Buddies

Reading, Writing, and Math Lessons

Pia Hansen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138441613
• eBook ISBN: 9781317919759
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

This book provides opportunities for older and younger children in different grades to work together on standards-based activities. It contains over 40 lessons in which elementary school students of different ages can learn together. Each activity can be assigned as a special project or as part of an organized program in which teachers work together on a regular basis. For each activity, you will be provided with: standards -- reading, writing, or mathematics, and assessment rubrics, student handouts, ready for photocopying. To help you assess your students objectively and confidently, about a quarter of the lessons are accompanied by samples of student work along with its score and an explanation of why the work deserved that score.

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BUDDIES: THE IMPORTANCE OF PARTNERSHIP FOR CHILDREN AND TEACHERS

This book contains lessons that provide older and younger children in different grades opportunities to work together, one-to-one, on standards-based activities. These activities also enhance staff development for teachers in both content areas and in teaching practices.

THE BENEFITS FOR CHILDREN

Young children benefit from having older students model appropriate social behavior and academic work. Country schools with multigrade classes and large families and neighborhoods used to socialize children this way. Times have changed, and many of our students no longer have the opportunity for interaction with cross-grade mentors. Schools can reinvent that spirit of community through regularly scheduled buddy work sessions with a variety of grade-level combinations. The sense of place, belonging, and purpose is crucial to the development of healthy children.

Classroom teachers have the ultimate responsibility for the planning, instruction, and assessment of current curriculum standards for a classroom full of students. Weekly buddy sessions provide the partner practice time needed for skills to take hold. Older buddies personalize the language, repeatedly demonstrate the lesson, and give immediate feedback to the younger buddy. For some students, this one-on-one time is the only extended time during the day when someone is listening and talking with just them! Teachers become guides that extend the lesson for more capable students and offer remediation for those few who might still need additional teaching points and time.

When older students mentor younger students, they gain the personal satisfaction of helping others. It inspires them to know that they can make an important contribution, a difference. Training our children to be good listeners, resolve problems, and make decisions has lifelong value. Honoring students who help others and affirming their positive impact on the academic success of younger students can encourage future community service. All students develop a capacity for learning together, creating, and communicating ideas. School becomes more like real life where people of all ages work together.

All students mentor, not just the brightest. Some of the most talented student mentors are those who don’t learn in conventional ways. They enhance the learning in another manner. Their special skills are not always recognized in a single grade, traditional classroom arrangement. Physically large students, who are sometimes perceived as bullies, demonstrate genuine compassion in one-on-one relationships with younger buddies and become their allies on the playground. This creates a sense of fellowship within the school because children are engaged in meaningful relationships with other children.

Many teachers have combined classes of students for fun, interactive work. Although the experience is socially successful, it might have limited instructional value unless good planning, teaching, and assessment guide it. Buddy work is very much an adult-led activity. There are academic goals for each lesson and appropriate grade-level student expectations. Cultivating a positive emphasis on learning with student accountability is important to the program. The lessons relate to real-world situations, recognize various learning styles, and value multiple intelligences.

Some students prefer to work alone, and others learn best in groups. Although the lessons in this book are most appropriate for partner work, individual students may choose to work alone until they get comfortable interacting with a buddy.

THE BENEFITS FOR TEACHERS

Teaching can be an isolated profession. Teachers generally focus on their personal student population. Weekly buddy sessions encourage collaboration for planning lessons, providing immediate feedback, and assessing student understanding. Teachers’ partnering also models cooperative group interaction for students.

Benefits for buddy teachers include time for self-analysis of teaching performance, renewal and recognition for professional success, an increased sense of efficacy, collegiality, and ultimately student achievement. Peer coaching and mentoring programs have provided this kind of support for individual classroom teachers in some school districts. However, these staff development models are not consistently maintained by many school administrations due to additional financial expenses. Buddy programs provide professional development at no additional cost to the school. New approaches are essential to cohesively align curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices with research on best practices in teaching and learning. Sharing responsibility for students, establishing the norm that all students can master challenging content, and generating a resource of effective teaching practices in the content areas are benefits of peer collaboration. Teachers who work together deliver a higher quality of instruction than teachers who work in isolation.

MEETING STUDENT NEEDS

Effective teachers are those who stimulate students to learn. Children learn best when they are absorbed in conversation and actively involved in hands-on experiences with a variety of manipulatives. Children need multiple opportunities and experiences in a wide variety of contexts to construct knowledge and understanding. During an inquiry, not all children are expected to notice the same things or reach the same levels of cognitive achievement. Individual team differences are respected and celebrated.

Language is a tool for learning and thinking. Reflection and metacognition, talking to others and thinking out loud, contribute to the process. Children who tell, draw, or act out a concept can teach another child and affirm their own understanding.

The greatest challenge in teaching is selecting the topics that will engage students in constructing their own learning and understanding. Allowing students to actively argue, inquire, and articulate their reflections takes time. When students really “know” something, they demonstrate the skill, communicate the concept, and perform the application in a new surrounding. Mentors for younger students need to know the content deeply, to teach it to their partners. Sometimes the younger buddy asks about something that actually clarifies the concept for the older buddy.

Questioning is a powerful tool for facilitating inquiry into topics of interest. It is important for teachers to model raising questions to clarify a lack of understanding and what the students want to know. Children will practice what they have heard their teacher do. Teachers take turns building an investigation, responding to the answers, and leading an activity that has depth and complexity. Deciding on an approach to solve a problem, getting the same answer in different ways, and expressing thinking processes are worthwhile group communications that foster this type of learning. Looking for patterns in the language and mathematics activities that will transfer to an advanced application of the concepts is the ultimate goal of these partnerships.

Brain research can be applied to buddy lessons as well. The learning environment for all students can be enriched when the educational content is challenging or new, and the students get interactive feedback. Problem solving, critical thinking, relevant projects, and complex activities provide this challenge. Problem solving can encourage the branching in the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Solving problems on paper; with a model, analogy, or metaphor; by discussions; with artwork; or with a demonstration exposes students to a variety of approaches to a task. The human brain reacts positively to the process, not necessarily to the correct solution. When the feedback is personal, specific, interactive, and immediate, all students benefit.

The buddy session begins with a mini-lesson, focused on keeping student’s attention for approximately 10 to 15 minutes. The direct instruction is followed by process time with discussions, small group practice, and reflection. The lessons are summarized with brief journal writings that link the new learning to real-world application. Students are encouraged to share with other teams of buddies and compare their findings. The group work is often displayed on a bulletin board for future review.

GRADE COMBINATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS

One size does not fit all! Generally, a two-year difference allows for all students to mentor at a competent level with compatible curriculum goals. Other combinations are certainly possible. Class size is a consideration. Primary classrooms generally have fewer students. Intermediate classes may have more students depending on yearly enrollment. Two older buddies may work as a team or older, responsible students can be asked to mentor two younger students. Partners sometimes work in groups of three. The idea is to focus on the capacity to serve students in a way that maximizes their learning.

There are 14 lessons for each of the major content areas: reading, writing, and mathematics. Within the lessons are suggestions for integration with science and social studies units. Due to the structure of the buddy relationship, reading, writing, listening, and speaking standards are part of every work period. There are also suggestions for lessons that are better suited in the beginning of the year. For instance, an interview lesson from the writing section would be more interesting to students just getting to know each other. The My Buddy and I book and the Buddy Glyph lessons build a sense of community and fellowship with the buddy teams. Teacher teams will ultimately make the planning decisions about which lessons to use based on their class experiences and grade-level expectations.

Although this book deals with issues applicable for elementary teachers, many secondary teachers have had great success with collaborative student work at multiple experience levels. First-year language students would benefit from oral conversations with third-year students who are writing conversations as part of an assignment on verb tense.

IMPLEMENTATION

The buddy spirit begins with the teachers! Teachers who share a common language about curriculum and teaching practices, choose to work together, and trust their professional relationship will be most successful.

PLANNING FOR BUDDIES

Begin with a colleague who you enjoy working with. If you are new to a building staff, approach someone who seems interested in new ideas. If student achievement in mathematics is a school goal, perhaps several teams of teachers would work together on planning the lessons and sharing their ideas.

Analyze the types and levels of support and resources available to you. Are there parents or educational assistants that could provide some additional supervision for individual student teams with special needs? What mathematical manipulatives are available in large quantities? Do you have enough copies of books you’d like to use? Clipboards are portable and work well if you are in a gym. Who will provide the pencils, crayons, scissors and glue required in some of the lessons?

Identify factors like your school specialist schedules: art, music, P.E. recess, lunch, library, and computer times. Are there teachers who would like to get together but cannot find an hour in common? Is there a way to trade a specialist time with another teacher?

Select a day and time, preferably once a week for an hour. Try to avoid scheduling field t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• PREFACE
• 1 BUDDIES: THE IMPORTANCE OF PARTNERSHIP FOR CHILDREN AND TEACHERS
• 2 READING ACTIVITIES
• 3 WRITING ACTIVITIES
• 4 MATHEMATICS ACTIVITIES