Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum

Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum

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Learner Log

A place to explore teaching and learning

Detective Work: Helping Students to Collect and Weigh Evidence

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The master detective Hercule Poirot had a knack for sizing people up to flush out a murderer from a tight network of suspects.  During his investigation, he’d propose a number of narratives based on the evidence he turned up. By detailing each suspect’s motive and means, and closely observing their actions, he would unmask the murderous spouse, lover, or solicitor, or all three acting in league.

Many of the skills Poirot employed as a detective, including observation, evaluation, and experimentation, are applicable in the classroom. Provide students with opportunities to practice and master detective skills needed to make them life-long learners. Let’s start with the tool Poirot used most: close observation.

Close Observation

Poirot had an eye for small details that would escape the average observer. Essential Lens: Analyzing Photographs across the Curriculum provides students with training and practice in close observation skills using photos of international student protests, Depression-era portraits, brain stem nerve cells, and Martian craters, among other subjects. Students learn to extract information from photos, giving depth and context to a lesson or an argument. Each student will notice different details, which sparks classroom dialog, especially for students who have difficulty with text documents. For example, students can examine photos of immigrant housing taken by Jacob Riis in 1890s New York City with current photos of refugees and displaced peoples.

Finding Patterns

A number of similar details can reveal a pattern, providing clues to larger processes at work. Students can learn strategies of pattern recognition with Mystery Operations and People Patterns from Teachers’ Lab: Patterns in Mathematics. Students can work in pairs or groups to sort through features and conditions that may constitute a pattern, as they narrow down the correct pattern that applies to all the data.

Experimentation

Our detective now has some details and a possible pattern in order to develop a theory. How can he know he is on the right track? By experimenting! Experimentation is a precise business. In order to establish a cause and effect relationship, as opposed to a strong correlation, the experimenter has to rule out alternative explanations.

Large scale experiments can run for years and be costly. For the purposes of our situation, we’ll look at experiments and epidemiological studies that were conducted to establish a connection between a habit and its health outcomes. In Against All Odds: Inside Statistics, the unit “The Question of Causation” looks at how medical researchers untangled the relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Researchers used epidemiological studies comparing non-smokers and smokers who did not have cancer, statistical analyses of smokers’ cancer rates, and lab studies of the effect of cigarette smoke on animals. Taken together, this collection of evidence pointed to smoking as the culprit rather than an unidentified “lurking variable.”

Evaluating Evidence

In many situations, the evidence may not be decisive, so the investigator has to weigh the validity of each piece of evidence and make the case for the conclusion. During a lesson on the Industrial Revolution, a 7th grade history/social studies class reviews primary and secondary source material. Together, students develop their skills of annotation, sourcing, corroboration, and class discussion to evaluate the source materials at hand. Watch the students’ analysis, guided by their teacher in “Blended Learning: Evaluating Source Material” from Reading and Writing in the Disciplines.

Students can practice these skills with two interactives – Balancing Sources and Evaluating Evidence — from America’s History in the Making.

Presenting an Argument

Even Poirot knows that the evidence does not speak for itself. It takes a well-reasoned argument based on facts relevant to the question to make a convincing case. In Reading & Writing in the Disciplines, “Facilitating a Socratic Seminar,” Teacher Kristen Ferrales demonstrates how having her 11th grade students write to prepare for a discussion about the lasting impacts of the Haitian Revolution creates a deeper understanding of the topic and leads to a more productive Socratic seminar.

In today’s multi-channel media and learning environments, students need to be aware of the many sources of information. They need to build the skills for evaluating the validity of those sources and develop their own understanding. With training and practice, your students can develop their grey cells to become as masterful as the little Belgian detective.

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Observe and Learn from Effective Teachers

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(updated original post from June 11, 2014) Teachers take the stage every day in front of their students, striving to instruct, engage and guide. Being observed by a classroom of students is the norm. As Matthew O. Richardson points out in his journal article [1] for the National Education Association, “Teachers stand before others and put on a personal exhibition every time they lecture, lead a discussion, or guide a role-play.” Why is it, then, that the prospect of peer observation is potentially unnerving to many teachers?

While discussing the growing trend of peer-to-peer learning for teachers, Education World acknowledges that the practice of peer observation (which is becoming more widely discussed in both university, and secondary and elementary environments) is meant to be a collaborative form of professional development, not an evaluation tool. Education World notes that learning by observing can reap benefits for teachers, administrators, and schools. They quote Dr. William Robertson, who served as co-director of the Center of Effective Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas-El Paso, as making this bold statement:

Easily, peer observation is more valuable than other forms of professional development, if the proper context is created. If done well, it is carried out in a real, practical, immediately relevant situation. Compare that to attending workshops or conferences in which participants remain at a certain level of abstraction from their own classrooms.

Ideally, peer-to-peer learning allows the observing teacher to reflect on their own practices and methodology in, as Roberson puts it, an “immediately relevant situation.”

Are you thinking about working peer observations into your schedule next year? Here are some resources for observing teachers in your own school and for observing teachers at your convenience.

Using checklists to focus your observations on specific goals:

Using checklists is a great way to get the most out of your observation experiences. Start by having a goal in mind. For example, is your goal to improve classroom management, track student achievement, or create more engaging lesson plans? Then, focus your observation on ways to meet that goal. Checklists are useful for narrowing your focus.

Look at some examples of teacher observation checklists below. Even if the examples are not in your subject area or grade level, you can glean ideas for developing your own checklists.

  1. This observational checklist from Teaching Reading, Grades K-2 allows a fairly straightforward evaluation of a peer teacher’s methods of developing the essential elements of literacy. Observing teachers have space to comment on their colleagues use of shared and independent reading and writing, among other practices.
  2. The Literacy Development Chart, also from Teaching Reading, Grades K-2, allows ongoing observation of a peer teacher to see how an individual student “case study” develops and how a teacher supports their progress based on the student’s strengths and needs.
  3. The Key Questions observation form provides a more open-ended way for teachers to observe their colleagues. This example asks questions related to how students develop literacy skills. The form’s prompts include questions on how reading and writing are connected and how a peer teacher instructs students with diverse needs.
  4. Searching “classroom observation checklist for teachers” on Google yields many very useful checklist formats.

Videos for observing expert educators on your own schedule:

Finding time during the school day for such detailed peer observation is not always feasible. In addition, a teacher who wants to use observation as a means to improve their own practice may encounter other obstacles; a culture of trust and a willingness to participate has to be present in their school already. Don’t have opportunities to observe peers at your school? Learner.org provides video examples of effective teaching in most subject areas and most grade levels.

The Learner.org workshops in the list below can be streamed for free. View some highlights in the reel:

Here are links to some of our favorite classroom videos:

  1. Teaching Reading, Grades K-2 could be used in conjunction with the aforementioned observation forms as an alternative to watching live classrooms. The extensive video library includes 30 minute programs on classroom practices in action as well as student case studies of children in grades K-2.
  2. In The Art of Teaching the Arts, workshop 3, “Addressing the Diverse Needs of Students,” watch how three teachers adjust their teaching approaches for students with various learning styles and needs.
  3. Making Civics Real, a professional development workshop for high school teachers, illustrates an activist approach to the teaching of civics. For example, in workshop 6, “Civic Engagement,” observe a Human Geography class taught by Bill Mittlefehldt. Students work in teams on a service project to solve community issue.
  4. Reading & Writing in the Disciplines demonstrates how literacy is a critical part of how students explore and understand complex concepts across all disciplines. By examining general disciplinary literacy strategies and practices—and then focusing more deeply on their own discipline—middle and high school teachers will gain insight into how to support their students’ literacy skills while meeting content goals.
  5. Learn how to integrate photographs as tools to enhance student learning about topics in the sciences and humanities in Essential Lens: Analyzing Photographs Across the Curriculum.

Here are more resources showing effective classroom instruction that can be used for observations:

The Arts:
The Arts in Every Classroom: A Workshop for Elementary School Teachers
Connecting With the Arts: A Workshop for Middle Grades Teachers
The Art of Teaching the Arts: A Workshop for High School Teachers

Foreign Languages:
Teaching Foreign Languages, K-12 Library

Language Arts and Literature:
Teaching Reading, K-2
Inside Writing Communities, Grades 3-5
Making Meaning in Literature, Grades 3-8
Teaching Multicultural Literature: A Workshop for Middle Grades
Developing Writers: A Workshop for High School Teachers
The Expanding Canon: Teaching Multicultural Literature in High School

Mathematics:
Teaching Math: A video library, K-4
Teaching Math: A video library, 5-8
Teaching Math: A video library, 9-12
Insights into Algebra I: Teaching for Learning (middle and high school)

Social Studies:
Social Studies in Action: A Teaching Practices, Library K-12
The Economics Classroom: A Workshop for Grade 9-12 Teachers
Making Civics Real: A Workshop for Teachers (high school)

Science:
Science K-6: Investigating Classrooms
Teaching High School Science

While the best way to learn from expert teachers is to watch them in person, watching examples of excellent teaching in videos can be just as useful. In addition, you can observe these classrooms at your convenience and pause and re-watch sections as needed.

We are interested: Share your experiences using classroom observations to improve your instruction below the post.

[1] Richardson, Matthew O. “Peer Observation: Learning From One Another,” The NEA Higher Education Journal 16. No. 1 (2000): 9-20.

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Creating a High-Performance Learning Environment

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All teachers want their classrooms to be engines of learning where students feel inspired to focus, think, and participate and know that they are expected to perform. There are many ways to create this kind of high-performance learning environment, from changing the way your room looks to rethinking your class structure. Let’s look at a few ideas and options to get started.

Setting the Standard

How do you set a high standard for student performance? It starts with your own vision for each class, before the school year begins. When you imagine your ideal classes, what do you see—what would you like to see? Students going over peer edits in pairs? Small groups analyzing a text or image? Whole-class discussions with full participation? Discussions led by students instead of you? Once you know what you want to see, brainstorm ideas for making it happen. How can you structure your classes to allow for this kind of activity? It might mean shortening lectures or moving them offline by flipping your classroom, at least part of the time. Or it could mean creating a new routine that allows students to move from lecture to discussion to individual work more frequently. As the school year progresses, you can fine-tune your changes. Learn more about “Starting in September”.

Once you have a strategy and a goal, explain them clearly to your students. Most teachers hand out a set of rules for behavior at the beginning of the year that describe policies for homework, grading, attendance, etc. Add your expectations for student performance to that handout. What level of analysis do you expect in class discussions? How often do you expect them to lead a small group through an assignment? How often will you ask someone to engage you in a dialogue in front of the class? How many revisions will they be expected to do for major pieces of writing? These specific guidelines alert students to the level of performance you are expecting of them.

Staging the Room

In the elementary grades, there can be more flexibility to create open spaces and small group learning stations than in the middle and high school grades because there is more understanding that younger students need to move around and shift focus over the course of the school day. Since their students are in the same room for most of the day, elementary teachers have developed many clever ways to change up the scenery from morning to afternoon. Gathering in reading circles, moving through stations, and creating places for quiet, independent work are all part of this environment.

Observe the classrooms in these workshops to see examples of engaging learning environments:

But what about the older grades? Most middle and high school classrooms do not feature cozy rugs and library corners. Step into the average 8th or 11th-grade classroom and you still find rows of desks facing the front of the room. Students don’t move around the room, and their focus remains in one place for the duration of the class. Teachers who are in constant motion may see this as a positive, but it can be paralyzing for students. When the body checks out, the mind often follows, and the longer a student is not allowed to move or speak, the more likely it is that s/he will drift. Students fight this battle to keep their minds alert while their bodies remain static every day.

In the older grades, you can address this threat to high performance in a few ways. An easy place to start is the seating chart. It’s easy to seat students in pairs without having to restructure your whole classroom; once this is done, take a few short breaks during your lecture to allow the student pairs to share notes, ask questions, or complete a quick activity or solve a problem. When you resume your lecture, begin by asking a few pairs for their thoughts or solutions. Change the seating chart frequently so students end up working with everyone in the class at least once a term. In addition, work in opportunities for collaborative grouping and for independent study to allow introverts time to work alone.

Making Tactical Changes

Here are some quick ideas for ramping up student performance:

  • Question the content. Why do we need to learn history? When will we ever use this math again? Why do we need to graph this data? Do regular reality checks on the subject at hand, and don’t provide the answers—guide students to find and describe real applications of and real meaning in the work they are doing. If that meaning is hard to find, challenge students to delve into the subject and find a purpose for it.
  • Re-evaluate your routine. Is every part of your class structure working? For example, if you always have students do a quick problem before your lecture, and you answer the problem in your lecture, students may just skip solving the problem. That’s wasted time for you and for them. Consider shifting the activity from written to oral by asking students how they would solve the problem. Then incorporate their responses into your lecture.
  • Create a space for vulnerability. This is hard. School is a public forum and many students don’t want to make themselves vulnerable by participating in class. It’s up to you to model vulnerability: be willing to say “I don’t know”, be willing to laugh at yourself, be willing to change your mind based on what you hear from your students. Be in real dialogue with your students—let them see that their ideas can impact your own. When you are willing to let students shine their own spotlight on you, they will be more willing to also step into it themselves.

Most important to high-performance is this golden rule: generate goodwill. If students see that you are consistently respectful and thoughtful, they will participate more readily and sign on to your vision. When students see that you are committed to increasing their performance, they will more readily share that commitment. Learn more about building student trust, no matter what subject you teach, by watching The Art of Teaching the Arts, workshop 5, “Creating Rich Learning Environments” and reading our blog post “Get Ready: Build a Learning Community.”

For more on creating a High-Performance Learning Environment, see The Learning Classroom: Theory into Practice for all K-12 teachers.

(This post was originally published on Feb 4, 2015.)

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Hi(stories): Beyond the Textbooks

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It is often quoted that “history is written by the victors.” But is it still true? Today materials beyond history texts tell individual stories in new ways. Feature movies like Hidden Figures, live theatre (Hamilton), documentaries, blogs, podcasts, and graphic books, are few of the many titles and media types that add multiple voices and perspectives to the record. The multiplicity of sources create an exciting challenge for the history teacher. Heather Lattimer of the University of San Diego, an expert on literacy in social studies and history education explains, “The textbook can be a great reference source, but if you look at what people do beyond K-12, it’s very rare that we’ll rely on a textbook. We’ll bring in all kinds of other materials and try to make sense of this.”

Learner.org provides resources for teachers to expand the range of materials their students can use to make history learning an inquiry process. The materials also support teachers on new ways to work with their students as they bring these materials into their classrooms.

Adding to the Record

Like roadside historical markers, every place has its own local story or plays a part in a larger movement. Teachers and students can add their own historical markers to a series of themed US history maps using the MapMaker — US History Interactive. Based on National Geographic maps, the resource comes pre-loaded with ten themes from Labor Movements to Native American Resettlement to Immigration. Users can write and add their own tags, embed links to other resources, connect multiple locations, and save and share their maps.

Photos are a rich source of historical information and perspective. Hear photographer/journalist Louie Palu tell about documenting the stories of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and the lives of Afghanis in “Witness,” part of Essential Lens: Analyzing Photographs Across the Curriculum. The resource includes a step-by-step process for teaching students to analyze photos, 13 rights-cleared photo collections, content background and classroom activities, plus links to other downloadable photo resources.

Individuals throughout history have told their own stories through biographies and biographical novels. Professional development series on teaching literature feature these narratives – Frederick Douglass, Harriett Jacobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Maxine Hong Kingston, in American Passages; James Baldwin and Esmeralda Santiago in The Expanding Canon and First Nations author, Shirley Sterling in Teaching Multicultural Literature.

Making a Historical Argument

Historical sources and documents on the same theme or event routinely conflict or offer opposing views. Students of history must learn how to examine disparate texts, and decide which are most credible using the same tools and criteria used by historians. Reviewing primary and secondary source materials, middle school students defend their ideas on a famous historical figure in Reading & Writing in the Disciplines, “Identifying Evidence from Multiple Sources.”

A professional documentary filmmaker combines historical literacy and inquiry skills in researching and producing a film on the history of the Black Panther movement. She and her team comb through declassified government documents, interview experts, and curate illustrative materials to tell a complex story about a tumultuous period in recent history.

Students analyze texts, refine their thinking through writing, listen to the assertions of the classmates, and provide thoughtful rebuttals in the Socratic seminar format. Their discussion culminates their study of the French and Haitian Revolutions.

The Big Payoff

You don’t have to completely ditch your textbooks to take a different approach to teaching. Moreover, all of these strategies can be applied in other disciplines.  Review the Reading & Writing in the Disciplines course for many examples and ideas for using primary texts and other resources in your classroom.

Heather Lattimer points to the benefits on this teaching approach. “[Students] need to be effective in communicating, regardless of what their future interests are. They need to be able to explain their thinking, not only because it’s going to help them in the future, but it’s also going to help them to be better thinkers and learners today across the disciplines.”

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What’s in a Statue: History vs. Memory in Monuments

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As students return to school they will be aware of the recent clash in Charlottesville, VA between white nationalists protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and counter protesters. They also will know of the responses to the event by President Donald Trump, and additional statements and reactions to the president’s words by the business community.

History teachers have a particular opportunity and challenge to address the question in their classes whether removal of the Confederate monuments is an act of rewriting history, as President Trump has claimed.

As James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association said in a recent article in The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s comments failed to recognize the difference between history and memory, which is always shifting.

When you alter monuments, “you’re not changing history,” he said. “You’re changing how we remember history.”

You and your students can address questions about competing versions of history and the role of historical monuments with resources from Annenberg Learner.

The unit on Reconstruction from A Biography of America features an annotated Thomas Nast political cartoon dated 1868 in the feature “Image as History.” Discuss questions about point of view and the effectiveness of cartoons for social commentary using the unit’s Questions to Ponder. Learn from Professor Donald Miller in the video how the seeds of today’s tensions were planted during the Reconstruction period.

Recent events are but one example of encapsulating history within works of art, which has taken place over millennia. The video “History and Memory,” from Art Through Time: A Global View, explores the connections between art, history and memory. As art history professor, Lisa Saltzman put it, “If one thinks about the relationship between art and history and memory, when we depict…..human figures, events, in some sense we are creating the visual as a site of memory.”

When it comes to art, how do we define historical accuracy? Find discussion questions to compare two depictions of historical events, Rosenthal’s photograph from Iwo Jima and Velázquez’s Surrender of Breda.

As educators continue to navigate this landscape inside and outside of the classroom, we invite you to use this blog post as a starting point. The additional posts below provide resource links and guidance as we revisit engaging students in discussions about race and controversial issues more broadly.

“Exit Slip: Discussing Race in the Classroom”

“Should schools allow discussions of controversial issues? (Part I)”

“How can schools prepare for discussions of controversial issues? (Part II)”

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