Iteration really does work

Definition of Iteration-The repetition of a process or utterance.

~Dictionary.com 

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Practice makes perfect. Right? That was what my mother used to always say. I would try to explain that I was not meant to do housework because I lacked the skill and attention to detail that it required. She never flinched, didn't even lift her head from the book she was reading, "Well, you need more practice then!  Get in there." For me, those words still are associated with the smell of bleach and soft scrub.

Marc Presky, talks about the importance of practice for both the student and the teacher in the partnering relationship.  Maybe he and my mom were right.

I have been submerged in the full partnering experiment for the last three weeks.  The first week was tough on both of us, student and teacher.  They were learning to research and kept trying to search instead.  We were both frustrated with their progress. Last week I was starting to see the light. After several student led discussions they were finally in their production groups and deciding their own lessons, and work load.  I was surprised the depth of their research and the kinds of conversations that they were engaging in as teams and as a class.  It took everything in my being to keep my mouth shut and let them learn as a group together finding the answer instead of jumping in there and giving it to them.

This week was amazing!  As a class they are independently finding information that their TEKS require and discussing the information with the other groups putting it in their videos without me saying a word.  Students that were initially extremely upset at not being in the groups that they wanted have come up to me and apologized for their reluctance and are thanking me for talking them out of the alternate assignment.

I did have one of my more bright classes hit a huge road bump. On our block day together they discovered that when everyone tries to be in charge nothing gets completed and working to work doesn't achieve the goal.  We had a couple of class discussions about what the goal is and what responsibility that we all have to each other and to our goal. It was humbling but they made a huge comeback the next day.

My class periods are now in a predictable hum.  We have our beginning meeting.  Students check in with me to discuss their daily goals.  Groups check in and run out of the room to other places to film or to call possible "historical experts" for interviews. Groups might be gathered around tables building the town of Crush.Texas out of Legos to re-enact a train crash.  Others are on computers, laptops or phones researching and writing scripts.  A small trio will be around a microphone reading their scripts creating their voice overs.  They are moving furniture draping walls with green curtains and acting out scenes as three to four cameras record their progress.  Others will be watching and offering ideas to improve the scene or shot.  Class lights flicker and everyone knows, "Quiet on the set!" Class time goes fast.  Before they know it I am calling them to clean up and get out their calendars so we can have our class meeting.

Class meetings have been a huge part of this experiment.  At the beginning and end of each class we discuss what our goals are and what we need to do to achieve them. In these class meetings we look at our productivity, our due dates, and what we learned from a day of work.  I haven't utilized this type of meta-cognitive discussion in class before.  I was surprised to see how much the students like these and look forward to them.  It is a time to validate what they have learned to celebrate individual/team/class successes, strategize how to be more effective for the coming days.  It is also a way for me as the coach to lead the team and discuss behaviors that we need to support or correct to be more productive.

We have two more weeks left of this project and I have to say I will be sad to see it end.  I am not sure what our next step together will be.  I know I don't want the partnering to end, they have learned too much for us to make this an isolated event.  We have been practicing it for almost 30 days and are finally getting  perfect  better at it.

Maybe I should ask them.  See how they want to learn about the next unit, for our next 30 days.

Where is this Digital Nation?

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Digital Natives, besides being the most recent education buzz words, is the recognition of where our students live.  Laptops loaded with games, Facebook, email, and  Skype all going at once will be sitting on the laps of students who also have their phone next to them to receive the latest gossip from friends via text.

It isn't how most of us remember childhood.  Back in the old days, why I remember actually having to go across the street to spend time with my friends.  And if we wanted to see or talk to other friends we walked.  I know...you are finishing the story...both ways up hill in the driving snow. (Well, that last part might be a lie...I grew up in Texas.)

This huge influx of information has changed things. I first started thinking about this when videos like this began popping up on the internet several years ago.

How do you teach a generation that is not growing up the way we did? What skills become most important in a market that changes monthly?  Those are the million dollar questions.

I don't have the answers.  I know you are disappointed.

I do know that we have to be open to change to model that for our students.  I know that the traditional method of teaching won't do it. We have to do better, and be ready to think about teaching differently.

In the school I teach at a group of volunteer teachers decided to work together to see what we could do to teach better and to grow as professionals.  As a new professional learning community we decided that we would do a books study, Teaching Digital Natives Partnering for Real Learning.

Buy it here

I wasn't too thrilled about this.  Book studies are fine but I wasn't sure there would be anything I would really gain from this particular book.  I was wrong.  It has happened before. The problem I think was that I was over focused on the "Digital Natives" part in the title. I should have been excited to learn more about learning about how to more efficiently apply partnering techniques in my class.

Partnering is not new, it is also known as project based learning.  This will help explain it...


Challenge Based Learning - Resilience from Adam Brice on Vimeo.

In the video the students are responsible for deciding how to think globally and apply the theme of resilience. The students learn that they don't have to wait to be the difference the world needs, that they can do it now.

Partnering is about teachers creating relationships with their students where both have responsibility in the learning.  They do this by knowing each student and their passions.  Then having students connect the material they are learning about to what they feel most passionate.

This different type of relationship cannot be done through traditional means.  Teachers must "step off the stage" acknowledging that students can get the same amount of information and learn the skills by answering guiding questions instead of watching a PowerPoint or listening to a lecture. To most of us this is not a comfortable change.  Then again some of us hate any kind of change.

The series of post to come will be based on the pedagogy introduced by Marc Prensky. They will include the ideas from his book and how we as a group are doing our best to change and grow as teachers of the digital native.  We encourage you to join us in this change and welcome your communication, ideas and questions.