Week two - building belief
When we turned up in class for our second Tuesday with room 17 we found the classroom teacher had done a great job! During the week she had worked with the children / company deciding on a name (Mystery History Toys), designing logos and voting for the favourite, drawing up a timeline of the company's past history (including, as we learned today, the dreadful fire!) and mapping the company buildings. Each student had completed the picture of their office desk, and these were taped to the desk tops. I felt there was a palpable excitement in the air and I overheard one child say "I love Tuesdays!" - which is promising, given this is only our second visit.
During our planning meeting the day before, student teachers had asked about the place of "learning intentions" in this kind of teaching - and asked also about assessment. Not surprising I guess since they have been taught over and again to make the LIs explicit for the children, whereas Mantle works from a completely different approach... So I wanted to make my intentions for this lesson clear and overt (at least to the student teachers). I hoped that for the children the learning intentions would be folded in to the tasks and framed as part of the fictional world. I invited the student teachers to watch out for three things:
The use of 'genuine' questions to promote discussion about types of value
The children's responses to the teacher in role strategy (used for the first time this week)
Children's ability to collaborate in open ended creative tasks with other people
An agenda was put on the board.
[I wonder if one of the student teachers would like to comment on how this writing was carried out (did you notice that I did the whole thing without speaking?) What were children's responses to this? And what purpose was served by putting the Agenda up like this?]
Once we did start the meeting I deliberately adopted an adult register in my speech. Children / company members were asked whether there was any other business we needed to attend to. Suggestions included "we need to read the letters" "see if there are any recent messages" etc.
Children seemed very keen to update the "part timers" (student teachers) on what had happened in the company. Some individuals stood to speak to the whole group, then children moved off to meet in smaller groups with their familiar student teachers they'd met last week.
[Perhaps student teachers might like to comment below on what children reported in these small group discussions? Did you notice any change in the engagement level of children from last week? Any memorable comments made by children at this stage? Was their language collaborative - were they talking about "our company" and "us"...? And what about the register - did they sound like adult experts yet?]
Next on the agenda was a visit from the storeroom manager. The mention of 'storeroom' prompted some imaginative responses from one child - D - who reported that he had been down there and it was messy and untidy. He announced this to the company and requested that people put things away properly....
I told children that I was going to take on the role of the storeroom manager - I asked a quieter child to choose a name for this figure. She decided he was called Josh. I moved into role (signalled by a blue hat) and asked the children for advice in sorting some of the toys in the storage room. I presented 6 slips of paper handwritten with names of different toys written on them
Electric train set
David's toy
Glove puppet (v old)
Wooden puzzle
Playstation
Packet of crayons
To build a little more of a picture of these toys, I questioned the children (in role as Josh) "Has anyone seen the electric train - you have B? Can you describe it to the company?" Children gave brief descriptions which made the toys seem a little more real. I numbered children off into 7 groups and gave them each a set of the labels. They were asked to use their expert opinion to order the labels with the most valuable at the top, and the least valuable at the bottom. The student teachers facilitated this discussion and listened in to the rich negotiations and conversations about "value" that emerged.... [Perhaps a student teacher would like to enlarge on this in the 'comments' section below?]
In feeding back to the whole group about their decisions, children made some thoughtful comments about different kinds of value and I, as "Josh" wrote the key words / concepts that were emerging. So for example, one of the students said that they had put David's toy at the top of the list because it was "one of a kind" and "couldn't be replaced". I put the word "unique" on the board and discussed the meaning of this kind of value. Other words that emerged included "sentimental" (A toy that is valuable "because it has been loved alot") "technological", "educational" and others. We are building a 'word bank' of terms associated with value, which we can return to again and again.
When I came out of role I was able to ask the children what they had done with Josh and what the words on the board were about. N was right on the button when he said "they are all words about different kinds of value"
At this stage I thought we were done on the sorting task - but then a comment from N caught my attention. He was visibly upset (a sensitive soul) and protested that "the packet of crayons was always left at the bottom....!" I always like to pick up on ethical / social justice issues as they arise - so thought "OK.... let's run with this!" I responded to his offer by saying, "Yes, that's true - if only we could hear what that feels like for the crayons.... who would like to be a crayon and tell us how it feels to be at the bottom of all those lists...?"
T was first - she stood up and responded to my question "What colour crayon are you" with the wonderful reply "I'm a green crayon, but right now I feel blue".... Classic! I asked the green crayon what she felt her true value was and she replied "I'm very good for drawing grass and leaves". Another child, L went into role as a crayon and added another value "We are portable - you can heft us around. With a playstation you have to stay plugged in, but crayons you can carry us out into the fields". Another student A(?), took things to a whole new emotional level with his monologue in role as the silver crayon:
" They just take me out and rub me on the concrete - they wear my tip right off. My friend the golden crayon died some time and I don't feel like colouring in the money any more".
When I asked silver crayon what his dream was - what life he wished for himself - he beamed and replied "To drive a car"....
Beautiful stuff.... how DO you assess this guys?
It's all going to play beautifully into the main commission, coming up, in which we invite the company to put together an exhibition of toys that have stories to tell. Clearly, already, the stories are starting to flow. I have a feeling we will hear more from these crayons!
There was one more key activity - involving student teachers in role as robots, and children carrying out a writing task. However, rather than keep on, I will leave the student teachers to describe this part of the lesson from their perspective.....
Sorry to go on at such length - but this was a wonderful session in so many ways... I really enjoyed telling the staff about it in the staffroom over lunch - you have got to love this way of teaching!
This comment from student teacher TM - thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe experience so far has been awesome and am really looking forward to seeing the future of our MOTE experience unfold. I have been amazed by how the children have fallen into role as Toy Museum workers and have been fully engaged. I thought that they would be overwhelmed when us students teachers arrived on the scene but they have included us well. The amount of imagination and contribution these children bring is awesome. I have notice some things that have come to light with this work and that is the same as Viv with the natural leaders, and natural followers. What I am looking forward to is seeing the shift in these roles as we dive further into MOTE. Next week is going to be even more interesting and am looking forward to participating!
This week one of my students was a lot more open about what he wanted to put into the discussion. He contributed a lot of ideas, however my other student is very overpowering and dominates the conversation somewhat. I’m not sure if these two have worked together collaboratively so it is an interesting combination. When they were asked to come up with one movement their robot could do, the more confident student was throwing ideas out their and the other one was quietly trying to push his own ideas. I feel that these two will do well together with support and guidance from us.
What a day! So looking forward to more :)
It's Sam here. Even though I am broken and unable to attend the mantle I still want to comment on a few things.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your question about assessment it's so hard to think! I think the most beneficial thing in this case is formative assessment and anecdotal notes.
I mean the silver crayon (from what I can read) is achieving at or above level on in the Health and P.E curriculum in the A1, A4, C1, and C3 strands as well as being actively engaged in The Arts and Social Sciences AO in the NZC. However formative assessment is hard to do in this sort of situation. The only idea that I could come up with is perhaps writing a story from the perspective of being the crayon, some freeze framing that you could take a photo of and use for purposes of assessment. In terms of the photo however I was reading the MOTE website and I read something about creating an ongoing portfolio with the children so the photos/stories/even just a simple sentence could go in there as evidence for assessment. I don't know, that was just off the top of my head. Let me know what you think. I also love the frame distance going on there with A addressing quite an emotional time and feeling safe about it.
A comment from student teacher D.B.
ReplyDeleteWow what a great experience teaching through MOTE has been so far. This week the children were really engaged and had built a lot of belief within the company the last week. Children were talking as adults and I could feel that sense of belonging to the company and ownership of it from the children's responses and the way they were speaking. When the children took us 'part timers' away to discuss what had been happening in the classroom, a child C showed me using movement, words, and imagination a spider toy she had been working on. She demonstrated how to turn it on and what it does. It was really great to see such a vivid imagination. Myself and the other child in the group felt like this toy was right in front of us as C made it seem so believable. The children were really excited to update us around the letters they had received throughout the week from past clients and the name and logo they had decided on.
I thought the ordering of toys according to their value was a really rich task. My group of children ordered the toys in price value and which one was more expensive etc. But when I questioned a little more around what their most valued toy was some of their decisions about value changed and they said it may be about how important something is to someone. I could see a lot of deep thinking going on in the children through their responses. The company came up with a lot of ideas around value and we had a great conversation around what these mean.
The robot task was lots of fun. It gave the children an opportunity to be silly for a while and let loose after all the serious and deep thinking and discussion we had just had. The children were able to instruct us student teachers/robots to do one thing e.g. a movement. We did this for an exhibit because early robots had been found in storage that only had one function. The children in my group played around with a few ideas like spinning around, dancing etc. I think the children really enjoyed it as it was there chance to tell a 'teacher' what to do rather than vice versa. After a bit of discussion my children decided they would make my robot sing only Katy Perry songs. Each group had to present what their robot did to the class so I got to sing Katy Perry Firework to everyone which was very amusing ha ha. The company workers were then instructed to write a plaque about their robot including name, what makes it unique, how its turned on etc. I could see the children coming up with some really great writing and they were excited to write down the ideas surrounding their robot. One of the children in my group O is apparently a reluctant writer but in the short time given he was able to write 2-3 really great sentences and really wanted to show others what he had written. This was great to see, and the teacher in the class was amazed to see the improvement in him.
I can not wait to go back next week and catch up on any developments within Mystery History Toys.
I thought the silent writing of the agenda created some extremely powerful learning for the students. As Viv was writing, the majority of students started reading the agenda as it went up on the board. This created a natural and rich literacy activity, students were starting to decode unknown words aloud (A great chance for a teacher to make a quick diagnostic assessment). One word in particular that students found difficult was exhibition (fair enough) and Viv was able to scaffold the students after they had given it a few good goes themselves by pointing to the different chunks in the word (still without saying anything). The learning in this instance was extremely satisfying to watch as the students took the learning into their own hands!
ReplyDeleteWhile my small group was bringing me up to date with all of the work that had happened in the past week, there was a clear sense of belief in the company. Both students were able to explain when they started working for the company and were discussing significant dates in the companies history. The shift in their belief levels was amazing. When we had been discussing the naming of the company in the previous week both J and T would often refer to it as 'the company' but this week there was a clear sense of 'our company', with comments such as "I remember the last time we had to change our name back in 2003 I think it was, it took a lot of deciding then too" (J).
It will be exciting to keep seeing these skills develop as the mantle continues!
Posting a further comment from a student teacher Z.S.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is very effective to see the MOTE experience and how it works in the classroom setting. It was fascinating to see how engaged and motivated students were because they were so willing and able to believe in MOTE and accept their role in the company. This was linked to being a part of the learning experience as “museum workers” in their company which is a toy museum.
The agenda for the meeting was discussed at the start and students were sharing their notices with part time workers about what has been happening in the company (updates). This was done in groups and we were with the same students from last week. My student told me that they created a time line about the old toys and came up with the name “Mystery History Toys”. It was also discovered that the museum was founded a long time ago and that there had been a fire ad only offices one and two were saved. Some toys were saved and a new museum was built. I noticed that this student was talking about the museum with interest and was owning the experience which linked to building belief in MOTE.
“Museum workers” were then told about a new mini exhibition of early robots and how each robot in the museum is unique. They were told that each robot does only one thing when the button is switched on. When we were working with students, mine had come up with the idea of a “zombie” robot. There was engagement because the student I was working with had come up with the idea and shared with me about how to behave like a zombie when she turned the switch on. During sharing, she described what the “robot” did and I demonstrated this. It was awesome to see how confident she was in sharing. This was really exciting for me to see because in the previous week, she wasn’t feeling very confident to share her ideas with the rest of the museum workers. The great ideas that students had come up with in their groups were shared effectively.. They were very motivated during their learning and shared the experience proudly with everyone else.
I know there have been some questions about assessment around MoTE units. As has been mentioned by others, there is lots of formative assessment going on all the time. My plan is for the children to do their own kind of self assessment at the end of this unit. I haven't thought this through 100% yet but will look at including Key Competencies in it, as well as using photos and giving children an opportunity to record their experiences of Mantle. Possibly video recording too???
ReplyDelete