Constructivist Teaching With Technology: Learning With Laptops

Karl Fisch, Brian Hatak, Brad Meyer, Anne Smith, Barbara Stahlhut

Arapahoe High School

Centennial, Colorado

Arapahoe High School has implemented a three-year staff development program focusing on constructivism and the use of technology to create a more student-centered approach to teaching and learning. For the past two years, teachers have met approximately once every three weeks to explore learning theory (constructivism), teaching practices (pedagogy), and the use of technology to facilitate learning (21st century learning skills). We have placed a computer and LCD projector in every classroom and have implemented three wireless laptop classrooms. This presentation will share what we have learned from our staff development efforts and focus on what we believe teachers need the most (hint: time). We will also include specific examples of how instruction in classrooms has changed (and in some cases, transformed).

Introductions

Karl Fisch has been a teacher for eighteen years. He has taught middle and high school math and is currently Director of Technology at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado. He is the project leader of Arapahoe's Curriculum Innovation Team, leading the staff development efforts for 21 ^st Century Learners, a group of teachers exploring constructivism and 21st century learning skills. He invites you to join the conversation at The Fischbowl.

Brian Hatak has been a teacher for 8 years and currently teaches chemistry and astronomy. He is a member of the Curriculum Innovation Team and a participant in the first cohort 21st Century Learners.

Brad Meyer has been a teacher for 11 years, currently teaches U.S. History , Law and Government, and is Social Studies Department Chairman. He is a member of the Curriculum Innovation Team and a participant in the first cohort of 21st Century Learners.

Anne Smith has been a teacher for eight years and currently teaches Freshmen English and English World Literature. She is a member of the Curriculum Innovation Team and a participant in the first cohort of 21st Century Learners. She invites you to join the conversation at Learning and Laptops.

Barbara Stahlhut has been a teacher for 31 years. She has been at Arapahoe High School for the past 20 years where she currently teaches Algebra and Calculus. She also teaches Geometry at Eagle Academy, an alternative night high school in Douglas County School District. She is a member of the Curriculum Innovation Team, a participant in the first cohort of 21^st Century Learners, and chairperson of the Single Gender Professional Learning Community.

Please feel free to ask questions during and after presentation (we are used to being interrupted), and continue to ask questions after the presentation via blogger, email, skype.

Purpose and Overview

1. Why we felt the need for change: About This Blog

2. Setup of Staff Development - how are we doing this:  The Beginning

3. Implementation of Staff Development - what does a typical session look like

4. Technology not the focus, but a tool to facilitate a more student-centered approach to instruction (examples)

5. Structured Conversation at the end (we're going to move fast)

Did You Know?

See Did You Know? for original context. (Ramifications of how this has spread for our students).
 

What Did You Think?

Discuss with a partner, then with whole group.

Staff Development - Setup, Implementation, Successes and Challenges
 

• Curriculum Innovation Team (CIT) - planning team, cross disciplinary
  • Faculty meeting-introduce idea
  • Email to entire staff
  • Pseudo application process
  • Cohort 1 (C1) first year, then Cohort 2 (C2) second year
  • Grass roots - provide teachers purpose, time, opportunity, and hopefully resources - then trust them
     
• Meetings:
  • About every three weeks, three hours
  • Year-long plan, but constantly adjusting after each session
  • Theory piece, pedagogy/classroom piece, tech piece
  • Release time: don't miss same classes, time of day varies, am and pm meetings
  • Utilize special days: in-service days, finals
    • ideally new calendar proposal would add built in time
  • Teachers need time to be reflective and collaborative
     
• Growing Pains
  • Too big too fast?
  • We still think we did well but would do some things differently
    • CIT team too busy implementing to help teach
    • development of CIT team for C2
  • Mentor/mentee relationship between C1 and C2
     

Implementation of Staff Development - what does a typical day look like
 

• Class time:
  • Part theory, part pedagogy/classroom practice, part technology
  • Use actual examples or time to brainstorm in collaborative groupings- how would we use this in our classrooms?
  • Across the curriculum participants, different experience levels, teaching methods vary
  • Books That Influence
  • Speakers from a variety of sources: using people in our school, in our district, outside of our district
  • Teacher teaching teachers- no top down approach- grass roots efforts, multiple leaders 
     
• Participants participating: teachers teaching each other
  • All need to step-up and teach one another, be leaders. Best sessions are ones with least amount of direction from planning team
  • Class syllabus: C1 Year 2, C2 Year 1
  • Year long outlook, but constantly adjusting after each session, feedback is critical
     

Successes and Challenges
 

• Grass roots, bottom up
• Sometimes baby steps, sometimes leaps and bounds
• Teachers are worried about changing - read What If? for context, then watch:
   

• They don't like it when they don't know what the end result will look like. Read 2020 Vision for context, then watch:
  
  

   

Creating a Professional Learning Environment
 

• Tables, rolling chairs, discussion set-up, see all participants: need to invest in infrastructure
  
                                          
                                         
                                          
   

• Posters in classroom: Free. Every Monday through Friday. Knowledge. Bring Your Own Containers…, You better do your homework. Students in flat world are starving for your jobs, This is Not Education as Usual  and This is not Education as Usual Part 2
   
• Students setting up expectations for classroom, Blogger (also AHS Blogging Guidelines ), skype, etc…
   

Classroom Examples
 

• Blogging for reflective, collaborative, critical thinking, and professional purposes creating a school-wide learning community

• Fischbowl
   
• Engagement
  • Brad's AP blog
  • Skype 9 Honors
     
• Collaboration within classroom and outside classroom increased
  • Blogging Macbeth past school hours
     
• Student reflection on their work in a laptop classroom and the changes that have occurred for them both as a learner (consumer) and as a teacher (producer). Per 2, Per 5
  • See growth in their writing,
  • Connections to other texts, self, world 
  • Participation by giving a voice through blogging 
  • End of semester assessment: how does it look differently 
  • Voice in classroom: students has a say in their learning 
  • Constant reflection on what they are doing, did it work for them?  how did they feel about it? changes for next time?  Reflection by teacher, student, and class.
     
• Personal blogs
  • Kakos
  • Sale
  • Lillie
  • Hess
  • Holman
  • Kitch
  • Davis
     
• Learning and Laptops: discussion on laptops - part 1 and part 2  
   
• Class blogs: required or not
  • Kakos- Ben Franklin example
  • Crosby "I like this first one because it started as a result of a question asked by a student in class.  The students really did a nice job of bouncing ideas off of each other."
  • Crosby - "This next one is interesting because it was the first blog topic and it started as a response to a political cartoon."
  • Crosby - "This blog topic was also generated in class, although I did not mention that on the original post.  Posing dilemmas to students produces some interesting results."
  • Sale - Vocab word blog
  • Sale - Thesis statements
  • Sale - Reading Habits
  • Smith - Scribe for the Day
  • Syers - Blogging in Biology
    
• Live blogging - Fishbowl method, also this post
  
  
• Skype- fishbowl method
   
• Blogging - In Their Own Words
   

• Podcasting, where students create content for themselves, the community and the world, students see themselves as producers

• This I Believe - Per 2, Per 3, Per 5
• SAT Vocab
• Poetry Podcasts (Anne Per 2 and Per 5, Maura Per 1, Maura Per 6)
• Spanish Podcasts (St. Valentines Day, AP)
   

• Wikis as a review tool, to foster collaborative research among students, to create study guides by and for the students, and to create class-specific textbooks, students see themselves as producers

  • Study guide: Inherit the Wind, Life of Pi, World Civilizations Study Guide
  • McBride- French Revolution
  • Anne - EWL wiki
  • 1001 Flat World Tales (Fischbowl post about 1001 Flat World Tales Project)
  • Pay It Forward
  • Social Studies Curriculum Revision
  • Flat Classroom Project - Vicki Davis
    
    

• Online texts to allow students to interact with the text, document their learning, enhance classroom learning, and collaborate with peers, connects to literature

  • Macbeth, online text (lots to choose from), 451
  • Biology
  • Looking at big picture: students connect text to text, self, and world - Macbeth/Lord of the Flies/Our World Today
    
    

• Online peer editing, where students examine each others work and reflect upon their own

  • Word for papers: freshmen and seniors (college essay), another example  
  • Google docs for teachers to collaborate
     

• Digital storytelling

  • What does it take to challenge the system? –asking the big question
  • What matters? (as a reflection on an entire semester’s learning based on an inquiry approach)
  • What does literature say about us as human beings?
  • Canterbury Tales Campaign Ads
  • Tour of the Solar System
  • Mockumentary - looking ahead Fahrenheit 451
  • Romantic poetry- Romancing Your Computer - and Crellin
  • U.S. History - Cold War
     

Structured Conversation

What questions do you have about:

• Staff Development
• Professional Learning Environment
• Impact on Classroom
• Examples We Shared
   

Continue the Conversation - within your school, your district, with us, with others around the world

Purpose is to create a conversation. Belief that we can change the world. We are taking the steps to make changes, sometimes they feel like baby steps, but we are taking steps forward.  Teachers at times are worried about changing. They don't like it when they don't know what the end result will look like. However, they need to put themselves out there as well as as administrators. We all need to try. That is what we ask kids to do everyday is to try something new and different, try to improve. Why can't we ask that of our colleagues and ourselves? At times it also comes down to a struggle between content/curriculum versus knowledge and understanding. We're not saying that content knowledge isn't valuable, it is. Having content knowledge is necessary, but not sufficient, to be successful in the 21st century. The power of the technology is to transform teaching and learning as we know it. To make it more student-centered, more individualized (yet also more community-based), more relevant, more meaningful. It allows each student to connect to each other, to the world, to knowledge, to learning, in the way(s) that works best for that student. We think the skills and abilities and habits of mind that ubiquitous access to technology would help us develop in our students are ones that are really hard to measure. How do you measure creativity? Or the ability to collaborate with others, both in the same room or across the planet (or beyond)? Or the ability to take in information from an almost inexhaustible supply, synthesize it, remix it, and then produce something that is of value to others? How do you measure imagination? How do you measure the ability to function in a flat, globally interconnected, technology-enabled, rapidly changing world? How do we measure the ability to learn how to learn? To know how to adapt, to reinvent yourself over and over again to meet the needs of a world that is changing at an exponential pace? How do you measure the ability to function in a world where all of human factual knowledge will be available practically instantaneously?

Assess where you are at as leaders in your school:

1. Do you know what blogging is? Do you blog personally or professionally?

2. What do you know about social bookmarking? Podcasting? Wikis? RSS Feeds? Do you use an RSS Aggregator?

3. What kind of technology training and staff development does your district provide? Is it useful?

4. What kind of "personal professional development" are you participating in using the resources on the web? Who's in your learning network?

5. What is your understanding of constructivist philosophy? Have you heard of connectivism?

6. Are you discussing what a "flat world" means for your students, your teaching, your school? Are you discussing the implications of Did You Know? and what it means for your students, your teaching, your school?

7. Are you preparing your students for the world as it's going to be like when they are your age, or the world as it was like when you were their age?
   
   

• Participants should have a willingness to learn and a belief that staff development is a critical and absolutely necessary piece to transform our classrooms and prepare our students to be successful in the 21^st century.

• Importance of district leadership - as well as school - being interested in what the students are doing and thinking, respecting the students' opinions, ideas, viewpoints, possibilities.

http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com – Our staff development blog. Please join the conversation.

http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/fisch/fischbowlpresentations.htm - Fischbowl Presentations (What If?, Did You Know?, 2020 Vision, Student/Teacher Thoughts, 180 Days)

http://learningandlaptops.blogspot.com – Our blog exploring/documenting the use of laptop computers. Please join the conversation.

Blog for this session - http://fischnecc07.blogspot.com - to provide feedback via comments if you like.

Contact Info (ppt)