Blog Post #5

What makes up a good unit?

When the word ‘unit’ comes to mind, the first thing I think of is many different lessons around a central topic.  For example, a unit on canoe plants would be made up of various lessons about plants that were brought to Hawai’i by canoe.  In this unit, students would learn why plants were brought on canoe, what purposes these plants serve, how they took care of the plants on their voyage on canoe, etc.  When it comes to the ideal timeframe of a unit, I think it really depends on how in depth the teacher wants to go into this topic.  A teacher needs to think, “How long will it take for my students to understand what I want them to know about canoe plants?”

A good teacher keeps in mind the students every step of the way.  If the students are not getting it, the teacher should consider spending more time on that concept.  Whereas if the kids are just breezing right through, that may be an indicator to the teacher that he/she could just quickly review this topic as students are showing they have already mastered the topic. This is why informative assessments in the form of exit passes, thumbs-up thumbs-down activities are extremely important in teaching.  These informative assessments INFORM the teacher of how to teach. It helps them to understand whether their kids got it or if they still need to deepen their understanding in that concept.  

 In some instances a unit could be as short as 2 lessons, some units could last a couple weeks, meanwhile, some units may need an entire quarter of the school year to deepen students’ understanding of the topic at hand.  I don’t think that there is a direct answer for how long an ideal unit should be.

Within a unit there needs to be essential vocabulary that the students must know in order to master the topic.  There also needs to be multiple different ways for students to show you that they understand what they have learned.  It is important for teachers to differentiate assessments based on their students’ needs and capabilities.  If a student of yours always bombs tests but can verbally tell you exactly what he has learned about various canoe plants, a teacher should take that into consideration.  We all know that everyone learns in different ways, so why should we assess them all in the same format?  This is where teachers can give choice: you can either take this test, answer this essay question, show me your portfolio, or do a piece of artwork that clearly depicts what we’ve been learning.  Of course, if you provide choice like this, each assessment should come with a detailed rubric assessing the depth of knowledge.  The rubric’s expectations should be similar for each assessment

Hayden's Blog #4

I wanted to use this free blog to sort of document my journey through this first quarter at Kalaheo.  I find myself redefining this masters program and the idea of place-based learning on a daily basis. And in doing so I’m constantly thinking of new ways to implement the things I learn in the classroom.

I recently saw a documentary called “Most Likely to Succeed” that really summed up project-based learning and also helped me to see the direction this master’s program is leading us. The movie was all about how our education system is 100 years old and not relevant to this modern day age where computers have taken the place of humans in the workforce. Therefore their point was that our education system is failing because we’re using an outdated educational system that was predicated on producing blue collar factory workers. The old system stressed learning all the subjects in silos and memorizing and testing students to retain information. What this movie was saying is that nowadays, where machines can think and memorize 1000 times the information that a human can, we have to create a new kind of student. We need students  that are able to problem solve, think creatively, and work together. These are the qualities that a computer cannot mimic, and therefore will be valued in the workplace as we move forward into the future.

As I learn about all these problems with our DOE system, it’s fascinating to me to see it play out firsthand in my classroom.

A perfect example is reflecting back to the first couple weeks when my co-teacher explained her concern with all the “Hawaiian stuff” I was teaching the kids. For one, she didn’t think it was relevant to Natural Resource class, and two she was worried that the kids would fail the tests and thus would reflect badly on her as a teacher. Her exact quote was, “I’m the one who has to answer for poor test scores, and at the end of the day, that’s my paycheck on the line. I think most of these kids are totally lost with all these Hawaiian words. Can we tone down the “hawaiianess” a little?”

This is one crucial problem I see with the DOE, hiring teachers who put their own prosperity over the education of the student. All I heard was, “At the end of the day, money, money, money, me, me, me.”

At the time I felt bad. I was assuming that our students were catching all the things I was telling them, but maybe she was right. What if they were completely lost and I was failing them as a teacher? These thoughts played on my mind for a bit.

But as I look back now 6 weeks later, I can clearly see the whole picture. We tested the students on everything we had learned in 1^st quarter. My co-teacher pretty much let me make up the test questions, and I think deep down she wanted to remove herself from the process because she believed that the kids would badly fail the test and she could look at me and say “I told you so.”

But what happened was the complete opposite. The kids aced the test, nailing questions like, “What does mo’oku’auhau mean?” or “Name the 6 mountains that surround Kailua and match them with their mo’olelo?” I purposely made the questions things that should be intuitive, rather than things that would need to be memorized. Basically if they were paying attention in class, they  should ace the test, and sure enough they did. As an extra credit question, I asked what’s the most interesting thing you learned in class so far? The students said they loved learning about their ahupua’a and their genealogy because those were things they would remember for life, rather than just this year. They loved learning how to build aquaponics because they got to build it themselves and it was something they could do at their own home.

One of the questions that they struggled on was a watershed worksheet, one of the few things my co-teacher did add to the test. She had them label headwaters, tributaries, estuaries and floodplains on the diagram. These are not normal words we hear every day in Hawaii and on top of that, she only took one day to go through the worksheet with no context attached. They bombed that portion of the test. It’s a classic example of the “spray and pray” teaching style where you throw a bunch of unknown terms at the students and pray they memorize it for the test.

The results of this test were astounding for me. It’s given me a boost of confidence and fulfillment knowing that my attempts at place based learning are taking hold. I’m surprised at how well all of our students, even the ones not from here, are connecting to this place and viewing themselves as part of the picture, rather than an outside spectator.