As I participate in more and more podcasts and even occassionally get talked about in other's podcasts I hear people struggling with how to pronounce my name. I'm not really upset about it, and please feel free to call me Darren. Only my students call my Mr. Kuropatwa and they usually shorten it to simply "sir" or "Mr. K." No one has yet gone so far as to mispronounce it, as it has been in the past: Kur-patch-nik, Kerch-a-patch-a-kor-ic, Kur-awp-twa, Kleopatra, kuerchapotakupatwhatchmacallit. So, as a public service announcement, here's how to pronounce "Kuropatwa." ;-)

Kur-o-pat-wa has 4 syllables.

Spelled phonetically its:


cur (like the first syllable in "curtain")


oh (as in "Oh my gosh!")


pat (like the diminutive form of "Patrick" or "Patricia")


wa (as in the first half of the word "what")

Here is the Odeo audio

... and here it is as an mp3 file:

For the record, the name is of Polish origin. In Polish the "w" would have a "v" sound. I don't speak Polish. In English "Kuropatwa" means Partridge so you might say we're the Partridge Family. Unfortunately (or fortunately) none of us were ever on that show. ;-) And finally, if you're interested in an English/Polish translation tool, you can find one here.

Cheers!


Darren

It's taken me several days to write this. I finally just had to hit the [Publish] button or I never would have finished it. ;-)

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"People will change their habits quickly when they have a strong reason to do so, and people have an innate urge to connect with other people ... And when you give people a new way to connect with other people, they will punch through any technical barrier, they will learn new languages — people are wired to want to connect with other people and they find it objectionable not to be able to."

The World is Flat (page 63) by Thomas Friedman

Quotes like this are why I think Friedman's book resonates with edubloggers. It's just this type of connection, amplified across the globe, that blogging facilitates.

The thing is though, not all my students are interested in making these connections. Some of them are so exceptionally shy, lacking in self esteem or simply disinclined to participate beyond the classroom walls. Some fear putting themselves "out there," speaking up, asking a question or adding their voice to the conversation. Others just can't be bothered. "So what if I lose a few marks? As long as I pass."

There's also the fact that while a number of young people today are digital natives, many are not. And they don't want to be. They don't see that there's anything in it for them. Everyone is different. They bring their unique set of aptitudes and abilities with them into my classroom. I try to teach them all.

Blogging has been an incredible opportunity for my own professional and personal growth. It has ignited a spark raging torrent of creativity, effort and learning in many of my students. And for some of them, it's an albatross.

Will asks To Blog or Not to Blog?

I don't read much about the kids that aren't engaged. And I'm wondering to what extent that happens as well. And further, I'm wondering to what extent they compare to the adult educators we're trying to teach about these tools who choose not to engage. The simple view is that this is generational, that kids are more available to the tools because they live in a connected world or because, well, they're kids and more open to new stuff than adults...but is it?

I'm going to save commenting about the adults for a future post, but as Will implies, the simple view is wrong. For example, Ewan shared, in our most recent skypecast (58 min 9 sec. Start listening at 17 min. 10 sec.), an observation about a news reporter younger than he (a self described digital native) whose job it is to know and report about youth culture yet is completely unaware of web 2.0 tools.

In every blog supported class I have taught I have students that don't engage; they refuse to participate. Some of my kids hate blogging. Some love it. Some of them, leaving my class, push the teacher (scroll down to the second comment by Kristin_R) in the next course to provide a blog. Others very much do not want a class blog. (The link is to an mp3 file [14 min. 16 sec.] from my Whiplash! workshop. Start listening at 13 min. 10 sec.)

Barbara Ganley picks up this thread at her blog and asks: Does blogging leave anyone out? Later in the same post she answers:

Teaching is never about a single approach, a single strategy--it is constant improvisation, a constant questioning. The learning environment is naturally fluid, and I must be hyper-aware of what's going on at all levels of the learning, ready to respond with an adjustment here or there.

...

I want my students to experience a range of learning situations — everyone is expected to complete the same assignments ... Everyone blogs, does digital stories, writes poems and stories, etc. etc. In my five years of classroom blogging, as I've observed here many times, not everyone takes to online work. Some of my students really dislike it. So? Do they all like giving oral presentations? Taking tests? Doing group work? Podcasting? Writing poems? Of course not. Is it important that they do all these things? Yes. Why? Because they have to get a taste of all the options open to them--I talk about equipping them with tools in their toolbox, and then they have to figure out what they'll make with the tools. And the tools are all these strategies and means of expression. As many as we can cover in a semester. It's important that they keep an open mind about what they can learn through trying things that are hard for them--we talk about William Faulkner's "glorious failures" about learning means making mistakes.

Barbara articulates this so beautifully. We all take differentiated instruction as a given. We have to adapt our teaching to meet the varied needs and learning styles of our students. Some of the students in my class are digital natives. In the same way that I differentiate my instruction for auditory learners (we sing, yup, we really do), visual learners (I make extensive meaningful use of colour in my whiteboard use and the daily notes I give) and kinesthetic learners (we dance, honest, we do; sometimes I even make them stand on their desks). In the last 14 months I've also adapted my teaching for the digital learners (we blog, craft digital stories and I'm still working on some wiki ideas).

Is there a dearth of stories about kids failing math, or school in general? No. Kids failing math isn't news. Kids excelling at math, engaging the material and making it their own, kids writing a math text book is news.

Have there been failures in my classes? Yes. It's not a secret and I've freely mentioned it here and elsewhere. But what more can I say? The kid failed. Have I misinformed by sharing only the success stories? I don't think so. This blog is about how I struggle to learn and adapt the technological tools freely available on the web to enhance my students learning. The path I've traveled is laid out in the posts behind this one. I have shared stories about kids who haven't engaged, but in the context of what they are able to achieve when they did make that effort:

• » Last week a student stopped me in the hall. He had taken Pre-Cal 20S with me last semester. He wanted me to know how well he was doing in his Pre-calculus Mathematics 30S class. He said all his classmates were doing well and attributed it to what they had learned in my class. They're doing well because they're learning hard. As one of them said, they learned how to learn. Of course I feel great about this! But blogging doesn't bring on that kind of success for all my kids. Several "good" bloggers failed that class.
  



• » Recently one student dropped my class because of the blog. Although she came back I still don't know how many others dropped for this reason and didn't tell me about it.
  



• » In that same post (linked above) I talk about a student who refused to participate in the blog all semester. He finally wrote a single blog post prior to the last class test. What he wrote was so powerful that it is being published in a print magazine.

I don't have any out-and-out, complete, utter disasters to share. I feel that as long as I continue to try to improve the learning for my students their individual failures are just another step on the road to success. These are the "glorious failures" that Barbara spoke of.

I firmly believe that all students are capable of succeeding in advanced math. Their marks measure the amount of time, energy and effort they put into learning; not their intelligence. If you want to know how smart someone is have a conversation with them. (Get them to blog.) If you want to know how hard they're working in school, look at their grades. Learning is largely dependent upon the learner. I have never had an able bodied student fail my class after they have tried their hardest.

Bud writes there should be No Stories Left Behind:

... I value the good ideas and lessons that my colleagues in the edublogosphere are sharing on a daily basis.

The only problem with best practice texts, too often at least, is that they turn classrooms into Mickey Mouse spaces where all goes well and there's never any trouble. Every student in these books finds success in the classroom. At least, that's how the texts present classrooms.

Again, this is not universal; many good texts share failures as well as successes, but not nearly enough.

I do not want this blog to become a text that misinforms as it informs. Nor do I want to read blogs that paint stories of success while ignoring the stories of students lost or unsuccessful along the way.

We aren't going to learn anything by merely telling half of the story. And omission, intentional or otherwise, may blur the narrative.

Now, I'm not saying that this is happening, but ... I want to make a public reminder to myself to tell as much of the story as I can, without shading or blurring information in any way.

You should read the comments to Bud's post. Every one of them addresses another facet of the issues Bud raises.

I disagree with the sentiment that "best practice texts ... turn classrooms into Mickey Mouse spaces where all goes well and there's never any trouble." All the research I've read says that students excel in an environment where the teacher has high expectations and sets high standards. These teachers also model what exceptional work looks like by showing outstanding examples to their students. This is the whole idea behind the Go For Gold assignments I give my classes leading up to their exams. We aim for excellence and if we fall a little short of that mark, well, then we know we have done good work nonetheless. I think the same is true for teachers; at least it is for me. I'm interested in what's working in your classes. What have you done to inspire exceptional work in your kids? How did you orchestrate it? How did you set it up? How did you follow up? I see lots of examples of failure every day. Show me the great work your kids have done and help me figure out how to carry over the experience to my own classes. This doesn't mean I don't want to hear about the failures, I do. But I'm far more interested in how you turned them into success stories.

The kind of powerful learning facilitated by blogging resonates with me and with many of my students. For some of them it creates an uncomfortable dissonance. That's a good thing. I believe we learn most when we figure out how to resolve the dissonance provoked by our learning experiences. And all our experiences are learning experiences. Which I guess is my answer to another question Nancy raised recently. ;-)

I started having my students sign up for del.icio.us accounts last semester. I also installed something I call a del.icio.us box on all the class blogs.

We discussed it in all my classes on Thursday. I did a little demo in class. Using a projector I guided one of the students through the process of signing up for an account, installing a browser button and saving a link in del.icio.us. It took about 15 minutes to explain the idea and do the demo.

We began our spring break today, we go back to school on April 3. All my classes have a del.icio.us assignment for the break. They must sign up for del.icio.us accounts and then save at least one link for each unit we have studied, tagged appropriately, for the course they are taking: Pre-Cal 40S (pc40s), Applied Math 40S (am40s) and Calculus 45S (cal45s). They've been instructed to choose links carefully, not randomly. This way for each link one person finds they can get over 20 others that have been just as thoughtfully selected.

I've posted about it to all the class blogs.

Now I'm going to post about it to The Mentorship Project and encourage the mentors to use this as an additional means of communication in the commentary they include with each saved link. ;-)

At the begining of this school year I posted about how I was hoping to develop a group of mentors to support my classes through their blogs. In February I started a new blog, The Mentorship Project, to support the the group of mentors I was working on developing. Shortly after that blog was first published I got an email from someone who was interested in being a mentor. This led me to post about it here at A Difference. Lani Ritter Hall emailed me from Ohio after that post and has joined two of my class blogs as a mentor; Calculus 45S and AP Calculus AB.

In the Telling the New Story podcast I participated in last week one of the questions we discussed was "How are blogs transformational?" Well, blogs are transformational when you have someone like Lani as a mentor encouraging excellence in your students. ;-)

It's too early to articulate what impact Lani is having on the students but there is no denying the power of the comments and posts she's been writing. And she's only been posting and commenting for the last four days! I feel that the students in two of my classes, the ones Lani is mentoring, aren't working to their potential. They are capable of so much more than they are currently demonstrating. Here are the contributions Lani has made so far; a prologue to one of the new stories:

• »She introduced herself to the Calculus 45S class with a challenge.


• »I had discussed with the students in the Calculus 45S class ways they could raise the level of the scribes they had been writing. The first student who tried to work graphics into his post had some trouble. Lani commented with the solution.


• »In Winnipeg, in the fall, the migration of the geese is a big event. So many of them pass through the city on their way south that the sky turns black with geese at dusk. My wife and I take our kids every year to watch. The "goose flights" are well known throughout the city. All Winnipegers know about the geese flights. Around the time of the geese flights last year, October 14, one of the students in my AP Calculus class started a remarkable project. By November 10 she had given it up. I don't know if Lani knew about the geese flights but she used the geese to elegantly teach a lesson I've been struggling to get across. (Scroll down to the fourth comment.)


• »Lani followed that up with another poignant comment.


• »My AP Calculus class writes their AP exam in about 5 weeks, on May 3. I've got a very rigourous, intense, high pressure review schedule for them that began yesterday. Tonight, Lani emailed me with some plans of her own to encourage excellence in them. You'll have to watch the AP Calculus AB blog to see what she does. She hasn't posted it yet.

I can't possibly express in words how greatful I am for Lani's enthusiastic involvement in my classes. She's an outstanding teacher and my classes have been enriched by her involvement in the last few days. Right from the start I told her that it was entirely up to her as to how intensely she wanted to engage the students. Obviously, she has chosen a very high level of involvement.

I have two other mentors to whom I'm also very greatful. They are just begining to find their comfort level as mentors. One is one of Sheryl's student teachers from Virginia, Andy Kramer. The other is a former student of mine currently attending University, Gerald. Andy has left a comment for the AP Calculus class and Gerald has introduced himself to the Calculus 45S class.

If any other student teachers, retired teachers, or practicing education professionals are interested in participating in this growing project read this.

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Update


Lani has taken another step towards encouraging excellence for the AP Calclus students. ;-)

I just finished reading David Warlick's reflection on the podcast we all (Miguel, Wes, Ewan, Mark, Jeff and I) did on Thursday. This is what I took away from it:

The old story is about "the school board, county commissioners, redistricting, budget and year-round schools;" in short, everything but teaching and learning.

The New Story is about powerful teaching and extraordinary learning. Technology fits in only insofar as it enables and facilitates that kind of teaching and learning. But always the story is about the heart and soul of education -- teaching and learning, teacher and learner, and particularly those instances where they exchange roles again and again. More accurately, it's the story of the heart and soul of humanity; as we all take on the role of teacher and learner at different points in our lives. These human stories that come out of classrooms (of all sorts) are The New Story that needs to be told and has been too long left out of the ongoing discussion about "education" in modern society.

Is this The Story you were talking about Dave? If so, then I think you're right; we're all on the same page. ;-)

I found this introduction to a scribe post on Mrs. Ingram's Pre-Cal 20S blog:

Sorry I'm late..Had to scribe for Computer Science tonight as well...=(

This could really be a problem if several teachers in the same school have blogs with scribes. The young lady did a great job though! In Computer Science as well.

I had the good fortune to have David Reece, a grade 7 teacher from one of our feeder schools participate in Whiplash! yesterday. You can hear me introduce him to the group in the introductory audio (4 min, Dave's intro is a little more than 2 minutes in) to Whiplash! Dave blogs with all four of his grade 7 math classes and they're producing some really wonderful work. Check out his class blogs: 7-42, 7-43, 7-44, 7-72.

Dave recently got his hands on a smart board and asked me if I knew of any online resources he could take advantage of. I've never used a smart board so I don't, but if you do please let me know by leaving a comment or send me an email I can pass on to Dave.

Chris Harbeck works in the same school as Dave. He teaches four grade 8 classes; 8-16, 8-17, 8-41, 8-73. He also started an enrichment blog called Taking Math to the Next Level. The intro to every post on the site reads:

Math is more than just multiplying, using fractions and using a calculator. It is using your number sense in as many ways as possible. This blog will make you think, then solve your math problems. It will be a great place for you to get ready for your exam in June. Lets work together making math meaningful and fun.

Chris' latest brainstorm? He's developing a new way to use the blogs with his classes. He calls it The Growing Post (more here).

Chris began by modeling what a "Growing Post" should look like, then his kids started producing some incredible work. The way he has woven the entire family's involvement into this project is one of it's most exciting features for me. Just think about it. Each of these kids is sharing their learning with their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and grandparents in order to get a bonus mark. The family offers positive feedback and encouragement and the kids get to show off their learning. Since this is part of the assignment, the kids can brag about their work without feeling embarrassed about doing so. This is idea is so brilliant on so many levels I can't begin to articulate them all. What a way to celebrate learning, involve the family, boost a kid's self-confidence, develop an authentic audience for the students published work, give a kid a chance to show what they know, have a kid keep a record of everything they're learning so they can revisit it whenever they need to, get them reflect on their learning, ..... can you tell I'm excited by this?

Mr. H, you're teaching many more people than just your very lucky group of grade 8 students! (Do they know how fortunate they are?)

If you haven't yet committed a random act of kindness today, head over to Dave and Chris' blogs and leave them and their kids a comment or two. (You'll find the links to the student's work in the sidebars of their blogs or the class numbers above.)