Mind Maps

We completed the mind maps in both 9th grade classes today.  All in all I'd say it went well.  Of course the first class provided the learning platform for me so I could better outline what to do with the second class, but I don't think the learning of the first class suffered any.  It works really well in order to get kids to think of concepts in terms of connections, and to organize or group related terms.

I'll be doing it again Monday, but this time as an introduction to a unit in order to get them to access prior knowledge.  I'll post back and report on how that went.

I haven't forgotten... I'll post some pics of completed ones later next week.

A Fraud or Not a Fraud --- That Is the Question

So was it David Booth?  Who can recall when one hears so many things, but I'll attribute the quote to him anyway.  He was a guest speaker at a seminar I was at and he, in passing I believe, said that people are afraid to share or let other teachers into their classroom because they are afraid of being discovered.  They are afraid others will find out that they are a fraud.  I knew almost immediately that this was me to some extent.  I don't mind people walking into my class, but then, I pretty much stop teaching and interact with them.  They don't observe and evaluate me.

My VP has been reading a book lately, it might be called "The Rounds".  I'm not sure, but the idea is that a group of teachers act in the manner of a group of med students and collaborate and learn while visiting other teachers rooms.  A selected few of us will be doing this.  I think we will begin by visiting other schools, but I'm sure it will extend to the group of us visiting one another.  And that has me a bit scared, but also excited.  You see, like David said, I have this fear of being discovered as a fraud.  I hope it is baseless, but then, how does one really know.  I feel like I'm doing a good job.  I don't have issues in class (well, not ones I can't deal with), the students are responsive and I see growth.. but am I doing things right.  And what does that even mean?  The vp has ordered 15 or so copies of the book, and it is our first 'book club' book for our PLC at our school. (An idea that I find very exciting by the way).

I have to say that I haven't thought about it much lately.  In the beginning, you question your competency constantly and critically.  Later on (and don't let me fool you, I've only been at this since 98 -- so I'm no seasoned pro) I think you begin to play it more by feel.  You still question, and definitely refine ideas and try wild/crazy things, but you don't worry so much about being a fraud or a failure -- at least I didn't.  But lately, a few people that haven't really seen me teach and don't really know much about me have been singing my praises to some other people.  That is what has me thinking about it all over again.  It is the fear of being able to live up to that praise or those expectations.  I should be beyond this.  I am not.

And of all the times for this to be happening, it is happening right when I am once again re-inventing the way I go about my daily interactions with my students.  I'm trying to incorporate literacy strategies more heavily, I'm implementing ideas from books I've read based upon research into best practices (which I've been doing a lot more of for a few years now thankfully)... I'm changing from Socrates to Vince Lombardi -- but not just a coach, one with a thousand assistants doing tireless work.  Twitter folks (especially those at #scido), their links, books (so many -- beginning with Randall Knight's Five Easy Lessons, and there is no clear end in sight) and chatting with colleagues have all proven to be vast and incredible resources.


OH!  And I am close to having student work on my first (and second) mind maps.  I am eager to see how it goes, and how I can use it to help them, and what kinks I will need to iron out.  I'll post some results.  Dina Saddy (literacy coach extraordinaire) at my school is encouraging me to adopt Mind Maps (since I seem to want to try them so much) and one or two other things into my repertoire for the year and see where they lead.  Will do coach.

Mind Mapping

So the first week back was a bit taxing.  I am always amazed that the job could be so physically draining.

We spent the first four days playing and talking.  I've really been stressing the idea of thinking.  Thinking about everything, including what they think!  This next week will likely be more of the same, and hopefully I can keep it up all year long.

One amazing thing happened while we were debriefing the idea about differences between knowing and understanding (thanks for the inspiration John -- @occam98).  A student said she knew that grass was green, but didn't understand why.  It was an awesome teachable moment.  Some students tried to help explain why, which lead into a discussion about chloroplasts and pigment,  additive vs subtractive colour theory and perception of colour.  I grabbed some spectroscopes, told her to look out the window at the sky, then to repeat but this time looking at the tube lighting in the room and note the differences.  Her lab partner was chomping at the bit to see for himself so I told him to grab one which of course put the rest of the class on the edge of their seats and soon everybody was fooling around and looking at spectra.  We didn't go too deep into what they were looking at; that is a lesson for another grade unfortunately, but it was awesome to see their excitement.  After that, they brought up a bunch of things that they 'knew' but didn't understand and I think the difference between the two was really driven home.  More importantly, they began to realize that their goal in this class is to leave with an understanding of the things we see and talk about, and that doing that is going to require them to really participate, think, and question.

I am going to try something that I haven't really done before.  This week, my grade nines are going to create mind maps.  I guess I am using it with a bit of a twist, in that it is an introduction to a unit with the hopes of activating prior knowledge, and using the class community expertise in the subject to both help focus the class and lead the learning.  I am going to do a simple one with them so we can all learn how to do it together, and then later in the week, or early next week depending on how things work out time-wise, they will create one in groups and extend it to a class mind map that will remain on the board as a focal point and reference throughout the unit, adding to it as we discover new things that belong on it.

I am not doing this alone.  One of the instructional coaches will be assisting me with it and we will team teach the class for the one they try to do without me.  Team teaching a student directed lesson sounds funny.  I don't anticipate that either of us will be doing much more than encouraging the students.  To top it off, my administrator will be coming in to do an evaluation of my teaching on that day, so there will be three of us in the room.  It should be interesting.

There is one thing that I am noticing about my efforts to change the way I engage students; it is a lot of work.  It reminds me a little of when I first started teaching.  The focus of my efforts is WAY different, but the insecurity and the feeling of not knowing what will work for which student is quite similar.  We are all working and learning and having fun, so the effort is definitely worth it.

'About Me' assignment

I can't seem to shake the idea.  Here is some backstory.  About three weeks ago, Alec Couros (@courosa) presented at a workshop I was at.  He made it clear that he believes we should carve out our own web identity so that we are in control of (to some extent) what people find out when searching for information about us online.  I've been thinking about that quite a bit, and there isn't much information about me out there... but there is some.

I know a lot of teachers tell their students a little about themselves on the first day of classes, and invite students to share, either in writing or aloud, a bit about themselves.  A colleague told me just yesterday about some of the things he tells his classes about himself.

So, what have I been thinking of doing?  Well, it's probably completely obvious at this point, but I was thinking of assigning the students an 'About Me' project on the first day of class for homework, but the twist is that it really is about me.  They have to write a paper telling me all about me based on information that they can find from anywhere.

I am not convinced that I should do it.  I am a bit worried about what might come of it.  I've done the 'project' myself and there isn't anything damning that comes up, nor could there be (I suspect), but the idea of encouraging them to look for details related to my private life is a bit scary.

Your thoughts on the idea are welcomed.

G. Levack

First post, first day.

I have been thinking a lot over the past couple of weeks about how to go about teaching the courses I have been selected to teach this semester.  I need to be able to reach the students, and engage them in ways that will make them reflective of the learning they are doing.  To that end, I have been to a weeks' long session on literacy, and a very inspirational session of professional development today.  I have been reading (and reading and reading) other educators blogs, checking out links that my twitter friends have been posting and discussing things with friends and colleagues.  The end result is ... I still don't know how to do what I want have to do.  I am going to try some things that are perhaps WAAAAY out of my comfort zone.  I am intrigued by the idea of standards based grading and reporting.  I want to move to a truly inquiry based class setting as opposed to a more teacher directed setting.  In short, I want to do the best I can do for as many students as possible.  Easy right?  While I am sure it will be more work, I also hope it is more rewarding and enriching for the students.

On a separate vein...

I happened across this piece of text today while doing some reading.  Like many things on the internet, I came across it in an indirect way.  I was reading a bit about Stephen Hawking's latest comments extracted from his most recent publication regarding the formation of the universe.  That lead to his comments on extraterrestrial life which then led to all sorts of places as you can imagine.  The following is a piece taken from a website with credit to the author of the quote contained within.  I find the quote to be both thought provoking and simple at the same time, and I want to share it with you so you could reflect on it.

Seth Shostak points out that regardless of whether scientists send out a message to aliens or not, they probably are already aware of our presence:
We have been inadvertently betraying our presence for 60 years with our television, radio and radar transmissions. The earliest episodes of I Love Lucy have washed over 6000 or so star systems, and are reaching new audiences at the rate of one solar system a day. If there are sentient beings out there, the signals will reach them. Detecting this leakage radiation won't be that difficult. Its intensity decreases with the square of the distance, but even if the nearest aliens were 1000 light years away, they would still be able to detect it as long as their antenna technology was a century or two ahead of ours. This makes it specious to suggest that we should ban deliberate messages on the grounds that they would be more powerful than our leaked signals. Only a society close to our level of development would be able to pick up an intentional broadcast while failing to notice TV and radar. And a society at our level is no threat.

That is everything I wanted to say right now.  My initial intent was to use this blog to keep my classes informed of what happened during the day, and perhaps to post homework or reading assignments here, but I can see already that I will most likely not use it that way.  I have another forum that I can use for that.  I am interested to see what this will develop into.  Thanks so much for reading this disjointed and rambling first ever blog post.

G. Levack