Summative Project

Here is a screen shot of the eBook I created for this class.

Finally! Here is the link to the eBook. You have to click "Buy the book" to see it. I set the price as free.

http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/pedac889ae42ddd73e768

Myself as a teacher (Pre-thinking)

Seeing the forest through the trees....

The gaps I had in my popplets about teacher needs were found in the sections I color coded for myself as a teacher. I even found more information to add to student needs in the same notes.

I also found previously unnoticed influences from my past - my perceptions of cultural expectations!

My goals for students

Larger Categories

1.  Tool box of thinking skills to navigate educational culture
2.  Essential understandings that tie to their out of school lives

Relationships between the categories

1. Exploration and Movement
2. Understanding
3. Sensitivity to internal and external dialogue
4. Resilience
5. Self-Efficacy

Relationships between Myself as a teacher, Influences from the past, Influences from this class

What I have learned about myself as a teacher

1.  I have been influenced by things I can see can't see. I need awareness of these things so I can adjust and moderate my own development
2.  I see myself in my students
3. My needs are similar to the needs of my students
4. My goals for my students are related to developing the self-awareness of their needs within the context of their world so they take ownership of their development into self-actualized individuals 
5. Teaching is part of my development

Influences from this class (pre-thinking)

 

Category #1 : Roles of Teachers

1. Facilitators of interconnected group of humans
2. Transform how students think by encouraging reflective thinking and creative development
3. Validate the needs of students
•  psychological needs
• aesthetic needs - modes of learning
• intellectual needs
• social needs
4.  Be problem finders

(sub) Category #2: My needs as a teacher

1. I need to physically move as I teach
2. I need to do research about questioning techniques so I can foster students curousity
3. I need to have a personal connection with my students, I think I am empathetic by nature, and it helps to understand them
4. To assess my needs as a teacher, because this is all I have!

(sub) Category #3: Needs of Students

1. Validate the way they learn
2. Have ownership over their learning
3. Toolbox of thinking skills
4. Resilience that will help them in multiple climates, and to take risks
5. Appropriate environment to meet psychological needs

(sub) Category #4 Nature of Creativity
1. Depends on cognitive ingredients, genetic or learned
2. Process can be internally or externally motivated; base level of technical/conceptual understanding needed for elaboration to occur
3. Needs a conducive environment - one that is psychologically safe

Relationships between the categories

1.  Emphasis on process
2.  Emphasis on relationship
3.  Emphasis on motivation
4.  Importance of unseen forces
5. Importance of thinking skills, emphasis on creative and problem solving behaviors

Relationships between Influences from this class and Influences from my past

1.  Motivation
2.  Development
3.  Creative Behaviors
4.  Needs
5.  Sense of causality - Relationships
6.  Process

What have I learned about influences from this class?

1. My role as a teacher depends on being truthful about my needs and the needs of the students
2. My motivations and students' motivations are connected to basic human needs that we all have
3. Creativity and problem solving are basic human needs
4. Conditions for self-actualization can be facilitated by a teacher - self-actualization depends on the development of awareness of personal needs and strategies to meet those needs
5. Deeper understanding of Maslow's Hiearchy of Needs

"What motivates behavior? According to humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow, our actions are motivated in order achieve certain needs. "
source : http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm

 

Influences from the Past (pre-thinking)

Larger Categories

1. Types of Educators
• formal/informal
• childhood/adult
• authority figure/peer
• external/internal
• human/non-human
• academic/non-academic
• seen/unseen
2. Good Teachers
•  social/emotional needs - coping strategies
• relevant to personal interests
• allowed exploration
• facilitated, not dictated development
• enhanced development of  problem solving abilities
• engaged in two way dialogue with students
3. Bad Teachers
• objectivist teaching - one way dialogue, power hierarchy
• did not validate personal interests
• increased risk factors - opposite direction of developing resiliency in students
• no personal interest in students

Relationships/Connections between the categories

1.   Student interests and exploration
2.   Resiliency and self-efficacy
3.   Developmental appropriateness
4.   Relationships

What have I learned about my educational history?

1. There is more importance in interpersonal relationships than I previously admitted.
2. The attributes of my good teachers are mirrored in my Week 9 modification of my goals
3. It is important for me that education motivates, facilitates, validates, and advocates.
4. Good teachers complement student interests and development
5. Good teachers problem based learning

 What questions do I still have?
1. Can a negative environment stimulate creative development? Can external chaos act as a trigger for disequilibrium? Can the disequilibrium be stabilized by finding unusual connections in the chaos? Could this process be a coping strategy transferable to other problem solving situations - ergo a creative individual?

Piaget, Education, And Creativity

Ultimately he concluded that children's reasoning power was in no way flawed -- on the contrary it was often as good as many adult scientists! However, children's limited life experience meant that they had not amassed and processed enough information about the natural and social world (nor imbibed the same biases) to come to the same conclusions that adults did.

But Piaget did not conclude that children should, ergo, be force-fed more facts at an earlier age. In fact he believed quite the opposite: that such force-feeding would condition children to expect the answers to come from outside themselves, robbing them of creative initiative. He also believed that adults must exercise caution about correcting children's "mistaken notions." If done too harshly, or in a condescending manner, such correcting shamed them into intellectual passivity, causing them to abandon their innate urge to figure things out for themselves, and to come up with new and creative ideas.

http://www.nndb.com/people/359/000094077/

Qualitative research - phase one - What themes are present in my writing?

Cmap #1: Roles of Teachers and Students

Cmap #2: Environment, Motivation, and Identity

To begin the qualitative research based on this blog, I first went through and highlighted words and phrases that seemed significant to me. I did not verbalize any standards for significance before highlighting, I was going by gut feeling. The ideas that were floating around in my head before starting this process were the universality of change and movement, and the importance of systems thinking. 

I originally wrote ideas on note cards and sorted them on my kitchen counter. I liked that system better than the CMaps I have posted. It was easier to see the interconnections between different categories in real space. I used Cmap to have a representation to post on this blog. CMap is limited by screen size so I have posted two Cmaps. There are points of overlap between the two maps that would make it unified if I could post something that big. Then again, if size weren't an issue, I could have just posted a photo of my kitchen counter!

The themes that popped up during this process were:

1. The role of teachers
2. The role of students
3. How motivation affects creativity process
4. How culture and environment affect motivation
5. How teachers can affect environment
6. How culture can affect teachers
7. How education affects identity
8. The interconnection between students and teachers

Keywords: Roles, culture, environment, motivation, education, identity, interconnection

Right now I am seizing upon an overall systems view of education, socialization, and identity formation, with a recognition of movement and interrelationships.

Updated Representation of My Teaching Heritage

The Joy of Teaching

At the beginning of the semester I visualized my teaching heritage as a chocolate chip cookie. My influences were categorized as the ingredients in the cookie. Bad influences were cat fur/contaminants.

For my final lineage representation, I am expanding my original idea to become a digital cookbook. My concept of my teaching lineage has morphed into the concept of a hand-me-down cook book - a book that has been passed down from generation to generation, has been written on, been altered by ingredients during the cooking process, had recipe cards added, and is falling apart. The worn cookbook is converted to a  digital format to preserve it for future generations. Changes to the digital cookbook in the future would of course be expected to be digital edits, computer text, scanned or digital photos, and inserted videos.

Week 12 Peer Responses

Katie-

I am curious, about how many hours do you think you put in creating and revising this lesson? It seems like a really good lesson that you are enthusiastic about.

I like how you used fun activities as part of your instructional activities. Play is how kids "work." Relating certain character traits of the artist to student's behaviors was also pretty slick. The students will connect with the artist more once they connect those dots. Giving the coloring sheet to work on while other students were reviewing also helps engage the kinesthetic learners during the review time. The students can get quiet, listen and think while they coloring safe zone.

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Erika,

You stated that some students seemed apprehensive about modeling new techniques, were as one girl really took off with creating new techniques. Have you ever heard of SCAMPER? It is a creativity strategy for younger students, but you can modify and use it for students who think more concretely.

Substitute.
Combine.
Adapt.
Modify.
Put to another use.
Eliminate.
Reverse.


I also agree with Sheryl about creating a stock video. If you have an iPod for the classroom, you could store videos on it for students who were sick or need a review before they get started. You might even make a private YouTube channel for your videos.

Week 12: Lesson reflection

Pre-viewing: The lesson was successful. At this point in the year the kinders are more "trained." We completed the lesson about 10 minutes earlier than the other classes had. We had enough time for clean up - paint on tables and chairs - so I didn't have to worry about my next class waiting as I wiped things down. They are still developmentally sooo self-centered. When I explained the students were going to be sent two at a time to the sinks to wash their hands as we have done before, they didn't seem to understand why they had to wait because their hands were dirty.  Later in the day a third grade boy came up to me and asked, "Art is about getting dirty, isn't it?" I was so happy that he was focusing in on the process of art making and had accepted that there is a time for being messy and getting dirty.

Post-viewing: I am always amazed with how the camcorder sees things I don't pick up on in class. There are twenty little balls of energy bouncing around the room and I don't ever just step back and watch them all as a whole. I am the twenty-first ball bouncing around the room. Each table group of six students is its own little island of interactions and personalities. Every once in a while, a person travels over to another island. 

I think I am realizing that movement me is just as important for me as it is for my students. I am a kinesthetic teacher. Even when I am standing near the board, I am gesturing with my hands.  I am pretty sure my behaviors and procedures are unconsciously there to facilitate my need to be moving around. The few times I have sat at my desk while the students were working this past year I have felt so dejected and bored.

The second video showed a class that started quicker with less distractions, and cleaned up with one Indian chief orchestrating the actions, not five or six. Before viewing the video, I felt like so many students wanted to be at the sink at once. The actual difference was that most students kept to their seats even though they were vocalizing their desire to run to the sink. I also noticed in the second video that the students were responding to inflections in my voice as their cue to stop chattering and listen to what I was saying. The students tend to verbalize what they are drawing as they are drawing it, and their opinion of it. I do not think it would be possible to teach them something new and have them be quiet about it. They also moderate other student's drawings to see if others followed the teacher's directions. This is a contrast to what happens in the upper grades as the students are more peer centered. When they are off task, they look to see what their peers have done instead of looking at the teacher sample. In the lower grades, I do not have to question a student about copying off their neighbor instead of looking at the board.

I am also noticing some design flaws with my room other than its small size. The  room is not designed to facilitate movement. Watching the video of myself walking between tables in my room is like watching an auto-crosser navigate a curvy road course. My room also does not handle noise well. Students talk while they work, but I have no surfaces that absorb the noise. My voice doesn't project in my tin can like it did when I was in a regular classroom.

Week 12: Video Pre-thinking

My revised goals are two part: one organizational and one part enhancing reflective thinking. For the second video I am sticking with the same kindergarten class. They are my Friday morning/energetic/gifted and quirky class. To survive them I have to be even more prepared than with the other kindergartner classes. I am still focusing on organizational skills for this class. For example, earlier this year they had a teddy bear week in their classrooms. I took a class to VTS a bear sculpture show them how to draw bears with texture. The first four classes elaborated their bears with bows, vests, dresses, tiaras and the like. The fifth kindergarten class ended up synthesizing a ninja ballerina bear, with masks, nun-chucks, ballet shoes, and tutus.

1. Organization and Structure in the Classroom

• identify student needs and teacher needs, physical and social
• This class needs to have movement built into their routine. They also need to learn when movement is appropriate. For example, in this lesson students are using paint and I want them at their seats when they have messy supplies. This class also shares their discoveries about their supplies verbally with their neighbors and sometimes with their friends across the room. I want to validate their social interactions, but at the same time contain excessive mess and distractions to the flow of the lesson.
• identify my patterns of organization and structure
• My desk and counter tops are  cluttered - totally visual spatial. But the student tables and supply shelf are organized and labeled. I do have an overflow student table in the middle of the room. It is converted into a supply table later in the day as my classes get younger and smaller. It is the point where my style of organization directly intercepts the student work space. My room is so small that I have to be flexible with supply and project storage. I tend to start the day by organizing my room and putting away projects that dried overnight. At the end of the day I am spent and only do cleaning up.
• evaluate the effects of organization and structure in meeting student and teacher needs
• If I set out my supplies on the center-most table, students can catch a glimpse of what supplies they will be using, and I can be centrally located to orchestrate student movement.   
• create modifications to meet student and teacher needs. 
• This past quarter I have implemented a clean up song at the end of class for grades 2-5. Students are able to pace their clean up. I have had only one student who ignored the cue of the clean up song and continued working. I have not implemented the clean up song with kindergarten or first. I think they would focus on the song and get distracted. They still get a count down for clean-up. I pick helpers as opposed to having students put up supplies themselves.  Kindergarten and first grade still seem to do better with more structure and less wiggle room for getting too experimental with the supplies.

This week I have started a tried and true lesson plan with kindergarten. It is a space shuttle lesson from Deep Space Sparkle http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2010/06/22/blast-off-space-shuttle-art-project/. It always turns out nice. It is a close ended lesson. I don't like to do many of those, but the students like being taught a schema for representing items they find interesting. I do not find it harmful to give them those schemas as confidence builders as long as by third grade we are elaborating and interpreting our symbol making. 

My goals for this lesson are to acknowledge student need for movement and interaction while at the same time giving a guided lesson that requires student attention and organization. To meet my goals I have been better about giving some of the supply management over to the students, and allowing for chatter during my instruction so students can vocalize their excitement. I have to use my bell or chime to transition the students back in. Before, my bell was a "you've gone too far and need to get quieter," signal. 

Week 12: Chapter 6 Reading and Reflection

Chapter 6 of Teaching as if life matters  reinforces my opinion of teaching systems thinking in schools. The author explained different ways to get students to experience relationships that exist in a system. The chapter was also a good metaphor for living holistically. If a person can be in tune with the natural world, then perhaps the same person can listen to others' (students') personal languages and respond in kind...reducing conflict and frustration.

I didn't find Chapter 6 too controversial in content. The context of the classroom for the messages was different in that the teacher is enforcing a worldview. Education has already been revolutionized through the services now demanded of it. School isn't just a training ground of reading, writing, and arithmetic for a blossoming middle class. It has become the major socializing institution of most American children. The roles of schools are even more profound in economically depressed areas because they'd provide the majority of the food children eat, cultural exposure, health care, and often clothes and shoes.

By the way, You Are Stardust is a children's book that has recently been published. It is about the interconnectedness of being. I found it on the new acquisitions shelf at the library and read it to my GT kids this past fall. Upon second thought, it would also be a good beginning of the year book for art class, leading to a multi media project  in which students explore their relationships to the universe. It could also be continued into a u about change or interconnectedness.

Week 11 Responses

Dear Katie-

What did you learn about your students' perceptions and development based on your implementation of PMI? How did using PMI in this lesson helped reinforce the big ideas of the artist study?

An observation I wanted to share with you is that your PMI notes show that studying Van Gogh affected your students on the social-emotional level. They demonstrated deep empathy and also abstract thinking. How could you cater to this strength in your students in future lessons - highlight how the social-emotional experiences of famous artists relate to their own lives?

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(Ginia)

Do you do bell ringers? If the students liked the PMI a lot, you could have a topic posted each week for the students to reflect on. Over time the students would become more fluent in the process, and it might help this type of thinking to other areas of their lives.

Week 11 Question Based Lesson

To complete the "Why Questioning" lesson, I displayed Meret Oppenhein's Object, 1936  on my whiteboard.

                                   

I  modified the Fifty Questions strategy to fit my perceived needs of a kindergarten class. I told the class to look quietly at the picture of the artwork for a minute. I then explained that I wanted everyone to come up with a question about the artwork. I told them that I did not want anyone to copy someone else's  question, so to try to think of a few different questions in case somebody else asked their question first. *This is a set of directions I could not have given at the beginning of the year, but since they have been VTSing all year, they have gotten used to listening to each other and evolved a consciousness of how their statements are the same or different than their peers.

The first few students wanted to share observations and interpretations (VTS) so I had to prompt them to ask questions using who, what, when, why, and where. After the clarification the students caught on. Since the kindergarteners are more fluent at speaking than writing, I found it necessary to write their questions on butcher paper I had taped to the side of my board before class. Half the class got antsy and bored waiting for me to write down the questions, and it got a bit noisy. Below is the list of questions the students generated about the artwork, in chronological order. Each student asked one question.

1. How did it get fur on it?
2. How did feathers get on it?
3. How did the artist make it?
4. How did it get made into that?
5. How did you make the spoon?
6. Why does the spoon, plate, and bowl have feathers on it?
7. How did it get hairy, brown, and white?
8. Cows and Pigs
9. How does the knife cut the bowl and plate?
10. How can you make it out of feathers? It wouldn't be easy.
11. How is the cup like feathers?
12. You would have to use it to eat cereal without milk. Milk would mess it up!
13. Why is it made out of feathers?
14. Why did the artist make it?
15. What bird has those feathers to make the plate?
16. How did they get made?
17. How did the artist make it so beautiful, so that the kids say, "How is it so beautiful?"
18. Why is it hairy? / Why did they make it?

I did not arrange the questions into categories in class. That would have been mutiny.

I explained that in order to answer our questions, we were going to make a place setting that looked like the artwork in the picture. However, fur was too expensive, so we were going to use feathers.

                                  


The students had fun making the bowl, plate, and spoon.  I tried to get the class to focus back on the list of questions at the end of class, and wasn't very successful. Between clean up, hand washing, and generally being in a tizzy over the feathers we couldn't get to focused. Below are some answers I did get.

• How did it get fur on it? Killed a brown and white bird, cut the feathers, and made it
• How did feathers get on it? A bird hit a tree and the feathers fell on it.
• How did the artist make it? Put glue on the bowl, spoon, plate; made with feathers; waited for it to dry; cut it open and put a handle on it; let it dry; made sure it didn't break
•  Why does the spoon, plate, and bowl have feathers on it? To decorate it and make it soft
• Why is it made out of feathers? So everyone could like it; beautiful art; Because the artist made it like that
• Why did the artist make it? Decided to make it - Let's make something furry by animals and different colors
• How did they get made?  Killed the chicken, took the feathers, dyed them brown and white

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  I guess a big question I have for myself is "What value, if any, is there in learning in depth about the works of artist in kindergarten art?" I can spend a whole year doing creativity training, materials, exploration, and VTS with the kinders. I know they are thinkers. They are very bright and capable. But does studying an artist answer questions that are valid to kindergartners, does it meet their needs?

After looking at their questions I see concerns about process, intent, aesthetics, materials, texture, and function.

I think the lesson went o.k. in that the students said they liked making their project. I got to catch a glimpse of their thinking, but it required analysis after class and not in the moment. I finished the class with a slight feeling of having more questions that answers. I had a strong feeling that I needed to know more about questioning strategies before I could successfully implement a lesson with them. My first informal reflection was that I needed a semester course about questioning strategies, theory and implementation. I then chided myself for being lazy, and rephrased my need in terms of doing my own research about questioning strategies. **A chapter in a book does not provide enough background and knowledge about questioning strategies to implement them in the classroom. Below are the questions I would like to answer:

1. What are different types of questions that can be asked?
2. At what stages do students ask certain types of questions?
3. What contexts determine which type of question be asked?
4. How does a teacher pre-teach questioning at each grade level?
5.  When is questioning most relevant?
6. When is question based learning a strategy that is not relevant?
7. Do questioning strategies follow stage development
8. How do I become proficient in question creation?
9. How do I become proficient in question selection?
10. What research has been done on question based learning?

Questions for the Teacher

Over the semester, you have been piecing together the stories of the students in this class. What do you perceive are the needs of the students? How do they compare and contrast with your own? How has your assessment of our needs informed your instruction for reflective teaching? What has been your celebrations in teaching this class? What would you modify for the future?

Response to Katie's Response

"Great overview of the chapter! I'm curious to know what strategies do you think you would use in your own classroom and why?"

Thank you for the awesome question! 

I think I would like to modify the Lectio Defina exercise. Christopher Uhl modifies it to be used in a group setting with a focused group of older students. I would use it for my oldest students - fifth graders. I would have the students choose a print or postcard of an artwork that "speaks" to them. I then would ask them to answer the following questions in writing, by themselves, to quietly hear themselves think:

1.If a crowd of people walked into an art museum and saw this artwork, what would they say the artwork is about?
2. Does this artwork remind you of an experience you have had in your own life?
3. If you had a question for the artist, what would it be?
4. If you could go into this artwork, what would you do?

I might use copies of allegorical work from a specific time period, to get the students thinking about metaphor in art. For example --







Two Shepherd Boys with Dogs Fighting by Thomas Gainsborough




 Wounded Angel by Hugo Simberg


 Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson

Week 10 Peer Responses

To Katie-

On how to modify the How Many of You......Icebreaker for elementary students..

I would use it on the first day of class as a community builder for third grade and up. "Welcome back to school, children. In order to get to know each other better, I want you to complete the answer on the board. Ask a question that you can share with the class, such as, 'How many of you like to play soccer?' I will read each question to the class. Each person will answer by raising their hands for 'yes, me' or leaving your hands down for 'not me.' "

I wouldn't expect deep and probing questions. But you would get them started with question based learning. A lot of textbooks about critical thinking strategies overlook younger elementary students. It might help to look at thinking skills books for younger students to get some ideas about appropriate phrasing and concept development.

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To Sheryl-

In response to "“Questions are catalyst for learning; they provoke movement; they yield change.”(p75) I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, proponents of 21st Century Learning call for change, but school policies and standardized testing doesn’t readily facilitate the process. Makes me wonder what questions I need to be asking and to whom I should be listening…or, is the answer already there and I’m too afraid to see it? "

Baby, it's you! It only takes one good teacher to make an impact. My good teacher came my junior year in high school. Plant the seeds, and over time they will grow! You are the change you want to see, and all that jazz. Just remember...time...

Week 11 Lesson: Pre - think

Timeline of what we have done recently in kindergarten:
1. VTS Picasso's Gourmet 
 
2. Drew a picture: What would you make in your bowl?
3. Made: A pinch pot
4. Artist Study: Chihuly, and Macchia



5. Made: Coffee filter macchia
6. Meret Oppenheim?





We are doing materials exploration using the theme of a bowl. Clay and glass. Bowl as utlilitarian, bowl as sculpture. I can not resist showing them a picture of Object by Meret Oppenheim. I MUST do it.

We have just come off of an artist study about Dale Chihuly. This is my first year doing an artist study with kindergarten. I have not done artists studies with kindergarten in the past.To be truthful, I am still leery of presenting artist information to such young students. I feel that when students study an artist, they need to get to the big idea an artist works with, not just imitating a style of art making. How do I present an artist in a nutshell to such young children? How do I bridge gap between what I "know" and what is developmentally appropriate for the age group? Maybe question based learning is the answer.

So, for the question based lesson, I am going to display an image of the furry bowl. I am going to do a modification of 50 Questions with the students to assess their reading of the image and  their art vocabulary. In a whole class setting, will write down all their questions on moveable strips. I will then categorize their questions in front of them based on trends found in questioning. I will have them make a feather bowl and spoon. I will then ask the students if we have answered any of the questions by making the bowl.

Anybody else have different ideas?

Week 10: Reading and Reflection

Read and Reflect Chapter 3: Teaching as if life matters

Chapter 3 advocates for question-based learning. The author suggests inverting the power structure in the classroom, and teaching students strategies that help them guide their own learning. The way to engage students and create valid school experiences is to let their natural curiosity guide their intellectual development.

In the first part of the chapter, Christopher Uhl talks about overcoming the negative connotations of questioning. I have distinct memories of being reprimanded for questioning at school, home, and about church. I wonder about the triangle of childhood existence and question where the questioning an curiosity is allowed to flourish. A typical child's life revolves around church, home, and school. Are children encouraged to ask questions about their parents' faith and explore spirituality on their own terms? Do standardized tests gauge critical thinking ? How many parents can entertain their children's questioning by validating instead of going bonkers? In each of the institutions that children are engaged in, the power structure is top heavy. I guess I was fortunate that I had an "interior space" I could retreat to and let my mind wonder free as a child. In high school I had an English teacher that fostered a questioning spirit in her class. I felt like I had learned a secret skill in that I could observe and analyze things for how they really appeared to me.

A good portion of the remainder of chapter is spent outlining questioning strategies that can be used in the classroom. After explaining the crafting of questions, Christopher Uhl explains question based strategied. They are as follows:

1. How many of you______? ice breaker in which each student creates a question for the class. Other students respond with yes/no answers, and the teacher models asking follow up questions.
2. Fifty Questions. With this strategy, students generate questions based on sustained observation of some subject matter. Students then analyze and look for trends in the content of their questions. The teacher helps students revise questions so they are not ambiguous. Students then design research projects based on the questions.
3. Annoying Child.  Use the question of "Why" to systematically delve into deeper reflection and thinking.
4. PMI. Students brainstorm the Plus and Minus aspects of a topic. They also list aspects of a topic that aren't positive or negative, just Interesting.
5. Lectio Divina. This strategy for contemplatively reading the Bible can be modified into a questioning technique for secular texts read in a group setting. The original steps are paraphrased to glean the message of any author.                               
6.  Strategic Questioning. This strategy is used to help develop self-understanding and to bring about social change. First,  Background Questions are asked in the order of guiding focus, analysis, and feeling. Next, Strategic Questions are asked about visioning and action plans.

Week 9 Reflections

Dear Ginia -

I love the way you handled the situation with the student who talked down about herself. It was so simple and empowering. I have noticed some of my students talk themselves into meeting lower expectations, and instead of talking themselves up. You gave me an Idea - Modeling self-talk that is empowering can promote the development resilience in students who don't have it. Thank you!

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Katie - I apologize for butting in, but the correct phrase is "underachiever." Underachievers are so frustrating because you know they can do the work, and you spend so much of your time with just that student "motivating" them to do their work. There are interventions you can use. Sally M. Reis and her husband Joseph S. Renzulli have done a lot of research in this area. I am posting two links to resources, though you can find much more if you research "reversing underachievement."

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/general/faculty/reis/Self-Regulated_Learning_Reverse_Underachievement.html

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10442.aspx

Weeek 9 Reflection

1. Consider the word “teacher.” We, as does the public, have many ideas surrounding this title. Imagine dropping the title “teacher”.... What lies beyond the title? 

My associations with the word teacher in part are tied to historical social restrictions placed on teaching females - can't wear red lipstick, be seen alone in the company of an adult male, etc. I am sensitive to the social restrictions still placed on teachers, like we still have to appear as as anesthetize versions of human beings even in our out of school lives, catering to the more conservative (religious) elements of the school system. Teachers are in part keepers of the culture, but it seems to be the keeping of the dominant culture in many cases.

Tied to that is the issue of restriction is the sense control teachers are supposed to have. Over themselves, the students, and the curriculum.

I also think of the deference to teachers of the holders of some unarguable absolute Platonic standards. That grading objectives are objective and point to some absolute truth in the realm of knowledge. That knowledge and learning can be defined in finite terms. 

Beyond the title of teacher, you have people who have a variety of

• organizational strategies
• levels of knowledge
• introverted vs. extroverted personalities
• cultural exposure
• levels of "people smarts"
• ages
• religious beliefs
• political leanings
• family structures
• cultural histories
• socioeconomic backgrounds
• educational training
• levels of fitness and health concerns
• motivations for being in the classroom
• motivations for lifetime learning
• traumas
• successes
• world views

The list is not exhaustive, but with all the differences in individuals who pursue teaching, there is a consensus to work within an educational system, and to work for the betterment of others. There is an acceptance of some givens, and to operate within those givens unless change can be brought about.

2. Contemplate deeply the idea of truth speaking. Reflect on your classrooms and your relationships with your students... How and where is truth speaking present? 

• When a class is getting too rowdy, and I stop and quietly watch the class. I tell the class the behaviors I am observing. I tell them my first impulse is to yell at them, but I have decided not to, because I do not want to give into negative energy and go home in a bad mood. I ask them how they are going to fix their behavior.
• When students are having trouble with scissors, with drawing, or using paint. I share with them my struggles with scissors, not being to draw what I saw in  my head, and not being to use paint without being messy when I was younger. I explain to them the developmental reasons certain things are hard for them. I assure them it will get better as they develop.
•  When a student asks "What is the point of this assignment?"
• When I said to a fourth grade class, "I didn't bring my A game last week. Let me reintroduce this lesson in a better way."
• When I say to my students, " I want to give you a warning, I have a serious case of the Mondays," and it is a Wednesday.
• When a student says they need help, instead of just goofing off.
• By acknowledging my mistakes in the moment and sharing how they make me feel.
• When students ask to do a certain project or technique that interests them.

3. Thinking back through all the reading and reflecting to date, write a personal classroom mission statement. Something you could put up in your room. After you come up with this statement, share it on your blog and talk (truth speak) a little bit about how you arrived at this statement.

Mission Statement: Question, Wonder, Listen, Make

Question: I want the students to think more analytically and to challenge what they are being taught. One of the most important questions , for me personally, is "Am I answering the right question?" Just because somebody in a position of authority poses a question or gives a task doesn't make it worthwhile. 

I also want students to be able to question themselves before they question me. To internally moderate their progress before going to an external judge.

Wonder: Once the students have a grasp on a material, technique, or concept, I want them to play with it and see how they can run with what they have been taught. I want them to bring up a variety of perspectives that I or the other students haven't vocalized. I also want them to get lost on working with a concept or in a conversation. I want them to ask 'Why?' so they have a better understanding about how things work. I want them to play with a fanciful idea they may know isn't reality, like arguing that mermaids exist.  

Listen: I want the students to know that listening is a two way street between teachers and students. They need to listen to me, and I want to listen to them. They also have to get quiet and listen to themselves. Sometimes problems are easier to solve if we pause and listen to our thoughts. They could also "solve" visual works of art on their own if they listen to their internal dialogue about what they look at. I also want them to listen to each other. A lot of interpersonal conflicts could be mediated by the students themselves if they could learn to calm themselves and look through another person's eyes.

Make: Sometimes it is the process, sometimes the product, and often together, when you make something you can see what you are capable of.  Making isn't passive. Making requires visualization and thinking. Good making is engaging.  Making something you are proud of is validating.

4. Reflect on some ways your consciousness about teaching has expanded since the start of this course and how does this relate to your goals? Do your goals need tweaking at this point? Restate them here (as they were or as they now are).

 Previously stated, my goals were:

1. Organization and Structure in the Classroom

• identify my currents patterns of organization and structure
• evaluate the reasons for these patterns and structure
• distinguish positive effects of my current system  from negative ones 
• evaluate the effects of my organization on the students, my classroom, and my efficacy
• create modifications to the organization and structure of my classroom
• evaluate the modifications to the organization and structure.

2. Fostering the habit of reflective thinking in students in grades 3-5 by addressing my weaknesses self-identified in the Maranzo Teacher's Scale

• Routinely providing students with rubrics
• Having students track their own progress
• Letting my classroom rules and procedures go lax mid-year
• Student review of new information in small groups
• Students verbally summarizing new learning
• Reviewing content consistently
• Explicitly using groups to support learning
• Asking students to verbalize their insight into how they revise knowledge
• Have the same expectations for low students as I do for the high ones

Revised Goals:

1. Organization and Structure in the Classroom

• identify student needs and teacher needs, physical and social
• identify my patterns of organization and structure
• evaluate the effects of organization and structure in meeting student and teacher needs
• create modifications to meet student and teacher needs.

 2. Fostering the habit of reflective thinking about creative processes in grades 3-5

• incorporate artist/bibliography studies about artists  - to study their creative processes and/or their thinking about their creative processes
• have students journal about their thought processes and decision making
• have students develop their own mission statements for learning in art class
• group students by similar mission statements 
• Have students verbalize their insights within the support of student groups. 
• Have students model positive self-talk  

Week 9 Reading Summary

Summary:
Prologue Teaching as if Life Matters
In the prologue, Christopher Uhl outlines using systems thinking to affect a better educational outcome for students touched by compulsory schooling. It is the author's position that we encourage intellectual development at the expense of affective development, creating wounds that prevent students from becoming self-actualized. Since teachers interact with such a large part of the population, teachers can transform how students think and help develop a society that is more reflective and smart about relationships big and small.

Chapter 5 Teaching as if Life Matters
In Chapter 5, Christopher Uhl posits that a lot of teacher/student conflicts center around fear and views of "otherness." He suggests instead that the teacher operate from the viewpoint that every human is interconnected. 

In the first part of the chapter the author outlines four concepts that we have been socially conditioned to accept as truth. The first is that reality is composed of opposites. The second is that the labels we give things limit our perceptions of them. The third is that in blaming and complaining we cause separation and give up personal responsibility for difficult situations. The fourth is that the social grouping subculture present in most schools reinforces the concepts of otherness and fear. To counter act the four mindsets listed above the author suggests that teachers shift to a mindset that accepts interconnectedness between all humans, re-evaluates labels and judgements, see the goodness in others, and create spaces where teachers and students can speak candidly and build relationships.

The second part of the chapter centers around changing language spoken in schools to change the culture to one based an relationships instead of fear. The author highlights another social conditioned truth that most Americans accept - that everyone is basically bad and selfish. Our language used because of our acceptance of this viewpoint creates separation. Chistopher Uhl outlines a model of speaking that helps build relationships. By using the Nonviolent Communication model, the speaker recognizes the needs of all parties involved and avoids using demands and negative language in order to get  personal needs met.

The third part of the chapter deals with cultivating relationships in the classroom. The author first urges the reader to evaluate how the physical layout of the classroom affects relationships. He then suggests enhancing the social culture of the classroom by creating a safe atmosphere for teachers and students to speak and listen from the heart. The third condition for cultivating relationships in the classroom is suspending personal judgement when dialogue is occurring. The fourth condition is not to be afraid of personal touch in the classroom, since touch can build relationships. The fifth condition is to co-create a set of shared commitments with students, in order to build an environment of shared responsibility to meeting a cultural mission.