Leading From The Heart

by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.

Category: Teaching

  • Calling for help in high school tech workshop development in English and en français

    I will be facilitating two workshops, essentially identical though different ;) , on integrating technology into secondary school classrooms. Specifically Language Arts, History, and Science.

    When it comes to workshops, teachers want practical ideas that they can use in their classrooms so I will be organizing the workshops by practice first and then filling the theory in as we go, as it is needed.

    Oh, they are identical but different because one is for English secondary teachers, one for French.

    Ideas I have so far:

    Digital Storytelling as the basis for integrating tech not only in the language classrooms but in the other classrooms as well

    Demonstrating examples using:

    • VoiceThread
    • Video
    • Blogging
    • Collaborative creation (using googledocs kind of things)

    Here are the workshop descriptions:

    Technology as part of the learning process: Specific activities that integrate technology in the Secondary classroom.

    In this workshop we will explore specific ways to integrate technology into Secondary Language Arts, History, and Science classrooms. It used to be that technology was an add on, something extra that many of us believed we did not have time for given the reality of rigorous curriculum and time constraints. Now, technology use is part of the curriculum, part of the learning process. We will look at specific ideas that can be used in the classroom – digital storytelling, blogging, voicethread, video, and other collaborative or individual activities – and how they are related to curricular competencies.

    The material we cover, as well as ideas for further exploration, will be added to the website Teaching is a Verb – Enseigner, C’est Agir. The website is set up as a blog and I welcome your comments and questions as they can help me to design a workshop that best addresses your needs.

    ———————-

    La technologie et le processus d’apprentissage: des activitĂ©s spĂ©cifiques qui appuient l’intĂ©gration de technologie dans la salle de classe secondaire

    Il Ă©tait une fois que la technologie en salle de classe Ă©tait une activitĂ© supplĂ©mentaire, quelque chose qu’on faisait si on avait le temps aprĂšs le ‘vrai travail’ du curriculum. Maintenant, la technologie fait partie du curriculum, du processus de l’apprentissage. Durant cet atelier je vais vous prĂ©senter des activitĂ©s spĂ©cifiques que vous pouvez utiliser dans vos salles de classes – le rĂ©cit numĂ©rique, des blogs, VoiceThread, vidĂ©o, et d’autres activitĂ©s de collaboration et non – et comment ces activitĂ©s sont liĂ©es aux compĂ©tences du curriculum.

    Le contenu de l’atelier, en plus que des idĂ©es pour l’exploration supplĂ©mentaire, sera affichĂ© au site web Enseigner, C’est Agir – Teaching is a Verb. En fait, ce site web est un blog alors je vous invite Ă  me laisser vos commentaires ou vos questions, car ils pourraient m’aider Ă  crĂ©er un atelier qui rĂ©pondra plus prĂ©cisĂ©ment a vos besoins actuels.

    Any ideas for me? Things you think are must haves? Things I should avoid?

  • On becoming a teacher

    Kevin had a great answer to the question, “should I become a teacher?”

    Yes, if your passion is to change the lives of young people one day at a time and if you’re willing to see the results of your daily work only years into the future, then yes, you should become a teacher.
    But don’t do it for yourself. Do it for that lonely child whose family is in shambles and your classroom is the only safe place to be. They may not show the appreciation now, and maybe won’t show it ever, but you could be the most important anchor in their lives. Do it for the gifted child who is bored and needs someone thoughtful to pull and push them in new directions. Do it for the kid who always pays attention and does their hardest, no matter what you ask of them. Do it for the ones who resist you at every turn. They all need you.
    Yes, become a teacher. It won’t make you financial rich like your Wall Street friends, but being a teacher will allow you to sleep at night, knowing you are making a real difference in the world (unless you are wide awake, wondering about tomorrow’s lesson plans)

    – Kevin

    I became a teacher because I wanted to make sure every kid had a chance to learn how to read. I’ve stayed a teacher for many more reasons but mainly because I still want every kid to have an equal chance at being their best selves.

    You?

  • I no longer believe in learning styles. You?


    A few years ago I had a series of … conversations … with my then PhD adviser about the notion of learning styles. The conversations included a few of us candidates who were also elementary or high school teachers. He maintained, and would not budge, the stance that there was no evidence to prove the existence of learning styles or the value of learning about individual student learning styles in order to improve their learning in a classroom setting. We maintained that we had seen the value in our classrooms! What was this nonsense about learning style theories being wrong? How could I give up all of the work I had been doing around learning styles in my professional and academic life (a portion of my MA included examining learning style for work in organizational development)?

    So now it’s a few years later and my coursework for this week falls under the theme of, you guessed it, learning styles. And guess what? My thoughts have changed on the subject. I realize that I have stopped testing for learning styles in my classroom. What I used to see as proof that the individual learning styles existed I now see as proof that learning happens when we have a variety of stimuli or input methods. I focus more on making sure there is a diversity of input – that the material I am presenting (if it is me presenting it) is being presented in a variety of manners. Rather than thinking of each students as having a dominant learning style, I think of how multiple forms of input help to solidify learning in everyone.

    And then I did some research and found a number of documents on how learning styles can not be measured, that there is no proof of their existence. Of course, we do always find what we are looking for, don’t we? Regardless, the more I think of this, the more it makes sense.

    Yes, it is possible to supply input (material, lessons, ideas, whatever) in different modalities – visually, kinesthetically, aurally, reflexively, actively, tactiley (according to dictionary.com that is a word, I’m not convinced), [add your -ly here] – and I would argue that this is a good thing BUT that the decision to do so is about good teaching and not about accessing the preferred learning styles of students.

    It’s good teaching when we

    • match the input methods of an activity with the subject matter that is being studied
    • know that a diversity of stimuli helps to anchor what is being learned
    • know that movement increases the flow of blood to the brain
    • use visuals because there is research that demonstrates we need it

    Another thought, not so well thought out so give me some room here but if we think that learning is a social activity, why the emphasis on individual learning styles? Like I said, it’s not so well thought out yet so all I really have is the question as a starting point.

    ————————

    Here are some of those documents I wrote about earlier, in no particular order:

    Do Learning Styles Exist? by Hugh Lafferty & Dr. Keith Burley

    Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students by David Glenn

    New Research Shows Learning Styles Are Nonsense by Keiron Walsh

    Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence by Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork (right sidebar has pdf download of full article, free)

    Learning Styles Re-evaluated By Rick Nauert

    Doubt about learning styles by Jay Matthews

    Learning Styles: A Teacher Misunderstands A Paper, and A Psychological Scientist Explains by Liz Ditz

    Idea of Learning Styles in Education Further Derided by Psychology Researchers by Mike Smith

    Different Strokes for Different Folks? A Critique of Learning Styles (1999) By Steven A. Stahl (pdf)

  • If you allow excuses in this business you will fail

    That’s a quote from Geoffrey Canada. He also says that some teachers can’t teach.

    Yes. And. Yes.

    Here’s the video where he says those things. It kept stalling for me, I hope it works better for you :)

  • Thoughts on learning about teaching French & classroom management

    I am taking a course this summer, a 27 day intensive (did I mention intensive?) course on the teaching of French as a 2nd Language. Each week we have about 12 assignments to complete and reflect on and since it takes place entirely online, the work is mainly in the form of written response. I haven’t written so much in French in a very long time. I received this comment from our instructor yesterday:

    Tes arguments sont convaincants et bien articulĂ©s. Tu m’as fait rire avec ton beau français! Merci, ça fait du bien!

    (Your arguments are convincing and well articulated. You made me laugh with your beautiful French. Thanks!)

    I’m not sure if the ‘beau francais’ part is tinged with a bit of sarcasm or not since at times I felt I was pulling vocabulary and turns of phrases out of my nether regions but at least she was smiling while she read it :) One thing that’s certain, the more I write the better I feel about writing in French. My writing seems to be more automatic now. I check my writing – in particular for things like gender and some aspects of verb usage (do I conjugate a certain verb with etre or avoir?) – with firefox’s French spellcheck**, translation tools, and by merely conducting a search for similar phrases in google. I am finding that more often than not I am ok and so I am starting to trust my writing more and doing those checks less often, which also helps to speed up the writing process. What helps IMMENSELY is that the focus is on the content and no one mentions anyone’s errors – a fine example of acquisition theory, that real learning happens through authentic learning situations with meaningful input and not through direct instruction in grammar.

    Now that I think about it though, there is no reason why my responses need to be in writing. At times the instructions do mention writing in particular (‘Écrivez un paragraphe pour expliquer chaque image et comment elle reflĂšte vos idĂ©es’ – Write a paragraph to explain each image and how it reflects your ideas) but at times they don’t. For example, part of the assignment I am looking at this morning asks:

    Cherchez une image en ligne qui décrit vos expériences et vos pensées sur la gestion de classe. Affichez votre image et expliquez ce que cette image signifie pour vous.

    (Find an image online that describes your experiences with and thoughts about classroom management. Post your image in the forum and explain what this image signifes for you.)

    SO – I am going to go with a voicethread for this one!

    Actually, I’ll be cheating a bit since it isn’t a new image but I commented on an image I have already used to talk about classroom management – the Timmy and Mr Whiskers comic. My new comment is the last one (or, if someone adds a comment, the 2nd of my comments) and it is in French. Do you think I should post a translation in English? (a few minutes later…) Ok, I just did! So, where you see my mug twice in a row, the first is my comment in French and the 2nd in English. Do you have any thoughts on classroom management? Any thoughts on particular challenges for management in certain courses or subject areas? Add to the conversation!

    You can see this full-sized here: Classroom Management Cartoon

    **(re: using spellcheck) which, like I tell my students, I need to be careful with. I used the word ‘atteint’ for ‘attente’ all day yesterday. The word I wanted means ‘expectations’ but the word I chose could mean many things, including ‘suffering from’ :) though, to be fair with myself, we can say ‘qu’on a atteint l’objectif’ for ‘we have met the objective’, so perhaps my error is understandable. French can be very confusing at times!