Reading Groups

Students analyzing characters in their reading groups.

Student Facilitation/Leadership "AHA moment"

So I had an AHA moment in my English 12 class yesterday. I had two students who would not stop talking in their groups while we were collaborating on a TChart on the whiteboard. I'd finally had enough of talking over them and telling them to be quiet so I handed one of the students a dry erase marker and told him to take over. As I sat down at my desk I was skeptical because of his cocky attitude. After a few minutes I noticed something. The students were more likely to throw out answers while he was writing on the board and facilitating vs. when I was up there doing it.

I'm not going to lie, I did it just to call the student out and possibly watch him struggle with it a little. It was meant to be an AHA moment for him, but it wasn't until later last night that  I realized it was actually an big realization moment for me.

I realized that I need to start giving kids more control and teaching them how to lead/use these protocols for themselves. This is the third expectations protocol that we've done and rather than "training" them to take charge I've been facilitating. I realized that I need to start working on stepping out of the equation more so that they can start to lead and coach each other.

Having them writing things on the board rather than writing it myself may seem simple or like I'm being lazy, but I think it really engages not only the new facilitator but the other students as well. I'm going to try to step back into a role where I'm coaching on the sidelines.

Self-directed learning, Freshmen Knows and N2Ks

After going back and re-evaluating the steps of PBL I circled my freshmen around to work on our Knows & N2Ks (a step that we'd previously skipped). I gave the students a homework assignment to research and try to figure out the basics of short stories. They had to consider the following questions:
-What are the different parts of a short story?
-What qualities do good short stories have?
-Think about the things we talk about for book talks that you should have in your short stories

Students were prompted to use the Internet, if they had access at home, their literary books, or any other resources they could find.

After discussing their lists in their groups students received the rubric that I'll use to grade their individual stories. They used their rubrics to start forming their Know and Need to Know lists. Once we're finished with our Knows & N2Ks I'll start to build the scaffolding that will guides students through analyzing and planning their stories.

Refocusing on the Steps

So I realized after my fifth period started reading our first short story that I was rushing ahead. I had to pull myself back and re-evaluate the steps in PBL. It worked out well I think because it gave the kids a chance to review the steps. I started by telling the kids we've already done step 1 (entry event), and then I asked them what step we had skipped to. After some coaching a few kids guessed step 5 (scaffolding) because I was teaching them about short stories and we were analyzing our first story.

After they realized we'd skipped to step five we talked about the steps that we had skipped.
1: Entry Event
2: Driving Question
3: Problem Statement
4: Knows & N2Ks
5: Scaffolding
6: Final Deliverable

I shared my Driving Question with the kids. Then I gave them the formula that I learned this summer for Problem Statements. The students got in groups and brainstormed ideas for the problem statement. Each group shared their ideas up on the board then we worked as a group to condense our problem statements into one final statement.

I decided condense the three different class period's statements into one, but I also posted each classes individual problem statement on the white board in my room.

Good day to back-track

Had to take a step back today and evaluate. freshmen created problem statements, and they'll do knows and need to knows (n2k) tomorrow. Hopefully I'll remember to elaborate on here tomorrow.