology Act. We are eager to start working on the problem as the code.org regional partner and the lead institution in the state. We hope to partner with the Nebraska Department of education in making a difference for the students of Nebraska.

I had many discussions in CSEdCon about the critical time to get students interested in Computer Science. Some support an emphasis on Elementary/ primary education. The claim is that early interest can capture all students and significantly increase the odds that girls and students of color will become motivated to pursue computer science. This is true but not quite enough. We know from our research in multiple STEM fields that the very students we were focused on lost interest during the middle school years despite high interest during their primary years.

Others focus on high school, most prominently because of the new high school graduation requirement. I believe that high school (especially beyond 9th grade) is simply too late. Students have established areas of interest and often some idea about a chosen field. They might fulfill a requirement, but that is not very likely to change trajectories as much as needed.

As a result, when asked by any school where to start, I suggest Middle school(more specifically, grades 7-9). This is the age where students may lose interest or get discouraged, and it is early enough to create new trajectories. This is by no means enough. Once a middle grades program is established, a school would start rolling down the elementary, creating better-prepared students and high school classes now answering new demands by excited students and parents.

And if you get this in time- do not forget hour of code in early December!

Schools as a Malleable Material

 The Art TEAMS project has an exceptional advisory council. This group of professionals includes Diana Cornejo-Sanchez, Megan Elliott, and Jorge Lucero. This group of thinkers and doers stretches our thinking and brings joy and engagement into our work. A key moment for me was when Jorge Lucero challenged us to think about school as a malleable material. 

Jorge Lucero (Photo from Engage Art)

What I say from this point forward is my interpretation of the topic inspired by Jorge but the responsibility for any mistake is mine alone. If you think like an artist, the world around us is filled with materials that we can shape to make art. Thinking like an artist helps think about the world as a material that can be shaped, rejecting the notion that the material should be accepted as is. We tend to regard schools and schooling as rigid structures that need to be abided to (especially for teachers and students) or completely reformed or even replaced (policymakers). But what if the best approach is to think about schools as malleable and set on a journey to discover how and where we can shape that malleability to create something new and beautiful.

This is exactly the role we see for Art TEAMS. While we explore using art and creativity to transform learning in classrooms, we are also seeking to start teasing out how to find malleability and push its boundaries to create better classrooms that will be culturally responsive, opening new futures and experiences for all students and their teachers.

In our work with teachers this summer, we came up with some ideas about how schools can be malleable. So I am sharing this list with you as a way to start a discussion.

1. Designing the building. While not a daily occurrence, schools do renovate and sometimes build new schools. This is a golden opportunity to rethink the design of the school and create new affordances for learning. The Pegasus Bay story is such an example.

2. Schedules: Time is a great material that allows new things to happen. Changing schedules by creating longer learning periods or conversely dedicating a few weeks to exploration are great ways to create opportunities for change and deep and self-guided learning. Even adding a few minutes of movement every day could be transformative.

3. Changing mindset- a focus on a growth perspective for teachers and learners can transform the way we think about the way we teach, assess, and provide feedback.

4. People: the way we team, support each other, and leverage student strengths can help create a more vibrant and healthy.

I am including our original whiteboard ideation board and promise to keep exploring and writing about these ideas.

Teaching Fast and Slow Lessons from Art TEAMS Weekend

 This week the Art TEAMS teams got together again to start our Fall activities. We had a joyous day reconnecting and discussing the work we have started doing with our students based on the summer courses. The meeting has taught me a few lessons that will sit with us as we plan the interactions throughout the semester.

Lesson 1:

The impact of deep learning in the summer has already created impact on classrooms. Many of the teachers have reported implementing the Creative Research Journals and even starting the Inquiry Cycle. While it is hard to attribute the implementation to a specific cause. I believe that it was the mix of highly motivated teachers and the powerful learning we had in the summer.

Lesson 2:

Movement is still magic. We started the day with movement, and the teachers are hungry for more movement that is applicable for the classroom. We can make a real difference if we help teachers figure out this part of their work.

Lesson 3:

We always try to teach too much. We have provided our teachers with many tools. Now is the time to create more "air" in the curriculum and make sure teachers have enough time to share their work, plan next steps, and think deeply.

Finally a personal lesson from my reflection about the EMA project led by the Fabulous Gretchen Larsen.

When ideating, go slow and make sure that you spend enough time thinking about the centrality of your idea and my real commitment to it. I have moved too fast to really evaluate my commitment to the purpose of the design. Now I am slowing down and evaluating my project in early iteration. More soon!

On Listening

 

I am about to start my Fall semester. As I plan my interactions with my students, I am challenging myself to examine the practices we used in Art TEAMS this summer and see which of those would fit into my class. The first that sprang into my mind as I was planning the details of the work tomorrow was the use of active listening. In the picture to the right are two of our teaching artists from the summer, Caileen, and Fernando. While they both brought expertise, they also spent a significant amount of time listening. At the end of the second week, Fernando shared a powerful spoken word poem that showed how much he listened. His poem described his understanding of the teacher experience. His poem showed how powerful listening can be in understanding your fellow humans. Hence, in my class this semester I aim to enhance democratic practices with the practice of careful listening. Starting tomorrow, we will take time to make sure that we all learn to provide some space for each other to express ourselves without interruption. 

Individual listening is an addition to the practice of opening circle in which everyone listens ad everyone speaks (in turn). 

If many quote "Be the change you want to see in the worlds" - yes I know there are multiple versions of this sentence and an argument about who originated it. For teacher educators, however, it is also "Model the change you want to see in the world".

It is a new semester, another opportunity to practice and model what we preach.

Thoughts about VR

 My son (18) has the Meta Quest VR headset. This is the fifth VR variation that I have tried on. Before this we had the PlayStation VR console. At work I have interacted with wired versions of the Oculus as well as HP. In a visit to China we interacted with different versions of the Samsung VR. 

As I have interacted with them I have some growing insights. The first is that wired devices are too bulky

Trying out the Samsung VR, China 2018

and limiting. The jump to the Quest two was revolutionary. The second improvement was using hands instead of joysticks. It removes the complexity of conquering button configurations. So despite the jokes about the metaverse and Meta’s focus at least as hardware is concerns they combined good hardware with improving UX. 

As I was watching my son play on the device, I realized something else. usually our kids are seating hours next to the computer slouched on a chair with a leg twitching. In VR they are up waiving their hands moving about and MOVING. In effect some of the best applications right now seem to be focused on physical games that get the most out of the headset. 

VR is far from perfect and applications are still far from being ready for wide educational use but I think that we are getting closer and I am excited to see what comes next.

The Teacher Pipeline and TikTok

This weekend I dove into Teacher TikTok. It was fun and, at times, entertaining. I learned two things that are on the teacher's mind:

1. Requirements- for time beyond the contract, whether extending the school day, weekend or during unpaid summer time.

2. Professional development- the list here is even longer but can be summarized:

    Booking snooty speakers.

    The leaders of professional development are divorced from the reality in classrooms especially post-pandemic.

    Professional development that does not walk the talk.

    Professional development could be a video or email.

Professional development that does not consider the diverse needs of different teacher based on topic, experience and expertise.

Our professional learning in Art TEAMS is trying to provide an alternative that creates learning for teachers that is attentive to needs and presents new ideas but allow for time to process and design. We are focusing on respecting professionals and helping them achieve new things. However, I must also stress that everyone in our cohort chose to take this path. It follows that this work cannot be dictated and still expect to get the same outputs.

Voice Assistants

Our spaces our filling with voice assistants, Google, Apple, and Amazon all have created an interface that allows users including young learners to interact without needing keyboards or even touch screens. I believe that we need to launch a serious effort to see what are the affordances and unintended consequences of these devices to learning as become increasingly ubiquitous.

While some research has begun, more common are anecdotal observations by parents researchers, and teachers. For example, earlier today in a conversation Ji Guo, a Doctoral Graduate and current colleague brought up the fact that his son was using google to ask questions as he was reading. His observation was that his son was leaning on google to clarify as a "while reading" strategy. Instead of stopping his reading to answer a quick question (e.g. how large is a Dolphin), he could ask and get a quick answer and keep on reading without getting any further distracted by the interaction with a screen. I love this example because it parallels the use of digital dictionaries embedded in digital texts. Both allow the reading to continue quickly and with minimal interruption while allowing the learner to collect further information.

The main danger described by parents is that students start relying exclusively on the assistant to supply information that students have yet to internalize, which is still important. The first example is multiplication. Google, Amazon, and Siri all can give quick answers, but understanding the concepts behind multiplication is a key numeracy skill that all students should acquire. In this case, the assistant can create false learning paths that will undermine the future development of learners. The answer of course is not to resist the use of devices but instead to think about the ways and times they can use it. This is especially true since many years ago we had the same discussion about the use of calculators in classrooms. 

I am excited to look for researchers looking into this new area for exploration!

I am still learning

 Our two weeks of intensive summer work have ended. It is early to talk about results but I can reflect on what I have learned. In the past two weeks, I have been fully immersed with our participants, occasionally I led discussions and activities the rest of the time I split between being a catalyst for discussions sparking directions and ideas, and participating. I was a learner, artist, and curriculum designer. I reflected on my teaching and made plans to do better.

I rediscovered the joy of learning with experienced yet eager professionals. I have learned earnestness, patience, technique, vulnerability, and the joy of movement to name a few. I have been in higher education for close to 25 years and have not had (or allowed myself to have) a professional development that I embraced as thoroughly as I did in Art TEAMS. 

I will try to name a few specific lessons:

1. Movement in magic- Sir Ken Robinson said in his famous Ted Talk Do Schools kill creativity? that education thinks only from the shoulders up. I agreed with his argument but as a university head-first person assumed that it was only marginally true for me. I agreed with his example that some people are dancers and should have the opportunity to move and express themselves. What I missed was that we are all dancers moving through the world (some like me more goofily), and that we can all benefit from movement (thank you Maggie).

2. Trust is everything- This is something I often discuss in my teaching but this time I felt the impact of trust (and the breaking of trust) on me and the teachers around me. With trust, our fight or flight instincts do not emerge immediately when confronting something difficult and uncomfortable. I can say more but I would like to wait for our research to shed some light.

3. Playfulness is learning- During the two weeks, I created art in what can only be described as playful ways. I used different materials approaches and media to mixed results. I failed spectacularly and shared my failures with as many people as possible. Yes, I aimed to model learning behavior but mostly through "forgetting" and letting myself just be in the creative moment. As a result, I learned a lot (still processing) and got a lot braver about sharing my work and sharing myself.

 4. Emerging Media arts emerged- I have been worried that we did not infuse enough emerging media arts into the work. We decided to wait on digital tools and just occasionally included tools to bring forward the work into the realm of emerging media arts. Despite this "low infusion" approach the final projects and reflections included many products that included emerging media arts. Moreover, now the teachers are ready for a bigger taste of emerging media and eager to integrate.

In the coming months, I will add some more but this is where I am now, exhausted, satisfied, and eager to continue!

Art TEAMS is off to a Great Start

 

This week we finally started our Art TEAMS grant with teachers. The project is developing self-driven creative learners who connect disciplines using arts and emerging media as a language to engage and organize knowledge and life experiences.

We will accomplish this by developing, implementing, and evaluating a professional development program for K-12 art educators, generalist teachers, principals, teaching artists, and museum educators.

This week was our first with this great crew of educators. In this professional learning opportunity, we have been careful to design a program that respects the strengths of all the participants and positions everyone as a participant and co-leader. I have to admit that I have not created this much physical representation of learning since my Graduate school days at UCR, nor have I created this much art since my elementary school days. I have found the interactions and the learning powerful, and I believe we are on our way to creating a powerful model that will provide an avenue for innovation. 

Reflecting on this week, my lessons are:

1. We all require protected time to make leaps in our practice and transform our approach. I do know that summer workshops transformation is hard to bring back into the classroom, and thus we will continue to support and work with our team of educators for the next two years.

2. Art is fun even for those with a limited artistic ability (me). You just have to let go and be playful. 

3. Exploring the affordances of materials and discovering their malleability is a truly engaging endeavor.

4. Movement. Movement is magical; in many ways, it is a discovery for me, a discovery that makes me dance with joy. 

Finally, I want to reflect on a moment of pride. In this grant, we insisted on supporting local Nebraska artists. We have found four unique and outstanding artists. I will talk about each of them in a different post but for now suffice to say that I have had a glorious week, and I cannot wait for next week to continue the work.

Mass shooting at Uvalde elementary school

 I found out about the massacre on a flight to the RESPECt conference in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. What is the point of discussing how to teach computer science to young children when their lives are forfeit? Yes the gunman/child was most likely unstable. But the fact that the act of desperation is aimed at young children and the people who care for them? That is a social ill. We have to do better, we have to do something. We shall say prayers, but those are not enough. I just hope that this will not kick off a new campaign of denial debasing the loss of grieving parents.

Computer Science as a Core and the Buffalo Massacre

 

The argument against teaching computer science to all came this week from some of our rural schools. They point out, and rightfully so, that the many jobs needs in their communities go far beyond computer science. Once again, I would like to stress that rural communities do need to manage their needs in flexible and locally sensitive ways. 

My point, however, is that we should stop thinking about computer science as exclusively a Career and Technical Ed issue. It is not. Understanding and being able to get a sense of technology is a core knowledge. The metaphor for me is the difference between a health career class (CTE) and biology (core knowledge). All educated people need to understand core ideas in the way the world works around them. Technology-driven by the capacity of computer science is one of the most dominant forces in our lives. 

An example in public discourse is how some platforms use algorithms that create extremist views by presenting users with a twisted worldview fed by engagement algorithms. Extremists from all creeds seem to find a community and become radicalized online. Teaching Computer Science will not solve this problem. It will, however, help at least some users understand the process and maybe resist it a little better.

Curriculum Unhidden

This post is a result of a series of conversations I recently had with a number of people vis-a-vis more recent developments in curriculum development and rejection.

So first things first- the hidden curriculum, according to Wikipedia is, "A hidden curriculum is a set of lessons "which are learned but not openly intended"^[1]

 to be taught in school such as the norms, values, and beliefs conveyed in both the classroom and social environment.^[2]" (Wikipedia). More recently, efforts like the 1619 project curriculum were recognized as subverting the hidden curriculum. In the past attacks on new curricula were often somewhat veiled in language that claimed that these new approaches will lead to children not learning. This was very clear during the attacks on "New Math". I do not want to get into what New Math is or even if it was working. I just want to note that it was an innovation that got ridiculed without a serious look. My point is that it got attacked because it was new, and it was in some ways disrupting elements in the Hidden Curriculum. The attacks on the Common Core standards are very much the same. The common core became a political target as explored in informative ways in the website #commoncore project.

We have changed since then. The attacks on Critical Race Theory and banning curricula, for example in Florida, have made it clear that there is no more hidden curriculum. Instead, we have a hotly debated curriculum that is at the center of a political maelstrom. In some ways, I welcome the open discussion about the content of education. On another level, this makes education at the center of the culture wars in ways that are not welcoming for students and teachers. 

Thinking about the Future of Conferences

 For the past three weeks, I have been to three conferences. SITE, the Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education, in San Diego, was an international hybrid conference (I went in person). NETA, the Nebraska Educational Technology Association, was an in-person-only conference. And finally, AERA, the American Educational Research Association meeting in San Diego, is a hybrid conference, and I am attending virtually only.

These are in no way my first conferences after the pandemic. Still, their concentration in a span of two weeks allowed me to think about the affordances and limitations of technology. First, there is no doubt that the face-to-face interaction of in-person conferences allows a different set of interactions. For example, after one of my presentations, I just happened to meet Erkko Sointu from Eastern Finland university in the corridor; a short interaction resulted in his declaration "Go Big Red" and a discussion about his ties to Nebraska. This led to great conversations, me hearing about some of the work done by the group and a cluster of proposals for a conference they are holding next Fall (Hybrid). NETA is a practitioner conference. At NETA, I  spent a good part of my time interacting with teachers in our booth. I reached out to passers-by and engaged with them. This would not be possible at all in an online format in which participants have to choose to engage with me specifically.

Right now, I am in a hybrid format meeting of AERA. I have not engaged in many sessions despite paying and having an interest. The online interaction is more challenging because staying at home/work means that I have many competing commitments away from the intellectual benefits of the conference. Not seeing people in person lowers my level of engagement considerably. All of these reasons point to the significant affordances of the in-person conference. Well, not so fast.

On Thursday afternoon of the SITE conference, I walked down the corridor. Four rooms had no living person in them but had a projection of presenters and participants, all online,  engaged. It was an eerie experience that felt like bad science fiction; however, the participants included many who were limited in their ability to travel (cost, health) or international participants for whom the travel was onerous. The result is that many participants who would not otherwise have access to the work were able to present, learn and grow. 

Travel, especially by plane, has a significant carbon footprint. There is no doubt that in-person conferences are full of growth opportunities, serendipity, and fun. But are these qualities worth the price in carbon footprint? 

I do not have an answer to what we should do, but I would like to suggest:

1. We should keep exploring alternative formats for conferences that engage participants in fuller ways than they do now. 

2. We should be highly selective of the conferences we choose to attend in person.

3. We should experiment in other ways to interact with each other through digital means- perhaps ed camp (unconference) style.

Finding my way around Fargo North Dakota and other Metacognitive tasks

 This weekend I went to Fargo, North Dakota for an athletic event. Navigating a new city is always a challenge, and I started by activating Google Maps to get everywhere in town. I quickly found out that relying on google maps without any idea about the general direction was a disorienting and challenging experience. 

I ended up looking at the routes for destinations in town before I started every drive. In this way, planning made me more certain of where I was going and less dependent on the device as the sole (and not always most efficient) guide. In the work we are planning to do in the next five years, our Art TEAMS project, we have been discussing sketchbooks as a metacognitive scaffold. It is a way to represent inquiry in a layered visual form opening up eyes to connections and insights. This weekend's experience opened up a different avenue of metacognition that I have not considered in the context of our current study. That is the use of planning and directionality to illuminate the initial experience and ensure that we have enough of a scaffold to begin, so we (and our teachers) do not feel disoriented. 

I find that planning is often missing in students' work. They write an essay, code a program, or create n art product with very little planning. The lack of planning often adds to resistance to editing and revision, which are the keys to moving from a fail to a win. It is hard to get our students to plan, but it is perhaps the most important metacognitive skill that we can teach. Make a plan, execute, iterate, and then reflect. But it all starts with a plan.

The workweek then had a significant planning session led by Kimberley D'Adamo. it was a gratifying experience to start charting the path we want to walk, making sure we feel like we know where we are going and having a reasonable plan to get there. 

Skill, Digital Creation and memory

 

I have always thought digital creation as a potential shortcut to help creators leapfrog traditional barriers created by skill. The core idea is that software, such as iMovie, Adobe apps, can help individuals be creative with a low skill threshold. I am attempting to do exactly that on my iPad. However, I am still struggling with results finding myself repeatedly reaching out to physical materials and their subsequent digital manipulation with existing media. 

This idea of new boundaries of creativity allows me to rethink about affordances of the latest technologies and my skills within them. The images I collect and create are reorganized and even layered in ways that rephrase the bluntness of my message. For example, in the image to the right, I started reflecting in writing about my relationship with scraps of paper as ephemeral representations of my life. Messages to self, lists of steps, ideas, doodles, and even notes about what I will say next in my meeting. All of these I throw away with glee once I dem them unuseful or past expiration date. For the first time, I tried to reflect on why I may feel this way? I have so much joy in presenting a clean slate and reinventing myself. One of the reviewers for my promotion file asked (and I am paraphrasing), "Who is this Guy?" 

For someone who has stayed put for 20 years in the same place and job, I seem to be constantly reinventing myself, perhaps pathologically so. Maybe that is why I find the internet's inability to forget us and the things we have done so frightening. My current interpretation is that it links up with the multigenerational experiences of repeated migration. And as usual still processing. 

Personal Reflection on Cultural Appropriation and Cowboy Hats

This reflection is in no way an attempt to define or argue the boundaries of cultural appropriation. Instead, I am attempting to think about what cultural appropriation means to me as a Jewish/ Israeli immigrant to the United States, who is nonetheless white, educated, abled, and doing well for myself.

When I started wearing cowboy boots a few years ago, I was not confident about my ability to "pull it off" and I was worried about appearing to be appropriating a culture that I did not belong to. One afternoon I brought that up with Al Steckelberg, a native Nebraskan, and a friend, he waved me off and said: "we all used to wear western gear, we were all pretending". I love my cowboy boots and recently added a hat (at least in the sun). As I sat in my backyard in my hat I was intrigued by the shadow my hat made. The shadow created a distance and felt like it was not me but some other. It led me to a new journal page that became a collage. To the collage, I added detail from a painting by Eakins c. 1888 and a Jewish Gaucho in Sante Fe Argentina. 

As an immigrant to the US, I am always in the process of figuring out how I belong. I live in the liminal space between my past culture in Israel and the culture I live in now. As a result, I often find myself appropriating language, expression, and communication styles in an effort to find a place. The process itself is inherently flawed and often I find myself trying out patterns that cause the people I am interacting with to give me a second and third look. I have a sense that I crossed some boundaries but since most of the boundaries are not articulated clearly and never spoken out I am not always sure what caused the reaction. 

In some ways, I wear cowboy boots and hat as a way of defying expectations. In Nebraska, I am often the first Israeli ex-pat people have ever met, doubly so when it is cowboy boots wearing Isareli. At the same time, the cowboy image in popular culture and in real life is linked to masculinity and freedom. Finally, I believe that the cowboy image connects me to a sense of place (the great plains are the birthplace of the classic cowboy boot), and at the same time allows me to connect to Jewish cowboys and Gauchos- a pocket culture that nevertheless existed.

Clean Your Windows so you can see the fireflies

 I am continuing my journaling journey. This week I started thinking about my learning for the week while cleaning the windows in my living room. One of my sons came in and asked: Don't you have people that do that? Yes, I answered: but I love cleaning the windows occasionally. I get so used to the dirty-ish window that I stop noticing it. I sit in the chair and look outside, accepting the dirty window as part of the view. I literally forget that it is just a distortion that I have some power over and that I can remove. 

As I was cleaning, I realized that it was an interesting metaphor that calls on me as a researcher to stop, slow down, and examine what in my process of looking at the world needs cleaning. Is the distortion I see a result of dirt/noise in my control? This can go to weak beliefs and theories that stop me from seeing clearly. It can be unrelated (yet powerful) emotion or just constant activity that prevents me from realizing what I need to be paying attention to.

This may also be true of the devices and apps we use to see the world, algorithms, scanning, and attentional processes obscure what there is to see. Once in a while, we need to stop and clean our windows making sure that we are doing our best to see what is out there. Making what we are seeing is not just the distortion on our window.

This is my Journal page, I noticed that my processing has many more questions than answers or solutions. It could very well be that many of the questions are the ways I am scaffolding my process, or it could be that this early in the research into Art TEAMS, there are questions with answers pending. Leading to one of the only declarations: I have more questions than answers.

I am still leaning on the firefly metaphor. Systemic change is tough, and most of the time, efforts to innovate and make change are limited to our immediate environment. The light fireflies make is the light of individual change agents. While making the world better for others (very few for a short time), we are also looking for others like us to collaborate with us. 

In many ways, the grant is trying to help new fireflies increase their signal, find their light, and join the other fireflies. Yes, there is a slight chance of systemic change, but even if that does not happen, we change ourselves and the lives of our students. The role of projects and universities is to create communities of fireflies. Places where they are safe, cherished and supported, so they can continue.

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So I went to NAEA for the first time

The National Art Education Association meeting was in New York City this spring. Despite many years of being involved in arts integration, I have never had the opportunity to go. This year after our grant application for Art TEAMS was funded Was a great opportunity to go.

Wikipedia First: New Rules for Online Research

A recent article in Wired revisited how attitudes toward Wikipedia come face to face with the reality of Wikipedia. It is the world's eighth most visited site, it is free, it is not monetized. Students still recite that you cannot get information from Wikipedia- that it is not a reliable site.
In short, there is a gap between what we say "Wikipedia is unreliable, and the information on it cannot be trusted" and the reality that we all use Wikipedia and often for all the right reasons.

One of the common critiques about Wikipedia is that consensus might not be the best method to determine what is "true." That is a compelling argument and not without merit. It is, however, precisely what researchers do. Send papers to scrutiny "peer review" and research results become "true" when most of the research community thinks they converge, and we reach consensus until new information disrupts it.
In fact, a whole section of the Conceptual map about the Nature of Science (bottom right in the figure). Has to do with the community.

I will not repeat all the support and critiques of Wikipedia - you can read those on Wired in the original. I would like to instead suggest an addendum to how we treat Wikipedia when we teach students about Information Technology.
Let's make it Wikipedia first, never Wikipedia only. We always need to corroborate any information, but Wikipedia, with its basic information and the next set of links, can launch a search that is not guided just by the commercial and parochial interests of the monetized search engines only.
Wikipedia first

Why Silent Reading Rates and Stamina are More Important than Ever!

Freddy Hiebert currently of TextProject, Emily Hayden of Iowa State and I recently published an empirical paper about patterns of silent reading. This is the work we have been pursuing for quite a while. Studies of silent reading in the context of reading development is a crucial element in expanding our understanding of reading in the context of new literacies. Reading in the 21st century is quickly becoming a substantially different task than before- a task that, as educators and researchers, we need to explore. The reading task in the age of new literacies combines much of the old skills (e.g. decoding, word knowledge, fluency)  with newer challenges emerging from distractions, nonlinear texts, and the richness of multimodal texts.

I believe that one of the least understood elements of reading in the 21st century is persistence. This is inherently a different challenge than it was as little as twenty years ago. Modern readers seem to be almost assaulted by distractions and behaviors that challenge their attention to a continuous text. At the same time, comprehension of complex texts can emerge only from sustained close reading. In this, I go back to the notion of motivation as the ability to sustain attention to a specific task- reading.

The results of the study show that many students do not persist in reading even when they comprehend well. At the same time, it is clear that students that do persist in reading with comprehension adjust their reading rate after one text section and then slowly increase their reading rate. These patterns show the benefits of persistence and highlight the challenges of distraction. If students are distracted they will attempt each piece of the text as if new, unable to use the feedback from the previous section to adjust their reading rate to ensure comprehension. It is very likely that such behaviors make reading considerably less efficient and thus increase the odds that readers will not persist reading longer texts with comprehension.

I believe we have two challenges, the first is to research reading in modern contexts and the second to develop a framework for instructing silent reading with persistence and comprehension. From our conclusion:

"...we believe that the most pressing issue within reading instruction at present pertains to instructional tasks and interventions that support silent reading proficiency. One of the few projects on supporting silent reading within classroom settings in the archival literature is that of Reutzel, Fawson, and Smith (2008). This study, conducted with third graders, showed that a treatment of silent reading produced similar results on assessments of ORF as oral reading practice... To date, we have been unable to find a framework for designing tier-one, classroom instruction that begins in the early grades and ensures that students develop strong patterns of silent reading. If we are to prepare students for the tasks of the twenty-first century, such frameworks for instruction are urgently needed." (Hayden, Hiebert, & Trainin, 2019)

Teaching as a Craft

Occasionally I browse the books available on audio from the library through my app and listen to an almost random pick. This is how I came by Eric Gorges’ A Craftsman Legacy. It turns out that the book emerged from a TV show with the same name. Eric reads a string of interactions with craftsman  while telling his personal story in a reflective measured voice. The result is almost hypnotic. What I found magical in the way Eric read his book was that it provided space to think. Eric who is a craftsman himself visits exceptional craftsman interviews them while learning to create in their medium. This allows for a conversation and a juxtaposition of a master, a novice, and the learning process.

I remember grappling with the conflicting ideas of teaching as an art or as a science. Following Eric’s argument I believe it is a craft and that the metaphors and rumination that emerge from the book can be useful when thinking about teaching. For example, Teaching curiously enough relies quite heavily on an apprenticeship model that Gorges sees disappearing in the physical crafts.

One strand that Gorges pulls as the book evolves is the notion of play. His interviewees often describe a path that starts in childhood, constructing a bow, taking a clock apart. But for them play never stops and the hours they put in make them an expert while keeping the element of play. As we recognize the role of play in encouraging curiosity and discovery I believe that exposing kids to physical crafts can be magical.

I have had the chance to visit with Justin Olmanson discussing his efforts to include Making in our teacher education programs. It seems like our students initially resist the effort required to actually iterate and make. The demand forces them to slow down and make time. What Justin says has helped is describing the emotional journey that accompanies making. In the same vain I wonder if we used craft of teaching as a guiding metaphor it would make it easier for our students to understand the iterative nature of learning to teach.

Is Listening Reading?

In the last few years, I picked a habit. At the beginning it was innocent. I listened to a podcast or two. I picked up Duncan's History of Rome and binge listened. The habit developed slowly and now I have about 10+ podcasts that I listen to on a weekly basis.

It turned out this was just the entry drug. A few months ago I took the plunge and joined Audible while using Libby to consume library available audiobooks. I like Libby, but often the books I wanted were not available or my time to consume them ran out mid-book. I have since started consuming books on audible while still using paper and digital print.

I find audiobook especially powerful when the reading adds more than it takes away. For example, for MLK day I listened (consumed?) The Radical King by Cornell West (editor), the audio version used some of the leading African American voices adding depth and meaning to the text.

Turns out I am not the only picking up audio. In 2017 alone the growth in usage was over 20% (see here). the reports also show that listeners also continue reading on paper. This signifies a potential change of habits, use of libraries, and eventually education.

So why am I bringing this up? I wonder what consuming books in this way does to comprehension. Does it impede comprehension? does it make it easier? What strategies can we use to improve listening comprehension? A literature search on Google Scholar quickly showed that most of the research on listening has been done through the lens of second language acquisition. While this makes sense it also means that we truly do not know what impact will listening have on literacy. Time to roll up my sleeves and do some research. I promise to report back when I do.

Still Thinking

I have been away from the blog. It was an opportunity to explore other skills and ways of acting in the world. I am ready to integrate my new skills as a recruiter and administrator to the work of innovation.

This morning I listened to the Freakonomics podcast after weeks of Audible listening. In the interview with Andrew Yang. Mr. Yang shared his anxiety about the country (indeed the world) preparing for the social changes resulting from automation and AI. I think that whatever the next few transition years will yield in society, we as educators should be readying our students for this future. This next generation of citizens, workers, and thinkers will need flexible skills and be habituated into learning constantly.

This is not a simple task and we really do not fully understand what it should look like. What I do know is that we have to experiment and design new teacher education efforts that will give us and the next generation a fighting chance.

Designing new programs is not a guarantee that we will succeed. Not trying will guarantee failure.

Innovative Schools Teacher Preparation

Lately Laurie Friedrich and I have been spending time thinking about preparing teachers to thrive in innovative schools. We spent a significant amount of time laying out the outline of a path that will lead us there. Our mission is to prepare educators who are effective and confident facilitating learning in innovative settings.

This goal emerged from our interaction with school leaders who have indicated to us a challenge in finding and retaining educators who can be effective teaching in innovative settings. We think that it it because traditional teacher education programs are not providing the skills and dispositions needed in innovative learning settings. The group we are proposing will lead to a program that will support innovative schools by providing teachers who can facilitate learning in a variety of settings using inquiry, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. Our objective is to have a program to supplement traditional teacher education with the skills and dispositions that will create educators who can be consistently successful in innovative schools.

Being a full citizen in the 21st century requires life-long learning that fosters design thinking and innovation. This life-long learning is shaped during the school years. Innovative schools show how to grow this next generation of thinkers and creators, and lead the way for more traditional school systems. Our program aims to grow the educators that will be the backbone of transformation. These schools need the teachers who will make sure such schools are successful and can try new ideas. Our plan is to help these schools by preparing interested classroom and prospective teachers who can step in ready to teach in innovative ways.

The Challenge of Aurality/Orality

I am an avid podcast listener. I listen to fiction podcasts such as Fictional, the Moth. I listen to a whole host of non-fiction podcasts including the History of Byzantium, History of Rome and Tides of History among others. At the same time I see the rise of Audible and Amazon audible books.

I love spoken audio. I actually prefer it to music most of the time. What I cannot figure out yet is what that means for literacy. Literacy development has been determined by print, its limitations and power. Storytelling from memory was replaced by reading from the page (still out loud) to finally being replaced by silent reading and prolific writing. Radio brought back listening to stories and reports. The rise of the internet has made all of us potential authors. Now the ability to deliver audio has opened a new opening for orality.

The question that I would like to pose is how will the proliferation of orality impact literacy and by extension schools. Do we need to teach more listening skills? How do we add oral creation to our composition classes?

One area to use as a bridge is poetry. Poetry even when written, always pushes toward the performative, the audible. Poetry out loud, spoken word competitions, and raps can help see orality and text as part of the same yarn.

That said I am still wondering about the relative value of orally consumed text. Does it stick in memory as well? What strategies help comprehension and recall? No answers, mostly questions.

Dashboarding and Self Regulation

I have two new devices in my life. The first is my iWatch bought last weekend in LA and the second is my Ford C-Max hybrid. I love both devices (and yes my car is a devices).  They both speak to my other devices and operate as part of my digital life.
Both have dashboard that are aimed at improving my behavior. the iWatch has an activity monitor that uses a very simple design to see if I am reaching my daily movement goals (exercise, standing, and walking). It is easily accessible through one tap on the face of the watch.

My hybrid has a dashboard that informs me how green is my my driving. It provides feedback on energy storing, breaking behavior and overall effective energy consumption. This has changed my behavior, at least in the short run. I am driving more cautiously and I am keenly aware of accelartaion and sudden stops.

I always knew that movement is good for me or that driving in a more even way would reduce fuel consumption. At the same time there quite a gap between knowing and acting on the knowledge. This is where the dashboards come to our rescue. Dashboards tell us how we do and give us formative feedback so we evaluate our performance in situ and even take corrective action. What I am less sure of is how long this effect will last. But if the dashboards create a lasting effect then it is worth thinking about the potential leverage in critical points in education.

I do not think that we can dashboard our whole life- it is simply too much to take in on a regular basis. But if we can identify critical practices that would be supported by a dashboard then we should at least attempt to that.

My idea is to start with device use for students. I can easily imagine an app that shows device use across 3-4 categories: Reading, Games, Social Media, Learning. A dashboard like that can easily show students how much of the time they are using different modes. This is especially important as we consider what might be a productive learning use of devices provided by schools.

Three reasons ed researchers should create digitally

I have a large digital footprint with hundreds of blog posts and video series with over 100,000 views. In addition I put everything I publish online without pay walls the second I am allowed to. I have profiles on Academia.com, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and Researchgate. If you are an educational researcher you are most likely to have less of an online  presence. Many researchers do not have any. Here are three reasons to have a meaningful online presence:

1. You gain readership. Let's face it, most professionals and amateurs start learning about any topic using a simple google search. If you want to find your audience and your audience to find you, you MUST be online where they can find you. Once they find you (through a piece you wrote, a blog post etc.), they can follow up on anything else you published on that or any other topics. They might even register to follow any updates you make. This is a great way to connect and have an impact. Because:
2. Educational research is highly contextualized. As a result it has limited shelf life. That means that you need to reach your audience quickly. In a few decades (or even less) contexts changes enough to render many of our conclusion invalid. If no one consumes (read, watch, listen) to ideas, and results now they may be obsolete by the time people find them. Which brings me to my last point:
3. We need to talk to a wide constituency. It includes students, teachers, administrators, policy makes and the public. Writing for a wide audience is much more effective through digital channels that give everyone free immediate access to research findings and thinking.