Dissertation Tales, Part 1 – A first draft of my introduction

Because I believe each of us is responsible for sharing our learning with the world, I’m sharing a bit of my work.

As my prospectus meeting approaches in a couple of weeks, I’m racing through revisions to my work. I know it won’t be perfect, but I still have a lot I want to complete before that meeting.

Why? Because writing can constantly be improved.

So, a big chunk of the introduction to my dissertation is presented here with little comment unless you know something about my research. At least, this is where it sits right now.

Introduction

The idea of distance learning, the forerunner of online or virtual learning, is not new and has been a topic of exploration for a significant portion of human history. Members of Plato’s Academy used the technology of writing to study Socrates’s great conversations from a distance (Nagy, 2020). Caleb Phillips launched the first shorthand correspondence course by mail in 1728 (Tulane University, n.d.). In the 1890s, the company that would become known as the International Correspondence School (ICS) and later Penn Foster was launched. Within a decade, there were some 250,000 students enrolled worldwide (Buesch, 2020). In 1932, the University of Iowa broadcast programming on the first educational television station and received mail from viewers as far as 500 miles away (University of Iowa, 2022).

Of course, the world of science fiction is no stranger to the idea of distance or virtual learning, as Isaac Asimov, in his 1951 short story, “The Fun They Had,” saw students learning from mechanical teachers (1974) while the children of Ray Bradbury’s seminal “Fahrenheit 451” learned through interactive screens since books were no longer legal (1953). Andrew “Ender” Wiggins spent much of his education in an immersive virtual learning environment, including hours of military simulations disguised as games (Card, 1985). In the far-flung space of the 24th century, crew members, students, and their families aboard the USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D join essentially any time or place and experience events directly in a fully immersive virtual environment through the ship’s Holodeck (Fontana & Roddenberry, Allen, 1987). The virtual learning world even attracts those beyond their schooling years who want to escape their ordinary lives, much like the earthly society depicted in “Ready Player One,” as millions live their lives inside the OASIS (Cline, 2015).

But here in the real world, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a rapid and unprecedented expansion of virtual academies within public schools in the United States. This urgent shift to virtual learning responded to the imperative of continuing education while ensuring safety. The pandemic forced a sudden transition to online education in spring 2020, initially as an emergency measure (Black et al., 2021). This shift introduced many students and educators to virtual learning, previously available to a small percentage of the student population. Before the pandemic, only 3% of school districts in the United States operated virtual schools. This number grew ninefold by the 2021-2022 school year (Diliberti & Schwartz, 2021). While the COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant growth in virtual academy offerings, it also destabilized many of the foundations of public education, creating an urgent need for rethinking public schooling (Ladson-Billings, 2021).

Many school leaders agree that teaching students skills for repetition, recognition, memorization, or any skills related to collecting, storing, and retrieving information are in decline, giving rise to a set of contemporary skills that includes creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, growth mindset, global competence, and a host of other skills (Zhao & Watterston, 2021). These skills fall within the overarching concept of deeper learning, a set of competencies students must master to develop a keen understanding of academic content and apply their knowledge to the classroom and 21st-century job problems (William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, 2013). The science of how children learn, grow, and master complex skills has made significant strides in recent years, supporting the ideals of deeper learning. One of the critical components of the science of learning and development is creating learning environments filled with safety and belonging (Learning Policy Institute, n.d.), whether the environment be in-person or virtual. This knowledge is essential for the education of all children, but it has particular strength in achieving educational equity in areas where we have previously fallen short.

References

Asimov, I. (1974). The best of Isaac Asimov (1. ed). Doubleday & Company.

Black, E., Ferdig, R., & Thompson, L. A. (2021). K-12 virtual schooling, COVID-19, and student success. JAMA Pediatrics, 175(2), 119. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.3800

Bradbury, R. (1953). Fahrenheit 451. Ballantine Books.

Buesch, K. (2020, October 6). New exhibit: 1920s distance learning. Clarke Historical Museum. http://www.clarkemuseum.org/12/post/2020/10/new-exhibit-1920s-distance-learning.html

Card, O. S. (1985). Ender’s game. Tor Books.

Cline, E. (2015). Ready player one (First mass market edition). BDWY Broadway Books.

Diliberti, M., & Schwartz, H. L. (2021). The rise of virtual schools: Selected findings from the third American school district panel survey. RAND Corporation. https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA956-5

Fontana, D. C., & Roddenberry, G. (Writers), & Allen, C. (Director). (1987, September 28). Star Trek: The Next Generation [Broadcast]. In Encounter at Farpoint. Syndicated.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). I’m here for the hard re-set: Post-pandemic pedagogy to preserve our culture. Equity & Excellence in Education, 54(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1863883

Learning Policy Institute. (n.d.). Science of learning and development. Learning Policy Institute. Retrieved March 13, 2024, from https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/topic/science-learning-and-development

Nagy, G. (2020, March 26). The idea of immediate learning in an age of necessitated distance education. Classical Inquiries. https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/the-idea-of-immediate-learning-in-an-age-of-necessitated-distance-education/

Tulane University. (n.d.). The evolution of distance learning. Retrieved September 20, 2024, from https://sopa.tulane.edu/blog/evolution-distance-learning

University of Iowa. (2022). Milestones in University of Iowa history. https://175.uiowa.edu/milestones-university-iowa-history

William & Flora Hewlett Foundation. (2013, April 23). Deeper learning defined. https://hewlett.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Deeper_Learning_Defined__April_2013.pdf

Zhao, Y., & Watterston, J. (2021). The changes we need: Education post-COVID-19. Journal of Educational Change, 22(1), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-021-09417-3

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The Power of Writing Things Down

index cards — Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

Sometime in the blur that was my high school life in the late 1900s, I sat in my Junior English class and listened to Sylvia Daugherty, the Great and Powerful, ramble on about something or other.

None of us minded her ramblings because she was simply brilliant. She was one of those teachers. You know, the ones who could make anything interesting. I often feel like, had I taken AP English with Momma D my senior year, I might have written a senior research paper and learned something from it rather than skipping it entirely and somehow still finding a way to pass senior English and high school.

But that’s a story for a different time…

Momma D used a lot of “country” phrases and sayings. I’m assuming they were country; I don’t know any other way to describe them. I don’t remember where she was originally from, but it was likely somewhere in the mountains of Appalachia. I’m sure she had family members who knew the Hatfields, the McCoys, or possibly both who had run more than their fair share of moonshine out of those mountains. She had a flair for storytelling that, even to a disinterested 11th-grade geek, could wrap you in a warm blanket and carry you to another world.

I still remember her expressions and tone of voice as we discussed Chapter 15 from The Grapes of Wrath—the “two for a penny” chapter—and how her eyes turned a little red and a single tear formed as she talked about this short tale of abject poverty and humanity at its best.

Some of us laughed at her country sayings, some didn’t. Some rolled their eyes, and a select few students of the “I can’t be bothered with anything of consequence” crowd sat still, staring off into the distance of future memories of the best times in their life scoring that touchdown on a Friday night that mattered to no one else but them.

Rarely was there a dull moment with Momma D. One day, I decided someone needed to take down all of her quotes, saying, and other nonsense for posterity, and that someone was me. I told my buddy, “I’m gonna write these things down. There’s a gold mine in here for someone.”

He looked at me, chuckled, and went on about his business. He wasn’t focused on Junior English or much of any other subject as he was too busy becoming one of the world’s premier musicians who would travel the world playing in symphony orchestra after symphony orchestra. Maybe I’ll tell you that story one day.

The funny part of all of this is my thinking that I would ever actually commit to writing anything down. Famously, I did very little throughout all high school, and that certainly held true for my collection, “Funny Crap Momma D Said in Class.”

I wrote down exactly ONE of her sayings. ONE. And, try as I might, I can’t tell you why I chose to write that one specific phrase down, but I did. And I’ve remembered it ever since.

We talked about when something would be done, and she said, “probably around the 31st of Juvember.”

Now, I’m pretty good at looking for things, especially since the dawn of the World Wide Web, and I can’t find a reference to this anywhere. However, I’m sure someone reading this is going to reach out and tell me it’s from a fascist manifesto and I deserve to be canceled (and I probably do, but not for this).

I’ve tried to work this little phrase into as many conversations as possible, mostly because it makes me laugh but also in the desperate search for anyone else that has ever heard it.

No luck on both counts. Why does no one else think it’s funny?

I’m telling you this story to underline the importance of writing stuff down. The importance of always carrying a notebook, writing pad, paper, or whatever you choose to write on in case you have an idea or come across something that makes you sad, glad, or angry.

I’ve talked about the idea of a commonplace book many times. There is power in writing things down on paper—yes, there’s actual research that writing on paper is better for retention than using a device—and going back through those things from time to time.

Commonplace books have long been tools for thinkers, authors, and leaders. Mark Twain, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, Marcus Aurelius, Anne Lamott, Robert Greene, Ryan Holiday, JFK, and many others all kept commonplace books in one form or another.

John Locke even wrote a book on writing commonplace books.

In Medieval Europe, they were sometimes called the florilegium (Latin for “a gathering of flowers”). Thomas of Ireland wrote a famous one called the Manipulus Florumi, which contained over 6,000 extracts from books in the library of the Sorbonne in Paris, organized by theme.

Commonplace books were once valued because books were so costly. But they may be even more valuable now because information is so cheap.

The Internet and the World Wide Web have made information so cheap and easy to access that it’s often difficult to sort through all the garbage and find the gems. Your commonplace book, along with many others, can help do the sorting.

I think every student needs a commonplace book. Not just for studying and learning, although they are a great tool for those things, but to have a way to remember all the things that mean something to us, no matter how silly or inconsequential they are.

Like the notes of a sixteen-year-old boy in his Junior English class over thirty years ago.

While reading Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird,” I thought about this moment and came to her chapter on index cards. Right beside some text I underlined, I wrote, “Sylvia Daugherty, 11th Grade, Juvember.”

Write things down. You never know when you’ll need them or when they’ll bring you a moment of joy.

Empowering Students, Relieving Teacher Burnout

From a practical perspective, you are doing all the work, delivering whole-class instruction to learners—instruction that you are staying up until 2:00 a.m. to design. As a result, students come to believe it is your job to do all of the work. You are exhausted, and students are disengaged or excluded. That is a bad deal all around.

In education, we often find ourselves trapped in a cycle where teachers shoulder the bulk of the responsibility, crafting lessons late into the night and delivering instruction to a room full of passive learners. The quote above from “The Shift to Student-Led” by Catlin Tucker and Katie Novak captures this predicament perfectly:

From a practical perspective, you are doing all the work, delivering whole-class instruction to learners—instruction that you are staying up until 2:00 a.m. to design. As a result, students come to believe it is your job to do all of the work. You are exhausted, and students are disengaged or excluded. That is a bad deal all around.

This dynamic leads to teacher burnout and deprives students of the opportunity to take ownership of their learning. When teachers do all the work, students become passive recipients of knowledge, disengaged from the learning process. This traditional model of education is unsustainable for teachers and ineffective in fostering deeper learning and student agency.

The science of learning and development emphasizes the importance of creating environments where students are active participants in their learning journey. By shifting to a student-led approach, we empower students to take charge of their learning, make decisions, and engage in meaningful, authentic tasks. This increases their motivation and investment in the learning process and helps them develop critical skills such as problem-solving, collaboration, and self-regulation.

From a practical standpoint, this shift can significantly reduce the burden on teachers. Instead of spending hours designing one-size-fits-all lessons, teachers can focus on guiding and supporting students as they explore, inquire, and create. This approach fosters a more dynamic and interactive classroom environment where students are at the center of their learning experience.

The transition to student-led learning is not without its challenges, but the benefits far outweigh the effort required to make this shift. Teachers can reclaim their time and energy while students develop the skills and mindset needed to succeed in an ever-changing world. It’s a win-win situation that promises to transform education for the better.

Endorsing Solutions that Don’t Work

This hot take isn’t so hot and perfectly describes why public education will always have to deal with standardized testing mandates and measures from the government.

“You might ask why politicians endorse solutions that don’t work. The answer is not complicated: because they can legislate them; because they are in a hurry; because the remedies can be made to appeal superficially to the public; because (and unkindly on our part) some of them really don’t care about the public education system, preferring that education be taken over by the private sector; and (more kindly) because they do not know what else to do.” (Michael Fullan, Joanne Quinn, Coherence)

"You might ask why politicians endorse solutions that don’t work. The answer is not complicated: because they can legislate them; because they are in a hurry; because the remedies can be made to appeal superficially to the public; because (and unkindly on our part) some of them really don’t care about the public education system, preferring that education be taken over by the private sector; and (more kindly) because they do not know what else to do."

Sale

Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts, and Systems

Fullan, Michael (Author)
English (Publication Language)
168 Pages – 08/24/2015 (Publication Date) – Corwin (Publisher)

Essentially essential

question marks on paper crafts — Photo by Leeloo The First on Pexels.com

Picking up from yesterday’s discussion from Teaching for Deeper Learning on framing units around the idea of “a study in…” an area, another way to frame units or lessons is with essential questions.

If you’re using the “a study in…” idea, you can partner essential questions with that idea for deeper discussions. Essential questions are open-ended questions that reflect the big ideas we want our students to come to understand. They are designed to stimulate thinking, spark discussion and debate, and raise additional questions for further inquiry.

Scott McCleod & Julie Graber point to this idea of essential questions in the Deeper Thinking & Learning section of the 4 Shifts protocol. Looking at our daily work, we can ask if student work focuses on big, important themes and concepts central to the discipline rather than isolated topics, trivia, or minutiae.

What makes an essential question effective?

It passes the “so what” test
It focuses on matters of importance
It is posed within the context of important content
It is written so students can understand them (kid-friendly)
It can be answered but may not have an obvious correct or simple answer
It requires higher-order thinking, problem-solving, or decision-making
It uses concepts that require students to use their knowledge in developing responses
It causes students to organize their knowledge to uncover important ideas now and in the future
Serves as a formative assessment tool (when answered)

Essential questions help guide our learning targets, help define student work, and drive us closer to our deeper learning goals.

Control what you can control

Sometimes, things don’t work out no matter how hard you try or how much you know. Or maybe things fall apart completely.

Control what you can control, and when all else fails, sit back and rest. Or have a drink, if that’s your thing.

Sale

A Promised Land

Hardcover Book
Obama, Barack (Author)
English (Publication Language)
768 Pages – 11/17/2020 (Publication Date) – Crown (Publisher)

A Study In…

Diving into more authentic learning topics, I’ll share some insights from Jay McTighe’s book “Teaching for Deeper Learning” which has some great ideas for making learning more meaningful.

One of the first concepts McTighe discusses is framing learning around big ideas. Curriculum experts advise prioritizing a smaller number of conceptually larger, transferable ideas because there is too much information to cover everything (which is why essential standards are important), and trying to do so results in superficial learning. Focusing on larger ideas enhances knowledge retention and application, which is crucial in our rapidly changing world.

One way to reimagine how we plan units is to think of them as “A Study In…” some concept or big idea. McTighe gives these examples:

Argument Writing: A Study in Craftsmanship
Impressionism: A Study in Revolution
The Four Seasons: A Study in Change
The Pentagon Papers: A Study in Deception
Four Films by Hitchcock: A Study in Obsession
Weight Training: A Study in Proper Technique
Whole Numbers: A Study in Rules and Relationships

This is a very different way of thinking about unit planning, and it would be a great conversation for teachers, coaches, and principals as we begin another school year.

The Importance of a Graduate Profile

Photo by Fray Bekele on Unsplash

Graduate Profile. Portrait of a Graduate. Portrait of a Learner. Three different names for the same thing.

A Graduate Profile is a set of competencies that define the “enduring skills” schools want their students to have when they graduate.

Why is it important to have a graduate profile?

Battelle for Kids, a thought leader in the Portrait of a Graduate space, released a report this year called “The Future of the Portrait of a Graduate” and shared this reminder:

I’ve often heard the Portrait of a Graduate or Graduate Profile referred to as the “north star” for our work, which is appropriate. Everything we do should align with our Graduate Profile as we prepare students for a future we can’t predict, but we can give them the skills for success.

Focusing on those enduring skills prepares our students for those changes we can’t see. Remember when no one knew about generative AI tools like ChatGPT? And now people are using those tools with great success!

“I say this often in regard to generative AI, but it’s worth repeating: Prior to the arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022, very few people had any hands-on experience in interacting with and using large language models. The people who are using them productively today are not trained in the specifics of generative AI but in ways of thinking that allow one to make use of the tool as an aid to the human work, rather than outsourcing our thinking to something that does not actually think or reason.” – John Warner, Inside HigherED

Always look to the future. As Wizard’s Seventh Rule tells us, “Life is the future, not the past.”

Rooted in comics…

Greetings Starfighters,

Comic-Con is upon us, that time of year when thousands of geeks descend upon San Diego and enjoy some quality time together. Sadly, I have never been. However, one of my very good friends is actually presenting some of his research on using comics in education for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Be sure to check it out if you’re there.

You should try going if you’ve never been to a “Con” of any variety. I usually attend the Cincinnati version in the fall and love seeing the cosplay and just hanging around some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.

Trying to decide if they’re worth attending?

Although Comic-Con is rooted in comics, the convention is using its growing popularity and global recognition to support and further social progress. In 2017, Comic-Con conventions in various cities and countries featured mental health panels. These panels are still going strong as attendees are looking for ways that pop culture can help them deal with current issues (like Covid-19-related stresses). Regarding diversity, for the first time in history, a woman won the Best Writer Eisner Award – the top award for comic book writing – at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con, around the same time it was announced that the first transgender superhero in television history would be joining the characters of “Supergirl.” And, the first-ever Indigenous Comic-Con, which began in 2016 and has slowly taken off in America and in Australia, celebrates Indigenous creators and artists and their contributions to pop culture. Its success has since spawned a mini-Indigenous-Comic-Con with pop-up events in various cities. Comic-Con unlocks people’s imaginations and addresses serious cultural and societal issues.

Quote of the Day

“Our children should study what’s important to learn, not what’s easy for you to test.” (Ted Dintersmith, What School Could Be)

Musical Interlude

Sultans of Swing is one of my all-time favorite songs. It’s just… perfect. And here’s a great cover from this past April by Umphrey’s McGee

Long Read of the Day

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) was first introduced in 2023; over a year later, with the August recess looming, the Senate is poised to vote on the bill. With 70 cosponsors, the bill appears likely to pass.

Proponents of the bill believe that the law is necessary to safeguard children from harm that could result from the platforms’ relentless quest for user attention. Critics argue that KOSA not only erodes internet freedoms but could also prevent minors — particularly LGBTQ minors — from accessing potentially lifesaving information.

Video of the Day

“The Earth reminded us of a Christmas tree ornament hanging in the blackness of space. As we got farther and farther away, it diminished in size. Finally, it shrank to the size of a marble, the most beautiful marble you can imagine.” – James Irwin, Apollo 15

Several years ago, a small group took those words to heart and built a scale model of our universe in the desert. To know how small the scale was to create the model and for it still to take up as much space as it did is a reminder to all of us how big our universe is and how small we are.

I showed this film to my math students when we discussed scale drawings, and it never ceased to give them lots to think about beyond scale drawings.

Final Thoughts

I just started Jim Harrison’s “Legends of the Fall”—yes, that one—this week. I’ll let you know if I like it better than I like the film.

“I followed all the rules – man’s and God’s. And you… followed none of them and they all loved you more”

No More Warehouse Institutions

When will we finally stop sending our kids to huge buildings managed by bureaucracies that are more concerned with making sure everyone changes class on time than they are with making sure that everyone is prepared to participate in our society?

From Redesigning High Schools: 10 Features for Success