MAX is a PIRATE and He Increases Student Engagement?

By Phil Zellers

This blog kind of serves as a book review of a couple of different books I am currently reading.  One is the MAX Teaching book Jody gave us in department meetings and the other is a book the eLearning coaches are reading called, “Teach Like a PIRATE.”  Both have to do with increasing student engagement and nothing to do with Max the Pirate.    

 Collecting Content
Over the last couple of years, I have begun to realize the importance of incorporating literacy standards into my classroom on an everyday basis.  I am in the early stages of doing this and still have a lot to learn but I would like to share some of my experiences along with some of what I have learned from the two books listed above.  In my Social Studies classes, the students complete about 8 PBL units (each representing a particular theme) per year.   I have begun to create text sets for each project or theme we do.  This is far from being done but I have a good start.  Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day (I know, typical history teacher saying!) and text sets shouldn’t be either.  I gather interesting articles, videos, maps, graphs, etc. throughout the year and organize them by theme.  This allows me to have and build on these resources from year to year.  We don’t have to build our content from scratch, there are a lot of great resources out there to help with this process.  A simple Google search is a great place to start.  

 “Hooking” Students

In “Teach Like a PIRATE,” the author talks about creating a “hook” to grab students’ attention.  Moving away from the textbook has been a freeing experience for me.  The last couple of years I have just used the textbook as a resource.  It has freed me up to incorporate a lot of engaging content into my classes.  I have pulled in articles from books like “,Oh Yikes!  History’s Grossest Wackiest Moments.”  From some of these articles, which are written in a language the students can understand, students have learned the process for mummification in ancient Egypt.  They especially like the part where it talks about removing the brains through the nose!  I use articles like these as a “hook” to grab their attention and get them engaged.  Gross, weird, or shocking always grabs their attention (especially 7^th graders!) but we can also “hook” them by making the content relevant or by showing them the real world uses of the material. 

 Teaching Students to Learn

A quote from MAX Teaching that I really liked was, “I learned how to facilitate active learning from students.”   I have begun to realize the importance of becoming a facilitator of their learning rather than being the content expert that just tells them all the right answers.  Another way to put it is “students learn better when they are coached through a process in which they are active in trying to make sense of something.”  Being a coach, I can’t go hit or throw a pitch for a player.  I have to coach them through the process of learning how to do it themselves.  To me, this makes a lot of sense in the classroom as well.  Teaching students how to learn is just as important, if not more, than the content we teach.  MAX teaching is a three step process where students are first Motivated to engage in learning, second Acquire new information, and third eXtend beyond the text.  With the right content and strategies, students can be engaged in reading in the content areas and learn how to learn.

Technology and Reading in Content Areas

It’s really not about the technology here.  Creating an engaging content area reading lesson could be done with no technology at all.  Since we have it though, there are some great ways to incorporate it and take engagement to another level.  Students can deliver what they know through creation tools such as Animoto, Easel.ly, Prezi, and others.  The discussion feature on MBC could serve as open dialogue for the class to discuss the reading.  If you are reading a novel or a nonfiction book in your class it could also serve as a host for a book club.   Some online resources for gathering content are Google, YouTube, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Edutopia, Thinkfinity, as well as others. 

Like I said, I am not an expert about this but have a lot of good resources to help.  I would like to work with you to help in any way I can.  Together, we can find engaging content, find strategies and activities that work best for your class and content, and help find creative ways for your students to show you what they know.  The eLearning department would be happy to help with any of this or any of the tech tools listed above.