Part of corporate resistance to experimenting with hands-on activities comes from the difficulty of measuring the value of paying employees to, say, build a go-cart or a radio set while in the office. Yet educators say the benefits, even if intangible, are clear. “All your intelligence isn’t in your brain,” Mr. Burnett says. “You learn through your hands.”

At Stanford, the rediscovery of human hands arose partly from the frustration of engineering, architecture and design professors who realized that their best students had never taken apart a bicycle or built a model airplane. For much the same reason, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers a class, “How to Make (Almost) Anything,” which emphasizes learning to use physical tools effectively.

“Students are desperate for hands-on experience,” says Neil Gershenfeld, who teaches the course.

–G. Pascal Zachary, in “Digital Designers Rediscover Their Hands“  NY Times August 17, 2008

At the end of my 7th grade course last year, students asked if they would be building things next year. I sensed that they were yearing for the physical pleasure of working with their hands, and I am too. This year we will get back to Design Tech, for sure. I feel better already.

Image Credit: by andrew_j_w/,
Original at: http://flickr.com/photos/andrew_j_w/2642202581/sizes/s/

“Still, a lot of good work—verifiable, informative, brain-leapingly strange—is being cast out of this paperless, infinitely expandable accordion folder by people who have a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion of what sort of curiosity an on-line encyclopedia will be able to satisfy in the years to come”

I’m surprised that Baker did not develop the argument further. I want to know if the trend towards exclusionary practices and the speed with which articles are labeled “nonnotable” and earmarked for removal are really the result of schoolish provincialism as he proposes, or if it is something else. Certainly there is a tension between the preponderance of data being added to Wikipedia and the ability of editors to reasonably keep up with their self-described job of shepherding that data and shaping it into reliable information. Is the urge to purge coming out of the fact that the current active editors have little understanding of and/or patience for developing expertise in vastly divergent areas of knowledge that is needed to keep Wikipedia reliable? Baker reports:

In the fall of 2006, groups of editors went around getting rid of articles on webcomic artists—some of the most original and articulate people on the Net. They would tag an article as nonnotable and then crowd in to vote it down. One openly called it the “web-comic articles purge of 2006.

Where, if not in Wikipedia, will such valuable information be aggregated? I’m thinking of attending the NY Wikipedia Meet-Up on March 6th 16th in NYC. See link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC. Any other NYC folks interested in attending?

Image Credit: By robotscience http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotconscience/
Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

Tags: NYCWP, reading, education, writing, k12, iEARN

Image Credits: by Scoobyfoo
(http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=232051253&size=l)
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

• My 11th grade bloggers (Information Technology in a Global Society) will learn to write compelling posts that attract commentaries rather than hit-and-run traffic.
• My 8th graders will adopt blogging and commenting in the elgg as a preferred mode of expression over MySpace banter.
• My 7th graders (have yet to meet them) will engage in an authentic collaboration with their age-mates in Australia (Students of Jo McLeay).
• My mixed-grade after-school YouthCaN group’s wiki will transform into an international collaboration.

As I learn to use the tools to their best advantage, my students will follow. First I need to bring shape to my PLN. Any advice on aggregating everything I read into one easy to reach place?

Students are assessed in various ways all through school. Who benefits from those assessments? For five years I have been teaching in the MYP (Middle Years Program) at BSGE, an IB school in NYC. Our method of assessment is criterion referenced. In the MYP there are no external assessments at the end of the course. This year, all that will change for me because starting in September I will be teaching a course in the DP (Diploma Program) called ITGS (Information Technology in a Global Society). ITGS is offered at the IB level (11th and 12th grades) and students will be tested on their understanding at the end of the 2-year cycle. In preparation, I am reviewing the materials from the training session I attended last month. IB provides a report at the end of each testing cycle. An analysis of how students fared on each examination area is provided. By reviewing the lengthy report that digests the results of student performance worldwide, I can get a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the previous year’s curriculum–worldwide. This information will guide my planning. If I use this information in planning my course, my students will benefit from last year’s assessments. That is a wonderful thing!

What is lacking in most schools is an analysis of the assessment results. Just as we want our students to take stock of what they are doing well and what they need to do to improve, teachers need to do the same. In New York State, high school students sit for NYS Regents Exams. The score on that exam indicates if a student got enough points to pass or fail. Who benefits from this assessment? Where is the analysis? What are teachers to make of the results?

Photo Credit: Image: "Anu's Piece in the Paper" by indi.ca
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/indi/44243905/)
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

technorati tags:education, k12, assessment, regents, tests, edtech, IT, IB, MYP, BSGE

Students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process. For them, each task is a challenge to their self-image, and each setback becomes a personal threat. So they pursue only activities at which they’re sure to shine—and avoid the sorts of experiences necessary to grow and flourish in any endeavor. Students with learning goals, on the other hand, take necessary risks and don’t worry about failure because each mistake becomes a chance to learn. Dweck’s insight launched a new field of educational psychology—achievement goal theory. STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research

What does it take to change their mindset to be goal oriented? And to be able to try to reach that goal? I have been having a frustrating time with one of my 7th grade classes. It seems that there are around half who are able to engage in inquiry learning and sustain their interest in learning when they leave the classroom and work unassisted at home. The other half are not working well in the classroom in small groups and rarely do much quality work at home. Friday I asked the students if they thought that there were some students in the school who were just plain “smart” that they were born with a gift and everything comes easy to them. Many hands went up.

Dweck explains. People with performance goals, she reasoned, think
intelligence is fixed from birth. People with learning goals have a
growth mind-set about intelligence, believing it can be developed.
(Among themselves, psychologists call the growth mind-set an
“incremental theory,” and use the term “entity
theory” for the fixed mind-set.) STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research

It’s their mind-set that I must change. I must teach them to think differently about their And here I thought I was teaching design technology.

Culture can play a large role in shaping our beliefs, Dweck says. A
college physics teacher recently wrote to Dweck that in India, where
she was educated, there was no notion that you had to be a genius or
even particularly smart to learn physics. “The assumption was
that everyone could do it, and, for the most part, they did.” But
what if you’re raised with a fixed mind-set about
physics—or foreign languages or music? Not to worry: Dweck has
shown that you can change the mind-set itself. STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research

I have begun giving cues that are about putting in more effort, and trying harder. It sounds so strange to say that because I have unlearned that lingo. In my school (BSGE) we try to make our comments to the students grounded in the specifics of their work. We make a positive statement about what is working, what is going well, with reference to something specific they did. Then, we make one statement that starts something like this: “To reach a higher level of achievement you need to do X.” “X” is never “try harder”; it is always a very specific action they need to take on their next project.

The most dramatic proof comes from a recent study by Dweck and Lisa
Sorich Blackwell of low-achieving seventh graders. All students
participated in sessions on study skills, the brain and the like; in
addition, one group attended a neutral session on memory while the
other learned that intelligence, like a muscle, grows stronger through
exercise. Training students to adopt a growth mind-set about
intelligence had a catalytic effect on motivation and math grades;
students in the control group showed no improvement despite all the
other interventions.

“Study skills and
learning skills are inert until they’re powered by an active
ingredient,” Dweck explains. Students may know how to study, but
won’t want to if they believe their efforts are futile. “If
you target that belief, you can see more benefit than you have any
reason to hope for.” STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research

Looking forward to reading Dweck’s book. I want to help these children. I’m growing weary from my futile efforts thus far.

technorati tags:education, k12, failure, goals, culture, learning, Dweck, psychology, effort, teched, IB, MYP, BSGE

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The project’s aim is to connect three secondary schools in the US and three secondary schools [in ]The Netherlands. The participating schools have a mixed and multi cultural school population. During the two-year project students and teachers will work and learn together in Twin-projects, as well as in collaborative setting in Learning Circles. The aim is to become aware of the richness within multi cultural (school) communities. The themes of the Learning Circles will be set by the participating schools within the domain of ‘a multicultural society’, identifying and building respect for differences and similarities. All learning activities are connected to the formal learning in schools and informal learning outside schools. To create ownership of learning the details within the framework of the project will be set in close collaboration with the participating schools, teachers and students. –twin schools | 2006-2007 | LC The richness within

My, how time flies! This project is upon us. Front and center. It seems like only yesterday that we met at the NYC iEARN offices to plan our Learning Circle, The Richness Within. Bob Hoffman from iEARN Netherlands presented Wendy Nelson Kauffman, Bridgette Francis and I with an opportunity to plan a two-year collaboration with schools in The Netherlands. I was to follow up with a multimedia introduction of myself. Must say, I have not done that, and the time is upon me. I will do that first thing, early this week. I’ll take this time tonight to blog about the project to get me focused.

The topic of the exchange is multiculturalism. There are three multicultural schools in the U.S. and three in the Netherlands that will participate:

• Baccalaureate School for Global Education
• College of Staten Island High School for International Studies
• Metropolitan Learning Center
• Het College Vos
• Oostvaarders College
• Libanon Lyceum

What does it mean for each school to claim to be multicultural? At the Baccalaureate School for Global Education (BSGE) it would be odd to “not” be multicultural because we are in Queens, NY, likely one of the most polyglot areas in the U.S.A. I have been teaching in NYC schools for 11 years and never have I seen such cultural diversity before teaching at BSGE. Here, multiculturalism is taken for granted. When I met Wendy Nelson Kauffman from Metropolitan Learning Center in Bloomfield, CT, I learned that her school was designed to be a magnet school in order to provide an opportunity for a multicultural educational experience in an area where neighborhood schools reflect the racial make-up of those areas and tend to me mono-cultural. According to Bridgette, a teacher from College of Staten Island High School for International Studies, her school was created to break the stereotypical view that Staten Island is “white”. What does this all mean? Each school is multicultural–one is reflective of the community, one buses students in, and another designed to focus on the diversity of the area.

Well, the situations in the Netherlands’ schools will most likely present three more variations on the theme. According to Bob Hoffman, of iEARN Nederland there are “white” schools and “black” schools. Multicultural schools are a recent phenomenon. So goes the idea of the “liberal Dutch”. What does multicultural look like in the Netherlands? How does it compare to our U.S. schools? I predict that we will find as many differences among our U.S. schools, as we may in the Netherlands schools.

One of the ideas in our school’s mission statement says:

Our goal is to foster a spirit of imaginative, independent thinking
as we deepen our consciousness of global citizenship and respect
for other cultures. We believe that our school community,
through our thoughts and actions, can make the world a better
place. –Mission Statement

What will this exchange reveal about us? To what extent are we meeting the above stated goal? I wonder. What I hope to learn through this exchange is how students at our various schools understand the value of a multicultural experience. How much of their own personal identity is tied to a race, culture, religion, national origin?

I was born in the U.S.A. in New Jersey. Both sets of grandparents were immigrants. I was fortunate that they lived within a mile of my home and I got to know them all. I felt a closer kinship to my mother’s parents who were from the Netherlands and spoke “Dutch” around the house, especially when they were trying to be private. I knew my Dutch relatives. They would visit us, and in 1963 my mother took me to Holland. It was different on my father’s side. My father’s mother was from Slovakia and his father from Croatia. They were fluent in many European languages, and yet spoke none around the house. They didn’t display any pride in their heritage and there was a lot of anger about the communist take-over. When I asked my grandfather what nationality he was, he always answered: “It depends. After which war?” My grandmother was appalled when I wanted to visit her birthplace in 1972 and meet her sister and brother. She said: “Why do you want to go there? It’s all communist. They are peasants.” I went anyway, and in the end she was pleased to hear of my adventure. How does my family heritage shape me culturally? If I were a student in my school what would I say I was? When I am asked to think outside of “American” I simply think of my self as white European. So general. What does that say? I think it says a lot about the presumed “dominant culture” that I was born into. But what does that say about my identity?

technorati tags:multicultural, Netherlands, Holland, Dutch, iEARN, learningcircle, race, heritage

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Walking in, it’s like a wonderland, chocker-block with the most fantastical architectural models, intricate drawings, all imbued with the atmosphere of the promised future. Ahh, the future. Inflatable cities; houses that look like toasters; apartments blocks that look like spiders, this was how architects from the last five decades saw us living. This was how they saw our landscape and our cities and our homes. It did strike me looking at these buildings how impractical most were. How would that door open? Gosh, the bedrooms must be awfully gloomy. Where are the windows? Fire exits? These are the practicalities which the architects seem to ignore for the sake of space-age concepts, and this sacrifice explains why most of their designs exist only now as specimens in a gallery, rather than in reality (although, as barmy as it is, who could resist living in Alison and Peter Smithson’s House of the Future, designed in 1956, given the chance?). Most of them exemplify anarchic architects impinging their visions of a metropolis – a blockbuster city – onto its inhabitants without any real care for them. It seems that most architects would prefer a city devoid of people, a playground where they wouldn’t have to bother about pavements or staircases or the boring bits of civil architecture, and instead fill a city with histrionic, unrestrained eyesores.

Showdown :: ‘Future City’ @ Barbican Art Gallery

Reading this review of an exhibition at a UK gallery makes me think about my class last year (2005-2006). Eighteen groups of 4 students made an exhibition of the models they created of future cities. Each group in turn pitched the advantages of their cities. How can 8th graders get what professional architects don’t! The atmosphere of a promised future through the eyes of 8th graders is full of optimism, opportunity, plans for green technology, care for public transportation, green spaces, cultural and recreational spaces. The kids get it. When do they loose it? What do we do to them in the name of education? I love teaching 7th and 8th graders because they are still awestruck, still optimistic. Where does it go as they age?

Technorati tags: education, future city, design, tech ed

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[M]any of today’s most original, historically unencumbered, and frankly exciting architectural ideas are to be found within videogames, films, and science fiction novels

BLDGBLOG: Science Fiction and the City: An Interview with Jeff VanderMeer

Reading BLDBLOG made me wonder: Will my students create exciting ideas for future cities? My Design Technology 8th graders will embark on their first Future City Competition unit this week. They are the digital natives that play video games and devour fantasy and science fiction novels. I wonder how that will influence their future city designs.

technorati tags: education, future city, design, tech ed, drosscape,

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