Group items tagged

Without the models I cannot be sure what, precisely and specifically, each of the key criteria – well-developed, strong ideas, clearly-evident organizational plan, engages the reader, etc. – really mean.  I may now know the criteria, but without the models I don’t really know the performance standard; I don’t know how “strong” is strong enough, nor do I know if my ideas are “inappropriate.: There is no way I can know without examples of strong vs. not strong  and appropriate vs. inappropriate (with similar contrasts needed for each key criterion.)

This is why the most effective teachers not only purvey models but ask students to study and contrast them so as to better understand the performance standards and criteria in the concrete. In effect, by studying the models, the student simulates the original anchoring process and stands a far better chance of internalizing and thus independently meeting the standard.

David Ausubel once said, "If I had to reduce all of the educational psychology to just one principle, I would say this: 'The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach them accordingly.' (1968). Students may be given the same task but may have to go about solving it differently.

Grant Wiggins said, "The most common mistake is when educators fail to link the feedback to a specific agreed upon goal."

Wiggins provided the following essentials to effective feedback to students, teachers and school leaders. It needs to be:  Goal-Referenced Tangible and Transparent Actionable User-Friendly Timely Ongoing Consistent

We talk about inferences. We make inferences all the time. We tell kids to make inferences. When pushed, we can even define inferences… [Yet] the problem with comprehension, it appeared was that kids could not make inferences…

They would not connect an ethics reading to their own lives; they could not follow the argument the author was making; they had great difficulty seeing that two authors were addressing the same issue from different points of view. Like young Beers, I had naively assumed that if the students engaged with the text that they would make the inferences needed to grapple with the ideas in the text.

They often wrongly assume their students know how to think about what they are learning

It’s a crucial moment in teaching: how do you respond to an unhelpful remark in a way that 1) dignifies the attempt while 2) making sure that no one leaves thinking that the remark is true or useful?

Here is a famous Saturday Night Live skit, with Jerry Seinfeld as a HS history teacher, that painfully demonstrates the challenge and a less than exemplary response.

I immediately made a mental note: always, always dignify the question – even if it means slyly evading the particulars; return the conversation to a certain plane without making a questioner or commenter feel dumb; control your facial expressions to always look appreciative of the contribution.