Looking to embed social comprehension in your classroom? Book Rec: Being the Change

By Kim Miklusak

This year and last I have been helping to facilitate formal and informal conversations between teachers, with students--and LED by students--about how we can work to embed social comprehension in our classrooms.  That wasn't what we called it at the time, but we discussed how in the classroom teachers and students can...

• honor people's identities
• respect and/or discuss differences of belief and experiences
• have difficult conversations in the classroom
• build community in the classroom and broader school

I just finished reading Being the Change by Sara K. Ahmed, and I wish I had had this resource earlier!  I highly recommend it for anyone looking to embed socio-emotional/affective processing in their classroom in addition to doing any identity and community mindset and practices.

Each chapter covers topics such as "Placing Ourselves in the World," "Listening with Love," "Seeing Our Bias," and "Moving Beyond Our Initial Thinking" among others.  Ahmed sets the context for the book in the preface and at the start of each chapter.  She discusses her own personal experiences but then also makes connections to the broader world and current events.

Inside each chapter she provides clear steps--including a script if one were interested in it!  She provides a list of links and resources to partner texts to help push students' thinking.  Additionally, she provides images of models of work from her class as well as conversations with students and their experiences.

Ideally, each one of these chapters and lessons build on the previous.  However, it is possible to gain insight through individual chapters.  For example, if you've done identity map work in your class before, she speaks in the book (and if you get a chance to see her at a conference!) about how to layer this activity into your lessons all year in order to enhance learning for individuals and the class as a whole instead of having stand-alone activities.

Student Moments: Christian Paeng

By Mark Heintz

Most moments each day are forgotten. Even though there are great, little moments each day, they affect us, then pass us by.  They are not impactful enough to hold on to; therefore, we as humans tend to forget these great, little moments.  Life is made up of these moments and I want to capture some of them to change my perspective as an educator to the daily moments with students, instead of just the few momentous ones.  To accomplish this goal, I asked my students if I could write and share one moment of each of them. My hope is if I stop to record a brief moment about them, I would reflect on those great, little moments each day.  I want to build a recorded history of my students and my time with them.  Here is one student and one moment.

Christian Paeng: January 2018

Christian Paeng is an affable, funny student.  I always enjoy his presence, even when his humor is not completely directly related to the task at hand.  He is lively and engaging. He ensures that class will never be dull.  Last week, he took a content knowledge quiz on the Atlantic Revolutions.  It was a basic, do you know your stuff quiz.  Christian memorized, for it was just a memorization quiz, all of the content questions except for one.  I marked it wrong on his quiz and handed it back to him.   He quickly came up and said I made a mistake and quickly reasoned with me why his answer was correct.  I was so proud of him and his growth as a student and his ability to advocate for his intellectual expertise.  It was a nice moment and I wanted to capture it.

A New Angle to an Old Problem: work ethic & motivation

By Kim Miklusak

Motivation and work ethic are two common phrases uttered by teachers at times, usually in a negative way: Why don't students care about this?  Why do they wait until the last minute?  Why won't they get off their phones?  And there are definitely so many reasons to discuss and improve intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation, learning targets, assessment practices for us as educators, and so on.

But one thing I've also been trying lately in my classes is to re-frame how I speak with students who aren't "on task."  Instead of walking around and saying "get to work" and "why aren't you working," I'm asking them, "What can I do to help you be successful?" or sometimes "Under what conditions can I help you demonstrate what you are able to do?"  I remember our principal using a similar question once in terms of working with staff, and I thought, this may work with students as well--not all the time, of course.  Sometimes students just need to get to work. 

However, sometimes we need to change the conditions under which they are working to make them more successful.  That could mean letting them sit outside the classroom door or on the floor.  That could mean letting them put headphones in to take away distractions--or whatever best fits your students, your environment, and your subject.  Additionally, this re-phrasing makes the conversation less antagonistic, which can help to alleviate any tension or frustration.  Students may be more willing to say they don't understand something or need a handout they are missing if we aren't coming off as aggressive and frustrated.  I have found this with my group of seniors and our most recent essay.

In the end the outcome may be the same no matter how we phrase it, but I've found some more unwilling students actually open up and say what they need to work on--again, not always, and not all students--but perhaps more than I would have in the past.

Students Giving Teachers Feedback

By Mark Heintz

Elk Grove High School teachers have engaged in peer observation groups (POGs) for the past seven years.  Being a part of a POG has been invaluable and one of the most influential forces behind my teaching.  For most of that time, the groups have tried a variety of ways to get students involved in the process.  In December, I wanted to expand that effort to directly asking students for feedback on some of the changes I implemented throughout November and December.  I wanted one lesson to be a common talking point for everyone.  To guide this process, Rachel Barry came into my class to observe a lesson.  Later in the day, she facilitated a discussion, in the Collab Lab, with the three students from the class and me.*

The process was amazing! I sat and wrote as much of what they were saying as quickly as I could.  I tried not to talk and allow them to give feedback on my teaching.  Rachel asked the students guiding questions.  She was instrumental in serving as a neutral, non-judgemental facilitator.  One of the key takeaways was to go slower.  Sometimes I will use four or five documents and the class is confused on the first one.  I tend to cram more into a lesson, because more always feels better in an AP class when time is scarce.  After the discussion, I modified the lesson for the next day with the focus narrowed and only used two documents.  

At the end of the next day's lesson, the three students noticed the change and were grateful that their feedback was used.   I have used the student feedback of less is more as a mantra as a I continue to plan out the rest of the year. Two of the students did a write up that I think was worth sharing and hopefully will inspire you to do something similar.  

Student #1

Anyways, in general I'd say my experience with our little get together was positive. Being able to converse with you and Ms. Barry in a smaller environment allowed me to talk more and say things I most likely wouldn't have shared in our normal classroom setting. For other more shy students this would absolutely be a great opportunity to get feedback from people you normally wouldn't. Plus on your end I would bet it is nice to see how people are understanding your lessons and if they are able to not only apply the information we were taught, but talk about it and the bigger picture. And I also liked how you asked us how you can be a better teacher and how we might learn this information better. That is something that shows us students our teachers care about our education. Though to be honest some students may feel intimidated by how it was just like 5 people in a room, but I don't think this will be much of a problem for our class at least. Anyways, hopefully you got something out this email and I'll be seeing your tomorrow

Student #2

My experience in the collab lab with Mr.Heintz and Ms.Barry was good. Were were allowed to express our feelings about AP. It was one of the very few opportunities we were allowed to speak for the whole class and ourselves. We all said the good and bad things about the lesson. What I liked about the whole experience was Mr. Heintz was open minded to our suggestions about how he could make the lessons in class easier for us so we can understand the content and how to write better without getting confused. The next day Mr.Heintz took our suggestions and the lesson was a lot better, and even some of my friends said "that lesson today wasn't that bad" "I think i finally learned something." I think Mr.Heintz and Ms.Barry shouldn't only ask us, but ask the whole class about suggestions and how they can implement that into a lesson.

*The students were selected based off their availability during the day.    

Keeping Students Engaged After the AP Test

By: Dan Saken

There is such a feeling of finality once students take the AP test in a given class, for both students and teachers.  So how do you convince students to stay bought in and engaged for the month or so left of school that follows AP testing?  MOVIES!!!!.....just kidding (mostly).  Showing movies are great to allow students to decompress from the work that went into preparing for the test (I showed 2 of them in class).  But I noticed that most students were looking at their phone screens more than the movie screen by Movie #2.   While the students may say all they want to do is watch movies, it seemed that my students secretly were yearning for something that required them to do more than just have a pulse. 

My experience and what worked in my class is probably quite different than other classes because:

     a)    AP Psych has a majority of seniors, which is a different kind of beast (battling senioritis, students absent for other AP tests or activities, etc.)

     b)   Our AP test is the first day of AP week, so we have more time following the test than others may

I did a few other things in the first couple of weeks after the test with surveys, reflections, letters, etc., but I took the second-to-last week for seniors and decided to make it an “Activity Week.”  Besides the obvious idea of having fun, it was also important to me that the activities still connected to Psychology in some way.  It was also important that each activity be something that could be done in one day; a “quick-hitter” that held their attention just long enough before the interest wore off.  Here is what the week looked like (and I’ll attempt to hold back on the Psych jargon):

Monday – The Depth Perception Experiment

We do a unit on Sensation & Perception that includes how we perceive our world using depth perception from both eyes or just one eye, so this fit perfectly.  The great thing about this activity was the weather cooperated and we could do the experiment outside.  Students got in teams of 3-4 to conduct an experiment on a person’s ability to catch a tennis ball with one hand (Thanks PE department!)  They were thrown the ball 10 times with both eyes open, then 10 times with only one eye open and were asked to record the data.  The students were very competitive, wanting to do well and genuinely seemed to enjoy the process.  In our debriefing once everyone was done, we were able to calculate the mean, median, and mode, discuss the independent and dependent variables, brainstorm possible confounding variables, and more ideas that directly pertain to the Psych material we learned.  And they definitely learned that it is much easier to catch a ball coming at you with both eyes tracking the ball.

Tuesday – The Quotes Project

We once again took advantage of the weather outside because the project could be done from anywhere that had Wi-Fi.  Each student chose a famous psychologist we covered in class to create a single slide/poster with a picture, dates of life, perspective in psychology, and a quote from him or her.  I did make it worth points, though not enough to make much difference on their grade and said they would present it to the class on Thursday.  I attempted to motivate them even more by saying if their slide was excellent, I planned on making a poster from it to hang in my room next year and I’d place their name under it. Presentations on Thursday!

Wednesday – The Marshmallow Challenge

Students were placed in teams of 4-5 people to compete in a teambuilding activity that focused on their ability to be creative and use divergent thinking.  They were given spaghetti, tape, string, a marshmallow and 18 minutes to build the tallest structure possible that could stand on its own with the marshmallow on top (and create a team name).  Once again, I found the students incredibly engaged and working together to find solutions to this admittedly silly challenge while still being able to connect the lessons from the activity to psychological concepts.

Thursday – Quotes Project Presentations

Students were given the floor to project their slide up on the screen for the class to see and present their psychologist and his or her quote.  I obtained some phenomenal, poster-worthy material that I will definitely be putting up in my room and every student in class got their moment in the spotlight (whether they wanted it or not), receiving a one-clap from the class for their efforts.  Only 3-4 did not complete it out of my 70 students, which I was incredibly pleased with….and I got some new classroom decorations in the process!

Friday – Senior “Absentee” Day

I didn’t have an activity planned for this day….for obvious reasons :).

The feedback I got from students when I asked them about the week was overwhelmingly positive, with most students saying they were open to doing more.  One thing that I strongly believe helped in the success of the activities was that each activity was really a One-Day thing.  If I tried to do an extended assignment of some kind, I don’t think it would have been nearly as successful in keeping the students engaged throughout.  I already have more ideas for next year, but I also hope I can incorporate some of these types of activities into the regular curriculum as a change of pace and opportunity for application of what they’ve learned.  Because in case you didn’t know, “Psych is Life.”

Differentiation with technology

by Kirsten Fletcher

When I think of differentiation at EG, there is one teacher that automatically comes to mind.  Cliff Darnall has been teaching Japanese at EG for over 20 years and he frequently has 2 or even 3 different levels in the same classroom.  Imagine having 5 preps spread over 3 periods!

In Mr. Darnall's classroom, students are often divided so that one group works independently and the other receives personalized attention. Then they switch. All students benefit from manageable periods of total immersion and independent work.

Students working on a formative quiz

When I arrived to observe, one group was completing a formative quiz in the hallway while a second group was in the classroom discussing a listening passage. Because Cliff had built a good rapport with all students, he trusted one group to work independently and was able to give the other group very directed, personalized attention. He maintained a lengthy, input-based discussion in the target language and all students were engaged.

Mr. Darnall explaining target vocabulary with gestures and props

Students move into teams to begin Quizlet Live

Half-way through the class, the hallway group returned to receive personalized instruction from Mr. Darnall. The first group moved on to playing Quizlet Live*. In order to pull this off effectively, Mr. Darnall had to trust his students to run the game from his computer while he projected visuals on the screen to discuss with the other group. Students in the Quizlet group were clearly comfortable with this. They automatically moved into teams. When one game ended, they restarted the game and shuffled teams. All groups that I observed working independently were on task and collaborative.

Students run the game from Mr. Darnall's computer and
re-start it after discussing first round answers.

I give Mr. Darnall so much credit for the way he manages his classes. He must establish strong relationships with his students early on and instill in them a sense of purpose to get them working so well independently. Building on the foundation of class rapport, he is able to take risks like constantly trying new technology and turning it over for the students to run on their own. Thank you, Mr. Darnall for being such an inspiration!

*Quizlet Live is an interactive game that takes vocab cards created in Quizlet and allows students to compete in teams. See this blog post or this instructional video for more detailed information. When Cliff Darnall plays, Quizlet Live recognizes that his cards are in Japanese, so the team names appear in the target language! This works for other languages too.