X Box and the War of 1812

My grade 7 students have been exploring the War of 1812. We began, as we always do, by discussing background knowledge: what do students actually know? What have they heard? What have they visited? What are they curious about?

I then directed them to a Livebinder created by Halton Catholic District School Board which is rich in resources, artifacts, videos, virtual tours, text and points of view. I remember what it was like in the past, each of us gathering our own resources for the units we taught. Now the first thing I do before seeking my own is to see what others have already curated on the web. This site is excellent and it took all of two minutes to find.

There are a number of reasons why I like Livebinders.

1. They create boundaries. Excellent content is located in one spot. Students don't have to waste their time Googling and hoping to get a good hit, yet they are free to follow their interests within the constraints of the binder.

2. Because they are not searchable, they have an element of randomness. Students head in different directions and come across many obscure or less important yet interesting bits of information as they construct their knowledge about the War of 1812.

3. The sharing.  Students notice what other students are viewing and begin discussing or viewing together.  The whole classroom becomes very fluid and dynamic.

4. Nothing is mandated, yet content is "covered" in a much deeper way than when I "teach" the War of 1812 with my charts and carefully crafted lectures.

5. The reaction! "That was really interesting!" "Can we keep doing this tomorrow because I didn't get to finish watching that documentary?"

6. Every child finds something of interest.

After 2 full periods of exploration we gathered for a discussion.  What I noticed immediately was the depth of knowledge after just two periods compared to when I've "taught" the War of 1812.
The students shared what they had noticed and what they had learned, but also  their questions and what had confused them.  It was a chance for me to anchor their knowledge.

Two things in particular puzzled my students:

1. How come the Americans and the British both believe they won the war?
2. How come the British in Britain today only remember the War of 1812 in Europe, but not that they fought a war in North America?

The first question gave me the opportunity to introduce the Battle of New Orleans as well as Johnny Horton's classic song which celebrates and mythologizes the event. This did not satisfy my students! Winning the last battle but not achieving the original objective of kicking the British out of North America does not a victory make in my students' eyes. The British-Canadians won key battles including capturing Washington, and remained in North America. They resisted and therefore won. These are my students' own conclusions after their discussions. Given that we are Canadian an inherent bias probably exists. All students agreed, however, that if one was to speak of a "loser" in the war, it would be the First Nations people who were taken advantage of by both sides.

For the second question, we've been watching the PBS documentary Napoleon The story is gripping and it didn't take long for my students to realize why the War of 1812 in Europe would be so much more compelling to the British than a few minor skirmishes in North America.

Today, just before we continued with the Napoleon documentary, one of my students said this,

"I was on my X-Box with this guy in Florida so I asked him who he thought won the War of 1812".  For a teacher, there probably is no greater moment than one like this - when you realize a topic has gotten students thinking and talking beyond the time they spend in your classroom. I don't need to test, I don't need to ask for a written assignment. The evidence of learning is right there! That it is happening in a gaming environment between people in different countries is remarkable.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"The Americans ... because of the Battle of New Orleans. I told him I didn't think they had won because they didn't really get rid of the British."

Once again it hit home just how powerful these new tools we have at our finger tips are, how they so easily bring learners in distant places together and that students are using them independently to engage with others in learning conversations. All I need to do is point them towards rich content and provide a framework.

One of My Methods for Feedback and Self-Assessment

Do you know which single practice will result in the most growth in your students?
Do you know which practices will have a bigger impact than where a learner sits on the socio-economic ladder?

I have to admit I didn't really know until I was formally introduced to the work of John Hattie and suddenly all the transformation that Ontario teaches have been required to undergo over the past 10 years made sense. If formative assessment and feedback are done well, they can add two years growth to a students learning.   Feedback

I've been thinking about that a great deal this week during my grades 6 and 7 students' presentations. Grade 6 students have been presenting their Canada's Links to the World research and the 7's have been presenting biographies on their parents and grandparents.

Today at the half way point in presentations, I felt that students had seen enough variety to allow a useful discussion about assessment and feedback.


I began with the idea of the learning curve.  Some students may be sitting at the beginning of the learning curve having just  learned how to make jot notes and write content in their own words on  information they wish to include in a presentation rather than relying on cutting and pasting. The ability to do this represents huge growth for them but they are still sitting near the beginning of the learning curve when it comes to the ability to create a knock it out of the ball park presentation.  We then talked about mastery which a few students clearly had reached. I pointed out that because these students have mastered engaging an audience during a Prezi or Powerpoint, they need to think about where to go next, that they should choose a different presentation format next to continue developing their skills.

Next I wanted students to think about their content and what how they present it.  One topic students were required to research for the unit was famous people from the countries they were researching. A few students created slides like the one I've drawn below. They listed people, some may also have included pictures, and then read the names on the slide to the class. For my example, I deliberately chose names of  famous people the students wouldn't know in order to illustrate the problem with this approach.  Students saw that merely listing the names wasn't good enough. They still didn't know who these people were or what they had accomplished.

I turned to the Thinking Matrix to look at where this kind of information lies. It sits in "Retell" the lowest skill on the Matrix. The student showed that they could research and "tick it off on the list" but what makes a presentation interesting is explaining why the person was chosen. More information and opinions are needed to keep the audience engaged. I asked students to reflect on their own presentations. Had they done this at any point?

We then went on to discuss some of the presentations that the students felt showed mastery.

After that I asked students who had already presented to stand in a line and for those who hadn't yet presented to stand facing them. These students had 1 minute to give the presenters feedback on their presentations. After one minute, the feedback line shifted one person to the right and again had 1 minute. Students felt this was a good idea but some asked if next time we could do this right on the day of each set of presentations so that they could better remember what they had seen. I will make this adaptation as well as have students who receive feedback write it down.  Students were asked to identify strengths and areas for improvement.



Next I gave each student a sticky note and asked them to draw the learning curve and mark an X where they felt their presentations was located. Even those who hadn't yet presented were able to do this. They also had to explain why.

I then conferenced informally with each student, asking for a more detailed explanation of their X. This was my opportunity to help them clarify their thinking as well as get them to use the terminology correctly. I was also able to point out what I had noticed about their presentations and what I had observed a various points in the project.

Students then had to choose  a next step.

The whole point of feedback is to shift the responsibility for assessment to the students so that they develop independence and the ability to critique their own work, use and understand the vocabulary of assessment and identify personal goals.

All students but one accurately placed themselves on the learning curve and could identify their own next step.  This was with only minimal feedback from me. The one student, however, placed himself at the Mastery level when in fact he is just past the beginning stage. This was a huge red flag and shows that this student needs to develop of much deeper understanding of Success Criteria and how to evaluate his work in relation to that criteria.

Classroom 2.0 Webinar

I'll be speaking this week Saturday January 19 at 12 noon EST on Classroom 2.0 Live webinar sharing my teaching practice.
Strategic Teaching 2.0

Recently I was invited to write a guest post about innovative practice for the Canadian Education Association. This is the second part where I describe the fluid nature of Inquiry.

Livebinder of links I shared in my presentation.

Recording of the presentation here. https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid=2013-01-19.0009.M.ACE02B5F35AA7E7975F015AAC6F794.vcr&sid=2008350

Entire show can be found here: http://live.classroom20.com/1/post/2013/01/featured-teacher-heidi-siwak.html

Reading for Meaning

Source: The Strategic Teacher - Selecting the Right Research-Based Strategy for Every Lesson p. 16

Teaching Students How to Make Notes

Note:  Since first posting this, I have received feedback and suggestions via twitter which I've now included. It makes me pause once again to appreciate the power of social media to provide a forum for meaningful feedback that will then benefit our students. Never before would I have had a journalist review my teaching practice and make suggestions based on how she approaches her work. How cool is that?


In grade 6 we have begun our unit on First Nations. Underlying this are: my professional learning focus, our junior division focus which is writing, and our SIP goal which is developing self-assessment skills in our students.

We began the unit by speculating on how humans first came to North America. Two students knew about the Asia-Alaska Land Bridge Theory; a few wild ideas were proposed, but most students could not even begin to imagine how North America became inhabited.

We then watched the first 3 episodes of Ice Age Columbus which explains the North Atlantic crossing that took place 5 thousand years earlier than the Bering crossing. After viewing and discussing the episodes, I introduced the skill of note taking.

This is a good tool to assess where students are at in their ability to independently make useful notes.

The next day, we began our lesson with a model of point form or jot notes using the same organizer.

The students could see right away the value in making notes in this way.
"it's easier to understand"
"you've only got the important words, all the extra words are left out."
"highlighting shows what's important"

The model was then glued to the anchor chart for future reference.

Our next step was learning to take notes from a text. This began with a return to reading strategies.
What do productive readers do before they begin reading?
What do productive readers do while reading?
What do productive readers do after reading?

Spending time discussing purpose and activating prior knowledge is key to good reading skills. Consciously reminding students and providing time to do this will lead to better comprehension of as well as critical thinking about the texts they read.

Once we had discussed our schema, students worked individually or in partners to read and annotate a page from our history text on the topic of  origin theories.  I provided a paper version as well as the textbook.

Below are examples of how students annotated.

From the above examples it becomes very clear who is asking questions while reading, who is thinking critically about the text, who is using the diagrams and glossary to enhance understanding and who can identify key points in the text.

What I like about this text is that some of the information is vague or out of date which prompted students to ask questions about evidence and proof.  Many noticed that the dates in the text are different from those mentioned in the film.  For critical thinking to occur, having students work with two different texts or sources at the same time will lead to better thinking. (The Strategic Teacher)

This is as far as we've gotten.  I did, however, seek feedback from a colleague about this lesson.  Jaqui Swartz teaches science and has a visual arts background. She suggested that we add the ideas of  highlighting specific unit or subject vocabulary to the anchor chart as well as the importance of making relevant comments and questions when annotating text.  She also emphasized the importance of creating visual anchors when making point-form notes.  Drawing pictures and adding graphics will aid in recall. Next week she will be teaching reading and note taking skills in science and will use these anchor charts to aid in the transfer of knowledge and skills between subjects.

In my class students will return to this topic on Monday and use their annotated texts to create notes. I will work with flexible groups to address gaps in their understanding, answer questions and point out how to get more out of their reading. We will then co-create Success Criteria for note-taking.

January 11: Journalist, Shawna Richer, saw this post and noted that this is how journalists approach their work. She also pointed out that we need to remember to document the source of the information when making notes, so we will add this to our anchor chart and Success Criteria.

Critical Thinking and Maps

The following activities were from the fall. They were designed to encourage learners to think about and discuss maps.  The point with all of these activities is to have students draw their own conclusions.

Activity 1:  Use a non Euro/North Americancentric map to identify continents and major lines. 

This led to a discussion on why maps are representations of human understanding of the world and that the way they are constructed cause us to think in certain ways about the world.

 Activity 2: This activity was also designed to encourage discussion. If maps are representations of human understanding of the world, what does a map reveal about how people view the world at different points in time?

Activity 3:  This activity was fun. Many students have never been exposed to paper road maps. Groups were given the task of finding distances between locations on different sides of the map. It was fun to watch them problem solve and teach themselves how to use the various features of the map.

What Causes Students to Learn? An Interview with John Hattie

So much of the change that Ontario teachers have experienced over the past 10 years is because of  the work of John Hattie.  Hattie's life work has been to determine which classroom practices actually have impact and will foster growth.  Hattie has identified 31 of these practices. Ontario teachers will be familiar with many because our training and professional discourse over the past 5 years has included them. The list can be found here in Grant Wiggins blog post.

Below is an interview with Hattie. I love that he clarifies what evidence means and puts test scores in their place. He also outlines some of weakness of a purely constructivist approach to teaching and learning. Ontario teachers, view until the end as he has some lovely words for us!

Julie Baden sent this link that explains the importance of professional learning. Steven Katz

Dinner Guest at a Party Where No one Else is in a Union

Last evening at our New Year's celebration, pre-dinner conversation touched on the stand-off between Teachers Unions and the provincial government of Ontario. The discussion was amicable which I appreciated, and in some ways dispassionate even though those who were present clearly had strong opinions.  All dinner guests present were non-union members. They work in the private sector, either in self-employment or for others. It was very interesting to hear their points of view and to be reminded once again that as teachers we often sit in a protected bubble where we don't really have to consider where the dollars that support our salaries and programs come from.

One person's story lingers.

This person had been the Ontario account manager for the largest kitchen cabinet maker in Quebec pre-recession.  The company was profitable and its workers were the highest paid in the industry.  This company had a 300 000 sq foot multi-million dollar new facility that was at the leading edge of cabinet production in North America and had no plans to leave our country.

From unionization to the closing of the facility took 3 short years.

Management never really understood why workers chose to unionize. They were already the best paid, including benefits in the industry. Once workers decided to unionize, though, union leaders became excessively demanding. Each round of contract negotiations was difficult. Leaders assumed that they were in control and that the company needed them to survive. They were wrong.

In the end the company decided that it was not worth the hassle. They shut down their brand new facility and gave up future earnings.

The impact on the account manager was immediate. His salary dropped from $20 000/month to $3 000/month where it remains today.

I believe the number of workers who lost their jobs was around 300.

This company still has smaller production facilities in Quebec but it is slowly shifting its production overseas - not because it wants to - but because it feels it has to.

Since the recession its other facilities have remained quiet. There has been so much job loss in Quebec that no one is demanding anything at the moment. None-the-less, the company continues to slowly shift production overseas because when the recovery comes, it doesn't want to find itself in the same position.

This was a sobering conversation, and not the first time I have heard this kind of story: company driven away by the demands of unions.

As someone who is currently protected by a union this is a sobering tale.