We're growing up little by little (Celebration)

And so to the last of Ann McMullan's five critical skills that my students need.

5 Persistence.

Again, it is hard to argue against this as a necessary skill. She defines persistence as "the ability to continue with a task and maintain attention despite setbacks, resistance, or distraction".

As I've indicated before, my classroom door has a Maori phrase on it - Whaia Kia Maia - pursue it until it is conquered - so, yeah, I'm a fan.

It IS important that students learn how to keep focused, despite challenges. No problem there. 

But where does this come from? I'm a strong believer in intrinsic motivation (rather than external incentives and rewards). Getting a student to believe in the power of effort and hard work goes a long way towards ensuring perseverance when the going gets tough. But having that belief is tricky. Very tricky.

Like students anywhere, my students are on a continuum from very low persistence levels to intrinsically motivated workaholics. Most fall into the bell curve middle ground.

What do I do to help them? 

Having regular checkpoints works for some students. We have a couple of humungous assignment style standards that last two terms and hopefully the progress checkpoints enable students to build on a pattern of success.

Secondly, our English courses are now set up to provide stacks of choice, which, again hopefully, increases their motivation and engagement.

So - that's the five - a recap for you from her article:

1 Self-Direction 

2 Evidence Based Thinking

3 Persistence

4 Calculated Risk Taking

5 Tolerance for Ambiguity

I think you'll all agree (oh blogosphere-ites) that she's onto something with this list!

Walking on my way, heard someone say...(The Sweet Inspirations)

Number four in Ann McMullan's critical skills is...

4 Evidence-Based Thinking.

According to McMullan, "using concrete evidence, based on reliable data and findings, is critical to building... skills in students". 

This one is self evident in theory - yes students must communicate their positions on issues based on sound data, facts, and sound logic - but in the real world students are lazy and, well, it's easier to ask a mate or go to google (and then probably wikipedia) for their info.

In other words, their searches tend to be shallow.

I'm no different. My music blog often opts for wikipedia 'research' on songs/artists that I'm writing about because it's quick and easy.

Ann recommends that we use words that encourage critical thinking such as “Confirm”, “Criticize” “Demonstrate” “Question” “Analyze” and “Interpret” in order to give our students the opportunities to develop patterns of evidence based thinking.

On one level, I don't think those global umbrella terms actually get to the core issue though: saying "analyse Ken Kesey's style" doesn't automatically lead to deeper solid evidence based thinking. 

Asking five 'why?' questions might result in a better focus on evidence.

Although, I do like 'demonstrate' as a verb as in, "demonstrate why you think that about Ken Kesey's style".

Anything that leads to a deeper response, though, well - it's alright with me!

Tongues of fire wagging wild, They dance around me merrily (Don McLean)

Number three of Ann McMullan's 5 critical skills that students need.

3 Self-Direction. 

Ann (quite rightly from where I'm sitting) places the emphasis squarely on students to create "student-centered learning experiences, rather than relying solely on teacher-delivered content".

She points out employers increasingly want self-directed learners. That means those who have the skills necessary to set their own learning goals, institute plans to accomplish those goals, analyze and solve problems, own and manage their own learning and improvement, while always wanting to improve and learn more. 

This year my senior English classes were asked to do these things and many loved the change from teacher centred lessons.

But not all. Many of my students still want me to direct them at best and spoon feed them answers at worst.

I can see the concept of self directed inquiry learning improving over successive years as overtly inquiry based methods are embedded more and more.

At the moment then, I'd give my students a solid convincing pass grade (a B+, a merit, a 7/10) but I have a strong feeling that we'll get to A star, excellence, 10/10, in two to three years.

Everyone's got something no one else can do (Perrin Lamb)

Here is the second of Anne McMullan's five key critical skills students need:

2 Tolerance for ambiguity

According to her, "It is essential that today’s students develop the skills to think through ambiguous situations and stay with the question—in a state of ambiguity—until they have the time to examine various aspects and perspectives on the issue."

I'm not going to argue with her about the need for this - it seems self evident in the complex 21st century world we find ourselves living in that flexibility, adaptability and versatility will be much valued as skills.

Having worked in the Middle East - Qatar and the U.A.E. - this particular skill was much in demand and people who couldn't adapt did not survive.

But what of my current students?

Unfortunately many of them still want 'the answer'. Rather than do a work around and explore and develop their thinking on an idea they want to move onto the next point as quickly as they can (while checking with me constantly that they are on the right lines).

This exploring, probing, inquiring, developing, looking for connections skill is often what leads to a perceptive, original thought which is then rewarded with an 'excellence' grade in our current system. 

So, how do I help my students learn how to tease out their thoughts, expand their thinking and dig deeper?

Giving them an answer is NOT the answer to that question. 

Back in the day, I used reflective journals in my media studies classes and they were a brilliant week by week vehicle for my students to make discoveries, ask questions, pursue lines of inquiry. 

Boy - do I miss them!

For what it's worth, in these post NCEA days in English I use mind mapping and Socratic questions, discussions and one on one conferences, listening to them articulate their problem and leaving space for them to answer.

My students often find this frustrating and give me the sense that they would rather go somewhere else to get 'the answer' if I don't provide it. 

But I persist. 

Whaia kia maia (pursue it until it is conquered) is written on my classroom door!

How is the air up there? (La De Das)

I thought I'd apply these five critical skills that Ann McMullan listed in an article to my students at Woodford House.

Here's how I think they stack up (the next posts will take a stroll through the other four)...

         1 Calculated Risk Taking. 

Metiri Group CEO Cheryl Lemke defines this skill as “the ability to carefully consider all the factors related to the decision being made, calculate the chances of a positive outcome and the consequences of a negative one, determine ways to reduce risks along the way, and then determine whether or not to take the risk based on this information”. 

In other words whether to risk failure or not! 

I think my students have refined this as a skill with their strategic negotiation of NCEA exams and I'm not sure, but I think I have a bit of a problem with this. 

In my eyes the modern world of teaching closely reflects societies desire to lesson the chance of failure. Sports teams are now more often about participation rather than winning (and therefore risking failure). Many of my students are a product of this approach and are often shielded from the harsh world out there that presents failure. 

This is curious because often the girls themselves espouse the benefits of failure. 

In our school we've adopted the 'not yet' approach to a fail (or Not Achieve) grade in an attempt to get the girls to bounce back from a failure. Without much success from where I'm sitting. 

Girls doing NCEA who think they may fail an external exam do not even remove the shrink wrap protecting the integrity of the paper because if they do, and if they attempt the standard (signalled by removing the shrink wrap) they will automatically be graded (and therefore, most likely, fail).

Part of me remembers how much I learned from my failures and if the students have taken their calculated risk taking to this extreme then they won't make those discoveries that come with failure. 

Part of me thinks - have a go! Commit! Learn by failure!