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 |
I recently finished reading Daniel Pink's When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. I've always enjoyed reading these kinds of popular science books but I read them differently now than I used to. Now, I'm always on the lookout for how the research might apply to my teaching. Here are a few of the nuggets I found in When: The first is that having math in the first two periods of the day rather than later in the day increases the math GPA of students. This is because tasks requiring analytical skills are performed better in the mornings when most of us are at our most methodical. Tasks requiring insight, however, are more easily tackled in the afternoons when we have fewer inhibitions. This is because being insightful requires us to be less vigilant about being methodical. Pink uses the following riddle to illustrate what he means by a problem that requires insight: "Ernesto is a dealer in antique coins. One day someone brings him a beautiful bronze coin. The coin has an emperor's head on one side and the date 544 BC stamped on the other. Ernesto examines the coin - but instead of buying it, he calls the police. Why?" Those who attempted this puzzle in the afternoon had a better chance of solving it than those who attempted it in the morning. (The answer is that if the coin had been minted in 544 BC, it couldn't have been stamped with a BC because no one would know about Christ's birth for another 544 years.) According to Pink, the research suggests that because of the human body's natural rhythms during the day, students might perform best in classes like math during their optimal time of day in the mornings and leave subjects such as art and creative writing for the afternoons during their non-optimal time of day. Another interesting thing that relates to education is the idea of chronotype. Pink says you can find your chronotype by answering the following three questions:
Pink states that, "After genetics, the most important factor in one's chronotype is age. As parents know and lament, young children are generally larks. They wake up early, buzz around throughout the day, but don't last very long beyond the early evening. Around puberty, those larks begin morphing into owls... By some estimates, teenagers' midpoint of sleep is 6 a.m. or even 7 a.m., not exactly in synch with most high school start times" (Pink, 29). In fact, "Today, fewer than one in five U.S. middle schools and high schools follow the [American Association of Pediatrics'] recommendation to begin school after 8:30 a.m. The average start time for American adolescents remains 8:03 a.m., which means huge numbers of schools start in the 7 a.m. hour" (Pink, 92). That is nonsense. Along with findings about the timing of the school day, there was some interesting research about the impact of breaks on testing. "Taking a test in the afternoon without a break produces scores that are equivalent to spending 2 weeks less in school each year and having parents with lower incomes and less education. But taking the same test after a twenty- to thirty-minute break leads to scores that are equivalent to students spending three additional weeks in the classroom and having somewhat wealthier and better-educated parents. And the benefits were the greatest for the lowest-performing students" (Pink, 57). The nonsensical part of this is that many school systems cut back on breaks and recess for children so that they can achieve higher test scores, which ends up having the opposite effect. The final tidbit I'll share has to do with how we give good news and bad news. Research shows that when people have the choice of getting the good news or the bad news first, they tend to choose the bad news first. However, when people are responsible for giving good news and bad news, they tend to give the good news first. This suggests that teachers shouldn't give feedback beginning with praise and finishing with criticism. My opinion is that strengths-based feedback should begin and end with good news, as it does in the good old compliment sandwich.
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I used to be a big reader. This is where my friend Sean would say, "But Dave, you're the biggest reader I know! 'Cause you're so tall." This is true, but the fact is that I haven't been making a habit of reading. I've been neglecting literature because of disc golf and Netflix and I have to thank Penny Kittle for reminding me that reading is so great and that, as an educator, I need to model good reading habits and be able to recommend good books for my students. I can't believe I didn't read Penny Kittle's Book Love immediately after my friend Tanya raved to me about it back in June. Thankfully, I got a second recommendation from my cooperating teacher at General Wolfe school and I can't thank her enough for lending me her copy. It has rekindled my love of reading and given me direction for how to effectively teach ELA. I would recommend this beautifully written book to any ELA educator looking for inspiration and a metaphorical north star. After speeding through Book Love, I picked up The Fault in our Stars by John Green because the Grade 8 class I'm with at General Wolfe will be reading it. I couldn't put it down. I thought it wouldn't be for me because I'm not an adolescent girl but I absolutely loved it. I was weeping and laughing and feeling all the feels. Thanks John Green. |
David Wiebe
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