Sunday, November 25, 2012
creative schools- or not.
I was reading an article by Eric Sheninger, a principal that I follow on twitter, on creative schools. Here is the link to it. The article itself wasn't really eye-opening for me because I happened to agree with what he was saying. In short he toured a Google campus and was inspired by the creativity of the building and wanted to know why we can't translate some of these ideas to our schools. What really suprised me, was the number of negative comments the post received. Almost every single person posted about how horrible an idea it would be to model our schools after Google's workspace. How it would distract children from their work, how our schools need a firm structure or our children won't learn, and how we need to focus on improving the quality of education our children receive and not just the exterior of the building (which is a valid point, but shouldn't we be doing both?) I am not sure why these comments bothered me so much but they did. It was almost as if these people didn't want school to be engaging and fun for children. As if this was the worst idea they could possibly imagine. But why? I am interested to know what others think. Am I reading too much into these comments? Should our already limited budget go to more important resources, and if so, what resources should we invest in to motivate and engage our students more effectively?
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Hobo mathamatics
Some of you have heard this story already so forgive me for being repetitive, but I found it to be so eye-opening I could resist a blog entry.
I have been working a lot with my dyad teacher on student led discussions and the importance of letting the students come up with their own ideas and methods for solving problems. We have been looking at this in Alison's class as well. As the teacher, we facilitate the discussion, but the ideas come from the students. When they are thinking and reasoning through a problem themselves, it becomes more concrete than when a teacher just tells them how to solve a problem or gives them the answer. Even if students come up with wrong answers or assumptions, eventually they will come to a problem where that method doesn't work and they will have to re-evaluate these methods.
In theory, this is a great way to get students engaged and thinking about problem solving, but in reality it is hard to do. I really struggled with this during my first science lesson. As I led the discussion I tried to steer students in the direction I wanted them to go and talked about as much as my students had. I knew it hadn't gone well but I was afraid of what might happen if I gave control of the discussion over to my students.
Then we had a math class last wednesday that totally blew my mind. We were studying linear equations and my dyad teacher was leading a discussion on independent and dependent variables. Students were trying to figure out what independent and dependent meant in terms of a linear equation. One student came up with a very random idea where he was describing a situation involving a hobo (not sure if that is totally PC but that was the word the student used). It didn't make any sense at all. My dyad teacher took in stride though and simply called on another student, asking if he agreed with the hobo statement or if he had something else to say. The student replied that he agreed with the other student's hobo statement. Oh No! was all I could think. This is what happens when students lead their own discussions. Now we are going to get way off topic and end up talking about hobos and the rest of the class is going to be so confused!
To my complete and utter amazement the student instead replied that he thought the hobo was like the dependent variable because he was dependent on some person to give him money. This person with the money was like the independent variable because he didn't rely at all on the hobo. And just like that, not only were we back on track, but the students were totally engaged in this hobo idea.
Realizing that my students were perfectly capable of leading their own discussions, I tried hard the next time not to interject my ideas into the discussion. It went a lot better, but even so, I struggled with keeping my mouth shut. We want our students to have the right answers so badly, that we forget that the process of getting there is just as important. We take away from the learning experience when we just hand those answers over and the student never understands the 'why' or the 'how' of it. I realize this and yet it is still a struggle. Maybe as I keep practicing though, my students will continue to surprise me. They usually do.
I have been working a lot with my dyad teacher on student led discussions and the importance of letting the students come up with their own ideas and methods for solving problems. We have been looking at this in Alison's class as well. As the teacher, we facilitate the discussion, but the ideas come from the students. When they are thinking and reasoning through a problem themselves, it becomes more concrete than when a teacher just tells them how to solve a problem or gives them the answer. Even if students come up with wrong answers or assumptions, eventually they will come to a problem where that method doesn't work and they will have to re-evaluate these methods.
In theory, this is a great way to get students engaged and thinking about problem solving, but in reality it is hard to do. I really struggled with this during my first science lesson. As I led the discussion I tried to steer students in the direction I wanted them to go and talked about as much as my students had. I knew it hadn't gone well but I was afraid of what might happen if I gave control of the discussion over to my students.
Then we had a math class last wednesday that totally blew my mind. We were studying linear equations and my dyad teacher was leading a discussion on independent and dependent variables. Students were trying to figure out what independent and dependent meant in terms of a linear equation. One student came up with a very random idea where he was describing a situation involving a hobo (not sure if that is totally PC but that was the word the student used). It didn't make any sense at all. My dyad teacher took in stride though and simply called on another student, asking if he agreed with the hobo statement or if he had something else to say. The student replied that he agreed with the other student's hobo statement. Oh No! was all I could think. This is what happens when students lead their own discussions. Now we are going to get way off topic and end up talking about hobos and the rest of the class is going to be so confused!
To my complete and utter amazement the student instead replied that he thought the hobo was like the dependent variable because he was dependent on some person to give him money. This person with the money was like the independent variable because he didn't rely at all on the hobo. And just like that, not only were we back on track, but the students were totally engaged in this hobo idea.
Realizing that my students were perfectly capable of leading their own discussions, I tried hard the next time not to interject my ideas into the discussion. It went a lot better, but even so, I struggled with keeping my mouth shut. We want our students to have the right answers so badly, that we forget that the process of getting there is just as important. We take away from the learning experience when we just hand those answers over and the student never understands the 'why' or the 'how' of it. I realize this and yet it is still a struggle. Maybe as I keep practicing though, my students will continue to surprise me. They usually do.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Changing Education
I found an interesting article today on twitter (yes, twitter! I am becoming so tech savvy!) You can read the article, A call for President Obama to change course on education, here. Now, let me just say that I am not posting this as a political statement against Obama or against charter schools. This author made some arguments that I don't necessarily agree with but the part I found interesting was this paragraph:
"What separates education in the United States from so-called competitor counties is that on average, socioeconomic status explains far more of the variation in test scores in the United States than in other industrialized countries. But, as many researchers have pointed out, it is not the presence of unions, tenure, or collective bargaining that explains that difference. A more plausible explanation is that the more successfully scoring countries have far more substantial social support systems to mediate the negative effects of poverty. A far stronger argument can be made that we need to change our focus — especially in struggling schools — from the drudgery of high consequence driven test-prep to engaging students to be critical thinkers and active investigators in meaningful subject matter. Or, even better, from spending millions on testing to spending millions on support services. In addition, the evidence is mounting that schools can also teach essential non-cognitive competencies, such as persistence, ethics, empathy and collaboration. Since the latter are not easily subject to measurement, the continued focus on testing narrow, more easily measured subject matter diverts important attention from their development."
This has been a topic of conversation brought up many times throughout our education courses. How do we reach the students that are living in such extreme poverty that they can't focus on their education, but must instead focus on everyday survival? How do we reach those children whose only reality is a constant stream of drugs and violence? How can we convince good teachers to stay in struggling schools when the consequences for bad test scores lead to even less resources and funding for that school? Is there a better way to evaluate our schools and our teachers?
There are never any easy solutions. I think that most educators have come to the conclusion, however, that high consequence standardized testing is not the answer. Like the author points out, we are spending millions of dollars on these tests, which only show how good our students are at taking a multiple choice test, when we could be using this money in more efficient ways.
I also liked how he pointed out that we should be teaching things like persistence, ethics, empathy, and collaboration. Things like this cannot be tested through multiple choice questions yet they are equally as important as traditional subject matter. If our students are not engaged in topics such as social justice, diversity, equity, the environment, and community/global citizenship then what have we really accomplished? What have we really prepared our students for?
I hope that we continue to ask these important questions regarding standardized tests and the inequalities that exists between our schools. Maybe if enough people begin to question this thinking we can become loud enough to change our governments way of thinking about education as well.
"What separates education in the United States from so-called competitor counties is that on average, socioeconomic status explains far more of the variation in test scores in the United States than in other industrialized countries. But, as many researchers have pointed out, it is not the presence of unions, tenure, or collective bargaining that explains that difference. A more plausible explanation is that the more successfully scoring countries have far more substantial social support systems to mediate the negative effects of poverty. A far stronger argument can be made that we need to change our focus — especially in struggling schools — from the drudgery of high consequence driven test-prep to engaging students to be critical thinkers and active investigators in meaningful subject matter. Or, even better, from spending millions on testing to spending millions on support services. In addition, the evidence is mounting that schools can also teach essential non-cognitive competencies, such as persistence, ethics, empathy and collaboration. Since the latter are not easily subject to measurement, the continued focus on testing narrow, more easily measured subject matter diverts important attention from their development."
This has been a topic of conversation brought up many times throughout our education courses. How do we reach the students that are living in such extreme poverty that they can't focus on their education, but must instead focus on everyday survival? How do we reach those children whose only reality is a constant stream of drugs and violence? How can we convince good teachers to stay in struggling schools when the consequences for bad test scores lead to even less resources and funding for that school? Is there a better way to evaluate our schools and our teachers?
There are never any easy solutions. I think that most educators have come to the conclusion, however, that high consequence standardized testing is not the answer. Like the author points out, we are spending millions of dollars on these tests, which only show how good our students are at taking a multiple choice test, when we could be using this money in more efficient ways.
I also liked how he pointed out that we should be teaching things like persistence, ethics, empathy, and collaboration. Things like this cannot be tested through multiple choice questions yet they are equally as important as traditional subject matter. If our students are not engaged in topics such as social justice, diversity, equity, the environment, and community/global citizenship then what have we really accomplished? What have we really prepared our students for?
I hope that we continue to ask these important questions regarding standardized tests and the inequalities that exists between our schools. Maybe if enough people begin to question this thinking we can become loud enough to change our governments way of thinking about education as well.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
writing lesson plans
I am in the middle of writing my Direct Learning Lesson Plan and it is driving me nuts! I seriously underestimated how much work this whole unit plan was. I chose to do a social studies unit because social studies is the only subject at my school where the curriculum is not written out for you. I was so excited because I could really design my own unit and- even more exciting- they are studying Australia in social studies this spring. It was like this unit was made for me! (If you don't already know this, I am in love with Australia!)
When it came to the Essential Understandings, the only problem I had was narrowing it down to only a few. There are so many ways I could go, but I had to remember that we only have a few short months, if that, to do the entire unit. Essential questions weren't too bad either and I thought of several good assessments I could use. I was on my way!
Now I am looking at my activites and my individual lesson plans and am drawing a complete blank. I know all of the things I want them to get out of the unit, but when it comes to the specifics of how I am going to do that- nothing. How am I going to introduce the aboriginal culture to my third graders? How are they going to learn about the rich plant and animal diversity? How do I teach about human impact on the environment and vice versa?
Am I just thinking too much? Am I trying to be too creative? Not every lesson can involve some fun game or activity. Some things just have to be taught. There needs to be some type of background knowledge before even a discussion can take place.
Is anybody else feeling frustration with this assignment?
When it came to the Essential Understandings, the only problem I had was narrowing it down to only a few. There are so many ways I could go, but I had to remember that we only have a few short months, if that, to do the entire unit. Essential questions weren't too bad either and I thought of several good assessments I could use. I was on my way!
Now I am looking at my activites and my individual lesson plans and am drawing a complete blank. I know all of the things I want them to get out of the unit, but when it comes to the specifics of how I am going to do that- nothing. How am I going to introduce the aboriginal culture to my third graders? How are they going to learn about the rich plant and animal diversity? How do I teach about human impact on the environment and vice versa?
Am I just thinking too much? Am I trying to be too creative? Not every lesson can involve some fun game or activity. Some things just have to be taught. There needs to be some type of background knowledge before even a discussion can take place.
Is anybody else feeling frustration with this assignment?
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