Discovery Education in The Gifted Laboratory #1

For years now Discovery Education (DE) has played a huge role in The Gifted Laboratory and I thought I would start blogging about some of the ways DE makes an impact here. It has always been a desire of mine to help students realize that the world is much bigger than they can imagine and that history is constantly happening around them. Thanks to DE and their Global News Feature my students are able to get a tiny glimpse of both of those concepts. The Global News is a weekly two to three minute news segments that introduce students to a current event. In the past my students and I would watch a segment, discuss it, and then move on. However, this year I thought I would attempt to deepen their thinking around these topics by integrating different SOS's. 


For our first Global News activity we used the SOS (or Visual Thinking Routine) "Connect-Extend-Challenge". This is a teaching strategy that requires students to identify background knowledge, new learning, and what challenges students may have about the topic. This is a great strategy by itself, but this strategy fits very nicely into a Tree Map, which is one of the eight Thinking Maps. In this case we used our Tree Map to sort our information into ideas that students connected to their background knowledge, extended their thinking, or challenged them in some way.  With the combination of the two strategies, my students were not only able to collect information (or text evidence), but they were also encouraged to do some deeper thinking around that information before they were asked to write about the topic. 

After each student has had a chance to complete his/her individual Tree Map we took the time to discuss this event as a class. Students were encouraged to add to their maps anything they wished to from our discussion. I work very hard to build a healthy learning community and by
allowing students to add to their maps during our discussion it encourages the idea that we are better together. 

My final step was to guide students through a writing assignment in which they were asked to tell what they learned and why it was important. Admittedly, their writing is a tad bit bland, but my main concern for this part of the lesson was that students were able to see a strong connection from their Tree Map to their writing. We still have work to do, but this is not a bad start.  Here are a few links to student blog posts: Grade 4 Post and Prine Students' Post.

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. 

Who is Santa? -A Lesson in Comparison Writing

 

Our fourth and fifth graders spent a bit of time exploring who Santa is (or was) based on the following three passages; Biography.com article on St. Nicholas, The New York Sun Editorial-Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus, and Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas.  

The first step in our process was to enter into the Making Thinking Visible thinking routine entitle Chalk Talk. The learners were placed in groups of two or three and asked to spend five minutes reading an article found on the chart paper together aloud. Then they were directed to respond to the piece by writing directly on the chart paper.  During this I encouraged each learner to read and add to other's responses with a comment or a question. This process was repeated two so that all learners were give an opportunity with all three passages. 

After we have completed the Chalk Talk process we spent time comparing and contrasting versions of St. Nicholas.  During this stage, students collected text evidence and placed that evidence into a graphic organizer of their choice before completing their individual writing pieces.

 

We still have some work to do on students' introductions and conclusions, but overall the comparisons shown in their writing had real depth that was backed up with evidence from our text .

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.)

Wondering

In the summer of 2007 I took a week long writing instruction workshop that was simply amazing.  We read A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You by Ralph Fletcher, which is a wonderful book to use with students. Also, during our time we each created our own Writer's Notebook in which we wrote a lot. I have pulled mine out from time to time while working with students the several years and have continued to write in it. Today, I pulled it out to add an entry while working with my second graders. As I pulled out my Writer's Notebook I began to read a few of my past entries, which is when I ran across an entry on Wonder. I do believe the official assignment was a quick write on something we wonder about, and for what it is worth here is what I came up with.

Wondering

Honestly, it is truly hard to write about one thing that I wonder about. You see, I wonder about so many things, I guess the thing to do is write about wonder itself.  It is one of the things that allows to me to feel alive. If we never took the time to wonder true learning won't take place nor would any sustaining change occur.  For instance, what would the world be like if Christopher Columbus  never wondered about sailing around the world or astronauts didn't wonder what was out in the universe. Without wonder would anyone explore the spiritual or emotional sides to thing. Truth is, we would be very shallow creatures without wonder in our lives.

Noticing and Questioning

October 20th was National Day of Writing and that day all I wrote was a four page newsletter. After seeing a few others' posted writing, I jokingly tweeted to ask if my newsletter would count for my writing for the day. I did get a gracious reply that my newsletter would in deed count, but it came with a hint that maybe I could write a blog post about something that was going on in my classroom. Honestly, my first response to this request related to my very long To Do List. My thought was I would love to, but when. I feel like I have been running a marathon since walking on campus this year, which I am sure is a feeling many educators can relate to. This is not meant to be a complaint, I love my job and feel lucky to do what I do. However, it just seems like things have been coming at me so quickly lately that I am barely having time to process them. Then I thought, that might be a problem. Maybe this little hint could be used as a wonderful reminder to me to slow down and take that needed time process what is going on. Not just for myself, but for my students as well.

This past summer some of my colleagues and I participated in an online book study for the book Nonfiction Mentoring Text by Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli. Which is is wonderful book about using mentoring text to teach nonfiction writing. It was through these online conversations that I was able to really reflect on not just what I had read, but also on the writing instruction in my classroom. However, there was one question during this study that seemed to relate not just to writing, but to so much of what I try to encourage in my classroom.

“ What does noticing and questioning look like in your classroom?” Which I responded:

Honestly, student questioning and observation is what we do on a regular bases in the gifted program. It is really just in their nature to question. Big part of my job it to help channel this energy by providing and guiding student in the use of graphic organizers and formats like Big 6 (http://www.big6.com/kids/), Super 3 (http://www.big6.com/kids/K-2.htm), Challenge Based Learning (http://ali.apple.com/cbl/) so that they learn to take their essential questions and do something with them. It is not enough for my students to ask questions, finish projects or piece of writing if it isn't also about what did that child learned that can be apply to the next time he/she has a question or a real world problem. The ultimate goal is to lead students into thinking for themselves and owning their own learning.

As I reread my response this week, it got me thinking again about what are the things that our students are going to need to know to go forth into their futures. Is it really going to be about memorizing information that can be found with a Google Search or is it going to be more about their ability to apply strategies and solve problems? Maybe when it comes to curriculum we need to not look for scripted programs. Rather ideas, activities and frameworks that teach students to research, investigate and problem solve. I have heard several times in the last couple of weeks about the importance of staying in the question and I feel this is so important. However, this is going to mean that we, as educators, need to be willing to step out of the way to allow our students time to explore and come up with their own answers. It means that we don’t begin our lessons and/or projects with an idea of what the end product will look like. It is an uncomfortable, but necessary place for us to be. Truth is, I want to have students that grow up to be adults who ask questions, research problems before jumping to solutions and this must start with me. Over the last couple of years, I have begun to see my role, as an educator, change from being The Expert (using the term loosely) in the classroom to becoming more of a Guide. I am still in the learning process, but I feel there are a few essential things necessary for me to be an effective a Guide. To be a Guide I must: give my students room to explore, provide a framework to help guide student thinking and exploration (ex. CBL, Big6), be in the question myself, ask questions that promote students to reflect on their process, remember that the real learning is in the process and to encourage my students along the way.

In a nutshell, these principles really bring me back to Oneco's Gifted Program's motto (which I stole from a tweet) and what I hope the program represents “WE ARE A LABORATORY, NOT A FACTORY”.

Our Holiday Voice

Since the beginning of the year, I have been working with a fourth grade class on writing each Monday for couple of hours. It has been kind of fun and their teacher Christina Avirett is a true joy to work with. She has done a wonderful job building a learning community. It is Ms. Avirett’s first year in fourth grade and before teaching gifted I spent four or five years teaching fourth so it seemed like a good fit. If I were honest she would have done fine without me. She really is an amazing teacher. Anyway, due to a schedule change in the gifted program in January I will no longer be working with Ms. Avirett’s class on Monday. This makes me a little sad but, before I leave I thought I would report on one of my favorite writing activities that we worked on. Actually, it was an activity I used to do every year when I taught fourth grade. When I added it into my plans about ten years ago I did so, because I thought it was fun. Since then I have learned that it is good for teaching Voice, which is one of the Six Write Traits.

During my first couple of years as a teacher someone gave me a copy a book entitled Christmas in America, which was basically a book of photographs of people celebrating the season across the country. At first, I had no idea what I was going to do with the book, but the kids seem to like it so I kept it around. Then one year, I over heard students giving the people in the photographs dialogue and from there we just started writing those things out. Each year the students have a great time with the photographs and Ms. Avirett’s class was no exception. We have written all sorts of things like; thank you notes to Santa, email and plays. Yes, I did say we. I feel that to build a true writing community the teacher in the room needs to write along with his/her students. With that said, I thought I would include one of my writing samples from this activity.

Picture two guys dressed as Santa peering out of dirty subway windows.

“Santa’s Subway Rant”
There is something wrong with this picture. I mean really I have heard about our need to cut cost, but this is ridiculous. All we’ve heard up at the North Pole lately is productivity and profit. When it was mentioned that they were going to be cutting our travel budget I thought they meant letting a few reindeers and possibly a keeper or two go, but this is outrageous. I do not see how anyone could think this is productive or sanitary for that matter.