Creating a Structured Academic Controversy

There is the content.

There is what students "need to know."

There is what students are interested in themselves...

And if you are lesson planning as a new teacher, how do you connect all these dots? I often look at a lesson plan or a list of bulletpoints that students need to know and all I think of is "Oh crap, kids are going to be booooooored with this!"

Marzano (2007) speaks of a number of ways that teachers can "engage the learner" including what he calls "mild controversy" or competition. This approach jives really nicely with another push that I've been trying to make in my classroom, which is a move towards historical thinking. 

As I remember it in the history classes that I sat in through high school, history was but a list of dates and facts. Remember them and you'll ace the quiz on Friday. The problem is, that's not what Historians do. By teaching history that way we're not only boring kids to tears, we're not teaching what history really is - a discussion or debate in the present about the past. 

The Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) has recently helped me with this approach - they have fantastic, really adaptable posts that are actually designed as Structured Academic Controversy (SAC).  I tried one of their lessons recently during a unit on Ancient Greece.

The lesson asks students to examine primary and secondary documents and to arrive at a historical claim on the question: How many soldiers were at the battle of Thermopylae?

The battle of Thermopylae is historically a controversial topic. It's the battle that inspired the horrifically terrible and historically inaccurate film 300.  According to legend a small group of Spartan soldiers held off a large army of Persian soldiers for seven days, an event that inspired the Greeks into victory in the Greco-Persian war.

But just how many Persian soldiers were at Thermopylae? Getting a 14 year old to care about this was a long shot -  BUT by giving students multiple accounts of the battle and allowing them to debate it - it actually got kids to a thinking place where suddenly it didn't matter how mundane the question was. The point is, kids are thinking. Their minds turn on - and when it comes to creating engaging lessons, that's really the point. I've begun to preach this to kids openly. The Battle of Thermoyplae? Sure, if you really care - then by all means become a history major and do history - and I hope  you find real passion for this. But the real point here - is that we become critical thinkers. I'm not expecting you to jump for you joy over the number of Persian soldiers in this battle - but if students are learning how to question what they read in the process, then I think a lesson like this does its job. I hope to do more in the weeks to come.

What's the Meaning of This?

Madeline Hunter's The Mastery of Teaching offers four techniques that make material meaningful, but I'd like to focus on the technique that I've personally seen to be extremely effective in the classroom: providing a function. "Providing a real function for the material to be learned also builds rationale and meaning for the student".

My girl, Maddy, couldn't be more accurate.  One of the most rewarding learning experiences I've had the pleasure of witnessing was watching a 10th grade journalism class create their school's first ever newspaper.  What began as a lesson on non-fiction writing eventually turned into a project that spanned two classes, a collaboration across all curriculums, and evolved the learning process from extrinsic to intrinsic all the while nurturing team work, empowerment, and helping students find an individual voice as they filled the roles of the editor-in-chief, section editors, and the many journalists that supplied the rich material for the creative endeavor.

Honestly, this group of students hardly realized that they were learning the mechanics of journalistic writing such as AP style, form, research, and proper citation.  "The human brain learns almost effortlessly when there is a sensible reason to learn" (Hunter), and this 10th grade class, without a doubt, effortlessly put together a sensational school newspaper.  I think I even saw a spark or two in some eyes as they realized their calling in life.

To read Hunter's three other techniques on making content meaningful, I highly recommend picking up her insightful book.  Happy reading!

(Note: I get absolutely no kickbacks from the sale of Ms. Hunter's book...unfortunately).

Environment, Environment, Environment!

Did you watch the video above?  Pretty funny, right?  Let's suspend disbelief for a moment and forget that it's a parody of a real-life classroom.  Sort of on point, isn't it?  Obviously, classrooms don't come together in matter of seconds simply because David Spade lays on the schtick just before the network cuts to a commercial so they can rake in the millions from sponsors (if only it were that easy!  And funny!).  What's important here is that the underlying message is drawn from real classroom situations and carries with it a sense of validity.

Let's face it, classroom management is a key ingredient to creating an effective learning environment.  I don't think any teacher will argue that.  There are many parts that make up the whole, but when thinking about how the classroom environment - and by environment I mean the spatial quality of the actual room - affects student behavior, designing the classroom setting in an effective way is paramount for effective teaching and learning.

During a recent observation, I quickly realized how the physical arrangement of the classroom inhibited the teaching and became a breeding ground for unruly behavior.  The desks, or rather conference tables, were incredibly bulky, heavy, and literally absorbed 60% of the classroom space by their sheer size alone. There was little room for mobility and any work stations at the perimeter of the class where impossible to sit at without having to get up every other minute in order to let someone pass.  Only but so much of the blame can be thrown to the teacher, he was, after all, working with what the school provided.  But could he have been more clever in his arrangement?  Or simply removed some of the office furniture posing as desks?  By my count of the number of students vs the amount of tables in the room, the teacher could've tossed out at least five of the fifteen conference tables.  This would've had a dramatic impact on student behavior, attentiveness, accessibility to technology, learning stations & equipment, movement, safety (don't even get me started on safety!)...you get the point.

Whether it's organizing seats in traditional rows or in a circular pattern which facilitates class discussion (or any other plethora of ways as demonstrated in the image above), desk arrangement should be flexible, void of any potential congestion areas so the teacher and students can move freely, and, as Robert J. Marzano suggests in The Art and Science of Teaching, "provide access to any student within four steps from where the teacher spends most of her time".

As I said, this is just one element of creating effective and successful classroom management.  Check back soon for three other suggestions that I think will help improve the environment and begin to nurture what is most important in the classroom - LEARNING!

Break it Down!

I wrestled with the process for a long time of how to implement the Common Core State Standards into a lesson, feeling like the standards severely limited my creativity. Finally I met with my professor and it clicked for me:

Let lessons be driven by standards.

That doesn't limit creativity. In fact, it liberates creativity! The standard creates purpose and direction for content. In this post, we'll break down how to create a lesson driven by a Common Core State Standard.

For example, here is a standard for 9th grade English Language Arts:

Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
(CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.WHST.9-10.5)

Say what?

Okay, let's break it down.

First of all, find the main verb and you find your objective. Good objectives, and in fact all the Common Core State Standards, are driven by verbs, about what you can DO if you achieve this learning goal.

In this standard, the main verb is "develop."

Next, find the stem, which is the main phrase. The stem is "Develop and strengthen writing as needed." This is your objective, which is much easier to swallow than the whole standard itself. Then naturally one may ask: how does one develop and strengthen writing as needed?

"Plan, revise, edit, rewrite, try a new approach, focus on addressing what is more significant for a specific purpose and audience."

Your lesson plan can focus specifically on several or even only one of these aims mentioned above. You can't expect students to be sailing away with every aspect of this standard within one lesson. But objectives can be revisited again and again.

I personally have found - surprisingly - a liberation in focusing on these standards. I don't feel so lost and adrift in planning a lesson, trying to invent interesting material that might be meaningful.
For example, for the standard mentioned above, the material could be to write an essay, a story, a novel, a research paper, a newspaper article.

Standards are a compass that allow me to actually focus in on where I'm going with my students, then let the journey to that destination be filled with adventure.

So break it down, then build it up.

(click on the image below for a zoomed in view of this diagram of Bloom's Taxonomy)

Golden Purpose

I traveled to India in the winter of 2010. In my travels, I took video snippets of the awe-inspiring sights that I saw. When I got home, I decided to edit these snippets into one video. Sounds simple, right? Well, the project grew and grew, and suddenly I was doing an interview and weaving in the sights and sounds and text...

For a seven minute video I poured in about 23 hours of work. 

I loved it. 

When I finally published that video on YouTube, I was euphoric and also detached. I had done my best. I had learned lightyears about video editing, communication, and my own self. If only two people watched that video, fine. What mattered was that I had learned.

When learning has a purpose, a function, then learning stops being "work" and starts being "inspiration." Madeline Hunter writes in her book Mastery of Teaching that "The human brain learns almost effortlessly when there is a sensible reason to learn" (73). The key word here is "effortlessly." Effortlessness is this sense of ease, lightness, and excitement. There is distinction here that work that is effortless can also be challenging. But when there is a reason to learn, that challenge becomes exciting. 

As a teacher, sparking this inspiration in students to learn effortlessly with excitement is my pot of gold. To do this, students need to feel directed in their learning, that the effort put into their work will be applied to something practical in their lives and others' lives. 

Here are some examples of "authentic tasks for authentic learning:" 

- Learning how to word process and use Adobe Photoshop to create invitations for an event

- Write a children's book about a subject one is studying (the periodic table, figurative language) to be read aloud to children in kindergarten and first grade

- Learn how to apply fractions in baking for a bake sale fundraiser for a school trip

Authentic learning tasks take time and effort to prepare for. Consider your preparation for these tasks a task of authentic learning for yourself. When you plan for these tasks, let yourself get absorbed, lose track of time, let it be effortless and challenging and inspiring. You are preparing to give students a meaningful experience of learning. Your work has purpose. 

(P.S. If you'd like to view my India video, check it out here:

  Welcome to Mayapur)

Creating Engaging Lessons

Effective teachers plan ahead. If done well,  they plan ahead to create lessons that are engaging while meaningful. This year I have really focused my time on thinking through exciting “hooks” or “anticipation sets” that will get students eager to dive into the material in  the "primetime" of the lesson. 

I'm going to be real... For me at this point in my teacher development, getting students to get started on that Do Now is largely about getting kids to get seated and settled while I get my life together and monitor that entry. BUT it is and should be so much more than that. It's really about what's going to get students authentically engaged in the lesson of that day. 

Here’s a sampling of some questions I’ve used thus far this year:

"Talk about a recent frustration that you've had - why were you frustrated and what would you do differently if you could do it over again?" 

“What’s more important – happiness or material wealth?”

“When you think of a caveman – what types of images come to mind? (I.e. are cavemen smart? Are they athletic? - this was for a lesson on the paleolithic age)

“What is your ideal job?”

“In the United States we commonly believe that we are “civilized.” Are we civilized? How do you know? Explain using evidence. 

“Given your knowledge of history and our current situation – from high unemployment and fears of terrorism at home to the comforts of technologies such as smart phones and hybrid cars – do you believe that we are better off or worse off as human beings today?

When I sit down to write a hook, I’m generally asking myself:

-          What are they key human questions in today’s content?

-          What do kids care about?

-          How can I generate a question that is relevant to the day’s content – but accessible enough for students?

-          If this week’s content was a #hashtag, what would that hashtag be? Can I refer back to that hashtag so that when kids think of their content, they relate it to that week’s hashtag?

Another big question is – what to do when your hook doesn’t work so well. Or when kids push back on that question or it turns into a much bigger conversation than you had anticipated...  I'll try to address that in another post... But here's the short version of the answer - if the "hook question" is authentically good and speaks to students lives, students will let you know right off the bat. Tomorrow's always another day to implement the very real feedback that students will give you about the work you're doing. 

That Whooshing Sound

I read this quote in 9th grade - it was at the top of a sheet of paper that described the requirements for a research paper. At that moment, at the ripe old age of 15, I realized that my teacher was not being evil by giving me a deadline (gasp!) but actually that if I wanted to lead a life of excellence, I better pay attention to the deadline. 

Deadlines are integral to powerful assessment, from simple exit tickets to 30-page research papers. Deadlines create a sense of urgency and create space for excellence.  

Debra Dirksen, in her article entitled "Hitting the Reset Button," states that assessment methods can "take advantage of quick-write prompts, where students are given three to five minutes to write anything they want about a question or topic. This can be used to gather formative assessment data." 

For example, several weeks ago I walked into a 9th grade English class. Students were busy writing, and a timer was projected to the front of the class. The seconds ticked down. This timer was a simple yet powerful way to let students know exactly how much time they had. This created urgency and allowed for students to become clear in their reflections on a question or topic. 

On the other end of the spectrum, one could assign a 5 page paper to students that is developed over a period of weeks. Without deadlines to assess where a student is at in his or her process, the creative process loses momentum. Does the diagram below feel familiar?

I am sure we've all experienced for ourselves this Creative Process. When we are teachers, we need to set a series of deadlines for students so that that "Mess Around" portion is less, and the green portion of "All the Work While Crying" is more (hopefully minus the "crying" bit). As a teacher, it is imperative to stick to deadlines and also the consequences of when those deadlines are not met. It's a fact of life - students will turn in homework, papers, and projects late, late, late. So set consequences for when students are late.

Deadlines bring out the knowledge and learning that is within a student, whether in a quick-write, research paper, group presentation, or portfolio. Let those deadlines make whooshing noises. And cheer along with a job well done!