My students have an unfortunate hatred of 'big words'. For example, this morning, they expressed their loathing for such words as 'covalent' and 'polyatomic'. Of course, they also hate being explicitly taught vocabulary. Sometimes, dialogue in my class looks like this:
Students: You're using big words!
Me: Okay, let's learn some vocabulary
Students: Learning words is for babies!
Me: You said you didn't understand these words
Students: We should be learning Science!
Me: Okay, let's learn some Science
Students: We don't understand these big words!
Me: You said you wanted to learn Science
Of course, there is a lot more hand waving. Also stamping of feet and huffing. Possibly some shouting.
The thing is, I have tried teaching new vocabulary in a range of ways. I have tried making visual dictionaries that students add to each time we learn a new content word. I have literacy Do Now activities that involve definitions, example sentences, and cloze activities. I have tried keeping an online glossary on the class site (there was so much complaining about this one). I have tried posters. I have tried embedding vocabulary on purpose into learning. Students hate it, even though they know they need it.
Anyway, I am continuing with my literacy Do Nows, since five minutes of vocabulary seems a lot more palatable than a longer chunk. Here are some things I do, from very low level to quite high level:
Unscrambling letters to make words (visibility of words)
Matching related words and identifying what they have in common (topic-specific words)
Matching words to definitions
Matching halves of sentences that show vocabulary words in context
Cloze activities using vocabulary words
Differentiating between the Science meaning of a word and its common meaning
Creating a picture or diagram to illustrate a word
Anyway, now that I have reminded myself that I do actually do things that help literacy, I feel much better
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Creativity and the artist/crafter/mistaker
Ken Robinson asks, in the TED talk embedded at the end of this post, why don't we teach children dancing everyday, the same way we teach them mathematics? I am going to make posters from this, that's how much I love what I see embedded into this question.
You see, I agree with his basic argument, that creativity is a skill, or an orientation, or a collection of attributes, that we need to teach just as much as we need to teach literacy and numeracy. One of the things that makes it hard, though, is the fact that people think that creativity is a kind of a gift that some people have and others do not.
Wrong. You only have to watch young children playing in sandpits to realise that the capacity for imagination and creativity can be found in all of us. I mean, what is there to get excited about in sand? But when you have a truck and can create a city (or a farm or a spaceship) - then sand is fun.
I was thinking about the key things that keep me creative, and that I think helped me when I was growing up. I blame books, a lot, but also having plenty of quiet time away from other people. I might not have internalised all the lessons about cooperation, but I learned how to entertain myself. I got to try things out and make mistakes - and that's there in the title.
Now that I am a teacher, I've worked hard to find ways to encourage creativity. I model it, by bringing in projects that I have been working on or talking about something that I have tried recently. If I finish a sewing project that I am pleased with I will bring it in and show it off - and talk about what went wrong and how I fixed it. I talk about the whole body and start senior physics classes with a few minutes of yoga or stretching. I have a whole unit in junior science about playing round with diy and everyday materials. I encourage students to use interpretative dance to present ideas (ideal for waves).
But I find that I am fighting all the time to incorporate creativity and learning about creativity. I want to make it like metacognition, a thing I slip in all the time. Perhaps I should start thinking about it that way.
And, finally, the TED talk that sparked all this in the first place. Here's Ken Robinson, kicking it old school about creativity and schooling:
You see, I agree with his basic argument, that creativity is a skill, or an orientation, or a collection of attributes, that we need to teach just as much as we need to teach literacy and numeracy. One of the things that makes it hard, though, is the fact that people think that creativity is a kind of a gift that some people have and others do not.
Wrong. You only have to watch young children playing in sandpits to realise that the capacity for imagination and creativity can be found in all of us. I mean, what is there to get excited about in sand? But when you have a truck and can create a city (or a farm or a spaceship) - then sand is fun.
I was thinking about the key things that keep me creative, and that I think helped me when I was growing up. I blame books, a lot, but also having plenty of quiet time away from other people. I might not have internalised all the lessons about cooperation, but I learned how to entertain myself. I got to try things out and make mistakes - and that's there in the title.
Now that I am a teacher, I've worked hard to find ways to encourage creativity. I model it, by bringing in projects that I have been working on or talking about something that I have tried recently. If I finish a sewing project that I am pleased with I will bring it in and show it off - and talk about what went wrong and how I fixed it. I talk about the whole body and start senior physics classes with a few minutes of yoga or stretching. I have a whole unit in junior science about playing round with diy and everyday materials. I encourage students to use interpretative dance to present ideas (ideal for waves).
But I find that I am fighting all the time to incorporate creativity and learning about creativity. I want to make it like metacognition, a thing I slip in all the time. Perhaps I should start thinking about it that way.
And, finally, the TED talk that sparked all this in the first place. Here's Ken Robinson, kicking it old school about creativity and schooling:
Monday, May 16, 2011
Fashion or refashion?
I am usually all about the upcycling, refashioning, and general diy goodness. My current example is a project I am going to try in the spring - growing plants in a converted pallet, as in this post from Life on the Balcony. Doesn't it look awesome?
Just so that there is some educational link (aside from my daughter growing strawberries and cherry tomatoes), the Horticulture teacher is going to try with one class while the Horticulture block is being upgraded and therefore unavailable for her usual beds. This is a clear example of how my google reader provides useful and practical ideas that I actually use.
But the real topic of this post is to talk about fashion, and was prompted by a conversation with my Y13 class. I was introducing the idea that I had made a presentation (embedded below) and that I expected them to watch the presentation themselves and then bring their questions to class for clarification and extension, tutorial style. So far, so good, right?
But I said that there were fashions in education, in the sense that teachers follow trends in education, just like other trends. Someone has a genius idea and then people trial it and riff off it and it spreads. My students snorted, and when I asked them why, they said that all their experience of teaching was that it was pretty much all the same, and the differences came down to the style of the teacher, not the fashion or trend of the moment. These students have been at this school for over six years now, so I was pretty intrigued by this. Do they really have teachers who are still stuck in the educational equivalent of Paris Hilton as a fashion icon? (apparently, 2003 was also the year of cargo pants, monograms and Chinese embroidery)
I don't claim to be at the leading edge of educational trends and ideas, but I know my teaching tools and techniques change over time. One of the things I am playing with now is the idea of presenting lecture material online, to give students more time for talking and tutorials in class. I'm starting out with some presentations on present.me and then perhaps some video of me doing worked mathematical examples on the board. The Horticulture teacher is planning to do videos of practical skills, and the Chemistry and Biology teachers are investigating what's going to be best for their presentations.
It's interesting stuff. Is it fashionable? Probably, but it's interesting and educational. I'm enjoying the experimentation. Anyway, here is the presentation - NCEA level 3, all about Simple Harmonic Motion:
Or you can go and watch it, on present.me
Just so that there is some educational link (aside from my daughter growing strawberries and cherry tomatoes), the Horticulture teacher is going to try with one class while the Horticulture block is being upgraded and therefore unavailable for her usual beds. This is a clear example of how my google reader provides useful and practical ideas that I actually use.
But the real topic of this post is to talk about fashion, and was prompted by a conversation with my Y13 class. I was introducing the idea that I had made a presentation (embedded below) and that I expected them to watch the presentation themselves and then bring their questions to class for clarification and extension, tutorial style. So far, so good, right?
But I said that there were fashions in education, in the sense that teachers follow trends in education, just like other trends. Someone has a genius idea and then people trial it and riff off it and it spreads. My students snorted, and when I asked them why, they said that all their experience of teaching was that it was pretty much all the same, and the differences came down to the style of the teacher, not the fashion or trend of the moment. These students have been at this school for over six years now, so I was pretty intrigued by this. Do they really have teachers who are still stuck in the educational equivalent of Paris Hilton as a fashion icon? (apparently, 2003 was also the year of cargo pants, monograms and Chinese embroidery)
I don't claim to be at the leading edge of educational trends and ideas, but I know my teaching tools and techniques change over time. One of the things I am playing with now is the idea of presenting lecture material online, to give students more time for talking and tutorials in class. I'm starting out with some presentations on present.me and then perhaps some video of me doing worked mathematical examples on the board. The Horticulture teacher is planning to do videos of practical skills, and the Chemistry and Biology teachers are investigating what's going to be best for their presentations.
It's interesting stuff. Is it fashionable? Probably, but it's interesting and educational. I'm enjoying the experimentation. Anyway, here is the presentation - NCEA level 3, all about Simple Harmonic Motion:
Or you can go and watch it, on present.me
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Causing mayhem - cognitive conflict
In senior Physics, at least, I rarely have trouble causing cognitive conflict. My students are in an almost perpetual state of cognitive conflict. They barely have a few moments of blissful security before I start asking questions that get them to look at how their existing understanding is too simple and full of misunderstandings.
In junior Science, however, getting students to that point of cognitive conflict can be difficult to achieve. There is nothing so disheartening as discovering that your students have absorbed all the new learning, but not jettisoned all their old beliefs. Students are capable of holding seven contradictory thoughts before breakfast, let alone their contradictory thoughts about the structure of plastics.
I have been working hard to get students to recognise that they are in cognitive conflict, not just be in cognitive conflict, do a bit of mental gymnastics, and assimilate the contradictions into a dual view of the world.
This isn't new, I know, but I have just come across it again recently. When I am working with students at a high level - getting students to predict, or make generalisations, or evaluate ideas - then students can't help but change ideas. It's something to do with the extended abstract thinking, at that top level of SOLO taxonomy, that makes contradictions untenable.
I use SOLO taxonomy in a relatively limited way in my junior classes. They are definitely embedded in the learning outcomes, and our whole department is working on increasing metacognition in our students. Now that I've thought about this link between cognitive conflict, high level thinking on the SOLO taxonomy and real change in thinking, I am going to have to think more about how to extend this.
Reflection! Fun times.
In junior Science, however, getting students to that point of cognitive conflict can be difficult to achieve. There is nothing so disheartening as discovering that your students have absorbed all the new learning, but not jettisoned all their old beliefs. Students are capable of holding seven contradictory thoughts before breakfast, let alone their contradictory thoughts about the structure of plastics.
I have been working hard to get students to recognise that they are in cognitive conflict, not just be in cognitive conflict, do a bit of mental gymnastics, and assimilate the contradictions into a dual view of the world.
This isn't new, I know, but I have just come across it again recently. When I am working with students at a high level - getting students to predict, or make generalisations, or evaluate ideas - then students can't help but change ideas. It's something to do with the extended abstract thinking, at that top level of SOLO taxonomy, that makes contradictions untenable.
I use SOLO taxonomy in a relatively limited way in my junior classes. They are definitely embedded in the learning outcomes, and our whole department is working on increasing metacognition in our students. Now that I've thought about this link between cognitive conflict, high level thinking on the SOLO taxonomy and real change in thinking, I am going to have to think more about how to extend this.
Reflection! Fun times.
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