Creating High Performance Learning Environments: Activity 2

Teaching/Learning Situations in three videos: Video 1: Roller Coaster Physics Academic expectations - do you think the teacher holds high performance expectations for students in this scenario? Why or why not? Yes, this teacher has high academic expectations for her students and the following are eight examples of how the teacher holds students to a high standard: 1. Students are taken through a logical learning progression that is well thought out with each of the steps of the Engineering Design Process building on the last. This encourages the students to think more deeply at each step about how to solve the roller coaster design problems inherent to friction, energy and entropy. 2. The chime in pedagogical practice gets students reflecting on their work- reflective talk, and sharing like this is a high cognitive level learning practice. 3.Along with talk they are asked to draw (or model) their idea for their rollercoaster) first as individuals then as a group. Scientific modeling is a key rigorous standard in the Next Generation Science Standards. 4. The students are able to simulate their ideas using the computer. Access to this game model simulator, where they test out their designs, is a key part of the engineering design process. 5.The teacher has designed the curriculum to involve the student in systems thinking. The students showed some awareness of concepts like "backwards design" a high level thinking tool. 6.Students have to engage with simulated real world situations such as having a budget. 7. The teacher engages the students in thinking about their designs with pointed questions that help them focus on the important aspects of their engineering project. For example, “Will adding a hill give it less energy?” (@12:03 sec.). 8.The teachers main goal is to encourage students to problem solve, what she calls to “Welcome Problems” (@12:56 sec.). Behavior expectations - do you think behavior expectations are high for students in this scenario? Why or why not? It is hard to determine the sorts of classroom management strategies this teacher has employed prior to this video being shot. But some strategies are evident. For example, the students are asked to value each others ideas. In general, the students appeared very well behaved and this may be a result of how the video was edited. My guess is that this teacher has worked with theses students through the year and they follow the rules as a matter of habit at this point so the teacher does not have to do much classroom management. Further, the interesting nature of the topic keeps students engaged and less likely to step out of line. Norms and Procedures - what are the norms and procedures in this scenario that supports high student performance? The main norms I see that support high student performance are the grouping strategies used. For example, sometimes the students were organized into groups. For example, during the chime in activity one student was asked to share-out what happened the week before and other students chimed-in to comment. Students worked as individuals as well-- such as when they were asked to draw a model of their roller coaster. Another norm that seemed to be impactful here was the teachers choice to give the students a budget which intentionally limited the resources students could use— simulating engineering in the real world. Video 2: 3rd Grade Chinese Math class Academic expectations - do you think the teacher holds high performance expectations for students in this scenario? Why or why not? I believe that this teacher holds culturally specific high performance expectations for her students. By this I mean that in her culture the direct-instruction with a focus on memorization and repetition is paramount. This strategy can work for many students but tends not to do well for very high or low achieving students. For high achieving students these strategies tend to be boring and can limit original thinking. For low achieving students there is little opportunity for students to ask questions, go at a slower pace or even to get some one on one instruction--all of which can be key for helping these students. Behavior expectations - do you think behavior expectations are high for students in this scenario? Why or why not? This teacher seems to have control of the classroom. Everyone faces here and she leads them through a routine rhyme in counting and then applies the numbers the students have just repeated to solving maths problems. Norms and Procedures - what are the norms and procedures in this scenario that supports high student performance? Again, culturally a Chinese classroom requires everyone to work at the same pace and follow protocol. In this case following along with the teacher in a call and response exercise. Yet, there are limits to how well this technique can support all the students in the classroom and some may be left behind by this sort of procedure due to the lack of any formative assessment opportunities and checking in by the teacher with individuals (though some of this may be happening outside the context of the video). Additionally, as reported in the associated article, these students are given a lot of homework to supplement the in-class instruction. This can be helpful in supporting their academic achievement (Cooper et.al. 2006). Yet, as indicated by Wei (2014) many teacher have difficulty connecting the students work to the real world and therefore miss an important aspect of teaching math--making it contextually relevant to the students. Video 3: Whole Brain Teaching Academic expectations - do you think the teacher holds high performance expectations for students in this scenario? Why or why not? Yes, this teacher has high expectations for her students. This teacher is using a lot of kinesthetic tools to get her students thinking about finding location using logitude and latitude lines. This is based on the 'Whole Brain' approach to teaching as outlined on their website (http://wholebrainteaching.com/). By using a hand signals to represent each component of the location system (arm up for longitude and arm flat for latitude) students are given another cognitive tool for learning new and potentially difficult concepts. Behavior expectations - do you think behavior expectations are high for students in this scenario? Why or why not? This teacher uses call and response techniques to get the students attention, as well as hand gestures to help them through instructional transitions and to understand specific rules. In this case I liked the call and response around the rules using hand gestures strategy. I think it not only reinforced the rules but also helped to bond the students to one another. This seems to create a positive and fun atmosphere for the students. There did not appear to be any classroom management issues in this classroom. Norms and Procedures - what are the norms and procedures in this scenario that supports high student performance? The students in this class appear to be comfortable with the norms and procedures they are expected to follow. By having established kinesthetic and auditory norms that students follow they are able to know what they are supposed to do when. For instance, the teacher said "teach" in such a way that the students knew it was time for them to work one-on-one and peer teach about location using logitude and latitude. Summary: Setting high performance expectations among my students Compare how you would create learning environments for your students that are similar or in contrast to the three teaching situations illustrated in the above videos. Provide a brief context for your summary in terms of grade level and background of your students. I teach middle and high school Science. As such the following summary comments are seen thought the lens of the age students I teach and how I understand their needs. For instance, in thinking about how I would create a learning environment based on these three examples I would definitely emulate the STEM roller coaster project shown in example 1. I like all the ways the project empowers the students (student centered). I would add that the amount of time (planning, preparing materials etc.) would make this more of a big semester summary project. In other words, you could not do this whole roller coaster project every week. The Chinese math class was a less appealing high performance learning environment for me. Mainly because I am not a big fan of call and response repetition as a pedagogical strategy. I do understand it can work and I do use it but as a project based learning educator I spend more time getting the students to work together rather then on me lecturing them about math facts. As much as I did not like the call and response in the Chinese math class I did like it when used as a classroom culture builder and transition marker in the geography classroom. But even there the use of repetition got a little out of hand with students needing to repeat instruction the teacher said- including page numbers and chapters in the book. Further, it was hard to tell in this last video how far beyond peer to peer repetition of facts the students went and moved into understanding the usefulness of the geography facts. Further, did they ever have the chase to apply those understandings to new contextually relevant situations (all of this may have happened outside the parameters of the video example as is suggested by the 'whole brain' curriculum)? Overall there are bits of the first and last videos I would take and use in my own classroom. Specifically, the use of call and response to build up classroom norms in the 'Whole Brain' approach to teaching the geography teacher was using. I would like to see more research which demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach for which I could find no citations on their website. I also am interested in the use of a well thought out STEM lesson on engineering rollercoasters which appeared to be a curriculum taken from Engineering is Elementary. I was less interested in what the Chinese Math teacher was doing with call and response teaching, but I do understand the usefulness this approach can have in math education. Works Cited Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C., & Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 1987-2003. Review of Educational Research, 76(1), 1-62. DOI: 10.3102/00346543076001001 Wei, Kan (2014) Explainer: what makes Chinese maths lessons so good?. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-makes-chinese-maths-lessons-so-good-24380

Patrick Dowd: My Evolving Understanding for Establishing a Positive Classroom Climate

BLOG: The importance Establishing a Positive, Caring and Concerned Classroom Climate When I think about how I situate my classroom to be a place that is positive, where students feel cared for as important members of the community and is a place where their welfare (their safety -emotional, physical and social) is paramount I think of relationships. In my own life I establish relationships with others by sharing something about myself and then inviting others to share about themselves and in so doing making connections. So in my sharing I reveal that I am a white, middle-class, male teacher with a heritage that stretches back to the country of Ireland. Part of who I am, my identity is wrapped up in this part of me and my families past. My family reinforces my identity through narratives. For example, my great grandparents and told my parents about their migrations from Ireland at the turn of the 19th century in search of more opportunities. I hear the stories about the discrimination they faced upon arriving in the city of Philadelphia, at a time when the Irish were considered unclean and less than human. I also learned about the opportunities they took advantage of along with the struggles that made life better for me now. These family historical narratives are part of what makes me who I am, playing a role in shaping my beliefs, values, goals and ideas (in essence what I think of as my identity). I am aware that my identity also comes with a set of cultural biases and I try to be meta-cognitive of this fact as an educator who works with many students from a wide range of backgrounds. For this reason, (as mentioned in Activity 1 on establishing positive relationships with students) I start my year with an in-depth PowerPoint about me, my background and interests all to let students know there is more to me than just my role as a teacher. In other words, I know that a student’s culture, race, gender and ethnicity are important parts of who they are and I try and connect students to how I see that as important by sharing as much of my own background and identity as possible. Also, by modelling this sharing it makes it easier when I ask the students to share about themselves, about their families, cultural roots and present interests. At the beginning of each school year, in order to prepare to share authentically with my students, I need to take stock of my past year and do some reflection; I practice being a reflective practitioner (RP). By RPing about my previous teaching year, I mean reflecting on all of the stuff that makes me myself as a teacher (those beliefs, values, goals and ideas) some of which are directly connected to my cultural background and some of which are not. By unpacking my teaching identity in this way (by asking myself what lens I presently see the world through) I become more ready to call myself out on beliefs that are grounded in cultural bias or false stereotypes and come out the other end a more open and empathetic educator. I become better able to hear the students’ stories of who they are and what makes them, themselves (honouring student experiences wherever they come from). By working on getting clear about who I am and asking students to be open to sharing who they are is key to establishing positive relationships in a classroom. I believe this openness in the classroom leads to an emotionally safer environment and also provides more opportunities for richer academic lessons too. To ground my ideas about a positive, caring and concerned classroom lets take the example of the bullied 9th grade student “Gina” from group 4’s case study from Activity 2 (Growing Wireless 2018). In this example, the student received hatful texts from a former friend because they both liked the same boy. The situation escalated and Gina felt paralyzed by the hate she was receiving online. In the intervention the girls were coached into talking through their differences but the friendship between the girls never healed. I would like to think that in creating a positive, caring and concerned classroom environment, this bullying example would not have happened in the first place. For instance, as mentioned in the guide Critical Practices for Anti-Bias Education (Teaching Tolerance 2016) a classroom needs to support all the diversity of students which may be a part of it. One way to do this is by “honouring students experiences”. Honouring student experiences includes being able to put oneself in another person’s shoes. If Gina and her friend had put themselves in each other’s shoes there would not have been a need to send hurtful texts about the boy. Instead, they would have been empathetic to what each was feeling and had the skill to talk it through them, face to face, and not hurtfully, virtually. Thus, for me a culturally sensitive, safe and caring classroom begins and ends with establishing strong relationships with and between students. A good metaphor to use in establishing these relationships is to think of the classroom as a tribe. It’s a tribe that happens 5 times a week for a 50-minute period, yet it’s still a tribe. My tribes are in the sciences and I have a classroom tribe of students in Biology, one in Earth Science and one in Environmental Science. To establish a place that is safe and inclusive for all the different types of students in my science classes I need to be open to ‘Dialogue’ that is respectful and in which they listen to one another (Teaching Tolerance 2016, p.10). It’s a classroom that is designed so that small groups work together to solve scientific questions (an inclusive project based learning classroom design). It’s a classroom where I teach them Accountable Talk (Michaels 1981), a strategy for speaking that teaches student social and emotional skills. Finally it’s a classroom where we appreciate our differences and biases are unpacked and examined not acted upon. Again it’s the relationships we build in my classroom through establishing a strong community of learners from the beginning of the year that can lead to a successful establishment of a learning tribe. Works Cited: Growing Wireless (2018, June). News – Case Studies on Cyberbullying, “Hateful Texting”. Retrieved from http://www.growingwireless.com/be-aware/cyberbullying/news-case-studies-on-cyberbullying Marzano, R. J. (2007). The art and science of teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Michaels, Sarah (1981). “Sharing time”: Children's narrative styles and differential access to literacy. Language in society 10 (3), 423-442. Teaching Tolerance (2016). Critical Practices for Anti-Bias Education. The Southern Poverty Law Center.