CSSE

This year, CSSE (Canadian Society for the Study of Education) conference was held just 'down the highway' in Calgary at the end of May, beginning of June. I was fortunate to have two proposals accepted, I was unfortunate because I had to cancel at the last minute. The faculty of education at BU was well represented with several colleagues attending and presenting, a few graduate students were also presenting. By all accounts it was a great time. Last year in Ottawa was my first CSSE conference, and it was very enjoyable. One of the presentations was with a colleague and was the initial findings of our case study of a rural 1:1 school. I thank my colleague and research partner, Dr. J. Kirk, for doing the presentation (we did put plan it out and prepare it together). My other presentation was a roundtable (I went to a few last year and enjoy them - more of a discussion than a paper presentation is) about a multiple case study of social media use in a rural high school, unfortunately it had to be cancelled. With all that said, I am pleased to post the slides for the presentation and the handout I had prepared for my roundtable. For the handout I decided to use piktochart and experiment with a  more visual approach.

Overcoming the Obstacles: A Case Study of a 1:1 Computing Initiative in a Rural High School. from Michael Nantais

Social Media Pedagogy - CSSE roundtable handout - 2016 from Michael Nantais

Reading & Learning

Reading and writing – and learning, always learning! Keeping up with literature and scholarly thought in one’s area is an important part of doing research and writing about that area. During my quickly dwindling sabbatical I had goals of doing both, and I have to an extent. I have a number of books and articles in my reading pile, and while I would like to do more, I read when I can. I also like to read a novel, usually just before bedtime as a way to relax and escape: mostly mystery thrillers or science fiction. Keeping up with blog posts, research articles, and books can take lots of time, since reflection and thinking is also part of the process.

This week has been a good one for reading that has provoked thinking. Here are a few of those ideas.

One book I am reading now is by my friend George Couros. George has skyped in to several of my classes over the years, and he is always thought provoking and interesting, so I delved into his book The Innovator’s Mindset. In a chapter I recently read, George talks about engagement and empowerment. He discussed how we have dwelt on the idea of engagement, but less so on empowerment. George makes the case that teachers should not only engage students, but also engage them by empowering them. One way we can do that is by extending trust, something I wrote about in my article in HybridPedagogy.  So, when we talk about engagement, perhaps the best way to do that through the empowerment of learners.

A few days ago I came across a brilliant article/post by Bonnie Stewart about the Internet as a hybrid “third place/space”. Bonnie always provokes thinking and writes so well, and this article was no exception. Bonnie writes, “the dominant narrative tends more towards essentializing the face-to-face and reducing the digital to instrumental, task-based impersonality, rather than recognizing it as a human space with all the potential – educative and destructive, both – that that implies.”  This was a great read and an interesting exploration of the Internet as a place for connecting, meeting, and learning with others.

Anotherpost, this one by Dave Cormier (coincidentally, Bonnie’s husband), was about resilience as related to the idea of rhizomatic learning. One thing that I found interesting, perhaps because of talk about course syllabi and outcomes in my faculty, was “learning subjectives”, rather than objectives. When talking about subjectives, Cormier asks, how can we “design for learning when we don’t know where we are going?” Interesting to think about, I wonder if outcomes  (if we will have to have them in our syllabi) can be stated in such a way to become learning subjectives? I will have to attempt to include learning subjectives in my syllabi, especially since I do think our learning should take us into uncharted territory. The ideas about rhizomatic learning dovetail nicely with some of the ideas in this post, by Jeff Noonan (that I had put into ‘pocket’ awhile back) that argues against outcomes in higher education.

Lots to think about. It is great to be able to learn by roaming about this ‘third space’ and explore new thoughts and ideas, and the great thing is that most of these posts contain links to other good stuff to read and reflect on.

Grades, Revisited

from: http://www.slideshare.net/jessestommel/critical-digital-pedagogy

Recently a few items have popped up about grades, grading, and assessment. A few years ago, I also wrote a post about my going to - what our university calls a pass-fail system. Basically, I view it as a growth model and a 'mastery' model. In some cases I want to simply have students explore a topic or try something they have not tried before. I have had more than a few comment that they like the comfort to try things without fear of a poor grade. In a few recent classes, where I had reverted to the usual letter grade system, the students asked me to reconsider - which I happily did. A few weeks ago grading and assessment came up in conversation with a participant in one of my research projects. This high school teacher was talking about how he 'knew' where students were at and did not need a bunch of tests to tell him. We talked about formative assessment and outcome based assessment. It was an interesting discussion, but he still has to give a grade. Also recently a slideshare from a presentation was shared by Jesse Stommel (a slide from another if his decks is with this post). Later, a blog post by Maha Bali (also related to this slide presentation) appeared. Maha wrote at one point; "I do think that people who are not educators have difficulty listening to these voices that are anti-traditional forms of assessment because they are indoctrinated by the hegemonic discourses they have been surrounded by all their lives. They can’t imagine alternatives to homework and exams, so they assume they must be good, or at least the only options." So true, some educators still cling to these ideas. These items brought me back to my thinking on this issue. As I proclaimed on twitter, I 'hate' grades and giving them, as I mused in the old post, I was brought up in the grading system, I understand why they are used, I have struggled in my thinking about them ... but I doubt their value for motivation - not real motivation anyway, and definitely not for learning. They can be used to rank and sort, but is that the purpose of education? I guess in some instances it is  - but I would call that training. In the area in which I teach - teacher education - isn't growth as a (potential) teacher most important? I would rather students engage in deep, meaningful discussions, I would rather my students go outside their comfort zones to try things, to reflect, to learn, to grow. If, for example, we are telling a story by video - isn't the experience and thinking about how the idea can be used for learning in a classroom situation more important than how great the video is (especially if it is the first time making one)? Isn't the discussion and exchange of views and ideas about an issue, like digital citizenship, lead to more learning than telling me what it means in a paper? These recent conversations and readings have renewed my thinking about grading - since I am currently on sabbatical it has not been in the forefront ;-) - and helped reinforce my thinking on the non-use of grades in my own practice.

Conference Season

Over the past few months I have been busy on the conference scene. Starting back at the end of March was the National Congress on Rural Education held yearly in Saskatoon. I was involved in two presentations related to research in a rural Manitoba School Division. In April was AERA in Chicago - the biggest education conference in the world. This year was my first attending. In June it was CSSE at the University of Ottawa. Presentations at the last two conferences also centred on the aforementioned research - part of BU's SSHRC funded VOICE project. Finally, last week I attended the Social Media and Society Conference at Ryerson University in Toronto. The last conference I presented a poster (on my dissertation work) and another poster with a colleague about our self-study work concerning using SoMe in teacher education. While I enjoy doing posters, the main reason for that was that I did not hear of the conference until paper deadlines were past. By the way, most of my presentations can be found on my slideshare page.

So, a whirlwind of travel and presenting - why do I bring these up? Well, I find it interesting to compare the conferences and which ones I go the most out of and found most enjoyable and useful.

Actually, each has something different to offer:
National Congress - focus on rural education, attendees include a range of people: senior division admin, school admin, teachers, trustees, parents, and a student journalism group reporting on the events.

AERA - huge! very international, yet sessions are for the most part a U.S. focus (obviously). I found most paper sessions rather boring and generally slide presentations were not good. I enjoyed the city of Chicago, the round table and poster sessions I attended - perhaps because they are more like discussions. This was the least useful conference I attended.

CSSE - this was also big. Participants are generally from across Canada, and it is held in conjunction with all social sciences (SSHRC). The focus was Canadian, so thus it was more useful than AERA. For the most part, presentations were very interesting, and there were other events - big keynote speakers and a wonderful contest of 3 minute presentations by SSHRC funded graduate students - "SSHRC Storytellers" - one presentation was delivered as 'slam poetry' - awesome! Of course, being in Ottawa, I had the opportunity to spend time at the Space and Aviation Museum and take a flight in a 1939 vintage open cockpit biplane (personal passion!).

Social Media & Society - this conference was my overall favourite. I met several people - people I knew through twitter and more that I added. The conference was very international and interdisciplinary - this might be why it was so interesting. I have a passion for studying social media in education and this conference reinforced that passion - perhaps rekindling it! It was an interesting location right in the heart of downtown Toronto. Ryerson has an amazing student learning centre we toured as well. See the tweets at #SMsociety15. I plan to attend next year's conference to be held in London, UK. Looking forward to it (of course that means I can visit my daughter who lives there, as well!).

So, conferences are varied and one can get something of value out of just about any - I have ideas, met people, and learned at all of them. I also found that I like poster and round tables - seen as the poor cousins of papers - but they are also rapid and more like conversations. I know one shot deals are not always optimal for learning, but these conferences do have their role to play, especially for academic work - a place to share, meet, and plant some seeds.

Posters presented at Social Media & Society

Using Social Media to Engage Educators in Learning 

Social Media Pedagogy 

Slides from CSSE:

Reimagine Lakeshore: A Reflective Analysis of a School Division Change Initiative 

PS - me and the 1939 WACO biplane!

Not Teaching for Over a Year (i.e. on sabbatical)

My sabbatical is fast approaching, and I am looking forward to it. It is not that I don't love teaching, if I didn't I would not have stayed in the career for 37 years. That said, this will be the first year I am not in a classroom of some sort since my first teaching job all those years ago. In this new career though, I have also been involved with field focused research, so this year will be devoted to those pursuits - not to mention being away from 'service' work on campus - that means very few meetings! (hurray!)

So what will I be up to? I have several projects on the go, and have been fortunate to be awarded several small grants to help the work, as well I will continue working with our large SSHRC-CURA grant called VOICE. I work, along with a colleague and a grad student, with a rural school division a little north of Winnipeg. Our main tasks are working with teachers doing community based action research and studying system change in the division. I am excited to get working on my other projects, and to get some writing done on several projects, including my dissertation.

Some of the projects include:
Action Research and Teacher Change - I will be working with several teachers in one rural MB school division assisting them in doing action research and I will examine the effects on practice.

A case study of a school that has gone to a 1:1 device:student - I am doing this with a colleague who is also on sabbatical - also at another rural MB school.

Numeracy evening for families - I am working with a local school division numeracy consultant, along with a team of teachers and B.Ed. students. We are trying to set up resources and run an event to help parents learn the importance of numeracy and strategies to help their kids. The goal is to share the results of this endeavour widely.

Some of the details can be found on my BU profile.