I Want to Play!

After viewing "A Day in the Life at LICM" (Long Island Children Museum)'

I wanted to play right alongside the children we see there.

What makes this experience look like so much fun? It was certainly "educational". Educational, but not boring.

The children were exposed to a huge variety of new experiences and new learning. My feeling is that the day spent at the museum is a day that will stand out in their memories while most classroom lessons will be forgotten.

Why? It was engaging. The students were actively involved most of the time, climbing, investigating, experimenting. They had the opportunity to touch so many things. When there was instruction, it was small group, question and answer, "wondering' questions, "What do you think?" questions.

It was social. They experienced new discoveries with their peers. They talked, discussed. The end of the video brought to mind Bandura, with his Social Behavioral Theory. It seemed most of the experiences at that point were being shared with people who had a close relationship with the child.

It was developmentally appropriate. It was bugs, and icky things. It was construction, make-believe, puzzles and technology.

This was a great example of discovery learning. The Long Island Children's Museum put the students right in the middle of a learning rich environment. I am ready to go!

Testing, Testing, Testing

Their first District Math Benchmark test. "Not a big deal", says the teacher to the class. "We just want to see what you have learned the last few months, and what we still need to work on. Just work carefully and try your best. Raise your hand if you have any questions."

The teacher had let me know that the benchmark assessment was on the agenda for our math time today. Results would be tabulated and used by the teachers and the district to assess the students' understanding of what they had been taught the first two months of school, as well as foundational knowledge for those skills.

From classes and from experience, I know that there are many factors outside of a student's knowledge and their ability to apply that knowledge that effect how students do on a test. It does however, always strike me anew each time I see students in a formal test setting how much their language ability impacts their test scores.

In this classroom, on this day, there were several students who were allowed the test modification of having their test read to them. I was rewarding to see that, for these students, their ability in the math content in the benchmark was what would actually be assessed, not their language ability. There were other students who apparently did not qualify for a modification, but nethertheless struggled with decoding and reading comprehension during the test. A few of the students asked the teacher what a word was, or what a question meant (something that they would not be able to do during the actual New York State Test). Others did not ask, but when questioned by the teacher concerning an empty response, replied that they didn't know what the question was, or would read the question incorrectly to the teacher.

Language acquisition is one of the many factors that can skew the results, so that the resulting data does not reflect understanding. Though this seems generally understood, this discrepancy seems more forgotten the further away from the classroom the data flows.

In the classroom, the teacher sees the student struggling with decoding, struggling with language comprehension. At the building adminstration level, there could be some understanding of these other factors, as the principal views the data. He has been working to make his ESL program more effective, to get 504's where they are needed. He has heard his teachers discuss poorly worded questions. He talks with these young students with difficult home lives, those with serious test anxiety. At the district level, do they see these kids, or just the numbers? I hope, both.

Image courtesy of Google Images.

It is an Exciting Place to Be

About a month ago, I began doing observation hours for my General Methods of Instruction class. This month is observing, next month-teaching! I am going into a third grade general education classroom during their math time.

As with most general education classroom, the first thing that strikes me is the diversity of learners within the room. There are no inclusion students within the room. And there are no Expand (Gifted and Talented) students. Even without those two ends of the spectrum, there are eight ESL (English as a second language)learners, ten remedial math students, average learners and fast learners. There is a student who just moved here from Russia and who speaks almost no English. This classroom, like many others, is a testiment to our need to address a multitude of needs in order to teach effectively.

This teacher has developed a method of teaching that she is finding more effective in meeting her students' needs. Her math instruction begins with a direct instruction lesson, such a subtraction with borrowing. She utilizes her Smartboard for interest and visualization of the skill. After about 15 minutes, the class breaks into groups for three different activities. Each activity is explained or demonstrated. Teacher asks for questions, and checks for understanding. At this point, there is a math specialist in the room. One of the teachers will provide strong support for the activity (guided practice) at the back table with approximatelly eight students. The other teacher will give as needed support to the small group doing the second activity. The third group does a math game that reinforces a prior skill. After 15 minutes, the groups switch activities, until each group does each of the three tasks.

These groups allow movement, variety, reinforcement. They allow the teachers to have individual time with each student, and address the needs of each student more closelly. The groups are homogenous, so that the teachers can differentiate each of the small group activities. For example, in the lesson where the objective of the lesson was to subtract three digit numbers with trading, for the slower learners, the teacher used guided practice during most of the activity time, giving students a model to follow for their homework, before letting them try a few on their own. For the fast learners, she did one problem with them and had four digit problems available for students who finished quickly.

From what I have observed, and speaking to the teacher, this method is one worth trying. It is however, enhanced and made more effective by having the resource of a second teacher in the classroom during that period.

(image courtesy of Google images)