Brilliant idea for Project

Here it is.
The project will be to help Middle School Teachers use Constructive Pedagogies to help integrate a unit of work across the six curriculum areas.
Background:
At our school, our middle school is structured so that two key teachers (called Learning Teams) are responsible for the teaching of six of the main curriculum areas for a particular class (i.e. Maths/Science/IT and English/SOSE/RE). There are 12 teams in all (6 for Year 8 and 6 for Year 9).
Currently, we are sporadically working on at least one unit of work together as a integrated unit. It is fairly haphazard and depends on the commitment of the people involved. We will hopefully report on this at the next Teams meeting. Our aim then is to get these teams to meet with Margaret Bishop to reflect on the process used so far and then plan a full unit for the second semester. We could use the Connectedness part of the Constructive Pedagogies as guide to the sorts of things we are aiming for (ie connections between subject areas, but also with students lives and with the "real" world).
My idea:
I work with Amanda (also doing the AGQTP project) on the planning of the day with Margaret. We use the Understanding by Design process to framework the day. Amanda can be the reflective partner and would help people understand the Cooperative and Cognitive methods that are used for each of the sessions (given that I will be involved with my partner). She could also take photos and get feedback on how the day went.
We aim that teams get the unit done in the third term and then feedback to the Middle school team sometime late in Term 3 or early term 4 (Term 3 would be better for us).
Then we report back to the AGQTP project - viola!

Understanding by Design:
This is a three step process which I am only beginning to understand, but hopefully will have a better understanding in Term 2. It goes something like this:

Step 1: Establish the goals for the PD day. Something like: Integrated units give students an opportunity to see how ideas are connected and how those connections can also be made with their own lives and the world around them.
Having decided that, we need to focus on: what key ideas will students understand as a result of doing the integrated unit. By understanding, I mean being able to transfer the knowledge to new and unusual situations.
Then we need to come up with some essential questions to provoke inquiry, understanding and transfer of learning.
We should then be able to come up with some statements that show: what students will know and what students will be able to do by the end of the unit.

Step 2: The next step is to decide on the authentic performance tasks that students will participate in to show they have these essential understandings. We will need to agree on criteria to judge the performance (a rubric might help here). We could also decide on tasks (tests, homework) that students need to do to demonstrate achievement of the desired results. Will we get students to reflect on their own learning and self-assess?

Step 3: The final step is decide on the learning activities to help students achieve the desired results.
These must:

• help students know where the unit is going and what is expected.
• get students hooked into the process
• give students the skills to succeed
• give students opportunities to think and reflect on what they have done
• allow students to evaluate their own work
• allow students to personalise their learning according to their needs and interests

Looks good.

AGQTP Day 1 2007

Wednesday 28th was the first appearance of AGQTP this year.
As usual it was full on from the first.
We made a transfer booklet - small, eight page booklet made out of folding paper.
I wonder if I can describe how to do it? Let's see...fold an A4 sheet in half, then in half again and then again - so you have folded into eighths. Open it up to the first fold. Along the closed edge, tear half way down the page (to the next fold). Open it up, mountain fold along the middle, push the torn halves in opposite directions, fold the paper back together again along the natural folds. You should end up with eight pages of naturally opening booklet. Either that or a small, flying crane.
Anyway on the booklet I wrote a number of questions which I tried to answer during the day:

1. Find 5 Cooperative strategies
   T Chart - we used to map our beliefs about teaching and learning and our practices which show our beliefs in action.
   Round Robin - use when you have groups to generate ideas. Each group brainstorms on paper for a short period of time then passes on to the next group. With the new piece of paper, the group must add to ideas already there. Keep going until to receive your initial piece of paper. Groups can then choose the best three ideas.
   Hot Potato - similar strategy except that it is done within a group and each person writes down one idea and passes it onto the next person. A good way of getting all members of a group to contribute.
   Paired interview - one person acts as a questioner and the other person answers the question. Then reverse roles.
   Expert Jigsaw - Divide the idea or skill under study into 4-6 sub-topics. Get students into groups of the same size as the number of sub-topics. Each member of this "home" group is then given a number from one to the maximum number of sub-topics (e.g. 4). Then, all the number ones from each of the home group come together as Expert Group One, all the twos into Expert Group Two etc. Hand out or point out material from each of the sub-topics. Each expert group now takes responsibility for trying to understand the concepts or skills explained in the sub-topic. Once this is completed, they move back to their home groups and explain each sub-topic to the rest of the group. Whew!
   Tournament Prioritiser - still to get my head around this one.
   
   
2. Details on how Tribes is a different cooperative approach.
   Not much on this as we only skimmed the surface to get some sort of overall idea of the concept. Seems quite successful and the focus is on getting students to get on with each other.
   
3. How does Round Robin work - see above. Further ideas - give each group a different topic to work on; still pass the ideas onto the next group - but each group only adds ideas for the different topics.
   
4. What is the silent card shuffle - cards of a sequence of ideas (eg Blooms taxonomy) are cut up and shuffled. Then each group silently rearranges the cards in "correct" order. This would silence the more vocal, dominant members of the group. Then, when the group is finished, they can verbally challenge the arrangement. Finally, this is compared to the commonly acceptable arrangement.
5. What does it mean to "understand" something.
   Constructive Pedagogies talks about deep understanding - a concept that has fascinated me for a long time. My understanding of Understanding is that it is the ability to transfer what you know to new and unusual situations. Still need to work on this.
6. List of Cognitive Strategies
   3, 2, 1 - Come up with three facts, 2 insights and 1 question about a topic (or combinations of this).
   Main Point Marking - slightly more detailed reading of a document than skim reading. Just get a highlighter and point out the main points. I like students to then go back over it and say why (using annotations) the points highlighted are important. Finally, I get them to number the highlighted points and rank them in importance using numbers.
   2Q - answer two questions after an activity: What went well, where could you improve or could have done things differently.
   RAS alerts - highlight important areas to come and your expectations so that students are aware of what is important and what is not.
   Alert symbols - use different colours for each group and say that the Blue group has to be aware of one idea or concept being presented and will then report back a summary of the end of the presentation.

Traffic Lights was another teaching strategy. Each student needs a green, yellow/orange and red card. Green means - "I'm ok (no need to help me)"; Orange/yellow means - "I'm struggling but I am willing to work on it"; Red - "I need help".

Homework for the session includes:

• Research cooperative learning
• Find out about Tribes
• Do a journal entry
• T-chart of actual teaching practice - compared to the T-chart of beliefs. Audit your classroom.
• Need to get a folder to put in all the stuff we get at this conference. Divide it into three - action research done; handouts from the sessions; journal.
  

I will need to follow up the following:

• Using blogs for journaling. Possibility of using CESA online as a forum.
• Getting an electronic copy of the XPATA learning planning - has a number of cooperative and cognitive teaching strategies. We are due to get a PDF version.
• Dates for the next meetings: 14-15th May; 7th-8th of June; 3 August; 19 October - Presentation.
  

First week back

Interesting start to the new year - it hasn't exactly gone as I wanted but that's teaching!
My 11 Biology class are great - I have discussed with them how I would like to work and they are at least open to the idea. So all the things I mentioned in my previous blog might work with them.
However, my Year 11 Psychology class is something else again. 26 students, 25 girls! The dynamics of the class are interesting enough - but all girls!
The first thing I asked them was to answer four questions - about me, what I know about psychology, what is important to me and, crucially, what I don't like about school and teachers.
I say crucially, because the vast majority have huge (and mostly reasonable) issues with homework. I will have to work hard to convince them that it is essential.
I intend to discuss this with them and then also discuss my teaching methods for the week. I will ask for feedback and then urge them to take on board what I am doing to the fullest.
Year 9 Science will be a little more difficult because it is a big class. I will need to rethink my approach here.
No mention yet of the Web 2.0 stuff yet but our network is a bit wobbly due to a complete upgrade so that's ok.
Oh well, see how this full week goes.

How to plan a unit of work using student input:

• Ask students to read outlines and list major points to be covered.
• Students write a mind map - showing how these ideas are linked; below this raise either more areas of interest or questions you would like answered during the process.
• Form a general week by week plan of how to cover these ideas in the unit.
• Skim read the text book. Does it cover all the areas needed. What else is needed? Who will do this?
• Plan a week at a time of activities that they agree on.
• Agree on a way of determining if people understand the key ideas.
• Do the same with skills.
• All students to write up their learning plan for the week.
  

General Weekly structure of my senior lessons

As part of my radical new teaching style, I want to set up what I will call learning environments (as opposed to classrooms).
I will emphasize that I am here to learn from them how to be a better teacher, but they will also learn from me and from each other (and from others beyond the classroom).
During the week I will need to cover:

• What needs to be looked at this week. This could be done with mind maps. We could also look at the parameters of each concept.
• What resources can we use to try and understand the concepts.
• What might stop us from understanding them. What do we need to do to overcome these problems.
  
• What skills do we need to develop to help with the assessment tasks. Where will be the problems.
  
• What learning style will we try and use this week. What are three signs that this style is effective.

At some stage early in the term I need to cover:

• What content we will cover
• What assessment items we need to produce
• What issues there might be between them (as students) and me (as a teacher)
  
• What the deadlines policy means to me
• Ethics - critical to be covered before ANY exercises can be done in class.
  
• My ideas for Web 2.0 and how we might use it.
  

Issues in 11 Psychology

I want to be able to teach this class by being "embedded" (thanks George Bush) in the class. So here are some ideas:

• I have done a cursory look at the big ideas of the first unit on Introduction to Psychology. I have listed the key resources in a database and only briefly looked at the key points.
  
• I have a general idea of how I could use them in a class. For example, there are a number of sections on identifying variables in an experiment, graphing data etc. It would be very boring to go through each one of them and then do the review questions. I would like to attempt the class activity which is an example practical first but then examine each problem with the students method as they become apparent.
• I would like to start the unit by getting the students to articulate what constituents an effective teaching session for them. List these off and then when I come to a new area ask which method might be appropriate.
• I did have the idea of getting them to do all the Review questions for homework but that would be difficult to manage and might tempt students to copy. I guess I would have to discuss the reasons for doing homework and ways to avoid copying.
• The wiki idea is starting to take shape. I can see the importance of the students coming up with their own ideas of what words like "normal distribution" and "histogram" mean. Again, collaborative work means that it would be easy for "social loafing" to occur. Perhaps I could allocate each student a set of words that they must initiate the discussion of the meaning of and then get others to add to or comment on as part of their homework. So for example, I would say "your homework for tonight is to add the meaning of these words to the wiki and contribute to the meaning of at least two other entries".
• Will also need to discuss the ethics section very early. This would be critical in creating trust in the class.

Ideas for Shared Documents

Further to my discussion on using Google Docs, I would envisage a letter being sent home to parents asking that they guarantee access to the Internet on the three days that I have lessons in Psychology and Biology. During access students will have to:

• read certain documents that I publish. For example, course outlines and assignments given out in class. This is a fairly passive process but I could ask students to comment on the publication - ask for clarification, suggest some resources of their own etc. This would be a document that I publish. I wonder if there was a way to ensure that they have read it?
  
• work individually on a document. At this stage, I am looking at formative documents only that they would work at online so that I could monitor their progress and give immediate feedback. I am not sure about summative work as I could not guarantee that it was student work (not coerced friends or even parents) but maybe some of the research notes and plans could be done online. This would be a document that I would collaborate with one student.
  
• work as a group on a collaborative project. This would involve me setting up the document name and then inviting groups of students to contribute. This could help me monitor their progress and check to see the quantity and (more importantly) the quality of each students contribution to the project. This would be a document that I would collaborate with a group of students.
  
• work on a document as a class. This could include posting aspects of the syllabus and asking them to explain it in their own words, or posting a question that they need to answer and discuss with others. It could include a class revision resource where collectively they try to understand the key points of the course at the end of the year. This would be a document that I would collaborate with the whole class.

The idea, then, is to ensure that students have access to the internet all the time - including having a back up plan if things go wrong at home. They would have constant access to the document (no more excuses like "I've done it but left it at home") and, in theory, I could have constant access to what they are doing (Big Brother-like).
The other aspect that this opens up is if parents complain that students are not doing homework or say that they have no homework. There is the possibility that I give parents access to the sites as well! What about Subject Coordinators? Hmmm. The possibilities look endless.

Must be careful not to overdo it

The focus on the changes should be on what students can do and then improving on it. It has to be achievable by students.
I was thinking about developing a rough outline of the course and then planning a week's worth of lessons with the students.
Each week could have a focus question that we are trying to answer. For example, early on, it could be "why do we need to be ethical in Psychology studies?"; "What do we know about Psychology already" (Good Brain storm or Brain Mapping question - could even be a KWL question).
Would like to give them time for journal writing - to be put into the wiki - and also review of learning goals.

More ideas for 2007

Here are some more things I would like to do.
* I got this idea from a site called "Instructables". How about adding a part of the wiki site that I want to create to include a section on 'Here is how I do it'. It could include information on how I write an essay or do research. In maths it could include how the student approaches a particular task eg adding fractions. The answers could include pictures (screen dumps) or digital photos to illustrate the ideas begin generated.
* Using Google docs to create documents that students can share or can edit. More importantly, getting students to write their answers in a document that only I and the student can access. This means I can give them feedback as they create it, but also I have an idea of how they are going - ie what stage they are at.
* Also using Google docs students could work on collaborative documents eg report write ups or group assignments. Again, I could follow their progress and give feedback on the way.
* Also I could post assignments online for student access so that they don't have to go searching for the paperwork but also they can't use the excuse "they forgot".
Hmm. This Google docs could be interesting. I hope that it is stable.

Student control over the lesson content

Over the past 20 or so years, I have used every teaching trick in the book to try and get my students motivated. Over those years, the only thing that ever works is when students take control over their own learning. That is, when students say to themselves, "I want to be successful in this subject and only I can be in control of that".
So my thinking now is that once I have given out the main materials for the class, I sit back and ask them what they want to know. I will say to them that they need to decide what should be taught in the class and, to an extent, how. I will get them to agree to a week-by-week program, one aspect will include them setting a personal learning goal and deciding on three behaviours which show that they are achieving their goals.
My theory is that this will force them out of their dependence on me as their teacher and help with the motivation to participate in the classes actively.
We would have to agree on the structure of the class and what work would have to be done outside the classroom. My initial thought was to get them to work out what is required of them for each assessment task, but I would hope that they might be motivated out of sheer interest in the subject matter.

Using Brain-compatible techniques in my classes

Today began a commitment to use Brain-compatible techniques in a new class I am teaching in 2007 - Year 11 Psychology.
I will encourage the bringing in of water and brain food. I will break up my lesson into 10-12 minute chunks with plenty of movement (eg Brain Gym, movement around the class to discuss ideas with others), deflected questioning techniques, RAS alerts, VGMActivities).
I will emphasise student control of the class by giving plenty of choice and taking my directions from them about what they want to study (within the confines of the syllabus).
I will use their ability to socialise freely but emphasise that success comes mainly through hard work. I will also emphasise the importance of Hope - everyone can do it.
Should be interesting times.

AGQTP Orientation session

Today was the first session of a year long series of training and meetings for the Productive Pedagogies Project. I want to start blogging this because I feel it could be a great project to be involved in.
Focus:
It appears to want to develop "something" that will identify and support quality teaching. We need to know what quality teaching looks like.
This project is part of a new cycle of funding from the Federal Government with aims to develop cross-sectional programs aimed at improving teacher quality. It also stems from the needs that have come from schools in the area of: what is my understanding of a good teacher across the board but also in specific teaching areas. Research suggests that a major factor in improving learning is the teacher.
Aim:
Work towards a "thing" which will provide support to analyse and help teaching.
Build our capacity as a organisation to have leaders which will support training in this area.
Will use Queensland version of this to help reflect on our notion of good teaching.
Will involve action research project which will involve mentors to help refocus the research.
Intensive training days will be held in the first week back for three days.
Includes: Edgar Bliss - Senior Education Advisor for CEO; Ian Smyth - Executive Director Council for Education Associations in SA (CEASA); Margot Foster - Manager Learning to Learn project in Education Department.
Some ideas I have about the project is:
* Find out details about how an action project is supposed to work, what are the essential elements of such a project.
* Must involve statistics - revisit this idea at school.
* Could link in with the Quality school concept and other aspects of Choice Theory.
* Must also involve middle school ideas - this will be the experimental area.
* Use Values education stuff from Julia Atkin

Well Im back...

Its only been 6 weeks. Did you miss me. I felt the urge to write today because my class is at the cross roads. I have two students, possibly three who are driving the class in a particular direction and I am not sure I like where it is going. They are all intelligent and articulate but are not necessarily interested in doing the things I would like to do.
I am currently discussing with the class what their job or role is and what mine is. This came as a result of a survey I did with them to determine a new seating plan. The results were disappointing with some saying they did not want to sit with the majority of the rest of the class. I said I can't operate that way so we need to deal with it. The result is that they come up with some things they are prepared to do: eg respect and cooperate with others, learn?, listen. Except that they decided that they would only try to do these things. After some thought I have decided that this is not good enough - you can't try to respect people. You either do or you don't.
So I am going to go back to the class and ask them to think again. I have thought about what my role is and am willing to include the following:
I will work to create a positive, learning atmosphere in the classroom
I will work to create a place where students choose to learn
I will support students in their learning where ever I can
I will respect and listen to the views of students
I will respect the dignity of all people in my class.

I have a feeling that they will want to have some input in this aspect but I will have to remind them that this is stuff I have to do. Not them. So they can advise but they can't insist. Should be interesting stuff.

Using Maths to develop cooperative skills

Today was an unusual attempt to use Mathematics to help develop cooperative skills. There are 11 students who need to re-do a test that they did not get 75% mark. I asked today that those that did get over that score help train those that didn't. It went well except that some of the under-achievers decided to try and help each other. However, it was good to see them at least trying to help each other.
We then spent the rest of the lesson making our own problem-solving games. Some of them came up with some excellent ideas and I look forward to getting them laminated and in boxes for others to use.

Not a day I will look back on with fondness...

Today was not a good one. I had one lesson with the class and handed back their Maths tests. Only a few of them scored the necessary 75% and so many will be re-doing the test. Some seemed to treat it as a great joke - laughing out loud when asked to call out their scores by their friends. Well, then some of the class just lost it completely. They could not get back on task. Even as I went through the test, they were still calling out and laughing at their incorrect answers.
In the end I tried to set a date for the new test, and we agreed on Monday. MeB disagreed and tried to change everyones opinion to a Wednesday - she just would not accept the idea of spending the weekend learning for the test. To cap it off, she blamed me for doing badly in the test. I got very angry with that and so probably said some things I will regret (though not too bad when I think about it).
Two lessons I learnt with this class:
Never give a test back on the last lesson on a Friday and never give it back at the beginning of a lesson.
I will also be changing the seating arrangements - because the new one does not work.
SA is concerning me greatly as he appears to be getting himself into trouble in other classes and in the yard. I have spoken to him about this - and he appears to know what the correct response is - but does not want to put it into action. There is something significantly wrong here - I know he has trouble focussing but I am concerned that he DOES know how to behave appropriately and is chosing not to. Oh, well, one for the occipital lobe.

Have decided to do a couple of things next term...

1. Write up in detail what I want students to do during the week. I don't know if this is going to work but I am sick of repeating myself and it appears (from my reading) that this vagueness of adolescents is quite expected.

2. On the same sheet get students to indicate what they are going to do for homework. Then get parents to sign it. This should get some of them off my back.

3.Visit a primary school and watch how middle-schooling should be done. At the moment I am lacking ideas and direction.

4. Summarise the key points from the interviews and then put them into an action plan for each student. We will use them next term as guide posts for behaviour.

5. Do a lot more planning in the holidays.!

C'mon holidays. Hurry up!

What a woeful day. I am not sure if I am running out of ideas or the students are just tired but it was like pulling teeth today. They could just not get into it. We are working on the sampling side of this rubbish unit - boy, oh boy where they not interested. I don't think I was either, and that was reflected in the lesson. We collected a sample of rubbish just to see what was out there and found that most of it was paper and plastic. They then had to get into their groups to come to some agreement on what information THEY were going to find and how to get it. Boy, it was hopeless: the groups were disagreeing, they were missing the (my) point and they were acting like they hadn't slept in days.
I guess we will struggle on. I needed to break up the lesson more with some active components. But, as I said in my last blog I have run out of ideas.

And the interviews go on...

Another day, another 11 interviews. They are lengthy, tiresome but worth it. I learnt a lot today about some students and very little about a few of them. Two challenges I face are: what to do with parents who want their children to have more homework and two students who have asked to be accelerated, challenged, extra work etc. It is hard to determine if the parents want it or the children.
I hope to get a chance to talk to the students at school but I don't know if I have their trust yet for them to tell me honestly how they feel. Will have to put my thinking cap on, hard!
We started looking at cooperative groups today and they spend time working out the ground rules for how each group will work. They had to agree on rules to achieve six criteria eg sharing responsibility, working out how to come to a consensus etc. They were pretty good at it and it looks like each group has a workable set of guidelines. The next step was to identify the maths skills needed to achieve the outcomes and we will use the text book to try gives us clues for this.
As you would gather, we are rapidly approaching the end of the term and my resources for writing this blog are dimishing. Roll on holidays.

Just another thought

Yesterday we also started the new unit on Rubbish. It was interesting to see that the first task was to write a 100 word expository piece outlining their thoughts on the subject. They were very unhappy about this and so we came up with a compromise where they could do the 100 words, or a diagram or a mind map. To me both the other options required a bit more thinking because they had to show what they thought rubbish was and describe why it is (or is not) a problem.
I was glad to be able to give them the option because they seemed so concerned about writing 100 words. I was amazed that they felt it was going to be so difficult.

More interviews and a shock for the students

Yesterday I had four more, indepth interviews with parents of my home class. They all went well, and a common theme throughout was how well their children had settled into school and how they were enjoying it (or it was "ok" in the words of the student). Another common theme was the lack of homework. Given that Jane and I will be providing most of it, we need to discuss how to approach this so that parents feel ok and yet we are not giving it homework for the sake of it.
Last lesson of the day, and all students recieved their Science exercise books back. I checked to see how much work they had done and many had not done much. So to recieve a detail report showing this was quite a shock for most of them. Only two students can hold their heads up high and say they did all the work required. This is ok - as long as it doesn't stay that way. I think they get the idea now that I mean business and that they must complete the work set to a good standard. The timing of the parent interviews has been great because I could point this out to the parents as well.
Now the challenge is to produce a work agreement for all three subjects that I teach so that it comprehensively covers the work they need to practice and the summative tasks. Oh well, back to the keyboard.