This semester I teach a Grade 9 Applied/Locally Developed split class. For those of you who are not familiar with the Ontario public education system, the are three streams at the high school level: Academic/University, Applied/College and Locally Developed/Work-place. The students who are in the LD/Work-place stream often struggle with literacy and numeracy, and are far behind their peers in terms of basic skills such are reading, writing, and in some cases, thinking.
This blog is about one LD student whose writing is much below the level of his peers. Let’s call him T.J., which is not his real name.
The other day I was performing several chemistry demos in Grade 9 Applied/LD class. In the past, I would have given the students a handout on which they would record their observations for each demo that I did. But the students hated me for asking them to write down observation, while they tried to enjoy the catchy demos.
What was I thinking? The demos are a form of entertainment for the kids. They love fire, explosions, colour changes, and other chemical concoctions. So why am I spoiling this for them by asking them to write down stuff? All they want is to watch the show first!
I decided that I was not going to do that anymore. Instead, I asked the students to video record my demos. Most of them seem to have either a Blackberry, an , or a digital . As soon as I said: “Why don’t you guys record my demos while I do them,” half of the class got up and positioned themselves so that they got the best view of the demos. A light bulb went on in my head: “Why didn’t I think of this before? Look how excited they are about what they’re about to see!”
The class was definitely excited and amazed by each of the demos – from the disappearing Styrofoam cup to the explosion of hydrogen balloon. They played their videos over and over, and even shared some of their videos with each other. I also asked to see a couple of the videos. They were proud to show me what they recorded commenting on how certain demos made them feel, and questioning what they observed. This is exactly what I wanted them to be doing – and in in an organic kind of way.
However, I still wanted the kids to have some written record of the demos in their notes. They were not keen when I told them that, but I quickly thought of something and told them that they could record themselves speaking about the demos, then submit that to me. T.J. was the first student to jump right on that idea.
T.J. went to a quiet area in the classroom, and within five to ten minutes he came to me with his phone in his hand. He handed me his phone with his white earphones, and asked me if I could listen to his voice recording.
I was in awe!
T.J’s recount of the demos was precise and detailed. He communicated it slowly and eloquently. I praised his work immediately and I recognized how such a powerful tool can be an even more powerful aid in T.J’s learning. T.J. felt great about his work, and took my praise with great deal of pride.
I went on to explain to T.J. that he can now listen to his own voice recoding, and use that to write down a paragraph or two. I encouraged T.J. to use this strategy in his other classes when teachers ask him to write about a subject.
I struck a goldmine with T.J. I found what works for him, and what could improve his writing. T.J.’s biggest challenge was to generate ideas on paper, and to express those ideas in proper sentences. In past, his sentences were incomplete, lacking proper punctuation. As a result, the paragraphs were highly underdeveloped. T.J. had no motivation to write given these obstacles. However, that may change soon.
T.J. and other kids who struggle with certain areas of literacy need to learn an alternative way to express their thinking. T.J. was excited to see that his smart phone could actually be an antidote to his weak writing skills.
From now and on before I ask T.J. to write anything I will ask him to first record himself speaking freely about the topic, then we can work together to transcribe his own oral report into a written document.
Technology is a good friend to those who learn to use it in way that will make one’s life easier.
It was an exciting moment in class today when one of my Grade 10 students took an incredible photo of the celery cells that were stained with a blue dye. He said: “Sir, look! It looks like an image from Avatar movie!” Then Randy (not his real name) zoomed further into the photo of a bunch of rectangular looking, methylene blue-stained celery cells and surely one could see even more detail in the cells. “Amazing”, I thought to myself!