Starting Fires

Remember Billy  Joel’s song “We Didn’t Start the Fire?” My seventh grade Social Studies teacher Mrs. Hadgis used it to teach the Cold War. I don’t think I exposed too much of my nerdy self at such a precarious age to my peers, but I distinctly remember cramming the lyrics down my mom's throat. Without so much as an eye roll  she would countlessly repeat the memories of her childhood as they applied. And after catching a glimpse of the video, I understood why she wanted to replace the avocado refrigerator! Accidentally and unconventionally I learned the social revolution of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. By design, Mrs. Hadgis created an intentional process for meaning making.  She did the culturally relevant: she met us on our pop music-loving playing field and designed an environment in which we could learn deeply without minding too badly. Csikszentmihalyi refers to this in Flow (1990), “As long as we respond predictably to what feels good and what feels bad, it is easy for others to exploit our preferences for their own ends.” This was my Blended Learning vision: exploit my student’s desire to use computers. My vision has evolved. Luckily for my students, I attempt to model my approach with the good heartedness of Mrs. Hadgis.

Every teacher does this: we all try to connect with students. I harshly argue that teachers who don’t are ineffective. Yet, reflecting on my first semester Blended Local and American History course, I don’t believe I have done it.  At first glance, I thought I accomplished the connection to student lives easily: students were engaging online. Students love to be online. Simple. Done. Box checked. However, the blended student does not seem to want online as much as they want a unique experience. And this is what I am beginning to understand: Mrs. Hadgis didn't choose a song because we liked music; she chose a particular song because it fit her purpose. The same is true for the design of my course. Learning online will never replace being online for students. However, I must thoughtfully design the experience so that students choose my class over YouTube

So, how am I going to do this? My most direct answer is: better in the second semester than in the first. My intentions moving into second semester are twofold: create an engaged learning environment and create a unique space to explore historical content. Not terribly different than last August, but I move forward with clearer intent. In August, I was motivated by hope: I have learned that hope doesn’t cut it. I must move with intent in my design if this is going to be successful.

First, I must reorganize my own online space. I need to make the visual design of my course more appealing. My blackboard course remains messy and cluttered. I must approach this with more consideration for student interaction. This will be tricky for me in an online space since I fail re-positioning my own household furniture. When building in the Medina Historical app, I tell my students they have seven seconds to convince a mobile app user they should continue reading and investigating the site. I need to hold myself to the same standard.

Secondly, I liberate myself from the chronological events of which Billy Joel sings. I intentionally approach second semester in a non-linear structure. I purposefully embrace the three dimensional thought process that is critical thinking. I am steadfast in my belief that each of us has some element of ADD in us and that isn’t always a sign of weakness. I thoughtfully allow my students’ minds to wander so that more informed opinions and conclusions of what has been and what should be can be cemented. My intention is to allow my students to stumble upon (pun intended) their own historical interests and investigate multiple concepts in the historical structure of our country. I release the timeline and embrace historical thinking skills.

Moving forward from a very rocky and precarious first semester, I reignite my energy for taking this journey. History can no longer be the boring class. In the second semester, students should begin to build their own fires. I know that I should probably take credit for starting the fires, or at least providing the match, but only one thing is for sure at this point: unintentionally my students are learning a thought process that will serve them well in the 21st Century workforce because I intentionally teach skills not content.

I also intentionally empower myself to ignore the fact that I am bumping up against a well established educational paradigm that at times vehemently resists a non-linear, organic approach to history, but I will hold off on lighting that match: too much kindling results in a quick burn.

 

Shannon Conley-Kurjian

Social Studies Teacher

Transition

Ok class here's what we are going to  do. Now go do it.Typical classroom behavior: go do this thing for the next 45 minutes and I will be here when the bell rings right? Familiar. Expected.  Easy. Appropriate. And appreciated. Students love knowing just what they have to do to get a grade, an affirmation or a point.

But what happens when it isn't 45 minutes, not for points and not even monitored? What happens when the the assignment the teacher sets up is designed to be introspective, to prove ability not to the teacher but to a greater audience; an assignment designed to have students experience something similar to real life and intuitively find their way to prove mastery.  Educational theorists are frothing at the mouth. I was too until I tried it for the first time and failed miserably.

I can tell you what happens when our best, most cutting-edge, most engaging, most idealistic theories are tested; it's not what you might expect. Nothing happens. That is correct, nothing has happened yet in my blended learning class.  NOTHING!  When a parent says to his/her student:  "What did you do in history today?" The students are being dead serious when they answer "Nothing." They didn't do anything meaningful - we had some great conversations about leadership and contextualized a historical  movie, we discussed the elements that makeup a good historical story, we watched good story telling, we researched, but when asked to recreate: to go do this task of telling a historical story - my students do nothing. Nothing different that is from any other face to face history class.

 

On the other hand, I think I am doing a lot - I think I am finding students resources that they can use for research projects. I am reading hours worth of student journal responses, discussion board posts, web based essays. On some evenings,  I am an email-answering machine. I theorize about what my students should be doing while I run in place on the treadmill, stopped waiting impatiently at the stop light, daydream in line for coffee. I feel consumed by this task as though I am literally running in place, stopped waiting, daydreaming.

I think what I'm experiencing is the result of a serious culture shift that we thought students were ready for but have proven not to be. I thought I was ready for this shift. I certainly prepared to chop down the traditional education model, but perhaps I'm not ready either. It is difficult to admit that.  At this point it doesn't matter. Thirty five kids show up in my classroom in ten hours.  So it's back to the drawing board I go.

Here I am at the drawing board: decompressing from the amazing possibilities I was exposed to at the Virtual Schools Symposium and returning to students who, like me, don't know what they don't know. But I am here and ready to focus on telling a historical story and deciding the best way to teach historical story telling. I don't think I have ever identified with my students more: I am not quite sure what to do. I am sitting at the computer in the middle of a hurricane overwhelmed by the silence of my audience, the weight of my own word choice, the absence of interruption, the sound of the keyboard's white noise suspending the notion that I need a solution.

All I know to do nine hours away from  the arrival of students is to provide an example. All I know to do comes from a little more than a decade of face to face teaching and a lifetime of traditional learning. I am a teacher, but right now I am exactly like my students: in transition.

The stark reality is that I do need a solution: the long term sort. I don't have time for transition. I'd like to deliver the solution Monday morning promptly at 7:30 to a class who stare back at me thinking maybe this is the week she pulls it together. But instead, I just continue to create this example that may or may not meet students at their personal crossroad between desire to do well and need for information.

Ok class here's what we are going to  do... Now go do it... Typical classroom behavior...go do this thing for the next 45 minutes and I will be here when the bell rings...right? Familiar .. Expected?  Easy? Appropriate.

Doesn't exactly cut it. Falls way short of expectation. But it's what I do. It's what I do with the time I have.

My students and I both know we need to figure out this blended model. We both know we must approach this task differently, but at the very center of this storm, we also know that assigning a name to this truth is the most unnerving task we will face.