A teacher says students learn better when they see themselves in what we teach

Alex Corbitt is teaching 7th-grade English in the very same classroom at M.S. 331, the Bronx School of Young Leaders, where he student taught as a Fordham graduate student. In nearly five years at the school, Corbitt has developed culturally relevant curricula, taught his students to make podcasts, and helped bring 2,000 books into the building. And on his break? He and his colleagues play pickup basketball with the kids.

Last year he was named to the International Literacy Association’s “30 Under 30” list, an honor bestowed on teachers and other rising young leaders. Corbitt said it was gratifying to win for his work in a renewal school—the city’s designation for an underperforming school trying to turn itself around.

“It gives me hope that we’re not just shouting-out schools and teachers who get high test scores, but also teachers who are trying to authentically recognize their students and empower them,” he said. “We are working every day to close the achievement gap. Over the past three years [at M.S. 331], we’ve really come together and supported each other as a community.”

“I think when students read and write they need to be able to see themselves in the content,” he said.

A big proponent of technology in the classroom, Corbitt participated in a digital literacies collaborative, a network of educators run by Kristen Turner, Ph.D., who taught at the Graduate School of Education. The group’s demonstration on iPhone podcasts inspired a lesson for Corbitt’s teen activism class, in which students watched a documentary about racism and interviewed each other to make podcasts of their own.

Corbitt credits Fordham for placing him in the struggling school back then. “I think Fordham really understands that the best schools to learn how to teach in,” he said, “are the schools that need the best teachers the most. You hone your craft and you become better.”

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“We need to unpack the myth … that young people are technological wizards. There certainly are some who are, but not every kid is like that. I think before we use these

Lenhart, a researcher with the Data & Society Research Institute, delivered a keynote, “The Shifting Landscape of American Teens’ Social & Digital Media Use,” at the fourth annual Developing Digital Literacies Conference, hosted by the Graduate School of Education.

“If [educators] ask young people to use a social space, we want to give them options so they don’t necessarily have to have their personal space invaded by the academic, and vice versa.”

She tackled topics such as the rise of the smart phone, and teens’ need for access, texting, relationships, and privacy.

When it comes to relationships, Lenhart said, it will surprise few to learn that social media is where teens make, maintain, and end friendships. What was heartening, she said, was talking to the 20 percent who said they’d met someone of interest online and then arranged to meet in person.

“It may have been pretty far removed, like their best friend’s cousin’s ex-boyfriend, but usually somebody … else in their network verified that that person [first],” she said.

In addition to meeting a new person in a public setting and accompanied by friends, many teens vet the person beforehand through technology like Facetime, she said.

“For me, that was comforting to learn. They’ve had this stuff drilled into them for many years.”

Facebook is still a must-have for teens, if only because it’s where everyone has an account. But Lenhart noted that one teen dismissed it as “drama central” in part because when a teenager is friends with parents, coaches, family friends, and classmates, it’s difficult for them to decide which side of themselves to display. Other platforms offer teens a place to create smaller networks that are easier to manage and find privacy, but might facilitate social pressures, with myriad unspoken customs and norms.

For example, on Instagram, teens might be tempted to “like” a picture that they have shared so as to drive up the number of likes on the post. Savvy teens know to wait until 11 others have liked it first, because after 11, Instagram stops showing the names of those who have liked it, and only displays the number of likes. A savvy friend might still click through,and find the like, and call out the teen for “liking” themselves. But if they do, they can be accused of stalking—another teen taboo..

“Think about that. That’s exhausting! So it’s not surprising that teens continually move from spaces that are exhausting and complicated to spaces that are less so,” said Lenhart.

The takeaway for teachers is that social media is a deeply complicated and personal endeavor, and should be thought of as a private space like any other. Lenhart said the Discover function on Snapchat is a good example of a space that educators can explore..

“The private spaces often have more possibility because they aren’t about broadcasting to a network.”

In his July 22 keynote speech, “You Should be Innovating,” Rochelle mixed anecdotes about his children with discussion on the creation of Google Classroom and other platforms that seek to teach innovation. He spoke at the Graduate School of Education’s second annual Developing Digital Literacies conference at the Lincoln Center campus.

“I believe teachers should model innovation so that students understand it, accept it, and value it,” he said. He offered an “innovation rubric for teachers:” creativity, optimism, passion, decisiveness, experimentation, collaboration, acceptance of failure, communication, and research.

A recent convert to the teaching value of 3D printing, Rochelle said the act of physically making something is very important to learning how to innovate.

“In the creation process, sure, there may be something that you call ‘failure,’ but there really is no failure when you’re creating,” he said.

And it doesn’t matter what you create, he said, noting that he keeps a “box of failures” from his own 3D printing experiments.

Optimism, he said, is a skill that can be learned, in order to resist the temptation to say something won’t work. At one point in history, bottled water was probably deemed a stupid idea, he said. At Google, self-driving cars were likewise frowned on, initially.

Value Ideas

“Practice by getting your kids together and saying ‘Let’s come up with crazy ideas.’ And the thing you’re practicing is, when someone comes up with the worst idea, and another kid says ‘Oh that’s so stupid,’ that’s when you stop and say ‘You don’t know if it’s stupid or not, and we don’t care. It’s an idea,’” he said.

“You want to practice getting all the great ideas out there—and you don’t know which ones are great until you keep going.”

Being decisive is a big part of the equation too, because even if you screw up, you’ll know which way will be the right direction next time, he said. And while the failure can also be beneficial, he cautioned that it’s crucial to explain the difference between failure in assessment and failure in practice, and in trying and experimenting. It’s not ok to fail a test, for instance.

Rochelle brought his own family into the lecture when he addressed the topic of passion. His son Jeremy was so enamored with trucks, he said, that for his 13th birthday Rochelle rented him a small backhoe and let him dig holes in their back yard.

“The key is about discovery. Help the kids discover what they’re going to be passionate about. They don’t know and they need to be introduced to as many things as possible,” he said.

“What you [teachers]do changes the world. It’s critical that the kids understand and get a feeling for what they want to do, and modeling that and understanding it requires innovation.”

The GSE’s Digital Literacies Collaborative organized the conference.