Category: Student Posts

After spending a few weeks talking about colonial America and events leading up to the Revolutionary War, I thought it would be beneficial and important to have students view the historical context from the lens of both American Patriots and British Loyalists. The discussion-based learning approaches discussed in last weeks class were a solid fit for this analysis of perspective, and I decided to use the fishbowl strategy since the class size was large and splitting the class in half would allow/encourage introverted students to be quiet while the extroverted students dominate the conversation.

As a way to “spice up” the fishbowl style discussion approach, I decided to assign 16 of 29 students to either the “Sons of Liberty” (to represent patriots) and the “Parliament” (to represent loyalists) and had 8 students in each group. These groups were actively participating in a debate in the center of the room, and the remaining 13 students were assigned as “undecided” colonists that must choose to side with either the patriots or the loyalists. The 13 “undecided” colonists were assigned to take notes during the debate, then given 10 minutes after the debate ends to write a short statement paragraph explaining which side they will take and why.

Student were not randomly assigned to groups, since I already know who are the dominant speakers and who are the introverts, and I tried to accommodate students for the option they prefer. At the end of writing summaries and deciding on which side to align with, students were asked to join the group that they chose so those in the debate could feel like there has been a competition. Patriots were expected to win, mainly because I knew their would be an American romanticism regardless of the facts, so picking a “winner” of the debate is not necessarily representative of how information was presented — I made sure to clear that up with the students before the end of class!

This seemed to be a great way of engaging students in the lesson, however I could tell that a few students tasked with taking notes and writing a summary were likely distracted doing other things on their iPad. (Students at my school regularly use the iPads to take notes and write assignments, however the notes/summary from students who used pencil and paper were significantly more detailed and “engaged” than anything I received from students using their iPads. One thing I learned by doing this lesson is that it would be smart to require students to use pen/pencil and paper when taking notes and writing their summary, even if they typically use their iPad, only because the debate requires instructor focus which makes it more difficult to ensure everyone is on task.

Over my time in my placement, I have learned that discussions in some classes will just not be beneficial or productive. Some students are just not mature enough to have thoughtful discussions with the class. Because of this, the entire class looses out on opportunities for discussion. There are other kinds of smaller discussions that I’ve been able to try and want to try in the future.

In my previous field experience placement, my Cooperating Teacher was a big fan of having Structured Academic Controversy in her class. One of many times she used this method in her class, they were discussing the start of the Civil War. This was a really productive activity for this topic since there is always so many ideas around what really started the Civil War. It was good for students to be able to see sources from each side and see them argue for and against points they had supported at the beginning of the class, but maybe were completely against by the end. It was very cool to see how these students responded and how well they were able to use the documents provided to them to create valid and strong arguments.

In my classroom this year, my CT and I have tried having students evaluate pictures before we start a new unit and have students jigsaw the photographs so they can see what they will be learning in the next unit. This was beneficial in some classes, but others turned disastrous. Since starting my unit plan, I’ve been a big fan of seeing how students are doing at the end of the class period and what they have learned. Exit tickets have been a really good tool to get that kind of information. I’ve used that in a couple classes, but don’t want it to become too repetitive so I’m excited to try a couple new ideas in the next few class periods.

One tool I’m excited to try is the 3-2-1 method. I think using this method would be helpful for students to feel a bit more empowered in their learning because it focuses on things that they are good at and know how to do. Focusing on what students are good at might also help those who are dealing with stress about tests. I’m also really interested in seeing how the Send-a-problem tool would work. It activates students to do something for themselves and their own learning and might be a tool they can model for themselves and others in the classroom before trying it at home or for other classes as well. My class is having a review day in a couple of class periods so I’m excited to try that one out for them instead of just making a Kahoot for them to review with.

• The Goal of this assignment was for students to think about how information connects both in logical and visual space. I imagined this activity as a summative assessment, in which students would apply their learning throughout a unit to produce a “map” of the content and ideas we had explored. For our class, my intention was to explore scribing as both teaching and learning tools.
• The activity works well when students have a variety of materials to draw upon for inspiration. This could include notes, textbooks, slideshows, even their background knowledge. In our class setting, it was a little challenging to find the information quickly and synthesize it into a quality visual in such a short amount of time. Twenty minutes is not a lot of time to introduce a new concept and try it out. Had we done this activity at the end of a unit, I think it would’ve gone smoothly.
• In our class we spent most of our time practicing the skill. Only the first five minutes were devoted to introducing the concept of visual scribing. Had I prepared some notes/materials for the class to draw from, we could’ve focused more on the visualization. Professional “scribers” have a lot of practice doing this sort of thing – they are professionals, after all. Scaling the activity down to meet the needs of a classroom is necessary.
• Scribing, on this scale, seems to work best in groups. Some students really gravitate to the drawing/creating side of it, others excel at planning and organization. I think giving this as an assignment for students to work on over the course of a unit would produce higher quality results.

In my student teaching placement, I have tried small group discussion strategies. Last week, students independently read an article on measuring the health of the economy and then filled out a KWL chart together in groups of 3, or 4. (In the future, I will have students complete the K and L columns prior to the reading.) We then had each group select a representative to share a statement from each column of the chart. It led to an interesting class-wide investigative discussion on what people were wondering about with respect to GDP. The wondering of what county has the highest GDP, for example, led us into discussing country ranking of GDP and comparing that to a real GDP per capita ranking. The group went on the research alternative measure of GDP in their small groups and share with class some of the alternative indicators that some economists think are worthwhile in terms of understanding economic well-being.

Another discussion strategy that I have tried is Converstations, where students had an opportunity to post and discuss what they had learned and what they were still wondering with respect to the unit learning targets. This is a great activity to provide students with an opportunity to review and discuss material prior to a unit test. I had six posters located around the room and had students travel to the next station with the whole group. Once groups made it through the entire rotation, we came together as a class to review each poster topic for clarification. I like Jennifer Gonzales’s suggestion to have some students stay behind at the station to share with the next group what has been previously covered and discussed. Also, in my activity, I had about 6 students at each station. I think it would have worked better with less students in each group. There were a few off-task students and some who traveled on the periphery. Having more poster stations allowing for smaller groups is another adjustment I would make for a similar future activity.

What I’d like to try mid-unit or prior to a unit test is Send-a-Problem. Students will work in small groups of three and each given a flashcard to create a unit derived question for the group. The small group will come to a consensus on the appropriate question and answer for each flashcard in the group. The small groups will pass on the group of flashcards to another small group and receive a new set of questions from another team. Each set of review questions will rotate through each group. This seems like a fun, active, engaging way to spend 15 minutes on unit review.

I also like the Note to A Friend concept: giving students an opportunity to complete a 5-10 quick write at the end of a lesson. This is great way to utilize the last 5-10 minutes of class to reinforce content. I might also expand the concept to include sketching/cartooning as an option for sharing learning with a friend.