Mary-Dean Barringer, CEO, All Kinds of Minds
I'm a former special education teacher and have been skeptical – to say the least – about the national push to solve education problems by turning to the business world. So who would have thought that the most provocative and insightful book I've read about an education revolution would come from – you guessed it – Harvard Business School? Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (by Clayton Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn) is the new must-read book in all education circles. I was thrilled to read that our vision here at All Kinds of Minds – the idea that people learn in different ways and education must become compatible with how minds are wired to learn – is the cornerstone of the book.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit with co-author Michael Horn in North Carolina to talk further about how the work of All Kinds of Minds can begin to address the fundamental question Disrupting Class asks: "Why can't schools customize their teaching?" Transforming education to the learner-centric model the book proposes requires today's educators to develop professional expertise based on the science of learning – exactly what All Kinds of Minds' professional development programs deliver. I'm eager to continue to work with Michael and his new Innosight Institute…so stay tuned.
If you haven't read Disrupting Class yet, I encourage you to add it to your summer reading list!
Lest you think the ideas in Disrupting Class are all theory, I'd like to introduce my new favorite teacher, Heather Sparks, the current Oklahoma Teacher of the Year. I was recently in Oklahoma City, meeting with people from across the state who are helping All Kinds of Minds implement a statewide initiative to develop the capacity of educators as learning experts. I got to spend time with Heather, who shared with me how the Schools Attuned to All Kinds of Minds program is helping transform her middle school. Her greatest lesson outside of her classroom is reminding us all how important this work is for students, teachers and entire schools.
Read Heather's story below; she tells it far better than I do...
As learners at All Kinds of Minds, we invite you to teach us about your efforts to transform education by focusing on learning and learners. If you've read this far, I know that you have a passion for reaching struggling students, that you care deeply about your school and the climate of learning, and that you know understanding the way kids learn is the key to success for students across our country. I'm convinced that there are hundreds of stories just like Heather's that need to be heard and breakthrough ideas like the ones in Disrupting Class. You can share your story online or call us at 1-888-956-4637 extension 2114 (you can call late and leave a message for Julie if you'd prefer). Your story may just be the unexpected learning for someone that sparks a renewed sense of possibility. And isn't that what our best teachers do?
No Mind Left Behind: How Taft Middle School Is Transforming Its Approach for Struggling Learners
By Heather Sparks, 2009 Oklahoma Teacher of the Year
Note: A National Board Certified Teacher, Heather Sparks teaches math at Taft Middle School in inner-city Oklahoma City. The school serves some 850 students in grades 6 through 8, more than 90% of whom are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch programs.
This is a story of hope. Three years ago, our principal told our faculty that she wanted us to find and implement a school-wide reform project that would help us make a difference for our low-performing students. The first program we tried just didn't take root; we just didn't see a real connection with the learning issues we were seeing in our kids, many of whom come from very challenging situations.
I had gone through the Schools Attuned course in 2001 and knew what a powerful professional growth experience it is. I had also helped bring the program to two other schools I worked in before coming to Taft. So I was thrilled when my colleagues decided we should give it a try as part of our long-term strategy to better serve our students. Over the past two years, almost our entire staff of 72 has participated in Schools Attuned (the last few are taking the course this summer), and even those who were initially skeptical are now enthusiastic about this approach for our school.
With the All Kinds of Minds focus on understanding the learning process, our faculty members have really been able to see how it is going to help us entirely change the way we work with the kids who are struggling. My colleagues have individually talked about how they are doing things differently in their own classrooms – not leaping to conclusions about students, helping identify strengths, looking for clues about what underlies a particular student's challenges.
As a faculty, the Schools Attuned training has given us a common language to use so we can talk about individual students and what we’re observing; it has also given us tools we can use to collaboratively intervene with those students, both across subject areas and as students move from grade to grade. My math team has begun looking at how we can integrate what we have learned about learning into approaching our curriculum. At the school level we’re looking at using Title I dollars to fund faculty to take on profile advisor roles at each grade level to provide additional support.
What did we do for struggling students before we took this on as our school-wide approach? We'd say, "OK, let’s meet with his parents," or "let’s refer her for summer school." Or we’d start the referral process for special ed. But these aren't real strategies for addressing student learning issues, which is why the concepts and tools from All Kinds of Minds have really drawn us in.
Although we're still early in the process of implementing this school-wide, I am excited about the way it is transforming our school. The ideas and knowledge we have gained through the All Kinds of Minds professional development are not things you learn in college, and I believe teachers can’t leave it unchanged. It's a gift we now have to enable us to make a difference for all the kids we as teachers struggle to reach.
Share your stories, school implementation strategies or inquiries with Heather on our blog.
Math Word Problems: Take Away the Anxiety
A flower garden in the park has a total of 80 daisies. 30% of the daisies are red, ¼ are yellow, 2/5 are purple and 5% are pink. How many of each color flower are in the garden?
Do you find yourself immediately calculating 30% of 80? Did you start to draw a picture of daisies in a garden? Or did you just say "forget it?" Do problems like this make you anxious, or are you excited to solve the challenge?
Depending on our personal neurodevelopmental strengths and weaknesses, each of us may have a different reaction to math problems and may approach solving these kinds of problems differently.
So do our students! Some have profiles that lend themselves well to this kind of task. Other students read the problem and have no idea where to start.
Here are a few strategies that may help:
- Teach students to read for meaning, rather than searching for key words, when trying to identify the operation to use for a math word problem. For example, a student who can read a problem and restate it in his own words to help him realize that he’s been asked to combine amounts or add, will have a deeper understanding than a student who looks only for a key word or phrase in the sentence (e.g., 'total,' 'how many,' etc.) to indicate what operation to use.
- Teach students about strategies they can use for organizing a word problem before attempting calculations, for example, making a graphic chart that shows the important information, using a personalized checklist of steps, etc.
- Set up a 'math mentor' for the student. This person may be a mathematics teacher, or a professional in the community who uses math in his/her work, e.g., a surveyor, an architect, a research scientist, an accountant, etc.
- Build students' knowledge of when to apply rules and how rules are relevant using real life situations. For example, to teach the rules for rounding numbers, use items from a restaurant menu, "for sale" notices from classified ads, mileage on a map, etc. Have students talk about when it would be appropriate to use rounded numbers, and when the exact figure would be needed.
- Have students categorize related math problems together as variations of a larger rule (e.g., the steps for 4/5 = __%, and the steps for 80% = _/_ are different, but the steps fall within the larger rule for converting fractions to percentages).
- Help students see how patterns and rules reflect mathematical concepts. For example, first explain that the rules for regrouping rise from the concept of place value, then show the role regrouping plays in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This allows students to focus on the reasoning behind the rules. Moreover, instead of memorizing eight different sets of rules, students memorize two processes (borrowing and carrying) with variations.
- Have students use different representations to describe the same situation. For example, demonstrate how something can be shown using a table, a graph, written description, etc.
We also found some really cool websites that offer activities to help students practice math concepts and skills.
www.coolmath4kids.com
www.schooltimegames.com
www.mathplayground.com
www.funbrain.com
What sites have you found that are fun and engaging places to practice? Let’s talk more about strategies and web sites on the AKOM blog!
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