A Vision...

Several faculty members gathered this summer and wrote the following vision statement.  Please read and comment via the blog:

Men for Tomorrow: Delivering on the Promise

A New Vision for Teaching - A New Medium for Learning

Guiding Philosophy:

No painter can master impressionism by merely listening to a painter, just as no quarterback can orchestrate a championship offense just by listening to his coach - in the same way, our students cannot master the content necessary to prepare them for post-secondary study or be inspired to become lifelong learners if school is about listening to a teacher.  Our digital transformation positions the teacher as the experienced ‘guide’ - one who will use the highest-quality online sources, adaptive assessment, streaming video, networking, and the cloud to set expectations at collegiate standards of scholarship.

We must insure our boys do not become mere consumers of content, onlookers to an irrelevant process they never attempt.  We are shifting the paradigm.  Instead, we want our boys to become producers: functioning as junior chemists, historians, humanitarians, writers, engineers, and theologians.  Think passive to active, consumer to producer, spectator to participant.  Our boys will be the problem solvers of their generation.

This transformation is about genuine, relevant student interaction with the finest material, with teachers guiding students as they create their own knowledge through experience.  We are not abandoning our roots as instructors in the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic - we are now able to raise the bar with material far superior to the low-level writing found in textbooks.  This is not about educational or technological trends or fads. Technology is not the goal, it is the tool. 

We are meeting our boys in their space and speaking their language by leveraging the best of 21^st century innovation for more than just Facebook and Xbox Live. By cultivating a love for learning and an ethical use of the cutting edge, we are building “Men for Tomorrow.”

Pillar #1 - The 1:1 Digital Transformation

Elements

1.      in the summer of 2011, we installed state-of-the-art wireless network infrastructure, enabling connectivity from Giacosa Baseball Complex to the Biology labfull student and teacher access to the Haiku^® Learning Management System - a centrally-located online portal that houses all curricular materialsin the fall of 2012, each freshman will be equipped with a tablet-style personal computer

2.      CBHS will invest in the DyKnow^® Classroom Management software which allows teachers to simultaneously monitor all computer activity in any classroom

Benefits

●        students receive and consume lessons/course content outside of the classroom

●        teachers dedicate class time to one-on-one guidance of production, application, and creation

●        24/7 access to the most relevant, highest quality sources from around the world

●        digital citizenship is a reality for CBHS students; e.g. World History classes videoconferencing with Chan Sui Ki (La Salle) College, a Brothers’ high school for boys in Hong Kong, China

●        Haiku^® facilitates digital organization and agility – readings, videos, notes, homework, papers, projects, discussions, collaborations, responses, assessments and more are all centrally located in one online portal

●        meeting students in their space, in their language, by using today’s technology to deliver timeless lessons - just as de La Salle innovated education by teaching in the vernacular French rather than in Church Latin

Pillar #2 - The Textbook-Independent Curriculum

Elements

1.      moving away from publishers’ pre-designed curricula of textbooks, e-books or printed handouts - toward digitally organized teacher-designed instructional materials that reside within Haiku®

2.      focus on the highest-quality original documents, academic articles, and creative supplementary media

3.      moving away from lower-order objective testing toward assessment based on creation, production, and project outcomes (as described in Bloom's Taxonomy)

4.      teacher model changes from lecturer who demands listening to guide that facilitates doing

Benefits

●      liberating teachers and students from the intellectual constraints of textbooks

●      this is a collegiate model - like students’ future professors, our teachers have the flexibility to choose from the very best content in their field

●      teaching THE skill of the 21st century - to distinguish high quality from poor in a sea of information, and to be digitally organized across multiple platforms and media

●      students also develop necessary skills in digital communication

●      individualized curriculum for the particular individual or group, rather than one-size-fits-all-design

●      students develop morally and ethically, the qualities for which Brothers' Boys are known

●      textbooks are designed for coed classrooms - we know that boys learn differently

Pillar #3 – Teacher as Entrepreneur

With the textbook-dependent curriculum gone, you have unlimited freedom to make your class a reflection of yourself – therefore, we each must embrace the entrepreneurial spirit in order to provide the best product and experience in the city

Qualities of a successful 'business'/classroom:

• Christ-centered classroom based on Gospel values of love and service
• Investment = Revenue, meaning that, the more you put in, the more you earn.  And if you do not produce, you starve!
• Remember why we got into teaching in the first place – we serve the students.
• This perspective is the heart of our Lasallian roots and the teacher-student relationships for which we are known
• engaging and sustaining by knowing and responding to demographic
• We need to make students WANT to take our class – develop a clientele -  and to develop a reputation for engagement, serious college-prep, and genuine relationships. 
• We need to respond to our clientele right now – not the customers from yesterday, not the ones for tomorrow.
• Greater student buy-in means greater classroom results – discipline, lack of application, and poor performance fade away – students believe in the product and want to meet the expectations.
• current and responsive to developments in the field – teachers are scholars and lifelong learners themselves
• We need to invest in resources, not just a product – clients need to buy into the whole picture (your resources, classroom policies, and presentation) before they'll even CONSIDER your product (the content itself)
• The classroom is your business – you now have the power to make it representative of you and your expertise.  You are the owner
• representative of Christian Brothers High School as a long-standing Memphis institution
• Parents have options now – other schools are raising the bar
• Your job is tied to our reputation – in order to be known for preparing students for high-level learning and for fostering teacher-student relationships, we have to set the pace.
• An emphasis on aggressive, authentic instruction will lead to higher test scores, better preparation for college-level work, and excellence over other schools in the city.

Why now?

Since the beginning of this ‘information age,’ we have been thoughtfully evaluating the proper role of technology in the life of our community.  Until now, we had not been convinced that online content quality or hardware investment value justified a major shift in infrastructure and curriculum.  Things have changed.  Now, the Internet is home to the kind of content accessed by the finest post-secondary institutions in the world.   The cost of wireless infrastructure, computing devices, monitoring software, and learning management systems are now within reach.  Our due diligence over the last two years has convinced us of not only the feasibility but also the absolute necessity of upgrading the way we teach and learn at Christian Brothers High School.