Friday, February 8, 2013

Here's a few more great lessons from HMS!

This one is from me:  I stopped by Ciara Imbert’s seventh grade science class a in January and saw a great lesson taking place. Her students were working in small groups on a fossil lab. During the lab, each group had a set of bones representing a complete fossil of an animal. Instead of seeing all of the bones at once, they were kept in an envelope and the groups could pull out just a few at a time. They started by pulling four bones out, piecing them together in a way that seemed to make the most sense to them, and made some predictions about what type of animal it would turn out to be using their observation and inference skills. After they had made their predictions, they would pull a few more bones out of the envelope and go through a similar process. It was really neat to see how the thinking of the students panned out. They were having great conversations about their predictions, why they were making them and what evidence they had to back up their thinking. Both Ciara and Mary Beth have been working all year on developing students’ observation and inference skills as part of their work on lifelong learner standards. As I was leaving the class, Ciara commented to me how much better the students seemed to be doing with this lab after having such a strong focus on those skills. It was great to see this engaging lesson in action and get some confirmation that the work we are doing with lifelong learner standards is paying off. Great job, Ciara!

Here's one from Mr. Crutchfield: As we returned from that wonderful winter break, I had something really fun to look forward to. Mr. Hobson’s debate class planned to have matches the week that they returned to school.

In preparing for this, Mr. Hobson worked with Teacher Coach Laura Shifflet and solicited the help from other staff in the building including me. His plan was to have students prepare thoroughly for the activity prior to leaving. As a way to have them prepared above and beyond before the break, he sent each debate team around the building to state their positions’, arguments’, and rebuttals’ to volunteer staff members.

By presenting their debate strategy 3 or 4 times, in front of 3 or 4 adults, student teams were able to refine their strategy and receive constructive feedback on the effectiveness of their arguments and rebuttals. This allowed them enough time to make small adjustments prior to break and quickly refine them once they returned.

Luckily the debate that I was able to observe, once we returned from break, involved one of the groups that I was able to screen. It was great, because I witnessed precise moments when they used the feedback that I provided them. One of the girls during the prep, was a bit silly and not showing seriousness in communicating the negative effects of keeping animals in zoos. She heard a brief rationale on why her mood affects the audience’s feelings on the topic. It was nice to see the young lady correct her behavior for the sake of the assignment. This was especially important in their team’s explanation and their persuasion of the existence of ZOOCHOSIS, a depressive condition that some animals develop in captivity.

Each debate team assessed their performance in front of their audience, using vocabulary associated with debating and then received peer feedback in the same manner. This was great in that even students who felt prepared, worked to continually improve their presentations. It also helped them understand, through a sense of audience, what is appealing and persuasive to large groups of people (Life Long Learning Standard 5: Seek, recognize and understand systems, patterns, themes and interactions).