Grit Over Grades

Jack, Gordon

Smith, Tovia. (March 17, 2014). Can focus on ‘grit’ work in school cultures that reward grades? MindShift. KQED. Retrieved from http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/03/can-focus-on-grit-work-in-school-cultures-that-reward-grades/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29.

Summary

This is a print version of a piece that ran on NPR’s Morning Edition examining the role of “grit” plays in education.  Educators increasingly see “grit”, or persistence in difficult tasks, as a key indicator for school success.  The question this story explores is whether this character trait can be taught or not.  The article profiles schools that are shifting away from focusing on achievement and towards a system that rewards effort, persistence, and even failure.  These schools are eliminating words like “gifted” and “smart” from their interactions with students in favor of language that emphasizes a growth mindset.

Not all educators are on board with this trend, however.  Alfie Kohn argues that this is another education fad that is keeping us from making the reforms we really need to make. “The benefits of failure are vastly overstated,” Kohn argues, “and the assumption that kids will pick themselves up and try even harder next time, darn it — that’s wishful thinking.” When schools begin to evaluate kids on these kinds of character traits, we run the risk of sending the message that if you don’t have grit, you’re not a good kid.

Evaluation

I found this article interesting because it presents a balanced view of this topic that I haven’t seen before.  Evaluating a student’s work is easy compared with evaluating character traits like grit.  Still, I favor the shift away from emphasizing results and focusing instead on process.  By promoting growth mindsets, we help students see that being smart isn’t something one is born with, but rather something one works at.  I also like the comment by Angela Duckworth, the researcher who coined the term grit. “I don’t think people can become truly gritty and great at things they don’t love,” Duckworth says. “So when we try to develop grit in kids, we also need to find and help them cultivate their passions. That’s as much a part of the equation here as the hard work and the persistence.”  Helping students develop their passions is something teacher-librarians are well suited to do. By working with teachers, we can incorporate more choice into assignments to allow students the chance to pair an interest with the subject being learned.

No More Moocs

Jack, Gordon

Levinson, M. (2014, March 4). No More MOOCs: Pay Attention to Beyonce. Edutopia. Retrieved March 5, 2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/no-moocs-learn-from-beyonce-matt-levinson?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29&clReload=7844bd28

Summary

In this article, Levinson makes the analogy between changes in the music industry with changes in education.  Just as listeners are buying singles rather than a whole album, Levinson recommends that educators allow students to assemble pieces of information themselves instead of taking an entire course.  He states the weak completion rates of most online MOOCs as evidence that today’s student doesn’t want an “album” of curriculum.  Instead, more and more learners are gravitating to YouTube to select the “singles” of content they are most interested in.

The article suggests that educators take note of this phenomenon and crowdsource their course content.  “When the learning experience is constructed for students to find problems, generate questions and devise solutions to authentic challenges,” Levinson writes, “then the need surfaces for students to seek information.”  Levinson quotes Dr. Mark David Milliron who suggests that educators “turn students loose” on a topic and let them gather all the material they can from any source they can and then share the resources they used.  From there, the teacher can “create customized playlists for units of study.”

Evaluation

I don’t quite buy Levinson’s music analogy to education.  Some of the best music on an album isn’t always the hit singles, just as some of the most important information isn’t the kind students will easily find.  Also, sometimes a song needs to be heard in the context of the entire album to appreciate its value, just as parts of class only become significant in light of the other information presented in the semester or year.  Still, I appreciated his suggestions for making learning more meaningful to students by engaging them with compelling topics and questions and allowing students’ curiosity to drive their information seeking behavior.  I think this is a great way to hook kids, present a variety of content, and make learning more relevant.  From there, the teacher needs to help organize this information to give it some coherence and meaning.

20% Me Time

Gualano, Gabriela

Juliani, A. J. (2013, June 25). Why “20% time” is good for schools. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/20-percent-time-a-j-juliani

Google has a policy where their employees are given 20% of their work time to spend on something else other than assigned projects. The article proposes carrying this idea over to schools, and giving students 20% of the day to work on something that fits their interests. The 20% time gives students time to work on their own projects while still meeting standards and grade level skills.

I think this model, if used properly, could go a long way in making school more applicable for students. The idea is also rather revolutionary for schools, and I wonder how it works for various subjects. Thinking back to my own school experience, I would have loved having 20% to myself in history or English, but would have been utterly lost in science or math. I could follow a lecture and memorize information, but I would have hated having to devise my own project and learning outcomes. Without an interest in the topic, I would not have been able to come up with something to learn. Even now I often equate success with an “A” on a test. Success in high school was earning an A on my report card; not creating some project that may or may not be successful. On the other hand, some might argue that by being able to create my own assignments I would gain an interest in these subjects. Perhaps so…the only time I remember being truly invested during science for its own sake and not a grade was in 7th grade. We were supposed to trace hemophilia through Queen Victoria’s family. The genetics and historical implications were endless fascinating! Would more assignments like these piqued my interest more? Giving students 20% of the time also allows them to work at their own pace. Differentiated instruction is a key buzzword, but it is difficult to achieve meaningful DI in practice. 20% would inherently solve DI. Some would speed ahead, while others would be able to take their time until a concept was truly understood. Plus, students who are invested and interested in their work will actually learn something. My biggest concern is for the students who, for whatever reason, do not care about school in any capacity. Will 20% reach them, or will it be just another opportunity to waste time?

Technology as an impetus for improving education

Sinclair, Kimberly

Friesen, S.  (2011). Hands on vs. hands up: Technology enabled knowledge building in high school.  Canada Education.  Retrieved from http://www.cea-ace.ca

            Beginning with a disclaimer is not how you usually begin a one of these, but  I just wanted to add, up front that, although the message of this article doesn't contain any ground-breaking insights (or, at least, shouldn't, at this point in the course), it still inspired me by reaffirming that, in the end, you can blame the surrounding circumstances as to why modern education is challenging or, we as educators can vow to change the direction of teaching (from "teaching to the test" to collaborative and learner-centered) from the inside out, accepting no excuses. That said, please excuse my bit of soap boxing at the end, as I was getting worked up there; thanks!

           This article examines the nature of incorporating technology into instructional activities for high school students and endeavors to determine under what circumstances the use of technology proves most effective for student learning. The author notes that, although adolescents are overwhelmingly familiar interacting with technology for entertainment and recreational purposes, teenagers still need to be explicitly instructed on how to use these tools for the purpose of knowledge creation. Friesan advocates for two major take-aways educators should glean from this: first, that instruction must be designed so that it is of genuine interest to students, and, secondly, that digital technology is only a learning benefit when it adds something new, involving higher-order thinking tasks. In the first instance, instructors can work towards making learning more engaging to students by designing activities that incorporate elements of what students are most innately interested in: socialization and “play". In the second situation, teachers must ensure that the use of technology brings an added dimension of benefit to learning, since lower-order thinking activities that use technology present no advantage over ding the same activity without technology. Fortunately, both approaches can be addressed by incorporating many available Web 2.0 tools that, by their nature, encourage collaboration through social networking opportunities, use engaging audio-visual features, and readily facilitate higher-order thinking skills.

            Ultimately, the author concludes that high school instruction should be more about facilitating collaborative learning communities that draw from diverse strengths to actively construct knowledge and work towards common goals, and less about separate individuals memorizing pre-crafted, discrete packets of information. The largest obstacle to accomplishing this lies with renovating educators’ content delivery approach, so that instructional methods and tools coincide with the more Constructivist, collaborative learning methods previously described. Unfortunately, many of us in the education field have witnessed as, for years, school districts implement changes resulting in more teacher-lead “teach to the test” instruction, which stands sorely in opposition to the views championed in this article. The saving grace of this scenario, however, is the reminder of the immense impact that individual instructors continue to possess, since they are the ones on the “front lines” interacting daily with students. It seems that, although blame has been assigned—albeit perhaps rightfully—to state and federal funding cuts, lagging economic trends, and district administrators for many years, the bottom line is that the onus of reversing these trends lies with teachers, period. Rather than continuing to regret choices made beyond teachers’ control, educators must work to design and deliver instruction that is engaging and collaborative—and only after this has proven to result in improved learner outcomes will administrators and law makers pay attention and acknowledge the new direction that education demands.