Finding Purpose: "Talk Less, Smile More"

By: Rachel Vissing

Last week I had the opportunity to see the musical Hamilton.  Though many would say I was late to the party, I had listened to the music many times prior.  Listening to the soundtrack, however, was not as powerful as putting the music with the context on stage.  I left with my brain running for many reasons, but for this blog post, I'm am going to focus on one important line:

Talk Less, Smile More

Let's see...where have I seen this before?  Oh yes!  My wise mentor, Linda Ashida, has been sharing a similar message for years, complete with a post-it note by her desk (which is still up despite her retiring at the end of last school year).  

Whether the line is from Aaron Burr telling Alexander Hamilton to keep his opinions to himself or Linda's philosophy of learning from listening to others, I find that I struggle with this.  Therefore, I'm challenging myself to button my lips and to observe and listen more.

With My Students

In the classroom, I have started asking myself "Do I need to be talking now?"  I am questioning whether or not students need specific information or whether they can pull it from prior knowledge or work with peers to obtain this information.  For instance, instead of giving notes on the key terminology in mathematical translations like I have done in previous years, my students brainstormed on the whiteboard wall all of the terms that are associated with the math symbols +, -, >, =, etc.  Instead of correcting or adding words that were missed, we worked together throughout various translations and made adjustments to the board throughout the week's lessons based on our findings.  

The experience was surreal.  Many students thrived, and I saw their confidence soar!  Other students struggled a great deal and questioned me, "Why aren't you telling us what to do?  I need notes in order to learn."  It was hard for me to stand my ground with these students and not cave to provide them what they were asking, but by the end of the week these students trusted in the process and found more confidence in their abilities.  When I noticed that most groups were struggling with a concept, I had another group go to the board and explain their thought process.  It was really eye opening for me to step back and allow the students to teach one another, and I plan to continue to facilitate these types of processes as much as I can.

With My Peers

I get very excited talking and collaborating with others about education, lesson ideas, and new methods of facilitating learning in the classroom.  Often times when I am talking with a peer, I find myself interjecting suggestions that I have observed in other classrooms or those that I have tried with my students because I get very excited to bounce ideas around.  I have realized that I sometimes cut off the other person's thinking or impose my own beliefs on them instead of allowing my peers to find what works best for them and their students.  I'm challenging myself to go back to my mentality as a student teacher: I am a sponge.  This was my philosophy of listening, absorbing, and processing all of the ideas around me and then figuring out what works best for my situation.  This is especially important in my role as instructional coach, to provide my peers with the tools to set goals, brainstorm lesson ideas, and self-reflect purposefully.  

So as I am adapting this phase as my new mantra, you can listen here to have a positive song stuck in your head the rest of the day!  Maybe it will influence you as well!

Looking to make changes in your classroom? Book rec: Shift This!

By Kim Miklusak

Are you looking for a way to shake up your classroom space or instructional practices?  Are you a mid-career or veteran teacher who is looking for a new way to accomplish your classroom goals?  Are you a new teacher looking for a way to start off your practice in a new way?  Pick up the book Shift This by Joy Kirr!

I first "met" Joy when I attended the ISTE Conference in Atlanta...except Joy wasn't even there that year!  I went to a session on #GeniusHour, another name for a very similar practice of the 20% Time Project that I was hoping to implement for a unit in our American Literature course.  I connected with Joy via Twitter and found out that quite by chance she teaches in a district right near mine.  She was only too happy to meet, share her resources on her Live Binder site, and connect me with others who were doing similar projects.  This one shift in one of my units has influenced my teaching over the past few years as elements of it have seeped into more of my courses.

Image used with permission of the author

But that wasn't the only lesson I picked up from interacting with Joy on Twitter.  She has systematically moved to make her classroom space more student-centered, getting rid of her desk, having student working stations, and even broadcasting student voice and work on Twitter.  I made little steps: I moved my desk to the side, I opened my closet for students to take their own supplies...and eventually I moved to getting rid of my desk.  These little changes over the years have made such a difference.

Most recently I have picked up from Joy the importance of #First5Days.  What we do in the first week of our classroom sets the stage for our year.  Do we review rules?  Or do we jump right into getting to know students or starting our learning.  Every little shift makes the difference.

Book Review

Image used with permission of the author

The best thing about all of this is that Joy then went and put all of her excellent and practical ideas into her book.  Each chapter centers on a different area: classroom environment, homework, grading, student-directed learning, and more.  She shares her stories in her own voice and describes the processes she went through to change.  She acknowledges it isn't always easy but stresses that we don't all have to shift at once or even shift in every area.

But what she does do is start each chapter with questions that we as teachers may have that we hope to consider and resolve.  She then provides very clear examples of how she has done this in her classroom (including some photos!), external resources for more information, and note taking sections for us to reflect on our own practices.

Next Steps

If you're interested in more information, I would begin by following Joy on Twitter.  And if you'd like to do more of a book study with a virtual learning cohort, please reach out to the CollabLab as we will be doing a book study and chat with Joy and peers over three weeks starting in April.

Get Students Writing! Modeling, Peer Collaboration, Argument Towers and More!

By Linda Ashida

Your students need to synthesize information from varied sources--complex texts even--to defend a claim or hypothesis, make an argument, debate an issue, persuade or present a point of view.

How do you get there?

That is just the question that many teachers have been examining recently recently in the Collab Lab.

Some recently scaffold Persicoped lessons from English and Social Science classrooms gave us some ideas.

Then Google Hangouts conversations with some of our D214 colleagues gave us even more ideas! Becky Kinnee and Carrie Mattingly shared a valuable resource that included an "Argument Tower" strategy to scaffold the writing process and to help students "get it" as they synthesize information from multiple texts.
 

You can check out the resource here: Building an Argument Tower (From the AP World History Blog by Jonathan Henderson).

Let's see how Mark Heintz incorporated the strategy in his AP World History class in a series of week-long scaffolded steps to help his students prepare to write a document-based essay.  

Key Steps:

1) Present the Guiding Question:
How did people legitimize their rule between 1450 and 1750?

2) Activate Background Knowledge:  
Mingler Activity: Using key ideas from the upcoming documents, Mark created a "Find someone who . . . "  activity that got students up and moving, connecting with peers, and using vocabulary and important words/concepts that they would encounter in the readings. 

3) Model:  Document #1

Mark started with the first document with a think aloud and questioning with the whole class to help students interpret the key information and isolate evidence that supports the guiding question, or claim. Students annotated their own document on their iPads while one student modeled the notetaking by mirroring her iPad on Apple TV.

Check out this video to see the process in action:

4) Paired Collaboration: Document #2
Following Mark's model with the first document, students worked through the second document with a partner. They helped each other interpret the document, write key evidence (in support of the guiding question) on the whiteboard tables, and make connections to the evidence from the first document.

5) Peer Review, Self-assessment and revision: Documents #2
After writing their own responses, the pairs rotated to another table to give feedback to their peers.  Students were guided to give meaningful feedback based on the DBQ criteria. Then they rotated back to their own tables to review the feedback and make revisions.

6) Repeat steps 4 and 5 with Document #3

7) Argument Towers: Synthesize evidence from Documents #2 & #3
Following the steps in the Argument Tower resource, Mark guided the students to use colored index cards write to write and categorize their thesis, evidence and reasoning to organize their thoughts to write the introductory paragraph for their essay.

This kind of scaffolding takes time, and Mark is continually reflecting and asking students for feedback on the process.  He finds that in this student-centered approach, students are more engaged (he can hear it, and see it, as they work with their partners), and they demonstrate deeper understanding on both the content and the writing process as compared to a teacher-centered approach.

In the student-centered process, students see more models, get ongoing feedback from teachers as well as peers, and they have multiple opportunities for revision.  Students gain deeper understanding and confidence in the writing process, which better prepares them for second semester writing when the scaffolding will be gradually removed and students will write on their own.