Why I enjoy book groups...

Reading is a tough nut to crack. You can get it, or seem to get it, for a period of time before really missing the mark. In my experience you typically don't have that with some math skills- got dividing with remainders one day and then not the next. I will have kids that get it and then suddenly pop out the oddest of responses to questions.

"Getting it" is vital to book groups. When kids are responsible for coming prepared to a meeting the ante is raised. Moreover, the bar is set higher with a group of peers. No one wants to show up unprepared and stall out the group because they plowed through 60 pages without truly reading- word calling if you will.

I'm not sure what has done it, but my book groups are super. I've worked hard to get kids in high-interest books they have self-selected as ones they'd like to read. I put kids in groups that are not dominated by one voice, but definitely have someone who cares about reading. If need be, those are the kids leaned on to move conversation or push thinking further. The last thing is I've cut out lots of the writing kids pass in. It has steadily decreased over my first 2+ years. Instead, kids will stop and jot in journals daily with a smaller assignment once a week (2-3 over the course of a novel study). Kids have shown up well prepared, excited to talk, and willing to interact respectfully. You can't beat that.

Groups That Run Themselves

I'm trying something new for round two of literature circles/novel study. Instead of imposing page limits per week I'm going to turn control over to the book groups. Previously I'd assign 30-70 pages to be read over the course of the week. Some of that was during social studies and some of it was assigned as homework. This time is a little different.

I'm ceding control for a few reasons. The first is the length of this study. We are going to cruise through our books in 8-9 days. Instead of 2-3 weeks we are condensing it a bit, and more of the reading with happen in class. The second reason is because of how quickly they read. With some kids crushing, and understanding books in 2 days or less I needed to try something different. That leads me to my third and final reason...

I want kids to have more ownership over the process. They need to feel like a part of the process. It doesn't make a big difference if they are chapter 3 or 6 by the time they meet. They will all finish by the end of our schedule. But giving them a chance to decide as a team creates a bit more buy-in, and more ownership over the process. What I need to devote myself to is being sure to provide 15-30 minutes for 3 group meetings... Tough to cede valuable time, but it should be worth it.

Recurring themes

One of the best parts of teaching over a period of time is that you can find patterns. I enjoy data and like looking for patterns, themes, and connections. It is just how my brain tends to work. One theme that pops up often is this: I love projects, but dislike the time investment. This tends to come up around midwinter break, or whenever I embark on a project.

Therein is the struggle. Everyone wants their teaching to be engaging and interactive. I'm not sure of anyone that gets into the profession thinking otherwise. Often that leads you to some sort of outcome that isn't a worksheet, and is difficult to quantify or measure (but you do because it is called assessment and not fun time). The largest impediment for me is time. It is less the time to teach, but more the time to put the skills into practice and create a presentation or analytical essay. You also have the time on the back-end scoring work (seeing gaps in instruction).

We recently worked on our explorer projects. We developed a rubric for evaluating explorers, mined information, compared explorers leading to this "thing". Kids did a great job and really grappled with whether the explorer they chose was truly a great explorer. But getting there is a tedious process. Couple that with technology and a desire to add bells and whistles and you begin to stretch a 2 or 3 day project into 5-7 days. That is just the assembly part. The legwork beforehand is another few days since you're reading and categorizing information, determine important information etc.

As much as I love the work they do, I wrestle with time. Do another project or give it a rest? Some kids need a little more practice reading and responding instead of more free-form analysis. I want innovation yet know there are some content pieces I need to get to. Time, projects, and my inner struggle are my recurring themes. Judging by how I write about them, and when, this will continue for a while.

Down the Mysterly River by Bill Willingham

Recently I was browsing through the bookstore looking for something new. Faced out on one of the shelves was the book pictured to the left: Down the Mysterly River. The cover looked interesting, particularly as my kids love to read anthropomorphic stories like the Warriors, Seekers, or Wildwood. Something about animals that can talk generates a fair amount of interest.

It took me about 3 weeks to get through this story. I didn't necessarily become disinterested with the book as much as I was doing other things- reading blog posts, blogging using the mobile app, twittering... etc. During this break I finally finished the story in 2 short sittings, and am pleased to report that it was worth the time I spent working through it.

This has the characteristics of many fables, fitting with Willingham's previous work (writes the comic Fables). Max the Wolf (a boy scout) appears in a land far away from his boy scout troop. There he runs into a talking badger named Banderbrock. Together they go on the run from an odd group of people who are seemingly out to get them (the "Blue Cutters"). While on the run they pick up a bear named Walden, and a yellow tomcat named McTavish. No one knows where they are, or why they are there. But together they start to make their way through an odd land full of talking animals, yet teeming with danger. Their journey takes them to, and down, the large river in the middle of Heroes Wood called the Mysterly River. The journey involves great peril as they seek out answers to their many questions at the Wizard Swift's castle. Only time will tell if they'll make it.

Knowing that the author previously wrote fables provides some significant background knowledge. You recognize that the stories of the animals and Max have fable-like characteristics. They are approachable, and seem to speak towards the ideas of being kind, loyal, and truthful. The characters were also largely true to their animalistic nature. McTavish is a bit of a monster, as you'd expect a tomcat to be. He bickers with Banderbrock the badger, but also has the fighting spirit of badgers (not that I've ever encountered one). While it definitely gets a little heady, readers will like how the "mysterly" has resolution in the end.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Takes a while to really settle in, but enough action to capture the minds of a variety of readers.

Midwinter break!

Midwinter break is here. I'm not sure I've ever been this excited for break. I'm a little run ragged between teaching, taking a class, and teaching a class. Add scoring 75 explorer projects and you've got a very tired Pete.

The plan for break is to get some things done. I have some planning to do to recalibrate heading into our spring break. I have a number of items to score and get into our online grade book. I've also got some reading to catch up on. I brought home 4 books that I (wishfully) hope to read over break.

Oh, and I hope to nap!

No Way He Makes It...

My kids are pretty good at making predictions. I think it is a skill that many kids become fairly adept at, largely because they do so on a daily basis. The real trouble comes in supporting our predictions with evidence. We've gone over this process before. It goes something like this...

Me: Ok, so we've established the problem to be that he is taking a shot from half court to win a million dollars. What do you think will happen?

Student: Well he makes it obviously.

Me: Fantastic! He makes the shot, he wins the million dollars. What makes you think that? It is a long distance shot.

Student: Well, all kids stories end happily.

Right! I forgot! Most kids stories to that point tend to end relatively happily. Then it becomes a matter of teasing out the other details... he wasn't good until he got a coach. He really wants to make it, and he is listening to his coach... often coaches make you better, hence you'll be more likely to make it than before!

If you've read the blog before, I am a fan of Dan Meyer's WCYDWT (what can you do with this). The idea is to take banal problems, and bring them to life using the "technology that is ubiquitous." Often problems lack relevance or provide too much information, eliminating the need for creative problem solving. He uses this for math, but I'm going to use it to illustrate predictions in reading and how to write those out with evidence. 

We are going to watch the final 10.8 seconds of the 2008 National Championship Game with the title of the video out of sight (Kansas vs. Memphis.. linked above). We'll start with what information we already have: 2 point game, guy from the leading team at the foul line about to shoot 2 shots. What are the possible outcomes of this situation? He could make both, miss both, or make 1 of 2. Now what information might you need to make a prediction? We'll look at how he has done on the season, and how he has done in this game. From there we'll make some guesses.

After that we'll watch until 4 seconds to go. The 3 point shot is about to go off. We'll repeat the process. What could happen? What information do you need? We're dealing with real life, not simply a kids book. In this case the statistics (if looked at longitudinally) actually lead towards the actual result, the making of the 3 point shot. He had been awful to that point, yet making the 3 pointer would bring he really close to his average, something they have worked on before. It doesn't matter what the prediction is, as long as they reference the evidence leading in that direction... we're going beyond "Well, I just think so."

Where does it go from there? We then apply that to modified passages on 3 settlements- Roanoke, Jamestown, and Plymouth. They don't include the last 2-3 paragraphs that tell how it ended for the settlement (and few have the background knowledge to know the outcome). They'll make predictions, support it with evidence, and rank each from most to least likely to be successful. We'll post them on our online discussion board, and have a virtual (as well as in-class) debate about success. I'm excited for it.

True But Useless

I've been wrestling with the Steven Johnson video about "where good ideas come from" all week. I watched his TED talk, found here, and rewatched his "innovation" video. I've also had some conversations with colleagues about innovation, as well as some of the technology content (and lack of time to teach it). The thing that has started to come into focus is that the notion of "not enough time" or "lack of time" is true but useless. It is true that we have a finite amount of time. It is also true that the abundance of standards makes teaching each one thoroughly a virtual impossible.

All of that is useless to me though. I am not going to invent an extra hour. The likelihood that I am going to become vastly more efficient is slightly unlikely, although some gains are to be expected (with practice comes some success). Instead I need to change my mindset. I know kids need to have conversations, as well as share their work with peers. Those things take time, and I wouldn't say that I found that time to be worthwhile previously. I thought that sharing a powerpoint or photostory was cute, but non-essential. There just isn't enough time to make that happen! Or is there?

Instead of worrying about time (that is useless! and even more time-consuming), I opted to place a focus on presenting our work and providing feedback. We had a hard and fast deadline for presenting our explorer presentations. They were due on Tuesday, and I had kids that needed additional time due to their own pacing, etc, stay in to work on them during their recess times. Once we started presenting, kids wanted to stay in to finish (there were only a handful of them). I placed an emphasis on all that wanted to present could, and those that opted out had the option of opting in later on if they wanted to. We were going to provide feedback that was positive and constructive, with an email going to each presenter with that feedback.

What happened? Kids became hypermotivated. There were some who wanted to be involved right off the bat. Others less so, but many jumped at the chance after seeing a few of their peers. Others wanted to go back and edit to improve their work after seeing the work of their peers. I would say that 90% of kids wanted to present their work. The feedback provided was largely helpful, usually specific, and aimed at the student work. My fear was that they would present and it wouldn't be useful for anyone. Instead it turned into an opportunity. This was the first step in a much larger process of slowing down and placing an added value on the peer conversations that will help lead us forward.

Innovation and Ideas

In my tech class I watched a short video by/about Steven Johnson, author of "Where Great Ideas Come From." It was intriguing on many levels. First off, it appeared to be a collaboration with the Common Craft folks- the "in plain English videos" that are fantastic. The visual representation of Johnson's ideas are wonderful, particularly for someone like myself that can get lost in the web of interconnected concepts. More importantly, the subject matter for the video is at the heart of what we do as teachers. We want to inspire great thinkers, kids who can do the heavy cognitive work of analyzing, evaluating, and creating. While we, as teachers, want kids to be able to read, identify themes, solve equations, and write coherently, those are not necessarily the higher level skills we really want our kids to reach. You want them to do something with the information, make it their own.

The big takeaway for me was the incongruous nature of our classrooms and innovation. Your traditional classroom where you practice skills and apply them in somewhat real contexts does not lend itself to great innovation. Moreover, because of the amount of time that one needs to invest in the "slow hunch", we skip to easier to handle (and evaluate) skills. We want kids to collaborate but that requires more time than we believe is available. Perhaps that requires a rethinking of how time is allocated, the activities we place significant value on in our classrooms, and how we have students collaborate.

Watch the video and let me know what you think, particularly in the context of your own classroom.

Teaching Technology

Beyond teaching 5th grade, I have also taken on teaching one of the tech classes in my district. I've taken multiple classes previously. Each has typically been focused on a program or resource- OneNote, PhotoStory, ActivInspire (for Promethean Activboards). They are great in that you get the opportunity to learn a particular tool really well so that you can use it with your kids. This class really isn't like those ones!

The class I am taking is centered on the soft-skills technology promotes. Collaboration. Communication. Research. This departs from the "here is a part of a tool, try this, use it with your kids and report back" model I have become accustomed to. The focus is on how to best use technology with kids, and ways we can empower them in the classroom. There is a large information dump, with some discussion (electronic and in person), before some work time centered on planning for integration of technology with your kids. We've used some different tools that are examples of what we are looking to create/use with our kids. Corkboard.me for a virtual corkboard where kids can post notes (maybe for norms, although I used it for student input into what projects should look like),  Todaysmeet for an example of backchanneling (yep, could be done via Twitter but that medium really is not prevalent in elementary school!).

The big tale away for me is that teaching with technology requires time. Teachers need the time, and the willingness, to plan for how they want it to be implemented. They also need guidance in how to go about designing activities (guided and independent) that kids can be successful. You can't simply throw technology- iPads, netbooks, iPods and what not, at kids with the hopes that they will figure it out. That does them a great disservice. The whole process- implementing technology on my own, and learning how to teach the use of technology  has been worthwhile. Hopefully I'll continue to grow.

Conferences

Conference time is exhausting. You're focused on making sure you communicate everything you want to say. Beyond that you need to have quality instruction. You can't simply mail it in. There really isn't time for that (nor a place for that to be honest).

Perhaps the hardest part is the lack of routine and regularity. You get out early which would seem to indicate you could get caught up. Unfortunately I scheduled mine poorly, only giving myself two 15 minute blocks to plan and prep. Now I've got a bag of stuff at home which I said I would avoid. So much for that.