OLLIE Iowa

Let students make choices.

The more meaningful an activity is to the person engaging in it, the more likely he or she will be motivated to continue doing it.

When you want to give students choice, it is often optimal to give them a limited number of options, but be as flexible as possible

Almost all teachers find it emotionally fulfilling and personally energizing when students begin to succeed, especially where they have previously failed.

Teachers must identify the big ideas in their content area, establish essential questions to guide the students toward these ideas, determine what students will need to know and be able to do to thoroughly understand the ideas, then create appropriate tools to assess whether the students are learning what they need to know. Classroom assessments for personalized teaching are always varied, ongoing, and carefully designed to give the teacher useful information from multiple perspectives. Collectively, the measures provide feedback on where students still have misconceptions, where they are learning and applying skills, and where they are recalling and using information effectively.

21st century learning coach

Students are more motivated to do projects than they would have been before

And maybe there’s a failure

less work and effort

giving them ownership and responsibility for their own learning.

Here are five lessons I have learned that have helped me take my classroom from a traditional sage-on-the-stage affair to a tech-assisted personalized learning haven.

I decided to “release” one piece of the assignment at a time in an effort to control students’ pathway through the material.

I realized there was more to creating blended lessons than simply adding technology.

This transformation is still in its early stages, but it is definitely evolving toward that goal.

hat choice is not necessarily a cure-all for lack luster motivation

have control tend to be more motivated

too difficult or too easy

Giving students a short list of topics with an option to create their own topic, with the teacher’s approval, often works well.

hem a sense of control and may allow them to regulate the difficulty of the task.

Low motivation does not need to be a recurring problem in the classroom

well-designed choices

Changing an American Institution(NASSP, 1996)

This is not a method, but an art and a talent.

that practice collaborative leadership within design teams, best practices teams, small learning communities,

personalized teaching is not an isolated, or isolating, phenomenon

assess their effects, to adjust the approach, and time to assess again”

student-centered learning environment in which teachers become facilitators, mentors, and coaches, and students become active learners, engaged in cooperative learning, peer tutoring, role-playing, labs, and debates. Movement, imagery, hands-on activity and social interaction become basic instructional strategies.

4WH framework

It is the purposeful design of instruction to combine face-to-face teaching, technology-assisted instruction and collaboration to leverage each student’s learning style and interests for deeper learning.

choice can also, surprisingly, come into play in relation to discipline

rubric,

You really have to be on top of things to allow the students choice

my students acknowledge that they feel better prepared for college or jobs because of our use of collaborative technology.

students who appear unmotivated and apathetic

make their own decisions

project portfolio

typical story unit

You have to have a principal who understands that when he walks into a room and it’s not silent, it’s okay. And luckily we have that—a principal that supports innovative learning.

Ms. Moore understands the reluctance of many other teachers of early grade students to employ this method because it requires “unlearning” many of the lessons of traditional teacher-preparation programs. She must, she says, continually resist the temptation to lead her students through lessons.

During this first instructional phase, noise and activity levels sometimes reach eardrum-piercing levels and

Most teachers know the classroom is the perfect place for children to play, but opportunities to provide those benefits are on the decline. Reduced recess, cuts to physical education

tudents who miss time to play miss opportunities to let their minds soar and connect the dots between what they do at their desks and what surrounds them in the world

But when you're staring out at 20 or 30 students as individual as snowflakes, you may find yourself asking that ever-daunting question: "How?"

when she answers students’ questions straightforwardly instead of asking questions to help the students find the answers themselves, she’s actually interfering with the learning process.

encouraging and allowing students to discover fundamental principles on their own.

free play is how children learn about themselves and the world around them. And, if they’re not playing, they’re not learning in all the ways that count most.

A simple take-home survey can give you quick insights about a child's hobbies, interests, strengths, or struggles. Arts and electives teachers in your school could offer insight on certain students, as well.

If you add and master just one at a time, refining the best techniques as you go, eventually you'll have a big arsenal.

Thinking Maps, which help children categorize information in visually coherent ways

Share planning duties with a fellow teacher

assigns each student a role within the group

a unique item of jewelry

when I supply an answer or even suggest a method for finding an answer, I’m not truly helping.”

“Kids are not blank slates.”

in their hearts they may not believe it.

“The first thing we do is begin an ‘I see — I wonder’ exercise,

Plan assignments with choices.

her trust in the inquiry process is tested, when she must practice patience and restraint.

Thinking Maps, she explains, help students gain control of the process by offering them eight distinct ways to organize their inquiries

“I introduce one Thinking Map per week during the first eight weeks

Play is, after all, the way children are wired to learn, especially in the preschool and kindergarten years.

guided play is a good alternative.

each procedure needs to be practiced 28 times to stick. When you introduce a new activity, such as independently listening to an audio book, give students enough practice to become adept at it

Communicates with students effectively and consistently

an online social presence that is available, approachable, positive, interactive, and sincere

Has experienced online learning from the perspective of a student

Communicates assessment criteria

Understands the differences between teaching online and teaching face-to-face

Understands student motivation and uses techniques to engage students

performance assessment and personal communication,

grouping the assessments into levels

Who will use the results to inform what decisions?

Creating a plan like this for each assessment helps assessors sync what they taught with what they're assessing

descriptive feedback linked to the targets of instruction and arising from the assessment items or rubrics communicates to students in ways that enable them to immediately take action, thereby promoting further learning.

self-assess and set goals.

formative point of view

Assessment quality and assessment balance

basis of a single measure

including students

learning targets

choices in the assessment methods

noise distractions

Feedback to students can use the language of the rubric

Ongoing classroom assessments serve both formative and summative purposes and meet students' as well as teachers' information needs.

The goal of a balanced assessment system is to ensure that all assessment users have access to the data they want when they need it, which in turn directly serves the effective use of multiple measures.

Effectively planning for the use of multiple measures means providing assessment balance throughout these three levels, meeting student, teacher, and district information needs. This is done using both formative and summative assessments, large-group and individual testing, assessing a range of relevant learning targets using a range of appropriate assessment methods.

he decision makers might be students and teachers at the classroom level; instructional leaders, learning teams, and teachers at the periodic level; or curriculum and instructional leaders and school and community leaders at the annual testing level.

(selected-response, extended written response, performance assessment, and personal communication)

Making decisions that affect individuals and groups of students

organize the learning targets represented in the assessment into a written test plan that matches the learning targets represented in the curriculum.

stable estimates of student achievement

Clear Purpose

Sound Assessment Design

Student Involvement in the Assessment Process

current practice