Sample Interactions between Learning Consultants and Parents/Learners

Sample 1 - Learning reflections from a teen, as contained in a weekly 'Observing for Learning' report, plus comments from the Learning Consultant (reflecting a SelfDesign process of reporting on, and responding to learning)

Child: I started computer programming this week(JavaScript).There is an online tutorial that teaches you how to do some computer programming and its really fun. I’ve been doing it for around 4 hours a day (thats all my mom would allow). I can already do some very cool things. SUCH AS?! If you want where the tutorial is, its www.tripod.com. if you go to "build&edit you'll find the javascript tutorial. I put the hours under "technology". Is this where it should go? It wasn't hard and I'm already on the advanced tutorial. It was very fun cause now I can make my own little games.

LC: GOOD FOR YOU, XX! YES, TECHNOLOGY IS AN APPROPRIATE CATEGORY FOR THIS, AND I'M WONDERING IF YOU WILL POST INFO. ON THIS IN THE 'COMPUTERS AND INTERNET' CONFERENCE IN THE SW VILLAGE, I'M SURE OTHERS WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT THIS ...

Child: I did math and science on linkonlearning this week. I learned more about rock weathering, and I'm doing a review of powers for math. I didn't do much on linkonlearning this week, but I'll start to do more in the future. I really enjoy science and I find it very interesting.

LC: WHERE WE LIVE IS A GREAT PLACE TO LEARN, HANDS-ON, ABOUT SCIENCE, ESPECIALLY MARINE SCIENCE, FOREST ECOLOGY AND GEOLOGY (SEE THE BOOK REVIEW I PASTED BELOW ABOUT A NEW BOOK ON OUR LOCAL GEOLOGY ...YY'S BROTHER, M LIVES A COUPLE OF BLOCKS AWAY FROM YOU ON _____RD.)

Sample 2 - The following samples are from an interaction between a mother of a 7-year old learner and the Learning Consultant, again reflecting our process of reporting on, and responding to learning.

Parent: X asked today, "when can we get to work together again, on math and stuff?" and I said, "tomorrow", to which she replied, "Yipee!!!" I'm a little confused. I don't really know if she knows what she wants....she changes her mind so often.

Learning Consultant: You have to remember that she does not live in time as an adult does...she lives much more in the moment...and does not really conceive of tomorrow in the way you might...it is not that she changes her mind at all, it is that she lives in the flow of emotioning as it happens. You could ask her if she would like a schedule for herself and help her make one...you could do this after the fact or before the fact.

Parent: ...practised our reading, 2 or 3 books. The books are short (9 -10 pages) with only one sentence or so on each page, which works well for X. She never rolls her eyes and says she doesn't feel like it, because she's not overwhelmed by the work involved.

Learning Consultant: It is important for children to do what they feel comfortable doing and they will gradually increase the difficulty level themselves. When we learn something , there are a number of stages that the learning passes through. At first sometimes, we forget how to do something, sometimes we do the skill correctly and sometimes we do not. We call this developing, Then over time, we gradually habituate the skill so that when asked we can usually do it...In eduspeak we say that the skill has been mastered. However, the significant learning is when you observe the child using the skill independently and in a new context. This is an indicator that the skill has become part of the learners' own repertoire. So as the child learns to read, she will go through this same process and you will be quite surprised to see that over a 6 month period, things she is struggling with today will be just part of what she does usually next year.

Sample 3 - This family was happy to have a sample of their work forwarded to Best Practices. They expressed that they have found the examples available to them...Learning Plan ...Observations etc....very valuable.

Parent: This week X has been helping his daddy put up the walls of the barn. He helped predrill for the screws. He had to measure and space the holes etc. He was pretty excited to be part of the finished product for the day! He also was able to help in the cutting of some pieces as well as run for parts!

LC: It all sounds like fun and learning at the same time.

Parent: The house work was not as important to him this week unless he got cold! But he was still very helpful in lunch preparations and baking! Great! X has got a bit more into his journaling/ planning . As he sees and re reads his efforts journaling is of more value or meaning to him.

LC: Yes, having a child go back and read their journalling...especially to you, is a good learning strategy. It helps you, and them, to identify strengths and areas for improvement in their writing. Also the workbooks and computer were of interest to him. Which workbooks are you using?...are you happy with them? I noticed when I was at ___yesterday that they are getting more and more resources in.

Parent: He started working on his resume also. He is writing and editing it on paper and will probably enter some on the computer today.

LC: Great! I really look forward to reading that.

Parent: Its so strange to see a boy who does so much have so little to say about himself. I think it, like the journal, will give him some awareness of himself and his likes/dislikes etc.

LC: Yes, and I think that is exactly the point...journaling and doing activities such as the resume are a wonderful way for us to reflect on ourselves....whether we are 9 or 49.

Parent: The boys' big outing was Saturday when ... they planned with daddy a fishing trip to the river. They didn't see many fish but observed a lot of different animal tracks in the snow.

LC: How wonderful. I really love that about the winter...even here at our place (we just have 10 acres)...going for a walk in the woods and seeing which animals have been through in the night.

Parent: They watched a blue heron fishing down at the river.

LC: Your boys are fortunate indeed. Their daily life sounds so rich with experiences that really count.

Parent: They tried to get a closer look by paddling the canoe up closer to his fishing grounds only to scare the bird down stream... and had still no luck with the fish! :)

LC: Too bad about the luck with the fish...do you fish often in your river for food?...what kind of fish are there?

Sample 4 - child aged 6

Parent: MM is doing review of math concepts from last year. 2 digit addition and subtraction, a bit of multiplication, some < & > & a bit of geometry & measurement. She sometimes gets her numbers confused and switches them around. For instance she'll write 23 instead of 32 and 61 instead of 16. Should I be concerned about this? I assume that this is just her sorting out the #'s, not dyslexia or something like it?

LC: At this point, it's nothing to be concerned about. One guideline sometimes used is that if a child is still reversing quite a few letters or numbers by the time they are 8, then it MIGHT warrant pursuing testing for a learning disability (something you mentioned was dyslexia). For the vast majority of children, however, reversals are common at MM's age. (After all, a chair is a chair no matter which way it's facing, but suddenly a letter is either a b or d depending on its orientation. Kids have a fair amount of adjusting from what they've learned about the world up to that point.) The strategy is to gently remind kids of reversals and have them fix them up. Eventually, they are able to remind themselves, monitor their own learning and apply their new skills. In XX's case, I fully expect her to make this adjustment on her own in the next year.

Parent: We've kept a salamander/newt that we found in the summer and he is now our pet. MM has an ongoing science project in this little guy and I have to say I really like him too. We feed him and have set up his environment to match closely or as close as what his environment would have been if he was let back into the wild. Unfortunately, he did die, which is part of life too. Darn, I really like the little guy! We'll have to do more research before we get another one. XX got a Wetlands CD that she absolutely loves from her favorite teacher (outside of the home that is!) and she can't get enough of it. After she started looking at it I remember that we have an Encarta one similar to it that we had put away a few years ago because they couldn't read the information on the pages, so she's doing that one as well and absolutely loving it. Thanks again for the CD!

LC: You're most welcome! I'm glad to see it get some use rather than sit on my shelf. (Thank you, Renee for the CD!) I can see that MM has learned a lot about animals (life cycle, food, habitat, enemies, etc.) through her salamander and that the CD has supplemented her hands-on experiences. That's a great way to cover this area of the curriculum.

Parent: MM feeds the birds everyday. That is one of her jobs and she is very conscientious about doing it well. We even make suet to feed the birds. MM is always watching the birds, she watches them and then records who comes to what food, when. She's always talking about how she wants to be a vet when she grows up, but we may have an ornithologist in the making.

LC: It's a wonderful project for her to be involved with, I can see that. She is a natural learner, with her notebooks and her field guides near her when the birds are around. And she can be whatever she wants when she's older--she has the capability to pursue any kind of career--it doesn't seem as though there are any limitations, physical or intellectual or otherwise, on her at this point--isn't that a neat thought?

Sample 5 - teen on a remote ranch

Teen: When we where down in C for the rodeo my Grandmother asked for some of my writing and I gave her the longer story about the girl and old man. She really liked it and said that it lifted her spirits but what was really near was that she also gave it to my step grandfather and he thought that I was writing about him. I guess that I find that interesting because he related it back to him.

LC: I did tell her I thought you were a really talented writer- she was surprised because she only gets little notes from you! It is a gift when someone sees themselves in your writing.

Teen: I have also been writing little articles for the paper. They are not much just listing the results from the rodeos but its a start. I just sent in one of my essays for eng XXX and am waiting to hear back from my tutor. ( Note: student is enrolled in first year university english)

LC: It is important to be able to do all kinds of writing...I love creative writing but i also can write anything that needs writing.

Teen: I seem to have hit "writers block "though with my own writing, with creative writing. I don't know why and all I can do is wait to get back on track. I have a lot of ideas for what I want to write but when I go to write I can only get a few strained paragraphs out. I have so many great thoughts too! I don't know what has happened.

LC: Maybe you are so engrossed in other activities that there isn’t the concentrated time. Sometimes the creative part rebels when you do not give her the time she wants and she sits stubbornly uncooperative because you are too focused elsewhere!

...one of the ways you might help this is just to keep a little journal either a paper one or on your laptop and every day just write 3 pages of anything...no judgement, no desire to put it into any form, no need to shape it...just writing...it's sort of like your physical training exercises. You also have to exercise your creativity or she gets constipated *smile*

Sample 6 - Multiple Children

Child 1 aged 5 and half:

LC: Yet...these are advanced ideas for a little one...the concepts of estimating volume are also developmental...it is fascinating how at one age, a child has no capacity to recognize and then later, they get it right away.

Child 2, aged 8

math. Introduced ratios today. I had the kids guess how many 10 cuisinaire rods would be required to measure various objects, then they measured. Then I gave them each 1 ten rod and 1 5 rod, and asked how many 5 rods they thought it would take, without measuring. M knew for the object that was 3 orange rods long, that it would take 6 yellow rods, immediately. For the longer object (10 orange rods long), she guessed 91. I’m not sure what her thinking was there. I showed her how she could count by twos to figure the answer out. We worked on a few other problems (i.e how many yellows for 6 orange rods, 5 orange rods, etc). I also asked her, based on knowing the answers for 1, 2, and 6 orange rods, to finish the pattern (i.e. 1:2 ; 2:4 ; 3:6) and then we talked about doubling. Finally, I showed her how this can be applied. We have a recipe for shortbread that has ratios instead of amounts (1 measure of sugar, 2 measures of butter, 3 of flour), and showed her how the recipe would work if we used the smallest thimble as our measure, or the largest pitcher. We tried doubling and tripling our recipe by using white cuisinaire cubes. M at the end was impatient to go play with B, and said, “I get it. I get it, Mom”.

LC: Yes, she probably did ‘get’ it. Observe to see if you notice her using the concept of ratios in a different situation.

Sample 7 Including pictures...a kindergarten aged child

M has made a huge development in her fine motor skills ... she can now cut things out in very fine detail. She has always done well with scissors but she would ask me to cut out princesses and such which involved intricate parts. Well, one evening (inspired at least in part by the attempt to postpone bedtime), she decided she was going to do it herself and she hasn't stopped since. Here is a fox she drew and cut out recently...

M has been quite focussed on making shadows lately too. She gets very absorbed in the different shapes and excitedly shows us what she can 'make' with her shadow. This one was Pippi Longstocking....