Changing the conversation...

If we are no longer teaching students what to think and instead encouraging them how to think, then it would stand to reason that our conversations at parent teacher interview also needs to be about the mechanics of thinking.

In an age of knowledge being just a click away, we no longer need to memorize information. We really need know how to find information and ascertain its accuracy. Good thinkers and good learners do this. There have been 16 Habits of Mind that have been identified in good learning. These skills range from persistence to asking good questions, and to metacognition (thinking about our thinking). Once we start focusing our teaching on facilitating learning, it becomes important to teach our students about good thinking. There are many websites, like edutopia, on the internet dedicated to the Habits of Mind. Our division even has a powerpoint circulating with pictures and definitions for teachers and students to view.

Thinking about using these tools with my own students got me to wondering about the conversations I would have with parents at our three-way-conferences. Being able to talk about habits that make for strong learning as opposed to focusing in on a subject area is an intriguing idea to me. So this reporting period I sent home information with my students for their parents about the 16 Habits of Mind. I also had a conference guide attached and had the students think about there best work this term, and identify the Habits of Mind that they were successful in using to be able to produce their finished product. I also asked them to look at their work that they identified as not their best, and identify a few of the Habits of Mind that they could have used to make the work better. Hopefully parents will take the time to read over the information and be familiar with these mind tools.

During our three-way conferences, I plan to steer the conversations as I usually do - having the student reflect on their learning and what they're doing well, and what they can work on. What will be different this time is that we will focus on the skills needed to be a good thinker. To become an even better thinker - what habits can they focus on for term two. I believe that this will be measurable. In the next round of interviews, we can view the students work again, and see if focusing in on 2 or 3 Habits of Mind increased their ability to think critically and creatively, and if it has a pay out in their classroom work and projects.

Occasionally we will focus on a specific Habit of Mind when exploring a new concept or creating a new project. Reminding the students of what that habit looks like, and modeling for them how they can use that habit to increase their level of thinking, should reinforce these tools and bring them into our everyday language.

The pace of change in education has started to move rapidly with the advancements in technology. Much of what we were taught as children is no longer relevant to the children of today. Now we must teach children to become critical and creative thinkers if we are to prepare them for their future.

Three-way-conference Guide for Parents
http://www.scribd.com/doc/114010670/Three-way-conference-Guide-for-Parents

Teaching kids HOW to think not WHAT to think...

As teachers we are constantly in a pattern of assessing what our students know, reflecting on what we need to do next, and responding by teaching to fill in the missing pieces.
While listening to my students' presentations on human rights violations, and reading their persuasive essays, I realized that I had missed an opportunity to teach my students some valuable skills.

Let me set the stage. Last year a few of my students attended the Me to We conference. There they learned about child labour, sweatshops, and that kids like them can help to initiate positive change. These students were knowledgeable and passionate about bringing awareness to these issues and being part of a solution. As a result, their project was on Fair Trade and they implored people to look for these products when they shopped. Sounds great, right? Well it was until they started to inform the class that Nike, The Gap, Old Navy, and many other local stores employed people in sweatshops and payed them a pittance. I asked them what their source of information was and they responded the internet. Well I have no idea whether these retails stores do in-fact employ child laborers in sweatshops, but that's not the point. The point is, at that moment I realized that I never taught them the skills needed to assess the reliability of a source.

I should have taught my students about bias, currency of information, reputation of the author, experience of the author, how to look at accuracy, relevancy, and to assess how convincing the information is. As well, I should have taught them about expertise, reputation, and corroboration. Fortunately I found three lessons to help. They are from the Tools for Thought collection at TC2. Not to keep harping about this resource, but it is a goldmine. Assessing the Evidence, Credibility of Sources, and Assessing Website Credibility are the three lessons I've selected to use over the next few weeks before we get into our next research project.

I had also noticed that the students wanted to go to the internet and type in their inquiry question. This may have worked well 10 years ago, but now Google is so full of junk websites that it's impossible to wade through efficiently. My students really don't see the wealth of information at their fingertips through the library. Our school backs the public library, so we're able to walk there whenever we want, but at this point, the kids wouldn't see why we would. With the support of our teacher librarian, we hope to change their minds. She wants to show them how to search for material in our library, the power of the encyclopedia, and the ease of finding good information in books. I've also been to the public library to pick up applications for the students. The library will process the applications before our visit, and I'm hoping that parents allow me to keep the small key-tag library card at the school for each student. This would allow students to look on the public library data-base and request books to the branch across the park. They will also be able to use their library card to look at online media like newspapers and magazines. When we're done showing them what's possible, I hope that they start to see "googling" as a last resort.

Giving them the tools needed to critically judge whether something they read is reliable, biased, opinion, or a hoax is exciting. It's teaching them HOW to think and not WHAT to think. I can also incorporate things like CBC's This is That, The Onion, and Adbusters. Using spoof news articles like the one from CBC's This is That about Texas adding sugar to their drinking water would be a fun way to put our new thinking skills to the test. After building these skills, we can even make our own spoof articles or advertizements. With such serious subject material, one must not forget the power of creativity.

Finding the balance...

Inquiry questions of the day: What does balance mean to me?

Lately, I haven't had a lot of balance in my life. While this post isn't about inquiry based learning per se, it is about teaching and its power to be all consuming.

I'm a mad scientist. I'm that person that gets an idea and goes with it until it's completely overtaken my life. I don't get enough sleep, and I wake up at crazy hours in the morning with a burning desire to create. I become all consumed with my creations and passion. Without time in my life to pursue my artistic interests, creating assignments and units has become my creative outlet. Inquiry based teaching has sparked my creativity and I'm flying at 100 mph. It's fantastic and I love it, but I'm going to burn out. I can't sustain this pace.

So, what does balance mean to me? Ideally, I want to do the best job I can as a teacher, a mother, a wife, a friend, and the C.E.O. of our household. Notice how I didn't put myself into that equation? I never put myself into the equation. I'm like so many mothers - especially teacher mothers. We are the last on our list of priorities, and truthfully we never get to the bottom of our to-do list.

In the last few weeks my balance has been so far off that I haven't been a very good mother, wife, friend, or C.E.O. of our household. When your balance shifts, it happens so slightly that you don't really even notice it. It's about just getting through this week, this day, this next event. One day you realize that it's been two months since you took time to cut your toe nails, and it hits you: I don't have time to cut my own toe nails? How did I let this happen? (I apologize for the gross imagery)

This is the paragraph where I'd like to write my epiphany. Here is my great learning and I've realized how to achieve the balance: I'm coming up blank. I'm seriously telling myself that I can figure out the balance thing after this day, this weekend, next week, and the first of November. Logically I can tell by my thoughts that I could let this keep happening until the Christmas break, and then again after, and so on.

It's time for a plan. It's a small idea, but I'm going to let it worm itself through my brain until it becomes a concrete idea, and then hopefully reality: I'm going to do nothing. I'll do this nothing one day after school and one morning on the weekend. During this nothing time I'll try to enjoy the sunshine, the breeze, my kids laughing, my husband, and maybe even myself.

Teacher burnout is high. We all go through it. We're either in the phase of burning out or burnt out. Those teachers who have learned to find the right balance are far and few between, and I say that because I don't know if it's possible. Is it possible to meet the demands of the job and find balance? I say no.

Remember the TV show Boston Public? When a young teacher asked Harry Senate does it ever get any easier. Harry replied, "Not if you're doing it right."

And that my teacher friends is why I think we have a hard time finding the balance.

Tweaking the question

On Friday I had the opportunity to hear a woman speak on the topic of inquiry based learning and questioning skills. It was about more than that, but the questioning was the part that I fixated on. I've worked on my math teaching skills, my management skills, my organizational skills, but not my questioning skills. Once I managed weight time and the reasons for questioning versus the type of questions, I never really gave it very much more thought. Turns out, it's a skill that needs to be practiced, and it can help your students to activate their higher level thinking skills.

I'm still sorting this new learning out for myself, but I will try to give an example from my current assignment as to how I "tweaked" the question. I gave my students an assignment about human rights. It asked them to formulate a question and then research the answer. Then I let them go to it. Really and truly, I never thought about how I worded the assignment - except that I wanted to make it clear. Here is how I first wrote the assignment:

 

As you can see, it's a pretty basic (maybe even lame) assignment. I know the students were interested in the research because the topic was so captivating, and everything we had done up to this point helped to build their enthusiasm. When I typed out the assignment, I was focused on the research aspect. I had started to notice that the children wanted to "google" everything. The books displayed in our classroom were not being used. I put more thought into how I'd get them to use books than I did the question.

After our in-service, I spent way too much time worrying about this assignment. I finally put it to rest by telling myself that I wanted to go to this school to learn and grow as an educator. This is my first opportunity, and I just need to grab it. So here is my attempt to write a better question:

So, is it perfect? I really don't know. I haven't wrapped my head around asking questions that get at that deep critical thinking. I think I have a lot more reading to do, but I do know this: The wording of my second assignment is more fun, and children are more motivated when an activity is perceived as fun.

My colleague across the hall has a wonderful bulletin board about thick and thin questions. I've taken a few of my students into her room to look at the board and then decide if their question is too thin or if it's thick. Thankfully, my colleague told me that she has a second copy of the bulletin board and that I can have it. When I get it from her, I'll post it on here for my colleagues who are interested. The basic idea is that asking questions like: When did it happen, who discovered it, where did this take place, are thin questions. They can be answered in one google search, and one sentence. A thick question gets kids thinking. A question like what might a child soldier be feeling is a much deeper question. Can you imagine a child researching child soldiers and then trying to explain what they might be thinking or feeling. That's higher level thinking.

To recap, I've learned that one good question can take your class from a lower level of thinking to a higher level. It's really quite exciting. We were also directed to check out a website called The Critical Thinking Consortium. They have activities and good questions for all grades and across a lot of the curriculum. There are free samples that you can download as PDF files. The Stewart Resource Centre also has all of their print material to borrow. A membership is $40 for a year. I believe the public system has a membership for its teachers, but our division does not. Here is a link: TC2

To any of my teacher friends who have made it to the bottom of this blog, thank you for reading and if you are so inspired to focus on your questions: happy tweaking.

Spinning my wheels...

I have a million ideas and not nearly enough focus in any one direction. While I am trying to find ways to wrap up our current inquiry unit, my mind is already leaping forward to the next unit.

My students have been actively gathering information on child labour, child soldiers, women's rights activists, sweat shops and their products, and fair trade. When we took an afternoon break to watch a video on the life of Terry Fox, the students were upset that the time had to come from their inquiry class. They were happy to watch the video, just not so willing to give up their inquiry time. This made my heart happy. The students' enthusiasm and effort is amazing and exciting.

A snag that I have run into is that some of my EAL (English as and Additional Language) students have struggled with the content and expectations of this inquiry. The modifications and supports that I put in place for them have done very little in the way of supporting them towards independent work. I thought that the handout I made them had simple language, but it was still too challenging.

Representing their learning has been my latest focus. I have spent literally hours imagining what our display will look like, and the information that it will need to convey. I have thought about what the expectations for their representations need to be and how to evaluate them. The possibilities seem endless. I've also struggled with knowing how much direction I can give this. Can I decide on what the bulletin board will look like, or do I provide the "canvas" and let the students design the message?

So far I've come up with this: We'll do a wall display on the light colored wall. We'll have one large silhouette of a child soldier, and two smaller (life sized) silhouettes of two children carrying bricks on their heads. The caption overhead will be: Human Right Violations. We will then have three sub-headings or areas to give information. The first section will be informing others, the second section will be personal reactions and advocacy. The last section will display our plan to make change.

I have also come up with a plan to make change: An art auction to raise money for an organization that helps build schools for children.... or something along that line. The children will use old wax crayons to make art that we will auction off. Here again, is my dilemma: can I decide this, or do the children need to direct this themselves?

And so it would seem that my mind is spinning just thinking about the wrap up for this unit. I've mentally got lists running in my head for all of the different things I will need to acquire to pull this off. I'm going to have to keep a list of lists to keep all of it straight.

The next unit will be energy. The grade six students will focus on electricity and the grade sevens will focus on alternative sources of energy. I need toasters, tools, wire, sponsorship, an expert, and the list goes on. My ideas are grandiose and need reining in. I've actually wondered if we can get an exercise bike hooked up to stuff that the students can power by pedaling. The hoarder in me thinks we need to go garage sale-ing. The neat freak in me is baring the doors.

Hit the ground and running...

A few short weeks ago, I found myself being moved to a new school after the school year had begun. I had a great group of students and the new school year looked promising, but then this opportunity arose. We had to lose a teacher, and one of the options was to move to a school pioneering inquiry based learning. What an opportunity. So I left my comfort zone and opted for an adventure.

This will be a year of learning and growing. I'm sure there will be successes, but also failures. While I am excited, I am also afraid. My ambivalence and excitement got me thinking - I should keep track of this journey. In a year from now, will I look back on this post and be surprised at how far I've come? I don't know.

I can't imagine that anyone but me will ever read this blog, but if you find yourself here, know this: This is a blog about an elementary school teacher on a journey to become a better and more effective teacher. I will post my successes and failures, and I will attempt to figure out what I could have done differently.

So, what is inquiry? I'm not even sure that I have that all figured out yet. My limited understanding of inquiry is that it is student driven. I brought the idea of Human Rights to my students through a website called www.youthforhumanrights.org. This amazing website has 30 unique short videos - one for each of the Universal United Nations Declared Human Rights. After viewing the videos as well as a history of human rights video, we began work on determining the difference between a need and a want. We ranked our needs and wants as individuals, in groups, and as a class from a list of ten needs/wants that I had made up. After that step, the students began work on our classroom rights. The great learning that I wanted them to obtain from all of this is that we give each other the right to _____ whatever we agree to. Students give each other the right to be respected or listened to, and if you want that right for yourself, you have to give it to others. During these lessons I had the students fill out Before/During/After pages. When they watched the videos they had to fill out a viewing guide. We did some phys. ed. stuff exploring rules - dodge-ball with no rules, rules for some, and rules for all. When we returned from the gym, students displayed their thoughts and feelings in an open-mind portrait.

After this point, I felt a little lost. Now what? Where do I want to go with this? The social studies curriculum requires that we explore power and authority. I know that I want to have students discover the various ways that people exert power and control over others. (Limiting education, food supplies, communication...) I also want them to become aware of their own ability to use their power for good. I know that sounds hokey, but it's true. We all have the enormous power to makes someones day wonderful or miserable. We also have the power to make change.

The next place I went was to google. I printed off dozens of pictures of child laborers working. I gave each student a photo to look at, and a pile of sticky notes in the middle of their groups. Their task was to ask questions or make statements on the post-it notes and stick them to the photos. We passed the photos around a bit. This was highly motivating - but I did worry to what end. I also worried that if we explore child slavery, child labour, or child soldiers what we'll uncover. Could there be any more motivating way to learn about power and control? I watched my students look at those photos with shock, outrage, and sadness. They had so many questions. These questions will now be the driving force for their own learning.

Yesterday we watched the Kony 2012 video. I know there is a lot of controversy over that video and its purpose, but I wanted to use it because it documents one man's domination over children. It also documents a group of people trying to make change. This is where I hope my students go - I want them to formulate a big questions about a Human Rights violation. Then I want them to research that violation (it may be the history, graphing the change in numbers, comparing one country to another...) Once they've researched and represented their learning, I hope to incorporate an element of writing. I want the students to use their voices to urge change. I'm not sure what form this will take. I guess it depends where the students go with their research.

I think the hardest part of this whole inquiry is the letting go. I have to let go of my control over where this takes us. There will be learning - tones of it, and I guess I will document it as we go.