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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.
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

4 Big EdTech Trends Spotted At BETT 2014 - Edudemic - 0 views

www.edudemic.com/dtech-trends-spotted-bett-2014

grit character social learning blog web2.0

shared by Jill Bergeron on 22 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • To name a few, the national curriculum now includes coding, schools should now be teaching character, or ‘grit’ alongside subjects,
  • social learning - the use of peer review through social-media like sites where students can learn from and help each other through peer-review.
  • Find, Filter, Apply – Students no longer need to know everything, just how to find it, how to filter to get the most relevant info, and to apply it.
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  • Sonic Pi teaches coding through music. Students basically build a synthesiser, thus accidentally learn concepts such as logic, sequencing, iteration and conditionals while doing something creative and imaginative.
  • when they found other people commenting on the blogs, they were even more engaged.
  • These social learning activities do not just aid learning through student motivation, they can also help to build the social skills or ‘grit’ that UK schools are now compelled to teach. When interacting online students learn that it is important to emphasise positives, celebrate success, to be constructive and also learn how to take criticism thus they learn conscientiousness, teamwork and resilience.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

work-life balance self-regulation empathy shadow a student exemplary work student examples adhd critical thinking online pd references

shared by Jill Bergeron on 26 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • In this Education Week article, Connecticut educator Christopher Doyle worries that many educators are not taking very good care of themselves – not balancing the intense challenges of work with family, friends, love, sleep, vacations, exercise, good nutrition, emotional health, and civic engagement. “Like American society at large,” says Doyle, “ many of us are overworked, stretched thin financially, and torn between roles as spouses, parents, and employees… Not unlike other professionals devoted to nurture, such as doctors, teachers are measured – and measure themselves – against an idealized image of excellence that involves incessant work.”
  • Teachers occupy the middle to lower tiers of the American middle class – whose wages have been stagnant for some time.
  • Stressed, workaholic educators are not in the best position to help students achieve some kind of balance in their overscheduled lives.
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  • Prioritize balance in the school schedule. This means building in time for teachers to prepare, think, meet with their colleagues, eat lunch, and pay an occasional visit to the bathroom. It’s also important not to burden teachers with unnecessary meetings.
  • We should show our students, through the examples of our own lives, that they can lead healthy, multifaceted existences and not be slaves to their careers.”
  • The more screen time teens have (up to 6.5 hours a day), the worse they perform academically.
  • It sends a powerful message to students that someone in authority is taking the time to observe and notice with a view to making improvements in the school for their benefit.
  • Give students a minute at the beginning of class to check phones. -   Then have them silence their devices, put them face down on desks, and pay attention. -   Every 15 minutes, allow students to check their phones for a minute. -   Gradually increase the interval to 20, then 25, then 30 minutes. -   If students violate the protocol, they forfeit the next phone break. -   Naturally there are times when phones can be used legitimately as part of a learning experience.
  • it’s unproductive to confiscate students’ phones; this can cause great anxiety and needless conflict.
  • the time-honored practice of displaying samples of exemplary student work may be a turn-off for many students.
  • when students are exposed to truly exceptional work, they use it as a reference point and realize they are not capable of such exceptional quality. It can lead to decreased motivation and eventually quitting if you believe the exceptional work is actually typical.”
  • noticing another student multitasking electronically harms the learning of the viewer.
  • Many teachers need PD on framing good critical thinking questions, modeling high-level thinking themselves, and revising their lesson tasks and assessments so they spur critical thinking.
  • “Critical thinking should not be limited to one group or one age level of students.”
  • Teachers need to integrate a variety of thinking questions throughout the curriculum (analyze scenarios, interpret graphics, evaluate quotes) and make sure students are seeing test questions for the first time.
  • If students can produce a quick verbal answer when a question is fired at them in class, it’s probably a lower-level question. Better to let students ponder good questions and discuss them with a classmate before being asked to respond.
  • it appears that study techniques that have recently emerged from cognitive science are helpful to a broad range of students with special needs. Here’s a fuller list of those approaches: -   Breaking up study time into chunks; -   Studying material from more than one subject in the same session; -   Varying study environments; -   Retrieving material from memory by testing oneself and restudying what wasn’t recalled (this is especially helpful when the material is beginning to fade, resulting in a productive struggle to recall it).
  • When is online professional learning a better choice for teachers than in-person experiences?
  • To study a topic that’s not offered within the district in a particular year.
  •             •  A particular expert is not available in the school or district.
  •   • Singleton teachers can reach out to similarly isolated teachers in other locations.
  • • Online resources can fill immediate needs, facilitating higher-quality in-person work.
  • • Online PD can be significantly less expensive and more feasible than in-person PD.
  • “Learning of any kind is best done collaboratively with supportive colleagues and facilitators who can push thinking, provide accountability structures, and ensure a quality learning experience. Relying on online professional development becomes dangerous when the learning is too independent and isolated.”
  • when teachers go online for resources, they often gravitate to those that are immediately useful rather than looking at material that challenges them and helps them grow professionally. “School-based collaboration is still necessary,” conclude the authors, “maybe even more necessary, in an environment where teachers are participating in independent online learning activities.”
  • “Use online learning to meet your personal needs, but find ways to take that learning back to your school.”
  • five maxims in reference calls:             • Agree with the candidate on a comprehensive and relevant list of references to call. This should include former bosses, peers, and subordinates in previous jobs. Narrow the list by thinking about the specific characteristics of the job you’re trying to fill.
  • “[I]t’s easier to solicit the whole truth when you can hear hesitation or emotion in a person’s voice or see it on their face.” And emphasize that all comments will be completely confidential.
  • Help the reference avoid common biases. If you start by asking an overly general question (“What can you tell me about Carol?”), Carol’s employer will usually trot out her best characteristics – and will then feel the need to be consistent with those positive comments when answering subsequent questions.
  • Ask about the candidate’s social and emotional competence.
  • Check values and cultural fit. Will this candidate fit in and succeed in your organization and work collaboratively with you and your colleagues?
  • Probe for downstream qualities. Will the candidate keep learning, adapting, and growing?
  • “Ask for examples of situations in which the person has shown the hallmarks of potential: curiosity, insight, engagement, and determination,” says Fernández-Aráoz.
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.”
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  • 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.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

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BTSN boys new ideas instructional coaching dress code mediation difficult conversations grit character

shared by Jill Bergeron on 06 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • 1. True grit 2. Successfully educating boys: what works 3. Teacher-student mediation in action 4. How to work with an opinionated colleague (who is wrong) 5. Should schools continue to teach cursive handwriting? 6. Do students’ appearance and grooming affect achievement? 7. Key elements of an effective open house 8. I wish my teacher knew…
  • A lot of what we take to be toughness of the past was really just callousness.
  • There was a greater tendency in years gone by to wall off emotions, to put on a thick skin – for some men to be stone-like and uncommunicative and for some women to be brittle, brassy, and untouchable. And then many people turned to alcohol to help them feel anything at all.”
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  • A more helpful way to think of toughness is resilience, says Brooks. “The people we admire for being resilient are not hard; they are ardent. They have a fervent commitment to some cause, some ideal, or some relationship. That higher yearning enables them to withstand setbacks, pain, and betrayal.
  • strategies that build connections with boys.
  • “In every school I have visited, social competition and hierarchy, bullying and maltreatment, peer policing, and the marginalization of less-preferred types of boys characterize cultures that even wonderfully committed faculty and staff cannot control.”
  • These teachers report that, “contrary to the stereotypes of young men as diffident, disruptive, or dangerous, most boys care deeply about being successful and simply long for instructors… capable of connecting personally with them and believing in them, even when they may not believe in themselves and struggle with behavior, effort, or attention problems… Relationship is the very medium through which successful teaching and learning is performed with boys.”
  • If people today are less tough or resilient, Brooks concludes, it may be because they lack purpose. “If you really want people to be tough,” he says, “make them idealistic for some cause, make them tender for some other person, make them committed to some worldview that puts today’s temporary pain in the context of a larger hope
  • Acknowledge a common characteristic.
  • Maintain high standards.
  • Respond to a student’s personal interest or talent.
  • Share a common interest.
  • Accommodate a measure of opposition.
  • Change should be collective.
  • Be willing to reveal vulnerability.
  • “Mediation provides teacher and student with ways to listen and understand each other’s perspectives, restore goodwill, and develop positive plans to move forward,” she says. “The process boosts social, problem-solving and communication skills – all of which are important for students’ resourcefulness should problems arise in the future.”
  • the characteristics of an ideal academic team: -   There is frequent, easy communication. -   Assessment is an integral part of the culture. -   Changes are identified and readily implemented. -   New ideas are frequently discussed. -   Limitations in professional knowledge and skills are recognized and addressed. -   Professional development is seen as essential and it happens regularly. -   Improvement is continuous.
  • Don’t just tell them they’re wrong.
  • People with incorrect beliefs can become even more entrenched when presented with facts that contradict their beliefs. To change people, you have to reach their hearts, and you can do that only by building relationships.
  • Evidence alone won’t work.
  • Listen
  • If you want to effectively address forces that resist positive change, you need to genuinely listen first.”
  • Be indirect. Use suggestive rather than declarative language. Let your colleagues come to their own conclusion and, better yet, think it’s their own idea.
  • Have one-to-one conversations.
  • Identify your allies.
  • Demonstrate mastery of subject matter.
  • Identify the mission.
  • Choose your battles.
  • Focus on your personal goals.
  • Be patient, hopeful, and persistent.
  • If change happens, expect things to get worse before they get better.
  • “Research suggests that individuals are prone to automatically make assessments about the competence and social status of others based on features of their physical appearance. These features may include facial cues, ethnicity, clothes, and body language… [I]ndividuals are likely to base their impression of others on limited information and then fill in the rest accordingly.”
  • “Children described by teachers more negatively in terms of their appearance had worse academic adjustment… Students described by teachers as appearing poorly dressed, tired, sleepy, or hungry were rated by teachers as being less competent academically, less engaged, and as having a poorer relationship with these teachers.
  • “These results suggest that some students may be experiencing difficulties in school because they appear inadequately physically prepared for the classroom,”
  • As a staff, if we said, ‘Here’s our first chance to engage parents,’ then surely open houses… would be a much warmer, much more collaborative event and linked to learning.”
  • Consider having a general orientation for parents before the beginning of school – more of a mini-fair, with fun activities and a chance to get to know school staff. This is distinct from the open house in mid-September, which is more academically focused. -   Encourage teachers to make a positive phone call to each family early in the year so that calls on behavior problems are not the first time parents hear from the school.
  •   Give parents and guardians name tags and a chance to socialize with family members of other students.
  • Have students be leaders of the open house at the classroom level: students prepare a PowerPoint presentation on what they are learning and what the plan is going forward.
  • Include actual learning activities for parents.
  • The bottom line: family members should leave the open house excited about the school year, clear about three or four things their child will know by the end of the year, and feeling part of a team that will help students accomplish those key learnings.
  • Jill Bergeron on 06 Sep 16
     
    "In This Issue: 1. True grit 2. Successfully educating boys: what works 3. Teacher-student mediation in action 4. How to work with an opinionated colleague (who is wrong) 5. Should schools continue to teach cursive handwriting? 6. Do students' appearance and grooming affect achievement? 7. Key elements of an effective open house 8. I wish my teacher knew…"
Jill Bergeron

Teaching Empathy: Turning a Lesson Plan into a Life Skill | Edutopia - 0 views

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empathy edutopia SEL social emotional learning

shared by Jill Bergeron on 12 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • academic rigor, with its unflinching emphasis on measurable success, seems strangely at odds with emotional intelligence, a soufflé of moods and feelings.
  • Designed around cooperative learning, your lesson plan can actively foster class-wide feelings of cohesiveness, collaboration and interdependence -- without sacrificing instructional time or learning goals.
  • In cooperative learning, students work together, think together and plan together using a variety of group structures designed along an instructional path.
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  • Cooperative learning creates what Daniel Goleman calls "cognitive empathy," a mind-to-mind sense of how another person's thinking works.
  • The better we understand others, the better we know them -- pointing toward (among other virtues) greater trust, appreciation and generosity.
  • Dispatching students into "groups" with the hopes they'll become more empathetic carries the same potential for success as trying to hit a dartboard while blindfolded
  • o harness the power of cooperative learning as a tool for building empathy, teachers need a specific strategy, a best practice that works
  • Created in 1971 by psychologist Elliot Aronson (1) to defuse his volatile fifth grade classroom, the jigsaw method (2) has a long track record of successfully reducing classroom conflict and increasing positive educational outcomes. As an empathy builder, it also opens doors of opportunity.
    • Jill Bergeron
      Jill Bergeron on 12 Feb 14
       
      How jigsaw groups work
  • The fluid movement, flexible groupings and redistribution of responsibility force kids to be more actively engaged in what and how they learn.
  • jigsaw learning flows freely between group members. Familiar roles change, too.
  • Teachers re-outfit themselves as sideline reporters, monitoring, questioning and analyzing the action, while the quickest and slowest students suddenly discover themselves in supporting and leading roles they never quite imagined.
  • Creating points of contact between students who would otherwise not interact delivers a humbling but elevating awareness of the "other."
  • the hard currency is active listening, or the art of thinking about what the other person is saying.
  • And because each student has a purpose (a teaching role) and something valuable (new and necessary information), every learner is regarded as an asset, not a liability
Jill Bergeron

Modern Professional Learning: Connecting PLCs With PLNs | Edutopia - 0 views

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pln plc pd professional development edutopia

shared by Jill Bergeron on 30 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • a Professional Learning Community is "a group of educators that meets regularly, shares expertise, and works collaboratively to improve teaching skills and the academic performance of students."
  • A PLC is made up of "a school's professional staff members who continuously seek to find answers through inquiry and act on their learning to improve student learning.
  • Teachers who work in more supportive environments become more effective at raising student achievement on standardized tests over time than do teachers who work in less supportive environments.
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  • a PLC is typically: Face to face High accountability Comprised of colleagues from a face-to-face or daily environment Comprised of peers with similar professional responsibilities
  • Torrey Trust defines the PLN (PDF) as "a system of interpersonal connections and resources that support informal learning.
  • according to multiple, peer reviewed studies, simply being in an open network instead of a closed one is the best predictor of career success . . . the further . . . you go towards a closed network, the more you repeatedly hear the same ideas, which reaffirm what you already believe. The further you go towards an open network, the more you're exposed to new ideas
  • PLNs are typically: Online and open More informal Open to a free flow of ideas Often welcoming to newcomers
  • PLNs' weaknesses are: Teachers get excited about an idea but meet resistance in their local school. Teachers have no way to share and discuss ideas with their local school. Some educators use their PLN inconsistently and have no accountability to keep learning. PLNs can be overwhelming because it seems like too much, or users can't focus. Authentic conversations can become dominated by a few loud voices. Some hashtag founders exhibit territorial behavior that limits conversation. Trolls and spammers can derail hashtag conversations.
  • "Blend" your school's PLC by creating an online space for it. Make this a simple place to share resources and ideas gleaned from participants' PLNs. Many teachers don't collaborate online because it's just one more thing to do. Make it simple to share. Give the less social-media-savvy educators simple options such as an email subscription to a few blogs.
  • Encourage educators to share ideas. Set specific goals. You can't be everywhere and do everything. Focus can achieve incredible results if you're all searching your PLNs for new ideas to tackle a troubling issue in your PLC
  • 5. Link the online and face-to-face worlds. Administrators and others should mention the online spaces in staff meetings. Likewise, an online reflection of something said at the PLC helps show continuity. Educators should see both the online and face-to-face spaces as substantial parts of their PLC.
  • Jill Bergeron on 30 Nov 15
     
    This article gives the benefits and weaknesses of PLNs and PLCs.
Jill Bergeron

Personalizing Social Emotional Learning with Google Forms | EdSurge News - 0 views

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forms SEL social-emotional check-in

shared by Jill Bergeron on 30 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Jill Bergeron on 30 Mar 15
     
    Tangible ideas for how to use Google Forms to check in with students about their social-emotional wellbeing.
Jill Bergeron

How School Leaders Can Support Teachers and Students This Year | Edutopia - 0 views

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leaders stress pandemic SEL

shared by Jill Bergeron on 13 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • One of the things we know about brains that have been pushed too far is that they can’t learn. They just can’t. They need an opportunity to calm, to feel safe, to find their way out of the lizard-brain response that is fight-flight-flock-freeze-appease.
  • High social complexity + low form predictability = stress reactive behaviors.
  • High social complexity (lack of clarity around the social expectations, cultural norms, and how to navigate the expected social realities of a situation) + low form predictability (confusion about what is going to happen moment to moment, day to day, week to week) = stress reactive behaviors (fight-flight-flock-freeze-appease or signs that the amygdala, the lizard brain, has taken control and the prefrontal cortex—the part that learns and plans and creates—isn’t fully engaged).
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  • What can we do? We can seek to decrease, wherever possible, the social complexity by slowing down, by working in the smallest groups possible, by building real community through meaningful work, by building expectations with students—keeping them simple and concrete—and then using those expectations to provide much-needed boundaries.
  • Administrators must seek to do the same: build appropriate, clear, simple, concrete expectations with teachers around expectations and routines for students and for one another and then present a unified front with the professionals in their classrooms.
  • We didn’t get here in a few months, and it’s going to take more time than that to get beyond it. We all must commit to actions and values that demonstrate a culture of support and above all flexibility. We’ve suffered a collective trauma—we’re still suffering it—and expecting business as usual or even more than that isn’t going to get us anything but anger, frustration, and hostility from those we seek to serve.
Scott Nancarrow

Activity for kids outside of school time is an oasis in a 'learning desert' - NewsWorks - 0 views

www.newsworks.org/...-an-oasis-in-a-learning-desert

differentiation STEAM maker pbl

shared by Scott Nancarrow on 18 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Urban Thinkscape, is designed to re-imagine the Promise Zone by increasing caregiver-child engagement through playful learning activities installed in public spaces.
  • bring children's museum-quality learning activities right into the streets where people wait for the bus or hang out after school.
  • prioritize raising "happy, healthy, thinking, caring, and social children who become collaborative, creative, competent, and responsible citizens tomorrow." Only from our own determination will our children learn perseverance; only from our innovation will our children learn creativity; and only through our prioritizing education — inside the school walls and out — will our children learn to do so as well.
  • Scott Nancarrow on 18 Feb 17
     
    Transform "trapped spaces" into opportunities for brain activity - possible STEAM and/or PBL activities? WAIT... EVEN BETTER: SCHOOL GROUPS EACH DESIGN, PROTOTYPE, INSTALLATION ... gotta remember to talk about this one more...
Scott Nancarrow

Socially Immature Kids: Making Friends - 0 views

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shared by Scott Nancarrow on 16 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • Scott Nancarrow on 16 Sep 20
     
    Not just a making friends thing... more about learning how to pick up on social cues among peers who may not need as much explicit instruction about how to navigate those often unspoken "rules"
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

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marshall mindset math middle school math middle school student-centered teen behavior instructional rounds observations movement student engagement collaboration teaching strategies staff retreat retreats

shared by Jill Bergeron on 30 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • 1. Growth mindset thinking makes its uncertain way into schools 2. A middle-school teacher tries to shift to student-centered math 3. Harnessing adolescent rebelliousness 4. “Firewalks” in a California high school 5. The potential of instructional rounds 6. Fidgeters of the world, unite! 7. Keys to a successful staff retreat 8. Teaching about the election
  • However, 85 percent of teachers said they wanted more professional development to use growth mindset insights most effectively. While the central ideas are intuitive to many educators, it takes time and collaboration for them to filter down to daily classroom practice.
  • Because training is so spotty, there are also some key growth-mindset practices that are not being emphasized enough in classrooms, including: -   Having students evaluate their own work; -   Using on-the-spot and interim assessments; -   Having students revise their work; -   Encouraging multiple strategies for learning; -   Peer-to-peer learning.
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  • Beaubien and her colleagues at the Stanford Project for Education Research That Scales (PERTS – https://www.perts.net) are offering online growth mindset training modules for teachers and encouraging grassroots efforts to spread effective practices.
  • Limit initiatives to those that support the big goal. “As we try to change and grow our practice, whether self-driven or motivated by policy or district-level change,” she says, “we will encounter more ideas than we can possibly implement in a year or even our whole career. It pays to focus on a smaller set of objectives, and for a while, selectively choose initiatives that fit those goals.”
  • Collaboration is key.
  • Within her school, she co-taught, observed colleagues, discussed goals (big and small), monitored students’ progress, and (with some trepidation) invited other teachers to observe her teaching and give feedback.
  • she visited other Connected Math schools and watched lesson videos at http://www.connectedmath.msu.edu and http://www.teachingchannel.org.
  • “The brains of adolescents are notoriously more receptive to short-term rewards and peer approval,” says Amanda Ripley in this New York Times article, “which can lead to risky behavior.” But young people are also very attuned to autonomy and social justice. “There are two adolescent imperatives,” says Rob Riordan of High Tech High in California: “To resist authority and to contribute to community.” Might it be possible to take advantage of these characteristics to bend teenage rebelliousness toward wholesome ends?
  • “What’s really exciting about this study and other work like it is that if you can appeal to kids’ sense of wanting to not be duped, you empower them to take a stand,” says Ronald Dahl (University of California/Berkeley). “If they are motivated, you can change their behavior profoundly.”
  • A big unanswered question is whether the positive behavioral shifts in the experiments will last more than a few hours; after all, almost no obesity prevention programs for adolescents result in long-term weight loss and there is a powerful consumer culture pushing young people in the other direction.
  • What inspires you? Do you have any regrets from the first two years of high school? How have you shown leadership? What are your college plans? What career do you want to pursue? Where do you think you will be in five years? What’s your favorite class? At the end of the ritual, the audience says whether each student is ready to move on. Not every student gets the nod.
  • Rounds are brief observations of a sampling of classrooms within a school by groups of teachers, administrators, or both. Ideally, rounds should foster: -   A common language about and understanding of high-quality teaching; -   A collaborative learning culture versus a culture of compliance; -   A more coherent approach to improving instruction.
  • The purpose needs to be clear, observations need to be carried out in a climate of trust, and everyone involved needs to understand how the observations connect to other improvement efforts.”
  • In short, social networks are themselves a resource that administrators can use to support the development of social capital.
  • In this New York Times article, Gretchen Reynolds has advice for teachers who tell fidgeting students to just sit still: let them tap their toes and jiggle their legs. Why? Because fidgeting is good for their health.
  • he has some advice for those who organize retreats:             • A clear and legitimate rationale.
  • “Retreats go poorly,” says Kramer, “when the reason for the retreat does not match the organization’s true needs.”
  • A better approach would have been to work with key stakeholders to develop the agenda, get buy-in, and engage everyone in an open and task-oriented fashion.
  • No hidden agendas – If trust is an issue in an organization, it’s essential that the conveners are honest about how a retreat will be handled and everything is above board.
  • High-quality facilitation – An effective leader keeps the trains running on time and is efficient, practical, and easy to work with.
  • They work best when every participant has a vested interest in what is being discussed and understands how the outcomes of the session will affect them and their work.”
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

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evaluation teaching reading technology leadership PE coaching discipline classroom management population growth immigration math

shared by Jill Bergeron on 24 May 16 - No Cached
  • In 2009, TNTP reported that teacher evaluation systems didn’t accurately distinguish among teachers with varying levels of proficiency, failed to identify most of the teachers with serious performance problems, and were unhelpful in guiding professional development.
  • The Widget Effect study concluded that “school districts must begin to distinguish great from good, good from fair, and fair from poor.”
  • On average, only 2.7 percent of teachers were rated below Proficient/Exemplary on a 4- or 5-point scale.
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  • The percent of teachers given the top rating ranged from 73 percent in Tennessee to 8 percent in Massachusetts and 3 percent in Georgia.
  • Many districts are drawing important distinctions between good and excellent teaching, but there is less differentiation among good, fair, and poor performance.
  • Why do so few teachers receive below-proficient ratings, despite the fact that school administrators estimate that more than a quarter of their teachers aren’t up to par?
  • The daunting workload involved in giving low ratings
  • Being merciful – Some principals said they were hesitant to give low ratings to rookie teachers out of kindness and a desire not to discourage (or lose) a teacher who had potential for growth.
  • Personal discomfort
  • Principals knew that teachers could lose their jobs as a result of a low rating, and were upset when teachers cried.
  • Her policy: use e-mail for non-urgent questions and texts when time is an issue.
  • 2013 Gates-funded Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study, which asserted that it’s possible to accurately evaluate teachers by triangulating data from student surveys, value-added scores, and classroom observations.
  • Google, General Electric, and other corporations shifted from rating and ranking employees to providing real-time supervisor and peer feedback and coaching aimed at fostering professional growth to meet stretch goals. This rethinking was inspired by three findings from educational research: -   Performance ratings tend to foster a “fixed” versus a “growth” mindset. -   Numerical grades or ratings lead recipients to ignore detailed feedback. -   Extrinsic rewards can discourage the behaviors they aim to improve.
  • A 2012 initiative in Cincinnati suggests a different approach. Mid-career teachers who were observed four times by peers and given detailed feedback showed marked improvements in performance and student results. The key elements were frequency, credible observers, formative feedback, and a simple, low-stakes process with no direct ties to promotion and retention decisions.
  • Studies point to the following levers for continuous improvement:             • Peer collaboration – Veteran teachers continue to improve their skills if structures are in place that get them working with colleagues in focused, results-oriented instructional teams.             • Teacher evaluation – The key is detailed, valid feedback on classroom practices and support for improvement from knowledgeable and well-trained administrators or peers.             • Tailored on-the-job training – Most PD is ineffective, but intensive coaching focused on the specific needs of individual teachers and sustained over time can make a positive difference.             • Organizational supports – These include an orderly, disciplined school environment, services available to address students’ social and emotional needs, and positive parent engagement. • Leadership – “Hiring principals who have the talent to identify organizational weaknesses, establish schoolwide systems to support teachers and students, and galvanize collective buy-in from teachers is a central lever for improving the teaching and learning environment,” conclude Papay and Kraft.
  • Not having access to books in June, July, and August results in a two-month loss each summer for poor children compared to a one-month gain for more-advantaged children, and that accumulates over the years into a crushing achievement gap. Getting low-SES children reading over the summer is the most effective way to change that dynamic, but what works?
  • a home library is as important as parental education and twice as important as the father’s occupation in predicting educational outcomes;
  • Establish virtual office hours. Tucker tells students at the beginning of the year the dates and times when she’ll be available for a Google chat or Google Hangouts screen-sharing session. She has colleagues who tell students they can e-mail between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. and any e-mails received after that will be answered the next day.
  • Limit communication channels.
  • Other reasons – These included racial concerns (for example, if a disproportionate number of minority teachers might receive low ratings); burdensome dismissal procedures; principals making deals in which teachers agreed to leave the school in exchange for a higher rating; and concern about ineffective replacement teachers.
  • Make information available online.
  • Set up a space where students can connect online. Tucker has a private Google+ community where students can share information, ask questions, and support one another.
  • Protect unplugged time at home.
  • Not every disagreement is a call to arms.
  • How and when I use my voice matters. “As I see it,” says Gannon, “my job requires that I advocate for both faculty members and students, and for both teaching and learning. Sometimes that means speaking truth to power; other times it means speaking truth to colleagues.” This is especially important with issues of gender, race, and bullying.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask for help
  • “It’s all too easy to let the minutiae detract from the larger goal… I’m not useful to anyone I serve if I’m overcommitted.”
  • Support, affirmation, and collegiality are more important. For me, leadership has become a matter of knowing and respecting my colleagues all over the campus, appreciating the work they do, and letting them know it… There’s no daily quota on thank you’s.”
  • At their best, they promote academic achievement, stronger student connections to education, and improved initiative, teamwork, and social skills.
  • Has a well-thought-out coaching philosophy aligned with the school’s educational, athletic, and programmatic goals – Winning isn’t the main goal, says Gould. Rather, “coaches work hard to help student-athletes learn important life lessons from their sport experiences.”
  • Shares decision-making with students and provides rationales for coaching actions
  • effective coaches meet their athletes’ need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in an atmosphere where students feel they belong.
  • Builds strong coach-athlete relationships in a caring, supportive climate – Each athlete is known as an individual, made to feel welcome, and knows that bullying and belittling others isn’t tolerated on or off the field.
  • Is a knowledgeable and effective teacher – “Research reveals that coaches who give positive versus degrading and punitive feedback or no feedback at all have athletes who are more motivated, feel better about themselves, and achieve more positive developmental outcomes from sports participation,” says Gould.
  • Is intentional in fostering positive youth development – This includes attention to leadership, teamwork, and a work ethic.
  • What these parents didn’t understand, says Jones, is that “You are either consistent, or you are inconsistent. There is nothing in between.”
  • “The irony of consistency,” says Jones, “is that the closer you come to being consistent before you fail, the worse off you are. If the parent cracks easily, the child does not need to be a world-class yammerer in order to succeed. But, if the parent does not crack easily, the child must learn to play hardball.”
  • How does this apply to classrooms? Teachers must set clear, reasonable expectations, says Jones, and then be absolutely consistent in enforcing them.
  • Never make a rule that you are not willing to enforce every time.
  • If you are consistent, you can use smaller and smaller consequences to govern misbehavior. But if you are inconsistent, you must use larger and larger consequences to govern misbehavior.
  • “it’s extremely unlikely you can greatly improve your reading speed without missing out on a lot of meaning…
  • “If you want to improve your reading speed, your best bet – as old-fashioned as it sounds – is to read a wide variety of written material and expand your vocabulary.”
  • you can’t take in words you don’t see, and you have a set-point for processing language that can be changed only by long-term improvements in vocabulary and knowledge.
  • when it comes to reading for deep comprehension or enjoyment, there are no shortcuts.
  •   1. Why is it so difficult to improve the teacher-evaluation process?   2. Another look at the Measures of Effective Teaching study   3. Conditions for the continuous improvement of teaching   4. Counteracting summer reading loss   5. Using Reading Recovery techniques in guided reading groups   6. Keeping our technology use under control   7. Advice for leaders   8. The qualities of an effective high-school athletic coach   9. Consistency with classroom discipline 10. Are speed reading courses effective? 11. Short items: (a) World population growth animated; (b) Two centuries of U.S. immigration animated; (c) Common Core math sequence; (d) Survey on teacher evaluation
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