I'll admit this up front. I was unprepared for class today. We were asked to come in with our first draft of our Community of Learners assessment and I just... did not. Between starting the project, not entirely understanding what it was and then forgetting to finish it when I put it aside, I just didn't have it done for class to do. Luckily for me though, I was able to make this workshop class worthwhile due to having another colleague who hadn't completed the assignment either. Instead of reading each other's work and pointing out certain points for improvement, we instead got to have a brainstorming session that centered on what exactly we should write about. It turned out to be extremely useful.
Essentially, our main problem with this project was reconciling the assignment and the rubric. They did not really match up with one another and it caused a lot of confusion not only between us but amongst the class, as well. So this class spent with B, realizing what held us back and working around those obstacles really helped me distill what I should be writing about in my Community of Learners Assessment. It's not only part Fieldwork report but it's also a representation of what aspects of an ideal Community of Learners our Fieldwork school has. That is, it's a combination of what happened and what works about our Fieldwork placements.
In addition to a lot of discussion about general issues in the classroom, we also discussed next week's class and its focus on self-assessment. I still have mixed feelings about self assessment. It's very likely one of my least favorite things to do since I feel as if we're often our own worst enemies in terms of self-awareness but I will give it a shot as an exercise in reflection for next week. Let's see if my mind is changed.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
DBQ Lab & Meetings
Post for 12/8
It was a bit strange today being back in the role of the observer after the past few weeks of designing and teaching my own lessons but today was a good day nonetheless. All US II classes were assigned a two-day project in the computer lab at the school. Essentially, the idea was for students to build their own DBQ in the style of their CRT's. Students had to decide on a question to ask about the New Deal, hopefully one they would genuinely like to research, and find the appropriate documents they could use to support it using online resources like the Library of Congress or the National Archives.
There was, however, a problem with this assignment since I received a variation of, 'Hey, Mr. A -- what's the New Deal?' about 25% of the time in every class. This was disconcerting since Mr. D's classes had been working on New Deal policies for the past week. Some of this could be attributed to students being absent, some students needed only a brief reminder but others seemingly just did not understand what the New Deal was or why they were studying. Here's where I come in with the first criticism of my co-operating teacher and it pains me to do so because I admire him both as a conscientious teacher and as a person. For whatever reason, Mr. D's classes were just not prepared to do this project. I asked him what he had worked on earlier in the week and to make a long story short, Mr. D focused on the micro aspects of the New Deal. Students did a gallery walk reading different accounts on how the New Deal effected (or didn't effect) their lives, they worked on a project related to public works and another on Glass-Steagall. These are all incredibly important aspects of the New Deal era and any interpretation of it would be incomplete without knowledge of these policies and events. However, there was very little done outside of a brief mini-lecture on the macro sense of the New Deal. What it meant, why it was important and how it changed the country. Since it was presented as brief vignettes and concepts, the connection was not made that all of these things were part of what was called the New Deal. So when Mr. D asked his students to come up with a DBQ based on that they were not sure whether the New Deal was one or all of these things. That connection just was not made in class time at all. This to me was a reminder that it's important to remember the objective of the content and that it can change depending on what you're trying to teach. The micro can help make things more real and tangible but history in a macro sense is essential, as well.
In addition to this, R came to meet Mr. D and myself at MHS during Period 8 & 9. The meeting was positive and productive. Things are good and I hope all parties are happy with the current situation.
It was a bit strange today being back in the role of the observer after the past few weeks of designing and teaching my own lessons but today was a good day nonetheless. All US II classes were assigned a two-day project in the computer lab at the school. Essentially, the idea was for students to build their own DBQ in the style of their CRT's. Students had to decide on a question to ask about the New Deal, hopefully one they would genuinely like to research, and find the appropriate documents they could use to support it using online resources like the Library of Congress or the National Archives.
There was, however, a problem with this assignment since I received a variation of, 'Hey, Mr. A -- what's the New Deal?' about 25% of the time in every class. This was disconcerting since Mr. D's classes had been working on New Deal policies for the past week. Some of this could be attributed to students being absent, some students needed only a brief reminder but others seemingly just did not understand what the New Deal was or why they were studying. Here's where I come in with the first criticism of my co-operating teacher and it pains me to do so because I admire him both as a conscientious teacher and as a person. For whatever reason, Mr. D's classes were just not prepared to do this project. I asked him what he had worked on earlier in the week and to make a long story short, Mr. D focused on the micro aspects of the New Deal. Students did a gallery walk reading different accounts on how the New Deal effected (or didn't effect) their lives, they worked on a project related to public works and another on Glass-Steagall. These are all incredibly important aspects of the New Deal era and any interpretation of it would be incomplete without knowledge of these policies and events. However, there was very little done outside of a brief mini-lecture on the macro sense of the New Deal. What it meant, why it was important and how it changed the country. Since it was presented as brief vignettes and concepts, the connection was not made that all of these things were part of what was called the New Deal. So when Mr. D asked his students to come up with a DBQ based on that they were not sure whether the New Deal was one or all of these things. That connection just was not made in class time at all. This to me was a reminder that it's important to remember the objective of the content and that it can change depending on what you're trying to teach. The micro can help make things more real and tangible but history in a macro sense is essential, as well.
In addition to this, R came to meet Mr. D and myself at MHS during Period 8 & 9. The meeting was positive and productive. Things are good and I hope all parties are happy with the current situation.
Lesson Reflections
Post for 12/6
Today's class was useful because it again ended up focusing on the separation and eventually the potential disconnect between our strategies and activities. In a sense, it got us to reflect on the difference between teaching within the vacuum of our plans and the unpolished reality of a classroom, gymnasium or art studio.
What I found interesting for some of us in our group was that planning strategies were wildly different from my own. For example, some of our colleagues were simply given materials for their students' learning activities and asked to facilitate them. Maybe I'm biased but to me this didn't seem like it was the learning experience it could be. While it's useful to stand up in front of a class and practice class management, I think it might be more helpful to practice with materials and plans we've designed ourselves. Because in almost every other situation where we learn from experience, the bad experiences can often teach us more than the good ones upon reflection. That said, I wouldn't say that I crashed and burned with my lessons at all but I recognized where there's room for improvement and what I needed to do in later strategizing sessions. Recognizing shortcomings or earlier blind spots in an ideal world should help the strategizing time become shorter when we distill the basic points of what we would like to teach or know what we should expect from our students.
I also thought that this class session was pretty fun because we got to discuss different aspects of our schools, common issues that come up in different schools and the different challenges our schools face. In a peer review-type process, lesson reflection is seemingly really useful. We get to provide a kind of unvarnished interpretation of our own work, our schools and in return get feedback from bright people trying to work out similar issues in their own reflection. It's a process I'd like to do more of in the future. The workshop model of class work is really useful and can be especially powerful in the process of establishing our own teaching style and ideas.
Today's class was useful because it again ended up focusing on the separation and eventually the potential disconnect between our strategies and activities. In a sense, it got us to reflect on the difference between teaching within the vacuum of our plans and the unpolished reality of a classroom, gymnasium or art studio.
What I found interesting for some of us in our group was that planning strategies were wildly different from my own. For example, some of our colleagues were simply given materials for their students' learning activities and asked to facilitate them. Maybe I'm biased but to me this didn't seem like it was the learning experience it could be. While it's useful to stand up in front of a class and practice class management, I think it might be more helpful to practice with materials and plans we've designed ourselves. Because in almost every other situation where we learn from experience, the bad experiences can often teach us more than the good ones upon reflection. That said, I wouldn't say that I crashed and burned with my lessons at all but I recognized where there's room for improvement and what I needed to do in later strategizing sessions. Recognizing shortcomings or earlier blind spots in an ideal world should help the strategizing time become shorter when we distill the basic points of what we would like to teach or know what we should expect from our students.
I also thought that this class session was pretty fun because we got to discuss different aspects of our schools, common issues that come up in different schools and the different challenges our schools face. In a peer review-type process, lesson reflection is seemingly really useful. We get to provide a kind of unvarnished interpretation of our own work, our schools and in return get feedback from bright people trying to work out similar issues in their own reflection. It's a process I'd like to do more of in the future. The workshop model of class work is really useful and can be especially powerful in the process of establishing our own teaching style and ideas.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Further Reflections on Two Lessons
In this part of my reflection, I'm going to focus a bit more on the students themselves. While I spent a lot of time breaking down my own strategy, thinking process, learning process and shortcomings I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the students themselves.
I think I've mentioned before that MHS is wildly different from any school I've ever attended or even had close experiences with. Because of this unknown quantity, I went into this experience with some trepidation. This has almost entirely been wiped away at this point but while I feel like I have an experience deficit as an instructor, I also have an experience deficit in terms of the students.
To keep my philosophical ideas brief, I think it's good to have high expectations of students. I think it will force me to work harder and hopefully get students to take learning more seriously. That said, I feel like there's a negotiation at MHS between high expectations and realistic expectations that is frankly pretty frustrating for me. While many students work really hard and want to improve I feel like there's a pervasive culture of complacency among many students. Now this might simply be the fact that they're 15-18 years old. I remember doing well in school but at the same time putting in the minimal amount of effort it would take to get a B. So I think it's related that I not only have to have a good answer for "Why are we learning this?" and believe it. That belief needs to come through in every lesson and class. I want and need to teach with urgency. For whatever reason, this mentality gets me psyched up. In short, I feel like I've found a good fit with the challenges presented through this school. However, there are things that truly bother me about this pervasive complacency.
Classroom Behavior: Even if students are assigned a task and asked to participate and stay busy there's a distinct feeling of chaos in almost every class. Maybe it's just that I'm more sensitive to it in the position of teaching but there always seems to be movement, conversation and other general things that act as distractions.
Cell phones & Music: These are everywhere and also what I would consider a major distraction. Despite asking politely or warnings of punishment, students just ignore and text and talk constantly. In addition, lots of students have headphones in all day with music blasting. The common defense of allowing this behavior is "pick your battles." Again, maybe my expectations are too high in relation to reality but this is a non-negotiable for me and drives me absolutely crazy.
Group work: I went to schools that were clique-ish. I really understand the psychology behind it. Sometimes it's a matter of comfort, avoiding conflict or a conflict starter -- however, when put in groups it somehow always worked. We did what we were assigned and moved on with our lives and our particular groups. When I assigned new groups in Mr. D's class for Day 1 you would have thought I had cancelled Christmas. Loud complaints to taunts to outright refusals to work with some people happened in every class. It was truly amazing and concerning considering the fact that these kids live in a very densely populated area. Tolerance and group work does not seem to be something many students value.
Other than these issues, I find the students of MHS to be good kids and capable of a lot more than the status quo. That said, where does the motivation come from? It can't only be the teacher, or the school or the parents. At some point it has to come from the students themselves but I wonder what the best practices are from a teacher in this situation. I feel like I have a very good model in Mr. D but I have high hopes in building a community of learning. Just trying to figure out what to start with.
I think I've mentioned before that MHS is wildly different from any school I've ever attended or even had close experiences with. Because of this unknown quantity, I went into this experience with some trepidation. This has almost entirely been wiped away at this point but while I feel like I have an experience deficit as an instructor, I also have an experience deficit in terms of the students.
To keep my philosophical ideas brief, I think it's good to have high expectations of students. I think it will force me to work harder and hopefully get students to take learning more seriously. That said, I feel like there's a negotiation at MHS between high expectations and realistic expectations that is frankly pretty frustrating for me. While many students work really hard and want to improve I feel like there's a pervasive culture of complacency among many students. Now this might simply be the fact that they're 15-18 years old. I remember doing well in school but at the same time putting in the minimal amount of effort it would take to get a B. So I think it's related that I not only have to have a good answer for "Why are we learning this?" and believe it. That belief needs to come through in every lesson and class. I want and need to teach with urgency. For whatever reason, this mentality gets me psyched up. In short, I feel like I've found a good fit with the challenges presented through this school. However, there are things that truly bother me about this pervasive complacency.
Classroom Behavior: Even if students are assigned a task and asked to participate and stay busy there's a distinct feeling of chaos in almost every class. Maybe it's just that I'm more sensitive to it in the position of teaching but there always seems to be movement, conversation and other general things that act as distractions.
Cell phones & Music: These are everywhere and also what I would consider a major distraction. Despite asking politely or warnings of punishment, students just ignore and text and talk constantly. In addition, lots of students have headphones in all day with music blasting. The common defense of allowing this behavior is "pick your battles." Again, maybe my expectations are too high in relation to reality but this is a non-negotiable for me and drives me absolutely crazy.
Group work: I went to schools that were clique-ish. I really understand the psychology behind it. Sometimes it's a matter of comfort, avoiding conflict or a conflict starter -- however, when put in groups it somehow always worked. We did what we were assigned and moved on with our lives and our particular groups. When I assigned new groups in Mr. D's class for Day 1 you would have thought I had cancelled Christmas. Loud complaints to taunts to outright refusals to work with some people happened in every class. It was truly amazing and concerning considering the fact that these kids live in a very densely populated area. Tolerance and group work does not seem to be something many students value.
Other than these issues, I find the students of MHS to be good kids and capable of a lot more than the status quo. That said, where does the motivation come from? It can't only be the teacher, or the school or the parents. At some point it has to come from the students themselves but I wonder what the best practices are from a teacher in this situation. I feel like I have a very good model in Mr. D but I have high hopes in building a community of learning. Just trying to figure out what to start with.
Pacing & Teachable Moments in Practice
Post for 11/30 & 12/1
For the past 2 days, I have been presenting my own designed lessons and testing them out in the real setting of Mr. D's classroom yet again. Since Mr. D's class was still working on the Great Depression, I decided to focus on two aspects that the class's textbook mentions but without a whole lot of detail. In short, Day 1 was a lesson on the Bonus Army and Day 2 focused on the Dust Bowl. Both lessons ended up in the same format as a pedagogical exercise for me and both seemed to be relatively successful lessons.
For Day 1, I began my design and planning from an objective that aligned with a standard about analysis of the actions and policies of the US Government and how it contributed to the Great Depression. I determined that the lesson should be an evaluation of Hoover's policies toward the Bonus Marchers and how that effected his chances at re-election. This objective would later tie into my DoL but would also direct the design of the learning activity itself. In the strategy process, things were already going more smoothly. After compiling 5 or 6 primary sources, I also wrote a brief introduction to the Bonus Marchers as a Do-Now read and annotate activity. While time consuming, this Do Now was extremely helpful as I would realize on Day 2. The learning activity for the class after the Do Now and a brief "mini-lecture" was for groups to be assigned a document and organize their own ESP (Economic, Social & Political) chart and identifying what aspects of their documents were examples of these. After a class discussion and check for understanding of the documents, students were assigned a DoL that was a brief Open Ended question about how they thought Hoover's treatment of the Bonus Marchers would effect his bid for re-election.
While students seemed to like the class itself, I found later that most of the responses were directly connected to the documents I assigned that particular group and students did not use evidence outside of what they had already been assigned. In addition, pacing was way off yet again because I took time out of the introduction to answer student questions that were pretty relevant and observant. So for Day 2 I had two areas to improve; pacing and macro understanding of a topic beyond an assigned document. Mr. D recommended that I try the same format but to work out the kinks I ran into the first time through.
In order to work on pacing on Day 2 I changed the Do Now from a long reading activity to a brief image reaction writing activity for the Dust Bowl lesson. I still had groups assigned to single documents so I unfortunately did not fix that problem since I was worried I would not have enough time for a gallery walk. Again, the kids reacted well to the documents, asked good questions and generally understood what was going on. However, without a longer introduction or background there were a lot more questions about the content itself outside of the documents. The solution to the pacing problem for Day 2 again became the issue with the pacing problem again since there were so many questions. We were able to spend more time in question and answer about particular documents but this is only useful if a student is listening (I would suspect maybe 60% were). That said, I feel I need to develop a solution or learning activity that gets students to consider all documents or materials.
Again, I feel that the class went alright but I have a lot of room for improvement in some areas. I feel comfortable in front of students and feel like I'm getting closer to a real success every time. It's really a matter of practice in addition to my co-op giving me just enough rope to hang myself with. Frankly, I wouldn't want to have it any other way. Mr. D directs me to the point where I know I'm in the right ballpark but not quite there. As of right now he's letting me make my mistakes but not big enough ones that will set students back. I have a lot of work to do but I'm more confident every time I get out there.
For the past 2 days, I have been presenting my own designed lessons and testing them out in the real setting of Mr. D's classroom yet again. Since Mr. D's class was still working on the Great Depression, I decided to focus on two aspects that the class's textbook mentions but without a whole lot of detail. In short, Day 1 was a lesson on the Bonus Army and Day 2 focused on the Dust Bowl. Both lessons ended up in the same format as a pedagogical exercise for me and both seemed to be relatively successful lessons.
For Day 1, I began my design and planning from an objective that aligned with a standard about analysis of the actions and policies of the US Government and how it contributed to the Great Depression. I determined that the lesson should be an evaluation of Hoover's policies toward the Bonus Marchers and how that effected his chances at re-election. This objective would later tie into my DoL but would also direct the design of the learning activity itself. In the strategy process, things were already going more smoothly. After compiling 5 or 6 primary sources, I also wrote a brief introduction to the Bonus Marchers as a Do-Now read and annotate activity. While time consuming, this Do Now was extremely helpful as I would realize on Day 2. The learning activity for the class after the Do Now and a brief "mini-lecture" was for groups to be assigned a document and organize their own ESP (Economic, Social & Political) chart and identifying what aspects of their documents were examples of these. After a class discussion and check for understanding of the documents, students were assigned a DoL that was a brief Open Ended question about how they thought Hoover's treatment of the Bonus Marchers would effect his bid for re-election.
While students seemed to like the class itself, I found later that most of the responses were directly connected to the documents I assigned that particular group and students did not use evidence outside of what they had already been assigned. In addition, pacing was way off yet again because I took time out of the introduction to answer student questions that were pretty relevant and observant. So for Day 2 I had two areas to improve; pacing and macro understanding of a topic beyond an assigned document. Mr. D recommended that I try the same format but to work out the kinks I ran into the first time through.
In order to work on pacing on Day 2 I changed the Do Now from a long reading activity to a brief image reaction writing activity for the Dust Bowl lesson. I still had groups assigned to single documents so I unfortunately did not fix that problem since I was worried I would not have enough time for a gallery walk. Again, the kids reacted well to the documents, asked good questions and generally understood what was going on. However, without a longer introduction or background there were a lot more questions about the content itself outside of the documents. The solution to the pacing problem for Day 2 again became the issue with the pacing problem again since there were so many questions. We were able to spend more time in question and answer about particular documents but this is only useful if a student is listening (I would suspect maybe 60% were). That said, I feel I need to develop a solution or learning activity that gets students to consider all documents or materials.
Again, I feel that the class went alright but I have a lot of room for improvement in some areas. I feel comfortable in front of students and feel like I'm getting closer to a real success every time. It's really a matter of practice in addition to my co-op giving me just enough rope to hang myself with. Frankly, I wouldn't want to have it any other way. Mr. D directs me to the point where I know I'm in the right ballpark but not quite there. As of right now he's letting me make my mistakes but not big enough ones that will set students back. I have a lot of work to do but I'm more confident every time I get out there.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Pacing & Teachable Moments
Post for 11/29
Much of today was spent revisiting the relationship between strategy and activity so in trying to keep things different, upbeat, useful and exciting (!) I'll focus today on a brief mention we had about pacing. This problem came up in in my lesson last week and will likely come up again in the future so I think it's important to visit it a bit further. So what is pacing? In short, it's running against the clock, moving a lesson along and staying focused, conscientious and present all while directing, facilitating or having students discover whatever is necessary during a learning activity. Personally, I imagine pacing using one of my favorite football analyst malapropisms of "matriculating the ball down the field." While hilarious to me in the context of a football game, it actually makes a bit more sense in terms of pacing in the classroom. In short, pacing is something that is indelibly tied to preparation and even more so to experience.
When in the classroom I feel like I do a very good job hiding my internal concern over an experience deficit for this very reason. Every lesson I teach for several years (and likely throughout my career) will be a new one. Innumerable classes will be my guinea pigs for new lessons, objectives, concepts and ideas I have over the years. My feel for a classroom will get better but for now I'm concerned that my feel for the time it takes to introduce a concept, start an activity, have students complete a DoL and conclude a lesson will be consistently inadequate.
At the same time, I have an enormous amount of confidence in my ability to learn how to handle these sorts of problems over the next few months. With better strategy and more reps in front of a class, I'm sure I'll get a handle on it and develop a more accurate (to use another football term) internal clock while not rushing anything or missing opportunities for teachable moments.
This is slightly off topic but when I hear about teachable moments I always think about one of my favorite teachers I had in high school. I was a Junior in Fall 2001 and like every other Junior at my school I was enrolled in a Theology of Morality class (reminder: All Boys Catholic High School). Early in the school year things were quickly thrown off-kilter after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Throughout that day though, it was business as usual in most of my classes. We did our Physics work and read Crevecoeur in American Lit. Our guess was that it was a directive from our administration to avoid panic. But Morality was different. It was the only class I ever got to watch television in and wasn't excited to do so. The entire period our class was silent and our teacher didn't say a word either. It was definitely one of the weirdest but most appropriate classes I ever had. Much of that year was spent on St. Augustine, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr and the Cardinal Virtues but when the war drums started in the immediate aftermath we read Pacem in Terris and spent weeks talking about Just War and the consequences of violence. I always remembered that because every single one of us was incredibly sad, angry and confused but Mr. G stayed calm, kept us focused and asked us to look at the other end of our anger and the consequences of cavalierly entering wars. We were definitely off script in doing that so early in the year but the time called for it and discussions were intense. In fact, I know for a fact that they resonate with me and others from that class to this day. So while this doesn't relate to pacing directly, I feel like teachable moments sometimes take precedence.
Much of today was spent revisiting the relationship between strategy and activity so in trying to keep things different, upbeat, useful and exciting (!) I'll focus today on a brief mention we had about pacing. This problem came up in in my lesson last week and will likely come up again in the future so I think it's important to visit it a bit further. So what is pacing? In short, it's running against the clock, moving a lesson along and staying focused, conscientious and present all while directing, facilitating or having students discover whatever is necessary during a learning activity. Personally, I imagine pacing using one of my favorite football analyst malapropisms of "matriculating the ball down the field." While hilarious to me in the context of a football game, it actually makes a bit more sense in terms of pacing in the classroom. In short, pacing is something that is indelibly tied to preparation and even more so to experience.
When in the classroom I feel like I do a very good job hiding my internal concern over an experience deficit for this very reason. Every lesson I teach for several years (and likely throughout my career) will be a new one. Innumerable classes will be my guinea pigs for new lessons, objectives, concepts and ideas I have over the years. My feel for a classroom will get better but for now I'm concerned that my feel for the time it takes to introduce a concept, start an activity, have students complete a DoL and conclude a lesson will be consistently inadequate.
At the same time, I have an enormous amount of confidence in my ability to learn how to handle these sorts of problems over the next few months. With better strategy and more reps in front of a class, I'm sure I'll get a handle on it and develop a more accurate (to use another football term) internal clock while not rushing anything or missing opportunities for teachable moments.
This is slightly off topic but when I hear about teachable moments I always think about one of my favorite teachers I had in high school. I was a Junior in Fall 2001 and like every other Junior at my school I was enrolled in a Theology of Morality class (reminder: All Boys Catholic High School). Early in the school year things were quickly thrown off-kilter after the attacks on the World Trade Center. Throughout that day though, it was business as usual in most of my classes. We did our Physics work and read Crevecoeur in American Lit. Our guess was that it was a directive from our administration to avoid panic. But Morality was different. It was the only class I ever got to watch television in and wasn't excited to do so. The entire period our class was silent and our teacher didn't say a word either. It was definitely one of the weirdest but most appropriate classes I ever had. Much of that year was spent on St. Augustine, Max Weber, Reinhold Niebuhr and the Cardinal Virtues but when the war drums started in the immediate aftermath we read Pacem in Terris and spent weeks talking about Just War and the consequences of violence. I always remembered that because every single one of us was incredibly sad, angry and confused but Mr. G stayed calm, kept us focused and asked us to look at the other end of our anger and the consequences of cavalierly entering wars. We were definitely off script in doing that so early in the year but the time called for it and discussions were intense. In fact, I know for a fact that they resonate with me and others from that class to this day. So while this doesn't relate to pacing directly, I feel like teachable moments sometimes take precedence.
Strategy & Activity in Action
Post for 11/23
Today was the day before Thanksgiving break and I taught my first lesson. To provide you with the long and short of it, Mr. D recommended that I use a documentary or other type of media as an organizing conceit for the day. Considering a lot of students would be out of school for the day and that the ones who were in would likely be restless in anticipation of the long weekend, I agreed with his point. He also recommended I design an organizer for students to fill out as they watched the video and so I could check for understanding throughout the video.
Being that Mr. D's US II classes were about to begin a unit on the Great Depression and New Deal, I thought it might be useful to front load and help some of the students get a grasp of some concepts before they started a new unit rather than backtracking over content they had already reviewed. To make a long story short, I began planning from the standards and decided to focus on the initial economic aspects of the Great Depression and to reinforce that the Stock Market Crash of 1929 was not the cause of the Depression but a symptom of larger economic problems looming on the horizon and an event that aggravated a stagnating economy. By deciding that this was the objective, I started to look for the right documentary or video clips on the web. I got lucky in finding one that streamed from PBS' website for its series The American Experience and chose the documentary on the 1929 Crash. The entire documentary from start to finish was an hour and class was 40 minutes minutes. In addition to checking to a brief introduction and checking for understanding, I pared the video down to about 30 minutes of viewing time and chose which sections I would show carefully. In addition, I designed a concept map that at the edges had questions prompting students to identify certain causes of the Crash and at the center, briefly listing some of the effects. With Mr. D's help, I went through about 4 revisions of this concept map before it was ready for prime time.
When the activity itself came, I gave a brief content introduction that reinforced their previous unit on the 1920's and their knowledge of how the stock market works. In addition, I modeled how students would fill out the concept map and made sure they understood before I played the video. After that, the class was largely a success. Students were engaged with the video, asked relevant questions and for the most part filled out their concept maps very well. My main issue with organization was my own pacing and in making modifications for the students that needed them. Mr. D explained that I need to watch the clock and really get a feel for how to pace a class like this, especially one that uses media that is important for completing the learning activity. In addition, he gave me a lot of feedback about the organizer itself. Essentially, in my early drafts the concept map was shaping the way the lesson would go and not the other way around. It was a lesson that was hard learned for me because I literally spent days organizing and planning the concept map only to throw all my initial work at the end for a much simpler model. Strategy needed to dictate the activity, not the other way around. In addition, I got a lesson about conserving paper, as well and was instructed to use the other side of work sheets for something constructive. Say, another organizer (PEDLIGS with key economic and historical terms, for example) that could have been filled out for students at the 'blackbelt' level (Mr. D modifies in terms of 'beginner' to 'blackbelt,' giving students work on this spectrum helps to act as a modification for struggling students and an anchor for those who complete work quickly). Today was a learning experience that was largely successful but a reminder that I have a lot of room for improvement.
Today was the day before Thanksgiving break and I taught my first lesson. To provide you with the long and short of it, Mr. D recommended that I use a documentary or other type of media as an organizing conceit for the day. Considering a lot of students would be out of school for the day and that the ones who were in would likely be restless in anticipation of the long weekend, I agreed with his point. He also recommended I design an organizer for students to fill out as they watched the video and so I could check for understanding throughout the video.
Being that Mr. D's US II classes were about to begin a unit on the Great Depression and New Deal, I thought it might be useful to front load and help some of the students get a grasp of some concepts before they started a new unit rather than backtracking over content they had already reviewed. To make a long story short, I began planning from the standards and decided to focus on the initial economic aspects of the Great Depression and to reinforce that the Stock Market Crash of 1929 was not the cause of the Depression but a symptom of larger economic problems looming on the horizon and an event that aggravated a stagnating economy. By deciding that this was the objective, I started to look for the right documentary or video clips on the web. I got lucky in finding one that streamed from PBS' website for its series The American Experience and chose the documentary on the 1929 Crash. The entire documentary from start to finish was an hour and class was 40 minutes minutes. In addition to checking to a brief introduction and checking for understanding, I pared the video down to about 30 minutes of viewing time and chose which sections I would show carefully. In addition, I designed a concept map that at the edges had questions prompting students to identify certain causes of the Crash and at the center, briefly listing some of the effects. With Mr. D's help, I went through about 4 revisions of this concept map before it was ready for prime time.
When the activity itself came, I gave a brief content introduction that reinforced their previous unit on the 1920's and their knowledge of how the stock market works. In addition, I modeled how students would fill out the concept map and made sure they understood before I played the video. After that, the class was largely a success. Students were engaged with the video, asked relevant questions and for the most part filled out their concept maps very well. My main issue with organization was my own pacing and in making modifications for the students that needed them. Mr. D explained that I need to watch the clock and really get a feel for how to pace a class like this, especially one that uses media that is important for completing the learning activity. In addition, he gave me a lot of feedback about the organizer itself. Essentially, in my early drafts the concept map was shaping the way the lesson would go and not the other way around. It was a lesson that was hard learned for me because I literally spent days organizing and planning the concept map only to throw all my initial work at the end for a much simpler model. Strategy needed to dictate the activity, not the other way around. In addition, I got a lesson about conserving paper, as well and was instructed to use the other side of work sheets for something constructive. Say, another organizer (PEDLIGS with key economic and historical terms, for example) that could have been filled out for students at the 'blackbelt' level (Mr. D modifies in terms of 'beginner' to 'blackbelt,' giving students work on this spectrum helps to act as a modification for struggling students and an anchor for those who complete work quickly). Today was a learning experience that was largely successful but a reminder that I have a lot of room for improvement.
Teaching Strategies vs. Learning Activities
Post for 11/22
At the beginning, I had a bit of trouble differentiating learning activities and teaching strategies. Frankly, I've been trying to blur the line between them enough that I wasn't sure that a differentiation would even be helpful. After some thought though, these are not only different in terms of the stages of the planning process but one is the basis of the other. After some thought this seems obvious but for whatever reason I had difficulty separating them at the start and it felt like a silly argument over semantics. For me, strategies get me thinking more about implementation than planning and it felt like they were different sides of the same coin and they kind of are but in different ways than I originally thought.
What really broke this down for me was thinking of strategies as the 'how.' That is, the main diagnostic and planning stages for the learning activities. It resonated with me mainly since I have been working on designing my own lesson plans to test out in front of a real live class for the first time. I've been lucky to have the guiding help of my co-op during this process but the 'how' and 'why' are problems that have consistently come up to cause me to re-think my plans and revise what I've already done.
What this has taught me in the process is that there can be nothing that's arbitrary in a plan and strategy is the term used to imply this need for order and organization. While activities and assessments can work in concert together and be used to direct student learning, the strategy process is the realm of the teacher. Planning for organization prepares us for the unintended consequences of the chosen activity and can keep us on track. Like much of the theory we read, it's not supposed to be out in the open but in the subtext of our teaching.
At the beginning, I had a bit of trouble differentiating learning activities and teaching strategies. Frankly, I've been trying to blur the line between them enough that I wasn't sure that a differentiation would even be helpful. After some thought though, these are not only different in terms of the stages of the planning process but one is the basis of the other. After some thought this seems obvious but for whatever reason I had difficulty separating them at the start and it felt like a silly argument over semantics. For me, strategies get me thinking more about implementation than planning and it felt like they were different sides of the same coin and they kind of are but in different ways than I originally thought.
What really broke this down for me was thinking of strategies as the 'how.' That is, the main diagnostic and planning stages for the learning activities. It resonated with me mainly since I have been working on designing my own lesson plans to test out in front of a real live class for the first time. I've been lucky to have the guiding help of my co-op during this process but the 'how' and 'why' are problems that have consistently come up to cause me to re-think my plans and revise what I've already done.
What this has taught me in the process is that there can be nothing that's arbitrary in a plan and strategy is the term used to imply this need for order and organization. While activities and assessments can work in concert together and be used to direct student learning, the strategy process is the realm of the teacher. Planning for organization prepares us for the unintended consequences of the chosen activity and can keep us on track. Like much of the theory we read, it's not supposed to be out in the open but in the subtext of our teaching.
Monday, December 5, 2011
UbD Revisited in Fieldwork Too
Post for 11/16
I suspect that this will become a theme. It's not a bad thing -- just a fact. Understanding by Design is one of those things that makes a lot of intuitive sense but is inherently very complicated. I'm very glad to be surrounded by people who seemingly understand it very well and who don't shy away from nuance.
Today was actually a fairly uneventful day of observations and unfortunately do not have any new and exciting adventures to report. However, I used this time to ask Mr. D his thoughts about how he plans, why he plans certain things and the reasoning behind learning activities or Demonstrations of Learning for his students. First of all, I've noticed over the past few weeks that MHS is very regimented in certain areas. Every classroom has to have the lesson outlined in a particular way and have it displayed so that every student can see it (on the board, on a Powerpoint on the Smartboard or elsewhere). The requirements off the top of my head are; objectives (IWBAT), lesson title, lesson outline, standards, Demonstration of Learning and homework. Obviously, not all of these requirements are for the students and only about half pay attention to them in the first place. These, however, are the essential elements needed on a day to day basis at MHS. My first lesson being next week, I asked Mr. D how he starts designing his own lessons. He said he always starts with the standard and builds the objective from that. Once that's been determined then, "the learning activities and DoL's kind of choose themselves." For a veteran teacher I'm sure this is the case but for someone in my position this is more difficult to grasp. Again, to me this is an example of UbD in action. Maybe in a less formal format but with the same grounding in thinking and direction. The objective, essential questions and key purpose and understandings are central and the guiding principle behind the design of any lesson. Especially at MHS and in Mr. D's class.
In asking Mr. D what he wanted me to focus on in my lesson and what he wanted to see from me, he smiled and said something to the effect of, "you're not getting out of it that easily." I suspect Mr. D is providing me just enough rope to hang myself with but for good reasons. Frankly, I can appreciate his position and I think I'll learn more from designing a lesson plan largely on my own anyway. I also got to ask Mr. D about a lot of other terminology that I was unfamiliar with and got to know a lot of students through helping them with their DoL for the day which was to develop their own Main Idea Questions based on secondary source readings. I'm finally starting to learn the majority of their names which I'm ashamed that I hadn't done earlier even with a personal copy of the class rosters.
I'm looking forward to my first lesson next week. Being that it's a short day with shortened periods, Mr. D recommended that I use media as a centerpiece and maybe a graphic organizer. Beyond that, the development is on me. I'm excited but nervous in a good way.
I suspect that this will become a theme. It's not a bad thing -- just a fact. Understanding by Design is one of those things that makes a lot of intuitive sense but is inherently very complicated. I'm very glad to be surrounded by people who seemingly understand it very well and who don't shy away from nuance.
Today was actually a fairly uneventful day of observations and unfortunately do not have any new and exciting adventures to report. However, I used this time to ask Mr. D his thoughts about how he plans, why he plans certain things and the reasoning behind learning activities or Demonstrations of Learning for his students. First of all, I've noticed over the past few weeks that MHS is very regimented in certain areas. Every classroom has to have the lesson outlined in a particular way and have it displayed so that every student can see it (on the board, on a Powerpoint on the Smartboard or elsewhere). The requirements off the top of my head are; objectives (IWBAT), lesson title, lesson outline, standards, Demonstration of Learning and homework. Obviously, not all of these requirements are for the students and only about half pay attention to them in the first place. These, however, are the essential elements needed on a day to day basis at MHS. My first lesson being next week, I asked Mr. D how he starts designing his own lessons. He said he always starts with the standard and builds the objective from that. Once that's been determined then, "the learning activities and DoL's kind of choose themselves." For a veteran teacher I'm sure this is the case but for someone in my position this is more difficult to grasp. Again, to me this is an example of UbD in action. Maybe in a less formal format but with the same grounding in thinking and direction. The objective, essential questions and key purpose and understandings are central and the guiding principle behind the design of any lesson. Especially at MHS and in Mr. D's class.
In asking Mr. D what he wanted me to focus on in my lesson and what he wanted to see from me, he smiled and said something to the effect of, "you're not getting out of it that easily." I suspect Mr. D is providing me just enough rope to hang myself with but for good reasons. Frankly, I can appreciate his position and I think I'll learn more from designing a lesson plan largely on my own anyway. I also got to ask Mr. D about a lot of other terminology that I was unfamiliar with and got to know a lot of students through helping them with their DoL for the day which was to develop their own Main Idea Questions based on secondary source readings. I'm finally starting to learn the majority of their names which I'm ashamed that I hadn't done earlier even with a personal copy of the class rosters.
I'm looking forward to my first lesson next week. Being that it's a short day with shortened periods, Mr. D recommended that I use media as a centerpiece and maybe a graphic organizer. Beyond that, the development is on me. I'm excited but nervous in a good way.
Understanding by Design Revisited
Post for 11/15
We discussed a lot of things in today's class. Among them; classroom management by means of Google docs & forms, mental preparation for a future lesson study and a lot of discussion about what to expect in relation to student teaching and our first year on the job. However, I think a class that focused on general housekeeping was really useful for me this week. Reviews and reminders often help me clarify my own thoughts and distill initially jumbled ideas into something more coherent later on.
We spent another day largely talking about Understanding by Design and particularly spending a good amount of time on Assessment. I will avoid rehashing and regurgitating what we discussed in class but will instead focus on how I find UbD helps me in my own preparations as a novice teacher. As I said, I have a tendency to think too quickly and get ahead of myself before a more articulate thought can catch up. By using UbD in my practice lesson plans, it provides a format and useful procedure to follow to narrow down what is important. It's simply a matter of discipline and avoiding the arbitrary in our preparations. I could randomly choose a performance task for students to complete easily, but what does it accomplish? Where did it come from and what is the endgame? It helps having UbD as a mindset and framework for self-discipline. That said, when working in a real environment with real students it will be even more important to have a rational framework as a basis. Not to keep plans rigid and unwavering but instead to have a grounding in purpose and thus a direction if improvisation is necessary. I'm not sure if I'm right here but it's what I'm thinking about right now, at least.
We discussed a lot of things in today's class. Among them; classroom management by means of Google docs & forms, mental preparation for a future lesson study and a lot of discussion about what to expect in relation to student teaching and our first year on the job. However, I think a class that focused on general housekeeping was really useful for me this week. Reviews and reminders often help me clarify my own thoughts and distill initially jumbled ideas into something more coherent later on.
We spent another day largely talking about Understanding by Design and particularly spending a good amount of time on Assessment. I will avoid rehashing and regurgitating what we discussed in class but will instead focus on how I find UbD helps me in my own preparations as a novice teacher. As I said, I have a tendency to think too quickly and get ahead of myself before a more articulate thought can catch up. By using UbD in my practice lesson plans, it provides a format and useful procedure to follow to narrow down what is important. It's simply a matter of discipline and avoiding the arbitrary in our preparations. I could randomly choose a performance task for students to complete easily, but what does it accomplish? Where did it come from and what is the endgame? It helps having UbD as a mindset and framework for self-discipline. That said, when working in a real environment with real students it will be even more important to have a rational framework as a basis. Not to keep plans rigid and unwavering but instead to have a grounding in purpose and thus a direction if improvisation is necessary. I'm not sure if I'm right here but it's what I'm thinking about right now, at least.
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