Tag Archives: #CISDELF

A Flipgrid Twist to Harkness Tables (Part 2 of 2)

Vivienne Kraus • September 3, 2018

This year, I added another element to prepare for the Harkness-inspired discussions that we had in class.

As a way to build vocabulary and fluency, the students’ homework was to record their response to a given question using Flipgrid (https://www.flipgrid.com/). For example :

Quelle est la place de la technologie à l'école? Use at least 10 of the vocabulary words from "Vocabulaire no. 1" in your response.

This allowed me to give written feedback to students on their oral performance in various areas:

Grammar: Je veux répondez > répondre
Content: Next time give specific examples to support your claims.
Pronunciation : outil (ne prononce pas le 'l' final)
Vocabulary : Attention: bénéfique (pas bénéficial)

The flow of oral activities was generally :

Launch with an open-ended question (Assessment as Learning)
Flipgrid practice question (AforL)
Peer assessment (AforL)
Flipgrid practice (AforL)
Self-assessment (AasL)
Harkness-inspired discussion (AofL)

Overall thoughts on the Harkness tables from students:

Things which went well

being able to prepare and to loosely refer to my notes
during the peer-assessment, the listener knew what to look out for
self-tracking kept me on track because I knew what the teacher was looking for; it wasn't a surprise

Things to be improved

“We need the skill to build on other people's ideas…we don't know where the conversation is going to take us.”
“If we always have to invite someone to speak, it’s difficult for someone who has an important point to jump in.”
self-tracking: kept on forgetting to check it off; wanted to follow the conversation instead

End-of-year reflections from senior French students (FSF3U, FSF4U, FEF4U) 2017-2018:

What are two things that you learned that will help you in the future (not necessarily related to French language/culture specifically)

Group conversations
My oral speaking skills are better than they were at the beginning of the year in terms of everyday conversations.
How to have active conversations

What are you most proud of accomplishing this year in French class?

I am proud that I improved my French speaking in the Harkness tables and daily group discussions.
I am proud of how much my oral capabilities have developed.
When I think back to the beginning of this year, I felt very shy and thought that no one could understand what I was saying. Now, especially after our Harkness Table, not only do I think others can understand most of what I am saying, but I speak much more often with a louder and more confident voice. This is not only important in this course, but in all subjects and life in general.

I would recommend this course to someone who…

would like to further develop their speaking abilities
wants to further their knowledge in French in order to allow themselves to speak it proficiently and effectively in a conversational way
is good at written French, but wants to get better at conversational French

I’m looking forward to implementing these strategies again this year and revisiting approaches for current events discussions.

How do you use Flipgrid in your classroom?

Killing two birds with one stone (using design thinking) • 6 Comments

Vivienne Kraus • April 17, 2016

Faire d'un pierre deux coups.

We have been working with design thinking at our school thanks to @Think_teach and of course here at Cohort 21. I felt pretty comfortable and enamored with the process, and had dabbled using it with my guinea pig class as a reflective assessment as learning tool.

At a Round Square conference I attended over the March Break, my student delegates dove into design thinking led by @dcdesignltd. The students from all over the world gained empathy as they listened to their partners' challenges through extensive interviews and designed a solution for them.

I decided to bring this back to my classroom.

Prior to the last few assessments being doled out, I wanted my FSF4U students to step back and reflect on what it was they wanted to accomplish before the end of the year, especially since this might be the last time they ever study French in a classroom. From previous conversations, I knew that for the vast majority of them, improving their spoken French was top of their list, if not a very close second. I was hoping that working with design thinking would allow them to use their speaking skills all the while working out possible solutions to getting oral practice. And it did!

The handouts from @dcdesignltd were so well organized that it took minimal prep on my part, just photocopying. I could look further into this and see which French resources exist because the questions were in English, although my students were at a level where they could freely express their ideas in French about the topic at hand.

The students switched roles during the interviews, gaining empathy for what fears and challenges their peers faced, all the while keeping in mind how they might help them.

The final part of this process was to design something to help their partner. I opened up my cupboard and took out supplies and tools for this part (note that this doesn't require anything fancy):

The students had 7 minutes to design a prototype which addressed their partner's needs:

They then presented to the class. Here are a couple of examples:

A headband which would link directly to WordReference in case the student forgot a word:

An attachment for a phone which would record the user's conversations:

The workshop was originally intended to last one hour, which makes it perfect to integrate into an 80-minute class. My students were presenting current events, though, so I spread it out over 2 classes. The only challenge then was that a couple of students were away the first day, so we had to figure out a time for them to make up the interview part. I wanted everyone at the same point to make the time management easier.

En conclusion, the students loved it. They had a great time discussing their ideas, having a definitive time in which to speak, and most of all, designing their inventions. I enjoyed the freedom it provided me to walk about and listen in on the conversations, the equitable discussion time, and the opportunity it provided for students to truly reflect on what their goals are for the rest of the year.

How have you used design thinking in your classroom?
Have you used design thinking for assessments of learning? How so?

It’s a colourful life… • 3 Comments

Vivienne Kraus • April 17, 2016

...that of a teacher. And that of a French teacher trying to get her students to speak more in class!

Thanks to Celeste Kirsh (@teach_tomorrow), I attempted to up the ante beyond "Talking Stick 2.0" (https://cohort21.com/viviennekraus/2015/11/21/talking-stick-2-0/). No longer was it just about using the plain popsicle sticks to determine the number of one's contributions to the discussion; now we were going to do it in colour! And this time to track the types of contributions made. Based on @teach_tomorrow's guidelines for her students, I created the following:

This way, students could determine if they were contributing a:

new thought
add-on
probing / challenging question
clarifying question or
connection.

Each student received one of each colour and, during our current events discussions, could only use them each once per presentation. I was hoping that this would limit the students who enjoyed contributing new thoughts, but didn't push the conversation further. It worked out for the most part, although some of the new thoughts were lengthy ones, which still limited equal participation from all students.

Overall, the students responded positively to this, so I geared them up for more:

"So...how do you think using colour-coded popsicle sticks

during a Harkness Table would work out?"

We practiced a Harkness Table with the same guidelines as above. When it came time for the assessment of learning, though, I tweaked the use of sticks to better reflect the expectations from the rubric so that students could track their performance in this particular assessment.

At the end of the Harkness Table, the students thought that the popsicle sticks were more of a "nice to have" than a "need to have", but they didn't mind continuing to use them with the current events discussions.

I personally enjoyed this version of the talking stick. Kagan's (@KaganOnline) Talking Chip strategy launched me in this direction, and @teach_tomorrow's ideas added on immensely. The visual feedback I got was immediately telling. I am definitely keeping this one in my repertoire!

Merci mille fois, Celeste!

Things are going to get messy… • 12 Comments

Vivienne Kraus • February 12, 2016

My action plan

My goal for this year was to provide more opportunities for my students to communicate orally in French in an authentic manner.

I had heard of Harkness tables from the English Department at my school, and I have been playing with this idea over the past couple of years. I didn't realize its origins until I came across this site: http://www.exeter.edu/admissions/109_1220_11688.aspx.

"On April 9, 1930, philanthropist Edward Harkness spoke to Exeter's Principal Lewis Perry regarding how a substantial donation he had made to the Academy might be used:

'What I have in mind is teaching boys in sections of about eight in a section . . . where boys could sit around a table with a teacher who would talk with them and instruct them by a sort of tutorial or conference method, where the average or below average boy would feel encouraged to speak up, present his difficulties, and the teacher would know . . what his difficulties were. . . This would be a real revolution in methods.'

The result was "Harkness Teaching," in which a teacher and a group of students work together, exchanging ideas and information, around a table."

[Note: I have taken myself out of the equation in order to allow me to evaluate while the Harkness is taking place.]

A HarkMess table moreso than Harkness?

I wanted student input on the format of the the final Harkness table, so I decided to do 2 practice Harkness tables and then a third as an assessment of learning. The students were discussing health in general (lifestyle, body image, dieting etc.). After each Harkness, I asked for their feedback with the intention of using it to improve their experience. Here’s what happened:

(I knew things would get messy! My original unit plan lies somewhat neatly in the boxes. My students’ feedback is splayed and layered everywhere else!)

First of 3 Harkness Tables

My goals were lofty - to get students to:

use French spontaneously in discussion
incorporate new vocabulary
use authentic listening resources to support ideas and
read for meaning.

As this particular course has 2 sections - one of 16 and one of 14 students - I randomly divided then into two groups. I handed out a sheet with the oval for tracking the ‘web’ of speakers (@mrcaplan pointed me to the following link for resources: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-collaborative-learning-resources .) On the other side was a page with vocabulary words (French only - I had given them this list to prepare; this was to jog their memory) and a space to take notes from the reading and video on the other side.

Procedure

Whole group:

Explain the concept of Harkness Table and how it’s going to work in French class. My Core French students were leery of being able to complete a Harkness table in French. They said that they did so for 35 minutes in English, but were very doubtful about being able to do anywhere near this amount in French.
Show video twice (5 min.)
Allow students to read article and take notes (7 min.)

Divide class into two:

One half sits at desks set up in an oval while the other half observes. Their job is to create a web demonstrating who spoke in which order by drawing lines connecting the students’ contributions. The prompt is posted. It is different for each group, but based on the same theme of health. (Note: I did not give them the prompt prior because I was concerned that they would GoogleTranslate their ideas and memorize them. I wanted their authentic communication for this assignment.) After approximately 15 minutes, I signal the end verbally (“deux minutes”).
Each student receives a copy of the web to see how much they contributed.(Hard to do when I had printed the paper for their own notes on the other side; instead they ended up just sharing with their assigned partner.)

My reflections:

Students were told to make notes as they read and watched the video, but they didn’t know what about since I hadn’t share the prompt with them. I had told them it was generally about ‘health’.
They should have access to their notes and the reading, but not their laptop during the Harkness Table; once again I fear the GoogleTranslating!

Student reflections:

Things that worked well: short reading, role of the observers, length (15 min.), 2 different prompts
Things to be improved: video was confusing and too fast to understand; vocabulary provided was not necessarily useful during the discussion; prompt - can this be given out beforehand, or maybe give 10-15 min. in class beforehand to work on specific prompt, or give 4 and choose one
Was this a fair assessment? – no because you can’t really prepare, not if you’re not good on your feet or shy

Second of 3 Harkness Tables

The procedure was basically the same as the first. I did not add any new vocabulary, but there was a new reading and a new video. The only major change was that I gave the observers tally sheets where they could track the contributions, i.e. gave details, asked a question, invited someone to join, used English words. I had also divided up each class strategically - in one, I put those with stronger oral skills together, in the other, I separated students who tended to talk a lot during discussions.

My reflections:

The tally sheet worked well in that students then had peer feedback as well as a list of words they had used in English; they could therefore look these up prior to the final assessment.
In the class in which I put stronger students altogether, I asked those students who had less French experience if they would be comfortable with the stronger group prior to placing them. Luckily no one said no, so this kept my numbers even.

Student reflections:

Things that worked well: tally sheet; the groups (keep the same for the final); not having a moderator since the groups were small (7-8 students); the video - it gave them more to discuss
Things to be improved: Signal the end by clapping/tapping the desk twice instead of saying “deux minutes”; the video - not necessary; Students also convinced me that they should be able to bring in notes because the conversation would easily stray so they wouldn’t be able to rely solely on what they had written (which was my fear - that they would GoogleTranslate their notes and read off them!).

Final Harkness Table

As homework, I assigned them the reading, and gave them the link to a video which was targeted to their level. I provided a sheet with useful vocabulary (in French only), and space for notes, which they could bring in with them. I gave them two prompts.
On the day of, we watched the video in class twice. I handed out tally sheets with boxes to check off for the observers. I wrote both prompts on the board, and rolled a die to assign their group a specific prompt. The rest of the discussion followed the same format as the previous ones.

My reflections:

Students who wanted to perform well prepared at home and came in feeling more at ease.
The students were right - they didn’t actually read off their notes! They had to react spontaneously to join in the conversation.
This was relatively easy to mark so I could give the students their results quickly. While writing everything down during the discussion was challenging, calculating their mark was easily done.
I had started to record their discussion, but then ran into storage issues on my laptop. I’ll either have to look into this before next time, or accept that I might not have a recording available as reference for the future.
Note: I will be opening up a lunchtime Harkness table next week for those students who would like to try again. It will be a mix of both classes, so dynamics will be different. It will be a different prompt than the previous ones, but still based on the same reading and video.

Student reflections:

Things that went well: practice Harkness tables were a big help; they liked having their notes with them
Things to be improved: more time was needed (I stopped them after 18-22 minutes, depending on the flow of the conversation; I wanted to get 2 done in a period); the roll of the die was frustrating; give time for closing remarks

Assessment as learning

Here is a selection of comments provided by students after all 3 Harkness tables were completed (apologies for the format, not sure how to change it):

Is this a fair assessment of your oral skills? Why? Why not?	How is an assessment like this helping you reach your goals in French class?	Which feedback from this assessment do you think will be most helpful in the future?
I think that this is a pretty fair assessment of our oral skills. I believe it is pretty fair because we were allowed to bring in our own notes and think about the things that we are planning on saying.	This is helping me reach my goals in French class because I am able to practice speaking French which I think is more useful.	I think that the part about my pacing when talking was the most helpful, since now I know that when I'm presenting I talk slower from pressure. I should practice talking more often to become better when put on the spot.
Yes, I believe this is a fair assessment because it showcases a conversation with the student among their peers, overall demonstrating their oral skills. However, I wish there was more time.	It teaches you how to have a constructive conversation in French which mimics a fully french environment and immerses the student which is a major plus.	Better intonation and learning new vocabulary
No, this type of assessment is completely biased in terms of grouping. If you were to group people together and told them you were evaluating them based on their discussion, of course there would be people who would grab this chance and take all the time given to them. I am not the type to talk for a long time, so this assessment isn't a fair representation of my skills.	I think this assessment helped with my goals by letting me practice speaking in conversation and trying to come up with ideas in french on the spot	The feedback that is most helpful is to ask more questions and get other people involved in the conversation.
I believe that this is both a fair and unfair assessment of my oral skills. It is a good simulation of real life situation. However, sometimes it is difficult to speak while others are trying to speak as well.	My goal in french is to be able to speak it and understand, so oral assessments are really helping me to reach my goal. (although oral assessments are harder than writing in my opinion.)	Getting feedback on my grammar, pronunciation and how to be further involved in the discussion will help me in the future.

I was very pleased with the outcome, and the students were so proud of themselves! They couldn't believe that they could hold a discussion for that length of time in French! As I mentioned to them, #thatwasn'tsoawkwardafterall!

Have you ever tried this method in your classroom?