Analyzing data

The end of the year approaches quickly and with it comes the most important part of the PYP8 curriculum which is called Exhibition.  According to the website Whatisib, the IB exhibition is a: “culmination of PYP, a rite of passage from the PYP to the MYP, a celebration of learning, and finally, a demonstration of what it means to be a PYP student, applying what they (students) have learned and who they have become throughout their journey in the PYP (essential elements)”.

Apparently, it seems to be a lot of work for kids that are only 11 or 12 years old. Yes, it is a huge amount of work, and teachers stress out as much as students with this whole process. In my opinion, it should not be stressful at all, once this is the time to show what they really learned throughout their years in an IB school. There are some problems, though, that teachers just can’t anticipate. 

What happens to students that have just arrived at an IB school? What happens to the ones that did not try their hardest during all those past years? What if the topic chosen by students seem too complicate for their age? How do teachers deal with students that are not really connected to the process? These are answers I am still struggling to find the answers... Even after years teaching at IB schools.

I’ve been following close the whole process of the Exhibition from this school I am working at this moment. The same problems happen and the same questions arise as the process follows. It wouldn’t be so fun if it were easy, right? The practice I want to share today is related to Exhibition.

Mr. W decided to teach his students how to analyze data since pupils would probably have to deal with it when their research starts with the Exhibition process. So he asked students to look for some pie charts they can find online and that are related to the topic students chose to work with. They found things like this:

The question that made students think about the pie charts is: how was it done? Students investigated how the pie chart is done and came up with some conclusions. The whole class started a discussion on a “how to do” kind of thing. They wrote down the instructions and started to try out their own charts.

Mr. W asked students to write down questions related to their topic and some possible answers. Students followed the instruction and made a Google Form. They went interviewing one another inside their classroom. All the answers were recorded and the result was supposed to be presented in a form of a pie chart.

The pie chart was copied and pasted to a Google Sheets document and under it each student wrote their interpretations and conclusions. After that, they shared their thoughts with the other students. The conversations after their conclusions showed if they had clear ideas about their findings or needed further explanations of the data found.  

What I liked most about this activity was the provocation before the lesson was taught. Having students investigate about how to do it before teaching was also a high point. Students could get curious to learn about something they usually think that is boring. And to end up with the great class, the hands-on pie chart with the explanations that followed could prove that students really mastered the learning or not. 

I liked to see that after a while students were all looking at the pie charts they found online in order to test their ability to interpret whatever data they could find. It did not matter if the data was related or not to the topic, they were proud they could understand what those colorful pies were trying to say.

Eyes of Consideration

  There goes again, one more post for Mr. H. It is Monday and he is on fire! I loved the activity he did with his students and I could not think twice before sharing it with you, dear readers.  This blog post has a lot to do with the conference soon held in St. Paul’s School in Sao Paulo. I am glad educators are turning their heads to the heart of students and not only to their brains.

  First thing Mr. H does in the class is to write his agenda on the board and this can help students understand what is happening throughout the day with no surprises. That is a great strategy especially to very anxious students. The activity selected to start the day is: circle time! 

  I’m an observer in this class and I take a while to understand the activity that looks just an ordinary one to the rest of the students. Each one of them receives a candy and they all sit in circle, excellent way to see each others’ faces, such an important detail to this activity.

  They start with a volunteer and then they rotate clockwise. The volunteer starts with her speech: “I want to give my candy to X because she helped me last week with my math work of 3D shapes. I could only understand it well after she explained everything with her words”. Mr. H tells students to say it looking at the person’s eyes, this is why having them in circle is an important detail. After telling the reasons with specific examples, it is time to deliver the candy with a smile on the face showing the pleasure of giving. 

  The activity carries on with the next one. Sometimes it is possible that the student does not want to give it to anyone. In this case, they can eat their own candy in the end of the activity. The wrap up of this activity is the greatest thing. Mr. H asks students to go back to their places and then starts a conversation.

  Students get the right of sharing their experience during this activity. They can say how they felt like, what they liked most about it and what was something they would like to do for this present week (plans for future behavior). I honestly thought they would say that eating the candy was the best of the activity, but I was wrong. Students mentioned things like recognition, pleasure to help, plans for helping someone else, plans to make a better group work… I almost cried!

  I raised my hand and said I would like to give my opinion about the activity. All the eyes came to me and I said: “I am so happy that I could be present in this activity. I am certainly going to write about this practice. What a great opportunity for you all to review your attitudes from last week and plan new ones for this. For you to feel your importance among your friends and colleagues. That couldn’t be a greater way to start the week. Great work, Mr. H and kids!”. 

  And the class was over. They all moved to the following period in a peacefully way. They look at each other with the eyes that I always believed being the right ones among kids: the eyes of consideration. They are more than only classroom colleagues, they are a family. 

Good Reading:

6 UNIQUE AND POWERFUL BENEFITS OF PEER RECOGNITION

   

Evidences, please!

This is the first post about Mr. H. He might be a bit scaring to say the truth, such a huge man… But with a heart that is as big as his body. Mr. H is a teacher that holds a great commitment with his students. He is in his class with body and soul. It is great to see that he is the kind of teacher that you believe that was born for the job. It is one of his practices I am going to talk about today.

I love this line from John Hattie “When teaching and learning are 'visible' – that is, when it is clear what teachers are teaching and what students are learning, student achievement increases”. That sounds like a pretty obvious thing, but how do we know if students are in fact learning what we teach them? Just as mentioned in a previous post, the lenses need to be put over students and not teachers, however we need to provide opportunities for students to prove they are learning. 

Evidence is the keyword. Teachers need to collect reliable evidences that reflect exactly what students are able to do after going through the lessons a teacher proposes. This what I found in Mr. H’s class and ì want to share. According to the a website (RETSD): “Once teachers collect evidence they can more easily determine to what extent this evidence meets the established learning outcomes”. I can see Mr. H trusts this line and uses this premise in his job as a teacher.  

The subject taught was evolution. Using different strategies, Mr. H explained all the  important points the national curriculum aligned with the school’s curriculum suggested. He went back to some of the classes and reviewed before he proposed this work. The final presentation was this:
            

                                            

Students had to write down on posters the adaptations and some other explanations Mr. H assigned using Google Classroom. The work was supposed to be done during class time, in which Mr. H was also helping students by guiding them through the whole process; differentiating when necessary.

Now, why is this a piece of work important if students are put in groups for discussions and can use their computers to research in case they are not sure about something? On top of it all, they can even use Mr. H to help them during the work…  Is this an evidence? Well, it is not actually. But this is the work that will generate the proof of learning. What comes next is the relevant part for me. 

Mr. H is, at this very moment, asking students to individually work on a paper about exactly the same subject but now applied to a different context. Whereas he worked with human evolution with his student and generated those posters you can see above, this time students have to use the same knowledge in the context of plants and other kinds of animals different from human beings. If they can apply their knowledge, we have the evidence that they learned!

In the end, this is the best assessment for teachers and students, since it can provide a lot of information useful for teachers who care about their students’ learning. Who understood it? Who needs extra help? Who can help who? How were my classes (self-assessment for the teacher)? Creating an assessment that will feed us with authentic information is the key to know in which stage of learning students are and how we can further help. 

What are your evidences of learning? Teaching is not easy, but reading the practices of others can give us the feeling that we are always able to give our best in classes, right?  Good teachers make it happens!

Read more:

https://www.retsd.mb.ca/school/jwg/Documents%20and%20Forms/AssessCollectEvidence3.pdf

https://www.egfl.org.uk/sites/default/files/SUMMARY%20OF%20VISIBLE%20LEARNING.pdf

https://www.ets.org/Media/Tests/TOEFL_Institutional_Testing_Program/ELLM2002.pdf

Review, reflect, restart!

  Nowadays teachers who don’t think about their own practices tend to lose their jobs or never get one, in case they are unemployed. Any professional think about how to develop their work to better attend the necessities of the market. Why would that be different with teachers? 

  Last year I participated to a great book study from Diane Sweeney  about Student Centered Coaching. And I was a volunteer to be coached by an excellent teacher I worked with. Good experience.

However, nothing compares to the experience I am having now. I became a student… kind of! I am sitting and listening to classes as any other kid in a class. I’m not doing homework or any classwork the way I should as a normal pupil, but yes, I am here class after class. 

  I have never reflected so much about my own practices. How many times have I done the same things the teachers I’m listening from are doing? I sometimes yawn so much I get embarrassed. Teachers still talk a lot. What happened to that tendency of having the TTT (teacher talking time) decreased to its half? When teachers talk, they take the time of kids participation. Believe me, they are still talking for at least 85% of the time. The 20 something students have to share 15 minutes among themselves. Gosh!

  As a student here, I have to say that it is s bit frustrating listening to something that you already know and would like to contribute with comments and extra information but never gets the chance to do it.

 I can say I now understand what Dianne mentioned about looking at the students and not the teacher only. The focus changed, it is not just the way teachers teach, but the way students learn better. How can one know if pupils are learning if they don’t even have the chance of showing it? Some of the result are that students get distracted and start to waste their time fooling around when they should all be engaged in learning.

   We could not go through the whole process of coaching last year. We lacked time and we were not totally prepared for doing it the way Dianne suggests in her book. But I could open my eyes to the way students were learning and then get even more worried about the way I was teaching. Watching this teacher now makes me think about so many things I would do different… 

   The questions to ask are: are students learning? What evidences do I get from this? Are they all engaged? Am I using differentiation in order to achieve the highest number of students in the class? Am I secure about what I am saying? If the answer is no for any of these questions, then something is wrong. Review, reflect, and restart. Time to change the lenses.

Interesting to read

1) Increasing students'L2

2) Getting started with Student-centered coaching

Talking about feelings

So yesterday it was a Monday and we had PD until 6pm. I had the feeling that it would be exhausting and I would be dying for the rest of the week. Long hours on a Monday? Oh no... I love when I am wrong! Here I am, alive and writing about the great experience I had yesterday with my team and the others that make part of this school teachers board.

The theme was the same one we had during planning sessions before coming back from Christmas break: personal, social and emotional development in children (which is part of PSPE training). We talked about how a child should feel in the classroom (and at home!) and then Mrs. L showed us this chart*:

According to a child’s perspective:

• I feel safe when...I can rely on you to meet my needs consistently and when you greet me with a warm and loving smile every day.
• I feel confident when...you praise me for my efforts and encourage me to keep trying when I’m learning something new.
• I feel heard when... you look me in my eyes, tune into my thoughts and feelings or notice the things I’m looking at or pointing to in the world.
• I feel secure when...I know what to expect in the day and when we cuddle up to talk, read, and sing together.
• I feel happy when...we play games and do fun activities, laugh and act silly together, and share fun stories.
• I feel calm when...I am in a warm, nurturing environment and cuddled when I need to be comforted.
• I feel loved when...you take care of my needs, hug me often, use gentle words, and show care and patience.

The greatest thing about this discussion and the practice I want to share from Mrs. L is that she just heard as many voices as she could in that room. All the teachers could try to defend their idea about the assumptions shown on the chart. In a room full of teachers from different nationalities, I believe that listening to others’ point of view was crucial at this stage.

After all the ideas were shared, Mrs. L posed a question: “Is it necessary to physically cuddle a child, as it says in many different situations above (chart)?” The answers were carefully appearing. Some said that as we were all teaching in the same country (Brazil) in which cuddling is not a problem, therefore we should all do it. Others said they did not feel comfortable touching kids (foreigners - especially male teachers). Then the amazing answer sprouted! Cuddling does not have to be done only with hands, it can also be done with words. 

The biggest take away from this part of the PD we had was that teachers can cuddle with words and that might bring even better results than the touch itself. In this crazy world we are living in where any misplaced word can lead to serious judgement, we have to be careful with our attitudes and the way they might be interpreted.   

Teachers were separated in groups and had to think about actions that they already do for their level grade and share them with the rest trying to find a continuum. Great exercise Mrs. L proposed for the second part of the 2 hours that were flying fast! We all know that teachers together reinvent the wheel, always with a little detail that was never thought before. The share out Mrs. L suggested after the conversation was the richest one. We did reinvent the wheel!

Teachers agreed that human beings in general struggle to name their feelings. So, how do we expect children aged 4 or even less, say what they feel after losing a game? Teaching how to name the feelings would be the next stage of our PSPE lessons. We googled the wheel below and thought that if we all work together as a school, we can easily teach kids first part of the wheel for the little ones and then use the rest as they grow. Isn’t that a nice practice? 

Below you will find some of the articles Mrs. L shared with her staff and highly suggested that everyone read. I also suggest that you, reader, go through these amazing resources and start thinking about our responsibility as teachers to teach students that talking and managing feelings are part of our routines. No one can learn if there is a mess inside, right?

Resources

1. http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/1091935/no-touching-kids-policies-for-teacher

2. http://www.iirp.edu/pdf/man05/man05_tashley1.pd

3. http://www.educationalleadership-digital.com/educationalleadership/2014summer/?pm=1&u1=friend&pg=54#pg54

4. https://www.weareteachers.com/21-simple-ways-to-integrate-social-emotional-learning-throughout-the-day/

*Damon E. Jones et all, “Early Social-Emotional Functioning and Public Health: The Relationship Between

Kindergarten Social Competence and Future Wellness,” American Journal of Public Health 105(11) (2015): 2283-2290.

http://whatshappeninginpyp.weebly.com/uploads/1/9/2/0/19200297/p_0_psexx_sco_0911_1_e.pdf

A fair teacher

   What I like most about schools is the opportunity they can offer us to learn how to deal with diversity. Especially in Brazil, the differences are everywhere, you just have to open your house’s door. But how do I learn to accept the different styles, understand different cultures, deal with different opinions? How can I be a fair teacher?

   Teachers were once learners who had other teachers that (hopefully!) taught them some special skills that would be passed on in the future to other students. That should be a cycle teachers participate and have a huge responsibility over. Was this explained in Universities? 

   I guess the appearance of the differentiation topic in the curriculum gave teachers a chance to become better in their job of passing on the culture of respect to the differences and the ability to look at each student with “neutral eyes”. 

   Mr. Y’s class is just like any other. He has only 21 students that differ from each other just like any group of human beings together. I was there since the very beginning of the lesson. Students seemed to know him well and when he gave instructions, pupils were ready to follow as he said. Similar to some classes I’ve taught and watched, there is always that special figure who asks: “What are we supposed to do?”, seconds after the instruction is given. Story of a teacher's  life…

   So, instructions were the same for everyone. Children were gathered together in the front part of the classroom. Maybe there was one or two who discussed what they were thiking on doing. Just making a quick comment, I believe this is the best kind of conversation. I usually get close to them to listen to what they are saying. The sharing moment among them is a treasure for my ears! Coming up soon a post about sharing.

    I ask you reader to imagine the scene: students receive instructions from the Mr. Y who uses a PPT on the screen to help the ones that use more of their visual than auditory intelligences. Teacher opens for questions and asks students to have a sit and start their work. They get the material necessary for the task and start doing what they have to. What is the result? Check below:

         

                 

                                                               
                

   What does that mean? Does it mean the teacher did not give the instructions correctly? Or maybe that he did not give enough time for students questions to be answered? No, no and no! It means we can prove the diversity really exists in the classroom. Mr. Y’s reaction before the pieces he received within the assigned time was a practice I want to share today. He just accepted the work and complimented the students for their effort. He accepted the different styles because they all reached the objective in a different way. The instruction was the same, but the way it was received by each child was different. 

   Dr. Jay Giedd of the National Institute for Mental Health says that: “there are differences in the sizes of certain structures in the brain that could account for some of the differences in the ways boys and girls function”. Based on this line, how can we expected similar results from both genders? When talking about emotions, we all know these genders function in a totally different way too. Now, we haven’t even mentioned the culture, background, social class, race… so many aspects that differ these children! How can we think about receiving the same thing from everyone? 

   I was glad to see Mr. Y did not expect the same from every child, but the best of the class was for me to see that children also knew and accepted the differences. They shared their work, showed them to their peers, but not in a comparison kind of showing. They were just proud they were different. This is the message of this post then, we have to teach our students to be proud of their differences and this can be empowered as we, as teachers, accept that each one of us has the right to come up with a result that best suits our profile. That is called fairness in my opinion!

Resources:

https://www.thespruce.com/differences-between-the-genders-affect-schooling-1695998

https://study.com/academy/lesson/gender-differences-in-the-classroom-physical-cognitive-behavioral.html

Naming Helpers

   The first time I stepped into Mrs. X's room, I realized that it was a special one. The rapport and the consideration she showed to have with her students, could only bring up great results. It was the first day of the week, not a Monday, but a Tuesday as the students were coming back from their Christmas break. Why is this important? Well, if you are a teacher, you know how excited kids get as they are back to school even if they were away for a week or less. Hugs and exchange of caring acts invaded the corridors and classrooms. Good to see kids love each other so much in this school!
   Back to our subject before I start writing what is supposed to be another entry in this Blog. Mrs. X greeted her students and asked them to share their most important memories for the time they were away. There were so many! The class ran smoothly. Sitting on the floor, they could share their impressions and opinions among this nice group of 20 students. It was time to start working and coming back to real life... No problem at all for this group, as I could observe. This is when Mrs. X shared the practice I would like to highlight in this post.
   She said it happens every Monday and kids love to do it. I could see how true this was! She asked the children to help her with the classroom duties. But the chores were not ordinarily named, they all had special names and that was what students were most excited about. Look at the picture below and check the names she gave to each duty:

Mrs. X board. Can you think about the special names missing in this list?
Give your suggestion in the comments.

   Energy hero? I would love to be one! Mrs. X didn't choose the helpers, she let them choose whatever they wanted to be with the chance of having more than one with the same job. In their job, they can supervise each other, share the duty or even help one another when the job gets too tough. 

   The greatest advantage I can see this practice is that students get more sense of responsibility over their classroom or even school. Children understand they are the ones who need to clean, save energy, ensure well-being of the whole community... Among so many other feelings they might develop with this simple action of sharing jobs. I have already worked at schools where students don't really have the feeling that the school belongs to them and that they do not have any kind of responsibility over it. I can say that the result is not good. Students don't develop a sense of belonging and the consequences can be unwanted ones.

   According to some American scientists, kids who feel connected to school are more likely to have good grades, higher test scores, attend school more regularly or even stay in school longer hours. On the other hand, when this sense of belonging is not there, it is possible that children develop some undesirable attitudes such as smoke cigarettes, have sexual intercourse, carry a weapon or become involved in violence, be injured from drinking and driving or not wearing seat belts (closer to the reality of a 5th grader!), have emotional distress or eating disorders, and even consider to attempt suicide. Pretty bad, right?

   I don't believe that this responsibility should be over teachers' shoulders only. This document  shows how parents can help creating this connection with the school. However, I do think that information like this should be shared with parents so they understand the importance of helping teachers develop the feeling in their children.

  The job a student holds in a school goes way beyond the duty of a helper. Students need to know that their school belongs to them. There is no school without students and the message should be spread so we, as teachers, can continue to ensure every student has the choice of having a good future. 

Resources:

www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/health_and_academics/index.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/protective/pdf/connectedness_parents.pdf