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• Elona Hartjes, MEd (Candidate), Ontario Certified Teacher

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I think I’ve finally figured out why some of my students in my grade nine learning strategies class continually insist on sneaking to other sites like YouTube when they’re supposed to be doing their assignments using sites like Prezi, VoiceThread, Animoto, Voki, Wordle, or Bit Strips.  Not only are these students off task when they go to other sites instead of the one they’re supposed to be on, they crank up the volume so loud other students hear the sound and crowd around the monitor to see what’s so funny and soon no one is on task. I’ve tried blocking sites to keep students on task, but they just find other sites to go to. It’s been driving me crazy. I’ve been wondering why these students choose to be off task and disrupt the class day after day despite our little talks in the hall. I can’t really ban them from computers because I so “cleverly” integrated computers into the course so they need to be online to complete their assignments. I felt really defeated because I want to use computers and online applications in my classroom but using them was causing me such grief. I was beginning to wonder if it was counter productive to have my students use computers and online technology in the classroom. Then suddenly, it dawned on me. Some of my students are behaving the way they are while using computers because they are trying to try to meet their emotional needs in mistaken ways.

Ages ago, I learned about Glasser’s Behaviour Choice theory.  The idea is that students act certain ways to try to meet certain basic needs.  Sometimes these students try to meet their needs by inappropriate behaviour. These needs are are

• Survival- the need for for, shelter, clothing
• Power- the need to feel important
• Love/Belonging- the need to feel accepted and loved by others
• Freedom- the need to choose what we want to do with our lives
• Fun- the need to find enjoyment in life by learning and playing

For example, a child might try to meet his need to feel important by getting undue attention.  When my students are off task and go to other sites online and turn up the volume so that everyone crowds around them, they’re getting undue attention from other students and from me.  They might be thinking they’re only important when they  keeping me busy and keep getting the attention of other students.   That scenario seems to fit a couple of kids in my class.

Students could try to meet their need for power by going off task repeatedly and promising me when I try to redirect them that they will stop going off task and stay focussed but don’t, and I have to continually refocus them.  They may think that they only belongs if  they can be boss and prove I can’t make them do anything. I see that explaining some of the behaviour I see in my class.

Some of my students have profound learning disabilities that makes school difficult for them, and they don’t do as well as some of the other students.  They often feel stupid even though they have average or above intelligence. Since they have difficulty learning or demonstrating their learning,  learning isn’t much fun and they meet their need for fun by amusing  themselves by going to other sites like YouTube which they find entertaining.  When I ask my students why they go to other sites, they  tell me the other sites are fun. I can see why they think that  that because these fun alternative sites don’t expect anything from them like the sites I assign that support the curriculum. For at least one student,  learning how to take tests or write a strong paragraph can’t compete with  the fun of listening to various body sounds (farting sounds)  on www.soundboard.com. No, I’m not kidding.  A student, a grade 9 student, went  to that site and played back farting sounds to amuse himself while while other kids worked quietly on task- quietly, that is, until they heard the farting sounds.

Students could meet their need to chose what they want to do with their lives by refusing to do the assignments in class because they don’t want to be in a special education class. They want the freedom to choose what to do, and they don’t have it. They don’t want to be in my class so they choose not to do the work.  I’ve  heard students tell their friends my class is another English class even though it isn’t.  Students will even ask to keep the door shut because they don’t want their friends to see them in the learning strategies class because it’s a special education class.

When I think about some of the behaviour  goíng on in my class ín light of  Glasser’s theory, the behaviour makes sense to me. I now understand why some of my students act the way they do when they are completing assignments online.

Since I use computers  in my class, students are not sitting in the usual classroom configurations of rows or  tables.  They’re  sitting at computers facing the outside walls of the classroom. They don’t have the opportunity to  interact with me or their classmates in the same way as before I had computers in the classroom, so they have to figure out how to meet their emotional needs in the new context of a classroom with computers.  Students are trying to meet their needs in this new context  in inappropriate ways and this leads to a less than a positive learning environment.  The challenge for me is to help students  meet their needs in positive ways using appropriate behaviour in this new context. .

Any ideas?

 

photo thanks to sanjoselibrary

I try to engage my struggling, reluctant students by using a variety of online applications as teaching tools for me and as learning tools for my students.  There’s so much available online now that I can use. Finding engaging teaching and learning tools is not a problem. Finding the time to learn how to use all these tools in the classroom is a problem sometimes.

Bitstrips which is a user- friendly, online comic strip maker is an excellent teaching tool and learning tool. I’m presently using it to have my students demonstrate their learning.

I’ve asked my grade nine students to use Bitstrips to create a graphic-non-fiction booklet about the teenage brain based on the PBS video Inside the Teenage Brain. The the  booklet  would be for grade seven students to read so they could understand  how changes in the teenage brain might affect them as they enter their teen years.

I teach my grade nine students  about the teenage brain, and how it  is responsible for the characteristics we associate with teenagers- sullenness, difficulty going to sleep, difficulty getting up, engaging in risky behaviour, just to mention a few behaviours.  Students enjoy learning how their brain affects their behaviour because they finally can understand why they behave the way they do, and why adults react to them the way they do.

I planned the unit on the teenage brain  mindful of two things.  First,  my students enjoy spending  lots and lots of their free time online watching videos of one sort or another and little time reading, and second my students enjoy novelty. When I introduced the teenage brain assignment, my students  were quite keen on learning why they  behave as they do, and when I asked them to demonstrate their learning by creating a graphic-non-fiction booklet, they seemed to relish the idea.  If someone had complained about creating the booklet using Bitstrips, I would have entertained other options.  But, no one did, so we were good to go. I suspect  my students would  rather create a graphic-non-fiction booklet than write an essay to demonstrate their learning.

I introduced the teenage brain unit by asking them to do a placemat activity to generate the characteristics of  teenage behaviour.  After we talked about teenage behaviour, I asked them why teens acted the way they do.  Hormones is the answer I got.  I told them it was more than hormones that caused teenage behaviour.  It  was the teenage brain itself that caused teenage behaviour.  The teenage brain is different from the child’s brain and different from the adult’s  brain.  The teenage brain is unique, and they were going to find out why and how. I had their interest!

After our introductory discussion, I outlined what they would be doing during the unit. They would be learning about the teenage brain and how and why it affects teenage behaviour. They would be

• watching the  PBS video  Inside the Teenage Brain;
• taking notes from the video and a transcript of the video using the note-taking  graphic organizer;
• using the note-taking rubric to be mindful of  note-taking expectations;
• using the story board to plan the graphic-non-fiction-booklet;
• using the rubric for the story board to be mindful of the storyboard expectations;
• using the Bitstrips application to create the graphic-non-fiction booklet;
• using the rubric for creating the booklet to be mindful of booklet expectations.

I asked my students  to take notes during the video using the  Inside the Teenage Brain note organizer I created just for this assignment. I’ve  noticed  my grade nine students take notes better if they aren’t faced with an empty 8.5 x 11 in.  lined page. I think they’re intimidated by an entire empty 8.5 x 11 in.  lined page, so I  create graphic organizers to help them.  I’m hoping that given more practice note taking and more confidence, my students won’t need these graphic organizers or if they do, they can learn to create their own using Word.

I’m using this kid friendly  note taking rubric I created for the note-taking assignment.

Since many of my students have difficulty taking good notes while watching a video, I provided a link to the  the transcript of the video so they could read what was said during the video  and add to their notes.  Then I met with my students and we evaluated their notes using  the note-taking rubric to discuss strengths and next steps.

My students have almost  completed their note-taking activity and are ready to go on to planning their graphic-non-fiction booklet using the Inside the Teenage Brain Story Board legal size .

I haven’t had my students complete a graphic-non-fiction booklet before, so I’m not quite sure yet how many frames or pages would be reasonable to expect from my students. I’ll discuss this with my class,  and once we’ve decided on a range of possibilities, we’ll create a rubric to use as a guide for the booklet.  I’ll share all this in my next post.

If anyone has any hints about creating graphic-non-fiction booklets, I’d sure appreciate hearing them.  Creating a graphic-non-fiction booklet is all new to me.

In my last post, I spoke about the classroom management challenge I was having because the Board unexpectedly unblocked YouTube. It was quite a surprise to me when my students found they could access it. I certainly would have appreciate a heads-up on that one. My grade nine students went wild over the fact that they could get to YouTube at school. You wouldn’t believe the excitement. My students actually stayed in class until after the bell rang. Believe me, that says a lot.

I decided to have a class meeting to establish a class YouTube policy. We had the meeting next class where I raised my concerns about the inappropriate use of YouTube, and the class reached a consensus that they wouldn’t access YouTube unless it was part of an assignment or until they  had completed all their work. One student suggested that we skip the daily reading and go to YouTube instead. He has such a sense of humour, that one!

I wish I could say that our student generated policy for using YouTube in class was working well, but I can’t. The lure of YouTube and what it has to offer is too much for most, if not all, of my students. So, it was back to the drawing board today to come up with another solution. I decided this time to ask my colleagues for help. I didn’t want to ban kids from using the computer because they need to use the online information computer technology to complete assignments. Getting banned from the computer could be another excuse for not completing assignments.

At lunch, I shared my dilemma about managing the use of YouTube in my classroom and got some wonderful suggestions.  I am so grateful.  Thanks.   I’m going to start by using some of S’s  suggestions and next class and for subsequent classes I intend to do the  following:

• have students know there are certain expectations around computer use in a classroom just like there are in a place of business that are different from the ones at home;
• help students understand  the YouTube videos they choose to watch should add value to what they are doing in class;
• encourage  students to think critically when watching YouTube videos to determine if the videos have the potential to add value to the task at hand;
• have students practice thinking critically about the videos they are watching and evaluating them.

I’m going to create a chart type graphic organizer for students to use while they practice evaluating the YouTube videos they watch. The headings across the top of the chart , at least the first draft, will include :

• Name of Video
• Short Description of video
• Score  for Adding  Value   ( 1,2,3,4)
• Why it doesn’t add value or how it can add value.

We’ll talk about this of course.  They’ll have 15-20  minutes for this activity. I’m not sure how long the activity should be, but since the activity is helping kids develop critical thinking skills  I think 15-20 minutes is worthwhile. I have my students  read for that long each day and do a metacognitive reflection on what they’ve read, so they’re  familiar with thinking critically about what they read. I don’t think its much of a stretch for them to think critically about what they have seen.  They’ll be expected to complete an entry for each video they choose to watch during this activity.  I’m not sure how many classes I’ll have them do this activity either. I guess I’ll just have to play it by ear.

Any suggestions or comments about what I’m doing or trying to do here?  I’d appreciate the feedback.

What’s that old adage “Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it”. I’ve been wishing the school would unblock YouTube so I could use it freely in my classroom. A couple of days ago my wish came true, and my nightmare began. LOL

I’ve been complaining for a long time about the fact that the school board was blocking YouTube. What a pain, I thought. There are so many educational videos on YouTube that I wanted to use in my classroom. I do use SchoolTube but not everything is on it. I’ve been downloading YouTube videos at home, converting them and then loading them onto  my netbook  so I can show them at school. What a pain. As if I didn’t already have enough to do. Oh yes, a password was available for my use, but I would have to go and ask an administrator for it in person.   He would write it down a a slip of paper, and I was left with the impression that I was supposed to guard it with my life. The password would change periodically, so  I would have to go find an administrator and ask for the new password. Let me tell you, I hated that. It felt demeaning. Recently, the board made the password available on line so I didn’t have to go find an administrator  to give it to me. That was much better. Then just a couple of days ago, my students discovered that YouTube was no longer blocked. The school had unblocked You tube.  The kids were ecstatic.

My teaching practice is information computer technology rich.  I use information computer technology to teach, my students use it to learn and to demonstrate their learning.   Now that my students can access YouTube freely, I’m constantly having to redirect them away from YouTube and back to their assignments. It is so frustrating. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do.   I think I’m going to have class meetings tomorrow with my students and have them come up with a policy about watching You Tube in class. I’m sure we can figure it out. Got any ideas you might share with my classes?

Here’s a link to another post I wrote about YouTube in my classroom that talks about  a  strategy I found that works.

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  These are my personal views and not those of my employer.