Monday Night Musing #8 - All You Have To Do Is Ask (A Little)

Salvēte omnēs!

Welcome back to another edition of Monday Night Musings, when I set the timer for 15 minutes and let ideas flow instead of trying to craft, construct, and edit.

The topic tonight is 'on-demand' professional development, or the really recent phenomenon of social media serving as learning communities. Like anything, there are positives and negatives, but I am here to focus on the positive in particular.

A few weeks ago I posed a 'Quomodo dicitur?' (How is it said?) question to one of the CI Latin teacher groups, in regards to using Expo brand markers in the classroom in Latin.

My question: "If you were to use 'Expo', like an Expo brand marker as a Latin noun, would you put it in the 2nd declension or 3rd? masculine or neuter? Leave it as indeclinable?"

As far as I can tell, none of us has formal training in how to handle questions like this. It's all feel. And of course, there's not really a wrong answer. If I want to discuss Expo markers in my classroom with students, I can do so with any of the options above and be just fine. But some of us want to feel like we are aligned with something, and even if you have colleagues in your school, teaching Latin with CI can feel pretty isolating at times.

So what happened after I asked the question? Did the internet expo-lode into a flame war? Not at all. I received quick, friendly, and thoughtful replies that affirmed my idea. One answer even made me laugh out loud! The consensus was to model it as a 3rd declension masculine noun with a dictionary entry expo, expōnis. The reasons for this choice were well-stated and multiple. I closed out of the internet feeling good.

In conclusion, I would encourage anyone with little questions like this one, and especially anyone feeling the need for affirmation, to use this new form of PD to its fullest. Sometimes it is easy to think of Quomodo dicitur? only as a fantastic podcast or a powerful weapon for our students in the classroom. As a community, we could use more ad hoc acknowledgement of our humanity and chances to have small, productive discussions. So let's take advantage of the best feature of social media PD and ask some more 'Quomodo dicitur?' questions.

Monday Night Musing #7 - Maps

Salvēte omnēs!

I am a huge fan of maps, yet they don't find their way into my classroom very often. Reflecting on why this is the case brings me a fairly simple answer - I used to teach Social Studies, and in order to meet geographic standards, my counterparts and I would include maps with each unit in some way. I did not develop the same habit or pattern with language teaching, so maps tend to be something to build a unit around or as a way of keeping things fresh.

So what's are some ways to use maps?

#1 - Traditional Maps - Whether on paper or on a screen, students learn about the Greco-Roman world from maps like this one:

They can color them or add in the details on a blank map, etc. There is certainly some value to be derived from this, but this is a quick post and I'd rather keep moving. But just to be sure you've heard of it, there are plenty of free quality maps from the Ancient World Mapping Center.

#2 - The Quizlet Diagram - Using Quizlet's awesome diagram feature (more on this in a future blog post), you can create a game where students identify locations within a diagram, picutre, or map. Great for formative assessment, filling a little bit of class time, and for the fast processors who enjoy trying to get the best times. Here's an example that includes the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

#3 - The Interactive Map - Using tools like Google Maps, which allow students to explore more in-depth than a 'traditional' map. I had students do this for a lesson this year when we had only studied three of the Seven Wonders. Honestly, it was a 'be your own sub day' so I didn't think too hard about it except that it allowed me to facilitate and guide students instead of having to perform or lead the whole group. here is an example:  Student Three Wonders Map

#4 - The Custom Map - Incorporating geography, spatial or temporal mapping into a narrative. If you are a fan of Anne Matava's Story Scripts, TPRS, or Asking A Story, then you know the value of having characters travel through space (and or time). Each year my students read a story based on ideas from Goldilocks and one of Anne's original scripts. It involves a character whose journey home from school takes her to multiple houses along the way, and because it is a script, it allows for a lot of customization of story details by the students in class. Here is an example of that story turned into a meandering 'map' using Google Drawings:

I really do enjoy this story each year, and I also like to have students create this map because their final products can be reused for so many post-reading activities. A big hit with the students is Picture Sentence Flyswatter.

Okay, there's probably more to say on maps but my time is up! Feel free to share how you use maps in the classroom. See everyone next week!

Monday Night Musing #6 - How Many Words?

Salvēte omnēs!

Welcome back to my series of short posts where I set the timer for 15 minutes and give you a little something read each week. The topic this week comes straight from the news, specifically this NPR story about the '30 Million Word Gap'. Are you familiar with the TMWG? If you are not familiar, there was a study done investigating differences within the homes of families from different socio-economic groups. The key finding reported was that there were vast differences in the words heard within these households, with the higher socio-economic class having a noted advantage not only in terms of total vocabulary words used by adults, but also the positivity and praising nature of the words. Hence the phrase "30 Million Word Gap" describing the difference between the professional income group and the poverty income group.

For more about it, see the following:

• A Freakonomics episode from 2015
• Here's a quick summary of the study
• The book by Dana Suskind (interviewed in the above episode) 
• The program at the University of Chicago seeking to prevent the gap 

Firstly, for any of us who use CI to teach a language, knowing about the Hart & Risley study is important because it has had such a strong influence not on foreign language education, but on literacy education in general as well as many people's perspectives on what factors influence student success when it comes to language learning (in the case of the study, first language learning).

Second, because of the marquee usage of the '30 Million Word Gap' phrase, the actual number that makes up the gap has been called into question. When I heard that again in the NPR piece, my CI-influenced brain said - were those repetitions comprehensible? Or just total? And then I remembered that the study just measured total words, not meaningful repetitions. As a CI teacher, I'm going for quality more than just raw quantity. Sometimes the way the Hart & Risley study has been utilized emphasizes quantity more than quality, and other times it flips the other way. So is the point here about CI? Or is it immersion? And is anyone monitoring the difference?

Third, I think the criticisms in the recent NPR story are fair to bring up. No piece of research is perfect and there is danger in relying too heavily on any single thing. However, the title "Let's Stop Talking About 'The 30 Million Word Gap" is purposefully taking it too far (clickbait, anyone?). Ending a conversation about something that has problems t is not useful or helpful. Enriching, deepening, or resetting that conversation in the interest of addressing those problems are ideas worth exploring.

And lastly, the '30 Million Word Gap' is compelling because it tugs on our desires as educators to help, to empower students through quality learning experiences, and it also seems to provide a simple and low-cost solution. CI is compelling and essential to me because it tugs on my desires as an educator to help, to empower students through quality learning experiences, and it seems to be a low-cost solution compared with textbooks, technology tools, flipped classrooms, etc. I practice  CI because it can meet the needs of all learners and allow me to provide a rich, challenging, and differentiated curriculum. In other words, I believe it can prevent gaps in learning in a way that traditional methods cannot.

Thanks for reading - time's out for this week!