Keep teachers in classrooms

Recently in a council of school councils or a meeting of parents, teachers, board members and central office staff, parents were asked to identify their priorities for the school division. One suggestion stays with me still. The parents comment was to keep teachers in the classroom and not switch to distance learning modules.

I understand his concern completely. He stated simply, "I want someone to teach my child the lessons."

Personally, I am a fan of the use of technology and of distance education, however I do understand what this man was saying. Distance education and online learning are only one style of learning and do not replace teacher taught lessons. The best lessons are those designed by teachers who work in a classroom everyday. The interaction between learner and teacher is very important and makes the difference between success and failure for most kids.

In developing programs for online education with Alberta Learning, one important lesson I learned is that you simply can not take a set of questions or instructions from a classroom setting and put them on the computer and have an effective online lesson. The two methods of instruction are completely different. Similarly a lesson designed for online instruction can not be simply be distributed to children in the classroom.

I understand that rural school systems are faced with challenges of offering a full complement of courses in small schools. For example if a school has only have 5 Physics 30 students in a year, how can the school afford to hire a qualified teacher to teach the course? They can't so they offer the course by distance education or online education. It's not the best way but it is a way.

It is a dilemma and I am not sure that I know the answer. Any suggestions?

Private vs Public education

This is a an excellent essay in support of public school school teachers in the United States. While I realize that the American education system is different then in Canada, there are those here in this country that believe that private eduation is better.

I believe it is a worthwhile read with some very relevant points.

http://www.freireproject.org/blogs/defense-public-school-teachers-time-crisis-henry-giroux

scary copyright fee

This has gone largely unnoticed but I think it's a big issue.

"Titled the Access Copyright Post-Secondary Educational Institution Tariff, this levy of $45 per student, if accepted by the board, would cover all manner of copying by students and teachers, whether digital or print, video or audio, online or offline, coursepacks or class handouts, in the library or at home, in the classroom or e-learning."

and "will apply to all manner of copying, even if the material is free to use."

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/copyright+will+students+more+learning+materials/2904884/story.html


1. Charging everyone a flat fee is a bit like making every driver pay a speeding fine at the beginning of the year. The assumption is that everyone will violate copyright in some way so lets pay the fine up front.

2. I believe, this will not stay with college students, it will soon every student in Alberta will be required to pay the fee to Access Copyright.

3. Once the fee is established they can up the rates.

4. This organizations protects the right of only some publishers and creators. Therefore the big players become stronger, reducing competition which is the cornerstone of a healthy free market economy.

This is something to be concerned about!

Interesting links

Here are a couple of cool links that would make a great teaching tool.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/21/solar.observatory.images/index.html?hpt=C1

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1982747_2126373,00.html

Facebook and education

This is one of my favorite blogs because it encourages the use of technology in education. Here he is experimenting with using Facebook but ran into some issues. However he is looking for a way to solve the problems rather then simply dropping the idea.


http://blog.scs.sk.ca/tado/2010/04/facebook-experiment.html


It's an interesting read for anyone using facebook.

Let teachers choose their own style

When I went to school, the teachers were not all the same and they didn't all use the same teaching style nor did they all have the same rules.

In grade 10, I thought my math teacher was evil. I started in math 10 but it was first class in the morning and he shut the door at the bell every day and didn't open it. If a student was late, they were locked out of the lesson. If you missed 5 classes he kicked you out of the course. Teachers could do that in those days!

I was perpetually late so I was soon kicked out of the course. Then he not only refused to let me back into math 10 but said no me taking math 13 too because my grade in math 10 (being zero because i got kicked out) was less then 25%. Arguing that I got the low grade not because of my work but because I got kicked out was completely pointless. Although he slammed the door in my face he did open the window just a bit, if I could get a grade of 80% or better in math 14 he might let me into math 13. If I got 80% or better in math 13 he might let me back into math 10. I was outraged and felt it was very unfair!

When I told my mother she didn't phone the school and yell at them, instead she said she would pay for me to take math at summer school. So reluctantly I accepted the offer. I took math 14, 13, 10, 20 and 30. When I got to math 30 and really needed help, guess who spent his lunch hours helping me learn algebra? Yup that nasty teacher was really a nice guy in the end.

On the other hand I had a complete fruit cake for grade 10 chemistry. He rarely arrived to class on time and dressed in goofy nerdy short pants. His lessons consisted mainly of memorizing the periodic table. To help us memorize it, he would march up and down the isles of the class chanting phrases like "HONI Brushed Clean Fingers! HONI Brushed Clean Fingers!" Which was a mnemonic device for hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, iodine, bromine, chlorine and fluorine - the diatomic molecules. He looked so ridiculous marching around in his silly clothes, arms flailing and chanting that the students were always laughing at him (not with him). But it worked! By the end of the course I could identify element on the periodic table and know the row, period, atomic weight, absolutely everything about it. That was one of the most helpful things I ever learned. In university while others spent precious test time flipping through their periodic table, I recalled the information easily and with a smile remembering probably the most manic person I had ever met.

These teachers had very different styles, neither of which would be accepted today but I learned a lot from them and more then just the lessons. From one I learned, if I work hard and follow the rules, I can succeed. From the other I learned that memorizing boring information is easy if you make it fun and silly.

Today teachers feel so bogged down with rules and regulations that they don't feel free to teach the way they think is best. If you let teachers teach the way that they want, school will be a more interesting place and grades will improve naturally. Variety is the spice of life!

I wish I worked in Wormeli world

I wish I worked in Wormeli world because it must be a wonderful place to live, I think a lot like Mr. Roger’s Neighbourhood.

He responded to my post dated Monday April 5, 2010 “Is differentiated instruction desirable?” Click on the comment link at the bottom to read them.

“Grouping students flexibly and temporarily is justified, research-based, and common sense. If you are a classical guitarist, I’m not going to make you sit through the first lesson of the E minor chord all over again while I teach those just learning how to hold a guitar properly. You’ll move on to advanced fingering and adagios.”

Common sense, I like that. I must admit I have never taught guitar so maybe differentiated instruction is a great way to teach guitar, however I have taught 30 grade 7 math students at one time. I am going to make an assumption that advanced fingering and adagios is comparable to advanced math like calculus.

So let’s say I have a class of grade 7 math students and one of them wants to sit at the back and work on advanced calculus instead of working on fractions with the rest of the class. WOOO HOOO! No teacher in the world is going to stop the child from doing advanced calculus! I have never had that happen to me in my life and if it has happened to any other teacher out there, please let me know because I want write a story on that child!

However in the real world 25 of the 30 students don’t know fractions at all even though they have learned it in a previous grade. Three of the remaining 5 could really use a review before they have to write the exam at the end of the year. The last two, well it probably won’t hurt them to review the concepts and if they really know it, they will be done the assignment very quickly and can have some extra computer time.

In Wormeli world I suppose those 5 students would be put into a group where they would sit at the back of the class and work nicely on the next chapter of math independently. They would discuss the problems and learn from each other. They would not goof around, disrupt the class or talk about the latest Lady Gaga You Tube video. Wormeli world must be a nice place to work. Common sense!

Inclusive Education

I am a person with strong opinions but also, I hope, a person who is willing to listen to the views of others. Of course it's much easier to be a critic then it is to offer solutions, so today I would like to present something I do believe in.

Inclusive education is simply including people with disabilities, physical and mental and including them in regular classroom activities. This is not a new concept, it has been embraced at a number colleges and universities. In fact the University of Alberta's "On Campus" is one that is very successful and the model has been successfully adopted at many institutions.

http://www.ualberta.ca/~jpdasddc/inclusion/oncampus/oncampus.html

Students with disabilities attend university classes and participate in the same assignments and lectures as other students.

The Learning Challenge sponsored by Disney

"Our challenge to you is to develop a learning widget that will delight inspire and reveal key learning concepts for children aged 7 - 11"

http://www.learningchallenge2010.com/

Tuition fee hike

We purchased a registered education plan for my daughter before she was one year old. However with constant increases in the cost of post- secondary education in Alberta, I am now just hoping that she will be able to afford to go to college or university even with the fund.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2010/04/07/edmonton-calgary-tuition-increases.html?ref=rss

It's really becoming a big gamble for young people to lay down tens of thousands of dollars in hopes that they will get a job in the end to help them climb out of debt.

I wonder why some countries are able to offer free post-secondary education. It seems ideal to have a system which educates the brightest and not the richest students. Although a little out of date, this article still makes some interesting comparisons of the cost of education in different countries.

http://www.studentawards.com/articleAug2008.asp

Is differentiated instruction desirable?

I remember as a child having the children in our classroom divided into reading groups. The best readers were in the A group and the worst ones were in the D group. Of course the letter D was quickly equated with the word dummy on the playground. The next year the school modified their approach by using colors instead of letters but everyone knew that the kids in the red group were the poor readers. The following year they changed to bird names … but of course it really didn’t matter what they called the group, all the kids knew who was in the smart group and who was in the dummy group.

So when I heard Rick Wormli speak about grouping kids in the classroom for differentiated instruction, it sent shivers down my spine. According to this theory students should be grouped according to their individual “learning styles” and given different instruction and assignments. Well we can rename it but it’s still labeling and it’s dangerous. Kids are very vulnerable and tend to believe what adults tell them directly and indirectly. There is such a plethora of learning theories around, I am not exactly sure on what basis Wormeli thinks kids should be grouped, but I did hear him say one clip that the teacher should know if the student is a visual, auditory or tactile learner. Some educational researcher’s have questioned this whole notion claiming that we are all a mixture of learning styles depending upon the message. Everyone is a visual learner if Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie is delivering the lesson and everyone is a auditory learner when we listen to a good joke.

Giving kids different assignments is also dangerous. Let’s say one person does a PowerPoint (or web page) and another does an essay and another does a video presentation for the class. They all learn the same material right? On the next assignment do we let them continue to do the same thing? Do we let little Jane do videos all year and then wonder why she can’t read and write? Do we let the shy little book worm hide in the corner and read books all year or do we challenge him to step out of his comfort zone and do a class presentation? Can we insist that he does a class presentation with out insisting that others do as well? Because he, and probably his parents, are going to think you are picking on him by making him do a presentation if nobody else in the class has to do it that way.

What if we have the entire class do an essay for one lesson, a web page for the next lesson and a video presentation for the third? With the children working sometimes in groups and sometimes individually. By having variety everybody will get some assignments in their area of strength and everybody will have to do something outside their comfort zone. Nobody is being labeled or unfairly singled out.

Wormeli says “fair isn’t always equal”, in my opinion, that’s a bit like inviting some friends over to your house for dinner and giving only the skinny ones dessert.

Education hoax

Reports of an elementary school production of Scarface that is making the rounds by e-mail, is a hoax.

"Instead, it's the work of director Marc Klasfeld and Rockhard Films who did the videos for Lady Gaga's 'Pokerface' and Adam Lambert's 'For Your Entertainment.' It was produced in L.A. within the last few weeks and the audience members were a mix of cast family members, colleagues and friends. As for Lil' Tony and his co-stars, they were selected through a casting agent known for finding child actor look-alikes for adult stars."

http://www.snopes.com/photos/arts/scarface.asp