When I woke this morning and started my standard routine of catching up on news, I stumbled on Money magazine’s list of best colleges for your money.  Their list was created using a multitude of statistical measures around three main categories: quality of education, affordability and outcomes. As I perused the list, and saw the same popular colleges names I have seen for decades, I couldn’t help but sigh. According to The College Board’s Trends in College Pricing 2012, the average annual cost of in-state tuition, fees, room, and board at a four-year public institution is $17,860 for the academic year 2012–2013. For a private institution, the cost of tuition, fees, room, and board is $39,518.

Part of the sigh was the perception that seems to have increased over the years with the idea that you need to attend a top, elite brand-name school to reach what many might deem as a successful career. Yes, you can receive an extraordinary education at such institutions, but you can also receive an immense amount of debt. The other reality is not every environment is necessarily the best for every person.

You can receive a great education at many colleges or secondary educational institutions that are not considered prestigious for less money. I personally believe large part of one’s educational experience is individual effort and motivation – the more you put yourself into your studies, you more will receive back.

Partly what people seem to be paying more for these days are the connections that certain colleges have with people or companies. While networking and who you know has always been an advantage in the work place, this has become an even larger factor in choices that students and parents seem to be using when it comes to education, but at what cost? I agree that connections are invaluable, but do you really have to pay a ton of money for them? There are other ways to network and make connections without breaking the bank.

Making choices for higher learning should not be primarily focused on brand, connections, what the media tells you, or where “everyone wants to go.” Here are some questions that can help students and parents reflect on when thinking about the right type of higher education:

• What do I value in life?
• What am I passionate about?
• What are my interests?
• What are my natural strengths?
• What kind of experience is right for me?
• Am I ready for college/secondary learning (do I have an idea of a path vs. just going for the sake of going)?
• What kind of financial debt am I willing/able to take on?

Everyone wants his or her child to have a solid education and succeed in life, but there are multiple avenues to achieve this, not just one. Encourage and engage with your child in conversations around the above questions. As a student, reflect on what you really hope to get out of a particular educational experience. Research the 'reality' of a school’s campus life or classes they offer, as well as what job or career opportunities are out there in your area of interest.  This can save families unneeded stress, heartache, extra debt, and help ensure completion of whatever program they enter in the world of higher education.

U.S. public education has always been a hot topic, and even more so over the past decade. It is a field of constant change, debate, trends and new philosophies. You may have heard the phrase, "new paradigm of learning" or "21st century paradigm of teaching" being used in articles or workshops over the past couple years. What does this exactly mean? Is it really new?

There are variations on what one might say when it comes to defining this phrase. Upon researching different opinions, I like Terry Heick of Teach Thought’s version, 4 Goals of Paradigm Thinking, as a way to sum up what schools and educators should be focusing on with today’s learners. Mr. Heick’s version is:

• Self-knowledge
• Meaningful Community Interaction
• Adaptive Critical Thinking
• New (Digital) Media Literacies

Of course, there is a lot of detail and content that can be discussed in each of these categories, but I like a more simple statement versus ones that are a bit bogged down.

As an educator in the K-8 realm, I reflected on what I personally would create as my statement for a “new paradigm of learning” in my own teaching and decided on the following:

• Collaboration
• Process
• Student-Interest
• Global Connection (Awareness)
• Digital Literacy

I used some pretty general terms in mine. The word 'process' however, sums up more for me. It addresses not only the concept of critical thinking, but also meaningful ways to achieve this, such as design thinking, project-based learning, gamification, flipped learning, and so on. The avenue one chooses these days to communicate content can potentially launch learning and motivation to a whole new, exciting level. I think 'collaboration' deserves its own category, as we all know what a valuable skill this is in the real world.

I have become a big advocate of community outreach in my projects and lessons that I design for my classes, which is one I don't see enough on lists. I feel this area is underutilized and is important. This concept falls under 'global connection (awareness)' for me, as the term 'community interaction' did encompass enough of how I view the idea. Not only should students be engaging with their local community, but they should be engaging with the global community as well. This assists in supporting other crucial areas, such as problem-solving and empathy, two areas that are at the top of my list for students to actively engage in during class time. Student-interest is also a big one for me. In a survey, I will ask my students at the beginning of the year what they are interested in learning. Self-interest equals buy-in and self-motivation.

As to the question, “Is it really new?” To me, much of what is touted as new in education is not really new. There have been great educators out there doing all of these ideas long before such lists were being made. Ideas and philosophies in education tend to cycle, even if the cycle is a long one.

One major change in education has been in our ability to connect on a global scale and to learn more about our world today, due to technology. This ability has really opened doors to more creative endeavors and possibilities for the classroom teacher. However, the biggest change over the years is the accessibility of technology and the educational technology tools of today that allow for affordability and much easier integration into the classroom for the average teacher. So many educational tools...but that is a topic for another post.

What would your personal 'new paradigm of learning' be? I encourage you to reflect and create your own. No matter what level you teach, it can assist with guiding your overarching goals as an educator.

A few months back, I wrote about the beginning steps for a project I designed, called The Survey Project, which can be found here. Our class completed this experience. I am happy to report that this project was not only successful and fun for the students, but for the teacher!  Here was the first page of the overview for the project. I made an effort to use my write-up as written, in order to review its feasibility and clarity.

Objective: Students will create survey questions centered around their community using the online program Fluid Surveys. Students will generate QR codes, print them out, and post them at key locations in the community. Students will analyze data collected from their survey questions through tallying and interpreting the information. Students will write a letter and sent and/or present to local council representatives about their results and opinion on how to address an issue, if needed.

Grades: 3-12 (This lesson was originally written for a 3rd grade class, but the concept can be modified and adapted/aligned for almost any grade).

Standards (3rd grade):

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.1a Introduce the topic or text they are writing about, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure that lists reasons.
  
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.1b Provide reasons that support the opinion.
  
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.5 With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.
  
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.6 With guidance and support from adults, use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others.
  
• CCSS.Math.Content.3.MD.B.3 Draw a scaled picture graph and a scaled bar graph to represent a data set with several categories.
  

Other:

• With guidance from the teacher, student survey questions will be inputted online.
  
• With guidance from an adult, students will interact with their local community to understand what successes and challenges residents face in their town, by placing QR codes in key locations to collect data.
  
• Students will analyze data collected from their survey by tallying and interpreting the information.
  
• Students will draw a bar graph that represents the information collected in their survey.
  
• Students will learn what a council member is and what they do for their community.
  
• With assistance from their teacher, students will make contact via email, letter or in person with a city council member(s) to share their findings.
  
  

Equipment/Materials Needed: laptop, Fluid Survey program, paper or digital text document. Note: the Fluid Survey iPad app version can also be used to present surveys to an audience by the creator. Fluid Survey is a free program, but for for additional features such as graphs to print, a monthly upgrade is needed.

Vocabulary: survey, data, results, graphs, analyze, community, outreach, frequent, axis, objectives, tally

The project was divided up into different activities. Here are the general sections, with my reflection for each one.

Activity 1 - Introduction to types of surveys, vocabulary, and a partner online activity to fill in their Activity 1 worksheet (see attached document below).

Reflection: The introduction went great. It is important to give background information for any project in a way that best works for your student population/age. How can you relate the content to them? Since I have younger students, I found a website for them to directly go to in order to fill out information for the worksheet, but it was up to the students to figure out what information they thought was important to add on their worksheet, rather than me telling them what to write and what was important.  I wanted to see how they were able to understand the information as well deciding how to communicate their understanding. We had a great follow-up discussion, where all students were able to share their insights.

Activity 2 - Brainstorm a topic related to community that student feels is important and brainstorming survey questions around approved topic.

Reflection: The students really took off with this. They were excited at the prospect of doing something for their city that people would participate in. It gave the project a sense of importance to them. They came up with topics related to recycling, littering, types of stores, quality of community parks, crime, and more!

I knew that what makes a good survey question would require more background information. I did end up doing a mini-lesson on a separate day around types of survey questions and the kinds of answers one needs to give a user in order to measure the results. I viewed this as a meaty part of the project. After students brainstormed their questions, I met with each team to review and talk out how to hone their questions. As writing good survey questions is often not easy for adults to do, I was impressed with how most students understood this concept and how some took off with it.

Activity 3- Create their survey online by choosing the best type of question format and typing in their questions.

Reflection: This went very smoothly, for most teams. The UI of Fluid Surveys is pretty straight-forward, which is one reason why I chose their survey program over others I had researched. I gave them a very general overview as a whole class, but left enough out that would require students to play around with the program to figure out. I did have several students who found this more difficult, but that is ok. Every student has their own personal skill set around technology, regardless of what I may have taught them in class. I also encourage students to collaborate and help each other, so my "experts" could help those who needed it.

Activity 4- Generate QR codes, making a poster explaining project, and posting up for people in the community.

Reflection: My class had previous experience with using QR codes. Another reason why I like Fluid Surveys is because they have the ability to generate a QR code within their program versus taking a link, finding a generator site, pasting etc. (been there, not so fun).  Super easy!

Activity 5 - Analyze data by use of tallying answers and meeting with teacher in their teams to discuss how they could view the data in different ways. Students then draw a bar graph that represents the data.

Reflection:  This was the other meaty section of learning. I had students practice first on how to tally and organize a sample survey I had made in partners. This was good practice and pretty easy for the students, as it turned out.  After they tallied their answers for each of their questions, I realized that students would find it challenging to be able to write this information into sentences, so I ended up taking my example survey and modeling how you can "report" the facts. I also did meet with each team to review their drafts of sentences and help them with this, due to their age. It was great practice in writing complete  informational sentences. If you have older students, this is an excellent way to observe and and assess critical thinking skills as well as writing structure. 

Since my students had background knowledge in creating a simple bar graph, this activity was pretty easy for most students. For those who struggled, it helped reinforce math concepts that had been previously taught. Students helped each other out, as needed.

Activity 6- Write a letter about the project with results and suggestions to local city council members
(Optional: Attending a city council meeting to experience first hand our system and process)

Reflection: Instead of having my kids write an entire letter on their own (they had been inundated with writing from other projects and testing), I created a guiding template for them to fill in blanks. I did give them some guiding verbiage to mode, such as "This suggests..." and "I recommend...".  This proved to be very helpful for them and for me. The original intention was to use the guide and have them write the entire letter out into their writing notebooks, but kids wanted to write on the actual worksheet, which I should have realized would happen. I would have made more lines for them to write on. The hardest part was understanding the sentences they drafted during analysis could directly be used in their letter, so I had to direct them where this needed to go in their letters.  After we had writing conference review on their drafts, students then typed up their letter.

I don't know who was more excited to drop off our letters and graphs to city hall, the students or me! It was great watching the city hall employee's expression change from listening to excitement and watch her smile grow as I explained what my manila envelope contained for city council members to review.

Some of the students and I will be attending the city council tomorrow evening. I look forward to sharing this experience with them! Overall, I was very pleased with this project and the multiple areas it addressed. My hope is to encourage others to think about how they can use a technology tool to enhance learner experience. Feel free to email me for additional information on this project.

Last week, I attended an EdSurge Meetup at Nest GSV in Redwood City titled, "The Missing Link Between Researchers and EdTech Innovators." The format was a panel discussion with Q/A afterwards. One of the reasons I attended was due to the panelists scheduled to speak - Gayl Allen, CLO of Bright Bytes, Steve Schneider, Senior Program Director of West Ed, Tamas Makany, Learning Researcher at Glasslab, and Dave Hatfield, Director of Assessment at Kidaptive. I was  already familiar with 3 of the 4 organizations and the great work that they do, and as someone who has taken to reading white papers a lot these days, I was interested in where the conversation might lead. 

The idea of the meetup was to connect start-ups who are looking to create or refine their own education apps, games, etc. with researchers in the field. The conversation discussed the disconnect between educational research and the people who are working to create a product, as well as why using proven methodologies while developing a product can make all the difference. This makes sense, as the typical start-up does not necessarily have an internal understanding in educational pedagogues, developmental stages, and statistical data on what can create a successful learning experience for a user. 

As one of the few teachers at the session, and possibly one of the only elementary classroom teachers in the  trenches of directly teaching younger students, I was happy that this conversation had been initiated. Over the years, there have been many meaningless educational games, tools and apps out on the market. Let's face it - education is a big business and to be able to get your foot in the financial door can be be very lucrative. According to the US Department of Education, ed business generated $30 billion in domestic sales for product and services suppliers in 2011. It is also expected to grow over the long term, as U.S. student enrollments are projected to hit 58 million in 2021 compared to 55 million in 2010.

The first thing a teacher will evaluate or want to know when introducing a technology tool in the classroom is, what educational value will be gained from using this tool? Where is the evidence that this tool will assist in raising developmental understanding or achievement of my student? With the new Common Core  and Next Gen Standards, there is a significant push to integrate and use technology more consistently in the classroom, so the critical lens on educational products is even more important these days.

What I realized during the discussion was the third link- the educator. It became apparent how little many people in the room knew of what life is like in the actual classroom for an educator and what learning looks like for a student. They are the third factor, and having one on the panel would have assisted in the conversation even more. I have been an elementary teacher for 11 years. Not once have I ever been approached by an educational researcher or company that was seeking information for use in a product, and cannot say that I know any other educator who has. Why is this? Educators by nature like to help. By reaching out to educators, a researcher or potential product could gain practical information to assist in the development of their product. 

Another point was brought up that teachers now live in an age of rapid assessment. No longer is it acceptable to wait a month to find out whether a student is achieving expectations. Individualized intervention and instruction is also what every teacher tries to strive for in the classroom. Expectation to bring a child up to grade level (or to their respective next level) as soon as possible is high. Correctly using data collected on a child is mandatory. With today's technology, these goals are more doable. Understanding what this looks like could be of great value to businesses when creating their product.

The other point that was brought up was the lack of professional development and training, which unfortunately is common in many districts across the United States. Lack of time in the day, money, and general understanding of what good training can be is often the norm. Companies should take this into consideration when creating a product, as well as something to offer a school. Give them quality training for free, with follow up. Don't just do the 1.5 hour intro after school when teachers are burned out and leave it at that.  Think, how can you support the teacher to successfully implement your product? 

I enjoyed Gayl Allen's comment that many things are literally thrown at teachers and keeping up with everything that a teacher is tasked with is a constant challenge on a daily basis. This is absolutely true. I also liked her closing point that businesses should consider what they can "give" to an educator or school,  not just "take" from them. Vendors constantly come to districts with the attitude of 'buy my awesome product,' often with ineffective follow up or training, if at all. It is, to say the least, annoying. If companies created a more partnership-like atmosphere, this would help, as the benefits help both parties. Share data and results you discover when working with a school. Follow up during the first year in a manner that makes a teacher's life easier, not harder. 

And the reason Ms. Allen understands this? She was an educator for over a decade. If you have not been a direct educator, it is very difficult to understand the nature of our profession. If you do not have a former educator in your company, consider having one.  Do not view educators as just another number for sales. Value educators for the experiential knowledge and insights they possess from being in the field that others don't have or can understand. Utilize the hard work researchers put into their studies. By establishing connections between researcher, start-up and educator, everyone wins. 

There has been debate over whether emphasizing STEM learning in schools is truly needed or not. Recently, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce came out with a study which indicates that, “STEM, Healthcare Professions, Healthcare Support, and Community Services will be the fastest growing occupations, but also will require high levels of post-secondary education.” The Economic Policy Institute however, argues that their study and data, “…strongly suggest that there is a robust  supply of domestic workers available for the IT industry,”  and "for STEM graduates, the supply exceeds the number hired each year by nearly two to one, depending on the field of study." So, who is right?

As an educator, I see a need for more meaningful learning in the classroom in general and this includes the concepts that STEM content gives to learners. We have fallen away from teaching children what it means to critically think and problem solve in a way that is in need for this time in society. We are leading to (or are in) a technological renaissance. This indeed affects how successful a person can be in our current and upcoming workforce.

What seems to be missing from the argument is that this kind of thinking also lends itself to creative thinking. No, arts and humanities should not be dismissed as subjects. Balance creates a whole package. Making strong connections across all areas however, can be done. Guiding and not instructing students is the goal. This is to encourage thinking outside the box in order to generate new ideas to age-old problems. While there may be a surplus of “IT workers” to jobs, this is only one part of a much larger field. Engineering and technology applies to many fields and science goes hand in hand with both.

The way students have been taught in general has been flat and disconnected over the years. STEM learning and the Next Generation Standards attempt to help students synthesize and make more meaningful connections across subject matter in general. Much like the concept behind an ecosystem, we want students to see the big picture from different perspectives. This way of thinking is something that can benefit the workforce overall and can grow a new generation of people to be the creative innovators that are needed, people who can help continue to solve systemic challenges in the world.

With regard to the point that there is not enough jobs to fill the amount of people gaining degrees in these areas, I am reminded of the adage, “If you build it, they will come."

Studies mentioned:
Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce

Economic Policy Institute