A Reflection on the Lifelong Learner Mindset

As the Edudemic Staff stated, "Doctors, lawyers, and other professionals never stop learning new techniques and strategies to hone their craft and remain on the cutting edge in their field- and so, too, do teachers," ("Lifelong Learning is a Crucial Educational Mindset"). Recently, I challenged myself with continuing to have a lifelong learner mindset in order to continue to build a network with other likeminded educators.

After reading "Lifelong Learning is a Crucial Educational Mindset," an article published by Edudemic, a few comments truly made me ponder:

• lifelong learning is an essential challenge for inventing the future of our societies 
• a lifelong learning mindset creates the challenge to understand, explore, and support new essential dimensions of learning such as: 
• self-directed learning
• learning on demand
• informal learning
• collaborative and organizational learning 
• lifelong learning fosters creativity in the information age

This article brought to the forefront of my mind the true importance of educators taking on the role of being lifelong learning, as well as the importance of teaching our students to have a lifelong learner mindset. This mindset creates the stamina to self-direct their own learning, to learn on demand, to learn in groups, to start a conversation- all things that lead to successful business owners, employees, and community contributors. The lifelong learner mindset helps us to overcome obstacles and know what to do in the hands of failure. 

This article also left me pondering a few questions myself:

• How do lifelong learners encourage other people that do not have a lifelong learner mindset to self-direct their learning?
• How can the world of education grow and become better if we do not all have a lifelong learner mindset?
• If you are at a school where the lifelong learner mindset is rare, how can one help the teachers to see the benefits that a lifelong learner mindset has on their career?

The article stated, "The best teachers are willing to learn from their students," (LLCEM). We as educators must allow learning to come from outside resources (books, blogs, websites...) as well as inside resources (students, other teachers, parents, administrators...).

Who are lifelong learners?

• self-starters
• innovators
• tech lovers (willing to allow students to learn and teach about tech usage)

My favorite quote from this article came towards the end when the authors inquired, "Can a teacher successfully educate students without becoming a lifelong learner?"(LLCEM). The authors also stated, "...teachers who adopt this mentality are more than excellent educators; they're excellent models for their students," (LLCEM).

Resources: http://www.edudemic.com/lifelong-learning-educational-mindset/

Making Math Lessons Authentic and Hands-On

Each unit in 4th grade math, my teaching partner and I are always looking for a way to make the math lesson meaningful and hands-on to truly take their learning to the next level. Too often a math lesson goes a little something like this:

• teacher teaches lesson to whole group
• students go back to seats and practice the concept
• students go home and work on homework worksheets to prove mastery
• repeat
• review for test
• tes

The problem with this? Student masters that concept for that period of time, learn it for the test, then poof! It leaves their mind until the next school year.

As a math teacher, I know the importance of giving our students time to practice a concept, inquire, grow, and make mistakes. I also know the importance of ensuring that the lesson is connected to real-world learning. The importance of showing our kids that the concept they are learning today, truly is used in the real-world. And of course, the importance of making that lesson fun. 

Last unit the students were exploring multiplication and division arrays and we brainstormed different ways to get our students to create something that would put these skills to work. (And, in all honesty, we needed something to put in the hallway. I know you elementary teachers feel me on this one!) We had also been discussing factors and multiples - a challenging concept for 4th graders to truly master. Our brainstorm went a little something like this:

• have students work in partners to research skyscrapers in our world
• use those skyscraper heights to compare and contrast to one another (For example, students would explain that Skyscraper X is 3 times the height of Skyscraper Y.) 

We quickly realized that this wasn't necessarily going to work for our objectives and altered our thinking:

• students would work in partners to create a skyscraper and name their building
• students would decide how many windows that skyscraper would have and write an array to match the number of windows (For example, 5 X 7 = 35 windows)
• students would then double, triple, quadruple and half that number of windows to practice multiplication and division
• students would choose one of their new arrays and create a new building with that many windows
• students would write a sentence comparing their two buildings and window arrays
• students used black construction paper to create buildings
• students used the Canva App to create their poster to match their building which included the 2 arrays, a picture of their buildings that they created, and a sentence comparing the two buildings

Initially, we intended for this project to take us 2 days in class to complete. We must've been dreaming! It took closer to 5 and part of the 6th day to truly complete the project. At first, we reflected and thought, "Man, that was a fun project but it sure set us back in our lesson planning a few days!" The kids collaborated, inquired, problem-solved, used technology to show their thinking, compared, analyzed, led... because of this one project. Yes, it took more time than we anticipated. Yes, it was a lot of work. But, it was well worth it. We ultimately reflected and discussed the fact that our thinking as teachers must change to allow for more hands-on, authentic moments in our classroom. We have to be willing to let some things go. Why does every unit have to be followed by an exam? Couldn't the project count as the exam? Could we flip our lessons so that they students are still hearing us teach at night by using recordings? 

One of my favorite things that came out of this project was the fact that some of our students truly took the learning and connections above and beyond what I expected. I was anticipating most students to complete projects similar to the ones pictured above. And, in fact, most did look similar to the ones pictured above. But, some students took the liberty to go out on a limb and connect their learning to a lesson we had previously taught. Some students chose not to compare and contrast the window arrays by simply saying, "Building 1 has 3 times the number of windows as Building 2." Instead, they come up with this:

Never was I expecting our students to use factors and multiples to compare their window arrays, but they did! They used what we had taught them previously to create their comparison. What?! 

It's projects like these that truly make me reflect on my goals as a math teacher. Am I trying to get my students to know how to take tests? To complete problems on a worksheet? To learn in the manner that many math classrooms run? Or, am I trying to get them to use soft skills alongside problem-solving, hands-on and authentic learning? We must allow for room in education for our students to take learning into their own hands all while being okay with our lesson plans changing. 

When the Student Becomes the Teacher

As a 4th grade math teacher I am always looking for ways to put my kids in the driver seat. I am always trying to find ways for them to be doing the teaching rather than me. How can I give them a real audience? How can I allow them to take more ownership in their learning? How can I provide them with more of a voice in my classroom? After reflecting on those (and many more) questions, my teammate and I decided to give Seesaw a shot in our classroom and man was it a success! The kids absolutely loved their homework. Yes, you read that correctly. They loved doing their homework! They loved that they could watch each other's videos, like the video, and even comment on videos. They liked that they were not completing a worksheet for once.

So let's back up... A normal night in 4th grade math consists of student's completing a worksheet covering a topic that they learned either that day in class or recently. Worksheets can be necessary on one hand, but really don't provide room for differentiation, checking for understanding, or insight into the student's thinking. We were teaching our kids how to use an addition method known as partial-sums method and many kids were struggling with how to use this method. My teammate and I decided that this would be a great time to use the Seesaw app because we would quickly be able to assess who understands the method and who needs some extra help. Plus, bonus, it gave them a real world audience, their classmates. Each kid was asked to go home and use the whiteboard feature on the app and create a quick, short tutorial that would teach someone how to use the partial sums method. We quickly not only realized who has mastered the method and who hasn't, but also who has great public speaking skills and who needs some work. The kids learned a very valuable skill that happens daily in our world - commenting on each other's work. Training wheels for one day when they have social media accounts. We were able to use a controlled app to teach them appropriate ways to comment/like each other's work and leave a positive digital footprint. What were some of their reactions when they came to school the next day?
"That was actually fun homework!"
"Can we use Seesaw again?"
"I liked how one of my classmates used a hard problem. It really showed that they were challenging themselves."
"I liked that I could watch other people's videos and learn from my classmates."

Seesaw can always be used in reverse where the teacher creates a video to share with their students. Think flipped classroom.

Here is an example of one of the Seesaw videos that a student created teaching the Partial-Sums Method: http://tinyurl.com/znvlr4v