Berry's Rules of Learning

Berry’s Rules of Learning

1)                 Everyone can learn.

2)                 NOT everyone learns the same way.

3)                 If you don’t use it….you lose it.

4)                 You are in charge of your classroom.  Know what you expect from your students and make sure that they know what you expect.

5)                 Aim high for your students.  Make sure that their reach is always beyond what they NEED to learn.

6)                 If they want to learn…They will learn far more than you or they think is possible.  Find out what makes them want to learn.      

7)                 If all that we do as teachers is to dispense information…we may as well put the in front of a computer.  (See #6)

8)                 Any teacher that can be replace by a computer…probably should be.

9)                 There are circumstances that we can not control.  Understand that.  Control what you can.

10)            Laughter makes learning physiologically easier.  Proper use of praise opens up new neurons (No Matter What Age).  Learning increases learning.

11)            Learning never stops.  We can do things to speed it up.

12)            Have fun.  Love your students.  Help them to dream big.  You are far more important to them than you will ever realize.

Address to the public on MFLMM BLAST OFF (1to1 rollout)

MFL MarMac BLAST off 

(Bulldog Laptops Accelerating Student Computing)

Why are we doing this?  Two years ago, there were 17 schools in Iowa with a 1to1 laptop initiative.  Last year, there were 44 schools in Iowa with 1to1 at some level.  This school year, over 100 Iowa schools will have a 1to1 laptop initiative and MFL MarMac HS is one of them.

Do we have to do this?  The first answer is, “No!”  Our students are doing well. About 85% every year go on to some form of post high school education.  We are meeting our NCLB requirements and are staying off the list of Schools In Need Of Assistance.  Our students have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, mathematicians, engineers, nurses and many other rewarding professions.  We do not NEED to change, but.....

Whether for good or not, the world is rapidly changing around us.  Social networking is used in many ways to communicate, sell products, conduct business, deliver the news and to even revolt against oppressive governments.  You can not watch a TV news program without seeing Facebook and Twitter.  Real estate guides are using QR codes to convey information to people to read with their cell phones.  From this perspective, we owe it to our students to move forward with technology.  They must be prepared to live in this world.  Their daily lives now include technology constantly.  We need to apply this to education.  So YES, we do need to do this.

If you are not moving forward, you are falling behind.

Our teachers have prepared for this.  Two years ago, we started discussing this concept in out High School Leadership Team.  We started off asking, “Should we do this?”  After much research, discussion and visiting 1to1 schools, we decided that the question is not IF we should do this but, “HOW SOON can we do this?

Last year we prepared by visiting more schools.  We had training and used Google applications in our classrooms.  When school was out in June, we put MacBooks into the teachers’ hands and had two days of training on iLife and iWork which are the Apple application packages.  We had two days of Apple training before school started on integrating this technology into our curriculum. I have retired as HS Principal and have been hired back as a private contractor part time to help teachers with this initiative.  Teachers are ready to implement this and we are ready to help them in any way.

Thirteen years ago we implemented the block schedule.  The main idea is to lecture less and have more hands on, project based learning.  People learn more by doing than by listening.  The 1to1 project is an extension of this idea.  The days of the “Sage on the Stage” are over.  The idea that the teacher holds the knowledge and will pass it on to the students is unrealistic any longer.  If you need a fact, you can look it up in Google in 10 seconds or less.  We need to teach critical thinking and how to use these facts.  Our staff is committed to make the 1to1 initiative help us teach these concepts.

Steven Covey preaches, “Start with the end in mind.”  Technology is not the end product.  Technology is a very powerful tool to reach the end product of student achievement.

Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid.  Humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant.  Together, they are powerful beyond imagination.

The MFL MarMac HS Mission statement is to engage and challenge students to Communicate, Collaborate, Investigate, Evaluate and Create through a rigorous and relevant curriculum.

What do you expect?

MFL MarMac will be a 1 to 1 laptop computer school next year for grades 9-12. The HS staff has been working hard on professional development and training all of this school year to get ready for this. I would like to give parents and students a chance to have some input:
1) What questions do you have?
2) What do you expect this to look like?
3) How do you think this will "change" the traditional classrooms?

Creating a Digital Learning Environment

The 1:1 laptop initiative will put a laptop in the hands of every student to use 24/7 from the first day of school in the fall to the last day of school in the spring. This will open up a multitude of possibilities to extend learning beyond the textbook; beyond the 8:30-3:15 school day and beyond the limits and scope of MFL MarMac HS.

Almost all of the MFL MarMac HS teachers have gone on a visit to a school that has a 1:1 initiative. Here is a partial list of what they have seen;
1) More student engagement
2) More students creating projects instead of absorbing lectures.
3) Students communicating with "experts" through e-mail, blogs, skype and other digital methods.
4) More students doing research, doing much more writing, and doing many more presentations.

Many of the schools that started this have changed the way that learning takes place. Excitement at every school that I have seen is very high. Teachers are changing the way that they do business and students are more of a "partner" in learning than a vessel to "pour" knowledge in and hope that it stays.

We have many computers in the high school now. We have 3 full blown computer labs, 2 portable laptop carts, and 7 mini-labs in the school. All of these need to be maintained and periodically replaced. We have to choose whether to continue spending this money to replace these labs or to shift the cost to a laptop for every student.

We are now getting cost estimates form both Apple and PC companies. I will know more about the cost then, but I do know that before the School Board decides to do this or not, our Superintendent will make sure that the school can afford this.

Area schools that have already started this initiative are Clayton Ridge, South Winneshiek, North Winneshiek, And Valley. Planning to start next year are Ed-Co and Allamakee. Postville is starting a discussion. Many schools across the nation have done this including the state of Maine that has this mandated for all schools.

Once again, I invite all students, parents and community members to go to my blog; berryedblog.blogspot.com. Feel free to leave comments. I would also be very happy to come and discuss this with any group that is interested in learning more.

Sir Kenneth Robinson

This a very engaging u-tube video. The creativity is very captivating, but I hope that the message comes across. This has been one of my themes with our staff this year:

Are we teaching our Millennial children how to survive in the Industrial Age?

Watch this and leave a comment:

1-1 Computing Part 1

1-1 Computing

As most of the MFL MarMac High School staff knows, I am a big supporter and advocate for 1-1 computing. Several of us were at a webinar the other day and the comment was made, “What do you mean by 1-1?” I thought about this and decided that I have been assuming that all staff members understand this. I decided that I had better back up and answer a few questions.

1) What is 1-1 computing?
This term basically means that every student will be given a laptop computer to use both at home and at school for the entire school year.

2) What are the expectations of students and teachers?
I expect that all teachers will use this “tool” in their classrooms in different ways. All of our teachers now teach differently. That is good. The 1-1 will not change this. I taught math for 25 years. When the graphing calculator came along, it totally transformed not only the way I taught, but the way students learned and grasped mathematical concepts. I expect that this will have the potential to do the same for all curriculum areas. Some teachers will start with having the students take out their laptops to take notes instead of paper and pencil. Some teachers will send the notes to the students and spend more time analyzing and discussing the general concepts. All teachers will have access to a computer “lab” every day in their classroom instead of picking up and moving to a lab and hoping that it is not being used by another teacher. I expect that this will allow our teachers and students to focus more on analyzing and creating instead of remembering facts and spitting them back on a test.

We have focused our professional development on higher order thinking skills for many years. This is the best initiative to allow teachers and students to focus on this area. Some teachers will totally revamp the way that they conduct business. Some will only change a little. I expect that all of our good teachers will remain good teachers whether they change or not.

In the future, I will discuss:
2) What have we been doing to help make this decision?
3) What will it “possibly” look like?
4) Why do I want to do this?
5) How will we fund this?

In the meantime, I would be willing to talk to anybody at any time about this. I will post this on my educational blog; berryedblog.blogspot.com, where you can leave any comments.

Why I Play Golf

For our pre-service this school year, we had Dr. Harold Blatt and Gloria Klinefelter from Community Circle of Care give a presentation called Bridges Out of Poverty. This was a very good presentation. Our data has shown a disparity between our low Social economic status students and the rest of the population. The district professional development committee which is made up of administrators and teachers decided to try this in-service. It gave a very good representation of the difference in thought processes for people in both generational and situational poverty. We have a high per cent of free and reduced lunch students and this in-service was very timely. We hope to have a follow up on this later in the year.

I was discussing this with some of our teachers. A few of us could relate to this and realized that our thinking when we grew up was like the people of poverty that were represented in the presentation. I never realized that I grew up in poverty, but now I realize that my family really was poor. I always felt that, as much as I wanted to, I never fit in with the "middle class" students around me. There was a culture of thinking that I did not fit in. I realize that now. It really hurt and bewildered me at the time.

Mom and Dad went to work after 8th grade. Neither of my sisters went to college.I went to college mostly because a football coach asked me to come play community college football. I stayed in college because I worked in different factories in summer and during the school year to pay for expenses. I knew that I really did not want to work in a factory for the rest of my life. Good decision. I also admired many of my high school and college coaches and thought that profession would be a good one to enter. For 25 years, my wife and I and two children survived on one teacher/coach salary and what my wife made working in daycare, and taking our younger daughter to preschool. She did a great job of raising our two girls. The trade off was that our children could not have the material possessions that their friends had.

Twelve years ago, I made the switch to administration. My salary now is much higher than I ever dreamed it would be when I grew up. I take nothing for granted. We have worked very hard to get to the point that we are in our lives.

When I left teaching and coaching which took up most nights and weekends for twenty five years, I actually had the time to golf. With the administrator salary, I also could afford to play golf. I never dreamed about playing this game when I grew up. That was something that the "other people" did.

So now I play golf and really enjoy the game. So, back to the title of this blog, I now play golf......because I can.