knew how to use an iPad, he would
be right at home in the most innovative schools in America. A day later,
I received a bit of digital handiwork
from a third grader: a Photoshopped
picture of Dewey holding an iPad.
That young girl does not need to be
told how to use technology to enhance
her learning!
Flipping the Classroom Is Not Enough
The best example I could offer illustrating the difference between the bow and
the archer in educational technology
is the idea of a flipped classroom (read
my post about this at bit.ly/126cFTm).
“Flipping” a classroom is wonderful slang; as soon as we learn what
it means, the image sticks. Flipping
is about having students listen to
or watch lectures at home without a
teacher present to free up class time
for questions, discussion, and the kind
of face-to-face help that teachers can
provide. This concept is revolutionizing learning in many classrooms,
all for the good. It is a great arrow
to have in the learning quiver.
But what if we really flipped learning? What if we flipped the learning
relationship from teacher controlled to
student controlled? Let’s call this Flip
2.0. Better yet, let’s call this the
back-flipped learning experience, because
reversing the responsibility of learning from the teacher to the student
means we are going “back” to exactly
what Dewey, Montessori, Parker, and
the other giants of the Progressive Era
preached more than a century ago.
My good friend and colleague,
Bo Adams ( bit.ly/ZNsFXj), among
many others, speaks to the absolutely
foundational need to put students in
control of their learning:
I am more and more convinced
that a single C—control—may
prove the bedrock for the devel-
opment of all those other C’s. For
in the giving of control, I believe
we provide student learners with
more opportunities to practice the
skills organically and authenti-
cally than if we assign them work
organized into the seven C’s.
Through the autonomy of control—motivated by the control of
choice—we naturally invest ourselves in those seven C’s. When
we feel in control, we learn to take
control, and we develop our ca-pacities to maintain good control.
Bo tells us how he asked his 8-year-
old son what he looked forward to
learning in school one day. His first
reply: “I don’t know, Dad. The teachers are in control and decide what
we’re going to do and learn today. I
won’t know until I get there.”
Passion, Engagement, Experience
Dewey traced learning backward from
passion to engagement to experience,
ultimately placing control and responsibility for learning in the hands of the
learner. How do we redistribute this
control from teacher to student? What
is holding us back? How can we best
use our bows and arrows, including
the technology bow, to find the target
of true student control, ownership,
passion, and engagement with their
own learning?
If we are not asking questions like
these, then my observations suggest
that we are largely checking off the
box marked “innovation” by swapping
out the old belts of the Industrial Age
conveyor for new ones.
What makes backflipping uncomfortable? I found the overarching
reason is that we, the adults, have,
over several educational generations,
created a series of anchors that hold
us away from the timeless lessons of
Dewey. Adults have come to believe
that they own the elements that define
the Industrial Age mindset of education: time, space, and subject. As long
as teachers define their relationship
to the learning community as one
of owning “my time, my subject, my
classroom,” innovation is rare.
Students don’t have this problem.
By nature they do not quantify learning into these packets until the traditional school system forces them into
it. Only when the adults in schools
find ways to cut these strings will innovation explode and the untethered
teachers feel the weight of a false responsibility melt away.
Let Computers Do the Computing
How can technology help the back-flip? I saw so many examples on my
journey that I can’t possibly describe
them in detail, but if you follow
the links back through my detailed
blog reports from these schools
( learningpond.wordpress.com/grant-lichtman), you can connect with the
teachers and specialists who are making them happen.
At Presbyterian Day School (PDS)
in Memphis, Tennessee, teachers have
developed a remarkable system of differentiated learning in math and reading that tracks individual students,
measures strengths and weaknesses,
and gives both the students and teachers real-time feedback on how to surgically improve learning rather than
teaching to some artificial mean.
Does online learning lead to student engagement?
Not necessarily. Answering canned questions on a computer
is no more engaging than answering canned questions in person.
