Reflect after reading Chapters 2-4:
How do we form collaborative groups and where will these groups work? Why does room arrangement matter?
Consider the following questions:
- What is resonating with you from the reading?
- What caused you to pause and think during this section?
Respond and Interact
After reading these chapters, please post your response to one {or more} of the prompts above. Read our colleagues' reflections. Feel free to respond to someone by sharing a comment, insight or interesting possibility.
Chapter 2 really resonated with me because I realized how much I do not do random grouping in math. I use random grouping a lot for reading buddies, but in math, because I have 28 students, I naturally “triangle” them up with their neighbors, because it creates less chaos and saves time, but obviously this is not in the best interest of the learner.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 3, I liked the idea of engaging students by working on vertical surfaces. I have done this before with the Wipebooks and really enjoyed it. I do agree that it makes students less anonymous and I liked the ideas Liljedahl gave for “moving the marker” to make sure all students contribute. I have also done this where each student has a different colored marker to show where/how they contributed. I’d like to see how I can pull Wipebooks more into my instruction with the limited classroom space I have.
Chapter four’s topic of defronting the classroom also gave me a lot to think about. I have no idea how this would work with my space and the number of students I have this year, but I did use this method a lot when we were in hybrid mode. It was fun to see how I could arrange the desks into “pods” when I had 15 students in my room during each session, and I do think it led to more engagement, which was definitely a definitive need for students during that time.
The first time I read this book - defronting a classroom sounded completely crazy to someone who might be a little OCD {like maybe me 😂} But I like how Liljedahl pushes me to think. We can't expect different results if we always do the same thing. If we want a different/better outcome, then we have to change something. Sigh. Change is hard....but change can also be GOOD.
ReplyDeleteIn this section of reading, one aspect that resonated with me was when using the vertical whitespaces to have only one marker per group. In the past I have had each student have a different colored marker to show their thinking and I realized while reading this chapter that the kids were doing parallel math, not necessarily working together and sharing their ideas. The idea of one marker and you can only write down what the other people are saying really made me think and I will try that the next time we get our vertical boards out. I was surprised with the chart on page 60 that showed how long it took students to put pen to writing surface and how long students would talk about the math depending on what type of writing surface they had. This showed me I really need to get the kids up and working at the whiteboards now. Which leads to my next thought of being more intentional with the room arrangement. At the beginning of the year having wipeboards on the wall wasn't at the front of my mind when decorating and arranging the room. Now, halfway through the year I want to take things off my walls to make room for the vertical wipeboards to be permanent and to rearrange the room to a defronted classroom.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 2 the grouping of students was enlightening to me. I knew groupings had impact on student learning, but I had not perceived groupings had such an impact on student learning. In my situation, we don't have much flexibility with groups or groupings, my groups are small. But I liked learning different strategies for groupings and how it can impact students learning with the redundancy AND students brining diversity to groups with different ideas & viewpoints. This will help with balance along with group size and it can bring down social barriers.
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 3 where students work in a thinking classroom. It resonated with me how students working on whiteboards and not just sitting and writing in notebooks helps with student thinking. I often have students stand and use the wall whiteboards in the classroom to increase student engagement and thinking. I agree and notice that students definitely are more engaged in the lessons or activity and are more eager to participate. The physical organization of furniture in a classroom can help optimize student thinking. Not all classrooms have the option or space to set up an ideal situation, but it was helpful to learn how setting up a classroom can actually improve student thinking. It was interesting how the classroom that is too organized or too unorganized impacted students and how it can be difficult to generate positive results.
This all made me think about the message I wat to convey to my students with my classroom set up. I hope they feel neither to organized and predictable but not to overly stimulated with chaos and Un organization.
Ch 2- I never do random groups... My students work in teacher selected team table groups or assigned partners at the carpet. For math games and task cards they select their own partner or work independently.
ReplyDeleteI really look forward to trying random groups!!! I try hard to mix up my table groups and partners so that at some point everyone sits with/works with everyone, but the daily mix up will be good. Also, it will give kids who are good friends a chance to work together because I must admit that I separate them on purpose.
Question- that may be answered later- how do make sure everyone knows how to do the work? Our curriculum has daily cool downs- like a mini quiz that is independent, right?
"In a culture that values thinking- as opposed to just answers- there is no motivation to just get the answer. It's the thinking that matters."
Ch 3- I'll be interested to try out some different marker "rules" to make sure everyone participates and no one takes over. I've come to definitively realize this - "...their best students are actually quite weak at thinking tasks, and some of who they think were their weak are actually very good at thinking tasks." Several of my kids who can compute quickly, ask for help quickly on any sort of thinking task. They are mimickers for sure.
Ch 4- I'm curious how defronting the classroom is working for early implementation when the whole lesson is slides? I will say that our early implement or had a student teacher this winter so she had time to come teach a lesson in each of our classes. It was Amazing to get a sneak peek. She had all the kids sitting at the carpet in front of the projector board and she stood BEHIND them. If needed, she had a student record on the board and share the marker that way for the class.
I'm also interested to see how our new tech boards help or hinder. I know they can move... but they also look heavy.
Renae- I’d be interested to see classroom photos from around the district that show both NVPS around the room AND defronted classrooms. Similarly, to how you sent out the photos of center organization.
Ch. 2 and Ch 4 presented valuable inputs how important are: group randomization and 'defronting classroom' Unfortunately it is hard to do put it in go with our groups of 2-3 students and limited room space.
ReplyDeleteBut I decided to make some changes in my MAP groups after reading Ch. 3, especially after going through data table- how different work surfaces impact students thinking process.
I asked my students if they would like to use not only lap boards but also the main vertical classroom whiteboard to solve the problem, do calculation or to show their thinking process, etc and they agreed to it. I may say that after couple weeks I see changes. Students want to participate more, show their work and ideas. It also helps them to be more 'awake' and focus. I love it too because this way I can gain lots of information about their straights and weaknesses and plan for the next necessary activities to support their needs.