Teaching Styles

As a student teacher, I have been given the opportunity to observe different styles of teaching. One thing I admire about K, the teacher that I have been placed with, is the relaxed attitude she has with her class. She is a seasoned veteran of teaching, which makes me wonder if K is that way as a result of her many years of teaching or if it is her natural style. I suspect it is just her personality. She doesn’t seem to let the minor things stress her, whereas some of the other teachers do just that. She starts the day relaxed and ends the day the same way, rather than stressing about what she might have done differently and burning out after only a few years of teaching.

K does stay alert to the status of her students, however. One strategy she recently implemented was to create a “most-improved” certificate on her computer. She called two of her students to come in front of the class to receive it and announced that though both had started the school year with questionable behavior, they had improved more than any of the other students in the class and were receiving a certificate in honor of their improvement. Receiving this caused much pride in these students and turned out to be a brilliant strategy in more ways than one. It showed the students that the teacher was now seeing them as a success, and the rest of the class was also aware of the new status they had been given. They received a brand new start five months into the year, also showing the class that change was possible in her class.

Another thing I continue to be amazed at is K’s class management. She told me that she will sometimes allow her class to be a little nosier than other classes at times, but what amazes me is that she can quiet them down in an instant. The other teachers that I have observed either need to keep a tighter rein on their students at all times so they won’t get too noisy, or they spend a lot of time quieting them when they do get too noisy. K’s strategy is to dim the lights when she needs to get their attention, and they immediately focus their eyes on her and go quiet.

She also holds her students accountable for their own actions, teaching them to be responsible. I recently watched a different teacher pick up her students’ things after class was over and put them back in their desk. K would never have done that. She makes them pick up their own stuff, and if they don’t do it and it gets lost, they lose it. She has a similar way with the other areas with her class, such as their daily snacks. They are responsible for bringing their own snacks, and if they forget to bring them, they do without. Likewise, this extends to their homework. They are held accountable in the same way for turning in their homework. She doesn’t call their parents. She holds them responsible for doing their own work. After I was gone for two months, doing my middle-school dyad training, I came back to find that they have adapted fairly well to this strategy and more are following through in these areas.

My Introduction to Smart Boards

Today I had the opportunity to attend an introductory workshop on smart boards and their place in a school classroom. Apparently, there are several brands of these interactive boards ranging from Promethean active boards to Dell interactive whiteboards to boards that are actually called SMART boards. They appear to be an interactive computer on a large screen in the front of the classroom. Some require a stylus pen that is calibrated to work on the board while newer ones only require one’s fingers. The board we used needed the pen, though much of our work was done via computers and laptops provided and simulated what we could do on a smart board.

I was grateful for the explanation about the mechanics of the smart boards, such as what to do when (not if) one gets lost, in addition to learning about some of the tools available. We looked at the main menu, main toolbox, formatting toolbar, tools, and browsers, among other things. An interesting tool was something called handwriting recognition. One would use the pen to write something on the screen and after being selected, it would turn what was written into typed text. This might be good for someone having poor handwriting, but I know children love to see their work published, and I wonder if this might diminish the importance of their contribution.

Because I have not worked with smart boards before, I was overwhelmed by all the knowledge I was presented with. The instructors were excellent, though, balancing their teaching so as to not move too fast for novices such as me, while at the same time trying not to bore those who have had prior experience. One example was when the class was shown how to use the tickertape function which allows text to roll across the screen as slow or as fast as one might want. This was something that drew the attention of all, but was really more for fun than as a teaching tool, and I didn't feel that it was imperative that I learn that function.

After the instructors presented us with the basics, they gave us some time to play around with them, including playing with some of the many images we could choose from. I found things from geometric shapes to musical notes to animals. I had fun duplicating and rotating some penguins and discovered the images also come with audio. Those in the room were hearing everything from lions roaring to babies crying, and I even heard a sick cough simulating a negative side effect of smoking. I appreciated the advice the instructors gave, however, to be careful not to get carried away by using too many tools. A teacher should use tools that help support the learning objectives, not the other way around.

One demonstration that made the class see the advantage of using an interactive board was an activity the instructors had us do. At the beginning of the class, they showed us a clip on the screen consisting of a list of words shown one at a time. A few words were read to us, others showed only pictures and some had text, audio and a picture. We were asked to pay attention to them, but after we were shown them, they told us that we would get back to them later and went on to teach us about the white boards.

Toward the end of the class they came back to the word list and asked us to write down all that we could remember. None of us remembered very many, but I felt the most important part of the exercise was when they showed us the statistics of past results. The majority of the words that people remember are the ones that have audio, written text, and an image. Research showed that about 10% remembered information they had heard; 35% remembered information they had seen, but 65% remembered what they had both seen and heard. Learning how important it is to combine oral and visual with text was a good motivator for us to learn all we could about smart boards.

Children’s Math Strategies

When I was in elementary school, I learned that there was only one way to do math problems, and that was the way the teacher taught us. In my current math class, I am learning the opposite. There are many ways to approach math problems, and often the way they’re done is more important than their answers. I would never have believed this a few years ago, but today I am learning to see math in a very different way.

I had the opportunity to do two different one-on-one assessments with two different third graders, in two different classes, and at two very different levels. I was told that I could not help the children and only evaluate their strategies for finding basic mathematical facts. We were given half an hour to do four questions, but they were all challenging ones.

My first child, Mr. J, was very friendly and worked very hard trying to please me, but he had a very difficult time understanding the basic directions and needed a lot of coaching to keep him on task. He exhibited a low attention span, but I loved his attitude. Though he was unsuccessful at solving any of the problems, he did his best when he was asked to divide 10 large cookies between 6 children. He would give each child one cookie and the other four to his “brother, sister, dad and mom.” It made a lot of sense to me, and I hated to tell him that he couldn’t give the other cookies to his family and could only divide the 10 cookies among the six children. From there, though, it went downhill. He then tried to divide the cookies all in half but couldn’t figure out what to do with them when he ended up with 20 half-cookies.

My recommendation for Mr. J was to work on early math facts using direct modeling. Because the story problems were too abstract for him, he wasn’t able to find a formula for them, and I recommended direct modeling using counters or manipulatives to help him to see the concepts.

My other child, Mr. C, was very different. His single-minded focus was to finish the work, and his focus was intense. On his first problem, he read it and immediately wrote a mathematical equation out and solved the problem. In fact when I asked him why he did the problem that way, his response was “Because that’s what you’re supposed to do.” That sounded like something I would have said and done when I was his age. Ironically, he was able to solve all the problems except the cookie problem. Like Mr. J, he too wanted to start by giving each child one cookie, but after that he differed. He worked very hard to divide the rest of the cookies between the children and finally resorted to drawing it out. Interestingly enough, he was able to draw the division accurately but did not know how to convert it into numerical measurement. I believe he is moving into the counting strategy. He further demonstrated this on another problem when he successfully divided 246 pieces of candy putting 10 in each box. He solved this by continuing to subtract 10 numerically from the total separately each time until he no longer had 10 to subtract.

Earlier Mr. C had told he did not like math. I could see why as I watched him struggle and work so hard to complete his work. I wondered how it could be easier for both Mr. J and Mr. C and think about my earlier blog on subitizing and how seeing patterns can make math easier. A different child in Mr. C’s class knew that there were 10 tens in 100. That meant there were 20 tens in 200 and 24 in 240. Knowing that would have saved Mr. C a lot of time and perhaps made math a whole lot more fun for him. I’m looking forward to teaching children how to see more of these patterns and helping them to see that math can be fun.

Subitizing

What are some of the different ways students can add up groups of dots? Finding that out is the intent of the exercise called Quick Images. Two of us worked with a small group of third graders assessing their abilities to subitize, find the total number without giving them enough time to count each one individually. These dots were on flash cards and each flash card showed a different grouping. There were groups of twos, threes, fours, and fives. We flashed them an image for only a few seconds and then asked them to visualize the dots in their heads. We then gave them a chance to check their answers by flashing the dots in front of them once more for another three seconds. After this we asked for their totals.

The students did have one advantage. This exercise had been demonstrated to them, and they were now alert for patterns, and they found them. I was amazed, however, at how many different patterns they could find. They circled the ways they had grouped them, so the rest of us could see how they were able to come to their answers. Because they were asked to explain their methods to the rest of us, such as dividing the dots into groups of threes or sixes, it became evident to the students while explaining themselves if they were correct or not, and we all learned from each other.

One interesting development I noticed was that the students who were struggling with other mathematical concepts were excelling in this exercise. These students saw this exercise as more of a game than an assessment, and they were having fun. This was evident in their joyful faces and the excited way that they participated. Gone were the anxious faces. They were in their element, and it was like the playing field had been made even for them at that moment.

One way to collect ideas

I was babysitting last night for a couple cute preschool girls when I happened to glance up at their fireplace mantle. There they were looking down on me – a couple of handmade paper turkeys.

As I was commenting on how cute they were to the girls, it occurred to me. I could use those turkeys! Not those exact turkeys, mind you, but the idea that they presented to me. Here were two different crafts I had never seen before that represented different skill levels. I could use them in different grades or as different choices in one grade. Looking at them, I could determine what needed to be done to remake them, but how would I remember all of the details without taking them home? I could write a detailed description of them – or I could take a picture. I only have a basic cell phone. It’s not a smart phone and doesn’t have many megapixels, but it does take pictures! I now have in my craft file two new crafts that I can pull out for my future elementary school class.

Writing Purposes

I feel as if I am learning two somewhat opposing ways to teach writing. One is to teach writing for a specific purpose in a specific way. The other is to teach writing for the reward of writing itself, a somewhat cathartic experience. Our class is reading two very different books about these views. One is by Regie Routman called Writing Essentials. The other, by Anne Lamott, is Bird by Bird. Now, I think one can tell by the titles themselves which one is conventional and which one is not. I admit, I tend to be a conservative and go more with the conventional text, such as teaching the actual skills of writing, but I have bitten my tongue and resolved to find some gems of worth in the other, and I think I have found some.

Lamott is admittedly a bit crude for my taste, but I do agree with her that good writing should be “about telling the truth” (p. 3). Sometimes I think she could use a bit more reserve in her descriptive powers, but I have to admit agreeing with her about her characters. Sometimes it is best to not save them but let them suffer the consequences. Her story about a “frazzled, defeated wife of an alcoholic man who kept passing out on the front lawn in the middle of one night,” was one such example. The wife kept dragging him in each morning before dawn to avoid the neighbor’s view until finally an old black woman from the South advised her saying, “Honey? Leave him lay where Jesus flang him” (p. 46). That was inspirational.

Voting Day

Tuesday is voting day. I was one of 11,000 King County residents informed that my ballot was inadvertently not mailed on October 19th. As I was reading the assigned chapter in Walter C. Parker’s, Social Studies in Elementary Education this week, entitled “Democratic Citizenship Education,” my missing ballot came to mind. I began to see the connection. Children must be taught about civic responsibility, or they won’t know what they are missing. This includes teaching students about deliberation, what it means to vote responsibly, but another factor that Parker introduced was getting students to care.

I liked the way one teacher took care of this. Tarry Lindquist started her school year off by having her students brainstorm all the ways they could make their classroom a “terrible place, a place where no one would want to come, a place where we could guarantee no learning would occur,” (p. 85). Following their description, she then asked them how they would feel having to be in that kind of classroom all year. Her students couldn’t wait to reverse their list to create the opposite of that classroom.

Parker addressed voting, stating that elementary teachers should take every opportunity to involve their students in the voting process, including deliberation (p. 95). It continues to boggle my mind when I think that women, like myself, only received the right to vote less than one hundred years ago. I remember as an 18-year-old being so excited that I was part of the first group of 18-year-olds that were eligible to vote for the U.S. presidency. It made me feel so grown-up and excited to be given the privilege to vote.

Unfortunately, today I often see more apathy than enthusiasm, regarding the right to vote, than I did back in 1972 when I first voted. Parker brings out that a crisis often is the catalyst that diffuses apathy. In 1972, it was the Vietnam War. This last week my mini-crisis was realizing that if I did not receive my ballot, I was not sure if I would be able to vote. Needless to say, my family received our ballots a few days ago, but what if the error hadn’t been found, or what if it was intentional and never corrected? We teachers have the great opportunity to encourage democracy when we continue to make civic responsibility one subject we will always include.