Teacher in Development

So I’ve really stepped into it this time. Connectivisim. I’m sometimes easily scared off and intimidated by “academic” jargon and massive complex thought. Wading through such things can easily shut me down and turn me off, but today I found two posts that have totally shed new light on a topic that has been…lost on me…for the past few months.

First, Will Richardson’s post on Connecting For Life spiked my interest once again in the whole idea of connectivisim. [Testing out my new found, and very limited understanding of connectivism theory, Richardson became the “node” of my online network that got all this started.

What got me intersted in going deeper? A few things: 1. Richardson’s interest. I appreciate a great deal of what he has to say, so I decided to explore further. He is a “node of value” to me.
2. I’m interested in how people learn. So is Richardson. He says

“Connectivism which explains how learning happens in a digital era. It states, briefly, that old theories of learning are becoming obsolete because they can’t account for the speed at which learners are being asked to consume and process information these days.”

I don’t want to become obsolete. Another motivator. Those who don’t SEE and MAKE the connections simply get left behind. They are outmoded. Obsolete.

I think this idea is what I was aiming at when I was commenting about Teachers as Free Agents post over at English360.com, and AJ’s “For whom the bell tolls” mediocre and job security train of thought. Teachers must be today teachers. We must realize the truth behind this phrase, which I picked up from a pdf file posted on the headshift blog a few weeks ago:

“The market is smarter and faster than we are.”

While this node comes from business and marketing, I easily see a connection for me. My market is the students in my classroom. Have I been left behind? Is my teaching practice informed by up-to-date theory and ideas?

Getting back on target: Richardson’s post led me to a really easy to understand explanation of connectivisim on gsiemens’Connectivisimblog that you should take a peek at if you’re at all into how people are learning in the digital age.

I found this post to be enlightening in that it helped me begin to understand that learning today is about building connections, and those connections are largely built by the student on an INTEREST and NEED basis. I really like this line from gsiemens:

The concept [connectivisim] centers on a person’s ability to create his or her own personal learning network. Rather than learning only through courses, we learn by creating and forming connections to information and people. The sources we select are dynamic. When they change, our whole network gets smarter.

The ESL classroom is not…well should no longer be…an isolated, encolosed teacher/student space.

The ESL teacher, informed by connectivist theory, no longer solely relys on the book for his/her class. Instead, he or she begins to open the doors of the classroom to the rest of the world - digital and paper. He or she realizes that students are already in motion, and have interests, passions, a job, etc that they are, should, could, be acquiring English around - and steps into a “how can I help you connect to “nodes of interest” around what you’re passionate about, IN ENGLISH, that will help you develop your own network?

This is turning into a very wordy post, so I will come to an end soon…but the final, but I think most important discovery today happened as I followed a link on the gsiemens’ site to this bit on
Teaching Connectivism

Here is where the light bulb really turned on, and stayed on. Konrad Glogowski, the author of the afore mentioned post, took connectivism and broke it down into what it looks like in my language. In what I do each day, and how it would look in my classroom.

His post is just packed with great ideas. I love his ending the best though:

How does all this affect my teaching methodology? My classroom has transformed itself from a place where knowledge was pre-packaged for students to a place where they are now given a responsibility of creating it, where they have to participate in existing networks (class blogosphere, for example), nurture their own (Furl or del.icio.us accounts, blogs), and look for connections. Their participation leads them to formulate their thoughts and ideas, to find connections between their own views and the nodes they find around them. Once a connection is made in the form of a blog entry for example, the students have created their own knowledge - they’ve made a contribution to their own understanding and the network itself. Once they start building, they become engaged and empowered; they understand the value of community (or a network) and their own place and role in it.

It is at that point that I become a teacher of Connectivism, engaged in the task of teaching my students to recognize and formulate connections and patterns. I make them aware of the transformative potential of participating in and learning from networks. It is their history or trajectory of participation that becomes the true goal of education.

I will have to comment on this one again…but what a discovery. Connectivism is being a connector. Is creating nodes to be connected to. It’s connecting to other people, and therefore building a larger, smarter network. Learning is no longer isolated. Great stuff.

More thought happening around the role of the teacher in the classroom…It’s all about the STUDENT!

Student Centered Learning– Defined:
1.

Student-centred learning describes ways of thinking about learning and teaching that emphasise student responsibility for such activities as planning learning, interacting with teachers and other students, researching, and assessing learning.

[Cannon, R. (2000) Guide to support the implementation of the Learning and Teaching Plan Year 2000, ACUE, The University of Adelaide. ]

Plain and simple: The teacher steps down from the soap-box, and students take an active role in the LEARNING process. They are no longer PASSIVE receptacles, but generators of their own content, working towards clear learning outcomes.

Skeletons from the Out-dated Classroom:
Teacher is in control. Knowledge is trickle down.
Classroom is TEACHER centered. To borrow J.M.’s phrase: Teacher is the “Sage on the stage.”
Teachers transfer their knowledge, and students soak it up. (In theory.)
Focus on covering curriculum content. [Read: One size fits all and you’ve gotta fit in x amount of time.]
Teacher is the gateway to knowledge.
Students memorize to pass exams, and little real UNDERSTANDING takes place. [ESL APP: How many vocabulary words did Juan memorize today, and how many did he get right on his exam? vs. How many words did Juan LEARN this week, and how many of those few words see actual useage in his day-to-day conversations?]
Never deviate from course books.
You finish a course book, you move on to the next level.
English stays in English class.

The Updated Classroom is STUDENT CENTERED
Students are ACTIVE Learners and
are responsible for their learning.

Teacher’s Role in the Student Centered Classroom
Teacher is a Trajectory coach: they realize that students are IN MOTION, [Read: Already moving, learning beings with experience, acquired knowledge, and direction. They aren’t passive, stationary objects just waiting for teacher’s knowledge. ]

Trajectory Coaches are experts at inspiration.
They strive to Spark, Fan into flame, Protect and add to learner momentum.
They are passionate about their subject themselves: Passion often creates passion in others.
They promote learner autonomy. The TKT preparation course I’m doing has an interesting section on student motivation where they describe Learner Autonomy as a

“Feeling of being responsible for and in control of our own learning.”

(Unit 9, pg. 38 The TKT Teaching Knowledge Test Course - Cambridge University Press 2005.) I would like to add to this: Learner Autonomy is not just a feeling, but a STATE OF BEING. You are or you aren’t! Good teachers must actively encourage the rise of autonomous learners, and work themselves out of a job! (real success.)
Trajectory Coaches make their class RELEVANT to their students. If it doesn’t matter to your student it’s forgotten.
Trajectory Coaches love to explore, develop, and exploit student goals to deploy ADDICTIVE and ENGAGING classes. (Sorta fights the norm of being the Teacher’s goals or the school’s goals, or the curriculum’s goals that are most important.)
Class is customized to student interest and passion. Therefore: Trajectory Coach: KNOW THY STUDENT.
Be as fluent as possible in what your students do, are interested in, and are passionate about.

Always remember: Motivation can be created and continued by you!

Over at the English360 Blog, I came across this very interesting post:Teachers as Free Agents

I am still stewing over what exactly to say to this, but I liked it. A lot. Welcome to the classroom, and the teacher of the 21st Century. There seems to be, to me anyway, quite a shift going on in my profession. It seems like the days of “working safe” are coming to a close. What I mean by that is, the days of working for a school or language center for the rest of your teaching career are over. I guess what I mean is that, just because you are employed by a fixed place, will no longer equate income and job security.

The TESOL industry is marred by those who teach because their first language is English. By those who are just travelling through and need some extra income. By those who have no passion, no love, no vocation to be people persons, to be customer service moguls, to be real live trajectory coaches (to begin playing with the whole teacher role topic a little.) to be concerned and engaged professional developers etc.

Our industry is changing and I see that change summed up by AJ in his “For Whom the Bell Tolls” post, over at the Effortless Acquisition blog:

“…the mediocre clock-punchers are losing “security”. But great opportunities are also opening.
These opportunities boost the demand for and the power of passionate, engaged, interesting teachers…As I survey the TESOL field, for example…I find it almost laughable. The standards are incredibly low. The established field of public and private programs is ripe for destruction. How much longer will boring, grammar-translation based, unpleasant, and ineffective programs be able to survive?”

I see the teacher of the future, as being just that: PASSIONATE, ENGAGED, INTERESTING. No longer just “passing through.” I’ve seen this happening where I work. Teachers are being bumped out of their classroom by students who are fed up with the same old. They are tired of the book work. They are tired of the grammar. They want reality. They want passionate, engaged and INTERESTING (READ: relevant) classes.

I also am thinking that the teacher of the future will work to create an independant learner. Work themselves right outta a job. That is the new success. (Vs. the “How long can I feed off of you” mentality that is so widespread now.)

I like the “free agent” idea. Consultants for hire. Freelancers. No longer am I safe in one place. I am truely safe when I can nudge my student outta my nest [class] and watch them fly on their own.

Teacher role: To equip. To come along side a body in motion [trajectory coach] and help learner develop self learning skills. Then STEP AWAY and support..cheer on…but sever as much as possible, the teacher/student relationship.

Is that value added?
Are our schools value added?
Much to think on…and for now I leave.

My brain has been sparked by the post Teaching Ourselves Right Out of a Job over at weblogg-ed. It got me thinking about our role as teachers in today’s classroom, and just how that classroom has changed, is changing, and will change in the future.

I thought about many things, and the thoughts continue.
I thought about teachers as “Trajectory Managers” vs. our normal concept of teacher.
Are we really Trajectory Managers, or Trajectory Facilitators or Coaches? Is our role to “manage” or is our role to “suggest” and “nudge” and “encourage” and “equip”? Manage, to me, implies control and power. Contol and power in the wrong hands?
Posts of note around the topic of learning: Most classroom learning sucks from Kathy Sierra’s blog Creating Passionate Users.

Way more to follow…way more.

The Modern Classroom
Students are “Smarter and faster than we [the school] are.”
Learning is King
Students as Active learners [Active learning defined: North Carolina State University - University of Hawaii

This post is under serious construction…

What should our classrooms be like today? Have they changed? Should they be changing? What role should modern teachers be playing?

The outdated:
Students are empty, static vessels to be filled by a Teacher’s knowledge
Student success is soaking up Teacher’s knowledge
Student is passive = recieves and absorbs
It’s all about quantity of content covered and packed in
What has always been…the institution of education defines what comes next
Teacher in near total control of “learning” — Content, Pace, Direction, Evaluation, Credit
Students as dependent and submissive learners
Teachers and curriculum decide what to learn
Teachers with great power: Over who wins, who succeeds, who moves on and stays behind
Contribution evaluation criteria is set from the outside, students submit to it [Maryellen Weimer, “The Learner-Centered Classroom: Changes in Instructional Practices and Assumptions”]
Content is king - Course books are the Bible that must never be deviated from
Predictable, Repeatable lesson plans as models to follow after

[Links of Note]
http://www.ntlf.com/html/pi/9605/article1.htm

I’ve been learning a great deal about harnessing the power of FLOW, Passion, and Addictive experiences, mainly in the context of the ESL classroom and with my students. But this week I’ve been forced to consider how to apply those same principles in the Professional Development program where I work.

No FLOW, No Passion, No Addiction = No learning
I’m in charge of our company’s PD program, and am often the one tasked with facilitating each session. I was reflecting on our first sessions which were held in August, and was just not happy with how they turned out. They were flat. Directionless. And sometimes just plain boring. I’m not sure I really did a good job…at least that’s how I felt a few days after the event. I’m sure very little was picked up by our participants.

I began asking myself, what could I do differently? Our opening sessions in August were far from addictive learning experiences, far from FLOW, and likely not that effective as a result. How could I begin applying what I was learning for my classrooms, to what I’m doing with our team of twenty teachers?

Some realizations:
1. Working with teachers is a whole different mental ballgame.
I’ve partnered with students of all ages and positions, from children to company presidents, and have rarely felt intimidated by them. Working with my peers, my collegues, has been an entirely different matter for me. I’ve been very intimidated by them. Why? I don’t know yet. I’ll have to continue thinking that one through.

2. I made a deadly asumption: Teachers are already turned on and passionate about teaching and learning how to be better teachers. This little asumption is what shot me in the foot. Because I was already thinking our team of teachers would be pre-stoked and rearing to charge into our training material for August, I neglected to take the time to stoke, and fan, and employ the ideas I’ve been reading so much about lately around addictive classroom experiences. Big mistake. I thought, wrongly of course, that since they were teachers they would already be turned on by professional development….that maybe all the work in that area has already been taken care of?

Big realization: Teachers need to be “turned on” to developing their skills just as much as students need to be “turned on” to developing their language skills. In some cases, teachers could be easier to stimulate, but in the end, as I realized the painful way, you have to take the time to light those fires, engage, create and sustain FLOW.

I’ve been following Kathy Sierra’s blog Creating Passionate Users around now for a good three or four months. The site is….incredible. I love it. Here are a few posts that have particularily begun shaping the way I live and move in the classroom.

1. Kicking Ass is more fun : What are you helping your students LEARN? The better your students become at something, the more their passion for that something grows. Before reading this article, and I’m trying to track down another one where she brilliantly shows how learning is addictive in itself, I never stopped to think that when I take the time to help students really learn something well, I am actually building passion in them to grow for more.

1.2 Upgrade your users, not just your product: What should you be “selling” in the classroom? The next grammar point? Or how you can talk non-stop about your previous work experiences at your next “English only” job interview?

2. What can software learn from kung fu?: This post just made my head spin. How to create “sucked-in” user experiences. There are so many really good points around this post…but I drew a major…new way of working from it. I wanted our teachers to be aware of what exactly our training course was doing, and where it was going. We’re preparing to take the Cambridge Teaching Knowledge Test together. So instead of just handing out a copy of the course book to everyone, I also built a “Learning Map” - borrowing from Sierra’s “levels’ approach. When students or course participants know where they are, and what they have to do to move forward and gain “the next superpower” - in this case certification, passion and motivation shoots up.

I found this to be true. Last Friday we had our first PD session for September. The first thing I did was hand out a copy of the “Learning Map” I had built. Together we went over it, explaining what each “level” required of everyone, and how we could move along to reach certification at each end of module.

It was quite interesting to see how everyone seemed to get interested in the idea of certification. There were lots of head nodding and “Ahhh, now that’s neat, interesting, and cools” going around the room as we talked about it. Interest was happening! *Big difference from August’s first sessions let me tell ya!

I will be posting more to this category, because right now I have to leave. But I am excited about what I have learned from Sierra, and that I also need to apply all this to working with teachers too. Maybe a “Duh” realization for some…but for me, it marked a great change in how I work with our teachers.

Have you ever heard of “Flow?” I bet you have felt it before if you’ve never heard it before. It’s that feeling you get when you’re doing something you absolutely LOVE. You know it’s happening when you stop watching the clock…heck, you forget it’s even there. You get obsorbed into what you’re doing, or what you’re listening to, or watching.

Flow is

“… what the sailor holding a tight course feels when the wind whips through her hair….It is what a painter feels when the colors on the canvas begin to set up a magnetic tension with each other, and a new thing, a living form, takes shape….”

(Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Flow is a condition of being totally engaged, involved in, and made happy by, a thing we’re involved in. That feeling, according to a recent Fast Company article, FLOW has primarily been involved with the entertainment and sports arenas. Thinkers are now trying to find ways to apply this concept in the office, that if workers were actually involved in projects where FLOW happens, they will produce better results, be less time concious, be more involved and passionate about their work etc. Lots of pro’s to creating a FLOW work environment.

But I ask, what about creating FLOW in the classroom? Specifically, creating FLOW in the ESL classroom? Would similar results occur? Would learning be more successful? Would students and teachers actually start enjoying classroom experiences? Would classroom addiction go up?

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