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Deepening understanding of 21st Century Skills

Posted on by Mark Isero

Although my school embraces 21st century skills in its four school-wide outcomes (personal responsibility, communication, critical thinking, and social responsibility), I realized at the beginning of the semester that I needed to do extensive reading because I had a novice understanding. It became clear early on, for example, that information literacy comprised just one aspect of the vast spectrum of 21st century skills.

In addition to our class discussions, which helped me brainstorm important 21st century skills, a PBS video helped ground me in the topic. “Digital Media: New Learners of the 21st Century” offers five case studies of schools focusing on the development of 21st century skills. In the one-hour video, one researcher defines 21st century skills as the “love of embracing change” and the ability “to navigate in a buzz of confusion.” I also appreciated a reference to a quotation by Dewey, paraphrased as follows: We rob our students of tomorrow if we teach them today the way we taught them yesterday. The video urges teacher librarians to become “academic coaches” and to challenge teachers to cultivate 21st century skills among students.

After viewing the film, I was ready for some rigorous reading. The book, 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn, became my main text, which includes essays by many educational leaders, such as Howard Gardner and Linda Darling-Hammond. The chapters by Pearlman and Reeves, in particular, helped me think less abstractly about 21st century skills. Pearlman offers ideas about how to transform learning environments to build 21st century skills, while Reeves gives insights about how to assess those skills.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills was also very helpful. The organization’s website details a clear rationale for explicitly teaching 21st century skills from the perspective of educators, employers, and the general public. The framework — especially the four learning innovation skills of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity — visually represents the relationship between the different pieces of 21st century skills. I was pleased, for instance, that the core subject understanding provides foundation for the rest of the 21st century skills.

Despite my heightened understanding of 21st century skills, I still have many questions to answer. For example, I am still worried that more time teaching 21st century skills means less time reading. Even though I recognize the importance of students taking in various types of text — and deciding whether sources are credible — I am still concerned. Instead of complaining, however, I commit myself to doing additional inquiry!

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Educational Theory: A move toward constructivism

Posted on by Mark Isero

As a teacher, I’ve always championed project-based learning, student-centered classrooms, and the importance of curiosity as a precursor to learning. But over the last few years, the emphasis on standards has made me more behaviorist. I am happy that this class pushed me to learn more about how to re-introduce constructivism as a pillar of my pedagogy, especially as I become a teacher librarian.

Cooperstein and Kocevar-Weidinger (2004) offer a clear definition of constructivism as distinct from “active learning,” “hands-on learning,” and other similarly-termed educational theories. They argue that true constructivist learning must include the following four criteria: (1) learners construct their own learning, (2) new learning builds on prior knowledge, (3) social interaction aids learning, (4) learning develops through real tasks. The authors — citing writings by Dewey, Vygotsky, and Bruner, among others — suggest that a constructivist learning environment begins and ends with student inquiry, rather than teacher direction. Because the library offers a learning commons and access to technology, teacher librarians should capitalize on constructivist pedagogy when collaborating with classroom teachers. Though I find the authors’ perspectives idealistic, my transformations this semester — especially the Book 2 Cloud — give me hope that students would embrace more opportunities to build knowledge rather than to regurgitate it back to their teachers.

After becoming convinced of the potential of constructivist learning, I did additional reading to figure out ways teachers and teacher librarians have reconceptualized learning environments. Gordon and Markuson (2008) keep the question of constructivism simple: “Do your students want to be [in your library]?” Their slide presentation details the complex steps necessary in transforming libraries into learning commons. Some of these steps include collecting data and reinventing space to ensure presentation areas, flexible learning centers, and opportunities for groups of students to collaborate.

I also became fascinated with the flipped classroom model. Roxanne’s presentation and our classroom activity provided an epiphany about how the flipped classroom model relates to constructivist teaching. The idea, according to an excellent Knewton infographic, is simple: Construct knowledge together in the classroom, rather than having students do so at home. In a Math class, this means lectures go online (e.g., Khan Academy) for home viewing, while problem-solving, the main event, happens in class. Bergman and Sams (2007), who are cited as the inventors of the concept, note that the growing popularity of the flipped classroom as a constructivist pedagogy is, in fact, constructivist — as educators experiment and come to new understanding.

For me, a question remains: What’s the best way to flip an English classroom? Many English teachers have struggled to figure out how to flip their classroom. (Here is one teacher’s blog post; here is another. What should happen in class vs. at home? It is not entirely clear, perhaps because English focuses more on skill development rather than discrete content standards. Perhaps the question to answer is the following: What is at the heart of the ELA curriculum, particularly when augmented through collaboration with a teacher librarian? What is being constructed? Those questions (and more) will guide my next steps in reading and learning.

teaching

The key to teaching: Be less helpful

Posted on by Mark Isero

favicon Famous Math teacher and blogger Dan Meyer wants teachers to be less helpful.

I agree.

For Mr. Meyer, this means encouraging students to grapple with the essence of a math problem, rather than providing students with unnecessary layers of information, often from a textbook, that makes math boring.

For me, this means listening to my students and their problems — but not immediately solving them. It means sending the message, “I’m not going to solve your problem, but I’m going to help you think about how to solve your problem.”

The instinct to solve my students’ problems is strong. I want to be helpful. I want my students to be happy. And I want to reduce the number of problems my students have. There are a lot of problems and not very much time.

But this strategy does my students a disservice. They never learn how to solve problems on their own. If I help them too much, my students’ immediate stress may go away, but they haven’t learned what to do the next time they face a challenge.

A few quick anecdotes from today:

1. A student approached me because he is woefully behind on his graduation presentation, due next Monday. He still needs to complete 15 hours of community service and a job shadow. He wanted me to set everything up. I told him no but walked him through the steps he needed to take. He wasn’t happy. He said I wasn’t helping him.

2. A student told me about her distrusting boyfriend and wanted advice about how to save the relationship. “What should I do?” she asked. Telling my student the answer wouldn’t help her realize she’s in a mildly abusive situation. I made sure to listen, ask questions about her feelings, and set her up with our school’s counselor.

3. A student made a one-on-one appointment with me (in order to graduate), forgot to show up, and then didn’t bother to let me know he couldn’t make it. My usual reaction is to close the loop quickly by contacting the student. This time, I’m going to let things play out and see how the student responds. Some teachers may argue that I am not serving the student because I am jeopardizing his chances of graduating, but I have two responses: (a) there must be consequences, (b) as long as I don’t let him fail, it’s OK to teach him that there are ramifications to his actions.

Those are just three examples. I could go on. I’m finding out the best teaching involves communicating and maintaining a clear standard and then helping students who struggle to meet that expectation. This kind of teaching may take more time in the short run, but it sends a strong message: You, the student, will do this because you are smart and capable and can figure things out. favicon

issues in education

Assessment: Process as important as product

Posted on by Mark Isero

At the beginning of the semester, I considered myself fairly knowledgeable about assessment. After all, as a teacher, I had participated in overhauling my first school’s assessment system and participated in campaigns for standard-based grading. Nevertheless, this class — particularly my peers in discussions and class activities — pushed my thinking about assessment in three important ways.

First, I learned about the distinction between formative and summative assessment and the importance of both types. In our transformations, my partners and I struggled at first. We knew the difference between the two but had trouble lining up our goals and objectives to their corresponding assessments. After taking a look at the Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence’s website (http://goo.gl/x6aEN), however, our understanding became much clearer. I appreciated the succinct definitions and the easy-to-understand examples.

Second, I learned that the assessment of process goals is as important as the assessment of content goals. This was a major shift for me. After all, as a teacher, I have been taught — especially over the past decade, since the advent of No Child Left Behind — that content is king. Process is secondary. What matters most is whether the student gets there, not how she got there. But Professor Loertscher and my peers cajoled my thinking. Particularly with information literacy and 21st century skills, which emphasize critical thinking, the assessment of process is critical. The Big Think — in which students practice metacognition and consider their growth in product and process — is also an important step for teachers and teacher librarians.

Third, much of my learning came in reading the Common Core and the AASL standards closely and thoroughly. I’ve become obsessed with the Common Core’s ELA standards and the controversy surrounding David Coleman, who argues against pre-reading activities and reader response pedagogy. Despite the ongoing debate about the Common Core, I found the standards helpful for interdisciplinary projects and for learning that involves research and support from teacher librarians. Specifically, the focus on argument and evidence aligns well with several learning models, specifically “Take a Stand.” I also appreciated perusing the AASL standards, especially their focus on problem solving, critical thinking, and the production and sharing of knowledge. If the library is to become a 21st-century learning commons, our curriculum and assessment must center on the exchange of ideas.

My reading this semester has deepened my understanding of curriculum and assessment. Shifting from being a classroom teacher to a teacher librarian has encouraged me to consider assessment differently. My journey has led me to believe in the importance of assessing not just the discrete content standards but also the more fundamental aspects of learning — the why and the how.

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Collaboration: More than “working together”

Posted on by Mark Isero

In my 15 years as a teacher, I’ve collaborated with colleagues to build interdisciplinary curricula and to create several authentic assessments, including a mock trial in the San Francisco Superior Court and a Youth Symposium at Stanford University. But this semester’s challenge was to consider how teacher librarians and teachers can collaborate to transform learning experiences, especially to encourage 21st century skills.

My peers — in class as well as in our transformations — emphasized that teachers and teacher librarians must work together from the beginning of unit creation, rather than resting on their expertise and taking turns facilitating student learning. In other words, the teacher librarian should not teach research skills while the teacher handles writing skills. For the best product, both professionals should work together throughout the process.

This conclusion is supported by my reading this semester. Montiel-Overall (2006) argues that collaboration comes from learning theory, including Vygotsky’s ideas that we learn from people through dialogue. Therefore, rather than merely breaking down a task into smaller parts, collaboration is “the process of shared creation” that leads to an authentic product that participants would not be able to conceive independently. Montiel-Overall suggests four models of collaboration — coordination, cooperation, integrated instruction, and integrated curriculum — that serve as a continuum for teachers and teacher librarians to use as a rubric for their shared work.

To make this theory of collaboration more concrete, I looked for examples of rubrics that school districts use. Although coming from a 2006 website, the Saskatchewan schools (http://goo.gl/8jjpe) offer an easy-to-use guide that I, as a beginning teacher librarian, can immediately use with my colleagues. The resource outlines the differences between an “emergent” and “expert” collaborative experience between the teacher librarian and teacher.

In addition to learning about the different levels of collaboration, I also investigated the ingredients necessary to build a strong collaborative relationships. Russell (2000) cites Muronago and Harada (1999) in concluding that shared goals, a shared vision, and a climate of trust and respect are the most important characteristics. Furthermore, time is critical: Teacher librarians with flexible schedules, Russell writes, spend an average of 30 minutes per collaborative session, while those with fixed schedules spend significantly less time — just five minutes, on average. This article made me think about the importance of maintaining a schedule that balances administrative tasks, collection development, student contacts, and collaboration with teachers.

Finally, my reading on collaboration spurred me to improve my Personal Learning Environment and Personal Learning Network. Professor Loertscher provided us an article from Richard Byrne’s blog, Free Technology for Teachers, in which Byrne emphasizes that teacher librarians should build online professional relationships with other teacher librarians. I am proud to report that I have cultivated several new relationships on Twitter, most notably with Buffy Hamilton, a teacher librarian in Georgia, who blogs at http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com. As a result, I am hopeful that my knowledge and understanding of collaboration will continue to grow.