Notes from Kajder, Chapter 1

The purpose of this book is “to invite critical discussion around what it means to teach and learn in a digital age steeped in social media while raising ideas about how we leverage that media to foster reading and writing” (p. 2).  I think that's really exciting and overwhelming at the same time; I think this book may raise more questions than provide specific answers.  In some ways, I kind of wish I was reading this book with a class or a group because I imagine the conversation around these ideas would be rich and productive.

Literacies is...

Shifting from thinking about technology—from How to I use this? to What do I want to do this? Embracing possibilities.

Is not a dismissal of traditional literacies, but embracing new literacies and leveraging the new ones to provide access and interest in the old.

Some “big ideas”: 

1.   Kids come to us to multiply literature.   We need to continually work with multiple texts, modes, and media and work to make meaning with them.
2. Literacy is social, active, and connective. Ignoring the social nature of adolescent is crazy—using literacy in a social way helps students to see that their words matter and how reading and writing connects people.      
3. Kids need to be able to answer “We are doing this in order to….”  I mean, this seems like a no-brainer, but of course, it isn’t always clear to us or our students.

Some things to consider:

• The difference in using the term “literacies” rather than “literacy”

• Adding digital literacies under the umbrella of literacy

• Distinction between new literacies (focus on modes) and multimodality (focus on tools)

• Literacies “is not dependent on digital knowledge or prowess” (p. 9)

Thinking about literacy is thinking about “the role of creativity and community in our classrooms; about collaborative inquiry, participation, and what it means to learn with our students; and how we lead students to be serious students of literature and language while also fostering multiple literacies made possible and even required by our increasingly participatory culture” (p. 10-11).

Switching Focus-- Moving away from PBL and moving towards digital literacy

Well, after reading two books on project-based learning, I'm shifting my CDAT lens towards thinking about literacy.  I'm excited about all that PBL holds for my students next year, but I'm still apprehensive about the language arts part.  I'm hoping that this next text can help me to conceptualize ways to incorporate a variety of literacies into my instruction. 

The next few posts will be my notes on this book:

 

Kajder, S. (2010). Adolescents and digital literacies: Learning alongside our students. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English.

 

Just reading the prologue, an NCTE policy brief, has started me thinking about the nature of literacy instruction.  I'm quite familiar with these ideas on literacy, but it's always worthwhile to revisit them.

 

Myth: Literacy only refers to reading.

“Literacy encompasses reading, writing, and variety of social and intellectual practices that call upon the voice and the hand” (ix)

Myth: Academics are all that matter in literacy learning. 

Literacy is important in identity development and students should be exposed or well versed in a variety of discourses. 

Myth: Literacy instruction is the responsibility of English teachers alone.

Each academic content has its own vocabulary. Adolescents need explicit instruction in the literacies of each specific content.

Myth: School writing is essentially an assessment tool that enables students to show what they have learned. 

Writing can be a way to assess student learning, but it’s also a “means by which students learn and develop” (x)

According to NCTE, teachers needs to explicitly teach a variety of content-oriented literacies, give opportunities to write and reflect on their current understandings and questions, and help students to negotiate multiple and complex discourses.  Adolescents are already well-versed in a variety of social and technological discourses that school don’t always acknowledge or build on those literacies.  Motivation is of huge importance, for students who are not motivated may not demonstrate their full abilities to read and write.  In order to increase motivation, teachers can provide lots of choice and self-selection of texts and writing activities.  Responsive and caring classroom environments also increase motivation and help to “demystify” academic literacies.  Lastly, monocultural approaches to teaching literacy increase the achievement gap.  Instead, literacy instruction should be multicultural, providing rich opportunities for students to bring their own cultural discourses into the academic discourse.

 

In a lot of ways, I think PBL inherently creates opportunities for a variety of discourses and literacy instruction.  The nature of creating authentic, real world projects allows for many types of reading, speaking, listening, and writing.  By working in teams (especially in a diverse school), students are kind of forces to explore their own discourses and think about literacy from a multicultural perspective.  (And I think in a world lit/world history class, there are even more opportunities for exploring other culture's literacies.)   These kids from Mike's class will already school me in their techonological literacy, so I'm anticipating that I can really embrace their prior knowledge and use it as a spring board to talk about literacy. 

 

I am a little apprehensive (and that's probably too strong a word) about explicit literacy instruction.  I worry that with the shuffle and excitement and newness of projects, as well as the mountains of content-oriented standards, that literacy instruction may fall to the way-side.  Although students will be reading and writing extensively, NCTE is clear that students need explicit instruction in content literacy.  I think this is where we failed our current sophomores on the Gateway-- we focused a lot on the content and a lot on traditional language arts literacties, but didn't really do a good job of teaching kids and letting them practice technical writing.   I feel strongly that we need to make this a priority this year-- and not just because of the Gateway, but because it's a important 21st century skill. 

Some light reading

Check out the page at the top: Why PBL.  This is an extensive rationale that I wrote, explaining why project-based learning is effective and why I'm embracing it as a teacher.

Link Love

I always hear things on the radio or run across things on the web or in magazines that strike me as something interesting to spur class dialogue.  Of course, I think, "That'd be cool to talk with my kids about" and then immediately, my mind darts elsewhere.  One of my goals is to keep an archive of cool things, so I'm going to start with some links that have caught my eye (or ear rather) lately.

This piece on Morning Edition about a new way scientists have started producing artificial hearts struck me as a cool conversation started about creativity and ingenuity.

I heard this piece this afternoon about oral historians at Boston College who are fighting against British authorities regarding confidential interviews that researchers conducted with member of the IRA in the past decade.  I think it would be a great discussion about the role of historians, particularly in a modern context. 

I ran across this piece about the evolving nature of proverbs and I thought it might be a good perspective to add to the conversation about proverbs in the early ancient worlds unit. 

This is, of course, a work in progress.  More to come!

Notes from Boss and Krauss, Chapter 8-10

I skimmed over Chapter 8: Building Connections and Branching Out because it seems the farthest removed from my goals right now.  Of course, I want my kids' projects to connect to the world and I want to offer opportunities for students to connect with experts and resources outside of the classroom, but right now I'm really focused on just getting started.  I anticipate that I will need to come back to this chapter during the fall semester. 


Chapter 9: Making Assessment Meaningful

"Assessing students' project work requires deliberate strategies to take stock not only what they created, but also the teamwork, effort, and creativity that went into the project" (p. 139). 

Establish anchors-- *This part actually confuses me.
  I think what they mean is that you need to get a sense of what students already know/can do and then gain a sense of "how far they are going as they work to meet learning goals" (p. 140).   I assume this means to differentiate assessment based on the learner.

Using rubrics as communication tools, not just evaluation tools


Can use traditional assessments in conjunction with PBL learning

Ask students what they learner or have them create something to represent their learning

Use modern, real world assessments-- apply the skills or assessments used by professionals in certain disciplines




Although I feel comfortable using rubrics and grading holistically, I am still apprehensive about assessment.  I am concerned about differentiating between projects and justifying grades.  Often, when I assign projects, I will grade based on completion or the following of directions rather than truly assessing the nuances of the project.  

I am also concerned about time.  I know Nick and Kyle from NGHS said that grading took forever and they had to be really committed to giving feedback in a timely manner.  I tend to be an efficient grader, but I'm not always the most detail-oriented.  

Chapter 10: Celebrating and Reflecting 

It's important to consider ahead of time how you will wrap up the project.

Reflection is so important! Students need to think metacognitively and create their own meaning (echoes of dialogical teaching here!).   They need time to think about the growth of their learning dispositions as well as their increased content knowledge.  

Elaborate--now what?  How will you extend the project? Improve? Share with others?  Build community in your school?

Celebrate-- put on an event, make your blog live, hold a party or an open house.


Teachers need to "bring it home" too (p. 159).  Reflect and critique the project, share with others (either locally or on the blogosphere).   Do your reflection while the project is still fresh in your mind. 

**Reading this book was a great starting point in my PBL journey because it gave me a framework from which to start and it helped me to visualize what a project might look like from start to finish.  I also think it will continue to be a resource-- there were so many links and ideas that I didn't really digest because I was seeking about the big picture.  But once I'm in stage of the project, I know I will come back to Boss and Krauss to help me flesh out the details. 

Dialogical Classrooms

I will be spending the next week in an intensive course with Dr. Fecho, learning about how to teach in a dialogical classroom.  I've already seen so many connections to project-based learning and I'm excited to implement what I will learn and produce this week into my CDAT plans for next year. 

Some connections that I've picked up on:

Dialogical classrooms are about ...

...engagement:  “A dialogical classroom is one in which literacy is used to immerse teacher and students in an ongoing reflective conversation with the texts of their lives” (Fecho, 2010, p. 8)

...“internal and external open-endedness” (p. 9)

... students making meaning rather than receiving meaning or finding meaning. 

... spaces of tension, yet spaces of trust.

Dialogical classrooms needs to be generative sites for learning.

"All dialogue is based in context and that context represents elements of time as well as physical and psychic space. As Bakhtin (1986) wrote, “There can be no such thing as an isolated utterance. It always presupposes utterances that precede and follow it” (p. 136). Building on that idea of time connections, Bakhtin (1981) argued that understanding comes in response, that understanding and response are contingent upon each other. Utterance, response, and meaning—the building blocks of dialogue—are merged in a recursive, continual, and transactional process. There can be no meaning without response" (Fecho, 2010, p. 13).

*My take--> One thing that is scary about embracing dialogue, inquiry, and critical thinking is that the teacher has to transfer so much power to the students.  It takes a deep faith in the students’ abilities to think to trust that their dialogue will get them to where you want them to go.  And even now, I as wrote that sentence, I wasn’t able to relinquish the power over the end goal.  I mean, in a standards-based curriculum, certain end goals not be achieved, but I think the dialogical classroom opens itself up for a variety of end results that go beyond just curricular standards. I also think there is great freedom and excitement in letting go of an iron-fisted grip over students and letting them be players in the conversation.  I completely believe in students’ own power as learners; intellectually I agree with everything that Bob argues.  I want to be honest, though, and I found that teaching is almost Pavlovian and it can be uncomfortable to switch from being the authority of information to the facilitator of inquiry and dialogue. I want to continue to get more comfortable with that discomfort because I am so excited by the idea of my classroom as a “generative” space, “a space where meaning is limited only by the number of responders. Not a space of relativism where everything goes but, instead, a space of informed reflection, where ideas are suggested, examined, questioned, and constantly left in play” (p. 30).  

Context seems to be the pervading word throughout these chapters and the main takeaway for me is that “words are meaningless without context” (p. 9).  As ELA teachers, one of our main goals is to teach our students how to better communicate, and yet most traditional writing assignments strip students of any context and thus any real way to communicate. 

I’m also reassured by the discussion over faith in the process and standardized testing.  I realize that we have to relinquish power and trust the dialogical process, but the reality of teaching in 2011 is that you have to consider testing—but that shouldn’t be the driving force.  I think Bob’s point that “the task [of teaching students] is too vital and complex for another other approach” (p. 29).  Relying on anything less than engaged, contextual writing that allows for inquiry and critical thinking doesn’t really prepare students for life or standardized testing.

Notes from Boss and Krauss, Chapter 6 and 7

Chapter 6: Project Launch--Implementation Strategies

Important-- fill kids will optimism and enthusiasm, teach prerequisite concepts (in a way that doesn't kill optimism and enthusiasm)

--Before and after the project, have students complete a self-assessment in which they consider the concepts and dispositions that they will learn (metacognition)


    Tools for this: blogs, ProfilerPRO, SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang

"Good projects start by tapping students' prior knowledge" (p. 96)
--KWL charts
   *I have learned that high schoolers HATE KWL charts.  They think they are babyish. 


--Image studies

--Role-playing predictions 



Teaching the Fundamentals
--Small lectures/readings/activities on information/concepts/skills that will set the foundation for students' inquiry 

--Setting norms for online and in-person collaboration, time management, technology use

--Sharing the assessment rubric

--Preparing technology (set up "technology playground" p. 102)
    *Amy and I talked about each group/kid setting up their own historical researcher's toolbox in which kids maintain a list of resources that they have at their disposal... media center databases, specific websites, interview techniques, etc

--Tap into student expertise-- find out students' skills and knowledge so they can be resources to each other

Promoting Inquiry and Deep Learning 

By creating good driving questions, students are pushed to think deeply and create their own questions.  

Good driving questions often start with "Which one?" "How?" "Should?" "Why?" or "What if?"


*Nice chart on page 109


Chapter 7: A Guiding Hand--Keeping a Project Moving

 "Keeping a project moving requires teachers to support students on their learning journey.  It doesn't always unfold the way you expect.  This is where the art of teaching comes in" (p. 113).

Teachers should...
-- be curious and observant about student understanding
-- be flexible
-- willing to shift from dispenser of information to faciliator



Consider different levels of classroom discussion:
--Teacher to teacher
--Student to student
--Teacher to student


--Need to shift towards more higher order questions.  "How do you know?" "What did you notice?" "Why do you think that happened?"


--Questions for Checking In

•      Procedural
•      Teamwork
•      Understanding
•     Self-assessment

Two other considerations-- optimizing technology and managing conflict