Mental Health Care In Schools

I'm just not so sure that we really want to tack this on to the lengthing list of school responsibilities. At Linda Flanagan's Mind Shift blog, an argument is made for providing mental health treatment within the schools--practitioners on staff. There is little doubt that many students from lower income and urban environments are subject to potentially traumatizing events possibly having a negative effect on the desire and ability to learn. Even a family relocation and new school are emotionally disruptive and require some readjustment. Counseling and therapy may well be in order.

However, schools have already assumed many responsibilities previously reserved to parents: feeding, guiding, disciplining, and providing physical health care, pre-school education, and child care. There is no doubt well-fed, physically and mentally healthy children with parents who actively participate in the learning process will tend to succeed in school. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe mom and dad can be effectively replaced by government, no matter how well-intended. And I just can't stop equating where we are headed with the old Soviet Union's cradle-to-grave state-controlled system. It didn't work there and it frightens me. As what point do parents simply become breeding tools of the state?

Obstacles to K-12 Student Success

In yesterday's post, Diane Ravitch references a survey of the nation's teachers of the year http://dianeravitch.net/2015/05/20/teachers-of-the-year-say-that-family-stress-and-poverty-are-biggest-obstacles/). She quotes Lyndsey Layton in the Washington Post:

The greatest barriers to school success for K-12 students have little to do with anything that goes on in the classroom, according to the nation’s top teachers: It is family stress, followed by poverty, and learning and psychological problems.

So the problem isn't due to "low expectations, bad teachers, teachers’ unions, tenure, seniority, and the need for competition and accountability" (Diane's words). Duh! Any of us who had even the vaguest interest in education knew or suspected this all along. Ah, but Arnie and the states won't go down easily. They will argue that, of course, teachers will deflect blame.

At the end of her blog, Diane asks, "Why don’t Congress and the states listen to the experts?" Yes, why? Members of the medical profession are not held accountable for increasing incidents of cancer, maiming automobile accidents, gunshots wounds, and on and on. Yet we listen to them when they site causes. Lawyers (those practicing law, not those writing laws) are not held accountable for the crime rate, yet we respect their opinions. We don't blame architects for the destruction caused by an earthquake, yet we listen to their ideas on building earthquake resistant structures. Go ahead, name another profession whose members' opinions are at least respected. OK, maybe law enforcement recently but I can't think of another.

The Various Aspects of Educational Technology Support & Integration

There was a time when performing as a Director of Information Technology I realized that educational technology support demands could and should be categorized so as to better prioritize, organize and focus technology staff and efforts. I came up with four distinct categories and a subcategory: 1-the interactive education learning process; 2-the unilateral learning process; 3-technology as a separate content area; and 4-school administration and management. Faculty/staff technology profession development is a subcategory integral of the four categories. These can be readily integrated into the ITIL framework. Note that the focus, while on the institution, does not address the constant back room support required to keep the systems running smoothly.

Faculty/staff technology professional development. I believe that if anything has held back classroom/curriculum technology integration, student self-directed learning and efficient use of school administration and learning management software, it is the insufficiency of technology professional development.  I would encourage establishment of a technology professional development program that took into account the personal situations, learning styles and instructional needs of each teacher/staff member and one that included a teacher/staff/administrator individual learning plan agreement consistent with the school’s mission, goals, objectives and budgetary constraints while maximizing use of internal expertise (technologists and teacher/staff-technology leaders from within teacher learning communities and staff offices). Though research has shown that traditional, workshop-based professional development is ineffective, I would not hesitate to lobby the administration, board and community for additional funding to take advantage of select commercial programs that have a proven track record. A bit of aside gripe coming. Remember when Microsoft Office switched from the traditional menu interface to the "ribbon"? Or when your administrators pushed to change out the teachers' desktops for laptops? Or when the Board decided to implement a one-to-one computing program in the next school year? Yep, the techies were expected to develop change management skills overnight, design appropriate instructional sessions and execute.

Given finite technology resources, the interactive learning process should be the highest priority. Basically, it's all about integrating (infusing, if you must) technology into the teaching-learning dynamic within the classroom. Enough has been written and said by others and me in previous blogs. For now, let's just say that success in this category lies at the confluence of curricular content, constructivist pedagogies, and technology—that the interoperability of these three elements will foster engaged learning and encourage students to accept accountability and responsibility for their own education. Technology support in this category is on ensuring that classroom hardware is available when needed and operates reliably, that required software and apps are installed and functioning properly and that each classroom has reliable access to the network and the Internet. Each classroom should have a primary and alternate method of rapidly reporting issues to the technology department.

More and more emphasis is being placed on the unilateral learning process. This learning process can be defined as one wherein students without the supervision or oversite of, or immediate interaction with, a teacher, school staff member or another student use a digital device while performing learning tasks. Homework is the most common, traditional example. The flipped classroom, one-to-one computing programs and BYOD efforts are placing more emphasis on student self-learning. Whether or not these initiatives are enhancing or will enhance student learning, the tech department is obligated to ensure that the system fully supports the process 24/7. Coming into play here are various compartmentalized servers, interoperative operating system platforms, security and backups, remote access, acceptable use agreements and policies, safety, policies and procedures and I'm sure many more that do not come to mind readily. If students are expected to perform online research, analysis, synthesis, etc. from their own or family computers and the computer or their Internet is not functioning, what then? What if they don't even have access to a computer outside of school? How does the institution accommodate them? If the school provides them, how does a tech department maintain as many as 2,000 tablets? The questions of expense and support are many and complex. If such programs are effective, I believe that the educational gap between the haves and have-nots will continue to grow.

The third category and priority, technology as a separate subject area, seems to have declined in popularity in K-12 schools. The decline in great part is due to perceived student familiarity with common use hardware and software from early ages. At the same time, STEM is being pushed at all levels. And surprisingly, the following is from the Business Insider, September 11, 2014: "This semester, a record-breaking 818 Harvard students — nearly 12% of the entire college — enrolled in one popular class, reports The Crimson. The course, Computer Science 50: "Introduction to Computer Science I" (CS50), pulled in 100 more students than the 700 that signed up last fall, making it the single largest class in the course's 30-year history, as well as the biggest class at Harvard College this semester." Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/most-popular-course-at-harvard-2014-9#ixzz3YMjsSDCt The course has little to do about hardware, instead focusing on such topics as algorithms, software engineering, and web development.  A reasonable prediction is that the success at the higher education level will shortly begin filtering down to at least the high school level. Support for technology courses is very similar to that for the interactive learning process, with the important exception of the addition of a highly technologically proficient teachers. Teacher content expertise and hands-on, project-based learning rules!

Lastly, on the priority scale is school administration and management support. Why last? Simply, it is not as close to the learning process nor nearly as time-sensitive. However, support is more complex involving uncommon software applications such as Blackbaud's suite of applications, one or more of the hundreds of school management, bookkeeping/accounting, curriculum management and mapping, lesson planning, grade book, report card and assessment software packages. Keeping these applications repaired and up-to-date along with the incumbent database and database server administration and management  (both back room and user) takes a huge slice of time, efforts, and budget from the tech department's resources. Not to mention the training required that needs to be scheduled and performed. Sure to take a big chunk out of the tech budget.

What are the desirable personal and professional characteristics of a good manager/supervisor?

A good manager is a manager in the traditional sense:  performs the planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling functions in an acceptable and safe manner.  However, an “excellent” manager is a manager and an excellent leader.  Successful leaders are creative visionaries who develop and pursue goals, objectives and values in a collaborative, communicative, transparent, motivational and cooperative manner while demonstrating that they sincerely care about and respect the stakeholders.  An excellent leader realizes that mission accomplishment and valuing and taking care of people are not a zero sum game but are interdependent.  Leaders can readily extrapolate operational objectives from strategic missions and goals and facilitate accomplishment.  Being visionaries, leaders are not afraid to take calculated risks.  A good manager is reactive; an excellent manager is proactive.  Manager-leaders are experts in their field, lead by example, are team players as well as team leaders and are capable of applying differing leadership styles depending on the nature and urgency of the situation.

instaGrok - a better search/research tool

I've not been a big fan of introducing apps into education that are not readily transferable to life after school. There are exceptions when the apps promote age appropriateness and significantly facilitate the learning process. After an initial review, I believe instaGrok does both especially in a 1:1 program coupled with a partial flipped classroom environment.

www.instagrok.com

What is instaGrok?

instaGrok is an educational Internet search engine and research tool that provides a visual mind map of  themes related to search keywords wherein users can:

• customize the map by drilling down into the mind map and virtually pin web sites, facts, videos and more


• take notes in a  journal and create an instant bibliography (EasyBib)


• self-assess


• share work

Why instaGrok?

Self-discovery & self-learning = skills

• Search becomes research


• Facilitates critical thinking (concept synthesis)


• Enhances writing & vocabulary


• Promotes academic language


• Systems perspective (see the connections)


• Safe – age-appropriate academic web orientation

 



 

 

Tech Integration - A Step-By-Step Process

SAMR



A Google search yields more than a hundred graphical interpretations of SAMR, some as simple as Dr. Puentedura's original concept depicted above to those that appear overwhelmingly complicated.  There are models combining SAMR with TPACK, TPAC with Bloom's Taxonomy and here's one combining SAMR with Bloom's Taxonomy and iPad apps.



Many of these expanded models lend guidance regarding why integration is essential and provide broad nebulous outcome expectations: critical thinking; communications; collaboration; 21st Century skills; problem solving; systems thinking; creativity; innovation; literacy in a multitude of subjects; analyzing, etc.   Is it possible that integrating technology is so complex as to defy a logical procedure? Maybe, but I'd like to give it a shot.

The process described below assumes adequate to superior teacher pedagogical, content, technological, student and curricular knowledge; that the teacher is ready to cross from Enhancement to Transformation; the availability of sufficient hardware, software and technical support staff to support a robust integration program; and that the teacher possesses the abilities to convert knowledge into practice and a desire that students achieve to an identified standard. Could it be that achieving a state as describe by the assumptions is complex and not the process?

1. Is there a need, a shortcoming that needs to be addressed? Examples might include students aren't getting it, students are bored, discussions wane quickly or are captured by a select few or changes in policies or curriculum.


2. Review learning goals and activities in consideration of the available technologies (if class is in session, this is a good student collaborative exercise) relating the advantages and disadvantages of each technology to each of the learning goals and activities. Scaling works well for this analysis. Identify any cross-curricular opportunities. The results of this analysis will facilitate the designing or redesigning of course and lesson instructional strategies.


3. Prepare the classroom: hardware, software, classroom furniture and arrangement.


4. Execute and continually evaluate and revise. Adjustments may be needed in any one or more of the ingredients: pedagogy, learning goals or technology. Beware the Hawthorne effect. Oft times initially the subjects perceive increased attention being paid to them thus producing a significant (maybe unrealistic) enhancement to transformation of performance. Persistent and consistent use will yield real long-term student and teacher change.

Do We Need to Revisit Why Once in a While

The following is the introductory paragraph to Steve Wheeler's 2/28/15 blog (http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2015/02/talking-tech.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FcYWZ+%28Learning+with+%27e%27s%29)"

"Do teachers have a choice about whether to engage with technology? Technology is already so embedded in the fabric of schools, it's probably unavoidable now. Whether it's teacher technology, including wordprocessors, electronic record keeping or databases, or student technology, such as laptops, educational software or personal devices, technology should now be viewed as a set of tools that can be harnessed to extend, enhance and enrich the learning experience. Add the exponential power of the Web into the mix, and the argument becomes compelling. Technology offers us unprecedented opportunities to transform education. The question is not whether teachers should engage with technology, but how."

I believe we may be so far into technology integration (infusion?) that most in education no longer question "whether" or why. As with any program, plan or procedure, technology integration needs a periodic is this worth the time, expense and effort? review. Dr. Puentedura's SAMR model, for example, seems to assume that before student learning is significantly positively impacted the teacher must redesign, or better, create new learning tasks using technology. Is the corollary to that assumption that deep student learning cannot be achieved without technology? Do all courses and classes need to be transformed through technology integration? Would it be possible for students to become successful in the 21st Century and develop a life-long love of learning if, say, only 60% of the their classes were infused with technology and 40% were taught by experienced, determined and engaging teachers who loved their students and subject areas? What about a 20:80 or an 80:20 split? Would any of those be more or less successful than 100% and how would we know?

I would venture to say that the majority of K-12 professional development programs focus on technology integration rather than pedagogy in general and that most are of the workshop model, a method shown repeatedly to produce poor results. As with the multitude of teaching strategies, methods, and skills technology is just one tool. PD programs need to be planned and orchestrated through learning communities, teacher facilitated, focused on method implementation and targeted toward individual teacher needs. This means one-to-one or very small group sessions and whole lot of classroom coaching and mentoring.