Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Getting toward the end!

With three weeks of school left and Memorial Day having past, it's starting to feel like the end of the school year. We still have a lot left to do, though. In Reading we have been working on making our oral summaries of books that we read more detailed and thoughtful. If you look at the post below this one on the blog you can see the questionnaire students filled out to practice using some elements of Narrative text. Focusing on these structures helps guide their thinking about what's important to include in a retelling.

If you would like to join us in working on this at home, here is what we've zoomed in on for now:

Characters:  The who.

Setting:  The where and the when.

Plot:  What happens. We broke this into a beginning, middle and end.

Coming up we will be focusing on more complicated ideas of theme, conflict, problem and solution.

If you'd like to add to our growing spreadsheet of narrative elements, please feel free to submit on the form in the preceding post.

Some upcoming dates and events to know about.

May 27th: 3rd grade field trip to Oregon Historical Society.
June 3rd: 3rd grade Cafeteria Duty.
June 4th:  Field day.  Lewis needs volunteers if you are able.
June 8th: Walking field trip to Berkeley Park with our buddy class.  Come along from 11 - 2.




Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Forces and Motion and Emotions

We had our last studio day to get our buildings and bridges to add to our 3D map and things are looking pretty great!  The 2nd graders will learn about Portland geography by figuring out how to situate the buildings they created without typical streets and addresses to cue us.  They will go by the physical features in the landscape.  3rd graders got to walk around downtown on Monday and I'm sure you heard all about their adventures.  They learned about many of the bridges we've been building and walked over 8000 steps according to a activity tracking device a chaperone was wearing.

Coming up we are going to step back from our design and engineering exploration and inquiry and look at more of the scientific ideas around forces and motion.  If you are ever looking for some fund design and engineering activities at home try out the Design Squad Nation website at PBS.  It has a helpful interface where you can check off which supplies (popsicle sticks, balloons and a rubber band?) you have sitting around and it will give you as list of projects to try.  Pretty fun.   I have a bunch of project books that you are welcome to borrow, too, if you every are looking for a fun activity.

In preparation for our look at forces and motion, you might want to some exploring and talking with your students.  Here are some possible things to discuss.

  • How does a bicycle work?  What makes it go?  What makes it stop?  How does it turn?
  • How does gravity work?  Why do things fall down?  Why does a ball bounce?  How can you make it bounce highers?
  • Is there a way to get water to stay in a cup while it's upside down? 
  • Why do you feel woozy when you ride on a roller coaster?
  • Why is it harder to slide across a carpet than a gym floor? Will a marble roll farther on a carpet or a gym floor if you roll it with the same strength?
These are all things we will be looking into and exploring over the next weeks.  

Also, in the past few weeks our class has been experiencing some big feelings - exuberance, anger, disappointment.  We have been talking a lot about how to help someone when they are feeling really big feelings - giving them space, asking them if they want to talk, and encouraging them.  This part of the normal cycle of a classroom community.  As a teacher I welcome kids in sharing what they are feeling and to speak about what they need openly and honestly.  Developing the capacity to recognize, discuss and work with our emotional selves is a key part of healthy development.  It creates a basis for confidence, self awareness and self-regulation - the necessary foundation for an active learner.

Remember, tomorrow is a two hour late start so that teachers can meet.  It is also pajama day if you are inclined to spend the day in your jammies!

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Neighborhoods and Motivation

I was watching my class explore some of the interactive maps on a fun and informative website called Click-that-'Hood and I came back to some questions about teaching and learning that are always somewhere in the back of my mind.  What makes a given learning experience meaningful? Where does the motivation to learn and figure something out come from?  Why are games so engaging? 

The map games on the site are very simple and elegantly laid out.  You see a map of a given area with unmarked neighborhood boundary lines. A timer starts running at the bottom of the page.  The names of the different neighborhoods appear at the top of the screen.  If you click on the corresponding zone on the map, another name pops up and so on.  It's a simple game.  Students were really into it and they are learning the names and locations of Portland neighborhoods.  This kind of "gamification" makes memorization fun and lasting.  It is learning they can apply across contexts and they are motivated to learn it for its own sake.  

There are other aspects of gamification in online learning environments that I find less effective and even counterproductive - rewards.  Badges can be a great way to keep track of skills you have mastered or performed in an online environment. Multiplied double digits? Multiplication badge.  Built a cool rocket out of cardboard?  Engineer badge.  Made some helpful comments on a friend's blog.  Blogger badge.  That is making learning visible within a community.  

But the mechanics get weird and Pavlovian when badges and points become part of a competition or reward system.  Some websites design their learning where students can earn game time for completing drills or answering questions correctly. In my experience the learning there is diminished - less meaningful or memorable - because of the skewed motivational scheme.  It works against inherent desires to learn and grow and understand. To quote Alfie Kohn
Research and logic suggest that punishment and rewards are not really opposites, but two sides of the same coin. Both strategies amount to ways of trying to manipulate someone’s behavior–in one case, prompting the question, “What do they want me to do, and what happens to me if I don’t do it?”, and in the other instance, leading a child to ask, “What do they want me to do, and what do I get for doing it?” Neither strategy helps children to grapple with the question, “What kind of person do I want to be?”

It's this last question that lingers longest in my mind.  It's not just about what we teach, or how we teach; it's always about how the learning shapes who we are.  This article by Katie Ray, a brilliant thinker about teaching young writers, has some great examples of what the implications are for students when we start to think about identity and "stance" in relation to learning.  It creates "students who are prepared to meet the demands of writing in a world with constantly evolving conventions and expectations, because what they know about writing is not static; they’ve learned how to learn about writing."

Don't get me wrong, though.  I love playing games where someone wins and someone loses.  But those are games that I am playing for the sake of playing, not for learning another concept altogether.  I win and lose at soccer and bridge and Mario 3D world all the time.  It's fun.  

This is a long way from the click-that-hood game where I started, but it was on my mind while I watched the kids play around with it.  What would have been the effect if they were playing for points, or rewards or against each other?  Who would have felt successful?  Who would have felt left out?  Who would have missed the learning for the earning?  



Monday, May 4, 2015

Art Night

Art Night is Thursday night and we are really excited.  We are making some final tweaks and trying out some final techniques.  I hope everyone can join us for at least part of the evening.  Doors open at 6 PM and will close at 7:30.

Students will be serving as docents to explain how and why we made the projects that we did.  Almost every student said they want to serve as docents and I will make a slot for all of them.  We will have half hour slots that they can work.  If you can bring your student Thursday evening, please sign up for a slot on the notice outside our class or give Mark a call if you can't make it in.

Our giant map is really coming along.  Today we added some Eastside features like Mt. Tabor, Rocky Butte and some of the Cascade foothills in East County.

Up next we will be learning about Native American history in out region.  We are looking at the continuity of tribal cultures from time immemorial until the present day. In the coming days we are going to watch this video from OPB and discussing how traditions create a sense of community and belonging.