Trying Something New

During my time teaching special education, I’ve attempted to put a square peg into a round hole, that is, to structure HSIE/Science units of work much in the same way I taught them in mainstream – with a pre-defined set of outcomes/indicators and a learning sequence designed to achieve those goals. I adapted existing BoS or DEC units of work to meet the needs of my students, and off we went.

Well, thus far, I’ve found this to be pretty uninspiring, and I’m pretty sure the kids have as well. You know, “Workers in our Community” might be hugely fascinating the one week you look at firefighters, for the kid in your class with Autism who has the fire engine fixation, but by and large, it’s dull, dull, dull for all concerned.

So I’m going to try something new.

I’m going to ditch the traditional HSIE/Science learning sequences or integrated units, and instead schedule in “student-directed learning” sessions twice a week. These sessions would emerge from questions the students have asked, or interests they have shown. And it would be up to me to find ways to make valid links to the curriculum and determine outcomes/indicators “on the run”.

For example, at the moment we examine/graph the weather each day using an interactive weather chart. The kids are hugely interested in the way the sky changes and the temperature drops as the sun goes down. My most articulate student has asked “Where does the sun go?” and my student who has difficulties verbalising things makes a rare comment of “sun goes down” – it’s something they’re all really cued into and fascinated by.

So I’m going to use this interest and these questions to drive a mini unit of work (about four lessons) on “Where does the sun go?”. I can easily link it to Science and Technology, and I’m sure I can attach some Creative Arts lessons into it (and Maths and English will be integrated by default). Perhaps I could even organise a Skype session with someone overseas during their “night time” to make the difference more real (potential HSIE links, maybe? I’m thinking along the lines of Stage 3 Global Connections – would be kinda cool to be potentially working towards Stage 3 outcomes in a senior IO class!).

I think this approach will be successful, primarily because it gives students the opportunity to drive their own learning, thus making it more relevant and meaningful, and hopefully more engaging.

Having said this, I think there are potential pitfalls, though I think there are possibly ways to counter them:

1) Will they gain deep knowledge/understanding of the content, if they are just briefly addressed over, say,  a four lesson period? (I’m hoping interest causes them to ask questions/share interest beyond school, and that will make up for the brevity of in-school learning time. And I guess the units of work could go for longer, if need be).

2) What if there is (and there probably will be) a diversity in student interest? (I guess I’ll need to try and find links between interests and ways interests can be co-accommodated, or creatively use grouping to meet the needs of students? Perhaps I can create online learning modules/personal learning environments in an area of interest for students, so we can rotate around between teacher-support instruction and self-regulated learning?)

3) What if there are no questions?  (Hmm. This would be problematic. Though it’s pretty rare for kids not to ask questions/be interested in something. But if it happens, I think I’ll need to find a way to structure events/activities that lead to questions).

I think I’ll need to be quite explicit about these learning sessions, and explain to the kids that it will be an opportunity for them to learn about things they’re interested in. Maybe we have have a Question Wall where we can record questions the kids ask, or a “Things I Like” book to gather student interests.

I imagine the transition process will be interesting for the kids. For many kids, the idea of “choice” in a classroom or even the idea that they have to initiate their own thoughts/ideas/learning can be problematic – we often spoonfeed too much! But I think this is particularly pronounced for students with disabilities – choices are often made for them, either overtly or covertly, especially when communication is limited. I think getting their heads around freedom of choice will be a lesson in itself!

So, we’ll see how it goes. I’d love to hear from other teachers who’ve tried this method, or any suggestions/questions/potential problems you may see from this approach. I’m not sure if it strictly fits into PBL or any other fancy pedagogical category, but I’d appreciate anyone who’s willing to point out any giant black holes in front of me, before I fall into them, or to shine a light on other avenues I haven’t explored :)

In the meantime, I’ll keep posting updates on how it’s all going.

Metacognitive Musings

I’ve been thinking about thinking, learning and change a lot lately. I’d started writing a post but got snagged on this thinking about thinking thing again. So I decided to get this stuff off my chest first.

I think that perhaps my thinking about thinking is somewhat flawed – a snapshot into the mind of someone with slight perfectionist tendencies, raised on a diet of critical thinking (not so bad) and most likely saddling a fair share of self doubt that comes naturally to most women. But I figure that if I can dissect it, I can start eradicating the not-so-helpful bits and start honing the good stuff. So here it is, My Slightly Ridiculous Personal Learning Cycle:

Here’s a breakdown of the process:

Critical Absorption: This is the starting point (sometimes…often it starts at the Guilt point). This is where I hear or read lots of new ideas. I call it critical absorption because I reckon I’ve got a pretty good way of sorting the wheat from the chaff in terms of evaluating sources of information.

Ideas Overload: Much in the same way as I approach the salad bar at Sizzler, I stand at the smorgasbord of ideas and binge myself silly. I love it. I’m inspired. I think an MRI of my brain at this point would look like the Sydney New Year’s Eve fireworks display.

Brainfuzz and Mild Insanity: If Ideas Overload were the fireworks, this phase is the post-firework fog that leaves everyone coughing and spluttering and makes their eyes itchy and watery . There’s been so much zip-zapping around my head that  I can’t make any sense of it. Any attempt to make sense of it all just makes me want to go “WAH!” and crawl into the foetal position. I’ve learnt to go and take a nice long bath and get myself a massage at this point :P

Breathe….and Ponder: Once the fog lifts, I can start making sense of the new ideas. This is rational thinking time, splintering the ideas into pros and cons and interesting stuff. I start thinking about practical applications.

The Bollocks Filter – Grizzletime: This is where I say “Hang on a minute, this idea isn’t all rainbows and sunshine like they’re saying it is”. I start picking at the flaws and sometimes I get really cranky if it’s something that’s being touted as the hot new thing that everyone should be doing. It’s when I unleash the little Oppositional Defiant child within. This is something that I’ve probably always done internally, but have always questioned myself thinking that maybe I don’t understand it fully or maybe I’m wrong.  Well, that’s only ever ended in frustration, so I’m learning to conjure the courage to question, clarify and contest.

Dissection Dialogue: This step has changed for me a bit. It used to be a bit of an internal dialogue, but I bit the bullet and now happily bore others to tears with my questions, clarifications and debates. It helps a LOT that there are now online forums in which I can mix with other people who want to be as boring reflective as me :P  Having this blog also helps…although it’s probably just another incarnation of my internal dialogue, it makes me scour my thoughts a bit more knowing that it’s not just confined to my own headspace and others may see it.

Cherry Picking: Once I’ve had a good rational think, then a good long nitpick, I start to really think hard about how I can use these new ideas in a practical way in my current situation. I cherry-pick the best aspects and find a way to weave them into practice that best suits me and the kids I’m working with.

Kidlet Application: What it’s all about! Applying these ideas in the classroom. I say kidlet application, but it also applies to the application of the ideas of any setting (teacher PL etc.). This step is often a revolving door of do-reflect-tweak-do. A mini-cycle within the cycle.

“Man, I Can Do This So Much Better” Guilt:  After a while, with the new ideas implemented, I often get a sense of guilt, even if  the ideas and applications have been successful. I think back to the slew of ideas I had back at the beginning and about how much stuff I left out when I ‘cherry-picked’. And usually by this time a whole new batch of ideas and ‘next big things’ have arrived in my inbox to once again make me feel like I’m not doing enough. The cycle begins again.

If a clinical psychologist ever read this, I’m sure they’d tell me I was some kind of oddbod. That’s OK. I don’t mind being odd :) But I think it’s really important for everyone – teachers in particular – to take some time out and really think about how they think, learn and change. Some might say that it’s a little self-indulgent…perhaps it is. But I think if we map our own thinking/learning cycles – and particularly if we shared them with one another – it would give us greater insight into planning educational experiences for our kids and also help us streamline our own thought processes.

So if you’re one of the 2 people who read this blog post, I’d really love to hear about your own Slightly Ridiculous Personal Learning Cycle. :)

Digital Programming – Six Weeks In

This year I’m having a stab at using Google Docs and Google Sites to maintain my class teaching and learning program. I decided to go down this path because (a) I’ve always had a bad habit of leaving my physical program folder/documents at home or school or wherever I was using them last (b) paper-based programs get messy and icky with scrawling and changes of plan and I’m not really a fan of mess and ick and scrawl (c) I thought it could increase my workflow efficiency and (d) it would be available to share with others for feedback or as a example of how someone could set out their programming.

The downside, of course, is that your teaching and learning program is out there on display to the world. And as with most teachers, this document is always a work in progress and there’s always changes to be made and tweaking to be done. So it does make me feel a little vulnerable in that others have the ability to cast a critical eye over my work. But I’m hoping this only leads to positive improvement rather than complete demoralisation! :)

So anyway, I’m six weeks into using my digital program, and this has been the upside:

  • It’s much more flexible and adaptable. When your world revolves around formative assessment and individual learning plans, I find that it’s damn near impossible to program for an entire unit of work a term ahead. I can using the teaching-learning cycle on the ‘short wash cycle’ on a daily basis to respond to student need, particularly in KLAs like Maths.
  • I pop my program up onto the IWB and the kids can see exactly what’s happening. Links to sites are embedded in the document, making them easily accessible during lessons and easily transferred to the class blog for sharing afterwards.
  • It’s a more accurate register of my teaching. I can edit documents to reflect what actually happened, and easily shift contents around. Helpful when a poppet is having a particularly sensory day and teaching and learning experiences need to be quickly reshaped into something else to accommodate them, throwing your original plan out the window.
  • Knowing that the whole world can read my program, it’s given me a greater sense of accountability. I’m notorious for starting a day book, then having it fade away by about Week 5, Term 1. But I’m actually finding a practical purpose for keeping a digital day book because it has all my links etc in it.
The downside?
  • I had a casual teacher on my class yesterday. I thought that the digital format would actually make life easier for casuals, because I’ve set the program up as an easily clickable link in the bookmark bar of the browser, and everything is ready to go. But when I walked the casual through the format (showed her the Day Book link, which had links to various parts of the program that she could go to in order to find out what to do for that section) she was really daunted. So this approach is good for me, but not so good if you get casuals who aren’t tech savvy. To get around this, I’m going to train up my SLSO a bit better and perhaps include a “Note for Casuals” page with a brief rundown of where to start and what to do (would also be useful if I’m at home sick and need to pass on any messages to the casual from home).
  • At the start of the year, while I’ve been testing out different ways of running things to suit my kids (especially considering I’m at a new school with kids I knew nothing about at the start of the year) it’s been difficult to establish a consistent online programming approach from the word go. I’ve felt it’s been a little bit higgledy-piggledy in some ways, but I guess this is the same with paper-based programming. The difference is that with an online program, the world can see your higgledy-pigglediness.

So yeah…so far it’s more upside than downside. I’ll update again at the end of Term 2.