Nov

28

Students project their emotional stress onto teachers and the outcome is not condusive to learning.

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Dealing With Stress | 4 Comments

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Many kids today experience lots of stress due to things in their home environment like poor child-parent relationships, absent parents, emotionally unavailable parents, alcoholism, drug addiction, lack of extended family support and/or  poverty.  Students will often transfer the stress they experience at home due to these factors onto their teachers at school to create another kind of stress- student-teacher stress. Needless to say,  student-teacher stress affects a student’s learning negatively.

Kids deal with student-teacher stress in different ways.  Sometimes they act out; sometimes they withdraw. They do this “in an unconscious effort to make sure other students and the teacher experience the stress with (them) “. (Gurian, p37 )  I guess it’s a case of misery loves company- poor kids.

When I think about the classes I’ve taught over the years,it seems to me that usually boys act out and become more aggressive when stressed while girls usually become more passive and withdrawn. I say usually because of course we all can all think of boys who have become more passive in response to stress and girls who have become aggressive.

When we’re trying help kids who are at-risk because of the behavior they manifest, we try to find out what’s going on at home. I’ve called parents lots of times to ask if anything is going on at home that might affect a student.  Often, there is. Teachers can’t solve the problems that cause stress for students at home other than to suggest appropriate counseling, but we can help with the stress at school.

How can we do this?  Teachers can build positive relationships with students. We can be good roles models or mentors. I’ve written here before about how just one positive relationship with a teacher or any adult for that matter can make the world of difference for a student, not only while he is in that teachers’ classroom but beyond it as well into his adult life.

I really do try to help my students. I’d like to think that the stress balls I provide for them to  squeeze while their working ( I try not to notice my students bouncing them off everything in sight) help my students  deal with their stress.  I’d like to think that when I ask students to take the attendance to the office or to deliver something to another teacher I’m helping them deal with their stress.  I’d like to think that having activities that allow my students to move around the room helps them deal with stress. But, I really think the only way to get rid of the emotional stress completely is to get rid of the problems completely and most likely that’s not going to happen. So, I guess I can only really comfort the walking wounded and hope the relief they get is enough to allow them to earn enough credits to graduate and go on to a better life- at least, that’s the way I see it.

Nov

25

I’m impressed with the way my students are taking ownership of their learning

Filed Under Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students | Leave a Comment


I want to encourage my students to take more and more ownership of their learning. So, when the moment presented itself in my grade 12 Learning Strategies Class, I seized it.  We were talking about their plans for the future when some students asked me what they should take at college next year. That question became our next project. You can read about the project here.

My students have been working on their projects for a while now, and I am quite impressed with what they’re doing. They’ve decided to share the results of their research on future careers in a variety of ways- VoiceThread, Powerpoint, Slideshare or even posters. One student who was going to use Animoto because he really likes it, changed his mind because he decided it wouldn’t allow him to do all he wanted. Another student decided he wanted to present his research on bristol board and not use any of the Web 2.0 technology except to do the research. All the students were really pleased with their choices. They were even smiling. Isn’t differentiation great.

The other thing I’m quite impressed with is the thought and effort they put into creating their evaluation tools. All of them chose to create rubrics to use to evaluate their project. It was amazing to watch how intensely they worked on their rubrics. Some of them thought to google to find some rubrics to inspire them, but they knew that they couldn’t just cut and paste.  They were committed to writing the rubrics in their own words, their own kid friendly words. They were all pleased with their rubrics. They were even smiling. Isn’t differentiation great.

They’re even learning to trust their own judgment more. When a student comes and asks me if they should do x, y or z, I ask them what do they want to do? Sometimes there’s a bit of panic in their eyes, so I’ll help them by asking them what are some things they could do. We talk about that a bit, and then I ask them what is it that they want to do. That seems to help them because they usually have an answer. If they don’t, I just repeat the process.They’ve had so much experience guessing what the teacher wants and pleasing the teacher that they don’t quite trust themselves. We’ll have to work on that some more.

So far, I’m really pleased with the motivation the students are displaying. No one seems to be slacking off. I don’t have to go and say, “Excuse me, but what is it you’re supposed to be doing”. There’s a really nice positive vibe in the classroom which I’m sure we all appreciate. I’m even smiling. Isn’t differentiation great.

Nov

22

Project based learning nurtures skills student will need in life

Filed Under Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students, motivating students | 4 Comments

I’ve been busy trying to meet  the present needs of my students in my locally designed math class, a class for students who are on the pathway to work, not college, not university . I think I’ve been mostly successful because the students have  finally settled down and for the most part are “willing to play school”. Of course, some days are better than others. (Is there a full moon today?)

I really want to help my students develop the skills they need to be successful in school and the skills they to be successful in life. That’s what my Learning Strategies Class is all about.That’s why I like teaching it. But, my math class is not the same as my Learning Strategies class so I have been wondering how I can teach life skills in math class. I think I’ve found the answer thanks in part to an article by  Meris Stansbury where he quotes Tony Wagner’s observations about skills students need

A lot of people think the skills that students need to learn for the workforce and the skills they need to learn to be a good citizen are two separate sets. But they’re not. What makes a student successful in the global workforce will make a person successful at life

Wagner argues these skills are

1. Problem-solving and critical thinking;
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence;
3. Agility and adaptability;
4. Initiative and entrepreneurship;
5. Effective written and oral communication;
6. Accessing and analyzing information; and
7. Curiosity and imagination.

Ok, so now I have a better idea about the skills necessary for success in the work force and success in life. The question  is what is the best way to teach these skills in a math class. I have a huge binder with pages and pages and pages of work sheets, but are those work sheets the best way to teach my students the skills they need? The more I think about, the more I doubt it. Actually, I’m absolutely certain it isn’t. I’ve concluded that project based learning is the key.

Project learning isn’t new. It has an honourable history going back to John Dewey. It was relevant over a hundred years ago and is still. Maybe even more so as Bruce Hammonds notes

Two developments have made Project Based Learning (PBL) more relevant the past decades are the revolution in understanding how students learn as they ‘construct’ their own understandings and the shift from an conformist industrial culture to an information age demanding greater innovation and creativity.

Project based learning is better at nurturing the skills students need to be successful in life than the dozens of work sheets in that binder on my shelf -at least that’s the way I see it.

It’s interesting what happened when I first introduced project based learning activities to my math class. The students who worked so diligently on the work sheets had a difficult time with project based activities. Some of them even asked for work sheets instead of the project based activity. I think I heard the words “this is stupid” a few times. Some kids were definitely out of their comfort zone. But, the students who weren’t really engaged by the work sheets loved the project based activities. Go figure.

I hadn’t encountered resistance to project based activities in my Learning Strategies Class. Students seem to accept that there would be projects in that class. Yet, in my math class there was all kinds of resistance. Slowly, very slowly, my math students are becoming more accepting of project based learning even though some of them still prefer the work sheets. I do use both.

I’d love to hear about the experiences other people have had with project based learning. Do some of their students prefer work sheet to projects?

Nov

18

Seizing the moment and inviting my students to take more ownership of their learning

Filed Under Lesson Plans | Leave a Comment

Recent PD sessions at our school have focused on assessment- assessment  for learning, as learning and of learning. The message I took away from one of these sessions was that I ought to be inviting my students to take more ownership of their learning.

I’ve  been thinking about this for a bit and decided to look for an opportunity to do just that, so when a few of my grade 12 students asked me what they should take at college next year, I decided here was my chance to invite my students to take more ownership of their learning.

We talked about how you would go about finding out what to take at college. Someone remembered a program called Career Cruising that he used in the grade 10 Careers course, but he had forgot what the results were.  Career Cruising suggests what careers students might be interested in pursuing and what education or training  is required for that career after they complete an extensive on-line survey about interests and affinities. Everyone in the class decided they wanted to use Career Cruising to see what came up.

That was great.They had started to take more ownership of their learning- deciding what to learn. Then, right on cue, one of the students suggested they do a major project on this.  He wanted to create a PowerPoint presentation to present his research results because he was good at doing PowerPoint presentations and that would raise his mark. (We’re not at the learning for the sake of learning point yet. :)

That was fine with me, and I asked the others how would they like to share their results.  Some said they’d like to use a PowerPoint presentation, others said they’d like to use a VoiceThread presentation.  A few even wanted to do a an essay. I told them that was fine with me. They looked a bit puzzled when I agreed to everything, but didn’t say anything.

Then I raised the question about evaluation. I suggested they could create a rubric, a checklist etc to evaluate their work.  It was up to them.  Again, they looked a bit puzzled, but didn’t say anything. I did suggest there was a certain process I would like them to follow. We discussed it, and they were in agreement.  I wanted to give them some guidance for  process. I’m hoping they see the value in it.  I’ll ask about the process in the reflection I’m having them do.

This is the process.

1.  Explore Career Crusing to discover careers that interest you. Choose two. One will be a back-up just in case your first choice doesn’t pan out.

2. Decide how you want to  share the information about the careers you have chosen – VoiceThread , PowerPoint, etc.  It’s up to you.

3.  Create a rubric, check list whatever  to evaluate your work. Have two peers edit your evaluation tool- one will edit the first draft, then you’ll make corrections, additions etc. and then the second editor will edit the second draft .  Then use those suggestions to create a good copy of your evaluation tool.  Have the editors complete the editor’s feedback form  indicating  they’ve edited the evaluation tool and have given you feed back about  it .

4.  Start creating the presentation.

5. Use a graphic organizer of your choice to show what info and graphics you’ll present during your presentation. Make a copy and submit it to me.

6.  Create a rough draft of your presentation including any graphics and the script you will be using.

7. Show the rough draft of your presentation to two peers editors as discussed earlier to get feed back.   Have them complete the editor’s feedback form indicating they’ve edited the draft and gave you feed back about  the presentation.  Create the good copy of your presentation using the suggestions the editors gave you.

7.  Share your presentation with us, but  first distribute a copy of your evaluation tool to each class member so that we can evaluate your presentation.

8.  Collect the evaluations and submit them along with the two rough drafts and the good copy of the presentation.

9.  Finally, complete the reflection about your assignment and submit everything to me. Thank you.

It will be interesting to read the students’ reflections about the assignment.  They’ll  inform the next assignment we do.

I’d appreciate any comments or suggestions about the process. I’m learning to give my students more ownership of their learning and would appreciate your recommendations.  Thanks.

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