Questions+and+Comments

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PROJECTS IN EDSS 261 = Thursday, July 27th 2006** Comments on our Projects today - just thought I would start somewhere. Honestly, I thought all the projects were very well done. It was totally obvious to see how much time and energy was spent from each individual. I love the fact that they are all on the wikispace, and it's something we can keep going back to, either to add or to review. I was amazed at everyone's **creativity** and thought put into their projects - Mary, your posters showing **three different stages in our lives** (young with their brains like sponges, older and starting to get a sense for the real world, and finally choosing our path) was great! Jan Marie's "Rasta Man" with the dreads and the whole unit title "Who Am I?" to use as an **activity for kids** to get a better sense of their **identity**, is so important for kids. Patty - I just have to say wow - not only for taking it as far as bringing it to your own school and trying to **have fun** with wikispaces, but that cake you made was a work of ART! And Gavin your whole activity of using the markers as our voices on the paper before your presentation. . . all of these things really impressed me. And this might sound "cheesy", but I don't care. The amount that I have learned from everyone in this class was unbelieveable.. . . thank you... . rb

One of the strong connections I saw across the projects was **emotion**. Emotion was tied very much to the **self-interest** or investment each of you had in your projects. This was so clear to me. Mary in some ways was the child she was investigating in Levine's work. Jan Marie shares many convictions of the Rasta faith. Gavin wants community to be face to face and hands on so that kids can experience "others" directly - he's lived it in his work at Wheeler for sure and I suspect many other places with many other people. Rox? Well, the story she and Leah crafted had amazing emotional impact and though we let the feelings sift through us without analyzing them, the power of technology to call up those **emotional feelings** for us can't be denied. Somehow, that story and what it portrayed touched some **prior knowledge** that was deep in each one of us, something probably different in content but similar in impact. Very interesting - and all mediated by **technological tools**.

Patty's intended use of a wikispace to create a **community of learners** is exciting to anticipate. We have been growing such a community over the course of this week. First it was **cooperative**, still it remains cooperative although we took baby steps to become **collaborative**. I suppose our use of a common language to day as we spoke with each other about our work showed how far we'd come. And those of you who were in the last course can surely appreciate the distance of learning Gavin's presentation portrayed. I think the strong visual impact of these pieces of work will help us not forget each other and the work we did. Each of these presentations because of their **visual and differentiated nature** stand a chance of being remembered in a year. You will recall people, a room, what it looked like, what it felt like, and then maybe, who did what, all because what we did was so highly **situated** in the **community** that we/you formed. cr

I guess I would have to say one common theme throughout all of our projects was the need for **quality communication**, **interaction** and **understanding** not just in the classroom, but in the world today. Jan Marie created a wonderful (this darned thing just crashed on me again and I lost a very long paragraph arghhhh) project outline that could be used for any k-12 social studies or history class. Her passion for the Ras Tafarian people and her knowledge of their cultural roots and history was a good example of just how interesting and different people are and how important it is to have students and people in general learn about each other and each other's cultures. A **better understanding of why people live** the way they do goes a long way when we need to communicate and interact with each other. I loved what Gavin said about technology and emotion because it is a very real issue. When does technology lose its value as a tool to communicate and when does overuse of it create an inability to communicate or feel emotions? Roxy and Leah gave a very good example of quality use of technology to communicate information in a lasting way that evokes emotion and thus brings forth in its viewers a greater **chance for change**. Patti's presentation about her e-portfolio and use of a wikispace in the classroom was great! If I was a student I think I would really enjoy putting together an e-portfolio in her class as well as **getting involved** in a wikispace. Both of these are great ways to communicate and interact and students would gain a better understanding of each other as a result. In my project I saw the need for better understanding and communication between students and teachers concerning l**earning and teaching styles.**

I really enjoyed this class. I learned a lot from the texts, but I also gained so much from the interaction between us all, especially the final week as we were trying to figure out the what to's and how to's of our projects. Everyone's input into the different projects was a perfect example of many minds working together, and how this can bring forth a greater level of **higher learning**. It was wonderful to share the ups and downs the way we were able to. Have a great August everyone! I'll never forget you. PM

I have always been a big fan of smaller more intimate learning environments, as I personally **feel more known**, able to know, and in turn **connected to the work of others** when I know the "others" who are involved. I am extremely grateful and pleased with the experience we have shared over the past two weeks of this course, and I felt like today's project presentations reflected many of our individual struggles and triumphs both in class and out. As I reflect back to the first Monday of class, I realize that never would I have seen the journey leading us here. I think that the variety of products showcased today, and the passion with which they each were presented was amazing. Each one of you engaged me in a different way and I truly **LEARNED**, not only about the subject of your different presentations, but more importantly, **about you and about me**. I agree wholeheartedly with Charlie in that although our projects differed so greatly, there were many threads that tied them together, not least of which was **EMOTION**. As we finish our time together, I must admit that I will cherish this experience, and that CR is correct in assuming that I will remember each of you and your part in this community. Thank you all for your contribution, **openness,** and **SUPPORT** in this course. I look forward to seeing you all again, whenever and wherever that may be. May Jah bless your comin' and a goin'. :) JM

These summer courses are perfect for being highly concentrated and a way for teachers and soon-to-be teachers to really connect. There is sadly little time to really indulge in the company of other co-workers during the school year. Just think, we've spent 40 hrs+ wallowing in the thing we're possessed by! I am very excited for all of you who are now on the journey to become a teacher. The last 3 years have been an amazing opportunity for me and I know each of you will be so blown away by what you can accomplish and even more important - ENJOY! - when you're in the classroom with your own kids. It's so powerful. pb --- I was experimenting with the wiki and thought that perhaps we should have a forum for questions and/or comments? I wasn't sure where to add them so I think I just created a spot for them. If anyone gets on here perhaps you will post a question or comment so I know that this works. jamboree

From Patty : I love how you organized our thoughts. When our group talked about mentoring, we also described older students providing younger students with reading, buddies, & 1-on-1 tutoring.

So maybe what we are edging around here is the idea of learning communities, that Vygotskian idea that we all learn from "more able peers." Classrooms that have high teacher and high student input may be more like learning communities than classrooms that are tied to reaching other people's static expectations. I wonder if the "static" part of this is as much in our heads as it is anyplace. cr

I'm looking forward to experimenting with this comment page. mm

I like to go to the [|movies] and often find myself on this site looking at trailers and filmographies. GW

Lets try this again...if you are [|bored] or need a laugh check this out. LM

Here we go... Look up an article on emotional intelligence written by [|Daniel Goldman]

Changetoolkit website by [|Rosabeth Moss Kanter - pb]

Mary - here's Mel Levine's [|Parent Toolkit]

I just wanted to share a website with everyone that has to do with the text we are reading for tonight (tuesday 7/18). Really easy to find. . . [|Integrating : Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design]-roxxy

Very cool to have the above listed website as yet another link, tool. I can tell you all as well that if you don't have firefox on your home computer it is super easy to download, and as Charlie mentioned, FREE. Jamboree__

__My friend [|Steve] told me why our wikispace was behaving goofy today when we were trying to add our links. Turns out the infrastructure here is basically a data base and the age-old problem with databases is that when editing is going on, the last entry trumps previous entries. It's probably the only place where being last means you win! So, what we have to do is edit one by one, each person making sure to save the page before the next person starts their entry. cr

SPONGES

The metaphor of kids as sponges went flying around the circle this morning. It was a delightful idea, the notion of young children being ready to absorb anything, and wanting to do it. I like that idea and I like to believe that all young children are like that. We know the human brain is designed to form patterns of information and that way of [|assimilating information] about the world is really the way we come to understand what's real. Then, when a new piece of information comes into play and it doesn't "fit" any of our ways (patterns) of looking at the world, we either change our patterning or we force the world to conform to our way of seeing it (and each other).

But there's a more sinister implication of this sponge thing, more sinister in what it silently communicates about the process of learning. It seems to me that the metaphor also has built into it an understanding of learning as transmission, that kids absorb what other people/places/things present to them. See what I mean here? There's nothing active about absorption, its all passive. See the puddle, see the sponge, see...no puddle. All the sponge did was soak up the water. The water wasn't changed, the sponge didn't discover it was in fact sugar water, the sponge didn't say, "Stop, I don't want to absorb that water!" There was no active, intentional agency by the sponge. All the sponge did is what it we programmed it to do...soak up water.

Now I realize I may be over the top on this one but I think it is important to closely examine our metaphors. I like the part of this one that implies the almost tail-waggy enthusiasm kids have for new experiences, especially when they are safe, secure, and supported by the peers and adults that surround them. I don't like the idea of kids as passive recipients of their environment. First of all, they aren't passive. They actively use language and behavior to co-create knowledge all the time. Secondly, they aren't passive in the sense that they push back on their environment all the time. The environment isn't really a teacher to them until they decide to engage it in some active, intentional way, whether for fun, for pleasure, or because someone else said it would be good for them.

What do you think?

Okay, since this __used__ to be my favorite metaphor about 5th graders, I'll have to be the first one to comment. I do think that kids of this age (but not only this age) readily "soak up" all available information (both good & harmful). They can use all this input in constructive ways, guided by parents, family, teachers, friends, & communities. This was a poster in the elementary school in Richmond, hung in the hallway of the main hall for all to see and I thought that it stood as a reminder that children possess an open mind when it comes to learning and it was about to be my responsibility to be sure to provide pure drinkable water for the sponge, (I was there for my peer review interview). Charlie, you're right about the sponge not being happy about the sugared water. It's like allowing them to play "M" - rated video games.

Kids are always practicing; learning how to filter out what's appropriate, what feels safe, master the tools essential to succeed in school. Like you said, they are totally involved in the learning process. The sponge image also infers that it could become saturated - not able to absorb another drop. If you wring it out, what goes down the drain? I cringe to think about it. pb

I definitely don't think of kids as being "passive recipients of their environment", but I do agree that children's brains are like sponges in that they are always attaining new information through the interactions with people and their environments. I guess maybe I think of children's brains (sponges) as being able to ring out and discard information that isn't valuable or appropriate to soak up more, but does what a child feel to be appropriate depend on the the interactions and experiences they have had early on in life? If so, a child could be totally comfortable "absorbing" harmful material just because they have been exposed to it from an early age. I guess I really don't have a point...just a couple thoughts. lm

WOW. I couldn't have ever imagined where this was going...although upon further reflection about our morning metaphor I must agree with the points already raised. Indeed children learn through engagement and interaction, have we not been discussing the ineffectiveness of a one way school experience where the teacher simply transmits information for children to "absorb?" After substantial reflection on this idea of I began to think of other metaphors that perhaps better suit to explain the phenomenon which we were describing this morning. Individual as a blank book: the authors are numerous and even infinite. Parents, teachers, friends, and SELF experience write, rewrite, erase, and fill the book with pages that tell each of our "stories." In contrast to the sponge, the book places each individual as editor in chief, active, ever revising, working and directing the development of the plot, or body of knowledge that he or she develops. Maybe this idea, or "page" only makes sense within my own book?? Jamboree

I'm not so sure that the sponge metaphor is really all that inaccurate, especially in elementary school. I think to a certain extent kids are passive about learning when they are young. That is where they are at developmentally. They often trust teachers and educators totally and absorb what is taught to them for better or worse. Perhaps that's what needs to change in our education system, and why helping students take ownership of their learning experience is so important. Students need to gain descernment, they need to question some of what's being taught. Or at least they need to learn how to question, that it is okay to question. Teachers have a huge responsibility to present information accurately and without bias. Elementary aged students want to please (for the most part), they want to do well. I bet most "hardworking" elementary students would say that being a good student means learning (absorbing) all that a teacher gives them to learn. If they dare to truly question teachers or information it is in muffled tones. That is what is so scary about computer and video games, TV etc. The sponge mentality used in the classroom is transferred to the screen. I would also say that there are a lot of teachers out there who are trying to teach students to think for themselves, but success in this area has a lot to do with a student's self confidence, self esteem and educational ownership and is brought on in the classroom through UbD and DI and other progressive teaching philosophies. IL or MM or PM

I am not really editing the original entry so much as adding on...baby steps towards technological ability! I don't like the sponge metaphor because it does not allow for development. I think about what Vygotsky said about the interconnected relationship of learning and development, how the two were always influencing eachother. With the sponge metaphor the student is only aquiring knowledge (learning), there is no possibility for development as it is only a sponge. I am more interested in what the child does with what they have learned (development). Being able to think critically, to question, to connect ideas together, these are the attributes of an active learner not a sponge. Students today are exposed to and absorb a wide variety of information from parents, TV, books, peers, the internet, teachers, radio. As educators I think it is our role to help them make sense of all of this (again, not just give them more info) but to help them use their knowledge to develop. I too have been thinking about another, more appropriate, metaphor to describe children. Ironically I would place them on the other side of the "sponge/puddle" metaphor. To me it makes more sense to describe a child in water terms, like a stream or brook. They are able to acquire new knowledge from a variety of sources (teachers are tributaries, TV is industrial pollution, parents are a pond feeding the brook and peers are rain). What I like about the water is it allows for development. A brook is constantly changing, swelling, then returning to normal. Bikerdude

Just some quick thoughts - I definitly agree with the metaphor of "kids brains are like sponges", especially in the early childhood stages. And these children are deinitley not "passive" in their learning environments, they thrive to explore and discover every minute! I get to see it almost everyday at the preschool I work at, and its amazing! But it is the teacher's responsibility to continually make sure the enviornment in which these kids are in is always fun, new and exciting, safe, challenging. . . in order for the children to continue their hunger for filling their sponges. At my preschool, this means weekly planning, constantly changing the materials in our room, field trips. . .you all know. But its distinguishing those teachers that do it on a regular basis, and those that don't. And I am curious about the whole idea of the "sponge becoming saturated" - not being able to add another drop? When you wring it out, where does it go, and what stays behind? Why does it stay behind? When we talk about memory this morning, maybe that will answer some questions. . .rb

//I LOOK LIKE THIS WITH A LOT OF HELP--AND WITH A LITTLE HELP YOUR LESSON PLANS CAN BE THIS SEXY TOO!!// (CR's edit piece for Monday) Backwards Planning. The concept is quite basic and involves a degree of common sense, //YET IT IS STILL SO DIFFICULT FOR SOME TEACHERS TO GET THEIR MINDS AROUND.// You can't plan instruction if you don't know where you are going! That's it, right? Backwards planning is really just a strategy to think about what you want kids to KNOW, UNDERSTAND & do and then think about how you are going to set up a lesson or group of lessons to get each of them there. //IN MANY WAYS IT IS LIKE TAKING A TRIP, FIRST YOU CHOOSE YOUR DESTINATION, THEN YOU GET A MAP TO DIRECT YOU IN THE WAY TO GO, THEN YOU DECIDE WHAT VEHICLE YOU WILL USE TO GET THERE. NO ONE GETS IN THE CAR AND BEGINS DRIVING DOWN THE ROAD WITHOUT FIRST HAVING A SENSE OF WHERE THEY ARE GOING!?// YOU'LL NEED AN ESSENTIAL QUESTION OR TWO TO CLARIFY YOUR BIG IDEA, AS WELL. "WHERETO'' STANDS FOR ALL THE STEPS NEEDED TO ACCOMPLISH ALL THE ACTUAL LESSONS. IN RESPONSE TO RB'S POINT THAT THIS IS PRETTY BASIC AND REQUIRES THOUGHTFUL PLANNING, I THINK THAT ALONG WITH LOTS OF PRACTICE THIS PROCESS OF BACKWARDS PLANNING WILL BECOME A HABIT AND ALTER A TEACHER'S APPROACH TO ALL LESSONS, EVEN THOSE THAT ARE EASY, SOMEONE ELSES OR STRAIGHT FORWARD. All ubd asks us to do is to plan activities with a goal in mind as opposed to planning activities just to plan activities. ALTHOUGH THE ACTIVITIES MIGHT BE WELL PLANNED, THEIR BIGGER POINT THAT TEACHERS MUST BE FLEXIBLE, ADJUST TO THE CONTINUALLY ASSESSED NEEDS OF THEIR STUDENTS, & TAKE SOME RISKS - CHANGE THEIR APPROACH, IS THE IMPORTANT PIECE TO ME. You get that point, you get the book. McT. has made lots of dollars off that one rather simple thought. (PB) PS...I LIKE THE LIGHTHOUSE METAPHOR, PM! (PB)

Backwards Planning. Yes, I do think its pretty basic as I read about it in the "dollar-making-McT" text, but when I think about putting it into action in a classroom with a room full of kids, I don't think it would be the easiest thing I have ever done! It requires a lot of thoughtful planning to get an effective, differentiated lesson that doesn't succumb to the "problematic aspects of activity- or coverage-oriented" teaching. Backwards Planning is a thought process : What is the teacher's desired results/outcome? What do you want your students to know, and what would you like for them to get out of the lesson? What are your curriculum expectations/content standards? How do you know if your student's have learned anything? What will you use to assess their learning? And finally, What experiences/activites/instruction do you need in order to achieve your desired results? Backwards Planning is aimed to reach out to all of your students - with assessment evidence, the educator is able to create instruction for students who struggle to learn, and for the students who are advanced as learners. RB (okay, time for someone else, I will come back to it . . .it's too early on saturday morning, and the restaurant was JAMMED last night - how was the pub and brewery jamboree?) //VERMONT BREWERS FESTIVAL WEEKEND!!! WORKED FRIDAY AND SATURDAY AND YES IT WAS SOOOO BUSY. I DO HAVE A VINTAGE BATCH OF '04 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL STOUT IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE TO SKIP THE COFFEE MONDAY MORNING?! HEE HEE. I don't think the folks at the cafe will mind!//

Wow! I finished Tomlinson and McTighe's book. My mind is on overload, but I am also excited as fleeting ideas keep popping into my mind about how I might some day organize my own classroom and curriculum using the ideas from this book. First off, for me simple is definitely better. So, I like the backwards planning idea because basically its a bit like a lighthouse. You decide what the goal is, then backup to a starting point. As the students go through the activity step by step, there is always that goal or lighthouse to look to whenever its needed. In the classroom, I'd probably have the goal written on the board in big letters or do a printout that I'd have available at each station if the students were doing projects in the classroom. When we were homeschooling I didn't always have a teacher's edition for our math curriculum, but I did have an answer book. Sometimes the directions were unclear and math is not my strength anyway. Many times with the older kids when we didn't understand the problem completely, we'd look up the answer and then go backwards to figure out the steps to the problem. I loved doing math this way because it took the emphasis off "finding the right answer" and put the emphasis on figuring out the procedure and the steps to getting to the right answer. Math became a puzzle that was fun to solve. PM

I finished the book and I loved it. There was so much information it's a great book to go back to! For me the book made so much sense! I just started the program and I've never had any teaching experience in a public school, so thinking about lesson plans and such has been a little scary for me, but this really helped me wrap my brain around how a successful lesson plan should look. I really think working backwards is a great strategy because if forces you to have a goal and think critically about your lesson plan. On the other hand I can definitely see how experienced teachers who have been doing things the same way for a long time would be overwhelmed with the concept. LM