Week 2: Beautiful Questions

Being educators, we hear questions all day long and it is easy to get bogged down with all of them. But ,as “A More Beautiful Question” explains, questions are vital to education. Berger says, “There may be a relationship…between students asking questions and their being engaged and interested in learning” (Berger, 2014, p.45). Throughout chapter 2, Berger explains how students’ propensity to question significantly dies down as they get older and is basically non-existent when they reach high school (Berger, 2014).  

One reason presented for this down turn in questions was that teacher’s allow for less exploratory questions due to the pressure of meeting state standards.  One teacher says, “I have so many state standards I have to teach concept wise, it takes away time for what I find most valuable–which is to have [students] inquire about the world” (Berger, 2014, p. 46). This really hit home with me. As I sit in staff meetings I hear experienced teachers talk about the good ‘ole days when they could teach what they wanted. Now, they say, there are so many standards to cram in before testing that there is no time for the “fun stuff”. You simply have to teach it and move on. It is no wonder then, why student’s interest and questioning have died off.  This led me to wonder a slew of other questions. Why can’t we involve questioning and inquiry into teaching the standards? Why do standards dictate how we teach? Why does meeting the standards mean that we have to memorize and teach boring lessons? Why can’t meeting the standards mean creativity, innovation, questions, experiments, failures and successes?

Meeting the standards does not mean that we have to teach dry lessons. In fact, I would argue that students will learn the standards better through questioning and inquiry. When we turn the tables on our students and involve their questions, they become more invested in the process and the learning. The knowledge moves from being something they simply have to memorize to something that they own. Dan Rothstein of the Right Question Institute said, “‘We’ve had kids say that when you ask your own question, you then feel like it’s your job to get the answer’ ” (Berger, 2014, p. 62). It’s powerful to think that student engagement is within reach, all we have to do is allow students to question. Standards are guidelines to drive powerful thinking, we just need to view them in a different way.

As a kid, I played with legos. We had boxes upon boxes of legos mixed together. Within the boxes of legos were little booklets that showed how to create a car, a house, etc. When I wanted to make a car, I would check it out and see the basic bones of the assembly, but then my creativity went wild. I added fire shooting out of the back, flowers for decorations; the works. The final product was a car, but I didn’t stick to the cookie cutter design suggested in the manual. Instead, I created a car that fit the needs of my lego persona. The manual was simply a guideline. After reading this section, I view standards more as the suggested manuel for my lego creations. They are there to guide us and help us get our end result, but it is our job to take the basics and innovate.

Meeting the standards does not have to mean worksheets, memorization, and tests. Instead, we can use the standards as the guidelines to create something groundbreaking and engaging for the students. Create lessons that make them think, question, explore, and research.

When I read this, I was inspired. We’ve all been there, the pressure of standardized testing is paralyzing at times.  But when I read this section, it inspired me to start off my content subjects by allow students to wonder and question. If our standard is to teach Michigan history, start by asking what do you wonder about Michigan? Write them down, then let the students delve deeper into Michigan history from their questions rather than from a textbook. I believe that when I transform my classroom in this way, student interest will be peaked and understanding will be deepened.

 

References:

Berger, W. (2014). A more beautiful question: the power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. New York: Bloomsbury.

R. (2014, May 26). What is Inquiry-Based Learning? Retrieved May 28, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u84ZsS6niPc

Week 2: Learning Network

In CEP 810, we were asked to think of something we have always wanted to learn how to do and learn it by using only our online network such as youtube or help forums. I have chosen to learn finger picking on the guitar by learning the popular song “Say You Won’t Let Go” by James Arthur. I am very much a beginner at guitar and only know how to play a few basic chords as well as a basic strumming pattern. I have always loved the way songs that use finger picking sound and would love to learn this skill. I also like to choose songs that I can sing along to as music is a passion of mine. The song I chose is a popular song that I thought I could find several tutorials on as well as song a personally enjoy listening to.  I am focusing on learning one song that will take me through beginner finger picking patterns. If I master this, I may extend the lesson to another song, but let’s start here.

The video I found below is a great resource to achieve my goal. Not only does it provide an up close example, but it posts the chords directly on the video and has an explanation of the chords listed below in the show more menu.

I also will be using this video. I think this video is a great additional tutorial because the online teacher slowly talks through the steps for playing this song. This will be a great video to watch multiple times and will be good for rewinding back to specific problem parts.

This final video I believe will round out my tutorial videos. I like the idea of having multiple videos to learn from because each video teaches the skill in a slightly different way giving me multiple styles to learn from.

Week 1: Ill-Structured and Wicked Problems

In CEP 812 Week 1 were were asked to think about Ill-structured and wicked problems that we face in our classrooms everyday. Problems that don’t have a set formula established to solve. One main ill-structured problem comes to mind is that of setting up seating charts. We’ve all been there. Rearranging desks so that the talkers, friends, and behavioral issues are all perfectly separated to create the optimal classroom environment. This task proves to be a difficult and ill-structured problem again and again. There is no set formula for this challenge, nor is it ever set or done the first time around. There are multiple solutions and different approaches you can take to arrive with the “perfect” seating chart. As we continue to be faced with ill-structured problems that particularly deal with our student’s successes, we search for tools that can help solve the ill-structured problems.

We were asked to focus particularly on ill-structured problems that affect our students with special learning needs. I wanted to focus on a special learning need that seems to be very prevalent in the classroom; so I chose ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Students with ADHD over all have a difficult time staying focused in class to complete a task. This can be shown through hyperactivity or inattention. They often fidget and have a hard time staying still. This is a hindrance to their success in the classroom specifically when asked to focus on a particular task (Thapar, 2016).  Whenever a student with this learning need comes into the classroom, the ill-structured problem always seems to be, “how can I help this student stay focused long enough to help them show their best effort on an assignment?”

Group work or activities tend to make it easier for students with ADHD to focus because they are able to move around and freely discuss the topic with peers. However, when it comes to the task of reading and responding to the text, the ADHD student has more difficulty. For example, if the task was to research the main goals of a European Explorer on the computer and write a presentation, some of the biggest hurdles they would face would be finding the articles and reading them while gleaning relevant information.

One Chrome Extensions that I found to help students with ADHD focus is called the BeeLine Reader. When selected, this extension changes the text of a website from basic black to a variant of colors following an ombre pattern. There are different text color choices as well as a “focus mode” to minimize extra distractions. This extension also has an option to change the font to “open dyslexic” which can be a benefit not only to students with dyslexia, but arguably for many others as well.

The idea behind BeeLine Reader is to provide varying font colors that allow for more efficient reading. Matthew Schneps, director of the Laboratory for Visual Learning at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, says, “the color gradients also pull our eyes long from one character to the next—and then from the end of one line to the beginning of the next, minimizing any chance of skipping lines or making anything less than an optimally efficient word-to-word or line-to-line transition” (Hamblin, 2016).

Many times when reading right to left and top to bottom, we miss a few words on the next line of text and it is easy for readers to get lost or confused. This is something that can be an issue for our students with ADHD. It is difficult for them to focus on the text and follow it line for line. BeeLine helps to address that ill-structured problem.

As I was testing out this extension, I found myself reading faster and more efficiently, and was more engaged with the text as the colors pulled my eyes along. The extension takes a seemingly boring and hard to follow text through a transformation into an engaging and efficient flow of words.

In addition to the text color variant change, the extension also minimizes other potential distractions on the site. When selected, the text not only changes to the colors chosen, but it blurs out or eliminates extraneous ads, images, etc. to leave remaining only the important text.

Students with ADHD particularly struggle with  staying focused on “tasks that need sustained mental effort” or even simply focusing on an assignment (Thapar, 2016). The text that the students have to read seems to blur together, and it takes them extra effort to focus. This results in unsuccessful behavior as there is a lack of retention. The extension is certainly not a cure all, but it does serve to help students stay focused on the topic they are reading.  One goal as educators is to help all students, no matter their ability, find success. The extension works to help students with ADHD find a way to focus that leads to success in reading.

References:

Thapar, A., & Cooper, M. (2016). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The Lancet,387(10024), 1240-1250. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(15)00238-x

 
Hamblin, J. (2016, May 11). A Better Way to Read. Retrieved May 21, 2017, from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/a-better-way-to-read/482127/

Week 1: What is Learning?

In CEP 810 this week, I was asked to explore what learning is and how experts and novices differ. We were asked to make connections from the ideas stated in Bransford’s “How People Learn” (2004) to our classrooms today. The full essay I wrote takes a closer look at what learning or better yet, understanding is.  It discusses the differences between a novice and an expert and how that relates to our practices in a classroom. Education is in the process of a makeover to not only create more engaging environments, but to nurture students that can create, think, design, and apply their knowledge to the world around them.

 

References:

Watters, A. (2015, April 25). The Invented History of ‘The Factory Model of Education’ Retrieved May 20, 2017, from http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model

 
Bransford, J. D. (2004). How people learn brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Acad. Press.