Who I am and what led me here
In 2008 I worked for an at-risk student alternative school in Raleigh, NC while finishing my MSA from NCSU. The principal approached me one Tuesday afternoon and dropped a challenge on me: "Shu, we have to make school more fun and engaging. They aren't showing up, and as a result we are failing them."
He was right; the data showed that students with regular attendance were passing, and those who weren't coming were failing and dropping out. I began by begging and pleading with students who had chronic absences. Then I helped create school wide incentives for attendance. Then, using my strong relationships with my own students, I started a contest. I challenged them with a bet: If my students could achieve 66% attendance on an upcoming Friday, I would shave NERDY in the back of my head and go jogging... on video. Note that Weird Al's White and Nerdy had recently come out, and I was a white teacher in an almost all black school with students who loved the mess out of me. The kids thought it would be hilarious, and they got really pumped. Then on the given Friday, they failed to get to school. The following Monday they were mad at each other. After a bit of back and forth, the real reasons came out as to why they hadn't come. No water. No power. No childcare. Nowhere to sleep. No clean clothes. The list went on, but the trend was clear. The discretion wasn't theirs, as their worlds were spinning out of control.
I immediately changed tactics. I taught myself rudimentary web design and put a one-semester English course online. Looking back, I'm certain I violated every copyright law on the books, but my heart was in the right place. I then became the voluntary Director of Education for the Kramden Institute, where I placed thousands of computers into the hands of NC students who didn't have them -with my students' hands first in line. I got every student a Google account, and I put the grade book on a Google Spreadsheet without names so students and parents could see how they were doing at any time. I created a classroom blended group rotation-model with stations: the Conversation Station, which was group seating around a laptop with a digital projector for live engagement periods; the Creation Station, consisting of computers without Internet access but with tools like Office and Audacity; and the Exploration Station, which had computers with Internet access. Every student had a computer at home, the entire curriculum was on a free thumb drive, and they emailed me their assignments. The grade book was transparent and accessible, and student pass rates shot up as they learned that attendance was not a barrier to success.
I moved on to add a project based learning station the next year, where seniors completed a modified barrelponics experiment. And as my at-risk students were weighing Tilapia and graphing tomato plant growth, I had online students collaborating with students in Puerto Rico to share about cultures and polish ESL skills. 2009 was the year I discovered online teaching with NCVPS. I was the Online Teacher of the Year for the state of NC my first year teaching online. I led a team that was supposed to edit a course, but instead we entirely re-wrote it, creating differentiated thematic learning paths based on unit pre-assessments. It was the first of its kind in NC. That year the governor's office appointed me to the NC E-Learning Commission, and I started working with NC's Friday Institute to develop recommendations for e-texts which will eventually save tax payers from exorbitant textbook costs.
My website lived on, but as I moved away from the face to face classroom, it became a blog written for online teachers that focused on how to efficiently get the onerous, techy stuff done so teachers have more time to connect personally with students. I found some loose focus: quick ed tech how-to's that are free, changing education to make broad improvements, design theories and concepts, and apps and tools that impact learning. Eventually I became a regular contributor for Tom Vander Ark's Getting Smart blog, which has a national audience.
Later I became a consultant for the US Department of Defense and then an independent consultant. My work has been interesting, and my career has taken off like wildfire. I could go into detail about impressive projects like planning an international professional development engagement for 21st Century Teaching and Learning or co-developing the first online pbl course with New Tech Network, but I only have 1000 words and need to keep this tight.
In the end, what brings me to your doorstep is the challenge that has stuck with me since 2008 -how can we make education fun and engaging enough to make students want to show up? Showing up is more than coming to school. It's learning with purpose, and it happens at home and at school -anywhere curiosity or need drive a learner's search for knowledge or skills. Lacking a real purpose and relevance, students will still come to school; the purpose, GPA, is hollow and lacks relevance. They know a high GPA will get them to college, and they believe going to college is how to get a good job. But GPA is the 'because I said so' of answers to the question 'why should I?' As long as GPA is a purpose without relevance, there will always be cheating, students will always ask 'how long does it have to be,' and high stakes testing in core subjects will continue to eclipse whole student learning.
I have been working on how to get students to show up since my early work with at-risk students in alternative schools in 2000. I have escalated my influence from a single classroom to a statewide online program, then in blended schools, a district, a state, and even nationwide. I have gathered mentors who are some of the most influential forward-thinkers in the industry. And I have developed a design concept that I believe will offer students another option that will have students showing up every day. Every mentor and ed leader I have brought this design concept to has been wowed by it. I need your support, training, experience, and networks to help make it a reality.
He was right; the data showed that students with regular attendance were passing, and those who weren't coming were failing and dropping out. I began by begging and pleading with students who had chronic absences. Then I helped create school wide incentives for attendance. Then, using my strong relationships with my own students, I started a contest. I challenged them with a bet: If my students could achieve 66% attendance on an upcoming Friday, I would shave NERDY in the back of my head and go jogging... on video. Note that Weird Al's White and Nerdy had recently come out, and I was a white teacher in an almost all black school with students who loved the mess out of me. The kids thought it would be hilarious, and they got really pumped. Then on the given Friday, they failed to get to school. The following Monday they were mad at each other. After a bit of back and forth, the real reasons came out as to why they hadn't come. No water. No power. No childcare. Nowhere to sleep. No clean clothes. The list went on, but the trend was clear. The discretion wasn't theirs, as their worlds were spinning out of control.
I immediately changed tactics. I taught myself rudimentary web design and put a one-semester English course online. Looking back, I'm certain I violated every copyright law on the books, but my heart was in the right place. I then became the voluntary Director of Education for the Kramden Institute, where I placed thousands of computers into the hands of NC students who didn't have them -with my students' hands first in line. I got every student a Google account, and I put the grade book on a Google Spreadsheet without names so students and parents could see how they were doing at any time. I created a classroom blended group rotation-model with stations: the Conversation Station, which was group seating around a laptop with a digital projector for live engagement periods; the Creation Station, consisting of computers without Internet access but with tools like Office and Audacity; and the Exploration Station, which had computers with Internet access. Every student had a computer at home, the entire curriculum was on a free thumb drive, and they emailed me their assignments. The grade book was transparent and accessible, and student pass rates shot up as they learned that attendance was not a barrier to success.
I moved on to add a project based learning station the next year, where seniors completed a modified barrelponics experiment. And as my at-risk students were weighing Tilapia and graphing tomato plant growth, I had online students collaborating with students in Puerto Rico to share about cultures and polish ESL skills. 2009 was the year I discovered online teaching with NCVPS. I was the Online Teacher of the Year for the state of NC my first year teaching online. I led a team that was supposed to edit a course, but instead we entirely re-wrote it, creating differentiated thematic learning paths based on unit pre-assessments. It was the first of its kind in NC. That year the governor's office appointed me to the NC E-Learning Commission, and I started working with NC's Friday Institute to develop recommendations for e-texts which will eventually save tax payers from exorbitant textbook costs.
My website lived on, but as I moved away from the face to face classroom, it became a blog written for online teachers that focused on how to efficiently get the onerous, techy stuff done so teachers have more time to connect personally with students. I found some loose focus: quick ed tech how-to's that are free, changing education to make broad improvements, design theories and concepts, and apps and tools that impact learning. Eventually I became a regular contributor for Tom Vander Ark's Getting Smart blog, which has a national audience.
Later I became a consultant for the US Department of Defense and then an independent consultant. My work has been interesting, and my career has taken off like wildfire. I could go into detail about impressive projects like planning an international professional development engagement for 21st Century Teaching and Learning or co-developing the first online pbl course with New Tech Network, but I only have 1000 words and need to keep this tight.
In the end, what brings me to your doorstep is the challenge that has stuck with me since 2008 -how can we make education fun and engaging enough to make students want to show up? Showing up is more than coming to school. It's learning with purpose, and it happens at home and at school -anywhere curiosity or need drive a learner's search for knowledge or skills. Lacking a real purpose and relevance, students will still come to school; the purpose, GPA, is hollow and lacks relevance. They know a high GPA will get them to college, and they believe going to college is how to get a good job. But GPA is the 'because I said so' of answers to the question 'why should I?' As long as GPA is a purpose without relevance, there will always be cheating, students will always ask 'how long does it have to be,' and high stakes testing in core subjects will continue to eclipse whole student learning.
I have been working on how to get students to show up since my early work with at-risk students in alternative schools in 2000. I have escalated my influence from a single classroom to a statewide online program, then in blended schools, a district, a state, and even nationwide. I have gathered mentors who are some of the most influential forward-thinkers in the industry. And I have developed a design concept that I believe will offer students another option that will have students showing up every day. Every mentor and ed leader I have brought this design concept to has been wowed by it. I need your support, training, experience, and networks to help make it a reality.