Blog Post #3
Ana Lorena Fabrega talks about story-driven learning. Do you currently use story-driven learning? If so, explain and give specific examples. If not, consider a topic you currently teach with which you could try out the idea of story- driven learning. Take a little time to research. Share your plans here.
Our curriculum has some stories in it of real people that helps the students make connections with their learning. I also try to add "story telling" to my lessons. Another words I tell a personal story about when I was in school or when my own kids were in school. By doing this, it not only grabs the students attention but they have something to connect the lesson with. We, as a fourth grade team, also try to bring in community members to present to the students depending on the lesson that we are currently on. The students love when we do this because it makes the lessons more meaningful and they really do enjoy learning from others! We, as teachers, enjoy it too as it allows us to bring real life experiences to students who might not otherwise have those opportunities.
ReplyDeleteI have used story driven introductions with some of my lessons. Currently I am teaching about Energy and using Roller Coasters as a way to teach how to do calculations. One example is when I tell students they are being recruited by a theme park engineer to design a gravity-powered roller coaster. They receive “engineer credentials,” mission goals, and constraints. They get to come up with a design using a pool noodle and it must successfully get a marble through to the end. It is fun watching them be creative and be proud of their work. Once they do this then we go into the science behind it and how to calculate Potential and Kinetic Energy.
ReplyDeleteAna Lorena Fabrega talks about story-driven learning. Do you currently use story-driven learning? If so, explain and give specific examples. If not, consider a topic you currently teach with which you could try out the idea of story- driven learning. Take a little time to research. Share your plans here.
ReplyDeleteI currently do not use story-driven learning, but I could use story-driven learning in math. Right now, my students are working on story problems with finding the missing addend. To use story-driving learning with the concept they are learning in math, I could create my own story problems, but use character names that they are interested at the moment or using student names from my class. With that, I can structure the story problem into a little story to get students hooked and to really understand what they are trying to figure out. Next, I could have students volunteer and act out the story problem or I could have them use manipulative to help them understand. That is how I can use story-driven learning in math.
I am trying to incorporate more story-driven learning into my classroom. Right now my eighth grade class is reading Hatchet and learning about survival. They are working on an essay of the best way to survive if they were in a similar situation as Brian. They have talked with trappers, hunters, fisherman, and a person from the armed forces on the survival so they can learn some of the skills that they will need.
ReplyDeleteI have changed from using textbook curriculum to using books that are on the topics we are covering, for example the revolutionary war.
I would like to find people who use the math skills in their jobs to talk to the students about using geometry at their work and how it applies. ALS when discussing ratios and percentages in math I would bring in a rancher and have them discuss how they figure out their rations for their livestock.
Yes, I use the story of Anne Frank to introduce the Holocaust. We also connect it to undocumented immigrants that are currently in hiding from ICE and we ask ourselves is it the same thing. Now this is treading thin ice in my school, but once I reached my rule of 85, I have taken many more risks. lol I have decided if we don't discuss it in an educational setting then where is a safe space to do it. I can control the attacks and create an environment where discussion is encouraged. Whatever they conclude is fine with me, but the controversy creates interest and that comparison is the real learning. I also have used stories of Uber (& other rideshares) and Spotify as innovative thinking to encourage my 8th graders to create a service or invention of their own to solve a problem, or add value to society, or simply to just get rich.
ReplyDeleteELA lends itself pretty easily to stories of people, but then to have them use them as inspiration for their own creations, that's the fun. I also really loved the story of the superintendent in a California district where he put modems in school busses and parked them overnight in disadvantaged neighborhoods to close the gap for families without internet access. Brilliant. This inspires Vuja de projects -- to look at an old problem in a new way.
Blog Post 3
ReplyDeleteStory Driven Learning
I use story driven learning in a non-conventional way I’d say. There is room for growth in my story driven learning. To get my students to use punctuation in their reading and writing to create meaning, we read a short, comical story that I have changed or deleted the punctuation. We then illustrate it using the meaning that the punctuation and words created. I use a fictional story that consists of one of the comical phrases like, Let’s eat Grandma, vs Let’s eat, Grandma. We make it fun to see that punctuation matters. These stories and the differences in the illustrations with the differences in punctuation seem to stick with them as we go on to read and write applying the skills. We do use songs and rhymes to help with phonics skills and grammar. However, this may be more on the memorization level than the story driven level.
YES, YES, YES! This is one of my favorite ways to teach. Students LOVE to hear stories as they can truly relate. They also love to tell their own stories. Below are three examples of storytelling I do in Health.
ReplyDelete1. When I got hit by a car in 9th grade and got injured (torn acl, broke my back). I tell them about my depression during it -as I was a high-end soccer player. I also tell them about my come back, health wise, and ultimately my victory of playing soccer again in college.
2. I tell them about a former classmate of mine who overdosed on heroin. She was an unbelievable singer and cheerleader and drugs for the best of her.
3. I tell them about the various relationships I went through before finding my husband.
I do use story-driven learning with many of my early childhood special education students. For example, when we work on social-emotional skills, we often read a story about a character who is experiencing a problem such as feeling frustrated, sharing with friends, or asking for help. After the story, we talk about the character’s feelings and practice the same skills through role-play and play-based activities. Another example is when teaching daily living skills. I might create a simple story about a character getting ready for school—brushing teeth, getting dressed, and eating breakfast. Students follow the story while practicing those routines themselves. This helps them understand the sequence of events and connect the learning to real-life situations. Using stories helps my students stay engaged, understand concepts more easily, and remember the skills because they are connected to a meaningful context.
ReplyDeleteI use story-driven learning in my first grade classroom by introducing new ideas through stories and real people. Stories help young students connect to the content and make learning more meaningful. For example, when teaching writing, I read a picture book and talk about the characters, setting, and problem in the story. Then students write their own simple stories with a beginning, middle, and end. This helps them understand story structure while also practicing writing skills.
ReplyDeleteAnother example is in math. When teaching addition, I start with a short story about characters sharing or collecting objects, such as animals finding apples. Students act out the story with counters and solve the problem along with the characters. This helps them see how math connects to real situations and makes the lesson more engaging.
I also use story-driven learning in science. When learning about plants, I might read a story about a seed growing into a flower. We discuss what the seed needs and then plant our own seeds in class. Students follow the “story” of their plant as it grows and record what they observe.
Using story-driven learning in first grade helps students stay engaged, understand concepts more deeply, and remember what they learn because they connect ideas to characters and events.
Wow! What an easy concept! And yet, in the rush of day to day activities/lessons in the classroom, I definitely do not use this as I should. We read about people, but the majority of the time, I do not do an activity to go along with that person or what they did. And right now, I am banging my head against the wall, because, seriously, how simple!! I am definitely going to work this into the end of the school year now. We will be reading about some people in our next stories for reading so I am going to find something to incorporate in with that to get them learning better. I truly love this concept. I think the exhaustion of teaching at times keeps me from looking outside the box as much as I should.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite authors is Sam Kean. His book "The Dueling Neurosurgeons" is about the history of the research and discovery of the human brain. I share many of those stories when I teach the nervous system to my students. Their favorite is always the story of Phineas Gage. After I read that part of the book to them, we watch a video/documentary. The other story they find fascinating is about Rose Kennedy and how they attempted to cure her behavioral issues with a frontal lobotomy. My high school students truly love it when I read to them. They are so used to their technology, that when I pull them away from the chromebook and their cell phones, they actually become more engaged and we have good conversations. They are curious as to how events happened or why and how it relates to other events. The stories usually lead to more research to answer their questions or to just hear more stories.
ReplyDeleteAs a French teacher, many of the stories I use in class involve my own struggles to learn French and some of the silly mistakes I have made. Of course, using stories in the form of cinema, television shows, and song are also incredibly engaging ways to work with the target language. I have considered trying to fit more French history into my curriculum as well and have considered how I could use stories to make a study of the French revolution more engaging.
ReplyDeleteI do a long-term research project with my upper elementary gifted students. They pick a person of merit, dead or alive and there are a few other guidelines...and they do a deep-dive biography about that person - accessing the internet and books. The do a timeline of their entire life and at the same time have to answer a lot of deep questions about why they became what they did, what things happened that influenced their life choices and how they handled adversity in their life. We discuss as a small group the answers to those questions and they get a chance to see good and bad examples of life choices. I believe the students take a lot more away from this project than just dates and figures.
ReplyDeleteAna Lorena Fabrega talks about story-driven learning. Do you currently use story-driven learning? If so, explain and give specific examples. If not, consider a topic you currently teach with which you could try out the idea of story- driven learning. Take a little time to research. Share your plans here.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, I can't say that I use story driven learning specifically. If I were to use story driven learning, I would probably incorporate it into my Health class. I believe I could incorporate this by either fictional characters and/or real-life stories that students can follow relating to an actual person's health journey - including mental health, social and physical health. Including ways to manage, mental health through possible crisis scenarios, the stress of school, juggling commitments, relationships and social media platforms, moving onto physical health, creating and/or following eating and exercise plans and finally relating this all to a person's social health. Again, this could all be related to a specific person in time and/or a fictional character that could be used through every Unit in Health class.