Comic Books and Chemistry: a Perfect Match!

When I was in 8th grade my history teacher had us learn about economics through, of all things, a comic book, and now almost 40 years later, I can still remember it. So what does that say about learning? It says to me that the material, which I found incredibly boring, was presented to me in a medium that engaged me-hence I truly learned it. Later when I got to high school I found myself bored to death in a chemistry class and distinctly remember having to memorize the periodic table. Why I had to do that, when I could have just looked it up when I needed the information, I'll never know. I did it, but didn't care about the information or understand why we were learning it, so I remembered if for the test and promptly forgot it. Sound familiar?

But after looking at the University of Kentucky site The Periodic Table of Comic Books by John P. Selegue and F. James Holler, I wish I could go back and study it this way. Like the economics unit in my Junior High days, I would probably still remember something from high school chemistry.

Does this look at all tantalizing to you? How do you think it might look to a high school student who is not excited about learning this material? That's the key now isn't it?

Many thanks to trulygreenfish for tweeting this link.

Standing Up in Class: an Option to Enhance Learning for Students

Think about how you position yourself when you read a book, use your laptop or peruse through a newspaper or magazine. Chances are sitting in a hard, straight back chair in front of a small desk doesn't rank high on your list. In fact as I write this I'm stretched out on a chaise in our living room with my computer resting on a portable laptop desk. Fact is we all have preferences as to how we'd like to be positioned when doing these tasks, so the question of why do we limit student options in this same area is a natural one to ask. We need to break out of the mindset of what the classic classroom looks like. Schools need to adapt for the betterment of the students; the students shouldn't have to adapt to the physical aspects of the school.

The graduate program I went through at Lesley University met for one weekend a month; we would start at 5pm on Friday and go till 10, then go from 8-5 on Saturday and Sunday. Now for much of that time we were up and moving, but during those times when being seated was the norm, I would very often find myself standing, a nearby bookcase providing a perfect spot. Maybe that's why this Hartford Courant article "A Stand Up Idea to Shake Things Up in the Classroom" prompted a great deal of thought and this post. The writer Sara Cody discusses the use of stand-up desks and how one Connecticut elementary school is starting to place them in classrooms. In discussing this change Larry Sparks, Assistant Principal of the Roaring Brook Elementary School in Avon says, "teachers have to understand that their objective is not to get them [students] to sit but to achieve. For the kids, if they can improve their concentration while standing, all the better." Other schools across the country are using yoga balls and bean bag chairs for the same purpose.

Now I'm not endorsing this product or receiving any compensation, I just wanted to see what one of these desks might look like and happened to come across this one. I've also included the description.

Safco 1208GR AlphaBetter Large Stand Up Student Desk - Centuria Grey

"For many students everyday classroom life involves trying to sit still, taking focus away from learning. With the AlphaBetter Desk students are able to stand up during the school day and move around without being a distraction to their classmates or teachers, all while improving their concentration. This completely new way of learning is creating a more productive learning environment. Research has shown standing alone can burn extra calories, and with the ability to move around students burn more excess energy and improves focus. FEATURES: The Pendulum Footrest Bar: The swinging motion helps burn excess energy and calories Top finished in gray Phenolic, a damage resistant polymer plastic. Adjustable height for grades 3-12."

The point is we have to take a long, hard look at the way we set up our learning environments and consider if we are doing the best for all of our students.

Student Voices on "Education Evolution" We Learn Creatively

Sir Ken Robinson posted this video on Facebook, and I am so glad he did. It's been my contention all along that the real positive changes in our educational system are going to come from the students up, and these young people are making their voices heard loud and clear. Now it's up to teachers, administrators, government officials and other stakeholders to listen and act. Please go and check out what these students are producing, as they hit it right on the head.

From their site

"Welcome to edevolution, a video project thought of and created by G/T  middle students in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Thank you for taking time to watch the video and visit this website! For more information about what the Education Evolution is and what it means, take a look at a quick summary of us here or head to the blog page.

Don’t know why you’re here or came here by accident? Watch the video anyway!"

Bring a Poem to Class that You Don't Understand

I love this idea tweeted by Carol Jago, she writes, "Don't be afraid to bring a poem you don't understand to class. Model your own process for making sense of what's on the page- what's obscure"

What a great idea to make sense out of something in front of and with the students in your class. Modelling this process will pay huge dividends with all students but especially those who give up easily saying they don't understand something. Of course these instances should be tempered by the fact that we should make meaning for ourselves based on a close reading of the text and not worry so much about what the author intended when he or she wrote it-it may be a fun exercise but who really knows?

Teachers should feel compelled to give up some control in the classroom and admit when they don't know something, while encouraging everyone to figure it out together. This has been a very important practice in my classroom, as it makes it okay to be wrong or not know something for the students, and it humanizes the teacher as a facilitator and not someone who is on an academic pedestal.

More Practical Examples of Formative Assessments

Check out the West Virginia Department of Education site for some more examples of formative assessments. Some great ideas here. Thanks to teachersharetp for the Twitter link to the site.

Harvard Professor calls Lecture Outdated and Largely Ineffective

Reading Dennis Pierce's excellent article in eCampus News on Harvard professor Eric Mazur's discussion that lecture is an outdated and largely ineffective way for students to learn. It seems like every day we read about or hear someone discuss the inefficiency of lecture as a tool for learning. So the question remains, why do so many educators keep up the practice? One possibility is that many people tend to teach the way they were taught and so the system propagates itself. If that's the case, then we need to break the cycle, and so, once again, we call for a paradigm shift in the way we prepare students to learn.

The article goes on to say "educators need to transfer information... but students also need to do something with this information to make it stick—not simply parrot it back during a test, but actually assimilate it and take ownership of it, so they can apply this knowledge in a different context. If students can’t do that, he said, then they haven’t really learned anything."

So the first key seems to be the transfer of information/concepts from teacher to student. Clearly lecture is the least successful method of doing this with most brain-based learning research putting it at 5-10% retention-hardly worth the time. Integrating the arts is a perfect way of accomplishing this-getting the students involved artistically or kinesthetically is a much more effective method. In addition it engages and energizes students because it is active and circular instead of linear. It is an exchange of ideas and not a one-way path from the teacher to the students.

The second key seems to be the assimilation and ownership of the material which can be accomplished by the students rehearsing with the material in order to make meaning out of it. Brain-based research is clear-that learning needs to be meaningful in order for students to really learn it. Gone are the days-if they were ever really there-where students will accept comments like this will "come in handy later in life" or they'll need it to "get into college". Those are just not enough. And shouldn't we be making clear to students exactly why they are learning something at the outset of the lesson or allowing them to reflect and communicate the meaning of the lesson for themselves.

Thanks to ASCD for the link on Twitter.

"Why Alternative Education Needs to Go Mainstream"

An interesting piece from Good Education on using alternative education models for all students. You can read the entire piece here. Something to really think about.

"Research shows that alternative education—small learning communities, individualized, personalized instruction, a low student-teacher ratio, and support for pregnant or parenting students—works to get dropouts back on track. But ironically, notes creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson, current education reform efforts like the federal No Child Left Behind Act are "rooted in standardization" even though we know that a quality education should "be about personalization."

Robinson, whose lecture on how schools kill creativity is the most watched TEDTalk of all time, was part of a forum on dropout prevention hosted last week by the HeART Project, a Los Angeles-based arts education nonprofit. If what we now call "alternative education" methods became mainstream, said Robinson, "we wouldn't be discussing the dropout rate." He also debunked the myth that students who drop out are reacting to the system as a whole: "For any student, the classroom they sit in is the education system and that's what they're dropping out of." But the kids who get into quality alternative programs fall in love with learning because they're getting an individualized experience—and the support they need to address particular life challenges, like being a teen mom or being homeless."

Ted Talk: Sebastian Seung "I am my Connectome"

Okay, so I may have gone "connectome crazy" here, but this Ted talk by Dr. Sebastian Seung is incredibly interesting and very accessible even for an English teacher like me. Give it a look-I'm sure you'll enjoy it and learn something important about the brain.

Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome | Video on TED.com

Here's more on Sebastian Seung, Ph.D on the MIT website.

Learned a new word: the "Connectome"

I always enjoy learning new words, and I came across one this morning connected to one of my latest interests-brain research-and it's called the connectome. Here's an excerpt from the article Brain's Connectome from Branch to Branch appearing on Neuroscience News:

"With some 70 billion neurons and hundreds of thousands of kilometres of circuits, the human brain is so complex that, for many years, it seemed impossible to reconstruct the network in detail. Each neuron is linked to about a thousand others by means of finely branched projections called dendrites and axons, and communicates with them using electrical signals. The connections between the cells are critical for brain function, so neuroscientists are keen to understand the structure of these circuits – the connectome – and to reconstruct it in a three-dimensional map."

According to connectomes.org a connectome is a "synapse-resolution mapping of connections between all neurons in a model organism's brain. In other words, a synapse-resolution circuit diagram of the brain."

You may wonder why I've included this information on this site, and that's a good question. The answer is that it's vital to understand how the brain works so that we can apply it to our educational practices and help our students learn better. Simple as that.

Thanks once again to Howard Eaton-brainchange on Twitter-for tweeting about this article. If you're on Twitter you should definitely follow him.

Matt Damon speaks out for teachers and creativity and against standardized testing at SOS Rally in DC

Matt Damon’s speech at the Save Our Schools rally, July 30, 2011

‘I think you’re awesome!” 

I flew overnight from Vancouver to be with you today. I landed in New York a few hours ago and caught a flight down here because I needed to tell you all in person that I think you’re awesome. 

I was raised by a teacher. My mother is a professor of early childhood education. And from the time I went to Kindergarten through my senior year in high school I went to Public Schools. I wouldn’t trade that education and experience for anything. 

I had incredible teachers. As I look at my life today, the things I value most about myself— my imagination, my love of acting, my passion for writing, my love of learning, my curiosity— all come from how I was parented and taught. 

And none of these qualities that I’ve just mentioned— none of these qualities that I prize so deeply, that have brought me so much joy, that have brought me so much professional success— none of these qualities that make me who I am… can be tested. 

I said before that I had incredible teachers. And that’s true. But it’s more than that. My teachers were EMPOWERED to teach me. Their time wasn’t taken up with a bunch of test prep— this silly drill and kill nonsense that any serious person knows doesn’t promote real learning. No, my teachers were free to approach me and every other kid in that classroom like an individual puzzle. They took so much care in figuring out who we were and how to best make the lessons resonate with each of us. They were empowered to unlock our potential. They were allowed to be teachers. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I did have a brush with standardized tests at one point. I remember because my mom went to the principal’s office and said, “My kid ain’t taking that. It’s stupid, it won’t tell you anything and it’ll just make him nervous.” 

I shudder to think that these tests are being used today to control where funding goes.

I don’t know where I would be today if my teachers’ job security was based on how I performed on some standardized test. If their very survival as teachers was based not on whether I actually fell in love with the process of learning but rather if I could fill in the “right” bubble on a test. If they had to spend most of their time desperately drilling us and less time encouraging creativity and original ideas; less time knowing who we were, seeing our strengths and helping us realize our talents. 

I honestly don’t know where I’d be today if that was the type of education I had. I sure as hell wouldn’t be here, I do know that. 

This has been a horrible decade for teachers. I can’t imagine how demoralized you must feel. But I came here today to deliver an important message to you: as I get older, I appreciate more and more the teachers that I had growing up. And I’m not alone. There are millions of people just like me. 

So the next time you’re feeling down, or exhausted, or unappreciated, or at the end of your rope; the next time you turn on the TV and see yourself called “over-paid”; the next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policy that’s been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything… 

Please know that there are millions of us behind you. You have an army of regular people standing right behind you and our appreciation for what you do is so deeply felt. We love you, we thank you, and we will always have your back. 

Reposted from notwaitingforsuperman.org