Skip to main content

Home/ Chandler School/ Group items tagged reflection

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Jill Bergeron

Japanese Lesson Study - 0 views

www.tc.columbia.edu/...lessonstudy.html

lessonstudy professionaldevelopment lesson study PD

shared by Jill Bergeron on 26 Feb 16 - Cached
  • Jill Bergeron on 26 Feb 16
     
    This site introduces Japanese lesson study which is a collaborative effort by groups of teachers to understand how their lessons impact students. Elements included in this type of PD are collaborative lesson planning, observation, iteration and reflection.
Jill Bergeron

Self-Assessments » TELL Project - 0 views

www.tellproject.org/...self-assessments

self-assessment foreign language Spanish

shared by Jill Bergeron on 30 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Jill Bergeron on 30 Nov 15
     
    "Part of the strength of the TELL Project is its built-in ability for teachers to self-determine how well they currently meet the criteria defined in the Teacher Effectiveness for Language Learning Framework, relative to the growth they would like to make. To assist teachers in this aspect of reflective practice, TELL makes available self-assessment documents that allows an educator to pause and consider their current practice to identify possible areas of professional growth."
Jill Bergeron

PBL in the Mirror: Planning for Student Reflection | Blog | Project Based Learning | BIE - 0 views

www.bie.org/...lanning_for_student_reflection

project based learning pbl Reflection

shared by Jill Bergeron on 13 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • Jill Bergeron on 13 Oct 16
     
    This article gives a detailed example of how to sketch out and organize a PBL lesson.
Jill Bergeron

NAIS - Building More Inclusive Communities with Grading for Equity - 1 views

www.nais.org/...grading-for-equity

diversity inclusion DEI grading bts

shared by Jill Bergeron on 14 Jun 19 - No Cached
  • Yet, grading—how teachers evaluate, describe, and report student achievement—is rarely considered part of DEI work.
  • Perhaps most profoundly, grades shape how our students think about themselves—who they are, what they’re good at, and whether school is a place they can succeed.
  • Averaging his performance doesn’t accurately describe his skills, and it hides all his growth and improvement.
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Neither school leaders nor teachers have had a framework or vocabulary to examine grading and understand its inequities, to recognize the harms of century-old grading practices, and to identify and implement more inclusive and accurate grading.
  • Our current grading practices were created during the Industrial Revolution, shaped by our country’s early 20th-century cultural dynamics and demographics, and founded on beliefs about teaching, learning, and human potential that have since been thoroughly debunked and disproven.
    • Jill Bergeron
      Jill Bergeron on 14 Jun 19
       
      Grading is in contradiction with growth mindset
  • we believed that humans were effectively motivated by extrinsic rewards and punishments—think rats taught to pull a lever by offering pellets or electrifying the cage floor—a belief that underlies teachers’ constant use of “points” to incentivize (and some might say control) student behaviors, such as coming on time to class or completing homework.
  • intrinsic motivation—the kind of motivation that generates creative thinking and fuels effective learning—is undermined by extrinsic rewards and punishments. In other words, our continued use of points to motivate students is demotivating them from learning.
  • Teachers also frequently use mathematical calculations that hide student growth and handicap students who struggle.
  • Teachers often use grades not just to indicate how well students master course content but also to evaluate student behaviors. Categories such as “effort” or “participation” are highly subjective and heavily influenced by a teacher’s own experiences and habits. The student who is penalized for not asking questions or contributing to discussions may be learning just as much as other students, and the student who is taking copious notes may not be learning at all. Similarly, teachers judge student behaviors through culturally specific lenses and assumptions that they might not even be aware of, which can result in student actions being misinterpreted and misjudged.
  • She then sent an open invitation to any teacher who wanted to dig deeper into grading—to research, examine, and imagine ways to align grading to the school’s vision for progressive and equitable education.
  • Homework can be an important element of learning, but when teachers include students’ performance on that homework in the grade, they incorporate an institutional bias that rewards students with resources and impedes students without resources, effectively replicating intergenerational disparities of race and income.
  • Teachers use points to evaluate every action or assignment in a class, which creates pressure-cooker classrooms where no accomplishment goes unrewarded and no mistake goes unpenalized.
  • Effective teacher-student relationships require the opposite: a space to take risks without penalty, to disclose weaknesses without being judged, to feel safe simply knowing that you don’t have to perform perfectly every moment.
  • Our traditional practice of grading everything students do inadvertently sows distrust, shame, and deceit—which leads to students copying homework to earn points, not suggesting an answer if it might be wrong, rote note-taking only for the notebook check—thereby weakening the teacher-student relationship qualities that support learning.
  • For example, if homework is indeed an opportunity for students to practice and to make mistakes, then we can’t include their performance on that homework in their grade.
  • I expect you to take risks and make mistakes and to share with me your academic confusion and weaknesses without fear that your grade will be lowered because of those mistakes.
  • tracking each earned or forfeited point for every activity or behavior reduces teachers to point-tabulators and accountants rather than supportive mentors and guides for students’ paths to success.
  • the way teachers graded often contradicted the school’s commitment to academic excellence as well as equity.
  • But, as many parents, teachers, and school administrators are frequently stunned to learn, many common grading practices are outdated, inaccurate, and undermine student success. In fact, many grading policies—which appear to be an objective, fair, and accurate method to describe a student’s academic performance—often increase achievement gaps by infusing grades with teachers’ implicit biases or by rewarding or punishing students based on their families’ resources.
  • grades must be accurate, validly reflecting a student’s academic performance; bias-resistant, preventing our implicit biases and subjectivity from infecting grades; and motivational, helping students strive for academic success, persevere, accept struggles and setbacks, and gain critical life skills.
  • This pilot group was also trained to use more equitable grading practices, which include employing a 0–4 point scale rather than a 0–100 percentage, incorporating retakes and redos, and ensuring that grades indicate how well students actually master subject matter than whether students’ behavior or work habits gain their subjective approval.
  • Students were less anxious and classroom environments felt more relaxed and supportive of learning, and grade inflation decreased because teachers no longer padded grades with points for participation or homework completion.
  • The teachers continue to track students’ participation and homework, but have expanded how they give feedback on those nonacademic skills: for example, with student conferences or separate reports and calls to parents. The school’s grades give more accurate information about where students are in their learning, and Previna and some teachers are beginning to imagine how their report card could communicate student achievement more accurately and equitably as well.
  • If we can improve how we grade, we will leverage significant improvements in every aspect of teaching and learning as well as our school cultures.
  • The rate of students receiving As decreases, and it decreases more dramatically for students from more resourced families. Grades are no longer rewarding students for just “doing school,” which disproportionately benefits students with more privilege, but grades instead reflect students’ actual academic performance. At the same time, the rate of students receiving Ds and Fs decreases, and does so more dramatically for vulnerable and historically underserved students (African–Americans, Hispanics, and students from low-income families). Grades are less susceptible to teachers’ biases and no longer filter students for privilege. There is a statistically significant increase in the correlation between students’ teacher-assigned grades and standardized assessment scores, suggesting that teachers’ grades more accurately describe their students’ performance. This correlation is particularly strengthened for students from lower-income families, suggesting that those students were more likely to have their performance misrepresented by traditional grading practices. Teachers and students report less stressful classrooms and stronger student-teacher relationships. Teachers find that learning and implementing these grading practices improves their work as educators and has led to improved student learning.
    • Jill Bergeron
      Jill Bergeron on 14 Jun 19
       
      The results of a more equitable grading system
  • By not correcting grading practices, schools risk undermining other initiatives aimed at improving equity and make our schools less inclusive and supportive of every student.
  • Jill Bergeron on 14 Jun 19
     
    Questions about grading practices that we can incorporate in to BTS.
Scott Nancarrow

Teaching Self Advocacy & Building Independence: Strategies for Students with ADHD - 0 views

www.additudemag.com/y-strategies-for-adhd-students

advocacy adhd

shared by Scott Nancarrow on 30 Oct 22 - No Cached
  • But if you’ve ever wondered whether you’re doing and intervening too much, you’re not alone.
  • Many parents of students with ADHD wonder how to strike the elusive balance that offers support and encourages independent self-advocacy skills.
  • Enabling is doing something for someone else, without a plan to help them do it for themselves. Supporting is providing guidance and encouragement to someone as they learn to manage the task on their own in time.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Help Your Child Set Goals
  • Step 1:  Reflect on the Past
  • ask them questions that help them reflect on things like completing homework, preparing for tests, and participating in class.
  • Step 2:  Take Stock of the Present
  • These are the skills that help you do what you need to do to reach your goals
  • For each of these skills, ask your child to rate themselves from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). This encourages them to distinguish their different abilities in different areas, and helps them move away from all-or-nothing thinking
  • Step 3: Look to the Future
  • Give Kids Control by Emphasizing Effort
  • Teach Self-Advocacy
  • make sure your child knows who can support them at school and how they can ask for this support.
Gayle Cole

A Letter To Parents Of Digital Age Children - 0 views

www.teachthought.com/...arents-of-digital-age-children

parents parenting digital age edutopia technology parent workshops

shared by Gayle Cole on 12 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Providing a rich and engaging environment for your children
  • Years later, I found out that they were visiting a questionable chat room where a stranger was vaguely threatening them.
  • seventeen-year-old son of a Pakistani immigrant had connected with a like-minded geek with whom he had begun sharing ideas for creating apps — and soon a business was launched.  His mystified father shook his head as he told this story. “I don’t know how he did that,” he said.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • we need to be active, trusting, and respectful participants in the digital lives of young people.
  • Our young people are still learning their way around the digital landscape largely on their own — when what we need to do is confidently take them by the hand, show them how to look both ways, and cross the street with them — at least at first. That means staying up-to-date about digital safety, the rules of the road, and what’s going on in the neighborhood. Finally, we need to foster the kinds of personal relationships that encourage our kids to talk about where they are going and what they discover along the way (their successes as well as their mistakes) once we let them travel on their own.
  • y, “Digital Generation: Parents,” is a good place to start.
  • read Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus (on social media
  • Jane McGonigal’s Reality Is Broken (on video games). If you want to try to keep up with the moving target of day-to-day digital parenting, I recommend Marti Weston’s information-packed, down-to-earth blog, Media! Tech! Parenting!
  • inspired by Adora Svitak,
  • Equally inspiring is nine-year-old Martha Payne, whose blog NeverSeconds, about the lunches served at her school in Scotland, sparked a national controversy about school nutrition that attracted the attention of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver
  • Some people call it a digital footprint, others a digital tattoo. As a parent, you are no doubt concerned about the possible missteps your children may take
  • the digital “brand” that will follow them for life.
  • although your children are already comfortable interacting online, they don’t yet necessarily know how to translate their skills into products that show them at their best
  • create “a portfolio of work that is both public and interactive, that reflects the potential of the online world and that serves as a solid foundation for a lifetime of participation online.”
  • Those of us in education need parents like you to be involved as active and open learners about the digital world, learners who can engage with us, their children and their children’s teachers, in much-needed conversations about digital matters.
Gayle Cole

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

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

flippedclassroom flipped classroom edutopia

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

Time - The finite resource - 0 views

thelearnersway.net/ideas

thinking time Making Thinking Visible

shared by Jill Bergeron on 16 May 16 - No Cached
  • As time is such a valuable resource its allocation to particular aspects of teaching and learning signifies their value. If we give time to content and memorisation of facts, we signal to our students that this is what we value. Likewise, if we remind our students that time is short and work must be completed quickly we should not be surprised when our students see tasks as work to be done rather than learning to be mastered. A more effective distribution of our time will see students being given time to think deeply and truly engage with the problems they are asked to solve.
  • The importance of these soft-skills including important aspects of socio-emotional learning, creativity and even critical thinking are often not given the time they deserve.
  • Ritchhart (2015) quotes research that reveals the power of wait time and thinking time with the quality and quantity of student thinking increasing by 300% to 700% when additional time is given to thinking within class discussion. Wait time or thinking time combined with strategies such as those from ‘Making Thinking Visible’ signify to students that what is wanted is not a speedy response but a well considered one. Wait time and thinking time according to Ritchhart combat the habit many students develop of guessing what the teacher wants as a response.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Self-determination Theory (SDT) as described by Ryan & Deci (2000) and as discussed in Daniel Pink’s (2009) work on motivation reveals three drives that help us engage and maintain enthusiasm. Autonomy or a sense of control is a part of this triad and although we may not be able to decide which tasks we complete or not we can probably determine the order they are approached. Scheduling tasks which give us a boost of energy early in the day might help us move through the challenging middle period while finishing with a task we enjoy can be a positive ending. Putting off the tasks we enjoy least, those which offer the leas rewards until the end of the day is a recipe for disaster.
  • The other two drives identified by SDT are purpose and mastery. These too are linked to time and shape our perception of a task as a positive or negative experience. The perceived purpose of a task, the degree to which a task is important to us, the intrinsic enjoyment that a task has play an important part in how we value the time we spend on it. If a task is closely connected to our core purposes it is likely to be valued and time spent on is hardly noticed.
  • Within SDT the desire to master a task is the third drive. Mastery in most instances takes time and situations which prevent us from achieving mastery can lead to negative feelings. Being realistic with our mastery goals and recognising that true mastery is only achieved after significant time may reduce feeling of anxiety when confronted by situations where mastery is the goal but success is difficult to achieve.
  • His time management matrix shows a correlation between a task's perceived importance and its urgency with tasks deemed important but not-urgent being the ones which allow us to produce our best work. This concept is similar to the idea of wait time or thinking time and the ideas are linked together in Ritchhart’s writing.
  • Collaborative planning, reflection, problem identification and solution are areas that demand our best thinking but are not always given the time they demand. What this reveals is that the problem many schools face is not one of quantity of time but rather allocation of time.
  • By talking about how we use time, where we need more time, how we may better distribute our use of time to signal importance and provide opportunities for students and teachers to achieve their best with the time they have we begin to move things forward. Being open to new solutions, breaking with tradition and valuing time as we value money are steps towards a better model for time management in schools, one that has benefits for all.
  • Jill Bergeron on 16 May 16
     
    This blog post shares how the amount of time we give students to think and answer questions can have a great impact on the quality of response we receive. By giving students wait time and thinking time, the quantity and quality of student thinking increased by 300-700%.
Jill Bergeron

Research Finds Effects Of Homework On Elementary Students - 1 views

www.lifehack.org/...and-the-results-are-surprising

homework

shared by Jill Bergeron on 06 May 16 - No Cached
smontevirgen liked it
  • While homework has a significant benefit at the high school level, the benefit drops off for middle school students and “there’s no benefit at the elementary school level,”
  • Homework can generate a negative impact on children’s attitudes toward school.
  • After a long day at school, something that includes the word “work” is not exactly what kids want to do before going to bed. This ends up too often in a sorrowful battle that can be extended to the later years when homework does have benefits.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Those who support homework will say that daily homework helps kids become more responsible, but this is only true at a later age.
  • Homework leaves less time for kids to be kids.
  • All students, and especially the youngest ones, should use their evenings and holiday time to do more physical activities, playing outdoors and participating in sports with friends.
  • Another problem with elementary school homework is that it often takes time away from their sleeping hours. Children need, on average, ten hours of sleep a day. For kids to be 100% the next day at school, they need to have a proper rest.
  • encourage fun reading.
  • Although personalizing this activity for each kid will require more effort than homogeneous homework, the benefits of fun reading will be noticeable.
  • Teach responsibility with daily chores.
  • Teach them that they are always learners.
  • Take them to visit a museum.
  • Overall, administrators, parents, and teachers may leverage after-school experiences where creativity, sociability, and learning converge to enhance elementary schools students’ educations.
  • Jill Bergeron on 06 May 16
     
    This article details how homework can be detrimental to elementary school children. However, it also offers alternatives to homework.
  • smontevirgen on 08 May 16
     
    Love this article! Homework should be the last thing a child does when they get home after working in school all day. How about learning to cook with mom and dad? This may be a hard sell for some parents who see learning as a concrete task and not a reflective one. Some alternatives: Reading a good book for pleasure, reading with your kids, going to the park.... Kids need school life balance as well.
Jill Bergeron

3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners: What Teachers Do | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...ion-ways-to-plan-john-mccarthy

differentiation diverse-learners differentiated instruction edutopia

shared by Jill Bergeron on 24 May 16 - No Cached
  • Differentiating content includes using various delivery formats such as video, readings, lectures, or audio. Content may be chunked, shared through graphic organizers, addressed through jigsaw groups, or used to provide different techniques for solving equations.
  • Process is how students make sense of the content. They need time to reflect and digest the learning activities before moving on to the next segment of a lesson.
  • Processing helps students assess what they do and don't understand. It's also a formative assessment opportunity for teachers to monitor students' progress.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • For example, having one or two processing experiences for every 30 minutes of instruction alleviates feelings of content saturation.
  • The key to product options is having clear academic criteria that students understand. When products are cleanly aligned to learning targets, student voice and choice flourish, while ensuring that significant content is addressed.
  • Jill Bergeron on 24 May 16
     
    This article offers three ways for diversifying teaching: content, process and product. The author offers up definitions and ideas in each of the three categories to meet student needs.
Jill Bergeron

How Listening and Sharing Help Shape Collaborative Learning Experiences | MindShift | K... - 0 views

ww2.kqed.org/...aborative-learning-experiences

collaboration Listening Learning Reflection sharing joint attention small group work group work

shared by Jill Bergeron on 13 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • In school, getting people to share can be difficult. Learners may be diffident, or they may not have good strategies for sharing. Children often do not know how to offer constructive criticism or build on an idea. It can be helpful to give templates for sharing, such as two likes and a wish, where the “wish” is a constructive criticism or a building idea.
    • Jill Bergeron
      Jill Bergeron on 13 Sep 16
       
      Template for young children to follow when giving feedback.
  • listening and sharing as cooperative techniques can alleviate frustration and, more importantly, allow group learning to surpass what would be possible by a single student (Slavin, 1995).
  • when students collaborate on class assignments, they learn the material better (we provide examples below). Ideally, small group work can yield both better abilities to cooperate and better learning of the content.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Visual attention provides an index of what people are thinking about.
Jill Bergeron

Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential - 0 views

www.middleweb.com/...sets-creativity-and-innovation

math mathematics mindset reflection

shared by Jill Bergeron on 07 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • So often mathematics instruction has focused on the “right” answer as opposed to the process of getting an answer. As a result, many educators and most students have a lack of understanding of how mistakes in math should be viewed and how mistakes can actually enhance the brain’s development.
  • Mathematics is a cultural phenomenon: a set of ideas, connections, and relationships that we can use to make sense of the world. At its core, mathematics is about patterns.
  • Jill Bergeron on 07 Nov 16
     
    This is a book review of Mathematical Mindsets which builds off of Carol Dweck's work on mindsets.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

marshall mindset curriculum planning work-life balance pd professional development ability grouping differentiation grouping math PLC

shared by Jill Bergeron on 10 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • “It’s not just effort, but strategy. Students need to know that if they’re stuck, they don’t need just effort. You don’t want them redoubling their efforts with the same ineffective strategies. You want them to know when to ask for help and when to use resources that are available.”
  • the key to schools succeeding with all students is prioritizing – isolating and focusing on “only the most vital, game-changing actions that ensure significant improvement in teaching and learning” and then sustaining a disciplined, laser-like focus for a significant amount of time.
  • Teachers should have clear, specific direction on which skills and concepts to teach – the what and when – with discretion on the how to and some room each week for teachable moments and personal passions.
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • Of paramount importance is ongoing checking for student understanding (minute by minute, day by day, week by week) and adjusting instruction based on assessment insights. This is especially important for project- and problem-based learning.
  • “To succeed, students simply need vastly more time to purposefully read, discuss, and write about worthy, substantive literature and nonfiction across the curriculum (as often as possible, in the interpretive and argumentative mode)
  • “this should occur in a climate that emphasizes helpfulness and growth, rather than evaluation.”
  • “Nobody has a growth mindset in everything all the time,” says Dweck. “Everyone is a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets.
  • When students fail, teachers and parents should say things like, “Okay, what is this teaching us? Where should we go next?”
  • With praise, focus on the process that led to success – hard work, good strategies, effective use of resources. “Be matter-of-fact,” advises Dweck, “with not too strong or too passive a reaction… Effective teachers who actually have classrooms full of children with a growth mindset are always supporting children’s learning strategies and showing how strategies created that success.”
  • U.S. elementary teachers spend an average of about 32 hours a week with their students, secondary teachers about 30 hours, out of a 38-hour contractual week. Daily planning time ranges from 12 to 80 minutes for elementary teachers, from 30 to 96 minutes at the secondary level. The paucity of contractual planning time in most schools pushes a lot of teachers’ work into late afternoons, evenings, and weekends; including that time, the typical teacher’s work week is about 52 hours.
  • Teachers need two types of planning time, Merritt believes: (a) Individual time every day to prepare materials for upcoming lessons, assess student work, and communicate with specialists and parents about their students; and (b) common planning time once or twice a week with same-grade/same-subject colleagues to plan, implement, reflect on, and modify instruction.
  • The 30-32 hours U.S. teachers spend with their students each week compares to about 20-21 hours in other countries.
  • Shorter days for students
  • No-student days embedded within the school year
  • The number of such days ranges from two to 18 per school year.
  • Increased staffing – Core subject teachers can be given more planning time within the school day if their students go out to additional physical education, art, music, science, environmental education, and other specialty subjects – and also by increasing supervised recess and using instructional assistants and parent volunteers.
  • “we should trust teachers who are asking for more time, and make planning time a high priority in budgeting decisions. Instead of implementing costly interventions that yield minimal results in schools, we should pay more attention to the repeated requests from teachers about how to support them in their daily work… They need more time to identify problems they see in their schools or classrooms and work individually and collectively on solutions.”
  • Using inquiry protocols, they asked each other What do we want students to get out of the curriculum? and How can we get them there? -   They collaboratively developed model curriculum units and adapted them as needed; -   They used a fishbowl approach to observe colleagues teaching new curriculum materials; -   They watched outside curriculum experts modeling appropriate classroom strategies. -   They looked together at student work as students grappled with the new expectations and thought about the implications for unit and lesson planning; -   They jointly figured out ways to support students in material that at first seemed too hard.
  • Meaningful data – Static assessment results from benchmark assessments are not enough. To have truly high-quality discussions about their work, teachers need (a) open-ended assessment items from their ongoing instruction to identify student strategies and uncover their mathematical reasoning; (b) feedback from classroom observations; and (c) video clips of their own instruction and that of colleagues.             • Supportive tools – These include classroom observations and videos and having a facilitator with deep pedagogical content knowledge. It’s also crucial that the PLC sinks its teeth into one or two substantive and actionable math concepts or strategies.
  • • Supportive colleagues – Dissonance is not enough, say the authors. To truly improve instruction, teachers also need a collegial group that will hold their hands as they deal with their students’ struggles and criticism from observers:
  • “It is likely,” say the authors, “that repeated video recording and written feedback motivated Ms. Walker and other teachers to try out new instructional strategies and continuously  assess and refine them so that they could demonstrate improvement in subsequent observed lessons.”
  • -   Within-class grouping (teachers differentiating instruction among several small groups) had moderately positive effects.
  • -   Cross-grade grouping (students from different grade levels brought together to learn a particular subject or unit – e.g., the Joplin Plan for reading) had small-to-moderate benefits.
  • -   These two forms of grouping benefited students with high, medium, and low achievement.
  • -   Special grouping for gifted students (pullout or honors programs) was very helpful for those students.
  • -   Acceleration (students skipping a grade or taking courses at a younger age than their peers) was the most beneficial of all.
  • Jill Bergeron on 10 Jan 17
     
    "1. Mike Schmoker on three focus areas 2. Carol Dweck on fine-tuning the growth mindset 3. Maximizing high-quality teacher planning time 4. Effective and ineffective teacher teamwork in the Common Core 5. What gets professional learning communities working well? 6. Research findings on ability grouping and acceleration"
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

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

shared by Jill Bergeron on 26 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Every superintendent, or state commissioner, must be able to say, with confidence, ‘Everyone who teaches here is good. Here’s how we know. We have a system.
  • school-based administrators “don’t always have the skill to differentiate great teaching from that which is merely good, or perhaps even mediocre.” Another problem is the lack of consensus on how we should define “good teaching.”
    • Jill Bergeron
      Jill Bergeron on 26 Apr 16
       
      We need consensus on how we define good teaching. We don't have metrics in place to determine good, mediocre and bad teaching.
  • ...41 more annotations...
  • Only about six percent of teachers are ineffective, she continues. For the remaining 94 percent, the emphasis should shift from ratings to learning.
  • And what do we know about professional learning? That it requires: • Active intellectual engagement – That is, self-assessment, reflection on practice, and on-going conversations; • Trust – “Fear shuts people down,” says Danielson. “Learning, after all, entails vulnerability. The culture of the school and of the district must be one that encourages risk-taking.” • Challenge – “The culture must include an expectation that every teacher will engage in a career-long process of learning,” she says, “one that is never ‘finished.’ Teaching is simply too complex for anyone to believe that there is no more to learn.” • Teacher collaboration – PD and supervisory suggestions rarely drive classroom improvements, says Danielson. “Overwhelmingly, most teachers report that they learn more from their colleagues than from an ‘expert’ in a workshop… or being directed by a supervisor to read a certain book or take a particular course.” Most often, classroom improvement comes from working with colleagues analyzing student work and planning curriculum.
  • a new system should include: -   An emphasis on professional learning in a culture of trust and inquiry; -   A career ladder from probationary to continuing status after about three years; from that point on, the main emphasis becomes professional learning; -   Differentiation in the evaluation system, with novice teachers getting support from a mentor and being evaluated every year; -   Career teachers assessed periodically to ensure continuing quality; -   Teacher leadership positions (mentor, instructional coach, team leader) for which experienced teachers in good standing are eligible to apply; these come with training and support, extra compensation, or released time during the regular school day; -   The ability to identify seriously underperforming teachers, support their improvement, and if sufficient progress isn’t made, deny them tenure or continuing employment.
  • “Former service members tend to be committed to their students and tenacious in their efforts to improve,” say Parham and Gordon. Some early studies suggest that over time, veterans are stronger in classroom management, instructional practices, and student results.
  • Veterans who have had life-and-death combat experiences “tend to have low tolerance for petty politics in schools or for initiatives that seem unrelated to educating students. Former service members may sometimes seem overly assertive in discussions with colleagues.”
  • Veterans entering the classroom may feel like novices and have to adjust to their students not snapping to attention when given an order.
  • Veterans who are used to explicit operating procedures have to decode the unspoken expectations on how to relate to colleagues, handle student discipline, deal with parent concerns, get supplies, and get help.
  • “Discussions of shared experiences, shared values, and shared goals can help veterans and other teachers begin to build relationships.”
  • This might consist of a well-chosen mentor (similar to their “battle buddy” in the military), a support team (perhaps a grade-level or subject team that meets regularly), and a support network with other veterans in the school or district.
  • Veterans need an especially thorough briefing as they enter a new setting, including policies, procedures (copying machines, grading, and more), formal and informal rules, and a map of the school.
  • up to speed on teaching priorities, curriculum breadth versus depth, dealing with student differences, lesson planning, instructional materials, and, of course, discipline.
  • Support for this common challenge can come from peer coaching, observing expert teachers, workshops, articles and books, and seminars.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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?’”
  • we shouldn’t push skeptical students to say, “Natural selection is one of the most important ways species came to be differentiated.” Better for them to say, “Most scientists think natural selection is one of the best explanations.”
  • Practice is essential to learning new facts, but not all practice is equally effective.
  • Frequent quizzes with low stakes, and students testing themselves, help establish long-term retention through the “retrieval effect.”
  • Each subject has basic facts that support higher-level learning by freeing working memory and illuminating applications.
  • Students learn new ideas by linking them to what they already know.
  • To transfer learning to a novel problem, students need to know the problem’s context and its underlying structure.
  • Explicitly comparing the examples helps students remember the underlying similarities. With multi-step procedures, students need to identify and label the sub-steps so they can apply them to similar problems. It’s also helpful to alternate concrete examples and abstract representations.
  • Motivation is improved if students believe that intelligence and ability can be improved through hard work, and if adults respond to successful work by praising effective effort rather than innate ability. It’s also helpful for teachers to set learning goals (e.g., mastering specific material) rather than performance goals (competing with others or vying for approval).
  • Intrinsic motivation leads to better long-term outcomes than extrinsic motivation.
  • It’s difficult to gauge one’s own learning and understanding. That’s why students need to learn how to monitor their own learning through assessments, self-testing, and explanation.
  • Students will be more motivated and successful when they believe they belong and are accepted.
  • Teachers need to recognize and dispel a set of incorrect beliefs about teaching and learning: -   Misconception #1: Students have different “learning styles.” -   Misconception #2: Humans use only 10 percent of their brains. -   Misconception #3: People are preferentially “right-brained” or “left-brained” in how they think. -   Misconception #4: Novices and experts think in all the same ways. -   Misconception #5: Cognitive development progresses in age-related stages.
  • having students work in groups for 30-45 minutes coming up with test questions that might be used (or reworded) in the actual exam. This is a two-fer, says Lang: it not only gives students a sense of control over their learning but also serves as an effective review session.
  • Open assessments – This involves leaving 10 percent of the syllabus for an assignment that students create with the instructor.
  • Class constitutions – Having students collectively come up with ground rules for a course gives them a collegial sense of working together toward a shared purpose.
  • “Teaching evolutionary theory is not in and of itself religious indoctrination.” That’s because evolution is not a religion. “How could a religion have no beliefs about the supernatural? No rituals? No moral commandments?”
  • ask students to learn about evolution without insisting that they believe it.
  • Good feedback is specific and clear, focused on the task rather than the student, explanatory, and directed toward improvement rather than merely verifying performance.
  • “It turns out children are better able to cope if they understand what they’re going through is normal, that it affects everyone, and that it will pass,” comments Adam Gamoran of the William T. Grant Foundation. “How we think about a stressful situation influences how we feel and how we perform.” Studies like this, he says, “show how deeply intertwined are cognition and emotion.”
  • use of Twitter in his middle-school science classroom
  • Connecting students to reputable, relevant scientific people and organizations in real time
  • Twitter as authentic audience – Students constantly tweet ideas, assignments, projects, suggestions, and photographs to each other, broadening the reach of their thinking.
  • Twitter as embedded literacy – Students get plenty of practice with succinct writing as they share analyses and observations.
  • Managing students’ encounters with objectionable material from the outside world, including occasional use of profanity and sexually suggestive follower requests.
  • Comparing services – Proportional reasoning, equations, creating and analyzing graphs, and number sense; -   Planning a budget – Organizing and representing information and number sense; -   Determining the costs and payoffs of higher education – Percentages, compound interest, and rates; -   Playing the Stock Market Game – Ratios, proportional reasoning, reading and analyzing reports and graphs, and algebraic thinking (e.g., gains and losses).
  • “The term generally refers to using a wide variety of hands-on activities (such as building, computer programming, and even sewing) to support academic learning and the development of a mindset that values playfulness and experimentation, growth and iteration, and collaboration and community. Typically, ‘making’ involves attempting to solve a particular problem, creating a physical or digital artifact, and sharing that product with a larger audience. Often, such work is guided by the notion that process is more important than results.”
  • Jill Bergeron on 26 Apr 16
     
    ""Researchers Probe Equity, Design Principles in Maker Ed." by Benjamin Herold in Education Week, April 20, 2016 (Vol. 35, #28, p. 8-9), www.edweek.org"
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.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • motivationally effective teaching is culturally responsive teaching.
  • Because the importance of grades and grade point averages increases as a student advances in school, it is legitimate to question whether extrinsic motivation systems are effective for significant numbers of students across cultures. We can only conclude that, as long as the educational system continues to relate motivation to learn with external rewards and punishments, culturally different students will, in large part, be excluded from engagement and success in school.
  • It is part of human nature to be curious, to be active, to initiate thought and behavior, to make meaning from experience, and to be effective at what we value. These primary sources of motivation reside in all of us, across all cultures. When students can see that what they are learning makes sense and is important, their intrinsic motivation emerges.
  • We can begin to replace the carrot and stick metaphor with the words “understand” and “elicit”; to change the concept of motivation from reward and punishment to communication and respect. We can influence the motivation of students by coming to know their perspective, by drawing forth who they naturally and culturally are, and by seeing them as unique and active. Sharing our resources with theirs, working together, we can create greater energy for learning.
  • A growing number of educational models, including constructivism and multiple intelligences theory, are based on intrinsic motivation. They see student perspective as central to teaching.
  • Unfortunately, educators must often apply these theories within educational systems dominated by extrinsic reinforcement, where grades and class rank are emphasized. And, when extrinsic rewards continue to be the primary motivators, intrinsic motivation is dampened. Those students whose socialization accommodates the extrinsic approach surge ahead, while those students—often the culturally different—whose socialization does not, fall behind. A holistic, culturally responsive pedagogy based on intrinsic motivation is needed to correct this imbalance.
  • The framework names four motivational conditions that the teacher and students continuously create or enhance. They are: Establishing inclusion—creating a learning atmosphere in which students and teachers feel respected by and connected to one another. Developing attitude—creating a favorable disposition toward the learning experience through personal relevance and choice. Enhancing meaning—creating challenging, thoughtful learning experiences that include student perspectives and values. Engendering competence—creating an understanding that students are effective in learning something they value. These conditions are essential to developing intrinsic motivation. They are sensitive to cultural differences. They work in concert as they influence students and teachers, and they happen in a moment as well as over a period of time.
  • Figure 1. Four Conditions Necessary for Culturally Responsive Teaching
  • 1. Establish Inclusion Norms: Emphasize the human purpose of what is being learned and its relationship to the students' experience. Share the ownership of knowing with all students. Collaborate and cooperate. The class assumes a hopeful view of people and their capacity to change. Treat all students equitably. Invite them to point out behaviors or practices that discriminate. Procedures: Collaborative learning approaches; cooperative learning; writing groups; peer teaching; multi-dimensional sharing; focus groups; and reframing. Structures: Ground rules, learning communities; and cooperative base groups. 2. Develop Positive Attitude Norms: Relate teaching and learning activities to students' experience or previous knowledge. Encourage students to make choices in content and assessment methods based on their experiences, values, needs, and strengths. Procedures: Clear learning goals; problem solving goals; fair and clear criteria of evaluation; relevant learning models; learning contracts; approaches based on multiple intelligences theory, pedagogical flexibility based on style, and experiential learning. Structure: Culturally responsive teacher/student/parent conferences.
  • 3. Enhance Meaning Norms: Provide challenging learning experiences involving higher order thinking and critical inquiry. Address relevant, real-world issues in an action-oriented manner. Encourage discussion of relevant experiences. Incorporate student dialect into classroom dialogue. Procedures: Critical questioning; guided reciprocal peer questioning; posing problems; decision making; investigation of definitions; historical investigations; experimental inquiry; invention; art; simulations; and case study methods. Structures: Projects and the problem-posing model. 4. Engender Competence Norms: Connect the assessment process to the students' world, frames of reference, and values. Include multiple ways to represent knowledge and skills and allow for attainment of outcomes at different points in time. Encourage self-assessment. Procedures: Feedback; contextualized assessment; authentic assessment tasks; portfolios and process-folios; tests and testing formats critiqued for bias; and self-assessment. Structures: Narrative evaluations; credit/no credit systems; and contracts for grades. Based on Wlodkowski, R. J., and M. B. Ginsberg. (1995). Diversity and Motivation: Culturally Responsive Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • Jill Bergeron on 11 May 16
     
    This article offers up four conditions teachers can create in order to foster a culturally responsive classroom.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 2 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

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

shared by Jill Bergeron on 10 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • 1. What makes a team effective? 2. A new perspective on closing the achievement gap 3. Project-based learning 101 4. A school network experiments with high tech and student choice 5. Opening up a daily 40-minute block in a North Carolina high school 6. How to hold onto high-quality new teachers 7. The effect of reading about the struggles of accomplished scientists
  • Project Aristotle, as it was dubbed, found that some team characteristics that seemed intuitively important – members sharing interests and hobbies, having similar educational backgrounds, socializing after hours – didn’t correlate with team success.
  • The ‘who’ part of the equation didn’t seem to matter.”
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • Then Project Aristotle began looking at group norms – the culture of unwritten rules that guide people when they collaborate – and hit pay dirt. It turned out that two group norms were shared by virtually all of Google’s most effective teams: -   Equal air time – In teams that got the best results, members participated roughly the same amount during meetings. “As long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well,” said Google researcher Anita Woolley. “But if only one person or a small group spoke all the time, the collective intelligence declined.” -   Interpersonal sensitivity – Effective team members had the ability to intuit how colleagues felt by their tone of voice, facial expressions, and other nonverbal cues. The members of less-effective teams were less tuned in to their teammates’ feelings.
  • The behaviors that create psychological safety – conversational turn-taking and empathy – are part of the same unwritten rules we often turn to, as individuals, when we need to establish a bond. And those human bonds matter as much at work as anywhere else. In fact, they sometimes matter more.”
  • In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs.”
  • He believes there are two “ubiquitous features of conventional school environments” that trigger and reinforce the psychological factors noted above, augment the disadvantages with which minority students enter school, and feed the peer pressures to disengage from schooling – all of which creates a self-reinforcing downward spiral of achievement. The two features are: -   Students being given work that is too difficult for their current academic level; -   Students getting low grades on their work rather than frequent, individualized, objective feedback.
  • “The hypothesis,” say Yeh, “is that the conventional school system is inadvertently structured in a way that fosters disengagement, thereby reducing effort, which depresses achievement and grades, causing demoralization, which further reduces engagement and achievement.” The process kicks in around third grade, when struggling students begin to view themselves as intellectually inferior because their grades are lower than their classmates’, contributing to decreased self-efficacy and increasing passivity; it accelerates in middle school, at which point low grades strongly correlate with eventually dropping out.
  • What is to be done? Yeh’s theory is that by flipping the two pernicious factors, schools can turn the downward spiral into a virtuous upward cycle of achievement. That involves: -   Adjusting task difficulty for low-performing students to an appropriate level of challenge so that if they apply effective effort, they will be successful. -   Rapid performance feedback with respect to a standard, not other students.
  • He cites positive research on two programs using this approach – Reading Assessment and Math Assessment – and reports on a systematic study comparing different interventions aimed at closing the achievement gap – charter schools, voucher programs, an additional year of school, various high-quality pre-school programs, full-day kindergarten, class size reduction, value-added assessment, summer school, teacher salary incentives, teacher experience, teacher PD, longer school day, computer instruction, tutoring, and school reform. Rapid assessment is dramatically more successful at raising student achievement than any of the others.
  • by far the most powerful and cost-effective intervention is to adjust task difficulty and provide students with prompt, objective feedback on their efforts.
  • “When students engage in project-based learning over the course of their time in school,” says John Larmer (Buck Institute for Education) in this article in Educational Leadership, “there’s an accumulating effect. They feel empowered. They see that they can make a difference.” In addition, they’re more likely to acquire the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed for college and career success.
  • the key elements of project-based learning, carefully planned and skillfully managed by the teacher:
  • A challenging problem or question
  • Sustained inquiry
  • Authenticity
  • Student voice and choice
  • 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

Student-Centered Learning: March 2016 | Matt Renwick - 0 views

mattrenwick.com/...what-im-reading-march-2016

student-centered learning

shared by Jill Bergeron on 25 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Kraft and his team found four attributes identified in schools that experienced consistently high achievement: School safety and order Leadership and professional development High academic expectations Teacher relationships and collaboration
  • Specific professional learning offerings for teachers include one-to-one instructional coaching and school leadership opportunities. Teacher retention and higher test scores have been the result of these efforts.
  • Educators can start reimagining instruction by asking ourselves what learning we experienced in our school careers that truly mattered in our lives. This reflection can lead to finding topics and themes from our current curriculum and assessing how well they fit within this mindset of lifeworthy learning. Four tenets of big understandings – opportunity, insight, action, and ethics – can serve as gatekeepers in this process.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Perkins closes this piece of identifying three national agendas (achievement, information, expertise) that may have had too much importance placed upon them.
  • Play-based learning should allow for the students to explore their passions and interests without an outcome necessarily in mind. “Play is not something you do to a child. If you have an agenda, if you are requiring them to do it, if you have to make it ‘fun’ to get them to comply, if they are not free to stop at any time, then it is not play.”
  • Play is self-chosen, enjoyable, inherently valuable, and unstructured.
  • Jill Bergeron on 25 Apr 16
     
    This is my title I created for this post. Mr. Renwick sums up several books and posts related to the idea of creating conditions for student-centered learning.
Jill Bergeron

Summer Is Prime Time for PBL Remodeling | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...time-pbl-remodeling-suzie-boss

pbl project based learning

shared by Jill Bergeron on 22 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • What were the bright spots of the project? Have you asked students for feedback? What will they remember most about their learning experience? What seemed hardest for them? Were they engaged all the way through? If not, can you pinpoint when and why their interest waned? Were you able to scaffold the experience so that all learners could be successful? What would you change if you were to do this project again?
    • Jill Bergeron
      Jill Bergeron on 22 Jun 16
       
      Reflection questions for teachers to ask about their PBL units
  • What's the right line between teacher direction and student freedom? Is it OK for students to swerve toward new questions -- unanticipated by the teacher -- that grab their curiosity? How open is too open?
  • This formula -- the introduction of a thinking routine to stimulate observations and questions at the beginning of each new topic, the formulation of an inquiry-based investigation from those observations and questions, and the subsequent rounds of writing, critique, and rewriting -- essentially became the working formula for the rest of the school year.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • consider Werberger's questions for thinking about final products: Will students love what they have created? Where will this go when it's done? Will it make the world a better or more beautiful place?
  • As a resource to help with your own project remodeling, think about the teaching and learning strategies you notice in the film, such as Socratic seminars, authentic deadlines, and an emphasis on public exhibitions. Do you see ideas you might want to borrow to improve your next project?
  • How will your next project help students learn to think more analytically and creatively to design solutions to complex problems? How might you remodel a project to help students get better at monitoring and directing their own learning?
Scott Nancarrow

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Stop Copying Others: T... - 0 views

zhaolearning.com/...hers-timss-lessons-for-america

globalization assessment

shared by Scott Nancarrow on 19 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • In terms of test scores, the U.S. has certainly improved, but so have other countries. So the gap between U.S. students and East Asian students remain as large as 20 years ago
  • As test scores went up, students’ confidence and attitude toward math came down.
  • But the U.S. still has more students reporting confidence in math and valuing math than East Asian students.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • It seems clear that after tremendous efforts to catch up to the high performing education systems in test scores, the U.S. has not succeeded. Two questions arise. First, can the U.S. ever catch up? Second, is it really necessary to catch up? My answer to both questions are no.
  • . If it is true that whatever policies and practices that resulted in higher test scores also make students less confident and less interested in math, are these policies and practices really educationally sound? Don’t we want more people have confidence in math and value math?
  • Test scores simply do not reflect what our children need to live in the future, let alone what they need to defend and improve a democratic society. Test scores are simply the indicator of one’s ability in taking the test. We should never read too much into it and attempt to draw conclusions that fuels actions that could affect the future of millions of children and the future of our society.
  • education is both deeply rooted in and an integral part of culture, hence they mutually enhance and perpetuate
  • Different cultures impose different values and expectations on education. Different cultures also support and suppress different educational practices. Unless one is ready and able to redefine one’s culture and society, copying isolated educational policies rarely works.
Jill Bergeron

Taking the Struggle Out of Group Work | MiddleWeb - 0 views

www.middleweb.com/...taking-struggle-group-work

collaboration groups pbl teamwork group_work group work

shared by Jill Bergeron on 17 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • He found in his research that assigning a pool of points for a team, say 40 points for four students, and having the students divide the points up depending on who did which percentage of the work, was effective in raising students’ participation in a group project.
  • A student may say on their anonymous card/email that they did only six points of work, but a teammate did 14. This also goes a long way in placating the students who feel like they have shouldered the brunt of the work as participation points are then factored into the whole project grade.
  • At the beginning of the year, after some small group work and before really intense group work, we have them reflect on past experiences, what has worked, what hasn’t, what role they tend to play in a group, what their goals are for themselves in group work.
‹ Previous 21 - 40 of 57 Next ›
Showing 20▼ items per page