Mr. Bass

On February 15, 2008, the National Council of Teachers of English Executive Committee adopted document entitled NCTE Definition of 21^st Century Literacies. The purpose of this document was to create a working definition that educators could use as they struggle with what it means to teach in the changing landscape of education. With so many new technologies available to students in their educational settings, altering teaching practices is an important part of helping learners find success.

On Wednesday November 19, 2008 NCTE’s Executive Committee adopted another document entitled NCTE Framework for 21st Century Curriculum and Assessment. I had the privilege to work on this document and wanted to bring it to the attention of educators. The purpose behind this framework is to expand the definition and make it a usable tool for teachers while at the same time, not introducing another set of standards or a checklist. It was designed with teachers in mind to help them think about their practice and how it relates to 21^st century learning.

The document itself is organized into three basic parts: Context, Framework Elements and Implications for Assessment. In the context section, there is a brief statement about the purpose of the document itself as well as a reference to the actual definition.

As a part of the Framework Elements, each point that is part of the definition is expanded upon and explained more fully. Following the explanations are a set of questions that are designed to help teachers think about what this might look like in their classrooms. Each question is phrased as a yes/no question to help in the reflection of lesson plans and curriculum planning. While not every lesson will have all of these aspects and not all questions will be applicable, these explanations and examples are meant to help interpret and further define each point providing teachers with a better idea of activities that would engage students using inquiry-based, collaborative and ethical practices.

The final piece of the framework has to do with the changing assessments. The framework recognizes the validity of traditional assessments while also giving credence to some new assessment strategies that should be considered as practice changes.

The framework document in no way is the final authority on 21^st century skills, but is meant to be a tool that can be used by teachers as they plan lessons and coordinators as they design their content’s curricula. It is not a checklist, but a guideline. Not a set of standards but a model. Finally, it is not about technology but about teaching students in the 21^st century.

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Every year in many school districts around the country teachers are asked to create a goals for themselves. They vary in titles, sequence, and scope but when all is said and done, goals are made for the upcoming year. In my district, these are called Professional Growth Plans or PGP (we love our acronyms). Last year I chose to look at mentoring and try to expand my ability to help teachers and their ability to use technology. I did my PGP and as the year passed I thought about it, but to be honest, it was kind of lost on me. Basically, life got in the way and pushed my little plan to the back burner. I completed it and learned a lot about mentoring, but it wasn’t part of my regular thought process. My focus became working with teachers and students… you know… my job.

This year, I’m making a more concerted effort to think about my chosen topic and try to put it into practice. I know it’s early in the year, but if I continue to remind myself about the purpose of creating a plan and the benefit that both my teachers (and in turn their students) and I can get from it, I have found many opportunities to use what I’ve learned.

I have chosen to look at leadership skills and strategies this year as my PGP. My plan is to share my thoughts and readings here as I reflect on this personal professional development. My first step in this process is the reading of the book Diamond Quality Leadership by Mark Hinderliter. Mark is a consultant from St. Louis and is known by an administrator in my district so brining this book into my PGP seemed to be a natural fit.

Diamond Quality Leadership, like many leadership books, is organized with an initial story outlining and illustrating the leadership concepts and skills that the character “learns” through the course of the book. At the end of the book the author discusses the implications and theoretical context presented through the story. In my limited experience with these kinds of books, this seems to be a fairly common approach. The story is fictional, but brings the concepts up in a fairly transparent way.

In the Diamond Leadership Model, Hinderliter outlines six different points:

· Create clarity

· Build trust

· Work with passion

· Serve others

· Fully engage people

· Act with courage

Each point can be expanded upon and they all have a place in both leadership and education. Many of the aspects of the book were not really new to me, but it has reminded me of some of these techniques.

There are many lessons that can be taken away from this book. Hinderliter’s discussion of his fourth point, “serve others” struck me because it changes the focus from the “leader” to the “follower”. Leaders are those who insist on giving those who follow them the responsibility and support to (in this case) do their jobs. I couldn’t help but put this into the perspective of the classroom. In today’s classrooms, teachers must hand the learning over to their students. We are there to support our students and give them what they need to be successful. In doing this, we must trust them to take responsibility of their own education. Rather than being the purveyors of knowledge and holding the responsibility for “educating” our students, we must guide and coach them in their endeavors. This means that we must relinquish some of our control and let them explore and work through posing problems and solutions for each other. I think that too often we want our students to “serve” us by completing assignments that we give them, write papers on topics that we determine and assess grades from our perspective. By making a conscious effort to “serve” our students and giving them responsibility for their own learning, we are not only educating our students but modeling leadership skills that will serve them in the future.

The second point that Hinderliter brings up in his book is one that I’ve been thinking about for a number of years. I haven’t acted upon it yet, but the more I come across the concept on the web or in books, the more I think that it’s a good idea. In the book, the main character asks 4 of his professional friends to meet once a month to discuss various aspects of their careers and personal lives. The idea is to bounce ideas off each other and spend some time helping each other. To do this, there must be a great deal of trust between members of the group as well as a strong desire to help each other. They meet for 1 hour in an informal setting and simply talk. If there are specific topics that a member would like to discuss, an email is sent out in advance so that all members have time to reflect and are prepared to help. I have thought of bringing this idea to some of my friends but I have yet to do so. I do have a network which I trust and will talk to, but the idea of getting together in a planned way and with an implicit reason intrigues me. I haven’t decided if this is something I want to pursue, but the more I read about it, the more I think it’s a good idea. In the world of IM and video, the geographical limitations of this are less important. However, I think this is one activity that I’d like to do face to face.

While there are many points from Diamond Quality Leadership that are valid for education and the classroom, these are the two that stick out for me. I write this as a reflection but also to help me think about and remained focused on my plan. Now to determine what action to take.

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I’ve spent the last five days at the NCTE Annual Convention and have been running around like a crazy person the entire time. Every time I go to this conference I am always inspired to do some writing. However, one thing that this trip has encouraged me to do is think about my online presence. I have a blog, a website, and am part of a great many communities from Twitter, to DEN, to GCT, to the others that I’ve lost track of over the years. I need/want to organize the way I use these networks and communities so that they are more efficient and useful to me.

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and am interested in figuring out for myself if I want to separate my professional website from my blog or if I should just use them interchangeably. At this point I don’t have a good answer for this but I am thinking about it to try to develop a plan for my work. So, if you notice some changes to the site (like the fact that I’m actually blogging) don’t be surprised. I’m going to use this space as a thinking area as I work this out. Bear with me…

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I’ve just posted the presentation that Melissa Pomerantz, Deb Baker and I did on Saturday afternoon. You can see the entire presentation at http://sites.google.com/site/extendingtheclassroom.  My part was on using RSS in the classroom.  I’ve tried to help a number of teachers use RSS in their classrooms but this is the first time I’ve presented on it in this way.

Here is the Google Presentation that I did for my part of it.

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Just thought this was pretty cool.

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This post is a forum posting for the K12 Online Conference.  In our first session we watched Stephen Heppel’s keynote and I asked participants to briefly reflect on it.  As I respond to others posts and reflect on these sessions, I will post my entries here.

Stephen Heppell – Pre-Conference Keynote: “It Simply Isn’t the 20th Century Anymore Is It?: So Why Would We Teach As Though It Was?”

1. One thing that I’ve been dealing with a lot lately has to do with student’s prior knowledge regarding the use of technology. As adults, we see that students use technology in a variety of different ways and they seem to move through and use it seamlessly. This was the basis of Marc Prensky’s work in defining “digital immigrants” and “digital natives”. Through my work with students, I see that there is a comfort level with technology, however, there is also a very surface level understanding of how it works and what it can be used for.
2. Stephen Heppel brought up the point, “Content is NOT King”, essentially stating that in the past so many websites were set up as content portals and expected users to come simply because of the content they were linking to. I think this has changed significantly with the dawn of social networking sites. Heppel’s point is to focus on the community aspects of the web. His presentation reminded me of my early graduate work when my class joined a Yahoo! Group. My instructor encouraged us to see the value of collaboration, group interaction and the social side of the web. It makes me think about the students that I observe in my travels around the district. So many of these sites are simply for them to get information and be comsumers of the web rather than creators. The experience is much different when they have the ability to interact with a site in a social setting.
3. Heppel ends his presentation with the phrase that he sees this as the “Death of education, but the dawn of learning.” This struck me as very familiar but I put it out of my mind. Then, as I was looking at by RSS reader, I came across a blog post by the same title posted by my friend Dawn Hogue.

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