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It'd be nice if it was large enough (super size poster) so that when students let their eyes wonder, they could be looking at/reading something that has to do with the subject matter.
Special thanks to Ivorytickler for a change to the periodic table one. Hydrogen was represented incorrectly. I changed it to it's own color and added this note...
Hydrogen can be placed with either noble gases...
(requires only 1 electron to achieve stable valence shell)
...or placed with Alkali Metals
(can lose an electron to achieve stable valence shell)
On another note, got an offer of help. Wow! I jumped at that. I am learning that (all) you guys are smoking busy. Recently, a teacher was telling me about all the non-classroom stuff (+ endless meetings!) you guys do on top of everything else.
I am looking for help. Anything to relieve some of the effort an inner city school has to dedicate to this project. If I can go to them with a new version (more accurate/complete) or one that is scaffolded already, that's huge for them. And I will share all this with anyone who wants it. Already sent a few messages with plot files that can be taken to your local FedEx store and plotted. They should cost less than $10.
It's a bit complicated and I think an explanation would help...
Genesis for the idea...
In putting together the biology placemat, I thought it was important to do some research on teenagers (end users). I spent about a month reading everything I could on the subject and found two huge blind-spots that could undermine the placemat. First, I have heard a lot of students don't want to be in biology class. They take it because it's mandated, but have little interest in pursuing it later in college. This is where modernizing the curriculum (idea) was born. Make biology entertaining to the non-biologists. And I would like to think a few more students, after learning about A-Rod, PEDs and seeing Biology on a wall size graphic may warm to the subject? That idea is pretty straight forward!
The second obstacle is the presence of disruptive students in the classroom. This can range from wisecracks to sleeping in class. The adults try to deal with these students, which I call Hawks (i.e. Defectors).
A good starting point (in my understanding of hawks) is what I think are the 4 forms of influence on a teenager. (1) Societal influence (e.g. poverty, stop and frisk, etc) is broken for many kids. I think this leaks into (2) institutional influence which is primarily family and school. Bad family and society dynamics mean teachers are already starting in a hole. (3) Group influence is gangs, friends, sports, etc and I think the ultimate answer to neutralizing hawks. Finally, (4) individual influence is super hard for a kid with a developing brain. Most adults are not self-reflective
OK. Society and family are making it impossible for teachers to get a leg up. Kids (as individuals) are selfish and not thinking about tomorrow, much less their future. But there is one SUPER motivator in all this mess -- the acceptance of their peers. It's highly manipulative, but I think classrooms can leverage peer bonding and pressure into better engagement. < I know... I am totally wacko!!
Before I go into Game Theory, here is a third thing I learned this summer. Few of the innovation/reforms seem to be focused on the teacher/student interaction. The schools either bypass the teachers with laptops, grad labs, tutors, whatever or think the answer is to pile a ton of training on the teachers and at worst, replace experienced teachers. The biology placemat and newsletter of biology events are "teacher support" tools. Administrators should be coming to you every day saying how can we help YOU!! What do you need? How can we help make your classroom experience better? And some of these solutions (see Game Theory) are well hidden, operating (deep) behind the scenes.
Game Theory
This idea will be very controversial in education because it seems to be a little Machiavellian. A computer program would be written to generate dynamic seating charts (change each day) for classes. The desks would be organized in pods of 4 students. Each pod would be assigned a letter and each seat would be assigned a number from 1 to 4. Hanging on the classroom door every day is a list of where each student is to sit that day. Tommy? A3. Mary? H4. All of this is designed by an algorithm.
At the end of each class, the teacher only has to do one thing. Open a mobile app on her/his phone (or make a note for later) that force ranks the tables. Table I performed the best, followed by B, then F, then A. My worst performing table today was C. All of this is fed back into the algorithm as it works to find the right combinations to put at each table. < At this point, even I am saying, no way this is going to work.
But Game Theory is very complicated. It seeks the point of equilibrium where each student is maximizing selfishness. And it's not just sitting at a table with three counterbalances. The arrangement of these 4 students at that table (A1, A2, A3, A4) and even the location of the table relative to the teacher are coded into the algorithm.
There is a bonus idea in this theory. I think a driving factor of hawkishness is (early and) poor grades. If a defector gets 3 F's in September, s/he starts to give up. Why try when I am already in such a deep hole. The bonus (idea) is to start with class-wide tests. Let the entire class collaborate (w/ a few rules) to get an A together. Then the left side of the class works together. The front of the class is teamed up for a grade. This builds a tribe-like environment and gets these hawks some positive grades to start the year. Eventually, some grades are done at the 4 seat pod level. And because the seating chart is constantly changing, kids never know where they will be on test/project day. A student can let down the teacher or let down himself, but it's much harder to let down your fellow classmates who are counting on you for their grade. And I (totally!!) get there needs to be many test/homework grades that are individual-based.
It's much more detailed than this (see placemat!), but get the gist. It's about forcing the class to become a tribe, depend on one another and stay on their toes. You never know what tomorrow's seating chart with look like... you may be sitting next to a beautiful/handsome student? A running buddy? A straight A student? You need to be ready! And the teacher, already weakened by societal/family corruptions on the hawk, can shift the (some) impetus back onto the students. There is a lot of literature that says while kids understand fear, they get a small thrill out of getting under an adult's skin. Personally (dangerous territory for me!), I think some of the hawkishness can be traced back to a feeling and subsequent cover-up, of the hawk's inadequacy.
Last edited by Edu.Architect; 08-31-2013 at 11:09 AM..
Aliss2 -- Totally with you. Wouldn't it be cool, though, to link every label on the placemat to a section in the textbook! Click Thigmotropism on the graphic and it tells you to go to page 441 in your textbook for more information. Almost like a visual index/table of contents! Also no placemat is for sale... all volunteer work.. and who knows whether it will help?!
I got into a huge debate this morning about my game theory idea and whether putting a dove with a hawk is a good idea (even temporarily for the day). Will the hawk overwhelm (translation… corrupt) the dove. With the seating chart changing everyday, think we are cool... not going to be a leading cause of dove corruption.
But I actually argued that seating a hawk next to a different group every day is a huge advantage. I did some work on diversity hiring a few years ago and it's been proven that a diverse group always outperforms a homogenous group. If you want to see the part of my diversity placemat that explains this, click here. This is not meant to be a standalone graphic and only one small piece of a larger placemat. It's based on the Diversity Prediction Theorem.
Bottom line is that when diverse groups are formed, the #1 advantage is they look for a "simpler" solution to a problem. Pretty wild. With different backgrounds/experiences/etc the goal of a diverse group is to remove unneeded things from a solution. Make it elegant.
On the other hand, a(ny) homogeneous group (not just white men!!) tends to get worked up (chest beating!) and end up adding complexity to a solution. They also tend to suffer from group think and break into tangents much more often.
So, I think creating diverse groupings in the classroom not only helps with behavior, but helps overall performance!
PS: Don't want to open a can of worms, but this is probably one of the stronger arguments against tracking...
Last edited by Edu.Architect; 09-03-2013 at 11:54 AM..
Absolutely! I'm in - for ESL If you get around to it, I will first in line to purchase You could use charts/graphs of facial movements/IPA [international phonetic chart]/tense graphs/highlight long & short vowels, etc
Thought it would be cool to share some progress. Really interested in push back. I have no skin in the game. Just a shot in the dark that this idea may work.
Heard from a former teacher that giving the high school 5-6 different options for executing the placemat may be a bad idea. Paradox of choice... too many options, not sure which is the best. Little paralyzing.
The options are:
Hang it on the wall as a gallery piece. Reference it every once in awhile, but really it's just some eye candy that comes in handy throughout the year.
Hang it on the wall, but in 4 layers. Layer one is the easy material. Class spends the first quarter covering the entire biology curriculum, but at a basic level. At the beginning of the second quarter, rips off the top placemat sheet and goes back through the entire curriculum, adding more detail. Level 4 is the most detailed (lot's of vocab!) and comes just before the state test.
Don't hang it on the wall at all. Just project it. Teacher can zoom in, click a link, get more information. Guess kids could use it via a website too?
Hang it on the wall, but also print larger versions (blow ups) of 30-40 areas of the placemat. Take ecosystem (example) and make it it's own poster. Teacher has a poster rack up front and can pull out larger pieces of the overall placemat to hang and use for the lesson(s).
Maybe there are more? If you guys have any coaching, I would really appreciate it. I think we've hit a little speed bump. Great idea. Cool placemat. But now what? We need help putting boots on the ground. They don't want 5 different ideas... they want my best idea!
And on a different note, I am setting up two meetings with school districts outside of the city. Have been told suburban/rural ISDs are sometimes more open to new innovations.
Will keep posting here for a little while. Know it's bad mojo to post again and again, but figure something might strike a chord?
Had a four hour meeting yesterday about how to execute the placemats in the classroom. There was a huge debate about making it an iPad app or using technology to enhance delivery. but then something occurred to me overnight... it woke me up.
If this goes tech, it can bypass the teacher... and that's the opposite of what I want to do. I believe strongly in a strategy that keeps this tool inside the 4 walls of a classroom. It's an exclusive teacher tool. Principal can't do it, head office can't do it... the kid's can't do it without the teacher. This approach almost seems counter-intuitive.
But as soon as we turn it into an iPad app, the school district will find a way to bypass the teacher and take the material straight to the student. Now it's gone from a special tool designed for a teacher to one more outside pressure added to the teacher's plate.
Imagine this exclusively in the domain of a teacher. It's the teacher's alone. That's pretty cool!
The other takeaway? I was told many inner city elementary schools are a mess. My response was that I needed high schools because of all the metrics. Placemat is very innovative, so it needs a leap of faith. Leaps come from, "I am ready to try anything." But I was told the elementary teachers are getting creamed too... tons of pressure, state tests, jobs tied to a third grader's performance... wow!
So, I may try to use the placemat at a 3rd grade level sooner than later... should be interesting! And go figure, the game theory (seating chart) idea is just as powerful with third graders. I hear hawks are well formed by 3rd grade.
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Game Theory
