Hi everyone~
To make this a user-friendly resource for all of us, here are some tips:
1) Sign in at the top right (you can use your HTH gmail login and password) and click on New Post. You'll need to create a separate post for each article/book/chapter you review.
2) Enter the title of the article/book/chapter as the title of your post.
3) Make sure your post includes the full APA citation near the top.
4) Your annotation can take a variety of forms. Try the following suggestions out and see which works best for you:
Example 1: brief paragraph describing and critically assessing the source for quality and relevance; a list of quotes and/or concepts relevant to your research/practice; and any sources cited within the text that you want to find. See "Sample Post #1: The Differentiated Classroom" post.
Example 2: summary of the work, evaluation of methods and findings, and reflection on relevance to your practice. See "Sample Post #2: How are we disposed to be creative?".
Example 3: Now that you've checked out the sample posts above, create a format that you feel will be most useful to you in chronicling your thoughts and pushing your research forward!
5) Finally, and most importantly, assign a couple labels (keywords) to your post. This is what allows us to search for all the articles on motivation, engagement, etc. If you don't attach a label to the bottom of your post, it will get buried in the ether, never to seen or searched for again. It will be very sad. Where you can, use the labels already created and shown on the right sidebar. Fewer labels means broader searches (i.e. we don't want 5 labels that say digital literacy in 5 different ways; just keep it simple and say "digital literacy." This makes it easier for everyone to search and find what they want). If you do create a new label it will magically appear in the sidebar.
6) Publish your post, congratulate yourself for sharing your work with the world, and search for more work useful to you by clicking on the labels or by using the Search box!
If you have any questions about how to use this blog, leave a comment here! Happy posting!
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Teaching students to be peacemakers
Johnson , D. W., & Johnson , R. T. (1995). Teaching students to be peacemakers . Edina, Minnesota : Interaction Book Company
The Johnson brothers are the leading researchers in the field of conflict resolution. In this book it highlights a plethora of useful information and specific strategies on conflict resolution and negotiation in a classroom setting. While the book's purpose is to teach students to handle conflicts non-violently, it is very explicit that it needs to be focused on a school-wide basis. This is broken down into 10 chapters. Chapters one through three focus on how schools can create a culture based on embracing conflicts and teaching students how to manage them affectively. Chapters Four through Seven approach such issues that can arise from conflicts. Specifically, chapter six is titled "managing Anger Constructively". The last three chapters discusses how to implement these tools on a school-wide basis. While the entire book is very beneficial, I've been specifically drawn to the fourth chapter, titled "conflict strategies".
They describe that there are five basic strategies for managing conflicts. They are: Problem-solving negotiations, Smoothing, forcing or win-lose negotiations, compromise, and withdrawing. Of these five, I found that compromising and problem solving negations are the most beneficial for students. "Compromise suggests that the coal and the relationship are moderately important to you and it appears that both you and the other person cannot get what you want, you reach an agreement. Compromising may involve meettin g in the middle so each of you gets half or flipping a coin to let chance decide who will get his or her way. Comprising often used when disputants wish to engage in problem-solving negoations but do not have the time to do so. Problem solving negotiations are when bot the goal and the relationship are highly important to you. YOu initiation problem solving negotiations to resolve. YOu maintain your interests and try to find a way of reconciling them with the others's intrests. This strategy requires risky moves, such as revealing your underlying interests, while expecting the other to do the same". (Johnson & Johnson, 1995. 4:3) I think that these two particular strategies are exceptionally helpful when working in a project-based environment. However, there are more than one-hundred different activities found in this book to help with a variety of conflicts and issues among students.
They then describe different activities for students to try to handle these situations themselves. This book provides large amounts of information on how to empower students to communicate openly and affectively in a collaborative setting.
The Johnson brothers are the leading researchers in the field of conflict resolution. In this book it highlights a plethora of useful information and specific strategies on conflict resolution and negotiation in a classroom setting. While the book's purpose is to teach students to handle conflicts non-violently, it is very explicit that it needs to be focused on a school-wide basis. This is broken down into 10 chapters. Chapters one through three focus on how schools can create a culture based on embracing conflicts and teaching students how to manage them affectively. Chapters Four through Seven approach such issues that can arise from conflicts. Specifically, chapter six is titled "managing Anger Constructively". The last three chapters discusses how to implement these tools on a school-wide basis. While the entire book is very beneficial, I've been specifically drawn to the fourth chapter, titled "conflict strategies".
They describe that there are five basic strategies for managing conflicts. They are: Problem-solving negotiations, Smoothing, forcing or win-lose negotiations, compromise, and withdrawing. Of these five, I found that compromising and problem solving negations are the most beneficial for students. "Compromise suggests that the coal and the relationship are moderately important to you and it appears that both you and the other person cannot get what you want, you reach an agreement. Compromising may involve meettin g in the middle so each of you gets half or flipping a coin to let chance decide who will get his or her way. Comprising often used when disputants wish to engage in problem-solving negoations but do not have the time to do so. Problem solving negotiations are when bot the goal and the relationship are highly important to you. YOu initiation problem solving negotiations to resolve. YOu maintain your interests and try to find a way of reconciling them with the others's intrests. This strategy requires risky moves, such as revealing your underlying interests, while expecting the other to do the same". (Johnson & Johnson, 1995. 4:3) I think that these two particular strategies are exceptionally helpful when working in a project-based environment. However, there are more than one-hundred different activities found in this book to help with a variety of conflicts and issues among students.
They then describe different activities for students to try to handle these situations themselves. This book provides large amounts of information on how to empower students to communicate openly and affectively in a collaborative setting.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
The Thinking-learning connection / Creating a culture of thinking
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Perkins, D. (1993). The thinking-learning connection: Creating a culture of thinking. Educational Leadership, 51(3), 98-99.
This article is a brief 'primer' on a culture of thinking. Perkins describes the reason for attempting to 'enculturate' thinking and describes briefly, how to do this in the classroom.
"...education has the opportunity, and hence the responsibility, to improve students' thinking. A variety of studies show that people often do not use their minds well, and can learn to do so better (p.98)."
Thinking skills and abilities are not enough...
"Several philosophers and psychologies have written of the importance of "thinking dispositions." If you have a disposition to behave in a certain way, you have the kinds of attitudes, understandings, and motivations that nudge you to behave that way (p.98)."
This connects to Ritchhart's 'intellectual character'. Students need more than the ability to think - they need motivation, inclination, proper attitudes to use thinking skills.
"People acquire dispositions all the time, through "enculturation." We grow up, play, and work in settings where certain values and practices are honored. We learn, by osmosis as it were, to honor them too. The moral: To teach of thinking, it's not enough to teach skills and strategies. We need to create a culture that "enculturates" students into good thinking practices (p.98)."
"It's proved helpful to view enculturation as involving three elements: exemplars, interactions, and explanations. We absorb a culture because we encounter examplars - people around us, or historical or fictional figures who embody certain norms and practices; and because we have interactions with friends, teachers, parents, and others that highlight certain expectations; and because, now and again, people offer direct explanations about anything from table manners to how to make better decisions (p.99)."
Perkins briefly describes what this means for educational practice. Thinking is not a separate lesson for students. Rather, it must be part of the culture in which teachers provide exemplars, interactions and explanations. Perkins gives examples of these three elements, as they pertain to enculturating thinking in the classroom.
Perkins, D. (1993). The thinking-learning connection: Creating a culture of thinking. Educational Leadership, 51(3), 98-99.
This article is a brief 'primer' on a culture of thinking. Perkins describes the reason for attempting to 'enculturate' thinking and describes briefly, how to do this in the classroom.
"...education has the opportunity, and hence the responsibility, to improve students' thinking. A variety of studies show that people often do not use their minds well, and can learn to do so better (p.98)."
Thinking skills and abilities are not enough...
"Several philosophers and psychologies have written of the importance of "thinking dispositions." If you have a disposition to behave in a certain way, you have the kinds of attitudes, understandings, and motivations that nudge you to behave that way (p.98)."
This connects to Ritchhart's 'intellectual character'. Students need more than the ability to think - they need motivation, inclination, proper attitudes to use thinking skills.
"People acquire dispositions all the time, through "enculturation." We grow up, play, and work in settings where certain values and practices are honored. We learn, by osmosis as it were, to honor them too. The moral: To teach of thinking, it's not enough to teach skills and strategies. We need to create a culture that "enculturates" students into good thinking practices (p.98)."
"It's proved helpful to view enculturation as involving three elements: exemplars, interactions, and explanations. We absorb a culture because we encounter examplars - people around us, or historical or fictional figures who embody certain norms and practices; and because we have interactions with friends, teachers, parents, and others that highlight certain expectations; and because, now and again, people offer direct explanations about anything from table manners to how to make better decisions (p.99)."
Perkins briefly describes what this means for educational practice. Thinking is not a separate lesson for students. Rather, it must be part of the culture in which teachers provide exemplars, interactions and explanations. Perkins gives examples of these three elements, as they pertain to enculturating thinking in the classroom.
Creating a culture of thinking and dialogue at home
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Jeffrey, T. 2007. Creating a culture of thinking and dialogue at home. Gifted Child Today, 30(4), 21-25.
This is a simple article promoting the idea of enculturating thinking at home. The author informs parents that their behavior has an enormous impact on their children, in terms of forming the kinds of thought and communication habits they develop. He aims to encourage parents to make the thinking they do more visible to their children and to take opportunities to practice thinking dispositions with their children.
"The way a group communicates, what it communicates, and what it values are all components of a culture of thinking... Tishman, Perkins, and Jay describe the process of establishing a classroom culture of thinking in four distinct ways; modeling, explanation, interaction, and feedback (p.21)."
"Aristotle once said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit (p.22)." Parents (and teachers, I believe) can model thinking behaviors or dispositions such that they become recognizable to and adopted as habits by our children/students.
"Thinking dispositions are comprised of one's attitudes, emotions, and motivations that emerge when facing a situation that requires thinking (p.22)."
Thinking Dispositions That Parents Can Experiment with at Home
Seek multiple approaches to problems
Persistence
Risk-taking
Curiosity
"Many children learn more from watching parents' behaviors than listening to their words (p.22)."
"Thinking dispositions are cultivated through social interaction (p.22)." This article is clear support for creating a culture of thinking in that the author recognizes the power of the environment and community interactions in shaping the behaviors/dispositions of children.
Jeffrey, T. 2007. Creating a culture of thinking and dialogue at home. Gifted Child Today, 30(4), 21-25.
This is a simple article promoting the idea of enculturating thinking at home. The author informs parents that their behavior has an enormous impact on their children, in terms of forming the kinds of thought and communication habits they develop. He aims to encourage parents to make the thinking they do more visible to their children and to take opportunities to practice thinking dispositions with their children.
"The way a group communicates, what it communicates, and what it values are all components of a culture of thinking... Tishman, Perkins, and Jay describe the process of establishing a classroom culture of thinking in four distinct ways; modeling, explanation, interaction, and feedback (p.21)."
"Aristotle once said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit (p.22)." Parents (and teachers, I believe) can model thinking behaviors or dispositions such that they become recognizable to and adopted as habits by our children/students.
"Thinking dispositions are comprised of one's attitudes, emotions, and motivations that emerge when facing a situation that requires thinking (p.22)."
Thinking Dispositions That Parents Can Experiment with at Home
Seek multiple approaches to problems
Persistence
Risk-taking
Curiosity
"Many children learn more from watching parents' behaviors than listening to their words (p.22)."
"Thinking dispositions are cultivated through social interaction (p.22)." This article is clear support for creating a culture of thinking in that the author recognizes the power of the environment and community interactions in shaping the behaviors/dispositions of children.
The teaching of thinking
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Nickerson, R. S., Perkins, D. N., & Smith, E. E. (1985). The teaching of thinking. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
This book is fairly dated because it discusses programs that were implemented in classrooms during the 80s to promote thinking skills for students K-12 and many of these programs are no longer used. Still, the major theme of the book is that teaching of thinking can and should happen in classrooms. The authors, without providing perfect answers (because ones do not exist), discuss possibilities for teaching thinking and discuss the different forms this can take. For example, some programs focus on thinking skills specifically, and others incorporate the teaching of thinking into learning about other content.
Here are some pieces that struck me from the book as I skimmed through in search of relevant research for teaching thinking today.
"It is reasonable, in our view, to think of thinking as a form of skilled behavior...Doing so invites the drawing of parallels with other complex skills, and speculation regarding how much of what we know about the acquisition of motor skills is transferable to the cognitive domain. One parallel involves the distinction between general physical conditioning and fine-grained control of specific motor skills on the one hand and the distinction between habitual thoughtfulness and the application of specific cognitive skills that are appropriate to specific task situations on the other."
The authors compare thinking to physical activities. By learning how to expend energy appropriately on a given task, we hone the task.
"If thinking skills are really learned behavior patterns, we might expect an analogous effect of training, namely an enlarging of one's repertoire of precoded intellectual performance patterns that function relatively automatically in appropriate contexts. We do not mean to suggest that there is nothing more to the development of thinking skills than this, but that this may be one aspect of it."
This is a list of thinking skills that one thinking program (The Philosophy for Children by The Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children) attempt to teach. I think it's a useful collection of thinking moves students use to build understanding, solve problems and make decisions - so I hope to use this vocabulary more frequently in my classroom to NAME what my students (and I) are doing in our heads.
Analyzing value statements
Constructing hypotheses
Defining terms
Developing concepts
Discovering alternatives
Drawing inferences
Finding underlying assumptions
Formulating causal explanations
Formulating questions
Generalizing
Giving reasons
Grasping part-whole and whole-part connections
Identifying and using criteria
Knowing how to deal with ambiguities
Knowing how to treat vagueness
Looking out for informal fallacies
Making connections
Making distinctions
Providing instances and illustrations
Recognizing contextual aspects of truth and falsity
Recognizing differences of perspective
Recognizing interdependence of means and ends
Standardizing ordinary language sentences
Taking all considerations into account
Using ordinal or relational logic
Working with analogies
Working with consistency and contradiction
This is a useful list of general thinking strategies I'd like to promote in the classroom. Not only do I want to make my students capable of using these skills, but more inclined to do so and aware of their usage of them.
Final word:
"It is difficult to imagine a more important educational objective than the teaching and learning of how to think more effectively than we typically do. Indeed, if we cannot learn to think more rationally and effectively, we are, as a species, in serious trouble."
"We believe the teaching of thinking should involve all four types of educational objectives: abilities that underlie thinking, methods that aid thinking, knowledge about thinking, and attitudes that are conducive to thinking."
Abilities: include classification, analysis, hypothesis formation, etc.
Method: include problem solving heuristics and self management strategies
Knowledge about thinking: metacognition and knowledge of one's own idiosyncratic strengths and weaknesses
Attitudes: sense of curiosity and wonder, the thrill of discovery, and the excitement and deep satisfaction that come from productive intellectual activity
After discussing various programs used to 'teach thinking' in classrooms, the authors discuss the difficulty of evaluation of these programs. This is a common theme I've seen elsewhere. Teaching thinking involves more than just giving instruction on skills so students are ABLE to think - it means developing their knowledge about thinking and attitudes toward thinking. Evaluation of students' thinking is therefore complex.
Nickerson, R. S., Perkins, D. N., & Smith, E. E. (1985). The teaching of thinking. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
This book is fairly dated because it discusses programs that were implemented in classrooms during the 80s to promote thinking skills for students K-12 and many of these programs are no longer used. Still, the major theme of the book is that teaching of thinking can and should happen in classrooms. The authors, without providing perfect answers (because ones do not exist), discuss possibilities for teaching thinking and discuss the different forms this can take. For example, some programs focus on thinking skills specifically, and others incorporate the teaching of thinking into learning about other content.
Here are some pieces that struck me from the book as I skimmed through in search of relevant research for teaching thinking today.
"It is reasonable, in our view, to think of thinking as a form of skilled behavior...Doing so invites the drawing of parallels with other complex skills, and speculation regarding how much of what we know about the acquisition of motor skills is transferable to the cognitive domain. One parallel involves the distinction between general physical conditioning and fine-grained control of specific motor skills on the one hand and the distinction between habitual thoughtfulness and the application of specific cognitive skills that are appropriate to specific task situations on the other."
The authors compare thinking to physical activities. By learning how to expend energy appropriately on a given task, we hone the task.
"If thinking skills are really learned behavior patterns, we might expect an analogous effect of training, namely an enlarging of one's repertoire of precoded intellectual performance patterns that function relatively automatically in appropriate contexts. We do not mean to suggest that there is nothing more to the development of thinking skills than this, but that this may be one aspect of it."
This is a list of thinking skills that one thinking program (The Philosophy for Children by The Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children) attempt to teach. I think it's a useful collection of thinking moves students use to build understanding, solve problems and make decisions - so I hope to use this vocabulary more frequently in my classroom to NAME what my students (and I) are doing in our heads.
Analyzing value statements
Constructing hypotheses
Defining terms
Developing concepts
Discovering alternatives
Drawing inferences
Finding underlying assumptions
Formulating causal explanations
Formulating questions
Generalizing
Giving reasons
Grasping part-whole and whole-part connections
Identifying and using criteria
Knowing how to deal with ambiguities
Knowing how to treat vagueness
Looking out for informal fallacies
Making connections
Making distinctions
Providing instances and illustrations
Recognizing contextual aspects of truth and falsity
Recognizing differences of perspective
Recognizing interdependence of means and ends
Standardizing ordinary language sentences
Taking all considerations into account
Using ordinal or relational logic
Working with analogies
Working with consistency and contradiction
This is a useful list of general thinking strategies I'd like to promote in the classroom. Not only do I want to make my students capable of using these skills, but more inclined to do so and aware of their usage of them.
Final word:
"It is difficult to imagine a more important educational objective than the teaching and learning of how to think more effectively than we typically do. Indeed, if we cannot learn to think more rationally and effectively, we are, as a species, in serious trouble."
"We believe the teaching of thinking should involve all four types of educational objectives: abilities that underlie thinking, methods that aid thinking, knowledge about thinking, and attitudes that are conducive to thinking."
Abilities: include classification, analysis, hypothesis formation, etc.
Method: include problem solving heuristics and self management strategies
Knowledge about thinking: metacognition and knowledge of one's own idiosyncratic strengths and weaknesses
Attitudes: sense of curiosity and wonder, the thrill of discovery, and the excitement and deep satisfaction that come from productive intellectual activity
After discussing various programs used to 'teach thinking' in classrooms, the authors discuss the difficulty of evaluation of these programs. This is a common theme I've seen elsewhere. Teaching thinking involves more than just giving instruction on skills so students are ABLE to think - it means developing their knowledge about thinking and attitudes toward thinking. Evaluation of students' thinking is therefore complex.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Readiness for Kindergarten: What Schools Can Do
Kindergarten Readiness: What School’s Can Do
Protheroe, N. (2006). Readiness for Kindergarten: What Schools Can Do. Principal (Reston, Va.), 86(1), 32-36.
In this article, Nancy Protheroe, begins by stating, “The emphasis on school readiness makes perfect sense, since it is a given that children who start kindergarten well-prepared tend to be more successful learners that those who are less ready. However, while research has demonstrated that quality preschool experiences can payoff in long-term financial as well as student achievement benefits, the reality is that such publicly provided preschool programs are not available for all children who need them.” To help children and families in the latter situation. Protheroe strongly advocates for the following two things:
- Develop a community wide understanding of skills and knowledge important to children as they enter kindergarten.
- Provide information and education to other childcare providers and families so they can help develop these skills and knowledge.
Protheroe highlights some interesting point about what it means to be ready for Kindergarten. She shares how many parents and caregivers are likely to emphasize skills such as counting, reading and writing. Teachers, on the other hand, usually emphasize the importance of the “child’s enthusiasm, effective communication, and appropriate behaviors as critical kindergarten readiness skills.”
Because of the lack of common understanding of the skills a child needs transition smoothly to kindergarten, Protheroe shares some examples of how communities have opened communication in attempt to establish a “community wide set of expectations regarding school readiness.” Some examples of community approaches to help share these common expectations were as follows:
- Holding family nights for preschool parents
- Provide workshops for parents
- Free “transition packages” (pencils, scissors, glue, etc)
- Kindergarten teacher reaching out to parents before kids are enrolled
A final quote that struck me was that it would be extremely helpful for parents and staff to better “understand adult behaviors that support children’s learning. For example, the Early Childhood-Head Start Task Force suggests that knowing “when children can figure out new ideas and concepts on their own, and when it is important to explain things to them step-by-stem” is critical for prekindergarten childcare providers.”
I found this quote striking. I think it is a very important point to be made. It makes me think of the old adage, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he can feed the village.” Sometimes with young children and parents we rob them of valuable learning experiences by interfering too quickly.
From this article, I appreciate Protheroe’s ideas about creating and establish a community definition of what it means to be school ready and her suggestions to share that information to create a community approach to helping families transition to kindergarten a bit smoother.
Kindergarten Readiness: A Challenge
Reference
Gulino, J. (2008). Kindergarten Readiness: A Challenge. Principal (Reston, Va.), 87(5), 30-35.
Principal Joseph Gulino, suggests that parents should be informed about the pros and cons of children entering kindergarten before the age of 5.5. Gulino states, “Our school maintains the state mandated entry age of 5 by July 31, but during the past three years, we have established a team assessment process for children eligible to attend, placed a strong focus on informing parents of the pros and cons of children entering school before the age of 5.5, and strongly encourage parents of students with significant concerns to wait until the following year before enrolling.”
From Gulino’s “team assessment process”, Gulino shares that this enrollment process has led to “an increased number of students who experience early success, a greater degree of positive self-esteem for more students, fewer referrals for special services and higher test scores.”
There are two things that I find quite interesting from reading Gulino’s article. In one paragraph of this article, Gulino shares the following information about cutoff dates that dictate if a child is eligible for kindergarten. Six states have cutoff dates between Dec. 1 and Jan 1 which usually leads to a large mix of 4 and 5 year olds starting kindergarten together. I know that there have been changes in California about cutoff dates, but it makes me wonder if the dates are mandated in California by the state, or is the cutoff age up to the local district (Gulino mentions that 6 states leave this decision to the individual districts). I wonder now how many states or districts have now implemented transitional kincergarten?
Another point that I found interesting was that Gulino mentions an enrollment process and kindergarten readiness assessment that helps to inform parents about the pros and cons of their child entering kindergarten. I think that it is an interesting point that many parents may not even think that it might be a choice to have their child defer entering kindergarten for a year. I appreciate Gulino’s proactive approach to finding a way to inform parents, but I want to know more about the assessment and the enrollment process to inform parents.
After reading this article, I am left wondering the following:
What are the cutoff dates in the local Chula Vista and San Diego Districts for students to enter kindergarten?
With new cutoff dates and “transitional kindergarten” emerging locally, are students adjusting to Kindergarten more smoothly?
What assessments are used to determine kinder readiness? What is Gulino using at his school to determine if a child will be ready to learn in kindergarten aside from stating that students should not start until they are 5.5?
Kindergarten readiness and preschools: teachers' and parents' beliefs within and across programs
Hatcher, B.,Nuner, J., & Paulsel, J. (2012). Kindergarten readiness and preschools: teachers’ and parents’ beliefs within and across programs. Early Childhood Research and Practice, 14(2). Retrieved from http://www.ecrp.uiuc.edu/
In this article, there are three questions that the researchers are exploring. They ask:
“What are the beliefs of parents and preschool teachers concerning meanings of kindergarten readiness? What are the beliefs of parents and teachers about the role of preschool in preparing their children/students for kindergarten? What sources of information do parents and teachers use to inform their beliefs and practices about children’s readiness for kindergarten?” (Hatcher, Nuner & Paulsel, 2012).
Though I am not particularly looking deeply into the relationships that preschools and kindergarten classrooms, this article shares valid information that I find interesting. Early in the article, Hatcher, Nuner & Paulson (2012) point out that many parents will cite specific skills as indicators for school readiness, whereas “program beliefs indicated shared perceptions of readiness linked to social and emotional development, attainment of literacy skills, and familiarity with school routines.” I have seen the theme of parent perception versus school perception in a few other articles, and even in my own conversations. I am beginning to understand that since parents and schools have different ideas about what “school readiness” is, there is often a disconnect between the skills parents might practice with a child before they enter kindergarten.
Hatcher, Nuner & Paulsel cite a Minnesota Department of Education Report that shared that “behaviors associated with kindergarten readiness include following rules and routines, taking turns, and communicating personal needs and feelings.” I think that this is useful information for me to search further into a definition of school readiness, or kindergarten readiness. It is also helpful in determining information that would be helpful for parents to know and understand as they prepare for their child to transition to kindergarten.
This article also presents the topic of sources of information on how and where parents gather their information about school readiness. Sources might include informal conversations with preschool teacher to local districts administering a formal readiness test. I would like to explore this area more in depth to discover different assessments that could be helpful for families with a child transitioning to kindergarten. This study was based on interviews with parents that had their children enrolled in a preschool program, so this makes me wonder how a parent that does not have their child enrolled in a preschool setting might obtain information concerning school readiness.
Another piece that struck me was the following quote:
“Anxiety about kindergarten and children’s readiness. Analysis revealed an affective component across participants’ interviews: anxiety about kindergarten expectations and children’s readiness. Of the 16 parent participants, 11 expressed concern about the upcoming kindergarten experience and whether their children would be ready for the expectations regarding behavior and academic performance that they believed to be a part of kindergarten. They voiced concerns about their children’s academic preparation, social skills, and ability to adapt to school routines, as well as kindergarten program characteristics (Hatcher, Nuner & Paulson, 2012).
I think that it is going to explore the ideas about anxiety regarding kindergarten readiness. In this quote, the focus of the anxiety is placed on the child in kindergarten, but I am finding that as a child transitions to kindergarten, there are many changes for the entire family. I think it would be interesting to hear from these parents once their child transitioned to kindergarten to see how the mentioned causes of anxiety rated compared to the actual experience. Would there be things that parents may not have even thought to worry/think about that could be helpful to know before a child transitions?
At the end of the article, the authors conclude that “early identification of teacher and parent goals for children, frank discussion of upcoming transitions to kindergarten, and prioritization of specific parent/teacher readiness communication prior to kindergarten enrollment may help to alleviate anxieties and bolster positive images of kindergarten” (Hatcher, Nuner & Paulsel).
This end quote is encouraging for my hope to use library services to help inform parents and children about the transition to kindergarten.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
The Thought-Filled Curriculum
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Costa, A. (2008). The thought-filled curriculum. Educational Leadership, 65(5), 20-24.
This article provides support for teaching thinking in the classroom. It suggests that skillful thinking must be explicitly taught to students.
"Curriculums must become more thought-filled in the sense of enlarging students' capacities to think deeply and creatively."
"Humans are born with the capacity and inclination to think. Nobody has to "teach us how to think" just as no one teaches us how to move or walk. Moving with precision and style, however, takes much time and coaching...Like strenuous movement, skillful thinking is hard work. And as with athletics, students need practice, reflection, and coaching to think well."
"Although thinking is innate and spontaneous, skillful thinking must be cultivated."
"We can catalyze learning to think by making thinking skills explicit. We should use cognitive terminology and label and identify processes, saying, for example, "So as you're analyzing this problem..." (Costa & Marzano, 2001). Teachers should also employ thinking maps and visual tools (Hyerle, 2004) and model problem solving, decision making and investigating (Swartz et al., 2007)."
The 3 resources mentioned in the last quoted passage are useful for also describing the value of teaching thinking.
Costa, A. & Marzano, R. (2001). Teaching the language of thinking. In A. Costa (Ed.), Developing minds: A resource book for teaching thinking (pp. 379-383). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Hyerle, D. (Ed.). (2004). Student successes with thinking maps. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Swartz, R.. Costa, A., Kallick, B., Beyer, B., & Reagan, R. (2007). Thinking based learning. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon.
Costa, A. (2008). The thought-filled curriculum. Educational Leadership, 65(5), 20-24.
This article provides support for teaching thinking in the classroom. It suggests that skillful thinking must be explicitly taught to students.
"Curriculums must become more thought-filled in the sense of enlarging students' capacities to think deeply and creatively."
"Humans are born with the capacity and inclination to think. Nobody has to "teach us how to think" just as no one teaches us how to move or walk. Moving with precision and style, however, takes much time and coaching...Like strenuous movement, skillful thinking is hard work. And as with athletics, students need practice, reflection, and coaching to think well."
"Although thinking is innate and spontaneous, skillful thinking must be cultivated."
"We can catalyze learning to think by making thinking skills explicit. We should use cognitive terminology and label and identify processes, saying, for example, "So as you're analyzing this problem..." (Costa & Marzano, 2001). Teachers should also employ thinking maps and visual tools (Hyerle, 2004) and model problem solving, decision making and investigating (Swartz et al., 2007)."
The 3 resources mentioned in the last quoted passage are useful for also describing the value of teaching thinking.
Costa, A. & Marzano, R. (2001). Teaching the language of thinking. In A. Costa (Ed.), Developing minds: A resource book for teaching thinking (pp. 379-383). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Hyerle, D. (Ed.). (2004). Student successes with thinking maps. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Swartz, R.. Costa, A., Kallick, B., Beyer, B., & Reagan, R. (2007). Thinking based learning. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon.
Learning 21st-century skills requires 21st-century teaching
Posted by Tara Della Rocca
Rosefsky Saavedra, A. & Opfer, V. D. (2012). Learning 21st-century skills requires 21st-century teaching. Phi Delta Kappan. 94(2), 8-13.
This article discusses the various skills students of the 21st century are required to learn in order to be successful and suggests 8 things teachers should be doing to teach these skills.
The authors quote Tony Wagner who, based on hundreds of interviews with business, non-profit, and education leaders, suggests that students need the following seven survival skills:
• Critical thinking and problem solving;
• Collaboration and leadership;
• Agility and adaptability;
• Initiative and entrepreneurialism;
• Effective oral and written communication;
• Accessing and analyzing information; and
• Curiosity and imagination.
"Regardless of the skills included or the terms used to describe them, all 21st-century skills definitions
are relevant to aspects of contemporary life in a complex world. Most focus on similar types of complex thinking, learning, and communication skills, and all are more demanding to teach and learn than rote skills. These abilities are also commonly referred to as higher-order thinking skills, deeper learning outcomes, and complex thinking and communication skills."
The authors suggest that many schools are still using the 'transmission method' of education. This outdated mode provides students with knowledge, but doesn't develop the skills above. They suggest the following:
9 lessons for 21st-century learning
#1. Make it relevant.
#2. Teach through the disciplines.
#3. Develop thinking skills.
#4. Encourage learning transfer.
#5. Teach students how to learn.
#6. Address misunderstandings directly.
#7. Treat teamwork like an outcome.
#8. Exploit technology to support learning.
#9. Foster creativity.
My interest in developing thinking skills had me focused on this area particularly.
"Students can and should develop lower- and higher-order thinking skills simultaneously. For example, students might practice lower-order skills by plugging numbers into the equation like E=MC2 as a way to understand the relationship between mass and energy. To deepen understanding of that relationship, teachers might ask students probing questions that require higher-order thinking to answer, such as “Why does the formula use mass instead of weight? Can I use my bathroom scale to determine mass? Why or why not?” (Schwartz & Fischer, 2006). Addressing these questions successfully, while more difficult, contributes to flexible and applicable understanding and is exactly what students need to do to successfully negotiate the demands of the 21st century.
Lower-order exercises are fairly common in existing curricula, while higher-order thinking activities
are much less common. Higher-level thinking skills take time to develop and teaching them generally
requires a tradeoff of breadth for depth. An approach popular in Finland and Singapore is to reverse the way students spend their time in the classroom and on homework at home. Instead of listening to lectures at school and doing problems at home, students can read content as homework and at school work on problems in groups while the teacher poses thought-provoking questions and coaches explicitly on development of higher-order thinking."
I appreciate that the authors recognize that teachers must EXPLICITLY coach for development of higher-order thinking. It is not natural for students to think in complex ways. And THIS, not the delivery of information, should be part of what schools spend their time focused on.
Rosefsky Saavedra, A. & Opfer, V. D. (2012). Learning 21st-century skills requires 21st-century teaching. Phi Delta Kappan. 94(2), 8-13.
This article discusses the various skills students of the 21st century are required to learn in order to be successful and suggests 8 things teachers should be doing to teach these skills.
The authors quote Tony Wagner who, based on hundreds of interviews with business, non-profit, and education leaders, suggests that students need the following seven survival skills:
• Critical thinking and problem solving;
• Collaboration and leadership;
• Agility and adaptability;
• Initiative and entrepreneurialism;
• Effective oral and written communication;
• Accessing and analyzing information; and
• Curiosity and imagination.
"Regardless of the skills included or the terms used to describe them, all 21st-century skills definitions
are relevant to aspects of contemporary life in a complex world. Most focus on similar types of complex thinking, learning, and communication skills, and all are more demanding to teach and learn than rote skills. These abilities are also commonly referred to as higher-order thinking skills, deeper learning outcomes, and complex thinking and communication skills."
The authors suggest that many schools are still using the 'transmission method' of education. This outdated mode provides students with knowledge, but doesn't develop the skills above. They suggest the following:
9 lessons for 21st-century learning
#1. Make it relevant.
#2. Teach through the disciplines.
#3. Develop thinking skills.
#4. Encourage learning transfer.
#5. Teach students how to learn.
#6. Address misunderstandings directly.
#7. Treat teamwork like an outcome.
#8. Exploit technology to support learning.
#9. Foster creativity.
My interest in developing thinking skills had me focused on this area particularly.
"Students can and should develop lower- and higher-order thinking skills simultaneously. For example, students might practice lower-order skills by plugging numbers into the equation like E=MC2 as a way to understand the relationship between mass and energy. To deepen understanding of that relationship, teachers might ask students probing questions that require higher-order thinking to answer, such as “Why does the formula use mass instead of weight? Can I use my bathroom scale to determine mass? Why or why not?” (Schwartz & Fischer, 2006). Addressing these questions successfully, while more difficult, contributes to flexible and applicable understanding and is exactly what students need to do to successfully negotiate the demands of the 21st century.
Lower-order exercises are fairly common in existing curricula, while higher-order thinking activities
are much less common. Higher-level thinking skills take time to develop and teaching them generally
requires a tradeoff of breadth for depth. An approach popular in Finland and Singapore is to reverse the way students spend their time in the classroom and on homework at home. Instead of listening to lectures at school and doing problems at home, students can read content as homework and at school work on problems in groups while the teacher poses thought-provoking questions and coaches explicitly on development of higher-order thinking."
I appreciate that the authors recognize that teachers must EXPLICITLY coach for development of higher-order thinking. It is not natural for students to think in complex ways. And THIS, not the delivery of information, should be part of what schools spend their time focused on.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Work That Matters: The Teacher's Guide to Project-Based Learning
Patton, A. (2012). Work that matters: The teacher’s guide to project-based learning. (pp. 22-30).
London: Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Retrieved from
http://www.innovationunit.org/sites/default/files/Teacher's Guide to Project-based Learning.pdf
Summary:
Work That Matters outlines the main components of Project Based Learning as exhibition, critiques, and multiple drafts. They assert that, not only will these components make your projects better, but they will increase the work ethic and culture of your classroom overall.
Exhibition is essential because it pushes students to do the highest quality work. "When students know that the work they are creating in a project will be displayed publicly, this changes the nature of the project from the moment they start working – because they know they will need to literally stand by’ their work, under scrutiny and questioning from family, friends, and total strangers." Exhibitions give students more feedback than a letter grade ever could and bring student's work into the community to be appreciated by a larger audience.
The book lays out a format for planning your own exhibition a possible rubric to use if your exhibition requires the use of an outside panel.
Quotes:
"When students know that the work they are creating in a project will be displayed publicly, this changes the nature of the project from the moment they start working – because they know they will need to literally stand by’ their work, under scrutiny and questioning from family, friends, and total strangers."
Analysis:
Work That Matters is a great guide for people new to the world of PBL. It walks the instructor through a step-by-step process for the essential components of a project. It also offers examples of projects that others have done before.
I appreciate the delineation of why exhibitions are essential: to connect to the community, encourage more in depth content knowledge and as a format of assessment. In my research, I was looking for clarity on this matter. The book helped me realize that it's impossible to narrow down the purpose to one single thing, as exhibitions serve a variety of different purposes.
London: Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Retrieved from
http://www.innovationunit.org/sites/default/files/Teacher's Guide to Project-based Learning.pdf
Summary:
Work That Matters outlines the main components of Project Based Learning as exhibition, critiques, and multiple drafts. They assert that, not only will these components make your projects better, but they will increase the work ethic and culture of your classroom overall.
Exhibition is essential because it pushes students to do the highest quality work. "When students know that the work they are creating in a project will be displayed publicly, this changes the nature of the project from the moment they start working – because they know they will need to literally stand by’ their work, under scrutiny and questioning from family, friends, and total strangers." Exhibitions give students more feedback than a letter grade ever could and bring student's work into the community to be appreciated by a larger audience.
The book lays out a format for planning your own exhibition a possible rubric to use if your exhibition requires the use of an outside panel.
Quotes:
"When students know that the work they are creating in a project will be displayed publicly, this changes the nature of the project from the moment they start working – because they know they will need to literally stand by’ their work, under scrutiny and questioning from family, friends, and total strangers."
Analysis:
Work That Matters is a great guide for people new to the world of PBL. It walks the instructor through a step-by-step process for the essential components of a project. It also offers examples of projects that others have done before.
I appreciate the delineation of why exhibitions are essential: to connect to the community, encourage more in depth content knowledge and as a format of assessment. In my research, I was looking for clarity on this matter. The book helped me realize that it's impossible to narrow down the purpose to one single thing, as exhibitions serve a variety of different purposes.
AW
Measuring the "Immeasurable"
Richardson, W. (n.d.). Measuring the "immeasurable". (2012). District Administration, 48(8), 92.
Summary:
Despite the fact that most parents and future employers are more concerned with students having the ability to solve problems and think critically, most of our current assessments measure these things. The article suggests that finding real audiences for student work is crucial towards assessing what they term "immeasurable skills". If we shift the focus of our assessments to these skills, we will be preparing our students better.
Quotes:
"Rarely is the first thing out of a parent’s mouth “I want them to develop the ability to solve differentiated equations” or “I want them to understand the causes of the Civil War.” "
"...
Summary:
Despite the fact that most parents and future employers are more concerned with students having the ability to solve problems and think critically, most of our current assessments measure these things. The article suggests that finding real audiences for student work is crucial towards assessing what they term "immeasurable skills". If we shift the focus of our assessments to these skills, we will be preparing our students better.
Quotes:
"Rarely is the first thing out of a parent’s mouth “I want them to develop the ability to solve differentiated equations” or “I want them to understand the causes of the Civil War.” "
"...
the tension is that when we focus our teaching efforts on optimizing the measurable, we risk neglecting the immeasurable."
"
It’s the important work of school leaders right now to find opportunities for students to do real work for real audiences, and opportunities to turn what they know into performance."
Analysis:
The article brings to mind a quote by Tony Wagner at the recent Deeper Learning conference at High Tech. He said "It no longer matters how much you know, it matters what you do with what you know." They actually mention Tony in this article. Although High Tech does a great job teaching students to "do something with what they know", I don't know how effective we still are in measuring student's ability to do this. Most classrooms still base their grades on content knowledge. Even POL's (at least in 6th grade) focus primarily on re-presenting content that students have learned throughout the semester. I wonder what we could do to more effectively measure the "immeasurable skills" mentioned in the article.
Assessing Applied Skills
DiMartino, J. (n.d.). Assessing applied skills. (2007).Educational Leadership, 64(7).
Summary:
This article discusses the direct conflict between authentic assessment and the traditional Carnegie Unit used in most American high schools. Due to the Carnegie Unit, most schools are divided into 7 period days where each period is a different content area. Even if schools rearrange their schedules into a 4x4 block being creative with cross-curricular projects is difficult. This traditional method of teaching is not adequately preparing students for the workforce, such as communication, time management, critical thinking, problem solving, personal accountability and collaboration.
According to the article, authentic assessments require students to use the skills mentioned above and better prepare them for the work place. Some examples of these assessments include senior projects, exhibitions, portfolios and capstone projects. Unfortunately, these require a multidisciplinary approach that is not possible with a traditional schedule.
Several school districts across the country have abandoned the traditional schedule in order to better prepare their students. The MET school in Providence, Rhode Island. In MET, students work in groups to accomplish semester long projects. These often include working with community members and traveling to different countries. The culminating experience for each project is to present their project to a panel of peers, community members and faculty. Even though MET's students would be referred to as "hard to reach" in many traditional schools, they have an extremely high college acceptance rate.
Federal Hocking High School in Stewart, OH has had similar results. The school reduced the number of required course credits to 14 to make room for senior projects and portfolio assessments. During 9th and 10th grade, students take courses specifically designed to foster skills such as self-confidence, self-motivation, resilience, and adaptability. Students are assessed based on three portfolios that they compile over all 4 years: career readiness folio, democratic citizenship folio, and lifelong learning folio. In addition, students complete a senior project where they choose a topic, research it, and exhibit their work to an audience outside of the classroom.
In 2005, New Hampshire eliminated the Carnegie unit all together. In it's place, districts must identify core competencies and develop authentic assessments to check for mastery. They must also provide the state with evidence that their competencies are based on local and national standards.
Quotes:
"Authentic assessments require students to use prior knowledge, recent learning, and relevant skills to solve realistic, complex problems."
"
Summary:
This article discusses the direct conflict between authentic assessment and the traditional Carnegie Unit used in most American high schools. Due to the Carnegie Unit, most schools are divided into 7 period days where each period is a different content area. Even if schools rearrange their schedules into a 4x4 block being creative with cross-curricular projects is difficult. This traditional method of teaching is not adequately preparing students for the workforce, such as communication, time management, critical thinking, problem solving, personal accountability and collaboration.
According to the article, authentic assessments require students to use the skills mentioned above and better prepare them for the work place. Some examples of these assessments include senior projects, exhibitions, portfolios and capstone projects. Unfortunately, these require a multidisciplinary approach that is not possible with a traditional schedule.
Several school districts across the country have abandoned the traditional schedule in order to better prepare their students. The MET school in Providence, Rhode Island. In MET, students work in groups to accomplish semester long projects. These often include working with community members and traveling to different countries. The culminating experience for each project is to present their project to a panel of peers, community members and faculty. Even though MET's students would be referred to as "hard to reach" in many traditional schools, they have an extremely high college acceptance rate.
Federal Hocking High School in Stewart, OH has had similar results. The school reduced the number of required course credits to 14 to make room for senior projects and portfolio assessments. During 9th and 10th grade, students take courses specifically designed to foster skills such as self-confidence, self-motivation, resilience, and adaptability. Students are assessed based on three portfolios that they compile over all 4 years: career readiness folio, democratic citizenship folio, and lifelong learning folio. In addition, students complete a senior project where they choose a topic, research it, and exhibit their work to an audience outside of the classroom.
In 2005, New Hampshire eliminated the Carnegie unit all together. In it's place, districts must identify core competencies and develop authentic assessments to check for mastery. They must also provide the state with evidence that their competencies are based on local and national standards.
Quotes:
"Authentic assessments require students to use prior knowledge, recent learning, and relevant skills to solve realistic, complex problems."
"
This new system moves authentic assessment from the trunk of the car to the driver's seat, where it will now serve as the predominant mechanism for awarding student credit both in and out of the classroom."
Analysis:
This article offered some interesting options for authentic assessment in the classroom. Although High Tech does not have to worry about the traditional battle with Carnegie units, they do have other restrictions. For example, most of these projects are designed for seniors in high school. It is reasonable to expect them to come up with their own projects, plan their own trips and organize their own exhibitions. Unfortunately, it would not be reasonable to expect middle school students to expect the same thing. We run into limited finances and resources to create opportunities like the article discusses. It makes me wonder how we can adapt them to work for our students as well.
As with many other articles I've found, this article talks of exhibition as an end of the year presentation (much like our POL's). I question what ways the schools mentioned here share their students' work on a more regular basis.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Project trust: Breaking down barriers between middle school children.
Batiuk, M. E., Wilcox, N. &
Boland, J. A. (2002, Fall). Project trust: Breaking down barriers between
middle school children. ADOLESCENCE, 39(155), 531-537.
Summary:
The main focus of this article was about a school that
participated in a summer camp known as Project Trust that attempted to break
down barriers of social groups in a middle school setting and the results of
the study. The experiment made sure that students who were from different
cliques (as labeled by themselves during the school year) were mixed with other
members from other cliques and participated in training. The 8 groups were “dorks” “preps” “Jocks”,
“hicks”, “dirties” “hoods” , “alternatives” and “cheerleaders”. They would then
participate in various activities through out the weeks of the camp. These were a list of team building
activities. One example, which the
article highlighted, was named “toxic waste”, which has students blindfolded
dump sludge into another blindfolded teammates cup. This was designed to build trust among the
students and open lines of communication between peers that normally did not
interact with each other in school. The
way the students were assessed during the study was on the social distance
scale. For example, if students rarely
interacted, this would be, according to the scale, a 7 is the greatest distance
between 2 people socially. If they were
best friends, it would be a 0. This was
how often the students interacted with one another. They measured the relationship before they
went to the camp and then after they returned to school in the fall to see the
difference in how often peers communicated.
The results of the study were very
informative. While there was an overall increase in social interaction however,
the group of students whose social distance between decreased the most was the
preps and the jocks. Yet the authors offer no theory as to why this
occurred. I speculate that the reason is
because this was not the primary focus of the article, because they really just
wanted to look at the efficiency of the camp and breaking down cliques. The study concluded that, even though there
were small changes, the students learned effective communication skills and
empathy towards students who were different from their core group of
friends.
Quotes: “Kramer (2000) has established that patterns of individual
exclusion in school settings contribute to violence among students because
exclusion separates them from the informal social control networks provided by
parents, schools, and communities. This lack of informal social control has
been linked to diminishing social and cultural capital” (Batiuk, Wilcox & Boland, 2002)
“The training emphasized a mutual and reflexive process of problem
solving and conflict resolution in which involved parties actively frame the
understanding of both the problem and its solution. Teachers and students at
the middle school overwhelmingly pointed to the ongoing problem of conflicts
arising from student cliques.” (Batiuk,
Wilcox & Boland, 2002)
Commentary: While I found the results of the study to
be relatively surprising, I did not particularly like that the initial
experiment was started in 1990. It did run for 10 years, but this still seems
relatively out dated, though same patterns, cliques and themes still exist in
today’s classroom. This article really got me thinking about the different
types of cliques the students would identify in my school. One
bright spot of the article that I did appreciate was the activities that the
students participated in because I feel that I could use these in the beginning
of the school year to foster a more tolerating and collaborating
environment.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Fostering the Curiosity Spark
Crow, S. R. (2010). Fostering the Curiosity Spark. School Library Monthly, 26(5), 50-52.
This article is written for librarians, but much of what is discussed is applicable to me. I also do not think that this journal is technically “scholarly”, but the article was the first that has helped me make connections between curiosity and some of the theories on motivation. The article is a summary of a study on traits of children who display information-seeking tendencies (basically a form of curiosity). Students who exhibit the traits are interviewed and trends are noted (which in reality there aren’t many) and then suggestions are given to help cultivate curiosity.
I really like in this article how Crow talks about the natural wonder of children as demonstrated in the following quote:
“Developmentalists say that people are born with this “urge” to investigate the world and that it helps us to learn, to grow, and to survive. It is this force that is seen exhibited by primary students as they exuberantly explore the world of information.” (p. 50)
“Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation is all about being the origin or the pawn. DeCharms explained it this way: when persons perceive themselves to be the origin, they are intrinsically motivated to act; when they perceive themselves to be the pawn, they experience loss of self initiation in the action (1968). When individuals perform for extrinsic reasons (e.g., for grades or rewards, or to avoid punishment) an action that they formerly performed for intrinsic reasons, the activity becomes a “tool” they use to achieve a goal or to avoid an undesirable consequence; a means to an end rather than an end to itself.” (p. 50)
The above quote has gotten me even more excited about my action research. Motivation has been something that has been nagging the back of my mind for a while and I love the ideas of this research tackling that issue. I am especially interested in fostering intrinsic motivation since I detest grades and the value that students put on them. Another related quote is below:
“students seek information not for the joy of knowing, but rather for an “A.” Considering society’s obsession with testing, standards, and grades, is it any wonder that students’ inner zest for learning decreases?”(p. 50)
“Yet some students continue to be curious. Their pursuit seems endless and insatiable, regardless of the external demands of the educational system. What has happened in the lives of these students to keep the curiosity fires burning?”(p. 50)
This quote is the wondering that leads to the study discussed in the article
The following quote highlights the importance of keeping inquiry open in order to give students autonomy to explore their own interest. Also it highlights the need to scaffold and not put kids out in the dark blind:
“If individuals feel they have a say in performing an action (autonomy) and feel capable enough not to fail (competence), they are more likely to want to engage in that action.”(p. 51)
The following quote was a big aha moment for me:
“All of the children in the study experienced what I’ve termed a point-of-passion experience: an event that triggered months (and sometimes years) of interest and in depth information seeking about a topic. For many of the children, adult attention turned these events into information seeking passions. Their “anchor relationships” got them to the library, took them on “interest” outings, or arranged special spaces for their investigations.” (pp. 51-52)
I feel that this idea of a “point-of-passion” experience could be my main point of attack when trying to develop curiosity in my students. I wonder how many students by 12th grade have had this experience already? How can I harness that? For those who haven’t, how can I be that “anchor relationship” that encourages information seeking?
This article, like many others I have read, point towards inquiry-based learning as a technique to foster curiosity:
“Inquiry teaching methods parallel or “wrap” much of what I found in the experiences of my study’s intrinsically motivated students into a pedagogy that, if consciously used, might prove to foster more of these experiences.” (p. 52)
“Simply put, inquiry-based learning focuses on investigation and the process of learning rather than on finding the right answers.”(p. 52)
This makes me want to adopt at least parts of an inquiry-based curriculum, yet nothing else I have read on this style of teaching has gotten me excited.
A nice last comment from the article about the importance of staying student-centered:
“Fostering children’s curiosity spark can be pretty painless. It’s all a matter of putting the focus back on students. And the reward will be that more of them will come back next year, and the next, and the next…”(p. 52)
References of Interest:
- Crow, Sherry R. “Relationships that Foster Intrinsic Motivation for Information Seeking.” School Libraries Worldwide 15, no. 2 (July 2009): 91-112.
- Deci, Edward L., and Richard M. Ryan. Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. Plenum Press, 1985.
- Deci, Edward L., and Richard M. Ryan, eds. Handbook of Self-Determination Research. University of Rochester Press, 2002.
Anatomy of an Exhibition
Brown Podl, J. (1992). Anatomy of an exhibition. Retrieved from
http://www.essentialschools.org/resources/191
Summary:
This article is about Margaret Metzger, a high school English teacher in Massachusetts. She had traditionally taught her seniors Dante's Inferno. Although students were often able to pass the tests, she found that they did not have a true understanding of the book. She wanted a different form of assessment that would require her students to have an in depth understanding of the material. She decided to try an exhibition with her students as a means to better assess her students.
The article asserts that there are three main purposes to an exhibition: making schools accountable to the community, generating information about how and what students are learning, and encouraging students to gain a deeper understanding of material.
In preparation for the exhibition, Metzger gave the students three assignments. They were each assigned a different Canto from the book. They had to prepare a presentation of the Canto to three outside judges: a student outside of the class, an adult from the school and an adult from the community. The second assignment was to write a paper about their Canto and include that in their presentation. Finally, students were asked to prepare a lesson to teach the class about their Canto.
Once the assignment was presented to the students, Metzger became a coach and facilitator in the classroom. She checked in with students throughout the process to make sure they were on track with their assignments and that they had a good understanding of the material.
Metzger ran into a few dilemmas during the process. First, since most students had been taught in a very traditional manner, they did not have experience with innovative lessons. It was difficult for students to come up with engaging lessons because they hadn't been exposed to many in their careers. Metzger reflected that, in the future, lessons in teaching pedagogy would have to be embedded into the preparation time. Another dilemma was trying to find faculty members that were available to serve as judges. Finally, Metzger found that the criteria sheet she had prepared to evaluate the students was insufficient. It focused primarily on the preparedness of the students instead of asking the judges to reflect on student's demonstration of content knowledge. Metzger reflected that she would modify the sheets in the future.
After the exhibitions, Metzger and her students reflected on the experience. All of the reflections showed that students had a much better understanding of their Cantos and that understanding transferred while reading the rest of the book. Students also appreciated that the exhibition allowed them to refine their work until they got it right because of the way the assignment was laid out. In a traditional test, it's more of an all or nothing experience.
The end of the article outlined main keys for a successful exhibition: students must buy into it, students must take accountability for their own learning, students must share the workload, the teacher must prepare the students properly, the teacher must make sure that the steps are clear, the teacher must assume the role of a coach and exhibitions must be rigorous.
Quotes:
http://www.essentialschools.org/resources/191
Summary:
This article is about Margaret Metzger, a high school English teacher in Massachusetts. She had traditionally taught her seniors Dante's Inferno. Although students were often able to pass the tests, she found that they did not have a true understanding of the book. She wanted a different form of assessment that would require her students to have an in depth understanding of the material. She decided to try an exhibition with her students as a means to better assess her students.
The article asserts that there are three main purposes to an exhibition: making schools accountable to the community, generating information about how and what students are learning, and encouraging students to gain a deeper understanding of material.
In preparation for the exhibition, Metzger gave the students three assignments. They were each assigned a different Canto from the book. They had to prepare a presentation of the Canto to three outside judges: a student outside of the class, an adult from the school and an adult from the community. The second assignment was to write a paper about their Canto and include that in their presentation. Finally, students were asked to prepare a lesson to teach the class about their Canto.
Once the assignment was presented to the students, Metzger became a coach and facilitator in the classroom. She checked in with students throughout the process to make sure they were on track with their assignments and that they had a good understanding of the material.
Metzger ran into a few dilemmas during the process. First, since most students had been taught in a very traditional manner, they did not have experience with innovative lessons. It was difficult for students to come up with engaging lessons because they hadn't been exposed to many in their careers. Metzger reflected that, in the future, lessons in teaching pedagogy would have to be embedded into the preparation time. Another dilemma was trying to find faculty members that were available to serve as judges. Finally, Metzger found that the criteria sheet she had prepared to evaluate the students was insufficient. It focused primarily on the preparedness of the students instead of asking the judges to reflect on student's demonstration of content knowledge. Metzger reflected that she would modify the sheets in the future.
After the exhibitions, Metzger and her students reflected on the experience. All of the reflections showed that students had a much better understanding of their Cantos and that understanding transferred while reading the rest of the book. Students also appreciated that the exhibition allowed them to refine their work until they got it right because of the way the assignment was laid out. In a traditional test, it's more of an all or nothing experience.
The end of the article outlined main keys for a successful exhibition: students must buy into it, students must take accountability for their own learning, students must share the workload, the teacher must prepare the students properly, the teacher must make sure that the steps are clear, the teacher must assume the role of a coach and exhibitions must be rigorous.
One
Quotes:
"In other words," Margaret realized, "my job is to set up situations so that they work hard. I do not want students to admire how smart I am; I want students to know how smart they are."
"
In their discussions, the students took charge, asserted themselves, and made substantive, original comments. Although the leaders were invested in a particular interpretation of the text, they valued what their peers contributed. The students created, expected, and enforced standards of intellectual rigor."
"During the exhibition," David recalled, "there was nothing to hide behind. When you write a paper or take a test, you disappear. In front of the class, you had to be responsible for what you said."
Analysis:
Although I found it a bit difficult to picture exactly what the students were presenting, I appreciated a lot of the points that this article brought to light. I have never thought of exhibition as an assessment, but I think it is worth exploring. One of my biggest issues with exhibitions as they currently are is that students are primarily regurgitating information over and over as parents circulate to their tables. I like the idea of using exhibition as a way to apply what they've learned in class to a new situation rather than simply a report of what they've already learned. In my class, I need to reflect on how to do this in an effective manner and what steps are necessary to truly prepare students in the days leading up to an exhibition.
The
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