Drawing Parallels of Problem-solving

For the month of September I was lucky enough to have enough Xperia Z tablets for each student in my class courtesy of Sony.  I am a Sony Education Ambassador and I was provided with the tablets to do a case study. My goal was to see how the tablets could enhance learning in authentic ways.  I videotaped throughout the study and had the students themselves speak about using the tablets. 

What resonated for me was that although tablets were fun for the students, they really were an opportunity for problem-solving.  What I learned from my dissertation was that reading online required different usage of strategies and problem-solving as the second graders used search engines.  This certainly applied to working with the tablets.  Apps are like websites.  Many apps work together and are connected much like hyperlinks between web pages and sites.  For example, my students had to figure out which apps would accomplish their goals and how to get video, audio, and pictures into those apps. One of the tasks they had to accomplish was to annotate a blank map of the world with the names of the continents.  First, they needed to access the blank map by opening Google Drive. Once Google Drive opened the map it was sent to the Album app.  From the Album app it could be shared to Skitch for the annotations.  When the students were done they exported their maps back to Google Drive.  Some of the students toggled between the Google Earth app or Google images (where they first had to do a search to find completed apps).

Who knew that to create this picture it would take so much work!

The case study ended with a large Social Studies project in which the students were told to use the tablets in anyway they wanted to teach others what they new about the seven continents and five oceans (including the Southern Ocean).  Now that was a lot of problem-solving. I will discuss it in more detail in a future post. 

Fostering Reading Comprehension Strategies in Young Children- Print and Online

      So here is the moment I have been waiting for... a chance to share my dissertation in a relevant and meaningful way with the people who have the power to make changes- teachers.  My goal is to relate my research of second-grade readers to the requirements of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

     The CCSS require that students in the younger grades be exposed to and receive instruction in strategies for reading informational text.  I found plenty of educational researchers that supported this move, rather than waiting until students were older like fourth grade.  Conversely, there are some other educational researchers that believe that children need to learn to read (focusing on decoding and fluency) before they can read to learn (focusing on comprehension strategies).  I fall into the former category because 10 years of experience in first grade clearly showed me that young children are very capable of using comprehension strategies. In particular, their interest in knowing more about their world such as dinosaurs, wolves, cars, etc. inspired beginning readers to even attempt reading, let alone read independently (the decodeable readers such as the Fat Cat Sat on the Mat did not lend themselves to student-created informative posters, pictures, or even blurbs for a Web site).  Informational text belongs in a primary grade classroom.

     In the interest of keeping this discussion briefer than my actual dissertation, I will move on to the more practical applications of my findings and how they relate to the Common Core.

     Last year I read with 4 second-grade students who were reading above the benchmark level based on a print-based informal reading inventory in January of the school year.  These students also showed basic Internet knowledge such as using a search engine, conducting key word searches, and maneuvering within a hypertext environment (scrolling, clicking on links, using the back button). Next, I asked all four students to locate information about endangered animals in a book, on a closed hypertext Web site, and through open Internet searches.  They were asked why the topics of the texts were endangered and then I recorded them think aloud while they found the information.  After transcribing their think-alouds I looked for which reading comprehension strategies they used. This was compared within reading contexts, across reading contexts, and across readers.  I used the previous research of Julie Coiro as a guide when analyzing my data. A comprehensive list of strategies were found to be used by the second graders.

     Since writing the dissertation, the CCSS are implemented all over the country and administrators and teachers are seeking information on how to best lift our students' abilities to match these rigorous standards.  Available on the Common Core site is a great chart of how the standards spiral as students progress through the grades. Below are the informational text standards for K-3. I include 3rd grade because it is always important to know where instruction is headed as instruction becomes for complex and sophisticated.

If we break down this list and compare to the comprehensive list of strategies used in my dissertation, the strategies that the CCSS are asking our students to use are:

• Determining Importance

• Inferring/Connecting

• Integrating/Elaborating

• Evaluating

• Monitoring

• Questioning

• Searching

      Delving deeper, although there are some similarities in strategy use with print vs. online text, there are some key differences.  These differences center around what researchers Afflerbach and Cho (2008) call "realizing and constructing potential texts to read."  This is best illustrated by asking people to think about what they would do to find the answer to a question in a print book while at the library.  If I put a book in front of you, asked you a question, and told you to find the answer in this book, you would most likely look at the table of contents, index, headings, etc. to narrow down a place to look in the text.  You might be pretty confident that the information is located in the book somewhere and that the information contained in the book in entirely true.  Now think about if I asked you to look up the answer to a question using open Internet searching.  What would you have to do then?  Where do you go?  How do retrieve the relevant information?  Who do you trust to provide valid information?
     Essentially, your process will be different because you need to construct the potential of texts to read first before you can read a Web site for an answer.  You will need to think of the essential ideas and then come up with relevant search terms.  Changing the wording of your search terms by using synonyms may yield better results.  Once the search results with Web sites are returned to you, you will next have to make a decision about which Web sites are more pertinent to your goal than others.  How do you judge this? Do you look at the Web site title, the URL, or the short blurb under the link?  Which Web site can you trust that the information is accurate and up to date?  
    Once you are in the Web site there are further considerations for where to read.  The Web site may have a navigation bar that leads to hidden pages.  Like a book's table of contents, you need to make predictions about where to go to find the answer to your question; however, unlike a book you cannot flip through the pages first to judge relevance.  You need to click on the link and then decide if the page was a good choice. Did we mention that if you click on hyperlinks embedded in the text you may end up reading a totally different Web site?  Phew!  There is a lot to consider here as you now try to figure out how to repair your reading path back to that original spot.  The World Wide Web is really a spider web of information!

    That being said, how do we teach our primary-age students the essential skills to be able to successfully find information in print and online text?



Stay tuned for more specifics in future posts.

I have had the pleasure of working with the Sony Education Ambassador program since December 2012.  Since then I have been discovering new ways to use Sony's Xperia tablet as a teacher and imagining new ways it can enhance my students' academic experiences.  Specifically I found that the Xperia coupled with Android apps can address Common Core State Standards. This is what I have come up with so far...

For Students

• The Shake-a-Phrase app from Art Gig helps students know parts of speech. I detail this in my Common Core Connections: Shake-a-Phrase post.
• Create movies or have your students become budding filmmakers using the Movie Studio app. See my post Videos to Web Site in a Snap!

For Teachers

• Teachers run the risk of being known as "The bag lady" (or pack mule) when they are seen lugging their students work back and forth from work to home.  Why not use an app that transfers your students' work to the Web for easy retrieval and viewing sans tote bag?  See my post Common Core Connections: How to Transport Your Students’ Data without Needing a Chiropractor
• In the spirit of using the Xperia tablet as a data collector and holder, consider using yours to record your students' oral reading when completing your informal reading inventories.  I talk about the app Easy Voice Recorder Pro in Common Core Connections: Easy Voice Recording to Facilitate Reading Assessment

To check out more posts by the other Sony Education Ambassadors go to our Web page.

Student Tutorials are the Window to a Student's Cognition

    Now that I have established my own informal PLN (professional learning network) on Twitter, I am proud to say that I have been able to apply some of the fantastic ideas that appear regularly on my Twitter feed.  This particular post was inspired by a recent event in my classroom.
    If you don't really know me then you might not be aware that I recently switched to third grade after teaching first grade for nearly ten years.  Also, you might not realize that Math has never been my strongest subject (this fact heavily influenced my decision to do a qualitative study for my dissertation).   It was never more clear to me how far I have come in my mathematical prowess until I started teaching third-grade Math. Yes folks, I actually feel pride that I have been able to handle teaching the beginnings of algebra, factorization, and equivalent fractions.
    What has also become abundantly clear to me is if you don't understand the strategies you are "teaching" then you are not going to be highly successful with "faking it."  Especially when you have students in your class who have already mastered what you are "teaching" and are very "kind" to point out your mistakes.  So here is where I did a 180 degree turn in my teaching. Rather than saying to the students, "Oh, I know it is wrong, I was just seeing if you were paying attention," when said error occurred, I confessed.  I actually told my students that this was a new strategy that I was learning to use when solving the problem and that I did not really fully "get it" yet.  Boy, you should have seen the looks on their faces. It ranged from dubious expressions to utter amazement.  How could a teacher not know everything?
    So after practicing a few more times with the strategy in front of the class, I guess I successfully modeled problem-solving and perseverance in its most organic sense.  So that made think of about a previous blog post concerning those that are doing the talking are doing the most learning.

     To remedy this situation I thought back to a Tweet about virtual whiteboards on your iPad.  One of the apps that was recommended was ShowMe.  ShowMe allows you to record your voice as you draw or write on the iPad screen.  It has a very simple interface and allows you to import pictures as well.  Ah ha!  I knew what I had to do.
     The big fraction test to end the unit was last Friday so on Tuesday I told the students that after we discussed the fraction review packet they should think of one particular problem that caused them the most difficulty.  They then were to write up a similar problem in their Math notebook to be used in a tutorial.  The students would become the teacher. Well everyone stepped it up and conscientiously worked on their chosen topic
     After they had practiced what they were going to say, I met with each student to record their tutorial on my iPad. (Some used very clear "teacher voices.")  It was apparent to each of them when they went to teach the concept, if they understood it or not (and it was crystal clear to me as well).  I was able to nudge them back on track before they recorded the final version.  As the teacher I noticed some aspects of the tutorials were not quite right. For example, some circle models of fractions were not drawn in perfectly equal parts, but I cannot say that I could draw freehand a circle into 12 equal parts either.  Instead of correcting everything I had to stop myself to honor what they did know.  Our school's math specialist may very well cringe at some of the final tutorials but I am downright proud. Watching the students go through the process of explaining the math strategy to a peer gave me valuable information of what the student knows and understands at this point in time- a running record of Math skills, if you will.

     The tutorials from ShowMe easily embedded in my class Web site and were available to use when studying at home before the big test.  I am sure that many just showed their parents their tutorial and did not really utilize their peers' entries, but I would like to think the process of creating the tutorials and the special feeling of ownership of their learning was the most rewarding part of this class "project."

You can check out the class' tutorials here.

Look Who's Talking

     Sean Junkins (@sjunkins) tweeted today, "In a classroom, whoever is doing the most talking is likely doing the most learning. Talking requires thinking." There are so many times I feel like "Wow, I just totally dominated the entire conversation."  It is so easy to believe that the students need to hear me in order to learn. What I feel I end up doing is sending the message that I am the be all and end of all of information and that my students' jobs are to be passive, good listeners.  
     What I have tried to do in the last couple of years as a first-grade teacher, and now a third-grade teacher is to incorporate more think, pair, share opportunities and to create instructional activities that promote self-discovery rather than me "pouring" knowledge into partially filled vessels.  Recently, this has proven particularly difficult for me personally because I am teaching a curriculum that is new to me, while simultaneously learning how to accomplish meeting the Common Core Learning Standards (which involves the extra pressure of testing).  In teaching my students research skills with informational print text, informational online text, and various multimedia (e.g., videos, images, etc.), I have found they can be "trusted" to learn with less teacher intervention.  The trick is they have to know that the information they are gaining is important and others can benefit from their learning.
    I have found that the motivation factor is key.  How do I reel them in?  By creating opportunities to use their voice for an audience other than the teacher.  Another key factor is ownership.  I ask how they want to tell others about their knowledge.  Of course, I provide some possibilities such as creating a Web site on the topic, creating a Voicethread, and creating a newscast that will be put on the class blog/Web site- just to name a few.  The use of technology to reveal one's voice has proven to be a great motivator.  
     There are extra benefits to using technology to display their knowledge to reach a wider audience on the Internet, namely collaboration and teamwork.  Most times my students are put in small groups to do the research and to develop the framework for their messages.  So many kids "step up" their effort in such cases.  I have had students who generally shied away from reading or writing in front of their peers; however, when they were making a newscast or commercial they became active members of the group and even the best public speakers!  
    So last week when the students were composing their persuasive essays for why people should visit the Northeast region of the United States, I realized I was standing on the sidelines watching.  I was the one listening!  My students were doing the talking and learning. They were actively thinking (and doing so enthusiastically)!  
    When I took a step back my students' creativity also shown through.  They came up with their own commercials using their persuasive essays, with PROPS!  Here are some of the final products.

    So the bottom line: 

Less teacher talk+ opportunities for discovery + a sense of ownership=

academic success!

Thank you Sean Junkins for inspiring this blog post.

At the Core is Evolution

   
     There has been one very valuable lesson I  have learned as a classroom teacher over the last twelve years: one must constantly evolve as a person.  It makes sense when one considers the phrases survival of the fittest and the cream always rises to the top.  Now I believe it is never more relevant than in the implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards.  Not to mention I have just moved out of the world of teaching first grade (where I spent about 9 years) to the new and exciting world of third grade.
     The world is full of blogs and I had to ask myself, "What do I hope to contribute to this already saturated field of educators?"  Well, perhaps someone will stumble across this blog and connect with me and what I attempt to create in my classroom.  Maybe someone will be inspired to try something new that I describe or offer me advice of how I can improve my craft.  At the core is evolution.
      What I hope to achieve is a running dialogue of the ideas that are either swirling in my brain, things that I have tried, or pleas for help in navigating this forever changing world of teaching.  After receiving my doctorate in Language, Literacy, and Learning, I am now faced with another challenge... how to meet the CCLS while also educating the child.  It is forever important to remember that the diversity of your students is a very important variable that does not fit neatly into a checklist of skills to be achieved by the end of the year.
     Another goal is to include pieces of my work as I implement technology and strategies for developing my students' reading comprehension in print and online text.  I am forever looking for ways to include new and better ways for reaching my students through a variety of mediums to elevate their achievement.  My work with the Sony Education Ambassador program will also be intermingled with posts about what occurs in the classroom.
     The overall point is that it is alright if I do not know exactly what this blog will be, it will simply evolve.