future of education

Teachers Learning

Like our students, many teachers are embarking on new learning adventures at the end of the summer. Actually, many of us have been in learning mode all summer long. I have taken time this summer to explore the rich discussions with other teachers on many of the growing social networks for teachers around the Web.

One of the most productive and useful learning spots is English Companion Ning created by California English teacher Jim Burke. Right now at ECN we are in the first week of a book club discussion with author Troy Hicks on The Digital Writing Workshop. There have also been book clubs with Carol Jago and Penny Kittle. All of these authors are also classroom teachers who, like ECN founder Burke, take the time to share their expertise and draw others into mutually productive exchanges.

Speaking of great exchanges, I have become a huge fan of the teacher chats on Twitter--especially since I've learned to use the desktop application TweetDeck that lets me follow those conversations more easily.  These chats can be located and joined by searching or messaging with the appropriate Twitter hashtag for the discussion (e.g., #engchat, #mathchat, #sschat, #ellchat, #gtchat, #edchat...).  Most of these are weekly discussions with a topic chosen by online poll. They are fast-moving, info-dense session. Thankfully, most of them are also archived.  I'll be hosting next week's #engchat on Mon. 6 - 7 CDT. Bunch of English teachers talking about teaching grammar...I get excited just thinking about it!

I've also enjoyed several of the Elluminate (online conferencing site) conversations sponsored every week by Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 and LearnCentral. Teachers and educational thought leaders from around the world check-in for open conversation followed by lively Q & A. I caught the ones with Linda Darling-Hammond and Sam Chaltain.

Over at Teachers Letters to Obama, we just held an amazing teacher roundtable webinar examining the effects of school turnaround policies led by teachers who have been through them. Some penetrating analysis and important calls to action for teachers and parents.

My TLN colleague Bill Ferriter, hosted a VoiceThread discussion of his new book, Teaching the I-Generation and it spawned some deep thinking about what is or should be changing in our schools and classrooms (like maybe the physical and mental walls).

This has also been an intense summer of writing for me as I have worked virtually with several editors and collaborators on multiple pieces about education that will be published in various venues over the next 3 - 6 months. One of the most exciting is the Teaching 2030 book project coming out in January through Teachers College Press.  More important, I've heard from many other teachers who are doing the same.

Come October, I'll be gearing up (and you should too) for the K12Online Conference, an international virtual conference sponsored by teachers for teachers on integrating technology into our teaching.

What excites me about all of this is how teachers are taking charge of our own professional development through social networking, rather than just waiting on whatever offerings are forced upon us by our schools/districts that may or may not meet the student needs we are facing in the classroom.

I know there is even more teacher learning going on throughout the virtual world. Share some that have helped you with us here. Should professional learning such as the kinds I've mentioned here be counted as professional development for teacher certification renewal? Is it any more or less valuable than the workshop sessions we sit through in our buildings or at face-to-face meetings?

Wanter: Robot Labor

Submitted by DavidOrphal on Fri, 09/03/2010 - 7:21pm.
Dave Orphal with his Partner, Wendy
Han Moravec, a principal research scientist at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, wrote,
 
“Multicellular animals with cells specialized for signaling (brain cells and nervous systems for thinking) emerged in the Cambrian explosion a half-billion years ago. In the game of evolutionary one-upmanship, maximum nervous-system masses double about every 15 million years… Our gadgets, too, are growing exponentially more complex, but 10million times as fast as that. Human foresight and human culture move things along faster than blind Darwinian evolution. The power of personal computers has doubled annually since the mid-1990’s; today’s PC might be comparable only to the milligram nervous systems of insects or the smallest vertebrates, but humanlike power is just thirty years away.”[1]
 
Computers, and robots with, “humanlike power is just thirty years away.” Setting aside my childhood science-fiction fantasies about how cool (Star Trek) and how terrible (Terminator) robots with humanlike thinking power will be, Moravec’s thesis has serious implications for public education, and the US economy. When robots are performing low-level service jobs, what will high school or college dropouts do for a living? What skills and knowledge will tomorrow’s children need to obtain meaningful employment in 2040?
 
The automobile industry has already seen the beginning of the robotic revolution. 2010 robots, only performing at an intelligence level of “insects” are capable of performing simple, repetitive tasks found on an assembly line. If Moravec is correct about robots of 2040, then these future machines will be able to perform far more complicated programs. 
 
Moravec is not imagining machines capable of creative human though or human inspiration. These are not robots capable of inventing a new food recipe or designing a house. In 2040, I imagine there will still be a demand for creative chefs and architects.
 
Rather conservatively, his robots of 2040 are capable of running extremely complex multi-step programs. Imagine a robot that can cook and prepare a fast-food meal, or a robot that can assemble a building. Imagine robots that can lead a customer to the proper shelf at department and ring-up that sale. Imagine robotic cars that can drive themselves. Imagine that in 2040, low-skill service jobs that currently employ millions of Americans are gone, automated.
 
Moravec may be wrong in his prediction, but I don’t think he is. In March of 2010, researchers at the North Carolina State University announced the creation of a nano-dot memory chip that can hold an entire library of information in a single square inch.[2] One month later, HP announced a separate break though in computer memory that mimics human synapses. “We have the right stuff now to build real brains,” commented one of HP’s physicists.[3]
 
Educators and educational reformers are focused on teacher evaluation right now. The debate seems to be centered on if student test scores should be a part of evaluating teachers and if so, how much weight student test scores should have in these evaluations.
 
Perhaps it is time again to look about the curriculum we are teaching in K-12 education. The publication of new National Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics, is a start on this road, but are those standards the kinds of skills and knowledge that young adults will need in 2040?
 
Teachers should take the lead in this coming debate. We should begin to think seriously about the next generation of teachers and students and make some decisions about what a well-educated 18-year-old will look like in 2040. Additionally, we need to continue the discussion about reducing the numbers of school dropouts. High school dropouts are severely limited in their employment outlook. In 2040, when robots with “humanlike power” are available to perform low-skill service jobs, the economic outlook for under-educated Americas looks bleak indeed. 
 

[1] Moravec, Hans. “Making Minds.” Science at the Edge: Conversations with the Leading Scientific Thinkers of Today. John Brockman, ed. New York: Union Square Press. 2008.
[2] Narayan, Dr. Jay and Shipman, Matt. “Nanodot breakthrough may lead to ‘A Library on One Chip’.” North Carolina State University New Release. March 28, 2010

[3] Markoff, John, “HP sees revolution in memory chip.” New York Times. April 7, 2010. 

Dear Angela,

Sometimes you just have to help a brother (and a sister) out.

My good friend and TLN colleague, Bill Ferriter over at The Tempered Radical, urged me to check out Leadership Day 2010. Started a few years ago by Scott McLeod at his blog Dangerously Irrelevant, Leadership Day is an attempt by edubloggers from everywhere to reach our school leaders (principals, superintendents, central office administrators, etc) who need help when it comes to digital technologies and how important they are for today's teachers and learners. Unfortunately, after tipping me to this worthwhile event, Bill couldn't participate as he is neck deep in preparing for the start of school Monday! So, I thought this would be a good time to return him a favor, and hopefully, help some of the school leaders I know have a better school year.

I'm thinking of one elementary principal in particular who is a former high school student of mine. She was an outstanding teacher herself, earning district teacher of the year, before she decided to move into administration. My message to her and other school leaders here in on the Mississippi Delta region would be simply this:

Dear Angela,

As you prepare for another school year, I know you have many challenges facing you and your staff. I've spent much time in your school, working with the youngsters and observing all of you as you work so hard every day to accomplish your mission of educating every child to his/her highest potential. I've seen your sincerity and your sacrifices, and I wanted to do share something that I think will help all of you immensely.

I've noticed that the teachers and the children make very limited use of the computers in the building. Each class goes to the computer lab once or twice each week, and while there they almost exclusively work on the math or reading drill software provided. Likewise, I noticed that the teachers (at least from my observation) use their computers very little. You and the office staff still use the intercom to send messages, call for students, and make announcements. You still send around a paper daily memo and attendance that has to be typed, copied, and distributed (only to be corrected throughout the day).

All of this breaks my heart because I know you could be using that precious time much more efficiently if you would make better use of the technology you have available, particularly web tools and social networking. More important, you could increase student learning, which would help with those all important test scores next Spring. You would be helping your students prepare for the world in which they will actually work and live--an interactive, digital world. As I now teach at the community college, I know too well that many of the Black students who come to my classes are embarrassed at how little they know not only about how to really use computers, but about the Internet and all the wonderful Web tools and technologies with which many of their white classmates seem so at home. Of course, that's because many of their classmates have had Internet access at home all or almost all their lives; while, as you know, many of the Black families in the Delta still do not have computers at home, or may not have Internet access. Some of the families in the outlying areas can still only get dial-up.

That's why it's so important that you give them as much access and practice with the computer and web tools while they are at school and after-school. I've actually witnessed a couple of the teachers there discouraging students from using the computers in the lab to do their homework ("You should do your homework at home!"). It was all I could do to keep from screaming! Not only do many of these children not have computers or Internet at home, some of them don't have electricity; some don't have homes. No, we as educators in 2010 have a responsibility to teach our students how to use these tools, how to communicate with their world, how to explore rich sources of information, how to evaluate and use the tremendous amounts of information available to them.

I know you have many, many demands upon your time and so do the teachers. Oh, how well I know. What I'm suggesting, however, will actually save you all time and make such a tremendous difference in the lives and futures of your students. In fact, it would have an equally powerful impact on the professional lives of your staff. Some of the best professional development for teachers today is available through social media; networks of teachers communicating with each other on all types of classroom topics, all grade levels and subject areas and across them (and much of it is FREE!).

Interested? I'd be happy to share some more detailed information with you, so you can begin to take the steps to lead your staff and students into a whole new world. Meanwhile, here are some examples of other school leaders who are using web and other technologies effectively to transform their schools, just to give you some ideas.

Your teacher and colleague,

Renee

Manna Isn’t Falling From The Sky

Manna

Today was the 2nd day of the GE Foundation’s Developing Futures in Education 2010 Conference, an invite-only conference for the districts they fund throughout the country. This morning, we had the pleasure of hearing the many schemas for schools from David Jackson, partner in the Innovation Unit, an education futurist non-profit organization in London, UK. I learned a few things that are (for better or worse) irrefutable:

  1. Many of us are just not ready to think 3.0 when we’re still catching up to 2.0.
  2. Teachers specifically want something tangible when discussing anything about the immediate or abstract future.
  3. We have little faith that our colleagues as a whole will want to let go of their power structure within the system.
  4. Many of us are still waiting for the manna to drop from the sky, or the higher-ups.

By manna, I’m referring to the nutrition that came from the heavens when the Israelites needed some nourishment in their travels through the dessert. But for the purposes of this post, I’m also referring to the idea that someone from the higher-ups, whether it be collegiate think tanks, corporation-funded non-profits, or the Secretary of Education. Believe what you will, the system perpetuates the status quo, and the profit models for education currently support millions of dollars going into third party vendors to move what we call standards wherever those in power see fit.

Therefore, when looking at the models Mr. Jackson provided, I pondered for a bit about the work many teachers are doing across the country to truly move the work forward, and the way we need to think about student learning as a whole. Then, when time for feedback came, I stood up in front of the crowd and said, “Well, this is great, and we’re intrigued by the possibilities, but if we’re really going to do the work, it has to come from us. It has to come from the ground up, not the top down. The status quo is the status quo because of this model. Rarely does real change come from the higher ups; the change has to come from students, parents, teachers, and anyone who considers themselves allies to our cause.”

I got a light applause. Appreciated, yes, but the more I thought about the future, the more it made me wonder the sort of curve we’re going to have to slide down to get true change. I sat down, had a glass of water, and just hoped for the best. Educators are practitioners, yes, but we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for.

And if our hands are still cupped waiting outside, we better have a huge canteen as well.

Jose, who’s looking to reflect more on this as we go on this journey …

Teaching in 2030

            Rarely have policymakers listened to or does the general public get to hear America’s best teachers in our public discourse over educational reform. The Center for Teaching Quality (CTQ) established the Teacher Leaders Network, a virtual community of recognized classroom experts committed to bringing teacher voice from the margins to the center of the policy discourse. CTQ’s  TeacherSolutions 2030 team consists of 12 such experts who teach in diverse settings —spent over a year reviewing research, interviewing futurists, and looking ahead to 2030 –well within the career reach of many classroom teachers today.  Our recent Ed Leadership article is a partial view of what we anticipate for the future of teaching, to be explored more fully in our book due out later this year.

            Our vision of the teaching profession by 2030 may disturb some and thrill others.  For example, students and families soon will have endless learning options. Teachers who can customize learning experiences and deliver them in both physical and virtual environments will be highly sought. 

            We see traditional school classrooms morphing into dynamic  study groups, augmented by the Web’s still unrealized capacity for connectivity. Integrated courses  will be  the norm, and expert teachers will engage students in highly interactive global learning communities, using 3D web environments , augmented reality, and mobile devices that we can only begin to imagine today.

            We do not anticipate that American society will perfect itself in a brief span of 20 years. In fact, by 2030, brick-and-mortar schools may be even more important, especially in high-poverty settings.  Team member Cindi Rigsbee, a North Carolina reading specialist and finalist for 2009 National Teacher of the Year observes, “We have to be more flexible, and lest anybody think we’re talking about piling on more work in the same hours for the same pay, we also will have to differentiate our profession to embrace all these critical support roles.” Education will become more efficient as teacher leaders and other school administrators orchestrate the strengths of a diverse team of pedagogical experts, content specialists, data analysts, social service and health care providers, as well as online mentors.

            Standardized tests will be only one of many tools used to evaluate teacher effectiveness as local school communities adapt performance-based compensation programs that fit their context.  Guiding these reforms should be unions matured into professional guilds that base membership on levels of expertise.

            We see the teaching profession developing into one which talented people can enter, advance, and exit via multiple paths.  The essential component of this vision is a requisite force of teacher leaders which we can begin to build today by investing in residency programs, hybrid teaching roles, and promising models of collaborative teaching that bridge both face-to-face and online learning opportunities, with teaching colleagues not just down the street, but across the globe.

            We realize that our vision will require massive re-engineering, but we will never create what we do not dare to imagine.

 

Cross posted at ASCD blog.

Discovery is More Powerful than Instruction

Submitted by DavidOrphal on Thu, 02/25/2010 - 11:14am.

I remember when I was a child carrying rocks in a bucket.  My friends and I were building a dirt and stone city for our matchbox cars to drive in and I was carrying away some of the rubble from our construction.  I was swinging the bucket back and forth and felt that the dirt was pulling away from my hand as I swung the bucket.  Fascinated by this, I swung the bucket faster and higher until I could swing the bucket around in circles without any rocks falling out, even when the bucket was upside down and over my head.

 
As soon as I got home, I showed my dad my great discovery.  While my physicist father knew that centrifugal force had been discovered long before I was born, he also knew that in my limited experience, this was a new discovery.  All my father did was beam with pride and pleasure that his son had made a discovery and was in awe of the world around him.
 
Imagine the different experience I would have had if my father had sat me down for a lecture about centrifugal force instead of experiencing my discovery.
 
Traditional classrooms operate under a broadcast paradigm.  The assumed expert (the teacher, book, film, etc…) imparts information that the student-consumer is supposed to absorb.  Periodically, the route is reversed and the student must broadcast her information back to the teacher for evaluation.  The more the two broadcasts match, the higher the grade.
 
Unlike Boomers and Gen X'ers, children born into a digital world are not passive consumers of broadcasts.  They may still listen to music or watch television, but they spend far more time than any previous generation interacting with the media they consume.  They don’t listen to the Top-10 on a radio; they create their own custom play list on their iPod.  They don’t channel surf, they surf the Internet. 
 
Classroom 2.0 should focus on interaction and discovery and forgo broadcast.  In my social studies class, we are beginning to make this change.  Instead of listening to lectures about ancient China, Mesopotamia, Rome, or Egypt, my students interact with primary source documents.  They read Suetonius’s description of the water projects undertaken by Emperor Claudius and the Code of Hammurabi.  They look at aerial photographs of drainage ditches in Italy and satellite images of ancient levees in Mesopotamia.  They do this in order to write an essay that answers the question, “How did the need for water effect the technological, political, economic, and legal development of the world’s first civilizations?”
 

 

Wikipedia and the classroom in 2030

Submitted by DavidOrphal on Sat, 02/20/2010 - 10:14am.

This is a shared post.  The sections in bold come from called Rethinking the future of learning institutions: 10 principals by John Norton, published in October of 2009.  Specifically, this post is looking at the principal of "De-Centered Pedagogy." from that article.  I am writing about it here because it reminded me of a discussion I read sometime back about the relative usefulness of Wikipedia as a source in historical research.  The non-bold sections are my thoughts on Mr. Norton's ideas.

In secondary schools and higher education, many administrators and individual teachers have been moved to limit use of collectively and collaboratively crafted knowledge sources, most notably Wikipedia, for course assignments or to issue quite stringent guidelines for their consultation and reference.26 This is a catastrophically anti-intellectual reaction to a knowledgemaking, global phenomenon of epic proportions.

To ban sources such as Wikipedia is to miss the importance of a collaborative, knowledge-making impulse in humans who are willing to contribute, correct, and collect information without remuneration: by definition, this is education. To miss how much such collaborative, participatory learning underscores the foundations of learning is defeatist, unimaginative, even self destructive.

Schools and teachers are banning sites like Wikipedia because they do not fit well into the traditional paradigm of assumed authority. In that paradigm, knowledge is something that is created my accepted experts. Students and amateur spend years reading the knowledge of the experts. As the student or amateur grows in experience, then she/he can begin to take a more and more active role in questioning, then challenging the acknowledged experts. If the student or amateur become good enough at questioning and challenging, then she is allowed to engage in some supervised information creation (writing her thesis, dissertation, or scholarly articles) if the community of acknowledged experts accepts her, then she is admitted into the club and is allowed to continue to create knowledge.

Wikipedia is not an accepted authority of information – often the information is biased or factually incorrect, especially for recent, evolving, or emotionally charged subjects. As such – Wikipedia is not a proper resource in a world ruled by the assumed-authority paradigm.

On the contrary, it a world defined by the community knowledge-making paradigm, Wikipedia is an acceptable and attractive platform. This new paradigm will gain momentum once enough people have grown up and been trained in thinking about knowledge as something we create in community instead of being trained to think that knowledge is something that one finds in authoritative sources and only acknowledged authorities have the right to create new authoritative sources. 

Instead, leaders at learning institutions need to adopt a more inductive, collective pedagogy that takes advantage of our era. John Seely Brown has noted that it took professional astronomers many years to realize that the benefits to their field of having tens of thousands of amateur stargazers reporting on celestial activity far outweighed the disadvantages of unreliability.

This was a colossal observation, given that among the cohort of amateur astronomers were some who believed it was their duty to save the earth from Martians. In other words, professional astronomers had large issues of credibility that had to be counterpoised to the compelling issue of wanting to expand the knowledge base of observed celestial activity. In the end, it was thought that “kooks” would be sorted out through Web 2.0 participatory and corrective learning. The result has been a far greater knowledge, amassed in this participatory method, than anyone had ever dreamed possible, balanced by collective and professional procedures for sorting through the data for obviously wrong or misguided reporting.

If professional astronomers can adopt such a de-centered method for assembling information, certainly college and high school teachers can develop a pedagogical method also based on collective checking, inquisitive skepticism, and group assessment.

In a classroom governed my the community knowledge-making paradigm, students will be trained in skills rather than in knowledge.  Students will have to know how to find information; they will have to know how to evaluate the reliability of that information; they will have to be able to understand the effects of bias and how to determine the bias of an information source.  Then they will have to learn the skills of working in a knoweldge-making community: how to analyze and synthesize information to create knowledge; how to correct the information used my other knowledge makers and accept corrections from other knowledge makers; how to respectfully debate when there is disagreement in the community as to the reliability of information the communities analysis and synthesis.  Finally, participants in the knowledge-making community will need the skills to publish their findings and conclusions in various media. 

Teaching in 2030

Submitted by DavidOrphal on Fri, 02/19/2010 - 12:47pm.
Dave Orphal with his Partner, Wendy

I can't stop wondering what a classroom will look like in 2030. When schools stop thinking about Googling facts and information as cheating, how will technology like smartphones and iPad's be used in classrooms? What will this mean for libraries and textbooks? What will quiz and test questions ask if memorizing facts and information is no longer a valued skill? 

I keep thinking about the book Ender's Game.  In this novel by Orson Scott Card, the title character is attending a military academy.  What is occupying my thoughts right now is the electronic slate on which Ender completes his assignments and plays a strategic, fantasy game.  The Ender slate is similar to Apple's new iPad, which has me thinking...

What if the entire top of a student's desk was a touch screen computer?  The teacher could control the content that appears of the computer.  Text, film, audible, graphs, images, pod casts and any other imaginable content could be displayed along with activities, questions, instructions, etc...  Students could read text, or plug in their headphones and listen to the audio book format.  Students can submit their responses, reactions, or ideas via a touch-screen key pad, stylus, or by talking into a microphone.  Students could engage one another in discussions and have a record of their interaction and discussion via the microphone and you-talk-it-types software. 

If iPad-like electronic slates are the desk of the future, would kids need to be sitting together geographically to engage in discussions or group talk?  Would Skype-like networking software replace the need to be physically face-to-face?  If teachers do not need to be physically in front of a class of children, then could they engage and mentor even more children than the 100-150 a typical high-school teacher does today?  Would the class size limit be even more restrictive in a virtual classroom because students could engage more directly with the instructor by responding to e-mail questions or on-going conversations tracked with software like Google's Wave?

 The above examples use only existing technology.  Technology in 2030 may be remarkably advanced.  When I was graduating high school 21 years ago, there was no such thing as Google or iPods; portable computers looked like suitcases and portable phones came in shoulder bags.  The advances in technology may make the world of 2030 look very futuristic indeed.

Imagine what remote learning, communications will look like when you-talk-it-types turns into you-think-it-types.  Imagine when Internet chat rooms and avatars meet 3D TV.  Children of tomorrow might interact in holographic classroom.  Students could participate in great moments in history in holographic lessons, becoming the lead character in a personal, Forrest-Gump-like interactive film.

When I talk to colleagues about how technology may revolutionize tomorrow's classroom, one of the most frequent responses is a negative, visceral one about the loss of so-called real-human contact.  My adult friends find that the limitations of current technology to be problematic.  For example, may of us may have experienced a miscommunication via e-mail caused by the absence of the facial expression, voice inflection, and opportunity for question and clarification that exist in a face-to-face conversation.   While one might how voice and video conferencing may assuage these concerns, it is far more difficult to imagine that children and grandchildren of today’s high-school students may not share our concerns about the nuances of face-to-face contact.

In some ways 2030 is a far and distant world.  Imagining the technological advances of computers, 3D TV and the possibility of a virtual learning environment can at times feel more like science fiction fantasy rather than a serious attempt to imagine the not-so-distant future.  On the other hand, 2030 is not very far away.  I’ve been teaching since 1996.  In 2030, I will be in the 35th year of my teaching career and 58 years old.  While that is near retirement by today’s standards, advances in medicine and reforms to social security may mean that I am still 5-15 years away from retirement by 2030.  Teachers entering the profession today will be solid veterans halfway through their careers.  Today’s high-school graduates will be attending parent-teacher conferences in the high schools and middle schools of 2030.  In that sense, 2030 is just around the corner. 

 

 

Raising the Bar or Building Thier Own Course

Photo by Andy Gray

A former state superintendent will be coming to my Politics of Education class next week. I feel like I have gotten to know her well enough to know that she will ask more than one tough question. I think I know one she will ask.

Virginia was a leader early in the standards based education reform movement. It’s infrastructure for developing and administering effective accountability measures is strong. Currently our third grade reading pass rate is hovering in the 80% range through out the state. The advanced pass rate, students who answered more than 31 out of 35 questions correctly, has been steadily increasing since 2005 from 18.8% to 38.9% in 2008.

I can just hear it now. Dr. Demary will ask us, “So, almost everybody is passing. Isn’t it a good time to raise the bar?”

Every fiber of my teacher being wants to say no, but all of my learning in educational leadership says yes. I am torn. I believe in high standards but, I am not convinced that raising the bar is the best way to get teachers, and more importantly kids, to jump higher.

I think the reason for this internal struggle is that I am not sure that the bar is worth jumping over. It is not what we should be teaching kids to do to prepare them for their future. I think we need them to build their own obstacle courses, not just master hoop jumping. As it stands now, on reading tests kids are asked to identify characters, setting, conflict, etc. They are required to read for comprehension, all worthy goals. We are not asking them to write their own stories, to tell the story where they are the main character. It is as if they are the actors in someone else’s play.

If we buy into the post-modern perspective, that there is no single over arching story, then the reasons for assessment change a little. Our nation is a teaming tangle of stories. Maybe this is why fame has become such a fascination for our young people. The goal is not to help move the plot of the greater human story along but to be famous enough to be featured in the individual stories of the nation.

So what would I do? If it were my decision I would start evaluating beyond basic skills in areas closer to 21st century skills. Maybe it is a voluntary assessment for an additional ribbon on a degree. Maybe it is the certification movement pushed down into high school. Maybe a kid runs track, is in the debate club and earns a social media certification in order to make himself more competitive in college.

When Dr. Demary, (one of my education heroes) asks what do we do now that most of our students are passing the SOL tests, this is what I will say. “When students in your class pass a test you have prepared them for you don’t give them the same test but raise the number of correct answers needed to pass. You teach new content, you expand on their solid foundation evidenced by their test scores. You start teaching them something new, something that might be even more important than what they mastered already, like critical thinking, creativity, and team work. There is only one problem though, it is hard to test those kinds of skills. Maybe the tests have outlived their usefulness? Maybe the kids could help build their own obstacle course to test their learning.”
Image: http://www.japanwindow.com/images/20051012002715_051008_undoukai_041.jpg

Leading Roles

In its recent newsletter, the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) highlights the Springfield (Mass.) school district which has implemented a new teacher compensation system that rewards teachers for assuming leadership roles without their having to leave the classroom.

When our Teacher Solutions team looked at the potential and challenges of performance-based teacher compensation systems, we determined that teachers should be paid based on whether and how well we do those things that actually help students and advance the teaching profession, rather than on how many years we work or how many degrees we've earned (or at least not just on those things).

One aspect of the Springfield system emphasized by SEA President Tim Collins is that these teacher leaders and instructional specialists are serving in "non-evaluative roles" in relation to their peers. Collins notes, "People will not share their weaknesses (with a teacher leader or instructional specialist) unless they are confident it is not going to hurt them."

Some of us may disagree on whether teacher leaders should or should not help evaluate their peers. There are school districts, Toledo for example, where teachers have evaluated and made personnel decisions about the work of peers since 1981. Yet, consistently we find that the one of the main reasons teachers resist the idea of performance pay is their lack of confidence in the idiosyncratic, feeble [I'm being nice] teacher evaluation processes in most places.

Developing effective performance-based compensation systems will almost certainly look different in different places. But surely, the potential benefits of bringing the teaching profession out of the 19th century industrial model and positioning it for 21st Century possibilities is worth the patient efforts such change will require.

Cross-posted at Future of Teaching.

Syndicate content