online learning with affective jacob’s ladder materials...michael phelps • american swimmer who...

Online Learning with Affective Jacob’s Ladder MaterialsAuthors: Joyce VanTassel-Baska, College of William and Mary and Tamra Stambaugh, Vanderbilt UniversityTeacher: Margie Campbell, Fairfax County Schools

Slide by Joyce VanTassel-Baska and Tamra Stambaugh. Copyright ©2020 by the Authors.

Jacob’s Ladder Affective

• Consists of 8 different affective skillsindicated in the literature as necessary forthe promotion of talent

• Moves from lower to higher level skilldevelopment

• Derived from well-groundedpsychological/educational theories

• Intended to be part of a classroom approachto teaching affective skills, grounded withinlanguage arts content standards and giftedcurriculum standards.

• Regulating Emotion

• Coping With Adversity and Challenge

• Engaging in Healthy Risk Taking

• Developing Identity

• Developing Empathy

• Managing Stressors

• Motivating to Achieve/Perseverance

• Developing Talent


Student audience

Identified gifted students

Students identified for specific aptitude in verbal areas

Twice-exceptional learners

Diverse and underrepresented learners

Students not identified as gifted but who show evidence of promise and interest in the work


Purpose of the

program

To advance thinking to higher levels about eight affective constructs--From awareness to expression to channeling emotions--From understanding to applying to coping with adversity--From weighing risks to considering others’ perspectives to engaging in productive risk-taking--From knowing oneself to understanding roles to using talents to attain a goal (identity)


Purpose (continued)

--From understanding others’ needs to communication to collaboration (building empathy)--From identifying to controlling to managing stress--From identifying barriers to assessing interests and strengths to reflection on achievement motivation--From recognizing factors that facilitate to using learning application strategies to developing talent


Regulating Emotions

Using Emotion

Discuss how one might channel emotions into a creative outlet

and use emotions to create change or for a specific purpose or goal through literary texts or

situations

Expressing Emotion

Explain how emotions are conveyed through the use of

literary elements in a text and convey one’s own emotions in

positive ways.

Understanding Emotion

Identify and understand different emotions and emotional

language used to convey a message.

Coping with Adversity and Challenge

Facing Adversity and Challenges

Create or articulate solutions and discuss implications for facing

adverse situations and challenges in a productive way

Analyzing Adverse Situations and

ConditionsExplain how adverse situations in

self and others contributes to varying conditions and outcomes.

Recognizing Adversity and Challenge

Recognize adversity and challenge expressed in fictional and real lifetexts and situations; explain how

these challenges affect the individuals involved.

Engaging in Healthy Risk Taking

Engaging in Productive Risk-Taking

Design or explain a plan for productively engaging in healthy

risks that promote one’s achievement

Considering Multiple Perspectives

Articulate, seek, or review multiple perspectives, ideas, or situations

and weigh the outcomes

Identifying and Calculating Risks

Identify potential risks a situationand discuss the potential cause and

effects of such risk on one’s situation or outcome

Developing Identity

Actualizing Potential to Advance a Goal

Create unique ideas, plans, and products that show an

understanding of one’s identity and how that identity allows for

goal attainment

Understanding Roles and Affiliations

Discuss how one’s role and affiliation (or perception of their

role/affiliation) supports or inhibits their personal growth

Knowing Oneself

Explain fictional and individual characteristics and traits and

assess the strengths and weaknesses of each as part of

recognizing one’s identity or how identity is crafted.

From VanTassel-Baska & Stambaugh, 2018. Copyright ©2018 by Prufrock Press Inc.

Developing Empathy

Collaborating with Others

Design collaboration plans or explain effective ways to

collaborate or interact with others to achieve a specific purpose or

goal

Communicating and Responding to Others

Communicate effectively and professionally in a variety of ways

and in response to one’s needs; consider others’ ideas and perspectives as part of a

communication plan

Understanding Others’ Needs and Values

Identify and explain the needs of others through perspectives other

than one’s own; put oneself in another’s situation and discuss

ideas from that perspective

Managing Stressors

Creating a Plan for Management

Create a plan for managing stressors that includes specific

criteria and outcomes or critique the effectiveness of one’s plan

for managing stress

Applying Control Techniques

Apply healthy ways to manage stress to provided with various

situations, scenarios, or contexts

Identifying Conditions/Situations

that Cause StressIdentify and explain conditions that cause stress in others and

oneself

Motivating to Achieve

Reflecting on Patterns of Achievement

Develop attainable goals for long-term learning; synthesize

patterns of achievement in oneself and others

Assessing Strengths and Interests

Explain how the use of one’s strengths and interests

contributes to one’s achievement

Identifying Barriers to Achievement

Identify and explain personal and external barriers to

achievement

Developing Talent

Demonstrating High Level of Performance in

a Given AreaCreate a new product, idea, or

plan for developing one’s strengths and attaining goals

Applying Learning to Practice

Explain how to use or create opportunities and develop

strengths to acquire knowledge; practice healthy habits for

success and meeting one’s own goals

Recognizing Internal and External Factors that

Promote Talent Development

Identify and explain personal and external factors that impede or promote talent development,

including what is and is not in one’s control


The twin pillars of thinking and feeling

•Creation• Evaluation• Synthesis•Analysis•Application•Comprehension•Knowledge

• Emotion•Risk-taking•Coping with

adversity• Empathy• Identity•Awareness


Climbing a Ladder by Questions and Activities

ActionStudents are asked to create a plan, goal, or

product to illustrate transfer to their own lives

AnalysisStudents are asked to apply and critique their

understanding or critique of a character, feeling, or situation

AwarenessStudents demonstrate comprehension of an issue,

problem, or character’s motive in a text


Key Features and Assumptions

Creates a safe environment to talk about affective ideas

Links affective issues to engaging texts that stimulate both thinking and feeling

Uses external resources for introspection and reflectionaffective developmentPromotes the use of questions

and discussion as the vehicles for growthIncorporates diversity of characters, biographies, message, and authors


Alignment to Standards

Gifted Curriculum Standards

-Social-emotionaldevelopment-Use of inquiry-Talent trajectories

English/Language Arts Standards

--Use of literature to enhance comprehension and higher level thinking--Use of narrative writing processes--Communication through listening and oral discussion


Genres of literature used

• Fables• Short stories• Poetry• Essays• Biography• Songs• Video clips of animation• Other visual media available from YouTube

et al.

Slides by Joyce VanTassel-Baska and Tamra Stambaugh. Copyright ©2020 by the Authors.

Michael Phelps

• American swimmer who holds the record formost Olympic medals won with 28.

• As a kid, Phelps struggled with AttentionDeficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD,which made it hard for him to focus. His parentswondered if swimming might channel thatexcess energy.

• In 2000, at just 15 years old, Phelps became theyoungest male swimmer to compete in theOlympics in 68 years.

• He also competed in the 2004, 2008, 2012, and2016 Olympics and became the Olympian withthe most gold medals.


GOAL: to help students see achievement patterns and to assess barriers to performance


How does Phelps view success? Write a letter of reference for him that emphasizes personal characteristics that led to his

impressive accomplishments.


What was Michael Phelps’ talent development path? List five milestones in his life that reflect his strengths and how he used

them.

How can you use your strengths to develop talents?


What strengths did Phelps have to begin with and which ones did he develop? What were his barriers to

achievement and how did he work to overcome them?




When the major competition is yourself, as was the case with Phelps, how do you motivate yourself to continue to compete at

high levels? What do you think he did to keep himself advancing?

What strategies do you use to continue to improve, even though you may be making A’s or doing well in your talent area

competitions? Make a list of strategies you can use to continue to achieve, using Phelps biography for ideas.

Analyzing Adverse Situations and Conditions

Given the adversity Phelps faced, how did he overcome barriers? What lessons can you take away from this?


Are people designed for success or is success something one creates? What did you see as challenges for Phelps or was success

preordained for him?

GOAL: to help students recognize adversity and challenges in self and others and analyze the conditions for resolution.



Mendingby Hazel Hall

Here are old things:Fraying edges,Ravelling threads;And here are scraps of new goods,Needles and thread,An expectant thimble,A pair of silver-toothed scissors.Thimble on a finger,New thread through an eye;Needle, do not linger,Hurry as you ply.If you ever would be through

Hurry, scurry, fly!Here are patches,Felled edges,Darned threads,Strengthening old utility,Pending the coming of the new.Yes, I have been mending …But also,I have been enactingA little travesty on life.




Many people allow life to just happen to them serendipitously. Others plan for specific occurrences. How do you think about your future? Assuming you want to plan for your formal education as a prelude to a career, what are the markers that you would want to experience? Develop an educational plan that begins where you are now and takes you into a professional career. Use the template provided below to “sew in” the relevant pieces and reflect on the pattern you create:


What do you perceive to be your major strengths and areas for improvement? Make a list and describe how your strengths might be used to improve your weaknesses?


What barriers would keep you from sewing the life that you might like? Name three and think about how they might be overcome.

Level Key Events/Skills I want to develop/Accomplishments

Elementary school

Middle school

High school

College

Career



GOAL: to persuade students to adopt a model of personal excellence where learning is the goal, not performance per se.

Demonstrating High Level of Performance in a Given Area

In what ways does the poet relate the idea of creating a life to the act of sewing? In a chart, show what the relationship might be. Then, create a collage that “sews together” the pieces of your life to date. What might your collage look like in 10 years? Compare and contrast each version.

Applying Learning to Practice

How can the factors from below work together to help you achieve your dreams? How might you develop “habits of mind” that could help? Create a list of these and other factors and describe how each might contribute.

Recognizing Internal and External Factors that Promote Talent Development

What are the factors that you would “sew into your life” that might aid you in developing your abilities and aptitudes to optimal levels? Select from the following list and note how they might aid you.



Otis Boykin

• African American inventor who improvedresistor models, allowing for faster developmentof 20th-century electronics.

• Although he encountered difficulties in hisschooling and his career, he persevered anddeveloped more than 24 patents.

• Boykin is best known for his work onpacemakers. Because of Boykin’s work,thousands of people with pacemakers are able toextend their lifespans today.

• Unfortunately, in his later years Boykin hadheart problems that his own pacemakers couldnot address. In 1982, he died of heart failure.



In what ways have you experienced diminished expectations, lack of opportunity, discrimination or other adversity beyond your control? Describe how it made you

feel. How did you cope with it?

Analyzing Adverse Situations and Conditions

How might his lack of financial supports and racial discrimination affect his career? What evidence supports your response? What aspects of his adversity were within

and beyond his control?


What adversity did Boykin face? Make a list.

GOAL: to help students recognize adversity and challenges in self and others and analyze the conditions for resolution.





Many people believe that “talent wills out”, meaning if you are talented enough you will do well in life. Others believe that “no one ever makes it on their

own, that other people are always responsible for one’s success.” Write an argument that supports one of

these views, using Boykin’s life story as one of your examples.


What assets does Otis possess? How does he use them to his advantage? Write a short essay about how you might use your assets to your advantage.


What words and phrases come to mind to describe the barriers that Otis may have faced? Make a list.



Geri’s Game


Engaging in Productive Risk-TakingWhat skills or traits would Geri have to have in order to reach out to someone

else and ask them to play chess with him? How would he approach the situation to ask someone else? What would he do if they said “no”? Create a skit of a good and bad example of how Geri might ask someone to play chess. Explain

why your example is a good one or a poor one.

Considering Multiple PerspectivesCreate a short story (with two chapters) or a monologue that portrays two

different perspectives of the situation – one from Geri’s perspective and one from a bystander in the park who is intently staring at Geri’s antics while playing chess.

How does each person see the other? What are they thinking? Conclude your story or skit with a moral that incorporates both perspectives and discusses how

what people see on the outside may not always be what is really going on.

Identifying and Calculating RisksWhat do you think Geri is playing chess by himself instead of trying to find

someone to play with him?

Which is riskier – reaching out to someone and possibly being rejected or being alone or viewed as odd or unusual?

GOAL: to promote more open-ended thinking, feeling, and behavior in gifted students



GOAL: to understand the needs and values of others, noting the similarities and differences to their own through communicate and collaboration strategies.

Collaborating with Others

How might collaboration with others allow for a more productive life? Use Geri’s example as evidence in addition to your own ideas.

Communicating and Responding to Others

Instead of playing chess by himself, what else might Geri have done to communicate his feelings and engage with others in productive ways? Brainstorm a list of at least 25 ways Geri might try to connect with others instead of playing chess by himself. Then select your best ideas and write a short letter to Geri suggesting some ways he might try to reach out to others.

Understanding Others’ Needs and Values

What do you think made Geri act as he did? What feelings might he be having?



Why useAffective Jacob’s Ladder

• Intentional opportunities for connecting with students todevelop their intra- and interpersonal relationships

• Emotional learning – able to see themselves with respect toothers; empathy and awareness of diversity

Social and Emotional Learning - IDENTITY

• Reading objectives, creative writing opportunities with manyentry points - low floor-high ceiling, shared communication

• Asks evaluative questions with cognitive conflict

Balanced Literacy - MASTERY

• Easy to differentiate – levels of support in small groups andopportunities for natural extensions

• Timing your lesson to ensure student’s understanding andpreparation

Implementation CREATIVITY & Critical thinking

Slide by Margie Campbell. Copyright ©2020 by the Author.

The Lesson5th Grade small group lesson

• Accessible to all – fable has a universal theme that’s very relatable

Identified group of gifted learners

• Entry point - Hook text, novelty• Ladder questions supported higher level thinking and analysis of the text• Supports active engagement S-S S-T S-Content

Set up for success - Introduction

• Express themselves creatively with interesting activities (cool ones!)• Small group – homogenous reading levels but varied ‘effort’ levels• Excellent opportunity to develop a learning community through shared

experiences - Develop and strengthen their identity and self-awareness

Enjoyed the process – Collaborative sharing

• Showed mastery of concept by making connections through the sharedlearning experience – POSITIVE RISKS

• Students felt empathy and compassion for each other through the charactersand self analysis

• Community building – We all left the session feeling supported and heard• Opportunities to extend• Formative Assessment Application

My Reflection

The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey

by Aesop


Affective Jacob’s Ladder

• Preparation – support understanding with graphics tovisualize, word study, and retelling

• How will you collect the student’s responses?Google forms, Pear Deck, Jamboard, Flipgrid

Routines supporting academic conversations

• Promote opportunity for student-student interactionBreakout groups support guided practice

Small group share

• Increase accountability with products, home-schoolconnectionShared class slideshow, Socratic seminar,portfolio or journal

Final Products and Reflection

During virtual or hybrid learning… so many possibilities


Implementation of Jacob’s Ladder

• Groupings• Whole class discussion and modeling

• Designed as a discussion program• Not to be used as worksheets

• Small group consensus and discussion• Socratic seminars

• Time• Varies based on student interest of the topic and selection• 45 minutes to an hour for one ladder and reading

• Build a climate of trust and support• Develop reading comprehension, inference making, and text to

self connections• Begin by talking about the characters instead of making it

personal• Pre-Post assessments to monitor growth and determine skill

levels


Other Ideas for Leading Jacob’s Ladder Online

Shared Google Docs to sketch or jot down responses

Discussion board posts/threads of analysis questions

Flipgrid or other posting of activities for comment by other group members

Whole group – small group – whole group

Whole group understanding of text followed by small group discussions of posted question (breakout rooms) – perhaps log in a google doc – then return to whole group to discuss small group posts


Reference

VanTassel-Baska, J., & Stambaugh, T. (2018). Affective Jacob’s Ladder Reading Comprehension Program: Grades 4–5. Prufrock Press.

Learn more athttps://www.prufrock.com/jacobsladder.aspx.

https://www.prufrock.com/jacobsladder.aspx

https://www.prufrock.com/jacobsladder.aspx

online learning with affective jacob’s ladder materials...michael phelps • american swimmer who...

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