How the brain works

I had the privilege of attending the 2010 Annual ISACS Conference "Learning: What's New and True" here in Chicago two weeks ago. I attended many wonderful sessions, more to come on those, but the one theme that has resonated with me were the sessions & information about brain function. I talked so much about the brain and memory over the next week that one of my students asked me for some tips for studying for tests. I summarized my learning from Ann Anzalone's session "Active Learning" for her in this way:

Memory Tips
1. Use verbal repetition: The one who does the talking does the learning.
2. See, say, and do: the more learning modes one can use at the same time, the more axons and dendrites get involved - which means the connections will be stronger.
3. Teach others what you want to remember.
4. Connect new information with old knowledge - the more connections you build, the higher chance you'll really remember the information.
5. When memorizing, use flashcards and use them in the upper corner of your vision - visual memory is located up, so holding the flashcard in the upper left or upper right (this is individual) will help your visual memory retrieve the information you're trying to store.

There is so much more to what I learned, even just at this one session, but that will have to wait for another day.

Post Script:
The student for whom I wrote these memory tips forgot the note card on her desk ... I truly love my job. Young people provide irony in the most unexpected of places :D

Writing workshop in my classroom

As a teacher of reading, writing, and history, there are about a million ways I combine my subject areas for maximum crossover & student engagement - topical expository essays, topical narratives, shared reading of content-related nonfiction and historical fiction, literary response, and so on. One area of my teaching that I enjoy holding sacred and sometimes separate from the other subjects is writing workshop. After attending Teachers College Reading and Writing Workshop, studying Nancie Atwell's In the Middle, and actually getting to meet Ms Atwell (squee!) at a workshop last year, I am completely enmeshed in the writing workshop model.

The fundamental model is this:
1. Teacher-led mini lesson (5 - 15 minutes)
2. Student writing time with intermittent teacher conferences (at least 20 minutes)
3. Short student - to - student debrief (2 - 5 minutes)

A recent mini-lesson with my sixth graders was about experimenting with different narrative leads for the memoirs they have been working on. Here's an approximation of how the class period went. Now might be a good time to mention that this is all happening in a one-to-one laptop environment.

1. Review and connect. I begin each writing mini-lesson by reviewing the past few major lessons for the current genre. I keep my own OneNote notebook that mirrors each student's virtual notebook, and project it on the SmartBoard.


For this lesson, I review that we've chosen topics that matter to the writer and that writers help to show this meaning to the reader by purposefully adding their thoughts and feelings into the narrative. I show each notebook page as I briefly review, allowing my students to both hear and see familiar ideas. Then I bridge to the new topic: "Now that you've been working on making your small moment writing meaningful, I thought now would be a good time to teach you about different ways to start your narrative." I make a point, as I learned at TCRWP, to tell kids exactly what I want to teach them that day.

2. Teach the skill or strategy. On this day, I gathered responses from my students about the various functions of the first part of any narrative. I hear and see the footprints of previous excellent teaching. They want their readers to keep reading, they want to show the point of the story and give their readers a reason to go on. They want to hook their readers. I agree, and show four different leads for the same narrative. I have used my own writing and also the writing of Nancie Atwell's students for this purpose. The leads fall into four categories: typical first draft leads, dialogue leads, thoughts leads, and action leads. We read through a series of leads together, discussing the advantages of each. The other part of this skill is the ability and will to revise. I encourage, and sometimes assign, my students to write as many versions of their lead as they can, expriementing with the three major types of leads or some combination thereof. It's barely November, and my sixth graders are still very wary of major revision. I will need to assign this as homework for everyone to give it a fair shot, but they will eventually see the advantages - the superior writing - that comes from the extra work!

3. Writing workshop. There is no sound more satisfying to this teacher than the hushed concentration and regular keyboard tapping that comes with writing time. Students dig into their writing piece at my parting send off: "So, this is one way to experiment with narrative leads. You can now use this skill in today's writing and every time you write. Now, turn to your current piece, and begin your writing by reading." And they do. Me, my little blue stool, and my clipboard circulate and confer. Conferring is an art form, I think. I am still a novice, but get a little better every year. The conferring is the time for me to see students' thoughts in action, to guide them above and beyond, to help them trouble shoot, to give in-the-moment feedback. It is both the hardest and most fulfilling part of the whole process. One practical advantage to the intellectually fulfilling work is that I do so much formative assessment during the production of a piece that my summative assessments don't take very long at all!

4. The debrief. My students need some time to transition out of the writing zone, as I call it. I make sure to allot several minutes for them to confer with their neighbor about "what you wrote and how you wrote it." Last week I wanted to be able to hear what everyone said, so I had them record their conversation in One Note, but there was too much background noise to hear properly on the recordings. I was kind of bummed. I might look into getting mini-microphones. Regardless, the kids both enjoy and need the time to process their work.

5. Deep breath, assess what's next, and move on.

What I am doing with writing workshop is nothing new or revolutionary - I am simply following in many brilliant and large footsteps. What is unusual is the speed of writing and revising allowed by the computer. By the time students get to me, they have had daily computer use for at least two years, so they are already efficient typists. They know how to use Microsoft Word, and this school year we learned together how to use Microsoft OneNote. [OneNote, by the way, has utterly revolutionized my teaching -- by making student document management like it was before computers! The notebooks are organized just like a binder, except that it uses less paper, takes up less space, and is infinitely flexible.] Overall, writing is made easier and more efficient with the use of the computer, but the major negative impact on student writing is in revision. I find that that drafts are much harder to track and students are more likely to throw away a whole paragraph or more in a fit of frustration. I find myself saying quite frequently "No! Don't DELETE it! Just write the new version below!" or "Where is your first draft?" It's a matter of explicitly teaching and reteaching saving and revising strategies, something I am still working to refine.

What I've learned in my third year in a one-to-one laptop program is that good teaching is good teaching, no matter what materials are available. I use the best practices I know, combined with the best technology my school keeps finding, and leave school each day knowing kids have learned and done something new, something that will prepare them for their future in high school and beyond.

The Writing Handbook Wiki

I'm still figuring out to budget my time better. I have so many things I want to get caught up on here, but the day to day is wearing me down lately. I will try to update more frequently!

Anyway, the Writing Handbook Wiki is a HIT! The kids are great at it, it's interactive, and always there for reference. I am not going to post the link - maybe at the end of the school year - in order to protect the privacy of the students, but here is a screen shot of some more recent mini-lessons:

Student created Writing Handbook

Nancie Atwell and the TC Reading and Writing Project folks advocate student creation of a writing handbook, which documents mini-lessons in a condensed, readable reference. As I considered moving away from chart paper to smart notebook, I began thinking of the electronic possibilities for students to keep their writing handbook. Then I vacillated ... maybe I should keep one handwritten remnant in writing workshop. These kids won't necessarily have access to laptops in class in high school. They do NEED to know how to take notes, and take notes onto paper. Also, I think having it written out to be referred to as they peck away at the computer keys would be helpful.

So, I brought the problem to part of my MS team that seemed willing to brainstorm with me for a few minutes. They presented lots of great insights and ideas, especially regardng the portability of the handbook between home and school. We've gone to great lengths to reduce the number of workbooks, notebooks, and textbooks our kids carry around with their 8 lb computer. Then Joy says, all innocently after being quiet for much of the conversation, "Why not just use a wiki?"

Why NOT just use a wiki? It's portable. It's condensed and instantly indexed. It provides space for true collaborative work.

I think two students will be the scribes for the day, and will need to take notes from the mini lesson. They will post their notes on the class wiki (probably through wetpaint.com) so that the writing handbook is always available online and editable by any of my students. It can work towards being a collaborative handbook with examples and guidelines.

Life is happy.

Am I going to do away with chart paper for mini-lessons?

Excerpt from a conversation with a tech-savvy 1st grade teacher:

Me: I'm just not sure how I'm going to have a meeting area in my classroom. I was going to try to make a short easel this weekend to have a proper meeting space where the kids can get out of their desks, but with the new big desks and the size of my room I just don't know how that will work. I might just continue taping the chart paper at the front of the room ...

Tech-savvy 1st grade teacher: Or just use the smartboard ... (walks away)

Me: :O

Huh. Do I continue the revolution to include doing away with charts? I could easily use smart notebook for mini lessons. And post the notebook files on my webpage or just email them to the kids to keep in a "Writing Handbook" folder.

Achieving Writing Workshop Goals in a 1-1 Laptop Program

This past week, I attended the always-enlightening and inspiring Teachers College Reading and Writing Project's Summer Writing Institute. As I participated in my small group session with Chris Lehman (who was fabulous) in the student seat, I realized just how different the process looks for writers with 24-hour access to their school computer. As I continue to think and process, I will continue to add to this topic, but I wanted to get started with the obvious differences in how my students achieve the same goals as writers tied to paper.

First, my main concern is the use of writer's notebooks. The writer's notebook is supposed to be the go-to place for observations about writers' worlds. Last year I didn't do a true notebook at all, and this year I will plan on having a Word document that will serve as the writer's notebook. This means it will only come out during writing workshop and during writing homework time; it won't always be accessible (say, in the car on the way home). I will observe this year to see if my students are missing out on unique observations of their world; I might offer sticky notes to keep inside the reading notebook (which I've decided to go paper on for this year) in the event of an idea. This could possibly be held in the reading notebook until it can get transferred over into the digital writing notebook. I will remain open to the possibility of adding writing notebooks to my students' repertoires at either the second or third quarter.

As for organizing the writing notebook, I think I've decided that one entry will equal one page; that is, students will create a page break at the end of an entry, even if it turns out to be only three lines. Students will need to ensure they have a topic or title as well as date on each entry. When they wish to expand upon an entry, they will copy and paste the entry onto a new page (With the new date) then continue their reflections/writing. This means the writing notebook should reflect a steady progression forward by date.

One advantage we have using computers is volume -- at the Institute, it seems the accepted notebook entry is about one page -- which I think may translate to about 1/4 - 1/3 of a typed page. I would bet my students already write about a half a typed page during similar times on topics they're stretching. I believe - this is before conferring with my colleagues, so this may change - but I believe a half a typed page will be the necessary homework and the expected volume per writing session. This of course means I'll have to require notebooks to be in 12 point font, with the MS Word standard 1.15 spacing.

Perhaps I should make a template for the writing notebook, and maybe change the page size to reflect one page/night? That might be easier on the kids.

Next, the other big issue to me is drafting. I would like to do a better job of tracking drafts with the kids. I want them to see the value of drafting, especially the value of a quick and dirty first draft after planning. They still see the computer document as so polished, when in fact it is not! I think I will have to require at least three drafts of any major project - the first quick and dirty draft, the second more polished, the third edited. I will guide them toward more drafts between two and three, of course, but that seems like a good minimum for starters. This will mean I need to have specific ways of naming almost every single document they produce.

So, my to do list must grow to include:

Writing Notebook Rubric must include: Format (date, text size, spacing), Volume (Two 1/2 pages per day of ww), Thoughtfulness, wasn't there one other? (obviously formatting should be worth less but still important to determine volume)

Rubrics for final projects must include: two drafts prior to final draft, properly named (Lastname Project #)

Charles Leadbeater: How the web is changing our world

Charles Leadbeater is, according to his website, a "leading authority on innovation and creativity." He analyzes the role of the web, social networking, and the new collaborative way we are living in our world to determine how these new ways of thinking are changing that world. This is a 4 minute summary of his work:



More info at the website.