The internet and globalization has brought the world to each of our students finger tips through various media sources. However, when speaking with students it becomes very obvious that even though they have numerous international influences through music, media and also through the products they wear and use, they have a poor understanding of the daily lives of those living outside their city or even small community. The two resources shown below, I have used to fill 5 minute periods in transition or homeroom to bring attention to issues or ideas occurring around them. Both sites have brought on conversations and engagement to understand more about the current events and world around them.
BBC News Daily Pictures is a site that provides about 10 images from the previous day, highlighting key news worthy events, celebrations or geographical wonders. A single sentence appears on the bottom when the cursor goes over top. With each picture I ask the students to predict either what they feel is happening, where this picture was taken or why the people are doing what they are doing. They give evidence from the picture and as a class we read the single sentence, creating an uproar of cheers if they had any information correct, but also eliciting questions as to what is actually happening.
Gapminder is an online program that takes valid international data from various sources including the UN, World Bank and government files and visualizes it clearly for the audience to see. Circles representing different countries move around on the graph allowing the viewer to see how the country has changed over time. The beauty of the program is that you can select a wide variety of things to compare from numerous countries. For example, you can see if female literacy has an affect on the number of children per woman. I ask students to make predictions of where they think countries will end up on the graph in the most recent data. Usually starting 30 years ago, the balls move around the diagram leaving a trail to indicate where they started and how they have improved or declined. Also it is interesting to have students see where the "third world countries" lie in comparison to Canada today and in the past. Here is a Ted Talk that I saw and made me love the program even more!
Hans Rosling - Gapminder
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Indi-Personal-Differ "ations" - What works for the 21st Century Learner
When sitting through PD sessions or reading online educational articles, three words appear to come up over and over again. These are Individual, Personalized and Differentiated Learning. Sometimes it can feel that these different methods come in and out of fashion like boy bands and teased hair. However, I have decided to take a closer look at these three methods and think specifically which method I currently employ in my classroom teaching and which method would provide a more beneficial outcome for my students working in the 21st century.
The first step was to become more familiar with the terms. Speaking with my small group at my Cohort 21 session, I became more confused than I was previously trying to identify the specifics of each method. What appeared to be so clear before, became clouded with teaching pedagogical wording. With some guidance from the BC Education website and Personalized vs Individualized vs Differentiation organizational chart I was shown on the Rethinking Learning website. I feel that I have a better grasp of what I am working with now.
To summarize here is what I have determined to be my working definitions for the course of this blog:
Individualization: The student is at the main focus of this method, accommodating the learning needs of the individual but with everyone achieving the same specific objectives. They may work through material at different paces but moving on requires the student to show mastery or understanding. Learners are dependent on the teacher to support their learning by creating individual lessons and learning is assessed in the end with a grade-based test or assignment that confirms what the students knows and doesn't know.
Differentiation: This method focuses on a group of learners organized based on their needs or interests. Instruction is adapted for each group and is directed by the teacher. Learning objectives are the same for all students, but how they may present their understanding could be different depending on the groups.
Personalized: The focus is on the learner with instruction connected to their interests as well as pace of learning. Each student may have different objectives based on their needs. This could mean displaying an understanding of fractions using a way they feel most comfortable with. Learning is done through a network of peers, teachers and others that the student has decided to make apart of their personal learning team. Students are encouraged to set goal, monitor progress and reflect on learning.
Right now personalized learning is the hot ticket item for 21st century learners by having students able to set their own goals, identify their own learning needs but also see that the teacher is not the only resource to them. These skills are deemed very valuable and necessary for the creative, group oriented and intrinsically motivated professional careers our students will be filling in the future.
As a math teacher, I will be looking to first identify where I am in the spectrum of teaching methods, but then ask other teachers reflect on there they are. By sharing and comparing I hope to gain a better understanding of what I feel these terms mean in practice, but also obtain great resources as to help move towards my goal; a more personalized learning classroom with that uses of 21st century technology and resources.
The first step was to become more familiar with the terms. Speaking with my small group at my Cohort 21 session, I became more confused than I was previously trying to identify the specifics of each method. What appeared to be so clear before, became clouded with teaching pedagogical wording. With some guidance from the BC Education website and Personalized vs Individualized vs Differentiation organizational chart I was shown on the Rethinking Learning website. I feel that I have a better grasp of what I am working with now.
To summarize here is what I have determined to be my working definitions for the course of this blog:
Individualization: The student is at the main focus of this method, accommodating the learning needs of the individual but with everyone achieving the same specific objectives. They may work through material at different paces but moving on requires the student to show mastery or understanding. Learners are dependent on the teacher to support their learning by creating individual lessons and learning is assessed in the end with a grade-based test or assignment that confirms what the students knows and doesn't know.
Differentiation: This method focuses on a group of learners organized based on their needs or interests. Instruction is adapted for each group and is directed by the teacher. Learning objectives are the same for all students, but how they may present their understanding could be different depending on the groups.
Personalized: The focus is on the learner with instruction connected to their interests as well as pace of learning. Each student may have different objectives based on their needs. This could mean displaying an understanding of fractions using a way they feel most comfortable with. Learning is done through a network of peers, teachers and others that the student has decided to make apart of their personal learning team. Students are encouraged to set goal, monitor progress and reflect on learning.
Right now personalized learning is the hot ticket item for 21st century learners by having students able to set their own goals, identify their own learning needs but also see that the teacher is not the only resource to them. These skills are deemed very valuable and necessary for the creative, group oriented and intrinsically motivated professional careers our students will be filling in the future.
As a math teacher, I will be looking to first identify where I am in the spectrum of teaching methods, but then ask other teachers reflect on there they are. By sharing and comparing I hope to gain a better understanding of what I feel these terms mean in practice, but also obtain great resources as to help move towards my goal; a more personalized learning classroom with that uses of 21st century technology and resources.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
The need of a Pivot
I was able to spend some time this week in a PD session with Kate Sharp. During the first few minutes of her speech, she mentioned the need to pivot, to see where the flow is going and try to align your energies with that flow. Many major companies that we now call successful were at one point struggling small projects that weren't putting their talents in the right direction with the needs or wants of the population. Here are a few:
By making a small change, all of these companies found what they were doing well and pivot their business plan to match those ideas and the needs of their consumers. Rather than persevering with that they were doing, these small businesses chose to innovate their ideas and make a small change. Forbes eloquently put it as "when it is said and done, there are two main reasons to pivot: when you’ve built the right product for the wrong market, or when you’ve built the wrong product for the right market".
In the case of a teacher, the classroom and students are the market. It is important to take a moment to see if what you have built is the right management, routines, structure, assessments and method of communication that fits your students, or are you using those that would work better for another group.
The challenge with teaching is that we have a changing market every year. A new group of students whose needs are different. This means that just as in the business world, teachers are analyzing their product and making changes that will ensure that their product is reaching the right market. Good teachers make the yearly changes to ensure that their students needs are being met, determining the interests, finding new means of technology and creative new projects.
However, I also feel that in many cases the foundations stay the same, unable to pivot. For me these foundations are the expectations of what will be the end product. High achievers that will end up going to university, getting into law or medical school resulting with a highly coveted career. With many schools now pivoting to seeing students as a "whole individual" who have various strengths and abilities is excellent but if at our heart we don't change the expectations of achievement of perfection, the long term pivot has not occurred. If this fear of failure is present, those teachers guiding the way will feel and react to it by not making the true pivot necessary. Since every change opens the possibility of failure, it makes it challenging to allow a teacher or staff to move from a good idea to a thriving and highly successful group.
However, what I took from Kate Sharp was the notion that the pivot starts with you. With continuous reflecting, assessing and taking in various kinds of data to see where your market is and what their needs are. You can not change the students, but you can change your actions. Making a small pivot can result in a greater product and happier clientele.
- Paypal was a payment system for PDA's
- Flickr started as a massively multi-player online game
- Groupon launched as thepoint.com, a website which uses your social graph to support causes
- Youtube was initially designed as a video-dating site (HotOrNot with videos)
- Intel started as a memory company before seeing the huge growth in processor business
- HP survived 70 years as a leading high tech company by changing its core business multiple times. All the other companies that failed at pivoting eventually went to dead-pool,
By making a small change, all of these companies found what they were doing well and pivot their business plan to match those ideas and the needs of their consumers. Rather than persevering with that they were doing, these small businesses chose to innovate their ideas and make a small change. Forbes eloquently put it as "when it is said and done, there are two main reasons to pivot: when you’ve built the right product for the wrong market, or when you’ve built the wrong product for the right market".
In the case of a teacher, the classroom and students are the market. It is important to take a moment to see if what you have built is the right management, routines, structure, assessments and method of communication that fits your students, or are you using those that would work better for another group.
The challenge with teaching is that we have a changing market every year. A new group of students whose needs are different. This means that just as in the business world, teachers are analyzing their product and making changes that will ensure that their product is reaching the right market. Good teachers make the yearly changes to ensure that their students needs are being met, determining the interests, finding new means of technology and creative new projects.
However, I also feel that in many cases the foundations stay the same, unable to pivot. For me these foundations are the expectations of what will be the end product. High achievers that will end up going to university, getting into law or medical school resulting with a highly coveted career. With many schools now pivoting to seeing students as a "whole individual" who have various strengths and abilities is excellent but if at our heart we don't change the expectations of achievement of perfection, the long term pivot has not occurred. If this fear of failure is present, those teachers guiding the way will feel and react to it by not making the true pivot necessary. Since every change opens the possibility of failure, it makes it challenging to allow a teacher or staff to move from a good idea to a thriving and highly successful group.
However, what I took from Kate Sharp was the notion that the pivot starts with you. With continuous reflecting, assessing and taking in various kinds of data to see where your market is and what their needs are. You can not change the students, but you can change your actions. Making a small pivot can result in a greater product and happier clientele.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Student Feedback using Poll Everywhere
It is the time of year when both teachers and students hit that lull in the road, at least on my end. With the weather changing and the holidays a month away, I have found that my middle school girls are getting more tired and having shorter attention spans than in September. This is the lull.
To see how we could change things up, and also have the girls take ownership over their actions, I decided to use the polleverywhere.com service as a warm up for a math class. The goal was to have the girls reflect on the class so far this year, what they enjoy, what they don't enjoy and also make suggestions to others as how to make things better. This 10 minute activity was very successful and created a revived classroom community that was eager for change and improvement.
Using only their lap tops, the girls were blown away with the instant feedback. They also enjoyed seeing their comments posted where everyone could see. By asking the students for suggestions and improvements, they gained some control of how they like to learn and how they want the class to run. It was also a great opportunity to have the girls reflect upon the behaviours of the class, shouting out, taking too long to transition and not completing homework and how they are affecting others. By using the text input message, the students were able to express anonymously how these actions have impacted their learning, making others aware the affect they have.
I would highly recommend others to take 10 minutes to allow your students to provide feedback to you and also to each other. This process created an "upswing" in attitude at a challenging time of year.
To see how we could change things up, and also have the girls take ownership over their actions, I decided to use the polleverywhere.com service as a warm up for a math class. The goal was to have the girls reflect on the class so far this year, what they enjoy, what they don't enjoy and also make suggestions to others as how to make things better. This 10 minute activity was very successful and created a revived classroom community that was eager for change and improvement.
Using only their lap tops, the girls were blown away with the instant feedback. They also enjoyed seeing their comments posted where everyone could see. By asking the students for suggestions and improvements, they gained some control of how they like to learn and how they want the class to run. It was also a great opportunity to have the girls reflect upon the behaviours of the class, shouting out, taking too long to transition and not completing homework and how they are affecting others. By using the text input message, the students were able to express anonymously how these actions have impacted their learning, making others aware the affect they have.
I would highly recommend others to take 10 minutes to allow your students to provide feedback to you and also to each other. This process created an "upswing" in attitude at a challenging time of year.
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