When I first started teaching the textbook was the most efficient and cost-effective way for students to gain access to information. But I never fell in love with it. I knew it always lacked what I was really craving in a classroom experience. The information landscape has changed dramatically since I first walked into that classroom in Wellsville, KS 15 years ago. I made due, finding a way to make the learning authentic even back in the good old early days of the internet.
Now, though I have been fortunate enough to live in a time that delivered the type of student access to information that I craved. And then fortunate enough to be in a school that is getting it right with regard to information access. And finally fortunate enough to work for a principal that encourages creativity and innovation in the workplace. In this space I am able to challenge students to not just consume information but judge it, look for bias, sort the pile of results from google, be discerning… know how to detect crap, and then create.
The video above is my student and the textbook that I now have in my classroom. Its a class set by Eric Foner and it is lovely. We use it from time to time and it is a valuable piece of context for learning. Each student also has a copy of A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Even though we are 1:1, I do not *just* use what we can access on the computers, nor do we have the computers open all the time. The time in class is spent exploring information, to become historical thinkers and then use that knowledge to go out and practice… practice being movie makers, infographic creators, historians, performers, poets, lyricists, web designers, etc. Not only do I not employ a textbook as the primary learning tool, but I also teach thematically. I heavily buy into the idea that using a variety of resources, borrowing from current events when it makes connection, and exploring themes rather than just a timeline, allows for a student to interact with the information in a more organic, realistic manner; much the way they will need to interact for the rest of their days outside the classroom.
Today I will travel to Silver Springs, MD and the Discovery Channel headquarters to participate in a robust conversation about where we are headed #beyondthetextbook. Please use the hashtag to participate in the conversation as it happens over the next 36 hours or so, and as it lives on in those online spaces. As I head into the event, these are the questions I have about the #beyondthetextbook conversation:
- How do we afford a robust and well supported 1:1 program to allow for life #beyondthetextbook?
- I have taught all grades 7-12, but have very little hands on experience with pk-6. How does the version of information access in the classroom (that I have experienced) translate in the younger grades?
- How do we develop systems and structures that support learning/teaching in this world of information surplus?
- How do we stay agile enough to continue innovating and improving information access/consumption as the technology changes?
- What is next?
Do you have answers? suggestions? comments? more questions? Please chime in with your ideas!
Diana,
I wonder if you and your colleagues are viewing this as the interplay between constructivism and behaviorism. Digital technology is alluring (for some) because it gives students the ability to re-assemble and re-construct subject-area content; that sounds constructivist. Analog books are often linear and less interactive — information is delivered; that sounds behaviorist.
I would argue that within the K-12 environment, content becomes understanding through experience. Teaching and learning are neither constructivist nor behaviorist — they are experiential. That assertion rests on a couple of things:
1) Subject areas (history, language arts, sciences, etc.) have organizing principles that teachers should understand.
2) Generally, the organizing principles are what students should understand. And for those teachers and students who want to go deeper into the subject, the principles form the foundation for further inquiry.
3) In order to understand the principles, teachers and students can integrate specific content, but that content has to be experienced. Simple recall of content, i.e. “Colombus discovered America in 1492,” assures neither understanding of the principles (History is often understood from the perspective of those with power.) or the content (Archaeological evidence suggests that North American has been inhabited for 20,000 years.) Experience, however, integrates understanding and content.
4) Effective teachers organize a variety of experiences to engage students.
Teachers who ignore textbooks are diminishing students’ abilities to make choices about how they learn. That’s not to say every class of 30 students needs 30 copies of A People’s History of the United States.
Good luck with the conference.
Thanks for the thoughts. I’m not sure exactly the guiding principles or expected outcomes for the day, but it should be a lively and engaging conversation.
Diana,
I agree with your larger points.
Just remember that Discovery Education is A textbook company. They make no secret of the fact that they are going after the gigantic pile of textbook money still available as education budgets shrink in nearly every other category. State adoption still requires the same unpleasant and miseducative compromises required by adoption committees (nuts) and described by Diane Ravitch in http://amzn.to/FPvsb5.
Showing kids a penguin video or even letting kids decide when to watch the available penguin video might just be one more good useful material. While watching TV might be a passive activity, it certainly can be useful for learning and entertainment.
However, this “content” (the most vulgar word in education – IMHO) has been created by others, carries the same inherent danger of bias, inaccuracy or omission. It is made worse when correlated to every single common core, state or district “standard.” School remains about sequential instruction pre-ordained by others despite the illusion of choice and flexibility.
Now, teachers can have a faith-based relationship with the video stream in the same way they behaved with a textbook and pulpit since the time before Gutenberg. Hooray, more teacher-proofing!
Worst of all, let’s say that the penguin video IS fantastic, accurate, informative, compelling and nutritious. Stripping it down to the 4-second clip that satisfies the “standard” robs kids of richer experiences and the context that might come from watching an entire narrative the way the author intended. “Technology” may now be used to collect and track data on kids watching these video clicks, as measured by thoughtless measures such clicks, time-on-task and multiple-choice comprehension quizzes. No thanks.
Rather than use “technology” to amplify human potential and expand the range of experiences available to learners, this technology secures and sustains the status quo, this time with TV clips!
I’m also deeply troubled by Discovery’s business model. Cable TV, their lifeblood, is a regulated utility. Cities routinely and rightly demand that cable services AND content be provided to schools for free as a condition of access to a community’s paying customers. What Discovery Education is doing is selling that content back to schools who should be getting it for free.
Have fun. Enjoy the shrimp. Run up their expense account
As always Gary, your insights are appreciated. And as I often say to you in response… I think its still important to be in the room. While I share much of your general concern about the commercialization of content and curriculum, this is an opportunity to have a conversation about making that situation less heinous. Will it accomplish that, maybe, maybe not… but I think its important to be present and active in the discussion. I may leave this disappointed or intrigued. I may not choose to accept an invite to an event like this again. Or maybe I will. When I sat in the room for the T. Rowe Price event a few weeks ago, I was struck by the importance of being aware of other workplace realities. It was educative for me to be there, not to drink the koolaid, but to see into the world that was unlike the one I inhabit. I hope I feel the same about this. We shall see.
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