What’s New? Innovative Technology Use for Inquiry?
Using technologies for deep, student-driven inquiry isn’t new.
Good job Papert picked the turtle. Kind of ironic. (Tip of the hat to @brendasherry for pointing that out.)
Oh my goodness…
It’s so challenging to observe the ‘new’ focus on inquiry and the role of technology.
I very much appreciate this focus — don’t get me wrong — and enjoy the renewed energy from educators whose familiarity with the past informs their present wealth of knowledge.
Papert, Logo and Constructionism
Early on (early 1970′s) Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) threatened to steal the student’s locus of control. We call it ‘student agency’ these days. Luckily, Seymour Papert, Logo and Mindstorms pioneered a different view for us.
This awesome video about inquiry, student agency and kids being mathematicians, artists and programmers even pre-dates my start! :-)
Knowledge-Building
A little later (1985), Marlene Scardamalia and Carl Bereiter began to develop their CSILE project. This movie about Knowledge Forum illuminates their innovative and visionary use of information and communications technologies for collaborative inquiry and knowledge building within a community of learners.
True knowledge building necessitates that we learn from the past and build it forward. It is inefficient, and negligent, for us to start fresh with wide eyes and empty of that rich experience.
Please share these with your colleagues.
Turtle Art – am I a programmer or an artist…
…or maybe a mathematician!
If you are a regular reader, you will know my love for, and my history with, Logo. This continues for very simple reasons. I want kids to think deeply about their thinking. I want kids to construct and to discuss their constructions. I want kids to set goals and then to struggle through as they achieve them. The turtle graphics features of Logo provides these opportunities.
Turtle Art has been created by people very close to the original Logo team – Brian Silverman and Artemis Papert. It has a wonderful interface that those of you familiar with Scratch will appreciate.
It is a powerful tool for kids to explore geometry and programming while delving into the creation of images.
Here are some sample screens from the online tutorial and also some artwork!
Check it out. It’s free. :-)
Visible Thinking – A View from the Past :-)
Transfers on the Train of Thoughts
As colleague, Brenda Sherry, and I prepare for the OTF CONNECTS webinar session titled “Making Student Thinking Visible: How Can Technology Help?“, I came across this article from the distant past <g>. We didn’t call it ‘visible thinking’ back then – we usually referred to it as ‘making your thinking explicit’. But, as with many solid, worthwhile constructs, they are not readily adopted and so often reappear decades (or centuries!) later under a new name with new advocates and with a new dream that maybe this time things might stick and better the lives of students.
So it is with ‘visible thinking’. Of course, there are LOTS of new ideas and strategies that Brenda and I are bringing to the presentation – based on Project Zero’s “Making Thinking Visible“!
I have replicated “Transfers on the Train of Thoughts” here as is — except I have parsed it and added a couple of titles for clarity. This was written for, and delivered at, a SIG-Logo conference called “Look to the Learner” that some of us ran for the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario (ECOO) in March, 1986.
TRANSFERS ON THE TRAIN OF THOUGHTS
“People caught in unfamiliar contexts…are liable to be judged as stupid…”
For decades, if not centuries, a persistent problem for educators has been that of getting the student to apply knowledge learned in one domain to another distinctly different domain. It is not that the knowledge does not exist within the learner. It appears to be a problem of triggering the retrieval of that knowledge when immersed in a different problem-solving context. Carl Bereiter, Marlene Scardamalia and others (Whitehead, 1929) refer to this contextually restricted knowledge as “inert knowledge”.
“Human beings learn through participation in various contexts and spheres of action. Home, street, workplace, supermarket, bank, airliner, the faceless but nonetheless real world of bill-paying – these are a few of the many contexts with which one must become intimate in order to function as a modern adult. People caught in unfamiliar contexts, such as a person taking an airline trip for the first time, will blunder, hesitate, and act not quite right in a dozen ways that people familiar with the context never even think about. Newcomers to a behavioural context are therefore liable to be judged as stupid. By the same token, people behaving in a context that is much more familiar to them than it is to the observer are likely to be admired for their mental efforts.” (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1983, p11)
…So, we’d better teach students to think about their thinking!
We need to explicitly teach students to think about their thinking.
“The hope is that we might be able to find ways to help students discover knowledge about knowledge, thereby setting the stage for acquiring truly domain-independent skills, such as how to reflect on the knowledge they already have, and to identify the causes underlying the mistakes they make.” (Brown, 1985, p184)
and,
“Cognitive skills of information management; strategies for problem solving that cut across domains of knowledge; such metacognitive skills as planning, monitoring, and learning how to learn; communication and critical inquiry skills will come to be valued more highly.” (Pea, 1985, p93)
Schools have traditionally taught subjects and therefore emphasize knowledge specific to that domain. This method, of course, is replicated in other domains. But this methodology perhaps leads to a collection of “knowledge packets” that can only be accessed when one invokes the context or culture in which the knowledge is embedded.
How do we solve this dilemma?
1. Thematic Integration
In order to overcome this dilemma two distinct approaches have occurred in educational environments – one more strongly than the other. I shall propose a third. The first scenario is familiar to most elementary school teachers: thematic integration. One should not teach a period on reading, then one on writing, followed by math, etc. There rather should be a thematic approach to the classroom environment. In this way “Pioneers” maybe the chosen theme and the classroom is alive with multidisciplined activities dealing with pioneers. For example, a centre might be set up for students to write about pioneers; a candle-making centre might be arranged to allow the students to explore early candle-making methods; the dress-up centre may have 18 and 19th century clothing and so on. This approach is certainly more meaningful than a “traditional” one, in that there is a connectedness and relevance to the use of the subject matter skills to learn about pioneers. But it does not meet the needs of learning generalizable skills outside of that domain.
2. Teach Heuristics
Another approach, although less popular, is that of teaching heuristics to students. These are generally problem-solving strategies that are studied in either a domain-free or a single domain environment. The hope here is that the student is able to recall the appropriate heuristic when confronted with a new problem.
3. Teach Thinking Techniques – an Eclectic Approach
What I propose is a more eclectic approach.
But before I describe techniques that have been successfully used in classrooms, I would like to draw one further observation. Some people, when adopting Logo, have understood its attendant philosophy as one of a playground where unfolding of learning and development will occur naturally as a result of interacting with the Logo environment. I encourage free exploration and a playfulness as an integral part of any learning activity – but not to the exclusion of other forms of activity. Ron Ragsdale (OISE) reminded me of a quote from Corinthians.
“Everything is permissible, But not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, But not everything is constructive.”A sense of extreme permissiveness sometimes invades the Logo world. I don’t think this was the intent of the originators of the language. It was designed to allow people to become reflective about their own thought processes – to think about their thinking. The activities which I propose allow the learner to be self-determining and in control yet focus the student on developing reflective skills. (This does not, by any means, negate the need for play and exploration!
AFTERBUGS
In the thematic approach I outlined earlier in the paper, I suggested that people usually choose a content theme – but at other times I would recommend a process theme be the focus. As an example I use a theme called AFTERBUGS.
“What a refreshing change to see young excited learners reveling in learning from their mistakes – rather than being ashamed of them.”
The intent of this activity is that students monitor their own learning processes by actively looking for mistakes, or bugs, as evidenced in the outcome of their task. The importance of children taking charge of their own minds cannot be over-emphasized from both and the affective and cognitive perspective. (Incidentally, the social, interactive payoffs are quite high too!)
When children are enthusiastic and analytical about going back to their tasks (hence analyzing their previous and present thinking processes) they have taken a large step toward the more profound goals of education. How can this be achieved in the classroom? It started with Logo and the original idea arose from the grade 2-3 students in the class. In working with Logo it became clear that one rarely got it right the first time.
Children soon got used to the notion of having “bugs” in their programs. These are not bad things – rather they were things that had to be fixed.
Bug hunting became an game.
With some nurturing of this attitude the children started bug collections. They had imaginary (to an adult!) jars in which they collected their bugs. Whenever they solved their difficulty (bug) they would remove it from the jar and squish it. Now, because we had constructed a large papier-mâché turtle as part of our classroom Logo culture, one of the children suggested that we feed the bugs to the turtle rather than destroying them indiscriminately. This was very entertaining and motivating.
The next occurrence was astounding and revelatory for me as an educator. The children started looking for bugs elsewhere in their classroom lives – not just with Logo! They would actively seek mistakes in their math, spelling, reading and so on.
An unusual situation for a classroom one must admit! What a refreshing change to see young excited learners reveling in learning from their mistakes – rather than being ashamed of them.
WATCH ME THINK
Another technique that can be used is WATCH ME THINK. This is essentially a situation where a more novice student would watch a more expert student as he/she performs the task. In addition to watching the student, however, the ‘expert’ is asked to think out loud. This allows the ‘novice’ to get at some of the thinking processes that the expert is using.
The outcomes, once again, are not specific only to Logo. This strategy can be used during the solution of other problems; in arithmetic, or writing stories, spelling, reading text. This technique of ‘thinking aloud’ has normally been used in research settings where the researcher is attempting to understand the strategies underlying the actions. Again, the payoffs are not only cognitive ones.
It is assumed by many people that experts solve tasks with ease, with little difficulty. This is clearly not the case. It is therefore of affective benefit to the novice in that he/she can observe that:
“Oh, I’m normal – it’s okay to have ups and downs when I’m trying to solve a problem. It’s natural.”
Think about young writers. The models they have for writing are generally the finished product; a linear, error-free piece of text. One could easily assume that the author sat down at a blank page (or screen!) and wrote fluidly from beginning to end and voilà it’s complete! This, as we are aware, is rarely the situation.
The novice benefits greatly from getting at the procedural knowledge that the expert uses in pursuing this task. Similarly, in Logo, looking at a finished product does not always help the novice in achieving similar goals. To watch someone use his/her techniques for proceeding with a task can be a powerful tool. “What” does not necessarily help with “How”.
(One must not assume from this discussion that I negate individual explorations of problem-solving. This is certainly not the case. Remember, my preference in educating is to be eclectic; providing as wide a variety of techniques as possible to suit and enhance idiosyncratic learning styles.)
It is clear, once again, that the Watch Me Think exercise focuses the students attention on thinking about thinking.
METAPHORIA
This is an activity that emphasizes the use of metaphor – specifically what I call procedural analogy. I make the distinction and use the term ‘procedural’ quite purposely. The rationale for this is that I wish to emphasize the “how“, or process knowledge, as opposed to the “what” or propositional, declarative knowledge.
Metaphors are used widely in cultures to clarify the meaning of a construct or idea, but they’re also used to ground the information in an emotional or affective context. Metaphors have been used to illustrate the flow of control of Logo procedures or to teach recursion.
“Metaphors can ground information in an emotional or affective context.”
I believe these to be valuable tools in assisting learners to understand constructs or operations which might otherwise be too difficult for them. What is more important (and more difficult to implement) is to encourage the learner to create his/her own metaphor for that abstract concept under focus. This may only be possible after the construct is understood by means of using a given metaphor. But the ownership over the self-created idea is certainly more powerful, less extinguishable and more generalizable than a teacher-given one.
“Ownership over self-created ideas is more powerful, less extinguishable and more generalizable than teacher-given ones.”
And once again, of course, the student is thinking about thinking. So the child is essentially saying to herself, “Okay, I have this idea and way of doing things – what else is like that?”
An example, published before – but worth mentioning here, from a grade three child (Jeffrey) who was coming to grips with the notion of a larger problem being broken into its smaller parts is repeated here for the sake of continuity.
Our grade 2/3 class had the opportunity to watch the overpass of the space shuttle piggybacked on a jumbo jet. When we returned to class, a discussion about space naturally erupted. One child asked if Earth was in space, and in asking the question, we determined that yes, it must be, because it wasn’t sitting on anything. The discussion continued until Jeffrey piped up.
“You know it’s sort of like Logo.”
The class stopped, and looked at him curiously, as I did myself.
“What do you mean?” I asked him curiously.
“Well, Earth is like a procedure. It’s like a sub-procedure inside of the solar system. The solar system is the super-procedure and the solar system is like a sub-procedure inside the universe. The universe is like the super-procedure.”
Jeffrey personalized and consolidated his understanding of procedures and sub-procedures through making this analogy. Again it is to be noted that the learning is moved from the context of Logo to other domains. This helps to remove the “functional fixedness” that is common to many types of learning situations. The child not only may be able to transfer the knowledge about breaking a large problem into smaller parts – but more importantly may use metaphor or analogy in other learning situations.
“The child…more importantly may use metaphor or analogy in other learning situations.”
To summarize, the activities that I have described here serve two purposes. Firstly, the children will learn the content more efficiently and will be able to transfer that knowledge to other learning domains more readily. Secondly, they will acquire some metaskills of learning which they can apply in new learning contexts – analyzing work for errors of thought, watching a more expert person in solving a task, and metaphor usage to better understand the concept.
Bibliography
Bereiter, C. & Scardamalia, M. (1983) Schooling and the growth of intentional cognition: Helping children take charge of their own minds. In Z. Lamm (Ed.), New Trends in Education. (pp. 73-100). Tel-Aviv: Yachdev United Publishing Company.
Brown, J.S. (1985). Process vs. Product: A perspective on tools for communal and informal electronic learning. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 1(2).
Pea, R. D. (1985) Integrating human and computer intelligence. In E. L. Klein (Ed.) Children and Computers. New Directions for Child Development, no. 28, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Should We Gamify Meditation? ;-)
I ask this somewhat in cheek. In fact, it is rather an oxymoron.
Mindfulness
There is a lot of evidence about the positive effects of mindfulness these days. It is becoming ‘de rigueur’ in the K-12 education space. For example, Mindfulness Without Borders offers workshops to schools. So does the Mindfulness Institute. The Association for Mindfulness in Education and Mindfulschools.org also attend to this issue. Just to name a few.
On a personal note, I studied transcendental meditation when I was 20. That is also when I first learned of Jon Kabat-Zinn – although I didn’t take the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course until a few years ago.
Meditation is a practice in which an individual trains the mind or induces a mode of consciousness, either to realize some benefit or as an end in itself. The word meditation carries different meanings in different contexts. Meditation is often used to clear the mind. (Roughly taken from Wikipedia.)
Biofeedback
I have also played around with biofeedback. I have found it quite useful.
“Biofeedback is the process of gaining greater awareness of many physiological functions primarily using instruments that provide information on the activity of those same systems, with a goal of being able to manipulate them at will.” Wikipedia
Biofeedback may give you insights into meditative practice and indeed may assist you in reaching goals of ‘calmness’ and ‘stress reduction’. There are many more biofeedback tools available these days due to advances in technologies and in neuroscience. Some give you feedback on muscle tension, some on skin temperature and others on skin conductance (galvanic skin response -GSR*). (It is, in fact, a GSR device that I have owned for some 25 years.) These are all indicators of psychological or physiological arousal. So, if you can ‘meditate’ in some fashion and reduce the arousal, you will get good feedback on which techniques work effectively for you.
Major Research
Important to note that this is not some pie-in-the-sky notion — the Affective Computing Group at MIT Media Lab has been investigating many educational issues leveraging biofeedback devices. Susanne Lajoie at McGill has also been studying education with this lens too. And, you can bet that the big publishers are involved as well! (But, that’s a topic for another day!)
Gaming?
And guess what!
With all the advances in computer technologies and biofeedback devices – and, with the onslaught of ‘gaming’ and ‘gamification’, there are a slew of biofeedback games available both online and downloadable!
I am actually not familiar with any of those at all but am simply asking myself – and you – the question.
Should we gamify meditation?
Thoughts?
*SideNote: Heck. If you are into robotics, get yourself an RCX Lego brick and make a GSR yourself — but, be aware only do this with your RCX on battery power. If it’s plugged in, you could electrocute yourself!
GSR from RCX brick – courtesy of Angelfire.com
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Csikszentmihalyi worries! Should we?
![By Ehirsh (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://theconstructionzone.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi.jpg)
By Ehirsh (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Engagement of video games has ‘become a Pandora’s box containing bait for the reptilian brain to feast on’
“The incessant warfare (the child) takes part in is not virtual to the child, it is his reality…at a superficial cognitive level they’re aware the game is only a virtual reality, but at a deeper, emotional level they know it is not. After all, it is happening to them”, says Csikszentmihalyi.
Csikszentmihalyi is clearly a world renowned expert in motivation, happiness and creativity. You likely know his work on ‘flow’. In fact, you are perhaps a real believer and apply it in your educational practice with students.
Csíkszentmihályi described flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
Flow CC by benarent NC SA
“To achieve a flow state, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur. Both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, then apathy results.’” Wikipedia
Many schools have ‘flow’ rooms or, at least, try to design educational experiences to engage students in the ‘zone’ – or a state of flow.*
“We are headed for ‘a quantum leap into an abyss of insubstantiality’.”
Csíkszentmihályi fears that ‘in one or two generations children will grow up to be adults unable to tell reality from imagination’. We are headed, he suggests, for ‘a quantum leap into an abyss of insubstantiality’.
What do you think?
*Note: It has been central to my ‘way of being’ in classrooms for many years. I even had my most recent classroom – and, indeed, have this blog called “The Construction Zone’. (‘Zone’ doubles for ‘state of flow’ and for ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD).
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To Question IS the Answer!
Respecting the Student’s Desire to Know
In this climate of standards and assessment, can we afford to respect the student’s desire to know?
Or, can we afford not to?
I would suggest that respecting the student’s own ‘driving questions’ is a major strategy in the achievement of those standards. Following this assumption, we need also to provide the tools for investigation and to create a school or classroom culture of support and expectation. In order for this model to work, students must learn the requisite metacognitive skills.
“If students are not able to assume control of their own learning, we do them them a serious injustice.”
Who is Pulling my Strings? CC by mellyjean NC-ND
Where is the ‘locus of control’?
I have always been amazed at the arrogance with which we as a society assume control of a child’s learning as they enter school. From birth and before entering school, children are immersed in a complex, unstructured learning environment. And assuming supportive caregiving, these children learn a wealth of information. They learn the major part of a language (or even more than one!), much about mathematics, science and the world around them.
“Please consider the amount a child learns before s/he enrolls in school.”
How do they do this? Inquiry. Natural inquiry. Curiosity. Questioning. Problem solving. Resolving discrepancies. Trial and error. They are in charge of their own ‘curriculum’. They set their goals…ask their questions… generate their strategies… invoke them… and consider the outcomes. This is obviously an extremely powerful recipe for success. Please consider the amount a child learns before s/he enrolls in school.
Mark Brannan on Flickr NC SA
What is learning? Cognitive and…?
Think of learning, if you will, as having two major distinct aspects. One is cognitive. The other is ‘other aspects of self’ – including social and affective. In this latter area I would include passion and motivation… the ‘heart’… the ‘fire’. Often learning has been divided into ‘process’ and ‘product’.
However, I wish to propose that we consider both the ‘product and process’ as ‘content’ – in some ways the cognitive aspect. Perhaps we as educators still spend too much time on the ‘product’ aspect of this false dichotomy, yet we do acknowledge and attend to the ‘process’ to some degree. We do address to some extent ‘how to learn’ and we teach strategies for this to students.
We turn process into product!
The humorous part of this, of course, is by the very nature of doing so, we turn ‘process’ into ‘product’ as well. It becomes something else to be tested and measured. Please understand that I do not negate the importance of high standards for either product or process. I have incredibly high expectations for students and would expect high quality results in both these areas. It is how we get there which I question. And the theft of the locus of control for learning in order to focus on curriculum delivery is not the way to get high standards in either the short term nor, in fact, for our larger goal of life long learning.
“The theft of the locus of control for learning…is not the way to get high standards.”
Bring Love – Gain Expertise!
Don’t steal. It’s not nice! :-)
It seems that what we need to do is more fully support the project-based learning model. It is a ‘natural’ model that can be improved and enhanced through some formalization at school. But we shouldn’t rob those children of the most powerful and necessary attributes of learning – those of passion and being in charge of self… of all the meta aspects… of all the ‘fire’ and intrinsic reasons to learn.
So imagine a child as she moves from a world in which she has been the author/producer/director and actor of her own learning to that of mere actor… taking direction from others as to what to learn… to say… to perform. And it is for the next 12 or more years that this is the case… except for glimpses when she is asked to ‘do a project’.
“Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.” (Neil Postman)
Wide-eyed radical?
Lest you think I am some sort of wide-eyed radical who would like to see the curriculum tossed out the window, let me assure you, that is not the case and it would be simplistic to dismiss me as such. It is not I who is the radical one. It is, on the other hand, radical to take a healthy, inquisitive, self-motivated learner and to institutionalize that learner to the extent that robs them of their passion and motivation in the name of ‘curriculum delivery’.
“It is not I who is the radical one. Those who institutionalize healthy, inquisitive, self-motivated learner are radical.”
Explore the landscape.
Curriculum as a landscape to be discovered
Do I disagree with the curriculum content that exists in government documents? That is a question for another discussion, but for purposes of this article let me answer ‘no’. I believe it is necessary to have this breadth and depth of a knowledge base articulated and available in some organized fashion. It provides a landscape to be discovered, explored and understood through the school life of a student.
Who manages the learning?
What worries me is the way in which it is approached. Let me continue with my previous description of kids before school. Before kids enter school they essentially command both aspects of learning – ‘cognitive’ and the ‘other’. Upon entering school, the ‘cognitive’ is the focus. The ‘other’ is essentially taken over by the teacher. The management of learning is under the teacher’s jurisdiction. It then becomes necessary to contrive activities to engender ‘motivation’ or ‘passion’. And this gets to be the case progressively as the student proceeds through the grades.
Things people assume about me.
- Don’t assume I negate the benefits of ‘direct instruction’.
- I am not laissez faire. I expect and demand high quality work.
- Don’t think I let kids run amok. I am a strict disciplinarian… in that I do not tolerate ‘slacking off’. But I do like a certain amount of ‘chaos’ in my classrooms. But that chaos relates more to ‘active learning’ than to ‘fooling around’.
So… how do we do it?
So how do we start towards this vision? As I suggested, we need to perhaps further adopt a project-based learning (PBL) model. And I believe that students’ driving questions are at the heart of many types of project-based learning. This blog contains many posts related to PBL, questioning, the zone of proximal development and the role of information and communications technologies:
- PBL – Who IS in Charge? What Tools can Help?
- PBL – the New Worksheet
- Scaffolding for Deep Understanding
- PBL? Am I Doing it Right?
- Metacognition: A ‘Way of Being’ in the Classroom
- The Science of Passion-Based Learning
Just how powerful is the role of one’s own question in learning? It may be the single most important factor in learning… both in school and outside school. Passion – the emotional force of a driving question – raises one’s motivation, increases energy and focus, carries one through uncertainty and difficulty, and heightens one’s own expectations.
“Once you have learned how to ask relevant and appropriate questions, you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.”
Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner//
So You Want Kids to Code! Why?
Here are MY Reasons!
The title of this post might lead you to think that I question the benefit of kids coding or programming. No. That’s not it. I am just hoping that you have developed your own good reasons why you want kids to code. Then, in support of those reasons, you set the wheels in motion for your students to achieve those goals.
In brief, my reasons revolve around ‘students being in charge of their own learning’. These include:
- student agency (locus of control)
- scaffolding a cognitive partnership where students come to deeply understand learning through the development and application of metacognitive skills
I invite you to tell your stories. Why do you want your students coding?
My Stories
“What can I do with this computer?”
When I started using computers with kids, in 1977, there were no applications to speak of! In fact, I didn’t even have a desktop computer. I rented a dumb terminal and ran a telephone line through the classroom ceiling to a phone in the school library.
Why did I go to such trouble? It was about power. Locus of control. Social constructionism. I really wanted the students to ‘take charge of their own learning’ – but not just from a student agency perspective – but I also wanted them to develop magnificent metacognitive skills and to ‘fall in love’ with their ability to learn.
Now for a little trip down memory lane.
You know, I never thought I would use computers with kids. Back in the 70’s I was a ‘humanist’. OK – I still am! But computers were so mechanistic – however I decided to take a course with Ron Ragsdale at OISE.
We used the Commodore Pet. 
We learned BASIC – there were really no programs available until a little later.
I kept asking myself, “What can this computer do for me? What can it do for me?”
After a few nights I realized I was asking the wrong question! I had the wrong expectation – the wrong belief!’
It’s not ‘what the computer can do for me?’ but rather, ‘What can I do with this computer?’
“What can I do with this computer?”
So, after that evening, I was moved.
It was 1977 so I went and rented a dumb terminal for a month – for 70 dollars – and took it into my Grade One class. I hooked it up to a telephone line connected to OISE. I taught some grade ones to do simple programming in BASIC.
Print “Janine”
Print “Janine 10 times”
You should have seen their faces!! They squared their shoulders… head their heads high. And they wanted to struggle some more!
They wanted to try new things… to fail more… so that they might succeed! (Just like Nintendo or PlayStation!)
Did they each have a computer? No! Was that a bad thing? No! It was a social event. It was a ‘happening’. It was shared. They all had a stake in it… not just in what they did… but also in what the other kids did.
Then came Logo!
Let me demonstrate a little Logo – a constructionist tool that has been around for a few decades. Kids teach a turtle to behave as they wish. For example, let’s teach it to make a square. You type in fd 100 and the turtle draws a line 100 turtle steps long. Type rt 90 and the turtle turns right 90 degrees. Do that three more times and it draws a square. You see – if you do that, the turtle will have turned a total of 360 degrees because it made four 90 degree turns. 4 X 90 = 360 This can be all said in one command – repeat 4 [fd 100 rt 90]
Similarly, an equilateral triangle can be made by having the turtle turn 120 degrees three times. 3 X 120 = 360 Or, repeat 3 [fd 100 rt 120] For a pentagon - 5 X 72 = 360 so repeat 5 [fd 100 rt 72] will do it! And so on.
Total Turtle Trip Theorem
This simple arithmetic is the basis for the total turtle trip theorem.
“If a turtle takes a trip around the boundary of any area and ends up in the state in which it started, then the sum of all the turns will be 360 degrees.” Seymour Papert in Mindstorms, Basic Books, 1980*
So, as an advance organizer or a ‘minds on’ as we might say today, I asked my grade twos, to write a story about a total turtle trip before we explored this ‘powerful idea’ on the computer.
Leeanne, aged 8 wrote…
Once there lived a turtle. He was very curious. He wanted to take a trip. So he said to his mother, I’m going on a trip.” “Oh, but what if you fall and land upon your back?” his mother asked. “I won’t do that.” And off he went. When he was walking along he met Father Bunny. “Where are you off to on this fine spring morning,” Father Bunny asked. “I’m going on a trip around the world.” “But what if you…” Turtle didn’t hear. He was halfway down the road. He started down a big hill but he tripped and tumbled down, down, down the hill and landed on his back. And there he stayed. Meanwhile Turtle’s mother got worried and went to find him. She found him on his back. She helped him to his feet. And he said, “I guess I took a total turtle trip!”
Did she understand the concept? Let’s see. I asked the kids to make any polygon.
I was amazed at what LeeAnne did. Why? Because she not only understood the concept at hand, but realized that she could have the computer do the division (360/11). So her instruction to the turtle was repeat. This made the creation of any polygon really easy! A pentagon was 360/5. An octagon was 360/8.
Cognitive Residue: How Do We Help Kids Build Transferable Skills?**
Can coding lead to knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are transferable to other situations? Or maybe a better question might be, “How can we help students think about coding in ways that will allow for this transfer?”
If you ever wonder at the end of a day just what your kids learned while working at the computers and you are dissatisfied with your thoughts, consider the following simple model. Gavriel Salomon has posed an analysis of the difference between “effects with” and “effects of ” computers.
“Effects with are the changes that take place while one is engaged in intellectual partnership with peers or with a computer tool, as, for example, is the case with the changed quality of problem solving that takes place when individuals work together in a team. On the other hand, effects of are those more lasting changes that take place as a consequence of the intellectual partnership, as when computer-enhanced collaboration teaches students to ask more exact and explicit questions even when not using that system.”
In other words, the ‘effects with’ are the enhanced ability one gets from the use of technology. Salomon elaborates: “The combined product of human-plus-machine yields a higher level of performance.” The ‘effects of’ are the lasting individual changes resulting from the computer-supported collaboration, the cognitive residue, one might say, the transferable knowledge or skills.
So, just how might you go about helping your students experience the ‘effects of’ coding?
Let’s revisit Logo.
In Logo, as in other programming environments, you write procedures (or small programs), which may become part of larger procedures. The included ones, therefore, are called subprocedures , and the enclosing programs are called superprocedures . This is much like a builder using bricks that become part of a wall, which then becomes part of a house. For example, the procedure for creating a square can become a subprocedure inside a superprocedure for creating a flower.
To square
Repeat 4 [forward 50 right 90]
End
To flower
Repeat 18 [square right 20]
End
Jeffrey (a Grade 2 rascal!) made a most interesting leap from Logo to a completely different domain one day.
We were having a discussion inspired by the flight of the space shuttle piggybacked on a jumbo jet. Our Grades 2/3 class had the opportunity to watch the flight. When we return- ed to the classroom, a discussion of space naturally arose. One child asked if Earth was in space, and in asking the question, she determined it must be, because it wasn’t sitting on anything. The discussion continued until Jeffrey piped up.
“You know . . . it’s sort of like Logo.” We stopped and looked at him curiously. “What do you mean?” I asked him studiously. He replied, “Well, Earth is like a procedure. It’s like a subprocedure inside the solar system. The solar system is the superprocedure. And the solar system is like a subprocedure inside the universe. The universe is like the superprocedure.” “Fascinating,” I said, then asked, “What’s the biggest superprocedure?” After a moment he replied, “I don’t know. I guess the universe.”
Well, I was truly amazed at the generalization across domains that Jeffrey had made. He clearly demonstrated significant transfer of a concept from his experiences with Logo to an authentic event. Although Jeffrey’s illumination happened spontaneously, I learned that I could play an important role in helping students to acquire Salomon’s “effects of” by providing opportunities for them to look for these comparisons across subject areas.
Metaphoria
I started playing a game with students that I called Metaphoria. I gave them sentence starters such as:
“Programming in Logo is like … ” or,
“Finding a bug in a program is like … ”.
Students have answered: “Programming in Logo is like playing tennis. First, I take a turn, then the computer takes a turn.” “Finding a bug in a program is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
This is but one example that provides students with a mental model—a model that is durable and independent of coding. It is what Salomon would call a residual effect.
One example of this residual effect became evident after the students’ experience with “bug collecting” during their time with Logo. They had learned that identifying problems in their Logo code meant that they had mistakes, or bugs, in their thinking.
Of course, actively seeking bugs was a necessary component to getting the program to do what they wanted. Bug seeking naturally evolved into bug collecting. Every time a bug was solved, the kids squished it—metaphorically, of course!
The class had built a large papier maché turtle, and one of the students suggested that perhaps when a bug was solved it could be fed to the turtle instead. This was delightful and useful in and of itself, but the transfer of this model became clear as I overheard two students working on a traditional paper math task. They knew their answer wasn’t right.
One student said to the other:
“There’s a bug in here somewhere. We’d better find it!”
I believe it is important to maximize the opportunity for the acquisition of these skills as your students are coding. Do not leave it solely to the use of the computer. Be explicit in building the bridge—in making the connection of this skill to other domains. Discuss them in class. Have students describe other situations where these skills might be used.
In fact, take it one step further. Ask your students to think of particular aspects of that give them generalizable skills. In this way, you are empowering them to take more responsibility for their own learning.
Other Memorable Moments
Lego Logo – Way before the ‘Maker Movement’! :-)
Have you any idea of my excitement in 1987ish whenever Seymour Papert, Brian Silverman, Mitch Resnick, Steve Ocko and others came up with the idea of Lego and Logo being used together to create a great robotics environment for kids? It was called Lego/Logo*** and was the precursor to Lego Mindstorms.
I quickly purchased several dozen Lego Logo kits for use within North York Schools. We had some ‘hard fun’.
Intelligent Bricks
At about the same time, the folks at MIT Media Lab were working on developing an intelligent brick – a lego brick with a programmable chip inside it so that you could ‘send’ the Logo instructions to it and then disconnect all the cables! Then the robots were wireless and unencumbered. Some years later (1998), the first-generation programmable brick became available from Lego. You can read lots more of this history in Robots For Kids: Exploring New Technologies for Learning.****
Seymour’s Twinkling Eyes
One of the things I have always treasured in my meetings with Seymour was the twinkle in his eyes as he got energized by ‘powerful ideas’ for kids. One of these moments occurred regarding the intelligent brick. He was so excited about it at one point that he invited me to sit with him and his graduate students as they pondered and played with several of these turtles with embedded intelligent bricks. These turtles, of course, had sensors and lights and the discussion revolved around our creating a simulation of cultural differences.
“People of different cultures are comfortable with differing amounts of personal space. What if we could program these turtles to move around with that in ‘mind’?” Turtles had different coloured lights on them and so the idea was to program each one to move within a specified distance of any other turtle depending on its colour.
It was a fun afternoon.
It was a great ‘problem’ to think about.
It’s a far cry from walking into a classroom full of kids where they all have the same worksheet and are copying the code mindlessly into their computers – all to produce the same outcome into which they had no personal investment.
Look to the Learner
In 1984, I became the president of SIG-Logo – a special interest group for the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario (ECOO). We ran a conference called Look to the Learner.
It was extremely important for us to focus on the learner ‘being in charge’. At that time, as now, the educational computing community was under assault from those who wish to control children and to make them comply with their educational philosophy. It was the era of CAI – Computer Assisted Instruction. Or, as I called it – Computer Assisted Institutionalization!
Another famous book of the time The Computer in School: Tutor, Tool, Tutee by Robert Taylor (1980)*****spoke of the computer as a tutor, tool or tutee – as the title suggests! The computer could tutor the student. The computer could be used as a tool – e.g., wordprocessing, graphics, etc. Or, the computer could be the tutee – and be taught by the student. To do this, the student must learn and understand how to speak to the computer in a language it understands – that is, coding!
Here is the agenda for that wee conference – which stands out as a highlight of my years.
Click these images for a larger view of the day’s sessions.
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Current Notable Books you MUST Get
Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom ******
This is a spectacular book by Sylvia Libow Martinez & Gary Stager. These pioneers have a long and significant history with kids and effective computing which places kids firmly in charge of invention and learning. The book suggests that ‘using technology to make, repair, or customize the things we need brings engineering, design, and computer science to the masses. Fortunately for educators, this maker movement overlaps with the natural inclinations of children and the power of learning by doing’.
From the Campfire to the Holodeck: Creating Engaging and Powerful 21st Century Learning Environments*******
David is also a pioneer in this field. He developed Calliope many years ago. It became Inspiration. He developed the Koala Pad. It was a precursor to the use of tablets. He suggests that ‘learning institutions should offer a balance of Campfire spaces (home of the lecture), Watering Holes (home to conversations between peers), Caves (places for quiet reflection), and Life (places where students can apply what they’ve learned)’. He wants schools ‘that encourage immersive student-centered learning experiences (Holodecks)’.
Summary
It is not sufficient to equate ‘being in charge of one’s own learning’ with ‘student agency’.
Hopefully, these stories will afford you two thoughts:
- As we code with kids in 2013, we realize we stand on the shoulders of giants.
- We must have our own deep reasons for wanting our kids to code.
Share your stories!
I suggested, at the outset, that my reasons include both ‘student agency’ and helping kids to deeply understand learning. It is not sufficient to equate ‘being in charge of one’s own learning’ with ‘student agency’. Kids can not be in charge of their own learning if they do not understand the intricacies of learning and, indeed how they learn in different circumstances.
Now, go and tinker! :-)
References
*Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas. Seymour A. Papert, Basic Books, 1980
**Transfering Knowledge with Technology, Peter Skillen, Learning & Leading with Technology Volume 30 Number 4 pp 22-27
***LEGO/Logo: Learning Through and About Design, Mitchel Resnick and Stephen Ocko http://llk.media.mit.edu/papers/ll.html
****Robots For Kids: Exploring New Technologies for Learning, Allison Druin, James A. Hendler, Morgan Kaufmann, 2000
******Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, Sylvia Libow Martinez & Gary Stager, CMK Press, 2013
*******From the Campfire to the Holodeck: Creating Engaging and Powerful 21st Century Learning Environments, David Thornburg, Jossey-Bass, 2014
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Another Brick in the Wall
What’s standing in the way of change in education?
Originally posted on the Canadian Education Association website.
It is not a simple answer. Nor is it a simple question!
There are many ‘bricks in the wall’ that block systemic educational change. I do not have a short coherent response to this – especially since this is a blog post not a tome! But I will briefly describe a few ‘bricks’ for your consideration and response.
Brick #1 – Practise what you preach.
“We want students to be 21st century learners!” This is a common call to action we hear from educational leaders and speakers these days.
I like it.
However, all administrators and leaders (never mind the teachers!) should be 21st century learners too! If all educators aren’t there, it is unlikely that all students will get there. The sad part is that many of those advocating this idea are actually not practising it. They know the language – but have no visceral knowledge.
CC by Dominic’s Pics
Educational leaders now have to deeply immerse themselves into the ‘participatory’ culture of the Web 2.0 world in order to legitimately understand and promote it. During this learning curve, they must also develop an authoritative stance on the pros and cons of the issues and concerns related to the ‘always on,’ ‘over-connected’, ‘superficial’ aspects of life in the Web 2.0 world.
“The culture of education outside the classroom must reflect what is desired inside it – or little educational (r)evolution will occur.“
They should able to authoritatively discuss issues such as attention management, multitasking, intentional serendipity, co-construction of knowledge, technology supported knowledge construction, substantive collaboration, shared leadership, transmedia consumption and creation, and so forth.
It is important that leaders model their ‘learner’s stance’ for their administrator colleagues and for their teachers.
The culture of education outside the classroom is not inquiry-based. It is not self-directed. The culture of education outside the classroom must reflect what is desired inside it – or little educational (r)evolution will occur.
Brick #2 – We perpetuate myths through one-line wisdoms.
Many educators are living on a diet of abstracts, one-line wisdoms from Twitter, and drive-by professional development. We hear things like:
- “Kids don’t need to memorize anymore, they can just Google it”.
- “Students should be in charge of their own learning.”
- “Lectures are bad pedagogy.”
- “It’s not about the technology, it’s about the learning.”
- “Multitasking is a 21st century skill we must all learn.”
Brenda Sherry and I have had many discussions with education leaders about the danger of popularizing these simplistic, decontextualized one-line wisdoms. We understand the intention underlying these statements – but they may lead to malignant misinterpretation by those new to our profession.
The current nature of information science and media causes people to be reading snippets rather than long texts that may provide greater depth, context and nuance.
We suggest some questions to help people to unpack these statements with colleagues.
- How and why do these statements arise and gain popularity?
- What is the intention behind the statement? (we often believe that they are well-intentioned.)
- What are the effects of such statements?
- How could it be better said?
- We wonder about the responsibilities of the more expert among us in light of the novices in the community who hear these.
I don’t think that these abstracted one-line wisdoms serve us well in the reconstruction of the education world. But, they will continue to be present and prolific so use them as a springboard to deep and meaningful conversations.
Brick #3 – We need to educate – not subjugate.
A.S. Neill on his birthday via Wikipedia
What do we mean when we say that we want ‘students to be in charge of their own learning’? I think we have a very limited view of what we mean when we use this phrase.[1]
Do you really think that we want students to be ‘in charge of their own learning’? Maybe to some degree.
Maybe we mean some control – as in Universal Design for Learning —> but not as much agency as ‘Summerhill’![2]
“It’s about power.“
Clearly, it is about ‘power’ – power over choices, who has the power, how the power is shared, individual power vs the collective needs.
We often feel that we are empowering students:
- if we are engaging them in their areas of interest
- if we are giving them choices about all that is mentioned in the differentiated instruction literature – choice over process of knowledge acquisition (construction), content, and product
- if we are engaging them in the assessment/evaluation process (e.g., collaborative rubric creation).
- if we engage them in their ‘preferred learning style’ – although this often is a simplistically applied construct.
I don’t dismiss these notions. In fact, I am generally in agreement with them. But, it’s not sufficient.
“What we often do is still rather contrived – often by the structures of the institution.“
We need an holistic approach.
School is only a narrow slice of their life.
The kids are whole when they arrive at our doorsteps – and come with a full life replete with desires, passions, problems, issues, excitement (not necessarily about school) and confusions.
“We need to deal with the whole child.“
We need to encourage and support more student agency over other these aspects of their lives – attendance, tardiness, homework, schoolwork, use of their own mobile devices, etc. I am not suggesting a free-for-all, but I am suggesting that we need to respect the ‘whole’ person and the choices and decisions they make. It is harder than imposing compliance and invoking punitive measures of control – but, I believe that it is the right thing to do.
There is not enough space here to go into depth with this discussion, but I would invite you to explore Prochaska’s Theoretical Stages of Change, Harm Reduction, Asset vs Deficit and Appreciative Inquiry as models to use in developing a more democratic classroom or school. The first two models arise out of ‘addictions’ research but I have successfully used the principles with students in secondary school. It’s not easy and required a lot of re-wiring of my habits!
As for teachers…
If we want students ‘in charge of their own learning’ then we should also embrace a culture where teachers are empowered to be in charge of theirs as well!
“When teachers are treated as Pawns they don’t teach, they become drill sergeants.“
Who is Pulling my Strings? CC by mellyjean NC ND
We don’t allow teachers a great deal of autonomy. Their ‘locus of control’ has been largely withdrawn to the extent that they are now ‘pawns’ in the system, rather than ‘origins’ of their own behaviours. Richard DeCharms (Educational Leadership, 1977) said:
“When students are treated as Pawns they don’t learn, they misbehave. When teachers are treated as Pawns they don’t teach, they become drill sergeants.”
We need education for our students and ALSO for our teachers – not subjugation.
Brick #4 – We are ferociously fickle. We ‘surf the surface’.
We talk about ‘collaboration’ – and so we build collaborative tasks. We speak of ‘inquiry’ – and so we have kids generate ‘essential driving questions’. We speak of Project Based Learning (PBL) – and so we have kids ‘do projects’. Along comes Design Thinking, or the Third Teacher, flipped classroom, ‘maker’ movement, or backward design, and so on and we expect teachers to hop on this next train.
It’s a fast and furious world! We inundate teachers with new initiatives. Frequently.
I applaud many of these initiatives. However, they are pieces – parts of the whole. Somehow, we bombard teachers with so many new approaches and related techniques, it is difficult for them to manage. They become discouraged. Disempowered.
An important administrative role is to help teachers to understand the ‘essence’ residing in all these practices. Out of the distilled essence, teachers could then ‘construct their own knowledge and practice’ – the same as we wish for our students.
Brick #5 – It IS about the tools.
As previously mentioned, one of the ‘myths’ I hear is that, ‘It’s not about the technology, it’s about the learning’. I understand the intent of this statement. I believe it arises from the focusing on the skills required to use the tool rather than on the ‘subject-matter’ at hand.
However, it is dangerous, in my opinion, to say that it is not about the tools. It is more about the tools than many of us might regularly think. Tools shape behaviours, cultures, classrooms, schools and contexts.
Seymour Papert said, “It is a self-defeating parody of scientism to suppose that one could keep everything else, including the culture, constant while adding a serious computer presence to a learning environment. If the role of the computer is so slight that the rest can be kept constant, it will also be too slight for much to come of it.”[3]
“If the role of the computer is so slight that the rest can be kept constant, it will also be too slight for much to come of it.“
Indeed, we want the culture and context of the classrooms to change. Let’s explicitly embrace how technologies might impact this change.
Brick #6 – Educate the public.
Annie Kidder, Executive Director of People for Education, says something that makes a lot of sense to me. She suggests that we need to educate the public. We spend so much time educating students – but we do a terrible job at ‘public relations’. The public has really no idea what we do. I agree with her. It seems to me that until there is wide acceptance of new ideas in the general public, things don’t change a great deal.
Jenisse Crashing into Wall CC by Louish Pixel NC ND
Through deep conversations, we can construct new understandings and progress towards ‘tearing down the wall’.
In summary…
It is apparent that I have addressed only a small number of the very complex array of bricks that stand in the way of educational change. Although many more have come to mind, I set them aside to focus on ones where I at least have some expertise – not just opinion!
I am open to, and desirous of, your comments.
Footnotes
[1] Note: the ability to ‘be in charge of one’s own learning’ is not merely related to this issue of ‘student agency’. That is a complex issue – that involves cognitive, social, emotional, & societal aspects. A topic for another day!
[2] I am a Summerhillian at heart. Always have been. A.S. Neill started Summerhill in 1921. There are, of course, many who have piped in on this topic in one way or the other over the years – John Dewey, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, Gary Stager, Seymour Papert – to name a few.
[3] Computer Criticism vs. Technocentric Thinking, Educational Researcher (vol. 16, no. I) January/February 1987
Picture credit: Light Green Lego Brick – CC by Stilfehler SA
Irony – Do you see the irony in this post that indeed is a number of ‘abstracted’ ideas — and not very much in depth on any?!
This blog post is part of a series of thoughtful responses to the question: What’s standing in the way of change in education? to help inform CEA’s Calgary Conference on Oct 21-22, (#CEACalgary2013) where education leaders from across Canada will be answering the same question. If you would like to answer this question, please tweet us at: @cea_ace//
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Digital Literacy & Storytelling
Thanks to Jamie Bell of the Nunavut Research Institute for this poster!
Note: This event is occurring at 7:00PM Eastern time for teachers and others who work with youth! Please register HERE!!!
