NY Times Ethicist: Ethics and Discussion on a variety of issues.

While sharing favourite picture books and readings to do with Elementary School Students, a Student Teacher in a workshop I did last week suggested this site for discussion topics with high school students:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/magazine/columns/the_ethicist/

There are some topics, perhaps, you would not want to discuss with students, but some of the articles are very good and would be nice to read with highschoolers and discuss or have then write or debate after.

Here are a few examples:

Does the Golden Rule Hold Up in Modern Society?

By CHUCK KLOSTERMAN

The problem with treating others as you would like to be treated.

One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Banned Good

By CHUCK KLOSTERMAN

Is it wrong to donate a baby crib to charity that another country has outlawed

Is It Wrong to Skip the Commercials?

By CHUCK KLOSTERMAN

The ethics of fast-forwarding.

I haven't gone through many of them yet, but am always looking for articles and topics to discuss with older students that are thought provoking and lead to discussion, debate and for students to write specifics and think deeper about topics.

**Please note some topics from the NY Times webpage are NOT suitable for the classroom, but there are many that are. As always, preview carefully.

Student-Centered Discussion Tips

It can be scary to let students guide discussion in the classroom, but the rewards are well worth it. Check out six tips for implementing student-centered discussion: http://bit.ly/19TdOht

1. Start With a Challenging Text 
   In the Shared Inquiry method of discussion, the text provides the foundation for student understanding, multiple meanings, and debate. Both Damm and Benefiel found that when preparing for discussion, students were able to grapple with a text much more difficult than that they may have read on their own. “Sometimes I think a text is too hard,” says Damm, “and it has been proven to me over and over that it is not.”
   
   Take Away: Even if you think a text is above your students’ reading level, bring it in and plan opportunities for students to engage and grapple with it.
   
2. Set the Stage 
   Before any discussion, Damm’s students spend five to ten minutes writing their response to the first question. This allows less outgoing students to share their carefully considered answers, and ensures that everyone has an opportunity to participate. After the discussion, students reconsider their answers based on what they’ve heard from other students, and are given a chance to change their initial responses. Damm reads the final responses to assess how students changed their minds during the discussion, and why.
   
   Take Away: Create and reinforce a structure for preparation, discussion, and reflection. During discussion, set a procedure to help you facilitate and monitor. Damm and Benefiel both recommend keeping a record of who has contributed to the conversation so you can ensure 100% participation.
   
3. Seize Questions As Opportunities 
   Students at Sarah Smith Elementary School in Atlanta, GA, start learning Shared Inquiry discussion practices in kindergarten. By first grade, they’re starting to drive the conversation. “Once the students understand how to question, [the rest] comes naturally to them,” says principal Sidney Baker.
   
   When teachers seize on student questions and use them to drive discussion, it empowers students, agrees Denise Ahlquist, the vice president for training at Great Books. Underscoring the value of questions also helps open the floor to students who may struggle with reading in general.
   
   Take Away: Set the expectation that questions are valuable and take time to answer every question that you can during discussion.
   

4. Encourage Interaction
   Damm and Benefiel sit outside of the discussion circle and interject only to facilitate or to invite students to participate. During discussion, asking students “why?” and “what do you think?” is enough to encourage students to deepen their understanding of the text without losing student ownership.
   
   Take Away: During discussion, give students simple directions to encourage them to interact with one another. If one student disagrees with another, for example, prompt her to turn to the other student and try to convince him of her point of view.
   
5. Seek Support From Colleagues
   At Sarah Smith Elementary, a week before student discussions teachers have their own Shared Inquiry discussions about the stories they are reading in class. This helps teachers go through the process and become deeply familiar with the texts before they facilitate student discussions. It also provides a foundation for later reflection on classroom discussions.
   
   Take Away: You will find more success with student-centered discussions if you are able to prepare for them in collaboration with other teachers.
   
6. Be Patient 
   How quickly or how effectively you will transition to student-centered discussions depends on your own experience as a learner and teacher, so be patient and plan to spend a few weeks teaching students how they work. “It really takes practice to support ideas with evidence and look for deeper meaning,” says Rachel Claff, editorial director of K-12 programs at the Great Books Foundation, but “it yields rich results.”

Source: http://www.weareteachers.com/hot-topics/special-reports/great-books-great-discussions

Four More Tips
Here are four more things to keep in mind when getting started with student-led discussion.

Welcome All Discussion
Talking about text does not just happen in a formal discussion, but throughout the week. Set up pair-shares, informal discussions, and other opportunities for talk as students work with a text. 

Resist the Urge to Explain
Your first instinct might be to explain the text, especially if students are stuck. But resist that urge and trust the process of discussion to get kids to form their own understandings and build off of each other’s ideas.

Model Curiosity
During Shared Inquiry, the role of the teacher is to be a model learner for students and to show what it means to go from not understanding to creating meaning. 

Take Risks
As you ask your students to take risks, be willing to be pushed out of your comfort zone as well. If a student asks you for more reading from a challenging author, run with it!

Report Cards and Assessment

This post  goes through some "sticky situations" that seem to focus on the USA system. Still, the question has to be asked, what should you do if you 're asked to change a grade?

This opens up a greater discussion, for me, about the ways we use assessment and if grades are even neccessary as the "most important reporting of assessment"

Having recenly done my year end report cards for my Grade 8s I know how the various assessment methods can be used.

I have a lot of students and sometimes parents, ask me throughout the year about why they got this grade or that. I enjoy those conversations. It shows interest and opens up discussions about overall learning, not just "the grade"

I often use rubrics for projects, clearly laid out clear criteria for my students. They always know exactly what I am looking for when marking and how they will be assessed. This helps minimize "surprises" and opens up conversations about their learning.

I had a student come and ask if they could do "extra projects" to increase their grade (a week before report cards) I had that "difficult conversation" about where they needed to work on improvements and it was not their ability to do extra projects. It was a very honest conversation and the student was thankful for the feedback. Their parent even contacted me to follow up and thank me for the specific feedback to improve.

I think it is important to have those coversations with students so the expectations are clear and they really know where they are at and why.

Of course if we moved away from letter grades, I wonder how that may change the whole process?

I recently read this post:

Letter Grades No Longer Make the Grade

which is something I am very curious to explore further. Last year our district has job action and part of that was no report cards. Assessment still happened, communication with parents seemed to be even more frequent and overall I think the feedback was more productive than a letter on a piece of paper.

One of the parents of a student I taught a few years ago came back to me this year and told me they appreciated two years ago when I taught their son, emphasizing the work habits over the letter grade. They had, like many parents, always believed their son must get straight A's all the time (which he usually did) but what I pointed out, was that although she was getting very high letter grades, his work habits marks were S's and N's and that that was an area he could work on improving.

Report Cards are confusing, as a parent, reading report cards was always confusing. Of course you look right to the letter grade, the snapshot of your childs learning. But, the work habits, the words chosen inthe comments, those are important too! As a parent and as a teacher, I think ongoing assessment and communication with the student and teacher and parent is far more important than a piece of paper.

 

THOUGHTS?

This reminds me of a post last year about giving ZERO on assignments... oh the discussions continue...

 

 

'Survival' or 'Bomb Shelter' activity for High School

I post a lot for Middle School and Elementary, but this activity is best with High Schoolers and is something I have participated in and facilitated with a class.


This activity is great for team building, discussion, learning to compromis and express opinions and various other things.

I have seen, done and heard of various adaptations, but the premise is the same... Small groups have a list of people and due to some catastrophe (terrorism, bio-hazard, world war etc) only some of those people can live (in the bomb shelter, survival cave, etc)

Groups need to reach a consensus on who is saved. They have a set amount of time to reach a consensus or no one will survive.

Here are the basics:

Materials: None, maybe paper and writing utensils and/or hand out / display describing the people.

Aims: Role-playing, group decision-making, group interaction, reaching consensus.

Procedure:

1. Divide i class into small groups (smaller the group, easier to reach decisions often)
2. Each group member adopts a specific role, usually an occupation (for example: a doctor, an athlete, a teacher, movie-star, mother, housewife, etc; these can be written out and picked from a hat). *Sometimes I omit assigning roles and just let them have a list of people they are dealing with.
3. Tell groups they are in an air-raid shelter after an atom bomb has fallen, big enough and with enough air and food for only six people, therefore they must get rid of several members. *Again the catastrophe, # of people and so on vary
4. Each group member must argue why he should be allowed to survive. A group decision must be reached for who goes and stays: no suicides or murder allowed. *If not assigning roles, they can discuss all options
5. Set a time limit for the decision.
6. Later discuss how the group interacted making the decision, whether each person played an active or passive role, how satisfied each was with his role, etc.

Variations: Instead of an air-raid shelter, have a life raft or desert island or space ship. Add incidents, accidents, rituals, funerals, ceremonies.

*There are so many variations, adjust for your group.

I love doing this activity because it is fun, it can be interesting to see how groups work through the problems and differences in opinions, you can assign roles or not which may change perspectives, discussion afterwards allows students to reflect on their decision making skills. Why did they make that decision, did they change their mind throughout process, how, why?

As a TTOC, this can be a great activity should you ever be in with no lesson plan or a lot of time come up. You can adjust to whatever time limit you wish, but be sure to make the # of people and survivors reasonable to discuss fully within the time limit you set.

VARIATIONS:

Here is a prezi variation:
http://prezi.com/m-fu-lqubbnk/fallout-shelter/


Here are some variations:
http://www.cue.indiana.edu/activitymanual/activities/Fallout%20shelter.pdf

http://youth.net/cec/cecsst/cecsst.24.txt

http://site.blueskybroadcast.com/Client/APICS/docs/bio-terrorism_exercise.pdf

http://www.radford.edu/~ibarland/Classes/UNIV100/2011fall-ibarland/Lectures/bomb-shelter-activity.html

http://teacher.sheboyganfalls.k12.wi.us/staff/dfederer/Grade%208%20Health/First%20Quarter/Values%20Clarification%20Activity%204%20-%20Fallout%20Shelter.htm


http://www.ncti.org/contactcommerce/images/resources/The_Fallout_Shelter_Problem.pdf