The books we buy more than once

A colleague recently asked me for a list of 'good education related' books to read over the summer break. When I looked through my office and home bookshelves I found that the books that I instinctively wanted to recommend to him were all book titles that I have had to buy more than once.


They are books that are just such a good read, with such a good message, that they become the ones you lend to people, never to be seen again. They are the keepers. The person you lend it to keeps it.


Keeper books stand out from most others in your book collection because you actually notice that you have lost your copy of them when you find yourself wanting to refer to them time after time.


This time I have sent him a list rather than given him my copy of them. I am sure that they will become keepers in his collection.


What are your 'keeper' titles? The books you have repurchased ( in my case sometimes up to four times).
Here are some of mine.


The Hidden Lives of Learners

Graham Nuthall

http://www.nzcer.org.nz/nzcerpress/hidden-lives-learners

MUST READ and then re-read. Then lend to someone and don't expect to get it back.

The Big Picture: Education is Everyone's Business

Dennis Littkey.

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Picture-Education-Everyones-Business/dp/0871209713

An absolutely wonderful book, I have lost track of the number of copies I have bought, lent and lost.

A Framework for Understanding Poverty

Ruby Payne

http://www.amazon.com/Framework-Understanding-Poverty-Ruby-Payne/dp/1929229488/ref=pd_sim_b_11

Pretty essential for teachers in all schools I reckon.

Discipline, Democracy and Diversity

Angus MacFarlane

http://www.nzcer.org.nz/nzcerpress/discipline-democracy-and-diversity-working-students-behaviour-difficulties

Gotta love Angus and his thinking.

The Kiss and the Ghost: Sylvia Ashton Warner & New Zealand

Jones & Middleton

http://www.nzcer.org.nz/nzcerpress/kiss-and-ghost-sylvia-ashton-warner-and-new-zealand

and....

a couple of 'keeper' videos to round it all off..

The Song of the Bird

Elwyn Richardson

and... Sylvia Ashton Warner (in three parts)

http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/three-new-zealanders-sylvia-ashton-warner-1978

This time it's personal

The team supporting the teams during the Rugby World Cup.

This post is a 'lift' from my bit in our school newsletter this week but I do want to the world to know how much I admire our staff.

"At the end of 2010 I said that the most trying year we could face was over and we looked forward to a brighter 2011. Well... I was wrong, very wrong. As a wider school community (children, parents, families, staff and neighbours) we had it all thrown at us this year. The death and injury of loved ones, damage to our homes and workplaces, loss of businesses, income and jobs, broken infrastructure and facilities, and separation of families. Layered over all of this has been deep and ongoing psychological harm, anxiety and depression, children and adults alike. 

Yet...from this awful mess Waimairi School has functioned as a safe and happy place. In addition to putting self and family behind duty of care to your children, twice during major quakes during school hours (and many big after shocks) the school staff have got up each morning, put on their professional 'game faces', driven over damaged roads and through traffic snarls to be the best support they can be for our students.

This on its own is admirable, but despite many weeks of closure and disruption we have fostered and maintained academic, sporting and cultural excellence. The whole staff have given everything they have to give to your children this year. It has left them emotionally and physically drained but I know they would not have done anything differently. Your children's well-being is worth the personal price. So in this context, and aware of the regular taunts about teachers' holidays, I hope that in 2011 of all years, you do wish them all a restful holiday break. You need them rested up and ready for 2012 and beyond."

Teachers and support staff all over the world would like to think that if unprecedented disaster hits you would cope and do well. In 2011 the staff at Waimairi School, and all Christchurch teachers have shown that you can.

Blinded by the light

Most lights these days are powered by electricity but evidently there may be some still oil powered, snake oil that is.

Who would have thought that a blog posting about LIGHT could generate such a great soundtrack? If you don't like this posting at least you can enjoy the sounds. Start the LIGHT song that you like the best then scroll to read with the music playing.

______________________________________________________

So here is the NZ Herald education article about the Philips Lighting SchoolVision lighting system.
It is important to read, and remember, the wording used in this 'so called' news article. It will come back to you time and time again very soon. Rather than being cutting edge educational journalism it would appear that the publicity department of Philips helped out with lots of the wording. Here is the brochure from Philips. Compare and contrast the text with the unquestioned lifts from the corporate publicity. Educational journalism needs to provide balance not just deliver text from a corporate press release. Where is the journalistic balance and thinking in the Herald article? If Philips want advertising why don't they just buy ad space in the paper? They don't need to do so with journalism like this.


Don't feel bad NZ Herald there are plenty of other educational reports in big papers just using the Philips publicity words and pretending they are 'truth'


The Guardian and The Observer 


Not Given LIGHTly 

What annoys me about a claim that a lighting system can improve student achievement? Well it is the very claim that it does so that winds me up. Here is some Philips publicity.
For principals "However, with multiple stakeholders to please including teachers, parents and governors, one of your

most important goals will also be to improve your school’s results. Not only will it affect your school’s rating, it could also secure additional funding to help with overstretched budgets and limited resources."

Not in my school matey! It is our dedicated and skilled teachers who do that, not the lighting system.

"SchoolVision has proven results. The solution was first researched in a year-long, independent study by Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf with 166 pupils and 18 teachers. The results showed that: 

• Reading speed increased by almost 35% 

• Frequency of errors reduced by almost 45% 

• Hyperactive behaviour also dropped by an astonishing 76%

These positive findings were confirmed and endorsed by a second, more extensive study carried out by the University of Twente. The research at Disselboom primary school in Wintelre between December 2009 and September 2010 concluded that: 

• Children score on average 18% higher in a concentration test

• Are more motivated in the long term • Appreciate their learning environment more, both in the short and long term 

• Co-operative learning behaviour is positively influenced by the ‘Calm’ setting

In short, “Light makes a positive difference” in the things that really matter like concentration, motivation and co-operative learning."

You LIGHT Up My Life

Can we shine some light on the 'research' that claims that the  Philips system has a significant effect on mood, energy levels and ability to concentrate? Yes we can...sort of...


Lux Magazine says sort of the same thing


So go deeper...
The source of all this 'research talk' to sell a lighting system is Applicability and efficacy of variable light in schools Physiology & Behavior
Volume 105, Issue 3, 1 February 2012, Pages 621-627

Read the abstract! 

Turn the LIGHTS on

N Wessolowski, C. Barkmann, M. Schulte-Markwor, 2011

"Two classrooms each in two separate schools were studied over a period of nine months; one class in each school served as an intervention group, and a parallel class in each school served as a control group. The effects of the individual VL programs were assessed using standardized test modules. The overall effect was measured using standardized surveys of students and teachers given at the beginning and the end of the project. The results showed that the students made fewer errors, particularly fewer errors of omission, on a standardized test of attention under the VL “Concentrate” program. Reading speed, as measured using standardized reading tests, rose significantly. Reading comprehension also improved, but this improvement was not statistically significant. In contrast, the achievement motivation of the students and the classroom atmosphere did not change over the nine-month period.


Hmmm. The close attention that New Zealand educators pay to the value of reading comprehension, as opposed to reading speed and reading errors (which has kept us at the top of OECD reading achievement comparison tables year on year) suggests that we can't gain much from a lighting system making our kids read faster with fewer errors.


Where was the Barkmann et. al. research presented? At the Society for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms conference. Check out page 2 of the programme. Major Sponsor...Philips


The attempt to re-create the educational gains in a lab study also generates skepticism

EFFECT OF LIGHT IN SCHOOLS: REPLICATION OF THE FIELD STUDY IN LAB

N. Wessolowski, C. Barkmann, M. Schulte-Markwort

University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Department of Psychosomatics in Children and Adolescents, Germany

Objectives: In a field study with 116 pupils, the use of Schoolvision in school classes resulted in a significant increase of attention/concentration and reading speed as well as a significant decrease of restlessness (Wessolowski et. al., 2009). Schoolvision by Philips has preset lighting programs differing in brightness and color temperature. The aim of this study was to replicate these findings in a standardized laboratory setting.

Methods: In a randomized two-group cross-sectional experiment a sample of n=95 healthy adults received either optimized light programs (Schoolvision) or control conditions (500 lx / 3200 K). Optimized light conditions for the treatment group were bright daylight (1300 lx / 5600 K) to induce attention and less bright warm-white light (600 lx / 3000 K) to reduce restlessness. Attention was measured with the d2-test of Brickenkamp and the reading test of Schneider et al. To determine restlessness an optical measurement method named ““Childmove”” was used, which detects changes in pixel values within a video. Childmove was developed for the measurement of whole school classes (Koenig et al., i.P.) but it can also be used in other settings.

Results: The results of the attention/concentration testing showed a significant advantage of 25% from using Schoolvision in the treatment group in terms of the d2 test error rate compared to the control group with standard light (F=2.839, df=1, p=.048, ␣2=.031). This is comparable to the effect described by the school study. In addition, the results for the working speed of the d2 test also showed a significant advantage of 11% for the treatment group (F=3.803, df=1, p=.028, ␣2=.065). The effect outranged the result of working speed in the school study. In contrast to the results of the d2 test, the results of the reading test could not be replicated in lab. The results concerning motoric agitation (restlessness) showed a faster decrease by using Schoolvision (after 5 min: F=2.897, df=1, p=.0.046, ␣2=.031) as reported in the school study. However, unlike the findings of the school study, a decrease in restlessness was not affected.

Conclusions: In sum, the results of the school study could be replicated: The results in the lab showed an increase of attention by using Schoolvision: The experimental group made fewer errors and had a higher working speed in the d2 test. The results of the reading test cannot be replicated, assumedly because the participating college students (59%) are very practiced in reading long texts under inconvenient environmental conditions so that the reading test was not sensitive enough for this sample. There is also a faster decrease of motoric agitation by adults detected in the lab but in contrast to the school study no relevant total decrease was found. An analysis of the z-transformed school and lab values showed that the baseline scores of the pupils in the schools were more than four times higher than those of adults in the lab. On closer inspection of the low baseline scores it was possible to find a faster decrease for the experimental group but not a higher decrease over a longer time, because both groups already almost reached the minimum right after the beginning. 

Come on baby LIGHT my fire

The funny bit - Don't Turn the LIGHTS On


Mayer Hawthorne sings about LIGHTS and this whole thing reeks of the Hawthorne Effect.

The irony is that the Hawthorne effect was all about light levels.
The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know they are being studied,^[1][2] not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.

The term was coined in 1950 by Henry A. Landsberger^[3] when analysing older experiments from 1924-1932 at the Hawthorne Works (a Western Electric factory outside Chicago). Hawthorne Works had commissioned a study to see if its workers would become more productive in higher or lower levels of light. The workers' productivity seemed to improve when changes were made and slumped when the study was concluded. It was suggested that the productivity gain occurred due to the impact of the motivational effect on the workers as a result of the interest being shown in them. Although illumination research of workplace lighting formed the basis of the Hawthorne effect, other changes such as maintaining clean work stations, clearing floors of obstacles, and even relocating workstations resulted in increased productivity for short periods. Thus the term is used to identify any type of short-lived increase in productivity

The killer bit
From the NZ Herald story which kicked off this post.. 
"The Education Ministry's website says evidence suggests learning outcomes improve in spaces that have daylight as the main source of lighting." So embrace classroom 'windows' (the first time a Mac guy like me has said that) and don't think that the Philips Company is going to lift student achievement any more than an interactive whiteboard company will.


Electric LIGHT Orchestra 

Touch devices 'back to the future' uh-oh

A website called bloomsapps keeps appearing in my Twitter feed as a recommended reference. So I took a look and was told on the front page that  "it is essential for educators to understand how to implement Blooms (sic) in the classroom using the apps that are available." Just why this is an educational imperative is not stated but it is linked to growing use of iOS devices in American school districts.


Bloom's Taxonomy and Anderson's revision, offer, at best, a set of considerations for teacher planning to ensure balanced cognitive provision. I don't believe there is any gold in there for looking at what children actually learn. A side note (not explored in this post is a general observation that I have about many educators focussing totally on the cognitive domain of Bloom's work and often not even thinking about the affective and psychomotor. Let alone the parallel nature of the 'top three' - see Anderson & Kraftwhol, 2001. Renaming does not show deep understanding of the revision ). But all of that is for another day/blog post.


Let's go back to the 1990s. Computers in classrooms (as opposed to touch devices in classrooms in 2011) were all the rage. So much potential and so much crap. Educational software was the discussion point of too many teacher conferences. And...having followed the #ulearn11 Twitter hashtag over the last three days I have a sinking feeling about the word apps being used in the same way. Too much talk about 'great apps', 'harvesting apps' and 'apps we must have'.


If the hopefully long dead Bailey's Book House and Milly's Maths House have not yet been awakened as zombies from their well-deserved graves by the voodoo priests of the iOS booster gang, then it is sadly not too far away I fear.


The missed opportunity often spoken about by Seymour Papert is well and truly missed when we consider money spent vs. learning gained from the classroom computer. 

I suggest that many 'educational' touch app developers also do not know how to do this. They try to re-create school on a touch device. How many popular touch apps are 'latinesque? or bluntly put schoolesque?  


Now we bounce on to the touch device era without much overt consideration of learning potential (and money already spent). Having touch devices in a school does not equal learning facilitated by touch devices.


I believe that if it offers children nothing up front then it is a great app. My friend Marco Torres often retells his 'oscilloscope anecdote' in his presentations. 

Marco makes an overlooked but important point. Schools need to have devices like iPods and iPads in them because they offer apps like oscilloscopes, decibel meters and voice/video recording tools. All things that offer nothing to a child without skilled teacher input. I want lots of touch devices in our school because they are a means for us to have the tools which we could never afford to have. From musical instruments to science tools, these are the killer apps.

The power of the touch apps is not in the digital regurgitation of flashcards and maths games but in the blank page stuff. A good school art supply room will never be stocked with colouring books and paint by numbers kits. Good school touch devices should mirror that. Produce, don't consume. Explore, don't be shown. If a child can use the app at home then it probably belongs at home (with the colouring-in books and paint by numbers kits). The challenge to myself and others is to make sure the amazing power of touch devices amplifies learning at school rather than baby sitting kids through school.     


But who am I to tell you what to do?


So.... go for it. If you take a look at why you have/want iPods/iPads in your school and if you decide that rote maths and spelling learning in a 'digital' way is for you then buy them. All you have to do is rationalise the expense. I find that many schools who rationalise the expense on the basis of engaging children in maths and spelling apps also have charters and strategic plans which promote higher order thinking and student directed learning. Are these congruent?  


Write this in your charter; We believe in B.F. Skinner's thinking around behaviorism and are investing $XXXXXX.XX in touch devices to allow children to do and have reinforced what we want to teach.
This stuff is great for special needs and IEP kids - go for it. At every Case Conference we can find an app, and probably should do so. 


But is it why you want everyone to have touch device access? Do what you will in your own school, but don't just plan to buy some touch devices because they are the flavour of the month. The 1990s words of Mark Brown come back to me "computers are not inherently good" and neither are touch devices. 


We have been through the painful misunderstood rationale behind the  purchase of classroom computers, then laptops, then interactive whiteboards. Let's not do another round with touch devices.


There is a very real danger that current educational seduction with touch devices will rewind some advances in thinking about the pedagogical role of ICT.


Who is currently doing the big thinking on this? The amazing Dorothy Burt is. Funny how the 'app' and the 'App' have evolved. The Manaiakalani Project is all about, and successful because of, blank pages rather than cute apps made available on tap to her community. 


And a big nod to Chris in Room 22 - a true creative pioneer in the digital forest :)

Full Circle

Rock On Waimairi School.

You did it and you did it so well. My last posting was 10 long weeks ago we left the school all fired up about a term of dance, drama and music. At 8:20 in the morning of the first day of Term Three the school was alive with adults showing the children how a school can become a centre of arts performances. The challenge to all was to create and interpret so that by the end of term our school could become the 'new Arts Centre' of Christchurch.

We did it. Here is the full programme. Our teachers and support staff really did give the children a stunning term of learning and creativity. Our Arts Centre Finale was enjoyed by the whole community. Enough with the words, enjoy the pictures. After ten weeks work the kids are the performers in the same spaces.

Teachers, support staff, children and parents all made for a great term. We LOVE the NZ Curriculum, and in our battered city we loved having an Arts Centre back for a day( complete with with the yummy food stalls).

Arts front and centre

One of the many things I love about our NZ Curriculum is the even and balanced priority we must give to all areas. This term is the time for the arts to be front and centre.

Our school-wide overarching question is 'how can Waimairi School become the new Arts Centre of Christchurch?.

Those of you reading from afar might not know that our city's formerly vibrant and diverse Arts Centre is one of the casualties of the earthquakes. So this term's big question has a special poignancy for us.

Half way through the preceding school term a group of teachers get together to undertake a review on the state of learning and plan the school wide direction for curriculum focus for the upcoming term. This year the arts planning team concluded that our visual arts learning is very good and needs to be maintained but music, drama and dance are the poor relations (in a classroom learning context). So these are our focus areas.

Our localised curriculum, called Learning @ Waimairi requires the careful selection of two verbs from our list which capture the essence of a learning area and need to be amplified. For term three we selected 'creating' and 'interpreting'. This is what the common school-wide learning is this term.

Next comes the individual teachers 'turbo charging' of any achievement objectives they select for the term using SOLO Taxonomy. Kudos to the authors of the arts AOs for arranging them in a very 'SOLO like' way in the first place.

So... with all that important, but potentially dry, planning done it is time to ignite the children's interest, passion and curiosity. If our school is indeed going to be Christchurch's new Arts Centre in ten weeks time then everyone needed a peek at what that might look like.

When children, parents and staff started to trickle in on the first day of term they found every sort of performer going for it everywhere they looked. At the end of the term it will be our children performing in these spaces, they have now been shown what is possible. And we loved the performers.

Looking forward to a great school term and to seeing the children as the performing artists Enjoy the video.

Compare and Contrast

As I have stated in many previous posts, the government is the government and being democratically elected they have the right to implement the policies they see fit. But today my jaw dropped as I saw the launch of the Government Green Paper for Vulnerable Children. Well done Paula Bennett, take a bow.

This is what New Zealand's government law making process used to be like. I love it.

There is a very big issue, the green paper comes out. The stakeholders, the experts and anyone with a strong opinion have a crack at it. Here is the timetable:

Step 1. Child abuse in New Zealand is an identified problem which needs attention so...

Step 2. May-August 2011:

Green Paper developed by a multidisciplinary team of public servants and others.

Advice and peer review provided by a group of academics and scientific experts chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman and a frontline forum including the Children’s Commissioner.

The Green Paper is released by the end of July 2011.

Step 3. August 2011-February 2012 :

Nationwide public consultation Green Paper

Step 4. May-July 2012:

Analysis of consultation.

Development of a White Paper setting out the Children’s Action Plan.

Step 5. August 2012:

Release of White Paper and formal adoption of the Plan.

Compare and contrast the education national standards legislative process.

Step 1. Lack of student achievement in literacy and numeracy is identified as an election issue. In the face of clear data that New Zealand leads the world in these areas.

Step 2. Pass Education Amendment Bill. Under urgency. No select committee consideration, no industry or professional sector consultation, no teacher voice, no parent voice, no university education research voice. That's all folks. Done. Law made.

There is a perverse factor to take into account as you compare and contrast the modes of operation (Minister of Education with the Minister of Social Development) and their degrees of haste. The evidence of child abuse is real and commands immediate action. The evidence of an underperforming education system is harder to find as New Zealand continues to top international performance tables. You would think one deserves parliamentary urgency and the other consultation and careful steps. Sadly it has been reversed.

Actually both issues deserve due process, and enduring and effective solutions require the latter. Well done Paula Bennett for getting back to the way that our country was, and should be governed. You and the cabinet have the ultimate say on what legislation will come out of the process but what you do decide upon will have had some good expert (and every-person) input. Can you pop down the corridor to share your methods with the Minister of Education?