Nitpicking??

Really?? Do Sal Khan and his supporters really understand where the word "nitpicking" came from? I know it's used informally as an adjective to suggest that one is looking for small or unimportant errors or faults. But I also know nitpicking, literally, is critical for student success.

Almost a month ago two math education professors from Grand Valley State University released a video they made satirizing one of the Khan Academy videos on multiplying and dividing integers. They highlight both mathematical and pedagogical concerns.

If you want to see the entire history, check out this Storify page by Audrey Watters. If you're wondering "what were these guys thinking??", check out these blog posts by Dave Coffey*.

Khan's initial response was to pull the video in question and post an updated video. He also commented on Justin Reich's Education Week blog post entitled Don't Use Khan Academy without Watching this First:

We at the Khan Academy really appreciate the feedback from you and your colleagues regarding videos that could use improvement.

But, a few days later he was quoted in a piece by the Chronicle of Higher Education:

. . . so it's kind of weird when people are nitpicking about multiplying negative numbers.

What really struck me in Khan's comments to the Chronicle, was the word "nitpicking". He's not alone in suggesting that those who find errors in his videos are nitpicking. Many comments made by Khan supporters also suggest these two professors are nitpicking and, just today, Teach for America had a blog post that also dismissed critiques of Khan Academy videos as "nitpicking".

Picture Courtesy: Medline Plus

Nitpicking is, unfortunately a very common occurrence in elementary schools. Over the years, I have had a number of students who reported to the office daily for nitpicking. It was the only way we were able to keep them in school, because in Michigan, students can be in school with nits, but not with live lice. If you don't get rid of the nits, AKA nitpicking, the live bugs hatch, multiply and spread to others.

So, maybe it's a good idea that someone is "nitpicking" Khan Academy videos. If Khan doesn't find and correct the little, seemingly unimportant errors (nits), the millions of viewers that he reports watch his videos from around the world may find they've developed critical misconceptions, kind of like having the nits hatch into live bugs.

*Full disclosure, I am married to Dave Coffey. Don't let the lame satire fool you, he's really a nice guy. :)

Read at the Beach!

Read at the Beach is an annual March is Reading Month tradition for 1st graders at my school. Of course the end of March is usually too cold to really go to the beach, so we turn our cafeteria into the beach with a little imagination, some beachy props, and great calypso music by our own technology director, Jeff Grossenbacher. (Also of Two Dudes in Flip Flops and Island Breeze fame!) Jeff gets us started with a reading of The Jolly Mon by Jimmy Buffett and his daughter, Savannah Jane.

Then, the kids are off to "read at the beach"!

 

Writing Process

A few years ago, Su Palmer was assistant superintendent of curriculum for my district. She introduced me to writing workshop, "draft books", writing demonstrations,  Dancing With the Pen, Smith and Elley's (1997) How Children Learn to Write,  Effective Literacy Practice. I couldn't get enough. As I began to develop my understandings, I made significant changes in my teaching practice and watched my students grow as writers.

After serving as superintendent in a K-8 school for a few years, Su is now teaching at the college level. She visited my classroom last week to observe my students during our literacy block to get a feel for the realities of the classroom.

She reminded me of two key components of effective writing instruction:
1) make the writing process explicit
2) follow the writing process all the way through to publishing

And, she reminded me of the value of collegial conversations.

My students have been doing lots of pre-writing, drafting, revising, and some editing all year. But, somehow in our busyness, publishing had taken a back seat. The reality is, it's not easy to squeeze in publishing without making it a priority. So, to help make the writing process visible and explicit, we made this chart as a class and have it posted in a prominent place. And, I've started publishing student writing--my goal is to confer with at least 3-4 students each day until each student has one published piece over the next 2 weeks.

Charts & Challenges

Last week was the second full week of school and I was feeling pretty pleased with how well things were going. We had created "I" Charts (I for Independent) for 3 of the Daily 5 literacy tasks, practiced them and had built up from 3 to 6 minutes of stamina for Read to Self time.

For the most part, students were beginning to follow the routines and procedures we had made together. Below are the rough drafts that were made with my students. I always have a vision of what these Procedure Charts should contain and always re-create them every year with my new students. I've found the process of having students help develop these charts results in a stronger learning community and greater student buy-in. They never cease to amaze me with what they come up with! The rough drafts stay up for a couple of days in case they need to be modified or edited. I then make a permanent copy of each one. Charts are together on a book ring and hang in a prominent place.

Procedure Chart rough draft examples from this year

Despite all of this, something happened. . . not sure what or why, but we had a major set-back--down to only 2 minutes of Read to Self. After 2 days of re-teaching, more teacher and student demonstrations and practice, we were still having problems.

Final draft from last year

 

Time to dig deeper and have students define what Read to Self time would look and sound like under certain conditions; so together we made a rubric and created a "Read to Self Time-O-Meter" to monitor how they were doing with building stamina. So far, it seems to have done the trick--8 minutes today! And, should we have a set-back at any point during the year, we'll use the Classroom Meeting format for problem solving.

 The cute Time-O-Meter to monitor stamina came from Nicole Scott's awesome blog,  Flipping For First Grade and Pinterest. This visual has really helped---my students are so proud of their progress toward their goal of 15 minutes!

 

Read to Self Rubric--We used the I Chart above for the far left column and students brainstormed ideas for the other 2 columns!

 These are a couple of other "Challenges" we are monitoring daily for quality by timing, recording and posting data. These ideas came from the Langford Quality Learning seminar my district sponsored a while back.

Back To School!

New garden path

Our "Barbie & G I Joe" kayaks

In less than two weeks I'll be greeting my new 1st Graders for their first day of school! It's had to believe that the summer passed by so quickly. The summer was filled with lots of fun, work on projects around my home, some travel and, of course, new learning for me.

Where to start??

I'm working very hard to get my mind back into the 'school mode'. I'm thinking about the usual things like how to arrange my classroom, how to  establish a learning community and what to do during the first days. I'm also reflecting on how to apply my new learning from Cognitive CoachingSM Foundations I & II.  So far, I've completed days 1-6 and am already looking forward to days 7 & 8 in September and Group Cognitive Coaching in October. Each interaction with students, colleagues, parents and friends will be an opportunity to practice my new skills!

Competing with the Carnival

The teacher, when she begins work in our school, must have a kind of faith that the child will reveal himself through work. ~Maria Montessori

How do we keep 1st graders engaged in learning despite the arrival of the dreaded (but much loved by children) Fruitport Old Fashioned Days Memorial Day carnival? That's the dilemma we face at the end of every school year. Not only does the carnival set up in the center of town, nearly every bus going to or from our school drives by it twice a day!

This year I decided to do something a bit different. We built
our own "Roxaboxen" in our classroom. First, we read Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran. Then we discussed what materials we would need. Students brought in some cardboard boxes--one even brought in a huge appliance box! Measurement and telling time were math concepts specifically incorporated into the project. However, it has become truly integrated across the curriculum--and a project that evolved in an amazing way! As we were planning what shops or buildings to include, I realized mapping skills and expanded vocabulary could be included. The students incorporated money and economic concepts naturally. We googled 'Roxaboxen' and found that there is a park in Yuma, Arizona dedicated to the original Roxaboxen and we took a "trip" to Yuma, Arizona via Google Earth.

Codi's Pet Shop--Open 24 hours!

Jamie's Train Station

Brody & Brady's 'Hunting Shack'

The room was quite loud, but everyone was completely engaged, from Ryan the banker who was "making money" and using existing student mailboxes for "accounts", to others who were busy measuring and cutting white paper to make "stones" to be used to delineate boundaries. As I looked around, I saw 6 and 7 year old students collaborating as they were creating Jamie's train station, Madyson's Beauty Salon, Brody's Hunting Shack, the Martin & Evans vehicle race track, Codi's Pet Shop, Miss Ead's School of Dance, Miss Louetta's Coffee Shop, Allen's Sporting Goods Store, and Timothy's Weather Station. The Day Care closed before it even opened "because there weren't enough kids" and Amy's Artist Studio took its place. Hand written signs were everywhere: 'Open' and 'Closed', store names, and direction signs complete with directional arrows.

Miss Ead's Dance School

Banker's Hours??

One of the best moments? When the banker realized that other kids were making their own money, he commented, "Hey, that's not fair! Only the money made by this bank can be spent in our Roxaboxen!" Which then led to a lively discussion about counterfeit money and the FBI.

It was clear this project was loosing its power to engage students when "For Rent" signs went up on Wednesday. So, yesterday was "Demolition Day." I'm confident my students were fully engaged and learned so much more than I'll ever know---or could ever be measured on a standardized test.

Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, where study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants—doing nothing but living and walking about—came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning; would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child's way of learning. This is the path he follows. He learns everything without knowing he is learning it, and in doing so he passes little by little from the unconscious to the conscious, treading always in the paths of joy and love. ~Dr. Maria Montessori, MD

Professional Portfolio

UPDATED 4-19-14:  The pages that were created for this portfolio have been combined in their entirety into a one page archive, "Professional Portfolio Archive"

Today, I publish and present my Professional Portfolio. This portfolio was developed in conjunction with my internship experience for EDL 770, for my Educational Specialist program at Grand Valley State University. My goal was to create this portfolio in a completely digital format. You can link to my documents and presentations housed in Google Docs and on YouTube. This portfolio will continue to be updated to reflect new experiences and valuable resources as they are discovered. The portfolio components are contained within the tabs beginning with About Me through Policy that you see above. The home tab will remain my blog posting page.

I already have list of resources I want to add!