Feb. 21, 2012: With the support of one of my Learning Classroom colleagues, I have attempted yet another new teaching strategy. I tried using the "Say Something" reading comprehension prompts with my grade 9 applied class last week. I was hesitant to try this strategy because it seemed difficult to grasp and as I have only seen it in action and never tried it myself it seemed even more daunting. I figured that this is the year to try everything and anything new. This seemed to fall in line with their learning styles (bodily Kinesthetic - manipulating the reading with underlining and interpersonal - with the discussion). The way that this process works (as far as I have grasped it to date) is that the students are given a piece of text to read and as they are reading they are commenting, questioning, predicting, clarifying and making connections to the text. As they read the piece, they have coloured pencils to underline with that correspond to the various "Say Something" prompts. The students then, write their comment, question, etc. in the margins of the paper to use in discussion and understanding later on. After reading, the students then get into small groups to discuss their questions, comments, etc. and try to come to an understanding of the material read together by supporting one another through the process. This particular group of students, bought into the whole underlining and the prompts, but the discussions were less than I had expected. I think that I will try this strategy again with a "lighter" piece of text to help them feel more confident in their discussion portion of the process as the content of this text was perhaps too challenging to start with. Overall, I was impressed with their understanding and I have attached some pictures here of the prompts and a sample of the work. I appreciated the support from my colleague on this and would love for those of you who have tried this strategy to share your successes or failures here so that all of us can support each other.
Semester 2 is now underway and I am excited to see what new challenges and successes this semester brings my way. I have a grade 9 applied Learning Classroom and a grade 12 university course this semester. With the grade 12 class I have decided that blogging is the way to go to deepen the conversations about world issues; while also providing a safe way for my shy students to process and express their thoughts. I have almost everyone logged in to the blog site and already the students are embracing this venue for great conversation about the issue or topic presented to them. I have posted a picture for the students to comment on as a warm up to the rich student-led discussions that I will look for as the semester progresses. I have to say that I am impressed by the quality of the writing and the personal reflection that I am getting from the students and it is only day 1! Before I get side tracked with praise for the students, I must also tell you that I tried having the students create (with guidance) the rubric for this blogging communication assignment. I was very nervous to turn over that kind of control to the students, but now that we have been through the process, I'm a big believer in it. The students were amazing at coming up with rubric quantifiers that matched the curriculum expectations presented to them. They had wonderful discussions about blogging and what should be expected. The students even came up with a great solution to the one issue that I was having with the blogging....we all can't post new topic threads every day when there are 30 in the class. Together the students devised a plan where each person was in charge of starting a new topic only once per month. They also wanted the freedom to start a new topic thread if something exciting was going on in the world that, just had to be mentioned. After the rubric creation process was done, I felt the energy in the room spike. I can only hope that they were as excited about our new class blog as I am.
Here we are on the cusp of the last week of semester 1. I have had a great semester with my 2 classes and the Learning Classrom visitors. I have a bittersweet feeling coming to the end of this semester as this means that I am halfway through my 1 year stint as a Learning Classroom teacher. I am loving this PD and most of all the opportunity to have great discussions with people regarding DI. I have to admit that I am selfishly soaking up other people's ideas and thoughts on how to meet the needs of all of my students. I hope I am sharing numerous ideas that I have learned from the other LC teachers, leaders, coworkers, visitors, etc. I am, however, looking forward to the promises of a new beginning with the second semester classes that I have. I intend on extending my blogging in a more integrated form with my grade 12 students by having a blog site set up for discussions regarding global issues. I am hoping to have the students check in daily and post comments and ideas in order to help them grow socially in this world issues course. I am hoping that by having these academic conversations in a social media format that they will be better prepared for online university courses they may take in the coming years, as well, I am hoping to enrich our discussions in our classroom. If you have blogged with students and want to share any tips or ideas, Please feel free to post your thoughts here. Good luck with exams, report cards and the start of semester 2.
I have been debating what to present at the Learning Classroom breakout sessions. Currently, I am demonstrating the Cubing strategy, but I have been thinking about other things I'd like to present. What would you like to know more about?
So, I decided to do a few things differently than I had expected for today's Teambuilding class. I ended up creating these cute little "Say Something Nice" cards and started the class by giving each student one of these cards filled out by me saying nice things about each of them. These, of course, we're well received. We then sat in a community circle and discussed the things we disliked about the class. Answers ranged from the chairs in the room to bullying, which sparked a great round table discussion. We then went on to discuss the things we liked in the class with answers ranging from nothing (I hate school), to them liking the new teaching strategies they have seen in this class (their words). Again this sparked a great discussion about what great things we want to continue to do in this class. After all of this information was out in the open and the students had been very open to sharing, we moved on to the "Say something nice" portion of the day. Here, each of us in the circle said something nice about the person to our right, then about the person to our left and then about the person across from us. I wasn't sure what to expect during this portion, but the compliments amazed me! The students were then asked to take one or more of the cards (see the template) and write something nice about one of the adults, of their choice, in the school. There were a number of amazing cards created and the smiles on the teachers' faces was nice to see. At the end of class, I asked the students on their exit cards if they liked sharing and saying nice things to each other and every student responded with a "yes"! It was a good feel-good kind of day and so needed by all of us in these dark days of November. Now, on to December!
I am working on creating a new lesson plan for tomorrow, as I need to revisit the whole community building thing in my classroom. I find that doing specific community building activities seems contrived or awkward, but I need to do these things in order to have the success in the classroom that I desire. It seems, that in these dark days of November, that everyone (including me) is exhausted, tired of the rain and cranky. I have the Kagan Teambuilding Cube ready to go for tomorrow and hope that we can heal some of these hard feelings and conflicts that have arisen. Along with these Teambuilding questions, I am thinking of looking at our classroom etiquette and appreciation of others. Any thoughts on how to rebuild community that was tenuous at best, but had glimmers of hope a few weeks ago?
Nov. 26, 2011 I love the article "Teaching That Sticks" by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. The first time I read this article, it "stuck" with me (as cheesy as that sounds). The idea that to make something stick in our minds it has to fall into one or more of the following 6 categories makes perfect sense to me. Ideas must be 1. Simple, 2. Unexpected, 3. Concrete, 4. Credible, 5. Emotional and/or 6. Linked to a Story. Think back to your own life as a student and what you remember about any particular class or teacher or learning experience and you should find that there was some event or connection that made the topic, idea, skill or experience stick in your mind. I especially feel connected to the story that Heath and Heath describe about the history teacher having the students experience the emotional impacts that war has on people when they cut the cow bones in a simulation representing the life of a wartime medic. Those students would have had a full sensory connection that brought on the emotional connection to the topic being studied. In some subject areas this would be a challenge for sure, but storytelling, along with numerous other strategies discussed in this article would certainly help us share our knowledge with the students in our own classes along with helping the students make personal connections between the curriculum and their own lives. This would help them in seeing the relevance in studying these subjects as well. Have you had a student ask you "Why do we need to know this?" or "How is this going to help me in the 'real' world?". Perhaps creating this bond of relevance into our lessons from the beginning would help engage and attract those students who feel this way. Thinking further along these lines, what about the three different types of engagement?? At my most recent PD session for Learning Classroom Teachers, we took the time to look at the different ways to be engaged or why a person might be disengaged. I think I will save that discussion for a future blog post, but think about Intellectual Engagement, Social Engagement and Institutional Engagement. Please feel free to post some of your "sticky" teaching moments or moments where the teaching "stuck" for you as a student.