Creating High Performance Learning Environments

For this activity we had to watch three videos with different strategies to create high expectations in the classroom and achieve them.

The first video, "Roller coaster Physics: STEM in action" shows how students from fifth and sixth grade create a roller coaster. The project last 3 weeks and include all the stages; design, trial and use. The students share their ideas for the design and collaborate. The second part of the activity, is to make sure the roller coaster is safe, and finally he get their final project.

The teacher set the objectives she expected for the lesson and it seems that students understand them since they know exactly what they have to do, which indicates that rules and procedures are set and everyone is aware of them.

As a student and future teacher, I think that this is the best way to teach a lesson. Learning by doing is proved to be the most successful teaching technique, it might be because children don't have to memorize any list or process without really understand why them happen. It easy to remember at the same time that usually you enjoy. This strategy also encourage some skills like critical thinking and collaboration, both of them very important in the learning process of a student.

The second video,"3rd Grade Chinese Math " shows how time tables are taught in China. China's teaching method is very different from the American, at least in math. It's similar to the Spanish system (which doesn't have the same results that the Chinese has). The classes consist in repeating the time tables until the students remember all the results. They memorize the time tables. As a student who learned to multiply by this method, I really hated it, but I still remembering all the time tables after 20 years, so this technique that can seem a bit hard for children is effective, since China has the best results for math.
I think that this lesson can be complemented with other teaching strategies to make it more attractive for students; some kind of multiplication drill competition could encourage students to make their best in order to win a symbolic prize.
In the second part of the lesson the teacher practice subtractions with the students. All of them try to participate and she tried to involve all the class in the process.
The students' behavior is excellent. Norms and procedures are properly design since the teachers have more prep hours than teaching ones. 
Personally, I prefer to teach math using worksheets or if it's possible, IXL, a math program with thousands of exercises that allows you to keep a record of your progress.

The third video  "Whole Brain Teaching" we can see how a teacher explains geography to 9th grade. She uses her hands and arms in order to help students to understand the concepts that she is explaining. After the teacher's explanation, students practice the same movements she did with peers, so they teach each other the same concept.
Norms and procedures are well defined for all. Students have to repeat teacher's directions, probably to make sure that all students know where or what they have to be doing.
I think this is a very nice way to make all the students participate in the classroom and follow directions without being extremely strict.

Establishing a positive classroom climate

Nowadays it's very common to find different nationalities in a classroom, no matter which grade. It's very important that children feel comfortable, that will help them to integrate in the community and make friends. If we want our students to be successful in their academic goals, we need to provide all the tools and resources they need to feel this way.

Teachers who manage this type of multicultural classrooms, have to pay special attention to the integration of these students in the community.

They also have to be aware of bullying. Some cultural groups are more susceptible to be bullied since they don't want to report the cases and be accepted by their peers.

It's very important to build a strong relationship between teacher and students. That is essential for having a good communication in case the student has a problem and feel comfortable enough to tell it to the teacher. Some children are afraid of telling their problems because other students can label him/her as a informer, that's why is very important that your students feel that they can trust you.

Building this type of relationship could be as easy as asking the student how everything is going, if they feel as part of the group, in case they need extra help with any activity you will be available, etc. You always have to let them know that you are a reliable and supportive person at school.

Some of the strategies I would like to follow to facilitate the integration and the participation of every single student in the classroom are:

• At the beginning of the year I will encourage students to introduce themselves. I would ask them for nationality, previous years and some details about their families, like how many brothers and sister or which language is usually spoken at home.

• After have some information about all the students, I will arrange the classroom by groups of 4-6 students from different nationalities or cultural backgrounds to encourage diversity and respect. I think that could prevent bullying since all the students will have the same "opportunities" to be bullied because of cultural reasons.

• As I'll planning to teach Biology, I can introduce some bullying cases that happened with some famous researchers. 

• I will ask students to bring some pictures of important places in their country related with the nature. They also need to write a brief description about the place. This will be use to decorate the classroom's walls.

This multicultural environment could be more susceptible of bullying. That's why it's very important to teach that diversity is something good. There are some interesting anti bullying programs. The school where I'm working uses "Second step" with low rates of bullying cases.

It's also important to teach respect between peers and teachers and talk about some problems happened in class.

Why do you need a mobile/tablet in your classroom?

Overall approach

Technology has an essential role in our daily routine, that is why children should master a productive and responsible use of them.

Integrate technology in the classroom has a positive impact to students, they can explore further than the traditional methods, like for example,  books.  While learners are having a lecture, they can use tablets or smartphones to watch real videos or images, so they can visualize the issue explained and keep this information in a easier way.

Communication is also important. Technology allows teachers, students and parents to stay in touch easily. Emails or a determinate platform can be use to share relevant information, so there will be a lot of data about students, knowing the specific parts of the content they are struggling with, facilitating  teachers' intervention.

For all of these purposes a laptop can be used too, but we have to recognize that a tablet or mobile it's easier to transport and the batteries last more hours than a laptop or a computer.

 

Best practices for technology in the classroom

Students can empower their presentations using real images of their work, it might be an experimental or a research project. Not only images can be used, they can also record video or voice and join it to the assignment. It will provide teachers an overview about how students can plan the activity, do their task and perhaps the most important part, process the information obtained into a project.

Tablets or smartphones could be used as devices for answer teacher's questions. Some students have a hard time each time they have to raise their hands and answer a question in front of their peers, using that system students can build some self confident. Using technology for this purpose, teachers can be sure the classroom  understanding about the topic she or he is teaching. It can be a very helpful tool in order to detect cases which need intervention. Imaging you ask a tricky question in order to check if students understand the content. They can choose their answer of a few options given to them or write some notes. Teachers will collect the data, analyze it and get a general view about how their explanations are working.

Think and share. We know that brainstorming has an awesome effect in creativity and critical thinking. Better solutions come up when you work as a team. Electronic devices can be use for that goal. After introducing the main concepts of your lesson let the students do some research; they can use YouTube for an interesting lecture, pictures, to clarify the instructions you gave them or interesting articles to discuss as a group. They can share with peers, discuss about them and have a deeper knowledge than if they do it by themselves or just keep the notes taken during class.

Information can be accessible from many places, having access to a lot of information that could not be available if they have to carry with them heavy books. For example, if the student has to travel, he or she can access his notes for all subjects in the same device. In teachers' case, they can check all their students' progress, grading and planning assignments.

Resources

·         Mobile learning (2015). Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/

·         How Brandi McWilliams teaches with Ipad (2015). Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/education/real-stories/brandi-mcwilliams/

·         Teaching with Web-based resources (2015). Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-with-web-based-resources-edwige-simon

·         1.1 Ipads in Minnekota classroom (2015). Retrieved from http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/administration/technology/iPads/Pages/default.aspx

21st Century skills

On this post, I will talk about which are the 21st century skills and examples of how implement them in a Secondary Biology class.

We can divide these skills in four categories:

• 4 C's
• Technology
• 21st Century themes
• Life and career skills

I think that integrate the 4 C's (Creativity, Critical thinking and problem solving, Collaboration and Communication) in a science area is essential. After the students have the basic theorical knowledge, they can start to work in groups, trying to solve problems and come up with a solution. This type of learning will be more satisfactory for the students and will increase their motivation about the subject; They will see that all the "boring" processes and definitions have an apllication in the real life. This kind of activities can make some students get interested in develop his/her career in this field.

For example, after a brief introduction to enzymes, the teacher asks the students to develop a experiment that could help us to know which of two enzymes work faster in a determinated process. This activity will develop the creativity of the students, they have to design an experiment, will increase their critical thinking and problem solving, they have to review all their knowledge about enzymes and create a logical step by step process, taking in consideration the possible problems and solutions. They have to collaborate with their peers, share ideas and points of view. They also will need to increase the communication, collaboration without communication is doomed to failure.

This activity also help to improve life and carrer skills, like flexibility and adaptability,they have to adapt themselves to the conditions and the available material. They have to develop initiative, self direction, leadership and responsability, they are in charge of the experiment, and won't have a person to guide them. They have produce a good experiment because this will be graded.

21st century skills also include some themes apart from the academic content. These themes are:

• Global awareness
• Financial, economic, bussiness and entrepreneurial literacy
• Civic literacy
• Health literacy
• Environmental literacy 

These topics could be included in the subject in some research activities. The students could complete their learning in a determined topic looking for some information or introduce a global/local new and ask the students to find more information about it.

Nowadays all of us now the importance of technology in our lifes, so it is very important to teach children how to use it properly. They should know how to find information and use the media, so it is a good practise to use the school's computer lab and give them a topic to find some information, so in case they need, the teacher can give them some advice.

Some examples of non 21st century skills' activities are:

• Grading the knowledge of an area based on tradicional skills (usually a test)
• Lessons based on teacher's explanation only.
• Lessons based only in the theorical explanation, without talking about possible applications in real life or benefits for the community
• Learning by heart test or assignments

Resources

• 21st Century skills (2015) Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/about-us/p21-framework
• What are 21st Century skills? (2015) Retrieved from http://thoughtfullearning.com/resources/what-are-21st-century-skills

Planning for English language learners

In my class I have 4 ESL students; each one in a different stage of language adquisition.

The first student is on speech emergent stage. He has moved to the country three months ago. He comes from France, so his native language is french. He studied English at school, so his reading comprehension and writing is more advanced than his speaking and listening. At home he speaks french, but he speaks english with friends. He is shy and afraid to make some grammar or speaking errors.

The second student, is on beginning fluency stage. She comes from Mexico, so she has been exposed to English since she was a child, but never speak it for communicate with others. At home she speaks Spanish, but TV and movies are watched in English. She is very talkative and doesn´t worry to make errors, she know that the better way to improve her Enlglish is practising it.

The third student is on intermediate fluency stage. He comes from German, where the English is taught since kindergarden. His parents (which work for an international company) had worked in many countries, so he has studied in several british and american schools. The language spoken at home is German, but he speaks and write emails with friends of his previous schools. He is kind and talkative. He also participate in the classroom.

The last student is on advanced fluency stage. She comes from Norway, and she has been exposed to English since the nursery. She is new in the country, she moved two moths ago. At home she speaks in norwegian with her parents and english with her friends. She also watch TV and read books in English. She was studying in an american school in Norway. She is shy and doesn´t like to participate so much in class, but when the teacher asks her a question she responds in a very accurate English and with a lot of confidence.

Next month I´m planning to teach a ninth grade unit on mitosis. The ESL strategy I am going to follow is:

Before explain the lesson:

1. Prepare a specific vocabulary glossary. The student can use it to familiarize with the new concepts. For the explanation of these concepts I will try to simplify the grammar structure and the words in the definition.
2. Prepare visuals that can help the students remember the specific vocabulary learnt during the lesson. Some of this visuals can be the differents phases of the mitosis and the cell´s components that participate in this process.
   

   

   The visuals can be similar to these images

While the explanation:

1. Use visuals such posters or videos.
2. Introduce new vocabulary making sure that the ESL students know the meaning
3. Ask short question to speech emergent and beggining fluency students. The questions could be like "Which are the names of the phases that we could find in this process?" The answer is short and will help them to feel more confident in the classroom. The more advanced students can answer more complex questions like "Can you tell me the most important thing that happens in the metaphase?"

After the lesson:

1. All the ESL will have a native english speaker peer to do all the assignments. That will help them to socialize in english and get involve in the english community.

Special education referral process

After my personal experience as an assistant in learning support and the research I have made to complete this activity, I realize how complex could be the process to decide if a child needs special education or not.

According to IDEA, this process is divided in eight different phases:

1. Recognition. In this phase parents or teachers realize that the child has some difficulties, so they have to collect as much data as possible and stay in touch. The team formed by teachers and parents have to meet often and comment the child's progress. 
2. Pre-referral. If the student still struggling, the teacher should implement some RTI in order to make easier for the student the learning process.
3. Referral for Special education evaluation. If after all the intervention made by the teacher or parents the student still having difficulties, he/she should be evaluated by the counselor or the special education teacher.
4. Special education evaluation. This evaluation is carried by a group of professional that include parents, teacher, special education teachers, counselor and any other specialist that could give some data about the disabilities that the child could has (doctors for example).
5. Eligibility. After the evaluation, the group of professionals that have participated in the referral process decided if the student is eligible for special education.
6. IEP meeting. The purpose of the IEP meeting is to put the data all together, so they can figure which measures should be implemented.
7. IEP implementation. After the student has design his/her plan and sign by teachers and parents, it should be implimented in the child's learning process.
8. Reevaluation. Each year the IEP has to be revise and make sure this still fit the student's needs.

In the next video we will see which are the main phases of the referral process and what we can expect of them.

In my personal experiece, after the teacher suspect the child could need extra help to achive the same level that his/her peers the special education teacher starts monitoring the child. If after implementing some changes like pull him/her out to re teach the lesson still stuggling with some problems, they have to be evaluated. The assesment and the data of his/her classwork are essential. After evalute the needs of the student, the teacher implements the changes that the student will need.

References

• The Special education referral process (2015) Project IDEA. Retrieved from http://www.projectidealonline.org/special-education-referral-process.php
• Learning support department of AISJ
• Georgia department of education. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/Pages/Referral-Process.aspx

Bullying

By definition bullying is "systematically and chronically inflicting physical hurt and/or psychological distress on another" [1]. 

Sometimes we tend to think "that's a child's play" but it can be the cause for future problems.

As part of the education system, we should know how to recognise, intervene and act with the students involved in the bullying.

First of all, every single conflict might be consider as a bullying episode? The answer is NO!. We have to identify the behavior, and see if we can find the three main characteristics that a bullying behavior has. These are

1. It's a repeated behavior, the target is attacked every single day.
2. There is a power imbalance, could be due to he/she is smaller, younger or their social possition.
3. It's done on purpose. The student who bully enjoys seeing the bullied student suffering.

It is very important to identify as soon as possible this type of behavior and stop it, because, like the World health organization shows, bullying can be one of the reasons that cause youth violence [2]. The students who suffer bullying during their childhood are also more susceptible to suffer a huge variety of health risks such as depression, heart diseases, or even alcohol and/or drug abuse[3].

In addition, these students, seems to have lowest academic results, as it is shown in a Progress in International  Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) survey. The data is very clear, the students whose have been bulled obtained lower results (exactly 34 points under of those ones who never have been bulled[4]).

Average score from schools with low rates of bullying. Retrieved from [4]

Avarage score from schools with high bullying rates. Retrieved from [4]

The intervention has to follow a few simples rules, we should stop the event as soon as we see it and also stop the eye contact between the people implicated. We are the adults, so keep calm and do not ask any question with both together or bystanders, they could not telling us the truth regarding future actions. If there are any injuries, weapons or any other unsafety situation we have to call the police or any other authority. [1]

Something that I learnt today doing the researchment to write this post was that we do not have to encourage the students to apologize for bullying someone else, we have to be sure they know that this kind of behavior is unacceptable and that you will be aware that this won't happen anymore.

Most of the states in the U.S. have laws and policies against bullying. You can check them here. 

To conclude, a new in a local newspaper catched my attention. It was related with bullying. There is a anti-bullying program in Finland called KiVa. This program has been a very useful tool to prevent and intervene in bullying cases. It consist in a package of preventive activities like students lessons and video games and resources for those children who have been involved in bullying. 

The results are very positives, as we can see in the next graphic, that shows the number of bulled students [5].

Retrieved from  http://www.kivaprogram.net/is-kiva-effective

The program is implemented in other countries like England and Italy, getting the same amazing results that it did in Finland.

Resources

[1] NEA. (2010). NEA’s Bully Free: It Starts With Me. Retrieved from  http://www.nea.org/home/neabullyfree.html 

[2]WHO Media Center. (2015). Youth violence. Retrieved from : http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs356/en/

[3]Jorge C Srabstein & Bennett L Leventhal . (2010). Prevention of bullying-related morbidity and mortality: a call for public health policies. 2015, Retrieved from: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/88/6/10-077123/en/

[4] Mullis, I.V.S., Martin, M.O., Foy, P., & Drucker, K.T. (2012). Chestnut Hill, MA: TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center, Boston College. Retrieved from:   http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/pirls2011/downloads/P11_IR_Chapter6.pdf

[5] KiVa International. (2011). Welcome to KiVa school!. 2015, Retrieved from: http://www.kivaprogram.net/program

Other Resources

• Koli Banik. (2014). Safer Schools Translate into Better Learning, Right?. 2015, Global Partnership for Education Retreived from : http://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/safer-schools-translate-better-learning-right
• Unesco. (2015). Bullying. 2015,Unesco Retreived from : http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/health-education/homophobic-bullying/bullying/
• C. M. Rubin. (2012). The Global Search for Education: It Takes a Community. 2015,  The Huffington Post Retreived from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/c-m-rubin/the-global-search-for-edu_48_b_1888887.html#es_share_ended
• Yanke,R.. (2015). 'Si la víctima responde, el acosador se anula'. 2015, El Mundo Retreived from: http://www.elmundo.es/espana/2015/05/14/5553912ce2704e2e7c8b4581.html