Creating High Performance Learning Environments

Video 1: Roller Coaster Physics

Wow! What a neat way to teach physics! This is a great example of project based learning, and students seem to be very invested in creating their roller coaster. I am very impressed with how creative this teacher is, and I hope to be able to channel this much energy and creativity into my class. I also noticed that these students are incredibly well spoken and the dialogue between students is at a very high level. Students are using scientific words and are communicating effectively.

Academic Expectations

Ms. Migdol has high academic expectations for her students. This is shown through the dialogue between the students and the vocabulary that individual students are using. It is obvious that using technically sound vocabulary is a point that has been stressed to these students, and it is nice to see that the students seem to actually understand the words that they are using as opposed to shoe-horning the words in because they know it is what their teacher wants. The idea of “chimers” also helps create high academic expectations because students are expected to be able to chime in with the issues that their group has had when working on this activity and to be able to assist other groups in fixing their problems. I am impressed with how comfortable the students seem, both with the material and with each other. Of course, because this class has been with Ms. Migdol for quite some time (from what can be gleaned from the video), we do not see the academic expectations being set. We do, however, see them playing out quite nicely.

Behavioral Expectations

Behaviorally, these students are stellar. This, of course, means that Ms. Migdol did an excellent job setting up these expectations in advance. When individual students were talking, the other students actively listen and responded with constructive, well thought out responses. All of the students were actively engaged, whether they were speaking or not. Additionally, students moved from task to task with little to no distraction. I was very impressed, and I would like to know what kinds of strategies Ms. Migdol used in establishing these expectations.

Norms and Procedures

As far as norms and procedures are concerned, this particular video did not establish much. “Chimers” are clearly a norm for this class, and the procedure of actively listen is well-established. Additionally, because the transitions are so smooth, I imagine that some sort of procedure was set up in advance to create such a flawless transition.

Video 2: 3^rd Grade Chinese Math

I am not sure I like this approach. It seems like the students are just reciting multiplication tables (I think that is what they were doing), and I know from experience that the ability to recite does not equal understanding. This parroting is a basic level of understanding, and I feel like students may have trouble recalling multiplication facts outside of the “chant.”

Academic Expectations

The academic expectations in this video were a bit unclear to me. The goal of the class, it seemed, was to be able to recite multiplication tables. This, however, is not a terribly effect way to understand math. Sure, these students may be able to answer math questions on an exam, but what will happen to when they need to apply this knowledge in the real world?

After reading the article, “Explainer: what makes Chinese maths lessons so good?,” I felt a bit clearer about the expectations. In China, students participate in a rigorous, nine year math course that consists of four stages: “number and algebra”, “space and graph”, “statistics and probability” and “practice and applications.” Although this program is rigorous, if this lesson is any indication, I am not sure if it would be terribly effective outside of a testing environment. However, the expectation of outstanding test performance is set high and is met by many students.

Behavioral Expectations

Behaviorally, students seemed to just be expected to parrot the teacher for most of the lesson. However, once the teacher asked for volunteers, there was a large amount of side conversation going on. The teacher ignored it, so I assume this is normal for her class. Overall, the behavioral expectations did not seem terribly high. As long as students weren’t exceptionally disruptive, the teacher just continued with her lesson as if the kids were not talking. Ideally, higher behavioral expectations would be set so that learning potential could be maximized.

Norms and Procedures

The norms and procedures in this video were pretty clear. One norm was reciting multiplication tables. The procedure for that is students sit on the floor in front of the teacher and recite together whichever table the teacher chooses. Students seemed to be best behaved when enacting this procedure. Perhaps more procedure would be helpful in raising behavioral expectations.

Video 3: Whole Brain Teaching

Whole brain teaching is overwhelming. Honestly, as a student, I would really dislike something like this. For me, I need to be able to focus on learning the material, not on learning a bunch of movements that might eventually help me remember the material. That being said, I am going to try to have an open mind as I conduct my research on whole brain teaching.

Academic Expectations

I am not sure exactly how whole brain teaching helps academically. To me, it seems like a lot of parroting and little to no application of material. The ability to repeat what someone has told you does not mean you have learned the material. I nanny a three year old on occasion, and he can sing the ABC song. Does this mean he knows the alphabet? No, not at all. He cannot recognize letters or sing the song slower than he originally learned it. My biggest concern with whole brain teaching is that it will lead to the kind of learning that is only useful on the test. That being said, all of the students are able to parrot correctly, from what I could tell, showing that whole brain teaching at least has that level of academic expectations. Overall, the research on whole brain teaching seems almost too good to be true. I would like to see more research on students applying the concepts they learn via whole brain teaching in different settings and in real life.

Behavioral Expectations

I was actually very impressed with this class behaviorally. I am surprised that whole brain teaching works so well with older students. It seems to me that they would feel talked down to, but from what I could tell, that was not the case at all. In fact, it looked like they were enjoying the lesson. They all were respectful of the teacher and of each other. I think that because the lesson was so high energy, students had less time to think about acting out behaviorally. Overall, I would say that behavioral expectations were high for this group.

Norms and Procedures

Where do I begin? Whole brain teaching is all about norms and procedures. The general norm seems to be “repeat whatever the teacher does.” Some offshoots of that include teaching each other and repeating with actions. A few procedures shown in the video include speed-reading and teaching each other. When the students did speed-reading, they were reading sight words, according to the comments on the video. This seems like it would be effective, but it ultimately seems a little young for this group of students. When the students taught each other, the procedure involved parroting what the teacher had just taught them It concerns me that the students did not even rephrase what the teacher said, but rather repeated everything word for word and gesture for gesture.

Setting High Performance Expectations in My Classroom

Ideally, my approach will look the most similar to that in the first video about project-based learning. I liked how engaged the students were with the material, and I would like to find a way to incorporate that into my own classroom. One thing that I would like to implement from whole brain teaching is the sheer energy that the teacher brings to the classroom. If the teacher is that excited, it has to be really hard not to care about the topic. In my classroom, I will establish high standards early and develop norms and procedures along side my students to create a respectful, upbeat environment that is conducive to learning. In order to reach all of my students, I will use differentiated instruction. Students are often on such different levels that it is important to plan ahead for the need for differentiation. Behaviorally, I will expect my students to follow the norms and procedures we came up with as a class, and I will hold them to that. I will use transition techniques like we learned about in the last module to help my students successfully keep up this standard of behavior even when we are moving from one activity to another. Ideally, I will use a blend of the many approaches we have learned about to create a classroom environment that leads to learning and respect.

Biffle, C. (n.d.). Whole brain teaching: Research. Retrieved from http://www.wholebrainteaching.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=222:research&Itemid=137

Chen, C. (2013, June 13). 3rd grade Chinese–math class. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7LseF6Db5g

Mackens, R. (2011, May 31). Whole brain teaching Richwood High – The basics. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iXTtR7lfWU&feature=youtu.be

Teaching Channel. (n.d.). Roller coaster physics: STEM in action. Retrieved from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-stem-strategies

Wei, K. (2014, March 25). Explainer: What makes Chinese math lessons so good? Retrieved from  http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-makes-chinese-maths-lessons-so-good-24380