10 Ways to Use 10: The Rule of 10 in the Classroom

A recent piece in the Huffington Post, 10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned For Children Under the Age of 12, has gone viral. The post (column, piece) has spawned intelligent criticism from many fronts, very good ones found in the Huffington Post and in Slate (read together, these are a terrific example of how the written word can make both argument and opinion.) Undoubtedly this is largely because of the provocative nature of Rowan's proposition, but I suspect an additional reason is the piece's construction: any post with a title beginning "10 Reasons" will be read.  There are currently 601,000,000 results for a Google search on this phrase.

Why is this?  Maybe because we are a decimal culture.  Maybe because 10 is stronger than 5 or 3, but not overwhelming like 50 or underwhelming like "a dozen." The power of 10 is as great as, but very different from, the power of 3.  

I teach both The Rule of 3 and The Rule of 10 as essential elements of literacy.  "3" is concise. It is a comfortable number of repetitions that can be changed incrementally without the reader becoming lost or bored. It is symmetrical but also edgy. In almost any array of 3, no matter how presented or communicated, one element will come first, one will be in the middle, and one will be at the end, which is both satisfying and suspenseful (variations on this are more interesting).  "3" is the foundation of the standardly taught paragraph and the 5-paragraph essay (BOO to both).  

However satisfying, The Rule of 3 is also childlike in its simplicity. It is the stuff of tales that wrap up neatly and of short-lived arguments.  It is about keeping within the frame.

On the other hand, "10" begs for busting out.  Any list of 10 is really just a tenth of a list of 100. Any list of 10 can easily be expanded. Readers intuitively understand this. A list of 10 is affirming, authoritative, solid, and, potentially, endlessly entertaining.  

The Rule of 10 is about growth and possibility, change and conflict, energy and age.  I have also always found something compellingly chilly in the combination of the loneliness digit and the emptiness digit.  Flipping them creates a neat reduction, repeating them results in a confusion of binary code streaming across a pale green monitor... 10 is the stuff of the digital age as well as The Age of Kings.

The Rule of 10 is a rule for today's students.  

So how can we make it work for us in the classroom?  Here are 10 Ways to Use of 10 at any grade level:

• I think lists are basically boring, but if you must make lists, require 10 items.  10 favorite...  10 examples of... 10 expressions...  10 adjectives...  10 poems...  10 novels... Where once you stopped at 3 or 5, to make it easy, make it challenging with 10.  Work with ordering or sorting the list in various ways.  4 + 6 is calming.  5 + 5 is a study in antithesis.  3 + 3 + 3 + 1 is a powerful structure for making meaning and conveying emotion.  Write about choices made.
• 10 letter words are wonderful.  There are many collections online. Study them, record them rolling off your tongue, play vocabulary games with them.  Require them.
• A great middle school exercise to improve listening and communication is pair-drawing.  Allow only 10 lines.  On partner draws (allow 10 seconds) behind a screen.  He then gives oral directions for his partner(s) to create the same drawing.  Practice!
• Read 10 (blog posts, articles, opinions, analyses, summaries, novels, poems).  This can also be applied to visual literacy.  Draw 10 connections.  
• Write (draw, illustrate, record) 10 different/connected/overlapping...  
• Memorize in groups of 10.  Old school, yes, but it worked then and it works now.  Use the same groupings from #1 to create mental collections.  Very powerful skill.
• Model the 10-sentence paragraph (most students will quickly see how this can be expanded).  In fiction study, have students seek out 10 sentence passages that convey meaning, theme, etc.  Share them and use them as models.
• Study The Gettysburg Address.  It has 10 sentences.  Why?  How is it organized?  
• Apply The Rule of 10 to a longer text as a framework for analysis.  Where is the Rule found?  How does it improve or effect the overall construction?  (characters, chapters, settings, conflicts...)
• Expand or contract something 10 times.  This is a ripple or pattern exercise that can be used for multiple outcomes: a slippery slope argument (or the reverse, which I call "up the ladder"), brain storming, visual thinking, story-telling, creative narrative, description, development of arguments, coding...  I like to start with If You Give a Dog a Donut and also to use a simple paper-chain group activity to demonstrate how 10-step growth can create a complex or straightforward product.  The math link is obvious (multiplication, division, permutation - and what is a fraction anyway?).  

And why stop at 10?  If you remember playing Crack the Whip as a kid, on the field or on the ice, you know that the longer the whip the more forceful the lash. 3 is simply not much fun. Sometimes it hurts to be at the end of the whip, but it's worth it.  

Myth #4: Digital Learning is Interactive

SpellTower is interactive
in multi-player mode

8 Myths About Digital Learning

"Learning has become more and more interactive with an increased dose of engagement, no wonder we are teaching with the thing students love the most : technology."  (25 Techy Tips Every Teacher Should Know About)

This is a myth.

Itsy Bitsy Spider is not interactive
but it is very good

Actually, there is a lot of myth in the above statement; its mythic richness is right up there with the ubiquitousness of the digital native.  My focus is on the world interactive, probably the most over-used word in learning today.

Confusion: To my surprise, I find confusion in the education world about what interactive learning means. To some, it requires only that the learner engage in conversation with other learners or with teachers.  To others, it requires that the learner engage meaningfully with a learning environment or with elements within this environment, thus becoming a subset of hands-on. Increasingly, interactive learning requires only that technology is the tool used to deliver instruction, content, and/or a hands-on and engaging experience (whatever that means - in general, it seems to mean total student focus and no educator is needed).

Definition: What is missing from all but the 1st of these definitions, the one with which I mostly agree, is the most important element of interactivity: reciprocity.  This is where conversation comes it.  Conversation is based upon a give-and-take pattern, with the provision that each response and each stimulus adjusts to what has come previously. This means for learning that the learner develops and adapts (learning approaches and systems, content knowledge, understanding) as a result of input, receives stimulating responses from a separate learning element (human or digital), then inputs responses to these new stimuli.  The other learning element alters responses as a result of the development of the learner (increasing/decreasing content depth or difficulty, making problems harder to solve, altering format delivery, growing or changing).  And, most importantly, the other learning element sets or communicates the (higher) standards to which the learner is climbing.

Examples of Interactive Learning: 

• A Socratic discussion
• Scientific and tech inquiry is interactive when the student has the freedom to design experiments or solutions to problems
• Group role play
• Much of the Plato Learning system
• The best online classes
• Serious digital chess instruction
• Synchronous chat and other digital discussions

Examples of Mythical Interactivity:

• Where's My Water 
• Most eBooks, including those for elementary school
• The new app called KWHL Chart (which I recommend to all iPad mSchools - it's free)
• digital whiteboard apps

Animated does not equal interactive.  Critically read this iTunes description of Old MacDonald HD, the newest app from Duck, Duck Moose:
"Visit this farm where you can shear a sheep, push a tractor, flip a cow, make a chicken cluck, see pigs scurry, and watch ducks waddle. This unique rendition of the classic song also includes many new surprises: a philosopher cow, the painter Pig-casso, disco dancing sheep, mid-century modern furniture, spaceships, floating balloons, a bulldozer, a dump truck, and much more!" 

Touted as fully interactive, the app has, in fact, no interactivity at all.  What it has is a lot of animation triggered by random or purposeful screen-touches.

Responding to user input does not equal interactivity.  For the most part, apps that make this claim, like the excellent KWHL Chart, have generally only improved upon paper and pencil.

The fact about apps: In fact, most apps for education are not interactive.  Sorry - but unless the app embeds either an adaptive element or a social media element, it is not reciprocal.  Most apps are 1-way learning environments in which content, including rewards, can be replicated endlessly.  The precision with which a task is replicated will improve with repetition, and in elementary apps the rewards may vary (with choice and with upgrades), but the content itself does not alter with learning or app experience.

Not a criticism: It is not a criticism to say that a mobile app for children is not interactive.  Many excellent on-interactive apps teach children necessary skills, for example those listed in this short post on letter apps at Adventures in Technology Integration.

Just be accurate: An app or a use of an m-Tool that is not interactive should not be called interactive. It should be called responsive, animated, creative (reading, learning play).  All of these are buzz words sufficient to support the selling of an app or tool as engaging.

Any good app can be used in an interactive environment to create interactive learning:  Learning happens when curiosity and persistence address problems.  Interactive learning happens when  the learner is engaged in a conversation about those problems and their solutions.  New concepts, new words, new letters, how best to memorize massive amounts of material, how to use a semi-colon - all of these can be viewed as problems for the learner.  Interactive learning is best because it moves students forward from problem to problem.

Interactivity and Engagement: A teacher, parent or other agent who engages with the student to solve the problems of learning creates interactivity.  It is not the app, Google Chrome, or the mobile device itself that creates interactive learning - it how these learning tools are used.  Learning can be interactive when the tool is not.

Learning should be interactive when the tool is not.

This is not new pedagogy.  Teachers and parents have taught this way for centuries.  Until AI is ubiquitous in mobile devices, an app or tool that stimulates interactive learning in the classroom will:

• require and encourage a more knowledgeable co-learner or mentor to engage the student in conversation about content - rewards can be helpful in creating this, especially when there are multiple levels of problem or challenge
• connect smoothly and seamlessly to another app that "ups the problem"
• provide tools for (or direct access to tools for) the creation and sharing of new content that demonstrates understanding, and of products and problems 

Tools and apps that discourage interactive learning:

• are "closed systems" that discourage intervention and conversation - lack of complexity and challenge often create this situation
• do not have a mechanism for digitally sharing learning problems and understandings
• do not require or celebrate student creativity

The key to making learning interactive, then, is not purchasing large numbers of "interactive" apps.  It is not in sending students to internet video events and games.  It is in the hard fun conversation about learning.

Brain-Based Literacy

source

Wendi Pillars writes in Education Week about "Teachers as Brain Changers."  The four pillars of brain change, according to her article, are Relevance, Pattern, Pleasure, and Thinking Critically (for and by oneself).  I am curious as to why Creating is not on this list, but I am not an interpreter of neuroscience.

I think about the role each of these plays in the development of literacy, and I sense that most ELA teachers today are embedding all four of them in instruction.  However, I think many teachers need to be reminded that these elements need to be in balance.  

On Pleasure: As I read through ELA forums, nings, tweets, blogs, and discussions, I am dismayed to find that Pleasure seems to be rising to the top of the list -  narrowly defined by the same definition implied by Pillars: "I'm finding more ways to bring laughter and pleasure into my classroom and creating playful ways to explore and learn." 

I don't believe into the notion that playful exploration is the brain-feeding pleasure essential to learning.  Instead, I believe in the pleasure that comes from connecting directly to a text at the exact time you are ripe for connection.  This is the pleasure described by author Nicholar Carr in his NY Times opinion piece "My First Page-Turner" and by Lisa Rowe Fraustino in her piece, "Here's to Pipi Longstocking."  I believe in the pleasure of understanding.  This is the pleasure discussed by The Tempered Radical in "Writing Student Friendly Learning Goals." I believe in the pleasure that comes after the hard work necessary to meet a writing or reading goal.  This is the pleasure that I discussed in my post about motivation.  I believe in the pleasure that comes from finding joy in someone else's text, a pleasure that puts those words into a permanent chink in the brain (and often, the heart).  All authors have written about this pleasure, and I remind you that our students are all authors.  Last, I believe in the pleasure found in "ah hah!" moments - those moments when patterns are discovered or invented or settle into place like puzzle pieces or leap fully formed into the brain - and the discovery leads to new questions and new patterns. This pleasure is found throughout science, mathematics, and engineering memoirs and histories.  It is what inspired me to write my Circus post. 

These are what I call Hard Pleasures. They are the Pleasures - not contrived games, "fun projects," digital machinations, celebratory events, hands-on and out-of-the-seat experiences - that connect to the learning of literacy.  I am not a Scrooge. I would not and never did forswear any of the easy pleasures just listed.  As a 1:1 teacher, I did these and more. There is no doubt that they make the classroom a happier place, like allowing everyone to sit with only whom he chooses, never giving HW, putting on a 10 minute performance to begin every class, and - hey - if students don't like to write they don't have to. But that is the necessary performance of education, not the stuff of it.  As Seymour Papert was fond of reminding us, learning is hard fun.

Frankly, it pains me to find teachers asking other teachers for pleasurable activities at the middle and high school levels. It is not that they ask, it is that I sense they are asking without a sound goal or identified reason. If you know your students, if you know their needs and interests, and if you like them, creating easy pleasures is almost automatic.  And the fact of the matter is that teachers can not create hard pleasures for their students.  They can only structure opportunities for them to be found.

This is where the other three elements of brain-based literacy come into play, for they are the elements that open the door for hard pleasure to be found.  Literacy instruction would go a lot further if ELA teachers went back to the drawing board and - UBD-style and Pink-style and game-theory-style - embedded Relevance, Pattern, Hard Pleasure, and Thinking Critically not into every unit, but into every class period.  Take out those old lesson plans and redraw them.  Put a checklist on your wall. Did you hit every brain-growth point this period?

On Relevance: Under-applied and over-applied. Related to but not the same as Differentiation.  Generally over-rated. Yes, lessons need to be relevant to the students in the class.  That is one way their brains listen to the message.  But every brain is different. A class of 22 will have at least 5 different relevance benchmarks, often more.  And the brain can be stretched through connection of new-to-known, meaning that relevance may not occur to a student until after texts and concepts have been explored.

Relevance is not the same as "teaching only what they are interested in" or "not teaching what they don't know something about already."  For most k-12 students, Easy Relevance is like sitting down with a beloved relative every few weeks. When content sits at the comfort level, relevance comes easy. That is what pleasure reading in all of its forms is about.  But it is Hard Relevance that interests me.  This is tall mountains and bad dreams.  It's tough choices and unfamiliar territory.  It's the relevance necessary for the student to advance in skill and understanding.  That is a hard truth that many teachers and writers avoid.  Sorry - it is true.  Relevance does not come easy.

For one thing, it is necessary if Patterns are to be found.  Something as simple as an author study in elementary school will show students that prolific authors use patterns in language, illustration, subject matter, theme. Other patterns can be found by locating folk tale story patterns and then applying these to horror fiction, tracing patterns in fantasy or magical fiction, or tracing memoir patterns across several generations of writers.  Patterns of journey-writing can be traced from the Romans to Lewis and Clark to Kerouac to today's wanderers and explorers.

This is hard work.  Pulling opportunities together takes a teacher of imagination and wide reading - or one with the support of a community of wide readers.  Asking for this type of input is an excellent use of an ELA network. 

Last, experienced teachers know that every class is different.  What worked last year will probably not work this year.   A teacher can not be successful with someone else's success.  Adapt, adapt, adapt. 

And that covers Thinking Critically.  Teachers have to believe that their literacy and their successes are also brain-based.  If not the teacher, then how the students?

Flipping, Back-Flipping, and the Practically Flipped Classroom

The flipped classroom is an interesting concept, if not a new idea.  It is getting a lot of press this year. YouTube, ASCD, Mozilla, Facebook are jumping on the bandwagon, not to mention a large number of public school principals and independent edtech bloggers.  What is the draw?

The Plot Diagram

The Flipped Lesson

• uses technology
• use Web 2.0 tools
• takes the teacher off of the stage in the classroom
• makes it possible for scheduled class time to be used for discussion, writing, reading, practice, exploration and extension - encouraging collaboration and deeper thinking
• allows the student to independently plug away at understanding new content and concepts, to get necessary repetition, even to do independent research into concepts and content
• replaces expensive textbooks
• makes use of free social networking channels and independently posted lessons for education
• encourages students to question content and construct their own understanding independently from the teacher - and this can be an out-of-school collaboration

Who can find fault in that picture?   Students win, teachers win, social networking providers win (if they are not winning today, they will be tomorrow...)

Nonetheless, there are A Few Practical Concerns for the classroom.

science lesson

1. Not all students have outside-of-school access to the technology needed to access flipped content, unless that content is also provided on paper or in a text.
2. Not all parents give students permission to access social networking sites or to post Comments (or other material) online.
3. Not all schools unblock social networking sites, where flipped content is often posted, or support open in-school solutions; at-home or out-of-school is often the only alternative for viewing and sometimes also for creating (e.g. YouTube and even email).
4. age 13 is a legally problematic age for creating and using online accounts.
5. Not all teachers have the time, skill, or inclination to develop flipped content.  Requiring that this method be used can lead to "canned" lessons, dictated curricula, misinstruction, mismatches between HW and classwork, and materials that, in fact, turn kids away from concepts and content.  Here, for example, is a terrible flipped lesson on The Plot Diagram.  It is used by YouTube as one of the 10 Ways to Use YouTube in the Classroom.  The content is minimal, even partially incorrect. The delivery is sloppy. It took 1:30 to make. There are better videos of the same content (including this video that points to an online tool that is way better than paper and pencil), but YouTube is holding this one up as a standard.  A big problem with flipped is that it is often a quick fix, a first-hit solution.  If YouTube bought into this aspect of digital content, teachers will too (alas).
6. Not all teachers have the skills or desire to change what is happening in the classroom. Flipping is a real PD challenge.  I am concerned that flipped content will be "dumbed down" and will stay there if the teacher is not well equipped to guide or manage a laboratory of learning.  It seems, from a current study, that we may already be dumbing down in public schools, without flipping anything. We don't need to add on another layer of less.
7. Much flipped content will not be up to new, higher, literacy standards. Check out this example of a science lesson, also promoted by YouTube.  The title of the lesson is grammatically incorrect (Effect, not Affect) and the oral presentation is rife with errors in spoken English. These errors can be glossed over when the same lesson is delivered in class. However, the likelihood of more than one class set of students viewing this video, or of a given student viewing it multiple times, is huge. How many students will learn that Affect is a noun meaning "outcome"?  There are much better examples of this content available on YouTube - why pick this one?  This is again the first-hit phenomenon.  It strikes teachers as well as students. 
8. Not all courses or classes will benefit from flipped instruction.  This is true, for the most part, of ELA classes beyond the grade of 7 (and often before this), which are already largely discussion-based.  It is also true of higher-level high school classes in history, philosophy, and ethics.  TED speeches and RSA Videos aside, there is not a lot of highly cognitive, complex text on the web that can be understood independently.  Teachers who want to record a year full of lectures can build a collection for the next year - but how many are doing this?  See my comments on the Back-Flipped Classroom below.
9. Flipped content is asynchronous - questions can not be answered and reflections can not be discussed as the student is accessing the content (unless this is digitally enabled by a teacher who is at home...).
10. Students who "do not do HW"  lose out doubly - they miss the digital content, and they miss the benefits of discussion/activities the next day.  Accommodating these students takes even more time and effort on the part of the teacher. 
11. Passive content delivery is still that - passive content delivery.  Making it digital does not change the paradigm of delivery.  Is this interactive story book interactive?  Imagine a 7th grader listening to a short story read by his teacher. Just because content is delivered digitally does not mean that it is either effective or engaging.
12. Flipped content is not differentiated! Repeatedly reading/listening to text that a student can not read in the first place is a waste of student time.  Creating multiple versions of a digital lesson is double-time work for the teacher.  Creating only a simplified delivery of content does not meet the needs of the most able and informed students.  It's a hard and interesting decision for an ELA teacher. 
13. Copyright infringement is rife.  Again look at the "interactive story book" (also featured by YouTube).   Fair Use?   If you use an image and post to the public web, it must be cited!

David Truss adds other insights to the discussion.  Please read his post.

The reality is that principals all over the country are telling teachers to create flipped lessons without understanding that digital content/concept delivery is just one aspect of a truly flipped experience.  Read here Jackie Gerstein's explanation of all aspects of the transformation afforded by this model.  Although Gerstein leaves out the Why element, a strong case for which is made by Truss, she does make it clear that asynchronous access to content (The What) is desirable and perhaps essential to learning.

Flipping is a State of Mind

Before jumping into digital thinking, teachers need to take stock of how many non-digital materials are already available for flipping into digital HW.  Flipping is, in fact, great practice in creating Essential Question and Universal Design HW activities.  If it is important - flip it. Teachers who have and use a good text are already paper-flipping.  By taking drill and extension off of the HW plate and adding a reflective dessert, such as writing about content or creating original examples, an old-fashioned assignment can be reborn. 

But wait - that is not what flipping is about!  Students should be engaged and entertained by the flipped content - they should not have to DO anything until the next day, when the teacher leads them through other engaging activities...

Is Reading a Flipped Activity?

No, sorry.  Reading outside of class is important and essential, but that is not the concept here.  Add sound and image to the act of reading, and you are beginning to FLIP the student's attention.  Think: Reading v. Teaching HOW to Read.  If the ELA teacher were to create a vodcast of poem annotation or passage explication - that would be flipping.  Then the students could do the practice with analysis in the classroom and the teacher would guide the practice.  Actually, I get that - it's powerful.

My How-to's

I tried it out, exploring several tools and methods.

• I  made a demo flipped poetry lesson on my iPad using an app called ShowMe.  It took me about 30 minutes to focus on ShowMe as the best app, to practice, to design the page layout (including screen shots taken on my laptop and shared with the iPad via DropBox), and do the first short recording.  I shared it via a private ShowMe webspace and was emailed a unique URL.  Pretty cool.  I am not sharing it here because I made a spelling mistake, and if you listened the audio, you might notice an information error.  That would not be an OK flipped lesson, even though I might make the same, or more egregious, errors in a "live" classroom delivery of the same content. 
• I used Keynote on my laptop to create a flipped lesson call Reading Infographics (view it in a previous post).  This took longer to create, but I envision it as a full week's study and assigned viewing.  Keynote exports directly to YouTube, so I uploading to a shared space was instant. I could also have exported to QT and shared that on the school's wiki server or on my school webpage.  One huge advantage to YouTube is the Annotate feature, which will allow interested students to respond directly to the questions and challenges embedded in the video.

A positive result of this process is this: I took the time to think deeply about both the content being delivered and about the purpose of a mini-lesson.   I re-informed myself about small details.  I sought out some expert commentary on the poem. I thought like a student. As a result,  I became a better teacher of Poetry 101: Introduction to Form and a better reader of Infographics. 

I think this method will work in ELA for text analysis skills lessons, reading skills lessons, vocabulary skills lessons, grammar/usage lessons - you get the point. There is certainly a place for Flipping in the ELA classroom, k-12 - anywhere there is an essential question to be asked.

Other interesting options for creation and publication are Prezi (with voice-overs), the iPad apps ScreenChomp and ReplayNote, vodcasts (from a phone) using a tool like Postereous or DropVox, mobile NoteShare (students would need this to view notebooks shared by a teacher and uploaded to a NoteShare server - a wonderful solution for education), and/or an ed.Voicethread thread.  I have used every one of them for flipped instruction and back-flipping (see below).  The Tempered Radical offers a set of instructions for recording yourself directly into YouTube, but I find these video lectures to be "passive" in nature.

You will need:

• an essential question to be answered by the lesson (or unit of lessons)
• a chunked (step-by-step) script - 3 minutes is an optimal lesson.  Longer than that and you lose your students and create files that take too long to save and reload.  My long Infographics video is clearly divided into many content - practice - challenge segments that are meant to be assigned separately, and YouTube provides a quickload solution (the upload from Keynote is also very fast, as the file is compressed).
• illustrations and images - I found that pre-saving many more than I needed was a good idea.  Screenshots are useful images, especially if you are using ShowMe.
• an account for uploading - YouTube, YouTube Teacher's Channel, a wiki, a blog, etc.  You can even use DropBox for distribution directly to student laptops or mobile devices.  ShowMe has its own free cloud storage. 
• to experiment with tools available to you.  Tools must: 
• save to webspace or server for viewing by students, 
• record good quality audio of your voice (if you want to use voice - I decided not to in the Keynote because it is a video meant to be interrupted), 
• allow for some variety in image, color, font, design - perferably all four.

• to practice with the tools and app - it costs nothing for you to create a "throw-away" project, especially if you are only sharing through a private space (which I recommend)
• to understand the limitations of your tool of choice.  ShowMe, for example, is slow to erase a screen and insert a new image.  So maybe this transition should happen only one time.  Keynote transitions, when sent to video, are all set to one transition and one slide delay - so animations and builds will not work smoothly.
• to listen for feedback from your students and adjust your presentation accordingly.

Class time:

This would be the traditional continuation of the lesson, which would follow concept direct instruction in a classroom: more practice, questions answered, a quick assessment.  Students who have completed the flipped part of the lesson on their own should be ready for the next step upon entering the classroom.  Theoretically, it is possible to move almost twice as quickly through material as you would using a traditional teaching methods. 

So it is possible to view a Flipped Unit as a sort of instructional notebook for students - a text without practice.  With this image in mind, teachers can include both print and digital materials in their thinking about flipping.  I personally would have students DO something with or in response to the content - something short.  If you use reflection journals - paper or digital - that is the place to make a connection to content and a connection to concept. 

The Back-Flipped Classroom

Practically speaking, the model will not work perfectly a large percent of the time at the middle and high school levels.  Students will not do the flipped HW, students will be absent, the lesson will be too hard or too large or poorly presented for some or all students. Parents and tutors might want access too, but not be quite on board.  So let's not lose sight of the value of back-flipping classroom instruction and practice.  Most good tech-using teachers have been doing this for several years.

Back-flipping simply means using any and all means available to capture and digitally or otherwise share progress made during a class period.  Class wikis and blogs, teacher webpages, bulletin boards, Smartboard captures, smartphone photographs of representative student work, QR codes posted to teacher web pages or emailed to students, test masters and answer keys:  These all become the next step for any flipped lesson. Student learning and insights so archived become the building blocks of a unit.  If the flipped lesson is the instructional notebook, classroom practice and back-flipping create the student learning notebooks.

iPad/iPhone solution: The $.99 app JotNot will take a picture ("scan") of any document, board, etc. and send it directly to either Dropbox or Evernote, with tagging.  This is a fabulous way to back-flip your lessons!  Saves a few steps too.

Why digital back-flipping?  Why not just require notebooks?  Digital levels the playing field.  I believe in that - enough said.  Taken together, flipped lesson materials, class time well spent, and back-flipped archives create a learning experience that is about as complete as a teacher can make it. 

In Sum

The Flipped Classroom is a powerful concept - but a deceptive one. It is not easily accomplished.  It can potentially embed significant errors and misperceptions in the minds of students.  It has to be more perfect than a "live teacher."  And it can not stand alone. 

So educators, please, slow down.  Take time to think through the ramifications of mandating flipped lessons and classrooms.  A bad flip is worse than no flip at all.

Found in the salad... a Literacy Metaphor

Image source

Wendy's in Topsham [pronounced top - sum],  Maine.  His order was a Spicy Chicken Caesar Salad.   But after dressing and tossing, John perceived that his salad was something with apples - definitely not Caesar.  But the salad did contain a bread bag closure clip, bright yellow, covered with creamy Caesar dressing.  


John returned the meal to the counter, held the yellow clip up under the manager's nose, and stated: "I'm not going to sue - I didn't swallow it."


The manager didn't apologize or sympathize.  He just offered up a replacement salad. 

I dug into my own Spicy Chicken Caesar with some caution.  I mined.  I sorted, pushed, poked. Good thing, because I found a well-dressed strip of plastic that looked suspiciously like the wrapping material used for the silverware in the restaurant.  Yuck.  I put it aside and proceeded to eat - slowly.  The dog got the fries.

Interpretation:  What's the metaphorical link here to literacy education?  For those who use purchased or downloaded lessons and materials:

• Even though expensive canned and processed lessons are presented as globally edible, even though they are digital and therefore identical, even though they are highly rated and recommended, they should be eaten with caution. Embedded or slipped inexpertly into a question set, vocabulary list, or reading passage may be material that is not what you want your students to swallow.  Mine and poke and prod all materials that you did not design.
• If you, the teacher, don't like what you find, get a full and free substitution.
• Sort through, push and poke what you find online - free and not.
• Be prepared to throw out the inedible. Have your own Plan B.

Extended interpretation:
 
I go to Wendy's rarely and usually under the pressures of time or travel.  I make the same food, my way, at home, on a regular basis.  

I have always, as a teacher, been leery of packaged lessons and downloaded materials for the middle school classroom.  These range from pre-digital and post-digital anthologies, to vocabulary and grammar texts, to leveled readers and book collections, to entire grade level ELA curricula (with assessments).  Not using packaged materials, however, means that an ELA curriculum takes on the appearance of a tossed salad.

This what happened to a typical school's ELA program over the last 7 years:

• print anthologies receded to storage, their contents maligned and ignored (many great stories, poems, plays, images and other texts disappeared from the curriculum, differentiation resulted from expansion of choice for students, but scope of reading was greatly reduced),
• vocabulary instruction was tiered, PD'd, and distributed to all subjects (confusion as to who teaches roots, affixes, etc., disagreement about importance of context clues, focus on tier 3 rather than tier 2),
• all-class reading was reduced or eliminated (depending on the need of the specific class) and replaced by a combination of Reading Workshop, Independent Reading and Literature Circles (fabulous new ideas for thematic circles - global literature - were supported with purchases, when groups and 1-1 conversations worked, students learned how to use text in discussion, but reluctant readers could stall out and advanced readers often were not pushed enough; poetry and drama disappeared unless the gap this created was noticed; online media gradually embedded in lessons; growth of visual and media literacy in curricula),
• grammar and usage instruction disappeared as a discrete unit and was embedded in individual writing growth plans and discussion, supported by online exercises, quizzes, etc. as well as paper materials (standards of correctness and quality began to be applied across all subject areas, opportunities for flipped instruction arose), 
• writing became Writing Workshop (creative writing began to disappear from most curricula, to be replaced by analysis and persuasion, confusion about which process to follow, increased writing in all subject areas),
• SSR was scheduled, eliminated, partially scheduled, scheduled again... (time was made in the school day for "pleasure reading" of choice may prevent some readicide, but the research on the value of SSR for ALL is unclear),
• Title I was reevaluated and the beginnings of a test-dependent RTI program put in place (targeted instruction in reading is wonderful if the teachers are highly trained to both teach and assess; in order for testing to be valuable, it must be done twice yearly at least and by the same trained person - a real time-consumer; student time for other remediation - math - was limited; students had a clear idea of "where they scored" on the tool used, with the hope that this would translate into better standardized reading scores due to better reading choices; for many, a wide range of interesting fiction became out of bounds - what a turn off!),
• there was a trend toward "non-written" and graphic assessments of understanding (posters and presentations predominated,  developing design, digital, decision-making and communication skills (how this affected higher order thinking and team-work skills is unclear because these are not yet assessed; students who find social learning and complex organizational tasks difficult were at a disadvantage),
• assessment migrated to rubrics within standards-based differentiated assignments (the grading and reporting system remained the same so grade inflation resulted, clouding communication of learning),
• the library lost staff and funds, in deference to a Literacy Specialist and testing/tutoring aides, bi-yearly reading assessments, and a Book Room (money transferred rather than increased, resulting in a huge loss for a school).

I see this, metaphorically, as the salad with the yellow plastic clip.  In reaction to the need for new and novel and talked-up, there has been a mix-up.  Labels have gotten confused, apples have appeared in place of Caesar. What is on the plate is not a bad salad, but it is in part or whole the wrong salad.  And hidden in it is some inedible plastic.  And, as a fabulous teacher recently reminded me, sometimes a teacher also gets bad ingredients.  [that is a different discussion]

A bad thing is that school leadership is often like the Wendy's manager - willing to quickly substitute but not willing to investigate why there is plastic in the salad so that this does not happen again.   Seasonal-have-to's replace tried-and-true. Retraining of staff is necessary, but often not completed.  Where there once was the reliable comfort of a consistent offering,  there now is a salad du jour, a remix of old ingredients and new, trendy ones. The quality becomes unreliable.  The result is that many teachers, students and parents are no longer satisfied customers. Not to mention colleges, community colleges and prospective employers. 

Some of the list above is a result of substitution.  Some is a result of faddism.  Some is a result of mandate.  Some is (alas) a result of teacher acquiescence or laziness. Some is a result of the pragmatic pressures, especially time.

And too little is a result of reasoned study and a deep philosophy of learning and education.

The good thing is that with tossing and dressing, poking and scrutinizing, weaknesses and mistakes can be revealed and corrected before any great harm is done to students. Schools need to do this internal evaluation of ELA pedagogy and curriculum, cross-referenced to standards and (if necessary) to assessment data, as an on-going process. How many are doing so?  It is so much easier to be a trend-follower. 

True story: At about 55, my father swallowed a plastic bread clip - he didn't know it, of course. Much later, no one knows how much later, he almost died from massive peritonitis.  He lost 3' of intestine. He never fully recovered his digestive functions and lived with stress and pain for the rest of his life.

As budget funds shrink and the trendy pressure to engage rather than challenge students mounts, do we really want to further compromise our most important educational offering - literacy?

Badges for Students and Teachers

Mozilla

What a wild month this has been for the Bandwagon of Education!  Big players in what I call "covert curriculum development" are Flipping, Bullying, Assessing Formatively, and now Badging.

As I read the criteria for the Mozilla Open Badges project, some things occur to me.

1. This is not a competition that the small-time, trench-living teacher can participate in. It is going to be another top-down project leading to an "improvement" in education.  
2. By embedding technology in classrooms, many teachers are already "badging" students by publishing digital products.
3. Models already exist - Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts come to mind, as do all of those Resume and college essay models that ask students to "make a case for doing and excellence."  My little Beatrice gets badges on a chart when she uses the potty.  Grades are badges. This is an old idea.
4. There is an ulterior motive for making "badge activities" mostly digital.  How many students will this leave out?
5. Who is asking Why do we need this?

No one is likely to request my input, which is too bad. Here is my opinion: If the DOE of Maine entered this competition, a "win" would ramp up the MLTI program and support Governor LePage's educational platform.  A "lose" would mean that some needed Essential Questions had at least been asked.

If anyone were to ask me, I would suggest the following:

• Attach badges to the Common Core standards too - what a great incentive to progress through them!  If that statement jars you, there is a problem here.
• If badges are going to useful to students and adults in the practical world, everyone must know what they mean and how to get them.  1 certification method,  1 form, 1 image set, 1 descriptor set - KISS and keep it concrete.
• Criteria for a badge must fit on an iPad screen without scrolling.
• Few badges, but  limitless stars that indicate additional time and achievement within the badge category.
• Focus on Creativity, Problem-solving, and Accreditation - In other words, not on pursuing learning or opportunities only, but on demonstration of original, completed outcomes.
• Mini-badges should be available so that elementary and middle school students can practice and develop skills necessary to achieve the permanent badges - these should also be standardized, but the criteria and products would not be nearly as rigorous - this is something for kids and teachers to be directly involved in (local assessments)
• Communication standards for students seeking badges should be high.
• Only a few earned badges each year?  OK!  Make it tough.
• Someone has to budget for the judges.
• Students should be involved in the judging.

Here are some ideas for student or teacher Badges.  They cover just about everything important that happens outside of school:

• Original publication - creative work (print, film, other media)
• Original publication - informational work (print, film, other media)
• Original media product in category:  game, media-text, app, computer program solution, industrial design, product line
• Action Project addressing social concern or problem - demonstration of student's role as change agent
• Job-skill Accreditation - like apprenticeship - this is a badge that Maine should develop with the support and input (key) of small industry: beauty, health, building, outdoor/environmental, trades, design/home art, farming, mechanical (cars, engines, bikes...), cooking, retail...
• Volunteerism - deep involvement over 4 or more years, evidence of "making a difference"

We don't need Badges to celebrate what students and teachers are doing outside of the curriculum.  We don't need to purchase another structure and pay another person to create/train/support.  We don't need more "I can post it myself!" opportunities for students. 

Schools and states do need to change the paradigm of the 8-3 classroom.  This is about when and how learning happens, not about competition and stamps.  Why is it taking Mozilla to open the door to this thinking?  What are we thinking?

Countdown

There is nothing like beginning a new teaching year by taking a course.  My final year as a F/T school teacher is coinciding with my first semester as a grad student in ASU's new graduate certificate program in k-12 online learning and teaching.  My 1st (of 5) classes is called Principles and Issues in Online Education.  After a week of readings and active online forum discussions, I feel I can skip the next 6 weeks - this is perhaps one criticism of online classes. On the other hand, of the 22 adults in the class, only 5 have consistently and actively participated so far.  That is perhaps another criticism.  If you have ever taught a class of 8 or fewer students, you can appreciate my dread of repetitive conversations and personal grandstanding (read: I have to heard somehow).  I am concerned that I will sound the same to the class...

But, I am learning.  Good readers and writers, at all levels, use metacognitive thinking.  As I participate in this class, I think about the student participation experience.  If it is true, as many current articles state and defend with data, that the growth rate of k-12 online classwork is growing rapidly in this country (more rapidly in many other nations), then people like me need to be thinking as we learn.  Thinking critically.

We also need to be taking steps to implement some version of online learning, even a small step, in our classes - and then asking our students to metacognate on that experience. 

All of this works in very well with my slightly new vision of ELA 7.  The goal of both online learning and my instructional strategies is to improve the learning of individual students.  In fact, I have used online elements for years to improve learning and engage students.  Some of these learning events, like my "online grammar" independent learning unit, were so loved that they won the "best of the year" award from the kids.  I will be doing that again this year.  Other events, like our short story wiki, need to be redesigned.

As I puzzle through the design of the upcoming year, which begins on Tuesday, I have new thoughts in mind.  One of the new thoughts that I keep returning to is the 12 Principles for Brain-Based Learning.  You may have run across this NEA document, or the original study, already.  It is new to me, although most of the principles are not.  It is just that I have not taken the time to cognate upon them.  Funderstanding, by the way, has a very nice little summary of the principles and how they impact education.

Cutting to the chase, it means to me that the online experiences for learning and discussion must be authentic - This is super jargon, but what does it really mean?  How can I make it happen and also have a valid Reading Workshop and Writing Workshop and grammar workshop, etc. during our seat-time?

One idea:  expand learning beyond seat-time by really using our laptops to propel individual learning.
Another idea:  combine the Workshops to intensify and practice both experiences (duh - I figured that out long ago - now I just have to convince others that it is a valid approach)
Another idea:  leverage standards and test results so that each student buys into an individual-challenge program that I design and he/she works through.  It is problematic that I don't know any one of the 100 kids, but I figure I have 4 good class periods to gather information.  I may not be good with names, but I am great with faces, personalities, and emotions (very visual / emotional learner). 

Exactly how I adapt to yet another change - and maximize the tools I know work well (apps, texts, toys) - is going to be what I metacognate on here. 

Here is my 2nd great idea (my 1st great idea was to order a LEGO ERGO SUM book sack for every student, with matching lab coat for me - they look great!): 

I REAL EYES!

I have ordered about 15 different styles of "funny glasses" from Amazon - I plan to use them when modeling reading strategies of prediction, inference and summary, connecting setting to character, etc.  Ok - here is one:  I realize this is very dark (Men in Black very dark glasses).  Another:  I realize this is very confusing (googly eyes).  You get it.  The Amazon store card rejected the last few purchases - it was quite a conversation to sell the nice person from the call center on my idea. 

Am I becoming goofy or just trying to engage students who have nailed the disengaged habit?  Does it matter?

A new skin and 100 bags

I have taken ownership of my laptop. Against the "rules."  I now have a forest green keyboard and my trademark "web" around the white apple.  The "web" is the nicer skin, but the keyboard skin came with cleaning pads (alcohol, like you get from a doctor) and a great smoothing tool that pushed all the bubbles out.  Yes, they cost a little, but the expense worth it.  I am no longer a random MacBook user - I am now a Mrs.Mac's MacBook user.  

What does this have to do with Literacy?  Tons. 

It's about ownership.  I and endless others have written about the value of the ownership of reading - choice, circles, choice, discussion, listening to discussion, publication.  What I realize from my readings of blogs, nings and cries for help is this: student ownership of literacy learning is all important to success, but unfortunately it is not the administrative goal du jour.  There is a nice little skin available that promotes online learning, literature/reading circles, alternative demonstrations of learning - and most teachers are told not to wear it.

When the cake is on the table this fall, I suspect that most public school teachers will be asked to work with, or develop, a uniform literacy curriculum - many are already doing so. 

Where does this leave the teacher who believes in the 4 C's (critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, communication, and creativity and innovation)?  Often, high and dry.

I wear my skins in protest.

But, I am also working on my own to make change happen.  Here is part of my plan:

Frustration Addressed: Absolute benchmarked quantities of reading required outside of school - whether a challenge or a graded activity (400 pages, 20 minutes/day, 25 texts, 4 novels, 40 journal entries, etc.).  I have wrestled with this all summer. There is no doubt in my mind that personal reading is the greatest indicator of - What?  Truthfully - I don't know What, save the data that points to college completion and employment.  I am going with the deep emotional, creative and intellectual gains made from time lost to reading.  It can not - and is not - assessed, but it is the most crucial skill I want my students to hone.  My district expects me go spend hours with graphic organizers, test scores, personal benchmarks, standards, and vocabulary and reading skill-sets and activities - and to pass these hours on to my students.  Ho, Hum.  I expect my students to want to learn because they want to learn.  And to read because they want to read.  60% or more of my kids are there already.  I am frustrated by the other 40%.

Action Plan: I have ordered 100 cotton tote bags (at my own expense - might be able to charge it to supplies) with the logo:  LEGO ERGO SUM (I read therefore I am).  I will put in each bag, over the course of the summer and the year, a pair of texts (novels, plays, prints, story collections, picture books, manuals, guides, histories, photocopies...) and challenge my students to make connections between them and with them (self, author, world...).  In the bags will be questions and challenges that surpass dry worksheets.  The work will be independent,  partnering will be always an option, collaboration with previous readers an option, and it all will be by choice. Most discussion will be online - I will be available for an hour every evening for chat, mail and Skype.   Students will be encouraged to create their own Book Bags for peers and students in Grade 6, to guide this reading, and to leave me totally out of the learning loop. 

Anticipated Outcome: I expect to see LEGO ERGO SUM all over the school. 

Other Comments: If I could afford it, I would give every reader a skin announcing LEGO ERGO SUM.  Or perhaps LEGO ERGO COGITO.  Wouldn't that be a message to the administration!

Engagement

engaged - participating, being involved in; causing someone else to participate or be involved in

If yours is a 'good' class, the students are engaged. It is not difficult to spot a shining star classroom of engaged students: everyone is on task; no one is fooling around; no one is staring off into space; if someone is speaking, all eyes are on the speaker; if the activity is hands-on, all hands are on the right materials; students are smiling or showing the "I get it" face. 

Beyond that, however,  it is a bit more difficult. In a class of engaged students, for example, a teacher may be speaking or lecturing.  In class of engaged students, content can created by students and led by students, or created by the teacher and led by students, or created by the teacher and guided by the teacher.  In a class of engaged students, there can be loud energy, or there can be the quiet energy of student absorption in reading or writing or doing.

Students can be engaged in or engaged by. I agree that engaged students are more likely to be learning and that a classroom that promotes engagement is more likely to make learning happen. 

Many times, students are disengaged - or they appearing to be.  They may well be temporarily distracted by something else or totally not interested in the lesson content [what 12 year-old really cares about commas?] and unwilling to buy into its importance. What if a student's mother has called her from Tennessee at 7 am, from a hospital bed? What if true crush has bloomed over the weekend and both crushees are in the class? What if the student must doodle or sit on his feet in order to listen? What if she has unmedicated ADD or a form of autism?


All of these happen daily in each of my classrooms, all are beyond my control, and not a single one of them is affected by the best-planned hands-on, dynamic lesson plan.  I can be my most engaging and still fail to engage two or more students in the class. 

How do schools measure student engagement anyway?
  A. Ask a random student after class if the class was exciting or interesting
  B. Ask a random student during class what is going on in the class
  C. Give random content quizzes
  D. Visit a class for a random 8 minutes on a random day and count engaged students
  E. Put laugh-o-meters in the classrooms
  F. Put administrators in the classroom and count disengaged students
  G. Read student reflection journals
  H. Ask the teacher if the class was exciting or interesting and why
  I.  Ask the teacher's colleague
  J.  All of the above
  K. H only

Why do schools measure student engagement anyway?
  A. It is a measure of student learning
  B. It is a measure of how much hands-on and project-based learning is happening
  C. It is measure of teacher effectiveness
  D. It is a measure of the teacher's ability to be an actor or storyteller
  E. It is highlighted in the current leadership literature and on the "circuit"
  F. It is not a reliable measurement of learning or teaching

True engagement can not be seen or measured because it is happening in the grey cells of the individual student.  Kids can fake anything.  I have students who fake being engaged when another adult enters the room, and guess what? They are faking something they really are doing.  While they doodle or look off-brain in the room,  they are taking in everything, they are participating in their head.  But they know that wide-eyes, open mouths, and bushy tails are what adults are looking for, so that is the student they become when they want to appear engaged. 

I have closely monitored group work in my classroom (which is required and even "graded") for the last unit.  Average grade: 9/10. Today I tested the "learning content."  Hmm.  Too many of the actively engaged students, those who participated and urged others to do the same, did not do as well as I expected on the test. Other variables aside (the difficulty of the poems on the test, absenses, individual learning issues), it is clear that what I thought was being learned was not being learned by some students. These students were faking engagement; they faked me; and worst of all, they faked themselves. They were actually surprised by their performance on the test. 

This is what I think happened:

1. Some students who really did not "get" the content were grouped with others who really did get it (grouping was casual and by choice). They put on the the engaged student face, spoke up actively, and still did not get it.  Because they were acting engaged, they asked a few questions, smiled the "I get it" smile, and enjoyed the social context of the class.  They rated the class well.
2. Some students who really did not "get" the content were in a group with others who partially got it but had questions. And they didn't care about the questions or the answers. So when I joined the group of clearly struggling students, they did not engage in the mini lessons, although they knew enough to write down some notes, nod, and smile the "I get it" smile.  They were faking themselves into being engaged.

What do I make of this?

First, I need to do "silent on-paper check-ins" more frequently. Leaving assessment of learning up to the students themselves at this age, in this place, is not good for most.  [I have planned a grammar unit using online digital quizzing as assessment, which I think will be engaging].  HW is clearly not a good index for measuring learning in LA [I knew that].  Paper or oral assessments get to the grey-cell space, whereas performance assessments often do not.

Second, kids are kids, and, no matter what current pedagogy wants us to believe, they are capable of more and better than they generally output.  Who should tell them this?  The teacher. Their peers are not going to.

Third, just plain shy or verbally reluctant kids are REAL, not creations of picture books and graphic novels.  These kids will duck "observable" engagement until and unless their emotional needs are met and their confidence is built.  It is a trick to get them to engage themselves in learning content, something that oral and social learners do without thinking about it.  Guess what? This must be a teacher-centered process.

Engagement is not a natural consequence of magical teaching, or great teaching, or student intelligence.  It is a consequence of student personality, of learning how to learn, of practicing how to learn, and of being rewarded for being an engaged learner.

Let's separate engagement from evaluation and from the student-centered/teacher-centered debate. Let's put engagement where it belongs - in the hands of the student.  It should be part of the student's job and responsibility. It should be viewed as a skill and as a goal.  It is the mission of every school to develop life-long learners. This means graduating learners who are able to activate those grey-cells without a teacher, a classroom, or a network. 

So, how do students learn to be engaged?
  A. By being rewarded for engagement in the classroom, but not for appearing to be engaged
  B. By teacher modeling of engagement with the lesson
  C. By a challenging curriculum that does more than entertain [thinking is good, hard is good]
  D. By direct student-teacher discussions about engagement in the classroom
  E. By reflecting every day on a specific moment of engagement - every student has at least one every class, every day [metacognition is good, journaling is good]
  e. Your ideas?