Engaging students in higher order thinking activities, building their understanding through group work and conversations, letting them apply the new context, and taking on new roles that have real world meaning are all ways that we can engage our students in the curriculum. We do not want our students to fall behind because of boredom or because they don't understand the information. We want them to be engaged and by allowing them to work together to problem solve and apply the skills they are able to understand and use the information given to them.
Intellectual practices are the recurrent and regular practices where students are engaged in their learning. There are 7 practices that were described, they are:
1. Students engage with the key ideas and concepts of the discipline in ways that reflect how experts in the field think and reason.
2. Students transform what they have learned into a different form for use in a new context or for a different audience.
3. Students make links between concrete knowledge and abstract theoretical knowledge.
4. Students engage in substantive conversation.
5. Students make connections between the spoken and written language of the subject ad other discipline-related ways of making meaning.
6. Students take a critical stance toward knowledge and information.
7. Students use metalanguage in the context of learning about other things.
If a teacher can create and implement well rounded lessons, it would be easy to have all 7 practices in one lesson. In a project based classroom, students would be engaged, transform the info, make connections, do critical thinking, and communicate with one another. I think that we need to veer away from curriculum and test based classrooms and move towards project based classrooms. They are more beneficial to the students. In a sense, students are able to take charge in their own learning. and when they are able to do this, then they retain and grasp more information. "Students want to be active learners and that they value thinking and doing for themselves" (page 39).
Rich tasks were also discussed. Rich tasks are problem based, relate to more than one subject, have an end product, has real world relevance, multistage, made in different formats, require lots of information, require making connections, and students need to collaborate and converse with one another. Rich tasks are related to project based learning strategies. If done correctly, tests and quizzes no longer need to be used. Rich tasks are meant to assess students while they work. Rubrics are still good to use because they give every body an outline of the assignment and their goals for the end outcome.
I already use some of the 7 practices in my classroom. I would like to be better at allowing students to take charge or their own learning. The ones that I use the most are 3, 4, and 5. I need to work on the others and allowing students to be the masters of their own learning. As a teacher, I need to let go of always wanting to be in charge and allow the students to take more of a hands on approach. I want to get away from the curriculum based classroom and be more of a rich learning environment. I do use rubrics in my class. My students always know what I want from them and what their end goal should be. I believe in setting expectations and always giving my students a chance to succeed. They can't succeed if they don't know where to go.
The success of our students is everything! We want them to go far and fulfill their dreams, but part of that starts with us. We need to include them in their own learning and let them take charge. They know more than they let on. If we give them a chance they can really surprise us!
I am learning very similar ideas in my reading with relation to your text about students needing to process and better understand information rather than memorize it. Through high order thinking, we have students learn the information on their own which also gives the information more meaning to the student because they formed the ideas on their own which will make it more memorable. I agree with your point on project-based classrooms. It follows the article we read on Jeremy and Rachel. The memoir project helped the students to focus on many different topics and had them do all the work through conversations, self research, and critical thinking.(Keene) I am interested in learning more about Rich tasks and how teachers' experiences have been with them. They seem great but is the grading process overwhelming or cooperative with the students? I feel teachers have a hard time of letting the students be in charge of their learning but after they teach the students how to engage in their learning then they are better off on their own. I also would like to use a rubric system but find that creating it will be hard for beginner teachers because we won't know exactly what we should be expecting from the students. Do you change your rubric for different classes or students?
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to hear from teacher who use Rich Tasks in their classroom all the time. Maybe there are blogs about it :)! I will have to research.
DeleteI think teaching students to engage in their own learning is key to project based or rich task classrooms. They need to know what it looks like, sounds like, and what their final goals are. Everything would have to be very organized and modeled.
I teach second grade, so I don't have different classes. I use the same rubrics every year. I created a writing rubric that is hung up all year for the kids to reference and I also refer back to it before they start their weekly writing assignment. They know what is expected from their writing assignments and what grade they will receive based off of their work. They can get a 1, 2, 3, or 4 based on the quality of writing and drawing. Do the sentences flow and stay on topic? Are they complete sentences? Do they have a nice detailed drawing that goes with what they wrote? Those are the types of things that I look for when grading.
I hope that helps! :)
I really like the idea of Project-Based learning with clear and straightforward rubrics. I think it is a noble goal to work toward an entirely project-based curriculum, and I admire teachers who work at project-bases schools like Ace Leadership High School and NextGen Academy High School. It can be daunting at first to try PBL because you are relinquishing some control, it takes some time to do projects, and you worry that you're not "covering" all the material. I'm glad to hear it's working well in your second grade classroom, and I will try to do at least a couple projects next year. It's a start. Hopefully I'll hit all "7 practices." You claim that should be easy to do, but I don't know if I agree with you there :P You seem like a very fun and capable teacher, keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteWell, my classroom is not fully project based, but I hope to move that way completely soon. I do use rubrics though for grading. I think that it is better for the students and myself. The students know exactly what is expected of them and it makes grading easier for me. I do my best to be the best teacher I can be for my students, but I am still learning. I think that more experienced teachers are better at hitting the 7 practices. Of course it takes time and practice to get really good at anything, especially teaching. It is ever changing and we are always learning something new.
DeleteThank you though! :)
I agree with you about letting our students to be in charge of their learning, but at the same time I believe that we, as teachers, need to create more meaningful tasks that can help our students understand the new information. That means build assessment for understanding. For instance, students should be able to tell the "big idea" in their own words and make connections. As teachers we need to keep working on that. The seven practices can aid to achieve this goal.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think that sometimes we get lost in everything else that need to be done that we forget the most important reason we are there, to make learning meaningful and beneficial for our students.
DeleteI am really excited about the idea of project based learning/rich learning and I would love to incorporate these types of activities in my new classroom. What I like about PBL is that students are doing "real work" (see practice #1) relating to their communities. It gets students interested by making learning meaningful. It bridges what we learn in school with the "real world" by having the students engage in "real" work. I also agree with Jane, us teachers need to be clear with our goals and exceptions for these types of projects. We also need to provide the proper scaffolding so students can achieve their goals.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of PBL. I hope that one day I will be able to convert my classroom into a PB class. It is practical and beneficial to the students.
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