Learn not be engaged in technology

I would  like to ban the words “engage”, “engagement”, “engaging” from education.   Many educational articles, company ads, and conference presentations use the this concept with titles such as “Engage your students through…”, “Highly engagement by….”, or “Engaging Students ….”.  Teachers will comment “My students were so engaged in the lesson.”  I would like much more than mere engagement, I want learning.

In a Social Studies class, students can be “engaged” in creating a PowerPoint of a country for many class periods but they  may not have  learned the critical country information.  Also, an “engaging” activity may be for students to create a video showing an understanding of a play  in their English  class. The students  can be fully attentive to the project but if they focus on sword play instead of the plot of the play, their engagement does not end up in learning.  Likewise, in Science, students can fully participate in a twitter conversation about the impact  of development on the local environment with every student tweeting.  Does each tweet add more information (depth or breadth of learning)?  Modern Language students can be “engaged” in using their Smartphones to collect pictures  for their teacher but do they talk in the target language about the pictures?

When we use essential questions, backward design, or problem based learning, students immerse themselves in learning. They improve in their learning through technology.

Do your student focus on learning?

I have  nine + Spanish spontaneous speaking activities at Teacherspayteachers:  http://bit.ly/tpthtuttle

My formative assessment books:   http://is.gd/tbook

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Web 2.0 Use May Not Be Formative Assessment

As I look at articles, blogs, and conference sessions, I see titles like

Formative Assessment Through Clickers

Formative Assessment Through Cell phones

Formative Assessment Through the Class Blogs/Wikis

Formative Assessment Through Online Quizzes

Formative Assessment Through Twitter

Formative Assessment Through Flickr

These people are generally  using Web 2.0 tools to monitor students, the first stage of formative assessment.  They collect information about where the students are  academically.

However, formative assessment moves from the monitor stage to the diagnosis stage.  How does the students’ present status compare to the desired learning goal?  If there are learning gaps, what strategies will help the students overcome those gaps?

If teachers or Web 2.0 programs do not offer improvement strategies based on the students’ specific learning gaps, then formative assessment does not occur.  Formative Assessment is much more than just seeing how many questions the students can answer;  it helps students to improve through providing new strategies for learning.

For example, if students take an online quiz about a certain learning goal, what happens next? Do the teachers diagnosis the results to see how individuals do on each item? Do the teachers determine which minor goals the students have yet to learn? Do the teachers determine which strategies will best help each student? Do the teachers give formative feedback to each student? Do the teachers build in class time for the students to practice their new formative strategy?  Do the teachers re-assess the learning?

Tuttle's Stages of Formative Assessment

Do you use Web 2.0 tools to go beyond the monitoring of students to a full formative assessment?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Digital Age Assessment: Learning in Web 2.0 (NECC 09)

How do we assess  students’ learning in these in Web  2.0 environments? We want to go beyond assessing the mere mechanics of using these tools; unfortunately, most current rubrics for Web 2.0 learning devote only a minuscule amount (usually 16% or less) to actual student academic learning. We want to refocus our assessments to reflect the students in-depth and comprehensive standards-based learning and the 21st Century Skills.

Change Web 2.0 assessments to assess standards-based learning and 21st Century learning!

With minor changes, the following assessments can be modified for any Web 2.0 tool.

Pre-assess your students’ Web 2.0 projects to raise the academic learning and 21st century skills.

The following are  “rubrics” that assess  standards-based learning and 21st century skills.

Wiki/Blog

Images/Photo/Flickr

Video/YouTube

Podcast

Social Bookmarking

Twitter

Videoconferencing

General Assessment: Prensky’s 21st century skills

General Assessment: enGauge’s 21st century skills

General Assessment: Partnership for 21st century skills

I welcome your reaction to these assessments as we try to help students improve in their academic content and develop 21st century skills.

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students, is available through Eye-on-Education.

Wii, Web 2.0 Learning, and Improving Student Learning?

I got to spend about 2 hours with Wii sports -bowling,baseball, tennis and golf. I am not very coordinated; you could say I’m ambispastic. I bowl with either hand, both equally poorly. When I play virtual bowling, I do even worse. Being virtual does not make me better.

So how do we prepare our students to be better at learning in Web 2.0 environments? Just popping them into Twitter, Wiki, Blog,  Social bookmarking, etc. does not make them any better learners.  How do we as teachers prepare them for and create environments that are more than just social environments  but that are truly learning  environments?  How do we structure an environment that creates in-depth thinking? That promotes comprehensive thinking about a learning goal? That causes the students to make the connections among big ideas?

I do not need to hear more student chatter, I want to hear more ahas.

How do you structure your Web 2 environments to be be powerful learning environments?

Twitter – Meaningful or Trivial -Up to the Writer

I recently read an article saying that twitter is another example of technology dumming down education. It stressed that nothing important/worthwhile can be said in 140 characters. I disagree; much can be said in those few characters. More important than the word limit is the intent of the writer. Some writers tell about their daily existence while others try to share with others. Here are some of my tweets:

Do we evaluate students’ technology based experiences on their excitement, instead of their in-depth learning?

Do teachers give online pretest/survey before a new concept? If not, then they teach with blinders on,not aware of students.

What do students remember about writing paragraphs? Spelling, grammar & punctuation! Not the writing process, not expressing ideas. Oouch!

I’ve noticed concept maps often limit students’ thinking. They fill in the boxes & then stop thinking. Maps are starting points

Weight lost program says man lost 100 lbs (“results not typical”). Are our students’ technology-based learning typical of higher learning?

If teaching is to impart (or stuff in) knowledge & educate is to nourish (or pull out), which do we use technology for?

My twitter is http://twitter.com/HarryGTuttle.

What do you use Twitter for?

Twitter More Reaction

My reaction to my limited trial of twitter:

In education, Twitter communication would work great in a department or team situation where you have an established circle of people that want to be in touch but may not have time for face-to-face.  I can imagine a teacher writing “Science water lab from the kit  did not work. Who has had  success with it?” or “In writing, used a fishbone graphic organizer helped students to see cause and effect. Worked well” Short nuggets of success or concerns.

I see Twitter as disjointed as early email non-threaded conversations were. As times I feel like I standing in the middle of a busy intersection watching the cars go by. They are going in every direction (from serious to silly). So far, I have not find a car that is worth the time of following.