21st Century Teaching and Learning

I regularly hear 21^st Century Learning referred  to as learning a lot of technology, a big term saying that I need to know a lot of apps.  However, this isn’t a definition I choose.  Those technologies are important, as are those apps.  But if we are to keep up, learn the newest programs, adapt to the next big paradigm shifts, then the most important areas of learning are the foundational skills that we will need.  Learning the newest programs serves me well until I am no longer someone’s student. At that point, what I need is the ability to teach myself, to discern what I do and do not need to know and how and when I need to apply my learning.  I need to develop and choose the techniques best suited to solve the problems I will face in my life.  And if the new reality is that I will work in several different jobs and fields, then any job specific skill set is less useful than the skills to help myself transition to my next career.

 

And so it is that the new reality, in so far as it exists or will exist, is best served by students who have highly developed critical & creative thinking skills.  These students can teach themselves the newest tools and apply them with skill and meaning.  Students who can pose and solve problems will navigate change with success.  Students who understand their place in the world of technology, in the social world and in the natural world, and who can think and make informed choices to shape the best future possible.

 

In selecting these topics, it is inevitable that there will be objections about the 3 Rs and how more time spent on other topics lessens the English or Mathematics learning of our children.  I disagree.  If we look at the broader areas of literacy and numeracy, we find critical thinking and problem solving as essential skills.  A quick look at my school’s OSSLT results from the past years shows that our literacy is most fettered by students struggling to make connections and use high-level thinking skills.  Teaching critical thinking might address this deficit.  On the math EQAO, we suffer most in questions related to solving problems and that fall under the thinking/inquiry category of the achievement chart.  We’d be better mathematicians, and certainly more numerate if we were better thinkers.  In both tests, students do fairly well in their recall of knowledge and facts.  We don’t need kids with more facts, we don’t even need kids who know where to find more facts. We need kids who know why they need to know something, what kind of facts they need, where to find them, how to connect them and what limits the information they gather may have.  We need kids who can face the environmental and political crises that they inherit from us.  That’s what I believe will lead to success in the 21^st century.  It’s what I want for my own children.

 

This post in part of a blog hop on 21st century learning.  Please see the other entries here: 

Susan Campo @susancampo

Jim Cash @cashjim

Shivonne Lewis-­‐Young @SLewisYoung

Greg Pearson @vptechnodork

Phil Young @_PhilYoung

James Nunes @jameseliasnunes

Donald Campbell @libramlad

Ken Dewar Bestbefore2030

Graham Whisen @grahamwhisen

Lynn Filliter @assessmentgeek

Debbie Axiak @DebbieAxiak

Alicia Quennell @AliciaQuennell

Jonathan So @MrSoClassroom

Jim Blackwood @jimmyblackwood

Jason Richea @jrichea

Tina Zita @Xna_zita

Attention Deficit and Nature Deficit Disorder

I’m often struck by how much two areas of my educational work overlap: working with students at-risk and “greening” schoolyards and parks. The connection may lie in a psychological connection between humans and their environment as suggested by Richard Louv and Attention Restoration Theory researchers.  This connection is a topic I’d like to explore further since in my classroom, connecting with nature is often the key to connecting with students at-risk.

In Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv suggests that a variety of factors have lead most of us to exist in a state of “Nature Deficit Disorder” (NDD).  This can be traced back to both a decrease in time spent outside as well as a decrease in the availability of nature when we are outside.  Some of the key culprits are new technology, changes to parenting practices and rapid development.  The idea is that NDD exists in relation to biophilia, the human innate love of nature.  NDD is the disorder that occurs when we are not able to fulfil the basic needs of our biophillic selves.  As with any disorder, there are troublesome symptoms which can include depression, attention problems, obesity and academic performance.

 

I first learned about the science behind this connection in a 2013 townhall put on by the David Suzuki Foundation which featured Richard Louv. However, the connection between ADHD and NDD was much earlier made in a 2004 University of Illinois study which states, “Overall, our findings indicate that exposure to ordinary natural settings in the course of common after-school and weekend activities may be widely effective in reducing attention deficit symptoms in children.”  This makes sense in terms of pedagogy too: Visible Learning tells us that the effect of outdoor education is greater than that of most other strategies.  In fact, the longer kids get outside and the younger they start, the more effective the outcomes.  While these terms and studies may be new to us, the reality is not – we know that getting many of our hard-to-serve students outside can yield great results.  Sometimes this can be about the chance to run around, something that can also happen inside, but how often do we also talk about the kids needing some “fresh air?”

For my suburban students, fresh air is important, but it’s part of something bigger. This year when I took my Credit Recovery class out to remove invasive species in their local park, I witnessed many transformations. Students diagnosed with ADHD, some of whom have been quite oppositional and face numerous challenges in school, became engaged learners.   They worked hard, they were even leaders, encouraging others toward the goal of a healthy park and ecosystem.  I just can’t stress enough how much of a change this was.  The work may have been fun, but real learning was required and the work could become strenuous.  Still, the great news was that the kids responded and that this transformation even lasted for days afterward.  It was as if the students had received their nature booster shot, which continued to inoculate them against the mental effects of their suburban sprawl surroundings for several days.  This is about a lot more than some fresh air.

Teachers know that transformative experiences require a lot of things working together and a little luck. In the case above, doing something that matters in the real world combined with time in nature and perhaps some solid instruction and a good teacher relationship was that magical formula.  And, as delightful as it was, it wasn’t a surprise.  My department has been using nature in a variety of circumstances in transformative ways with our Credit Recovery students. As well, BEAR, a specialized program in my department for unattached students who are highly at-risk, used a variety of reasons, used environmental and recreational activities in nature to foster huge transformations that we were able to measure in terms of improved marks, attendance, attachment and empathy.

On a more personal note, I also notice that I can focus better in nature or after spending time in nature. My primary aged children can focus for a very long time on an insect or hunting for pinecones.  A friend of mine, who worried about her daughter potentially having ADHD also knows that she can focus seemingly forever on catching frogs or picking serviceberries.  It’s as if many of the distractions melt away when immersed in nature.  Or rather, our distractability melts away.

In both my personal life and my professional life, I’ve become convinced that nature is an important part of helping students learn and grow. For me this adds urgency to my work partnering with the city to improve local parks and, not only greening my schoolyard but doing that greening in a way that creates inviting spaces for students to benefit from being in nature.