Humanities / Technology 1: next steps for "scripting" a lesson study

Here is the summary’s of Monday's cell meeting 4.03.2013 - addressed to cell members:

Great job identifying a clear objective for the lesson! Now let’s send Heidi some tasks to “script into” our first draft.

I think it is important that each of us make a concrete contribution to the learning script  - so may I ask that we pass on our various contribution to Heidi (as per our original plan)  by this Friday 8/03

• I have asked Heidi to compile a first draft  - we can pass it on via e mail next week
• When we come back after the holiday we can have a “pilot run” with Joe and Heidi presenting the script to us so we can make final recommendations before we roll it out to students week 2/3 next term
• Give some thought to  - How will we assess the learning we hope to facilitate?  - How will we know what/that students have reached the objective/outcome we have identified?
• Can we come up with a summative task/rubric at the end of the script that can serve as an “instrument” for assessment of the learning we have facilitated?

Please CC me in when you send your contribution to Heidi.

Let’s keep talking…

Hanno

Scripting a collaborative lesson on Drugs

Today in the Humanities lesson study cell we focussed on understanding both content and teaching methods related to teenage substance abuse.  Prince Tshilowa and Hanno brought some content information around the causes of drug addiction and way the brain responds, myths about drug addiction, signs and symptoms and how people who have fallen into addiction might be helped. 

Anton Reynolds, part of our Teaching and Learning Centre gave us some broad stokes ideas about how we can sensitively and effectively begin to address this important topic with teenagers. We realised that we should try to steer clear of any form of moralising, preaching or excessive teacher talk. The group agreed that we will all take a good look at the content or “what” we hope to teach the Gr.9 classes and think of at least one learning task that will facilitate engagement with that particular piece of information or will lead to thinking around a question related to that information. 

We loosely divided the different kind of learning tasks to be looked at as follows:

• Heidi and Anton – A “do now” task that will help students to look at the issues and arguments surrounding substance abuse from various angels – Parent, Child, School, Police etc.
• Mpho and Joe -  A paper based case study type task that will help students to become aware of the “root causes” of addiction
• Hanno and Brain – A task based on a video clip of young addict sharing the story of his addiction and the difficult process of rehabilitation 
• Prince and Sibongile – A task that helps students engage with and understand the serious nature of the physical symptoms experienced by an addict

Our agreement for next week is that we will bring these different tasks in a typed format so Heidi and Joe can lead us in a session where we try to bring all the tasks together into one lesson script that we feel might be effective. 

Humanities core agreements

Today in the Humanities lesson study group we started with a bit of a reflection on the first cycle.  Virginia shared some of what she learned in the first cycle about using the Promethean software. The group thought that preparing a regular questionnaire and then using the clickers for student responses is a pretty good way of getting started, when using the software the first time. We also agreed that it takes a lot of preparation the first time and that we will try to incorporate it more in other lessons as we go through various lesson study cycles. After some initial reflection on the first cycle we moved on to what we want to focus on in the next cycle. I shared some of my observations made in watching Marie Reynolds facilitate a Mathematics cell group that has been running successfully for the last two years.  We also looked at some slides unpacking and explaining some important elements and principles of Japanese lesson study. After some discussion and collective brainstorming we settled on the following ideas and principles to guide us in our actions going forward.

• We will all collaborate on planning, executing and assessing 
• Whatever the actual learning area, all contributions to the lesson are welcome whether it is content, methods, strategies or outcomes – everyone contributes what they can to make the lesson as effective as possible. 
• We want to plan thoroughly and make sure that this particular lesson - our lesson, is of good quality. We do not want to rush into teaching it before we feel it is ready. 
• We will first “teach” the lesson in a sort of a “dry run” or “pilot study” fashion, to each other, before we teach it to the students – this will be done as part of our collaborative planning sessions before actual presentation to students. 
• We will make video recordings of lessons being presented to student, as far as possible, to facilitate thorough reflection and de-briefing. 
• Notes, classroom scripts, formative and summative assessments are all responses by students to the lesson and will be considered as forms of “data” that can tell us something about the learning that took place.

After teaching the lesson once we will, reflect, re-plan and re-teach the lesson to a different group where it is feasible and helpful. All and all we agreed that lesson study takes more time, commitment and planning than we have been giving it up to this point. Although we feel that we have learnt a lot and it has been valuable we also feel that we should give ourselves time and space to really focus on the detail and see if we can improve our process. In the next 4-6 weeks we want to collaboratively plan, execute and reflect on a Gr.9 LO lesson on peer pressure and addictions. Everyone in the group agreed to bring some “lesson content” like articles or worksheets to the group next time we meet. When we meet again we will each share what we have found around the theme of peer pressure and addictions and will begin the process of collaboratively “scripting” our lesson.  

Clickers enhance Active Inspire learning

Today in our CPD Humanities cell Brian showed us some strategies for using ACTIVE Inspire Learner response system or – the clickers. We explored various ways of using multiple choice, ranking and free response questions. The discussion centered on how this system can be used for a baseline assessment and we also expressed some concerns about recording the results. Brain put our fears to rest when he demonstrated how results can also be exported to EXCEL. We had a discussion on what might be the easiest and most effective way of trying this the first time and it was decided that maybe, it would be wise to start with a single Do-now type question using the clickers. All the members committed themselves to giving this a go in the next two weeks and reporting back on what we have learnt from our efforts. We realized that there is still lots to learn when it comes to using IT effectively in the classroom but we are keen to begin with small steps.