Videos that show high-performance learning environments

One of my favorite things to do is to watch educational videos online.  Seeing learning experiences that are actually working for students is just really inspiring to me.  I finish watching those videos feeling like, "Yeah, this is what I'm meant to do- I'm gonna take this idea and go change the world."  That may sound corny and over the top, and I guess in a way it is.  But at the same time, the inspiration I get from the videos, my conversations with supportive colleagues, the educational books I read, and good professional development, that feeling of being fired up for teaching and learning, is essential, because honestly sometimes teaching can be exhausting.  It can feel like just going through the motions.  I think what I'm looking for in those videos is a glimpse of a better way, an alternative to the tired, traditional methods I learned to dread growing up and sometimes still slip into as a teacher.

In this post, I want to share three videos I've seen recently that offer alternatives to education as usual.  The first, "Roller coaster physics: STEM in action," follows 5th and 6th grade STEM teacher Donna Migdol as she leads her students through a unit on roller coaster design.  The second, "3rd grade Chinese math," shows teacher Crystal Chen as she facilitates a math lesson entirely in Chinese for Chinese 2nd language learners.  Finally, I'll discuss "Whole brain teaching Richwood High - the basics," in which 9th grade geography teacher Roxi Mackens guides her class through a lesson on latitude and longitude using the whole brain teaching method, which intrigues me and at the same time leaves me with some questions.

Roller coaster physics: STEM in action

In this project, Donna challenges students to make and test their own roller coaster designs.  Along the way, they create prototypes to meet design criteria like safety and fun.  In the video, the students are working in the "fun" stage, trying to build a coaster track incorporating loops while at the same time not letting the marble fly off the track.  In doing so, students are getting first-hand experience with the physics concepts they have learned in class.

Donna's classroom qualifies as a high-performance learning environment because first of all she sets high academic expectations.  Students are challenged to use appropriate academic language in every phase of their work, reminiscent of the work of Jeff Zwiers on the importance of building students' academic language in addition to their language for socializing informally.  Students have been learning about concepts such as potential energy, kinetic energy, dissipated energy, friction, Newton's three laws of motion, centripetal force, clothoid loops, circular loops, rise, and run.  Their speaking and writing is peppered with these terms, and it's easy to tell that they know what they are talking about.  Donna even asks students to label their design sketches using the same vocabulary terms, explaining which features they included and why.

Donna also provides her students with compelling reasons to communicate at a high level.  For example, she stages whole-class discussions called "chimes," in which one member of each design team shares their progress since the previous week and other students "chime in" with their questions and ideas.  Donna explains that her goal with these discussions is that students speak to each other as designers do, exchanging best practices.  Via this discussion format, knowledge flows from student to student and no longer needs to flow through the teacher.

In addition to performing at a high level academically, the students in Donna's class show exemplary behavior.  They do so in part because Donna herself sets a tone of focus and seriousness, while at the same time having fun.  She's paying attention to what's happening in class and is ready to ask questions and give demonstrations to push students forward in their learning.  But I think the main reason students don't get distracted is because the activity itself is compelling.  They just like it and want to keep trying.  What kid wouldn't want to build and test a marble roller coaster?  In addition, the challenge is well structured so that it remains challenging and keeps the attention on the new skills and understandings.

One of the procedures Donna uses to keep the challenge interesting is to limit the materials.  Teams can only use two lengths of foam insulation and tape, and if they would like to integrate additional materials, for example strips of sand paper to slow the marble at the end of its run, they need to purchase those materials using class money.  This procedure makes the challenge harder to achieve, and thereby more engaging.  It also teaches students to be better problem solvers and gives them practice with multi-digit addition and subtraction and keeping an accurate budget.  Donna's careful planning of class procedures fosters an environment in which students perform at high levels.

This video is the kind that inspires me.  I would like to create an environment in my classroom like Donna's.  I like that her students are engaged in a meaningful, multi-part challenge that holds their interest and gets them practicing math and science skills and making connections.  I like that students are given compelling reasons to communicate with each other and structures that facilitate their communication.  I like that Donna sets high expectations for the final roller coaster design and then breaks the challenge down into manageable steps.  I like that the challenge is made more realistic by having limited materials.  Next year, I will likely be teaching 5th grade, and I plan to organize my science and math instruction around STEM projects like Donna's.  The school will probably be international, with students from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, and group challenges will hopefully bring us together as a group by giving students meaningful practice in interpersonal skills.

3rd grade Chinese math class

In this video, Chinese language teacher Crystal Chen leads her students in a whole-class math lesson.  Students begin by what I think is a counting chant, followed by the solving of a three-digit subtraction problem.  What first strikes me about the lesson is that it's loud, meaning that the whole class is almost always engaged in group chanting or shouting out ideas.  The teacher doesn't seem to be overly concerned with the noise, only pausing once to ask students to lower their voices so that their classmate can be heard.  The amazing thing to consider is that these students, apparently U.S.-born kids who wouldn't normally know how to speak Chinese at all, can shout out answers and chat with each other fluently in this second language.

Chen would seem to set a high academic standard for her class by conducting the entirety of the learning in Chinese.  She's teaching them exactly as she would a group of native Chinese speakers.  The behavioral norms are definitely different than those of the first video I profiled.  Students are chanting, shouting out answers, and occasionally chatting with classmates, but again, this is all taking place in fluent Chinese, and secondly, it doesn't seem to detract from students' learning.  All students are engaged, and I think part of the secret to this whole-class focus is the choral response.  Every few moments the teacher prompts students to shout something out together.  One thing that she could do better is to call on a greater variety of students, or perhaps implement turn and talk, so that all students could demonstrate their learning, and not just the ones who tend to volunteer the fastest.  However, I recognize that the Chinese teaching style for math tends to be whole class.  Also, although not all students are participating individually, that doesn't mean that the content itself isn't engaging.  Part of what the teacher may be doing is asking students to explain the steps of the subtraction problem, with questions like "Why?" "How?" and "What if?" (Wei, 2014).

This is an example of a teaching style that I admire but wouldn't necessarily emulate, at least not in its entirety.  It would be difficult for me to teach with so much noise- that kind of learning environment doesn't really fit my personality.  However, I do like the chanting.  I would like to look for ways to integrate chanting into my whole-class lessons.  What's most impressive to me about this classroom is the teacher's rigorous expectations and her no-apology attitude toward her subject.  She expects her students to learn math in Chinese just like native-speaking Chinese students.  Because she treats her students like they can do it, they can.

Whole brain teaching Richwood High - the basics

This video shows Roxi Mackens' 9th grade geography class following the whole brain teaching method.  Whole brain teaching is a system of class chants, extrinsic rewards, mirrored movements, and peer reteaching.  It's designed to keep students focused and improve their memory and linguistic skills.  Under this system, teachers delivers content for just a minute or two at a time, and as they talk they make gestures to support the meaning.  Students mirror these gestures and may also repeat what the teacher says.  Typically, what follows is that the teacher asks students to turn to their partner and paraphrase what they just heard, using the same gestures the teacher used.  The extrinsic reward part comes in when the teacher sees something that really pleases or displeases him or her.  They keep a running scoreboard with two columns, positive and negative.  They will add points to one side or the other depending on how students act (Biffle, 2013).

I would say the method sets high academic standards for students because they are expected to memorize every word the teacher says and be able to paraphrase it to a partner.  I would guess that the method aids memory by incorporating gestures into the learning and asking students to repeat the information multiple times.  On the other hand, the method seems geared toward memorization and a basic level of understanding.  In order to move up Bloom's taxonomy to skills like application, synthesis, and creation, it seems you would need to break out of the rigid whole brain teaching format and allow more free-flowing kinds of interaction.

The method sets high standards for behavior.  Students are on task and kept engaged at all times.  Also, reviewing the class rules is a regular routine.  At one point in the video, the teacher reviews the rule for coming to class on time immediately after a student enters late.  She doesn't even speak to the tardy student, but has the whole class chant the rule related to punctuality.  In this way, the class reminded the tardy student of the expectations for being ready to learn.  

Whole brain classrooms have specific and unique class procedures.  Students have been trained to respond in certain ways when the teacher says key phrases.  For example, the teacher says "S" and the students respond with a prolonged "yes."  As mentioned above, when the teacher makes motions while talking, the students are expected to mirror her motions.  When the teacher says, "Teach," the students respond, "Okay" and turn immediately to the classmate in front of them and paraphrase what the teacher has said, along with the motions.

This method, with its chanting and call-and-response style, is just very, very different from my natural approach to teaching.  My first reaction is to say that it wouldn't work for me.  However, I'm impressed by how dialed in it keeps students during whole-class instruction.  If I could read some research that showed the method was effective, I might consider integrating it sometimes into my whole-class instruction.  However, my main concern is that it's a method best suited for rote memory and basic understanding, not higher-level thinking skills.  I would prefer to engage students with a design challenge, as Donna Migdol does in her roller coaster project.  In that case, students are super focused, interacting naturally, and building 21st century skills like collaboration and critical thinking, as well as practicing science and math content in meaningful ways.  The external rewards like points and "super improver" bulletin boards aren't really needed.  The students are hooked by the learning itself, not an elaborate superstructure.

Conclusion

To conclude, I would like to recommend you check out one more video.  "Reinventing a public high school with problem-based learning" describes one high school's journey toward a more high-performance learning environment.  The school was facing declining enrollment when a new principal suggested they try a problem-based approach.  Problem-based learning means just what it sounds like- students are engaged in solving problems that matter to them.  For example, at the high school depicted in the video, Sammamish High School in Bellevue, Washington, an AP world history teacher had students plan and enact a model U.N. event based on the question of how countries should manage the resources and possibilities now becoming available in a thawing arctic.  Students involved in the project said that it was exciting to be doing something that mattered, that felt important, and that sparked genuine differences of opinion and heated discussion.  One girl said that people actually got a little upset talking about these issues, and that's what made it fun.  Another girl commented that she didn't even realize how much she was learning in her project at Sammamish until she finished. 

A problem-based approach really appeals to me as a teacher because through it you can accomplish so many things at once.  First, students are engaged.  Second, they're practicing the content in meaningful ways that will help them retain it much longer.  Third, they're developing 21st century skills like collaboration and critical thinking.  Finally, they're seeing learning as an integrated and authentic experience rather than a series of artificially divided school subjects.  Problem-based learning gets students doing things that matter to them and shows them that they matter as well.  The project can't go on without them.    

Reference list

Biffle, C. (2013, May 17). Third graders' 1st encounter with whole brain teaching: unedited video! [Video file]. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8zHAK0vJM

Chen, C. (2011, June 13). 3rd grade Chinese math class [Video file]. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7LseF6Db5g

Edutopia. (2013, March 20). Reinventing a public high school with problem-based learning [Video file]. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2016 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tlg-nsGi7V0&feature=youtu.be

Mackens, R. (2011, May 31). Whole brain teaching Richwood High - the basics [Video file]. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iXTtR7lfWU&feature=youtu.be

Teaching Channel. (n.d.). Roller coaster physics: STEM in action [Video file]. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2016, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-stem-strategies

Wei, K. (2014, March 25). Explainer: what makes Chinese maths lessons so good? The Conversation. Retrieved Nov. 10, 2016, from http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-makes-chinese-maths-lessons-so-good-24380

Zwiers, J. (2014, April 7). Building academic language. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.