Stay Thirsty!
Stay Thirsty!
Wonder-ful
I read the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio after hearing Donalyn Miller book talk it at the SCASL conference. I enjoyed the book and especially loved the quotes at the beginning of each section. Of course, I passed the book on to my students and teachers, urging them to read it. Not long after I finished reading Wonder, our school began forming and training an anti-bullying committee. I knew this awesome book would perfectly compliment our school's anti-bullying efforts.
I recommended it to the principal for a school wide read, and he thought it was a fantastic idea. We pitched the idea to the faculty at our beginning of the year anti-bullying training. The faculty liked the idea of doing a school wide read-aloud too. We purchased a copy of Wonder for every homeroom teacher.
Every morning at 8:00, teachers fire up their document cameras and LCD projectors and display the book on their whiteboards so students can follow along as the book is read to them over the school's PA system. The whole school listens and reads the book together. It's magical on a level that is usually lost in middle schools.
The principal read the introduction.
I read the first chapter.
Mrs. Sommer-Gough and Ms. Sommer, two teachers, who were hand-picked for their excellent talents in reading books aloud, have been taking turns reading the rest of the book. They read for 15 minutes each morning, stopping five minutes short of the end of the period to give time for discussion.
We have been doing this for a seven days now, and already this has been an amazing experience. It feels powerful and good. The students and the teachers love the book. They love reading it together, and now we all have one more thing in common with each other, which strengthens our school community. It is an excellent way to begin a school day.
Teachers tell me how much they love the book, how much the students love the book, they tell me how much they enjoy the way Mrs. Sommer-Gough and Ms. Sommer read, and they share insightful student comments and connections their students are making. Students tell me how much they love the book. Do they know how happy it makes me to hear this?
I am creating a blog to serve as a place for more discussion. This school wide read-aloud is Wonder-ful on many levels. It makes me feel the impact that books can have on people. I want more of this.
I think everyone else does too.
Teachers tell me how much they love the book, how much the students love the book, they tell me how much they enjoy the way Mrs. Sommer-Gough and Ms. Sommer read, and they share insightful student comments and connections their students are making. Students tell me how much they love the book. Do they know how happy it makes me to hear this?
I am creating a blog to serve as a place for more discussion. This school wide read-aloud is Wonder-ful on many levels. It makes me feel the impact that books can have on people. I want more of this.
I think everyone else does too.
Flipping the Classroom Lodge McCammon Style
Dr. Lodge McCammon was a featured speaker at the Upstate Technology Conference in June. I enjoyed his keynote address as well as his engaging enthusiasm and energy. While I had heard about the concept of flipping the classroom before, I had never been presented with compelling data to support it, and I had never seen it done in McCammon style. Flipping the classroom essentially moves the lecture to being homework and the application, drill, practice and activities to being classwork. It makes sense. In a flipped classroom the teacher spends more time with students practicing a skill or concept and less time lecturing. The lecture is video recorded using a simple flip camera and white board tiles or chart paper rather than power point or movie maker slides as seen in the video clip below. No fancy technology is needed.
After listening to Dr. McCammon speak I think that even if a classroom or a school isn't completely flipped, there are benefits to using McCammon's flipped classroom techniques to improve teaching and learning. According to McCammon, a 60 minute in-class lecture is equal to an eight minute video lecture. This is purely due to classroom management. I am not saying poor classroom management either. It is simply the regular management of 25 or more students in a classroom that makes delivering content take a long time. Most teachers know this as their daily reality.
In a truly flipped classroom students view lecture videos at home as their homework. Let's just say the issues of students choosing not to watch the lecture or being unable to watch the lecture due to lack of technology at home make doing this unrealistic for you. Even recording lectures and playing them during class is worthwhile. If a teacher video recorded her lesson and played it to her students even during class, this would reduce lecture time, enable easy repeat viewing in class or at home, and allow the teacher to spend less energy giving the same lecture four to six times a day. In addition, there would essentially be two versions of the same teacher, one that is live and one that is on video. This would enable the teacher to be the ultimate zen master of classroom management during the lecture. The lecture would be able to be paused, repeated, forwarded, and used again. This approach would lessen teacher fatigue and enable the teacher to use her energy in a more meaningful way.
One of the points that McCammon made that really stuck with me was that the relationship with the classroom teacher has a direct influence in the student's learning and performance. McCammon provided convincing evidence that content is much more meaningful and powerful when it comes from the student's own teacher. That realization makes teacher-student relationships in traditional classrooms something to emphasize and re-evaluate. It gives weight to that old saying, "Your students will not care what you know, until they know that you care."
After hearing Dr. McCammon speak, looking at his website and videos, I am convinced that teachers can benefit from learning about this concept even if they have no intention of trying it out in their own classrooms.
After listening to Dr. McCammon speak I think that even if a classroom or a school isn't completely flipped, there are benefits to using McCammon's flipped classroom techniques to improve teaching and learning. According to McCammon, a 60 minute in-class lecture is equal to an eight minute video lecture. This is purely due to classroom management. I am not saying poor classroom management either. It is simply the regular management of 25 or more students in a classroom that makes delivering content take a long time. Most teachers know this as their daily reality.
In a truly flipped classroom students view lecture videos at home as their homework. Let's just say the issues of students choosing not to watch the lecture or being unable to watch the lecture due to lack of technology at home make doing this unrealistic for you. Even recording lectures and playing them during class is worthwhile. If a teacher video recorded her lesson and played it to her students even during class, this would reduce lecture time, enable easy repeat viewing in class or at home, and allow the teacher to spend less energy giving the same lecture four to six times a day. In addition, there would essentially be two versions of the same teacher, one that is live and one that is on video. This would enable the teacher to be the ultimate zen master of classroom management during the lecture. The lecture would be able to be paused, repeated, forwarded, and used again. This approach would lessen teacher fatigue and enable the teacher to use her energy in a more meaningful way.
One of the points that McCammon made that really stuck with me was that the relationship with the classroom teacher has a direct influence in the student's learning and performance. McCammon provided convincing evidence that content is much more meaningful and powerful when it comes from the student's own teacher. That realization makes teacher-student relationships in traditional classrooms something to emphasize and re-evaluate. It gives weight to that old saying, "Your students will not care what you know, until they know that you care."
After hearing Dr. McCammon speak, looking at his website and videos, I am convinced that teachers can benefit from learning about this concept even if they have no intention of trying it out in their own classrooms.
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