Self Regulated Learning-What is it?

It seems that one of the buzzes around the province these days  is around "self regulated learning".  I have been fascinated listening to the conversations and though I have heard speakers talk about it, and have read some of Shanker's work, I never seem to quite get the whole picture.

This week, I had the opportunity to talk with a professor, (Dr. Nancy Perry from UBC)  whose area of expertise is Self Regulated Learning.  She has a very straight forward approach that I could absolutely understand!  She prepared a handout that is adapted from an article she wrote in The Reading Teacher.  This is her summary:  

Self-regulated learners are:

1.  Metacognitive - they are aware of their strengths and weaknesses as a learner, they are aware of the task demands, and they are aware of strategies that they can use to solve problems and cope with difficult tasks.
2.  Motivated for learning - they engage in learning, they focus on deep understanding and personal progress, they are willing to try new challenges, they persist and they view errors as an opportunity to learn.
3.  Strategic - they have a repertoire of strategies, and they know when to use them.

Wow!  This is great.  Much of this is what we are working on in Through a Different Lens ... without knowing it!  We are looking at helping students become more confident learners... how?  through understanding their strengths, through becoming motivated and engaged, and through thinking about how to apply what they know to different academic and social tasks.  There are many blogs on our Different Lens blog that illustrate teachers using strategies to help kids become more aware.

Dr. Nancy Perry goes on to say that self-regulated learning occurs in classrooms where:

1.  Students have a lot of autonomy - choices, control over challenges, opportunities to collaborate and responsibility for evaluating their own work.  
2.  Teachers provide instrumental support - through establishing routines and consistent participation structures, where they teach and model learning and problem solving, where they guide students thinking and performing, and where they guide student choices, provide information, feedback and encouragement, and where they talk about learning and self regulated learning
3.  Teachers engage in non-threatening evaluation practices - where evaluation is on-going and embedded, where it is a process not just a product, where it focuses on personal progress, and where it encourages learners to participate in the evaluation.  

Again... I see so much of what we are trying to do embedded in her words.  Giving students choice and opportunities to work with others, providing support and modelling learning, and using alternate ways to evaluate progress. 

by Judith King

Sticky Notes + Peer Assessment = Engagement

As a teacher of writing, I am always looking for ways to encourage students to a) get excited about writing b) develop the skills to self and peer assess.  Luckily, I am quite able to steal other people's ideas and adapt them to make them my own. Recently, I used an approach that I learned from Sheila Graham, a literacy helping teacher (recently retired) from our neighours, SD #23.  In this lesson, students are given a bare-bones paragraph, in this case based on a teacher ripping his pants in class. In small groups, students re-write the paragraph focusing on building on the "idea", adding descriptive details, developing the plot, assigning names and adding to the setting, all to create a more engaging, interesting paragraph.  As much as I might think this idea is madly exciting, this is not always so much the case for the kids. Here is where the sticky notes come in! Students are each given 5 small sticky notes (one for each group). Once the paragraphs are complete,  groups are rotated to another desk grouping, leaving their newly-written paragraph behind. Each group reads the work of each of the other groups as they rotate around the room. On the sticky notes, students are to write some form of positive feedback...ie: "I liked the name you chose for the teacher", "Your story was funny!", "You described his pants well."  

What I noticed as students went from station to station is a) they were really engaged in the reading of each other's work  and b) they could not wait to get back to their station to read what their peers had written. 

There was some risk involved in this lesson. What if the students didn't write anything? What if they couldn't find anything positive to say? What if the group wrote something inappropriate?  None of this turned out to be problem, but these questions did cause me pause at the start. 

All in all, a worthwhile activity.  I think next time, now that students know from the start what it looks like, the engagement might be even better! 

This post is courtesy of Andrea Devito. 

Whiteboards in Spanish (Spanish 10)

Today we worked on using questions in conversation by working in pairs on the whiteboards. Each pair made a simple sentence in Spanish, like "I am going to go to the park. " "Voy a ir al parque." Then students rotated around the class making a new question on each board. Where, at what time, with whom etc. The students were also practicing IR+A+Infinitive to make the future. The students had a hard time switching between you in the question and I in the answer.

After the activity I asked the students if they liked the activity. All of them like the movement in the activity and being able to "think" with a partner. Some of the students said they learned a lot. I noticed that the students were engaged and I could  see where they were having trouble. I had also asked the strong students to help the weaker students and not do all the work themselves. They were good teachers!



Post courtesy of Anita Mosher

I want more cell phones (Law 12)

Yep...that's right...I said it...and am writing it.  I love cell phones.  I really love smart phones.

Was trying to teach some basic legal terms - tired of the usual.  Broke the students into groups of 3 making sure each had a phone that could take a photo.  Not hard, as almost everyone had one.

Then, each group randomly got a term from the text - and then had to figure out how to teach it.

Some emailed me photos, one put two videos on u-tube - a few found photos online and sent them to me.

I then put up the photos/videos/links supplied to me onto the projector and each group gave a definition and an example for their term (templated note sheet had gone out before this).

The results weren't perfect - but it was a first - and it worked far faster than I had imagined.  Less than 20 minutes was needed for all of the groups to do their work and when I saw the images from the group working at constructive and direct discrimination I came to the conclusion that computer labs will soon be things of the past.

Don't give me computer labs, give me cell phones.

Post courtesy of Dave Searcy.

Math-o-lantern and Learning (Math 8)

So often in Math education we compartmenalize the student's learning.  We do our Integer unit separate from our Fraction unit, which is separate from our Algebra unit, and so on for the year.  The more reading I am doing on Math education, the more I am starting to question this organizational strategy for Math.  When my husband and I put in new underground irrigation we used all our Math skills inter connected, and I wonder if we set up students for "real-life" math problems when we just focus on one or two skills at a time, instead of using all our number and reasoning skills at once.

So with this in mind, I thought that I would try something new.  With Halloween coming up, I thought that I would use pumpkins as a Math unit.  And really I was not too sure what I was going to do with them, but I wanted to do a thematic approach to math and measurement skills.  The more I researched, the more I saw other teacher units using pumpkings and bring in measurement, grouping, graphing, correlation and so forth.  This seemed like a fun hands-on activity that might bring some zest into our Math classroom.

On our first day of our pumpkin unit, I asked the students what we could use a pumpkin for in Math.  I wanted to see what they come up with as far as skills we could look at and study.  Most of them went right away to the idea of measurement,  so that is where we started. I asked them to collect 8 pieces of data on their pumpkin and to make sure that they were doing a proper mathematical diagram to symbolize what the number represented.  As this went, I realized that the idea of drawing a 3D shape and then putting on the proper dimensions with arrows and lines to show what you are truely measuring was a great place to start.  So then we spent the next day talking about how to set up diagrams, show 3D measurement on a 2D sheet of paper, etc.  Then we went on to look at the internal measurement potential.  Day 3 was counting seeds, grouping seeds, and looking at fraction diagrams.  Day 4 was using fraction equations to season and roast the pumpkin seeds (yumm!), and then day 5 was carving a Math Symbol pumpkin face!  

The feedback that I got back from the students was very positive.  

A couple of learning moments for next time.  In order to have the carving done on Halloween I ended up rushing through the graphing portion.  I think that I would maybe try to double block Math during this unit, so that I could spend more time on the graphing day.  That is still an area that students really struggle with.  We also ran into the issue of rotting pumpkins (with a weekend in there the pumpkins were gutted and inside for one week...too long)  But on the plus side, we had some beautiful mold to look at under the microscopes.  So really....science and math in one lesson!  What fun!

This post is courtesy of Shona Becker

For another example of a thematic unit in math see the following 2 posts:

Christmas Toy Project Part I (Math 9)

Christmas Toy Project Part II (Math 9)

Happy Math (Grade 4/5)

Today I tried something new in Math!

I have been doing warm up practise with my students using small chalkboards in class and they have been enjoying that, but today I tried something new.

I took the class outside and gave them sidewalk chalk (given to our school through the Different Lens project)
I held up a small white board with a problem on it (and I verbally repeated the problem) while students copied it down on the ground using chalk and then solved the problems.
We did our math questions all over the school ground using different size and colours of chalk and they LOVED it! (See attached pictures :)

Most students stayed on task but I could easily see those who were not. Also, I could quickly tell who was understanding the concept (subtracting 3 and 4 digits) and who was not.

It was a great day for happy math in my class!

Post courtesy of Kendall Kulak

Edible Rational Numbers (Math 9)

I had thought about doing a foods lab before, but it never came to fruition until this year.  We decided to make Rice Krispies squares because it is a simple recipe and the cost of the ingredients were not too expensive.  The icing was made before class (two different colours to represent positive and negative rational numbers) the butter was pre-cut into tablespoon blocks. 

The concepts that were explored in the lab:

Positive and negative rational numbers

Adding and subtracting rational numbers

Doubling a rational number

Dividing a rational number in half

Placing rational numbers on one large number line

Students were placed in groups of 4 in order to participate in the lab.  Each group was responsible for representing one positive and one negative rational number.  Teams were given one square 9”x9” pan and one similar sized circular pan to use to represent each of the groups’ assigned rational numbers. 

Students place numbers on the giant number line 

Basically there are 5 components to this lab:  1. Paper Assignment   2.  Making the Rice Krispies and dividing the product evenly into one square pan and one circular pan 3. Dividing each pan into the appropriate parts to represent the two different rational numbers.  4.  Each group then placed the two rational number representations on the large class number line in the appropriate location.  5.  The exercise concluded with a class discussion and review of the final number line.

I asked the students to reflect on, and provide feedback about the lab during the following math class.  Here are some of their thoughts/feedback they provided:

“I liked it because it showed how it (rational numbers) relates to real life”.

“I liked the foods lab because it was a learning hands-on activity.  It was cool to see the big number line and where all the Rice Krispies squares fit on it.  It was a nice break from the textbook, and it was helpful to visualize”.

“It was yummy and fun! It was a good way to work with other students”.

“It is fun to learn in different ways instead of from a textbook.  It’s a really nice break and I wish we did them more often.  I actually did learn from placing them on the number line.  It was a really good idea!”

“I think having a foods lab is a wonderful idea for us to get a delicious hands-on math lesson!  Two thumbs up!”

My conclusions: The food lab was a worthwhile departure from a regular lesson because it engaged students in learning about rational numbers in a dynamic and meaningful way. The exercise fostered communication within groups and between groups resulting in as deeper understanding of the concepts. Since most (if not all) of the students enjoyed the lesson I would definitely try the food lab again.

Post courtesy of M. Berrisford

Richer, Stronger, More Active Classrooms-Oct. 19th Pro-D

On Oct. 19 we had 55 teachers meeting for the day at Maggie and Skaha Lake.    The focus of the day was on active, hands-on and meaningful tasks to engage all our learners.  The sessions included tableaus, project based learning, how to use novelty and variety in the classroom to change things up, mask making, white boards and technology - (including digital cameras, comic life and movie making).  Teachers who were not part of the project began to understand what we are trying to do in the project, and those in the project learned new skills and ways to engage students.  The response overall was great, and the day flew by. 

What was interesting to me as I moved from session to session was the active engagement of the teachers and the laughter in a number of sessions.  Everyone seemed to be having fun or listening intently.  Teachers were working together to create tableaus, working independently to make a comic and sharing and laughing with others, or asking questions and being curious.  By the end of the day we saw samples of movies about their staffs, magazine covers made with digital cameras, masks and comics.  We heard conversations about how to use these activities/strategies from kindergarten to grade 12 - in electives and content areas, and we had comments like "come here and look at this", "this is so much fun!" ... it sounded a lot like kids!

It was great to see people taking risks and trying things they might not normally expose themselves to.  Why?  Because they know that some of their students would love to be involved and learning in these ways.  For many of our students these kinds of activities help them to connect with school - they become engaged and interested; they want to participate; they enjoy themselves.  Eric Jensen in his book "Teaching with Poverty in Mind" shares research that shows that when kids are engaged in learning - the negative behaviour in the class decreases.  He talks about engaging instruction as "any strategy that gets students to participate emotionally, cognitively, or behaviourally.  Engagement happens when you as an instructional leader stimulate, motivate, and activate.  Engagement can result from fun games, intellectual challenges, social interactions and your own enthusiasm" (p 134).  One of the premises of his book is that kids in poverty come to school with many disadvantages behaviourally and academically, but we can change and influence this in many ways.  One, of a number of strategies,  is through providing engaging classroom practice which "includes them and their interests in the process" (p. 134).

by Judith King