Mystery Breeds Intrigue
This past November, I gave a presentation at the Science Teacher’s Association of Ontario annual conference. The presentation was called, Social Networking in Science Education: Learning Beyond the Classroom.
In the presentation, I tried to make the case that our students are, in many ways, different than the generations of teenagers who came before them – primarily because of the world in which they have grown up. Furthermore, that recognizing exactly how students are different must inform our teaching practice if we are to remain relevant to students in the 21st century.
One of the ways that I have been expanding my ability to reach students has been with the use of social networking sites in my classes (like Ning, Edmodo, and grou.ps). There is no doubt in my mind that social networking has been a phenomenal success with my students and I continue to be excited about using this tool to break down the walls of my classroom.
The following was the printed description of the presentation at STAO:
Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have revolutionized the way that people interact online. This presentation will discuss how teachers can leverage social networking technology within their classrooms to improve student engagement and extend learning beyond the walls of the classroom. The presentation will demonstrate how to use many different free online services to create moderated social networks that uphold student privacy and maintain safety.
Previously, at the 2009 STAO conference, I delivered a presentation called Wikis in Science Education. The turnout was wonderful – 45 attendees, who filled every seat in the room. Going to this year’s STAO conference, I expected a similar turnout. After all, everyone knows what social networking is and I thought that my description would have been perfectly clear and unambiguous.
As it turns out, only 8 people came.
I still feel the presentation was a wonderful success and the small number created a very intimate sphere (of which I was very thankful considering it was my first time giving this talk.) In fact, because of the small group, we were able to have much more discussion and audience participation, which I think brought a more personal element.
Reflecting back, I have wondered what made the difference in attendance from one year to the next. I would have thought that if “wikis” could draw a crowd, then certainly “social networking” would be an even bigger pull.
Then it dawned on me – teachers may already think they know what social networking is all about! Moreover, many teachers hold the belief that social networking is the opposite of what their class needs. After all, Facebook consumes the attention of our students, drawing them away from good ol’ fashioned learning! A teacher might only read the title of my presentation before deciding that they already know everything they need to know about the presentation.
Yet, few teachers really know what a wiki is. That word is still novel in the world of education, and because it is a little bit mysterious, it develops intrigue. I think that when I prepare presentations in the future, I will be more careful in the wording of the title and description – specific enough so as not to mislead, yet elusive enough to generate interest. Of course, this idea is just a working hypothesis. It is entirely possible that my wiki presentation in 2009 sucked so badly that no one wanted to hear me talk again in 2010!
I am lucky enough to have opportunity to deliver the social networking presentation again in May at the conference for the Ontario Association of Physics Teachers. This gives me an opportunity to test my hypothesis. Any suggestions for a new title and description that would develop more mystery and intrigue?
Image Credit: turboalieno
Thank You
I am honoured to have been nominated for the Edublog Awards in the category of “Best New Edublog.” When I started this blog in January of 2010, I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into. I only knew that:
(a) Blogging would help me to be a better reflective practitioner in my teaching.
(b) Blogging would allow me to give back to an online educational community from which I have benefited so greatly.
Looking back over this first year of blogging, I can be certain of (a). The act of intentionally taking time out of my busy schedule to reflect on my teaching practice, and attempt to articulate my thoughts and ideas clearly, has given me a greater sense of perspective and strengthened my approach to teaching and leadership.
Having been nominated for an Edublog Award this year gives me confidence that I am having some impact with (b) also.
When I began this blog, I decided that I wanted to write for my personal benefit – that I would not be concerned about the number of posts I am able to write, or the number of hits each blog would generate. Having said that, I think you would agree, that it is nice to be appreciated.
Thank you to everyone who has read my blogs along the way. I hope that you have, in some small way, gained something from my efforts. If you feel so inclined, please consider voting for ideaconnect in this year’s “Eddies.”
Levels of Classroom Management
I was looking over my stockpile of draft blog posts when I rediscovered this one and thought I would finish it.
I have been thinking more about approaches to classroom management this past month because I have been working with a student teacher from OISE/UT. In trying to help my student teacher understand the subtleties of classroom management I was telling him how I have come to understand that there are three levels of managing student behaviour in a classroom setting, and that I have progressed through each of the three levels over my years in this profession.
Level 0 – No management
This is not really a level at all, but it’s where I began in my first year. The basic mistake that I made is having the assumption that if you simply treat students nicely, then they will do the same for you. The problem is, students and teachers don’t always have the same definition of “nicely.” At the time, my definition of “nicely” was “please sit quietly and take down all the notes without talking to each other.” I didn’t yet understood how to engage a teenage brain for 75 minutes. Looking back I think that my students must have been pretty bored, so it is no surprise that they felt the need to be disruptive – their brains needed to!
Of course, students have some inherent ability to behave due to their socialization, so my classroom was not complete mayhem. Some good learning occurred, but it was not a great “learning environment”; equipment got broken often because there were no firm expectations on students; I was usually exhausted because I was always putting out fires and reacting to small behavioural interruptions.
Level 1 – Compliance
I didn’t take long at Level 0 before I realized that if I was going to keep students in line, I was going to have to demand it. This was the stage when I created a list of classroom rules and referred to it often. I started requiring students to be absolutely quite during lessons. I started to rely on consequences more readily – calling home, detentions, lectures, and sending students out of class.
I don’t want you to get the picture that I was a strict disciplinarian because I really wasn’t. Discipline is not in my nature, so it was very foreign for me to give students detentions or send them to stand in the hallway, but I did it because I thought I had to. This stage was also pretty exhausting for two reasons: First, I always felt like I was giving lectures, calling home and using my personal time to supervise detentions; Second, I had to present myself as a bit of a “tough teacher” in order to demand respect. As I have said, this is not my personal character at all, so it was very tiring for me.
Level 2 – Tone (agreement)
Level 2 is where my classroom management really started to go in new directions that had positive results and that fit with my personality. I call this level “Tone” because I really started to hone in on the atmosphere in my classroom as mechanism for moderating student behaviour. I remember the first time I delivered instructions in a new way. I communicated my expectations about student behaviour before starting a lab … then I stood there silently looking at the students, holding their attention for a few long seconds (though it felt like 5 minutes). I was not upset, or demonstrating frustration – Instead, I was holding their attention so as to communicate just how important my expectations were. In that class, they internalized my high expectations for their behaviour and I realized just how much of an impact my tone would have on student behaviour.
The tone or atmosphere of the classroom moderates student behaviour. It makes students accountable to the teacher and to each other, not because students believe they will get in trouble for misbehaviour, but because students internalize the sense that poor behaviour is unacceptable. If you are a new teacher, you may have a hard time understanding what I am saying here (I am struggling to explain it), but if you seek out a role model teacher at your school, you will feel the difference in their classes and the ways that they interact with their students.
I think that this level of classroom management can also be called “agreement” because it involves getting students to “buy in” to the expectations of the learning environment.
Level 3 – Community (engagement, empowerment)
Building “community” is the highest level of classroom management that I have achieved so far, and it became a major part of my approach to teaching only 2 years ago. I realized then, that having a positive tone of high expectations might dissuade some students from using disruptive behaviour to “take away” from classroom learning, but it did not inherently encourage students to use positive behaviour to “give back” to the classroom learning.
Creating a classroom community takes time, but it is time worth investing. At the beginning of each semester, I allocate a significant amount of time to community building activities and teaching students to interact with each other in positive and fulfilling ways. Each year, the activities change, but they generally emphasize the following points:
- Everyone must know everyone else’s name (students will be working with everyone at some point in the semester)
- Creating a sense of belonging (every person has something to contribute and is a valued member of our community)
- Developing a set of norms that facilitate learning (My three questions are: What do you need from me to help you be successful? What do you need from each other to help you be successful? What do I need from you to help you be successful?)
- Teaching students the value of cooperative group learning
At the level of classroom community, every behaviour can be measured by its ability to contribute to the classroom community, or take away from it. At this level, students will mostly manage themselves. When intervention from the teacher is required, simply asking the student to reflect on how their behaviour is affecting the community as a whole is often enough to bring them back into the sphere of learning and sharing.
If you are trying to get a better sense of how I build community in my class, you may be interested to see My Intro Day Presentation, or look at A New Approach to Classroom Expectations that I tried this year.
If I have learned anything about classroom management, it is that managing student behaviour is a personal journey. The levels I have outlined above are the levels that I progressed through and they represent approaches to classroom management that resonate with my personality and teaching style. I also know that my journey is not complete. I hope that in a few more years, I will be able to tell you about Level 4-6 as I discover what they are.
Photo Credit:
Edublog Award Nominations 2010
This is the first year that I have decided to weigh in on the nominations for the Edublog Awards. If you are not familiar with the awards, they are designed to recognize the contributions and achievements of edubloggers, twitterers, podcasters, video makers, online communities, wiki hosts and other web based users of educational technology. In general, it is a mechanism for honouring the amazing people in the online educational community.
For me personally, the Edublog Awards are one of the best ways I am able to expand my personal learning network. One of the difficulties I have in making nominations is how valuable all of the people in my PLN are to me – it’s hard to nominate only one for each category. The second difficulty I have is knowing who has been useful to me. My blogroll contains over 60 blogs that I try to keep up with regularly and I follow over 400 people on Twitter. It’s often hard to remember who has had the greatest influence on me overall.
So, without further ado … my 2010 Edublog Award Nominees are …
Best individual blog: dy/dan
(http://blog.mrmeyer.com/)
Best new blog: MrK’s Professional Reflections
(http://mkrstovic.edublogs.org/)
Best resource sharing blog: Free Technology for Teachers
(http://www.freetech4teachers.com/)
Best school administrator blog: The Principal of Change
(http://georgecouros.ca/blog/)
Best educational tech support blog: The Edublogger
(http://theedublogger.com/)
Best educational use of video / visual: dy/dan
(http://blog.mrmeyer.com/)
Best educational webinar series: learncentral
(http://www.learncentral.org/)
Best use of a PLN: Classroom 2.0
(http://www.classroom20.com/)
I am sorry that there are no descriptions for why I have nominated each blog. Time is short.
I want to thank Edublogs for:
- Hosting my blog. Their support has been so amazing to me as a newbie blogger.
- Creating the Edublog Awards for helping to encourage excellence in educational conversation.
I Love Technology
Technology is a major part of my life – so much so that I often take it for granted. However, every once in a while I realize the absolute awesomeness of what I am able to do with technology that would not have been possible when I was a teenager.
I snapped this image of my desktop a couple of minutes ago:
Here is why I think this picture is so cool:
- On the left hand side of the screen, I am watching a YouTube video of Eric Mazur delivering a talk about his program of “Peer Instruction“.
- His talk is interesting and engaging to me personally because he is a Physics teacher and so am I.
- His talk is available free online.
- I am receiving some wonderful PD while at home in comfortable clothes, at a time that is convenient to me.
- The link to this video came from my Twitter stream within which I am connected to hundreds of educators who share my passion for education and technology.
- On the right side of the screen, I am helping to plan a small good-bye party for my student teacher.
- Within a few minutes, I have created a document with a sign up list for the party and shared the document with all of my students.
- Already I have students editing the document and volunteering to bring items (a cake, pop, etc.)
- I am able to capture and edit an image of my screen in a matter of seconds using Jing.
- I am blogging about my passion for technology to an audience worldwide.
- The readers of this blog are going to write a comment telling me about a time when they marveled at how amazing technology is (hint, hint) facilitating a two way conversation across time and space!
I love technology!
Small Successes
Although I am a strong advocate for the use of instructional technology, I have never been a proponent of “technology for technology sake.” In actual fact, my approach to education has little to do with technology and much more to do with creating 21st century learning environments that will prepare our students for a world that is rapidly changing. Of course, technology is one component of creating these types of learning environments, but not the most important part. Instead, we need to help teachers think differently about what “their job” is, and help student think differently about what “school” is.
The past few weeks I have had a few interactions that have made me believe that positive changes are happening in the world of education. I wanted to share these success stories with you.
My Grade 10 Applied Science class has 22 really nice kids. Generally speaking, they are not excited about Science, but I do my best to make it interesting and engaging for them, and we usually have a pretty good time. I have always worked hard to model for my students an appropriate use of technology. I am probably one of the few teachers in my school who does not have a “NO CELL PHONES” policy – Instead I have an “APPROPRIATE USE” policy. At the beginning of each year it sometimes feels like I have opened Pandora’s box because I am constantly having to manage students’ use of their cell phones. It takes many focussed conversations and a lot of modeling, but eventually students start to “get it” and I don’t have to work so hard any more. This Monday, my Grade 10 class really got it and it was so cool to see.
Students were doing some reading in small groups about the different ecozones on Earth. One of the short articles made reference to flying squirrels and one of my students asked me what they were. I tried to explain it but I knew that a picture would communicate the concept much better so I pulled out my phone and Googled it. They thought that was pretty great (and that flying squirrels are pretty creepy).
Ten minutes later I overheard Jas say, “what does epiphytic mean?” It wasn’t 30 seconds after when I heard Nicole reply, “It’s a plant that can grow on another plant.” I was completely caught off guard (mostly because even I don’t know what epiphytic means!). When I asked Nicole how she knew the definition, she said, “Sir, I just looked it up on my phone,” as if I had just asked her a mundane question like what she ate for lunch. I got so excited that I called everyone’s attention to praise Nicole publicly and reinforce her decision to use her cell phone in an appropriate way for our classroom.
Of course I expect that my students will still make poor choices about their cell phones from time to time, but I believe the message is getting through and that is a success story worth sharing!
Other success stories came from a few teachers at my school who recently attended the OSSTF Toys and Tools: Technology in Education conference with me. I was pleased to hear that they enjoyed the conference and have been trying some new “tech”-niques. Some teachers from our Social Science department were inspired by Danika Barker’s presentation at the conference to start their own social network using Ning. When I was talking to these teachers, they were excitedly telling me how the social network has already become an enriching experience for their students because …
“students are learning and sharing outside of the classroom, any time they want”
“students are learning from each other”
“students are making deeper connections”
It was like music to my ears!
Also in the past few weeks, I have had many teachers come by my office to tell me how they have been using web 2.0 tools in their classes: PollEverywhere to facilitate a unit review, Voicethread to facilitate online discussions, MixedInk to practice writing lab reports, and the list goes on!
As a teacher who endorses the vision for 21st century learning environments, it can sometimes feel like we are very far away from reaching that goal. However, a significant shift will take time and it is important to step back and recognize the small successes along the way. These small successes give me a lot of hope for the future of teaching and learning. If you have a success story to share, please tell us about it in the comments.
Image Credit:
Cell Phone – Mykl Roventine
Flying Squirrel – nikoretro
Using a Voice Recorder for Answering Emails
This past weekend I was at a wedding when I received this email from a student:
Hey Mr. Whisen
Okay so for my presentation of the roller coasters i was researching the difference between clothoid loops and the circular loops that occurred in rollar coasters before. I know that clothoid loops are more efficient but I don’t understand how I can use the formula to demonstrate this.
At this point in the day I am filling time between the ceremony and the reception. I want to reply to the student but I know it will take me a long time to type out a detailed explanation on my BlackBerry. I also know that I will do not want to wait until I get home (at 2:00 am) to respond to her.
In a flash, it occurs to me that my phone also has a voice recorder in it! In no time, I record my detailed response to her question and email her back the audio file. Altogether, this took less time than typing an answer and I was able to give a far more detailed response!
I love finding new ways to use technology. Another tool to add to the toolkit!
By the way, if you’re dying to know my answer … have a listen.
If You’re Going to Give Them Garbage
This is a short post to share with you all a quote I just read for the first time today:
“Far less interesting to me than whether a student has learned what he was supposed to is the question, ‘Has the child been given something to do worth learning?'”
And,
“If you’re giving them garbage to do … you may have to bribe them to do it.”
– Alfie Kohn
The video shown below does a great job of using The Office to embody what Alfie Kohn is talking about.
How many classrooms still operate like this?
This is a short post, so I wont comment any further. Draw your own conclusions.
Assessment As Learning
There continues to be a big push in our school board to incorporate more “Assessment As Learning” into the learning process. Basically this means helping students to develop skills for self-evaluation and metacognition. One of the ways that my department has opted to try and integrate this into our science curriculum is through the use of student friendly check-brics.
One example of a simple check-bric might look like this:
| Criteria | Met | Not Met |
|---|---|---|
| My graph includes a title and labeled axis. | ||
| My graph includes a line of best fit for the data and an equation of the line. | ||
| My graph has a caption, briefly describing what the graph is about. |
white space – please ignore
The check-bric above is the type that a student might complete before handing in an assignment. Generally, the point is to help students self-reflect on their work so they can make the necessary improvements themselves. In my class, after the students complete the check-bric above, they are given the chance to take their work home and improve it before it is handed into me for more formative feedback.
Over the last year, I have started to use check-brics not only for students to assess their work, but so they can also assess their learning. For example, if the students were participating in a learning activity, such as a scientific investigation, I will develop a simple check-bric for my students to look at before and after the task. Below is an example of one I used the other day for a learning activity about accelerated motion:
| Statement | Yes | Kinda | No |
|---|---|---|---|
| I have a good understanding of how to use the motion sensors | |||
| I have a good understanding hot to use the Datastudio software | |||
| I understand why a distance-time graph can have different shapes | |||
| I can explain what is happening in a distance-time graph based on the shape | |||
| I understand why a velocity-time graph can have different shapes | |||
| I can explain what is happening in a velocity-time graph based on the shape | |||
| I know how to calculate the speed of an object from a d-t graph | |||
| I know how to calculate the acceleration of an object from a v-t graph | |||
| I know how to calculate the displacement of an object from a v-t graph | |||
| I can see how an understanding of accelerating objects relates to objects in real life |
white space – please ignore
What I like about this approach is that students can see before they begin an activity, what the activity is designed to teach them. I think that if a student is aware that “understanding the shape of a displacement-time graph” is important and that the activity is their opportunity to learn this concept, they will be more likely to ask for help from other students or from me while the activity is going on.white space – please ignore
At the end of the activity, I do not need to collect any “product” other than the check-bric. The learning results of this particular activity were pretty good: About 8 students put mostly all YES, about 14 put mostly KINDA, and about 4 students put mostly NO. Immediately, this tells me who my “experts” are in the class, and who needs the most extra help.
The part I am really excited about is what I hope to do with this data.
My first thought was that I needed to seek out the students who did not understand and talk to them directly, and I will definitely do that. But, I am also attempting to empower my “experts” more and get them involved in using their mastery to help others. I have arranged for pairs of experts to record a short video (less than one minute) explaining how they understand one of the rows of the check-bric. They are encouraged to use words and diagrams as they see fit and they can use the department’s Flip video camera any day after school. Ultimately, they will post the videos to our class social network for all other students to see. I am really hoping for a positive response to this, so that it can become a regular occurrence in my class.
I see the creation of student videos as a really valuable use of the assessment as learning data for a number of reasons:
- It empowers students to see themselves as having something of value to share
- It distributes the responsibility of reteaching content to weaker students from the teacher to other capable students
- It provides opportunity for the “KINDA” students to re-approach the content, even if I may not have time to get around to each of them individually
- It permits all students to review the subject content at a time that is convenient to them – whether they are in the library at school, at home, or visiting their grandma for the weekend (Comment: I think that asynchronous learning will be a big part of the educational landscape of the future)
I am excited about how this first attempt will go.
A New Approach to Classroom Expectations
Every year I discuss classroom expectations with my students. Each year, this conversation looks somewhat different, but it generally involves asking students for input. I have heard some teachers say that “developing classroom expectations with students allows them to feel some ownership of the rules, and they are more likely to follow them.” I don’t really believe that. In my experience, students know all the right answers, which is why every list of classroom expectations I have ever seen looks pretty much the same.
I feel that asking students for input on the classroom expectations is really a token gesture – it looks like a nice thing to do, but it’s not really a useful way to have a lasting impression on student behaviour. The important part of generating a list of classroom expectations with your students in not what they come up with on the list, but how they come up with the list. It is the process of generating a list of expectations that helps to establish the tone of the classroom. Do you ask students to work collaboratively? Do you encourage students to be creative in the presentation of their ideas? Do students feel it is safe to contribute? Does each student have a voice?
This year I tried something new. First, I asked students to write down 5 expectations that all people (including the teacher) should always uphold while in the classroom in order to make it a better place to be. Next, I asked students to form small groups and consolidate their lists. Finally, we generated a list as a class by including only the expectations that showed up in more than one group. This all took 20 minutes. So far … so good … and pretty boring!
The next stage was to assign certain expectations to each group (it worked out to be at least two each.) The groups were asked, “what does the expectation look like? how will we know we are doing it?” – this generated some good discussion in the groups. I then asked students to come up with a “picture” that we will take with a digital camera to remind us what the expectation looks like.
I had to give the students an example: “If the expectation was, come to class prepared, we could take a picture of a student holding all of the necessary materials – pencils, paper, etc.” The students immediately started talking in their groups about how they would capture their assigned expectations. What would they do? Who would they involve? Did they need props? Should they do multiple images? All of this great discussion came out! Most important to me, the students were collaborating on a task that was not clearly defined. They needed to be creative; they needed to be problem solvers; they needed to communicate and compromise. All of this interaction is what builds community in the classroom, not this list of expectations!
Finally, we took 10 minutes or so to set up each of the photographs, and captured the pictures with my digital camera. My students really seemed to enjoy the activity and I feel that they left the class that day with a greater sense how to work effectively together, and a stronger image in their minds of the classroom expectations we generated.
That night, I went home and uploaded the pictures to Animoto, found some music licensed for use with Creative Commons and put together a short slide show to watch in class. I have shown the video at the beginning of class for a few days. The students think that it’s pretty cool because it is their photos in the video and the video is much more engaging than a list on the wall. From now on, I will only need to show the video if I feel that the class needs a gentle reminder.
For your viewing pleasure, I have embedded a modified version of our classroom expectations video. In order to protect the identities of my students, I have put cartoons over their faces. In general, I tried not to change the wording of the expectations that the students came up with. I wanted them to feel that this video came from them and not from me. Also, because each photo was part of a larger conversation we had in class, the image probably communicates more to my students than it might to you. Enjoy!