We have been spending a lot of time in the wilderness this summer. Hiking through the mountains in BC and paddling around Northern Ontario in my kayak, there is so much to see and process. I continue to be entranced by the majesty of our natural environment, from its grand spectacle to the tiniest details.
I noticed how much further ahead aunt’s BC garden is than mine. I noticed the wildlife, in particular the absence of mosquitos and deer flies in BC, compared to the entourage I am graced with at my cottage just south of Sudbury, Ontario. These observations and my ensuing reflection unfolded as my boots navigated trails, as my paddle stirred lily pads, over time, at my own pace. In contrast, think about a bus tour, where the tour guide says, “Notice the statue on your left.” The tour guide draws your attention to a particular building or point of interest. What does this action do? It provides you with a focal point, draws your attention to a key detail or feature that you might not otherwise have recognized as interesting or important. On a bus tour, we know this feature will disappear from view shortly, and are grateful for the highlight. Personally, I always find there’s too much to see at once as the bus moves along, and wish for more time to go back and study the objects that captured my interest. How might this feeling translate into the learning environment? As an educator, I see myself as a learning guide. This role underpins my planning as I strive to create a variety of learning opportunities for my students aiming to spark the pure joy of discovery. Sometimes, I will lead and facilitate learning, helping students to focus on key concepts in order to build ideas as a group. At other times, I create opportunities for investigation and inquiry. I’’ve been thinking about the importance of the verb notice and it’s implications in education. Noticing isn’t just about seeing, it’s about taking note of what we see. As we take note, we interpret, make connections to our schema and formulate questions for further investigation. As we become more adept at noticing the world around us, we build a similar skill for noticing how we interact with this world, as learners. This ability to recognize how we learn best and refine our practice, based on this understanding, is metacognition. Consider how supporting students in the development of their skills as “noticers” will lead them to be independent observers of their own learning. This makes the action of noticing a game-changer in the classroom. The question becomes, how do we facilitate and nurture noticing? One way we learn how to notice is through provocation. As the educator, this is often our role - to provide a variety of provocations that lead students to notice and uncover new ideas and information, or to provide space and time to chew on ideas they’ve had before with new eyes. We also model our own noticing, using sentence stems like “I noticed....and now I’m wondering...” In the Ontario Kindergarten Curriculum, the verb notice is used very frequently, highlighting the significance of the educator’s role, as well as the student’s role, as observer, or “noticer”. The educator notices and names behaviours from all four frames as they spend time engaging in learning through play with their students. At the same time, the students notice, name and wonder about the world around them, building on their schema as they take this new learning forward. It’s worth considering the fact that as lifelong learners, we are always growing in some way, refining what we believe as we interact with the world around us. Noticing is a key aspect of this interaction. Therefore, it’s a critical skill to nurture with our students. Students are ready to notice on Day 1 How might we create learning experiences in the early days of a new school year which empower students to drive learning? This question made me want to re-think my role as tour guide, giving students time to explore, notice and wonder on their own, with just enough guidance to see and interpret things they might otherwise have overlooked. So how might we achieve this goal in our classrooms, beginning on the first day of school? I think in part it stems from our use of language in a very explicit way. How might we introduce students to the classroom, without directing or telling? How might the introduction serve as an opportunity for us to notice what students value as learning tools? In my grade 3 French Immersion classroom, students were invited to explore the classroom, select a learning tool and then introduce it to the class and explain how they felt it would support their learning this year, using a brief oral description, which we captured on video. Using sentence stems, students were able to frame and share their thinking with the group: When I explored the classroom, I noticed the.... En explorant la salle de classe, je remarque.... This will help me learn this year because.... Je pense que ca va m’aider cette annee parce que.... As each student shared the item in the classroom they felt would help them learn, the community of learners began to take shape. We took time to notice, as a class, the tools that were available for use and we also heard a sales pitch from each student regarding these tools. As an educator, I was excited to understand more about the ways my students hoped to learn and began to think about how to embed their learning intentions into my planning. I also noticed which suggested tools sparked interest, agreement and surprise for classmates. Since we all learn differently, it seemed ideal to provide a variety of voices and perspectives on the third teacher - the classroom - right on the first day. Not only does this simple activity give us insight into our learning community, it also provides a baseline for oral language, allows us to set a standard of practice for conversation and provides a starting point for descriptive feedback and questioning. Over the years, I noticed that students selected tools that would support their learning throughout the school day, some focusing more on literacy tools, others math tools, with several students advocating for tools that support learning in general. In the end, we had all taken time to survey our learning space, and everyone had provided me with feedback about the aspects they appreciate. The very best part of this activity was that the students were driving the conversation. They were speaking to each other and determining importance themselves, rather than waiting for me. I was establishing myself as a learning facilitator, demonstrating my interest in their needs. This set a tone and an expectation that the students would drive learning in our classroom. In my experience, this activity was a game-changer. Modeling, Think Alouds and Sentence Stems Providing students with a sentence stem is a way to model quality language structures and enable everyone to stay focused on a common purpose. Throughout the year, try to introduce sentence stems that use the verb “notice” in different ways, getting students to move from noticing things around them, to noticing aspects of their learning. This strategy supports the development of metacognition. As students recognize how they learn most effectively and are able to identify quality work, they move forward with greater independence. Let’s view “noticing” through the lens of the gradual release of responsibility model. In teacher-led discussions and think-alouds we often explore new ideas. In doing so, we take note, we interpret, make connections to our schema and formulate questions for further investigation in front of our students. This action of thinking aloud models the effective use of “noticing to learn”. As we provide this example of quality noticing, we can then use it as a basis to co-create success criteria, provide descriptive feedback and set next step goals. Descriptive Feedback When we say “I noticed that you...” we are validating a student’s action and helping them to recognize that they are indeed visible. We can use this as a springboard to learn more about them, using questions like “How did this help you to create such an effective piece of work?” “How did this help you to resolve your problem?” “How did this help you and your partner work more effectively together?” Metacognitive Skills and Portfolios Why do these sentence stems and questions matter? Why is noticing important? Where will it take us, as learners? Noticing is the beginning of reflection. When we notice, we are able to compare one thing to another. Sandra Herbst taught me to use stems including “In this piece of work I needed to....I want you to notice...” in portfolio development. When students are able to tell you what they want you to notice about their work, they are providing evidence that they know what quality work looks like and what makes a piece of work noteworthy. In my classroom, students place work in their portfolio all year long. As we grow to understand the components of quality work, we practice noticing the ways in which our work is improving, reflecting with support from our co-created success criteria. At the end of the year, students share their portfolio with their parents, inviting them to a portfolio walk. To prepare for this, student carefully curate their portfolios, selecting twelve to twenty pieces of work they wish to highlight. On each one, they staple a strip of paper with the completed prompt “In this piece of work, I needed to...I want you to notice....” (see below for further reference materials). When we discussed how they might select pieces, students talked about wanting to choose pieces that demonstrated their growth, often citing two similar pieces where the first was less effective than the second. This, they felt, made it easy for them to show their parents how they had grown throughout the year. For more about the development use of portfolios in K-12, check out the connect2learning.com blog, and the book Collecting Evidence and Portfolios: Engaging Students in Pedagogical Documentation by Anne Davies, Sandra Herbst, Brenda Augusta. Think about this powerful question from their blog: “In what ways might the learners themselves take the lead in the portfolio process – collect, select, reflect, and project?” Documenting our Learning This year end consolidation doesn’t just magically happen. There is much work to be done in between that opening day activity and the portfolio walk. For example, we honed our “noticing” skills, to set goals and conference with each other using a Learning Journal. End of day and end of week journaling replaced the more traditional classroom journal and enabled students to take time to reflect and write about how they were learning and what they planned to try next. It enabled me to see what they were noticing about their learning and provided a space for ongoing personalized feedback and dialogue. This journal provided documentation to the students and to me, about where our learning had come from, where it was going, and how we planned to get there. Hmmm...sounds like John Hattie, doesn’t it? It was a way for me to be very intentional about journal writing, and to make time for reflection at the end of a busy day. Noticing takes time. Be Patient. Be Present. Be Flexible. Noticing isn’t an event. It’s an action. The key is to ensure that the act of noticing is something we all understand and value. Noticing requires patience. We need to provide time and space for students to do the noticing. We want to notice when we aren’t providing enough space and time and make adjustments in our planning and instruction. We can’t always be moving. In order to notice the small things, sometimes we need to pause and focus for a bit. Sometimes we need to swing around and take another pass. My challenge to you is to take the risk and allow your students to notice things for themselves, right from the start. This will give you a chance to notice who they are as learners and think about the adjustments you need to make in order to create the ideal learning community for the year. |