What does learning look like?

When I started teaching, I thought that learning looked organized. Students were in rows. Quietly working showed how successful that I was at classroom management. Compliance was key.

I sure have learned a lot in the past 14 years.

Learning, true learning, is seldom quiet and organized.  Currently, in my on grade level 9th grade English class, students are participating in book clubs.  These clubs are a more relaxed form of the traditional literature circles.  Students rarely have roles.  They meet with one another, they read together, and they discuss what they've read.  It operates just like a real life book club.

It isn't organized.

There are no worksheets to be filled out.

It gets a little noisy.

But they are learning.  They are participating in conversations as adults would, as real life readers would.  Students are participating in genuine conversations about their books.  They are discussing and disagreeing about what they've read.  They are relying on each other for answers, instead of looking towards their teacher.  They are marking passages they like and discussing passages they don't like.  Laughter often fills the room.

It would have made the 23-year-old teacher I used to be cringe.  It gets loud.  But to hear a group of teenagers having genuine discussions about a book they are reading together, to get to see them interact with a text in a genuine, real-world manner...that's worth all the noise they make and the excedrin I have to take.

The Teacher as the Student

While wrapping up one of my PD courses for this year, I asked teachers to complete a simple exit slip so that both I and the district would have feedback as we proceed for next year.

One of the questions--what would you prefer for next year's PD hours?  One of the answers--fewer of these classes..."I have already finished school."

The idea of  being done with school is a novelty to me.  I don't know that I'll ever be, or have ever thought I would be, done with school.  Soon after starting my career, I went back to get my master's degree.  Then I went through the National Board Certification process.  I joined the South Carolina Reading Initiative and completed 30 hours above my master's in literacy and learning.  Now I'm enrolled in a doctoral program for curriculum and instruction. 

Finished with school?

When I look back to my first few years of teaching, I really feel sorry for the students that entered my classroom.  I had no idea how little I actually knew.  I'm not saying I did any damage, but my instruction was definitely lacking.  It saddens me to think that just because someone has finished school that they believe they know all there is to know.

And it makes me sad for those students.

Reading in the Content Areas--something "extra" or a priority?

In a recent conversation with a content area teacher, she informed me that her plate was very full, and when it came to reading, she just didn't have time for anything "extra."

Extra.

Extra?

Luckily, I didn't choke to death in front of her. Nor did I reach out and shake her. But I also didn't have a good response on the tip of my tongue. I was shell-shocked. The look on my face said it all and she ended her vent session and moved on.

This teacher was young, and while I could say that she has a lot to learn ahead of her, I could also wonder how in the world she got out of a college of education without someone instilling within her that belief that literacy is a priority in every content area, including hers. Either she is completely obstinate, or someone dropped the ball. I'm going to pray that someone dropped the ball so that I can influence her.

Many content area teachers view reading as something "extra" that they just have to simulate in order to satisfy people like their administration or their literacy coach. But reading isn't extra--it's a priority.

See, real-world math isn't going to only consist of polynomials. Real-world math is buried and real-world adults stumble upon it before they realize what they are doing. Then they have to figure out how to get to the output that they need--and it won't always be as easy as the Pythagorean theorum.

On a more immediate scope, students are faced with word problems that are designed to emulate real-world situations and they have to dissect these problems in order to decipher what they problem is ultimately asking. If they can't read the problem, how will they work it out?

Am I asking content area teachers to teach full-length novels in their classrooms? No. I understand the time constraints that standardized testing has put us under. I live under the same constraints. Am I asking teachers to spend hours searching for the most perfect informational text to use in class? No! (But their instructional coaches don't mind doing that search!) Reading in the content areas looks different in each content area. Math, science, and social studies teachers have to step back and realize the type of reading that students are already expected to do in their classrooms. That is the teaching of reading that has to go on daily in all classrooms.

I will find a way to work over this teacher. It's what I do. Confronting her beliefs won't work. It has to be subtle. But I love a challenge, and I love getting in front of classrooms and showing students the connection between the content areas.

Besides, for every teacher who thinks of reading as something "extra," there's a teacher out there reading the paper right now and thinking of ways to pull that cool article into her classroom next week.

Demonstrating Learning

Remember Charlie Brown’s teacher?  She always came across with “wuh-wa-wuh-wa-wa-waaaa”.  Who knew what she was talking about?   Have you ever thought about what our students hear about 15 minutes into a lecture?  I’ll give you one guess.

Telling students what to do cannot replace showing them how to do it.  Someone should have told Charlie’s teacher to show, don’t tell.

Brian Cambourne studied the conditions of learning for more than 20 years.  At the core of his research lies none other than student engagement.  When engagement is up, discipline problems are down.  Test scores are up.  Achievement is up.  Fun is up—for everyone involved.

One condition of learning that Cambourne has zeroed in on is demonstration learning.  Demonstration is the “ability to observe (see, hear, witness, experience, feel, study, explore) actions and artifacts”. 

One popular demonstrational technique for teaching reading is the think-aloud.  This way, you, the experienced reader in the room, can provide the key to unlock the text.  Remember that all of our content areas come with a new set of vocabulary.  Students need the demonstration of cognitive strategies to help tackle the material in front of them.

Students can learn to parrot back answers, but that is neither thinking nor learning.  Teachers can demonstrate thinking as a way to move beyond the questions.  We need to show students that comprehension doesn’t stop with knowing all the answers.  It often means that you are just starting to find the questions.

Demonstrating the process of learning rather than teaching chunks of information is one of the best practices that secondary content area teachers can use, especially when teachers are struggling to cover more and more content each year.  While thinking aloud through the text may be daunting for content area teachers, it is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate to students how to access a particularly difficult text.  Remember, you are the expert in the room.  Share your expertise.