"Aiming for students to have agency (includes asking for help, seeking to find out what they do not know, and working beyond what they can do now) in their learning is indeed a major aim in learning."
"How is it possible to convince learners to tackle a more difficult problem, fill them with enthusiasm, and inspire them?"
1) One moment where these attributes were all present was when we were working with solving equations. We had a reached a point where the students were not challenged anymore. In a tentative voice, I suggested that we could try fractions, but added that I knew they already struggled with fractions, so we might need a refresher course. The students jumped all over moving forward with the fraction equations and using what they had already learned with a concept they had already identified as being one of their gaps in their learning. Students were high fiving each other as they solved the problems. The talk was all about the math, good questions were being asked...and answered by the students! It was truly a glorious moment.
But how to create that day in and day out?
Is that even a reasonable expectation?
"When confronting issues in schooling, we need to know how to ask for help, the climate of trust needs to be high to allow for the help to be asked and heard, you need to be put in situations where you are challenged to make mistakes, and there must be help there to resolve the dilemma. This create a yes we can mindset to learning in a situation when we most rapidly need to learn and ask for help to learn."
This statement TOTALLY reminded me of when I decided to read the book and implement the BTC strategies. Students were not thinking at the level I was happy with. It felt like they were relying more and more on my questions back to them. I thought I was helping them think more, but in reality my questions were guiding them far to much so they didn't have to think as hard. At my school, my principal is very trusting in allowing us to take risks in the classroom. And implementing BTC was a huge risk as I was changing a lot. After discussing my view on the lack of thinking and what I wanted to try, he was on board immediately. Taking a risk of implementing new strategies and revamping how your classroom operates, also includes lots of mistakes. And we made mistakes. But I ultimately believe it was in those mistakes that the strategies grew stronger.
"Good classroom management is a scene-setter for trust to be built, for fairness to be dominant, and for learning to then occur."
This is probably the hardest part of BTC is creating the classroom culture where the class manages themselves. At least it was this year, my second year of implementation. I don't know if it was because I had become lax in the strategies, thinking I knew how to incorporate them after one of of implementation. Or if it was a different group of students? But, for whatever reason, this year had me focusing on the impact of classroom management and how it relates to learning in the classroom.
1) Focus and presence - I make a promise to my students at the beginning of the year and then remind them of it often that I am watching and listening to them at all times to best help them learn. It's more than just the words...I back it up almost daily with what I witnessed earlier in the class or the previous day, and how we are going to tackle learning from that point forward. In terms of classroom behavior, there are many times where I ignore the little disturbances and simply move myself closer to the misbehavior, give the student a look to convey that I know what they are doing, and then proceed with the lesson since that's the more important than their behavior.
2) Smoothness and pace - When planning the lesson, I plan for the transitions as well. Idle time never seems to serve the lesson well and always requires refocus which is harder to do the second time.
3) Group focus - With BTC, there are lots of small group discussions which are great as they concern just the misunderstandings at that particular board. However, if I start to see the same misunderstanding board after board, we then pull together the whole group. This year, we may implement the expectation that when whole group discussions/consolidations are happening, that students pull out their notebooks in case there is something they will need to jot down for future use.
Advance Organizers - we have done something like this with the KWL chart or versions of it. This helps students see how their prior knowledge lends itself to the new learning.
"Learning requires motivation and it is difficult to initiate learning processes without motivation."
Yes.
Absolutely.
Amen!
This has been my focus FOR YEARS...even prior to implementing BTC and knowing that the first five minutes are critical for grabbing the students attention. My quest all these years has been to create a collection of strategies for my toolbox to add variety and intrigue to my lessons. The following chart is based on Figure 4.5 ARCS model on page 51. I added my own strategies to the descriptions in the chart. These are not all the strategies, but the ones that immediately came to mind. What was fun, was by the end of the chapter, the author suggests to do just this very thing! One step ahead of ya! Ha! :)
"I am a change agent and believe all students can improve" requires both a constant search for evident and close cooperation with colleagues.
The "close cooperation with colleagues" is on area I need to work on. I can get so focused on the analyzing and reflecting in my four walls that I forget about the importance of collaboration. I wonder if this is also due to the fact that I am the only one implementing BTC in our district???
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