Creating Lifelong Learners

By request, I’m posting the steps to showing youtube movies in class the “low tech” way. For those with the technological know-how, I prefer using the firefox plugin “Download Helper” or a site like zamzar.com, however, this is for teachers with little tech know-how and a laptop. Of course, all of these methods are designed to get around district blocking of youtube. If youtube is not blocked in your district, there is no need for any of these.

1. Visit youtube.com from home on your laptop.

2. Load a youtube movie that you want to show in class. (You can also load multiple movies in multiple movies)

3. Make sure the movie completely loads, by watching the red bar on the bottom of the movie.

4. Close the laptop (BUT DO NOT CLOSE THE WINDOW) and that movie is now ready to show in school.

If you close the browser window, the movie is gone. However, as long as you leave that window open, and the movie has fully loaded, the movie will play in class.

Good Teaching Should Be Like Pulling Teeth (Sometimes)

Mathew — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:22:03 +0000

Teaching students to work independently. Getting students to problem solve math problems without a teacher intervening. Facilitating student-led discussions. Asking students to engage in higher level thinking when analyzing literature. Doing any of these things in your classroom for the first time may be like pulling teeth.

The reason why higher level thinking doesn’t happen often in classrooms is because students can’t do it. But students can’t do it because they haven’t been taught how to do it. And if they don’t know how to do it, then it’s difficult to teach them.

When I reflect on my day, naturally it’s the lessons that flowed easily, when it seemed like all the students were “getting it” that help me to sleep better. However, if we never challenge our students, they can never rise to new levels. Higher expectations for all students doesn’t simply mean that if we built it, they will come. We have to help students reach our higher expectations and getting there from where we are now takes work.

So, here’s to pulling teeth. I wouldn’t encourage you to remain at frustration level for very long but pushing your students past their cognitive comfort zone is our job. Getting there may feel like pulling teeth but the good teachers keep pulling and less effective teachers just give up.

What Teachers Really Mean When They Say…

Mathew — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:32:21 +0000

The author of the article, The Tao of American Idol, attempts to decode what the Idol judges really mean. For example:

When Simon says …

“You didn’t do anything different with the song.” What he really means is “I am incredibly bored right now. Thank goodness they pay me so much money to sit here and listen to this.”

Based on my work this year, providing intervention to struggling readers via a intervention program, I’ve decided to decode some of what I’ve heard a lot of this year.

When a teachers says, “he’s so low,” what the teacher really means is that he knows the student is having difficulty but he has no idea where that difficulty lies and how to help that student.

When a teacher says, “he’s easily distracted,” what he means is that the students finds lectures and paper and pencil activities really boring.

When a teachers says, “he’s totally clueless,” what the teacher means is that none of the class activities have yet found a way showcase the child’s intelligence.

I can’t stand blaming teachers for all the ills of the world but I do think we can reframe our thinking about student achievement and lack thereof. We can better pinpoint student difficulties and make sure we’re planning activities that engage multiple intelligences and allow all students to be successful at something. We can also ensure that we’re not boring.

Classroom Management: Appropriate Consequences

Energize Your Classroom: How Jim Cramer Made Me a Better Teacher of English Language Learners

Addressing Comprehension Errors

Mathew — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:32:03 +0000

In order to further fine-tune students’ reading comprehension, it may be helpful to do an error analysis…looking at where students are making errors and the nature of those errors. Error analysis can be done by analyzing student test answers on standardized tests (boring—but sometimes necessary) or through listening to student conversations in literature circles.

In my experience, I see frequent errors of both higher and lower level thinking.

Higher Level Thinking

Inference

Students are programmed to look for the “right answer” in the text. This works often but it doesn’t work when the author gives us clues and doesn’t tell us directly. It also doesn’t work when there is subtext. A character might say, “I’m have a great day.” But the character is really having a lousy day. Students can’t always take a character at their word.

Lack of Vocabulary Strategies

After students have taken a test, I always go over the test. Rather than giving students definitions of words, we talk about how you could kinda-sorta figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words when you’re left out there on your own and in the middle of taking a test.

For example, if you didn’t know what paralyzed meant, you’d be given a clue from a following paragraph which talks about the guy being in a wheelchair. If you didn’t know what granite was, you could kinda figure it was some kind of rock because the passage said the mountain was made of granite. Students need a set of vocabulary strategies at their disposal.

Errors of reasoning

Here’s a fantastic list of 15 Reasoning Errors by Mark Pennington. Mark lists things like omission errors, when students leave out words when they’re reading that change the entire meaning.

Low Level Thinking

These do not require great thinking and yet about half of the errors I see are due to these problems.

Pronoun confusion

Students get questions wrong simply because they don’t know who “he” or “she” refers to. In addition to summarizing, when you’re doing guided reading, it’s a good idea to stop now and then and ask who is “he” or who are “they”? Make sure students are able to identify the person the pronoun refers to.

Contractions/Abbreviations

Even fluent readers I work with get confused between Mr. and Mrs. It makes a big difference in who we’re reading about. Students read don’t as do or skip the word entirely and it changes the meaning of the sentence.

Are there any other comprehension errors you see your students making?

What To Do When Children Cry

Mathew — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:20:35 +0000

This funny recent video about a two year old boy who breaks down crying when his father tells him he’s not a single lady, interrupting up his joyous dance to the Beyonce tune, has me thinking about the serious subject of students crying at school and what to do about it.

An Anecdote

Samantha, a first grader, was moved into my classroom after the first month of school because I have a reputation for being calm and patient and she had already interrupted someone else’s class who wasn’t as calm or patient. Samantha was far behind in all subjects because her attendance was poor and when she did come to school she often cried for the first hour of class, causing a disruption to all of the students.

What Not to Do

Do not tell a student to stop crying. Do not tell a student not to be scared, sad, mad, happy, etc. Feelings are not right or wrong. However, a child is feeling, that’s how they’re feeling and telling them not to feel that way can really mess a kid up.

Also don’t tell them anything like big boys don’t cry, big girls don’t cry, second graders don’t cry. This can cause gender confusion and create the impression that adults don’t show emotions which isn’t true.

Do not attempt to change emotions, change behavior.

Recognize the Payoff

This is the same for any behavior modification. What benefit is a student getting from exhibiting a particular behavior?

In Samantha’s case, when she cried, her father would take her home to sit on the couch and watch TV with him. Samantha wanted attention and crying provided that for her. There can be different reasons why a student cries…feeling sadness, helplessness, anger, being overwhelmed, etc. but notice what the payoff is for the student. If they cry because math is hard, do they get to avoid math? When they cry on the yard, do they get to see the nurse who gives them lollipops? Do they just like ice packs (I see this a lot)?

Sympathize with the Cryer

You want to say something like, “I understand you’re feeling ___________ I’m sorry you feel _____________.”

Often sitting with the student for a minute or making sure they have a buddy to sit with will stop the crying after you’ve acknowledged their feelings.

In Samantha’s case, she could go on for hours, but rather than dealing with the crying, I dealt with the feelings. ”I understand you want to be home with your dad. I’m sorry. But it’s important that you be here in school to learn and that you come in class quietly so that other students can learn as well. Your dad will be here again at the end of the day. Come and sit with Maria, she’ll be your special friend today.”

Remove the Payoff

Everyone needs occasional babying and that’s fine. However, if a student really likes the babying they get when they cry, they might cry a lot more often.

Samantha wanted to go home. We had to stop her dad from pulling her out of school just because she cried. I had to avoid sending her to the office just because her crying made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Samantha learned that she couldn’t get out of school by crying.

Next, Samantha was still getting attention from her classmates and me from her crying even when she stayed in my class.

I asked the rest of the students to start ignoring her crying. ”When she comes in (and she always came in late) we’ll say good morning, Samantha, and then ignore her crying. When she’s ready to be a part of the class, then we’ll talk to her.”

When Samantha came in we said good morning. I would acknowledge how she felt but I would not let her join the classroom until she was done crying. She stood in the back of the room or just outside the door where I could see her. She couldn’t cry forever. In time, she became a productive member of the classroom and her attendance improved.

On days that she avoided crying, I gave her positive encouragement.

How do you deal with crying in the classroom?

Connect with Me Through Social Media

Mathew — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:04:39 +0000

In addition to subscribing to this blog via RSS or e-mail, you can find almost daily quick tips and links by following mrneedleman on Twitter, multimedia files are posted to youtube where you can subscribe and visitors who have gotten through this blog via the Open Court Resources side of the site can become a fan of Open Court Resources on Facebook.

More on Copyrights, Fair Use, and the Classroom

Mathew — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:34:35 +0000

Since my presentation, “Steal This Preso: Copyrights, Fair Use, and Pirates in the Classroom” I’m on the lookout for classroom copyright resources to share with you. I found these blog posts interesting:

1. Mr. Mayo has a skype visit from professor Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, who talks about remixing and the classroom.

2. Dan Meyer asks if it’s fair use to illegally download multimedia for classroom use.

Literature Circle Table Tents

Mathew — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:30:47 +0000

Using literature circles is another way to increase student comprehension. Even teachers of prescribed reading series should incorporate additional authentic literature in their teaching. This literature may be related to curricular units and must be high interest and at an appropriate reading level of students.

I adapted my reading comprehension posters into Literature Circle Table Tents (print and fold each in half after laminating) which I use to assign each student a job.

The jobs are: The Predictor, Maker of Connections, Great Summarizer, Curious Clarifier, Word Wizard, and the Very Good Visualizer. Of course, when reading in the real world each person must do each of the jobs. However, in literature circles each person specializes on a particular job each day (we switch jobs daily). This gives students additional practice using the strategies and ensures that they know what each of the strategies is. Each card includes a definition.

For additional information on literature circles, I recommend the following:

In the Middle by Nancy Atwell
This is more about Reader’s Workshop than about literature circles but it does give you fantastic ideas about how to develop reading comprehension and interest in literature. I highly recommend it.

Litcircles.org gives some additional information about how to set up literature circles.

Somehow the Literature Circle name intimidates some teachers. I like to think of them as Oprah’s Book Club for kids. It’s really just about enjoying literature with peers while the teacher helps facilitate some discussion surrounding the book.

Have any literature circle tips to share?

Update: Adding Edutopia Article on Literature Circle Discussions