This week the goal is to make through chapter 9. I'm particularly interested in chapter 8, and I assume a clean organized classroom is a happy classroom! A final staffing update... I hope. Brooks Ramsey has taken a position with the Poudre School District and we are now in the internal posting phase next week. That means we have lost 12 and added 6 new teachers to the Altona staff this year!
Fire away!
A place to gather and discuss education in general and Altona Middle School in particular!
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Altona's Staff Development Reading List
Books I Wish I Read Before Sending My Daughter To Middle School
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16 comments:
The discussion on states (p 108...)was most interesting to me because I don't think I am using this effectively. I think there are actually class or group states based on time of day and level of class and is it possible that states are contagious?? One person's state influencing anothers? My high classes often have many students that love math and this may influence others in that class that may not find math to be one of their favorite subjects. The converse is true in my low classes. I think I have only thought about states as individual and not group-- (for example boy-girl problems, friendship issues influencing a student behavior on a particular day). Even though the book did not talk about group states, when I reflected on this topic, I think that I can have greater success by focusing on the group mood or state in my low classes.
How can you not love reading an educational book that states how emotions are an important learning variable? Finally, I have arrived!
Obviously, I zeroed in on this chapter. I agree 100% with the concept that emotions drive attention, create meaning and have their own memory pathways. Emotions absolutely do regulate behaviors and help to organize our world.
Many kiddos have mountains to climb daily before they even arrive at school. Their emotions can and often are the only things they have control of. Addressing a student from their starting point will enhance both their learning and the teacher's credibility.
Emotions are real!
I cannot even comment about any other chapter,I am just dwelling in emotions...
Wendy makes some great points that often times we don't realize what it took for some of our students to get to school or what turmoil they are facing outside of school. If I am aware of issues, I find that I can relate to the child better. I always feel bad if I have been hard on a kid and find out later that there are issues that I was unaware of. I am sure negative teacher interaction adds to their stress, which can cause atrophy of the dendrites if it is ongoing. I resolve myself to learn more about my students, their activites, their strengths and weaknesses, and to be more positive even with the students that can consume my time. As the book states good learning does not avoid emotions!
I was interested in the section about physical environments. It is always a struggle for me to arrange the classroom so that students can have room to move and it is also easy for me to move around the room. I find that I tend to group students more often than not to facilitate traffic around the room, but this author suggests that grouping students should be done sparingly or only when a purposeful group activity is involved. I have seen from past experience that rows of desks tend to keep kids on task better than groupings of desks, but it makes it very difficult for me to move around the room easily and makes it nearly impossible to check in with everyone throughout class. If anyone is willing to share some of their classroom arrangements, I would greatly appreciate it.
Another section of this reading that I found interesting is the discussion around activating intrinsic motivation. I often become frustrated with students who constantly ask if this particular assignment is going to be graded or handed in, as if there is no value in doing the task if it is not for a grade. Some students simply do not see the connection in completing a variety of tasks BEFORE a grade is taken. I know that if these students could find a bit of intrinsic motivation, the question as to how much effort one should put out on a given task would become moot.
There are three main applications I took from this section:
1)I need to think about ways to incorporate more physical action in meaningful ways. I think the author is a bit extreme in some of his suggestions- there simply isn’t class time for all he’s advocating. But, I do think that he makes a valid point that I will keep as one of my criteria as I’m designing lessons and units: movement helps engage multiple areas of the brain AND it helps students stay engaged.
2)On p 117 the author talks about the drop in math performance by adolescent street vendors in Brazil from their daily work to the laboratory- a drop from 99% accuracy to 50%. After this last year, I realized I need to be more purposeful about teaching punctuation and grammar in the context of students’ writing. They seem understand and be able to perform these skills very well in practice and on quizzes, but there is often a lack of transfer in their writing. If it is not transferring to their writing, then it is not doing them any good. However, if I teach it in the context of their writing, their skill should improve. We’ll see…
3) Also, I realized that I need to use more student choice. I did this a lot towards the end of the year, but I need to start sooner so that students are taking more ownership. I think one additional way that I will try to do this will be in designing the rubric for a given project as a class. That way, they’ve got some ownership, but it does not sacrifice what I know needs to be the focus and thrust of an assignment- a happy compromise that incorporates my expectations and their ideas.
Additionally, the phrase that kept coming to mind as I read this section was “classroom community,” especially throughout the chapters on the “emotional brain” and the “social brain.” There are some suggestions he gives that I will not take, simply because they were a bit too touchy feely for my personality. But, I do think he made some valid points as far as remembering that we are not just teaching our content area to students; we are educating a whole people in our classrooms, and each person is entirely unique.
Haven’t we all seen the impact that emotions and socialization have on a student’s readiness to learn? They are often the top things on a student’s mind, and perhaps the ONLY thing on their mind when they walk into class, not the class itself, the assignments, or the learning process we are presenting them. Accommodating these constantly changing components to engage the students, allowing for actual learning to take place, is a HUGE challenge, especially combined with the other components that Jensen brought up, whether environmental or physical (room arrangement, temperature, etc.). It all comes back to the more we know about our students, the more we can better adjust to provide optimal learning conditions.
I too was struck with many of the observations about emotional states. One quote in particular got my attention: “So it’s ok for students to know they’ve disappointed you or themselves. It’s ok for them to be sad about a poor effort if they can become mobilized by the emotion.” When I read this in connection to all of the other information about emotional states, it was a bit of a wake up call. I think that I need to do more follow up with students when they have not succeeded on assignments and are obviously upset or concerned. Together, we can examine reasons for their lack of success and develop strategies to increase the odds of success on later efforts. I want to keep this in mind in particular when I am working with students in my lab class. With our reassessment procedures, students will talk to me about improving their work, but sometimes I think they are just interested in the grade and not the learning.
I think Chapter 8 on motivation was the most useful part of the book for me. I particularly liked the Practical Suggestions on page 107. The ideas here are things I can easily implement, but like most of the things we have read this summer, the big challenge is to be conscious of what I am doing and what the students need. I especially want to make sure that students understand the goal for each lesson or unit from the beginning. Sometimes I take this for granted since the importance of reading and writing is usually obvious to most students. Of course, the students who need the most help are the ones who don’t necessarily see this.
I really keyed into the author's insistence that school districts are cutting the programs that are the experiences that go a long way toward building intelligence and thinking skills; when we cut the arts, labs, after-school programs, field trips and the like, we are ignoring what Jensen calls our "ethical obligation" to stand up for the programs that will make brains better. This includes mandatory physical education for all students, as he points out on p. 63. I know money is tight, but how do we reconcile this information with our priorities?
The chapter on emotional states was very illuminating. As a classroom teacher, I always tried to walk the balance between recognizing that if all of their needs (in my mind, it was always Maslow's triangle, although that doesn't seem quite as accurate now-- maybe a big monolith shape?) weren't being met, they wouldn't learn as well yet also being a source of stability in that my expectations were high for all students. I wanted everyone to succeed and be proud of their successes. I would introduce the hierarchy and we would throw it out in the conversation occasionally, but now I think I would really make the discussion about states part of the classroom dialogue. Pages 121-123 really struck home with this-- how to introduce it and teach them to monitor and utilize their states. I would try to incorporate these steps.
And in response to Lauren, I had a desk arrangement that worked so well in my class that we (my students and I) never found another one we liked as much on a regular basis. I would put the overhead screen as the "front" of my class and have my desk on the diagonal in one of the front corners. Then, in rows of three or four, I would split the desks in half, facing a large center row from the overhead. The desks face the middle, meaning they have to look left or right slightly to see the overhead screen. What this allows for is a large "runway" in the middle with easy access to all students since the rows are only three or four desks deep. Grouping can happen easily from here as well-- either by rows or cross-rows, whatever combination you want. Anyway, we would change it up occasionally, but it always migrated back to this. :) Hope this helps!
Wow, what a wealth of information! Each chapter reminded me of the many changing complexities of the middle school student we have to understand and successfully reach each day.
I was interested in the section on page 63, “Support for Recess, Play and Physical Education”. I realize it’s not financially possible for a structured daily K-12 P.E. program, but I think there is time in each class for some movement activity. At the beginning of class to relax the students or the having the students pass a ball to one another for their end of class review as an exit activity. When I subbed I would start the class with “Simon Says” Some students initially thought the game was “stupid” but when the say we were having fun they wanted to continue.
I was also interested in chapter 5, pages 77-78, “The Opportunity: How to Influence Emotional States”. I think we can help students’ manage their states by providing a positive environment where they are free from distractions to their individual and collective success. Provide an atmosphere free form the fear of failure in front of their peers, fear of being bullied and the fear of any type embarrassment.
I also believe the Practical Suggestion of Role-modeling on p. 78 is an integral part of our success. If we are not excited and enthused about what we do how can we expect the students to be excited?
The chapter on movement and learning gave great suggestions on simple activities that can be used in the classroom. If these activities will strengthen learning, improve memory and retrieval, and enhance learner motivation and morale, pg 60, then it makes sense to incorporate these things into the daily routine in class. My Language curriculum already has some activities built in, but I don’t do them every day. I guess we do need Trevor after all.
The section on the student’s states was very interesting and though I deal with a variety of “states” in my room and sometimes in regular classrooms, it was good for me to read and be reminded that the students state needs to be changed before they can start learning and participating in the class. That is what we had to do with Timothy last year. If he was not in a good “state of mind” we needed to change that before letting him go back to class. If we sent him back too quickly he would fall apart all over. I like the suggestions of rituals/routines to start the class off with to get the kids ready for my class and get them in the right state of mind.
The physical environment chapter spoke of the seasonal mood disorder and we have a few students that have been diagnosed with this disorder. Having good lighting and natural sunlight is important for these guys. I liked the exercise ball suggestion, but don’t know if my students would be appropriate with it. It is something that is worth trying though.
Motivation and helping students to develop intrinsic motivation is an area that I am constantly struggling with in special ed. The rewards do have to change because they lose their effect over time. What works with one student does not work with another. What worked last year will not work this year.
Chapter 5, "Emotional States," stresses that the more personal/emotional the learning is, the better students will relate to it. I've noticed this in even the smallest ways. When I make up contextual ("story") problems, I always put students' names into them. I've noticed that this minute change makes a big difference—those kids who usually tune out begin listening to see if I used their name in a problem.
I like that the brain research supports cooperative groups, if used appropriately. I always feel that parents will think of this as a waste of time and that some are doing the work of the group while others "slack off." I think it's important to have accountability for all members of the group, whether it be with individual jobs within the group or self-assessments or something else.
Another thing I've noticed as I've read this book is that although I consciously try to limit the number of consecutive minutes that I stand in front of the class and lecture (I set a timer to let kids know that I won't be talking forever), I often don't give kids a break to process skills and new information before practicing it. I will definitely use the idea on page 123 of "orchestrating the endings of lessons so that students are engaged in…celebration." We should always end on a high note and mention or discuss what went well that day.
In the Emotional States chapter, a comment jumped out at me: It's a myth that once an intensely stressful episode is over, we return to 'the way we were.'(p.75) There is so much that young people have to deal with and an adverse realtionship with a teacher or a classmate can leave a lasting affect. Also, in this section, I really held on to the idea that a threat response takes a fast road. I think I witness that more than anything else in middle school. From now on, when a student responds strongly, inappropriately or oddly to something, I am going to try to ask them what caused that response rather than my typical demand, "Why did you do that?" A student might not be able to identify that it was an instinctual reaction.
In Chapter 6 (Physical Environments for Learing), I was reminded of how notoriously bad science classrooms are designed. Seating arrangements - limited by the size of labs and type of furniture often placed in them; lighting - industrial with little controls over key work areas, lab stations where the most exciting, enticing work is done has no lighting traditionally; noise - no carpet, plus lots of hard counters and little space and the list goes on. This chapter was frustrating to read (notice my state) because I felt limited in my options to address these issues. My class has a drain pipe for the eye wash station that periodically allows fumes from a sewage exhaust pipe on the roof to permeate my room. Students will walk in my room, smell it and state how much they hate my room. That is tough to counter.
And we have a great set-up to the majority of middle schools.
Like Chitra, I also found the discussion of states interesting, but not as useful as I would have liked, because I also feel that I don't use this effectively, but the suggestions in the book were a little too vague for me to try to implement.
As far as getting movement into my classroom, I liked the idea of doing Ball toss reviews, I think I will be doing that a lot, which also goes along with Chapter 10 on memory and recall and doing more reviews, but that is really for next week.
I think I also need to do a better job celebrating occasionally with the kids when there are successes.
Yes, they need motivation… It is interesting that the first demotivator is the lack of a best friend. As their instructor, I am not going to fill that role, but I can be an encourager. I can try to get them out of the “learned helplessness” role. I also have a responsibility to make sure students feel safe in my room. I do recognize birthdays in my room – but it is inconsistent when I saw students every other day. Was it earlier in this book that it mentioned noticing events outside of the classroom as well? Good job at the music program, sports event, etc? I did have candy rewards now and then last year, but I like the intrinsic motivators.
Chapter 4 was a good review of movement and learning. I have found that quick games in math learning multiples, vocabulary words and math facts helps students to also concentrate in a different way. Most students don’t want to miss the answer and be the first one to sit down so they tend to pay closer attention to what they are learning. Quick games are also a good way to check for student learning. Chapter 6 brought out the point that teachers should not place more than three students together at a table and I assume with desks as well. As a sixth grade team we have often discussed seating and at times decided on seating with desks of four with four students per group for consistency and ease of group work. Next year I plan to try groups of three and try other seating arrangements as well. Chapter 8 brought out great points about Rewards and the Brain. It is interesting how opiates in the brain trigger our intrinsic reward system through good experiences. Hopefully we can create those effective positive experiences in our classrooms. I have had one experience where I used rewards to motivate a student to complete his class work. After about four weeks and positive progress the student slowly forgot about the rewards and never asked for them again.
Here are the most meaningful parts to me from each chapter.
Chapter 5 - "Emotions organize and create our reality." (p. 68) This, as with so many other points in this book, is worth keeping in mind not just in our classrooms but in our everyday interactions with people. "Emotions are not located in a single 'emotion center' but are instead distributed throughout the brain (70)." And on p. 78, "Never label a student unless it's a positive label." Let's remember that no matter what state they (or we) may be in on a given day, they are kids, and we are professionally responsible for altering those states so that positive growth and learning can occur.
I didn't get a whole lot out of Chapter 6; the points were good ones, but the author's suggestions were a bit impractical. I don't plan to re-paint the walls of my room, and I doubt Joe plans to outfit the staff lounge with "a quiet reflective spot for power naps" or "a de-stressing area with a treadmill and a floor mat for stretching." That would take more than one Mill Levy, anyway.
Chapter 7. I plan to take the time to ask my students whether they prefer more time alone, in pairs, or in groups or teams, and then continue to monitor their shifting preferences as I plan activities (p 100).
Chapter 8 was the part that really grabbed my attention. Our kids have enough perceived threats in their lives - puberty, bullies, friend issues, etc. - without having to deal with more when they enter our classrooms. I've found that just making a small effort to show a kid that I will be caring and supportive can do wonders for his/her motivation and engagement. Also, it is essential that we are clear about the purpose of each assignment (DSOAH); I know that as a student, I would completely tune out when I perceived that a task was irrelevant or busy work. I was very interested in the part about rewards, too. I plan to continue to use my prize drawer, but I will gradually phase it out so they don't take it for granted, and I will step up abstract rewards place importance on verbal feedback.
Chapter 9. Like Jenay, I was struck by the point that even advanced learners often struggle to transfer their learning to novel contexts. This aspect of grammar instruction has frustrated me in the past, and I plan to make a bigger effort to connect those lessons to the context of the reading and writing lessons that we are doing in class. Also, it's important that we help students to recognize their own emotional states and learn how to manage them. After all, we are forever asking kids to "do your best," but "Doing one's best requires a person to get into and maintain the optimal emotional state to support thinking (122)."
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