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…
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 08 Nov 16
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Gamification Template: Google Drive Level Up Challenge - - 0 views
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 08 Nov 16
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This post contains a gamification template that can be copied and used with students if you want to gamify an activity in class.
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 06 Sep 16
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A lot of what we take to be toughness of the past was really just callousness.
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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.
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strategies that build connections with boys.
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“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.”
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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.”
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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
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Acknowledge a common characteristic.
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Maintain high standards.
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Respond to a student’s personal interest or talent.
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Share a common interest.
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Accommodate a measure of opposition.
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Change should be collective.
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Be willing to reveal vulnerability.
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“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.”
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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.
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Don’t just tell them they’re wrong.
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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.
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Evidence alone won’t work.
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Listen
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If you want to effectively address forces that resist positive change, you need to genuinely listen first.”
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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.
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Have one-to-one conversations.
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Identify your allies.
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Demonstrate mastery of subject matter.
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Identify the mission.
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Choose your battles.
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Focus on your personal goals.
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Be patient, hopeful, and persistent.
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If change happens, expect things to get worse before they get better.
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“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.”
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“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.
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“These results suggest that some students may be experiencing difficulties in school because they appear inadequately physically prepared for the classroom,”
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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.”
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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.
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Give parents and guardians name tags and a chance to socialize with family members of other students.
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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.
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Include actual learning activities for parents.
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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.
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"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…"
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Different project ideas for having kids make with their hands. Teachers would need to build extension activities off of these models in order to challenge some learners. They would also need to tie the projects into their lessons.
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As if being 12-years-old wasn't hard enough, a new study confirms many schools make it ... - 0 views
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They found being in a K-8 school, where kids were top dogs for longer created a better learning environment, marked by less bullying, and better academic results.
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“Top dogs are less likely to report bullying, fights, and gang activity and more likely to report feeling safe and welcome in school than bottom dogs due to their top dog status. In contrast, bottom dogs report higher rates of bullying, fighting, and gang activity and lower rates of safety and belonging than top and middle dogs.”
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According to Guido Schwerdt, from the University of Konstanz and Martin R. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, students moving from elementary to middle school suffer a sharp drop in student achievement in the year they move, which persists through tenth grade (transitions to high school in ninth grade cause a smaller one-time drop in achievement, but the effect does not persist).
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The K-8 model seems to be more supportive of middle school students than the 6-8 model.
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 26 Apr 16
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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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.”
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Veterans entering the classroom may feel like novices and have to adjust to their students not snapping to attention when given an order.
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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.
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“Discussions of shared experiences, shared values, and shared goals can help veterans and other teachers begin to build relationships.”
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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.
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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.
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up to speed on teaching priorities, curriculum breadth versus depth, dealing with student differences, lesson planning, instructional materials, and, of course, discipline.
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Support for this common challenge can come from peer coaching, observing expert teachers, workshops, articles and books, and seminars.
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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?’”
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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Practice is essential to learning new facts, but not all practice is equally effective.
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Frequent quizzes with low stakes, and students testing themselves, help establish long-term retention through the “retrieval effect.”
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Each subject has basic facts that support higher-level learning by freeing working memory and illuminating applications.
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Good feedback is specific and clear, focused on the task rather than the student, explanatory, and directed toward improvement rather than merely verifying performance.
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To transfer learning to a novel problem, students need to know the problem’s context and its underlying structure.
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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.
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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).
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Intrinsic motivation leads to better long-term outcomes than extrinsic motivation.
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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.
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Students will be more motivated and successful when they believe they belong and are accepted.
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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.
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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.
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Open assessments – This involves leaving 10 percent of the syllabus for an assignment that students create with the instructor.
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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.
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“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?”
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ask students to learn about evolution without insisting that they believe it.
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Students learn new ideas by linking them to what they already know.
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“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.”
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use of Twitter in his middle-school science classroom
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Connecting students to reputable, relevant scientific people and organizations in real time
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Twitter as authentic audience – Students constantly tweet ideas, assignments, projects, suggestions, and photographs to each other, broadening the reach of their thinking.
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Twitter as embedded literacy – Students get plenty of practice with succinct writing as they share analyses and observations.
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Managing students’ encounters with objectionable material from the outside world, including occasional use of profanity and sexually suggestive follower requests.
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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).
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“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.”
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""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"
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Learn Desmos - 0 views
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This site offers PD for Desmos online graphing calculator as well as lesson activities.
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All Together Now: Some Further Uses for Google Docs in the Composition Classr... - 0 views
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ProfHacker has written quite a bit about the app and their post “GoogleDocs and Collaboration in the Classroom” is chock-full of links to various tips and useful ideas. Getting Smart’s “6 Powerful Google Docs Features to Support the Collaborative Writing Process” provides an excellent step-by-step guide to using Google Docs especially for collaborative writing. And for a basic overview of Google Docs’ features and potential uses, you can browse through this slideshow:
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I have asked my Basic English Skills students to keep a daily journal (which can be on anything they wish to write about and functions to help them build their writing muscles) in Google Docs, which they’ve only shared with me. Besides alleviating any anxiety students might have felt about making their journals public, Google Docs allows me to easily monitor new entries (whenever a Doc is edited, the title turns bold) and to verify when students are completing their entries (by using the revision history feature).
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I decided to have the students write in teams of three, with one team member serving as lead editor each week. The lead editor is in charge of each week’s blog post, which includes coming up with a focus question and locating 2-3 sources to help them answer their question, which they share with their team before the week’s first class meeting (I have had the teams indicate each week’s lead editor in a spreadsheet in Google Docs so that I am aware of which students are in charge each week). But it gets really interesting when the teams come together in the week’s first class meeting. The lead editor creates a Google Doc, which they share with their team and me, and type in their focus question and a brief summary of how they plan to answer it. What follows is a 30-40 minute session in which the team discusses the question, the lead editor’s sources, and their plan for answering the question completely in writing in the Google Doc, observing a strict rule of silence (I adapted this activity from Lawrence Weinstein’s “Silent Dialogue” activity in Writing Doesn’t Have to Be Lonely).
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The next step in the process is for the lead editor to come to the next class meeting with a rough draft that they share with their team and me. The team then begins the process of revising, proofreading and editing, and designing the blog post. Again, I can use the revision history feature to monitor the transformation of the draft, verify that all team members are contributing, and provide feedback on the effectiveness of their work.
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Less physical activity Safety & privacy at risk Tech changes the way children feel Tech changes the way children think
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Are Your Students Distracted by Screens? Here's A Powerful Antidote - Edudemic - 0 views
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Many teachers I encounter have decided that they need to crack down on — if not entirely eradicate — screen distractions in their classrooms. (A minority of teachers accept it as a form of 21st century doodling.)
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If the activity is engaging and challenging, there is an authentic audience, and prescribed time limits, students won’t mess around.
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The more time I spend “teaching” teachers something from the front of the room, the more inclined they are to check email, Facebook, or whatever.
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Add in the possibility that they they’ll have to present to the entire class, or post their creation online, and they’re even more focused
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the activities are challenging and expectations high
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it’s more like: “This is hard. And I’m not going to show you how to do it. But I expect what you create will be excellent.
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Tell students you’re going to present their work at a conference, or submit it to a state publication, and then watch the heightened focus in their eyes
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Teacher lectures impart useful information and explanations, and they can be lively and engaging.
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The Art of Facilitating Teacher Teams | Edutopia - 0 views
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Note that I'm using the term "facilitator" to mean the person who plans and designs agendas as well as who guides a team through processes outlined on an agenda
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The purpose of the meeting and desired outcomes are articulated and connected to the school's vision, mission, and big goals
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a variety of structures or protocols to meet the desired outcomes.
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we know that great attention must be paid to how a meeting is designed.
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We want to ensure that all will voices will be heard and will have equal access to decision-making and input.
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planning reflects an awareness of how power dynamics and systemic oppression may manifest in this group and seeks to interrupt these dynamics
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Frame the purpose and desired outcomes for the meeting and review agenda.
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Use a variety of questioning strategies to probe thinking and elicit new ideas
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Articulate the role participants will play in the meeting
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Name any decision-making points and processes that will be used Identify the structures or activities that will be used in this meeting and how they'll connect to the desired outcomes
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Articulate expectations for behavior or procedures
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Determine structures to hold members accountable (self-monitoring and reflection, use of process observer, use of a team process rubric)
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Use a variety of listening strategies including paraphrasing and active listening
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anticipates the emotional, cognitive and energy needs of the participants
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encourage conflict about ideas verses interpersonal or inter-team conflict)
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Use data gathered in the moment to modify and inform facilitation
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Protect time for reflection and feedback within the established time
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Hold team members accountable to agreements, goals, structures, and protocols
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use various strategies to help a group a recover from a breakdown
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Read the group's emotional and energetic state and adjust accordingly
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Hold the expectation that members will learn, think creatively, and push each others' thinking
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Show up as a grounded, calm presence that believes in the capacity of team members
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The 8 Minutes That Matter Most | Edutopia - 0 views
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 12 Jan 15
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John Irving, the author of The Cider House Rules, begins with his last sentence: I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.
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That is the crux of lesson planning right there -- endings and beginnings. If we fail to engage students at the start, we may never get them back. If we don't know the end result, we risk moving haphazardly from one activity to the next. Every moment in a lesson plan should tell.
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The eight minutes that matter most are the beginning and endings. If a lesson does not start off strong by activating prior knowledge, creating anticipation, or establishing goals, student interest wanes, and you have to do some heavy lifting to get them back. If it fails to check for understanding, you will never know if the lesson's goal was attained.
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Teachers: Math in Videogames ~ Activities : Get The Math - 0 views
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She uses functions to control objects by assigning a number, or input, to a variable that results in a specific output or movement, producing the action that you see in a videogame. She also uses algebraic reasoning, coordinate graphing, linear equations and rate of change or slope to create her games.)
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 09 Feb 16
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Three Reasons Students Should Own Your Classroom's Twitter and Instagram Accounts | EdS... - 0 views
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 09 Feb 16
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Powerful ways to have your students use social media to promote class activities.