Activity 2 Unit 3 Module 4: Creating High Performance Learning Environments

Analysis of three teaching-learning situation examples in the videos

 

Roller Coaster Physics

Academic expectations

I think the academic expectations are great! This Project Based Learning is, in my opinion, very ambitious academically speaking, but also fun and very engaging. It’s not an task to analyze the system a Roller Coaster and I’m actually impressed 5^th graders are doing this because there are so many concepts and laws of physics required to fully analyze and understand this system, e.g. potential energy, kinetic energy, they must also remember that the acceleration of gravity and friction play an important part in the movement of the marble through the roller coaster, etc. To me, this looks like very high academic expectations are set because I fully analyzed all of this while I was in college! 

The way the teacher manages the class and implements the PBL, assures that the high expectations are directed to every single student, because they not only have to work in groups but also individually. Also, by making the students in charge of what they spend and giving them a budget, they integrate every day math in this PBL. Definitely high expectations, not only they study and apply their understanding of physics but also use math and relate positively to problem solving. I enjoyed watching this very much.

Behavior expectations

In terms of behavior, students are very engaged and the tasks to do are very clear and established, so it looks like the teacher has successfully taken care of having an orderly classroom and everyone behaving properly and respectfully collaborating with each other.

Norms and Procedures

- One of the procedures is called chiming: “They pick a chimer in each group and the tell about what trials and tribulations they had the week before in terms of the engineering design process and the other students take notes and then chime in.”

The purpose of this procedure is for the teacher to assess the students and have an idea about where the students are and promote autonomous learning, where students learn from each other’s ideas.

- One transition is when she tells them to go to the simulator, she just tells them why they need to go and they do it, but because the project is exciting and engaging enough, the students do it in an orderly way.

- Another procedure is when she gives the materials -they purchase them-, she gives a limited quantity and the students explain to her why or how the are going to use those materials in their project. This procedure is also fantastic, because it creates responsibility and the students have to really think and manage their budget.

- Having assigned jobs within the students’ teams, is also an awesome way for students to participate. And also, behavior and expectations remain high.

- Another procedure is to tape everything at the end. Everything is kept very organized and there is time for reflection and summarizing how they spent their time and what they learnt and did. This is also a great way to keep behavior and learning expectations high.

All of the above gives the student a great sense of responsibility for their projects, their work, and learning.

3rd Grade Chinese Math

Behavior expectations

Singing and repeating the same things over and over again are great techniques for memorization, it also helps keep order in the class as the students are constantly engaged in doing something, in this case, chanting. There’s little room for misbehaving since there’s something to do all the time. I noticed though, that some students weren’t very engaged, those seated farthest away from the teacher. So overall, great behavior expectations in my opinion.

Norms and Procedures

A procedure is: students and teacher chant, then she erases the board and they clap. I’m not sure what they say though but it looks orderly and students look engaged. The procedures look very well implemented, and since there’s a lot to do, kids look engaged.

Academic expectations

After reading the article I became aware that there are high expectations for students in China (math classes), teachers prioritize the study of math and devote lots of time to it. Not only by implementing memorization tools, but also by reasoning and making the kids apply what they’ve learnt.

I really liked this method of chanting and memorization, from my personal experience I know it works because that’s how I learnt the Tibetan alphabet.

Whole Brain Teaching

Norms and Procedures

We can see procedures being implemented right from the start. Student are doing the hand movements the teacher is doing while she explains and then they clap and start working in small groups.

Another procedure is when they open the book, they seem to repeat everything the teacher says while doing the hand gestures as well. In fact, I do think that it could be easier to memorize things by associating hand movements or gestures to some concepts or facts.

These are the procedures I saw in the video, but by reviewing the various teaching strategies at the Whole Brain Teaching website, I became aware that this technique is loaded with procedures and transitions that make the students engaged, on task, and alert.

They look like a cohesive group that always stays active.

Behavior expectations

By engaging them constantly at different levels (doing exercises with hands, repeating words), the behavior is efficiently managed.

Rules are clearly stated and repeated by everyone out loud, creating awareness of the fact that there are rules and accepting the commitment to uphold them. So this is great for managing behavior. Also, by repeating the rules, this will make an impact in their minds and foster good behavior and respect.

Academic expectations

When I was reading the strategies at the Whole Brain Teaching website for the beginners level, I noticed that they recommend 1-minute lessons to avoid loosing the students attention. I think that by delivering a one-minute lesson sends the message to students that they cannot remain focused and it’s OK to be distracted perhaps. This seemed exaggerated to me and don’t agree.

It does wonders with behavior expectations, it manages the classroom very well. Although by doing so much, I think teachers don’t expect much from the focusing skills of the students. I also didn’t see how they can internalize the new information they’ve received, it seemed more like memorization to me.

This technique was too noisy and hectic for my taste. One way it could help set high expectations would be by “flipping this switch” in the mind of students who may have been deflated by low expectations, to make them realize that their hard work will in fact lead to academic success (Polirstok, 2017).

Summary

I intend to teach high school math, so this videos were a great resource for me! As I mentioned in activity 1, one way in which the teacher builds a repertoire of strategies to reach every student and to ensure that one is affording their students the best education is to keep updated and constantly research new techniques that encourage student learning.

I was very inspired by the Roller Coaster project and intend to create projects like this for my students. This is a fun and engaging way to learn, always maintaining high expectations.

Teachers that are successfully able to reap the benefits of high expectations for their students do not merely tell their students that they have high expectations for them, work hard to get their students to internalize those expectations by making every instructional decision—from choosing objectives to teaching methods to management structures—consistent with high standards. I think PBL’s such as the Roller Coaster one are great examples of this.

One great idea I came through in my research was that teachers should benchmark their classroom’s pace and progress against “excellent classrooms” regularly, by, for example, keeping an eye on some excellent classrooms in excellent schools and to compare your students’ pace and progress with that of the students in those classrooms (Polirstok, 2017). So for this reason, watching the Chinese math video was an inspiration, because of the commitment teachers have to teaching math from an early age and making sure students understand the concepts and know how to apply them (avoiding getting stuck in memorization alone). The methods in the Chinese math video and the article seemed rigorous but engaging, which I enjoy and think it helps to maintain high academic and behavior expectations.

As the Whole Brain Teaching method didn’t resonate with me (I watched a 3 minute video and am already wishing for some peace and quiet. I don’t think it suits everybody’s temperaments but it’s an engaging or fun way to teach once in a while) and don’t find it appropriate to apply at a high school level, I wouldn’t apply this in my classroom. If I did apply it, my behavior to the students wouldn’t reflect my high expectations, and the behavior of the teacher has a big impact on the students’ performance. 

So in short, for my classroom, it is important for me to be perpetually vigilant and re-assert messages of achievement. The PBL and Chinese math video were great examples for achieving this.

Since low-expectancy students receive less attention than high-expectancy students, I will also have to constantly be mindful of my behavior so I don’t favor or pay more or less attention to one student over another one. Acknowledging every student and creating lessons that they can relate to and find it easy to engage to are some of my main goals.

One way of incorporating these ideas into my teaching would be to create a project that students (high school) can relate to, a project where they can effectively apply what they have learnt so they can make that new knowledge their own. In mathematics I often feel that memorization is just a tiny part of the learning process, the parts that I have observed and experienced (while completing my BA and MA) were most important and differentiated successful students from those who eventually dropped out were:

- Students really “felt” math, there was some kind of “passion for math” or great interest.

- Discipline. Even if one loves math, one needs to have discipline to study it and solve many problems (These two ingredients encourage FLOW).

So a way to make sure that these two ingredients are in a lesson is to make not only one engaging project that students can relate to, but implement these projects regularly, so that students are continuously using the acquired knowledge and it eventually becomes a skill.

REFERENCES

Polirstok, S. (2017). Strategies to Improve Academic Achievement in Secondary School Students: Perspectives on Grit and Mindset. Retrieved May 13, 2018, from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2158244017745111