All students should master a verifiable set of skills, but not necessarily the same skills. Part of the reason high schools fail so many kids is that educators can’t get free of the notion that all students—regardless of their career aspirations—need the same basic preparation. States are piling on academic courses, removing the arts, and downplaying career and technical education to make way for a double portion of math. Meanwhile, career-focused programs, such as Wisconsin’s youth apprenticeships and well-designed career academies, are engaging students and raising their post-high-school earnings, especially among hard-to-reach, at-risk male students.
Maintaining our one-size-fits-all approach will hurt many of the kids we are trying most to help. Maybe that approach, exemplified in the push for common standards, will simply lead to yet more unmet education goals. But it won’t reduce, and might increase, the already high rate at which students drop out of school, or graduate without the skills and social behaviors required for career success.
Well-written commentary for anyone interested in the impact of Common Core Standards.
"What's Wrong With the Common-Standards Project"
"We need rigorous but basic academics, homing in on skills that will be used, and not short-shrifting the "soft skill" behaviors that lead to success in college and careers. The management guru Peter Drucker got it right: "The result of a school is a student who has learned something and puts it to work 10 years later."
When it comes to writing-heavy courses, students don’t want to take them and teachers don’t want to teach them. When it comes to writing assignments in non-writing-oriented courses, students don’t like them to run too long and neither do teachers.
Writing is just too much work for both sides. For every upper-division class in the humanities, 25 pages of finished out-of-class writing is a proper minimum. But for most students, that sounds like a daunting total—and an unjust one. For teachers handling three or more classes with 25 or more students, grading all those pages conscientiously (which means giving substantive feedback) keeps them up all night three weeks every semester. For those lucky teachers on a 2-2 load with 25 students or less per course, they feel the publish-or-perish mandate and all those pages of student prose turn into a road block.
This is an interesting section. My feeling is that there has to be a way to increase what's viewed as "writing." Does writing have to live solely in the 20+ page paper? Can not the cumulative total of writing be considered?
When it comes to writing-heavy courses, students don’t want to take them and teachers don’t want to teach them.
"Turning Around Ohio's High Schools
KnowledgeWorks managed one of the nation's most ambitious high school turnaround efforts with the Ohio High School Transformation Initiative (OHSTI) and the development of Early College High Schools. The effort had a positive impact on more than 50,000 students and trained more than 2,000 teachers in Ohio's most challenging school districts. Specifically, students performed
better on state standardized tests, attendance rates rose, and the academic achievement gap between minority and non-minority students began to significantly close."
Students today are using more tech in more places than even Popular Science imagined back in the atomic age. 98% of students own a gadget and 70% of them use a gadget in class-some for note-taking and study, some for poke wars on Facebook during lecture. And while the time spent online in a day might set off some warning bells, the good news is that a breakdown of that time shows much of it is spent learning.
When students know how to ask their own questions, they take greater ownership of their learning, deepen comprehension, and make new connections and discoveries on their own.
Typically, questions are seen as the province of teachers, who spend years figuring out how to craft questions and fine-tune them to stimulate students’ curiosity or engage them more effectively.
to introduce students to a new unit, to assess students’ knowledge to see what they need to understand better, and even to conclude a unit to see how students can, with new knowledge, set a fresh learning agenda for themselves. The technique can be used for all ages.
ask as many questions as you can; do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer any of the questions; write down every question exactly as it was stated; and change any statements into questions.
for an open-ended thinking process.
The teacher begins this step by introducing definitions of closed- and open-ended questions.
“Choose the three questions you most want to explore further.”
Students will be asking all the questions. A teacher’s role is simply to facilitate that process. This is a significant change for students as well.
When to Introduce New Technologies to Your Students: The New School Year
Whether school’s been in session for a few weeks or you’re starting after Labor Day, now is the perfect time to introduce your students to technologies you want them to use throughout the school year.
2. Create a “Teacher,” “Student,” and “Parent” account to see how students and parents will see your posts. Experiment with different features in each of these accounts so you are ready to answer questions and get students and parents “unstuck.”
3. Don’t go it alone. Find another teacher in your building who is willing to take the plunge with you. You can support each other, learn from each other, and try new things.
Blau and Caspi learned two things: first, that in general students felt that collaborating with partners improved the quality of drafts. On the other hand, the students mostly felt that their edits improved other people’s drafts, whereas other people’s edits worsened their own drafts. Blau and Caspi posit that a sense of ownership of the draft was pedagogically useful–that students’ perceptions of the overall quality of their work increased as they felt responsible for it. As a consequence, they conclude that the best way to reap the benefits of collaboration and psychological ownership of writing is to have students make suggestions to one another’s drafts, but not to edit one another’s writing directly.
Because these students cannot fully portray their family’s finances, the amount of aid they receive may not fairly reflect their needs.
officials from the Department of Education, which issues it, said that applicants with two married mothers or fathers must fill out the Fafsa as if the couple were divorced.
For Children of Same-Sex Couples, a Student Aid Maze
federal policy needs to look beyond access to encompass student success and work for all students in the 21st century, including working adults, low-income students, first-generation students and students of color
federal government sought to promote equitable access to postsecondary education. This role continues to be critical on Capitol Hill, especially for low-income, minority and other underserved populations. ... This requires supporting innovative practices at institutions of higher education and other quality postsecondary education providers. ...Congress must help ensure that postsecondary education is affordable. ...most critically, federal policy must assure the quality of credentials in terms of student learning.
I think the most salient point is to create learning experiences that captivate students and are compelling so that they use the devices as a way to learn what they want to learn. It's about the i...
After four years at the charter school, eighth-graders showed average test score gains in math equal to an additional year and a half of school, compared with district students.
an extra half-year in science and almost an extra half-year in English
the charter has a lean administrative staff and slightly larger classes—31 students compared with an average of about 26 or 27 in district schools—so it can pour resources into teacher pay and training.
Teachers are observed by colleagues and get feedback weekly, and they have four weeks of full-day professional development each year.
Days are long, with teachers at work from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and students attending from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Many teachers don’t last. Of 43 hired during the four years studied, 47% didn’t return for a second year, in most cases because they weren’t asked back.
I wonder why - performance, or too much stress due to longer hours and out of work expectations? Regardless, this high turnover rate has got to impact the kids in the end.
Critics of charter schools say, among other complaints, that they drain money from regular public schools, skim talented students and nudge out disruptive ones.
Feed readers
are probably the most important digital tool for today's learner because they
make sifting through the amazing amount of content added to the Internet
easy. Also known as aggregators, feed readers are free tools that can
automatically check nearly any website for new content dozens of times a
day---saving ridiculous amounts of time and customizing learning experiences for
anyone.
Imagine
never having to go hunting for new information from your favorite sources
again. Learning goes from a frustrating search through thousands of
marginal links written by questionable characters to quickly browsing the
thoughts of writers that you trust, respect and enjoy.
Feed readers can
quickly and easily support blogging in the classroom, allowing teachers to
provide students with ready access to age-appropriate sites of interest that are
connected to the curriculum. By collecting sites in advance and organizing
them with a feed reader, teachers can make accessing information manageable for
their students.
Here are several
examples of feed readers in action:
Used specifically as
a part of one classroom project, this feed list contains information related to
global warming that students can use as a starting point for individual
research.
While there are literally dozens of different feed reader
programs to choose from (Bloglines andGoogle Reader are two
biggies), Pageflakes is a favorite of
many educators because it has a visual layout that is easy to read and
interesting to look at. It is also free and web-based. That
means that users can check accounts from any computer with an Internet
connection. Finally, Pageflakes makes it quick and easy to add new
websites to a growing feed list—and to get rid of any websites that users are no
longer interested in.
What's even
better: Pageflakes has been developinga teacher version of their tooljust for us that includes an online grade tracker,
a task list and a built in writing tutor. As Pageflakes works to perfect
its teacher product, this might become one of the first kid-friendly feed
readers on the market. Teacher Pageflakes users can actually blog and create a
discussion forum directly in their feed reader---making an all-in-one digital
home for students.
For more
information about the teacher version of Pageflakes, check out this
review:
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.
the students realize that there is a tangible effect if they do not do their work.
Another, very quantifiable, way of discerning and holding students accountable for what they accomplish during group writing/projects is using Google Drive to track participation.
The rooms are part of a larger faculty development program intended to promote active learning techniques and cut down on lecturing
university is researching whether teaching at-risk students -- those withdrawing from or earning a D or F in a basic math course -- in the classrooms could improve academic outcomes and, eventually, graduation rates.
Pavlechko described the two spaces as “intake classrooms” -- faculty members who work in the development program are required to teach in them for two semesters. By the end of this academic year, the classrooms will have hosted 68 faculty members representing 29 of the university’s 48 departments and more than 3,500 students.
How do we set ourselves apart? In our case, by the development of these interactive learning space classrooms, we are demonstrating to everyone that we are committed to the concept of faculty development.”
researchers found at-risk students who took the course in classrooms that promoted active learning (which included some rooms other than the renovated ones) were 2.8 times more likely to succeed -- that is, to earn a grade higher than a D -- than students in traditional classrooms.
The company has surveyed hundreds of students and faculty members at the universities it has worked with, and says it has found a statistically significant correlation between classroom configuration and student engagement. The survey doesn't include any academic results.
“We actually found a fairly moderate to strong correlation between what they think of these areas and if they think they have the ability to get a higher grade -- or their motivation to attend class and also their engagement in class,”
“Perception-wise, students are telling us ‘I can do better when I’m in these spaces,’ ” Jones said. “Maybe that’s enough of a win?”
We contend that student writers will see greater value in peer response if they develop tools that allow them to participate more actively in the feedback process. With teaching suggestions like those above, writers can learn how to re-flect on their experiences with peer response. They can also learn to identify their needs as writers and how to ask questions that will solicit the feedback they need.
We like to limit each mock session to no more than seven minutes of back and forth between respondent and writer.
This becomes a teachable moment. When the respondent asks for assistance from the class, this break in the session becomes an opportunity for the class to assist the writer and the respondent. The writer appears stuck, not knowing what to ask. And the respondent appears perplexed, too.
we follow Carl Anderson’s suggestion to teach students how to ask questions about their writing through role-playing.
dynamic list that students freely update throughout the semester on the class classro
organize the questions within categories such as tone, content, evidence-based support, style, and logistics
The end result is a robust list of questions for writers to ask of their respondents.
in-class discussion about effective and less effective questions for writers
raft three to five questions they have about the assignment to ask of their peers as they prepare to write or revise their assignment. When appropriate, we can direct our students to the course text, where there are
: pointing, summarizing, and reflecting
Students’ comments often point to their struggle to position themselves in peer response.
“What would it take for you to be in-vested as writers in peer response?” Students’ typical responses include the following:>“I need to know what to ask.” >“I don’t know what to ask about my writing, except for things like punctua-tion and grammar.”>“Does the person reading my work really know what the assignment is? Bet-ter than I do?”>“I’m not really sure if I’m supposed to talk or ask questions when someone is giving me feedback about my work, so I don’t really do anything. They write stuff on my paper. Sometimes I read it if I can, but I don’t really know what to do with it.”
it is important to offer activities to ensure that both respondents and writers are able to articulate a clear purpose of what they are trying to accomplish. These activities, guided by the pedagogies used to prepare writing center consultants
devote more attention to the respondent than to the writer, we may unwit-tingly be encouraging writers to be bystanders, rather than active participants, in the response process.
, “Feedback: What Works for You and How Do You Get It?”
highlight the value of both giving and getting feedback:In 56 pages near the end of this book, we’ve explained all the good methods we know for getting feedback from classmates on your writing. . . . The ability to give responses to your classmates’ writing and to get their responses to your own writing may be the most important thing you learn from this book. (B
we question whether textbooks provide emergent writers with enough tools or explicit models to engage actively in peer response conversations.
While such questions are helpful to emerging writers, who depend on modeling, they lack explanation about what makes them “helpful” questions. As a result, emerging writers may perceive them as a prescriptive set of questions that must be answered (or worse, a set of questions to be “given over” to a respondent), rather than what they are intended to be: questions that could advance the writer’s thoughts and agenda.
this information is limited to the instructor’s manual
llustrates the difference be-tween vague and helpful questions, pointing out that helpful questions
You will need to train students to ask good questions, which will help reviewers target their attention.Questions like “How can I make this draft better?” “What grade do you think this will get?” and “What did you think?” are not helpful, as they are vague and don’t reflect anything about the writer’s own thoughts. Questions like “Am I getting off topic in the introduction when I talk about walking my sister to the corner on her first day of school?” or “Does my tone on page 3 seem harsh? I’m trying to be fair to the people who disagree with the decision I’m describing” help readers understand the writer’s purpose and will set up good conversations. (Harrington 14, emphasis added
uestions” when soliciting feedback (like the advice we found in many textbooks), she also provides explicit examples for doing so
he most explicit advice for writers about ask-ing questions and, in effect, setting up good conversations is buried in an instruc-tor’s manual for The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing. In thi
“Getting Response” chapter later in the book, they will benefit from the textbook authors’ instructions that they should in fact use questions that will help them solicit their feedback
dependent on what parts of the textbook they choose to read
point writers to a specific set of questions that they should ask of their respondents. Such instructions take a notable step toward shifting the locus of control from the respondent to helping writers engage their peers in conversation.
there is no mention that writers might use them for purposes of soliciting feedback.
we see an opportunity for modeling that is not fully realized.
we argue that Faigley offers respondents specific examples that empower them to actively engage the process and give feedback. We contend that emergent writers need a similar level of instruction if they are to be agents in response.
textbook authors offer few examples for how to get specific feedback
Peter Elbow and Pat Belanoff ’s first edition of A Community of Writers published in 1995, in which eleven “Sharing and Responding” techniques, d
we worked to understand how textbooks highlight the writer’s role in peer response.
We wanted to know what books tell writers about asking questions
lthough we do not discount the importance of teaching respondents how to give feedback, we argue that writers must also be taught how to request the feedback they desire.
teachers and administrators had designed a curriculum that suggests this school invests heavily in ensuring all students have access to effective instruction and individualized help
Finland invests 30 times more funds in the professional development of teachers and administrators than in evaluating the performance of students and schools, including testing. In testing-intensive education systems, this ratio is the opposite, with the majority of funding going to evaluation and standardized testing
Finnish schools use two strategies to enhance equity in schooling: (1) school-based curricula that give teachers and administrators the power to define values, purpose and overall educational goals for their school; and (2) emphasis on and access to professional development to help schools reach these goals.
all children, regardless of family background or personal conditions, have a good school in their community. Because Finnish educators and policymakers believe schools can change the course of children’s lives, these schools must address the health, nutrition, well-being and happiness of all children in a systematic and equitable manner
research demonstrates that investing as early as possible in high-quality education for all students and directing additional resources toward the most disadvantaged students as early as possible produces the greatest positive effect on overall academic performance
Standardized testing that compares individuals to statistical averages, competition that leaves weaker students behind and merit-based pay for teachers jeopardize schools’ efforts to enhance equity. None of these factors exists in Finland
I like the idea of concentrating on one thing -- let the kids know what I'm looking for during the week. Eg. on the board it could say "conference focus"
Gradual Release of Responsibility: Student learns to do heavy lifting
Ask another adult to give feedback.
defeated. Here you will find 20 ideas and techniques on how to give effective learning feedback that will leave your students with the feeling they can
In a review of educational research published by SAGE Journals in July, Singer and University of Maryland professor Patricia Alexander discovered that readers may not comprehend complex or lengthy material as well when they view it digitally as when they read it on paper. While they concluded with a call for more research, the pair wrote, “It is fair to say that reading digitally is part and parcel of living and learning in the 21st century … No matter how complex the question of reading across mediums may be, teachers and students must understand how and when to employ a digital reading device.”
In an interview with “Inside Digital Learning,” Singer confirmed, “Digital devices aren’t going anywhere. This no longer is a question of, ‘Will the digital device be in your classroom?’ but ‘What do we know about the digital device, and how can we make this equal to print?’”
For example, she said instructors should take the time to show students how to annotate a PDF and make them aware that most people read more quickly on a screen than in print and therefore could lose some comprehension. She also suggested that teachers ask students to answer, in one sentence, what the overall point of the text was every time they read a chapter or an article online.
“Sometimes students only need to get the main idea,” Singer said, “and then digital is just as good as print and a lot quicker … But if you want deep comprehension and synthesis of the material, have the students print it out and navigate the material that way. Think about what you want students to get out of a lesson” before assigning a printed or digital reading.
Donovan added, “I do agree that we’ve got to figure this out … because it isn’t going away, for sure, for lots of reasons: accessibility, cost, sustainability. We have to figure out how we can support students in comprehending from this format.”
But he said he believes “we can still get as much meaning out of digital text. We just haven’t found the right transitions to do what we actually do with a physical book, with digital text … We haven’t found the digital equivalent of interacting with text. We haven’t really trained people to do that.”
by Marc Prensky Our children today are being socialized in a way that is vastly different from their parents. The
numbers are overwhelming: over 10,000 hours playing videogames, over 200,000 emails and
instant messages sent and received; over 10,000 hours talking on digital cell phones; over 20,000
hours watching TV (a high percentage fast speed MTV), over 500,000 commercials seen-all
before the kids leave college. And, maybe, at the very most, 5,000 hours of book reading. These
are today's ―Digital Native‖ students.
1
In Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Part I, I discussed how the differences between our Digital
Native students and their Digital Immigrant teachers lie at the root of a great many of today's
educational problems. I suggested that Digital Natives' brains are likely physically different as a
result of the digital input they received growing up. And I submitted that learning via digital
games is one good way to reach Digital Natives in their ―native language.‖
Here I present evidence for why I think this is so. It comes from neurobiology, social psychology, and from studies done on children using games for learning.
by Marc Prensky Our children today are being socialized in a way that is vastly different from their parents. The
numbers are overwhelming: over 10,000 hours playing videogames, over 200,000 emails and
instant messages sent and received; over 10,000 hours talking on digital cell phones; over 20,000
hours watching TV (a high percentage fast speed MTV), over 500,000 commercials seen-all
before the kids leave college. And, maybe, at the very most, 5,000 hours of book reading. These
are today's ―Digital Native‖ students.
1
In Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Part I, I discussed how the differences between our Digital
Native students and their Digital Immigrant teachers lie at the root of a great many of today's
educational problems. I suggested that Digital Natives' brains are likely physically different as a
result of the digital input they received growing up. And I submitted that learning via digital
games is one good way to reach Digital Natives in their ―native language.‖
Here I present evidence for why I think this is so. It comes from neurobiology, social psychology, and from studies done on children using games for learning.
Hi.
I wrote a paper about digital natives as part of an anthropology assignment for a doctoral course. Researchers from around the world have empirically proven that Prensky's theories are false. Additionally, while neuroscience has shown that brains do change as a result of neuroplasticity, to argue that it is generational is also a false claim.
Though cognitive theory shows that learners bring their prior experiences to the interpretation of new educational opportunities - impacting attention and interpretation - all generations have had this occur. There is merit to the point that we should take learner's prior experience into consideration when designing instruction; however, Prensky's digital native claims may have done more to create tension between students and teachers than to provide instructional support.
If you would like any of the scholarly studies, I have a published reference list at http://brholland.com/reference-list.
Beth
Well-written commentary for anyone interested in the impact of Common Core Standards. "What's Wrong With the Common-Standards Project" "We need rigorous but basic academics, homing in on skills that will be used, and not short-shrifting the "soft skill" behaviors that lead to success in college and careers. The management guru Peter Drucker got it right: "The result of a school is a student who has learned something and puts it to work 10 years later."
