Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum

Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum

Monthly Update sign up
Follow The Annenberg Learner on Facebook Follow Annenberg Learner on Twitter
Mailing List signup
Search
Follow The Annenberg Learner on LinkedIn Follow The Annenberg Learner on Facebook Follow Annenberg Learner on Twitter
MENU

Learner Log

A place to explore teaching and learning

Archives for March 2013

Music in Math

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

mathoftimeMarch is almost over and so is Music in our Schools Month. We finish this set of Monday Motivations on music by looking at how to incorporate music into the math classroom.

High school and college students can study how the Greeks applied mathematical thought to the study of music in the video and online text for Mathematics Illuminated, unit 10, “Harmonious Math,” section 2, The Math of Time.  Section 3, Sound and Waves, looks at how sound waves move through the air and section 6, Can You Hear the Shape of a Drum?, asks if it’s possible to deduce what object makes a sound based on the frequency content of the sound.

In Memory of Chinua Achebe

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

achebeThe world lost an important voice with Chinua Achebe’s death. Critics consider the writer, born in Ogidi, Nigeria in 1930, one of the finest Nigerian novelists. Chinua Achebe eschewed trends in English literature and wrote by embracing the African oral tradition. (See the Chinua Achebe biography page from In Search of the Novel, Ten Novelists, for background on the author and his writing style.  The Ten Novels page provides a synopsis and reviews of Things Fall Apart.)

Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart asks readers to consider, that while people often resist change, what if  their whole way of living was suddenly threatened by a group of outsiders? Okonkwo, the protagonist of this work, faces the imminent influence of British values on his Nigerian community.

Anthony Appiah, Achebe’s friend, explains his view of the novel Things Fall Apart in the program Invitation to World Literature: “One of the things that Achebe has always said, is that part of what he thought the task of the novel was, was to create a usable past. Trying to give people a richly textured picture of what happened, not a sort of monotone bad Europeans, noble Africans, but a complicated picture in which mistakes are made on both sides.”

In Teaching Multicultural Literature, workshop 8, “Social Justice and Action,” author Joseph Bruchac talks about his friendship with Achebe and how Achebe influenced his writing. He says:

“I asked Chinua why he wrote that novel (Things Fall Apart). He said that when he was in college, he was forced to read a book called Mr. Johnson by an English writer named Joyce Cary. In that book, which takes place among the Ibo people, Mr. Johnson is a pathetic figure, an Ibo man who wants to be like an Englishman but can never achieve that level. He dresses like an Englishman, tries to walk and talk and act like an Englishman. And he fails utterly.

And Ibo culture is just a background of this, is seen as savage and dirty and primitive and of little worth. Chinua said, ‘I had to write Things Fall Apart. To represent my people as they really are. As full human beings.’ Not perfect, because his main character has a tragic flaw. But ‘as full human beings in their own right.’”

 

Are you smarter than a Harvard graduate?

Posted on Written by 1 Comment

privateuniverseHarvardgrad

What causes seasons? Do you think you know? A common answer among school children and college graduates is that seasons are caused by how close the Earth is to the sun, but this answer is not correct. The tilt of the Earth’s axis causes the cycle of the seasons. See an explanation in Science in Focus: Shedding Light, workshop 7.

A Private Universe

More than 23 years ago, video producers asked new Harvard graduates and 9th grade students at a nearby high school some basic science questions, including “What causes seasons?”, and got surprising answers. That footage became A Private Universe, a documentary that looks at how students’ misconceptions block learning. The program looks at celestial movements, the seasons, and how these are taught in school.

In the program, a bright 9th grader named Heather is asked to describe the orbit of the Earth and explain what causes the phases of the moon. Her strange drawing of the orbit leaves her teacher perplexed. Also, Heather is only able to correctly explain the phases of the moon by picking up physical objects and using them to show her thinking. (You can see what became of Heather in the film A Private Universe, 20 Years Later.) Heather’s teacher learned two lessons by observing her explanations: 1. She can’t make assumptions about what students know already. 2. Using manipulatives (like balls to show orbiting planets) is important for understanding scientific concepts.

Where do students’ private theories come from?

Sometimes misconceptions are caused by misleading diagrams and drawings in textbooks that are interpreted or remembered incorrectly. Sometimes the concepts were taught incorrectly. Sometimes students hear words used in one context and apply their understanding to other contexts. Many times, children rely on their experiences, which can limit understanding. Even the brightest students can have trouble with basic concepts, because new ideas are competing with previous knowledge. In addition, teachers are required to cover a lot of material quickly and often don’t have time to tease out these misconceptions.

How can teachers help students?

First figure out what students know about a topic. Anticipate and address any misconceptions that might hinder learning new and related concepts. The three Essential Science for Teachers series include a section called “Children’s Ideas.” Using research on what children believe about basic science concepts, teachers are asked to consider what misconceptions children might have about these concepts and where these ideas might have come from. For example, Earth and Space Science, session 1, considers children’s ideas about soil.

Here is a list of resources from the Essential Science for Teachers series to help you examine children’s ideas in science:

Earth and Space Science

Life Science

Physical Science

Addressing misconceptions is important in all subject areas, not just science. While teaching Spanish at the high school level, I first took for granted that my students understood the parts of speech and learned that many did not. I often hear Africa referred to as a country and that Spanish is the official language of Brazil. Even as adults, we can hold misconceptions somehow learned along the way.

Before you start your next lesson or unit, try to anticipate and address any misconceptions and access prior knowledge. Then build from those ideas while giving students many hands-on opportunities (especially in science and math) to explain their ideas.

What surprising misconceptions have you witnessed in your classes?

 

Because I Had to Teach It…

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

handraisediconMovies and books are full of heroic teachers who face up to institutionalized rules, rigor, and rote learning that steamroll students’ thinking and their own inventive instructional methods (Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society). The counter stereotype is the teacher who has been beaten down by “the system,” sticks to the same syllabus year in and out, and basically puts the students to sleep (Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Professor Binns, the ghost who teaches the History of Magic at Hogwarts).

The teachers you don’t hear much about are the ones who are spurred to research a topic because a student asks a question they don’t know the answer to. These teachers are honest enough to look at what they don’t actually know and then go learn about it.

Kerry Emanuel, professor of atmospheric science at MIT, was driven to look into the energy systems that feed hurricanes as a result of having to teach a course in tropical meteorology.  “… one of the reasons that teaching and research go together so well is that, often, you think you understand something. And it’s not until you have to teach it that you understand that you don’t understand it..,” Emanuel explains in the program “Atmosphere” from The Habitable Planet.

Many teachers find themselves in the same position in K-12 classrooms. Whether you’re a teacher who has had an economics course dropped into your lap by your department chair – “Here are the tests and worksheets from the last guy who taught it.” —  or you have to answer a particularly probing question from a student, the feeling is mighty uncomfortable.  Do you stay up late reading the textbook, go to YouTube, or what?

Heather's classroom
Heather’s classroom

Economics teacher, Heather Anderson, took a practical view of taking on a course in a new area. “The only way I could move [to her current school] was to teach world history and economics. And I thought, ‘I can do it. I’ll get through a couple of years and then I’ll get rid of the economics and I’ll be left with the world history.”  Heather shifted the effort to the students and brought into her classroom simulations on market forces and supply and demand, rather than lecturing. By holding buying and selling markets in her class, her students could experience how these concepts worked in a restricted situation, like conducting research. Start at 28:30 of the video for The Economics Classroom, workshop 3, “The Government’s Hand.”

Another challenge for teachers is generating student ideas and making use of ideas that may be wildly off course, but are based on rational thinking. Audrey, a seventh grade social studies teacher, was assigned a science class with little formal science background. She focused on developing her students’ critical thinking skills so she could explore the science concepts along with them. Audrey started her research by conferring with a science education professor who helped her shape lessons around her teaching goal. See Case Studies in Science Education, program 25, for the full video.

Audrey's classroom
Audrey’s classroom

As these teachers (and many others) can attest, it takes a lot of effort to get the students to do their own thinking and to stay with them (or just slightly ahead of them) as they work through their ideas.  Throughout learner.org, teachers discuss how they have learned more effective ways of teaching from listening closely to student questions, observing their thinking, and getting input from the whole class. You can also use the search function on learner.org to do research on new topics in the subject area you are teaching or will be teaching.

Do you have a story about a question from a student that sent you off to learn more about your subject?  Or do you do research on your own?  Share it with us and your fellow LearnerLog readers.

Música, Musique, Musik

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

“Music is the universal language of mankind.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

TFL_French_ZydecoMarch is Music in Our Schools Month and educators are urged to make a case for including music education in the K-12 curriculum. It would seem to be an easy argument. According to Christopher Viereck, Ph.d., Developmental Neurobiologist in Residence for The Music Empowers Foundation, ongoing music education creates “new connections (‘wiring’) between brain cells.” Music education “also benefits students in other academic domains,” writes Viereck in Music Education and Brain Development 101, the first of many articles in the Your Brain on Music Education series.

Still, despite the substantial amount of evidence that supports the claim that music enhances learning, music programs in budget-strapped schools are often considered niceties, not necessities. There are ways to incorporate music into lessons, should formal music programs face the axe, however. Take foreign languages, for example.

The Teaching Foreign Languages K-12 video library provides two examples of how to incorporate music into language lessons. Watch French: A Cajun Folktale and Zydeco. At about 20 minutes into the video, students are introduced to Cajun music. See how the teacher builds excitement for what students will be learning and how music helps students better understand cultural traditions of the people who live in that particular region of Louisiana.

Music can take students from the Bayou to Ancient Rome. In this mixed-level Latin class at Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., teacher Lauri Dabbieri uses music to help students understand the difference between translation and interpretation, as well as to make historical connections to Roman culture.

How else might you use music in your foreign language classroom?