Lesson Planning in Distance Learning

Distance Learning Begins

On Sunday, March 15, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, closed public schools so that educators could plan for long-term plans for the continuity of education. We had approximately two weeks to completely revolutionize the way we teach and the way students learn.

Collaborative Backwards Planning As Usual

Although the way we "do school" certainly looks different, the philosophies at the core of our teaching and learning remain the same.

One of these approaches to teaching that hasn't changed is the way in which we collaboratively plan for instruction with the end in mind; first starting with the essential learning then planning for how students show successful mastery and then giving feedback framed in terms of those criteria.

Research for Better Teaching, Inc. published the graphic below that does a nice job of visually representing this chain.

retrieved from https://www.rbteach.com/products-resources/downloads/all on April 6, 2020.

Questions To Consider When Collaboratively Planning

1. Communicate Objectives

• What do we want students to understand (concepts), know (knowledge) or be able to do (skills)?
• These essential learnings can come from central ideas, lines of inquiry and state standards.
• These essential learnings can be communicated in many ways (not just as "I Can" statements). In a programme that values inquiry, questions can be an effective way to spark curiosity while communicating to students the learning target.

2. Select Performance or Product

• How will students demonstrate they understand, know or are able to do what we have identified as essential?
• How can we set up loose enough parameters that students' can still exercise their creativity and voice in how they choose to demonstrate proficiency?

3. Develop Criteria

• What does success look like?
• Our team should decide on loose enough criteria so that student responses can be varied, create and unique, yet specific enough to help us frame the feedback we give students.

4. Give Feedback

• Using the previously developed success criteria, communicate to students how they hit the mark or help them to understand what they're missing and how they can improve.

What does this look like in practice?

1. Communicate Objectives

• Conceptual understanding: Based on the current unit of inquiry's central idea, teachers want the students to understand that senses are used for exploring and staying safe.

2. Select Performance or Product

• Performance Assessment: Students will use their senses to explore during a spring nature walk and identify what they see, hear and smell.

3. Develop Criteria

• Does the student's response make sense for what you'd see, hear, and smell outside in Minnesota in springtime?
• Does the student include ideas similar to the ones in the read-aloud that was a part of this learning experience?

4. Give Feedback

• If a particular student's responses do not make sense or are not similar to the ones in the read-aloud, how can we provide corrective feedback that helps students to get closer to a more successful response?

Distance Learning's Unintended Positive Consequences

Although distance learning has some limitations, the format promises to enhance collaboration, personalization and the quality and the specificity of feedback we give to students.

Word Wallets

At a recent professional development, teachers were given the opportunity to REFLECT on what they had learned, brainstorm a list of actions they could CHOOSE based on those reflections and then pick one and ACT on it.

One kindergarten teacher collaborated with a colleague to use Word Wallets as a way to track student progress and to celebrate the successful learning of sight words. Using these wallets also builds confidence and encourages students to continue to push themselves.

Being able to read sight words is an important reading skill. In the PYP, reading is categorized as a communication skill, one of the five sets of approaches to learning necessary for students to become life-long learners.

The teacher took a folder, cut about two thirds the way down the fold, rounded off the tops of both the sides and folded the tops down. She labeled one side "working on" and the other side "done ☺"

Students are working on learning sight words, five at a time. When they've mastered a word, they celebrate by coloring in the box.

When all five words are colored, they celebrate and move the words over to the "done ☺" side. The students continue to practice the sight words even when they're on the "done ☺" side.

Once students have mastered several strips of words, the teacher plans to make a Sight Word Crown so that students can prominently and proudly display the words they've worked so hard to learn.

When students are reading books appropriate for their developmental and skill level, they'll have an easier time identifying these sight words in context, because they have build up their knowledge of these words and their confidence in their ability to read them.

Word Wallets can, of course, be used to track progress and celebrate successes with other kinds of learning. How might you use these wallets in your classroom? How do you track students' progress and celebrate students' efforts in other ways?

Taking ACTION in 3 easy steps!

Choose. Act. Reflect.

In the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP), it is expected that students construct understanding of life's timeless, abstract, universal, and transferable ideas. Developing an understanding of these big ideas must lead students to thoughtful, appropriate, and responsible action.

This action must be initiated by the student and needn't be grandiose. As teachers, we have the responsibility to enable students to choose their action carefully, to facilitate this action, and to encourage them to reflect on the action they undertake, (Making the PYP Happen, p. 26). These three steps - Choose-Act-Reflect - make up the PYP Action Cycle.

Recently in kindergarten, students were constructing understanding of the idea that some choices are based on understanding weather. To better understand observing, recording, and predicting weather, the kindergartners watched a video called Weather Starts: The Sun, Heat, Air, Wind on Discovery Education. The class also read The Windy Day by Melvin and Gilda Berger.

Then, students wrote down what they learned in a vocabulary booklet called "My Weather Words".

Here's one student's thinking:

"Wind can blow trash in water and an animal will pick it up."

Upon seeing this student's thinking, the teacher thought this would be a good time to discuss the PYP Action Cycle. She used the Hover Cam to project the student's thinking and also displayed the 3-step Action Cycle (Reflect-Choose-Act) so that they could discuss the cycle together.

The teacher said that the student was very excited to see her writing up on the SMARTboard. They talked about how the student reflected or thought about what happens to the animals with trash flying around. They even said the trash didn’t need to just go in the water, it could be in the woods or a park, to negatively impact the animals.

After reflecting, the students brainstormed what they could choose to do to help fix the problem upon which they were reflecting:

• Throw paper (trash) in the garbage.
• If you find trash on the ground, pick it up, and find a trash can to put it in.
• Go to the woods or a park to pick up trash.

To help the animals, students brainstormed the following list:

• If you see an animal eat a pencil and choke (or eat trash in general), call a vet.
• Pick up the trash. We talked about if trash is in the parking lot that the students need to ask permission from parents to pick it up.
• Get bags, pick up trash, and put it in the bags.
• They thought we could pick up trash around the school and playground.
• They could pick up trash in the lunchroom and the classroom.
• They want to go outside and pick up trash.The teacher the students that next week they could go outside and pick up the trash around the school

After this discussion on Friday about doing something with what they had learned in school, one student did this over the weekend and brought it in to show her class.

In the PYP, this is also considered action because it was student-initiated, thoughtful, and is in reaction to learning that was done in school.

After reading about how one kindergarten teacher used the Action Cycle with her students, how could you or have you enabled students to choose action, facilitated this action, and encouraged students to reflect on the action they undertake?

The Explanation Game

During the first few weeks of school, it is important to spell out essential expectations, rules, and predictable structures with students so that they are able to fully participate and engage in learning (The First Six Weeks of School by Denton and Kriete).

To help her students inquire into how to safely use two different kinds of stability balls in her Special Education Setting III classroom, one teacher used the visible thinking routine The Explanation Game (from Making Thinking Visible by Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison). 

Note: Special Education Setting III includes students who spend more than 60% of their day outside of the general classroom. This teacher works with students in kindergarten through third grade who have emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD).

 

During The Explanation Game thinking routine, students were asked to take a close look at the two types of stability balls (pictured above) that they were trying to understand and then:

1. Name it. Name a feature or aspect of the object that you notice.
2. Explain it. What could it be? What role or function might it serve? Why might it be there?
3. Give reasons. What makes you say that? Or why do you think it happened that way?
4. Generate alternatives. What else could it be? And what makes you say that?

The teacher said that the routine worked "SO WELL!" She went on to explain that the ideas the students generated were much higher-level than they have done in the past. Their ideas included "using it for floating in a lake because I can’t swim" and "squeezing it when I’m really upset."

The teacher decided to allow her students to verbally respond instead of having them write anything down, which allowed students to freely share ideas throughout the activity. Then, on their own, the students decided to reach an essential agreement about the stability balls after they had gone through the thinking routine because they had decided the stability balls could be dangerous to themselves or others if used incorrectly.

The teacher also led the students through a similar process to introduce the squeeze machine (pictured below).

Although the teacher already had a rule sheet printed up (pictured below), she gave students the opportunity to independently come up with the rules before she showed it to them.

Allowing students to create the rules themselves gives them a sense of ownership, which may increase the likelihood that they'll follow them in the future.

After reading about how this teacher used the visible thinking routine The Explanation Game with her students in Special Education Setting III, how could you use this thinking routine with your students to look closely at materials they'll be using throughout the year?

Creating IB learner profile attribute posters with very young children, new to the program.

Creating PYP posters with students might be one of the goals of the first six weeks of school, but how is a Primary Years Program (PYP) teacher supposed to create such posters with very young children who are new to the program? The IB Learner Profile attributes (and all the other essential elements) are complex ideas. When students aren't familiar with them, how is a teacher supposed to help her students create posters so that they can construct meaning of these big ideas?

One kindergarten teacher created posters with her young students by using pictures to help them construct meaning of the IB Learner Profile attributes.

First, gathered together in a large group, she showed the students a blank poster with one attribute in large letters. In the example below, the students were creating the inquirer poster for their room.

Click here for a PDF version of these posters.

Then, the teacher displayed a series of pictures of children, all who were demonstrating behaviors of an inquirer.

Click here for a PDF version of the slides of pictures for each IB Learner Profile Attribute.

The teacher told her students that all the children in the pictures where inquirers. She then prompted the students to notice what specifically the children were doing. As her students offered responses, the teacher added them to the poster, finishing the phrase, "being an inquirer looks like ..."

After the children had contributed several ideas (being an inquirer looks like wondering, asking questions, being confused, looking closely), the teacher gave each student a small piece of paper, directing them to quickly draw themselves as inquirers. As the students finished, the teacher affixed the small drawings around the edge of the poster, so that every child's work was a part of the classroom display.

By creating the IB Learner Profile attribute posters in this way, the teacher guaranteed the students were developing an understanding of each attribute as they collaboratively worked.

Have you successfully made PYP posters with very young children new to the program in a different way than the teacher in this story? Please, share your idea with others by commenting on this post.

Kindergartners and the research process

Students who are in their final year of the Primary Years Program are expected to carry out an extended, collaborative inquiry project, known as the exhibition.

The exhibition represents a significant event in the life of both the school and student, synthesizing the essential elements of the program and sharing them with the whole school community. It is a culminating experience marking the transition from PYP to further steps in education (information on exhibition taken from the IBO website).

All teachers at every grade level have a responsibility to prepare our students for exhibition. Recognizing this responsibility, one kindergarten teacher recently e-mailed me:

"I am wondering if you have any good ideas for the process of doing mini research projects in kindergarten. Today my kids came up with questions they have about animals. They all start with “I wonder…” The questions are like… I wonder why skunks stink. I wonder what elephants eat? I have done this in the past and find that I have to do all the research since the kids can’t really read well enough to do research. Usually we look things up together on National Geographic kids or other sites. Any other ideas?"

Below are samples of some of the students' questions.

"I wonder why does a skunk stink."

"I wonder why do snakes bite."

"I wonder why a whale shark is so big."

"I wonder why a zebra has a tail."

"I wonder why do giraffes have a long neck."

"I wonder why does a lion have claws."

"I wonder if a snake can get married."

"I wonder if a fish has families."

"I wonder how elephants eat."

"I wonder why zebras have stripes."

"I wonder why does a raccoon have stripes."

"I wonder why an arctic fox is white."

The next day, the kindergarten teacher and I chatted about the Research Process that we follow at Kaposia: Plan, Gather, Organize, Share, and Evaluate. Question generation is a part of the Plan phase of the process.

As we reviewed all the questions together, we realized that no two questions were the same. We felt that if we sought to answer every specific question with the kids, students would learn lots of random facts, but wouldn't have the opportunity to construct conceptual understandings. 

To focus on the concepts behind the questions, we decided that it would be best to sort the questions with the students to make their thinking visible and to find the BIG IDEAS. As I left the planning meeting, the teacher was going to continue the activity later in the week, so I forwarded her some helpful sites from the San Diego Zoo where they could gather information as they continued the research process.

The next school day, I received this inspiring communication:

"I couldn't wait until Friday to try to see if the kids could put the questions into categories because they were wondering what we were going to do with the questions, so I did it with them today. It was so interesting.

I guided them in the process but they really picked up on it quickly. One said we should call the category for, "Why do snakes bite?" "action" because biting is an action. Then we came to why do skunks stink and one girl clarified that skunks don't stink; they spray and it stinks. The "action" kid made the connection that it is an action to tell you to stay away just like the biting, so we changed the name of the category to "actions that tell you to stay away." I couldn't believe someone put that together!

We had the question, "why are whale sharks so big?" and the kids were saying that we should put that into the body part category, but a kid said no, that is size not a body part. I was impressed he came up with the term, size!

The girl with the question, "can snakes get married?" clarified that she doesn't mean can they have a wedding, she means do they stay together like they are married (I understood that she really meant do they bond for life, or bonded pair) so I lead that into questioning animals that live in packs or alone. We called the category, "Animal families."

I was so surprised by how they did with it. We have been doing comparing and contrasting with language arts and I really saw them carry that over. Thank you so much for the tip to organize the questions that way.

So our categories are:

• Size
• Color (why do animals have stripes, etc)
• Parts of the body (why to giraffes have tails, etc)
• Actions that tell you to stay away
• Eating
• Animal families (can snakes get married?)
• Animal language (can snakes talk to each other?)"

Now that students will be able to focus on the big ideas related to their animal inquiries, they are ready to start gathering information. In order to research, the kindergartners will team up with their 5th grade reading buddies to investigate a particular animal's size, color, body parts (all adaptations), actions that tell you to stay away (defense), eating (diet), animal families (community), and animal language (communication).

As students gather new information, they will organize it in a way that they can easily share it with others. Finally, students and teachers will have to evaluate the process, reflecting on what went well and what should be changed in the future.

After reading about how a kindergarten teacher is leading her students through the research process, how can you or have you lead your own students through this easy-to-follow, five-step research process?

I Used to Think ... , Now I Think ...

Making students' thinking visible is important for both teaching and learning. When teachers are able to see what students are thinking about the concepts with which they are working, teachers are better able to understand how they might support their students growth in understanding. Furthermore, making students' thinking visible is advantageous for the students. When they are able to see how their own thinking is growing, shifting, and changing, they're able to better understand their thinking processes, which benefits them in future learning.

In their book, Making Thinking Visible (2011), Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison have included seven Visual Thinking Routines for synthesizing and organizing ideas. "I Used to Think ... , Now I think ..." is a routine that teachers can use to provide students an opportunity to reflect and think about their own thinking (metacognition). It is used "to help learners reflect on how their thinking has shifted and changed over time," (p. 51). Furthermore, it allows teachers to see how students are understanding particular concepts before and after a period of learning, which is important formative assessment data that teachers can utilize as they develop future learning engagements for their students.

Recently, I found myself in a kindergarten classroom with 34 learners. Their classroom teachers were leading the children through an inquiry into how weather influences living things all over the world. During the unit of inquiry, the students inquire into how weather can be observed, recorded, and predicted; how severe weather affects humans' lives; and how seasons can influence living things. As the students learn about these concepts, teachers plan learning opportunities during which their students can engage with the big ideas of change, responsibility, cycles, and pattern.

Understanding this was the direction the teachers were going during this unit of inquiry, I planned a lesson with the students around the concept of "cycles". By working with the seasons at the factual level, I wanted the students to understand that cycles are patterns in the shape of a circle that repeat over and over. Because kindergartners wouldn't be able to articulate that understanding verbally, I was looking to see if they could show me their understanding of cycles by drawing a flow map in the shape of a circle.

Because I not only wanted to check the students' understanding at the end of the lesson, but I wanted to know what they understood about seasons before the lesson began, I decided that the Visible Thinking Routine, "I Used to Think ..., Now I Think" would be a perfect way for the kindergarteners to demonstrate their understanding before and after the lesson.

I began with introducing how a flow map is a tool that allows us to show the order or sequence of something.  I gave students time to show their understanding of seasons using a flow map under the heading, "I used to think". Then, after learning that the seasons go in a cycle (using pictures of a biCYCLE, a motorCYCLE, and the reCYCLE symbol, along with singing the song, "ROUND and ROUND the Seasons Go) students had to show me their new understanding of how the seasons go in a cycle under the heading "Now". Below are some student work examples of how their thinking changed and shifted within the hour lesson.

Student A: This student shows how she understands the seasons run. Notice the linear flow-map, along with the incorrect order of the seasons (spring-fall-winter-summer).

Student A: After the lesson, not only does the student demonstrate her knowledge of the order of the seasons, but she understands the concept that the seasons run in a cycle, not linearly.

Student B: This kindergartner is obviously advanced in his literacy skills. However, he still demonstrates an incorrect understanding of how seasons work.

Student B: After the lesson, the student demonstrates the correct understanding of the cyclical nature of the seasons, along with adjective descriptors of each of the seasons.

Student C: This student demonstrates a correct understanding of the cycle concept before the lesson. Notice how he also labels his graphic organizer "flow map".

Student C: Because the student already demonstrated a correct understanding of how the seasons run in a cycle, he didn't feel the need to draw the cycle again. Instead, he challenged himself (completely independent from teacher direction) and demonstrated his understanding with words - "the sezins (seasons) go in a caieikl (cycle)".

Student D: This kindergartener demonstrates a lack of understanding of print. He was able to copy from the board words and phrases like "flow map", I used to think", "wntr" and "sprg" however they're not in any sort of order and it is hard to understand what his thinking is with regards to the concept of cycles.

Student D: Although this student wasn't able to adequately demonstrate understanding before the lesson, this "Now I Think" demonstration clearly shows he gained not only an understanding of the abstract concept of cycles, but he also is beginning to accurately use print to communicate meaning: W (winter); CC (spring); (su) summer; [backwards] F (fall). Complete with a jack-o-lantern!

Student E: It is unclear what the student understands about seasons or cycles in this "I used to think".

Student E: This student continues to demonstrate a lack of understanding of seasons, cycles, or this particular Visible Thinking Routine.

Although Student E was not able to demonstrate an understanding of the concepts taught, the majority of his classmates were. After this lesson on the concept of cycles, 29 of the 34 five- and six-year-olds (85%) were able demonstrate an understanding of the concept of "cycles". As the classroom teachers continue their study of cycles, seasons, and the bigger idea of "how weather all over the world influences living things", they will have to keep a close watch on those five students who were unable to demonstrate an understanding of cycles and carefully scaffold the learning engagements so that these students too, will be able to access the challenging, significant, engaging, and relevant curriculum going on in the kindergarten classrooms.

After reading about how kindergartners used the Visible Thinking Routine "I Used to Think ..., Now I Think ..." to demonstrate their understanding of concepts, how could you use "I Used to Think ..., Now I Think ..." in your instructional practice?