Do you have the time?

Image Credit: NasimAhmed96$, CC BY-SA 4.0
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44772050

Time. A highly valuable human intangible. We cherish good times, lament bad times, wish for more time. Lately I've been pondering the allocation of time during the school day.

Yesterday we had teams visit us from a couple of other local districts. One of the side conversations at the beginning of the open house was about schedules. The concept of a block schedule was tossed about in comparison to a rotating, eight-period day. The participants in the conversation seemed to agree that the block was the preferred schedule and discussed the two models as though those were the only allocations of time.

As I eavesdropped on that conversation it reminded me of an initiative being undertaken in my previous district: a review and possible revision of the daily schedule. Now in my 24th year as an educator I need both of my hands to count the number of times I have participated in a committee that was charged with reviewing and proposing revisions to the daily schedule. Each committee worked in the same way: what are other similar schools doing? what are the costs/benefits of those types of schedules in our school? How can we tweak our schedule a little to make apparent improvements without really upsetting the apple cart. Ultimately, changing very little in terms of the quality of teaching and learning vis-à-vis the allocation of time.

Time is a resource like computers, classrooms, athletic equipment, staff members, etc. While it may be intangible, it still should be considered in the same way other resources are considered: what are our educational priorities and how do we allocate our resources to maximize fulfilling those priorities? It was the focus on that question that set the current initiative in my previous district apart from any other schedule revision I had experienced. The process began with the faculty discussing and determining what their educational priorities were. These priorities were then separated into categories: which were non-negotiable and which were secondary drivers?

Consider this list of priorities:

• one-on-one meeting time with students
• minimizing interruptions to instructional time for "special events"
• PLC or other meetings of faculty instructional teams
• genius hour, passion projects, etc.
• advisory program
• flexible instructional minutes
• maximizing the number of courses a student can take
• study halls, extra help OR maximizing course enrollment and minimizing study halls
• capping class size

How might time be sliced, diced, and served if these are the criteria that determine the best schedule? What secondary benefits does this allocation of time create? What costs are associated with this schedule? Ultimately, does satisfying the non-negotiables make paying the costs a worthwhile trade-off? If not, were you honest about your priorities?

How is the schedule that emerges different if these are the priorities:

• all classes meet everyday
• changing district test scores
• aligning with assessments for AP, IB or other standardized curricula
• ease of moving students from one section of a course to another
• ease of accommodating students new to the district into the course offerings

Return to the same reflection questions: how must time be divided to satisfy these requirements? what other benefits will the school realize because of this allocation of time? What costs are associated with this schedule? Ultimately, does satisfying the non-negotiables make paying the costs a worthwhile trade-off? If not, were you honest about your priorities?

Just a little food for thought to start the new year!

A Vision for 21st Century Teaching and Learning

This one is short and sweet (I hope!).

My infographic in which I try to convey a vision for what it means to teach and learn in the 21st Century.

Nussbaum-Beach, Sheryl, "ASCD Express 6.11 - A Futuristic Vision For 21St Century Education ". Ascd.org, 2016. Web. 12 Dec. 2016. <http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol6/611-nussbaum-beach.aspx>.


Palmer, Tsisana, "15 Characteristics Of A 21St-Century Teacher". Edutopia, 20 June 2015. Web. 12 Dec. 2016. <https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/15-characteristics-21st-century-teacher>

Natick Public Schools, A Vision and Framework for 21st Century Teaching & Learning, February 2011 Web 12 Dec. 2016, <http://www.natickps.org/district/districtmaininfo/documents/Technology%20Presentation%20Part%2012.pdf>

Lessons learned from experimenting with VR

We are investigating different ways to use augmented and virtual reality to enhance teaching and learning. At this point our approach may be a bit haphazard as we play with different free devices, apps, and triggers in our pursuit of a full curricular adoption of a VR platform. Such adoption is a long way off. In the meantime we are gaining increasing appreciation for the learning potential of a robust system as we watch our students interact with the modest tools in our makerspace.

A tool we have: a class set of cardboards
The obstacle we face: no devices to insert into the cardboards

Another tool: In addition to their BYOD devices, students bring smartphones to school
Another obstacle: our state has a student data privacy law that significantly restricts the digital platforms to which teachers can direct students for classroom exercises.

So here is what we have tried:

Having recently upgraded my phone, I donated my old android phone to our TechXperts. I showed them the roller coaster cardboard app and then got out of the way. They started by creating elastic head straps to turn the cardboards into hands-free devices. They scoured the play store for VR experiences compatible with the single device we have and began wandering the makerspace wearing the headset. Students started clambering: me, too! me, too! and the line formed of students waiting for a turn.

Lesson 1: Students are always game for a new learning experience.

Once the furor abated I tried out the apps they installed and wandered around a fantasy world for a while. I moved around my physical space as I moved around the virtual space. I jumped, squatted, spun, reached, walked... I moved.

Lesson 2: When you are looking for ways to introduce movement into your classroom, VR is a great tool for kinesthetic learning!

After the fantasy exploration, the students tried to get me to cliff dive, and I was done. The roller coaster app was not enough for them. They needed to free-fall through space! I told them when I tried Google Expeditions at ISTE2015, and found myself on the side of Everest, I fell out of the chair was helped off the floor by a very sweet Googler who assured me that I wasn't the first person to do that. Still embarrassing.

Lesson 3: VR experiences are visceral and can help students develop empathy.

Augmented reality is cool, too. While less immersive, AR experiences have similar and important impact on teaching and learning. On a recent professional learning day, we set up a playground for teachers to visit between workshops or as a workshop session. One of the playground stations was an AR station. We downloaded the chemistry and anatomy triggers from Daqri, installed the Daqri app on the library iPads, and invited teachers to play with the element, heart, and body systems enhancements. Say goodbye to cellophane overlays that build the systems of the body in increasingly difficult to read layers! Now the systems can be added and removed by a touch of the finger and they layer and intertwine with one another as they do in a body.

Lessons 4&5: The interactive, multi-media, self-directed nature of VR and AR helps students orient to challenging concepts and gives them agency over their interaction with the content.

In the library specifically we are resurrecting a past initiative using Aurasma to create triggers out of book covers. When students meet in the library to select independent reading material, we are capturing short videos of them reviewing their books. Then, we make the video an overlay with the cover as a trigger. Students -- any library patron, really -- can follow our channel and scan the covers of books to see what fellow students say about them! Now, AR is not just about consuming information, but about the creation, by students, of new insights, learning, and content.

Lesson 6: In small and large ways, AR and VR experiences encourage students to explore previously inaccessible ideas and places expanding their passions and curiosity.

Needless to say there are much more expansive AR and VR experiences available for education than those in which we have dabbled. Our little experiences are helping us build a plan for more curricular integration of such experiences -- and more financial investment, too. In the meantime, these dabbles are helping us to expand our thinking about how to enhance teaching and learning, beyond the wow! factor.