Applying Brain Rules

The reading for the Students as Learner class includes John Medina’s Brain Rules book, a fast and easy read full of what looks like useful facts.  Two rules: Exercise increases the processing power of the brain and attention lasts for 10 minutes,  had me experimenting with some changes inside the classroom.

My 6th period has a learning centered and relaxed class culture and I feel the freedom to experiment more with this class.   Last week, I asked for a time keeper and every 10 minutes (for 3 cycles) the class got up out of their seats to do something physical:  arm circles, walking around the classroom, and stretches.  I had to call out several students by name to get them out of their seats, but many were clearly eager.  The classroom arrangement is not conducive to walking around in a circular path, and I won’t try that again, but the arm circles and stretches were do-able.  Having the students get up felt like it took away from the flow of the lesson, so I won’t roll this out to the other classes yet, but it may become a regular part of Fridays, maybe before our weekly quizzes.

If I understood him correctly, a co-hort in the SPU ARC program said that his school is having a focus on the 10 minute lesson with 7 minutes of teacher focus, 2 minutes of student focus, and 1 minute of share out as a goal to plan every lesson. This past Thursday, I attended an Algebra 1 Professional Development training session, and the mathematician’s dyad was discussed and practiced.

Between the co-hort’s description, and the dyad practice, I am convinced that this is a key strategy to implement and to be tenacious about.  My goal is to plan every lesson with at least 2 dyads (preferably more) each lesson and to plan a class period into a series of “10 minute lessons.”

EDU6133 Differentiation article reflection

This article makes a case for differentiating instruction and suggests how to do so.  The characteristics of a differentiated classroom that I found especially useful for me are: a strong link between assessment and instruction, clarity of learning goals, student involvement in making the classroom work for everyone, and being proactive in differentiating.

Suggestions for planning differentiated instruction include evaluating students’ readiness, interests, and learning profile.

What can be diffentiated are content (although this should be the last resort), process (learning activities the student is asked to perform), and product (the evidence that a student provides for demonstrating what he or she has learned).

The article addresses the fact that teachers in training are not taught to differentiate their training, and that many key voices in teacher preparation programs actively advocate NOT differentiating.   To put it simply, we’re told to try not to bite off too much and to just learn how to teach to one group by trying to keep everyone together.

In my school, most of the teachers teach in a non-differentiated way.  Only students with IEP’s have anything different from the group.  I believe the primary reasons for this are: 1. it is easier for teachers to feel fair by saying that everyone is being treated the same;  2. preparing multiple lesson plans can be a daunting task if different students are in different stages.   3. There are few examples to follow.

I have one example in my school of a math teacher who says he differentiates his students.  Each student and parent has been told that their student will not learn the same things as the next student.  So far, (I’ve been visiting his classes for the past 2 weeks), I’ve seen him give each group a different part of the chapter to focus on.  I will need to visit for a longer period to see more examples, but I do believe that he has a greater percentage of engaged students than other (more traditional) math classes.

Last week, my mentor teacher and I differentiated our instruction by having students self-select into a group that needed a refresher on a certain idea, and a group that did not need the refresher.  Some students were redirected if we thought they needed the refresher.  It was helpful for some of the students to have the material presented a different way by a different instructor.

I’ve been wondering how I’ll be differentiating my instruction.  Of course, I want to help each student where they need it.  Of course, I don’t want students bored in my class… I think of it as precious hours of their life that they could be getting much more out of.   Of course I don’t want students discouraged or giving up because the material seems out of their reach.

So far, I’ve come across a couple of students that I think we will reduce the number of problems they have to do.  They are trying but they are slow, and incomplete work is losing them points and discouraging to them.

I think of differentiated instruction as the holy grail of teaching.  It will require me to be crystal clear in my answer to “what is it that these students need to understand and be able to do by the end of this unit?”   I know the EALR’s are a guide—and they really are helpful, but it does feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to really do this well when I’m teaching 150 students.

EDTC6535 Wk06 Reflection on online safety and ethics

I know that my students have Myspace or Facebook accounts and gaming entities, but I wasn’t sure what I would say or do when and if I come across a student asking me about social networking.  Thanks to an editorial essay (Tynes), I’ll consider these 4 guidelines:  1) Maintain open and honest dialogue;  talk frankly about the risks and benefits associated with the internet. (Research indicates that girls who discuss internet safety with a teacher are less likely to agree to meet in person with a stranger encountered online). 2) Help youths protect their privacy online. Encourage the use of privacy settings on social networking sites. and 3) Develop an exit strategy. Help kids recognize unsafe behaviors, warn/block suspicious persons, and report threatening behavior to authorities.

It is nice to have a few links to forward to a student so they can read the common sense advice (Internet Education Foundation) for themselves, instead of me potentially coming across as lecturing.

On a personal note, I’ve posted videos on YouTube.com without a pseudonym, and I’m on Facebook without a pseudonym, but after reading about hijacked identities, I’m reconsidering this decision.

For student projects and teacher lessons, I can stay clear of copyright infringement as long as I remember the fine print.  For instance, all Internet images can be used, as long reposted to the Internet without permission.  Also, sound files and video can be used from the internet, as long as it’s not longer than 3 minutes, legally acquired, and given credit. (Copyright and FairUseGuidelines forTeachers)  Anything longer needs to come from sites identified by Creative Commons and Google Advance Search that allow for copying.  I did print the 2 page chart because I copy and paste information from the Internet all the time as I put together handouts, and can see myself and my students needing to reference this table.

Bibliography

Copyright and FairUseGuidelines forTeachers. (n.d.). Retrieved November 7, 2009, from Technology & Learning: http://www.techlearning.com/techlearning/pdf/events/techforum/tx05/TeacherCopyright_chart.pdf

Internet Education Foundation. (n.d.). Kids Online Safety Guide. Retrieved 11 8, 2009, from Get Net Wise: http://kids.getnetwise.org/safetyguide/

Internet Safety Gone Wild?: Sacrificing the Educational and Psychosocial Benefits of Online Social Environments, Tynes, Brendesha M., Journal of Adolescent Research, Nov 2007; vol. 22: pp. 575-584

EDTC6535 Collaboration technology reflection

For this week’s Educational Technology assignment on collaboration, I found neat collaborative tools (for example http://mind42.com/mindmaps ) and looked for ways to use them.  Upon reflection, I did it backwards.  It reminded me of a previous job I had, where we were trying to convince suppliers that demand should drive supply, not supply drive demand.  How easy it is to get enamored with the technology and forget the customer!   Here, the supply is the list of free applications and the demand is the desire for learning in my students.  I started searching for the supply first, while I’ll get further in the long run by looking for what demand exists, or could be generated.  To find what demand is there, or can be generated, I can share with my classes how technology is being used in classrooms, and how it’s enhancing learning.  I can share what others are doing and see what interest and curiosities can get piqued in my students.  So far, I haven’t found any collaborative projects done by other high school math classes, but I will keep looking.

The reading on wiki’s (Freedman, 2006) was somewhat helpful because I have a heavy association with wiki and Wikipedia, but had exposure to no other wikis.  Even more helpful was the comparison table supplied by (Guhlin) comparing Blogs, Wikis, Docs found at http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=ddnzwcn8_15g3jrbpdf. It was unfortunate that of the 6 links I tried in the table’s examples, only one led to a site that was up and running.  I wonder about the life expectancy of a wiki?  It’s reasonable to think that if a site does not generate or sustain enough interest, it’ll get abandoned and its purpose can get addressed by some other site.

My most fun find of the week was from reading a fellow classmate’s blog and finding out about http://picapps.com/ A good picture can capture a lot more interest than all the words I can generate. Here’s one from the Festival of Lights in Berlin

Bibliography
Freedman, T. (2006). Wikis: an introduction. Coming of Age , 83-84.

Guhlin, M. (n.d.). Blogs, Wikis, Docs: Which is right for your lesson? Retrieved 10 17, 2009, from Blogs, Wikis, Docs Chart: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=ddnzwcn8_15g3jrbpdf

Follow up on Oct 6 post – rubrics

My proposal to have the students use the rubric on a mock project was initially met with hesitation. My mentor was concerned that it might take too much class time, which is the only time the students had to work on this project.   I proposed that I take just 5 minutes of class and show the basic ideas, and answer questions individually but not from the class as a whole, thereby maximizing in class work time.  We agreed, and I proceeded to make two examples: one done very well and one with common mistakes.

In class, I got a volunteer to notify me when 5 minutes was up, and as a class evaluated a handful of criteria from each example.  Both models were useful.  The one done well reinforced the standards we expected.  The one done with mistakes gave the class a chance to review key concepts and skills of the chapter.  Having a model of the result of the project gave students a firmer grasp on the project. Because everyone was grading, there was almost full participation.

I ran over by a couple minutes, but I thought the 7 minutes were well spent.  My mentor agreed, and suggested that we do the same for the second class.  (Yay!)

With the second class, I was surprised at the generous scores they wanted to give the work done poorly.  I disagreed with the 8 out of 10 point for effort and showed why I’d give 5 points for showing the work, but couldn’t give more because the concept was not understood.  This was valuable for calibrating expectations and avoiding future conflict.

We added to the assignment and required that a self-assessment be attached when they turned it in.  I will try to attach a Word file of the assignment.  The rubric is on page 2 and is about a half page long.  Chapter1_project

Textbooks and teachers

In reviewing the textbooks and curriculum resources that my mentor teacher has to support her teaching, I see how important it is for the teacher to recognize the students’ needs and have the tools and skills to supplement the text.  This fits with my philosophy that each student is unique with needs that are different than the next student, and therefore one book or method cannot be best for all students. 

One course that we’re co-teaching is Algebra-Geometry. This remedial class is for 11^th and 12^th grade students who have not passed the WASL and were promoted from algebra to geometry whether they were ready or not.  Because of the district decision to not offer pre-algebra in high school, many of these students have been over their heads over the past 2-3 years, if not longer.  We are using old textbooks that my mentor teacher stored years ago when the district adopted new textbooks.  The Algebra 1 in 2 years books are in good shape and come with supplemental worksheets and tests.  My mentor’s careful explanations, gradual conceptual development and plenty of skills practice seem to be what these students need.  

I think my mentor’s general belief is that we need to be fair to students and help them where they are, not where we want them to be.  My guess is that she believes the students will learn by working hard and practice will help conceptual understanding.  Students are working and experiencing success with their skills and this approach appears to be a good fit for over 70% of the class at this point.  Their conceptual understanding appears to be improving as well.

While this teacher with this textbook and these students appears effective, it would be interesting to compare this same teacher with a different textbook and this type of student.  There are currently 9^th graders learning Algebra 1 through the Discovering series with another teacher who is a fan of the Discovering series.  It is hard to gauge his effectiveness, partially because I’m not his student teacher, and partially because it will take time to gather the results and compare.  However, one week of observations leads me to think that he would also be effective, because he regularly explains why this approach works for him.  I do wonder if the fit of a teacher and the textbook are more important to the student than the textbook itself?    

Regarding roles, it appears that my mentor is primarily a transmitter of information and a group facilitator.  The students are expected to be attentive listeners, polite participants, and workers.  I want to be primarily a source of intellectual stimulation, and I do see some teachers doing this.

Classroom surprises

My coordinator asked me,  “Have there been any surprises that you have observed or experienced in the classroom in general, in students, in yourself?” 

We get surprised when something happens differently than we expected.  One expectation I had is that a lesson plan has a lot of weight, and when applied to different classes of similar ability, would get similar student responses most of the time.  It seems that this has happened only about half the time between the two periods of 9^th and 10^th grade geometry classes.  The other half of the time, one or the other class is very inattentive and /or noisy, but it isn’t consistently one class.   I’m guessing that by planning for the diverse learner and applying it to the whole class, we would have our contingency plan for those days when the students have trouble settling down.

Another expectation I had is that a new building with new technologies would have more teachers using the technologies.  I’ve visited schools in older and newer buildings, and not noticed much difference in the use of technology.  So far, the document camera is the most frequently used technology.  I expect it’s been adopted well because teachers don’t have to change their processes much when using it.  I am interested in seeing how many teachers use Quizdoms, but it seems that only one out of a dozen teachers that have it uses it.

Learning to Observe

I’ve taught geometry and segmented math for a semester, and I’m observing my mentor teacher teaching very similar subjects.  I’m very interested in improving my lesson planning and she seems an expert at it.

Drawing from years of experience, she knows what the students will need during the course of the year, as well what they’ll need in preparation for later courses.  She’s teaching the fundamentals, supplementing the book, and taking time to ensure the groundwork is laid.  I can see how this will pay off during the rest of the year.  There are parts of the book that she’s not covering, because  they are peripheral.  The difference between my bumbling semester of teaching and watching my mentor is that I was following the book very closely, without awareness of what they’ll need for later chapters or later courses.   While I’ll be in good shape for teaching geometry and algebra-geometry next year, if I am teaching any other course, I’ll need to go through the book and get input from other experienced teachers on what I have to cover for subsequent courses, and what I can skip if time is tight.  I see that I planned in too much isolation last year.

I feel a strong affinity for the students in the algebra-geometry class.  I remember being aware as a high school student that there was a lot my parents couldn’t teach me because they were not aware themselves.  I suspect this is the case with many of the students in this class.

I expect the majority of the students in this course will not go on to further math and therefore this is the last math class many of them will ever take.   I feel a responsibility to make as many connections to the world as I can, to prepare them the best I can by opening their eyes to the need for math and how to use math.   They’ll need math to survive, to make informed votes, and to not be swindled.  I felt I was able to open a few eyes this week by pointing out a problem in their textbook and bringing it to life.  Instead of having the problem be just another skills practice, I did some role playing and asked them a few thought-provoking questions so that students understood how “average” can refer to 3 different mathematical numbers. 

In debriefing this important point with my mentor teacher, a shortcoming of the book was pointed out:  there was only one problem like it in the book.  Students need more than one example to go on if they are to really grasp a concept.  It was an example of how a teacher can become aware of the need for supplementary materials after teaching out of a book, and how it will influence my lesson planning if I teach out of this book again.