Comfortable Students Leads to Engaged Students

Post submitted by Whole Child Blogger Chris Perez.

To keep students from feeling left out—and thus risk losing them along the way—Spence Rogers, in his ASCD Annual Conference session “Reaching Strategies That Reach Challenging Students,” urged educators to not allow students to feel embarrassed and not let them shut down in class.

Rogers, author of Teaching for Excellence, offered techniques to help engage students in classroom interaction that wouldn’t make them feel ashamed about their answers in class. The moment people feel embarrassed in front of their peers, their adrenaline kicks in, causing them to stop talking and think more about the humility they’ve endured, he explained.

He used the example of students answering questions out loud. Often kids feel humiliated if their answer is wrong, especially when they are called on. As a way to avoid this kind of situation, Rogers suggested using deflective questioning, which involves asking a question in a manner that reflects how someone else might answer it. Allowing students to feel that they are answering for someone else relieves some of the pressure on themselves.

“Ask students to repeat what they just heard you say,” Rogers said. “This type of questioning keeps them alert and allows them to be part of the activity. It also allows those who may not have heard the question the first time to actually hear it again and gives them that second opportunity to process it.”

Commanding students to comply with orders tends to lose them in the process, according to Rogers. Instead of telling the class to open their books to a particular page in the text, he said a better approach is to have their peers make sure everyone is on the same page, which makes the direction seem less authoritative.

Rogers also gave tips on making sure all students were engaged in class activities. One suggestion was to refrain from asking them to form groups, which can tempt students to form cliques with certain peers and leaves other students feeling neglected. Instead, Rogers said to instruct students to look around to make sure that no one is left out.

Using the techniques with participants during the session itself showcased how they would work in the classroom. For example, he asked everyone to thank and compliment one another to get them accustomed to doing the same in the classroom.

Making a Difference for Kids in Poverty

Post submitted by Whole Child Bloggers Melissa McCabe and Emily Hays.

Eric Jensen, author of Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids’ Brains and What Schools Can Do About It, whole child guest blogger, and podcast guest presented to a packed room at ASCD’s Annual Conference this past weekend. He discussed the effect poverty can have on the brain and learning, and how educators can provide all kids with the support they need to succeed.

Jensen began by emphasizing three points:

  1. Brains can change. Yes, poverty can negatively affect mind, body, and soul, but brains can also change for the better.
  2. Certain factors and strategies can affect achievement more than others.
  3. Miracles happen daily. If they don’t happen for you or your school, isn’t it about time?

Jensen outlined in detail how poverty can affect emotional responses and cognitive stimulation, cause acute chronic stress, and influence health. Those challenges may seem insurmountable, but Jensen’s main point is that they aren’t and that there are specific strategies educators can use to maximize the learning of students who have grown up in poverty:

  • Engage in intentional skill building related to improving student focus, short-term memory, processing, and sequencing.
  • Adopt a growth mindset—the belief that progress is possible and desirable—to help fuel long-term efforts.
  • Provide critical accommodations like transportation, health care, parental support, and tutoring services.
  • Build relationships with students and facilitate their building of strong relationships with their peers.
  • Provide opportunities for enrichment, including extracurriculars, the arts, and internships.

Jensen ended by reminding participants that as educators they have the potential to make significant differences in their students’ lives. And, he added, “Positive changes take time.”

For more information, read sample chapters from Jensen’s book and connect with him on ASCD EDge.

But Is It Good for High School ELLs?

Post submitted by Whole Child Blogger Laura Varlas.

In her ASCD Annual Conference session, “Supporting the Recently Exited English Language Learner in Secondary Schools,” Barbara Beaverson discussed how ELL support teachers bridge the gaps between ELLs and high school pedagogy. Beaverson focused on high school because she’s found teachers at this level have the least preparation differentiating to student populations and needs and, likewise, lack training in literacy instruction.

And she presented some disturbing statistics to back up her focus. For example, by the end of high school, Latino students have math and reading skills comparable to white middle school students (Alliance for Education, January 2009).

The predominant type of instruction in high schools is also a catalyst for the large numbers of ELL students who drop out or don’t graduate on time. “There’s too much direct instruction and teacher talk, not enough time for students to interact and collaborate on activities, and not enough use of visuals at the high school level,” Beaverson observed.

Beaverson would like to see ELL support teachers in every high school, as well as better training for high school teachers on differentiation and teaching basic reading skills. ELL students exit schools’ formal ELL supports into sink-or-swim academic environments that are very different from their elementary and middle school environments.

Schools are required to monitor exited ELLs for two years prior to exit, but as Beaverson and session attendees related, limited to no personnel and monitoring primarily via paperwork with little teacher follow-up mean these two years are ground zero for student attrition.

For example, in one district, one ELL coordinator tracks 8,000 exited ELLs. Graduation support staff in high schools are more focused on tracking student performance on summative assessments and, for many students, by then it’s too late.

As a support teacher, Beaverson had copies of every test and every textbook her ELL students encountered in high school. For tests, she’d chunk information and design study guides and outlines for her students. She also did ELL walk-throughs—checking for things like how classrooms were arranged for student interaction, whether content and language objectives were posted, and whether teachers were modeling everything they asked students to do.

She also trained principals on ELL supports they should look for on their instructional walk-throughs: “They might see good instruction, but is it good instruction for ELLs?”

Contact Barbara Beaverson for more details about establishing a support program for ELLs and what to look for when hiring ELL support teachers.

Want more? The April 2009 episode of the Whole Child Podcast explores meeting the needs of ELLs socially, academically, and politically.

A Canadian School Transforms the School Day

Post submitted by Whole Child Blogger Joshua Sanchez.

To improve students’ well-being, a Canadian school suggested splitting recess and lunch into two parts in “Transforming the School Day: One School’s Journey,” a session at this weekend’s ASCD Annual Conference.

Inspired by the Whole Child Initiative, Seven Oaks Division Elementary School in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, employs the balanced school-day model, which divides 100-minute teaching blocks with two extended, 50-minute nutrition and activity breaks.

In an attempt to boost nutritional standards for students, Seven Oaks also requires students to bring their own lunches from home. Subsequently, they’ve closed the school’s cafeteria, providing only one hot lunch a month and an odd meal in case a student forgets the lunch.

“We ask parents to follow the Canadian food chart,” presenter Jane Nicholls said. “Students either split one lunch or bring two. That way they don’t have to go hungry if they didn’t eat breakfast, and [it] prevents hunger later in the day.”

The balanced school-day model keeps traditional recess but adds a supervised activity, such as gym, long walks, or dancing.

The panel played video testimonials throughout the presentations of school faculty, parents, and students both praising and opposing the balanced school-day model.

One student said that he didn’t like the extended break because it meant less recess, while another girl aimlessly looked into the camera asking what a balanced schedule actually was. However, the panel praised the system, explaining that teachers said it made the days feel shorter and their workload lighter, which was also the majority opinion held by students of the school.

“We are still working to improve the program,” Nicholls said. “We are always looking for ways to better serve our school and children.”

Putting Vision into Action for the Whole Child

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This episode of the Whole Child Podcast was recorded live at ASCD’s Annual Conference on March 7, 2010, and features the winning school of the first-ever Vision in Action: The Whole Child Award, the University of Northern Iowa’s Malcolm Price Laboratory School (PLS) in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The award recognizes schools that move beyond a narrow focus on academic achievement to take action for the whole child, creating learners who are knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, civically active, artistically engaged, prepared for economic self-sufficiency, and ready for the world beyond formal schooling.

PLS, a prekindergarten through 12th grade public school with a diverse population of 369 students, is located on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). As part of UNI’s College of Education, the school is a setting for clinical teacher education and research at the prekindergarten through high school levels and conducts professional development for its own faculty and for faculty at schools across the state. PLS was selected as ASCD’s first Vision in Action award winner because it has demonstrated significant success in each area of educating the whole child.

You’ll hear PLS director Bridgette Wagoner and guidance counselor Clare Struck share the practices, programs, and policies that transformed the conditions of teaching and learning at PLS, such as the following:

  • All K–10 students at PLS participate in daily physical education classes and a weekly health program that ultimately prepares juniors and seniors for a Healthy Active Lifestyles course that empowers them to take responsibility for their own health and fitness via real-world experiences.
  • PLS’s comprehensive school counseling program has created a physically and emotionally safe environment for its students with an emphasis on character education. Students are deliberately taught about their right to be who they are and their responsibility to respect others. The school’s counselors have instituted a bully prevention program—Be a Buddy, Not a Bully!—for its elementary students that has been adopted by schools worldwide.
  • Price Laboratory School recently began engaging its students through project-based learning that allows them to focus on topics of their choosing. During the January term, 11th grade projects included hosting a radio talk show, participating in service learning, investigating string theory, and job shadowing.
  • All 6–12 students at PLS participate in cooperative advisory groups that meet daily at the middle school level and at least twice a month at the high school level. Advisors function as “school parents” who advocate for and mentor their assigned students.
  • Every child at PLS participates in a college preparatory curriculum and is held to the highest expectations. To prepare students for postsecondary success, the school’s Juniors/Seniors Options Program provides students with multiple pathways and flexible scheduling so they can personalize their curriculum and plan for the future. Some of the options students can choose from are dual enrollment university courses, individualized study, internships with local businesses, cadet teaching, and senior projects.

Congratulations to PLS and its students! Learn more.

How to Teach the Smartest Generation

Post submitted by Whole Child Bloggers Barbara Michelman, Laura Berry, and Melissa McCabe.

Don Tapscott, best-selling author of Grown Up Digital and former educational researcher, got laughs and applause for his up-front, optimistic perspective of digital natives and the future of education during his general session at ASCD’s Annual Conference this weekend.

In a self-deprecating style with humorous asides, Tapscott urged educators to empower student-led collaboration and to reinvent traditional methods of instruction by embracing technology.

“Internet is not a problem; it is a learning opportunity,” Tapscott said. “Don’t blame the Internet for how our approach to learning and thinking has changed. That’s like blaming the library for ignorance.”

Tapscott spoke about the changing generations, explaining that the generation currently making its way through our education system is the first generation born into a major shift in the mode of cognition. “We are creating a generation that is thinking differently from every generation before,” he said. “[These students] are not just multitasking; they have better abilities to code-switch. They are constantly searching, storytelling, collaborating, developing, and authenticating.”

Tapscott addressed the “negative, cynical” attitudes many adults have about today’s young people, who often refer to them as an “army of narcissists” or say that they are dumb. The data, he said, prove otherwise: “They are not the dumbest generation. They are the smartest generation.”

Tapscott also noted that the family model has changed drastically from the 1950s cliché of the TV show Father Knows Best. Beyond the increase in nontraditional families, Tapscott described how today’s kids are “lapping their parents on the information track.” Because of this, relationships between parents and their children are shifting from the top-down, father-figure model to a layered model of mutual respect and partnership in which kids are at the center.

So what do these shifts mean for educators? First, the traditional mode of delivery needs to change, because lecturing is no longer effective. Tapscott noted the irony of saying that to an audience in a lecture from a stage. However, he explained that he was not trying to provide facts, but rather attempting to “change your mind about [the Net generation], and that’s all I can achieve here.”

He encouraged the educators assembled to disable the generational firewalls that have been erected between them and their students and to embrace a culture of collaboration, integration, and self-organization. Banning social media such as Facebook says “We don’t understand your tools. We don’t trust you,” Tapscott said.

Customization is also key. A one-size-fits-all approach to education won’t work when kids are used to searching online for exactly what they want, when they want it.

And it’s not just pedagogy that needs to change. Tapscott said that we need to shift how we develop content and curriculum so that it’s more collaborative and multilayered. Textbooks alone aren’t enough. We need rich, interactive material.

“For the first time in human history, kids are the authority,” he said. “They know more about the digital revolution and its implications for learning than teachers.”

Madonna and the Whole Child

Post submitted by Whole Child Bloggers Laura Berry and Josh Sanchez.

What’s the answer to America’s educational woes? Madonna. Lots and lots of Madonna.

Yong Zhao, distinguished professor at Michigan State University and author of the ASCD book Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization, used Madonna as an example of how the United States needs to capitalize on the national spirit of individuality to maintain a lead in worldwide innovation rather than continue trending toward more centralized testing and national standards.

In his March 6 session at ASCD’s Annual Conference, Zhao spoke to over a thousand educators about his book and the underlying premise that as the world globalizes, education must move to a more holistic approach to retain America’s competitive edge. In essence, the United States must lead the world in cultivating the whole child, a pioneering educational approach that urges creative and analytical thinking.

Ensuring students are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged are the tenets of ASCD’s whole child approach to improving U.S. education. As Zhao explained, international lists have placed numerous countries above the U.S. educational system, but those comparative lists should not mean that the United States needs to mimic another country’s academic approach.

Zhao specifically cites how China is changing from a regimented, standards-based testing system to an educational system based in creativity and critical-thinking skills. Also, Zhao shared research stating that six out of the nine countries that have a higher international ranking in education maintain a lower quality of life compared to the United States

Read more about how Zhao stressed adopting a whole child approach to our schools by implementing personalized learning, increasing academic challenges, and involving the community over at Inservice, the ASCD blog. For more information on challenging students, visit Zhao’s author page and follow him on Twitter @yzhaomsu.

Let's Stop Motivating Our Students

ASCD’s Annual Conference 2010 is underway in San Antonio, Tex., and here at the Whole Child Blog we’ll be providing you with summaries of sessions that tackle whole child themes. First up is ASCD author Bob Sullo’s session, “The Motivated Student,” which might actually be a bit of a misnomer. Sullo began his session by saying that we need to stop motivating our students because motivating is a form of control. Instead, we need to engage and inspire students.

So how do we do that?

  1. Build positive relationships. Exhibiting enthusiasm exclusively for the subject matter is only going to reach the kids who are intrinsically interested in that subject matter; relationships are essential for engaging all the other students in the material. Unsurprisingly, research shows learning improves in the presence of positive relationships.
  2. Create relevant lessons. When students perceive something as important and relevant to them, they are much more likely to give it their full attention, creating the conditions for maximum achievement. Demonstrating relevance is especially important with adolescents who are in the developmental stage of identity formation.
  3. Set realistic expectations. Students are most compelled to put forth sufficient effort to learn when they believe that success is within their grasp. When students can’t succeed even when they try, they typically seek power in less responsible ways, such as disrupting the class or adopting an “I don’t care” attitude. Every student deserves the chance to be successful and one way of ensuring this is to grade kids based on their own growth.
  4. Create a needs-satisfying classroom. Students have five basic needs: belonging/connecting, power/competence, freedom, fun, and survival/safety. If these basic needs are being met, students are less likely to act out and more likely to be engaged in learning. Not every single classroom activity needs to meet every single need. But during a block of time, teachers should implement a plan that provides students with a reasonable chance of having these needs met.
  5. Teach students to self evaluate. Self evaluation fosters decision making, creates an atmosphere of collaboration, and invites kids to take ownership of their learning.

For more information on engaging and inspiring students, visit Sullo’s author page and follow him on Twitter @bobsullo.

Harlem Children's Zone Gives Kids More to Love

Post submitted by Whole Child Blogger Laura Varlas.

Yesterday at ASCD’s Annual Conference and Exhibit Show in San Antonio, Tex., Geoffrey Canada reminded us of an important aspect of whole child education. Although social workers, health care providers, early childhood education, and family education are pillars of the full-service community schools in Harlem Children’s Zone, so is learning how to have fun.

“Don’t eliminate the things that make kids love school.” Okay, Canada admits, some kids really love algebra. But it’s the chess club, the debate team, or taekwondo that might be the spoonful of sugar to the rest of your kids.

We have to give kids opportunities to learn how to have fun, Canada noted, or they’ll find whatever way is most readily available. That’s often drugs or gangs, for our most vulnerable students.

Canada speaks from experience. “Poetry saved me.” As a young man growing up in the South Bronx, Canada fell in love with Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham, and his teacher created the conditions for the relationship to flourish. That initial unconditional encouragement made Canada a lifetime reader of verse, from Seuss to Harlem Renaissance authors Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes.

Arts, athletics, and enrichment courses are often seen as extras when districts have to make hard decisions about funding. Geoffrey Canada reminds us why they are so central. Read more.

Reading to Learn

Reading is one of the most important things children can do to shape their education and future. But what if a child is reading but not understanding the concepts and ideas behind the words? Reading skill matters little if students cannot understand the context.

ASCD Express, along with the March issue of Educational Leadership, offers advice to educators about how to make sure their students are learning from what they are reading and truly understand the text. Learn more.

At the conclusion of a reading assignment, students should write about and discuss what they have just read for full comprehension, according to Robert Marzano. Watch the video: