This is the track and field schedule twitter.com/6band6d/status…

— Miss B & Miss D (@6band6d) May 16, 2013

Yesterday was Track and Field Day at our school, and since only students from Grades 3-8 compete, yesterday was the first time that I was involved in this special day. My memories of Track and Field go back to when I was a child, and based on my experiences, I figured that yesterday was mostly about demonstrating athletic skills. The strongest and the fastest students would move into the finals, and the weakest and the slowest students would hopefully just enjoy the outdoors. From what I saw from my “timing post” though, yesterday’s Track and Field Day was about so much more than demonstrating skill: it was about building character.

My view changed all within the first couple of races. In one of the heats, there were six students, and two of them have autism. Their EAs spoke to them about how the race works, and then all six students got ready to compete. Even though the two students with autism were not winning the race, they had a huge cheering section of teachers and students encouraging them to keep on running. When one of these two students chose to walk half of the way, instead of leading her off of the track and starting the next race, she had people walking alongside her so that she could finish the race too. Awesome!

Then I noticed one of junior students that I know standing off to the side with his mom. He was incredibly upset. Knowing that he’s very athletic and incredibly competitive, I figured that he did not do as well in his first race as he had hoped. A few minutes after I saw him, I noticed that his brother was competing in a race. Despite how upset this older student felt about his own scores, he stood on the sidelines, cheered his little brother on, and watched him move up all the way to second place. The moment his little brother crossed the finish line, he ran up, gave him a hug, and congratulated him. Now that’s character.

In the afternoon, I watched many students in my class race. I have a huge number of very athletic and very competitive students, and in most of the races, they were competing against each other. Even though they all wanted to win, and some even pushed themselves to cross the finish line just in front of their friends, the moment that they finished, they ran up, gave each other a hug, and congratulated each other on a job well done. They were genuine and kind, and win or lose, they showed character.

And then I watched an older student with autism running his first races today. For all of his races, he had one of his friends running beside him. In the last race, his friend was also competing. Even though this other student wanted his best personal time, as he ran around the track, he continually slowed down, turned around, looked back, and ensured that this other boy was running too. These actions may have prevented this student from getting in the finals, but they showed his incredible character.

All day long, the track sidelines were full of students cheering each other on, encouraging some more reluctant students to compete, and celebrating in all successes (be it even finishing a race that they didn’t think they could run) instead of just being the best. A special thank you to the phys-ed teachers for coordinating all of the events yesterday and to the parents for coming out and supporting all of their children yesterday. Track and Field Day was like a community event, and I loved being a part of that community!

What examples of “good character” do you notice in your school? How do we get all students to demonstrate this “good character” even when it’s difficult to do? I love all of the examples of “good character” that I saw yesterday, but I’m now thinking about how what I saw came to be, and how we can bring about this change in everyone. Thoughts?

Aviva

When using social media in the classroom, you really are creating a “window” to your room. Every day, parents can peek inside and see what’s happening, observe the students working, understand the reasons behind what they’re learning, and see the work (both as a process and as a final product). Open House is a time for parents to see the classroom and student work, but between daily tweets and regular blog posts, they see this every day.

One Of The Daily Blogs That Features Student Work And Learning

So this got me thinking about the purpose of Open House now. It’s definitely a wonderful time to connect face-to-face with parents, grandparents, and siblings. While I email and speak on the phone to parents regularly, I don’t usually see them in person. It’s nice to have this personal connection. It’s also a great time to answer questions about the classroom program. While parents may ask these questions in different ways over the course of the year (e.g., on the phone, in an email, or even in a tweet), we can discuss these questions more when meeting face-to-face.

I’m glad that social media gives parents regular updates on what’s happening in the classroom and more options to participate in class (be it by commenting on a blog post, listening to a radio show and tweeting or emailing a comment, or casting a vote for one of our global projects). I’m also glad that we get an opportunity to connect in person at least once a year to discuss topics that may not be discussed in a different forum. It’s all about balance.

With the use of social media, is every day “Open House?” If so, are there still benefits to connecting face-to-face with families? Why? I’d love to hear your thoughts on these questions!

Aviva

Even though I was behind the registration desk for most of the day and participated largely on Twitter, I could still feel the energy in the school. People were excited about what they were learning. Jo-Ann Corbin-Harper, a fantastic Grade 8 teacher at my school, came up to me during the day and said how happy she was that she had come. We even conversed about some EdCamp-like possibilities at the end of the day. The day was a motivating one!

As the day came to an end though, I started to wonder, what happens next? Did today bring about change? Is this what today was about? It’s with these questions in mind that I was thrilled with the two conversations I had online today. One was with Donna Fry, Karen Lirenman, and Laurie Renton, and one was with Bill Forrester, Cathy Beach, and Susan Jackson-Bosher. These conversations made me realize that changes are happening (even if they are small ones). We’re moving beyond just “talking” to “doing,” and these rich conversations are helping lead us there. This makes me excited for what the future holds!

What have you seen as the ripple effect after an EdCamp? How do you help inspire change? I’d love to hear your thoughts on these questions!

Aviva

I wanted to be able to share what was happening with the teachers that are going to be receiving these teapots (one from Australia, two from Ontario, one from Manitoba, and one from Wisconsin) as well as with the parents (who have told me that they enjoy seeing what’s happening in the classroom and what their students are learning). It was with this in mind, that I decided to tweet out photographs and videos of the learning, and I encouraged students to do the same, using the #teapot6bd hashtag. We all tweeted a lot yesterday, and when the day was over and I was archiving the tweets using Storify, I realized just how much was shared.

I also realized that yesterday was not about sitting in quiet classrooms. Students were active, engaged, and collaborating, and they really were making some noise. I couldn’t help but think back to a comment that was made at the Ontario Social Media Symposium last weekend. After we shared in small groups, there was a full group discussion, and one educator (I wish I could recall the name) spoke about the noise volume in the room as we were sharing in our small groups. He said that at school, if there had been that much noise, many would walk by the room and wonder what was wrong. Our noise was all discussion on our given topics. We were sharing ideas and creating new ones. Yes, it was loud, but it was purposeful. I think that the same thing could be said about yesterday.

Reflecting back, earlier in the year, I was hesitant to share videos when the students weren’t quiet in the background. I wondered what others would think. Yesterday, I never even considered this. I knew that the talk was about Math, Social Studies, and Art, and how could this be bad? I think that embracing noise means making a change in mindset.

While I was okay with a slightly louder classroom than usual yesterday, I was also cognizant of the students that have difficulty with too much noise. Better than this though, they knew that the classroom environment would not work for them, so we spoke about other options. One group worked by the classroom door, in a small alcove space, where it was quieter. Two other groups worked in rooms just outside of my room, where I could still go back and forth and talk to them, but they had the environment they needed to be successful. Noise may work for some, but not for all.

What are your thoughts on a noisy classroom? How do you distinguish between on-task noise and off-task noise? How do you also accommodate for your students that need a quieter learning environment? I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions.

Aviva

We’re learning fractions right now, and the students are working on comparing and ordering fractions. After students “played” with these concepts (as they tried to order fractional amounts in an open-ended word problem), we worked together to create an anchor chart highlighting strategies that students could use to compare and order fractions. While the class seemed to quickly understand the number line and picture strategies, they struggled with finding common denominators. Most students did not understand how to figure out a common denominator, and then they did not understand how and why to switch back to the initial fractions in their final answers. As I left the class at the end of Period 6 for Kindergarten prep coverage, I saw a class of frustrated and confused students, and I knew that this was my fault.

As the signature on all of my school emails, I have the title of Jacquie McTaggart’s book, If They Don’t Learn The Way You Teach, Teach The Way They Learn. I believe strongly in these words, and if the class did not understand the lesson, I was to blame. I knew that my goal for today had to be to try again … and I had to try something different than I did before. That’s when I thought back to a conversation that I had with Tyler Amidon, an amazing teacher in the States. He spoke about how he uses colour-coding to help teach fractions. This was it!

When I got to school today, I created five different problems involving ordering fractions. Then I wrote a problem on a piece of chart paper, and hung it on the whiteboard. When we started math class, I handed out hundreds charts, and had everyone take out their math book. I explained that I know students were confused after yesterday’s math lesson on fractions and common denominators, so today, I was going to try again. I had students each get a pencil and a different coloured pencil, crayon, or marker. Then we started our problem together. I asked the students what the first step was in figuring out a common denominator. They said that we needed to find the multiples for each denominator, and figure out the least common one. Excellent! Together, we used the hundreds chart (a tool that I explained that students might want to use for skip counting), and figured out the multiples for our first denominator. Then I had students work on their own to figure out the other two. I circulated at that point, and helped out students that needed it. We then got back together as a full class, and wrote down the multiples for the two denominators. Students quickly found the common one.

Our Math Problem And Solution

I knew that I lost students yesterday after this point, so I decided to slow things down. This is when I had the students take out their coloured writing instrument. In pencil, I got them to write down the first fraction, and then in the colour of their choice, I got them to make the fraction line and write down the common denominator. We figured out what number we had to multiply the initial denominator by to get the common denominator. Then I asked, “If you multiply the denominator by _____, what do you need to multiply the numerator by?” Everyone knew. Some students even equated it back to balanced equations that we did earlier in the year. Yes!

Once we followed the same steps for the remainder of the fractions, I then got to the important part: why do we do this? I explained to the students, now that all of the denominators are the same, we can compare the numerators. We know now that all of the fraction pieces are equal. That’s when I drew the pie cut into six at the bottom of the chart, and we spoke about the fact that all of the fractions are divided into sixths, so we don’t have to worry about equality any more. Now we can just focus on the numerators. I was seeing nodding heads. I knew that this was making sense.

At this point, students easily ordered the fractions. But now I had to make sure that they wrote the fractions as they were in the question. This is when the colour-coding helped. We looked back at the conversions, and students knew, “Oh right! 27/6 is really 9/2.” Now they could make the connections back to the original question.

Then I tried something that I haven’t done before. I said to the class, “I know that many of you understand this now, but it’s okay if you’re still confused. We can work on this more together. Now I need you to do a very grown-up thing. I need you to think about what you know (and not about what your friends know), and if you’re still confused or want to review this together again, take your chair and go to the guided reading table.” It worked! One student stood up right away, and then others followed. Soon I had about six students at the guided reading table with me. The other students divided into groups, and I gave out the different problems.

In the guided group, we went through a problem together, and I wrote their ideas on chart paper, but the students wrote them in their workbooks. They asked good questions, and started to clarify their own thinking. As we finished the problem together, one student turned to me and said, “Thank you, Miss Dunsiger. That small group really helped.” Wow! That’s never happened before. 

Equally as exciting though, the students then got questions of their own to answer, and they were able to use what they learned in the guided group, and answer the questions correctly. They showed all of their thinking as well. It was worth going back and trying again. 

Today reminded me that we need to believe that all students can learn, and then we need to figure out a way to ensure that they do. How do you support a climate of academic optimism at school? I’d love to know your thoughts on this!

Aviva

Yesterday, Pearson Canada brought 50 educators together, I think somewhat in the hopes that collaboration would make a difference. Pearson was very up front with their reason for the meeting: they wanted to know what publishers could do to “socialize.” Throughout the day, people contributed to this Google site for the Ontario Social Media Symposium #ontsm. There were also hours worth of discussions in person at the event and online through Twitter. It was almost a bit overwhelming to follow everything.

As I participated both online and in person in the discussions, I realized the real power of what was shared in the Monday Morning Memo article.

And that was what was amazing about yesterday. People were not just sitting there nodding their heads in agreement with everything that was said. They were questioning others, wondering about new possibilities, and challenging current trends. We all signed group norms at the beginning of the session, and everyone adhered to these norms, but “discussion and debate” still evolved throughout the session.

Then back to the topic of collaboration, at the end of the day, the 50 of us did not come up with a finalized list of suggestions, but instead, a messy conversation full of lots of ideas. Interestingly enough though, it’s through this messy conversation and lots of reflection, that many individuals have started to clarify ideas through their own blog posts. Maybe it’s through this continued conversation and these blog posts that changes will happen.

So was it the collaboration that mattered, or was it what individuals took from these collaborative opportunities that made (or will make) a difference? How can this learning impact on how we view collaboration in the classroom? How should this learning impact on how we have educators and administrators collaborate?

Aviva

We’re currently working on this Global Teapot Project thanks to a fantastic teacher in Hawaii, Melvina Kurashige. Coupled with our Social Studies Unit on Canada’s Trading Partners, students are working in groups to design a box to send five teapots off to five different classrooms from around the world: including one in Australia, one in Manitoba, one in Wisconsin, and two in Ontario. Their box designs need to depict Canada’s connections with the United States. Students have researched this topic and sketched pictures using various tools from pencils and paper to the computer to an iPad app. Some students even used Minecraft. After creating their designs, they had to explain how their pictures relate to the topic of Canada’s connections with the United States, and why their designs are the best ones to use for the box. Students are sharing their thinking in various ways (from written reports to movies), and incredibly engaged by this project.

This morning, a student approached me asking if we needed boxes for the project. She just moved, and she has tons of boxes at her house. I was initially going to use pizza boxes for students to cut-up and tape together for their teapot boxes. Moving boxes seemed like an even better idea though! I said that this would be fantastic, and the student texted her mom asking. By first nutrition break, her fantastic mom had already dropped off a pile of boxes. Yeah!!

Boxes for the #teapot project. twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) April 25, 2013

Since we’re not creating the actual teapot boxes until next week, I found a corner in the classroom to store the boxes and thought nothing of them again. Then I had Social Studies with my teaching partner’s class, and that’s when things changed.

The students saw the boxes right away, and got incredibly excited about them. As students worked on their designs, math conversations started to evolve. Students began to whisper, “I wonder how big our box needs to be.” Then they wanted to check.

Students came to ask me and instead of giving them a size, I had them look at the teapot.

Painting one of the teapots for Social Studies. #teapot twitter.com/avivaloca/stat…

— Aviva Dunsiger (@avivaloca) April 25, 2013

One student got a ruler and started measuring around the teapot. Another student put her thumbs together, spread her hands out wide, and said, “The teapot is about this big. We’ll need more room in our box though. The teapot needs to be wrapped in bubble wrap.” Now students were thinking in terms of standard and non-standard units of measure.

Some students were adding up how much cardboard they would need for the entire box. They started multiplying by the number of sides on the box. As one boy said, “Remember, we have the four sides we’re going to draw on, but we also need a top and a bottom. That’s six sides.” Now students were starting to use addition and multiplication in meaningful ways. They were even exploring surface area and volume, and all without realizing it.

Watching the students today (and wishing that I was videotaping them as well) made me wonder: when we create math problems for students, do we forget about the importance of making math meaningful? When the students started wondering and exploring today, they saw the purpose in math, even if they didn’t realize it at the time. Next week, the students will be learning the formulas for determining the volume of different prisms. Maybe now they’ll really realize the purpose in this math and have an even greater interest in it as well.

How do you promote mathematical wondering in your students (of all ages)? I’d love to hear your ideas!

Aviva

The room just feels wrong when students are all sitting in isolation. I know a testing environment should be silent, and this one definitely was, but even the silence feels wrong. It’s too quiet. I love the hum of collaboration. It’s great to see students working and learning together. Learning is social.

It’s funny: even my students that like to work alone see the power of collaboration. I am amazed at all of the different ways that they use tools such as GoogleDocs to comment on each other’s work, share ideas, and ask questions. They even use it to study.

These two students decided to study for the math test by asking and answering questions in a shared google doc. twitter.com/taytay2178/sta…

— tay-tay (@taytay2178) April 18, 2013

As a teacher, I continually hear about the importance of collaboration and I encourage it, but then in a testing situation, everything changes. It makes me sad to sit and watch a silent classroom. But did the students feel this sadness too?

I think that they did: the moment that they handed in their test, they quickly grouped together. Some moved out into the hallway to continue working on group projects. Others used GoogleDocs or Twitter to share online. Another group moved to the guided reading table to whisper their thoughts as they finished a project together. And even though the test took us right until the nutrition break, students happily gave up a few minutes of eating time  to move their desks back into groups. Ahhh … order restored.

How do you and your students feel about rows? Can collaboration still exist in a classroom of rows?

I am not a fan of math drills, and for students that need this extra support, I often suggest that they work on this at home with their parents. I have even posted links on the class website. I’m still noticing that most students struggle with recalling basic facts, and now I’m thinking that I may need to do more. When sharing my concerns at the table, the topic came up of Mad Minute. One teacher mentioned that she did this with her class and competed with another class in the school. She posted student scores, and then individual scores were compared against individual scores in the other class.

This got me really upset. I asked about the students in her class that were struggling. How did they feel? How did this activity help them improve? She said that all student scores went up, so all students should have felt proud, but did they? It really matters to me that all students meet with success, so how am I going to help students memorize the math facts that they need, while also focusing on individual student needs, and allowing students to communicate and apply what they learned during these drill activities?

I know that students respond well to competition, but if I’m having my class compete with another class, then I want my entire class to feel as though their contribution matters. I also want individual students to focus on their own scores, and look at their own improvements each week, instead of their scores measured against their friends’ scores.

As I mull over Mad Minute, here are my thoughts:

• I don’t want to devote more than 5 minutes a day to math drills. Math should be primarily able rich dialogue, good opportunities for application, and the thinking behind the questions. I know my students all need to practice the facts, so if they are going to do so in isolation, then I want this drill time to be short.
• I want to differentiate these drills. I differentiate everything else in the classroom, so why should this be different? Students can review the math facts and concepts that they need to review. If they need the challenge of multiple types of questions on the same page, then they can have this challenge. This will allow all students to meet their individual goals.
• The focus will be on growth. If all students need this review (and it’s apparent that they do), then the goal is going to be to improve. We always want to “bump up” our work, so why shouldn’t we in this case as well? Each week, we will calculate the average score as a class, but without names attached to each score. Then we can compare these scores with the other Grade 6 class for some healthy competition. We’ll celebrate successes, but without worrying about the numbers, but about the gains.

Maybe these short math drills at school will even encourage some students to practice these skills more at home. I look forward to seeing what happens.

What are your thoughts on math drills in the classroom? How do you ensure that this activity leads to “success for all?” I would love to know your thoughts on this!

Aviva

At the end of the day, we met with some members of the Board team to discuss what they saw. Our superintendent shared with us many celebrations, but she also left us with a couple of next steps. One of these next steps, I’ve really been contemplating a lot since last night. Her question to us was, what is the impact of learning goals and success criteria other than higher levels of achievement? (Please note that I may be paraphrasing slightly here as I was trying to copy down this question quickly.)

You see the creation of learning goals and success criteria was the focus of our District Review. Yes, focusing on this area has helped students achieve. They know what’s expected of them, and as such, they’re doing better. Focusing on this area, has had more benefits though:

• Students are better at reflecting on their own learning now because of the clear expectations that learning goals and success criteria offer. When students do reflect on their own learning they are really linking their reflections to these expectations. You can see that in this Genius Hour video clip:

• Students can now set realistic goals for themselves because they clearly understand what’s being expected of them. These goals not only help the students meet with more academic success, but also monitor their own learning: making them more independent learners.
  

Students Set Goals Based On Success Criteria

• Students better understand, and now actively contribute, to assessment and evaluation practices. Not only do the students help create the success criteria, but they also transfer this success criteria to more formalized evaluation methods, such as rubrics. This is something that I plan on focusing on as one of my next steps. I have to thank one of our wonderful Grade 8 teachers, Jo-Ann Corbin-Harper, for showing me how she gets her students to use the success criteria and a list of qualifiers to design their own rubrics. This is something that I’ve done in more of a modelled way up until this point, but with Jo-Ann’s help, I already have plans to have students co-create our next Social Studies rubric. Thanks Jo-Ann!

• Students better understand curriculum expectations. Learning goals and success criteria are based on curriculum expectations. This year more than any other year, I’ve had students working with the curriculum documents to group the expectations, reword the expectations, and develop the anchor charts to help support these expectations. Having students explore expectations make them more aware of what they’re learning, why they’re learning it, and how the various topics coincide. Seeing the “big picture” provides context for students that need it, and this is just another way that we can meet the needs of all students.

The last benefit that comes to mind actually came to me tonight after re-watching our Director, John Malloy’s, message to all staff. In it, he spoke again about “academic optimism.” To be honest with you, my initial concern when focusing on learning goals and success criteria was, how do I get my neediest students to understand and use these goals and expectations? I’m really glad that I asked myself this question, as looking at our school focus through this lens really helped me consider all of my students.

I can’t help but think of a comment that Em Del Sordo, a Board administrator and member of yesterday’s team, said during our debriefing session: ”I know how to teach fractions. I just don’t know how to teach fractions to kids that don’t get it.” I could have made the same comment when it came to learning goals and success criteria. This was a good thing though.

When planning with my teaching partner, we then discussed ways to ensure that all students understood these learning goals and success criteria. We looked at how to scaffold the learning. We had more small group discussions with these students. We modelled how the work that they were doing aligned with the success criteria. We even included the learning goals and success criteria on the individual assignments, so the students could access them easily in multiple ways, and see the correspondence between the expectations and the activity. It worked!

All students understood the learning goals and success criteria, and ensuring that they did, also ensured that we created an environment of academic optimism and true success for all. This is something that I want to continue to keep at the forefront of all that I do in the classroom. All students can learn. We need to ensure that all students do learn. Thank you to yesterday’s team for reminding me of this!

Now I’d be curious to know what you think the benefits of learning goals and success criteria are in addition to higher levels of achievement. For any parents reading this blog post, what impact has this school-wide focus had on you, and what impact have you noticed for your children? I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Aviva