A Rewarding and Demanding Lesson

By Kristen Gierman

Historical documents are tricky.  They are full of baggage.  Historical context.  Higher level vocabulary.  Perspective.  Author’s purpose.  You name it, they are HARD to digest.  But that is no reason to shy away from them in the classroom.  In fact, I sit here writing this blog because challenging my students to break down arguably the most difficult document they have seen thus far culminated in one of the most demanding yet rewarding lessons of the school year.

As my world history classes focus on the rise and fall of governments during the time period after World War I, we turned our attention to the Middle East.  What happened to the region after the Ottoman Empire came crashing down?  What role did the League of Nations play? How might this impact the region today?  These are all questions I wanted my students to consider, however, I did not want to simply answer that for them.  Instead, I wanted to release this responsibility of learning to the students.

This took some careful planning and pre-reading strategies to make it all come together.  To start the lesson, students were teamed up and competed in a Quizlet Live that included eight “difficult” terms they might not know or might not have ever seen yet would encounter during the course of the period.  Words like sovereignty, tutelage, and mandate are no walk in the park for any sophomore.  However, allowing students to work together to gain some familiarity with the terms shifted the conversation from “I have no idea what these mean” to eventually building some confidence in what used to be unknown or unrecognizable.  

After creating a historical context for the lesson, the students worked to decipher the potential meaning of the political cartoon seen below.

The claims produced by the students echoed the criticisms of the League of Nations’ decisions and ultimately set the stage for the Big Kahuna of this entire lesson...analyzing and understanding the language of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.  

For anyone, this would appear a daunting task but the students got after it!!  After modeling some word substitution thanks to the help of the Quizlet, the students worked with their partners to take each sentence and put it in words they could understand.  Not only did they strive to complete this challenge but I found them more engaged in the process and seeking my feedback to confirm their understanding of the text.  

I even laughed a bit as students, who regularly do not want to do work, busted it to prove to me that they were “Ivy League” material….only to conclude class by announcing their future attendance at Stanford University. :)

All jokes aside, it was rewarding to see the students grapple with their understanding of a document that was arguably “out of their reach.”  I am confident that they can make an argument as to why the mandates were created in the Middle East by the League of Nations and I look forward to the next step of the process where they connect these concepts to the rise of independence movements in the region.

#214EdPrep: Spark Sessions on Grouping Strategies & Using Manipulatives

This is the sixth in a series of blog posts discussing the collaboration of the Collab Lab and our EG Ed Prep students.  Please follow along on our journey using the hashtag #214EdPrep or clicking on the label #214EdPrep in the word cloud!

In continuation of our Spark Sessions (read more here and here) with our District 214 Ed Prep students, Kim Miklusak and Mark Heintz presented different methods of grouping students and how to use manipulatives to activate prior knowledge.

Spark Session #5: Learning Various Grouping Strategies from Mrs. Miklusak

Kim passed out a worksheet of the various grouping strategies with each group, who, as it turns out, were all set up in self-selected groups.  

She walked the students through each type of grouping style, describing the definition of each and making connections to times in other classes that the students would have participated in such groups.  They briefly discussed the positives and negatives to each type of group so that the students would be able to apply different strategies depending on what lessons they are using with their own students in the coming weeks.

Spark Session #6:  Using Manipulatives to Build Background Knowledge with Mr. Heintz

Mark passed out envelopes to each group.  He had both big and little rectangles cut out in each envelope.  First, he had students look at the big rectangles.  There are words and definitions on various edges of the rectangles, and students are to match them up to eventually form a large rectangle.  Students worked through to match the words with the proper definition.  Then, he discussed other uses of this activity, as well as discussing methods to make this more differentiated (i.e.: providing different students with different "cubes", adding distractors to the outside rectangles, adding a time constraint, etc.)

Next, he had students move to a new group, creating groups of 3-4 consisting of no students from their original table.  They now were going to play an activity called "Word Grab" using the small rectangle pieces from the envelopes.  For this game, he says a definition, and the students have to grab the correct word.  Each word was a reason to use the activity.  For instance a few of the words were background knowledge, prior learning, and movement. 

Mark and Kim ended the session by looping back to Kim's lesson to show the class how they used different student grouping strategies to complete Mark's lesson!

Social Media
Following the Spark Sessions, Linda Ashida reminded students about the benefits of using social media for professional learning as well as reflection.  She also showcased Hannah Irizarri's blog post, in which she shares how she used a strategy from last week's Spark Sessions in her own field placement.


More blog posts to come.  Follow #214EdPrep and @EGCollabLab for more!

Using Schoology and Locks

By Mark Heintz

Document based questions (DBQs) are a crucial part of history.  Yet, they are incredibly difficult and do not foster a lot of student movement in a fifty minute class period. Students get very frustrated with them and often move too quickly through a document.  Students often don't spend enough time on the source information, word choice, point of view of the author, tone of the document, and the evidence they would use from each document.  I wanted a way to slow students down when working through a document based question.  To have the students focus where I wanted them, I created a quiz for each document covering those topics. In the quiz, I dedicated each question to one of those topics. I should note that this was the first full DBQ that they did.

In Schoology, I set the limit a student could take each quiz to two attempts.  I wanted them to ask me questions if they could not complete it in two tries.  This allowed some students to move forward because they understood each document while students who needed my help received it.  

To incorporate movement, I only gave each student the first document on paper.  They had to "pass" the quiz to unlock a Schoology page that revealed a three or four digit code on it.

Then students had to get out of their seats, go movement during a DBQ!, and put the three or four digit code into a folder with a lock on it.  Inside the locked folder was the document they just took the quiz on completely written out.  The written response used all of the information that they just took a quiz on.  The other item in the folder was the next document so they could take the next quiz. 

By the end, students were moving around the room acquiring all the documents and understandings. It was very cool to see the students talking so much about the documents and allowing students to move at their own pace.  

As a reflection, I would not use all the documents again. It was great practice, but it took too much time to have students go through all nine documents. The whole process took about three class days. I wanted the students to write out the entire essay at the end to show how it all fit together, but the process of taking each quiz for each document took too much time.  Also, the locks were very motivating the first day, but by the third, it had been played out.  I think I could use this tactic again but in a more time sensitive way.

What's the purpose of warm-ups?

By: Rachel Barry

I start off class everyday with a warm-up.  The only exception to this is a day we have an assessment that may take the whole class period.  Many days I hear groans from students, complaining when I ask them to begin the designated warm-up for the day.

This year, I have a student who is very vocal about the dislike of a warm-up.  She eventually started asking why she has to do a warm-up if she's doing all the necessary work for the course.  The best line she said to me was "Why do I need to do this, if it's not going in the gradebook?"

Ah ha!  This hit a nerve with me.  In big picture terms, I am working to transition my students away from grades-based learning into mastery learning.  This comment felt like a giant leap back for me, but this idea is a whole other blog post in itself.  In small picture terms, I realized that I hadn't provided my students with the proper reasoning of why I ask them to complete a warm-up every day, and how my explanation of this could really change their attitudes while working on a warm-up.

In response to this student, I used an analogy.  Ironically, I had this student on the cross-country team that I help coach in the fall.  I asked her, "Would I have you run a race without ever having practiced before?"  She responded, "No."  Then, I asked her, "Would you race well without a warm-up run, some movement stretches, and loosening up your muscles and joints?" to which she responded ,"No", again.  At this point, she started to see my point.  I discussed with my students how my class mimics most of the activities they enjoy (sports, band, choir, dance, etc), and how it wouldn't be fair to me to expect them to jump right into content without pulling in prior knowledge.  Since the discussion, it seems that there is more "buy-in" during warm-up time with my students.

To fellow teachers and administrators, I have a bit more to elaborate on my reasoning for warm-ups (besides that this has been said to be "best practice", and I was told to in my first year of teaching...).  The truth is, the warm-up determines my instructional practices for the day.  This is especially important since I have switched to an individualized curriculum.  Students are working at different paces and subsequently on different math problems, so warm-ups provide a formative check for me to know who I need to spend more time with that day.  This then drives the purpose for the class: whether I need to address common mistakes with the class as a whole, if I need to touch base with students in small groups, or maybe I will be working with students on a more 1-on-1 basis.

Another great aspect of warm-ups are that they allow for students to "settle into class".  This provides students with the time necessary to change gears from their prior classs, ease their mind of what may have occurred during the passing period or the night before, and get ready to learn some math!

Orchestra Observation

By Mark Heintz

I recently observed Maura Brown and her orchestra class.  It was amazing!

Maura told me that her starting routine is common practice amongst almost all orchestras around the globe, but it was still inspiring.  The first few minutes of class were spent having students readying themselves.  Students fine-tuned their instruments as they changed their state to be ready for the lesson.  Finally, a student leader stood up and directed the entire orchestra.  It was incredible to see such student ownership over the readiness of the class. Ever since witnessing her starting routine, I have been puzzling out how to adapt my instruction to mimic hers. I wish I had the courage to begin my class the way she did.

The lesson focused on two goals.  One pertained to the introduction of learning a new scale. The second was to build background knowledge for an upcoming piece of music.

To accomplish the first goal, Maura gave the students the new scale and they practiced as a whole class. Then, the students split up into elbow partners, people right next them, to watch, listen, and provide feedback.  The feedback each student was supposed to be on the proficiency of their peers ability to perform the scale.  The students gave this feedback orally.  They took turns and after the first listened, the students provided feedback to their partner.   Maura realized they needed specific guidance in the way to provide feedback. She augmented her instruction by redirecting the class to provide a specific piece of feedback from a list of three choices.

It was great to see formative assessment in action AND actually see how changed instruction! It was great!

The second part of the lesson centered around students reading about Faust and then watching the opera music they were about to perform.  After the students read about Faust and the opera, they posted to a Schoology discussion blog.  Maura attempted and was successful in getting students to feel the emotion in the music they were about to play.  It was great to see the power of building background knoweldge in helping students play a piece of music with greater passion and emotion.  

Building Background: IF IT WERE MY HOME

By Mark Heintz

This post is on the power of building background knowledge through the use of the website: If It Were My Home.

I stumbled across the website if it were my home while I was creating a pre-reading activity.  In my creation of the activity, I attempted to find a map that compared the size of Taiwan to the United States.  The website allows the user to select a home country, which can be changed, and another  country to compare.  Once the countries are selected, the website overlays the second country selected over the home country.  The user can even input a zip code for more precise comparison.  here is Taiwan over Chicago.

 

The website is very easy to use and provides a great visual for easy comparison. Furthermore, the website provides comparison data as if Taiwan or whatever country were your home.

The data can be expanded by clicking the drop-down menu on the right-hand side.  Another great note about the website is all of the information is cited! Most of the information on the site is pulled from the CIA World Factbook.  It is so easy to access a lot of information about a country and relates it to the users home country, easily building background knowledge.

At the bottom of the page, there is a brief overview of the country selected and the website provides a list of books for further exploration! 

With this website, it is so easy to build students background knowledge of a less familiar country. I continue to use this because of the great visuals and plethora of statistics.  

Worth the Time

By Mark Heintz

The more I teach, the longer it takes me to get through the material.  In my first few years of teaching, I focused on completing activities. Let me emphasize the past sentence, I focused on completing activities.  I would lead the classroom and just get through the material.  If I was writing things on the board and students were packing up with a minute to go, I would still teach. Furthermore, I would continue to write down things for the students to complete a worksheet if the bell was about to ring.  I taught bell to bell.  I was a good teacher.  

An activity that used to take ten minutes, might take an entire period now. This is mainly because I actually teach the concept and/or skill.  I spend more time building or activating background knowledge, movement activities, writing, reading, allowing all students a voice, and ensuring all students have an understanding.  It takes more time because I am not as concerned about the teaching as I am the student learning that takes place. 

For example, look at the image below. For the activity below, I would model the first one with whole class instruction. Then I would have the class try the second one.  Finally, I would walk around the room and help students with the rest. If they didn't finish them, I would just tell them the answer at the end.  To get through ten statements, it would take about ten minutes.  

Now it takes me the whole period. I mostly do the same process.  But instead of me leading the completed task, I have students AirPlay their attempts and defend it. I still walk around and help students as they attempt it. But I am also looking for students responses that will help guide the class. As I talk to students and help them, I look for misconceptions and understanding that will benefit the whole class.  As they AirPlay, I make them defend their answer to the whole class. This a time-consuming process, but it allows the students to really show the understanding.  Although we might not get through as much in a day, what we do get through is incredibly powerful.

                       

Peer Observation: Round 2 (Post 4/4)

Period 7
We had two visitors join us this period: Cliff Darnall and Courtney Lavand.  Though unplanned, the theme of our Period 7 observations was activating background knowledge.  In both Lindsey Bucciarelli's Human Geography class and Señora Carmen Ruiz-Bergman's AP Spanish class, we observed numerous methods of brainstorming to initiate discussions.

In Human Geography, we saw students developing lists in Notability of why people migrate.  There are the "Pushes" and "Pulls" of why people leave home or come to a desired land/country.  Students also took a matching quiz on Schoology to ensure student understanding of these various push/pull factors.  Then, students watched a 5 minute video clip summarizing the situation in Syria.  After the video, students were going to work on a Jigsaw in pairs to explore the different elements of migration.

        

In AP Spanish, we observed students exploring the facts of Halloween vs. Día de los muertos.  Students were watching a video describing some of the rituals of both celebrations and then were going to write a persuasive essay where they had to choose one day to celebrate.  

Following the observations, we discussed the different methods both teachers used to activate students' background knowledge on the subject manners.  We also talked about the use of Schoology and Notability to record (both written and verbal) student learning.

Period 8
Matt Bohnenkamp joined our group for observing Sr. Burrier-Sanchis and Lindsey Bucciarelli.  

In Sr. Burrier-Sanchis's AP Spanish Literature class, they were discussing the novel Into the Beautiful North.  Students were discussing various adjectives that they could use to describe the novel.  Following the quick discussion in pairs, Sr. Burrier-Sanchis showed students the website wordreference.com to use as a thesaurus for multiple languages.  

Observations in both classes sparked great brainstorming sessions about scaffolding and other connections on the CollabLab's dry erase wall!  Stop on down to check it out and add more ideas!

Peer Observation: Round 2 (Post 3/4)

Period 5

Christina Barnum invited us into her freshmen biology class.  They used Socrative as a self-assessment tool before starting a lab.  Socrative engaged the students because it provided instant feedback on content that would be needed to complete the lab.  

Period 6
Carmen Ruiz-Bergman invited us into her AP Spanish class.  They were discussing and learning about the commonalities and differences between Halloween and Dia de los muertos.  Students had studied the traditions of Día de los Muertos, but did not really know the history behind Halloween. Therefore they were asked to research and record their findings in Notability in order to write a cultural comparison between the target culture and their community.  Some of the pieces they looked at were:

       

A.  la historia

B.  la corrida

C.  la tumba / los cementerios

D.  "Trick or Treat"

E.  Tradiciones

F.  Etc.