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19 Ways to Help Elementary Students Self-Regulate

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19 Ways to Help Elementary Students Self-Regulate

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From Edutopia. Excellent site!

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19 Ways to Help Elementary Students Self-Regulate

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These strategies can help young learners practice an essential life skill—and foster classroom harmony in the process.

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I've shared a few posts about Approaches to Learning (ATL Skills) before: and I haven't posted a link to my ATL Toolkit, but have not explicitly talked about it here.

My ATL toolkit has every ATL Skill, Cluster and Indicator...but then with each indicator, it gives resources, including thinking routines, videos and strategies, to help you support students in developing those skills.

Some examples:
Communication - Give and Receive Meaningful Feedback
The spreadsheet has resources for most indicators, but not all, and it is mostly full of things that I have found and used. ​​ My request is that people share the resources they use, so that I can add it to the ATL Toolkit - many heads are better than one right?

Please share links in the comments, or you can comment directly on theATL TOOLKIT!

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Do you know about the Spaghetti Tower Marshmallow Challenge? Set up a Spaghetti Marshmallow Challenge with young children to explore the design process: thinking, doing, prototyping, and iteration: a great STEAM challenge.

If you have any marshmallows left over from the Microwave Marshmallow Experiment, this is the project for you!

This is one of those legendary team-building challenges that I've been hearing about for ages and have never tried.
It encourages the design mindset and supports basic engineering principles.
The basic idea is that a team is given a handful of supplies to work with - spaghetti, tape, and string - and given 18 minutes to build the tallest possible tower that can SUPPORT a marshmallow.

And the point of it? The team will practice the design process that includes thinking, doing, prototyping, and iteration. This last point, iteration, may be the most important. Watch the video at the end of this post for more on that.

Oh, and what group historically performs the BEST in the marshmallow challenge? The answer to that question is also in the video, and you will LOVE it.

If you enjoy this project, you'll also like this STEAM Design Challenge to suport a mandarin with sticks and clay.

Marshmallow Challenge Supplies

Each team gets the same set of supplies...

20 sticks of dry spaghetti

one yard of string

one yard of tape

one marshmallow

Instructions
Challenge: To build the tallest tower possible in 18 minutes that will support the marshmallow.

Set up the supplies for each team

Explain the challenge: Build the tallest tower possible that will support a marshmallow, in 18 minutes.

Set a timer for 18 minutes

Go!

Marshmallow Challenge with Young Children

Here's how our marshmallow challenge looked:

My two daughters, ages 4 and 6, and I set our timer for 18 minutes, and started to build. It was exciting, frustrating (spaghetti is nimble and brittle!), and fun. My little one lost interest quickly, but my older daughter stuck with it, pushing me with her novel ideas and keeping me going, right up until the timer ran out.

We talked about how triangles build strong structures, so we started there. Our original idea was to build two structures - one that could support the other, to make our tower twice as tall.

As we got towards the end of our time, the bottom towner couldn't support the weight of the second tower, so we chose just one of the towers to use as a support for the marshmallow. In the end, we measured our marshmallow's height and it clocked in at 10.5 inches. Not earth-shattering, but at least we had a supporting structure!

Marshmallow Challenge

I love my daughter's idea to suspend the marshmallow from a string!

What we learned?

Triangles are good shapes for these structures

We probably should have built the second tower directly on the first one, rather than wait to add it at the end

We worked well together

Prototyping and iteration are important to the process

This challenge could lose a 4-year old's attention 😉

More on the Marshmallow Tower Challenge

You'll want to watch this video of Tom Wujec's TED talk on the Marshmallow Challenge.

What's next?

I would love to try this out with our Girl Scout troop or with my older daughter's friends. After watching Wujec's video (above), I'm eager to see this in action with a group of young children.

More Projects like this one
DIY Paper Tube Marble Run Fort Building Kit DIY Water Wall, it's like a marble run, but with water! Build an easy light table
Got Pasta? Here are more projects for kids that use pasta.
Make Gumdrop Sculptures

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Spaghetti Tower Marshmallow Challenge - TinkerLab

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Set up a Spaghetti Marshmallow Challenge with young children to explore the design process: thinking, doing, prototyping, and iteration. A STEAM challenge.

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Alexis Wiggins: the why and how on Spider Web Discussion

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Alexis Wiggins: the why and how on Spider Web Discussion

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Alexis Wiggins on Spider Web Discussion - How & Why

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Teach Your Students Effective Communication Skills With These 8 Tips!

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More screen-time means students need more in-person communication to learn the dying art of conversation. Here are a tips to practice with your students!

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8 Tips to Teach Effective Communication Skills

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critique and feedback - the story of austin's butterfly - Ron Berger

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Growth mindset. The power of "yet".

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The power of yet | Carol S Dweck | TEDxNorrköping

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Bringing Inquiry-Based Learning Into Your Class

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Bringing Inquiry-Based Learning Into Your Class

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Bringing Inquiry-Based Learning Into Your Class

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A four-step approach to using a powerful model that increases student agency in learning.

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Visible Thinking Routines - Project Zero - Harvard

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Visible Thinking Routines - Project Zero - Harvard

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Visible Thinking is a flexible and systematic research-based conceptual framework, which aims to integrate the development of students' thinking with content learning across subject matters.

Visible Thinking began as an initiative to develop a research-based approach to teaching thinking dispositions. The approach emphasized three core practices: thinking routines, the documentation of student thinking, and reflective professional practice. It was originally developed at Lemshaga Akademi in Sweden as part of the Innovating with Intelligence project, and focused on developing students' thinking dispositions in such areas as truth-seeking, understanding, fairness, and imagination. It has since expanded its focus to include an emphasis on thinking through art and the role of cultural forces and has informed the development of other Project Zero Visible Thinking initiatives, including Artful Thinking, and Cultures of Thinking.

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Visible Thinking is a flexible and systematic research-based conceptual framework, which aims to integrate the development of students' thinking with content learning across subject matters. Visible Thinking began as an initiative to develop a research-based approach to teaching thinking dispositions. The approach emphasized three core practices: thinking routines, the documentation of student thinking, and reflective professional practice.

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From Life of an Educator by Dr. Justin Tarte

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From Life of an Educator by Dr. Justin Tarte

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1). What percent of your students are going beyond just compliance and are actually cognitively engaged in deep self-driven and relevant learning?

2). How often are students in your class offered the opportunity to move around and get 'the blood' flowing with some type of physical activity?

3). How often are kids in your class able to work in teams and work collaboratively on some type of group learning activity?

4). When was the last time you read a professional book or article and you tried something new as a result of what you read in the book/article?

5). If you had to describe the perfect and ideal classroom, what would be your top three most important characteristics?

6). How confident are you that your students could tell someone who doesn't teach what you teach specifically where they are struggling and where they are succeeding in regard to their learning?

7). Let's assume audio was recorded for an entire week in your classroom. Of all the voices that are heard during that time, whose voice do you believe would be heard the most?

8). If you eliminated all the grades in your classroom, do you think students would still actively participate and continue learning?

9). If a group of teachers from another school district who taught a similar content/grade came and observed your classroom, what do you think they would say in their post-conversation?

10). If you were the principal for the week and you got to observe every classroom in your building, what would you want to see in all the classrooms?

BONUS: What's the ratio of consumption to creation in your classroom when it comes to the work students are doing?

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10 questions every teacher should ask themselves: #edchat #ntchat

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1). What percent of your students are going beyond just compliance and are actually cognitively engaged in deep self-driven and relevant le...

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Article.

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What does inquiry look, sound, feel like

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Who is in charge of the learning?

What is significant about the learning experience?

Where is the learning happening in the classroom?

Where do we see evidence of the inquiry?

Why might this be difficult to facilitate in the classroom?

How can we address the challenges of implementation?

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Questions on the slide

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Eight Techniques of Active Listening

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Alison Yang - Approaches to Learning resource

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This diagram was inspired by the blog post, The agile learner in a VUCA world, written by @alohalavina. VUCA is an acronym used to describe volatility , uncertainty , complexity , and . Put simply, we live in a fast-changing world and in such unfamiliar environment, we face unpredictable changes, often are required to make decisions in complex systems, and to take uncertain actions that are outside of our expertise. We need to rethink education and build students' capacity for the VUCA world.

Developing becomes more important than ever through the schooling process. Learners must equipped with skills and strategies that allow them to be thinkers, communicators, risk-takers, inquirers, reflective, caring, open-minded, balanced, principled and knowledgable. If we can truly follow the framework of the IB curriculums and develop a continuum, I am hopeful that we can develop students who strive for understanding, nurture passion in self and others, as well as take actions ethically. ​

Having this big picture in mind, we help students to develop these skills and stretch their learnability. One way to do this is to align the objective (learning target), skill indicator, and strategy. Most importantly, we also need to take an evidence-based approach to monitor their progress and provide cognitive coaching conversation. The process of practicing and developing skills must be deliberate in order for students reach mastery. The use of the strategy must be practiced several times as repetition of learning is the key to mastery. We can relate this teaching approach to the concept of apprenticeship. When teaching approaches to learning skills, think about Mr. Miyagi in the the movie, Karate Kid!

Here are some strategies that can help to build the skills. The skill indicators are merely suggestions by the IB. These skills are not the definitive or exhaustive list of ATL skills. Schools are not required to cover them all. Instead, I think the important point is for schools to consider their own contexts, reflect on their school missions and develop own continuum of approaches to learning skills that can prepare students for the future.

Strategies must be used intentionally and practice deliberately. When choosing the strategy to explicitly teach specific skills, we need to consider our subject specific objectives, the complexity of of summative assessment, desired learning outcomes, and the age appropriateness. This document is named "ATL Smörgåsbord". Just like you are going to a buffet, there is a wide variety of food, and you will take only what you need.

ATL Toolkit by Excited Educator Lenny Dutton: Lenny has created many amazing resources to help teachers teach ATL skills. She inspired me to create the ATL Smörgåsbord and collect explicit teaching strategies. Check out her website for more ideas.

The Art of Learning by Lance King: Lance emphasized the importance of helping students develop approaches to learning skills way before the IB made it a required component. He has shared and collected many amazing resources to support teachers in explicitly teaching ATL skills.

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This diagram was inspired by the blog post, The agile learner in a VUCA world , written by @alohalavina. VUCA is an acronym used to describe volatility , uncertainty , complexity...

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Programme standards and practices (from 2020+)

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Programme standards and practices - from 2020+

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Approaches to Learning across the IB Continuum

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Approaches to Learning Self Reflection Tool

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Approaches to Learning Self Reflection Tool

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ATL Skill Summary (Category, Cluster and Indicator)

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ATL Skill Summary (Category, Cluster and Indicator)

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Approaches to teaching and learning for DP coordinators and pedagogical leaders

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Approaches to teaching and learning for DP coorinators and pedagogical leaders

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Teaching and Learning informed by Assessment in the DP

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Teaching and Learning informed by Assessment in the DP

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Teaching and learning informed by  assessment in the Diploma Programme

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ATL Skills Framework and IB Learner Profiles

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ATL Skills Framework and IB Learner Profiles