Transforming Education Project ASGE 7333

1. Transforming Education ProjectASGE 7333 DagobertoArtiles Stanton Brown Jennifer Ferrara Rose McSween

2. Content • Our Vision and Belief System • Issues: Education System vs. System of Education • Transformation vs. Incrementalism • Focus On Learning • Enable Change Through Politics • Enable Change Through Economics • Enable Model With Technology • Those Pesky Little Things (like Teaching, Testing, Funding) • Question & Answers

3. Our Vision & Belief System Our Compelling Vision • True transformation not an incremental approach • Our education system must be revamped to be a system of education • Design with the end in mind; the workforce and citizenship, and education are inextricably linked • Applied learning matters…because our democracy requires critical thinking • “P to Death” system of learning, life-long learning; workforce readiness is college readiness; is critical thinking • Focus on what students need to know to become good citizens; fuel a growing and sustainable economy • A focus on learning will drive a revised curriculum focus on democracy • P-20 is a real phenomenon as the articulation between “P-12” and Post-Secondary Education become real • Schooling will follow form with what we want students to learn • Focus on what it takes to build and maintain a democracy; tackle economics and politics with the 3 R’s and technology as enablers Belief System

4. The Issues Arcane System A Changed World Paradigm An Incremental Approach • We’ve perfected the education system for an industrial society • Banking model of education is the center of our teaching methodology • 11 years into the 21st Century we still do not have a 21st Century curriculum • We try to optimize an arcane system; tactics to conform to an old paradigm of education • Many reform efforts are focused on doing things better rather than doing different things • Low performing districts are so bad, optimizing what we have seems revolutionary when it seems to work • Our political reality does not encourage transformation • Our economic reality implores a transformed system • “America has transformed the world with its power but also with its ideals” but one threat to America’s power is its “Do Nothing Politics.”(p.250) Zakaria • In today’s highly competitive global “knowledge economy,” all students need new skills for college, careers, and citizenship. The failure to give all students these new skills leave today’s youth – and our country – at an alarming competitive disadvantage. Schools haven’t changed; the world has. And so our schools are not failing. Rather they are obsolete. (p. xxi) Wagner

5. Examples of Big Shifts Required Knowing…………………………………..Doing Teacher-centered…………………….Student Centered Instructors………………………………..Facilitator The Individual…………………………..The Team Consumption of Info……………..…Construction of Meaning Schools…………………………….........Networks Single Sourcing…………………………Crowd Sourcing High Stakes Testing…………………..High Value Demonstration

6. Our Model / Philosophy • Learning must be at the center of our transformation • As politics and economics drive our current system we must teach students about these disciplines and use critical thinking to understand solve issues • Technology should be an enabling tool that is ubiquitous; the use of technology should also be organic not forced

7. Vision of Student Learning • Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, where study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants—doing nothing but living and walking about—came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning; would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child's way of learning. This is the path he follows. He learns everything without knowing he is learning it, and in doing so he passes little by little from the unconscious to the conscious, treading always in the paths of joy and love.
—Dr. Maria Montessori, MD • A learning environment like the one described above, will best prepare our children for a world that is constantly reinventing itself. With a world that is perpetually changing, we need students who can think, create, reason, and be socially-minded. • Learning

8. How Students Learn • Learning

9. How It Works • Learning Styles: All intelligences and styles of learning—musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, intuitive, natural, and the traditional linguistic and logical-mathematical—will be nurtured and respected. • Multi-Aged Grouping: Based on Periods of Development • Requirements for Age 3-6: There are no academic requirements for this age, but children are exposed to amazing amounts of knowledge and often learn to read, write and calculate beyond what is often thought of as usual for a child of this age. • Requirements for Ages 6-18: Requirements for ages 6-18: There are no curriculum requirements except those set by the state, or college entrance requirements, for specific grades and these take a minimum amount of time. Students of K-12+ age design 1-2 week contracts with the teacher to balance their work, and learn time management skills. The work of the 6-12 class includes subjects usually not introduced until high school. • Assessment: Assessment is by portfolio and the teacher's observation and record keeping. The real test of whether or not the system is working lies in the accomplishment and behavior of the children, their happiness, maturity, kindness, and love of learning, concentration, and work. • Learning

10. Who Makes It Work THE FACILITATOR • Children learn directly from the environment, and from other children rather than from the teacher. Teacher carefully observes the children in her class to ascertain the developmental needs of each individual child. Then comes the task of preparing the environment and the materials in it to meet the various needs of the individual children within the group. As the children begin to make free choices and interact and discover the materials the teacher facilitates and guides their learning. There are some small group lessons when the teacher introduces new concepts and encourages the children to ask questions, investigate and discover new ideas. • As a result children who experience a learning environment like this are highly motivated and learn to be independent, self-confident and self-disciplined. It makes education a source of pleasure for them-something to be sought and enjoyed. Each and all are given the opportunity to develop their own innate abilities to the full potential in an atmosphere where competition is irrelevant and non-existent. As a result they develop drive and a high level of achievement. • Students are highly engaged and are invested in their learning. • Learning

11. Education to Sustain Our Economy and Democracy • Identifying age-appropriate activities that prepare youth for growth-oriented employment and active citizenship in our democracy must comprise the foundations for our future system of education. • Tony Wagner’s Seven Survival skills “… are for future generations what the ‘Three R’s’ were for previous generations. They are the ‘new basic skills’ for work learning, and citizenship in the 21st century.” (p. 42) • critical thinking and problem solving; collaboration across networks and leading by influence; agility and adaptability; initiative and entrepreneurialism; effective oral and written communication; accessing and analyzing information; and curiosity and imagination. • NAIS President Patrick Bassett’s Five C’s: Creativity, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Character. • conduct a fluent conversation in a foreign language; Write a cogent and persuasive piece on a matter of public importance; Speak with passion and from memory a passage of one’s own or from the culture’s literature or history; Demonstrate a commitment to a more sustainable and global future with means that are scalable; Invent a machine, a program, or a robot capable of performing a difficult physical task; Exercise leadership in an arena in which students have passion; Use statistics, assess if a statement by a public figure is demonstrably true; Assess media coverage of a global event from various cultural/national perspectives. • Economics • Politics

12. Education to Sustain Our Economy and Democracy Continued • Bassett – continued. Many independent schools are already ahead of the curve in creating a vision for the 21st century schools. Why? • transforming their approaches to education via technology; • examining new strategies for allocation of time (such as block scheduling, the four-day class week, the twelve-month school) especially in advance science, math and pre-engineering; • integrating action-oriented service into the curriculum via service-learning programs; • experimenting with and adopting or modifying new educational philosophies (for example, the Reggio Emila approach to elementary education or "problem-based learning" at the middle-school and secondary-school levels); • adopting "performance" standards for learning (as done, for example, by schools in the Coalition of Essential Schools) and new curriculum structures for organizing the delivery of educational services (through "mapping" curriculum initiatives, for example, or through use of the "multiple intelligences" approach). • Specific activities to sustain our democracy • Literacy – critical reading, applied math, finance • Emphasis on current events and an ability to critique news media • Debate – public speaking • Student Newspapers – questioning and interviewing candidates • Model Congress and United Nations – understanding governmental processes • Mock Trial and Mock Elections and participation in actual elections • Serving as volunteers in community building and charitable initiatives • Student Government – decision-making • Examples of schools in New York City that embrace these approaches – e.g. Democracy Prep (a PUBLIC charter school); Loyola School (a Jesuit school); Interschool Leadership Fellowship (consortium of private schools). Other noteworthy initiatives – the International Baccalaureate program at the United Nations International School. • Politics • Economics

13. Tenets of the Application of Technology 21st Century Application The Imperative Connectivity • Technology • American schools no longer have the luxury of waiting to introduce technology into their classrooms and teaching. • 21st century system of education will focus on creating an environment where students will create content instead of absorbing content through reading, listening, or viewing materials. • The new world of education depends on the quality of connectivity that is being employed by our education system • Technology in and of itself will not create engaged students or better students. However, well-chosen technology resources infused into classroom instruction can create more and better students. • Schmitz et al (2011) posit that “new teaching models from k-12 and in educator preparation models must include the school-to-work concepts, tying real-work experience and real-life skills to student learning” • The new world education will employ two forms of education connectivity: • Electronic connectivity • The desire and capacity to be meaningfully connected to others

14. Leading Practice Examples Operation Frog (Biology Dissection) • Technology What he’s been saying for 2 years

15. Teaching, Testing, Funding

16. Questions?

17. Bibliography • Cibulka, J.G. (1989) rationales for private schools: A commentary. In W.L. Boyd and J.G. Cibulka, Private schools and public policy: International perspectives. Philadelphia: Falmer. Erickson, D.A. (1986). Choice and private schools. New York: Oxford University Press. • Eisele-Dyrli, K. (2011, January).  Hybrid Schools Model Gets $1 Million Boost. District Adminitration .  Retrieved March 10, 2011, from  http://www.districtadministration.com/ • Hancock, L. Why Are Finland's School Successful? Retrieved on December 8, 2011 from www.smithsonianmag.com/Why-Are-Finland's Schools -Successful • Montesorri, M. (1964). The Montessori Method. Schocken Books Hoxby, C. M. (1994) Do private schools provide competition for public schools? In NBER Working Paper series. No 4978, Cambridge, MA. Hoxby, C.M. (1994) School choice and school productivity. In NBER Working Papers series. No. 8873, Cambridge, MA. • Montesorri, M. (1964). The Montessori Method. Schocken Books Mulvey, J., Cooper, B.S., and Maloney, A. (2010). Blurring the lines. Information Age Publishing. • National Association For Gifted Children. (2011). What is giftedness? Retrieved March 1, 2011, from National association for gifted children: http://www.nagc.org/ Wagner, T. (2010).  The Global Achievement Gap.  New York: Perseus Books. Zakaria, F. (2008). The Post-American World. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.