Digital Portfolios and Beyond

Finishing The Innovator's Mindset was a great triumph for me because I am seriously bad at starting and never finishing professional books! I have a very hard time abandoning other kinds of books - I have finished terrible, awful, no-good, very-bad books in the past just because I started them - but for some reason, I get about a third of the way through professional books and then I lose steam. It's not because the books are bad; I think it's because I get overwhelmed with ideas that I want to implement in my classroom and then I can't keep up with my own thought process, so I just stop reading. I suspect it is also because I start to feel bad that I'm not doing enough or more or anything at all good in my classroom when I read these books - which I know is NOT the point of them and it's totally my own insecurities that make me feel that way - and so putting them down is a way to not think like that.

But I am also a very conscientious and still more-than-slightly anxious student, and so taking a class is the best way for me to make sure that I finish what I start. I would never dream of abandoning a book that was assigned work (even though some of my posts have been late), so this one got finished. I am so glad that this title was the focus of our group this summer because I don't think I would have picked it up otherwise. It felt like a book that would make me feel bad about my classroom.

I was so wrong. SO. WRONG. George Couros (@gcouros) has hit the perfect balance between nudging readers toward innovation and reinforcing that teachers are doing their best, that good things ARE happening in schools. His point that everything is a journey and that we never really get there manages to make me feel like I AM doing things right...and that what I'm doing right now will not be good enough next year or the next year or the next. I feel empowered and supported but also pushed (gently) to be better. 

I'm still thinking about how I know a lesson is innovative and how to measure the impact of innovative practices on education, but I believe I have had a breakthrough about how I want to at least start implementing some of the ideas that Couros talks about in this book. The idea that resonated with me the most was that of digital portfolios. He uses the term "digital portfolio" and "blog" interchangeably in the book, so for parts of it, I had the wrong idea of what he meant, but I think either way, it answers a question I have had for a while now: How do I house copies of the different iterations of my students' work (specifically writing) so they can see their growth without having to store reams of paper somewhere? And, since we are moving to more electronic versions of writing (at least with final drafts and submissions), how does that work with Google Docs? My biggest management problem this year has been with the fact that all the comments I make on drafts get "resolved" by the students, and when they make changes, they are automatically saved, so there's no way to look at each draft side by side. I know I can un-resolve the comments and re-open them, and I can also see all the changes individually, but that's a lot of clicking; having all the paper copies together was much easier.

However, it's also easier for me to comment on a typed Google Doc than it is to write everything. So...what if each kid had a digital portfolio where every copy of their writing pieces were uploaded? I've looked for apps for this for more than a year and no one has been able to help me. Couros talks about using Edublogs, which look easy enough, but I haven't looked into them too much. Just the idea of digital portfolios, however, is enough to energize me to look at the situation anew because it feels like there could be a solution to my paper management problem. Edutopia has what looks like a great list of potential tools, and since our school provides a Gmail address for every student, Google Sites might be the easiest. I'm also familiar with it, and the kids have worked on them for projects for my class. However, I've heard really good things about Evernote too, and the kids seem to be familiar with it. TeachThought also has another list of potential tools that also look great!

Whatever I end up choosing, it feels like a step in the right direction. I've known that there was a missed opportunity here for a while, and using Google Docs and Schoology more has helped me move toward the digital portfolio step. I thought that Couros' words about how to use the digital portfolios two different ways were really important, and I think that this year, my students need to use them for both ways: as a "'learning portfolio,' which shows the individual's growth over time...[and] as a showcase portfolio,' that highlights the person's best work" (208). My vision, which will hopefully become a reality, is for the "learning portfolio" to include at least the drafting and revision parts of the writing process as well as other pieces (TBD) and for the "showcase portfolio" to include whatever pieces the student thinks show his or her work the best. This doesn't have to be and shouldn't just be written pieces; they are doing great things with other formats as well.

Anyone who knows me as a teacher knows that I love writing things longhand - I love paper and pen or pencil drafts because I can see the changes in the students' thinking, and there are more and different connections made in the brain when writing by hand than there are while typing. I don't intend to completely give up the writing notebook. However, I do intend to give my students more choices about what the "final" version of their work looks like, and I think that will be a good first step on the way to encouraging innovation in the classroom. 

(thanks giphy.com!)

Less is More

One of the many things that I've admitted about myself on this blog is I have a hard time being concise and still getting my point across. I'm working on that as I teach my students to do it in their writing; I do all the assignments I give, so I am working on it as a student AND a teacher! :)

Chapter 10 in The Innovator's Mindset is titled "Less is More," and it's something that I need to be reminded of regularly. When I first started teaching, I assigned homework every day because I thought that was expected of me (from both the administration and the parents in my district). I don't know that it was difficult work, but it was definitely time-consuming, and while I never assigned anything I thought was busywork, wanting to be respectful of my time and my students' time, I definitely gave more work than was strictly necessary. Part of that was because I wasn't yet efficient with my time in class, and part of it was because I thought it was a necessary part of "being a teacher." 

There are several obvious problems with this. First of all, not all the work that I was assigning was necessary for mastery of the material. Second of all, I don't think I had a good reason for every assignment other than "practice," which is important, but not at the rate that I was assigning it. Finally, I was drowning in the work I had to grade, which meant that it took me way too long to get it back to the students, and when I eventually did, it wasn't meaningful feedback since it had been so long since I collected it (I'm still working on efficiency, trust me!). 

All of these problems could have been solved by this mantra of "Less is more." If I assigned less work, the work I DID assign would be more meaningful, and students would have more time to spend on it. Also, if I took more time to figure out what was actually necessary, I would probably have realized that some of the work was great and some of it was stuff I was giving just because it looked good or gave them something to do. Assigning less work would also mean that I wouldn't feel behind all the time, and I could spend more time on the higher-quality assignments that were significant to the student's learning. Finally, assigning fewer pieces of work to complete would mean that I could stop feeling so rushed about all the curricular elements that I have to complete and focus in on the skills that are necessary to successful learning.

When I read in The Innovator's Mindset that Guy Kawasaki recommended that "[Schools] should teach students how to communicate in five-sentence emails and with ten-slide Powerpoint presentations," (154), I almost stood up and cheered. I teach those skills deliberately and specifically because students tend to be long-winded about things that don't need explanations and silent on things that do. I believe that those skills are easy ways to assess students in the school environment and make sure that what we're teaching them has a direct connection to the world beyond the schoolhouse.

Something that made me pause in this chapter was when I read "If we aren't intentional, we may promote confusion and burnout, instead of inspiring innovation and deep learning" (154). It was directed at school leaders about teachers, but it is easily transferrable to teachers and students as well. If I have students write down 50 important quotations from a novel when 10 will do, that probably won't inspire them to enjoy the book or develop a love for reading. Sometimes 10 won't do, but I should start to look for the times when I can reduce the number of "things" the kids have to do and look instead of how they can show their learning in ways that make sense to them: "Instead of trying to do everything, let's focus on what we want learners to know and do and select and master resources to create learning experiences aligned with the vision that has been co-created with the community" (156-157).   

Another important point from this section was that innovation and creativity need time to develop. If we're constantly rushing from one unit to the next, trying to complete work on 35 different standards, of course our students are not going to be engaging in deep learning, and they're going to feel as rushed as we do. We will always have too much to do, I think, if we are not permitted to take charge of our own standards or requirements. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon - operating outside of the structures of the Common Core or state standards or whatever your school has - so the important part is to try to see where those standards fit in your school's and classroom's vision. Hopefully, there is some overlap!

This chapter gave me an answer (I think!) to a question that I've been pondering for a long time: how do I use digital resources to show student growth in writing? I used to have students print out each draft and then staple them together with the final copy so I could see how their writing progressed. Many kids were able to hold on to all their drafts, but some weren't, and it became a logistical nightmare for me to page through all of their different drafts to see how (or if) they had improved. Now that I have started using Google Docs, it is much easier to collaborate with students on their writing, but the problem is that I don't have a record of their first draft when I go to read their final draft because the program saves their changes immediately. I know I can re-open my comments to them, but that's tedious. So, I'm wondering if the digital portfolio idea that George Couros talks about here can help with that. Could I have the students upload each draft of their essay (hopefully with my comments) along the way of the writing process? Then, they could see how they had grown, and I would have a clear digital record of their progress. I am very excited about this possibility! I haven't worked with digital portfolios in my own classroom, but I did them during college, and I remember being proud of the final collection of pieces.

The end of this chapter was very clear: "Focusing on a few key things promotes innovation in teaching and learning. And this sharp focus allows you to do more - with less confusion, frustration, and stress. At the same time, by sharing those ideas and learning experiences with other teachers - within schools and around the world - you can help deepen understanding, allow for transformative learning, and disseminate ideas for innovation" (164-165). I think this will be my new mantra for the upcoming school year.