Comfort Zone and ZPD

This is not a place for an extensive discussion of Vygotsky’s many contributions to cognitive psychology but his central theories are worth introducing. His concepts of the zone of proximal development; of the role of the teacher in learning; and of the essentially shared and social nature of the learning process have much to tell us.

Vygotsky investigated problem solving, and how the mind goes about acquiring and mastering new skills and knowledge. According to Vygotsky the learner has two areas of development. The current area of development encompasses all that the learner can do independently – those skills and that knowledge that are within our grasp and compass. The “comfort zone” – if you will. Beyond that area lies what he termed the zone of proximal development, or zpd – those skills, knowledge and abilities that are within our reach but not yet grasped.

Learning he claimed is an essentially social activity. The role of the teacher is not that of simplifying new knowledge and doling it out in measurable doses, but of providing new content, and the context within which the learner may safely step from the current level of understanding to a higher level. In this model the learner and the social situation are interdependent and the teacher is the skilled mediator. The teacher’s role is to act – in Vygotsky’s phrase – as the “loaned consciousness’, as one who is able to help students on an as-needed basis and to introduce the content and create the context. It is very easy to observe this process in outdoor education. The learner, confronted with a challenge- say rappelling, works out how to accomplish the task. The support of peers and the guidance and security of the loaned consciousness of the teacher enable the learner to take the risk of stepping out and trying something new.

Granny Cloud

You may have heard the story of the Indian slum children who taught themselves how to use computers when someone embedded a computer in his Delhi office wall for them. It proved so successful that all around the world the same experiment was repeated and each time, children taught themselves complex tasks easily – with little supervision.

But, and here is an even more interesting fact, they did even better when a ‘granny figure’ stood behind them offering encouragement – not teaching them, but just positively encouraging them and engaging with what they are doing.

So an encouraging and positive older person standing behind children who were working out how to do something themselves made them achieve more. Does that sound familiar? It is a pretty good description of good parenting and particularly in parent engagement in education.

The granny figure was not a specialist teacher, or a computer expert but an adult whose job was just to stand and encourage young children in what they were learning – just like a parent or any involved family member would. The man who came up with the original idea for the ‘computer in the wall’ in Delhi is Professor Sugata Mitra and he has taken the concept even further now and added to it with the concept of the ‘Granny Cloud’.

Professor Mitra is proposing an idea for schools called SOLE or Self Organised Learning Environments. These learning environments consist of a computer with a bench big enough to let four children sit around the screen. “It doesn’t work if you give them each a computer individually,” he is quoted as saying.

Professor Mita is now professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK) and has also been a speaker on the TED stage

The children are then backed up by a “granny cloud” – 200 volunteer grandmothers who can be called upon to video chat with the children and provide encouragement. He has tested the spaces successfully in the UK and Italy, and now believes they should be tested more widely. Infact, during an earlier stage of his experiments, Indian children actually asked to be read fairy tales by UK grandmothers via Skype! Professor Mitra, who now lectures at the University of Newcastle in the United Kingdom, told the TED Global (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in Oxford in the UK:”I think we have stumbled across a self-organising system with learning as an emergent behaviour.”

And all of those grannies are clearly helping too. Long term research in the UK has proved that the existence of one older person in a child’s life who has a passion for the child and wants them to do well in their education is enough to ensure they make the most of their schooling, regardless of the quality of their school or their economic circumstances.

SOLE

"My work with self organised learning by children shows that groups of children can learn to use computers and the Internet to answer almost any question. This happens everywhere and is independent of what language they speak, where they live and how rich or poor they are. All they need is free access and the liberty to work in unsupervised groups. The most effective group size seems to be 4-5 children.

So, we really need one laptop for every 4 children (OLF4C?)

This will reduce the project costs by 75% !

The ideal computer would be one that is about as big as the present OLPC, but with a built in, micro projector. This will enable children to share a screen by projecting it on any white surface. There are new micro projectors that use hybrid LED and laser technology to produce a bright image at low power."

Meaningful work

Many people believe that the key to an improved lifestyle is less work. I think it’s better work. I believe that most of us want to work hard, but we want to do the kind of work that energizes us and makes a positive impact on others. That kind of work is Many people believe that the key to an improved lifestyle is less work. I think it’s better work. I believe that most of us want to work hard, but we want to do the kind of work that energizes us and makes a positive impact on others. That kind of work is worth working for, and the other kind of work is worth letting go of, finished or not. (The Art of Non-Conformity, p. 10)

I think that pretty much sums it up for our students, doesn’t it? It’s not that they don’t want to work hard. It’s that they don’t want to expend too much energy on work that isn’t meaningful. When we see reports of rampant plagiarism or tales of students who want to do as little as possible in order to get a grade, isn’t that an indication that they’re doing work that’s not meaningful to them? When students are working on something that they’re passionate about, rather than apathetic, don’t most of these so-called generational ‘values’ or ‘character’ issues disappear? Contrary to what many believe, our students don’t want to just get by. They just want better work. The preceding was taken from Scott McLeod’s blog (dangerously ! irrelevant) (http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/our-students-want-better-work-not-less-work.html)worth working for, and the other kind of work is worth letting go of, finished or not. (The Art of Non-Conformity, p. 10)

I think that pretty much sums it up for our students, doesn’t it? It’s not that they don’t want to work hard. It’s that they don’t want to expend too much energy on work that isn’t meaningful. When we see reports of rampant plagiarism or tales of students who want to do as little as possible in order to get a grade, isn’t that an indication that they’re doing work that’s not meaningful to them? When students are working on something that they’re passionate about, rather than apathetic, don’t most of these so-called generational ‘values’ or ‘character’ issues disappear? Contrary to what many believe, our students don’t want to just get by. They just want better work. The preceding was taken from Scott McLeod’s blog (dangerously ! irrelevant) (http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/our-students-want-better-work-not-less-work.html)Many people believe that the key to an improved lifestyle is less work. I think it’s better work. I believe that most of us want to work hard, but we want to do the kind of work that energizes us and makes a positive impact on others. That kind of work is worth working for, and the other kind of work is worth letting go of, finished or not. (The Art of Non-Conformity, p. 10)

I think that pretty much sums it up for our students, doesn’t it? It’s not that they don’t want to work hard. It’s that they don’t want to expend too much energy on work that isn’t meaningful. When we see reports of rampant plagiarism or tales of students who want to do as little as possible in order to get a grade, isn’t that an indication that they’re doing work that’s not meaningful to them? When students are working on something that they’re passionate about, rather than apathetic, don’t most of these so-called generational ‘values’ or ‘character’ issues disappear? Contrary to what many believe, our students don’t want to just get by. They just want better work. The preceding was taken from Scott McLeod’s blog (dangerously ! irrelevant) (http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/our-students-want-better-work-not-less-work.html)

Call it the Fisch Flip

Karl Fisch is a 20-year veteran of Arapahoe High School, located south of Denver, Colorado. For the past 14 years, the one-time maths teacher has been the school’s technology

co-ordinator. But a round of budget cuts forced him to take on extra duties – and a few weeks ago, he returned to the classroom to teach an algebra course to 9th and 10th graders (14 and 15 year-olds).

However, instead of lecturing about polynomials and exponents during class time – and then giving his young charges 30 problems to work on at home – Fisch has flipped the sequence. He’s recorded his lectures on video and uploaded them to YouTube for his 28 students to watch at home. Then, in class, he works with students as they solve problems and experiment with the concepts.

Lectures at night, “homework” during the day. Call it the Fisch Flip.

“When you do a standard lecture in class, and then the students go home to do the problems, some of them are lost. They spend a whole lot of time being frustrated and, even worse, doing it wrong,” Fisch told me.

“The idea behind the videos was to flip it. The students can watch it outside of class, pause it, replay it, view it several times, even mute me if they want,” says Fisch, who emphasises that he didn’t come up with the idea, nor is he the only teacher in the country giving it a try. “That allows us to work on what we used to do as homework when I’m they’re to help students and they’re there to help each other.”

When he puts it like that, you want to slap your forehead at the idea’s inexorable logic. You wonder why more schools aren’t doing it this way. That’s the power of flipping. It melts calcified thinking and leads to solutions that are simple to envision and to implement.

Five Classroom Discipline Strategies

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” is my

favorite cliché phrase as a teacher. It comforts me to recite it on

days when I spend hours on a lesson plan only to have an

unauthorized, off-color dance and giggles from the crowd upstage

my efforts.

This phrase not only eases my anger, it keeps me going.

Allen Mendler, Ph.D. shares my philosophy. He says he’s

discovered you “can't change anybody else's behavior.” Mendler’s

goal as a teacher and a school psychologist is to try to influence the

child’s behavior, not change it. To do this, Mendler says we must

“maximize the 10, 20, maybe 30 percent of the influence that's ours

and to make our voice as interesting, melodic, harmonious … even

as seductive as we possibly can, because as we all know, there are

always voices that compete for the hearts, minds and souls of our

kids.”

Mendler offers many ways for teachers to influence student

behavior. Below are five ways that you can use in your own

classroom to encourage on-task behavior.

PRESE RVE DI G N ITY

When discussing discipline, Mendler says the most important thing

is to “pick strategies that at the very least preserve dignity.” He

questions the tactic of putting students’ names on the chalkboard

when they are misbehaving. By publicizing a student’s misdeeds,

teachers put the student’s competency into jeopardy and set the

stage for a power struggle.

Instead, when dealing with an in-class disruption, Mendler suggests

using P-E-P, which stands for Privacy, Eye contact, and Proximity.

This strategy helps balance the control between the student and the

teacher.

For example, Mendler says if a student mumbled something during

class, the teacher would “get as close as you can to the student with

as much eye contact as that student can tolerate and with as much

privacy as realistically is available in a public setting of a classroom,

(and) convey your message of correction.”

He suggests you could also write your correction on a sticky note

or an index card. “With some students, it works even better to use

a Post-it note or an index card, and instead of saying what you

would normally say your correction to be, write your correction

down on a piece of paper,” Mendler said.

BASE YOUR RULES ON P R I N CIPLES

Prevention is the key in many aspects of life; education is no

different. By having effective rules, teachers can limit disruptive

student behavior.

Mendler suggests focusing on a values-based classroom. At the

beginning of the year, Mendler tells his students his three values:

take care of yourself, take care of each other, take care of this place.

He then invites his students to be important participants in coming

up with rules that represent examples of these principles.

“I like to give the lion's share of the responsibility for the

development of rules to students,” Mendler said. “One thing

certainly not to do with regard to rules is to have many, many of

them. Quite frankly, the good kids don't need a million rules. And

the bad kids, the more rules you give them, the more ideas you

might actually give them to break rules.”

HAVE EFFECT I V E CONSE QUEN CES

In my classroom, the students develop the four rules (a tactic

Mendler recommends). I also have a list of sequential consequences

(a tactic Mendler does not recommend). After this year, I see why

he doesn’t recommend the list; not every strategy works for every

kid and sometimes I give ineffective consequences.

“I think that's the wrong way to go about doing things, because as

an educator, it locks you into doing something based upon what

the system says, rather than based upon what you think is going to

most effectively work with that particular student,” Mendler said.

Instead, Mendler suggests checking in with the students and asking

their opinion about what consequence or consequences they think

might work.

HAVE A PLAN

Before ever stepping into a classroom, teachers should have a plan

for crisis situations and they should count on teaching the plan to

their students. When dealing with a crisis situation, like a fight, it is

important that students know what they should do: Stay away and

don't join in.

“The teacher, or the authority person, needs to reassure him or

herself, as well as everybody else, that since you're the person in

charge, you're going to be the primary person to deal with the

issue,” Mendler said.

In addition to a plan for crisis situations, have a plan for less

destructive behaviors, such as yelling out. This way you will be less

tempted to kick students out of class over annoying, yet

manageable conduct.

“I want it to be hard for kids to throw their education away,”

Mendler said. “I want to make it difficult for them to get

themselves kicked out of a class.” Instead, Mendler suggests

ignoring minor behavior infractions and addressing possible

consequences after class with the student.

BE F A I R A N D DEF I N E FA I R N ESS

One of my least favorite things to hear as a teacher is: “That’s not

fair!” I have to fight the urge to yell back, “Life’s not fair!” But, the

truth is: It’s not.

To combat the “That’s not fair!” cry, Mendler tells teachers to

address the fairness issue the first day of school. “It's very, very

important to make a distinction between being fair and treating

everybody exactly the same way,” Mendler said.

At the beginning of each school year, Mendler tells his students he

wants them to all be successful. But, he explains the definition of

“successful” is different for each student.

“What I mean by 'success' is you getting better in whatever

academic area we're doing — you getting better today than you

were yesterday…not necessarily better than everybody else in the

world or even in this classroom,” Mendler said.

When teachers embrace the individuality of each child from the

beginning, students will be more willing to accept different

consequences for each student without complaint.

S T R ATE G IES AREN’T ONE- S IZE FITS ALL

Whatever strategies you decide to employ in the classroom,

Mendler suggests that you keep one thing in mind: working with

students is a roller coaster ride. A strategy may not work

immediately or the student may slip back into old behavior.

“Before you decide whether or not something works or doesn't

work with a student or a group of students, try it at least five times

for over a trial period of two to three weeks, and evaluate it on this

basis,” Mendler said.

From: Pencils, Progress and Perfection

Pencils often lie, erasing mistakes in the gray matter of memory, turning stories, once etched in ink, into new shades of half-truths. Pencils promise perfection, keep erasing the mistakes and slowly we evolve (or is it "descend with modification?") into something stronger and more efficient. The word "efficient" is, in itself, deceptively inefficient with vowels and double letters reminding even the most ardent linguist that form sometimes trips up function.

I yelled at a student today after he told me to "fuck off." For the record, I don't think he literally wanted me to fuck off. He just wanted to win an imaginary battle he was having with me or with the system or with whatever the Universe throws at a twelve year old.

I didn't "raise my voice." I screamed. Red faced, eyes bulging, monster in the classroom. I scared him. I scared myself. When it was over I cried. I think my crying scared him even worse. Then I apologized. I think the apology was the scariest part. I get the sense he wants to believe that grown-ups aren't as vulnerable as this.

Pencils promise perfection, but as long as I'm around, imperfection abounds. If I were a sentence, I'd be a past progressive turned imperfect tense. Always imperfect. Sometimes tense. Pencils provide a mythology that the education factory can turn out a series of codified best practices and with just the right amount of training, we'll never screw up again.

This evening, my daughter, now three, throws a temper tantrum when I tuck her doll in wrong. I try to comfort her, but she kicks me in the stomach and slaps my face. I cry like a baby, feeling broken down by a broken world. She stops me and says, "It's okay, daddy. It's okay." I'm supposed to be strong here and prove that I'm her protector and here I am holding a child who gets angry for no particular reason and I cannot help her. "I love you even when you cry," she says.

"I love you even when you're angry," I answer.

I go to bed tired, but not sleepy. So I light the gas lamp and pull out the paper. Edison is promising to replace teachers with motion pictures and phonographs. At some point, we'll have no purpose. A lesson is much more efficient when produced by a corporation. Some day learning will be customized to every student and teachers will be obsolete. Gray films, gray lines, gray matter expanding with the march of industry - a concrete tabula rasa etched with steel. Either embrace the machine or become the machine.

I am not a Teacher of the Year. I am not an award-winning mega-star. I will not have my picture on the gray print newspaper or start in a monochromatic motion picture. But I'll be here, in my classroom, vulnerable and broken and ready to cry and apologize and forgive. I can't offer progress. I can't offer perfection. But I can offer myself, inefficient, sometimes even ineffective, but always real.

Pedagogy

Any pedagogic method can be used well or poorly. Depending on what one is trying to teach, some methods will be much easier to use well than others. Blanket evaluations of pedagogic methods—for example, participation equals “active learning”—are inaccurate.

A Different Drug Problem

The other day, someone at a store in our town read that a Methamphetamine lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county and he asked me a rhetorical question, “Why didn't we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up?”

I replied, I had a drug problem when I was young: I was drug to church on Sunday morning. I was drug to church for weddings and funerals. I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.

I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults. I was also drug to the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher, or if I didn't put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.

I was drug to the kitchen sink to have my mouth washed out with soap if I uttered a profanity. I was drug out to pull weeds in mom's garden and flower beds and cockleburs out of dad's fields. I was drug to the homes of family, friends and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline, or chop some firewood, and, if my mother had even known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.

Those drugs are still in my veins and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say or think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack, or heroin; and, if today's children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place.

God bless the parents who drugged us.

Guest Post: Letter to a High School Teacher

This post is from a Middle School student to their future High School teacher. Have you seen that movie “American Pie”? You know how Jim thinks he knows “things”, but only knows apple pie?
Remember that when I walk into your class for the first time. I will likely have what my old social studies teacher calls my “bravado mask” on much of the first quarter. Whatever that is…I don’t get it. We watched a lot of movies. I had an English teacher that talked about how he didn’t expect us to be professional writers because, well, none of us were. That gave me confidence to take risks in my writing (he always told us to do so!). Please don’t expect me to write like Lois Lowry or Jordan Sonnenblick. But, they’re cool.
Oh, here are a few things I’d like you to know before I get into your class. I still care a lot about what people think of me. My school counselor says that is my most adult-like trait. I don’t get it. I still have to move around a lot in class. I’m addicted to teachers allowing us to work in groups. I kind of get why. I see the workers at Target always talking (my math teacher said he likes to dress up in khaki pants and a red polo on weekends and walk around at Target answering people’s questions) My PE and computer teachers used sarcasm and, for the most part, I understood what was going on. However, I did get in trouble a few times when I was trying to be sarcastic but it came across as me being a jerk. I’m still learning how to use sarcasm. I understand that you are trying to treat me like I’m an adult. But, I’m not yet. Point to the older students for me to look up to. Especially if they are cute. In all honesty, I’m not too afraid of the school work and homework because my middle school teachers have trained me to only think about that lame test we take every spring. Seriously, that is all they talk about. The only thing I have mastered is how to bubble in circles. I think that is sarcasm.
I’m still immature and my parents say I will be until I get a real job other than handing out flyers for the local ice cream shop. You should try their mint-n-chip…it’s a party in your mouth! Especially if you put rainbow sprinkles on top of the ice cream! Now that’s sarcasm! Right? The only remaining curiosity I have is related to my social life: both my real and made up one in my mind. Sometimes I get the two mixed up. I want friends, but I want to be left alone – both make life easier. Even though I may look annoyed when you talk to me, I am listening to what you are saying just like Jason Biggs’ character in “American Pie” is outwardly annoyed with his dad giving him advice on “things”, but inside is intently listening. Oh, I secretly like Justin Bieber.

Everyone has the potential to learn.

• We learn in different ways, depending on abilities, learning styles, preferences and interests.
• Learning takes place through inquiry: questioning, exploring, experimenting and problem solving.
• Learning takes place when we make connections between previous and new understanding.
• Learning for understanding occurs by acquiring skills and knowledge, constructing meaning and transfer to other contexts.
• Learning is active and social and best takes place through collaboration and interaction.
• Learning takes place when we feel secure and valued and are able to take risks.
• Learning needs to be challenging, meaningful, purposeful and engaging.
• Learning includes meta-cognition and reflection, and requires learners to take ownership of their learning.
• Learning is continuous, lifelong and ever-evolving.

Beliefs-Coach G

When teachers ask me what I did to turn things around, I stress at first that it wasn't what I did so much as what I believed. In particular, even in my darkest moments, I clung to the belief that there was something I was doing (or not doing) to contribute to if not cause my classroom woes. This may seem like a lot to put on any teacher, let alone a new one. Yet this sort of ownership over classroom outcomes has been a hallmark of successful teachers I've known over the years. And if you think about it, to believe otherwise is to accept powerlessness over your situation.

From Seth Godin- again

Check-in, Chicken

One way to start every morning with your team is to have them check in. Go around in a circle and let people update and contribute. It's not a silly exercise, in that it helps people speak up and it communicates forward motion.

Another way, probably a better one, is to have each member of the team announce what they're afraid of. Two kinds of afraid, actually. Things that might fail and things that might work.

What are you, chicken?

Yes, we're chicken. We're afraid. The lizard has us by the claws.

So, tell us. What are you afraid might happen that would destroy, disintegrate, or dissuade--that would take us down? And what are you afraid of that might work, thus changing everything and opening up entirely new areas of scariness?