Creating Lifelong Learners

Back in October, I hosted a Unit Opener planning week for Open Court units #2.

It resulted in some terrific ideas being posted by web site visitors and fellow bloggers and those ideas are now linked to from the unit opener pages of those units.

As teachers at different schools have different pacing, editions, and schedules, this might never come at the exact perfect time for you. However, it’s never too late to reinvigorate your unit and by the end of the planning time we’ll have another collection of great ideas for next time…but only if you contribute your own thoughts.

Options for Contributing

• Leave a comment below.
• Use submit unit opener form
• Post idea on your own blog and let me know about it.

Start sending in your ideas now.

The Incredible Voyage of Bill Pinkney is now available on DVD.

This is a fantastic film which brings the story to life. It’s long I would not play it in its entirety in one sitting but would play a piece every day as you read the story.

Some teachers find it objectionable that Bill Pinkney drinks alcohol on his journey and says the d word at a time when his life is in danger. Use your best judgement and do preview the film ahead of time. Although I played only 5-10 minutes at a time, I did not edit any of it out in my classroom. Rather we used the mild bad language as a an opportunity to talk about the dangers Bill Pinkney was facing (and the importance of not swearing).

I encourage you to acquire this movie as well as a DVD player if you do not yet have one in your classroom. They’re cheaper than you think these days.

Thanks to Francie Kugelman for sending this link which may come in handy for the Going West/New Frontiers units in 5th grade. This shows Lewis and Clark’s Expedition in Google Earth.

My favorite one-stop shop for opening this unit is Cornell University’s Urban Bird Studies web site.  All resources are free though they request a donation if they send you materials.

This site has films you can watch with your students and asks students to be urban bird watchers in their own community and submit data online about what they find. Imagine how much more meaningful this unit would be if students are actively involved in the scientific community as data collectors on the topic you are studying.

I would inform them of this role as part of the unit opener and ask them to get started by taking careful notes on one of the films from their web site.

Here are some other unit opener ideas for the City Wildlife Unit.

by Mathew Needleman

Let’s begin our week of unit opener planning by making sure we’re all on the same page and share a common rationale and understanding of what an effective unit opener is.

What is a Unit Opener?

A unit opener is the Open Court Reading name for what is commonly known as an anticipatory set.

An effective unit opener should:

Engage students and raise interest in the coming unit.

Activate prior knowledge by building a bridge from previous knowledge to new information…the teacher shows how it’s relevant.

Provide necessary background knowledge for students of limited experience and English language levels.

Provide an experience that students of multiple learning modalities can draw from as they proceed through the unit.

Make Your Unit About Something

When you are using a basal reader, like Open Court, you need to make sure that your unit is about something and not just a collection of stories. It is not necessarily about what it says it’s about in the teacher’s manual (although the investigation and inquiry goals are a good place to start). If the unit is not meaningful to the teacher, it will not be meaningful for your students. So think creatively and find a way to connect meaningfully to your unit before you ask students to.

If your unit is Astronomy, then your purpose is probably more obvious than if your unit is a universal theme like Kindness. With Kindness, you probably want to have some examples of real life kindness (like service learning projects or connections with people outside of your classroom) to illustrate the unit in a real way.

I might take the Cooperation and Competition unit and use it as an excuse to teach the rules of games and sports. I might use Sharing Stories as a chance to teach about family histories. I use Let’s Read to raise students’ awareness of environmental print. More about our current units will follow this week.

Have an objective

Now that you have a reason for teaching the unit (and don’t copy mine, remember the point is for you to connect to your units in a way that’s meaningful to you), you need to have an objective for student learning. If you have a mandated assessment which follows the unit, then you also have to work backwards from that assessment and align it with your objective. If you’re teaching about astronomy and your objective is for students to name the planets and describe each of them, you would teach the stories from a different angle than you would if your goal was to teach about the determination of scientists in exploring the solar system. The unit is a loose theme which gives you an excuse to teach something that is meaningful to you. Again, make sure your objective aligns well with your assessment that’s coming at the end of the unit.

Don’t Talk So Much

Start by asking yourself how am I going to get to higher level thinking with this unit opener?

Next, ask yourself how am I going to appeal to students of different learning modalities who may or may not understand the vocabulary I am using?

If your unit opener involves you talking to your students the whole time or asking them questions that you already know the answer to, you’re not getting to higher level thinking and you’re not appealing to anyone but auditory learners who are fluent in English.

Cue Tape or Enter Stage Left!

I strongly recommend having a short film, powerpoint, photos, children’s literature, or a guest speaker, or realia available to help open your unit.

Lead with your multimedia/realia.

If your unit is Risks and Consequences, for example, instead of starting a conversation about risks and consequences when students may not know what risks or consequences are, show the movie first. Then discuss the risk taken in the story. Then connect this to students’ lives and ask them to discuss their examples of risks in small groups.

Even with a unit like Fossils where students have lots of background knowledge, if you begin by showing a clip from Walking with Dinosaurs rather than simply droning on about dinosaurs you will surely have more complex, richer conversation and higher level questions for your concept/question board. If you can bring in a guest speaker about astronomy who brings some photos your students will have an experience to draw on throughout the unit.

Link this to a Graphic Organizer

For Open Court Reading teachers, we use a Concept/Question Board (close cousin to the KWL Chart). The C/Q board is a living, breathing graphic organizer which helps students to construct their knowledge about the unit. You may also wish to use other graphic organizers to begin to record knowledge of the unit theme.

Other Strategies to Employ

Pair sharing, quick writing, journaling, drawing pictures, skits, play-doh models, interpretive dances, etc…Participating in any of these will make your unit more meaningful than you lecturing students about the theme and it will involve more students on task for more of the time.

You’re already an expert on the theme so give the students a chance to begin to construct their own knowledge even if their knowledge may contain some misinformation about the unit. If you want to model asking good questions ask questions that you really want to know the answer to rather than questions that have a specific answer you’re looking for.

We’ll continue to talk about Unit Openers as we go through the week.

Also see: Unit Opener Planning Sheet

© 2007 by Mathew Needleman. All rights reserved.

Please join me on the blog for Unit Opener Planning Week, the week of October 15-20, a week spent planning and reflecting on possible unit opener ideas for the next unit.

Here’s the schedule for this blog (entries posted at 7:30 AM PST):

Monday 10/15 Best Practices for Unit Openers/Anticipatory Sets

Tuesday 10/16 Virtual Guest Speakers: Videoconferencing Made Easy

Wednesday 10/17 Activating your concept/question board

Thursday 10/17 Second Grade, Kindness Ideas

Friday 10/18 Third Grade, City Wildlife Ideas

Saturday 10/19 Fourth Grade, Dollars and Sense/Dreams to Jobs Ideas

Sunday 10/20 Fifth Grade, Astronomy Ideas

I also tag the following Open Court bloggers to continue or begin their discussions of their upcoming units:

1st Grade: Portable Superstars

2nd Grade: City Teacher

2nd Grade: 2A Vikings

2nd Grade: Mrs. Creticos

3rd Grade: Jose Rodriguez

3rd Grade: Jane Little

4th Grade: Mr. McCauley

4th Grade: Mr. K

4th Grade: Mr. Lawton

Ms. Mercer from a multi-level computer lab perspective

Special2Me from a special education perspective

You need not be tagged or be an Open Court Reading teacher to participate. Please post about your plans to introduce your next unit, link back to this post, and leave a response here with a link to your post.

I hope we end the week with some great ideas and pages when can go back to in the future for reference.

Continue to Unit Opener Ideas.

Here’s an idea for sorting assessment data (SOAR) using Microsoft Word.

submitted by Francie Kugelman

>Here’s an idea for sorting SOAR Data using Excel in Microsoft’s Office Suite.

submitted by Francie Kugelman

This is an idea of entering SOAR data from Open Court tests in a template. Using the Word Table helps me instantly
know which students need remedial help. I use this to turn in the data to
the Open Court coach, and then I sort by columns to see which students need
help in fluency, and which need help in reading comprehension, etc.

I have this data instantly, and I do not have to wait for the Open Court
reports. I also use this information during student conferences. (See
sample conference form).

Another important tool I use during conferences is to use a table to show
the parents the State Testing data for their child from the prior year. I
use this to show the parents where we are starting from, and where we might
choose to focus for the new school year in my classroom.

To create these conference forms, I cut and paste a row from my tables and
insert the data into each student’s conference form. I am sending you some
samples.

Here is information on how to use all the great features in a Table using
Word:

All of the commands for using a Table are in the special Table section in
Word.

You can make a table, insert columns and rows, merge columns, etc.

Often you might want to make the first row a Header. This means that it will show up at the top of every page you have, if your document is more
than one page in length. To accomplish this, select the row you want to be
the Header, and click on Heading Rows Repeat in the Table section.

If you want to sort data in a column, just click on that particular column,
click on Sort in your Table section, and you can select to have your data
for that column sorted in ascending or descending order. The rows will stay
with the data, so you don’t have to be afraid of losing your information.

I use the sort feature to quickly determine which students need extra help.
I sort State Testing scores, Open Court SOAR data, and instantly can see
which students need remedial help.

Sample First ConferenceSample Student ReportSample of Comprehension Sorting

In the nine months that this blog has been in existence it has become one of the most popular sections of Open Court Resources.com second only to the web site’s main page.

While this blog will remain the place to go for almost daily tips for teaching the Open Court Reading program, my entries have begun to expand beyond to the Open Court program to include reflections on teaching in general, integrating technology across the curriculum, and generally advocating on behalf of children.

Rather than having five different blogs I’m hoping with the name change that I can put all of my thoughts here. I promise if you’re teaching Open Court that this will still be the place to get (almost) daily tips on teaching the Open Court program but if you’re not teaching Open Court I believe that the information presented here will be applicable to you as well.

I have chosen the name “Creating Lifelong Learners” because I believe it reflects my focus on promoting higher level thinking, it includes all subject areas, and multiple literacies. I like the new blog name very much (but no promises that the name won’t change again some day).

Thank you for your continued support. If you find the information presented here to be valuable, feel free to post a comment, add a link to the blog, and/or bookmark me. I also welcome guest contributors. Enjoy!

I get asked all the time how I fit in anything “extra” into the Open Court program. I don’t think I’m doing anything “extra.” I just make sure I have time for writing and independent work time/workshop each day. Your writing and IWT times are when you differentiate your instruction in ways which you can’t when teaching the whole group.

This is how I do it.

Here’s our weekly schedule. Our schedule will not work for you exactly but I share it in the hopes that it’s helpful in you developing your own schedule for use with the Open Court Reading Program. You may need to adjust it for your library or computer lab time or change it for your grade level or Open Court edition.

Here’s what this is. My second grade team at Saturn Street School and I developed a template for how our week would run where we knew every Monday at such and such a time we were doing blending. Every Wednesday we were doing a workbook page after recess. Every Friday, a spelling test.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by the many program components (or want a shortcut to planning) then I think you need a schedule like this.

Weekly Schedule

While the first step, Part One: Soliciting Artifacts may not be easy at first, it can be a piece of cake compared to soliciting meaningful questions from students about the unit theme. This month I hope to provide some assistance on how to elicit meaningful higher level thinking questions from your students.

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1. Activate Prior Knowledge (and add a little new knowledge)

You can’t go in to class and ask a question like, “So does anyone have any good questions about Machines in Our Garden today?” and expect to get many meaningful responses. I know, I’ve tried it.

You need to collect visuals, realia, and multimedia for each of your unit openers. I check the web site before starting each new unit to find what I can use from there. I like showing short films or powerpoints whenever possible. By providing something for students to see or touch they can more easily generate authentic questions.

This is true for units that have more challenging themes like “Mystery to Medicine” but equally true for seemingly simple units like “Animals.” Even though students know a lot about dinosaurs, before the “Fossils” unit I showed students a clip of Walking with Dinosaurs and asked them to write down questions as they watched. The quality of their questions was far better because they had had a virtual experience with dinosaurs from which to draw from.

3. Adding questions to the board

Questions about the unit will arise naturally through your discussions of unit selections and concepts. I used to have a hard time getting students to write down these questions because I felt it would interrupt the flow of our conversation. What I do now is record questions that come up on post-its if I feel it’s going to interrupt our conversation or if the questioner is not able to write it himself (as in the lower grades).

Immediately following handing off discussions is a good time to have students write questions, as well as during Independent Work Time. If you are able to show a short film or provide additional realia at an inquiry center for students, this will help them to write additional questions without much prompting from you.

3. Keep It Real

You want questions to be authentic, that is about things students really want to know about. So if a students asks a question that they really don’t care about or they already know the answer to, you don’t have to accept it, particularly later on in the course of a unit.

I hate questions like “What is Sharing Stories?” “Who tells stories?” and I try to refocus these questions by thinking aloud and asking a student if he’s ever wondered who wrote the story of Little Red? Why there are so many wolves in folktales? Why the good guys usually win? etc….

If all your questions are simplistic and meaningless (and they might be at the beginning of your unit) this is a good assessment tool for you; if students are connecting to and learning about a theme in some meaningful way then there questions should reflect that. If students are not understanding your theme, this may be painful but then your challenge is to find a way to make the unit more meaningful.

4. Questions should be about the unit, not a particular story or artifact (plan ahead)

This is a difficult hurdle for some teachers to get over. The way around this is through planning. You need to decide what each theme means to you and what you want to teach related to it. The teacher’s manual makes several suggestions, choose one of those or decide on your own.

For our Courage unit my focus has been that heroes are not people who don’t get scared but people who get past their fear to accomplish great things. So when students ask why Molly is scared in Molly the Brave and Me when she is supposedly so brave, I refocus the question by saying, “Hmm, I wonder if people who seem really brave might get scared sometimes? Is that what you’re wondering?” Our study of famous Americans then lends itself as an answer to the question when students thing about Jackie Robinson or John F. Kennedy and whether or not they were ever scared in their lives.

Planning out your unit concepts helps you seize upon it for the concept question board when it comes up as well as facilitate handing off discussions. You also need to allow students to add to or change the theme.

5. IWT and the CQ Board

Many teachers complain that it’s difficult to get students to use the Concept Question Board during IWT. I have certainly experienced this myself. My best advice is to stop IWT five minutes early and take a look at the CQ Board as a class. If you make a big deal about new additions and clarify confusing questions/questions, it helps to stimulate new material. When I forget to do this, I do find that because of the lack of accountability, students do not often make their best contributions. I also use this review time to remind students to add question marks when necessary and fix no excuse word mistakes.

6. Answering Questions (and Concepts)

You want students to answer some of the questions on the board and not just leave them there until the next unit. If someone happens to answer a question that I know is on the CQ Board in the middle of one of our discussions I might have them go over and answer it but most of this work is done during IWT. Not all of the questions will get answered and that’s okay but if none of them are answered, what are students learning? When students answer a question, I have them attach their answer and then move both the question and answer to the concept side. But we don’t stop there.

I teach students to review not only questions for answers but concepts as well. Similar to community edited encyclopedias (wikipedias) on the internet, inaccurate information on the concept side should be spotted and weeded out by clever concept question board hunters. Even if questions are already answered, students can add additional comments to them or correct incorrect information. The board is more of a living and breathing entity if all parts of it are being examined and reexamined at all times. For research based units, students can cite sources on answers to questions.

This is our Concept Question Board

Please use this blog as our online concept question board and post your questions and concepts below on your use of the CQ Board.

Resources

Open Court Resources.com powerpoints, films, and unit opener ideas

Concept Question Board Page

© 2007 by Mathew Needleman, Open Court Resources