EBTL2

I heard this on the way to soccer this morning. It speaks to the idea of "fake writing days" that create for the sake of data. - Steve. "Want to do well on the essay portion of the SAT? Just make it up! Scott Simon speaks to English professor Anne Ruggles Gere of the University of Michigan who says that the college entrance exam is turning out a generation of bad writers who are fast and loose with the facts."

George Couros is a MUST follow on Twitter. I really like this post he wrote. It covers new v. experiences teachers, tech integration, parents, and "listening to the nay-sayer". It's a good (and quick) read.

Loved #3, the demographics of our cohort is proof of the debunking of that assumption. My colleague PB and I are two of the oldest teachers at our school and we, along with our team members, are considered leaders in tech integration. I agree it is all about mindset, not age.

I agree with you, John. I went to MassCue on Thursday and noticed that the majority of the teachers there were veteran teachers. I think that years of experience give teachers the necessary understanding and confidence it takes to create change. Veteran teachers in our school also see and value the great ideas of newer teachers and work with them to make teaching better for all students.

Latest results released by the National Center for Education Statistics. Massachusetts is #1 in science and math again! Amid growing alarm over the slipping international competitiveness of American students, a report comparing math and science test scores of eighth graders in individual states to those in other countries has found that a majority outperformed the international average.

How to break through what seems like opposition or apathy. Decent advice. Not fool-proof, but not bad at all. "It's easy to say that students lie to teachers all the time. Frankly, everyone, including teachers, has a lie in them, and these untruths keep the schooling process rolling along. When adults say, for instance, that they develop rules with the students, chances are that students often develop rules that teachers already thought of anyway."

Kathy Favazza sent this site out to our staff at Parker. This is the email message: At the PARCC and CCSS trainings that I attended in Chicago I learned of an amazing tool. It's called Newsela. It is a website that takes articles in various topics: War & Peace, Money, Kids, Science and Law and links them to the anchor literacy standards that we all need to address in our subjects. You can set up classes and assign articles for students to read. Some articles have text based follow up questions (those with a small anchor in the top right) that you can assign to students. The coolest feature however is that you can adjust the reading level of the articles!!!!

I've played with this site and it is awesome. You can adjust the reading level of the texts. It has built in assessments like main idea. I highly recommend this resource for grades 4 through middle school.

The "Motherlode" blog in the NY Times always fascinates me and the youth sport culture in suburban communities intrigues me as well. Full disclosure-both of my children have played youth sports! I am so glad that I am not a kid today-between seeing every party and gathering that I am not invited to online to the competitive sports programs that are such a part of our community's culture-I am glad that my childhood was different.

Is it wrong if I agree with all of the points in this article? If you substituted orchestra or chorus or theater for sports in this would this still be an issue?

This makes the case that music helps "collaboration, creativity, discipline and the capacity to reconcile conflicting ideas." Interesting. I'm thinking you could say the same thing about sports.

Some free apps that look great and easy to use. I think our elementary students might like to try them out. I just wish they were all free.

Useful information on measuring student growth. (Pre/Post, Repeated Measures, Holistic, Post Only)

Thank you for sharing this, Steve. I found it very useful and I'm going to pass it on to the other 6th grade ELA and special education teachers. This guide works well with our focus for the in-service day on Tuesday. We decided that our focus during the morning sessions was going to be on scoring samples of student work to make sure there is consistency among how we are scoring, and then use the second block to determine anchor papers that represent different levels of achievement. As a special education teacher, I was initially apprehensive about this process of DDMs. This was addressed in the guide, as many teachers who teach students with learning differences are concerned about being evaluated on student performance. However, if the DDMs truly look at student progress, based on where they started, and keep it focused on the individual's growth, then I do believe that it will be a more equitable measure for assessing teachers. One question that still remains is what accommodations are allowed when administering DDMs. In sixth grade there were questions about whether it was strictly MCAS accommodations, or whether we were allowed to read the articles to the students since we were measuring writing. It's something that still needs to be worked out in this pilot year. Thanks again for making this available for others to use.

Among the many interesting things here is an experiment on the effectiveness of flipping a class. Food for thought.

We've all experienced difficult student behaviors in our classrooms; at least some of it seems to go with the territory. But it's important for us to try to understand why our students may be acting the way they are and try to meet them where they are. I used some of these approaches in my classroom, and what I discovered led me to use 1:1 iPad technology to help differentiate for my students and meet them where they are educationally. This article has some very helpful, practical approaches to functional behavioral assessment.

Thanks for sharing this. I like language, checklists, forms, etc that can change our team meetings in middle school from endlessly perseverating on one child to no avail to actually creating an action plan.

Hi Annemarie. This is very helpful for me, as "special education" strategies are a big gap in my learning, although these seem like the mainstream would also benefit. I find this really good for classroom management and for setting a welcoming vibe. As a specialist, I'm often having to create buy-in with near strangers because I'm assisting a class. While I'm positive and empathetic by nature, here are some concrete things that I can do to make sure I don't lose students along the way.

This is an interesting page by Kathy Schrock which includes charts detailing iPad apps and Android apps that support Bloom's Taxonomy.

Jan, I really like the way she has organized all of this information so visually. It really helps me connect Bloom's Taxonomy to technology in a way that makes so much sense. Great reinforcement of the idea that we're using technology as a tool to help us achieve these aims, rather than as an end in itself.

Hi Jan--I totally agree, this is a great resource. Kathy Schrock has been very influential in my teaching. Also, Bloom's T is why I love teaching research---finding, evaluating, using, synthesizing. All verbs, mind you. Web 3.0 is all about verbs. Flip research right and you hit jackpot in terms of who owns the learning. I'm creating a h.s. research elective that is all about passion based learning and sharing the love. I hope you will look at it as I progress---I would love feedback from you and Annemarie. '

I stumbled across this article and I had flashbacks to "The World is Flat" and the need for today's students to think globally. I am always curious about other country's perspectives on education. I also found his remarks about his son's educational opportunities interesting.

I stumbled across this article and I had flashbacks to "The World is Flat" and the need for today's students to think globally. I always curious about other country's perspectives on education. I also found his remarks about his son's educational opportunities interesting.

This is so well written and so well explained that I feel like I want to drop everything I'm doing today and share it with my students

Steve, I'm so glad you came across this, and shared it. I especially love the Nonfiction sentence frames that can be used in the classroom. It gives the kids a structured start to looking at the language used in nonfiction writing. I also like how the article writes about empowering the reader through being able to discern the point of view and bias that may be present. It reinforces the message that just because something is in print, doesn't mean that it's true, and also forces students to interact with the text not only to make meaning, but to truly understand the purpose behind what they're reading.

You said it bro. Uncovering bias is a very sophisticated skill, probably the hardest to teach because bias can be so subtle. My 9th graders will love this. Thanks for sharing.

I started using Vine late last year to post videos of our students doing great things. (Reading to first graders, working together at field day, encouraging one another during a Smart Board review game, etc.) This Edutopia blog post gives TONS of links to really great ideas for using Vine with kids as a way to assess their understanding. Some of them are really funny and insightful. I know there is some nasty stuff out there on Vine and Instagram, but if we teachers don't show kids how to use these social media outlets in a positive way, who will? Right? I think I might give some of these ideas a shot.

Thanks, Kerry. I haven't used Vine before, though I've seen it used. I'm definitely interested in trying it out this year. It's amazing how creative some people can be in six seconds! Taylor and I recently started using Instagram to post what's going on in our classrooms. We are loving it so far. It's something that the kids are on anyway, so the interest is there. They love going on to "like" pictures of themselves and their peers, and even "like" the picture Taylor posts of the homework board! It's also a fast and easy way to keep parents informed about what's going on in the classroom on a daily basis. I also love that even though we're only in October, it's a photo log of the many things that we've done already this year. I look forward to giving the video capabilities a try.

This is the October series of webinars from the Connected Learning Community. The first webinar, "Mobile learning: turning place into a learning space," took place today and the full recording of it is available at this url.

If you loved xtranormal, here is a similar app. We used this to get ready for our 3rd/4th grade assembly this Friday.

I was so sad to learn that Xtranormal closed that part of their business. It was easy to use, and free for educators. Thanks for the suggestion of Tellagami! I tried it, and really liked it. It has a record option as well as a text-to-speech option. I wish there was a child avatar, maybe I'll send that along as a suggestion!

This is a commentary on American culture in general, but educators should take it to heart.