My best practices are better than yours ...

I've been sitting on this post for a while now.  A few weeks ago, I lurked an #edchat twitter chat on defining best practices in education.  I had to stop halfway through as I think I was close to having a coronary.  I will attempt to summarize the general flow of the conversation:

1. Best practices are awesome.
2. Umm, what are best practices exactly?
3. We should find a way of sharing best practices so we all can benefit from each others ideas.
4. Maybe best practices are not global, instead there are best practices for each teacher-learner-classroom combination.
5. The moment you say a practice is best it constrains the learning.
6. We should find a way of sharing best practices so we all can benefit from each others ideas.
7. The very idea of best practices is silly as all of our practices are best, it's all relative.
8. Head asplode ....

So, I have decided to lay out my ideas on best practices in education.  I recently finished reading Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape in which he attempts to define a scientific basis for human morality (which in itself is a fascinating idea).  In it, he defines the goal of morality as maximizing the well-being of the greatest number of people possible.  He defines a spectrum that ranges from the worst possible suffering to everyone (at the bad end in case you weren't following along) and the greatest possible well-being for everyone at the top.  He then posits that we can investigate moral choices that move us either towards the worst suffering or away from it.  This can then be analysed scientifically.  

I propose a similar model for defining best practices in education.  One in which have a spectrum from the worst possible education for everyone to the best possible education.  Of course, this requires that we decide what the goal of education is (one of my largest complaints about #edchat discussions is the lack of focus towards achieving a salient goal).  If we take Dewey's stated aim of education as the 'development of reflective, creative, responsible thought' as our goal we have a starting point.  Of course we would now all need to agree as to what that meant.  However, as Harris notes we are able to work towards a goal of improving health without having a clear definition of what health is (although the seeming popularity of pseudo-medicine may show that the lack of a clear definition is fundamentally unstable).

Once we have defined a goal, we can start to measure the results of various practices and if they move us towards or away from that stated goal.  In this regard we can measure the effectiveness of practices and therefore can isolate practices that cause the greatest progress and encourage those practices while stifling the practices that are detrimental.

Note that nowhere in this exposition did I state or imply that there is only one possible best practice.  As Harris states his moral landscape can have multiple peaks on it where being on top of that peak would be the greatest possible well-being; as would being on an alternate peak.  My ideas for best practices is similar, there could be multiple peaks where we achieve the maximum possible education for all people just as there could be multiple means of scaling those peaks.

To summarize, the idea of a best practice is moot without a clear statement of purpose for education.  We need to know what the end point is to define something as being best.  A best practice would then therefore be an approach that maximizes our movement towards this goal.  Although best practices may only exist in theory, they can still exist.  As I have argued before, it all comes back to the purpose, the goal of education.

Teachers, Technology, Skillz, and Bieberfever: Reflections from #edchat

After participating in #edchat tonight I felt I needed to get a few things out. The topic for tonight's episode was "What amount of tech should be a requirement for every teacher to know? Are there any specific core applications for teachers?".

My first concern stems from the topic itself; its wording tacitly implies that technology is necessary to be a good teacher and therefore teachers that do not use technology cannot be good teachers. It also implies as a corollary that we must be utilizing technology in teaching. I don't think I have ever heard a solid argument as to why that must be the case. The most common arguments I hear are that "Students use technology so we must use it as well", "It makes education relevant to the student", and "It is required for a 21st century education".

The first argument is fallacious and is known as the argument from popularity (Argumentum ad populum). The basic idea is that many students use technology therefore technology should be used in education. It is a false premise because mere belief in something does not indicate it is true. Many students like listening to Justin Bieber*, it does not mean his music is worth listening to.

The second argument is also fallacious as it assumes that the combination of technology and education will maintain the relevancy that the technology provides alone:

A. Technology is relevant to students.
B. Students like things that are relevant.
C. Therefore teachers should use technology so students like education.

By accepting this argument you tacitly accept that anything that is relevant to students should improve education. Many students find Justin Bieber relevant, but it doesn't mean I am going to get Bieberfever in my science classroom*. Many students find exploring the outdoors and nature to be relevant until you require they learn about it in class. Obviously the way the lesson is taught has a great bearing on how the students will react, but that is an issue of pedagogy not technology.

The final argument implies that in the 21st century we use technology so therefore to exist in the 21st century you must know how to use technology. Once again it implies a causal relationship where there may not actually be one (and employs the logically fallacy known as affirming the consequent). The additional aspect to this argument I hear is that we must prepare students for jobs in the 21st century; jobs that do not exist yet that arise from problems we haven't stated yet. They then argue that teaching knowledge is ineffective because it will have changed by the time the students obtain these future jobs. However, the same can be said regarding the technology: it will be entirely different when the student leaves school and begins working/seeks higher education. The argument can be made that learning how to use today's technology provides a base for learning tomorrows; which I would agree with. However, that implies that learning today's knowledge provides a base for learning tomorrow's knowledge as well, which puts us back at square one. The argument also implies a teaching of technology for the sake of technology which leads me into my next concern: the lack of a clearly stated goal for teaching with technology.

It appears to me that we are integrating technology because it is there. Many mention the importance of ensuring the technology is used in accordance with proper pedagogy, a statement I couldn't agree more with. But there is so much more talk regarding how to use tech and very little regarding pedagogy that I worry that last statement is lip service to a degree. So to rectify this I will attempt to take the arguments I have listed and synthesize a goal for the integration of technology.

The main argument is preparing students for the future, so we will start there. The question that must be answered is what will the future look like. The only assumption I can start with, is that there will be people (because if there are no people, this argument is moot). So, what can we deduce if we assume that there will be people (in brackets I list the skills I believe are needed to accomplish the task/goal):

1. People will wish to communicate with each other (communication skills)
2. The communication will cause ideas to be generated and problems to be discovered (creativity and problem solving skills)
3. The problems will require solutions (creativity)
4. The solutions will require the application of new/unknown knowledge (research methodologies)
5. The solutions will require analysis (skepticism and rationality)

To me this is what needs to be taught to be ready for the future. I group these fives items (communication skills, creativity, problem solving skills, research methodologies, and skepticism and rationality) and entitle them critical thinking skills (although you could as easily call them learning skills).

Now no where in my listing I have noted technology. This implies to me (and I am biased as I created the excellent listing above) that technology is not a skill per se but a tool to be used to facilitate the execution of the skills. For example, if you needed to nail two pieces of wood together you could use a hammer or a nail gun. However, to use the tool properly I need to know why I am nailing the wood together and what the final product should look like; the technology will not show me that.

To bring the analogy to education, we can't know what tech to use until we understand the problem we are attempting to solve with our teaching. By assuming the solution will require technology we limit the number of possible solutions and stifle our creativity. The solution we arrive at may not be the most optimal or even a valid solution. Instead we need to add technology to our toolbox and utilize when the problem indicates it is required.

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* Shameless SEO plug
* I promise to stop now, that should be enough to get this post on page one of Google.

On Jack Johnson, Trains and Curriculum ...

I was listening to Jack Johnson's excellent album In Between Dreams today when his song Breakdown came on. Here is an except of the lyrics for those who have not heard this song (which ranks as one of my favourite songs of all time):

I hope this old train breaks down
Then I could take a walk around
And, see what there is to see
And time is just a melody
All the people in the street
Walk as fast as their feet can take them
I just roll through town
And though my windows got a view
The frame I'm looking through
Seems to have no concern for now

When I first heard this album I was living in Cape Town, South Africa working as a waiter at a Mexican Restaurant (I know, it makes no sense). I listened to this song a lot as I was backpacking around Southern Africa and it resonated with my wish to get out of the bus I was in to explore everything that was rushing by me. But the bus kept going ...

Today, it hit me an entirely different way. I was thinking about all the times in school when we are exploring a curriculum mandated topic and the students and teacher would love to stop the curriculum train to explore the current topic. But the train keeps going ...

It seems to me that our current model of education views curriculum as the train; it drives education. This model may be preferred by some as it removes much of the control from the individual teachers, who may choose to teach different topics. However, what it fails to do is to allow for exploration, to permit creativity and to generate passion about the topics. We have a set time to explore a topic, and whether or not we want to move on, we must when the time is up (or we need to dredge through 3 more weeks on a topic no one cares about).

What if we instead switched our model and made the curriculum the track and allowed the teachers to control the train. We would all have a set path to follow, but we would be allowed to stop and gawk when it was appropriate. Or to speed on through when the scenery wasn't to the groups liking. We could even stop the train in the station for a day or so and go on a walkabout; exploring that stop in more detail because our students wanted to.

Imagine that, no longer needing to view the curriculum just through our window frame which, according to Jack Johnson, "seems to have no concern for now", but instead getting out of the train and seeing things unobstructed, freely, and without restraint.

Where are the Students?

While wandering through the woods today:

I saw the deer and thought this is Biology.
I saw the different biomes and thought this is Geography.
I saw the roots of the upturned trees and thought this is History.
I saw chickadees flying through the air and thought this is Physics.
I heard the animals chattering around me and thought this is Music.
I saw the marsh grasses purifying the water and thought this is Chemistry.
I felt the perfection of nature and thought this is Math.
I saw the beauty around me and thought this is Art.
I felt connections to everything around me and thought this is Philosophy.
I felt these words flow through me and thought this is English.

Then I saw that I was alone,

And I thought, where are the students?

The beginnings of #scisat

So, I had another idea (which I have apparently followed through with ... go me!). I am a huge fan of science laboratories that are open-ended and allow for students to learn important soft skills such as observation, note-taking, hypothesising, problem solving and communication. Personally, I don't care much for labs where a 'correct' answer must be found. In school, I usually reversed engineered them to solve for the answer and add in some experimental error to make it look better.

So, on to the idea. The creation of #scisat. Every Saturday (or Sunday, or apparently Friday as I posted early ... Maple Syrup Festival tomorrow and all) I will post a science idea that helps to foster the skills I listed above. Anything is fair game from labs to demos and journal ling to technology.

If you like the idea and the inaugural posting Spicy Spicy Science, let people know. Let's start #scisat as the way of communicating our ideas with each other. Let's bring science back (hmm, I smell a song ... is Justin Timberlake on twitter?)

The Direction of this Blog

With much thought, I've decided to refocus the direction of my blog. There are a number of excellent resources that are available discussing the newest web2.0 technologies. I will eventually post some links to the ones I like. I don't see the usefulness of reiterating what already exists.

So, what to do. I am going to focus on the integration of new ideas into the classroom; looking at the holistic idea of teaching. This is something that I have not been able to find elsewhere (although I have no doubts it exists in the blogosphere somewhere). I want to focus in on the art of teaching while not losing sight of the science. I will do this by analysing and reflecting upon my own practice as I delve deeper into the pedagogical ideas I have. With this, I hope to generate conversation as we collaborate to become better teachers.

I will still look at new technologies. However, instead of just talking about them, I want to focus on integrating them within the big picture of teaching. Because if they don't add to the picture, then maybe they don't belong in the classroom. I don't know. I guess we will find out ...

More depth on yesterday's post

I feel that I should explore the introduction in yesterday's post a bit more. I want to define my current educational philosophy on technology and teaching. I tend towards Ursula Franklin's views on technology: that it is a set of practices that exists here and now. According to Franklin, "Technology involves organization, procedures, symbols, new words, equations, and, most of all, a mindset."[1] So, in essence technology is anything that we use to solve any problem. I find this definition to be much truer to my sense of technology.

So, that means that on this site we could examine almost anything ... which is exciting. However, I think I will start with some uses of some of the things you find on this blog, such as: twitter, apture, and the blog itself.

Until tomorrow ...


[1] Franklin, Ursula. (1992) The Real World of Technology. (CBC Massey lectures series.) Concord, ON: House of Anansi Press Limited. ISBN 0-88784-531-2

Welcome!

Welcome to shift-ED. With this blog (and various other accompanying sites), I hope to explore new, old and interesting ideas relating to education. My idea is to have the main focus be towards the use of technology in the classroom to create collaborative, experiential learning environments. But, we never know how these things evolve. Miscellaneous posts regarding education and teaching will probably make there way in here as well.

Since the purpose of this site is to foster collaborative learning environments, I would be remiss to not encourage as much here as possible. I'm creating a wiki site to allow for ideas, feedback and suggestions to be posted more freely (and to help showcase the technology).

The idea behind the name shift-ED is to focus on the constant ebbing and flowing that occurs within all things that are social in nature; education being no exception. While exploring new ideas and technologies, the old methodologies that work should not be ignored simply because they are aged. The name represents the shift required to incorporate these new tools, while perhaps shifting our views on education and its purpose slightly.

I relish the opportunity to explore this with you.