Self-Directed Learning Goes Beyond the Self

Rabbi Ross has continued the blogversation we and Rabbi Tzvi Pittinksy have been having about self-directed learning, voicing concerns about the possible loss of well-roundedness in the quest to allow students to choose their own pathways through school. Before everyone starts to worry that we're in for a future where we'll be tossing away accepted notions about what it means to be a Renaissance person, let us assure you that self-directed learning doesn't mean a student learns one subject all day, choosing, as Rabbi Ross suggested, only math classes, let's say, and forgetting that there's anything to be learned other than algebraic formulas and complex algorithms.

Math through Basketball?

Self-directed learning can mean many things. We first got interested in it because of Sugata Mitra's discovery of how students in India could teach themselves with very limited resources (thank you, RealSchool member Akiva for showing us that video!). Our interest in self-directed learning deepened because of Will Richardson's challenge to math teachers, asking them if his son, who is a basketball enthusiast, could learn all the math he needed to learn by studying his favorite sport. The answer, 60 blog post responses later, seemed to be "yes." That possibility has to be intriguing to any teacher; how much more engaged students might be if they could be analyzing their favorite sport as they learn!

Opening, not Closing, Horizons

The Sorcerer's and Their Apprentices by Frank Moss, a book Ken Gordon of PEJE suggested recently that educators from Jewish day schools read, highlights the work of the MIT Media Lab. One professor, Leah Buechley of the High-Low Tech group, works to ignite passion for engineering in those who wouldn't ordinarily be interested in it, particularly girls. Here is what Buechley's group does:

High-Low Tech, a research group at the MIT Media Lab, integrates high and low technological materials, processes, and cultures. Our primary aim is to engage diverse audiences in designing and building their own technologies by situating computation in new cultural and material contexts, and by developing tools that democratize engineering. We believe that the future of technology will be largely determined by end-users who will design, build, and hack their own devices, and our goal is to inspire, shape, support, and study these communities. To this end, we explore the intersection of computation, physical materials, manufacturing processes, traditional crafts, and design. (http://hlt.media.mit.edu/)

Buechley is on a "quest to combat what she calls the 'cultural lopsidedness of the hard sciences,' in particular the gender gap, by getting more females . . . interested and active in the world of engineering and inventing" (Moss 227). An invention as appealing to girls as this interactive wall paper means Buechley is well on her way to achieving her goal:

This interactive wallpaper, called the Living Wall,
shows people, not only young girls, that creating
through engineering is fun and can lead to something
accessible and that adds value and fun to everyday life.
Imagine if our walls could help us with daily chores!

Buechley understands what girls are interested in; they want to play with pretty things and decorate their play houses (not to be too stereotypical, but hey, we posted girls playing basketball too, so we're safe with this gender-biased assumption). The point is that Buechley is trying to reach girls on their level, that is, directing learning so the student is at the center of it, with her interests being ignited and appealed to first and then building a curriculum from that.

So rather than having self-directed learning be narrow and confining, our two examples -- of sports-based math and design-based engineering -- show that a student interest can lead to something even more broadening and enriching.

More than One Value

It's also important to remember that one value doesn't define RealSchool and other programs like it. To remind you, here is RealSchool's Mission Statement, which begins with a verse from Ethics from Our Fathers, one said by the famous sage Hillel and which we'd like to think endorses the concept of self-directed learning:

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?"

But the verse continues, showing us that we must also use our talents for a common, greater good:

"And if I am only for myself, what am I?" (1:13)

Collaboration 

Thus, RealSchool also prizes our culture of collaboration. RealSchool students work together in a friendly and respectful way with others, so that while pursuing their own passions, they learn to value others for the talents and interests they have. And more often than not, because the walls of the disciplines are dissolved during RealSchool meetings, students end up peeking into the doings of other teams and learning they have an interest in all sorts of things they never thought they may have cared about.

Relevance

Bracelets we sold at our fashion show last year told wearers
"You are Beautiful. You are Enough."

Another value, crucial to RealSchool and which can also be derived from Hillel's second statement, is that what we produce has to contribute positively to the world around us. Therefore, all RealSchool students see that there is relevance to their work, that their interests can be converted into something that is meaningful and beneficial to society and the world. 

Learning by Doing

Though Hillel is silent, at least in this verse, on the concept of learning by doing, we cannot remain so, as it is one of the program's most important values. We want kids up and doing, not sitting behind desks. We want the learning process to be messy, we want kids unafraid of making mistakes, and we want to hear noise and commotion as we create and innovate. 

The Kindergartners Get a Say

We have more to share, but we'll end for today with this great video, called "Five-Year-Olds Pilot Their Own Project Learning." We love to post this video: it's of kindergartners engaged in project-based learning. While some aspects of the projects are clearly teacher-guided, one adorable one was totally student-centered: a funeral for the class pet bug. Enjoy seeing how these small students are taking ownership of their learning:

Getting Started in Self-Directed Learning

Know the problems and benefits of self-directed learning
before you embark on the process

Introduction to 21st-Century Skills

In talking with different educators and lay people about the 21st-century skills new educational methods are interested in honing, we've heard legitimate and important concerns about the fact that these new approaches are largely untested and that traditional practices have been successful in educating students, so why change them?

One of RealSchool's interests lies in giving students a voice in their classrooms, in their curricula and in the policies that shape the schools they attend. One of the ways RealSchool, which has primarily been an extra-curricular activity, has been able to empower students is by having them choose the teams and projects they want to join. Another way, in a course that was partially "RealSchool-ed," was by having seniors choose a topic they researched and blogged about all year. That project, called Frisch L.E.A.D.s (Learning. Exploring. Analyzing. Designing.) is culminating now in a term paper and/or multi-media project where students organize and present what they have learned. Here, here and here are posts about the components of the LEADs project.

Different Forms of Self-Directed Learning

Student Choice in Assessment 

Our esteemed colleague, Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky, the TechRav, has recently posted his concerns about self-directed learning, and we'd like to address his thoughtful points. Rabbi Pittinsky notes:

As a teacher in my own classroom, I find that while I want to allow my students to express themselves utilizing their talents and creativity, I also have a very strong idea of a curriculum that I wish to cover. I am especially proud of projects where I can maximize the two.

What Rabbi Pittinsky describes here is, to our mind, a form of self-directed learning. Allowing students to use their own talents and creativity in a class where the teacher is guiding the curriculum strongly is still a way to give students more voice and choice in their classes. Students are going to have higher levels of engagement if they feel more invested in the learning, either by choosing what they learn or, in this case, how they are assessed. 

Rabbi Pittinsky points to Rabbi Aaron Ross' meaningful and rich PBL (project-based learning) kashruth assignment as another way to empower students in the classroom, while still having the teacher maintain a high level of structure and organization in the curriculum. 

Student Choice in Project and Assessment

The Frisch LEADs project allows more student freedom than what Rabbi Pittinsky and Rabbi Ross have described in their work. For Frisch LEADs, students were allowed to choose the topic they wanted to research and then decide to some extent on how they would present their information. While all students had to complete at least a 10-12-page term paper, in order to demonstrate mastery of writing and depth of research, some students are choosing to do a long, 25-page research paper and no multi-media project, while others are choosing to leave their paper at 10-12 pages and complete projects such as: 

* a meal for the class
* a wiki
* an anti-bullying program for the freshmen
* a survey of religious development for the seniors and juniors
* art projects and an art exhibit

Though Frisch LEADs allows students choice in what they learn and how they are assessed, there is still structure in the project and teachers are facilitating and overseeing the students' learning. The Frisch LEADs projects did not take up an entire syllabus, however. The project was part of an AP English Literature course, during which students learned literature chosen by their teachers. What about classes that are even more self-directed and have what we would call self-organizing curricula, that is, entire curriculums based on what students want to learn and not on what teachers feel they need to teach?

Rabbi Pittinsky expresses a natural opinion:

I think that the most important opportunities for pure self-directed learning come in the area of extra-curricular activities. If students have an idea for a new club or publication, we must support them in every way possible. But in the classroom, kids crave clear direction from the teacher. This can come in many forms. Frontal teaching does not have to take up the bulk of this learning. But almost everything should be teacher-directed even those times when we allow our students to take control and teach the lesson.

Students Choose What and How They Learn

RS's App Making and Social Entrepreneurship teams
decide what's going to be in an app and how they're going to market it

RealSchool got started because students wanted more choice in what they learned and chose, after school in the club, to make apps, websites and videos; care for the environment and learn about their physical health; ask the Big Questions about religion that they didn't have time in class to ask; make fashion shows and art exhibits; and more. But why shouldn't students be able to do those things in a class? Why should a student sit through a course he/she isn't interested in when another one, just as vital to a student's development, could be offered? In fact, the English Department at Frisch will be offering Digital Media next year for students interested in web design, photoshop and other forms of digital expression. 

AP Environment is given at many schools (don't get us started on standardized testing, but we mention the course to show that it has legitimacy in mainstream venues); why not create one that's more project-based and creates relevance in the real world? One of the things we do at RealSchool is intertwine the interests of our different teams, to show students how their individual talents and interests can be used to serve a larger good. So for this year's Fashion Show, entitled Who's the Fairest of Them All?, we've focused on fair food and trade practices and are raising money to end slavery in the world. 

Jamie, a member of many RS teams, including Graphic Design,
is working on a logo for the Health and Environment team

The Health and Environment team is busy finding out about ethical trade practices in the food industry, and we've been debating whether kashruth certifications should show that a food has been created in an ethical manner. For example, does an owner of a kosher restaurant treat his workers well? One of our students has shared with us information about Uri L'Zedek, a Jewish Social Action organization, and its Tav HaYosher, a seal certifying a kosher restaurant has created a just environment. We've tied the interests of fashion and health, therefore, not only to each other, but also to a larger question students have about their religion, which is how can it be relevant in today's world?

All Jewish day schools are obviously very values-based, so we feel engaging students in this kind of whole-person learning is crucial, but what student, anywhere, wouldn't find meaning in whole-person learning? All humans want to feel there is value in what they learn and do. In fact, take a look at this article that Jeff Kiderman at AJE sent us:

All High School Courses Should Be Elective

Pretty radical title, but don't dismiss the idea out of hand. At least, begin discussion in your schools -- with parents, students (especially students!), teachers, administrators and board members -- about what students are gaining from their course work and what they'd like to see change. Students buy into the idea of RealSchool pretty quickly. They love the idea that they can choose what they want to learn; teachers need to feel they're in control and that chaos will not break out if students are in a learning lab environment as opposed to a classroom with a row of desks. We get that. Let's help each other get over that, though. There are a lot of steps we can take to make students more empowered and more engaged in their learning.

The many different ways to employ self-directed learning

Just a few days after we first wrote this post, we found this blog post about connecting learning, which is the tying of student passions into the classroom. The post extols the idea of appealing to students' interests, ones normally left for extra-curricular activities, by bringing them into the classroom setting.

Additional Resources on Giving Students Choice

Check out the Science Leadership Academy and its take on curriculum. We love this school and cannot wait to hear from Chris Lehman, its principal and a keynote speaker at EdJewCon. Check out Chris Lehman's blog for more on this visionary educator.

Here's a post from a website we love: Including Student Voice from Edutopia.

And finally: If Students Designed Their Own Schools . . .

Passover Poems: The Haggadah and Huck Finn

Found Poems

If you're looking for something interesting to recite at this year's Seder, consider the following student-made found poems on freedom and racism, written as part of a culminating project on racism in America. Here are the students working on the project:

The first poem is an amalgamation of texts from the Haggadah and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

This year slaves

   Next year free men

There ain't nothing in the world so good

You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable

        We cried out to God

God heard our voice and he saw our suffering

In every generation they rise against us and seek our destruction

Nobody else could come a-hunting after me

   Out of the chains in no time

   There ain't no place for a n-----

         Baruckh atah Hashem Ga'al Yisrael

         I knowed I was alright now
         freedom

The second poem is from the civil rights chapter of American history textbook, American History: A Survey by Alan Brinkley:


Loss of Innocence

he had collapsed
romantic vision snapped
the stable cords had once bound
basic principles
and existing terms

champions of the new
-- already inferior --
concept of slavery
they were the slaveowners
the fire eaters

slavery's unthreatening presence
had risen to such a point
that it was threatened
not even backed by gold or silver
certainly not by morality
only mortality

Try your hand at creating your own found poem out of just the haggadah or the haggadah and another inspirational source. 

Feel free to post your found poem in the comments section!

The Schechter Haggadah

We've been enjoying the truly remarkable The Schechter Haggadah. Read a review of it here.

Enjoy this time of freedom and redemption.
Have a happy Pesach!

David Kelley's Design Thinking at IDEO and Stanford

IDEO's offices. Who wouldn't want to work in this kind of environment?

Design Thinking at IDEO

David Kelley is the founder of IDEO, one of the most creative companies around today. Kelley is a pioneer of Design Thinking, something we've been talking about recently on Twitter with our pals on #jedchat and #JDSMediaLab, and his company has been employing Design Thinking for the last 20 years. In fact, IDEO is responsible for such inventions as the first mouse for Apple and the standing toothpaste container.

The key values at IDEO are collaboration, "anti-disciplinary" thinking, and, as Kelley puts it, "empathy for the consumer." Groups comprised of thinkers from diverse backgrounds -- computer science, design, journalism, business, etc. -- gather and think about ways to make products that show a true understanding of how consumers use the products they buy and/or interact with. Kelley believes strongly that the way to improve and create products is to observe consumers as they use them. By noticing when a consumer is having a less-than-perfect experience as he utilizes a product, IDEO employees gain knowledge about what to improve or create. See some of IDEO's products here.

The Stanford d.school

Kelley founded the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, where Stanford students from -- you guessed it -- all different backgrounds and majors can gather and learn about Design Thinking. Steve Jobs, one of IDEO's first and most loyal customers and a good friend of Kelley's, pooh-poohed the idea of Kelley's issuing a degree from something as flighty as a design program, but Jobs was a passionate believer in Kelley and was excited by the idea that Kelley would be teaching Design Thinking to people who were pursuing careers in a variety of fields and who would therefore apply the thinking to those diverse areas. 

If you look at the website for the d.school, you'll notice that it has values RealSchool really loves. Who's signing up for the d.school's boot camp with us?

Learn More

Learn more about Kelley, Design Thinking and IDEO in this interview by Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes, which we found via the Jewish Education Project:

We've posted about Kelley before. Here's his TED Talk about having confidence in being creative:

RealSchool "Application"

Anyone want to apply to RealSchool?

Defining and Implementing "Anti-Disciplinary" Learning

A Closer Look at Anti-Disciplinary Studies

Master Educator Rabbi Aaron Ross responded to our last post about the values of the MIT Media Lab with the following comment:

"Chapter 2 [of The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices] describes the anti-disciplinary nature of the work that takes place in the lab, where people from many different disciplines can cross-pollinate with each other and arrive at innovative solutions to problems that have been addressed in more narrow ways."

There seems to be an inherent contradiction in this line. On the one hand, the current work being done is "anti-disciplinary", or at least interdisciplinary. But on the other hand, it is being done by people "from many different disciplines", which implies that specific disciplinary knowledge is a sine qua non for being able to work at this level.

The question then becomes, at what stage of learning is one ready to cross disciplines? I know that we often bemoan the fact that the departmentalization of schools sometimes causes kids to departmentalize the world and therefore one of our goals as educators should be to teach students how to bridge the disciplines. But on the other hand, expertise is often acquired via a laser-like focus on that discipline. MIT Media Lab is dealing with people who have already become experts in their fields - is high school or middle school too early to do the same?

Rabbi Ross raises important points about the implementation of anti-disciplinary, or interdisciplinary, studies. It's absolutely true that we need experts in a multitude of fields or else how will those fields grow? The MIT Media Lab is successful because it cultivates the creativity and ingenuity of some of the country's brightest and most talented people, and those people are experts trained in fields such as neuroscience, computer science, design, physics, music, and more.

However, part of the Media Lab's success is that it also gives those very talented people a chance to "play" in fields they aren't expert in. Example: In Chapter 2 of The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices, which is entitled "Disappearing Disciplines," Moss describes the work of Amy Farber and Ian Eslick. Farber has a PhD in social anthropology, and Eslick is working on his fourth degree from MIT (we're jealous!) and has done extensive work in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Neither Farber or Eslick has a degree in biology, but they're working on a cure for lymph-angioleio-myamatosis (LAM). Farber suffers from this debilitating disease, but the medical field isn't rushing to find a cure for it because it's not a popular one and therefore market demand for a drug isn't high enough (Moss 40-49).

Moss describes the anti-disciplinary nature of the work Farber and Eslick do: "As they discuss databases, casually tossing around terms like de-duplication and hashing, it's difficult to tell which one is the computer scientist. When the conversation turns to cell biology, it's even more difficult to tell -- and to believe -- that neither has any background in medicine" (40).

Farber and Eslick have now created The LAM Treatment Alliance, and one of the successes of the organization is that it's crowdsourcing a treatment plan -- and possibly a cure -- for the disease by adhering to an old doctrine of the doctor: Ask the patient what is wrong. Medicine today doesn't mine a treasure trove of information it has in front of it: patients. But for Farber, linking all those who suffer from LAM and offering them a way to share their best practices in treating the disease is a way to find not only the most effective treatment plans, but also perhaps a cure. (For more on this "post-modern" view of handing the patient the key to his own physical health, read this review of _Patient: Heal Thyself_.)

We know what you're going to say: Farber and Eslick are part of a group of some of the brightest people in America and are in some of the most innovative and best financed conditions in the world. But as educators, don't we have to ask ourselves if that kind of lab environment is something we can duplicate for all students, given the fact that the possibilities of discovery, invention and innovation rise exponentially when people are put in something like the Media Lab?

Self-Directed Learning

Now, we don't feel a person's interest in a subject has to be as serious as Farber's unfortunately is, but we recognize that all people want to engage in learning that is meaningful to them. One of RealSchool's values is that we begin first with a student's particular interest, something that the student may not have time to study in a traditional classroom, and even if the motivation to pursue a subject isn't as grave as Ferber's, we believe that life has more meaning and purpose when we're pursuing those interests that give us most joy and satisfaction. And, as is so often the case, our passions may lead us to something as important as a cure for an illness or some other significant achievement. 

Implementing Anti-Disciplinary Studies and Self-Directed Learning

How can we implement anti-disciplinary, self-directed learning in the classroom? That's the big question, and 

it can be answered differently depending on the class in which it's asked. For example, next year at Frisch we hope to run RealSchool as an elective. In the RS elective, we can transfer the model we're using now, when we're an extra-curricular activity, to the classroom and plan events and projects based on student interest. However, we also plan to "RealSchool" the twelfth grade History and English classes, integrating them and using a lot of PBL (project-based learning). We're at the beginning stages of designing the interdisciplinary course now, but one approach might be to ask students whether they want to learn History through English or English through History. We could also ask students if they want to learn:

LitHum (Literature/Humanities) and the Arts

LitHum and Politics

LitHum and Psychology

LitHum and Social Action

By creating a class that suits different student interests, we evolve courses where students feel more invested in the material and are hopefully more engaged in the learning. Schools have already done this to a certain extent by offering, say, English electives such as The Sixties, Shakespeare, Mythology, etc. Our approach expands on that idea. 

What about Elementary Schools?

RealSchool right now is in a high school setting, but we feel that the model can be tailored to an elementary one as well, where, no question, control over the direction of a course must be tighter. But since we feel that each child is unique and has something special to contribute to the world, don't we want to find out what that something special is and enable that child to get started as soon as possible on a path of learning that is exciting and fulfilling to him and that has the potential to add real value or charm or amazement to the world?

Michelangelo's father used to beat him because he neglected his lessons and drew all the time (Michelangelo's Biography). 'Nuff said.

Here's a video that adorably illustrates what even kindergartners can do with PBL and self-directed learning:

Be sure to check out the edutopia.org website. It's a great resource for PBL and other amazingly innovative learning strategies and tools. 

Last night on #jedchat, we commented that when we asked a senior in one class what he'd like to learn, he responded by saying, "No one's ever asked me that before." That is so sad. Let's change that, and let's be careful but creative when doing so. 

Work Cited:

Moss, Frank. The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices. New York: Crown Business, 2011. 

The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices

Ken Gordon at PEJE suggested on Twitter that those of us interested in "changing education paradigms" (thank you, Sir Ken Robinson) read The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices by Frank Moss, the former director of the MIT Media Lab, which is what RealSchool wants to be when it grows up.

The MIT Media Lab

In the book's Preface, Moss lays out the chapters and simultaneously shares the vision at the heart of the MIT Media Lab. Following is a summary of that vision, one which will sound familiar to anyone who has been drinking the RealSchool Kool-Aid , ahem, participating in the RealSchool learning endeavor:

• Chapter 1 is about the creative freedom researchers have at the lab, which allows them to "invent according to their passions and curiosities, in an environment where the only real rule is that there are no rules, and where there is no such thing as failure."
• Chapter 2 describes the anti-disciplinary nature of the work that takes place in the lab, where people from many different disciplines can cross-pollinate with each other and arrive at innovative solutions to problems that have been addressed in more narrow ways. 
• Chapter 3 is one of RealSchool's favorites, describing the hard fun researchers enjoy in the lab because they are encouraged to "express their most fanciful ideas by building them and then seeing what happens when people use them" 
• Chapter 4 is about serendipity by design, or what happens as a result of the fact that the lab encourages "accidental" encounters among students and teachers that enrich and improve the projects the different teams are working on (xiii-xiv). This philosophy of design by chance is described well in Steven Johnson's book Where Good Ideas Come From. We showed the following clip narrated by Johnson at RealSchool's first meeting this year:

Now that you're acquainted with some of the Media Lab's values, here's RealSchool's mission, which was hashed out by the RealSchool members of 2011-12 and Mrs. Tikvah Wiener, RealSchool's founder and director. Of course, RealSchool is not only a group of clubs, as we describe it below; it's also as an educational philosophy that can be used to form an academic program as well. In fact, baby RealSchool is going to be a toddler next year, because it's going to be offered as an elective at The Frisch School in Paramus, NJ. 

RealSchool's Mission Statement (see our website for more information about the program):

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I?” -- Hillel, Ethics of the Fathers, 1:13

RealSchool is a group of clubs that are linked together by a matrix of shared beliefs about how one learns and the way learning benefits the self and others. One of the key values of RealSchool is that learning should be self-directed, that is, what one learns should be chosen by the individual. However, once a student has selected a RealSchool team in the area of interest s/he has, all learning takes place collaboratively. Learning at RealSchool is also primarily experiential rather than based on the knowledge of an expert, commonly referred to in the past as a teacher. In addition, RealSchool encourages -- no, demands -- divergent, creative thinking that enables students to apply their knowledge and skills to real life and the challenges of the real world.

The relationship that all RealSchool members are taught to create within the RealSchool community and with the broader world is a caring, symbiotic one. Students may join a particular RealSchool team because of a talent or interest they have, but they must learn about the talents that others possess and how to help others pursue their interests. Therefore, though the process of joining RealSchool  begins with the self and an individual’s interests, it ends in a stronger community, as students are not only consumers, that is, recipients of help from RealSchool teams, but are also producers, that is, ones who give help to fellow teams and ultimately to the larger community.

Built into RealSchool’s DNA, then, is a focus on student empowerment: students choose what and how to learn. However, students also come to realize that by doing the very things they love, they can benefit not only their peers but the community and world at large.

Stay tuned for more sound bytes from Frank Moss' book! 

Work Cited:

Moss, Frank. The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices. New York: Crown Business, 2011. Print. (Yes, people still read books!)