Greek Philosphers - 6th Grade?

Greek Philosophy in Sixth Grade?

To introduce a proper format for blogging I employed an old teaching method know as "round-robin writing". Typically this collaborative writing is used in fiction writing and storytelling. A group of students (four or five) are given a sheet of paper and a brief prompt to begin their writing. At a prescribed time the students stop, slide their papers to the student to their left (right) and they continue the story. This process continues until everyone has contributed.

As future authors of a classroom blog the students will be logging into our blog with a user name and password, finding their social studies class from a list of five, and responding to a question, thought, quotation.... When they respond they will be required to address, respond to, agree with, disagree with... one student's ideas that may have posted before them. If they are the first to post, they will be forging the way!

In class this past week I arranged the students in group of four and five. Each student received a paper that had a short quotation from a Greek philosopher. Ask your child to see the paper they have in their binder. Below the quote were lines for responses. The quotes were thoughtful, thought-provoking, and for some, quite difficult to initially comprehend. Students were told to try and explain what they believed the philosopher was trying to state, cite an example of this from his/her life, and list any questions that come to mind. As I circled the room I often defined words from the quotes, reworded passages, and guided students towards meaning (scaffolding-link).  As the students switched papers the responses became easier, as they were able to "piggy-back" on the previous students' responses.

What was most difficult for the students was to connect meaningfully with a previous student's response. Often children would write, "I agreed with Sam and what he wrote." and leave it at that. I explained to the students that what they need to do is agree, but build. Tell about something that happened that reminds them of this idea. They can disagree, but build. Ask the previous student a question, or write about something that contradicts that idea. Go in a new direction. Acknowledge a previous student's thought, but interpret the question/quote in a new way. The key here is contributing meaningfully, not just lip service. This will be a challenge, but time well spent on teaching children collaboration, and creative thought. Blogging will begin after our holiday break... darn those snow days!

J. Priest

Visual resource

Let me know if you know about this site:
www.visualgeography.com

Pick the part of the world you're exploring, then click on a flag to see pictures of the country, currency, sports, food etc.

You can also click to hear a sample of the spoken language.

I came across it while helping my son Matt - an alum of Mr. Priest's class - find an image bank for a project he's doing on Haiti.

The site was mentioned in a teachers' site for technology education.

Parents: Model Good Practice

Parents: Model Good Practice J

          If you’ve made it this far in the blog I know that one of two things is true. Either you are deeply interested and invested in the idea of blogging and your child’s education, or you have a lot of time on your hands! Either way I am thrilled to have your attention. As I mentioned in my welcome page, I am a life-long learner. I share Socrates’ belief that those who continually question the world around them will achieve the highest levels of self-awareness. I imagine that many of you share this belief as well as the understanding that by having a dialogue about our ideas we can better understand each other and ourselves. To that end I again encourage you to post to this blog. Share with other parents and teachers the thoughts, concerns, and questions that you have. As your child ventures into blogging, model this meta-cognitive process for him/her. I look forward to blogging with you.

John Priest

Blogging Practice in Our Classroom

                Blogging Practices in Our Classroom

            I would like to give you an idea of how blogging will be put into practice in our class this year. Initially, blogging will be introduced with very little computer usage. The most important thing to do is to establish parameters, expectations, and learning objectives with the students. It is critical that they conditionally appreciate how the blog is a learning tool in the same way that I have described it here in our classroom blog. While discussing log-in procedures and posting instructions we will also be addressing security and appropriate responses. It is critical to distinguish between blogging educationally and social networking. Too often children view communication online in strictly social terms. The use of abbreviations, slang, and improper grammar overcrowd text boxes from iPhones to Facebook. Social networking is fun, but blogging in the classroom is meant for a different audience and more academic purpose. Blogging then will be discussed as a collaborative vehicle of communication .

            Typically, each month a group of six students will be required to post to our blog. The topic of discussion will be something thought provoking related to our present studies in class. For instance, if we are studying Egypt, there may be a question put forth such as, “Is the excavation of ancient graves sacrilegious and disrespectful?” If we are studying ancient Greece perhaps there will be a quote from Socrates that they must respond to. Students will be given a rubric that describes the criteria for which they will be graded. A premium will be put on self-expression, self-reflection, peer reflection (response to previous postings), and cited support (if assigned). In this way students will be exercising the skills that promote life-long learning, social awareness, and meta-cognition, all incredibly valuable skills.

            Watch Out

            For many of the students this will be a new experience. While some of the students have had limited exposure to blogging, few have had formal development of the skill for educational purposes. Last year only 12 of 113 students polled informally on our team acknowledged having used blogs for school assignments. Most students will take to the idea of posting naturally. Some may find it a little frustrating at first. If your child does not use technology they may need a little assistance, but for those of you who need to limit your child’s use of the computer, you may be surprised at the results. Often times many of those students who find it painful to elaborate on their writing take to blogging famously. What seems to happen is that the child realizes that she can not only express herself through a comfortable medium, but that she can also provide meaningful information, links, video, and various other support for their ideas. 

Blogging and Theory

Blogging and Theory

            Earlier in the blog I cited John Dewey, a theorist, psychologist, and educational reformer whose work on educational progressivism (amongst its various titles) at the beginning of the twentieth century still rings true today. Beginning with Dewey’s laboratory schools in Chicago in 1896 and continuing with his work at Columbia University, Dewey focused on the individual’s place within the larger social community. More important than that was the individual’s social interaction with the community. Some of the constructs and facets of educational progressivism that Dewey shared with other professionals in his field were;

Group work and development of social skills

Experiential learning(Link)

Understanding and action as the goals of learning as opposed to rote knowledge

Education for social responsibility and democracy

Emphasis on life-long learning and social skills

Dewey, John. Dewey on Education, edited by Martin Dworkin. New York: Teachers college Press, 1959

 

            The use of our classroom blog fosters the student’s role as a citizen in our community of learners. The student becomes an active learner with a voice, and as a learner allows them to appreciate and draw upon others’ thoughts. Learning in this way the student sees the process as dynamic and evolutionary.

Communication is the Key: Blogging

Communication is the Key

In his book Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey (link)   stated,

 

"What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education is to social life. This education consists primarily in transmission through communication. Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession."

 

  As you interact with this blog I would like you to think about the ability you have right now to communicate, not only with me, but with the community around us that chose to partake in our discussion. Dewey realized that the sharing of thoughts and experiences was essential for learning. Dewey certainly did not have web logging (blogging) in mind as he developed his theories. After all, he authored Democracy and Education in 1916! For an interesting video on progressive education during the 1940's link here. (link)

            While blogging has been alive and kicking on the internet for years now, it has found a relatively new home in classrooms around the United States. Educators, including myself, have begun to see the ways in which this method of communication can enhance learning for students, and quite possibly, parents also. By establishing a structured guide for communication with my students I have been able to offer a vehicle for communication that provides benefits that our regular classroom time cannot.

The following is an article by Dr. Shiang-Kwei Wang, Assistant Professor of the Master of Science in Instructional Technology Program at the New York Institute of Technology, and Dr. Hui-Yin Hsu, Assistant Professor of Teacher Education Program at New York Institute of Technology. In this well-written article (link) found in the May/June 2008 addition of Tech Trends, the authors examine blogging's place in education. Of particular interest is the focus they take on how blogging assists social constructivism (link), something that we all experience every day of our lives.

  One of the unique features of blogging is its ability to offer extended wait time on a particular question or topic. In the typical classroom educators often try to provide wait time of ten seconds or more when posing a particular question. I can vividly recall countless times that I, as a younger student, developed a response in the classroom about a minute or two after we had moved on the next level of the lesson… too late. Assuming that all children can formulate their best thoughts during a classroom discussion is ridiculous. We are, as educators, somewhat limited to the scope of a 40-minute time period with our students. Blogging, instead, allows us to pose a topic fro discussion and allow students several days to post an idea. Students are given time to research a fact, develop an opinion, or support an argument.

            Another characteristic of blogging is its collaborative nature. In our classroom blog entries are posted for all the students in the class to see. As one requirement of the assigned posting, students may have to develop their writing by addressing a classmates’ previously posted idea. The chain of shared ideas is known as a threaded discussion. Learning is exercised as a dynamic process.

 

            Knowledge

                        Blogging is, in and of itself, a tool. As we know not all tools are used for all jobs and tasks at hand. As the students in our class become familiar with the blog format we will be discussing the concept of knowledge. Declarative knowledge is the most basic of the three types of knowledge and can be thought of as factual knowledge, things that can be stated. Blogging can certainly facilitate the transfer of this type of knowledge, however for studies related to research, a blog would not be our tool of choice. Procedural knowledge is the knowledge related on how to perform a task. Think of mathematical calculations or instructions. Here blogging could again be useful, particularly if a blogging assignment was structured around a multi-stepped, challenging task. Conditional knowledge deals with application. This knowledge is knowledge about when a student should use a particular skill. An example of this would be deciding what particular type of note-taking strategy is best for assigned reading. Each and every blogging assignment in our class will be approach with a conditional foundation, discussing why the blogging format will suit us well. 

  

How Am I Smart?: Multiple Intelligences

A Crime's Been Committed: Experiential Learning

(Aristotle Quote - Wiki)

Welcome to Our Classroom

Welcome to Our Classroom

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome parents and students to our classroom. You may be viewing this information as a newsletter, or perhaps a blog. If you wish to become an interactive participant in our discussion on education please know that this blog is open to all parents and students who wish to responsibly contribute. Your comments will be posted publically online, and you'll find that through an open, honest, and respectful discussion of invested minds higher levels of success and understanding can be achieved.

What I hope to do is give you a little information about myself professionally that can help you better understand the approach to education that I have in my classroom, and appreciate how I arrive at some of the activities that we work on in school. First and foremost I would like to let you know that I am passionate about teaching. From an early age I have worked with children formally and informally within the classroom, camps, and edcuational programs. After graduating from the University of Connecticut I received my teaching certification and Master's degree in Instructional Technology from Western Connecticut State University. Presently I am a candidate in Western Connecticut's doctoral program for Instructional Leadership.

After fifteen years as a classroom teacher I have enthusiastically and humbly discovered that I am a lifelong learner. Too often we view the road of our education as a finite, linear path that we seek to complete, when in reality the truth is that it should continue until we are no longer able to question things around us. 

"The only true wisdom is in knowing 

you know nothing. "

-Socrates 

Albeit a rough translation, Socrates' philosophy on learning is one I espouse. Finding a fact or an answer leads only to dead ends, but discovering another question leads to countless places....