TL Standard 3

TL Standard 3 Reflection

After learning about what an action research project looked like, I had a vision of what I wanted to do. I wanted to see several changes in my classroom but I didn’t know which to focus on first. In chapter 3 of The Action Research Guidebook: A Four-Stage Process for Educators and School Teams, Sagor states, “When people are unsure of their destinations, they tend to take wrong turns, extend their trips with unnecessary detours, and potentially end up where they hadn’t intended to go” (Sagor, 31). I decided to pick what I felt would be the most beneficial for my students. I wanted to see higher levels of engagement and retention in all subject areas but I soon realized that was much too large for an action research project. I needed to narrow down my project to one subject area to test my hypothesis and plan. Once I completed this action research project I could try and apply the things that worked into other subject areas to hopefully see an improvement in those areas as well. In the text Sagor mentions, “Whatever approach you decide to use, it is imperative to stop before proceeding any farther to ask yourself of your team, ‘Is this topic really worth an investment of my or our precious time and energy?’” (Sagor, 29). This really stuck with me and actually changed my topic of research. He made it very clear that your topic must be meaningful to you, something you are passionate about. If it isn’t something you are passionate about, it will become like a chore for you to do.

The text states, “Creating a time and space for private thought is the primary virtue of the reflective writing process” (Sagor, 13). Journaling in my classroom each day before and after school is something that I really enjoy. This led me into bringing the reflective journal into my action research project. It was a great way to track and make notes about my whole class, individual students and note what was working as well as what wasn’t working each day.

I feel that reading the Sagor text really helped shape and set my action research project up in a successful way. The additional literature I did at the beginning of my project also really helped narrow down the focus my plan. The literature that I found all had similarities to what engaged learners look like and gave several examples at how you as a teacher could give your students a hook and allow them to express themselves showing individuality. My research also discussed the importance of closures in lessons to help recollection of content. Some of the sources had wonderful examples for older grades but I struggled finding examples that were applicable for my age group.

This action research project helped change my practice in my classroom. During completion of this action research project, I created several data collection papers and materials that helped me track progress for my students. They have helped shape the upcoming material and it has reiterated just how important closure is for every lesson. It is easy to get wrapped up in their work time and lose track of time and just throw out the wrap up/debrief session. I was able to continue this action research project to start a new school year and have seen my students make great gains.

Not only did I learn how to conduct an action research project in my classroom, I also learned how to apply research and critique primary and secondary sources. Before taking these courses, I could not tell you what the difference between basic research, applied research and action research. I also could not specify the difference between a primary and secondary source, not to mention be able to analyze and critique an article effectively! Ruth Ravid’s book, Practical Statistics for Educators does a nice job breaking down and explaining the multiple avenues within different types of research. Ravid states, “The focus of most textbooks on action research in education is on qualitative research. Nonetheless, teachers, administrators, and other educational professions need to understand quantitative research, to interpret test scores, to participate in data-driven decision making, and to be educated consumers of educational research” (Ravid, xv). As seen in my Article Critique I was taught to take a piece of research and dive deep into critiquing the purpose and design of the research as well as looking to the sampling procedures, variables, reliability and validity, analysis conclusions and limitations of that article. Learning how to not only find primary and secondary sources but also how to critique them is a skill I can immediately implement into the research done by my grade level team when looking for research to support curriculum and practices we use. I also learned how to complete a data analysis. As seen in my Data Analysis , I learned how to read data provided in a table and analyze its meaning. We focused on finding the mean, standard deviation, kurtosis and skewness of the data and what that means when looking at a research study. It is easy and fairly common for researchers to change data to make it represent and say what they want it to. I now have the foundation for knowing how to analyze data that is given to me in a research article. These skills can help me determine if the study and research is sound or not. This was a large take away for me because it is so easy to believe that the data you read about in research and popular books and journal articles are feeding you true information when in fact the research several of these articles and books are not sound or supported by primary resources or may have been altered. I was asked to critique the article Growth in Reading and How Children Spend Their Time Outside of School published by Reading Research Quarterly, a very well-known and respectable journal. I was amazed at how little the data supported the claims they made within the article. The authors manipulated the data to represent and prove their hypothesis to be correct. Learning the fine details that make a source reliable and credible is an invaluable skill to have which I can now confidently say I obtain.

Citations:

C. Anderson, R., T. Wilson, P., & G. Fielding, L. (1988). Growth in Reading and How Children Spend Their Time Outside of School. International Reading Association, 23(3), 285-303. From http://www.jstor.org/stable/748043

Chapell, M., Blanding, Z., Silverstein, M., Takahashi, M., Newman, B., Gubi, A., & McCann, N. (2005). Test Anxiety And Academic Performance In Undergraduate And Graduate Students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(2), 268-274.

Ravid, R. (2011). Practical statistics for educators (4th ed.). Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Sagor, R. (2011). The action research guidebook: A four-stage process for educators and school teams. (2nd ed., pp. 1-31). Thousand Oaks: Corwin.

EDU6524 Curriculum Design Meta-Reflection

Meta-reflection

 

Standard: Evaluate and use effective curriculum design.

EDU6524 Curriculum Design’s purpose is to help educators get a more sound understanding behind curricular goals and objectives. It allows teachers to take a close look at the relationships between theoretical and practical models and how to assess curriculum and common practice. It also takes it one step further and helps lay the groundwork on how to design and implement a carefully planned unit of study. This class does an amazing job at covering the standard: evaluate and use effective curriculum design. The two texts that we read for this course was Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World by Heidi Hayes Jacobs, and Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. The challenging part of this course was to learn how to rewire my thinking when it came to unit planning. Both texts pushed me to not only learn how to take a backwards approach, but also required me to step outside of my comfort zone and discuss and implement components that students in our classrooms with need in order to be successful in the fast pace, technology driven world that we live in. A lot needs to change in our education system.

In order to look back and reflect on our educational system, we need to debunk the pros and cons. What has worked, what needs to be changed? The first few chapters of Curriculum 21 by Heidi Hayes Jacobs, really forced me to look at and reflect on not only my own teaching practice but the last several decades of the education as a whole. Within the first few pages on the book, it discusses how we often get stuck in our ways of doing things. Jacobs states, “In fact, schools were not designed for children. Rather, they reflected the factory model of organization resulting from the ascension of industry and economic expansion between 1897 and 1921, which ultimately was applied to education as well as business (Feldman, 1999). With roughly 180 instructional days based on an agrarian calendar and a six hour day with eight subjects, the standardization took hold. It still holds children, teachers, and communities in a fierce grip.” (Jacobs, 9). Before taking this class for the most part, I just followed the curriculum that was required for me to teach and stuck close to the curricular map. When lessons were added in to supplement, I don’t feel that my team and I always designed lessons with the end goals in mind. We knew what standard we wanted to hit, but we didn’t plan or really establish all of the necessary pieces in order for the lesson or unit to be best effective. Through the readings in this class, I will go back to my team more knowledgeable about the importance of backwards design. In chapter 2 of Curriculum 21, it discusses how to upgrade the curriculum and Jacobs breaks it down into five steps of how to do so. What I loved the most about this chapter was how it perfectly connected to other texts that we read for our Standard-Based Assessments class. Jacobs states, “My experience is that starting with assessment types is a strong and provocative move because it forces educators to confront the very work assignments that are required of our learners” (Jacobs, 20). Doing this while redesigning and supplementing curriculum, we are taking the steps to essentially upgrade curriculum by trying a different approach than what we are used to doing.

In my past 4 years of teaching I have been very hesitant when it came to using technology in my classroom with my students. I feel as though I am getting “stuck in my ways” even though I am only in my first 5 years of teaching. It is hard to admit your weaknesses or when you are uncomfortable teaching particular subject areas. For me, my weakness is technology. I plan to implement a lot more technology in my classroom in the years to come. I will be trying out and exploring using technology to help present my lessons as well as having my students access and use different types of technology. I feel the proper use of technology in my classroom could really help capture those select few students that always seem to be dazing off. Jacobs stated, “Teachers who are comfortable with and trained in media literacy will find students who are more engaged. Additionally, students who are media literate are better able to resist messages deemed biased, harmful or inappropriate” (Jacobs, 145). I am hoping that by furthering and strengthening my comfort levels with technology, I will become more capable at obtaining my students full attention for a longer duration of time. I look forward to taking more professional development courses around technology that will help educate me further in ways to incorporate it with my students.

Another big takeaway for me came from Understanding by Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in regards to my curriculum and unit planning. This text does a wonderful job breaking down and investigating the purpose of the design within out units and lessons. The backwards design model is “beginning with the end in mind” (Wiggins and McTighe, 18) What I think my team and school could do better at is truly analyzing curriculum and taking a closer looking at where we need to supplement to meet the needs of our students. During this course I was able to do just that. In my curriculum analysis, I discussed a new literacy curriculum that my district adopted. Teachers all over the district are concerned that it is not sufficient.

After learning how to effectively analyze a curriculum, and through my research and readings I felt I was better able to understand the importance and effectiveness of the backwards design model to help write a Unit Plan. Wiggins and McTighe discuss the three stages the backwards design model as identifying desired results, determining acceptable evidence and plan learning experiences and instruction. By beginning with the end in mind we have a clear picture of where we want our students to get. From there, we are able to determine what types of instructional strategies will help our students meet the learning target(s) within the unit. It is important to focus on what standards we will be assessing and what we want our students to create. Throughout this course it was made very clear how important it is for students to not just be able to state what the learning targets are, but to understand them. How will you as a teacher know your students have learned, understood and met their learning target? “Understanding is revealed in performance. “Understanding is revealed as transferability of core ideas, knowledge, and skill, on challenging tasks in a variety of contexts. Thus, assessment for understanding must be grounded in authentic performance-based tasks” (Wiggins and McTighe, 153) One way I will monitor my student’s understanding is through self-assessments and reflection during mini conferences during writer’s workshop. Their self-assessments and tracking sheet are directly connected to the daily learning targets. Students will be writing the daily target and how they feel they did in meeting that target and what they did to show they understand. The mini-conferences that my students will have with me allows me to assess lesson plan pacing as well as student progress in meeting the desired target.

As I finish this course, I feel that I am walking away with a great deal of new knowledge regarding best practices in curriculum design. I look forward to being able to apply my new learning in the upcoming school year. I also look forward to bringing a lot more knowledge to the table with my teammates during our PLC work time in how we can better improve our curriculum and help supplement and fulfil the needs for our students.

 

 

References:

Jacobs, Heidi Hayes. Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2010. Print.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005) Understanding by Design. Pearson. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

EDU6655: Meta Reflection

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed all of the assigned online articles and readings from our required books Brain Matters, Jossey Bass and Brain Rules this quarter. There are so many important pieces that go into teaching and education. Before this class, I feel that I was always focused on the curriculum as well as supplementing that curriculum to give my students the best education I possibly could. Now, I feel that my original focal point is being shared with a new large piece. I am not only focused on those aspects of the teaching field regarding curriculum, but now, I am focusing more on best practices. These best practices are based on solid research regarding how students learn and retain information.

Both Brain Matters and Jossey Bass do a wonderful job explaining the brain. These two texts covered a lot of similar information such as; the structure and functions of the human brain, the development of the brain, sensory input, information storage and how the brain learns best. As an educator, I was able to take away and apply many pieces of these books into my classroom immediately. However, there were a few topics of discussion during this quarter that I feel really grabbed my attention that I would like to discuss. I really connected with and would like to talk about the “buy in” at the start of each lesson and its importance. I would also like to discuss using the arts in my teaching. Another large take away was, teaching using concrete experiences. I will also touch on the benefits of exercise in the classroom, student’s memory, and the importance of using visuals in the classroom.

In a webinar Dr. Willis, an educational researcher, mentioned it is important to make your lessons enjoyable, you need to have what she called, the “buy-in” method. Making your lessons relevant for your students allows them to immediately connect and engage. They should understand what she called the “here-me-now” not only in reading, but in every subject area. At any age, students should be able to answer: what will this information or skill offer me, here, at this time. In Brain Matters Wolfe explains, “Occipital Lobes are the primary brain centers for processing visual stimuli (Wolfe 2010).” The visual stimulus connects with stored cognitive associations which make what is being seen, meaningful. So what does this mean in my classroom? Making sure my learning targets are always posted and up to date for my students to see. It also means making learning meaningful to my students, and giving them concrete experiences (which I will discuss later).  I see the best learning and highest success in my students when I have provided a great buy in to my lesson and then continue with a highly interactive, hands on activities. Looking back into chapter 11, Wolfe states, “We learn some things by experiencing them concretely, others symbolically, and still others in abstract terms (Wolfe 166).” I was recently introduced to a program called BTiC: Bringing Theater into the Classroom. It is a program that teaches you ways to integrate drama into your entire curriculum. I was able to immediately implement my learning into my classroom. I played around using a type of acting called tableaus. I had my students use a tableau to demonstrate their understanding and comprehension of a story we had read that they were struggling with retelling. I was amazed at how well they did and the results showed they were able to retain and pull great content from our lesson using this exercise. Research proves that the arts allow students to explore, learn from peers and learn how to explore and express emotions. The arts provide students with skills which are not directly taught in content based classes, but which are required to have and use in content based classes.  For example: observation, spatial relationships, kinesthetic, symbolism, imagination, abstractions, cooperation (Sousa, 335-336). Using a buy in, music and theater in our classrooms more often could ultimately be the new “best teaching practice”.

Another big takeaway for me this quarter was the idea of getting my students out into the real world. That all not all of my assignments have to be pencil and paper based, like our curriculums seem to have them. “Young children learn best through concrete experience. It is important to provide hands-on learning to strengthen natural interactions in natural settings (Wolfe 6).” In chapter 11 of Brain Matters Wolfe mentions,“ Many of our strongest neural networks are formed by actual experience (Wolfe 169).” Looking and researching further, it is beneficial and more interesting to find actual problems in our own school or community for students to problem solve and work together to find possibly solutions. Teaching kindergarten and having my students be so young I find other ways to help give them concrete experiences at home too. I have my students out in natural settings to gain experiences. They help parents write grocery lists, they cut out words from food labels, bags, magazines to add to our classroom word wall. They go on nature walks with their parents to connect to science curriculum. I look forward to incorporating real world problem solving strategies into my classroom!

  A big interest of mine has always been the benefits for students and the research behind exercise within the classroom. In John Medina’s Brain Rules, he states that, “kids pay better attention to their subjects when they’ve been active. Kids are also less likely to be disruptive in terms of their classroom behavior when they’re active (Medina 18)”. Not only are they less disruptive but they “feel better about themselves, have higher self-esteem, less depression, less anxiety. All of those things can impair academic performance and attentiveness (Medina 14)”. So how can I take this into my classroom? Well, each morning in my class, we are now taking the time to do our Get Fit- Count to 100s song, stretching, doing breathing exercises, and having them do children’s yoga to help set my students up for a successful morning and day. It has been a great way to get the blood flowing and get more oxygen to their brain. I have really noticed a difference in their level of engagement after such activities. In the book Brain Matters, Wolfe talks about research that Harvard University did that shows that exercise plays a critical role in brain functioning (Wolfe 94). Having a lot of research backing up and supporting my choice of adding 20+ minutes of exercise each morning and again in small periods throughout my day lessens the stressful feeling that I am “wasting” teach time because I am, in actuality, helping their learning.

A large chunk of our time this quarter was researching and completing readings about our memory, long-term, short-term memory and the inner workings of each. During our Brain Rules presentations we learned that most memories we make are lost within minutes (Medina 147). Hearing that students are likely to lose a large percentage of the information taught each day is a scary and concerning thing for any teacher to hear. So what is the solution? How do we make sure our lessons and hours upon hours teaching each day are not wasted?  Our memory experts Wolfe and Medina suggest if teachers “want something to stick in students’ long-term memory, then teachers must build elaborative rehearsal strategies into their instruction.  Building elaborative rehearsal strategies allows students’ time to process the information.  This increases the strength of students’ learning because the strategies allow consolidation to take place (Wolfe, 157.) It was brought up in class discussion after a Brain Rules presentation that it is best for teachers to plan lessons where content is incorporated gradually and then repeated in intervals. At the beginning of each year, teachers spend time looking at their specialist schedules hoping and trying to work their days where they can have large chunks of teach time during ideal parts of the day. I feel that I have always had an inconsistent specialist time and I never really have more than a small block of time for teaching a lesson before recess or a specialist interrupts it. Well, research has shown that leaving a lesson and revisiting that material is actually doing your students a service. The best way to retain information in your memory is to rehearse and revisit as much as possible. I am now using my choppy daily schedule to my advantage to really reiterate my main teach points.

The last piece of information that I found extremely valuable, that I would like to discuss is the importance of visuals used in your daily lessons and in the classroom. We learned through class discussions and our readings that images help us learn and remember more than just written words. This immediately made me think back to my own classroom and what I could change in my lessons to fit this model that is more visual based. Medina says, “Vision trumps all other senses…We learn and remember best through pictures, not through written or spoken words.” (Medina, 223) In a sense, less is more. Teaching kindergarten my classroom is filled with pictures and word labels for my ELL students and non-readers. For my kiddo’s on IEP’s I have several picture schedules that allows consistency for them. I have always been aware at how beneficial images are for ELL students and students on IEP’s but I had never understood how important images were for increasing understanding for the whole class.  Wolfe discusses in chapter 12, “Not only are visuals powerful retention aids, but they also serve to increase understanding,” (Wolfe, 184). This will be a constant challenge for me in my teaching career. To look at my lessons each day and find ways to scale down the amount of text and increase the visuals.

I am excited to see what another quarter or even year of new learning will bring to my classroom. I am happy to say that I feel like I have been able to make many changes so far this year in my room to better the learning for my students. Although sometimes make a change or adding something new that I might not feel 100% comfortable with, like theater and drama, can be intimidating it is proving to be effective and really helping my student learning. What is most important in my eyes as an educator, is to remain open minded and open to suggestions that could best benefit your students. Always be willing to take risks, and better yourself as an educator, because we have to remember, it is all about the students!

Resources:

Bringing theater into the classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.seattlerep.org/Programs/Education/BTIC/Default

Medina, J. (2008). Brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school (pp. 14-147). Seattle, WA: Pear Press.

Sousa, David A. (2008). The jossey-bass reader on the brain and learning. (1st ed., pp. 95-336). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Willis, J. (n.d.). ASCD Webinars – Judy Willis, Brain-Based Learning Strategies. Membership, policy, and professional development for educators – ASCD. Retrieved October 6, 2013, from http://www.ascd.org/professional-development/webinars/judy-willis-brain-and-learning-webinars.aspx

Wolfe, P. (2010). Brain Matters. (2nd ed.,pp.16-223). Arlington, VA: ASCD

Wolfe, P. (2013). Early Brain Development. (pp.1-10) A position paper for the 9th Bridge Early Childhood Program in Las Vegas.

EDTC 6433: Final Reflection

I am happy to say that I am leaving this class feeling like I have learned a lot and also feeling like technology is not nearly as intimidating as I made it out to be. Walking into this class in the beginning of the quarter I have to admit that I was nervous, and intimidated. Yes, I feel that I am pretty tech savvy with the items that I use outside of my classroom, but when it came time to implement technology into my classroom, I didn’t know where to start. During the first class session we spoke about our final projects we would create and we touched on the types of work we would do in this tech class. We also took a NETS self-assessment to see what areas we could use improvement.  After leaving class the first day I have to a say that I was pretty skeptical. Reading over the NETS and taking that self-assessment truly felt like I was trying to (and not succeeding) read a different language. The self-assessment showed me that I truly had a lot of room for growth in all areas. I teach kindergarten, I have 22 five year olds who are just learning the letters of the alphabet and learning how to read and write. My original outlook was, what in the world could I possibly take from this class and make applicable in my room? “These projects and NETS don’t really apply to me”. I am proud to say, that I was so very wrong! Whether I am teaching 5 year olds or 75 year olds, teaching technology is possible and very doable at any age! My overall technology goal was to focus on NETS-S 2: Communication and Collaboration and NETS-T 1: Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity. I would improve technology integration in my classroom by using Haiku as a space to allow my students to share their animal research projects in June. Students would use our classroom Haiku page to demonstrate their research and use of PebbleGo and a voice recording system to create their project. Although this project won’t be completed until May/June of 2014, I feel I was effective in setting my students up for success on this project. I have spent a lot of time teaching my students about the basics of using netbooks. I have worked hard teaching my students how to log on, how to navigate to their sites, how to adjust volume, use headphones and how to log off. I have also done a lot of preloading with my students on how to research using graphic organizers and using the basics of PebbleGo. I have learned so much about how to introduce somewhat complicated technology skills so early in the year with kindergarteners. My biggest learning and takeaway from this class is twofold. One is how many technology tools and resources can be modified and used with my kindergarteners in class. The second biggest takeaway is the capability of my kindergarteners using technology, especially so early in the year. With enough practice and careful teaching my students were able to meet extremely high expectations that I set!

During this class, I learned about several different programs that have been extremely useful and helpful in my classroom! A part of this course that I greatly enjoyed was the fact that majority of the programs we got to learn about and use in class are all able to be scaled down to use at different grade levels.  I also feel that I am leaving with wonderful resources and tools for my future years of teaching. Not only did I find new programs and technologies that I am able to use with my students, I learned about new technologies that will benefit me in my journey with SPU for my graduate degree! I already used one 2 of the programs I have learned about in my projects and presentations for finals this quarter! I look forward to seeing how I can continue to use these programs with my class this year and in the future as well!

Something I always need to remember is how important technology is and how it allows for creativity in my classroom. Student choice is so important. It allows for students to be more engaged and take ownership in their learning, and technology really aids student choice. Technology has really opened the door and alleviated stress for the kiddos in my room who struggle with fine motor and writing skills. It has allow for my students who rarely participate in conversation and give me a large sigh when it is time to get work done,  to be excited to pull out the netbooks or recording system to get started on their work! Technology is supporting students with many different avenues to access information and support learning! I will definitely be continuing the use of technology in my classroom!

EDU 6655 Is Theater the Answer?

While reading chapter 14 of Brain Matters, Wolfe does a wonderful job recapping the main takeaways from her book. While reading over the importance of using appropriate rehearsal strategies and providing many opportunities for students to revisit information over time on page 222, I was able to connect a phenomenal new resource I received during our staff LEAP time.

Our staff was lucky enough to have a training session from BTiC: Bringing Theater into the Classroom. It is a program that teaches you ways to integrate drama into your entire curriculum. They give activities, and ice breakers to help start your year off. With those activities, comes a set up for grouping our students that you are able to pull from for the rest of the year. Looking back into chapter 11, Wolfe states, “We learn some things by experiencing them concretely, others symbolically, and still others in abstract terms (Wolfe 166).” What I loved about BTiC is this program provides methods of learning that research has proved to be most effective. During this mini workshop, we learned a lot about tableaus and how effective they can be in all subject areas and used for many purposes. This immediately excited me and got me eager to apply my new learning into my classroom. I already had an idea of where and exactly how I wanted to test out using tableaus.

In my classroom during reading workshop, the curriculum is focusing hard on oral retelling of the highlighted story from the curriculum. We are provided with a hardcopy version of this story, the story is available online, and we are given blank picture cards for students to “fill in the blank” of the story. However, no matter how many times we listen to the story (me reading the book, played online or using the blank cards) my students are still having a difficult time with going back and recreating the story in the correct order. I went back into my classroom after the workshop and immediately introduced tableaus to my students. Rather than having my whole class attempt to retell the entire story together, I divided the story out into 4 sections and grouped my students into 4 groups. Each group was given a section of the story and they had to work together to create a tableau to show the most important piece of their section of the story. Each group then watched the others mini productions! We had a quick discussion about each tableau and why they chose the stances, and gestures they chose. After this activity, we sat back down and debriefed the whole lesson. The next day I came back and revisited this same story and asked them to retell the story. The outcome was phenomenal. Every single student was able to correctly retell the story in the correct order and they were actually able to pull even more information from the story after that activity than they were able to before.

All of the reading and research from Jossey, Wolfe and the fabulous online readings that we have been able to discover have really come to life in my classroom with how students learn best. I can’t wait to continue using tableaus and theater in my classroom!

Bringing theater into the classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.seattlerep.org/Programs/Education/BTIC/Default

Wolfe, P. (2010). Brain Matters. (2nd ed., pp.221-223). Arlington, VA: ASCD.

Mnemonics Saved the Day

Growing up, I always had a difficult time studying for tests. There was always so much information that I needed to retain but I struggled keeping the information organized and straight in my mind. I always seemed to struggle until the day I started using mnemonics. In chapter 13 of Brain Matters Wolfe states, “many teachers view mnemonics as mere memorization or ‘memory tricks’ (Wolfe 208).” They say that mnemonics are unrespectable because they don’t enhance deep and meaningful understanding. As an educator, I could not disagree more. I was able to be successful in elementary school, middle school, high school and college because of the help from mnemonics. It is a great tool to  aid memory and the ability to recite information.

Wolf spends a great deal of time reciting many of the categories of mnemonics. Two categories that I was able to connect with the most is acrostic sentences, as well as acronyms. The two are very similar to one another. The difference is acrostic sentences are always sayings in a sentence form whereas acronyms are using just a single word.  Many of us have probably learned several of these as young children and still to this day are able to recite these silly sentences or words. Examples are how many days are in each month “30 days has September, April, June and November..” ,  learning the notes of the line on the treble clef by learning the sentence “Every good boy does fine” . A popular acronym that I still use to this day to help me remember how to properly use the words affect vs. effect is RAVEN.  “Remember affect (is a) verb, effect (is a) noun (Wolfe 210).”

“When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking (Wolfe 211).” Using what seems to be just a silly sentence during reading workshop to help students remember a very important rule while reading, truly works. In chapter 15 of Jossey Bass Reader, it talks about the differences between literate and illiterate students. One intriguing difference was when they looked into reciting nonsense words. “The illiterate people tended to turn these into real words (Blakemore 240).” Teaching kindergarten, I still have several students who are not reading yet. Illiterate students, struggle retaining the information and research shows that they are actually using a different part of their brains when attempting to read words. They use the part of the brain responsible for problem solving.

After looking deeper into this new learning, I am curious to see how helpful it could be using mnemonics more frequently with my illiterate students. I look forward to learning more creative ways to distribute information for my illiterate students to recall it better/faster, as well as strengthen my literate student’s skills. Could this change, decrease or eliminate (in some areas) the problem with students using the wrong part of their brain while trying to read? Even if it couldn’t solve the problem, I am curious to see the growth with those illiterate students in using mnemonics. As teachers we can teach students about how their memories work and give them the tools they need in order to recall and pull from that stored information.

Wolfe, P. (2010). Brain Matters. (2nd ed., pp.200-217). Arlington, VA: ASCD.

Blakemore, S. J., Frith, U. (2007). The JOSSEY-BASS READER on the Brain and Learning (p. 101). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

EDU 6655 What Would I Change?

There are many things that we as educators would change about our schools if we had the money and/or power to.  Ask a teacher to close their eyes and pretend that money and power were not an issue. For them to write down ideas of what a perfect school would look like and see what you get. Every teacher has their dream of what that would look like, and it would be pages upon pages of changes, some more feasible than others.  There is, however one major change that I would like to see implemented in schools all over the country. I would like to see more exercise built into our students’ school day.

“Research from Harvard University has shown that exercise plays a critical role in brain functioning (Wolfe-Early Brain Development 6).” Many researchers have concluded that exercise is an important part of a child’s day. In chapter 7 of Brain Matters, Wolfe discusses how school districts are decreasing the time spent in subjects like art, music and physical education to spend more time on core subjects such as math, reading and writing in hopes to raise students standardized test scores. However, after looking into research concerning the effects of exercise on brain function it suggests that this practice may be counterproductive to the results they are looking for (Wolfe 93). Wolfe goes on later in the chapter explaining a study that was done proved that the more physical tests students passed, the higher they scored on the achievement test. Exercise not only enhances learning, it affects emotional and physical well-being as well because when you exercise your body produces endorphins (Scheve).”

I was pleased to read in John Medina’s Brain Rules that “kids pay better attention to their subjects when they’ve been active. Kids are also less likely to be disruptive in terms of their classroom behavior when they’re active (Medina 2008)”. Not only are they less disruptive but they “feel better about themselves, have higher self-esteem, less depression, less anxiety. All of those things can impair academic performance and attentiveness (Medina 2008)”. Science and my readings have proved that exercise is a vital part of education and learning. Taking the time each day in my class to do our Get Fit- Count to 100s song, stretching, doing breathing exercises, and having them do children’s yoga are all benefiting the learning of my students. It has been a great way to get the blood flow and oxygen to their brain to help get them ready to learn. I have really noticed a difference in their level of engagement after such activities. In my perfect world, districts would stop eliminating our student’s time in important activities that help the success rate of our students. I would also have blocks of time set for exercise in the classrooms totally to about an hour of fun movements and exercises. There could even be a before school program where students could come and do Pilates, yoga, zumba, jogging or any other type of exercise to get their brains awake and ready to learn before the day begins! This would not only aid learning and engagement, but it would also help solve our national obesity issue that our country is undergoing.

Resources:

Medina, J. (2008). Exercise. Brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school (pp. 14-18). Seattle, WA: Pear Press.

Scheve, T. (n.d.). Is there a link between exercise and happiness?. Retrieved from http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/exercise-happiness2.htm

Wolfe, P. (2010). Brain Matters. (2nd ed., pp.93-97). Arlington, VA: ASCD.

Wolfe, P. (2013). Early Brain Development. A position paper for the 9th Bridge Early Childhood Program in Las Vegas.

Week 5 Research

This week I explored many new ways to include technology into research. I spent time viewing and using different search engines to see how useful they were in finding applicable information on my research topic. I also looked into how using technology in my classroom aids learning in early childhood. I also spent a lot of time looking into the benefits of student choice. Research shows that students are more likely to be engaged and complete their work when the are able to decide what they are studying. It also mentioned that too many choices can demotivate them as well. It is important to find that happy medium.

I am excited to incorporate and tie all of these things into my classroom for a project in the upcoming months. I will allow my students to pick an animal to study. They will then research their topic using a online research database. They will have the choice of using technology to create their presentations or doing a hard copy. All students will be presenting their projects to their classmates.

This week, looking at the research behind the benefits of project-based learning rather than taking an assessment, and allowing student choice really confirmed my choice for how to present material and the steps the take to research are helping their learning. This overall will allow for better retention and recollection of the information they researched. As well as the information they hear from other student presentations.

EDU 6655 Real-Life Problem Solving

In chapter 11 of Brain Matters it states, “John Dewey contended that school should be less about preparation for life and more like life itself (1937) (Wolfe, 169).” This quote from Dewey really makes me look at how I teach my classroom in a different way. I have always felt that preparing students for life is the most important part about my job. In the past I have focused on helping my students learn about how to become a better friend, citizen and overall person using problem solving strategies. These lessons have been taught in different scenarios and I have even had my students act out and role play problems and solutions.

Wolfe states, “teachers can find actual problems in their own schools and communities for students to solve (Wolfe, 170)”. I really want to find a way to incorporate a smaller scale of this idea for my kinders. We are currently doing informative writing and later in the year my students will be learning how to use research data bases to find information to support their writing. Finding a way to get student into the action of solving a problem to allow for some real hands on experience would improve their learning and retention. Wolfe mentions, “Many of our strongest neural networks are formed by actual experience (Wolfe 169).”  We have spent a lot of time in classes discussing how quickly and how high the percentage of information that is taught, is lost after the students walk out the door. Giving students the hands on learning, where they are able to put their problem solving strategies to use over a week or two time frame, would support their ability to recall and therefore remember materials. Solving a real-life problem would fully support those skills. Dewey mentioned how most schools have students developing critical-thinking and problem-solving skills but they are almost always hypothetical case studies. They are not addressed in the classroom. They are typically taught by lecture and recitation of the information given during instruction. Wolfe mentions that by having students solve a real problem within their community or school, “students learn both content and critical thinking (Wolfe 170).”

A lot of discussion was swirling this week about how important visuals are in our teaching. Less is more. Lessons and information that are jam packed with words quickly become ineffective for our students. Wolfe supports this discussion in chapter 12, when she states, “Not only are visuals powerful retention aids, but they also serve to increase understanding,” (Wolfe, 184). It is important to really tie these two topics of discussion together. While solving those real-life problems in the classroom,  it is important to be showing students how to access databases and how to use visuals to support their learning and presenting. It is just as important for students to understand the importance of visuals as teachers. When we were students growing up giving presentations about different topics from kindergarten all the way through college, no one ever told me how less is more, how important visuals were for retaining and recalling information. Medina states, “the more visual the input becomes, the more likely it is to be recognized-and recalled (Medina, 233).” As students we were pushed to give as much information as possible and that typically resulted to PowerPoint slides in 8 pt font so we could fit everything on! As current educators, it is our responsibility to not only use this in our own practice, but also to teach our students about the importance of these topics too so they can apply it into their daily work.

Resources:

Medina, J. (2008). Brain Rules: 10 Vision (1^st ed., pp. 233). Seattle, WA: Pear Press.

Wolfe, P. (2010). Brain Matters. (2nd ed., pp.169-184). Arlington, VA: ASCD.

EDU6655 Problems with Memory or Multitasking?

This week, learning about Short-Term Memory from Brain Rules preloaded me with great information and terminology used in chapter 10 of Brain Matters. I was able to make many connections with the examples that Wolfe mentions in the chapter of declarative memory and procedural memory. He spoke about the difference between the two and how they are stored and retrieved, but what I was really hoping Wolfe would cover in this chapter was those who claim they have a bad memory.

Wolfe states, “Our ability to remember is essentially a process of reconstruction or reactivation (Wolfe 152)”. I currently have a student in my class that claims he is unable to remember activities, events, information, or any type of instruction because he has a “bad memory”. I know there are several adults that can relate to this student in my class. Feeling as though they don’t have a great memory. I also understand that memories are strengthened by experiences as well as revisiting, replaying and rehearsing those experiences, events, and information. But what is happening inside the brain when even though those pieces are being revisited but the connections are still not becoming stronger? Has damage been done to the hippocampal structure that helps move these experiences into short or long-term memory? Can damage be restored, or those abilities be strengthened somehow?

After looking deeper into my question and doing additional research, my question has turned to an unexpected direction. In chapter 8 of Brain Matters it states, “If little Jack seems extremely forgetful, it may not be that he cannot remember facts or events. It may be that he finds it hard to keep in mind simultaneously the instructions to do several tasks at once (Bass 115).”  What if the problem isn’t damage to his hippocampus or any other part of the brain responsible for storing memories. What if the issue he feels is a “bad memory” really is his inability to do or focus on more than on task at a time (which many adults aren’t able to do either). This week we spent a great deal of discussion on the fact that the brain is never truly “multitasking” it is simply just the brain transitioning its focus from one task to another. So maybe the issue isn’t a bad or weak memory, rather it is the fact that his brain takes longer to switch from one task to another. Making him frustrated and feeling incapable of remembering. I feel like the first few months of school I am so focused on getting my students into the routine of fast transitions. We practice practice practice. Now I know that no matter how much we practice it will still take some of my students a longer amount of time to be ready for the next instruction or activity. Now that there are more possible answers to my question I will  be much more aware of this issue, allowing plenty of time to switch tasks for those students that really need it.

Wolfe, P. (2010). Brain Matters. (2nd ed., pp.152). Arlington, VA: ASCD.

Rizzolatti, G., Fogassi, L., & Gallese, V. (2008). The jossey-bass reader on the brain and learning. (1st ed., pp. 115). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.