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Creating High Performance Learning Environments

Video Analysis - #1 Roller Coaster Physics

1. Teaching-learning situations

Teaching and learning situation occurs when students and teachers with common interests come together for the purpose of developing an authentic product or a service that is an application of their common interest. Teachers are a rich resource for students when they examine their own interests in ways that reach far beyond their content expertise and general classroom experience.

From the video we can see that this is a very effective STEM lesson. Through engineering design process, students learnt the academic objective-potential, kinetic energy knowledge. Students worked and at play within the design challenge. When students were involved in the engineering design process, the math and science that they were learning and applying into that design challenge kind of seamlessly come out. STEM lessons take the time to really have students buy in. All students in Mrs. Migdol’s class were doing the things they were supposed to do, they were going to get where they needed to go at the end.  

2. Teacher’s behavior expectations for students.

From the video we saw that in Mrs. Migdol’s class to begin with high behavior expectations for her students, and the end with a well-organized and effective class.

Ø  Be safe - Safety is the premise of an effective class. Mrs. Donna Migdol highlighted the safety.

·   Before the engineer design process started, Mrs. Migdol already checked safety of all materials.

·   Students created roaster that was both fun and safe at the same time.

·   Each student used materials properly.

·   Each students keep hands and feet to themselves, especially during the group work time.

Ø  Be respectful – From the video we could see that students treated others respectful, and used kind words and actions. They also shared materials.

Ø  Be responsible – In the videos, all students did their best, help their classmates when they were asked or discussed.

3. Teacher’s academic expectations for students.

Mrs. Migdol set high academic expectations for her students. The specific analyses are as below.

Ø  Good engineer style. It was an engineering design process, so Mrs. Migdol requested her students’ thinks, acts as a real engineer in the whole process. Just like she said in the video: “I really think that good engineers learn from what they experience and tested beforehand.”

No matter the students discussed in their groups, made computer simulation, or did the experiments, they performed as professional engineers.

Ø  Be a communicator and collaborator. Communication is a huge part of engineering design process. Students would stay individual idea to themselves. They also had to communicate their ideas with their peers. Also there were four designs in one group, but they had to come to one design. So students had to do a lot of team building through communication and collaboration, students learnt and got smarter in terms of widening their ideas about how the world works.

Ø  Be a good problem – solver. Just as Mrs. Migdol said: “One of the key piece for STEM for me as a teacher is to see the students welcoming problems.” STEM is creating life-long problem solvers. When students have a problem, they ask themselves “What do I have to do to modify it? How am I get fix it. It is all about modification and working with science and math to do that.

4. Norms and procedures. Norms and procedures exert deeply influence in class. A procedure is simply a method or process for how things are to be done in a classroom. Learning takes place only when a student is at work. The procedures set the class up for achievements to take place. From the video we saw that students knew how they were expected to behave and work in the classroom work environment, and they participated successfully in engineering design process. I believed that Mrs. Migdol had already taught and trained students the procedures at the very beginning of the school year, so they showed us a well-organized and smoothly operated class.

Video Analysis - #2 3^rd Grade Chinese Math

1. Teaching-learning situation

It was a Chinese immersion program lesson. What is Chinese immersion program? In order to develop students’ literacy in Chinese language, the sooner students are exposed to the language, the more proficient in Chinese language.

It was a math lesson, because the student recited the multiplication rhyme. It was also a Chinese language lesson, because all students learnt math in Chinese language.

2. Teacher’s behavior expectations for students. From the short video I saw Ms. Yang set high behavior expectations for her students.

Ø  Students sat in one spot, kept their hands and feet to themselves.

Ø  Students’ eyes were on the teacher.

Ø  Students raised hands before speaking.

Ø  Students could immediately react to teacher.

3. Teacher’s academic expectations for students.

Ø  Teacher set high academic expectations for students in math.

·   It was obviously to see that teacher hold high academic expectations for students. Students recited multiplication rhyme fluently reflected Ms. Yang’s expectation. It won’t happen in one day.

·   Students who were in the third grade have practiced complicated subtraction. It challenged students, but they positively respond to it.

Ø  Teacher set high academic expectation in Chinese language.

·   Students spoke Chinese in the whole process.

·   Students answered to teacher’s questions in Chinese.

·   Ms. Yang Spoke in Chinese during the whole process.

All in all, students exposed in Chinese language, they were learning and applying Chinese language and math. In my opinion, they made their academic achievements.

4. Norms and procedures.

Because the video was too short, so I only saw part of Ms. Yang’s class norms and procedures.

It was carpet time; students kept their eyes on teacher, and follow the directions immediately.

Ms. Yang reinforced the procedure“One，two; one, two, three, four, OK”It was important to reteach, rehearse, practice, and reinforce the classroom procedure until it becomes a student habit or routine.

Video Analysis - #3 Whole Brain Teaching

1. Teaching-learning situation

Whole Brain Teaching is a highly interactive form of instruction that delivers information to students in short “chunks.” Students then teach what they have just learned to their partners, using hand-gestures to help remember academic content. It was a world geography lesson, teachers applied whole brain teaching strategy.

2. Teacher’s behavior expectations for students.

It was obviously that teacher set high expectations for her students.

Ø  Students stayed in their seats.

Ø  Students followed instructions.

Ø  Students participated when they were asked.

Ø  Students focused on the presentation.

Ø  Students kept their hands to themselves.

3. Teacher’s academic expectations for students.

From the video we could see that teacher set high expectations for her students in geography lesson.

Ø  Students learnt latitude and longitude concepts quickly.

Ø  Students were engaged in their learning.

Ø  Students enjoyed their group activity time.

4. Norms and procedures.

The teacher set very clear norms and procedures. The best part of the class is that students use body gestures and rhythm to follow the rules and procedures.

Ø  When the teacher mentioned about rule number 1, all students not only did what rule number 1 request, but also rhythm rule number 1.

Ø  When the teacher said “Page 7 geography book”, students sung while turning page 7.

Above all reflect students were familiar with the norms and formed good habit to the procedures.

Summary of setting high performance expectations among my students

In my mandarin Chinese class, students are 6-10 years old; they are from different countries. Some of them are self-support students, the others are scholarship students.

As we all know that teacher’s expectations exert deeply influence on students’ achievements. We should set high performance expectations among our students. I believe that all my students can learn. Learnt from the videos, here are some specific points to be highlighted.

1. Learning environment - Create rapport with my students. All three videos show us the rapport between teachers and students. Students have to feel safe in their classrooms. I must establish a positive and safe classroom environment. By setting reasonable norms, rules and procedures, students will be more engaged in learning. Differentiated classroom is also based on the inclusive environment.

2. Instructional strategies for creating high performance learning environment.

2.1 Instructions from video “Roller Coaster Physics”

Ø  PBL. In my opinion that STEM is a kind of project-based learning method. To apply PBL in Chinese class can engage students in their learning, prompt their achievements.

Ø  Chiming time. Pick a chimer in each group, and they tell about what trials and tribulations they had the week before. I can use this method for group activities in Chinese class. It is a formative assessment tool for me to understand to get a pulse of where the students are.

Ø  Group discussion. Students were divided into groups; they designed the process by group discussion. I also use discussion to promote autonomous learning, where students value each other’s ideas.

Ø  Sketch is important. In Chinese writing class, it is meaningful to use sketch method. For me, it is a good way to assess what my students’ ideas are. For students, it is a tool to do self assessment and peer’s assessment.

Ø  Listen and see students’ misconceptions. The more I can capture, the more I can then develop my future lessons to deal with them.

Ø  Learn from mistakes. It is OK to make mistakes. Tell students that they will actually learn more if they fail often. In the video, students failed at the beginning, they learnt from their mistakes.

2.2 Instructions from video “3^rd Grade Chinese Math”.

Ø  Use target language in the class. It is important to use Chinese language in teaching and learning. Even math lesson, science lesson. The aim of Chinese immersion program is to facilitate students language skill development.

2.3 Instructions from video “Whole Brain Teaching”.

Ø  Super speed reading. It is a useful method, which I can apply in Chinese class. By doing though, students will be motivated to learn.

Reference

1. Muhammad Abdul Malik.(2011) "Role of Teachers in Managing Teaching Learning Situation". Retrieved from 

http://journal-archieves8.webs.com/783-833.pdf

2. Harry k. Wong & Rosemary T. Wong, 1998, "The first days of school"，Harry k. Wong  publications．