(*Click on gray words for the links.)
Academic Expectations: Donna Migdol has her students be engineers and create mini roller coasters in order for her students to learn about energy and motion. In this project, her students used a lot of math and science.
Ms. Migdol has a technique called “Chiming.” In Chiming, students sit around a table and listen to a “chimer” to see what trials and tribulations occurred the week before. Other students take notes and “chime” in. I liked it because it had a very “business meeting” vibe to it. Therefore, I liked it because it has very real-world applications to it. This, along with other parts of the lesson, really focused on collaboration between the students. Chiming is also very student-led. It makes students more responsible and confident in themselves because they see that they themselves are the “true problem solvers,” as Ms. Migdol says.
In the video, one could see that Ms. Migdol has high expectations for her students by constantly reminding her students to use the key vocabulary of the lesson. To be honest, half of those words went over my head! And of course, the students went on to use that vocabulary throughout the lesson.
As the lesson goes on, she also expands on it by having students “buy” materials for their project. I also like this because it adds even more real-world experience to them. Since this project has them be engineers, by making them “buy” materials, it is reinforcing a real life issue for engineers: your math and science better be right, because buying materials for projects cost lots of money!
Behavior Expectations: Based on this video alone, I would assume that Ms. Migdol has high behavior expectations. Not because anything was said or done in particular, but based more on what was NOT said or done. Students did not misbehaved at all. There was no random student just walking around. There were no multiple students talking at the same time, etc.
Norms and Procedures: By having students take different roles in the groups, Ms. Migdol is once again applying real world situations to her students project. In the real world, students have to collaborate (as mentioned above) and they have to know their roles as part of a larger group. Therefore, each student has to know the norms and procedures for his/her group. This, along with the behavior observations above, one can assume that her students are very well aware of the norms and procedures of the class in general. Because of all the things above, it is apparent to me that Ms. Migdol’s norms and procedures support high student performance. In the end, in my opinion, the video speaks for itself.
Lesson Plan: I love the fact that it has a lot of videos showing off the students projects! I love that it broke down the lesson into bite-sized portions for easier reading. However, the biggest issue I had with it (which has nothing to do with the lesson itself) is the fact that, while similar, this lesson plan is NOT related to the video. I would have preferred to see Ms. Migdol’s actual lesson plan!
Bonus: This video truly seems to be focused on being a 21st Century class! It is student centered, it used PBL, it involved technology, and it had real world applications to it!
Academic Expectations: it is hard to say what the academic expectations for this video were since it was very short, coming in at a little over two minutes. Based on the available footage, it seemed that this lesson was geared more towards just repetition of numbers. It seemed to just be a routine that was being followed. It was followed along as a chant, thus maybe it was a little more fun for the students, perhaps? Anyway, the teacher seems to have high expectations of her students based on the fact that she is expecting them all to chant along together.
Behavior Expectations: It seemed to me like there are high behavior expectations here in this short video. The teacher seemed to have a plant to always have the students busy chanting along with her, thus minimizing their opportunities to act up. Plus it is hard to tell since the video is in Chinese, but the teacher seemed a bit strict. For example, the way she quickly stops the students from all talking at once. I personally would have done it in a friendlier way, while she goes straight to making them be quiet. That vibe made me feel like she might have high behavior expectations.
On a side note, I notice one small irregularity. I might be wrong in this, it might just be a coincidence, however: at the 14 second mark, there is clearly one student in the back of the class who is not participating. At the exact moment that the camera seems to catch this, the video is edited to then just happen to be right above that student’s head, and thus keeping him out of the picture. I found this maybe related to this question about behavior expectation?
Norms and Procedures: Students are clearly very well aware of the norms and procedures of the class. The class was very much in sync with all the chants that the teacher used. Whether it was the chant for the multiplication tables, or the chant to transition, or how she expected them to sit with their hands behind their backs, these students are clearly very well versed in the norms and procedures of the classroom.
Article: The article, while not related to the video, seemed to shed some light on it. It seemed to confirm my belief that the class was doing lots of repetitions in order to memorize the information. However, the article goes more into detail into the (Chinese) nationwide way of teaching, and not just focus on this one class. Therefore, the article let readers know more about the way China as a whole teaches math, while the video can be seen as one example of this style.
Bonus: I found it fascinating that this Chinese math class seemed to have zero Chinese students. All the students seemed to be either black or white students (American? British? South African?). Regardless, if these students are not native Chinese speakers, then more “kudos” to them! They seemed to really be thriving in this class that is taught in a language that is (seemingly) not their native tongue!
Academic Expectations: First of all, let me start off by saying that I am a big fan of how the teacher uses hand movements to teach her lessons and to instill in her students not only the lesson, but also class rules, norms, and procedures. Not only does she do this, but she has her students copy along with her. This makes it so that students are not just passively listening, but are actively listening and being involved. (On a side note, this style reminds me of the Total Physical Response style, only it is not “total,” because of how active students are while learning.) In my opinion, this style of teaching is meant for teachers with high academic expectations. The reason for this is because of the part where students “teach” the lesson to their neighbor. Obviously one can’t teach a lesson if one does not know or understand the material. Therefore, the expectations are high in this style of teaching. Plus, the style is very suited for high academic expectations. Even something as simple as turning to a certain page, the teacher knows that students are paying attention. In this style of teaching, students have to repeat the line, (for example) “page 7 Geography book,” over and over until they get to said page. This makes it so that students have very little time to daydream or slack off. Since doing so, makes a student look out of “sync” with the rest of the class. As a bonus, (it seems to me) if a student does happen to not be paying attention, hearing all his/her classmates chant the page number out loud multiple times, at the very least this gets that student to know what page to turn to.
Behavior Expectations: The video had a specific section dedicated to behavior expectations. Just like in the academic section above, students chanted the class rules, thus showing they are well aware of the expectations that are expected of them in this class.
Norms and Procedures: This style seems to be very well suited in not only making students know the norms and procedures, but to have them very well memorized. Students seem to be more attentive with this style and thus seem to be more able to recall the do’s and don’ts of the classroom.
Website: I really like the WBT style of teaching. I think the reason I like it so much is because: one, it is perfectly suited for teaching Kindergarten (which I teach)! And two, because my style is very similar to it as well.
For example, One: WBT says to say the word “class” to get students attention; students then reply with, “yes.” I say “class” to get their attention, but instead of having them say, “yes,” I have them say, “Yes, Junior teacher?” However, something I did not think about, that this website said, was to add variety to the “class” saying. Say something like, “Yee-haw Class,” and they can then reply, “Yee-haw, yes, Junior teacher?” I think my kids will love this!
Example Two: “Mirror Words” is when students copy to teacher. I do this already, but I do not have a set phrase to start it off. I just tell my students to copy me. Now, not anymore! I will start to use “Mirror Words” in my class to let my students know when to copy me.
Something new that the website mentioned is something called “One Minute Lessons” (I will refer to the lesson about active verbs now). The main takeaway I got from this, is how students can be “mini-teachers” (my phrase) to each other. This method involves the teacher (me) breaking a lesson down into about one minute intervals (thus the name); then the students turn to their neighbor and “teach” it to them; then repeat. I love the part where the students “teach” it to their neighbor! Definitely adding this to my teaching style as well!
Bonus: As one can see right above this sentence, I will definitely be implementing more WBT into my style. And/or adjusting my (similar) style by tweaking it a little thanks to what I learned from this video and website.
Summary
There are so many styles of teaching. The above three videos show just three of them. The first one, in my opinion, really checks off a lot of the boxes for it to be considered a 21st Century style of teaching. It is student-centered and is project-based. The second style is more traditional, with students mostly repeating and memorizing, while the teacher is making sure they actually memorized the material. The article connected to it even states that one part of it can be traced back 2,200 years! The last video, on the other hand, while similar to the traditional one, still has enough variety in it to make it more active and fun for the students. Students actually become teachers for a short while!
I personally like the first and third videos a lot. The second one has its benefits, however, I think the other two are just more suited not only for my personal taste, but also for my Kindergarten class. As a Kindergarten English teacher in Korea, I do not really want my kids to just repeat and memorize English phrases. I want them to use what they are learning in real world situations, use it while working on projects, be involved with the lessons, be able to teach it to their classmates, and be active and energetic. But most importantly of all, I want them to have fun! The first and third videos, in my opinion, are more geared towards that.
References
Chen, C. (2011, June 13). 3rd grade chinese--math class.avi. Retrieved April 26, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7LseF6Db5g
Roller Coaster Lab. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://edu.glogster.com/glog/roller-coaster-lab/1gku0vrn4cn
[Roxyshayne]. (2011, May 31). Whole brain teaching richwood high - the basics. Retrieved April 26, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iXTtR7lfWU&feature=youtu.be
Teaching Channel Inc. (2017). Roller coaster physics: STEM in action. Retrieved April 26, 2017, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-stem-strategies
Whole Brain Teaching. (n.d). Retrieved from http://wholebrainteaching.com/
Wie, K. (2014, March 25). Explainer: what makes chinese maths lessons so good? Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-makes-chinese-maths-lessons-so-good-24380
No comments:
Post a Comment