workshop model Archives - Rachel What If

It is difficult to separate the teacher in me from the learner in me. Just when I’m not looking, my teacher self recognizes my learner self, and points out something kind of amazing. The teacher in me recognizes that I am naturally engaged in a learning cycle on a regular basis. I am consistently consuming-producing, and reflecting. Gold stars all around. I’m like my favorite student. (Its OK to have a favorite if there is only one.)

The elements of instruction can include several complex details, that I will not (probably cannot) explain here. The purpose of this post is to highlight the natural cycles of learning we may go through in some undefined amount of time, and how much it resembles how teachers intentionally design learning experiences in the classroom. Very scientific, I know.

**Challenge to the reader**: I have included pictures of my chickens, their eggs, and breakfast, see if you can figure out why and leave me a comment!

Start With Bite Sized Bits

One of my favorite books ever! That Workshop Book by Samantha Bennett

Breakfast aside, reading is my consumption choice first thing in the morning. My husband thinks I have a book addiction problem, and I agree. Nonfiction is my drug of choice, but I’m really trying to move into fiction. Most importantly, print is preferable to digital. I need to underline, highlight and make comments in the white space.

Effective lesson design actually begins with the end in mind, but I’m not talking about the planning in this post. ( If you want to see how I plan lessons, check out this post.) After a goal or objective is identified, the teacher presents something he or she hopes the students will consume. Hopefully, the teacher knows learners best consume things in bite size chunks. Even for me, the exemplar learner, I can only consume for about 30 minutes before I start to lose interest.

Thank goodness I’ve learned its more productive to produce something after consuming something, rather than wander aimlessly until I feel the urge to consume again. Doesn’t that sound a little cave woman-like? Anyway, back to me the exemplar learner, not the cave woman.

Build, Create, Write, Draw, Make Something!

The Worktime is the time where the learners make something. The process of making is where the magic is.

Anyone who has been in a second grade social studies lesson knows a good strong economy needs producers and consumers. Even if you don’t remember second grade, you at least recognize those vocabulary words from 4th grade science, right?

Now that I’ve got you thinking about decomposing carcasses and that ultra cool ecosystem you built, we’ll talk about products. While the goal may seem to be consumption in learning, what we really want, eventually, is a product. Now, I didn’t say it has to be a useful product. It is in the process of making something that we find the learning happening.

As I mentioned earlier, there is no shortage of things to learn. We could try to consume our way to knowing as much as possible, but if we never do anything with it, well, we could end up the opposite of full. Isn’t it ironic? A little too ironic? Like rain, on your wedding day? OK, I’ll stop.

After reading, watching, or listening to a bit of content, I usually try to produce something new, or modify something I’ve already started. In order to make something meaningful, its got to come from me. Because I am a good learner, whatever I produce will most likely be heavily influenced by whatever I just consumed. It may be a journal entry, a blog post, or a list. This is how I think, process, and apply.

This is the work of learning, and it is where teachers hope their students are spending the most time. It is the work time, and the biggest chunk of the lesson plan pie. Here is a full post on how I use a workshop wheel to plan lessons.

Reflection is Where The Meaning Is

Here we are now, my favorite part.

Reflection has the very best two definitions ever:

1.the throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it.
2.serious thought or consideration.

While I could spend some time on the first definition, which would be lots of fun, that’s not really why we’re still here. Thank you for still reading.

#2 Serious thought or consideration. I’m questioning the serious part, but yes, this is the gold. I’ve spent enough time in classrooms to know that it is in the reflection, the debrief, or the closing, where we find out what the lesson was made of.

I spent the better part of an entire year of instruction focusing on how to nurture an environment where student feedback was not only safe, but also expected. Goosebumps happen in a good closing discussion about the day’s learning.

There is always, and must be, time for reflection in any learning environment. How else do you know the time spent was valuable? I guess you could just tell yourself that, or you might even look at student work and make assumptions that it was. But how do you know? In my classroom, discussions were my first choice, but there are lots of other, quicker ways to do it.

While I sometimes do have discussions with myself, I have found lots of ways to be reflective in my individual learning cycles. One of the best ways to get myself seriously thinking and considering is to ask myself questions, and then I listen. Yes, I listen to myself. Its ok, I trust my opinion and think critically before I take any of my own advice.

Here is why this works for me, even if I never consult another human being anywhere in this cycle: I know myself. I know I will continue to learn, consume, ask more questions, produce, succeed, fail, reflect. It’s just who I am, and will always be. I trust the learning process.

Reflection, Feedback, and Coaching

And the cycle is complete, or I should say begins again!

Reflection is one form of feedback, in that it can inform your practice as you thoughtfully consider the value of whatever you have consumed and produced. However, if the feedback is the result of some thoughtful reflections of others, look out.

In my experience with coaching, I was always looking for advice. I practically begged people to tell me what to do to be better. However, the best coaches withheld their great ideas the majority of the time, and instead asked a lot of questions. They highlighted things that went well in the lesson or the learning and asked me why I thought that was.

To really explain this concept, I highly recommend reading The Feedback Fallacy from the Harvard Business Review. Here are two of my favorite sentences from the article:

Learning is less a function of adding something that isn’t there than it is of recognizing, reinforcing, and refining what already is.
We learn most when someone else pays attention to what’s working within us and asks us to cultivate it intelligently.

As a learner, teacher, coach, and a person with feelings, these two quotes make my heart want to jump right out of my chest. I want to make giant billboards and bumper stickers of this.

So, I guess the teacher in me is doing a pretty good job recognizing, reinforcing, and refining the learner in me. I hope I will continue highlighting the things I am doing well as a learner, because I love learning! If you are still here, you must be too! Gold stars all around.

As I think about how to plan, when you don’t know what to plan for, I consider the things that are important, no matter the circumstances. These are the things I know must happen in order for any kind of learning to take place. What are the things you know to be absolutely necessary, and how will those things be accomplished?

We are getting used to this idea that we don’t know anything. Everything has been turned upside down, and we just don’t know what to expect. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, let alone next week, next month, or next year.

Why We Plan

Planning feels good. It gives you a sense of control. There is so much great advice out there about failing to plan or planning to fail. But what about planning when we don’t have any idea of what to expect?

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”
Yogi Berra

Planning is a significant part of the school year. Teachers must have some sort plan in place before the year even begins. Lesson plans not only provide a structure for learning, but also ensure that teachers and students are working toward purposeful, meaningful outcomes.

What is most important?

Relationships are the absolute bedrock in any setting where people are asked to take risks, discuss meaningful topics, make connections, open their minds, etc. Without a doubt, there must be a foundation of trust, and a sense of healthy community in any learning environment before we can expect any meaning to be made. Wholesome relationships make space for each participant to be seen, heard, and valued. They are not perfect, nor do they require only positive interactions.

Defining what is most important is the easy part.

The big question teachers ask themselves all year is: “How will I create an environment in my classrooms that ensures students know they are valued for who they are, and that they are expected to grow and learn?”

How will it be done?

The how of ‘getting things done’ must be embedded in the ‘what needs to be done’. We have determined that relationships and community are the most important whats. These two things are the foundation in which we build our structures for lessons, and living, in our classrooms. By thinking in this way, we also emphasize the importance of process over product.

Despite what your “classroom” will look like in the coming year, your lesson structures should be predictable. What we want is for students to focus on the content, not the structure. We must be so consistent in our structures in such a way that they become almost invisible.

Predictable Structures

From the very first day, students must be introduced to your lesson structures. We all know that our first couple of weeks of school are reserved for building relationships and communities. Why wouldn’t you do this with the very same structure you would to teach any content?

If every lesson is to be built upon strong relationships and community, then your lesson structure should begin this way. The philosophy behind your lesson structure sends a message to your students about what you expect from them, and what you believe about them.

If you never give your students time to work independently, you are telling them you don’t trust them with the material. If the majority of your students cannot work independently without getting distracted, there is something to be considered about how you have set them up to be able to do so.

The Workshop Model

“If a teacher truly believes that student thinking matters most, then student voices dominate the bulk of time in any class period.” That Workshop Book

The workshop model has been my favorite structure for lesson planning for all of the reasons I’ve already mentioned above and more. The very nature of this structure centers around students doing the work of learning, as active participants, not passive listeners only. The model itself is in the shape of a circle, reminding the facilitator to come back around to the objective, to reflect on how the time was spent. A large amount of instructional time is allotted to the students, while teachers engage, support, and listen to the student thinking, then building off of that.

I have created a free printable that includes a sample workshop lesson planning tool as a guide, and a blank template that you can download here.

Practical Ideas for Introducing the Workshop Model to your students

No matter what the school year brings, the size of your classroom, or if you are teaching online, the following ideas can be great ways to introduce a predictable structure to your students. Whatever structure you choose, remeber to keep it consistent. We want our students focused on building relationships, participating in healthy communities, and engaged in the content. We don’t want them confused about what they are supposed to be doing, or how to access the content.

Games– Have your students bring their favorite family games to share. Use the lesson planning structure to allow students to teach how to play, give them some “work” time to play. Listen to how students interact with the game and eachother. Take notes to be shared during a closing/reflection meeting. Don’t forget to kick off the unit by modeling your own favorite game. Show your students how to use the lesson structure by modeling.
Read Aloud– Have your students bring their favorite text from home or the library. Don’t limit them to books. Some people love magazines, comic books, cookbooks, etc. Everyone will learn a lot about each other based on what is brought to class. Model for your students again by showing them how to use the lesson structure. Bring your own favorites and explain why you love them. Allow different students to share each day and follow up with a reflection/ closing discussion about communities. When everyone shares what they love and why they love it, it begins to build community.
STEAM Challenges– Use the lesson planning structure to play. There are hundreds of STEAM/STEM challenges online. This is one of the best ways to get students to understand and get used to your lesson structure. Start with the objective, the goal. Engage them with ideas/possibilities and give them a set amount of time to innovate and work together. Listen for how students work together, and how they don’t. Use this as a discussion generator for the debrief.

Debrief

Although the future is uncertain, especially when it comes to knowing what to expect for ourselves and our classrooms, we can still plan.

Students will still need a predictable structure, access to resources, and a healthy community of learners around them. Some of the things we were doing in our classrooms in the past are worth keeping. We just have to figure out how to do them in a different way. Lets remember what is most important, and keep our structures for delivering those things predictable and consistent.

Tag: workshop model

One Example of a Natural Learning Cycle.