Minus one week for some teachers that are piloting the SMARTER Balanced Common Core computerized assessment = 9 weeks left.

Minus one week for the California Standardized Test (CST) = 8 weeks left.

Minus one week for all teachers who are piloting the teacher-created 4th Quarter performance based assessment for data and reflection purposes = 7 weeks left.

Minus one week for Oral Presentations of final classroom projects (app designs, iMovie book trailers, digital movie posters, etc…) = 6 weeks left

Minus one week for the 8th grade Washington DC trip = 5 weeks left

Minus one week of final 8th grade madness like learning to walk down the promotion aisle, trip to Knott’s Berry Farm, Panoramic Photo Day, meeting with the high school counselors day, prepping for Open House, etc…= 5 weeks left.

The end result is actually 1/2 the time we all thought we had together.  Our time has been split down the middle, and as a result, we are spending as much time assessing and planning for assessments as we do in each others’ company learning, exploring, teaching each other, guiding, reading, writing, struggling, achieving, goal-setting, reflecting, and enjoying the learning.

There is so much about school that is beyond a teacher’s control.  The books may read so much instructional time, but the reality is much more complicated than that because our schedule’s are not so cut-and-dry.  But I’m not complaining.  After all, many of these upcoming activities are incredibly valuable to these students, but they can corrupt the impact that I might have on their seeming achievement, if test scores are any indication.

This countdown doesn’t have the voice of a teacher who is excited about the fact that summer is almost upon us. It has the tinge of panic about it.  This countdown is more about how little time I have left to do what I still want to do with these students.  It isn’t a countdown to that final bell before break; it’s a countdown to reality, a snapshot of how little time I have left with these kids.

As a teacher, you have this new family that becomes yours each year, and at the end of each year, that family goes away, drifting away down the various paths of life.  Some visit you again; some don’t.  But you have an impact on each other.  And it is at this time of year that I begin to wonder the impact I have had on my students, and  I begin the seasonal reflection on the impact that they have all had on me.  It is a time of both joy and sadness.  It is a time of happiness for their accomplishments, joy for those whose lives I somehow helped, and great sadness for those I may not have reached in the time I was given.  It is a time when I scramble to see what more I can do, another last ditch effort to connect, before they all go off to high school and beyond.

This year, the school year seems to have ended sooner somehow.  Looking at the math, I can see why.  I hear your heart breaks when your own kids go off to college and leave home, but every year, a teacher’s heart breaks just a little for other peoples’ kids as they go off into the world.

This year, it feels like we got less time together, but I will stand on the train station and wave them on in the hopes that what little time I had with them will one day help them grow.  T minus 10 weeks and counting…

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 8th grade, CST, education, end of school, k12, middle school, promotion, Smarter Balanced Assessment, summer vacation

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We all know that access to honors classes should not be defined by race.  We all know that kids from every demographic are capable of the more rigorous work that an honors or AP class requires.  However, we have also observed that students track themselves when left to their own stereotyping.  This post is about ways that a middle school can perhaps put more odds in a student’s favor in order to help bridge a morale gap, a chasm that can define a student indefinitely if the system isn’t careful.

Two years ago, we thought that we could cut off this trend by simply expanding the classes themselves.  We went from a single honors ELA class at each grade level to two.  The standards were slightly lowered to fill in the enrollment, but it’s been pretty successful.  Kids who barely managed to get in have, for the most part, risen to the challenge.  However, we discovered that even having expanded the program, it still seemed to only represent a single demographic.  The face of our honors classes hadn’t changed.

Nevertheless, there is talk of expanding the program even more.  The plan is to expand from 2 periods to 3 sections of honors for each grade level.  However, rather than drop the standards, we will instead redesign our application process, target certain students to encourage their application submission, and communicate the process differently to encourage a more diverse applicant pool.  By expanding the class even further, the hope is to create an additional cohort of participants.

Admittedly, there are drawbacks to actively recruiting minorities for the honors classes.  For one thing, the few model students left in the mainstream classes go away.  After all, after we doubled our honors classes, the gap between mainstream and honors never seemed more vast.  And admittedly, by opening the classes even more and actively recruiting, this problem will only get greater.

I guess the plus (and I am not sold that this is a plus) is that teachers will not have to differentiate as much, and differentiation still proves challenging to many teachers.  Additionally, if some teachers are not differentiating as it is, then perhaps expanding the honors program helps service kids who were not being serviced in the mainstream classes.

(As I write this last paragraph, I already hear the arguments in my head because, frankly, it’s not ideal.  Targeted minority recruitment might solve one problem, but we know that it doesn’t solve another.)

I can also hear an argument from many as to why we even have honors classes.  I guess the best way to respond to that is to provide a metaphor.  Elementary school is like the beach. You use muscles to walk the dunes.  High school is the open ocean.  It’s deep.  It can be scary.  And, for the first time, you are swimming on your own, getting tired, but using the muscles necessary to reach whatever island awaits you.  Middle school, however, is like the tidal zone.  They enter in and are immediately glubbing for air as the undertow pulls them down.  Then, they are sent spinning and don’t know which way is up.  It’s chaos.  It’s middle school.

And as middle schools, it’s our job that while tweens all flail about, their arms and legs wiggling like those used car lot inflatables, we give them chances to develop those swimming muscles.  And not just to doggie paddle.  It’s our job to teach them the fundamentals of the free stroke, the breaststroke, the backstroke, and the butterfly.  However, if a student enters middle school with the potential to swim but with the skills only granted in a lower-level swim class, how can we bridge the gap to give them a fighting chance in the deep ocean later on?

I would also say that there’s no way parents would let us drop an honors track.  It’s just too familiar a system for many of them.

So that’s what my school has been tackling, and I wanted to share our first steps.

So, what will the classes look like?

* 3 classes of honors instead of only 2

* There will be with 25 honors students per period that would be accepted regardless of demographic.  Then, looking deeper into the application, there will be an added cohort in each period, 10 students that are from under-represented minorities, who show great potential but perhaps were a point or two away from traditional acceptance.  The point is that we are trying to offset a possible earlier stereotyped track in which the student may have been placed.  We are putting faith in that student that he or she will blossom when put in an accelerated peer group.

How are we actively recruiting students from underrepresented minorities?

* Both the 8^th grade honors teacher and the 7^th grade honors teacher are going around to all ELA classes, including ELD, to talk about honors

* Personalized calls to families in their home language of students with a certain level of CST scores

* Parent Education Workshop with translators focused on the application process

* Personal call from student’s counselor in home language

* AVID teachers talk about honors process during their periods

What does the application process now evaluate?

* CST scores

* Quarterly grades

* Teacher Recommendation

* Certain classroom test scores

* Score on a Timed Written Expository Test

* Add a point for being from a specific underrepresented group

What could be our next Steps for next year?

*Panel of minority honors students from this year talking early on to 6^th graders about how to plan their academic goals

* Since we are the feeder school for all of our district’s elementary schools, we want to form mentorships early on for those students entering from our elementary schools who service our greatest Latino populations.

*When we get standardized test scores and grades from elementary schools, make more informed decisions about classes for incoming 6^th graders to ensure that they are assigned a teacher who deeply understands and agrees with differentiation.

Middle school is a key developmental crossroads in a student’s life.  As such, schools need to do a targeted reverse-tracking process, one that helps bridge the gap to allow for more students to have access to higher-level classes.

How are you tackling this issue in your school?

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: AP, differentation, diversity, education, edutopia, honors, k12, middle school, public schools, tracking

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In the past, after seeing some great presentations, I’ve used my blog as my own way to digest key phrases, sayings, and ideas in the hopes to more fully understand the depth of the concepts and to share with my readers.  So I wanted to spend some time here downloading some key quotes from his speech and morphing them with my own mental commentary and interpretation.

 March 15, 2013. Palm Springs, CA.
Sir Ken Robinson
“Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative”

“We’re at a transformative point in education…and what we do sits on the front edge of what we have to achieve…. We are living in revolutionary times…. [and] There are challenges we face on earth now that we never have had before.”  After all, according to BBC’s How Many People Can Live on Earth, “almost 10% of the total population is living on the earth now.  We are the largest generation ever, and there are more people on the earth now than ever before and we don’t know if we, as a species, can make this work.”  Many people worry about the fate of the earth.  However, it isn’t the earth we have to worry about.  It’s this blip of a species, humans, who have yet to prove whether they are a successful achievement or a mere evolutionary experiment.

The fact is, he continues, “Every single one of the 100 billion lives who have walked the face of this earth is unique and unrepeatable…To be born at all is a miracle, so what are you going to do with your life?”

How should this knowledge help us transform our teaching practice?  If we all, as teachers, embraced this fact, that every being is unique and unrepeatable, then wouldn’t we see all students for their unique potential to make contributions to this world?

The best teachers, the Dalai Lama for one, “is perfectly prepared to say, ‘I don’t know.’  In your experience, what would you advise me?” Are the answers that students give ones that are explored and encouraged for their uniqueness, or are they shut down for not being able to fit into the box of standardization?

The fact is that “One of our core principles is our diversity” and that “Human talents are very much like natural resources in the ground…and they don’t always manifest themselves without the right conditions.”  Do we currently grant students the opportunity to discover their talents and encourage them to grow no matter what those talents are?

We’ve highlighted STEM, which is very important, to be sure.  But in so doing, we’ve limited those other talents that are needed in any civilization.  And by doing this, we’ve perhaps ultimately doomed all subjects, including science. People confuse raising standards with standardization, and they tend to focus on certain standards while neglecting others – “STEM is not enough!”

The 3 Principles that Guide Us As a Species
1. Humans are diverse.  Schools do not embrace the diversity of our species and by diversity we mean talents and potential to contribute. According to business leaders- “adaptability is needed at the core of corporate America – but going through our schools closes that skill.”

2. Human beings are inherently creative.  And by creative we mean contributions that can’t be predicted by standards, but can yet be untapped by some modicum of freedom to create our own standards. “Nothing seemed less probable…when I was a child…that I would have the life I have…it wasn’t a plan.  It was an evolution.”  Do we permit students to evolve or do we predict for them by putting them on specific paths, guided by the limited standards we created, and thus do the very opposite of what we should be doing as educators?

3. Human lives aren’t linear; they are organic.  “Every life is a conversation between your talents and your experiences.” There is an ebb and flow to learning.  Yet schools remain as linear as they did a century ago for “The educational system is based on our compliance.”  People are defined by “what they can’t do, not on what they CAN do.”  How would that transform teaching if we flipped this philosophy?

There is such a thing in medicine as septic focus (note: I may have misheard this phrase.)  It’s when people confuse symptoms with causes, and when it comes to education, “social issues show up in schools and schools get blamed for them.”  As a result, the solution can become a part of the perpetuating problem.

Narrowing the curriculum is a cause of that very problem. So “we have to get away from standardizing to personalizing. We have to get away from narrowing to embracing the diversity.”

Technology’s Role in This Revolution

Technology grants access to different outlets, allowing a different cultural experience than ever before – and it’s unpredictable.  After all, they couldn’t predict all the apps people created when permitted to do so.

We have to grant access to opportunities to solve and to contribute.  We need to help guide students to be the answerers to questions about future food supplies and fuel production. “Education is meant to address this situation.”

Therefore, “our future [as education] has to lie in a radical transformation.”  Otherwise, as George Orwell said, “civilization is a race between education and catastrophe.”  Who is winning if education cannot evolve?

Every student could have a purpose towards this evolution.  Every student could find a way to contribute, but in order to do so, “education should always be personalized [so that] every kid in the system should have a reason to stay there – and if education doesn’t engage students personally, we’ll lose them.”

“Our job is to facilitate learning,” not direct it.  “Educating is not a process of directing instruction, but to inspire, to feed curiosity, to facilitate…if we aren’t facilitating learning, then education is not happening.”

We keep talking about teaching this standard or that standard, but “our job is not to teach subjects, but to teach students.”

So What Should We Do?
Find ways to embrace and nurture the unlimited variety of diverse talents.

Broaden student experiences.

Individualize schedules.  After all, just imagine if you were asked to close up shop and stop working every 45 minutes to switch gears and start up another cause.  It’s abrupt, and it’s not working.

Recognize that kids learn at different rates.

But there’s hope.  After all, Death Valley isn’t dead.  In 2004, it rained in Death Valley, and the desert floor was blanketed with flowers.  It wasn’t dead; the beauty was merely dormant, and “when the conditions are right, life is inevitable.”

It takes more energy and resources to stifle our creativity by developing more narrow standards and rules and limits and definitions, than it would to find ways to cultivate it. And as an educational system, “If we celebrate our creativity with their creativity,” this revolution can begin.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2013. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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Here’s the link, if you’re interested, but I would suggest clicking on the iTunes button to listen to its entirety.  Enjoy!

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bam radio, diversity, education, k12, middle school, writing journals

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Case in point: when a student wants to borrow a pencil, I have them leave collateral in the front of the room.  I accept shoes, keys, wallets, and of course, cell phones.  Cell phones are the collateral of choice.

The collateral pile yesterday during district testing.

Now, when you think about the kids who are always handing over the phones, these are typically not the most responsible or prepared of students.  After all, when asked to get out something to write with in Language Arts, some seem genuinely surprised at the request.  These are the generally the kids who say they don’t have a computer at home.  These are generally the kids who allow schools to make excuses about not using technology in the classroom because teachers and admin worry about keeping equipment safe and intact.

Yet,  these same students are always packing their phones, and unlike their backbacks, when they hand over the phone, I know that they will never walk out of the room without it.

So let’s stop the debate and start using the real life resources around us.  We want students to have some ownership in their learning?  Have them provide some of the means in which they learn.  If our job is to help bridge the gap between school life and real life, let’s stop blocking students from using that which they already own, use, and respect.

Oh, yeah.  Going back to my collateral pile.  And if one of the phones from the pile buzzes while class is in session, I give you permission to answer it.  I’ve also been known to text someone back.

Sorry, M can’t come to the phone right now. She’s busy learning.  TTFN! – Mrs. WG

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2013. | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: byod, cell phones in classroom, education, k12, middle school, supplies in schools, texting

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However, just because Nana and Poppop gave him the gift does not mean that his parents don’t make the rules.  We still hold the reins, so with the gift came an official contract, a home Acceptable Use Policy of sorts.  There was a similar one that I saw recently here that a blogger/mom created for her 13 year-old’s new iPhone.  Hers needed to focus on usage and financial literacy in a way that Ben’s does not, but I love the voice and common sense she used in her contract, so it’s definitely worth a read.

Just to clarify before you read on: he does not have a camera on his iPad, there is no texting option, there is no phone, and he doesn’t have an email account.  All of these would justify a different list of rules.  Instead, we focused on expectations on remaining engaged with others while still owning an attention-sucking device. It’s a device we all love and all use; he sees every adult with one after all.  But with a child or a teenager that is growing and learning what it is to be engaged with the world, the ownership of technology comes with rules.

Incidentally, I think if you are going to create your own technology contract for your kids, you should do two things:

1. Do it from the onset.  They should expect a contract with every piece of equipment they are given from phones to games to MP3 players.  You signed a contract when you bought it, didn’t you?  So should they.

2. Write the contract at their reading level.  OK, so I messed up with this rule on the contract below.  That’s because I was scrambling to get it done before the gift was in his hands.  Ideally, however, you could use a Flesch-Kincaid Readability Calculator to help level your writing so that you can read it together.  The contract below comes in around a 5th grade level.

So, without further ado, here’s…

Ben’s iPad contract

Congratulations!  You are now the owner of an iPad!  However, as Peter Parker’s uncle says, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  Therefore, there are some rules in being a new iPad owner.

1. When you are using your iPad, if an adult asks you something, you must pause what you are doing and respond.  You are never allowed to ignore someone.

2. You may not use headphones.  They isolate you from the world. (Note to reader: perhaps this rule will change in time, but for a 6 year old – or at least, my 6 year old – I don’t want him using headphones yet.)

3. You must read every pop up.  If it asks you to buy something, click “cancel” or come get an adult.  If you can’t read it yourself, DO NOT click continue or OK.  Come get an adult to help you.

4. You are never to purchase ANYTHING.

5. If anything happens to your iPad, we do not promise to replace it.  It is not your parents’ responsibility to keep it safe or intact.

6. We would recommend that you charge it every night.  It’s not a hard and fast rule exactly, but if you follow it, you won’t be disappointed.

7. If there is an app, a movie, a game, a reading book, or an audible book that you want, just ask us and we’ll consider whether you can have it.  That means if we are happy with how you have been treating your iPad, we will be more inclined to reward you with a new app or feature.  You must earn everything by using your iPad well.

8. Make sure that if you want to play something around Sam that is it appropriate for him to see.  (That means no weapons or fighting.)  (Note to reader: Samwise is his almost 2 year-old brother who loves hanging out with big brother Ben.)

9. You must never have the volume up so high that you can’t hear what’s going on around you.  The volume must never be so loud that others in the house have no choice but to listen to what you are doing.  Keep the sound reasonable.

10. Wash your hands before using your iPad.

11.  The iPad is never to be used in the car or at a restaurant when it’s time to socialize and talk to those around you.  We all like hanging out together, and we don’t want to waste our time together watching you watch a screen.  (This rule is flexible based on Mom and Dad’s decisions.)

12. Your iPad must never be left on the floor for you, Sam, or BiggyShorty (Note: the dog) to step on.

13.  If there is any work you have to do, you are NOT allowed to use your iPad first.  If you have to clean your room, do your homework, your daily reading, etc…you are NOT to touch the iPad until your work is done.

14. You can read a book or listen to a book on the iPad while in bed for the night, but there is no playing games at that time. Playing games will zing up your brain, not relax it. You’ll have plenty of time for insomnia in college.

15. Don’t ask what happens if you don’t follow the rules.  You and your iPad don’t want to find out.

This is your first real piece of technology, and it must be treated with respect.  We are so proud that you are our son.  We are so proud of how you are growing up.  Owning an iPad is a big, adult deal and we know you can handle it if you just follow the rules.

We love you.

Mommy and Daddy

This contract was signed by all stakeholders in an official contract-signing moment.  See our signatures below:

Will he break a rule along the way?  Of course.  After all, being 6 is about being a work in progress.  But being a parent of a child in the 21st Century is about granting them access to the tools and amazing inventions around them while also setting expectations about citizenship, both online and off.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2013. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: AUP, education, elementary school, iPad, iPhone, k12, middle school, parenting, technology use

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Now, middle schoolers should be knowledgeable.  They should know and should be discussing current events.  They should know the truths going on and how they fit into the reality of the world in which they live.  Nobody is looking to censor truth.

However, I got to thinking, as we all did in the wake of the media frenzy that was post-Sandy Hook, how to balance out the horrors of that one day (horrors replayed with graphical finesse and enthusiastic salivating) with the good that happens in life everyday.  After all, if all students see are the horrors, than the more desensitized they are to tragedy in general.  So I began to wonder if, come Monday, we shouldn’t be focusing on other truths in the world, other honest images and events.  I began focusing on the good.

I began showing them the memes that were floating around.  Things like…

* The Coca-Cola ad of the good caught on security cameras

* 26 Moments that restored our faith in humanity

* Terry Jones in Time Square drowned out by an impromptu Beatles song – (This one I found too late to show them, but I thought I’d pass it on here.)

On Friday, before break, I also challenged them to the Ann Curry challenge.  This is the one that asks us all to add to a culture of kindness by doing good deeds for others.  It’s like a Pay It Forward challenge.  The thought is also that once one does something good purposefully, then perhaps it one day comes naturally.  The only way to battle evil, to battle tragedy, is to learn from it and drown out the unnecessary frenzy with good.

But then I looked around at the, dare I say, greater tragedy.  The tragedy of an R-rated civilization that is stealing the youth of its own children.  I looked at the gun leveled at my 6 year old’s face, not from a real shooter, but from movie ad on the side of the bus next to our car, eye-level with his car seat.  I thought about the corpses at Halloween hanging from the ceiling of our local grocery store.  I thought about the shopping bags students bring into the classroom, like ones from Abercrombie with their semi-nude David-esque models.

For many children, it’s unavoidable.  They can’t go to school without seeing a tricked out weapon on a video game ad.  They can’t walk through a mall at Christmas without seeing sexy elf costumes.  They can’t walk through their own living rooms or go into a local store without being attacked by the horrors highlighted by the media.  Does that not affect our children, our students, and members of our own future citizenry?

So should battling the R-rated nature of society be a part of our curriculum?  After all, in our classrooms we battle:

* Illiteracy when there may not be books in the homes

* Digital citizenship when there may not be computers

* Civil rights issues when homes may speak of hate

So, if our mission is to educate all and to educate them in such a way as to create functioning citizens in our society, and if society is not taking its own responsibility to teach its own children, than should we not, as an educational system, go to battle?  Should we not battle the smog of horrors that surrounds our kids by teaching the good as well?  Should we not create a balance where there seems so little outside our walls?

I can hear the arguments now.  Dousing children in good need not be about teaching religion.  It need not be about lying to students to create a Pollyanna sense of security about the world.  It’s about introducing them to a more balanced reality, one that in a targeted manner presents both sides of the coin when society is neglecting to do so.

It’s about addressing their brain’s development, their heart’s development, their ability to feel empathy, their ability to make ethical decisions.  It’s about believing in the good.  Not the good of a fairy tale, but the good that surrounds us daily.

So as you ring in the New Year, hold your families tight.  Eat until you have to unbutton your pants.  Keep the tree decorated as long as you can.  Sleep during the day.  Remember the good.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ann curry, education, k12, middle school, new year, sandy hook

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GSA – Two colleagues and I began a middle school chapter of the Gay Straight Alliance.  The previous year, I was speaking to an amazing counselor at my school about some of our academically struggling students.  We looked at family.  We looked at income.  We looked at scores.  Of course, there was an elephant on the table for some of them. It was clear that many struggled with their own sexual identities, and during this vitally awkward time in their lives, we feared we didn’t offer any support to help those who might want it.  We could not longer pretend these realizations magically started in 9th grade at the high school.

We had 75 kids show up to the first meeting.  It’s student-led, with two students stepping up to co-represent.  The mix of students in the room ranges from honors to at risk, boys and girls, kids who are questioning to those who confidentially know who they are.  There are artists and athletes.  Many have gay siblings or friends or other family members.  Other students in the room are simply aware of importance of this time and this issue and want to find their place in its conversation.

For March, the students have decided to host a “Celebrate Diversity” lunch for the school.  They plan to have an activity in which students help each other script what to say to a friend who uses derogatory language to speak about certain groups.  They feel that the hardest people to reprimand about bullying are their own friends.  Their hope is that by giving kids words to say, it might make it easier to start a more honest culture in school.

The Election – Not much to say here other than it seemed to me that both parties were cut from the same cloth in terms of educational policy.  There were a lot of strong words about what is wrong, but that’s it.  I guess the candidates figured if they both just sounded fierce on recognizing problems, the public wouldn’t notice that they’d moved on to other issues without offering solutions.  ‘Nuff said.

 Hurricane Sandy – In terms of education, I think Hurricane Sandy focused us again on the issue of schooling beyond the walls of a classroom.  As with many natural disasters, there is always the question of how to keep students learning even while separated from their brick-and-mortar schools.  I think online learning has a place in this solution, but we are a ways from making it a reality for those who don’t already have a culture and infrastructure in place.  If school is out for a while, how do students who don’t normally function online begin that process, benefit from it, and transition back to brick-and-mortar once the disaster is over?  With my current degree, I hope to be able to think harder on this topic and bring my voice to the table so that formal learning isn’t always tied to desks and walls.

Piloting the Common Core Assessment – My principal has announced that our middle school will be piloting the SMARTER assessment this year.  It gives our students practice, sure.  But more importantly, it gives our teachers practice.  Our biggest problem right now as a staff is that it seems there are two camps: those whose subjects are being tested and those whose aren’t.  There’s Math and ELA who are freaking out in various degrees vs. all the other content area teachers who are nervously waiting their turn, cheering us on faintly from the distance like a crowd that is glad they haven’t yet had their names picked yet for the Hunger Games lottery.  Their lack of enthusiasm is also fueled by the apathy of PE and the electives program that will never see their subjects tested.  Sure all subjects must contribute to this evolution, but for many, if it ain’t assessed, then they don’t teach it.  Perhaps by signing us up to pilot the formal assessment we will all be closer to sharing the same goal.

Sandy Hook – This one’s a toughie.  As the parent of a 1st grader, my lens is blurred with tears.  Suffice it to say, there’s been a lot of talk about gun control, mentally ill databases, media influences, and security in schools.  I’m going to try to put aside my feelings as a parent here and focus on two issues as a teacher.

1.  The heroes of Sandy Hook were everyday teachers.  They were victims of the same media and political smashing as the rest of us.  Society works hard to try to convince us that teachers are bad and lazy, that we are overpaid and underworked.  I’m dearly hoping there is a shift due to this tragedy, and that this event hopefully reminds people who most teachers really are.

2.  It’s hard not to jump on the “I am Adam Lanza’s…” meme, by adding that we have all taught students we feared would become Adam Lanza.  I have a drawer full of files chronicling attempts to help certain students over the years.  These are students, from both private and public schools, who have shown the signs of violent behavior to others. These are students about whom many meetings focused, many phone calls were made, many emails were sent.  These are the students whose mother (because 90% did not have a father at home) would not sign off on having her child assessed.  Whose parent would eventually stop coming to meetings knowing the school would beg her to get the child help.  This reality is frightening to me as a teacher and as a parent.  Do parental rights somehow trump public safety?  I know there isn’t a clear answer, but it’s one that isn’t even being discussed.  Name a politician who has the guts to talk about parenting.  Name a lawmaker who wants to tackle this one.  Nobody.  And as long as nobody does, my file will slowly continue to grow.

So a new year begins.  I hope it is a brighter one for us all, one full of learning from the past to make a better future.  Happy Holidays to all, and I hope to see you all back here from time to time.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2012 election, Common Core Assessments, Gay Straight Alliance, gun control, Hurricane Sandy, mental illness, middle school, online learning, Sandy Hook Elementary, SMARTER

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I was talking to Nina Zolt of ePals fame recently.  We are both huge Shakespeare geeks.  If we ran the world, Shakespeare would be uniting us all.  After all, he speaks with metaphorical language that breaks down cultural barriers and with universal themes to which all generations and eras can relate.  So our goal is to create an international digital production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Intrigued?

So here’s the deal: if you are a 4th-12th grade teacher interested in being a part of this unique project, or if you know someone who is, reach out to me by Oct 15, 2012.  Over the course of this school year, we will be doling out scenes to the schools who are interested in participating.  You have almost the full school year to learn, perform, and edit your assigned scenes.  If interested, I will send you guidelines so that all the scenes will have some basic foundational consistency.  Send the completed scenes back to me and they will be cut together in chronological order, from beginning to end.  Voila!  A collaborative online production!

You can involve a whole class or a small club of Shakespeare-lovin’ students.  It’s entirely up to you.  The timeline is yours, as is the amount of interaction you have with other schools involved in the project.  The ideal, of course, is to interact with other schools and discuss Shakespeare or acting or the Renaissance, or whatever you deem academically interesting.  Think of it like a theatrical pen pal project.  But it can also work in isolation.  So don’t let the fear of committing to work with other classrooms on their timeline be a deterrent.

Interested or know a classroom that might be?  I’ll take classrooms from all over the world or simply all over the U.S.  The potential for this project is exciting, and, if successful, it will become a 1st annual project with visions of similarly produced plays each school year.

Tweet this post.  Share this post.  Send it out into the great unknown, and let’s see what happens.

I hope you can join me as I embark on this journey to celebrate The Bard.

-Heather Wolpert-Gawron

aka Tweenteacher

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: collaboration, digital production, educational technology, English, k12, Language Arts, middle school, project based learning, shakespeare

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I then asked them what they felt was the purpose of school.  “Write what you feel,” I asked, “not what you assume I want to hear.”  They could agree or disagree with Green, but that the assignment was about honesty and about starting to look deeply into their own purpose for being here.  I told them to show me what they’ve got.  The following are quotes from their writing journals that I figured might give me a little insight into why they felt they were here.  This knowledge helps arm me as I help guide them through their last year in middle school.

Many of the entries, I admit, mentioned the boredom students felt at school, the mistrust of the need for endless drills and memorization; but they all seemed to get around to a common theme: optimism.  They all believe that school has a purpose and they have a place in it.  They just don’t seem to understand how they relate to the methods used in school.

One journal entry by my student, Julian, stated:

“Public education is, of course, for students to get smart, to graduate, and to finish college.  And once you finish college then learn what school is for.”

Of course, that got me thinking of a theme that I’ve written about in the past, that of applicability.  It’s important that students know about what school is for, not after school, but during school.  Kids deserve to know why and how school applies to life beyond its walls.  And if we don’t have that answer, then we shouldn’t be teaching the way we do.

But the good news is that we haven’t lost them.  They still have hope.  They still have trust.  In us.  In the schools.

Because while I received confused and angry entries, I also received just as many wonderful ones as well.  Here are just excerpts below:

Sam – “Education is vital.  Without our minds filled with knowledge, we would all suffer.  One empty mind can ruin another mind…”

Julia – “I think the purpose is to spread knowledge.”

Andrea – “I think the purpose of school is to help other people.  Some people think that you go to school so that you can go to college and then get a job.  This is true, but by doing a job, you are helping someone.”

Michelle – “School is a place to charge your mind like you charge your phone…You might believe that school is a place to see your friends, get useless information just to forget about the next day, and get homework you’ll just rush through, but most people don’t know that what you do in school can change the world.”

Tim – “To me, the purpose of school is to bring the foundation of life to children.  Math, science, language arts, and of course social studies, are all subjects that give you a variety of choices for your future.  This is why the world has people with occupations like scientists, teachers, accountants, politicians, and how can we forget, chefs and fishermen?”

Venisa – “One of the greatest joys about going to school and starting the school year is knowing that ‘I’ll learn new things today!’…One of the purposes of school is to help prepare us for the future.  The second…is to help get us socially friendly.  I mean, getting a job has all the parts of being a social butterfly.”

Scott – “The purpose of school is to grow and learn more so that you can make a positive mark on the world.”

The way I see it, my job now is to make sure that their optimism does not go unrewarded.  Help them learn knowledge that applies.  Help them fill their brains with information that won’t spill out from lack of use later on.  Help them prepare for the future that will be theirs.  Help them change the world.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, k12, middle school, purpose of education, writing journals

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See my video here:

So whatever your content area is, name your desks, then go to town creating a more solid classroom community.

Oh, yeah.  And remember not to put the names on pieces of tape.  The kids will fret and curl the ends and doodle on the blank spaces until you can’t see the terms anymore.  I find that a Sharpie works.  Don’t worry.  The miraculous glory that is the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser will take care of the ink when you want to remove the names.  Every teacher needs a stock of those.

Good luck in your classroom collaboration efforts!

Heather (aka Tweenteacher)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: classroom management, content, education, fluid grouping, k12, middle school, Mr.Clean Magic Eraser, student collaboration

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In this post, I talk about using the 4Cs (Creativity, Critical-Thinking, Collaboration, and Communication) as rubric for your own assessments as a teacher or a school site.  Feel free to download the two rubrics I created from Edutopia, or you can view them each here:

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 4Cs, assessments, authentic assessments, Common Core, education, k12, middle school, Rubrics

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The fear, however, is that somehow writing for a common core movement will somehow stifle creativity and uniqueness.  To me, that description sounds much more like the standardized movement of yore rather than this new standard for education.

See, I see common core as recognizing creative thinking, creative writing, and creative ways of expressing oneself.   It’s about weaving together multiple genres rather then segregating them.  It’s about using technology to communicate, not struggling to teach technology in lieu on content.  It’s about assessing through real world role-play rather than merely for the purpose of the genre of test taking.

I think, if anything, the writers of the common core standards fell short on branding.  I mean, as much as I hated NCLB, nobody doubted the effectiveness of the name.  How could anyone NOT pass NCLB?  I mean, if you did, you’d clearly WANT to leave children behind right? 

But those who named the common core standards clearly did not come from the same school of savvy marketing. I’m assuming they chose the word “common” because it meant that we all have some lessons and goals in common.

But they neglected the other meaning of the word, the one that means bland and indistinct.

This relates to the outcry that went out as a result of the speech that went viral during the spring of 2012, the one where faculty member David McCullough from Wellesley High School claimed none of the students were special.  (They were all, dare I say, “common?”)  People were in an uproar.

So too are many teachers who struggle through the philosophies of the standardization movement and the watered down education that seems to have been created as a result.  And now when faced with this new “common” movement, will it be more of the same? The terms (common and standardization) are ones that everyone is frightened have begun to define the American educational system overall.   I mean, wouldn’t it be a different spin indeed if we were embarking on an educational era called an “Innovative movement” rather than a “standardization movement?”  But I beg you to look beyond the terminology and start thinking of ways that the common core standards are actually Uncommon.

Now, I’m not saying that the standards themselves are innovative.    Nope. I mean, come on, we’ve seen them in some way, shape, or form before.   But what we haven’t seen is the insistence that ALL teachers involve the 4 Cs into their teaching:

Critical-Thinking,
Collaboration,
Creativity,
Communication

…and the promise to assess students based on those skills rather than asking teachers to just fit them in between the cracks in the time we have available after teaching our content.  They must now become a part of our content.  Thankfully, the Common Core assessments to come require that we teach using those skills.  Therefore, the assessment tail that is wagging the dog is a much more interesting and valuable tail.  THAT’S what’s new.

  It’s a tail that will test our students using online measures, giving students choice in how to show their knowledge. It’s a tail that will ask students to collaborate, brainstorm, and develop independently discovered questions to answer.  It’s a tail that will ask students to show their comprehension through writing across all the disciplines.
When looking at the math standards it states that students should be able to:
“Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.” – Think for yourself and be able to communicate your point of view.

“Make conjectures and build a logical progression of statements to explore the truth of their conjectures.” – Students should build arguments to support their choices, arguments that are made in addition to simply answering the given equation.

“Justify their conclusions, communicate them to others, and respond to the arguments of others…Mathematically proficient students are also able to compare the effectiveness of two plausible arguments, distinguish correct logic or reasoning from that which is flawed, and…explain what it is.” – Students should be able to argue through different methods why they chose the equation they did and prove in ways that are not just quantitative how they derived at an answer.

The standards talk about possible choices of responses: debate, written essay, digital project, etc…Student Choice is acknowledged as vital in a rigorous program, and writing will now be a skill universally assigned and assessed in all disciplines.

But if student choice is king, then what if the method of assessment a student chooses may not be our area of expertise?   After all, no teacher is an expert in every method of communication.  Writing is now something everyone must do; yet many (and I’m speaking in generalizations here) Math and STEM teachers have not worked that muscle for years.  Many ELA teachers still struggle to incorporate numbers and data into their writing expectations or still categorize their writing genres from quarter to quarter, a school-made pattern that doesn’t exist in real life.  Some elective teachers still don’t utilize digital storytelling or technology integration.  And many, many teachers still don’t allow for student choice.

So how do we incorporate those skills, address the standards, and prepare students for their futures?

The answer is: collaboration.  By working together as content area experts, we can guide students to use uncommon ways to prove their knowledge of the standards.  In other words, the Common Core standards not only ask that students work together, but that teachers do too.  By working together in a tighter way than ever before, we can all support student achievement. 

But we need to move on from the past that allowed teachers to close their doors and work in an isolated way.  We need to look at the Common Core goals not so much as “I scratch your back, you scratch mine,” but as a path we must travel together.   We aren’t doing each other a favor by incorporating these standards and integrating each others’ subjects into all the classrooms; we’re achieving these new requirements in the only way we can…together and as a team.

Going back to McCullough’s speech.   If you stick with it, you’ll hear that the point really isn’t that all students are common, but rather that being special is about how you contribute to society.  That’s what defines you.

So is it with Common Core assessing.  It’s about how students use their brains to contribute to a topic, not just the regurgitation of that topic.  It’s about not just the content but the collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity involved in communicating that content.  And that’s not common.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 4Cs, collaboration, Common Core Assessments, common core standards, creativity, critical thinking, education, k12, math standards, NCLB, Writing Across the Curriculum

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A couple of months ago I asked my Language Arts department to each share 5 strategies they are currently using in their classrooms to help teach their ELD students.  After all, I knew that if we combined our strengths, we could all learn from each other.  So in that spirit of collaboration and variety, I wanted to share the list that we made.  After weeding out some repetitions, we ended up with 40 different strategies: some obvious, some not so obvious.

Lists are awesome resources.  They are easy to write and, more importantly, easy to use.  As a reader you can check out a list, highlight what you might want to use, and ditch easily what you don’t. We each wrote a list of 5 strategies that we use to aid our ELD students.  It can be a particular way we assess, like a project that we have found that really brings out the best in our kids, or it can be a way we teach a particular skill.  It can be a strategy we use to ensure that they are “with us” or a way we help to assess gaps or bridge them.

Perhaps you are already using some, but it’s possible that there’s one or two in here that are new.  I hope you not only can find a new strategy to use, but that you encourage your own department to generate its own list down the line.  Next steps?  Distribute your department’s list to the teachers in other departments and have them add their own strategies.  Create a list that owned by all.

But make sure you come back and post your list so that we might also learn from your department too!

Pick and Choose: ELD Strategies

Main Theme for this school year’s focus: The strategies that are good for teaching English Language Learners are good for every learner.

1. Identify them– Step one.  Know who the EL students are in your class.

2. Give them ways to show understanding in different ways that count– Sure, we assess on writing essays, but can we also assess a skill based on a 1-3 sentence submission like an exit card, blog post, or caption? ?How ‘bout as a sound file?  How about as a discussion, debate, or formal conversation?  We can make rubrics for just about anything, so why not try something that isn’t just writing-focused?

3. Keep them close– Try to put as many EL students as possible in the tables closest to you or the front of the room.  If they can’t be right next to the teacher, at least put them in a functioning group, surrounded by achievers plus hopefully a person they would like to sit with. (see strategy #14)

4. Notice the top 3 errors they all share and teach to those– It’s hard to individualize attention for every kid, but if you can identify the top 3-5 errors they all tend to make and then weave lessons around those into your class lessons, then at least you will have some targeted lessons in the bag.

5. Blog– Blogging means they don’t have to raise their hand in public.  In addition, a teacher can create a prompt easily based on responding not only to a piece of reading, but also to a picture or a video.  What’s turned in can be anywhere from 1 sentence to 5 paragraphs.  It’s up to you, but it definitely seems to demystify participation for many of them.

6. Give Students Choice– Let them choose the book they get credit reading.  Let them choose from a few prompts to answer.  Let them choose the question they respond to.  Etc…

7. Give them Accessible Scaffolds– Have them glue scaffolds into their writers note books to give them ownership of their resources.   These can be sentence stems for oral discussion, definitions, sentence stems for leveled questions, outlines, etc….

8. Have them work with partners- Working with partners develops their oral communication skills and comprehension. Talking about what we are learning about or sharing what they have written helps them retain information and get better in communicating their knowledge.

9. Have them use T-T-W- Use?the think, talk, write strategy to prep their brains.

10. Create opportunities for “small responses”- Use “Think Marks.” These are book marks where they can write questions, thoughts, vocabulary in a non-threatening, short and sweet format.

11. Use the “Say Something” strategy– This is where the students are given sentence starters to help them comment on what they are reading before, during, and after.

12. Use cloze paragraphs to help scaffold writing – Create paragraphs structures that ask them to fill in the blanks with content. ?That way they learn organization and structure through modeling while still showing their knowledge.

13. Review Key Vocabulary- Model the correct pronunciation and have the whole class repeat it chorally (this is good for our EOs as well, since sometimes they don’t know how to properly pronounce the words either).

14. Use Heterogeneous Grouping — Mix them up. ?Seat an English learner next to another student who speaks the same language.

15. Modify rubrics for our ELD students– Develop modified rubrics that reflect mastery of content rather than perfection of grammar, syntax, mechanics, punctuation, etc.  Assess what’s most important.

16. Use a word of the day to teach high-level content words-  Be sure to use these words on a regular basis and to remind students of the meaning and simpler synonyms we often use to mean the same thing. ?e.g. “The exposition is the word we use to describe the beginning of a story. So, what happens in the exposition of “Seventh Grade?”

17. Use BrainPop to review concepts – Have students take notes from the video, as needed. Use the close captioning option so students can hear and read the words as the video progresses.

18. Use Listening and Reading Simultaneously – Use the audio CDs or downloads to listen to the story as students follow along in their texts. ?

19. Give them choice, but limit their choices – Unlimited choices are overwhelming for anybody. ?Limit their choices of presentation so they aren’t hit by a a wall of possibilities. ?That way, they are also choosing from possibilities that reflect the level you expect and it doesn’t freak them out.

20. Provide first sentences or paragraphs for writing assignments – Having that first part done already for them to tack onto can defeat the blank-white-paper-phobia.

21. Allow students to parrot the teacher’s answers – If they can do that much, they’ve likely been paying attention.

22. Find time to teach grammar explicitly – Principal parts of verbs is an area that deserves special attention.  When we hear someone say “the car is broke” or “I should have went” we ask whether he paid attention during English class, yet many of the errors adults make involve similar problems with verbs. Be the model and target what you want them to know.

23.  Provide Model Pieces – Post correct examples of work, color-coded when possible.  It’s a great time saver when kids say they don’t know how to do an assignment or are confused about your level of expectation.

24. Provide a Print Rich Environment- Have a classroom library with a wide variety of reading materials.  Picture books, Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Young Adult Novels, Classics, Poetry, Weird Science, etc. etc.  Bring in a daily newspaper and subscribe to student friendly periodicals such as Sports illustrated For Kids. Encourage them to read whatever strikes their fancy even if it seems that it is not challenging them.  Once you get them hooked on your library, then you can direct them to more challenging materials.

25. Teach How to Use Dictionaries- Don’t assume kids know how to use a dictionary or any other kind of informational resource. Teach them how to use them and that they are not all created equal.  Have several types in the classroom-picture dictionaries, collegiate dictionaries, English-Learner dictionaries.  Show them some reputable online dictionaries. Encourage their use. Create a homework assignment that requires dictionary use. Model using them yourself regularly.

26 Color Code- Use color and shapes to locate text structure, find verbs, adjectives, literary techniques at work.  “Cloud the similes and make the descriptive adjectives green.” Use color to get them interacting with text.

27 Utilize Props and Visual Cues- Point at things, use the document camera; get props from a yard sale.  A giant ear for “listen”, a golden key for “this is important”, a pirate’s hook for narrative attention getters.

28. Speak idiomatically- Use idioms and figurative language in your speech and draw attention to it when you do.  “Metaphorically speaking, we need to get a fire under us to finish this assignment before the bell rings.”

29. Give them a heads up –  Don’t “require”  EL students to talk on the spot.  Instead,  give them fair warning.  Tell them that tomorrow we’re doing this and that, and then let them know that you will ask them two questions about it.  Or ask a stronger student to answer, and then ask the EL student to repeat what that student said.  Ask the EL student if he agrees.   This way, you can indirectly get the student to participate in discussions without all the anxiety.

30. Let them use their expertise - Encourage Spanish speakers to use their knowledge of the language in figuring out meanings of new vocabulary.  There is a lot of correlation and similarities that they don’t realize.

31. Utilize role-playing – Role playing is great to use and it doesn’t have to take a lot of class time.  It’s fun for everyone and EL students can “see” what they just read.  You can also ask for students to illustrate on the board.

32. Encourage parental involvement – Many EL parents still don’t understand the American educational system.  Something as simple as reading a report card or grade sheet is new to them.  They may not even know what classes their children are taking. Find ways to get parents involved. ?Send home a sheet in the home language that specificially explains how to email or call you. Encourage parents to write notes to you in their own language (student will translate, and they usually are very honest).  This bridge in communication makes students more accountable because now they know that their parents are involved and parents have a better understanding of what’s going on.

33. Compare their learning to what they recognize – When teaching the grammar/mechanics of writing, ask students to compare it to their native language.  Sometimes if they are aware of the differences or similarities, then English grammar will make more sense.  Teachers don’t have to be bilingual necessarily, but if they are aware of some of the common rules of their students’ languages, it might help.  Just ask them something like, “Well in Spanish, would the verb go here or there?  How would you make this verb past tense?  In English, most of the time, you just add ‘ed’, but there are some exceptions.”  Then ask them to think about it in Spanish.?

34. Have them think and write in their first language to fill in gaps – If there is a word or phrase that must be used to enhance the writing, but the student can only write it in her native language, let her do so.  We want to develop fluency of thought.  We don’t want the student to give up because she’s stuck on a word or phrase.  This is true for using the bilingual electronic dictionaries.  Tell students to only use it the last five or ten minutes of an assignment.  Write whatever they can in English and leave blanks for the words/phrases they don’t know.  Then they can look it up later.  Otherwise, they’ll look up every other word!

35. Have them create samples on/at the board – Using the new activeboards or using a document camera/computer, students can come up and write, click/drag, label, color, highlight, etc. on the board. This helps check for understanding and its FUN!

36. Find small group/one-on-one time – After teaching a lesson and sending off the kids to break out into small groups or work independently, pull  the EL’s and make sure they understand the lesson, and, if not, find out what they didn’t understand.   By working with a small group, even if it’s only for a few minutes once or twice a week, you slowly gain an understanding of how much they understand from your lessons and what things you need to go through more thoroughly.

37. Use visuals – By having students draw pictures to represent vocabulary or key terms it helps them visualize the word or the concept better. For some EL’s they can express themselves better through pictures than words.

38. Provide student samples – we can give kids directions and rubrics and tell them what a 5 paper looks like and the components that are necessary, but showing  them samples of a real 5 paper from former students and comparing  it to a 2, 3, or 4 paper has real power.   Let them dissect it to help them become better writers. It is also a good model for them to refer back to and compare their own writings to.

39. Use academic vocabulary – Even if it seems like it would be above their heads, ELD students won’t learn higher levels of word choice unless we use those words daily. ?Don’t hesitate to use the word analyze or synthesize. ?Just make sure you use easier synonyms too while talking about what the words mean. ?Academic vocab is hard to understand on context alone.

40. Don’t assume… – Finish this sentence however you want. Don’t assume that just because they don’t speak our language the student isn’t capable of greatness.

In the end, it’s really all about ensuring that we are doing everything we can so that they understand the content and produce evidence of that knowledge in the most engaging way they can.

Please feel free to comment and add to the list!

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Common Core Instruction, ELD, ELL, English Language Learners, Language Arts, Strategies for ELD

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It’s like the trashy news mags have taken over our factual existence. ?You can hear the whispers over the water cooler:

What will be the name of the new baby?

What trends will we have to follow to be considered “in?”

Where is the hip spot to get the latest dish?

The problem, however, is that those who are creating the assessments are moving at a pace as if the only deadline they need to be concerned with is the one dictated by the actual testing date of 2014-2015.  However, if schools are to prepare the kids for those tests, we need to plan and prep now.  (It’s the ole tail wagging the dog all over again).  We need facts, not gossip.

But what’s out there is merely hypotheses, and the ability to get as close to the inner circle of those in the know has become a growing industry of prediction, not knowledge.  And these predictions will be marketing those guesses to the vulnerable teachers concerned about student achievement and learning.

But there is a movement afoot of teachers taking control of their curriculum in this age of uncertainty. ?For without a clear path, sometimes opportunity blooms, creating one’s own path. ?And many districts and teachers are doing just that.

For what it’s worth, here are a couple of things that I’m choosing to focus on without losing my cool too much in what has lately gone from “test prep” to “guess prep:”

1. In order to address the CAT (computer adaptive technology) component, I’m going to mimic some of those kinds of assessments in my own classroom.  It might be fun to fool around with leveled questions.  There are websites out there that can help you design your own CAT classroom assessments too.  Sites like:

www.quiztron.com

www.quibblo.com

www.quizmoz.com

www.gotoquiz.com

CAT is about differentiating assessments and also using assessments formatively.  I figure as long as I’m doing both of those things, I’m ahead of the game.  One of the ways I differentiate my assessments is by teaching students about Costas Levels of Questioning and then having them design Levels 1, 2, and 3 questions and use these questions as the basis of my own informal assessments. I also teach them about closed-choice questions, rank order questions, and open-ended questions. ? In addition, I use student choice whenever possible so that a student has the opportunity to show me what he or she knows in the method in which that student is most comfortable. ?After all, if the goal is to see how well and deeply they learned, why not give them the chance to show off their knowledge in the best way possible?

2. To address the writing component and the performance-based assessments, I have become deeply dedicated to project based learning this year.  I’ve been writing about it throughout this past school year, but my use of collaboration, technology, inquiry-based instruction, and project-based writing has increased significantly.  What was once something I only took time to do during 4th quarter when the assessment pressure had subsided, has become something I do despite assessment pressure.  And I’ve been rewarded greatly in student enthusiasm and even test scores.  See my Edutopia post here.

My doodle I thought of this morning in the shower.

We know that writing is back in style due to the Common Core.  In fact, and frighteningly to some, it wil be back in style across the disciplines.

If you read the SMARTER assessment information, for instance, you’ll notice peppered throughout the document are words like “translation”, “argument”, “analyze”, and “interpret.”

And from what I understand, Math students will be asked to write about why they selected a particular equation or how they came to a particular conclusion.  It’s all about informational and persuasive writing, and all classes will have to use writing in both assignments and assessments in order to comply.  Frankly, that doesn’t sound unreasonable to me because writing in unavoidable in “real life.”  No college bound kid or career bound kid (white-collar or blue or grey or chartreuse) can avoid it.

I want to end by saying that I’m not against having standards.  I’m also liking a lot of what I’m seeing in what’s out there about the Common Core.  Really I do.  It’s this blindly searching in the dark for what’s going to prepare these kids that I resent.  It’s the private industries making money off of our fears and lack of knowledge of what’s to come when in fact many of them don’t know themselves.

The districts and schools have been left to fend for themselves, designing lessons and assessments that they THINK will address this new chapter of standardization.  I’m just waiting a bit for the other shoe to drop. Teachers and administrators are on the same page here, designing and developing and evolving their curriculums based on rumor, but I don’t doubt that their stuff is good.  Really good.  Better than most privatized companies could design because these lessons are created with deep learning at heart.

I only hope that what turns out to be fact doesn’t squeeze out the efforts and creations of all those proactive educators.

Nevertheless, sometimes where there’s smoke, there’s fire.  And if the rumors are true, this country will have their students prepared by the amazing troops of educators who didn’t wait around for answers, but instead ran out on the field to meet their fight headlong with pens, laptops, Interactive boards, podiums, iPads, and even #2 pencils a-blazing.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CAT, Common Core Assessments, common core standards, education, k12, middle school, performance based assessments, project based learning, SMARTER

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I presented on the topic of Project Based Writing, and while this keynote may not make sense to many of my readers, it will to those who were in the room and emailed asking to have it.  So I’m posting it here.

Feel free to download the Quicktime of my keynote here. It’s sans sound, but you’ll get the idea.

 In addition, I’ve included links to my handouts (sorry, we ran out that day!) because I know some teachers are looking to start jumping in right away.

CATE Handouts (10 Reasons to Teach Using PBW, Great TED speeches, Advocacy and Executive Summary Outlines)

Problem Statement

Teacher Created Resources Internet Literacy Handouts

Checklist for TED

Checklist for Career Quest

Checklist for Teach the Teacher

Many of the documents here I have been developing and tweaking for some time, and in 2013 some of them will become a new workbook from Teacher Created Resources called Project Based Writing. ?Check back next year for news on the book’s release date.

Hope these all help, take care, and if there’s anything else you guys need, let me know!

-Heather

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Post tags: authentic assessments, cate, internet literacy, project based writing, Teacher Created Resources, writing project

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My latest post for Edutopia just went live. It picks up where my post, “Choosing a Topic for our TED.com Speeches” leaves off. ?In this case, it follows the project to its end, sharing how it translates to the testing world.

“The Power of Project-Based Writing” discusses the fear I had ditching test prep in lieu of what I think is more important: life prep.  Would teaching what I know is more important still translate into their test scores?  Read my newest post for GLEF and find out!

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Post tags: edutopia, project based learning, project based writing, test prep

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Talk to you all soon!  I’m prepping a new post on ELD strategies so heads up, it’s on its way!

-Heather

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Post tags: digital learning, edutopia, online learning, skills of distance learning

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You can read the post, “Using Technology to Model Lifelong Learning Beyond the Bell,” here.

I am always happy to lend my voice and words to support the Writing Project.  Don’t know what I”m talking about? Looking for the best, life and practice-changing professional development out there?  Get thee to a Writing Project near you!

Happy Digital Learning Day.

-Heather

aka Tweenteacher

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Post tags: digital writing day, educational technology, virtual classroom, writing project

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Guess what?  I’m going to be facilitating a class for Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s Powerful Learning Practice.  The six-week course is on Project Based Writing, a strategic way to bring in authentic assessments and meaningful learning into any Language Arts program, elementary through secondary.

If you know anything about my teaching style, it’s about reciprocal learning, engaging instruction, and breaking down the walls between school life and real life.  But it’s always easier to jump start into a new unit if someone has tried strategies out already, which is where this class comes in.  Throughout the six-week series, I share what’s worked, provide downloadables, and help guide the participants to create Project Based Writing units that cater to their own classroom.  By the end of the class, the participants will come away with lessons created by and shared by everyone to adapt and use in their own practice.

To find out more about this new class, you can read here for an interview I gave to online awesome guru, Sir John Norton Esq.

What I like about PLP is how they combine both asynchronous discussions using ning with synchronous weekly webinars using Elluminate.  It gives a texture to virtual professional development that I’m proud to be a part of.

So check it out, and I hope to see some of my readers there!

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Post tags: authentic assessments, authentic learning, education, PLP, professional development, project based learning, project based writing

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