Knowing vs. Doing vs. Understanding

There's a distinct difference between knowing how to do something and being able to do it well, with mastery, or even measurably in order to demonstrate understanding or application. We can't provide the 10,000 hours toward mastery of any task that Malcolm Gladwell would like, and I'd bet we'd be hard-pressed say we're satisfied with the number of hours we do provide to practice the skills we turn around to assess.  On the other hand, we know better than to drop a one-time performance assessment on our students without scaffolding or schema. Project-based activities can be impactful,  and activate the 4c's and 21st century skills, but they are lacking if we don't build in mechanisms to assess understanding and application beyond performance outcome. I promise that students likely want to recite, compute or demonstrate ability with fluidity and confidence as much as we want them to, but we have to have meaningful measures and honest feedback that is constructive.

When it comes to feedback, here's an example. Any parent or teacher who has known a child learning a magic trick for the fist time has undoubtedly become the "willing spectator" for their latest miracle. But how does it help the learner when we give a dramatic (and almost always phony) "How did you do that?" The best and hardest critique is the honest one, and the one that peers or siblings are more than happy to offer. This is usually, "I saw how you did that," or "Duh, it's in the other hand," yet we are so reluctant to squish their spirit that we provide false confidence and offer little constructive feedback. How about more specific feedback in the form of a rubric? A rubric isn't feedback if it's used as a checklist for the student or teacher.  Students rarely glow in response to a rubric.  That's where dialogue and conferences hold their magic.

When it comes to a "performance outcome," here's another example.  I recently played in an annual golf tournament that comprises my entire annual golf practice and play, but I'm always disappointed in how poorly I play. It's humbling and discouraging.  I know what to do, I've been instructed how to improve, and still my performance is poor and inconsistent. Get my point? Just because I understand exactly what to do, and have a clear outcome in mind, I will never sink a hole-in-one or even consistently hit long and straight. Players on neighboring fairways will vouch for that. 

I was also reminded how frustrating and unpleasant it is to try to do something that that I'm not good at. When I think about the things we ask our students to do, I think about this sensation, and that their response has nothing to do with how easily I think they should be able to apply a skill or accomplish a task. 

In an earlier blog (Products to Practices), I wrote about how "Information isn't knowledge," as quoted by the president of Bryant University. I was writing how we can chase the acquisition of information and content, and I asked how can we find innovative ways of asking our students to apply their thinking and demonstrate learning, rather than counting how much they've collected. 

Then this week I saw an amazing YouTube video (from Smarter Every Day) that illustrates so much of what if what I've been thinking and blogging about. 

The clip features a "Backwards Bicycle," and demonstrates that while information isn't knowledge, knowledge isn't automatic understanding. I don't have a backwards bike, but I can somewhat replicate the theory by trying to hit a golf ball right-handed vs. my regular left-handed swing.  I've confessed that I'm a poor enough golfer, and maybe practice could improve a reverse-handed swing, but there's no doubt that I put myself in a clearly disadvantaged position toward achieving my goal.

This video also reminds me how careful we should be when it comes to designing performance assessments or project based evaluations. The bike rider clearly knew what to do to ride the bike (just like I know to sink the golf ball in the hole) but was not put in a situation to succeed, where knowledge and understanding intersect.  In our classrooms, we want to facilitate success while providing challenge and opportunities for growth and learning. Well-designed practice and application of skills should demonstrate growth, and we should seek or create practices to measure, assess, and respond to that progress meaningfully. 

No Business Like Show Business

We are in the business of educating and enlightening minds, but anyone who loves their job knows there's always a bit of show-business. We need to remember that when it comes to show-biz, it's the business of showing, not telling. We can and should model the practices and strategies we want our student to employ or develop, and we have to skillfully tread the line of igniting excitement and setting the mood without revealing the best parts, interfering with discovery, and without doing their thinking for them! 

Every innovation strategy or practice I've seen or read about in recent years is designed to either capture or generate that spark, but we can't be tempted to take shortcuts. There's no pre-packaged retail "MakerBox" full of directions and diagrams that beats exploration and creation for generating that spirit. 

"A-ha moments" are just that- moments of discovery for students, and for us as well. We are reminded that when students create, design, synthesize or draw meaningful conclusions, it is an emotional act that literally forges new pathways in their minds.  When lightning strikes, it's magic, but it's no show-biz trick!

I think about all the clever names and ways that libraries and multi-purpose rooms are being transformed into innovation stations, eureka labs, construction zones or learning commons, all to generate these moments of discovery. The spaces have been reimagined, but more importantly, the focus of what happens within those walls has been reimagined as well.  We have just decided to shift or prioritize our focus. Inventing and creating are not new skills, after all. There's a reason teachers have been saving paper towel tubes and yogurt cups forever.

At ISTE, you couldn't stroll into a session without hearing about Makerspaces, and for good reason. BUT, a Makerspace is not about the space, or even what materials reside within it, but about the invitation and opportunity for students to create, engineer and design.  It's space and time devoted to exploration.  A set of directions or "right way" of completing a project goes against the very idea of the environment, unless we are just trying to grow direction-followers. Instead, prompts and problems can serve to launch thinking, but that should be all. That's why clever teachers are making (and spending) more than a few bucks on Teachers-pay-Teachers sharing inspiring prompts and classroom/individual STEM challenges.

Getting back to the show, it's equally as critical for students to be able to share and showcase their creations. It's not a performance, but we can provide the audience.  Reluctant writers and quiet-corner kids come to life if we give the right tools to reflect and share their thinking. At the moment, my tool of choice begins and ends with Seesaw to archive projects (before eventual disassembly), whether it's audio, video, written, or just a captioned photo.

Is it a revolution? Not quite, but it is it an exciting time to be a teacher, when the skills and opportunities that bring our classroom circuses and vaudeville halls to life are the latest trend.
(And we get to be the ringmasters!)