21st Century Education

We knew from our first gathering last May that our brand new school here at Chaffee Trail was being labeled as "A School of the Future!" How exciting! We would have brand new all-Apple technology, voice-enhancement systems, and cool "Jetsons" furniture. Yet now that we are over half-way through the school year, I began to wonder how far we have come in truly being a school of the future. I found a fantastic article on 21st century education that describes my teaching philosophy and pedagogy exactly. I urge you to read it at http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/What_is_21st_Century_Education.htm (Click on the title of blog for direct link). I think we have so many wonderful teaching practices in place here at Chaffee, and we have built such great community, but the recommendations in this article would be a good place to guide us in goals for future years so that we do continue to grow and become truly "A School of the Future!" Let me know what you think!

Benefits of Flexible Scheduling

I have written so much about flexible scheduling in this Teacher-of-the-Year quest, that I feel that everyone must know the benefits to our students by now! Yet it dawned on me that you, the staff at Chaffee Trail, have not read my packet and so may not be as well aware of the many advantages of a student-centered, open-access library program.

Some of the benefits you have hopefully gleaned yourself: the library as an extension of the classroom, collaboration, research and projects for units taught in the classroom, help with social studies and science standards and pacing, etc. Yet it is in what the students gain from flexible scheduling that makes this the only choice for a 21st Century School of the Future. Flexible scheduling is best practices in education. Many districts across the nation now mandate it, and more and more elementary schools in Duval County are putting it into action. I am proud we are one of the leaders in the county.

To fully understand the impact on student learning, I'll compare the fifth-grade project on mapping natural disasters executed with flexible scheduling to what could be done with a fixed library schedule. Fifth grade science standards include learning about plate tectonics and the effects of the shift in the plates on the earth (earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, landslides). Students came to the library for three days. The first day, they gained background knowledge on the various disasters through literature (How to Dig a Hole through the Other Side of the World, by Faith McNulty) and video segments from National Geographic. I previewed the project they would be researching and went over the directions. The next day the students worked in 3 teams (formed by the classroom teacher) researching in three centers: non-fiction books, reference materials, and the EDMAT database on the computers. They would be documenting the different natural disasters with place, date, and interesting information like numbers affected and cost. Students accessed information through use of index, table of contents, guide words, key words, and search terms on the database. They learned the importance of using a database versus a search engine like "Google." They engaged the sources and determined which was the important information for their task. They used graphic organizers to chart their notes on that information. The next day, they continued in the centers then used globes and atlases to map their disasters they documented on their charts. They then wrote the information they researched on large letters for each of the disasters (L=landslide, A=avalanche, E=earthquake, T=tsunami- in every class there were students who were surprised tsunami began with a "t", and V=volcano). The letters were then put into position on the giant 12-foot map in the main hall by the 4th and 5th grade hallway. This was the critical part of the project. Once students saw the disasters mapped large and graphically, they could see the pattern of the plates and features like the ring of fire where there were so many volcanoes. I can't tell you how many light bulbs went off for students as they said to me, "Ohhhhh! I get it now." One student told me that the map was actually backwards because North and South America were on the right- another teachable moment that our earth is actually round. Flexible scheduling allows for project-based learning where students synthesize the skills learned and research gleaned. This is where higher-level learning occurs and where students are engaged in their learning. 

It also leads to inquiry and questioning. Mrs. Bradley told me that she brought her class on a little field trip to see the giant map, and they wanted to know why there weren't any hurricanes. It was a great question, especially being here in Florida! But here's a teaching tip: don't answer them. Instead, ask them those key questions I wrote about in an earlier post. You could tell a first grader that the map was of disasters affected by changes in the earth's crust and plate tectonics, but how effective would that be? Instead, ask them, "What does a hurricane look like? (form)" (First graders will give you GREAT answers, like, "It's really, really, really windy and rainy and the guy in the yellow coat has to hang on to a tree while he's trying to talk into the microphone thingy on TV..."). Then ask them, "What does a volcano look like?" ("It's SO cool 'cause red, hot, steamy lava and goo comes out of a mountain and if you touched it, like, you'd have to wear a band-aid the rest of your life!") "What does an earthquake look like?" ("The ground just starts shaking and it cracks open and buildings shake and people scream and things start falling everywhere") "If a hurricane looks like wind and rain, then what do you think causes a hurricane? (causation)" ("Umm...Well, wind and rain are part of the weather...") "If a volcano is red goo coming out of a mountain, and an earthquake is the ground shaking and cracking open, and a landslide is the ground sliding down from a mountain, how are those connected? (Connection)" ("I don't know...maybe it all happens to a mountain or the ground?") "Great! So a hurricane is caused by the weather, and all the disasters on this map are caused by changes in the ground or the earth!" Tah-dah! Six and Seven year-olds have just figured out their own question with your help and will actually understand it on their terms.

Now... let's imagine this project done on a fixed schedule. The last time I taught on a fixed schedule, students went to resources on a 12-day rotation. So students came to the library once about every three weeks. That means that to do a multi-day, project-based lesson, it would have taken 9 weeks (one whole quarter) to do this project. I'm pretty sure the pacing guide doesn't have this science unit lasting all quarter! So students come the first time to gain their background knowledge and preview the project. They don't come again for 3 more weeks, while in the meantime, they have forgotten everything from the first lesson. They are expected to jump right in working in their groups on their centers, but we will need to review how to extract information from non-fiction resources, encyclopedias, atlases, and databases. Three weeks later, students are supposed to finish their centers, but they don't remember what to do in each center or which ones their group completed. They also wonder why they're still doing this when they're finished with natural disasters in class and have already taken the formative assessment... You get the picture. It simply wouldn't work. The only thing that works with a fixed schedule, is teaching research skills in isolation. Yet on a flexible schedule, skills are taught in collaboration with the classroom work with project-based research where students can synthesize their skills for the higher-level learning that we want for all of our students!