Category: Metacognition

Gamed.

(We shall return to some other posts on writing, writing workshop, etc. soon.)

I have a guilty…well, wouldn’t exactly call it ‘pleasure’…past time, hobby, compulsive process addition, and play a Blizzard game called Hearthstone. It’s a card game based on the archetypal characters in World of Warcraft. It is a value-added app, meaning it’s ‘free’ to those who subscribe to WoW, I think. Maybe. Maybe it’s a a free app. Okay, it is. Yeah. And it makes money from micro-transactions of buying card packs, but one can also earn points and trade those points in for cards, disenchant them, and add to deck sets. I’ve been playing it longer than I care to admit; oftentimes while watching TV, etc.

And I never get any better.

Ranked Level 17 is about as good as I get.

In truth, I hate this game. And yet because I am a process addict, I struggle to stop playing. Process addictions are different from chemical ones–they include gambling, gaming, food (which I think is a chemical one), etc. The reasons for my self-loathing and repugnance of this game strike me as perhaps why many students also feel self-loathing and hatred toward their school days. The power/odds resides in the house, and the house always cheats:

  • The cycle is a month: from the 1st to the 30/31 you build up your rank. If you fall down a rank, and it’s on the last day of the month, you start off at a lower rank on the 1st. For example, I ended at Rank 17 this month, and I started at Rank 21 today.
  • If you lose a game, you lose a star. You have three stars per rank. If you have a winning streak, you can bump to the next level. If you lose a single game, you can get bumped down to the lower level.
  • You can build your decks, study strategies, but have no control how to organize the cards you receive, except like poker, throw away three and get three replacements.
  • If you play a “dungeon run” if you lose one game you have to start all over again. Looking at you, Rastakhan’s Rumble.
  • There are daily quests, and if you lose those games, your ranking goes down.
I’m not really a good sport. My Avatar is, though.

At the beginning of every game, I immediately “squelch” the opposing player. I don’t want to hear the taunts, jeers, or smarmy “Well Played!” How do I know it’s smarmy? I just do.

Ah, what if we could mute naysayers and mean people?

The parallels with how students might feel during their year in the classroom: it never feels like one is ‘moving up’ and it’s three stars forward and four stars back. A loss is not simply a ‘learn and growth mindset’ fix, because the system is rigged. Even if I studied strategies, the cards fall where they will, and I don’t receive any benefit or boost from my study of skills and strategies. I’m surprised if I make it to Level 17. With each character/avatar, if you win 500 games you receive a golden portrait. Whoop-dee-doo. So like many things in school: all show, no substance.

If students could identify this same feeling, this Sisyphean futility of grinding away at something that doesn’t progress or feel satisfying, is this what they perceive when we teachers tell them they should be life long learners? Maybe I’m writing this post too soon, because I haven’t quite figured out my thesis: perhaps just to focus and find a way for students next year to acknowledge their experiences and how they feel the system has been rigged against their growth, success, and defining what ‘winning’ is for them:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

And this cannot, must not, be ignored: call out any teacher who uses gamification for harm:

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The truth is I don’t want to put any more energy or study into progressing up the ranks in that stupid game. Maybe that’s how students feel, too, when they walk into a new school year. And when I think about how I structure and support my students, will give more notice to the impact of their days. Are they starting the day already defeated? Hopeless? Finding and defining what is important to me and my beliefs is as human as it gets–and definitely use Trevor Aleo’s ideas about content/curriculum – find our ikigai.

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Heads, shoulders, knees and toes: listening and speaking all the way

From Regular Show.
My.
Favorite.

Always adding and refining: here are some resources to help with class discussions and partner work. Enjoy!

Previous posts on discussions:

http://blog0rama.edublogs.org/tag/turn-and-talk/

http://blog0rama.edublogs.org/2017/07/09/summer-series-of-saves-can-we-talk-about-this/

[embeddoc url=”https://mrskellylove.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/partner-work-protocols-klove-17nhkzw-1swj888.pptx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft” ]

[embeddoc url=”https://blog0rama.edublogs.org/files/2018/01/ELL-Sentence-Frames-Exploratory-Classes-27pmdyh-1iq52aw.docx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft” ]

From a colleague:

[embeddoc url=”https://mrskellylove.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/sentence-frames-1du5k9e-re7twh.docx” download=”all” viewer=”microsoft” ]

 

Mind the Map.

https://bubbl.us/NDI3MTU5OS84MzQzNDkzL2FiMjAxMmE5YzRkMjA2ZmU2NGI1ODgxOGEwODg3NjNh-X?utm_source=page-embed&utm_medium=link&s=8343493

https://ed.ted.com/on/7WdV6Sqw

Here is the teaching point/issue:

How do we concurrently 1. teach students how stories work (or how anything works for that matter) 2. use technology to best demonstrate concepts 3. have students practice and grow their own knowledge?

One idea: mind mapping.

There are multiple available apps, etc. for this technique. We had Inspiration in our district, but not sure if we renewed the license or not. No matter.  I know we have other similar apps on our PCs for work. Mind mapping is simply brainstorming, sketching ideas in a hierarchal visual mode, and revisable in real time. For anyone who’s done a cocktail napkin sketch, written a grocery list, or planned an essay, you’ve done a form of mind mapping. It’s finding your way, setting a course, and looking at the big picture.

 

There are some exquisite examples of mind maps.

Cool examples: https://mindmapsunleashed.com/10-really-cool-mind-mapping-examples-you-will-learn-from

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/en/app-list/

http://mashable.com/2013/09/25/mind-mapping-tools/#ncJJyS7Bx8qG

I looked through this file and added MindMap:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByKyQvl3l_F5aVNLZnc1Q3dmQ1E/view?usp=sharing

https://www.visualthesaurus.com/

http://www.mindmapping.com/

Canva:

https://www.canva.com/graphs/mind-maps/

https://bubbl.us/

http://www.inspiration.com/visual-learning/mind-mapping

How to Mind Map

All mind maps begin with a main concept or idea that the rest of the map revolves around, so choosing that idea or topic is the first step. Begin by creating an image or writing a word that represents that first main idea.

From that main idea, create branches (as many as needed), that each represent a single word that relates to the main topic. It’s helpful to use different colors and images to differentiate the branches and sub-topics.

Then, create sub-branches that stem from the main branches to further expand on ideas and concepts. These sub-branches will also contain words that elaborate on the topic of the branch it stems from. This helps develop and elaborate on the overall theme of the mind map. Including images and sketches can also be helpful in brainstorming and creating the sub-branch topics.

Mind maps can be created on paper but are more easily and fluidly created on a computer with mind mapping software such as Inspiration Software®’s Inspiration® 9.

https://giphy.com/embed/lkVO2a0QHIFzi

via GIPHY

https://www.text2mindmap.com: I got a safety message when I tried to go to this site.

 

Saving Summer: Amygdala and The Brain

Teaching is stressful, there is no doubt or debate. And it’s also joyous, satisfying, and filled with discovery and success.

But let’s get back to the stress for a moment so we can move forward with more moments of joy, satisfaction, and discovery.

My buddy Sharon and her Brainiacs are developing a PD session for SEL/Teachers/Students. Tangentially, I’m developing the digital curriculum, along with her and other colleague’s input. When we talk about preparing students for their futures, not our pasts, we must have a deep understanding or exploration of what is happening to our brains in the digital world. We must share this knowledge, so students can adequately reflect, practice mindfulness, and know when to take on that “big view.” Elena Aquilar’s post, “5 Simple Lessons for Social and Emotional Learning for Adults” was a deja-vu moment–my husband was just advising me of these ideas yesterday while we had street tacos at the local lunch truck. Take the big view:

“Lesson 4: Observe Your Emotions”

We are not our emotions. If we can practice observing them — seeing ourselves experience emotions from 10,000 feet above earth — we are more likely to make decisions that don’t emerge from them. We might notice that sometimes they’re powerful and gripping, and sometimes they’re lighter and less sticky. It helps to practice non-attachment to emotions. They’re just emotional states and they come and go — and remember that we have some control over these states. Sometimes I visualize my emotions as weather patterns: There are storms and calm skies, heavy rain, and light winds. They always change. I visualize myself as a tree experiencing these emotions that come and go.

An article posted in the New York Time’s by Lisa Feldman Barrett, “When Is Speech Violence?” walks through the key points of amygdala hijacking and the effects of chronic stress.

“What’s bad for your nervous system, in contrast, are long stretches of simmering stress. If you spend a lot of time in a harsh environment worrying about your safety, that’s the kind of stress that brings on illness and remodels your brain. That’s also true of a political climate in which groups of people endlessly hurl hateful words at one another, and of rampant bullying in school or on social media. A culture of constant, casual brutality is toxic to the body, and we suffer for it.”

A school year is a long stretch of ‘simmering stress.’ Whose job is it to maintain the physical and emotional safety of a building? In truth, everyone is a stakeholder. Building trust and relationships that can find strength in discourse and dialogue, strong respect and cordial working relationships are the desired culture of any building. And as the Stoics believed, it is not what happens to us that affect us, but how we view and control our thinking about events. What if we all pledged to think about the school stress as a means to practice our own care and mindfulness?

In the meantime, I’m reading a book my husband recommended to me a few months back, The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, first published in 1973. Yeah, not exactly a little light summer reading, but it’s what I need right now: hefty intellectual grips by which to grab onto the rocky surface, and climb up. Getting a new perspective or two is a great way to get that higher view.

And though I can’t control others behaviors, I will strive to speak the truth, ask questions, seek answers and common ground.

 

 

 

Saving Summer: Googling.

Recently a post on social media got to me to thinking: (well, overthinking? *shrug*)

After a thread and reflection, I am trying to answer some questions:

  1. Does context play a role in teaching (anymore)?
  2. Just about “everything” can be “Googled” – how do we navigate and help students find the correct information?
  3. What is the nature of teaching with abundant access to information and misinformation?

A post from the New York Times, “In an Era of Fake News, Teaching Students to Parse Fact from Fiction” discusses the challenges of teaching context.

One can, indeed, Google context about a topic. How deep down the rabbit hole should we go?

I get the statement: it’s intended to be for Depth of Knowledge Level One Yes/No kinds of questions, Costas’ level one knowledge, bottom rung of Bloom’s. However — these days the strata of misinformation abounds, and even yes/no questions can result in horrific results. And these days, it is life and death.

I needed my help from my friend Sharon to help ME get some context for this post, and she came to the rescue:

I tried a little experiment, suggested by my husband. I Googled “What are vaccines?”  and “Are vaccines good for you?” both level one questions that should result in facts or a yes/no.

Here is what I got with this first search statement:

(Note: most results are sound.)

 

Here is with search terms my husband tried:

This is when we start going to CrazyTown.

Questions, even with yes or no answers, can be inherently biased. People seek the answers their cognitive dissonance and biases want. “Google” Benghazi, Alex Jones, Pizzagate, etc. Heck, look up “president handshakes.” No, never mind. Don’t.

Google does its best to filter and promote factual information with its complicated algorithms and data. But Fake News is a violent, dangerous issue. I wish we could go back a decade at least when we could, with reasonable critical thinking skills, discern fact from opinion/fiction.

Here is something Sharon and I can fix, so look for a Part II. In the meantime

  1. Use DOK questions first to create an understanding and close reading of Google results. That way, when students are told to “Google it,” they must come away with a minimum of three credible sources.
    • Close Reading:
      1. Look at top searches
      2. Look at the date published
      3. Look at the publisher and media format: is it a credible news source? Blog? Credible Youtube channel or ‘just some dude?’
      4. Look at links and pingbacks
    • Know how search engines work
  2. Tap into the best Social Studies teachers you know — make sure any lesson on search engines include conversations about primary, secondary, and tertiary documentation and artifacts.
  3. Call upon the best ELA teachers you know to discuss point of view, perspective, fact, opinion, and truth
  4. Call upon the best Science teachers you know to help promote scientific research and how bias creeps in.
  5. Call upon your best Math teachers to discuss proving factual knowledge and a variety of algorithmic paths.
  6. Oh, and never forget Electives, PE & Health to talk about false and factual information that spreads on the internet. The arts and the curated effect of beautiful and lasting resources on the Internet for one and all.

So yes, don’t spend a lot of time teaching if it can be Googled. But teaching how Google works is teaching time well spent.

Oh, and I found this, and of course, can find its origins:

But don’t stop the nerd love:

https://embed.ted.com/talks/lang/en/john_green_the_nerd_s_guide_to_learning_everything_online

The Case of Kelly's Curious Curation

Note: Here is the challenge: take one hour on a Saturday or Sunday and curate your own list of three things you could make into a mini-unit, writing prompt, etc. 

IMG_1215 (1)
Simon Warmers

“Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’

I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!” – Lewis Carroll

How many times in a school year do students hear the word ‘authentic’ but have no idea of what that means? My sense is that I’ve said it myself in a somewhat precious tone, and I catch myself because it sounds a tad pretentious. In fact, I could probably erase that word from my pedagogical discourse and we’d all be better for it, at least until we get our sea-legs with writing. Maybe it’s the Glenda the Witch approach: you had the power all along, my dears, and you’re writers! But I tell them they are writers from the get-go, and attempt to give context to authenticity.

So just what is authenticity?

It’s important to remember writing and reading are not in competition in a zero-sum game. Authenticity grows from every source: lies, truth, and the devil in the details in between. Our continuum of existence demands a story. How our parents met, and what legacies we leave after we’re gone. Our ancestry, and our ‘wishful thinking’ as we explore our singular and collective identities.

Authenticity lives at the highest source of Blooms: Creativity. We hear something, see something, use our senses and ideas, and then it is our job as teachers and parents to guide our children towards creating something new out of the world’s gifts. We provide the guiding thoughts so students can find their own. It can be a phrase or an idea that we hear, and then we ask the powerful question, “What if?”

trapped

This morning a McSweeney’s article had me laughing, the concept of “What if” Lovecraft was a substitute teacher at a junior high school? I know of Lovecraft’s writing, but have never read his work. (I should, maybe I will, but….the cultural references and allusions feel like ‘enough.’ Just like not actually reading Shelley’s Frankenstein feels shallow but ‘enough.’) So if I were to use a writer unknown to students, a little background knowledge would be in order. But that’s doable, and certainly not impossible.

H.P. LOVECRAFT’S FIRST DAY AS A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER AT ARKHAM JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

I take this idea, and then think about how I could apply it to writing prompts for students. What am I actually asking? I’m asking them to think about things a different way, with my core value belief that everyone can be creative, if you just show them how.

Another example is I was listening to this podcast this morning, and a dozen ideas popped in my mind –ways I could use this grand information for discussions about argumentative writing, reading, memes, digital citizenship, and human history/sociology. And ultimately, is everything or nothing a lie? 

http://www.npr.org/player/embed/490478172/490489495

My next is this:

In San Lorenzo, California, on May 5, 1942. The last laundry drying in the sun before the mass removal of Japanese Americans during World War II. Famed Dust Bowl photographer Dorothea Lange documented the process of internment for the federal government.

Credit: Dorothea Lange/War Relocation Authority

What stories can be told from an object?

From PRI - Dorothea Lange
From PRI – Dorothea Lange

Quick videos provide deconstruction of RAFTS:

Pinterest Board of Writing Image Prompts

Quick RAFTS overview:

Parallel Story Telling:

 

 

Now clearly this is very much from a narrative perspective. If you’re looking for non-fiction resources, NewsELA, Kelly Gallagher’s Article of the Week,  Smithsonian, and Actively Learn (all genres) are reliable and inspiring resources.

I would rather use ‘real’ things to inspire than prescriptive formats, (which are not all bad–they give a place to start.)

Tanbar, Australia Google Earth View
Tanbar, Australia Google Earth View

Here is a series on making learning visible — the students look a little uncomfortable, but I’m going to take the big ideas and make them my own, and more importantly, my students’ own.

Does this video inspire or is it a buzzkill for creativity or authenticity?

Contrasts and Contradictions in Nonfiction – Video Exemplar Lesson – Thinking Made Visible Series from HISD Professional Support & Deve on Vimeo.

Room in your head.

 

fish books
A case for quiet schools…

We can’t see the stars any longer because of light pollution. But as the lady says, “The night is dark and full of terrors,” so we humans master the monsters and use all the power we can to dispel the darkness. But we don’t see things as we once did, or learn from the larger spaces and infinite wonderful universe.

And perhaps — this is just an idea — we have overlooked the other toxic detriment to learning: noise pollution.

Studies come out all the time based on things we know. But the knowledge needs to be re-studied, analyzed, and updated. Olga Khazan recently published a study in The Atlantic “How Noise Pollution Affects Learning.”

“Hearing new words in fluent speech without a lot of background noise before trying to learn what objects the new words corresponded to may help very young children master new vocabulary,” Saffran said in a statement.

That’s a helpful tip for parents and teachers, but overall, the study highlights yet another cognitive obstacle facing low-income children. Not only do poor children hear fewer words than rich ones—the gap is estimated to reach 30 million words by age 3—they are more likely to live in loud environments, as McMillan and Saffran write. Their homes are more crowded, their schools are closer to highways, and they spend more time watching TV. (This phenomenon would help explain why children living in urban poverty have lower verbal working-memory scores than those in rural environments.

I would add another noise factor, too, and that is digital noise. Right now I am on overload because of the conventions, the news media, Twitter, Facebook, news outlets, sources, opinions, etc. I am obsessed with politics right now, and cannot seem to break away. Like many educators, I sense I am not alone in this compelling urgency to believe that learning and knowledge can triumph and rescue this historical moment. So I keep reading. I keep analyzing. And the curse of close reading is making my head hurt.

But this — all this — is a luxury, a privilege, of being a reader and thinker. Of growing up in a household, modest to be sure, but where quiet ruled. Where we were allowed to read as long as chores were done, and have mercy on our souls if we woke our mom up from a nap. Being alone and having space in one’s own head was a given growing up. Now I see it not as there wasn’t much else to do, but a gift.

Last year I had two semesters of Computer Skills for my elective. Though technology for publication and communication have always been the standards I’ve employed in my classrooms, this particular elective provided the chance to focus on some newer technologies not attached to content. One project was a podcast. Well, this exercise reminded me of the noise pollution in many homes. (It’s not relegated to homes in poverty, either. Some houses always have a television on, or music playing.) A diligent and creative student came to me in frustration because while she was trying to record her podcast at home she found it near impossible due to everyone else’s level of noise and interruptions. And though we have a room in our building intended for podcasting and filming, it’s been taken over with junk and other things, and proves inhospitable to recording. (I’m going to ask admin if this can be resolved next year, or at least clean out a space of our own for recording.) This is the question: how to make school/classrooms have those quiet/sacred places and times in the day?

This hearkens back to a great discussion on Notice and Note about homework. Not all students have a quiet place to read, practice, etc. I have homeless students. I have students who sleep on mattresses without sheets or blankets. I have students who have disabled siblings that require all the energy and care their parents can provide, leaving them to their own. There is not judgment here, only pragmatism. If I am aware as a teacher that some students face staggering challenges at home, isn’t it my direct purpose to provide reason and solace in the classroom? To explain and make transparent I am not asking for quiet because it makes life better for me, but a gift for them? And trust me — this is one of the most challenging things to do–getting students to be comfortable in their own heads. One student experienced such deep trauma, and was able to share with me that when it was quiet she was not in control of her thoughts just yet. Be aware of this, too, and come up with alternatives.

Middle school students, and probably high school ones, too, fight against all research and reason about multi-tasking. Perhaps it’s time to reframe the conversation and tell them what noise pollution damaged, and how to change habits.

Big talk coming from someone who can’t stop reading.

Okay — I’ll take the dog for a walk. Maybe I won’t even try to catch Pokemon, either.

 

 

Metacognition Monday

Made with Repix (http://repix.it)

In the 8 Days a Week post, I touched on some of the alliterative devices used to help frame a week. Frameworks help me focus: inviting students into my brain requires some house rules, ya know.

During my cohort’s masters program, our primary mentor and educational goddess, Dr. Schulhauser, introduced us to this word, ‘metacognition.’ She eased us into with masterful prestidigitation, a pedagogical slight of hand, we didn’t even realize we were deeply engaged in a lesson until she showed us what lay behind the curtain: we were thinking about our thinking.

But like all masters, understanding metacognition is deceptively simple. Though I’ve tried ‘Metacognition Mondays’ for a few years (except last year), I’ve been doing it slightly askew. The year before last, the wheels came off the bus. I told students that Mondays would be for reading, and then on Tuesdays we’d talk about it. Right. Nope. Of course I did all the tricks of the trade, but for obvious reasons to everyone else but me, reading time on a Monday was meant with resentment and oftentimes outright hostilities. I wonder now if I had strong guiding questions, or allowances for confusion? Was my classroom culture safe enough? Or were they just too tired and sleep hungover from the weekend to think at all?

My standard anecdote when introducing metacognition is to first explain the parts of the word:

meta: (overarching, bigger), self-referential

cognition: thinking

lost found

I bring them back to a time/place when they became lost from a parent. This is nearly a universal experience. What tends to happen is when conjuring this memory many students become engrossed in their story that the conversation becomes a bird-walking exercise. (You may want to caution students before using this metaphor, or allow for time for them to write first.) The point of the story is all of us move confidently through the world, and then WHAM we are lost. And we know it. And then finding our way un-lost is the trick.

unknown unknowns hell

Regardless of Monday morning morning-ness, metacognition is the key that unlocks all other discussions and learning. It’s that important. Every instance of close reading, writing, graphic organizers, student self-assessment, reflection, formative assessment is structured by metacognition. All learners must know when they’re confused or lost in order to grow. That confusion may come in the form of a misunderstanding, a mistake, or even reluctance. Perhaps even defiance. If a student feels too lost, the desire to simply give up can be overwhelming. Be clear with one and all: not everything is going to be an easy path, and it’s different for every learner.

lost

One of the most comprehensive articles is Metacognition by Nancy Chick for Center for Teaching.  Stop reading this, and go read that.

And then read this to see why it’s important if I haven’t convinced you.