frameworks... habits of mind... new literacies

[Connie Weber]

Hello All,

We've discussed the question I'm presenting here in several threads on Fireside, starting last fall in particular. Wonder how far we could go in finding a rather complete and satisfying list, maybe adding in what's missing or should be explored some more.

Chris Dede participated in an Elluminate talk with Steve Hargadon and illuminated us like crazy! It was a wonderful experience, if a bit frenzied. Basically thrilling--and complicated. Have you participated in one of those Elluminate talks? You have have the main speaker talking AND a stream of audience comments and questions, essentially another simultaneous (and inter-related) conversation going on at the same time.

Anyhow, during Chris Dede's very rich and informative talk he shared a PDF and inside the PDF is Jenkin's Framework for New Literacies.

Among the literacies Jenkins proposes: " Play: Experimenting with one's surroundings in problem-solving; Distributed Cognition: Fluently using tools that expand mental capacity; Collective Intelligence: Pooling knowledge with others towards a common goal..." There are several more.

What I'd like to know is what would you put on the list? What comes to mind right away as a "literacy" we should be facilitating in education, for 21st-century learning? (If you've got a better name for the phrase for the era, please share!)

What do you say? (And it doesn't have to be all succinct and clear; you can even share questions or half-thought-through phrases. After all, this work is pretty exploratory and new right now!) What habits of mind, thinking skills, or ways-of-being are essential for learners to learn, the learners of our time and on into the future?

I'm very excited about seeing Chris Dede this morning at Future of Learning. It's bound to be a gas, a "learning-happening," I'm sure. We're all bringing laptops, doing an experiment, I hear.

SHARE YOUR IDEAS, please! Let's get a big list here. Or send a reference or two... Which frameworks should we be looking at?

[Ian Carmichael]

Ok Connie - one 'habit of mind' which is a key for me (and which I haven't seen much made of...)

ATTENTION/DISCRIMINATION (in a good way!) - despite the high profile which multitasking has, the learner of today and tomorrow needs to be able to focus on/select in the midst of competing data streams the relevant, fruitful and rewarding ones, and bestow attention to them, and disconnect from the irrelevant, distracting, and misleading ones.

And the more 'connected' we are as learners the stronger our attention and concentration needs to be.

[Connie Weber]

Hey, did twitter go down?

Is anyone on twitter right now? Ian, you on?

[Ian Carmichael]

No.

[Connie Weber]

One habit of mind illustrated for me right now in a plenary sesison, is the ability to divide and shift attention. Multi-tasking may not be the best name for it. It's about shifting attention with a functional set of priorities, perhaps. Much like a naturalist in an ecological setting.

Dave Perkins was looking at a USA today article, read us the phrase "people present but absent," then asked us how many were present but absent.

Another way the question could have been asked is "How many people are present, and present somewhere else as well?" I would answer in the affirmative.

We're watching clips from Sesame Street right now (Children's Television Workshop), which Joe Blatt is researching extensively. (Did you know Sesame Street will be 40 years old in the fall?)

Ok, back to the other present... back to the plenary talk.

Shifting attention. Being multiply-present. Help me phrase that?

Ready for a twittering experiment next; it'll be fun.

[Connie Weber]

(Too bad, the system just crashed. I was so hoping we'd be able to experiment as a F2F/online group--would have been so in(con)structive.)

[Connie Weber]

sharing Chris Dede's The Virtual Assessments Project, will sort out why it goes here shortly. At that site, go to "media" and click on demo--
fascinating.

[Connie Weber]

"problem-finding" rather than (only) problem solving

ability to cope with chaos, find patterns, make sense of it

being assertive, taking risks, being rather constantly co-constructive

shaping the social processes in which we're immersed

[Maria Fleyshgakker]

Hi Connie :)

I do have some “half-thought-through phrases”; I would even say “a-quarter-thought-through” or maybe “not-thought-through” images. We often hear that the students can’t do this or can’t answer that, can’t find something on the map, or can’t explain something we can. We concentrate on what they can’t do instead of finding what they can do. They can hear you and keep up with the conversation while typing their text messages and listening to their music. They can achieve a level on the computer game that we don’t understand at all; or if we do understand the game then their speed is unbelievable. Any kid when given any electronic device begins to push the buttons and gets results even if this is a new device they didn’t see before. Too often I am thinking that we are trying to hold the kids back to our standards from the last century instead of creating new standards that might hold some value in the nearest future.

Imagine a fish in an ocean, the water runs through the gills, the fish gets the oxygen, but doesn’t slow down the flow of the water, and if needed moves to another spot and on and on. The ocean is the amount of information entering our consciousness all the time both kids and adults. We have to learn how to swim in it, catch what we need and leave what’s not. My generation was born into a lake, maybe even just a puddle of water, and it takes us time and effort to learn how to swim in the limitless ocean. The kids were born into the ocean; they have some kind of innate ability to filter the info and ignore whatever their sub-consciousness tells them is out of the area of their current interests. They naturally find the answers to their current questions fast and efficient. When I have a class in a computer lab the answers to the questions are found within first 2 minutes, the rest of the time is spent on creating the presentation. Of course, I am talking about the kind of questions that do not require “thinking”, like math problems often do. Creating the presentation does require “thinking”, but it is creative thinking, not math problem solving thinking. This is why the students love the creative part of the presentation, not the research part of gathering information which often is out of the area of their current interests. I, the teacher, brought the questions; they are my questions, not theirs.

So, what I see:
1. The kids who are ready to swim, or fly, or surf into their future.

2. The system which is not ready to recognize the talents and abilities of that future and slowing the kids down to its own slow pace from the past.

3. Grassroots, individual teachers or schools attempts to unite the two: which is, using the tools from the future, like computers, cameras, cell-phones, etc. to teach the curriculum from the past.

4. A lot of conversations about project-based learning, which may become the way of the future, but right now is adjusted to the curriculum from the past and may be killed by misuse and abuse by the system.

The last thought is about current projects. There are quite a few very good projects created for the elementary school level. There are even more topics which are even more appropriate and interesting for the kids of that age which are completely missed and forgotten. There are just a couple of good projects for middle school and there are no good projects for high school kids at all. I think I know why it is happening. We, adults, make those projects. They are artificial, do not come from children natural curiosity. The younger the kids are the higher level of curiosity is. It goes down because we do not help them to find answers to their questions, instead we bring our questions to them and make their questions less important. Do you see what kind of message we send to the kids? Their questions are not important. Important questions are not interesting. Learning is work, unpleasant thing, when you are forced to answer somebody else’s questions.

[Connie Weber]

Maria,

Wow! Thanks for your thoughts! A vital contribution to the discussion here. An excellent example of ways to create the future rather than just passively becoming engulfed by it. Yes: let students drive the questioning! Yes, support open-ended projects, and promote creativity as an essential component of the learning process.

I'm springing off from what you said, "using the tools from the future, like computers, cameras, cell-phones, etc. to teach the curriculum from the past," and adding in "to learn and help design the curriculum of the future."

Thanks! Keep the thoughts coming!

[Maria Fleyshgakker]

Sometimes I think that the tools for the future are coming upon us pretty fast, many of us (adults) can’t even adjust to all these gizmos :) (the kids wouldn’t agree with me here: there are schools where computers are not being used) The curriculum is much harder to change because it is attached to our mentality.
Recently I tried to research some student-centered schools, here is maybe a place to discuss some examples :):):):) If you read about Montessori and Waldorf or Sudbury Schools it seems they captured the idea to build the curricula around the kids’ interests, developmental stages, emotional preparedness etc. and use the kids’ creativity in the process of learning. That means they should recognize each individual child's personality and interests which is the way of the future curriculum as I see it. It sounds like they are making the first steps into building the schools of the future. Now, I hear they do not use the computers enough. Of course, without computers there is no future, but maybe that’s just a rumor, or they don’t have money??...?? I do not know the reality of these experiences only their dreams and plans.

[Mike]

Hi All.... some ideas from Deb Meier and Ted Sizer from:

http://www.essentialschools.org/pub/ces_docs/about/phil/habits.html

Ted Sizer-

A wise school's goal is to get its students into good intellectual habits.(1) Just which habits can be grist for properly endless debate, but the extent of agreement among Americans on these is very high. For example:

The habit of perspective: Organizing an argument, read or heard or seen, into its various parts, and sorting out the major from the minor matter within it. Separating opinion from fact and appreciating the value of each.

The habit of analysis: Pondering each of these arguments in a reflective way, using such logical, mathematical, and artistic tools as may be required to render evidence. Knowing the limits as well as the importance of such analysis.

The habit of imagination: Being disposed to evolve one's own view of a matter, searching for both new and old patterns that serve well one's own and other's current and future purposes.

The habit of empathy: Sensing other reasonable views of a common predicament, respecting all, and honoring the most persuasive among them.

The habit of communication: Accepting the duty to explain the necessary in ways that are clear and respectful both to those hearing or seeing and to the ideas being communicated. Being a good listener.

The habit of commitment: Recognizing the need to act when action is called for; stepping forward in response. Persisting, patiently, as the situation may require.

The habit of humility: Knowing one's right, ones debts, and one's limitations, and those of others. Knowing what one knows and what one does not know. Being disposed and able to gain the needed knowledge, and having the confidence to do so.

The habit of joy: Sensing the wonder and proportion in worthy things and responding to these delights.

These habits reflect value. They neither denote nor connote mere technical expertise, usable skills. They are loaded with judgments, for teachers and parents as well as for students. The lines between habits and are good and bad, slovenly and devoted, personal and collective are blurred. There is no escaping this. A school devoted to the inculcation of certain sorts of intellectual habits –- the qualities of mind that engender respect – will tangle endlessly, and revealingly for their students, over matters of judgment. Good schools welcome this. In fact only from such tangling can those habits we most respect emerge.

Good schools focus on habits, on what sorts of intellectual activities will and should inform their graduates' lives. Not being clear about these habits leads to mindlessness, to institutions that drift along doing what they do simply because they have always done it that way. Such places are full of silly compromises, of practices that boggle commonsense analysis. And they dispirit the Horace Smiths, who know that the purpose of education is not in keeping school but in pushing out into the world young citizens who are soaked in habit s of thoughtfulness and reflectiveness, joy, and commitment. Further, mindless schools may show students a superficial picture of that which is to be most highly valued, what the schools puts forward as its most respected students. Kids with high scores will always be ridiculed, human jealousy being what it is. But they will fare much better in a school which knows that the display of knowledge, however accurate or rich, in only a beginning, and that students who can use knowledge, who are seemingly in the instinctive habit of using it, are the ones deserving of highest honor.

From Horace's School, 1992, Pp. 73-75.
by Theodore R. Sizer


Debbie Meier

We created the CPESS habits of mind ... as we realized the need for unity across disciplines and a focus on the essential. We didn't want an endless laundry list, so we wrote down five, based on many years of watching kids and observing our own habits, and now they are posted in most classrooms... They are at the heart of each curriculum as well as being the basis for judging student performance. We never quite write them out the exact same way, and over the years we've realized they are constantly evolving in their meaning.

They are:

-The question of evidence, or "How do we know what we know?"

-The question of viewpoint in all its multiplicity, or "Who's speaking?"

-The search for connection and patterns, or "What causes what?"

-Supposition, or "How might things have been different?"

-Why any of it matters, or "Who cares?"

Lawyers tell us these "habits" are very lawyerly, but journalist and scientists tell us they are basic to what they do as well. As a historian I recognize them as being at the heart of my field. As a principal I find them useful when "naughty" kids are sent to my office. I ask them to put their version of the story on one side and that of whoever sent them to me on the other, then we discuss whether what's happened is part of a pattern, how else it might have been dealt with, and, finally, why it matters.

In order to make such "habits" habitual, they need in-depth practice. Young people need to be immersed in their use. We want to demand evidence in the form of performance at real, worthwhile tasks. To do this we devote ourselves to covering less material, not more, and to developing standards that are no less though and no less rigorous than those associated with traditional displays of academic excellence but sometimes different. It's very hard to use these habits in the typical survey course, no matter how provocatively taught. As we rush thought a hundred years of history in less than a week, or cover complex new scientific ideas one after another, there's no time to study conflicting evidence, read multiple view-points, detect the difference between false analogies and real ones, not to mention imagine how else it might have happened.

As teachers, we see the habit of asking these kinds of questions as critical to our students' education not because our kids have special advantages, but because it's what we want for all children. But building standards based on these habits on mind takes time, takes translating back and forth between theory and practice, between our ideas and samples of real student work. Can a student do a distinguished piece of work at CPESS without demonstrating breadth of knowledge about the larger context? Is it okay if Francis know a lot about Japan's involvement in World War II and uses diverse sources with considerable discrimination but seems to know very little about the same war in Europe? It is okay to be comfortable with ideas and experimental evidence in the field of genetics but superficially ignorant about a presumable simpler phenomenon like photosynthesis? Teaching this way requires forms of rigor few of us have ever before demanded of ourselves. It doesn't mean dispensing with all shallower "survey" requirements, but it shifts the balance dramatically. And it creates anxiety as we ask, But what will other people say if our kids don't know x or y? Of course, in reality their peers who take the traditional courses don't remember x or y anyway. But while that's reassuring, it's a cop-out. So it's an endless tension, a see-sawing back and forth between "coverage" and making sense of things.

From The Power of Their Ideas, 1995. Pp 50-51
by Debbie Meier

Wondering if Debbie... (who is a member here ) has changed or revised any of her thinking on these????

be well... mike

[Connie Weber]

Mike,

How pertinent to post some words from those who are among the best of the best (IMHO) in establishing educational philosophies that go after MEANING and ENGAGEMENT in learning. Aha! These frameworks were put forth before the digital revolution, before globalization was such a big force, and before many major discoveries in neuroscience (the "three forces" we studied in Future of Learning at HGSE's Summer Institute). Also before this dismal age of standardization really hit hard--the tsunami that left things bare and revoltingly empty. The basic frameworks you're sharing, Mike, just seem so right. And yet, we need to ask, are the needs of learners any different now? Yes, what Sizer and Meier put forth as the important "habits of mind" are still true. Still utterly, completely relevant (again, IMHO). But are there more?

Do readers see important changes needed in the two frameworks shared above, changes that reflect more about the essence of learner of the new millennium? I mean, what's different about learning-life now, what new habits of mind must be cultivated?