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Gayle Cole

Chris Lehmann's Keynote at #140edu 2012 « 140 Character Conference - 0 views

140conf.com/ehmanns-keynote-at-140edu-2012

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shared by Gayle Cole on 21 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • When I was in high school I hated biology. Funny that I became the Principal of a science high school. But I hated biology for one simple reason: I am a horrendous artist. Every lab report that I did looked like I had dissected an amoeba.
  • But my best friend, who sat next to me, was an amazing artist. And I’m a pretty good writer. You know, I look back and I think, you know, if you had you only let us collaborate, we could have done some really amazing work, even without some of the tools that we have at our disposal today, we could have done great stuff.
  • we are beginning to realize that power of collaboration. People really do talk about the idea of collaboration being the 21st century ‘silver bullet.’ I think people have been collaborating for a really long time. I think we’re only now getting good at it in schools—at least in some schools.
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  • This is going to be SLA’s seventh year. In those seven years I’ve had seven superintendents. [Laughter, applause.]
  • And what is driving all of the decisions right now in cities all over this country? It’s this question: ‘How good are your test scores?’
  • For example, in this state [New York], the state-wide English Language Arts Regents exam was a high-stakes test for students and for teachers. It determined students promotion. It determined whether or not teachers would keep their jobs. It determined whether or not schools would stay open. There was question about a talking pineapple. And again, Adam referenced this earlier. But again, the amazing thing was that they claimed that they took it from this children’s author. They interviewed the children’s author. He said they got it wrong!
  • do you know who made the test? Anybody? Pearson. Not educators. Not state officials. Not the way that it used to be, when at least these tests were designed by people who did not have a financial stake in the game. Instead, this test was designed by a company that was deeply, deeply concerned that it be financially profitable.
  • educators have more stuff thrown at them than they’ve ever had to think about before. I am the child of a lifelong teacher and a union lawyer, so all of these ideas are incredibly derivative and I take them from my parents
  • we wonder why so many teachers push back as we say, ‘Oh and by the way, you’ve got to learn Twitter and Edmodo and this and that and the other and all of these tools.
  • powerful question: Is school relevant? And behind that is the question that many of us as teachers are asking: Am I relevant?
  • t if you ask her, ‘Who are you?’ the first thing she says isn’t ‘Oh, I’m a publicist.’ But if you ask a teacher, ‘Who are you?’ they are going to say, ‘I am a teacher.’ Who we are is wrapped up deeply in what we do and what do is under attack and changing rapidly, and that uncertainty is very difficult to deal with.
  • Johnny Learned to Read. Johnny went to the Store. Johnny went to the Park. Johnny killed himself because learning was boring! [Laughter.]
  • I respect what Deven Black said about the idea of ‘get out of school before the school kills the joy of creativity and kills that joy of learning that you have’ I also believe that school can be amazing places of learning. Schools can teach us how to learn, more than any fact or figure that we can get in a classroom. What schools should teach us is how learn, that metacognitive practice of figuring out, ‘How do I learn best? How do I make sense of our world?’ And when I do that, schools can help us learn to live.
  • Spanish 4 class at Science Leadership Academy. Now, what the kids had to do was to write an essay about hwo they were. Identity is a frequent theme at SLA. The essay was of two parts: One, what was visible about them and, two, what was invisible about them.
  • Schools can help us learn to live.
  • The incredibly reflective moment they were going through was, ‘How could we have prevented this as teachers? What are we doing wrong, that these are the students we are creating? These are the citizens we are creating?’
  • I think that when you are told the whole purpose you are learning this stuff is so you can work for somebody someday and that you can be part of the global economy. I think that’s an isolating feeling. I don’t think that builds community or gets us where we need to go.
  • we need to start talking about ‘the global citizen.’ We need to start talking about community
  • We would instead make sure that every child had a deep and powerful understanding of statistics before they left formal education
  • We’re creating a profoundly innumerate society and solving problems that we face today are going to need people who understand numbers.
  • but school belongs to our best, most powerful democratic instincts as a society. And what we are seeing right now, is a lot of people saying that schools need to be just like business.
  • If not that corporate model, then what model?
  • there’s a profound difference between these two statements: ‘I care about kids, and I care for kids.
  • We need to stop saying, ‘I teach math. I teach English. I teach art.’ We need to start saying, ‘I teach kids.’ And then we build systems and structures that reflect that.
  • we’ve got to understand that an inquiry-driven education is the most powerful way to learn
  • By the way, there is one questions that every teacher should ask a bazillion times a day that they don’t know the answer to. That question is, ‘What do you think?’
  • Want to see a really amazing thing with a group of kids? Read a book with them freshman year. Have them write their reflections on the book. Read it with them again in their senior year. See what the book holds for them now. Teach them that ideas and answers can change. And that that’s good.
  • It’s called the Dialogic Curriculum. It’s by a woman named Patricia L. Stock.
  • This isn’t just about talking. What I see in a lot of classrooms when I visit schools is people talking and listening—but not really. I see in a lot of classrooms debate, where kids are listening for the thing they can disagree with. So that way they can make their point. Right? We’ve all had that experience where the teacher says, ‘Wait a second, I’ll get back to your comment in a minute.’ Three or four more kids have said the thing and the kid says the exact same thing that they were going to say four questions ago, because they didn’t listen to the four things that the other kids said. We need to teach kids that we can argue and we can discuss to learn.
  • Teach kids to build their ideas off of others. Teach them not just to disagree, but run a classroom where no one is allowed to talk until they first express their idea, before they first echo back what they’ve heard from someone else. What did I learn from what you just said? ‘Well, I understand that you just said this, and I thought that this was really interesting. And where I found disagreement or disharmony was here.’ But first I’ve got to acknowledge the things that you said. First I’ve got to acknowledge that you said that with which I can find common cause. Teach kids to build, not just tear down.
  • What they’re selling to us as personalized learning is, ‘everybody does the exact same content, only at your own pace.’ That’s not personal!
  • If someone shows up and says, ‘We’ve got a great new personalized learning system. You put the kids on the computer and they all go at their own pace.’ Say to them, ‘That’s not personal. When do they get to do the things they care about?’
  • This is two of our students competing in a kinetic sculpture contest. Think about that. And what’s cool about it is that they built this device in their engineering classroom. Our kids in our engineering classrooms have built a solar water heater, and Engineers Without Borders took the actual thing that the kids built, shipped it to Sierra Leone, where what our kids built is now being used to heat water in order to sterilize instruments in a hospital for amputee victims. Our kids have built flow-process biodiesel generators, and they have then released the designs to anyone who wanted to use them, under a Creative Commons license. What we found out was that students in Central and South America built what are kids designed and are using it to take their schools ‘off the grid’ by powering their own schools.
  • Ask powerful questions. Seek out answers. Build real stuff. That’s inquiry-driven project-based learning.
  • world
  • What we are really trying to do is help our kids change the
  • Project-based learning is when the kids own head, heart and hands—when the work that they do, that matters to them, is the most important thing in a classroom—is the highest form of work that gets done. That’s true project-based learning.
  • In every single class at SLA, for all four years that they are there, every quarter has what we call a benchmark project in each class that that allows every child to build something that serves as the signpost of their learning every single quarter.
  • nquiry—what are the questions we can ask; Research—how do we find the answers to those questions; Collaboration—how do we work together to make those answers deeper, better and richer; Presentation—how do we share what we’ve learned; and Reflection—
  • You must build systems and structures to allow kids to do real stuff, and then get out of their way. By the way, once they have, you’ve got to let them share it.
  • You can share stuff in the physical world, you can share stuff in the virtual world, but kids have got to understand that they can be expert voices in the world. Create the space for them to do it. You don’t have to tell them how.
  • She said, ‘I just expose them to a whole bunch of different ideas and then said, go learn the stuff you need to learn.’
  • you have to share what you know
  • Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann) is the founding Principal of the Science Leadership Academy (SLA)
  • honored by the White House as a Champion of Change for his work in education reform. In June 2010, Chris was named as one of the “30 Most Influential People in EdTech”
Jill Bergeron

Strengthening Student Engagement:A Framework for Culturally Responsive Teaching - 0 views

www.ascd.org/...rally-Responsive-Teaching.aspx

culturally responsive cultural competency responsive classroom responsive

shared by Jill Bergeron on 11 May 16 - Cached
  • To be effective in multicultural classrooms, teachers must relate teaching content to the cultural backgrounds of their students.
  • Engagement is the visible outcome of motivation, the natural capacity to direct energy in the pursuit of a goal. Our emotions influence our motivation. In turn, our emotions are socialized through culture—the deeply learned confluence of language, beliefs, values, and behaviors that pervades every aspect of our lives.
  • What may elicit that frustration, joy, or determination may differ across cultures, because cultures differ in their definitions of novelty, hazard, opportunity, and gratification, and in their definitions of appropriate responses. Thus, the response a student has to a learning activity reflects his or her culture.
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  • motivationally effective teaching is culturally responsive teaching.
  • Because the importance of grades and grade point averages increases as a student advances in school, it is legitimate to question whether extrinsic motivation systems are effective for significant numbers of students across cultures. We can only conclude that, as long as the educational system continues to relate motivation to learn with external rewards and punishments, culturally different students will, in large part, be excluded from engagement and success in school.
  • It is part of human nature to be curious, to be active, to initiate thought and behavior, to make meaning from experience, and to be effective at what we value. These primary sources of motivation reside in all of us, across all cultures. When students can see that what they are learning makes sense and is important, their intrinsic motivation emerges.
  • We can begin to replace the carrot and stick metaphor with the words “understand” and “elicit”; to change the concept of motivation from reward and punishment to communication and respect. We can influence the motivation of students by coming to know their perspective, by drawing forth who they naturally and culturally are, and by seeing them as unique and active. Sharing our resources with theirs, working together, we can create greater energy for learning.
  • A growing number of educational models, including constructivism and multiple intelligences theory, are based on intrinsic motivation. They see student perspective as central to teaching.
  • Unfortunately, educators must often apply these theories within educational systems dominated by extrinsic reinforcement, where grades and class rank are emphasized. And, when extrinsic rewards continue to be the primary motivators, intrinsic motivation is dampened. Those students whose socialization accommodates the extrinsic approach surge ahead, while those students—often the culturally different—whose socialization does not, fall behind. A holistic, culturally responsive pedagogy based on intrinsic motivation is needed to correct this imbalance.
  • The framework names four motivational conditions that the teacher and students continuously create or enhance. They are: Establishing inclusion—creating a learning atmosphere in which students and teachers feel respected by and connected to one another. Developing attitude—creating a favorable disposition toward the learning experience through personal relevance and choice. Enhancing meaning—creating challenging, thoughtful learning experiences that include student perspectives and values. Engendering competence—creating an understanding that students are effective in learning something they value. These conditions are essential to developing intrinsic motivation. They are sensitive to cultural differences. They work in concert as they influence students and teachers, and they happen in a moment as well as over a period of time.
  • Figure 1. Four Conditions Necessary for Culturally Responsive Teaching
  • 1. Establish Inclusion Norms: Emphasize the human purpose of what is being learned and its relationship to the students' experience. Share the ownership of knowing with all students. Collaborate and cooperate. The class assumes a hopeful view of people and their capacity to change. Treat all students equitably. Invite them to point out behaviors or practices that discriminate. Procedures: Collaborative learning approaches; cooperative learning; writing groups; peer teaching; multi-dimensional sharing; focus groups; and reframing. Structures: Ground rules, learning communities; and cooperative base groups. 2. Develop Positive Attitude Norms: Relate teaching and learning activities to students' experience or previous knowledge. Encourage students to make choices in content and assessment methods based on their experiences, values, needs, and strengths. Procedures: Clear learning goals; problem solving goals; fair and clear criteria of evaluation; relevant learning models; learning contracts; approaches based on multiple intelligences theory, pedagogical flexibility based on style, and experiential learning. Structure: Culturally responsive teacher/student/parent conferences.
  • 3. Enhance Meaning Norms: Provide challenging learning experiences involving higher order thinking and critical inquiry. Address relevant, real-world issues in an action-oriented manner. Encourage discussion of relevant experiences. Incorporate student dialect into classroom dialogue. Procedures: Critical questioning; guided reciprocal peer questioning; posing problems; decision making; investigation of definitions; historical investigations; experimental inquiry; invention; art; simulations; and case study methods. Structures: Projects and the problem-posing model. 4. Engender Competence Norms: Connect the assessment process to the students' world, frames of reference, and values. Include multiple ways to represent knowledge and skills and allow for attainment of outcomes at different points in time. Encourage self-assessment. Procedures: Feedback; contextualized assessment; authentic assessment tasks; portfolios and process-folios; tests and testing formats critiqued for bias; and self-assessment. Structures: Narrative evaluations; credit/no credit systems; and contracts for grades. Based on Wlodkowski, R. J., and M. B. Ginsberg. (1995). Diversity and Motivation: Culturally Responsive Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • Jill Bergeron on 11 May 16
     
    This article offers up four conditions teachers can create in order to foster a culturally responsive classroom.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

coaching instructional coaching math financial literacy mentoring learning evolution science student-centered anxiety SEL orientation bridge

shared by Jill Bergeron on 26 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Every superintendent, or state commissioner, must be able to say, with confidence, ‘Everyone who teaches here is good. Here’s how we know. We have a system.
  • school-based administrators “don’t always have the skill to differentiate great teaching from that which is merely good, or perhaps even mediocre.” Another problem is the lack of consensus on how we should define “good teaching.”
    • Jill Bergeron
      Jill Bergeron on 26 Apr 16
       
      We need consensus on how we define good teaching. We don't have metrics in place to determine good, mediocre and bad teaching.
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  • Only about six percent of teachers are ineffective, she continues. For the remaining 94 percent, the emphasis should shift from ratings to learning.
  • And what do we know about professional learning? That it requires: • Active intellectual engagement – That is, self-assessment, reflection on practice, and on-going conversations; • Trust – “Fear shuts people down,” says Danielson. “Learning, after all, entails vulnerability. The culture of the school and of the district must be one that encourages risk-taking.” • Challenge – “The culture must include an expectation that every teacher will engage in a career-long process of learning,” she says, “one that is never ‘finished.’ Teaching is simply too complex for anyone to believe that there is no more to learn.” • Teacher collaboration – PD and supervisory suggestions rarely drive classroom improvements, says Danielson. “Overwhelmingly, most teachers report that they learn more from their colleagues than from an ‘expert’ in a workshop… or being directed by a supervisor to read a certain book or take a particular course.” Most often, classroom improvement comes from working with colleagues analyzing student work and planning curriculum.
  • a new system should include: -   An emphasis on professional learning in a culture of trust and inquiry; -   A career ladder from probationary to continuing status after about three years; from that point on, the main emphasis becomes professional learning; -   Differentiation in the evaluation system, with novice teachers getting support from a mentor and being evaluated every year; -   Career teachers assessed periodically to ensure continuing quality; -   Teacher leadership positions (mentor, instructional coach, team leader) for which experienced teachers in good standing are eligible to apply; these come with training and support, extra compensation, or released time during the regular school day; -   The ability to identify seriously underperforming teachers, support their improvement, and if sufficient progress isn’t made, deny them tenure or continuing employment.
  • “Former service members tend to be committed to their students and tenacious in their efforts to improve,” say Parham and Gordon. Some early studies suggest that over time, veterans are stronger in classroom management, instructional practices, and student results.
  • Veterans who have had life-and-death combat experiences “tend to have low tolerance for petty politics in schools or for initiatives that seem unrelated to educating students. Former service members may sometimes seem overly assertive in discussions with colleagues.”
  • Veterans entering the classroom may feel like novices and have to adjust to their students not snapping to attention when given an order.
  • Veterans who are used to explicit operating procedures have to decode the unspoken expectations on how to relate to colleagues, handle student discipline, deal with parent concerns, get supplies, and get help.
  • “Discussions of shared experiences, shared values, and shared goals can help veterans and other teachers begin to build relationships.”
  • This might consist of a well-chosen mentor (similar to their “battle buddy” in the military), a support team (perhaps a grade-level or subject team that meets regularly), and a support network with other veterans in the school or district.
  • Veterans need an especially thorough briefing as they enter a new setting, including policies, procedures (copying machines, grading, and more), formal and informal rules, and a map of the school.
  • up to speed on teaching priorities, curriculum breadth versus depth, dealing with student differences, lesson planning, instructional materials, and, of course, discipline.
  • Support for this common challenge can come from peer coaching, observing expert teachers, workshops, articles and books, and seminars.
  • Rather, the mastery of new concepts happens in fits and starts. “Content should not be kept from students because it is ‘developmentally inappropriate,’” says the report. “To answer the question ‘is the student ready?’ it’s best to consider ‘has the student mastered the prerequisites?’”
  • Effective teachers make content explicit through carefully paced explanation, modeling, and examples; present new information through multiple modalities; and make good use of worked problems.
  • Effective teachers assign tasks that require explanation or require students to organize material in meaningful ways. Stories and mnemonics are also helpful in getting students to impose meaning on hard-to-remember content.
  • we shouldn’t push skeptical students to say, “Natural selection is one of the most important ways species came to be differentiated.” Better for them to say, “Most scientists think natural selection is one of the best explanations.”
  • Practice is essential to learning new facts, but not all practice is equally effective.
  • Frequent quizzes with low stakes, and students testing themselves, help establish long-term retention through the “retrieval effect.”
  • Each subject has basic facts that support higher-level learning by freeing working memory and illuminating applications.
  • Good feedback is specific and clear, focused on the task rather than the student, explanatory, and directed toward improvement rather than merely verifying performance.
  • To transfer learning to a novel problem, students need to know the problem’s context and its underlying structure.
  • Explicitly comparing the examples helps students remember the underlying similarities. With multi-step procedures, students need to identify and label the sub-steps so they can apply them to similar problems. It’s also helpful to alternate concrete examples and abstract representations.
  • Motivation is improved if students believe that intelligence and ability can be improved through hard work, and if adults respond to successful work by praising effective effort rather than innate ability. It’s also helpful for teachers to set learning goals (e.g., mastering specific material) rather than performance goals (competing with others or vying for approval).
  • Intrinsic motivation leads to better long-term outcomes than extrinsic motivation.
  • It’s difficult to gauge one’s own learning and understanding. That’s why students need to learn how to monitor their own learning through assessments, self-testing, and explanation.
  • Students will be more motivated and successful when they believe they belong and are accepted.
  • Teachers need to recognize and dispel a set of incorrect beliefs about teaching and learning: -   Misconception #1: Students have different “learning styles.” -   Misconception #2: Humans use only 10 percent of their brains. -   Misconception #3: People are preferentially “right-brained” or “left-brained” in how they think. -   Misconception #4: Novices and experts think in all the same ways. -   Misconception #5: Cognitive development progresses in age-related stages.
  • having students work in groups for 30-45 minutes coming up with test questions that might be used (or reworded) in the actual exam. This is a two-fer, says Lang: it not only gives students a sense of control over their learning but also serves as an effective review session.
  • Open assessments – This involves leaving 10 percent of the syllabus for an assignment that students create with the instructor.
  • Class constitutions – Having students collectively come up with ground rules for a course gives them a collegial sense of working together toward a shared purpose.
  • “Teaching evolutionary theory is not in and of itself religious indoctrination.” That’s because evolution is not a religion. “How could a religion have no beliefs about the supernatural? No rituals? No moral commandments?”
  • ask students to learn about evolution without insisting that they believe it.
  • Students learn new ideas by linking them to what they already know.
  • “It turns out children are better able to cope if they understand what they’re going through is normal, that it affects everyone, and that it will pass,” comments Adam Gamoran of the William T. Grant Foundation. “How we think about a stressful situation influences how we feel and how we perform.” Studies like this, he says, “show how deeply intertwined are cognition and emotion.”
  • use of Twitter in his middle-school science classroom
  • Connecting students to reputable, relevant scientific people and organizations in real time
  • Twitter as authentic audience – Students constantly tweet ideas, assignments, projects, suggestions, and photographs to each other, broadening the reach of their thinking.
  • Twitter as embedded literacy – Students get plenty of practice with succinct writing as they share analyses and observations.
  • Managing students’ encounters with objectionable material from the outside world, including occasional use of profanity and sexually suggestive follower requests.
  • Comparing services – Proportional reasoning, equations, creating and analyzing graphs, and number sense; -   Planning a budget – Organizing and representing information and number sense; -   Determining the costs and payoffs of higher education – Percentages, compound interest, and rates; -   Playing the Stock Market Game – Ratios, proportional reasoning, reading and analyzing reports and graphs, and algebraic thinking (e.g., gains and losses).
  • “The term generally refers to using a wide variety of hands-on activities (such as building, computer programming, and even sewing) to support academic learning and the development of a mindset that values playfulness and experimentation, growth and iteration, and collaboration and community. Typically, ‘making’ involves attempting to solve a particular problem, creating a physical or digital artifact, and sharing that product with a larger audience. Often, such work is guided by the notion that process is more important than results.”
  • Jill Bergeron on 26 Apr 16
     
    ""Researchers Probe Equity, Design Principles in Maker Ed." by Benjamin Herold in Education Week, April 20, 2016 (Vol. 35, #28, p. 8-9), www.edweek.org"
Scott Nancarrow

Telling Your Child They Have a Learning Disability Is Critical - 0 views

www.additudemag.com/hey-have-a-learning-disability

explanation learning differences disabilities parenting

shared by Scott Nancarrow on 20 Jan 23 - No Cached
  • Many parents are afraid that “labeling” a child as having a learning disability will make him feel broken, left out, or less willing to try. In fact, the opposite is true: giving your child an understanding of the nature of his learning disabilities will comfort him — and motivate him to push through his challenges.
  • The knowledge that he has an identifiable, common, measurable, and treatable condition often comes as great comfort to the youngster. Without this information, the child is likely to believe the taunts of his classmates and feel that he indeed is a dummy.
  • If a child does not have a basic understanding of the nature of his learning challenges, it is unlikely that he will be able to sustain his motivation in the classroom.
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  • During these discussions, emphasize her strengths and affinities, and do not simply focus on her weaknesses and difficulties. Express optimism about her development and her future.
  • Remind your child that she can indeed learn, but that she learns in a unique way that requires her to work hard and participate in classes and activities that are different from those of her peers and siblings.
  • Draw on learning struggles and challenges that you faced and outline the strategies you used.
  • Print Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest A parent once called my special education school to request an admissions visit for her and her son, who was struggling mightily in school. She asked a strange question in her initial phone call: “Does the school have any signs or posters displayed that identify the program as a school for kids with learning disabilities?” I asked her why she wished to know this. She replied, “My son doesn’t know that he has a learning disability, and we don’t want him to know.” He knows, Mom. Believe me, he knows.
  • Demystify your child’s daily struggles.
  • Look for and take advantage of teachable moments.
Gayle Cole

The Flipped Classroom: Pro and Con | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...om-pro-and-con-mary-beth-hertz

flippedclassroom flipped classroom edutopia

shared by Gayle Cole on 04 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • on ASCD (3)'s page for the newly released book, Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day (4), by flipped classroom pioneers Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann, "In this model of instruction, students watch recorded lectures for homework and complete their assignments, labs, and tests in class."
  • the model is a mixture of direct instruction and constructivism, that it makes it easier for students who may have missed class to keep up because they can watch the videos at any time.
  • NOT "a synonym for online videos. When most people hear about the flipped class all they think about are the videos. It is the interaction and the meaningful learning activities that occur during the face-to-face time that is most important."
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  • Brian at ISTE, and it was great to hear him express his thoughts about the model in more than 140 characters. He also runs the #flipclass chat (8) on Twitter every Monday night, which is a great chance to learn more about the model.
  • the idea is not that KA will replace the teacher or replace the content as a whole. From my experience with KA, the content is taught in only one way. Good instruction, especially for math concepts, requires that ideas be presented in a number of ways. In addition, not all math is solving equations. One of the hardest parts about teaching math is making sure that students are not blindly solving equations without really understanding what they are doing with the numbers.
  • They also point to the ability for students to catch up on missed lessons easily through the use of video and online course tools like Edmodo (12) or Moodle (13).
  • "This won't work with my students." This continues to be an argument made by a lot of rural and urban teachers. Our students just don't have the access required for the model to really work. I've had people tell me, "They can use the public library." To which I explain that there are usually three computers available and there is usually a 30-minute limit per user
  • if everyone starts flipping their classrooms, students will end up sitting in front of a screen for hours every night as they watch the required videos. And as many teachers can tell you, not everyone learns best through a screen.
  • John Dewey described at the turn of the 20th century: learning that is centered around the student, not the teacher; learning that allows students to show their mastery of content they way they prefer. These are not new concepts. I am often brought back to the question: "Are we doing things differently or doing different things? (15)"
  • why should we care so much about the flipped classroom model? The primary reason is because it is forcing teachers to reflect on their practice and rethink how they reach their kids. It is inspiring teachers to change the way they've always done things, and it is motivating them to bring technology into their classrooms through the use of video and virtual classrooms like Edmodo and similar tools
  • "In this model of instruction, students watch recorded lectures for homework and complete their assignments, labs, and tests in class."
  • the flipped classroom is NOT "a synonym for online videos.
  • It is the interaction and the meaningful learning activities that occur during the face-to-face time that is most important."
  • a mixture of direct instruction and constructivism, that it makes it easier for students who may have missed class to keep up because they can watch the videos at any time.
  • the model is not about the videos, but about the learning
  • For students to be successful on their own, videos used in the flipped classroom model must include a variety of approaches in the same way a face-to-face lesson would, and they must also have good sound and image quality so that students can follow along easily. These videos must also match the curriculum, standards and the labs or activities the students will complete in class.
  • flipped classroom has truly individualized learning for students. Teachers describe how students can now move at their own pace, how they can review what they need when they need to, and how the teacher is then freed up to work one-on-one with students on the content they most need support with.
  • t if everyone starts flipping their classrooms, students will end up sitting in front of a screen for hours every night as they watch the required videos. And as many teachers can tell you, not everyone learns best through a screen.
  • what John Dewey described at the turn of the 20th century: learning that is centered around the student, not the teacher; learning that allows students to show their mastery of content they way they prefer. These are not new concepts. I am often brought back to the question: "Are we doing things differently or doing different things? (15)
  • As long as learning remains the focus,
  • there is hope that some of Dewey's philosophies will again permeate our schools
  • Gayle Cole on 30 Jan 13
     
    One of the clearest and most valuable takes I've seen on Flipped Instruction. I will share this with educators.
Jill Bergeron

Project-Based Learning vs. Problem-Based Learning vs. X-BL | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...pbl-vs-pbl-vs-xbl-john-larmer

PBL Project Based Learning projectbasedlearning problem based learning maker

shared by Jill Bergeron on 27 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • So according to our "big tent" model of PBL, some of the newer "X-BLs" -- problem-, challenge- and design-based -- are basically modern versions of the same concept.
  • At BIE, we see project-based learning as a broad category which, as long as there is an extended "project" at the heart of it, could take several forms or be a combination of: Designing and/or creating a tangible product, performance or event Solving a real-world problem (may be simulated or fully authentic) Investigating a topic or issue to develop an answer to an open-ended question
  • We decided to call problem-based learning a subset of project-based learning -- that is, one of the ways a teacher could frame a project is "to solve a problem."
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  • problem-BL is still more often seen in the post-secondary world than in K-12, where project-BL is more common. Problem-based learning typically follow prescribed steps: Presentation of an "ill-structured" (open-ended, "messy") problem Problem definition or formulation (the problem statement) Generation of a "knowledge inventory" (a list of "what we know about the problem" and "what we need to know") Generation of possible solutions Formulation of learning issues for self-directed and coached learning Sharing of findings and solutions
  • By using problem-BL, these teachers feel they can design single-subject math projects -- aka "problems" -- that effectively teach more math content by being more limited in scope than many typical project-BL units.
  • Jill Bergeron on 27 Nov 15
     
    This article is a primer describing the different types of (fill in the blank)-based learning.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

marshallmemo.com/issue.php

21st century skills critical thinking problem solving PLC program evaluation pd professional development reading literacy vocabulary bullying bullying prevention art arts education creativity character education movement

shared by Jill Bergeron on 18 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • students who have four years of art score 91 points higher on the SAT than students who don’t.
    • Jill Bergeron
      Jill Bergeron on 18 Apr 17
       
      This seems correlational.
  • Danny Gregory applauds the arguments made for the importance of art and music in schools: they improve motor, spatial, and language skills; they enhance peer collaboration; they strengthen ties to the community; they keep at-risk students in school and improve their chances of ultimately graduating from college; and
  • In middle school, the majority start to lose their passion for making stuff and instead learn the price of making mistakes.
  • ...44 more annotations...
  • In short, every child starts out with a natural interest in art, but for most it is slowly drained away until all that’s left is a handful of teens in eyeliner and black clothing whose parents worry they’ll never move out of the basement.”
  • As of 2015, only 26.2 percent of African-American students have access to art classes.
  • Gregory has a startling suggestion: take the “art” out of art education and replace it with creativity education. Why? Because creativity is something that almost everyone agrees is vital to success.
  • Solving problems, using tools, collaborating, expressing our ideas clearly, being entrepreneurial and resourceful – these are the skills that matter in the 21st century, post-corporate labor market. Instead of being defensive about art, instead of talking about culture and self-expression, we have to focus on the power of creativity and the skills required to develop it. A great artist is also a problem solver, a presenter, an entrepreneur, a fabricator, and more.”
  • We need to make sure that the kids of today (who will need to be the creative problem solvers of tomorrow) realize their creative potential and have the tools to use it.
  • A total of 21 percent of students said they had been bullied in the following ways: 13 percent made fun of, called names, or insulted; 12 percent subject of rumors; 5 percent pushed, shoved, tripped, or spat on; 4 percent threatened with harm; 5 percent purposefully excluded from activities; 2.5 percent told to do things they didn’t want to do; and 2 percent had their property purposefully destroyed. Girls reported more online harassment (16 percent) than boys (6 percent). These were the locations where students said the bullying occurred: -   42 percent in hallways or stairwells (similar for boys and girls); -   34 percent in classrooms (perhaps mainly during entry, transitions, and exit); -   22 percent in cafeterias; -   19 percent outside on school grounds; -   12 percent online or by text; -   10 percent on school buses; -   9 percent in bathrooms/locker rooms.
  • hallways and stairwells, taken together, are nearly twice as likely to be the source of the problem as the cafeteria, playground, or buses and bathrooms. Supervision and vigilance in those fluid spaces between classes is likely to benefit vulnerable students disproportionately.”
  • dance, gesture, and other forms of movement can improve motivation, engagement, and learning.
  • students in classrooms that integrated movement were “significantly more excited by, engaged in, and focused on the lessons” than they were with conventional teaching methods.
  • Dancing to memorize information
  • Moving among stations
  • Applying movement to assessments
  • Forming lines, rows, or other groupings – Each student gets a card with a punctuation mark or a word and students silently arrange themselves to form a complete sentence.
  • Representing terms or ideas with actions – After reading a book about emotions, students stand and act out furious, satisfied, courageous, and other words.
  • – The teacher gives each group of students sets of fraction cards and they take turns moving to another group in search of equivalent fractions, bringing possible matches back to their group to see if they’re correct.
  • – To test knowledge of synonyms and antonyms, pairs of students jump straight up and down three times, then choose to land on either their right or left foot; if both land on the same foot, they must come up with synonyms for a word on the board; if they land on opposite feet, they must name antonyms.
  • – Doing a dance skip-counting numbers (5, 10, 15, 20…) to the “Macarena.”
  • Many teachers assigned tasks with complex instructions and procedures, but little higher-level thinking was required of students
  • How many of these do schools teach? Just three, say the authors, even in schools where students get high state test scores: application, recall, and (sometimes) analysis.
  • a synthesis of the skills they believe adults need for successful lives: Cognitive skills: -   Recall -   Application -   Analysis -   Evaluation -   Creative thinking Interpersonal skills: -   Communication -   Cooperation -   Empathy -   Trust building -   Service orientation -   Conflict resolution -   Negotiation -   Responsibility -   Assertiveness -   Advocacy Intrapersonal skills: -   Flexibility -   Adaptability -   Appreciation of diversity -   Valuing learning -   Cultural appreciation -   Curiosity -   Forethought -   Self-regulation -   Self-monitoring -   Self-evaluation
  • Most teachers presented students with complex content, but the tasks students were asked to perform were simple recall and application
  • interpersonal and intrapersonal skills almost never showed up.
  • These exceptional instructors created “a harmonious environment,” say the researchers, “demonstrating an understanding that doing so is a prerequisite to academic learning.”
  • It was the teacher, not the subject. This level of intellectual and affective demand cropped up in different subjects, grades, and classes with different student achievement levels. The variable was the teacher.
  • In a 10th-grade honors humanities class, for example, students were asked to invent questions to guide their study of Western imperialism in China (having just finished a unit on the colonization of Africa). Guided by the teacher, students brainstormed possible questions, decided which were most important, and edited questions until the questions were intellectually stimulating and open-ended.
  • These outliers managed to weave rigorous instruction of content across the cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal domains, putting to rest the notion that content- and skill-focused instruction precludes higher-order thinking – and vice-versa.
  • Teachers adapted their teaching to the moment.
  • to teach a deep and broad range of skills while also addressing disciplinary knowledge – requires intelligence and years of practice.”
  • Instruction was tied to complex assessments. Often designed by the teachers themselves, these checks for understanding stood in contrast to the test-prep oriented assessments in other classrooms.
  • Teachers built strong relationships with students.
  • First, Nehring, Charner-Laird, and Szczesiul suggest that schools need complex, high-level assessments to make all classrooms accountable for teaching the full range of adult skills. Second, “excellence requires highly skilled teachers with finely tuned radar and improvisational ability.” And third, “good teaching is about caring relationships, a parental affection that gives and receives, that honors the fundamentally human nature of our work as educators.
  • Thomas Guskey (University of Kentucky) stresses the importance of professional development starting with clear outcomes.
  • “In education, getting better generally means having a more positive influence on the learning of our students and helping more students learn well,” says Guskey. “Knowing our destination provides the basis for determining the effectiveness of our efforts.”
  • Polly details the 5E approach, in which students spend most of a lesson exploring mathematical tasks with limited support from the teacher, and some students get individual or small-group support: -   Engage – The class is given a math task or activity. -   Explore – Students have time to work on the task with their partner or a small group, with the teacher giving only instructions and circulating, sometimes posing questions to support students’ exploration. -   Explain – The class comes together to discuss the problem and how different students solved it. The teacher facilitates the discussion, perhaps choosing a main focus based on what was observed during the work time, and provides direct instruction as needed. -   Elaborate/extend – For the rest of the class, the teacher gets students working on activities, math games, and small-group activities that deepen understanding of the concept and zeros in on students who seem confused or off track. -   Evaluate – Students solve a final task or participate in a discussion of concepts, allowing the teacher to assess learning and plan for future lessons.
  • “Looking beyond the intended goals to the broader array of possible outcomes is an important aspect of evaluation and vital to judging effectiveness,”
  • What sparks robust discussions in PLCs is looking at variations in students’ responses to individual items on common assessments and writing prompts.
  • “The primary purpose of this collaborative data analysis,” says Guskey, “is to guide these teachers’ professional learning experiences so they can improve the quality of their instruction and help all students learn well.”
  • One additional cautionary note: PLCs tend to jump into “debating new ideas, techniques, innovations, programs, and instructional issues,” says Guskey. “While these are important issues, we must remember that they are means to an important end that must be determined first. Our journey always begins by deciding our destination… Ninety percent of essential questions in any evaluation are addressed in the planning process, before the journey begins.”
  • “When a teacher models and provides direct instruction at the start of a lesson, it rarely enables students to explore mathematical tasks or engage in productive struggle,” says Drew Polly (University of North Carolina/Charlotte) in this article in Teaching Children Mathematics.
  • researchers have found that if students grapple with a task before the teacher explains and models it (and receive appropriate follow-up), they’re more engaged and learn better.
  • What student learning outcomes do we aim to accomplish? -   What evidence will tell us if we met the goal? (ideally more than one source of data) -   What unintended consequences might occur, positive or negative?
  • “[T]he size of a person’s vocabulary is one of the strongest predictors of his or her reading comprehension,” say Tanya Wright (Michigan State University/East Lansing) and Gina Cervetti ((University of Michigan/Ann Arbor) in this article in Reading Research Quarterly.
  • Students who enter school knowing fewer words are likely to continue with relatively small vocabularies and struggle with text comprehension throughout school. Students who start with larger vocabularies, on the other hand, have broader general knowledge, need to spend less time accessing memory of words (which frees up working memory to grasp the meaning of a text), read and enjoy their reading more, and build stronger vocabularies – a reciprocal relationship that tends to widen the achievement gap.
  • Teaching word meanings almost always improved comprehension of texts containing the words taught. • Teaching word meanings doesn’t seem to improve comprehension of texts that don’t contain the target words.             • Instruction involving students in some active processing was more effective than dictionary and definition work at improving comprehension of texts containing the words taught. One caveat: researchers don’t know how much active processing is enough.             • Teaching one or two strategies (e.g., context clues or morphology) for solving word meanings doesn’t seem to improve generalized reading comprehension.
Gayle Cole

Why I Gave Up Flipped Instruction - 0 views

plpnetwork.com/...flip-love-affair

flipped instruction flipping inspiration reform

shared by Gayle Cole on 10 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • the flip wasn’t the same economic and political entity then that it is now
  • my brief love affair with the flip has ended. It simply didn’t produce the tranformative learning experience I knew I wanted for my students .
  • The flipped classroom essentially reverses traditional teaching. Instead of lectures occurring in the classroom and assignments being done at home, the opposite occurs.
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  • I imagined the flip as a stepping stone to a fully realized inquiry/PBL classroom.
  • progression from a teacher-centred classroom to a student-centred one.
  • my students began to do lots of their their own research. Sometimes this resulted in them teaching each other. Sometimes they created a project with the knowledge they were acquiring. But the bottom line was that their learning had a purpose that was apparent to them, beyond simply passing the unit exam.
  • . My goal as a teacher shifted from information-giver and gatekeeper to someone who was determined to work myself out of a job by the time my students graduated.
  • I would never resurrect it. Here’s why:
  • Mostly I talked about inquiry learning and student choice.
  • “If you think it’s only about the videos, then you have a really shallow definition of what this could be. The real power is when students take responsibility for their own learning.”
  • When we shifted to a student-centred classroom, my students took control of their learning, and I quit lecturing. I haven’t lectured in almost two years.
  •   It’s been stated that “At its most basic level, the flipped classroom gives students more control over their educations, allowing them to start and stop or rewind important lectures to focus on key points.”  To me, this isn’t giving students control over their education, although it may be creating new markets for content-oriented videos and related materials.
  • What are you going to learn? How are you going to learn it? How are you going to show me your learning? This became our mantra — our framework for learning.  This is what it means to give students “control over their education.”
  • My students chose the resources that helped them learn best. Throughout the 8 weeks, students sent me the ones they considered “best of the best,” and they were added to our online textbook. And it really was “ours.”
  • Others needed to hunker down to really grasp them. My students differentiated their own instruction.
  • I talked to every student every day. I could look at their work, have them articulate their thinking process, and see where they were struggling.
  • cognitive dissonance, and when they do, we talk about that in the context of their brain development.
  • , they needed to construct theories as to how stoichiometry works, rather than watching a video and memorizing the equation.
  • Alfie Kohn states, a learning environment that promotes constructing knowledge “treats students as meaning makers and offers carefully calibrated challenges that help them to develop increasingly sophisticated theories. The point is for them to understand ideas from the inside out.”
  • my students created flexible groups, depending on what they were working on. They found peers who were working on the same concept they were, so that they could help each other. Sometimes they realized who they couldn’t work with on a particular day, and found a different group of peers to work with instead.
  • For the first time, none of my students were left behind. Everyone learned Chemistry. Everyone
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

leadership pedagogy new teacher improved teaching assessment Reflection Learning critical thinking problem solving emotional labor balance work-life balance longevity

shared by Jill Bergeron on 04 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • In This Issue: 1. Four secrets of peak performance 2. “Emotional labor” on the job 3. Getting students thinking at higher levels 4. Student work analysis to improve teaching, assessment, and learning 5. Elements of the Haberman principal interview
  • “The key to resilience is trying really hard, then stopping, recovering, and then trying again… Our brains need a rest as much as our bodies do… The value of a recovery period rises in proportion to the amount of work required of us.”
  • the best long-term performers tap into positive energy at all levels of the performance pyramid.” Here are the four levels:
  • ...36 more annotations...
  • being able to mobilize energy when it’s needed – depends on two things: (a) alternating between intense work and recovery; and (b) developing regular rituals to build in recovery.
  • For those of us who are not professional athletes, regular workouts each week, coupled with good nutrition and sleep, make a major difference in work productivity and enjoyment.
  • Positive emotions have a remarkable impact on reducing physiological stress, whereas negative emotions, even simulated, increase stress. The key, psychologists have found, is to “act as if.”
  • Here are some workplace conditions that increase emotional labor: -   A mismatch between your personality and what’s expected on the job; -   A misalignment of values, especially if what you’re asked to do is in conflict with what you believe; -   A workplace culture in which particular ways of expressing emotion are endorsed, or not endorsed.
  • The key to improving cognitive work is focus, say Loehr and Schwartz. A big part of that is managing down-time – knowing the body’s need for breaks every 90-120 minutes – and using meditation and visualization.
  • Practiced regularly, meditation quiets the mind, the emotions, and the body, promoting energy recovery.” Experienced meditators need considerably less sleep and have enhanced creativity and productivity.
  • Spiritual capacity – By this, Loehr and Schwartz mean “the energy that is unleashed by tapping into one’s deepest values and defining a strong sense of purpose.”
  • Sometimes, when we’re doing work that isn’t in synch with how we feel, we have to put on our professional game face. That effort is known among psychologists as “emotional labor” – remaining energetic and upbeat despite a bad night’s sleep,
  • framing his response in positive language.
  • If you’re in a job that’s meaningful and largely aligned with your values, the best way to reduce emotional labor, says David, is to substitute surface acting with what she calls “deep acting.” Some tips:             • Remind yourself why you’re in the job you’re in.
  • Explore “want to” versus “have to” thinking. What aspects of the job energize you? How can other aspects be made more efficient and pleasant?
  • Do some job crafting. Can you and your boss tweak the work so it’s of greater value to you and the organization? Or is there a new project that would be fun and productive?
  • “Drill-and-practice is boring. But thinking, for most students most of the time, is actually fun.”
  • four strategies to engage students in higher-order thinking:             • Open questions – Every lesson should have two or three of these to highlight key content and thinking skills.
  • Wait time is important. Think time, no hands up, is a good admonition. “If you don’t provide enough wait time, you’ll get either no responses or surface-level responses,
  • In all-class discussions, teachers should resist the temptation to comment themselves, instead asking specific follow-up questions to get other students involved.
  • Another approach is asking “what if” and “what else” questions to push students to expand or elaborate on what they’re studying
  • Students thinking, not just retelling
  • The way out of this dynamic is posing a thought-provoking problem
  • All too many student projects are simple regurgitation,
  • Self-assessment – “Students who can self-assess are poised to be life-long learners,” says Brookhart. “They are poised to use self-regulation strategies and to be their own best coaches as they learn. They are able to ask focused questions when they don’t understand or when they’re stuck.”
  • Teach students to self-assess with rubrics. It’s important that the rubric goes beyond the basic level and stipulates higher-level criteria like stating a position, defending one’s reasoning, using supportive details.
  • Use confidence ratings. For example, students might be asked to use the “fist of fives” on their chest to indicate how confident they are that they understand a particular term or concept
  • Have students co-create success criteria. Studying material with which students are familiar, they can jointly create what the teacher and students will look for in their work.
  • consultant Karin Hess suggests analyzing student work in three layers: first describing the student work we actually see (or what students tell about it); then interpreting what the evidence might mean (specific to the intended purpose); and then evaluating what next steps should be taken. Hess outlines how the process of analyzing student work can be helpful to teaching and learning:
  • • Purpose #1: Improving the quality of tasks/prompts and scoring guides – Piloting tasks and looking at student work helps to clarify prompts, make tasks accessible and engaging for all students, trim unnecessary components, modify the wording of scoring rubrics, and tweak questions so they will measure deeper thinking.
  • Students can use assessment evidence to set and monitor progress, reflect on themselves as learners, and evaluate the quality of their own work. “Valuing both one’s struggles and successes at accomplishing smaller learning targets over time has proven to have a profound influence on deepening motivation, developing independence as a learner, and building what we have come to know as ‘a growth mindset,’”
  • Purpose #3: Monitoring progress over time – A good pre-assessment focuses on the core learning or prerequisite skills that students will need to build on, and teachers can sort and work with students according to what they need to learn to be successful in the unit.
  • Purpose #4: Engaging students in peer- and self-assessment – One approach is having students look at two pieces of work by other students side by side and asking them (for example): -   What does each student know and understand and where might they improve?
  • What does the student know now that he or she didn’t know how to do as well on the first task? What were the areas of improvement?
  • Which piece of work comes closest to the expectations? What’s the evidence?
  • Purpose #2: Making key instructional decisions – Observing and taking notes on students’ responses to this task gave teachers two specific teaching points.
  • Purpose #5: Better understanding how learning progresses over time – Many skills, concepts, and misconceptions revealed in student work analysis are not explicitly addressed in curriculum standards. Looking at students’ learning trajectories in interim assessments and student work can guide teachers in the next step that students at different levels of progress need to take. • Purpose #6: Building content and pedagogical expertise –
  • it is analyzing evidence in student work that causes teachers to reflect on how students learn and how to make their instructional and assessment practices more effective.”
  • “students who engage with rich, strategically-designed tasks on a regular basis learn that finding the answer is not as personally meaningful as knowing how to apply knowledge in new situations and explain the reasoning that supports their thinking.”
  • 13 dimensions of school leadership
  • Jill Bergeron on 04 Oct 16
     
    The first four articles have to do with building a better teacher and leader. The last article looks at educational leadership and the qualities that support it.
Gayle Cole

Faculty Collegiality - 0 views

www.nais.org/...Faculty-Collegiality.aspx

collegiality CATIE collaboration inservice

shared by Gayle Cole on 12 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • the most important factor in determining whether a school is a setting in which children grow and learn is whether the school is a setting in which adults grow and learn.
  • school buildings were designed to enable the supervision and orderly movement of students. The egg-carton model of school architecture and organization prevails even today. Individual classrooms are adjacent to one another with parallel doors facing a hall (not unlike prison cellblocks).
  • The major hurdle is the history and ethos of the teaching profession. "Teaching is a very autonomous experience," says Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, author of The Good High School. "But the flip side of autonomy is that teachers experience loneliness and isolation." In too many schools, teachers close their classroom door and spend the majority of their working hours with children, only talking hurriedly with other adults over a break, during lunch, or while standing at the copying machine. This is not terribly surprising since many educators chose to enter the profession to work with students, not with other adults
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  • What can school leaders do to ensure that their faculty members, including themselves, continue to grow and learn? It is the responsibility of school leaders to create a setting in which adults learning with and from one another becomes the norm.
  • Collaboration focuses only on the product; collegiality focuses on the product and what the participants gained from their collaboration.
  • "Many studies have shown that social connections with co-workers are a strong predictor — some would say the strongest predictor — of job satisfaction. People with friends at work are happier at work.
  • the goal of school leaders is to create a setting in which everyone grows. When this takes place, happiness will follow.
  • the work of Roland Barth. As a metaphor, he cites the instructions that are given to passengers about how to proceed when using an oxygen mask on an airplane. We are always told, he notes, that the adults should place the oxygen mask on their own faces before tending to a child or an elderly person. While this sequence is counter-intuitive to our desire to take care of those who need our help, the reality is that without giving ourselves oxygen first, we will not be able to help anyone else
  • If collegiality is not the norm, a school cannot achieve its potential.
  • Teachers talking together about students.
  • Teachers working together to develop curriculum
  • one another teach. This occurs rarely, even in the best schools
  • observing
  • One way to address this anxiety is to "ask teachers to observe a peer with the goal of finding one thing they like and one idea they'll use,
  • In a collegial setting, teachers share their expertise with colleagues and further everyone's learning.
  • an elderly person. While this sequence is counter-intuitive to our desire to take care of those who need our help, the reality is that without giving ourselves oxygen first, we will not be able to help anyone else. We must take care of ourselves in order to be able to take care of others. Teachers teaching one another. This doesn't necessarily mean that a teacher stands in front of peers and imparts expertise. Although that can happen, the interaction that takes place at faculty and committee meetings offers richer opportunities for teachers to teach their colleagues. Sharing what did and didn't work yesterday, reviewing action re
  • Intelligences and Succeedin
  • Teaching a class, laudable as that may be, only satisfies this need if the administrator's teaching responsibilities cause the faculty to view him or her as someone who understands and appreciates teaching, rather than as "an administrator who teaches."
  • leaders must try to position themselves among the group rather than above it."
  • Faculty committees should be a school's R&D department, a place where academic research and development takes place.
  • When teachers serve as leaders of a faculty committee, they also develop their leadership skills.
  • An easy (and fun) way to encourage collegiality is by forming a faculty book group
  • First, participation should be voluntary. That may be hard for school heads to accept, but my experience is that making attendance optional works better. Only a minority of the faculty is likely to join, but because those who are attending choose to participate, the dialogue is far more likely to be open and positive.
  • providing food is always good. Paying for pastries or pizza always sets a nice tone.
  • If students are to grow and learn, their teachers must grow and learn; if teachers are to grow and learn, their administrators must grow and learn as well. School leaders must be learners. We must invest in ourselves, too.
  • must be visible learners
  • It may be difficult to admit that you don't know the answer or that you'd do something differently next time, but it's important to do so. This is part of the Make New Mistakes philosophy noted in Chapter 1. Sharing that philosophy with staff members and parents helps set the expectation that everyone is expected to learn — and that learning can be messy.
  • Listening well includes structuring in designated times when you have to listen and also ensuring that you listen to opinions you don't want to hear. That is neither easy nor pleasant, but it is necessary
  • I have found surveys to be effective in reaching out to parents.
  • "360-degree evaluation for growth." The term "360 degrees" captures the fact that feedback is generated from all sectors of the organization, not just from above. The term "growth" indicates that the data came directly to me, for use in my reflection and growth, rather than to a third party for the purposes of evaluation. Many organizations offer this service, and the format is generally the same. To start, I reflected on my strengths and weaknesses. Then online feedback on the same items was collected from several dozen people whom I nominated, people from all 360 degrees of the school, from trustees to staff to students' parents. A "coach" working for the company that conducted the survey then led me through an analysis of my profile, paying special attention to how my self-perceptions did and did not contrast with how others saw me.
Jill Bergeron

6 Strategies for Differentiated Instruction in Project-Based Learning | Edutopia - 1 views

www.edutopia.org/...n-strategies-pbl-andrew-miller

differentiated instruction pbl project-based learning edutopia

shared by Jill Bergeron on 09 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Project-based learning (PBL) naturally lends itself to differentiated instruction. By design, it is student-centered, student-driven, and gives space for teachers to meet the needs of students in a variety of ways. PBL can allow for effective differentiation in assessment as well as daily management and instruction.
  • Not all students may need the mini-lesson, so you can offer or demand it for the students who will really benefit.
  • Are you differentiating for academic ability? Are you differentiating for collaboration skills? Are you differentiating for social-emotional purposes? Are you differentiating for passions?
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  • 2. Reflection and Goal Setting
  • Throughout the project, students should be reflecting on their work and setting goals for further learning. This is a great opportunity for them to set personalized learning goals and for you to target instruction specific to the goals they set.
  • 3. Mini-Lessons, Centers, and Resources
  • Perhaps you offer mini-lessons or center work to support your students' learning, or maybe you show students a variety of resources from which to learn, including videos, games, and readings.
  • 1. Differentiate Through Teams
  • 4. Voice and Choice in Products
  • Another essential component of PBL is student voice and choice, both in terms of what students produce and how they use their time.
  • "How can I allow for voice and choice here?"
  • 5. Differentiate Through Formative Assessments
  • as you check for understanding along the way, you can formatively assess in different ways when appropriate.
  • 6. Balance Teamwork and Individual Work
  • We want to leverage collaboration as much as content. However, there are times when individual instruction and practice may be needed. You need to differentiate the learning environment because some students learn better on their own, and others learn better in a team. In fact, we all need time to process and think alone just as much as we need time to learn from our peers. Make sure to balance both so that you are supporting a collaborative environment while allowing time to meet students on an individual basis.
  • Scott Nancarrow on 09 Jan 16
     
    Honestly, not too much new information for me in this article, but a well-summarized version of that information for sure; comments were actually what made this stand out for me...
  • Jill Bergeron on 24 May 16
     
    Andrew Miller offers up concrete examples of how teachers can differentiate through PBL. He includes: differentiation through teams, reflection and goal setting, mini-lessons, centers and resources, voice and choice in products, differentiation through formative assessments, and balancing teamwork with individual work.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

reading literacy shame exit ticket differentiation edutopia

shared by Jill Bergeron on 02 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • “The act of writing, even if the product consists of only a hundred and forty characters composed with one’s thumbs, forces a kind of real-time distillation of emotional chaos.” Researchers have confirmed the efficacy of writing as a therapeutic intervention.
  • She was trained to avoid jumping into problem-solving mode, instead using validation
  • Probes were important to get more information
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  • and she was trained to highlight strengths
  • Showing empathy was important
  • The trainer stressed the importance of avoiding teen patois and not making typos, which undermine authoritativeness.
  • Having all three factors present in a school can compensate for their absence in the family, community, or peer group. And a school with these factors can be resilient as an organization in the face of challenges and traumatic events it may face.
  • But in practical terms, text messaging affords a level of privacy that the human voice makes impossible. If you’re hiding from an abusive relative or you just don’t want your classmates to know how overwhelmed you feel about applying to college, a text message, even one sent in public, is safer than a phone call.
  • What’s more, tears go undetected by the person you’ve reached out to, and you don’t have to hear yourself say aloud your most shameful secrets.”
  • All people have the capacity for resilience, she says, and there are three factors that tap and nurture that potential: (a) caring relationships, (b) high expectations, and (c) meaningful opportunities for participation and contribution.
  • The advantage of using texting for a crisis hotline is that teens who are willfully uncommunicative when speaking are often forthcoming to the point of garrulous when texting, quite willing to disclose sensitive information.
  • The three factors help develop children’s social competence, problem-solving ability, sense of self and internal locus of control, and sense of purpose and optimism about the future – all of which are key to dealing successfully with adversity.
  • This is all about providing a sense of connectedness and belonging, “being there,” showing compassion and trust.
  • Teachers make appropriate expectations clear and recognize progress as well as performance. They also encourage mindfulness and self-awareness of moods, thinking, and actions. Principals orchestrate a curriculum that is challenging, comprehensive, thematic, experiential, and inclusive of multiple perspectives. They also provide training in resilience and youth development, and work to change deeply held adult beliefs about students’ capacities.
  • Teachers hold daily class meetings and empower students to create classroom norms and agreements. Principals establish peer-helping/tutoring and cross-age mentoring/tutoring programs and set up peer support networks to help new students and families acclimate to the school environment.
  • Resilience is a process, not a trait. It’s a struggle to define oneself as healthy amidst serious challenges.
  • Several personal strengths are associated with resilience – being strong cognitively, socially, emotionally, morally, and spiritually.
  • In classrooms, open channels of communication are essential. Nothing should inhibit, embarrass, or shame students from asking questions during a lesson.
  • a person who displays bad judgment is not ‘forever’ a bad person.”
  • To help others, educators need to take care of themselves. An analogy: on an airplane, people need to have their own oxygen masks in place before they can help others.
  • “The admissions process can counteract a narrow focus on personal success and promote in young people a greater appreciation of others and the common good.
  • ome have pointed out that the report applies mostly to a small percent of students, and what colleges say they value may be a challenge to game the system.
  • Julie Coiro (University of Rhode Island) takes note of a large international study by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), which found that computers were having no significant impact on students’ proficiency in reading, math, and science.
  • In many countries, the study found, frequent use of computers actually made students’ performance worse. “Although these findings may relate to differences in professional development or implementation,” says Coiro, “it was clear that drill-and-practice software had a negative effect on student performance.”
  • Technology is not critical for learning to be personal; all that’s needed is space and time to actively reflect, collaborate, and engage with personally meaningful ideas.
  • “What students can learn,” says Stygles, “is how to manage their time, select books reasonably, and justify their reading choices. When students understand their capacity – what they can do successfully – they not only protect themselves from shameful failure, but also become stronger readers through repeated experiences of success and pleasure.”
  • when blended learning is implemented in a balanced way, “teachers and students use a range of human and digital resources to improve their ability to think, problem solve, collaborate, and communicate. A delicate balance of talk and technology use keeps us all grounded in conversations with other people about what really matters.” Coiro has four suggestions for striking this balance:             • Build a culture of personal inquiry. Students have regular opportunities to pursue topics relevant to them, using a range of texts, tools, and people (offline and online) to get emotionally engaged.             • Expect learners to talk. Students engage in literacy experiences involving face-to-face and online collaboration, conversations, arguments, negotiations, and presentations.             • Encourage digital creation. Students create original products that share new knowledge and connect insights from school, home, and the community.             • Make space for students to participate and matter. “Through participation, individuals assert their autonomy and ownership of learning,” says Coiro. “In turn, their inquiry becomes more personal and engaging.”
  • Once students are empowered to direct their own learning pathways, technology can open the door to a range of texts, tools, and people to explore and connect ideas
  • “Unlike participation in sports,” says Stygles, “the choice to abandon reading to pursue other talents is not an option. Kids really have no escape from the struggles they face during the learning-to-read process, especially in light of frequent assessment or graduation through levels.”
  • “Measurement must be replaced by early and frequent positive transactions between reading, teacher, and texts,”
  • We should share with students what intimidates us about reading, how we find time, and how we focus… If we show our readers realities of reading, maturing students will see reading as less burdensome.”
  • “Shamed readers do not believe they improve or can improve,” says Stygles
  • “A good exit ticket can tell whether students have a superficial or in-depth understanding of the material,” they write. “Teachers can then use this data for adapting instruction to meet students’ needs the very next day… Exit tickets allow teachers to see where the gaps in knowledge are, what they need to fix, what students have mastered, and what can be enriched in the classroom…
  • The key to differentiation is that you have high expectations for all students and a clear objective.
  • If you know what you want students to master, differentiation allows you to use different strategies to help all students get there.”
  • Each of these tools allows students to contribute individually to shared creations involving inquiry, peer feedback, and collaborative composition.
  • Google Docs
  • Padlet
  • Coggle
  • VoiceThread
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 2 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

PBL differentiation effective teams tech integration teacher retention science learning gap' meetings teacher mentorship mentors

shared by Jill Bergeron on 10 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • 1. What makes a team effective? 2. A new perspective on closing the achievement gap 3. Project-based learning 101 4. A school network experiments with high tech and student choice 5. Opening up a daily 40-minute block in a North Carolina high school 6. How to hold onto high-quality new teachers 7. The effect of reading about the struggles of accomplished scientists
  • Project Aristotle, as it was dubbed, found that some team characteristics that seemed intuitively important – members sharing interests and hobbies, having similar educational backgrounds, socializing after hours – didn’t correlate with team success.
  • The ‘who’ part of the equation didn’t seem to matter.”
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • Then Project Aristotle began looking at group norms – the culture of unwritten rules that guide people when they collaborate – and hit pay dirt. It turned out that two group norms were shared by virtually all of Google’s most effective teams: -   Equal air time – In teams that got the best results, members participated roughly the same amount during meetings. “As long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well,” said Google researcher Anita Woolley. “But if only one person or a small group spoke all the time, the collective intelligence declined.” -   Interpersonal sensitivity – Effective team members had the ability to intuit how colleagues felt by their tone of voice, facial expressions, and other nonverbal cues. The members of less-effective teams were less tuned in to their teammates’ feelings.
  • The behaviors that create psychological safety – conversational turn-taking and empathy – are part of the same unwritten rules we often turn to, as individuals, when we need to establish a bond. And those human bonds matter as much at work as anywhere else. In fact, they sometimes matter more.”
  • In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs.”
  • He believes there are two “ubiquitous features of conventional school environments” that trigger and reinforce the psychological factors noted above, augment the disadvantages with which minority students enter school, and feed the peer pressures to disengage from schooling – all of which creates a self-reinforcing downward spiral of achievement. The two features are: -   Students being given work that is too difficult for their current academic level; -   Students getting low grades on their work rather than frequent, individualized, objective feedback.
  • “The hypothesis,” say Yeh, “is that the conventional school system is inadvertently structured in a way that fosters disengagement, thereby reducing effort, which depresses achievement and grades, causing demoralization, which further reduces engagement and achievement.” The process kicks in around third grade, when struggling students begin to view themselves as intellectually inferior because their grades are lower than their classmates’, contributing to decreased self-efficacy and increasing passivity; it accelerates in middle school, at which point low grades strongly correlate with eventually dropping out.
  • What is to be done? Yeh’s theory is that by flipping the two pernicious factors, schools can turn the downward spiral into a virtuous upward cycle of achievement. That involves: -   Adjusting task difficulty for low-performing students to an appropriate level of challenge so that if they apply effective effort, they will be successful. -   Rapid performance feedback with respect to a standard, not other students.
  • He cites positive research on two programs using this approach – Reading Assessment and Math Assessment – and reports on a systematic study comparing different interventions aimed at closing the achievement gap – charter schools, voucher programs, an additional year of school, various high-quality pre-school programs, full-day kindergarten, class size reduction, value-added assessment, summer school, teacher salary incentives, teacher experience, teacher PD, longer school day, computer instruction, tutoring, and school reform. Rapid assessment is dramatically more successful at raising student achievement than any of the others.
  • by far the most powerful and cost-effective intervention is to adjust task difficulty and provide students with prompt, objective feedback on their efforts.
  • “When students engage in project-based learning over the course of their time in school,” says John Larmer (Buck Institute for Education) in this article in Educational Leadership, “there’s an accumulating effect. They feel empowered. They see that they can make a difference.” In addition, they’re more likely to acquire the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed for college and career success.
  • the key elements of project-based learning, carefully planned and skillfully managed by the teacher:
  • A challenging problem or question
  • Sustained inquiry
  • Student voice and choice
  • Authenticity
  • Reflection
  • Critique and revision
  • Public product
  • four ways that project-based learning can go off the rails and not fulfill its potential: -   Mistake #1: Using materials that aren’t truly project-based; beware of PBL-lite! -   Mistake #2: Providing inadequate training and support for teachers; one-shot workshops are not enough. -   Mistake #3: Over-using projects in the curriculum; basic skills can still be taught in a more conventional format. -   Mistake #4: Implementing project-based learning on an ad hoc basis; to get the long-term effect, students need to engage in high-quality projects on a regular basis through their school years.
  • AltSchools encourage students to dive into topics they’re passionate about, with teachers tracking everything they do using classroom video cameras and elaborate K-8 databases. The schools make a point of shaping diverse student bodies by giving scholarships to students whose parents can’t afford the $30,000-a-year tuition.
  • We are raising a generation that will have the sum of human knowledge at their fingertips, for every minute of their life, so clearly education needs to change to accommodate that.”
  • “Basically, what we have told teachers is we have hired you for your creative teacher brains, and anytime you are doing something that doesn’t require your creative teacher brain that a computer could be doing as well as or better than you, then a computer should do it.”
  • To a computer measuring keystrokes, a student zoning out because he’s bored is indistinguishable from one who is moved by her book to imagine a world of her own.”
  • “People are very focused on the algorithm. But equally important is the quality of the materials” – the clarity of the math questions and the worthiness of the readings being presented on students’ computer screens. Willingham also notes that teachers in high-tech classrooms often have to prepare two lesson plans – one that uses the technology and one for when the technology breaks down.
  • Hire capable, well-matched teachers. Detailed advertisements and postings are important to giving candidates a clear idea of each position, says Clement. She also recommends longer interviews with more candidates, enlisting experienced teachers to take part in interviews, and gathering information on candidates from multiple sources.
  • Provide continuous professional development. This should include induction that eases new teachers into the demands of the full job – orientation before classes begin, well-matched mentors through the first five years, and ongoing PD specific to rookies’ needs.
  • Use colleagues to provide feedback. Traditional “gotcha” teacher evaluation has rarely been helpful in supporting new teachers, says Clement. Trained mentors can provide non-evaluative feedback that really makes a difference, perhaps with a firewall between their observations and the formal evaluation process. Of course it’s important that incoming teachers know the district’s criteria for effective teaching and are familiar with how administrators will assess their work.
  • Understand millennials. “This generation of teachers wants to network and have input,” says Clement. Most have a strong preference for electronic interaction, and administrators and colleagues should meet young teachers where they are tech-wise and provide strong online resources.
  • • Provide leadership opportunities. “While many new teachers are just surviving, others actively seek an avenue to truly make a difference,” says Clement. To find fulfillment in teaching and stay in the profession, they need to get involved in meaningful roles outside their classrooms. Some possibilities: speaking at induction ceremonies and serving on a welcome committee for the newest hires; leading book study groups; taking part in social service organizations on campus; and serving on curriculum committees
  • students who read about scientists’ struggles, whether intellectual or personal, got better grades in science after reading the texts. The positive effect was most pronounced among students whose science grades were low before the experiment.
  • Another finding: both before and after reading the texts, students who had a “growth” mindset (effort, not innate talent, determines success) tended to do better in science classes than students with a “fixed” mindset.
  • Jill Bergeron on 10 Mar 16
     
    This week's articles cover PBL, differentiation, effective teams, tech integration, teacher retention and science teaching and learning.
Scott Nancarrow

Can we keep SEL on course? - kappanonline.org - 0 views

www.kappanonline.org/ocial-emotional-learning-starr

SEL

shared by Scott Nancarrow on 28 May 19 - No Cached
  • Think of SEL as an aspiration, not an intervention.
  • Describe SEL in positive terms.
  • Be skeptical of metrics.
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  • Don’t define SEL as special education.
  • Reinforce the need for SEL throughout the system.
  • Think carefully about SEL’s relationship to educational equity.
  • Scott Nancarrow on 28 May 19
     
    Recommended in this week's Marshall Memo: "In this column in Phi Delta Kappan, PDK International CEO Joshua Starr says three things worry him about "the rapid and widespread embrace" of social-emotional learning (SEL). First, the concept has become "too fuzzy to be useful" - it can mean growth mindset, grit, anti-bullying, collaborative learning, classroom management, and more. Second, developers are creating social-emotional learning products and hyping them as ways to transform schools (if we purchase and implement them with fidelity). Third, says Starr, 'I worry that the SEL movement hasn't been careful enough to address the racial divisions that permeate American public education… It's no surprise that many critics have begun to push back on the idea that children of color need white educators to teach them to persevere and regulate their behavior.' Starr has these suggestions to get social-emotional learning back on track so that it makes a positive difference in schools"
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

bias decision making evaluation teacher evaluation differentiation self-efficacy independence cold calling classroom management exit ticket formative assessment

shared by Jill Bergeron on 13 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • professionals often make decisions that deviate significantly from those of their peers, from their own prior decisions, and from rules that they themselves claim to follow… Where there is judgment, there is noise – and usually more of it than you think.”
  • In a school, if a principal consistently gives harsher punishments to boys than girls for the same infractions, that is bias, but if she often gives harsher punishments to students just before lunchtime, that’s noise.]
  • A noise audit works best when respected team members create a scenario that is realistic, the people involved buy into the process, and everyone is willing to accept unpleasant results and act on them.
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  • The challenge, say the authors, is designing classroom observations that provide valid data on what’s happening day to day in classrooms, make meaningful distinctions among teachers, provide teachers with useful feedback, and support helpful, high-quality professional development.
  • To accomplish these important goals, several challenges need to be addressed: -   Quality assurance of supervisors’ observation and coaching skills; -   Achieving a reasonable degree of inter-rater reliability among supervisors; -   A rubric with research-based criteria for classroom instruction; -   The conceptual difficulty of capturing complex classroom dynamics in a rating instrument; -   Getting an accurate sampling of each teacher’s work; -   Giving fair evaluations to teachers working with different types of students
  • Addressing the tendency of principals to “go easy” on some teachers to keep the peace and/or avoid the hard work of following up on critical evaluations (are outside observers and/or multiple observers necessary to get truly objective data on teachers?).
  • I would suggest two more questions: First, are classroom visits announced or unannounced? If researchers don’t gather data on this, they are missing an important variable in the reliability of teacher assessment – teachers are likely to put on an especially good lesson when they know they’re being observed. Second, are teacher-evaluation rubrics used to score individual classroom visits, which is conceptually very difficult, or as end-of-year summations of multiple classroom visits with feedback conversations through the year?
  • Tomlinson and other proponents suggest that teachers differentiate by content (what is taught), process (how it’s taught), and product (how students are asked to demonstrate their learning).
  • students learn better, they said, when the work is at the right level of difficulty, personally relevant, and appropriately engaging.
  • trying to assess a teacher’s work asking, Is it differentiated? runs the risk of missing the forest for the trees. Better, says Marshall, to ask two broader questions (tip of the hat to Rick DuFour): -   What are students supposed to be learning? -   Are all students mastering it?
  • Good lesson plans build in multiple entry points, using the principles of Universal Design for Learning to make learning accessible to as many students as possible, and have clear goals; thoughtful task analysis; chunked learning; teaching methods appropriate to the content; links to students’ interests and experiences; checks for understanding; and accommodations for students with special needs.
  • a major factor in student success is a set of in-the-moment moves that effective teachers have always used, among them effective classroom management; knowing students well; being culturally sensitive; making the subject matter exciting; making it relevant; making it clear; taking advantage of visuals and props; involving students and getting them involved with each other; having a sense of humor; and nimbly using teachable moments.” But equally important is checking for understanding – dry-erase boards, clickers, probing questions, looking over students’ shoulders – and using students’ responses to continuously fine-tune teaching.
  • Timely follow-up with these students is crucial – pullout, small-group after-school help, tutoring, Saturday school, and other venues to help them catch up.
  • Among the most important life skills that students should take away from their K-12 years,” says Marshall, “is the ability to self-assess, know their strengths and weaknesses, deal with difficulty and failure, and build a growth mindset. Student self-efficacy and independence should be prime considerations in planning, lesson execution, and follow-up so that students move through the grades becoming increasingly motivated, confident, and autonomous learners prepared to succeed in the wider world.”
  • cold-calling actually increases students’ voluntary participation. “Cold-calling encourages students to prepare more and to participate more frequently,” said one researcher. “The more they prepare, and the more frequently they participate, the more comfortable they become when participating.”
  • If we don’t encourage students to come out of their shells for fear of putting them on the spot, we may be doing them a disservice… You’re curious about their views and their understanding of the issues being discussed. What they think is important – both to their own learning and to that of their peers.”
  • Drawing on two decades of data from the National Center for Educational Statistics, the authors found that between 1998 and 2010, the reading readiness gap closed by 16 percent and the math gap by 10 percent. The black-white and the Hispanic-white gaps also narrowed by about 15 percent.
  • the gaps closed because of rapid progress by low-income children, not declines in the readiness of high-income children, and the gains persisted at least through fourth grade.
  • What brought about the early reading and math gains? The authors believe several factors contributed: • The availability of high-quality, publicly funded preschool programs – the percent of U.S. 4-year-olds enrolled in state-funded preschools has increased from 14 to 29 percent from 2000. • The fact that more families are investing in books and other reading matter for children, as well as Internet access and computer games focused on reading and math skills. • More parents are spending quality time with children, taking them to local libraries, and engaging in learning activities at home.
  • Jill Bergeron on 13 Sep 16
     
    "In This Issue: 1. "Noise" in decision-making 2. Are classroom observations accurate measures of teachers' work? 3. A different way of thinking about differentiation 4. A professor changes his mind about cold-calling 5. Close reading of challenging texts in middle school 6. Good news about the rich-poor gap in kindergarten entry skills 7. On-the-spot assessment tools 8. Short items: The Kappan poll"
Jill Bergeron

What Keeps Students Motivated to Learn? | MindShift - 0 views

blogs.kqed.org/...udents-them-motivated-to-learn

motivation PBL engagement

shared by Jill Bergeron on 17 Mar 14 - No Cached
    • Jill Bergeron
      Jill Bergeron on 17 Mar 14
       
      Comments on what it takes to collaborate in MS.
  • “What really helped me was the teachers and staff here who showed me that they cared about me. Students can feel that.” She described hating math for most of her life until a good teacher described what she could do with strong math skills in the future. “It got me motivated to learn more and I showed my potential as a student, which I never knew I had,” she said.
  • Every student on the panel had a story of big failure on an important class project. But because the culture of their schools encourage them to learn from mistakes, they can clearly articulate what they’d do differently next time and even laugh about it.
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  • Students get used to giving and taking critique daily with each other and hearing it from educators as well. Their ease with it comes from practice and with the awareness that feedback isn’t the end of the process, it’s a part of improving their work.
  • When evaluating student work, frame feedback in terms of the learner’s goals instead of referring to the standards. “Goals are more motivating for students to hear,”
  • Students want projects to be integrated across subjects, not separated by discipline.
  • High Tech Middle Chula Vista seventh grader Ana de Almeida Amaral described an integrated humanities and math/science project, when students read Sherlock Holmes, wrote their own versions, and became experts in one aspect of forensics.
  • “I love when projects are integrated so you can find so many different aspects,”
  • Together they created a crime scene in their classroom and then taught everyone assembled about a part of the forensics process through a stop animation video.
  • “If teachers give broad guidelines for the project and then have students do something they’re interested in it will bring students along the whole time,” said Gramann. “Treat students like adults. If the students feel like they’re worth it they’ll act more like adults.”
  • “Teachers tend to give projects and benchmarks and create topics around things that students don’t really connect to.” He was adamant that learning how to connect a topic to oneself is the key to learning. “Throughout middle school you have to develop skills of how things connect to yourself,” he said.
  • Authentic choice is one aspect of allowing that to happen. Students on the panel described real choices they make about their education on a daily basis, from which book they’ll read in Humanities to the different topics they want to research.
  • “Collaborating productively is a leadership skill at this school,” said Dora Aguilar, a junior at City Arts and Tech, part of the Envision network. She says that while it can be hard, it can also be very rewarding because working with other people allows her to see the project through the eyes of her peers.
  • Other students talked about difficult collaborations too, emphasizing that it runs more smoothly if one group member agrees to keep everyone on track.
Jill Bergeron

What Kids Who Learn Differently Want Teachers to Know | The Mighty - 0 views

themighty.com/...ferently-want-teachers-to-know

adhd learning differences ADD adaptations differentiation

shared by Jill Bergeron on 12 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Jill Bergeron on 12 Aug 16
     
    "Dear Teachers, Here's What Kids Who Learn Differently Want You to Know"
Jill Bergeron

Support and Resources for Educators - 0 views

ldaamerica.org/educators

LD learning differences learning disorders differentiation

shared by Jill Bergeron on 14 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Jill Bergeron on 14 Dec 16
     
    The Learning Disorders Association provides curated lists of resources for students with a variety of learning differences.
Jill Bergeron

PBL Teachers Need Time to Reflect, Too | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...-teacher-reflection-suzie-boss

PBL reflection edutopia steam STEM new teacher PD

shared by Jill Bergeron on 15 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • "We do not learn from experience . . . we learn from reflecting on experience."
  • Reflection not only makes learning stick at the end of a project but also helps students think about what's working well and what's not during PBL.
  • The same holds true for teachers.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Perhaps you're scrambling to coordinate project showcase events before the holiday break. But it's well worth your time, while your memory's fresh, to make some notes and gather information about how things went this time around.
  • Don't rely on your own impressions. Ask students to share their insights about the strengths and weaknesses of a project.
  • By inviting student feedback, you demonstrate respect for their opinions and underscore the value of student voice.
  • Be sure to ask open-ended questions
  • Some PBL teachers make reflection a habit by blogging about projects as they unfold. In the process, they create an archive of observations that they can refer back to later.
  • While individual teacher reflection is valuable, reflecting with colleagues can be even better.
  • Think of yourselves as doctors on rounds, suggests the Coalition of Essential Schools (11), as you look closely for evidence of student learning.
  • In "Wild About Cramlington," (12) teacher Darren Mead describes the challenge of giving his students an experience with "just enough failure to act and think in a way different from the normal school day."
  • Jill Bergeron on 15 Jan 14
     
    Helpful article for considering how teachers can learn from their own lessons. The samples from current teacher blogs are very impactful.
Jill Bergeron

Design Thinking and PBL | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...-thinking-and-pbl-beth-holland

Edutopia pbl design innovation design thinking project based learning

shared by Jill Bergeron on 28 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Imagine innovation as a three-legged stool. Many schools have changed the environment leg, but not the other two legs: the behaviors and beliefs of the teachers, administrators, and students.
  • Lately, I have heard teachers and school leaders express a common frustration: "We are _______ years into a _______ initiative, and nothing seems to have changed." Despite redesigning learning spaces, adding technology, or even flipping instruction, they still struggle to innovate or positively change the classroom experience. Imagine innovation as a three-legged stool. Many schools have changed the environment leg, but not the other two legs: the behaviors and beliefs of the teachers, administrators, and students.
  • If we look at the science of improvement, systematic change occurs between the contexts of justification (what we know) and discovery (the process of innovation).
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  • Encouraging students to engage in inquiry, explore real-world contexts, and share their learning lies at the heart of PBL. As an instructional framework, it allows teachers to achieve these goals while still meeting curriculum requirements.
  • He used PBL to: Guide his students' problem solving Support their collaboration and critical thinking Provide voice and choice in how they demonstrated their learning Empower them to realize that their contributions to the community make a tangible difference
  • However, viewing PBL as a process rather than a product means that teachers can fit it within existing curricular objectives, as exemplified by Jodie Deinhammer.
  • According to the Stanford d-School process guide, design thinking begins with empathy: What do your students consider important? Which topics spark their curiosity? How might they want to engage with this specific content? How might they choose to demonstrate their learning?
  • In the next phase of design thinking, you define a problem. In school terms, this could be a curricular unit, a set of skills, or a broader community challenge.
  • With the problem articulated, start generating ideas. During the ideate phase, the goal is breadth because the answer may not be readily apparent. Many of these ideas then turn into prototypes, simplified versions of potential solutions.
  • This gives you the freedom to experiment without concerns about failing with students. When ready, produce the final lesson, unit, activity, or even a complete PBL experience.
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