Krstovic's Thoughts on Education

I have been looking at some photos recently while trying to clean out my external drive. I came across two photos that I took when I was mentoring a Grade 8 student from Appleby College a few years ago. The photos of two mind maps illustrating the Fluids unit reminded me of how engaging the review was for my student, who was already an accomplished science student.

I am reminded of the usefulness of mind maps when it comes to drawing out students’ conceptions and ideas. Their versatility and illustrative power are appealing and effective at promoting the interconnectedness of various concepts. Unlike concept maps, they are not restrictive in terms of any hierarchical structure or specific linking words that show relationships between concepts. Thus, they are more easy and maybe even more fun for students!

I am reminded that I need to incorporate them more in my teaching on an on-going basis to help my students make more solid connections as they progress through individual units of study.

The integration of instructional processes (think/pair/share, place mats, graffiti, community circle and paired-learning investigations) which foster small group collaboration has proven to be both powerful and effective in terms of developing science literacy skills of a group of students in Grade 9 Applied Science class.  When various instructional tactics are integrated in class students’ communication skills as well as their knowledge and understanding of the key concepts improve. The results of this project indicate that students’ overall academic achievement improved from first half to the second half of the semester. This correlated well to increased amount of time that was invested in various instructional tactics. In addition, over 70% of the students in this class performed at, or above, the provincial standard, which is significantly greater when compared to the other sections of Grade 9 Applied Science class.The other critical insight that gleaned from this study is that students’ level of interest and engagement improves when students perceive the teachers’ instructional repertoire as being more fun than what they have experience before. Moreover, students need time to adjust to the non-traditional teaching and learning styles and to develop the skills required for various instructional tactics which may be new to them. By integrating instructional tactics such as think/pair/share, place mats, graffiti and other instructional methods that that invoke individual accountability, face-to-face interaction and positive interdependence students’ subject-area literacy skills are enhanced and their overall academic progress improves.

To learn more about the specific details of this project, please visit http://iiactionresearch.wetpaint.com

I would like to acknowledge the Ontario Ministry of Education and Ontario Teacher Federation (OTF) for funding this project through the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP), which is an annual project-based professional learning opportunity for experienced classroom teachers. To learn more about TLLP please visit: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/teacher/tllp.html

Concept Mapping/Mind Mapping for Information Organization

http://www.thesmartbean.com/magazine/after-school-enrichment/concept-mapping-for-information-organization/

(Retrieved October 4, 2010)

For my own Action Research Concept Map, please follow the link:

http://iiactionresearch.wetpaint.com/page/The+Action+Research+Process+%28Richard+Sagor%2C+2005%29

Last week I analyzed my weekly lesson plans from the Grade 9 Applied Science and week by week I added up the amount of time that I spent on each major category of action.

The major categories of action in my Grade 9 Applied Science consisted of the following:

• Community circle/Think-Pair-Share
• Place mats and Graffiti
• Paired-Learning Investigations
• Reflection Journaling
• Demo/Didactic Lessons
• Individual Student Work Time

As part of the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP) project I had to further analyze my data. To aid my analysis I developed “Time Use Graphs” showing the amount of time that students were engaged with each major category of action.

This was a great exercise that offered a lot of insight into what I actually did with these students over the course of 17 weeks.  In order for teachers to do this exercise correctly it is absolutely necessary that teachers keep an accurate yet brief record of what they did each day in their classes along with an estimated amount of time that students spent on various actions.

Here are some interesting results from my SNC1PO class:

• students spent 54% of the time with various “intelligent” instructional tactics and strategies (community circle/TPS, place-mats/graffiti and paired-learning investigations)

• Only 13% of the time was spent in direct instruction/demo lessons, which suggests that my teaching was more student-centred than teacher-centred.

• About 26% of the time students worked with a partner on various inquiry bases activities

• About 15 – 20 % of the allocated course time was lost due to the school schedule, announcements, interruptions, student lates, snow days and buy-out-events.

Please feel free to comment on this exercise. The next step in the analysis is to look at what changes occurred in students’ performance in priority achievement targets and to compare that to the actual time that students spent with various “intelligent” instructional tactics and strategies.

Over the last several years I have been using cooperative learning strategies to help my students achieve success with the science curriculum. I introduced “Tutorial Groups” strategy  in my senior chemistry classes. TGs are heterogeneous groups composed of four students of mixed genders and academic abilities that work together on various activities.  Even though I spent a lot of time thinking about how to create that “perfect” cooperative learning environment, I still felt that the spirit of community was missing in my classes.

Not too long ago I was inspired to try out a new strategy after talking with Dr. Barrie Bennett. Dr. Bennett is a big fan of the community circle!  Jeanne Gibbs wrote about the community circle in her book “Reaching All by Creating Tribes Learning Communities.” I decided that I would try the community circle with my Grade 9 Applied Science class. After one semester of regular community circle exercises the results were impressive! Twelve out of the eighteen students said that their favourite part of the Grade 9 Science was the community circle. One at-risk boy, who was repeating the Grade 9 Science course, said: “It makes my heart feel good every time we get in the community circle!”

I finally learned that the special spirit of community does not just happen by having my students work in their small cooperative learning groups. To create the feeling of community I needed to create the feeling of inclusiveness. I also needed to teach the Grade 9 Applied students to listen to each other, paraphrase each other’s responses and respect each other’s differences. All of this was necessary for my students to learn to cooperate with each other. Jean Gibbs suggests that the community circle begins by practicing the set of positive Tribes agreements:

• Attentive listening
• Appreciation/no put-downs
• Right to pass/Participate
• Mutual respect

It is absolutely essential that students are taught collaborative social skills through inclusion strategies.

“People are not ready to work together on curricula unless inclusion and trust have been developed within their learning groups (Gibbs, J).”

One of my favourite inclusion strategies is the Name Game. It’s very simple. Students say their names and also repeat the names of all of their peers. It’s also a great memory game. It keeps students thinking about everyone’s names as we play the Name Game.

Recently I learned about another great inclusion strategy called Bumper Sicker. It starts by giving the students a long strip of paper and a marker with which to create a bumper sticker that he/she would enjoy displaying on his or her car/bicycle. Each student would share their bumper sticker with the community.

Am I Napoleon? is another great inclusion activity. Each member of the community is given an index card, a pin and a pencil. They each write the name of their famous person on the index card and pin the card onto the back of anther student, without letting that student know the name on the card. The objective of the game is for the students to mingle and ask “yes” or “no” questions until everyone has identified his or her famous name.

Another great inclusion activity that I tried with my students is the Goal Setting. I ask the students to think of their goals, then turn to their partner and share their goals. After the students have had the chance to share their goals with one other person, I ask them to share it with everyone in the community circle. Students who do not want to share have the right to pass.

I am also a big fan of “snowballing” in the community circle. When I taught the Space Unit, I asked my students to generate at least three questions that they had about Space. They wrote their questions on a piece of paper. When everyone was ready, we “snowballed” the questions and tossed them in the centre of the community circle. Then, students randomly picked up someone else’s piece of paper, and first with a partner they read the questions before turning to the whole group to share the three Space questions. I answered some of the questions, while leaving others unanswered.

Every Monday I would get the students in the community circle. On Mondays I would ask the students to share with the group something they did on the weekend. Then I would ask them an academic question to see if they can remember what they learned last week. I would use the Think/Pair/Share tactic first, then we would share the information with the whole group.

Sometimes I would ask “question-of-the-day”. For example: “I feel happy when…, I feel sad when…or My favourite T.V. show is….” Students would respond, and those who wish to pass, would have the right to pass.

I ended my last SNC1PO class with the community circle ( Are you surprised?). For the final strategy I played the Strengths Game. I instructed the students to think of a strength or something they admired or liked about three of their peers.  They would look at their peers and tell them something nice. The peer receiving the complement would say “Thank you.” One boy broke the ice by deciding that he would tell something nice about everyone in the class.  Soon after that everyone in the community had something nice to say. ” I really like how you help others.” ” Jenny (not her real name) always dresses nicely.” “David (not his real name) is a great soccer player and he gets good marks in Science.”  I had the last turn, and like the boy who started the game, I spoke about everyone in the class praising their individual strengths.

I learned that the community circle was strongly influenced by my personal style. The more engaging I was with my students the more engaged they were with each other and with me. I can honestly say that the Grade 9 Applied class was one of my best teaching experiences!

I read somewhere that 90% of what is taught in traditional ways is forgotten in 90 days. Whether this is true or not, I am convinced that student-centred teaching using cooperative learning tactics and strategies such as the community circle is the way to go if we want to teach students how to learn, collaborate, communicate and contribute positively to our society.

“Reflection on Paired Concept Attainment”

The goal of today’s lesson was to get students to recognize that matter can be classified into pure substances and mixtures.

I decided  to engage kids in inductive thinking with a partner. I prepared 12 samples of different substances and organized them into two rows in the centre of the classroom. Row A had 6 substances and row B also had 6 substances (See Photo). This constituted my concept attainment data set.

I gave students a handout in which they had to fill in at least two physical properties for each substance in rows A and B, as well as list if the substances were a metal or a non-metal. The students were asked to discuss with their partner what was in common with all the substances in Row A, and what was in common with those in Row B.

I told the kids to focus on the COMPOSITION of the substances, thus providing them with a focus statement. After they had discussed it with their partner, they would classify four additional substances into As or Bs (the testers). (The As represented MIXTURES and the Bs were PURE substances).

A few of the students got the concept very quickly, but the majority was not sure what the concept was. One pair said that the As were the non-metals, and the Bs were the metals, however there was a liquid in row A, so I pointed that out to the students. I tried to guide the students to the right answer by talking about what we observed for each of the substances in Row B. One pair said: “All of the substances in Row B are composed of more than one layer.” But one student said: “No…that yellow liquid is made up of only ONE layer, so it can’t be that all of the substances in Row B are composed of more than one layer.” I grinned at her thinking.

Concept attainment is an indirect instructional strategy that uses a structured inquiry process. It is based on the work of Jerome Bruner. It engages students into formulating a concept through illustrations, words or substances. Concept attainment is an inductive approach to reasoning  that works by moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and theories. We sometimes call this a “bottom up” approach. My students observed various substances in Rows A and B. They tried to recognize patters and come up their hypothesis as to some of the commonalities between subtances in each row, eventually coming up with a conclusion, or a generalization about each substance in Row A and B.  This is what I mean by moving from specific observations to broader generalizations.

Constructivist model of teaching would support concept attainment since students have to use their existing knowledge to construct new knowledge.  A lot of research suggests that constructivist model is superior to transmission model.  Transmission  methods of teaching run the risks of concepts being altered to fit students’ existing conceptions.

January 12, 2010 – Grade 9 Applied Science

I had an exciting lesson today in my Grade 9 class – I tried something new with my students. The tactic is called inside-outside circles.  I employed this tactic to help students learn about the inner and outer planets in our Solar System.  I split the class in two major groups – Group A and Group B.  I further divided Group A into A1 and A2, and I divided Group B into B1 and B2.  A1 and A2 conisted of 4 students each as did B1 and B2.  Each person in Groups A1 and A2 picked one inner planet and became an expert in that planet, while each student in Groups B1 and B2  became an expert on one outer planet.  A1 and A2 formed the inner circles, while B1 and B2 formed the outer circle.  Only B1 and B2 rotated counter-clockwise after engaging in a pair/share activity with their peer from the inner circle. The students appeared very engaged and interested in this new cooperative learning tactic.  For a more detailed description of how to employ this tactic in your class, please follow this link: http://www.eworkshop.on.ca/edu/pdf/Mod36_coop_inside-outside.pdf

Some of the other cooperative learning structures that I have employed are: graffiti, place mats, community circle, think/pair/share and four corners.

I have been collecting various kinds of data to see if these cooperative learning structures that I have been implementing on almost a daily basis have been making a difference in my students’ learning of science.

I am interested to see if students’ communication as well as their understanding of science will improve when they are given many opportunities to learn and construct their knowledge with their peers.

It has been previously shown that cooperative learning is effective in helping students achieve success with the science curriculum.  Let me quote one study that was published in the Journal of Reseach in Science Teaching:

“Two sections of low-ability 10th-grade students were designated the experimental and control groups. Students in both sections received identical content instruction on the particle model of matter using conceptual change teaching strategies. Students worked in teacher-assigned small groups on in-class assignments. The experimental section used cooperative learning strategies. The control section received no collaborative skills training and students were evaluated individually on group work. Gains on achievement were assessed….achievement was related to students’ ability to correctly use appropriate scientific explanations of events and phenomena. Verbal interaction patterns of students working in groups were recorded on videotape and analyzed using an investigator-designed verbal interaction scheme. It was found that students using cooperative learning strategies showed greater achievement gains and made greater use of specific verbal patterns believed to be related to increased learning (Lonning, R., 2006)”

As part of my action research I am studying specific cooperative learning structures. In other words,  tactics that would help student become better communicators and collaborators in groups, thus becoming more effective learners and contributors during various cooperative learning strategies such as jigsaws or teams-games-tournaments.

It helps to think of cooperative strategies as more complex processes, whereas cooperative learning tactics are simpler processes required for students to become productive knowledge workers in cooperative groups. If students do not know how to listen to each other,  paraphrase each other, respect their differences, agree to disagree and stay accountable for their share of the work, how can we expect them to work effectively in groups.

Image credits:

Effects of Communication on Student Learning

http://www.kaganonline.com/KaganClub/FreeArticles/images/inside_outside_circle.jpg

December 7, 2009 – Grade 9 Applied Science – Ecology Graffiti

Today I introduced the students to Ecology unit. I decided to use the graffiti tactic to activate students prior knowledge just like I did in Electricity Unit.

This time I provided the students with a definition of Ecology.

I wrote on the board: “Ecology is the study of living organisms and their interaction with the environment.”

Students worked in groups of 3 to 4. They were lettered A – C/D. Person A picked up the place mat for the graffiti, while B and C set up one table with three/four chairs around the table for face-to-face interaction and collaboration. The lettering of students ensures that there is a greater accountability to work in groups.

I asked the students to draw whatever comes to their mind when they think of ECOLOGY. I observed that many students drew the following on their place mats:

• Planet Earth
• Flowers
• Butterfly
• Earthworm
• Bugs
• Mountains
• Trees
• Clouds
• Rain
• Glaciers
• Volcanoes
• Sun
• Fish

Students had a chance to also write at least 10 words that related to Ecology. They also had a chance to do a “ghost-walk” and see other students’ ideas. They contributed a word or an illustration to other groups’ graffiti. I also walked around and wrote two concepts: “food chain” and “biodiversity.”

After the “ghost walk” I asked the students to take a look at the new words/drawings on their place mat and discuss them with the group in a round-robin fashion. I walked up to each group and asked them individually to discuss what they think a food chain and biodiversity might mean. A few students gave me some correct responses.

To assess students knowledge and understanding as well as their communication I asked the students to write ten sentences in their reflection journal. The sentences were suppose to illustrate how various organism interact with their environment.  The various organisms (the biotic factors) as well as the abiotic factors (the non-living) would all come from the graffiti.  I used an example of one graffiti that that fish and water drawn on it.  I wrote a sentence on the board: “Fish are living organism that live in the water.” Students continued by writing their own sentences demonstrating their understanding of ECOLOGY.

November 6, 2009 ” Grade 9 Applied Science – What do I know about electricity ? Using the place mat tactic in small cooperative learning groups”

Today we started the new unit in Grade 9 Applied Science. I wanted to survey the class to see what my students knew about electricity. What prior knowledge did they bring? What misconceptions do they have?

I placed students in groups of three to four students. They sat around one desk, and in the centre of the desk I positioned a place mat with the word “electricity” in the centre. Students were asked to write one idea in their square, rotate the paper clock-wise, read someone else’s idea, and add a new idea.

I observed that most groups followed instructions very well. Some groups had more ideas on their paper than others. I asked for a minimum of 10 words/ideas about electricity per square. In order to get students to elaborate on their ideas, I employed the ‘one stray, the rest stay’ tactic. One student from each group walked around to other groups and he/she brought back ideas to their group. This worked okay. Students who walked around were tempted to write their ideas on someone else’s square, and one member came back to her group with no ideas, so I had to asked her to stand up again and come back to her group with some new ideas. She followed instructions well and came back to her groups with a few new ideas.

Once the students had a minimum of 10 ideas/words in their square I asked them to cut out their section. After cutting it, they would read the words, and construct a paragraph that would use the words and demonstrate what students know about electricity.

I felt that this was an excellent activity to get students to

• practice working with each other in small cooperative learning teams
• read each others ideas and talk about them thus hone their communication skills
• construct paragraphs and practice their writing skills
• recall prior knowledge of electricity