True Grit: What My Blended Learning Students Taught Me

Nancy (not her real name) was a star student in my Blended Rhetoric and Composition class.  She did EVERYTHING I told her to do, she made as many attempts as necessary to achieve mastery on every assignment,  and she tested into Honors English at her college of choice.  This story is not about her.

This story is about Sam (not HIS real name either) because through him, and other students like him, I found my focus in this blended class.

Initially, I thought I was going to teach students how to analyze rhetoric and persuasion so they could see the forces that manipulate them in their lives.  I thought I would inspire them with a comparison between modern and “old school” literary and informative text.  I thought I would help them to see that reflection, especially in written form,  is one of the most valuable tools in learning.  I did accomplish these goals (to some extent), but Sam helped me to see that the most important lessons my Blended Learning classroom could teach were “grit” and independence.

My passive-aggressive boxing match with Sam started very early in the school year.

Am I Homer Simpson or Bugs Bunny in this fight?

I say passive-aggressive because most of our conflict was through email, posts to the class discussion board, or his mother.  He was a shy boy, and he was used to flying under the radar.  He was also used to his mother solving his problems for him.  After reading several lengthy explanations from Sam’s mom about his inability to submit his work on time or at all, I decided to have it out with him.

Me:  Sam, why is your mom emailing me and calling me?  Why aren’t you talking to me?

Sam: I don’t know.  I thought you wanted to know why I couldn’t do the assignment on time.  

Me:  We are going to establish some guidelines right now:  First, you are seventeen.  You are almost an adult.  Next year in college your mom will NOT be permitted to talk to your professors about your work, so we are going to break both of you of this habit right now.  When you have a problem, I want you to contact me in any way you want--email, discussion board, phone, video--but YOU have to do it.  Only you can be responsible for your work.  

Second, I don’t care about deadlines.  I care about mastery.  I want you to do EVERY assignment, and I want you to really learn from every assignment, and it doesn’t matter how many tries you attempt or when you get it done, but you will get it done, and you will know you are finished when you hit the mastery column in the rubric.

This is me when I'm laying down the law in class. Word.

Ok, this part about deadlines was quite a departure from the way I usually operate.  I often stress deadlines, telling students that they are an important part of the “real world,” and I penalize students for not meeting my deadlines.  My frustration with Sam led me to change this policy for the whole class.  It was as if the Standards-gods had smacked me upside the head, and I finally saw the light.  Why should I penalize a student for wanting to re-do a blog five times?  Don’t I teach students that writing is recursive, and we are never truly finished with a project?  Don’t I want my students to WANT to achieve mastery, even if it means more work for all of us?  Why should anyone accept only achieving about 70% of a standard if the student can do better?  Maybe I can train the students to WANT to do better if I could eliminate the constraint of time.

I have been listening to interviews on NPR in which “experts” are saying that the most important determinant in a child’s future success is not testing or grades, but “grit,” that is, determination, drive, and the will to do whatever hard work it takes to accomplish a goal.  I have always followed this philosophy (instilled in me by my own “expert,” my father), and I started to see that by emphasizing mastery outside of deadlines, I was teaching my students grit.

 I'll be reading this book very soon.

For the students’ final exam, I gave them an article about “grit,” called “Mastery is  Pain,” and I asked them to respond to it by defining grit and pinpointing where they might have shown grit this year.  This was Sam’s response:

The term “grit” means perseverance and passion for long term goals. Everyone has goals in their life, but sometimes people have the hardest times achieving those goals. Whenever people have a bump in the road, they throw in the towel and give up. I have to admit sometimes this was the case for me, but sometimes I’ve had grit, and achieved my goals.

School hasn’t always been the simplest thing for me, and has created some stress over the years.Yet this Rhetoric and Composition class has really taught me some skills that will later help me in my life. The way this class was set up really forced us to be an individual and responsible for our actions.Time-management was a skill that I really learned to value through the process of this class. With everything going on outside of class, it made it really hard to meet the deadlines when the papers were due.

I know that in college time management will probably be an even bigger issue, and this class has taught me how to focus in and use all the hours in the day to complete a paper.

Other students had similar responses:

Since we did not have to come to class every day, this required us to get things done on our own time, without that constant push from a teacher. At first I found this extremely difficult and struggled a lot. Nearing the end of the year, I started managing my time better and getting things done when they needed to be done and on time without the midnight deadline rush. I also have learned organization during this course. We practiced this through various projects that had to be organized on our own with different types of media, and saved successfully where we would be responsible for it.

Lastly, this came from a student like Sam, who struggled all year with deadlines and mastery:

Over the course of this year this class has given me many skills not just academically but also outside of school and the classroom. Building projects online that the whole world can see like the video and our blogs has given me confidence in myself to not be scared of what people think. This class has given me the confidence to go out and talk and not be worried about what I am saying, I am no longer worried about sharing my opinion whether it be what everyone else thinks or whether it might offend others, this class has given me that confidence. However this class has also taught me that there is something I need a lot of work at, and that is time management, throughout the year I had struggled with this aspect, and I know if I do not get that in check it is really going to bite me in the butt next year.

In conclusion, this class is still a work-in-progress, but isn’t every class?  My students helped me to realize that sometimes I have to let go of something (timelines) in order to get something better (mastery, grit).

This is me when I'm trying to let go of deadlines.

I intend to use this lesson to my benefit and keep working on my goals for my students, no matter how many attempts it takes, until I can achieve mastery.



Stephani Itibrout

Rhetoric and Composition

@itibrout

Wanna See a Movie? How to Conduct a Meaningful Discussion about a Movie while WATCHING the Movie

 

 

I don’t particularly like to show movies in class.  I never feel that I have the time.  I do realize, however, that movies have an important place in instruction; after all, movies are now a part of the Common Core.  In my AP Literature and Composition classes and in my Blended Learning Rhetoric and Composition class I alternate clips from Branagh’s and Zeffirelli’s versions of Hamlet to illustrate how literary critique affects the interpretation of Shakespeare’s themes.  Students can compare both directors’ versions of Ophelia, Hamlet’s madness, and of course the final fight scene. The problem I have had with this lesson is that unless the students and I talk over the actors, or unless I constantly stop and restart the scene, there is little opportunity for me to guide a discussion of what we are watching.  This year, through experimentation with my Blended Learning Rhetoric and Composition class, I discovered Today’s Meet.

 

Todaysmeet.com is a back channel discussion board (a bit like Twitter) that allows students to post from their mobile devices or computers.  The advantages of using Todaysmeet.com are the following:

1.  Students can post their thoughts in real time.  They don’t have to wait for me to stop the movie.

2.  I can archive all the posts and use them in a follow-up discussion (or the students can use the archived notes in a paper).

3.  Students post in a safe environment, which I consider the most important point.  I can create a different back channel for each class if I think students will feel more secure sharing their ideas with just their classmates, or I can combine classes if I feel that students will benefit from reviewing their peers’ messages.

 

Each day of my Dueling Hamlets lesson I start by reminding students to log into the back channel.  I provide the url on the board, and I also Chirp the link to any students who use an Apple device. (See the Apple App Store for this cute, free method of sending links, pictures, and notes to a large group of people all at once.)  When the movie starts, I can monitor the discussion from my iPad, and I can guide it by sending leading questions:  Does Hamlet love Ophelia?  Does Ophelia love Hamlet?  Notice the frame of this version; what is most important about this movie?  Sometimes I allow the students to take on characters’ identifications when they post, and I get little gems such as these:

 

Yorick:  Hey, put down my skull.  Everybody, he really didn’t kiss me that much.

 

Ophelia:  You want ME to go to a NUNNERY?  How about you go BACK TO COLLEGE?!

 

Sometimes I find more treasure than I ever thought I could:

Student A:  Why is Hamlet clowning around like that?  Laertes is the better fighter.  It seems like a stupid thing to do.

Student B:  I was reading about ancient Samurai warriors and how they used to purposely mock and humiliate their opponents in order to make them lose focus.  Do you think Zeffirelli wants Hamlet to do that?

 

Are you kidding me?!?!  Student B was a quiet kid in my class who seldom felt comfortable sharing any of his opinions with his peers.  With one comment on the back channel, he managed to blow away the whole class, and he never would have shared his opinion if I would have made him wait for the end of the scene.  The affirmations he received after his post really showed me that students were better able to appreciate this sort of interaction because they perceive it as risk-free.  Even better were the arguments that students had about each interpretation.  Because they were able to debate in real-time, they didn’t have to remember specific lines from the scene to share later.  Their opinions were passionate but respectful, and my favorite part was when they challenged each other to support those opinions.

 

My discovery of Todaysmeet.com really solved a problem that I have had for years.  I can now show a clip or a movie and know that the students are engaged.  My next step will be to open a back channel during student speeches and my own lectures.

 Stephani Itibrout

Rhetoric and Composition

Follow me on Twitter @itibrout

Blackboard will want me to be a BbWorld VIP blogger!

I am the kid in the candy store when it comes to BbWorld; I want to experience everything.  When you are the kid in the candy store, you are not cynical about anything, even the lemon drops.

I will show you the same wonder as I describe my experiences; I will make you laugh, cry, and possibly crave lemon drops.

 

 

 

 

I might even bust a few moves:

This isn't me, but it could be!!

 

 

Stephani Itibrout

Blended Learning English Teacher

@itibrout

 

 

Snookledorp Means Camaraderie

Jack:  I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister.

Algernon:  Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first.

― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

It is 9:34, and I am ready to go to sleep, but I know my night isn’t quite over yet.  Wait for it. . .I open my iPad, balance it on my stomach while lying flat on my back, and now:

“I’m so upset about my class today.”

“What is wrong?”

And the conversation begins.  My blended learning support group consistently meets at this time most nights.  Our iPad/texting/computer conversations sometimes continue for hours.  We are keyed up, and while we are exhausted, we can’t sleep.  Sometimes we are flush with victory:

“My students completed their group presentations, and two principals were there to observe them!”

Sometimes we are flush with shame.  .  . and booze.  Lots of booze.

“Seriously, does anyone know what proofreading is?  $@#!SNOOKLEDORP!!!!!”

“I told you not to use the ALL CAP SLAP!!!!  STOP YELLING AT ME ONLINE!!!!”

I’m just kidding about the booze part.  Maybe.

One day last year Fate threw us four women together, and as Erich Maria Remarque would say, “Camaraderie is one of the best things to come out of the war.”  By necessity, Christina, Shannon, and I would discuss our lack of knowledge about Blended Learning, and we soon (again, by necessity) came to a place where we realized there was no judgment, no competition among us.  We realized very early in the game that we are all deer in headlights, and this idea of Blended Learning was a huge Mack truck that was quickly bearing down on us.  We realized that the only way to survive this experience was to stick together, and that is what we’ve done.

Stacy is our biggest supporter.  She is more than a tech administrator; she is the lifeline for our program.  She encourages us in our growth, she keeps us from making foolish decisions along the way (“No, you really can’t punch your administrator.”), and she of course gets us whatever tech support we need even before we know we need it. Stacy established our Monday afternoon meetings right from the start,and we certainly didn’t realize how much we would need or look forward to them.  In these meetings, we complain, we argue, we cry. . .we innovate, we create, we experiment, and we laugh.  Thank goodness, we laugh a lot.

Christina, Shannon, and I are lucky in the fact that our classrooms are very close to each other.  Every fifty minutes, I know that I will step into the hall (to monitor the class changes), and I will be able to talk to one or both of them.  Sometimes it’s a quick reassurance (“Get in there--you’re doing a great job”), and sometimes it’s a technical problem.  I can’t tell you how many times one or all of us dropped everything we were doing to help out with a Blackboard, iPad, or Apple TV issue.  Our students believe that we are a package deal.  Beware; if you complain about one of these teachers in front of the other two, you will get an earful.

At one of our Monday meetings, an administrator wanted to discuss Christina’s course with her alone.  He meant it in the kindest, most considerate way; he didn’t want to embarrass her.  Christina got up from the table, closed the door to the classroom, and said, “These are my sisters.  What you say to me, you say to them.  We are a team.”

She is right.  We are sisters; we are a team.  We share our pain, our joy, our defeats, our victories.  This is the only way to create a Blended Learning course; this is the best way to teach.

Those of you who know me have figured out by now that I am writing this post under the effects of an eleven mile run (see my running blog post about endorphins).  Do not worry; in a few hours I will be back to yelling at you, shaking my finger at you, and telling you what to do.  Then, I will turn on my iPad at 9:34, and I will wait for our next collaborative session.  I might have a drink first.

What's Right with Education

What’s Right With Education

Originally published on ohedchat.wordpress.com on March 8. 2013

Earlier this week, I tweeted that we should focus more on what is good in education instead of what is wrong with education. Little did I know when I sent that tweet that I would be challenged to write a blog post on my thoughts. But it is this exact challenge that is central to what is good in education. We all know teachers who come to school every day to challenge and inspire students. They put aside the politics, the testing, the outside pressures, and choose to challenge and inspire students to become lifelong learners. If you know a teacher like this, and I suspect that you do, today would be a great day to let them know that they are central to what is right in education today.

Recently the school board in my district made a decision that angered many parents and community members. As a result there has been a contentious board meeting, negative press coverage, and a flurry of comments flooding social media. Through all of this, the staff in my office have come to work each day with a positive attitude and continue to strive to do what is best for students in our district. Today, a few of us decided to bring in breakfast and jot down what is great about education. Some of the positives that made our list included:

• Teachers on Twitter


• Collaboration and sharing ideas


• Authentic feedback for improvement


• Teaming with parents to meet the individual needs of students


• Involving students in goal setting


• Celebrating student success


• School garden projects


• Technology that engages and enables creation

By all means, our list is not all-inclusive. As a matter of fact, we hung the list on the wall so we could add to it everyday.

A few weeks ago Leah Lacrosse (@LLacrosse) from Huron tweeted that she was looking for another 5th grade science class that wanted to collaborate virtually. We immediately accepted her offer and Debbie Hicks’ (@FennHicks) 5th grade science class will be using a Google Hangout to meet Mrs. Lacrosse’s students. Jolene Speckman (@JoleneSpeckman) joined Twitter last month and has already had Twitter conversations with new Apple Distinguished Educator, Rebecca Wildman (@RebeccaWildman) on how she can integrate iTunes U in her second grade classroom. These two examples show the power of Twitter, collaboration, and technology – all of which made our list. These examples also exemplify teachers who are willing to challenge themselves and students to learn and grow. These teachers decided to do what was best for their students and to expand the walls of their classrooms to challenge their students.

So I conclude by challenging you to sit down with your colleagues, students, parents, or any other group of folks who are passionate about teaching and learning to write your own list about what is right in education. I encourage you to share by adding to this list (Google Doc). Together we can grow the conversation about what is right in education.

-Stacy Hawthorne (@MedinaTech)

File Transfer Incomplete

This has been a year of reflection. Actually, every year is a year of reflection, but this year is different. In fact, I have reflected so much that at one point (and maybe still), I felt as though I was (am) having a bit of a teacher identity crisis. You know, like that friend who hits 40 and suddenly she cuts her hair, starts working out everyday, and quits eating carbs? Yeah, you know who you are. My identity crisis has come from not knowing who I am or what I am as a blended learning teacher; I do not know how I fit into this new teaching world. I know exactly who I am in the face to face classroom, but I cannot seem to translate that into blended learning. My colleagues and I keep going back to the analogy of being a student teacher or a first year teacher. As a first year teacher, you had an ok idea of who you were as a teacher - what your teaching style/philosophy was. You were a risk-taker because you were young and unafraid of taking risks, and most importantly you had an older and wiser veteran teacher there to keep you in line and offer guidance. This veteran teacher didn’t have to have the same philosophy, mine didn’t, but he knew what good teaching looked like based on how the kids responded. In our case, there is no older, wiser veteran teacher to keep us in line. We are rookies, but other teachers and administrators tell us we are brave and amazing and brilliant... what about our students? This past week almost 40% of my enrollment dropped; I have lost more students this week than in the previous 10 years combined teaching my face-to-face courses. Those around me have been supportive by making up every excuse possible, that doesn’t involve me being the problem, to try and make it seem like this is ok. The fact is, I have failed to translate myself digitally. “File install failed. Parts of the program may not function properly”; we have all seen this error message and now I am living it.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So now this weekend, looking at my reduced student roster, I am trying to find a way to fix this. I need to experience some sort of success so I can look at myself in the mirror again and not feel as though every student I walk by in the hallway is thinking, “There’s that shitty teacher who teaches that horrible online math class.” I need help from an older and wiser veteran who knows what the heck he/she is talking about to give me advice and guidance. Criticism does not hurt me; no, please do not be afraid.  I have 15 weeks of student journals full of information about everything I did wrong, so a faceless person offering criticism will not hurt me a bit.

Here is who I know I am as a face-to-face teacher. I teach students to learn how to think, how to learn. I do this through discovery and inquiry - when I learned about the constructivist philosophy as an undergrad, I salivated at the mouth. After my students have explored, questioned, and  have developed a good idea about the topic being learned, I follow it with the formal presentation of the concept and theory. Then we learn together by doing problems - the students practice basic skills at home and solve rich problems in small groups. I have flipped my classes intermittently to allow for more of the rich problem solving to be done in class. My favorite time of year is actually right now when my AP Calculus students are finally over the “I can’t answer your questions out loud, because I risk being wrong;” instead, they come to class and offer strong, firm feedback to each other.  They have learned to not give each other the answers; they guide each other through the thought process of finding the answers, and in special cases, they encourage each other to find the best way to the answer or even extend that idea to a bigger one. I literally had tears in my eyes this past Thursday when I heard a quiet, “never outwardly participate in the thinking process” student say to another student, “Yes! That’s right and why did you decide to do that? What is ‘y’? Ok then, plug it in! What do you see?” At the end of the year, my kids are successful - nearly 90% of my students earn a 4 or 5 on the AP exam.  Part of this is because they are good kids trained by highly qualified and amazing teachers before me, and part of it is because I think I do an ok job.

So why do I not translate digitally? Maybe the better question is, why would I want to? How can I do what I do better, or at least as good, in our chosen rotational blended model? 40% of my students have spoken. Yes, I know there are many reasons that students might drop a 5th level honors math course (especially if they had not taken an honors math course previously), but at the end of the day I did not deliver; I did not engage them. I did not teach them to think and I did not teach them how to learn in their digital space . So what does it take to be a good teacher in a blended environment? Tech savvy? (check) Successful in the face-to-face environment? (check) A risk taker? (check) Open to change and experimentation? (check) How about this list:  25 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers (from the blog TeachThought)? (check).

I had big ideas for this course and what I wanted it to be; my students and I were going to explore the unexplored together, but it is just not working for me. Maybe all highly effective, tech savvy teachers just do not translate to the blended learning environment to be effective blended learning environment teachers...file transfer incomplete.

Christina Hamman (@hammanmath on Twitter)
Mathematics Teacher

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