Much Too Bright: Much Too Bright

In an effort to more fully integrate my personhood I have decided to start posting my art on this blog. I was inspired by my good friend Jose Vilson, an artist, writer, teacher, thinker, poet, and all around brilliant person. Jose has always posted all of his content on one blog. He may have a post about teaching computation of the rise of an inclined plane, a post about teacher leadership, his latest poem, and a post about Tupac Shakur's birthday all within a week.
I decided that I like that because as I arranged all of these magazine clippings in my mind I began to make sense of Jose, teaching, creativity, and life in a new way. I learned, which I love. So here is my first post: Much Too Bright. This is my title image from my art blog. As I post about my art I may try to use Much Too Bright as the title then the post as the subtitle. We will see how this goes.

Now I will be able to talk about art more in education and learning more in my art, hopefully integrating my self more as I do it.

Gladwell vs. Willingham - Cage Match!

Its time for a Cage Match!
Good teaching is good teaching, but what does that mean?
Dear Dan,
You had me. I was on the road with you. Learning styles don't really exist, there are only learning preferences. But, in an amazing feat of under cutting of all your scientific jazzmatazz you said this:

"Good teaching is good teaching and teachers don't need to adjust their teaching to individual students learning styles."

I heard it. It planted itself like a seed. It began to grow. By Friday it was repeating itself, good teaching is good teaching, good teaching is good teaching, good teaching is good teaching, good teaching is good teaching, good teaching is good teaching, good teaching is good teaching, good teaching is good teaching.

What was it that bothered me about that statement. I couldn't remember. Then I saw this video of Malcolm Gladwell discussing the man who invented chunky spaghetti sauce, Howard Mouskewitz, one of his idols. It is a long video, so set aside almost twenty minutes in case you get engrossed.

What clicked for me was that when Mouskewitz conducted taste tests of 10 different tomato sauces approximately 1/3 of the participants preferred traditional, 1/3 zesty, and 1/3 chunky.

At the time that the testing was done, there were no chunky tomato sauces on the shelves. The people preferred something that was not even being offered at the time. The sauce companies all thought that good sauce was good sauce and that they didn't need to adjust their sauce to meet the preferences of their customers. When they did adjust and offer more variety, it took off, lots of people discovered chunky sauce and loved it.

So Dr. Willingham, here is my final answer, good teaching IS adjusting to individual students learning styles. When kids don't get something, you change your approach, you try a visual strategy, a kinesthetic strategy, a verbal strategy. It may not be that conscious, it may be a look in a kids eye, a shared experience, a connection between teacher and student that causes that teacher to try that strategy with that kid. It is a pragmatically scientific approach, not a positivist one and that is the reason it works. Because, in the classroom it is the learning that matters most, and figuring out why second.

Photo of Daniel Willingham by Dan Addison, University of Virginia Public Affairs.

Learning Styles - True or False

I am reading another "business model" educational reform book. Its title, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, suggests that education needs to be shaken up. It is a very dense book that we will use this semester in one of my doctoral classes. It is a more interesting read than some of the texts we have had but it is a pop science book so I have a hard time putting a great deal of faith in it's propositions. What it suggests seems to make "common sense" but this is my first clue that it may not make a real difference in how schools work or be scientifically sound. Some of its endnotes are particularly educational though. In it are references like, a paper about children in Africa who are extremely adept at knowing how to operate in their environment but are not able to do basic "school" type tasks.

Christensen's basic theory is that because all students learn differently we should create a new type of schooling, using 21st century tools, to customize learning for every student. This new way of teaching should use a "modular" logic that provides different learning style options for the same content. It all sounds good from the point of view of a teacher who sees learning styles operating in my classroom every day. I have at least three learning style groups in my preschool class. The groups are the verbal learners, the kinesthetic learners and the visual learners or to put it comically, the can't be quiet group, the can't sit still group, and the don't say anything but can draw well group. The theory of learning styles is a useful tool for teachers who are trying to help every student become proficient in the various disciplines.

However, it is easy poke holes in theories.

Here is someone who would completely disagree with the foundation of Christensen's theory about modular teaching to learning styles. Dan Willingham is a cognitive psychologist from University of Virginia. I learned about him from my good friend Nancy Flanagan who wrote a rebuttal post on her blog in response to the video below only to have him comment and refute her assertions.

Where do I stand? I think that there may not be learning styles as we traditionally relate them to content areas but there are most definitely learning preferences. I would not necessarily organize learning styles the same way that Gardner does although I was an early recruit to Gardner's tribe back in the 90's. His Unschooled Mind was the first education book I ever read for fun. Since then my perceptions about learning and learning styles has changed. A couple years ago I completed a survey and participated in training around a personality theory called Emergenetics that basically grouped learners into social, analytical, conceptual, and structural tendencies for thinking combined with behavioral attributes of expressiveness, assertiveness, and flexibility. The theory emphasized that everyone had some capacity in all the areas but preferred one over another. I was a strongly conceptual processor which helped me to understand why I have always preferred to understand the big picture first and then break it down when I encounter new information. It was a way of thinking about learning styles that did not use Gardner's suggestions that have strong links to content areas.

Chistensen proposes that the reason kids don't take "hard" classes like math and science in prosperous societies is because there is not enough external motivation to make them want to.
I propose that prosperous societies allow students to move towards disciplines that more closely match their learning preferences in how they are taught.

If science were taught the way my art classes were taught, in that you were shown some basic materials, given some basic skills, and told to create/make something, I might have been a scientist. Instead they were taught with the goal of mastering certain scientific truths as the goal and discovery and creativity was not a part of it at all.

What Dan says about learning styles makes sense but I am not sure it gets at the reason why they are useful. I try to teach my pre-k kids in all of the major "learning styles" so that I am sure to meet their needs. Besides, at 4 years old who doesn't like to sing the alphabet, dance the alphabet, and watch the alphabet on the computer?
What do you think? Are learning styles real? Does it matter if they are or are they just a way to talk about something it is difficult to understand, how our students learn what we teach?

image from: http://www.mnispi.org/cartoon/2001/pages/Learning%20Styles_gif.htm
video from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIv9rz2NTUk

Olympics 2.0 Pre-K-Style

In my last post I mentioned interacting with Olympic athletes like Michael Phelps in the classroom using Skype. I haven't gotten his address yet, although he does have email, but I did find this great resource for the Olympics. My beautiful wife tipped me off to this awesome website, Voices of the Olympic Games, that is hosting blogs by athletes from all over the world.
This is Margaux Isaksen, a 17-year-old from Arkansas.
Who knew you could and talk to and read about Olympic athletes in a preschool classroom?
I heard a story yesterday about the democratizing affects of the internet. Some think it only helps the loud and aggressive have a voice, I have to disagree. Helping a kid talk to an Olympic athlete could be a powerful experience especially for a 4-year-old who has never heard of the Olympics much less a pentathlete. What a cool way to teach the number five and Latin root words. Penta is five whether it is a shape or a competition.

Riding photo by Gerry Maceda from last week's riding camp.