Crafting Questions

I want to reflect on an "upgrade" I am working on with 4th grade right now. There are a few things that stand out to me as important. We say "it's not about the tools" all the time, but I find that most people still equate "21st century learning" with use of electronic devices. I think this example is a good demonstration of "not about tools". The other thing that amazes me and that I want to verbalize, is the power of the pedagogy of students asking good questions.

4th grade Social Studies-

Collaboration Between Classroom Teacher and "Learning Specialist"

The 4th grade teacher and I, as a result of planning together, decided to join the Virtual USA project to add interest & excitement to the social studies curriculum, while making connections between our students' study of Florida and other 4th graders' studies about their states or regions. As part of this process, we decided to split the class into two groups to facilitate learning about Florida's economy and government. Although I don't normally work with small groups of students in this way, I was excited to be with the government group.

We began with KWL, and the students knew very little about state government. In fact, all they knew was that Tallahassee is the capital of Florida and Rick Scott is the governor. I decided to begin with the textbook. I gave out poster board for taking notes, and we began to read and discuss.

Side note: The other group, working with the classroom teacher to learn about Florida's economy, began using the computers for research right away. My group asked several times if they could "start looking for things on the computer." I think it was surprising to them, since I am usually the "tech teacher," that I told them I thought they needed to develop some background knowledge in order to be able to use the computers in a meaningful way.

As we read and talked about the three branches of government (including, of course, watching the classic Schoolhouse Rock video about how a bill becomes a law) I saw interest in the topic beginning to take shape.

Connecting with Experts

I suggested that we might learn more by talking with someone who works in state government. The students worked together to write a post on their class blog requesting help in finding an expert to Skype with us.

I love what happened next because, to me, this illustrates what happens when you empower the kids instead of the teacher doing all the work. I received an email from one of the 4th graders telling me that her grandmother knew former state representative, Dick Kravitz and would speak to him. This fabulous 4th grader basically set the whole thing up herself (through her grandmother.) All I had to do was finalize a date and time.

After we scheduled the date and time, I received this email from the student who made the connection:

I can't wait!!!!! Is he going to skype or come in because either way is awesome! We keep emailing each other but haven't talked in person since this whole dick Kravitz thing started!
When are we going to start preparing? BTW can't wait till December 1st!

I share this because I feel it serves as evidence that we should, as much as possible, have students do the "work," whatever that may be. I know that in the past, I might have done the connecting and scheduling myself, just telling the students about the "special guest." I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but I believe and have experienced that the more the students are involved, in an age-appropriate way, the more ownership they feel. They discover that they are capable of making things happen, and they learn to use the tools and skills to make meaningful connections.

Crafting Questions

We began working to prepare for Mr. Kravitz's visit. One of the most important components of preparing was the process of collaboratively writing questions. We started by asking each student to write questions for homework. We then entered all of the students' questions into a Google doc, and that's when the great work really got started.

One student showed us the website he used to learn about Dick Kravitz before writing his questions. This led to a discussion about the importance of "doing your homework" and learning about the person you are planning to interview so that you can ask intelligent questions that draw forth the person's ideas/experiences.

We also talked about:

•open-ended vs. closed ended question

•avoiding asking factual questions- we can find those answers ourselves by researching

We started deleting, combining and reworking questions to make them more open-ended. We used background information we had learned about our speaker to craft excellent questions. For example, the question "Why did you want to be a representative?" became "You majored in education in college and have a master's degree in sports administration. What made you decide to go into politics? Why did you choose to run for House of Representatives?"

Finally, we decided on a logical order for asking the questions and decided which student would ask each question.

I am amazed by how much the students have learned from this process- about government and about the art of interviewing someone. The interview took place yesterday, December 1st, and I hope to write more about that in another post. However, I believe that even if we never had a chance to ask the questions at all, the process of preparation was, in itself, a tremendous learning experience.

Important factors that contributed to success:

•Time- We gave the process of working with the questions plenty of time, and we needed it. Often, with so much to "cover" I feel we rush through things instead of giving them the time they deserve. When preparing for a Skype call with students, we always take time to prepare and write questions, but never before have I spent such focused time working on the questions. I have learned a ton- not just about teaching this way, but also about state government!

•Collaboration- This was a good synchronicity from every angle- between teacher and teacher, teachers and students and students with each other. Most of the credit goes to a classroom teacher who has worked on building a community where students know how to listen to one another and treat all ideas with respect. The teacher(s) acted as guides, but this was the students' project, and it was evident by their engagement in each stage of preparation.

•Building background knowledge- If we had jumped right in by scheduling an interview with someone in state government, I believe that it would have been virtually meaningless to students with so little background knowledge. Because we used basic information in the textbook to learn about the structure of government and the Internet to find out more about Dick Kravitz, the students were able to ask deep, intelligent questions and to understand the answers.

For a student point-of-view, read Jamie's words here.

Bats from A to Z

Note: This blog post was written by the 2nd graders. One of my goals for working with classes this year is to have the students reflect and share after completion of a project. They posted it on their class blog, however, that blog does not allow for comments from non-registered users. They would really love to receive comments, so please share with other teachers and students and let our 2nd graders know what you think of their work.

by Mrs. B's 2nd grade

It all started with a story. We read "Fast Food on the Fly," a story about bats, in our Wordly Wise book. We were so interested that we decided to write reports about different kinds of bats. We each chose our own bat, and they were all from Australia. We used the computers to research our bats, and we made a bat cave in the hallway where we displayed our reports.



We decided to create an ABC video to give people information about bats. Mrs. B and Ms. H showed us an example. Then we took a bat quiz. Next, we worked with a partner to brainstorm ideas using the alphabet organizer. We printed out the organizers with all of our ideas. Some letters were easier than others so we had to do more research to come up with a fact for each letter.


Once we decided the best fact for each letter and assigned the letters we used Pixie to write and illustrate our ideas. We went over them and checked to make sure they were correct and looked good. Then we recorded ourselves reading our facts. Finally, we published our video, and we are so excited to share it with you!

Some Reflections:

Reflection pyramid from Peter Pappas

Ayden: We met our goal by finishing the video and teaching everyone about bats. I learned facts about bats that a lot of grown-ups don't know.
Elad: I did this before when we did the values report because I had to look in a book. I can use this again when I do another report or project.
Eliana: It was important that we taught people new information about bats. I learned to work together without arguing.
Griff: I see a relationship with this project and the president reports because we had to research on the computer for both. In both of them we were teaching people. I feel that I learned a lot about bats. I see that there is so much I didn't know about bats.
Jona: Our class did really well. We edited and revised it. We had to take our time in order to make it really good. We used the computer and used typing skills. I learned more about bats and I liked using technology.
Natan: We worked well together.
Mrs. B: I was very pleased to see the growth from our very first project, the fire safety and prevention video, to this project. I think you are going to be very prepared for 3rd grade.

Dream Job?!

My school is currently in the market for a new "head of school" for next year and beyond. Today, the second of three candidate finalists came to visit and tour the school. Teachers were given the opportunity to sign up for a 10 minute meeting with him on Tuesday, which I did.

Then I got a few minutes to meet with him today. I shared with him some thoughts about my job, the school in general and my hopes and challenges for the future. He gave me a "homework assignment" for our meeting tomorrow, which was to imagine my "dream job" at the school. If I could shape my role to be whatever I wanted it to be, what would that look like?

Ok, first of all, how much do I already like the guy for giving me this homework assignment?

You might think I have an easy answer to this question of a dream job, but I do not. So, I thought I would use my blog to explore my ideas. And then, if I haven't alienated all my readers by neglecting the blog for so long, maybe I could get some helpful feedback, too.

Currently, in my "technology coordinator" role I do the following:

•teach weekly resource or "specials" technology lab classes K-5

•teach a STEM pull-out, enrichment class for first graders, twice a week (and about to start a similar, once a week group for 5th graders)

•provide support for teachers in the area of tech integration

•with a LOT of help from a wonderful assistant, I oversee the network, troubleshoot problems, install software, order supplies, fix anything tech related, help teachers with technical problems, act as administrator for edline (our school's web portal)

•with Silvia Tolisano, our 21st century learning specialist, host monthly "parent coffee talks" to educate parents on relevant issues

•meet weekly with Silvia to collaboratively plan and strategize. Work on various projects or parts of projects with her.

•teach 8th grade weekly Jewish Lens class and technology resource classes in the middle school

•maintain my own Personal Learning Network and devote regular time to my own professional development through reading articles, blogs, exploring multimedia, commenting and otherwise engaging in the network, writing, reflecting, planning and exploring online resources, taking

classes and attending conferences. This takes time, but I believe it is a necessary and vitally important part of my work as an educator. The vast majority of this time is after school hours.

•maintain a classroom blog to share student work

In previous years I have run an after school tech club and keyboarding classes for students and an after school tech club for teachers. Before the addition of Silvia Tolisano to our faculty, I provided more professional development for teachers and tried to get into classrooms to work with teachers and students on unique, tech-infused projects. This year, Silvia has taken on more of the role of professional developer and tech integrationist.

So, that's the past and present. What about the future?

What does our school need and how can I use my time, energy and talents to best help?

There's a bit of a tug of war going on in my mind...

First of all, there are the weekly computer lab classes. A big part of me feels that it is time for those to change or to disappear altogether. As much as I enjoy my time with the students and my freedom to explore without many boundaries (no grades, no set curriculum, etc), I feel that the model of once-a-week computer resource classes conveys a message that computers are a "class" instead of a tool. We all know that kids don't really need to learn computers, right?

Well.....I think that's basically the case. But I still believe there are skills that the kids get from my class that they might not get without my class. File management, troubleshooting, that type of thing. Ok, I admit, they probably could get those skills without my class.

So then what about the things I do in my class that I know are valuable for students but that don't fit into a typical lesson plan? The creative, playful, open-ended explorations; the "educational free choice" time, the public sharing and presentations? Some of these can (and probably should) be brought into the classroom, but my fear is that some of the activities that don't have an easy to recognize curricular goal (but are still incredibly important) will get lost. Think Scratch, for example.

Then there is the issue of how teachers see me. Most teachers see me first and foremost as tech support (weird because I am an educator NOT a techie, I just learned the tech stuff because there was no one else in the building to keep the network running). And though they are often, but not always, too polite to admit it, the K-5 teachers view me as relief so that they can have a break from the students. While I think every teacher deserves prep time, bathroom time, make a phone call time, whatever....I am not a babysitter. And I really resent the implied notion that whatever happens in my class is not REAL learning.

So why do these things matter? It's because my dream job as a teacher is to be a true collaborator with my colleagues. I do have the tech skills, but I have much more than that. I envision a coaching type of job- going into classrooms and working together with teachers and students. Embedded professional development. But for it to work I think that teachers would have to view me differently than I think they do now. Because it's not about me demonstrating a SMARTboard lesson. I would want to be a team teacher and if I went into classrooms and the teacher just "tuned out" and started checking email, grading papers, etc. which happens all the time at this school then I would rather keep my lab classes the way they are.

So, potential new head of school, as you can see I need some help with this decision. I thank you for asking me about my dream job. But my dream job might not exist. I guess if I was the right person for the job I would figure out the way to make it work, but I think I would need your help.

image credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/starforlifeorg/3565572491/

TGIF

This was my day at work today:

Kindergarten: Pixie, "I like" activity, one of the pre-made activities in Pixie. It's a page with a big heart and the words "I like" above the heart. The kids write their name and draw and/or add stickers to the heart to show things they like. 

I reviewed some of the pixie tools, taught (for the first time to the whole class) using the shift key to capitalize first letter in name, the word "text." There is lots of learning and practice in this activity: moving and resizing objects, using draw tools, etc.

In between classes prepared for Kaleidoscope Day, a big event happening on Monday. The theme is "Learn about yourself through art" and all 134 students will be coming into the computer lab to do a digitally manipulated self portrait. I will post some of those on my blog next week (with student and parent permission, of course). I also went to my 3 y.o. son's class performance. Packaged up some keyboards to send back to apple and an hp toner to be recycled. Checked email.

First Grade: Introduced the Tooth Tally project to the students. The tooth tally project started today and is a little online share with other first grade classes based on that all-important milestone, losing baby teeth. We will be counting and tallying our lost teeth for three months and sharing the information with the other classes in our group on the tooth tally wiki. I had already written an introduction and uploaded a picture of our class on the wiki, which I shared with the class. We read the other classes' introductions. Then we put on our imagination wings and, using google earth, we flew around the world to visit the other classes in our tooth tally group.
In the fifteen or twenty minutes we had left, we had lots of fun and giggles with the website build your wild self.

Fifth Grade: Introduced the one-click mitzvah wiki. It didn't go as well as I hoped. The kids have a few ideas, but they need more guidance. I don't think the wiki was the best idea for this. I am not ready to give up on this project idea, but I need to figure out how to properly guide them. Suggestions very welcome! They played Karma Tycoon again. They really like this game, and are great at it. I think it was a valuable learning experience, but now it is time to process what they learned from it and move on to the next step.

I had a wonderful, inspiring visit from Silvia Tolisano, tech integration guru from SJEDS. She has a great blog/website, Langwitches. I met her briefly at FETC, and she came to see our SMARTboards. She is such an inspiration. I am so excited to have made this connection with her and look forward to going to visit her at SJEDS. I can learn so much from her.

I am tired. Good night.