Tell Me a Story: Using Children’s Literature with Secondary Students

by Susan Nightingale, A Pass Educational Group April, Contractor of the Month

When I taught ‘at-risk’ middle school math students, I often found myself looking for ways  to engage a group of students that had basically already quit before the school year even began. One such activity involved using children’s books, designed for elementary students, to introduce mathematical concepts to my learners. At the time, I didn’t realize that I was utilizing a learning method. I just knew that everyone loves a story, and a children’s story book looks much less intimidating than the usual explanations and examples in a Pre-Algebra textbook.

In graduate school a year later, I discovered that this method has a name—narrative learning.  Marsha Rossiter defines it as connecting learners with new knowledge through the experience of a shared story (Rossiter, 2002). This method allows the learners to build new knowledge of the subject by incorporating their own experiences in story format.

Humans like to listen to and tell stories, regardless of age. These stories help put our experiences into context and provide a framework for new experiences. Teaching using stories is often effective then, because the stories provide believable, human-like experiences that involve the reader in the characters and actions and engage the reader both physically and mentally (Rossiter, 2002).

This may seem like an odd idea at this point—using a child’s book with older or even adult students, so I want to provide an example of how this narrative learning might work. A story provides the place for the learners to begin, then connect with other stories, and then to build their own.

In my middle school classroom, one of the books I used was called Less Than Zero. This image and description are from Amazon.


“Perry the Penguin needs 9 clams to buy an ice scooter -- but he's not very good at saving. As Perry earns, spends, finds, loses, and borrows clams, a simple line graph demonstrates the concept of negative numbers.” This children’s story provides a simple example of an often confusing math concept—negative numbers. The story introduces and illustrates the concept and subject matter in a non-intimidating way.





Figure 1: Less Than Zero by Stuart J. Murphy

Before reading the story, I showed the students the cover and asked them to predict the topic of the story. I would then ask the students questions like “What does it mean to be less than zero?” I also gave the students a printed number line so they could follow along with Perry the penguin’s line graph in the story. As I read the story, I showed them the pictures and began to facilitate a discussion of negative numbers and how the graph helped Perry to understand what it meant to have less than zero clams. This led into dialogue and stories about similar experiences from the students including other scenarios where ‘less than zero’ could occur i.e. temperature, sea level, distance, etc.

After allowing the students time to connect with the book and with other learner’s stories, I asked them to write and illustrate (if appropriate) their own short children’s story about negative numbers, drawing from their own experiences. Eventually the students would share, revisit, and revise their stories as their understanding of the concept increased.

Utilizing a book like Less Than Zero provides students with a story, pictures, and a little fun to organize the subject into their memory. Starting with a children’s story creates a safe environment for older students to share and create their own stories. According to Leona English, children’s literature “innocently but effectively” raises questions and prompts responses (English, 2000, p. 15). Since the book is an example for writing stories of their own, learners are not offended or degraded by the children’s story.

Stories provide coherence of our experience by creating a narrative around the subject to be learned and fitting the pieces together until they make sense. We remember stories because they put a real face on what can often be fuzzy concepts. My example involved a Pre-Algebra math concept, but this same method can apply to virtually any topic. The children’s story provides the introduction and the context, but when the students connect the story and therefore the concept to their own experiences, that’s when the learning begins. When they write their own story, they build an even stronger connection and understanding.

References

English, L. M. (2000). Children's literature for adults: A meaningful paradox. PAACE Journal of
Lifelong Learning, 9, 13-23. Retrieved from ERIC database.
Rossiter, M. (2002). Narrative and stories in adult teaching and learning. ERIC Digests, 241.
Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED473147.pdf

Learn How to Use Your Smart Board in the Classroom

by Twan De Leijer of Gynzy  

Classroom teachers should understand how technology has changed the way students learn in the classroom. Many children today are exposed to computer technology at an early age at home. Most parents have computers at home and they teach their children how to use the technology for their benefit. Many young children are already playing computer games over the Internet or with other technology devices even before they enter the classroom on the first day of school.

Many teachers today may not have had the same exposure to computer technology when compared with their younger students. It is important for them to be prepared and knowledgeable about the use of interactive smart board technology. Professional development courses will teach teachers how to incorporate the use of this computer technology in the classroom. Smart boards when combined with thoughtfully prepared lesson plans can engage the attention of students, maintain high levels of motivation and encourage students to excel in their classroom studies. Once teachers have mastered the basics of using the interactive smart board technology in the classroom, they should receive ongoing technical support from school technology professionals knowledgeable about the technical aspects of using smart boards.

Student Learning Achievement is High with the Use of Smart Boards 

Students respond positively to classroom lessons taught with the aid of an interactive smart board. Using interactive computer technology and smart board displays engages the attention of young students. They are motivated to learn and study the subject material when they are able to relate to the colorful visual displays in combination with well- planned and thought out verbal explanations. Students are excited about their education in school when the lesson is combined with visual pictures and graphics. 

Students share, model and demonstrate what they have learned from the interaction with the instructional lessons displayed on a smart board. They enjoy playing the role of a teacher by moving around objects on the smart board or through using the smart board to write down information learned in the classroom. They learn to master advanced critical thinking skills when they convey this acquired classroom knowledge to others. Smart boards create environments that encourage students to ask questions and learn more about a concept by exploring knowledge on their own in addition to studying the information they learn through the prepared lessons and classroom instruction of a teacher.

Ways that a Smart Board Helps with Lesson Plans

A smart board in combination with traditional teaching styles can accommodate the different learning styles of students. Tactical learners can touch and mark the smart board. Audio learners can hear the lesson and discuss key concepts and ideas. Visual learners can see graphs, pictures and other visual representations of the key lesson concepts and ideas. All learners will enjoy taking a break from routine lessons to watch an entertaining movie or other short video.

Teachers can insert images on the whiteboard and move these images around the smart board display. The press of an icon button will play pre-recorded sounds for students. Graphic displays, interesting simulations and educational multimedia activities are other ways to engage the attention of students. There are a lot of recourses out there that you can easily integrate in your lesson plans. Teachers should never stop learning new interactive whiteboard techniques or stop finding interesting educational resources to use along with the smart board. Learning to use a smart board is not as difficult as it may seem at first. Teachers will find that with practice they can learn to adapt to the use of this new technology in the classroom.

For a wonderful collection of Smart Board activities and more please visit Gynzy. 

The Value of Fun

by Stephen Gibson, Director for Social Studies Development at A Pass Educational Group

As the A Pass Content Team deliberated our Professional Development series for our contractors, it was obvious from an early stage that we wanted to avoid the typical lecture-audience idiom, or even the “how-to” video so familiar on YouTube these days.  Instead, we wanted to stress the interactivity of the workshops and actually get our associates involved in not only learning (or giving ear-service to) the practical skills they will use daily in A Pass’ projects, but demonstrating those skills as well. The manner in which we chose to have the attendees show these skills may strike you as somewhat out of character for a group of serious-minded education professionals - we decided to play a game.

Games and play are frequently stressed as important, even essential, aspects of learning at early grade levels. There are articles, websites and even university-level conferences dedicated to the furtherance of these ideas. Yet many of these concepts seem to fade as students age, and commonly disappear altogether by high school, and almost certainly beyond. While there are endless possible reasons for this, including the increasing seriousness with which we perceive ourselves as we age, it could plausibly be posited that the same values generated by lessons imbued with play/games for young children - creativity, collaboration, confidence - also resonate through similar activities for older children and adults as well.

It’s no secret that nursery rhymes from our early years impart informational nuggets that stay with us for decades thereafter. Similarly, simple mnemonic exercises that range from optical physics (Roy G. Biv), music (Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge and its variants) to industrial arts (righty-tighty; lefty-loose-y) translate pieces of information into something that the brain (and perhaps the soul) finds palatable enough to keep around.  A quick poll of my colleagues old (or young) enough to remember can still cite the preamble of the United States Constitution to the melody of the Schoolhouse Rock tune (In this writer’s humble opinion, Schoolhouse Rock has never been bettered as an extracurricular vehicle for making U.S. History, Government and Civics, Multiplication, or Grammar accessible to elementary school students!).

For various and sundry reasons, we learn better when we have fun. According to Brian Blade, Director of Healthy School Communities, a program of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, an educational leadership organization, “Brain research suggests that fun is not just beneficial to learning but, by many reports, required for authentic learning and long-term memory.” Far from the criticisms that perceive the inclusion of fun in education as being clownish, “touchy-feely” and, perhaps, irresponsible, fun reduces physical and mental anxiety in very real and measurable terms, which is conducive to learning at all ages. When these barriers are overcome, engagement with content and material naturally increases. A truism? Perhaps, but all too soon forgotten once cap and gown are attained and disposed.  

Fun is frequently dismissed at higher and professional education levels, often because of its connotations of child-like behavior, lack of rigorous standardization, and decreased productivity. Yet the same biological and mental processes: the reduction of anxiety, the increased levels of endorphins, epinephrine (adrenaline), and dopamine, etc. occur in adults exposed to different aspects of “fun”: laughter, positive cueing, and the joy of discovery.

We chose our game, a “scavenger hunt” of sorts, to camouflage a series of performance tasks, each of which was aligned to a specific pre-determined learning objective. The Learning Objectives were finite, could be measured on a rubric, and represented the practical acquisition and application of skills our Content Team deemed necessary for associates to have when participating and collaborating with our staff on projects with our clients. While the attendees to the workshop were doing these tasks simultaneously, this was not a race to the finish - no awards were given for speed - the only competition was within the attendees themselves as they strove to get to the next level of the game by employing the knowledge they had learned from earlier in the workshop.  

We’re hoping that each attendee to the A Pass Professional Development series on Google Drive found their new “discovery” hidden at each level to be a “fun” aspect of the exercise.  Additionally, it is anticipated that the skills that they’ve acquired and demonstrated here will prove invaluable to them through their future APass projects.