Workshop and Student Responsibility

How the Workshop

Helps Mathematics Students

Take Responsibility for Their Learning

“Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself.”

– Chinese Proverb

Schema

Activation

Contrast this with the culture of learned

helplessness that is endemic to many classrooms.

Your Task

There are some samples of workshops we use in class. These are not proposed to be used directly in yours! Instead, skim them with this idea of responsibility in mind. Where is there room for student responsibility? How does the structure support the students to take it?

Connections:

• How do the workshop samples relate to this broad sense of responsibility?
• Based on these samples, how does the workshop structure relate to your classroom?

Lucy Calkins (the ‘guru’ of literacy workshops in elementary) discusses how the exact structure of the workshop is not what is important. What is important is that a structure is in place so that learners do not have to guess at their role in their learning. “If the writing workshop is always changing, always haphazard, children remain pawns waiting for their teacher’s agenda.”

Conditions of Learning

• Engagement
• Demonstration
• Immersion
• Expectation
• Response
• Employment
• Approximation
• Responsibility

“I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”- Albert Einstein

Workshop Structure and Student Responsibility

How can you apply these ideas to your teaching?

Links

Materials from this session:

http://mathhombre.blogspot.com/2010/08/workshop-and-responsibility.html

Cambourne's Article with

the Conditions of Learning:

http://www.reading.org/Library/Retrieve.cfm?D=10.1598/RT.49.3.1&F=RT-49-3-Cambourne.pdf

Overview of Reader's and

Writer's Workshop:

http://www.tqnyc.org/2005/NYC052376//main_new.html

Dr. David Coffey

Dr. John Golden

The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.

– Henry Stimson

(The rest of the prezi is extra material and references.)

Watch the following two video clips that contrast students and learners. The point is not to push new jargon, but to think about what we want for our pupils.

Michigan

Council of

Teachers of

Mathematics

2010

What do the Student and the Learner have in common and in contrast?

Council on 21st Century Learning

Raoul Dufy, 1935,

The Artist's Studio

Focus

Objectives

Responsibility

“Learners need to make their own decisions about when, how and what ‘bits’ to learn in any learning task.”

- Cambourne 1988

Debbie Miller, Teaching with Intention

• The structure of your

instruction is worthy of intention;

• Students taking more

responsibility for their learning

is a valuable goal; and

• How does structure relate

to responsibility?

HS students talking about

online learning

Skim these example workshops, looking for connections,

considering what questions about the structure you'd like to ask.

In Class Workshops

At Home Workshops

Assessment Workshops

Reflection

What did you notice about the workshop structure?

What connections did you make to responsibility?

What questions would you want to ask the teachers/authors?

Margaret Mooney's

Visualization of

Gradual Release of Responsibility