My graduate class and I attempted to distill the essential features of problem solving on our class last week.  We superficially compared our results with Newell and Simon’s (1972) model.  Since they have had time to incubate the ideas, I am wondering what they think of the relationship between the two. (P.S. – is my list what we discussed?)

cryhavok.org

On October 15, 2011, I facilitated a workshop for the Connecticut Science Fair entitled:

Where do good ideas come from?  Techniques for Developing creative potential and idea generation

Below, please find video segments for the workshop.  Here is the accompanying handout

Part 1:  Intro

Part 2A:

Part 2B:

Part 3: Brainstorming

From the Hartford Current:

Courant.com
New State Schools Chief Begins Today, Declaring ‘We Are Tired Of The Lack Of Progress’

Rick Green

4:57 PM EDT, October 6, 2011

The heralded and long-awaited arrival of Stefan Pryor as Connecticut’s new education commissioner — he begins work Friday — is a bitter reminder of how little progress we’ve made solving our most persistent failure.

We talk endlessly about our economic future, and yet tens of thousands of children in urban schools are still falling behind, not learning and dropping out. There are few, if any, larger obstacles holding Connecticut back.

What, I wanted to know when I met with the commissioner-to-be this week, could Pryor possibly do that governors, previous commissioners and hundreds of educators haven’t already done to tackle what is the nation’s greatest achievement gap?

“I think there is a recognition that this is a special moment,” Pryor responded, explaining that it his good fortune to be working for an impatient governor who has promised an education agenda during his second year in office.

“The sense I get from everybody — the education associations, the union leaders, the advocacy group leaders, the legislators, the state board members — is that we are tired of the lack of progress. We are ready for a shift forward.”

Though Pryor was cautious and guarded during our chat, it was still clear that education policy under the 39-year-old Yale graduate may shift seismically in coming months. This is a man, after all, who made an early name for himself as the founder of one of Connecticut’s most successful charter schools, the Amistad Academy in New Haven. More recently, Pryor was a top aide to Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Above all, Pryor was brought here to create change. Some important highlights emerged from our conversation:

•A streamlined state Department of Education, one that focuses more on the fundamental problems of struggling schools, will emerge. Shifting from a regulation-and-compliance bureaucracy focused on paperwork to a more nimble agency that exists to improve learning will be a top priority.

•School districts that succeed can expect new freedom. Schools, experimental or traditional, that show results will be held up as models — and replicated.

•Teachers who achieve will be rewarded. Whether students actually learn must become part of how educators are evaluated. In particular, getting the best teachers into the lowest-performing schools will become a top priority.

•Student achievement, measured by indicators like standardized tests, will continue to be a critical metric for evaluating schools.

“At the moment, when there are national dialogues about which states are moving in the right direction, you don’t hear Connecticut’s name,” Pryor said. “The unit that parents think about … is the school. We as a department need to think about the schools of our state and how to improve them.”

Two things Pryor spoke repeatedly about — giving more freedom to school districts that achieve, and promoting successful individual schools as examples for the state — are particularly noteworthy. Significantly, we have no shortage of high-achieving schools and districts in Connecticut.

It would be revolutionary if Connecticut’s state Department of Education became known for helping good ideas grow and for getting out of the way of districts that are already succeeding.

“What can the state department do for higher performing districts? Get out of the way,” Pryor said. The big idea, he told me, Is to “spend more time with this districts that need the help.”

Pryor warned me — repeatedly — that he was not arriving as an acolyte of the charter school movement, which is often pitted against traditional education and unions. Charters play a very small role in the education of children in Connecticut. Like other model schools, they can be an example, he said.

“Effective schools will play a large role in this new era,” Pryor said, whatever the design or governance structure. “My goal will be … to promote those schools, to expand those schools, to replicate those schools that show effectiveness.”

Teacher evaluation, a favorite topic of seat-of-the-pants school reformers, must improve, but by working with all sides, particularly the unions, Pryor said. Significantly, this must include a career path that rewards and promotes effective teachers.

“It is essential that student performance be an element of evaluation and companion in our system,” he said. “That is something that we are going to engage as a very healthy, very full conversation with all of the stakeholders.

“We need to ensure that the teaching profession provides for ways for outstanding faculty members to advance in their careers. And advancement includes increased compensation over time.”

Pryor, who has a reputation as a workhorse, said he plans to begin his job with a listening tour of schools, classrooms and towns around the state.

“I think it’s possible to map out an approach that people agree upon. Will there be conflict? You can count on it. The place to start from is what do we agree on what do we want to accomplish,” he said. “People are hungry for that.”

The more I examine and think about “CHANGE,” the more I realize it happens in the evolution of dated individual teaching and learning philosophies of education to constructivist thinking.

I am writing this post because, I think it is important to be self deprecating sometimes.

I don’t yet know all of my students names in my graduate class and I haven’t set up a good system to learn them.  I, of course, have my list but I don’t have all of the names-to-faces.  It’s my own fault, of course, and I know my students are going to read this, so they too can see my ill-guided fate.

However, interestingly, I don’t think they all know each other’s names either.  (Some may have it, but I’m not sure . . .) I’ve watched their interactions and have seen quite a number of personal pronouns used instead of proper nouns when I would think the opposite would happen, based on the context of the discussion.

This graduate program is a cohort model, meaning these students will be grouped for the next 5 years.  Of course, they will come to know each other well – but now is the time to form those important bonds to create a culture of collaboration and partnership.

Anyone have any good team-building activities that we can try next class?  Help a poor unfortunate soul out.

I distributed an article to my graduate leadership class that I am teaching.  It was a fairly challenging article to read in general – a meta analysis.  However, to the neophyte researcher, it was probably extremely challenging.  Being a research article, it had the typical parts:

• abstract
• introduction
• methods
• results
• discussion/conclusion
• references

My experience tells me that you don’t necessarily read a research report from start to finish, but rather use the subheadings to guide your search for information.  However, not everyone knows that, and there certainly is an art to the process based on expertise.  However, teaching that class, something else stood out – some students clearly didn’t understand some of the concepts and were (afraid?) (shy?) (lacking confidence?) (thinking they should, when really they shouldn’t?) to ask questions, or to verify their lack of understanding to me.

It gets me thinking . . . you really have to be confident to be willing to stand up and say you don’t know something.  That’s a real challenge.  As an educator, it’s my responsibility to create a culture that promotes confident questioning.   After all, I am working with educators and that’s where their expertise lies, not necessarily in educational research.  But as this cadre builds their knowledge – becoming a good consumer of educational research is critical, because after all – that’s what leads to being a producer of educational research.

I am proud to announce a new publication that was just released in The Science Teacher entitled “The 21st century oral presentation toolbag.”  Link is here.  You can see the article if you are a member of NSTA.  Others can send me a message, and I will be happy to email a copy.

When we speak of instructional strategies, we often use the term pedagogy.  However adult learning is different and termed andragony.  I’ve been thinking about adragogical strategies and how to effectively apply them in my teaching of experienced teachers.  Below are some thoughts on the topic:

ped·a·go·gy/ˈpedəˌgäjē/

Noun: The method and practice of teaching, esp. as an academic subject or theoretical concept.

and

an· dra·go·gy/ änəˌgäjē /

Noun: the practice of teaching adults with emphasis on participation of students in the planning and evaluation

Adults have different expectations in learning than children do.  It is important to take into consideration the needs of the adult learner when engaging in professional development.  Androgogy is the term used to describe the methodology used in teaching adults.

Androgogy, the teaching of adults, contains the following important components and tenets.  Adult learning is voluntary and learner-oriented.  Education brings freedom to the learners as they assimilate learning with life experiences.  Androgogy encourages divergent thinking and active learning.  Often the roles of the learner and the teacher are blurred in the process.  Often there is an uncertainty about the outcome of learning, regardless of the curriculum content.

Research demonstrates that there is a difference in learning between novice professionals and expert professionals.  A professional developer should be aware of his audience’s expertise level and adjust instruction appropriately.  Three main aspects of performance change in novice to expert learners:

• i.) the novice professional’s work paradigm focuses on abstract principles while the expert uses concrete past experiences;
• ii.) the novice often views situations discretely where the expert sees situations as part of a whole;
• iii.) the novice is often a detached observer where the expert is an involved performer (Daley, 1999).

A striking difference when considering novices and experts is that novices are often hindered by specifics of the job, where experts are often hindered by the system.  Novices prefer, and best learn formally, where experts learn best informally, often in conjunction with their peers.  Novice professionals prefer learning strategies like memory and therefore accumulate information, while the expert professional uses dialogue to create a knowledge base (Daley, 1999).

I think, most important to consider, are some practical aspects of facilitating adult learning.  According to Knowles, there are six assumptions related to motivation of adults:

1. Adults need to know the reason for learning something (Need to Know)
2. Experience (including error) provides the basis for learning activities (Foundation).
3. Adults need to be responsible for their decisions on education; involvement in the planning and evaluation of their instruction (Self-concept).
4. Adults are most interested in learning subjects having immediate relevance to their work and/or personal lives (Readiness).
5. Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented (Orientation).
6. Adults respond better to internal versus external motivators (Motivation).

Daley, B.J. (1999). Novice to expert: an exploration of how professionals learn.  Adult Education Quarterly, 49, 4, 133-147.

Knowles, M. S. (1980). The modern practice of adult education: From. (Revised Edition). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall/Cambridge

I began teaching  a graduate class in Instructional Leadership last week. I focused on the concept of teacher practice around the 21st century skill of collaboration. I structured an activity to allow educators to explore their views of collaboration: how does it manifest in the classroom, what are barriers and successes, and so on using the following prompts:

• What is collaboration?  What is the role of collaboration in instruction?
• How does collaboration promote and/or deter learning?
• How does collaboration look at different age levels?
• Provide an example/anecdote of collaboration in your own instruction.

Since this is the first class that the group of experienced teacher-practitioner doctoral students are taking, I wanted to take advantage of the expertise of the group by meaningful sharing.  The discussion was interesting – full of back and forths, and, as a teacher, what struck me most was how the questions lead to a perspective that I had not considered.  When writing the questions, I thought about collaboration from the student-student perspective.  Although that was a meaningful part of the conversation, I was struck by the “collaboration from teacher-teacher” perspective.  I am pleased, that as an instructor, I developed “ill-defined” (ala Jonassen, 1997) questions that lead to very meaningful discussions.

Once we had developed enough capacity around these ideas, I switched gears and related the concept of collaboration in instruction to Vygotsky‘s social learning theory.  I think we had a few “ah-ha” moments during that discussion:  good instruction is based on sound learning theory.

That’s not to say that you can’t have good instructional practice without explicitly knowing theory.  I think the message is that when you are more AWARE of the connection between research and practice, you can more purposefully think about the decisions you make as a practitioner to improve student achievement and engagement.

I have been pondering what it all means. I received 79 posts and comments related to my recent birthday via Facebook – many from people I haven’t seen in 15-20 years. Of the 79, I spoke to 8 of these people personally that day by phone or in person. (I also spoke to many others who did not post on my Facebook page (and I am certainly friends with some of them (e.g., my mother).) The power of social networking links people together – but does it increase relationships or does it give us an insight into someone else’s life? Does it connect us in a more profound way or does it allow us to disconnect easier? Am I responsible for watching my news feed to know what others are up to?

There are a bit of philosophical questions here, but nonetheless, I am appreciative of the time that these people took to give a quick shootout. I’ll send a general thank you post. What does that mean?

Today I conducted a project-based learning workshop for the Science Department at East Haven High School. It’s always a bit never-wracking to present on a new topic – although I have been under the influence of project-based learning almost my entire career.

It’s amazing to see what works successfully and how you question it. For example, when talking about problem solving, I always bring up alternatives to hypthesis-based strategies. For example:

Abstraction: solving the problem in a model of the system before applying it to the real system
Analogy: using a solution that solved an analogous problem
Brainstorming: (especially among groups of people) suggesting a large number of solutions or ideas and combining and developing them until an optimum is found
Divide and conquer: breaking down a large, complex problem into smaller, solvable problems
Hypothesis testing: assuming a possible explanation to the problem and trying to prove (or, in some contexts, disprove) the assumption
Lateral thinking: approaching solutions indirectly and creatively
Means-ends analysis: choosing an action at each step to move closer to the goal
Method of focal objects: synthesizing seemingly non-matching characteristics of different objects into something new
Morphological analysis: assessing the output and interactions of an entire system
Reduction: transforming the problem into another problem for which solutions exist
Research: employing existing ideas or adapting existing solutions to similar problems
Root cause analysis: eliminating the cause of the problem
Trial-and-error: testing possible solutions until the right one is found
Proof: try to prove that the problem cannot be solved. The point where the proof fails will be the starting point for solving it

I think it is important to give a tangible example as well. I am particularly fond of goal-oriented problem solving, which often takes the form of trial-and-error. Today I showed the square peg-round hole problem from the movie Apollo 13, and to follow up we made our own creation by just following oral instructions: an origami box. I am always curious/cautious to see what happens when I try a new activity. To my relief and surprise, I was informed that this was an activity some of the teachers were going to try on the first day of school. Glad it had an impact!

I think one of the things that made it a success, was that I was explicit about the reason for doing it: to promote spacial literacy – relationships of shapes – ability follow oral directions – and tactile development. I have found that many teachers fall short on the explicitly of learning. Students are often puzzled as to the reason for their learning – evident by “what do we need to know that for?” I have found that when students have a clear understanding of what they are learning and justified reasoning, they often engage better and are more accepting and willing.

Perhaps we all should do some origami today.