Leadership Icebreaker

This exercise is always a fun component for the Leadership class... Students are put in charge for the first time in this class and lead an icebreaker "drill". Today they broke up into teams and began planning how they would implement it. Over the next two days the students will lead the rest of the class in the icebreaker. We will begin to see how they work as teams and who will emerge as leaders.

The teams are given a worksheet that helps them question how well they performed. It's the evaluative piece that gets them thinking about whether the icebreaker they chose was a good one and how they need to deliver some actual value to the classroom experience.

Have they learned everyone's names yet? That helps a lot. We will begin to see how this plays out over the next two days.

2nd day

Not that I plan to make a post each and every day, but two days in a row - now that's something for me...

So this is a quick post. Today I'll say the students were more in awe and not as squirrely at least for me.

I'm not sure why, but I tend to do well in this niche I've found at Euclid. Often I can diagnose a problem within seconds and I'm able to fix things that others have been stumped by simply by walking in the room (at least that's the impression I tend to leave LOL). At any rate it was one of those days where I was quite busy, tended to the problem(s) at hand and went on my way leaving them in "awe". That's always fun!

I know it sounds like I am boasting and I guess I am. The point I'm trying to make though is that I've found my little niche in the world here and it's wonderful for a person to find his/hers... It may be the most important aspect of doing a job day after day. I hope all of us can find our niche and make an impact however small (at least in my case right now) as it makes a job seem more rewarding.

So I'll leave you with that thought and move on. It was a good day.

First day back

Kids were squirrelly today. I hope this isn't a sign of the whole year. They were really chatty and not their usual reserved & respectful selves that I've seen in the past.

I watched our staff battle this all day long. Not sure if it was first day jitters on the part of the students or something else? Time will tell. As for me, my approach is to set a high standard and expect students to honor that. If they don't then school won't be nearly as fun as it could and learning will suffer.

Let's hope for a better day tomorrow.

Learning and Testing

Here’s an interesting notion that may challenge your thinking about learning taken from the NY Times: I've left the link below, but NYTimes typically remove links from their site after a bit so I'm pasting the article from their website...

To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: January 20, 2011

Taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for assessing how much people know, according to new research. It actually helps people learn, and it works better than a number of other studying techniques.

The research, published online Thursday in the journal Science, found that students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods.

One of those methods — repeatedly studying the material — is familiar to legions of students who cram before exams. The other — having students draw detailed diagrams documenting what they are learning — is prized by many teachers because it forces students to make connections among facts.
These other methods not only are popular, the researchers reported; they also seem to give students the illusion that they know material better than they do.
In the experiments, the students were asked to predict how much they would remember a week after using one of the methods to learn the material. Those who took the test after reading the passage predicted they would remember less than the other students predicted — but the results were just the opposite.
“I think that learning is all about retrieving, all about reconstructing our knowledge,” said the lead author, Jeffrey Karpicke, an assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University. “I think that we’re tapping into something fundamental about how the mind works when we talk about retrieval.”
Several cognitive scientists and education experts said the results were striking.
The students who took the recall tests may “recognize some gaps in their knowledge,” said Marcia Linn, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “and they might revisit the ideas in the back of their mind or the front of their mind.”
When they are later asked what they have learned, she went on, they can more easily “retrieve it and organize the knowledge that they have in a way that makes sense to them.”
The researchers engaged 200 college students in two experiments, assigning them to read several paragraphs about a scientific subject — how the digestive system works, for example, or the different types of vertebrate muscle tissue.
In the first experiment, the students were divided into four groups. One did nothing more than read the text for five minutes. Another studied the passage in four consecutive five-minute sessions.
A third group engaged in “concept mapping,” in which, with the passage in front of them, they arranged information from the passage into a kind of diagram, writing details and ideas in hand-drawn bubbles and linking the bubbles in an organized way.
The final group took a “retrieval practice” test. Without the passage in front of them, they wrote what they remembered in a free-form essay for 10 minutes. Then they reread the passage and took another retrieval practice test.
A week later all four groups were given a short-answer test that assessed their ability to recall facts and draw logical conclusions based on the facts.
The second experiment focused only on concept mapping and retrieval practice testing, with each student doing an exercise using each method. In this initial phase, researchers reported, students who made diagrams while consulting the passage included more detail than students asked to recall what they had just read in an essay.
But when they were evaluated a week later, the students in the testing group did much better than the concept mappers. They even did better when they were evaluated not with a short-answer test but with a test requiring them to draw a concept map from memory.
Why retrieval testing helps is still unknown. Perhaps it is because by remembering information we are organizing it and creating cues and connections that our brains later recognize.
“When you’re retrieving something out of a computer’s memory, you don’t change anything — it’s simple playback,” said Robert Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved with the study.
But “when we use our memories by retrieving things, we change our access” to that information, Dr. Bjork said. “What we recall becomes more recallable in the future. In a sense you are practicing what you are going to need to do later.”
It may also be that the struggle involved in recalling something helps reinforce it in our brains.
Maybe that is also why students who took retrieval practice tests were less confident about how they would perform a week later.
“The struggle helps you learn, but it makes you feel like you’re not learning,” said Nate Kornell, a psychologist at Williams College. “You feel like: ‘I don’t know it that well. This is hard and I’m having trouble coming up with this information.’ ”
By contrast, he said, when rereading texts and possibly even drawing diagrams, “you say: ‘Oh, this is easier. I read this already.’ ”

The Purdue study supports findings of a recent spate of research showing learning benefits from testing, including benefits when students get questions wrong. But by comparing testing with other methods, the study goes further.

“It really bumps it up a level of importance by contrasting it with concept mapping, which many educators think of as sort of the gold standard,” said Daniel Willingham, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia. Although “it’s not totally obvious that this is shovel-ready — put it in the classroom and it’s good to go — for educators this ought to be a big deal.”
Howard Gardner, an education professor at Harvard who advocates constructivism — the idea that children should discover their own approach to learning, emphasizing reasoning over memorization — said in an e-mail that the results “throw down the gauntlet to those progressive educators, myself included.”
“Educators who embrace seemingly more active approaches, like concept mapping,” he continued, “are challenged to devise outcome measures that can demonstrate the superiority of such constructivist approaches.”
Testing, of course, is a highly charged issue in education, drawing criticism that too much promotes rote learning, swallows valuable time for learning new things and causes excessive student anxiety.
“More testing isn’t necessarily better,” said Dr. Linn, who said her work with California school districts had found that asking students to explain what they did in a science experiment rather than having them simply conduct the hands-on experiment — a version of retrieval practice testing — was beneficial. “Some tests are just not learning opportunities. We need a different kind of testing than we currently have.”
Dr. Kornell said that “even though in the short term it may seem like a waste of time,” retrieval practice appears to “make things stick in a way that may not be used in the classroom.
“It’s going to last for the rest of their schooling, and potentially for the rest of their lives.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

I prefer their term: “retrieval practice” over test-taking, but that’s my $.02 worth. Perhaps if one used retrieval practice where it wasn’t for a grade it would reduce test-taking anxiety for students and yield better outcomes. More research…

Do the best rise to the top?

Here's my leadership question for the day:

"Do you think we live in a meritocracy?"

I'll quote Webster's definition for the word meritocracy since it's not a word most of us use everyday.

• 1. a system in which the talented are chosen and moved ahead on the basis of their achievement
• 2. leadership selected on the basis of intellectual criteria
  
  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meritocracy

When I was about twenty years old I read some of Ayn Rand's writings. This word, meritocracy, seems to jump back in my mind to impressions and feelings I had from her writings in Atlas Shrugged and Anthem.

• Anyway, what are you thinking about this word and this post and how does it relate to leadership, our students, and even today's leaders?
• How do we instill values in our youth to make them the greatest leaders of their time?
• How does one become tomorrow's leader - it is based on leadership ability or something else?

Brainstorming 101

The class worked in groups while working out the steps for a task that they will eventually form a team and conduct for the semester. The task involved them brainstorming and coming up with all the steps needed to award falcon feathers to students by placing it on their locker.

After several minutes of brainstorming we stopped the groups and made suggestions. One of the tenets of brainstorming is that there is no "bad" idea. The scribe at each table was to write down any idea that was offered. This seemed to open the flood gates and gave the groups more freedom to think of additional ideas. After we stopped the groups after another 2 minutes we found that they had nearly doubled their steps and seemed had come up with some issues that they had not thought about before...

New Look for the blog...

Thought I'd play around with some new templates on blogger. There's a new design builder and it's kind of fun to see what Google is offering now on their site. Sure, there's a lot of other tweaks I can do, but I simply picked a new look and want some feedback...

Tell me what you think. Do you like it? Is it too dark. Does it make it better or worse? Any input at all is okay. Thanks in advance!

Class is Jellin'

Our Leadership class is starting to come into its own. Today we had three student groups conduct ice breakers with the rest of the class then everyone evaluated the activity. Meanwhile another group is preparing for Back to School Night this Thursday and they seem to be enjoying the process too. Additionally there are several other small groups breaking off and working on other mini projects. It's more than a three-ring circus and quite a bit of fun to be involved as I am. I am enjoying stepping back and observing how these emerging leaders are beginning to take control.

Later in the week we will begin to launch our student-led projects that are part of the school-wide leadership initiative. That's going to be a lot of fun too.

Schoolwide Leadership

Tomorrow we kick off our school-wide leadership initiative starting with our 8th grade class. Mr. Hein gave an overview to the Leadership class he and I co-teach and it seemed to begin to click with out class.

Tomorrow 8/19/2010 will be an exciting day because it begins the actual process for kids and that's what we're here for. We began this conversation almost two years ago and now it's becoming a reality. I am proud to be a part of this plan.

Leadership Day 2

Today's class went by quickly and fairly smoothly. Some of the kids are tuning out from time to time. I think this is fairly normal with a class like this. Tomorrow we'll mix things up so friends are grouped with people they may not know as well.

As we are planning out our days I'm starting to relax a little more. I tend to think of these students as operating on a higher cognitive level than they are probably capable of. I need to keep this in check. I need to remind myself that these are young people still and some of the deep reflection and connections that I want to think they should be making are not something they are ready for yet. And still they surprise me sometimes!

I don't intend to post each and every day's activities, but today was a lot more fun for the students and we are quickly becoming more comfortable with our students.

Leadership Class - Day 1

Well we made it through the first day of class AND school. So much planning has gone into our Leadership model for the school and we haven't had a lot of time (nil) to plan the actual class we are going to teach.

Sure we had an idea of what to do in our heads, but getting it on paper and "pouring concrete" for the entire semester hasn't really happened yet - at least not to my liking.

In a nutshell I can share that:

1. They (the students) were scared and shy. After all they are having a class with the principal and myself!
2. We were scared too.
3. They were "scared-er".
4. It takes a lot longer to actually get any task done with a full class than one visualizes.
5. Teaching young minds is easy and it's hard - not what I imagined from the outside.

We asked for first impressions today about the "student guide to leadership" that we've developed. When asked "what emotions did you feel", one student said it made him "proud to be a part of this." That statement was so honest and raw I wasn't prepared with a response, but it keeps resonating with me. I believe that PRIDE in what you are doing is vital to the success of a task and one can draw strength from it... I think I just learned something!

Leadership Class

Perhaps you're wondering what the subject is that I am teaching? We're calling the elective class "Leadership" and that's what it's all about. It is for 8th grade students - we have 27 signed up for the first day of school.

So what is Leadership and how can we teach it to 13 year old students? We've searched for material on the subject that is relevant to this age group, but don't see a lot of material for people this young. Once aspect of our school-wide model is based on Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens, but there's so much more to it than that. The lack of material on the subject seems odd to me. We've spoken to many people - parents, administrators, staff, students and EVERYONE seems to really dig what we're trying to do. I don't mind that we're entering a new frontier; that's okay, we don't mind being pioneers!

Much of what we've planned thus far will involve the students being given leadership opportunities in a format where they can experiment, fail and strengthen their skills. Think of it like a sandbox where it's safe to try something and have it flop or come out smelling like roses. In both cases we learn what it means to be a leader and that's really at the heart of what we're trying to do.

Wish us luck as we begin to develop course content.

Teaching and Leadership Intro

So... I am co-teaching a class this year with our school Principal - Gary Hein. I intend to write some of my thoughts in this blog about this endevour, my entry into the REAL teaching world, and some thoughts about how our school is taking a new direction with our school-wide leadership culture.

It should be fun to discuss, ruminate and share ideas so jump in and make any comments you like. Seriously though I need lots of help with the teaching bit so please share your ideas on how to make a positive impression with middle school age kids and any insights you may have.

Flu Trends Around the World

Google has developed a tool that can yield surprisingly accurate results sooner than the CDC:
- click "Learn More" on the page link below to get an explanation of what's going on here.

http://www.google.org/flutrends/

(Note: The site is google.ORG, not .COM!)

Would it be a fun learning exercise to have your class make guesses as to the terms that might indicate some kind of trend?
How might some one be misled if they didn't understand the data or have enough data amassed to make certain conclusions?
What type of people in various careers would use this? Medical, Sociology, Statisticians, Mathematicians, Scientists, the list goes on...

Interesting stuff!

Homework Day with Wolfram Alpha

October 21^st is a day that the new search tool Wolfram Alpha will be hosting a special live event to promote answering tough homework questions for K-12 and beyond. Why not see if Wolfram Alpha can answer a question that stumped your class? It starts at 10am MST  and will run all day long.

 

For more details visit this site: http://homeworkday.wolframalpha.com/

 

Regards,

Mason

 

 

Science IS Interesting!

I've started listening to a NPR Podcast about "making science more interesting" and it's an enjoyable listen so I encourage you teachers to listen to it. Though I've not finished the entire podcast I'm left with a couple of thoughts at this point.

0. I like the statement that "a teacher's passion for a subject" is really what comes through to students and that (more than anything) is what will engage students.

1. It seems like more and more it's EXPECTED that teachers HAVE TO make their lessons interesting or they fail somehow as teachers.

Here's the link - have a listen and then please throw in your comments to this post.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200909253

Useful Webtools for Teachers

Here's a list of useful webtools for teachers. All of them are free of charge. (Some require you to create an account and log in, but the basic tools on these sites are free.) I know many of you already have lesson plans in place, while others may be looking for extra material to direct towards our students. I encourage you to investigate them and use as you see fit.

Library of Congress: Check out the teacher page. This one is completely free! A related site is on flickr (teacher override required) with historical photographs with no known copyrights making it a great source for students and teachers.

For Language Arts and History: shmoop It looks real cool and not just for you, but also with your students. Description: Oh, just look at the website for a good description... no point in me restating what they are all about.

With all those netbooks out there in out LA classes how about a web-based quiz program and instant grading system? Have the results emailed to you instantly. Give ClassMarker a try. Upgrades cost $24.95/year, but the entry-level quiz taker should be fine for most of us.

Concerned with plagiarism? Are kids just copying and pasting text from Google then calling it their own? Use the DOCCOP, a powerful engine that will flag plagiarized student work. Easy to use and totally free!

Lastly, just for students take a gander at these 15 tools. I like #10 etherpad, could be real cool with our netbooks! I've not tested if all of these are filtered from school, but you're only one click away from discovering that so just give it a try and pass them along to our students.

WEB Leadership - Name Tag Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday we met with our 8th grade WEB leaders for the first time since the start of school. We gathered in our official WEB leader room and quickly assigned them the task of finding all of their 6th grade "webbies" in the cafe during lunch. It was sort of a scavenger hunt in that the WEB leaders had to connect and obtain a name tag from each of their 6th graders.

We specifically gave few instructions to the WEB leaders and wanted to see how they would perform in this quick task. Who among them would rise to the task? How would they connect with the 6th grade students and create a feeling of belonging in our school?

Meanwhile the 6th graders had no idea what was about to happen during lunch. All they knew was that they had to wear their special name tags that they made earlier and that "someone" might be contacting them in the lunch room.

So the race was on, and the excited 8th graders quickly started tracking down their "webbies". What strategies would they use to find them? How were they to connect with each student in this sea of students, lunch-time enthusiasm and the excitement of the scavenger hunt?

With little time on their hands the 8th grade WEB leaders rose to the task. During a debrief with the WEB leaders we learned that they connected with the "webbies" and got smiles, laughter and good eye contact. They felt that the exercise was fun and that in many cases they "connected" with their 6th grade WEB students. Sure, we had a few glitches and the process was hard to complete in such short timeframe.


We did have fun and there was a general feeling of connection in the lunch room. We hope this and future WEB projects continue with this theme of connection and belonging in our school.

Netbook Launch

Tomorrow (Thursday August 27th) is the launch day for our Inspired Learning project with 6th graders. We will hand out netbooks to each 6th grade student in two of our Language Arts classes. The project has involved a great deal of work this summer for everyone involved and this will be a big moment.

From the enormous support by our district IT people down to each teacher readying their lesson plans we've created something very exciting that I'm proud to be a part of.

I'll be commenting tomorrow about how it goes. Stay tuned!

Twitter - What if?

I know we are no where near doing this at Euclid. There's a lot of unknowns with this new communication method. I'm not real comfortable with the privacy issues around Twitter yet myself and since it's blocked at work I'd have to do all my twittering from elsewhere (or my iPhone). So instead of being super abrasive and pushing the envelope I though I'd just sort of mention it and leave you all with something to consider - for when the time is right.


Still, I thought I could stir things up a bit by just mentioning that Twitter is starting to be used at schools (quite a few in Texas where they tend to "set the tone" for a lot of curriculum for the rest of the nation). The link below will take you to a discussion about Twitter in public schools - enough said. Have a look and let me know what you think. Are we ready for this at LPS?

http://macmomma.blogspot.com/2009/07/twitter-in-schools-what-does-it-really.html