As I wrote in my prior entry, the necessity to change my classroom stems from various reasons, most importantly:
A) The need to physically and cognitively engage students and
B) The desire to inspire creativity and collaboration.
So what am I doing next year? First, I have already cleared my room of all the individual student desks. They have been replaced by tables which seat four students.
At these tables, I will seat permanent collaborative groups. Using students' 8th grade MAP scores, I will (as best as possible) station one high-achieving student, one low-achieving student, and two medium-achieving students at each table. The idea behind this is that higher-achieving students will benefit from helping to model and teach their groups, the lower-achieving students will benefit from the scaffolding provided by the higher-achieving peers, and all the students will benefit from the process of collaborating.
Of course, they shouldn't spend too much time sitting at all, thanks to the Idea Paint which I will be applying on all four walls of my room. Idea Paint is a relatively new product which turns any surface into a high-quality dry erase surface.
Students will do most of their work standing, literally writing on the walls. The IdeaPaint will also be applied to the tops of all the group tables. Students can collaboratively solve problems, take notes, edit each other's work, and brainstorm.
Here is a similar application of the idea at Killian Middle School:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzwrjP39Ocs
So what do you think? What are the concerns? How will I need to alter my procedures/methods? Ideas?
Dude, first of all, I applaud you for your work. People who are genuinely passionate about what they do are a rarity. Also, I agree with everything you've said about why our educational system is not effective for so many people. I hope your innovative idea shows good results and others embrace it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I had one idea for an activity or whatever you want to call it. Each group of students can use part of the wall to play a game of hangman. Not the regular hangman where you guess letters to a word, of course, but one where there's a whole sentence and they have to be able to distinguish between whether something is a preposition, subject, etc. and where they should be placed in a sentence. I'm not sure exactly how you could make that into a game...it's just a rough idea. But that's the type of stuff you're trying to teach them, right?
Brendan, how goes it, man? I appreciate the kind words and encouragement on the new classroom concept; I've had a lot of support here at Eastside but also my fair share of scoffs and sideways glances.
ReplyDeleteWe definitely try to ingrain parts of speech and sentence functions in 9th grade, as those areas tend to be dreadfully deficient when students arrive in August.
That type of collaborative game/activity would be a fun way of getting the kids collaborating and involved.