I have been reading Every Child, Every Day by Mark Edwards, superintendent of Mooresville, NC - a district which has a one-to-one laptop program (they refer to it as a “digital conversion” program). This district has made some pretty amazing gains in its students’ academic achievement over the past few years. Below are quotes that I gathererd while reading that I want to share....
“Although we rank 100th in the state of North Carolina out of 115 school districts in per-pupil funding, in 2012, we ranked 3rd in the state on our district graduation rate (90 percent, up from 64 percent in 2006) and 2nd in test scores (89 percent composite), ahead of districts that spend at least $1500 more per student.”
"The laptop is kind of a teacher that is always willing to help you." - Middle School Student
So far, some of the books that Mr. Edwards quotes in his text are:
All Systems Go & The Six Secrets of Change – Michael Fullan
A New Culture of Learning – Thomas and Brown
Drive – Daniel Pink
Brain Rules – John Medina
Building Leadership Capacity in Schools – Linda Lambert
"Why would I need to feel a bump on a globe to know that mountains are high when I could video chat with someone who live on that mountain and learn not only about it height but its climate, economic opportunities, and indigenous animal species?" - Mooresville High School student
"Today's students are connected to a wide variety of online opinions and information, and these connections facilitate two important kinds of thinking in our classrooms. It is vitally important to promote dialogical thinking by students - to familiarize them with the diversity of views on a particular topic and help them understand where the different views are coming from. It is equally important to promote dialectical thinking - to help students realize that what is true today may not be true in the future. When students' perspective grows, they become more capable of formulating opinions, more adaptable to different circumstances, more understanding of complex issues, and more able to find realistic solutions to problems." - Mark Edwards p. 94-5
"Success in a digital conversion classroom depends more than ever before on the talent, initiative, and skills of the teacher... Our goal was that our teachers would no longer be lecturers surrounded by books but would become "roaming conductors" of learning. We began to transition from having the teacher stand in the front of the class to our current teacher as facilitator model... Teaching in our digital conversion initiative requires a significant evolution in design methodology and pedagogy. Teaching students who have a portal to the world at their fingertips and want to use exciting tools and work on personal interests requires teachers to make significant changes. They must move away from whole group didactic static sets to directing and assisting individuals and small groups, interspersed with presentations, discussions, and teacher-directed activities." - Mark Edwards p. 97-99
"We get much more than what's on the tests - not only the 'what' but the 'why.' We get many perspectives on whatever it is that we are learning, and this 'why' knowledge seems to stick better than simply memorizing the facts." Mooresville High School student
“I’m doing the best teaching that I‘ve ever done. We’ve learned to use digital resources to pinpoint intervention, so accuracy and precision have become a huge means for improvement. I could never go back to how I used to teach. It was a bunch of guessing and hoping.” – Mrs. Thompson, 4th grade teacher
“ ‘Precise intervention’ is how we describe our instructional process, now that we rely on digital formative data. In my past experience as an educator, re-teaching to the whole class was a very common way to try to make sure that students were learning. This time-consuming and teacher-intensive process had little impact on student improvement since it did not take into account individual differences. Similarly, hand grading was the norm, often delaying the feedback process for weeks and having minimal effect on student performance.” - Mark Edwards p.126
“Although we rank 100th in the state of North Carolina out of 115 school districts in per-pupil funding, in 2012, we ranked 3rd in the state on our district graduation rate (90 percent, up from 64 percent in 2006) and 2nd in test scores (89 percent composite), ahead of districts that spend at least $1500 more per student.”
"The laptop is kind of a teacher that is always willing to help you." - Middle School Student
So far, some of the books that Mr. Edwards quotes in his text are:
All Systems Go & The Six Secrets of Change – Michael Fullan
A New Culture of Learning – Thomas and Brown
Drive – Daniel Pink
Brain Rules – John Medina
Building Leadership Capacity in Schools – Linda Lambert
"Why would I need to feel a bump on a globe to know that mountains are high when I could video chat with someone who live on that mountain and learn not only about it height but its climate, economic opportunities, and indigenous animal species?" - Mooresville High School student
"Today's students are connected to a wide variety of online opinions and information, and these connections facilitate two important kinds of thinking in our classrooms. It is vitally important to promote dialogical thinking by students - to familiarize them with the diversity of views on a particular topic and help them understand where the different views are coming from. It is equally important to promote dialectical thinking - to help students realize that what is true today may not be true in the future. When students' perspective grows, they become more capable of formulating opinions, more adaptable to different circumstances, more understanding of complex issues, and more able to find realistic solutions to problems." - Mark Edwards p. 94-5
"Success in a digital conversion classroom depends more than ever before on the talent, initiative, and skills of the teacher... Our goal was that our teachers would no longer be lecturers surrounded by books but would become "roaming conductors" of learning. We began to transition from having the teacher stand in the front of the class to our current teacher as facilitator model... Teaching in our digital conversion initiative requires a significant evolution in design methodology and pedagogy. Teaching students who have a portal to the world at their fingertips and want to use exciting tools and work on personal interests requires teachers to make significant changes. They must move away from whole group didactic static sets to directing and assisting individuals and small groups, interspersed with presentations, discussions, and teacher-directed activities." - Mark Edwards p. 97-99
"We get much more than what's on the tests - not only the 'what' but the 'why.' We get many perspectives on whatever it is that we are learning, and this 'why' knowledge seems to stick better than simply memorizing the facts." Mooresville High School student
“I’m doing the best teaching that I‘ve ever done. We’ve learned to use digital resources to pinpoint intervention, so accuracy and precision have become a huge means for improvement. I could never go back to how I used to teach. It was a bunch of guessing and hoping.” – Mrs. Thompson, 4th grade teacher
“ ‘Precise intervention’ is how we describe our instructional process, now that we rely on digital formative data. In my past experience as an educator, re-teaching to the whole class was a very common way to try to make sure that students were learning. This time-consuming and teacher-intensive process had little impact on student improvement since it did not take into account individual differences. Similarly, hand grading was the norm, often delaying the feedback process for weeks and having minimal effect on student performance.” - Mark Edwards p.126
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