My experience in working with students in every grade from one to ten as a learning coach has exposed me to a wide variety of classroom situations and students. The real eye-opener was my continual involvement in the creating of unit projects for math 10-3 class in our school division. I had ideas of how we could change the way we teach these kids and this utopia that we were going to meet their needs in such a unique and wonderful way. I actually was naïve enough at the beginning of their semester to think my work with their teacher was going to change education and schooling for these students, creating an amazing experience for them that would change their outlook of school. Then we kept rolling out the projects at the end of each unit, knowing that we would want to modify the tasks and reflect on ways to improve it for future 10-3 students. The projects went okay. But it really wasn’t all that we had dreamed of. The students were scared to try these projects because of the unfamiliarity and the challenge that it presented. Real life is projects, which is why we thought the projects would be a powerful tool in helping these students. Real life doesn’t hand out worksheets. Yet the students prefer the worksheets and traditional style of testing over the projects that we created. It was interesting to watch as I continually revisited the classroom, tweaked our approach, scaffold the assignments, yet saw a significant resistance to the work and effort required to do the projects. All of the students were able to complete the projects and produce quality work, but it required a ton of probing, pushing, and at times pleading to get them to do the assignment. They were not nearly as enthusiastic as we expected them to be. The reason for this was clear to us – these students believe that they are completely incapable of doing the math. Each student could actually answer my questions and do the work, but they really didn’t believe they could do it on their own. After numerous conversations with students in this class, it became clear that our education system had beaten these kids down and ruined their self-esteem year after year after year. By grade 10, these students have been led to believe that they are not smart and they will not succeed in math. We need to change this. This is why we believe in doing this work of UDL. As a system we need to change our approaches to teaching, assessing, working with students who have unique needs, learning styles, and challenges. These students are brilliant. They are fully capable of achieving great things in life if they would have opportunities for success to build their confidence and help them realize their full potential. Unfortunately, to date most of the students have gone through an education system that has failed to realize their needs and failed to bring out the true potential and abilities that these students have. Our one-size-fits-all approach can no longer be the approach. It doesn’t work. And it’s not someone else’s problem. It’s all of our problems, and we need to work together to achieve this. Brett Seatter with Margryt Rispens
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Blame it on the two feet of snow on the ground and the fact that it is May the 5th, but I have gardening on my brain. Seeds are strewn across my table, potting soil is piling up in my garage, and my hands itch to dig in the dirt. I want to get messy, scatter seeds, and watch, impatiently waiting for something new to grow. I really want to tend my garden. Sometimes people ask, why would I bother with a garden? My backyard is the size of a postage stamp and there is barely enough space to kick a soccer ball around, let alone grow potatoes. Gardening takes time, and hard work, and aren’t we busy enough? Do we actually grow enough food to make it worth our efforts? Those of us who garden know the answer is more than yes. The work is challenging and the results are often unpredictable. As we plant our seeds it is hard to determine if this variety and that soil will yield the best crop. We read up to date science and apply our current best practice of gardening. We bring this combination of knowledge and skill to our garden and hope and pray for the best. When things fail, we adjust and redo. When they thrive we record the winning combination to use again on future gardens. It is more than worth the effort, as through the process we learn and grow ourselves. Gardening is not defined by the sum of it’s parts, it is defined by the iterate process. It is through this process that we the gardener grow…not just our seeds. This is the same hope and aspiration we have for our curriculum development prototyping work. We are often asked questions like: Why bother to contribute to this process? What if anything in schools will really change? Will the effort you put in produce? When asked over and over why we would take up such challenging, unpredictable work the answer is because we grow through the work. That is the intention. It is the same hope we have our students in our schools. We develop curriculum prototypes just as we would garden. Through an iterate process that is as important if not more than the finished product. We plant seeds of thought, seeds of hope, seeds of inspiration and pray that our future students will reap the rewards. When we notice students are no longer thriving, we will analyze, evaluate and once again begin the iterate planning process with an essential question: Jim Parsons and Larry Beauchamp envisioned for Alberta Education a Curriculum Development Process that would allow for iteration to be applied to curriculum that is flexible, responsive, relevant, inclusive and engaging for all students. It is a process that at its heart is about learning and growing. Not just for students but for all of us in our community (garden) of learners (growers). When envision what a curriculum prototype could look like, my colleague Alison Van Rosendaal posed the question, “If the metaphor for our old curriculum was the industrial model or more specifically the conveyor belt, what is our new metaphor for curriculum?” In our conversation, she shared the following video. We found this to hold a lot of potential for creating a new metaphor. Keep planting, keep sowing and never ever stop growing.
This Blog post is a continuation from the post done in December with the work conducted with a grade 3 class at Barrhead Elementary School. The work in the classroom was based on the in-service with Jennifer Katz . It has been very exciting to roll out the project work on the Building Things unit the grade 3 Science Program of Studies. My post in December mentioned the process that we had gone through prior to rolling out the activities at each centre. The students enjoyed having a choice of activities and as one student eloquently pointed out, he “enjoyed showing what her learned rather than writing down what he learned”. The project centres were based around the rubric created for the unit and the 8 “smarts” or multiple intelligences. Each centre represented a different smart: word, number, picture, body, nature, music, self and people smart. Each of the eight centres had at least two different activities for students to choose from. Students also had the choice to work alone or with others. Prior to working at the centres, students discussed group work and how groups operate effectively. Explicit teaching of group work skills is critical for students to be successful in working together. After the first couple of times of rotating through the centres we had the students reflect on what worked and did not work, as a group. These discussions were valuable as students brought up how to deal when conflict arises, how to decide who does what when working together and the pros and cons of working alone vs. together. Each center was explained by way of powerpoint presentation. Educreations were created for each centre task to allow students to also hear and see the instructions if they wanted to. A building webpage, including all the Educreation task cards and web resources, was added to the classes teacher’s website as well. Bins were used to store tasks cards and materials for each center. Students moved through all the centres with their assigned group but they had choice of which task they completed within each centre. After completion of the centre activities the students did a summative assessment piece. Students were able to choose how to show what they learned in this unit of study. Some guided questions were provided for students along with the rubric. Many students chose powerpoint to present their learning while others chose prezi and poster format. Key learning from both the teachers and students in the project indicated the value of choice, multiple ways to express learning, working collaboratively and the deep, rich learning that occurs when students become engaged and active in their learning. Shirley Craig By Julie Smith, Associate Principal of Barrhead Elementary
(This information has also been added to the LINKS page of our website) Over a decade ago, I used a video camera to make a recording for a boy with autism in my classroom. Two students in my class volunteered to act out a scenario showing appropriate behaviors as they interacted together. I then asked my educational assistant to review this video several times with the boy, to help him get a better picture of our expectations. The results were good; we saw a decrease in the inappropriate behavior we were trying to target. I tried this two or three more times that year but found the process to be quite time consuming despite the fact that I had all the technology needed and found it relatively easy to use. At the time, I didn’t realize that this was an evidence based intervention and that it was referred to as video modeling. This year, there are several students in my school who have been identified with emotional behavioral disorders and I’ve been using an iPhone to record video to share with school teams as we work together to address these students’ needs. I’ve also explored the use of tablet apps that use photos to build more interactive social stories for students; a process that was quite simple and easily taught to other staff. I began wondering if other educators are using any of this new portable, easy to use technology in this way to help their students. First, I was interested in finding research that proved the effectiveness of video based interventions. Here is what I learned:
The following research articles can be found online on the ATA website. Be sure to log in to gain full access to the Alberta Teachers’ Association Library. Blood, E. M., Johnson, J. W., Ridenour, L., Simmons, K. L., & Crouch, S. (2011). Using an iPod touch to teach social and self-management skills to an elementary student with emotional/behavioral disorders. Education and Treatment of Children, (3), 299. Carnahan, C. R., Basham, J. D., Christman, J., & Hollingshead, A. (2012). Overcoming challenges: "Going mobile with your own video models". Teaching Exceptional Children, 45(2-), 50-59. Cihak, D., Fahrenkrog, C., Ayres, K. M., & Smith, C. (2010). The use of video modeling via a video iPod and a system of least prompts to improve transitional behaviors for students with autism spectrum disorders in the general education classroom. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 12 (2), 103-115. doi:10.1177/1098300709332346 Applying UDL principles in the classroom: Hall, T., Meyer, A., & Rose, D. (2012). Universal design for learning in the classroom: Practical applications New York: Guilford Press, 2012. Want to read my entire paper on video-based interventions? (Click on the link below) Smith, J. (2014). Video based interventions that address the needs of students with emotional behavioral disorders: What does the literature say? Google Doc: Access The following links may also be helpful: Steps for Video-Modeling Implementation (National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders) Video Modeling & Video Self-Modeling Samples ( The Video Modeling & Video Self-Modeling Wiki) Video Modeling Presentation (Autism Supports Project Workshop) How to Improve Social Skills in Children with ADHD (Keath Low, MA-psychotherapist) Serving Children With Emotional-Behavioral and Language Disorders: A Collaborative Approach (Jennifer Armstrong, PhD, CCC-SLP) Glossary of Terms – helpful links Social Learning Theory - http://www.learning-theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html Social Stories - http://www.thegraycenter.org/social-stories/what-are-social-stories Emotional Behavioral Disorders – Alberta Education Coding Criteria https://education.alberta.ca/media/825847/spedcodingcriteria.pdf Universal Design for Learning - http://www.cast.org/library/video/udl_at_a_glance/index.html I was scrolling through Facebook this morning when I came across the following post: The PC government's new math curriculum is failing Alberta students. Alberta's performance in international testing is plummeting and it's because the PCs have foisted so-called "discovery math" on our students. Instead of learning the fundamentals of mathematics – like memorizing the multiplication tables – students are encouraged to invent their own strategies and techniques to solve math problems. Here is an example of what the “new math” looks like, compared to what used to be taught. Visit http://wildro.se/1vq to sign a petition to oppose the new math and ‘LIKE’ and ‘SHARE’ if you think kids should learn the basics first. I find this post and posts like them problematic for many reasons…
First of all, all of this is really not a question of “old math” vs. “new math” as much as it is a question of teaching how to successfully perform a mathematical procedure compared to teaching towards an in depth understanding of mathematical concepts. In a nutshell, “…many of the older methods do not teach math, they teach procedures.” (A quote from Brett Seatter’s previous blog “New Math, or Real Math?”) Knowing that I need to line numbers up in a certain way, start adding on the right, carry the one, add the next column, etc. does not necessarily equate to having an understanding of what is happening when that procedure is performed. What the “new math” encourages is the development of higher order mathematical thinking skills and a thorough understanding of the concepts being taught. The benefit is that when a true and in depth understanding is developed, those concepts can be transferred and applied to novel situations in the future. This particular Facebook post implies that the “new math” doesn’t teach the “fundamentals of mathematics” and that couldn’t be further from the truth. The “new math” continues to expect that elementary students will learn their “basic facts” (multiplication tables, etc.). education.alberta.ca/media/8394320/q-a_teach_eng.pdf The one thing that the post does get right is that students are encouraged to be creative problem solvers and to use strategies and techniques that work for them. Our classrooms are filled with unique and diverse students. The “new math” provides flexibility for students who learn and understand concepts in a variety of ways. Rather than saying to students “You must do it this way, this is the only way”, we are offering them a variety of strategies, encouraging them to try them all (including the “old way”), and then allowing them to choose the strategies that make the most mathematical sense to them. As a parent, and as a teacher, it thrills me to know that my children and students are in an environment where innovative and creative thinking are being fostered and not stifled. “Old math” vs. “new math” has recently become a political speaking point that isn’t based on mathematical pedagogy or a sound understanding of it. Instead, certain political parties are using this particular issue to attack their rivals in a time of political unrest. Obviously, political parties are trying to attract potential voters based on this issue. The unfortunate thing is that there are massive misconceptions among the public about what the “new math” really is, and oversimplifications, such as the image in the above post, only compound the problem more. Imagine what would happen if political parties got involved when a new medical procedure is being implemented… At first glance, it wouldn’t make any sense at all to suggest that entering the body via the groin could repair a heart valve, or that it would be the most effective and efficient way. It would be easy to suggest that this is a ridiculous and convoluted solution to the problem. Common sense would say that repairing the heart should be done by accessing it directly through the chest… after all, the heart is right there in the chest. However, the truth is that doctors are generally in a much better position to determine the most effective methods and procedures for repairing the body than either the public or the politicians are, as they are the professionals who have given their life to the study of medicine. Of course there needs to be checks and balances in the system, but a certain level of respect can and should be afforded to the professionals in the field. In the world of education, the relationships between parents and teachers, as well as the public and the teaching profession, needs to be one of mutual respect. Both parents and teachers (and the public and the profession) have vested interests in the students that are involved and in the long-term outcomes of their education. Most members of the public, including parents, were educated under the “old math”. Because of that, and through no fault of their own, that is what their experience is limited to. Admittedly, if your background is in the “old math”, the new math can seem convoluted and confusing and appear to require a lot of unnecessary extraneous steps to solve what appears to be a straightforward problem. Herein lies the responsibility of teachers and the educational system; we need to clearly explain what it is that is being done and what is achieved by doing this. We need to show understanding and be willing to offer explanations when there are questions. We need to remember that at some point the “new math” was new to us too and that we had questions of our own. The reality is that the “old math” vs. “new math” issue is not unique to Alberta; mathematical education is shifting elsewhere as well, and along with the change comes questions. The questions should be welcomed! The questions cause us all to pause and think and make sure that we are headed in the right direction. Ultimately we likely all want the same thing; students who are learning what they need to learn in order to be successful and contribute to society in a positive way. Kendra Seatter |
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AuthorsThis blog and resources website has been developed through the work of various AISI coaches in PHRD. The lead collaborative teachers for the 2015/2016 school year, Cheryl Frose, Christine Quong and Tammy Tkachuk will continue to update this site. If you have resources you would like to share or would like to contribute to the blog, please contact us. Archives
May 2016
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