Collaborative Mindmaps

This week marked a new 10 week cycle at school and I could not wait for it to get started. Entering a new phase of teaching with excitement has to be one of the best feelings. There have been other seasons of teaching in which I have felt overwhelmed and disheartened, but this season has an enthusiasm that is both refreshing and inspiring. I think taking a more active role in the blog-o-sphere has been a major contributor—leading to a surplus of amazing ideas I cannot wait to try out.

As I have begun building more of a relationship between the ESL department at my school and mainstream teachers, one of the most common reports coming back from these teachers has been “_______________ is a fantastic student who is always doing his/her best and working extremely hard, but he/she just isn’t able to write anything that makes sense.” My first reaction to this feedback is always a protective one: they have just moved here, they are afraid to ask questions, the work is too difficult for them, etc.

The next feeling I have is one of guilt: they need more support, I’m not preparing them well enough, how are they going to pass grade_________? It is not an ideal system because I have them in ESL and we are working on basic skills (greetings, low-level vocabulary, simple present and simple past) and then they move into “regular” courses such as grade 11 science or grade 10 music the next period. Trying to keep discouragement from setting in is a big part of teaching in this setting.

I have watched my students master the basics of English (is there even such a thing?) over the past few months, grow in their sociolinguistic awareness and abilities and am now beginning to introduce the foundational aspects of academic reading and writing. The concept of actually stopping to think about something before writing was new to most of my students and as we began discussing the process of brainstorming/mind-mapping prior to writing, they were apprehensive.  My students love technology and I am generally afraid of it so I have had to be intentional about implementing it into lessons. A few weeks ago I discovered www.coggle.it. This is a collaborative tool where they are able to create a mindmap in live time. I had each of my students choose a topic they would work with over the next few weeks and then had them go to the Coggle website. Instead of brainstorming each topic individually, they worked as a group of 4, going through each of their topics and working together to create a mindmap. They were able to save what they created and then move onto the next person’s topic.

At the end of the lesson, I felt they had grasped the purpose of the brainstorming process and had enjoyed the process. Technology for the win!