The Modular Classroom: Rethinking the Use of Space

Once I learned that we would definitely be receiving new furniture for this school year, I began working on a redesign in both the traditional usable space in the classroom and the space available on the walls.  The result is a more modular and flexible room allowing me to teach in ways that before presented challenges in transition and execution.  Please watch my video journal that highlights and explains the new use of space in the classroom at St. John's Episcopal School.

If you are new to this blog, feel free to explore the posts below from the previous school year.

Colonial Unit: Obstacles and Successes

Personal Reflection:

Overall Planning:

Students delve into the Colonial Unit in much the same way as any other unit. There are distinct and clear steps based on Brain Based Research and case study that assist them in establishing prior knowledge, connecting new information with that knowledge, synthesizing the two, and then creating and evaluating their work in a culminating experience.

In Social Studies and Literature students begin with an introduction to the material/topic. Often this is kicked off with exercises and activities designed to activate prior knowledge and establish a foundation on which to grow. I always share plans with the students.  I tell them where I expect to be and when in a general way (which units and novels during which months) as well as more specifically: "here’s where we’ll be in the following days and weeks."  Of course, things don’t always go to plan, but I don’t shy away from admitting that it just didn't work out as planned. 

Before beginning the unit, I shared the plans to have a witch trial in the classroom, a movie about Salem, and I briefly explained the life of the Puritan and Colonist during the 17^th Century.

Exposure and Immersion:

Students are immersed in the colonial experience.  They are exposed to several different media forms: a discovery channel documentary on Jamestown, a simulation of Colonial life in Social Studies, and the class novel: The Witch of Blackbird Pond.  Reading is at a fast pace (15 pages per day) with required Study Guide Questions, Vocabulary, and Journaling.  New skills are utilized in order to understand terms in vocabulary study.  This links directly with the work being completed in Language Arts and the type of Standardized testing they will have over the next many years: they are given a text designed to be at their anticipated reading level then asked to infer, summarize, and make connections. Additionally, the practice at decoding new vocabulary based on root word recognition and context clues prepares them for other components of ERB, ICEE, and SAT testing to come.  

To assess their skills and knowledge, students are quizzed every three chapters on summarizing and inference making skills directly related to guided reading questions.  These become the basis for class discussion that replaces the individualized virtual discussion that was unable to be utilized this year. At the end of the novel, a cumulative exam is given including elements of all the above and an essay question that is known and prepared for in advance.  

Culmination (The end of the pupal stage of learning and the practice of higher order thinking):

Students watch a movie by PBS depicting the witch trials of Salem using actual court records to create dialogue and recreate hearings and trials.  They are inspired to make connections with their reading and their colonies (from the Social Studies Simulation).  Members of each colony are assigned specific roles: Accused Witch, Prosecutor, or Defender.  Using supplied fact sheets, students generate arguments either for or against the accused in an attempt to convince a jury of their peers (members of the other colonies). There may be tests or examinations performed by the teams in order to convict or acquit.  After carefully taking notes and weighing the facts, the jury makes its decision -keeping in mind that they must do their best to mimic the thought processes of the 17th Century, Puritan Colonist on whom they are now expert (in past years there were controlled deliberations; due to snow days, this year the majority is all that was needed).  

Final Thoughts:

I believe strongly in this type of unit that departs slightly from the more independent reading performed in preparation for the Explorer Project.  I find it very predictive of future success and ERB scores than  most other methods.  The Reading Workshop Model can be as equally predictive, but its full effect cannot be utilized in the shorter time period of the middle school schedule taking into account all the other subjects competing for time both in school and at home.  After the completion of this unit, scores on homework, quizzes, and the final test are highly illustrative of areas in need of attention.  A high quiz score with a low test score indicates issues committing information to long term memory, most likely caused by a failure to prepare adequately or an ignorance of preparation strategies that adults take for granted but that children may need to be directly taught.  A low homework average is indicative of an inability to keep up with daily work as it involves effort only and not precision in the answer.  Failure to plan or the inability to utilize organizational strategies are the most common causal factors.  A low quiz grade suggests one of three problems: 1- Inability to read and digest the basics of given literature at grade level. 2- Failure to perform reading on a regular basis.  3- A reading fluency rate (basic words per minute) that prohibits the reading and comprehension of grade level material on a time-dependent basis.  As these are important skills in every classroom (regardless of subject matter); discovering them now presents a great opportunity for intervention and practice.  

Those following the fifth grade classroom closely may have seen that I have devised a hybrid curriculum that molds pieces of reading and writing workshop model education with the more traditional components of a novel study based approach highlighted by Project Based Initiatives to serve in a reinforcing and assessing role.  Independent reading and sharing is constantly encouraged: students are required to read and present on at least three novels over the year, connecting these with elements taught in mini-lesson format and supported by frequent assessments to ensure mastery. In accordance with this hybrid model, students will embark on our study of poetry.  Multiple poems will be studied and different linguistic devices and techniques learned to further their knowledge of literature.  Each will begin to choose a poem that connects personally, study it in depth, break it down into a script, and then perform it as if it were a short one act play.  Our Poetry Parade is just weeks away!  

Our Colonial Unit Has Begun

Quick Update: Colonial Integration 

I wanted to share a brief update on the growth of our integrated unit. Currently, we have students forming colonies in Social Studies; they must choose their type of colony, raise money, create a compact or agreement, travel to the new world, journal about their experiences, solve problems encountered along the way and upon arrival, and then discuss their successes or failures as a colony. In English, students are reading a class novel; using subtext to enrich the book with webpage links, images, discussions, and quizzes; taking in-class reading assessments structured similarly to common standardized tests; and discussing Puritan life in depth.  They will soon be making horn-books, writing letters home, and engaging in a "witch trial" in which they will be defending or prosecuting members of their Social Studies' colonies utilizing persuasive writing and oral debate.  In Science, students will be researching colonial plant dyes and then creating them to dye fabric to form their pieces of a hand-sewn tapestry that will be a combination of all the student-colonies.  In Music class, students will be writing and playing colonial style music while using sewing techniques to create period clothing.  In P.E. they will start playing typical period games such as Rounders or Blind Man's Bluff.  In Math, students are calculating the percentages of lost food in a storm, calculating the area of their colonial land, etc. We are beginning the early stages of planning a Colonial Day that will be a capstone experience during which students will wear their clothing and articles, sing their music, bring in typical colonial food for lunch, experience the harsh reality of plowing fields and clearing trees, and play period games- it will be a sort of "colonial year in survey" in which students will begin with clearing land and end in a celebratory thanksgiving event.  

We are working hard at continuing to enrich the unit while ensuring that students have plenty of practice at the essentials each class is designed to instruct.  Reading comprehension, expository writing, presentation skills, strategic/critical thinking, problem solving, arithmetic, scientific method, gross motor skills, and musical theory are still being stressed, but they are linked within a single experience. The amount of growth this unit has achieved over the last three years is astonishing. I know that it will only continue to become a richer and more fluid experience for the students.

Teachers and Staff Currently Involved in Unit:

Mr. Herod, Math
Mrs. Granello, Social Studies/L.A.
Mr. Herrin, English/Writing
Mrs. Haynes, Music
Mrs. Dawson, Support Staff (Sewing Expert!)
Mrs. Torrey, Science
Mrs. Jaqua, Science
Mrs. Kelly, P.E. 

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.