Assessing the Gingerbread Village....

The Gingerbread Village stands complete in my classroom. The children did it their way, working together and totally engaged for about 45 minutes a day throughout the week. The next step is time to simply "play" (although they would tell you that is what they did all week). Before I turn them loose to enjoy their creation for the sake of simple play, however, I want to assess their learning to see if the time spent on the project was worthwhile.



As I reflected on their dialogue during the assessment I had only one thought for the next time I do this activity. Rather than limiting my students to boxes, construction paper, and a city on the floor, I hope that the next time I am able to allow them to create the town in the way they choose. Perhaps it will be a virtual town on the computer that they can all access and interact with. Who knows? I'm learning new things along with my students everyday.

Lessons From the Gingerbread Man...

For the past two weeks I have been encouraging my students to bring empty half gallon milk cartons to school for a project that I have always done during our fairy tale unit. They have not brought in nearly enough cartons for our project. In fact, they have brought in only four or five total. The 15 or so that I had saved made enough for us to begin the project last week, but we are faced with the inability to complete it at all if they do not show up with quite a few on Monday. The fact that I am still in the process of changing my teaching is probably the reason the solution to this problem was slow in coming, but today while reading blog posts from Twitter, I had another ah-ha moment!

The project I am using comes from a wonderful book of what were at one time innovative ways to teach math. It is spelled out in specific steps and even has "The Rules of the Kingdom". Guess who the ruler is? Why me, of course! I don't know how many times I will have to learn this lesson before it becomes instinctive, but I don't have to be the ruler and I don't have to set the rules for my students to learn something worthwhile!

Our project is based on the story of The Gingerbread Man. With a simple change to the ending of the story, he escapes from the fox and finds himself on the other side of the river where he meets other Gingerbread people who are building a village in the forest. The project is a set of activities that incorporate math skills and social studies. Everything is based on half gallon cartons so that the pieces of the village fit together as planned. Well.... we can learn a great deal by venturing away from the prescribed lesson and turning the kingdom over to the Gingerbread people rather than the "king"!

The Gingerbread families have been created. Each family has an elaborately designed milk carton home. Now all they need is floor space and an opportunity to work together to create a village that will meet their needs. They don't need me to tell them what to do or how to do it. I only need to pose a question that will guide their learning. "How can the Gingerbread people build a village that will meet their basic needs and provide a safe environment in which to live?" It occurs to me that they will learn so much more by working together and figuring that out as a class. I plan to show up at school with a variety of boxes and materials for them to use and to see where our project goes when led by the students rather than a book. Will it involve math? Maybe. Will it involve social studies? Definitely! Will the kids be engaged and learning? Certainly!

I can't wait to see what happens!

Lessons From Palm Oil

My second grade students watched a live broadcast from Borneo via TakingItGlobal earlier this week. They learned about the destruction of the rainforest and the orangutan habitat for the production of palm oil. A reflective discussion following the event generated a list of ideas for how seven and eight year old children can help with the problem. "We can speak for the trees!" suggested one student. They went on to suggest writing letters to the companies that are responsible, writing a blog about the issue, and starting a campaign against the use of palm oil. The kids were not, however, exactly sure what products contained palm oil. In an effort to transfer the responsibility for gathering information from myself to my students, I suggested that they go home that night and begin searching labels to find out. A wonderful lesson for children! But... the lesson had a twist I had not foreseen...

The next morning the children arrived ready for a new day. One of the first little girls through the door enthusiastically exclaimed that she had found a product containing palm oil! As she announced her finding, sugar wafer cookies, my eyes traveled quickly to a Walmart bag sitting on the table. With a sinking heart, I opened the bag which contained brownies I had purchased for a reward I owed the kids. They squealed with delight as I lifted them from the bag, only to dissolve in dismay as I turned them over and read from the ingredient label: palm oil! A tiny voice rose from the class asking the question they were all thinking, "Do we still get to eat them?" There was a collective sigh of relief as I said, "Of course you can, but I just learned a huge lesson from you! Next time I will look at the label before I buy things! Even better, perhaps baking from scratch rather than buying ready made would be best!" I don't think a single child in my class will ever forget the lesson I learned that day.

As we lined up to go home, I reminded them that over the weekend they should look for more products that contain palm oil to report back to the class. My favorite question of the day was, "Would it be cheating to look on the internet?"

We are learning together, keeping it real, and making a difference!

Right in our backyards....

One of the changes I've tried in my teaching this year is sharing the stage. Stepping back and allowing my students to learn from experts, family, and even each other has reaped tremendous rewards. The level of engagement and achievement could not be higher! As with anything new, it seems to get easier as the months go by. Our next project has uncovered treasure right in our backyard! The last Shout event, Study the Land, provided ideas for learning about the effects of climate change on the trees. I also came across a lesson plan from the Smithsonian that I was given last summer in Washington, D.C. about plant fossils found in nearby Wyoming. It contains photos of leaf fossils and a graph of the climate change that took place during the time in which they were formed. The Epals website had a link to information about a coal mine and rain forest fossils. Things began to connect and I made a few calls. It turns out that the husband of our physical education teacher is an environmentalist at the coal mine that we can see from our school playground. A call to him confirmed that there have been plant fossils found right here where we live. Some are large fern fossils, too large for him to bring to school, but he is going to gather what he can and pay us a visit. I can't think of a more engaging way for the kids to learn that there used to be a rain forest right where we live! Even better, he is the uncle of one of my students. Equally important, all the kids are aware that our pine forests are dying. You can't drive into the mountains in Colorado without noticing vast areas of reddish orange pine trees. Pine beetles are killing them. We are inviting someone from the National Forest Service to pay us a visit as well, to help us understand what is happening. Apparently the pine beetle problem is also related to global climate change. A lesson from the rain forest of the past, a lesson from the pine forests of the present, and questions about the future of forests here where we live will undoubtedly be interesting and meaningful to my second graders. I won't be teaching any of those lessons. I will facilitate the learning by inviting those who know much more than I. We will all learn together. The focus will be on learning, not on my teaching. The lessons will not be found in a text book or teacher's manual, but I have no doubt that the learning will be powerful and the reflections of the students will last a lifetime.

Full circle...

It was in August of 2009. I had just attended blog and wiki training for the technology team in my district. I had heard of blogs, not of wikis, and had never tried either one. It was all foreign to me and I had no sense of how it would benefit my teaching. I'm sitting here today, reflecting on how that one simple meeting changed my teaching in dramatic ways. In the 19 months that have passed since the meeting, I have created this blog for myself, one for my class , one for individual student use , and a new one for our school . I have created three wikis. One is for my class and two are collaborative wikis for pen pals around the world ( http://wearepals.wikispaces.com/ and http://joinhands.wikispaces.com/ ) . Along with my dear friend and pen pal partner, Rawya Shatila of Beirut, Lebanon, I became one of the 2010 Epal Ambassadors, won the 2010 Microsoft US Innovative Education Forum, and traveled to Capetown, South Africa to represent my country at the Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Education Forum. The learning that has taken place in my professional life since has been like an explosion. My classroom is not, and never will be the same again. All because of a simple technology training session that inspired me to investigate and explore new communication and collaboration possibilities.

This morning I read a wonderful blog by WhatEdSaid called Change isn't easy.... As I read the simple explanation of what we all face in the transformation taking place in education, I couldn't help but look back 19 months to myself before I became aware of what was happening around me. I, in August of 2009, had no idea that I even needed to make changes in my teaching. There are many, many teachers who are still at that place in their profession. Teaching can be an isolated occupation, spent day after day in a classroom with students. There is often little opportunity for contact with other teachers in the building, let alone a chance to build relationships with teachers in other places. Without social networking and high quality staff development no change is even likely to take place! We can't make changes we don't know about and aren't encouraged to make! Last night I found a charming example on Twitter. For 18 years I have been teaching first and second graders in snowy Craig, Colorado. Although I love snow, the thought of months getting a classroom of small children ready for recess in the snow, still makes me shudder. If you have never experience that, just watch this video posted by Mary Ellen Lynch: Dressing in Snow Clothes. The amazing part of the video for me was that for 18 years I have dealt with small children asking me to pull the cuffs of their jackets over the ends of their gloves after they dress. I have continued to tell them that if I took time to pull every cuff over every glove in the class, we would miss recess entirely. It took Twitter, and a very creative small person to show me that there is, indeed, a better way to do it!

Although the initial training that led me on a journey of change in my classroom took place in professional development provided by my district, most of my learning has taken place through interactions outside of work. There is never enough time or money for all the staff development teachers need. Self-directed learning and exploration are key to professional development. Teachers need to take advantage of the multitude of professional learning communities available on the internet. A great book to read is Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning by Marc Prensky.

I called this post "Full Circle...." for a reason. On Thursday, I will be making a presentation to the NW Colorado BOCES. One of the people I will be talking to is the very person who led the training I attended in August of 2009. I can't wait to share with her the result of her efforts that day. It will be an opportunity for me to inspire at least one of the people in that group to embark on the journey I have taken since. Change isn't easy, but the first step has to be awareness that change is taking place.

Hanging out with digital natives...

When my seven year old granddaughter was two, I used to keep a supply of Dum Dum suckers in my purse. When she was overly tired, hungry, or fussy and we were out of the house doing those inevitable things that didn't allow her needed nap or meal, a tiny sucker would keep her content until we could take her home and meet her needs. Well, in just five years, the need for a sucker in my purse has been eliminated. Today I found myself in a vehicle with my grandson, who was at the moment a very fussy two year old. He and I were waiting while his mother and sister ran a quick errand. Luckily, his sister had left behind her ipod touch. Guess what I found waiting for him there? A Dum Dum sucker app!!! His tears ended instantly when I handed him the ipod and he began tapping the tiny sucker on the screen while smiling from ear to ear. As he tapped, the sucker disappeared before our eyes, and when only the stick was left, he knowingly gave the ipod a shake causing a new sucker to appear so he could begin the process all over again. He was totally engaged in "devouring" suckers until his mother returned a few minutes later. The best part was, no sugar entered his mouth! There is truly an app for everything!!!

My three grandchildren, ages 11, 7, and 2, are true digital natives. While at their house last night, my oldest granddaughter, who was in her room, called urgently for her little sister, who was busy reading to me. (A book, by the way. Yes, they still love to read real books!) Reese, ran to see what Kenzie wanted. She was gone for quite awhile and I could hear voices coming from their room. When she returned, I asked her what they were doing. Very matter of factly, as she snuggled up beside me to return to the book she had been reading, she informed me that they had been skyping on Kenzie's netbook with their cousin... in Cambodia. This morning, Kain was sitting beside Reese at the kitchen table where his sister was busy playing Moshi Monsters on my laptop. Two year old Kain kept reaching over and tapping the screen. As I watched him, I realized he was trying to interact with the game! You see his two older sisters both have ipod touches, his dad has an ipad, and his mom an iphone! He didn't understand why my simple MacBook Pro didn't respond to his touch!

What a different world children are growing up in today! Technology is a routine part of their lives. I am old enough, of course, to remember when all of the miraculous gadgets did not exist and I don't think I will ever stop being amazed by what we can do with technology today. What is next? What will be in store for the children of my grandchildren? Stay tuned... it's bound to be incredible!

How will they learn... not how will I teach...

One of the best parts of teaching is the learning. The learning by the students, of course, but also the learning by the teacher. There are always tales of teachers who have file cabinets full of lesson plans organized by week, that they pull out year after year, believing that what worked yesterday will work today as well. I don't think I actually know any of those teachers, at least I hope not! That would never work for me, and that is perhaps why I loop. Moving back and forth between first and second grade every other year keeps my mind fresh and forces me to think about my teaching. With two years between lessons, there are many changes to consider. Who are the children sitting in front of me now? What are their interests? Where are they in their learning? What do they need next to move on? What new strategies and teaching ideas have I acquired? The last question is so important. Teachers must never allow themselves to become stale. The world around us is changing constantly and those changes are obvious in our students. To ignore that and pull out a 20 year old lesson plan would serve to frustrate both the students and the teacher. Even more importantly, it would probably not result in the learning that the teacher had envisioned. Although I began my teaching career late in life (at 40), I have now been teaching long enough to have memories of "the way we used to teach". I am not unlike the students, however, in my need to keep learning fresh and relevant. I crave the creative challenge of exploring new things and seeing where they lead.

In the past two weeks, I reached a new understanding of a thought I read recently. We need to focus not so much on the teaching, as on the learning. The internet is full of lesson plan sites. Think of a topic and you can find an almost unlimited number of ways to teach it. How do you go about selecting the perfect lesson plan to add, perhaps, to your file cabinet of lessons for the first week of January? (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) What if instead of looking for a way to teach, you spent time thinking of ways a child would learn? It took me some time to sort out the difference and really understand that concept. It became pretty clear in the last two weeks as I approached something I have taught many times from a new direction.

Teaching students to become effective writers can be challenging. There are many programs available to guide teachers through the process and our district has a program as well. The program has excellent skills, goals, samples, and rubrics to assist a teacher in developing writing skills in students. it certainly is a way to teach writing. But something is missing for me in following a commercial program day after day. I shouldn't use what we call the "b" word in class, but simply teaching the same way day after day has a tendency to become "boring" for both the students and the teacher. I am constantly on the lookout for new ways to approach the topics to keep my teaching alive as well as the students awake. It was in that spirit that I realized the difference between thinking of "how they will learn" rather than "how I will teach". We had been working on descriptive writing and the kids had reached a plateau. I wanted them to move on and continue to develop more skillful writing. In the past I have used poetry to inspire more creative description, so I decided to do that again. Now there are many ways to approach poetry and I have tried a variety of things in the past. This time, however, I tried something new. I recently acquired a set of wireless mice and several hubs for connection to a PC. Using a free Microsoft download called Mouse Mischief and PowerPoint 2007, I created a lesson to teach my second graders about poetic devices. The writing devices were not new. I taught them about alliteration, simile, personification, and onomatopoeia as I have often done in the past. The difference was in the approach. I have never taught all of those at one time before. That is quite a lot for a seven or eight year old to grasp in one sitting. Especially when a teacher is lecturing and explaining while a child is expected to listen and learn. But... when I put them into a power point lesson that allowed the students to interact by moving and clicking their own personal mouse from their seat, they were suddenly playing a game, not hearing a lesson. They were engaged, noisy, and actively involved in learning. It took exactly one lesson for mastery of the poetic concepts. After we put the mice away, I covered a table with photographs I had taken in my backyard of winter animals and snow covered plants. The kids selected pictures and put their new learning to work in a magnificent way as they wrote poems filled with our new poetic devices. There was not a single child off task or unsuccessful. In fact, it was one of my struggling writers who became the star of our poetry writing. We uncovered her creative side as she easily saw similes and connections to apply personification.

The magic of the lesson was the "game" approach. In 2011 much of the play our students engage in involves technology. That is reality. Ask them what they like to play. Most will say video games. If we want them to learn, we need to engage them in ways that captivate their attention. The student that had the most striking success for me was the one who would have shut down if asked to watch and listen. She would never have gained the understanding of the lesson without the active involvement that putting the mouse in her hand created. It invited her to listen and participate and discover a success that she will not soon forget. You can lead a kid to a lesson but you can't make them listen... but just try to get them to keep their mouse still for a second!!! It wasn't the lesson I was teaching that made the difference, it was approaching it in a way that kids learn.

Here are some of the poems my students created after one lesson: http://secondgradejoy.posterous.com/39345000