Learners Thrive with a Public Audience
By Jim Moulton
6/20/09
I drove over to Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine, this morning. I had been invited to see a set of culminating presentations of collaborative research projects by college students and alternative-education students from a local middle school.
As I sat in the small audience -- one of about five outsiders who had responded to the invitation to come be part of the event -- I was struck by how important it was that we were there. Yes, there were only a few of us, but the kids knew we were there. They saw their principal and a former teacher who now works with technology at the school district level, as well as three others they didn't know -- one of those three being me. But we were adults, and we were there, and we were all leaning forward and listening intently to their words. We cared.
I did not know the kids. I was there because of an invitation from my friend, Gretchen, a wonderful middle school science teacher just finishing a year as teacher in residence in the education department at Bates. These projects were done during a short-term course she had taught around research-based fieldwork in a middle grade science program. They had done research at a nature preserve Bates owns that contains forest, rocky shore, and sandy beach on the Atlantic Ocean, near Bath, Maine.
These were middle school kids, and so I watched their body language and social interactions to see how the audience affected them. What I saw was a uniform desire to do their best, and a willingness to engage not only with content but also with their audience in a mature and thoughtful way. I am confident that the presence of a few extra caring adults in the room made a difference.
One group had studied the beach, paying close attention during a week's time to the movement of sand. They measured erosion and deposition of sand at various points on the beach and used their results to eloquently describe how a beach -- a place that appears to the nonscientist to just sit there -- is actually very much in motion.
The audience applauded at the end of each presentation, and, once the students were all done presenting, asked serious questions about the research -- not simply out of politeness but because we had been engaged. These teams -- college students working with kids involved in alternative education programs -- had done interesting work and had produced informative presentations.
So, this made me want to ask, how do we get other adults into your classroom to be part of our kids' audiences? Or do you take the kids' work on the road? Have you seen the presence of nonteachers and nonparents who care about the work make a difference for kids? Have you seen what I saw that day at Bates College, in room G-52? Please share your thoughts.
Assessment: Exhibition of Mastery
Hi Jim,
Thank you for your important post regarding the importance of public involvement in student assessment.
Please see the examples of student exhibitions linked to the following url: http://digitaldemocracyproject.org. All of the students showcased are students from a small Maine high school and they all defend global service learning projects in a forum open to the public in multiple ways. In addition, specific members of the public were invited to sit on juries for these exhibitions--becoming a direct part of the assessment for learning process. Using a rubric given well in advance, access to student benchmarks for the projects, and an online forum for Q and A these members of the public rated student exhibitions along with faculty from across the curriculum this last June.
Further, the students showcased use an ePortfolio system which allows them to "share" artifacts or (views)from their ePortfolios with the public through the above website.
Public involvement in education is so vital. Thank you for your blog post.
Warm regards,
Thomas
http://lincolnacademy.org/mahara/
Learners thrive with a public audience
I am a media specialist who worked with a 2nd grade teacher and her class to create individual PowerPoints showcasing their research on penguins. Parents were invited to see the students present the PowerPoints and it was a wonderful activity. The students were proud to present their work and enjoyed the role of "teacher" as they showcased their work. We did this during the school day, in the library. Cookies and juice at the end. Parents were impressed and students were proud. Of particular interest, was the pride exhibited by students who don't have access to technology at home, yet had the opportunity to do this at school.
Technology
I think technology is important in education, unfortunately in my district our computers were a real problem. We had several days when our kids could not go to the computer lab because the the computers were down. We were however required to go for 30 minutes every day. It was in my lesson plans and when it was down I had to come up with something to do for 30 minutes. When it was up and running it was incredibly slow. Hopefully next year it will to a better expierence for the kids and for me
Who's Who In the Community
I have third and fourth grade students choose an adult from the community that they consider an important/interesting individual. The students are taught interviewing skills and develop questions - then they call and arrange an interview with the adult (parents help with this out-of-school time). Students bring back their notes and create a report. The adults are invited to have lunch at school with the students, where the reports are read and presented to the community members. We have had the mayor, an artist, a priest, mechanic, military personnel, a newspaper editor, etc. attend.
Learners Thrive with a Public Audience
Jim,
Bravo for sharing this important observation! I am an NBCT who taught eighth grade World Geography for 10 years and an essential strategy for us was exactly what you described - bringing in Public Audiences. Sometimes it would just be students from the other team, sometimes it was outside adults (e.g. they would be the IOC judging which city would earn the next Olympic berth).
Not only were the students fully engaged, whether GT, ESL, or SpEd, they were usually sharply dressed and delivered some of their finest work. Like you wrote, the adults were just as fully engaged and this partnership had many rewarding consequences beyond the immediate participation.
I think what happens is that it makes the learning more authentic, more relevant, and more challenging. All of that helps to engage the learners as well as the adults, a true win-win.
John
(now a corporate director of learning)
Audience Matters
Capitalizing on our recent, historical presidential election, my 6th/7th/8th graders researched each candidate's view on hot topics such as the environment, war in Iraq, immigration, and the economy. Once armed with the facts, they wrote persuasive speeches as non-voters and presented their views to voters the evening before the election. Catchy slogan such as, "I can't vote, but you can", "Your choice affects my future", sprang from their work. They were nervous, but very proudly made their points. Needless to say, the adult audience was impressed as well.
Later in the year in response to student complaints regarding our new, healthy, lunch program, the students chose and researched various healthy eating topics. I felt understanding the why behind the food change might help with the moans and groans. They then held a Health Fair for a totally different age group than before-our elementary students.
Not only did having an audience in both of these events up the ante, but they learned a tremendous amount more than they would have without one. Thanks for the topic!
Extending the product outside the classroom
This reminds me and reinforces some of what I have read from Phil Schlechty: Extend the products of the students so they are visible beyond the classroom. Seems like we should be able to do this a lot more since we have the tools now.
http://www.schlechtycenter.org/tools/public/sc_pdf_engagement.pdf
Thanks for sharing, and hats off to the middle school students and their teacher.
Mark
True Relevance in the Classroom
Teachers who set up these types of real world learning activities are to be commended for their efforts. It takes a lot of creativity, time, research, and collaboration to pull off these projects. Yet, they can be so rewarding for the student participants in developing the problem solving skills they will need in the future, and shows them that they can have a valuable impact on the world around them.
I agree that an authentic audience is essential in building student interest and encouraging them to invest their efforts in creating an outstanding product. In my experiences with seventh graders, I have noticed that my students are excited to prepare for any audience, but their attention to detail seems to be better when preparing for an adult audience.
I am a health and physical education teacher, so my content lends itself well to practical applications. However, there are certainly times when my creativity fails me and I cannot think of projects that are rigorous but also relevant. In those instances it is so valuable to me to hear of the successful projects of other educators. Even if I learn of projects in different content areas, it still jump-starts my brainstorming and gives me ideas for how to incorporate some of the same concepts with my content.
My students recently finished a service learning project in which they joined other classes in developing a health fair. They created activity and information stations for several different target groups in the community, all related to heart disease prevention. They chose the topic due to the heart trouble experienced by our principal at the beginning of the year. It was great to see the kids so interested in showing the public what they had learned, but also with the added inspiration of delivering potentially life-changing information to the people around them. They were so proud to display what they had learned, and the knowledge that their work would be viewed by so many was a great motivator to bring out their best efforts.
Their voting is our hope...
Pat -
What a wonderful thing, to involve kids in the election as you did. I think a lot about the importance of helping kids understand the power of brief statements - aphorisms - such as you mention. In a twitter-mad world, we need to teach how to put power in 140 characters. Mmmm... How about that as an assignment - the 140 character meaningful story. I know a fellow who does a wonderful writing program online in Vermont for middle and high school, and he shared with me a "seven word" assignment - asking kids to write something that mattered in seven words.
Cheers.
Jim
Authentic Learning and Reflection
John -
Thom Markham, in the Edutopia video "Engineering Success: Students Build Understanding" says something along the lines of "reflection equals retention."
So it is the preparation for this or that presentation that delivers the value - as the kids prepare, because they care, they are reflecting on content. The more we re-read, re-consider, re-word, re-think, the deeper we set the learning, don't you think?
Yes, special events are great. But at my house it is the fact that folks are coming over for dinner that convinces me (via my wife's reminders) that its time to clean off that desktop and put those extra pairs of shoes back in my closet. Yes, the dinner is fun, but the hard work happens before the guests arrive!
Cheers.
Jim