...and on to something new: Teaching with Design!

This past year of blogging has been a wonderful adventure. My reason for starting this blog was to give me a way to differentiate my coaching. For me, at least, it was a way to highlight and coach on topics that I saw in my own school. Some of my posts have resonated with a larger audience outside my school, town, and state. Thank you to everyone for reading.

September 2011 I left coaching to return to the classroom. I am teaching 1st grade and loving every minute! I hope you will join me at my new blog Teaching with Design.

Design has been defined as follows.

(noun) a specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive components, satisfying a set of requirements, subject to constraints;

(verb, transitive) to create a design, in an environment (where the designer operates)^[3]

Design has always been important to me. Artists, architects, chefs and many other professions use design to create new products. Teaching, like these other professions, require practitioners to be the artists as they design new lessons, create new units, and build the foundations to structure new learning. I think it is the very purposeful manner, the design, a teacher uses that makes the difference in student learning. The planning and prep done beforehand all make the delivery of the lesson successful.

I can't help walking into my own classroom and view it with a coaches eye. I see what has been accomplished over the past months to create a positive learning community but I also see what still needs to be done. Starting a new class 5 weeks into the school year was a challenge. Weekends were filled with prepping for the next week's learning. Each week, however, is got easily as I got to know my students better as learners.

I truly enjoyed my years as a coach and enjoyed working with adults to improve student learning. Now I am in the position to walk the walk, instead of just talking the talk. I am looking forward to the challenge and hope you will join me at my new blog!

Compliance or Competency: What’s Important?

Readers Workshop

 August brings a new school year, new teachers, new grade levels, new administration, new curriculum, and new students. The first weeks are a rush of planning, prepping, and establishing rituals and routines. After being in school for a few weeks the dust begins to settle and schools settle in for the hard work ahead.

Walking into the classroom there are expectations set at every school for the way of work. Some schools call them “non-negotiables” while others discuss “culture and traditions”, but whatever they are called, they all set the standard teachers are expected to reach in their teaching.

Some of these expectations are easy to reach: bulletin boards done a certain way, standards posted in a consistent format, even walking in the hall with students. Simple compliance to the expectation is easily attainable.

Competency, however, is more difficult. For instance, just the compliance of posting standards for the students is easy. Understanding the standard and designing an engaging lesson for students requires a level of competency that requires deeper work from the teacher. When establishing rituals and routines at the beginning of the year, teachers are asked to record, or chart, the student thinking. This important groundwork sets the stage for how the classroom will run for the rest of the year.

Understanding why these lessons are important will help take the level of teaching from simply complying with expectations to a deeper competency, benefiting both the teacher and students in the long run. In the end, isn’t that what’s really important?

Spring Cleaning

As the weather turns warm in North Florida I start to put away the winter clothes and bring out my spring and summer clothes. Since the weather stays very mild in Florida, especially compared the northern half of the United States and Canada, my wardrobe change has a lot to do with sleeve length and colors. It’s spring now, so I’m doing my spring-cleaning.

There is a rhythm to the seasons. In schools we have a rhythms, too. Right now we are in testing season. The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) will be given in a little over a week. Half the teachers in the school are under tremendous amounts of stress. Months and months of teaching boil down to weeks and weeks of fine tuning of lessons, small groups, and conferences. Spring break, this year before the test, couldn’t have come at a better time. Tempers were sharp and nerves were brittle. The season of the TEST was upon us.

Teaching, like the Florida weather, should remain fairly constant through the school year. Some of the tools we use before the test are ones that we should be using throughout the school year. This year we have had a greater focus on data. We have had more benchmark testing and progress monitoring than ever before. The district implemented a new information system to help teachers sort and configure the data in a very timely manner. The key, however, is what the teacher does with the data that makes the difference.

We learn a new reading genre when we learn to read data. It has it’s own vocabulary and types of comprehension. Reading strategies, such as inference or synthesis, are important to get meaning in data. Schema - for the student, for the assessment, for the benchmark – is critical for comprehending the information. If one just looks at it as a math problem: “What is the difference between the number of students in the proficient range compared to the number in the non-proficient range?” you never get at the root of the data. A better question might be “Compared to the benchmark assessed, which students need significant reteaching and which only need a quick reminder?” The data helps me to see what my students need to learn next.

The FCAT will come and for two weeks we will be testing the culmination of what students have learned since they walked into school in kindergarten. After the test, however, we have a chance to do a little spring-cleaning of our own. Let’s look at our teaching practices. We should keeping looking at the data, fine tuning the small groups or the conferences. Take the time to make sure the students are proficient in the areas they struggle with the most before going to the next grade. In your spring-cleaning, look at some of the teaching you have typically done in the spring. Does it still fit with the data you have on your students? What can you do now that will make a difference to your students in the future? Reflecting on our practice makes us better teachers and helps our students learn. In the end, isn’t that what’s important?

Where is THAT on the Learning Schedule?

Holidays in an elementary school are a fun time of year. Today is Pajama Day and the whole school is decked out in warm winter sleepwear. No, this isn't on the Learning Schedule. It is part of our school community traditions. I have my black and white snowflake flannel pj's. Even the principal is sporting a one-piece pair of pink footie pj's with puppies on the toes. 


My last post was about teaching with laser-like focus. In these times of accountability teachers often feel like they have to focus on teaching and hide holiday fun. The two, however, are not in conflict. It's always a balancing act to meet the demands of the curriculum and still let kids have childhood memories of special activities.


This week I was in a kindergarten class that seems to have mastered this balance quite well. When I walked into Holly Goleski's class to watch reading she quickly explained they were doing math. "We did double centers yesterday so we could do double math today." They were also decorating gingerbread houses later. What followed was a focused lesson building on the patterns they had been exploring in math. Yes, this was on the learning schedule. 

The lesson was clear. The student explanation of their learning was on track and showed different ideas and strategies. Learning takes time. Projects take time. Memories last a life time. One memory the students will take away is the video they created last week Jaguar Days of Christmas. No, it is not on the learning schedule but this little video from a kindergarten class has created good feelings not only in the school but also within the city at large. It has been featured on the news and tweeted about by Jaguar players. At least one district administrator can repeat the lyrics word for word. 


Not all learning is on the Learning Schedule. I hope you will take a moment to enjoy some holiday fun with Ms Goleski's kindergarten students.

 

Differentiation in 1st Grade Math

Differentiated Instruction is a way to insure all students has access to the curriculum. The content, process or product can be differentiated based on the student’s readiness, interests, or learner profile. Sounds simple, right? Talking about differentiation is one thing but acting on it is often a more difficult task. Differentiation is math is especially difficult for some teachers. We work hard making all sorts of “stuff”, different worksheets, tools, and other materials. Despite our best intentions, what typically happens is the standard (or benchmark) get watered down instead of differentiated. In a recent blog post Differentiated Instruction: What Difference Does it Make?   David Ginsburg makes the following point:

But does it really matter whether DI is a bad idea, as Mike Schmoker insists, or a badly implemented one? Either way, effective teaching includes assessing and addressing students' individual differences.

There are three key things every teacher needs to know to be successful at teaching. You need to know:

1.     Your students,

2.     Your curriculum (standards, resources, materials), and

3.     How to make it visible to others (including your students!).

The first two are familiar to all teachers but the last one is generally not given the importance it deserves. Visibility can take many forms. It can be the planning the teacher does before the lesson, recorded in a lesson plan. It can be charted, to keep a concrete record of previous learning. It can be the portfolio of individual student work, documenting growth and acquisition of a skill or strategy. It’s the formative assessment, the assessment FOR learning, that makes differentiation so powerful.

In this video Alane Wright, 1^st grade teacher at Neptune Beach Elementary, talks about how she differentiated a math lesson for her students.


Charting in 1st Grade Math from Jill Kolb on Vimeo.

Key in this lesson was the simple changes Alane made to meet the readiness level of her students. By giving some students dice with dots, and some with numbers, and some with a combination of both dots and numbers, all students were able to meet the benchmark. Also key was the charting Alane did with her students. The students with the least efficient strategy – counting each dot on both dice – now have a visual reminder of other options for combining situations when they are developmentally ready for it!

So what is the next step? For me, I am only as good as the resources I have around me. Reading blogs and books are like learning to fish. If I want to keep eating, oops…teaching math to young students, I’ll need to fish for new ideas. One book I love is Math For All: Differentiating Instruction (K-2). There is also another version for Grades 3-5 and 6-8. While it is not the kind of book that you can open up and say, “Oh, I can do that tomorrow!” it is an outstanding resource that will show you how other classroom teachers have differentiated math lessons for their students.

Designing good differentiated lessons includes the important step of making visible all the learning going on in your classroom. Charting with your students is one key way of documenting their growth. I would love to hear about ways you differentiated math with your students or different charting ideas. Thanks in advance for sharing.

Designing a Math Closing: Charting Matters!

In Duval County Public Schools (DCPS) the math workshop model consists of three parts - Launch, Explore, and Summarize

Launch (Opening Meeting 15-20 Minutes)
Lessons may address:

• Presentation of conceptual problem
• Analysis of problem strategies
• Comparison of related problems

Teacher Role:

• Teaches mini-lesson that includes the presentation of a conceptual problem to be solved
• States the focus of the work (concept and/ or skill) clearly connecting it with standards
• Makes expectations explicit
• Teachers should not present particular strategies that will lead students to solve problems in that way during Explore.

Student talk should be to clarify questions

Explore (Work Period 20-25 Minutes)
Student Role:

• Independent work
• Partner work
• Small group work
• Involved in working problems that engage them in different stages of the problem solving process
• Knows exactly what is expected
• Contributes to class activities
• Works with manipulatives and other mathematics tools or resources as needed
• Generates evidence of process used in problem solving
• Uses accountable talk

Teacher Role:

• Monitors student work
• Engages individuals or groups in accountable talk
• Observes students’ discussions and explorations of their strategies
• Makes anecdotal notes on observations, such as misconceptions and strategy development
• Examines student work as it evolves
• Small group instruction
• Conferencing
• Teacher begins to develop the summarize session by noting different strategies that will be addressed during the closing and selecting students or groups to present during the closing.

Summarize (Closing 20 – 25 Minutes)
Student Role:

• Shares strategies and approaches to given problems
• Makes connections to the main concepts from the lesson
• Justifies strategies and solutions
• Compares and analyzes solution strategies presented
• Uses accountable talk

Teacher Role:

• Scaffolds problem solving strategies from least efficient to most efficient
• Scaffolds students as they make connections to the main concepts from the lesson
• Fosters a spirit of inquiry by asking higher order questions
• Addresses misconceptions
• Highlights and records student strategies and generalizations for future reference

Teachers often feel teaching only occurs when they are the one in front of the class. This workshop model turns things around, placing the student in the role of the expert with the teaching coming at the end, during the Summarize. The student is the one teaching how they solved the problem to the other students, demonstrating a strategy. The planning begins during the Explore where the “Teacher begins to develop the summarize session by noting different strategies that will be addressed during the closing and selecting students or groups to present during the closing.”

This careful planning for the Summarize section is done while the teacher circulates through the room, observing the student application of strategies. The scaffolding of the closing, from the least to the most efficient use of strategies, gives the class a view into the different ways students solved the same problem. Images shared in front of the room, or projected from a document camera, create a temporary view into the thinking. Charting, on the other hand, creates a permanent record of student strategies.

Learning to chart is not difficult. It just takes practice. It also helps to have models and a few guidelines. Amber McFatter, 2nd grade teacher at Neptune Beach Elementary, is one such model. In this video she explains about charting in her classroom.

Charting in 2nd Grade Math from Jill Kolb on Vimeo.

Sometimes teachers will tell me "I can't chart in front of the students. My charts look so messy!" It really is okay if the charts are messy because learning is messy. There are strategies for teachers to help with charting. 

Preparation
First make sure your chart paper and at least two markers of different colors are available. Most teachers hang the chart, with magnets or tape, right next to the screen so they have a clear view of the student work being projected. It is nice if you have one color marker for each student. Please don't use yellow or pastel markers or any type of highlighter! They are difficult to read and fade very quickly. At Neptune Beach Elementary teachers are encouraged to not only include the benchmark and/or the essential question on the chart but also to include the date.

More Preparation
During the Explore you are planning your closing and selecting students to present their strategies, scaffolding the strategies. You will get an idea on how much room to allow by looking at the student work. Different strategies may not take the same amount of space. It is important, however, to represent their strategy in the same manner as the student. This includes drawing, labeling, and recording student thinking. After a while it gets easier to identify both the efficiency and maturity in the strategies.

Hopefully this will help you and, more importantly, your students create deeper learning with math closings!