In our class last night (HTH 216 - Advanced Project Based Learning), someone made an off-handed comment about the state standards and how they play in to project planning. The two Explorer Elementary teachers shared a look of confusion as the rest of us sort of brushed it off (see Carlisa Endoso's comments on my post "Talking with a colleague about PBL" - I started to respond to Carlisa by adding another comment to that post, but it seemed like a conversation worthy of more than a footnote.)
Carlisa mentions that at Explorer Elementary, she feels incredibly supported in her efforts to be creative and have curricular freedom, but that ultimately it's the state standards that drive the teachers' thinking about project ideas. The ideological perspective that supports teacher autonomy, freedom and creativity is definitely something Explorer shares with the other schools in the High Tech family; however, it seems like the starting points are different.
I think the reason why the High Tech teachers glazed over the discussion of standards in our class last night is because standards almost never come up in conversation in the HT schools. We are encouraged to worry more about doing exciting, rigorous curriculum that we think is meaningful and worth doing - and to worry less about coverage of standards. Most of us find that, when we do this, we hit a good number of the standards anyway. (In language arts, for example, a great number of the standards refer to skills, not information, so our humanities teachers' typically skill-oriented approach jives pretty well with that.) The reason why they still come up in articles and other materials that are distributed outside the HT community, as Carlisa noted, is that we understand standards to be a reality all teachers have to accept; if what we do is going to be of value to teachers who feel pressured by standards coverage, they need to know that our methods can be applicable to their situation.
That being said, it seems to me that most teachers who are told to teach "to" the standards find this task stifling and overwhelming, which puts them in a frame of mind totally contrary to being creative with their practice. Rather than a system of accountability, then, it creates a climate of mediocrity. I'm excited to hear that Explorer has found a way to use the standards as a jumping off point for truly engaging teaching practice, and I'd love to hear more about how they manage to do that.
My favorite HTH example of "coverage" of the standards was when Jeff Robin did an art project with his class that covered all the standards for visual art in only one week. His conclusion: "If you make anything it is still better than studying standards."
To visit Explorer Elementary's website: http://www.explorerelementary.org
To visit Jeff's Digital Portfolio: http://jeffrobin.hightechhigh.org
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Talking with a colleague about PBL
Today I spoke with fellow HTH teacher Tricia Ornelas about her experience with project-based learning. Although I've worked at HTH for two years in a room practically nextdoor to hers, I have never really taken the opportunity to ask her about her teaching practice.
Tricia teaches English/Creative Writing to seniors. During her six years at HTH, she has team-taught, she has worked in a partnership, and she has worked alone; she has taught juniors and she has taught seniors. Throughout those varying situations, she has had to adopt a range of approaches to our project-based environment - some of which, she acknowledges, work better for her than others.
One thing that struck me about her perspective on PBL is that she (unlike most of our coworkers) is quite critical of its effectiveness as an approach to teaching and learning. She employs projects in what she does, but considers it to be just one strategy amongst a range that work for her. Although probably many of us at HTH do this as well, she is more explicit than most that doing projects has its drawbacks. She prefers to structure her curriculum in terms of skills/knowledge she'd like them to acquire, as opposed to deliverables she'd like them to produce.
I think a lot of what she told me resonates with what I do already, but perhaps it's a matter of semantics. She says the project is just one strategy amongst a range of strategies she employs; I say that the project steers the curriculum toward relevant content knowledge and skills. Probably we're doing the same thing and just articulating it differently.
An example: after about 45 minutes of discussion around her critique of PBL, I mentioned that Anne and I had been struggling with how to make our art project "authentic" (see the six A's from last week's post). She made an offhanded suggestion to me that we find a gallery to show our students' paintings for the next project. She said it would help give the project "teeth" and, therefore, raise the stakes for the kids. Although it felt like an afterthought to her, this small moment indicated that, in fact, Tricia's approach to teaching demonstrates the same principles that are the very foundation of PBL (in this example: connecting learning to the adult world, widening the audience beyond the classroom, etc.). She just seems to focus less attention on the big, exciting end product and more on the process of learning that goes into creating it. I think that's a pretty sound approach.
To view Tricia's Digital Portfolio, visit http://staff.hightechhigh.org/~tornelas
Tricia teaches English/Creative Writing to seniors. During her six years at HTH, she has team-taught, she has worked in a partnership, and she has worked alone; she has taught juniors and she has taught seniors. Throughout those varying situations, she has had to adopt a range of approaches to our project-based environment - some of which, she acknowledges, work better for her than others.
One thing that struck me about her perspective on PBL is that she (unlike most of our coworkers) is quite critical of its effectiveness as an approach to teaching and learning. She employs projects in what she does, but considers it to be just one strategy amongst a range that work for her. Although probably many of us at HTH do this as well, she is more explicit than most that doing projects has its drawbacks. She prefers to structure her curriculum in terms of skills/knowledge she'd like them to acquire, as opposed to deliverables she'd like them to produce.
I think a lot of what she told me resonates with what I do already, but perhaps it's a matter of semantics. She says the project is just one strategy amongst a range of strategies she employs; I say that the project steers the curriculum toward relevant content knowledge and skills. Probably we're doing the same thing and just articulating it differently.
An example: after about 45 minutes of discussion around her critique of PBL, I mentioned that Anne and I had been struggling with how to make our art project "authentic" (see the six A's from last week's post). She made an offhanded suggestion to me that we find a gallery to show our students' paintings for the next project. She said it would help give the project "teeth" and, therefore, raise the stakes for the kids. Although it felt like an afterthought to her, this small moment indicated that, in fact, Tricia's approach to teaching demonstrates the same principles that are the very foundation of PBL (in this example: connecting learning to the adult world, widening the audience beyond the classroom, etc.). She just seems to focus less attention on the big, exciting end product and more on the process of learning that goes into creating it. I think that's a pretty sound approach.
To view Tricia's Digital Portfolio, visit http://staff.hightechhigh.org/~tornelas
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Blogging to Learn
[Note: This article was published in the first issue of the HTH Graduate School of Education Journal, Fall 2008.]
In spring 2007, when I first used blogs with my students, it felt practically like an accident. Before that semester, a blog in my mind was either a venue for self-absorbed cyber addicts needing to vent or a highly elite emerging news media form best suited for cultural editorializing. It had never occurred to me that it could be used as a tool for reflecting on academic research or a medium for peer critique.
As I said, I first implemented the use of blogs in spring 2007, as a way for students to document their progress through a highly student-directed project called "The Plague of Circumstance" - an investigation of how some countries and cultures are more susceptible to disease exposure than others as a result of historical, political or economic factors. Because this project was so individualized in its execution, my previous partner Janel Holcomb and I decided that the blogs would be a good way for us to accomplish two things: first, to allow students to become assets for each other's research by requiring them to list and annotate all their sources; and second, to allow us as teachers to observe the direction and progress of each student's studies. One student put it this way in her post "The Truths That All Teachers Know" (http://diseaseproject.blogspot.com/):
Another element we observed is the increased confidence in the work produced by our shy students. In our rapidly evolving integration of technology into practically every aspect of our lives, it's clear that there are some students who are quite a bit more comfortable interacting with one another online than they are doing so in person - an observation that is both useful and terrifying (the implications for the future of society are staggering, but far beyond the scope of this post). For those students, a blog is liberating for its publicity yet privacy, extroversion yet anonymity. They can have the confidence they are afraid to exhibit in person, and they can say what they think with the safety of knowing that if it comes out wrong there's always an "undo." In other words, the affective filter is very low in a blog.
Because the blogs were essentially an experiment for me, the students and I had begun posting blindly, with only the idea that research sources should be cited and annotated, as one might do while amassing a traditional bibliography. There had been no formal rubric and very few explicit guidelines. At first, of course, that meant that the students' posts were hit-or-miss. One way that I further developed the effectiveness of the blogs was to pick out exemplary posts to share with the class. We would read the posts together and tease out what elements made them successful, keeping a list as we went of all the things they could replicate later. A really exciting part of this process was that we were able to look at the work of students who typically might have struggled in more traditional research and writing tasks, because the unfamiliarity of the territory gave them an equal footing and an equal opportunity for success. Using their work as a model for their peers helped them to feel valued in our community.
Since that project, I have continued to use blogs in a variety of ways - as project logs, as reflective journals, and as news reporting, to name a few. However, the greatest benefit of blogs has so far eluded my students and me: their ability to attract a potentially unlimited, global audience. The kinds of tasks for which my students have used them are not of the type that would interest someone outside of the context of our class, so in order to unlock their wider appeal I will need to revise my thinking about the kind of writing students might include.
One way I've already begun thinking about doing this is to use examples of professional blogs with large readerships - of the kind that, these days, has the power to make or break box office sales, celebrity charity causes, or even political campaigns. For students to see that a blog can be more than a journal or more than a homework assignment will help them to find value in the effort required to do it well.
Another, more humble way in which I'm trying to revise my thinking about blogs is to use my own blogging as a model for my students. Up until now, I have had a blog that I used purely for posting homework assignments or writing guidelines (see http://spencerpforsich.blogspot.com), but this one is a new endeavor with new objectives. It would be useful for my students to see that I am also using this medium for honest, reflective thinking. In my case, that thinking is about the issues that relate to my work as a teacher, which is a good corollary to the thinking students document in their blogs about the issues that relate to their work. Maybe if they see that even professionals struggle and stumble through ideas in writing then their own struggles and stumbles will feel more justified. Or at the very least, less artificial.
In spring 2007, when I first used blogs with my students, it felt practically like an accident. Before that semester, a blog in my mind was either a venue for self-absorbed cyber addicts needing to vent or a highly elite emerging news media form best suited for cultural editorializing. It had never occurred to me that it could be used as a tool for reflecting on academic research or a medium for peer critique.
As I said, I first implemented the use of blogs in spring 2007, as a way for students to document their progress through a highly student-directed project called "The Plague of Circumstance" - an investigation of how some countries and cultures are more susceptible to disease exposure than others as a result of historical, political or economic factors. Because this project was so individualized in its execution, my previous partner Janel Holcomb and I decided that the blogs would be a good way for us to accomplish two things: first, to allow students to become assets for each other's research by requiring them to list and annotate all their sources; and second, to allow us as teachers to observe the direction and progress of each student's studies. One student put it this way in her post "The Truths That All Teachers Know" (http://diseaseproject.blogspot.com/):
"So, this blog idea is both ingenious and evil. As I understand it, the idea is to make sure that students are actually, you know, doing their research. Generally the idea is that the teacher pretends that the students are taking the entire time given to complete the assignment, even though everyone knows that the assignment will get started maybe around 10:00 the night before it's due.After reading this and other similar sentiments expressed on students' blogs, Janel and I knew that we had hit on something. Not only was their writing pleasantly candid, it was hinting at the potential for a sort of online community to form amongst our students. As this student mentions, she had already read others' blogs and been motivated by their work. And while the explicit audience was still only the two of us teachers, there was a greater audience being implied under the surface. We picked up on these elements and were quick to tap into them with our students later on.
Of course, I myself am not guilty of this...In fact, I am so responsible, that I'm posting on the weekend after the blog was assigned (This is only because I saw that other 'responsible' students like Joe and Gabby had posted on their blogs and I wanted to seem as awesome as them).
So Truth #1 is that students procrastinate. Truth #2 is that most students use Wikipedia, despite it's bad rep for unreliable information. So I've decided that in the spirit of honesty I will first post the information that is found on Wikipedia. Now, have no fear teachers, I will not rely on this information. I will merely use it as a starting point..."
Another element we observed is the increased confidence in the work produced by our shy students. In our rapidly evolving integration of technology into practically every aspect of our lives, it's clear that there are some students who are quite a bit more comfortable interacting with one another online than they are doing so in person - an observation that is both useful and terrifying (the implications for the future of society are staggering, but far beyond the scope of this post). For those students, a blog is liberating for its publicity yet privacy, extroversion yet anonymity. They can have the confidence they are afraid to exhibit in person, and they can say what they think with the safety of knowing that if it comes out wrong there's always an "undo." In other words, the affective filter is very low in a blog.
Because the blogs were essentially an experiment for me, the students and I had begun posting blindly, with only the idea that research sources should be cited and annotated, as one might do while amassing a traditional bibliography. There had been no formal rubric and very few explicit guidelines. At first, of course, that meant that the students' posts were hit-or-miss. One way that I further developed the effectiveness of the blogs was to pick out exemplary posts to share with the class. We would read the posts together and tease out what elements made them successful, keeping a list as we went of all the things they could replicate later. A really exciting part of this process was that we were able to look at the work of students who typically might have struggled in more traditional research and writing tasks, because the unfamiliarity of the territory gave them an equal footing and an equal opportunity for success. Using their work as a model for their peers helped them to feel valued in our community.
Since that project, I have continued to use blogs in a variety of ways - as project logs, as reflective journals, and as news reporting, to name a few. However, the greatest benefit of blogs has so far eluded my students and me: their ability to attract a potentially unlimited, global audience. The kinds of tasks for which my students have used them are not of the type that would interest someone outside of the context of our class, so in order to unlock their wider appeal I will need to revise my thinking about the kind of writing students might include.
One way I've already begun thinking about doing this is to use examples of professional blogs with large readerships - of the kind that, these days, has the power to make or break box office sales, celebrity charity causes, or even political campaigns. For students to see that a blog can be more than a journal or more than a homework assignment will help them to find value in the effort required to do it well.
Another, more humble way in which I'm trying to revise my thinking about blogs is to use my own blogging as a model for my students. Up until now, I have had a blog that I used purely for posting homework assignments or writing guidelines (see http://spencerpforsich.blogspot.com), but this one is a new endeavor with new objectives. It would be useful for my students to see that I am also using this medium for honest, reflective thinking. In my case, that thinking is about the issues that relate to my work as a teacher, which is a good corollary to the thinking students document in their blogs about the issues that relate to their work. Maybe if they see that even professionals struggle and stumble through ideas in writing then their own struggles and stumbles will feel more justified. Or at the very least, less artificial.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Intersession 2008
For the past few years, High Tech High has done something called Intersession -- a two-week session between semesters in which students choose an elective course of interest. Students take only that course all day (8:40-3:40) for two weeks, at the end of which they receive a pass/fail designation on their transcripts. The course I taught for intersession last year was called "(ism)x(ism)," and was a painting class focused on how social issues (human-isms) intersect with art movements (art-isms) throughout history. This year I've taken a similar idea and expanded it out to include more than just painting. The course is called the Art of Social Protest, and its course description is as follows:
"Throughout history, the arts have been a place for expressing social discontent, protest and revolt. In this course we will work in various media (writing, painting, graphic design and music) to create our own expressions of social protest. We will also investigate other examples of protest art and report on their contributions to the course of history. Our studio and academic pursuits will be augmented by a museum visit and possible excursions into public art making."
The class started just yesterday (1/22) and will go until next Friday (2/1). So far, there are a few things of interest which have carried over in my mind since last year's intersession. They are:
Motivation & student choice: One of the components of High Tech High's design that I struggle with is the lack of student choice in the course schedule. Each course in the students' four years at HTH is already mapped out for them, making the term "electives" a bit of a misnomer for our non-core classes. Intersession is the only time in students' time at HTH that they really get to choose a course solely based on interest. As a result, we get students who really want to be in class - making it easier to convince them that hard work and rigorous academic inquiry are worth doing. And if kids realize in the first couple days that a class is not what they expected, it's easy for us to find a new one for them.
Time frame: Doing anything for seven hours a day is exhausting. Having the same class, with the same teacher, in the same room all day for two weeks is enough to drive teachers AND students crazy. However, it also gives teachers the potential to think very differently about what's possible with kids. For me to teach a painting class in 50 minutes a day would be frustrating, because if I subtracted time for set up and clean up, students would get maybe 25-30 minutes a day of painting. But if a student has a block of 3 1/2 hours to paint, then the set up and clean up time is negligable compared to the vast expanse of time available to really get into a piece. Another example would be a critical film study course, which of course works best if one has time to watch a film in one sitting and talk about it immediately after. Or a course that relies mostly on field work, such as community service that involves travel to and from a site plus several hours of work on-location. These differences in the way I perceive my day during intersession are really refreshing, and they help me break out of the box in terms of how to envision the possibilities for the rest of the year.
"Rigor" & creativity: Possibly the most exciting aspect of intersession for me is the sense of freedom I get from designing and executing a course entirely from scratch that may or may not be in my certified subject area. The kinds of courses that teachers choose to do during intersession are often surprisingly different from their "day job" subject areas: a math/chemistry teacher conducting a course on modern folk lore; an engineering teacher doing community service; a multimedia teacher doing a health and fitness class; a humanities teacher conducting a course on fishing. Yet all of these classes are rich with real learning and a kind of "rigor" that the traditional curriculum doesn't leave room for. For myself, the opportunity to teach art for two weeks is a great way to recharge my enthusiasm about the possibilities for exploring serious academic content through creative media, and a lot of the energy I'm feeling in intersession is going to spill right over into our second semester.
"Throughout history, the arts have been a place for expressing social discontent, protest and revolt. In this course we will work in various media (writing, painting, graphic design and music) to create our own expressions of social protest. We will also investigate other examples of protest art and report on their contributions to the course of history. Our studio and academic pursuits will be augmented by a museum visit and possible excursions into public art making."
The class started just yesterday (1/22) and will go until next Friday (2/1). So far, there are a few things of interest which have carried over in my mind since last year's intersession. They are:
Motivation & student choice: One of the components of High Tech High's design that I struggle with is the lack of student choice in the course schedule. Each course in the students' four years at HTH is already mapped out for them, making the term "electives" a bit of a misnomer for our non-core classes. Intersession is the only time in students' time at HTH that they really get to choose a course solely based on interest. As a result, we get students who really want to be in class - making it easier to convince them that hard work and rigorous academic inquiry are worth doing. And if kids realize in the first couple days that a class is not what they expected, it's easy for us to find a new one for them.
Time frame: Doing anything for seven hours a day is exhausting. Having the same class, with the same teacher, in the same room all day for two weeks is enough to drive teachers AND students crazy. However, it also gives teachers the potential to think very differently about what's possible with kids. For me to teach a painting class in 50 minutes a day would be frustrating, because if I subtracted time for set up and clean up, students would get maybe 25-30 minutes a day of painting. But if a student has a block of 3 1/2 hours to paint, then the set up and clean up time is negligable compared to the vast expanse of time available to really get into a piece. Another example would be a critical film study course, which of course works best if one has time to watch a film in one sitting and talk about it immediately after. Or a course that relies mostly on field work, such as community service that involves travel to and from a site plus several hours of work on-location. These differences in the way I perceive my day during intersession are really refreshing, and they help me break out of the box in terms of how to envision the possibilities for the rest of the year.
"Rigor" & creativity: Possibly the most exciting aspect of intersession for me is the sense of freedom I get from designing and executing a course entirely from scratch that may or may not be in my certified subject area. The kinds of courses that teachers choose to do during intersession are often surprisingly different from their "day job" subject areas: a math/chemistry teacher conducting a course on modern folk lore; an engineering teacher doing community service; a multimedia teacher doing a health and fitness class; a humanities teacher conducting a course on fishing. Yet all of these classes are rich with real learning and a kind of "rigor" that the traditional curriculum doesn't leave room for. For myself, the opportunity to teach art for two weeks is a great way to recharge my enthusiasm about the possibilities for exploring serious academic content through creative media, and a lot of the energy I'm feeling in intersession is going to spill right over into our second semester.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The "Six A's" of Project-Based Learning
In the book Real Learning, Real Work, Adria Steinberg establishes a list she called the "six A's" of designing projects. These are:
When I look at the project work I've been planning for the coming semester, I see a lot of things I've incorporated into them that her Six A's suggest doing. For example, the art project we're about to begin asks students to explore the process of making paint from scratch in order to use it in creating their paintings - which is a skill that many professional artists value in their work ("Authenticity"). Also, I'm planning to incorporate some element of inquiry into the world of gallery and museum curation by having students interview curators about what is valued in the world of contemporary art, with the goal of developing that contact into something that will provide them feedback as they produce their own work ("Adult relationships").
There are some things that I haven't yet incorporated but I would like to. For example, she suggests that students should be a part of setting project criteria, rubrics, etc. ("Assessment practices"). This is something that I think about but often neglect to incorporate into my planning. Typically, we'll put a rubric together and impose it on the students without asking for their feedback; however, getting their input would certainly help them understand the expectations better and feel more invested in meeting them. I want to make sure this happens in the future, starting with our next project.
She says, "It is probably unrealistic to expect to be able to answer 'yes' to all of the questions posed." But it doesn't hurt to try!
References:
Steinberg, A. (1998). Real Learning, Real Work: School-to-Work As High School Reform. New York: Routledge.
- Authenticity
- Academic rigor
- Applied learning
- Active exploration
- Adult relationships
- Assessment practices
When I look at the project work I've been planning for the coming semester, I see a lot of things I've incorporated into them that her Six A's suggest doing. For example, the art project we're about to begin asks students to explore the process of making paint from scratch in order to use it in creating their paintings - which is a skill that many professional artists value in their work ("Authenticity"). Also, I'm planning to incorporate some element of inquiry into the world of gallery and museum curation by having students interview curators about what is valued in the world of contemporary art, with the goal of developing that contact into something that will provide them feedback as they produce their own work ("Adult relationships").
There are some things that I haven't yet incorporated but I would like to. For example, she suggests that students should be a part of setting project criteria, rubrics, etc. ("Assessment practices"). This is something that I think about but often neglect to incorporate into my planning. Typically, we'll put a rubric together and impose it on the students without asking for their feedback; however, getting their input would certainly help them understand the expectations better and feel more invested in meeting them. I want to make sure this happens in the future, starting with our next project.
She says, "It is probably unrealistic to expect to be able to answer 'yes' to all of the questions posed." But it doesn't hurt to try!
References:
Steinberg, A. (1998). Real Learning, Real Work: School-to-Work As High School Reform. New York: Routledge.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Sex, Drugs & Rock N Roll
Most everything I do in my classroom is coordinated with my teaching partner, Anne, who teaches geometry and chemistry in the room next to mine. When I refer here to things "we" are doing, that's who I mean.
Recently, we wrapped up a project called "Sex, Drugs & Rock N Roll" - a project in which, using the myriad tragic examples set by the rock music culture of the past, students studied the perils of drug use and created radio-style public service announcements about resources available for drug treatment and prevention. In conjunction with this, they learned about the history of Rock N Roll, investigated the chemistry of elicit drugs, and participated in a sexual health education class.
Since this project required the use of specific equipment that students only had access to at school (microphones and software for recording and mixing sound), and since we have 20 computers for 51 students, Anne and I devised a schedule where our students would be broken into three sections (17 students) instead of the usual two (26): one group would be with me for humanities class; the second would be with her for math/chem; and the third would have "tech time," with enough for one computer per student. It was a challenge to coordinate the details of this strange rotation, but it seemed we had sorted out our technological limitations.
One positive biproduct of our new arrangement was that students who were used to being in class together were shuffled around, which allowed us to investigate different dynamics in their influence on their peers. Students who influenced eachother negatively were separated, while students who supported their peers' academic performance were kept together - a sort of harmless social engineering experiment. For the most part, the results were positive and led us to think about making a few permanent changes for next semester. Of course, the decreased class size (17 instead of 26) helped improve dynamics as well.
One negative result of this arrangement was that students in the "tech" period were left without much direct supervision. From a behavior management perspective, it wasn't a problem; however, because Anne and I were engaged in teaching the other 2/3 of the team, students' "tech time" was entirely self-directed. If students had problems they couldn't solve, we weren't available to steer them in the right direction. Also, our engagement with the other students left us without much time to check in with them about their progress on the project. In some cases, it wasn't until time was running out that potential crises came to our attention. The average quality of the end products reflects this lack of direction, and I felt like I was missing the one-on-one personal contact that I usually love so much about projects.
Overall, I'd love to do this project again next year, but with some careful revisions. Anne and I have already begun talking about how to refine the project in order to avoid these pitfalls, and I think we can get much stronger results the next time around. When we return to class next semester, I plan to spend some time debriefing with the students about how the experience was for them and how we could have supported them better.
Student work samples from the project can be viewed on my Digital Portfolio.
Recently, we wrapped up a project called "Sex, Drugs & Rock N Roll" - a project in which, using the myriad tragic examples set by the rock music culture of the past, students studied the perils of drug use and created radio-style public service announcements about resources available for drug treatment and prevention. In conjunction with this, they learned about the history of Rock N Roll, investigated the chemistry of elicit drugs, and participated in a sexual health education class.
Since this project required the use of specific equipment that students only had access to at school (microphones and software for recording and mixing sound), and since we have 20 computers for 51 students, Anne and I devised a schedule where our students would be broken into three sections (17 students) instead of the usual two (26): one group would be with me for humanities class; the second would be with her for math/chem; and the third would have "tech time," with enough for one computer per student. It was a challenge to coordinate the details of this strange rotation, but it seemed we had sorted out our technological limitations.
One positive biproduct of our new arrangement was that students who were used to being in class together were shuffled around, which allowed us to investigate different dynamics in their influence on their peers. Students who influenced eachother negatively were separated, while students who supported their peers' academic performance were kept together - a sort of harmless social engineering experiment. For the most part, the results were positive and led us to think about making a few permanent changes for next semester. Of course, the decreased class size (17 instead of 26) helped improve dynamics as well.
One negative result of this arrangement was that students in the "tech" period were left without much direct supervision. From a behavior management perspective, it wasn't a problem; however, because Anne and I were engaged in teaching the other 2/3 of the team, students' "tech time" was entirely self-directed. If students had problems they couldn't solve, we weren't available to steer them in the right direction. Also, our engagement with the other students left us without much time to check in with them about their progress on the project. In some cases, it wasn't until time was running out that potential crises came to our attention. The average quality of the end products reflects this lack of direction, and I felt like I was missing the one-on-one personal contact that I usually love so much about projects.
Overall, I'd love to do this project again next year, but with some careful revisions. Anne and I have already begun talking about how to refine the project in order to avoid these pitfalls, and I think we can get much stronger results the next time around. When we return to class next semester, I plan to spend some time debriefing with the students about how the experience was for them and how we could have supported them better.
Student work samples from the project can be viewed on my Digital Portfolio.
Cracking my knuckles and settling in...
Journaling has always been a struggle for me. For that matter, doing anything habitually is a struggle for me. Sometimes I forget to feed my cat...
In the spirit of reincarnating the Journal as something I might be able to maintain, this blog will serve as a new space for laying down my thoughts. In it, I will reflect on my teaching practice, my experiences as a graduate student, and my thinking about anything related to schools and schooling. Perhaps pretending there's an audience out there to read and respond might make journaling feel more like a conversation, which is the missing element of a traditional paper-and-pen journal that always turned me off.
Much as a Captain's Log is written to keep a record of the semi-private experiences of a sailor traveling vast oceans, with the knowledge that the only way it will ever be read is if he makes it home safely, a web-log can be an intriguing forum - both private and public; possibly never read and possibly read only by a very selective audience; and charged with the potential for an occasional fantastic discovery afloat in a mundane, featureless seascape.
Then again, it's probably not as romantic as all that.
But the dramatic flare that leads me to such grandiose comparisons is not wholly inappropriate for discussing schools in America. Anyone who works with kids knows the comedy, drama and heroism that pass daily through their lives. And anyone who works in schools knows the intense tragedy that engulfs our current system.
I know I've been incredibly fortunate so far in my career as an educator, and much of what I will have to say here will reflect the exciting and inspiring energy I draw from my work. Some, too, will be the discouraging moments; and some will be the plodding day-to-day. All of it, though, will be in the spirit of deconstructing and interpreting the goings-on of my classroom practice and my work with peers in the profession, in order to get closer to the core of my personal philosophies about schooling. I'm looking forward to the journey ahead--I hope to discover sunken treasures, and I hope, too, for smooth sailing.
In the spirit of reincarnating the Journal as something I might be able to maintain, this blog will serve as a new space for laying down my thoughts. In it, I will reflect on my teaching practice, my experiences as a graduate student, and my thinking about anything related to schools and schooling. Perhaps pretending there's an audience out there to read and respond might make journaling feel more like a conversation, which is the missing element of a traditional paper-and-pen journal that always turned me off.
Much as a Captain's Log is written to keep a record of the semi-private experiences of a sailor traveling vast oceans, with the knowledge that the only way it will ever be read is if he makes it home safely, a web-log can be an intriguing forum - both private and public; possibly never read and possibly read only by a very selective audience; and charged with the potential for an occasional fantastic discovery afloat in a mundane, featureless seascape.
Then again, it's probably not as romantic as all that.
But the dramatic flare that leads me to such grandiose comparisons is not wholly inappropriate for discussing schools in America. Anyone who works with kids knows the comedy, drama and heroism that pass daily through their lives. And anyone who works in schools knows the intense tragedy that engulfs our current system.
I know I've been incredibly fortunate so far in my career as an educator, and much of what I will have to say here will reflect the exciting and inspiring energy I draw from my work. Some, too, will be the discouraging moments; and some will be the plodding day-to-day. All of it, though, will be in the spirit of deconstructing and interpreting the goings-on of my classroom practice and my work with peers in the profession, in order to get closer to the core of my personal philosophies about schooling. I'm looking forward to the journey ahead--I hope to discover sunken treasures, and I hope, too, for smooth sailing.
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