4 Learning Provocations

Picture credit = S. Singh

What is a "learning provocation"? If you aren't an educator, you might not be familiar with the term. Here are three definitions / explanations I've found online.

https://www.geteduca.com/blog/engage-early-learners-using-provocations/

"Deliberate and thoughtful decisions made by the teacher to extend the ideas of the children. Teachers provide materials, media, and general direction as needed, but the children take the ideas where they want. This allows children to develop skills of creativity, inventiveness, and flexibility in thinking, planning, and reflecting."

https://www.thecompassschool.com/blog/what-is-provocation/

"Provocations allow and encourage children to experience the world for themselves through open-ended activities without being overtly guided by a teacher or parent. The idea behind provocations is to encourage children to think independently by encouraging their interests and the exploration of those interests."

http://www.racheous.com/reggio/what-provocation-reggio/

"Put simply, provocations provoke! They provoke thoughts, discussions, questions, interests, creativity and ideas.They can also expand on a thought, project, idea and interest. Provocations can come in many forms."


I've noticed that there have been a few "provocation inspirations" that I've used lately or plan to use soon. I want to thank the people (and creatures) who helped refine these provocations so that the students could learn in engaging, deep thinking, personally relevant ways.

1) Good Questions - The Critical Thinking Consortium

Several weeks ago, devoted and talented fellow teacher Brenda Kim and I attended a workshop run by Francine Schwartz and Stephanie Wong about developing richer questions. My brain hurt afterwards because, even though the idea was relatively simple, creating critical thinking questions wasn't easy! Brenda did a ton of work filling our planning template and I'm excited about our Grade 4 and Grade 5 combined Social Studies critical thinking questions and activities. I don't know when we will get a chance to share the results of our co-teaching, since board-offered professional learning is struck work during this phase of the work-to-rule action, but I wanted to thank Francine, Stephanie, Byron Stephenson and Andrea Sykes for initiating this project. I also enjoyed the opportunity to attend PD alongside a classroom teacher as a T/TL team, and learning about Jam Board was a bonus!

Is that @MzMollyTL delving deep into early Monday morning PD? Brain hurts? yes mine too~~ love this opportunity to learn together with you and ask brain twisting critical thinking! pic.twitter.com/uR956NSMJO

— Brenda Kim (@BKimTeacher) November 8, 2019

2) Real Scenarios - Twitter Crowd Sourcing

I've been working on my current unit about authority with my students all term. My original impulse to have each student or team read a book and identify the types of authority and message regarding authority wasn't going to work. However, I really wanted the students to examine the theme of authority in a personally authentic way. I hoped that they would be able to determine when to listen to authority and when to defy it. (I will write more about this topic in a future blog post.) I put out an appeal on Twitter and got several wonderful ideas for scenarios. Thank you to Dan Capozzi, Isaiah Zabinsky, Faith Rogow and Molly Dettmann for the great discussion prompts. We used every one of them and I'll share the results later on.

3) Stories - Inspire Innovate Include Learning Cadre

On November 12, I had a full day. I shopped with students at the GTA Resource Fair and then hurried back to north Scarborough to attend the #InspireInnovateInclude Learning Cadre after school at Henry Hudson Sr. P.S. - this event was part of a volunteer professional learning series that, as the name indicates, encourages educators to inspire, innovate, and include.

What happens when 100 passionate educators gather? An energy that reaffirms our commitment to making a impact. Starting with stories. How will you challenge yourself? What's your next learning move? #inspireinnovateinclude @malloy_john @CRussellRawlins @BrendanBrowne @LC3_TDSB pic.twitter.com/ubPQzJ278t

— S.Chan (@schan_tdsb) November 13, 2019

I was impressed (and slightly overwhelmed) by the large crowd, but was delighted to be in the presence of good friends and insightful educators. I was so happy to see people like Janis Jones, who used to be our school's learning coach. The facilitators made a great point about the importance of stories - both to teachers and to students. It reminded me that we need to make time for students to have the opportunity to tell their own stories, the way they want, and for these stories to be heard respectfully and without judgement.

Big thanks to the organization committee (see image to the left of the team members:Gail, Nizam, Navi, Gloria, Janis, Holly, Shirley, Abhi and Kate). Even though future gatherings will be postponed due to the work-to-rule action, I'm still thinking and digesting the lessons learned from the first session. I have a "move forward" idea and project and part of my "research" into it involves talking with teachers. Thank you Sonia Singh and Tina Voltsinis for sharing your observations of your students; it helps me determine how I can best Innovate to support Inclusion.
 

The best part of #InspireInnovateInclude session 1 was reconnecting with some wonderful educators who are just as eager to continue their learning beyond the instructional day - apologies if I forget to include folx @jjecx @schan_tdsb @ms_awara Moyah, Tracey, Josephine, etc! pic.twitter.com/8T7X0W3J6K

— Diana Maliszewski (@MzMollyTL) November 13, 2019

4) Ernie the Skinny Pig

One of the biggest (and most popular) learning provocations I've used lately is a "tried and true" trick - our school library pet. I've already mentioned how Ernie is the focus for Room K2's media project (a book). The primary division classes are also interested in using Ernie as inspiration for inquiry learning. I had some open periods in my schedule due to class trips and completed units, and so I was able to bring Ernie to Sonia Singh's Grade 1-2 class. Big thanks to Mrs. Singh for allowing me to come in! I brought him in on November 19 and the students were super-attentive. Some of the students asked me daily after this experience when Ernie would come back to their class to visit! Thank you Sonia for also teaching me a iPhone photography technique I didn't know existed.

@AgnesMacphailPS @MzMollyTL look who visited our classroom today😊Mrs. Maliszewski with Ernie, the skinny pig🤗great learning about animals took place!!! Thanks Mrs. Maliszewski for creative teaching ideas ❤️ pic.twitter.com/zE2BTCEFWx

— sonia singh (@sonia_a9) November 19, 2019

We did a follow-up lesson on November 29 which dovetailed nicely with the end of Sonia's recent measurement unit. The Grade 2s and I talked about all the different things we could possibly measure related to Ernie. (It'll be hard to measure how warm he is with the tools we have!) Then, we estimated how long/wide/heavy/tall things would be and after that, we measured. I'm disappointed I couldn't locate a battery in time to replace the dead one in my fancy little gram scale - students were keen to discover how much Ernie weighs. What I really loved about our time together was how the students did all the documenting - including taking these photos.

Sonia and I are hoping that this may also connect with her upcoming letter-writing lessons - I'd like to compare the size of the cage recommended for guinea pigs with the size of the cages in pet stores. I suspect that they are not as large as they should be and maybe the students can write purposeful letters advocating for larger living quarters.

Once again, thank you to all the people (and animals) for helping to make our students' learning experiences interesting, independent, student-led, and flexible. I can't wait to see where we go from here!