Collaborative Learning Means All Students Are Vital

In the past I’ve had trouble conceptualizing what collaborative learning really entails. After Tuesday’s class, I feel much more confident about my understanding of it. The biggest takeaway for me was that in collaborative learning, all students need to be vital, just like the strips of paper in ‘Let’s Make a Square!’. Students will be able to tell when their role is just a dangling unnecessary one, and their learning experience will suffer. Just a guess, but I bet this is easier said than done. I believe that being intentional as I plan collaborative learning experiences will help as I try to make sure all students are important during the whole experience.

I recently read an article “500 Feet of Respect”  about a unit focusing on the fact that the criminal justice system is disproportionately full of students who are LGBTQ, black, and latino. While the article doesn’t explicitly discuss collaborative learning, I think it is an interesting example of a teacher intentionally forming groups during a unit to develop empathy and cross cultural skills. Throughout the unit, students in the New York City transfer school were placed into different groups for explicit reasons. When the class studied ‘disproportionality’ in math, straight black students worked together to analyze data about the imprisonment of queer youth. Straight and LGBTQ white students analyzed data about the imprisonment of black youth. Unfortunately, the article doesn’t acknowledge the presence of queer students of color and that is something I would definitely want to be mindful of if I found myself teaching a unit like this. As the unit progressed and the class prepared presentations for a panel of community members, the groups became heterogeneous.  At the end of the unit, students had a better grasp on the realities of other student’s lives and the classroom culture shifted as a result of working together for community panel.

Towards a Collaborative Approach

I need to listen to the contributions of my colleagues. Right now, I don’t practice this in the thoughtful way I would hope to. The contributions of my colleagues in 407 repeatedly show me how much valuable information other people hold, and Tuesday was no exception.

As we started drafting our chocolate chip cookie rubrics, I recognized it as a low stakes activity and checked out. I tossed out a few ideas but didn’t defend any of them. As we workshopped the rubrics later, I realized how useful a second set of eyes could be. I learned I need to be careful of confusing the quantity of a thing, say chocolate chips or vocabulary words, with their quality. I also need to be clear about criteria. Sometimes only half of the words I need to explain what I want make their way onto the page.  As I write this, I wonder why I didn’t see what I could learn from my colleagues during the writing of the rubric.

The answer I think, is that I am struggling to shift from being competitive to being collaborative. In the past, I’ve seen school as something I could win by getting better grades than my classmates. If I’m not getting graded on my cookie rubric, why bother? As I become a teacher, I’m valuing collaboration. I don’t just mean practicing collaborative learning in my classroom, but valuing what my colleagues have to share with me. Lesson planning with Laura made me want to have a co teacher for my whole career! As a teacher, what goes on in my classroom is not about having a better lesson plan than my colleague across the hall. It’s about working together to help support student success.

Observation Blog: What Happens When We Decide a Student is Tough?

What?
Something I’m working on is figuring out what it means to teach to the whole student, to really use a holistic approach to teaching and learning. What habits of mind can I adopt so that I don’t see my student’s ‘personal’ life as separate from their ‘academic’ life? Giving access to my content is about addressing their well being. What does this look like?

I did my classroom observations in the purple room. It was a privilege. My cooperating teacher really paid attention to her student’s whole selves. She knew who was working and who wasn’t in her student’s homes, what activities they were involved in at school, and what they were like as learners. I want to point out that all those before, during and after reading activities setting up camp in the middle of Subjects Matter are also setting up camp in the purple room. I saw some journal practices I’m definitely going to steal.

But the thing I keep coming back to is a particular student who consistently doesn’t participate in any of these activities. I’ll call him Adam.

So What?

Classroom observations remind me of musical chairs. Everytime you play, you end up in a different seat. Sometimes you’re an active participant for the whole game. Sometimes you’re on the sidelines pretty much from the word go. During my observations in the purple room, I’ve been a grader of notebooks, a silent notetaker, and a disciplinarian. During my first observation, I watched the whole class take out The Stranger and read Chapter 1. The whole class that is, except Adam.

“Do you have your book Adam?” I asked. He nodded and his eyes flicked to and from his backpack.  I replied sternly, “I think you should take it out since you’re going to be quizzed on it shortly.” He gave me an aggravated stare and he did not take out his book. My cooperating teacher gave me a tight lipped smile and raised her eyebrows.

Throughout my observations I saw several attempts to redirect his behavior by both my cooperating teacher and the special education teacher who is often present. What I saw communicated to Adam were feelings of anger and disappointment regarding his grades and participation. For example, the slamming of a gradebook on his desk, or curt remarks as he stared into space. Sometimes he was pulled out for a minute or two. I’m not privy to the content of those conversations. I’ve been told his current behavior is pretty much what has been happening all year, that he’s tough. I can’t be sure, but because of what else I’ve seen in the purple room, I’m guessing anger and disappointment were not the to go to responses in September. But the year has marched on, it is the 4th quarter and Adam might not graduate.

During my last observation, I had a little aha moment, Happy people don’t go through their day like that. What’s wrong? The floodgates of my own memories suddenly opened up.

 

Throughout high school, there would be weeks or months where I would refuse to go to school. In the mornings I’d throw violent tantrums. Some days I would convince my parents I was going, and as soon as they dropped me off I’d grab the RIPTA back to a now empty house. I wasn’t doing this to drive my mother crazy. I wasn’t doing it to drive my teachers nuts while they struggled to teach someone with such huge attendance gaps. I had stuff going on, and until I took care of that, I could care less about school. My mom say’s now that I was tough.

But what happens we decide a student is tough?

Now what?

I don’t think that my mother or my cooperating teacher use the word tough as a label that makes it okay to give up on adolescents. But I do think that the language we use shapes our perceptions and vice versa. When we say a student is tough, it can shift the onus of academic success completely onto their shoulders. He’s tough, what can I do? A habit of mind I want to try out, in my efforts to teach the whole student, is to replace the word tough with hurting. I think a hurting student is one we can help, one who has wounds we can help them heal. I think that shift in language will help set me up to keep trying, to find more patience, and to never forget that the student and I are both responsible for their learning.

Where I Try To Convince You It Is About Race

 

H/T Breakthrough Providence

I’m really pleased that some folks are continuing the conversation we had on Tuesday on their blogs. It’s an important conversation that is too often swept under the rug. As you might have guessed, I believe that the way teachers are well, teaching, is being affected by the fact that Central Falls has a high Latino population. In this post, I hope to convince y’all that is the case.

“While no one thinks white teachers are knowingly treating minority students differently, researchers are finding more and more evidence that subtle differences add up and may help explain a very big problem: The fact that African Americans and Latinos on average do worse on achievement tests than whites.” (Brunden 2014)

I am not saying that (white) teachers are intentionally trying to undermine the success of students of color, but I am saying they are doing it. I personally feel that the way we construct racism in America makes it almost impossible for people to admit when they have been, well, racist. But let’s be honest, a person’s ethnicity can and does influence what we think about how intelligent they are, what their families are like, and how we think they will treat us. No one is colorblind. Myself included! We’re not going to become more culturally responsive teachers by ignoring that fact. Don’t try to tell me that the only reason multiple women in our class were told to carry mace was because CF is economically depressed.

Mountains of research show that "teachers attribute ethnic students' lack of achievement to the students themselves, their parents, and communities” and not to their own abilities as a teacher (Irving 2003). Essentially, this means that compared with white students, when students of color don’t do their reading, or perform poorly on a test, teachers are much more likely to think, Well, they must have parents who don’t care, or Well, the challenges of this community are just so tough, instead of Hm...what do I need to change about my teaching practices? (Landsman 2004, Tettegah 1996, Ziechner 92). (See those citations? I’m not making this up, I swear!).  When we catch ourselves doing this, we need to admit it and figure out ways to change our practices. That's part of what it means to be a reflective practitioner, right?

Students in one St. Paul, Minnesota, high school talked about a teacher who asked the white kids in an advanced placement class the tough questions but turned to the few black or Latino students when she had an easy question that "anyone could answer." When confronted with this situation, the teacher was stunned. She realized it was true and admitted, "I just assumed you didn't know the answers, and I didn't want to embarrass you." (Landsman 2004)

I love this example for two reasons. One, a teacher admits to a mistake she was making, specifically a bigoted mistake. That is hard to do! Two, her intentions were good: she didn't want to embarrass her students. As a person trying to have these difficult conversations about race, I need to remember that a teachers behavior comes from a place of trying to do what is best for their student. We all want student success, right? But let's please remember that race and ethnicity matters. And if you don’t believe me, take a look at the rest of this WONDERFUL photo set by Breakthrough Providence posted on Thursday. I can’t help but think students have heard these comments from peers and adults.

Please leave me lots of comments or questions, I would LOVE to engage in a dialogue with all of you about this! I know we are all just trying to be the best teachers we can be!!

References

"Breakthrough Providence Anti-Bullying Photo Campaigns." Anti-Bullying Photo Campaigns | Facebook. Breakthrough Providence, 10 Apr. 2014. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.

Brundun, Jenny. "Teachers Undo Personal Bias to Help Students of Color Engage." Colorado Public Radio. N.p., 5 Feb. 2014. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.

Irvine, J. J. (2003). A Proposal for Change. Educating Teachers for Diversity: Seeing with a Cultural Eye. (70-86). New York: Teachers College.

Landsman, Julie. "Confronting the Racism of Low Expectations." Educational Leadership 62.3 (2001): 28-32. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. <http://ipsdweb.ipsd.org/uploads/PDAC/Confronting_the_Racism_of_Low_Expectations.pdf>.

Tettegah, Sharon. "The Racial Consciousness Attitudes of White Prospective Teachers and Their Perceptions of the Teachability of Students from Different Racial/Ethnic Backgrounds: Findings from a California Study." The Journal of Negro Education 65.2 (1996): 151. Print.

Zeichner, Kenneth. "Educating Teachers for Cultural Divsersity." National Center for Research on Teacher Learning (1992): n. pag. Web.

Goodbye to Linear Thinking!

Effective teachers are clear, organized, warm.

In my Ed. Psych. notes from Spring of 2012, this is written several times. I’m beginning to see that if I want to be clear, organized, and warm, I need to stop thinking about lesson planning, teaching, and learning as a linear process. Understanding by Design encourages us to to think about acceptable evidence of learning, and make objectives from there. This week our conversations about questions made me think about answers. Designing questions needs to happen around the kind of answers I want. As Dr.Horwitz pretty explicitly said, designing questions also needs to happen divorced from the linear presentation of Bloom’s Taxonomy. There is a time and a place for every level of question, and I don’t have to start the day with knowledge level questions and work my way up to the evaluation ones.

Laura and I did some lesson planning together on Tuesday afternoon to plan for a lesson we taught on Wednesday (stay tuned for that blog post!). I found myself starting off with knowledge and recall level questions, saving the evaluation question for later. But then we caught ourselves! We revamped our plan, and there was an evaluation question in the prompt we used for the hook.

As I’m writing this, I realize that the answer we were looking for with all our questions was really well aligned with our objectives and our assessment, which was an exit ticket. So, one: yay! But two: questions, answers, objectives and assessments should all be linked, and I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about that before. They all need to be well connected to best support student learning. Something to keep in mind if I’m going to be that clear, organized, warm teacher I want to be!

"Learn how to be an advocate."

“Learn how to be an advocate.”

“Don’t be a coward.”

             These are two Dr. Gallow quotes I have in my notes from last week. Being brave and being an advocate is important, and I struggle with with it. A big problem I have being an advocate is operating from a stance of “No one is trying to be a bad guy.” When I think someone who is letting their bigotry show is A Bad Guy, sometimes I just get hot under the collar and I go off on them. Then we’re just yelling at each other and getting no where. But if I’m going to operate as a teacher from a stance of “All students can succeed”, I should probably extend a similar courtesy to adults, right? I mean, I’m not done learning either and I would want someone to give me the benefit of the doubt when I do or say something bigoted.

             I’m also beginning to see that being a teacher advocate has a broader scope than I originally perceived. It isn’t just about having difficult conversations with peers and colleagues about racism or transphobia, it includes caring enough about my students education to really put in work to best support their learning. There is this great list “8 Ways Not To Be An ‘Ally’: A Non-Comprehensive List” by Mia McKenzie that comes to mind as I’m writing this blog. Here is #6:

“6. Challenge oppression in personal situations but not in systemic ways.

It’s enough that you said something when your Grandma used the T-word. The fact that you go to work everyday at a queer organization where none of the fifty employees are trans* women and you never say nothing about it is beside the point. You’re battling interpersonal “isms” and that’s what really matters. Except…you know…not really. Transphobia, ableism, racism, and all those other phobias/isms aren’t just interpersonal issues. They are hella systemic. And checking your grandma isn’t going to fix them. Think bigger, k?”

             I think as a teacher I have an opportunity to challenge oppression is systemic ways. I can practice restorative justice instead of using punitive discipline. I can use research based strategies to best support English Language Learners. I can make school a positive experience for students of color and maybe they will want to go into teaching. I can challenge all of my students academically and help them graduate with a full toolbox. And I can find respectful, effective ways to call out homophobia in the teacher’s lounge. Being an ally is a lifelong practice, so here’s to keeping it up.
             What does being an advocate or an ally in your school or your classroom mean to you?

The Risk Zone vs. The Danger Zone

Teacher Burnout. It’s one of my biggest fears. What if in 10 years I am just exhausted and I want to quit?
At the Administrator Panel on Tuesday, Josh urged teachers to leave The Comfort Zone. The best teaching and learning happens in the Risk Zone. Teacher Burnout lives in The Danger Zone. That framework really informed my reading and thinking this week. I’m going to use Book Clubs when I teach, and implement Inquiry Units. Where’s my risk zone? Where’s my danger zone?
When discussing the best way to implement Inquiry Units, Daniels and Zemelman tell me “Don’t start too big! A project that takes three or four class periods can be plenty” (Daniels and Zemelman 2004, p. 226). It’s one of those pieces of advice you might think is so obvious, no one needs to hear it. But I really needed to hear it! ‘Inquiry Unit’ makes me think Important Month Long Interdisciplinary Project. As a first year teacher, that sounds like The Danger Zone. I loved their advice on really training students for Book Clubs, and starting off with “‘modified student choice’” (p. 205). I’ve never run a Book Club before, so I’m immediately in either The Risk Zone or The Danger Zone.  But giving students a few days to browse through books, and then using student ballots to create artful groups sounds like The Risk Zone.

I appreciate that the text addresses assessment, and have discovered a relevant Youtube Subgenre: Student Book Trailers! Here are two examples, one students made for the book Holes by Louis Sachar and a more elaborate trailer for Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Students could make them as a final project, and they could be used in lieu of book talks for future Book Clubs. 

What do y’all think your Risk Zone and Danger Zone activities are as new teachers?

Researched Based Classroom Communities!

This week’s reading on writing activities and classroom communities brought me back to an experience I had this summer in MLED 330 with Dr. Horwitz. My class was doing Save the Last Word for Me pretty much as described by Daniels and Zimmerman ( 2004 p. 133). To refresh your memory, the exercise goes more or less like this:
Students select a quote or passage from a reading and write it on one side of an index card. They write their thoughts about it on the opposite side. In small groups, each student reads their selection, and then the other group members each share their own thoughts about it. The student whose quote it was gets to share their opinion last.
In my MLED 330 the whole class received a list of quotations from Nelson Mandela's inaugural speech in 1994, and was asked to pick one that stood out to us. We were to write the quotation on an index card, and our thoughts about it on the other side. To be honest, I thought all the quotations were...cheesy. Well, I guess cheesy is really casting my thoughts in a different light because the ‘quote’ I selected for the front side of the index card was the citation ‘Nelson Mandela, 1994’ and on the opposite side I drew ‘Nelson Mandela, 1994’ as a tramp stamp peaking out from someone’s jeans. You have no idea how much I am kicking myself for throwing that out as I write this post. 
I was not responding to the prompt in this way to be difficult, or to be rude or abrasive… I just didn’t like any of the quotations. As I read my selection, I was a little afraid my classmates would think I was just being difficult. Instead, my peers thought I was trying to point out that in this speech, Mandela quotes Marianne Williamson, and since his speech, some of her words have been misattributed to him. We all laughed at my drawing, I learned something new, and my classmates told me to relax, they don’t think I’m an obstinate person.

 
So how else does this experience connect to this week’s readings other than it is an anecdote involving an activity the book recommends? In discussing classroom communities the text advocates for classrooms being a place “where students trust the teacher and believe it’s safe to take risks” (p. 171). I don’t think I would have taken the risk of doing something that could possibly portray me in a negative light in a classroom without community. This willingness to take a risk both reveals connections I had, and strengthened them. It also aided in my learning. I have an experience that makes me remember the year Neslon Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa, and I know about this misattribution of Marianne Williamson’s words, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.”
The text emphasizes that building communities in classrooms is not about “fluffy ‘team-building’ exercises” (p. 171), it is about research based practices that “give reading in our subjects the full meaning it deserves” (p. 167).
Before I leave you dear reader, I would like to call attention to the research based practice of “believ[ing] [students] can do well in school” (p. 168). That is a paradigm I want to operate from! I just want to think that way! I think students can tell when you give up and I don’t want to ever give up and look at a student and think, “There is no way that student can succeed.” However, I constantly find myself in conversations with people, some of whom are teachers, who try to get me to give them a but. “I believe all students can do well, but not in this case...but not those kids...but not in that district.” I do not want to give a qualifier, and I do not want to cave into the pressure I feel to say “but I know I’m young and naive and I’m sure I’ll meet students who will certainly fail.” I want to scream, “I believe students can do well and research shows this mindset will lead to more student success!! Help me stay positive, I know teaching is hard!”

Do any of you have similar experiences with people telling you to give up on the kind of teacher you want to be before you even get started?

Parent Panel

“[We] need to view everyone as a public intellectual...Change that matters is always collective in nature.”

Full disclosure: this selection is from reading I am doing for another project. At the risk of appearing like I am lazily double dipping, I include this selection because it just feels so darned appropriate. I don’t think parents or students are often sincerely asked for their opinion. Both the parent and student panel have shown me that these folks really know what they are talking about. At this parent panel, I learned both some of this knowledge parents have to share and the ways that the district of Central Falls is utilizing their knowledge. I see evidence of change at CF and it’s really encouraging.

 

Okay, so what did I learn from the parent’s who were awesome and donated their time to the panel?

Maybe it seems obvious, but I never would have thought to call a parent if a student is hanging out with a new group of friends. Two weeks ago I thought phone calls were relegated strictly to academic roadblocks or successes. But of course a parent wants to know if their child’s social life is shifting.

The other big of course is that ALL PARENTS CARE. That is the paradigm I want to work from. Sitting in front of four parents who took the time and worked up the nerve to come share their knowledge with me really made that concept hit home.

In my notes from the panel I also have, “Invite!! Invite!! Invite!!”. If I keep making my classroom welcome and open, little by little, parents will come.

And how did I see CF utilizing parent knowledge?

A lot of this was from information Dr.Gallow provided. I think it’s great that there are almost weekly public meetings, and parent rooms in many of CF’s schools. I am curious about how these meetings actually go.

And the questions to always be asking myself: “How will this affect your classroom practice Colleen? What are you going to be doing with this information NOW?”

I loved the suggestion to write ‘Call a Parent’ into my lesson plans. WHOEVER READS THIS PLEASE ASK ME IF I CALLED A PARENT AT THE END OF TEACHING MY LESSON AT CF.  I also took away some great questions to ask potential schools during future job interviews. Who is your home school liason? What kinds of translation services does your school have? How often are parents in the schools? If I’m being honest, calling lots of parents and doing lots of home visits not only sounds really important, but really exhausting. Especially as a new teacher, I want a school that will support me in being the kind of teacher I want to be. 

References

Campano, Gerald., Sanchez, Lenny. (2010). Embodying Socially Just Policy in Practice. In sj Miller & D. E. Kirkland (Eds.), Change Matters, Critical Essays on Moving Social Justice Research from Theory to Policy (25-32). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publisher.

CF Scavenger Hunt!

Last Tuesday, Jean and I teamed up for our Central Falls Scavenger Hunt! Between traveling around on that Blustery Day and our dear old friend, the internet, here are 10(ish) things I learned about Central Falls, Rhode Island!

1. Central Falls became The City of Central Falls, rather than The Village of Central Falls in 1895. A vote was taken and the residents of CF were EXACTLY SPLIT on the issue. It was the voters in rural Lincoln who swung the decision, wary of devoting more resources to rapidly industrializing CF.

2. Central Falls was home to one of America’s first Chocolate Factories. Chocolate Mill Overlook, located within the 6 acre River Island Park and Campground, is how local residents remember this fact today. 

3. In the late 1800’s CF had its own newspaper, The Weekly Visitor. Today, the city reads the Valley Breeze and the Pawtucket Times.

4. Jean and I found that copy of The Valley Breeze at the CF library. It’s a pretty sweet library I have to say. There was a great YA section, with resources for students applying to college and tell of a sporadically attended Manga Club. Their downstairs was a beautiful room of children’s books with a stage for story time.

                                        Replay by Sharon Creech is a          These trashy pulp fiction YA 

                                        great YA book!!                              books look great! 

5. Speaking to librarian, Jean confirmed her suspicions that woman who “became wealthy during the Gold Rush of 1849” was indeed Caroline Cogswell, and she had Cogswell Tower constructed when she passed away.

6. Oh look! Right next to Cogswell Tower was Jenks Park. Sweet swing set! Too bad it is snowing like mad!

7. It turns out there are LOTS of places for CF youth to play sports or get moving. For example, the Higginson Avenue Complex, and Macomber Stadium. Macomber Stadium, by the way, is home to PANTHER FOOTBALL!

8. I had done a little research before Jean and I headed out, and was hoping to find the monument to the four strikers who died during the Saylesville Massacre on September 10th, 1934. CF was home to many mills around Blackstone Valley, and it looks like has a quite an interesting labor history. The incident in CF was part of a larger strike across New England organized by Textile Workers. I was under the impression the monument was at Moshassuck Cemetery but…

9. Jean and I found this instead! There is a large monument to those who died during the Civil War.

There's me, displaying an inappropriate level of joy for the setting.

10. I learned this morning that CF has an active and successful Chess team! Last year the middle and high school teams went to the Super-National Championship in Nashville, TN. The High School placed 8th out 65 teams, and the Middle School tied for 7th out 53 teams. Tonight they're hosting a fundraiser, taking on local politicians!

Courtesy of the their Facebook page!

OK SO WHAT?
          Thing 1: I loved learning about the Saylesville Massacre. I had this moment where information clicked into place. There is a lot of interesting and important labor history surrounding Blackstone Valley and connected to Slater Mill because of the intense industrialization during the later part of the 19th century. THIS IS NOT ISOLATED IN PAWTUCKET. Central Falls has an intense and important history with unions and strikers, as a place so close and also filled at one time with mills and factories. I wonder how this is included in CF classrooms? I remember growing up in RI hearing a lot about poor working conditions in factories, and specifically Slater Mills. However, the labor history was left out. I think stories of people in their own communities working together to make change are important and should be shared. Finding out these histories about the communities I end up working in will be important.

          Thing 2: The Manga Club! When Jean and I went to the library and I saw the poster for the Manga Club and the Anime section I thought it was super cool! I imagined a group of local kids who got together and talked about Manga and shared some drawings. Then I remember a story from a really good friend from the Bay Area in California. He and his mother were at the library one day and he realized that people from the community could rent out rooms during the week for meetings. He a friend got really excited and decided to form an Anime Club!! They booked the room, and made flyers!! They hung them up at school and in the Anime section at the local book stores. The day for their meeting finally came.....  I imagine my friend, young and Ernest, with high hopes! He and his friend wait by the door, expected droves of other young folks reading to poor over their anime collections. Well guess, what? One other kid showed up. I laugh out loud at this story (which I guess is a little cruel?... Whatever we're friends).  But you know what? Three people was just fine for the three of them. I asked the CF librarian if she gets a lot of students for the Manga Club and she shook her head. I am afraid that some people would hear that not many students go to the clubs at their library and shake their heads muttering something negative about CF. For me, the moral of the story is that kids are kids everywhere. Learning about all the parks, Panther Football and the Chess team was great because the narrative of CF being a national disaster is really powerful. In my experiences, that is far from true. I'm not saying it's a place free of problems, but it's definitely not a place full of rowdy directionless youth like so many people would have me believe.