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Sparking the Learning

/ Catherine Cabiness-Atkinson, Ed.D. / Leave a comment

The person I am today is the direct result of the many wonderful, generous, and talented people in my life, and all of them are near and dear to my heart. But one in particular stands out as he’s one of the first friends I made when I entered the teaching profession: @primohistory. While Gregg and I have moved to different schools from the one which started our friendship, we have remained close friends as we share the love of history as well as similar teaching philosophies and general outlook on life. I bring Gregg up because he’s the one who coined the phrase “history is a verb” to describe how history should be learned, taught, explored, and experienced. Even though we teach different grade levels as well as content within the social science discipline, we have found that good teaching strategies transcend content and grade level bands. In fact, we regularly share new ideas and discuss revisions of old favorite practices to change things up on our respective classrooms…

Which brings me back to the reason for this post: Sparking the Learning.

I will be the first to admit that history was not my favorite subject in school. And that wasn’t because I didn’t have awesome teachers (I had many), but it was because the emphasis tended to be on rote memorization of names, dates, and events. I swore that I would do everything I could to make history fun, engaging, and worthwhile. In other words, I planned to design my class around the term: history is a verb.

The moment my students walked through my doors, I told them that they were mini-historians. I explained that it was my job to teach them historical analysis skills, but it their job to make sense of the primary and secondary sources set before them. They were going to be active participants in the learning process, and I was merely the guide on the side. But in order to spark the learning, I had to design active learning tasks.

I preface all of this because I am excited to host a workshop for @edtechteacher21 titled Inquiry & Reflection: History is a Verb. This three-day workshop is scheduled for June 20, 21, and 23 and will include lesson ideas, best practices, and student samples on how to make learning history active, engaging, and meaningful. The details for this workshop and many, MANY others hosted by a talented crew of educators @edtechteacher21 can be found on their website: edtechteacher.org.

Please join me on June 20th for Inquiry & Reflection: History is a Verb. I’d love to connect with you!

Easing Back Into Things

/ Catherine Cabiness-Atkinson, Ed.D. / Leave a comment

For the past two years, I have been inconsistent at best in maintaining my professional blog and social media accounts. The reason for my hiatus and intermittent social media presence is simply because I was overwhelmed. The pandemic not only threw me for a loop but I was also having to watch my mom’s health deteriorate before my very eyes. Everything was simply too much for me, and I had to restructure and reprioritize what was most important.

The biggest personal change was losing my mom.

The biggest professional change was making the decision to leave the classroom.

It’s been 8 months since I’ve lost my mom, and 4 months since I left the classroom. During that time, I’ve leaned on my faith, embraced the security found in marrying a good man, and reflected on the next chapter of my professional career

When one door closes, another one opens.

Several new opportunities have presented itself since I retired from classroom teaching. My newest endeavor is working for @EdTechTeacher21 first as a micro-credential assessor and now as an instructor for their summer workshops. From June to August, I’ll be sharing best practices and research-based strategies in the areas of:

  • Inquiry & Reflection
  • Social Emotional Learning
  • Creativity in the Social Science Classroom
  • Leading with Empathy

I’m excited to finally be able to move on from what has been one of the hardest challenges I’ve ever faced both personally and professionally. And, I’m really grateful that I have a supportive husband who encouraged me to let go of the familiar in order to experience something new and fresh. 

I’m finally ready to ease back into things.

Change Begins with People

/ Catherine Cabiness-Atkinson, Ed.D. / Leave a comment

https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-01-27-secretary-of-education-envisions-solutions-that-are-low-tech-high-touch?utm_campaign=site&utm_content=share-128 #edtech via @EdSurge

This article from the U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona highlights his view that changes in education are not connected to “technology, virtual learning, internet access or any of the digital tools” (Koenig, January 2022). And he’s not wrong. The issues that have plagued and continue to plague education are deeply rooted in the system itself. As Tyack and Cuban wrote “the grammar of school is a product of history . . . it results from the efforts of groups that mobilize to win support for their definitions of problems and their proposed solutions” (Tyack & Cuban, 1995, Loc 1123). Notice the date of that statement: 1995.

Now, I recently retired from teaching after 27 years in the classroom so I’ve been privy to the many changes, solutions, and pendulums of initiatives over the years. Most of the changes I’ve seen have been little more than a band-aid to a much larger problem. Take mobile devices in the classroom as an example. Yes, it’s nice (and very convenient) to have access to technology to provide students resources not readily available in the classroom but also as a venue for them to share their learning with a wider audience than just their teacher (me). But adding mobile devices doesn’t change the learning. In fact, research has shown that the adoption of technology in the classroom has not been the catalyst of change as some would have hoped (Kale & Goh, 2014; Shapley, Sheehan, Maloney, & Caranikas-Walker, 2011; Stefl-Mabry, Radlick, & Doane, 2010; Voogt, Erstad, Dede, & Mishra, 2013). According to Cuban, for technology integration to have a positive effect on student learning, the tasks behind its use need to be grounded in pedagogical changes (Cuban, 2013). And, as a classroom teacher and researcher, I completely agree.

I also firmly believe that learning changes with thoughtful planning, flexibility, and an open-mind on the part of everyone involved: teachers, students, administrators, and parents. So, it’s not just pedagogical decisions by teachers, and change certainly does not hinge on whether technology is used (or not ).

The changes needed in education have to be more than just a band-aid…and it’s beyond simply providing more money to schools. I worked at two Title I schools during my entire tenure. We were provided money from the state and federal government. But that didn’t necessarily translate into a revolutionary change for any of the stakeholders. From my experience, that just meant we had money to purchase more devices, licenses/subscriptions, add more after school tutoring session, and maybe add a few more professional development workshops for teachers.

Band-aids.

For significant change to occur in education, the whole educational system needs to change. The grammar of schooling needs to change. (Now that’s a blog post for another time.)

But how about this?

Instead of leaders and legislators telling schools and the general public what needs to change, why not ask the ones in the trenches what changes they believe are needed? One of the things that I found very alarming (and sad) were reports from certain entities/organizations who claimed that parental voice was not important in the educational decisions that impacted their own children.

Now, I’m not going to get into a political debate here. I just want to point out that leaving out a huge stakeholder group (parents…aka tax-payers) is not (and should not be) an option. This pandemic seems to have brought out the ugly side of people as I see a large number of finger-pointing going on–playing the blame game, if you will. And shutting out parents from educational decisions? Not good.

But what about the other silent voices out there? Teachers and students?

The solutions to the various educational problems will not be found in more legislation or funding. What I would like to see is a concerted effort to find out:

  • What do teachers need?
  • What do students need?
  • What do parents need?
  • What do administrators at the school site need?

Because I tell you what they don’t need: solutions from people far removed from the classroom.

I applaud U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona for realizing that changes in education do not rest with technology devices and connectivity to the Internet. Because change doesn’t happen with things. Change happens with people.

How about talking to students, teachers, and parents about what they need? And I don’t mean a small sample size. I mean HUGE…from a variety of demographics and locales.

One of my goals now that I’ve retired from teaching is to figure out a way to amplify the voices in education. I don’t have access to a huge demographic, but change starts with small steps.

I have a project in mind.

Stay tuned.

References

Cuban, L. (2013). Inside the black box of classroom practice: Change without reform in American education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Kale, U., & Goh, D. (2014). Teaching style, ICT experience and teachers’ attitudes toward teaching with Web 2.0. Education and Information Technologies, 19, 41–60. doi:10.1007/s10639-012-9210-3

Shapley, K., Sheehan, D., Maloney, C., & Caranikas-Walker, F. (2011). Effects of technology immersion on middle school students’ learning opportunities and achievement. The Journal of Educational Research, 104, 299–315. doi:10.1080/00220671003767615

Stefl-Mabry, J., Radlick, M., & Doane, W. (2010). Can you hear me now? Student voice: High school & middle school students’ perceptions of teachers, ICT and learning. International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology, 6(4), 64-82. Retrieved from http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu

Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Voogt, J., Erstad, O., Dede, C., & Mishra, P. (2013). Challenges to learning and schooling in the digital networked world of the 21st century. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 29, 403–413. doi:10.1111/jcal.12029