This quarter in my graduate work in Digital Education Leadership at Seattle Pacific University, I am exploring Digital Learning Environments by focusing on the exploration of ISTE Coaching Standard 3, which charges technology coaches to create and support an efficient digital age learning environment to maximize the learning of all students. To explore this standard, I read some original pieces on in the intersection of pedagogy and technology in educational practice. I then used these as a jumping off point to explore my initial thoughts on my own ideal digital learning environment. As my research started and I began to read the Edsurge article by Ellen Dorr Designing Professional Learning Experiences I stopped for a second and thought about how I have heard or thought these same things myself throughout my teaching career.
Professional Development (PD) is a necessary evil and must happen but the way it is structured in most PNW districts is backwards and not helpful. Most of the time I take notes at a PD and then those notes never get looked at again. So for my first resource I would like to share that I am not the only one with these feelings, at the most recent ISTE conference Mary Jo Madda of Edsurge went around and asked attendees what EdTech words they are sick of hearing (http://bit.ly/2tQAtzU) and it coincides nicely with what I am trying to explain regarding PD. As Martin Cisneros states “It’s not necessarily a software, but it’s a term of professional development. We need to leave the phrase “professional development” to the side and really start thinking what we want our students to do. We’re always going to be lifelong learners, so let’s leave the “development” behind because we developed enough—let’s start learning.” Other words are personalized learning, blended learning, lifelong learner, and others like dongle which are overused, and we might want to start putting them to bed. As the public schools are continuing to fail in their current state, I want to introduce my next resource as for how I wish one day our schools could be designed. We need to reimagine what professional development looks like just as we have started the journey to reimagine what the next generation of high schools will look like. My thoughts are that one day our teachers will go to collaborative spaces inside the school like “Makers Space” for professionals. I do not want teachers to have to sit down in a stuffy library getting another photocopied pdf from the internet. I want them to get up, get out of the building, and explore what the possibilities are out there for their students and themselves.
Therefore my second resource stems from the fact that we need to stop for a second and think about how we are examining education as a whole, and so I would like to share is the XQ Super School Project (https://xqsuperschool.org/abouttheproject) that is reimagining high school. “Imagine students in a school that makes design thinking, futuristic technology and high-school instruction mean the same thing. Design-Lab will put students in a mode of continuous inquiry as they design the world in which they want to live, and discover their places in it.”
Design-Lab High School understands the global challenges facing its students, but sees absolutely no limit to the solutions students can design to meet those challenges. With design thinking baked into its DNA, this Super School will be a school based on a research-and-development framework that continually learns, builds and improves, while encouraging its students to do the same. Whether working on prototypes, podcasts or virtual museum exhibits, an academically rigorous loop of learning will prepare its students (including many first-generation college-goers) for the challenges ahead. As Anthony Rebora found in this Edweek article “Teachers Still Struggling to Use Tech to Transform Instruction” from June 2016, 700 classroom teachers and school-based instructional specialists were surveyed, and they have a similar feeling about the current status of professional development. Teachers want stronger PLC’s; they want coaches and more opportunities for observations. I think a school like the Design-Lab could bring real life experiments to professional development sessions. When the point of this is to think about classroom management and particularly for me, I wanted to concentrate on the participate presence, but I believe that if we create a unique creative space or environment for learning, then it will not be as much of an issue. If we could then use some LMS to live stream whatever creative design is happening in the classroom, then teachers and students can hop on via the internet and watch whatever interests them from home. Basically, in the end, I feel that what we are doing now is not working and we have to start looking on a larger scale for change especially when it comes to developing our teacher’s creativity and interest.
Madda, M. J. (2017, July 05). Tired Edtech Trends That Teachers Wish Would Retire: From the Floor of ISTE 2017 – EdSurge News. Retrieved July 06, 2017, from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-07-04-tired-edtech-trends-that-teachers-wish-would-retire-from-the-floor-of-iste-2017?utm_content=buffer69865&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
XQ: The Super School Project. (2017). Retrieved July 02, 2017, from https://xqsuperschool.org/abouttheproject
