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Longleat Hedge Maze by Howard?Gees

Today we had a great time introducing ourselves to Laura Oldham’s (@engltchrleo) new reading classes via Edmodo; our small-group Skyping cohort also happily reconnected with Karin Perry’s (@kperry) students to discuss James Dashner’s The Maze Runner.  We used 1:1 iPods Touch and m.Edmodo.com for our introductions; we gathered around Skype on a MacBook for our book club.  We posted our introductions mostly asynchronously with some nearly synchronous replying via Edmodo, back and forth with Laura’s enthusiastic students; our Skype session was live with Karin’s.  Students had a list of questions to focus their introductions on reading, but not exclusively so; we used teacher generated questions planned over Gmail for the Skype discussion as our two groups came to today’s discussion having read different amounts of The Maze Runner.

That is to say, Karin’s group had finished the book and was ready to start discussing our next book, Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies.  Our group members had reached chapter 2 of The Maze Runner.  While we had opted-in and committed to read The Maze Runner over Winter Break, we did not do so.  Therefore, instead of discussing the entire book today, we responded to some broader, abstract questions about the book’s premise:

• How would you run a world with no adults?
• Have you ever been confronted by an unsolveable problem?
• Is it fair for teachers to assign problems with no clear solutions?
• Would you rather have an adventurous, dangerous job, or a safe, dirty one?

The students huddled at each end of the videoconference and then shared out their answers over Skype.  There was a great deal of nuanced thinking and middle-school humor.  Some highlights:

• “We would need a democracy.”
• “We would need leaders.”
• “We wouldn’t want a tyrancy [sic].”
• “It’s not fair for a teacher to assign you a problem you can’t solve if it’s going to be graded.”
• “It’s okay if the problem imparts some larger life lesson.”
• “I guess we know who the heroes are in these groups.”
• “I would stay in the kitchen and save the world with treats.”

After the Skype session ended, our group talked about accountability.  We did not draft a reading schedule before break.  We did not keep in touch via Edmodo or our class Google Voice line, though we could have. Before break, we opted in to read The Maze Runner, committed ourselves to Skyping again today, and went home with our books.  We could have done more – I could have done more – to make sure we were finished with the book by today, but after our talk today I’m not sure that I would have changed a thing.  We didn’t do our part; while that’s not okay, per se, everything was ok thanks to our partners’ kindness and our discoveries about accountability.

I’m chagrined that we didn’t uphold our end of the bargain.  I’m vexed we didn’t do what we said we were going to do.  I’m sorry we hadn’t read enough to engage with the questions and conclusions our partners were ready to ask and share.  However, I’m kind of thrilled that today we discovered personal accountability because of our audience of peers.  There was no life lesson I had to impart (and on Friday who’s ready to do that?); no metaphor connecting schoolwork to real work (but the book was about a maze full of monsters that kids had to escape).  There were no excuses (no dogs were harmed in the eating of our books); there was no external consequence handed down by the teacher (you’ll never be allowed to teleconference again!).  There was common personal regret and embarrassment, but also a very vital and genuine determination to meet our partners half-way next time.

Our partners were exceptionally gracious today – kindly helping us with characters’ names and really engaging with us in the general questions that made possible our participation in the conversation.  We recognized that and appreciated it greatly.  We owe them one heck of a book club.  We had fun with reading today because of them.

And we found personal meaning in preparing for class thanks to peer & personal accountability.  We want to do better so we feel better about our contributions to collaborative projects with peers.

It might not get any better than that.

Except, you know, for reading (finishing) really good books.

We’ll let you know in a few weeks.

My kids today also gave me an opportunity to see again how we can turn any situation into a learning opportunity if we all come to the social media platform with open hearts and minds.  What cuts learning short when students aren’t prepared isn’t so much their lack of preparation, but a teacher’s insistance that they be prepared before being allowed to move forward with learning.  Aren’t we always ready to learn?  Isn’t there another question we could ask?  Haven’t we all failed at a task before finding a solution – one of many?

Finally, here’s an idea for next year to harness the power of social media for peer accountability in the classroom: 1:1 accountability partners.

It’s hard to find meaning in doing work because a teacher says so.  It’s hard to find meaning in letting down your group when you’re horsing around again by recess.  It’s hard to listen to an authority figure talk about what you should have done.

What if we tried this instead?

• Partner classes across schools for semi-quarterly projects, but weekly or semi-daily blogging.
• Connect students with 1:1 partners sharing similar interests and ideas about school.
• Ask partners to post weekly or semi-daily to a blog shared between the two of them.
• Ask partners to post each Monday on what they want to accomplish academically over the next five days at school.
• Ask students to report each Friday on their progress towards their goals.
• Ask partners to post a positive comment about a success each week and to pose an encouraging question about a work in progress.
• Ask partners to send one another supportive Tweets, Yams, or Edmodula (?)  regarding their goals throughout the week.

I think we could come up with a reasonable permissions and assessment framework for this, and maybe succeed in part in decentralizing accountability in the classroom, making for less coercive teacher-student relationships.  I bet we could even do this with the classes next door.

We could experiment with “do what you say you’re going to do” being the law of the land, rather than “do what the teacher/rubric/calendar says to do.”

Anyone want to opt-in?