Troy Hicks

TTT#285 Who drops out? with Nick Perez, Todd Finley, Alex Pappas, Troy Hicks, Lisa Nielsen, Teresa Bunner, Lisa Nielsen 2.22.12

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers +Paul Allison +Monika Hardy, and +Chris Sloan welcome many different perspectives on the important question of Who drops out? Why? Does it matter? What alternatives are available?

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With a wonderful mix of thoughtful people we explore how questions about “engagement”—even what it means—help us have productive dialogues about what good teaching and learning looks like and what might change in our schools. Each of us in this conversation are working to reconsider our assumptions and to recast our questions about student engagement in high school and beyond. Please add to this mix by listening in and adding to the comments below.

Nick found our conversation and had this poignant, detailed response, which I can’t figure out how to excerpt, so here it is in full. Nick wrote to us:

I don’t think high-school is for everyone - just like college isn’t for everyone. This might not be a popular opinion, but I’d love to see more of a focus on alternative forms of education for dropouts, and less of a focus on forcing them to stay in schools where they don’t feel productive. A little background on how I formed that opinion:
I’m a high-school dropout. I wrote my first program when I was ~10 years old, and spent my time coding instead of doing schoolwork. Everyone knew that I was educating myself, but I was still treated like a troublemaker because of my grades. After being placed in a horrible, kind of humiliating special-ed program in middle school (I had someone following me around all day, making sure I was paying attention), I started skipping school because I felt alienated. I’ve never been allowed in a regular high-school classroom (I was in a small program for troubled kids, where it wasn’t unusual for a student to be out for weeks/months due to jail-time), which made me feel further alienated, and motivated me to skip class more often.
So eventually I left. I think there should be more of a focus on our unique needs, and more of an understanding of the fact that “unique needs” doesn’t necessarily equate to learning disabilities or behavioral problems - some of us prefer to work without a standardized curriculum, some of us prefer to work alone, some prefer to work in groups, some want complete guidance, and some just want independent study with extra help on-call.. and yeah, some are stubborn enough to reject any form of education that doesn’t meet their needs/desires/expectations, like myself.
I don’t regret a thing. I love self-educating, because I love freedom and self-accountability. If I fail to learn the things I need to learn, it’s an issue that I deal with on my own, instead of facing disciplinary action, or getting an “F”, or being placed in a box of “bad kids”. I have a job. I pay taxes. I’ve never had issues paying my rent. I’m still self-educating at every opportunity and always will be. Life goes on. I’d love to help other dropouts feel like they haven’t missed their chance.

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Teachers Teaching Teachers #284 Engagement w/ Mary Reilly, Troy Hicks, Buffy Hamilton, Jeff Grinvalds, Teresa Bunner 2.15.12

Why do high school students drop out? This is the question that +Paul Allison, +Monika Hardy, and +Chris Sloan host on this episode of +Teachers Teaching Teachers. We are joined by some pretty amazing colleagues and teachers%23284pic a student.

+Mary Ann Reilly was one of the catalysts of this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers. She had shared this video with +Troy Hicks, +Teresa Bunner, and +Buffy Hamilton "in response to the question about how we empower/engage high school students. The video chronicles work that educators at Morristown High School did in developing a classics academy. The film was made by Ben Donnellon."

This video frames our conversation. In addition we refer to "A 2006 survey, The Silent Epidemic, [which] put these questions [about engagement or the lack thereof in high school] to a group that isn’t usually asked for opinions on American education—high school dropouts. The study found that while some students drop out because of significant academic challenges, most dropouts are students who could have, and believe they could have, succeeded in school." http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/Pages/2006-High-school-drop-out-rate-survey.aspx

In reference to this survey, Troy Hicks had been wondering: "Where we are at ten years into '21st century learning' and NCLB. Are the problems with engagement really still just the same? Who are the students that are dropping out and why? Who is actually sticking around and not feeling engaged? Why?"

We also welcome Louis, a student from Bronx Academy Senior High http://bronxbash.com the school where Paul Allison teaches. His stories of staying school or not were a needed grounding for this conversation.


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Teachers Teaching Teachers #241 - Why we love the National Writing Project and why Federal funding is important - 3.30.11

Teachers Teaching Teachers #241

Several leaders in the National Writing Project--Paul Oh, Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks--joined us from Washington DC where they were working to lobby members of Congress today, Thursday, March 31.

Also Chad Sansing, Zac Chase, and Andrea Zellner joined us on the Skype conversation--as well as many friends in the chat. Chad has been organizing a blogging effort going on around the country.  Here’s what he is asking supporters of the NWP to do:
Please add your voice to the chorus of educators from around the country who are blogging in support of the NWP. We’re trying to accumulate 1,000 blog posts by April 8, when the next Continuing Resolution for the federal budget expires. There are already nearly 150 posts - moving stories of the impact of the NWP on the lives of teachers and students - at the archive: http://coopcatalyst.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/the-blog4nwp-archive/ You can tweet or email your blog post URL to Chad Sansing (twitter: @chadsansing; email: [email protected]) who has been organizing this effort, or post it to this discussion and we’ll make sure it gets added to the archive. Remember to try to tag your posts with: #blog4nwp. FYI, we’ve gotten a few responses on twitter to this effort from the press office of the Department of Education (see: http://www.andrea-zellner.com/archives/629 and http://aetweets.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/blog4nwp-and-being-bossy/), so let’s keep it up! Check out what folks have written to get an idea of what you might add but more importantly take a few minutes to add your story (stories).

Listen to find out what we can do to help restore funding to the National Writing Project. Then find your own ways to add your voice the the the chorus singing praises to the National Writing Project!

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Teachers Teaching Teachers #187 The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching New Media w/ William Kist & Mike Slowinski - 02.17.10

This episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, was recorded during a live webcast back in the middle of February. We think you will enjoy this conversation with William Kist and Mike Slowlinski, one of the teachers who is featured in William Kist's new book, The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age. Troy Hicks has a thought-provoking question to ask toward the end of this podcast as well. Get the book, and learn along with all of us.

This episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, was recorded during a live webcast back in the middle of February. We think you will enjoy this conversation with William Kist and Mike Slowlinski, one of the teachers who is featured in William Kist's new book, The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age. Troy Hicks has a thought-provoking question to ask toward the end of this podcast as well. Get the book, and learn along with all of us.

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William Kist

William Kist is an associate professor at Kent State University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses focused on adolescent literacy. He has been a middle school and high school English teacher; a Language Arts and Social Studies curriculum coordinator; and a consultant and trainer for school districts across the United States. Kist has over 30 national and international conference presentations and 10 published articles to his credit, including his book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010, Corwin Press.). In addition to his work in education, Kist has worked as a video/film producer and musician. Kist is editing one independent feature film, Summer’s Journey, and is developing his original screenplay, Field Trip, to be filmed as an independent feature in 2008.

View Bill Kist’s Resume/Vita, Publication, and Workshops,

This podcast is another in a series of Teachers Teaching Teachers shows to feature the authors of a recent outcrop of books on new media and literacy (Using Technology to Improve Adolescent Writing: 186. Copyright Clarity: 184, 135, The Digital Writing Workshop: 172, 171, 170, Teaching the New Writing: 157156, 155, Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools: 138)  Perhaps we have the makings of a new discipline here, or at least a budding new branch on the tree of academic inquiry. See the National Writing Project's list at Teaching Now: Digital Writing Books. What would you add to this list? Let us know by adding a comment below.

 

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Teachers Teaching Teachers #186 - Texas in the house with Liz Stephens and Kerry Ballast on doing digital make-overs - 02.10.10

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers we were excited to have a conversation with Liz Stephens and Kerry Ballast about their new book, Using Technology to Improve Adolescent Writing: Digital Make-Overs for Writing Lesson.

Liz Campbell Stephens teaches graduate courses in Educational Technology and is Director of the Office of Educator Preparation at Texas State University-San Marcos. She serves on the National Writing Project’s Board of Directors and was Director of the Central Texas Writing Project for 11 years. She co-authored Technology, Reading, and Language Arts and has written numerous chapters and papers on technology and literacy.  Liz is former high school English teacher and brings that experience to her work as a teacher educator, federal programs director, and consultant. Her research has centered on literacy, technology, and teacher education.

Kerry Ballast

is a Teacher Consultant for the Central Texas Writing Project and a secondary English language arts teacher with 14 years classroom experience. She has worked with students in grades 6-12 to explore various forms of writing, both traditional and digital. Currently, she works for the Texas 

 

 

This podcast is another in a series of Teachers Teaching Teachers shows to feature the authors of a recent outcrop of books on new media and literacy (Copyright Clarity: 184, 135, The Digital Writing Workshop: 172, 171, 170, Teaching the New Writing: 157156, 155, Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools: 138)  Perhaps we have the makings of a new discipline here, or at least a budding new branch on the tree of academic inquiry. See the National Writing Project's list at Teaching Now: Digital Writing Books. What would you add to this list? Let us know by adding a comment below.

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers we were excited to have a conversation with Liz Stephens and Kerry Ballast about their new book, Using Technology to Improve Adolescent Writing: Digital Make-Overs for Writing Lessons.

Stephens and Ballast guide teachers in how to successfully implement technology for writing across the curriculum and create engaging lesson plans. They outline four frames of writing–inside writing, responsive writing, purposeful writing, and social action writing–and present student-centered and inquiry-based reading/writing lessons to connect real-world writing to content area standards. The result is a state-of the-art resource for helping teachers teach every student to write inside and outside of the classroom.

Liz Campbell Stephens teaches graduate courses in Educational Technology and is Director of the Office of Educator Preparation at Texas State University-San Marcos. She serves on the National Writing Project’s Board of Directors and was Director of the Central Texas Writing Project for 11 years. She co-authored Technology, Reading, and Language Arts and has written numerous chapters and papers on technology and literacy.  Liz is former high school English teacher and brings that experience to her work as a teacher educator, federal programs director, and consultant. Her research has centered on literacy, technology, and teacher education.

Kerry Ballast is a Teacher Consultant for the Central Texas Writing Project and a secondary English language arts teacher with 14 years classroom experience. She has worked with students in grades 6-12 to explore various forms of writing, both traditional and digital. Currently, she works for the Texas Education Agency.

We were also joined by English teacher, Joel Malley who teaches at Cheektowaga Central School District, near Buffalo, NY. Joel is also the Tech Liaison for the Western New York Writing Project at Canisius College. Troy Hicks had a couple of things to say as well. Troy is the director of the Chippewa River Writing Project at Central Michigan University.
 

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