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Motivating , Engaging , and Empowering Middle School Students through Social Action Teaching

Motivating , Engaging , and Empowering Middle School Students through Social Action Teaching . Spring 2009 A Critical and Creative Thinking Synthesis Alyssa J. Hinkell. Where did this Synthesis begin?. “How do we (teachers, parents, administrators, and community members)

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Motivating , Engaging , and Empowering Middle School Students through Social Action Teaching

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  1. Motivating,Engaging, andEmpowering Middle School Students throughSocial Action Teaching Spring 2009 A Critical and Creative Thinking Synthesis Alyssa J. Hinkell

  2. Where did this Synthesis begin? “How do we (teachers, parents, administrators, and community members) empower students to become more motivated, passionate about, and engaged in their education and what are the benefits of making such a change?” - September 8, 2008 (692 Governing Question)

  3. What might this Synthesis look like? • “crucial time for change in our methods of teaching” • “we [educators] are missing something…” • “educational standards that are not focused on higher order thinking skills” • need “authentic learning” • “students need to be focused on the ‘hows?’ and the ‘whys?’ not just the ‘whats?’ “ • “students need to be immersed in, engaged in, and passionate about their learning” • “I don’t yet know what this looks like…” - September 8, 2008 (692 Paragraph Overview)

  4. What are my objectives and responsibilities? • “a way to pop the bubble which many of my students exist in…” • “making real-life connections” • “developing empathy and higher order thinking” • “what does it mean to be a citizen of the world?” • “do not want to do a simple set of lesson plans” • September 15, 2008 (Free-write) • “to shape students as they become productive, informed citizens” • “to develop students who are agents of change within the spheres that they inhabit” - October 27, 2008 (Revised Paragraph Overview)

  5. Helping my Students to Visualize Earth United States State Town/City Neighborhood School Classroom

  6. Helping Me to Visualize

  7. Proposing an Idea • “I want to review the Massachusetts History and Social Science framework to identify entry points or places where this method could be responsibly incorporated into the curriculum.” • “I plan to present my suggestions to the DOE’s Social Science framework reviewing body in order to, at the very least, encourage and foster a spirit of change.” - January 2009 (Synthesis Proposal)

  8. Utilizing the “Strategic Spirit” • “This ‘spirit’ is alive in ‘the truly versatile thinker… who is able to construct, invent, and or modify a thinking strategy to meet the unique demands of the situation at hand…’ ” - Tishman, Perkins, and Jay, “The Thinking Classroom”, page 102-103 • “My intention with this work is not to convert the disbeliever into a fanatic who will then walk around wearing a sandwich board that displays the many successes of Social Action Teaching. Rather, the wider purpose of this work is to provide a fresh lens with which we can each view our teaching, identify problem areas, implement a new creative method, and critically reflect on its impact on our students. - Synthesis, page 4

  9. Back to the Social Action Survey • Take a moment to look back at your survey. • Please try to group the statements, creating different categories in which to organize them. • When done, feel free to look up and make eye contact with someone else who has also finished.4. Chat about your newly created categories.

  10. Social Action Teaching Classroom Community (Classroom Branch) Civic Awareness (National Branch) Community Connectedness (Local Branch) Global Responsibility (International Branch) (Re)visualizing the Branches

  11. Making Sense of the Categories Social Action Teaching is a Two-Step Process: • Knowing: Students must be able to accomplish the initial goals of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Knowledge and Comprehension) • Recall data or information and understand the meaning • Doing: Students must be able to accomplish the goals on the higher end of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation) • Use a concept in a new situation, separate concepts into different parts to understand their organization, build a structure or pattern from diverse elements, make judgments about the value of ideas

  12. Examples for Understanding

  13. Social Action in Action Spectacular Things Happen: Lessons from an Urban Classroom Brian Schultz and his 5th grade students Project Citizen

  14. Using a Metaphor to Understand Social Action Teaching

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