your Learning Journey, your questions, your answers,

The Learning Journey – by Linda Johnson Nov 29/13

Tightened version

*LEARNERS have QUESTIONS (reasons).

(Kids are natural-born scientists. First of all they ask the deep scientific questions: Why is the moon round?

Why is the sky blue? What’s a dream? Why do we have toes? What’s the birthday of the world? By the time they get into high school they hardly ever ask questions like that.” –Carl Sagan)

*Learners seek RESOURCES to find answers.

(Teachers are resources NOT reasons.)

(“Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.” –Neal Postman)

*Learners PLAY with answers.     

*Learners ARTICULATE understanding.

(Repeat question/play/articulate cycle till gaps are filled.) (“Become a question mark again.” –Jack Foster)

*Learners use (publish) new knowledge creatively.

Absolutely Amazing Adverbs! adding to sentence FORMS

November 4, 2013

Here is a summary of recent weeks of sentence class creativity:
Students now have a good understanding of determiners: the, this, my, our, etc.
They have a growing ability to identify the subject/verb/object of a kernal sentence.
They can add adjectives to nouns. They have a growing ability to use adverbs to add meaning to verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs that tell how, when, where (prepositional phrases), and to what extent.

Enjoy!

Absolutely Amazing Adverbs

Every Tuesday, our gray haired great-grandma races quickly around the big racetrack in her orange scooter to win snacks for Bingo on Wednesday. -Sean

The thirsty giant clumsily knitted an umbrella for his finger while sitting in his fridge. -Caleb

On her birthday our granny raced wildly through

the snow. Her blue scarf fluttered in the wind. –Jianna

One night my overweight hamster waddled sleepily through cookie dough ice cream before retiring to the waffle cone.

 –Mrs. H

My funny granny occasionally races rocket ships around Mars and Jupiter.

– Mrs, J

Sometimes the weird orchestra plays Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony hanging from tree branches.–Nolan, Cole

Now the 1^st party mutant cookie selfishly sings during a brainstorm. –group effort

Usually the mutant planet sings loudly at midnight during a neutron star apocalypse. –group

After breakfast my crazy grandma raced quickly to Hawaii with her pink Snickerdoodles. -Brinley

In the afternoon, the funny grandma crunchily ate a mouse on Mars.  -Caydee

Now she is the powerful nymph carefully creating unicorns out by the pool. - group

measuring the Learning Journey rubric,

Learning Journey rubric – working model – October 9, 2012

 (The 'traditional' approach is in brackets for comparison.)

Linda A. J. Johnson

0

no information is being considered, no questions are being asked

(information deemed appropriate to learner’s age is being distributed)

1

information is being acknowledged (that’s interesting…) and prior knowledge reflected upon (I  remember when…); questions are being asked (I wonder if…); 

(information may be attended to; prior knowledge remains untapped, questions usually asked to clarify meaning)  (anxiety symptoms begin)                                                                                                                                            

2

information is selected (by learner) for further consideration, resources are actively sought, (books, internet, mentors, media, library, school, text , etc) (information to be learned is pre-determined, learning resources are provided)

3.

new information is recorded, and considered with prior knowledge;  attending to new understanding (new information, as requested, is considered and recorded in  pre-determined forms)

4

‘playing’ with new understanding by using the body to inform the mind; creating new connections, using media of choice

         4.1

         talking- engaging in reflective dialogue

         4.2

         drawing-organizing thoughts visually, use of idea catcher

         4.3

         writing-organizing thoughts symbolically, use of idea catcher

         4.4

         crafting- in media of choice

         4.5

         other ‘playing’ demonstrated

(minimal time is given to ‘playing’ for genuine understanding, this neglect causes much of the break-down in our learning journey)

 5

clearly  articulates new understanding  to audience, audience ‘gets it’ (This is a key step that is seldom achieved) (Articulation is expected in required FORM; ie. the 5 paragraph essay)

6

demonstrates power of imagination, expands on ‘play’ connections in media of choice (Use of imagination expected on demand - imagination cannot be produced on demand)

(Learners in our culture seldom achieve the last 4 stages; …)

7

the power of creativity appears, new products, services, solutions, etc, are developed;

8

‘publishes’ product to the world meeting the conventions of required forms, achieves impact

9

asks new questions, returns to the beginning of the learning journey and grows in new directions

10

is a life –long learner and mentor to others