Wordles, homework, teaching and learning

The week before Spring Break brings with it a sense of excitement and anticipation regarding our teaching assignments. Students will have a series of deadlines this week that will help determine the overall success of this task:
• On Monday, all homework assignments, study guides, and lesson notes will be due. If students wish to have these items photocopied for their classes, Monday would be the day to submit them.
• At the end of Tuesday’s class period, all visuals must be completed.
• Wednesday and Thursday will bring with them the submission of a “wish list,” or items students need for their teaching assignment.
We will also spend Monday and Tuesday in the auditorium during core extension in the auditorium listening to panel presentations from former 7-1 students. These individuals will engage in a discussion based on their experiences with this assignment. This type of discussion will lend itself to an open question and answer forum with our current students. For former students to see a younger version of themselves and for current student to see a prospective vision of themselves will represent a very compelling juxtaposition of time. I believe that such a forum will allow our students to have a better understanding of the course they will chart and how to navigate the real pitfalls that might be present. While we do approach Spring Break, our focus is on the successful completion of work and ensuring that our attention is present in this domain. On a more pedestrian level, please keep in mind that signed report card envelopes are due on Tuesday in Social Studies for a homework grade and that 3rd trimester progress reports go home on Monday with a signature due back on Wednesday. From teaching to group designations, construction of visuals, designing of wordles and graphic organizers, to developing lessons, instruction, and homework to different types of learners, we are approaching a sense of “Show Time” moving closer and closer. Once we return from Spring Break, students will engage in their teaching of students. This should last about two weeks and then we will be examining the ideas that arise from Chapters 11- 13, Industrialization and American reform, and Westward Expansion. Over spring break, I will post via the blog some thoughts as to the form this course of study will take. I believe that our intensive journey will reach a zenith with the ideas presented in these units. Please consider helping our students, your emerging scholars, achieve their maximum by asking them pertinent questions about where they are, where they need to be, and their thoughts on from where to where we have come. For example, an excellent topic of conversation would be for parents/ guardians to ask students how things are progressing in their groups. Who has been doing a really good job or who has been lacking in matching the group’s intensity are excellent topics to discuss. Asking students how they envision teaching the class, grading the homework, or how to maintain classroom order would all be areas of fertile chatting. I do hope that the discussions we are starting and initiating in class can be carried on outside of it with family members and parents/ guardians. Our journey is reaching its natural conclusion. While we have so much to go before our end, it is imperative that as we note from where to where we have come. Our voyage towards scholarship has developed quite a distinctive and beautiful arc. Happy hunting and all best. Mr. Kannan

Teaching

We enter our second week of the student led teaching assignment on chapter 9. Our classrooms seem to emulate much of a modern school. Throughout the classroom are questions that seek to define what constitutes “essential concepts,” queries that hope to analyze how students “get it,” and the proverbial issue as to how students learn. I think this assignment models much of what teaching in the modern setting embodies. There are some very inspired notions of how teaching can be transformed. Scavenger hunts, games, innovative lessons, and classroom designs are being forged. At the same time, there are teaching assignments that are striving to be heard. Just as in the modern educative setting we have teachers who demand to be heard and some teachers who need assistance, we are seeing all forms emerge in our teaching assignment. The most important element that must be pursued in all of our students is the idea that teaching must embody some commitment to outside of class time. When students do this, there is a greater chance of good things happening in the classroom realm.

The focus of this message is to outline how things will progress while students are assembling their teaching assignment. Monday will mark the first week of using our daily points rubrics. Students will be assessed daily on how well their focus is presented in class and will also receive points of mandatory credit for working well during class and ensuring that their focus is on instruction. In addition, students will be receive updated third trimester progress reports on Monday, 3/23. These reports need to be signed and returned by Wednesday, 3/25. At this point, students who have made the commitment to their teaching assignments are progressing quite well into third trimester. Those whose commitments are not as strong are seeing their grade advance as such. My hope is that one of the most fundamental aspects of teaching is revealed through this assignment. The need to follow through on one’s commitment is the only way to academic, personal, and intellectual salvation.


Naturally, all stakeholders can access student grades through mygradebook.com. A log in widget is present on the left hand side of this blog. In addition, students are encouraged to access the class wiki in the hopes of advancing their commitment to the discussions that are ongoing in class. Finally, students have been made aware that signed syllabi for extra credit will be phased out in the upcoming weeks. While I will still offer writing based extra credit, I will be phasing out this aspect of the extra credit domain. We are advancing towards the end of our journey. While we progress towards this end, we should not tiptoe in inches, but rather strive in yards with our heads held high and a sense of striving complemented by an air of triumph has to be evident.

March on, you intellectual soldiers, purveyors of “the good, the true, and the beautiful.”

Mr. Kannan

P.S. As you sojourn in a powerfully compelling demeanor towards your goal of scholarship, don't forget that you might need some help along the way. Hubris is fatal in a journey of this magnitude. I have some ppt lessons that students have composed for their teaching assignments. You can find these under the link of "Recent PowerPoint Lessons" and look for the folder called "Student Exemplars." In addition to this, check back to the blog, as I will be featuring some links below to a website called, "Teachertube.com"- a forum for teachers to post examples of student work. Some of these items might help you in your quest to prepare a lesson. Enjoy!

Living at the hyphen: The Student Led Teaching Assignments for Chapter 9

With ISATs coming to a merciful end, we are now able to fully focus our energies on what lies ahead. I think an appropriate line of inquiry might be to ask what could top the final exam? What could be more taxing than a five day exam that covered two trimesters’ worth of work? What could be conjured that would demand more than an exam worth 58% of a student’s overall grade?

One word: Teaching.

Teaching.

Teaching?


As long as I have taught, I have believed that after a certain point of time with students, they need to be let in on the process, they need to “crack the code” and experience life on the other side of the podium. I cleave to the fact that teaching allows them this opportunity. Students received the next task on Thursday/ Friday, a nearly 20 page document on how to design, implement, instruct, and assess a lesson from chapter 9, the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. Students had one assignment over the weekend: To annotate the document and generate as many questions as possible so as to gear our discussion on Monday. My hope is that students arrive to class on Monday with as many questions as possible to make a more worthwhile endeavor.

These student taught lessons on chapter 9 will prove to be the most challenging endeavor yet. Part of the reason that it will be so challenging is that students are not in complete, absolute, total control of the final product. Over time, I have come to understand the dynamic of pure teaching and learning as something that compels one to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. There is no totality in the process of teaching and learning. Students arrive into the classroom with their own set of cognitive, metacognitive, personal, psychological, and mental baggage and the teacher becomes a sort of “intellectual doctor” who must assess and diagnose the particular conditions in the hopes of achieving a worthwhile lesson of instruction. I feel that I have tried my best this year to live at this particular zone that allows me to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. This notion of teacher- practitioner sees me living at “the hypen” and it has made our journey one that has been uniquely distinctive. Now, I think the time is right to hand over the reins to the students. They have spent enough time on the bench. Now, it is time for them to experience game situations in “real time.”

Students will have to choose a topic from chapter 9. Then, they will have to design a 40 minute lesson that instructs their students on essential concepts within that topic. Students will have to be responsible for content instruction and classroom management. Students will be responsible for attendance, and ensuring each of their “pupils” are on task. Students will be responsible for issues of discipline and managing focus. Students will be responsible for creating a visual that embodies their content. Students will be responsible for designing, distributing, and assessing homework. Students will be responsible for designing and composing a portion of the chapter 9 exam. Students will be responsible for running study sessions and developing study guides. Students will be responsible for achieving a class average of 70% on their component of the exam. Students will be responsible for ensuring that they assess the overall learning performance of each student. The theme of this unit would be that of responsibility. This task will be one of the most challenging that students have faced because they have to be in control of their decision making skills and then account for the choices of their colleagues. Once again, it becomes a challenge to live comfortably in the realm of discomfort.

Students will be give a timetable for completion of tasks this week. This can also be found on this blog, under the “Handouts” link. I believe that the process of constructing lessons on chapter 9 might allow our students another opportunity to demonstrate their talent in advancing their journeys towards scholarship. In this process, I think it would be worthwhile for students to contribute their thoughts to the class wiki, whose link can be found on the top right hand corner of the blog. The notion of living at the hyphen can be enhanced when we engage in worthwhile dialogue about what it means to reside in such a challenging neighborhood.

I know that this is fun.

All best and happy hunting!

Mr. Kannan