Writing exams: Paper vs Online

Up until a few years ago, our BC Social Studies 11 students wrote a provincial examination to wrap up their course.  This was a standardized test featuring 55 multiple choice questions and two essay questions.  The exam was the same for all students in the province and was sometimes used by the school, district, or province to provide data on how students were doing.  Teachers occasionally used the exam results to give them feedback on whether what they are teaching has had the desired outcome.  In many cases the exam was ignored.  Not precisely a high-stakes exam (although it was worth 40% of the students' overall mark), although for some teachers it drove their course planning and was often seen as a barrier to more creative ways to teacher the course.  In my opinion it was a reasonable assessment; it drew from all areas of the course curriculum -- 20th century Canadian History, Human Development and Environmental Issues, Canadian Politics and Government -- and included a balance of straight-forward and higher order questions.  The exam also assured that students across BC more-or-less got an introduction to common topics of citizenship and Canadian identity, the state of the developed vs developing world, why it was worth voting (and who the parties were), and about Canada's involvement in world affairs. It was perhaps too focused on content and less on broader thinking concepts and subject-specific skills (other than interpreting population pyramids).  The essay questions could be hard for students, but they really showed whether students could synthesize learning from a big chunk of the course, and also whether they could write at a level that could be expected from a Grade 11 student.

In January 2013, a group of Social Studies teachers in Prince George conducted an informal experiment to compare the results of students who wrote their provincial exams using either the paper format or an online format in a computer lab. Who would do better on the written section?

BACKGROUND
At the first school, the teachers insisted on paper copies of the exam.  At a second school, they decided to try having all of the students write online.  The written section on the exam -- an essay on a historical topic and a second essay on a topic related to human geography or the environment -- is marked by teachers.  Our schools have similar demographics, the exam is the same, and the teachers who taught the course have similar styles and roughly the same attention to content, division of curriculum, and review strategies.  We did notice that the school with the online writers did not seem to emphasize human geography to the same extent as the other school, and this showed up in the responses to the second essay.  There were two classes in each school writing the exam, so we had about 50 exams at each site (thus 100 essays) to provide data.  The students did not get to choose paper vs online, so this perhaps removed the element of preferred styles and comfort-based selection.  Students with special adaptations required (e.g. scribes) wrote the exam in a separate sitting and were not included in our experiment.  The exam session is 2 hours, although most students require and hour or a little more to complete it, so "exam" fatigue" is rarely a concern.  The essays are all scored with the same 6-point grading rubric (see image above), and the teachers marked the exams together with two teachers marking each paper and agreeing on a score.  The discussion of results and conclusions (this blog post) are the result of the conversation between one of the markers from each school -- myself and a colleague. We participated in the marking but did not actually teach any of the classes involved.

RESULTS
While we weren't completely impressed by their achievement, the Paper group won this contest with ease. There was a higher overall average score, with less 0s and 1s and almost no NRs. The student students provided more detail, used more complex sentences, and had fewer lapses with grammar and punctuation. Interestingly, they related more "stories" from class; that is, more anecdotes that sounded like direct quotes from the teacher (for better or worse) or lines of thinking that were the result of activities that likely involved writing or speaking in class (as opposed to something studied before the exam).  They also had more repetition -- cycling back through an idea to fill the space.

The online writers had a lower average, with considerably more NRs, 0s, and 1s, and no 6s. They had shorter sentences and paragraphs, and used more informal grammar and less punctuation. These students had a higher prevalence of poor diction (word choice or vocabulary) but the syntax was fine (arrangement of words and phrases). We concluded that they knew most of the same facts and possessed similar opinions as the paper group,  but simply referenced them without expansion, kind of a "I know this stuff -- just read my mind" approach.  

DISCUSSION
With all of their writing contained in a textbox, then online writers had no annotation of their text, no circling or evidence of revision (eraser marks) or any other evidence of the "struggle" to capture their thoughts. We admitted that we felt a bias about this -- writing that came from (and had) a "personality" seemed to be more authentic than the digital text. We also found the digital essays easier to mark -- without the "personality," e.g. the peculiarity handwriting (particularly neat vs messy) we spent less time second guessing whether we were assessing a visual quality that was not necessarily tied to their level of understanding. With digital writers, it was simply a matter of how does this piece of writing place on the rubric?

Our interpretation of these results was that students writing essays online fall into a pattern of digital communication that is informal, truncated, and full of insinuation rather than exposition. Their writing has a quality of expedience and we imagined they were written much faster than their paper counterparts. The students writing essays on paper exhibited more care and attention to their work, but also included more material meant to fill up the page.  Perhaps the online writers had no expectation of how "big" their essay should look on the screen, whereas the paper writers looked at three lined pages for each essay and had a feeling that they should at least get to page two before wrapping it up.

We agreed that students are very comfortable writing in digital spaces, but this does not necessarily serve them well for formal tasks such as essay writing.  This conclusion goes against what many experts would suggest -- even based on our own experience, it would seem that the digital format would serve one better: it is easy to go back, fix errors, cut & paste from one section to another for a better flow, change one's mind about various parts including paragraph and so on.  But this is our adult sensibility, we are teachers who have spent years writing, first on paper and later with the "magic" of computers and word processors.  For some of our students, using a word processor is like accessing a heritage skill.  They are more finely attuned to the gestured inputs of digital devices, and are slower to type and less likely to take advantage of editing tools than the generation of students who used computers but did not have smartphones.

We carried these observations forward to other schools in 2013 and resisted them after subsequent SS11 provincial exams; our conclusion were generally reinforced by what we heard from every school.  The school that used the online exam in our experiment in 2013 started giving students a choice about online vs paper, and they also put a renewed emphasis on writing skills in their Social Studies courses.  These particular provincial exams are no longer with us, but I thought this would be an interesting set of thoughts to consider as we anticipate a new round of standardized tests in BC -- the upcoming Grade 10 numeracy assessment and the Grade 10 and 12 literacy assessments.

Introducing the Capacities

Or, How to Think Like a River.

In British Columbia, we are about 6 years into 8+ year process to implement new curriculum in our K-12 schools.  The "redesigned curriculum" seeks to make some of the implicit goals of education -- communication, critical and creative thinking, personal and social responsibility -- explicit by identifying them and calling them core competencies.

Within each course, the curriculum is framed by Big Ideas. Curricular Competencies, and Content.  Depending on who you talk to, or which Ministry of Education document you read, or video clip from an expert you watch, these frames (the whole new curriculum really) are quite fluid...

• Big Ideas can be rolled in or out, curricular competencies can be swapped out for others, and the content is merely a suggestion.
• There are no standard assessments to measure success.
• There are multiple opportunities to embed indigenous perspectives, but no detailed prescriptions for what this should look like.
• There are entry points for community and place-responsive education, and a greater emphasis on holistic interdisciplinary learning.
• There are implications for pedagogy, but no actual dictates about what that looks like or what paradigms should guide the "new teacher."
• Having common course outlines within schools will be elusive -- choice and flexibility is where it's at.
• The implementation was underfunded and lacked clarity, and the whole process has had political undertones related to government funding and control of educational agendas (i.e. as opposed to teachers' agendas).
• Parts of the process were too slow or experienced punishing delays (e.g. piloting Grade 10 curriculum for three years in a row).
• Some teachers are organizing their course and assessment using the Big Ideas, others are using the curricular competencies for this purpose, while others are sticking with content to structure units and guide assessment.
• Most teachers will, of course, pay attention to all three and aim at some kind of synthesis.

For better or worse, this is the plan for the next long while in BC. I am still rather excited to be part of this change, or at least parts of it, but very much aware of its shortcomings, its unintended consequences, and the challenges faced by teachers in making sense of it. I often work with new teachers, both in the local UNBC teacher training program and early career teachers in my school district. These are the ones who are thought to have been "trained in the new curriculum" but in reality they are more uncertain than the "vets" about what it all means. They realize that the "fluid curriculum" gives them creative reach and freedom to experiment, but wow would they ever like some modelling and guidelines.

Speaking of fluidity, I have given some thought to how to assess students in the this brave new curricular world. It is a competency-based system, and yet assessing competencies on their own is great for formative work (try, evaluate, reflect, revise, re-try) but not so great for summative (final standing, marks, and advancement).  For example, I don't think we want to start having report cards that say Johnny got an A in establishing significance but a C- in perspective taking. The curricular competencies work well for individual tasks, for taking apart problems and developing skills.

In the study of stream dynamics, we have a couple of terms to describe how rivers move sediment -- competence and capacity. Steam competence refers to the size of particles that can be carried; the higher the competence, the bigger the particle size. This is mainly the job of young rivers in steep terrain, rolling and dragging big stones and carving away at the valley walls. Stream capacity refers to the total volume of sediment that can be carried.  Rivers with high capacity have already seen the big particles broken down, and carry a big load of sediment in suspension and solution, and lay it down beside the river or cary it out to sea.

I love these terms as a metaphor for what happens in classrooms. At first we take on big problems, one by one, and start to see how it gets easier when the problems start coming apart with small, repeated tasks and strategies. We erode the barriers, and build a unique channel through a challenging landscape. Later, we have the capacity to make broad connections between problems, to communicate what we have done, and take responsibility for the impact of our knowledge and understanding. This process is cyclical, happening over and over again in a class, in a course, and in K-12 education. Thus, I am interested in using my classes to develop both student competence (an explicit goal of the curriculum) and capacity (my understanding of an implicit goal of the curriculum).  While any individual task may practice and assess competence, when it comes to overall marking categories and summative assessment, as well as readiness to advance to the next grade, my focus is on capacity. For the context of Social Studies,  I have settled on four: Foundations -- this is knowledge and understanding of core content, Skills -- both hard and soft, like the ability to read maps, determine bias in sources, or organize an argument, Thinking -- application of concepts (mainly the curricular competencies) and cognitive skills to problems of history and geography, and Connections -- inquiry, synthesis, and activation of learning. Here is the framework I use to position "The Capacities" within the new Social Studies curriculum (and here is the pdf link):

This is my latest stab at trying to reconcile the various parts of the hidden and revealed aspects of the curriculum, and to provide a topography for student assessment. As always, feedback welcome via @gthielmann, in a comment below, or by email gthielmann (AT) gmail (DOT) com.

Draft Curriculum Feedback

I thought I'd post an edited version of what I posted on the BC Ministry of Education site for curriculum feedback <https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/feedback> on Nov 2.  Like the curriculum itself, my thoughts about the 10-12 Drafts are a work in progress. The stuff below is specifically about Social Studies 10 and Human / Physical Geography 11/12. While these are my own views, I have developed many of them in collaboration with other Social Studies teachers.

Please leave your own feedback on the new curriculum -- they have a lot to work to do and will take their cue from the teachers that offer feedback.

1. What do you like about the proposal? Please comment on the core and optional curricula.

I like that the proposal is an attempt to carry the streamlined ideas of the K-9 courses forward for 10-12. Requiring students to take one "Socials" elective after Grade 10 is a bare minimum -- it should be two. Alternately, students should be required to take a set number of credits from Humanities (e.g. English and Socials electives) as well as Math/Science, such that it is natural and encouraged for students to take more than one post-Grade 10 Socials elective.

I appreciate that Social Studies 10 is in a tight position -- does it simply replace the old SS11 minus WWI, allowing it to "breathe" a little in the absence of a Provincial Exam, or does it try to be something new, a true "Social Studies" course that employs multi-disciplinary inquiry to examine Canada and the World in the last 100 years? At this point it is not quite doing either.  Ironically, this is due, in part, to the admirable (but very much history-based) competencies.  The irony is that the heart of the competencies (the so-called "benchmarks of historical thinking" developed by Peter Seixas of UBC among others) are a great way to study history and other related subjects, but as a day-to-day "skills" guide for Social Studies students they might be too much -- they may cloud the other joyous offerings of history (such the art of storytelling) and also cloud the strong role that geographic thinking (and other "competencies") should play in Social Studies. Nonetheless, I'm glad to see the "benchmarks" present as I (and many others) have been using them in Social Studies for years as a way to shift the focus from content-for-content's sake to content as a tool for developing thinking.

I like that Geography has been split into Human and Physical, although this will make it tough for smaller high schools to "fill a block of geography" with an even more specialized choice of courses. I think some teachers will be tempted to combine them where possible, just like some teachers will likely want to combine First Peoples Issues and Social Justice, or will want to include them as part of a larger program. Will this be possible? We don't know enough yet about the Grad Plan, funding model(s), cohort-based programs vs course credits, opportunities for blended learning, etc. It is difficult to apply for an innovation grant or envision how a new program will play without knowing if the proposals will even be possible -- schools have a hard enough time figuring out when their lunch time should start, let alone whether they are ready to upend the timetable to launch something like cross-curricular learning inquiry time/spaces.  I like that geographic thinking and literacy are mentioned (once) in the draft proposal -- this needs to be built on and used in both (new) geography courses.

2. What do you think should be improved? Please comment on the core and optional curricula.

First -- the proposed Social Studies 10. Too much content has been squeezed out of the old Social Studies 9, 10, and 11 into the new SS9, and as a result the new SS10 is, in part, too vague on content. Yes, teachers can now pick and choose the content they will use to address the big ideas and explore the develop the competencies in SS9, but there is too much history that will be glossed over -- if anything it encourages SS9 to be more of a survey course than ever. Speaking of which, the competencies rely so heavily on Seixas' history benchmarks that it takes away from other aspects of Socials, particularly Geography. I think that geographic literacy should have a more prominent role in the SS K-10 curriculum. Assuming SS K-9 will not receive further edits, one thing that can be done is to adjust the new SS10 -- it needs an additional content item: "development of Canadian Identity in the 20th Century at home and on the world stage." This will help make it clear to teachers that events of note in 20th Century Canada will still be something students get to learn about -- the Great Depression, WWII, Canada and the Cold War, Quebec Nationalism, etc. As it stands, there is nothing compelling in the content that suggest teachers need to pay attention to what was once the heart of the old SS11. At present, SS10 looks like a contemporary civics, issues, and human geography course (in fact very much like the old 3-part pre-2004 SS11 without explicit reference to the History section), and yet relies on history-based critical inquiry for competencies and mandates a timeline of 1919-present. If we are to do the job of teaching human geography effectively in the new SS10 (just like we did in SS11), there needs to be a term added to the content item "interconnections between demography, urbanization, environmental issues, and globalization." Between urbanization and environmental issues add "stages of development." Additionally, for the content item "development, structure, and function to Canadian and other economic systems" add "...and their impact on standards of living." This line of inquiry in the old SS11 (why are some nations better off than others and how do we close the gap) was for me, along with "why bother voting," the heart of the course. As for the SS10 Big Ideas -- they are quite generic and basically reiterations of the content and competencies -- they lack the nuance of the SS9 Big Ideas. As such they are not very useful as course organizers or even themes that could guide the construction of units.

Next -- the optional content. Geography 11/12 courses have a few serious issues that need to be addressed. I see that most of the competencies have been copy-and-pasted from other SS courses (the benchmarks of historical thinking plus statements about inquiry). These ones specific to historical thinking should out rather than suggest they should guide geography studies. To a lesser extent, the competencies for 20th Century World History 11/12, Contemporary First Peoples Issues 11/12, and Social Justice 11/12 will also need to be adjusted to make them more discipline-specific. Interdisciplinarity is great, but requires it's own "competencies" separate from those specific to the study of History. As an aside, I would suggest that the biggest support for interdisciplinarity comes from the 3 Core Competencies.

So what to do with Geography 11/12? First the Human Geography 11/12 has too much overlap with the "human geography" aspects of the proposed SS10. It is a rough (and in my mind inaccurate and outdated) survey of topics from post-secondary "human" geography programs put through the filter of the bits of geography that currently exist in Gr 10-12 curriculum. It reads a bit like the chapter headings from a 1980s Geog text, or a list of old Geog courses (Economic, Regional, etc.) prior to the extensive use of technology in gathering and interpreting geographic data, and prior to some wicked developments in Geographic thinking and post-colonial inquiry. There is too much emphasis on resources and not enough on "environment." Content items 3 and 4 should be combined (they are really the same thing). The imbalance can be corrected with more emphasis on place-conscious learning, making sense of human interaction with place, and the prompt to use of many types of texts and data in order to explore themes and thinking in geography (literary sources, photography, video, and especially maps).

The Physical Geography 12 course is primitive but not far from what would be expected -- it is all the "physical" bits from the old Geog 12, especially the geomorphology. I think what it is missing is a window for the inclusion of geology and ecology, two important "subtopics" (arguable of course) in a holistic study of physical geography. A geographer worthy of his or her dirty dirty fingernails will relish the opportunity to share a bit about rocks, plants, and soil. Some colleagues (who stare at clouds) will also want to see a stronger role for atmospheric science in the new course (beyond the existing mention of human interaction with the atmosphere). As mentioned, a discipline-specific set of competencies is needed, as will a decision of whether Physical Geography 12 will count a lab or science credit towards university admission.

In neither geography course is there mention of how technology has shaped geography (e.g. GIS, GPS, satellite imaging). This relates to the need for data literacy, for the need to make geographic data more important in the Geog courses. The Human Geog proposal misses this, although it is mentioned in the Physical Geog competencies -- it appears as if there was the beginning of an attempt with competency #2 to adapt benchmarks of historical thinking to the realm of geographic thinking.

Beyond tech, maps, and discipline-specific data, the other side of the missing coin is sense of what these courses are for. "20th Century World History 11/12" is, arguably, about how our world is still dominated by conflicts and cooperations based on ideas with incredible realizations in the last 100 years.  Why take Human Geography 11/12?  The content (and still-to-be written competencies) need to convey the profound questions about how we relate with place, about the deep impact of environment, about how we read landscapes, and about how we conduct ourselves as humans on the planet. The new curriculum does not prevent this from being the basis of the course, but it does not go very far to encourage it either.

So what do competencies look like in Human Geography (and perhaps Physical Geography)? They could be based on the "five themes of geography" (Location, Place, Human-Environment Interaction, Movement, and Region). They could be based on the "six elements of geography" (The World in Spatial Terms, Places and Regions, Physical Systems, Human Systems, Environment and Society, and The Uses of Geography) or some kind of synthesis of the two. See my blog post about these for references: http://thielmann.blogspot.ca/2012/10/benchmarks-of-geographic-thinking.html.

Following is a list of focus areas for the application of geographic inquiry. They are somewhere in between "Big Ideas" and "Competencies." If I get around to it, I'd love to work these into specific competencies, but here is where they were at when I blogged about it in 2012.

• Structure of place - form & function of human and/or physical systems
• Use of Evidence - selection & interpretation of phenomenon related to human and physical features of past and present landscapes
• Causality and Change - function of space & time in the evolution of human and physical systems
• Human-Environment Interaction - mutual impacts and dependencies, modes of adaptation
• Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives - role of history, sociology, biology, economics, geology, etc. in the study of geography
• Responsibility and Sustainability - resource ethics, interconnected issues, planning & management

3. Does the core curriculum require anything further to meet the needs of students graduating from BC schools? Please provide details.

Yes -- see comment above for #2 (SS10 needs an additional content item: development of Canadian Identity in the 20th Century at home and on the world stage). Students should not graduate without this basic grounding in Canada's history in the 20th century. As well, "development" and "standards of living" need to be retained in the new SS10 curriculum in order to fully realize the human geography component.

The new curriculum

BC is part way through a "transformation of the education system" which has, at its heart, curriculum revisions throughout K-12.  Having sat through a number of "new curriculum" sessions in the last year, and even delivered a few, I find it interesting how teachers and other educators talk about it.

"The new curriculum is about _______ (fill in the blank)." It seems to have become all things to all people, even if ________ has little basis in the actual new curriculum. It is a tabula rasa on which educators are placing all of their dreams, goals, and fears about the future of education and all of the justifications for the way they conduct their practice, or wish to.  I know I have done this at times, perhaps influenced by dozens of examples from others in BC. The version I like the best is where teachers (with cause) cite the infinite Choice that the New Curriculum offers. Basically we can now do absolutely anything we want whenever we want, as long as we reference inquiry and/or personalized learning. The curriculum will "allow" more depth, more authenticity, more PBL, more inclusion of Aboriginal learners, more time to follow passions. The teachers that say these things are awesome teachers who do this stuff anyways, so maybe the "NC" just affirms that they will continue to be supported. The open-endedness is reinforced by a curriculum process (e.g. the Ministry process) that has been sufficiently vague along the way about how it will all work, and is still vague regarding where it will end up (the grad plan).

I suppose this speaks to latent hope, and a legitimate need for new approaches to teaching and learning, but is also a bit disturbing as it gives the "new curriculum" a mysterious lustre and the function of an oft-quoted (or alluded) but poorly understood religious text within the milieu of education change. This metaphysical approach shifts curriculum from a guide or a track that has been laid down to a series of interconnected, fluid, and subjective feelings. This work is done by the priests of the new curriculum who are involved in conversion experiences -- from the "old" way of teaching and learning (whatever the heck that is) to the Transformed Way. The conversion is considered to be successful when the inducted teacher can use "21st Century" jargon convincingly and with effect.

I mock it a bit, but I am also intrigued to see where it all ends up. After all, "fervour" is hard to manufacture, and is often a necessary step on the path towards "transformation" in all its forms.

network breakdown

I saw this teacher/zombie meme on twitter today... perhaps referring to the emotional stone faced by educators in BC right now, or maybe a reference to the Zombie Summer School that the BC government deems an "essential service." This stirs up some thoughts about how educator networks are under strain.

Last night I attended a meeting for the my local teacher union and was struck by a few things that the teachers there seemed to have in common: 1) continued anxiety over the unresolved labour situation in BC Schools. 2) humour, creativity, and hope as we discussed what job action, if any, would be useful and necessary in summer. 3) the need to get some closure on the school year, to put things in perspective, and reserve some energy for the other good things in life that aren't locked out or on strike.

After, I had a short online chat with a Ft. St. James colleague Kelley Inden who had many of the same thoughts. She is a remarkable teacher and storyteller, with obvious commitment to her students. She is also one of many teachers who closely examined BC's new Education Plan, got past the rhetoric, ignored the parts that had a political agenda, and found areas that resonated with her own practice. For example, her efforts to transform assessment and nudge all students to think critically show a willingness to experiment and cast off old practices when they no longer make sense.

Much of the work of teachers is connected by the networks they share. Some are face-to-face, like the union executive meeting I attended, and others are online, like the circle of educators that folks like Kelley and I have happened across via twitter in the last couple of years. These groups don't have to be close, we don't even have to like each other, but we keep gnawing away at what drives our teaching and what inspires learning. Real community (like family) is something different, and can survive hardships like labour strife, but networks are engineered entities and relationships built on function are are highly susceptible to redesign, for better or worse.

This lockout/strike/negotiation has been hard on networks. We say things we probably shouldn't, we second-guess our efforts, we deal mostly in anger over an intransigent contract-stripping government and sometimes the direction our union takes, or individual members therein. Anti-teacher trolls step up their efforts to equate the bctf with communism, teacher trolls flame the media for not being compeltely sympathetic to our cause, and a variety of other kooks come out of the weeds to embarrass us in other ways. Our government employer and education minister make statements in the media that wouldn't stand up to a modicum of fact-checking, district administrators seem content to carry out the government's directives without protest, and school board trustees seem confined to writing letters and offering condolences via social media. No doubt in the midst of this some strategies are working (for both "sides") but it will be a pyrrhic victory regardless of the outcome -- the educational landscape is currently being scorched, most visibly in the way we treat each other.

Longer term, we worry about how the widening gulf between teachers and all arms of the provincial government will play out vis-a-vis education reform. If anyone had any doubts about embedded cost-offloading, privatization, and de-professionalization of teachers in the BC EdPlan, they've found plenty more evidence in the last few weeks. One example is the government's use of the curriculum-focused @bcedplan twitter feed to broadcast bargaining messages from the employer with "funny" math about teacher wages. Other moves, like the bizarre lockout, the dumbing down of "essential" exams, and the summer school directive that actually excluded all (living) students in BC, have further alienated future efforts to build common language and actions for education reform. These moves have also shown that the government is more interested in punishing the teacher union than it is in a settlement. The middlemen in this battle, school administrators, have been hosed from either side... set up for failure by district admin and the BCPSEA in regards to the lockout, marks, summer school, and picket lines, and then vilified by teachers for being virtually silent on any of the education and funding issues facing our education system.

In short, the bad relationship in BC Education has gotten worse, and it happens at time when progressive educators -- teachers, principals, and others -- were making some progress towards understanding where our education system might go in the coming years. I've noticed this breakdown most in the conversations I've had with educators about their networks -- teacher in-fighting over labour tactics and actions past/present/future, administrators collectively embarrassed about what they've been asked to do, endless twitter battles between groups that are not going to shift their position, and growing anxiety about what next year will look like after present charring of the educational landscape.

Hope, resilience, and humour, however, are never in short supply, so I'm of a mind that "this, too, shall pass." I do share Kelley Inden's concern, however, that picking up the pieces next year will be challenging, regardless of the eventual contract settlement. Personally, it has strengthened my resolve to build more self-reliance as a teacher (which means shutting out some of the crap that comes from colleagues, school, districts, and province), and also to foster more interdependence through the networks that re-emerge from this present strife. Having broken down to some extent, educator networks will necessarily go through a period of renewal next year as people come to terms with what they've said and done and reposition themselves with others who offer good dialogue, support for fresh thinking, and continued efforts to make teaching and learning joyful and rewarding.

Failing that, there is an awesome two months of summer ahead and I plan on avoiding zombies while camping, teaching my son how to fish, keeping up with my daughter in the pool, and coaxing my wife to stop fretting so much.

Uphill Battle

After a few professional conversations in the last while, I've come to the conclusion that we face many uphill battles when it comes to student-centered learning and other tenets behind what dominates the Ed Reform Circuit (e.g. the BC Edplan). I do believe these are battles worth fighting, but it is not without casualties.

I'd like to visit of few of these battles... let's start with Active Learning/Student Ownership:

Why we do it: we've come to associate passive learning with "the old ways" of doing school, receiving learning rather than constructing meaning, and we've spent a lot of time talking and trying to introduce more active learning. This takes many forms, but usually starts with students getting their own grasp of learning intentions, and designing many of the ways by which they will meet these intentions, with a focus on participation at each step, no sitting back and simply taking it in. This effort is often associated with critical thinking, constructivist learning, self-regulation, and authentic inquiry. It is done to combat apathy and increase relevance.

Casualties: it is hard work for students to be "on" all the time at school. This doesn't necessarily mean they are apathetic, it usually means they have enough on their plates (their interests, concerns, drama, problems, dreams, goals), that they are not willing to invest all of their "presence" and energy to your creative exploration of grammar, your innovative math lesson, or your backstory on John A. Macdonald. They are polite, though, so passive learning often seems a reasonable compromise. "We'll sit here and do most of what you ask as long as you don't push us too hard." I see this same sentiment among adults in the meetings, PD sessions, and public lectures I attend. Few have the capacity to sustain full engagement and active participation; we are simply not used to it and need to have breaks, sometimes just to listen for a bit, watch a video, doodle in the margins, get lost in our thoughts. As we raise the bar (e.g. expect and facilitate more self-direction and engagement), many of our students will jump higher, push themselves more, but it is also clear that those not reaching the bar find despair. This is the fundamental reason why so many teachers design banal, completion-based assessment for students -- it provides an easy way out for disengaged students. Easy to mark, students rarely complain, only the most truant and reluctant learners ever need to know course failure. If we truly expect students to own their learning, and are willing to back this up with interventions, support systems, etc. in exchange for high standards (e.g. the kinds of performance or evidence or learning that comes from engaged students), we need to be ready for the mess when students give up. School can indeed be a place of wonderment, discovery -- entertaining and engaging -- but it is also a place of work, some of it hard and uncomfortable, and a place of deferred rewards, requiring grit and patience. This second part is missing from most ed reformers lingo when they describe the magic of 21st Century Learning -- it is assumed that student-centered learning automatically engages students and leverages their passion. This is why it is an uphill battle -- students will often default to their comfort zone, and are more than happy to drift along without being challenged by their teacher or others. Maybe the years of compulsory schooling have done this to them, maybe it a basic human trait to seek comfort and safety (and boredom). We should also recognize that disengagement and perceived apathy does not have to be the fault of schools -- we live in a messed-up society rife with nature deficit, idiotic role models, corrupt rulers, corporate cynicism, engineered class divisions, sexualized media, digital addiction, and enablement of many kinds. That's for mainstream kids, for all. Add the lingering (and ongoing) impacts of colonialism, drugs, and abusive scenarios and it is no wonder that so many of our vulnerable students suffer from toxic stress and mental illness. Disconnect in all its forms happens long before they get to my class. Nonetheless, one must do what one can, and we can laugh at ourselves a little bit, acknowledge that the road ahead is steep, and carry out the idea that one of the best tickets for a better future is to get the most out of high school and emerge with both a diploma and a skill set for life, study, and work. Of course, it would help if they just showed up (ok, attendance is an uphill battle all on it's own).

Needed to win: persistence. Teachers need the license (permission from themselves, support from their community & employer, time to do it) to experiment with their designs for curriculum, instruction, and assessment. For example, I think we need something intermediate between failing a course and simply shunting kids through who are "close enough" (had some ideas about this last year) -- this would take some real time and collaboration to figure out, though, and this is hard to squeeze into a teacher's schedule (and too few administrators take on these challenges). In most schools, it is one or the other for reluctant and disengaged learners -- fail or squeak out a close pass -- often with indistinguishable effort. The fear of making kids sad or engaging their parents means that the quick pass is pushed as the default. We need to get over the widespread use of cursory interventions designed to push kids through to "minimally meets expectations" -- it sends all the wrong messages and does not lead to engagement. It teaches students that a little more or less than their mediocre effort is all it take to get by, just put in some time, complete whatever "work" you have with you, and we'll pretend that you've mastered some learning outcomes. We need to patiently persist, drop our own mediocre lessons and disengaging activities one by one, and collect our own data about the projects, trajectories, and assessments that build understanding for discouraged learners and also challenge our top performers. More than that, if we value critical thinking, constructivist learning, self-regulation, and authentic inquiry, then we need to build our assessments to measure these things. Along with other members of the Pacific Slope Consortium, this has been almost the sole focus of my PD over the last 3 years (e.g. Time for a New Exam). I'm sure others have more succinct ideas for how to navigate the challenges of engagement, the seemingly natural tendency of students to expect passivity in their school experience. Love to hear them. UPDATE: I came across this awesome blog while thinking about how teachers can shift the focus in their class to active student engagement --  a frank account of one teacher trying to unlearn bad habits and try on some new ones http://relearningtoteach.blogspot.ca. I think we need more of this kind of honest self-reflection and willingness to experiment.

Other "battles" I'd like to visit: AFL, Digital Learning, "depth vs breadth" curriculum change, personalized learning, PBL, and flipped classrooms.

Image source: http://www.theoffside.com/world-football/offside-rewind-uphill-battle.html

BCED Leadership Conference a Year Later

Last year, I wrote about my experiences as a participant and presenter at the BC Superintendent's Association BCED Leadership Conference. I had hoped that other SD57 participants would offer their own perspective, but I am still left wondering how our district staff and trustees felt about the relative progress of our school district in light of the stunning exemplars from around the province. I would suggest that we have three major challenges that stuck out in comparison with other school districts:

1. Need to pursue more creative and meaningful experiments in collaboration, both formal and informal. The idea of a regulated collaboration system with prescribed topics sits on the ridiculous end of the spectrum -- there were a few districts doing this -- do any of our school still do this? We need "co-creative" habits modeled at all levels, and active support for any group that embarks on a promising path moving from "sharing of practice" to "joint practice development." For example, the practice shared by David Hargreaves of one school staff visiting another school’s staff at work (and vice versa) led to diverse collaborations. Not suggesting we try this, but asking the question about what culture and design would need to be in place for this sort of thing to happen in our district? The need exists from the classroom to the boardroom. Simply acknowledging that we interact with partner groups is not enough; we should move into an interdependent relationship where we actually meet each other's ambitious goals. What actions would result if we asked powerful questions about the strengths of and challenges to our collaboration across the organization?
2. Need for more thoughtful planning on technology. Our narrow focus on managing systems, maintaining network integrity, controlling platforms, reducing costs, and banning devices to comply with backroom purchasing decisions are holding us back. We need free-wheeling, inclusive, formal discussions on integrating technology into learning (to compliment the informal professional learning on the topic that already happens), and a support plan that begins with pedagogy. One the elephants in our room is the inexplicable and hushed decision to ban ipad purchase requests (and other devices and technologies) from principals and teachers for student use. Another elephant is the collapse of district-wide educator teamwork on tech philosophy and implementation -- the platform or devices is not the issue, it is the avoidance of a pedagogical discussion that leverages technology. The once-vibrant culture for collaboration on technology in our district died a few years ago and we are now left with an appalling lack of interaction between teachers and district leaders on technology. The examples across the province showed how good tech blends into the background of solid teaching and learning, but nonetheless requires district-wide dialogue, planning, training, support and shared decision-making. Every district that told me they had a BYOD (bring your own device) philosophy also had a complimentary purchasing strategy based on the expressed needs of educators. Our "prime directive" with tech needs to shift from network security & standardization to teaching & learning, creating & collaborating. These are not incompatible but the priority is important. To be blunt, the longer our school district sits on these issues, the more we losing technology capacity, educator excitement, and student interest.
3. Need for improved communication and celebration of success. We certainly saw amazing provincial evidence from blended learning programs, attachment strategies, environmental and community connections, innovation with technology, collaborative practice, and students showing leadership. What’s happening in SD57? For educator examples, we have had some success with the mentorship program and learning team grants, but they are for the most part well-kept secrets. For student examples, each school I'm sure is doing uplifting work with kids -- but the success is often hidden. Adding more leadership structures or responsibilities is not necessary, we just need to "release the hounds" and benefit from the energy that is already at work (and often at odds with dominant thinking). We need to keep working on developing social media, website, news media and conversational connections to share our good work with the larger stakeholder community that supports us, as well as for our own professional learning and work with students.

In short, if we want to talk about 21st century skills we have to plan for them and model them ourselves. Our province is pervaded with high quality examples, no need to look very far to see high bars for collaboration, tech planning, and communication. We have a long way to go here, but we also have lots of positive examples in our midst, thought often hidden among the underbrush. I was, nonetheless, proud to represent our district because the people I work and learn with place a high priority on the development of all children and generally have a good sense of humour... they put up with my blog posts, for example. It would be awesome, though, to get even a single response from any one of the folks who attended the leadership conference. Sending a dozen or so delegates to this conference cost our school district about $18000, and while there is no formal duty for senior admin and trustees to publicly share what they learned or respond to a fellow delegate, I am puzzled as to why they would not. This is not "holding your feet to the fire" this is a genuine invitation to dialogue... teachers, principals, parents, even students are interested to know what educational leaders get from a professional learning experience, especially one that centered around how schools and districts are implementing personalized learning and the BC Education Plan.

Board Proposal for Middle Earth 12

Middle Earth 12 Board Authorized Course from thielmann

Presentation (well... highlights, anyways) to accompany proposal for a BC Board/Authority Authorized Course. Middle Earth 12 is a senior Humanities elective course - an authentic, blended approach to the study of language and landscape. Middle Earth 12 is designed to work as a stand-alone course but will be implemented locally within a Humanities Program that also includes other students seeking credit for BC English 11 and Geography 12. Using diverse sources like fantasy fiction, regional environments, and work created or chosen by students, Middle Earth 12 is a Quest for deep connections to people, places and ideas, and powerful skills to interpret and respond to what we discover along the way. Tolkien's creations serve as both a metaphor and model for what we will do in Middle Earth 12 -- he fashioned a personalized landscape using the crafts of a writer, poet, painter, sketch artist, cartographer, medieval scholar, language origin expert, linguistic specialist, environmental devotee, historian, keen observer, and wanderer. He set an example of what relentless curiosity and collaboration can accomplish.

Board/Authority Authorized Course Framework for school trustees and district staff -- "brief" version: http://db.tt/yCrfoQ6A

Documentation on the project development, FAQs, philosophy, and the placement of Middle Earth 12 in the Language and Landscape program at D.P. Todd -- "full" version: http://db.tt/Uziz9EBU

BCeSIS

I finally gave in and left some feedback on one of the BCEdplan's feedback forums, specifically the one on Student Information Systems (I think today is the last day for input).  The government is looking to replace our cumbersome and oft-maligned student data tracking system (BCeSIS) over the next couple of years.

Well, the short version of my feedback is... make sure the replacement learns from the mistakes of BCeSIS.

Here is a sample of concerns that occur to me when reflect on BCeSIS.

• pretty much universal agreement that BCeSIS failed to reach basic benchmarks for functionality and reliability
• the system satisfied some office/administrative needs (a key user group), but was a disaster for marks and other needs of teachers (the other key user group) -- the Ministry appeared to have had only the first of these user groups in mind when they looked for a system
• piloted in one of our rural secondary schools (McBride), yet the district ignored all the feedback from the teachers there and pressed on with early adoption and implemetation
• the brutal interface and user experience at every level... slow, illogical, and difficult to navigate, no flexibility for alternate schedules, etc... this list could be VERY long
• unwillingness in the first 5 years to allow data exchange between BCeSIS and the marks program that most of the district's teachers were using.
• we had 1 techie and 2 principals, a crew of SASOs and trained secretaries assigned to BCeSIS (plus some of the tech support coordinator's and the FOIPPA officer's time) and yet there was still no way to address bugs in the system as all changes were handled at the parent company level
• all the training time they allocated for the teacher marks portion was wasted as teachers stopped using it shortly after, if they even bothered at all... the cost of the principal's salary and the release time for dozens of teachers was close to useless
• I think sometime in the first year they clarified a process for gathering input that would results in annual changes if the parent company agreed it needed fixing... a full year from problem to possible solution
• many of the promised features in BCeSIS never came online or never worked... club & team databases, fee collection, IEPs were delayed for years, data exchange, parent contact module, etc.
• constant browser issues, as they only developed it for one browser -- using a standard PC and the default browser (Explorer), logging in requires acknowledging warnings of virus-like activities and authorizing permission for unknown operations; doing this seems exactly like what we're not supposed to do according to our acceptable use policy, and yet we are required to use BCeSIS
• one positive note: using BCeSIS is like working with a living artifact, a sentimental reminder of the glory days of archaic computer programming and a greyish, dehumanizing user interface. Every time I use it I feel like I am back in Computer Science 11, 1986.

A former colleague, John Vogt, has prepared a more substantive critique of BCeSIS implementation. He has shared it with school trustees, the BC Ed forum, and others (including myself) and has given me permission to share it here.

By way of introduction, John has a great way of offering substantive critique of educational planning in our school district balanced with powerful suggestions, a positive and dedicated example in his own practice, a willingness to conduct inquiry and research when others practice resignation, and wit. A personal role model for sure! Here is what John had to say:

I am a retired SD 57 teacher currently working as an instructor for the UNBC School of Education. I was working at DP Todd during the implementation of BCeSIS. Because of my 25 years of experience in working with computers in schools, I was asked to assist with the DP Todd implementation. I was also a member of a PGDTA technology committee which spent time looking into issues surrounding the BCeSIS implementation.

The implementation of BCeSIS in SD 57, and more generally in the province was deficient in many respects. I was reminded of this recently while reading a Prince George Citizen article reporting on an SD 57 trustee meeting where student information systems were discussed. It is always dangerous to jump to conclusions on the basis of a newspaper article, but as reported, presentations to the board regarding BCeSIS and its hoped-for replacement did not appear to fully recognize, analyze, or learn from problems in the implementation of BCeSIS.

A variety of problems with BCeSIS were correctly predicted before implementation in SD 57. A combination of issues (detailed in this Dropbox file) resulted in those predictions being ignored by local decision makers. The result was considerable angst among classroom teachers. A new student information system will face the same issues. If leaders in SD 57 fail to be proactive in working with employee groups to better understand the problems of the past, they stand to repeat them in the future.

hammer or the anvil

So far, I've avoided leaving even a single comment on any of the BC Edplan feedback forums. It's partly because of time, partly because of initial unease over the plan's origins, but also because I've often felt that the coming changes are inevitable. I'll adapt one way or another regardless of what it looks like, and help others do the same. Much like an anvil -- sturdy and reliable, but typically on the receiving end. A few discussions and experiences over the last while have convinced me to exercise my inner hammer and get involved one way or another. This was my motivation for applying to present at the recent Ed Leadership Conference and also why I've worn a path on this topic for most of the last two years at the district level.

During the Grad Requirements Dialogue that came to Prince George in October, a group of secondary and post-secondary educators, administrative officers and boards from various institutions (including our school district, CNC, and UNBC) parents, trustees, First Nations and partner group representatives (associations, unions, DPAC, etc.), political, business and trades types, and other stakeholders met to discuss how the structure and flow of high school might evolve in BC to meet new and existing expectations for our students.

One of the things we discussed at our tables and reported out to the whole group was how curriculum could or should change. Curriculum is currently organized into Prescribed Learning Outcomes (PLOs) and Suggested Achievement Indicators (SAIs). For example, one of the PLOs in Social Studies 11 is to "explain how Canadians can effect change at the federal and provincial levels." One of the matching SAIs is to "compare mechanisms whereby public policy can be changed (e.g., elections, petitions and protests, lobbyists, special interest groups, court actions, media campaigns)." The plan is to organize the discipline-based curriculum around Big Ideas (the themes of the PLOs), Learning Standards (the heart of the PLOs) and Links (that connect to various applications, competencies, and assessments of curriculum, replacing the SAIs).

This topic is also featured in the latest issue of Learn (BC Teacher Regulation Branch Magazine -- "wisdom" from the Ministry of Education). The article Transforming BC's Curriculum describes a perceived need to reduce the total number of outcomes while emphasizing higher-order thinking and more depth (online version not yet posted, but here is some context from Janet Steffenhagen). I was encouraged to see the involvement of Peter Seixas (UBC Ed Prof) with the Social Studies portion -- I've been working with benchmarks of historical thinking for a few years and I think using these as a framework for understanding curriculum is great. I was a little worried that the minority of voices clambering for dumbed down outcomes would gain traction, but with folks like Seixas onboard I am hopeful that this will be a way to streamline without losing depth. The critical inquiry approach has changed the way I teach, and also assess. Colleague Rob Lewis and I got the chance to play with the benchmarks while making unit study guides for Pearson's 2010 SS11 text Counterpoints. This exercise in collaboration and professional learning has led us into a new way of doing assessment where we are firm on the critical thinking and soft on the factoids. I've already put my two bits in on Socials Studies 11 curriculum change, but the Ministry should also invite some of these other educators to dialogue as well as Counterpoints authors Mike Cranny and Garvin Moles.

One thought I had while reading the Learn Magazine article is that spelling out the big ideas of the curriculum could actually restrict rather than liberate diverse learning. The present focus on skills, content, concepts allows teachers and students to build their own narratives with the curriculum, discovering and applying their own big ideas. This is what makes Social Studies exciting -- having students make profound connections precisely because we haven't made these for them. The idea of passively "delivering content" to students is very much out of favour, but will we be "delivering meaning" instead? What if students disagree that a "big idea" is important? Yet, we are still accountable for outcomes based on that big idea?  Constructivist and Inquiry-based learning work best when the end goal is not pre-determined. Many of our texts (like SS11 Counterpoints) have already made the switch to big idea, focus questions, and supporting concepts, skills, content. I suppose mine is more of a philosophical or semantic concern as the new proposal looks like what many teachers do anyways (when they're not chasing content). There are also some teachers that deliver a course as they have had it handed down to them, and sometimes never reference what they do back to the curriculum, and many students who never take the time to figure out what learning outcomes they need to pay attention to, so a more teacher- and student-friendly curriculum may be in order. This also speaks to the need for exemplars to be shared in a non-threatening manner and maybe a chance to meet other educators to initiate informal mentoring and collaboration.

At the Grad Requirements Discussion, we were shown a prototype of what the new BC curriculum website might look like (slides 22/23 on the Slideshow ppt posted at http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/graduation/, slide 22 shown above). The "Links" section caught the attention of our table, and we speculated about what would happen if the Links actually connected to an interactive space for exemplars and ideas populated by teachers and students. These would showcase regional applications to curriculum, multimodal expressions of learning, meaningful assessment practices, wicked lesson outcomes, and unique examples of ordinary students doing significant learning. It could feature adaptations for ESL/ESD, enriched, at-risk, or students with a learning disability. It would need to be moderated in some way (e.g. ensure FIPPA, monitor size and repetition, prevent corporate encroachment), but this could be a launchpad for teacher education, student research, parent involvement, academic study, expert input, and professional development. Wiki, mobile app, forum style, digital learning commons... lots of ways to go with this idea, not every form appeals to every educator. We have informal and formal "learning repositories" at many levels already; I'm not thinking about a one-stop centre for lessons plans or complete set of learning resources (uhh, that would be the "internet"). This would be more of an exhibit of successful teaching and learning achievements, including assessment and the role of technology. Using the Social Studies 11 PLO mentioned above as an example (affecting political change), the Links section could feature a curation of BC exemplars.  This might include sample student petitions, a weblink to a lobby group formed or investigated by students, a teacher's best lesson for letter writing to politicians or setting up a mock parliament, a comparative analysis of austerity protests in Europe, a rubric for self-assessing active citizenship, an RSS feed of current events that relate to provincial and federal politics, proceedings from a Personal Learning Network that has critiqued problem-based cross-curricular projects that include political agency, testimonials and student interviews (politicians, journalists, new immigrants, special interest groups), student video on what they learned from taking a Canadian Citizenship test, student media campaigns or field work, and so on. The Links would change over time to reflect new discovery, and balance friendly competition and useful cooperation among BC schools.

More than just a list of links and exemplars, some level of interactivity would be ideal. This could be user rating scale or comment section to evaluate posted content and ensure that curriculum change (at least at the achievement indicator level) is an ongoing process and not something that stops and starts every few years. This would create a fluid user-generated curriculum guide that builds on what the experts have laid out as big ideas and learning standards, a necessary step towards flexible instructional design and personalized learning. There could be a sandbox or "guild" space where new exemplars and learning schemes could be tested and critiqued by the BC educational community, perhaps directly in the Ministry webspace or alongside the "Links" via social media. The Ministry of Education is already using interactive digital tools for gathering feedback -- whittle this down to something sustainable and never stop asking for feedback. Another route is to build a registry of BC educators and existing web resources, lesson elements, and student exemplars that match the various learning standards and assessment goals of the new curriculum. This would formalize the data that is flowing all the time on social media , a constant exchange and evaluation of curriculum design, teaching strategies, and student support of all kinds for student learning. It could also kickstart local discussions about mentorship and personal learning networks. Whatever the approach, the final step of new curriculum websites should involve some kind of dynamic space that will benefit new and old teachers looking to explore new paradigms.

The other interesting idea I pulled from the Grad Requirements Dialogue was the uncommon discussion itself.  We had one of the most extensive collections of SD57 educational stakeholders assembled that I've seen in 17 years of teaching. Let's just say our district doesn't tend to reach out in this fashion. The sum of what was said (and then forwarded to a regional contact) can be seen as our local community's shared beliefs about education and expectations for youth as they become "whole selves" -- active citizens, fulfilled employees, empathetic adults, etc. I was struck by how the discussion fit as well for our top academic students as it did our at-risk and vulnerable students -- it wasn't about raising or lowering standards as much as it was about how much we care about how our students turn out. I'm looking at some new forms of assessment for my next year, some methods that anticipate rather than react to changing ideas about competency and cross-curricular learning. I want to be able to present my students next year with a framework of expectations not from me, but from the whole local community that supports their learning, an invitation for them to create their own path of assessment within a social context. This locally gathered data provides that context -- an actual community-based expectation for understanding student achievement. I saw a few community-based approaches at the recent Ed Leadership Conference, and this seems like the right scale to build ownership for students. Students already set many of their own expectations (especially when their identity is engaged in the learning process) and try to meet the expectations of their parents, teachers, and schools (sometimes). We also expect them to meet provincial standards, too, but what would it look like to meet the expectations of their local educational stakeholder community? This is the milieu in which their ambitions will sink or swim, the people who will be encouraging, supporting, judging, teaching, employing, cajoling, and depending on them. I think this could be exciting. I'd like to try this with a group of Grade 11 students in a new blended learning program next year -- start their first seminar session by learning how to do qualitative analysis using the community stakeholder data. From this we move into shared assessment design where students build a plan for the course program based on the big ideas, learning standards, personalized goals and passions, and community expectations. I'm not sure if this will appeal to every student, but we'll definitely take care of the "why are we doing this" question right from the start. This is especially important for at-risk students who are often at odds with what they think their community thinks of them. Maybe this would be a step past the academic judgement they receive and move into a more care-based ethos (as in, let's all care enough to give a you-know-what).

Just some ideas here to stretch my thinking; I'm actually pretty content to stay the course on my own pedagogical trajectory in concert with the great ideas that come from my personal learning network, but it's better to be the hammer than the anvil when it comes to changes to curriculum and assessment. I've seen some crazy schemes arrive, turn into cliches, and depart in the last 17 years, so if we're going to be plunged into someone's version of 21st century learning, we might as well "own" our capacity to craft something original.

Teachers and other educational stakeholders, if you are able to set aside reservations about system upheaval, the scary libertarian bits, pressure on the BCTF, and challenges to our comfort zones, I am interested to learn what cool things can you do in your space that are opened up by BC Edplan. I'm taking it for what it's worth, the first major self-evaluation of compulsory schooling in at least a generation, and one that not only allows but enables diverse instructional design and respect for student inquiry.

What do you want to get out of the coming changes? What can future Ministry Curriculum websites do to support you? What do you think about community-based expectations for students? Tweet your responses to @bcedplan, visit their forums, or leave a comment here.

koolaid vs wild mushrooms

BC Educational Leadership Conference Fall 2012 - Nov 15/16 - Participant Report

I walked down Burrard Street toward the harbour last Thursday with thoughts of tall buildings and tall trees, the sight of well-dressed wealthy folk getting somewhere fast and street-tested poor folk in no particular hurry. A soft 7 a.m. traffic-sound bounced off the buildings like sea-breeze, broken by the cry of gulls. Sitting there behind my senses was the question of what to expect as I stepped into the Vancouver Convention Centre for the BCSSA Fall Conference. I expected to be greeted by jugs of koolaid but soon found I would feast on wild mushrooms. Let me share the difference between the two and what I took from this big gathering of "BCED" leaders -- senior administrators, trustees, principals, and others including parents, teachers, and students. The topic was "Parterships for Personalization: Leading and Transforming Together" -- putting some meat and potatoes onto the BC Edplan table.

First of all, my reservations about the jargon and embedded agendas in the BC Edplan go back a few years to the Premier's Technology Council 2010 Vision for 21st Century Learning. When I first read it, I thought "oh crap, what are they going to do to our education system?" Like many teachers, I am concerned that the vision is about reducing and privatizing services in public education and downloading costs to parents, students, and teacher volunteerism. That's the koolaid part. Read to the bottom and you'll see there is an upside to the koolaid, the part of the BC Edplan that says "what are you waiting for?"

I'll be the first to admit that the conservative service-reduction agenda was not obvious at the ELC conference. What I found instead was diverse ways that schools and districts across the province are experimenting with collaborative pedagogy, environmental and community connections, attaching children and teens, purposeful use of technology, and a focus on making the school experience more imaginative for all involved, primarily the students. There was very little teacher bashing (no more than any other stakeholder, and nothing we shouldn't "own" anyways), no examples that I could find where projects were designed as cost-cutting measures, and a general respect for the social, emotional, professional and contractual contexts in which we practice. There was also an emphasis on local knowledge and projects that reached out to people and places. It was in these contexts, incidentally, that technology and project-based learning found the right balance. This composite of unique offerings was the wild mushroom part -- homegrown, fresh, diverse, and special. Of course, the metaphor fits because we also had great local food at the conference. Yup, wild mushrooms were on at least one dish at every meal.

I went to sessions on blended learning in Rossland, heritage/place based inquiry in Arrow Lakes, and one on the Thomas Haney school experience. My wife (who also attended) and I noticed that the most functional districts tended to be the smaller ones. In the bigger ones, it was school-wide rather than district-wide efforts that stood out, with a few exceptions (West Van comes to mind). The plenary speakers each shared an hour of profound high-caliber research and observations. I found enough to either agree with or challenge my thinking that I am left with many ideas to consider. The plenary speakers emphasized how collaboration relates to school improvement, and encouraged leaders to do a few things well.

The Thomas Haney story was cool; they've been doing blended learning in some fashion for 20 years. Obviously lots of learning curve -- they relied heavily on paper modules or packages, and of course now these all are going digital. Sounds a bit like the Moodle trap our DE school is standing next to. Still, they are a choice school, full (in a district with declining enrolment), and drawing from almost every elementary catchment. They have huge open spaces in their school and smaller student study areas, lots of light and greenery, etc, which is a big part of what makes it work. Presenter and Principal Sean Nosek was a charismatic fellow who was obviously doing the right thing with his talent -- passion, pride and ongoing inquiry for the THSS school community. He remembered me my from summer session of teacher training at SFU in 1995... something about wearing a bearskin and shouting poetry in class. I don't remember that but it sounds like something I would do.

Rossland Secondary School is the only high school in a town of 4000, tucked up in an extinct volcano midst the Monashee Mountains. With declining enrolment, they were in threat of school closure, compounded by a preemptive flight down the hill to J.L. Crowe Secondary in Trail. So, some teachers in the school proposed a whole-school blended learning model for Sep 2012: http://rssblendedlearning.wordpress.com/. Very interesting to see the start-up and how open and progressive they are with mistakes. Seems to be working great for the middle class masses, but they're having some issues with the few at-risk and LA kids they have; need more direct supervision, etc. They have put serious thought into how blended learning could/should work, and are open to visits and inquiries. This Rossland Telegraph article explains the context.  I have some friends whose kids attend the RSS program and it seems to be a good fit for families where flexibility is sought-after.

The Arrow Lakes SD10 schools had a focus on place-conscious learning, for example discovering the community through art. Big projects saw students doing field work and interviews around local cultures, landscapes, and issues, for example investigating the Japanese Internment experience and telling their stories through film (the Nikkei Memorial Centre is nearby in New Denver).  A key inquiry related to the local Doukhobor culture. Their work focused on recognizing and articulating values -- directly, in the case of the interview subjects, and indirectly, in that students discover what is important for themselves when they look for it in others. The students made the connections between the Doukhobor and Aborginal residential schools, and asked powerful questions about different forms of colonialism. The presenter, District Principal Terry Taylor, talked about how they clear off a whole week for students to do field work and interviews, parents and teacher involved but no regular classes. Their superintendent Perry also arranged for whole school TOC time, I day per month. She was a fiery, determined sort of leader who seemed absolutely committed to breaking down barriers any time a group of teachers or admin had a vision for something that supported innovative student engagement.

Of course, the "unconferencing" was also important. I tried to tweet some of the big ideas and funny bits -- look through my Nov 15/16 tweets before they disappear, or scroll though some of the conference tweets (archived below as well).  I got to meet a few people I've interacted with on social media but have either never met (e.g. Chris Wejr and Peter Jory) or haven't seen in a while (e.g. Cale Birk). I made some new educator contacts (e.g. Sean Nosek, Terry Taylor).  I very much enjoyed talking with Nicola Kuhn (Rossland Teacher-Librarian and a lead coordinator of the blended learning initiative). It was not hard to bump into folks that are making an impact on student learning and the education system -- these six educators make for good follows on twitter for anyone wondering about the value of social media. I had some awesome and frank discussions with superintendents from a few districts, like Mark Thiessen from Williams Lake and Greg Luterbach from Kootenay-Columbia. They are still close to their roots as teachers and were able to drop all pretense and TALK. Very encouraging. I asked about six Supers how they managed to clear their desks of tasks that didn't have lasting value and focus on relationships. Great responses! Favourite one was "I don't do politics!" The topic of trust also came up, as in trust for other members of the team to do their best work.

I presented at this conference as well, on the topics of personalized project-work for students, teachers, and leaders. I spoke about personal learning networks, social media, strategies for getting the "underground" work many of us do out in the open, and allowing this work to be subject to mutual accountability and further collaboration. My presentation and notes are posted here. I was anxious before I presented (too many topics, perhaps) but it went well, engendered great small group discussions, and got good feedback from people that seemed to have their act together. The exemplars and stories of student heritage inquiry generated the most interest. The discussion questions were basically "what ignites your interests or excites your learning and provides a hearth to centre your professional learning?" and "what can we do to welcome, celebrate, and support hidden but promising practices at schools from students, teachers, principals and within board office staffs and partner groups?"

Our School District 57 sent the two assistant superintendents (Johnston, Carson), curriculum & instruction principal (Heitman), human resources director (Patterson), finance manager (Reed), and five trustees (Warrington, Cooke, Hooker, Bekkering, Bella).  I'll link to them if they have any conference reports or thoughts to share. Yes, that's a hint... we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Maybe other SD57 participants can offer their own perspective, but I am left wondering how our district staff and trustees felt about the relative progress of our school district in light of the stunning exemplars from around the province. I would suggest that we have three major challenges that stuck out in comparison with other school districts:

1. Need to pursue more creative and meaningful experiments in collaboration, both formal and informal. The idea of a regulated collaboration system with prescribed topics sits on the ridiculous end of the spectrum -- there were a few districts doing this -- do any of our school still do this? We need "co-creative" habits modeled at all levels, and active support for any group that embarks on a promising path moving from "sharing of practice" to "joint practice development." For example, the practice shared by David Hargreaves of one school staff visiting another school’s staff at work (and vice versa) led to diverse collaborations. Not suggesting we try this, but asking the question about what culture and design would need to be in place for this sort of thing to happen in our district? The need exists from the classroom to the boardroom. Simply acknowledging that we interact with partner groups is not enough; we should move into an interdependent relationship where we actually meet each other's ambitious goals. What actions would result if we asked powerful questions about the strengths of and challenges to our collaboration across the organization?
2. Need for more thoughtful planning on technology. Our narrow focus on managing systems, maintaining network integrity, controlling platforms, reducing costs, and banning devices to comply with backroom purchasing decisions are holding us back. We need free-wheeling, inclusive, formal discussions on integrating technology into learning (to compliment the informal professional learning on the topic that already happens), and a support plan that begins with pedagogy. One the elephants in our room is the inexplicable and hushed decision to ban ipad purchase requests (and other devices and technologies) from principals and teachers for student use. Another elephant is the collapse of district-wide educator teamwork on tech philosophy and implementation -- the platform or devices is not the issue, it is the avoidance of a pedagogical discussion that leverages technology. The once-vibrant culture for collaboration on technology in our district died a few years ago and we are now left with an appalling lack of interaction between teachers and district leaders on technology. The examples across the province showed how good tech blends into the background of solid teaching and learning, but nonetheless requires district-wide dialogue, planning, training, support and shared decision-making. Every district that told me they had a BYOD (bring your own device) philosophy also had a complimentary purchasing strategy based on the expressed needs of educators. Our "prime directive" with tech needs to shift from network security & standardization to teaching & learning, creating & collaborating. These are not incompatible but the priority is important. To be blunt, the longer our school district sits on these issues, the more we losing technology capacity, educator excitement, and student interest.
3. Need for improved communication and celebration of success. We certainly saw amazing provincial evidence from blended learning programs, attachment strategies, environmental and community connections, innovation with technology, collaborative practice, and students showing leadership. What’s happening in SD57? For educator examples, we have had some success with the mentorship program and learning team grants, but they are for the most part well-kept secrets. For student examples, each school I'm sure is doing uplifting work with kids -- but the success is often hidden. Adding more leadership structures or responsibilities is not necessary, we just need to "release the hounds" and benefit from the energy that is already at work (and often at odds with dominant thinking). We need to keep working on developing social media, website, news media and conversational connections to share our good work with the larger stakeholder community that supports us, as well as for our own professional learning and work with students. 

In short, if we want to talk about 21st century skills we have to plan for them and model them ourselves. Our province is pervaded with high quality examples, no need to look very far to see high bars for collaboration, tech planning, and communication.  We have a long way to go here, but we also have lots of positive examples in our midst, thought often hidden among the underbrush.

I was, nonetheless, proud to represent our district because the people I work and learn with place a high priority on the development of all children and generally have a good sense of humour... they put up with my blog posts, for example.

So, hurray for wild mushrooms - the diverse, local, and fresh experiences that we forge for ourselves and our students. Let us continue cultivating the ecosystems that result in sturdy specimens.

And, hurray for a bit of koolaid - the part of the bcedplan that actually recognizes that educators have been trying smart, dynamic, innovative "7C" student-centered work for a long time (and want to do more), and that their efforts for learning and system designs should be greeted with "YES" as often as possible.


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Some references

The keynotes and most of the break-out concurrent sessions have been archived at http://www.bcssa.org/fallconference.html

Conference program (full list of sessions)
http://www.bcssa.org/fcprogram.html

Most of the conference tweets (#elcfall2012 via Tweetdoc)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/68985044/Share/elcfall2012_conf_tweets.pdf

Post-conference "follow-up" tweets (#elcfall2012 via Tweetdoc)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/68985044/Share/elcfall2012_postconf_tweets.pdf

Another version of archived conference tweets (#elcfall2012 via @ChrisWejr)
http://storify.com/ChrisWejr/day-1-of-bcssa-fall-leadership-conference-elcfall2
http://storify.com/ChrisWejr/morning-of-day-2-at-bcssa-fall-conference-elcfall2
http://storify.com/ChrisWejr/afternoon-of-day-2-of-bcssa-fall-conference-elcfal

SD20 Superintendent Greg Luterbach on what he pulled from Ben Levin's presentation:

http://www.sd20.bc.ca/superintendent.html

SD43 Manager of Info Services Brian Kuhn on disruptive technology and conference interaction
http://www.shift2future.com/2012/11/reimagine-learning.html

SD45 Bowen Island Principal Jennifer Pardee reflecting on the conference and environmental connections:

http://go45.sd45.bc.ca/blogs/schoolblogs/biblog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=41

SD57 Trustee Kate Cooke on what she pulled from the conference:
http://trusteecooke.blogspot.ca/2012/11/educational-leadership-conference.html

SD69 Kwalicum VP Rudy Terpstra reflects and asks a big question
http://sites.sd69.bc.ca/rterpstr/2012/11/19/reflections-on-the-educational-leadership-conference-november-15-and-16-2012-vancouver-bc/

Plenary keynotes:
Ben Levin - Building Great Schools
http://www.bcssa.org/PDFs/fall2012/benlevin.pdf (big file)

Daniel Wilson - Cultivating Effective Professional Collaborations
http://www.bcssa.org/PDFs/fall2012/danielwilson.pdf

Andreas Schleicher - Teachers in the 21st century
http://prezi.com/x7zrlsmaehfv/teachers-in-the-21st-century/

David Hargreaves - The Shape of Things to Come, and Self-Improving School Systems:
http://www.bcssa.org/PDFs/fall2012/davidhargreaves.pdf
http://www.bcssa.org/PDFs/fall2012/hargreaves-siss-oct2012.pdf

Thanks to PGDTA, by the way, for covering my registration and TOC costs. Thanks to BCSSA (conference organizers) for covering flight and accommodation. Thanks to SD13 Pacific Slope for the evidence and support. Thanks SD57 trustees Cooke, Warrington, Hooker, Bekkering for table talk at the conference and Elephant & Castle. Thanks for to so many committed educators and leaders for F2F and SM chats throughout conference... as I said in the presentation, there is lots about the BC Edplan that causes concerns across stakeholder groups, but the push to try new things and remove barriers to change fits well with some really cool current and future projects around the province. I think our students will benefit from the thoughtful and resourceful praxis that has caught fire in so many jurisdictions in our province any time educators have been able to move beyond rhetoric to collaborative practice.

If you have a conference report, let me know so I can share and post the link.