Tag Archives: causing learning

Suspending Reality Can Cause Learning.

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When a teacher suspends reality for the duration of an instructional unit, children have few limits to their learning.  Suspension opens possibilities for each child’s thinking and doing that the conditions of instructional normalcy and “same old” can limit.  While not quite make-believe, a suspended reality induces creativity and alternative thinking, and invites exploration and risk taking.

Close your eyes and listen.

A classroom is Never-Never Land for children when a teacher learns how to suspend reality.  She doesn’t need Tinkerbell’s dust.  As mistress of her teaching domain, she says, “Close your eyes and listen” as she walks around the classroom placing things on the tables around which children were seated.  “We are now in a place long ago when people just like you were trying to understand how to count their possessions and the things they saw in their world.  They knew there was more than one of almost everything, but they did not have any ideas about how number them.  When you open your eyes, you will find two piles of things on your table.  Your first job is to find a way to tell me how you determined how many things are in each pile.  Your second job is to tell me how you can combine the objects in the two piles into one pile without recounting them.  And your third job is to tell me how you can remove some of the items in the larger pile so that you have two equal piles with some items left over.  When you have completed each job, you will explain your thinking and reasoning to me.”  She waits while silently counting to 30.  “Oh, there is a slip of paper next to your piles with these three jobs listed.  And I expect that each table may have differing yet very appropriate explanations for me.”  She waits while silently counting to 15.  “Now open your eyes and begin.”  If children have questions, she answers the children at their table directly and not the entire class.

Problem-based learning (PBL)

I first encountered suspended realities at teacher workshops in problem-based learning at the Illinois Math and Science Academy in the late 1990s.  Our workshop team was so enthused we pursued more training and then organized a district training in PBL so that all teachers, no matter their assignment could add PBL to their instructional toolbox.  We were into building instructional toolboxes.

Although our training was only to add a possible teaching tool for each teacher, we still experienced the usual change theory pathway of new programs.  Our goal was professional development and pleasingly we experienced many teachers who found value in a new teaching strategy.  Interestingly, our secondary teachers adopted PBL more quickly and thoroughly than our elementary teachers.  ELA, social studies, and science teachers, some veterans, and some early career teachers, modified selected units for PBL applications.  Each teacher embedded initial instruction, modeling, formative assessment, and instructional adjustment in their PBL units, but these came at different places and times in their unit’s progression compared to their usual unit designs.

Twenty-plus years later veterans of our PBL training still display aspects of suspended realities.  They have refined their applications, made the teaching tool more their own, and use it wisely to cause children to learn.

Student-centeredness causes learning.

The big Duh! of suspending reality lies in the acceptance of student-centered thinking and outcomes.  Teachers assure that key skill sets, content, and concepts are taught and learned during suspended reality.  Post-assessments indicate that student learning in PBL or suspended reality units is as strong if not stronger than in traditional directed instruction units of learning.  The real differential is in student engagement.  When children understand the power that “you explain it me” it allows them to create answers, solutions, and outcomes, opens their willingness to think beyond “usual” and past “this is how I usually act/think in class”, and their level of excitement and “I can do” accelerates. 

We can only smile proudly at the conclusion of a suspended lesson or unit and a child demonstrates learning of the academic content and skills, an ability to hold out an individualized product, explain a solution that both makes sense to her and to her teacher, and be independent of other children or groups of children.

Using tools to cause children to learn – isn’t this why we became teachers of children?

Should I Know or Just Google It?

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A daily deluge of information from more than a thousand possible media sources requires a person to either have a broad background knowledge or constantly Google everything that is not familiar.  What a gift children receive from schools that intentionally teach a breadth and depth of academic subjects.  While graduation plans focus on post-secondary and career goals, it is a child’s knowledge of a broad range of subjects developed in grades 4 – 12, when they read to learn, that serves them on a daily basis in life after school. 

Today’s news – a case in point.

News comes to us in snippets.  Quick, short bursts of information that assume we have contextual knowledge within which to understand the momentary news flash.

  • The Houthis in Yemen are attacking merchant vessels in the Red Sea.  The Houthis, backed by Iran, are supporting the Palestinian cause in Gaza. 
  • The jet stream has drifted so far north that temps in Alaska will be in the 40s in January. 
  • Ozempic, developed to control type 2 diabetes, can assist others in dramatic weight loss. 
  • More than 350,000 jobs were added to the US economy in the past month.
  • The House may refuse to consider a bi-partisan bill passed by the Senate and kill an attempt to resolve border problems.

Being informed about current events requires an ever-broadening background knowledge of geography, politics, culture and religion, history, climate, meteorology, and prescriptive medicine to name only a few topics.  The news snippets jump from one to another so quickly and without providing context that a casual observer can easily throw up their hands with a “This is too much for me!”.  Of course, this is said assuming folks want to be informed. 

Scaffolds and spirals power background knowledge development.

Good curricular design in schools is built upon a planned instruction of subjects at the right time and at the right developmental level.  Coupled with teaching strategies that reinforce, expand, and grow a child’s knowledge base, children gain an active and working contextual knowledge of their world.  Graduates obviously do not know everything; they are not walking encyclopedias.  But their background knowledge is adequate for them to know that the issue of Israel and an independent Palestinian state has been a continuing and unresolved conflict since the end of WW2.  They know where the Red Sea is on the globe and how the Red Sea fits into global maritime routes.  And they know that the west-to-east jet stream directs weather patterns across North America and a jet stream across Alaska will cause the lower 48 states to have warmer to hotter temperatures.

Instruction of background knowledge is scaffolded beginning in early elementary classes so that all children have access to general information. Scaffolding ensures that all children receive developmentally appropriate learning.  Initial instruction provides facts that are developed into generalizations and generalizations are applied to newer information so that similarities and differences can be analyzed and evaluated.  Across grade levels information is spiraled from simple facts to increasingly complex and sophisticated knowledge.  Although children learn about United State history in elementary, middle school, and high school, each new rung on the social studies spiral causes more extensive understanding and consideration of our historical events and their importance to what is happening in our country today.

Taken as a whole, social studies, sciences, the arts, language and communications, human relationships each play a part in completing a child’s background knowledge.  It is impossible to sort out, to overvalue or devalue any educational experience, as all experiences lead to a better educated graduate – one who is prepared for a greater understanding of their world.

What knowledge is essential?

Robert Marzano in “Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement: Research on What Works in Schools (ASCD, 2004) wrote that our capacity to access and use background knowledge relies upon innate fluid intelligence and the frequency and repetition of our academic experiences or intentional learning episodes.  Marzano provides educators in this work and others with both the research and the “game plan” for instructional designs that will teach all children a wealth of content knowledge.  He addresses how educators can develop deep and meaningful academic experiences that will enrich a child’s mental storehouse of background knowledge.  In the book’s appendix, Marzano categorizes background/content knowledge in groupings that make learning of associated facts more effective and efficient.  I am a great fan of Marzano and his clinical approach to presenting strategies for improving the education of all children. 

The issue of fluid intelligence is child centric.  Ken Jennings, the GOAT of TV’s Jeopardy! may best personify the combination of fluid intelligence and intentional learning.  His quick-fire knowledge of trivia displays a phenomenal cache of specific AND background knowledge and his gift of instant recall.

Another author, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., wrote and later updated his take on “Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know”.  Hirsch makes a compelling argument that for a person today to understand current events and trends in the news a person must have contextual background knowledge.  Without background everything is new news.  A reading of Cultural Literacy is a wonderful checkpoint of what one knows, knew but forgot, or should relearn. 

Google and Siri are great!

When I was a child, my parents invested in a set of encyclopedias.  Our 1958 set of the Compton’s Encyclopedia truly was a financial investment as well as the purchase of “the” family source for things we did not know about.  We “dog eared” too many pages believing that turning down the corner of the page would always allow us to get right back to the latest facts we had learned.  Whether at home or in a library, sets of encyclopedias were our go to source for information.  However, like the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, encyclopedias and almanacs were as up to date as the day of the first printing and today they are museum pieces.

The Internet and search engines changed the world.  With a few keystrokes or spoken words, facts and information are at our fingertips.  Many children today tell me that it is not worth their time to study school subjects, because Google or Siri will tell them what they need to know.  In fact, I often am told that a college education is a waste of time and money, because “Google will tell me everything I need to know”.

Google or ask Siri to know but develop background knowledge to understand. 

I confess to being an avid Googler and asker of Siri.  There are facts and information I do not know or have forgotten and these two are always willing to inform me.  My tablet, phone, and watch are conduits to a world of facts.  I ask and am told, but I do not always understand. 

News about Red Sea connects with me because I live near the bay of Green Bay, WI.  Green Bay is about 17 miles wide from where I live in Door County to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I was standing at a Door County overlook seeing the coast of the UP in the distance when I Googled the width of the Red Sea near Yemen.  I learned the narrowest width is 20 miles.  I have seen 1000-foot ore boats on the Great Lakes and Maersk cargo ships sea.  A Maersk is about 1300 feet in length.  As I looked to the north over the bay, I could visualize a cargo ship and its vulnerability to attack along the gauntlet of the Red Sea.  Google gave me the Red Sea dimension.  Background knowledge provided a context against which that dimension could be compared and an appreciation of what is happening in the Red Sea today.

Finally, background knowledge helps us to answer “so what” questions.  Facts are just facts outside of the framework of contextual question.  It is a fact that the world produces enough food each year to feed the entire population.  It also is a fact that people die of starvation every day.  Background knowledge sadly fills in the story between these two facts. 

Whenever I am in conversation with children, I listen to what they have to say and almost always respond with “… what do you think (or how do you feel) about that?”.  As children learn new information, we must assist them to put their new learning into context.  It starts with their thinking and feeling.  Once they begin to personally relate to the information, that information moves into Marzano’s field of background knowledge.

A child can Google or ask Siri anything, but only the child can make sense of what Google or Siri says.

Your Personal Pantheon of Teachers

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Miss Blaine knew.  She knew I liked stories and histories and language.  If I could read about it and begin to imagine it, I could know it and the more I read and imagined the more I wanted to learn.  And, she knew I was a quiet student seldom raising my hand but could give illustrated answers when called upon.  Miss Blaine knew me.  She was my teacher for two years – 4th and 5th grade, back-to-back with Miss Blaine – in the late 1950s.

Miss Blaine knew Carol and Richard and Mike W and Bruce.  They topped all the weekly charts for the 32 students in our classroom; those were early Boomer years when all classrooms were bulging.  Spelling, arithmetic quizzes, science check tests and annual ITBS assessments – these were our straight A’s champs week in and week out.   She fed them more assignments than the rest of us, and more comments on their projects, and more difficult books to read.  The more she gave, the better they did.  Miss Blaine knew Dick and Donnie and Steve Y struggled to read and do their math and she gave them more of her one-on-one time.  She knew when a child needed the boost of leading the class from her room to Miss Snyder’s art room, the little self-esteem boost of being picked by Miss Blaine to lead.

Miss Blaine knew how to hook each child in her classroom to cause each of us to learn.  She never looked at us sitting in our rows of desks with a solitary gaze but flitted her eyes from child to child as she spoke so that we knew she was talking to each of us intentionally.  She was short in stature and did not need to kneel or bend very far when she stood by my desk to comment on my work or ask a guiding question to keep me on track.  With eyes shut I can still summon her presence and my want to be a better student, to get more problems right on my nemesis math assignments, because she thought I could.

I would like to think that every student in every school experiences their own Miss Blaine.  Across the fourteen years of 4K-12 education, a random draw of Miss Blaine’s in elementary, middle, and high school, in grade level classes and in subject classes, is enough to make school and learning meaningful.  It is enough hooking by master teachers to keep children self-invested in their learning.

Consider your own history as a student.  Can you name your Miss Blaines?  Can you remember how specific teachers made a difference in your school life?  In your heart of hearts you know them as they knew you.

Miss Blaine, Mrs. Wendlent, Mr. Marshall, Mrs. McArthur, Mr. Cummings, Mr. Chute, Mr. Mixdorf, Mr. Hubacek – I am eternally grateful that you taught me. 

My listing these names does not mean I did not learn from each of the 80+ teachers who were mine in my kindergarten through senior year experience.  I indeed learned from all.  But, there really is a difference in a child’s connections with their teachers.  Some connections are as routine and pedestrian as the spending of common time and the management of 180 days’ of school work.  Other connections mark you for your lifetime.

My Miss Blaine is long gone, as are almost all my teachers.  So are many of my classmates.  We know that the effects of a person’s lifetime are short-lived, but while we live and remember the effects of the teachers who knew us and hooked us as learning children, the glory of their good teaching prevails.

A “Bummer” Is When Children Are Spectators In Class

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How many “bummers” can a teacher have in a month of lessons and still be considered a quality teacher?  A “bummer” is a lesson that does not cause children to learn; it is just a “blah” class period of minimal engagement and no internalizing of knowledge, skills, or dispositions about what is learned.  Almost every student, whether a child in school today or an adult long graduated, knows what a “bummer” feels like because they happen.  When a lesson is a bummer, children are spectators in the classroom.

If you are or were an athlete, you know your “bummers”; a swing and a miss, a whiff, a missed block or tackle, a dropped ball, a missed shot, getting the ball taken away from you, getting pinned to the mat, knocking the bar of the high jump stand, or being DQ’d for a false start.  Most baseball players reach base safely every 2 or 3 times at bat.  That means 70-80% of the time they fail.  Interestingly, you can be a very successful player if your on base average is greater than 30% of your at bats.  Consider any sports statistics and there a lot of bummers.  Actually, there are a lot of bummers in life.

When a bummer happens, what is the “so what”?  In the micro-look, each bummer is a failed opportunity.  We easily say “the next time will be better”.  Even with a minimal lens, multiple bummers demonstrate a lack of skill or at least a lack of focus on being successful and we say “pay attention and get it right”.  With a larger lens, more problems are observable.  Children fall behind in what they need to learn.  If you follow the Packers this season, bummer games cause a lack of confidence in the team and fans begin to look for new players.

Bummers in school happen.  Statistically, we need to acknowledge they do.  Our interest is in limiting and eliminating bummers.  Using the micro-lens, each bummer lesson is a missed opportunity to cause children to learn and the minimal lens tells us that multiple bummers cause children to have gaps in their knowledge and skills that effect future learning. 

The WI DPI describes quality instruction (no bummers here) as follows:  “High quality instruction means curricula, teaching practices, and learning environments are standards-based, evidence-based, engaging, differentiated, culturally responsive, and data-driven”.

https://dpi.wi.gov/rti/resources/high-quality-instruction

In a school with board-approved curriculum, ongoing professional development, attention to student-centered education, and standardized accountability checks, we can unpack most of the DPI definition with an acknowledgement that veteran teachers are prepared to deliver successful lessons on a regular basis.  If this is the case, and I think it is, what causes bummer lessons?

We begin to “bum out” when we fail the set the learning “hook”.  We fail to spark children to learn by telling or showing them why what they are learning is important to them, how they can use what they learn now and in the future, and how successful learning today will cause future successful learning.

The DPI term “engagement” means more than getting children to do the work of learning.  For the non-DPI person, engagement is achieved when children “internalize what they are to learn, get excited about it because it is new and interesting or unique,  see self-value in what they will learn, and move beyond just doing the work of learning to seeing value in the learning”.  The most frequent cause of a bummer is that we do not hook children; we turn children into spectators in the classroom where the teacher is teaching.  Engaged children do not spectate.

A veteran teacher knows her stuff.  She has a developed a unit of instruction with scaffolded lessons she has taught before.   Perhaps she set the hook very well the first time she taught the lesson, but after teaching it multiple times she assumes children are being hooked because they were hooked in the past.  Across time, teachers and everyone else begins to take things for granted.  These assumptions cause us to skip over or minimize aspects of our teaching. 

Make no assumptions, especially about setting the hook for a lesson.  Each lesson taught this year is a new lesson for the children in class; they have not seen or experienced this learning before.  Eliminate a bummer in the making by accentuating their engagement.  Set the hook hard and deep so that no one is a spectator in their learning.

Limit or avoid bummer lessons and enjoy an escalation in student learning. 

Speak Less and Listen More

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The advice Aaron Burr gives to Alexander Hamilton in the musical Hamilton applies to the best practices in teaching.  Speak less and listen more.  If we recorded the audio only for one week in a school classroom, what would be the ratio of teacher speaking to listening?  On the other hand, don’t make such a recording.  The ratio of adult to child voices may be too embarrassing.

Instead, read and consider the following statements.  Don’t talk about what you are reading – read and listen to your own thoughts about each statement.

  • The algorithm of speaking and listening related to educational outcomes begins with an understanding that what a child says is much more important than what a teacher says.  Education is about children learning not adult’s telling what they know.
  • Listening to children allows us to know the quality and quantity of their learning and understanding.  Listen for both.
  • Listening to children informs us that a child may know and understand her learning much better than can be displayed in on demand testing.  Listening is your best formative and summative assessment.
  • Listening to children helps us to know what the child needs to learn next in order to have a more complete understanding of the lesson.  After listening, you can clarify, correct, redirect, expand, and extend a child’s understanding.  If you don’t listen, all you can do is tell them the same things you already told them.
  • Listening to children shows us how a child is processing new learning and integrating new with prior learning.  Listen to how a child thinks not just what a child tells you.
  • Listening leads to questions you ask the student that leads to more listening and to more questions.  Listening leads to causing students to learn.
  • Listening to children is one of the most respectful things adults can do.  It says, “you are important to me”.  Consider how many times a child passes through an entire school day without being heard.  What does silence tell a child about how we value her?
  • Listening is interactive.  The best teachers know when to listen and when to speak.  Listening before speaking assures that speech is focused and purposeful for the listening child.

If a teacher is consistently speaking too much and listening too little, advise the teacher to change professions and become a broadcaster.  That is what broadcasters do, not teachers.