Recently, I have been reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo with my class. From the very
first chapter, we began to build our
understanding of Edward’s
character. “Readers,” I said to
my class, “we have begun to
hear some of Edward’s
thoughts of himself. We also
know that a character’s thoughts and actions are the best way to determine their traits. What type of rabbit is Edward? What evidence have we collected as we’ve tried to create a big theory about him?”
For a moment, the children pondered this question, and then hands shot in the air. “I think that Edward is proud,” Ellie asserted. “He says he is bored with everything and he even uses the word ennui. Also, he doesn’t want to think about where his whiskers came from because it is from an unsavory animal. He uses big words to show how great he thinks he is.”
Our discussion continued in this way as the class agreed with Ellie, expanded her ideas, and offered alternate theories. This type of activity requires a deeper level of thinking than simply giving students a list of traits from which to select when describing a character.
Turn the Learning Around: Flipping Your Classroom
Much of our class time as teachers is spent presenting information as students passively absorb it, taking away from opportunities for critical thinking and application. The flipped classroom approach includes assigning online content as homework, which allows teachers to use class time to hone students' skills through rigorous activities. A simple approach to flipping the learning could involve a short video from YouTube, BrainPop, or even the online textbook for your course. Children watch the video at home and respond through guided thinking questions.
To introduce flipped learning to my class, I challenged them to take responsibility for their own learning. “Boys and girls, I know you are very busy with soccer, dance, baseball, and gymnastics! Do you ever wish there were more hours in the day? Today we are going to save some of our precious learning time by getting a head start at home. We are going to flip the work we do in school by watching an introduction to nonfiction texts at home. Then, when you come to school tomorrow, we will be able to try out what you have learned.” Through flipping, when the students arrive at school the next day, they are ready to engage in the application of these skills through rigorous activities.
When studying nonfiction texts, my students watched the brief BrainPop video, “Reading Nonfiction” (http://www.brainpopjr.com/readingandwriting/readingskills/readingnonfiction) at home and created a response to the video, either comparing fiction and nonfiction texts or giving tips for reading non-fiction. Having saved class time by watching the video at home, we were able to devote a class period to searching for the features of nonfiction texts, such as tables of contents, diagrams, and glossaries.
Using PicCollage (available in the
App Store, Google Play, or website),
the children created a collage of
these text features as they found them
in books. They used captions to explain
each text feature and even grouped them into categories. Without the time saved by flipping our classroom, the children would never have had time to engage in this rigorous and exciting application of their learning. Also, as the teacher, I was able to use class minutes to help students who were having difficulty, rather than asking them to complete the application piece of our lesson as homework.
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Figure 1 - Ryan's Pic Collage