Goodbye Chiang Mai and Hello Surat Thani

Goodbye Chiang Mai!  Loved my stay in the city, learned a lot about Friends For Asia, so now it is time to get down to the business of opening the new office in the south of Thailand!

Hello Surat Thani!  Now the Friends For Asia program development work can begin..... recruiting a project coordinator, finding an office, locating a possible volunteer house, meeting with potential partner organizations.....

My e-connection to the world

See that little thumb drive type unit on the left side of my computer?  That's my personal modem that gives me internet access.  There are no wireless connections here on the island of Holhudhoo, and there are no Internet Cafes either.

So everyone buys their own personal modem for somewheres around $70 or so, and then pays for the minutes when connected to the Internet.

Given the tiny island's rather isolated location way out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the Internet signal is extremely weak .... calling for great patience when sending emails, uploading pictures to my blog..... and skype calling for me?  Forget it!

Meynaa School Deputy Principal





My primary contact at the Meynaa School, here on the island of Holhudhoo is Mrs. Nahidha Ali, the Deputy Principal.

Last week after her requesting my conducting some model demonstration lessons over the term break... she noted as I was about to leave..... "I have one more thing I want to talk with you about...."



"Could you help the school develop a five year stratetic plan," Nahidha asked me?

Long story short..... I'm facilitating the Meynaa School's five year strategic planning meeting on June 8th which will include all the stakeholders: students, PTA, teachers, island administration, school administration.



Classroom management 101

Proximity is an easy classroom management tool to use.... by moving throughout the classroom, the teacher can monitor learning, check for understanding, and bring students back on task if need be.

Assessment.... it's a BIG deal!



This workshop on assessment was one of the first sessions I held with the teachers.  It was intense, fast paced, with lots of activities.



Assessment:  it is a process, done over time, to collect information to improve student learning.

First I created a three part Graphic Organizer on the board to explain the three types of assessment: diagnostic, formative and summative.



Diagnostic Assessment

When:  before instruction
What: to find out what the child already knows.
Why:  to plan next steps
Examples:  pre-test, IQ test



Formative Assessment

When:  during instruction
What:  part of the classroom routine
Why: to help with lesson planning
Examples: quiz, homework, review games, lab work



Summative Assessment

When:  at the end of instruction
What:  information on student learning over time
Why:  to provide feedback to student, parents, teacher and administration.
Examples:  term exams, Cambridge exams



Following my direct instruction on the three types of assessment, I introduced Graphic Organizers to the teachers.

First I used a "Bubble Map" to demonstrate how to use the Graphic Organizer to describe Diagnostic Assessment.  Next, I divided the class into two, and asked half of the class to now create their own "Bubble Map" Graphic Organizer to describe formative assessment, and the other half of the room to do the same, but for summative assessment.

When the timer buzzed, I randomly called on a teachers to come to the board and complete one "Bubble Map" for formative assessment and explain it to the whole group, and one to do the same for summative assessment.



To bring a little levity to this rather heavy topic, I placed on each of the four walls, one of the above symbols:  clouds, balance, kite and dart.

I instructed the teachers, when I gave the okay to get up, to move to the symbol that in some way attracted them, or that they related to.

Once teachers grouped around a symbol I asked them to talk about what it was that brought them there.  Only after this, did I tell them this is a diagnostic communication styles assessment.

Cloud:  relationship oriented
Dart:  only the facts, straight to the point
Kite:  moving all over the place brainstorming ideas
Balance:  collecting ideas to make a decision



To assess if the teachers really understood the three types of assessment, I passed out pieces of paper with a type of assessment (or combinations of assessments) written on them.  In small groups, teachers were asked to draw a picture of the assessment written on the paper they received..... BUT... they could only use pictures!  They could not use any written words in their picture....



That's me in this summative assessment drawing!



Can you guess which of the three types of assessment this one is showing?



Diagnostic assessment..... and so proud of it!



Red dress

She reminded me of.....Little Red Riding Hood  dressed so very pretty, all in red....

It's all in how we look at ourselves... and others too!

Okay... I have no hair on the top of my head, and when I get into the humid tropics, the hair on the side of my head frizzes out ..... making me look like a clown!

Not a really good professional look when I am suppose to be facilitating educationally focused professional development workshops.



Now, should  Mr. T take this guy's advice and buy that gel?



Or should Mr. T take this guy's advice and buy this gel?

Okay.... I bought the gel and I still have no hair on the top of my head. But check out how nicely the hair on the side of my head lays so flat, what with all that gel plastered on!

By-the-way..... You did notice it's the same guy offering the advise in both pictures with the same container of gel.... didn't you? 

How do we see ourselves?  How do we see others?
Perception!  Perception!  Perception!
So....

Where there is perception, there is deception.

Listening... it's more than just your ears!





Good listening skills involve more than just your ears!

Mr. T explains to the teachers how their students' listening skills can be developed over time.... using some fun and rather unusual approaches.




Students are to listen only.... they are to do all of the calculation in their brain only.... no paper and pencil!

A young elephant weighs 1500 kilo.  It eats half its weight in grass every day.  How much will it eat in one day?  Five days?

If grass costs 10 rufiyaa per kilo, how much will the elphant owner spend on grass in five days?

 

It's all in your head.... no paper... no pencil! 

The teacher reads this problem to students and they then answer it. 

2+2 - 1 X 2 - 2 divided by 2 + 1 = (     )

The variables here are the speed at which the problem is read and the length of the equation to be solved!

Start easy, with simple, short problems.  Then as the teacher diagnosis their student's abilities, more and more numbers can be added, bigger numbers, more complex calculations.... you might even include the square root at some point!



This is a fun one to do if students have been sitting in their seats for awhile.  It gets them up and moving about, as well as challenging their listening skills.

The first student says.....

"My favorite animal is an elephant."   
Note: the item could be a city, food, book, a famous person, etc.  

Each subsequent student must repeat each aninmal the other students have said before them......

A way to make the same listening skill exercise more challenging is..... notice in the above picture how I am now in the middle rather than at the right end?

After about the third student has said the phrase, "My favorite animal is an elephant, cat and monkey,"  have students one and three change places!  This puts a new twist on the listening exercise!  Student number four will suddenly have a very perplexed look on their face!

Try the above with numbers! Tell students to think of their favorite number, then begin the exercise

"I like the number 9!"  And then it is up to the subsequent students to add to the list of favorite numbers.  See how many numbers can be added before a student can no longer remember them all!

 Try a drawing activity!  The teacher gives the students an auditory description of a picture they want the students to draw...... but only when the teacher finished!  So here goes...

Draw a house in the middle of the paper.
The house has one door and three windows.
One tree is on the left of the house.
Three trees are on the right of the house.
Five mountains are on the horizon behind the house.
Six clouds are in the sky.
A river flows from the first mountain past the house.
Three fish are swimming in the river.

The teacher could stop at this point and allow the students to draw the picture.... or if through past similar activities the teacher has assessed that the students can do more..... the teacher keeps adding more items to be drawn!



Sometimes at the end of a long day.....

Sometimes at the end of a long day, it is nice to sit at the beach on the island of Holhudhoo, and watch Mother Earth quiety and colourfully close out the day.

Lunch time!

It's lunch time for Mr. T on Holhudhoo Island!  What special Indian dish has Mr. Boopathy prepared today?



Rather than eating all my meals at a Maldivian restaurant on the island, one of the Indian secondary teachers at Meynaa School, invited me to eat with him at his house.  Boopathy is an excellent cook!  Daily he cooks some very tasty, spicy vegetarian meals for himself and a couple of other expatriat Indians who also work on the island.

Fun thing is that every meal is different!  Boopathy teaches chemistry at the school, so when he finds time to prepare all these tasty meals..... I don't know!

That's Boopathy on the right.... Rajan, in the center, is a lab technician at the island's health center.  Albert, who is also part of the meal time group at Boopathy's place, is  the schools computer technician, took the picture.



Differentiation - What's it all about? How do I do it in my classroom?

At one time, a teacher could teach a subject to a whole class.  Now, rather than teaching a subject to a whole class,  teachers teach individual students. 

 Differentiation is about how a teacher modifies their lesson plans, so as to regularly and continually meet the individual learning needs of each and every student in their classroom. 



The learning objective for the secondary teachers was to understand and practice how to differentiate by lesson objective.  In other words to write different lesson objectives, to meet the different needs of different students -  lesson objectives written by:

Thinking skill - the verb used in the objective
Content - what the students will learn
Resource - where the students will get the information
Product - what the students will create



The workshop objective for the primary school teachers was to learn how to differentiate instruction by:

readiness
interest
learning style



First the teachers wrote their own definition for differentiation and shared this with their table group.  Mr. T then facilitated a whole class discussion on the term.

The primary school teachers were given grade level lesson plans to review, using a handout Mr. T had created.  At each grade level, the lesson plan was differentiated by readiness, interest, and learning style.

When the teachers completed the handout, they discussed which form of differentiation might work best in their classrooms.

Mr. T modeled for the secondary teachers, a way of writing their lesson objectives by changing the verb.  In this example, the Unit Mr. T was teaching was "early humans."  The topic within this Unit Mr. T decided to teach was "tools used to survive." Mr. T showed three objectives, based on ability levels:

Students will be able to list three tools early humans used to survive.

Students will be able to compare and contrast the three tools early humans used to survive.

Students will be able to create a new tool early humans could have used to help them survive.

By changing the verb, the objective becomes more and more complex, therein differentiating based on ability grouping.



The basis for Mr. T's lesson was Blooms Taxonomy which he shared with the teachers.  At each level, the verbs change, so the objective becomes more complex, requiring higher order of reasoning.  For example, verbs that could be used in a lesson objective at each of Blooms' six levels could include:

Remembering:  list, define, recall
Understanding: classify, describe, paraphrase
Applying:  choose, illustrate, solve
Analyzing: contrast, examine, distinguish
Evaluating: appraise, judge, value
Creating: assemble, design, formulate



Following his having modeled how to differentiate by objective, Mr. T randomly gave teachers (small groups of two to three) a Unit word written on a piece of paper.  Unit words included, for example, Global Warming, Maldives, Economics, etc.

Teachers were then asked to select a topic within that Unit, and write a lesson plan objective for each of the six levels within Blooms Taxonomy.

At the end of the mini demo lesson, Mr. T used the "thumbs up and thumbs down" with the class to check for understanding - to make sure the directions were clear to everyone.



Teachers were given a specific amount of time to develop their six lesson plan objectives, using the Blooms verbs.

With the local Maldivian secondary teachers (a class of 14 teachers so only 5 groups), Mr. T had each group present to all the teachers, their lesson plan.... talking about each of the six objectives and explaining how at each subsequent level, the objective becaming more complex.

Here Mr. Hamad, the Deputy Principal at the school, explains his group's unit topic of democracy.



Teachers were divided into groups to work together on the assignment of designing lesson objectives, using the six levels of Blooms Taxonomy.



The secondary expatriot teacher workshop group was large, with 23 participating.  Rather than having each group share to the whole class, Mr. T had the small groups present to each other.  Each group was given a specific amount of time, using a timer, to present.  Then, when the buzzer went off, Mr. T asked the small groups to go in search of a different group to make their presentation to.

This procedure allowed the small groups to present their six part lesson objectives three times, and for them to hear the six part lesson plans of three other groups.

An added bonus..... teachers had been sitting at their tables a long time working on a difficult topic.... differentiation.... so this sharing out by small groups, got them standing up and moving about!



A brief reflection on the session, brought this part of the workshop to a productive end.



What am I?



There were times in the Meynaa School workshops, when I just wanted the teachers to sit back and have fun..... thinking!



Every dawn begins with me.
At dust I'll be the first you see.
And daybreak couldn't come without
What midday centers all about.
Daises grow from me I'm told
And when I come, I end all cold,
But in the sun I won't be found,
Yet still, each day I'll be around.


What am I?



English teachers - "The training is over..... already?"



The last day of the Meynaa School English teachers' professional development workshops, I asked the teachers to reflect back on all the various strategies I'd taught them.




First I had the teachers brainstorm their own individual list of all the different instructional and classroom management strategies I'd taught during the training.

Next I had the students pair up and share with each other their list



Following the pair-share activity, where teachers looked over each other's list of strategies, we developed a collective list on the white board. 

I asked them to star the 3 they could do tomorrow, the two the could do next month and the one they'd do next year.

I asked them to commit to which one instructional strategy they would implement immediately when classes resumed following the end of the term exams, and which instructional strategy they  would implement within the next month.

 

Taking the process one more step, now that teachers had committed to implementing one new instructional strategy, I asked them to develop a mini lesson plan, using that strategy, and presenting it to the group.



Anil decided he wanted to introduce the reading comprehension strategy where students number the paragraphs, double box the title, then they identify the subject of the sentence "who"  with a box, the "what" is underlined, the "when" with (...), etc.



George wanted to begin with giving his students "Explicite Instructions."  In other words, being very clear and specific.



Chinchu would like to begin using the praise with specifics strategy.  This is where the teacher praises a student, and tells them specifically why they are being praised.  i.e.  "I'm very happy with the way your raised your hand today and asked permission to sharpen your pencil.  Good job!"



Aravindan explained how he would incorporate a bell work or start of class activity.





The lead teacher, Ahamed, presented how he'd use graphic organizers.



"If the last five days of these professional development workshops was an animal, what animal would it be and why?"

This was my final reflective question to the English teachers.  As soon as I asked the question, the ear-to-ear smiles were immediate!





"A dolphine because it is so intelligent."
"A baby elephant because it can grow big."
"A rabbit because it hops around."
"A cat because it is so sneaky!"
"A horse because of the beautiful view when riding it."