Applied Learning in a Test-centric World

It was 1990 and I was one semester away from graduating with a degree in Accounting. I was taking Tax Accounting in the summer and everyone knew that was crazy. Taking one of the hardest classes in my major in a 6-week class was no joke. I felt like I never left the library that summer. There were groups of us there studying our hearts out day in and day out. I remember sitting at a table with a friend that was also taking a class. One day another student came over and asked us a question about the law and I answered immediately. I had memorized everything well. Reading over it again and again.

I will never forget when the professor announced the first exam. We could use our tax book and write any notes we wanted to inside that book. I thought I had it made! I wrote itty bitty tiny all through the book and felt prepared as possible. I was an A/B student most of my life and while memorizing didn't come easy for me, I could do it. I remember sitting there looking at the first exam and thinking "Oh dear goodness, I'm going to flunk this!" And I did. And the next one too. I was shaken to the core! I had studied like crazy, to the point where I was the one other students would come to ask questions but I wasn't ready for everything I studied to be applied as actual case studies. I didn't know how to convert my information into knowledge that would actually help people on their tax returns. I pulled a D in that class and I was mortified. I cried like a baby. How could I be an accountant if I couldn't really understand how to help people? Side note: I actually already was working for a public accounting firm and had my own clients at age 21. And, I was fairly good at it.

But the truth is I was 21, about to graduate college and for the first time in my educational process, I had to apply what I was supposed to have learned not just regurgitate facts like I usually did. Maybe I had to apply my learning in classes sometime before that along the way of my k-12 and higher ed journey but I had no recollection of it. My point is, I didn't know how to apply my learning because my educational testing was always about repeating facts back to the teacher. I really don't have very much recollection of critical thinking as part of the educational process.

Actually, I think that the professor was ahead of her time. Allowing students to take an open book test and apply the information that was in there. This was before the internet existed but she knew that every tax accountant would have that little book or something similar that they could easily access as part of their career. She wanted to know if we knew how to apply the book to situations.

Fast forward to 2018 and I think about the fact that education still often looks like the regurgitation of facts for many classes but today's access to information is even easier than ever before. So do we as teachers just give our students access to that information during exams and have them apply it in ways that seem authentic? Some do, others are still asking questions that can be googled in 2.7 seconds. How are we preparing our students for those applied learning moments?

• How are they learning about history in a way to prevent it from happening again instead of knowing how many soldiers died in what battle?  
• How are we teaching students how to balance a bank account (something everyone should know how to do) instead of word problems that ask how much of his $50 John has left after he spent $27.45 at the grocery and $6.52 at the cleaners?
• How are we teaching students how to write for others when only their teacher sees their writing but being able to write a blog post is considered a skill needed for today's workforce?
• How can the scientific method be relevant when the lab experiment is so prescribed that everyone gets the same answer? 

Applying the learning given to students thru the textbook, website, or teacher's mouth is the next step to knowing learning has actually happened and that the learning has led to something students can articulate through action. Assessment should be changing because it is not really showing the teacher or the student the value of what they are memorizing. You want students to get excited about what you teach? Make it purposeful. You want students to not cheat in your class? Assess them in ways that apply the things they can easily google. 

The thing that scares us as teachers: Not all students have the ability to transfer the information being told to them in class to authentic issues. I was proof and I was a good student! BUT, if we start transforming the educational process now, students will start learning how to look at a problem through a design thinking lens or value the need to memorize facts because the test is going to ask them to apply those facts in new ways. Applied learning isn't easy but a world of thinkers that are regurgitators is even harder. 

What is Cheating in the Digital Age?

For the past few weeks, I've heard the laments of teachers worrying about cheating. For some, it's because they are actively aware it is happening in their classrooms. For others, it's because they have heard it is happening in someone else's classroom. As I hear what others are saying I am appalled by some of the blatantly sneaky cheating that is going on by students but I also am aware of a gray area that seems to blend the lines between right and wrong. So I ask, what is cheating in this digital age? The following blog post isn't about me saying that cheating is ok, it is about my view on why it is harder than ever before to keep a student that wants to cheat from cheating. Here is my opinion why it seems more acceptable to students to work the system:

• Hacking is acceptable and seen as a skill. Today we are training students how to code starting in preK because the future wants this skill in the workplace. According to the Techopedia website, hacking is the ability to break into a system (https://www.techopedia.com/definition/26361/hacking) but every single day as an instructional technologist I sit at my desk and wish for different educational platforms to be able to do certain things they cannot and I look for add-ons (or hacks) to make it happen. For instance, at our school, we use the LMS Canvas but it doesn't inherently lock a student into a quiz tab while taking a quiz so we have bought the "hack" known as Respondus Lockdown Browser as an add-on to do this. There is a little bit of irony that the hack is to prevent cheating but in this case, Respondus is what is known as a non-malicious hack that adds value to a product and the product readily accepts it. But do you see the irony? 
• We are teaching students to find tools to help them in their learning. Today's students have not ever lived without the Google search engine. This means that today's students are not dependent on their teacher to pour information into them. Part of teaching today is helping students discern tools that aid their learning. Maybe it's Khan Academy for a math concept or as I type on this blog, maybe it is Grammarly. Grammarly is a writing assistant that helps you correct grammar mistakes as you type. To me, even the free version is one step beyond the red squiggly underlines of word processing software. With one click, I can add Grammarly as an extension on my Chrome toolbar and I have a benefit the person sitting next to me does not. AND if I happen to have $12/month the benefit for the paid version can truly change the way I write by leaps and bounds. But what if a teacher is grading my grammar on an essay, is this cheating or is this using the tools available to me?
• Everyone else is doing it. Yesterday I had a conversation with a super vigilant parent that works hard to create safeguards for his children not to access parts of the internet that can lead to moral degradation. After realizing his boys were accessing gaming time more than he had set up to allow through their Disney Circle he dug a bit deeper. His boys had downloaded an app that allowed them to bypass the VPN blocks so that they could play Fortnite longer than their father deemed healthy. When asked how they knew what to do..." everyone at school does it." The father said to me "and I have good kids!" and he does. If this is so rampantly accepted by this generation how do we harness it? How do we protect ourselves from ourselves? Or more importantly, how do we protect our children as they are developing their frontal lobe from themselves?
• There doesn't seem to be ramifications. Kids aren't getting caught. This week I heard of two students laughing in the hallway about turning in a slideshow they had pulled off the web, changing one page and then turning it in and getting an A for it. I also heard about some students cheating on exams in a classroom on a regular basis since the beginning of the school year. If it seems like people are getting away with it then the effort to do right seems pointless. Of course, this opens the door for a lot of edge-pushing discourse. Perhaps the concept of grades need to go away? Or what feels like high stakes testing? And then there is the fact that our school's average ACT scores keep going up so if students are cheating but those type of scores continue to go up where is the disconnect? And is it that the students see the disconnect better than the educators do? I realize all those questions could be read as heresy but like I said, this blog post is to help me put all the cards on the table and honestly look at what is happening.
• The rules of plagiarism are harder to distinguish. Not just for the student but for the teacher as well. My college-aged student just finished a class in British Literature where she made a 50 on a project because the teacher said she plagiarized. That being said, she still doesn't believe she did because she had sources on every slide. Quite honestly, I'm not sure she did either. And there is the rub. The ease of access to an abundance of information makes it harder and harder for teachers to distinguish the work of their students from someone else. It also makes it harder for students to discern if that was an original thought they just wrote in their paper or if it was something they read in the last 2 hours when perusing one well-written article after another during their research phase. 
• Access to information makes some tests seem irrelevant at best. And this is the bullet point that will get educators ruffled more than any other. Are we still testing our students as if they didn't have access to technology? In my lifetime of learning, there was value in rote memorization questions but if I can google an answer in 2.7 seconds is our question relevant in today's world? Perhaps it is time for us to evaluate our evaluations. Can we assume students will always have access to information and test them in a way that shows they have turned that information into knowledge? Critical thinking questions based on information readily available. Or authentic learning opportunities, project-based learning, inquiry-driven learning etc...all seem like buzzwords but we are in a time in education where discerning if learning is actually taking place is getting harder and harder to do. How do we change our method of operation to meet the needs of today's student so that cheating doesn't seem like the most logical way to deal with a test at hand. How do we change our questioning to force students to think about their answers instead of googling their answers? 
• What happened to honor? How do we instill in students the virtue of being honorable in regards to testing integrity? What digital citizenship lessons need to be talked about in every classroom to show the level of importance we place on this? What expectations need to be placed on the student? What ramifications? And while we are at it, what expectations should be placed on the educator to do their part in creating an environment where integrity and honor are both expected and monitored for? 

What is cheating in the digital age? It might seem black and white to you but to our students, it is becoming more and more of a gray area. We can't ignore this. Important conversations need to be happening so that important outcomes can be produced. 

Finishing Strong by Taking Chances?

I'll be honest, when I was asked to blog on the topic "Testing is over...What now?" I jumped on the chance to be a part of this series because it's a group of amazing educators and I love to blog. Unlike the rest of them, testing seems to have less impact on my private school than at their public schools. There is no tie to funding and there is less stress on our teachers based on test results. While we do not do the state testing, we do have students take the NWEA test. I've sat in an office where an administrator has looked at test results by standard and realized "our students haven't gotten to that yet." There is an understanding in our school that we are going to teach to the end of the year. Managing that is probably a little bit easier to do with a preK-12 school of 1200 than some of these larger districts my friends are in.

Regardless, there still seems like there is burnout in the air and a sense of finality approaching. So what are things we can do to use this time to finish strong? You'll often hear me talking about risk taking and creating a culture where it is safe to fail for both students and teachers. The important thing is you fail forward. In other words, when you try something but it doesn't work you don't say "oh well, that was a disaster!" but "that didn't work, what can I do to value the concept forward and learn from what went wrong and make it better?" That's failing forward. What a great time to take those chances! I challenge you to look for something to try that might make these last days less monotonous. The nice thing is you have some great guinea pigs ready for you, you've trained them all year long! 

I want to share five things you might try in your classroom in these last weeks to take a chance on creating something valuable for the future (yours, your current students, and even your future students):

1. Genius Hour or 20% Time...This is a creation of the Google Company themselves. They allow their employees 20% of their work week to learn about things that they are passionate about. What if you allowed your students some of this type of time with your watch care and guidance? It doesn't have to be chaos. Have students create Project Plans and collaborate to make them better. Then have students create project logs after every time they work on the project. Also, if you want it to be more structured, have it support a certain unit you have studied. Flexibility within boundaries but allowing students voice and choice.
2.  Google Classroom...If you are a district that has been using the Google Suite apps in the classroom  for a while you are probably already leveraging Docs, Slides, Drive, Forms, and Sheets. Now is a good time to try Google Classrooms to see it's efficiencies! My friend Matt Miller from #ditchthattextbook created this blog post that is helpful in both understanding what it will and will not do, as well as giving you some ideas on how to implement it. You aren't a Google school? What LMS does your district/school/coworker use? Create a lesson using that to try it out. 
3. Coding...I'm a firm believer that coding can support any curriculum due to the fact that it naturally teaches sequencing, coding gives access to technology, gives students a life skill, and coding teaches thinking. This blog by Vicki Davis gives you some great ideas for creating coding opportunities in your classroom no matter what you teach and what grade level you teach it in. Don't have access to technology? Make sure you look at the unplugged options at code.org.
4. VLOG...Not all students are good writers but all students have things to share. A VLOG is the video equivalent of a BLOG (weB LOG). Allow your students to VLOG about some topic - you choose it or let them. Start somewhere simple like by using Seesaw Learning Journal. If you aren't already using it, it allows you to give your student a new platform as well. The free version will meet your needs just fine! (Make sure you follow Christopher King's VLOG on day three of this series (tomorrow) to see what a VLOG can do!
5. Edcamp Style Learning...I am a huge fan of the unconference model of professional development that the Edcamp model brought to education. This will be year four of my involvement with Edcamp Gigcity in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But what if we gave students sticky notes and asked them what they would like to learn about? What if we created stations in our classroom that would allow them to learn from each other about those topics? It might not could be as wide open depending on the age you teach but I do believe it could be structured edcamp even for the youngest of students. 

These are just a few ideas that I think teachers could toy with here at year end. These do not take a lot of prep time or learning time on your part but have the potential for adding either depth or efficiencies for your classroom's future. And lets be honest, there are so many reruns of Lion King we want to sit through. Take these ideas or create your own but FINISH STRONG! Want to learn more on this topic? Make sure you look over yesterday's post by Mick Shuran that can be found at http://mickshuran.com and as I mentioned earlier, tomorrow's VLOG by Christopher King can be found at http://firesidechats.blog/


Monday: Mick Shuran http://mickshuran.com

Wednesday: Christopher King  http://firesidechats.blog/

Thursday: Jacob Dunn  https://cultivateedu.com/

Friday: Thomas Fuhrman https://tfuhrman.wordpress.com/

Looking Ahead

I love when I'm given the opportunity to work with great educators to collaborate for greater good. What an honor and a privilege to be part of next week's 5-part series from four other bloggers that I greatly admire! You don't want to miss this next week as we each share ideas on how to be both strategic and intentional with finishing out the school year even though testing is over.

It's the time of year where we educators are weary! We hope that our blog posts next week will inspire you to look at this time as an opportunity. Make sure you bookmark these blogs and get ready to be blown away. Not only do I think these are some amazing men but they represent the great state of Tennessee so well!

• Monday: My friend Mick Shuran, principal of West Middle School in Tullahoma, Tennessee will share his thoughts at http://mickshuran.com I love the passion and excitement that Mick brings in any education discussion he is in!

• Tuesday: Straight out of Chattanooga, Tennessee I will be sharing some things that I think might be worthy of trying during this time when there is safety in failing but with a mindset of "failing forward" http://techhelpful.blogspot.com/

• Wednesday: Christopher King, a fellow instructional technologist, who is also from Tullahoma City Schools system shakes up the stage in true "introduction of new tech tools fashion" with a VLOG (that's a video based blog) that can be found at http://firesidechats.blog/

• Thursday: Moving around the state a bit more, Jacob Dunn is a Social Studies chair from McMinnville, Tennessee and brings such great value from the classroom perspective. He evens the rest of us out because he is truly in the trenches. His blog can be found at https://cultivateedu.com/

• Friday: Thomas Fuhrman is an innovative, deep thinking principal at Jere Whitson Elementary School in Cookeville, Tennessee and I can guarantee he will end our week of posts with nuggets of wisdom! His blog can be found at https://tfuhrman.wordpress.com/

Get ready to for a week of intentional helps to end the school year strong and teach until the end!