Synthesis #4: Rock the Vote

http://futureofhistory.wikispaces.com/Rocking+the+Vote 

The webquest “Rock the Vote” relates to the core values and vision of my hypothetical government class by preparing students for active citizenship and inspiring them to consider the nature of social justice.  My philosophy of education fuels my devotion to creating student-centered activities and providing skills-based instruction.  Generally, webquests can aid us in combating the deluge of content standards that push us toward an esoteric, academic realm.  Particularly, “Rock the Vote,” can drive students to question the disturbing lack of voter participation as well as the essential questions that stem from it.  For instance, should the disproportionate apathy on the part of the disenfranchised cause us to question the basis of our democracy?  What fuels the lack of interest in the politics?  Does democracy depend on high participation?  The most important question, however, is “what, if anything, can I do about it?”  The sense of powerlessness that fuels social issues such as this can be combated in my classroom by the creation of student centered activities. 

Importantly, this webquest is part of a larger vision to prepare students for the future.  Students benefit most when content instruction and skill instruction blend into one another.  Currently, state requirements stress content instruction as well as the general responsibility of teachers to convey cultural competence.  Most education within history, English, and other humanities accordingly falls in line with these expectations.  However, by focusing primarily on this goal, we are forgetting to include skill instruction.  In the past, the liberal art most valued for its relevance within the professional climate was writing. It made sense, and still makes sense, therefore to inject many writing activities into the curriculum to help students to learn content while simultaneously practicing a vital skill.  Since the 1980s, a similar possibility has existed of teaching content electronically.  While its significance grew as the Internet became more entrenched within our culture, many educators continued to view the combination as gratuitous.  Such a stance, however, becomes increasingly untenable.  As more students use technology to manipulate their world, depriving them of an opportunity to use it in the classroom will become tantamount to denying them paper and pencil. 

Several of the links within “Rock the Vote” describe the historical nature of our voting system.  November voting, as it turns out, was instituted so that farmers would not need to give up precious harvest days.  Similarly, Tuesday voting was instituted so that citizens would not need to begin traveling to the polls on Sunday.  Just as aged technology obliterated the true basis for these practices decades ago, modern technology begs the question: is visiting the polling place even necessary?  Or, can technology lead to the lead to a large increase in the number of polling places?  While delving into cultural explanations like any good social scientists, students will consider technological methods of increasing the vote as well as the possibly adverse civic consequences of doing so.  By presenting these issues, “Rock the Vote” satisfies Standard Eight of the National Council for the Social Studies.

Unfortunately, the voting system of the United States is remarkably stale.  In contrast, the voting systems of many other nations attract more participants and align better with modern realities.  “Rock the Vote” calls attention to these facts by imbedding an exploration of foreign voting systems within its webquest. The initial phase of the webquest, designed to give the students an understanding of voting practices across history, states and nations, requires them to visit the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and identify the voter turnout of at least five other democracies.  In addition, students must consider the causes of differences between these countries, looking to history and political systems for accurate explanations.  This aspect of the webquest satisfies Standard Nine of the National Council for the Social Studies.

In history class, students often wonder about the relevance of what they are learning.  Unfortunately, we often have only vague responses and respond by stating in effect that “smart people know when Roman Republic became the Roman Empire, and stupid people do not.  If you do not want to be stupid, you had better learn this.”  Sensing the shallowness of this cultural litmus test, students either rebel or shut down, becoming painfully aware that they do not care about the content and that they are only putting forth effort in order to earn an acceptable grade.  The unprecedented state of communications should inspire use to create more activities like “Rock the Vote.”  Computer and Internet together form the bedrock for most professions within postindustrial society.  Content, while necessary and edifying, should not be delivered in isolation through the use of traditional instruction.  Instead it should be intertwined with skills instruction designed to increase students’ technological competence. 

Video Self-Assesssment #1

Backgound: I posted a video on every page of my wiki.  The purpose was not necessarily to give these imaginary students the best learning opportunity, but simply to practice presentation and recording: two aspects of my teaching that need development.  

THE END OF INDUSTRIAL AGE SCHOOLING

Our educational system currently relies upon survey courses designed as introductions to various fields of knowledge. For many, the merit of such an approach is its ability to produce well-rounded individuals capable of discussing multiple fields and interests. However, when backed by current standardized testing and accompanying memorization, it also seems to guarantee that most students will only gain a shallow level of knowledge in any one field. Instead of adhering to survey courses, leaders in education must push for radical structural changes that mirror radical technological changes. The first structural change is the abandonment of survey courses and the introduction of more projects and activities that, in Howard Gardner’s language, help to “discipline” students’ minds. Secondly, technology must be seamlessly integrated into students’ academic life by placing a laptop computer within the hands of every student. Finally, current standardized assessment must be abandoned in favor of personalized, electronic portfolios.

Before achieving the first structural change, state and federal governments must abandon the standardization that has characterized reforms over the past decade. Virginia’s Standards of Learning examinations force teachers and students to cover a multitude of facts from different historical eras. In the process, they discourage social studies teachers from assigning the large scale, authentic assessments described in 10 Big Ideas. Opportunity cost dictates that formerly valued hallmarks of instruction, such as the survey course, be eliminated. According to Gardner (2006)“educators face a choice: do not teach them the discipline at all; introduce them to the facts of the subject and let them fend for themselves; or strive at least to give them a taste—a ‘threshold experience’ (p. 31).” Currently, we are forcing students to learn according to the second option. As a result, we are depriving teachers of the ability to introduce those methods of inquiry that are pertinent to social sciences, law, and other fields requiring extensive documentation and analysis. Students deserve better. As Gardner (2006) explains, if [the topic] is worth studying, it is worth studying deeply, over a significant period of time, using a variety of examples and modes of analysis (32).” If we accept this claim, we cannot justify the race to hit every point within the state-mandated curriculum.

In his exposition of what he terms the “disciplined mind” Howard Gardner, with the perspective of a neuropsychologist, correctly identifies the length of time that individuals need in order to excel within a given discipline. In addition, he correctly estimates the value of extensive experience within all professions. Like many other academics, however, he unfortunately overvalues the importance of academic degrees within this process. He fails to recognize that in the burgeoning digital arena, where many students can expect to find their best professional opportunities, certifications, not academic degrees, are primarily valued. Furthermore, even these certifications are secondary to experience. What professionals value within the large data center in which I work, for example, is experiential knowledge and a proven ability to perform. My immediate superior majored in Art History, but within the data center environment proved his worth without any professional certification. In our East Coast operations, he is the only employee with a bachelor’s degree. While he is on the road to earn millions of dollars, others who hold computer science degrees work as guards for Securitas, and pander for the chance to work on our night shift.

If Gardner is correct in his valuation of disciplinary thinking but partially incorrect in his valuation of academic degrees, what policy initiative is most appropriate? The answer aligns closely with an assertion made by Oakes and Lipton (2003) in Teaching to Change the World.” “Much like mass production techniques,” they claim, “schools separate students into classes by age and grade so that teachers can teach all of the students in the room simultaneously – the same material at the same pace in the same way. (www.merinews.com)” For decades, this was doubtlessly the only feasible model within public education. Now, however, technology has provided us with the opportunity to depart from it. We must advance a second structural change by giving all students a laptop at the beginning of each school day to use within all classes. If this is done, students would be able to easily collaborate with each other inside of the classroom and out; send files and receive feedback more readily; train on a variety of digital tools that would help them to better succeed in a myriad of professions; and most importantly, become able to work on personalized curriculums. This is far from fantasy. Apple’s website details the process through which computers can be completely embedded.

"After receiving a digital lesson from the teacher, student teams select a topic and use their Mac computers to plan, create, and present reports in a variety of formats, including content- and media-rich movies, podcasts, wikis, and blogs. And because iMovie, GarageBand, Keynote, Pages, and iChat are so easy to use, the students are able to work independently." (www.apple.com)

As Green County Middle School teacher Jose Garcia explains, “The Macs are interwoven into our curriculum. There isn’t a single day we don’t use them.” Garcia’s attitude is essential to the implementation of the third major reform.
The introduction of personalized portfolios is perhaps the most radical structural change that we can now consider. Most educators have not even imagined that they could respond to students’ needs and desires by helping them to chart their own curriculums. Carrying their laptops, students could contribute every day to projects within comprehensive portfolios. A range of staff could then, in turn, assess and provide feedback on a regular basis. When searching for examples of how this new portfolio system cannot operate, we should turn no further than the current method employed by the College Board, the International Baccalaurate Program, and the Virginia Department of Education. The first two organizations inefficiently collect essay examinations and then gather thousands of teachers to grade them simultaneously within exposition centers. The third organization resorted more than ten years ago to a sensible pre-digital solution that is now obsolete and dangerous. Aiming to save time and public funds, the Virginia DOE decided to mandate multiple-choice tests due to the ease with which they could be graded. The proliferation of high speed Internet is now making these organizations look ridiculous. No gathering of teachers is necessary now that documents can be transmitted instantaneously anywhere to most areas of our nation.

Throughout the school year, as students build upon their electronic portfolios, faculty from different departments, schools, and regions, could provide feedback to students. While this has not been fully developed, schools across the country are internally developing electron portfolios. Pat Bolanos, Principal of the Key Learning Community, has outlined how the rigidity of current standardization can be replaced with a feasible method of introducing portfolio learning. Echoing what Howard Gardner (2006) calls for in Five Minds for the Future, she succinctly explains in “10 Big Ideas” how students gain deeper understandings of the disciplines they study.

"We are interested in how students apply knowledge, and so students are required through their high school, to do major projects each semester, and at the end of high school, they should have eight major projects that they would have developed. All this is to be put together on a multi-media portfolio that documents what they are capable of doing."(10 Big Ideas)

The introduction of large scale projects that span significant portions of the school year, the permeation of laptop computers into the school environment, and the use of e-portfolios in lieu of standardized tests will by 2025 displace the outdated form of industrial education that predominates our school systems today. William A. Draves and Julie Coates (2005) make the same prediction in Nine Shift. The eighth shift they predict, entitled “Half of all learning is online,” details how “the traditional classroom rapidly becomes obsolete…changing the nature of how we learn and teach.” The ninth shift they predict is a permanent emphasis on learning within web-based institutions as opposed to learning within physical school environments (www.nineshift.com). As long as adult supervision continues to be seen as necessary for children under the age of 18, personal guidance from content experts acting as teachers will continue to be both available and useful. However, the revolution taking place in Greene County and other municipalities throughout the country will make the traditional lesson obsolete and direct instruction less prolonged. These changes are the best possible options within the digital environment. Just as the transportation revolution eliminated the one-room school house, the digital revolution will eliminate the educational uniformity of the industrial era.

References

Gardner, Howard. Five Minds for The Future. Retrieved from http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?store=EBOOK&WRD=five+minds+for+the+future&page=&prod=univ&choice=ebooks&query=five+minds+for+the+future&flag=False&pos=-1&box=five+minds+for+the+future&box=five%20minds%20for%20the%20future&pos=-1&ugrp=2

http://www.merinews.com/article/teaching-to-change-the-world-book-review/15798022.shtml

http://www.apple.com/education/profiles/greene-county/#video-greene-county

https://mymasonportal.gmu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=null&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_2477_1%26url%3D

http://www.nineshift.com/firstChapter.htm

PROVIDING STUDENTS WITH THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON

Anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy

-John Dewey

Ironically, his statement above is as poignant in the current educational system as in the educational system of his own time.  Writing in a period of incredible transition, John Dewey convinced educators to depart from the rigid curriculum of the nineteenth century and embrace a flexible, yet practical form of instruction that would help students to better navigate their world and contribute to their society. By merely participating in our culture, individuals today hold even more constructive and destructive power than the students of Dewey’s era. Unfortunately, students today are not usually encouraged to cultivate their own talents and better participate in their culture.  Instead, they study content that they view as irrelevant and which they will forget immediately after completing the school year.   Consequently, the words “curriculum” and “standard” have become hallmarks of an era marked by unprecedented change and openness. Content absorption, rather than skill training and critical thinking, has become the task of our schools and teachers.  However, the flexibility required by the burgeoning knowledge industries is ensuring that we are about to see the crest of wave that will soon crash.

As the twenty-first century progresses, parents will demand that schooling not be detached from their children’s’ home environment and future work environment.  As a result, educators will be forced to ensure a high level of seamlessness between pedagogical methods and industrial innovations.  Activities and the direct instruction upon which they are built will focus more upon the future, and less upon the past.  Using technology, educators will couch discussions of the past within lessons based upon the current and future geographical, cultural, and economic circumstances of the entire globe. The current standards will be overruled, and classes such as World History One will cease to exist.  Social studies within the secondary schools will become oriented more towards the social sciences and less towards history.

While the nature of content changes, its purpose will change as well.  Instead of being the defining factor of standardized assessments, content will come to be seen primarily as the context in which critical thinking takes place.  The antiquated gauges of cultural competency that define our current social studies programs will be replaced by a focus on current events.  Teachers will require their students to practice their oral, written, and technological skills in order to better understand social and economic problems that plague different regions of the world.  In the process, students will exercise the higher order thinking of Bloom’s taxonomy and the lower level thinking sanctified within our historical surveys will pass.

In order to gauge analytical thinking and the skills used to express it, educators will develop a system of rigorous and extensive electronic portfolios.  These resurrections of the state-mandated, standardized portfolios of the 1990s will survive due to the better organization of labor made possible by faster Internet connections.  After crafting their portfolios over the course of a semester, students will submit them electronically to anonymous state employees who will gauge them according to skill-centered criteria.  Since the pooling of teachers into a central location, as is currently done with AP and IB assessments, will no longer be necessary, travel costs will be eliminated, and more educators can participate.

“The night is darkest before the dawn,” an old proverb echoed and popularized in the recent Warner Brothers blockbuster, The Dark Knight, describes the current state of our educational system well.  In an era of education marked by assessments that act as cultural litmus tests, it is good to know that the personal needs of students, as well as the economic needs of the burgeoning knowledge sector, will illumine the irrelevancy of our current focus within the social studies.  The deadliest weapon, a student’s ability to change his or her universe with thought, will again dictate the priorities of education as the growing panoply of different learning opportunities outshine the traditionalism sanctioned within our schools.  An older focus on analysis, and the new tools used to further it, will take precedence in the coming decades.

THE END OF ESOTERICA

By 2025, skill instruction will have taken precedence within the typical American educational environment.   Within the social studies, extensive content knowledge, once associated with upward social and economic mobility, now seems increasingly distant from the skills needed by students to succeed professionally within the digital age.  Unless our educators adopt significant conceptual and practical changes, students and parents will continue to identify a dichotomy between “useful” courses, such as math and science, and relatively “useless” courses, such as history.  Content knowledge can continue to serve a vital purpose in the educational system only if three conditions are met within the next two decades.  As painful as it may be to our pre-digital age sensibilities, we must abandon formerly hallowed gauges of intellect and sophistication. 

Firstly, content knowledge must come to be seen as a framework in which skill instruction takes place.  It cannot continue to be gauged by assessments that require little, if any, practical skills.  Currently, the primacy of content knowledge remains entrenched to the detriment of analytical skills, professional skills, and skills of expression.  Social studies teachers should remember that every major technological development occurs along a timeline, and that by helping students to identify their own particular interests along a timeline, they can better understand their passions and their roles in society.  Currently, teachers’ fondness for their content too often becomes more important than their students’ need for it.  Instead of expressing their knowledge to help individual students with individual needs, they express it with the hope of bring all students to an ethereal, golden standard. 

Secondly, schools must eliminate their survey courses.  As students and parents demand that schools create curriculums better designed for personal and professional development, history survey courses will seem increasingly irrelevant.  It is extremely detrimental for students to spend their time within World History I, World History II, and U.S. History.  We should not permit these courses to remain in their present form. Why, will students ask, should their time be spent learning the minutia of the French Revolution?  Worse still, why should their time be spent memorizing a disconnected litany of facts framed within a survey course?  All social studies courses should instead be framed thematically like the courses designed within the International Baccalaureate program.   Analysis, not absorption, could then take precedence, as students are encouraged to thoroughly explore the developments of a particular event or era.  

Thirdly, we must recognize that we are not only failing to help students develop the skills they need within the digital age.  We are also failing to help them develop skills that have been needed since the advent of the post-industrial age.  In short, we are several decades behind where we need to be.  Instead of simply adjusting our social studies courses, we must completely transform them.  The ease of this change will depend upon a willingness to depart from the prevailing standardization model that requires students to gain a cursory knowledge of as many topics as possible.  Instead of helping students to become “well-rounded,” teachers must help them learn to express thoughts and opinions excellently through the written and spoken word.  Because they will be judged by their capacity to contribute to change, students must learn to make impact, not simply recognize the impact of others. 

Unless the American educational system adapts to present needs and interests of the populations that it serves, it will continue to decline.  We should not preserve bastions of esoteric knowledge any longer.  We should rather thematically frame our content courses in order to help students develop the analytical skills that they can then apply to any field or profession.