Opening Faculty Meetings: The Simulations

Embracing Diversity in Learning and Teaching

SIMULATIONS
The purpose of the simulations was to get everyone actively engaged in experiencing what it is like to have a learning issue where something that is normally taken for granted does not function as expected. The simulations also helped get everyone in gear for the workshops that would follow. There were four simulations in total, and each one is listed and explained below.

Simulation 1
A short story is going to be read aloud to you and you will then be asked to respond to some questions about the story. The story will also be displayed on the screen.

Once upon a time, in a country called Clarita, there lived a gadious bemple named Chup. Chup lasied Mormie and together they goppered and morted throughout the dotter of Clarita. Clarita was a rablited fott. From every wesson and vaxter, Chup and Mormie could hetter numally. It was a duffours webbe!

• In what country did Chup live?
• Who lasied Mormie?
• What did they do together, and where did they do it?
• What was Clarita?
• What kind of webbe was it?
• What type of genre is this?

Okay, now for the second set of questions.

• Describe the image of a “gadious bemple.”
• What does the author suggest when she says “Clarita was a rablited fott?”
• What do the verbs “goppered” and “morted” suggest about the view of life shared by Chup and Mormie?
• Explain where the author might be leading us when she writes it was a “duffours webbe.”

This simulation reflects the problems of a student with poor vocabulary. They may be dyslexic, have attention issues, be bilingual or have language comprehension weaknesses. As teachers we can be fooled because we feel that they can answer some questions but just don’t seem to get it when we ask more higher level questions. We then make the assumption that they aren’t very bright and perhaps shouldn’t be in our school–when in reality, they need some intensive work in vocabulary development and support for their reading. These same students may be able to memorize vocabulary for tests but not hold on and inculcate it into their repertoires.

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Simulation 2
Please use your paper and pencil to do either A or B as described on the screen. It is your choice which you do, but you MUST use your NON-DOMINANT hand for writing.

(A) Write 3 sentences about your summer. As you write, make the following letter replacements:

every /a/ becomes /n/
every /t/ becomes /b/
every /i/ becomes /h/

(B) Or, solve this problem on paper, and reverse every number so that you are writing its mirror image:

382 x 546 = ?

The reason this is frustrating is that you are not getting the kinesthetic feedback to and from the brain in your non-dominant hand. The reversal of numbers or letter substitutions simulates the lack of automaticity that the writers with graphomotor issues have. It takes over a thousand motor movements to operate a pen or pencil and only two to use a keyboard. And with a keyboard there is no issue with remembering how letters and numbers are shaped.

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Simulation 3
We are going to put your working memory through the mill. Pay close attention to the next set of directions because you cannot write them down. You must rely on your working memory to carry out the instructions. We all have long term and short term memory, and we also have working memory.

Working memory is the memory we have for holding on to information while we are using it, such as holding a phone number in your mind while dialing it. Working memory plays a critical role in school, particularly in the areas of written expression and multi-step math problems. Now we are going to do a math activity.

Put your pencils down; this is mental math!

• Choose any 3 digit number whose ones and hundreds digits are different.
• Reverse the order of the numbers.
• Subtract the smaller number from the larger one.
• The result will always have 9 as the tens digit. The other two digits will always add up to 9.
• Now reverse the digits of the result.
• Now add that number to the one before it.
• The final number will always be 1089.

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Simulation 4
This last simulation also requires you pay close attention and listen carefully.

Visit the PBS site Misunderstood Minds and locate the link for Auditory Activity, then click try it just below Listening to Directions. Follow the directions on the window that opens.

The fact that the teacher’s voice became muted with the background noise is a very common situation for those with either auditory processing or auditory attention issues. They cannot distinguish the salient voice and focus in on it. These students usually tire easily as they struggle to hear all day long. They benefit from Fm systems and fortunately for us, carpeted, small classrooms.

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EXIT CARDS
At the conclusion of each workshop, participants were asked to respond to three prompts on an index card. All of the exit cards for all of the workshops, including the book and movie discussion, were collected and collated into a Google Doc where they were organized by workshop. There emerged several themes which will serve as the topics for our follow-up sessions during the Fall.

The Exit Card prompts:

• List an Ah-ha moment that you had.
• List one question that did not get answered.
• List one topic about which you would like to know more.

Opening Faculty Meetings

Embracing Diversity in Learning and Teaching

THE BRAINSTORM
In the last weeks of May, the MS Learning Specialist and I had a brainstorm. We had been part of an eleventh grader’s independent study project – me as the advisor and Candy as the content specialist –and had just received copies of the end result of the student’s project: a guide book for students (and also teachers) about how to make it through an independent school as a student with a learning difference. Our brainstorm was that every teacher in our school should read the book, and while we were at it, how about offering a series of workshops that would open faculty eyes to the diversity of teaching and learning. Within a day, using Google Docs, we had generated a proposal.

THE GENESIS
It has long been a dream of mine to organize professional development for faculty that provided opportunity to think about learning and teaching while also engaging in activities that were outside of the typical academic realm. Many years ago, an art teacher, upon hearing this description, provided the perfect slogan for my idea: Synapse Sensations. Keeping in mind that last year my school focused on a year long theme of diversity, including the diversity of how people learn, and you will understand why we first brought our proposal to the Director of Diversity, who encouraged us to present the proposal to the next level of adminstrators. And just what was our proposal? To have one day of opening faculty meetings be devoted to workshops covering a multitude of topics related to teaching and learning. We included an opening day movie to set the tone, and a closing Student Panel session to wrap up the activities.

With the Director of Diversity’s accompaniment, it was an easy next step to the Assistant Headmaster, who took it to the next level and returned with approval for our proposal. With just days to go before folks would disperse for the summer, we asked 25 faculty if they would be willing to co-facilitate various workshops. All 25 said yes, and there began a summer of small study groups based around each workshop.

THE PROGRAM – part one
On Wednesday afternoon, September 2, our full faculty and staff watched the documentary A Touch of Greatness. This movie covers a decade in the teaching career of Albert Cullum. Teaching in the 1950s and early 1960s at an elementary school just a few miles from our school, Cullum was a practitioner of experiential education. You can read more about him and the film on this PBS site. By the way, it turned out that one faculty member had known Cullum, and another had Cullum as her fifth grade teacher!

While we ad libbed a bit, what follows are our introductory comments along with the accompanying images we displayed.

——————

Welcome back from summer vacation!

Tomorrow morning we will explore the diversity of learning and teaching by participating in workshops and hearing from some students. If you haven’t already done so, please sign up for two workshops on the sheets in the PAC Lobby. And here’s a short-term memory test: tomorrow morning please bring with you to the PAC a sheet of paper and something to write with. Thanks!

The movie you are about to see is about one man who taught in our community during the 50s and 60s. We are often told that what we remember about our teachers tends to be not what they taught us, but how they treated us. However, that’s not the complete story. If a teacher was really great, you remember how they treated you and also recall how competent they made you feel in their class.

We are fortunate today to be teaching at a time when there has been an explosion of research into the science of how we learn. Neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists are producing a plethora of information and studies from which we can draw. Like any new information, we need to be responsible consumers, but this new information has much to offer in terms of making the teaching environment more productive, efficient and conducive to learning. In 1996, Linda Darling-Hammond was quoted in a Newsweek article making the statement that: Our school system was invented in the 1880s and little has changed. Can you imagine if the medical profession ran this way?

So much of what we are doing in this program is based on current understandings of how the brain learns.

Everything we are going to do this afternoon and tomorrow morning will tap into the three major Neural networks of your brain. David Rose, one of the architects of Universal Design for Learning at Harvard, describes these as the recognition, affective and strategic networks. [images come from Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning]

The recognition network uses attention and all five senses to take in new information, which is exactly what you are all doing now.

The affective network taps into your emotional brain, which facilitates the storage and recall of information. In fact, the structures in your mid-brain (the hippocampus, amygdala and thalamus) are storage centers for memory. All human emotions are processed in this area of the brain and effected by neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and norepeniphrine.

This limbic system is the chemistry and drama department of your brain. No learning can take place without the use and consent of the affective network because your brain is only interested in what is relevant to the survival and well-being of its own organism.

The last network is the strategic one. If the affective network has decided the information is relevant, the strategic network decides what to do with it.

Al Cullum, the teacher in the documentary you are about to see, was a master of knowing the benefits of tapping into the affective network to create a more rigorous, accessible and engaging curriculum. We are not endorsing this teacher or his style as the one way to teach, but rather as a model for thinking about different approaches to teaching. We find this movie inspiring; some of you may find it provocative. Either way, this documentary, we are sure, will tap your affective network.

Sessions #3 – Gesture & Structural drawings

This exercise was to create two sets of gesture drawings and one set of structural drawings. I had to arrange two different still lifes and for each set of still life objects craft  two gesture drawings, each drawing from a different view. After creating a total of four gesture drawings, I had to choose a view from each set and then make a structural drawing based on that view.

Conceptually I understand the idea of a gesture drawing – quick strokes designed to show the mass of an object. However, my “will” kept interfering with the concept, so that my gesture drawings did not wind up being crafted according to the rules of gestures. My drawings are “a bit too tight…Gesture drawings should be done very rapidly and typically with one continuous line.…build up the mass of the object by drawing not the outlines, but rather lines to build up the interior mass. There is a difference between sketch drawings (which are loose drawings) [and are what I appear to have made] and gesture drawings (which use line to represent mass).”

Structural drawings rely on lines to convey the basic shapes and forms of the object. The basic forms in drawing tend to be a cube, sphere and a cylinder. Structural drawings, using positive and negative space, are meant to show how these forms connect to create the shape of an object.

The overall goal for this exercise was to convey a “sense of form”, so my drawings work on this basic level, but there is definitely room for improvement!  I’m just sharing the ones for which I wound up crafting both gesture and structural drawings.

Summer Sharing and Paring

It’s vacation, June 21, and officially the first day of summer. It’s also been an extremely rainy June, providing me more time indoors than at the pool. Last year by this time I was swimming daily half miles in our neighborhood pool; this year the weather has allowed just 3 swims since the pool opened on Memorial Day. It’s been somewhat likewise with our kayaking.

Rather than get frustrated, I have used the time to majorly clean up and out my files, papers, desk and email. There is something immensely satisfying in seeing my load get lighter, in overfilling a garbage pail, in organizing my Google Docs into folders, in paring down my collection of books. I like the act of organizing; heck, I volunteer to organize professional development at school!

So I’m starting the summer by paring down, but also by sharing. Here are some goodies to ponder for the summer.

HOW DID I GET INTO THIS PLACE?
In my experience, most tenth graders do not decide they’d like to write a book and then not only follow through with their plan but self-publish and have the book sell over 100 copies within hours. However, this young person is not your typical tenth grader. In fact, she is now a high school senior as of her last day of school a few weeks ago!

Back when she was in tenth grade, Kristi decided she wanted to pursue an independent study project as an eleventh grader, the project being to write a book that would serve as a guide for students with learning differences to help them navigate the world of high school.

While Kristi’s book is written for students at the school she attends, and where I teach, it is applicable to any student who has a learning difference and struggles with the process of school.

I had the privilege of being Kristi’s advisor throughout the process, which she initiated as a tenth grader, several months before her independent study proposal had even been submitted. The result of her fastidious organization and preparation is an 80 page book that is eminently readable and packed with useful content for both students and teachers. How Did I Get Into This Place? is available for purchase, which is exactly what my school did for all 170 faculty, staff and administrators as summer reading.

THE DANA ALLIANCE FOR BRAIN INITIATIVES
The Dana Foundation is located in New York City, at 745 Fifth Avenue. The Foundation provides resources, both in print and online, including The Dana Guide to Brain Health, a wiki that “is a practical family reference from medical experts.” In addition, the Foundation sponsors events such as the Learning and the Brain conference, “reports news, supports scientists, and supports arts education.” A senior project manager at Dana was most helpful in providing 40 copies each of two publications (Staying Sharp: Memory Loss and Aging, and Your Brain at Work) for me to hand out at the April CAIS conference at which I presented.

THE YALE CENTER FOR DYSLEXIA & CREATIVITY
Who knew this center even existed! A colleague first introduced me to Yale’s center sometime in the spring when the center advertised A Special Conference for K-8 Independent Schools – Dyslexia & Creativity: New Research & Implications. The conference registration filled up quickly, and my colleague and I wound up on the waiting list. The Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity has a worthy mission “to uncover and illuminate the strengths of those with dyslexia, disseminate the latest innovations from scientific research and practical advice, and transform the treatment of children and adults with dyslexia.” I leave you with another part of the center’s mission:

Dyslexia is often spoken of as a hidden disability. What is not at all appreciated is that dyslexia can be also a hidden source of great abilities and frequently unrecognized powers.

p.s. Ah, the SUN is out and I am going to go for a swim!

6/22/09 UPDATE: I missed the swim – sun was only out briefly, but the “sun” was shining on the Yale Conference wait list, and it turns out my colleague and I will both be attending the conference!

AIMS Tech Retreat: Reflections

A few days after participating in the CAIS Academic Tech Retreat, my husband and I drove to St. Michael’s, Maryland, to be part of the AIMS Tech Retreat, AIMS being the Association of Independent Maryland Schools.

A year ago, April, I had the honor of being asked to present both the opening and closing keynotes for this annual retreat, as well as facilitate a session on a topic of my choice (I chose some Google Tools). The theme of the retreat was Amaze and Inspire: Collaborating with Colleagues.

At the time of being asked, I had never given a keynote, but the theme was one that intrigued me, as it captured my interests in both professional development and adult learning – two of the bigger tag clouds on Neurons Firing. With eagerness, and only a nodding thought to the preparation awaiting me, I said thank you for asking, and yes, I’d be happy to participate. 

The Retreat was energizing and exciting! One of the highlights was meeting face-to-face a number of people who I already knew from various online communities. The most curious aspect of this was the absence of the usual “getting to know you” polite conversation, as we quickly slid into the feeling of talking with old friends. I also enjoyed meeting so many teachers from the Maryland and D.C. area. The feeling of direct engagement (however fleeting) with a new community of colleagues (most appropriate given the theme of the Retreat!) was stimulating and satisfying. And, thanks to Twitter, staying in touch with a few of these folks is the final perk of participating in the Retreat.

A distinct air of southern hospitality permeated the Retreat, coupled with a less frenetic pace, and a rich set of session offerings. And while we didn’t stay awake for the entire movie, an entertainment highlight was the showing of The Matrix on a wide screen with a superb sound system, outdoors under the stars, where the Chesapeake Bay met the Harbourtowne Resort, and the outdoor popcorn machine tempted already full stomachs! (Thanks to whoever posted the pictures!)

 

Collaborating on Ideas

Both the CAIS and AIMS brainstorms were collaborative, each in a different manner, and with upwards of 5 to 8 people per brainstorm group. CAIS was individualized brainstorming in collaborative groups, while AIMS was collaborative brainstorming in collaborative groups.

With the CAIS brainstorm, within any group each individual wrote down their own ideas on index cards. In a given group, at the end of the timed session, all index cards with entries were pooled and used to build a tower. In a sense, each person initially brainstormed with themselves, but everyone engaged in the same process, and the tower building was a collaborative effort.

With the AIMS brainstorm, everyone in each group shared ideas, while one person from each group scribed the responses onto the Ning. The Ning is the Independent School Educator’s Ning, and the AIMS Tech Retreat has its own group on the Ning. 

The AIMS brainstorm topic was a tad different from the CAIS topic. Here was the discussion opener on the Ning:

Here’s the place to brainstorm how you can “awaken possibility” for collaboration with and among your colleagues.

Think: activities, venues, conditions in which you’ve participated or would like to participate.

And remember that a good brainstorm includes ALL ideas, no matter how silly or ridiculous they may sound to you!

Awaken possibility comes directly from Ben Zander’s DAVOS talk, which is embedded below. If you listen to the opening 1 minute and 39 seconds, you will hear him describe what it means to awaken possibility. For me, those words provide a reenergizing and delightfully positive way to frame teaching and coaching adults. 

I have taken the replies to the AIMS Ning Discussion and posted them on a Google Doc. There are a number of similarities with the CAIS Brainstorm, and between the two there are ideas galore for how to awaken possibilities for adult learning and collaboration!

Please do jump in and collaborate with all of us by sharing your ideas and suggestions!

 

Ideas

Intangible. Can’t touch them, but you can try to wrap your head around them. For me, I need a reason to ponder an idea. It doesn’t have to be a practical reason, but it has to be a reason that gets my head in gear and focuses it on thinking.

At the recent CAIS and AIMS Tech Retreats, we did a lot of pondering of ideas, in particular, ideas about optimal conditions for getting adults to learn. The focus of my CAIS session was how adults learn, and at AIMS it was professional development and collaborating with colleagues, but the topics certainly overlap. In both instances, an overflow of ideas emerged from group brainstorms.

At CAIS we used index cards to collect ideas, one item per card. You can read more about this activity and see pictures here, or get a summary of the ideas and see the related wordle here. 

Anytime you ask teachers to generate ideas about how adults learn, you are bound to get a combination of thoughts based upon themselves as both learners and teachers. The result is a well-rounded list of suggestions, which I entered into a Google Doc. There are any number of ways that this list could have been organized, and if I have the opportunity to try this exercise again, sticky notes may be substituted for index cards so that people can play around in real-time with categorizing the feedback.

The almost thirty participants touched upon the major components necessary for adult learning:

• having a reason to learn
• feeling in control of the process
• being in a safe environment
• tapping prior knowledge 
• appealing to emotions
• providing an experiential component
• setting aside time for reflection

as well as accommodating varied learning styles.

After looking over their ideas, what, if anything, would you add to their brainstorm list? 

 

Summer Segue

I can gauge how relaxing summer has been by the length of time it takes me to get back in gear for doing tech support at school. Providing tech support is a minor responsibility for me that mostly gets called in to play at the start of each new school year. My school has an outstanding tech department, but at the beginning of the school year everyone in the computer department pitches in to ease the work flow.

The more relaxed I feel, the longer it takes me to fish out the tips, tricks and tech trouble shooting skills that got tucked away the previous June. Case in point from yesterday was the first three Smart Board issues that came my way. Thanks to Ben Zander’s words

You made a mistake. How fascinating!

I can look back at each misdiagnosis and smile that next time, I’m more likely to remember the solutions due to his words. Just in case, though, here’s a reminder to self:

• Check the resolution on the computer when the board does not register being touched in partial areas once it has been oriented.
• Check that version 9.7 of the notebook software (we are using 9.7, with plans to upgrade to 10 in January) is installed on any computer attached to a board where the orientation is off by a few inches.
• Check that the ceiling projector is set for the computer on any board that turns on but is not displaying the computer’s desktop.

Happily, our neighborhood pool is open through September 15th, and I can swim through the summer segue. And then the decision will be whether to join an indoor pool or not. Here’s a picture of the entrance to our neighborhood pool, taken one winter’s day when the schools were surely closed!

Wordle

Wordle

To begin with, it’s a funny sounding word which could mean anything.

It sounds like something that should be fun.

What it actually is, is an online “word cloud” generator.

You give Wordle the text, either copied and pasted or as a direct link to a blog post. Wordle then turns the text into a cloud, and you can alter the color, font, and overall design of the cloud. The word size is dependent upon how many times a given word is mentioned in the text.

The resulting cloud can be shared on the web, printed, or saved to pdf. You can print the cloud on a tee shirt or a business card; use it in anyway you like. The cloud can be used to analyze text in a number of ways. Try it with poetry, with a blog post, with a news article (and then ask people to figure out what the article is about based upon the cloud). (That idea comes from Box of Tricks.)

If you click the cloud image above, it will take you to the full size Wordle cloud. It’s a Wordle of my previous post.

I know, computer applications are not my usual topic, but this application resonated in a big way, so enjoy the diversion, though I’d argue it’s actually quite a brain compatible app.

 

Adult Learning – what does it take?

What does it mean to be an Adult Learner or engage in Life Long Learning? Or perhaps that should be restated as: What does it take to be an Adult Learner or engage in Life Long Learning?

What characteristics separate those of us who seek out new experiences from those of us who prefer to keep things as they are?

Brainstorming with myself and rattling off in stream-of-consciousness style, here are some approaches in which an Adult Learner must be willing to engage:

• risk-taking
• mistake-making
• looking silly
• asking questions
• being a beginner
• venturing into unfamiliar territory
• decision-making

in the moment is a site dedicated to using improvisation to teach adult learners, and to helping caregivers understand, communicate with, and care for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Karen Stobbe has combined her passions to provide a very helpful, soothing release to a difficult practice. Many of the activities can be used as ice breakers or to limber the body and mind before engaging in something new. To that end, Karen mentions the following about Adult Learners…

• want to know why
• vary greatly in learning and education and experience
• want feedback on how they are doing
• may have to unlearn first
• on their terms and in their language
• would rather problem solve than gather information
• need to be involved in their learning experience
• need to be ready to learn
• learn by doing and practicing new skills

Okay, if you managed to read to this point, please click on the “Leave A Comment” button below and add your thoughts on what Adult Learners should be willing to do or what they want. Consider this an informal polling of Adult Learners. Thanks!