Category Archives: Classroom Management

05/10/15

Week 6: 2*W

One of the formative assessments I learned about earlier in the year was “Two Stars and a Wish”.  I would like to take a quick breather and look back at the happenings of the past week and spend some time appreciating what I see through the lens of Stars and Wishes.  Perhaps I might like this method of self-reflection:  it’s definitely more structured than my typical stream-of-conscious style!  For now, I shall examine an art lesson that I attempted Friday morning.

* * * * *

A brief introduction:  Draw me a Song — create a visually appealing piece of art using song lyrics as inspiration.  The typography of the lyrics can be modified and incorporated into the illustration.  The plan was for the students to be inspired and create magic with oil pastels (they’ve been using pencil crayons for the longest time).  Well… that’s not what happened:

  • The Wi-Fi was extremely slow (Murphy’s Law at its finest)
    • Fortunately, I had pre-downloaded a Somewhere Over the Rainbow YouTube video (with lyrics) onto my laptop the night prior (foreseeing something like this)
    • So far so good — I showed the students the examples and they were quite intriqued
  • All right, kids… pick your own songs, write the lyrics down!
    • … *record scratch*
    • PROBLEM #1 — many students did not even remember the name of the song they wanted to use, much less the lyrics
    • PROBLEM #2 – many students could not think of a song to use and were stuck… that lead to
      • PROBLEM #3 – I suggested they try with a “nursery rhyme”, which the students balked at… I had one student choose the ABCs, albeit with a exasperated smile on her face
  • All this culminated in kids losing direction, losing focus, and becoming distracted and off-task… I tried to rein them back in, but it was too late — they lost half an hour, and even then, it wasn’t a solid 40 minutes spent working:  I had to constantly quiet the room down and send kids back to their seats
    • Question to self — why do you keep pacing around the room?  It doesn’t really serve a purpose — maybe the kids would be more on-task if they didn’t have to worry about a teacher peering over their shoulder all the time…

OKAY!  Now we’re ready for 2 stars and a wish

STAR #1 – STRONG START

  • We can say that I had the students’ attention.  I lost them temporarily when I allowed some of them to sing along with the song, but they came back when I showed the samples
    • A side note — I opened myself up for randomness when I allowed singing… that gave a few of the students to “take advantage” and exhibit some off-task, silly behaviour.  Shouldn’t give them those opportunities..

STAR #2 – VISIBLE PRESENCE

  • While the students did get energetic and certain individuals began visiting their friends across the room, they all listened whenever I called for quiet
    • Room for improvement — instead of requesting compliance, demanding compliance; I’m too lenient and permissive and need to hold them to higher standards

WISH – BETTER PLANNING

  • I’ll be first to admit that this is one aspect of my teaching that I’m finding quite a few issues with.  A lot of the time I have these ideas, but neglect to consider how they will pan out.  I am very good at accounting for technological issues… I need to take that transferable skill and apply it to the more important “issues” — how to proactively reduce off-task behaviour and ensure all students develop the skills/knowledge they need to succeed in their assigned task?  Planning, planning, planning…

Moving forward, I tried planning next week’s HACE lesson from this perspective.  I assumed that those rambunctious students will seek to entertain themselves, and that students would get confused and not know how to proceed.  The end result is an airtight activity that is guided from beginning to end… strangely enough, prior to adopting this mindset I had always felt somewhat uncomfortable with too rigid a lesson or activity plan (I wanted to leave room for spontaneity).  Now… it feels so natural — perhaps I needed that change of perspective in order to truly appreciate why certain lessons required stricter frameworks?

I used an analogy to explain the idea to a colleague before… “sometimes, direct instruction is required.  A supervisor will want to tell new employees (at least, initially) exactly what to do and how to do it.  It won’t be until after the new employee has demonstrated some improvement and/or efficiency that the supervisor will begin to release responsibility back to the new employee.  What supervisor would tell their employee to ‘do your best’ without even a basic list of expectations, then chastise him for not performing to par?”

It’s high time I started following my own advice.

02/3/15

A belated update

Hello, readers!  This week’s update comes a little bit late, and for that I apologize.  And now, without further ado…

* * * * *

PE class this time around was a little more hectic, with chaos abound, but the class cooperated well with us.  My SA needed to assess each student’s fitness, as it is one of the components that make up their PE grade.  As a result, we had to go through the class roster in groups, as the fitness stations did not accommodate the entire class.  We split up the gym into two portions, with myself running set shot practice on the other side of the gym.

There were a few challenges we faced.  While we had access to two separate baskets, they were at 90 degrees to each other, which resulted in the two lineups bunching up together at the ends.  Fortunately the class did really well staying on task and practiced dribbling while they were waiting in line.  M, one of my students who is diagnosed with ASD, had a few challenges as well.  He had difficulties with the technique involved with set shots and was not able to shoot the ball high enough, which led him to attempt different kinds of shots such as overhead lobs, underhanded tosses, and so on.  These choices led to him gradually becoming off-task, with him starting to bother the classmates standing behind him in line.  Moreover, as the fitness test wrapped up for the first group, my SA called for other students to take their places; the transition created a little bit of confusion and chaos.

My initial idea was to run a set shot workshop similar to the lesson I taught last class, but quickly realized that this would not be possible after discussing our goals for the day with my SA.  Moreover, French class ended several minutes later than expected, so we had to make up for it by starting as soon as we entered the gym.  I decided to mainly focus on set shots and circulating to give individual tips while formatively assessing the students on their technique.  Initially I instructed M verbally, and gave him verbal prompts for redirecting off-task behaviour.  When that did not work, I began pulling him aside to help him focus on the proper technique, which was moderately successful for a short period of time.  As his off-task behaviour escalated, I informed him that continuing that behaviour would result in him being assigned a different activity aside from the rest of the class; he chose to participate in the activity properly, and I affirmed his positive choice with praise.

As I was transitioning into the “baskets for pushups/situps” activity that the class loved (D explicitly asked for it), my SA blew the whistle, signalling a group change.  We decided to continue with the previous set shot activity, as the new additions to our set shot camp were rather tired and not as receptive.  I decided to keep it simple and continue the workshop until the end of PE class, which worked out rather well.

* * *

My SA and I discussed our plan of attack for the extended practicum.  It’s coming soon!  I’m very thankful for the opportunity to lead the class… the idea fills me with excitement!  That being said, one of my objectives for the practicum will be to fully emulate and incorporate my SA’s teaching style, expectations, and structure.  Over the course of the first term I had seen the class grown tremendously and begin to shine.  I need to remain mindful of the students’ expectations, as I’ve noticed that a few of them have begun to assume that things are “different” when Mr. Tsang is standing in front of the classroom.  One of the first things I will do with the class is to spend perhaps an hour going over the classroom expectations (again) and being firm on the expectations.  I am contemplating, however, discussing a Social Contract with the class, tying the idea to the Social Students unit on Governance.

That’s all for now!  Time to put all those ideas swimming around inside my head onto paper!

01/25/15

I think I like PE now!

I must admit… prior to stepping foot into the classroom as a teacher candidate, the idea of teaching physical education unnerved me somewhat.  So does the thought of teaching French, but we will save that story for another time.  Fortunately, I have the wonderful opportunity to study under Steve McGinley and learned that PE doesn’t have to be taught in a meritocratic manner.  And so, tasked with leading a class full of wonderful individuals possessing a diverse range of experience and skills, I move forward with this week’s task:  dribbling, chest passes, bounce passes, and a juicy introduction to set shots.  In the sake of brevity, this post will focus solely upon the lesson and lessons learned from said lesson.  Another post to follow on the meat of the happenings of last week, and more musings to come…

* * *

Plan:  modified warm-up allowing for dribbling and pass practice.  How to achieve this and introduce/set shot practice?  Well, I wanted to make sure each student had a good opportunity to practice, which involves time… and I had no clue how many baskets were going to be available (we had 5 at my elementary school as a child… which, in retrospect, was a rather impressive number).  So, during the drive to the school (and while weaving in and out of rain-slogged traffic), I had the bright idea of forgoing the typical 3 lap jog around the gym and use the skills practice to warm up!  Seeing as we recently covered assessment techniques in PE, assessment was somewhat on my mind…

… and so I hatched the great idea of having them all run around the gym to pass me the ball.  Yes, just me.  While it was great for formative assessment (and the kids loved the idea of doing something other than running around the gym), it created the unfortunate problem of TRAFFIC JAM!  On the bright side, most of the students took the opportunity to practice their dribbling while chatting with their friends, but this issue could have been mitigated by separating the class into small groups or partners.

My set shot mini-lesson and following activity went fairly well.  The students were having fun experimenting and celebrating their successes; I stopped the class and gathered everybody around for some strategy-sharing.  After giving a few more pointers, I tasked the groups with trying to score as many baskets as they can (as a group) within 5 minutes, with the winning group deciding on a kind of exercise I would get to do (ie — I do pushups, or burpees).  I feel that changing the focus from individual to team helped some students get away from their fear of failure to simply having fun participating with their classmates.  While no group got even close to the minimum number of baskets I challenged them with (haha, nobody can get 100 baskets!), we still had a great time debriefing.  Well, they did — I did a pushup for each student’s contribution, whether it be something they tried that worked or “nothing”.  I temporarily forgot that there were 25 students in the class, and that while they all had the option of participating, it was still in front of the class.  Perhaps next time I will use more Think-Pair-Share.  And next time I’ll have them join me in pushups, too!  Or perhaps a Walk-and-Chat, that would make a nice cool-down… can’t wait to try next week!  My class is awesome — it’s hard to believe that the same class who bounced off the wall in The Story of the Wasp is the same class that gave me its undivided attention as I hit the rim not once or twice, but three times as I was demonstrating the set shot.  Nothing but net on the fourth attempt, though!

PS — D was invaluable as a classroom resource.  Initially he shared, nonchalantly, “I have to shoot from further away.  I can’t score baskets up close.”  I looked at him and jokingly replied, “seriously?”  He replied, “yes, Mr. T,” turned around, paused for a second to aim, and shot a basket from just outside free throw range.  Nothing but net.  “Respect,” I said to him, passing him my ball.  Without a word, he shot the ball I tossed to him, which followed his to its home through the red iron.  Okay, I trusted him to give his classmates pointers from then on.  I’ll share the story of how we began our amicable relationship another time.

11/29/14

Challenge: Physical Activity in 30 minutes

Back in school again!  While I relish the opportunity to collaborate and dissect theories and concepts with my colleagues within the classroom, it lacks the intensity and excitement that comes from entertaining a group of children.  Before we begin, story-time:

* * *

My last lesson offered quite the learning experience.  Moral of that story is… simplify, simplify, simplify.  Just like fractions!  And so, when my SA asked me to lead a PE class, and to focus on picking a game that is fun and engaging yet straightforward, ideas immediately began to swim in my head.  See, I didn’t really like PE as a class, mostly because I was not very athletic; fortunately that is not a concern with my class.  Nonetheless, I went on a search for fun, team-based games that offered opportunities for inclusion.  I suggested two games to my SA:  one volleyball-based, one open space-based (we weren’t sure whether we would have the volleyball nets up or not).

… she again stressed the importance of keeping things straightforward and simple for the students.  Right, right… I had to teach the students how to play the games before actually playing.  So, back to the drawing board… I found a tag-based game called Prisoner of War that I thought would be quite a lot of fun, seeing as it’s team-based and offers students a variety of different strategies (lots of running, or strategic short bursts of speed).  I also suggested Jailball and “Ga Ga”, two hugely popular games from my days working at a childcare centre.  My SA shared that her class has played Jailball before (under a different name), and that I could consider Prisoner of War or Ga Ga… although I should consider how much time is required for each (the students only had half an hour for PE every Thursdays).  In my zeal I overlooked this important detail!  Note to self:  consider all aspects of problem-solving when considering possible solutions…

* * *

I admit that I’ve been taking advantage of the students’ enthusiasm for class management.  I told a few students “I will be teaching PE class today, and will explain the game we’re playing today once we’re in the gym.  And we’ll head to the gym after everybody has their PE strip and shows me they’re ready by standing in line.”  To my amazement, the students began to self-organize, spreading the message (Mr. Tsang’s teaching today!) and giving each other friendly reminders to get ready for PE class.  Confirmation, again and again, that acknowledging each student individually goes a long way!  I’m really glad that I took the time to get to know each student during my first few weeks observing.

The students got changed relatively quickly and the first few students ready (E was the first; he’s the only student who prepares for PE by arriving at school wearing his gym strip), but we had to wait a few minutes for the previous class to clear the gym.  Once the previous class cleared out of the gym, I instructed the waiting students to run 4 laps (which was met by a few groans).  And once the students were winding down, I informed a few of them that there was a reason I made them run 4 laps as warm-up, because… they will be running even more during the activity!!!  They would likely all boycott my gym class if I pitched it like that, so I repackaged it as a fun game.

Thing is, as I was image training by imagining the students running around (all of whom were having fun, of course!), I had imagined the gym to be much bigger than it actually was.  My SA noted that the game would be a lot more fun if we were playing on the field, since 13 students standing in half the gym was… actually rather cramped!  I had foreseen the students not paying attention if I started off by telling them they would be separated into two separate groups, so I separated them prior to telling them about the game.  In a moment of silliness, I sent them to opposite corners of the gym… and to confirm that I didn’t exactly make the right choice, I saw out of the corner of my eye E jumping up against and kicking the big cushioned barrier on his side of the gym.  So as to not call attention to him, I instructed everybody in the class to sit down and await instructions.

Now, with the added difficulty of communicating the rules across the gym (good job, Tony!), I relied instead on students to repeat back the instructions/rules to ensure they understood.  I would tell them a rule (your side of the gym is along the outside white lines to the middle red line marked by the cones), and then ask a targeted question where the answer would be what I just said (which part of the gym was your side?).  Originally I set the jail area to be rather large, with the edge fairly close to the centre line.  Sure enough, E picked up on this and expressed his concern, “Mr. Tsang, it isn’t going to be very fair because the jails are pretty close to the centre line,” to which I replied… “… this is on purpose, E, to make the game a little bit easier for us all so we can practice playing.”  I’m sorry, E.  Teacher’s rules!  My SA asked me a question (to help me clarify the boundaries, bless her!), which gave me a chance to clarify the exact boundaries to the students.  Confirming that they understood both the rules as well as the boundaries, they were ready to begin!  Students slowly got up onto to their feet and stalked tentatively towards the other side…

3… 2… 1… start!  And at first, few people moved, opting to stay safely on their side of the gym.  There were a few students who tempted members of the other team by sticking their limbs temporarily over the line; the occasional daring soul would jump two steps over the line, only to giggle and run back when the other team started in their direction.  This standoff continued for several moments, until A made a break for it along the boundary on the far side of the gym.  Around this time I noticed that the gym was rather cramped for a game of this magnitude… and this was confirmed when a student approached me and said, “Mr. Tsang, this is pretty hard… A made it into his jail, but I think he might have run out of bounds to avoid people tagging him.”  Pausing to think for a moment, I decided that it would be a better idea to remove the outer boundary to create more freedom for the students.

Sure enough, shortly after this announcement, several students huddled briefly (likely to discuss strategy), and then darted randomly towards the other side to rescue their friends.  To further encourage this, I temporarily paused the game to reduce the size of the jails, following E’s earlier suggestion.  The game really picked up at this point, with students from each side encouraging each other and sprinting.  There were a few disappointed sighs when players got tagged, but everyone was honest and walked back to their jail, ready to run again.  Soon, the game was over — one side had emptied their jail and won the game!  There were some cheers, some content smiles, and a few sour looks; I called the class over to the middle of the gym and had them sit in a circle around centre.

I invited the students to share their opinions of the game.  In general, they had a lot of fun, but a few of theme expressed frustration at the lack of space and the prevalence of “puppy-guarding” (standing really close to jail to prevent captured players to escape).  Seeing a good opportunity, I decided to engage the class in a short discussion on “strategy-planning”.  Noting that puppy-guarding was both an annoying and effective strategy, I invited the class to brainstorm some ways to defeat the strategy.  There were quite a few good ideas — a few students suggested waiting for when the Guards were “distracted” to make a run for it (the importance of awareness and perspective-taking).  Upon further prodding, A shared his winning strategy with the class — when the rest of the group is distracted with other players teasing and tempting across the line, he snuck along the sidelines and sprinted when he saw that the coast was clear.  After a moment of bubbly excitement, E added to this strategy — “what about when you and a teammate run together at the same time?”  E had successfully used this strategy to help his team win the game:  after whispering to his teammate, they waited for a moment when the defenders’ attention was distracted, and bolted in opposite directions.  The defenders, temporarily confused, were paralyzed and before they could start in either direction, both students had crossed the centre line, winning the game.

The entire class chomped at the bit, eager to try that winning strategy for themselves.  I moved towards resetting the game, but (fortunately) my SA stopped me and reminded the class that the recess bell will be ringing in 5 minutes, and the students needed time to change.  The entire class was disappointed by this sudden interruption; I expressed my own disappointment, telling them that I lost track of time myself and promised them that we would try the game again next time I had an opportunity to teach PE.

* * *

All in all, I was very impressed by how the class managed themselves.  They showed me that despite their challenges with slowing down, paying attention, listening to instructions, and following through, they are capable of excelling.  I was also very impressed with A, who unreservedly shared his strategy with the rest of the class instead of holding onto insight; I could see that he was quite pleased that his contribution was acknowledged in front of the class.  I think I will give him his own tag, as I foresee more interesting contributions from him in the near future.

Take-home learned lessons:

  • Carry a whistle with me into the gym (SA mentioned this, and I agree — should try to preserve my voice)
  • Separating the class into two groups and sending them to opposite ends of the gym makes it very difficult for me to monitor their attending… in the future, I can simply have them sit on either side of a line, but still congregated together
  • Begin setting an alarm to signify the end of the lesson, perhaps with an included 5 minute warning — I wore my watch, telling myself that I would be constantly checking it… unfortunately, I had not really done so, being so invested in students’ experience and encouraging participation
  • Class collaboration gives some students prone to making “negative choices” a positive outlet; however, I still need to work to promote participation from more quieter students.  I noticed that the students who normally wouldn’t contribute to class discussion speaking amongst themselves during the game, which was still a small victory; I would imagine that the more boisterous students (A, E, and a few others) may intimidate those who are less sure of themselves; I would go so far as to say that those students are comfortable with making mistakes and sharing the wrong answer, and as thus feel more empowered to contribute their opinion.  With time…
11/9/14

From the Ashes: the End of an Era — end of practicum reflection

The past two weeks have been a rollercoaster ride.  Prior to the practicum, sitting inside those classrooms in Scarfe, I always thought to myself, “yeah, I’ve got what it takes.  Just put me in front of those kids and I’ll show them some learnin’!”  This week taught me that I, like the students who will be under my care, have lots of learnin’ to do myself.

My class gave me the wonderful opportunity to learn why it is important for lessons to be designed specifically for a given class and should not be generalized.  There is a gap between theory (lesson plan) and practice (teaching to the class) that, without careful preparation, can go sideways at any moment.  The responsibility is on the teacher, as classroom facilitator, to make these contingency plans.  Because things will go sideways, and according to Murphy’s law, they will always do so at the most inconvenient moment.

One of the first steps to contingency planning, I’ve realized, is having the proper mindset.  By that, I don’t exactly mean being in a “problem-solving mindset”.  I believe that contingency-planning must begin from a firm desire to place the goals and needs of the class before our own individual intentions.  A facilitator who feels compelled to push the pace forward to catch up with his intended schedule will inevitably lose touch with his class and may very well notice his students starting to disengage, zone out, or perhaps even some rebellious behaviours, all resulting in decreases in academic performance.  A facilitator who insists on teaching a concept through a certain activity, despite knowing his class lacks the skills with which to succeed, may end up introducing feelings of inadequacies in his students

This is, of course, barely scratching the surface of the ideas swimming about in my head — it will take some time to tie them down and anchor them to words.  Hopefully that can occur within the following days.

* * *

In retelling the story of my last lesson, I liked to place extra emphasis on The Wasp for triggering the cascade of events that led to me losing control of the class.  Mostly because it would be easy for my audience to sympathize with random occurrence leading to catastrophic failure; in fact, I intentionally used this to redirect the conversation away from what I was focusing most on during the past two weeks.  The decisions I made, whether in reaction to escalating energy to where I wanted the lesson to end up, all had something in common.

  • When A expressed fear after noticing the wasp, I allowed him to get up off his chair, and did not object to his moving about the room in an attempt to escape The Wasp’s insecty wrath.  Assumption:  helping A take action to remedy his feelings of anxiety would allow him to de-escalate and refocus
  • After witnessing A’s extreme reaction, several other students began to feel anxious as well, starting to get out of their seats.  At first, I tried to model calmness by completely ignoring The Wasp as it buzzed irritatingly close to my body, performing fly-bys of my ear on a few occasions.  What that didn’t work, I suggested/instructed the anxious students to stand by our EA.  Assumptions:  modeling “calm behaviour” will help students realize The Wasp wasn’t really that scary; that congregating as a group may be successful in dispelling anxiety and fear (this I find, in retrospect, extremely humourous)

In case it isn’t already apparent, the big similarity between all those assumptions I made was that I idealized my students.  One of the secrets to my passion to teaching and my bottomless care-pot is the fact that I believe in the best of all my students, and I try my best to remain optimistic and generous, always giving the benefit of the doubt.  My SA has shared, on several occasions, that certain students (while very pleasant to chat with) were taking advantage of my “niceness” — namely, I neither reacted to nor reprimanded disrespectful behaviour, and by my actions communicated that I condoned that kind of behaviour.  I thought I was cutting back that aspect, but every once in a while I would notice that I am (again) letting things slide, albeit not quite as smoothly as before (I would still believe the students to be angels, but reprimanded their behaviour by just calling attention to it and saying, “I know what you’re doing”).  And when The Wasp invaded the modular, I learned of another dangerous aspect of such an assumption — idealizing my students causes me to lose touch with them, which in turn leads me to react in a completely random way.  And I say completely random, because since I can no longer claim that I’m acting in the children’s best interest, and I definitely wasn’t asking in my own best interest.  Safe to say, it was benefiting somebody… at least then someone could benefit from that whole experience.

The decision to continue with my original plan of learning through collaborating as groups and sharing role-plays with the rest of the class was equally delusional in the sense that I convinced myself that not only would the students be able to overcome their earlier heightened emotions and focus, that they would be productive and on-task through the entire activity.  To add a cherry on top of the chaos pie, I had neglected to really lay out the ground rules (I don’t think I laid too many of those out) and consequences for off-task behaviour; so I ended up interpreting horsing around with “having fun with the activity”, and students falling over each other and laughing as “part of putting together their role-play”.

… yeah.  I don’t really think it was The Wasp, although he was quite the worthy adversary.

Lessons learned:

  • Be pleasant to each student, and love each for who they are… beyond that, focus primarily on what they are saying/doing at the moment
    • My care and affection for each student can and should manifest itself in my conscious choice to address the behaviour, not the student him or herself, no matter how much the behaviour bothers me
  • Being firm is an important way of caring for my students.  Being firm allows them to form consistent expectations, which in turn prepares them for future success; by being inconsistent or too permissive, I run the risk of communicating to them that there are no boundaries, or that they’re so far apart they may as well be no boundaries.  What then are they to build on?
  • Assume the best, plan for the worst
    • Remain grounded, in the moment, flexible, observant, and reactive to allow for smoother transitions.  After all, teachers play the most pleasant role of behaviour monitor to 30-odd students
  • Start low, go high — everybody benefits from clear, concise, easy-to-understand instructions with clear, logical, natural consequences.  If it truly is review for everyone, then everyone will let me know… hopefully that’s what’s actually shown!
11/1/14

Both Feet In: After the Completion of the First Week of Practicum

I entered the practicum with big goals.  The lessons that I previously delivered to the class (on discerning good/bad questions, and how to generate good questions based on an area of interest) were well-received, albeit somewhat “wild” initially — the students, at this point not used to a large degree of freedom, embraced it by participating in the activities as children are wont to do.  Nonetheless, I was very surprised and proud when I noticed certain students (who, I was initially warned, were difficult to motivate and thus often not focusing) contributed quite often during class discussion.  I was under the impression that things were going smoothly, and that the logical extension of the Questions lessons — Genius Hour — would be a smashing success.

Students were assigned homework in preparation of Genius Hour — after choosing 3 of the “passions” from their self-generated passion list and for each passion, the students were instructed to create good “I wonder…” questions.  “Good” questions, we decided, could generate other questions and be conductive to formulating a research project or experiment(s) around.  The day the assignment was due… only a handful of students submitted questions; the majority of students who submitted their questions did not fully complete the assignment, as they only generated 1 question per passion (for a total of 3) as opposed to the expected 3.

Those who submitted questions followed the “I wonder…” question prompt offered as a sentence stem.  And while the students displayed interest in certain areas, they were somewhat discouraged when informed that their questions “were not good enough” — many of them asked simple “what” questions, or “can I” questions… there were quite a few “I wonder if I can learn _____”; assertions that the student could easily answer that question “yes” or “no” was met with blank stares and puzzled looks because as far as they were concerned, these were valid questions that they had asked regarding their passion.  Another common modification was “I wonder if I can learn ____ in _____ [unit of time]”, suggesting that introducing a time limit constituted “challenge” or “investigation” for most students.  I realized that the very act of creating good “I wonder…” questions invokes a certain kind of creativity; like most forms of creativity, some individuals are born with natural talent, and others must nurture their growing talents with practice and determination as supports.

Perhaps the students’ responses were indicative of the a lack of critical thinking and creativity, which, in my opinion, is not surprising given the primary form of assessment (recall and recall-based analysis/evaluation) for most academic subjects.  Even science, whose very epistemological foundation is formed on skepticism, curiosity, and applied theory, is no stranger to heavily regimented processes by which information are integrated into a working body of knowledge.  Students conduct experiments based on research questions originating from teachers, or from other experts outside the classroom; their responses are heavily structured into labelled sections that call for information to be reproduced in a certain form.  Within this model, there is little room for the students’ creativity and curiosity to truly manifest itself — there is no such field such information may be recorded, and if those curious questions were to be recorded in any of the answer sections, it would be marked wrong, thus dissuading further creative “outbursts”.  This was confirmed by myself when students were instructed by my SA to “play around and experiment” with their battery and lightbulb kits.  She intentionally provided no instruction, instead telling her students, “try different things, and write down your observations.”  Several times she had to rein me in when she noticed me trying to “help” certain students — I was so ingrained with the notion of delivering information in a clear, concise, and easily digested way (so as to maximize students’ understandings) that I had not realized that in doing so I was actively destroying those students’ opportunity to experiment!

Creativity, in its current form, seems to occur primarily through interpretation of existing information.  In physical education classes, students are taught certain skills, after which they are taught pointers aimed at improving technique.  Language Arts class involves the learning and recitation of spelling words, each carefully analyzed thoroughly and dissected with the assistance of spelling rules.  Math class is the worst offender — the basic concept –> alternate applications –> word problems progression is so common that breaking that pattern in any way (such as introducing a self-paced, fundamentals-driven curriculum) creates confusion and decreases effectiveness.  It is, therefore, no surprise that students’ idea of learning and investigation consists solely of finding a WHAT — for every question there is a definitive answer, and each answer has been shown to be intimately linked to “knowledge”, the demonstration of which suggests proficiency and is rewarded with good grades.  Unfortunately, this has the consequence of communicating that the goal is far more important than the means — the ability to produce the proper, expected answer is rewarded far more readily (not to mention much easier to assess) than each student’s individual path towards that goal.

The answer is definitely important, but I believe that more attention must be given to acknowledging the learning process itself.  What is more important, in my opinion, is the student‘s answer — the path the student chose to take, in this case, is far more interesting and worth focusing on than where they actually end up.  Attempts to introduce inquiry-based learning exposed a glaring flaw with traditional pedagogy — students are trained to associate TRUTH (or the correct answer) with RIGHT (the fastest way to get a student’s defenses up, or deflate their ego, is to tell them they are wrong) and to devalue any methods that do not produce RIGHT answers.

That being said, inquiry-based learning offers a means by which facilitators can steer their charges in the right direction.  Given an understanding of the student’s own perspective, natural abilities, and preferred method by which to engage subject material, facilitators can encourage or suggest certain “modifications” or alternative applications of existing skills to achieve the intended goal.  And in doing so, the facilitator will be able to properly acknowledge what the student brings to the problem space and help them feel empowered to explore subject matter in an effort to create their own knowledge.  If this discrepancy must be corrected at the post-baccalaureate level in training teachers, need we say more about students in elementary school?

I started planting seeds of dissent among a small handful of students at a time.  I tell them, “a good question gives you a chance for you to find your OWN answer to something you are curious about”; that a good question “has nothing to do with what other people say is right or wrong”; that the whole point of the question was to guide students towards engaging in enactive practice (no, I didn’t use those words specifically…), which may or may not involve students designing their own experiments.  A few confused looks, a few questions; it might need some more refining.

But I made the mistake of starting off with “it’s perfectly fine for your question to lead you nowhere and to discover a big pile of nothing”, and “the whole point is for you to EXPLORE something interesting in a way that YOU find interesting; what you actually discover is beside the point”.  I told developing pre-teens that their perspectives and opinions were valuable, and that they possessed the means of producing or discovering meaningful information through interacting with their surroundings; I told them that what they could come up could be better than anything adults could come up with.  Perhaps that is why they were unable to come up with good questions… I was assuming that students believe that.  And in doing so, I made one of the biggest and most grave mistakes I feel an educator can make — how can I claim that I teach to students’ individual strengths and abilities when I make assumptions about what they can or cannot do?

It is important to note that despite the aforementioned challenges and drawbacks, my SA and I remain optimistic in our students’ ability to take ownership of their learning.  All the structure and procedural niceties necessary to ensure a well-maintained and secure learning environment, I have come to realize, can be harnessed to provide students with the requisite skills with which to maximize their learning potential.

At first, many students were not able to figure out how to set up their circuit and immediately raised their hands for assistance.  Quite a few of them were frustrated with their classmates and themselves, and I am sure that a few of them may have thought to themselves, “I’ll never be able to do this.”  A few “yes, I got it!” shouts were met with mild anxiety from students in the vicinity, fearful of the eventual shame and blow to self-confidence that inevitably accompanies the acceptance of failure.  Yet they worked on, and before long, students were referring to their notes, collaborating, and most importantly, trying whatever they could come up with.  Soon every single group was able to complete their circuit, bringing a smile to our faces.

But what really made our smiles widen was hearing some children exclaim, “this lightbulb is so dull, how can we make this brighter?  Is it broken?”  Sure enough, by the end of science block, most of the groups had figured out ways to brighten the lightbulb, and were visibly and verbally disappointed when told to pack up their materials in preparation for the end of the day.  So that’s what learning is supposed to look like… I have a lot of work to do.

10/18/14

The Third Day: My First Actual Teaching Experience

The day began early, at 06:30.  Snoozing exactly 3 times to 3 separate alarms, I will myself out of bed and into my car by 07:00, as I aimed to arrive at school by 07:30.  I have a luxury, you see — my SA is an early riser, which means if I were able to show up somewhere near when she arrives at school, I would have quite a bit of time to get comfortable, help out, and discuss our tasks and goals for the day.  I am by no means a morning person; our pre-school discussions, however, give me wonderful opportunities not only to ask many questions as to my SA’s established routine, her rationale, and her teaching philosophy, it’s also the perfect time for her to share potential challenges to be aware of in the classroom.

I realize that challenging behaviours (I hesitate to use the label challenging children) are the bane of many educators’ existence and source of many frustrations.  It is my hope that in sharing some of these challenges that I can provide some sort of emotional outlet — or simply a chance to vent — as well as a chance for me to be proactive and prepare, ahead of time, coping mechanisms and classroom management strategies to help alleviate and redirect challenging behaviour during the course of the lesson.  I feel that an awareness of these factors contributing to the classroom dynamic helps prevent feelings of surprise and being overwhelmed — planning “for failure” (and by that, I mean planning that includes and accounts for the possibility of failure) removes spontaneity and keeps me “in control” of the situation.

Moreover, my awareness of the challenges that students within my classroom face informs my delivery method.  And it should — if I were aware that there are English-Language Learners in my classroom (there are two such students), then I should endeavour to communicate concepts using clear language and take care to elaborate and define key vocabulary.  And in doing so, the other students in the class also benefit from the additional scaffolding such that they are given a chance to engage the topic in more forms than would otherwise be available.

This is necessary due to the fact that our reactions to our students’ behaviours inform their behaviour that is to follow.  By being proactive and planning around intended outcome, teachers can harness behavioural challenges (when they occur) as teachable moments, guiding students towards desired outcomes through non-confrontational, holistic, and mindful means.  For example, chastisement, even from the best intentions, involves communicating that whatever was said or done was wrong; the notion of making a mistake triggers negative emotions for most, which would then require the engagement of some sort of coping mechanism to diminish and dispel those emotions.  Thus, while certain behaviours are likely to elicit chastisement, educators must try their utmost to refrain from using that tool and if it is absolutely necessary, must be mindful of the additional follow-up task of guiding the affected student back towards a “rich and receptive” learning state of mind.  Through the process of typing this paragraph, for example, I am rather calm (to be honest, I am feeling somewhat bubbly); and because I am calm and receptive, I am capable to seeing that the easiest way to achieve my goal (to not have any negative/distracting behaviours during the course of my lesson) without triggering resentment may be acknowledgement and redirection:  acknowledge that the student is engaging in behaviours that are not contributing to the task at hand, and either brainstorming with the student to discover a process for refocusing their behaviours that works for her, or providing a choice of acceptable alternative behaviours.  In other words, focusing less on the problem (mainly, mymental burden) and more on the solution.

After speaking with my SA of her intended direction of the class, as well as her perspective on the classroom dynamics (with respect to individual students as well), I formed a working understanding of the class and devised a lesson on discerning between “good” and “bad” research questions.  The presence of ELL students within the classroom means that any resources I aimed to introduce as extensions of the lesson — reference document, in-class instructions — should use simple words where possible, with an increased focus on oral delivery and practice.  To account for the student diagnosed with ASD, I am prepared to allow him space to express his ideas if he so desires, to be clear, concise, and firm of communicating my expectations and being firm with my follow-through; also, to ensure that his EA understands the group activity and is thus able to help guide the student’s behaviour towards group participation.  Those students with a “challenging behaviour” designation will require engagement — they need to be distracted from engaging in self-stimulating disruptive behaviour; in other words, they needed to be intrigued by the subject matter and feel compelled to contribute to the classroom discussion.  And the students, in general, have stated that they preferred a more “fun” approach to learning.

All of these observations informed the method in which I chose to deliver the lesson.  As a lesson hook, I intended to generate interest by bringing in a personal narrative and deconstructing the role of questions within the story.  Then, I will guide students in an analysis of the function of questions, and how different kinds of questions achieve different goals.  I aimed to achieve this through questioning students, and have them share their feelings, with particular emphasis on the idea of creating a working definition from shared opinions, thereby communicating to students that their contributions will be of significant value.  I intended to respond to their contributions in a way that incorporates what I was trying to teach:  if their contribution included the concept, I would offer praise, restate the concept, and demonstrate how the student’s contribution illustrated the concept; if their contribution missed the mark, I would acknowledge the student’s contribution, restate the concept and ask a guiding question designed to redirect thoughts back on the right track, thereby ensuring that students will be comfortable with “being wrong”.  After the concept was briefly introduced, the class was to be separated into groups where they would follow instructions (cut out sentences into squares) and separate into categories, offer justification for their choices, and practice turning “bad questions” into “good questions”.  After this activity, we would reconvene as a class, share our findings, and debrief.

That was the plan…

– – – – –

My lesson was to begin after Silent Reading.  Despite this, however, students were somewhat preoccupied and rowdy as a few of them were still in the process of returning from the library (my SA told a few students, who had borrowed graphic novels and/or books far below their reading level, to exchange their inappropriate book for an appropriate one).  Foreseeing the possibility for frustration, instead of attempting to fight for attention and obedience, I instead chose to put my hand up as a “Statue of Liberty” while looking around the room.  Before long, students who noticed followed suit, and when they looked around the room and noticed others otherwise preoccupied, they told their friends to pay attention and get ready.  It was magical to watch this happen — some students maintained their focus on me, while others, noticing my wandering gaze about the classroom, followed my gaze to other children, who were quietly reminded.  Once I had everybody’s attention, I commended the entire class for being able to self-organize in a respectful way, and made it into a game by challenging them to “beat their record”.

Realizing that the aforementioned focusing activity as sufficient as a lesson hook, I used my personal narrative instead to segue into an introduction of the lesson itself.  To encourage sustained attention, I decided to try pacing about as I spoke; it worked wonderfully, so I kept it up.  I would periodically ask questions, and at first, students were nervous to share their thoughts (I felt that this topic may have been new to them), so I took extra care to acknowledge the first contributors and demonstrate acceptance of all answers; shortly thereafter, class participation was increased.  To my amazement, the child with ASD also put up his hand and offered an answer!  He was correct, and after praising him for sharing with the class, his hand immediately shot up and he wanted to share more; I had to redirect, as I hadn’t finished my thought, at which he began to express frustration.  My preparation allowed me to redirect his behaviour in a firm way:  “I will take your comment as soon as I am done explaining this idea.  You will be the first person I call on.”  His hand went down, I finished my explanation, and I immediately called upon him to share his idea (as follow-through).  All in all, this portion of the lesson went extremely well.

The second part of the lesson (small group work) presented several challenges.  First of all, I had not foreseen that the students may require time to cut up and separate the questions, and that this task may cause a distraction if two or more students all want to cut.  Moreover, I had requested a written component, which led to several students feeling overwhelmed.  Finally, the freedom afforded by small group-work led some students to become disengaged from the activity and exhibit distractive behaviour.

The cutting part was unfortunate, so I had to go from group to group to refocus individuals who were showing signs of disengagement.  The concern with the written component, when it was brought to my attention, caused me to make an on-the-spot decision to modify the activity to value what I wanted to do as a follow-up activity (sharing of group findings with the class); I briefly interrupted the class to inform them of some changes:  I decided to simplify the expectations by not requiring written full sentences, but for students to write down whatever notes they deem necessary because the main expectations was to share their findings with the class.  Circulating about the room, I observed that some students opted to write down full sentences, some wrote down several key words on the back of questions, and some not at all.

I observed several students at a table group that remained off-task and were distracting their fellow group members, who were trying to accomplish the assigned task.  I initially intervened gently, simply stating that I noticed from their behaviour that they were not helping their classmates and was thus not constructive; after sharing my observation, I informed them that I would like to see them engaged with the activity.  Later on I had to return to the table due to disruptive behaviour, and this time, I gave the students a choice of acceptable alternatives.  After they made a choice, I acknowledged that and allowed them the freedom to try their choice; after noticing that their choice was a suitable compromise (the students were enjoying themselves, and were working towards task completion), I accepted it as a solution to the issue.

Another issue of note:  the group with the child diagnosed with ASD was able to work seamlessly (it was one of two groups who had not generated disagreements over whose job it was to cut out the question strips).  That group also included one of the ELLs — she was not contributing much to the group discussion, but I was able to confirm that she understood the task.  While she had not spoken much, she demonstrated her understanding by helping with the classification of questions (into “good” and “bad” questions).  I then went to the group where the other ELL student was sitting, and noticed that he was sitting with his hands crossed while his fellow group-mates were looking at him.

One of the students, M, shared with me the state of affairs:  they were in disagreement over the classification of a particular question, “How would we work together to gain more table points?”  4 of the students thought this should be categorized as a “good question”, while the ELL student, T, insisted that was a “bad question”.  I invited T to share his opinion; he began, but began to look down and expressed some embarrassment and insecurity when sharing his response — my intuition, from what he said, was that he based his decision on “good” as the answer is valuable as opposed to “good” as the answer required is complex and open.  I asked him, “so when you say this is a ‘bad question’, do you mean you don’t really care about the answer to that question?” to which he smiled, nodded his head, and replied in the affirmative.  I then asked the same question to the rest of the group — some expressed interest in the answer (yes, they wanted to know ways to get more table points), while some agreed with T (they didn’t particularly care for table points).  Finally, I properly reframed the question for T, “what we’re trying to decide is:  does this question require some thinking for you to give an answer?  If you don’t have to think, then it’s a ‘bad question’; if you have to think a bit, then it’s a ‘good question.’”  T thought for a moment, nodded his head, and replied, “in that case, I think it is a ‘good question.'”

I gave the students a transition warning (2 minutes), and then put my hand up.  This time, the students were much faster, with the additional challenge (self-imposed?) that many students attempted to use non-verbal/silent methods of communicating to distracted classmates.  End result was a 1 second improvement, which was celebrated by a round of applause.  I called upon groups to contribute their findings, and after collaborating, repackaged and summarized the criteria for determining good/bad questions.  After that, I ended the session and moved to distribute the handout — I left this for the end because I didn’t want students to be distracted and reading from the resource.  In the end, I focused so much on classroom management tactics that I had neglected to hole-punch the handouts!  The students chuckled nervously as I quickly retrieved the handouts, punched holes, and passed them back out while my SA took over and gave instructions.

– – – – –

To summarize, contingency planning helps keep me grounded and acts as an effective tool for managing negative emotions that impede productive assessment and facilitation.  I personally find focusing on “how can I facilitate my best case scenario?” helps keep me grounded enough to respond in positive, encouraging ways to situations that would otherwise cause teachers to pull out their hair in frustration.