This is a sampling of questions asked by my juniors in their final project for American History.  Choice of question was completely left up to the students.  Counterfactual or alternate history is a fringe topic amongst academic historians.  However, as a class activity it opens up the world of history for inquiry, investigation and creativity.  The What If? project focuses on the specific engagement of the individual student with a deep investigation of the historical record.  The steps that take the student through the exercise are challenging, couched in research and steeped in creativity.

Steps for Executing the What If? Unit

1. Brainstorming for Ideas – Ask students to think back to the most interesting units of study from the past year as a place to start, inquire as to what they are most curious about in American history.  The goal is to establish the Point of Divergence (POD)
2. Spend a day investigating 2-3 PODs for the project
3. Choose one POD and complete the contract for completing the project.
4. Distribute the graphic organizer that serves as a one-stop shop for the pieces of the project to be written down.
5. Students identify at least three primary source documents that PRECEDE the POD to establish understanding of the historical record leading up to the POD.
6. Students use the National Archives Primary Source Document Analysis Worksheets to analyze at least three different primary sources related to their chosen POD.
7. After students are relatively comfortable with the existing history, they then brainstorm three NEW events to add to the altered timeline that results after the POD.
8. Each new event requires students to create two primary source documents to establish the event as ‘real’.
9. Finally, students use all the pieces amassed on their graphic organizer to pull together a multi-media project that utilizes each piece of the evidence real and created in order to represent 2011 as it exists after the POD.
10. Students post their work on their blog and write a lengthy reflection – What did you like about this project? What was most challenging? Describe the most interesting fact or event that you investigated. How do the actions of individuals impact the historical record?  How do systemic changes impact the historical record?  How influential can one decision be in the historical landscape? How could this project be improved? If you had it to do over, what would you change about your process for the project?

Many times over I hear the students say things like… you have no IDEA how much I know about this topic.  They push back when I try to poke holes in their logic with events from the historical record, cite primary sources when I need more proof.  The reflections often are most telling for the learning that occurs during this process, they write:

“The thing that I found most fun about this project, was coincidentally the same thing I thought was the most difficult, and that was the fact that there were so many different possibilities. It was very fun to see how different events related to one another, and how changing one could set off this long domino effect about all of history.”  –Dennis

“My favorite part of the actual creating of the project was definitely fabricating primary source documents. I felt so cool, like some kind of all-powerful, primary-source-creating being.” – Luna

“I liked that I had free control to change something in history. It gave me the opportunity to choose something I was passionate about and change it to my liking. On the flip side, it was hard to pick something to change that would give me the outcome I wanted.” – Ayanna

“I really liked the hypothetical part of this benchmark, it left a lot of room for creativity. I enjoyed making my primary source documents and making up a different future for our country. However, Topic choice was definitely the most difficult thing for me.” -  Emma

“What I like about the project was that it made me do a lot of thinking and I learned a lot of history by going out on my own and researching the information that I needed.” — Sam

This unit causes my brain to hurt.  This project causes my students’ brains to hurt.  It puzzles, stumps and perplexes us.  Students choose topics poorly but do not realize it until well into the project. I approve a topic that is ‘too big’ and we are challenged to find a way out as the project comes to a close. There are contracts, organizers, analysis, predictions and sweat involved in this project. In the end, each student learns.  Learns content in an intense and curious manner.  Learns skills with an urgency of ‘I need to know this right now’.  Learns their limitations and challenges in the most constructive of ways. This unit pushes me in all these ways and more. It pushes me as a teacher and as a constant student of history to be the type of resource they need throughout this project. This is learning in its most messy and beautiful form.

For Each to Excel

High standards and personalization are not in opposition.  Standardization and personalization are in opposition.  Holding students to a high standard while also personalizing the educational experience are not only, not in opposition, but really are the nexus where motivation meets productivity.  For the past 15 years I have taught in a rural school in northern Wisconsin, a small town bedroom community outside Kansas City, a school in northern Arizona that was home to many recent immigrant children as well as those coming from the Navajo reservation and an urban school in Center City Philadelphia.

With this survey of America and her schools in mind, I am certain what we need at this exciting moment in American education is more personalization, more high standards and little to no standardization.  Why in the era when we are equipped with the technology to truly invigorate teaching and learning with individualized opportunities are we, as a nation, fixated on an assessment regime that squelches innovation, individuality and creativity?  Students and teachers are ready to move to the place where school is more than a holding pen, more than a place to ‘do your time’ but one where true transformation can occur on an individual level for all members of the school community.

Inquiry-Driven
The tools of modern learning allow for students to access and interact with content in ways that were not available to the classrooms of the past.  From manipulating interactive simulations to searching the National Archives, students have more complex ways of processing and analyzing their world.  One way to take advantage of this massive world of information is to move the learning from a place of one-size fits all, to a place of inquiry for each student.  The potential for learning increases when the students are allowed to ask questions within their learning and then given space to investigate, be curious and dig.

In the classroom, this inquiry-driven approach takes form in a multitude of diverse projects.  In one 11th grade English class, students were asked to investigate a community need, locate grants that could be used to support that need and then apply for the grant.  In 10th grade science, students were asked to complete a project at the end of the year that dug deeper into a concept from the year-long course about which they remained curious and driven to further understanding.  In 11th grade physics, the students were asked to observe what happened on the city buses everyday, record their observations, and then work to develop new public service announcements about the laws of physics that impact their ride.  The goal was to increase safety for the passengers.

Putting interesting concepts in front of the students, challenging them to ask questions, and then giving them space to inquire further is one of the most effective means of facilitating learning.  These are all examples of allowing students to design the end products while holding them to high standards of learning without standardizing the outcome.

Creative
Standardization kills creativity.  In an era of constant talk about the need for innovation in all areas of life and the economy, creativity is one of the main qualities that fuels innovation.  We all need to be working to foster a citizenry that can inquire, search out information to build learning and then create original works from that inquiry driven learning.  The days of learning ‘the one right way’ to complete a task and then repeat that task over and over — is over.

Teachers and students are inundated with choice, options, and issues that demand critical but also creative thinkers.  Working with students to develop the skills for this world rather than focusing on access to static content is key.  Responding to dynamic situations that require a student to adjust, reconfigure and rethink while progressing forward fosters a learning environment that invigorates.  One way that this happens at the classroom level is quite simple yet difficult at the same time.  Teachers must stop directing all aspects of the final outcomes of student work.  Typically, students mimic rather than create original work.  Our new learning landscape allows for the teacher to step aside and let students create.  This is simple, yet to give up this level of control requires a shift in the teacher’s classroom role.  Additionally, the teacher must recognize that in letting the students create and inquire, the end product may fall short of what was anticipated.  This is ok.  Allowing the students the latitude to fail should certainly be factored into potential outcomes in this type of learning environment.

Creativity involves risk and trying something new.  School is the perfect place to work through that process with the students to reflect on what went well, what did not and how to make changes for future ventures.  I watched a bright and tenacious 11th grader go after a story for one of our history projects.  She called and reached out in every way possible.  She researched and dug and in the end came up short.  When she came to me feeling frustrated and somewhat defeated, we decided to change her project from being about this topic, to being about her process and the difficulties she encountered along the way.  She learned.  It was personalized, and she was held to high standards.  However, it did not look like any other student’s learning.  The educational system needs to start getting comfortable with this variation in learning. To do otherwise sanitizes the educational experience into being predictable, mimicked and flat.

Student-Centered
Personalization allows for ownership of learning and investment from the students.  From a school-wide standpoint there are a number of opportunities to endeavor for high standards as well as personalize the educational experience.  At the Science Leadership Academy (SLA), we employ a 3-year-long program that challenges students to pursue their own interests.  Starting in their sophomore year and continuing through their junior year, students are given Wednesday afternoons to intern, learn, volunteer, and do – we call it the Individualized Education Program (ILP).  Some students enroll in college classes to pursue a subject not offered at school, others are in law offices, businesses, university labs, non-profits.   The sky is the limit.  The school offers a set of options but the student can also propose an alternative and seek out their own tailor-made internship.  These experiences have led students to further investigate a particular career path and for others they realize that they would rather pursue a different path.  College scholarships, admissions, job offers, awards are all potential outcomes for students doing what they are already interested in, but with the time allocated within the normal school day for them to pursue.  This is a key component, making school about life and not just encouraging them to engage in these types of learning experiences ‘outside’ the school day.

For the final year of this arc, students are let loose to create a Capstone project of their design.  There is guidance, mentors, check ins and other scaffolded experiences that assist students through a year long project, but the choices of what to create and how to create it are left to the student.  They design, plan, schedule and execute the final project.  This process is meant to synthesize the learning experiences that we build toward as a school.  Our five core values – Inquiry, Collaboration, Research, Reflection, and Presentation – are on embedded as seniors carry out the project.  It is not rare for students to stumble or struggle.  Once again, this is ok.

The three-year program asks students to identify their own interests, pursue them,  and create from those interests.  It is a throughline embedded in their learning that values them individually while holding them to a high standard of achievement.  The measurement of this achievement is the work of their own hands, rather than that of a scan sheet.  Talk to any student about their learning at the end of this experience and they will be able to process and reflect at a level that make most employers salivate.  They not only know what gets in the way of their productivity, but how to mitigate for those obstacles and ways to improve the next time they tackle a big project again.  This is learning for the modern age.

Assessment
So now for the inevitable question of assessment.  This type of conversation about teaching and learning always boils down to assessment.  Currently our educational system employs one of the cheapest forms of assessing student work, multiple choice questions.  This standardized assessment, while not horrible, is just irrelevant.  It measures the wrong thing.  Our assessments need to be as dynamic as the learning and relevant to the complex nature of the work.  At SLA, we employ a three-part system of assessment that endeavors to provide a variety of feedback to the students regarding their academic progress.

During all four quarters we submit traditional grades just like all the other schools in the School District of Philadelphia.  This continuation of traditional grades allows for our students to pursue placement in top colleges, compete for scholarships and the like.  We do not leave it just at traditional grades, though.  Accompanying the traditional report card for the 1st and 3rd quarters is a narrative report from each teacher.  This two to three paragraph narrative explains the student’s progress, comments on strengths and weaknesses, and suggests goals for the upcoming quarters.  During the 2nd and 4th quarters, a standards-based report card is included with the traditional report card.  The standards based report card comments on specific skill development for each of the subject areas.

All of this robust information is collected and shared in a student-run conference with the academic advisor and the parents.  Goals are then discussed and set for the upcoming quarters.  All of this information is logged in our Learning Management System – SLATE – so all teachers, administrators, and counselors can access the data at anytime throughout the student’s four years with SLA.  This system attends to a traditional model while also recognizing that a letter is not the whole story.  The incorporation of these three measurement techniques provide the learner, parents, advisors and teachers with a full circle feedback loop on the individual progress from a holistic, narrative and standards-based perspective.  This is a vigorous model of assessment.  Nothing about this is standardized.  This is personalized and sets a high standard for achievement.

Conclusion
The tools, systems and networks available for learning are as unending as are the possibilities for demonstration of that learning.  Holding this process back with a stilted and stifling standardized assessment regime is outdated.  Learning has never been so ready to wrap its arms around differentiation, personalization and high standards.  Standardization gets in the way.

Teaching and learning are standing on the edge of unlimited opportunities for robust investigation that invites student interest and passion.  By engaging students in inquiry-driven education, projects to let their creativity shine and space for them to pursue their interests, we can all move forward into modern learning that no longer asks for replication and memorization as demonstrations of learning. Instead, we can move into learning that is dynamic, challenging and interesting.  Sadly, this is not embraced in the broader educational establishment.

It takes action to shift learning into this realm.  The status quo is not welcome here.  It is sometimes uncomfortable and messy.  We owe it to our community to work with the students in our charge to not only inform, but value their role, voice and passion within the learning environment.  Start talking, reaching out, developing networks with the stakeholders motivated to re-evaluate the learning environment.  This is literally as simple and complex as being willing to learn in front of our students as we create the classrooms and schools they need.

The video above is a screenshot of the process I went through when endeavoring to visualize voter turnout rates from state to state.  There is more data to visualize and compare.  I am not sure I will use these exact maps, but it is the work process that allowed me to move from wanting data, finding it, making is usable and then visualizing.  Many Eyes is a really lovely, free tool that makes my job and learning easier.  Win.

Here was my response to what could be improved -

The thing I wish more than anything is that this would be more teacher friendly.  This could easily be scheduled during the summer months when teachers have off from school.  In addition, more conversation based sessions would be lovely.  Sit and get for that long was a bit much.  Although I did feel like there was a good amount of time for questions in most sessions, it was largely a traditional model of being talked at.  The issues that are facing the future of education won’t be solved by students of teachers or admin or business or journalists… as separate entities, but bringing together significant cohorts of each and free up actual time for hearty conversations could be a nice start.  Sitting the teachers up front was meant to be a sign of importance and I understand that… but then having so few of them actually speaking seemed a bit much.  It was as if we were there to be told that which we already know… because we are in it.  And along those same lines, more students, more students, more students.  I offered to arrange for students from my school to attend but was politely told no.   This could be a truly transformative experience, but fell short in my opinion because of the over representation of corporate voices over those of the actual teachers and students already working in and shaping schools for tomorrow.

And for suggestions for panels or topics next year I responded -

A panel of teachers and principals from schools that are already pushing the envelope would be a strong start.  I would argue that although KIPP is pushing a somewhat successful model, there is little innovative or future thinking about their approach.  There are TONS of schools that are… contact ISTE for suggestions or Edutopia.  We need to talk about the actual day to day that needs re-envisioning… classroom level conversations.  If we are going to communicate with the leaders of government and business, the powerful intersection is when we all talk about possibilities together.  Not just ‘at or ‘to’.  We can fix this, but it will take a concerted effort to respect all the players.  This year’s line-up certainly privileged one side of this over the other and many educators felt the slight.

The NYTimes has a wonderful resource with The Learning Network and I’m not sure I heard them mentioned once.  They have real relationships with teachers and classrooms that could benefit the overall impact of the conference.

Contact the classroom teachers that are innovating at the classroom level.  Contact the leaders of edtech thought.  Please use your position of influence to bridge the spaces between all the stakeholders rather than widen the gap.

I asked a question in each of the sessions.  And in each of the sessions, at least once… someone commented, well that would be a good question for a teacher in the classroom.  *sigh*  We’re here.  Highly qualified, dedicated, innovating, National Board Certified… recognized in the education community as leaders in the development of Schools for Tomorrow… and yet, not on the stage.  There were 55 panelists – 2 were in practice teachers.  We can do better.

I attended the New York Times Schools for Tomorrow conference last week and I also heard references that were equally as pablum-esque to describe the job.  If you want to describe the type of teachers we need the list should be long, complex and involved.  We can do better, much better at finding the appropriate words to describe the job that so many are hoping will ‘save’ the US economy.  Let’s have a real conversation about effective teaching.  Let’s describe the people that work with America’s youth day in and day out as dedicated, clever, creative.  Perhaps the words tenacious, persistent, dogged, relevant. Anything but the ‘meh’ word that most notably describes sugary cereal.

We spent Constitution Day celebrating the birthday of the document with cupcakes and a round of Constitution Quizzo.

This is the fourth year in a row that  I am teaching American History at  the Science Leadership Academy.  When I was hired in May of 2008, I  made a conscious decision to shift  my teaching of history to a fully  thematic approach. In my previous  years of teaching history I would  try to blend the chronological with  the thematic in some hybridized  version of instruction. Switching to  a fully thematic approach was the  right move as I reflect upon the  development of the curriculum.

One goal I have always tried to accomplish is to push out as much of my classroom as possible into the web so as to share, refine and grow. This year my goal is to account for each day of the year for both of my classes, which I have tried before and fallen short. With the start of a new year comes the motivation to try again.  Plan to see unit by unit blogging as the year progresses with a daily breakout of activities, journals and links.  I am hopeful that this is the year.

When I came in the door we were asked not to talk to the kids about it.  I paid as much attention to that directive as I did most directives.  Walking to my room I was trying to figure out how to rig up an antenna on my school TV that had no cable access.  Another teacher loaned me a wire hanger.  With a shut door and fuzzy reception, my new class of 7^th graders and I tried to piece together what was happening.  The internet had information, but it was 2001, not exactly the type of access we have today.  After 5 classes of 7^th grade geography, I went home.  I called my family while glued to the TV for the rest of the evening.

That was the last day that I watched any footage of the towers falling.  I listened to the radio from there on.  To this day I do not ever need to see the footage of the towers falling.  The image is forever saved in my memory, seeing it again and again is not going to do any good.  I share that with my students when they ask why we don’t watch footage on the anniversary.  There are few things I can’t rally for in the classroom, put on repeat and watch over and over with each subsequent class.  The 9/11 footage is in that unique category.  I just can’t do it.

My life has changed dramatically since 9/11/01 – I moved from rural Arizona to Center City, Philadelphia – I was a 7^th grade teacher and now am teaching 11^th/12^th grade – the man I was living with at the time moved on as did I – my siblings went from having 1 child to 7 – my parents went from working to retirement.  I still have the same car, 2 days old on 9/11.  It might be the only outwardly similar piece of my life then to my life now.

My day was not that interesting.  But like so many days, I shared it learning with the students in my charge.  The lesson on 9/11/01 was a tough one.  They were simultaneously curious and scared and so was I.  I worried about them as they walked out the door at 2:20pm, many of them to empty houses to watch the footage on repeat.  By themselves.  We processed much of the information over the next few days.  I shifted our focus on Africa to hone in on the history of Afghanistan, trying to build background.  When their parents sat in their seats two nights later for Open House, there wasn’t one question about the syllabus.  They wanted a lesson.  On Afghanistan.  On the news.  On the world.  It was the most unique open house night of my career, when being a parent at open house meant getting informed about the content and not just about the late work policy.

I wonder what should be a ‘good’ lesson on 9/11 for classes.  Telling the stories, seeing the pictures, hearing the reports – is this it?  Do we just teach it like anything else?  It feels so much more personal, relevant, big.  I’m not sure what is the right answer, but tomorrow I will once again ask students what they remember of the day, what they think about the nation today and where we will head in the future.

We will speak of courage and loss and grief, but also of hope and resiliency and tenacity.  We will remember.

Every spring since and the summers of 2007 and 2008… I was fortunate enough to participate in a series of trips with Grand Canyon Youth. One year I was on three trips. (Big Smile) The things that occur during these short snippets of life, unplugged, floating, exploring are those of lifetime memories. For many of the students, this is a one shot deal. For me… it hits the repeat button every year and I cannot explain the level of happiness it brings me.

These last three trips with the Philly kids have been hard though. Its not the travel or the arrangements or the money… its that I spend time in Northern Arizona, falling in love with it all over again. It takes a group of the Philly kids about 30 minutes to ask some version of this question, “Ms. Laufenberg, why did you ever leave this place?” and I usually give them some sort of flip answer because its difficult to remember the reasons… as I drive into the San Francisco Peaks, along Rte. 66 and then through Monument Valley on the way to the river. I left Flagstaff for SLA. Specifically. It was and continues to be the right choice, but every year when I leave Flagstaff with the peaks in the rearview, I make sure my sunglasses are on as I choke back the tears. It always feels wrong to be leaving it.

The friends I left behind here are the dearest people to me outside my family. This place will always be home to me.

Already looking forward to April 2012. When we do it all over again.

Example.

Yesterday I discovered this resource from the Guardian.

Today a student shared this resource with me from Slate.

From a design and presentation standpoint – these are two very different approaches to representing largely similar information. Possible classroom discussions can circle around the manner in which the information is presented, which is better, what each version accomplishes differently with its design choices, etc.

From a knowledge and analysis standpoint – you can have the students look for patterns, trends, geographical relevance, investigate sourcing and the like.

When the class has looked at the range of events and revolutions, one could challenge the students to investigate the American Revolution (or any other revolution for that matter) and develop a visualization that communicates a similar level of information. Students would be asked to consider the knowledge and analysis portions of their investigation while taking into account the design and presentation discussion that happened as a result of the comparison of the two data visualizations. From here they can draw connections, locate moments of similarity and difference, predict outcome (for the Middle East), create new graphics for explanation, etc. The options for meaningful curricular engagement are endless.

Explaining the recent events in a text based format would take days and days and days of reading. Using this type of information communication we can get at the big ideas. Then we can further investigate. This allows not just for knowledge acquisition, but for analysis to occur. This wealth of resources at our fingertips can allow for the classroom to get beyond just the ‘knowing’ of the information and venture out into the deeper analysis and creation of information as well. This is just too much fun.