Chapter 3

The chapter shifts between two models of change. The first is market driven change. Schools choose to be different, and the market determines whether or not they meet needs. The second is bureaucratic change. A vision is developed by the school district and sustained until it is fulfilled. I have a hunch that market driven change is far more likely to succeed. It operates on a small scale and receives powerful and broad based input on its perceived quality in the form of money from its clients.

On another point, the authors seem to be confusing three issues:
schools do not serve the needs of all their students,
schools have not adjusted to the information revolution, and
US graduation rates and average academic performance are lower than other countries.

Each of these issues requires a different response:
different curricula for different students, (customization),
educate through information technology (teach the digital generation) and
send weak students overseas (LOL).

The problem with confusing the issues is that it makes the case for information technology stronger than it should be.

Chapter Three Reflection

This chapter argues against educational sameness in favour of individualization and that personalized format, it is suggested, should be made at all levels, from learner to school to community. Even in the relatively small geographic area of the Coast we see very unique communities and it makes sense that each would want a school that reflects its own requirements. The authors suggest that the schools would even change regularly as community visions change. The first challenge I see is the potential cost in changing the school as the desires of the community change (if those changed desires actually materialize). Then we have to add to that mix the cost of the built in technology upgrade schedule that we are already experiencing. We presently seem to be in a funding crisis already, and we are just doing things the "old school" way. It seems we'll have to start small, have some success, give the credit to the government of the day so that they will be keen to reinvest in "our vision" so they can in turn continue to be popular with the voters who want the best for their kids. We teachers will have to lead the way with our practice, but the power-holders and bottom-line decision makers will have to be on side and willing to lead (and take the risks inherent with such change).

How do we create effective schools?

Chapter 2

Chapter 2-

Changing the Process of Designing Schools p. 33

Key Idea-The process by which we create schools shapes the teaching and learning environments we design

-important decisions that define new schools are often based on assumptions stemming from the way we have always done things

-critical to get everyone who has a real interest in how the completed school will function to work together and define requirements

-define a broad vision for the future of the school related to learning

-delve into details required to realize your aspirations

-the architectural design reflects the vision related to the learning

Instruction should drive construction

Key Idea-School buildings must change because instruction must change

-need creative new designs that will support 21^st century learning

-if you want to change a product, you must change the process that was used to produce the product

-need suggestions of ways to modify our approach to yield the innovative new learning environments that will meet the needs of the students of tomorrow

TTWWADI (That’s the Way We Have Always Done It)

-is a mindset

-develops when things have been done the same way for so long that everyone assumes they must be right and should be continued into the future

-thus people continue to follow a procedure even if the reasons for that procedure are no longer valid

Key Idea-this thinking cannot produce the schools we need for the 21^st Century

Yogi Berra-“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else”

Quick Look at today’s design:

-school districts have separate departments to address instruction and curriculum, technology, and facility and maintenance responsibilities

-these departments report separately to the superintendent

-often operate quite independently and at times with conflicting priorities

-this conflict leads to personnel thinking that the others complicate their jobs

-facilities vs tech vs instructional staff

Maintenance staff

-want facilities built of the most permanent, durable and serviceable materials

Facilities staff

-new or renovated buildings are created by these people with little or no discussions or input from instructional or tech staff

-tend to focus on secondary details (too small, too dark, too hot, insufficient storage)

Technology staff

-focus on providing hardware and software for instructional staff

Instructional staff

-want the ability to easily change the layouts of classroom and desire flexibility in the building

-may feel that facilities staff are unresponsive to their charge to help kids learn

-aren’t quite sure what to do with the hardware and software provided by the techs

-become cynical because they know they have little say in what their workplace

Key Idea-Instruction is not currently shaping construction

In relation to TTWWADI’s how does this effect today’s classroom?

It is assumed that core instruction will be

· Teacher directed and teacher centered

· Occur in classrooms

· Address one discipline at a time

· Serve groups of approx 25-30 students

· Happen in equal periods of time over a nine month school year

· Focused on content

Question- should be “How do we want to teach?” instead of, “How many classrooms do we need?”

Core subjects are housed in rows of generic classrooms, while electives are housed in individually designed, specialized spaces.

Key Idea- The current process of school design is certain to result in schools that look, feel and operate like schools have for nearly a hundred years and does not match the needs of the students of tomorrow.

Shifting the Design p. 36

Key Idea-Start Asking Questions!!!

-What is currently missing from school desing is a process to set aside old assumptions about teaching and learning in order to allow people to develop new visions for the future.

How do we create a new vision for what a school should be?

-start by asking questions, then

· Start by looking at kids and learning

· Learning must prepare students for a world of constant change

· Learning must focus on 21^st Century thinking skills

· Learning must include 21^st Century fluency skills

· Learning must reflect the new digital reality

· Learning must be interdisciplinary

· Learning must be shaped for the individual

· Learning must engage 21^st century digital kids

· Learning must be connected to the outside world

· Learning opportunities should be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week

· Time, not learning, should be flexible

· Students should assume responsibility for their own learning

· Every student should have a close working relationship with at least one adult in the school

· Students should have their own personal place to work

· Assessment must encompass both knowledge skills and higher order thinking skills

· All students must be prepared so they can go on to some form of postsecondary studies

· The configuration of spaces within the school building must be highly flexible

The Key to Effective Visioning p. 48

Key idea-the visioning process is the only way to break out of the traditional mold of school planning and to design the new schools we need for the future

-The challenge stems from the power of TTWWADI

-IF you are able to get people to embrace new ideas about school design they often shrink back from the implications because the result is significantly different than anything they have ever seen before

…so they retreat to ideas and designs that are much more in line with the current schools

Imperative to have everyone involved keep asking themselves if the ideas being put forward are more about their own comfort level or about preparing kids for the future.

1. Keep Priorities straight as the architectural program is written

2. Integrate the instructional, technology and facilities staff directly into the conceptual design process

3. Sustain the Vision

4. A new role for Architects-Change agent

Chapter 1

Chapter 1-

Schools must change p. 9

-life has fundamentally changed

-students moved into the information age

-high schools operate on the ideas of the industrial age

-TTWWADI-That’s the way we’ve always done it

1920 principles did all the thinking

BF skinner 1954

-small discrete portions of information

-predetermined sequence

-performance improves

Memorization was key to industrial line of work

Research in cognitive psychology

-identified considerable limitations to behaviorist thinking

-hallways, classrooms, departments were created before the Great Depression

Teachers talking to students as they sit passively in their seats continues to be the main teaching strategy of the vast majority of educators

Textbooks cover far more topics with less depth and more repetition, with less attention to higher order thinking skills

What’s wrong with that? p. 13

The world has changed and schools have not.

Capitalizing on the astounding power of new electronic tools

The world outside of education has moved beyond Taylor’s assembly line approach to life

Whole new era of technologically driven mass customization and the age of the individual

-this new age represents shifts in life experience of enormous magnitude

-technology radically changed the nature of information

-teachers, traditionally, have been the source of important information

-learning has become capable anytime, anywhere.

-students can retrieve specific details in seconds

The digital world has quickly left behind the black and white text only information most of us grew up with and facilitated access to full color graphics and video accompanied by stereo sound.

Access to information

-rapidly progressed from the linear, paper based information of the 20^th Century to the fully hyperlinked, random access, digital world of online information sources.

-learning about the world has become dynamic, relevant and fun

The sheer amount of information has gone beserk

-growing exponentially

-infowhelmed

-It is not about the amount of information

-it is about the ability to search for the information you require

Creation of an online digital library

Awesome new possibilities for research when digital books are seamlessly linked together

-need to be taught strategies for effectively handling this kind of information growth

-new tools that are emerging to access it

Consider

-The impact the online digital world is having on the thinking patterns of young people.

It is critical for parents, educators and admin to grasp that kids think differently than they do.

-They have been exposed to online digital tools for their entire lives.

-Immersed in an online digital experience

-Unprecedented level of interaction and immediate feedback

-kids today crave interactivity in their lives

-Electronic games provide so much more than just sitting watching tv

-Kids have a strong desire to be networked with others

-Digital tools provide kids with a sensory rich world full of color, sound, graphics and video

-Kids want multimedia before they want text-only information

-They want multiple points of entry into informational sources and non linear pathways through informational space

Altered neural pathways in kids’ brains

-they have far more experience at processing information quickly than older generations

-they receive and process visual information more effectively

-Digital kids have a “need for speed” and they are expected to sit in classrooms and listen to teachers talk

-they are more visually oriented

Schools have steadfastedly resisted major alterations they persist in operating on ideas from another age.

-schools are out of sync with the world around them

-this is having a negative impact on how students view the relevancy of school to the rest of their lives

-a fundamental disconnect between students and the schools they attend, particularly as it relates to how and what students are taught

“the only constant in the world is change”

1/3 of students drop out before they complete high school

39% of grade 12 students believe that schoolwork is relevant on their later lives

Schools are deficient in preparing students with basic employability skills

“Schools by design, can not teach our kids what they need to know today”-Bill Gates

Students need skills that enable them to handle the radically different and constantly changing, technologically driven bewildering and exciting working world of the 21^st century.

Many educators don’t understand….they think-If school was OK for me and my generation why won’t the schooling be ok for kids today?

Many educators missed this emergence in the early 1990’s when there was a major shift to the online Information Age - it happened suddenly and it made the experiences of education by the older generations in schools irrelevant to modern students.

Five Major Shifts

We, as educators, must

1. Shift instruction to focus on Higher Level Thinking Skills needed for the 21^st Century

-people in the 21^st Century survive on their wits

-they rely on themselves

-work as independent entrepreneurs

-increasingly deal with online information

2. We must embrace the digital reality

-technological change is increasing

-ongoing to replace with newer technology

-continue to focus on technology to keep our schools relevant to the society in which they function

-addresses the already existing problem of the disconnect between students and schools

3. We must address the shift in thinking patterns of digital kids

–the impact of rowing up today, immersed in this digital world, on the minds of young people has been nothing short of phenomenal

-new discovery about how the brain works

-neuroplasticity

-the brain’s amazing ability to reorganize how it processes information based on new input

Kids quite literally think differently than those who teach them

Digital learners prefer

-receiving information quickly from multiple multimedia sources

-parallel processing and multitasking

-active, engaged learning

-processing pictures, sounds and video before text

-random access to hyperlinked multimedia information

-to network simultaneously with many others

Non digital teachers prefer

-slow and controlled release of information at conventional speed and from limited sources

-singular processing and single or limited tasking

-have more experience with passive learning such as lectures

-to provide text before pictures sounds and video

-provide new information linearly, logically, sequentially

-students to work independently before networking or group work

Kids today develop a high level of skill with new technologies that non digital adults do not value or even recognize.

-these adults dismiss the abilities kids acquire from using technology and complain about the skills they don’t have

-but they fail to realize the skills kids do have are vitally important for younger people to survive in a digital world they live in and are increasingly a part of business and life

Imperative to monitor the way kids use new technology

-First-our instruction must shift from lecture to one that focuses on discovery learning

-Second-shift away from text based learning materials

-Third-Provide students access to hyperlinked information that can be navigated randomly

-Fourth-allow students to network and collaborate with each other and experts around the world.

4. We must broaden evaluation to encompass activities that provide a complete picture of student learning

-text based tests with mainly multiple choice answers are far too narrow to give a complete picture of a students learning and skill development

-skills measured on standardized tests are not skills students need for success in 21^st century

5. We must increase the connection between instruction in schools and the world outside

-the biggest problem we face in education is convincing students that what we are teaching them is relevant to their lives

-priority to provide students with real word experience while they are still in school