Baby’s Learning and Our Students’ Learning

My wife and I  have taken care of our ten month old grandson for two days.  He  now puts Cheerios in his mouth.  He cannot yet feed himself with spoon. Life skills take a long time to develop.

I teach a college composition and research course  in which I spend the whole semester in having the learners develop their essay skills. Most students come in with a very low level of skill. Numerous students write their first essay as one long paragraph with no introduction, no conclusion, no major categories of proof, no evidence and no detailed examples. By the end of the course,  they can write a full five paragraph essay in 50 minutes. We constantly assess and improve upon the various skills in essay writing until they can skillfully use them.

I wonder how much time we spend in our classes in teaching the life skills of our course. Do we give our students prolonged time to learn, practice, and be assessed on their critical skills?  Do we consciously build on the skill over time to get it to a proficient level?  Do we revisit the skill to help them increase in their level of the skill? Do our students finally reach a level that they have developed a life skill of our course?

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students, is available through Eye-on-Education.

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Activating Prior Knowledge and Formative Assessment

As I work with my students to develop their writing skills, I want to know what they already know about writing. I want to activate their prior knowledge and experiences. However, there is a down side to activating prior knowledge. A science teacher friend says that his students have many more misconceptions about science, then conceptions. He is careful to find out their misconceptions about a topic at the very beginning of the unit so that he can spend time in helping them to understand that their misconception is not valid science thinking. If they continue with this misconception, they will never grasp the real conception. I find that the same thing happens in writing. Students have misconceptions about writing such as “if I write it, it has to be good”,  “A very long story at the beginning of a very short essay is a great introduction.” or “One small piece of evidence is enough to convince my reader”.

I think we have to be aware that activating prior knowledge means activating whatever the student s may  think they “know” about the topic. Such activation does not assume that all prior “knowledge” is really positive knowledge. Activating prior knowledge provides a great formative assessment tool since we can “see” the students’ previous learning.  Therefore, we can guide the student forward instead letting student being stuck in his/her misconceptions.

Do you activate and diagnose students’ prior knowledge and  figure out strategies to  help the students improve in their learning?

Looking Ahead For Better Learning

I attended my every three year Defensive Driving Course to get a reduction in my insurance. The AAA instructor and the DVD said that we should always be looking 20-30 seconds ahead on the road or about a third of a mile forward so we can be prepared for what is ahead.

I wonder how often we take our eyes off of our current learning to remind ourselves and our students of what is ahead, the standard. It is too easy to get focused on the moment so that we forget where we are really headed. By being focused only on the present activity, we may not connect our present activity into the bigger picture. The present activity may not seem to serve any purpose except when seen in the bigger picture. When students know where they are headed, they are more likely to get there and to be able to assess their progress. As we check what is ahead, we can help modify our instruction to make sure our students get there.

How do you help your students to see the standard or the big concepts of the year?

For any one who is interested in implementing formative assessment in the classroom, my book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students is available through Eye-on-Education.

Meaningful Learning for Students

A squirrel got in our basement. He is hiding and will not come out.

I wonder how often students get trapped in our classes. They attend and they do the mandatory work. They eat away at all the homework.  I wonder how often they get motivated by the learning to come out of their “do not bother me” hiding place.  Do they see the classroom learning as critical to the lives?  “When am I ever going to use this in my life?” How do we constantly show them the big picture of their learning so that they see how it does relate to their lives?   One high school teacher I know teaches themes (reality/illusion; fantasy love/real love; work/ideas) that are important to his students through literature. Each piece of literature helps his students to deal with their current and future lives.  I’ve heard of a  science teacher who  incorporates his class science into household science so that the students see science as part of their daily lives.

How do you relate your course to your students’ lives in a real way, not a “someday you’ll need it” way? Do they want to learn your subject because it means something to them now?

Oprah’s Book Club, A New Earth, and Classroom Education

I have attended two of Oprah’s online book club sessions on Tolle’s A New Earth. I am fascinated with how Oprah selects to present information. Other than the face shots of Oprah and Eckhart, there were two screens of quotes from the book. Then there were various people who are skyping in, emailing in (Oprah reads their email), and phoning in.

I am struck by several aspects.

When there is a compelling topic, there is no need for a “three ring circus” to keep people interested. Do we have compelling topics in our classes? Do we have essential questions that are really essential to students’ lives? The battles of the US Civil War are not critical but the differences that cause wars (personal, national, and international) is a critical understanding.

Words have to be carefully chosen to convey a precise meaning. Eckhart uses words like “form” and “ego” very precisely. How carefully do we select our words in the classroom or do we “wing” it? Have we planned out a powerful verbal or visual script that guides our students in their learning? Are our words so precise that students can see differences in concepts?

Big ideas need to be accompanied by vivid examples so that the ideas become “visible”. How do we take the big ideas/concepts in our subject area and make them visible to our students through concrete examples? Do we have a story, a visual, an emovie, or some technology to show that depicts the big idea?