Expected, Inspected, & Respected.
"Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice." Anton Chekhov
I am surprised that I have never heard of setting classroom goals at the beginning of the year rather than class rules. Garth German suggests adopting two goals when it comes to classroom behaviour:
It's a lot better than the first two results when I typed "class rules" into the Google image search bar: Having respect and safety as the class goals makes a great deal of sense to me because those two words create an umbrella that seems to encompass all the little rules that can bog down and confuse what should be a simple set of behaviour guidelines. Most class rule lists strive for between 3-5 items, but two items can hardly even be called a list! My other favourite set of class rules is: Before declaring the rules to my class at the beginning of the year, I would ask for the student's input about what some of those rules might be. This shows the students that their voice matters and their ideas will be valued. Additionally, they may be more accountable to rules that they have helped to create. After the process of deciding what sorts of behaviour are and aren't acceptable, I might just suggest that their list could be simplified, and if they were on board, we could end up with safety and respect.
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Today's lesson was outstanding from start to finish. I had their rapt attention and they really learned something! If you're interested in seeing my lesson plan, it's here. If you just want the highlights, read on. We started out by taking notes... in colour! Ok, nothing mind-blowing about that, but it was important to have some knowledge for the fun stuff that was on its way. They helped me fill in the labels as I drew this diagram on the whiteboard. They already knew most of these terms, but had never seen them in an organized, interconnected system. One student asked if it was possible for a solid to skip the liquid stage and turn straight into a gas. I was ready for the question and framed it as a secret forbidden knowledge that most Grade 5s don't get taught. That always makes them sit up and pay close attention! I drew a long red line with an arrow between the solid and the gas and labelled it sublimation. Immediately, another student remarked how the diagram looked like a face now, with the sublimation line looking like a big grin. I told him that neuroscientists have a fancy name for that called pareidolia - the phenomenon of seeing faces in inanimate objects. More bonus content! Next, I showed the students the following slideshow, explaining that each individual LEGO stormtrooper or person represented a molecule and how it required adding or removing heat to shift them from one state to another. Having seen the pictures, they were now ready for the drama portion of the class. I had them demonstrate solids, liquids, and gases for me as a class, immobile and bunched together in their solid phase, becoming faster and more spread apart as I turned up the heat, returning eventually to solid again as I cooled them down. The kinesthetic learners (i.e., everyone) loved being able to embody the concept and I could tell from their faces that it was a joyful learning experience. When I felt they understood the concept and had knocked over enough chairs as the speedy gases, I had them sit back down and handed out a sheet with four fill in the blank questions, just to check that they understood all the vocabulary. Finally, we played a review game where I would say something like, "liquid to a solid", wait for 5 seconds, and toss a ball to a student. That student would then (hopefully) say, "freezing or solidification by removing heat". I had a whole roomful of kids looking at me like: It was a great end to a great lesson.
I feel really good about today's fur trade lesson. The essential questions were:
I posted these two questions on the whiteboard at the beginning of class and asked the students to have the questions at the back of their mind, because after the activity, I would be asking them what the questions had to do with what we did. We did a quick review of the differences between primary and secondary sources, and I gave them a formative quiz using a one held up on one finger for examples of primary sources and two fingers for secondary sources. Then, we had some fun. I had them sort themselves into pairs and then sent half into the hallway while the other half arranged the room into an obstacle course. When it was ready, I had them lead their blindfolded partners through the obstacles they had set up. Next, I had the partners switch places, only this time, the blindfolded group would not be getting any help from their partners. The purpose of the exercise was to demonstrate how the fur trade would not have been possible without First Nations guides providing technologies such as canoes, moccasins, snowshoes, medicines, and various other survival, hunting, and trapping techniques. The group that had to navigate the obstacle course without the help of a guide was meant to show that when people first arrived in North America 12 000 - 40 000 years ago, they had no guides at all and managed to survive and eventually thrive in difficult environments with only their wits and the the materials available to them.
The point I wanted to drive home was that the primary sources we have available to us come mostly from white Europeans because they had written histories while Indigenous Peoples had oral histories. Europeans believed themselves to be superior to the people already living here when clearly they were not. However, Europeans were able to exploit the Indigenous Peoples through disease, alcohol, waves of immigrants, cultural genocide (residential schools), and broken promises. One thing I would definitely change if I were to do this lesson again, would be to require an exit slip at the end of the lesson. I would have them answer 2 questions:
I have to say a few thank yous in this post. First, I have to thank Kim Angus for inspiring room 19 with the quotes she posts on her whiteboard. I love this book of quotes she uses to find her daily words of wisdom. The quote that inspired today's lesson was, "Your best takes your time" by Thomas (The character in R.J. Palacio's Wonder). I borrowed the lesson from Sean Giesbrecht, who borrowed it from George Couros, who probably borrowed it from someone else, so I must thank the two of them as well. I took this wonderful, simple idea for a lesson plan, and adapted it to my fur trade unit. If you'd like to see the lesson plan, it's here. Instead of an image of a clock, I gave my 5th Grade students this image, and asked them to draw a a voyageur's cup as best they could in 10 seconds. 10 seconds later, I had images like these: Next, I gave them 10 minutes to draw their cup and told them the only rule was that they couldn't stop adding to their picture. After the 10 minute draw, the cups looked more like this: I had certain students in mind when planning this lesson who tend to think the work they do in school is a race and don't care about the quality as long as it is finished. I hope they got the idea that rushing might get the job done, but it doesn't get the job done well. Now I'll be able to ask my students if the work they are giving me is their 10 second work or their 10 minute work and they'll know that I'm simply reminding them that their best takes their time.
No, I don't think I could have been a voyageur, but today's lesson made me think I might make a quality teacher someday. If you want to take a look at my lesson plan, it's here. The real ceinture flechee and pieces of beaver fur were great activators, and the reading recorded by my friend Reid Noton in his best Quebecois accent brought the article to life. The audio also served as a scaffold for the striving readers so that they could better absorb the information. Everything went smoothly, the kids seemed to enjoy the treasure hunt aspect of the task, and this time, the timing worked perfectly. Even though it was the last period of the day and we were interrupted by the patrols leaving, the students were on task and interested for the whole time. I think the main reason it went so well was because I was well prepared. My wife always says, And she's right. I made sure I could play the audio from my iPhone on the speakers in the classroom when I got to school, I had the handouts and bits of fur ready on the desks when the kids came in from recess, and even had a video from the next day's lesson ready to go just in case the kids finished the task faster than expected. I'll put this one in the wins column.
At Strathcona this year, I started a LEGO Club with two of my fellow teacher candidates for the students to 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 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. ![]() 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.
This is a unit plan that my teaching partner and I wrote for our Grade 5 practicum.
What are the goals of schooling?
I believe the goal of education is to prepare students intellectually, socially, civically, and economically to live a more fulfilled life in a civilization that is enhanced because of the knowledge, skills, and values that have been learned. Educators should teach fundamental skills in mathematics, science, and literacy and instill in them a desire to pursue knowledge for its own sake. Educators should help children gain the social skills necessary to navigate the complex culture in which they are embedded, while empowering them to make ethical decisions. Educators should teach students critical thinking, an integral skill that will allow them to make informed decisions about issues that affect their lives. Lastly, educators need to prepare students to meaningfully participate in a future economy that is rapidly changing - where adaptability, creativity, innovation, collaboration, and problem finding and solving will be essential skills. What should be taught? These skills should be taught via core subjects such as science, ELA, and math. Critical thinking and drawing logical conclusions based on evidence should be learned through the interrogation of the universe in science class. Exploring language and literacy in ELA, in order to understand and be understood, is crucial to the development of communication and comprehension. Students require the tools of mathematics to solve problems, think strategically, and bring precision to their thoughts and words. Additionally, I believe that the curriculum should always be relevant to the learners. That relevance may apply to students’ lives now or in the future, but a student should always be able to say why they are learning something. How should it be taught? When considering how to teach the core elements, an essential question that George Couros says we should ask ourselves is, “Would you want to be a student in your own classroom?” I believe the classroom should be a place where students feel safe, supported, and challenged, where they are motivated and engaged in their learning as their curiosity is stoked. As Plutarch said, “The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.” In the interest of igniting this fire, I believe that the classroom should be student-centred in the progressivist tradition where students have choice: opportunities to follow their own interests and pursue their passions through inquiry and problem-based learning. It is essential that it is understood that the classroom is a community of learners where everyone is a teacher and everyone is a learner. By giving children a voice to share their own learning and to learn from others, they will be able to reach Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and benefit from More Knowledgeable Others (MKO). The goal is to get students past compliance and obedience, past engagement (where they care about what we are teaching them), and onward to educational empowerment (where they achieve the knowledge and skills to continue learning on their own). Students need some level of autonomy and purpose in order for them to achieve mastery over their own learning so that they own the process of education and see it as a continuing endeavour, not a race to the finish line at graduation. According to Carol Dweck (1999), this is more easily achieved if we promote and emphasize learning goals (where the focus is on increasing competence) rather than performance goals (where the focus is on looking smart) (15). What are the roles of the teacher, students, families and community? The most important role of the teacher is to connect with their students. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” The teacher must then create an atmosphere where students feel safe, supported, and challenged. To achieve this goal, the teacher should create a context for learning where children, in their role as active participants in their own education, can engage in activities that interest them and use each other’s knowledge to scaffold to greater heights of learning. However, the teacher does not just stand aside and watch the students explore and discover. They must guide, support, and encourage students in their pursuit of mastery by forming groups, providing challenges that are relevant to real life situations, and asking probing questions. Families and communities play an important role in the knowledge building that takes place in the classroom as well. Parents or guardians need to make sure their child comes to school ready to learn: clean, fed, and having had a good night’s sleep. Teachers and families need to keep in touch so that each is aware of the individual student’s needs. It is also imperative to invite family and community members into classrooms to share their expertise and wisdom with children. In this way, the school experience is not separate from the day-to-day lived experience of the child, but a part of it. When the classroom is opened up to the wider community, everyone benefits. |
David Wiebe
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