What can I possibly say to make this class understand?  What can I show them?  What can we do so that they “get it?”

We spend a lot of time asking these kinds of questions–searching for that breakthrough moment, the key that will open (for the class) the door to understanding.

Of course, it almost never works that way.

Lessons, guided practice, presentations, project based learning activities– all these succeed (or not) one student at a time.  We plant the the seeds, and slowly, they take root and grow–one at a time.

Students demonstrate growth one at a time.  One at a time, seals are broken and understanding seeps in. Doors open and light bulbs turn on, sure, but rarely all at once–usually (often painfully) one. . . . at . . . a . . . time.

True, we are moving mountains.  But if you’re showing up each day expecting the earth to shift under your feet–it’s going to be a long year.  Yes, there are times to focus on the mountain, but the real progress is being made with the stones at your feet–one at a time.

One student at a time doesn’t grab the headlines.  But it’s the way this works.  Success and failure.  Excellence and mediocrite.  We are winning or we are losing.  And it’s all happening one student at a time.

Related posts:

1. How a Master’s Degree Changed My Instruction
2. Motivation and learning: practical teaching tips for block schedules, brain-based learning, multiple intelligences, improved student motivation, increased achievement.
3. Listen up! Boys and girls hear, read, learn differently

Building Your Own Personal Learning Network from Carl Anderson on Vimeo.

Related posts:

1. Show of Hands: Why visual literacy matters
2. Myths, History, Technology, Control, Critical Thinking, Lobsters
3. Things to Learn

Divided into seven main chapters:

• student motivation,
• enhancing motivation and commitment to quality,
• making teaching easier,
• building knowledge and understanding,
• collaborative groups,
• self-reflection and assessment prompts, and
• exciting projects, products, and performance ideas,

this book is extremely practical.

The authors base their beliefs on two principles for educators:

1. operate from understanding and
2. manage context – not students.

They believe that students must feel the learning is

• valuable,
• safe,
• involving,
• caring,
• successful and
• enabling

in order to maximize student motivation.

Chapters 2 through 7 contain a myriad of quick tips, activities, checklists, and forms for teachers to use with students.  Each activity includes a purpose, description, use, and procedure section.  It also includes the grade level, time, special materials, motivational standards and pluses list.

Rogers, S., Ludington, J. & Graham, S.  (1998).  Motivation and learning: practical teaching tips for block schedules, brain-based learning, multiple intelligences, improved student motivation, increased achievement.  Evergreen, Colorado: Peak Learning Systems, Inc.

Related posts:

1. Ball, W. H. & Brewer, P. F. Socratic seminars. In Teaching in the block: strategies for engaging active learners
2. Motivating students using brain-based teaching strategies.
3. Teaching with the brain in mind.

Brain-based research provides teachers with a lot of helpful do’s and don’ts to bring back to the classroom.  “We do one thing in one way and hope for the best, but for many of our students, it will not be enough” (Tomlinson & Kalbfleisch, 1998).  Even if we teach using the brain-based approach, there is still the problem of all of the different levels of learners in one classroom.  These complicated organs called brains all develop at different rates, and there are some students that are far more ready for complicated tasks than others.  With all of the different levels, we do need to make sure they’re all enriching their brain as mentioned above, but what can we do in our classrooms?  We differentiate!

“What we call differentiation is not a recipe for teaching…It is not what a teacher does when he or she has time.  It is a way of thinking about teaching and learning.  It is a philosophy” (Tomlinson, 2000).

Differentiation is one of those complex ideas that cannot just be copied off of the internet and pasted into a classroom.  Differentiation is something that teachers need to believe in.  All students are different, and therefore need to see school and learning differently.

Lori Tukey (2002), a sixth-grade teacher, gave a great analogy comparing golf to learning.  We all understand the concept, but our skill levels vary greatly.  Any golfer on the course has similar goals, but how those goals are met varies greatly.  No two golfers will have the same game.  Neither will any two learners have the same experience in a classroom. The following are some ways to help reach all students’ brains, regardless of their current level.

Prepare the Students

Differentiation can only begin if each student feels safe to learn in the classroom environment.  “When a child feels intimidated, rejected, or at risk, an overproduction of noradrenalin causes that child to focus attention on self-protection rather than on learning” (Tomlinson & Kalbfleish, 1998).  This again brings us back to the problems that stress causes the adolescent brain.  Another quote from Sabbagh (2007) states, “when adolescents are in situations with few competing demands, they do indeed behave like adults.”  We need to make sure, as teachers, that all baggage and other competing demands stay outside of the classroom and that all students feel like they are welcome to take chances and learn.

One suggestion from Eric Jensen (1998) was using a “dumping box” near the entrance where students can physically or just symbolically drop any problems off at the door so that all students can start on a clean slate.   Another way is to again maintain consistency with rules and expectations.  When students are confronted immediately after making a bad decision that effects the positive classroom environment, they will quickly learn how to act appropriately, and create an environment where the teens can feel more able to make adult-like decisions.  Once all students feel welcome and ready to learn, we then need to find ways to reach all students.

One way to start each unit off on the right track is to simply explain what you’re going to be teaching.  Tomlinson (2000) spoke of one teacher, “At the outset of each chapter, the teacher delineated for students the specific skills, concepts, and understandings that they needed to master for that segment of the curriculum.”  By explaining the requirements at the beginning, students’ brains are already processing what is to come and will be more prepared to take on the work.  They can also begin making connections right away, and won’t be surprised when the new ideas are brought up.  As mentioned in Part 1, it’s important to help students work on organizational skills, because many of their brains are not yet prepared to do it on their own.  By giving them visuals to look at and see what they need to know and do, students are better able to prepare themselves for what they need to accomplish.  Schedules on the board is something I have used in the past, and I know that it helps, not only the students, but also the teacher’s aids and myself.  They keep us on track and remind us what needs to be accomplished and when.

Give students ownership

Lori Tukey (2002) is a sixth-grade teacher that is seeing the rewards of differentiating her writing curriculum.  She starts by preparing helper sheets for her students.  These sheets document goal-setting, conferences, and record-keeping.  But before they are given to the class, she gives students the opportunity to critique the sheets and change them.  Inevitably, what they come back with is always “simple and user friendly,” she said.

Once she began the writing process, students had already been given the choice of how their helper sheets were going to look, and they also chose what their writing goals were going to be.  This definitely differentiated the writing process for each student.  There were similar requirements, but each student had a specific goal for improvement in mind.

“When students can actually see their own growth through many drafts, they are motivated to do even more.  Even the poor writers felt success and took pride in what they were able to produce” (Tukey, 2002, p. 64).  By differentiating her writing curriculum, students are seeing the relevance of each writing assignment, because they had created their own personal goals for each writing assignment.  This again correlates with the brain-based learning; she was including their emotions by giving them the chance to feel success in something that they found important and relevant.

Students are also getting constant feedback from her and other students.  They’re seeing the learning as meaningful, because it applied more specifically to their individual needs. Though I can’t see myself creating this miraculous writing process in my classroom this year, I think students can feel ownership if they set their own goals, and in the end, have a part of their grade which documents whether or not they achieved their goal.  I am also a strong believer of self- and peer-assessment, where students can see what needs to be improved and make those corrections before moving on and getting their final grade.

Create Open-Ended Activities

If we want all students to be able to understand, enjoy, and contribute to the group, we need to make our instruction open-ended, with many different answers to the question.  Hileman (2006) said, “Real-world problem solving allows the brain to do what the brain does best, make decisions that promote creative, meaningful and productive judgment.  Modeling and organizing projects and activities that require higher-level thinking should be your main instructional goal when developing thinking skills in students.”  By creating activities where all students get a question that is relevant to the curriculum, but are allowed to create their own answers, their brains will be enriched at the appropriate level.  As stated before, students don’t need to come up with a right answer for students’ brains to make connections; as long as they’re challenged, and continue to problem solve possible solutions, we are helping their brains learn so much more than by giving them a fill-in-the-blank worksheet.

One example of an open-ended activity is a Socratic Seminar.  To create a Socratic Seminar, students should be given a text and then have to create a viewpoint or answer to a question, using the text as proof of their answer.  Students should create their “answer” individually, and then as a group, get together in a circle.  Students will then all get a chance to explain their viewpoints.  Not all students will agree, and discussion will be created.  “The teacher’s open-ended questions in the Socratic seminar differentiate process, allowing each student to deliberate and respond at his or her own level using a variety of reasoning strategies” (Schneider, 2000).

The great thing about Socratic Seminars is that all students come to the circle at their level of learning, with their comprehension of the text on paper, but through discussion, ALL students will see different ways to look at the text, regardless of their learning level.  All students come from different backgrounds, and will be able to share different ideas with the group.  This gives students a chance to make many different connections at one time, and makes the information very meaningful.  Socratic seminars are a different way to teach, leaving the discussion up to the students, instead of having the teacher ask questions in front of the room and students raise their hand if they’re daring enough to share an answer.

Though I have never used this process yet in my classroom, I have been a part of some through St. Mary’s, and I’ve seen how well they can work.  All students are given the chance to speak, and some new ideas that I would never have thought of were brought to my attention.  This gives more students a chance to lead the conversation, since all need to take part, and provides a simple way to formatively assess the students’ comprehension of an idea.

Another idea that incorporates more creative thinking is the sketch to stretch.  Students fold their paper into four sections, and get two minutes to sketch a picture in each of the segments according to what they felt was most important in the portion of text given.  This allows students to use their creativity, but again, at the depth that they are comfortable with.  When the eight minutes are up, students join in a round-robin circle and share what they drew.  Schneider (2000) explains, “When participants share their representations of the chapter in a round-robin, the struggling and advanced learners witness each other’s process.”

This process gives the necessary repetition for some brains to understand the text, but it keeps it interesting, since no two students will create the exact same representation of the text.  Again, this is another great way to assess learning of ALL students, without them even feeling like they’re taking a test.

One last idea for differentiated activities would be a literature circle.  Schneider (2000) explains the four roles that she begins with.  The “literary luminary” finds quotable lines to discuss with the group.  The illustrator makes an illustration to show the important idea from the text.  The “vocabulary enricher” finds words that need to be defined or words that really stood out in the text.  The connector makes connections between the writing and real life, explaining how the text relates or could relate to a real-life situation.

Schneider’s way of differentiating this activity is to allow students to choose the role that they play.  Students that may not be as comfortable with the text may choose to illustrate or be the vocabulary enricher.  However, all roles can be given to students of any level; since it is a group activity, all students will be able to evaluate and reflect on all students’ work before sharing it with a group.  Schneider continued by saying that roles can be switched, or changed, if another may be more fitting.  Some other example roles could be that of a discussion director or summarizer, or any number of other roles that students or the teacher create.  Students each get a chance to be leader, since all of their roles are different.  Students are working together to accomplish the problem-solving instead of getting direct instruction from the teacher as well.

Summing It Up

Is it a challenge to enrich the brain of every student that we encounter throughout the year?  Of course!  One of the most reassuring and helpful quotes that I came across was one from Lori Tukey (2002), who summarized Wehrmann by saying that she, “…argues that the most important thing about bringing differentiation into the classroom is to take small steps instead of leaping into it at full speed.  A teacher should add differentiation gradually, so the students and teacher don’t become stressed and overwhelmed.”  I know that I’m the sort of person that, without the idea that differentiation should be a gradual process, would jump in head-first and attempt to completely recreate my entire curriculum.  However, we’re worthless to our students if we throw brain-based differentiation at our students all at once at the beginning, and then burn out before the year is half over.  By starting with one subject, or with one unit, we can use bits and pieces of the brain-based differentiation and find out what works for us and our students.

While brain-based differentiation may take time and effort, I can only see the process to be worthwhile to our students.  Eric Jensen (1998) sums it up best by saying, “Humans have survived for thousands of years by trying out new things, not by always getting the “right,” tried-and-true answer.  That’s not healthy for growing a smart, adaptive brain.”  Not only should this be an inspirational quote for our students, but it should be something for us to bring to our classrooms.  Brain-based teaching may not come smoothly at first, but it is our nature as humans to continue to try until we do find the best answer.

Some of us may already be using differentiation throughout the day, while others may be strictly by-the-book and have a lot of work to do.  But, like we need to differentiate with our students, the idea of differentiation will be different for all teachers.  Though there is no “right answer” to differentiation, it is obvious to me that brain-based differentiation should exist in all classrooms.  By understanding our students’ brains, and teaching in a way that continually challenges and energizes them, they will learn so much more than they could in a more traditional atmosphere.  As I will be challenging myself throughout the rest of my career to create a differentiated, brain-based classroom, I challenge you to take the leap and do what you can to stretch and enrich the brains of every student you encounter, and look at all attempts, as small as they may seem, as the next step to success.

Related posts:

1. Brain based differentiation
2. Motivating students using brain-based teaching strategies.
3. Motivation and learning: practical teaching tips for block schedules, brain-based learning, multiple intelligences, improved student motivation, increased achievement.

“Mr. Wondra, could you read this to make sure I’m doing this right?”

“Sure.”  I knelt down at her side.

“Autumn.  Do you have any examples from your life in this?”

“No.”

“Did you decide whether you agree with your sign or not?”

“No.”

“Does your introduction include a story?”

“No.”

I think it was at this point that I noticed she was crying.

In the past, this would have baffled me.   In this post, I’m going to discuss why Autumn was crying.  But first I’d like you to consider the following research.  Trust me, we’ll get back to the drama between Autumn and Mr. Wondra shortly.

In 1991, Janel Caine, a graduate student at the University of Florida, set out to design a study to determine if playing music to premature babies might lead them to improved appetites and faster growth.  What she found was interesting: babies exposed to soft music in their cribs did grow faster, had fewer complications, and were discharged home from the hospital an average of five days sooner than babies that were not exposed to music.

That data alone has far-reaching and potentially powerful implications, but when you break her findings down by gender (which, surprisingly, she doesn’t do in her paper), they become truly startling.

Baby girls exposed to music left the hospital an average of nine and a half days sooner than babies that were not.  Baby boys exposed to music left no sooner at all!

Again, interesting data.  But these findings become even more significant when linked with research documenting that the range of sounds around 1,500 Hz is critical for understanding speech.

All this helps to explain why, on average, girls pick up language skills sooner than boys.  But does this head start give girls an advantage throughout their years in school?  And what can we, as teachers, do about this?

We’ll get into what this all means for language skills in a minute.  But first, I’d like to discuss what this new information might mean for how our students experience the classroom environment.

If it is indeed true that girls can hear certain tones related to speech “significantly better” than boys, I’m going to want to keep that in mind when planning my seating arrangements.  I may want to avoid placing a girl near the door.  If someone is talking in the hall, she’ll have a greater chance of hearing it and being distracted.  On the other hand, since I often give instruction from the front of the room, and know boys don’t hear as well, I may want to seat them near the front.  Being a male myself with a voice that projects, I may also want to avoid seating girls in front or they may think I’m shouting.  This might also have implications for oral reading.

As a man, with a voice that carries, I also want to keep this information in mind when addressing girls individually.  If I use my normal tone, she might think I’m yelling at her.  In fact this is exactly what happened the other day with Autumn in the computer lab.

Because girls hear certain tones much clearer, often times, depending on a teacher’s tone, a boy will have trouble hearing it, and a girl will hear it as loud.  This has implications for both male and female teachers.

Women with softer voices may want to project a bit more for the boys.  Men with low booming voices may want to tone it down a bit so as not to overpower the girls. Teachers are presenters, and so we should reflect on the tone and volume of all our auditory instruction—not only our speech, but also any audio we present.

This also has implications for one-on-one communication—as illustrated in the example at the start of this post.  In the end, I told Autumn that I knew why she was crying, that I wasn’t angry, and I apologized for being loud.  When I toned it down, we began again and made progress on her paper.

The Anatomy of Aptitude

If you begin reading the literature on gender differences, it won’t take long before you stumble upon a book entitled Brain Sex: The real difference between men and women, by a couple of researchers by the names of Anne Moir and David Jessel.  Published in 1991, this was one of the first serious brain-based looks at the difference between sexes.  One of Moir and Jessel’s thematic premises is that innate differences in the biological brains and anatomy of children lead them naturally to different interests, which in turn strengthens that aptitude.  For example, they contend that girls learn language at an earlier age than boys because their brains are more efficiently organized for speech.  Then, since they are able to use language earlier, they do–playing and practicing their way to ever higher levels of proficiency–while boys don’t–which compounds any perceived language deficiency.

Cain’s study, combined with the growing scientific brain and sensory research indicating that girls hear better, leads us to the conclusion that girls are naturally better equipped at an earlier age to learn language.

It makes sense that girls would typically use language more often as they mature.  In fact, observation proves this.

Girls on the playground use more language in their play–working out who will roleplay what relational role, (“Ok, this time you be the mommy and I’ll be the baby . . .”).  Boys, on the other hand, are more often content making engine noises (trucks, cars, planes, backhoes), pushing things through the dirt, or throwing things through the air–crashing, chasing, tumbling, and kicking things around.

As Moir and Jessel point out, because language (both reading and speaking) is learned more through sound than sight–when it comes to learning to speak and read:

. . . the structure of the female brain gives girls the advantage.  This learning function resides in the left hemisphere of the brain . . .their more natural female strength, which is hearing, not seeing  (62).

They go on to support this finding by citing studies that indicate that while boys are better at identifying animal noises, girls are better at identifying human, social, and verbal communication.

It is neither the relative immaturity of boys, which results in their being  (less able to read), nor is it that they are backward, though much educational damage has been done in the past by the assumption that a boy’s slowness in learning to read must be due to stupidity or laziness.  It is just that while the girls are using the right tool for the job—the “hearing” skills—the boys are better endowed with the skills of seeing, not hearing.  And that’s not a good way of learning to read, says American psychologist Dianne McGuinness:

“It is clear that visual processing has little to do with reading, and in fact a strong reliance on the visual mode is often antagonistic to progress in learning to read.”

What does this mean for my eighth grade language arts class?

All that is well and good.  But I wanted to test some things out in my own classroom.  To my way of thinking, if all the above is actually true, by the time my students hit 8th grade, the average boy should have read significantly fewer books than the average girl.

So I had all my students sign up for a Shelfari account–listing every book that they could ever remember reading.  Next, I simply had them tally the books up.  The data was striking.  On average, girls listed 52 books.  Boys listed 25.

The next set of data I collected was from a Reading Interest Inventory.  My student’s answers to two questions from that survey were particularly striking:

On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is extremely important and 1 is not at all important:

• How important is reading to you? and,
• How important is reading to the world?

In both cases, girls valued reading more than boys.

Intrigued, I went on to have my students complete a survey in which students rated themselves according to Howard Gardner’s Multiple intelligences.  I was interested in how boys rated themselves in regard to the Verbal/Linguistic intelligence compared to girls.

As it turns out, of all the intelligences I measured, the greatest average difference was the Verbal Intelligence.

On a scale of 0-100, boys scored themselves at an average of 29.71—the lowest ranking of all the intelligences, while girls ranked themselves at 45–somewhere in the middle.

There were a couple of other interesting data points from my survey that showed up and are supported in the literature on gender differences:

• Boys rated themselves higher in logical intelligence,
• Boys’ viewed their highest intelligence as kinesthetic.

If you read the literature, all this makes sense, which might also explain why boys also wrote about sports in their daily journals more than any other topic.

For reasons I’ll have to write about later, the literature also supports the idea that boys would write in a more autobiographical nature than girls.  Girls also wrote more often about “school,” “friends,” and “family” than boys did.

So Now What?

So what does all this mean for teachers?  Simply put, we need to understand.

Interestingly, in his article, Getting Boys to Read, Jeff Wilhelm says that, “The reason certain text types (like nonfiction) and features of texts (visuals) tend to engage boys has much less to do with the text itself, and much more to do with the connection (my italics) these features encourage the readers to make to the world.”  Wilhelm goes on to list a number of features and conditions that contribute to boys being able to engage in their reading:

• Short
• Visual
• Challenging
• Edgy
• Real
• Current
• Humor
• A clear purpose and immediate feedback
• An appropriate challenge and assistance to meet it
• Functionality and a developing sense of competence
• A focus on the immediate experience
• The importance of being social

I agree, but when it comes to gender differentiation in the classroom, there is a lot more that can be done.  Stay tuned.  In coming weeks I’ll share with you some ways you can use gender differentiation to increase student engagement in your classes.

For now, however, let me ask you:  What differences do you notice between how boys and girls learn in your classes?

Homepage image credit

Related posts:

1. With boys and girls in mind. Gurian, M., Stevens, K.
2. Gender Differentiation: Should we really be treating boys and girls differently?
3. Getting boys to read: it’s the context! Wilhelm, J.

Another month, another collection of outstanding examples of “Edgy” teaching and learning. This month we received 45 submissions. Only 17 made the cut. But I’ve got to tell you–I am so excited by the quality of those 17!! This is by far our best issue yet.

Plus, just for fun, I thought I’d try something new this month and rank each of the 17 accepted submissions from most “Edgy” to least. Now, keep in mind this rank is entirely subjective and, well–in the grand scheme of things–completely meaningless.

Still I thought it might be fun within the context of a carnival.

If your submission did not make the cut. Please don’t give up! Just review the guidelines next time. So let’s get right to it.

And the winner is . . .

If this carnival had an award, we’d call it an “Edgy” (hey, that’s not a bad idea actually) and this month’s winner would be Sara Finegan. Her post, Say what? Asking questions as one reads posted at Readers With Autism, is simply outstanding. She introduced herself to us by saying, “My blog is dedicated to helping struggling readers with autism, with an emphasis on anaphoric cuing, but this approach works for any kids having difficulty with reading comprehension.” And it only got better from there.

In her post, she shares with us a real example of how she worked through the reading difficulties of one of her students. But what caught my attention (and thought was super cool) after a bit of back story, Sara admits a mistake:

Right here is when I made a mistake that took several days to undo. Do not, I repeat, do NOT repeat this at home:

“What do you think I think about when I’m reading?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I think about what the author is telling me.”

“The author isn’t talking,” said Sam, very reasonably and with a bit of concern that I might perhaps be delusional.

“Oh, but she is,” I said. “She is talking in writing. The words she’s writing are her way of talking to us as readers.”

This did not go over well with Sam. Like all readers with autism, he is a concrete thinker and takes everything absolutely literally. Since he could not hear or see the author, the idea that she might be talking to him freaked him out. He began looking for the author and trying to hear her, and worrying that she might not be very nice, and doing all sorts of other mental gyrations that led to a great deal of anxiety on his part.

This post is about much more than reading with autistic students. Sara guides us through a technique that we can all use when working with struggling readers.

The idea is to teach kids to question as they read and then to pause and summarize what they’ve been reading. . . the work almost immediately begins to influence their reading, and they love it.

If you’re at all interested in helping your students (at any level) make deeper connections to what they’re reading, Sara’s post (and blog) is a must read. We’ve just added her to our RSS reader. You should too.

This month’s runner up is Tracy Schiffmann because things don’t get much more “edgy” than when you have a few (ahem) “resistant learners” in your class. Tracy’s submission, Intervention Strategies for Managing Resistant or Disruptive Behavior posted at Schiffmann Curriculum Design & Training outlines three solid strategies for dealing with this inevitability as a teacher. Because, as she says,

. . .it isn’t just you and the person exhibiting the behavior, it is everyone in the room who is holding their breath, attention riveted, to find out how you will respond.

Hadley Ferguson rounds out our top three “Edgy” posts this month by sharing a story of “shock and awe” in Talking about Facebook posted at Middle School Matrix

Like Hadley, many of us are running into administrative roadblocks when it comes to using Web 2.0 technology in the classroom. He didn’t accept the status quo for his students however, because, as he rightly says:

. . .as an educator who is committed to introducing my classes to the tools of the Web, I feel a responsibility to teach them how to protect themselves out there. My administrator understood. Three cheers for her! She said that in the past, it was forbidden, but that the world is changing, and we need to meet the needs of the students.

Hat tip to Hadley for going out of his way to bring the virtual world into his classroom in order to discuss the very real implications social networking has on student privacy.

Next, Shelly Terrell presents Do Our Students Realize They Live in the World? | Teacher Reboot Camp posted at Teacher Boot Camp.

In this post Shelly shares with us some practical techniques to help prepare our students for the global economy. Having worked on over 20 different global teams and dozens of international projects, she knows what she’s talking about. Currently in Germany, Shelly outlines nine common stumbling blocks multicultural teams often experience and seven things that we, as teachers, can do to help prepare our students to overcome them. Shelly does a great job summing up the central problem her post addresses, saying:

Social media, such as Twitter, makes us more globally aware. However, are we preparing our students to effectively problem solve, collaborate, and communicate with their peers abroad? My experience has shown me that several students still live in a microcosm where they carry misconceptions and assumptions about people living in other countries. The problem is that when these students enter their career fields they will have to collaborate with others from various cultures and backgrounds. When this communication takes place our students will carry those assumptions and misconceptions into the conversation either verbally or non-verbally and create barriers to effective problem-solving of global issues.

I love this next post because it’s a great example of solid research and its implications. Strenua presents Increased Cardiovascular Fitness Increases IQ posted at Strenua’s World, saying, “A new study in young adults has revealed that those who are physically fit, have a higher IQ and are more likely to go to university. The researchers suggest that physical education is a subject that has an important place in schools and is an absolute must if we want to do well in maths and other theoretical subjects.” This is a must read for anyone out there fighting for more physical activity for their students

I think this is Rachel Lynette’s 3rd submission to The Edge of Education, and if we’re learning anything about Rachel and her blog, it’s that you can count on her for solid, quality teaching and learning. This month she share’s I’m Done! What to do with Bright Students posted at Minds in Bloom.

I really appreciated Rachel’s post because not only does she describe some good options for differentiation, she breaks theme into categories of “Ideally” “Still Good” and “Please Don’t.” Differentiation isn’t always easy. It’s one of the things I continue to struggle with. Rachel has a good grasp on it, saying:

Intelligence is by nature, a bell curve. In every class there are likely to be a few kids (usually the same few) who understand the concepts immediately and are finished before most of the rest of the class is even halfway done. . . So, here are some minimal-prep ideas of what to do with those bright kids to keep them challenged:

Nightwalker compliments Rachel’s tips nicely by sharing 25 Tips to teach students with learning problems | My English Pages posted at My English Pages.

Coincidentally, he also grouped his (or her–”Nightwalker” is one of those gender ambiguous names, like Pat or Chris) tips into three categories: Methods (things we can do within our instruction), Assignments (things we ask our students to do), and Testing (different assessment strategies).

Next, Karenne Sylvester presents Kalinago English: The Dogma of Dogme posted at Kalinago English.

Karenne gets points for spunk. I guarantee you’ll enjoy her post encouraging you to step away from your textbook and into one that’s much more relevant. Here’s a sample:

Now there’s no doubt in my mind that someone much cleverer out there than me is reading this and has figured out the structure of your average textbook so I’ll just ask go on ahead and tell you: share it with us!

I mean do the publishers even care that the unit themes they’ve chosen have no direct relationship to the following one?

That they rarely have anything to do with our students’ lives?

After a quick assessment of Annette Berlin’s blog, I think she mostly writes about crafting. Still, she shares an interesting book review with her post, Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions posted at Craft Stew, saying, “I’m a big fan of technology books written for kids. I first discovered them when I home schooled my son for 7 years.”

Personally, da Vinci fascinates me. Still, I thought this might be a cool book to have in many different classrooms–for many different reasons. The following from Annette’s post grabbed my attention:

Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions is the newest addition to my book collection. The book starts off with a history of the Renaissance and then goes on to a biography of da Vinci. After that, the project section begins.

The project section is divided into five parts: art, machines, water, flight and war. There are anywhere from 2-6 projects in each category.

C’mon. You have to admit, da Vinci based project learning would be Edgy.

Next, Allison Johanson presents 55 Tips to Instantly Make Your Brain Stronger and Faster posted at Masters in Health Informatics.

While I take issue with Allison’s use or definition of the word “Instantly,” I still enjoyed browsing her list of tips and links, which include things like discovering your learning style, enjoying open courseware, and keeping a “dream journal” (which is ironic because last night I had a dream that I caught a touchdown pass from Brett Favre in the Superbowl, but nobody saw it because it was in a classroom full of tables and chairs and the only people in the room were the players. I wonder what that means . . .)

Anyway, speaking of open courseware, this seems to be a theme that sort of sprouted up on it’s own this month.

Diane Laine sent us an interesting explanation of open coursware (ocw for those in the know), The Definitive User’s Guide to OCWConsortium.org posted at College Stats.org.

And Frederick Yarmy submitted Which Online Universities Are Embracing Open Courseware? posted at Online University Data.

Three separate posts–all unsolicited–all pointing to open courseware. Hmmm. Coincidence? (Cue X-Files theme music). Edgy. Very Edgy indeed. . .

Anyway, M Dahms brought me back from my Twilight Zone type daydream of coincidental conspiracy theories by answering a very down-to-earth question: What is Reader’s Workshop? posted at A Reader’s Community.

Harold Gelien followed that with his blog post: Top 50 Blogs for e-Learning Tools and Tips posted at Top Online University Reviews.

Next up, Herbert Aitken presents 50 Free Online Educational Games That Are More Fun Than You’d Think posted at How To E-D-U.

Megan Wong presents Fun Brain Learning » Amazing preschool books – “Mind Power Series” posted at Fun Brain Learning.

I’m not sure if all of these next links qualify as “Edgy” because I didn’t have enough time to click through to them all, but Angela Martin presents 100 Incredibly Useful Links for Teaching and Studying Shakespeare posted at Online Colleges.org. Useful? Sure, if your teaching Shakespeare. Otherwise you have my permission to skip this one.

And that about wraps it up . . .

Well, that concludes this edition of The Edge of Education. I hope you had as much fun as I did.

If you’d like to submit a blog article to the next edition using our carnival submission form, we think that would be swell.  Remember, you can’t win an Edgy (which, we promise, is nothing like a wedgie), or any other make-believe awards here at We Teach We Learn, if you don’t submit. So, come on in! The water’s fine.  The more the merrier.  Or feel free to use your own cliche . . . Whatever works to motivate you to take your blog (and your professional sharing) to the next level.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Related posts:

1. The Edge of Education Carnival. Issue 1
2. The Edge of Education Carnival. Issue 4
3. The Edge of Education Carnival. Issue 2

The idea of this carnival is to share experiences of “edgy” teaching and learning. There are a lot of great things happening out there in the edusphere. More and more, we’re beginning to understand how to blend the art of teaching with the science of learning. It’s a balancing act, and this carnival is the place to share our triumphs and failures walking that tightrope.

It’s about the risks we take, and the new stuff we try, and the stories we bring back from the adventures of blazing new trails.

Knowing this, it makes sense that stories of personal experiences will always be get links before other kinds of submissions–like list posts, for example.

Frankly we were was shocked at the number of lists of 100 that we received. We ignored most of them. Indeed we were about to delete all of them, but when we looked closer, a select few were actually interesting. Upon further review, we came to the conclusion that some of these submissions actually delivered quite a bit of value. Especially to the teachers at the “edges” of technology and education innovation. So we kept four list posts–out of 57.

Understand that not all original posts were accepted either. We’re setting the bar pretty high. In order to be accepted, posts must be valuable, interesting and honest. Action research is held in the highest regard, but interesting best practices and insightful reflections on educational literature and/or personal experience also qualifies as “Edgy.”

Our guiding intent is to maintain the highest levels of quality, value and integrity here. Teacher’s should expect nothing less.

Okay, we’ve rambled on enough now. Let’s get to the good stuff.  In no particular order:

• Marjorie Morgan wrote an interesting piece about the challenge of making math relevant to students at Lindsay & Sharon – outdoor adventurers posted at GO! Girls Outdoors. Her premise: Marrying Mathematics and Outdoor Education – can it be done?

The following paragraph from her entry hits the nail on the head:

While I was tutoring the other day, my student asked whether I’d ever used Calculus in my ‘real life’ (which I assume meant away from the classroom – he’s a bright student who has realized that teachers sometimes have a life away from school). I had to answer no, I never had – after all, if you chuck a rock off a cliff, it’s easier to just estimate where it will reach its highest point and where it will hit the ground than it is to pull out a pencil and paper and work out the equations.

• Jeremy Burman presents Update: Baby Einstein DVDs to be refunded posted at Advances in the History of Psychology. Jeremy writes about the recent offer from Disney to refund the money of those who purchased Baby Einstein DVDs, saying that this begs the question: what do parents and teachers have to do to encourage giftedness in their children? He then offers a brief annotated bibliography of sources related to this topic.

• We all know how important novelty is to stimulate attention and motivation. Rachel Lynette has supplied a great list of ideas we can use to provide that spark of surprise to engage students again. Get out of that Rut! posted at Minds in Bloom. We couldn’t agree more with this, from her post,

Yes, routines have their place, and you need them to keep your class in order and to get things done. But they are also so very boring and they don’t do a thing to stimulate creative thought. So, every so often (at least once a day!) shake your kids up and do something different.

TIC writes,

You’ve experienced it before: you teach the same lesson to two different classes. In one class it’s the best lesson you’ve ever taught. In the next class the lesson bombs. Have you ever sought to discover the reason behind this mystery?

• Be sure not to miss this insightful article about the nuances of teaching that aren’t often addressed about Classroom Dynamics posted at Technology In Class.

• Twitter has taken social media by storm, and individuals as well as corporate America are scrambling to understand how to capitalize. Shelly Terrell presents a great article explaining how educators can utilize this new tool to ramp up their professional development. PRESTO: How to Build A PLN Using Twitter posted at Teacher Reboot Camp is a great introduction on how to build a Personal Learning Network.

By way of introduction to this fabulous article, Shelly writes, “I hope educators will be able to learn about the usefulness of Twitter in this very short presentation.”

• Jim McGuire has created a simple assignment that rewards students for reading. The problem is that, based on the documentation he’s getting back, some students are lying about how much they’ve read. Jim thinks it’s a motivational issue and shares a great video he plans to use to help motivate his students. Fake Reading, Will Smith, and Being Successful posted at The Reading Workshop.

• And last but not least, Hall Monitor presents a great example of the spirit of ingenuity alive and well in today’s students DetentionSlip.org: MIT Students Explain How to Photograph Space for $150 posted at DetentionSlip.org.

And now for the list posts. These posts aren’t original, but collections of original ideas. If you’re looking for inspiration, browsing these links is great way to find some

• Kaitlyn Cole presents 100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School posted at Online Colleges.net.

• Fredric Cernick presents 25 Free Web Tools Every Student Should Use posted at How To E-D-U.

• Angela Martin presents 100 Ways You Should Be Using Facebook in Your Classroom posted at Online Colleges.org.

• Stacie Young presents 100 Blogs Every New Teacher Should Read posted at Online Schools.

That concludes our first edition of The Edge of Education Carnival. Want to submit to the next one?  We’d love to hear about your “Edgy” teaching.  Just use this handy submission form.

Image credits:

Front Page: Woman on cliff

In article: Climbing man

Thank You!

Related posts:

1. The Edge of Education Carnival. Issue 2
2. The Edge of Education Carnival. Issue 3
3. The Edge of Education Carnival. Issue 4

Jeffrey Ayer, WTWL Writer

Ever notice how a discussion you want to have with students can severely lag?  Okay, think May or June, and I’m sure every teacher out there has struggled with this in his or her own classroom.

Enter the parking lot.  For those of you not familiar (and some of you are thinking, “Oh, yeah, I remember that”), here’s how it works.

First,  select an area in the classroom where you could have students place sticky notes or tape scraps of paper.  What works ideally is to use a large sheet of butcher paper, or if you have room cleared on your board, you can work from there.  I usually clear white board space, and then create an actual parking lot layout. 

 To encourage students, I also intermittently place sticky notes in some of the blanks, and sometimes for fun, I’ll include a few parking lot notes (like “Student Parking Here”). 

Once that’s on the board, it’s a discussion cue to my classes (I’ve used it for the better portion of a recent novel unit).  Just direct them to take up a parking space over the course of the class period; based on how many spaces are filled by the end of the hour, I ensure them that I will leave aside enough time for us to discuss the ”parked” questions before the bell rings.

Advantages?  One, students don’t have to write their names, so there’s a level of anonymity (this seemingly defeats the “dumb question” phobia).  Two, students have the class period to think about the novel.  For many, questions don’t just arise the instant the teacher asks, “Any questions on the novel at this point?”  So over the course of the class period, no matter what activity may be taking place, students are more likely to have an “I don’t understand” moment and then post that on the board.  And third, the activity simply encourages critical thinking, because I don’t answer the questions, I prompt students to answer them together.

This activity could also be applied to just about anything where you want students to develop questions (I-searches in the research process, thesis statement possibilities, questions they would pose to a historical figure, comments, opinions on a topic, and the list goes on).

Give it a shot.  Give it some thought.  And call it what you want (parking lot works, but imagine the number of names you could assign this approach to discussion – I just thought of “Landing Pad” as another, and I’m just hacking away at a keyboard).

Share your ideas by commenting; I would love to begin collaborating with you!

Related posts:

1. The Library of Congress is Using Flickr: Shouldn’t Teachers?

by Jeffrey Ayer, WTWL Writer

In recent months, the Library of Congress has piloted a new photo series on the photo-intensive website, Flickr. If you’ve never been to Flickr, it’s essentially a website where photographers from around the world are uploading and sharing their photos, and commenting on the photographs other people post.

In this case, Flickr has teamed up with an unlikely photographer (or should I say archive of American historical photography), and the results are literally breathtaking. One example alone is Jack Delano’s “In the waiting room of Union Station”, taken in Chicago, Illinois. The photo features two officers who create shadows in spotlight-like beams of sunshine coming in from the gothic windows above.

And the list goes on. In all, as of May 2009, the Library of Congress has posted over 6,000 historical photos from its archives, including World War I panoramas, photos of President Abraham Lincoln, and the decades of the 1910s, 1930s, and 1940s.

How does this all fit teaching and learning, you ask? Think of the potential uses of this archive. Because Flickr includes a slideshow feature, you and your students could gaze at history through the lenses of long-ago photographers – and leave comments (thanks Web 2.0). A colleague of mine uses photography to inspire young creative writers, both to tell stories in prose and describe an image in poetry. The possibilities in art, photography, psychology, journalism, sociology, English, and history classes are just the beginning.

And if nothing else, it’s an easy-to-use site where students could be encouraged to use the old right brain and create using a digital camera. It’s also a site where some are using the space to store photographs for personal use (users can make photos private or public).

The site even encouraged me to get started and get more serious with my own freelance photography, so I’m excited about that alone.

To get started, simply go to Flickr, click on “Create Your Account” (easy to do if you already have a Yahoo e-mail account), and then click on “Sign Up.” Unlike Google accounts, this one asks for your full name, gender, birth date, and postal zip code, but if you’re using this for professional use, there’s nothing here that should scare you. In addition, like many Web 2.0 sites, everything is free (there is a megabyte limit to how many photos you can upload until you may want to consider “going pro”).

To get started, click here to access the Library of Congress’s photostream.

On a tech note, beware of the filters your school may have. Flickr can be accessed in some schools and school districts, and not in others. Having a conversation with your IT director or building principal would be worthwhile in a case like the one above. Remember: We are the leaders on a 21^st Century pioneering venture. If the Library of Congress is on board, shouldn’t our schools be as well? Happy Flickring!

Related posts:

1. Web, library, and teen services 2.0. Bolan, K., M. Canada, and R. Cullin.
2. Flickr-ing – out. Guhlin, M.
3. Videos for Teachers

by Jeffrey Ayer, WTWL Writer

Wordle might be the next best thing to sliced bread, and the possibilities for implementation in the classroom are literally endless.  Heck, we could look at the word frequency in the posting I’m writing now.  In fact, we will, and I will create a link at the end.  Sure hope I avoid using “I” too often – uh, oh.  And that’s just one of the many potential uses.  The New York Times has been using word clouds to identify word frequency in significant speeches (most prominent, the speeches of Barack Obama toward the end of his campaign, and again for the inaugural address in January; click here to see his and every president’s inaugural address analyzed since George Washington).

How does it work?  Go to the Wordle site and simply click on “Create.”  Before you do so, take a look at some of the examples hanging out on the homepage.  You will notice that the style, color, and overall design is far more artistic than that of what The New York Times did with the inaugural addresses (and yes, you get to make this magic happen in seconds).

Click on “Create” at the top of the homepage.  The next window prompts you to paste a selection of text (this could be a compilation of student work, an article you assign in class for students to read, and so on), or, if you were more advanced, you could enter the URL for a web page where you might be storing student writing, and so on.  For simplicity’s sake, try copying and pasting something into the field. 

When you’ve pasted the text, click on the “Go” button, located just beneath where you pasted the text.  The next screen that pops up will be a “first” Wordle.  From there, you will see there is a small tool bar where you can select different functions to change the look of your Wordle creation.  You can change the language, font, layout, and color scheme.  You can also remove words by right clicking on one, or even add a maximum number of words (Wordle selects the most frequent).  In my case, with wanting to identify the frequency of my use of that dreaded pronoun I mentioned earlier, you would also want to click on “Language” and drag to “Do Not Remove Common Words.”  This will keep common pronouns and articles included in the Wordle.

It’s also worth noting that you can “Show Word Counts” under language as well.  Obviously, most word processing software does this already, but the word processing gurus aren’t doing anything as visually stimulating and telling as Wordle right now.  And of course, there’s no end to the possible looks you can give this.

Now, what would a teacher do with the product?  Wordle effectively identifies the most commonly used words, so if it’s student writing, a student could use Wordle to identify word frequency (like, dare I use “I”?), or overuse of prepositional phrases, to name just a few possibilities.  On the other end, when reading something new, the teacher (or student) could identify key concepts, new vocabulary, and so on.

If nothing else, creating a piece of artwork with words is just pretty cool, don’t you think?  Give it a try!  Visit http://www.wordle.net/ right now.  Oh, and here is a link to the Wordle for this blog entry (let’s see how “you” did – there I avoided using “I” – ugh!).  Click here to see the results (this sentence is not included, so I I I I I I am abusing the pronoun for fun).

Related posts:

1. Making PowerPoint Possible: Slideshare Works
2. The Power of the Human Voice (Thread)
3. The Library of Congress is Using Flickr: Shouldn’t Teachers?