Strategies for the week: Collaborative Learning and Reinforcing Effort

Collaborative Learning
This is a topic I am very passionate about.  I have witnessed the engagement that occurs when students can work together using technology to communicate and discuss ideas.  I like the passage from the book that states, "When students work in cooperative groups, they make sense of, or construct meaning for, new knowledge by interacting with others."  This emphasizes relevance - I believe only students know how to make material relevant to them, and when you let them discover how, it really is amazing what they learn individually and as a group.  I like to think of things in terms of road maps - if you supply the starting point and the destination, you can let the kids pick the route, and they will discover things that not even you anticipated.  Add feedback along the way (to make sure no-one is "lost"), and the results are awesome.

A note about organizing groups.  I understand that organizing groups based on ability should be limited, but there are also merits to this practice.  If you work on the theory that you are only as good as the best person in the group - then students who are at the top should sometimes be allowed to work with each other so they, too, can experience growth rather than providing the measuring stick for those in class that are not at the same level.

"By nature, both multimedia projects and cooperative learning groups require attention to detail in the planning process.  When these types of activities go astray in the classroom, it is often due to inadequate up-front preparation."  This is so true!  In my experience projects that incorporate cooperative learning require up-front work.  You then can sit back and watch the kids work, give feedback along the way, and get a good idea of what your students are learning.  Many teachers are more accustomed to back loading lessons (deliver what the book says, quiz, correct, review, correct, test, correct).  When you change to this other model, up-front work means less load at the end.  And students got prompted when necessary and useful to them.

I enjoyed the section on websites because I have been looking for other solutions that are more professional looking than a wiki.  A wiki is great, for sure, but it is difficult to make it look as appealing as some other programs out there.  I will definitely be looking in to some of the options listed.

I was refreshed to see a section about communication software.  The next level of collaborative learning I will be introducing is www.tokbox.com.  Kids can use this for video chat (up to 20 people at a time), so they can be working on their Google docs while actually seeing each other and discussing at the same time.

Reinforcing Effort
When I read the first generalization about not all students realizing the importance of believing in effort, I smiled because it is so true - I see it quite a bit in my 7th grade students.  Sometimes, I think so much educational time is spent on learning content that we forget to teach or introduce the meaning of effort.  I find myself using more rubrics that define effort and using examples relative to subject/age group that help them understand what effort looks like.  I'm not sure the charts in the book would work for my subject areas, but I can see their merits. 

bubbl.us vs webspiration vs exploratree.vs mind42.com

Bubbl.us, Webspiration, Exploratree, and Mind42 have the following in common:

• All are free
• All are for concept mapping
• All offer the ability to save maps
• All give the ability for users to work collaboratively with other users

Differences:
Bubbl.us seems to have the least information as to how to use the program.  I'm not sure if this was because the site seemed to be experiencing difficulties at the time of this post or if it doesn't give you very much information or guidelines on creating  concept maps.  For those who may have writer's block, I'm not sure if this would be a good program unless you knew your starting point.  You can design how you want the map to look - it does not offer any templates.

Webspiration seems to be very easy for adults to use.  I can see that kids would use it as well, but the site touts "professionals, educators, and college" for its audience.   The site offers help in getting started, tips and tricks, and examples to help get you started on your "visual thinking."  The interface seems very easy to work with and use.

Exploratree is somewhat like Webspiration in that it allows you to view examples of others work as templates.  Exploratree goes a step further by allowing users to customize the work of others to fit your personal needs.  If that feature does not fit your needs, you can design your own using one of their empty templates or a template you make yourself.  Exploratree is also for students as well as teachers.  This is definitely a resource I would introduce to students.  I also think the ability to research the work of others helps when you have writer's block and don't know where to start.  The best examples are always ones that have been written.

I found an additional resource from http://mind42.com/
Mind 42 is a browser based online mapping application.  This is from the website:


In Mind42, 42 is not only the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything! 42 means FOR TWO and indicates the collaborative character of mind42, because that is exactly what mind42 is: A collaborative browser-based online mind mapping tool.
It allows you to manage all your ideas, whether alone, twosome or working together with the whole world. As mind42 runs inside the browser, installing mind mapping tools is no longer needed - for a hassle-free mindmapping experience. Just open the browser and launch the application when needed - it behaves like a classical desktop application!
Mind42 is a web application - however, this doesn't mean yout have to set your comfort aside. Mind42 is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) mind map editor supporting keyboard shortcuts, drag and drop, zooming and much more. No forms and lists which are generally used in web application. A real application - within your browser.

Definitely interesting!

The Use of Advance Organziers. . . Ausubel article

This article was interesting to read because though it is 50 years old, it shows how far education has come while still struggling with many of the same issues that were prevalent back then.  It seems as if textbooks still segregate homogeneous topics into separate chapters and with schools being on a time line to "cover" the text, students are not able to digest the material in a way that equates to deep comprehension and learning.  Many current teaching practices encourage rote learning just so students can do well on tests for NCLB.  Though NCLB was good in theory when first introduced, it is mainly product oriented, which further promotes the current system of memorize and regurgitate.  Evidence and research exists that demonstrates the value of process over product as the way for students to learn and retain knowledge.  One example is the article found at http://www.ioe.ac.uk/about/documents/Watkins_09_Lng_about_lng.pdf.  I related to the following bullet points the author used:

• Learning is the human process of creating meaning from experience.

• Simply having an experience is not enough for someone to learn. Without reflecting upon this experience it may quickly be forgotten or its learning potential lost.

• Human beings relate their experiences to each other through the medium of stories. As we tell the story of an experience we can “rise above” it and create meaning.

"Learning About Learning" by Chris Watkins.  Article published at www.teachingtimes.com.

The use of advance organizers help create an experience for students, and students use them to find ways that they as an individual makes sense of information.  This becomes more valuable because it is student driven rather than teacher driven.  Relating experiences through stories is an example of how a Narrative advance organizer works.

I completely agree with the last paragraph of the article that stated that greater use of advance organizers could lead to better retention while rendering rote memorization unnecessary.  Through advance organizers, students actually learn before moving on to the next subject.

As an off-topic note to this article - I wonder if the same study was done today if there would be differences in females understanding and retaining the steel material (today vs. 50 years ago).  Have traditionally male topics made a jump in female interests?  Nature vs. nurture?

Strategies for the week

Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers:
I am always looking for new tools for my health class and my broadcast/film making class, and this chapter gave me a few resources I did not know about such as BrainPop, A9 from Amazon, and Creative Commons.  I enjoyed reading this chapter, especially the bit on multimedia.  This year, we have access to YouTube in our school, so finding pieces and videos that fit well with curriculum are so much easier. I think having the ability to add video snippets or demonstration software can amp up the effects of the lesson and help students relate to the subject matter as well as be more engaged in the subject matter.  For example, I am working with the religion teacher to teach the Corporal Works of Mercy to the 7th grade students.  In the past, she presented (verbally) what they were and gave kids a reflection sheet to fill out when they completed a Corporal Work (which then requires the parent signature to testify that the child completed the Corporal Work).  She has found over the past few years that students do not fully understand the concept of Corporal Works, and parents many times are signing the sheets when the student did not do anything with the Corporal Works.  This year, I prepared a wiki that included a recent video with recent music that demonstrated all seven works in three minutes.  I then posted questions for students to answer in groups in a Google apps document.  One of the questions asks kids to research/name/list ways in which they can prove they completed a Corporal Work.  Kids are getting excited about the projects they can do to prove they completed the work, and I think it's because of the way the lesson was presented.  I truly believe if you want to get the kids on board, you need to throw in multimedia presentations within what you normally do, and it makes it seem like a whole different lesson than before (snore and bore now becomes engagement and excitement).

As I was reading about non-linguistic representation, I began to wonder if the screenwriting and story-boarding my Intro to Broadcast/Film-making class would be an example.  Fast forward a few pages, and "Movies and Video" is explained.  I am a newbie at teaching this class, and my experience includes approximately 100 hours of reading and studying books on the subject this summer.  Seeing it in this chapter was a nice reinforcement that video and movie projects should and could extend beyond a "broadcast" or "film" type of class.  I am finding many different resources for movie-making including www.scriptbuddy.com which allows kids to take their prose ideas and put them into a screen-write format.  I have moved on to finding free software that does the same for story-boarding, so if anyone has any ideas. . .
The best resource I have read on film-making in the classroom is titled, "The Director in the Classroom: How Filmmaking Inspires Learning" by Nikos Theodosakis.  I have been using this book as a bible so to speak and contacted the author for more information.  Long story short, Mr. Theodosakis and I are planning a video-conference type of workshop for up to 30 teachers (to be held in the Appleton area).  He covers all grades (K- College). 

I am not a lecture/note-taking type of teacher, so this chapter wasn't very useful to me.  It may be the scope of what I teach (PE, Health, Film-making) is too active for kids to sit and do this.  I am also not a big fan, though I'm sure some teachers find the necessity of it.

Feedback that fits

For this post, I read "Feedback that fits."
I can relate to what this article is saying about feedback needing to be prompt and constructive.  In my experience, I have been able to help kids achieve that "A" column of the rubric by giving them feedback throughout the process part of a project.  I have noticed that feedback has to be cultured within the student, and it is a means of facilitating quality communication between student and teacher.  For example, I start projects by having students email me a pitch of their ideas.  I can then do the first level of feedback by asking questions of them that lead them to answer whether or not the topic/idea they picked has enough substance to reach the "A" column of the rubric.  This is emailed back (with some possible suggestions to help), and the student has an opportunity to re-pitch using some of my suggestions or suggestions of their own.  I think this "start" helps break the ice (some students are scared of communicating with teachers) and encourage kids to continue back and forth with the dialogue (I like to think of it as trading feedback-how the student responds to my feedback is feedback for me).  I am also finding that kids communicate more freely with me when an electronic dialogue is going on.  Because I have opened the door to feedback from the start of a project, kids tend to be more willing to share with me and accept what I share with them (collaboration).  My students do not wait until the end of a project to "discover" they did not do well because we have a consistent dialogue of feedback going both directions (which does evolve from electronic to verbal) so they know before the end what level they have achieved, and most often it is the "A".  I see many teachers in my school focus on product versus process, and the grade for the student is usually a surprise because they had no guiding help along the way.  Another frustration I have is that so many teachers still give the paper and pen projects for both individual and group work (which makes feedback a little more difficult because you can't see student progress or process, so it is more difficult and time consuming to provide prompt feedback).  They give due dates for different parts of the project to be completed so that there are steps to attempt to make sure students are staying on task.  The problem arises when students start missing these due dates or turn in substandard work on the due date, and the teacher ends up giving a 0 or a lower grade (for the substandard work) for that part of the process that was due.  If a student misses one or more of the stepping stones to the project, or if the student receives a 0 for a late or incomplete part of the assignment, how can the student be expected to achieve the highest grade possible on the final elements of the project?  At each due date, the feedback is a grade.  I have seen how students react when they don't do well on one part of a multi-step project: they become ambivalent about the entire project.  Thus, no real learning or quality learning can or will occur.  If the purpose of having students complete a project is for students to learn x, y, and z, then feedback should match those goals.  If a teacher received an annual evaluation with a list of things he could have done better throughout the year, he  would wonder why the principal didn't just come and tell him before the end of the year, and he would have corrected right away.  Our students deserve the same courtesy.

The information at http://www.learning.ox.ac.uk/rsv.php?page=319 also helps put feedback into context and reiterates the point that if you can't correct something if you don't know it is wrong or deficient. I like the "Some things to consider when giving feedback" section because box 1 shows what to do and box 2 gives an example of how to do it.  I also learned there are three main forms of feedback for written work: referential, directive, and expressive.  This part was helpful because it put into context the type so I can match it with different parts and goals of the assignment that I give feedback.

As an extra note on feedback from being a student, both research papers I completed this summer (one 41 pages, one 24 pages) had zero feedback.  I am left with the impression that the only person who read my research was the college reviewer (who actually gave me content feedback with the mechanics feedback because she enjoyed reading my paper).  If no one read it, why did I do it?

Meta-analysis of Teaching and Learning With Technology on Student Outcomes

It is evident that this research article is dated by reading the first few sentences in which it states that NCLB "is placing new emphasis on scientifically based research and is requiring states and school districts to choose 'evidence based' programs for their schools and classrooms."  Fast forward seven years, and you will find that NCLB is not exactly that.  In some states where schools were not meeting AYP, the states were allowed to lower standards so that AYP could be achieved.  In many schools, even in Appleton public, students who may not do well on the test (ESL, learning disabled, behavior problems) are somehow encouraged to not be present for testing (some behavior students have been suspended during testing time).  Anyway. . .

In the introduction of the article, it states that back in 2001, technology knowledge did not equate into any useful ways in which to integrate technology into the classroom.  Further, back in 2001, the author states that the technology of 2001 is vastly different from several years before that, and rapid growth of technology exceeded current knowledge.  It seems that nine years later, we still have those issues.  In many cases, our students know leaps and bounds more about technology and devices/applications which I think makes many teachers uncomfortable with integrating it.  Instead, we make rules and policies that ban the use of these devices when we could be embracing them and making our teaching/classrooms more effective.

In 2001, a study found that small group learning using computer technology yielded more positives than individual learning.  I believe this still holds true today.  If you look on the P21 (Partnership for 21st Century Learning), one of the hallmarks of learning skills is collaborative learning.  In 2010, however, we have many options for small group learning integrated with technology.  Google Docs, wikis, Skype, and Tokbox, for example, make it easy for students to work with each other no matter where they are physically.  If you want your students to know more about the culture of China, you can find a classroom in China (who also wants to know more about the culture of America) and use online tools to communicate, collaborate and learn. 

I can say from personal experience that technology integration does impact pedagogy practices.  Because I can let the kids use computers and other technology applications, I can focus on them and what they want to know.  It really is student centered because the students get a say which helps in the areas of motivation and relevance.

While this study attempted to answer the question of whether or not academic performance is improved with technology integration, newer studies exist and continue to be done regarding this subject.  In my own research on this very topic, I came across the research of Anthony Saba.  To read his study, go to http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/sabaa/502/Saba_Synthesis_Paper.pdf.  The more sophisticated technology becomes, I think the more possibilities for the education system to use it for improving academic outcomes.

Principles of Teaching and Learning

I am not quite sure what I was supposed to get out of reading the information on this site.  Under the "Learning Principles" tab, it listed seven main ideas that affect student learning.  The first touches on prior knowledge.  I think that saying something may hinder or help you is not helpful at all.  To me, the fact that prior knowledge works both ways for students is a "no duh" statement.  It's the equivalent of saying that kids come to PE class and if they know how to shoot a free throw with proper form, they will probably continue to improve, but if they don't shoot a free throw with the proper form, it will interfere with their ability to be consistently accurate.  For the most part, I think what the Learning Principles section says is all about human nature and how all people learn, not just students.  Even adults need to organize knowledge in a way that they can apply principles for learning, and motivation will determine their path.  Mastery requires practicing a skill and applying it properly.  I hope the author didn't actually think this was a revelation. Number seven was very profound - when students figure out how they learn best, they form habits that make them better learners.  When I learn something new or figure something out about myself or my teaching, I usually become more effective and better at what I am doing, too.

I relate to the "Teaching Principles" section of the web page most because I subscribe to the seven ideas, and I see plenty of teachers who do not.  As the document states, the principles are small but powerful, and they do make teaching more efficient and effective.  These principles require teachers to front load lessons, which is different than what most are comfortable doing.  Many times, teachers will lecture, have students take notes, then test.  The problem with this is that the work is back-loaded, and assessment does not come until the end of a unit.  Many times, a teacher will not revisit the parts of a lesson that many students may have not understood because the unit is over, and on to the next unit.  I design my units for health so that I give the students all the expectations and learning objectives they will need when we start the unit.  How the objectives are achieved is somewhat up to the individual students, thus allowing the student to find relevance in the topic.  For example, I may have a unit on media, technology, and health and the objective may be for students to analyze how technology influences and affects health.  I design a rubric that communicates the objective as well as the expectations.  Students can work in groups and decide how they will research the question and present it.  Some students design a wiki that has video clips, research articles, and personal reflections based on the research, some students plan a debate on the topic.  Either way, because I have done all of the work and then presented the goals and expectations, I can move into the role of facilitator to make sure students stay on task.  All students, regardless of method can arrive at the preset goal, but because they got to pick their "route", they created relevance for themselves, I am able to do ongoing assessment (mostly informal - I can see and hear what is going on, so I can re-direct at any time), and students go deeper with the learning because they got to lead themselves on the discovery.  The great thing about all of this is that I get to spend time with students, getting to know them better (because I am working with them rather than preaching at them- never underestimate the importance of rapport in teaching), and I know before the end of the unit what my students have learned.  Our students are so technology involved that teaching today does require examining what works and adapting to how students learn best in this time period.