Inside the Classroom: Creative Teaching Makes Learning an Adventure

By Karin Conrad

If you take a peek into some of our state’s most innovative classrooms this fall, don’t expect to see kids with their heads buried in a textbook counting down to recess.   Instead, you’ll find students enthusiastically engaged in excavating skeletons, sending podcasts to India, practicing yoga, competing for medals in their school’s recycling Olympics, and planting school gardens.

Massachusetts is not only home to some of the best schools in the country, but also boasts outstanding teachers – teachers breaking new ground and finding exciting ways to help kids learn.

Beyond Books in Wayland

Daniel Fernandez Davila, a Wayland Middle School science teacher, believes passionately in keeping students on their toes, “Unexpectedness is the key to good teaching,” he explained. “Every day I have 20 kids looking at me wondering what I’m gonna pull out.”

Having worked for many years as an archaeologist in his native Peru, Fernandez Davila has a rich background to draw on in creating original lesson plans. He once staged an excavation in his class, covering a skeleton and various objects with sand. As the kids dug up the artifacts, they had to piece together a story about ancient trade in Greece. “Since life is multidimensional, I teach kids to approach a problem from many directions,” he said. During their excavation, for example, students needed to understand physical anthropology, textiles and weaving, manufacturing processes and radiocarbon dating in order to “be history detectives and use clues from the past to solve a puzzle.”

Students also used computers and math to measure and graph areas of the Roman Empire on Google maps and learned the Greek alphabet through a treasure hunt using math puzzles written in Greek.

Online History Lesson in Hopkinton

As a way to pique students’ curiosity about the history of Hopkinton, Anne Marie Dott, technology integration specialist at Elmwood Elementary School had groups of students use primary sources available online to solve the mystery of a sudden drop in Hopkinton’s population around 1860. Poring over historical maps, census data, obituaries and newspaper articles, student historians discovered that Hopkinton had three major fires around that time.

Students also used technology to create podcasts describing their personal histories. Second graders chose someone from their family who is or was an immigrant and then recorded their story. Other students created podcasts about significant events in their own lives. (You can hear about a great-grandfather’s first taste of ice cream after arriving in the U.S. and other stories on the Elmwood website http://www.hopkinton.k12.ma.us/elmwood/).

With the help of technology, students’ messages reach far beyond the classroom. One second grade student moved to India and his class created a blog and podcast to keep him updated on happenings at Elmwood. A third grade class studying the Freedom Trail created podcasts about the trail, speaking as if they were people living at that time, and their creations now appear on the official Freedom Trail site. (You can hear them at http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/education/podcast.html). “Because they know they have a global audience, they take a greater interest in their work. They get comments from all over the world.”

Breathing In & Out in Framingham

Students at Stapleton Elementary in Framingham look inward for inspiration. Fifth grade teachers Elizabeth Goranson and her co-teacher Lauren Flick have made yoga practice a regular part of their classroom routine. They teach in an inclusion classroom with several special needs students, and have been amazed at the effect yoga has on their students, “The kids really embraced it and thought it was cool,” said Goranson. “They’re always asking for it, especially during MCAS. They get so relaxed and peaceful. It changes the whole energy of the classroom.”

Goranson found the yoga exercises work well to complement the students’ academic work by teaching them social competence skills. Kids learn compassion through yoga homework such as helping someone or giving someone a compliment. They also build confidence since they “can excel with their body even if they aren’t strong in academics,” said Goranson. She adds that one of the most important reasons for practicing yoga is that “kids learn how to regulate their minds and bodies. We tell them to think of something they’re proud of and this puts them in a positive frame of mind. Then they’re not thinking about how so-and-so wouldn’t sit with them at lunch, and they’re empowered and ready to learn.”

Recycling in Norwell

Students in Norwell are learning about the power of small, everyday acts, but through very different means: a recycling Olympics. To encourage students to change their habits and become more environmentally responsible, Cole Elementary School teachers organized a recycling Olympics.  In order to earn bronze, silver or gold certificates, kids track how many times they remember to take a shorter shower, pick up litter, recycle, turn off lights, use both sides of paper, or brush their teeth without keeping the water running. 

“This effort is part of a long term strategic plan. Over the next five years, we’ll have a green initiative and plan to involve all the Norwell public schools in actively recycling,” explained Cole Principal Jack Shea.

Fresh fruits in Cambridge

Jane Hirschi believes the first step in teaching kids to appreciate nature is getting them outdoors and into gardens. “Years ago, I went into my daughter’s classroom in Cambridge and brought apples and pumpkins. I was shocked to discover a lot of the kids had never tasted these foods before” said Hirschi. The kids’ lack of exposure to fresh fruits and vegetables was the inspiration for CitySprouts, an organization Hirschi founded in 2000 which maintains ten learning gardens for Cambridge students in K-8th grade, runs garden-based after school and summer programs and sponsors internships for middle-school youth.

“What’s different about CitySprouts is that it’s district wide and it’s really about integrating school gardens into public education. Our lesson plans are just extensions of curricula,” said Hirschi. Kids learning about colonial America, for example, have been planting a “three sisters gardens” of corn, squash, and beans, while students in math classes have been planting peas and measuring and charting their growth. 

The program has been a big hit among students and teachers alike and has even served as a model for other districts. As evidence of the program’s popularity, Hirschi recalls a student who helped wheelbarrow soil for garden beds at Graham and Parks School. “He poked his head out the second story window and asked us how soon he could come back to the garden.” The appeal of the gardens is easy to understand, remarks Hirschi, “Familiarity with nature and just being outside is a really elemental piece of human experience.”

Karin Conrad is a freelance writer and teacher living in Waltham.