Technology in the Classroom

 By Drew Hayman, Bridgeway Academy Teacher

 

It is the advent of a new generation of technology where your TV can access the internet and the need for home staples like the home landline telephone are falling by the wayside. We in the education system are trying to prepare the students for this new age.  

The question with new technology becomes what is available to help the student get there? To begin with, it is the teachers at Bridgeway Academy as we are attempting to help those students prepare for the future, with a tool set that can help them continue to expand even after this current wave of technology passes and we advance to another level.

This year the school has started to develop a program where the students are using a mobile technology lab filled with iPads. This new technology at school has really opened up new avenues of learning by allowing our students to experience an immersive learning environment through apps. Each application specializes in its function and engages the students with interactive, hands on learning. Learning that prior to now would or could have been filled with only a text book. Exploratory learning functions at its best when given to a student that is engaged in their learning and interested in the concept that you are providing a structure for. The school has been using several different apps that range from dissections, to bridge creations and even making movies. The students have just started to experience iMovie an app designed by apple that allows them to create trailers for future feature films and even the full movie. The budding producers have created some exceptional pieces so far.  The students are also learning to make use of the iPads abilities to read text back to them and even record their voices as text so that it writes the words out for them.

Apps are small programs that can be downloaded for a nominal cost or in many cases free. Gone are the bills for suite programs of $400 or more.  I personally welcome the new era of .99 cent programs that may only do a limited function but usually perform that function very well. There are many programs offered and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish what is actually good or isn’t before you purchase it.  An excellent site to start the search is http://www.slideshare.net/gtoews/free-apps-list it lists out many different applications and the levels in which they are good for.  

The iPad and iPod technology are easily accessible to any person regardless of technology background. Using point, drag, and swipe technology the devices take a lot of the difficulty out of the equation of a PC and allow all users to quickly understand how to use the device and to easily enjoy the experience. If anyone is concerned about the potential difficulty of the items usage I challenge you to give it a try or even have your student teach you how to use it. The devices can be extremely safe as more and more functions are being created to help lock them down.  There are many tutorials and web sites available to help you learn to use your device to its fullest potential.  The best aspect of this technology is the absolute enthusiasm the students have shown for using it. To walk into a class and hear a student playing the piano or guitar and then realize that they are doing so on the iPad is truly incredible. 

Social Studies and Hands-On Learning

By Natalie Gilbert

Social Studies has always been a personal interest of mine, and I am always looking for new approaches to teach my students their units.  However, I am more than familiar with getting lost in the dates, names, and locations of certain units when I was a student myself, and want to ensure that that’s not all Social Studies becomes for my students, as well.

This subject can be taught in so many different ways, and by using so many different modalities, that it is often interesting to see what students can come up with themselves when given the opportunity. I personally enjoy doing a lot of hands-on work with my students in the classroom, as I feel that this helps them gain better insight into the information than a worksheet or page of information might.

That is not to say that some students do not learn best by reading and answering comprehension questions based on the material; I have students who would prefer this method, and I base their individual lessons around this style of learning. However, when we do hands-on learning in the classroom, I find that most students are willing to try an activity, before returning to their particular activity; the way that they learn best.

Last year, during a unit on the Great Depression, my students looked up the average size of a shanty that people were forced to move into after the Stock Market Crash. Once they found this information, they used tape to section off how big it would be, and in groups, had to figure out the layout of their particular shanty, and how they would live in it as a family unit. We also did something similar when they learned about fallout shelters during the Cold War. The students enjoyed being able to push all the chairs and desks out of the way, spread out on the floor, and in a way, live the information, instead of simply listening to it.

This year, my Grade 9's were learning mapping during our unit on Physical Geography, so we created a treasure hunt around the outside of the school. This was done to reinforce the material they had already been learning, and give them a hands-on approach to a subject that is difficult for some students to grasp. They went outside, created their own maps by counting paces, by creating their own legends, and by using the mapping skills they had learned in the classroom, outside of the classroom. The students were very excited to switch maps with each other once their good copies were done, and it was fantastic to see them working together, and helping each other find the “treasure” I had buried according to the directions on their maps.

I try to use hands-on learning in my teaching as much as possible. I feel that it not only helps to reinforce skills learned through discussion and writing work, but often helps to provide students with pertinent information that they may not have gotten otherwise. I also feel like this approach helps information remain with students longer, and helps illuminate certain scenarios they might have been difficult to fathom or understand otherwise. Dates and events in the past can be difficult to connect to, and I feel that the more hands-on you become with these subjects, the more you can create a connection to it. Social Studies can be a dynamic subject when approached in multiple ways, and I feel that a hands-on approach helps students understand that learning these topics don’t have to be boring or monotonous; they can be engaging, interesting, and entertaining when presented in interactive ways. 

Knowing My Students

Written by Mr. DeGrasse

As an educator it is important for me to get to know my students. What this means is going deeper than just finding out their favourite sport or who their best friend is. This means I need to get to know how to teach each student and get to know how each student learns.

Each student that walks into my classroom is different. They are not cookie cutters of each other, but instead are complex individuals. Each brings personal experiences, interests, strengths and areas of need. So why, as a teacher, would I present the material in my classroom to each student the same? Instead, I should strive to teach the material covered in class in a way that suits each student’s learning style. Forcing every student to learn one way will only cause anxiety, confusion, and frustration within the class. Some may say that in a class of 20 to 30 students it is next to impossible to individualize for each student. I say, however, that it is almost impossible for a student to succeed in school if you don’t individualize. I would compare it to making someone run the 100m with a leg cramp or play soccer using only their left foot. It could be done, but why limit their potential? At Bridgeway, because the class sizes are smaller and we have access to information about a student’s learning disability (LD), the job of individualization is made much easier.

The work in the classroom should be designed to enhance the student’s strengths while building up their skills in the areas of need. In each class I have a mosaic of students who may share learning styles or have their own unique learning style. My job as a math teacher is to present the material in a way that is interesting and in a manner that best suits each student’s LD. What may work for one student with a particular LD may not work for another. The key is finding a way to make the material “click” and allow them to understand what is being taught and know how to apply it.

There is not one approach to teach a particular topic to a student. I could teach them five different ways to accomplish the same task. What I’m looking for is that one way that allows them to truly understand what is being asked of them. Occasionally one of my methods may not work and a student may come up with their own system of doing something. Sometimes their technique may be a rephrasing of what I taught them, just in their own words. Other times they may come up with a method that makes sense to them but stumps me.  At times explanations aren’t enough and a student who learns better using visuals may need to see what I’m saying. I’ve used desks to make graphs and matrices, I’ve had students use technology to illustrate and record their findings, I’ve had to explain math by making references to television shows, and I’ve even had students act out algebraic questions. Whatever allows the students to understand the material is how they will learn and retain that information.

What is Working Memory and Why Does it Matter?

Learning disabilities are complex, impacting individuals in many different ways.  Imagine struggling the mental juggling that's required every day - remembering the sequence of events in a story or doing math calculations.  Those functions are linked to working memory, and when yours is weak, many things become a challenge.

Here's a great article on working memory and why it matters from the National Center for Learning Disabilities.

The Bridgeway Team

What is Working Memory and Why Does it Matter?
By Annie Stuart

Remember the day when someone rattled off a phone number while you just hoped against hope you'd recall the string of digits as you were dialing? That was working memory toiling away. With the advent of cell phones, you may no longer use it this way very often. But working memory still plays a central role in learning and our daily lives.

If working memory is weak, it can trip up just about anyone. But it really works against a child with learning disabilities (LD). You can take steps to help a child with weak working memory, whether or not LD is a part of the picture. Start by understanding what working memory is all about.

What is working memory?

Working memory is your brain's Post-it note, says Tracy Packiam Alloway, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida. "It makes all the difference to successful learning," she says.

You can think of working memory as the active part of your memory system. It's like mental juggling, says H. Lee Swanson, Ph.D., distinguished professor of education with the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Riverside. "As information comes in, you're processing it at the same time as you store it," he says. A child uses this skill when doing math calculations or listening to a story, for example. She has to hold onto the numbers while working with them. Or, she needs to remember the sequence of events and also think of what the story is about, says Swanson.

Brief by design, working memory involves a short-term use of memory and attention, adds Matthew Cruger, Ph.D., neuropsychologist with the Learning and Diagnostics Center at the Child Mind Institute in New York City. "It is a set of skills that helps us keep information in mind while using that information to complete a task or execute a challenge," he says. Working memory is like a foundation of the brain's executive function. This is a broad and deep group of mental processes. They allow you to do things like plan ahead, problem solve, organize, and pay attention.¹

"Working memory helps us stay involved in something longer and keep more things in mind while approaching a task," says Cruger. "And, how can you plan ahead if you don't use working memory to keep your goal in mind, resist distractions, and inhibit impulsive choices?"

But if you struggle with working memory, pieces of information may often evade your grasp like a quickly evaporating dream. You find yourself stripped of the very thing you need most to take action.

Types of Working Memory

"You can't overemphasize how often working memory is used in the classroom," says Cruger. Children (and adults) use two main subtypes of working memory throughout the day. Both develop at a similar rate during childhood, and often reach their highest level in early adulthood.²

Verbal (auditory) working memory taps into the sound (phonological) system. Silently repeating that phone number while dialing makes use of this system. "And anytime kids are expected to follow a multi-step set of oral instructions, they are using these working memory skills," says Cruger. If there's a weakness, however, they may not be able to keep the instructions in mind while working with them, he says. This is true even when they fully understand what to do. Other tasks that require use of this type of working memory are learning language and comprehension tasks.³

Visual-spatial working memory uses a kind of visual sketchpad of the brain. It allows you to envision something, to keep it in your "mind's eye." Students use this skill to do math and to remember patterns, images, and sequences of events.⁴

They might use it to visualize the layout of the classroom during the first couple of weeks of school, says Cruger. "A teacher says, 'Once you're done with this, go to the center area, take something to do and then go to this table and work on this,'" he says. "That involves multiple steps where the child is negotiating himself in the world." If not identified, a deficit of this type is ripe for misunderstanding, he says. For example, it might seem as though a child is simply not paying attention.

How is working memory linked with learning and LD?

Working memory can be a central problem for many people with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), says Cruger. Or, it may be one of many things that is weak among a set of attention and executive functioning problems.

Those with weak working memory are likely to have learning disorders, too. In a government-funded study, Alloway and colleagues tested more than 3,000 grade school and junior high children in the U.K. They found that one in 10 had very poor working memory.

This turned out to be a reliable indicator of who would struggle in the classroom, she says. In fact, when following up six years later, they found working memory to be a more powerful predictor than IQ when it comes to learning.⁵ "Ninety-eight percent with poor working memory had very low scores in standardized tests of reading comprehension and math."

These weaknesses may show up later, when executive skills of comprehension and analysis come into play, says Swanson. "Schools do a pretty good job of drill and repetition and teaching kids phonics, but when you get into things like comprehension, it can begin to fall apart."

And, if a child has a learning disability, weak working memory can add insult to injury. For example, a fifth grader who is still sounding out words while reading is relying heavily on working memory to help compensate. This puts a huge tax on the working memory system, says Cruger. At this stage, you want reading to be more automatic. You want to be able to look at a word and recognize it, he says, and not have to recruit attentional or working memory resources to the task. But for a child who needs to compensate but can't rely on working memory, the process can become all the more painful.

This weakness may compound things, especially for those with LD, says Alloway. "I've worked at schools where the average 10-year-old can remember and process four pieces of information, but one with poor working memory can look like an average 5-year-old," she says. "For this child, the teacher talks too fast, making it hard to keep up. So the child may eventually start disengaging altogether."

Combine these challenges with high anxiety, which also puts demands on working memory, and it becomes more than a double whammy. "Your emotional state can play a role in working memory performance, which can in turn influence performance on tests," says Alloway.

Emergent Learning 2012 - A Success!

Thanks so much to everyone who attended Emergent Learning: Turning Tides in 21st Century Education this week.  It was a wonderful, two-day conference that brought together more than 1100 individuals in our region (and beyond!) who care about kids and wanted to learn more about the many ways we can support them - mentally, academicallly, emotionally and socially.

We thought we'd share some of the highlights of our two days together in pictures.  We look forward to seeing you next year!

The Bridgeway Team


Sheree Fitch leads her Breathe, Stretch, Write! workshop.

"It is critical in today’s world, that all students believe they have the opportunity to learn."


Early morning yoga.

"Education should not be all about curriculum outcomes, but making kids want to come to school”.


Birds of a Feather session.

"You have to be able to look a student in the eye and tell him you believe in him."


Workshop presentation with Wendy Kraglund-Gauthier and Charity Visser.

"Good teachers modify, adapt and then overcome."


Skilled trades learning workshop.

"We have to stop asking “How smart are you?” and start asking “How are you smart?"


VIP reception for Sir Ken Robinson.

"Teaching is the heart of education."

 

Bridgeway student Kenzie was the first to have her book signed by Sir Ken Robinson!

"We need to change the programme not reengineer how our children think!"


Sir Ken Robinson's keynote presentation!

"Our technology is changing, there is no way to predict what the future hold for our children."


Registration - day one!

The Damaging Myth of Normalcy

Yesterday, we introduced you to Jonathan Mooney, University graduate, author and co-founder of Project Eye-to-Eye, a mentoring program for students with learning disabilities.


As a child, Jonathan was labelled as severely learning disabled.  Today, he writes about how that felt, and how damaging it can be to try to force kids to be "normal".  This article originally appeared on the Smart Kids with LD website.


The Bridgeway Team

The Damaging Myth of Normalcy – Smart Kids With LD

By Jonathan Mooney

By the time I was in second grade I thought I was stupid and crazy. Why? Because that’s what I was taught. Those are not thoughts I would have come to on my own. Think about it. We all know some awesome little nutty red-headed kid who was completely happy until he went off to school. Two years into it he’s lost 10 pounds, has developed some strange phobias, a tic or two, and is even talking about suicide!

“Bad” Seeds

How does that happen? It’s the result of a fundamental paradigm shift. In preschool and kindergarten the approach is self-directed, project-based learning. Children move from here to there, and for the most part they decide what they want to do.

In first grade, they’re introduced to their desk and that’s when the problems start. Suddenly, it’s “Jon, you sit there. I’ll tell you what you can do with your body. I’ll tell you when you can get up. I’ll tell you what you’re going to learn.”

Experts call it socializing kids. But does anyone honestly believe it benefits society to make a seven-year-old beg to use the bathroom?

For me, this is where crazy began. The classroom became one giant hierarchy with gold stars and behavior charts to show everyone who were the “good” kids and who were the “bad” ones.  The bad kids, of course, were the ones that didn’t follow the rules.

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

I was a bad kid because I tapped my foot. And then I started tapping both feet; next I began drumming my fingers.

In reality, a handful of kids in every classroom in America do the same thing. Eventually the teacher says, “What is your problem?” That happens to be one of the most damaging statements you can make to a child. The child naturally concludes he has a problem or is broken in some way. That’s the beginning of the self-fulfilling prophecy where kids with ADHD come to believe they’re sick or diseased.

Ironically, science tells us otherwise. We now know that kids who tap their feet are not doing so because they’re bad, or trying to be irritating, or because they’re on their way to a life of crime. They’re doing it because it accesses a physical motor memory that facilitates focusing. It’s what that child needs to do in order to learn.

No-Win Situation

When the teacher yells, “Focus!” it stops the tapping—but it also stops the learning. The child starts staring out the window and misses the lesson. Now he gets yelled at for that too. The teacher angrily repeats the “f” word: “focus, focus, focus!” And now the child is in a no-win situation: he gets yelled at for shaking his leg, which he needs to do to focus, and he gets yelled at for being inattentive when his way of learning is thwarted.

The cycle continues: “Focus!” When he focuses by shaking his leg, he becomes the “bad” kid or the problem child and is sent someplace different with all the other deviant kids.

The lesson that child has learned has nothing to do with math or science. Instead, he’s learned that he has no place in the classroom when he is being himself. He can either stop being who he is or he can get the hell out of the room.

That’s how crazy and stupid starts. It has nothing to do with learning disabilities or brain pathology. It has everything to do with the myth of normalcy.

Do your children a favor and let them in on the real craziness. Let them know they’re not crazy, stupid, broken, or bad. Make sure they understand the institution is at fault, not them.

Jonathan Mooney finally learned to read at the age of 12. His first book, the award-winning Learning Outside the Lines, was published in 2000, the year he graduated from Brown University. He is the co-founder and Director Emeritus of Project Eye-to-Eye, a mentoring program for students with LD, continues to write and speak widely on the subject of learning disabilities, and accepted the 2009 Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities Community Service Award.

An Inspiring Interview with Jonathan Mooney

Jonathan Mooney was once labelled, "severely learning disabled" and told he would never do more than flip burgers for a living.  He proved the doubters wrong by graduating from Brown University, winning awards and co-authoring two books, Learning Outside the Lines and The Short Bus.  He's also the co-founder of Project Eye to Eye, a mentoring and advocacy organization in the US for students with Learning Disabilities.  Tomorrow we'll share some of his writing on "The Damaging Myth of Normalcy", but today we wanted to share an interview he did recently with Smart Kids with LD.


Enjoy!


The Bridgeway Team

Interview with Jonathan Mooney « Smart Kids With LD

SK: No one would have believed that a child who didn’t learn to read until he was 12 and visited the principal’s office so frequently that he was on a first-name basis with the office receptionist would graduate from one of the best schools in the country and author two award-winning books. Who do you think would be most surprised by your success?

JM: A lot of people. I believe that there are teachers out there who are changing lives in a positive way, but the majority of the educators in my life, with the exception of five or six, really came down on the “you’ll flip burgers” side of things. The list of who would be surprised is a long list.

SK: Who would not be surprised by your success?

JM: I do not think my high school English teacher would be. I really hated the guy because he pushed so much and was so hard. In retrospect—and I think I even understood this back then—he pushed me in a way that was inclusive. He pushed me to write, but writing could be dictating; he pushed me to do the class essay, but that essay could be written on a computer. He pushed and pushed but he accommodated because he knew I could do it.

SK: You refer to your mom as resilient, yet you seem pretty resilient yourself. I read that you dropped out of school while in sixth grade and even contemplated suicide before you reached 12. What helped you get through that period?

JM: I think what helped me get through that period were three things: First, my mother brought home a tape of an interview with a young man at Yale Law School who couldn’t read a word—he was dyslexic—and his mom read every one of his law books to him. What was so special was that it wasn’t the story of the guy who “fixed” himself; he still couldn’t read.

Second, I left school and really spent time doing things I cared about and enjoyed. There’s a remediation culture out there that sends kids to resource rooms instead of recess and tutoring instead of art class after school. Young people spend entire days organized around what is wrong with them with little opportunity for talent development, much less the opportunity to just be a kid. So we carved out a space for me to really develop things I was interested in and good at.

And third, we had a plan to go into a new environment. I was leaving sixth grade and going into an entirely different school. This gave me the opportunity to do things differently, and to reinvent myself. Kids get stuck in an identity, and it’s really hard to get out of that—not just with peers, but with teachers too. The file follows you, and you’re the “bad kid,” so when something happens in class you’re the first person they look at. Young children don’t have a chance to break that cycle.

SK: How do you balance the need for interventions with the risk of making a student feel inferior or different?

JM: I have no debate with the importance of mastering certain skills, either as a form of empowerment or pragmatism. The key is to strike a balance: what you put in has to be justified by what you get out. Following the law of diminishing returns, you want to get right up to that point where what you are putting in is balanced with what you are getting out. It’s a very individual decision.

SK: What do you say, then, to the professionals who believe that reading difficulties can often be completely remediated?

JM: When you make the argument that dyslexia can be remediated away or “fixed” you undercut the moral argument for accommodations—essentially, that dyslexia is an immutable difference, and you have an obligation to change your practice. Because if we say to a school district or a state “invest enough money and you fix this,” they don’t need to get books on tape, or time extensions. We’ve seen this in California. For the state standardized tests, someone who has no hands will get time extensions; someone who is blind will get a reader. Nobody will challenge that. But they will not give accommodations to you if you are dyslexic because their argument is “we can fix that.” Parts of the LD community that have argued “we can fix this” have given ammunition to the people who don’t want to give accommodations.

SK: You often talk about the idea of “normalcy,” and about how much we all miss in our efforts to conform. I particularly love your quote, “Normal is a state that no one actually visits.” Would you elaborate further?

JM: The word “normal” has a history. It didn’t come into the English language until the 1860s; before then, there was no word for the norm or normal. It’s a very abstract concept, connected to statistical thought. If I take an average of 25 different heights and then I go back to the 25 people, the reality is that nobody is that “norm” or average; they are a little bit above and below. It is a state of being that doesn’t really exist. It’s like the horizon; every time you try to approach it, it gets further and further away. It is not a place where one can live.