In My Own Words???

As I have mentioned in several other blog post over the last two years about our use of Interactive Notebooks within our Gifted Laboratory.  Implementing Interactive Notebooks have been somewhat of a challenge for me, as an eductor, but the benefits they provide have been so worth the effort. One of the benefits that I had not anticipate was how their use has effected how I both access and instruct. I believe that learning takes place in the process and before implementing of our Interactive Notebooks  I was doing my best to assess and instruct there as well. With the use of our Interactive Notebooks it has been much easier to recognize patterns in individual students and groups. Identifying where an inquiry process has first stepped off the track can be difficulty at times, but correctly diagnosing can save a lot time and frustration on everyone's part.The latest of these revelations has to do with asking student  to put things in their own words. While exploring a topic of research students will simply just copy information directly from the book or website into their notes. Then when they are asked to put the information into their own words they are truly confused about what to do. Sure we have discussed the issue of plagiarism and students usually become insulted that you are accusing them of cheating. Besides, I honestly believe that students weren't copying for copying sake, but that it is done out of a lack of knowing exactly what to do.
  
At first glance, one might think this situation stems from either a reading or a writing issue, but most of the time it is a combination of the two. To spite the numerous reading strategy lessons given by myself and general education educators my students' blank stares still remain when asked to put what they learned into their own words. We, as educators, do a wonderful job of introducing students strategies and calling them readers, but how are we doing about the follow through of those beliefs. Honestly, this whole thing has left me with some tough questions to answer. Most of which have more to do with how I, as the educator in the room, has been approaching the process. Such as: Am I truly guiding students  in their process or have I limited them by defining everything from the task to the process in which students report out on that process? Are the mini-lessons, graphic organizers and/or task encouraging students to be independent thinkers? We read our manuals, find ideas on Pinterest, buy a Teachers Pay Teachers Unit ......... we assign students graphic organizers to fill out, but many times these things just become a different set of blanks to fill in. We might even call it a think sheet, but the real question we should be asking ourselves is, are my students doing any real independent thinking here? Have we left a safe place for students to struggle and fail within the reading process? Have they watched and learned enough during our mini-lessons to be able to get information into our organizers to look efficient? Have we designed our lesson or activities in such a way that allow my former question to be true?Last year, I wrote a blog post about scaffolding and I realize now this scaffolding needs to happen early and often. When possible students should be encouraged to select their own graphic organizers. Choice and voice should not just be considered in the what of research, but also the how of research. Yes, I understand that not all students are ready to self select tools and that in having all my students use the same one it makes the assessment process easier. However, I do believe it is never too early to begin to discuss with students about why certain graphic organizers are used and if another could be used in its place. The truth is real-world problems do not come in a nice neat packages and learning to tackle them will take practice. I must find a better way for my students to do just that, which too will take practice. Right now, I am still sorting out these nagging questions. 

Breaking Out -Part 1

Here are a few pictures from our experience. 

Interactive Notebooks and Challenge Based Learning - #3 (The Aha Board)

In my first post on Interactive Notebooks and Challenge Based Learning I skimmed over the concept of The Aha Board.  In the book Teaching Science with Interactive Notebooks by Kellie Marcarelli she talks about these boards being used to hold the students' learning on the major concepts of each unit. We have modified this concept a bit to meet our needs within the process of  Challenge Based Learning (CBL) . What we have done is basically created an interactive challenge map or web. We have put the challenge in the middle and taken large Post -Its and wrote a Guiding Question on each. As students have made their way through their research they have written on smaller Post-Its the things they have learned and how they learned that under each Guiding Question.

    Oneco's Gifted Program has been working with CBL for about four years now and each year our process has become more and more refined. This would also included training students to take more ownership in the CBL process itself.  In the past, my students were able to effectively carry out CBL Challenges, but struggled to see where they were in the process especially in the Guiding Questions, Guiding Resources and Guiding Activities Components. Although, we had attempted to keep track of the process through packets and other such formats, these avenues had left us frustrated at times. It might have been that my elementary school students needed something a bit more concrete, maybe they feel more accountable now that the people entering our classroom can see their work in progress or they just enjoy putting Post-Its on the cabinet. My guess it a is combination of all those things and that is okay with me since The Aha-Boards effectiveness has certainly been AMAZING.  Since they have been introduced students have been using the evidence demonstrated on their group's board to discuss the quality of the research being done and what their next steps in the process should be. We were not seeing this type of metacognition before the Aha-Boards were introduced and my students have learn to depend on them.

Last week a few of my students and I were discussing the need to reflect on strategies that we use in hopes that they will become part of our learning toolbox. To prove my point, I pulled up my recent blog posts on our use of Interactive Notebooks and Challenge Based Learning. After reading my first post, these students turned on me a bit and wanted to know why I had just skimmed over The Aha-Boards. Honestly, they got just a little heated about my neglect in this matter.  Then these eight year olds went on to explain why they felt they were important, why we need them and why others should hear about them. I had to promise that within the next couple of weeks I would remedy the situation. I have done my best to cover everything we talked about in this post and I do hope I have done them proud. However, I promise if I missed something they will let me know. 

It is my hope to one day have these Aha-Boards go digital, but I truly felt that we need this concert model first.

It is All About Questions

 Basically, the second objective from The Florida Framework for K-12 Gifted Learner states that students will identify, generate, evaluate and refine significant questions. All too often students (and quite frankly adults) just look at a issue and jump to a solution without ever taking a real look at the issue. Many times, due to lack of investigating that first solution may be incorrect or there might be a better solution not considered. This is dangerous problem solving and could lead students to make costly mistakes in the future. Like anything else we teach these skills need to be defined, modeled and practiced. 

  With that said, Twenty Questions is an activity we played at start our day for the first several weeks of school for a about ten minutes at the start of each class period. In this game, student are given the task of using no more than twenty true/false questions to discover a mystery item in the room. For our game of  Twenty Questions, we defined a significant question, to be one that we can use to narrow down the field of items in our classroom. My students were consistently reminded that when it is time to make specific guesses we should have narrowed the field down to only a couple possibilities.  For example, after learning that our item came in many colors and had a point a student posed the question,"Is it a marker?"  Which is fair question, but there were still many other possibilities our item could have been.  So I asked the student to rethink his question and he then refined to be,"Can you write with it?" Since my answer was no this new question eliminated a marker and several other items (pen, pencil...) as well, which made this a much more significant question. 

I really do believe that good problem solving starts with students learning to ask really good questions.  I truly want my students to be grown ups that listen, explore and research issues and not just make decisions or rush to get a job done. Any chance I have to give my students the opportunity to practice those skills I will, even in a game of “Twenty Questions".

Oneco 's Summer Reading Academy

I have just finished with Oneco Elementary School’s Summer Reading Academy. During our two weeks together, we spent half our day working with students and the other half of our day in  professional development (PD). This was the third year Oneco has held The Summer Reading Academy, but this is the first year I have taken part. This year's PD was centered around how to promote deep understanding in our classrooms through inquiry. Since, we have been working with Challenge Based Learning (CBL),  an inquiry framework, within our laboratory for the past four years  the theme for our PD intrigued me. I believe that CBL serves as a complete framework, but there are some improvements and adjustments that need to be made on how we are utilizing it.  My new learning will work to both reinforce and enhance the CBL process within our laboratory. 
 
Much of the new learning revolved around my role as the educator in our laboratory.  This quote from John Hattie sums it up well-“ Fundamentally, the most powerful way of thinking about the teacher’s role is for teachers to see themselves as evaluators of their effects on students.” Truth is as individual educators, we are have very little influence on the system as a whole, but we do have influence on what goes on within our classrooms.  I truly believe that real learning is in the process and the choices we make, as educators, are the crucial keys to build a learning community that will promote students’ deeper understanding. These choices relate to every aspects of the learning process from planning through reflection and evaluations.

Throughout the two weeks of Oneco's Summer Reading Academy many wonderful teaching strategies were introduced, ideas about conferring were shared and we had some wonderful conversations related to authentic assessment.  However, I am a global thinker and I tend to view thing as a whole. As each new idea was  discussed I began to synthesis where it would fit into our learning process as a whole. This was ultimately illustrated in my project pictured above. At the start of The Academy, we were told to create an essential question for ourselves, given a blank piece of poster paper and told to forge our own path. If I were honest, I spent two whole inquiry work sessions attempting to figure out what I was going to put on my poster. I had not yet acquired enough learning to be able to form an inquiry question and all I could think about was that blank piece of paper. However, once I realized that I had put the cart before the horse, I was able to get some exploration under my belt and identify my question. Then the ideas for my poster flowed quite readily from there. My poster certainly was not the prettiest, but I stand behind its content. Also, I believe it really is important to share what one has learned.  Learning that is not shared seems a bit like the tree that falls in the forest and if there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? If learning isn't shared, did it really happen? With that said, the last day of our PD we had a gallery walk, which was great. However, I wish I would have had the time to explain the elements on my poster and why I put things where they I did. Throughout the last couple of years, my students have really taught me that some of the best insights into what someone else is thinking is in their answers to the question why. 

This is exactly why I am taking the time to do so here.

"How can the choices I am making help build a community that promotes deep understanding?”is what ended up being my essential question.  As you can see on my poster that my path leads to a building, which was left incomplete on purpose. I believe that learning is a lifelong pursuit and completing this structure would have given the impression that I have all the answers to this question. My learning is not complete and right now I am proud to be in the middle of this process. On each one of the bricks I listed one of the areas we discussed. Then on the inside of each brick I reflected on something specific I learned that related to that area. My door was there to represent the content areas, which I believe are the avenues in which our students enter into the learning process.  The two windows were made to represented the glimpses others have into our learning community. For instance, the first window represented administration feedback (observations, walk-throughs) and the other window represented data collected on students (Rti, FCAT, benchmark testing...).  Next, I put all projects and products (such as podcast, CBL solutions, posters) on the bush next to my building to serve as curb appeal. Yes, students need to share their work in creative ways, but these things have their place. If we want the focus to be on deep understanding then we shouldn't make the final product our focus. This kind of thing happens all the time in educational system, politics..... people just move ahead with a solution or create a product without truly taking the needed time to explore a problem or issue completely first. Isn't it just good problem solving to seek first to understand and then take action?  If I want my students to eventually be grown ups that listen, explore and not just rush to get a job done then don't I need to model (and promote) that now. Again, the moves we make are the crucial keys!

Before I close, I really would like to give a HUGE SHOUT OUT to The Summer Reading Academy's team of organizers. You all were wonderful and I thank you for all the hard work. To my partner throughout this process, Susannah Michalson, I enjoyed really getting to know you and I learned a ton through our conversations. Thanks for all the insight and debate. I loved it! 

 Finally, if you would like to do some exploring on you own here is a list of resources:

-Comprehension and Collaboration: Inquiry Circles by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels
(I love this book! It has some great strategies to use within an inquiry framework. )

-Talk about Understanding by Ellin Oliver Keene

- Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding and Independence for all Learners by Ron Ritchart, Mark Church and Karin Morrison

-Mechanically Inclined  by Jeff Anderson   

(This book gives some wonderful insight and ideas for teaching the mechanics of writing. )

-Conferring The Keystone to Reader's Workshop by Patrick Allen and Debbie Miller 

-Confer App for the iPad -
(With this application you can customize your list of things you would like to confer with students on. There are some other wonderful features as well.)