Super Cool Science Activity for Symbiosis

I was visiting Ms. Browning at Discovery School this week and what I found was SO MUCH FUN!!  The kids were so involved and the activity required creativity.  You can find the activity here.

Want to beef it up and push creative thinking a bit more….give them squiggles.

Anyone have a website for squiggles?

How to Support Gifted Students in Your Classroom

You know…I can’t really say it any better.  So I’ll let ole Ben tell you.  Take a look.

Supporting Gifted Kids

I really like some of the points he makes.  Channeling instead of controlling.  The type of teacher.  Recognizing gifts and helping the student believe he/she can do amazing things.  I hope you’ll take a look at some of the other gifted posts on this blog.  Knowing about giftedness will help you understand and educate each child.

Book Study: Square Peg: My Story and What it Means for Raising Innovators, Visionaries, and Out-of-the-Box Thinkers

I’m going to be reading a book called  “Square Peg: My Story and What it Means for Raising Innovators, Visionaries, and Out-of-the-Box Thinkers.”  I’d love to have someone join me.  I’ll post comments, questions, quotes.  Any brave innovators, visionaries, or out-of-the-box thinkers?  You won’t regret it. 

The author was a HS dropout.  He’s now a Harvard professor.  While telling the story of his life, it gives the reader (teacher) an opportunity to reflect on his/her practices in the classroom.  You will see many faces of students as you read through the book.  It will challenge your “traditional” approaches and push you to ask “why” is that what we do?

SCAMPER for a Book Giveaway???

At a recent conference at Vanderbilt, we discussed the strategy called “SCAMPER.”  Each letter represents a way to think more creatively.  Substitute.  Combine.  Adapt.  Modify/Magnify/Minify.  Put to other uses.  Eliminate.  Reverse/Rearrange.  Before releasing this strategy, it will need to be model with the students, then used for independent work.  (Sometimes we forget to set the strategy up for success.  For example, independent learning plans require research skills.  We need to teach those skills before releasing the ILP.)

I recently received an email from Mrs. Davis at Scales.  This week she used SCAMPER and focused on substituting and eliminating.  (Great way for kids to plan a fractured fairy tale for creative writing.)  A student eliminated the brick house and realized that brought a short life for the 3rd pig.  Another student searched his thinking and worked with eliminating the bond between the pigs.

At the conference, a few of us from MCS began with Pinocchio.  Using the words from SCAMPER, we modified Pinocchio.  He was then Pinocchi “ette.”  We substituted lying with bullying.  Cyber bullying to be exact.  Geppetto was NOT trying to help.  He was actually encouraging her actions which happened to be against (combine) Cinderella.  We adapted the end when Pinocchiette realized how wrong it was to bully…etc.  You getting the picture?  The amount of discussion and flexible thinking was extraordinary!

This could be used in all subjects.  Math included!

I found this  neat rubric to accompany this strategy.  It’s found here.

NOW…all MCS employees…how could you use this in your class?  To all MCS teachers that comment, sharing an idea for using SCAMPER, each will be put into a drawing for a copy of “Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire.”  I’ll have the final give-a-way in January when we return.

Happy SCAMPERING.

Promoting Independent Learning

While doing a little reading on Independent Learning Plans, I started to wonder why ALL educational efforts are not working more intentionally toward the same goal.  We HOPE that what students are learning now will serve them later in life.  Is it the content that will be useful or how they acquire the content?  Let’s be honest.  Some of the content becomes part of the process, but do we put enough emphasis on the learning journey?  The metacognition of what’s involved?

Don’t be fooled by the title…”Independent Learning Plans.”  This isn’t equivalent to “Remove the teacher.”  As a matter of fact, the teacher’s role is extremely important.  Each student needs a facilitator and someone to help repair thinking that has jumped off track.  Again, it’s a mind shift.

Independent learners acquire information, communicate effectively, organize themselves, problem solve, and relate to others.  WOW!!  Sign me up!!  Where would one begin?

Here are a few self reflections if you want to evaluate your current position in this type of atmosphere.

• How often do I give the students choices so they can reflect on their own interests and preferences?
• Do I encourage group work?
• Do I collaborate with the pupils to set shared learning goals?
• Do I involve students in lesson planning?
• Do my students have an opportunity to reflect about their learning?
• Do I encourage peer/self editing before work is handed in to me?
• Is my classroom a place where risk taking is welcomed?
• Do I show my students the same respect as I expect of them?

Don’t shy away from this idea just because it seems daunting.  Pick one area to work on and add to it.  Before long, you just might find yourself in a different mind set.  You might be surprised how it grows YOU as a learner, too.

Critical Thinking

Twelve of us spent the past two days at Vanderbilt learning more about critical and creative thinking.  This way of thinking/teaching will not occur without a mind shift.  We can’t do what we’ve always done and get different results.  One session at the conference was called, “Stop Learning and Go Think.” This ties nicely with some of my previous posts.

Bringing students to knowledge doesn’t mean the job complete!  It’s what we have them DO with the learning.  We rush to get everything covered and do not leave time for reflection.  It’s during the reflection that students swirl the “new learning” in order to form new thinking or let the new learning adhere to old learning (make connections).  Isn’t that the ultimate goal of  learning?

As scholars, we need to learn new ways to PUSH thinking.  It will involve a “remodeling” of our instructional practices.  In order to have an environment of critical and creative thinking (THINKERS period!), we will need to understand what it looks like, feels like, and sounds like.  The first person to make the change will have to be YOU, the teacher.

I’m not sure where you are in the mind shift.  As the twelve of us realized yesterday, even though we were at different places of a mind shift, we were all hungry for more information.

A few words to prepare for the journey…

• Make sure you are clear…what is the desired learning outcome?  Standards, not activities, should be the first consideration.  Plan and scaffold instruction.
• Know where each child is in the journey (Can’t teach someone what they already know.).
• Don’t do all they talking.  (Charlie Brown might be a fictional character, but even fiction is borrowed from real life experiences!)  BOUNCE back questions.  Discuss with them.  Don’t spoon feed facts.
• Plan for reflection time.  Students need to chew on it!  Hold them accountable for the thinking.
• Research strategies that will give you tools to help push the thinking in your class. (Be the scholar you are asking your student to be!)

The Critical Thinking website offers many resources.  Look it over.  Want to talk?  Not sure how it looks in class?  Email me.  We can collaborate and share ideas.

criticalthinking.org

I promise you, if you’ve never experienced this, you will be amazed at the magic when your classroom becomes a critical thinking hub.  Learning will be inviting…for everyone!

To Educate or Not?

Teachers answer this question every single day.  Research supports that our top learners are likely to regress because they are not being “taught.”  Let’s define teaching.  To impart knowledge or skill.  To show or explain how to do something.  By definition we can infer the one receiving the knowledge or skill did not know how to do it or did not need explanation.  In agreement?  Why would one listen to explanation of something they understood?

So when the majority of the day for a highly capable student is spent reviewing, waiting, or activities that do not require thinking, there is no “teach,” if you will.  Let’s make a generalization.  If there’s not an opportunity to “receive knowledge” then we are not learning…which means…we are likely missing an opportunity to teach some of our brightest students.  Give them something to learn every day.

So, to educate or not?  Which students will get to learn to capacity in your room this year?

This blog intrigue you?  Read  more here.

Advanced Readers – Unwrapping the Gifted – Education Week Teacher

We need to move forward in our thinking and in our educating.  We can’t allow school to “not be school” for any child.  These students are depending on you.  Need help making this happen?  Email me.

Happy “teaching.”

Engaging Ideas

In Educational Leadership (Vol. 70, No.1), I ran into some pretty nifty ideas for spicing up the classroom.    The article was “How to Know What Students Know” by Himmele and Himmele.

The Ripple Effect:  Picture a ripple in the water…the initial plunk is when each student is given time to individually process the prompt.  The next ripple is when they break into small groups after the individual think time.  In the outer circle of the ripple, the discussion comes back to whole group.  This allows for more meaningful discussion and forces all to participate.  “The quickest way to turn off the minds of shy students, English language learners, or students receiving learning support is to ask your questions in the form of a traditional Q & A.  If you want to reach all students, ripple your questions.”

Chalkboard Splash:  Starting with a question or prompt, students are given a quick write that invites higher order thinking.  Then all students are asked to summarize or find key points and write it in a sentence or two (or given # of words).  Students are then asked to write their work on the board. This gives a quick formative assessment in one activity, students get out of seats, and students get to share their ideas with each other.

The Debate Team Carousel:  LOVE this one.  Four squares on the paper and each square has a different question or prompt.  One student starts with box #1.  Everyone will pass the paper.  On the second round, students respond to box #2 which ties back to the first student’s response.  Third and fourth rounds follow the same idea.  Students will not write more than once on a piece of paper.

Questions Samples (page 60):

1. Write your opinion and give a reason why you think that way.
2. Read your classmate’s response.  In this box, add another reason that would support what your classmate wrote.
3. Write a reason that might be used to argue against what is written in boxes 1 & 2.
4. Read what is written in the 3 boxes.  Add your own opinion and your reason for it in this box.

Let me know how it turns out if you use one of these strategies!

The Last Word

Okay, that tactic didn’t work with the bloggers.  SO, the last word…

Leading them to knowledge is good, but what you have them do with knowledge is what counts!  Do you make them think and use the knowledge?

http://www.academicmatters.ca/2010/10/you-can-lead-students-to-knowledge-but-how-do-you-make-them-think/

Hope you had a GREAT first day back!