Congratulations to Karen Rose and her 3rd grade class from the Melissa, Texas. Selected by attendees at the 2009 National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) as "Best Picture" from among digital shorts produced and edited by students and teachers from across the country.
Motivating Students – A Make and Take Workshop for Teachers
This week I head back to Edison School of Engineering & Manufacturing, to conduct a two day follow up workshop. Our previous work together identified four target areas:
- Motivating students
- Making learning relevant
- Student-centered learning strategies
- Effective use of technology
We are going to start by modeling a “Brainstorm, Group, Label” activity (See Tool 13). It will also set our agenda for the “make and take activities” of the workshop. Day two begins by modeling a “Fishbowl Discussion Group” on the topic of effective next steps. We’ll use the ideas generated in the fishbowl to design a Strategic Planning Grid (below) to prioritize their staff development for the fall.
Most of our time over the two days will be spent assisting teachers in designing specific lessons. I’ve assembled some Literacy Strategies that teachers can use as starting points for modify their existing lessons.
“Non-readers” for students who lack decoding skills.
“Word-callers” for students who can decode, but lack comprehension skills.
“Turned-off readers” for students who have the decoding and comprehension skills, but lack motivation or engagement.
I’ll also be showcasing some web tools that are very engaging for students.
Wordle (text analysis)
Many Eyes (data and text visualizations)
Prezi (presentation tool)
Dipity (timeline builder)
Bubbl.us (brainstorming)
Flickr Tag Related Tag Browser (image tag analysis)
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Engage Student Discussion: Use the Social Network in Your Classroom
social media
Watch a typical whole group discussion in the classroom and you’ll most likely see a “hub / spokes” flow of information. Teacher to student A and back to teacher. Teacher to student B and back to teacher. So it goes as the “bluebirds” get to show how smart they are. Over time, students learn that their comments are of provisional value until “approved” by the teacher. That’s because in this style of discussion the teacher is most likely searching for specific replies – sort of playing “guess what I’m thinking” with the “best” students in the class.
Students tend not to listen to each other and only focus on what the teacher says or validates – “will that be up on a test?” When students are put in small group discussion, they rapidly get off subject. With no teacher to validate their comments, they naturally gravitate to other subjects where peer comments are valued – “what are you doing this weekend?” Often teachers then conclude that small group discussion doesn’t work.
In my workshops I train teachers in discussion techniques that foster student reflection and interaction. The strategies are focused on getting the teacher out of the role of information gatekeeper and encouraging student-centered dialogue.
With practice, teachers find that students are eager to engage and participate. We know they want to contribute, because outside the classroom, students are flocking to social networks to share their thinking with one another. It’s unfortunate that our students can’t be part of the (offline) social network sitting beside them in class.
While students don’t need classroom computers to be part of an engaging discussion, technology can be a catalyst to foster engagement. I was interested to see the following video of The Twitter Experiment – Bring Twitter to the Classroom at UT Dallas.
“UT Dallas History Professor Dr. Monica Rankin, wanted to know how she could reach and include more students in the class discussion. She had heard of Twitter… The following is a short video describing her “Twitter Experiment” in the classroom with comments from students about the pros and cons of Twitter in a traditional learning environment.” (Filmed by UT grad student kesmit3.) Link to notes on the experiment.
BTW – I found this video via my Twitter network. Follow @monicarankin @kesmit3
Image credit flickr/Choconancy1
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Physics Department Innovates with Student-Centered Approach
There's an interesting piece in the New York Times "At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard" (1/13/09) that details an effort by the MIT physics department to move to a more student-centered, interactive approach to instruction. Physics is not simply a body of knowledge. It's a way of thinking, asking questions and discovering answers.
At M.I.T., two introductory courses are still required — classical mechanics and electromagnetism — but today they meet in high-tech classrooms, where about 80 students sit at 13 round tables equipped with networked computers.
Instead of blackboards, the walls are covered with white boards and huge display screens. Circulating with a team of teaching assistants, the professor makes brief presentations of general principles and engages the students as they work out related concepts in small groups.
Teachers and students conduct experiments together. The room buzzes. Conferring with tablemates, calling out questions and jumping up to write formulas on the white boards are all encouraged.
“There was a long tradition that what it meant to teach was to give a really well-prepared lecture,” said Peter Dourmashkin, a senior lecturer in physics at M.I.T. and a strong proponent of the new method. “It was the students’ job to figure it out.”
The problem, say Dr. Dourmashkin and others in the department, is that a lot of students had trouble doing that. The failure rate for those lecture courses, even those taught by the most mesmerizing teachers, was typically 10 percent to 12 percent. Now, it has dropped to 4 percent.
… The traditional 50-minute lecture was geared more toward physics majors, said Eric Mazur, a physicist at Harvard who is a pioneer of the new approach, and whose work has influenced the change at M.I.T.
“The people who wanted to understand,” Professor Mazur said, “had the discipline, the urge, to sit down afterwards and say, ‘Let me figure this out.’ ” But for the majority, he said, a different approach is needed.
“Just as you can’t become a marathon runner by watching marathons on TV,” Professor Mazur said, “likewise for science, you have to go through the thought processes of doing science and not just watch your instructor do it.”
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Visual Literacy: How Do Your Students Share Their Thinking?
The perceived audience / purpose for most student work is the teacher / because it was assigned. Learning becomes more meaningful when students are given chances to share their thinking with more authenticity. It's as simple as adding an audience to an assignment. Example: "How would you explain your solution to younger students?" This also opens the door to more relevant self evaluation. "Did my presentation suit my audience and purpose?"
Visual literacy is the ability to evaluate, apply, or create conceptual visual representations. Visual-Literacy.org has assembled a collection of visualizations in as a periodic table. Mouse over each element and a sample pops up. The examples range from simple to complex and they provide a vast array of approaches beyond the overused Venn diagram or T-chart.
A pdf of the table is also available. On another page you can group the visualization methods by your criteria and find background information for a specific visualization method via Google Images and Wikipedia
