- Jokes and laughter
- Wrong answers
- Side conversations
- Apparent irrelevancies and flights of fancy
- Stories from everyday life
- Statements of ideas that seem to be obvious or well-known information
- Metaphors or analogies of any kind" (p. 33)
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BALLENGER GROUP TASK:
(1) "Edit" this post and paste a snippet of one of these kinds of interruptions or disruptions that you recorded from your classroom.
(2) Include a thought about it.
(3) Respond to others in "comments".
Particularly in my internship classroom during math the other day, one of the students was called up to show how he arrived at his answer. They focus on a new number of the day. The student had to show money combinations for that number 121. What the child had to do was draw coins to show the number 121 in an equation. The student wanted to use coins and he wanted to add and subtract them to get to the number of the day however when he was explaining it my cooperating teacher tried to correct him and said, “I think this is what you mean” however he was just showing ANOTHER way that my cooperating teacher hadn’t thought of.
ReplyDeleteAnother instance is also during math time, when one of the students had the wrong answer for showing money combinations and my cooperating teacher explained this is how you can do it. The wrong answer that the student had said was because she made a nickel a quarter value of 25 cents instead of 5 cents. I think it is important to look at these wrong answers and think why? Or what did the student do? Knowing she is a bright student I went back and looked at her work realizing her mistake. I used this as an opportunity to make sense of the wrong answer not just dismissing it because it was wrong.
I have two things to comment on...
ReplyDeleteFirst, I like how Ballenger speaks about jokes and laughter. In my own opinion, if a student is laughing about something or is telling a joke, it really does show a sophisticated comprehension of the content. I think back to my first placement ever...I was placed at Jowonio, an inclusive preschool in Syracuse. I had my doubts about inclusion upon first exposure to it because it was something very unfamiliar, but I fell in love with the idea after my placement at Jowonio. In my preschool classroom, there was a student who had cerebral palsy. The student was in a wheelchair and was barely verbal, only saying three or four words. Many people might look at this student and believe that he is not intelligent, however, that was not the case. In fact, one of the little girls went home and told her father that the student was the smartest student in the class. When he father asked her why she thought that, she said that he laughed at a joke that the teacher told right away and it took her a few minutes to process it. Although she did not say it exactly verbatim like that, the idea was present. I think that this was a great explanation of how a student laughing at something a teacher says can be considered a way of showing comprehension instead of being a disruption, which many teachers may label it.
Secondly, it is SO hard for a teacher to recognize side conversations as a good thing, but I am working on it. I am easily distracted and have a hard time being up in front of the class when students are having side conversations. I know that some of these may be focused on content and be very valuable, but I urge my students to share these ideas with the rest of the class because everyone should get a chance to hear their brilliant thoughts. I know that this is not necessarily the best for students who are shy or more reserved, and it is something that I need to continue working on. One thing that I have gotten better at is when I see side conversations arising, I usually give students the time to do a turn and talk so that it is a productive side conversation and will not detract from other students sitting near these students who may have similar distractibility as I have.
I have seen many situations where a teacher asks a question, calls on the first student raising a hand and asks for the answer. It has happened several times, that the student either doesn't know the answer, guesses or simply made a mistake. And so the teacher does not engage the student in conversation as to how he/she arrived at that conclusion. Instead, she quickly calls on another student without acknowledging the first answer. While I understand that in a class of very young children you don't want the class to get confused by a wrong answer or get distracted by a long conversation, Ballenger's point is very important. In math specifically, students understand that there is real importance to the thought process behind the answer. I think that this needs to be true across the board. Students who answer a question incorrectly deserve the opportunity to be understood or clarified. It is those short conversations that can become real teachable moments.
ReplyDeleteNaomi, I'm guilty of having done that also. I hate to use this excuse but mainly because of the time constraint, I find myself moving on to another student to correct that previous students' answer. I know that if I "stop time" and have the child explain how they arrived at their answer, it will be too late. Of course, Ballenger makes a great case in stating why we should avoid that at all costs. We need to be able to stop and explore the situation with the student and the class. It's important to let them explain themselves so that we can prove to our students that we really do believe that everyone of them make sense!
ReplyDeleteI was walking at the back of my class's line in the halls today and I know that classes are supposed to be quiet moving through the halls but in the kids can't help but talk. After shushing and trying to remind the kids to be quiet, I gave up. Because of this, I could finally hear what a boy and girl, who had been chatting the entire time, were saying to one another. They were whispering about divorce. The bits that I caught throughout the walk that I could piece together were about a third grader in the school, possibly in this class, whose parents were divorcing or separated. From the body language of these two students throughout their walk in the hall and stairwell (hunched over and engrossed in their conversation) I could tell that this topic is something serious to them and, maybe, something they feel should be kept secret, since they were whispering, or something that is shameful or taboo. I can't say for sure because I wasn't able to stop time. Anyway, the last part of their conversation before they stopped talking about it was the reason their conversation caused me to pay attention and piece things together backward from when I was shushing them earlier. The boy became audible. He raised his voice to the girl and said, "My parents are divorced. Why are parents so selfish?!"
ReplyDeleteOn one hand I know we enforce school and class rules for a reason. On the other hand, I am now recognizing that there is real value in kids being able to talk to one another. With the testing and with our own curricular agendas I can understand and see kids just dying to talk about things they care about or find really interesting that isn't schoolwork. Lunch and recess isn't enough. Walking and talking in the hallway is breaking the rules, is off-task, uncooperative behavior. However, this also can be one of those moments and spaces where puzzling moments can occur, like this one (side conversations, as Ballenger mentions). I learned more about my students, their lives, and how they view an issue, divorce, and adults' decisions about divorce.