Approaches to Learning

Whether for STEM, foreign language, arts, or humanities, applying information is one of the most effective ways for a student to increase their level of understanding and for a teacher to assess mastery of knowledge and skills. Team challenges include any activity that asks a cooperative group to use what they have learned to accomplish a goal. For my own purposes, I will differentiate challenges from competitions by defining a challenge as an outcome that is assessed with a mixture of subjective qualitative and quantitative measurements. Team challenges result in a wide range of solutions rather than predictable and comparable outcomes. Participants in this 1.5 hr. workshop, will break into groups to work on a challenge that requires knowledge and aid from each member of the group. Solutions will be presented to an audience of workshop peers (our “class”). Outcomes will be judged using a rubric that is created by the class, so personal knowledge of the difficulties facing those presenting their solutions will be inherent in the final assessments. As a final step we will return to our roles as teachers and help each other think through ways that this teaching structure can be used in our own classes.

An exciting way to engage your students in their online class is to use a topic that sparks discussion, research, and the desire to sleuth out additional information. In this 1.5 hr. workshop, teachers will participate in a debate in an asynchronous platform (such as Google Classroom) and in a synchronous video meeting (such as Zoom). We will use a topic that allows teachers of any subject area to join in making claims supported with evidence and reasoning. Have fun interacting with other teachers as you learn a new technique to use in your remote classroom.

Combat attrition with engaging assignments that can be sculpted to the student’s abilities and interest. Stop-animation videos are a short movies made with a series of photos taken from the same position and a handful of items that can be moved about to create story. In this1.5 hr. workshop, you will create your own stop-animation video of processes or phenomena, to cover main ideas or convey detailed information. Through this experience, you will see how this teaching technique can be used to deepen understanding, reinforce the use of terms, and work out the sequence of events for a content topic. We will use online teaching methods to build your repertoire for synchronous instruction, and you will experience how the use of shared materials and peer editing can be used to enhance remote learning.

In this 1.5 hr. workshop, teachers will work individually and then as a team to identify a pattern in puzzle pieces that are tell the story of a theorem, function, or process. Once the pattern is defined, participants will use the pattern to predict what comes before or what comes next in the series. Testing their hypothesis against additional information will allow them to revise their explanation of the rules that govern the pattern. Using a technique that can be repeated with different content, phenomena, or skills, we will look for topics that lend themselves to this method of learning-while-doing to provide an engaging critical thinking activity for online or in-person classes.

Participants in this 1.5 hr. workshop, will compare project-based learning outcomes and use their analysis to backward map the lesson such that it hits the skills and thinking objectives desired. In this workshop teachers will work with several free online applications that allow students to create diverse projects to stimulate novel application of material learned in a remote classroom. Teachers will then consider an application for this learning tool within the scope of their own curriculum and modify the template instructions to develop an assignment that is ready to use with their students.

Competitions are assignments that guide students through a preliminary exploration, data collection, analysis, reflection, and revision in a repeating cycle. This process leans on the scientific method and helps students practice character skills such as persistence, curiosity, critical thinking, and self-direction. For my own purposes, I will differentiate team challenges from competitions in that competitions are assessed with quantitative measurements that allow clear winners to emerge in an objective manner. Participants in this 1.5 hr. workshop, will be asked to achieve a particular goal, the outcome of which can be documented and shown to the rest of the class. Teachers in this workshop will be taken through the steps of a competition as if they were the students with intermediate goals and checkpoints along the way. As a final step, we will return to our roles as teachers and help one another think through ways that this teaching structure can be used in our own classes.

Systems models are diagrams or infographics that contain multiple lines of evidence and data within a single visual presentation. Increasingly used across all subject areas, these graphics can be challenging for students to interpret. In this workshop, teachers will act as the students as they shift through each layer of a complex systems model to harvest the information embedded in the diagram. In a second activity, teachers will work in teams to produce a systems model that conveys a large amount of data in a succinct manner. We will discuss the repeatable method used and share sources for systems models that are applicable to their courses.

One of the gifts of teaching in a distance learning environment is the documentation that occurs as students complete and submit work. Each step of the thinking process is recorded digitally, and if a teacher is clever about how they pose their assignments, the maturation of an idea can easily be captured. In this 1.5-hour workshop, participants will learn techniques to document the development and refinement of student work. We will consider how an assignment can be modified to encourage students to reveal their thought processes and reflect on what triggers modifications or changes in thinking. Each participant will tailor the techniques to their own subject area skills to fit the learning objectives of their course.

One of the tools of student-centered teaching is the peer review process. In this technique, students gather in small groups and present their work to one another. The audience of peers is asked to use their knowledge and experience to give critical feedback to the presenter so they can improve their work before it is turned in to the teacher. The impact this process has is profound. Students see what others have created for an assignment given similar time and resources. Peers have encountered similar obstacles and grappled with similar problems so they are able to speak as an equal about how they resolved it or what questions still remain. And ultimately, the comments from peers and the exposure to the work of peers allows a deeper level of self-reflection. However, the process is reliant on critical feedback that is palatable and also action-oriented. In this 1.5-hr workshop, participants will learn how to teach students how to give kind, useful critical feedback so the comments they make to their peers can help everyone in the group.

Information is available from an unlimited number of sources and accessible to anyone. And, anyone who desires can make information available to the masses regardless of its factual or fictitious nature. How are we able to determine what information is reliable and what is suspect? In this 1.5 hr. workshop, we will use a series of activities to create a list checklist of attributes that we are using when we decide what is substantiated and what is not. The activities can be repeated for use in any subject area as a method for discovering how we know what we know in specific fields of study—math, history, art, science, or languages—or modified for use with different grade levels.

Fallacies are errors in reasoning that undermine the logic of an argument. However, fallacies do not necessarily weaken the impact of the argument—on the contrary, fallacies are employed as persuasive devices that lead an audience to false conclusions. In this 1.5 hr. workshop, participants will learn to identify some common fallacies and use them to search auditory and written information. Using a repeatable structure that can be taught in any subject area, teachers will determine how logical fallacies are executed in materials relevant to their class so they can help students identify when a claim is not truly supported by evidence or reasoning.

In this free 1-hour workshop, Kristen Dotti from Catalyst Learning Curricula will show teachers three easy ways to integrate graphing and data analysis skills into their lesson plans with the user-friendly features of DataClassroom. Whether you just want a solid graphing interface, or you are drawn to the hypothesis testing and descriptive statistics that are available with a few clicks, this program has a clean presentation that makes telling a story with numbers a breeze. There are pre-loaded data sets and postable activities with claim-based reflection questions to lead students through a thought-provoking experience, or students can load data they have collected to create a graph that expresses their results and supports their conclusions. Kristen will demonstrate several ways to use DataClassroom so you can optimize the materials in this program regardless of what you have prepared already for the coming weeks.

Although DataClassroom is a paid subscription service that is available for teachers and districts, the resource is so valuable as a teaching tool for data analysis, graphing, and statistics that I wanted to dedicate a free workshop to make teachers aware of the utility of this program. Their free version and the 90-day trial of the licensed version will allow you time to determine if this resource is a must-have for your classroom. As an AP and IB teacher, I find the manipulation of all aspects of a data set and the presentation of data in graphic form–particularly the choice of error bars–to be something my students need. I want to let other AP and IB teachers know about this resource, and would love to see students using it at a younger age so they could be better prepared as they progress through the vertical science curriculum.

To join us for this workshop, place an event ticket into your shopping cart and check out (at $0 charge). You will receive a workshop meeting link at the email address submitted, so be sure to use the email address you intend to use during the workshop. If you would like to register members of your department, you can place more than one ticket in your shopping cart as needed.

In this 1.5 hr. workshop, participants will practice writing rubrics with the intent of assessing the attainment of specific content and skills standards. We will explore how rubrics can be designed for ease of use and consistent interpretation. I will challenge the participants to make rubrics that are flexible enough to allow accurate assessment of a range of products that are inclusive of differentiated learning and multiple intelligences. Teachers will work in teams to prepare rubrics for three different scenarios and then critique the rubrics created by the other teams to get feedback and make revisions.

Participants will be given an example of a choice menu to see how this assessment tool can be used within an online or in-person class. Assessment menus allow greater autonomy in a class as students choose the type of assignment that appeals to them or allows them to utilize their strengths. Although students may complete a learning objective in different formats, the skills and content for the learning objective is identical so all standards-based grading can be assessed regardless of the method a child uses to apply their knowledge and practices. At a time when students have less control over their lives, this gives them a way to manage their time and apply what they are learning to their personal interests improving class participation and retention. Each teacher will modify a template to create their own assessment menu for a chapter, unit, or thematic topic that is covered in their syllabus. We will critique the first version of these menus with questions and specific feedback so participants emerge with a completed assessment menu ready to use in their online or in-person class.

This 1.5 hr. workshop is dedicated to making thinking “visible” by documenting what influences a student’s thought process and by keeping track of the changes that occur when additional information is acquired. Process portfolios can be used in any subject area where a student’s ideas are evolving:  a piece of writing, an experiment, a model, a project, or the maturation and development of skills for a particular content area. One of the silver-linings of 2020 is the shift to digital platforms that track changes easily using time stamps and previous versions of documents, slides, spreadsheets, and drawings. Digital portfolios of the thinking process that occurs between inception and the final product are easy to collect and can be used for discussion and self-evaluation during the reflection period of an assignment.

Although there are many authors who cite their model or use their preferred terms, the cycle of inquiry essentially boils down to actions the student takes to apply concepts and reflect upon them before applying them again. This method can be harnessed to provide visible thinking by asking students to share the questions that arise, map out methods to test their understanding, and note the conclusions that emerge from observations and reflection. When used, this approach to thinking and learning can help both the teacher and the student become increasingly aware of the process used to compare and contrast what is known and unknown. Explorations become more deliberate and risk-taking is justified by specified goals with predicted outcomes. Participants in this 1.5-hour workshop will design an assignment that use the cycle of inquiry to explore a content area that is relevant to their curriculum with the intention of preparing student to repeat this approach with future topics to foster independent thinking.

This workshop is aimed at bringing K-12 teachers together to identify the essential skills that need to be targeted in a curriculum that is reduced by remote teaching. Based on the speed and depth of learning that has been achieved so far using remote learning, we know teaching may be reduced to a bare minimum of content with an emphasis on skills to keep students on track in science. Using the guidance of accepted reading, writing, science, and math benchmarks as well as specific state standards we will categorize content and skills into those that must be addressed in the classroom and those that can be taught effectively at home. Participants in this workshop will create a curriculum map for their course that has several contingency plans in case of school closure for unknown periods of time.

Risk-taking is a characteristic of the IB learner profile because it sets students apart from their peers as leaders. Risk-taking with deliberation and defined outcome is a characteristic of good decision-making, however, blind risk-taking based on impulsivity is not. But how do we encourage this attribute in our students such that they gain the benefits it brings in innovation and invention without the pitfalls of recklessness? The secret lies in making thinking visible. In this 1.5-hour workshop participants will use techniques for defining goals, making predictions, and justifying actions as a repeatable method of encouraging reflective risk-taking. We will use examples to see how these methods might be employed then modify the activities to fit our own subject areas.

Twenty-first century teaching is challenged by the fact that we are preparing students for a world that does not yet exist. When the techniques used in the classroom or the content taught in the course are dated, students are quick to acknowledge that discord and can disengage. Participants in the 1.5-hour workshop will address the issues of relevance by considering how their course can be structured to include flexibility and choice. When assignments are structured around skills, the examples or topics used to practice thinking and learning can be adapted easily so they address the immediate concerns of the students—or better yet, so the student define the context. In this workshop we will modify example assignments to provide inclusion and differentiation. Whether we are responding to political, social, cultural, or emotional change occurring globally or locally, a dynamic ability to respond can be part of your lesson plans before the teachable moment arises. We will discuss example assignments used by the participants to consider how changes can be made to allow autonomy and relevance without compromising the intended learning objectives.

Many of us have the basics to teaching online down, but there are still delays, hiccups, and a suite of things that may go wrong each time we start a video meeting. Little things we learned to do without thought in our first few years to teaching once again plague us, such as handing out materials, knowing if every person is present (when their audio and video are both off), getting full participation, and helping recalcitrant students interact. How do we regain the mastery of teaching so we can again convey content and see our student apply knowledge? In this 1.5-hour workshop you will learn about and practice using a number of techniques that will help make your remote classroom run more smoothly. Some tips and tricks will take the bumps out of basic procedures, while others will give you access to a deeper level of connection to your students.

In order to promote intellectual curiosity and advance the collective, individual participants must trust one another so they can take risks, offer ideas, disagree respectfully, and collaborate freely. Starting the year with new students who are not meeting in person as a group will present some unique challenges. Even within a group familiar with one another, this interdependence can be difficult. So, how will you build a collaborative culture in your online classroom? Participants in this workshop will play the role of the students meeting for the first time as a class. You will be led through a number of activities that you can reproduce in your own classes to foster connection, ease, and familiarity. Interwoven in the activities will be skills required for learning in a synchronous and asynchronous classroom so as you build a sense of community, you are simultaneously practicing and testing your ability to perform the skills required for future assignments.