"The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer”

Alice Wellington Rollins

Teachers who blame students for being bored is the equivalent to a builder yelling at his hammer after he strikes his own thumb.

Determination

This is one powerful word. 

While involved in some PD on reading it was mentioned about making some of my readers more determined, which I agreed was the real need they have.  They can do it but too often as soon as they find a hard word or a sentence that they don’t understand they just give up.  They have no determination when it comes to know what they don’t know.  They just wait for someone to tell them or carry on like nothing is wrong.  I have thought about this a lot and wondered why they have this mind set; I came up with two ideas. 

Firstly that they have been trained to do this; the students that do this the most have always had troubles with reading and have had lots of support. All of these supports are great and I am definitely not saying anything negative about them.  I am just wondering if because they have had so much support they have come to rely on it.  In a way have we trained them out of thinking for themselves? 

The second is that they have never been explicitly taught to be determined.  This idea came up once I talked to one of my groups about their lack of determination.  Very quickly I realise it was all new thinking to them.  Out of this came a new focus for my class not just in reading but in learning.  The term “Determined Learners” is now commonly used in the class, both by students and me.  The students love it, it means less focus on getting things wrong and more on how to get things right.

I have found that in only two weeks the attitude of the students to new learning has really grown, they were getting good at new things as it was but now they really are determined.  They even ask each other if they are being determined, and use it when they are reflecting. 

I look forward to growing the culture of determination next term.

Determination + Questioning = Learning!!!

Term 1

What a term! I reposted a PowerPoint I posted earlier this year that I have modified, I have tried to sum up my term in other ways but think the presentation is the best way. Some of the things in the PowerPoint I am writing more posts about to clarify my reflections, so look out for them.

PDF of "POST IT" first think!

Students were asked to POST IT anything they knew or thought about the Process of making a product.  Each note is on small POST IT these were stuck on poster on wall, collected together and scanned.

Wall Wisher for our first THINK!

Inquiry Based learning

Sir Ken

Worth watching!

Check list

Found this check list simple ideas that can be used.
 

Even the teacher looks bored!

market day Tagxedo

Market Day Wordle

Market Day Planning

As staff we are using this answer garden to brainstorm ideas for an up coming inquiry?


Market day?... at AnswerGarden.ch.

Worth a laugh

We use to think that phones with Internet were out the of the question!

Questioning

All our knowledge results from questions,
which is another way of saying that
questioning is our most important
intellectual tool.

Neil Postman

So what are we doing to make sure our students have the questioning skills they will need? Are we modelling good questions and answers?

I have found that students love the challenge of asking questions that will get them the knowledge they want. Often I have found if you answer the questions they ask in the way they are asked, not the way you know the students meant to ask them, they will find the right question very quickly.

For example,
Student asks, “Can you spell …?”
The teacher usually answers either by spelling the word or tells them to use a dictionary.
But, what if the teacher answered, “Yes”?
The student may look puzzled, but nine times out ten they will try to ask another question to get what they want.
They find it a challenge and when it’s framed up in the right way they find it a lot of fun – motivation!

Right question, right time, right learning!