In-Service In-spiration

Grant Lichtman Came to Town

We had an in-service day today: Monday, January 26.  I thought I'd give a little bit of an in-sight into what we did (please forgive all the prefix word play; I am a bit of an English nerd).  I recorded the video below about 30 feet from a sleeping baby, so you may have to crank the volume up a bit.  Below you will also find a video of Grant's TEDx talk in Denver.  My purpose here is to give you some information about what we do on these days, and why it's important to your child.

Grant Lichtman TEDx

You may need to log in on a PC to view the above video.  I've had trouble viewing on my own iPad.

Explorer Project Capstone

Capstone: Video with Green Screen

As promised, here is the update to the final piece of our Explorer Project PBL experience.  A great truth about 10-11 year old students is that they are eager to perform when they have a "mask."  It may be a metaphorical or actual barrier between themselves and an audience, but it amounts to the same thing.  If given a persona to remove them (at least by a step) from their audience, students who otherwise may shy away from public speaking or dramatic interpretations are apt to flourish and break from their shell.  I believe that this is the great promise afforded to us by the integration of Drama into the curriculum.  Throughout the year, students are given tasks/projects that encourage them to interpret text in a creative and dramatic way.  Coupled with many presentations in class, students learn confidence in front of crowds, gain knowledge on how to reach an audience, and are more prepared for the new type of assessments often utilized in the higher grades.  Perhaps most importantly, they enjoy themselves.  Many of my units are capped by this type of activity.  Often, the product is not really the point of the majority of the work accomplished, but it provides a definite goal and a rewarding experience that helps propel the students during the difficult work leading up to it.  This will be echoed in the coming units (capstone performances of the Witch Trials, Poetry Parade, Greek Wax Museum) whose broad base of effort and practice are not always evinced in the final performance but are the actual purpose of the unit itself.

Below are some videos of the initial run-throughs and practices along with some final product.  The bulk of the videos are to be added to the wiki pages for viewing and as a final enrichment of the overall experience.

Rehearsals

Some Final Products

(See the rest on the wikipages)

Next post will be about the new unit:  Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Inside the Classroom: Introduction and Explorer Project

Introduction:

Well, 2015 is upon us, and I've committed myself to something here that may take off or may founder.  The overall purpose is to connect you, as a parent, into the inner-workings of the classroom in a way that has not been previously accomplished at this grade level.  I am not going to become entrapped in the details, this is not about specific homework or classroom assignments, but I have the intention of providing a meta-experience in the following months.  The plan is that you know and understand some of what we do in the classroom and why we do it.  I think so much is lost in the transition from home to school and back again, so much is lost in the rush to make the start time of the next game or lesson; there seems to be less time to simply sit and discuss the positives of the experiences that we have, perhaps time only to gripe and complain about those things that are not going to plan.  I've seen this myself with friends and colleagues and family: when we have little time, it seems that serious discussions often turn to venting- emotional discharges that serve a purpose of relieving anxiety and reducing stress, but are no more illustrative of the overall experience of the day or week than a simple snapshot (the single frame of a video shown without reference or context) would be.  In an attempt to mollify or at least ameliorate this, I am going to give you periodic glimpses of what was in the past sacrosanct and unplumbed; what we only knew of by our own experience several decades prior, or as those singular and random snapshots. However, I hope to frame these glimpses in such a way as to provide a story, a reference that includes the what and why from the teacher's point of view.  So here we go!  Let's try something new today!

The Explorer Project

As promised we are going to jump right in to this.  In the past, I've tried to share this.  It rarely is effective.  

In fact, it usually looks something like this:

Hallway outside the classroom

Now, this type of display is common, intended for student and colleague as well as the parent.  There are descriptions of steps of a project-based unit, examples of integration with Social Studies and Drama.  Ooh Look! QR codes! Aren't I savvy?!  But really, what does this accomplish?  Does anyone actually follow those QR codes and watch the video?  I would imagine that someone would have to be trying to fill a day or kill some time if he/she really could stop and scan and watch while walking down the hallway of an elementary school.  The plan was that this would be utilized while parents waited for their conferences, but even then there is a five year old to wrangle, work to postpone, an email to answer.  It really doesn't work.  And students, though mindful of the purpose, often lose interest the more detailed the description or abstract the discussion of education.  

An Overview of the Explorer Project:

Put simply, this is an example of PBL(Project Based Learning).  That is a student-centered project that encourages students to investigate, establish problems to be solved, collaborate on solutions, exchange roles and responsibilities, and design a creative, open-ended product or products (open-ended meaning that students may expand their product into a direction and depth of their capability and choosing) with which they demonstrate their knowledge and learning.  In some educational situations, this has been in existence for a long time.  The science classroom, in particular, has been employing this type of collaborative investigation and problem solving since the formalization of the scientific method by Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century.  Many teachers of History and Math have also employed this teaching method with Literature teachers not far behind.  In some circles, the classroom is replete with PBLs to the point that very little direct instruction occurs at all.  I have seen classrooms that are always in the motion of the PBL, that are never still for more than the five minutes demanded by an obligatory mini-lesson that introduces the next step or clarifies a misconception.  

Personally, I have always been a believer in moderation.  I mix a lot of different techniques, but I do not trust entirely to any one single teaching style, technique, etc.  The PBL is designed to especially assist in extending those who are strong students and allowing a platform and a scaffold for those that may struggle, but it is not snake oil, it is not a cure-all.  In my experience, I am always wary of any claim of an answer to all problems.  From the miracle scratch removing compound for your car to the movement against Gluten as the bane of human health- anytime a person says that something is the answer to everything, I immediately doubt it. That is not to say that some products might remove a surface scratch or two, or that a healthy diet may have a little less wheat in it; and this certainly applies in the classroom as well.  Teachers fresh out of school, eager and motivated, want to try every new idea, redesign the classroom, re-invent teaching, etc.  This is wonderful; it sparks thought and reflection.  But, in my 14 years or so in education, experience has taught me to be mindful, purposeful, and thus moderative.  PBLs are useful; but, I will still lecture at times, have 50 minute discussions, allow students to work quietly and individually, and be a teacher and not simply a facilitator.  I say this as it is paramount to my philosophy as an educator: What is old is not always bad, and what is new is not always better.  It takes experimentation to see what works for you.  A case study and research based approach to the classroom is a good starting point, but a teacher must find what strategies work with his personality, style, expertise, etc.  One size fits all has never and will never be the case in education.  

That understood, below are the different steps the students travel through as they complete the PBL of the Explorer Project.  Before each and during each, students receive information through a mini-lesson or video or app that comments upon the work they are about to undertake.  Each step has a starting point and a product, but each is designed so that every student may self pace and no student can simply "finish" a step.  They are in a sense "open-ended" in that extension for the stronger student is built in whereas the student that struggles in a certain area will be equally challenged and supported. Upon the completion of the product at each step, the foundations are laid for the implementation of the next evolution- that is to say that the steps are cumulative and are aimed at the completion of a final product: The Explorer Wiki.  

Step 1(a): Initial Exposure and Immersion 

Brain research suggests that in the beginning stages of learning, a deluge of information coupled with a stated goal and subject to generalizations, classifications, and other organizational orderings allow the brain to make more connections than with a direct and teacher-guided approach to new topics. The idea is not that anything at this stage is taken to mastery, but instead students have open to them many avenues of study, varying topics, differing types of media, and a looser structure than might otherwise be typical.  It is an investigative model as opposed to a typically instructive one.  In the classroom this takes three distinct forms:  a video introducing the "Age of Exploration" that runs quickly through many different explorers examining time, country of origin, and discoveries; an iPad app "Explorers" that includes more detailed information on fourteen important explorers presented by video, written, and other visual media; and a collection of about 80 biographies organized by explorer (around 20) and representing varying reading levels.  For each, guided reading questions, notes, searches, KWL charts, etc. were utilized to add structure and aid/encourage student organization of information. 

Resources: 

Video: Link to a copy of the video used. 

App:  Link to app on iTunes preview.

Use of Explorer App in the classroom: (See Video Below)

Step 1(b):Classroom Library and Biography Reading (See Video Below)

Step 2: Investigation and Research- The Who and Why

Students are assigned one of a choice of five explorers upon which to focus.  Each student then begins to read two biographies on that explorer and fills out a research template as a helpful guide. This task allows the student to become "expert" on the chosen explorer while practicing critical reading comprehension and fluency skills on material that is at or above reading level.  This step is carried out in school and at home.  

As students are becoming expert in selected explorers in Literature, in Social Studies they are learning about the motivation of European nations to explore new routes to the East, exploit new lands discovered, and colonize these discoveries.  They learn details about the more important figures of the "Age of Discovery" as well as the characteristics of the Natives in the lands that they discover.  They navigate through the textbook and an app that allows them to act as an explorer and plan a journey to undiscovered countries.  Their planning and actions determine if their trips are successful.  Think Oregon Trail for the modern age and redesigned for European discovery.  

Step 3: Writing Workshop- Collaborative Wiki-writing

The majority of time is spent in this step of the project.  We utilize wikispaces as a free site with which to create our product. (Use username: crusaderguest and password: crusader to view the wiki entitled: ExplorerProject2014) The problem that students have been tasked with solving is the creation of wikipedia with the hypothetical situation that it has not yet been created.  Students collaborate virtually with one or more partners in the creation of an informative, organized, and visually appealing wiki page about their explorers.  Their research and investigations have been geared toward this product, and they determine what information is valid, how it should be organized, and the method of its communication to the audience.  Students begin by determining topics, researching further into them, and then planning their writing using alpha-numeric outlines.  These outlines are then expanded into full paragraphs with supporting details, examples, and quotations.  Along the way, students peer review other outlines, check for main idea and supporting detail connectivity and consistency, and offer suggestions for improvement.  Once rough draft status is reached for a minimum of three paragraphs completed per student, paper copies are made and mini-lessons given to provide exemplars of writing during the revision process.  Paragraphs are revised using peer review based on three distinct stages involving rotating partners:  Ideas and Organization, Sentence Structure/Fluency and Word Choice, and lastly Conventions.  Each peer review stage begins with a mini-lesson involving an exemplar that I created and is class reviewed with suggestions for improvement.  Students then perform a similar action with their peers who begin making changes in class and then finish at home.  Each stage requires very specific actions.

To avoid too much detail, I will focus on one early segment.  To ensure that each piece of writing contains a strong main idea supported by at least three details and each detail further supported by two to three examples or further details, students highlight their partners' paragraphs using a particular color code which they learned earlier in the year and already practiced on their outlines.  Pink = Main Idea and Closing, Blue=Supporting idea/detail, Green = Further idea, Yellow = specific example.  For each graded category from the rubric, students had a specific task to accomplish in their peer revision.  Below is an example of what this looks like in the classroom.  Notice, this is not a static room.  There are conversations, movements, actions, and transitions between materials. The idea that a true writing workshop can be run in absolute quiet is a fallacy.   

As an extension, students have the option of adding additional paragraphs, links to other sources, pictures, embedded multi-media, etc.  At the closing of the workshop, students are shown how to add references or bibliographies using Easy Bibs.

Step 4: Demonstration of Knowledge

Students write speeches/skits as their chosen explorers and perform in front of a green screen either individually or in groups.  They then use iMovie and the Green Screen app to add in music, backgrounds, etc. Movies are uploaded to YouTube and added to the wikipages previously created. This is in progress, the Blog will be updated as this step concludes. 

In Social Studies, students are given an assessment that includes short answer and essay questions. These are prepared for in advance using a study guide template, and essays may be outlined in advance with notes brought into class for use during the assessment.  

Missing Time

      Almost exactly fifty-two years ago, on September 19, 1961, Barney and Betty Hill were driving to Portsmouth from Niagara Falls late in the night.  Upon seeing a floating orb that seemed to change direction in the sky, they began to use small back roads in an attempt to follow it.  Though neither of the Hills could readily remember what happened next, after undergoing hypnosis treatment, they became some of the first people to recount an abduction scenario by what UFO theorists now contend are "The Grays."  All of the familiar "tell tale" details are there for the first time:  telepathy, "wrap-around" eyes, small nose, examining table, and memory loss.  What made the Hills seek out the hypnosis sessions -that many psychiatrists have stated planted these false memories in the first place- was the fact that the 4 hour trip seemed to take over 7 hours to complete.  The Hills could not remember where those 3 hours went; this discrepancy received a moniker- "missing time."  From 1965 onward, the phenomena of "missing time" has become a staple and ubiquitous feature of all UFO abduction stories.
       Now, I am not in any way implying that we are all abducted on a regular basis, but I do tell this story to illustrate the "missing time" in all of our lives; and, as an educator, I am particularly concerned about the time missing in the lives of my students.  Let me illustrate further.  My first experience with this phenomena occurred in the summer of 2002 when a friend from high school returned from college with an X-Box and the first release of HALO.  Sitting in his parents' home movie theater, eating cherries from a local Korean market, and becoming lost in this hypothetical world of Alien Destruction (perhaps getting a little revenge for Betty and Barney Hill!), I was blown away by the graphics, the game-play, the attention to detail, and the overall experience.  However, somehow during that night, aliens stole six hours of my life from me, time I will never get back.
       It seems that ever since that day, technology has gotten better and better at producing periods of "missing time" in my life.  Smartphones, tablets, powerful laptops, YouTube, Hulu, Instagram, Facebook, texting, email, web posts, blogging, etc.- all lead to that now familiar experience and intense incredulity when looking at the clock you notice that have just lost hours of your life, and really, you have no idea what you did during the "missing time."  Perhaps hypnosis would reveal what cat meme was so funny that it needed to be re-posted and liked and commented upon, what decision Ron Wash made that really deserved 58 texts to unravel, what number of videos out of an incredibly long video string of guys making different versions of hiking stoves out of empty cans really needed to be viewed, how many pics of people, pets, or babies do you need to view from friends whose last names you barely recall? Would hypnosis help? It's probably not a terrible idea!  If someone actually recorded us when we delve into the digital world or provided us with a way of reliving it, maybe we might be less likely to re enter the trap so innocently or so often after having to watch our technologically abducted selves go through the now familiar and catatonic motions of thumb scrolling and bleary-eyed reading.
       Now, this of course begs the question: why has an educator who is fully committed to expanding his capabilities and enhancing the learning in his classroom using any and all available technology decided to blog about the pitfalls of the very tool that necessarily must be implemented in the 21st century classroom?  Let me answer this with another anecdote, if you will bear with me.  Hearing that a student was struggling with homework for several hours, my teaching team immediately asked them to come in for a meeting.  Though there were other contributing factors, what also emerged was a clear-cut case of technological abduction and the subsequent missing time.  A Spelling activity assigned by a colleague and designed and tested to require a maximum of 5 minutes (the alphabetizing of a list of a dozen words) ended up requiring over half an hour of bleary-eyed manipulation and stress inducing frustration.  The victim: a conscientious fifth grade student.  The abductor: an iPad and Notability.  Typing in the words, attempting to move and manipulate them using an app designed for note-taking, becoming concerned with overall appearance, font, rows and columns vs. list, etc., then being unable to simply erase and repair a mistake due to the app's shortcomings- resulted in the student spending an inordinate amount of time on this assignment.
       In class, I have seen similar issues: manipulation of home-screens, changing of wall-paper, reading the 85 texts and watching videos sent by friends overnight, simply surfing through downloaded apps, facetiming, etc. Students are losing time in small packets throughout their open work time.  But, this is not unexpected. The novelty will wear off.  Grades will begin to reflect student choice.  Homework loads will become greater when in-class work time is not utilized.  Developmentally, this is not new to a fifth grade teacher.  Students usually spend the first trimester of Middle School testing boundaries, pushing limits, searching for shortcuts, and discovering successful study strategies when their other attempts fail.  However, so much more is now in the hands of the student. He is given a choice: Do I take ownership of my learning, stay on task, complete my work, or do I stray, self-distract, play instead?  In past years, a teacher could just remove anything distracting from the student- provide him a calm place to do his work with only the tools required.  Now, the student's videos, books, texts, pictures, etc. are all accessible from the device he uses every class.  Though the teacher can roam, watch, even check history, it is -more than ever- up to the student to self-regulate his behavior, to refrain from distraction, to show strong integrity.  There is an opportunity here to really inculcate work ethic and self-discipline in a way that has never been done before.  To really be successful, students must learn self-direction and self-regulation in a degree not really observed at this level before, in this type of learning environment.  And it is up to us as the adults to model and instill these necessary virtues.
       And, we are not without our own vices.  The ease of connecting all of my devices provides multiple platforms for communication, design, grading, etc.  However, it too can become an obstacle for use of time. Emails about homework, class, extra credit, grades, Renweb, sports, etc. come in nightly, hour after hour from the time I leave work at 5:45pm to when I finally turn out the light.  They usually resume the next morning at around 7:00am as students remember "one last thing."  On many nights I field no fewer than twenty emails from parents and students regarding some aspect of my professional life.  Though I feel no downward pressure from administration to answer these until the next school day, if I were to wait, my planning periods and lunches would be nothing but email correspondence.  I might miss those emails asking to speak with a child first thing in the morning or requesting immediate assistance on a project/homework.  I feel pressure from myself to respond, to resolve issues, help out a struggling student, it's what our instincts as educators drive us to do every class, every day.  Now, tack on the pics my family wants me to post of our new son, the emails from my oldest friends about their lives across the globe, the texts from friends and family in Dallas asking about the next game, vacation, get together, etc., my own time wasting hobbies like Fantasy Football or searching the REI closeout specials...result: more "missing time."
       Connectivity is miraculous, wonderful, a breakthrough, a game changer, a world leveler.  It has changed our approach to education, creation, logistics, design, art, music, everything!  But, we have to be cognizant of the time wasting, the abduction of large chunks of our day.  A student should be working at home in a way that fosters his learning, enhances his knowledge and mastery of a concept, focuses his understanding.  He should not be spending thirty minutes writing down twelve words, an hour sending and reading texts and emails with his friends, or 45 minutes editing a two minute video.  A teacher should be planning his year, creating new projects, learning new methods, expanding his professional ability, determining specific strategies for individual students; yet, he too can be victimized, his time abducted, his focus lost.
        And so I am considering something:  a break.  We could all use a re-boot.  Perhaps a period of time with nothing electronic- a tech holiday!  At a recent tech conference in Austin there was a tent without fancy advertising, crazy lights, the latest gizmos, etc.  In fact, there were only three sorts of things in the tent: tables, chairs, and a locking cabinet.  Instead of trying out the latest gaming PC or scrolling through prototype phones, or learning the capabilities of a hypothetical quantum c.p.u., the people who walked into this bare and unassuming tent were asked to surrender their electronic devices (which were promptly labeled and placed in the locking cabinet) then sit at one of the tables and have a conversation with a stranger.  According to one of the tent's designers, at least one person had a kind of breakdown and tried to break into the cabinet, many others found the eye contact and personal interactions intimidating at best.  However, after a few hours, it was the most popular tent at the tech fair.  The line stretched far, and soon there was only standing room available in the "tech free zone." I wonder if that tent became so popular because it was a speck of the real in the midst of the virtual where people could experience something worthwhile in a sea of devices poised (and seemingly designed) for time theft. I think it speaks of humanity, our innate natures, our need for connectivity in a way dancing electrons and ones and zeros cannot replicate.
       In a few weeks, our grade heads to Camp Classen in OK for a couple of days.  Rule 1: No electronic devices.  And, with the Rangers out and my Fantasy Football Team in shambles, I really won't need to be on one constantly either.  Two days in the "tech free zone!"  What a gift for our grade; what a gift for all of us; the gift of not missing out; the gift of time.

     
     

The Texas Manual Labor

I'm not sure when it began or why.  I can't really trace it to any one place, neighborhood, class, or time.  But one thing is sure, the Texas man is changing.  There was a time when ranchers -jackpumps gently rocking black gold from the earth, bank accounts swelling to inordinate levels- were still seen mending broken wire, cutting and hauling brush, or digging out a tank in the hard Texas clay for their new bulls.  I remember watching multi-millionaires mowing their lawns on the west side of White Rock or giving their windows a once-over from a high powered hose.  Michener wrote of the newly rich Texan wearing the same sweat-stained hat and puttering around in the same battered Ford pickup, daily adding new salty lines to his Stetson or new dents to his rusting quarter panels.  By the time a boy was twelve, no matter his station, regardless of his family's wealth, he could shoot a .22 rifle, accurately hand saw a 2X4 without breaking a sweat, dig out a prickly pear, change a flat tire, neatly mow a lawn, drive a 3" framing nail with very few hammer swings, safely (under supervision) use a drill, a circular saw, an acetylene torch, a hedge trimmer, or an an axe, and perform many other tasks using simple levers, hand tools, and patient strength. Then, something changed.  People began to eschew manual labor, to reject it as a type of work beneath them, reserved only for the underclass, the servants, the hired help.  Across the state, lawn crews popped up, taking over first the jobs previously reserved for the more entrepreneurial of those aforementioned 12 year-olds tending lawns for the elderly or infirm, then expanding to replace the Sunday chores of entire neighborhoods. People didn't -and the following generation couldn't- maintain their own property any more.

Something is lost when you hire out every bit of your labor. There is a connection that Texans historically have with the land, a connection strengthened with each swing of the chopping axe, each pull of the starter cord, every pry at a stubborn rock.  It has helped to shape the character of a state where virtually every acre is privately owned, mineral rights are handed down like heirlooms, and towns spread out with endless subdivisions checkerboarded by small plots of Texan pride.  There is something that is lost when a father no longer teaches his son how to find and repair a leaking pipe, rip out a troublesome stump, or replace the window pane broken by an errant toss.  We are all lessened by it somehow. Land ownership loses something when others maintain the lawn, haul out the leaves, cut up the storm-downed limb, re-plumb the new sink, or hang a new backdoor.  We lose a connection to the first ones to tramp across the prairie, secure a small wooden structure against attack by angry Indians or angrier winds, feel the first bite of steel into sod, drink from a hand dug well, or reap the new crop and send the first herd in to market.  I remember the way America mocked President Bush the younger when cameras followed him as he cleared the brush on his Texas ranch.  Regardless of how one views his politics, those mocking sneers and jabs insinuated that this ex oil man was trying to "endear himself with the little man." However, they were interpreted by the true Texan as naivete: the result of too much big city apartment living, the opinions of people who don't know what it means to be a man in Texas, even a rich one. 

But, perhaps I heard even a few Texans among those cynical and naive voices.  Surely the change had started well before the beginning of this new millennium.  But I missed it.  I really didn't notice it...until I began to coach and teach.  I noticed how so few boys in Dallas knew how to perform those tasks mentioned above; how few could begin to saw a simple board or drive even a penny nail.  When my wife and I moved into our first house, it astonished us how few of our neighbors mowed their own lawns.  When working with teenage boys in club volleyball, I was shocked how they struggled to master even the simple engineering involved in raising the nets.  I wondered how many of these young men had no connection with their land, with the grime and mud and chalk and black prairie sod that is Texas itself.  I wondered how they would handle being uprooted and plunged into Italy, Kaufman, Sweetwater or some other small Texas town where boys still learned the history of the Republic by sinking their hands into it. 

There is a joy of ownership, a practice of delayed gratification, and an intense connection formed when one works his own land.  There is something truly Texan about that.  It is one of the reasons why Texas is the backdrop for so many John Ford Westerns, why the state is more recognized in foreign countries than any other, why Dallas (the old one) is the most popular American show in Lebanon and Syria. It's not the hats or boots.  It's not the pick-ups or six-guns.  It's not even the oil or longhorns. It's something else.  Something in our character that marks us and individualizes us.  Texas men are connected to their state through their property, their labors, their failures and successes. Sweat and blood links them forever to their land, and thus, their state.  I hope that the current trend I've seen is fleeting.  I hope that this desire we seem to have to rise above the "blue collar" class is impermanent.  I hope that we leave our children with more than a list of lawn specialists, contractors, plumbers, and "handymen."  When we take away the physical connection of the individual to his land, we lose something essential about being a Texas man.