SOCIAL LEARNING Group Collaboration

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SOCIAL LEARNING Group Collaboration

• Prepared and Presented by
• Julie Love
• Fellow, North Star Writing Project
• 2006

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Social Learning, Explained

• Youngsters must be shown how to get involved
  with the ideas on the page to laugh, cry, hoot,
  holler, scream, ridicule, or, perhaps, more
  quietly, to reflect, to appreciate, to judge. We
  can teach these things, not merely by assigning a
  number of pages to read but by reading,
  discussing, reflecting, questioning, and probing
  for answers all these with the students (Alm,
  1957).

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A New Hat

• I once had time to discover with childrenI now
  assign it for homework.
• I once saw beauty that inspired me to learnI now
  read words about it.
• I once knew the names for the flowers of the
  fieldI now yank out weeds on the weekend.
• I once took walks by the hourI now say,
  Tomorrow.

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Handout

• LETTER BRAINSTORM AND ROUGH DRAFT
• do not concern yourself with conventions
• Personal - 2 minutes
• In the space below, introduce yourself by sharing
  some basic information such as the size of your
  immediate family and current living situation.
  State where you live and how long youve lived
  there.
• Professional 3 minutes
• Now, include details about your educational work
  experience either as a student and / or as a
  teacher / administrator. Describe your current
  position as an educator.
• Experience 4 minutes
• Write steadily for three minutes about your
  personal experience with small groups. Consider
  your personal learning style and comfort level
  within small groups such as planning committees,
  staff development, and continuing education
  courses. If you are a teacher, how often do you
  schedule small group learning activities?
• Others Ideas 10 minutes
• While in small groups, introduce yourselves and
  jot down each others first names (make it a goal
  to try to use them in conversation). Initially,
  try taking turns and using the information you
  wrote for personal and professional above.
  Once acquainted, discuss the experience level
  by recording each others responses on this sheet
  and then transferring your groups conclusions to
  the plain-sided piece of the puzzle.
  Corporately, decide how to share this information
  with the whole class.

• Inside Address
• Name
• School / or street address
• City, State, Zip
• Date
• Salutation
• Dear Julie,
• Body type in four paragraphs, indenting each
  paragraph and leaving space between each
  paragraph.
• Paragraph one personal information
• Paragraph two professional information
• Paragraph three personal experience with small
  group learning activities
• Paragraph four goals, ideas, and future plans
  for the use of social learning
• Closing
• Sincerely,
• Print name (place signature in
  the space above).

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Personal

• I am an almost-empty nester. I live with my
  twenty-year-old son, east of Denton in a house my
  husband and sons built. We live close to
  Lewisville Lake, though not on the lake. My
  husband of thirty-two years teaches at Baylor in
  Waco and lives there Sunday night through Friday
  night. Our youngest, a daughter, attends Baylor.
  Our oldest son is married and lives in Dallas.
• Our family has moved around a good deal. Weve
  lived in this current house for five years.
  Prior to Denton, we lived in Plano, Malaysia,
  Austin, California, and Lubbock.

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Professional - Past

• I began college at Texas Tech University in
  Lubbock when I was eighteen. I quit after two
  years when my husband graduated and we moved to
  Austin.
• I completed a thirteen-month certification
  program in dental assisting at Austin Community
  College. I worked in the medical help profession
  for seven years.
• My husband and I began our family in 1982, which
  is when I decided to become a stay-at-home mom.
• I began my re-emergence into the field of
  education when my middle son experienced
  emotional trauma in kindergarten.
• I home schooled both my middle son and my
  daughter for five years, eventually working with
  all three children for two of the five. My
  children and I were involved in a very active
  Austin home school community group.
• I enrolled in 1997 at Collin County Community
  College in Plano with no idea about where I was
  going and what I was going to do I just knew
  that I was hungry for an education. I was forty
  years old.
• I graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts in
  English, with a Certification in Secondary
  Education, 2001. Aside from the births of my
  children, this was the proudest day of my life.
  I was forty-four years old.

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Professional - Present

• Currently, I teach tenth grade English at Denton
  High School. In my five years of teaching
  English at DHS, I have taught all levels but
  twelfth grade.

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Research Support

• Assigning more writing, using less response, and
  using more praise doesnt mean leaving out all
  criticism or lowering standards. Students need
  the experience of writing a great deal and
  getting minimal low-stakes response because they
  tend to associate writing with criticism and high
  stakes. If we are not so much teaching writing
  but rather using writing to promote learning, it
  makes particularly good sense to use lots of
  minimal and low-stakes response (Elbow, 2000).

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Research Support, cont.

• Teachers who value the childs present
  conceptions, rather than measure how far away
  they are from other conceptions, help students
  construct individual understandings important to
  them (Brooks and Brooks, 1993).

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Research Support, cont.

• As we order these books and create these
  choices, we may have to remind ourselves that
  literature circles are independent or
  recreational reading. During this special part
  of the day, we are not working at kids
  instructional level but their fluency level.
  Simply in literature circles kids must be
  reading books they can read (Daniels, 2002).

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Research Support, cont.

• High schools must be more personal. The approach
  needs to change from a more teacher-oriented to a
  more student-centered one (18).
• Key Principlesout of eleven
• Learning environments should be personalized.
• Students should be constructing meaning rather
  than being filled up with information.
• Faculty should teach kids first and subjects
  second (Daniels, Bizar, and Zemelman, 16).

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Research Support, cont.

• Does the teacher respect us as learners? Does
  the teacher care about what she is teaching?
  Does the teacher work to involve us in the
  learning?
• This question, stimulated by the best practice
  of the National Writing Project (Summer, 2006)
  and a publication featured during that session,
  prompted a decision to monitor students interest
  through active letter-writing (Peterson, 2004).

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Your Turn
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• Complete the LETTER BRAINSTORM AND ROUGH DRAFT
  attached to your handout. As you hear the timer
  sound, move the to the next section. READY

WRITE2 minutes
3 minutes
4 minutes
NOW
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Others Ideas

• Small Group Time Visually, locate the area
  marked with the stationery clipped to your packet
  handout. Move to that location and sit as a
  small circle, with your seats turned so that you
  are facing each other. First, introduce
  yourselves. Then, discuss the big concept of
  social learning. READY

• MOVE10 minutesTALK

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For Your Consideration

• What do you personally think about social
  learning? What is your personal learning style?
• Discuss specific activities and experiences
  youve had with social learning, such as planning
  committees, staff development, and continuing
  education courses.
• Discuss anticipated and actual outcomes.
  Surprises? Disappointments?
• Were there physical challenges and difficulties?
  

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Lets put it together

• 3 minutesSummarize your groups findings in a
  collaborative effort.

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Plan to do things differently

• I began the 2006 07 school year with a plan. I
  attended the North Star Writing Project
  determined to learn some different strategies for
  reaching my students. My biggest concern grew
  out of the apathy I observed in my students for
  reading, with very few reading for pleasure, many
  more choosing not to read at all. Another
  concern was the growing difference between
  ability levels among my students.

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My Plan

• Students will work in small groups often, at
  least once a week.
• Implement (adapting when needed) as many NSTWP
  strategies as possible with my students.
• Work closely with NSTWP mentors, particularly
  second semester when classes would be opened for
  observation and research.

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(No Transcript)
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Objectives

• Build community
• Diminish anxiety, especially in area of writing
• Increase student choice, especially in area of
  reading

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Successful Activities / Student Exemplars

• Letter writing student to teacher, beginning of
  semester one, end of semester one, mid-semester
  two
• Personal narrative paper informal presentation
  to class
• Personalized journals established Quiet Write
  at least once a week (often more), and used daily
  for personal planning, etc.
• Students choice personal poetry study and YA
  novels for literature circles

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Discoveries

• Students need to walk and write and talk and
  interact in order to learn.
• I cannot control this process every minute it
  will get noisy sometimes.
• Students lives are rich and valuable they need
  to discover the gold hidden inside.
• I need to let go and let them learn I might
  recapture the spirit of discovery I have been
  missing.

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Handout - Stationery

• Using the colored print paper included in your
  handout packet, write me a personal letter.
• Feel free to use the letter format provided.

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References

• Alm, R. S. 1957. Teaching reading is our
  business. English journal. 46.1, 11 19. Qtd. in
  English journal. 2007. English journal. 96 3, 11.
• Brooks, J. G., Brooks, M. G. 1993. The case for
  constructivist classrooms. In search of
  understanding. Alexandria, VI ASCD.
• Daniels, Harvey, Bizar, M., Zemelman, S.
• 2001. Rethinking high school. Best practice in
• teaching, learning, and leadership. Portsmouth,
• NH Heinemann.

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References, cont.

• Daniels, Harvey. 2002. Literature circles. Voice
  and choice in book clubs reading groups.
  Portland, MN Stenhouse.
• Elbow, P. 2000. High stakes and low stakes in
  assigning and responding to writing. Everyone can
  write. New York Oxford University Press.
• Peterson, Art. 2004. Digging deeper teacher
  inquiry in the summer institute demonstration.
  Internet The Voice.

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Im not going to be like everyone else Im just
going to have to be myself.