Why I Love Loose Parts

This has been an interesting fall for me.   I am back in the classroom on a regular basis for the first time in many years.  Each Wednesday morning, I have the privilege of working with a group of kindergarten and grade 1 learners.

I can't really say whether or not they are a "typical" group, as it's been 15 years since I was last a kindergarten teacher.  I can say they are busy.  They're curious.  They're creative.  They're conversational.  And several of them are still learning the basics in terms of sharing their learning space with others and interacting successfully as part of a group.

I've struggled a bit to find a rhythm with them.  They've got too much energy to sit for stories and whole group lessons, they are all over the place in terms of their readiness for product-based tasks.  Solving a challenge that one is having inevitably leads to something that needs sorting with someone else.

I've been chatting with my teaching partner, who is with them for the other 90% of the week.  She has set up these wonderful morning choices for them, and she never seems to be as rattled as I'm feeling after a busy morning with our class.  She talked about provocations and seeing where their questions took them. 

I knew the feeling in the room during this choice time was lovely and productive, but didn't know that was rooted in Reggio Emilia philosophy until another teacher on our primary team came across the hall and began chatting about "Loose Parts."    She's working on her masters, and was doing a project on them.  I listened along, hearing all kinds of wonderful things about creativity, and interest, and engagement, and honoring children's passions. I admitted that I was new to this approach, but didn't confess that I had no idea, really, what a "loose part" or a "provocation" were. 

That weekend, I went home and did a whole bunch of reading.  I learned that provocations were clues alongside bits of materials or objects that are designed to inspire exploration.  Not "rules" or "systems,"  but something that can provide "an inspiration for children to express themselves." (From: What is a Provocation).  I love this idea.  We were expressing ourselves all over the classroom.  Might as well find a way to channel it for good...

I also read about how to set up a "Reggio-Inspired Activity."   From what I have gleaned through my reading, you begin first with the children.  Find out what they are interested in, what they have questions about.  Once you know that, you seek activities and materials that will "engage their sense of wonder."  How beautiful is that notion?  If we can do that, even a little bit, what a wonderful place our classrooms will be.  Kate Gribble's blog has really helped me think through this...you can find her at: An Everyday Story: Inquiry Based Learning. 

So I launched.  I was ready to start a new unit on light, so I hunted through my house for every flashlight and headlamp I could find.  We were making glow-in-the-dark slime at Scouts, so I grabbed the blue light I'd picked up for that, too. (Although it was really hot, shouldn't probably have been in a K/1 classroom...I'd skip it the next time around).  Then I went hunting for prisms and mirrors, and bits of colored plastic, and bins of "stuff" to shine lights on,  in an attempt to create some provocations. 
                                                     
I had already learned that this group works best with a tiny bit of structure, completely open-ended exploration puts us in proximity with children we don't do our best learning beside.  My solution was to structure the groups and station rotations, but not the exploration specifically.  I set up five stations with a variety of materials and let them rotate through a turn at each.  When we were done, we collected our questions.

We did a lot of thinking during our exploration.  Now my challenge was tweaking the provocations to allow us to explore our wonders.  I spent the better part of an afternoon looking for books at the public library on "light experiments," and googling for "reggio activites about light" and such.  I sorted and re-sorted my bins trying to come up with the best way to present things to answer their questions.

And then I gave up.  I had no idea how to set things up to match their questions.  These weren't my questions.  In the end, I decided to remind them of what their questions were, and to put the materials back out for them, to see what they came up with.  That was a fantastic decision on my part, if I may say so. 

During the exploration, I circulated and ask them about things.  ("Did you find your rainbow?"  "What happened when you stacked those colors together?").  We took a whole bunch of pictures, and put some drawings into our Wonder Books to record our thinking.

I am so proud of these kids.  We didn't all answer our original questions, but we sure learned a lot about light.  Ask us about reflection.  We can tell you that it can "bounce," or go in different directions.  We can tell you that it can change color if we put different, transparent, things between the light source and the place it's landing.

  We can tell you that light goes through some things but not through others, and that it looks different when it comes from a natural source versus a light in the classroom.

We can tell you that it sometimes gets hot, and
that we shouldn't put it right in our eyes or it hurts them. (But that that's better with a barrier like sunglasses).  We have made connections to summer days and solar eclipses.

I love this way of being with learners in the classroom.  It was a leap of faith based on a need to re-design my approach to meet the needs of some very busy little people, and it worked.  I'm always re-directing somebody when we're sitting at the carpet.   When we're exploring with loose parts, I get to talk about wonders and discoveries.  I pack my phone with me because we're so excited we need pictures about everything.  And when we go to put the pictures in our notebook a full week later, we can still describe what we were wondering about and what we figured out.

Thank you, Joanne and Aimee for letting me pretend I knew what you were talking about until I was able to figure out a little bit about it for myself.  It was either rattling out some Loose Parts within myself, or learning about Loose Parts with our learners.  I'm confident that I picked the right set.  I'm far from being an expert on the Reggio approach, but I'm hooked on learning more.  Meeting learners where they are at, and honoring their sense of wonder, is a lovely way to acknowledge that "They Are All Our Kids."

Understanding Intellectual Disabilities

As always, we have lots of new faces in our school this fall.  New learners have arrived at our doors from all over the province and country.  And some of these learners have additional needs that will require adult support and thoughtful planning.

In order to provide the best support we can for these new students, we've been talking lots about what we can do to get to know them and to really understand what they need.  Over the course of these discussions, I've been reminded about how profoundly different it is to provide support for a student with a learning disability than it is to provide support for a student with a more global intellectual impairment.

While both students can struggle with understanding new concepts and "hanging on" to new learning, there are very distinctive reasons for these challenges, and we are only able to provide them with the supports and structures they need if we deeply understand these differences, and why they matter.

 The term Learning Disabilities refers "to a number of disorders which may affect the acquisition, organization, retention, understanding or use of verbal or nonverbal information. These disorders affect learning in individuals who otherwise demonstrate at least average abilities essential for thinking and/or reasoning."(http://www.ldac-acta.ca).

Our learners who have been diagnosed with a learning disability will have an aspect of their learning which is more challenging- perhaps math calculation, or reading fluency, for example, but will have other areas of relative strength, which can help them to develop strategies and to employ tools, to make their challenges less impactful.  Individuals with a learning disability have average or above-average intelligence.  Where we successfully assist these students to learn compensatory skills (work-arounds), they find success with all aspects of the curriculum, heading off to the world of post-secondary education and  work to enjoy life independently and with few barriers.

Often, the tools that are the most successful for these learners are the tools that benefit all learners.  It's not about finding things that are weird or different....it's about providing access to things that EVERYONE benefits from using.  That's the beauty of a differentiated classroom community.

Examples include digital options such as word prediction, speech-to-text and text-to-speech tools, summarizing or hi-lighting tools  (aren't we lucky that between Google Read and Write, Google Chrome and the App Store that many of these things are available free or nearly free for our kids to access!).  Who doesn't want to lay on their bed with a cup of tea and an iPod recording an essay that's easily emailed to the computer for editing...but that's for another post.

The term Intellectual Disability is quite different.  It is "characterized by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills." (http://aaidd.org).

Intellectual disabilities are sometimes described as cognitive impairments.  They generally fall into two categories:
Mild Intellectual Disability and Profound Intellectual Disabilities.

Diagnostically speaking, average intelligence is defined as having an IQ (Intelligence Quotient) score of 100.    Individuals with Mild Intellectual Disabilities will have IQ scores less than 70, individuals with Profound Intellectual Disabilities will have IQ scores that fall below 55.

It is easy to see that someone with a profound intellectual disability needs additional help.  These are individuals with such significant communicative and adaptive challenges that it is clear someone is needed to provide support for them on an ongoing basis.

It can be much more difficult to recognize that someone with a mild intellectual disability needs us.  Individuals with mild intellectual disabilities may be slower to acquire new skills and concepts, may find communicating with others or caring for their own personal needs difficult, or may have very short attention spans and be very concrete and literal.  At the same time, they may be quite comfortable in conversation with peers and adults, be able to navigate their school day without someone to help them work their way between environments in the school, and be quite keen to participate in class activities.

What happens sometimes, is that these students are perceived as disorganized, or distractible, or disengaged.  It may be that a student with an intellectual impairment participates in class and seems very interested in the conversation, but is not able to produce assignments without significant adult support.  Perhaps he or she is able to answer the straightforward questions, but becomes overwhelmed and lost when asked to be more reflective or inferential in his or her response.

For me, the most critical thing we can do to support these learners is to always be mindful of the difference between "can't," and "won't."   It is more difficult for learners with an intellectual disability to understand figurative or metaphoric language.  These are students who not be able to process multiple step directions, or to keep track of all of the dates/timelines/bits and pieces that we require of most students in a classroom.  If we're not really careful, it can be easy to think of them as dis-engaged or, (I cringe even typing it), lazy, without remembering all of the very real reasons they may actually be unable to do more without assistance.

These are learners who will have a gap socially with other students.  They will not understand the banter of peer interactions,  or the consequences of some of their choices, in the same way as their same-age peers.   They may be self-conscious about this, or may just become confused and frustrated.   They are definitely more prone to succumbing to peer pressure, it's harder for them to "see things coming."

Often, learners with intellectual impairments require more than differentiated environments or adaptations to their curriculum.  They need specific modifications to the content or expectations with respect to their learning.  They will simply not be able to cope with all of the material that is explored by their peers.


 
There are some specific things we can do as educators to support this group of vulnerable learners:





1.Support their language skills.  Advance load the vocabulary instruction, and carefully scaffold reading comprehension tasks.  Take time to answer their questions and help them make sense of what they are hearing or reading.  Know that they may not be able to understand or work with the same volume or complexity of material that their peers may explore.
 

2.  Make math manageable.  Basic facts such as arithmetic, time, and measurement will make more sense to students with intellectual impairments.  Problem solving and reasoning tasks will be really tough.  Use visuals, concrete examples, manipulative tools.

3.  Understand that this learner will have a short attention span.  It's not that this learner doesn't want to focus.  He or she actually CAN'T for too long.  Prompts, decreased distractions and starting with the easier bits of the task will help.

4. Directly teach "tricks" to remember things:  little rhymes for rote lists, repeating information orally to oneself, remembering bits of info in clusters, creating little pictures and diagrams.

5.  Help with the transfer of knowledge.  Learning something in English class won't necessarily mean the student can do it in Social Studies.  Wherever possible, teach with meaningful context, point out connections, remind students they learned something in another environment that can help them here. These students will learn new skills and information in little bits.  They need us to break things down, and to help "chain" the bits together. 

6.  Structure opportunities to practice social skills.  These are often learners who won't "get" the interactions of their peers or notice body language.   Coach them.  Encourage them.

(Adapted from https://www.education.com/slideshow/areas-difficulty-children-mild/language-skills/)


For me, though, the most important thing of all is missing off of this list.   Learners with mild intellectual disabilities deserve all of the success, engagement and connection with their school communities that other students experience.  Regardless of the size of their steps, or of whether they are working adaptations or modifications to their curriculum, this group of learners deserve to be working alongside their peers, and their individual learning needs to be acknowledged and celebrated.

After all, THEY ARE ALL OUR KIDS!

Lessons Learned in Porlier Pass

My husband and I had an eventful paddling excursion last week.  As you read this, keep in mind that we already know that we were out there lacking some of the knowledge we needed.   We were definitely lacking the experience we needed.  The day was significantly longer than what we needed. Those were the "instant lessons" learned.

As in most circumstances where I find myself in way over my head about something, I start digging for the silver lining, the bit of learning that I can bring forward to make things easier next time.  As we brought the kayak onto the beach 30 km and 10 hours later, I looked at my husband wryly, and said, "there's a blog post in here somewhere."

No way was I going through a day like that and not garnering something of value from it.

If you're a water enthusiast, please pardon the basic definitions that follow.  They're alot more meaningful to us now than they were a week ago.

Slack tide:  that time between high tide and low tide where the water is calm and current at it's minimum.  It's tight window. About 40 minutes in Porlier Pass, between Galiano and Valdez Islands.




Flood tide:  when the tide is coming in.  In Porlier Pass, it means the water is heading back to Salt Spring.

Ebb tide:  when the tide is retreating from the shore.  In Porlier Pass, it means the water is heading out of the pass toward Vancouver.  

Flood and Ebb tides in Porlier Pass both look a bit like a fast-moving river.  In telling our story since returning home, my husband has taken to referencing it  as "the maelstrom."

Intuitive readers are already going to have identified that this was some of the deep learning that we hadn't quite solidified on our way to the Dionisio Point campground last week.  We had done some research, knew the water could be quite different at different times of day, and had planned to head in at slack tide.  We have a healthy respect for the water, and had saved tons of extra time, and had lots of extra food as well as our sleeping bags, in case we ended up needing to spend the night.  We had checked and re-checked the tide table before we headed out.

Yet, 3 1/2 hours into an already challenging paddle-  strong currents are found throughout the Trincomali Channel -  as we entered Porlier Pass under glorious sun for our picnic -  we didn't truly understand how quickly things would change.  After a 15 minute munch, (under the only cloudy skies we had the whole four days we were away), we looked back at the way we'd come, to see a vastly different body of water.  It turns out that most of the "slack time" is in the lead-up to the published time for slack tide, not after it.

Before putting the kayak back into the water, we walked out to the point to peek around the corner, and found a roiling boil of swirling whirlpools and what looked like a fast moving river, heading the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. We knew it was 6 1/2 hours before the next slack tide. The actual campsite was a bit further around the point that we'd anticipated, so our picnic spot had actually been rocky shelf,  about 500 m shy of the spot we had originally planned to go to, and was somewhere that wouldn't really be great for camping,  so we decided to go for it and see what happened.  The plan was to stick right along the shoreline and chip away at things bit by bit.  If necessary, we'd pull in along the way and spend the night.

That worked to get us through the really fast moving water right at the point.  We got through the first bit more easily than we expected.  Right up until the kayak got wedged on some shallow rocks.  After rocking side-to-side for a bit to loosen ourselves, and launching off of the rock we backed into, we shot into the middle of the pass.

By now, our clear heads were a little less clear.  We got this idea that the water looked smoother in the middle, so we stayed there, rather than heading back towards the shoreline.  We paddled like crazy to get ourselves out the mouth of the pass.  Forty-five minutes later, when we realized that the landmarks right beside us hadn't changed, (except for when we took turns having a sip of water and shot backward 100ft), it was time for a new plan.

We took a hard right turn to tuck in behind some rocks to regroup. A short breather there let us brainstorm another plan.  There was a second out-cropping of rocks right at the mouth of the pass a little further north, we decided to leapfrog to that.  We did a full 360 in a whirlpool on the way, but safely got behind it.  My husband stepped out to see what that last point looked like- we decided to hug one more corner in the kayak, rather than portaging, and went for it.

This time we made it, and headed to a beach at the southern tip of Valdez Island.  Heading north instead of south added about 7 km to our paddle by the time we would get back to Salt Spring,  but we were finally in safer water, and knew we'd be able to make it back before dark.

I'm not telling this story as a celebration of our kayaking prowess. There's no doubt we were in way over our heads and need to be a lot smarter when out on the ocean in the future.  There's a reason why people go into Dionisio at slack tide, stay over, and leave the next day, at a new slack.  Clearly our misunderstanding the difference between the direction of the water at ebb and flood meant we could have sent us halfway to Vancouver rather than propelling us out to Triconomali after lunch.

But I think I've found a pretty good metaphor for the changes coming for me in the fall.  After 20 years in the Qualicum school district, with the last 5 1/2 in district learning services, I'm moving back into a school-based admin role, with Nanaimo-Ladysmith Public Schools.  I have plenty of learning to do.  Not only do I need to develop and understanding of the district's systems and processes, I'll have TWO school communities to learn from - one elementary and one secondary.

I've been doing some research this summer.  I've had tours of the schools and met the principals I'll be working with at both sites.  I know a little about the schools' goals and focus, as well as the initiatives that the two teams have been working on.  My husband is already with the school district, so I know a little bit about the processes and overall district culture and vision.

It's like paddling in slack tide.  I'm armed with information and I'm moving forward, but without experiencing it first-hand, I don't really know what the waters ahead will bring.  I don't know where the periods of calm will be, nor do I know when the whirlpools and fast-moving current of the flood and ebb tides will start to pull me somewhere unexpected.

Like paddling in the heavy currents of the pass, I need a plan that provides me with a way to collect the information I need, as well as the moments to pause, to reflect, and to correct course, if I'm to be successful in this transition.

I've decided to draw a springboard for this plan from the Leadership Symposium I attended with Sandra Herbst and Anne Davies in early July.   We spent 2 1/2 days talking about ways to "become a system of Master Learners."

Over the course of the session, Anne, Sandra and their team encouraged us, as a group of educational leaders, to consider evidence of being master learners in our own practice.    We were asked to reflect on how our own work aligned with that of the broader system- both at the school level, and at the district level, and to consider "are you owning or renting the work?"

I believe that to successfully navigate the complex tides of the coming school year,  I need to work toward becoming a master learner, to soak up what I can of the new culture and seek opportunities to contribute to my new environment in thoughtful, deliberate ways.  Anne and Sandra call this "Assessment in the Service of Learning."   

They argue that to do this, leaders must deliberately and systematically collect data as evidence of specific goals.  This data, must take a variety of forms-  

a) products - samples of student learning, quantitative data; 
b) conversations - with teachers, students and parents, and 
c) direct observation of learning activities - by both adults and students.  

Looking for the patterns and connections in this data (triangulation), will create a picture of progress toward those goals, and help to identify the areas where additional work needs to be done.

Once I decide on my focus goals, (which I will narrow down after I learn more about the goals and focus of the schools and district), I will begin to collect evidence and build myself a portfolio.

The digital portfolio I started a few years ago is a repository.  An electronic photo album of bits of writing and PowerPoint presentations from workshops I've hosted, illustrating where my thinking was at at the time the samples were generated.  It's a good definition of my beliefs and philosophy regarding my role as an educator.

My new portfolio will be far more focused and organic.  It's not that the things I've collected are irrelevant-   in fact, I believe they're a great snapshot of my learning over time - but they are not focused on my current journey of  becoming a master learner.  They are not focused on Assessment in the Service of Learning with respect to the specific goals and objectives of the schools and district I will be working in next year.   The "umbrella" goal of my revised portfolio will be to help bring me into alignment with my new environment.

By collecting valid, reliable, evidence in multiple ways,  I'll be able to see progress toward my personal goals.  If these personal goals are drawn from the goals of the school and district, I will be in alignment with the bigger picture.  This should help me to find ways to contribute to the work being done both in classrooms in my own schools, and across the district.

Anne and Sandra suggest three questions to help focus the reflection that follows this evidence gathering:

What counts?

What matters?

What's important?

Creating this portfolio will also give me an opportunity to provide what Anne and Sandra describe as "tight support and loose pressure."  If I'm becoming a master learner, I will recognize that collecting data is not simply to help me complete a tick-box-  it's a way to check-in and learn how things are going in a deep and meaningful way.  Once I am more informed about the status of the initiatives and student learning in my schools, it will be easier to encourage myself, and my team, to keep moving forward.  And it will compel me to provide whatever support and encouragement I can to make further growth happen.

My husband and I were in over our heads when we paddled out of "the maelstrom."    Our focus and goal shifted significantly over the course of the day.  In collecting bits of evidence as things unfolded, we adjusted our plans and strategies- and our perspective on what counted, what mattered, what was important.   It wasn't until we deliberately sought calmer waters and really took stock of our environment and our learning to that point when we were able to adjust our goal and make a plan that led to a successful adventure.  It also very clearly pointed us in the direction of additional learning we need to do.

That's the bit I'll take with me in this transition. The deliberate collection of evidence in a portfolio, and intentional stops in the year to reflect on what I've learned, will allow me to construct that moment in calmer waters to take a look around my environment and to consider the variety of options and pathways available to me, helping me to make the best decision I can in moving forward at that point in time.  To provide both myself, and my team, with that tight support and loose pressure toward our goals.

In becoming a master learner, I will better be able to serve the students and staff of my new school communities.  Because, they're all our kids.