Exploring Self-Regulation

As a Student Work Study Teacher, I have a had the rich opportunity to explore self-regulation with students at different grade levels.  In the Grade 3, 4, 5 and 8 classes at one of my schools, the host teachers and I showed the YouTube video "Me Want It (But Me Wait)" video with Sesame Street's popular Cookie Monster.  In the short music video inspired by Icona Pop's "I Love It", the Cookie Monster sings about his struggle between his love for cookies and self-control.  Through this fun video, he teaches viewers self-regulation strategies and why they are important.  The video can be seen here.  Here is what transpired in various classrooms:

Grade 3/4 Class

Along with the host teacher and myself, the students proceeded to discuss what the main message of the video.  Then, they listed the strategies that Cookie Monster mentioned in the music video.  This also fostered a discussion on what the term self-regulation is and why it is important in the classroom and the school as a whole.

Following this, the students broke out into groups to write their own ideas of what self-regulation is and how they, as individuals, can demonstrate it at school and/or in class.  Here are a few snapshots of their ideas.

Finally, as a class, the students and the host teacher co-constructed a chart that the students could use to refer to their discussed strategies on self-regulation.

Grade 4/5 and Grade 8 Classes

The students in the Grade 4/5 and 8 classes also enjoyed watching the Sesame Street video.  Although the music video is ultimately aimed at a younger audience, the students were still able to focus on the main message of self-control and self-regulation.  They were also engaged in a very interesting discussion on what self-regulation is, why it is important at school (and at home) and ways they can show it at school.  The following week, as an extension this, the host teachers and I conducted a variation of the marshmallow experiment to help the students foster a deeper understanding of self-control.

In this activity, each student was given a marshmallow on a napkin that was placed on his or her desk.  The students were instructed not to eat the marshmallow (they could clearly see that we had a full bag of them as they were distributed) and that they would get more if they could wait five minutes.  The host teacher and I stepped outside of the classroom for a few minutes.  We also returned, circulating the room, sometimes even snacking on a few marshmallows.  Within the designated timelime, most students were able to resist eating the marshmallow.  However, I was able to notice a few behaviours (which was discussed as a class) including:

nibbling tiny bits of the marshmallow corners

pushing the marshmallow away from oneself

pushing other students' marshmallows away (in one case, onto the floor)

turning oneself away from the marshmallow

engaging in reading, writing or other activities to not think about or notice the marshmallow

eating the marshmallow

Together, through a class discussion, we listed the strategies students used to resist eating the marshmallows (see pictures below):

Strategies students used to resist eating the marshmallow in the Grade 4/5 class

Additional strategies students used to resist the marshmallow

Following this, we then tallied the difficulty of resisting the marshmallow.  No one (interestingly enough) found it terribly difficult, some found it somewhat difficult and many found it easy.  What stemmed from this activity was a rich connection of how self-regulation is important not just at school, but at home and for their futures.  Everything from handing assignments on time to maintaining focus so one can finish a task correctly to focusing on goals (i.e., finishing high school, saving for a car, keeping your grades up, persevering with difficult tasks, resisting peer pressure).  Overall, this activity opened up avenues and discussions I hadn't imagined.

A summary of the class discussion on the experiment and the marshmallows used in the activity

Daily and Seasonal Changes Inquiry

At St. Thomas Aquinas, as a part of the Grade 1 Science unit "Daily and Seasonal Changes," we began by reading the picture book City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Williams as a provocation.  The story is about the unique friendship of a dog and a frog over the course of a year.  Throughout the book, the seasons change with wonderful splendor in the illustrations that brings the seasons to life for the students.  However, the changes are subtle and not mentioned in the book.  Following the reading of the book, the students were asked to point out if they noticed anything about nature throughout the story.  One of the students mentioned that the weather changed through the book; another mentioned that the colour of the grass and trees changed; while another introduced the changed in seasons throughout the book.  This led to a discussion about what seasons were.  For the most part the students could name all four seasons.  We then listed all of the things they knew about seasons in general.  Here is what they came up with:

While the students demonstrated some understanding and knowledge about the seasons being about change (some only focused on the current season of autumn), they did have questions about what causes seasonal changes and how they are different from each other.  Here are the questions that they posed that they will answer through our inquiries and investigations:

 

 

This seems like an interesting beginning to our seasonal inquiry!

Talking about self-regulation

The teachers at St. Dominic Savio Catholic School have been actively in engaged in exploring and discussing the learning skills with their student to help them establish a deeper understanding of each one.  Three of the classes I work discussed the learning skill of self-regulation by showing them the video "Me Want It (But Me Wait)" starring the one and only Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.  The video was a hit with the primary, junior and intermediate students who watched it, not only because of it's humourous take on self-regulation, but the deep conservation it illicited.  Here is a snapshot of the brainstorming the that Grade 3/4 class did together to establish their understanding of self-regulation:

Following this, the students broke out into small groups to write their own ideas of what self-regulations means and how to show it in class.  Then, they came together as a class to compile a class success criteria to refer to on how to show self-regulation independently.  Here's what they came up with:

 

The Grade 2 class also shared ideas on how to use self-regulation in class.  Here is what they discussed together:

As we unpack self-regulation and other learning skills, I will continue to post on our discussions, activities and explorations, so stay tuned!

Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn

One of the best books I read this summer was definitely Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn by John Hattie and Gregory Yates.  The book is divided into three sections:  Learning Within Classrooms, Learning Foundations, and Know Thyself.  According to Hattie and Yates this three sections have very particular foci.  The first part, Learning Within Classrooms, deals with learning within classrooms, teacher practice, student thinking and processing (Yates & Hattie, 2014: p. XV-XVI).  The second part, Learning Foundations, delves into major ideas about learning including acquisition, memory retention, mental storage and overload (Yates & Hattie, 2014, p. XVI).  Finally, the third part of the book examines knowing oneself as a learner and who your learners are (Yates & Hattie, 2014, p. XVI).

Within each section, there are chapters dealing with different topics within each section.  As a classroom teacher, I appreciated the insight and sound knowledge that Hattie and Yates provided based on scientific and educational research.  This book not only provided the opportunity for me to reflect on my own practices and my role as an educator, but also on some of my own experiences as a student.  Although there were some chapters that were more engaging or applicable than others, overall, I really enjoyed this resource as it provides sound knowledge that is helpful to understand how your students learn and how you can better help this process as an educator.  This is definitely a good read for all teacher regardless of experience!

Pumpkin Inquiry

During Hallowe'en week, the Full-Day Kindergarten students began an inquiry on pumpkins.  We began the inquiry by placing a mystery object in the center of the carpet.  The students had to guess what the object under the blanket was (see the photo).  Some of their guesses included a ball, a watermelon and a toy.

What's under the mystery blanket?

After taking a few predictions, the mystery object was finally revealed...

Ta-da!  The mystery object revealed!

After revealing the pumpkin, the students began to share what they knew about it.  They knew quite about about pumpkins from previous experience, but they still had lots of questions about them.  Here's what we came up with so far... we will be exploring our wonderings about pumpkins in the coming days!

Look at what we know about pumpkins!

Here's what we want to find out about pumpkins

Out inquiry is off to a fine start!