TOPIC: MOVEMENT, LITTLE WOMEN and ENHANCED LEARNING
Volume #4, Edition #1__________Date: January 06, 2003
Recently, this newsletter shared information about the correlation between music, the arts, and learning. Here is additional research from a recent NPR series on “Gray Matters: The Arts and the Brain,” which aired in October, 2002. This provides support for relying on constructivist theories of how people learn.
Ann Green-Gilbert, who directs Seattle’s Creative Dance Center, headed a federally funded study in 15 classes with 250 students to see how dance affects math, language, science and social studies. She instructed teachers to use movement at least 15 minutes a day. They used bodies to form letters and shapes, big and little, crooked and straight.
Test scores increased from fall to spring while district test scores decreased two percent. She indicates that “All the research backs this up. Movement is the key to learning and movement is the key to wiring the central nervous system from birth to 12 years old.” Research at the University of Illinois found that Green is right and that particular attention should be paid to movement from the beginning of life.
No matter what the child is learning – math, science, music, or language – teachers need to adopt strategies that include movement. “We’re teaching the way we taught in the 1800s and 1900s,” says Green-Gilbert, “and that’s when people lived in an agricultural community – they walked to school, they farmed, they had recess, they played, they were outdoors - and now we-re in a society where we’re sitting inside all the time at our little desks. We’re not working on our social, emotional intelligence. We have so much research saying that we must change the way we teach children.”
Here’s an excerpt from a novel you may have read or heard about. Or, perhaps, you saw the movie:
From “Little Women,” by Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott knew, in the 1860s, what we are only beginning to apply in our schools 150 years later. Change takes time, but isn’t this a little ridiculous?
The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).
Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.
Copyright (c) 2003, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.
TOPIC: The Carousel as a Review Activity
Volume #4, Edition #2__________Date: January 13, 2003
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, not always noted for her liberal views, recently told her radio audience, “Anyone who’s ever tried to teach anything to anyone knows that’s when you learn the most.” You’re right on target with that observation, Dr. Laura! Two strategies for engaging students in an activity in which students teach each other are carousels and jigsaws.
Over the past year, I have heard Malone Middle school teachers comment about seeing the newsprint inside and outside of social studies teacher Jeff Durant’s classroom after he has used the carousel in one of his classes. I asked Jeff for an example of a carousel he has used recently and he sent me an outline of a review activity for a unit on “Ancient Civilizations on Subcontinents,” (see below).
Most of the carousel examples I cite are relatively brief and simple:
A carousel can be used as an exploratory (initial) activity to inform teachers of students’ prior knowledge, it can be used primarily to teach content, or it can be used, as Jeff did, as a review activity. A good carousel generates cooperative learning, changes the pace by encouraging movement and is particularly enticing to the bodily kinesthetic learner.
I love the way Jeff used the carousel because he integrated it into an entire period and generated a great deal more student reflection than I usually do. Here is the lesson, including the carousel, exactly as Jeff described it:
Daily Lesson Plan: Carousel Activity
By: Jeffrey M. Durant
Text: Our World's Story
Unit: Ancient Civilizations on Subcontinents
Pages: 120 - 144
New York State Standard(s): Content: C. Classical Civilizations:
Time: A 38 minute class period will be used to teach this lesson.
Goal: The students will gain a thorough review of the unit in anticipation for tomorrow’s test.
Objectives: Students will be given poster sized paper, in groups they will carousel around the room filling in the poster sized sheets of paper with facts that pertain to topics given to the students. This should be done with no more than three errors per sheet of poster paper.
Anticipatory Set: Students were asked to write down different types of review activities they have done in the past in other classrooms.
Introduction: Students will come into the classroom and sit in seats that have been prearranged into groups. Once in the groups, students will be told of the goals and objectives for the day's lesson.
Guided Practice: Students will be given a variety of examples from past carousel activities. This will further motivate them along with getting them thinking about what details they can add to their own carousel.
Independent Practice: Students will be given five minutes at the original location (station) of their sheet of newsprint. At the end of five minutes, they will be instructed to recap their markers, and rotate clockwise to the next sheet of newsprint. Before they start, they are asked to read what the group before them wrote. If they disagree with something that they read, they are to place a small checkmark in front of the statement. Once this is completed, they are asked to take the next four minutes and continue with the list. The same format will be followed at the end of the four minutes as in the previous group; however, at the third and final destination the students will only be given three minutes. After the last station, students will be asked to quietly return to their original sheet of newsprint.
Closure: Since the students are at their original stations in the room, they will be asked to read each item on their sheet of newsprint out loud. As they read a main point, I, as the classroom instructor, will expand on this idea as well as raise questions to further student thought and responses on the main idea. This will be done at all three stations to conclude the day’s activities.
Jeff has offered us a terrific example of a carousel used as a review activity. He told me that as he observed student responses being added to the newsprint it became apparent to him that few students had grasped a concept he felt was important and he had thought most of them knew. Consequently, he built in time, prior to the test, to address this concept and to double check students’ understandings.
As a staff developer, I frequently utilize a carousel. It gets everyone moving, and can accomplish a number of objectives depending on how it is used. Generally, I verbally alert people when it is time to carousel to another sheet of newsprint. Occasionally, when I am on the ball, I remember to bring a boom box and CD and I play music in the background, stopping it when it is time for groups to carousel. It’s a nice touch.
The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).
Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.
Copyright (c) 2003, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.
TOPIC: LAUNCHING A UNIVERSITY CLASS - Five Examples
Volume #4, Edition #3__________Date: January 20, 2003
How should a teacher begin class, particularly the first day? Here are the first hand reactions of a college student.
Our daughter, Marli has been at all ten of our summer conferences, starting when she was ten years old, in 1995. A week ago she began her second semester at Brandeis University and, in a recent e-mail, she volunteered this analysis of the “ice breakers” used by each of her four instructors, and her new boss. I cannot effectively paraphrase my daughter (nor would I dare try), so here, in her own words, is how each of her classes began:
Hi Dad,
As happens every so often, I found myself thinking in what I dubbed "Conference speech", or making connections between my classes and the terms you would use for them in your classes and meetings and conferences, etc. So I thought I'd send you my review of ice breakers and their connection to the basis of the courses, and if you want to use some of it for a newsletter or something, go ahead, or just enjoy.
Having been through five ice breakers in five different scenarios over the past three days, I have concluded that an ice breaker can prove as a basis for the class to the students.
The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).
Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.
Copyright (c) 2003, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.
TOPIC: EFFECTIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
Volume #4, Edition #4__________Date: January 27, 2003
Research is a term we all like to bend toward our own ends. If research supports our point of view, we hold it to be infallible; if we don’t like what we learn from research we challenge it by claiming “Research is subject to interpretation.”
A great deal of research is available on what makes professional development effective. Leading periodicals such as Educational Leadership and Kappan have been touting the research of how we learn best for years. Why are we so slow to adapt our practices to the theories we know to be valid – in the classroom; in professional development?
We know that our classrooms must be learner centered, and we know what a learner centered classroom looks like. Professional development must not only hone teachers’ skills with learner centered strategies, but it must also model these strategies in the way it is offered.
Dr. Giselle O. Martin-Kniep, an assessment trainer for New York State, commented in a presentation more than six years ago that, “Most of the learning community, and most learners, now recognize, at least intuitively, that we don’t learn by having someone teach us, but rather, we learn by engaging with something we want to learn.” However, Dr. Martin-Kniep continued, “ These ideas seem to be well received by educators, in terms of will, but not in terms of practice. It is as though the most commonsensical of all ideas don’t seem to have a proper place in schools.
One obvious key to adapting classroom practices to research based theories of how people learn is through professional development which teaches, and models, best practices for classroom teachers. I’ve prepared a check list so that staff developers and administrators can rate how effectively they are utilizing professional development time.
Let’s play twenty questions. See how many of these questions you can answer, truthfully, in the affirmative. Score five points for each “Yes.” If you score 100 percent (and are being candid and truly understand the questions), you qualify to train the rest of us and you deserve a place in the professional development hall of fame.
1.____ Are staff meetings conducted the way teachers are being encouraged to conduct their classrooms (or does the administrator speak from the front, speaking AT staff)?
2.____ Are teachers evaluated on whether they are trying to utilize the strategies they experience at conferences and workshops or are they criticized for trying strategies in their classrooms they were encouraged to use by workshop presenters?
3.____ Do administrators offer support when teachers risk trying new strategies, even when those strategies may not be successful the first time around, or do teachers fear a negative evaluation if a new strategy is not initially successful?
4.____ Is there a proactive effort to provide people, in the classroom, to model strategies for teachers and/or to observe teachers using innovative strategies and to offer them positive feedback? (Give yourself one/half point for each time this year someone has modeled a strategy or observed for purposes of constructive feedback -not evaluation- in someone else’s classroom.)
5.____ Are professional development days used to initiate strategies that will be implemented in the classroom and is time provided to allow staff to reflect on strategies they have used in the classroom (or is professional development used for one-shot presentations not connected to work previously begun and not leading to follow-through)?
6.____ Can most administrators and staff members effectively describe what research says about how people learn, explain how classroom practice reflects what we know about how students learn, and define how the administrator’s evaluation process connects with this research?
7.____ Has the amount of time for teacher collaboration increased, significantly, in recent years and, if so, is that time being utilized effectively by the teaching staff?
8.____ Are teachers being encouraged to view videos of their lessons and engage in peer assessments through use of contract waivers and other devices designed to enable teachers to candidly assess their own work and be assessed by others without fear of repercussions that could threaten their jobs?
9.____Are students involved in professional development opportunities for teachers (if you can’t think of how this can be done, you obviously are not doing it)?
10.____Are parents and community members involved in professional development opportunities for teachers (if you can’t think of how this can be done, you obviously are not doing it)?
11.____Are teachers involved in professional development planning in a meaningful way that represents a reasonable percentage of your staff?
12.____Are the teachers and administrators who design professional development required to participate in training that assures they are aware of research on effective professional development, and are there methods, in place, to assure that the professional development designers adhere to valid strategies for professional development? (In short, is there a rubric to guide professional development decisions? Hint: Such a rubric should reflect many of the concepts implicit in these twenty questions.)
13.____Does your Professional Development Plan engage teachers as active learners rather than as passive recipients of knowledge?
14.____Do your professional development opportunities model and reflect the 12 strategies recommended by Brooks and Brooks in “The Case for Constructivist Classrooms?”
15.____Are there a wide array of learning opportunities that engage staff in experiencing, creating and solving real problems, using their own experiences, and working with others?
16.____Does your staff development involve teachers both as learners and as teachers and allow them to struggle with the uncertainties that accompany each role?
17.____ Are teachers given professional development time to learn by doing, reading, and reflecting (just as students do); by collaborating with other teachers; by looking closely at students and their work; and by sharing what they see? (This kind of learning enables teachers to make the leap from theory to accomplished practice.)
18.____ Are there flexible systems of professional development, which meet the learners (educators) where they are in the change process?
19.____ Will the Professional Development Plan allow for coherent long-range learning, focused on student needs? Is it embedded in the job and closely related to both student and teacher needs, with teachers taking an active role in their own growth, with and without experts? Are teachers and administrators active makers of their own learning? (Questions 15-19 are among nine “Needed Changes in Professional Development,” cited by Giselle Martin-Kniep in an excerpt from a workbook utilized in her training for the New York State Education Department, (adapted from Sparks, 1995; Little, 1993; and Sykes, 1996).
(How many districts offer Professional Development that is aligned with the changes proposed by Dr. Martin-Kniep?)
20.____Does your Professional Development Plan address the role of the administration and Board, and the need for these people to align district policies in support of the Plan?
Following are just a few of the many citations available to support the kinds of criteria I have listed above. Please note that some of the people whose research supports these criteria have been relied on by New York State in its education reform efforts.
KAPPAN, April, 1995: "Policies that Support Professional Development In an Era of Reform," by Linda Darling-Hammond and Milbrey W. McLaughlin
EDUCATION WEEK: March 16, 1994 - "A Paradigm Shift in Staff Development."
EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP, September, 1989: "The End of an Era of Staff Development," by Linda Lambert KAPPAN: April, 1995, "Practices That Support Teacher Development," by Ann Lieberman, Co-Director, NCREST.
KAPPAN, April, 1995, “Policies that Support Professional Development in an Era of Reform.” by Linda Darling-Hammond and Milbrey W. McLaughlin
Fullan & Hargraves, 1991; Hall & Loucks-Horsley, 1978).
“Needed Changes in Professional Development,” Giselle Martin Kniep, (adapted from Sparks, 1995; Little, 1993; and Sykes, 1996) in a training manual for New York State educators, 1998
"Teachers Teaching Teachers," by Nancy Barnes of the New School in NYC, Education Week, March, 2000
In summary, check out any of the following (and the bibliographies that accompany any of their books or other writings) and you will find far more research than you will have time to absorb: Jacqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin G. Brooks, John Dewey, Linda Darling Hammond, the Johnson Brothers, Giselle Martin-Kniep, Spencer Kagan, Robert Marzano (McCrel), Fred Newman (authentic assessment), Piaget, Robert Slavin, or Grant Wiggins.
The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).
Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.
Copyright (c) 2003, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.
TOPIC: ENTER AN ENVIRONMENT of CARING, TALENTED PEOPLE LIKE YOU
Volume #4, Edition #6__________Date: February 10, 2003
The nature of the person who receives this newsletter is that you are caring, and you are committed to improving the learning environment for children. Imagine spending a week with people who are similarly motivated and leaving with a product that will be of enormous value to you in your work throughout the year. The annual summer constructivist conference at St. Lawrence University was designed for you.
This is a conference like no other! If you doubt this, read the feedback from our last three conferences (www.learnercentereded.org). When have you ever been to a conference where people committed a week of their time and unanimously acclaimed its value? Data continues to flow following each conference with evidence of higher student achievement that results from what is accomplished during the week at St. Lawrence University. (See our web site for a registration form, a listing of the types of tasks undertaken by teams in 2002, and additional conference information.)
Please send me an e-mail if you would like a packet of information about the conference. Your packet will be in the mail the day you request it.
In previous years we have accepted registrations through July and we have always sold out. This year we will end the registration process on March 31. Conference organizers want the opportunity to communicate with every participant (and team) between April 1 and July 28 so we can tailor our approach even more than in the past. While we have had one of the most successful conferences in the world, ten times since 1995, we want to do even better and we can do this only if we are focused on conference content from April through July rather than recruitment efforts.
WHY SHOULD YOU CONSIDER PARTICIPATION AT THE CONFERENCE?
ANNOUNCING the NEW INSTITUTE WEB SITE
Thanks to our web site advisor, Sandy Hildreth, and our technological expert, Jerry Bartlett, the Institute web site has been restructured. Located on site you will find:
The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).
Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.
Copyright (c) 2003, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.
TOPIC: DEFINING EXPECTATIONS FOR STUDENTS
Volume #4, Edition #7__________Date: February 17, 2003
Three strategies need to be applied to clarify a teacher’s expectations for students. Failure to utilize any of these three will diminish the degree of clarity for a teacher’s expectations.
In short, students should see RED (Rubric, Exemplar, Dialogue):
RUBRIC: The rubric defines the teacher’s learning objectives for students and how the teacher will assess student work toward the objectives. The left column of the rubric (variously called components, elements, dimensions, characteristics, or criteria) are the learning objectives the teacher has for the student. The rest of the rubric delineates levels of quality the student can achieve.
However, a rubric is mostly words and, to paraphrase Suzanne Miller, no two people have the same vision in their head of a particular word or sentence.
DIALOGUE: It is the dialogue about the rubric that narrows the interpretations of the words in the rubric. For example, when the teacher uses the word “concise” in the rubric, the student may interpret it to mean “brief.” However, the teacher may mean that it must be as brief as possible, but that it can still be lengthy as long as no words are wasted. The dialogue clarifies in the student’s mind what the teacher means so that in the end result it doesn’t matter if the word used in the rubric remains “concise” or if the teacher substitutes another word. The dialogue creates mutual understanding. When a teacher negotiates a rubric with students, the dialogue occurs as a by-product. However, most teachers do not have enough of a comfort-level with rubrics to negotiate them with students. As an alternative, a teacher can distribute a teacher-made rubric and ask some probing questions to be certain students are interpreting it as the teacher intended. “What do you think is meant by the use of ‘concise’ in the rubric? How would you define a ‘concise’ piece of writing?” the teacher can ask.
EXEMPLAR: The exemplar (as opposed to example) is a sample of student work that would merit an “A”. If students are about to write an essay, an “A” paper from the previous year’s class can be distributed and discussed. If the nature of the assignment might lend itself to student copying of an exemplar, then an exemplar of an assignment in another context can be used. For example, if social studies students are about to write an analysis of the causes of the civil war, perhaps and exemplary analysis of the Viet Nam war (from a class paper or a newspaper) can be distributed and discussed in order to show students the types of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation the teacher is requiring. Or, an analysis of something other than a war could be distributed to show students what the teacher is looking for in terms of analytical thinking and evaluation.
If students aren’t clear on expectations than learning is inhibited. The best way to communicate expectations to students is to have them see RED!
The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).
Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.
Copyright (c) 2003, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.
TOPIC: Constructivism, Engagement, and Understanding
Volume #4, Edition #8__________Date: February 24, 2003
In “The Case for Constructivist Classrooms,” by Jaqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin G. Brooks, constructivism, is defined as “a theory about knowledge and learning.” It is important to focus on constructivism as a theory, not a strategy. That is why it is wrong to say that a lecture is not constructivist. Nor is it correct to equate constructivism with interaction. It is not that simple. Lecture and student interaction are strategies as are portfolios, journals, graphic organizers, and cooperative learning. It may be correct that some strategies are more frequently utilized in an approach that relies on constructivist theory, but any strategy, depending on how it is utilized, can be integrated either in a constructivist lesson or a more teacher centered approach. Mary Jo Thompson, a Minnesota art teacher, is Project Director for a U.S. Department of Education Program in Minneapolis and New York City. Ms. Thompson cites research demonstrating that “There has to be meaning. If it doesn’t make sense to a child they’re not going to remember anything. That’s how the brain works. The brain only has memory when there is meaning.”
Constructivist theory indicates that people will construct their own meaning by building on prior knowledge and experiences, integrating new information with prior knowledge, and formulating new ideas and concepts. It is the connection of new information with prior knowledge that gives the “meaning” to new information which Ms. Thompson cites as critical to the learning process.
Our esteemed colleague Larry Byrd says that “People need hooks to hang their thoughts on.” The “hooks” can be connections people make to prior knowledge or experience, or the recollection of the excitement of a learning experience that enables them to recall and envision what they learned. For example, I can still picture the math teacher who, many decades ago, acknowledged that a problem she had assigned could not be answered with the information available to us. The image of this math teacher and the recollection of her admission is the hook I continue to hang my thoughts on that reminds me that not every problem has a solution. Recently, my wife suggested we could remember our answering machine code number by adding the number “1” to the date of our son’s birth. Our son’s birth date is now the hook on which we hang the new information (answering machine code)
Pat Flynn states that, without exception, “There has to be engagement if there is to be understanding.” This does not mean there cannot be lecture in a constructivist process. If students are actively engaged in an authentic task, it may be appropriate to offer information required for completion of the task through a lecture. I deliver plenty of lectures – from five minutes to much longer – when I conduct classes or workshops, but I’d like to think that I provide information through a lecture format at times when people will perceive the need for information in order to accomplish a task that is authentic for them.
Similarly, not all interaction is constructivist. Putting students in groups and asking them to reach consensus on the names of three characters in a story does not challenge them to utilize any thinking skill except recall. It does not lead to understanding.
To earn the label “constructivist,” a learning activity:
Mr. Byrd also reminds us that “There is beauty in brevity.” With that in mind, I suggest two words are key to an understanding of constructivism:
Is the goal of the lesson student “understanding” (for the purpose of competent application)?
Is “engagement” a primary vehicle for developing understanding?
Forget the open ended question to the entire class, “Does anyone have any questions?” We know before we ask that we will see either no hands go up or the same old hands.
Instead, if you really want to encourage questions, ask your students to “Turn to your partner and develop one good question to pose about what we have been studying.” (This has the added benefit that some questions will be asked and answered within the small groups – questions that never would have made their way to the teacher).
Forget the question to the entire class, “Who can name two causes of the civil war?” Your goal should be to have each individual student think about the question even if only one or two may be called upon for the answer. If I’m a student in your class and I hear you throw a question to the entire class, I know the odds are pretty good you won’t call on me so there is no reason for me to interrupt my day dream and tax my brain. I know the teacher has no way of knowing whether I am thinking about her question or something totally unrelated.
However, when the teacher says, “Turn to the person next to you and agree on two causes of the civil war, and then we’ll share some of the responses,” the chances are greatly increased that the two of us will discuss the question. This is what you, as a teacher, want. You want me to think. You know you cannot call on 25 students, individually, to see if they have thought about the answer to your question, but you want each of them to think about it even if they are not called upon.
When teachers employ strategies in a manner consistent with constructivist theory of how people learn they mandate student thinking because they require engagement with information. Effective engagement takes the learner beyond the level of simple recall. The good teacher must constantly be challenging herself to answer the question: “Am I forcing my students to engage with information (to think about it) or am I allowing them to escape the thought process? How can I know if I am getting them to think about (and engage with) the information we are discussing?
We are in the process of finalizing facilitators and teams for the summer “constructivist” conference; if you are interested in sending (or bringing) a team, or in facilitating, please let me know, NOW!
The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).
Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com. Requests to be dropped from this list will also be honored.
Copyright (c) 2003, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.