Tag Archive for ‘Teaching’ at Students 2.0

Tag Archive for 'Teaching'

21st Century Education: Thinking Creatively

Published by Anthony Chivetta on January 22, 2008 in Teaching. 69 Comments

This was originally written for publication for my school’s newsletter’s edition on “21^st century learning”. I present it to you here not as an attempt to present any new ideas, but in the hope that it might help to pull together many of the ideas that are floating around in online education discussions. Those familiar with Dan Pink might see some of his influence here. Enjoy.

Twenty-first century education won’t be defined by any new technology. It won’t be defined by 1:1 laptop programs or tech-intensive projects. Twenty-first century education will, however, be defined by a fundamental shift in what we are teaching—a shift towards learner-centered education and creating creative thinkers. Today’s world is no longer content with students who can simply apply the knowledge they learned in school: our generation will be asked to think and operate in ways that traditional education has not, and can not, prepare us for.

Education has long tried to produce students who can think (and at times, think critically) and it has, for the most part, succeeded. As we move into a world where outsourcing, automation, and the ability to produce a product, physical or intellectual, at the cheapest cost, become the cornerstones of our rapidly evolving global economy, the ability to think critically is no longer enough. The need to know the capital of Florida died when my phone learned the answer. Rather, the students of tomorrow need to be able to think creatively: they will need to learn on their own, adapt to new challenges and innovate on-the-fly. As the realm of intellectual accessibility expands at amazing rates (due to greater global collaboration and access to information), students of tomorrow will need to be their own guides as they explore the body of information that is at their fingertips. My generation will be required to learn information quickly, use that information to solve new and novel problems, and then present those solutions in creative and effective ways. The effective students of tomorrow’s world will be independent learners, strong problem solvers and effective designers.

If we accept the above to be true, I would argue that there are two types of education that will prepare students for the world of tomorrow: experiential learning and project-based learning.

Experiential learning can be best seen in extracurriculars and in some schools, senior projects. These experiences give students the opportunity to face first-hand the challenges that arise when applying the theoretical knowledge provided by traditional classroom learning to real-world challenges. Light designing for MICDS Theatre has taught me how to take my technical knowledge of lighting and apply it to a creative and artistic end. As issues arise, I must problem-solve within the constraints provided by my technical knowledge and my creative vision—I must think creatively.

Project-based learning is the in-class complement of experiential learning. The concept behind project-based learning is simple: give students the basic tools, then ask them to go above and beyond on their own projects, exploring the information in their own way, and on their own terms. The effect can be awe-inspiring. Our students are diving deeper into subject matter than ever before, and doing so on their own terms in ways that they enjoy. Whether it is through producing a movie on burlesque dance or deriving Kepler’s laws using calculus, students are not only learning, but they are learning how to learn.

Traditional-rote learning has its place too, as a jumping-off point for our intellectual endeavors. We are, however, crippling our students if we don’t give them the tools necessary to be life-long learners.

Update: A recent post on the Generation YES Blog talks about a Lemelson-MIT study showing that students are interested in having the tools to (in my language) think creatively.

Teaching the Process of Design (or, making student videos interesting)

Published by Anthony Chivetta on January 7, 2008 in Teaching. 42 Comments

As I watch students (myself included, as always) work on video projects for their foreign language, English, or other classes, I see a striking similarity between those videos and my family’s home movies. Just like home movies, most of these student videos are lacking a thesis and a design to support them. As technology allows us to integrate creative projects further into our curriculum, we need to give students the tools to funnel their creative efforts into an effective and cohesive whole.

The need to teach students how to design is not a new idea. Dan Meyer has been posting wonderful lessons from his class on Information Design. Scott S. Floyd in his year-end photo post writes:

While we focus on design being important in educating our youth (or their learning), I have begun to pay particular attention in how things look around me. I think that giving our students the opportunity to understand and appreciate the elements of design will allow them to create better finished products to display their learning.

There are many ways that one can approach design. Practitioners of the visual arts might look at it in terms of the principles of design. My background, however, is in theatre and video production. I will also add that my teacher/mentor Mr. Patrick Huber gets full credit for instilling this process in me.

If you asked a director of a theatrical or video production for the thesis of their production, you would surely get a cogent statement of purpose. It might be as simple as “My production is ‘historically accurate’” or a more grandiose theory about the world we inhabit: “by allowing ones’ ambition, not rationality, to take control of the choices we make, we lead ourselves into our failure” (That Scottish Play) or “our perception of our environment is a function of the people in it and our relationships with them” (The Zoo Story). Once a thesis is decided on, a concept for the production is formed that expresses the thesis and every design decision made during the production serves the thesis. This gives directors (or designers, or actors) a basic structure on which to base their production. Used correctly, a thesis can be the most powerful tool in a designer’s arsenal.

I would argue that the reason watching student videos can at times be excruciatingly painful is that they lack a cohesive design. Often, they represent a hodgepodge of ideas strewn together with very little thought to creating a unified whole. However, when students begin with picking a thesis, and then work from that thesis, a pattern, a design, begins to emerge. When the question for every single decision is “what supports my thesis?” those awkward transitions, strange cuts, and random effects begin to make sense.

Let us take, as an example, foreign language video projects. In my school, it is not uncommon for a foreign language student to be producing a short three- or five-minute video to demonstrate their mastery of the curriculum. Normally, the first “production meeting” starts with the question: “What can our video be about that makes it easy for us to use the required tenses and vocabulary?” And so, a script is written and design decisions are made with one goal in mind: satisfying the requirements. The problem is two-fold: While the video satisfies the requirements, it does so only minimally, and while the students are using the class’s language, they may not be fully expressing an idea with the language.

Rather than simply asking our students to combine video technology with their foreign language, we need to be asking them to use both their foreign language and video technology to express an idea. Asking students to reach beyond the requirements is where the real gold lies: it is when we really start to see how well students can use the tools given to them.

This isn’t, of course, limited to foreign language videos. I would classify student video productions into two categories: (1) videos demonstrating mastery of material (such as the above foreign language example), and (2) videos demonstrating the material (such as a video one might produce for a history class explaining some historical event). In this second case, the purpose of a thesis is simple: to make the video interesting. If students are trying to convey information in a video, they need to hold their audience’s attention. Structuring their video and design decisions around a thesis is a powerful tool for creating a cohesive and powerful piece.

I leave you with a series of questions: How and when do you teach students design skills at your school? What types of design skills do you teach them? Do they have the design skills to effectively utilize the creative mediums you provide them? What attributes have you found make student designs particularly effective?

Edit: Changed the title, and corrected some small errors. ~AJC (2008-01-07)

The difference between “teaching” and “preaching”

Published by Nicole Kim on December 10, 2007 in Teaching. 42 Comments

To me, teaching should be “self-directing” a student. In other words, a teacher is there, but doesn’t interfere with everything; students are allowed to do what they want to do (in our case, we are allowed to put poetry and anything else we’re interested in on our blogs - that’s what allowed me to write my posts on education). Teachers should be there to make sure the students are on the right track and to help them out if there are any problems - like when students meet failure or other obstacles on their journey.

Preaching is what most teachers do today. We sit in classrooms for a certain amount of time listening to the “Teacher’s Bible of Study,” devouring information. Projects are limited to be viewed only by the class, and occasionally meet the hallway display.

I guess that we all agree on the fact that we would never have read Shakespeare if it weren’t for AP Literature. However, I think it’s only our generation who wouldn’t read Shakespeare without a teacher threatening us with a grade book. We can’t learn for ourselves and choose appropriate studies because we always had the teacher by our side to tell us what to do. We’re toddlers that are still refusing to take that third wheel off our bicycles.

If we were left to do what we wanted to do, “learners” who are mature enough will self-guide themselves to read the greatest plays ever written. If we are left alone with responsibilities, young adults will start taking them seriously.

All we need is that first step. Schools are afraid to do something new. The school system is afraid to fail.

It is similar to when you leave home for the first time. You are pushed out of your comfort zone, and you’re the one that has to take responsibility for yourself: you need to pay the bills, you need to do your laundry. At first you stumble, and fail to pay some bills and the house may stink of undone laundry, but after a while, you pick yourself up and start taking responsibility. Maybe it’s not too early to give some of the responsibility to young adults to guide themselves to what they want to learn. We’re not animals; we won’t break out of the “bars” of school like wild beasts freed from a zoo.

Just give us a chance.

Photo by _e.t on Flickr

Student Servants

Published by Lindsea on December 10, 2007 in Leading, and Learning. 21 Comments

There aren’t any classes in philanthropy.

You can see examples, but it’s not something that you can learn out of a textbook, or teach in the traditional way. For me, philanthropy was an area in my life that lacked development.

When I was 14, just entering high school, I felt that my impact on the world was a small one. Going from class to class, I focused on achieving high grades, and trying to get into my dream college. For recreation during school, I sauntered over to the library to read the new issue of the Atlantic Monthly, or Rolling Stone.

At home it was similar—homework, recreational reading, then surfing, hanging out with friends, etc. But it would be marked by periods of extreme melancholy when I took time to truly penetrate the bubble that I lived in and see all the dark spots in my otherwise perfect world. What was wrong? Feelings of powerlessness flooded my mind. What was I doing? How could I live in a world so centered on my sole existence? It was too easy to get caught up in this day-to-day routine. Why wasn’t anybody doing anything? I asked. Why wasn’t I doing anything?

My own personal experience with service started with that compelling urge to make a positive impact on the world around me. I was also very lucky, because my teachers were the ones who inspired me. My first service experience began with an oceanography class taught by Ricky Grigg (a world-class oceanography professor, and a legendary surfer). After seeing his enthusiasm for our ocean, I decided that I wanted to make sure this precious natural resource stayed healthy. I cleaned my beaches, got involved with a couple Sierra Club projects, and planted some pollution-reducing plants in one of our extremely polluted canals.

Unsure of where the next step would be, I enrolled in an AP Environmental Science class taught by the late Jeremiah Johnson, hoping to learn more about the earth, and potential ways to improve it. I was incredibly lucky to have a teacher who was so passionate about our ability to change convention, and although he is no longer with us, the lessons that he taught me have changed my life. Learning the dynamics of global warming, the negative effects of the mono-cropping and inorganic farming culture, and all of the other hot topics surrounding our environment from a man who actually practiced what he preached was an experience that I would never forget.

With a passion, I seized the day. I found outlets for my feelings of “smallness,” and you could say I’ve been growing ever since. Actively looking for community service projects that I felt I could contribute to, I found a little niche that I could call my own and officially contributed my life as student servant (161 hours of active service projects). Every day I attempt to make small, but important, informed choices, such as taking the bus to school, or eating local organic food.

Most recently I volunteered for a Hawaii organization called Girl Fest, run by Kathy Xian, a womens study professor at the University of Hawaii. Girl Fest’s aim is to prevent violence against women and children through art, film, spoken word, and music. Because I volunteered at this event, learned artists, musicians, filmmakers, and poets taught me about their crafts in ways that a conventional classroom cannot. Inspired by this event, I decided to start planning my own festival, where I hope to incorporate student talent to raise money for Kathy’s organization, Safe-Zone (something that focuses on sex trafficking, as well as domestic violence and rape).

What I have created for myself, this freedom from the four very beautiful but also restrictive walls of my school, has expanded my knowledge exponentially. Before, math was math, writing was writing, geography was geography, art was art, and science was science; now, they are not my focus, but my telescope.

I had to look outside of school to get this satisfaction. Why is that? “Schools, we might say, are mirrors of social beliefs, giving back what citizens put in front of them,” says professor, and Chair of the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University, Neil Postman. If that’s true, then there is no growth, no change. But more importantly, students are deprived of the freedom to explore the world, and form opinions on their own. It takes teachers who are willing to inspire, and encourage education outside of the classrooms to help students find their own service passion. Acceptance of individual thought and ideas is key, and so is the willingness to let go of the rigid rules of conventional teaching.

Students have the potential to institute great change in the world. It’s true that we are the future. Much like we’re speaking up for the silent majority through Students 2.0, we can and should take responsibility for the problems that they see in the world, and go out and make a difference.

A special thanks to Mr. Watson for getting me involved with Students 2.0.

Students 2.0