Showcasing students work...Is it time to rethink the focus of schools?

Once again this summer, I am blessed to have the opportunity to travel to a couple of national conventions/conferences.  As such, the wheels of thought are spinning as I have had the opportunity to engage in great conversation with our schools leaders as well as witness some presentations and showcases that humble me in my own work as an educator.  I am eternally grateful to the #CozadMakers schools system for believing in my work and investing in my professional development, so that I can work to enrich the experience our students have at Cozad Community Schools

The first of these conference has been the Skills USA National convention in Louisville Kentucky.  Sixteen thousand attendees have gathered to watch students engage in an authentic showcasing of their technical skills across the spectrum of vocational, technical, and academic areas.  Students from high school and post-secondary institutions across the country have earned the right to compete and showcase their skills in every competition from industrial technology to robotics to health care and beyond under one roof at the Kentucky Exposition Center.  A national champion will be crowned in every competition, scholarships and prize winnings will follow, along with job offers from America's leaders in every industry as they jockey to secure the next Michael Jordan of their field.

Don't be fooled that these vocational competitions are for the 'other' kids.  These are the best and brightest in schools across the United States.  The worlds demand for workers with the skills to apply the theory they learn in academic settings is insatiable.  The world  needs people who can perform.  Their earning potential in many cases is higher than those who work in what are typically seen as the 'prestigious' jobs in America.

Unfortunately today, schools and our society seem to think that career and technical education is the 'ugly duckling' of education.  These STEM opportunities, may be receiving a great deal of press due to the buzzword phenomenon, but few schools are taking the leap to make these new programs the common occurrence as opposed to being the rarity in new program implementation.

So why is that so?  Why are schools so remiss in putting these CTE classes and programs as their flagship?  Why are we resistant to the experiences that are driving growth and innovation in the world?  Tom Whitby (@TomWhitby), an educational leader, blogger and 34 year veteran of education published a blog today, where he proposed an answer to all these questions: Because innovation is change, and we are afraid of change.  

To focus on career and technical education, in the same way we focus on the core areas, would be to change from what we have done for decades in education.  It would be to resist the forces that are mandating standardization and quantification in education.  It would require that we admit education can be done differently and it can be better.

After this week at Skills USA National Convention, I can assure you that I will be bringing some new ideas back to my alma mater where I work.  A few of the thoughts and questions I will work on finding answers to are:

• Lets rethink the course offerings we have as a school.  They nearly identical to the classes we offered 20 years ago when I was a student.
• Can we envision a school where we tap into the hidden genius in EVERY student?
• What opportunities can we offer our students by partnering with our business community that engage students in real world learning and application of skills and knowledge?
• If we believe that the word FAIL stands for First Attempt In Learning, then lets not be afraid to try something new and Bobbi, thanks for the reply. The booking reference is one that I ready a few years ago and I agree it's a great book. Your question at the end of what you do to turn those teachers around her still reluctant to change, in my opinion focuses on the concept of creating the shared vision. Once you have that  thanks for the reply. The booking reference is one that I ready a few years ago and I agree it's a great book. Your question at the end of what you do to turn those teachers around her still reluctant to change, in my opinion focuses on the concept of creating the shared vision. Once you have that 

It is easy to sit behind the keys of a blog and post these thoughts.  It is another to delve into the muddy waters and work to find a solution.  I can assure you, that I am vested in what is best for our students.  I can assure you, that I will never be satisfied with good enough.  I can assure you that as I watched the best and brightest in the nation competing here at Skills USA, I was pompous enough to believe that our students could be on this national stage.  I was confident enough in our teachers to believe with a focused and shared vision, we could be the best in the nation.

I am excited to head out to ISTE in Philadelphia Saturday and continue my journey to answer the existential call to improve the great education our students at Cozad receive.  I look forward to once again learning with my fellow #CozadMakers teachers.  I look forward to the great ideas that arise, the hard questions we will have to ask ourselves that will follow, and heart and soul of work that it will take to make things great.

There are two quotes I think about often.  The first one is one that is also a favorite of great friend Jed Droge (@ibejed)

The second one is a quote I use while with athletes as a coach.


I am excited to see the #CozadMakers teachers, students and community join me in moving from good to great and making our better best!

Strengthening the 'Community' in Cozad Community Schools

A couple of years ago our district changed its name from Cozad City Schools to Cozad Community Schools.  This was prompted by the closing of our rural schools whose attendance had declined.  For those of us who have always worked in the city (I use that term loosely as our population is just over 4000), we didn't notice much change other than the name.  However, this year many of the new initiatives we are unveiling are touching on this theme of putting the 'Community' into our school.

It is an exciting time to work in our district.  We have always had a very strong educational system here that has been well supported by our community.  In my tenure here, we had not been proactive in forming new partnerships to increase educational opportunities for students.  Maybe this was due to the standards and assessment movement gaining steam or from complacency.  Neither of which are good reasons.  As the winds of change  have began to blow, our school started to realize that we had student needs that were going unmet.  Not in the traditional academic way, but in the real world skill sets they would be required to demonstrate after graduation.  Some of those skill sets are soft skills, and others are the certifications and connections they will need to have a leg up on the competition in this global economy.

Enter the 'Community' in our school.  This fall we began discussions about ways to improve the relations with our community to gain support for new projects.  The logical conclusion was to invite the community into the schools to share with them what we are doing and ask for some feedback of what we could do better.  Through this process of engaging some of our community members, we made the decision to look into partnering with businesses to help us prepare our kids for the real world with more than just a diploma.  For the backstory on the declining value of a high school diploma, see my previous blog post by clicking here.

The first step
The first partnership was to approach the Cozad Community Health System and Central Community College to be able to offer a Certified Nursing Assistant class to our students.  Lyle Davis, the hospital administrator and Central Community College have always been very willing partners and have offered great support to Cozad Community Schools.  With a little legwork, several phone calls and a couple of meetings, I am proud to say that we have twelve students who are working through the CNA course and will earn their state certification this semester.

This first win, helped us overcome the inertia of complacency.  Our next partnership was with the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture, part of the University of Nebraska System.  Utilizing our Dawson Area Development coordinator, who was previously an employee at NCTA, we brainstormed a 'wish list' of ideas and then approached NCTA about entering into a conversation about ways we could make that list of dreams a list of realities.  Our first meeting involved our high school administration and our career and technical education staff at the college and several of their administration and team members.   From this meeting I can tell you that, Ron Rosati, the Dean at NCTA, is a progressive forward thinking man.  Long story short, no obstacle too big, no challenge too hard.  Our next meeting is scheduled for February 6th, 2014 and will be to begin working out the logistics of how this partnership will work.  To sum up what this partnership will offer is this: NCTA wants our students taking their classes through synchronous and/or asynchronous methods utilizing adjunct instructors.  The best part of this is that much of these college classes and certifications will be offered to our students free of cost and the potential exists for our students to earn nearly an associates degree and several industry level certifications prior to graduation.  This is exciting to say the least!

While the ball was rolling, it just so happened that we were approached by a large cattle feeding operation here in our area to explore the opportunities that may exist in the area of agriculture.  After part of a day touring their 'high tech' facility we began to brainstorm some ideas of how we might be able to work together to provide greater leadership skill experiences, technical skill set attainment, and skills in applying academic concepts to the real world in the agriculture industry. We were quite impressed with their operation and willingness to engage us in conversation.  We are looking forward to these talks continuing. I won't name the operation directly because these talks are still in the preliminary stages, but to say the least, we are excited to dream about how this partnership could bring yet another great experience to the students of Cozad Community Schools.

Whats next?
As we continue to steamroll through this school year, we are already looking to expand these partnerships in our community and surrounding area.  Each month our high school's 'Ed Tech' team meets with the executive board of the Cozad Development Corporation.  Robyn Geiser and her team have been instrumental in helping us connect with other 'movers and shakers' who are looking make a difference in the next generation of our citizens.  Our plans include the placement of twenty five high skill students into meaningful work experiences next school year.  Our three year goal is that every student in our senior class is matched up with a business mentor where they can gain some real world skills and networks to potentially bring back our best and brightest after graduation.  Other plans include the beefing up of our CNA class so that next year students will also attain their Medical Assisting (CMA) and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) certifications as well.  We are looking at several technical certifications and partnerships where students could CISCO, A+, Windows, and other technology related certifications.  We are also tentatively looking into the logistics of offering a Commercial Drivers License (CDL) program and Pesticide Applicator Licensing to our students. For the sake of space I will omit the other twenty-some ideas we are mulling over as well.

As our partnerships mature and our 'Community' is more fully integrated into our schools, I am sure that I will report on those successes.  Until then however, we will continue to dream big, think outside the box, and welcome the ideas and input of our community.

Dustin Favinger

Taking Risks: Student Designed Courses to Personalize Learning in K-12 Education

One yearly task that seems to cause dread, almost universally, among counselors is SCHEDULING and REGISTRATION.  While the reasons behind that dread may be varied, we all know how difficult it can be for a school and the course offerings of that school to "be all things to all people."  I have been thinking lately about ways to become all things to all students.

What if we as public education entities embraced the power in allowing students to truly direct their own learning for part of every day?  What if we modeled our school day after Google's concept of 20 time, where students were given 20% of their time to study or work on a project of their own choosing and design.  Now I am not proposing just free time with no expectations, but rather time to truly invest themselves into a course of study that they direct.  Nor am I proposing abandoning our traditional course offerings.  I am proposing a system that engages kids in their own learning.  We all know that when we are passionate about learning something we harness that power and throw ourselves full force into it.  We become almost obsessed with it and it invigorates us and refuels us to work on it.  

Over the course of my thirteen years in education, I have numerous times felt like there have been students who we have failed.  That failure to serve students can be grouped into two categories:

1. Failing the high ability students by handicapping them with our pacing and limiting them to our course offerings.

2. Failing the disengaged students by not allowing them to study what is relevant to their lives and futures and consequently never teaching them the power of pursuing your passion.

Now the first group of students succeed in spite of our work as educators.  Truthfully, these are the kids who are good at the game of school.  They earn good grades and learn regardless of the quality of instruction or materials.  They are just bidding their time until they go off to college or enter the real world where they become 'game changers'.

The second group of kids are those who are chronically disengaged from school.  They show up week in and week out on the eligibility list, detention lists, at-risk list, etc.  They hate coming to school, they find it a waste of their time, they don't see the school as applicable to their lives.  Sadly, many times I have to fight back the urge to agree with them.

What if we changed our system of schooling to allow every kid the opportunity to study something they are passionate about.  Then we allowed them the opportunity to create some sort of learning outcome they could showcase to teachers, administrators, community members, heck even the entire world!  I can almost guarantee you that when students are given the opportunities to study what they are passionate about they will almost always hold themselves to higher standards than we as teachers do when applying our industrial model of assessment.

Now, I am sure you are reading this thinking, 'What a whack job!' 'Doesn't he believe in accountability?'  Yes, and yes, I am not afraid to think outside the box and I do believe in accountability.  I believe we need to allow students the opportunity to hold themselves accountable.

Think back to the first group of kids I say we have failed (High Ability Students).  I believe that we have failed them because we have handicapped their potential.  Rather than setting benchmarks for them to reach, we put a ceiling in which they are not to exceed.  The second group of kids we feed more broccoli to even when they don't like the broccoli.  Why not put some cheese on the broccoli to make it more palatable.  Lets give kids the opportunity to create their own coursework for one elective and see just what happens.  The worst thing could happen is that they don't learning anything useful or don't do anything....(News Flash: That worst outcome is already happening in the courses we offer).

Now consider the possibility of one of those chronically disengaged kids choosing to pursue the study of cell phones and how they work.  What if in the course of that study, he learned about the electrical circuitry behind all of that and realized, 'Hey, wait a minute, I need to know Trig so that I can understand this.' or what if she got curious about the programming behind the user interface and learned how to code.  Next think of the shift that would take place as these kids came to our math or science or computer classes and engaged even more so they could learn what they needed to go even further with their personalized learning course.  Can you imagine how awesome that would be to have students who want to learn not for the sake of the test, but for the sake of applicability and pursuits in which there is no reward other than the intrinsic reward of learning?

With all the resources that exist digitally and the MOOC movement taking hold, why not harness the power of the winds of change before it becomes the tornado that destroys our pretty little system of mass education.  Why not use what we see working with these MOOC's to accomplish our goal of educating kids who are able to problem solve while pursuing their passion.  There are free resources online (Coursera, EdX, Udemy, etc.) There are communities abound online where collaborative discussions take place on nearly every subject imaginable.  Why not allow our kids to go beyond what we know and connect with these resources to really learn?

Why not?  Well it is messy and we don't like messy in education.  We like standards and maps and flowcharts and crosswalks.  I challenge each of you as you read this to consider the possibility that maybe we have it wrong.  Maybe, just maybe we need to personalize rather than standardize.  As people we all want individualization and to be seen as an individual with unique skills.  Why not give this a shot and risk being right?  What if this worked for 10% of the kids?  Would that make the reward worth the risk?

If we are truly educating kids to the best of our ability, then we can't be the limiting factor.  Let's get out of their way and start directing learning, facilitating their learning, provide guidance/feedback/criticism/encouragement to go above and beyond what we currently offer.  Heck it just may cut down on those who make our coveted lists!

Thanks for reading and best wishes as our school year begins.

Dustin Favinger
9-12 Counselor
Cozad Community Schools
@CHS_Mr_F

Topping off the tank

Summer time is a time for fun, sun, and relaxation...or a little PD to refuel the passion for education.  This summer I have had the opportunity to attend two very powerful conferences.  The first was ISTE in San Antonio and the second was the Great Plains Google Summit in Lincoln.

           

 As it turns out, these would be some of the best days of summer.  I am sure that all educators can relate to the fatigue we feel at the end of the year.  It is that fatigue of caring too much throughout the year and not having the emotional dollars to spend that makes us long for the days of summer.  However, as summer passes we feel rejuvenated by time away from our passion and become hungry once again to teach and learn with kids.

We need to cure what ails us, and...

...collaboration is the best medicine

These two conferences were instrumental in rekindling that fire in me. The sessions I attended solidified my beliefs that we are on the verge of crisis in education.  National mandates pushing the testing agenda are coming up against what we know are best practices of collaborating, creating, sharing, and making education relevant.
       
At the ISTE Conference, the closing keynote was delivered by Adam Bellow (Adam's entertaining talk starts 23 minutes in) who invited us to change the world by making education relevant to the lives of our students.   We were reminded that technology shouldn't be the icing on the cake, but rather mixed into the batter.  But the most striking point he made was that we as schools need a startup culture. We must move towards problem based learning and come to RESPECT FAILURE AND EMBRACE CURIOSITY.  As a system we have become almost systematic in killing the natural curiosity kids while teaching them the game of school.  If you want to rethink what we are doing as profession, take the hour to watch that closing keynote.  If it doesn't inspire you to do better, then you may not have a pulse!

The at Great Plains Google Summit opening keynote was delivered by Chris Lehmann is the founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy, a progressive science and technology high school in Philadelphia, PA. In a room filled 500 educators he lamented us to answer this question regarding the efficacy of the high stakes testing environment we are currently in compared to inquiry driven models we are discovering to much more effective. His exact question was: "By a show of hands, how many of you think we are getting it right in school today?" Not a hand went up. My first reaction was shame. Shameful that we are wasting our only chance with the kids of today. We don't get any mulligans. These kids don't get a second shot at the best we have to offer them.  That shame however morphed into a resolve to do what I can do to change the world as Adam Challenged us to in San Antonio.

Learning about turtles was one the best lessons of the summer with my kids.

This day and age of pervasive technology has given us so many tools, that we have no excuse for why we can't have kids engaged in inquiry based environments. My two and four year olds at home still love to learn about bugs, shapes, colors, how things work.  They are sponges without a saturation point.  Why?  Because learning is relevant to their world and it is fun.  I hope we never kill that curiosity.  It is my hope that we can shed the shackles of high stakes testing to engage kids in real world problem based learning.  Lets make school and learning a place where things are done with kids, not to kids.  I am ready to tackle the 2013-2014 school year with as much zeal as I have ever had.  I will seek to change the world.  Who is with me?

Dustin Favinger