I might be a Michael Wesch groupie… I have watched several of his videos and mentioned them in more than one blog post.
I first came across him through ds106 back in 2012 when I watched his presentation to the faculty at the University of Mary Washington and briefly blogged about it here. At that time, I learned that technology is not just a tool or a means of communication – it can change the way we interact. While there can be challenges with this, it is not necessarily a bad thing… We were both very upbeat about the potential for being able to use the tools to collaborate, organize, create and publish.
Michael Wesch at UMW Faculty Academy Part 1 from umwnewmedia on Vimeo.
He popped up again when I dropped in on a Connected Courses session in 2014. He moderated a discussion about the purpose of higher education with Cathy Davidson and Randy Bass. It was comforting for me to hear how those who teach in higher education have determined the same thing as those of us in K-5 education: the best lessons are those where students to want to revise their work, work on a problem that matters to them, have a real audience, want to do the work, and are immersed in the discipline.
Learning Arc
It has also been interesting for me to see how his personal learning has mirrored my own – from wondering how best to engage learners to utilizing tools to connect learners to exploring the nature of learning, in general.
I started messing about with technology in the classroom ages ago by creating webpages in 1996, using the open-ended Orly’s Draw-a-Story and trying to figure out Where in the World Carmen Sandiego was in 1999.
Now Mystery Skypes or Hangouts let us connect to real students around the world and determine their location basically by playing 20 questions and portfolio or blog platforms make it easy for even the youngest learners to share their thinking with the world.
I too would like to leverage peers to help us all develop skills and ensure that the learning journey is more important than the final product and to focus on the communal aspect of the web to help one another learn and succeed.
We have both more recently explored creative ventures such as creating films to share our understanding with others.
Applications for K-5 Teachers
In a recent workshop I led about The Role of ICT in the PYP I was very pleased that my participants seemed to enjoy the video from Knowledgeable to Knowledge-able as much as me!
In the workshop we identified the following as key ideas:
- Need to go beyond critical thinking
- Need to develop the skills to connect, organize, share, collect, collaborate, and publish
- Layers of creativity
- Embrace real problems
- Harness and leverage relevant tools
I assigned each participant an attribute of the IB Learner Profile and as they watched the video, they reflected on how their trait was connected.
Afterwards they were introduced to the idea of Sketchnotes and drew how their Learner Profile attribute was connected to technology use in the classroom. They then posted their drawings to their Seesaw blogs and made links between the Learner Profile and PYP Attitudes. The final products are not necessarily works of art but the deep thinking and conversations that happened as a result of these provocations were inspiring.
Whenever I plan a workshop I seem to go back and see what Michael’s got going on. Even though he talks about teaching higher education, I find that I can always make connections to what I do with K-5 teachers and students.
I find it fascinating that a university professor’s ideas about learning can impact K-5 education…
Cross-posted to learningissocial.ca
@ljensen
Thank you so much for sharing that talk from Michael Wesch. I have hope that the changes that teachers such as those in #cohort21 are making to their practice at the elementary and secondary levels will soon spread to the post-secondary world as well. My fear is that so many of our students have come to depend on the concreteness of the answers to those questions like “how long do you want this essay to be?” and “will this be on the test?” and they are mostly completely uncomfortable with the openness of those bigger questions. I know that it is my job in MY classroom to make those kind of questions the new normal, but it can be tough when we’re fighting against a whole system.
Jen
Although it might feel like you are ‘fighting a whole system’ I find it reassuring that there are examples of a higher education classes that are not as traditional as many of my classes were. It seems that many of us are working toward the same goals.
@jweening @ljensen, I really enjoyed this post. I think that the research coming out from students is also important to add to this conversation. I would be intersted in seeing what students say about learning, and how they want to learn in the here and now. There is a tension, I guess, that is being exposed.
For example, students want to act and think creatively. They understand the world in a non-linear fashion, holding multiple conversations at the same time through different social media channels, and F2F. They know that the world is not linear – but our educational system is. So, with in mind, we can contextualize the “Just tell me the right answer” approach. It can be translated into “This class is interesting, but my thinking doesn’t fit it, so my thoughts may not be right, so just tell me the right answer…”. It is our system that is linear, and yet we are asking students to think in a way that they are naturally inclined to do.
I’ve seen this in my role at Havergal, when students come to me with ideas and they are beautiful, complex ideas. However, they don’t have a structure or system in which to place these ideas and bring them to life.
So give them the right answer, or allow them to have more agency over their learning…
This post reminded me so much of the brilliant work that the High Tech High schools are doing with their students. Have you had a chance to check them out, either in person or through some of their online courses? I think just the idea that students should be doing real, meaningful, and authentic work is equally important and so very difficult for teachers to orchestrate. Have you come up with any useful ways to ensure that your students’ work is embracing those real problems?
http://www.hightechhigh.org/