Em Holliday

Want to get the kids thinking 'outside the square'? me too - here's how it's going so far...In an idealistic world everything in the classroom you try will work wonderfully, in the real world (which pre-service teachers see sadly little of) they don't! No surprises there.

My mentor teacher is wonderfully supportive of me trialling strategies and techniques I want to use in my own classroom, happily giving me a safe place for it all to come crashing down.

I've started "Ms Holliday's Problem" which is a self-motivated problem solving strategy I want to use in my classroom. Basically I post a problem up on the door of the classroom and the children will solve it in their own time and reveal their creative thinking to the class. Thus earning the privilege to be "problem solver of the week" and get a picture of themselves thinking (as absurdly as they like) in the star studded picture frame I've made.

The first problem I put up was "Which switch" which was somewhat of a failure simply because it was too hard! However, the children were really trying and for the 30 minutes it took us to throw around ideas, every child was busting to imput and thoroughly engaged. So the concept is obviously good - now I just need to pitch questions of a suitable difficulty - a difficulty in itself!

So what I need to consider:

Difficulty of problems (as noted).

Access to resources: I need to include questions that don't need internet access to solve. Questions that can be solved in any place at any time.

Range of interest : I don't want this to be something only the highly intelligent in the class can do. So, I want to find out any specific interests my students may have (who knows what these kids are experts in from dragons to Erogon to cars...) and pose questions which will enable every kid a chance to prove they are the "problem solver of the week". An example might be if I knew a kid in my class was an avid collector of base ball cards (and wasn't one who could necessarily solve a logic problem) I'd pose a question which could be solved by the contents on the baseball cards. (This requires pre-planning by getting the kid to bring them in and ask lots of questions about them - which also strengthens the relationship).

Range of abilities: The next problem I pose will be a captioning problem - I've found a cute picture and the kids need to come up with a quirky caption or speech bubble. By strategic prodding I can guide any particular student who may not have a good chance of winning the weekly competition to having a great caption. Thus manipulating the game to include all kids. Don't worry, there'll be tricky logic, maths, english, sport problems. Within the space of a year I will easily cover interest areas for all children.

Reward system: Do the kids get a prize? Is the prize tangible? Food? a toy? Respect? Do I record the success? I'm personally against prizes in the classroom for individual work (although I've seen it used to great effect with table groups and keeping the room tidy) and so want to encourage non-tangible rewards such as praise, photo on the wall, a certificate in the homework diary...that sort of thing.

I'll keep you posted on the success of this activity and will post all activities I create on the "Problems for the thinking classroom" page in this blog.

Officially I am on Internship but having had three and half weeks off now with some unnamed illness I haven't seen much of the classroom! Anyway when I was in with my mentor teacher she and her team teacher were bemoaning the rate at which rubbers, pencils and rulers disappeared into the student void, never to be seen again in the usual student borrowing style.

Hah - here I could be of help! (It's so hard to feel usful on Practicum when you feel like such a burden). On my very first practicum I saw the following technique used - I thought it cute and amusing - I can now see how brillantly it works. It has a very simple concept which is...

You take something from me - I take something from you. Basically the kids need to give insurance against every item they borrow.

SO, every time a child borrows a pencil, an eraser, a ruler, sharpener or other such item they must leave a shoe with the teacher. Upon return of the item they get their shoe back. Simple. Brillant. Works wonders.

I did laugh at one child who, upon learning of this new classroom arrangment, said "but you can't take our shoes, we need them" Well, yes that it the point. So our classroom is no equipped with a show basket and many shoeless ( and occasionally jumperless) students.

An important part of educating young people is teaching them how to solve problems and 'think outside the square'. I've created a page on my blog which is a collection of the problems I've seen used in classrooms or around the traps as it were. Feel free to use them in your own classrooms and provide answers to the ones I haven't worked out yet! The link is in the side bar (Problems for the thinking classroom) or go to http://eaholliday.squarespace.com/problems-for-the-thinking-clas/ . Cheers!

If you are a fidgeter you might find this post amusing. This article by Melissa Wenner has caught my attention. It is about a study which looks into how gesture might affect learning.

"Previous studies have shown that people who spontaneously gesture as they learn tend to remember new concepts better, but it has been unclear whether gesturing simply accompanies the process of learning or if it actually facilitates the process. Susan Wagner Cook, a University of Rochester psychologist, along with colleagues at the University of Chicago decided to test whether children who tend not to gesture on their own—but who are taught to gesture while learning a new concept—comprehend and remember the concept better than kids who are not taught to gesture."

I find it an extremely interesting idea when reflecting on my own learning. I am an extremely effecient learner, I always have been, however I never thought much of it. I am also a big hand speaker, I always gesture and use my hands to expand upon what I am saying and have found many students respond to this body language as it accentuates the verbal message. In the past when I have shared an office with my husband I drove him mad by my constant fidgeting and tapping. I tap, flick or move constantly when learning and the more deeply involved I am the more pronounced my fidgeting and the less aware of it I am! Needless to say we never share office space anymore!

 I wonder if my natural need to fidget has effected my learning? I can certainly see the benefit of it from Cook's study and won't ever tell a child off for fidgeting as long as they aren't distracting those around them.

Picture from: http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/501880/2/istockphoto_501880_open_hand_gesture.jpg

Reading Teacher Lingo I came across a post by Joel Wagner about how an unenforceable dress code can hide horrific dangers! And so my affinity for uniforms continues. A video I think all teachers (especially those in country where gun control isn't as great as Australia's) should see... The Video.