uLearn Breakout 6: Enhancing thought-full classroom dialogue - Karen Boyes

1. Classroom Environment - how we set up our classroom and what goes on in it.

The fear of failure is driving most students. In NZ, students can also be scared of success (tall poppy syndrome).

Tri-Une Brain (three in one brain)

Develops in order (red, blue, and then green)
We also react to things in that order (1st panic, then reason). Can happen in reverse (eg unlocking your front door when the phone rings inside - suddenly panic and you fall apart trying to unlock the door).

25yrs old is when empathy develops (also
deteriorates with age).


Turning fear into fun - students who laugh more, lern more, Dr David Sousa.

If students take risks, thank them for taking the risk (whether right or wrong). Don't play 'guess the answer in the teacher's head'. Too stressful for students. When everyoe tries, say 'thank you' to each of them. Even after you've had the right answer, keep going, then when they've stopped say, 'let's go back an look at...' (with the answer you wanted).

2. Teacher Technique

Managing impulsivity (getting students to think before the event/answering).

Wait time:
The average teacher waits one second afte asking a question - not long enough to think. After one second, the teacher either calls on a student, moves on to another question or answers it themselves. Recommendation is to wait 8 - 10 seconds. Think, pair, share is good here.

3. Listening Sequence

Pause
Paraphrase
Probe
    - Inquire
    - Clarify

In activity, the music was put on loud - it made it harder to concentrate. We needed to adjust how we spoke (leaning forward, raising our voices, gestures, looking at the person); we need to teach students those strategies.

4. The Power of Langauge

Be aware of language - when we use good vocab, students use great language too.

Labeling thinking skills and processes (eg what is the meaning of compare and contrast (a lot of students don't know the differnce between the two words).

Teach the thingking words in from the curriculum document (eg verify, observe etc)

5. Thinking (metacognition): monitoring our thinking

Think Aloud Problem Solving:


6. Questioning and Problem Posing

Test for Mensa gets changed ever 10 years, because peope are becoming more intelligent

Questioning with intention

Unproductive questions:
seek verification,
are closed,
are rhetorical questions,
are defensive (why didn't you complete your homework?),
agreement questions

Productive questions:
Invitational questions (women lover tone, men quieten)
Plurals (eg. What are some of your goals? - easier to answer than what is one of your goals?)
Tentatives - what might be some factors that would cause....? What could...? What hunches....
Invitational stems - given what you know about....
Limiting presuppositions - why were you unsuccessful (assumes that you were unsuccessful)
Empowering presuppositions

Compose a question intended to invite thoughtful dialogue about a topic you may be teaching next week...
Criteria:
Invitation stems
Plurals
Tentative language
+ve presuppositions

As you reflect on this year, what are some of the ways you could approve your Berkley experience?

uLearn Breakout 3: Making eLearning Powerful with Google Sites

David Kinane and Marc Rowlinson

Re-mixing eLearning
What works from UK?
Where are you in the loop?

Anatomy of an eLearning task on a Google site

We looked at David's House Challenge

Students explained and reflected verbally

Next looked at character description

Decision tree programming

Each year, start a folder called 'Learning' and share all the children into it (with full editing rights)

Google Site - set up. Students have complete editing rights to the site (otherwise they can't give feedback etc).

Students call anything they do with just their name (eg. Sarah, not Sarah's...., so that you can do a search for anything they do.).

Tools to capture student voice:

Students come up with success criteria, (max 4 things) and this is used to create a rubric. This rubric is used for their commenting.

Here's a basic rubric for primary school (for getting students to read aloud then self-reflect):

Here's instructions - put a slideshow together. Instructions on the first page, text (as pdf) on the second slide etc.

Remember:

Youtube tutorials...youtube.com/user/dakinane

Hard to get parent interest

uLearn Breakout 3: Making eLearning Powerful with Google Sites

David Kinane and Marc Rowlinson

Re-mixing eLearning
What works from UK?
Where are you in the loop?

Anatomy of an eLearning task on a Google site

We looked at David's House Challenge

Students explained and reflected verbally

Next looked at character description

Decision tree programming

Each year, start a folder called 'Learning' and share all the children into it (with full editing rights)

Google Site - set up. Students have complete editing rights to the site (otherwise they can't give feedback etc).

Students call anything they do with just their name (eg. Sarah, not Sarah's...., so that you can do a search for anything they do.).

Tools to capture student voice:

Students come up with success criteria, (max 4 things) and this is used to create a rubric. This rubric is used for their commenting.

Here's a basic rubric for primary school (for getting students to read aloud then self-reflect):

Here's instructions - put a slideshow together. Instructions on the first page, text (as pdf) on the second slide etc.

Remember:

Youtube tutorials...youtube.com/user/dakinane

Hard to get parent interest

uLearn 2016: Keynote #1 - Larry Rosenstock (HTH)

"It's time to change the subject"

Since when did we move away from 1-to-1 learning? The earliest examples of this was when males would allow societies to travel into the mountains to study religious text.

Segregation has been around for a long time. Girls and Women were not allowed to study in schools until 1850 in what is now the USA.

Campbell’s law was proven when grade 4 teachers began changing the test answers for their students in their own time. Grade 5 teachers discovered this when their students were not working at the level that they had achieved at the previous year.

The Lie from Untitled Productions on Vimeo.

You don't have to segregate subject areas. Collective learning is more effective than individual learning.

Content is irrelevant - it is how students react to learning, what they do, how they do it.

His big theme was project-based learning where students are put into teams. All their learning is based on projects, inquiry, integration, invention, authentic, experiential, exhibitions and assessment is alternative.

In terms of getting students to pass national exams, he says students can prepare intensively for external exams without dedicating the whole year to it.

Big take out: move toward more project-based learning with an integrated curriculum.

QUESTIONS:

1. How do you get around the challenges of having to prepare students for specific exams?

Work completed in the Middle East had many teachers who said ‘but we can’t do that because we have to get our students ready to sit matriculation exams’.

Larry’s team decided to spend the next week interviewing people. What they found was that people said that they prepared for these exams in the 4-5 weeks leading up to the exam. This proves that this preparation can still be done in conjunction with the integrated or project-based work undertaken beforehand.

2. How did you ensure that student voice was used to direct and develop project-based learning?

Student directed the structure of their work.

First you have an inquiry i.e. what are we trying to do? Then we have a plan i.e. how will we do it? (observations, reflections etc.).. Then we have the exhibition (which are extremely popular with the community and parents).

Ability Grouping vs Mixed Ability Grouping

What?

I'm sitting here on a wet Sunday afternoon, planning my reading programme for the next couple. Lately, I've seen a lot of discussions on mixed-ability grouping in maths, which challenges the way I've been teaching for may years.  I'm wondering if I should try it for reading.  Here's some of the posts and articles I've read.

Education Counts (lots of references, but mainly for maths)

Steph's Blog

Headteacher Magazine

“We favour mixed-ability teaching because of its social and equitable benefits, and the fact that we encourage our teachers to see all of our pupils as having different needs, abilities and working styles.” Heidi Conner

This quote seemed important, although it is aimed at whole classrooms being mixed-ability groupings, vs streaming each classroom.

Howard Stevenson's Blog

I also watched these video clips:

So what?

After reading the articles, and viewing the videos, I was most struck by the idea that ability grouping can limit the students and limit the exposure I, as the teacher, give them to more complex work, theories, and ideas.  I could see the idea that grouping students, where in NZ, Māori children would statistically end up in 'lower groups' could be a form of apartheid. I already feel that having to report to parents twice a year that their child may be 'below' the National Standards is appalling in terms of students' self-belief, without me doing it with my groupings.

What next?

I have decided to change my reading groups to make them mixed ability.  I have a lot of students who work very well with their peers, feeding off each others' ideas and knowledge. I will group those students together. I also have some students who don't work well with their friends (they get off task easily, and can be silly). Those students will be spread around the groups.

UPDATE:
Now that I'm putting my social groups together, some of the groups are one gender only...am I being sexist now?

5 Questions to Eliminate from your Class

What?
I came across this picture on Twitter tonight:

It intrigued me, so I read the whole article here. Removing these questions from student's vocabularies are encouraged as students become independent and self-directed in their learning.

So what?
I found the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th questions are doable in my classroom, as the year progresses.  The one that I found a stumbling block is the first one. The article says: 

"This question is a flag that indicates dependent students. Students that are of the understanding that learning is something delivered by an external entity. It assumes learning is an organised event that one attends. Your classroom must build an understanding that learning is constant and use approaches that encourage intrinsic desire to grow and take control of one’s own learning. Make sure your provoking questions are accessible and build habits in students to look after their own learning progress."

I don't know if I can ever get to that stage, and I'm not sure if I want to. I believe that students need guidance from a teacher, knowing the path they can travel. It comes down to "you don't know what you don't know." 

And me?
I will keep working hard to growing independent self-managing students, who want to be the best they can be.  I want students who do the best they can to grow, not to please others.

Most Likely to Succeed

What?
Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend a viewing of the award-winning documentary "Most Likely to Succeed" made by Greg Whiteley. The screening was presented by CORE education, and screened at St Peter's School, in Cambridge.

The film's synopsis:

The current educational system in the United States was developed a century ago during the rise of the industrial age and was once the envy of the world. However, the world economy has since transformed profoundly, but the US education system has not. Schools are attempting to teach and test skills, when mastered, that still leave graduates woefully unprepared for the 21st Century. After presenting this problem, the documentary focuses on the story of a school in San Diego that is completely rethinking what the experience of going to school looks like. As we follow students, parents and teachers through a truly unorthodox school experience, the audience is forced to consider what sort of educational environment is most likely to succeed in the 21st century?

What caught my attention?

• student agency
• meaningful
• soft skills
• feedback
• exhibition
• real audience
• obvious growth and learning
• thinkers
• collaborators
• problem solvers
• re-imaging

Discussion
After the screening, the audience all participated in a group discussion where we shared our thoughts on the following questions:

What changes are happening?
What do we still need to do?
What action/discussion points will I take back to school?
What next?

So what?
I came away from the film with a renewed desire to look at my teaching practice. I was trained under the old style teaching (based upon system created in 1893). To me this system is not adequately preparing students for the society we are moving forward, where it's not about specific knowledge, but instead, knowing how to access knowledge, as well as being problem solvers who work creatively and collaboratively with others. 

I believe that I need to change the way I teach.  Fortunately, we work under a forward-thinking curriculum which gives us the freedom to make change.

Working out my thinking and how I am going to make changes will be a large part of my PLD over the next year or so.

Class Twitter Account

Today I read this blog post.  It made a lot of sense to me.  Up to this point, I have been using Twitter as a place to keep up to date on teaching happenings and finding articles to read for my professional learning development.  This article has shown me about the usefulness of having a class twitter account. This year is nearing its end, so I will set up a new twitter account to start next year with for my new class.