Chapter 4: Social Moral and Emotional Development: This American Life tackles Middle School

I was driving into work this weekend to write progress reports, and heard a fascinating program on NPR/PRI. This American Life received an "anonymous" email (her email address had her name in it) from a recent 8th grade graduate asking if the show would do an episode devoted to middle school. As a 5th grade teacher, I had just been on the phone with a friend who teaches 10th grade lamenting the demise of last year's 5th grade class; students who a mere 6 months ago were sweet, kind, and hardworking are now routinely in detention or hiding out in the bathroom, getting into fights, and failing to make honor roll. What, I was wondering, was happening in 6th grade?! Once I started listening, I spent the better part of a half an hour sitting in the parking lot of my school listening and texting other teachers, and then immediately downloaded the full podcast when I got home: http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/449.mp3
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/449/middle-school

My favorite part of the episode was Act Two: Stutter Step, which profiled middle school dances, the perfect snapshot of all the social, moral, biological, and emotional forces at work in the life of a middle schooler. Best line (paraphrased)? Reporter: So are you boyfriend and girlfriend? 6th grade boy: Yeah, we're dating. Reporter: How long have you been dating? Boy: Well, she asked me out like 20 minutes ago, so it's pretty serious.

This program did a great job of reminding listeners what it's like to actively be in Erikson's stage V of psychosocial development, and the culmination of biological and social changes that make middle school years tumultuous for most adolescents. It also reminded me of how difficult my own 6th grade experience was, and of the need to be more sensitive and empathetic when interacting with my former students. The pressure for social acceptance and paramount importance of image and peer relationships are important to keep in mind as a teacher. One comment, incident, or implication can have serious social ramifications for these students who are struggling to develop their own identity, self esteem, and social relationships.

Some of my now 6th grade students, developing social relationships.

More from Ken Robinson

In my ESPED 5100 class on Thursday night, we watched part of a Ted Talk featuring Ken Robinson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY.

I really enjoyed the video we watched in this class, and I had to go home and watch it in it's entirety. His thesis, that our formalized, industrialized schooling kills creativity is compelling, and makes me questions how I can operate within my school structure and endeavor to nurture and foster creativity within my students. It's remarkable how many students on my caseload, who are on special education, are exceptionally creative and gifted children, and I am wondering how I can do a better job supporting their creativity and skills. Independently, during our weekly group lunch, a group of my students have developed their own comic book, that they collaboratively write and illustrated, and one student has imagined his own "Middle Earth", a fantasy land that he's populated with magical creatures and societies, and aspires to design a video game of. How do I support them more, and create an environment where this is valued as much as traditional academic learning?

This also makes me think about Gardner's theory of multiple intelligence  why is it that our educational system values a certain kind of intelligence and dis-values others? If we all possess all seven intelligences  and have varying abilities, why isn't musical/artistic intelligence valued as highly as logical intelligence? How do I change that

"Changing Pathways"

The video that jumped out at me the most this week was the video that talked about engaging native Alaskan students. The teachers at the school profiled attended a neuroscience workshop emphasizing emotion, and thus created a curriculum that interweaves cultural activities with state learning standards. Teaching in Boston in a school with a very diverse population, I can imagine how positively some of our students would respond to a similar initiative. Occasionally, throughout the year we'll have 'cultural pride' dress down days, and they always have very high participation rates. Of course, some of this stems from the fact that our school has a dress code, and the opportunity to wear jeans isn't one most middle school students will pass up. But, along with the ubiquitous skinny jeans and sneakers, most students are proud of their heritage, and will bring in t-shirts, flags, music, and food to share. We need to explore new ways of promoting that sense of self through cultural identity and pride for our diverse student body, and find ways to incorporate this into our classroom lessons and our school culture.

I also enjoyed the video profiling the teacher in LA who uses Socratic questioning and discussion to promote learning in her students. She said in the video that the job of the teacher is to provide the environment for students to learn, and I really like that philosophy. Students should be engaging with the learning individually  when defending their position, or collaboratively, when debating a point. The role of the teacher isn't to control the discussions or provide the "right" answer; it's to facilitate and support the cognitive learning that is happening.

Chapter 6: Cognitive Theories of Learning: If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

Today in workshop, I was working on sequencing with my pull-out group. To work on the skill of sequencing rather than reading. I chose to have us read one of my all-time favorite books, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, a substantially below grade level story, with great visuals. I previewed the lesson with the students, and told them that they would be asked to put events from the story in order. Then we listened to it twice on audio CD. As we read through the first time, I noticed most of the students sitting and listening quietly, but one of my students began to act out each thing the mouse did in the story, and mimic the accompanying sounds of each action. When we listened to it the second time, that student again acted out the story and made the sound effects. After listening to the story, each student was given sentence strips and asked to sequence 6 events from the story. The student who acted out the books as he listened to it and looked at the pictures was able to correctly sequence all the events, talking himself through, and quoting the text and making the sound effects to himself.

Cognitive learning theory has been very much on my mind these past few weeks. It was fantastic to watch one of my students, who routinely struggles with executive functioning tasks, develop his own strategy to remember information and to be able to use it.

Chapter 5: Behavioral Theories of Learning

As a special education teacher and masters student, the learning theory I feel most well versed in is behaviorism. Both of my parents are speech language pathologists, and I have been exposed to various behavior modification strategies my entire life. One of my earliest "I want to be a teacher" moments was working with some of the clients of a group home where my dad worked nights and weekends. On the weekends, he would bring a few of the clients home to have dinner with us, and, before dinner, I would play school with whoever was willing. One client who came to our house almost every week was a Jerry, a man with downs syndrome and mental retardation. He was always willing to play with me, and he loved coke-a-cola. At the age of 5, I would create an 'if /then' chart on the blackboard I had in my play house, and Jerry would work me writing numbers or reciting the alphabet to earn his can of coke.

Reading the chapter on behaviorism was a bit of a welcome change, and I felt much more like I was reviewing concepts, and finally putting language to things that seem intuitive. I work in an inclusion modeled school, and a large portion of my day revolves around behavior modification. On my cart, which I push from classroom to classroom are various colored and shaped post-it notes, specific ones for specific students to leave on their desks as a personal positive message, or redirection, incentive charts and stickers charts for certain students, each one with a reward that they have chosen, blank if/then graphic organizers on small pieces of paper to fill out on the spot, if needed, and chosen books, art supplies, and an iPod for students who work toward earning free time or a desired activity. My resource room has a marble jar, with whole-group prizes (that they have chosen) for reaching certain levels, and my homeroom has a self-reflective class score system tied to incentives.

I began to explore the disconnect between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation after our first weekend of class, and it's something I have not resolved. Ideally, we would want students to be able to learn what and how is most exciting and engaging for them, and hopefully, our education system will shift into 21st century learning. So while I, and my colleagues, can continue to explore ways in the classroom to allow for more choice and autonomy in learning, I don't have a replacement for behaviorism right now.

Flow in the Classroom

I really enjoyed reading these articles, and giving an official title to the goal of engagement in the classroom. Several comments really resonated with, and, since reading, I've spent the past few days at school thinking about how to incorporate flow into my day in a very structured, data-driven school.

The first quote from Can Schools Help Students Find Flow,  is that "when students are more engaged in class, their grades tend to improve." This was one of those, well, of course moments. My next thought was that engagement doesn't necessarily need to be internally generated. I still remember a specific 7th grade math teacher, who, through her delivery, classroom environment, and enthusiasm, made me enjoy math for the first time. Likewise, the strongest teacher I work with is able to engage 90% of his students daily, even when delivering, what in other classes are, "dry" lessons through his delivery. I was mentally arguing with the author, which I came upon this sentence: "In addition  teachers who modeled enthusiasm for the material and used humor were particularly engaging to students, even when learning." Well, at least my point was supported.

The second point that stuck with me is the idea that teachers can encourage more flow by providing opportunities for choice that are scaffolded to provide the appropriate level of rigor and challenge, giving all students the opportunity to be successful. As a special educator, this resonated particularly strongly with me, and partially led to the creation of a new way to assess the students in our current science unit on matter. Instead of a traditional paper and pencil test, the science team developed a menu, giving every student in the 5th grade the opportunity to chose their own project and the appropriate level of difficulty:

So far, the students have really enjoyed this project, and have been much more engaged than during traditional assessments. One of my students, who routinely struggles to complete work, has all the materials for his diorama in school, a full week before the due date!

The final quote, which I'm still grappling with, is the thought that, "students can't usually lose themselves in a class assignment, since the imperatives of the school schedule can easily interrupt their concentrated efforts." This is the concept I'm struggling with, and not sure I'm going to figure out a solution any time soon. So often in the school day, I find myself wishing I had more time to spend on a particular skill, assignment, or activity, that is cut short due to a rather inflexible schedule. Routines, procedures, and schedules can be very supportive and can be positive things for students, but there needs to be a balance between these structures  and allowing for the cognitive process to play out.

Cognition and Construction

Cognitive Distraction

In the second and third trials on the cognitive distraction test, my reaction time decreased from the baseline test, and on the fourth trial, it increased slightly.

On the sensory distraction test, I originally predicted that my reaction would increase with the introduction of visual distractors. However, my reaction time decreased on the second and third tasks. I think that the data shows that as I practiced the task, my reaction time decreased. Even with the horrible introduction of pictures of snakes, I was still able to attend to the task at hand.

On the fourth task, with the introduction of math problems, my reaction time increased. The distractor on this task, the math problems, required more attention- in this task I was forced to attend to the distractors, whereas in the 2nd and 3rd task, I did not have to. In addition  there was the added component of not hitting the space bar when a problem was incorrect. These factored into my increase in reaction time.

Measuring Learning

This first test was an opportunity to both learn how to do task and learn to do the skill. In talking about this with my boyfriend, we came up with an analogy for this task: finding Waldo in a "Where's Waldo" book- a book I actually loaned out to a student this week. The more you look for Waldo, the faster you are able to find him because you learn what to look for, and through practice, become better and more efficient at scanning. An improvement in either the process or engaging with the content will result in a decrease in time.

After completing the sharp set, I think that if the test continued, and there were more items, the blue line (repeated) will continue to drop, and, eventually, the new and repeated lines would come together. 50 items probably does not produce enough test data to have the sets resolve themselves.[say why]

In addition, this graph does show a faster improvement, in both new and repeated items simultaneously, than the first one.

Before the blurred set task I, made the comment that I thought this task would be more difficult because blurry images on computer screens usually hurt my eyes. However, it was noticeably easier for me to find the "T" within the blurred image- there was more of a contrast between the “T” and image it was contained in. The physical act of engaging with the image and focusing seemed to make the cognitive task easier.

My immediate reaction after the abstract set was that this task was the longest, and the most challenging  There was a trade off between learning on the repeated items and fatigue, and the graph reflects this. This task required a lot more focus and concentration due to both the length and the image set the "T" was placed in. Because the image distinction was more subtle, this task was harder and required more trials to show that I learned. On this task, unlike the others, I did develop/learned a strategy: around item 60, I realized that I did not need to focus on images with line on bottom because the “T” never appeared upside down.

Even though my time increased on the 4th task, my longest time remained the first test. In addition, the slope of the first graph is significantly steeper than on next three, demonstrating that I was able to learn quickly, and that my times on the first trial show a lack of practice.

Chapter 8: Discovery Learning and 21st Century Skills

Today in class, we designed a discovery learning task for students to complete in science class. Last week, students worked in groups to complete an Egg Drop Challenge: to use teamwork to design a container that would protect a raw egg as it falls to the ground from a height of 5-8 feet. The students were given a list of materials, and provided with detailed graphic organizers that broke down each task into simple, concrete steps. Utilizing this scaffolding, students completed this activity, although, in all three homerooms, not a single egg survived the fall in tact.

Before moving on from our materials and objects unit, we decided to try a similar task, but to remove the scaffolding, and allow the students to self group and tackle a new challenge: to design a structure out of tin foil, straws, and tape that could hold as many pennies as possible while in a tub of water without sinking. With no structure or further directions, the students were all able to complete the task. It was wonderful watching them problem solve, use trial and error, and test out hypotheses independently. In addition to cognitive problem solving skills, they also needed to utilize 21st century skills. They needed to work collaboratively and innovatively, using their imaginations to discover a solution.

At the end of the class, the room was a mess and the students were excited and proud. And, all the groups in my homeroom were successful, with all structures able to float and hold pennies- one group's structure was able to hold 217 pennies before sinking.

Chapter 2: Cognitive Development

As I read chapter 2 of our text book, I found myself making many connections to the classroom. 

First, the fact that infant learning initially occurs accidentally then intentionally through trial and error drew a connection to a colleague's 14 month old daughter, Jayden. The first time Jayden came to school, she was immediately attracted to the magnets on my filing cabinet. She took them off, one by one, then took great delight in putting them back on the filing cabinet, and watching them stick.  She tried sticking the magnets on my desk, and discovered they didn't work quite the same, then went back to the filing cabinet. On each subsequent visit to the school, Jayden never fails to come to my filing cabinet and is able to remember where the magnets stick.

The opening vignette in this chapter is one in which a teacher gave her 3rd grade science class a problem to solve through trial and error. In the vignette, the students were unable to think logically about the problem they were posed because there were too many variables. Reading this made me think of a question on a science quiz that we recently gave our 5th graders: 

A teacher carefully pops the balloon with a pin. The students pick up the pieces of the balloon and compare them. Which of the following properties of the pieces should be most similar? 
  A. color 
 B. shape 
 C. size 
 D. weight 

In our weekly science team meeting, we analyzed data from the quiz, and found almost 80% of students answered this question incorrectly. Based on this percentage alone, we decided we needed to model this event (the balloon being popped) and allow the students to make actual observations and test their theories about which properties stayed the same before putting a question like this on a quiz. But, in reading this chapter, my ah-ha moment is to question whether or not this problem was developmentally appropriate for 5th grade students. Our students are currently in Piaget's concrete operational stage of development, where they are improving in their ability think logically, but unable to think abstractly. This makes me wonder whether our assessment was designed appropriately, and guarantees that we will keep the stages of cognitive development in mind when developing our next assessment. 

Thinking about reversibility in the preoperational stage of development made me question why I have observed 5th graders struggle with this principle, particularly when doing inverse math equations (-/+, x/÷). For example, most of our 5th graders are able to tell you that if 3 + 5 = 8, then the opposite is: 8 - 5 = 3 by simply reversing the equation and using the inverse operation. But, when given the same equation 3 + 5 = 8 and this inverse: ___ - 3 = 5, our students struggle to fill in the missing digit of the equation. I wonder why having the same numbers but merely switching the order makes this problem more difficult to solve.

While reading about the concrete operational stage and the skill of transitivity, I immediately thought of the problem of the week we will introduce on Monday in math class:

PROBLEM OF THE WEEK:  #4

Jocelyn, Henry, and Matty are folding origami paper cranes.  Henry folded 7 paper cranes.  Jocelyn folded 8 times as many cranes than Henry.  Matty folded 4 times as many cranes and Jocelyn.  How many cranes were folded all together?  

In order to be able to solve this problem, students will need to first figure out how many paper cranes Henry folded, then multiply this number by 8 to find out how many paper cranes Joclyn folded, then multiply that total by 4 to find the number Matty folded. Finally, students will need to add the three totals together to arrive at the final answer. 5th grade students should have the cognitive ability to solve this problem, and I will watch this week to see what students struggle with finding the relationships between the three people in this problem and the number of cranes each one folds.

Chapter 5: ABA vs. Self Motivation

Aside from the "Did you Know" video, my other big take-away/ah-ha moment/what I'm still grappling with is how to reconcile my background in special education, specifically the heavy behaviorist approach with what I'm learning now about Piagetian/Vgyotskyian theories of learning. If our ideal educational environment is one in which learns are self-motivated and internally driven to learn and complete tasks, how does behavior modification fit in? For 3 months, I worked as a paraprofessional in a sub-separate PDD ABA classroom, which is a straight behaviorist approach to education. Reinforces are strictly external (although a few of our students were able to communicate through limited speech, gestures, or use of a communication book, and could choose what they wanted their reinforcer to be) and the whole focus and emphasis is on modifying and learning concrete behaviors, which can then, ideally, be generalized into additional settings and locations.

In my job as a learning specialist, a large portion of my day is spent working with students with social/emotional impairments, and subsequently modifying behaviors as outlined in their IEPs. How, then, can I reconcile these very divergent points of view, and really meet the needs of my students? Now what!?

Chapter 4: Diversity, the "Did You Know?" video, and Peace Corps

Did you know?

After seeing this video in class this weekend, I had to come back home and rewatch. I had this overwhelming realization while watching this that put things into perspective: in college, while I wasn't what you would call "tech savy" I was comfortable with technology and used it frequently in my daily life.

After college, I joined the Peace Corps and lived and taught for two years on the island of Lifuka in Ha'apai in the Kingdom of Tonga.

the village I lived in, Koulo, on the island of Lifuka

map of Tonga

This island, approximately 2 miles wide and 7 miles long, did have it's own airport (in my backyard!) and a small branch of a regional college, but most homes, mine included, did not have electricity or running water, not to mention internet. In Pangai, the main town of this island group, there was intermittent internet access for those who could afford it, and I biked into town a couple of times each month to send emails and update my blog. In my village, I recognized the disadvantages growing up without internet had on my students, and I designed an introductory computer class that I was able to teach in the computer lab (donated by the Japanese and Australian governments) at the University of the South Pacific for a small weekly fee, to pay for the cost of electricity. I wanted my students to, at the very least, have some experience with computers and technology, and for many of them, this was their first time using a computer.

at the Ha'apai branch of the University of
the South Pacific for our computer classes

class 6 students on the computer for the first time!

While I understood the detriment of growing up without technology for my students, I think I failed to fully comprehend the impact that such limited technology used would have on my life, once I returned to America.  When I got back in the fall of 2010, I underwent culture shock in almost every activity I did in my daily life, from extreme (going to a supermarket) to mundane (the weather!). However, the most lasting impact, I am still realizing, has been regarding my ease and comfort using technology. When I left the country in 2008, there was no twitter, and facebook still required a .edu email account. When I returned, I was completely overwhelmed by the presence of technology in the lives of my friends and family, and, I still don't feel as though I've fully caught up. I still haven't been on or visited twitter, and I find checking my personal, work, and school email all in one day exhausting and overwhelming. My discomfort in using technology, specifically social media, in my daily life is something I am slowly working to understand and remedy. However, I am left to wonder what the impact of my experiences without technology, and my subsequent unease have in terms of my job teaching 5th grade, and what the broader implications are for how I both learn and teach in the 21st century. Watching this video brought these questions explicitly to the forefront, and my ah-ha moment came in the full realization of this fact.