Students Taking Charge Book Study Chapter 1

"Students Taking Charge: Inside the Learner- Active, Technology- Infused Classroom" 

By: Nancy Sulla

Book Study

Introduction & Chapter 1

By: Kaisha Dunne

Introduction:

Although living  and teaching in Florida may seem to have it's perks, the biggest perk is living in the state where the greatest "Inspirationalist"  created a world of dreams. Walt Disney once said "Keep moving forward." Nancy Sulla opens her book with "Passion lies at the intersection of dream and success." Although teaching doesn't pay what most connect with the word success, the inspiration and drive that you build within students as you shape their minds and turn them to a hopeful future of greatness meets every aspect of the definition success. She continues on to talk of sacrafices and believing that this is the road you are meant to travel. Well, only 5 years out of college and slowly heading into my 4th year of teaching in the classroom, I know that this is my path. No teacher could ever be great without sacrifices, I don't necessarily mean going above and beyond like Erin Gruwell did in the "Freedom Writers Diary," but we each give up both time and money as we poor our hearts out into our job. As I sit here on my summer vacation I can help but to enjoy the words of Sulla's vision of the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom. Just like Sulla's inspirational story of how when she was ten, she too spent her summer focused on not only her education, but the education of others as she help vary and differentiate a summer school program for the neighborhood kids in her area. Her key word is "varied" and her key phrase is "meeting their needs." Both of these words lure you in and continue throughout the book.

Chapter 1: The Big Picture for Your Instructional Design Journey

*Some references/ connections may be from the IDE training that our School District is having us attend who have assigned us this book. The blog on the other hand is entirely my resource for myself and my colleagues. 

Here Nancy Sulla introduces the idea of the students seeking out the answers to posed questions or problems and actively engaged in seeking out the answers as you, the teacher, watch the magic happen, which in turn gives you ample opportunity to do interventions and or extensions. 

She begins to throw out her goals of the book and the type of classroom it creates:

1. Engaged Learners: "Busy students are not necessarily engaged students"page3). After I have read the book I couldn't agree more, even though I agreed before. When given an opportunity to have a technology infused classroom do not turn it into a $300 pencil opportunity. We each have encountered at some point in time, that stereotypical History teacher who has been doing the same old thing for a bazillion years. There is nothing in this world that could ever truly change their mind frame on how they are going to change their teaching ways or lesson plans. They teach it the same way each year, no fail. If given (in their mind forced) the 1:1 technology in their classroom to use like most districts are moving toward, they would use it as a $300 pencil. They would still use the same textbook (digitally) and the same note taking requirements for the students (digitally). Although they are doing something educational, and it is on the computer, full engagement is not achieved. 
2. Student Responsibility for Learning: "Student responsibility for learning is a concept that most educators embrace, but few foster"(page 4). We all sit in meetings where they tell us to give the students more "ownership" in their learning, and most attempt in doing so with good intentions, but fall short when there are not possibilities and paths given to the teacher to lead them down the path of the desired outcome. Ownership of learning doesn't just mean writing down in their planner the dates items are do and given a project to do on their own. When the students are given a problem and the opportunity to solve that problem independently to guide them through the learning process with little instructional guidance from the teacher. The teachers should be like the maker of the treasure map, but the students should find their way through as Dora the Explorer does so frequently. The Authentic Learning Assessments that are laid out for you to design and make your own in this book do just what you ever dreamed of and more for each grade level.
3. Academic Rigor: "More Rigor," "Give them Rigor," "Up the Rigor" is what most of us hear in our meetings all the time, but few understand the true meaning of the word rigor. "If students are engaged in learning, then increasing academic rigor is easy" (page 5). While the students are taking on the role of Dora the Explorer, you can monitor their status and intervene so much easier. This past school year I was picked to be on a "Dream Team" of sorts of Civics teachers  in the district. We constructed a Google Drive that allowed us to make Interactive Notebooks that we standards based in our classrooms based on the resources shared on the drive. If you have never done an interactive notebook, it's more amazing than words can express! We approached the notebook with using the right as an input side (what goes into the students brain) and the left as an output side (can they put back out what just went in). With the independent learning atmosphere that the notebook created, I had opportunities that I never had before, but didn't realize it until I received an unlikely student. I had only had 3 Advanced Civics classes this year. I never call out sick, but the one cold I got this year, I got an email form one of my AP's saying that she needed to meet with me. Upon my return she said that she needed to move a student into my class that was having some behavior issues with the mix of students he was in with in his current Intense course with another civics teacher. I said it would be fine and when told that his present reading levels were WAY bellow grade level on top of him being an 8th grader in a 7th grade course, she told me that she had faith that I could figure it out. The opportunities that the Interactive Notebook/ Student Led Learning environment I ended up having so many opportunities to modify, explain, and give extension to this child 1:1. But then I discovered that slowly he didn't really need my help and that he was raising his hand less and less. My students were so well trained in working independently and going at their own pace, that I had a few get so far ahead that I had to begin building in "fun" extensions. The student was discovering as I helped him who most frequently got to the fun extensions, then kindly asked for help. I am also the schools AVID teacher, so I train my kids in finding their Point of Confusions and asking clarifying questions. Helping students are only allowed to prompt to the lightbulb effect, but never to give away the answer and that is exactly the type of help that he sought out. He went from an F Quarter 2 in his other class to a B+ Quarter 3 in my class and a B- Quarter 4 in my class thanks to the opportunities given for him to travel at his own pace and the opportunities for me to have to help him. Sulla's book allows me to further expand those chances and opportunities by taking it to the next level. From Facilitation Grids, How-to-Sheets, Rubrics, and Problem Based Learning. This book is a great read!

Sulla continues her chapter by going into connections to the RTI three Tier approach and what to expect. She suggests a journal to write down triumphs and lessons learned to better set up your classroom for the next year. I agree! I had a master/ teacher copy of my student notebooks and I put sticky notes ALL over the items that I worked on. I also took the time to go back and hit the little star button on Google Drive on the lessons I tried and they worked! This has thus made my planning for next year, so much easier! I now know the holes that I need to fill in where the lessons that didn't work out as planned where. In turn this allowed me so much time this summer that I didn't have to plan and actually see the beach this summer for the first time in 3 years. Worth it!

The rest of the chapters are organized with themed out sections of each: Imagine, Consider, and Create (with a recap at the end of each). 

Lets get started!