Learning Through Movement

Kids Move = Kids Learn

This week we discussed "movement" and how it plays a role in our classrooms. The book discussed how vital movement is for children, especially for the younger ones. Movement enhances their memory and makes their learning more meaningful. Many schools are cutting recess time from their school day so that they can focus on academics. However, the research shows that students learn better when they have sufficient time to let their energy out. The book encouraged us to incorporate as much movement as possible in our classrooms.

Some questions we discussed included: 

With our busy schedule as teachers, how much freedom are we able to fit in to our lessons?

How can we be more intentional in applying these concepts such as freedom, movement, and choice into our daily teaching?
How do can we effectively foster the brains of these young children?
What is most important in our teaching?

We discussed how this type of teaching, project-based, would be easier if we had plenty of time, lots of resources, and more space. Kaila said it is hard to move around in her room because of the limited space and high number of students. Some practical things we discussed including in our teahcing include: doing movements to songs, doing motions to memory verses or to remember specific words, have students run at recess, take more brain breaks between activities, and simply "doing" instead of just "listening". We all agreed that this book reminds us of important concepts we should be incorporating in our classrooms; however, it is harder to carry out and know how to implement effectively. 

Executive Control versus Freedom in Learning

Executive Control versus Freedom in Learning

This week, we read about the connection between control and attention. The book emphasized promoting discovery and freedom in our students in our methods of teaching. One method that promotes this sense of free discovery and self-learning is Project Based Learning. Also, we can allow students to "be the teacher" and encourage them to use what they know to create. The book mentioned letting our students plan out their own ideas in their learning. We all agreed that as teachers, there must be some executive control; however, we often overcompensate and use too much control. We should do more discovery based learning so that the students can learn to do things on their own. Discovery based learning also encourages students' attention, natural curiosity, and a love for learning. 

Professional Development Sharing

Kaila shared this week what she learned from a conference she went to about mathematics. Some highlights she took away included:
- Using "purposeful struggle" as a method to develop their thinking and use what they already know
- Recognizing and using all 15 types of addition and subtraction problems in the classroom

- Using ten frames to help students visualize numbers

- Using a program, Doodlecastpro, to allow students to write, speak, and explain how they solve their own problems

- Allowing discovery even in mathematics, remembering it isn't about having the "right answer" but about the explanation of how a student got there

Wrapping Up

We decided that reading this book is fine, but we need to take away practical applications that we can apply in our classrooms. Angela said that she is going to try and give her students more freedom by putting out art supplies, giving a few directions, and then watching how they create their artwork. Bekah said that she would like to incorporate her students' interests more often in her classroom. Kaila said that she would like to train her students to plan their own ideas in the classroom.

Seeking Attention

Understanding Children's Attention

This week at PLC we discussed children's attention spans and how we can best grab the attention of our students. The book encouraged meditation, which we all thought was a weird idea to use with children. We can see how meditation could help the students control their emotions and self-regulate; however, it seems rather dangerous. As teachers, we all shared how we get students to calm down or help them focus. For example, Joyce shared how she does a quiet exercise with the students if they are not listening. We liked how the book suggested telling students to take 10 deep breaths if they are upset, emotional, or anxious. 


One idea we talked about was how children are overstimulated in our culture today. Our culture subtly encourages multitasking and short attention spans. This is evident through commercials, pop-ups, ads, etc. It is all about see, grab, go. In the real world, children are told to do many things at once. However, at school they are to focus on only one task. The book said that this is a mixed message to students. Miss Steiner shared that she sometimes lets her students draw during her read aloud. Some of the students can pay attention to both, while others struggle to do two things at once. Since multitasking is a worthwhile skill, it is something that students should learn to do. Yet, it can lead to over-stimulation and confusion depending on the age. 

This book is definitely teaching more about the child's brain and how we can effectively teach in our culture today.

Longing for Community

October 28, 2014

This week we discussed pages 41-53 of the book. This section of the book emphasized how humans are born to crave community. Children all want to feel included and loved amongst a group of people. One way they express this need is through language and conversation. We discussed this topic and how play has a role in developing community in our classrooms.

Some questions we focused on included:
 - How often do we have conversations with our kids?
 - How can teachers play?
 - How do we motivate students in all areas of learning?
 - How important are parents in a student's life?
 - Do we spend time listening to students and understanding them?
 - How do we allow students to express themselves in the classroom? 

Some practical takeaways from this week:
- Use games to engage your students in a lesson.
- Allow students to express themselves in multiple ways in the classroom.
- Make and point out connections between subjects.
- Use play in the classroom to motivate students to learn.
- Remember that our students are like sponges; they soak up all that they learn. 
- Build relationships with students by conversing with students regularly. 
- Avoid rushing through lessons and be aware of the "slower" learners in your classroom.
- As an adult, don't forget to play! (Outside of work)
- Make your classroom a place of safety and familiarity for students, so that they feel like a part of the "family". 

The Purpose of Play

This week in PLC, we discussed play and its role in the lives of our students. We pointed out different ideas from the book and pulled from our own experiences with children. Here are some of the ideas we discussed:

•  Kaila mentioned that having students come up with their own curriculum is a great idea, but hard to practically implement. It is do-able but you must have the correct mindset. We then discussed how we let the interests of our students guide us in our teaching.
• "Working" versus "playing" - We, as teachers, often encourage our students not to play, rather they must work. However, the book pointed out that play is not only beneficial, but it is also necessary for child development. The book showed how children are more motivated to learn if they do it on their own and do not see it as "work" or something they have to do. Playing is beneficial for children because it involves imagination, creativity, and freedom. 
• Play encourages conflict resolution. We discussed the "helicopter" teacher who does everything for his or her students and does not let the students work out their own problems. We said that there must be a balance between giving the students freedom and helping the students. We want the students to become problem solvers; therefore, we should let them work out things on their own depending on the situation.
• In our society today, play is not emphasized enough. Recess and play time keeps being taken away in schools because the teachers must meet all the standards in their teaching. When this happens, students often struggle to be motivated to learn and lose their creativity. We agreed that children should be given more play time than we give them during the school day.
• Play has changed since we were kids. Many of our students now go home and play video games or play games on the Ipad, instead of playing outside or playing pretend, etc. We discussed our own childhoods and what we see in our students. How can we incorporate play into our day while also meeting all of the standards?

Practical application: We each explained how we could implement these ideas into our classrooms.

• Kaila said that she would have 2 academic centers and 2 centers where the students can simply play. This way, they are getting a balance of play and academics.
• Joyce mentioned that while she is working with a group of students, she often lets the others play with books or toys. Kaila suggested that she let them use manipulatives or toys that go with what they are learning. Therefore, if they are studying the Mandarin words for fruit, she could have play fruit that the students could play with while she is working with small groups.
• Angela explained that she will try to incorporate more play time for the students during the day. She also wants to be more flexible in her instructions. Instead of telling the students to do something one specific way, she wants the students to be able to show their creativity and does not expect each student's work to look the same.
• Bekah stated that she will let the students explore manipulatives, toys, or tools for a few minutes before beginning her teaching. She also will make an effort to making learning more "playful" through games, interactive activities, or exploration. 

We all agreed that we greatly enjoyed reading this chapter on play and that schools often do not emphasize how important it is for children, especially for the young ones. We also agreed that incorporating play into our classroom will foster good qualities (such as freedom, creativity, imagination, and exploration) in our children. Play definitely has a purpose and should be a priority in our classrooms!

Understanding Children's Motivation

Book Discussion 1

This week Kaila was our facilitator since Angela was absent.

We read the first 26 pages of "Understanding How Young Children Learn" by Wendy Ostroff outside of PLC and were prepared to discuss the book during our meeting. Here were some highlights from our discussion:

We discussed how students are motivated in different ways to learn and how we as teachers can make learning a more fun experience for the students. In the book, Ostroff emphasizes the fact that school can become all about routine and habit for students and the novelty of learning wears off. This can cause students to become disinterested, distracted, or off task. As teachers, we need to try new things and surprise the students with new ways of introducing topics. If we are excited about the learning in the classroom, then the students will most likely become excited as well. 

We each gave examples in our own classrooms of situations where we got the students more engaged or excited about a topic, even if it was not particularly interesting to us. For example, Kaila shared how she used motions and word connections to explain what a trapezoid was to her students. Shape naming is not her favourite thing to teach, but the students quickly caught on and enjoyed the activity. Joyce mentioned that the students love making flashcards because she introduced it as something "fun" and "different". Often, it is how we approach learning that affects students' attitude about it.

We also discussed how confidence plays a huge role in the process of learning in children. Helping students to visualize their success and encouraging confidence, even overconfidence, plays an important role in a student's learning. As teachers, overconfidence among students can be frustrating; however, according to the book it can be a good quality because it encourages students to try, even if they fail at accomplishing a task.

We answered discussion questions such as, "What classroom practices are done simply out of tradition? How can we empower children and enable them instead of acting like they are helpless or powerless? Why does the desire to learn often decrease as a child gets older? What are some ways we can engage them and make them excited?". We were reminded that as teachers, we need to put ourselves in the children's shoes and try to see life as they see it in order to more effectively teach. We also agreed that school should be about the children's learning and not about our teaching. Our focus should be on our students and in order to teach them more effectively, we must know them better in regards to their motivations, behaviours, brain structures, intelligences, etc. 

We are enjoying reading this book and especially appreciate the practical applications that the author includes for teachers to use in their classrooms. Hopefully, we will start to incorporate more of these ideas in our own classrooms and be open to learning more effective strategies to implement in the future. 

DPDP Discussion

This week at PLC we discussed our DPDP's, what we want this year's PLC to accomplish, and we reflected on the day. Joyce was unable to make it to due to illness.

At the beginning of the meeting, we each shared our DPDP's and how we are planning to accomplish them.
 - Kaila stated that she is working on encouraging the students to find real world applications to the things they are learning. For example, she will try to ask the students at the end of the day what they learned. She wants to use effective strategies to instruct her students properly since her group of students is very energetic and talkative this year. She is hoping that the book we read will give her effective strategies for improving her practice of teaching.
- Bekah shared that she wants to focus on monitoring the students better, motivating the students to take ownership of their own learning, and reflecting on a regular basis on one negative and one positive take away from the day. She wants to focus on assessing the students regularly through different methods and have successful follow through with the students in their learning.
- Angela shared that she is focusing on assessment this year. Since JK is doing grading differently this year, she thought she would spend more time and effort on how to assess the students in different ways academically. She is going to try to write down anecdotal notes more often.

We also shared our positives and negatives from the day. This helped us process the day and and reflect on what we can do better and what is effective for our students.

In the end, we all agreed that through this PLC, we want learn how to "work smarter" not "work harder". We all have many things we need to get done; however, we all desire to improve in our practice through implementation of more effective strategies. We look forward to reading the book about how young learners learn in order to improve as professionals.

Focusing on the Young-Ins

Week One: August 26, 2014

This week we discussed what we want to accomplish and focus on as a group. We all shared ideas of things we would like to learn more about and areas we feel we could improve upon in our practice as teachers. We decided that we would like to find a book to read as a group which would give us practical applications in our teaching. 

One book proposal was "Understanding How Young Children Learn: Bringing the Science of Child Development to the Classroom" by Wendy L. Ostroff. This book focuses on children's brains and how they learn best. We thought this would be a good choice for our group because it gives us suggested activities that we can use in our classrooms, not simply theories which do not work. The book has chapters dedicated to the concepts of children's learning, development in regards to science, motivation, attention, memory, cognition and action. The author of the book also seems very credible because she has been developing curriculum about children's learning for 15 years and bases all of her ideas on her research as a scientist. We all agreed that learning more about children as a whole will give us insight into how they learn as our students. 

However, there were some objections to reading this book including: lack of dedication to reading it weekly, not applicable to all members (mainly Joyce), and the logistics of waiting on its arrival after we order it. Our team captain, Angela, agreed to work out the details and make the final decision as to whether or not we use this book as our resource for our PLC this year.

Introducing our PLC

Our PLC this year includes four wonderful ladies: Angela Wong, Kaila Svoboda, Joyce Graves, and Bekah Steiner. 

Some facts about us:
All of us teach elementary students.
We have a varied amount of teacher experience.
Three out of four of us teach only lower elementary (preschool through first grade). 
We all love kids!

The norms for our group include:

Consideration for others

Meeting and starting on time

Making an effort to come prepared

Our group's mission statement is:

We will discuss ways of being an effective teacher according to best practice.

Some ideas we emphasized during our discussion of what we want our PLC to look like included:

- Practical applications of strategies we can use in the classroom

- Learning how we as teachers can engage our students at their differing levels

- Providing a supportive environment to discuss ways to improve our teaching

- Opening up our minds to new ideas and methods of teaching literacy, math, small groups, language instruction, etc.

PLC location: Bekah's room at 3:30 pm on Tuesdays.