Edcamp Delta: A Personalized Learning Experience

Recently in British Columbia, much is being said about the need for personalization. The Ministry of Education's new BC Education Plan emphasizes the importance of personalized learning.

We must not confuse personalization with individualization and differentiation.

"Personalized learning is not individualized learning, in which students share the same learning goals but progress through the curriculum at their own pace. Nor is it differentiated instruction, in which students also share learning goals but receive instruction that is tailored to their learning needs.

Personalized learning is an instructional approach that encompasses both differentiation and individualization, but is also flexible in content or theme to match the specific interests and prior experiences of learners."

Personalized learning really takes into consideration that long tail of interest, of prior motivation, of languages. It leverages all the different things that people have in their repertoire to add value to their learning. In any personalized learning model, the student - not the teacher - is the central figure."  Karen Cator

But what does personalized learning actually look like? feel like?

Well, on Saturday January 14th I participated in a personalized learning experience at Edcamp Delta.

For those of you less familiar with how an edcamp works, let me briefly explain.

• There is no keynote speaker and no set topics.
• Participants propose discussion topics leading up to and in person on the morning of the event.

• Participants vote for topics that interest them and based on the popularity of the respective topics, the organizers arrange the discussion topics within a grid and create a schedule for the day.

• Participants choose to participate in sessions they are most interested in.
• One or more participants step forward to initiate the conversations in each session. 
• Participants share ideas, perspectives and experiences with each other. They respond to each other's questions and queries.

So, what key features of an edcamp contribute to such a personalized (not just individualized or differentiated) learning experience?

• Participants arrive with different goals for the day. Some wish to network, others want to share ideas about specific topics and some want to ask questions.
• The content is flexible and participants choose discussion topics based on their specific interests and prior experiences.
• Each participant contributes and adds value to the other participants' learning.
• Face-to-face and backchannel conversations take place within each session but participants may choose to extend their conversations throughout the day.
• There is an absence of hierarchy. There is no 'teacher', no 'expert' and no passive attendees trying to soak up information being delivered by the 'guru' in the room. All participants are learners, helping one another.

What transpires from this is truly remarkable. Each participant is deeply engaged and exudes a passion for learning. Being surrounded by such energy and enthusiasm is both motivating and inspirational. And one is guaranteed to walk away from an edcamp event curious about a new topic and wanting to continue a conversation started earlier in the day.

So, in British Columbia as we look to reshape education in a way that supports personalized learning, maybe we should be considering the success of recent Edcamps and borrow key aspects from the 'unconference' model of learning.

Imagine how the notion of school might change if learners had the choice to investigate self-directed inquiry topics based on their curiosity and interests?
Imagine if learners shared questions and problems with their local and global network and challenged each other to think critically and be creative problem-solvers.
Imagine if learning was made more social, with more emphasis on learning together, where learners communicated, cooperated and collaborated in an effort to build shared knowledge and understanding?

Undoubtedly, this would lead to more questions about our current model of 'schooling'.

Organizationally, how might this look in a class? in a school?

How might this impact curriculum? Would this lead curriculum to emphasize skills more than knowledge?

How would this alter the traditional role of the 'teacher' and 'student'?

I recognize these are not easy questions to answer, but neither is the challenge of envisioning a personalized learning system for all students in BC!

Engaging the Senses in Learning

Students in Ms. Morrison's Psychology 11 class have recently studied a unit on the 'brain'. Students entered the unit of study with various levels of prior knowledge about the brain and its functions, so it was important for students to have opportunities to engage in learning at their own level.  The unit was designed so students would actively engage their senses throughout their learning and decide on how to best demonstrate their learning to an authentic audience . The idea was that 'engaging the senses would engage the learner.'

Students created 'neural cookies', where they were invited to create neurons out of edible bits.

Students also participated in a 'neural dance' where they learned and rehearsed  the parts and functions of the brain.  In the days that followed, students could be heard singing and seen re-enacting parts of the dance as they recalled the parts of the brain.

'Brain surgery' quickly followed. Using an orange to represent the brain, students attached and embedded materials such as straws, candies, etc to represent the different parts of the brain.

Students then assessed their own understanding of the brain's lobes, areas and functions by using an interactive online program featuring a drag and drop tool.

Students' interests then shifted to the effects of drugs on the brain.  Students chose a specific drug to research and designed their own way to present their findings in a manner that could be understood by their classmates and other students.  The students seen below researched the effects of heroin on the brain and baked their own 'brain cake' to represent a healthy brain and a heroin-addicted brain.

The students also created a Prezi, 'Heroin: Chasing the Dragon" to help educate youth about the dangers of heroin.

These examples demonstrate what students are capable of when allowed the opportunity to be creative, set their own directions and take ownership of their learning. In the video below you can listen to the students reflect on their own learning process.

Global Partners in Learning: Edcamp Delta & Edcamp Santiago

Back in April, I helped organize and participated at Edcamp Vancouver. I found it to be such an engaging networking and learning experience that in the days that followed I couldn’t help but rave to others about my experience. You can read my reflections here.

When I spoke with Jonathan Kung (@coolpuddytat) and Nancy Gordon (@ngg37), both of whom participated at Edcamp Vancouver, we felt that the unconference model of professional development is something that our colleagues in Delta would be interested in and could benefit from.  We quickly invited a few others, including Mark Douangchanh (@markdouangchanh) to join our planning committee and there we had it…Edcamp Delta was born!

We quickly realized that the real work lay ahead!

We needed to…

• Find a venue: Delta Secondary School
• Decide on a date: January 14, 2012
• Create a website: http://edcamp.deltasd.bc.ca
• Create a registration page: http://edcamp.deltasd.bc.ca/registration 
• Promote using social media: www.twitter.com/edcamp_delta 
• Create a hashtag: #edcampdelta
• Create a place where participants can propose topics: http://edcamp.deltasd.bc.ca/forum/15

Our next questions were “Who will sign up?” and “Will we actually be able to attract enough participants to allow for rich discussion?”  In the weeks and months since then our questions have been answered. Over 110 people have signed up to attend Edcamp Delta. The majority of registrants are from the Fraser Valley and Lower Mainland areas of British Columbia, but we also have people signed up who are from Prince George, Cariboo-Chilcotin and as far away as Pakistan. Seeing these registrations come in confirmed for us that the word is getting out amongst educators.

We needed to get the word out to our partner groups!

We promoted Edcamp Delta to the Delta Youth Advisory Council (DYAC) and to leadership students at various schools. We spoke to District Parent Advisory Committee (DPAC) members and to various school Parent Advisory Committees (PAC). The result is we are seeing a healthy number of parents and a growing number of students register.

We have global partners?

As we continued to promote our event on Twitter we learned that there are three other Edcamp events (Edcamp Santiago, Edcamp San Diego & Edcamp Coquitlam) planned for the same day. 

After reading numerous tweets from @EdcampSantiago, I was able to strike up a Twitter conversation with Thomas Baker (@profesortbaker), one of the planners of Edcamp Santiago. It was clear we share the same goal of bringing together people from around the world who have a passion for education to share their ideas and perspectives. We know that participants at Edcamp Delta and Edcamp Santiago can interact quite easily through Twitter. We also know that a live connection could be very powerful. In the days that followed, Thomas introduced me to his co-planners Damian Rivlin and Kyria Finardi and we all began to brainstorm how we might be able to connect our events. LiveStream? Ustream? Video Conference? Skype? Google Hangout?  After corresponding back and forth through email, late last week my co-planners Nancy Gordon, Jonathan Kung, Mark Douangchanh and I spoke live with Thomas Baker via Skype.  What an awesome experience it was to connect with someone across the globe! (This will be the subject of a future blog post.)

We agreed that…

·      Participants in both countries will love the idea of connecting globally with other Edcamp participants.

·      Live interactive conversation will be the most engaging.

·      Participants will be interested to learn about the successes and challenges in education that others are experiencing in other parts of the world.

·      Networked participants such as those people who choose to attend an Edcamp will want to continue the conversations and sharing beyond the event.

So, how are we planning to connect our Edcamps?

To the best of our knowledge we are going to attempt something unique in the brief history of Edcamps. And this is what makes it so exciting!

Each Edcamp is going to randomly select 4 or 5 volunteers to compose a discussion panel. In keeping with the unconference philosophy, each panel will be composed of people with a variety of perspectives and experiences in education. The intention is for randomly selected people to discuss their perspectives, not for ‘experts’ to share their research and beliefs. The topic of the discussion will be ‘Successes and Challenges in Education’. During the first of two global Skype sessions, the panel in Santiago, Chile will share their successes and challenges with and answer questions from participants in British Columbia, Canada. During the second global Skype session, the roles will be reversed. We anticipate there will be many questions, comments and some unbelievable stories shared! 

Continuing the conversations…

Each Edcamp will be setting up Skype connections that allow participants to have 1:1 conversations that stem from the Global Sessions or a Twitter conversation earlier in the day. We will also be creating a collaborative document where participants at both Edcamps can provide their names and interests. We hope that this enables Edcampers to connect locally and globally with people of similar interests long after Edcamp Delta and Edcamp Santiago conclude.

So with all of these opportunities available at Edcamp Delta and Edcamp Santiago, if you are a student, parent, educator or simply possess a passion for education, I strongly encourage you to sign up for FREE for one of these events on Jan 14, 2012!

Edcamp Delta: http://edcamp.deltasd.bc.ca

Edcamp Santiago: http://edcampsantiago.wordpress.com/

What's missing in a mark...

Imagine one of your students sees a mark at the top of an assignment you've returned to him/her. The student may gain a general idea of his/her performance. The student may react with a comment such as "I did ok. I guess it wasn't too hard.", "That was sooooo hard. I didn't have a clue what I was doing!" or  "It was easy!"

While the mark may be an overall indicator of the student's performance, the mark will not...

• identify WHAT the student can improve upon.
• indicate HOW the student can improve.

In order for a student to know what to improve on and how to improve his/her work, descriptive feedback is necessary. Descriptive feedback, either verbal or written, supports the learning process because it is formative in nature. It enables a student to apply his/her efforts into improving specific skills and knowledge before proceeding with subsequent learning.

• increase the student's intrinsic motivation towards learning.

Unfortunately, marks are too often used to extrinsically motivate students to comply with the teacher's directions. Most students will complete satisfactory work but many of them appear to lack passion for their learning. Years of completing work has stolen the joy out of learning. A small number of students complete exceptional work, but even for some of these students the goal is to achieve the highest mark possible rather than to satisfy their curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

Our goal should be to foster curiosity and a love of learning that leads to deep knowledge and understanding. To support this, we should be helping students identify what and how they can improve their learning.

So before the next time you choose to assign a mark to student work, I urge you to ask yourself the question, "How will this mark support student learning?"

If at first you don't succeed...

"If at first you don't succeed..." I think all of you know how this phrase continues. At some point in time as children, we all heard our parents tell us to "try, try again." At school, we often find ourselves  saying, 'Just give it another shot', 'Keep trying and you'll improve', 'Just stick with it and you'll make it happen' and 'Even if it's late, it's still important you do the work'. We say these words to inspire students to perservere at whatever challenge, goal or task it is that lies in front of them. By saying these phrases we acknowledge that students don't always learn things the first time, that they will make mistakes and most importantly, that with continued practice they will improve their learning. We also make these statements because we believe the work is important to student learning and therefore, insist that students complete the work.



So this leads me to my big question. Do your classroom practices support these ideas?

• Do you allow students multiple opportunities to demonstrate their learning or do you allow for only one opportunity, forcing them to learn concepts by a certain time?
• Do you provide opportunities for students to make and learn from their mistakes or do you punish students for taking risks and making mistakes, leading to the erosion of student confidence?
• Do you incent students to continue practicing in an effort to improve their skills or do you shut the door to practice by penalizing students for not learning on time?
• Do your insist that the completion of work is more important than its timely submission?

Consider your assessment practices...

• Do you assign a mark of zero when a student fails to complete work on time?

If so, regardless of whether a student didn't understand how to complete the work or the student didn't bother to do the work, you have likely put an end to the learning. A zero signifies a sense of finality and as such, when a student receives a zero, he/she sees no reason to complete the work. That means that the student who didn't understand how to complete the assignment is being punished for not understanding or learning 'on time'. And the student who was lazy or forgot to complete the assignment is being let off the hook. He/she now has an excuse for not completing the work...a zero!

Assigning a zero for work not submitted on time also implies that you place greater value on the timely submission of work than the thoughtful completion of work. Basically, the questions you should ask yourself are 'Is it better for a student to complete work but hand it in late, or not complete the work at all?' and 'Is it better for a student to put effort into their work and submit it late, or hastily complete the work and hand it in on time?' If the work you have assigned is important to student learning, I believe that the timely submission of work, while ideal, is less important than ensuring students actually complete the work to the best of their ability and advance their learning.

• Do you deduct marks for late work?

If so, you are using 'carrots' and 'sticks' in attempt to alter behavior. The threat of having marks deducted for failing to submit work on time may create enough pressure that some students complete the work when they might not have in absence of the threat. These threats might provide extrinsic motivation for students who are quite capable, understand the course content and are 'marks-driven'.  They may force themselves   to rush and finish their work, but they likely won't submit their highest quality work and won't be maximizing their learning. Now consider the struggling students and slower learners.  The threat of a late penalty may crank up the pressure they feel, but it isn't likely to alter their behavior.  Even if they have the best of intentions to complete their work on time, their lack of understanding may prevent them from doing so.

• What is your balance between formative and summative assessment?

Do you mark everything that students do?

If so, you tend to emphasize summative assessment.
Summative assessment should be used to inform others, primarily parents, about the learning progress their children have made. It takes place after learning has occurred, at the end of a learning cycle. (T. Schimmer)

Do you offer lots of descriptive feedback instead of marking most things?

If so, you tend to emphasize formative assessment.
Formative assessment occurs when students are in the process of learning and the feedback they receive allows them to make improvements prior to a summative assessment.  The purpose of formative assessment is to inform students and teachers about students' learning progress and should be used by teachers to plan the next steps in instruction. (T. Schimmer)

Marks may make students do more, but marks won't make students do things better! 
Whatever the reason, many educators have fallen into the trap of thinking that everything a student does must count for marks. As a result, students are driven by marks instead of driven by learning. If our goal is for students to comply by handing in work, then extrinsic motivation such as marks might result in some success. But if our goal is for students to be thoughtful about the work they do and maximize their learning, then offering feedback and creating opportunities for improvement  are critical. Work can still be important and students will still complete work even if a mark isn't attached to it. Students require the opportunity to practice developing and refining new skills and interacting with new content without the pressure of being graded. The focus for students and teachers should be on learning rather than accruing marks. Instead of penalizing students for incomplete and incorrect work, teachers should focus on supporting students and offering them descriptive feedback that will help students move their learning forward.

So, as you reflect on how your students are performing, I urge you to consider whether your practices encourage or discourage students from 'trying again if at first they don't succeed'!

Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup

In schools, we often talk with students about environmental responsibility. Considering the vast consumption that characterizes global society today, it is important that we each do our part to preserve the world we live in.  In fact, we should be trying to leave our environment in better shape for others in the future.

I'm encouraged by the efforts last week of a group of Pacers who modeled for our community, their respect and care for the environment.

A group of 40 students and teachers from Delta Secondary participated in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. During the course of a couple of hours one afternoon, the team of students led by Ms. Huff and Ms. Gunning managed to collect over 20 pounds of garbage! As incredible as this sounds, the fact that most items that they collected were quite small makes the accomplishment even more amazing!

The following comments were written by Charles, a Grade 11 student who participated in the cleanup.

Why did I do the shore line cleanup? I did the shoreline cleanup because the rest of the year it seems like I can go throughout my life carefree of environment stress. I don’t have to worry about what’s happening to the rain forest or what’s going on in the gulf. Not to say that the rest of the year the environment gets put on the back burner. I still recycle and compost and turn off the lights when I’m not using them. But by doing the shoreline cleanup, I feel that I don’t have stress the same way and I know that I’m still making a difference. So if there’s one day a year that I can go out and make sure that my local environment stays clean then yes, I’ll take an hour of my life to make sure that it’s still there when my kids get there. 

        

It was nice to walk along the shore and be that close to nature with friends, and I loved weaving between logs looking for trash.  I was a little disappointed that I didn't find more garbage but also relieved. I felt that we made a huge difference and I was happy to help out.

Vision 2020: Transformation in Delta Schools

Last spring, the Delta School District completed an ambitious process of developing an inclusive and inspiring vision of the future. The process included visioning exercises at each school and a number of district events, during which students, parents, support staff, teachers and administrators participated in engaging conversations around learning. Beginning with an appreciative inquiry process, we celebrated our successes in order to reveal the answers to three very important questions.

Why do we exist? (Purpose & Mission)

What truly matter in everything we do? (Core Values)

In our boldest vision and most fantastic dream of the future, what do we want to do and be? 

(Dream Vision)

The process created a sense of belonging for school district and reminded us of the importance of working together as we work towards our bold vision. 

As a result of our collaborative efforts, WE now share the bold and inspiring vision of 'becoming a leading district for innovative teaching and learning' and are ready to embark on the challenge of creating new realities in educational change. 

Below, is a short video capturing some of the conversations that we are having with students across the district as we move forward in our quest to realize our bold vision of the future for Delta schools.