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ehayes38

A Note About Reading Levels - 0 views

  • reading levels are a valuable tool for teachers, and should not be used as a label for the children we teach, but rather should be used to make good decisions in instruction.
  • The goal is for teachers to learn about the characteristics of each level to inform their decisions in teaching—how they introduce a book, how they discuss a book, how they help children problem-solve as they process a book. 
  • A reading level is the result of complex analysis that children don’t (and shouldn’t have to) understand.
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  • The teacher’s knowledge of the child’s reading level allows them to gently guide and support the child’s choices, while also understanding that a child will experience a variety of levels of text throughout the day in different instructional contexts like interactive read-aloud, shared reading, book clubs, independent reading, and guided reading.  
  • Educators might share a book the child read at the beginning of the year, and a book that the child read later in the year, and some discussion of the text characteristics of each book so that parents can see that difficulty is increasing, as is proficiency.
  • Along with talking about a child’s independent and instructional reading levels, teachers can also talk about a child’s engagement with reading: how many books the child has read, what his tastes are, whether he is putting in a lot of effort or showing initiative.
  • helping families to see a complete picture of their child’s progress, beyond just a reading level.
  • cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, and ethnic diversity vitally enriches our classrooms and our lives, and that this should be reflected in and resonate throughout what we teach our students, how we teach them, and the books that they read in our classrooms.
  • We can only do this by creating and maintaining inclusive environments that recognize, honor, and leverage the strengths of all students.
Shelley Clifford

Teaching Multicultural Literature . Workshop 3 . Teaching Strategies . Fishbowl - 1 views

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    Get ready for Fishbowl Description Fishbowl is a strategy used not only in classrooms but also in business meetings and other settings where group dynamics are important. This technique allows for a richer discussion of any given topic, and it frequently helps build community by focusing attention on the ways that particular group might work together more productively.
Shelley Clifford

What Stanford's Startup Garage Teaches Us About Invention and Innovation - 1 views

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    experiential learning for multi-disciplinary teams
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    Shelley, this FC piece on the Stanford Startup Garage is awesome! I had not seen it, and I so appreciate you and Nicole helping my reading and learning and exploring via this chilipeppers group!
Jim Tiffin Jr

When Grading Harms Student Learning | Edutopia - 1 views

  • Is grading the focus, or is learning the focus?
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      A simple, straightforward reminder of what assessment is for.
  • Zeros do not reflect student learning. They reflect compliance.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      Exactly.
  • a deduction in points. Not only didn't this correct the behavior, but it also meant that behavioral issues were clouding the overall grade report. Instead of reflecting that students had learned, the grade served as an inaccurate reflection of the learning goal.
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  • Students should learn the responsibility of turning in work on time, but not at the cost of a grade that doesn't actually represent learning.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      I completely agree with this point. But admittedly, I still am not sure how it would work in practice... I totally realize that the grades we give as teachers are completely under the school's control - we can go back and change grades even after the course has ended if we need to. But at the core of my question is, "What is the leverage (if that is the right word) that we can use to help students learn that responsibility?" Sports and pulling privileges come to mind, but what else is there. I wonder what other teachers have used for this situation? 
  • Many of our assignments are "practice," assigned for students to build fluency and practice a content or skill. Students are often "coming to know" rather than truly knowing.
  • Practice assignments and homework can be assessed, but they shouldn't be graded.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      An excellent distinction!
  • we should formatively assess our students and give everyone access to the "photo album" of learning rather than a single "snapshot."
  • We've all been in a situation where grading piles up, and so we put the class on a task to make time for grading.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      Guilty :-(
  • Teaching and learning should take precedence over grading and entering grades into grade books. If educators are spending an inordinate amount of time grading rather than teaching and assessing students, then something needs to change.
  • Our work as educators is providing hope to our students. If I use zeros, points off for late work, and the like as tools for compliance, I don't create hope. Instead, I create fear of failure and anxiety in learning. If we truly want our classrooms to be places for hope, then our grading practices must align with that mission.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      +1!
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    A right-to-the-point article on how teacher grading practices can interfere with the learning philosophy of a classroom.
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    A right-to-the-point article on how teacher grading practices can interfere with the learning philosophy of a classroom.
Jim Tiffin Jr

9 Elephants in the (Class)Room That Should "Unsettle" Us | The Creativity Post - 0 views

  • there are a number of practices in our current systems of schooling that “unsettle” us, primarily because they don’t comport with what Seymour Papert calls our “stock of intuitive, empathic, common sense knowledge about learning.”
  • Yet we continue to focus our efforts primarily on content knowledge, as is evidenced by the focus of our assessments.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      Again, assessment is the most powerful lever for changing teacher practice.
  • in many cases, these practices are attempting to do “the wrong thing right” rather than “do the right thing” in the first place.
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  • the new contexts for modern learning forged by the networked world in which we now live are creating an imperative for new ways of thinking about our work in schools.
  • notes, “For more than 75 years, studies have consistently found that only a small fraction of what is learned in the classroom is retained even a year after learning.” That’s primarily because the curriculum and classroom work they experience has little or no relevance to students’ real lives.
  • The reality in K-12 schooling today is that the majority of what we assess, content, knowledge, and basic skills, is the easiest to assess, not the most important.
  • by the way, let’s stop pretending that we can solve the engagement problem by handing kids iPads or other technologies. Hand them more agency over their own learning instead.
  • When we look at the things that each of us has learned most deeply in our lives, the same certain conditions almost always apply: Among other things, we had an interest and a passion for the topic, we had a real, authentic purpose in learning it, we had agency and choice, deciding what, when, where, and with whom we learned it, and we had fun learning it even if some of it was “hard fun.”
  • But in the vast majority of curriculum driven schools, however, students sit and wait to be told what to learn, when to learn it, how to learn it, and how they’ll be assessed on it. Rarely do they get to choose, and just as rarely does the learning they do in class have any impact beyond the classroom walls.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      I especially like this last part about "impact beyond the classroom walls."
  • But what’s also notable about those practices is that we rarely want to discuss them aloud, content instead to let them hover silently in the background of our work.
  • It’s much more difficult to assess the literacies, skills, and dispositions that are required to succeed and lead a healthy, happy life, especially in a world where answers are everywhere via the technologies we carry in our pockets. In that world, creativity, curiosity, a change mindset, the ability to create, connect, and participate in networks…all of those are now required, yet few of those are currently assessed at all.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      This reminds me of the quote by Alvin Toffle: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
  • We need to stop training students for exams that computers can pass.”
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      **************DING DING DING DING****************** Winner!!! :-)
  • We know that grades, not learning, are the outcomes that students and parents are most interested in.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      This makes me so sad...
  • antidisciplinary thinking and doing
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      Curious what this means...
  • To quote Mitch Resnick* again,
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      More props from Mitch Resnick again. So many people here that have been square in the radar of Gary Stager, CMK, and MIT. Also, in order to open this PDF link from the post: (*Use the password "reviewer" to open the pdf.)
  • we know that much of what every student in 1894 was supposed to learn isn’t really what every student in 2015 needs to learn. Yet we seem loathe to mess with the recipe. And as Seymour Papert so famously asks, now that we have access to pretty much all there is to know, “what one-billionth of one percent” are we going to choose to teach in school?
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      More props to Seymour Papert in this article.
  • there is a strong argument building that we have reached “peak education” as we continue to do try to do the wrong thing right and get “wronger” in the process.
  • tacit knowledge and the ability to learn from others, in the moment, both face to face and in networks is vastly more important and effective.
  • Those that will flourish in the modern world will be those who can learn what they need to learn “just in time” from a variety of networks and sources and experiences.
  • put these unsettling truths front and center in our conversations about education
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      Who should be having these conversations?
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    An article that calls to mind many of the ideas discusses in David Perkins' 'Futurewise". The idea that sticks in my mind the most is after reading this article is: "It's not about just in case, it's about just in time" which is a reference to #9 A list of things that we don't really want to talk about in education. 1. We know that most of our students will forget most of the content that they "learn" in school. 2. We know that most of our students are bored and disengaged in school. 3. We know that deep, lasting learning requires conditions that schools and classrooms simply were not built for. 4. We know that we're not assessing many of the things that really matter for future success. 5. We know that grades, not learning, are the outcomes that students and parents are most interested in. 6. We know that curriculum is just a guess. 7. We know that separating learning into discrete subjects and time blocks is not the best way to prepare kids for the real world. 8. We know (I think) that the system of education as currently constructed is not adequately preparing kids for what follows if and when they graduate. 9. And finally, we know that learning that sticks is usually learned informally, that explicit knowledge accounts for very little of our success in most professions.
Nicole Martin

Examples of Formative Assessment - 0 views

    • Nicole Martin
       
      excellent list of formative assessment options- good to keep in mind during grade level planning
Jim Tiffin Jr

All You Need to Know About the 'Learning Styles' Myth, in Two Minutes | WIRED - 0 views

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    Article discussing the lack of evidence supporting this "urban legend" in education: learning styles. Suggest catering to learning styles of students may be doing more harm than good. Says the nature of the content being learned should dictate, along with the experience of the learner. Article includes many links to research, books, and other articles.
Bo Adams

American Schools Are Training Kids for a World That Doesn't Exist | WIRED - 0 views

  • We “learn,” and after this we “do.” We go to school and then we go to work. This approach does not map very well to personal and professional success in America today. Learning and doing have become inseparable in the face of conditions that invite us to discover.
  • In such conditions the futures of law, medicine, philosophy, engineering, and agriculture – with just about every other field – are to be rediscovered.
    • Bo Adams
       
      In this paragraph there are so many "project starters" that one could design an entire "curriculum" to weave them into an advanced problem solving component to school!
  • Americans need to learn how to discover.
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  • Against this arresting background, an exciting new kind of learning is taking place in America. Alternatively framed as maker classes, after-school innovation programs, and innovation prizes, these programs are frequently not framed as learning at all.
  • Failing to create a new way of learning adapted to contemporary circumstances might be a national disaster.
  • Discovery has always provoked interest, but how one discovers may today interest us even more.
  • in the course I teach, How to Create Things and Have Them Matter, students are asked to look, listen, and discover, using their own creative genius, while observing contemporary phenomena that matter today.
  • Learning by an original and personal process of discovery is a trend on many US university campuses
  • Success brings not just a good grade, or the financial reward of a prize. It brings the satisfaction that one can realize dreams, and thrive, in a world framed by major dramatic questions. And this fans the kind of passion that propels an innovator along a long creative career.
  • Culture labs conduct or invite experiments in art and design to explore contemporary questions that seem hard or even impossible to address in more conventional science and engineering labs.
  • The culture lab is the latest indication that learning is changing in America. It cannot happen too fast.
  • we need to get smarter in ways that match the challenges we now face.
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    "Our kids learn within a system of education devised for a world that increasingly does not exist." HT @MeghanCureton & Greg Todd Jones (two colleagues in significantly different worlds who sent me the link at exactly the same time.)
Jim Tiffin Jr

Innovation vs Circulasticity | EdCan Network - 0 views

  • Circulasticity. A combination of the words circular and elasticity, it is an organizational condition that generates contexts or situations in which high levels of activity are noted, but any discernible long-term change is not.
  • Because of the elasticity of circulasticity, “innovation” stretches the core environment, but is eventually brought back to the central traditional core and becomes more of an “improvement” than a change catalyst.
  • In my opinion, true innovation in education will only happen when a new structure is created: one that nurtures critical thinkers, supports risk-takers and encourages ongoing transformation, and that places a high value on creative and insightful learning / teaching in classrooms.
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  • As Martin Hays wrote in his analysis of organizational wisdom, “Organizational wisdom transcends organizational learning in its commitment to doing the right things over doing things right.”
  • At the current time, educational organizations are mired in structures that have significant “blind spots” for innovation or creativity. These blind spots are the structures themselves, since they were designed along an industrial model that favours uniformity and compliance and has no explicit place or mechanism for including creativity and innovation. Hence they simply don’t allow for innovation to be replicated or made systemic.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      Again, the industrial model spoils our work...
  • As John Kotter eloquently describes in his book Buy-In: Saving your good idea from getting shot down, there are four main change impediments that people use: 1) Fear Mongering, 2) Death by Delay, 3) Confusion, 4) Ridicule.[2] In education, these four elements can be translated into: 1) Need Research, 2) Need Results, 3) Need Support, 4) Need Financing. The irony is that even if all four parts of this requirement are met, it still doesn’t serve to create innovative practices.
  • Where everything seems to bog down is in the implementation component.
  • What we need is a work environment that openly values creativity, risk-taking and courage; its lack remains the single greatest impediment to innovation in education.
  • And so, innovation, as traditionally defined, remains more of an elusive objective in education than an emerging reality. We debate the issue; we define the issue; and we design the issue. But moving the innovation agenda forward is an entirely different issue.
  • “The quality of a question is not judged by its complexity but by the complexity of the thinking that it provokes.”
  • True transformation will ultimately have to begin with a courageous act from an individual or individuals to enact the deep structural changes that are so needed.
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    "Circulasticity. A combination of the words circular and elasticity, it is an organizational condition that generates contexts or situations in which high levels of activity are noted, but any discernible long-term change is not."
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