Returning to Middle Earth

I recently had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with a number of returning graduates at our school.  In the bubble that I live in here, I'm proud to say that this is not an unusual event, but every so often I back-off and look at this from an outside point of view.

High school students, and beyond are coming back year after year to hang-out at their Junior High School.  I am certain I am not the only one that finds this to be a little "alarming".
They come on a Friday afternoon most often to drop in on their old teachers and meander their old stomping grounds.  Sometimes they sit in on our chapels, more often on old classes and once in a while their teacher convinces them to stay and speak to a lesson that is going on.

When I say I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with a number of returning graduates, I mean it with all sincerity.  It was a pleasure and they came and spent the afternoon in my rooms, with my students, a part of what we are doing.  They speak as peers, as guests, and as mentors to my students.  They share their stories, their lives, and their wisdom with us when they come back.  They envigorate, entertain, and envy-- yes, envy-- our students... they wish they could still be here.

And they remind us (as teachers) of the lasting impact christian education has had on their lives well beyond the disharmony and dissatisfaction they had during their time of high-stakes exams, homework overload, uniform discipline and so-on.

If there are greener-pastures out there, I can not imagine them.  If there was something more positively impactful to happen near the end of a long year, I can not imagine what it would look like. 

Our school website would tell you this:

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Mission:

To educate children in a dynamic Christian environment dedicated to excellence in learning and life development.

Core Vision:

We envision a school dedicated to the education of each child as created in God's image, with students who pursue learning, desire to be responsible citizens, and who graduate, knowing what it means to have a passion for God.

Core Values:

To honour God in all aspects of the school program
To nurture the partnership and a growing sense of community among students, staff, parents and alumni

To challenge and support students to:

• embrace a Christian worldview;
• demonstrate Christian character;
• achieve their personal best in academic pursuits;
• be physically active and healthy;
• have an appreciation for the arts; and
• develop respectful relationships.

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I would simply show you that picture of a Grade 10 Student working with Grade 6 students collaboratively on a Monday afternoon, just because.  (There were four other Grade 10's with her...)
Then I'd say, it's ALL about relationship.
BTW:  I used SnapSeed to edit the photo in the interest of maintaining a modicum of privacy...  It's fabulous, and every so often it goes on sale (free).

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Check out this application on the App Store:

Snapseed

Nik Software, Inc.
Category: Photo & Video
Updated: Apr 19, 2012

 141 Ratings

Ancient Greece and the Theatre

Mention "thespian" to a middle schooler and they all crack up. Humor is such an important method to teaching the younglings, especially when it borders on the inappropriate.

Mention teaching theatre history to middle school students to most drama teachers and you might get a very similar response... Still I have decided to give teaching theatre history to Grade 6 a shot to see what happens...

My Grade 6 lab rats seemed like a great place to start particularly because they are studying ancient Athens in their Social Studies Curriculum.

Working with @bar_qu means that I also have a partner in crime allowing me to continue my xcurricular pursuits. This time around though I was sure to Incorporate the Art teacher.

To be clear what I know of ancient Greece is very similar to what most of my students remember about being thespians... It has something or other to do with myths and "phallusies".

So I asked my students directly if they would like to receive a lesson and worksheet based on note collecting from a PowerPoint I found on "Ancient Greece for Kids" or if they would just prefer to research and perform their own Ancient Greek play about "A Day in the Life of an Ancient Athenian". (credit to @bar_qu for that one)

Funny... Only six of forty said they'd prefer me and notes over self-directed research... Currently I'm battling the urge to feel hurt and the urge to feel elated.

I assigned them small groups (SOLE methodology) with one tablet per group. I gave them a Greek letter as a group name for them to look up so they could inscribe it for themselves on their books. Then I asked, "what makes for an Ancient Greek Production?"

All the World's A Stage

They have currently had only 90 minutes to work but already they are telling me about:

• Comedies, Tragedies, and Satyr


• That the Agora was a pretty cool place to gather


• That our school Theatre is actually a lot like a Greek theatre and in fact some of the names are still the same.


• That men were the stage folk, and that if we're going to be doing this we're also going to need some masks.

I am a verbose lecturer at the best of times. They could have listened to me describe these things for an hour, retained less and had less fun. I guess I'm elated after all.

Currently they are taking pictures of our theatre to compare with schematics of a Dionysian Theatre and putting it all together using "Show Me"... But mostly they are eager to to start writing their scripts.

One girl asked if I was going to let the girls act? "Of course" I said, to which she responded: "Even though that wouldn't be authentic?"

Another girl asked if they would be allowed to use the social text to gather information to put in her play.

Folks, I can't make this stuff up... Oh yeah, and THIS (what your are reading) is my lesson plan.

The art teacher agreed ahead of time to give them time to build masks. The SS teacher will use his time to research A Day in the Life... And I will use the drama time to build costumes and scenes for our burgeoning chorus of players.

And I couldn't be more pleased with the learning, engagement, and attention/retention of details. Yes, I had a couple of Spartans vying for attention as they practiced for the Trojan wars. Man were they disappointed when they discovered that the Greeks let all the action occur off-stage; another detail they'll be sure to recall if there happened to be a test on this down the road.

Next up: A blog entry on why I'm making grade 7 students do monologues from Shakespeare's First Folio...

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The App' I discussed above is called Show Me. There are other great apps out there like this for free. This just happened to be available to the kids on the Apple Cart at school.

If all else FAILS improvise.

Today was the culmination of a project that (though not ill conceived) was certainly bred from a trial and error hodgepodge of good intention and the type of foresight you might expect from a gnat.  Gnats have foresight, I'm sure of it, it's just not very much I presume.  I did not look this up on wikipedia so please don't quote me on that.

Anyway...  Our journey along the path of mystery-story-telling-for-grade-6-science-students came to an end today, and that WAS planned for, and deliberate and rather last minute as school ends for the season come Friday.

Last week we used technology to create, manage, and curate EVIDENCE that students would provide to those who did not participate in the project.  The non-participators (heretofore referred to as: investigators) would then take said-evidence and try and solve the mystery story that was created.

Things needed to succeed?

We successful stored date, properly catalogued it but due to (again) this boiling pot of good intention and gnat-sight we have not yet found an effective or efficient method for retrieving data from a class set of iPads.  We leave our data at the whim of the Apple Cart users.  (aside: we call it the "Apple Cart" because Apple makes iPads and we put them on one big rechargeable wagon.  Clever right?)  I digress.

Today we arrived raring to go, only to find that our data had been wiped for an unanticipated software upgrade.

Four weeks of work finally stored and it was all for naught... or was it?

What to do.  I have 20 sixth grade students ready to participate in a project they have been waiting patiently to close for four weeks, and another 20 sixth grade students who have lost their proverbial mittens and didn't know where to find them.

This is where good structure, and a bit of flexibility comes in.

Because the students spent four structured weeks building the stories they had timelines, story-boards, documents, and mind-maps of the work they had done.  They were intimately familiar with the work that went into building an evidence bank (that was sadly wiped) and they were able to tell a good story.

Digital Curation

With minimal preparation they were able to welcome in a flurry of eager investigators and lead them through a story our drama students had carefully crafted collectively and collaboratively.  In a style similar to 20 questions the investigators were allowed to ask about the evidence they would have seen and then report their assumptions and conclusions to an online Google Form that would help them document their thinking.

After one failed attempt (which we applauded due to the fact that it inevitably led to successful learning so we could just as easily have labeled it the more PC "practice attempt") the students were able to (within 30 minutes) visit two different groups, hear two different mystery stories, and document two different conclusions with absolutely no direct intervention from resident adult "expert".

Things that were lost: physical data
Things that were gained: an adequate end to a project, and a set of data illustrating student thinking, and students capable of being flexible in how and when they show their learning.  They did a great job cleaning up after the mess that had been created.

Cleaning Up

One important item that I have purposefully left until now to reference is that there was one group who did not use their data.  Rather than trust the school "blanket" of iPads they chose to use their own personal devices (privately because of course they wouldn't want to get caught having their own personal devices out on school time) and so when they arrived today they had their entire project organized, itemized, and digitized for dissemination.  Suffice it to say, our investigators were over-joyed to be allowed to interact with this group.

I have, myself, compiled my own digital portfolio of work on my own personal device.  As you may have already realized I am working at incorporating a strong and appropriate use of modern technology in the drama classroom, and documenting processes and strategies for making work -- well -- work.

What follows is a short list of links and apps that have helped make the process easier and more "expressive".

My digital booklet showing the students' good work:
http://ebooks.scribblepress.com/book.php?g=LXLMZ4ZN

The app used to create the book on the iPad:

The app used to create annotations in the pictures shown (and published):

The apps are both free - and I like them.

10 Step Graphology (or; what does my writing say about me?)

(disclaimer: this is my first attempt at blogging using the google app on the iPad2. Thinking about the content to follow; I really should be writing this by hand...)

Alright, today I witnessed thirty minutes of dedicated, controlled and productive group work for 20 Grade 6 students in WIDE open space followed by another thirty minutes with three teachers available to 50+ of the same.

If you're wondering how it came about, or where we're going then read-on, because that's the intent of this post.

Forensic Science is a small unit in Grade 6 for Alberta students. They are required to demonstrate that they can observe and make inferences regarding things like fingerprints, graphology, chromatography, foot-print-ology (that's the technical term, right?)

Drama is a course we invented for the students this year to prepare them to make a choice about what arts stream they would like to follow in Grade 7 throug 9. @bar_qu (the science teacher) and myself have worked the past couple of weeks to use our 90 minutes of drama time, and the science classes to allow the students the space to "create" their own mysteries.

My last cryptic post illustrated the details on how to roll out something like that. Today is to tell you about the opportunities that present themselves when the schedule of two partnered teachers happen to overlap.

With less than 20 minutes of planning we took one combine science class of about thirty students, with another twenty drama students, brought them to a wide open area and set the, to task decoding a mystery.

• First: Intro the idea (People don't write the same)
• Second: Indicate what some important observations of handwriting might be
• Third: Wake them up again.
• Fourth: Have the available teachers sign a giant mobile whiteboard away from the students, and then have each teacher write the same sentence.
• Fifth: Challenge the students (who wrote nothing down because this is all so easy) to match the signature to the sentence.
• Sixth: until they can explain the observations that led to their inference do not allow them to work on the premade practice sheets.
• Seventh: Do not reveal the correct answer, simply provide students with the handouts and explain they'll have one chance to get the answer after they work on the practice sheets.
• Eighth: Let the students work (wherever, and with whomever they wish)
• Ninth: Have students submit their final conclusions on the handwriting (ideally through a google form, or other online repository)
• Tenth: For the students who are writing the "Snow White" mystery, (see last post) allow them to tailor their work toward building their evidence package.

Drama students, like scientists must spend time observing, creating, and communicating ideas. They must work collaboratively but ultimately they have to stand on their own to demonstrate individual statements of knowledge and skill. Can we justify the time spent? I think so. Can the process be refined and improved? Absolutely. Are we proud of the results! Yes. Are the students engaged?

Well in answer to that question, I point out that in one wide open classroom with over fifty eleven year olds, only one sheet of a two-page handout each student received was left behind. That in-and-of-itself is representative of what I consider to be a near-ubiquitous buy-in by the students indicating that they've found the intrinsic value of a practice sheet... But that's just an inference.

Differentiated Structures

Resources:
For a Grade 6 Science, Drama, and Career & Technology Studies Cross Collaboration

When things don't work out in class, I'm often excited because I usually get a chance to try things twice.  In drama I am always harping on the potential of failures as the best learning experience, and the most amazing fun is had in improvisation games when people "play on the edge of losing".

Problem
How do you give Grade 6 students an inquiry project that involves group work, each task allows space for differentiation and the whole thing takes place in a huge open auditorium without the whole group descending into a scenario which might inspire a story along the lines of, oh, let's say, "Lord of the Flies"?

The struggle is allowing them to complete tasks and objectives at differentiated speeds, and keeping group members accountable to each other, when the maturity level to keep numbers of tasks, and impulse control in check.  The first time I tried this, no matter how much structure  I hoped to create, the structure would break down within minutes.

The solution came today:  Task oriented assignments, where individuals in the group are responsible for ensuring that the order of tasks are kept in place, that no one is allowed to get ahead of the group, that the sequencing is constructive, and that the objectives are given in simple, easy to remember language.

I know, not that revolutionary, but for a teacher of older students it came as somewhat of a shock when the results came in so easily.

To Begin:

• Five students in a group.
• Four groups.
• Two different assignments in the room.
• One assignment per group.

To Solve:

• Five objectives.
• One per group member.
•  Each designed to accelerate the brainstorm process, but also support the structure of the activity.

Observations
Each group met the objectives at a pace that worked for them.  Though the assignments were different, the structure for completing the assignment was left intact which allowed for easy guidance as students ran into road-blocks, or had questions.  Students who had the responsibility of guiding the first objective were being prodded by the student who had the second objective to do a good job and complete it quickly because they were waiting to take leadership for the next objective.

There was evidence of strong intrinsic motivation in the students, there was less disruption in the large room. There was more focus on the work in front of them and consequently there was more success.  Each student was granted space to be creative and work in ways that brought their personality and strengths to the group, but there wasn't so much room that they had no idea where to start, or became "overly creative".  There was accountability to each other, and I'm pleased to say that I was able to do this all in half the amount of time the second go-round.




Mystery Tales by Thomas Currie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at docs.google.com.