Changing Paradigms, Keeping the Faith

For those of you who have been in any of my workshops or spoken with me, you know what a huge fan I am of Ken Robinson.  I am such a fan of everything he says and jealous of how he delivers it!
This animation,  Ken Robinson - Animation - Changing Education Paradigms , addresses the origins of our educations system and challenges us to change how we are delivering education for our students! It is so compelling on so many levels.  I encourage everyone to view it and find their personal connection to the message!  After viewing this vignette,  comment on our HCS Blog about how you are changing, or are going to change, the education paradigms at your school in order to provide a higher quality education for our students in Hawaii Catholic Schools.  Let's begin 2013-14 with a dialogue that engages us and respects professional conversation as a collaborative tool!  I want to hear from parents, classroom teachers, administrators, pastors, even our students!  The work we are doing impacts all of us both directly and indirectly and for us to grow as a network of schools serving students in a Catholic education then we need to model the 21st Century skills we want our students to master!  We need to change our paradigm!

Speaking of 21st Century and paradigm shifts, last school year we published a flower looking diagram that had our HCS 21st Century skills (mahalo to Tony Wagner and the P21 organization for their contributions!) organized around a central theme of Catholic Identity!  In looking at this, some ideas and questions began to be raised about what is at the center and what might encapsulate our mission.  Through collaborative dialogue and constructive feedback, some education minds got together this summer (via the Internet) and came up with a newer model that we feel more clearly and accurately reflects our mission as Hawaii Catholic Schools.

We took the skills and wrapped them around a center of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment and encapsulated all of this in our Catholic Identity!  Please let us know what you think of this!  Feedback is a good thing!  I made it larger so that those of us with weak eyesight can read it easily!

Also, please sign up to be a follower of the HCS blog.  We want to get as many of our school personnel, parents, and even students to get involved in educational dialogue regarding current trends in education and in particular our Hawaii Catholic Schools.  Every two weeks there will be another opportunity to join in the conversation!

Working through the changing education roadmap

The term "21st Century Skills" is now our mantra in education.  Even though we are more than one tenth of the way into this century, our comprehension of the challenge we face in meeting the needs of our students in order to effectively prepare them for this rapidly changing world is really just now beginning to sink in.  21st Century Skills, which focus on communication, collaboration, creativity and otherwise problem solving lends itself nicely to the goal of Catholic Education where we are looking, and have been for many years, to educate the entire child.  A huge part of our mission is to instill Catholic values of service, working with others and for others, and sharing our faith.  21st Century Skillls as we know them are an excellent avenue for our Catholic School educators to make sure our students achieve the goal of our Cathollic institutions. 

Catholic schools need to be open to the changing landscape in the filed of education.  So much research is coming out about pedagogical practice that meets students needs and engages them as learners.  We need to move beyond the "telling" and move strongly into the "wondering" with our students.  21st Century instruction is not just about technology.  In fact it is more about human communication, interaction,and engagement than anything else.  Rather than teaching students the answers, we need to teach them how to ask questions, seek information, analyze that information, and from there enter into a problem solving mode that includes trial and error and evaluation of results.  All of this needs to culminate in some for product that conveys their message to their target audience.  These are the kind of skills we need to be teaching our students. As Catholic Schools we get to choose the curriculum and resources we want to deliver this type of instruction.  The Bible and the teachings of Jesus provide a great foundation for 21st Century pedagogical practice.  When viewed through a certain lens, these changing times could be the most exciting thing to happen to us in a long time.  As Catholic Schools we need to be jumping at the opportunity to provide the highest quality education to our students that is thoroughly infused with the message of God and Jesus Christ.

I have been reading a book titled 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn.  This book is a compilation of short reads edited by James Bellanca and Ron Brant.  One of the pieces in the publication is titled Five Minds for the Future, written by Howard Gardner.  In this piece he makes a compelling argument that in the past decade two more types of "minds" have come to light and that we need to take these into account as the education field continues to shift and change to meet our students' and our societal needs.  He identified three types of minds: Disciplined, Synthesizing, and Creative as the dominant types of thinking that our educational system needed to address as we move our studnets through our antiquated grade structure!  Gardner asserts that he would have stopped here had he written this ten years ago, however he is engaged in research that has led him to "postulate and ponder two additional kinds of minds." In his research, he has identiifed the rise of the Respectful mind and the Ethical mind. A Catholic education fits perfectly with this emerging finding!  Gardner's research is nothing new to those of us who have been through a Catholic education where respect and ethics are at the core of our instruction model.

Increasing our understanding of how the human mind works gives educators insight into how we can craft instruction to meet the needs of students at their level of interest and comprehension.  Gardner's discussion of the Five Minds leads us farther down the path of 21st Century Skills - not 21st Century Knowledge.  The most clear change that we are coming to realize in education is the need to develop a broad skillset that involves curation of vast amounts of knowledge as opposed to "learning" large volumes of content that we somehow need to apply in a specific situation.  The world requires us to be flexible and adaptable while having the confidence to make choices, deal with failures and move on confidently.  This is inherently different from the upbringing of most of us tweeners.  Currently, we have this large population of people raised and educated one way trying to adapt to a shifting environment and yet still offer a quality education experience to our youth so that they have the opportunity to choose their path and create their own life, in the image of Christ, and become whatever they want to be!

Rethinking Assessment

How can we measure our students in a manner that allows them to demonstrate knowledge without it being a purely individualized and secret memorization test?  This is one of many dilemmas our system of education is addressing as we push through this powerful wave of technology in education.  Whether you are implementing the Common Core Standards or looking to engage students and raise the rigor of the curriculum in your school, assessing student performance remains crucial to any effective instructional program.

Doug Reeves, in his chapter titled A Framework for Assessing 21st Century Skills in the book 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn, edited by James Bellanca and Ron Brandt,  makes a compelling argument for a radical shift in how we are measuring student performance and why we need change our current practice.  Dr. Reeves points out quite clearly that when people outside of education ask the question of "How do we know kids are learning?" our response, especially in the last 10-15 years, tends to be to show the results of a state, standardized test and see if the child is "proficient" and is meeting academic standards.  Ask any education expert and you will here that to base a student's knowledge on a two day test is a measure of what that child knows on those two days.  It may not necessarily reflect all they "know" and understand about the topic.    In essence, Dr. Reeves suggests that in order to fully move our practice into the 21st Century, we need to rethink assessment and move away from our current concept of testing.  In fact, "the very nature of testing - with its standardized conditions, secrecy, and individual results - is antithetical to the understanding, exploration, creativity, and sharing that are the hallmarks of a 21st Century framework for assessment." (pg 306)  The struggle we face is our need for accountability through data in order to know who to blame if things do not go as planned.  But more importantly, there is a disconnect between what 21st Century businesses are looking for in employees and the experiences our graduates have gone through in their education.  The work place is not always filled with nice, easy problems to be solved.  Most certainly you do not get to pick A, B, C, or none of the above. 

As schools, we need to prepare our students by placing them in assessment situations that mirror the everyday, rapidly changing, globalized community they are now a part of.  Assessments need to be in conditions that are more non-standardized.  The idea of comparing one student to another and identifying their class rank is quickly diminishing as the key indicator of future success in our world.  Instead, how one is able to function as a member of a problem solving team is becoming more and more desirable.  Reeves is clear to state that this does not mean abandoning certain skills that must be mastered by students, often in rote fashion.  However, his framework asks us to move way beyond the Learn part assessing student knowledge.

Reeves' assessment framework includes 5 elements and questions to guide students and teachers thinking through the assessment:

• Understand: What is the evidence that you can apply learning in one domain to another?
• Share: How did you use what you have learned to help a person, the class, your community, or the planet?
• Explore: What did you learn beyond the limits of the lesson? What mistakes did you make, and how did you learn from them?
• Create: What new ideas, knowledge, or understandings can you offer?
• Learn: What do you know?  What are you able to do?

These concepts/practices are not novel to education.  How we apply this type of thinking, is more critical.  Formative assessments have gained much more prominence in the role of learning.  Reeves now is taking this even farther where these questions are presented prior to the beginning of a lesson/unit/project to serve as guides to our thinking.  All elements need to be addressed.

Reeves goes on to further define and explore the transformations "required of assessments: from standardized to fluid conditions, from secrecy to openness, and from individual to collaborative assessments." (pg. 318)  He is quite clear in his point that "educational leaders cannot talk about the need for collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, and creativity and at the same time leave teachers and school administrators fenced in by obsolete assessment mechanism, policies and assumptions." (pg 318)

I have written extensively about bringing 21st Century instruction full force into our Hawaii Catholic Schools.  To effectively mange this transition, we need to take an honest look at our practices of instruction and assessment.  This piece on assessment by Doug Reeves really hit home.  The questions and strategies that he offers make so much sense.  If we ask the right questions, we can get our students to think, create, analyze, etc.  That is our role as Educators.  I guess I am wondering if we can really meet 21st Century needs in a 19th Century structure.  Maybe we need to think about changing the structure?  Thanks Mr. Reeves for a great read!

Source:
21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn, Bellanca, James and Brandt, Ron (2010, Solution Tree Press): Chapter14 - Doug Reeves, A Framework for Assessing 21st Century Skills

Developing 21st Century Skills in our students

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is growing more and more prevalent in our schools.  Based on what I have read and observed, this is a very good thing for students (when implemented effectively!).  This is also a shift in practice for many of our teachers.  For years now we have made sure that preparation for the nationalized tests is all about drill and kill, "got to pass that test so we can stay out of restructuring."  In my humble opinion, the NCLB hockey stick has set education progress back a good number of years.

Jump to 2013 and we find ourselves in the midst of one of the greatest shifts in education practice ever.  With the movement to a national Common Core set of standards that are conceptual in nature, local education systems now have more freedom to make use of local, relevant content to teach their students.  The accountability of NCLB is still in place (though I prefer a growth model to a hockey stick!) and we now need to shift our thinking in how we are engaging students in the content.  PBL gives us one of those options.

The centerpiece of PBL is asking the right questions and then inquiring as to relevance of data, reliability of data and formulation of new ideas to be shared with others in written, oral, and tech centered presentations.  What makes this approach more relevant is that our current global situation has so many real world issues for students to inquire about and create potential solutions.  In the anthology 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn, John Barell writes a chapter titled Problem-Based Learning: The Foundation for 21st Century Skills.  In this chapter, Barell asserts that the actual nature and state of the current world necessitates a shift in education from memory and reproduction to one of inventiveness and creativity.  He postulates that PBL is a much better match for the human brain.  Since the early phases of human development, we have been solving problems in order to survive.  Naturally, if we create scenarios designed to activate those portions of brain, we will get a higher degree if engagement from students and their retention of what they are "learning" will rise significantly.  Add to the scenario a structured level of choice and we now have a recipe for all students to engage and thrive.

In his chapter Barell gives specific examples of planning outlines and strategies that teachers can use to create strong inquiry based units for students.  Barell does not shy away from the fact that this type of teaching approach requires tremendous preparation on the part of teachers.  He is clear that the teacher does not simply come up with a plan and cut kids loose, but provides fundamental direct instruction where needed - say research skills, certain background information, proper writing skills, etc.  but all of this is taught through the context of inquiry based scenarios. 

Barell describes the development of "ill-structured" societal scenarios that exist in our world today:  feeding the poor, containing financial contagion in the European region, global warming, over fishing, supplying water for escalating populations, etc.  These scenarios require students to pose questions, conduct research, decide on the relevance of the research (and its validity), and produce possible actionable scenarios.  Students then need to present their thinking using tools that help them get their message across in the most clear fashion.  To me, what an exciting class!! 

To work with students in this manner and foster those higher order thinking skills, teachers must plan with the end in mind.  Formative assessments embedded throughout the unit that include observations and interviews and specific instruction where needed are a necessity.  Rubrics must be in place so that students are able to measure their own movement toward standard.  Skills for working cooperatively must be taught and classroom management must be clear and consistent.  Teaching of this sort requires a high degree of expertise.  Administrators and school systems need to be making plans and allocations to support this paradigm shift in how we teach our students.

"When asked what he and others had wrought at the constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, Ben Franklin replied, "A republic. If you can keep it" (as cited in Platt, 1992)." (pg. 197)
 Barell concludes by stating that in order for us "to keep our republic, we need to educate for thoughtful engagement with all of its many challgenges."  (pg. 197).  Are we ready to accept the challenge?

Hawaii Catholic School Leaders in the 21st Century

Twenty-one of our Hawaii Catholic School leaders spent the day engaged in dialogue and collaborative professional development in order to strengthen our communication and create a  Professional Learning Community focused on supporting the growth and development of our Hawaii Catholic Schools toward thriving status!  Achieving our goals as laid out in our Systems for Success roadmap is directly linked to our ability to come together and improve our efforts of collaboration as a network of schools!  Take a look at our Wordle describing the characteristics of a 21st Century Leader!

Hawaii Catholic Schools Leaders are...

Change and education in the 21st Century

Clearly the business of education is in transition.  Those of us who are engaged in supporting teachers  and students are constantly bombarded with the latest research about what works to engage students in effective learning situations.  Last Friday we looked to strengthen our collaborative bonds through a series of presentations by our own HCS teachers focused on 21st century practices taking place across our network of schools.  We are still gathering feedback from this event through Backchannel chat room dedicated to our event.  This is a means of instant feedback for presenters and organizers and meant to model a tool that teachers can use with students during instruction.  

Recently I read an excerpt from a book titled 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn that was written by Howard Gardener.  In his piece, he talked about the kinds of "minds" that exist throughout the human species.  He has written extensively about the Disciplined, Synthesizing, and Creative minds and how educators, with an understanding of how our students process and organize  information, can structure instruction and maximize opportunities for deep learning with our students.    He has now identified two other minds that are more nebulous and less measurable from a quantitative standpoint: the Ethical mind and the Respectful mind.  Our world is growing more and more social and these two minds start to hit on parts of the human psyche that many in education have not been asked to address because we can't measure them on a multiple choice test.

What struck me is that the Ethical and Respectful minds are cornerstones of Catholic education.  We have instructed our students while always keeping our faith at the center of a well rounded academic program.  So as the education world continues to change and explore new tools to engage our students in effective instruction that engages these 5 minds that Gardener speaks to, Hawaii Catholic Schools already have a built in avenue for reaching our students on an ethical and respectful level.

The 21st Century brings more and more research and findings about the children we are teaching and how their brains are so much more capable than we ever realized.  Our challenge lies in the question of whether those of us who have been doing this for awhile can open up and actively embrace not only the changes that are taking place, but the rapidity with which things are changing.  I've mentioned this before in that it feels like we are changing the tires on the car while driving down the highway.   The interesting piece is that there really is no other option.  We must change on the fly, be willing to attempt new methodology and while we are working on improving our classroom pedagogy, make sure our students are developing and learning the skills necessary to succeed in this fast-paced, ever-evolving environment!  If we do not embrace this change in instructional delivery, we may not be in existence in the future.  that would be great shame!!

21st Century + 4 Cs + Catholic Identity = an HCS education

Hawaii Catholic Schools 21st Century Skills