Furniture and stuffs

This week I did the furniture assignment in my classroom. Instead of an activity, though, I tested how changing the furniture affected group work and note taking. Normally all students face forward to take notes and then we will do group work where they are allowed to move around a bit. As is normal in a high school classroom, even when they are facing forward they do get distracted. But, for the most part, they are quickly writing down important information and watching the lesson intently. Group work tends to be a bit more hectic and requires checking in with each group to make sure they’re on task. Often when they are free to move around as they please, many students will just work on their own and ignore their group (which defeats the purpose of group work) and others will ignore the material. The way I changed this week was by putting the groups into squares with their desks at the beginning of class. Instead of everyone facing forward in rows for notetaking, they were facing their groups. Also, for group work, they were in a set group formation. I noticed a lot more chatty during the note taking portions of the lesson which is to be expected, but I also observed students discussing what I was teaching and making sure they understood what they were writing down. As for group work, there was more collaboration and discussion which could have been spurred because they were already discussing the notes they were taking. It is really interesting how such simple changes in orientation of furniture can make such a big impact on learning.

I was asked to share with you guys about how MOXI has affected my classroom teaching: After being offered a long-term sub job at San Marcos High School, I had to think about what would be best for my future – continuing exclusively at MOXI in the MAPs program, doing only San Marcos, or balancing both. After the first few weeks of doing both, I am confident that I made the right decision. I have noticed so much of MOXI spilling into my classroom techniques. I think it can be hard to see what we are learning in the program and out on the museum floor sometimes because it is all within one area, but doing this has helped me realize that we are learning a lot! I think my students get frustrated with it sometimes, but in the end, the facilitation strategies I’ve learned in MAPs are helping me be a better classroom teacher and create lessons where the students are forced to investigate rather than be told an answer.