I recently saw this bit on the Colbert Report...it would be funnier if it weren’t accurately reporting something that is actually happening. It is unbelievable to me that we, as a society, choose to medicate (meducate) instead of challenging the system and fixing the problem.
My goal is to fix the problem. I need your help! It is possible to personalize education for every child. It is possible to help children find their passion in learning without drugging them. Help me to make this a reality! Medicating children to get them through school can’t be the answer. The Learning Genome Project.
Excerpt from “Attention Disorder or Not, Pills to Help in School”
by Alan Schwarz New York Times, page 1, October 9, 2012
When (American paediatrician) Dr. Michael Anderson hears about his low-income patients struggling in elementary school, he usually gives them a taste of some powerful medicine: Adderall (a mixture of four amphetamine salts1)…
Although A.D.H.D is the diagnosis Dr. Anderson makes, he calls the disorder “made up” and “an excuse” to prescribe the pills to treat what he considers the children’s true ill — poor academic performance in inadequate schools. “I don’t have a whole lot of choice…We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid.”…
Dr. Anderson’s instinct, he said, is that of a “social justice thinker” who is “evening the scales a little bit.” He said that the children he sees with academic problems are essentially “mismatched with their environment” — square pegs chafing the round holes of public education…
About 9.5 percent of Americans ages 4 to 17 were judged to have it (ADHD) in 2007, or about 5.4 million children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention2…
According to guidelines published last year by the American Academy of Pediatrics, physicians should use one of several behavior rating scales, some of which feature dozens of categories, to make sure that a child not only fits criteria for A.D.H.D., but also has no related condition like dyslexia or oppositional defiant disorder, in which intense anger is directed toward authority figures. However, a 2010 study in the Journal of Attention Disorders suggested that at least 20 percent of doctors said they did not follow this protocol when making their A.D.H.D. diagnoses, with many of them following personal instinct…
Dr. Anderson said (ADHD diagnostic criteria)…were codified only to “make something completely subjective look objective.”…
“This is my whole angst about the thing,” Dr. Anderson said. “We put a label on something that isn’t binary — you have it or you don’t. We won’t just say that there is a student who has problems in school, problems at home, and probably, according to the doctor with agreement of the parents, will try medical treatment.”
He added, “We might not know the long-term effects, but we do know the short-term costs of school failure, which are real. I am looking to the individual person and where they are right now. I am the doctor for the patient, not for society.”
Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Rod Berger of RANDA solutions for The Core of Education podcast. We had a great chat about education reform, personalizing education and a bit about my personal journey in education. You can listen to the 20 minute podcast here: The Core of Education.
What it is: History Pin is a really neat website that lets students (and anyone) electronically “pin” historical pictures, videos, audio clips, and stories to a digital globe. There are three main ways to use History Pin: exploring it, adding to it, or curating things on it. History Pin has some great collections and tours that have already been created that can be used in the classroom. Collections bring together content around a theme. Students can explore collections or create one of their own. With a Tour, students can go step-by-step through content, a story, explore a place or walk through time.
How to integrate History Pin into the classroom: History Pin is a neat place for students to learn about history. They can see history through pictures, video and stories submitted by people around the world. History Pin is also a fantastic place for students to demonstrate learning. They can add pins, create collections or tours around their learning. In many states in the US, students have standards that are related to learning about the state history. In Colorado, this is true of our 4th grade students. History pin is a great place for them to demonstrate their learning of their own state. The best part? This learning can be viewed and used by others all over the world. Our students get really excited about sharing their learning when they become the “experts”. History Pin lets them be the experts. Way cool!
Depending on which Collections and Tours your students engage in, there are great opportunities for incorporating other subjects. Our students enjoy comparing statistics from history with statistics of today. They are really enjoying knowing how to use ratios these days!
I love the way that Geography is so ingrained in History Pin. Students can easily see (and track) where history occurred in the world. This helps students understand how movements, revolutions, immigration happen as a result of geography.
Tips: Be sure to check out the school channel on History Pin.
Leave a comment and tell us how you are using History Pin in your classroom.
*** If you need the cliff notes version of this post, skip down to the Call to Action section!
Last year I had a “hunch” about learning…specifically about curriculum. That hunch turned into a full fledged idea and a mission to do better for kids. Everywhere. Along the line I met some truly incredible people who taught me things I didn’t know how to do before. Like wire framing (thanks @ianchia), and pitching ideas (thanks @houseofgenius), and how to go about picking up programmers (thanks @toma_bedolla). Now I’m ready to share the culmination of all this work with you.
This isn’t just a post to tell you about what I’m doing, it is a call to action for everyone (yes, even you). It is a request for you to join me in this mission in whatever form that may take.
I have a vision: to make personalized learning a reality for EVERY child.
I know, it is big. It is also doable.
For those who are new to following me, here was my original “hunch” written on my other blog, Dreams of Education:
“The problem with curriculum and textbooks is that they complete thoughts. Curriculum and textbooks give the impression that learning has an end. That when you have made it from cover to cover, the job is done. I know in my own schooling this was true, I thought that school was teaching me what was important and that anything outside of the curriculum wasn’t important or relevant to my life…wouldn’t they have included it otherwise? How did curriculum get this way? Well, people realized that there was no possible way to cover every facet of learning, so they stripped it down to what they thought was important. The problem? What is important to you may not be what is important to me. What’s more, something that is very important to me may have been cut all together so I don’t even get the chance to know that it is important to me. Humans tend to like things that are definable, we like things that we can put into a neat, orderly box and carry out in a predictable way. It feels safe and manageable. This is what led me to the following hunch:
What if curriculum was more flexible? What if curriculum/schools/learning looked more like Pandora. If you aren’t familiar with Pandora, it is an online radio station that plays the music that it thinks you will like. You type in an artist or song and it creates a customized radio station just for you. It is remarkably accurate. Pandora almost never gets it wrong for me. It is like they have a direct line to my brain and can predict what song I would like to hear next. When it is wrong, I can give the song a thumbs down and it apologizes profusely for the error and promises never to play that song again on my station. The other thing I love about Pandora: I can have multiple radio stations. Because sometimes I really couldn’t think of anything in the world better than Frank, Dean, and Sammy; but other times I also want a little Timberlake, Whitestripes, or Bangles. What if curriculum looked like that? What if learning happened as a result of typing in one subject or topic that a student was enamored with and a completely personalize learning journey began playing out for them? What if students were led through a journey that was completely customized? What if they had several stations mapped out for them?”
I believe this is possible. I believe it is within our reach to create a completely personalized learning experience to every unique child. I believe that we can honor humanity instead of treating our kids like widgets in a factory. I believe that teachers should be teachers, focused on the needs and development of the child instead of teaching the masses through scripted curriculum.
The Learning Genome Project will empower teachers and parents to become engineers of learning by providing each individual student the exact content they need, at the exact moment they need it. The Learning Genome will enable students to explore the process of inquiry, experimentation, discovery and problem solving. Instead of learning how to pass the next test, we will enable students to construct meaning and learn how to transfer that meaning to new life context. At the hub, the Learning Genome is a platform that aggregates resources and, using a series of algorithms, provide recommendations of the BEST resources to meet the individual learning needs of a specific child. The Learning Genome creates those serendipitous moments of finding just the right learning tool to meet the needs of children at the right time.
Much like Pandora finds that perfect piece of music, the Learning Genome will find the perfect piece of learning material to aid the student in learning. The key to the Learning Genome’s success is crowd sourcing. I will be drawing on educators around the world (that’s you!) to help me tag curriculum, books, lessons, videos, apps, websites and other educational content. This collection of tagged content lives in the centralized “cloud” and wil allow users around the world to find and access materials that best suit student needs. By gathering information about the individual student’s learning style preferences, multiple intelligence strengths, social/emotional levels, interests and passion, the Learning Genome can help teachers to create customized learning maps for each individual. This portion will be free. Every child deserves a unique learning experience.
In addition to the Learning Genome Hub (the aggregate), the site will include a complete Student Information System, planning tools, e-portfolios, e-learning, individual learning plans, assessment and blogging tools. All of these will work seamlessly together for you go-to for learning and planning.
4. Tweet about this project…a lot. Let’s completely take over the Internet with tweets about the Learning Genome and taking over education for kids! Please make sure to link back to the indiegogo campaign so that others can learn about it! Use the hashtag #standagain (because after all, we are helping children “stand again” in their learning)
6. Mention us on Facebook and like us on Facebook!
7. Did I mention spread the word? Seriously, that is SO helpful! You never know who might see that tweet and drop a couple thousand (or more) to make this project go!
8. Time is of the essence. I have 40 days starting NOW to make this happen. eeek! I need your help!
So, what are the perks to helping with this project?
$5 gets your name on the Learning Genome Change Makers page. You are changing education. That makes you a big deal. I want everyone to know what a big deal you are! I know many of you don’t think that your $5 can do anything. Wrong. According to my cluster map, I have hundreds of thousands of visits to this blog. If each of you pitches in…we all win fast!
$10 Remember all those cool Bloom’s Taxonomy posters I made? This campaign is now the ONLY place you can get them. These are 8.5″ x 11″ versions of the poster.
$30 Learning Genome beta tester. You get the inside scoop and ability to play before ANYONE else. I know, pretty cool.
$60 EXCLUSIVE A full size large-format print of my Bloomin’ Peacock mailed to you. That awesome little Peacock looks even better large. Did I mention this is the ONLY place you will get a big version of this?
$500 Even more EXCLUSIVE you get all of my Bloom’s re-imagine posters in the large format. Perfect for your classroom, library or as a gift to your favorite teachers.
$1000 My Searching for daVinci webinar for your school. What better way to spend your professional development dollars than learning how to create a daVinci like culture of learning at your school? Worth it!
$5000 For my corporate friends who want to see their logo in lights as a company that supports education and changing the world. If you have an education company, The Learning Genome Project will be the place to be seen.
We have $85,000 to raise. It sounds like a big number. We can do it together. I figured if I am going to lean on crowdsourcing to transform education, the funding should be crowdsourced too. How awesome will it be to join together as an education community to say, together we transformed the way learning is done. We changed things for every child in the world. Yeah, it’s big.
What it is: Goal Book is a platform, currently in beta, that helps educators come together to create and track student goals. The interface is very Facebookesq in feel. Teachers can create and track student goals from within Goal Book, sharing those goals with any other team member that works with the student. Each time a goal or progress of a goal gets updated, the entire team that works with a student is updated. Educators can keep each other updated with progress of goals, celebrate students, and share messages in Goal Book. In addition to updating educators, parents are now in the center of the conversation. They can see all progress, communicate with the education team that works with their child, celebrate successes and send private messages from within Goal Book.
How to integrate Goal Book into the classroom:Goal Book is a fantastic way to keep every part of an education team up to date with IEP goals and progress. No more keeping track of email threads, assuming someone else is taking care of a particular portion of the goals, or wondering what progress a student has made with another team member. Goal Book brings all communication to one, easy to manage place. I like that teams are fluid in Goal Book. Here, the assumption isn’t made that every student has the same group of educators working on their goals. The students you have input in are listed in one place and the team members associated with that student show up as well.
Goal Book isn’t just for students with IEP’s, all students benefit from creating and tracking learning goals! Ask your students to think of a goal they would like to make for themselves for the semester/quarter/trimester in each discipline. Record the goals and progress with students throughout the semester/quarter/trimester. Celebrate with students when they have reached their goals and share these with parents.
At Anastasis Academy, we hold parent/teacher/student conferences at the beginning of each block. We call this conference “Meeting of the Minds”. This is a time where parent, teacher and student come together to write learning goals for the upcoming block based on the progress that was made the previous block. Students play a big part in creating their learning goals. One thing I would like to see from Goal Book is the ability to include students in the goal making/tracking process. It is important to include students in the planning and tracking of THEIR learning goals. Kids have to have ownership in their learning!
Tips: The Goal Book blog is worth subscribing to and following if you plan to use Goal Book at your school or in your classroom. The blog will keep you up-to-date with the latest updates and information about Goal Book.
Please leave a comment and share how you are using Goal Book in your classroom!
