Expected, Inspected, & Respected.
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
"We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience."
-John Dewey |
At Strathcona this year, I started a LEGO Club with two of my fellow teacher candidates for the students enjoy. Here's how we spread the word to generate excitement about the upcoming opportunity (not that we needed much more than to say, "Come play with LEGO!") Strathcona puts a great deal of emphasis on the visual arts and we thought our club would fit in very well with the school's creative, hands-on approach. LEGO Club was given a shelf in the library to display the student creations and it went a long way to having the students take pride in what they built. I had enough LEGO in my personal collection for the school to use but the administration offered to buy a bunch of LEGO for the club as well. We were practically swimming in the stuff. We decided that my LEGO would be used on the foam mats for free play, while the school's LEGO would be used at the tables for theme builds and design challenges. Initially, we forgot to include a rule about a strict separation of table LEGO and mat LEGO but we un-mixed the LEGO and fixed the rules by the second week. Here are some of the challenges we presented at LEGO Club: Another rule we failed to include at first was a rule about finishing your lunch and making sure to clean it up before you play go play with LEGO. Once the rules addressed this issue, a few reminders was all it took to keep the library clean. The most difficult part of LEGO Club was getting the children to put away the LEGO at the end of lunch hour. Even after several warnings that the time to clean up was coming soon, many children would just continue to build, #awesomeproblems. I think we need a big blanket or a tarp so that we can grab the four corners when the time is up, get the children off of it, and then tie it up like a big sack. Like a bigger version of this: On the first day of LEGO Club, after introducing ourselves, welcoming the students, and telling them how excited we were, I said that we needed to go over a few rules before we got started, to make sure everything was fair and we could all have a great time. Then I said, "The first rule of LEGO Club, is you do not talk about LEGO Club." I learned that elementary age kids really don't get references to R rated movies from almost 20 years ago. The adults in the room loved it though. Overall, LEGO Club was a huge success and I'd definitely do this again.
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![]() Yesterday's social studies lesson was a big win. It wasn't perfect but I felt I provided the kind of experience the kids will really remember. I started the lesson by showing the class a picture of Lagimodiere's sash, or ceinture flechee (which I called a ceinture flechette, imperfection #1), and had the students guess what it was. Since we had read The Red Sash the day before, many of the students knew what it was. Then, I had them get in groups of two or three and asked them to come up with as many ways a voyageur might use it as they could think of. They came up with a lot of alternatives such as a tie for a capote, a back support, a washcloth, towel, or rope. They even came up with a couple of ideas I hadn't thought of. Then I told them about a few more things the voyageurs may have used the sash for, such as preventing hernias, emergency sewing kit, and tumpline. Of course, no one had ever heard of a tumpline, so I brought in a Duluth pack to show them. Inside the pack was a a 45 lb plate, a giant stuffed bear (to keep the plate from moving around), and some beaver fur. It was a hassle bringing it on the bus but it was totally worth it - just look at that face! Well, trust me, they loved it. Earlier in the day, I started reading them a novel called The Broken Blade about a 13 year old boy who spends the summer working as a voyageur. The main character discusses being nervous about being able to carry the 180 pounds that voyageurs regularly carried over rough terrain on portages. Being able to feel 1/4 of that weight on their backs was an eye opening experience for the class. The effort I made carrying that heavy and enormous pack on public transit was well worth the effort. I had thought that the class would need something to do while they were taking turns carrying the pack around the room, so I prepared some voyageur themed math questions for them. This was completely unnecessary because I hadn't anticipated what a great spectator sport this would be. 1) Lagimodiere travelled west from Trois Rivieres in Quebec in the year 1800. How long ago was that? One thing that went wrong was that I didn't manage my time as well as I could have and ran out of time for a concluding reflection to the lesson. As a result, the kids were still really amped up when it was time to go to music class. I'm not sure the music teacher will ever forgive me.
In mid-February, I designed two 10 minute science stations for our Grade 5 class at Strathcona School. This is my post-mortem.
Science Station #1: How Long is your Digestive System?
The purpose of the first station was to measure each person's height and then calculate the length of their digestive system. The station was supposed to be able to run itself without adult supervision or instruction but that didn't happen. Here's what happened instead.
Students appeared to have one of two reactions to this station. They either started measuring things and putting information in boxes right away, or they didn’t start at all and instead, chatted with their friends and fooled around. The students who charged ahead made many mistakes because they didn’t read or understand the instructions before beginning.
As a result of not consulting the instructions on how to use a measuring tape, I witnessed many mistakes: students confused inches and centimetres, started measuring from the leading edge, stood on the measuring tape so that their measurement started at 5cm instead of 0cm, didn’t measure in a straight line, or tried to read the measuring tape themselves. A few students measured parts of the digestive system that had already been provided. The students who decided not to participate, spent their time measuring the circumference of their heads and waists, using the measuring tape as a skipping rope, or hiding in the closet and watching music videos on an iPod. Both reactions could have been because they took a look at what they needed to do on the worksheet and were doubtful that they would be able to get everything done in only 10 minutes. They were right; I had asked too much of them in this station.
Not one person got to the point of adding up the parts of the digestive system to find its total length, and no one got to take home a length of string equal to the distance that food travels through their body. I was very disappointed that this learning centre was so ineffective in teaching the skill of measurement.
I could have made the measurement of their heights easier and less time consuming if I had attached a measuring tape to a wall and had them stand next to it while their friends helped to read the results, but I wanted them to work together to figure out how to properly use a measuring tape. Students would have been much more successful if they had been given more time and if I had had the opportunity to give full class instruction. I believe this station would have worked better as a full 45 minute class. To trim it down to a 10 minute time slot, I would remove the research section completely and include more instructions about how to find the total length of the digestive system, like this: Science Station #2: Nutrition Label Classification
This learning centre was slightly more effective in accomplishing its intended goals. The students seemed to be more on task, and the pictures they took on the classroom iPad showed that they were successfully classifying foods according to the nutritional information on their labels. However, it was unrealistic of me to think that they would have enough time to make hypotheses. Instead of having hypotheses about incorrect predictions as an element of the handout, I should have discussed the reasons together with the class as a concluding exercise after the stations were done.
My biggest mistake when designing this station was that I provided handouts for groups instead of individuals. When the students needed to predict which food item had the lowest and highest number of calories per serving, most groups spent far too much time debating their choices. There also seemed to be confusion about where on the chart to put the predictions and where to put the answers. The design of my handout should have been pared down and simplified, using a more familiar fill-in-the-blanks format. This would have the benefit of reducing the time spent deciphering the chart, leaving more time to investigate nutrition labels. Another problem with the worksheet was that several of the instructions had multiple steps. A simple improvement would be to separate these substeps. My new and improved worksheet would look like this: What Have I Learned?
I have learned that I need to recalibrate my understanding of what a 10 year old is capable of doing in a 10 minute time span. I overestimated their abilities, which, I suppose, is better than underestimating their abilities. However, in future, I will make sure students are comfortable with the skill being practiced and that there are ample supports in place (such as the illustrated guide to using a measuring tape) so that success for most learners is assured. This was a positive learning experience for me, if not for the students, because I now know to keep my expectations realistic and my instructions crystal clear.
I've been reading The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros and I liked this idea. It came to George when he was responsible for teaching health to a Grade 7 class. Health was not a subject he was enthusiastic about and so he decided to give more control to his class than he normally would. I went through each objective in the health curriculum and re-wrote them in student-friendly language. I then asked the students to create their own groups, pick out the objectives that interested them, and teach each other. I acted more like a professor working with doctoral students, rather than how I had envisioned a typical grade seven teacher working (Couros, p. 98) . I like the idea, I would just worry that my admin would think I was being lazy rather than making a considered choice to innovate based on sound pedagogical theory. Still, I might like to try it someday.
On January 15, at the start of my course in early years science education, I posted an entry on my blog titled Bill Nye vs. The Trebuchet. In it, I concluded that although I love Bill Nye the Science Guy videos, my science lessons would always make experiential learning a priority. Since writing it, my stance has not changed. If I were to lead a unit on the subject of simple machines, I would have my students play and experiment, to discover for themselves through trial and error how simple machines make our lives easier, rather than have them take my (or Bill's) word for it. Through active learning, I want my students to have their curiosity stoked, and through their curiosity, be motivated to gain the skills that are at the heart of the science curriculum. Curiosity and interest are what turn predicting, measuring, recording, classifying, inferring, and communicating scientific ideas from boring tasks into engaging, mystery solving skills to be mastered. There are no science facts in the curriculum that are more important than the desire to learn about the universe. Carl Sagan once said : As a teacher, the most important thing for me, is to encourage my students' wonder and enthusiasm for learning. The best way to preserve their enthusiasm and the most effective way to achieve true learning can best be summed up by Ben Franklin:
The following is an example of a science lesson plan with a high degree of differentiation. Think-Tac-Toe Instructions1) Choose a partner you would like to play tic-tac-toe with.
2) Play rock-paper-scissors to see who will go first. 3) Play tic-tac-toe as you normally would on the think-tac-toe paper. 4) Each player will complete two of the activities highlighted by their Xs or Os made during the game. (Players will have to think strategically about how to highlight the tasks they want to complete as well as how they will win the game.) even though I'd rather watch science-fiction non-books (aka movies). Two Counter-Intuitive Aspects of Non-Fiction Read-Alouds1) Reading non-fiction books aloud to children requires a very different approach than reading aloud from picture books. The biggest difference is that you should not show the pictures in a non-fiction book to students while you read because research shows that as soon as you show them the pictures, they stop paying attention to the words. The vocabulary in a non-fiction book is often unfamiliar to them and should be the focus of their attention. You can show the pictures after reading. 2) Before beginning the reading, lead a short discussion to get students thinking about the topic of the reading using open-ended questions. These questions will often start with how or why. But be sure to keep it brief. Research shows that misconceptions shared by the students will often be remembered more than the content of the book. Don't let extensive questioning backfire on you. An Example of How to do it RightStart by asking open-ended questions such as:
After reading the text, ask follow-up questions checking for recall and understanding or to make them realize something they don't yet know and might need to research. These questions often start with "what". Follow-up questions based on this reading could include:
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David Wiebe
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