November 15 Crumble - Active Engagement and Column-Notes

I spent some time this week collaborating with a colleague from another building.  The focus of our meeting was to discuss ways to support some of our content area teachers in providing students with organized information, yet keeping these same students actively and collaboratively engaged.  Tough order, but absolutely possible.

As we talked, the question arose about teaching students organization strategies for note-taking.  Too often in education we follow a trend to a fault, let the pendulum swing so quickly to one side, and neglect to see that we have abandoned things that are working.  Buzz words such as collaboration and active engagement have risen so high above anything else that many of us are starting to abandon key life-skills such as organization and summarization - skills that would be taught during more structured lecture-style lessons where students were expected to take notes. 

Don't get me wrong, friends.  I am absolutely not justifying making students sit for fifty-minute periods while they listen to an instructor drone on and on about a topic, ferociously jotting down copious notes.  What I am suggesting is that there are some beneficial skills that still need to be taught that may or may not be taught during a more engaging activity or collaboration.

In previous blogs I've discussed the power of note-taking, choosing what organization strategy works best for you, and organizing that information according to your strengths.  Some teachers are having a difficult time finding a happy medium between teacher-centered instruction and student-centered instruction, and that's where many of us are struggling.  We want our kiddos to be able to pull out important information from the text, but we don't trust them enough to be able to handle this task alone, so we spend time in the classroom asking them to copy down what we think is important. 

After my discussion last Tuesday, I was reminded of some ways that we can use an oldie-but-goodie and revamp it to be used in the classroom as a partner tool -- all the while allowing the teacher to still have some control over what students might be recording in their notes.

Project CRISS calls this strategy Two-Column Notes.  You might know it as Cornell Notes.  I'm going to take these notes a step further and move to three columns.  Below is what it could look like:

Main Topic   This is where the teacher might start students by giving them a purpose for reading and discussing.  Teachers can do either one of two things here: Provide students with main topics or broad questions Allow students to use text features to come up with their own main topics or broad questions. Whatever happens in this column, know that this is the purpose-setter, so if you want your students to explore specific topics, this is the place to do it!

Partner Discussion   In this column, students work with a partner or partners (no more than three to a group!) to decide together what goes here.  You may want to be specific about what you think should go here. For example, you might ask students to look in the text to find evidence that climate change is, indeed, happening on Earth.  This purpose should be stated in column one.    All group members need to agree on everything put into this column.    This is a great time to listen in on discussions and gage what will need to be addressed during the final large-group discussion.    Cris Tovani suggests during times of engagement to stop the class, state observations, redirect if the entire class seems perplexed by something significant, and send them off again.   Another idea here is to find one piece of information in each group that you ask the group to share with the class.  This validates their group work.

Additional Information   During the discussion, the teacher should have collected information about where students have missed chunks of important information.  As a wrap-up activity, point these things out and have students note them in this column.  If you choose to go over all information, students can even go back to column two and highlight information that was emphasized during this phase.   Students will not see value in the second column, however, if they end up copying down everything that you present, so be certain to have each group share something you felt was important and have students check their second column for that information.    I wouldn't even put up a three column note taking guide on a projector at this point here.  I would use a two column note or make a simple list.  This will get students out of the habit of copying down exactly what they see and get them into the habit of checking their previous work before adding to it.  This column is for additional information, not restating work they've already done.

I had another conversation this week with a valued colleague on her frustrations with her struggling readers - why do they struggle with things other than reading (like group work)?  You'd think that if you give a struggler the opportunity to work with a partner or small group that he would be more motivated by the social aspect of the activity, but the group-work that this teacher had planned dissolved before her eyes as these students completely resisted (kind of as a whole) and did not complete the activity effectively.  The teacher then expressed that she never revisited the idea of group-work again.  Don't fear - this is so common, so know you're not alone!

If you have a kiddo sitting in your class that is still struggling with reading at age eleven, twelve, or thirteen, know that your class is not the first class she has struggled in, and that the struggle with reading is no longer the issue.  She is now a struggling learner, not because she can't learn, but because she has faced failure enough times to understand that things are more likely to go down the tubes than to turn out positively.  Because of this, she resists any school work.  Your job is to create small successes.  My suggestion to this teacher was to break up that group work into smaller chunks, give specific guidelines, and redirect frequently (like every ten minutes or so).  And don't give up.  Giving up is one of the worst things a teacher can do when teaching students to work effectively in groups.  This is one of the reasons why so many of our struggling readers have no collaboration skills - once you face failure as a teacher (you see that group work is not working), you do not want to revisit that type of activity again.  Hmmmmm . . . ironic, isn't it?

If you've ever visited a Montessori classroom, you've seen that even five, six, and seven-year-old students can work collaboratively and effectively.  These students are taught from the beginning specific skills, and their teachers train and retrain them until they get it right.  This is what could be happening with our kiddos as well.  It's never too late to train them.

To bring this to a close - remember a few things:

1. Collaboration doesn't have to include building a house or  starting a business; it could be as simple as agreeing upon significant pieces of information in a text selection.
2. Validate group work by not making your kiddos re-do work they've already done.
3. Organizing information is important.
4. Group work comes after training and consistency.
5. Even struggling learners can do it.
6. Reflecting on what works and what doesn't is very important.  Let your students reflect also!

And most importantly, don't give up!

October 11 Crumble - Using higher level questioning and the jigsaw to engage learners

I'm currently in the throws of planning an experience in a science classroom that includes close reading followed by several discussion strategies.  As I was flipping through my 4th edition CRISS manual tonight, searching for a crumble-worthy topic, I happened across the Question-Answer-Relationship (QAR).  I was then brought back to a conversation I had with the science teacher this last week who was pleased with a set of questions I had developed as the final discussion activity for our three-day experience, and my crumble was born!

Last year, as I was finishing up my graduate work for University of Nebraska, I was assigned some article readings geared toward problem-based learning.  If you've never run across the term problem-based learning, it's the idea that students learn through solving real-world problems - which, theoretically is a genius idea, but in practice takes either a miracle from God (a problem just happens to present itself that meets every CCSS target needed for the unit) or an ungodly amount of planning and finger-crossing.  Either way, I love the philosophy but am completely and utterly intimidated by it. 

So to bridge the gap between a daunting task of creating a problem-based learning experience and a completely un-engaging lesson, try using Bloom's Taxonomy to create questions that mimic problem-based learning or have students create questions for discussion.  Even better, try doing it using the jigsaw strategy. 

How can this work with a jigsaw?  Well, the first thing you have to do is fully understand what a jigsaw is supposed to look like.  Our plan for the students in science is to give them four parts of an article on climate change and allow them to choose which part they'd prefer to close read (see my previous blog on close reads or another recent blog by my colleague Jen White on the topic as well).  Once they've read and discussed their part of the article with a group of students who have read the same part, we plan to number the students in each group to create new groups where there will be four people in each group (one of each part of the article).  If there are seven students reading each article part, then we number the students off by seven in each group and then put all of they students with the same number together for their jigsaw. 

But instead of giving students direction to simply share information from their part with the rest of the group (as is typical in a jigsaw), our plan is to give the students a set of higher level questions to answer as a group.  Examples of the questions are:

• What one part of human life contributes to climate change more than any other?
• What is the single most piece of evidence that tells us that climate change is happening?
• Can we stop climate change?  Why or why not?
• Should human beings be required to do certain things to stop climate change from happening?

Our goal here with the set of questions is to spur discussion between group members who have all read a different part of an article or piece of text.  It works even better when group members have read entire pieces written from different perspectives.  Do you see how your students will have to use their speaking and listening skills carefully to communicate effectively and how they will learn from each other without just listing off a string of information they read in their part of the selection (that will either be ignored by group members or will superficially be copied down only to be shoved away in a notebook or tossed in the trash later on)? 

If you know anything about Bloom's Taxonomy, you may have identified most of the questions above as evaluation questions (second to highest step on the taxonomy).  We could have taken the discussion questions one step higher, but much of the final step in the taxonomy are more individual and reflective questions, and the goal at this point of the lesson is to get the students to collaborate, not self-reflect.  A few of the questions could actually fall between the final two steps of the Taxonomy - evaluating and creating.

So consider using some of the following question starters when presenting questions for group collaboration.  This table is adapted directly from page 104 of the fourth edition CRISS manual.

Bloom’s Taxonomy	Question starters
Creating	How can you adapt this information to __________? How can you apply _______ to your own life? Reinterpret _________ to fit with a different point of view. The author has changed my understanding of _____ by _____.
Evaluating	What is your opinion of _____? What is the best solution to the problem of _____? Defend your opinion about _______. Evaluate the writing of ________.
Analyzing	Compare ____ to _____.  In what ways are they the same? How are they different? Categorize the important ideas in ______________. What connections can you make to ____________.
Applying	What is one way to illustrate _______? How can you apply _____ to ______? How can you relate ______ to ______?
Understanding	What will happen next in ______? What is the main idea about ______? Predict what ______. How is this similar to or different from ______? Explain what is meant by ______.

The jigsaw strategy sounds complicated, and, in fact, on paper it seems to require a lot of organization, but honestly - our biggest task was choosing the text selections.  Once you wrap your head around the jigsaw organization and create a set of four to five questions, you're really all good!  You shouldn't have to teach anything - just demonstrate the close reading (which was described in the close reading blog) and mix up your kiddos.  They get to do the rest, and all you do is facilitate - which is good teaching, friends.  And because of the discussion and high level of engagement build into the lesson, your students are more likely to get involved and stay involved -- meaning fewer behavior issues and more learning!