Why do you want to learn to play the mandolin?

It was time to learn something new. That was my mindset when I signed up for mandolin lessons at Earful of Fiddle Camp. Even though I have had some musical training (piano and flute), I knew learning to play a stringed instrument was going to be a challenge. So I spent last week swatting mosquitoes and strumming strings, all so I might someday call myself a mandolin player.

Laurel and Michael
of Red Tail Ring

Oh, and as the sign says, we also got to listen to some old time music. On Tuesday, Red Tail Ring taught a workshop on harmony in the afternoon and put on a concert that night. Afterward, I asked Michael (he played the mandolin on a few songs) if he ever gave lessons. He said, "Yes." And then, perhaps noticing my age, he asked, "Why do you want to learn to play the mandolin? What are your goals?"


I responded, "Don't worry, I'm not looking to replace you." He laughed, but I could see that he was serious about knowing my musical aspirations. Perhaps his instructional approach would depend upon what I wanted to accomplish.

"I'm struggling with my fingering."

He asked, "You mean your fingers are tender?"

"They are," I said looking at the blisters on my fingertips, "but I mean creating a clean sound when I play."

He explained that the two were related. Once calluses formed, I'd be able to press on the strings with more commitment. However, we still hadn't addressed the original questions. He tried again, "Who do you want to play with or for?"

Now I got it. "Mostly with my family. My wife and son-in-law are here, too. You know, like around the campfire. Oh, and I'd like to be able to play for my grandson; songs like Puff the Magic Dragon and Itsy-Bitsy Spider." This made sense to him and we made arrangements to connect later in the summer to arrange some lessons.

At the end of the week, campers perform for the rest of the camp, friends, and family in an event called, Earful of Idol. When the group I played with finished our song, I was reminded of my conversation with Michael. I had been miserable most of the day trying to memorize the song. During the performance, I only played about half of the notes, and only half of those at the right time. My "bandmates" picked up the slack and the audience was generous with their applause, but I was ready to quit mandolin. There was no point continuing if I wasn't enjoying it.

That's when Michael's question hit me, "Why do you want to learn to play mandolin?" My purpose for picking up the mandolin was to have fun with my family. It wasn't to perform in front of strangers. Even the best audience couldn't hold a candle to this guy.

Vance wants more cowbell!

Maybe I'll be grateful I played at Earful of Idol someday - maybe not. (I do not subscribe to the "someday, you'll thank me" school of teaching.) At the very least, I gained empathy for students who "quit" math because the effort does not seem worth the experience. Whether it's music or math, learners need to find their own purpose in order to stay engaged in learning.

What did you learn?

Another day of classes canceled. That's two this semester, or one-fourteenth of our face-to-face meeting time. Immediately, I began considering ways to make up this precious time but then I began to see the Twitter complaints of some of my students who were getting extra assignments from their other professors. This isn't intended to be a criticism of either my students or my colleagues - just an observation. And it raises the question: what do I want my students to learn from my class?

It was a question that I was recently discussing with another professor who is also teaching preservice elementary teachers. We came to the conclusion that, if we are honest, much of the content (mathematical and pedagogical) in our course does not last until our students have their own classrooms; this is both horrifying and freeing. I try to concentrate on the the freeing. Although we have content proscribed by a common syllabus, we can take the advice of Mike Schmoker and Focus on what we think is important. I want to make the most of the limited time we have together by focusing on building the capacity to learn new things and the desire to do so.

And then I found out Pete Seeger died, and in all the tributes I was reminded of his song, What Did You Learn in School Today?

It is not enough for me to identify what I want my students to learn, I also need to be aware of what they are actually learning. In the song, the hidden curriculum, intentional or not, is made visible and the possible consequence made implicit. While I never want my students to non-critically consume content, unintended consequence to my instructional actions always need to be considered. I might have designed what I thought was the perfect experience to replace today's missed class. However, the result might have been a blow to my efforts to foster a positive affect toward learning how to teach math.

I guess I can live with the choice to let today's learning be in the hands of the learner.

Will this be on the test?

Sure, I can be smug when it comes to assessment. In my defense, I have been considering different ways to assess learning for over twenty years. Much of this work has involved using alternative assessments, but I am not above using more traditional approaches, like tests, especially when they involve some twist. 

Because of the negative associations many students have with math tests, I try to make it clear that my tests are used to support learning. Each test is merely a benchmark that monitors our progress toward established learning goals. We use the results to determine what we can do and what needs more practice. Yes, at some point a grade gets put in the books, but there is no need to worry until that time comes.

That is what I tell them, but often this is what they hear:

In case you are unfamiliar with Game of Thrones, some context.

So, it's no surprise when I start hearing this (of course I add the last bit in my head):

I understand that this is a conditioned response. At some point it worked; it made it easier to decide what to memorize in order to get a good grade. However, I want learners to decide for themselves what's worth remembering and to consider ways to make that learning last beyond the test.

So here's how I want to respond from now on (turns out I'm smug and snarky - who knew?)

Does it make you more curious about the material?

Are you likely to try to learn more about the topic on your own?

Would you consider putting the ideas in a concept map in order to make connections?

Can you see yourself discussing the subject with others in order to talk your way to understanding?

Might you examine your thinking in light of the information and consider refining it?

In all seriousness, I recognize test-anxiety as a real issue among many of my students - an unintended consequence of high-stakes testing in the past. I hope my efforts at humor do not come across as flippant. My goal is to reframe "Will this be on the test?" as an opportunity to examine alternatives to the binge-and-purge approach to studying. Because if I am satisfied with learning that leaves instead of learning that lasts, then why even bother?

Did you watch TEACH?

Friday night I watched the documentary TEACH with two other educators. Dad taught high school math and science for over three decades. My wife was an elementary teacher for 15 years. I taught middle school math and computers for seven-and-a-half years, making me the least experienced of the bunch, but we could all empathize with the stories being told.

And that seemed to be the point - to elicit emotions from the viewers. From the film's website:

Davis Guggenheim's award-winning documentary reveals the human side of the story: showing what it takes to survive the first year teaching in America's toughest schools. (emphasis mine)

Based on many of the Tweets posted to #TEACH, the movie accomplished its goal and touched many of those who watched.

It is important to recognize this as Mr. Guggenheim's vision for the film and understand that it must have influenced how he edited his footage. Just as a director who is adapting a book for a movie must consider what to keep and what to cut, Mr. Guggenheim could not hope to communicate the complexities of teaching in 35 minutes. Consequently, he presents a picture of teaching that diminishes the importance of certain aspects of the practice in order to focus on the teachers' stories.

I started this blog as a way to chronicle my teaching practice. In particular, I wanted to focus on the framework known as the Teaching-Learning Cycle. To Mr. Guggenheim's credit, his documentary acknowledges each of the Cycle's phases. However, it gives too much attention to assessment. Here are some examples:

• Several scenes where teachers and administrators wait by Scantron machines for testing results;
• A teacher expressing her concern about whether the test will "validate" her efforts; and
• Another teacher sharing her frustration that students were bubbling in the wrong answers when they should have known better.

Given the current national obsession with test scores, it is understandable why assessment became the focus of the film. However, it is also important to see how the assessments added tension to the storytelling. We want to find out, "Will the students pass the big test?"

While this plot device was effective in driving the stories in TEACH (see also Stand and Deliver and Lean on Me), it is unnecessary. As Kathy said, then Tweeted, at the end of the film:

As I recall, these themes have been successful in many other stories.

Part of the problem is that the assessment storyline is also taking over the current education reform narrative. The intent again seems to be to create unnecessary tension to manipulate people's emotions. My concern is that we are being swept up in that emotion, thereby, attending solely to teaching and testing while diminishing what's really important - learning.

Whose learning?

The following is a guest post from John Golden. Go Blue!

+++++

I was a terrible student.

I make this confession to my students all the time. When I finished undergraduate, my friends calculated whether I had attended more class, missed more class, or slept in more class. It was close. But I was a great test taker and I got good grades. I thought that class was all about what I did at home afterwards. I had no expectations of learning in class, and was delighted when I did. (From Dr. Hocking, for example.)

So I was a terrible student, but I was a good learner.

When I started teaching I focused on being entertaining and comfortable. I wanted students to enjoy being there, free to ask questions (it didn’t take too long to figure out that this was hard) and get what they wanted. But even with the ineffective assessments I was giving, it soon became clear that they weren’t understanding what I wanted them to understand.

Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast and was struck by how well the speaker captured this idea. It was Avery (@woutgeo) on Ashli’s (@Mythagon) Infinite Tangents podcast (105).

“At the beginning of my teaching I was very content focused. I need to find and create interesting content that will help the kids, that the kids will be really interested in. I had no middling success with that. I think I found some great things, and also found some other things that didn’t work and I found that teaching some of the important ideas were harder than I thought they would be.  I realized that there were plenty of ideas that I didn’t really understand myself, that I had to go back and think about a lot.  I think going back and thinking about those ideas really helped me shift a little bit to not just caring about trying to find interesting content.  But also thinking about pedagogy and how we teach things and the best ways for kids to learn.  If I had to think of an arc of my teaching career and my focus, I would say that that kind of describes my arc of going from being very content-focused to a balance between finding interesting content and also really thinking about the best way for kids to learn the content and have an experience.” – Avery

I mentioned that on Twitter and there was an interesting discussion that followed.

Shawn Urban (@stefras): Most teachers are great with content; some with relationships. The marriage of the two is often tricky.

Greg ‏(@sarcasymptote): I think the relationship piece is about trust. Young Ts fear giving up control of content to Ss

Ashli (@mythagon): I'd like to see more mentoring in teaching. Not enough time is built in for such work typically.

Shawn: I agee. Teacher prep should involve teaching & study of styles of teaching. We need models to inspire creativ

John (@mathhombre) we put a lot of effort into genuine assessment and conversation about learning. But the programming of 16 yrs...

Shawn: ... this Tweet seems incomplete. I was waiting for something mind-blowing! No pressure though.

John: we've seen so much teaching as student that we've made up what teaching is and really internalized it.

John: but it's such an incomplete picture! (And possibly not the most constructive teaching.)

Ashli:  I think it takes careful, respectful questioning to get new teachers to see beyond content.

John: @Mythagon can you say more about that questioning?

Shawn: I wonder if Ashli was refering to key questions. Why are you teaching? What do you want your students to be learning?

Ashli: I was thinking about ?s that help teachers think beyond pure delivery of content and toward formative

Ashli: + assessments, status issues. yr 1 can be a whirlwind of survival

Shawn: I thought so. Deeper, more reflective pedagogical questions.

Chris Robinson ‏(@absvalteaching): Best question any T can have while planning is "What misconceptions/mistakes will Ss have and +

Chris: + how do I plan to address these?"

Shawn: I agee. Teacher prep should involve teaching & study of styles of teaching. We need models to inspire creativ

Shawn: I think we need frequent exposure in how students learn. This is key since their learning is our job.

Shawn: When did we make teaching so complex that we forgot to teach? Even r students r distracted & forget to learn

Gary ‏(@republicofmath): IMO teaching IS very complex

Ashli: Schools can easily become a memorization gauntlet.

Great conversation about teacher learning for me.

One of the things I have grown to love about teaching is how holistic it is. When I reflect about how I learn, even learn to teach, it teaches me about how students learn. As a teacher I have to make that step to thinking about how the students learn. The kernel at the heart of this for me is a humbling one:

I can not make my students learn.

That means I can not take credit for what they understand, nor blame for what they don’t.

What can I do then? I can create the conditions of learning. I can make it as likely as possible that students will choose to learn. I can monitor what works for them and adjust. Once I care about the things I do control, I am empowered. Still frustrated at the choices some students make, but thrilled at what others do.

PS> Not that I wouldn’t be happy to have a post on the DeltaScape, but I lost a bet. I knew it was a bad bet - which of our Big Ten alma maters would go farther in the 2013 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. I didn’t think my beloved Spartans would make it past Duke. But frankly, I thought this post would be on Robert’s Casting Out Hoosiers blog. (Wait - that doesn’t sound right.) But, sadly, I haven’t learned my lesson, and would make the same bet next year.