Active listening - aka listening in a way that actually engages with the person you're talking to. One reason why I used to hate doing "class discussions" is because the students never actually listened to each other. What was supposed to be a conversation always ended up feeling like a back and forward between individual students and the teacher, rather than a dialogue between everybody in the room. I wanted to explore complicated and important issues with the students, but we couldn't do that if the students weren't benefiting from each other's ideas. 

So what would happen if I could somehow break down the elements of a rich conversation into a set of concrete skills that I could teach the students? Turns out, such a structure already exists. It's called active listening and we can learn to be active listeners by practicing these four steps. 

4 steps of Active Listening

Step #1: Repeat back what you heard

• This gives the listener a chance to prove that he/she understands what is being said. 
• This gives the speaker a chance to clarify any misunderstandings

Step #2: Ask questions to clarify

• This gives the listener a chance to understand the speaker before the listener makes a counterargument

Step #3: Validate feelings, not necessarily logic

• Somebody's feelings are always valid, even if their logic is questionable
• Validation of feelings keeps the speaker engaged, even when there is disagreement 
• Failure to validate feelings dismisses the speaker and creates disengagement

Step #4: Build and complicate the idea

• This last step relates the speaker's ideas with the listener's ideas and creates a path for a more complicated conversation 

I used the following sentence starters to help students understand and practice each step of active listening. 

​First, I modeled for students how the sentence starters can be used in a conversation.

Here's the first conversation we had as a class. 

• Ms. Tsai - "I think mint chocolate chip is the best flavor of ice cream" 
• Student 1- (Repeat) "So you're saying that you think mint chip is the best?" 
• Ms. Tsai - "Yes, mint chip has the perfect balance of chocolate and non-chocolate flavors; therefore, it's the best" 
• Student 2- (Ask) - "Can you say more about how you define 'best' flavor?" 
• Ms. Tsai - "The best flavor is the one that gives me the most enjoyment. All the fruit flavors are boring and the chocolate flavors are too sweet" 
• Student 3( Validate) - "I can see why you would feel mint chip is the best, but have you tried all the flavors of ice cream to know for sure?" 
• Ms. Tsai - "I don't think I need to try every single flavor in order to know which one is the best" 
• Student 4 (Build) - "While it may be true that you think mint chip is the best, I think we should also consider what everybody else thinks. Maybe we should do a poll and find out" 

​Next, we had individual students take turns to be in the "hot seat" and propose a controversial opinion. Students came up with all sorts of interesting topics......from school lunches, to music, to whether porn was a good thing or not. After the "hot seat" student shared his/her controversial opinion, the audience used their active listening skills to probe the person in the "hot seat" and create a richer conversation. Students had fun with debating about things they care about. They were also excited to actually have an engaging conversation with each other for once! 

Finally, we steered our conversations towards topics more relevant to the content we were studying in class. Students worked in small groups to practice the four steps of active listening using scenarios related to gene therapy and bioethics **disclosure these scenarios were not written entirely by me. 

This week is the last week of the second quarter, and I'm still trying to figure out how to best use class time during this awkward transition week. It's the end of the quarter and everybody's tired. I don't want to assign any more work this week since I want to devote my time to grading final projects. I want to make class time meaningful while giving everybody a chance to breathe and reflect.

So I thought....why not let the students choose what they want to do? And what did they choose? They chose to play Just Dance, and I was all for it. 

For those of you that questioned the yelling and singing from my classroom today (sorry about that!) here are four reasons why we devoted 15 minutes of class time today to the Just Dance Michael Jackson Experience (which by the way....is super good). 

So.......why should I let my students dance in class? 

1.  Playing games in class builds classroom culture 

• Dancing is a fun experience that's also a collaborative activity  
• Students that feel safe enough to dance together in class will also feel safe enough to take risks in their classwork together 

2. The students feel heard

• At the beginning of class, we took a poll on the smart board, and the students voted for Just Dance over two other activities. Students that feel like they're being listened to and taken seriously are more likely to cooperate later on when it comes to classwork.  

3. Exercising in the beginning of class helps students focus afterwards 

• You would think that dancing for 15 minutes at the beginning of class would throw off the class' focus but....actually no! The transition to classwork afterwards was quick and we were able to finish our benchmark presentations in a timely manner. 

4. It gives students a reason to want to come to class 

• It also gives me a reason to want to go to work! 

Maybe I'm just jealous that I never got to play Just Dance in class when I was in school, or maybe this is just my Zumba background infiltrating my teaching. The way I see it, in the real world, workplaces encourage team building, group exercise, and activities that build a positive culture. A classroom is no different. There's no reason to feel like we have to work all the time, especially at the end of the quarter. I want to hear your thoughts too! How do you spend the end of the quarter with your classes? ​

Yep, you read that right. This week my classroom went from having one pet to four.....

Growing up I was always known as that kid with a bajillion animals in her house. At one point, my house was home to a guinea pig, hamsters, a rabbit, a dog, fish, turtles, hermit crabs, a newt, an African clawed frog, and sea monkeys all at once. Yes, it was crazy. Yes, my parents are still caring for some of those pets. Yes, living with a zoo was fun. And without even realizing it, I found myself carrying home three Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches yesterday in a take out container. "The kids are gonna love this", I thought. And the crazy thing is? They actually did! Well...not all of them did....but enough of them to justify writing this blog post!

Why roaches you may ask? Here's why

5 Reasons why Roaches make Great Classroom Pets

Reason #1: They're safe

• They don't bite. They don't scratch. They're not poisonous. They don't fly or run very fast. Totally kid safe. 

Reason #2: They move a lot

• Pets that move are more interesting. Anyone who's owned a hermit crab can tell you that. Hamsters sleep all day and bite you. Cockroaches run all over your hands. Students have fun handling them. 

Reason #3: They eat everything

• I can feed them the same food I feed the fish

Reason #4: They're hard to kill

• Students can drop them from six feet up and they won't get hurt. You can step on them, starve them, forget about them over spring break. They'll still be there when you get back 

Reason #5: They start conversations about science 

• For example, cockroaches molt. Not a lot of students know about molting or how arthropods work. Observing the roaches can turn into a science lesson
• Classroom pets draw students into my classroom, even students I don't teach. Pets foster a positive classroom culture. 

I never anticipated that I would one day defend the worthiness of cockroaches but after more than a handful of students took a chance at handling them today, I'm feeling pretty good about keeping these three roaches around for now =O Next time you pass by my class, come say hi to them!