Cultivating the “I can…” scholar: Putting the “GO” back in peda-GO-gy.

“Nobody else can make anybody else learn anything. You cannot make them. Anymore than if you are a gardener you can make flowers grow, you don’t make the flowers grow. You don’t sit there and stick the petals on and put the leaves on and paint it. You don’t do that. The flower grows itself. Your job if you are any good at it is to provide the optimum conditions for it to do that, to allow it to grow itself.” — Sir Ken Robinson (Keynote Speech to the Music Manifesto State of Play conference)

Last week I entered my classroom and wrote this on the board:

I told my English 200 students that they had fifteen minutes to “do it,” and that the first group (my students were already in groups of three, working on a podcasting project) to successfully “do it” would win prizes. (The first group did it in ten minutes; in my second section, the first group to did it in seven minutes.) I tossed these on the class table, and said, “You can use these if you want.”

Then I said, “Do it!”

Can you figure out what they did?

My students were working on creating a podcast loosely inspired by our reading of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (project description here). Prior to this class meeting, they had done a lot of brainstorming, taking notes, and outlining. They had listened to example podcasts, and we had talked about some of the things that made these podcasts informative and engaging. Students had created Google folders in which they worked collaboratively on their brainstorming and outlining documents, but now I needed to get them going on learning how to use the tools necessary to producing a podcast. (Figure out what they did yet?)

There were four groups of three students in each section (I have two sections of English 200), and although the second section’s completion time was faster, the reactions of the students in the different sections was almost identical: Two groups immediately started excitedly discussing what the drawings possibly meant; one group opened the plastic bag containing foam objects and looked at them; and a fourth group casually joked that there was no way anyone could figure out the nonsensical drawings on the board.

Before this class meeting, I knew what my students needed to know how to do in order to produce a podcast, and I wanted my students to be able to work on some of the production when they weren’t physically in the same room with the other members of their groups. I consulted Morgan Harris, my school’s Academic Technology Support Specialist, and we came up with a workflow plan that students could use to successfully produce a podcast even if they weren’t physically with each other. (Now can you figure out what they “did”?)

Morgan and I decided that one possible workflow solution could be that students use their cell phones and/or iPads to make audio recordings, and then they could “push” those recordings to a shared Google Drive folder, from which they could “pull” them into GarageBand. Morgan and I quickly tried our workflow plan, and it worked. So we ran with it.

Mapping out a lesson plan, I asked Morgan if he could come to both of my class meetings to help me demonstrate our workflow solution. I was — and still am — a newbie at GarageBand. I’ve only opened it up a handful of times to play with it, so I was thinking that Morgan would do most of the talking and demonstrating in class.

We talked about what exactly we needed to teach my students and how we would teach them. We knew that one part of the lesson would include having each group do what Morgan and I did — make a recording, push it to a Google Drive folder, and then pull those recordings into GarageBand. As we walked into my classroom, I thought, I’m going to bump this up and notch and see what happens. I started drawing what I thought might be recognizable drawings of a cell phone, a folder, and a guitar (the GarageBand icon). I thought to myself, this might be fun for a couple of minutes, and then Morgan and I will demonstrate the steps I had poorly drawn on the board.

When I finished the third step of the task, and I could hear the laughter of puzzled students, I thought, “Oh, we should also have them throw in some music.” I knew that they all wanted to incorporate music and sound bites in their podcasts. So I drew some musical notes with an arrow to the badly drawn guitar. I said, “Extra points if you do the last one!” (When the students asked “How many extra points and on what?” I answered, “A thousand — on life!” They are well-versed in my hyperbolic ways and promises by now.)

The prizes I had were random: a cheap mini-stylus, a Velcro strip (both sides included!), and a paper clip. The prizes, I told students, would be given to the first group to finish and the group would decide which members got what.

I was amazed at how fast students started to “get” the drawings. The two groups that quickly got to discussing the possible meanings of my hieroglyphics were recording their voice memos in minutes. Not all of the groups figured out what the foam objects were until after recording, but they were up and “doing” after very little time discussing. The groups that were intrigued by the foam objects picked up on some of the discussions they overheard, and they began to piece together what they should start “doing.”

The groups that immediately expressed defeat, started to become frustrated as Morgan and I walked around the room acknowledging when other groups had successfully started or completed one of the tasks. It was only a matter of a few more minutes until the groups that initially said there was no way of figuring out what I had written were figuring things out. The group that said there was no way they could figure out my icons, had become “I can” students.

When the first groups successfully completed all four steps, I asked them to share what they had done. While the other groups completed the tasks, the groups that completed the original tasks played with GarageBand and started figuring out how to move, edit, and even duck (adjusting the volume of tracks so that they mix and some “duck” behind others) tracks.

By the end of about fifteen minutes, all of the students could accurately state, “I can make a voice recording on my cell phone or iPad; I can put that recording in a Google Drive folder; I can take recordings from a Google Drive folder and put them in GarageBand; and I can put a song from another source in GarageBand.” These “I can…” statements are extremely powerful, and the skills students learned (most of whom had never used GarageBand) in fifteen minutes were more than impressive.

Having students “do” rather than “learn” is tremendously empowering. Using icons and “prizes” might be pure novelty, but it was effective (and it didn’t detract from any learning outcomes). Perhaps some of my students were initially engaged because of the entertaining elements of this lesson, but that novelty was just that: novel. Sustained interest came from inquiry and engagement. More importantly and accurately, students were enthusiastic because they were empowered: by the end of the lesson, they could “do” things — things they might use in their personal or future professional lives.

Maybe there are lessons in your curriculum that can become “I can” experiences. Even the delivery of content can become an “I can” experience: Instead of teaching students information, let them “go” and find it. Guide them and teach them effective ways of researching, but let them “do” the learning for themselves.

Valuable pedagogy isn’t about novelty, entertainment, or even engagement — it’s about finding effective ways to empower students. John Dewey knew this in 1916, and I think many of us know this intuitively or experientially.

Where and how do your pedagogical values reflect and incorporate peda-GO-gy experiences — experiences in which students “GO” and “DO” things?

(Interested in podcasting in class? Check out this article titled “Ten Podcasting Projects Teachers Should Try in the Classroom.” Here is a great review of the most popular podcasting apps. Not sure of the pedagogical value of podcasting? Listen to Laura Milligan and Austin Davis’s Podagogy podcast episode about podcasting in the classroom with teacher and The Atlantic magazine writer Mike Godsey. Still wondering what those foam things are and how we use them? Check this out.)

Thanks for reading!

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