tweenteacher.com » critical thinking

Movie Trailer Review: Where the Wild Things Are

heather — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 03:42:18 +0000

Yes, it’s true. I’m reviewing a movie review. But when you watch it, you’ll understand why.

Spike Jonze of “Being John Malkovich” fame (amongst other image-rich movies and videos) is directing a movie version of the Maurice Sendak classic, Where the Wild Things Are.

(...)
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Post tags: blog, book review, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development

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Teaching Secrets: Finding a Job That You Love

heather — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:33:00 +0000

Know a teacher who got a pink slip? Maybe my newest post at Teacher Magazine can help. Click here for the article.

It’s Step 1 of my Top Secret New Teacher Handbook. Hope it creates some shortcuts, a machete even, through the education jungle.

-Tweenteacher

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Starting from scratch in teacher training

heather — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:49:36 +0000

I recently heard Judy Willis (of “syn-naps” fame) speak at a conference. In her pre-teaching life, she was a neurologist and she brings her knowledge to the classroom and to her lectures. (See my recently published article in Teacher Magazine, “My Brilliant Second-Career”). Willis mentioned that she had just gotten back from Dubai where her charge was to teach new teaching program students about brain development and how it relates to education.

Questions she tackled with these candidates were:

How do children and adolescents learn?

What actually happens in the brain in order to hear and retain information?

What are proven strategies that help information to become embedded into long-term memory?

(...)
Read the rest of Starting from scratch in teacher training (169 words)

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Is EdTech changing how students think or is it addressing the changes in student thinking?

heather — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:13:02 +0000

Science Daily is reporting that there has been a shift in how students are thinking as a result of their use of technology. They believe it possibly lowers critical thinking skills and analysis. Additionally, they wonder just how much schools should be catering to this change.

The important thing to remember is that when we talk about differentiation, we have to include all forms of teaching, from traditional pencil and paper to the use of technology. But if we were to ignore the evolution that is occurring, that of the transition our brains our making as a result of society’s onslaught of daily technology, we would not be doing our job.

(...)
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My New Interactive Whiteboard…an update

heather — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:17:02 +0000

OK, you know when you get a new puppy and you love it and you couldn’t live without it and then you find out it has hip dysplasia?

That’s a little of what my relationship is like with my new Interactive Whiteboard.

I wouldn’t give it up for the world. I have come to depend on the tools it provides me. I love it.

But I am consistently re-calibrating, re-starting, re-booting, and it so far won’t read the kids remotes. I have come to intimately know the board representative. We have each other’s cell phone numbers and my husband is starting to raise an eyebrow. I have also had tremendous support from our Director of Technology and the few other district pilot teachers.

But the bottom line is that the board has become a daily joy even while I have daily frustrations. And like that puppy that you automatically fall in love with because of the joy it brings you the minute it comes into your room, I am going to do everything I can to make it work.

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Marketing Metacognition

heather — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:42:02 +0000

So I just got the January MindWare catalogue and I realize that here we have a toy catalogue that is solely for metacognitive purchases. So this got me thinking: how can schools market metacognition? I realized, of course, that until our standardized tests become a more critical-thinking assessment, however, is there a point in doing so?(...)
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Asking for Student Opinions Isn’t Risky, It’s Rewarding

heather — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:47:49 +0000

I was reading this great article from Slate Magazine about the cheese that is Billy Joel. And I thought back to many a car trip singing his “Themes from an Italian Restaurant.” I also remembered just how many times I’d fast-forwarded through some of his more heavy-handed, political-themed songs set to rapid rhyme scheme.

I’ll even one-up Slate’s insolent trashing of the Piano Man. I’ll go so far as to say I’m not an Elton John fan.

Don’t freak. I’m allowed. Remember, this is my website.

But this got me thinking about opinions, criticism, persuasion, and choice, and their place in the classroom.

In a collaborative classroom, students are not only given choice, they are given the ability to disagree with grace, with each other, and even with (dare I say) the teacher.

I’m still getting crazy responses to my Breaking Dawn Book review. I can’t tell you how many comments I’ve deleted with X-rated words or threats. It’s not that I’m looking over my shoulder, but if the majority of these comments are from tweens, there’s clearly a lesson not being taught to these kids. How does one disagree appropriately? Yes, I slammed the book. But the theme of the post is to Discuss over Censor. They just couldn’t see it through our disagreement.

Students should be allowed to choose in a classroom. It’s a true form of differentiation. Choice could be given on reading texts, assessments, projects, partnerships, etc…But with choice, also comes opinion, hand-in-hand. And with opinion comes disagreement.

This shouldn’t be scary; it should be embraced. Choice is empowering for a student. But a teacher must teach how to disagree appropriately, how to criticize appropriately, and how to move on from there.

It is a new form of pre-teaching. There are skills involved in teaching Reaching a Consensus. There are skills involved in Criticism Etiquette. These are worthwhile – arguably more so than the skills involved in How to Bubble Accurately.

These are lessons that would not only be reflected in blog comments, but in how our students, as adults, would make choices, form opinions, and have disagreements in the world.

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Post tags: collaboration, commentary, critical thinking, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, How To, k-12, k12, life long learners, metacognition, technology, Title I, TLN, websites, Writers Project, writing

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Metacognitive Poetry: Writing About Thinking While Writing Lesson

heather — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 06:34:14 +0000

Here’s a great metacognitive lesson that integrates poetry. Or is it a poetry lesson that is metacognitive? (Shrug) I believe that good writing and great structure can be taught through mimicking great authors. Using this philosophy as my guide, my 8th graders mimicked the poetic style of Jay Leeming in “Man Writes Poem,” a piece first introduced to me at the UCI Writing Project this summer.(...)
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Recalling your own Metacognition

heather — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:27:06 +0000

I’ve been working on metacognitive lessons with my middle schoolers in an attempt to teach reflection and the act of thinking about thinking. Anyway, one of the most important elements in teaching about thinking is in your own remembering of certain “Eureka!” moments.(...)
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“Hit a Jew” Day. Um, er…

heather — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:41:05 +0000

I’m not sure what one can say about this latest story. AP reports that a number of students at a St Louis middle school are facing suspension for a spirit day gone awry. But how “Hug a Friend Day” de-evolved into “Hit a Jew Day” is beyond me. (...)
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The Excitement Graph: Plot and Word Choice

heather — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:04:08 +0000

Every year, I do this activity when teaching Narrative Plot. I’ve used it from 3rd grade to 12th grade. I learned a version of it first in 1993 at a UCLA Extension class on “Teaching Reading to Secondary Students” and I’ve adapted it from there. It’s called:

THE EXCITEMENT GRAPH(...)
Read the rest of The Excitement Graph: Plot and Word Choice (443 words)

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Oh, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a’comin…

heather — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:12:38 +0000

So, in a move reminiscent of a 12-year old girl caught up in the riot mentality of rumors, I believed the whisper I heard about not getting my Whiteboard for 2 months. But I tell you now: it was false, dear readers! Yes, not only have I heard that the boards have shipped, but the company even came after hours this week and brought me a borrowed board to use in the meantime. Props for service and courtesy.

So I write to you today as a contrite tweenteacher. Lesson learned. Don’t listen to the gossip in the teacher’s lounge.

So, in an attempt to bring this post around to some actual advice for all you educators out there, I want to reiterate that point: do not waste one minute of your time this year in a toxic teacher environment. This is different than a Toxic Teaching Environment which can be defined as anything that gets in the way of you doing your job: under-funding, lack of school wide discipline, fractured classrooms, etc…

No, I’m talking about a specific breed of pollution that is meant to choke the enthusiasm out of you: the Toxic Teacher Environment. (...)
Read the rest of Oh, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a’comin… (419 words)

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Hurry up & Wait – My New Interactive Whiteboard: Part II

heather — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 21:30:20 +0000

So, I had my online training. I met the Whiteboard sales guy in my classroom to discuss where the board is to be mounted. I talked with my principal to develop an interactive whiteboard presentation during our first staff development in an attempt to drum up excitement amongst the somewhat less-than-tech-enthused staff. I spent time over my summer developing my own curriculum for the first quarter: pulling out my books, pacing my units, and choosing those individual static lessons that I will expand into Interactive board lessons.

It wasn’t long, however, that I began to suspect I had wasted my time. The odor of bullshit was in the air…

(...)
Read the rest of Hurry up & Wait – My New Interactive Whiteboard: Part II (737 words)

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My new Interactive Whiteboard: Part I

heather — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 03:55:36 +0000

Is the tale of the recent surge of Interactive Whiteboards a grade-B horror flick or a Cinderella story? Are they the villain or the belle of the ball? They’ve begun creeping into trendsetting classrooms, taking over precious wall space and sending those unfortunate overhead projectors of said classrooms to basement warehouses to gather dust alongside carousel slide projectors and the purpled-mimeograph machines of yesteryear. Are they an inevitable given in tomorrow’s classroom or an expensive fad?

These questions and many more are explored in today’s The Opening Bell.(...)
Read the rest of My new Interactive Whiteboard: Part I (807 words)

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Sheridan Blau at the UCIWP

heather — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:22:35 +0000

OK, normally, I would reflect on one of the presenters at the UCIWP with my own spin-off thoughts and musings. Not so today. Here are some Golden Lines from today’s presentation with Sheridan Blau, award-winning educator, past president of NCTE, professor at Teachers College in New York and author of The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and their Readers. Whether you are hit in the head with only one concept or feel slapped around by the awesomeness that is all of them, feel free to pass them on. I certainly can’t say it better then he can.

…On the Importance of Questioning

“Honor confusion.”

“Confusion represents an advanced stage of understanding.”

“Teachers shouldn’t avoid confusion, but produce it.”

“Quality of reading is evident in the questions.”

“Questions are the key to drive learning.”

…On the Reading Process

“There is a messiness in reading…You revise your reading as you read.”

“Reading is a process of text constructions, just like writing.”

“Reading is a social activity that needs to happen in conversation.”

…On Difficulty in Reading

“The world is a difficult text and all of the strategies we bring to literary texts can be applied to the lives and the world in which they [students] live.”

“We often need to be completely lost before we can find our way.”

“Art defamiliarizes [makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar] so that we pay attention…it needs to be difficult to make us stop and pay attention.”

“It’s the lines in the poem that make the least sense that give us the greatest understanding.”

Hope you got something out of it. Enjoy.

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Kelly Gallagher’s Golden Line

heather — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 03:42:03 +0000

Kelly Gallagher, educator and author of Teaching Adolescent Writers, came and spoke to the UCI Writing Project on Friday and his focus of the presentation was a Golden Line: The Goal in Education is “Everybody Improves.”

Duh, you say, isn’t improvement always the goal of education? Actually, no. When you consider AYP scores, for instance, the goal is to hit a benchmark, not the level of improvement you made to hit it. (...)
Read the rest of Kelly Gallagher’s Golden Line (723 words)

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Joanne Jacobs comment:”Stop facilitating and start teaching”

heather — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 04:16:35 +0000

I commented on Joanne Jacobs article, “Stop Facilitating and Start Teaching,” based on Fred Strine’s article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Strine indicates that more student-centered teaching is somehow less taught and, consequently, less learned. Jacobs paraphrases that the “’sage on the stage’ is more effective than the ‘guide on the side,’” that students of today lack the discipline that they had in his day, as if handing over the ownership to the class is handing over the reins entirely. (...)
Read the rest of Joanne Jacobs comment:”Stop facilitating and start teaching” (573 words)

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Collaboration…Blocked by a Firewall Near You

heather — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:02:15 +0000

You know, sometimes I wonder if I’m not a huge pain in the ass to present for, especially if I love what’s going on. I’m one of those audience members who has to verbally digest and implement what I am learning as it’s happening. I have to barble and pop as my Eureka moments are going on, and while it’s amazingly exciting for me, it must be hugely annoying to my presenter. I was in rare form this morning at the UCI Writers Project, for Doug Fisher, co-author of such works as Language Learners in the English Classroom, was in the house.(...)
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The Carnival #178 is in town!

heather — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:49:35 +0000

An (aspiring) Educator is hosting this week’s Carnival of Education #178. I’ve tweaked my How to Take Control of Your Teaching list and although it’s still in an evolving state, you can read it here. Enjoy the Carnival and the post.

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Too Metacognitive to Think Properly

heather — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:11:52 +0000

So I saved an educator’s life today while talking to her after lunch. We were walking back from Panera to the afternoon session of the UCI Writer’s Project and we were engrossed in a discussion about using metacognitive strategies in the classroom to teach how to think. My partner in theoretical crime then stepped off the curb with no other thought in her head other than thought, and I pulled her back from the brink of death from the blow of a charging black SUV.

So my question today is this: is there such a thing as too much thought awareness?

Today we covered everything from Think Alouds as a way to model metacognitive awareness, to activities that encourage and develop the metacognitive muscle. But in our attempt at looking in, is it possible to loose sight of the big picture, the big idea, and the outside realm?

Clearly we did.

(For a related post, see “An Honors Student Does Not a Critical-Thinker Necessarily Make“)

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