Negotiating a Win/Win in Class

I’ve been pondering the idea of win/win situations lately, and their application in the classroom. In my work, I hear a lot from teachers frustrated with their GT students who are refusing to perform assignments to their high ability. This ranges from reading logs to projects to daily classwork to homework – it’s not getting done, and the teacher is at the end of her rope with explaining, cajoling, calling parents, giving “working lunches” – nothing is working.

And I’m beginning to think, “Well, yeah – you’ve created, at best, a win/lose relationship.” But, how can I spread this message with diplomacy, without making it seem like an attack on a teacher but an observation of the situation from somebody who sees both sides?

Covey’s relationships, from his 7 Habits series:

Win/win – everybody comes away with the feeling that their opinion has been valued, and their needs are being met.

Win/lose – one person comes away with their needs being met; the other person is doing all the “giving” in the relationship.

Lose/lose – neither party is satisfied with the outcome of this situation.

To examine these relationships in a typical classroom setting:

Student X never finishes classroom assignments (let alone projects or homework!). If he does finish something, he will usually be the last one done. However, what has been finished shows high mastery of skill.

A lose/lose outcome: X’s teacher insists on him doing the same work as everybody else, regardless of mastery shown. It’s only fair – if the rest of the class has to do 15 problems, then so does X. His folder is full of messages to his parents about incomplete assignments, and his grades are terrible. He has shut down emotionally in class, to the point where even the bare minimum is not being met. X’s teacher is frustrated – she can’t get him to do anything. X is frustrated – school is not meeting his needs at all, and he’d really rather not be there.

A win/lose outcome: X’s teacher insists on him doing the same work as everybody else, regardless of mastery shown. It’s only fair – if the rest of the class has to do 15 problems, then so does X. If he doesn’t get it done in class, then he is made to work during lunch or other “down” time in the day. X complies, and the work is “completed.” The quality, however, is fairly poor, and does not show his true capability. The teacher has “won” – her needs are being met (mostly) with his completed assignments and compliance. X, however, has gained little from this interaction other than an understanding of “how to play the (school) game.”

A win/win outcome: X’s teacher determines her non-negotiables for an assignment. It must be high quality; it must show mastery of the work. However, she allows room for negotiation. Instead of completing the entire worksheet, perhaps X can get a “quality discount.” If, say, he can choose which 6 problems to complete, and completes them without error, then he doesn’t have to finish the rest of the assignment, and is graded on what he has done.  But that’s not fair! Everybody else has to complete the assignment! Well, then why not offer this to everybody in the class? If the majority are showing mastery of a subject after only completing half of the practice…then perhaps they are all ready to move on, and insisting on finishing a page for the sake of finishing it is a waste of the teacher’s time as well as the students’. The teacher gets what she needs – an assessment of what the student is capable of doing. And X gets what he needs – some choice over how his time will be used.

It seems, as we get further into the school year and the stresses of planning, grading, state assessments and the like begin to mount, the willingness to negotiate with students becomes less and less. What students need – and GT students need in particular – is some choice and control over what they do and how they do it. I don’t mean letting a student get away with not working at all – that is still a win/lose relationship, although the student in that case is the victor, and the teacher the losing party. 

But please, as you plan, identify areas where student choice can be implemented. If you find yourself in a win/lose or lose/lose relationship, consider stepping back and talking to your student.

“What is it about this assignment that keeps you from completing it? This is why I gave you the assignment, and what I need you to show me through it. How can we rework this so we both feel as if we’re getting what we need from it?”

With a little bit of flexibility, you may just save yourself – and your students – a lot of frustration and wasted time.

Coding with Kids

I know I'm just the latest in a very long line of educators jumping on the coding bandwagon, but I'm hooked. Coding -- computer programming -- is being called a "New Literacy" for our kids to learn. It's also really fun.

This week, our First Lego League teams dived into building and programming their robots -- a little behind, I know, but we're rookies. Kids who have had no exposure to programming (and coaches who have had very little), are now expected to create robot that can make its way through a multitude of obstacles and perform a task. Overwhelming? Perhaps a bit (especially for the grownups). But the kids looked up some how-to videos, opened up the program, and dove right in.

Looking ahead, I'm realizing that my younger students really need experience with programming, so when they join FLL in a few years, they will be ready to go (also, it's good for that whole career/future/rest-of-their-life thing).

The upcoming Hour of Code is a great opportunity to kick off some coding projects, which I'll write about here as we do them. For more information -- and a plethora of amazing resources, check out Terri Eichholz's "Engage their Minds" blog or Cristina Popescu's "Think Appy Thoughts."

The Multiple Uses of Math Dice

I'm sure this discovery is nothing new to you full-time math teachers, but I have been having a blast using dice in my ALLab this year.

In the basic tournament game, kids roll a target number, then roll their blue dice and come up with an equation to reach that number. The person with an equation closest to the target number wins the round.

What I've done with math dice:

Part-part-whole: My first graders roll the white 12-sided dice, add the two numbers together for their target number, then roll their blue dice and "synergize" (one of our 7 Habits) to build addition equations to reach their target number. (For example, 2+2+5+6+6=21.) They score tokens for every equation they can put together.

Place value & rounding: My third graders rolled the blue and white dice for a random number (up to five digits). They then had to practice rounding their number to each place value. Bonus: Kids who wanted a challenge added in a second set of math dice so they were rounding to the billions!

Graphing: A group of my second graders was getting bored interpreting bar graphs, so we used the dice to create their own. First, they rolled the three blue dice 10 times, using tally marks to track how often each was rolled. Then, they created bar graphs to show their results, and wrote two questions that other students could use to interpret their graphs.

How have you used Math Dice?

Putting the "F-word" Back in School

"Oh, your kids really have fun, don't they?"

I've been asked this question, or versions of it, more times than I can count over the past year as a GT facilitator, in tones ranging from wistfulness to sneer. And I reply, "Yes, they do -- and they think hard, too."

Because really, people, what's wrong with a little fun in school?

I'm thinking of this after spending an hour watching my fifth graders just have fun today. We were supposed to teleconference with NASA, but due to technological difficulties, had to reschedule. Which left me a classroom of fifth graders and an unscheduled hour.

Pentago

"Free choice!" I called out, deciding to give them their Christmas present early. They scattered -- LEGOs, chess, marble runs. Some chose new challenges, like Pentago or In a Pickle. Others went to old favorites -- Quoridor and Quirkle.

To be honest, I struggled with this decision -- was I wasting an hour? What would their teachers -- strapped for time with the stress of state testing in three subjects -- say if they found out?

Then I stepped back and just watched. Part of our district's mission statement reads: "...ISD,where we encourage collaboration and communication, [and] promote critical thinking..."

In their play, my students were embracing all three of those district goals. So yes, they were having fun. And thinking -- a lot.

Managing Overload

Do you ever feel like you're on information overload? That so many good ideas have come your way that you just don't know where to look or what to do next?

That's where I am right now.

I work with some amazingly talented, creative, passionate people, who follow the blogs and read the books of other amazingly talented, creative, passionate people.

That much creativity has left my head spinning this week.  I am full of questions: What should I do next with my students?  Am I doing enough? Is that creative enough? Is that really reaching them the way I want it to? Is there enough depth to that assignment? Will that prepare them for life in our fast-paced, changing society? Will they enjoy it? Will I enjoy it? Is this important? Am I doing the important things with them?

I have these precious butterflies (I know, old, tired, rather melodramatic metaphor, but still appropriate), and I don't want to waste a second of the time we spend together.

So, what to do next?

Here are just a few of the ideas that have come my way this week.

From colleagues: Genius Hour, Engineering Mystery Bags, and the most intriguing, Traveling Differentiation Suitcases. (The suitcases are the creation of a fellow GT facilitator. Made from MacBook boxes -- our district has a surplus of the boxes at the moment following computer upgrades -- the suitcases include everything necessary for an advanced lesson for a small number of students. Novel, handouts, instructions, etc. Genius!)

From the web: Coding for kids, books clubs for GT parents, and really, anything that Terry Eichholz writes about.

I'm glad I have a weekend to ponder and digest these ideas...I'm sure something great will come out of the mix.

Finding Patterns in Poetry

"A pumpkin got bitten by a werewolf at night, and a cat with a rat found meat to bite." 

Perhaps not award-winning poetry, but not bad for a first-grader still exploring word and rhythm patterns.

That's what we've been doing in first grade this year -- patterns. They have found repeating patterns, sorting patterns, increasing and decreasing patterns, and patterns all over the school when we went on a scavenger hunt.  They have kept records of all their patterns in a digital journal, using the "BookCreator" app.

Last week, I read the fabulous poem, The Witch by Jack Prelutsky, to them. We identified all the rhyming word pairs, then found the patterns in the writing -- that the end word of every second and fourth line, for example, rhymes.

Then we used a tree map to come up with our own Halloween word rhymes -- even pulling in a rhyming dictionary to find rhymes for "pumpkin." This was definitely a challenging project -- but a lot of fun, too.

Releasing Creativity

My classroom is a mess this afternoon.

Paint spots on the table, clay fingerprints on the counter. A spare goggly eye stares sightlessly from under a chair where it fell, and small pieces of yarn have attached themselves to the carpet. Space critters in various stages of completeness dry on top of the bookshelves (safe from curious fingers).

I am exhausted, but must smile as I survey this scene, the culmination of a weeks-long study into outer space. We launched it all back in September with this great Reading Rainbow video, followed up with IIM research into chosen planets.  Then my third-graders had to create annotated diagrams of space creatures and exploration vehicles that would be specially adapted to their chosen planets.

As we worked through the research and planning process, I quickly realized my students' pacing was all over the place. I didn't want to hold back the fast workers, or frustrate the more thorough thinkers by hurrying them. So I drew on this summer's Langford training and created a modified capacity matrix, so kids could track their own progress through the project -- and know what's coming next.

I love that this project has been a blend of research skills and divergent, creative thinking. Now, to clean up the creative mess.

Facilitating Failure

This week, I posted about a cool LEGO math activity I did recently with my first graders. One of my kids -- a first-grader determined to learn square roots, as he believes himself to already be the master of lesser maths -- was not satisfied with a two- or three-digit number. Nope -- he wanted to go to five digits.

So, I let him. Did I know it would be nearly impossible to do in our limited time, with our limited number of LEGOs? Of course. And I didn't say yes because I wanted him to fail at his choice -- this wasn't a cheap opportunity to tell him "I told you so -- now, learn what I tell you."

Instead, I figured it would be a great "teaching moment" for him to really understand the idea of exponential growth behind place values.

First, he picked a number in the 50,000s. He quickly revised that downward to 10,000 -- still quite the feat to accomplish with LEGO studs.

We added. We skip-counted and multiplied (he is gifted at math). We never made it to five digits, but I think, using the available base plates, that we made it to around 2,000 studs before he had to go back to class.

Sure, he failed at his original task -- building a five-digit number. But he and the two girls with him all left with a great understanding of just how huge a number 10,000 is.

Sometimes we learn more by failing than succeeding -- an important lesson I try to teach my GT kids, and one I often need to remember myself.

Building Math Skills Brick by Brick

Algebraic thinking, numeracy, math sense -- these words are all foreign to me. I think I know what they mean -- in a vague sense -- but never really concerned myself with them too much.

Until lately.

I have found myself in demand as an advanced math resource person these days -- a position I never expected to have, with majors in journalism and history and a career of teaching those two subjects. Thankfully, those previous areas of study have given me major research skills -- which I've put to use in the past month looking for hands-on math activities.

I came across this fabulous post by Alycia Zimmerman on Scholastic.com, which sparked my interest in what can be taught with LEGOs. I tweaked her "part-part-whole" activity a bit with my first graders recently, who have been studying place value.

I pulled 1x10, 2x10, 1x1 and 1x2 bricks from my LEGO bins, as well as some plates and base plates. (If you just got lost on the LEGO terminology, check out this glossary post from thebrickblogger.com.)

Ready to start, I piled the LEGOs in the middle of the table, and handed the kids small whiteboards. First, they chose a random two- (or three-) digit number and wrote it on their whiteboards. Then, they got to build their number out of LEGOs. They used the 1x10 and 2x10 bricks for their tens place, and the smaller bricks for their ones place.

56 = 20+10+20+2+2+1+1

Wanting to expand their numeracy? skills (please correct me if that is not the correct use of that concept -- like I said earlier, I'm still a little fuzzy on the whole math terminology thing), I had them write out the equations they just built. For example: 56=20+10+20+2+2+1+1.

They loved it!

If you have any awesome ideas for using LEGOs in math, (or any awesome hands-on math ideas), please post them below -- I am always on the hunt for more.

You've Been Sentenced...to Practice Grammar

The fun, jazzy class drew my rainy Ohio feet.

The smelly girl, Cameron, jumped into the lake.

Suzy sneezed under the snake.

Odd sentences? Absolutely. Grammatically correct? Yes! This is the fun of "You've Been Sentenced," a great game for vocabulary building and sentence writing.

A group of fourth graders came to visit me recently to work on their grammar and writing skills. I pulled this game off the shelf, handed them some whiteboards, and the giggling commenced. 

The basic premise of the game is to draw cards and make sentences using as many of the cards as you can -- which leads to great use of clauses and adjectives. By mixing in the whiteboards, I forced the students to practice their punctuating skills -- something they were more than willing to do to prove how "correct" their sentences were. 

They were quick to point out when clauses were under- or over-punctuated, or when basic sentence components (like verbs!) were missing. The players quickly corrected these problems -- I only saw sentence fragments twice, as the kids made sure to include verbs from then on, so they could earn points!

I also really love the silly thinking involved in the game -- for example, Suzy's snake allergy problem.  Players can challenge each other as to the validity of their sentences -- both content-wise as well as grammatically. In this case, the writer of Suzy's sentence had to come up with a scenario in which Suzy would find herself sneezing under a snake.  She said the snake was in a cage in a classroom, and the cage was on top of the table. Suzy was under the table, and started sneezing.

Fun, divergent thinking, while still practicing and improving basic grammar skills.

Down the (Glowing) Rabbit Hole

Did you know that scientists have learned how to splice jellyfish DNA into furry creatures' DNA to make glow-in-the-dark critters? I had no idea, until my fourth graders started researching DNA this fall. And oh, what a fascinating, complex study it has become.

I envisioned this project oh-so-simply. The yearly theme for my fourth-grade GT class is "structure." Of course, we will do the toothpick bridges and famous buildings, but how interesting to add a biological component to this theme. And what is more integral to living creatures' structure than DNA?

I figured we'd do a little research, present what we learned with a PowerPoint, Keynote, maybe a sculpture or two...and move on.

Not so much.

This is the joy and difficulty of teaching a GT class. As we delved into this fascinating topic, my students' paths shot out like the tentacles of that glowing jellyfish. Suddenly, we're looking at DNA, RNA, cloning, mutations, GMOs, genetic engineering...and on and on and on. By our second day of research, I realized a quickie presentation was not going to cut it.

"How would you guys feel about making this our semester project -- and creating a DNA museum?" I asked them. Cheers! Excitement! And so it begins...

We used a Circle Map to define a quality museum exhibit.

"Digging" Science

Yes, ok, the title is a little punny -- but if you've ever met my dad, you know I couldn't resist a good (or bad) pun. My second-graders are in the middle helping to build a school garden. We've been doing research on plants, but I knew if I didn't get their hands dirty soon, there would be issues.

The big garden is not quite ready yet, but I figured a window herb garden would be just the ticket -- and if I could mix in some scientific methodology, even better.

I started with plastic cups, dirt (just a bag from the local box store -- nothing fancy), some seeds and some water. I also put together these gardening journal pages so they could document the process -- just like scientists do.

They had to measure, in grams, the amount of soil they added to their cups. They had to measure the depth they planted their seeds (in centimeters), and they had to measure, in milliliters, how much water they gave their plants. They loved it!

Plus, they will come every day to document their plants' progress -- because this is what scientists do. They measure. They observe. They document.

When their plants start to (hopefully) grow, we will work together to draw conclusions about what worked, what didn't, and what we may do the next time.

Their Directions

Soil Measuring Station

Seed-planting Station 

Watering Station 

Stealing Ideas

I played a really mean trick on my students recently -- but for a good reason.

As they walked in the door, I told them, very excitedly, that we were going to have a drawing contest. Being the competitive GT kids that they are, they were all super excited, and immediately got to work drawing the best space-scape, plant or structural drawing they could. They were really into it -- hunched over, shielding their amazing, winning drawings from prying eyes.

They had five minutes -- timed. Then I had them trade their drawings with another person, put their names on that person's drawing, and hand them in. This is where it got a little mean.

"Oh, John!" I exclaimed, looking at Stephanie's drawing. "What color! What imagination!"

"Oh, Gina! What beautifully rendered leaves!" while looking at Maria's drawing.

This garnered predictable results.

"That's not hers -- that's mine!" "I don't like this!" "But, that's mine!"

"But...it has their name on it," I'd reply every time, then picked a "winner." Inevitably the winners felt guilty for being recognized over a picture they hadn't really drawn, and the real "winner" felt extremely irritated.

I debriefed with every group afterwards -- a necessity, because confusion and hurt feelings happened in every class. I apologized, but explained that this was the point -- that your brain is much more likely to remember something it learns when there is a strong emotion attached, and this was a lesson I never wanted them to forget.

Plagiarism -- the bane of every teacher who teaches resarch, from first grade through post-graduate studies. Now my students from ages 7 through 10 have an extremely clear understanding of the issue. We followed up this activity (which I learned from a training this summer in the IIM research method), with a Brainpop video and circle map about plagiarism.


We began with the end in mind. I want them to be good researchers for life -- which means confronting the issue of plagiarism now, before bad habits form. A little mean? Yes. Are they better researchers for it? Absolutely.

Begin with the End in Mind

Those of you who know Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People know that my title today comes from his second habit. I work on a "Leader in Me" campus, where we take his habits and try to instill them in kids. I know, I know, it sounds like another of those "follow me and I'll show you the way, for only 90 bajillion dollars"types of character programs -- except that it's working. Really well. And the best part is that it's not only character education for kids -- it's working on the grownups, too. In fact, this blog exists because of my personal Wildly Important Goal. (Yes, I speak fluent Edubabble -- stay tuned for more!)

This summer, I also attended a four-day seminar by David Langford, who has researched and shared dozens upon dozens of tools intended to help kids problem-solve and become more intrinsically motivated. Although I had some serious issues with some of his ideas, I really liked his thoughts on having kids determine what an end product will be.  Also, he is a huge fan of sticky notes, and I like sticky notes, too. (Especially when I can color-code them. Hush. It's a teacher thing.)


With the start of my GT pullout classes last week, I wanted to "Begin with the End in Mind" and set the tone for the year. So I took that "quality" idea, reached into my bag of tricks and mixed this together:

For those of you "in the know," you may recognize the Thinking Map in the photo above. I'll spare you the testimonial, but I really like these tools, too. I talked to my students (grades first through fifth) about what quality means, then they brainstormed on their sticky notes how they know they've completed quality projects. They then had to group their sticky notes close to others with similar messages. (My favorite up there came from a first grader: "I wark my but oof.")

I put together the bulletin board with titles after everybody had the opportunity to define quality. Now, it's a visual reminder in my room that we all know quality when we see it -- and, we know how to create it.

Starting Something New

We live in an era of a million ideas. Everybody, it seems, has the "next best thing" for education. They know what we need to fix it! To get our kids to read! Write! Do Math! Behave! Just buy this product...go to this workshop...read this book or listen to this expert. And you -- that's right, you! -- will finally be a successful teacher.

What it sometimes reminds me of!

Does that sound bitter? It's not meant to...well, maybe a little. I've been a teacher for 10 years, and have taught everything from high school journalism to kindergarten GT students. I've been to dozens of seminars, read loads of educational books, magazines and blogs, and you know something -- I have become a better teacher. Not because of one program, or one product, or one dynamite author. But because I've listened, I've learned, I've taken pieces of the ideas they have and mixed them with what I myself have experienced in my classrooms.

I've remixed.

So now, with this blog, I want to add my thoughts to our million-idea mix. I'm not wildly creative -- I wish I was, but those groundbreaking, world-changing ideas are not mine. (For some amazing ones, check out my friend Cristina's blog @ http://thinkappythoughts.blogspot.com/)

Instead, I'll share how I've taken some of the old, mixed it with some of the new, and come up with some pretty cool projects for my current batch of kiddoes. Have great ideas of your own? Send 'em my way -- and we'll keep learning together.