Comments on the Latest from "Learning is Messy" Blog

Brian Crosby's latest post on his "Learning is Messy" blog shares seasonal lesson plans that use experiential learning.  He describes a lesson that closed a unit on the New Americas by having the students research the real first Thanksgiving: what was eaten, who was there, why they were gathered, etc.  After their research, students volunteered to bring dishes for a simulated feast.  Crosby encouraged students to bring some of the food that they eat at their families' traditional feasts.  A Vietnamese student brought duck, for instance. 

Crosby documented the entire event with photography and had students reflect on the experience.  Though he doesn't label this lesson as such, Crosby is using experiential learning--learning through the experience of multisensory events.  In this case, the experience is a combination of historical reenactment and multicultural sharing. The abstract historical data is made concrete in a festive atmosphere and is augmented by the appreciation of the students' particular versions of Thanksgiving, no matter their backgrounds.

I was recently thinking about doing something similar, though the focus would not be on holidays or seasons.  In my seventh grade Literature class, we are reading a mystery novel called Skellig.  In the opening scene, a boy peers into a spooky garage and sees for the first time the creature we find out later is Skellig.  The suspense of the novel centers on the mysterious origins and nature of the creature the boy finds.  In order to catch the student's attention early in our reading, I was thinking that I could recreate the scene and have another teacher play the creature.  Our school is ancient and spooky, so there are plenty of creepy rooms that would freak them out.  They could experience the fear and amazement that the boy lives in the opening scene, much as Crosby's students experienced Thanksgiving.

Inquiry-based Learning and Historical Thinking

I have used inquiry-based learning in my Literature courses through Reading Journals and Socratic Seminars. 

For a reading journal entry, students read an assigned section and keep a log consisting of ten categories: 1. proper nouns, 2. facts and information, 3. "my thoughts", 4. quote that caught my eye and why, 5. visualize, 6. make connections, 7. ask questions, 8. infer, 9. determine importance, 10. synthesize.   After modeling and guided practice, students come to complete these journals independently.  The journals are used as a source for an inquiry-based discussion.  For instance, I can ask, "What inferences did you make from last night's reading?  Please point to a corresponding passage."  From there, the students generate the inquiry by interrogating the text once potential inferences are presented.  The method allows for trial and error; students learn from their mistakes. 

Rather than giving them study guide questions, I give them categories for active reading and rules of notice.  This approach must be balanced with the traditional instruction of content; they are less capable of commenting analytically if they do not have the terminology for literary elements.  Nonetheless, the format of student-generated inquiry--in which, without prompting, they present the questions for consideration, generate the connections to the world, their lives, and other artwork, determine the "big ideas", etc.--supersedes the content of teacher-generated lecture notes.  If the student adequately interrogates and explains an ironic moment, let the word irony come later.

Socratic Seminars are foundational for inquiry-based learning in Literature, and I use them as a formal forum for the application of reading journal entries and five categories of questioning.  In order to participate in a scheduled seminar, students must arrive with five types of questions on the reading for that day's discussion: 1. close-ended, 2. open-ended, 3. world-connection, 4. theme/message, 5. literary/author's choices. While I take notes as a "fly on the wall", merely observing, students run a seminar with the purpose of addressing questions they have pondered and showcasing thoughts from their reading journals.  Questions lead to further questions and the inquiry becomes spontaneous, as students create new connections that were not prepared in advance.  The inquiry-based learning approach aims to teach learners how to learn, regardless of the content.  Proponents argue that students do not need the appendix to Hirsch's Cultural Literacy, but a toolbox of critical thinking skills that move from basic observation and literal comprehension to synthesis, application, design, and invention.  The Socratic Seminar meets the criteria of inquiry-based learning because students are not asked to come with a discrete set of answers and facts but with an amendable bank of inquiry topics and with evidence of active, critical reading.

Historical thinking theories propose that certain thinking skills result from the study of history.  Doubtless the same is true for the study of literature. For instance, in history, they learn chronology and sequence; in literature, they learn comparable concepts of plot and cause-and-effect.  Historical thinking proponents also advocate reading textbooks with a critical eye.  Students are encouraged to remain mindful of the biased perspective of all authors, regardless of their efforts to remain comprehensive and objective.  The same critical stance used in historical reading (of primary and secondary texts) should be applied in the reading of literature: questioning unreliable narrators, evaluating the effects of time periods on authors, etc.

I need to spend time this semester researching ways to incorporate inquiry-based learning and technology.

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Isaacs' Technology Portfolio

UDL Inspiration Map

 The above Concept Map of the Universal Design for Learning is the second map I made.  The first one I made was the diagram version of a far-too-long outline of our readings from chapters three and four of Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age.  Once turned into a JPEG, the concept map was so small that the content of the diagram was impossible to see.  I include it below:

Yikes!  You can tell that this diagram is inaccessible and therefore useless.  The outline was seven pages when I converted it to a Word document, far too many words to fit into a concept map.  My myopia about the content distracted me from the overarching goal of posting a visible image on this blog.  The mind map at the top of this post is a more succinct representation of the essence of UDL.    

One thing I greatly appreciated in the UDL reading is that CAST practiced UDL in its presentation of the content, particularly with "top-down" networking through hyperlinking and sections labeled as "background knowledge".  In addition, the writers of this "curriculum" embed multimedia presentations and videos.  Often, educators of educators do not practice the methods they endorse, but CAST does.

Inspiration is a program that supports standard 3 of the CT language arts curriculum guide, which focuses on the writing process.  For prewriting, Inspiration mind maps and diagrams allow students to plan and rehearse using images and words in a spatial web.  The feature which transforms the data from an outline form to a diagram form and vice versa is particularly useful.  

UDL is a pedagogy that seems to work best "in the clouds"--on the internet.  One fear I have about CAST's approach is that it is so dependent on internet access that students who lack a home computer and network become disadvantaged.  Ideally, in-class instruction that attempts to maximize options will extend outside of the class.  How do we bring UDL into the home of a student who lacks the technology?  For instance, suppose a student has a personal laptop supplied by his school for in-school use only.  Suppose that student receives support for his reading through e-books that have text-to-speech features and hyperlinks to the definitions of challenging words.  This level of support is warranted and deliberately employed by his teacher in the class.  

What happens though when he goes home and wants to read independently for pleasure or complete his homework using the same support system?  Several of his classmates become self-reliant with e-books and their parents purchase e-book readers for them.  Where does that leave our student who must, for instance, manually and rapidly flip through a dictionary to comprehend a text, while his counterparts simply enter words into dictionary.com or move the cursor over the word in their e-reader and a footnoted definition magically appears?  UDL obviously favors those who have home technology to match the supports offered at school.  This does not undermine UDL's pedagogy and I'm sure the creative teacher would be able to overcome any home obstacles.  However, to use the architectural analogy, having a ramp at home would make having a ramp at school less of a tease.