Month: February 2019

What an amazing resource VMFA is! I had no idea they had that interactive space on the first floor – super cool. I plan to bring my kiddos back there to watch how they interact with the space, and think more about how I can use it in my teaching. I thought the sensory/braille overlay station was particularly cool and can’t wait to explore that on my own. It made me think of the sound lesson I did for Science last semester — what a cool way to make sound waves more tactile. 🙂

I love how many ways there are to interact with the museum’s collection. The website seems to be a treasure trove of lesson/activity ideas and images. The gallery virtual tour is super cool too. There are so many options, including self-guided tours, audio tours (can’t wait for the teen version!), docent-led visits, virtual field trips, and curated collections for independent exploration…there’s really no excuse for not incorporating these resources in some way!!

I hope they are able to extend the virtual field trip to lower grades – that was rather disappointing to hear that it’s currently only for 6th and up. I’ve experienced a virtual field trip with 3rd graders and they LOVED it. It is a very efficient option, time and money wise. It also provides an awesome way to frontload the process/skills before coming in for an in-person field trip. Having been through the process now, I suppose I could study up on facilitating the experience and do it on my own until they are able to accommodate younger kids.

One idea I had for my classroom is a mini gallery. It can either be a physical space in the classroom, or a virtual gallery on their computers — either way, it will contain a photo of a piece of art that connects to our content in some way. There will be some simple, self-service engagement suggestions there, like the grab and go cards at the VMFA (see/think/wonder; connect/extend/challenge; tell a story; etc.). Or, the questions can be more directly related to content (write a list of all the adjectives you can think of that describe this piece; Was this person a Patriot or Loyalist? What are your clues?; etc.) Or even just fun ones, like an I Spy list of details to find to encourage close observation. Students can visit the gallery as an early finisher activity, or it can be used as a rotation station during language arts or another subject (which would promote discussion). It looks like the digital collection at the VMFA will be a great source of high-quality images of engaging art for this mini gallery!

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to learn about and experience the resources available at the VMFA. I am really excited to incorporate lots of this into my classroom. I’d love to know some of your other favorite community resources — parks, museums, experts, etc. — for field trips, virtual field trips, and other in-class resources. 🙂

 

What you (Lynne) said about there being no need to make students memorize huge chunks of information just for the sake of it really resonated with me. I have always found big memorization tasks to be the cop out way of adding challenge to a class — a sort of lazy or just ill-informed attempt at “setting high standards.” Too many teachers just pack in extra details for students to spit back. It is easier to assign, present and grade for the teacher, but it just wastes time and mental energy — not to mention enthusiasm for learning — for the students, especially now that we all have such easy access to information 24/7. I think this happens a lot in advanced/gifted classes that are really just accelerated. These kids end up doing double the work of the regular classes, but not getting the time or opportunity to really think and process…so they’re actually being trained OUT of thinking…which in my opinion is the opposite of what we want to be doing. (This is why we pulled our daughter out 2 out of 4 of her accelerated classes for middle school — we wanted her to have more time to think and process and connect, not to mention explore some of her own interests, sleep, adjust to middle school, and interact with friends and family. To us, these things are more important — and provide better opportunity for success — than building the perfect transcript for Harvard…which she would never want to attend anyway. :))

So, the question is: how do I do it better in my own classroom? I think part of it is attitude: If teachers are willing to make the effort to think deeply, then they will be better equipped to create opportunities for their students to do the same. Another big part, it seems, is building (or finding) assessments that measure this type of higher order thinking. With the right assessments guiding instruction, “teaching to the test” is no longer a limiting construct. I am thankful that I will be entering the profession at a time when the standards-focused trend is subsiding in favor of a more balanced approach, and I hope that wherever I end up working, I will be lucky enough to land in a team of teachers that is already on board.

Dr. Stohr, our discussion of what makes a good assessment reminded me of my other/past life, in which I learned how to create, administer and analyze marketing research instruments (surveys, focus groups, etc.). Many of the same principles I worked with then seem to apply to building good assessments for education: ensuring both reliability and validity; norming; clarity and consistency in constructing questions; parallel structure; selecting the appropriate instrument for the type of data you wish to collect; etc. It is always encouraging when I can connect my past experiences to current learning — it wasn’t a total waste after all! 😉 However, because I do have some experience with this, it is one of the reasons I am so picky about lesson plans and assessments I find online (or that my kids bring home!) — and why it takes me FOREVER to find something I am comfortable using or adapting for lesson plans. Although I am by no means an expert at creating instructional/assessment resources, I am pretty good at being critical of what’s out there…in other words, I know just enough to make me obnoxious!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 My challenge for myself is to get more familiar with where to find good resources, and more efficient at adapting/creating good materials so that when I’m sitting in a team meeting in a couple years, I can bring solid solutions to the table instead of pointing out problems.

 

It makes perfect sense to me that intentionally helping students build their background knowledge (including frontloading key vocab) will help them understand and remember content better. I noticed during the tea party activity (which I will probably call Mingler, or Block Party, or something content-related), how the sentences on the strips jumped out at me and clicked into context when I read them in the passage. Simply having read/heard them already once made the passage more memorable. Also, doing Rate Your Knowledge ahead of time primed me to keep an eye out for Araminta Ross, which I will now remember much better! 🙂 I love experiencing these tools in action and imagining how my future students might respond to them.

I was thinking about how to make sure 4th or 5th graders would actually keep moving around and talk with everyone during that Tea Party. Setting up the rules and expectations ahead of time would help, but I also thought that if free/responsible movement was too much for them to handle (or for me to manage), I could switch to a formation that ensures each student shares with every other student. One idea is to put the students in two lines, facing each other. Each kid shares with the person across from them, then everyone moves to the right to get to the next person. In this situation, there will always be two people at the ends who do not face anyone (actually, they face each other, but are too far away to talk), so I can have these people write down any question or comment they have so far about what they’ve read/heard. This way, everyone shares with everyone else and also gets to contribute two questions for class discussion. Alternatively, if it is not critical that each student hears every other statement, we could use the donut formation (two concentric rings, moving in opposite directions).

I am still a little unsure of when it’s best to assess prior knowledge, given the need to be prepared ahead of time (don’t some districts require printed plans to be submitted up to a week in advance?), and the shortage of planning time during the week. It seems like it makes sense to briefly check in about the upcoming unit/topic just after finishing up the prior unit, but then there is little time to adjust plans according to students’ needs. But if I check in earlier so I have more time to adjust, it will seem disjointed and confusing. Do I just plan for zero background knowledge, and then remove or adjust activities as needed? And then do I also plan for the other end of the spectrum? Or are all these variations just part of the differentiation plan? I want to be sure I’m prepared to meet kids where they are and then take them through each unit in a challenging, interesting and appropriate way…but what does that actually look like in terms of lesson planning, and how can I manage it logistically?

As I mentioned during our closure activity, I noticed that my curiosity and interest in the objects increased the closer I looked and more I interacted with them. At first, the painting of George Washington was anything but interesting, but by the end, I really did feel like I wanted to spend more time with it. In order to capitalize on this in the classroom, I know I will need to develop some good hooks and some good opening activities to immediately direct attention in ways that pique curiosity and seem doable, so the students don’t just shut down. I will also need to find ways to spend enough time with activities like this to really build their skills. (This reminds me of the idea of sit spots in science.) I hope that as I get to know my future students, I’ll get a feel for where each is on the skills progression chart, and what I can/should reasonably try to push toward. Having the essential skills laid out and broken down on one sheet of paper is a confidence builder for me — it’s good to know what the suggested targets are in terms of process and skills as well as content.

I must admit: “document analysis” sounded like torture to me, and I would think it would sound intimidating to most K-6 students. But I think the problem is just in the academic-sounding name…perusing and making sense of Mr. Stohr’s historical documents was a fascinating bit of detective work. I appreciated that you (Dr. Stohr) were willing to share a piece of your own history to help make this real for us. I’ve noticed students love to get glimpses into their teachers’ lives, and this would be a fantastic way to eek out a bit more meaning for them. And even cooler would be to see what they can dig up of their own history.

Often, when we visit with my husband’s family, my mother-in-law brings out clippings, photos, letters, heirlooms, etc. that were from her Air Force Colonel father (who was co-pilot in the lead D-Day plane), or her great grandmother (from whom Booker T. Washington learned to read), or my father-in-law’s Jewish immigrant family who came through Ellis Island. She gathers my daughters around her and spreads it all out on the table and tells them stories of their heritage. They look and listen and touch and ask questions. For hours. Sometimes they even mention a connection to something they have learned in school. Sitting in our class, I realized what a beautiful and important gift she is giving through this interaction.