25-word summaries

About 7 years ago I went to a workshop on literacy and learned a little instructional strategy that has been a go-to many times since: the 25-word summary. It’s as simple as it sounds, only it is not.

For me, it’s easy to ask this of my students, they, on the other hand, are regularly challenged by the strategy - and that is the point. To write an accurate and useful summary, regardless of the text being used, the students need to really understand the main idea/s. Not only that, they need to be creative with their writing and conscious of the exact words they do or do not use. There is no room for fluff within 25.

In today’s class, the students took the homework summary they wrote in response to an academic article, “Prisoners of Geography” about Robert Hausmann’s theory on the links between geography and economic development. In many cases the students’ original “summary” was more than a half-page, typed.  So when I said 25 words in the new summary, there was a collective gasp in the room.

The students worked together in groups of three, and it took some time. It was worth it because they were successful not only in staying within the word limit, but more importantly, 100% of the students shared that they understood the challenging content better as a result of the 25-word summary process.

Collaboration

Collaboration is an essential element for successful teaching and a significant part of my repertoire. I regularly share with and learn from colleagues to ensure the best possible instruction for all students. My students also benefit from working alongside each other in meaningful ways. Besides day-to-day collaboration, I have embarked on occasional projects that go beyond the classroom to incorporate school and community.

"Befriending the Cloud" is a presentation I recently gave at the Google for Education Summit here in Bangkok. The purpose was to share with other educators the process and benefits of my students' recent exchange with University of Akron pre-service teachers, as described in earlier posts.

Here are some samples of other collaborations I have undertaken to benefit my students and include the wider community in our classroom learning: 

• Global Issues Discussion Series - Evening lectures presented by my 9th grade Humanities students and local experts 
• RIS Teacher Recruitment Brochure - includes "Best of Thailand" articles written by my 8th grade Language Arts students
• School visit from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - invited by students in my 7th grade Civics class

I'm always interested in collaboration opportunities, and learning about ways in which other educators go beyond the classroom, so please share your experiences and ideas.

So, What's Your Reaction?

Two of my Modern World History classes have been collaborating this semester with University of Akron pre-service teachers in Ohio. Besides sharing information and perceptions about their countries, cultures, and stereotypes, and having history content-related conversations, some of these students otherwise separated by distance and age found common interest discussing current events. Not surprisingly, the focus lately was on Hurricane Sandy and the U.S. Presidential election.

Today, I asked the international students in my class to provide a one-word reaction to the outcome of the election. Below is a Wordle with responses from 25 students:

(BTW, the red Ohio, and blue Florida colors were randomly assigned by the Wordle program.)

While I'm not entirely sure about the thinking behind "new" and "change" responses, all of the students were aware of the election's outcome and easily responded to the question. There were many emphatically positive reactions, while others were somewhat neutral. If students were disappointed, they did not share.

My students and I are curious about the reactions other students have had around the world to the election. Care to share?

What I Do

Dr. Brad Maguth of the University of Akron has asked pre-service teachers in his Social Studies Methodology class to prepare a lesson on Imperialism / Colonization / Industrialization in the US for my world history students, and in response to our semester-long collaboration. His students have been getting to know mine through informal correspondence, shared lessons, and Skype conversations.  The plan is for me to implement a lesson these teachers-in-training are developing, record aspects of it, and evaluate the lesson itself. The University class will also reflect on the lesson after watching the video.

Once Dr. Maguth's students were provided with the unit assessment I planned on giving my grade 10s, they knew where we were headed, which helped them design a lesson integrating their knowledge of the students in my classes, the curriculum we are following, and where the class was headed. There was still a gap though, so Dr. Maguth asked me about my teaching "style" and approach.

And at the end of a long day of teaching, I took a few minutes in an email to describe what I do.  Sure, there are holes, and it could benefit from further editing, but it got me thinking about how rarely we articulate our unique teaching styles, and wondering how transparent and honest are we to ourselves, and others, about what we do inside our classrooms day in and day out? 

Thus, in a bold moment, I decided to post the e-mail I sent to Dr. Maguth:

Dear Brad,

All of the daily agendas and related docs for my 10th grade world history course can be found on our class website. Thankfully, I am not required to write up every lesson plan, though I do create an agenda for every class as part of my own professional practice, and to foster student independence during absences, etc. Your students will hopefully be able to read through the lines of the skeleton versions. Documents/resources used in class are almost always attached. 

In general, I expect participation from every student in every class, and will both randomly and strategically call on students for their input and sometimes use personalized popsicle sticks to do so. In class, students are usually arranged in 3-4 groups of 3-4; seating arrangements change regularly - at least every 2-3 classes. Sometimes we use individual whiteboards so student thinking is visible. I explicitly combine skills and content in every lesson, whether skills are more traditional to SS, such as graph reading, making timelines, and examining primary sources, or general skills such as reading strategies (multi-color highlighting, talking-to-the-text), summarizing, note-taking (Cornell notes or digital annotation), discussion (intellectual and social skills), etc.  I place a premium on relevance (more macro-history than specific dates and events) and students' critical thinking, questioning, and communication - I'm so not a rote memorization gal, and haven't used multiple choice in about 10 years. We do lots of big picture analysis and evaluation - in-depth and on the fly.

For example, in our class yesterday, students created analogies to better understand demographic terms that we'll use in the unit assessment after break. I never want them to just regurgitate a definition. It took them a while, but working in small groups on whiteboards, they came up with analogies as in the examples below, which then resulted in some pretty rich discussions about the terms themselves and relationships being considered:

• birth rate : abortion : :  income : taxes
• life expectancy : human : : expiration date : milk
• urbanization : factories : : photosynthesis : plants

That did not leave us much time for the current event piece of the day's agenda, so in only about 10 minutes time I had the small groups read / scan a different news article and state how the "current" event (one is a year old) connects to what we have been learning about - Industrialization and Imperialism. They did a great job explaining connections ranging from exploitation of natural resources, labor issues, pollution and environmental effects of development, agrarian vs industrial economies, and human rights issues, among others. We ended with everyone stating out loud the date of their article to explicitly note that what we are studying in class is not only applicable to "back then" much of what we are talking about is highly relevant today. It was one of those "oh wow" moments for many. 

Hope this helps a bit. And, I'm actually very pleased that your students are pre-assessing mine (however casually) with the aim of developing a stronger lesson - it's good practice!  (BTW, I don't think it has come up at all, but just in case it does, we do not use a textbook for this class - and I'm all the happier for it.)

- Torie

See One, Do One, Teach One

One short year after participating in and meeting well-connected educators at Learning 2.011, and six months after EARCOS12, I was offered an opportunity to present at in my school's professional development in-service today.

Compared to many illustrious and inspiring individuals in my Personal Learning Network (PLN), my dabbling in the wide, wide world of connected educators does not add up to much. However, the combination of my LinkedIn profile, few dozen Tweets, a limited Edmodo presence, my yet-to-be-published Facebook page, and this well-intended, if skeletal, blog represents an honest attempt.

Much of my connectedness is self-directed; my husband has also been active in cultivating global contacts and resources, so I have also had a partner with whom I could exchange thoughts along the way. The development of my growing PLN is also thanks to (mostly) indirect motivation from the people with whom I have connected; a PLN's value-added.

So, my husband Kevin and I joined forces today and shared ideas and resources about creating PLN's with our colleagues. Though neither of us are experts, we focused on the vast resources and benefits of a PLN (special note: all presentation resources came to us by way of PLNs), tools we use or know about, as well as some of the trials and errors that we have made along the way (plenty!). We tried to keep the presentation pretty basic and encouraging, knowing that very few of our colleagues regularly used tools such as Twitter or LinkedIn. In fact, Twitter shut us down after numerous coworkers signed up for new accounts. Think we alerted the spam blockers?

Ideally, a few more people may now broaden their networking beyond the school walls to contribute to the global education community, learn from it, and pass the benefits along to their well-deserving students. See one, do one, teach one; it's not just for surgery anymore.

A New Collaboration for Culture and Education and ??

In our globalized world, many of us have committed cultural faux pas and ended up learning a valuable lesson, and its no wonder the most impactful cultural exchanges occur first hand. Real world lessons. Learning need not be painful or humiliating, however. Unanticipated realizations that individuals laugh at the same visual joke despite differences in language, ethnicity, income, gender, religion, whatever, is just as lasting, if not more so. 

Even though my students are already pretty well-traveled, they are hungry for even more, authentic cultural exchanges. After mixed results with QuadBlogs previously, I was open to trying something new this year.

A former colleague connected me with Dr. Brad Maguth from the University of Akron in Ohio to collaborate with students in his Social Studies methodology course. Enthusiastic about collaboration, I signed on without knowing much else. Thus, my mostly Asian, grade 10 students will be collaborating with American pre-service teachers several years their senior. 

For me, envisioning future teachers who step into their classroom on day one with an enhanced global perspective was well worth extra time and energy the collaboration may entail. Besides, since university is just over the horizon for my students, the collaboration provides opportunities to learn the “real” scoop from those who have already tread the path, perhaps start building their PLNs, and, of course, have some real-life cultural exchanges along the way.

Dr. Maguth was originally interested in having the undergrad and graduate students in his class get to know mine through sharing of projects, videos, and correspondence (via ePals). The plan was after getting to know my grade 10s, the pre-service teachers would design a lesson for them, which I would adapt if needed, implement, video, and then Dr. Maguth and his students would embark on reflection. 

In reality, the collaboration, while still new, has so far resulted in a multitude of organic and unanticipated discussions ranging from PLNs, the ages of college students in the US, favorite musicians, TCKs, stereotypes and cultural competence, how I became an international educator, and perspectives on current events, including the sharing of haikus written about Mitt Romney, the Duchess of Cambridge, fiery protests, and contested Asian islands.

There has not been much talk about the planned-on lesson lately; we will eventually get to it. In the meantime, the organic discussions continue, and opportunities for both mildly embarrassing and enlightening cultural lessons are ongoing. 

Stay tuned for more updates. Meanwhile, I'd love to hear about other collaborations between pre-service teachers and distant classrooms that may be taking place. Or, if they don't already exist, why not?

Inspiration from the Olympics; Something More Ordinary

The Olympic Spirit is inspiring, if often predictable. It is tough to resist reveling in the humanity demonstrated every day of this quadrennial event. From Bulgaria to Belize, Ghana to Greenland, viewers old and new, including myself, are emotionally caught up in the athletes' extraordinary tenacity and spirit. Many positive aspects of nationalism are on display, as is demonstrative, border-less support of individuals and teams on the field, track, pool, and floors. Learning about an athlete's path to the Olympics definitely adds to the allure, regardless of a sport's massive popularity or relative obscurity, and the media knows this all too well.

For Gustavo Sousa, Mother London's Creative Director, Olympic inspiration came from the iconic rings, and a much more common reality: inequality. His 16 statistically-based infographics address continental disparities on topics such as prevalence of McDonald's, the number of billionaires, and gun ownership. The ring-themes infographics have also absolutely delighted the teacher in me who often explores world history and geography though current events. Six infographics are now posted on the bulletin boards outside my classroom, and any one of them is sure to generate plenty of thought-provoking questions and reflection in my classroom. 

If you want to see more of these timely, visually appealing, and eye-opening infographics, visit Oceaniaeuropeamericaasiaafrica. This article from Fast Company, where I first came across these gems, also provides a little more background.

I'm looking forward to the discussions with my students based on these infographics. What is your reaction?