Reflections on OESIS Boston: Humanities without Textbooks & Bringing Poetry to the MakerSpace

Two weeks ago, I attended the OESIS conference in Boston, MA, and I’m still processing all the things I learned over such a short period of time. I had the privilege of sitting on two panels, one on online collaboration and another on student agency, as well as presenting with my colleague, Joel Garza, on some of our previous collaborative projects.

I wanted take a moment to share some notes and observations about a couple sessions I attended that relate to English instruction (Also, for more reflections on OESIS Boston, check out the article just published by Global Online Academy, The Power of Networks: 10 Ways Schools Are Tackling Innovation):

1. Humanities without the Narrative by Deborah Shaul from La Jolla Country Day School

Deborah’s session was about blending a US History curriculum with an American Literature class without using an anchor textbook for the course. When Deborah ditched the textbook, it freed her to approach the content in a less linear fashion, and instead, scope and sequencing were often shaped or influenced by the interests and choices of the students as they immersed themselves in a deeper, more interconnected investigation of American literature and history. As she stressed, by allowing to make more choices as to what primary documents they wanted to research, the teacher and the author of the textbook were no longer the “keeper of the keys” to the narrative. One thing I appreciated about Deborah’s session was her candidness about student and parent responses, which were not always positive. Doing away with the textbook created fear and anxiety for some. They weren’t always sure what to study or how to do so, but I think such push back always happens when we truly turn over agency to students in relation to their learning. Why do some students prefer having a textbook?

(a) It serves as a security blanket because the answers are explicitly provided

(b) Students don’t always trust their own answers nor those of their peers

(c) It’s easier to perform well on a test when one can memorize pre-packaged content

She surveyed her students, asking them how they prefer to learn, and Deborah was a little disappointed to see that many students still prefer lecture/power point formats. However, I think it’s important to step back and ask ourselves: are students conflating “getting good grades” with learning? Perhaps the survey results reflect that kind of confusion that one would expect from the average independent school learner whose main priority is his or her transcript.

If you have more questions, you can reach out to Deborah at @Dshaul3.

2. Discovering Poetry Through Maker-Space Projects by Amy Alsip from The Oakridge School

Amy shared with us a project she did where students made poetry as well as artifacts inspired by their literary creations in the context of a MakerSpace. One through-line I noticed that connects Amy’s project to Deborah’s curricular innovations was the role of student agency in each scenario. Students would enter the MakerSpace, and there were several stations/choices for poetry creation:

(a) Dice Roll haikus

(b) Using book spines to create poetry

(c) Using the name of paint samples to create poetry

(d) “Blackout poetry” using markers and a found text (like a newspaper)

(e) Using scrabble games to construct poetry

And there were a few more stations that escape me now…

Amy Alsip presenting her poetry/maker project at OESIS Boston

Students would then share their 20+ poetry creations with peers to get feedback. Once they had selected their favorite 3-5 poems, each poet would return to the MakerSpace to create an artifact inspired by the poem in question, and once again, they had many options:

(a) Coding

(b) Sowing

(c) 3D Printing

(d) Repurposing found materials

(e) Circuitry Boxes

(f) Legos

Again, I believe there were 1 or 2 more options that I cannot recall now

The whole project culminated in a poetry read-aloud night at the school for the community to attend. Of course, the students got to showcase their fabrications as well. As an English teacher, I like how a project like this reminds us that English classes have always been spaces for making.

If you have more questions, you can reach out to Amy at @amyalsip.

More on Reading & Thinking for Each Other: Why Students Need to Create, Curate, & Own their Knowledge & Learning

I've written before on the power of Google Docs for facilitating communal & collaborative learning both in and outside the classroom. Most recently, I shared how Google Docs helped me redefine the exam experience as well as the dynamics of classroom discussion for my students.

Last month, I wrote about both the successes and flat spots of gamifying an accelerated high school literature course, and student surveys were loud and clear: all participants appreciated (more than anything else) having more independence and ownership in their journey towards discovery. It was a very student-directed project, and they were free to choose from a variety of different assignments (which appealed to a wide array of learning styles). Failure in this context just meant try again, and students were in complete control of their unique learning path. For these reasons, most learners loved it, but, as stated before, there were flat spots. In the surveys, many learners expressed a lack of confidence regarding their mastery of style analysis: this was a "hard skill" that was not adequately addressed or practiced.

Students working collaboratively on their google doc

Fast forward to the current text we're studying. I knew I wasn't going to gamify the next unit (but I would use that method again in the future, without a doubt), but I wanted to keep the student-directedness as a priority in terms of how I designed the learning experience. I wanted the learners to have ownership. I realized, however, that certain learning objectives had not been targeted adequately in the last unit (thinking of style analysis here...), so I felt the need to be more involved in the navigation of their learning paths as well. The students were assigned to read Charles Dickens's Hard Times, a starkly realist novel (yet full of cartoonish satire and humor) about the hardships of living through the industrial revolution as a working or middle class Coketowner (fictional British industrial district) before the era of meaningful reform. Like many Dickensian narratives, the book was divided into three parts, which triggered for me an idea on how to marry student-directedness with proper teacher-guidance.

Discussions were need-to-know and focused

I set up four Google Docs: one on Historical Contexts & Setting/Place, one on Character Development, one on Theme Analysis, and one on Style Analysis. I divided the class into four learning groups (call 'em Group One, Group Two, and so on...). Group One was assigned Historical Contexts & Setting, Group Two got Character Development, and you can guess the rest. Each group had access to a unique Google Doc for their category of investigation, and although I gave them some pointers (like recommending certain passages for Style Analysis or suggesting certain topics for historical research for Context/Setting), it was ultimately up to the students to collect and curate the knowledge for each category of learning. Each week, every group had to present highlights on their "findings and reflections" to the rest of class, and at the end of each part or section of the novel (remember, the novel was broken into 3 parts) the groups switched to one of the other categories (Historical Context/Setting; Character Development; Theme Analysis; Style Analysis). There were three sections to the overall novel and four learning categories, so I still had a problem because students were not going to have the opportunity to explore in depth each of the equally important learning categories. My solution was to have each learning group prepare a 15-20 min. presentation (at the end of the project) which showcased and paraphrased the findings found on the google doc related to the one category that the given group in question never had the chance to explore. In other words, if Group One did Historical Contexts for section one, proceeded to report on Style Analysis for the 2nd section, and finished by studying Character Development for the novel's final section, that group's culminating project was to present on Theme Analysis (the category they never researched) based on the information provided and curated by the groups that had a chance to contribute to the Theme google doc.

Screen shot of student-created google doc on Context/Setting. A work in progress...

The gains of this project:
-Class discussions were need-to-know and therefore authentic. Students always had a very focused frame of mind when having conversations, and not only did they direct their concerns of inquiry toward me, more importantly they framed questions for each other! What can the Historical Context/Setting group provide to help our task to analyze this character? How can the Theme Analysis group help us articulate the purpose of this passage as we perform a close reading of literary style?
-Students created and curated the knowledge, and my job, therefore, was more about design and (occasionally) interventionary guidance. I did outline the topography of the learning landscape by directing inquiry towards four main topics, but students had a lot of room to explore and create for themselves and for each other (and at times it was messy!). Students really owned the learning process.
-Students had to work together, which reinforced work on certain soft skills such as the ability to communicate, collaborate, and negotiate with each other. Not all moments were harmonious, but I think such uncomfortable experiences are just as important for purposes of developing the whole student.
-Students brought something to the table, and everyone felt like they were an important part of the puzzle. The picture of understanding was only complete once all groups shared their part of the knowledge-creation process; therefore, everyone mattered.
-Students were doing all of this (at least by the end of the project) not for the teacher but for each other.  Purpose, audience, relevance: these were not abstract concepts, they were real elements of the learning environment that we created together as a collaborative community.

Students are (as we speak) working on papers based on their readings of Dickens's novel, and one of the cool developments is how the google docs (that they created as a learning community) are now serving as resources for each student's writing process. They have literally read, thought, and researched for each other and not for me, and it is deeply rewarding to watch.

A Teacher's Reflection on Student Responses to Gamifying English Class for the First Time

On Feb. 19th, I blogged about gamifying my curriculum for the first time, and I was right in the middle of the unit. Along with Seth Burgess and his classes at Lausanne Collegiate School, we read William Shakespeare's Macbeth and used schoology.com as the interface for receiving various options for assignments to earn "XP points" which opened access to more and more challenging levels. You can read more about the breakdown of the project here and here.

We finished the unit on March 6th right before students left for their spring break holiday, and last week, my students took a very detailed survey which measured their levels of enjoyment, satisfaction, and benefit as a result of this experience. I want to thank Seth Burgess for putting the survey together, and I look forward to sharing our experiences as co-presenters this summer at Lausanne Learning Institute in Memphis, TN.

I feel confident claiming that the experiment was a first time encounter for everyone involved at my school (The Oakridge School). I also think it's important to note that, due to snow days, there ended up being a slight shortage of time. No students, for instance, made it to the final 6th level, BUT plenty of participants earned an A+ with more than enough XP points (mainly due to optional "grind assignments"). Final grade distribution ranged from D to A+ (the Ds & Cs were a minority with most students scoring somewhere from a B+ to an A).

For the survey, students first had to rate their overall evaluation of the gamified curriculum on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = worst; 5 = neutral; 10 = best), and seventy students were surveyed. Surveys remained anonymous so students felt comfortable giving frank feedback (you can take a look at the entire survey here):

No one gave it a 10, but no one characterized it as the "worst" experience either - and I was pleased to see a high concentration of response around the 7 to 9 range of scores. Most students, I think, would want to do this again, and a large group of them (the 8s & 9s) preferred the game-based approach when compared to how curriculum was designed and delivered in previous units of study. I think the 13 students who rated anywhere from 5 to 3 were most likely the students whose "softer skills" of self-pacing and self-management still need some work. (I can't prove that, however, because surveys were anonymous - but more on the soft skills later...)

If you look at the survey linked above, you'll notice there were MANY categories that students could rate on a 1 to 5 scale, 1 meaning this was one of the "worst" experiences related to the project and 5 meaning that it was one of the "best." For this post, I did a quick data analysis of trends where I saw an overwhelming amount of 5s as well as where I saw an overwhelming amount of 1s. The graphs below represents the categories where there was the most consensus of positive and negative experiences:

Choice, Independence, & Motivation: What strikes me immediately about gamified curricula is that students respond most positively to the following: (1) they appreciated choice (2) they felt more motivated and (3) they liked having independence.  More than 50 times, students expressed their enthusiastic appreciation for having choice to do the assignments that interested them the most, and I think having this kind freedom and independence motivated them to level up and to achieve a sense of accomplishment. Watching students work independently on assignments they chose allowed me as teacher to get to know them better, simply put. It's humbling to admit it, but there were some students in my class that I did not know as well as I should at this point in the year. The gamified approach made this apparent and helped us build better relationships because the learning experience was so individualized, forcing the teacher to meet every student where she's at by addressing her specific learning track and keeping her accountable accordingly.

XP Grading, Mastery, & Accomplishment: Students loved the XP grading approach: more than ever, they felt like the grading process was transparent and fair. "I knew exactly what I needed to do to make an A," one student commented on the survey.  They also said that grading was not some spectre of stress which haunted them as they strived toward mastery; instead, failure only meant that one had to try again.  They really benefited, I think, from the emphasis on mastery because it created an authentic, need-to-know feedback loop that was helpful to the learning process. Many students did express a desire for there to be a public point board if we were to try this approach again. I had shied away from publicly displaying point levels out of concern for embarrassment for those who progressed more slowly. Still divided on that question...

Feedback & Evaluation: Gamification only works if the feedback loop matches the pace of the students' progress, which presents a challenge to an English/Language Arts teacher. I was overwhelmed by the demand for grading student essays and compositions (something that makes me wonder how one would sustain such an approach for an entire year), BUT the survey responses validated my efforts because students told me that they received more useful and more relevant feedback than that which was provided during previous curricular units. That was really satisfying for me (as well as for the students).

Students did give some "negative" feedback in certain, distinct areas, but the trends here were much more minimal:

The Overwhelming Factor: Students were overwhelmed by the experience. I want to acknowledge the tension/connection between being overwhelmed and having choice, freedom, and independence: it felt overwhelming because students had choice and because pacing was up to them. The curriculum measured/assessed their softer skills of self-management just as much as it addressed the traditional, academic skills of any given English class. Students complained about the time factor, and some of this was due to failing to take advantage of the ice days which disrupted the unit. As a result, there was an expressed concern that quantity was taking precedence over quality, which is why it was important for me to remain vigilant about expectations of mastery (which gets back to why I was overwhelmed...).

Frustration & Confusion: Students did express in considerable volume that they felt higher levels of frustration and confusion at times. Again, I think there's some tension between the frustration factor and the demands for students to achieve mastery within a limited time frame (and to do so according to their self-paced initiative). This was a new experience for them, and never before had soft skills been demanded so directly. Understandably, that was overwhelming. In terms of confusion, I do think some of that was me: this was my first attempt to launch a gamified unit in an English class, and I learned a lot about how to articulate expectations and procedures as clearly and effectively as possible, meaning I'd hope there would be less confusion next time due to better execution.

Analyzing Shakespearean Language & Style: When examining the "negative" graph above, I think it's revealing that most things students perceived as negative were factors related to self-management, working with others, or self-pacing (in other words, "soft skills"), but one area of feedback that related to the harder skills of English was language and style analysis. Students overwhelmingly felt confident about their knowledge of content, structure, theme, and character development, but they consistently voiced concern about the need for more teacher guidance when analyzing Shakespeare's language and style. Rhetorical & style analysis of difficult literature unavoidably requires considerable teacher intervention and direction, and my execution of a student-directed, gamified curriculum allowed for less time for such matters. Is this a problem? I don't think so, for the survey provided me with feedback, which makes clear that style analysis (and related skills) needs to be prioritized in our next unit. Now, if I gamified my whole year's curriculum, I would need to rethink this, BUT I want to point out the obvious: gamification may not address all skills but it does target softer ones that students sometimes never have the opportunity to practice getting better at. However, I do also want to stress here that students wanted more teacher guidance and intervention, meaning there needs to be a balance between student & teacher directedness.

Other Observations:

Collaborative Work vs. Solo Work: There were options at various levels to do assignments which required group work as well as ones which remained "solo" in nature. The graphs show something interesting here: there is a clear split between the independent solo worker (and what they love about gamification) and the collaborative group worker (as well as what they love about the experience). I don't think that the divide here is a problem, however; instead, it's proof that students have different learning styles, and the fact that both groups of learners had positive things to say about the unit only demonstrates more clearly the benefits of the gamified approach.

The Soft Skills Gap: As stated above, final project grade distribution ranged from D to A+ (big gap!). I am very convinced that the D students were the ones with the poorest "soft skills" and the As were students with excellent self-management skills. There were some 'A+' students who scored in the B range (demonstrating in my opinion that they were the 'A student' who knows how to function in the traditional schooling system but falls short more readily when self-management is a factor), and there were some 'B students' who scored in the A to A+ range (demonstrating they were students who are motivated when choice, freedom, and pacing were in their hands). Unlike the divide above, this is a gap I'd like to bridge. My worry is this: the gamified unit pointed out for certain students that they have a deficiency when it comes to soft skills, but did those students improve their skills by way of the experience? Not sure yet.

These are my observations now that I've had time to reflect. One might ask: would I do this again? My answer, without hesitation, is an emphatic YES! and the majority of my students would agree. Would I use the gamified approach all year? I don't think so, but with practice, perhaps my attitude would change. Please leave thoughts, questions, observations. This is a conversation that has really just begun for me, so feel free to join!

How to Innovate an English Class? Flip, Gamify, and Post Online: Some Notes from a First Time Gamer

There are 3 major ways I have re-designed the learning experience for my students to make the English class a little less traditional. Shortly put, I've flipped the class, gamified curricular assignments, and connected students to real audiences via digital platforms such as blogger, and as result, class time is more meaningful, needs-based, and student-centered (due to flipping). Students have been more motivated (due to gamification) because there’s more options and more differentiation for each unique learner, and lastly, students’ demonstrations of learning are more authentic, relevant, and purposeful because we collaborate online, displaying our work to real audiences at other campuses.

I've shared some insights, strategies, and past experiences about my successes with getting students to collaborate online, to think, write, and read for each other (Go here and here for JoelGarza’s thoughts on that topic as well). Right now my classes (along with a school in Memphis, TN) are using this blog site to share work, exchange ideas, and hopefully collaborate on some joint projects as we currently read William Shakespeare’s Macbeth together.

In terms of flipping my class, I’d like to share more details on that later, but one strategy I’ve employed is podcasting (using GarageBand), which enables one to cover topics in a 20-30 min segment that would have taken days to get through in a traditional lecture/discussion format. Here’s a sample of something I put together with some former students to prepare my current sophomores for their study of Shakespeare’s “Scottish Play.” (Try here if YouTube vid didn't work)

All this has been great, but what I want to share right now are my insights and reflections about what it’s been like to gamify an English class for the first time. If you’re unsure of what “gamification” might mean watch this: 

In my class, our unit is on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and I’m in the thick of it as we speak, journeying through chaotic but amazing new territory with my students, and I’ll confess, we’re not sure how it will all turn out. So far, there have been some profound successes, and my eyes have been opened in more than one way. I must tip my hat, at this time, to Seth Burgess of Lausanne Collegiate School for blazing the trail on this bold expedition and for doing most of the preliminary designing to make this venture work as it has.

Here’s a quick breakdown: we’re using schoology.com where there are 6 courses which function as “levels.” All students begin with an access code to enter “level 1,” and all students start with 0 “XP” points (as opposed to starting at 100% and being graded punitively). Students may gain XP points by completing both required assignments (examples: small written essays, digital essays, performances of play, online quizzes, etc.) and what we call “optional grind assignments” (examples: translating lines to modern English, making props, designing costumes & sets, posting on the blog). Students are not graded on an A to F scale for these assignments; they are either awarded the full XP points (which could be 5, 10, 20, or more depending on the volume of work) or nothing. ONLY when they have mastered the task (meaning some students will make multiple attempts) will students be given credit, and they are not penalized for making multiple attempts. Once enough points are gained, a student will receive a new access code to move on to the next level. As they move up the levels assignments get more challenging, but the students have more and more options as well. Some students will never make it to level 6 and “beat the game,” but many will. The beautiful thing is that a student could stay at level four but do enough “grind assignments” to ensure a superior score by the end of the project.

Some insights so far:

-Grading and failure have a completely different value when assignments have been gamified. In the video above, Avi Spector talks about “failing forward”; I call it failing towards mastery, which is something that traditional grading can sometimes discourage. (I bet Edison “failed forward” on a daily basis and look where it got him…) Grading is now a team effort between teacher and student not an adversarial stand-off. As a result, there’s more trust in the classroom.

-Differentiating assignments and providing options for students have directly fueled their motivation and drive. One student the other day smirked at me and said that he was going to focus on assignment X for points instead doing Y or Z because assignment X was so much easier. He thought he found a loophole; I say he found his learning style and the assignment that fit it best.

-Speaking of learning styles, watching students choose their path of success (and each is different) has taught me so much more about each individual’s method for learning. Seeing what they choose gives me feedback on how to engage, motivate, and stimulate each student for future units of study as well. Interestingly, there have been some surprises in this arena: (1) I have some students (who were “weak” English students) who are excelling in ways they never did before, and that has revealed to me that the content-area was never the problem: it had everything to do with how the learning experience was being designed. In other words, it was my problem. (2) I have some students who are typically “strong” English students who are lagging, and this concerns me. Why the dip in performance? Could it have something to do with self-management? Still working that one out…

-Because students have options and are working at their pace and according to their interests, class discussions have become so authentic! Students bring a kind of what-I-need-to-know mindset to the classroom, asking real questions to serve a real interest on their part. I have always felt like even the most successful class discussion days were tainted with in-authenticity (whether it be the teacher forcing the direction of a discussion or a student desperately grasping for something to say to please the instructor…). These discussions have been authentically urgent, student-directed, and so insightful! I haven’t been in control of my classroom agenda for 2 weeks, and it’s an awesome feeling!

Some concerns so far:

-What do you do when a student doesn’t seem to be good at self-management? What if they tank and fall behind? I’ve noticed that there is a widening gap between students who excel at self-management and those that do not when one gamifies their curricular approach. What do you do about that gap?

-How does an English teacher grade efficiently and stay on top of what is a gargantuan task of providing a constant feedback loop? In other words, I’ve noticed another widening gap between the overwhelmed teacher and the uber-motivated student. How do you keep up when considering the grading tasks of an English Lit. teacher?

These are my thoughts so far. This is all so new, so please leave a comment, suggestion, etc. I don’t have all the answers on this, but I am discovering some amazing gains from this approach as I go. I’ll update more later.

-Jared Colley

Here's another helpful resource from Philip Vinogradov that I got at EduCon this year.

More on Authentic Audiences for 21st Century Students: Why We Read, Write, and Think for Each Other

Joel points out in his post the fact that independent school teachers often have a lot of pedagogical & curricular autonomy, which is mostly a good thing… mostly. 21^st century technologies, however, have brought changes to almost all areas of our cultural landscape – changes which make clear that teachers with autonomy need to revisit questions about the benefits of collaboration and connectedness (if not for their sake then for the sake of today’s students). One reason: we’re not the only experts to whom students have access whether at school or outside of the traditional classroom. Technology has made this evident and undeniable. More importantly, in my opinion, connectedness and collaboration make it possible now for teachers to provide authentic audiences for their students’ voices in ways unthinkable in the recent past, and one thing that can bestow purpose and meaning on a student’s learning experience is the presence of a real audience.

More than ever, it’s possible to have students read, write, and think for each other (as opposed to doing such things for their singular teacher) – making the activity more real, more connected, and perhaps more fun. In recent years, I’ve been employing various digital, web 2.0 technologies to get my students to connect and collaborate with students in classrooms from other campuses. (Go here to see how my students at The OakridgeSchool connected with classes at two other campuses, Greenhill School & TheHockaday School, to read together James Joyce’s collection Dubliners. Of course, we did it again last year, this time studying William Shakespeare’s history play, Richard III.)

One of my favorite methods we experimented with was getting students from one class to frame questions for their peers in other classes from different campuses. We did this through various means:
-my students at Oakridge collaboratively posted blog articles (here) that always concluded in a series of questions for Greenhill and Hockaday students.  Greenhill and Hockaday would respond employing various modalities of expression such as text, video, or mp3. (More examples: Greenhill which leads to Oakridge's response;  Hockaday which leads to Oakridge's response; Greenhill which leads to Oakridge's response and then to Hockaday's final word)
-we also had the advantage of augmenting our digital collaboration with visits in person to each other’s campuses – something that’s only possible with the benefit of geographical proximity. Using the responses of the Greenhill students (which were born out of the blog), Mr. Garza (teacher from Greenhill) visited The Hockaday School, bringing his students' questions to their Hockaday peers.
-Hockaday blogged about their perspective of the visit, providing insight and more questions for both Greenhill and Oakridge classes as we struggled with what were very difficult literary works.
-Greenhill students made use of Audacity to record an mp3/podcast both for Oakridge and Hockaday students. Their recording was guided, of course, by the evolution of questions being posed by classes from the other campuses.
-Using GarageBand, Oakridge then responded in kind by putting together their podcast response; here's some highlights:



Oakridge student citing Hockaday student's blog post

At this point, students were citing each other by name, complimenting each other’s readings with expressions of appreciation. They were reading and thinking for each other, serving as meaningful audiences in a community of collaborators. I can’t emphasize it enough: namely, the joy they felt once this exchange became real – once the students received a validating response from an unknown peer who heard them and who cared. As a teacher who is a community of one, I can’t recreate that kind of meaningful learning experience on my own, but by collaborating and connecting with other campuses, such an experience can be designed and realized with ease and joy.



Greenhill student addresses Hockaday teacher's point

What happened next, however, was even more amazing: simply put, we started writing for each other. For me, this first occurred when my students sat for their 9 week midterm. Instead of a comprehensive exam, Oakridge students wrote essays for their Hockaday and Greenhill audience and posted highlights on the blog. (See Hockaday’s response here) Never had I seen developing writers operating so keenly in terms of connecting word, audience, and purpose in their writing. These students weren’t grudgingly writing for me, the teacher; they were eagerly sounding out their voices to peer groups across the digital channels of the internet. Eventually this evolved into composing more formal papers to conclude the project, but in many ways, their compositions were not traditional at all. Students wrote to each other (to each other’s teachers). Many of my writers chose to cite blog, mp3, and video pieces posted by students from other campuses. It was a real learning community full of curious writers and readers, open-minded speakers and listeners, and there was so much joy! By formally engaging nontraditional, digital resources, students were learning the connections between digital literacy, research, and composition as well (while validating each other’s voice in the process!).

So why should we integrate technology to craft authentic audiences for our students? When a student writes for their teacher and that instructor is the only one who will see that composition, why should she make it great? But if she’s writing for a communal audience of peers and teachers alike, not only will she feel the push to make it better, she will act on the desire to make it great because there’s an authentic audience! Bottom line, it makes their learning meaningful, relevant, and worthwhile, and one might just catch them enjoying the process as well.

-Jared Colley

Prof. Anthony Brandt Demystifies the Creative Process: Why Students Need to Create More and How to do It Well

Last year when working on a digital project together, a colleague passed along an article by Troy Hicks and Kristen Hawley Turner called “No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can’t Wait.” We were having our classes from separate campuses collaborate online via blogger while reading Shakespeare’s play, Richard III. At the time we were discussing quite intensely the purpose of the blog space and more specifically how we could make the site a more student-directed platform as opposed to one that relied more on the direction of the teachers involved. One of the many things the above article made clear was that students needed to be the creators and curators of the digital content and not just the consumers of whatever information may be posted on a platform such as blogger. This has been one of the many ways I’ve tried to push myself as a teacher; I’m continually asking myself: am I creating spaces for learning where students create presentations of information in addition to just consuming it?

For teaching to be maximally effective and relevant in our 21st century cultural landscape, instructors have to do more than employ technology to disseminate information more efficiently and expediently. The kinds of literacies required for today's world include the many modalities of digital communication that have recently redefined what it means to be an effective communicator in the professional and personal realms of human interaction. As an English teacher, I believe that’s one of the more important duties of my vocation - namely to help students discover how to express and communicate their passions and ideas as effectively as they possibly can. Just as students cannot become dynamic communicators by simply reading/listening to others’ impressive displays of verbal eloquence, the same is true of the more recent, nontraditional modalities of communication. Students have to write, make speeches, and give presentations themselves to complete the process of learning how to express themselves well. The same is true of blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.; students need to have opportunities to create such products to hone their digital literacy and rhetoric.

One question that comes up for many educators is how to assess creative demonstrations of learning whether digital or not, and this is something I’ve wrestled with as well. Oftentimes one will assign a creative project that gets students to make media through video or web 2.0 applications; students will follow the requirements listed, completing the project as instructed, but the digital demonstration of learning still lacks in presentational, aesthetic quality. What I’m getting at here is that all media-based projects will have an aesthetic component that, if ignored, could make or break one’s ability to reach their audience, and the fact of the matter is a lot of times students turn in poor quality products, aesthetically speaking, while the work still meets the requirements listed by the teacher. It's awkward to demand students to be more creative, especially when we tell ourselves that considerations of creative, aesthetic value are subjective in nature...

So how do we get students to make better products aesthetically speaking without seeming subjective? How do we assess the aesthetic component, namely its creative quality, while remaining fair and transparent? Teachers (myself included) often shy away from assessing creativity because we tell ourselves it’s too subjective, and I think this is partly why the arts gets relegated to the sidelines while the monolithic “high-stakes” testing industry emphasizes the more objective, quantifiable skills for each student’s curricular development.

I saw Prof. Brandt give a talk at St. John’s School in Houston when presenting at the SummerSpark conference back in June 2013. Watch Dr. Brandt's TED talk on creativity, the arts, and the need to value them more in all core-curricular programs:

Dr. Brandt's demystification the concept of creativity immediately triggered idea after idea for me in relation to helping students make better, more creative demonstrations of learning. I want my students to create, but I want them to do it meaningfully by doing it well. I don’t want them to just communicate information clearly; I want them to express it effectively by moving, inspiring, or pleasing their audience. That takes creativity and a keen aesthetic sensibility, and Professor Brandt’s breakdown of the creative process gave me a conceptual vocabulary that enables me to have that conversation with students. Creativity is not a mystical concept that some of us get while others don't; creativity is a core skill that can be learned and cultivated by anyone who is genuinely curious about the process. Our job is to fire up that curiosity by finding ways to structure projects that are relevant, meaningful, and interesting for each of our unique students. And there lies one of our many exciting challenges as 21st century educators...

-Jared Colley

From Anxiety to Joy: A Conversation about Collaboration across Classrooms

First off, I am excited to launch this new blog space; it's something I've been meaning to do for a long time. My desire here is to see this space grow into a collaborative network where multiple contributors could introduce and guide conversations about pedagogy, 21st century learning, innovation, plasticity, collaboration, as well as many other topics that could help inform a productive conversation about what we should do with our classrooms.

I'm also excited to announce that Joel Garza and I will be leading a conversation at EduCon 2.7 in Philadelphia this January 2015. Our conversation is titled "From Anxiety to Joy: The Emotional & Technological Anatomy of 21st Century Collaboration." Here's a sample of what that conversation could sound like:

Joel and I recorded that conversation as part of the "Stories for Learning" strand for the 2014 K12 Online Conference: Igniting Innovation. We're excited to take some of what we've shared there to the EduCon conference this January 2015. Personally, I look forward to seeing how a conversation such as this one could be explored more deeply by opening it up to a greater carnival of polyphonic voices. EduCon appears to be the perfect place for such a thing:

Those attending EduCon this year, please join us for an honest, energetic conversation about the emotional anatomy of collaboration for 21st century learners and educators.  We'll be telling our story about the successes and challenges with project-based learning across campuses, but more importantly we'll be inviting others to discuss with us difficult questions about the emotional demands involved in such risk taking. How do we get colleagues to collaborate? Where are the boundaries? How do we handle moments of conflict, jealousy, or criticism? Who owns what in such endeavors and when do we yield to others? What kind of similar demands do we make on our students?

If you plan to attend, leave a comment here. What do you want to talk about in relation to the topics being addressed in this post and in the above video? What are the important questions to be asked when exploring the emotional terrain of collaborating with others - especially when they're strangers from other campuses? Tell us what you want to talk about, and hopefully, we'll see you in Philly this January!

-Jared Colley