Mr. Rennie's Class

  Here I am again talking about John Medina's Brain Rules. In our cohort meeting on the 28th we talked about what we've learned in our classes, field studies and readings. I found myself consantly going back to Brain Rule # 4 :People don't remember boring things. In fact the average person has about a ten minute attention span before their minds will wander ..unless..they are somehow emotionally engaged in what they are seeing, hearing or doing. "Emotionally rousing events tend to be better remembered than neutral events". pg79. So Medina, based on the ten minute rule requiring our brain to have a sort of break before it can stay focused or re-focus, provides in his lessons a built in emotionally strong break that is connected to the topic being discussed; a connection, anecdote question for discussion, a joke...something. This provides the brain a switching opportunity or break, while staying in the topic zone allowing the listener to connect to the topic and to their own experiences. Medina also reinforces the long held notion in lesson planning that the lesson's shape, it's outline be shared at the outset so the audience to connect back to the "where we are" during the lesson. This idea is also repeated throughout at intervals to maintain that connection of the current content or topic to the big picture. This multilayered opportunity to connect and build on previous experinces and information strengthens the chance of commiting the ideas to memory.

  When I consider the average lesson or period, on the average day, it is clear to me that all this is true. The lessons or sessions that are snappy, varied, fast paced but focussed on a clear goal the students are informed of are most effective. Frequent reviews and check-ins with the group as well as reminders, examples and anecdotes keep everyone more sharp. medina in his 5th rule: Repeat to remember, reminds us that only through repetition. "The more repetion cylcles a given memory experienced, the more likely it will be remembered'.Pg. 100. This all supports the case for doing thigs over and over. Math concepts, lit circles (reading strategies and approaches), inquiries, memoir writing, relay passing and slapshots are all better remembered when repeatedly practiced or reviewed.

  Well I came to a couple understanding this past week, First, the learning logs have been meeting all my expectations. Student's reflections have provided closure at the end of lessons, a meaningful bridge to start lessons and connect to previous lessons, a chance to hold learning and ideas over time and of course the metacognitive act of really thinking and processing ideas about content and self. This week I realized what a powerful device they are to foster formative and self assessment. I'm able to see who grasped a concept on paper or hear their words of understanding or confusion during their debrief with partners. It is a great saver of time to just cruise through the class, keeping my ears open and listening for the general tone of either "we've got this" or "Uhhhhh, what?"This had been a real help to my in the moment practice of when to stop, regroup and reteach the whole group or just certain small groups in the room.

  A very powerful event that showed a real community maintenance role for logs took place as well. A student in our class was upset over the treatment they received outside. They were sworn at, called names and excluded from a playground activity. The child was discovered crying alone behind the school. Instead of a meeting, or lecture we got out our logs and responded to the prompt, "Tell all about a time when you were treated badly and left out. How did you feel?"The responses were universally fluent. Some students wrote and wrote. After ten minutes the students shared with a partner. We then wrote all the emotion words from the logs on the board. It showed how common the experience was, how everyone had been there. Only then did we talk about what had happened to our classmate. Some kids were mover to tears. I heard a few others say things like "that sucks", "that's awful" or "I feel terrible". It was a very meaningful way to get to the heart of the matter and have a real, honest discussion about it that they could all connect to. Overll the integration of the logs into our routines has been awesome.

  The year and this current field study are drawing to a close. I am always reminded how weird it is that at their core, what I have the students do and what I'm doing are very similar. This week the students reflected on math, namely polygons and related geometric concepts. It was helpful to see how their logs demonstrate their understanding and often lack thereof. They serve as both a metacognitive opportunity and a chance for me to formatively assess. Also this week the kids put into practice their questioning skills explored a few weeks back as we added questioning to the repetoire of responses used in literature circles. The questions are mostly either "right there" or "think and search" questions but many are doing quite well with them.

  The class overall, as with anything I guess, has had mixed success with their log entries. I of course hoped that over time all their reflections would increase in depth and complexity as well as in the variety of ways in which they represented. While this is the case for over half, I have to say that a good number are still writing brief, quick responses to the questions and prompts given. I still think the practice is valuable for all but it hasn't impacted some of the students I would most liked it to have.

  On anothe topic, I've been reading a book called Brain Rules by John Medina. The book explores 12 Brain Rules each in it's own chapter and is easy to read. The information is expressed for the average person and though extensive it is accessable. I really connected as a teacher,  to a couple recent assertions by the author. While explaining Brain Rule #4  "We Don't Pay Attention To Boring Things', Medina says that the brain works from general to specific, from meaning first to specific details. That it actually stores the big ideas that are associated with concepts, especially if they were emotionally significant (sad, horrible, funny surprising etc.) That way we remember the gist of things or in school of material first and most importantly, not the minute details about it. So to increase recall and learning we need to link new infromation to these big ideas stored in our brains. We also need to approach tasks from a meaning first perspective. It is the same way we seem assessment materials, reading materials in content areas organized these days. First identify the big ideas which the brian would store and then connect and add details to the main concepts to flesh out and extend the learning. Our districts schoo and district wide assessments like DART and DMA DRA all are organized along these lines. The research approach we have kids practice during inquiry is also questions, big ideas, details driven. I'm really enjoying this book.

 Another Brain Rule #4 idea I found surprising was the Medina's ideas about how "the brain cannot multitask". Having always considered my self a multitasker and given how our society values the trait, I was at first doubtful but as he explains it I see that he's right. He states that "we are biologically incapable of processing attention-rich inputs simultaneously." This refers to complex thinking not walking and talking and chewing gum at the same time. A theorist named Michael Posner has ideas about attention functioning along a Trinity Model, "three seperabel but integrated systems in the brain". These systems are: The Alerting and Arousal Network, The Orienting Network the third of these sytems the Executive Network.. This third network is the decision maker, the what do I do now?system. When we try to do a task we are often interupted by sensory inputs that cause the three systems to disengage, activate or reactivate in response. It may only take fractional seconds but it is still linear and sequential following the same pattern each time and so we focus on the one task at a time. So what seems like multitasking is really starting and stopping different tasks over and over again. Medina saysthat  what we think of as multitaskers are actually people "with good working memories capable of paying attention to several inputs one at a time." The reason he says this is important is "a person who is interrupted takes fifty percent longer to accomplish a task,,,he or she makes up to 50 percent more errors". That has huge implications for the school and classroom environments.HUGE.

  This week we worked on developing questioning skills like those discussed earlier. The students were able to learn about and practice formulating questions that were three different types: Right There, Think and Search and Authoe and Me. Each type requires a different level of response. Right There are fact based literal comprehension questions. Think and Search requires events from the story to construct answer with evidence. Author and Me questions require the reader to connect and access prior knowledge to construct a complex answer with evidence from the text.

  The kids listened to and read excerpts from the novel The Cay by Theodore Taylor and wrote all three types. Then we listed them on the board and agreed on what category or type each was. Next week they will reflect on how well they think they're doing with creating and understanding the questions. 

  This will be short. We did a found poem as well as a revision of last week's fraction reflection. It went really well and led to some great partner and group discussions. Today we essentially did an oral entry about fractions. I heard some really good talk about how fractions, decimals and percents are related. We touched on this topic back in November. I only wish we had made a log entry then so we could pull it out to start and anchor our current work. Making those connections and linking new content to old is a primary function of the learning log.

  A new week begins tomorrow and with it the students will continue to work on fractions ans essays. Their log entries regarding math reveal a wide range of understanding throughout the class. If the reponses were taken as an absolute picture of where we are at then we have some more work on basci concepts to do before carrying on. About half the logs show that the students who wrote them really get what fractions are and how they work. Yet the other half have uncertainties about these ideas since their entries don't reflect their grasp. So I have to ask myself is that true? Or, are the entries that don't show understanding not giving the completre picture. Many of the entries drom this grooup are very brief or did not address the original question put on the board. This leaves open the possibility that those people who apparently need further help and practice may have just responded carelessly or without really paying ttention to the task.

  So tomorrow the plan is to start with the same question on the board for math. The next step will be to discuss the question and it's three parts with a partner using the concentric circle strategy. After this sharing they'll get out their learning logs and decide if their entry from Fridat accurately shows what they know and understand about fractions (proper, improper, mixed and equivalent). Students will then either choose to redo or change their former entry if it needs more, or if they're satisfied they'll write a found poem about fractions.

  Last week was the last before the break and the students mostly finished up work and did reflections regarding their opinions and goals connected to their country website projects. The students were asked to tell how successful their site was and what they would do differently next time. The results were thoughtful and as expecteed in most cases, since most of them are quite honest about their own effort, input and collaboration.

  Over the last two days I've been reading a book by Faye Brownlie and Leyton Schnellert called, It's All About Thinking. I really like the ideas in it about criteria setting for reading responses( log entries and lit circles) and the focus on questioning. I think we'll work specifically with question generation in response to reading when school resumes. The students in the book's example wrote questions of four different types as a response to reading, answer their own questions thoughtfully then assess their answers using criteria they help develop. Their responses take the form of a response log which would be shared in a lit circle or could be used as a reflection on individual reading.  

  The four types of questions are:

1. Factual Questions (Right There)-  pointing to, info from the text.

2. Interpretive Questions (Think and Search)- locating and connecting story details to shape and answer.

3. Personal Input Questions (Author and Me)- students use own background and info from outside the book to increase their knowledge.

4. Evaluative or Appreciative Questions (On My Own)- questions that are ongoing and can apply to other texts.

  Students will need to be taught and practice these questioning skills with a shared text before they can begin to pose their own independently. The first two types I think will be quite comfortable for them to create since they are experienced in those areas. The last two really connect or tie in to the metacognition we've only begun to explore in our learning logs. Bring on the spring term.

  With Spring Break almost upon us I reflect for the last time in March. The time is flying by. The students didn't do a lot of reflecting last week, it was more a sweat and tears, down and out work-fest. They were asked though, to determine how they were doing toward completion on their websites and to set some short term goals acoordingly. Since 1/3 of them did not yet complete that project I guess we have some work to do regarding time management.

  This week I plan to have them look back and decide how they did and what they'll need to do for the next project to be more successful. Everyone has room to grow in this regard. They will have a science project to complete next term for sure and maybe an art one as well depending on Mrs. Kay's plans and progress. I hope time management and how crucial it is will become apparent to the kids. I also hope they're starting to see see the value of an up to date notebook. I hope self awareness and acceptance of their own individual challenges will develop. Some surely found that sharing a project with a partner or team is a whole different way of working on a ask than being on your own.

It seems like only four days since my last blog.....oh.....it was. This week I'm all over it. We have reflected in our learning logs about decimals, research, noise, time management and goal setting  The students continue to be welcomed each time t o use pictures, sketches, numbers, webs and words to show and explain their thinking. One of the topics/questions for today was:

 Using the math vocabulary discuused, tell how well you are understanding the decimal  topics listed.

A follow up question was:

Which of the concepts do you still need to do further work with to really start to understand?

The kids took ten minutes to respond then shared with a partner. Some then volunteered to share  theirs with the class. It has been going really well. The students are so used to it now that many just keep the log on their desk all day. I read them as I walk around and collec tthem on Friday to read. I thanked them for sharing but otherwise I don't comment. It informs me how the class is understanding things overall and lets me see which individuals need help with specific concepts or processes. One student said today during the math period share that he knew he didn't quite get the difference between 0.07 and 0.7 because in his head he sees the same picture for both. Iasked what everyone thought we could use to help him get that different picture. A classmate suggested he think of or use hundredths grids while doing decimal calculations. Pretty cool that they see why we use them and how they represent the number so graphically. A good idea.

I really apppreciate how many different ways they are using to show their thinking. Those wo would rather not write are showing great skill and originalityin using the other options available. At first I wondered, "okay what do I do with this info?" After giving myself a V8 pound on the head I realized I'm doing it.

 I'm using what I see in the logs as a means to discover how everyone is doing individually and as a group..

I'm teaching lessons again differently as needed.

I'm having kids share their thinking and representing strategies to help others see them and to help the sharer hear their thinking out loud, a different way of experiencing their metacognition.

I guess what escaped me originally is how easy, natural and powerful this reflective activity can be.

  The third week of my use of regular learning log entries has past but I am only now writing my reflection. The kids are doing a great job. Their reflections are getting more detailed and more thoughtful. I'm trying to get them to add pictures and other types of representations (webs, connections etc.) I am wondering how to evaluate the kids progress other than to comment orally to them about the improved quality and make suggestions.

  I've used them to start lessons by having the kids either read their entries or discuss them with a partner. This seemed to have the desired effect. The students were able to start right in to their math lesson on decimals and place value after the sharing. When we reflected on motivation and what each person is driven by, there were a variety of sources revealed. Most were motivated to do well in school by their parents or by grades but a few noted that it was a sense of self and pride in their accomplishments that spurred them on. By  reflecting on and  discussing issues as well as concepts and ideas, the students should become more aware of how they learn and what conditions lead to enhancing that learning. That is it for now.