Cross-Curricular Teaching or Phenomenon Based Learning

When professional educators combine their energies and reinforce the same deep learning, the stream of information is clearer for the student, the learning activities are more fluid, and the student's reservoir of knowledge and skill fills faster.

Education, now days, doesn't meet the deeper learning needs of students. Fortunately, it can be accelerated by consolidating teacher efforts and combining relevant contents. Cross-Curricular Teaching implies that students will follow a particular stream of inquiry to the headwaters, rather than simply sampling all the possible streams.

Educators need to understand and accept a few requirements:

1. Deep learning engages the whole student (and teacher), heart, mind, body, and soul.

2. It requires enthusiastic partners within students, parents, and community.

3. It requires intensive preparation. As the rapid development of society, teachers need to update their knowledge and way of teaching students.

4. Assessment must mirror learning. Teachers should evaluate students reflecting mastery of learning objectives rather than mere assignment completion.

5. Collaboration is necessary. Students must be taught how to collaboratively gain knowledge and skills in order to be expert learners and demonstrate their learning by applying and creating.

In order for all this to happen in a sustainable way in our schools, deeper learning requires that groups of teachers pool their talents, resources, time, and efforts to maximize coherence, relevance, and connections among the content areas.

Teachers should work with other grade level teachers and find common topics to prepare to teach subjects jointly rather than separately. Teachers must start collaboration with another teacher from a different department. The task of all educator teams is to provide a rich, rigorous, and relevant flow of knowledge and skills, and then find a way to lead the students to this water and then make them thirsty enough to drink deeply. Students and teacher teams focusing on learning deeply have the force to achieve learning beyond the traditional education dam and shoot out over the spillway to not only understand the torrent of available knowledge, but to also add to it in phenomenal ways.

The Blooms Taxonomy meant that the first step would be to seek knowledge, comprehend it, apply it in real life scenarios, analyze and further synthesize with other concepts and subjects. With Phenomenon Based Learning, this linear progression turns into a roller coaster ride, which has become a challenge for teachers and students.

The learner starts with a phenomenon or a real life scenario, analyses the linkages with different concepts and subjects, identifies the gaps in knowledge and understanding, seeks out that knowledge, comprehends it for each subject area and then synthesizes it. So essentially what was a process of construction has now been broken into deconstruction and then construction. First deconstruct the phenomenon into different concepts and processes, understand them and then reconstruct them into the original phenomenon and probably draw parallels with other phenomenon.

This educational methodology is more student-centered because they will do it in his or her own manner, the number of linkages and the pathway chosen will depend on their prior knowledge. Educators can use a number of resources and online platforms to engage their learners in a discussion on what subjects and concepts need to be learnt so that the phenomenon can be understood.

Phenomenon Based Learning is an opportunity to integrate the best of learner centrist approaches and it is the way forward as it is closer to how learning happens in real life, an unexplained phenomenon starts off an inquiry, becomes a lifelong pursuit and results in new knowledge and understanding. Phenomenon-based structure in a curriculum also actively creates better opportunities for integrating different subjects and themes as well as the systematic use of pedagogically meaningful methods, such as inquiry learning, problem-based learning, project learning and portfolios. The phenomenon-based approach implements a versatile utilization of different learning environments.

As an educator, I believe that a holistic real-world phenomenon provides the starting point for learning. Breaking down the dominance of traditional subjects and isolation of teaching is an opportunity to more fundamental change in schools. Integrated knowledge and skills about real world issues enhances teacher collaboration in schools and makes learning more meaningful to students.

Schools should teach what young people need in their lives rather than try to bring national test scores back to where they were.

References:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/cross-curricular-teaching-deeper-learning-ben-johnson

http://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/trends/1981-edtech-meets-phenomenon-based-learning

Check out my new classroom!

Classroom environment encompasses a broad range of educational concepts, including the physical setting, the psychological environment created through social contexts, and numerous instructional components related to teacher characteristics and behaviors. The study classroom environment has been widespread across nearly all sub-specializations of educational psychology. Researchers are interested in relationships between environment constructs and multiple outcomes, including learning, engagement, motivation, social relationships, and group dynamics. Early researchers recognized that behavior is a function of people's personal characteristics and their environment.

The Physical Environment 

More frequently a focus in earlier studies of classroom environment, the physical environment has continued to appear in contemporary studies as an influence on behavioral and academic outcomes. Current studies of the physical environment have investigated aspects such as class composition, class size, and classroom management.

Classroom Climate 

Part of the larger focus on school improvement is School Climate or Educational Climate, which defines how teachers interact with each other and with administrators. This is different from Classroom Climate, which identifies relationships among students with each other, the teacher and how this translates into learning.

 The amount of time a teacher spends in teaching organizational behaviors impacts the classroom environment. Researchers have found that students in classrooms that spent more time early in the school year on organizational instruction substantially increased the amount of time students spent in student-managed activities later in the academic year. Intentionally providing organizational instruction at the start of the academic year is a characteristic of an effective classroom environment manager.

The Psychological Environment 

Beyond the physical arrangement of a classroom a psychological environment is also created, based on the interaction of key players in the classroom, namely students and teachers. Research in this area has varied greatly and proliferated during the early twenty-first century. Studies have been particularly concentrated on student class participation rates, teacher support, and communication of learning goals.

The Role of the Teacher in the Classroom Environment

The third focus of many examinations of classroom environment has been on teacher behaviors, specifically teacher development and school culture and how these components affect classroom environment. Some research suggests that due to the complexity of cultivating an effective classroom environment, it may be beyond the developmental scope of the newly graduated teacher. Some researchers recommend that professional development for new teachers should include intense mentoring and teaching partnerships that reduce isolation and form productive and meaningful relationships with other adults in the school community.

Following the research studies on physical and psychological environment many suggestions for teachers have been presented in the literature, including classroom management plans and recommendations for building better relationships with students. Classroom rules and procedures should be introduced early in the school year and consequences should be enforced consistently across students and throughout the school year. Research has shown that routine and fairness have a positive impact on behavior as well as academic quality. It has been found that teachers who run respectful classrooms are in turn more respected by their students, and students believe that these teachers also hold higher learning expectations. Teachers are encouraged to focus more on the learning task than on the outcome or grade assigned at the end of the task, although this becomes much more difficult if the emphasis in education is placed on accountability and high-stakes testing.

Although most classroom environment studies are by definition limited to classrooms, a few studies have investigated the impact of the school culture on classroom environment. Findings suggest that schools with an authoritative culture (e.g., clear direction, delegation of responsibilities, accountability to and from all) tend to be judged by students and teachers as being successful. Schools that lack leadership or have a culture of multiple micro-conflicts tend to be perceived by students and teachers as undermining educational gains.

Source:

http://www.education.com/reference/article/classroom-environment/

Successful student strengths

Students should have an open mind. They must develop their critical thinking, questioning what they read, and drawing conclusions, but such findings must be based on research. Teachers should use research based approaches with solid basis, and of course, if the student makes a mistake, he or she will be willing to change their ideas based on evidence. 

Here are some strengths we can identify in successful students:

CURIOSITY

Curious students explore and discover new things; they become knowledgeable and learn about many different things. Because of students’ interest in discovering and learning new things, they will always have questions to answer. This is one of the greatest strengths a student can have: the love of knowledge which expands their mind.

WISDOM   

The ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight, is a virtue teachers should reinforce in students. This involves an understanding of people, things, events, situations, and the willingness as well as the ability to apply perception, judgment, and action in keeping with the understanding of what is the optimal course of action. Students should be exposed to new strategies, so we should have them create as many things as possible.

COURAGE                                                

 

Students should have courage to compete, to win, to achieve, to learn, to master challenges, to be recognized, have passion to face a difficult situation and come with a creative solution. If students know they are capable of doing so, nothing will stop them from achieving whatever they want. It’s not only the courage to prove to others what we can do; it is also a commitment to ourselves. 

BRAVE BEHAVIOR

The courage to master their fears and overcome adversity is a brave act from successful students. They earn respect and trust from others and they get emotional strengths, and become more confident when they have to face a problem.

PERSEVERANCE

Every successful student should finish what they start. A successful student is persistent even if he or she confronts obstacles. This type of student quickly develop passion over something, a new hobby, project or interest, and fervently try to find out as much as he or she can about it. Pulling through every situation to feel satisfied with the acquired achievements, they will go on and on until they feel satisfied.

TEAMWORK

The successful student works well with the team, or within a group of people, being faithful to the group and feeling as part of it. They usually attend to the climate within their group and the process by which they accomplish their tasks. These students are able to communicate clearly on intellectual and emotional levels. They demonstrate a sense of cohesion where respect, trust, self-disclosure, support, and openness, are part of the healthy climate around them. These students know how to function so they are productive and accomplish their tasks effectively.

"YOUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES YOUR DIRECTION".

7 negative behaviors!

Parents often try to help their children in any way they can, but sometimes they don’t know how to enhance leadership in their child. There are some negative behaviors that parents usually have towards this situation. There are seven behaviors that prevent your children from becoming leaders according to Dr. Tim Elmore:

1. When parents don’t allow children to experience risk (We risk too little). Even though I’m not a parent, I can imagine what it takes to keep a child from accidentally injuring themselves, and I can tell that when my parents gave me space it helped me become independent and resourceful.  Having a constant fear about your child’s safety will eventually have an impact on their mental health. Unfortunately, over-protecting our young people has had an adverse effect on them. “Children of risk-averse parents have lower test scores and are slightly less likely to attend college than offspring of parents with more tolerant attitudes toward risk,” says a team led by Sarah Brown of the University of Sheffield in the UK.

2. Rescuing too fast. This generation of young people has not developed some life skills because their parents are often taking care of problems for them.  Rescuing and over-indulging our children is one of the most insidious forms of child abuse, it sorely misses the point of leadership—to equip our young people to do it without help. Now days Today, if a child is outside at all, their mother is usually there doing the conflict resolution for the kid. If they always get the help they need without even asking, children will never learn to solve their problem by themselves.

3. Show enthusiasm easily. “If it doesn’t come easy, I don’t want to do it”, says a child when his/her parents rave too easily.  Eventually, this kid will observe that “mom” is the only one who thinks he’s/she’s amazing, no one else seems to say it. They begin to doubt the objectivity of their own mother; it feels good in the moment, but it’s not connected to reality. Children learn to cheat, to exaggerate and lie and to avoid difficult reality because they have not been conditioned to face problems, mom will always come to the front line.

4. To reward every achievement. A mistake made by many parents, especially those with more than one child. Parents shouldn’t always reward their children with gifts because the kid will not experience intrinsic motivation or unconditional love. Children must be exposed with doses of hardship, delay, challenges and inconvenience to build the strength to stand in them.

5. Do not share past mistakes. It is good to tell those things you didn’t do well when you were their age, so you can show how you faced the problem and teach them the lesson you learned.

6. Confusing intelligence, talent and influence maturely. Parents usually confuse intelligence or other skills with maturity. We can see this problem when excellent students have performed their job perfectly and then, they don’t know how to face an audience.  Intelligence refers to the influences of learning and experience and maturity, in the other hand, is more like the ability to respond to the environment in an appropriate manner.

7. Do not practice what you preach. Parents have the responsibility to model what type of life they want their children to live. Therefore, if we want to raise leaders, we should try to always use honest words.

                                 

The new so called generation...

 

The new generation that has grown within this technological revolution is lonely, with lack of empathy... but behind the hedonistic, consumerist, amoral, irresponsible image this new generation reflects, there is a very strong silence. 

Through the most exciting stage of life, the young ones are facing adaptation, acceptance, adventures and misadventures, joys and sorrows, hopes and concerns.

The new generation owns the technological revolution, and faces a very broad universe of distraction. They are more likely to travel and interact with others... to learn more and develop their own conclusions of life, and even though they have access to this amazing world of opportunities and information, they feel lonely, insecure, and incomplete. It’s becoming an era of consumerism, with no sense of duty and sacrifice.

They need affection sustained in time, someone who actually listen to them, accept them and understand their uniqueness.

Now days, these young adolescents are being diagnosed with anxiety, stress and depression, insecurity, attention disorders, low self-esteem, and so on. 

Families today overprotect their children, and teens react by trying to prove they are older adopting risky behaviors such as drinking alcohol, taking drugs or having sex at earlier ages, just to reaffirm their maturity.

The generation that is currently taking place has a high level of knowledge and thousands of opportunities to become productive, but still there is a need of sharing, friendship, trust, empathy, love. 

Do we really need to enhance student’s self-esteem?

Self-esteem is how we see ourselves, the value we give to our personal characteristics. We build a self-esteem once we’re born, and we know it is impossible to turn back time and change things from our past that affected us in anyway. But yes we can influence the development of self-esteem on our students. They are easily mold, and it is important to realize that what we teach today will influence them tomorrow. When our students learn to build self-esteem from a young age they are doing an investment in  their present and future happiness. 

As teachers we should always beware of the negative comments we might say to our students. YES we have to tell when they have done something wrong, but in a way they don’t feel accused. We can tell them "you're wrong ", but we should never say " you're stupid " or "you don’t do anything right ".

Students should be able to discover, explore, create, have their personal space, and learn from their mistakes. They should feel secure to discover things and get to answers, with teacher’s approval and support. Overprotecting, giving them the answers, and putting them in the easiest situation can make their confidence about themselves weak and their ability to use their own knowledge and reasoning will be below expectation.

The nonverbal communication has to be consistent with what we express verbally. Teachers have to let students see a smile, a sincere gesture of approval or a hug to build self-esteem more than anything else. We have to show them how proud we are, not only for what he or she does well, but the whole person.

Students are frighten and afraid to make mistakes or fail… There is nothing that limits us and affects our learning skills more than be afraid of being wrong . The best way to help them go through mistakes is to calmly explain how to avoid making it again in the future.

Something we, as teachers, should always do, is to encourage their sense of self-efficacy. Whenever we can say, "You can do it", " you are unique, special", we should say it. To show students that we trust them; we help them believe in their capabilities. If they complete assignments correctly, we should make them feel proud… if they make a mistake and they face it, we should make them feel way much better and show them how proud we are.

TEACHERS, WE HAVE TO ATTEND THEIR EMOTIONAL NEEDS. We have to be aware of students emotions and always keep in touch with their parents. Students know they can trust their teacher for whatever they need when we give them the approval and demonstrate them that we care about their feelings. We are that person that can listen to them and give them attention. The emotional support is one of the strongest roots of self-esteem, and it will develop a trust in others and in themselves.

We should never underestimate students concerns. We might see the magnitude of the problem very different from the point of view of our students. We should give importance the situation, and listen to what he or she has to say without ignoring what it can bring them. The student has to feel his or her opinion is valid.

It is important for teachers to detect self-esteem issues. We have to be aware of the areas in which our students 's self-esteem may be faltering (social, academic, physical... ) in order to work with them. We are molding a person who will be productive, and effective in a not so far future. The more self-confidence gained, the easier it will be for the child to face the world and its challenges. We all have an important role in this process. Lets enjoy it and work with parents on it!

A permanent goal, a teaching philosophy, a way of living...

Teaching is what I wanted since I was a kid, and to be able to help children learn is my primary philosophy. As an educator, I really like to let students be themselves. I think that everyone has the opportunity to success in his or her own way.  I believe that each person is unique and should always have the opportunity to be heard. Their opinions, ideas, complain, suggestions, critics have to be taken into consideration. Each student deserves the chance to develop their personality in a comfortable environment with values and, of course, I always try to show good leadership for my student. I try to create a comfortable learning environment based on respect instead of fear. For me, students are my main priority and I know that they are all different. I like to encourage them to explore opportunities and use the environment also.

In my classroom, I apply creativity, stressing the importance of education and, at the same time, letting the student have the freedom to think and discover knowledge. Encourage the student to value effort and the determination to succeed.

Growing professionally is one of my eternal goals. We never stop learning. I am always open to new ideas and suggestions and I want to be involved in more educational activities: study, research, and expand my knowledge to be a better teacher. I have to be well prepared for every lesson I teach, with a good planning of time and materials that will ensure that the lesson will be successfully learned.

I believe that in the end students will have self-confidence, and good interpersonal skills to survive in this world.

My special end of the school year!

Those tears were like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeam. She looked at me and said she will always miss me and started crying, I couldn’t help it either, I cried with her, tears of joy, laughter, and most of all, love.

As a teacher I can say this is my weakness... I get too attach to my students, and now, even tired and hoping to get the so deserved summer vacation, it’s the happiest yet saddest moment of the school year. Saying goodbye and watching them grow fast, learn fast, change fast... watch them go.

Tears of joy are the sweetest tears. That lovely hug, makes me realize how I love my job: such an emotional, real, lovely career. I’m so happy for that moment... I can say that all the work was worth it; not only to teach them, but to learn from them. So maybe, one day at the time, we can change the world.

Inspire with the environment!

Ohhhhhhh classroom decorations, a pain for some teachers, a therapy for others... a MUST for me! Students spend most of their time in a classroom... teachers can influence in students desire to learn by making decisions about the classroom layout. A classroom can say a lot to students and parents about us as teachers. We can let students know what we expect from them, let them know how exciting learning can be, and get them inspired on great things! That special place where students learn, that’s my classroom... And I think it’s very important to put an effort into preparing it because at the end it will always be worth it.

Desk organization also influences in students motivation and speaks about your teaching style. For example, depending on the grade level, if you organize desks by two they will know they’ll work in pairs, as a team with others, or if they will work by themselves. The traditional organization of rows of individual desks is boring, they get really excited when they get to the classroom and chairs are already fixed in a different way as it was before. Of course it all depends on the class you’ll be teaching and what works they will be doing during that day.

So this is what I’m doing this school year, and my students are very happy!

I’ve been planning in decorating my class with Dr. Seuss theme for a long time... I finally did it! Here are some pictures of my classroom.

A walk through students with learning disabilities head...

There are several indicators of disabilities presented in early childhood. Starting with coordination problems, unaware of physical surroundings, difficulty in learning new skills, or memorizing class, remembering things that happened, confusing basic words, lack of concentration, troubles with phonetics, reading errors such as inversions, transpositions, substitutions and letter reversals, problem solving simple math problems, impulsive behavior, and so on.

Disabilities are qualified in different types:

Dyslexia: The student has difficulty learning to read.

Dysgraphia: Is a deficiency in the ability to write primarily in terms of handwriting, but also in terms of coherence.

Dyscalcula: Students have problems reasoning and solving math problems.

These disabilities affect students learning skills directly, through study skills, reading and writing skills, oral and social skills, and math skills. They are unable to finish assignments on time, and they have frequently grammatical errors. They might have impulsive behavior and disoriented in time. Teachers need to be patient. There is also ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), which is the behavioral condition also associated with learning disabilities because kids with this condition present difficulties concentrating enough to learn and study. They are easily distracted and have problems focusing. They are very active and can’t control their impulses.

Lets put our selves in this student shoe. First of all they know that they are different than the others and they cannot control their situation. “Learning disabilities are problems that affect the brain’s ability to receive, process, analyze, or store information” according to The Nemours Foundation. These problems don’t let students with these disabilities learn at the same rhythm as a regular student. These students get frustrated because friends are playing while they have to read over and over again being unsuccessful in learning, understanding, or memorizing what they are reading. They think is unfair, and they get appointments with the psychologist, teachers, and parents, not understanding why they can’t be like the others. Once they know that they have a problem they will probably feel worried, and they are going to ask themselves if they are going to be that way forever, and if they will always be unsuccessful in life.

Now days, there are a LOT of students affected by many kinds of learning disabilities, some of the students have more than one kind. Researchers have some theories, but we’re not exactly sure of what causes it. The theories they developed are basically three: Genetic influences (it runs in the family), brain development (brain development before and after birth, with low birth weight problems, lack of oxygen, head injuries and so on), and environmental impacts (environmental toxins, poor nutrition).

Guess what? Learning disability can be controlled! 

Once we diagnostic a student with these kind of problems, we implement strategies and they get some medicine treatment to help them cope with the disability. While going through the process, students are going to restore their self-esteem and confidence.

Lets give it a try! 

Put yourself in those children shoes!