CONNECTIONS: Setting the Stage for a Wonderful Year
We are excited to announce we have two new books coming soon. See more about both books below this blog post. This week’s blog post comes to you from Emma Chiappetta, author of one of our new, upcoming releases. We hope you enjoy these two new books!
It was only the first day of class and they didn’t want to leave. The room was an utter mess, playing cards strewn everywhere, tangram blocks spilling off desks, and whiteboards covered in sketchy diagrams. Questions bubbled around me:
“I think we figured this one out. Can I explain it to you?”
“Can I see if I’m on the right track?”
“Wait, I’m pretty sure the answer we got is right…Are you sure about yours?”
“Can I test my solution with a deck of cards?”
I can tell that we are going to have a great year. I believe that my role as an educator is to inspire my students to be hungry to learn for the rest of their lives. Whether they want to learn how to master a physical skill or do academic research doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that they constantly wonder about the world around them and feel empowered to act on their curiosity.
The activity that inspired all the questions above was a team problem-solving challenge. Even though I teach calculus, the puzzles that I gather only require logic and mathematical intuition, with very few calculations and definitely no calculus. The problems are thought-provoking and challenging enough to force collaboration. As the students worked, I listened to their questions and conversations. Every question was a golden nugget that will help me guide them in their learning journey.
When Jenna asked, “Is this right?” I got the sense that she seeks validation from her teachers. When Nikki asked, “Do you have a dart board that could help me visualize this?” I learned that she prefers a more tactile approach. At one point John had a solution to a problem that didn’t match with mine. “Are you sure about yours?” he asked. Walker joined our conversation and we quickly realized that John was right! I happily admitted my mistake and both students got back to their groups feeling proud.
As they solved problems together on that first day, we began setting the stage for the year. I stepped in for support as needed and when they solved a problem, I tempted them with extensions, teasing them with further questions rather than letting the learning stop at the answer.
The hour went by in the blink of an eye and nobody wanted to leave. “Can we keep working on these tomorrow?” they asked. I gladly oblige. Could I ever say no to students asking to use their brains?
The next day we returned and my class was excited to dive back in, right where they left off. They spent the full second-period writing on boards, arguing about solutions, using manipulatives to test strategies, and most importantly thinking deeply. When I asked them about the activity afterward they shared a few noteworthy reflections with me:
“I liked that the problems were hard. You actually had to think.”
“I liked that all my hard work paid off and I figured it out in the end.”
“I liked that it wasn’t graded. We didn’t feel like we had to do it, which actually made me want to do it.”
“I liked that we had to collaborate. I know everyone’s names now and I feel like I actually know the people in my group.”
I’ve spent the last year and a half writing a book about cultivating wonder and curiosity in the classroom and these students articulated all my research in fifteen minutes. Students want to be challenged at the appropriate level–where they are pushed, but not beyond what they are capable of. They are willing to push themselves in pursuit of an answer when the pressure of grades is removed. They are much more comfortable being vulnerable and curious when they feel safe with their classmates.
I am so hopeful about this school year. I can’t wait to explore all kinds of questions with my students, to pique their curiosity, and to wonder freely alongside each of them.
If you’re looking for ways to use student questions to improve learning and strategies to cultivate wonder, check out my new book, Creating Curious Classrooms, The Beauty of Questions, this October!
Thanks so much to Emma for this post and to all educators reading this and for the amazing work you are doing during these challenging times. Read more about Emma’s upcoming book below!
As always, Teach and Lead with Passion...
DAILY INSPIRATION EDUCATOR
(Please let us know about an inspiring educator you think we should highlight in a future newsletter by completing this brief form!)
COMING SOON!
Recalibrate the Culture: Our Why…Our Work…Our Value by Jimmy Casas
It is time to recalibrate our culture.
Recalibrate our why. Our Work, Our Values, Ourselves.
In Recalibrate the Culture, author Jimmy Casas examines the challenges that teachers, leaders, and schools face and shares his assessment of what makes the difference in the overall culture of a school–why do some continue to show positive results while others continue to struggle to maintain a healthy learning environment for all students and staff?
This book provides the necessary strategies and tools to assist all teachers, principals, and district office administrators in exploring our inner selves to understand the role we each play in how we can impact the climate and culture of an entire campus when we are strategic and aligned in our practices. The classroom, building, and district levels must see themselves as one and must be intentional in replicating the processes, protocols, and frameworks provided in this book to recalibrate and bring about system-wide change and cultivate a healthier culture.
When we equip our teachers and leaders with a new way of thinking and–more importantly–strategies for approaching their work more intentionally and effectively, we can revitalize our schools and make an immediate positive impact on the culture of every classroom and school across the country.
Recalibrate the Culture will be available on our website and via Amazon next week. Keep track of all our books here and look for Jimmy’s new book to be added soon!
COMING SOON!
Creating Curious Classrooms, The Beauty of Questions by Emma Chiappetta
When teachers inspire and cultivate curiosity they improve student engagement, increase intrinsic motivation, enhance learning, and empower students to become lifelong learners. This book uses both anecdotes and research to elucidate the potential that student-generated questions provide in the classroom. Readers will walk away with inspiration, as well as tools and strategies for creating a curiosity-driven classroom environment.
Creating Curious Classrooms focuses on students’ questions: what we can learn from them and what we can do with them to deepen learning. This book does not advocate that teachers overhaul their entire philosophy. Instead, it provides an array of strategies for emphasizing inquiry, ranging from small tweaks that don’t change the curriculum at all, to the restructuring of entire units. Every teacher will be able to take action based on what they read in Creating Curious Classrooms.
The first section of the book is devoted to answering the question “Why Wonder?” We explore research and anecdotes that outline the many benefits of a classroom filled with curiosity, including engagement, motivation, learning, empowerment, and formative assessment.
The second section of the book digs into the variety of questions students ask, starting from the lowest rung on Bloom's taxonomy and ending at the highest. We discuss what teachers can learn from each question type, and how they can adapt instruction once each of these questions are asked.
The final part of the book is a toolkit for inspiring wonder and curiosity in the classroom. We look at concrete strategies, big and small, for getting students to ask more questions and improving the quality and "wonder factor" of such questions. The strategies give ways to plant the curiosity seed through classroom environment and culture as well as curiosity-inspiring prompts and activities. Further strategies help students improve the quality of their questions and act on them.
Creating Curious Classrooms will be available on our website and via Amazon by mid-October. Keep track of all our books here and look for Emma’’s new book to be added soon!
CONNECTEDD’S TAKEAWAYS:
Thought for the Day: “After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Philip Pullman
Teaching Technique to Try: RDocument Analysis Form: Analyzing historical documents requires students to identify the purpose, message, and audience of a text. Document analysis forms are graphic organizers that guide students through a process of identifying important background information about a document (e.g., author/creator, date created, place, format, etc.) and using this data to determine the text’s bias or perspective. Check out this link from Facing History and Ourselves for a step-by-step process for using this technique.
Eyes On Culture: We believe that culture is a true difference maker in any classroom, school, district, or organization. As a result, we focus much of the work we do on creating and maintaining positive and productive cultures. Culture Focus: Work Hard, Have Fun, Be Nice. High-performing schools with strong cultures are places in which adults and students at the school work hard, have fun, and strive to be nice to each other every single day. Everyone in the school stresses the importance of each aspect, every day as part of the culture: Hard work matters. By working hard and putting in the necessary effort each and every day, our students become smarter and more capable. By doing the same, we become better at what we do. Our work is too hard not to have fun while doing it. It might seem contradictory, but we believe that hard work and good fun go hand in hand and when we put forth a great deal of effort into something we love, we find ourselves having fun in the process. If our culture screams, “Work, work, work,” without any fun or celebration along the way, we will never create intrinsically motivated, passionate students or staff members. Being a nice, kind human being matters above all else. We must create cultures in our classrooms and schools in which kindness is not only stressed as a core value, but modeled on a daily basis in both big and small ways.
If we create cultures in which working hard, having fun, and being nice is the norm, we have created places in which people of all ages will thrive. If students come to school each day and work hard, have fun, and are nice to each other as well as the adults with whom they interact and staff members come to school each day and work hard, have fun and are nice to each other and the students they serve, well, we have a pretty amazing culture and the possibilities are endless for what we can accomplish. We still believe these are words to live by and words that must be part of any classroom, school, and district culture.
What are some other thoughts you have about the importance of the mantra: Work Hard, Have Fun, Be Nice in our classrooms and schools? Please share your thoughts about culture and gratitude via Twitter: @ConnectEDDBooks We would love to hear from you!