Creating Space

I certainly have expanded my limited view of "creating spaces" to anythng that provides an opportuny to learn.  I even more appreciate my graduate Sociology course "Play and Games" by Professor Sutton-Smith that I took as an undergraduate (as an engineer student!).  Boy was that class fun and he made us work!  Play is essential to development of animals and even more so in social animals.  The folklore aspect of play really intrigues me.  Check out Sutton-Smith's 7 rhetorics of play.  I wish all school levels could have an opening recess and a mid-day recess where non-school work is encouraged.  We can encourage social interaction and good behavior; plus the students can chill and rest their heads.

I think the discussion about space is an important one. There does not seem to be enough physical space in many school classrooms, yet administrators give out many instructions to set up learning centers, post word walls, arrange students into cooperative groupings, etc. Usually the larger classroom spaces are reserved for kindergarten classes. But that doesn’t mean that every school follows Jill’s idea that an hour of free daily play is important for kindergarteners. On the other hand, it is important that we give children space to digest what we’ve been teaching. So the idea of creating space in the classroom is multi faceted. I enjoyed many of the postings and I enjoyed listening to Ed’s ideas too.

I want to reiterate that students need a safe space but that does not mean always a great grade

Today we learned about space.  You have to develop these skills of thinking with the kids, it's important because it helps them deal in the future with playing, people, conflict and most life processes.  If they have the skills of thinking, it will help them to succeed in the future.  We have to work on this in school, to let them explore (have space to explore) this thinking process.  I think this will bring them to independent learning.  I think, if we teach them about thinking, they will increase their confidence and concentration and be able to demonstrate what they are learning more successfully.  They can deal with different situations in life, to take risks and not feel failure--they will participate because they think openly and are not afraid of conflict. 

Joyce's lesson was an example of how she let the kids explore and find their own solutions--every answer could be right because they did their own experiment and made their own hypotheses.  This experiment let them be free to explore without the student feeling wrong.  I think this experiment let the students share their ideas easier.  Joyce also moved life situation to the class (she can apply the real life environment, like water, into the classroom).

I'm really intrigued by the concept of a 'safe place' and where assessments fall in.  In inquiry, as we've discussed, assessments seem to discourage the concept of asking questions.  Assessments, as Kathy mentioned, often gear the student toward answering 'how they believe the teacher wishes them to.'  I have felt this and, of course, done this in life.  However, I've been doing some research, trying to combat the authentic assessment curriculum and perhaps allow a bit of inquiry.

On the Illinois inquiry area, there were several suggestions that I think could generate some good discussion [http://inquiry.illinois.edu/php/assessment2.php]:

• Portfolios: a collection of information by and about a student to provide a broad perspective of the student's achievement. A portfolio contains samples of student work in one or more areas. It may also contain narrative descriptions, grades or other evaluations by teachers and others, official records, student reflection or self-evaluation, responses from parents, suggestions for future work, and audio or photographic records.
• Profile: a collection of ratings, descriptions, and summary judgments by teachers and sometimes by the student and others to provide a broad perspective of the student's achievement. A profile typically includes a variety of contents, which may vary from checklists to certificates to narrative descriptions of what a student knows and can do. It may document academic achievement, nonacademic achievement, or both. A profile differs from a portfolio in not including samples of student work.
• Performance Task: a task, a problem, or question that requires students to construct (rather than select) responses and may also require them to devise and revise strategies, organize data, identify patterns, formulate models and generalizations, evaluate partial and tentative solutions, and justify their answers. 
• Project: a specialized, often interdisciplinary inquiry devised and undertaken by a student or group of students. Project work results in personalized (and perhaps new) knowledge, subtle skills, and professional-like motivation and habits.
• Demonstration (or Exhibition) of Mastery: often a formal, more or less, public performance of student competence and skill that provides an opportunity for a summative assessment. Demonstrations may also be formative, ongoing, informal, and embedded in curricula and everyday practice.
• Discourse Assessment: evaluation of what a student tells about what he/she knows. Typically with talking with an assessor, the student illustrates what he/she has learned, offering evidence of critical thinking or problem-solving by producing narratives, arguments, explanations, interpretations, or analyses. The assessor listens and probes for evidence of achievement, such as responses that synthesize relevant information and apply it to a new situation. This is similar to Think Aloud Protocols & Interviews (Informal & Formal/Structured) where a student performs a problem or activity and answer questions about it.
• Holistic rubrics: The holistic rubric provides global descriptions of different levels of performance. A holistic rubric emphasizes less the specific criteria for achievement, and emphasizes more the overall quality or performance.
• Student-Kept Records are when the student records feelings and interests in a notebook that is eventually shared with the teacher.  This helps foster self-assessment and can be used in this way, such as How did you do? How would you describe your learning? What would you have done differently? Student-Kept Records involve reflection and promote meta-cognition because they reflect formatively and summatively.  Peer-Appraisal can be a part of this method, if the appraisal provides an opportunity for descriptive assessment.

Just Science Now ideas

Idea for Inquiry Assessment Rubric

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On a general side note, I think we all need to remember to enter into discussions with an open mind.  "I can't" doesn't lead to inquiring more or developing new ideas; it is like a hindrance to both our own learning and the learning of others.  I, too, understand how difficult it is to fathom some of these ideas (especially due to the larger number of students in classrooms) but keeping an open mind may be the most  beneficial approach.

Ed and Jack think that the physical space is important for the best environment to learn. Physical space has to be safe to be conducive to learning. Then there's the concept of conceptual space- space to let students think- real spaces of time- metacognitive space...let them "gel" and "absorb" what you are teaching them.

We feel that open spaces are less confining---as teachers we don't want to "shoe horn" them into the "right" answers so let them have their space!

 Creating Spaces to learn

First thoughts:

Think space and environment are synonymous

Physical space

Social space

Mental (new observations) space

Emotional space

Meta-cognitive space

Safe space to test w/o judgement

Sharing with community of learners (reporting out in a variety of forms) space

Steve and Joyce

Movement, physical space, wait time, material rich, reflection, safety, physical layout, time to explore.confer/rethink, and place to share culminating thoughts.

I. Safety--community of learners, buy-in, safety for taking risks and learning

II. Physical space--layout, materials, movement

III. Time---cognitive space --but on a "student clock", wait time, valuing student process, opportunity for students to confer and share outside of the immediate classroom

Judith, Jill and Deb

When I hear this phrase" creating a space to learn", I think about arranging my room in a way that will allow for maximum space and conditions that will allow for the best learning condiditons possible.

What is creating spaces to learn?

1.  Way of clearning the the mind to go ready to learn.

2.  Room to move

3.  Freedom to attack the content in whatever mode they are most comfortable. Letting them come up with space and materials that they need to help them answer essential questions.

4. Non judgemental space to express their views.

Today, we discussed the concept of 'thinking' today -- specifically, if there were a universal, shared thinking method.  Something I find interesting, though, is drawing this concept back to metacognition: what happened if we TAUGHT thinking? I recently discovered Edward de Bono [click here for a fabulous article on his argument for teaching thinking.]

"Edward de Bono strongly believes that thinking is a skill and he calls the skill of thinking "operacy". He suggests that operacy should be included alongside literacy and numeracy as good thinking is essential for problem solving, decision making, constructive thinking, critical thinking and for coping with change, all of which are essential for survival and for success in today’s world. In this manner, a new gateway would be available for pupils who may not be good at literacy or numeracy but who may be good at operacy. It is important, he maintains, for operacy to be included in education, as he states:

In the real world there are people to deal with, decisions to be made, strategies to be designed and monitored, plans to be made and implemented. There is conflict, bargaining, negotiating and deal making. All this requires a great deal of thinking and a great deal of operacy. …

Operacy involves such aspects of thinking as: other peoples’ views, priorities, objectives, alternatives, consequences, decisions, conflict resolutions, creativity and many other aspects not normally covered in the type of thinking used for information analysis."