A Final Look at Math

Now that the quarter has wrapped up and I take a look back over what I've learned I'm amazed at how my ideas of learning math has changed, especially in ways of using manipulatives to differentiate instruction to make math easier for students to understand.

I've always been an average math student, but now I'm seeing that being good at math isn't a secret. It isn't something that some people are born with and others are not. Everyone can be good at math, while it does come easier to some students than others, all the students in your class can and will be successful in math with the right support from their classroom community and me as the teacher.

Every week in this class I learned new ways of explaining math in ways that I've never see or used before. For example, answering the constant question of why? When doing activities Robin constantly made us explain why something was what it was, i.e. the folding paper exercise, even when it pushed some of us beyond our comfort-level.

While I was pushed beyond my comfort level a few times, I always knew that I had the support of Robin and everyone in our cohort, making it easier for me to be willing and open to learning new ways of doing math. Another idea of learning something new this quarter was incorporating technology into my class and learning how it changes the way people learn math. Through embracing technology and differentiating instruction I am preparing students for the math of the future.

Thoughts on the iTouch Now...

After spending a quarter using the iTouch, I still am still learning how I would implement the Touches into my kindergarten class. I admit that I didn't use the Touch as much as I wish I had. I am an avid iPhone user, so I thought it was be easy to implement the Touch into my placement. However what I found was that I was kind of at lose as to how to to effectively incorporate it into the two days a week I was with my little kiddos.

This week in Literacy Tony talked about how for this quarter the professors wanted our cohort to have less structure/ required assignment with the Touches. For me I think I would have benefited from more sturcture, especially in how to incorporate it into my kindergarten class. I've been looking online at videos of teachers who have been successful at integrating the technology into their classroom, and this gives me more confidence for the future because while, it may not specifically be a Touch my own class will be using, it will be some variation and I can't pretend that it doesn't exists. Especially when I'm using the technology in my personal life (i.e. iPhone and iPad etc.).

The app on the Touch that I used the most and found so helpful was the Voice Memo. While I know this isn't the most exciting app out there, to be able to record my literacy interviews, and small group work and then be able to listen to it later was invaluabe. This also freed up my attention from taking notes when working with students and allowed me to actually watch the stratgies the students were using and latter refer back when I was writing my analysis.

I also used the Voice Memo and HeyTell app when my patner was sick and wasn't able to meet with our buddy. I recorded our session and then sent it to her Touch using HeyTell. It was instant, and then she had the Voice Memo on her Toucha as well.

I think the Touch or a similar technology i.e.an iPad etc. could be used to differentiate instruction more now then I did 10 weeks ago. I've seen them used as ways to help students get the extra support they need, like with math facts and with dictation. Support that was individualized in a way that paper flash cards and someone taking notes couldn't be.

Overall, I think that integrating technology like the Touch into your classroom is all about trial and error. Figure out which apps work best for your class and which don't. Collaborate with other educators and continue to read reviews and stay up on new ways to use them. As teacher's we don't put every book ever written in our classroom, we decide what is appropriate and have those resourses available to our students. This is the same with the Touch and other technology.

Math in week 9

This week in math we viewed Tinkerplots. I liked seeing a version of Fathom that I could use with the primary grades. As I was watching the introduction video on the different ways to view the data on cats, I could imagine my kids getting so excited and wanting to see what would happen when you compared age and gender (for example).

I felt so old when we looked at wolframalpha.com. I had no idea there was anything like this out there. I quickly typed in my name and saw that the name Janelle was popular in the early '80s and that the average age of women named Janelle is 31, and since I'll be 29 next week it's fitting. Come to think of it I haven't met a Janelle who is older than 40 and I now I know why!

I liked the activity where we were measuring the rectangle with different units. I was one of the people who got hung up on the fact that the units were different and how could the possible be put on the same graph?! I was so concerned about our graph being accurate. After completing the activity I understand how the points made a line, but during the activity I thought it was coincidence. The first part of this activity could be used with almost any grade, but the last part with y=mx+b would narrow the grades that could use this activity. How could I modify it?

Math in the computer lab

This week our class took a little field trip to the computer lab where we played with math software that I had never even heard of. The first activity, had us moving individual shapes to form on larger shape. I had no problem making the configuration; however, I have a feeling that if the shape got more difficult I would probably have some trouble because I'm good with a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn't a square. But when we start talking about other shapes I can't always explain why one can fit and other can't. It seems like almost every week, I leave class feeling like... how did I get here? I passed math in college. I passed the WEST-B, but there is still SO MUCH I don't know.

After creating our lesson plan for 5th grade math, I really want to teach it! My placement is in kindergarten, and while I love my little kidos I'm a little envious of teachers who get to plan bigger, interdisciplinary activities for intermediate grades- like our lesson, endangered animals and line graphs. I think this has motivated me to think outside the box with kindergarten math and do as much as I can.

Manipulatives

This week in class we make the frogs and launchers. My partner and I had so much fun seeing how modifying our frogs affected how far they would jump when launched. We we so busy finding which of our frogs jumped the farthest that we didn't even notice that we were figuring out the range and the mean.

I wish that I was better at using the tangrams and making the shapes/ animals. I really struggled with this activity especially with seeing the shapes. I'm wondering if there is an app I can find on my phone that that gives the tangrams as a virtual manipulative so I can practice. When teaching a less like this, what do I do with the students who are like me, and just don't get it??

iTouch Update

After spending five weeks the iTouch, I'm overwhelmed and excited with all the apps for education. With my main placement in kindergarten I haven't used it there yet, and am still deciding how I will introduce it to my class. I think one of the story building apps would be great, but only being at the school two days a week and having one iTouch makes it difficult. I would have to figure out away to work with each student or have them work in groups. In a perfect world I would have enough Touches for everyone!

I recently completed the math assignment where I found a math app that teaches multiplying fractions. I was surprised to find it. I have apps on my iPhone, but they're either calendars, news feeds or games. There was a whole world of educational apps that I knew nothing about. Like all free apps I had to root through a lot of fluff to find the good ones. I searched Google for reviews of apps for middle level and actually some good ones.

One thing I've been wondering about is, when using the Touch in the classroom with students do the apps need to be approved by anyone other than the teacher?

Moving from Assessment to Instruction

My buddy is a creative, intelligent 4th grader. She enjoys reading both fantasy and non-fiction and incorporating what she reads into her stories. She loves to write fantasy stories in her free time, especially stories about werewolves. Her non-fiction readings about wolves adds realistic detail to her stories.

During the level four assessment, "Amelia Earhart", my buddy had strong reading comprehension skills, placing at an independent level. She answered seven out of the eight comprehension questions correctly, missing the one question that we as group decided was a poorly written question and that she had technically answered the question correctly, but it was not the answer given by the assessment. Her read-aloud fluency placed her around the 50th percentile , reading 117 words per minute, without any miscues. She reads at comfortable rate, paying close attention to punctuation. I believe her independent reading rate would be higher.

While my buddy is reading above a fourth grade level, based on the above assessment and on prior work with her, I believe she would benefit from additional read-alouds to raise her fluency rate. A read aloud activity like a readers theater would help her build confidence and read faster. This lesson would satisfy EALR 1.4.3 Apply word recognition skills and strategies to read fluently. Apply different reading rates to match text.

Geometry

This week in class we talked about geometry and folded a square-piece of paper, having to use proofs not just what we saw to explain what we did. While I reviewed geometry last year to take the WEST-B test, it has been 12 years sine I took geometry in high school, and I didn't know the material like I thought I would. This proves to me that I really need to review and re-teach myself the material before I even begin to teach a lesson, especially a lesson like this with the paper.

In my kindergarten main placement we begin math with a "math minute". All the kids sit together on the carpet and the teacher reads out a math problem and they turn to their friend on the carpet and tell them the answer. On Thursday the question was a geometry question and it made me think about class. The kids had to describe a shape to their partner. They couldn't say the name or the name of shape that it is similar to. For example, "the shape I'm thinking of has four corners and all the sides are the same length". The students were doing it, and I watched and listened to them think about what they know about each shape. This made me think about Van Hiele's five steps. These five and six year olds were in the first step working their way to the second step. If as a kindergarten teacher, I can lay a strong foundation, the teachers after me can continue to build and by the time the students are in high school, they'll comfortably be in step four, "deduction".

In class we talked about having students keep a journal to express their emotions, feelings and thoughts about math. I'm wondering would you as the teacher correct math errors in the journal, or leave them as a place for students to freely write whatever they feel, whether it's matematically correct or not?

Finding symmetry with a Mira

Today was the first time I had used a Mira to find symmetry. I was surprised to hear that it has been around for years! When we were drawing the boy on the swing everyone at my table was laughing and couldn't believe the boy's image was being projected onto the swing. It's funny how such simple technology can be fun and really educational. I wish my school had had this when I was leaning geometry.

Another think we talked about today that I hadn't thought about was gathering the extra manipulatives that are lying around in your school and use them! I've seen closets like these at schools I've been in, valuable resources people have forgotten about.

This quarter we have been using Gapminder.org. What would be the youngest grade you'd introduce a website like this into a classroom?

Project 1: Analysis of Student Writing

Analysis

This analysis is based on one sample of Sarah's (pseudonym) writing, a short-story draft of a girl and her dog who can talk for a day. Additionally, we conducted a 25-word spelling inventory.

Ownership and Meaning of the Piece

Sarah displayed great ownership for her fantasy story, “The Day My Dog Talked” and quickly offered to read it to us. In the story, when Sarah is awaken by her mother for school, she is shocked to learn that her dog “Ruby” can talk. When she arrives at school, for pet day, Ruby begins talking and creates a chain of humorous events. Sarah told us she thinks of herself as a good writer and enjoys writing both at school and at home. She mostly writes fantasies with talking animals, especially werewolves.

Six Traits Assessment

When looking at the ideas in the short story, it is apparent that Sarah has drawn from her own knowledge and experiences. She made herself the main character, her mom is in the beginning and ending of the story, and she has a dog of her own. The story is six pages and while it is titled, “The Day My Dog Talked” she has several events occurring throughout the day. If she eliminated the last event, which doesn’t fit as well as the first three, then she could expand the others and eliminate potential questions from the reader.

Organizationally, the story has a clear introduction and conclusion. The day begins with Sarah waking up to her dog talking and she falls asleep to her dog barking. The story transitions smoothly from the morning to school, but then begins to lose the fluidity when it transition from school to home. The title accurately describes the story, although; it’s not unique or original. It’s an obvious restatement of the prompt (NWREL, 1992).

As the main character of her own story, Sarah talks about herself in the first person, making the voice of the story personal. She also uses natural and engaging language when expressing dialog between herself and other characters, such as when the cat said, “Where’s the bathroom in this place?” In the story when Sarah is at home with her mom she reveals personal details; however, when she’s at school and on her way home the story avoids risk and she loses her natural language (NWREL, 1992).

The short story is written as though Sarah is telling the story, “I rolled out of bed… My mom yelled”. For this reason the word choice is adequate and familiar, with sporadic striking words and phrases where Sarah paints a picture for the reader, such as “sarcastically” and “she took me the wrist and dragged me to her office”.

Sarah’s ability to use conventions and sentence fluency is difficult to accurately assess since the work we saw was a first draft. However, based on this draft the sentences are varied and constructed correctly; although, the story could benefit from the use of connecting words and phrases, such as “however” and “therefore”. Since this was a rough draft there were editing marks from her teacher, correcting a few misspelled words and helping Sarah with sentence structure. The grammar and punctuation is used correctly overall, and it is apparent that they have been working on writing dialog in class with the use of quotations and comas. She attempts paragraphing, but most of them run together and she’s only beginning a new paragraph when she starts a new page, this has been corrected by her teacher, but she could benefit from additional practice with paragraphs.

Spelling

In “The Day My Dog Talked”, there are several spelling errors. Most of the errors are vowel patterns, especially diphthongs, including “ea” and “ou”. For example, “scremed” for screamed and “arond” for around. In addition, there were two homophone errors, “there” for their and “herd” for heard. In the spelling inventory Sarah missed seven of the last eight words. With “cattle” and “ripen”, she spelled them “catle” and “ripen”, either doubling or not doubling the consonant and with “cellar” and “favor” she spelled them “celler” and “faver” missing the long vowel. “Fortunate” and “pleasure” were spelled phonetically, “pleasher” and “forchanit”, and “civilized” was spelled “sivilized” missing the base word civil. The last word “opposition”, spelled “apasishion” shows that Sarah was guessing at how to spell the word and we encouraged her to try her best. Toward the end of inventory, Sarah spelled the words left to right without recognizing the patterns of letters working together to represent sounds (Templeton & Morris, 1999, p. 105). After comparing the spelling inventory with the errors from the short story, Sarah would benefit from additional help with vowel patterns.

Lesson Plan

Objective:

Student will be able to sort words according to diphthong patterns and by words that sound and look alike.

Standard:

EALR 3.3.2 Spells words appropriate for the grade level accurately.

Material:

One set of words cut into easily, manipulative rectangles.

Instructional strategies:

This lesson is designed for one-on-one work with Sarah. The words chosen for this activity were taken from Sarah’s short story. These are words she is comfortable with and will be a mixture of words she spelled correctly and incorrectly in the story. In addition, the sort will include words that look and sound familiar to the spelling errors, so she will begin to see patterns.

I will start the activity by explaining to Sarah what a word sort is and how we’re going to use this activity to work on the vowel patterns “ea” and “ou”. After this introduction I will hand her the set of words and give her a minute to read over the words and familiarize herself with them.

Once she has spread the words out on the table, I’ll ask her to sort the words into groupings that sound alike in the middle.

After she has finished her sort, we’ll discuss the groupings she’s created and what the sound is that makes the words similar. Having her see the vowel pattern similarities between the words that she uses on a regular basis.

I will ask her to sort the words a second time by grouping the words that look and sound alike.

We will discuss just like after the first sort.

Assessment:

Teacher will informally assess student’s ability to sort words by diphthongs and by words that sound and look similar, by looking at the groupings Sarah creates during the two sorts.

ITouch and Differentiated Instruction

In my kindergarten main placement there are several students who would benefit from having an ITouch for differentiated instruction; however, the three students I choose for this post are two ELL students and a student with developing motor skills.

A: Is an ELL student with a very low verbal skills even in his native language of Spanish.

Other Hispanic ELL students try to speak Spanish with him in class and he is withdrawn. He is one of the youngest students in our class with an August birthday, which in kindergarten makes a difference. With his young age, very low language skills and little to know preparation for kindergarten, such as colors, shapes and holding a pencil or scissors he has qualified for extra help at school. Twice a day A goes and works with a specialist.

The Touch could give A get the extra help he needs in class, with colors, shapes, letters and sounds. And since his parents are Non-English speakers, using an app like Dragon Dictation that can translate into Spanish and would allow them to read the notes and extra activities A is given when working with the specialists.

E: Is a student who is similar to a student I worked with last year when I was volunteering in a kindergarten class. The student last year had just missed qualifying for extra help with the school's Occupational Therapist for handwriting, including stroking from the bottom and pushing harder with the pencil. E is like this student in that his letter formation is poor and when writing he doesn't apply enough pressure, his writing is very light and difficult to read.

I do not think that E would need or qualify for help with the an OT; however, I do think extra help with the Touch could help him develop his motor skills. Using an app that helps him form letters and have to apply pressure the screen with his finger to form the shapes of the letters will help E develop the motor skills necessary for writing. An example of this is I Write Words. This app has students trace letters in the correct formation, if traced incorrectly or too lightly, the shape will not appear on the screen.

D: Is a student who is also an ELL but his language skills are higher than A's; however, he has very low self-esteem. He gives up easily, and won't participate unless he has to. He gives up because he still struggles with his letters and counting from 1-20 and doesn't want to fail.

As part of our math curriculum we use a "penny chart". This chart also includes nickels and dimes, helping students skip count by 5's and 10's and it is also used for addition and subtraction. An app that can be used to help D with his counting and math is Coin Math. This app could be used as a supplement to the curriculum and give D the extra help with counting coins and doing math with money. Having this extra help on his own with his own Touch can help him gain self esteem and overcome his fear of failure.

Algebra Tiles

I usually feel the same way about the manipulates we use in class. I can take them or leave them. As a kid, I didn't learn math using manipulatives, so using them is unnatural and I tend to get frustrated. However, today when we started using the algebra tiles to demonstrate FOIL, I was amazed at how clear the concept was to me. It made perfect sense, and I could see how using the tiles and transitioning from the tiles to the box/grid to FOIL would gives students the concrete understanding instead of just expecting them to accept and memorize FOIL.

One question I had about the tiles, is that I can see how they're used with simple problems, but I'm wondering as a teacher would you use them with more difficult problems? Or would you not have students move on to more difficult problems until they've mastered the concept with the tiles on the easier problems?

While we were using the tiles and other manipulatives today, I was thinking about the ways they could be used in both my kindergarten main placement, as well is in my third grade dyad placement. In kindergarten we have a penny, nickel and dime chart. Students are learning to skip count and understand that 5 pennies equal a nickel. In third grade dyad placement, the students were working on place value, having the kids play a game like the poker chip example would really help some of the kids who need a more of a concrete example.

A quote I left with today was," manipulatives build understanding and make connections".

Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say

This week in class we read the article, "Never Say Anything a Kid Can Say", by Steven Reinhart. I loved this article. Reinhart gives every teacher the tools and techniques needed to implement a student-focused style into any classroom. While I was reading, I thought of Allison last quarter. She modeled this style of teaching and demonstrated being patient and asking good questions. At first I was little unsure of this style because I had expected her to lecture and tell us if our answer's were right or wrong like every other math teacher I've had.

After reading this article and attending class, I've learned the importance of everyone participating. For example, in the article, Reinhart stressed the importance of asking questions to the whole group. I never thought about how when you ask a question to just one person, the rest of the class checks-out because it is an unspoken suggestion that the other students no longer have to think. However, while I completely agree with Reinhart, I wonder, if as a teacher you let your students know that you never take just one answer, would this keep the students thinking?

Teaching about bees

This week my dyad partner and I finished teaching our last lesson in our unit on bees. Next week our students are writing their own skits from a bee's perspective for the performance assessments. In class on Thursday we asked the students what bee activity they liked best from the unit. It was great to hear them all list the different activities my partner and I created and listen to them give the reasons why it was their favorite. I felt so proud; I couldn't stop smiling.

My partner and I feel so fortunate that we've had a mentor teacher who has given us so much freedom. She gave us the topic, but allowed us to create almost 10 lessons for the entire unit, with her help. Every Wednesday and Thursday she gave us her prep time and helped us develop our lesson ideas into plans.

Our mentor teacher told us that during the student-lead conferences, the students proudly told their parents everything they've done in the bee unit and how it's been one of their favorite thing so far in third grade.

Through out the unit, every lesson was an activity- from learning the bee dance (the way bees communicate) to designing our own scientifically-correct bees out of sculpting clay. A retired teacher who volunteers in the classroom twice a week told my partner and I after the bee dance, that we were so brave to teach an activity like that, and that she didn't try an activity like that until she'd been teaching for five years! This made us feel good.

I'm going to miss my dyad placement. I have learned and grown so much as a pre-service teacher. I feel lucky that I was placed in a choice-community school where I could see educators teaching the way we're learning to teach in our program.

Gender Roles

In our literacy class we have been discussing stereotypes in literature, and being aware of it when selecting books to read with our buddies, and ultimately for our classrooms. This same concept of stereotypes has been addressed in our social studies class. Because of this I have been hyper-aware of stereotypes around me, and this mainly in the media.

This morning while watching television, I saw a commercial that was the opposite of every other one I'd seen. It was an ad for Lexus, and since it's the holiday season, this the time of the year that Lexus and Mercedes advertise giving one over their expensive cars as a gift.

In the traditional ad, it is the caucasian husband giving the car to his beautiful caucasian wife. But this time it was the opposite. While it was still a beautiful, caucasian couple, it was the woman surprising the man with the car. For many people this little detail of the commercial would go unnoticed. With my background in advertising, I enjoy watching television ads because I know how much goes into making them, so I tend to watch them closely. But this detail was more than just a detail in an ad, it was a step in the right direction of gender-equality and breaking the stereotype.

Predictable Books

During my kindergarten September experience, I took a picture of each student's face. My master teacher and I then cut out the faces and glued them onto pages with the student's letter of his or her first name. For example if a student's name is Bella, her page would read "B My Name is Bella". We called this book, A My Name Is and every student got a copy of the book to put in his or her book bag, an extra large Ziploc, of "just right" books that each student keeps in his or her cubby.

Every student enjoyed reading the book, but our ELL learners read the book over and over. According to Fox, "predictable books-books with repeated phrases or sentences- hold a special promise because they bring English syntax and English words within easy reach of young children who are beginning to read a language different from the one spoken at home" (2008, p.231).

This book gave everyone success. The students were able to use the cue from the picture, the student's name, to not only tell the written word, but also hear the first letter sound, so they know the letter. With "B My Name is Bella". The student knows Bella because she's in his class, and by knowing Bella, he can stretch B-ella and relate the sound to the letter, if he was unsure of the letter.

This book was so easy to make, and the kids loved it. It is a fun, inexpensive tool that all kindergarten teachers could use in their classrooms.

Is Sudoku Math?

According to Wikipedia, Sudoku is defined as a "logic-based, number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid, which typically has a unique solution."

To me logic and strategic placement of numbers, is math. However when I started the Sudoku in my favorite magazine, I noticed in big bold letter above the grid "There's no math involved! No need to count or add up!" After I read this I was sadden to think that this tag line would attract people to the game, and then under this, in smaller letters was "just use logic to solve the puzzle."

This brings me to my next question, is logic math? As an undergraduate student I look a logic class and that university counted the class as a math requirement, but my current university did not, and I was required to take an additional math class. Logic was not an easy class, but I find it interesting that this magazine is using logic as though it's the same as "common sense". When I think about people who study logic and people who enjoy Sudoku puzzles, I think of people who are creative, diligent, organized and strategic. All characteristics of mathematicians.

So I found it interesting when I saw a Sudoku puzzle that people were playing without numbers. Next to the image it said, "It should be recognized that we could play the exact same game with 9 different symbols (stars, smiley faces, carrots, whatever) as we do with the numbers 1-9. It is not the numerals that make Sudoku math. Every mathematician can play Sudoku well, even if they don’t like the game. We can think logically and can say “if this and this, then that” without batting an eye. Math and logic are very closely related. Sudoku requires a certain organized thinking that is prominent in mathematics."

Mathematizing Clean-Up

In my dyad placement the teacher asked the class if anyone knew where the pegs were for the three cribbage boards. Of course, no knew where the pegs were, and so the teacher asked the class what they could use as pegs so they could still play the game. After several suggestions, one boy raised his hand and said that his grandparents had lost their cribbage pegs and they were using colored tooth-picks as substitutes.

My teacher used this impromtu lesson as an opportunity to mathematize. She started by asking the students how many pegs were needed for each board? The students answered with two pegs per player, red for player one and blue for player two. This led to a series of multiplication problems, an area of math the students are just getting into. The questions included, if one board needs two red pegs, how many pegs would the class need for three boards? The students solved the question on their own and then turned to their neighbor and told them how they solved the problem.

After asking several math questions, the teacher wrote their answers on the board. This was also a list of what the class need for their cribbage boards. I thought this was a fun way of having the class figure out how many pegs they needed and at the same time demonstrate for them how multiplication is used in real life.

Rhyming

This week in our kindergarten buddy activity, we did a rhyming read aloud, Sheep in a Jeep and the activity, “Word Family Muffins” (Fox, 2008, p.103). We chose this activity because our buddy has a basic understanding of rhyming; he can give a clear textbook definition of what rhyming is and recognizes the rime in cat, bat and mat when looking at the words in print, but when he hears them read a loud, without a visual, he struggles to list a word that rimes with cat.

In the activity our buddy picked a tile from the letter tins and one from the word families, at, ell, or old and recorded it on the “muffin word guide” worksheet. Our buddy was finding the correct family, but he was doing so by stretching out the words, he wasn’t recognizing the patterns of the word families. It wasn’t until the very end, did he start to pick up on the patterns, and I’m still not sure if he understood the riming or if we had just done it so many times that he had memorized the words.

I think about how close my buddy is to fully grasping rhyming. I wish I had more time to work with him and see his growth. Lamott said, “the job of the teacher is to hold the lantern while the student digs”. I love this quote and I’ve been thinking about it for a few days. My buddy needs teachers to hold the lantern through providing activities and read alouds about rhyming while he digs in and sees the patterns and gets a strong hold on it.

Changing the world - 5 minutes at a time

This week in our Social Studies class we learned about a 12 year-old boy who is changing the world by bringing awareness to child labor. In class we discussed the video and how we as teachers can use stories like these in our social studies curriculum. My group talked about how we as teachers could use stories like this 12 year-old and other child activists to motivate and teach our students to be social activists in their own communities.

But how do you teach social activism in classrooms where the focus is reading, writing and math and students only have 30 minutes of social studies a week? The answer, get creative! This video clip is of a school in Australia where students only spend five minutes a day being social activists and yet are making a huge difference in their community.