Milken Family Foundation National Education Conference: How Stakeholders Can Support Teacher Quality

Two years ago, at the Milken National Education Conference, three teachers invented a project that would allow them to stay in touch, and ended up with an astounding project for their students.

California Milken Educator Nader Twal (CA '03) and Indiana Milken Educator Matt Walsh (IN '03) spoke at a "Models of Quality" session about ELEVATE, a program they created along with New Jersey Milken Educator Amy Biasucci (NJ '03).

In presenting the story of this program, they began by asserting, "By the time you find yourself at a conference like this, you're pretty much among the educational elite."

Then they explained why they were of that opinion.  They had met in 2003 at their first Milken National Education Conference, when they received their Awards.  They hit it off very well, in spite of the fact that they taught quite different courses. Nader taught philosophy to high school seniors in Long Beach, California; Matt taught global studies in suburban Indianapolis, Indiana; and Amy taught environmental science in Cranford, New Jersey.  They wanted to stay in touch, so they decided to invent a project that would allow them to do so.

They decided to use distance learning to extend the three-person team.  They would use the video conferencing equipment that Amy had earned as a part of an environmental project her students carried out.  Matt had access to a number of different technology resources in his rapidly growing school district.  And Nader was able to use his newfound status as a Milken Educator to convince Verizon to allow him to use the technical facilities at a nearby Verizon center to build his program.

They wanted, essentially, to create a professional learning community.  They wondered how they could use technology to break down the barriers of the textbook and cinderblock walls and engage their students, realizing that once the "wow" factor of technology was gone—and it leaves quickly—that there would be something of substance left for instruction.  They used problem-based learning and Socratic seminars, and they taught each other to make it work.

Another important consideration was the desire to keep the classroom appearing "normal" in spite of the fact that they were so high-tech.  The technology was to become transparent; the emphasis was on the instruction.

They had to develop protocols:  the timing on jokes (taking the one-second delay in reaction due to distance and electronics into account); talking naturally rather than leaning into the microphone to take advantage of the parabolic mike, which covered the entire room; and even using red and green construction paper as code when the communication link was less than perfect.

They were innovative and creative.  They blended categorical imperative vs. utilitarianism vs. Golden Mean philosophical concepts with the overpopulation of white-tailed deer in New Jersey.  They set up cross-country Jeopardy games.  They created classroom circle dynamics in which one half of the circle was in one classroom, and the other half was onscreen, transmitted from a classroom on the other side of the country.

They developed an accountability log:  who spoke, what they said, replies, etc.  They set up an acceptable use policy and online etiquette guidelines and stuck with them. Nader told his students he would be gone one Friday, flew to New Jersey, and got just a gasp at first when he appeared on the screen.  They tried it again until he got the reaction he was looking for.

Finally they established a service learning component. Students at Long Beach had concerns about all the effluent washed into the bay after recent rains, so they talked tostudents in New Jersey.  The Long Beach students put on a PowerPoint presentation that was so devastating, Nader said he was afraid for his job.

Three outstanding educators meet at a conference.  They decide to use technology to raise the bar in education.  The rest, as they say, is history...  

For more information on the Conference—including the agenda, bios of Conference presenters, photos and videos—please visit the Milken Family Foundation Web site at www.mff.org.

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