Tag: classroom

Convene your Classroom Creative Council

28 Days of Writing, CreativityPublished on3 Comments on Convene your Classroom Creative Council

Creative Council Member Ada Byron

During some research on Thomas Edison I stumbled on the fact that he deliberately surrounded himself with a diverse range of expertise in order to generate new thinking and ideas, a creative council. In a recent post I referred to the concept of “casting widely” to make creative connections, Edison gathered people into his creative council to accelerate this. It is a practice that has been replicated by many visionaries, inventors and, more recently, innovative companies.

Classroom Creative Council

Andrew Carnegie called this creative council a “mastermind group alliance” a gathering of people towards a common creative goal. I was struck by this lovely idea, not so much in the sense of connecting classrooms with a varied external expertise, but the idea that you could convene an imaginary Classroom Creative Council.

Encouraging a creative mindset and learning about what this actually means can be done through creative inquiry processes such as design thinking. They emphasise the imperative of thinking and connecting deeply with a topic and developing a range of dispositions. But one hugely important element within an experience of creative inquiry is the modelling from peers, adults and who we might learn about.

Just picture an imaginary Classroom Creative Council of visionaries, inventors and innovators from our past and present, who epitomise the mindsets and dispositions we all want to uphold. A Creative Council filled with members that everyone in the class has learned about and who we recognise for their individual strengths.

Who Would Have A Seat?

You might plan for literacy, science and history lessons about these characters as they are introduced, or indeed offer the opportunity for the class to put forward their own recommendations for the council. The reason you would have such a reference group would be as Wily Walnut puts it, to:

“tune in” to the vibration, to the morphic field, to the archetypal meme, perhaps to the very soul of that person in order to share in their wisdom, insight and ways of thinking, acting and being.

With one of the members of the Creative Council in mind we might ask a series of questions and provocations to establish a new point of view about a project or idea. Imagine if Edison or Da Vinci, or any number of creative visionaries, were the subject of the following prompts:

  • What would…think?
  • How would … approach this problem?
  • What historical precedent or example can inform us about what to do next?
  • Who would be smiling about what we are doing and why?
  • What would … say are the biggest challenges to this approach?
  • What actions would … take next?
  • What would … say we had forgotten and why?
  • Would … be proud of us?

In order to answer these questions well, with a depth and authority that allows a new perspective to contribute to our work, we would need to better understand the people involved. The members of our council should be familiar to us, we would need to know their mindset and approach to work and life. Equipped with a deeper knowledge of these role models, we might be able to gain insight from their imaginary mentorship.

I am always inspired myself by historical figures who are beacons of creative light for us to follow and in some future posts I will outline some of the elements we might look for in those figureheads.

In the meantime why not make a suggestion in the comments as to who would be in your Creative Council. Who inspires you? Who would you like as a virtual mentor contributing to your ideas? Who would have a seat in your Creative Council chambers? I would be fascinated to learn who you would nominate.

pic – Portrait of Ada by British painter Margaret Sarah Carpenter (1836)

Provide More Opportunities for Classroom Discussion

DiscussionPublished onUpdated onLeave a Comment on Provide More Opportunities for Classroom Discussion

“The prototypic teaching method for active learning is discussion.”
Svinicki and McKeachie

One of the teaching and learning strategies according to John Hattie that has one of the highest impacts on student achievement is classroom discussion. It has an effect size of 0.82 and is ranked very highly (in the top 10) amongst intervention factors that have an impact on learning.

A great outline of the importance of providing more opportunities for classroom discussion comes from the University of Victoria in Canada and their Learning Impact Library. Stating that classroom discussion:

Brings about student participation: Whenever a classroom-wide discussion comes about, students are encouraged to follow along and suggest their opinion. This also helps them build confidence and gain social interaction skills in a learning environment.

Allows students to become connected to a topic: By encouraging students to participate, and interact with a group about a topic, they are more inclined to gain interest in that topic.

It enables students to be respected for their ideas: By presenting their opinion to the class, students are given credit for their individual ideas (Effective Classroom Discussions, 2012).

Brings about multiple points of views on a single topic: Opposed to narrow-mindlessly thinking about an an issue from one perspective, students are encouraged to consider the ideas of those around them.

Builds intellectual agility in students (Drs. Cavanough, 2001): By being frequently exposed to listening to different approaches on the same issue, students acquire the ability to quickly think on their feet and formulate an opinion.

—

This morning I ran across a fellow Melbourne educator, Greg Curran’s recent resource of language structures to support a more discursive approach in the classroom.

They provide a useful aid to our thinking – not something to tick off but certainly a resource to remind us of how our own language can open or close discussion. Here is an example from Greg’s post:

Sentence Starters for…Building On

  • Y mentioned that…
  • Yes–and furthermore…
  • The author’s claim that Z is interesting because…
  • Adding to what X said,…
  • If we change Xs position just a little, we can see that…

—

In many cases we have to construct the climate for classroom discussion to work and to be most effective. A supportive, encouraging and open learning environment is most conducive to this type of learning talk – unfortunately there can be many obstacles that get in the way of fostering participation.

What follows are notes on five barriers to classroom discussion, six faulty assumptions and seven strategies to foster participation. (And a partridge in a pear tree) They are from a great Idea Paper from Kansas State University, Effective Classroom Discussion, written by William Cashin.

In the paper Cashin refers to Svinicki and McKeachie who outline five barriers to good discussion: 

  1. Habits of passive learning
  2. Fear of appearing stupid
  3. Trying too hard to find the answer the teacher is looking for
  4. Failing to see value in the discussion topic or process
  5. Wanting to settle on a solution before alternatives have been considered.

Additionally Davis (2009, p. 107) outlines six faulty assumptions students often hold about discussions

  1. One must argue for only one position
  2. Knowledge is really just opinion
  3. Personal experience is the real source of knowledge
  4. Issues should not be discussed unless there is agreement
  5. Individual rights are violated when ideas are challenged
  6. Individuals in a discussion should never feel uncomfortable.

Finally Cashin refers to seven strategies to try:

  1. Ask general (divergent) questions. Questions that can have more than one acceptable answer (e.g., “What is your opinion about…?”) can lead to more discussion. In addition, give students your questions about the reading before you will be discussing them. (See Svinicki and McKeachie, 2011, pp. 47-48.)
  2. Avoid looking only at the student talking. Although it may seem counterintuitive to look away, and eye contact does tell a student that you are paying attention, looking too long at one student can seem threatening. Also, you need to monitor how the other students in the group are reacting.
  3. Control excessive talkers. Even though the students who talk the most are sometimes the “better” students, avoid automatically calling on them first, even after a seemingly long silence. Ask to hear from someone who hasn’t said anything yet. If one student’s excessive talking becomes a problem, you may want to talk with that student about it outside of class. (See also Brookfield and Preskill, 2005, pp. 169-177.) Sometimes the excessive talker is you (or me) — the teacher! Videotaping a class and watching it later may provide useful information about this (as well as many other aspects of your class). (See also Brookfield and Preskill, 2005, pp. 193-200.)
  4. Ask for examples and illustrations. This is particularly important when discussing complex ideas, or concepts students often have difficulty understanding.
  5. Allow for pauses and silences. Sometimes in American culture, we act as though there should never be a quiet time in our conversations. Silence, even for a minute or more, allows the students, and you, time to think. This “wait time” is especially helpful to students who are more introverted and may not be getting an opportunity to participate (Davis, 2009).
  6. Be sensitive to feelings and emotional reactions. Some topics may generate strong negative — or positive — feelings, or you may notice that a student is becoming upset or angry as the discussion progresses, any of which may become obstacles to learning. Ideally, the student will bring up the problem so it can be discussed. To prompt this, you may simply wish to say, “You seem to have strong feelings about this.” Or you may need to explore: “Would you say some more about that?” You may want to talk to the student after class.
  7. Encourage and recognize students’ contributions. Listen carefully to each student’s comments, sometimes paraphrasing to show that you understand. Give students a chance to clarify what they meant, or link Student B’s comment to something Student A said.

Idea Paper #49 Effective Classroom Discussion, William Cashin, Kansas State University

Hopefully there is plenty there to get your teeth into regarding the impact and development of classroom discussion. It certainly forms a key pillar of the conditions for great learning in our schools.

20+ Classroom Blogs to Enjoy

BloggingPublished onUpdated on9 Comments on 20+ Classroom Blogs to Enjoy
2image.png.scaled.1000I spent today working with staff at Christ Church Primary School in Brixton, South London – and we were predominantly talking about the use of classroom blogging to support learning.
During the day I was tweeting to ask people to share their own class blogs as I was working with different year groups and it was lovely to look back this evening and find so many all across the world that people sent me – so a big thanks to those of you in this list.
I have gathered them up and indictaed where the cass blogs are from and thought I would share in a post for everyone to benefit from.
And here are the class blogs from Christ Church Priary School too – they would be so pleased if you and your classes dropped by and added a comment or two. They have just started their blogging journey and would welcome the support.

Make sure you spend some time exploring the different blogs and look for links to other school blogs they have displayed and I hope you perhaps find a class to link to and share some stories with.

—

Please share your class blog in the comments below

Why I turned my back on teaching

Leadership, My classPublished onUpdated on35 Comments on Why I turned my back on teaching

4487519028 091e8e04b0 b

It has now been 6 months since I left the classroom as a Year 5/6 teacher and turned away from my role as Deputy Headteacher which I had only started a year before.

I have never really spent time writing about my decision on this blog and so thought it was about time, after all many of you helped in a small way to me actually getting the Deputy post in the first place and have been there to provide encouragement and support.

The last 6 months have flown by and I have enjoyed every minute!

I decided to leave teaching because of a variety of things, but the elephant in the room which was nagging me for months, was my desire to work with teachers and student beyond one school. Thankfully I rubbed my eyes and embraced the elephant, so to speak!

I chose to apply for a Deputy Head post not out of any deep desire to run my own school or be a headteacher, it was simply that I needed to change my circumstance and needed to feel I was contributing more to the running of a school.

I don’t regret my decision, but I think the specific challenges of the position and school went a long way to dampen my enthusiasm and zeal for school leadership. Sadly it led to some of the lowest times I have ever had in my teaching career.

It all seemed to come down to compromise. Due to my time being unnecessarily stretched compared to other Deputies I knew, I was making compromises with the quality of my teaching, the quality of my admin and the quality of my preparation. I had never really had to deal with such forced compromise in the past, on reflection that unsettled me deeply and is certainly something I never want to see again.

In my first week as a Deputy I wrote that, “No other 5 day stretch has ever examined and pressurised my professional facets as those just gone.” Well those 5 days continued on and the remainder of the year proved even more challenging than that tumultuous first week.

So what has changed?

The most notable things are a better quality of time with my family, variety through project work and being able to work with more schools and teachers.

I never really got to a stage that I was comfortably balancing work and life during my year as a deputy and so the quality of time with my family was hugely affected. There was always something nagging in my mind that hadn’t quite been completed or needed doing. I was never 100% focused on the here and now, and time was lost with the family.

This contributed to an unhealthy cumulative pressure I hadn’t experienced, both physically and emotionally – needless to say I am now glad to see the back of it.

The variety of work we have at NoTosh has been such a brilliant foil to the trudging monotony of the last few years. No week is the same – we will be wading in the deepest of intense research one week and design thinking with teachers the next. We are are also working with lots of schools and supporting teachers so I am never far from the classroom.

I have also enjoyed the ebb and flow of project work which allows you to see things to a natural completion in the relatively short term. At school the long term completion of a poject would feel most satisfying at the end of terms or the end of a year.

This “shipping” as Seth Godin would put it generates motivation and your energy levels rise as you move on to the next project. I am enjoying this way of working and although I have really felt I have had to adjust over the last few months, success and completeness is always in sight, something markedly lacking from my experience as a deputy headteacher.

One thing I realised, from those closest to me, was that things are not set in stone ad infinitum, even a job as all consuming as a deputy headteacher, and when things don’t work out you have to plan and actively choose to get yourself out of it. Linchpin by Seth Godin proved to be an important read for me in those difficult times and which underlined the importance of action.

All of that said I know that perhaps given a different set of circumstances I would have had a completely different experience as a new deputy and I have not discounted that maybe one day I will give it another go. But not right now 🙂

—

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Neil Hopkin, his kindness and generosity helped me steady the ship and find the elephant again in the darkened room. And also thanks to my good friend Ewan McIntosh for giving me hope and believing in me, even when I didn’t!

Thank you for your support over the last year and half, things took a wrong turn for a while back there but I am now doing a job I love (again), the future is bright.

—

Pic the winds of skagit. by heanster

30+ Interesting Ways to Get to Know Your New Class

Interesting Ways, My classPublished onUpdated on3 Comments on 30+ Interesting Ways to Get to Know Your New Class

When the Australia winter is replaced with warmer days, it means in the Northern Hemisphere schools will soon be returning. 

The first few weeks should be about getting to know your class. The better we understand our students, the better we can design learning for them.

Over the last six years, I have gathered and curated some tips and activities for those early sessions we have with our students.

I hope that the ideas prove useful as we get to this time of year. If you have ideas for classroom activities or whole school transition days, please consider contributing them.