Some photos from a trip to Havana by Enrique Gonzalez
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| Photo 7: The Fragment Como una enredadera Ha trepado este afecto por mi vida Díjele que de mí se desasiera; Y se entró por mi sangre adolorida Como por el balcón la enredadera. The translation As a vine, It has climbed this affect my life, I told him that to rid me;And he came through my sore blood As the creeper balcony. |
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At the Guevara Study Center
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| Photo 9: The Guevara Study Center |
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| The kids say "Hello to the USA!" |
Enrique went to Cuba to meet with the organizers of the Universidad 2016 conference. He offered to lead a panel discussion.
Below is an excerpt from the paper that will be presented in February 2016.
Some comments by Enrique
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| Photo 12: Mario Llorente (right) and his friend Colin (in the doorway). Colin's observations can be viewed at SiSePuedeLearning.com >>> READINGS << |
What impact can posters and brochures have on teaching quality?
An experiment with personalization
by Enrique Gonzalez (former principal, Highland Park High School, Los Angeles, Calif., USA egcg@me.com),
Mario Llorente (instructor, TransformTeaching.org, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA FreeEnglishLessons@gmail.com) and
Steve McCrea (Instructor, Broward College, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA smccrea@broward.edu)
TITLE IN SPANISH:
¿Qué impacto tiene el uso de pósters y folletos en la calidad de la enseñanza?
(Un experimento sobre la personalización)
a Paper submitted to the Universidad 2016
10th International Congress of Higher Education
February 15th to February 19th, 2016, in Havana, Cuba
ABSTRACT
The authors have experience in the process of “personalizing the school work” in secondary (high schools) and tertiary (university) levels of education. The process of personalization happens when the instructors develop a connection between the interests of the students and the content of the course. Two of the tools used in this personalization work are “posters” and “brochures” aimed at altering behavior. The authors quote Richard Clark’s “Two-Factor Theory” for the creation of effective posters. The authors invite readers of this paper to participate in a broad experiment in the use of posters and brochures in their local schools and universities. It is proposed that the experiment can begin at the Universidad 2016 (February 2016) conference and conclude with initial reporting of results at the Pedagogia 2017 conference in January 2017.
ABSTRACT IN SPANISH:
Los autores poseen experiencia en el proceso de "personalización del trabajo escolar" en niveles secundarios y universitarios. El proceso de personalización se manifiesta cuando el instructor desarrolla la conexión entre los intereses de los estudiantes y el contenido académico. Dos herramientas comunes del proceso de personalización son los pósters y los folletos dirigidos a modificar el comportamiento. Los autores citan La teoría de los dos factores de Richard Clark para la creación efectiva de pósters. Los autores invitan a los lectores de este trabajo a generar una experiencia de este tipo en su propias escuelas y universidades. Dicho experimento podría ocurrir entre las fecha que comprende los eventos de Universidad 2016 y Pedagogía 2017.
KEY WORDS: personalization, posters, education, self-concept.
Introduction: A Call to Arms
In over 200 years the pedagogy and methods of instruction across the United States and most of the world has been mired in assessments based of testing results that, quite frankly are hurting students all over the earth. In such times of social and economic stress we, the educators, are fulfilling Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity (“Doing the same thing again and again, expecting different results”). We continue to teach by lecture, memorization, tests and a system of labeling young people as “smart” or “in need of support.” The education community brought us a myriad so-called reforms that simply end up being what they started with: A society of learners who are disengaged and uninterested, who flatly see no need to educate themselves because they believe they are entitled to be cared for by the dominant segment of society at large. In many classrooms across the United States, teachers seldom even know the names of their students.
Where is the reform that we all know is desperately needed? How can educators across the globe pretend to be wanting to better our world? How can we justify Education Departments who continue to practice the same methodologies that have led to a astounding dropout rate that is even higher at the University level? Violence in our society at an all-time high!
Allow me to share my experience dealing with these issue while employed in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 15 years. Beginning in 2000 I was inspired to see an organization that believed in the same concepts and pedagogy that I knew was the answer. Big Picture Learning was that organization. For the next several years I chased Elliot Washor, the cofounder of Big Picture Learning, and that effort led to a long on-going friendship and to the opening of Frida Kahlo High School in 2005, the first Big Picture school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. As we began the work with 68 students, our entire focus was on “knowing” who it was we were educating. All of the students came loaded with frustration, fear and anxiety, the result of being sent away from their home schools due to poor attendance, fighting, low performance and a general apathy for learning.
Personalization
Their first assignment was to complete a Personal History Book about their families, education, and life. We used the Advisory Class to allow the students to express their voices in a council setting (Lakota/Navajo) setting. As the students began to realize that every teacher knew their names and what they had been through, the students began to respond. We incorporated the jarana, guitar and djembe drums as a music class to express their culture and began the Palabra/Clarity programs for mentoring these hurting youths (Bienvenidos Children’s Center 2003, Cruz 2014). The work focused on what Ruan calls the core self-concept: “Many times people do a lot of external work but completely ignore doing the internal work. These issues are easily ignored because the internal work is much more intricate. Core self-concept brings to light the reality of true transformation; equal effort has to be placed in the internal and external shaping of one’s transformation.” (Ruan 2013, 155). Programs at the schools used “the primary language of the participants and [were] culturally competent, not mere translations or adaptations of western or other minority-based programs” (Bienvenidos Children’s Center 2003, p. 26).
Attendance surpassed 98 percent; most students improved their reading level by several grades within one year; our graduation rate was 100 percent (Friedl 2013 shows some of the video recorded results). One might ask, “What were you really doing?” The answer is simple. We began to listen to student voices and we led them to discover their passion in whatever area they desired by also allowing them to get “real world” internships within our community. In other words, we personalized their learning by first getting to know them, their lives, fears and hopes….and THEN that work led the students to the disciplines of learning. Life became the textbook and the textbook became a resource. Examinations were done through oral presentations in all subject areas. Art was allowed throughout the campus. Graffiti became an art form, not a problem.
We invite you to discuss with us and learn about the Big Picture model and design. This has been a short synopsis of what happened at Frida Kahlo High School and later at Highland Park High School (Los Angeles). There is much more to the work as explained in our list of Ten Expectations (www.TinyURL.com/TenExpectationsSpanish). My questions to you are: Have your educational institutions helped add value to the families that you serve? Have your methodologies and pedagogy improved our world and society? Can we begin to really inspire the millions of young people on this planet to a better day? In this way, we have a chance. We hope you will join with us to do so.
How to Personalize
Every 12 seconds a student drops out of high school in the USA (American Youth Policy Forum, 2014). A principal reason given by students for the dropping out is "school is boring" (Bridgeland 2006). In order to better grab the attention of students, we teachers must make the school engaging. This paper aims to describe how to personalize learning and proposes a method with posters and a brochure to inform parents, students and teachers about alternatives to traditional methods of instruction.
I. Description of personalization
A. Elements of personalization
Personalization of the curriculum involves three principles, according to Big Picture Learning (the corporation that guides over 75 schools in several countries): first, learning must be based on the interests and goals of each student; second, a student’s curriculum must be relevant to people and places that exist in the real world; and finally, a student’s abilities must be authentically measured by the quality of her or his work. (Big Picture Learning, 2014).
The following elements appear in a typical redesign of a school that makes the student the center of attention:
- Learning is personalized
- Teaching is focused on coaching and facilitating
- Learning reaches beyond the school walls
- Progress is measured by mastery, not by age or the number of classroom hours, and
- Time is a flexible resource (Sturgis, C. (2014), competencyworks.org)
B. Examples of personalization
Gonzalez has trained teachers to use "personal history workbooks" to encourage students to write their family's biography. By interviewing grandparents, uncles, aunts and parents, students learn about their relatives' stories and can ask questions like "Where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot?" and "What do your remember about Cesar Chavez?" These familial links to history make the subject personal. (Gonzalez, 2014).
II. How can we spread the procedures?
A. Write a book and spread it to thousands of teachers and principals
In 1995 Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor started the Big Picture Learning system of personalization of school work. In 2004, Littky published a book, The Big Picture, and 80,000 teachers received it as part of the book-of-the-month program in ASCD’s membership benefits (“Premium, Select, and Institutional Plus members get the print book” ASCD). However growth of the personalization movement is stagnant. There are currently 55 Big Picture schools in the United States and a total of 94 schools worldwide, up from 24 schools in 2005 (at the time of a National Public Radio interview). Supporters would like to see more schools adopting the personalization methods. So, how do we persuade people to read the book? There are perhaps two ways: Top-down and Bottom up.
B. The top-down approach: Advocates of personalization plan to talk to ministers of education and principals. The goal is to introduce programs in schools that connect school work to the lives of students.
1. Rationale: At first glance, it appears to be more effective to spread a new educational method through central channels, such as the ministers of education in dozens of countries, rather than go to individual schools.
2. Results: Since 2005, schools have opened in Australia and the Netherlands, countries where speaking English is common. The book, The Big Picture, has been translated into Spanish and was made available on Amazon in 2015. Is the book likely to be read by ministers if the book is sent by mail? Experience suggests “no.” Another approach is needed.
C. The bottom-up approach: Talk to parents (Madres of the Big Picture)
1. Rationale: The hope is that “retail marketing” (recommendations from parents and students to other parents and students) might be effective. One way to raise expectations in parents is to feed them questions that suggest topics for discussions between teachers, students and parents.
2. Results: In September 2014, while the book was being translated, the wife of the translator looked at the first chapter of the book. She interrupted her reading by sending a message to three friends and attaching the chapter. This incident is recounted on the TransformTeaching.org website and suggests the potency of a network of mothers to share information (Madres for the Big Picture, 2014). The e-book’s chapters that have been posted at TransformTeaching.org have been visited perhaps over 1000 times (estimated based on the number of likes on the Facdebook page of the site).
The authors propose an experiment to see if we can spread the message about personalization to parents and students through posters.
III. Tools to motivate students and parents to participate in personalization
A. Source of the “Ten Expectations” (Leaving to Learn) In 2012, Elliot Washor and Charles Mojkowski’s book, Leaving to Learn, was released. The book contained “Ten Expectations” that parents could use to inspire principals to make changes, school by school. A video called Ten Expectations was placed on Youtube and has garnered 99,346 views up to October 2015. A Spanish version of the video about the Ten Expectations has only 153 views. The hope is that the poster campaign with the brochures might be distributed through friend-to-friend networks throughout Latin America.
1. Posters
The Ten Expectations have been collected in three posters, which are available at www.TinyURL.com/WHPSPosters.
2. Brochures
A brochure listing the ten expectations is availalbe for downlowading at TinyURL.com/10ExpectaionsSpanish.
B. The Madre Letter
The “Madres for the Big Picture” story is available for distribution at www.TinyURL.com/MothersFor. The video is at http://tinyurl.com/mothersForVideo.
IV. Posters in the Classroom
A. Initial Results
The three posters were developed at a school in Margate, Florida and posted on walls in October 2014. The posters in English generated some attention among students.
B. Our limited experience
In September 2015, the posters were placed in a private school in Hollywood, Florida. A student looked at the posters and the theme “Follow your interests, make choices,” and said, “The teachers conform the school to me.” This observation by a student was converted into a poster to indicate the re-expression of the theme of personalization. It is expected that new posters and slogans will emerge in the field as the campaign ages. Readers who hear these reactions to the posters are encouraged to note the “utterances” as part of the reporting about the audience’s reactions to the posters.
V. The Proposed Experiment
A. Invitation to participate
Readers are invited to download the posters and brochure and distribute the items to neighbors and colleagues.
Where to find the posters: www.TinyURL.com/WHPSPosters
Where to find the brochures: www.TinyURL.com/10ExpectationsSpanish
B. How to contact the authors
C. Reporting Form: How to report your findings
The following data will be helpful: Date of posting the poster, Location (School, University), City, Address, Size of school (number of students), Estimate of number of students who see that poster in its location, “Utterances” (comments or observations made by viewers of the posters).
VI. Note to Designers of Posters
The challenge is to invite artists to design new ways to display the Ten Expectations. The three posters that are proposed for this experiment are combinations of some of the questions listed in the Washor-Mojkowski list of ten expectations using different photos and background colors. You are invited to redesign these messages as long as you use the same words (so that we can evaluate the results of the use of these phrases as a control group). If you have other posters and other messages placed near or next to the experiment’s posters, that will add an interesting component to the experiment. Please document the placement of the posters with photos and youtube videos. Send the links to the posters and videos to ManyPosters@gmail.com and your submissions will be added to the blog about Posters and Procedures.
VII. Resources
A. Wording for the Posters and Brochures
Tinyurl.com/TenExpectationsSpanish the brochure in Spanish.
TinyURL.com/WHPSSpanish for the posters in Spanish.
TinyURL.com/MothersFor Madres for the Big Picture (video)
TinyURL.com/10ExpectationsEnglish the brochure in English.
Website: www.TINYURL.com/10ExpectationsBPL (for the words in English) https://sites.google.com/site/transformteachingbooks/videos-by-dr-littky/the-ten-expectations-leaving-to-learn
Posters: tinyurl.com/whpsposters
B. Other methods of spreading the message about "10 Expectations"
Video is an optional method of spreading the theme of “personalization of the school work.” It will be helpful for the campaign if the “Ten Expectations” Youtube video in Spanish gets more widely seen. The quick link is at TinyURL.com/10ExpectationsNancy (“Hola, mi nombre es Nancy” is the opening of the video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS5ovt7Vx30
"Dancing Words" In 2012, after hearing Clark's "Two Factor Rule" about effective posters, the authors created a series of short videos showing "dancing words." The artist in Cuba, Orlando, developed these short videos, which are available for analysis on Youtube under the search terms "Youtube dancing words orlando transform education." The compilation of over a dozen of these dancing words videos is located here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLaDFBtqGY4. It is hoped that readers will look at these items and be inspired to create similar "dancing words" videos for the Ten Expectations Experiment (described in this paper).
Observers might wonder if the posters that have been designed for this experiment are effective. Richard Clark’s Two-Factor Rule for Posters states that a) posters should have an easily remembered analogy and b) posters should go beyond merely drawing attention to an issue and should give specific procedures to follow (Clark, personal communication, February 8, 2013). The posters designated for the Ten Expectations project were designed using the Clark guidelines. Artists and graphic designers who create additional posters are encouraged to follow the two-factor rule.
Summary
It is assumed that participants at Universidad 2016 will make contact with colleagues in their hometown, which will result in spreading this paper to people involved in high schools. Effective teaching can be encouraged by spreading the use of the Ten Expectations, at secondary and tertiary levels. It is expected that wider distribution of the Ten Expectations (when translated into the audience’s native language) should increase the public’s interest in the topic of personalization. In October 2015 the number of searches on BigPicture.org was roughly 3700 per month. The number of hits on the BicPIcture.org website might be measured again in 2017 using the SEMRUSH indicator (http://www.semrush.com/info/BigPicture.org). The public’s interest might also be measured by the number of Big Picture Learning schools that opened in the next ten years in Latin America. The current number is zero. This campaign of posters might be the link to encourage the adoption of more-effective teaching methods.
“Higher Expectations for the Mothers”: My friend, now no longer with us, taught me a very important ideal. He taught me: “All Power to the People.” His name was Eldridge Cleaver. As you review this document, please be aware that we can make this world one in which will be “Sin banderas, sin fronteras, sin carteras” (without flags, borders or wallets, which are all types of barriers).
References
American Youth Policy Forum (2014). "Every Nine Seconds..." http://www.aypf.org/publications/WhateverItTakes/WIT_nineseconds.pdf
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (2004) http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Books/Overview/The-Big-Picture.aspx.
Bienvenidos Children’s Center and National Compadres Network (2003). Fatherhood Lessons. www.nationalcompadresnetwork.com/resources/nlffifatherhoodtoolkit.pdf
Big Picture Learning (2014). "Three Principles of student learning". bigpicture.org/schools See more at: bigpicture.org/schools/#sthash.WiOAFUHy.dpuf
Bridgeland, J., DiLuluio, J. and Morison, K (2006). The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of high school dropouts. docs.gatesfoundation.org/Documents/TheSilentEpidemic3-06Final.pdf
Cruz, J. (2014) Collected papers. www.TinyURL.com/JCruzPapers.
Friedl, E. (2013). “For the Love of Learning.” Interview with Enrique Gonzalez. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A34AR57A1Eo
Gonzalez, E (2014). Personal History Workbook. Createspace. Free Ebook: www.TinyURL.com/PersonalHistoryEbook
Littky, D. with Grabelle, S. (2004). The Big Picture: Education is Everyone’s Business. ASCD.
Madres for the Big Picture (2014). Short link: TinyURL.com/MothersFor Search: “madres of the big picture transform teaching”
McCrea, S. (2013, May 22). “Suggestion for Principals: Hang posters to nurture the conversation about the culture of learning” Richard Clark’s “Two-Factor Rule” for effective posters www.TinyURL.com/WHPSsuggestions theindependenteducator.blogspot.com/2013/05/two-suggestions-for-principals-1-give.html
McCrea, S. “Posters about Choices: The Blue Littky NPR poster” http://postersandprocedures.blogspot.com/2015/09/posters-about-choices-follow-your.html Available at: tinyurl.com/whpsposters
Metcalfe, B. (2013). “Free Motivational Educational Posters.” http://life-long-learners.com/free-motivational-educational-posters/comment-page-1/
Dr. Clark’s two-factor rule is connected to a collection of well-designed posters. This is a source of additional posters and a place for designers to review the current “state of the art” about how to share images through Flickr.com.
Ruan, L.R. (2013). The journey to the mountain within: Healing today’s youth. Createspace.com.
National Public Radio, School Features Real-World Learning, No Grades (Aprilg 25, 2005), http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4618720
Sturgis, Chris (2014). Redesign at Pittsfield School District. competencyworks.org/case-study/pittsfield-school-district-introduction-to-redesign/
Washor, E. and Mojkowski, C. (2013). Leaving to Learn. Heinemann.
To see the full version of the paper, go to tinyurl.com/universidad2016
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