I have been at a loss for words because as a mom, a teacher, a wife, I cannot even imagine what these families must be feeling. How can these families ever recover? How can that school ever return to normalcy? Will it ever? Probably not. I keep thinking what if it had been my daughters, or my husband, my own mother who was a teacher. I keep thinking about the recent shootings at the mall in Oregon, and at the movie theater, and I think what kind of life are we living, where we are afraid to go to the mall, the movies or even send our children to school for fear that some psychopath will open fire and kill us or destroy our joy for life. I do not even know what to say to help these families deal with their pain. It is that feeling of helplessness that we cannot allow to set in...that feeling that it's just part of what life is like nowadays...you just never know when you're at wrong place at the wrong time. We cannot live with this type of fear. We must do something about mental health; we must do something about gun control; we must do something about our fascination with violence; we must do something so that not only the lives of these children and adults are forever remembered, but all those who have died these senseless deaths. I am positive that the shooter had to have had a history of violence and mental illness. No sane person goes on a shooting rampage. How was he able to buy guns? What laws made it easy for him, and make it easy for others like him to go out and buy whatever weapons they want so they can kill and terrorize us? Who is in control here? Where are the laws to protect our right to live without fear? I believe in the protection of our right to bear arms, but in our current society, I prefer the protection of my right, my family's right, and my neighbors' right to go out into the world and feel safe to study,work, play and just live without the fear of getting shot in the head. What solace can we give these families? The only thing we can do is write to our government, make phone calls, ask questions and demand answers and actions from our leaders requiring help for the mentally ill, and gun control laws so that this never ever happens again. We cannot become complacent and forget about this a month from now and just move on. We are getting too used to hearing about these massacres, and if we don't take action, what if these massacres become so commonplace that we begin to turn to the internet for our sole means of our education, our shopping, our interactions, afraid of leaving our homes for fear of being shot. What kind of society will we become if we allow this to continue happening? Regular people can't hire body guards. Where is it safe to go these days if we can't even send our children to school, or enjoy shopping and a movie?
My heart, my prayers, my tears, my hugs, and all my love go out to these children and these adults who lost their lives for nothing and to the families who are left behind. But that is not enough. My condolences will not change anything. My writing to Congress and calling them and letting them know they must do something may, but only if there are millions of other citizens that do as well. Let's ensure that these lives were not lost in vain...that we do something to make sure this never happens again. If there's a heaven, I'm sure these children and adults are praying that that's what we'll do. http://www.congress.org/
May God give these families strength and comfort to live on without their loved ones!
One of the most important skills students need to learn for successful Problem Based Learning is asking and answering questions. In many classrooms, the teacher is the only one asking the thought-provoking questions when ideally the act of asking and answering questions should be shared by both the teacher and student.
How do we help our students learn this necessary skill they will use for the rest of their literate lives? And, how do we prepare students to ask and answer thought-provoking questions if we want to implement Problem Based Learning in our classrooms? PBL depends on a student's ability to generate driving questions, research, make sense of various text structures, make inferences, raise more and more questions, and create original content in response to their driving questions.
If kids don't know how to generate questions and answer them properly, PBL will not flourish. So, step one in the pre-planning stages of effective PBL implementation is teaching students how to read texts strategically, raise questions about texts, and know where to find answers to these questions: in the text, in their heads or both.
Image taken from http://www.rrgsd.org/bes/default.aspx
First, we need to help students understand there is a relationship between information we read, hear or see, and information from our own backgrounds, and we cannot solely rely on either one to find or provide answers. Some questions will require that we find the answers in the text. As Dr. Taffy Raphael coined, some questions have answers found "Right There", "In the Book", meaning the answer is in one spot, staring right at you; others are also "In the Book", but you must "Think and Search"; the answers are going to be scattered throughout the text. While there are even other questions Dr. Raphael calls, "In my Head": "Author and You" which may require us to make text to self, text to world, and text to text connections as we read, see or hear a text. "On my Own" questions also fall under "In My Head" too, and also activate our prior knowledge, but without necessarily having to make a connection to the text at hand, especially when this type of question is posed before reading, seeing or hearing a particular text.
The catch though, especially for PBL, is that when we make use of our background knowledge or experiences to answer an "In my Head": "Author and You" question, we must "back up" whatever example we used from our background knowledge or experiences with a textual example. This textual support does not necessarily have to be a fact, in some cases, but it is an example taken from the text we read, saw, or heard to prove that we understood there is a relationship between what's in the text and what's in our heads. Students must learn to understand that answers to some questions will not be found waiting for us already highlighted in a text, nor can we conveniently draw solely from our reservoir of life experiences to answer them. The best answers to complex questions rely on using a credible text for proof, and background knowledge to make logical sense, and prove a point. (Determining credible sources is also a difficult skill students must learn as well for PBL.) The textual support aspect strengthens our text to self, text to world, or text to text connections. Without textual support, our background knowledge as the sole means of answering a question is weak. Dr. Taffy has stated that, “Kids may argue about which QAR it is, but in the end, that’s just great as they are arguing about what source provides appropriate or ‘best’ evidence.” (And, by the way, isn't this what our country struggles with more than ever before, the inability to back up an opinion with a solid fact or any type of evidence...don't want to digress... this is a whole other topic for another day, but students must practice providing textual support every single day when they answer questions in class so they can grow up to have civil, logical discussions as adults based on fact, not hearsay (See yourlogicalfallacyis.com). We rely so much on just taking someone's opinion or experience as fact without ever demanding any concrete proof of its validity.)
Anyway, I did digress, but these are all important issues to consider when planning and carrying out PBL: ensuring that whatever information students find, they have credible textual evidence to back up their contentions. This takes time to practice. Begin on the second day of school!
Why Should We TeachQ-A-R, Question-Answer-Relationships, or better yet,
Why Haven't We Been Teaching This Strategy ?
So, back to Q-A-R, or question answer relationships. Once students grasp and begin to internalize the strategy that questions can be categorized as either "In the Book", or "In my Head", and that different types of questions require different types of thinking to find the answers, they will begin to recognize and generate these types of questions independently, and voila, a student-centered environment is born! Students will be able to lead their own discussions while the teacher coaches and redirects when necessary, but for the most part, students will be the ones asking and answering their own questions and those raised by their peers. Q-A-R prepares them to properly answer questions with textual evidence, recognize text structures, make inferences, and know where to search for answers in the text, in their heads, or both.
These, of course, are skills that take months to master, and it is beyond my understanding why students as early as kindergarten aren't taught a basic version of Q-A-R to prepare for asking and answering questions in the primary grades. Which brings me to the next section of this topic: are all students ready for such sophisticated thinking? YES, of course, even if they struggle with literacy, we must never underestimate a person's ability to be inquisitive! Q-A-R will improve their literacy skills, guaranteed! According to Dr. Raphael, a basic version of Q-A-R can be introduced before second grade where students are taught there are answers to questions found in a book or story they read, and questions and answers that can only be found in their heads. With proper modeling, guided practice and independent practice, young students can learn to recognize these two basic question types. Perhaps PBL would not be so difficult to implement in the upper elementary grades because the most difficult step would have already been taught: the process of generating driving questions. What better time to teach students about Q-A-R than kindergarten when they all have inquisitive little minds. Unfortunately, in my personal teaching experience as a 10th grade teacher, many of my students had never participated in a PBL project, let alone been allowed to generate their own questions to lead their own discussions. Kids have to learn how to read strategically and generate their own critical thinking questions if we are to sustain our democracy and prepare students for the 21st century workforce.
How do I Teach Q-A-R in my elementary, middle or high school class?
With constant modeling, guided and independent practice using the Q-A-R strategy, students, regardless of their learning challenges, will be able to generate critical thinking questions for themselves. As the teacher, you no longer are the only one posing the driving questions.
The Q-A-R strategy equips students with the ability to analyze text, make inferences, and know how to provide textual support. I won't lie, though, some students will grasp Q-A-R immediately, while some students will need lots of practice, but that is what teaching is all about...every student learns at his/her own pace, but no one should be denied the opportunity to learn how to read and ask and answer critical thinking questions.
One way I introduce Q-A-R is through fairy tales, even in high school, the kids love it. Using non-print texts too like popular movies is another way I've introduced the concept, basically finding a common context familiar to all students is key for initially modeling the strategy. After explaining the concept questions and answers come in various shapes and sizes, sort to speak, I share a familiar fairy tale, and then model each "question type" and corresponding "answer type". It's important that students clearly understand the differences between the "In the Book" and "In My Head" categories, and each question and answer type within each category. One of the most difficult aspects of Q-A-R is helping students see the minute differences between each type, "Author and You" and "On My Own", or even "Think and Search" and "Author and You". Students will also struggle with understanding why sometimes some questions may fall into both "In the Book" and "In My Head". But again, as Dr. Raphael says, “Kids may argue about which QAR it is, but in the end, that’s just great as they are arguing about what source provides appropriate or ‘best’ evidence.” When initially modeling, be sure to give examples that fall only in one category and question type. Move on to the fuzzy ones, later. Providing lots of practice and discussing why some questions may belong in more than one category is critical.
Give plenty of question examples for each category, and allow students to generate examples as well as share and discuss why their examples are correctly or incorrectly categorized. When moving on to teach "In My Head", be sure to remind students about the importance of activating their background knowledge, but always providing textual support. For guided practice, I pair up students and have them fold their papers to create four squares, label their papers as such (see image on the right), and choose a favorite book, short story, movie or even a poem to generate questions. For added practice, students "popcorn" or call on each other until everyone has been called at least twice. The student who is called on has to identify what type of question the student who called on him/her generated, and must identify, and justify how/where they can find the answer to the question. The point during the initial guided practice is not necessarily to find and give the answer, but rather to practice recognizing the relationship between the question and type of thinking that will be required to provide an answer. Students have to be able to explain what the relationship is between the question and the answer that makes the question fall under a particular category.
Of course, Q-A-R takes time and I highly recommend teaching this skill from day one so students have all year to practice internalizing it. More advanced practice obviously involves using more sophisticated print and non print texts to offer strategic reading practice by generating critical thinking questions and answers. I also have students practice labeling the questions in their content area textbooks with the various QAR question types to recognize they can apply the QAR strategy all the time. Once students master Q-A-R, they will be well prepared to generate driving questions on their own since for PBL, "In My Head": "On My Own" questions are typically questions asked before reading to activate prior knowledge. Driving questions for PBL will be either "Author and You" or "On My Own" because students won't find all the answers solely in a text; they must complete the answer with a connection to self, the world or other text.
Wikis will also allow students to work collaboratively with local, national or global peers to practice the Q-A-R strategy and/or collaborate for PBL. On a wiki, students can post print and non-print sources along with a variety of the question types for their peers to answer to create a collaborative learning community. Students can take turns at both asking wiki members to label each question type and answer each accordingly, with textual support when required. The exchange created through the collaborative postings on the wiki provides peer modeling and feedback of QAR. The wiki will probably not be flawless at first; however, the teacher can participate in the wiki and engage students in a dialogue about revision and editing, also critical skills for PBL. When students pose and answer questions on a wiki, they will be reflecting on question types and types of thinking needed to answer different question types, which ultimately prepares them to generate deeper, higher order questions, the driving questions needed for PBL.
Participation in a wiki will help students gain the needed practice to become strategic readers, questioners, independent critical thinkers, collaborators and of course successful Problem Based Learners!
Please visit the Buck Institute for Education to learn more about PBL, and create your own Tubric, a tool which reinforces Q-A-R and helps students and teachers generate their original driving questions. Watch the video explanation below!
Problem Based Learning is NOT the teacher assigning students random topics to research independently. Problem Based Learning is NOT assigning students to design a board game summarizing a book's plot events or themes. It is NOT a diorama, book report, or a skit. (The skit may end up being the culminating product of a PBL project, but its purpose must be to address the PBL's driving question.)
It is not a group project where the high achieving students carry all the weight for the low achieving ones, but everyone earns the same grade. Problem Based Learning can NOT flourish in a vacuum. In a PBL, the teacher does NOT run the show, will NOT work if desks are arranged in perfectly straight rows, if talking is forbidden, and if inquisitive students are perceived as annoying smart-alecks. Culminating PBL products are NOT frilly posters with glitter, buzz words, catch phrases to decorate a classroom, or hallway, or a 5 to 10 page essay or research paper. Problem Based Learning is NOT easy. What PBL Is PBL is so much more than "hands on" learning. It's a teaching and learning experience giving students a choice to explore a real world topic of interest, and a voice to express original verbal or written content. PBL begins when students, under the teacher's guidance when necessary, generate "Driving Questions" which will help students focus their investigations. Critics and skeptics may wonder, "How can students who struggle with literacy, and lack motivation, choose what they want to learn, how they want to learn, and how they will share what they learned with others?" A well designed PBL, properly executed, gives all students, regardless of their learning challenges, an opportunity to not only pursue a topic of interest, but also express his/her voice about that issue. No matter what our station in life is, every human being has a natural desire to learn something. PBL can be the catalyst to engage students and bring back that loving feeling toward learning they once felt as kindergartners. PBL with ELLs and struggling readers may require more preparation and accommodations, but learning through inquiry and discovery should not be exclusive to gifted or high achieving students. All students deserve learning experiences where they must investigate, where they are in charge of generating the questions and finding texts or people who will answer their questions. All students need to experience collaboration, communication, especially with people of diverse backgrounds, deep analysis of a text, problem-solving, creating and sharing original work with real people, not just the teacher.
Students need to practice how to think, not what to think. PBL makes this possible. Students need to learn how to respectfully debate their ideas, and logically support their opinions not only to have a competitive edge in the the 21st century work force, but also to sustain our democratic way of life. PBL also makes this happen. A PBL project takes lots of time and energy, requires teachers plan extensively, model questioning effectively and prepare students so they can take the reigns of learning, discover a solution, plan of action or educated hypothesis about a real world problem they identified in the first place. PBL is about student inquiry of our real world issues, whether they be local, national or global, social, environmental, political, or economic. PBL is also about seeking real world high interest print and non print sources that inspire students to generate driving questions that will guide them in their research, leading them to conduct further investigations, draw conclusions, pose more questions, and ultimately present an original solution, product or content to an authentic audience.
Problem Based Learning Projects Require:
TEACHERS:
STUDENTS:
The key to effective Problem Based Learning involves creating the right conditions in the classroom so PBL can occur. Whether a pre-service teacher, beginning teacher, or veteran, the PBL conditions require teachers have strong classroom management skills and rapport with students, an ability to generate driving questions, and an ability, among many others, to model the skill of asking and answering thought-provoking questions.
In the next series of posts, I will:
discuss each of the 4 steps in the PBL process: Searching, Solving, Creating and Sharing, and what each step entails for both student and teacher, including rubric design, embedding CCSS, assessments and more.
explore what PBL projects in various grade levels and subjects look like in more detail.
provide examples of organizations offering opportunities for global PBL.
share lots and lots of PBL resources and web 2.0 tools that facilitate PBL.
Join me on Friday, November 16th, 2012 at 10 AM EST in the Global Education Virtual Conference for a conversation on designing Problem Based Learning Projects using international sources, such as blogs, world newspapers, non-print texts and world literature. I will share lots of ideas, tips and resources for grades K-12 Here's a playlist of worldwide sites which will help students gain global awareness and competence of social, political, economic and environmental issues they may otherwise never know about. These print and non-print sources, initiatives, and PBL guides for teachers will enable students to identify and analyze global issues, motivating them to take action on a local, state, national or global level.
The internet sustains an educator's need to be a life-long learner, to create, share, network and collaborate with others. MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses can provide educators with the means to boldly create and engage with one another for professional and personal development like they've never done before. MOOCs are FREE online courses offered by reputable universities around the world. Anyone can sign up and pay nothing. As a matter of fact, I signed up for a course on E-learning and Digital Cultures taught by the University of Edinburgh that begins January 28th, 2013...paid nothing! (If you want to join me, please sign up. I would love to engage more personally with my followers.)
I can't wait to create my own content, and also interact with my teachers and peers globally to see how they will influence the content and products I will create. MOOCs are different than traditional courses, many following the connectivist learning model, where the learner is in control, and many still being more teacher-centered. In the connectivist MOOCs, or cMOOC, the instructor acts as a facilitator, a coach who models proper online communication, helps learners identify credible content among other roles, but does not "pave the path" for what or how students will learn. Yes, the instructor sets learning goals for students to meet at the end of the course, but it's up to the student to decide if and how those goals are met. For students who enroll in a MOOC for credit, the instructor will be the assessor, as in a traditional class, but for non paying, not for credit participants, the learner both self-assesses and is peer assessed. The instructor provides specific readings and other content, but this teacher selected content is meant to spark conversations among learners, prompting learners to take charge of their own learning. Learners set out to build their own personal learning networks searching for credible content via various credible sources to share with other learners. Learners organize the variety of credible content found and prove they've made sense of it all by creating original digital content in the form of learning spaces, such as a blog, wiki, video, social media, etc. showing what they have learned so everyone can then learn from it.
Although it may sound like learning is haphazard, it's not because the theory behind learning in a connectivist MOOC, or cMOOC, contends there is always chaos in learning, and part of the learning process is for the learner to find effective ways to make sense of that chaos. Learning should be an ongoing process that never ends the way it does now in traditional courses; learning never stops if we continue to have conversations by blogging, tweeting, emailing, videocasting, and creating digital content about the topics and subtopics we set out to learn in the first place (Watch George Siemens, cMOOC pioneer explain.)
It may sound a bit confusing, but just think how learning takes place now. Let's say we're taking a class about incorporating problem based learning in our curriculums. In a traditional course, the teacher selects the content, students read, discuss, and may even create a product, but the learning stops once the course objectives chosen by the school or teacher have been met. The interaction with fellow students is finite, and the teacher and the texts he/she select are the only sources for learners to acquire knowledge.
In a cMOOC, knowledge comes from many credible sources, and learning about the original subject becomes infinite since students create their own original space to learn, whether it be wikis, Twitter hashtags, blogs, videos, FaceBook group pages, Google Hangouts, etc. The interaction about and around the original topics never ends because the students create content in these learning spaces based on the knowledge they gain from the networking experience. Isn't this what life long learning is all about? Passionately pursuing a subject in as much depth as possible and learning not just from one source or from one person, but from a MASSIVE group of people's sources and perspectives? Connectivist MOOCs use aggregation tools to organize participants' individual learning spaces so that students can make sense of it all and then create their own valid digital interpretation.
George Siemens, cMOOCs pioneer explains, "The content isn't what you're supposed to master at the starting point; the content we provide you with at the start should be the catalyst for you to converse to form connections with other learners in the course, with other academics around the world. To essentially use the content as a conduit for connections."
Now, as excited as I am about taking my first Massive Open Online Course, I understand from my research that MOOCs aren't perfect, nothing ever is, and I accept that. From what I've read online, it appears that the Coursera course I'm enrolled in will be more teacher centered, or xMOOC, following a more traditional approach where the learners consume the information from several sources, but don't necessarily get to create an original product. However, whatever my MOOC turns out to be, connectivist or traditional, I think what's perfect about any type of MOOC, for now, is the fact that learning is open and free, monetarily (also, at least for now) and intellectually. I hope I get to choose how I synthesize what I learn, and how I network with participants through a blog, wiki, videocasts, social media or whatever digital format I want. Dave Cormier, another MOOC pioneer who coined the term MOOC, says, "In a MOOC, YOU can choose what you do, how YOU participate, and only YOU can tell, in the end, if you've been successful, just like real life."
What I don't get about MOOCs is why educators haven't leveraged the power of this technology to improve the quality of professional development. I guess the answer to my question is the same as why so many still don't incorporate tech in their classrooms. We really have no excuse now, the power to improve our content knowledge and even our teaching methods is instantly available at no cost.
Whether connectivist or not, I would also love to see MOOCs disrupt the status quo in higher education, so once and for all we realize a test score doesn't determine a student's intellectual worth; there are a gazillion and one ways of learning something, as much as there are a gazillion different sources and presentation formats for the same topic; above all, MOOCs prove every student is worthy of the opportunity for global-networking, problem-solving, and creation to make a valuable contribution in a medium of choice to further his/her learning and the world's.
Check out the video with Dave Cormier explaining how MOOCs work:
Here are some MOOCs you may want to explore for yourself or to recommend to older students:
MOOCs may use both synchronous and asynchronous tools.
cMOOCs encourage students to engage with both teacher and student selected materials throughout the course. The teacher and student select digital content, such videos, guest speakers, blogs, tweets, articles, FB discussions, emails, etc. are meant to spark conversations and interactions so learners can in turn create original content. The content is aggregated so "the massive" group can then "re-mix" the information, creating a solution, product, or outcome.
When participants pay for the MOOC since some students do sign up for college credit, then the learning outcomes are set by the instructor, but when you enroll in a MOOC for no credit, you determine your own learning outcomes. You assess if you met your learning goals, and your peers in the class evaluate you through the level of engagement you receive on your culminating or ongoing digital product.
As a teacher there are learning management systems allowing you to create your own MOOC like courses. Visit Canvas-Instructure. I'm working on creating a course now for sharing my ideas on problem/passion based learning. Look for a future blog post about this.
I recently moved to upstate New York, near Fort Ticonderoga, a historic gem which I am embarrassed to admit neither my children, nor I ever had a chance to learn about in history books or visit in person until a few months ago. Although, my family and I have been lucky enough to do some extensive traveling in and out of the United States, after visiting the Fort, I began to think about so many places, museums, and historic sites, I will never have the opportunity of visiting and learning about in person, whatever the logistical reasons may be.
However, I have realized interactive technology can make travel around the world possible for students of all ages. I started thinking about how web 2.0 encourages virtual travel when I learned about Thinglink.com, a tool that lets you upload images and make them interactive by adding links to any site be it music, video, text, or another image to enhance the original uploaded image. For example, view a picture of the Eiffel Tower on Thinglink with links to its sights, sounds and history. Thinglink.com got me thinking how traveling to exotic places, meeting new people and learning a new language or culture need no longer be hampered by logistics. Thinglink.com and other web 2.0 lets students become armchair travelers, well traveled curators of information from around the world.
Exploring the features and possibilities for learning with Thinglink.com, I also got to thinking:
How are museums and historic sites around the world using web 2.0 and social media to make their sites more accessible for a virtual experience?
How are museums and historic sites distributing their exhibits, history and instruction to reach visitors far beyond their physical walls?
How are educational programs in these organizations leveraging the power of free web 2.0 tools, social media and MOOCS to expand learning on a global scale for students of all ages and means?
How globally participatory and networked are the current program in museums and famous sites around the world?
Seeking answers for my questions, what I discovered available in terms of virtual tours of natural landmarks, historic sites and museums left me as amazed as if I were visiting the places themselves. First, let me tell you about the Google Art project and Google World Wonders Project. With Google Art, I didn't have to drive four hours to visit The Museum of Modern Art in New York city. I took an up, close and personal tour, observing every brushstroke of Van Gogh's Starry Nightwithout ever leaving my home thanks to the same technology Google uses when we zoom in and out of Google Maps.
The Google Art Project works in conjunction with 17 museums worldwide which integrate web 2.0 tools and social media to increase virtual and physical visitor accessibility, engagement, connection and learning to create a global community. Virtual visitors can sign into their Google accounts to curate their favorite pieces from different galleries, post comments and then share via social media. How cool is that!
Second, Google World Wonders took my breath away! Using the Street View technology of Google Earth and Google Maps, aptly named Google World Wonders gives virtual visitors a 360 degree view of 132 historic natural and man made sites in 18 countries, including Stonehenge, Yosemite and Yellowstone! And, just when I thought it couldn't get better than this, the site also provides educators with free primary and secondary sources, presentations and lesson plans! Teaching history, geography or any subject really takes on a novel approach because students can now virtually visit world sites and not just imagine what they look like from looking at a 2-D picture in a book. With MentorMob another free web 2.0 that lets you curate what you want to learn about, making virtual travel possible as well by creating or visiting playlists of favorite audio, video, text, or image links, I have created a playlist of Virtual Field Trips available for students. Free web tools like Thinglink.com and MentorMob allow students to travel around the country, let's say from Crater Lake, Oregon to Mount Rushmore, or basically anywhere you can think of, seeing, hearing and experiencing the sites through audio, and video links that take people there virtually. Now, for the purposes of this post, I explored MentorMob and Thinglink, but imagine the myriad of free web 2.0 tools historic sites and museums can use to make learning accessible not just for K-12 schools in a particular region, but for K-12 schools around the world. Imagine the partnerships schools can form with these organizations to hold virtual field trips and chats using social media engaging in a learning experience that may not otherwise happen in the physical world due to costs. Through an endless array of interactive tech including, blogs, wikis, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, ScoopIt, etc., museums and historic sites can extend their experience well before and after a physical or virtual visit through forums, message boards,image, video and audio sharing. The possibilities for engagement are never ending! Here is a playlist of museums that are already taking advantage of offering a virtual experience, and sites which offer videoconferencing for virtual field trips to other places of interest. Also be sure to visit NoodleTrip.com, an online directory of virtual field trips and distance learning opportunities. From an interactive tour of the White House, to the inside of the Sistine Chapel, the opportunities for virtual learning through virtual tours are limitless!
I also want to include information about an interesting article I read on MOOCS. Again, I think about the power of open source education, and its future use by historical sites like Fort Ticonderoga near my home, and thousands of other museums and historical sites around the world where the possibilities for teaching and learning for students of all ages are endless. What if museums and historic sites began offering their workshops via MOOCS?
How are historic places and museums beginning to use web 2.0 tools so that students don't have to just dream of ever visiting these notable sites?
Will there ever be a time when anyone can visit a noteworthy site and learn virtually regardless of logistical issues?
In an ideal world, no one should ever be denied the opportunity travel the world to learn because they don't have the means to do it; interactive technology opens up opportunities for virtual travel because we all deserve the experience to discover our shared human history. If museums, and historic sites exist to remind us of our past, present and future and inspire wonder about our existence...if we want to learn, evolve so we are more globally connected and tolerant, then we should all have access to experience these sites, whether physically or virtually. Interactive technology invites us to explore the world together!
Assign a random or irrelevant writing prompt with teacher as sole audience or an unknown audience.
Expect impeccable writing skills from every student.
Skip any type of modeling of the type of writing to be done. Students should all know how to write by now.
Provide no rubric, or checklist or give rubrics and checklists students don't understand.
Complain when students don't live up to high expectations; blame the previous year's teacher(s) for students' inability to write.
Accumulate piles of student writing assignments on or underneath desk, on empty book shelves, all over other classroom spaces, or scatter them on floor of the backseat of a car.
Tell students and parents you have a tendency to lose writing assignments so they need to keep extra copies.
Procrastinate grading student writing for months. Spend weekend before grades are due grading students' writing, including lengthy comments on every student's paper about skills students are clueless about.
Mark up almost every grammar mistake in red, purple, pink or green.
Return writing assignment a month later with a letter grade; let students trash it, or file writing away in student folders never to be seen again.
Repeat every few weeks, and complain all year students can't write to save their lives!
How do students learn writing is a process without ever speaking to their teachers at different stages of writing?
How do students learn how to interpret and apply feedback to correct mistakes and grow as writers if writing is returned to them without any chance of conversation to understand and correct errors?
So many students develop a negative attitude about the writing process and their own ability to express themselves in writing because there is no modeling or discussion at different stages of the writing process. Prompts are assigned; students write in isolation; teachers grade and return writing without discussion; writing piece is never seen again. Then, we wonder why so many colleges now require freshmen writing courses to ensure students have basic writing skills to survive.
SOLUTIONS: One of the most important activities when teaching writing is the act of conferencing with students. In so many classrooms, overcrowding, time constraints, and lack of teacher training in teaching writing, among other factors, prevent students from experiencing what it means to talk about writing so they can grow as writers. There's nothing more damaging to student writers, especially a struggling reader/writer, than a writing assignment without any teacher modeling of the type of writing to be done, and no opportunity to talk with the teacher throughout the writing process.
Individual writing conferences with students serve many purposes, save time in the long run, and improve students' writing ability, and confidence in the power of editing and revising. In the beginning stages, conferencing with students involves concerted time and effort for the teacher to establish routines and structures for students to internalize. Conferencing is not easy and can be exhausting at first; however, the time and energy teachers dedicate to teaching the act of conferencing are well worth it because ultimately, student teacher conferences reduce the amount of time teachers spend identifying fault in student writing so they can focus instead on what's right.
There are many tech tools with specific features which facilitate and complement writing conferences. For example, on Word or Google Docs, teachers can use the "Insert Comment" feature to add feedback prior to a face to face writing conference. Adding these written comments and following-up with a conference to discuss the comments are always the most effective way for students to benefit from the feedback; otherwise, written feedback, without a one-on-one discussion, will often fall on deaf ears...or should I say eyes. Struggling writers will rarely read teacher comments or understand how to apply the feedback to improve their writing because they simply haven't been taught how. There has to be an opportunity to talk with the teacher about the feedback for growth to occur. We want students to internalize basic writing traits but circling them in red ink accomplishes nothing; we have to talk about the mistakes with students individually or in small groups. We must ask students questions as they write so they learn how to ask themselves questions.
Unfortunately, so many classrooms are often overcrowded with 40 plus students making conferencing difficult, but teachers must find creative ways to overcome this problem. Here are some tips for formal and informal writing conferences:
If class time is not long enough, use tech tools likeVyew.com,Skype, Collaborizeclassroom, orGoogle Hangoutsto hold individual writing conferences after school while students are at home. You can even involve parents if you like to participate during the writing conference.
Pair up students according to their writing strengths and challenges so they can mentor each other prior to their individual conference. Be sure not to pair an extremely low student with an extremely high achieving student. The point is not for one student to do all the work for another, but rather for both to be able to help each other identify areas for improvement. Model what effective peer editing looks and sounds like. Provide students with a list of questions they need to ask themselves and their partner about each others' writing. Have students read their writing aloud.
Plan ahead and prepare. What will students do while you are busy conferencing with individual students? Prior to holding conferences, provide specific instruction of writing tasks students should perform independently, in pairs or small groups. Discuss norms beforehand and let students know exactly what you expect them to do. Be sure to discuss what you expect in terms of noise level, interruptions, mobility and work completion while you are conferencing.
Structure informal and formal conference sessions so students receive the time and attention they need. Walk around the classroom, stopping by to "chat" with students as they write to monitor student progress, answer questions and provide encouragement. Determine at what stages in the writing process you want to formally confer with students or set up a sign-up sheet so students choose when they are ready to confer. Also, determine how you will follow-up when necessary. Spend between 5 to 15 minutes per student in class, but obviously, if students need more time, schedule a time before, after school, in person or online using one of the tech tools mentioned. If students are working on a longer piece, prior to conferencing, reading through a writing piece to pinpoint skills or traits you want to address saves time as well as having students generate questions they want answered about their writing. Having a checklist of traits and questions to address during the conference can also help move the conference along smoothly.
Monitoring and assessing mastery of skills can also be done through conferencing. Keep notes on each student about the skills or traits discussed at each conference. If you identify a particular skill a student needs to master, make note of it and follow up with that student to assess student mastery. During the editing and revising process, allow students plenty of opportunities to write drafts until they are able to show mastery of the skill or trait discussed.
Focus on a few traits or skills at a time so that the entire writing workshop process is not overwhelming for both teacher and student. The goal is for students to show growth even if it's just one minor aspect of their writing. Significant growth will happen over time after extensive writing practice and opportunities to conference.
ask and answer questions about the writing craft they may hesitate to ask in a large group.
discuss specific aspects about a writing piece at various stages of the writing process.
brainstorm ideas with the teacher's guidance.
read writing aloud to the teacher to learn how to edit and revise.
learn why we write and how to improve their own writing.
learn how to interpret teacher feedback and generate feedback for a peer.
learn how to carry out the role of peer editor through the experience of the teacher-student conference.
internalize specific writing skills because of the opportunity to talk about, practice and apply the specific skill.
If we want our students to be effective writers, then we must talk with them about their writing. We must be introspective about how we teach writing, so we can teach students to become introspective about their own writing. Writing cannot be a silent or solitary activity. Regardless of age or ability level, all students have a voice worthy of expression in writing. Tech tools today complement writing conferences and help teachers overcome whatever issues may have prevented writing workshop success in the past. Writing conferences build a community of writers and thinkers. When we empower students to talk about writing, students' natural desire for self-expression will always prevail over choosing to be off-task.
Lectures areboring and should not be the sole means of imparting knowledge.
Regardless of grade or ability level, all students can learn, and learn best when given the opportunity to express themselves, reflecting on what they already know, connecting what they know with what they are learning, and analyzing why they think the way they do.
Students learn best when they have opportunities to be social, engaging in lively discussions not necessarily debates, but through dialogues with peers and teachers.
When students are taught how to analyze text by asking and answering questions thoughtfully and thoroughly as they read, they learn how to think for themselves and internalize the skill of finding evidence to support responses.
When students are exposed to a variety of meaningful, relevant written and non written texts, they learn there are multiple perspectives for every topic.
When students learn how to think, not what to think, they can express and support their values and beliefs with evidence, and learn to listen and respect others' beliefs, values, knowledge and logic as well.
For some reason, these beliefs didn't quite stick in American education for awhile, and it wasn't until the 1980s, when philosopher and educator Mortimer Adler wrote The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifestothat more educators began to learn more about the Socratic or Paideia Seminar as the strategy is also called, from the Greek Paideia, meaning education or upbringing of a child. If this philosophy enabled students to not only practice reading, writing, speaking, listening, but also provided an opportunity for social participation in dialogues with peers and the teacher as coach, why did more teachers not implement this pedagogically sound strategy in the past? If it worked for Socrates, how could it fail? The answers are varied and complicated, but here's mainly why:
Some teachers are often scared to turn control of the classroom over to students, which is one of the Paideia principles.
Some teachers often think low achieving students can't possibly have anything thought-provoking to say.
Some teachers often think discussing the answers takes precedence over pondering how questions presuppose other questions.
Some teachers often don't respond to student questions with further questions. They may think the teacher must simply give the answer.
Some teachers don't know how to stimulate thinking by teaching students to generate original questions.
However, all of these fears can be put to rest when teachers begin to trust how the Paideia principles are rooted in the fact that all human beings have a natural desire to learn, and we all seek knowledge under the right conditions. The most difficult task falls in the teacher's hands to create inspirational conditions motivating students to want to learn. Teachers who take the time to find meaningful and relevant text can succeed in reaching even the most difficult student because the innate thirst for knowledge and expression will always prevail over apathy. Fortunately, more and more educators have recognized the error of their ways in ignoring the potential of Socratic discussions, and are successfully leading intelligent conversations supported by various technologies.
Socrates would
definitely smile if he saw how our technology enhances the Socratic Seminar to the Nth degree. Discussions are no longer confined to the four walls of a classroom. With synchronous and asynchronous web tools, Socratic Seminars become ongoing global conversations extending well beyond the school day. Technology has also made it easy for our shy students, our ELLs, and any student facing academic challenges to participate as actively as the most advanced.
Socratic seminars encourage students to internalize the art of divergent thinking as they analyze print or non print text. The technique motivates students to engage in discussions, not debates, through open-ended questions that have no "right answers" but can be answered effectively if the student proves his/her point with textual evidence.
Please visit this Livebinder filled with resources for carrying out Socratic Seminars in your class.
Before students engage in a Socratic discussion, they must closely read or watch a text, annotate, take notes about the text, generate original questions, or answer the teacher's questions, recording these task on paper, sticky notes or index cards. In the 21st century class, the following bookmarking tools make it easy for students to read, take notes, annotate, record and share their textual evidence to support their responses.
1.) Diigo.comhelps students understand how to properly find relevant content, underline/highlight that content, and then remember it. Diigo.com has add-on tools for a variety of browsers, so students can collect specific content while browsing the web and then add it to the My Library Cloud in the Diigo.com server to be accessed again and again. When students find information they need, they can digitally highlight the text, add an interactive sticky note with their comments, or questions, and save it to My Library Cloud for future use. Students can also bookmark a page and organize pages by tags. They can label a page mark to read later if they want the teacher to approve the relevancy of the text first, and even archive a page so it's there forever. Diigo.com's facilitates active e-reading because of the annotation feature using e-sticky notes as well as the capture feature which lets students capture an image of a particular section of text, then use shapes, arrows or text for students to annotate. Diigo.com lets students revisit their highlighted content using their computer, I-Pad or smart phone, and share their selected content with others for collaborative projects.
2.)Marker.to-helps students to highlight and share evidence for their arguments via Twitter and Facebook. A class can have a Socratic discussion enhanced by Twitter. For example, the teacher opens the class Twitter page on the smartboard to see the class Twitter stream. Marker.to makes it easy for students to revisit corroborative content they highlighted, click share via Twitter, and voila the entire class now has full view of the highlighted content. Marker.to also gives you the option to organize content through tagging, so students can easily find, highlight and tag their textual evidence prior to a discussion and easily access it when needed by searching the tags.
3.)Webklipper.com also helps students to highlight, annotate on virtual sticky notes, and share evidence to support their responses in a Socratic discussion. The site needs no registration, but like Diigo.com, if students do register, they can save their content on the site to access later. Webklipper.com also allows sharing via Twitter or Facebook. Again, teachers can show the real time streaming of comments and content highlighted by students to enhance the seminar experience.
Back channeling in a Socratic Seminar- During a Socratic Seminar, only one student should speak at a time. While students listen to each speaker, anyone of these tech tools allows students to write their comments and response for the questions posed by the seminar's facilitator, and respond to whatever each speaker says. Students can add their notes, links for textual evidence, and general thoughts about the discussion as they listen to each speaker. The teacher will also have a record of every student's thoughts as they listen to the discussion.
Enhance your Socratic Seminar with a Guest. Invite parents, authors, administrators, another class in another state, or country, community partners and experts in the field to join a Socratic Seminar.
Asynchronous tools to extend discussions beyond the school day. On some occasions one class period may not be enough to have a thorough discussion of a topic. The best Socratic Seminars are the ones where students raise more and more relevant questions exploring a topic thoroughly. Why not use one of these asynchronous tools to continue the conversation at home or to invite a guest to add his/her thoughts. Capitalize on students' excitement to discuss a topic by posing all of the questions which may have gone unanswered due to time constraints.
Please share how you have used synchronous or asynchronous tech tools to support Socratic Seminars in your class.When our students have opportunities to engage in intelligent dialogue with their peers and teachers on a variety of subjects, they acquire the lifelong skill of divergent thinking which is at the core of our democracy.
I have been at a loss for words because as a mom, a teacher, a wife, I cannot even imagine what these families must be feeling. How can these families ever recover? How can that school ever return to normalcy? Will it ever? Probably not. I keep thinking what if it had been my daughters, or my husband, my own mother who was a teacher. I keep thinking about the recent shootings at the mall in Oregon, and at the movie theater, and I think what kind of life are we living, where we are afraid to go to the mall, the movies or even send our children to school for fear that some psychopath will open fire and kill us or destroy our joy for life. I do not even know what to say to help these families deal with their pain. It is that feeling of helplessness that we cannot allow to set in...that feeling that it's just part of what life is like nowadays...you just never know when you're at wrong place at the wrong time. We cannot live with this type of fear. We must do something about mental health; we must do something about gun control; we must do something about our fascination with violence; we must do something so that not only the lives of these children and adults are forever remembered, but all those who have died these senseless deaths. I am positive that the shooter had to have had a history of violence and mental illness. No sane person goes on a shooting rampage. How was he able to buy guns? What laws made it easy for him, and make it easy for others like him to go out and buy whatever weapons they want so they can kill and terrorize us? Who is in control here? Where are the laws to protect our right to live without fear? I believe in the protection of our right to bear arms, but in our current society, I prefer the protection of my right, my family's right, and my neighbors' right to go out into the world and feel safe to study,work, play and just live without the fear of getting shot in the head. What solace can we give these families? The only thing we can do is write to our government, make phone calls, ask questions and demand answers and actions from our leaders requiring help for the mentally ill, and gun control laws so that this never ever happens again. We cannot become complacent and forget about this a month from now and just move on. We are getting too used to hearing about these massacres, and if we don't take action, what if these massacres become so commonplace that we begin to turn to the internet for our sole means of our education, our shopping, our interactions, afraid of leaving our homes for fear of being shot. What kind of society will we become if we allow this to continue happening? Regular people can't hire body guards. Where is it safe to go these days if we can't even send our children to school, or enjoy shopping and a movie? 
