Expeditionary Learning

Last week I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the National Conference for Expeditionary Learning held in Baltimore. A small team of us attended various sessions that were nothing short of inspirational, useful, and quite reflective.

It will be hard to emphasize the many exciting ideas I have taken away from each session. Also, note that EL protocol does not just apply to EL schools. Anyone can implement EL ideas in any classroom.

A Day in the Life of a Humanities-Focused Learning Expedition

This was an amazing day! It was my job to take on a student role as I was led by a motivated team that served as my teachers. Our time together began with a CREW. CREW gives students and teacher an opportunity to check in with one another, share, problem solve, and ultimately collaborate no matter what the task. It is a great way to get every body involved and engaged, resulting in being ready for the day ahead.

A Day in the Life of a Humanities-Focused Learning Expedition’s purpose was to give teachers a better understanding for setting up an expedition and seeing it through. It followed EL protocol with the “lessons”  kickoff being a mystery photo. A photo that a small group or partners look at to make observations, notes, and/or wonderings about. As students, we had a field journal to record our wonderings and notices in regarding the image. This image is designed to heighten student’s interest and begin generating ideas. I became very curious to know more about what in the world we were going to study. That is the idea and it works!

After students have time to make observations and note the observations, the whole class begins to make inferences as a group regarding what they believe they will be learning about. In this case, what I believed I’d be learning about. After each group had the chance to share, one of the teachers told us through the use of a concentric circle what our topic was going to be built around. This led to another opportunity for group work and student accountability. The topic was the Railroad Strike of 1877. Since the group knew that at this point, we began to build background knowledge through taking a gallery walk around the classroom, containing illustrations, photographs, quotes, newspaper articles, etc. all generating further interest and connections, reading common text as well as Expert text. This provided each group an opportunity to report out and build background knowledge through their take-aways from reading. Common text is a reading that all students read while expert texts are various articles that each group member chooses to read. Each group member reads a different article, then reports out on their article teaching others in their group. This protocol holds all students accountable for their own learning as they need to teach others too and is typically completed through the use of the Jigsaw protocol.

By this point in the expedition, students have a vast amount of new information, connections, and questions from their learning. All this time, a teacher has only provided materials to students; they have not taught or specifically verbalized teaching to students. That is the most amazing part…Learning through independence, collaboration, and genuine interest!

With opportunities for BBK (building background knowledge) within the classroom, it was now time to extend what we as students already know to continue BBK. This led to field work. We visited the B & O Railroad, the Lemmon House, as well as the Garrett Mansion to help us make connections for how the infamous railroad strike of 1877 came to be, who was involved, and why. It provided us with opportunities to think from various perspectives and base opinions on actual facts. Furthermore, field work helped to keep me engaged and fascinated. Each group also had a responsibility throughout field work. Earlier in the expedition we were told of our Learning Targets and Guiding Question. In this case our guiding question was “Who benefits from Progress?” It was my groups job to take on the role of the militia and take away as much information as we could regarding the militia from our field work experience. When we returned we knew our final product was going to be to convey our ideas and understanding of the strike of 1877 through a readers theater; from the militia’s perspective. It was real nice knowing what the final product was going to be from the beginning as well as our Learning Targets. It helped keep me focused and organized when taking notes in my field journal.

We even had experts waiting for us in our classroom upon returning from our field work experience. This gave us further chances to ask questions and wrap up our learning. Then we ended our day with a sharing of our final products.

I know this description is probably long-winded but I really want to share with whoever reads this, the wide variety of protocol and student engagement throughout a typical EL experience like this one. Not once were the teachers standing ahead of me teaching me or telling me about the strike. I knew what the expectations were from the learning targets and I also knew what the purpose was for learning it. Furthermore, I knew how I was going to be held accountable. This was an amazing experience. It is mind-boggling how much can be learned and taught without a teacher saying a word. The level of engagement was impressive and most importantly, everyone had a part and was held accountable.

Humanities Slice Debrief

Today was a debrief designed to walk through the importance for and the reasons why the expedition takes on the specific protocols it does. We began once again in a CREW circle. We then, moved into our class ready to reflect on the packed day we all shared yesterday. As we entered the classroom, we were asked to reflect through a quick self-assessment simply asking how much we knew about the strike before our field work/expedition and now how much we knew. I literally went from knowing nothing to knowing a great deal!

A debrief is very important after each expedition as it provides students the chance to share with others, reflect on their learning, and have any final questions answered. It gives the class as a whole a final chance to come together, compliment one another, and talk about a common experience. I discovered or was reminded how powerful debriefing is in any classroom!

How to use a great, complex, anchor text in your expedition

This was an insightful session reminding me of the wide variety of ways to use text within the classroom. Two teachers represented their classes work through the use of high level text, SKYPE, and integration within and across disciplines. I was introduced to two different texts that were both well above the grade level the teachers were teaching at.

It was jaw dropping to learn of the ways both teachers implemented such texts. First, one chose to only use critical excerpts from the text to generate critical thinking. The other actually did read the entire text but along with the use of various protocols that walked students through the process of comprehension and reflection. It was mind-boggling at just how much interest occurred just from the way the text was presented to the class.

Initially the text was wrapped as a present but before you could get to it there were index cards that needed to be pulled out. Each index card had a clue on it that would generate the thinking from students to guess what they’d be reading about. These clues were actually true facts from the text. Guesses were being made from students and the book was revealed through opening the “gift”. At this point, students were excited and already learned some information before even reading a single page in the book. Protocols that were used from both teachers were:

• Synthesis through Skype
• Engagement through introduction of anchor text-building excitement
• Reading structures that support the understanding of complex text-Text Rendering
• Anchor text selection and integration discussion

Teachers held high-expectations of students and sent positive messages to ALL, encouraging and motivating students to believe in themselves. This session was all about protocol that assisted ALL diversity within the class. It truly began with how anchor texts were selected and presented to the class. It gave students nothing but excitement for what they were going to be doing. Through the use of student accountability and learning/reflecting of others; students were successful and learning with an authentic purpose and audience in mind.

Supporting your students through the revision process

This was the best session I could have attended! It was yet another insightful block of time that really provided me with new ideas for getting students to persevere through the revision process in both art and writing. Many of the ways used and spoken about seemed so obvious in a way I thought, “why didn’t I think of that!” However, as I mentioned in another post, the days come and go and are SO busy that we don’t always have the necessary time to revise as tactfully as we’d like. We were looking at work from first graders that many middle school children would be fascinated with. In the end, the products were so beautifully created because of the author or artist’s willingness and desire to do their very best work. Again, it was important to and for students to know who their audience was.

My biggest finding throughout this session was how these teachers were getting students to willfully complete 4-5 drafts of revision before publishing a final.

Important Findings:

• Show students a picture/photograph of what they are being asked to draw.
• Provide them a model
• Show them a model that you have done throughout the process as well
• Display first draft in a gallery walk setting allowing peers to provide feedback and kind suggestions using post it notes (This will provide students with suggestions and a direction to head in regarding the revision process)
• Remember to set criteria  for critique of the revision process…it is most important that you and students know what the purpose is and what criteria will be looked at within the piece.
• Assist students in the revision process through mini-lessons targeted at what students should be looking for or revising during today’s lesson
• Provide a before and after self-assessment rubric/checklist with task
• Show author’s websites that will enhance the importance of the revision process
• Peer revision is critical. Be sure that students are using the criteria checklist most applicable to task at hand
• Experts to assist in revision process
• Photocopy student’s first draft. The photocopy is used for students to re-read and revise on. This helps students more carefully read their work and catch any errors.
• Graph paper is very helpful when drawing

Growth Mindset: A Students’ Path to Excellence

This session was based around the use and belief in a text called Mindset. It was focused around the way in which we as teachers and parents provide a positive mindset for children.

I took away my own personal understanding for growth mindset: A growth mindset is the way in which we praise others that reassures them and convinces them to appreciate challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, and keep on learning.

Practices that foster growth mindset are:

• collaboration
• praise and recognition about effort and process (rather then winning or succeeding)
• reflection/self-assessment
• inspiration and encouragement
• “What some people call struggling, we call learning.”

Some of the targets that were reflective for me as a teacher that I saw students able to model and explain were:

I can show caring by creating high-quality work.

I can show responsibility by being organized and completing jobs on time.

I can show effort by challenging myself.

I can show wisdom by setting goals and taking next steps to achieve that goal.

• These targets were implemented and modeled in as young as a first grade classroom. To hear these children talk about these targets were heart warming and inspirational. The targets are aligned to generate the habits of a scholar. A matrix is used by students for students to gauge achievement and engagement.
• Another A-HA moment was their idea of Coffee & Crew which is a parent meeting with the Principal. The same protocols as in the classroom are followed with parents at Coffee & Crew; the greeting, CREW circle, reading, creation of a document of learning they made, etc. The parents work also gets hung in the hall way of school. This was a great way to teach parents and generate a true care for the schools code of character and habits of scholar.

Empowering ALL students in Literacy Instruction

This session focused widely on the classroom use of two models in literacy called The Daily Five and the CAFE. Teachers did a great job at differentiating the session for those who desired more learning regarding one over the other. I sat in on the CAFE session and certainly took away the feeling of success with the unique way I am currently implementing the model within my classroom.

Again, we began with Learning Targets and even spent time Unpacking the Learning Targets. For example, “Can you guys give me synonyms of the word agency?” This allowed students to debrief and show their understanding of the target knowing that they understood the vocabulary used within the target.

We also used another protocol called “Think-Pair-Share” in order to provide opportunities for students to learn and reflect from/with one another.

Some ideas I took away with me when using the CAFE model was to use a post-it note to show or call attention to the strategy being taught. Another idea was to highlight the strategies as we’ve learned them.

I also learned that there is no perfect way to implement CAFE and experts are taking the program and utilizing it as it shall be done but in a manner most effective for their personal daily schedule.

I am curious to read a text that many mentioned throughout the session called, “Goodbye Round Robin”. Although I do not practice round robin reading, it sounds like this book provides great insight for a variety of ways to implement reading within the classroom. I haven’t had the chance to check it out yet.

Another great book mentioned is called “Choice Words” by Peter Johnson.

Steps to follow when utilizing Daily 5 and CAFE:

• Assess individual student
• Discuss finding with student
• Set goal and identify strategies with student
• Student declares goal on menu and in notebook
• Teacher fills out strategy group forms
• Ready for instruction

These steps helped me to break down the assessment process but also the conferring process; what I should be focused on, how to hold the student accountable, and get the student reflection and generating reflective notes along side me.

This session was a lot of review for me but I found it to be quite reflective and provided me with the opportunity to reflect on how I’m currently using both literacy models and the direction I would like to continue both models. It is easy to keep going day by day as our plates are so full but this session truly provided me with a chance to collaborate with others and share new ideas. I can’t wait to implement some of those ideas!

I have taken away SO much from all of these sessions. Some of which  staff from various EL schools have shared their materials, resources with me. I am more than happy to share anything. Hope you are also able to feel inspired or take away some key points from reading this.