Low Level / Low Income Students Need Projects Too

In my experience, I have found that low level / low income students often don't get access to the same projects and higher level thinking activities that their higher level / higher income peers do. Mainly this is because teachers feel like there isn't time for those things when students are behind in basic skills. So instead, we spend a lot of time drilling and skilling low level students in hopes that they will remember those basic facts because of the repetition. 

Now I'm a big fan of repetition. I use it in certain ways in my classroom. It's great for building math fact fluency or memorizing site words. It can also be helpful for building classroom routines. But, it's not the end all and be all of education. In fact, it often leads us to the quote "Doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results is the definition of insanity."  Understanding content and using critical thinking skills to solve a problem do not come from drill and skill repetition. Those types of understanding come from making connections between what we already know and what we are learning.

Brain based learning research shows us that students need to be able to connect what they are learning with background knowledge in order to understand and remember what they are reading. One thing that many of our low level students are lacking is background knowledge. So realistically the best thing we can do to help our low level students is to build their background knowledge. Student will more background knowledge learn faster. As teachers we know this to be true because we see it in our classroom all the time. I can personally think of multiple students in my classroom right now who do better not because they have better processing skills but because they have more background knowledge to connect to. 

Projects are a wonderful way for students to build their background knowledge. They are also a wonderful way for students to make connections between different background knowledge that they already have because projects ask them do work with multiple different skills and concepts simultaneously. 

Another thing that brain based learning research shows us is that students (and people in general) remember things better if they are invested in them. The choices that projects allow students make it more likely that they will be invested in these learning experiences. For example, my students who are working on country study projects have chosen their countries for their own personal reason. This gives them buy in and personal investment in their learning, ownership if you will. How many students take ownership for drill and skill worksheet learning?

Maria Montessori is famous for developing a hands-on curriculum that gets students engaged in learning through real life projects like cooking meals. Few people remember that her first famous schools was in a poor, inner city area of Rome. She saw unprecented growth in students of low income, low background knowledge and low academic levels. Why then are our American Montessori schools private and geared towards middle to high income students? Why are we not using the Montessori methods, or at least project based learning, in our low income/ low level schools with the kids who need these methods most?


I teach in a school like this and I try to incorporate as many projects as I can. Here are a few of the projects I have used this year with my 3rd graders:

What projects are you going to do with your low level/ low income students?

Student Created Map Project Presentations

For the past two years as a homeschool parent, I have done a country study with my children. We studied China, Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany. (You can read about what we did in this old blog post.) This year I am back in a classroom, but I was determined to complete country study projects with my students. I wasn't sure how I would balance studying 34 different countries, but my co-teacher and I sat down, looked at it and found a way to make it work. We teach our core subjects, math, reading, writing and grammar Monday through Thursday. Then on Friday, we apply all of what we have learned about reading for information and written communication, add in Social Studies and Science and do research for our country study.

The students are studying a wide range of countries, from Japan to Greece to Brazil to Tonga. For this first month, we used atlases, trade books and internet research to learn about the cities, the bordering countries, the landforms and the average temperature of our countries. Then, the students created maps of their countries.

This Friday the students "presented" their maps to their classmates and parents using a museum technique. The students whose countries were in a specific continent stood at their maps while the others rotated around. Students who were at their maps told the visitors about their country and their map. Visiting students asked questions. Then after ten minutes, we switched to a new continent and there were new presenter. The students were engaged all day and everyone learned a lot! Here are a few of their maps:

The majority of my students have never traveled out of the United States, or learned about other countries, so this project is a perfect way to expand their understanding of the world. In addition to guiding my students through research, I have been using our blog as a way to reach out to people who live or have lived in various countries.  I have asked friends that live or have lived outside of the USA to stop by our 3rd grade blog and leave us a comment about what it is like to live in a country other than the USA. If you know anyone that would be interested in leaving us a comment, please feel free to stop by our 3rd grade blog.

Next Friday we will begin researching the plants, animals and habitats of our countries. We will be creating food webs for our projects. I can't wait to see what the students learn.

If you'd like to do a country study project with your class, you can find my entire Year Long Country Study Project available for purchase at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Social Media Timelines

 

Last month my kids were tasked with the project of creating a timeline about the country they have been studying this year. This was their final project for the history section of their Year Long Country Study Project. I often feel that timelines can be kind of a boring project. However, putting those events they have learned about into some sort of order helps kids to process the information better.

My oldest son read the project sheet and actually got excited. He didn’t feel that this project was boring at all. “Hey mom, can I make this like those fake Facebook histories?” he asked me. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about – check out the Facebook History of the World, but be warned it is a bit PG13 for strong language.) Leave it to him to find a creative technology solution for this project! Of course I said yes and he did a good job putting together a Prezi that looks like a series of social media posts or thought bubbles of the people who were actually at the event. Here’s what he came up with:

 

 

So if your students are bored with timeline projects, suggest this creative option to them – what would that history look like as a series of tweets or posts – or as an Instagram feed or a Pinterest board? This could also be done with books. Can you summarize this book in a series of tweets from the characters? Technology is a huge part of our kids’ lives. Rather than run from it, let’s embrace it!

Halfway Done With Our Country Study Projects!

I know that many of the teachers who read this blog are getting close to done with their school year, but we are running a year-round schedule this year, so we are actually just past halfway.  Last week, the kids finished the fifth project in their Year Long Country Study Project.  They created virtual field trips to one of the Ancient Civilizations that existed in their country.  This was the cumulative project from after a month of exploring what life was like in the years before 0 AD.

 

Each month we have worked on a different type of project – maps, food webs, art projects, virtual museum exhibits.  This month, they created virtual field trips.  They both chose to create their projects by creating recorded Power Point movies. 

 

Here are their projects:

 

Ancient China - the Han Dynasty (5th Grade)

 

 

Ancient Siberia - the Xiongnu Dynasty (2nd Grade) 

 

After finishing their projects, the boys write up a reflection and add their work to their comprehensive Live Binders project.  At the end of the year, each of their tabs will have a reflection and their project. 

 

 

 

This project has been perfect for my homeschool family, but I really wish I had created it last year when I was in the classroom.  The boys are not only learning about their own country, they also talk to each other, so they have learned a lot about the other child’s country as well.  Imagine a class of 20 each with different countries!  Plus, in addition to learning a wide range of Social Studies and Science skills, the boys work on research, reading comprehension and written expression.  Talk about covering a lot of skills! We’ve even incorporated some math into our history lessons as we figure out how many years happened between certain events and dynasties.  If you would like to use this Year Long Country Study Project with your classroom or homeschool family, feel free to download it at my Teachers Pay Teacher store.

 

Virtual Museum Exhibits

It’s been museum week around here!  On Thursday, we took a field trip to the Colburn Earth Science museum in Asheville, South Carolina.  The kids completed scavenger hunts and explored rocks, minerals, mining, tectonic plates, fossils and weather.

 

On Friday, we looked at the virtual museum exhibits of the Smithsonian Natural History museum, which gave us access to the amazing exhibits and information of this museum. 

 

Finally, the boys took the information they have been gathering through their Country Study Research Projects to create their own virtual museum exhibits about the fossils you can find in their countries.

My fifth grader, who is studying China, created this prezi:

 

 

My second grader, who is studying Russia, created this video using Powtoon:

 

 

In the past when I have studied rocks and minerals with a class, I have had students become experts on a type of rock with my Rock Research Project or a material found on Earth with my Earth’s Materials Online Poster Project.  This is the first time I have focused an entire unit on the geographical history of a specific area.  It was really interesting to see the real life applications that came out in my sons’ explanation write ups including references to climate and the uses of rocks.  The Rocks & Fossils section of our Year Long Country Study Project has beena great unit for bringing together all of the major concepts of Earth Science!

Document Student Learning with Stop Motion Studio

 

Lego animation, claymation, stop motion animation.  These all seem like complex types of movies that we shouldn’t attempt in a classroom.  In an after school club, maybe, but definitely not in a classroom.  However, I recently discovered that these types of videos can be created quite simply with an iPad, using the app Stop Motion Studio.  This iPad app can also be used to document the creation of structures and art projects by students. 

With the free version of this app, students can take pictures of their project within this app, edit the pictures, add music and narration.  For a dollar upgrade, students can upload pictures that they have previously taken with the camera.  This upgrade doesn’t seem very important, but it allows multiple students to work on their projects using the same iPad, and when resources are limited, those little upgrades can be amazingly helpful.

My son recently used Stop Motion Studio to create this video of the Buddha sculpture he created.  He created this sculpture as his final project for the “Symbols” section of his Year Long Country Study.  He is studying China and recognized Buddha as one of the most important symbols of the country.  Rather than simply taking a picture of his sculpture, this video shows us exactly how he made it.

What project could you enhance with Stop Motion Studio?

Food Web Project

This year, my kids are using my Year Long Country Study Project to cover all of their Science and Social Studies standards.  Each child chose a country and they will study that country all year.  Each month, we focus on a different topic.  We spend the first three weeks doing research, watching videos and reading books.  Then during the last week, the kids create a project and a write up which they add to their LiveBinder compilation project.

Last month, we worked on Geography and the kids created maps.  (See the maps they created in the blog post: Salt Maps Solidfy Understanding.)  This month, we worked on Habitats and these kids created food webs:

 

5th Grade – China Mountain Habitat

2nd Grade – Russia River/Forest Habitat

Creating these food web projects gave us a chance to reinforce vocabulary like predator, prey, carnivore and herbivore.  The kids also had a chance to talk about where on the food web different types of animals fell.  My 2nd grader told me “I’m glad I’m not a small herbivore.  Look, everything eats the Pika!”  My 5th grader realized that humans are the only predators for some large carnivores.