Students at Triangle Learning Community middle school (opening in August, 2013) will begin most mornings by reading the news from a variety of sources — NY Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, etc…
Each time a student reads an article, she or he will create a Google Earth place mark to log the article. The student will also write notes about what he/she found most interesting about the article, and will include a link to the article in the notes of the place mark.
If you are not familiar with Google Earth, that paragraph is a bit abstract — here’s an 8-minute video that shows the process I went through this morning to bring to life this article about child brides in Niger from the front page of today’s Washington Post:
Students would typically read about three articles each morning on their own. To start with, one of the three articles might be selected by a teacher (we call them “learning facilitators”), but as students learn judgment, they will start to select their own articles to read.
Once students have read and logged at least three articles each — a process that will take about 45 minutes — we will put our computers away so that we can focus on listening to each other and not being distracted.
We will sit in a circle, and each of the 20 students will take a turn making a 30- to 45-second “pitch” to the group about why we should discuss his/her article for our 30+ minute discussion time.
Once everyone has made a pitch (i.e. practiced persuasive speaking in a public setting), the group will vote. If two articles seem popular, the two learning facilitators can split the group of 20 into two groups so students can discuss the article they find most interesting.
If a group selected the child bride story from today’s Washington Post, questions that might come up include: what role does religion play in the high birthrate of Niger? What countries in the world have similar birthrates? What are the minimum ages for marriage in each of the 50 states? What is the average age? What is the case in Europe? Asia?
These questions would be brainstormed and discussed to the extent possible in 30-40 minutes. We will use computers as thoughtful research aides when needed, but most students won’t have computers in front of them for the discussion. The idea is to all be as present as possible.
After the discussion, each student will go back on his her computer and write for 15-20 minutes to reflect on the most interesting thing he/she learned from the morning session. That might be something that came out of the discussion, or it might be something from one of the three articles that the student read and found compelling, but that the group did not choose to discuss.
By 10 a.m. students will have practiced reading quality resources, expanding their global perspective, listening to classmates — both as everyone delivers a “pitch” and in the discussion that follows, speaking in public — again both when each student makes his/her “pitch” and in the discussion that follows, and writing a reflection about what she/he learned from the morning’s session. Most of those reflections will be shared internally with classmates, and if time permits, we will each take time to look at what a few classmates found most interesting.
At the end of each week, students would choose a few reflections to revise and publish on the school’s external blog so that people around the world can see what topics TLC students are learning about.
The idea behind all elements of TLC is to showcase what’s possible in learning today.
For context, here’s what an entire day at TLC might look like:
Math will proceed at a student’s own pace, and students will soon learn to assign themselves appropriately challenging math problems so that they can complete at least a traditional ninth grade math education by the end of eighth grade. Several projects will address fundamental science concepts. In addition, regular PSST sessions will help students collaborate in problem solving and pattern recognition as they ponder the “why?” questions of math and science.
If you are interested in learning more, please visit Triangle Learning Community, or email Steve Goldberg: Steve [at] Trianglearning.org (note that the “le” is shared, so don’t type trianglelearning; type trianglearning)
Steve,
I’m really impressed to see how this is coming together, and I love the idea of having students pitch articles for discussion by the group. This will be a really powerful moment for learning as students. One thing that might add to this a bit is to have some way of tracking the articles that are pitched, as well as those chosen for discussion. This could easily be done by a google doc for members of the class to submit links to their pitches and short discussions (this would help to show the breadth of the class’s interest), and then perhaps some sort of group blog to capture the discussed articles along with a summary of the days discussion. I imagine it could be pretty fruitful for students to go back and see how the interests of the group evolved over time.
I can’t wait to watch this evolve. I suggest having the students’ news reflections appear in a common blog so that they can write for a wider audience and others can gain from their insights. You may get other students from other schools interacting with your students. The reflections could be sorted by topic, geography, and author.
Wonderful concept and ideas for your future students! Why not invite the students to categorize their reflections so that they can develop this skill and be aware of its challenges. I look forward to learning from the progress you and your school make. Best regards, Sarah Ritter Dooley
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