Interactive Innovations: Literacy the Essence of Learning

1. Interactive Innovations: Literacy the Essence of Learning Fred Renihan Simon Fraser University, British Columbia

2. Developing a Framework for our Provincial Conversation Providing learning in a continuum from rural to urban context Connecting curriculum, instruction and assessment Literacy Early Learning Compelling learning is constructed in community; powerful communities connect learning; and the most successful communities extend their learning into the future Secondary Learners Extending community connections Equitable Futures Creating healthy environments Shared Leadership Using technology as an invisible, seamless support

3. Examinerby Frank Scott The routine trickery of the examination Baffles these hot and discouraged youths Driven by who knows what external pressure They pour their hated self analysis through the nib of confession On to the accusatory page I who have plotted their immediate downfall I am entrusted with the divine categories ABCD and the hell of E The parade of prize and the backdoor of pass

4. Examiner cont.’by Frank Scott In the tight silence standing by a green grass window I watch the fertile earth graduate its sons with more compassion Not commanding the shape of stem and stamen Bringing the trees to pass with increase of sunlight Or decrease of rain But for each seed the whole soil For the inner life the environment receptive and contributory

5. Examiner cont.’ by Frank Scott I shudder at the narrow frames of our text book schools In which we plant our so various seedlings Each brick-walled barracks cut into numbered room Black-boarded, ties the venturing shoot to the master’s stick Shapes the new to the old in the ashen garden Shall we open the whole skylight of thought to these tiptoe minds Shall we give them the frontier worlds of literature And to the fields of art for their realms of growth

6. Examiner cont.’ by Frank Scott Or shall we pass them the chosen poems with the footnotes Ring the bell on their thoughts period their play Make laws for averages and plans for means Print one history book for the whole province And let ninety thousand reach page ten by Tuesday As I gather the inadequate paper evidence I hear across the neat campus lawn The professional mower’s drone Clipping the inch high green

7. Stewardship: What Influences Learning? Wang, Haertal and Walberg (1994) in a meta-analysis of 11,000 statistical findings over the past 50 years of research, identified the following as the most powerful influences on student learning: • Classroom management 64.8* • 2. Meta-cognitive processes 63.0 • 3. Cognitive processes 61.3 • 4. Home environment/parental support 58.4 • Student-teacher social interactions 56.7 • 6.Social / behavioural attributes 5.2

8. Stewardship: What Influences Learning? cont.’ • 7. Motivational affective attributes 54.8 • Peer group 53.0 • 26. State-level policies 37.0 • 27. School policies 36.5 • 28. District demographics 32.9 • *M.C., Haertel, G.D., & Walberg, H.J. (December 1993). Leadership. • Scores from several sources standardized then weighed according to effect sizes ratings and content analyses.

9. Interaction in Teaching and Learning: The Research • The Learner: • recognizes need to learn • is motivated to succeed • is interested in topic • finds instruction useful • sees personal relevance • is secure in environment • The Teacher: • prepared • directs instruction • high expectations • consistent feedback • caring • positive • The Task: • is achievable • can be broken into manageable units • is useful and relevant • is dynamic not passive • is challenging

10. Teacher-Learner Reciprocity There is an urgent need for reciprocity in our schools and classrooms. Without such reciprocity, without some form of mutual emotional satisfaction between teacher and taught, the curriculum remains simply an idea in the mind of the teacher – it lacks relevance even though the teacher teaches and the students go through the motions of scholarship activity. Michael Marland

11. Learning Conditions MEMBERSHIP: Preconditions for School Membership: • Attachment • Commitment • Involvement • Belief in school norms

12. Learning Conditions MEMBERSHIP: • School’s Commitment to Membership: • Positive, respectful and caring environment • Strong communication • Active assistance in helping students meet school standards • Active help in assisting students make the link between school and society • Attachment to and positive relationships with adult professional role models outside of formal classroom interaction

13. Learning Conditions ENGAGEMENT: Includes all of those actions and interactions which enable students to become focused on academic pursuit

14. Learning Conditions ENGAGEMENT: Preconditions for school engagement: • Strong academic focus • Commitment to improved student learning • Commitment to results • Commitment to evaluation

15. Learning Conditions ENGAGEMENT: Impediments to educational engagement: • Non-motivating course work and instruction • Dissonance between learning and • teaching styles • Unremitting preoccupation with course coverage

16. Equitable Futures ACHIEVEMENT FOR ALL What one child can learn, any child can learn providing attention is given to necessary preconditions for learning. Benjamin Bloom

17. Learning Theory and Technology: • Although the schools are embedded in our culture and reflect its values, the technological changes that have swept through society at large have left the educational system largely unchanged • In the course of 20 years, a dramatic rift has opened between the process of teaching and learning in the schools and the ways of obtaining knowledge in society at large

18. Learning Theory and Technology cont.’ • The result is an escalating estrangement of the schools from society, and from the children who live in it • The earliest uses of computers based their instructional models on the work of behaviourists such as B.F. Skinner. Computers were able to provide drill and practice on previously learned skills • Strommen (1992)

19. A Community of Leaders by A. Strombe One hot summer day, while lying in my yard on my back With only the drone of some distant train on some far off track I saw a sight which to this day I had never seen Anything quite like before At about five thousand feet, the leader of the V The head goose, suddenly veered out to the right His space was immediately filled by the goose directly behind The formation kept growing wider Until he found a place at the back of the line They didn’t even miss a beat

20. A Community of Leaders cont.’ by A. Strombe So that’s how I found out how the goose can fly From way down south to way up north and back again But he cannot do it alone you see That is something he can only do in community It’s a wonderful notion and people swell with emotion and pride To think of themselves on the eagle’s side Solitary, self-sufficient and strong But we are what we are That is something that we cannot choose And though many would like to be seen as the eagle I think that God made us more like the goose.

21. Staff Development Stages of Development and Degree of Positive Transfer • Awareness / Information 10% • 2. Demonstration / Modeling 10% • 3. Practice / Feedback 20% • 4. Peer Coaching in the Classroom 70 – 80% • adapted from Joyce and Showers (1982)

22. Cornerstones of Support Six indicators of collaboration: • Teachers sharing in frequent, continuous • and precise talk about teaching practices • Frequent observations of teachers together • with detailed and candid critiques of their • teaching • Teachers planning, designing, preparing • and evaluating teaching materials together

23. Cornerstones of Support Six indicators of collaboration cont.’ • Teachers teaching each other the • practice of teaching • Norms of collegiality which are prevalent • in the school • A norm of continuous improvement • J. Little (1982)

24. Reflective Questions • How can we clarify and communicate the purpose, vision and values of our schools and school district? • How can we initiate, implement and sustain a successful change process? • How can we provide strong leadership at the same time that we empower those closest to the action? • How can we shape organizational culture and provide structures that support the culture we seek?

25. Reflective Questions cont.’ 5.How can we widen the circle of responsible actors in our drive to keep learners at the center? 6. How can we create collaborative processes that will result in individual, group and organizational learning? 7. How can we foster an environment that is results oriented yet encourages experimentation?

26. Teacher by Rabbi Zev Shostak I am that most fortunate of men for I am eternal Some people live in the world of today. I live in the world of tomorrow Some feel meaning in the temporal and transient I find purpose in the eternal and the enduring and the eternal For I am charged with that most sacred of missions To transmit all that our parents lived for and loved for and died for to the next generation

27. Teacher cont.’ by Rabbi Zev Shostak I span the generations Making the wisdom of the past live now so that the future will have meaning I make wisdom live For I am no mere bearer of knowledge I do not simply teach the mind -- I reach the heart And when I reach the heart I touch the soul.

28. Teacher cont.’ by Rabbi Zev Shostak To those who say two generations hence what shall I be if but a distant memory, I respond: Though the mind fades, memories linger Though the body fails, the spirit prevails Though the scroll burns the letters dance in the air.

29. Developing a Framework for our Provincial Conversation Providing learning in a continuum from rural to urban context Connecting curriculum, instruction and assessment Literacy Early Learning Compelling learning is constructed in community; powerful communities connect learning; and the most successful communities extend their learning into the future Extending community connections Secondary Learners Equitable Futures Creating healthy environments Shared Leadership Using technology as an invisible, seamless support