I agree in the world of high stakes testing that we are living in, we are stuck in a one correct answer format. (and this should change… it looks like there is some movement in this direction in NCLB or at least Illinois State’s view of it) While I agree that teachers can be discouraged from expanding their implementation of navigational (divergent) learning in the classroom favoring the convergent single answer model, I hope that as a profession teachers would rebel against that format of student learning…

You mention “technologies don’t match up with what we “value” in educational settings”… if self directed continual learning is not something we value, what do we value? Going along those same lines, if convergent learning (as you put is) therefore is valued, why are there so many teachers at odds with NCLB and high stakes testing or is that just smoke and mirrors by educational professionals? If we truly value convergent learning from established curriculum, what then is the opposition to “teaching to the test?”

Global learning is happening outside of education regardless of whether we like it. Students access servers all over the world to play games, get news, socialize, text message, etc. Unless we looks to draw educational relationships to this type of learning and begin to expand the walls of education, we risk crippling children’s abilities to function, evaluate information, disseminate information, and create knowledge… sorry on a soapbox again…

Scott

That post from “futura” was me, as I was logged into my own blog account and didn’t realize at the time

Just to clear up that mystery!

I’ve been influenced a lot by some reading and by my own principal’s philosophy that you make time in the schedule for what you value.

With her leadership our campus has managed to rearrange our schedule somewhat to have some late start days for teachers to work together, and to have an internal pd class period during the day that can be used one day a week for workshop types of time.

So we’re discussing how to embed our professional learning community time into that time each week, partially.

I do think that school leadership in how time is distributed in the day is an important piece here.

We’ve been trying a model this year that hasn’t been working as well as a lot of us would like, so the idea of goal setting or learning communities is one a committee of us is currently exploring.

I’m appreciating your comments, as they are very straightforward and on the money, so to speak, with experiences I have observed as well!

Thanks for stopping by and joining the conversation. I am where you were minus one day I am wondering the exact same thing. How do we shift the paradigm of educator learning. The future blog post I hinted at in this one is on the topic of exactly where in an educators career do we just stop learning unless something is taught to us? (with handouts etc.) Unfortunately, this is the pattern for most educators I know.

In one of my teachers classes they were studying the etymology of words and one of the students took on the word to learn. Prior to the 1930’s is always took on the meaning or connotation of hands on exploration (learning by doing) like learning a trade… however, in the 30’s there was a shift where to learn meant to be taught something in a sedentary manner i.e. a classroom…

I like the ideas of small professional learning communities but the push back I typically receive is where is the time? We have been piloting a 1:1 initiative with two departments in my school. Next year we will be expanding this program to 5-6 departments and a smattering of individuals in the remainder of the curricular areas. As part of this we will be moving to a required number of PD hours with the tablet PC’s we will be distributing. I spoke with a department chair of one of the departments who currently has a tablet and related that I would be developing a different type of PD as his groups was beyond the basics and his reply was “If we had 8 hours to work on these available we would have already been investigating new teaching practices with these things… we just don’t have that time!”

I go back to my questions: How do we move forward in this environment? I take my tablet almost everywhere I go. I discovered uses while surfing the net at home… I know that not all teachers are so set in their ways that they are not willing to be investigational, look at all of the amazing PD that goes on on twitter and all of the dialogue surrounding Diigo right now.

I also like your idea about developing a personal learning plan.

Regarding your thought about student “awareness” and perception? Absolutely they are aware of this situation, and teachers lack of drive toward authientic learning and technology enrichment. See my Presentations section for a presentation I gave last fall at IETC. I sat with three classes and the commentary was astounding. Here is a link to the background blog post my teacher did with his class: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=32868617&postID=8170725890224188275

Some of the comments about being ppt’d to death, or only “X” teacher encourages us to use blogs etc… are stunning in a building of 2600 students and 180 faculty members regardless of the training I work with the faculty on… Frustrating to say the least, but I feel it is detrimental to a students education as well…

I feel like I am ranting a bit right now and I apologize. Thanks for continuing to carry forward this conversation.

Scott

And I’m sitting here wondering if there is any way to shift more teachers from a procedural method of learning into a more navigational and experimental one?

Perhaps building more small professional learning community opportunities on campus so there is a more evolving model where people can try things, discuss them, learn and grow–rather than the more customary “sit and get” opportunities?

Perhaps creating situations where teachers have more incentive “within the system” to develop their own learning plans and then pursue them? Rather than being treated as more passive learners?

Hmm, wait, shouldn’t we be doing that with students as well?

I agree with your question about investigation and are we training that out of students (and teachers) in exchange for compliance?

But also do our very systems discourage experimentation, innovation, and creativity in the classroom? Do the leaders in a school or evaluative tools in a school reinforce these qualities in teachers or rather discourage them?

And in terms of students in our classroom, do our assignments encourage experimentation or discourage it?

When I sat in a meeting recently, and heard someone saying about teachers that I do respect that they had already had their lesson cycle planned out for NEXT year, I just wondered to myself–what is wrong with this picture? If knowledge is a living thing, and if we are teaching students it is a living thing, how can we have something planned out a year in advance?

I think another question I have about staff development is do we begin with the end in mind, or do we even have an end in mind?

And because we don’t, is that why things are so piecemeal?

I go back again to the idea of some scaffolded learning–either via small learning communities on a campus who support one another towards a shared goal, or personal learning plans where teachers are guiding themselves towards a learning aim, or staff development geared towards a campus direction or goal that is shared. How important is the general environment of the school in supporting any type of movement towards innovation or embedding technology?

A group on my campus was also talking about this in regards to students the other day. We were wondering if a few teachers try different methodologies, but then most of the other teachers aren’t–do students discount those who are innovating or just “go along” but that it’s not enough if they are receiving conflicting messages in other classes? I thought that was a fascinating question to think about, and a real problem. I mean, I trust that students know when they are being challenged and learning to think, and enjoy that and respond well to it, at least a majority of students do, but I also sense that those resistant to experimentation would just sort of explain it away as that one different teacher, etc.

Lots of thoughts circling around in my head in response to your post and I’m not sure I’m articulating them well enough.

I would like to thank you for the questions you raise. As I’ve been struggling to plan some staff development series this year through quite a few pitfalls, I think they are really resonating with me in terms of thinking about making things more meaningful or doing things differently so that they are more connected in to the needs of adult learners.

So thanks for stirring the pot!

Your comments about “navigational” (utilization) versus “procedural” (internalization) hit it right on the head and it sparked a conversation with my wife (also an educator and yes we were/are up at about 1am cst blogging) about goal setting… Young learners believe that they can do anything, as such they do not feel the (irrational?) fear of not being able to accomplish something so they try and try again. Look at the video game analogy. Where else do you see kids failing over and over yet coming back changing tactics, strategies, the outright rules to succeed… Is there a point in which procedural learners acquire that “fear” where learning becomes rote?

I guess that I am thinking that if we look at how young children, who very much want to learn and I feel are a great model of what an investigative thinker/learner is/should be, learn (navigationally) is there a point in the education cycle where we teach that out of them and create a procedural learner in its place? Are we creating this cycle by in essence teaching goal setting and breaking of topics/ideas down into more manageable “goals.” Then this carries over into life? Do we actually teach them to fear?

Is this why a majority of educational advocates are now talking about formative vs summative assessment and moving to authentic learning activities to get away from this “procedural” format?

I completely agree with you about the personal uses of technology to help bridge that comfort level gap and how it leads to higher level uses of technology. The struggle I am finding is the lack of desire for investigation Will Richardson has been talking for over the last year about educators using these tools for their OWN personal learning and less to get teachers to teach their kids these tools… (I don’t think that came out exactly right here, but I can’t think of a better way to say that) Then as you point out through a seamless use of technology by teachers modeling will enhance student learning and these tools will become seamless for students.

I’m still rattling around how to make this happen. I do like the suggestion of starting with digital photography. Make it personal to the educator and then look for natural ways for them to feel comfortable bringing it to students.

Is it really the leaders who want to teachers to skip those developmental steps or is it just easier? I guess I am coming back to that question: Are we “teaching” investigation out of our students? At what point do we want to stop learning and prefer to/need to be taught to learn?… hhhmmm…

Scott