MEd Program Diigo Group

This article details an instructional model called Interactive Learning (IL), which contains ten best practices for educators to follow that must be implemented in all lessons. Using these practices can help student achievement tremendously, as evidenced by the example school, which doubled student achievement in three years using these practices.

This is a informative article about 10 strategies for engaging underperforming students. Since my SMART goal is all about giving additional resources for success to my lowest performing students (students who previously took Biology I) this fits perfectly. This will help me create a plan to reach out and engage each student and write up resources for each of them.

I think these ideas have come a long way and are being implemented in many classrooms. This seems like a norm for my school or even my classroom. Although, I say that and I think it is hard to incorporate all components every day. Especially when I think of student movement. I think this is an excellent article to pinpoint instructional strategies.

Instructional gap between black and white students and suggestions to reduce the achievement gap.

I have a problem with these comparisons, because what are we comparing? Suburban White children with Inner City Black children? I would rather see what differences occur within the same socio-economic range. Then we can discuss what the differences are and how to decrease the gap. Otherwise it's apples to oranges.

An informative and engaging article that provides eight solutions to tackling the achievement gap.  It is well organized and written with clear reasoning for each solution.

I really enjoyed this article. As a new instructor I am constantly looking to engage my adult students. Through my instruction, making that personal connection is so important. Once you make that personal connection I find that students start making a personal connection with their assignments as well. I find having a non-academic conversation at the beginning of class can help the students feel involved classroom citizens.

This article really gives great advice on how teachers can help close the achievement gap by changing small things they do in the classroom. The two things that stuck out to me was allowing more time and progress monitoring. Sometimes time is all a student needs to succeed. When students feel rushed they end up just picking whatever answer they think is right or just something to complete the assignment. Allowing students to return to their unfinished work could really help students concentrate knowing that they don't have to rush to finish an assignment. As far as progress monitoring goes, it helps when the teacher really cares about making sure the students are on the right track and that their parents are aware of the work they have completed or would need to complete to get them on track.

This program allows the user to trim You Tube videos and insert a question for students as they watch, to check for understanding.  An innovative way to monitor input processing and output production in second language learners, and also with all learners, depending on the content of video selected. EDpuzzle would work well with a flipped classroom, too, as the video "lesson" could be completed at home.

Thank you so much for this resource! I am definitely going to use this in all of my classes moving forward!

Wow! If you have not taken a look at this yet, please do so now! This website is an asset to any instructor!

This KQED blog post provides information on current and past research that indicates how important movement and the use of our bodies are to learning. This research is called "embodied learning". The discussion on highly decorated classrooms is worth further exploration. This would be another great article for a text-based discussion in a PLC. The math and physics examples can be adapted for other content areas for use as instructional strategies.

(Week 9: Benjamin, Cheney, and Gretchen) This article is accessible through the link provided above. The main focus of this article is to inform educators of the positive effects movement can have on student learning. This article provides a series of studies where students were presented with different problems, mostly math, and encouraged to represent the problems with movement. Students who used physical movement to represent and solve mathematical problems demonstrated higher levels of success than their age-related peers who simply solved by reading a problem to themselves or aloud. This article is useful for all members of my team as it suggests methods for adapting physical movement to all content areas. Within this article it is suggested ""When students use their bodies in the learning process, it can have a big effect, even if it seems silly or unconnected to the learning goal at hand" (Schwartz, 2015). I think most teachers can find reassurance from this research-based article knowing that the implementation of movement doesn't have to fit directly with curriculum unit. The teachers within my specific team can use the practice of movement as an alternative method for instructing desired skills such as decoding strategies for reading or identifying/constructing numbers in base ten. Reference Schwartz, K. (2015, March 26). Why kids need to move, touch, and experience to learn. Retrieved from https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39684/why-kids-need-to-move-touch-and-experience-to-learn

"Eighth-grade students in Rich Richardson's class at the Expeditionary Learning Middle School in Syracuse, NY, offer feedback to their peers in preparation for revising their writing. The praise, question, suggestion protocol helps students see the strengths of their work and consider questions and suggestions that will lead to revision and improvement."

My Smart goal is 80% of students will reach level K in reading (lowest grade-appropriate reading level for second grade) by the beginning of the December. Even though this strategy was used in writing, I believe it could be used for reading as well. The students in my class have reading partners they work with very closely. They could read and show how they are using comprehension strategies and their partner could use the protocol praise, question, and suggestion. Using the planning protocol rubric, it is clear this strategy would be highly effective in the classroom and could be aligned to the content standards. There isn't a high technology element, but it could be adjusted to include a technology portion.

Ericka Posey smart goal: By the end of April, 80% of the 10th grade LSN Government students will be able to analyze political cartoons and write accurate BCRs with 75% accuracy for historical content and meaning. The planning protocol rubric has 7 dimensions if I had to devise which of these dimensions it would be rigor or relevance or student engagement both with a level of 3. I believe that if students peer read each other's written papers they can gain insight on what is incorrect with their peers papers and how they can improve their own writing. Student can find two point to praise on their partner's paper, two question to bring forth inquiry and analysis, 2 suggestions for their partners written works in which the students are building critical thinking and analysis skills to help them analyze political cartoons and writing BCRs.

This protocol helps students share their opinions by asking them to line up along a continuum based on their position on an issue.

Ericka Posey's Smart Target Learning Goal: By the end of April, 80% of the 10th grade LSN Government students will be able to analyze political cartoons and write accurate BCRs with 75% accuracy for historical content and meaning. This activity will assist my students achieve the goal as it gives students a verbal prompt, gives them a chance to analyze that prompt, take a stand and defend that stance with strong examples. The same skills used in the Take a Stand will assist my students in analyzing a political cartoon, take a stand on the written prompt and defend that prompt with evidence from the political cartoon. The only difference is in the Take A Stand everything is done verbally and in the analysis of the political cartoon and BCR is a written assignment.

My chosen dimension is student engagement, I would consider this activity to be highly engaged with a rating of 4 because of its participation requirement and discussion method among all students. The discussion tactic in this video forces students to share their various perspectives in an open environment. Also, the students can easily see each other's choice before going into detail about why they made that choice. The students learn to value different perspectives and methods from their peers. This tactic works with our SMART goal because it emphasizes critical thinking proof to resolve a real problem. This tactic allows students to know that it is not about having one right answer to the problem, but discovering many strategies and reasons to solve the problem. Also I like that students must use retained information to evaluate their decision and the decision of their peers.

"a simple and fun way for all students to get a chance to move, think, talk, and learn from others. The teacher first has students model: stand back-to-back with a partner, listen to the question and think, turn face-to-face, taking turns speaking and listening, then turning back-to-back"

This video shows individuals how to use a technique called back to back and face to face. I could use this technique in my classroom for my SMART goals. This would give me a better understanding of my student's ability to hear the sounds of letters. For example, I can say a word like "cat"; then, they can use the back to back and face to face technique to tell each other the first sound they hear in "cat". This would also be a wonderful tool to use for reading comprehension and answering questions during a story.

My SMART goal is by the end of Marking Period 3, English Language Learner (ELL) students identified will be able to explain how to solve for an unknown number in an equation with at least 80% accuracy. The back-to-back and face-to-face strategy is an excellent method for allowing students appropriate wait time to think through their responses, as well as an opportunity to hear model responses from their peers. This might help students develop language skills needed for their mathematical explanations. This could be used during a lesson to have students explain how they would solve an equation with a missing number. Using the planning protocol rubric, this is an effective strategy to increase student engagement during a lesson. I would rate this strategy a four on the rubric because it consists of high engagement for most students. All students have an opportunity to share their thoughts and hear a response from a peer. Rather than calling on one or two students to respond, this is an equitable strategy which involves all learners in the classroom.

This page from EL Education offers a list of student-centered protocols and strategies, including detailed guides for each on how to use them with students.

My SMART Goal: By the end of the quarter, 80% of students will obtain a 60% or higher in Algebra 1. The dimension I choose to evaluate this resource with is Student Engagement. I believe that many students get distracted during lecture and worksheet practice because they are not fully engaged, therefore they do not receive adequate time to practice their skills. This resource provided me with many different activities that I could implement in my classroom to mix up note taking and worksheet practice. Also, many of the artifacts on my connecting gaps sheet referred to students lack of understanding of the word problem. I believe that an activity like the Tea Party could be used in my classroom for students to practice understanding what specific phrases mean to help them be more successful when solving and in turn improve their assessment performance. I also think that the Dance card protocol could be easily used to partner students together randomly and allow them to work on problems together. Many of the resources linked here however, have a direct English and Social Studies connection, therefore one of my group members who teaches Government could use many of these resources to have students work together to review their own independent work. Thanks for sharing this resource! Noelle :)

This article gives a brief overview of vocabulary development and then offers many different instructional strategies to teach vocabulary in the classroom. Strategies include interactive word walls, word mapping, and self-selected vocabulary among many others.

This article strongly correlates with my instructional focuses. After viewing the article, I was able to see the different levels of vocabulary comprehension as well as the interventions that can be used to assist and assess the student's levels of comprehension. This article is a great source for any reading/language arts educator.

Vocabulary plays a vital role in my class with ELL students. This resource contains criteria that will help monitor students vocabulary progress as well as give different strategies such as Self correction, Mapping, Graphic Morphemic Analysis, Interactive word Walls and more for ELL students and students with special needs. This resource aids my groups' SMART Target learning goals by providing strategies for comprehending academic vocabulary.

Week 7: The site provides a colorful, engaging environment for mastering math skills. You can sign up for an account or 30 day trail. Educators can sign up for full account benefits with (e.g. student progress tracking and reports; and an awards system for learners for completing certain goals). *Very good site for remedial students learning math and language arts. This site also includes a page in Language arts for 2nd to 10th graders.Practice math online with IXL. The site offers thousands of online math practice skills covering pre-K to high school, with questions that adapt to a student's individual proficiency.

I used to use IXL with my students for reinforcement, the only problem I had when using it was it locks students out after a specific number of questions. There was only so much practice for allotted topics which sometimes was not enough extra practice.

Free users I believe get 10 questions a day, but what I like most about this is that when a student gets a question wrong, it provides a pretty in depth explanation. Great resource.

This study focuses on the stages of literacy development in Kindergarten up to 8th graders. The author states how children's minds do not learn by taking mental pictures or by memorizing but by constructing mental images over time. It also includes resources to engage students in word study at various levels.

This resource explains how children from grades K-8 develop their knowledge of words/vocabulary. It explains how teachers can instruct in a way that meets each learner's needs by expanding from what they already know, adding new content, but not too much where the teacher frustrates the learner. This resource helps with my groups SMART Target Learning goals because it meets everyone's grade level (K-8), and focuses on reading skills.

Most teachers believe that students have a fear of word problems, but this article will have you second guessing that. The article will have teachers thinking that word problems should be used from the start of a lesson and not at the very end of a homework assignment. Students normally perform better on word problems then algebraic solving because they have context clues to help them solve the problem.

To sum up this article you can look at the following quote from it; And he warned that the tendency to wait before using word problems could exacerbate gaps for students who struggle with algebra early on, because they may not be exposed to many word problems at all. Students have a fear of word problems because they perceive that they are too hard before they even begin working on them. This combined with the gaps in the vocabulary knowledge are making word problems more difficult for them.

This is an article that explores the strategy of introducing word problems first during math instruction. As a math teacher, I tend to introduce concepts first then build up to applying those concepts to word problems. The strategy of introducing the word problems first acts to help students solve a problem using any method they are comfortable with, without getting bogged down with the math too soon and becoming unwillingly to solve it. This could address the SMART learning goal, by helping us to rethink the way in which students approach word problems.

Explicit, intensive, persistent instructionTo become good readers, most students require explicit, intensive, and persistent instruction.[1] In explicit comprehension strategy instruction, the teacher chooses strategies that are closely aligned with the text students are reading.

(Week 7: Adiatu, Julie, and Heather) This journal article was found by Adiatu on Diigo, and is accessible through the link given above by accessing readingrockets.org. The journal article is focused on elements of effective reading comprehension instruction. The authors of the article state that effective comprehension instruction is when students "are able to develop, control, and use a variety of comprehension strategies to ensure that they understand what they read." (readingrockets.org) The article discusses various instruction strategies that students can also use independently in their learning; for example - thinking aloud. This journal article is useful to teachers in that it provides useful information on how to select appropriate reading materials for students, and it suggests instruction practices that motivate students to read widely in order to reach higher literacy levels. This journal article is useful to our group because the teachers' artifacts are based on the reading comprehension and vocabulary gaps of their students, and they are currently implementing instruction techniques to achieve SMART learning goals. Reference: What is effective comprehension instruction? (2009, January 2). Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-effective-comprehension-instruction

Without comprehension, reading is a frustrating, pointless exercise in word calling. It is no exaggeration to say that how well students develop the ability to comprehend what they read has a profound effect on their entire lives.1 A major goal of reading comprehension instruction, therefore, is to help students develop the knowledge, skills, and experiences they must have if they are to become competent and enthusiastic readers.

(Week 8: Adiatu, Julie, and Heather) This journal article was found on Diigo by Heather, and is accessible through the link given above. The article was written by the Texas Education Agency, and explored a 1970 classroom study on a reading comprehension strategy taught by teachers where students had to complete an assignment by applying a specific skill mentioned by their teacher. Assessments showed the strategy did not enable comprehension. Following the 1970 study, cognitive scientists found that comprehension is not a skill application. Rather, comprehension is about constructing meaning, which involves interaction, strategy, and adaption. The article is useful to teachers because it suggests activities that teachers can use in the classroom to improve how students construct meaning. For example, having students think aloud as they read. This journal article is useful to our group because the teachers' artifacts are based on the reading comprehension and vocabulary gaps of their students, and the authors stress that teachers should strictly monitor the oral reading skills of students that are having reading comprehension difficulties. Reference What research tells us about reading, comprehension, and comprehension instruction. (2009, January 2). Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-research-tells-us-about-reading-comprehension-and-comprehension-instruction

Two prominent methods for closing achievement gaps are discussed in this article: 1. increase district control over teaching and curriculum, and "minimum standard of instruction", 2. using teacher teams to develop curriculum and teaching methods. Because district control leads to set curriculum, methods, and assessments across schools, progress is easily measured. However, talented and creative teachers tend to feel less valued as educators, and more like tools of implementation. This could cause less effectiveness for having to fit lessons within such a strict construct. Teacher teams, or Professional Learning Networks, empower teachers for contributing to development of effective lessons. Educators tend to enjoy this approach, since it is more natural to teaching and learning, though it is difficult to measure what is being learned. Under district control, the focus can be on research based interventions, where measurement relies on teachers not straying from the mandated processes. Alternatively, it can focus on teacher learning, which would output teachers with similar goals, but who can draw from their own experience and knowledge. Mountain High School in Pleasantville, California, was divided into "learning communities" of around 80 students. Teachers were to serve as advisors, regularly contact families, collaborate with colleagues, and ELL and Special education students were divided amongst the communities. The teacher lack of experience with PDs showed, as they were more focused on student problems rather than ways to improve instruction. Teachers were also not used to contacting parents outside of problematic situations. It was also necessary to provide accommodations that help struggling students to strengthen the lacking skills that are preventing further growth. The proposed methods seemed sound, though implementation in the case study, was still problematic. The lack of success was potentially due to lack of understanding of what compris

(Week 9: Amber, Angela, And Kenneth) This article is accessible through the link given by accessing Diigo. This article discusses two methods for closing the achievement gap due to teacher collaboration. The article discusses how teachers can collectively have discussion that may identify and address the structural issues that are built into the school system. Teachers can use this article to begin to understand how their instructional practices can be hampered by systematic inequalities. The idea of all of this is for these "Collaborations to require and build trust, routines and skills for further collaboration efforts. This also means that the collaborators will need training in order to help them talk about issues of teaching and learning and critique each other's practice (Levine and Marcus, 2007). This would be useful for our practicing teacher because (1) They teach in different districts so there will be some disparities, (2) critiquing each other can be more helpful and a great learning experience. References Levine, T. H., & Marcus, A. S. (2007). Closing the achievement gap through teacher collaboration: facilitating multiple trajectories of teacher learning. Journal Of Advanced Academics, 19(1), 116-138. From http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ786607.pdf

This article is a case study on how better teacher preparation for instruction and assessment of writing can lead to improved writing instruction.

(Week 4: Frances and Claudio) This article is accessible through the link given above. This article focus on teachers ability to improve their instruction skills by eliminating their weakness to overlook students needs by pretending the problem is non existent. It focus on the inconsistencies of teachers' techniques for class deliverance and the missed learning opportunities for students. The readings present that students are not always given the opportunities to write or be assessed in the context of classroom instruction by teachers who feel uneasy on how they deliver the class subject. Other areas of the article points out that students get low exposure to variety forms of writing and become in prepared when there is a change in writing format.(Graham & Perin, 2007; Hillocks, 2008). Through the SMART goal, Group#4 can utilize some of the examples by providing opportunities to students by offering different writing assignments that are more realistic to meet writing abilities of the students. Students will be more in line with the SMART goal if they are allowed to provide the feedback to the teacher once the assignment is complete so they can see their own improvements. Also, teachers can improve in the teaching efforts and will be able to provide the appropriate assignments to those students who extra help which will move the teachers' uneasiness about their preparation to teach and assess writing at different learning levels. Read, Sylvia and Landon-Hays, Melanie M. (2013) "The Knowing/Doing Gap: Challenges of Effective Writing Instruction in High School," Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 3. Available at: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/wte/vol2/iss2/3

It is impressive to watch critical thought happen in a classroom. Through this link you are able to watch a lesson that helps students build higher order thinking skills. This middle school literature lesson brings in the ELA Common Core by teaching how to analyze how a section in text fits into the overall theme and to cite textual evidence to support analysis of text. Through student-driven questioning, the entire class is engaged in critical thinking, analysis, and evaluation. This outstanding lesson was driven by the teacher as she required them to develop higher-level questions using Costa's question levels, verb starters, and Blooms Taxonomy. I have not used this technique of providing these questioning terms to my students to have the them develop the questions. I cannot wait to try this out next school year!

This video from the Teaching Chanel highlights ways and the importance of creating higher order questions in order to analyze and discuss a text. This would be a great resource for my Smart Goal of With my SMART goal: by the end of quarter 1, 60% of students will score a 70% or higher on the Quarter 1 Literacy Assessment. The Quarter 1 literacy assessment is on theme, standard RL 4.2. Having my students become "the teachers" of their own learning and create higher level questions can help them get a deeper understanding of the text and in turn, determine the theme.

"The Think-Pair-Share protocol is a simple way for all students to get a chance to think, talk, and learn from others. "

Think-pair-share is a great way to get students talking about information that is being taught. This is a great way to help students think about the topic that is being taught from a peer's point of view. Dimension: Student learning Rating: 2 This would work towards my fellow teammate's SMART goal,"By the end of quarter 1, 60% of students will score a 70% or higher on the Quarter 1 Literacy Assessment. This allows students to talk about what they are understanding about theme and gain new understandings.

SMART GOAL: Given 1 month of guided reading instruction, students in below grade-level reading groups will increase their reading level by at least one level. (Heather's goal) Dimension: Impact on Learning Impact: 4 Reason: Think-Pair-Share is a strategy where students have a discussion with a partner to solve a problem or answer a question posed by their teacher. After which, the students individually share their ideas/solutions with the entire class. I believe that this strategy will be useful in Heather's attempt in eliminating the reading comprehension gap in her class because asking varying levels of question encourages students to discuss new ideas that deepen their understanding. This strategy will also give Heather the opportunity to assess student understanding by monitoring their discussions. It also has the bonus factor of stimulating student engagement

The abstract included really says it all: "This reflective essay describes a teacher's development of a student-centered approach to teaching which bridges the gap between students' knowledge before and after a course. In 'mind the gap teaching,' students' prior knowledge leads the conversation and, in turn, the teaching, allowing them to integrate new information more effectively." The essay does a really great job of addressing the need for a lot of personal reflection as a teacher in an effort to improve instruction in the classroom.

I think this is a great article that shows the growth of a teacher throughout the years. The idea of calling the instructional gap between students knowledge as "mind the gap" speaks to the history nerd in me. I'd love to share this teachers journey with my fellow faculty members because we are making the switch in my school to a more student centered classroom, and we have a lot of skeptics. I think the section of benefits is the best, particularly the line about "the quality of comments" that students started sharing. It shows that the students are interested in what is going on in the classroom.

This article is a way to focus on student knowledge. Closing the gap between what is being taught and what is actually being retained by the students.