Articulation, Documentation, Reflection

Since my last post to this blog (months ago - yikes!), I have spent a good deal of time considering how I approach the creation and cultivation of my own classroom culture.  While some classrooms are plumping up their "academic" approach and priding themselves in their reputations for rigor, I am looking to "take back" kindergarten.  In other words, what makes sense in my kindergarten classroom culture right now?

I asked myself:

 What types of activities, projects, and assignments will really make the difference in the educational experiences of my students?

I started with:

• I still believe that there is a right tool for the job.

• I still think that documentation in the classroom is important and that the iPad is the most accessible and efficient way to do that.

• I still think that (to a certain degree) the apps don't really matter - it's how they're used that does matter.

And then:

This past summer I decided that it was time to re-evaluate how we use many of our classroom materials and how students use those materials to be partners in their own learning.  I considered how I might shepherd the kindergarteners as they go from being partners to being owners of their learning - in kindergarten-age appropriate ways.  (for me, that changes how students approach learning - are they engaged? are they self motivated? will they be able to continue even if and when I am not there?)

What I Read:

I am always moved by the resources shared by Ron Ritchhart and his Culture of Thinking as well as his work on Making Thinking Visible.  I used the Essential Questions by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins to help shape my own practice and reflections.  I also keep in mind a quote from Dr. Seuss, "It is better to know how to learn than to know."


Using these resources as jumping off points, I have refined the use of iPads in my classroom as threefold:

Articulation, Documentation, Reflection

Articulation:

One of my goals as a teacher of 5 and 6 year olds is to encourage them to practice articulating their thinking.  We want varied ways for our varied learners. We want them to feel safe enough and to feel bold enough to find some way to share their ideas, connections, predictions, and opinions.

I might ask: "What apps can you use to help tell the story of your learning on this?"

Documentation:

Even the youngest students can get involved in the collection and curation of their thinking. We aren't looking for photos of beautiful finished work, but the mess and mistakes and challenges that happened along the way.

I often ask: "Can you find a way to share with me the goofs that helped you figure it out?"

Reflection:
We reflect daily on our work in order to practice challenging ourselves and to use what we notice to help us grow.  The students look at their finished work (and their thinking) together and then look for ways to improve upon an idea or for ways to approach a problem from a different angle.  We also practice listening to a friend's thinking and then try to use those ideas to see something from a new perspective.

I love to ask:  "How has your approach to this idea changed / grown / evolved?"

In all of this, there is a long list of apps that I might recommend... but it really doesn't matter as long as you have a handful of open-ended apps that allow students to share their thinking in a variety of ways. They should be apps that you are comfortable with and that make sense for your own classroom culture.

Of course, much of this is messy and the classroom can get wonderfully noisy with the sounds of articulation, documentation, and reflection.  The students are happier, more independent, and are becoming bigger risk takers.

“You can put down the iPad…”

OR.... “The Right Tool for the Job.”

 Here are two great tools.  You can accomplish a variety of tasks with either tool.  However, for some jobs, neither the hammer nor the pliers is the right tool.  You can’t paint a wall with either one – that requires a different tool.

 The same idea holds true for any classroom tool, they may or may not be the right tool for every single learning goal we set forth in our classrooms.  You probably wouldn’t use blocks to teach spelling just as you likely wouldn’t use magnetic letters to teach geometry.  So why then would we pull out iPads and try to apply them to every activity in our classrooms?  The answer is:  we wouldn’t.  These are the scenarios to consider when using iPads:

• Sometimes iPads will be the right tool for everyone

Think about the Substitution level of the SAMR model created by Ruben Putendura. 

Everyone in your class might be on iPads to do research, to write papers, etc.  This shouldn’t be the most common scenario however.  It brings to mind images of students lined up in desks, plugged into computers, consuming rather than creating or collaborating.

• Sometimes iPads will be the right tool for some

 This is where differentiation stands out and really helps your students with varied learning styles.  Consider your students when designing projects and offer options for the finished product.  It’s really the learning that happens during the process that counts after all.  Allow students to make a movie, create a cartoon strip, record an original song, make a book, etc., to demonstrate understanding.  

• Sometimes iPads will be the right tool for part of a project            

We love to combine paper/pencil, iPad, manipulatives to investigate an idea or deepen our thinking.  This might be a project that involves creating a book about a math concept.  Students might use a math app or watch a math video (think Flipped Classroom) to get some background content.  They might then use math manipulatives to practice/demonstrate understanding and to find complexity.  The next step could be to choose how they articulate their thinking centered around this project – some might choose an iPad path, others might choose paper/pencil.

• Sometimes iPads might not be the right tool for anyone or any part of a project

In the end, as with any learning goal you have, it is really all about your classroom culture.  What makes sense for your teaching style?  For a given group of students? For the subject matter? For any particular project?  Consider the types of thinking/learning you wish to have your students do: consider different viewpoints, find complexity, deepen understanding, make connections, create, imagine, question, observe, or investigate.  Consider how the iPad can add a dimension to your students experiences that they would not get any other way. (redefinition, SAMR)  And then, give yourself permission to let your students find their own individuality and their own unique way of articulating their thinking/learning.

Space Junk

Teaching, Learning,  iPads and Space Junk
Several educators have asked me:

“Can you help me figure out how iPads can fit into my classroom curriculum?”  

The back of my iPad

I was emailed this question again this week and it made me flip over my own iPad looking for this sticker which I stuck on during the first week of our iPad program...over a year and a
half ago.  I would now replace my thinking about "teaching"
with "learning" since I'm not sure I want to create a classroom environment in which I am teaching to or filling up my students with content (I know that sounds like a vocabulary issue).  I do know that I want to create a classroom environment in
which we all are sharing our ideas, articulating our thinking, creating in unique and individual manners, digging into persistence, demonstrating understanding... generally
growing a culture of learning.


So how do iPads fit into a class curriculum?  No one ever asks how they can fit paper and pencils... or blocks...or a protractor...into their curriculum.  As educators, we try to turn our classrooms into places of learning (places that provoke and promote great thinking, creating, collaborating, problem solving, etc).  We provide the tools, structures, and routines to hopefully allow students and teachers and sometimes even parents to go about that learning.  As a kindergarten teacher, I have many varied tools in my classroom for a variety of learning goals including paper, pencils, and blocks.  I also have iPads.

This is how I now describe the way iPads “fit” into my curriculum:

iPads are not The Sun of our learning galaxy, they are just one of the planets in its orbit.  In other words, I don't put iPads at the center of every activity that I can.  Now that I have iPads available, everything does not revolve around their use. The Sun in this analogy is my classroom culture of learning and there are many planets (tools) in its orbit. In fact, the thing at the center of our classroom "universe" at any given time is the learning goal that I have set.  The tools I choose for the activity would be the planets.  The iPad might be the tool I (or the students) choose or it might not be.  Actually, this is a great place to replace that original question with what I'll call The First Step.  iPads are a great tool for learning - if you're still wondering about that check out Great Teaching is about the Process and The Challenge is On - you just need to take The First Step.  I like to refer to Dr. Ruben Putendura’s SAMR model. (Who doesn’t?).

The First Step is often easiest if you think about Substitution.  In our kindergarten class we used handwriting apps for our substitution step.  If you have older students, online research or writing might be a good choice for The First Step.




Keep all your planets in orbit around the galaxy of learning.  Now that you’ve taken The First Step, you and your students should be more comfortable and confident using this tool and ready to pull it out when and how it makes sense.  Using the SAMR model, you will find that iPads allow students alternate ways to share their thinking, demonstrate understanding, and go out of this world with creativity.

Apps are the space junk.  Ok, so this last part of my space analogy is a little bit out there... The apps really don’t matter!  If the iPads are one of the planets orbiting The Sun (learning), then the apps are all The Space Junk flying around the planets.

For example, there are many art apps that teachers can choose from.  It doesn’t really matter which one I choose as long as it works in my classroom.  We like Brushes and Drawing Box, but another teacher might find they prefer Scribble Press or Draw Free.  It doesn't matter which app works for me as long as I have been intentional in my app selection.  Also, some Space Junk is bigger than others - apps which should be orbiting every classroom (Book Creator, Evernote).  Sometimes Space Junk falls out of orbit and burns up in the atmosphere, meaning that sometimes an app no longer works and you just have to delete it.  In the end, it's really not about the apps at all.

We are not teaching children how to use iPads.  We are  creating a classroom culture of learning. Sometimes iPads are the right tool.  Sometimes they are not the right tool.  Students might start with paper and pencil and move on to iPads.  iPads might be just one part of a larger or longer process.  iPads might be the right tools for some students and not for others.  As with any tool we pull out in our classrooms, we need to think about what makes sense for the children and their learning. 

Documentation!

We're thinking about replacing the word “assessment” with the word “documentation.”  As one of my fellow teachers (thank you Monica!) often says... there can be good assessment and there can be bad assessment.  Assessment (as in testing) is generally one-sided: teachers give assessments to students to test understanding of specific material in order to provide data for our school grading environments.  Let's call this type of classroom culture the Assessment Culture.

Assessment Culture classrooms let students get really good at two things:

1. Figuring out what the teachers want and producing that 

2.  Memorizing algorithms and facts to spit out on tests

It's time for a new classroom culture - we should try to create a classroom that has a culture of thinking, creating, and learning.  A great place to start is by allowing time for reflection on all parts of a student's (and teacher's) learning process.  Let's call this type of classroom culture the Documentation Culture.  Of course, there's still room to collect data for assessment purposes through documentation.

How do we create a classroom culture that includes documentation?  To start, teachers need to have handy a variety of tools, habits, and practices that will allow all members of a classroom community to document.  (And not just documentation of finished work, but documentation of their learning from start to desired learning outcome and all the problem solving, chaos, and mistakes that happen along the way)  Students and Teachers should practice the skills that accompany documentation: observing, recording, interpreting, sharing, building explanations, growing as learners.  Think of it as visible listening.

 iPads are a great tool for documentation and not just because there are so many great apps.  The great thing about iPads is that they provide an instant and easy way to routinely document - using the camera, audio, and video.

Here are some ways to create a classroom culture of documentation.

 

Evernote: start by setting up a folder for each student and keeping your iPad handy.  Use Evernote to photograph, record, or take notes on your students' learning. Take photos in the middle of a lesson or record a collaborative conversation.  Allow students to record their thinking or brainstorming as they approach a project.  Think about how powerful it would be to document the earliest stages of student planning for a project - to have records of how a student might approach a challenge.  Don’t collect pictures of just their finished products.  My kindergarten students share the responsibility of documenting their work for their folders.  They are starting to recognize good thinking and ask to have it documented (and can even do the legwork for me using the camera).

Camera Roll:  The Camera Roll is one of our favorites - the unsung hero! Students take pictures of their work or of their partner’s work.  In my classroom, the students either put their name card or themselves in the photo so that I can identify it later (and perhaps add it to their Evernote folder or ask them to explain their thinking). 

Audio features: We use Book Creator, Notes (iPad 3), video camera, and Evernote so that students can articulate their thinking without the constraints of writing mechanics or reticence over sharing with a peer or the teacher. 

Reflection Journals:  Using Book Creator or Paper 53 set up a weekly time to allow students the opportunity to reflect.  Artistic expression, digital art included, is a form of reasoning called visual thinking.  These journals are a place for that thinking and reflecting to take place. To make these reflection journals something that will really push students’ thinking and advance their understanding, students shouldn't just be asked to reflect and then handed iPads while the teachers wait for the thinking to flow freely.  Teachers need to think carefully about what they want the students to reflect upon.  We reflect on: Stories we either read aloud or share orally, themes or connections we make during storytime, the meaning of a poem the class had shared, a shared experience we have had as a class community. The wonderful thing about doing this on an iPad is that you can fit in the weekly reflection time without having to allow for time consuming set up.

 

Explain Everything:  The (not so) new champ for making thinking and learning visible is Explain Everything.  This app should be on every student iPad.  Ask students to explain a lesson or demonstrate their understanding of a topic or process.  Students can use pictures, drawings, and movement to create films which they can narrate.  They can create a film that retells a class field trip using photos and their own narrative.  A small group of students could use this app to "teach” a math challenge or to make a problem solving video.

There are many other apps and ways that documentation can be accomplished with ipads - this is just a starting point.  teachers need to think about how assessment can and should be a part of your classroom culture of thinking.  Teach your students to recognize what their own thinking looks like.  open them up to understanding/refining their own learning. 

Great teaching is about the process, not the product

iPads fit perfectly into teaching thinking, creativity, and problem solving because they allow for a unique and thought-filled process.  Teachers who give assignments and expect products will create one type of student - the type who knows he/she just needs to figure out what the teacher wants.

Teachers who send students on journeys where they get to demonstrate understanding, think flexibly / creatively, see things from differing viewpoints, make connections, teach others, practice persistence, experience struggle, and articulate their thinking create one type of student - the type who knows that it is the thinking itself that is valued.

 
What happens when something goes wrong?  An iPad is a piece of technology after all, so something will go wrong sooner or later.  When a student loses a project or an app crashes it's important to remember that just the project was lost.  The student still has his knowledge, his creativity, his thinking. He has still been on a journey of learning.  It's just the product that was lost - not the process.

iPads are not the answer to every educational challenge or opportunity.  Just because a device is great doesn't mean it's worth giving to a child for educational purposes (Mike Muir, 2011).  This is true of any tool we use in our classrooms.  However, iPads do allow for varied, individual, and creative thinking opportunities for a wide range of students. It's not about whether this is the right tool, it's about when is this the right tool, and how can teachers use it effectively.  In other words, educators need to remember that the iPad can be a tool to teach thinking.  It should be used to help students think and learn and not to provide just another way to deliver a product.

What is the Hallmark of our iPad Program?

In our second year of using iPads in the classroom, we are are recognizing how much our vision of the role iPads would play has evolved. Had you asked us last year, “What is the hallmark of your iPad program?” we would surely have described our successes teaching handwriting to kindergarteners and how helpful teachers find Evernote for classroom documentation. Even then, we would have insisted that it’s not “all about the apps”, but rather it’s about including iPads as a classroom tool when it fits the curriculum, or a moment where the iPad offers the best option for learning.

When we first began to teach with iPads, we sought out apps that solved the challenge of improving how we teach specific skills in Kindergarten, beginning with handwriting. This led to the inevitable search for the “best app” for the purpose, and we learned a lot - specifically we learned that there is no perfect app, and that perhaps our search for such a thing was distracting us from the real opportunities iPads provide.

With early writers and readers, we want to create multiple ways to help them share their knowledge and make it accessible to others. We use Book Creator to make books about their experiences in class and on field trips. We used iStopMotion to record events in the the classroom, and to tell stories in a new way. We create our own illustrations for our stories using Drawing Box.

As we began this year, we realized that we had a very different view of how the iPads would be used. We have expanded the program to include a set of iPads in each first grade, and 1-to-1 iPads in fourth grade. We chose a few apps, and grouped them in a folder on the iPads called “Creativity”. This group includes those already mentioned, and writing apps, presentation apps, and photography apps.. Students are using their iPads to create written projects, to do research and take notes, to express themselves, create collages, prepare books to read aloud to younger students, and to create presentations. The iPads are thus becoming a useful, accessible tool that fits the need when the need arises. The single-use, single-purpose apps are rarely, if ever called for.

There seems to be a divide among iPad teachers between those who seek the “killer app” for every job, and those who seek to find the apps that offer the most open-ended, creative possibilities. This is the similar to the divide between teachers that seek the “best” curriculum package to teach a subject and those teachers who pull from all the resources they find, and embellish their curricula with their own touches to fit their students’ needs and to match their classroom and school culture.

The hallmark of our iPad program? Encouraging creativity and self- expression; offering multiple ways for our students to make their thinking visible. It is so simple, and so rewarding!

Our app list...

Here is the 2011-12 kindergarten list - some of the basic apps on my student iPads and couple of words on why (a great place to get started):

iStopMotion - even 5 year olds can create really cool "stories"  - read more here





 

 iPhoto - so we can edit our photos and create quick journals of field trips, activities, projects



 

 


iWriteWords - good for handwriting practice - read more here



 




Word Wizard - for building words, has many wonderful lists of words already built in (Dolch Sight words, numbers, animals, foods, CVC lists based on specific blends, letter sounds, etc) and lets you enter your own lists - read more here





Montessori Crosswords - fun reading/spelling practice - allows the selection of targeted sounds such as short vowel sound words, specific consonant sounds, digraphs, silent letters - read more here






Book Creator - to give the students the tool to be completely creative in telling a story - read more here






LetterSchool - fantastic handwriting practice - read more here










Motion Math Zoom - interactive number line - great for thinking about number relationships - bigger, smaller, number order - read more here

Motion Math Hungry Fish - fishy way of approaching number relationships/addition - read more here

Moofy Patterns - for practicing patterns







Motion Math Wings - new way to consider "which is more" using a little kinesthetic learning







Scribble Press - for letting the creativity flow (don't miss the outstanding marker wall!)





Big Seed - wonderful problem solving app which gets kids working together, having thinking conversations - read more here

KickBox - a great app for practicing persistence, problem solving, collaborative pairing - read more here







Strip Design - think wordless books in a storyboard format for 6 year olds - a great app for getting the creative juices flowing






StarWalk - because there are wonderful stories in the stars...and a little fun too!  read more here





Bumpling - more problem solving, logical thinking, and possibilities for collaborative efforts - read more here

 

LetterSchool - iWrite Words

I think that one of the easiest places to start using iPads is during handwriting times.  You can hand a kid an iPad with a handwriting app and they can practice fairly independently.  It may not be the area that showcases any of the best reasons to use iPads (fostering creativity, allowing for problem solving, encouraging persistence) but it is an easy, safe place to start.  (perfect for tentative teachers who are not sure how they'll get iPads into their program or those who are new to this technology and need to wade in - not dive in)

Here's what we do:

We start with iWrite Words by gdiplus.  It is easy to use, has pleasing and simple graphics, and gives both the letter in stroke order, but also offers the option of spelling words.

We add on LetterSchool by Boreaal.  We love this app!  Just like iWrite Words, LetterSchool is easy to use and has really sharp graphics.  LetterSchool adds a little extra.  It offers three steps to learning each letter.  First, the student follows the starting point for each stroke.  Next, the student needs to drag their finger along the letter outline in stroke order.  Finally, the letter disappears and the student must write the letter unaided.

What we like:

*both apps are guided and self correcting - in other words, the app won't let the student write anywhere outside of the letter shape - you can't use the wrong stroke order or scribble

*neither app is over congratulatory and both have a nice little "payoff" after correctly writing a letter - a little interactive piece that doesn't drag on too long

*since we use Handwriting Without Tears, we like that iWrite Words is similar to that font and we love that LetterSchool lets us chose from HWT, D'nealian, and Zaner-Bloser fonts

*both apps allow for lower case, upper case, and numbers

What we'd like to change:

*I'd love to get a choice of fonts on iWrite Words

*I wish that there was an easy way (right on the home screen or on one of the corners of the app) to reset progress - this helps in a classroom setting where we often have students sharing iPads

*I wish that iWrite Words would add a phonics component - perhaps a word that features each letter and its sound

Why we really love these handwriting apps:

It's so difficult to find an app that can do something better than the teacher can.  These apps do just that.  I can't stand over 24 students and simultaneously know that they are using proper pencil grip and stroke order.  I only can know that about the 1 or 2 students that I can see at any given time.  If students are working on an app that won't let them practice their letters incorrectly - then I can be assured that good habits are being reinforced and not just for the one student that I happen to be watching.