Evernote, Backchanneling, and Tabs, Oh My!

George Couros

I just read a short post entitled, Stating the Obvious, by George Couros on his blog, The Principal of Change. Basically, the post is about the penchant of adults to complain about how kids are so distracted by their devices, yet when it comes down to it, they are simply doing what adults do when they are bored. I agree with the sentiment that this is stating the obvious; however, it is amazing how many people complain about this phenomenon and don't realize the hypocrisy of it. I guess my post is just expanding upon the idea in Stating the Obvious. By the way, if you don't follow The Principal of Change blog, you should start. I have learned a great deal from reading it.


All of our minds have wandered at meetings and we've opened up our email on our handheld device, tablet, or laptop. When I do that I am generally not engaged in the content of the meeting or session. But, I also want to note that I often use a device and may look as though I am distracted or not paying attention when, in fact, I am actually more engaged than others who may appear to be listening and attending to the teacher or presenter.

First, there is simply using an electronic device to take notes. I hate writing with a pen or pencil. After about the third word, my hand cramps up (likely psychosomatic) and I stop. So, when I am typing on a device, there is an excellent chance I am taking notes in Evernote. This is evident from the blog posts that I have written from my notes after sitting in sessions at Teachers College during their Saturday Reunions. (#TCRWP Saturday Reunion - March 2013 - Laurie Pessah's Workshop, #TCRWP - Cornelius Minor Session on the BYOT Movement, or Depths of Knowledge (DOK) is More Than an Acronym!)


Second, there is backchanneling! Generally, when I am at an #edcamp or #TCRWP session (or any other for that matter) I look for others who are having a conversation about the topic behind the scenes. I find that backchanneling  has provided me with a renewed ability to focus on the points that a presenter is making. When I can tweet out or use some other backchannel to converse about the topic as it is being presented, I am able to better digest the material, wrestle with it, and ultimately engage with it in a deeper way.


Third, I am often finding resources that a presenter is mentioning. There are sessions that I have attended where I have actually ordered a book from Amazon as the presenter had it up on the projector screen. When presenters mention other thought leaders, bloggers, and researchers on the topic being presented, I generally like to pull up a tab in my web browser immediately with the blog or connection so that I can easily find them when I get home.

While I realize that our students in school may not be doing the things I mention above. I think that we should find out what they are doing before we get upset. If they are productively engaging in their own digital way, then we should probably let them keep doing what they are doing. If they are just playing around and doing other things, we should probably try to figure out if it is our instruction that is lacking before we blame the devices.

How do you "pay attention" at meetings and conferences?

Odyssey of the Mind, 21st Century Skills, and "That" Teacher

Why would I spend an entire Saturday, 7:15am - 8:00pm, at a middle school that is 40 minutes from where I live and and hour from the district within which I work? Must be an edcamp, right? No. Maybe a sporting event? No. Hmmm..... then why? Let me explain.

Last year and this year my daughter has had the great fortune of learning with a truly amazing teacher. One of those teachers who inspires you; one of those teachers who sees the best in you and makes it her mission to bring that out; one of those teachers that you truly love; one of those teachers who is the one you use as a security question online when you are asked, "who was your favorite teacher?" For my daughter Madalyn, that teacher is Mrs. Melissa Stager. I have had the pleasure of interacting with her on many occasions over the past two years because she is the teacher who encouraged Madalyn to try putting together a team to participate in Odyssey of the Mind (OotM).

OotM has been an amazing experience for our whole family.  My daughter has found an amazing group of friends with similar interests.  My wife has now coached the team for the past two years.  My younger daughter and I have had the pleasure of taking part in numerous meetings, competitions, and events with the families.

OotM is basically a creativity competition with a long portion that is researched, created and presented at the competitions, and a Spontaneous portion, which is practiced prior; however, no one knows what these questions will be until they are given to the students with a few minutes to prepare.  That description does not do justice to the amazing learning and growing experience that Odyssey of the Mind provides to students.  The Regional and State Competitions take place all day on two Saturdays and the World Finals take place at a large University over several days (last year it was at Iowa State University).

My daughter receiving her 1st place medal at Regionals

My daughter, after trying many sports, came to the conclusion that organized sports was not the path for her.  When Mrs. Stager suggested this avenue, it was like a whole world had been opened to her.  I am proud to say that last year my daughter was a member of the state champion team in her division and question.  They went to the World Finals and placed 25th out of over 50 teams from around the country and the world.  This year we just went to the Regional competition on Saturday and her team took first place once again.  Next month is the State finals.  (Please note that I am fully aware that the last several sentences are a shameless proud dad brag, but I am okay with that.)

The work students do to prepare for and perform in this competition is a perfect example of the 21st century skills that we talk about every day in education.  According to the 21st Century Fluency Project, the 21st Century Fluencies include:

An investigation of the skills encompassed in this diagram (and I encourage you to click the links to the 21st Century Fluency Project) shows a wonderful connection to this competition that fosters creative thinking, problem solving, using your resources to develop answers, discriminating between what works and what does not, working as a team, perseverance, and the list goes on.

Without belaboring the point, I would encourage anyone to check out the Odyssey of the Mind competition. I am going to investigate starting a team at my school in conjunction with the PTO.  I am hoping that we can bring this great opportunity to the children in our elementary school!!

So, hopefully I've answered my initial question. Why would I spend an entire Saturday, 7:15am - 8:00pm at a middle school that is 40 minutes from where I live and and hour from the district within which I work? 

Please leave a comment below if you are so inclined.

Related articles

• OM challenges students to be creative

Our Meeting With Grant Wiggins

This past Tuesday, we had the great fortune to have Grant Wiggins at our faculty meeting.  He is doing some work with a couple of our teachers and as we were talking several months ago the topic of state assessments and how teachers prepare their students came up.  As we discussed the topic, I was thrilled that he would be willing to come to one of my faculty meetings to talk about how preparing students for assessments (all assessments) is a matter of instructional design.

Understanding by Design is a familiar concept to many educators.  On a very basic level it is about knowing where you want to go with learning and planning backward to achieve that.  This basic description doesn't begin to explain the nuances of the practices involved in UbD, but it is a starting point.  I felt as though I had a decent understanding of UbD until Grant Wiggins spent about 80 minutes with us and truly brought it to life!  I think the piece that I failed to fully reflect upon was the concept of "Teaching for Understanding."

It seems simple to say that we want our students to understand what we teach; however, our discussion of this topic was truly enlightening.  We explored the things that "a student who understands" can do and the things that "one who knows a lot, but doesn't understand" can do.  Take a step back and think about that for a moment.  It is a powerful distinction.  The examples that Grant Wiggins provided and the vibrant discussion of the staff helped to flesh out this concept.  I have to say that the level of interest, thought, and participation on the part of the faculty was inspiring; especially after teaching a full day!

This led to a discussion of the importance of transfer and what that means for children and assessment.  It is one thing to make sure things get covered and standards get checked off, but it is another to have proof that students understand what has been taught and can transfer that understanding to a variety of situations.  In particular, it is important to ensure that they can do this without the supports provided by the teacher or the scaffolding of a question that provides all of the information to answer the question.

Standardized assessments are not supportive.  They do not scaffold.  They ask students to transfer the things that they have learned in class (standards) to a situation or problem that is likely different and unfamiliar.

So, what does that mean for teaching, learning, and assessment?

I think one of the most powerful concepts that I took away from this meeting was that we must look at what it is we want our students to learn and understand, figure out the things that are getting in the way of them doing that, and design our instruction accordingly. As we do this, we must also gradually allow them to demonstrate their understanding with less scaffolding.  Once again, you may say that sounds like a simple concept, but if you take a step back and think about scope of that task, it is the hard work of planning that must go in to teaching.

This brief post does not do justice to the many ideas we discussed and that are floating around in my mind as I reflect upon the time with Grant Wiggins at that meeting; but, hopefully it will give readers a spark to revisit Understanding by Design.  I know that our staff will be looking at how we approach our units and lessons through this lens.

Related articles

• Grant Wiggins on Escaping Isolation and the Power of Social Media
• Backwards Planning, Understanding & Learning in the Classroom: Understanding by Design

Depths of Knowldege (DOK) is More Than an Acronym!

It has been several weeks since I spent a wonderful Saturday in New York City learning with my colleagues at the  Teachers College Readers and Writers Project 83rd Saturday Reunion.  I attended several energetic and informative sessions that day with colleagues from my school district who decided it was a great idea to spend a Saturday sitting in workshops learning how to enhance and improve their craft.  I just love that!!

One of the best workshops that I had the pleasure of attending was Chris Lehman's session entitled: Depths of Knowledge (DOK) is More than an Acronym: Use this New Lens to Revise Our Teaching so That Students Are Working at the Top of Their Game.  I must say that this was the first time that I had the pleasure of attending one of his workshops and I look forward to attending future sessions.  One thing that I have learned after many years of attending PD sessions is that the presenter is as important as the subject matter and in this case both were exceptional.

Webb's Depths of Knowledge Wheel is familiar to many of us as a way to look at student understanding that is a bit different than Bloom's Taxonomy; however, it basically still amounts to a list of verbs. Not so! While the session focused on Webb, Lehman spent some time explaining the connection between the two, including Webb's work with Bloom on the taxonomy.  But, most of the session focused on how educators could use Depths of Knowledge to reflect upon their students and themselves.

Here are some of my takeaways from the workshop.  I was typing furiously, so I hope I caught everything.

1. Most assessments do not necessarily assess what we think they do.  The majority of assessments are at lower levels (levels 1 and 2).

2. Chris Lehman used a wood shop analogy that helped me to understand the levels of DOK more clearly.

• Level 1 - Recall is largely teacher dependent. 

• "This is a hammer.  This is a saw.  Now go back to your stations and name your tools."
• Here we have very basic factual retrieval
• Level 2 - Skill/Concept is also largely teacher dependent 
• "I am going to show you how to hammer two pieces of wood together." I show you and explain steps and repeat.  I send you back to your table and ask you to hammer two pieces of wood together.
• This level assumes a basic knowledge of vocabulary and concepts.

In levels 1 and 2 students do things whether they are right are wrong.  They essentially don't necessarily know why they are doing the task just what it is and how to do it.

• Level 3 - Strategic Thinking is highly learner dependent.
• "I am going to show you how to make a bird house.  You are going to make any kind of birdhouse you want based upon my instruction."
• In this level students must put together concepts they already know and steps they already know, but they must also make choices with that information.
• Level 4 - Extended Thinking is also highly learner dependent.
• "There is a flood coming and we need to close the workshop and build a dam for the town."
• In this level the teacher is expecting the students to make their own plans, think strategically, and create something.
• This level essentially asks students to "problematize things."  This is a skill that we need to teach children.  It causes questions along the way and then students must come up with the solution(s).  (The dam could leak, what do we do?)

3. DOK allows us to see our students more clearly.  Looking at their thought processes by questioning them about it gives us a glimpse into their thinking.  We should be teaching children to think meta-cognitively.   We need to know what they are thinking, even from the start in September.  "We have to think of September as not the first month of school but the 11th.  It is the 11th month of everything else they have ever learned before."  We need to see what kids are drawing on to do today's work. We do this through questions:

• Can you teach me how to...?  Show me an example of what you were just talking about.
• Have you done this before?
• What have you learned that can help you complete this learning task?

4. If students cannot talk meta-cognitively about what they are doing, are they learning?  This concept is key in the classroom.  We don't want students who can simply mimic what they have seen demonstrated or heard in a rote fashion; we want students who understand what they are learning, how they are learning, and how they can build upon previous learning skills to learn new and different things.  With this understanding of their own learning process, they have the capability of tackling the level 3 and 4 tasks because they have more than facts and concepts, they have deeper thinking skills.

5.  DOK allows us to reflect upon our students and in turn upon ourselves.  This involves building a reflective cycle.  The teacher teaches something and then looks to the students' DOK levels as an assessment of how they taught it.  This leads the teacher to ask the questions, "what did I do? what can I do to move you forward from your current level?"

6.  Before having students start independent work, get them in the habit of writing two things that they already know that could help them do this work.  This is a kick start to thinking about thinking.

7. Apply Webb's Depths of Knowledge to the questioning used during Writers Workshop conferencing to determine the students' level and then base each conference on the appropriate level.  This method allows for differentiated conferencing.  The example used involved conferencing about character development.

• Start at level 4 - "What are you thinking about as you revise today?"  If the student takes off into a well thought out explanation of their process and how they intend to move forward in revision, continue the questioning at this level and extend.  If not, move down to the next level.
• Level 3 - "One thing I think about is, 'do my characters seem like real people?'  There are many ways to do that.  What are things that you already know how to do to make your characters seem real?"  With this question, the conference is at the strategic thinking level and if the student can respond to this prompt the conversation can remain at this level.  If not....
• Level 2 - "One way to make your characters seem more real is to describe micro-actions, you first picture the scene, then...."  This is much more skill based and it does not ask for as much thought process.  The teacher takes the child through the process of visualizing and then the student can work through the character development.  If the student can do this, then the conference stays at level two, if not...
• Level 1 - "Let's talk through doing this for your character.  First, what was the scene? Tell me what you see.  Okay, write that."  At this level of conferencing the teacher is holding the hand of the student and helping them work through the character development.

In this 50 minute workshop Chris Lehman moved quickly though Webb's Depths of Knowledge, provided real examples of how DOK is a useful tool for reflection, and culminated with an application in Writers Workshop conferences.  It is important for teachers to understand the level of their students and help them along the continuum as they grow in their writing and in their thinking.  I am looking forward to learning more from Chris Lehman through twitter (@ichrislehman), his blog,  and future workshops!

(Everything in this post is based upon my notes from Chris Lehman's presentation at 2:00pm on October 27, 2012 at Teachers College in New York City)