Kids Constructing Knowledge

In my experiences I've run into a lot of teachers who fear or disagree with giving kids the opportunity to  construct their own knowledge. I think there are a lot of causes for this:

• High stakes tests put the pressure on teachers to make sure kids know stuff, and some teachers (and administrators) think that the best way to make sure kids know this stuff is to tell it to them and then give them a test.
• Some teachers believe that those who allow students opportunities to construct knowledge are lazy. The kids are doing the work and teachers aren't doing anything. 
• What they've always done has "worked" so some teachers don't see a need or reason to change.
• Allowing kids to construct knowledge is different from what some teachers have done so they don't know how to plan for it or aren't really interested in changing all of their plans.
• There are some teachers who want to try it but just don't know where to start. They are afraid the lesson will flop, and who really has time for lessons to flop (see bullet number one) so they think about trying it another day.
• In some teachers' eyes there are some groups of kids who just aren't smart enough to figure things out on their own. They can't do it so you just need to tell them over and over and over again. These poor kids, bless their souls, still won't get it, but at least you can say you taught it.

I've heard that last bullet discussed in regards to my class frequently this year, and yet during this past week my kids, along with their teammates from across the hall, constructed their own knowledge about pollution. And to my delight and theirs, we did a pretty great job.

I guess what I want to tell you if you're unsure about giving your students the opportunity to construct their own knowledge, you should go for it. But HOW?

First, you need to think about your class and the culture or community that you have established. If your students are not used to working in groups to complete collaborative projects you'll definitely want to take some time to work on the characteristics of successful teams. You may feel like you don't have enough time to do team building or to teach your kids how to work in groups, but really can you afford not to? This is a critical skill our kids will need to be successful as they grow up so I don't think any age is too young to start working together to successfully complete a task.

Once your kids have begun to develop their collaborative skills, you need to decide which unit or lesson to change. Take a look at what you're teaching or what's coming up and see which subject may be a good fit for you. I tend to go for the content areas of science and social studies because I can provide the kids the background instruction in reading, writing, and speaking during our language arts time, and then allow them the opportunity to use those skills and strategies during the content areas. 

Next, think about how you'll activate the prior knowledge the kids already have or help them build a little background knowledge if it's a completely new topic. I love things like Brainpop or BrainpopJr, Safari Montage and Discovery Streaming for videos and movies, but YouTube or TeacherTube may have the resources you need if you don't have subscriptions to the first three. Perhaps a Skype session with an expert or a visit from a parent with a job in the field might be a good fit. Or maybe a quick walk around your school, like we did, will be just what you need to get your kids thinking. Whatever method you use, helping the kids think about or develop a knowledge base is an important key to them moving forward to construct their own ideas about the topic.

Despite what some people think, constructing knowledge is not all about the teacher sitting at their desk or a table while the kids just have a free-for-all. In the science activity my class did, we did whole group discussions and the three of us answered questions for the kids before they moved on to their group work. And while the groups were working, we all walked around asking the kids, "Why?" "Why do you think that?" "Do you have any proof of that?" "Does that make sense?" "What made you say that?" This is the hard part because we didn't do any correcting, we hopefully just asked good questions that would help the students further their discussions and refine their thinking.

Finally, after all the collaborating, you need to give the kids the chance to present their ideas, defend their ideas, and construct a common knowledge base from all that the different groups have created. This may sound like a lot, but honestly, the science lesson you read about took a total of 45 minutes. And that included kids getting coats out of their lockers to go out for our walk. So it didn't take a ton of time, and it didn't require additional planning on my part. What it did require was the restraint to allow the kids to make mistakes, get into some disagreements, and figure things out on their own.

Allowing kids to construct their own knowledge about their learning can be scary for many reasons. But when you really look closely at it, it's not hard to do. And whether its outcome is your desired outcome or not, your students will have had the opportunity to work on developing a variety of important skills.

Interesting Revelation

Because we requested and were granted the opportunity to work with all of the learning support students for fourth grade on our team, we have been trying a variety of arrangements during testing situations. We want to make sure that each child, identified or not, who needs accommodations is getting exactly what they need with the limited number of people who have.

Our latest arrangement had all of the students without any needs in my classroom, while the other three teachers split those students who needed accommodations. That may sound crazy at first, but it's really no different than my friends who have 35 - 40 kids in the classroom every single day so we thought we'd give it a try.

The setting itself worked quite well for me because the early finishers did Read to Self and Work on Writing while we waited for everybody to get done. What was really interesting was the information I collected because I had the chance to correct portions of the assessment as the students were finishing up.

The first thing I noticed was that our kids know and use their reading strategies. They were able to compare two passages when asked to do so, they could identify key details in the passages, and they were able to give evidence from the story to support their opinion. I was really excited to see the proof of the kids using their strategies!

But.... and this is a huge but... they weren't using the strategies to answer the questions that were asked on the assessment, which was made up of two passages about the Loch Ness Monster and several different types of questions.

Here's what I mean:

One question asked, "What details were given by the author to tell that the lake was a frightening place?" Just about everybody gave me 4 quality details from the story; unfortunately, several kids gave me details about why the monster was frightening instead of giving details about the lake.

Another question asked, "What are two questions you could ask your friend about the kids of animal Nessie is?" Every single student asked two questions that were completely related to the passage, could possibly clarify something that was confusing, or could lead to further reading that would help the students get more information about the monster and Loch Ness. Unfortunately, many of them didn't specifically ask a questions about the kind of animal the monster is, so they didn't get any credit for their questions.

A final example asked, "How is Nessie in the second passage different from the Nessie that is discussed in the first passage?" So many students did a beautiful job comparing the two passages, and what made me especially proud is that they went well beyond saying that one passage was fiction and the other was nonfiction. They wrote some excellent comparisons. Unfortunately, they compared the passages rather than the monsters in each passage so once again they received no credit.

A proficient score on this assessment is 16/20 or higher, and it was certainly hard to see so many kids not hitting that mark when they did such a great job with the strategies. Thankfully, we all recognize that our kids are so much more than 1 score from 1 day. These kids have a solid foundation in using their reading strategies so now it's up to us to figure out what we can do to help them read and understand questions so that they can receive the "official numbers" that match what they truly know how to do.

It May Not Look Like Much

But this picture just made my day:

We've been talking about this topic (can you guess what it is from our picture?) for about a week now, and I wanted to check in and see where my kids were in terms of understanding the process. So I gave each one a blank piece of paper, put a list of 6 key words (water, leaves, solar energy, carbon dioxide, chlorophyll, glucose) on the board and said, "Draw me a picture of this process. Be sure to include each of the key words, and be ready to tell me about your picture."

At the end of about 15 minutes we gathered together, and I said, "Okay - somebody get us started." One of my very outspoken girls hopped up and drew and labeled the sun in the corner. Then, a tiny little hand rose in the crowd. When I say tiny, I'm talking a little friend who is smaller than my coworker's 5 year old son. She doesn't talk and rarely participates so when I saw her hand I immediately asked if she wanted to add to our picture. She drew the entire flower you see in the middle of the picture, and as she drew the different parts her teammates were saying why they were important to the process.

After that I was pretty much out of the picture. She picked the next student to come up to add to our drawing, and the students were explaining to each other what they were adding, why they were adding it, and correcting any items that needed to be fixed. For example, the arrow for carbon dioxide first pointed to the stick person, but the kids (respectfully) explained why that needed to be changed.

Every single one of my students participated in this drawing in some way: drawing, labeling, explaining or discussion. They added many more things than the original 6 vocabulary words that were required, and just from quickly looking over their personal pictures I can tell that everybody has a basic understanding of this information, and many of the students understand how it is a larger part of the cycle of life. They also demonstrated that they understand how it's connected to the water cycle, our last topic. I didn't need to give a paper / pencil test to see that. I could tell just by watching everybody today.

So this picture may not look like much, but it definitely made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Regions Project, Part 2

The final part of our regions project was for the kids to put everything together (synthesize, if you'd like) and explain how the regions were the same and different. Probably every teacher and class has used the popular Venn Diagram to compare two, three, or even four different things, but I wanted to do something a little different - something a little more structured for my kids.

When comparing, younger kids tend to go with the "tall / not tall" or "fiction / not fiction" comments, and I really wanted my students to think differently about comparing. My goal was for my students had two parts:

• To describe the specific characteristics of each individual item before beginning to compare
• To use an organized paragraphs to explain the similarities and differences of 4 of the 5 regions of Pennylvania

As I mentioned in this post, I really believe my kids are capable of anything with the proper modeling and guidance so I started this part of the project by modeling the steps needed to meet my goals with a topic very familiar to my kiddos: me and my two teammates. I created a chart with our names, started with some basics and allowed the students to add their own ideas. The ideas did not tell how we were the same or different, but the kids explained how they would describe each of us. I'll add that finished chart here when I get to my other computer.

Next I said to the kids, "Great, so now what do we do? How do we explain how the three of us are the same or different?" The kids talked about whether or not it would be better to talk about similarities or differences first, and they decided that we should go with the similarities because there were fewer of them so it would be easier to manage. The students came up to the Smartboard and highlighted each characteristic that was the same for all three of us, and they decided that they wanted to use check marks for those that were the same for two of the three of us. (I'll add this picture, too.)

After the kids had identified the similarities about the teachers, they worked together in their regions groups to identify the similarities about the 4 regions they studied. Each group checked in with me to make sure we had the similarities. There were several great discussions about whether or not "in PA" could be a similarity because the regions were all in different parts of Pennsylvania. All but one group decided to wait and use the locations and a difference instead of a similarity. One group highlighted it, but they also decided they would use other details first.

Once all of the charts were highlighted, we worked together using a graphic organizer (main idea, three details, and a conclusion) to put the items we highlighted into an organized paragraph. We talked about the purpose of the main ideas, which details we wanted to use, how we could "show" people what we were saying instead of "telling" people the details, and how we could wrap it up. Our paragraph ended up reading like this:

     Mrs. Bair, Miss Conrad and Mrs. Towsen have a lot of things alike. The teachers are very funny. Sometimes they prank call each other on their phones during the day. That makes us laugh. All three of them like to go to the beach and have some relaxing time. Our teachers are also kind of crazy! One morning when we came in to school Mrs. Bair jumped out of Miss Conrad's room because Miss Conrad and Mrs. Towsen were doing karate! As you can see Mrs. Bair, Miss Conrad and Mrs. Towsen have a lot of things the same, just like the Three Stooges.

While some teachers may be offended at being labeled crazy, funny, or one of the Three Stooges, this made my heart happy. My kids understand the joy that the three of us bring to learning. So judge if you will, but I love this paragraph and wouldn't want it any other way!

Now that we had worked together to write a similarities paragraph, I thought the kids were ready to go. As always, I offered the kids the chance to work on their own or with me. The 6 chairs at my table filled up, and extra friends were seated on the floor around me. We talked about the main idea, it's purpose, and the important ideas we needed to include:

• 4 regions of Pennsylvania
• some things are the same

I wrote those two things on the whiteboard and was so excited to see what happened. This excitement quickly turned to frustration for me and the students. Many of my students simply copied the two phrases as their main idea sentence. So as each child showed me their work I went over complete sentences: "Let's read this out loud. Does that make sense? Does it sound like a whole idea that you would walk up and say to somebody?"

Some of my kids were able to say that it didn't sound right, others answered with a, "No???" You know, the one that is their answer that they *think* I want to hear. I tried for about 10 - 15 minutes to help my kids, and finally we just had to put our papers in our folder. I had to admit defeat. As we talked they could tell me what we were trying to do, and they could show me the similarities on the chart. But putting it into their own words and putting those words onto paper was a true challenge.

As successful as most of this lesson was, I felt like I failed as a teacher because my students struggled so much with the writing portion of it. I talked to each of the kids who had difficulties with that part and asked them what made it so hard for them. 7 of the 12 kids said they just didn't know how to write what they wanted to say, and 3 couldn't verbalize for me what was so hard. My struggle now is, "How do I help my kids create sentences from their ideas?" My teammates suggested more modeling and the use of quality mentor sentences, which we do often, and I also asked our building's speech and language teacher for any suggestions she might have.

So it's back to the drawing board with the writing portion of this activity. I will continue to search for suggestions or recommendations about what I can do differently to help my students share their ideas. But until then, we push on... because 4th graders MUST write four-paragraph pieces, whether they are ready for it or not.

Oh Yes They CAN!

As disgusting as it sounds, there are teachers who laugh when the kids can't complete a task. Who are condescending as they talk to the students. Who don't provide the support the kids need to be successful. As a matter of fact, they don't even make an effort to get to know my kids' names.

They say my kids can't. "I couldn't even do _____________ with that group. I had to change my plans around. They can't do it."

I know, I know... you don't even have to go there. I've gone there. We're waiting to see something happen. But while we wait, I would like to call shenanigans on all of those people who say my kids can't. Follow this link to see Exhibit A - Our Pennsylvania Region projects.

Prior to our holiday break, I modeled for my students how I would use questioning, reading skills and technology skills to research our physical region of Pennsylvania, the Piedmont Region, and create a Google presentation to teach the world about where we live. While researching and making the slideshow, I also showed the kids how to use Tagxedo, Vocaroo, Ookaboo, and how to search for and cite images that are free to use or share.

One day per slide - I modeled, they watched, and asked questions, lots and lots of questions. After the holidays we finished up our model slideshow, and the kids selected their top three regions that they would most like to learn about. I grouped the students based on their interests, and by some miracle everybody got one of the their top two choices.

The groups of 5 or 6 had three days to work together and use books and technology to complete research and record their notes on a graphic organizer. The four required topics were location, landforms, natural resources, and climate of their region. Once those topics were completed the groups could research any other question about which everybody had an interest.

After the three research days we watched a video about Disney's use of storyboarding, and we had some pretty cool discussions (Those kids can't discuss stuff - they need to focus on the basics and memorize what's on the test... ugh!) about how storyboards are still used today. Each group developed their storyboards for their slideshow and spent the next three days creating their projects.

Each group needed reminders about how to save and add their Tagxedo project or their Vocaroo to the slideshow, but beyond that the work that you see linked above is their own work. I didn't do any editing, I didn't tell the kids to revise their work, and I didn't present the slideshows to the class. They stood up today and presented the slideshows themselves. Every student was responsible for the research and creation of at least one slide, and every student had to speak about one slide during their class presentations.

Oh, and did I mention that half of my class is identified with specific learning disabilities or other health impairments?

Don't tell me my kids can't. They've already proved they can!

My One Little Word

I've been going back and forth between a couple of different words, and as I was reading a few posts about One Little Word a few other contenders popped up. But as I thought more and more about it every word was speaking to me because it had a common theme, one of my original words.

After it appeared in many different ways my One Little Word for 2013, at the risk of appearing a bit selfish, is

SELF

Doesn't seem to quite fit the spirit of One Little Word, does it? Maybe not at first glance, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

As I reflected back upon everything that has happened in 2012 I saw many things I couldn't control, situations where I had no voice. As that happened I stopped speaking up. And when I did there were many times where people told me my perceptions of their actions were wrong when it was just a different way of looking at things. I put my happiness and the things that I wanted and needed second (or third or fourth or even fifth) to the happiness and needs of others. Or I disconnected. I could have said something but didn't. I could have reached out but kept things inside. I did what made others happy even when it made me unhappy. And I based too much of my worth on comparisons with others instead of simply looking into myself and seeing my own accomplishments.

What I realized as I was trying to pick a word is that each word I was considering spoke to me being true to myself. Of me finding the person who has gone away. To me being better for me so that I can be a better wife, daughter, friend, sister and teacher.

So as selfish as it may seem to somebody not wearing my size 11s, 2013 is going to be about focusing on me and everything that I can accomplish once I do that. I'm not exactly sure what that will look like, but I am excited to find out.

Good Riddance, 2012

2012, I'm going to be blunt: you sucked. I thought 2010 was tricky, and then 2011 showed up. 2011 was awfully challenging, but then you showed up. 2012, you made those past two years look like a walk in the park with everything you threw our way.

Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out, 2012.

I decided to deal with all of 2012's challenges by throwing myself into all of my work: at school, online, in helping Jerry. It was go, go, go, go, go, until I just couldn't go any more. And then I kind of just gave up. I did what I absolutely needed to, and that's about how I've gotten through this past month or so - doing just what I absolutely had to so that I could get by. Hence my long absence from this little blog. And my absences from lots of other things, too, even if I actually was present in those places.

It's time for a fresh start. So let's look back, shall we? I promise to look through the forest of negatives and find the positives of this year. My one little word for 2012 was grow. I picked that word because I thought my husband and I were going to be growing up, taking over the business, and growing everything that he had worked so hard for. Instead, I grew in lots of other ways:

- My teammates and I grew when we decided that the teaming structure at our school was not in the best interests of our kids. While teaching two subjects made less work for the teachers, the constant switching was making it really difficult for students who needed consistency and structure. We researched, we presented, we talked, we shared, and we stuck to our guns even when we were bullied and treated like the bad guys. Thanks to our perseverance our students are growing in more ways than we saw last year, as are our relationships with them and their families.

- More opportunities for online coaching allowed me to grow by helping me connect to new people and learn new ideas. This growth has come with a challenge. The more I learn, the more I feel like we are doing a disservice to our students with our regimented, meaningless curricula and overwhelming, unnecessary assessments. But how to change? I do what I can in my classroom, but I need to do more. This is the challenge! I need to continue to grow to figure out what else I can push my district to offer to our students.

- People lying and being deceitful has made me grow personally. There have been so many times where I wanted to stoop to their level. I can't tell you how badly I wanted it. But I didn't, and the reason I didn't was my husband. Despite everything that was said and done, he handled himself in such an amazing way. He was the calm lake to my crackling flame, and his calm, cool demeanor most days is what kept me in line. This continues to be an area of growth for me; there are still days where I would love to just go in there and tell them all exactly what I think of them. Something tells me it's going to be an area of growth for a long time.

- I grew as an author. I have had several posts on Voices, started a series at Middleweb (which I do promise to finish) and was honored to be selected as part of PLPress's first book.

- While I expected Jerry and I to have to grow up as we took over one business, we ended up growing up in many other ways. We've had to deal with the change to a one income household, to work through the emotions of the loss, disappointment and anger, to continue to deal with the disappointment of losing his legacy and connection to his dad (they worked together at the old business for several years), to talk through the uncertainties of starting a brand new business, and to get through a huge amount of "together time" as we've come to call it. We're still growing, and again - I think we'll be at it for a long time.

- I'm a helper. You need anything I'm there, and I've got your back. Funny thing is that as good as I am at helping others, I really stink at asking for or accepting help myself. Since September I've needed to grow and get used to accepting others' help whether I like it or not. I had two huge health situations (bacterial pneumonia and a severe bacterial infection in my large intestines) that rendered me pretty much incapacitated. My friends, you just can't do sub plans from the emergency room - that's a fact. I depended upon my teammates to help me out, and while I don't like causing other people extra work and am still looking for ways to repay the two of them, I realize that I can't do it alone. I think we all need help every now and then, and it's okay to ask for it when you need it.

- Sadly, I feel like I've also grown a little sadder and a little harder. I'm a hugger - always have been. But lately, I haven't felt so much like handing out hugs (well, except to my kiddos of course - they'll always get hugs freely!) or spreading much cheer. Normally a positive person, I find that I've grown to expect the negatives from people instead of the positives; I've grown into myself instead of reaching out to others. As GI Joe used to say at the end of his cartoons, "And knowing is half the battle." I know I've changed. I know I've grown in ways that I don't really like. I suppose now it's time to do something about that.

And that is 2012 in a nutshell. There truly were a lot of positives, but every positive seemed to have a hint of negative splashed over it. So that why I'm ready for 2012, and all of the negativity, to just be gone.

Grow could easily be my word for 2013, but in keeping with the whole idea of a fresh start I definitely need to pick a new word. I have a few that I'm batting around, but I haven't made the official decision yet. I'm sure it will come to me sometime in the next three days.