Looking Closely at Student-Owned Documentation

by Stephanie Bartlett

A big part of my journey this year has been exploring documentation panels.  Inspired by the many talented educators on twitter, I have read, thought, researched, reflected...and the cycle repeats.  I take photos and videos and must admit that I am still figuring out a process to post the photos in the classroom in a timely manner.  (I would appreciate any techniques from those well versed in the world of documentation panels.)

The other day, I printed the photos of our coconut explorations. I thought that if Hunter cut out the pictures, and we explained them together, then the panel would be meaningful to him rather than the parents coming for conferences as had been my original intention. He got some fine motor and sequencing practice cutting and ordering the pictures before we got ready to document the story.

I settled in with sticky notes and proceeded to be amazed at what I learned from Hunter. I thought he would label each event in each picture.  Instead, Hunter labelled the steps of collaboration. The first step was Hunter finding the coconut and exploring on his own. The second group of pictures was when Erik came to join him, the third was the class (spelled phonetically KSE) and the fourth was the opening of the coconut. 

Together we reflected on the different questions that he had been asking and I scribed those underneath.  The message had come through loud and clear for me and I was thrilled: collaborative development is an integral part of creativity in educational practice.  Hunter showed me in his own words that collaboration has been embedded in our classroom culture.

There is an important place for teacher-directed documentation panels to explain our programs to adults, and to celebrate the learning of our students by showing the thinking process.  Dylan William states in his book  Embedded Formative Assessment that "teachers have a crucial role to play in designing situations in which learning takes place, but only learners create learning." (William 158)  I provided the learning provocation and then the pictures; Hunter responded with a high level of engagement and showed me how students can help manage their learning process.  It is now up to me to take everything Hunter shared with me to help design new learning experiences for him and the class. 

Citation:

William, Dylan (2011.) Embedded Formative Assessment. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press

Living Creatively Helps To Teach Creatively

By Stephanie Bartlett

It's been over a year since I surprised myself and all who know me by publishing a book of poetry.  Since then, poetry has been a way of life but I have had to wiggle into it like a comfy chair and let it seep through the corners of my heart and life.  You see, when I wrote and published, I had a mere seven months to figure the whole thing out from start to finish, including how to write a poem!  I was so stressed to meet my publishing deadline that I burned myself out, wrung dry of any words or ability to write.

Reassured by other poets that this was somewhat normal, I accepted my loss of words...to a point.  I have struggled with scheduling in regular writing time, but have made sure to journal in prose.  I have found that I can still write a beautiful poem but now the poem lives in me and writes itself about a particular topic that is burning to be expressed.  I am just the vehicle to the words, rather than looking for the words to describe a situation.  This does not happen often but I am always somewhat surprised when it does.

Lately, when my thoughts wander, I am thinking about poetry and new possibilities.  I cannot just yet think about writing enough to compile another collection, but I have plenty of work that I didn't use last year.  My original pre-inventive structure was to create a book of poems that would tell the story of my family. My poetic journey took a left turn and the collection was very different from the original intent.   The time is right to delve into my poems, the B-sides if you will, and compile a work that honours my family. 

How does this help my teaching practice? When I am living the creative process, I am better able to recognize the different strands of creative development in my students.  Creativity helps to ground and inspire me, and naturally feeds into my teaching practice.  How good is that?

Coconut Tales: Looking Closely At One Student's Spark

By Stephanie Bartlett

Hunter discovered a coconut in our Looking Closely centre.  He spent activity time looking closely, listening to the water inside, wondering and drawing in his journal.  "I wonder how we can crack this open?" He is a collaborative guy, so he quickly found a friend to share his discovery.  The group began to grow and our class discussion at the end of the day was all about whether we could open the coconut the following day and how we might do that.

The next day, I had my tools ready: screw driver and hammer to open the coconut in a fairly teacher-directed fashion.  Sure enough, a gang of them headed towards the unsuspecting coconut, each armed with scissors. The snippets of excited discussion I heard were the very things that I had been teaching all year.  They were talking, wondering, figuring out how to open the coconut and all the while, finding ways to listen and work together. I stopped the whole class and quickly told them there were some people who wanted to crack the coconut.  I asked everyone to just drop their toys, grab their journal and draw how they thought we might open it.  

Next we all gathered around the table.  When I turned back from gathering my tools to demonstrate how to do open our treasure, I saw that Rowan (who had just returned from a five month stay in Maui) grabbed the coconut, and used his scissors like a screw driver in one of the holes, saying "Let me do this. I used to open these every day."  What empowerment for a student who is working hard to return to routine, school, all the while learning a new language! There was no need for me to be there, so I quietly hung back and let him run the show.  

The conversation turned to excitement about the water inside. "What will it taste like?" "Can we try it?" Like a surgical assistant hoping to be helpful, I grabbed our class set of cups and suggested that everyone pour two shakes in so that they could all try the water.  So fun! And then...after some French oral language activities because I need to get them talking as much as I can...we counted to three and tried the coconut water.  "Eeeewwwww!" "Gross!" 

The last step was to graph who liked the taste and who did not.  We ended the day chanting "Je n'aime pas l'eau de coco!" 

This activity was made possible by a provocation that sparked the curiosity of one student. Then, he shared his interest and collaborated, all the while generating ideas on how to open the coconut.  Students then caught the spark and drew a plan.  This gave them an opportunity for authentic writing, then math and oral language skills.  Listen carefully to your students, teach them to wonder, question and investigate and offer provocations that will allow their curiosity to spark.  To me, this is a joyful way to teach and the results always astound me. What examples do you have that highlight student engagement?