Mr G Online

This is a repost of a blogpost from last Easter. With a lot of new readers since it was originally published, I thought it was timely to post it again. While I know most of you don’t visit Mr G Online for religious inspiration, at this time of the year, it’s a message on my mind.

Permit me on this day to digress from intellectual discussion about Education and Technology and let me indulge in my silent passion – being a Catholic at Easter Time.

THIS APOSTLE’S CREED

I believe in God – I don’t have physical proof and can’t explain why, that’s faith. I also believe in Science but can’t find anyone that can fully explain where that big ball of gas came from that exploded as the Big Bang that started everything. I believe that if you look closely at the Creation Story and many other cultures’ Creation stories, a bunch of superstitious fantasy creators do a pretty good impersonation of Evolution Scientists in describing the order of how things were created. I believe I can ignore the absurdity of the 6 day time frame and no mention of dinosaurs ( the Israelites were not archaeologists!) and still believe in a God created world.

I believe in Love – I call it God. You can call it love. It makes no difference.

I believe Love is about sacrificing your wants for the wants of others. I call that Jesus Christ.

Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe history tells us he lived and was crucified. The Bible tells us he was resurrected. We can argue over the Bible as a history book. I don’t believe everything in it. But then you can say that about a lot of history books.

I believe in the message of Jesus Christ. That’s all that matters to me. I believe his message has been confused with the creation of an institution that tries hard to follow his ways but can fail miserably at times. I believe that paedophilic priests are abhorrent, the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition are blights on our world’s history and quibbling over who gets married to whom is a waste of the real purpose of being Christian. But that God that I mentioned earlier didn’t create perfect people. We fail. We sin. We make mistakes. Whatever you want to call it. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Left Wing comedians and Right Wing commentators, Atheists and Agnostics, scientists- we all get it wrong sometimes.

Despite all these problems that doubters love to trot out, I believe in the message of a young man from Nazareth. He hung out with the outcast and damaged goods of his community and did what was best for them. But he also challenged them to be better people. He challenged authority by pointing out their hypocrisies. He would be appalled by political correctness today.

I believe He accepted the wisdom of the 10 Commandments but challenged us to go further. Thou Shalt Not was replaced with Thou Shalt. Staying out of trouble and being perfect Pharisee style was replaced with positive action to improve the lives of others. Love your neighbour as yourself. Love one another as I have loved you. Son of God or not, you gotta love the sentiment. Irrational believer or Rational Atheist, you can’t knock loving people can you? Yeah, its hard. Loving Christian Crusaders or Irish Catholic Bombers from the IRA or Muslim Extremists is not easy. But if we give up on love, we give up on life.

I believe Jesus’ message is Love the Person, not the Action. When he healed people, he forgave the person but challenged them not to sin again. We lose that message sometimes when we get the goody twoshoes version of Jesus. He challenged. He criticised. He got angry. But he never stopped loving. We could with a bit of that today. From all sides of the arguments.

I believe in Church, but have issues with THE Church. Church is community and I love my community. I have to believe in a community that includes a wonderful group of teenagers and young adults that aren’t roaming the streets looking for trouble on a Public Holiday but instead are inspiring emotional and spiritual responses from the older community in their portrayal of the Stations of the Cross. A group of kids who instead of getting drunk and abusive on weekends are enjoying themselves with a bit of God Talk mixed into the games. They’re not lame, boring kids. They’re fantastic.

I believe in a community that is full of people who serve others. We enter the homes of strangers and offer them support because they need it. We get back more than we give and it costs us nothing. I believe in a community that can inspire an atheist Chinese couple to spend a year learning with us about this Jesus guy an then be baptised at the Easter Vigil mass last night, accompanied by their friends from China who were swept away by the mood. I also believe our community inspired another adult last night to come back to Church after being away for so long.I believe in the joy our community showed last night and continues to show each week, despite the media telling us Christianity is dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, not the often mocked image of tongues of fire and doves floating above people’s heads. I beleive in the Spirit that gave us Mother Teresa, Gandhi ( yeah, he was no Christian but the spirit was there), Martin Luther King, Jim Stynes ( look him up, non Australians), Max Kolbe, the guy that stood in front of the tanks in Tienamen Square, the freedom fighters in Africa, Bob Geldof and all the other lovers in the world. The Spirit isn’t a Catholic, Jesus wasn’t a Catholic. The Spirit is love. Jesus is Love. God is Love.

If you can’t believe in the Catholic Church or the Anglicans or the Evangelicals, at least believe in Love. As I head off this morning for my sixth Catholic celebration in seven days, guitar in hand and voice ready for another burst of cheesy hymns, I ask you to at least do that. Believe in Love. If you can do that, then today, Easter Sunday, for a brief moment, maybe you can believe in Jesus. It can’t hurt.

My school has done a lot of work in developing questioning skills to support teaching and learning. The idea of “fat” and “skinny”/open and closed questions has been emphasised in student research projects and discussion building. “Enabling” and “extending” prompts is our current focus in Mathematics differentiation in particular to cater for the needs of the wide spectrum of skill levels.

One aspect we haven’t covered enough as a school that I have always seen as an area for improvement is how teachers elicit responses from the students themselves during lessons. This is something I always emphasize in my role as a mentor for graduate teachers. One of the easiest traps to fall into as a teacher is assuming your lesson has been effective because there was ‘lots of discussion’ and ‘student participation’. The students “seemed to understand because all of my questions were answered.” However, through closer scrutiny, this usually translates into ” the top 10 smart kids/teacher pleasers answered all the questions while the rest added to their doodle collection or planned their lunchtime activities while staring at the oval out the window.”

Targeted questioning addresses this issue in different ways. I model to my graduate teachers the art of catching students, especially the reluctant participants, understanding something during the lesson. I then ask a question directly to those students, knowing they can answer the question. This builds their self esteem because they are prepared for the answer and encourages further participation.

In preparing lessons for Literacy using the “Reading to Learn” program/strategy, one of the key factors for success is creating differentiated questions that involve all students in the discussion and comprehension of the text being explored. For the less able readers, prompts are prepared to direct them to specific sections of the text while extension questions encourage the higher achievers to share their knowledge to support the comprehension of others. This kind of targeted questioning enables full class participation. The fact that students know that a question will be directed personally at them rather than the ‘get out’ clause of ‘hands up who wants to answer’ places expectations on them to follow the text and think about a response at all times.

And then there is this YouTube video I’ve just come across thanks to my good buddy Zite. This takes targeted questioning to another level. Created by Jim Smith, a teacher for Derbyshire, England, it explains a process for planning a structured approach to asking your students questions. Without going into too much detail ( Jim’s gone to the effort of making the video to explain it, after all!), it involves knowing your students’ capabilities and preparing questions geared for different levels of understanding on the topic you are teaching. Then it comes down to knowing which students to direct the questions at.

It’s a form of differentiation we as a school are becoming more familiar with but the process Jim goes through is, for me anyway, quite effective and should be of great benefit in any classroom. Initially, it would take quite a bit of preparation, but if we aren’t going to use questions effectively to target student needs, preparation is necessary. This looks to be a good process to follow. Here’s the video. Feel free to share your opinion.

The World as 100 People infographic by JackHagley.

I want to share this infographic today. Its an effective representation of a lot of data on a familiar topic. Many have seen this information presented before. This website gives the statistics in a simple list. It also provides links to earlier reports and origins.

This site provides a series of posters that present the same information and extra data in a graphical way.

And there’s always a YouTube video out there covering the same topic. This one is based on older data

Data like this can generate a lot of opportunities for Maths lessons.

• Investigation and Generation of different graphs to represent the data in different ways
• Conversion of data into raw numbers – what is 33% of 7 billion?
• Compare the data from different eras – what has increased/decreased? By how much? What is the % increase/decrease?
• How many more/less between different groupings within categories?

We need to work with data more and more. It surrounds us in today’s media. Getting children to understand it should be a major part of our Maths curriculum. Infographics like this one are a good start.

Found this on Zite today courtesy of Eye on Education. Sometimes we need a bit of a reminder during planning to keep our lessons refreshing and engaging. While there is nothing groundbreaking in the ideas behind this infographic, it’s a useful little tool to have handy next time you fall into the trap of preparing dry, lifeless lessons.

And while I’m just about over educational acronyms, I quite like this one – S.P.A.R.K.L.E.
Sharing Powerful Activities Really Keeps Learners Engaged.

Algebra gets a ‘bum rap’. Then again, it has a lousy public relations manager. Whoever came up with the whole ‘letters and symbols’ campaign should be sacked. Yes, opening up to Exercise 7D and solving 50 variations of 2x + y = -7 is n0t anyone’s idea of fun. But as I said, Algebra needs a new PR campaign.

DISCLAIMER: I’m just a Primary/Elementary teacher without any official qualifications in High Level Mathematics – No Masters, no Ph.D, just an A+ Average in High School/College Maths and 25+ years teaching kids to enjoy,not stress about, Maths. I may be completely off base with the great mathematical minds out there in what I’m about to describe regarding Algebra but I make no apologies. my students get it this way – including the Year 7-11 students I’ve tutored at home to relieve the confusion caused at their schools. (WARNING: Bear with me, I’ll take a while to get to the point of this post’s title – skip ahead if you want to ignore my Algebra rant!)

Now we have that out of the way, back to my message for today. I have a certain belief about Algebra. I define it as a systematic way of organising, recording and explaining your mathematical thinking using numbers and symbols/letters instead of words and pictures. Where we seem to get lost is that we go straight to the symbol without developing the thinking through the words and pictures/objects. We provide no context or purpose; just a meaningless string of equations with Xs and Ys that need to be solved. I see Algebra as problem solving support, not equation solving.

Last week, I was called in to take a Grade 6 class to release a teacher for planning ( the usual release teachers were unavailable). Maths was on the agenda for the day and I had worked with some of the other Grade 6 students on a similar lesson earlier in the week as a support for some of the high achievers. This time, though, I was on my own and in control so I applied my full tech+Maths kit to the group of students I had for that session.

The lesson/task that preceded this actually had fractions as its focus. One of the teachers had introduced a task involving a a building pattern for shading in grids to make fractions.

The lesson was differentiated to allow for a range of responses. Some needed to build the patterns with counters to discover anything. And then there was “Sheldon” ( not the boy’s real name) whom I walked in on to find him showing his mate the formula for the relationship between square and triangular numbers! When I confronted “Sheldon” to explain his formula and why it worked, he didn’t know how. So began my challenge and the rationale behind the lesson I’m about to recount. In the end, Sheldon actually discovered the key to this lesson I led in the class I took later in the week.

SO…this fraction lesson turned into a pattern and algebra exploration. All the children were able to discover the growing patterns in both number sequences and could describe the change. Square number differences increased by +2, the triangular number differences increased by +1. But that additive thinking was as far as they got. They needed more support to think multiplicatively, to think ‘Algebra’.

Enter (finally we get to the title of this blogpost!) the iPad and AirServer. Yes, I could have done all of this without the technology. I had done so earlier in the week with my small group of advanced students. But the engagement and ease of use was no comparison between the ‘sheets of paper and coloured marker’ group and the iPad and AirServer. If you are unaware of AirServer, I explained its significance in a recent post. Basically it projects multiple iPad screens onto a computer connected to a projector/iWB.

We started with creating the fraction grids using the iPad App Hands On Maths Color  Tiles ( I reviewed this and others in the Hands On Maths collection last year ). Again, we could have hand drawn grids or made them with counters but I had the students more engaged by getting them to make 1 grid each using Color Tiles and getting multiple students to project their grid onto the whiteboard using AirServer. This took 1 minute instead of 10 and allowed us to move straight into discussion with all the visuals needed on the screen – created by students, not me.

We then discussed the three properties visible in these tiles – side length, square size and the shaded (red here) area ( they hadn’t recognised them as triangles yet). I introduced the problem solving strategy of ‘Make a table’ – a strategy that should be embedded in their thinking by now, but it wasn’t. I created the table on my iPad and projected it on the screen. The students then created their own tables, using Numbers, on their iPads and filled in the side lengths, square sizes and shaded areas. Once they had the numbers in tables, they could start looking for relationships in numbers across the properties, rather than just look at the isolated number sequences. It was at this point that some students were able to recgognise that the shaded area numbers increased by adding on the next side length.

From that discovery, some children then saw that by adding the side length e.g. 4 to the square number 16 ( by this time we had recognised these as square numbers, not just square size), 20 the shaded area was half the size – 10. Here we talked about the importance of proving our theory by testing with other numbers. EVERY child in the class then tested this out with the other numbers, using Explain Everything as a whiteboard to quickly write out equations and project them on the screen to show their proof. Again, this could have been done on paper but by spotlighting everyone through the AirServer iPad mirroring it engaged those children who more often than not pretend to do the work and then let the teacher pleasers to put their hands up and call out the answers. This process really had everyone involved at all times. Some of the less than stellar mathematicians were excited about this discovery. But we were not finished.

I wanted them to see what type of numbers they were creating with the shaded areas – most still didn’t realise. This time I went back to old school methods -

counters. AirServer and my iPad still played a role. I asked the group to use the counters to create the sequence of numbers in the shaded area column in rows. As they began, some weren’t sure what to do. Instead of telling them what to do, I used my iPad’s camera to spotlight pairs who were building triangles onto the screen, thus giving support to others who needed a hint. Every group then wanted their triangles on the screen as well! This idea of spotlighting using iPad and AirServer can work in many ways to maintain engagement – kids like to be on show and recognised .

Once this was done, the students realised they were creating square and triangular numbers and that there was a relationship between them. Children started to recall the rule we had discovered – square the side plus the side then half it gave us the triangular number. But I posed one final challenge – why does this work and how can we show it with our tiles to explain the relationship? Back to Color Tiles we went. We recreated our two coloured square tile pattern. Then we added an extra column/side length. Bingo! The students recognised that this created two equal halfs, a red and yellow half- two triangular numbers!

4×4 Square with extra column of 4 results in two equal shaded areas- triangular numbers!

The final step in the process now was to put all of these theories into one explanation and come up with a formula – finally Algebra was coming into play. The important thing here is that they were thinking algebraically all along – I just didn’t tell them because Algebra is such a dirty word. Now they were quite excited that they were doing algebra.

I asked them to take screenshots of the tiles and the table and import them into Explain Everything. Then we looked at the table again. I explained that the only difference between what we had been doing and algebra was that we needed to replace our words and ideas with letters and symbols. What was the starting point? The side lengths. What will we call them – we decided on s ( could have been x,y, l etc). What is the square number? s x s or s^2. What did we do next? +s. Finally we halved the total ÷2 . With all these symbolic represenations students were able to create a formula for finding a triangular number: (s^2 +s)/2

Now thinking they were expert mathematicians, the students were able to record their understandings in Explain Everything AND find any square and triangular number without creating a long sequence. And they got it because we started with the thinking and investigating, not the formula that “Sheldon’ told us about. By the way, he worked this out independently and actually helped out my thinking with the idea of adding the extra side to the square grid – that’s the first time I had visualised the two triangular halves. This shows that our high achieving students can support the learning in the class – they just need a biy of guidance in their thinking, He was happy with knowing the formula. Now he UNDERSTANDS the formula and why it works. His discovery helped the less able students to also understand the thinking behind it all. And the iPad, the apps  and AirServer kept them engaged long enough to get there.

Oh, one more thing. I mentioned earlier context and purpose. I put this whole task in the context of a tile designing company. I talked about how the construction of Federation Square ( a modern structure in the City of Melbourne laden with geometric designs ) was not a random design. It was very mathematical. I put to them the scenario of customers wanting a design like the one we investigated created at a size of their own choosing. As employees of the company, we needed a method for quickly calculating how many of each tile we would need – the formula we discovered would get the job done.

Algebra need not be hard. It’s just logical thinking written down in an organised, symbolic way. Taking students through the right process can demystify it all. And it doesn’t hurt to use a bit of tech like my good friends the iPad and AirServer to help them along the way.

Scanning Twitter feeds today, I came across a Chart showing the 5 factors needed for Successful Change. After a bit of research, I linked it back to “The Art of Leadership” by Manning and Curtis (Manning, George, and Kent Curtis. “Part 2 – The Power of Vision.” The Art of Leadership. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2003. 56-66. Print.) Below is the relevant excerpt of the book courtesy of Google Books.

This is my version of the Change Chart

While I recall seeing this years ago, it comes as a timely reminder to all involved in massive change that is expected in schools today. It is quite confronting viewing this chart and reflecting on what is needed for REAL, long lasting change to take place. Schools are always clear on the need for a Vision. Of course that vision needs to be clear, committed and shared by all stakeholders in a school, including parents and students. It’s why we have so many surveys asking for their opinions on curriculum. If we as teachers embrace a particular curriculum change but it is not supported at home, then it makes teaching and learning difficult, when children are getting mixed message from home and school.

Skills need to be developed for change to take place or teachers can’t implement the changes required. Professional Development that makes a difference and available to all staff is vital. School communities need to see a final result that is going to lead to improved teaching and learning outcomes. This is how I define Incentive in the School Change setting. If we don’t access the required Resources to implement the change envisaged in the School’s Vision, it won’t occur. All the good intentions in the world are no substitute for the actual staffing, equipment and training required. Finally, a clear Action Plan is required to make it all happen. Change takes time. Time needs to be managed. Management requires planning.

Looking at these 5 factors in their totality, it is not surprising that real change in Educational Technology is so difficult. Too often, we put the Resources in place without the Skills to use them. We jump on the latest tool or idea without planning how it can be implemented effectively. We put together a wish list of short term plans but lack a Vision for the final result. And so often, we fail to articulate how it is actually going to help/improve the teaching and learning in the classroom and result in better outcomes, failing to provide an incentive to change current practices.

And the result? Frustrated, anxious teachers who struggle to learn the skills required and don’t see how it is going to improve their teaching and the student’s learning. At a system level, we pump money into resources for short term gain but then run out of money to maintain resources before teachers are ready to take advantage of them after decent training based on a purposeful action plan. We then hop back on the treadmill and chase the next change without actually ever reaching the goal our vision sets.

IF we are ever going to really fulfil the vision of all those wonderful orators who inspire us at conferences, on blogs and online TEDTalks, we need to consider all these factors. Educational Technology has been floating around school for a over quarter of a century. Sometimes we seem no closer to the Holy Grail of learning change than when those first Apple IIs were rolled out  all those years ago.

The infographic below ( click on it to get a larger, readable version from the source) stimulates good discussion about the process of brainstorming. While its reference point is the business world,  brainstorming is clearly an oft-used and abused strategy in both classes and staff meetings at school. While we have developed this strategy somewhat with techniques like Think-Pair-Share, we can still fall back on the traditional model when strapped for time, with far from stellar outcomes.

While this infographic focuses on brainstorming, I think its message resonates across all forms of group work that occurs in schools, involving both students and teachers. I think it deserves reflection.

The following points are what I connected with as I read through the infographic.

THE FIVE BIGGEST PROBLEMS WITH GROUPTHINK

1. SOCIAL LOAFING – common in both student and staff settings, it is human nature to sit back and allow others to do the work if they are happy to. I see this at all forms of meetings involving school staff and it is particularly common in classrooms during whole class lessons. This is when you see the same 8 teacher pleasers and high achievers constantly contribute and give the teacher a false sense of success in getting the message of the lesson through. There needs to be protocols set in place so that all group members are accountable for contributing.
2. SOCIAL MATCHING – Allowing group participants to choose their group members is fraught with danger. Amongst both children and adults, less dominating friends are loathe to disagree with their opinionated mates and very little innovation and debate occurs. Being in a group with leadership is also difficult if you have to go straight into groupdiscussion. Few challenge the boss without preparation.
3. PRODUCTION BLOCKING – Dominant speakers not only take up air time but being forced to listen to them takes away opportunities for others to think about their opinions and ideas. This is one of the biggest dangers of group brainstorming – the first good idea expressed is accepted and stifles creative thinking and discussion.
4. LACK OF ATTENTION – Large groups gives members an easy way to disengage. There is always someone contributing so the rest can switch off, allowing some to hide away during the entire discussion and avoid thinking.
5. FEAR OF CRITICISM OR REJECTION – Anonymity is important sometimes. Processes that collect ideas without leaders/teachers  knowing the source can allow reticent participants to share their opinions and ideas. Ideas can then be challenged, not the person. And, who knows, that idea you though your teacher or leader was going to hate..may end up being the best one offered.

I had a great experience today with a student who has recently arrived in our country. The time I spent with her made me consider how assessments and test scores can overly influence our opinions of students, Especially if we don’t take the time to get to know the child behind the score.

“Gloria” (not her real name, just paying homage to my favourite sitcom, “Modern Family”) has recently arrived from South America. She knows enough English to talk to others and understand most instructions. The start of the school year brings with it a barrage of standardised

assessments to identify the needs of individual students. They serve a purpose in preparing personalised learning programs for children who need both intervention and extension. But raw numbers don’t tell us the full picture. Gloria is a classic example. She scored low in the standard spelling test administered by her classroom teacher. So did many others.

Because of the results, targeted spelling programs were developed to support these students beyond the main class spelling program. Gloria was included in these programs with support from teacher aides. Let me make it clear right here. Teacher aides are fantastic support in classroom. For children with learning difficulties, teacher aides are vital for them to survive the classroom struggle on a daily basis. But sometimes kids with low test scores don’t need teacher aides – they need teaching.

Gloria didn’t score low on the spelling test because of a learning difficulty. She didn’t score low because of a physical disorder or because she has emotional issues that have affected her concentration over the years. Gloria scored low because she speaks Spanish! She doesn’t need a teacher aide to sit with her and work through a worksheet of spelling words. She needs a teacher who has sat down with her, listened to her read words, watched her write words and recognized that her errors were based on the different sounds found in the Spanish language.

I had my first extended experience with Gloria by chance this week. The teacher aide who has been working with her was away and her teacher asked me to step in and take the group, as I was between jobs that morning. As soon as I was handed the spelling worksheet assigned for the week, which was addressing the ‘j’ sound (spelt g-,j-,-dge, -ge), my years of background knowledge in languages through applied linguistics training and Latin rang alarm bells in my head. This was going to be a big challenge for Gloria for one simple reason – j is not j in Spanish and the -dge grapheme doesn’t even exist. This needed to be addressed with Gloria, not because she was a bad speller, but because she had no experience with this spelling system.

While working with Gloria ( and the other two students who were more interested in what was happening at the other end of the building, hence their need for a teacher aide to keep them on task), I discovered a girl with a rich knowledge of her mother tongue’s spelling system. While still interacting with the other students equitably, I was drawn into deep conversations about the similarities of g in Spanish and English, depending on the vowel that followed. We had great dialogues about the different use of e and the end of Spanish words. We notice similarities in letter combinations between the equivalent words in each language like jirafa and giraffe. While reading words in the spelling list on the worksheet, I picked up other issues that were not spelling related but Spanish phonics related. It makes sense that Gloria can’t spell luggage because a Spanish speaker would pronounce it ‘loogage’. U makes one sound in Spanish, in English it makes 2, one of which doesn’t exist in Spanish.

Gloria knows a great deal about spelling conventions, but in Spanish. She doesn’t need a remedial spelling program; she needs an English enrichment program. She understood what we discussed during this lesson we had. The other two just chose some words to learn during the week that they will probably get correct in a test next week but not relate to other experiences of the ‘j’ sound in their writing. Students like Gloria need more than a test score to work them out – they need teachers to get to know them.

I’ve had the same experiences during the Mathematics interviews I’ve been conducting this term. The interviewees were selected based on low test scores. During the interviews, though, I found students with sophisticated mental computation strategies that, based on reading test scores, were having literacy issues not numeracy issues. For others, we discovered why they survived to a certain grade level at an acceptable standard then suddenly dropped alarmingly – they were completely reliant on counting by ones for everything.

Standardised testing and the resultant scores are good indicators for potential learning difficulties or strengths. But they’re no substitute for face to face interactions. And sometimes that one on one interaction needs an experienced hand to really pinpoint the need. I’m committed to working with Gloria as much as I can this year. If our chance meeting didn’t occur, she could have spent the year only working with a teacher aide group with students with learning difficulties. We can’t let the push for standardised testing, even at the diagnostic rather than school comparison level, blind us from the fact we need to get to know our students more intimately. We owe it to the Glorias in our classrooms.

Only for the eyes of Melbourne/Victorian Readers -unless you want to fly over  ;-)