Teaching, Training, Learning… a life-long engagement

Teaching… It’s a lifelong learning thing

Poignant Points from a Movie lesson

October 18th, 2006 by · 7 Comments · Uncategorized

Yesterday I offered to present a class for a professor who was sick. The professor gave me the video she wanted shown, the teacher-notes for the video and the group work hand-out. I was basically doing maintenance since I knew nothing of the subject – Social Gerontology.

With the class, prior to showing the video, I summarized the types of things that the students should be looking for as they view the video. I thought later, that it would have been handy to supply a skeleton version of the teacher-notes I received – just the headings of the main sections would suffice, to aid the students in their note taking. I decided to take notes from the video – it was damn hard and tiring!! Talk about sensory overload…there were many good points on the video (it was a PBS-type show) – I just couldn’t keep up and felt defeated often. I think if I had at least had the headings of the main sections, I would have felt more motivated to ‘start a new’ at each section. Just some thoughts for my next video showing – but this guided note-taking would definitely be useful for a distance or e-learning set up.

After the video was over, I really wanted to hear people’s opinions but I didn’t really feel qualified to comment or validate anything specific. I longed for an electronic bulletin-board where the students could anonymously add their thoughts or poignant points they wanted to highlight. I told the students this and then said, we were going to try an experiment – a Face-2-Face sharing sessions. Next I explained the rules:
1) I will point to a student and you highlight something from the video – an emotion it twigged, a memory, something you were surprised or angered by, etc.
2) You can pass – just say “Pass”
3) The points are to be short – a phrase or 1 sentence.

In my mind, I had my own rules… I would not comment on any of the students expressions – Oh, this was sooooooooooo hard!!! Many students had observations that surprised me or were similar to my own. But I followed my rules… I didn’t comment. I thought this was important becuase I didn’t want the task to be one of get brownie points from the teacher – I wanted the students to share their thoughts for the other students. Also, I knew if I commented on one… how could I not comment on all… and lastly, if I did comment on all, the exercise would just take too long! I wanted the “comments from around the room” to be short and sweet.

The activity went well – some students passed, others said they had the same answer as someone else but so many had original thoughts to share – in a mere 3 minutes we had about 20 issues brought forward from the movie. I thought this would be helpful for the group work everyone was about to launch into because the first question was… What did you find interesting or enlightening about the movie. To me, it was not important that the groups captured their own thoughts but that many ideas were on the table ‘for the picking’.

During the group work I also encouraged the groups to help each other out – if there was a name or theory they wanted help remembering then I asked that they either put their hand up and ask me, in which case, I would ask the class for help or if they weren’t shy, they could just blurt out a request. Two groups did this….. By making the group queries public, it may have helped other groups in their discussions and identified for another group, a different way of tackling the questions.

Education… it’s gotta be public!

Teaching Recorder

February 28th, 2006 by · Comments Off · Classroom Management, Lesson Plans, Teaching Strategy

I decided to really challenge myself this time around in my placement…I offered to teach the RECORDER!! Once the words were out of my mouth and my Associate Teacher (AT) was beaming with acceptance of my generous offer, I knew there was no going back. However, I left that first day, shaking my head and kicking myself – What was I doing? I knew I was rhythm challenged…. how can I even think about teaching music!!

But the wheels moved – the students brought their money in, the AT purchased the recorders and before I knew it, I was blowing notes at the front of the class….

Okay, it wasn’t quite that easy. I immediately went home the first day of my placement (after I opened my big unmusical trap) and emailed my music professor. HELP!! was the subject line of my desperation message… and indeed she did!

Actually, I owe a lot to Carole Richardson at Nipissing University. She provided a great course that was a mix of skill/content building (the ‘What’ of teaching or the contents of the Junior/intermediate music curriculum) with a lot of “how” and “why”. To me, Carole’s course was what every course in a Faculty of Education should be. For the recorder part of our classes, I learned not only the proper technique for making ‘wonderful’ notes come forth from my recorder but I also was introduced to numerous class management techniques for teaching recorder.

Every lesson when I ask the students to put their recorders in “resting position”, I send off a little thanks to Carole… She has helped put a little sanity into what I believe has the potential to be a very chaotic time. I have religious adopted the three playing positions we learned in class… resting , practice and play positions – this gives the student very clear directions as to where their recorder is to be at various times. It also always me to do a quick visual sweep for students paying attention.

Another technique I’ve adopted from our University music classes was allowing only certain groups of students to play parts of the song we are attempting. Last Friday when I applied this method and only had groups of three students, play “their best ‘B’ ” for four beats, I learned which students specifically were not quite getting the figuring and blowing techniques. This information helped to plan out my instructional focus for this week.

When I looked at the organization of the classroom I’m in for my placement and thought back to Carole’s music lessons, I realized the university chair arrangement and “no desks” worked well. With this in mind, I make an “orchestra” area in the classroom each time we have music (desks with round recorders rolling around, drumming and falling off almost yelled “MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS to me!). As a class, we’re still working on moving the chairs into the orchestra area, in an orderly fashion. I’ve had to have a few practice runs and I’ve learned to be very clear with my expectations – EVERYONE WALKS CARRYING THEIR CHAIRS IN FRONT OF THEM, THREE ROWS, ONE TILE BETWEEN EACH ROW AND CHAIR, and ONLY 1 TABLE POD at a time places their chairs. Okay, from this description, you can probably realize what happened the first day when I said, “Okay, now I’d like you to bring your chairs up to front!”………….. C H A O S!!!!

So much of teaching recorders is management. I find with the students sitting on the chairs without their desks and having to hold and manage their recorders, their focus is totally on MUSIC!! The disadvantage is that the students don’t have individual music sheets to follow – we use an overhead projector for our sheet music. Speaking of which, last class, I did my Carole Richardson impression of shouting out the beat while touching the notes to indicate where we are in the tune – WE HAD A BALL!! And the students sounded GREAT! Well, the CD that Carole loaned me, might have been a big factor there, but I like to think not!

One last thing, but one of the first bits of advice that Carole gave me when she returned my cry for help… LET THE STUDENTS PLAY! Another biggie!! The students love their recorder lessons and really can’t get enough. I decided to follow Carole’s advice right at the top of the lesson…. The students get 2 minutes of ‘practice time’ when I hand out the recorders. And then throughout the lesson, it’s PLAY, PLAY, PLAY!!

Oh ya, one last management thingie, I put the student names on all the recorders and cases and at the end of each class, I collect them. I found when I let the students take care of the recorders, they become drum sticks at their desks, or the instrument was taken out at recess, played in the cloakroom, etc. I also had to face my fears when the myriad of students wanted to take their recorders home to practice… PRACTICING IS GOOD (I really didn’t want to damper their enthusiasm but I wonder now, if the parents hate me!!)… BUT…. What if the recorders don’t return for the next day’s lessons?????? I’m a little controlling on the “take home” thing. I encourage it but the students must ask permission to do so – I require that they write in their agenda’s a ‘note to self’…. “BRING BACK RECORDER”. This way, I get to encourage their eagerness, provide a bit of guidance as to what/how they could be practicing and MOST IMPORTANTLY… I get to remind them very clearly how necessary it is that they have their recorder for the next music lesson!

Okay, I’ve got to squeeze in a technology plug!! After my first lesson, I realized it was extremely difficult, blowing on the recorder, watching the students, listening to the students, concentrating on the notes I was supposed to be playing… AND KEEPING PROPER TIME. I found out that the free audio editing program, Audacity, allows me to create a “Click Track” that is very much like an electronic metronome. I have created a slow and fast click track, which I haven’t needed to use yet but just having them, has made me rest better.

I only have two more recorder lessons with the students… sheesh, I’m actually going to miss it!

One Resource I found helpful was: http://www.musiceducationmadness.com/ – I’m sure there are many others!

Lesson Idea Exchange

February 19th, 2006 by · 1 Comment · Art, Lesson Plans, Teaching Strategy

I’m out on my first placement for the second term. This one is 3 weeks long and I’m placed with a small grade 4 class – only 18 students! One week has passed and it’s been GREAT!

Over the next few weeks I’ll be doing an art unit on Monet. Although I’ve searched the internet and skimmed over my book resources at home, I wanted to be VERY SURE that the ideas I presented would go over well with the rambunctious gang I have. I was looking for ‘more personal’ advice like, “I did this with my students and they really liked it”…… or even, “I’d advise against blah, blah, it went over like a lead balloon with my students”. I can have all the great ideas in the world but until a gang of students has had the opportunity to truample over them a few times, the lesson plan will simply be that – a plan!

Now, I know not all students are the same so what might not work with one group may go over well with another… I guess that’s why I’m suggesting I’m not so much interested in the idea but rather the conversation that goes along with it. Otherwise, if I’m surfing lesson plans on the net or in a book, the conversation is only going on in my head…which is kind of a dead end since I don’t have much experience with Grade 4 students.

To solve this problem of getting ‘good’ ideas or perhaps, I should call them “recommendations”, I decided to set up a Lesson Idea Exchange Wiki. It’s located here: http://lessonideas.pbwiki.com/. I’ve invited my fellow classmates to join in and either add their ideas or post requests for ideas.

So far, I’ve got a great start on my Monet unit thanks to the generousity of others – and I’m hoping I can be as helpful to someone else!

If you want to join in on the Lesson Idea Exchange use the password: “Lessonideas” (without the quotes).

Audio in the Classroom

February 8th, 2006 by · Comments Off · Language Arts, Podcasting, Teaching Strategy

We’re in the middle of our reading week and I think the pause has allowed me to relax a bit… the ideas are flowing!!

I’m involved on the periphery of the ” TESOL Electronic Village Online session 2006 – Podcasting for ELT (EFL / ESL) “. I like ‘hanging out’ with these guys because there are keeners who really want the best for their students and they don’t seem shy to employ technology for that end. It’s refreshing to say the least! Since I don’t have my own students, right now, I ‘teach’ vicariously through these online interactions I have with other teachers….wow, am I nerd or what!

Anyway, last night I got on a thought wave of using audio in the classroom and really maximizing the interactions possible with other students from around the world. Here are the ideas I came up with:

-AUDIO MAD LIB - I just found out about these “Madlib” exercises (boy, did I feel out of the loop!!). In the hard-copy version, the student is instructed to make a list of words but is guided by the types of words that go in the list. Here is a good example of a typical MadLib activity: http://familyinternet.about.com/cs/games/l/blmadlib.htm. To change this to an audio exercise – One class could record several separate audio files each with a selection of certain types of words such as, nouns, verbs, etc. Another class could record a story. Each class would exchange their audio files. Then recreate stories using each other’s content. The downside of this activity is that you need someone in the class who is good at editing audio in a program such as audacity.

An Aside: When I was searching for support sites for MadLib, I came across this link:http://www.eingang.org/Games/madfaq.html which made me think that ESL classes could play this type of game using a chat box (for global connections) or even text messaging in the classroom. I’m not an ESL teacher… would it work?

Mixed Up Fairy Tales - The students would record lines of well known fairy tales and then the learning object would automatically put a bunch together. (A job for Flash, PHP and MySQL).

Mystery Story – One class would record the first part to a story they have made up – they send this introduction to another class who in turn adds their part and sends it back. And so forth.

Debates – I just got a notice in email about an online debate… although it doesn’t say whether this in audio or text-based but nonetheless it is an open invitation:

I am looking for classes who will be interest in having a debate with another class from another province or country regarding a topic of your choice. If you are interest in the challenge, please email me as soon as possible and I will organize it!! An online debate is another way to motivate the students, to develop their critical thinking.. Be part of a new experience!! Go To http://www.youthlinks.org/debate/main.do

Sure these are just more exercises but I think what makes these ideas different is the “audience” – the students are no longer just doing the work for themselves or their teachers – they are collaborating and working with other students who are in the same situation as they are. I wonder if this is enough of a hook for the students?

Podcasting for Learning

January 21st, 2006 by · 1 Comment · Podcasting, Teaching Strategy

The Edtech Team have done it again… if you want to hear about using podcasts in education, then Edtech Podcast #28 is a must!  They had two ‘veterans’ of educational blogging and podcasting on the show, Bob Sprankle of Room 208 and Bud the Teacher  There are many people out there “talking” about the educational potential of podcasting but these two gentleman are living it and this podcasts provides ample examples of how using the technology is changing their students’ learning.

I have added this podcast along with a sampling of many other worthwhile podcasts at my new podcast Gigadial ‘station‘ I’ve set up for a workshop I’m presenting.

“Big Ideas”, Emotional Intelligence and the place of Content

January 9th, 2006 by · Comments Off · Learning Reflections, Teaching Strategy

Last week I found a common thread woven throughout my classes. At the beginning of the week we tried to untangle Daniel Coleman’s Goleman’s ideal of emotional intelligence (self-awareness, handling emotions, motivation, empathy, Social Skills) and its place in education, then we got on to designing our ideal school after beating up the Faculty of Education’s of the world for not producing more dynamic teachers. Towards the end of the week, in one class, the professor announced that we’re not teaching content, content is forgotten but through the content, our students learn skills. Then in another class, I heard, we don’t teach subjects we teach students. But what was even bigger…. in that same class, we were presented with the concept that we should teach “BIG IDEAS”. I was blown away…. The last year of my Masters at MSU was on this! I finally felt right at home.

It seemed for 5 days we were dancing around the essence of education without really discussing it fully. I wanted to chat more about how the ideals of emotional intelligence are usually part of the hidden curriculum in the same way that “Big Ideas” are. Our example for the “Big Idea” in class was how doing a Gingerbread House would allow a teacher to satisfy many cross-curricular learning objectives while at the same time accomplish the “big ideas” the teacher might have. To me the interesting part is that although we may want to teach the “Big Ideas” we assess the little ones – skills and content – the learning objectives. But what lingers in our student? Not the content but the self-awareness, handling emotions, motivation, empathy, and Social Skills.

Critical Thinking Challenge – A Teaching Strategy

December 10th, 2005 by · Comments Off · Geography, Teaching Strategy

Yesterday in Geography (of all places!) our Professor introduced us to a great teaching strategy that applies critical thinking methods through exploring a ‘critical challenge’.  I was both surprised and pleased that my prof. was so commited to developing critical thinking in our students that he would spend a whole class dedicated to it. 

I’m a real advocate of critical thinking – I see it as one of those life skills that is left long after the student forgets the content you have taught – And I take my beliefs a step further by teaching an Ontario Management Development Program Online Course entitled “Critical and Creative Thinking“…. yes!  soft-skills taught online??? – it’s possible!  But that’s for another posting….

After explaining that Critical Thinking can be manifested throughout the curriculum by:

  • Providing opportunities for students to engage in critical thinking
  • Giving students permission to engage in critical thinking
  • Teaching students the requisite tools to think critically

My professor went on to explain that a very specific way to instill Critical Thinking is to incorporate a “Critical Challenge” as one of the assessments in a course.  I found the idea of a ‘critical challenge’ somewhat like a ‘webquest’ in that there is a prescribed way to do the lesson or project.  Both methods are also built on strong learning theories. 

A Critical Challenge consists of a task that employs four key tools:

  • Background Knowledge – What do I need to know to solve this problem? 
  • Criteria for Judgment – What criteria do I use to make a judgment?
  • Habits of Mind – critical mindedness, fair mindedness, open-mindedness
  • Thinking Strategies – making decisions, organizing info, role taking

    • I particularly liked the “Habits of the Mind” idea, it included such items as:

    • Willingness to approach tasks carefully and critically is essential
    • Open-mindedness
    • Fair-mindedness
    • Independent-mindedness
    • An inquiring or critical attitude
    • Respect for high quality products and performances
    • An intellectual work ethic

    Basically, a Critical Challenge has the students completing a task that requires them to make a judgement.  During the task process, the students are held accountable for their thinking and decision-making – both of which are public throughout the activity.  My professor emphasized over and over how the answer the students arrive at should not be important but rather their PROCESS for coming to a conclusion is!

    There are many types of Critical Challenges that can be created:

    • Design to specs
    • Judge the better or the best
    • Decode the puzzle
    • Redesign the piece

    Probably the hardest part about creating a Critical Challenge is devising the question or problem – There are four items to consider:

  • Does the question or task require judgment between plausible alternatives
  • Is the challenge focussed so as to limit the requisite tools?
  • Will the challenge be meaningful to students?
  • Is the challenge embedded in the core of the curriculum?

    With these points in mind, the class was given a few example question types that can be molded into a Critical Challenge:

    • who or what is more “X”
    • Defend an interpretation
    • Settle the dispute
    • Is this really an example of “X”?
    • The “best of” award
    • Is there something wrong?
    • Did the reporter write a fair-minded account of the event?
    • Rewrite from a point of view
    • Make a memo or report
    • Apply in a realistic context
    • Create a masterpiece

    As you can surmise from the information above, it is not only ”the question” that makes a Critical Challenge as many of the questions above could have been used for traditional projects, papers or reports.  The additional set up required includes the fact that you supply or lead the students to the resources you want them to use (much like a webquest) – the artifacts required within a Critical Challenge make the ‘thinking and decision-making processes public so charts and tables would be necessary. As well, there is an enormous emphasis on justifying any decisions made during the challenge.

    My professor explained that most of lecture was based on information from this source: in Critical Challenges Across the Curriculum (Roland Case and LeRoi Daniels).  I did a quick search and discovered the following sites with additional information:

    • Capturing Conversations – Another use for podcasting

    December 6th, 2005 by · 1 Comment · Learning Reflections, Podcasting

    We had a good discussion about our placements in one of our classes.  As we went on to the other course work, I longed for the opportunity to capture what was just said by my peers so that I can linger on their story a little more.  I wished that I had recorded their tales – another use for educational podcasts – there were many lessons to learn from and even more issues to become aware of…. Powerful stuff for me but I’m sure others in education could learn from such stories if the opportunity was provided.

    There was one account about the “Exploration” story written in the 1960’s that contained many matters which the student teacher just couldn’t support.  Or the Advertising class where one student was pulled out of the class because he said his t-shirt slogan suggested that his religion would take over the world; Another student teacher got caught off guard when she didn’t have a chance to read a “read-a-loud” story ahead time and the book she chose put her in the middle of a discussion about sexual orientation with her Grade 5/6.  The cutest story award had to go to my peer who was in a Grade three class and overheard a “Santa doesn’t exist” debate.

    3-2-1+1 Reflections

    December 4th, 2005 by · 1 Comment · Language Arts, Learning Reflections

    In the Grade 8 class, I was looking for a way to end our two week unit on media literacy which covered the following Government of Ontario Expectations:inverted image of one of our blackboard brainstorming session

    8e52     Grade 8 PLNR02            English Language          Oral and Visual Communication  Overall Expectations     

    • identify a wide range of media works and describe the techniques used in them;

    8e53     Grade 8 PLNR02            English Language          Oral and Visual Communication  Overall Expectations     

    • analyse and interpret media works;

    8e54      Grade 8 PLNR02            English Language          Oral and Visual Communication  Overall Expectations     

    • create media works of some technical complexity;

    8e65     Grade 8 PLNR02            English Language          Oral and Visual Communication  Media Communication Skills      

    • describe a media work, outlining its different parts and the steps and choices involved in planning and producing it; 

    During the unit, the students had worked from using a web to brainstorm ideas on to producing shot lists, storyboards and a video script and ending with a final product that entailed an audio file of their commercial (with very little background music and sound effects) and a photo of a showcase they produced in Art to support their commercial. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time nor equipment to complete the actual commercials the students had conceived.)

    I decided the final class would not only involve compiling a project “package” that would include the many work sheets we completed during the unit but also we would work on a “3-2-1+1 REFLECTION” of the entire process.  After all the paper shuffling – when the students had their package on their desks, I wrote down the following questions on the board – One question at a time, leaving a few minutes for the students to complete their thoughts on each one before we continued to the next:

    3 Things I learned about making a commercial;

    2 Things I liked about the process; 

    1 thing I didn’t like over the last two weeks.

    My feeling was that these students were not used to the task of reflecting so I wanted to give them in-class time to complete it.  I also wanted them to be serious and thoughtful, which might not happen if I gave the task for homework.

    Now for the “+1 part”…. I decided that since the students were not going to be involved in the production of adding their images to the audio, I felt they needed some time to review their audio work.  In class, I asked for volunteers to come up and give us the “Director’s Cut” for their commercial.  This entailed providing the rest of the class with the vision the student had for their commercial including video shots, sound effects and background music.  I recorded each student walking us through their commercial with the idea that I may use it at the beginning of the students’ work to help explain the final product. 

    We spent the next twenty minutes enjoying each others commercials – talking about what we liked, what worked and why as well as areas for improvement.  In some cases I was able to quick edits on the students’ work to show how the audio would sound with a few alterations.  Also, to keep things a little interesting, I projected the audio file I had imported into “Cool Edit” (could have easily been Audacity, though!) on to the screen – I found this gave the students a focus while listening to the commercials.

    Back to the “+1 part”…After the short audio review session, I asked the students to add and answer one more question on their reflections:

    If I did this project again, I would:  

    I asked the students to complete this statement by listing at least three things if they could.  I believe by doing this last question immediately after reviewing and critiquing each other’s work, I received more thoughtful and richer answers from the students. 

    For an idea that just “popped” into my head… I’ll definitely use the 3-2-1+1 REFLECTIONS format again! 

    Student Podcast – “Interviewing the Past”

    November 28th, 2005 by · 1 Comment · History, Podcasting

    I’ve decided to jump into the Podcasting fray with a Grade 6 project entitled, “Interviewing the Past”.  The idea is for the class to produce a podcast that consists of questions and answers from Chapter 4 in their History Text book on the Woodland Cree.  After reading together a short story in the chapter, each student chose one section of the chapter from which to create two questions they felt would be interesting to others.  They also had to identify who from the short story, would they ask their questions of and explain why. 

    Originally, I was going to have the students switch questions and have another student discover the answer but since I only have one week left in my placement (two classes with the Grade 6′s), I won’t have time to do this – For homework on the weekend, I asked that they also supply the answer to their questions.

    During the next class I will have students get into groups of three.  One person will introduce the interviewer and interviewee, while also describing the task, the person who created the question will ask the question and also explain why they felt the person whom they chose from the story would be the best to answer the question.  Lastly, the third person will read the answer which the second student has prepared ahead of time.  (It sounds confusing here but we had a practice run during the last class and it went surprisingly smoothly!).

    While I am recording the students audio, the other students will be practicing their interviews or drawing and colouring pictures that reflect the question topic.

    In order to give the students an idea of what is possible in a webcast, I searched the net for student podcast example and played 3 samples last class. This is the best listing of student podcasts I came across:

    http://www.podcastforteachers.org/Who’sUsingPodcastingInEducationAndHow.htm

    Update: I completed the podcast and I posted it as well as some comments about the experience on my other blog here: http://newmediaworkshops.com/telblog/?p=68