Kim Douillard shares her National Writing Project “Reflective Friday: Time Out to Think.”

Kim is a codirector of the San Diego area writing project. She sums the lesson up with the following:

My students have pushed me to “go past done” when it comes to thinking
about their learning. Rather than depending solely on educational research or
learning theories to tell me what they are able and not able to do, I turn to
them for answers. They have shown me that in a multiage class such as ours,
they can benefit from reflective activities during the school day. They have
shown me that reflection is not just for adults, not just for university students,
or pre-service teachers. Reflection helps us to remember, to make connections,
and to make thoughtful, informed decisions. Reflection is a process for living.

Kim was prompted to action when she heard a teacher-researcher from Alaska talking about the volume of information that teachers are supposed to impart to students and about the lack of time in the school schedule for thinking. Kim developed a schedule for Fridays that really incorporated time to think and reflect. You can see the detailed schedule for the day in her document but it includes brainstorming, activity time when students let their subconscious minds reflect while their bodies are moving, recess, writing, free read time followed by sharing with questions and discusssion, portfolio work and goal setting, thinking time, dialogue journal, recess again (Yea!), writing time and silent reading, read aloud. Now this sounds terrific! Think how well it would fit in with our blogging.

Kim gives great examples and charts the types of thinking and how they change. There is much to absorb and think about in this and it reminds me once again how important it is that we blog about it and take time to comment/talk/share with the students. This is one of the best articles I have read about really giving more ownership of their learning to the students. Kim reiterates that:

Students who set goals and evaluate their progress have more ownership of their
learning. Through realistic, short-term goal setting and evaluation, students
recognize their successes, become aware that they are responsible for their
own progress, and are more motivated to work toward the goals they set.

I have plenty to reflect on from this article. Thanks Kim, for sharing! If you have not browsed through all the terrific resources from The National Writing Project you are missing out!

Photo Credit: Flickr Photo from BaSak’s photostream

Reflection by students on their learning is key and I have posted about this before.

Blogs are great spaces for students to reflect on what they are learning. I remember an instance in my classroom years ago when I asked a student to tell me what was going on inside his head, what was he thinking? He just gave me with a blank look and did not understand what I was asking. Many times we assume students are doing certain things as they are “thinking” . We need to figure out ways to check this more often with our students. If we talk with students more we can help them learn how to do some “self-talk” inside their head that will help them learn from their current experiences and in the process help them build a model of how they might want to learn from future experiences. We could help them with questions that they might want to ask themselves. If we listen and acknowledge and respond to their answers, it could help them understand the internal audience that they could speak to when they are ready to reflect about their learning. I believe we need to give our students many opportunities to practice this.

We need to encourage our students to tell the story of what they are learning - not just a regurgitation of the facts but one where they explore how they might use these facts or share how they have applied those learning of facts to something that is going on in their lives. Students need help putting their experiences into words.

A previous posts on reflections:

Reflection articles

(Revisit some of the questioning “possibilities” in this post.

Write down the most pressing question that is on their mind after a
lesson. If they don’t have one have them imagine what another peer’s
question might be? Then the next day have them comment to one of their classmates’ questions.

Re-state something said during class discussion and add something to the conversation.

Could there be another point of view on resolving a problem or an issue? Develop it.

Pose one multiple choice question and one essay type question for the
material we covered today. Which one would assess learning better and
why? This could make for a great classroom discussion on assessment.
Imagine yourself as the expert of this subject. Predict what will change in the next five years and give your reasons.

If you had only a few minutes to summarize the lesson today what
would be the best way to do that so someone would remember what you said?

Can you give an example of how we could check to be sure if the information we are using is accurate?

State what is unclear to you about what we discussed. Have another student try to clarify for you.

Write down a “think aloud” about something you are interested in
learning about that you believe is relevant and is related to what we
are studying in class.

I need to think about adding to this list. Think more on what might work best.

Feedback is welcomed!!

Photo Credit: Sunset & flowers by Powi…(ponanwi)’s photostream

I wish i understood why all classes aren’t AP classes. It
doesn’t make since to me. I’m in fifth grade and I can’t get a
challenge. How many AP classes are you in? I will probably not have
any. Even though I am at the top of my class, I’m going to a private
school next year. It costs $12,000.00. They don’t give homework, there
is no “No Child Left Behind” and no standerdized testing. How awsome.
Would you like to go there and why?

Jordan

I pulled this comment from one of my elementary students who had made a comment on one of my high school student blogs.  This is what kept ringing in my head….

They don’t give homework, there
is no “No Child Left Behind” and no standerdized testing.

Hmmmmmm, maybe we’re not smarter than our fifth graders.

I love blogging with kids! I love the connections, the joy, and the thinking that abounds. Just think of all the neuroscience that is getting applied here:

Making it relevant….

Harley made the lesson personally interesting and motivating to the kids.

Giving them a break….

Blogging like this gives kids a break from the normal routine and it was a pleasurable activity that reduced stress and let them experience novelty.

Creating positive associations……

Kids developed associations by practicing creating analogies with a positively reinforcing strategy. (See Fifth Grade Webwriters Are #1)

And the best one, allowing independent discovery learning! These kids will no doubt remember and understand this experience becaue they had a part in figuring it out for themselves. There were choices of places to go to learn and they got to use their imaginations in the process.

Harley is not only a great blogger but has the makings of a neuroscientist too! Thanks Harley for putting all that joy into learning.

I also owe a tremendous thank you to Lani whom I had the good fortune to meet through a comment on one of my classroom blogs back in 2005. We have collaborated and learned much since that time and she personally has put a lot of joy into my learning and reflecting. Lani truly makes a difference in the lives of many….

Brain research tells us that when the fun stops, learning often stops too.

This should be posted in every classroom. She goes on to say that “A common theme in brain research is that superior cognitive inpiut to the executive function networks is more likely when stress is low and learning experiences are relevant to students.” Now I have to ask how stress free are our classrooms in which count downs to testing and focus on testing is the top priority - the end all, be all? Judy Willis points out that classrooms need to promote novelty, eliminate stress, and build pleasurable associations linked with learning. She says plan for the ideal emotional atmosphere by making it relevant, giving them a break, creating positive associations, and guiding students to learn how to prioritize information, and allow independent discovery learning.

All this got me thinking about joy in the classroom and how much joy I have seen blogging in the classroom with kids. I’m thinking in particular of the J. H. House kids as I have spent most of my time blogging with them. My next post is going to feature one of my favorite bloggers who has put a lot of joy in a few classrooms over the past few days.

It tells the story of students creating a two-minute video using still images, transitions and special effects (generated with MovieMaker or iMovie software), voiceovers, and a soundtrack. Students present the central characters, themes, or issues of the book visually and through written and voiceover narration. All trailers have to include the title of the book, the author’s name, and a presentation that is both authentic to the text and that works to “hook” readers. I also require students to submit their trailers with a piece of writing that explores the choices they made, with an analysis of the book that shows that they made decisions on the basis of the text, and not just by using the aspects of technology that would best captivate an audience.

Sara goes on to say that….

But technology is not the goal. Student writers and readers are at the center of our instruction. And we, as mindful teachers, must thoughtfully and deliberately prepare all of our students for success by critically exploring the new technological tools and then using the ones that can help us and our students to powerfully convey what we think and know.

I can’t think of a more exciting time to teach, as we’re immersed in new possibilities for working with words and with one another. When we teach creatively with emergent tools in mind, we stand a better chance of engaging reluctant students by giving what we teach real meaning. Each day is an invitation to examine, play, invent, reinvent, and join in the conversation.

Read the whole article. I’ve posted previously about Sara here and here.

They note that school cultures dominated by high-stakes tests are creating more and more reluctant learners.

What has all this testing achieved? Five years after NCLB was enacted, here is no convincing evidence that student learning has increased in any significant way on tests other than the states’ own tests. On measures such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), no reliable increases in scores have occurred, nor have achievement gaps between students of higher and lower socioeconomic classes narrowed.

In contrast, a wealth of documentation indicates
that the unintended and largely negative effects of high-stakes testing are pervasive and a cause for concern (see Jones, Jones, & Hargrove, 2003; Orfield & Kornhaber, 2001). In our own research, we have documented hundreds of cases in which high-stakes testing has harmed teaching and learning (Nichols & Berliner, 2007). For example, high-stakes testing has been associated with suspicious forms of data manipulation, as well as outright cheating. The tests undermine teacher-student relationships, lead to a narrowing of the curriculum, demoralize teachers, and bore students.

Research has not fully examined the impact of this
test-dominated school environment on students’ attitudes and dispositions toward learning. But we suspect that for most students, schooling is less joyful than it was; and for reluctant learners, schooling is worse than ever.

Also alarming is the increasing abundance of pep rallies ice cream socials, and I think signs like the one I posted about earlier today that clearly deliver the message that testing is the primary focus for learning.

I’ve said it before but I’m going to repeat it again…..high-stakes testing continues to be our biggest obstacle for needed change in education.

I saw this sign on the way to a school earlier this week. I guess this is what you call a “sign of the times.” I was telling a fellow teacher about this sign and she told me that she knew of other schools who had begun the count down on the first day of school. Hmmmm, I find the sign truly depressing.

I’d rather see a sign with this quote from William Butler Yeats:

“Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.”

• I just read it.
• When I look at info, I believe it is true unless it is farfetched/ludicrous.
• Don’t have a method.
• No
• Yes, look for author, updates
• No, I take it as it goes.
• When using a website for information, I look for sources cited and a clear author. I also make sure that I use multiple sources to verify information.
• The date or domain
• I really don’t have a method.
• You can check the same information on many sites and compare the information.
• I ask myself if it sounds reasonable & if I read the same information from many websites.
• no
• I check to see if the writer has minimal errors in the article as well as making sure that it is a website ending in edu, net, org.
• I don’t really have a method.
• I look for an author or publisher and a date.
• I check multiple websites to confirm.
• No.
• (1) If it’s well known. (2) When last it has been updated.
• Does it have an alternative source? Is it credible?
• No
• I check to see what kind of website it is. Example - .com, .org, .gov, .net

Depressing, isn’t it?I imagine many of you would find similar answers in nearby classes. I’d say we’re not getting the job done and we are really doing our students a disservice by not teaching them. Julie Coiro has a nice handout, Critical evaluation on the Internet: What’s missing in the text? What’s missing in our instruction? from the IRA 2007. Pass it along….

I had the pleasure to meet Jill Castek and Lisa Zawilinski at TRLD this year. They gave an excellent presentation entitled “Instructing Students in the New Literacies of Online Reading Comprehension.” Both of these ladies are members of the New Literacies Research Team at the University of Connecticut. Their excellent handout is on the TRLD site. They went into a lot of detail talking about ‘Internet Reciprocal Teaching’ which is an instructional model being developed to instruct students in online reading comprehension in classroom settings. Their research is done in a very participatory way. They actively partner with teachers in order to develop these skills and strategies with them in the classroom environment. They believe this is a flexible way to look at pedagogy. It is not a series of step-by-step concrete lessons. They look at a wide variety of content areas - reading, writing, listening, speaking, and content areas. There are three phases

• Teacher led stage - teacher models strategies and the discussion process
• Collaborative stage- teachers and students interact to support strategy development
• Reciprocal & Inquiry stage - students apply strategies by facilitating student-led discusssion during authentic reading events based on student -direct inquiry projects.

View video clips showing student-led Internet Reciprocal Teaching groups.

Check out the blogs they have built with the students:

Wildcat Class Blog

Wildcat Student Blogs

Idea Exchange

Nierlich Students

Also, take note of the wiki they have built with their students:

Nierlich Class

The pictures below will show some of their slides and you can see how they used instant messaging to clarify assignments with the kids through the process. They said this really worked great with the quiet students. They ranked sites as to their relevancy and the students were really active in this process. They have to scaffold within each stage- a scaffolding with strategies. They turn the job of introducing new strategies to students - groups of experts who will teach their peers. Again as Leu noted in his keynote, many of the weaker offline readers were quite strong online.

It was a great session led by two dynamic educator researchers. Take the time to browse through their site- lots of relevant and worthwhile information there.