Tag: teaching

Feeling like a student

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Overwhelmed Flood sign, Upton-upon-Severn
photo by: Bob Embleton [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

It’s often said that good teachers are learners. I believe this to be true. A more recent realisation is the difference between being a student vs. learner.

I’m a student again – started with my Masters in Special Ed. I am learning heaps, for sure but as a student, I’ve re-discovered the appeal of procrastination, the panic of sitting an exam, the need for discipline and rest. My blog tagline is – love to learn – and there is that…especially when I choose what to learn. As a student, I have to learn what has been set out for me to learn and while there are interesting bits, there sure are boring and tedious bits.

Being a student can be overwhelming, a feeling I don’t associate with being a learner.

Faced with so many things to do, it’s like you don’t know what to do anymore. Or worse, “you can’t do anything”, as one of my daughters articulated. As a parent, I’ve seen my daughters overwhelmed by schoolwork; granted, they have healthy extra-curricular commitments (by healthy, I mean they have enough but not too much, not out every day). It’s painful to watch particularly since I don’t recall ever feeling that way as a young student.

 

and so I wonder…

Are we expecting more from our students today? Do we expect them to learn something new every lesson, in all their lessons every day? Do they have opportunities to enjoy what they have learned before they have to learn something new again?

As a teacher, or parent, would you like to be a student again?  now?

It’s all about learning

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“A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem” – Albert Einstein

Justin Lanier (@j_lanier) recently blogged a story that succinctly captured my current thoughts on pedagogy. Justin’s post was a welcome relief with what seems to me a growing pre-occupation with trends, styles or approaches to teaching – (guilty here, see related post). For instance, a Twitter conversation highlighted to me that my way of Project-Based Learning (PBL) could confuse some as  it did not follow the 8 Essential Elements of PBL published by BIE. That conversation shook me enough to hide the link to my PBL page; however, I stand by my way because it’s been gleaned from my personal and professional experience which is really relevant to the computing subjects I teach…. I just don’t say I do PBL anymore.

But let me move on to what I really want to write about here….

The tagline of this blog is – It’s all about learning – and I’ve come to appreciate that this is precisely why I blog…to share my learning journey, mostly through my teaching practice. Part of this journey is my search for what it is that optimises learning and my Tag cloud shows quite a variety of these. Truth be told, what really works for me in optimising learning is not a teaching approach or style. It’s no secret either. It’s building relationships….and relevant posts are under the tag: You Matter, a phrase largely credited to @AngelaMaiers, and one I’ve extended to You Matter, I Care.

Regarding content, my Tag cloud also includes metaphors and analogies, stories, focus on literacy, and lots more under a very generic tag of learning strategies. When asked, I often say that what learning needs is a context – real world or make-believe.

Here’s a book that explains why what works for me actually works….and it contains more tools/strategies….and how-tos….and encouragement …and it is called ….

image courtesy of thebookdepository.com

image courtesy of thebookdepository.com

an imaginative approach to teaching – by Kieran Egan

The premise of the book is to tap into the students’ emotions and imagination using cognitive tools they develop as they grow.

The book is narrative in style and you can almost hear the author speaking. Egan encourages teachers to make use of these tools, mix-and match and leverage growth in students (i.e. can still use stories and play even when they are ready for theoretic thinking or abstraction). Being practical-oriented, the book is perhaps better used as a reference, e.g. select tools, rather than read from start to finish.

The tools are so ‘obvious’ from one’s own learning experience that they seem ordinary and perhaps why they aren’t used more often. What tools are there?

Part 1: A Tool kit for Learning

  • story
  • metaphor
  • binary opposites
  • rhyme, rhythm and pattern
  • jokes and humor
  • mental imagery
  • gossip
  • play
  • mystery
  • embryonic tools of literacy

Part 2: A Tool Kit for Literacy

  • sense of reality
  • extremes of experience and limits of reality
  • associate with heroes
  • sense of wonder
  • collections and hobbies
  • knowledge and human meaning
  • narrative understanding
  • revolt and idealism
  • changing the context
  • literate eye
  • embryonic tools of theoretic thinking

Part 3: A Tool Kit of Theoretic Thinking

  • sense of abstract reality
  • sense of agency
  • grasp of general ideas and their anomalies
  • search for authority and truth
  • meta-narrative understanding

The list certainly affirms tools that worked for me such as stories, metaphors, changing the context (e.g. problems vs exercises, teaching equations big-picture style),  association with heroes (e.g. Polya, Jedis), sense of agency (Cloud, Dream),  as well as some I haven’t blogged about.  AND I’ve now got a host of other tools to explore including mystery, revolt and idealism as well as meta-narrative understanding.

and since I’ve fallen in love with Inquiry learning, it may just take that form. A mystery would make a nice inquiry, no?

p.s. If you don’t want to buy the book, resources are available online on ierg.net.

Was it a waste of time?

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My year 10s had just had their storyboards assessed and approved.

They were supposed to get started with planning for the next  stage of their multimedia projects; maybe even get started developing components of it.

BUT

My year 10s were visibly unsettled today at period 1. They said they had an English assessment next period – speech. They exchanged stories of how late they went to bed to get this ready and the ‘winner’ (not in my class) went to bed at 4:30 a.m. How anyone could function with such little sleep is beyond me!

We ploughed through the work that needed to be done but they were easily distracted and not really focusing.

SO

In the end, I succumbed and gave them the last half hour of the lesson to practice for their speeches. They had to pretend it’s the real thing so they had to perform in front of everyone as against doing it quietly in their own ‘corner’.  I figured, they weren’t really being productive in my subject so they might as well be productive in something.

Here’s a gist of what happened:

  • I had a glimpse of their creativity, literacy and thinking skills in another context (English)
  • Students took on roles voluntarily as time-keeper and editors
  • Students gave each other constructive feedback
  • I gave constructive feedback
  • Students felt more settled and ready to face their assessment, even those who did not perform but still got editing help
  • We’ve got a concrete example of positive collaboration – one I’m going to keep promoting in MY class

Part of me feels like I’ve been sucked in. Yet, was it really a waste of time?

Making progress

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Maybe I miss teaching maths as I feel compelled to use some mathematical terms and concepts in this post about how my (non-Maths) PBLs mentioned in the previous post, are progressing. Oh, and this is inspired by this video on dissociating learning from performance, linked to me by the wonderful Kelli McGraw (@kmcg2375) who constantly pushes my academic thinking, among others.

Anyway, I had to watch that video lots and lots and lots of times. What really hooked me was this notion of variability as aid to learning and transference, even if the performance gain (observable stuff we teachers measure as evidence of learning) is non-existent or slow. See folks, this is why I love Algebra! And in fact, that’s how Algebra should be taught, i.e. change those variables so students can see that the relationships expressed in an equation will yield different values as variables change. This is transference in number terms, literally.

I’m not going to pretend I understand the video completely. I don’t. What does spacing even means? I’m guessing interleaving means making connections. Interleaving vs blocking new things to be learned. whoa!

This is exactly how my PBLs are progressing. Variability. Interleaving vs blocking new things. Conditions are neither constant nor predictable (these terms are from the video, ok?).

Precisely because of how the Year 9 Digital Media Jedi Academy is set up, there is so much variability. I’ve got kids learning to write HTML code, writing ebooks, creating wikis, typography and critically analysing their process…yep, writing their applications to level up. And they’re excited about what they’re doing that invariably (haha) I have to boot them out when bell goes. Comments heard today: “I’ve done so much”, “I’ve learned so much”, “This is exciting”.  They’re collaborating, giving peer feedback and affirmations and best of all, learning how to help themselves.

Their applications to level up are done in Word, submitted to our virtual classroom (a Sharepoint site). I annotate these. Then it hit me that I had no idea of checking if they’ve really read these annotations – we’re talking individualised feedback here that took time and effort! Bianca Hewes (@biancaH80) to the rescue. More specifically, her post on feedback (a must read so go there, will you?) that mentioned the Goals, Medals, Missions framework. I told the students that they had to hunt down the medals and missions in my feedback. This had the added bonus of student feedback on my own annotations. It was clear that I was rather austere on the medals department. haha. I’ll fix that. I wish Sharepoint has notifications like edmodo.

My Year 10 PBL on the school purpose has taken twists and turns I could not have predicted. These kids are getting so engrossed on making sense of the school purpose and want to take the rest of the school with them. I’m actually rather flabbergasted though obviously proud of them taking ownership.  They designed surveys for staff and students and we had amazing discussions on the art of writing surveys and the challenges of collation…we were optimistic we’d get heaps of responses. Now they’re talking about making it a game and what do I know really of Game Design. Well, I’m learning along with them. Like my year 9s, I have to dismiss them a few times before they actually leave the room.

This post is long enough methinks. Anyway, I’m feeling good about the progress. Yeah, I still feel lost but I think I might get used to it and welcome it. That’s a good thing, right?

And just to end on the idea of abstraction: neither Bianca nor Kelli teach maths or computing; yet, see how I’ve abstracted from their work and applied to my context (steal like an artist – go on, check it out….interleaving, see?). This abstraction is Algebra IRL. really.

Lost already

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My previous post, No Entry, ended with this paragraph:

Can teaching be approached the same way, i.e. seek different perspectives, enjoy the unusual (every student is an individual, after all), maybe inject a bit more art and fun, maybe dare go where I’ve previously not dared?

Little did I know that I would face up to it so soon. Here’s what I’m doing with years 9-12.

When I introduced each of these, all classes seemed surprised and lost because they got tasks they knew not how to approach (PBL vs doing projects). I very nearly gave up then and thought perhaps, being a new teacher in this school, I should ease in and start with traditional teaching approaches….approaches the students were used to. I had doubts, i.e. felt lost…just a little.

BUT since I’ve invested time and effort setting these up, I thought I’d keep going.

This was good because the Year 9s really stepped up since.  Though they could choose any digital media type, I insisted the first one should be text, being the easiest theory-wise and to ease them into the process of self-direction. Some students have opted – with a bit of encouragement – to challenge themselves and try new things like writing an ebook, creating a wiki and learning HTML.

The Year 10s have started to wonder why a school would articulate its purpose at all and why bother to understand it.

The Year 11s have started to wonder how data can indeed be transformed into information to serve one’s purpose.

The Year 12s have started to wonder how the current HSC course connect to last year’s preliminary course.

BUT it’s not all wins.

Today one of my year 12s expressed her (and one other’s) panic on discovering, through our PBL, how little they remember of the preliminary course AND now considering dropping the course.

While it is good “to know that you do not know”, I realise it is uncomfortable for one not used to it and certainly for one facing the high-stakes HSC exams. 

Not long after I spotted @MaryAnnReilly’s tweet that piqued my interest:

Getting lost is a privilege? An affordance of being in the classroom? whoa!  I did not intend for students to feel helplessly lost and now I wonder what to do.

I really liked the idea of making maps.  


I am feeling lost – did I push some students way out of their comfort zone? – and I’ll have to map my own. I’m not quite sure how it will look yet. I cannot promise students will do well in the HSC but I can promise I will do what I can to help them.

I seek other perspectives and writing this post, while unnerving, helps…especially if you’ve got perspectives to offer; perhaps this has happened to you before?

Aside, I find it interesting that my year 9s seem more assured, even happily challenged in discovering what they don’t know.  Some are intentionally getting lost and excited about way-finding and sense-making …. making their own maps. Year 10s are showing similar signs, though perhaps with less enthusiasm.

Anyway, your thoughts welcome. Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?