The discussions are rich, organic, and run themselves. All I needed to do was have the patience to set it up right. So I’ve pulled together some steps that I’ve been working on for the past couple of years that help introduce students to the art of blogging without neglecting the science of building community and collaboration.

1. First give them a technology survey. After all, you need to know who has access and who does not. That way, you can strategize options for students who are not online at home. I do not believe that we can hold classes or schools back, creating an ever-widening gap, by holding out for students who do not yet have access. It is our responsibility, however, to provide options. I offer lunchtime or after school computer use in my classroom. The local library is willing to reserve computers at certain times. And our school media center has a couple that are available as well.

2. Show them what a blog is. I first show them the little video by Commoncraft.com, “Blogging in Plain English.
Then I show them examples of other blogs. I might show them one of my own book reviews or an author’s blog or even look at the give and take in some Amazon book discussions. (I, of course, scout ahead for appropriateness. I never assume the link or the content from one year is able to be used again the next year without previewing it first.)

3. Hand out a simple list of the basic rules of Netiquette for How to Comment on a Blog. I use the ones for a middle school workbook I wrote for Teacher Created Resources. I have them here with their permission. Even just going over rules helps to set a tone of expectations.

4. We do offline blogging first. I think offline blogging is an important step because it demystifies the process and breaks it down into a more tactile activity. Basically, I print out 4 different online book reviews (one for each kid at a table group to read.) I attach a template that includes user name, subject line, and comment field to the end of the review. It’s just three boxes of differing sizes to mimic what they will see online. (I actually attach multiple templates so that multiple students can comment.) The students read the review, then fill in their user name (their first name + last initial), the subject line (which is the main idea of their upcoming comment), and their comment. Then they rotate their review to the next person in their group for that person to comment on. After the first student, the kids have the option to comment on the initial review or comment on another student’s comment. By the time a few students have rotated their reviews around, the list of comments has noticeably grown, and the students get the idea of blogging by creating the visual themselves. Here’s also a hint: use books from your own classroom library and they’ll be checked out by the middle of first period. This year I used Uglies, Shiver, The Hunger Games, and Everlost.

5. Have the students choose their own book club groups. I say no more than 5 kids in a group, and I believe that student choice, whenever possible, is key to middle school buy-in. These students won’t be working together face to face, only online, so it won’t be a classroom management issue to allow them this treat.

6. Hand out Guidelines on How to Write a Discussion Post. You can get a copy of mine here that is based on a version first designed by my awesome colleague and fellow Writing Project mentor, Liz Harrington. This gives students a sense of your expectations regardless of the book they are currently reading or where they are in their book. Incidentally, if you teach a subject other than Language Arts, it’s a good idea to hand out guidelines about what you want them to be posting about: what to base their topics on, where to find concepts, etc…just to get them started. They can blog about how they discovered the solution to an equation or predict the outcome of an upcoming experiment. Anything with guidelines can be used to begin an online conversation.

7. Still working offline, I have them turn in a final draft of their first discussion post on paper before we go to the computer lab. This will be the only time they turn this in to me other than as an online post. It’s just a format they are used to and it allows me an easy way to make sure everyone’s prepared before going up to the lab for the first time. Everyone needs to be on the same page to learn the skill.

8. Once in the lab, introduce them to your blogging program. I use www.kidblog.org. It can be a little buggy, but it’s safe, fantastically user friendly, and forgiving. It takes 5 minutes to learn, and 5 minutes to set up. Show them a post that you’ve created already on the same subject that follows their same guidelines. Model, model, model. Have the students log on and comment on your post. This way, you can give quick feedback on their commenting quality before they comment on each others’ posts.

9. Have them type their discussion post into a new post entry and teach them to link a piece of their text to a website or image as a further resource for their readers. I think linking is a vital skill that students in this digital age should learn. It’s an added layer of comprehension that the author shares with you and an added dimension of information to which a reader has access. Once their post is typed and a piece of text is linked to an online resource, the students can click to publish (which actually goes to you for approval first on many programs.)

10. Skim for appropriateness and publish their first discussion post. Then spend some time privately commenting on each of their posts, give them a score, whatever, while the kids begin publicly commenting on the published posts from the members of their book club group. Eventually, however, you’ll notice that students will start commenting on everyone’s posts. They can’t help it. Blogging’s addictive.

I have no doubt that there is a more efficient way to frontload blogging in your classroom. But this is what’s worked for me, especially with kids who have no freaking clue what I’m talking about when I first approach them the the “b” word.

Middle schoolers love to talk, so give middle schoolers the opportunity to talk using technology. Blogging gives them the chance to exchange ideas and discuss, but with eloquence, guidance, and the rules of netiquette. It taps into their chatty tendencies, creating greater buy-in, and it gives them a 21st Century skill that will move with them beyond their year with you.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 21st Century skill, blogging, education, k12, middle school, Netiquette

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Unfortunately, however, the message is lost as policy makers seem to be basing their hopes on poor business models. So if they insist that we must compare schools to private industry and students to products, shouldn’t we at least base our policies on a relatively successful model? How ’bout Google?

So here is the list of Google’s Top 10 Golden Rules. I know it’s been around for awhile, but look at it through the lens of education, and see if it isn’t at least metaphorically applicable:

Now, granted, there are obstacles that have blocked our use of some of these strategies, and I’m sad to say, some have even come from those within education. But as long as the policy makers continue to compare our schools to businesses, not recognizing that which makes the comparison inappropriate, then many in education will never be able to use that which makes businesses successful.

For you see, there is much to learn from a successful business model that isn’t always publicized. It doesn’t have to be about goals and competition, but it can be about community and collaboration. Unfortunately, our policymakers have their sites set on the wrong angle of what makes a business a success.

For a successful business might be about making money for the few, but a successful school is about preparing the many their own own potential possibilities.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: business model, education, google, k12, middle school

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When it comes to time management, we have to specifically teach tweens, and that means introducing them to different ways to look at time in the hopes that one method might ring with one student or another. Think about adults: some like wearing a watch. Some still like to write all their events in the little Filofax in their bag, crossing out what’s accomplished or dog-earing a completed page. Others like using something like Google docs or some other online program. Still others like their iPhone to ring them when something’s coming up. As adults, we differentiate how we manage our time.

Students, however, are sometimes at the whim of the method that works for that particular teacher for that particular year or the one designated by the school site. Yet middle school is a vital time for tweens to learn multiple strategies. In elementary school, much was given to them explicitly, and once they enter high school, there’s this expectation that they can manage their time already independently. So when else are they going to learn these skills but in middle school?

It’s constantly a work in progress, but I have a few methods that I use with students to help them manage their time so that they can take responsibility for their own deadlines:

Introduce tweens to multiple strategies of time management. Let tweens into knowledge of the master calendar, and give them the tools to manage their own responsibility. In the end, you’re giving them the ability to make your own middle school classroom run smoother and, more importantly, you’re giving them the skills that they will take into their lives beyond school.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agenda, education, middle school, time management, tween

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My first day (s) of school look something like this:

1. Hand out card to determine random seating – Basically, I stand at the door to my classroom and greet kids, giving each of them a card from a standard deck. They must find the corresponding card that is taped to a desk. It gives them a little something to think about while I’m meet-and-greeting. It’s random seating on the first day, and then I get to know them and might shuffle some of them around over the course of the next week or so. Seating changes periodically (I’ll post about the need for that later). For 4th quarter, they are permitted to sit where they want with me having the final say. By then, however, we’ve built community and hopefully they are making better choices then they would have made at the beginning of the year. Besides, tween years are like dog years: for every year of growth, it counts as 7 on the non-tween, human scale. Tweens are just mutable that way.

2. Handouts that I, over the course of the first few days, go over, collect, etc...I use the following handouts:

• Welcome Letter and Homework Policy

• Publishing Agreement for online or print purposes of their face, voice, or student work

• Movie Permission Sheet – on the occasion that I want to show a movie that relates to the curriculum or clips from YouTube that are content-based, I don’t want to hand out a sheet per movie. I do one sheet at the beginning of the year that is a catch-all for all potential uses.

• Computer Survey – who has access, who does not. I don’t want to limit what I attempt during the year (blogging, Elluminate tutoring, etc…) because of the few who are still out in the cold, but I need to devise options for those who don’t typically have access.

If you want to download some of my handouts, here they are:

7th grade intro letter

Publishing Release

Video Permission Form

I always keep a folder on hand for each period that contains copies of these as well as a Reading Survey and a Writing Benchmark prompt for any student who matriculates in after the first few days. Just make the folder and assign a student in each period to hand it out to any student who walks in the door, so things function seamlessly right from the get-go as seen through the eyes of the trickling-in student.

3. Find a Fib activity - I begin to build community immediately in my classroom. Don’t worry about going over the rules. There’s still time for that. It’s more important to going over who you are, what kind of teacher you are, and what kind of expectation you have for them as individuals in your class. The Find a Fib activity begins the process of Think Aloud, begins a structured paring activity that shows already that this is a class of collaboration, and makes you “for one brief shining moment” the most interesting person in the room. And that helps with classroom management in the end.

4. Folder Creation – Eventually we will make our Works in Progress Folders and Portfolios. These will house our creations, and will be decorated with illuminated letters that use symbols that represent their contents and our curriculum.

5. Poetry, Quickwrites, Quickdraws – Don’t let the first couple of days be curriculum free. Even if you have items that are dictated by your district that must be accomplished in those critical days, if you want those tweens awake and alert, get their brain juices flowing right now. At least devote the beginning of class to establish your content, even if the rest of the time is in the hands of the set-up gods.

6. Intro to Time Management – post with pictures to come.

7. Intro to my website – I’m still putting it together, but if you want to check it out, it’s at http://web.me.com/bulldogradio.

8. Who does what in your small group – I name each spot at the small group table based on my curriculum. I’ve written about this before here. At each table, there’s a Bella, a Skullduggery, a Wart, a Prince Hal, and a Tatiana (this varies from year to year based on my memory or lack thereof.) This way, you can create fluid groupings very easily. “All Bellas, please go get your group’s writer’s notebooks.” “Could I please see all Prince Hal’s over here at this table for a conference about your latest draft.” “Only Tatiana’s may raise their hand during this next activity, so if you have a question or comment, agree as a group on its wording and Tatiana’s will represent you guys today.” And so on.

The sooner your class runs smoothly, the sooner you can get beyond the nuts and bolts and deeper into the content that you really want to share. Make sure your personality is part of the routine of the class and the students will not only obey the rules, they will want to obey them.

Good luck in the start of your school year. Check back for more tween teaching advice, and please share your own. After all, blogging’s a two-way street. I look forward to learning from you all.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, first days of school, fluid grouping, k12, middle school, routines, tweens

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I’m willing to come in on the weekends to work, as are friends and family who can help me shove desks, staple boards, and set up computers…but I have no key. It seems only the office manager and custodians are considered professional enough to carry the precious metals.

I am willing to work out of contract to set up a stellar classroom environment that sets a tone right off the bat in my room the minute the kids walk into the door.  After all, it’s my first shot at rigor and management, and the kids must look around from minute one and think, “wow, learning happens here. This is the place to be, and I want to be a part of it.” I need more than a couple of days to do that, yet we are seemingly only given the time for mediocrity.

I got in the other day and one of my bookshelves had collapsed, the one behind my desk with all my supplemental materials and professional books, books by such authors as Jim Burke, Kelly Gallaghar, Donalyn Miller, and Jeff Anderson. When putting a work order in, I was asked if I really needed all those books.  All I could reply was, “Yes, I need the books.”  It is my supplemental material and my own self-sought PD that makes my curriculum exceptional.  The weight of what I bring to my classroom clearly was too much for the bookshelves.  I take the blame entirely.

I know that each tier in our school is working their tushies off to do their job, but by not utilizing the teachers’ talents when they are prepared to do so seems inefficient to me.  I know our school counselors have not even slept this summer, trying to pull together student schedules with little guidance, but could not some teachers have been pulled into the process to help in some way?  We have a new AP (one I anticipate will be great but who is inundated now) who was handed the job of doing the master calendar just this summer, and many teachers are frustrated that we haven’t been informed for sure of our schedules for this year as of this post.  Could teachers be let in to the secret building of the master schedule in the spring so that we might help design it by the end of the year, allowing teachers their summer of lesson design and curriculum tweaking?  This isn’t an issue of our own convenience; it’s an issue of student achievement.

I need to begin planning my curriculum, tweaking what worked and what didn’t, redesigning new lessons based on what I myself learned this summer. Finding out definitively that I’m teaching both 7th and 8th or one or the other a mere few days before school limits the energy and creative power that I can bring to those designs. Just opening up the textbook and teaching what’s in the teacher editions is standardized, never enough for excellence. Standardization itself caters to the mediocre.

We are being sold short of excellence by having so many gatekeepers in education. Look, I don’t want an administrator’s career, but surely teachers can be used to help offset some of those skills. We all have skills that go beyond those that are used in the classroom, why can’t our skills be utilized to help our site, our district, or education as a whole function more smoothly and more efficiently?

Slightly off-topic: Could not teachers also be used in designing assessments that reflect a deeper ability to communicate knowledge and less of a regurgitation of content?  Assembling the master calendar, seeking out our own professional development, designing schedules, creating assessments, trusting us with the keys to our own classrooms – it’s all about tapping into the talents of teachers to aid in education.

I recently met an online colleague from CTQ (the Center for Teacher Quality) who started a teacher-led school in Denver, CO. I’m still learning exactly what this means and how the school functions in such a collaborative leadership, so I can’t say for sure that this model is what I strive for, but, what I will say is this: based on what she’s doing, teachers outside of this model are being under-utilized.

When I spoke to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last spring (see my earlier posts), it was to try to offset the fact that teachers are kept out of the loop of educational policy making in this country. But a more stunning fact is that we are kept out of the loop in our own school sites and districts.

When others are permitted to make decisions for us that limit our practice, what does that say about our own professionalism? Teachers are ready to do what it takes to do the job right, but is the system?

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: back to school, curriclum, education, middle school, start of year

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I am hoping that the power of social media can help a gal out.  I’m in the need of a catchy title for my new book that is due out in early 2011.  The working title is Tips for Tweenteachers, but it just doesn’t light my fire, nor has is resonated with early reviewers.  It reflects what the book is about, but not my voice.

So here’s the deal.  If you can help out and come up with a title that my publisher selects, he will send you a free copy of my book when it’s published as well as two more titles of your choice from the Eye On Education library.

So what do have to lose?  I could use the help, since my wall already has a head-sized hole in it from where I’ve been banging my noggin for the last few months trying to solve this problem.

Just leave any suggestions here, and I’ll get back to you if your title is selected.  Thanks so much for your help!

Sincerely,

Heather Wolpert-Gawron

aka Tweenteacher

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: book, education, eye on education, k12, middle school

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My school is currently under construction.  Despite the fact that things are tight and we are a Title I district, our community voted to pass a bond that could update our school’s desperately inadequate facilities.  So we’re getting a new media center (although budget cuts have cut back our librarian’s position), a new field to share with the community recreational center,  and a new administration building at the front of the school.  And we are grateful.

But what little green exists on our campus is under threat, including our few trees. In fact, the biggest and oldest tree which can be seen from the front of our school, which kids hang out under waiting to be picked up, and under which students read, is smack dead in the center of the scheduled covered walkway. (I’m not sure why in Southern California, we need a covered walkway, but – shrug – I guess that’s what was decided.)

So I think we should try to save the tree. I know it sounds all tree-huggy, but schools need green. Right now there’s only one grassy strip on our campus and it seems to be where all the dogs in our city go to do their business.

This grassy strip leads up to the tree, and a huge indicator as to the plans to disrupt the grass and its tree is the fact that it hasn’t been watered in months, and the browning has begun. My classroom and three others happen to sit right next to this anemic strip of nature, and we used to complain that the industrial size grass trimmer seemed to always appear on testing days. But I swear, if we can save this patch, we won’t bitch about the distracting noise again.

So I started by just trying to get an answer as to when the tree and grass was scheduled to be cut for good. This is proving difficult. So far, no response from the administration nor the director of the construction on campus. Growl. Normally, I would be having students do this portion of research, but I want to know that when we return, there will be a tree still there to fight for.

Once I get that answer, it will give me a timeline for our project.  I can backplan due dates and students can goal-set appropriately.  We can begin preparing for a writing campaign, a publicity campaign, and oral speaking activities.  We can stage informational lunchtime classes and even create a blog, perhaps create a petition.  By the time the kids arrive, they will be the creators of the tree-saving movement, however, not I.

I’m starting with a local, applicable topic so that students can see the difference their efforts may make (hopefully). The immediacy may help them in their own learning. From there, later in the year, we’ll move into student choices of topics, the further development of polls, and the writing of an executive summary.

On a side note: it’s a pity that the test scores of one single setting can’t reflect the learning that will occur in training our students to be advocates for a cause.  Regardless of the cause, we want our students to be adults that can stand for something and who will put their abilities to use in society.  So far, no bubble test I know can capture the deep learning that can occur within a unit of PBL.

Anyway, I’ll give you an update, dear readers, as soon as school starts and the battle really begins!

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, k12, middle school, project based learning, Title I

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In a nutshell, I’ve been given leave to teach whatever I want as an enrichment, tuition-based class this summer for middle schoolers. So I’ve chosen Film Appreciation. We’ve been studying cinematic terms, reading selections from books that have become movies, and studying the similarities between the narratives we write in school and the narratives that are produced for the screen. We’ll then use these films as a basis for reviewing literary analysis as a writing form.

Here are some examples from the class curriculum:

* So we’ve studied Danny Elfman’s contributions to music scores and watched clips from Beetlejuice, tracking how the music propels the narrative.

* We’ve talked about creative license between books and movies by reading the first paragraph of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe which only mentions in one sentence that the children were sent to the country during the war, and then looked at the first few minutes of the recent movie to see the incredible amount of story and character which were described in only the opening credits set during the Blitz in London.

* We’ve discussed the differences between directors and cinematographers, reading the opening selection of Shoeless Joe and having them draw their idea of Iowa at “dusk on a spring evening, when the sky was a robin’s-egg blue and the wind as soft as a day-old chick,” setting them up for Field of Dreams later on.

* We’ll be looking at Art Direction: the differences between Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (click to see images) and the Prisoner of Azkaban (click for images), the worlds depicted in Dune, and moments from Big Fish.

* We’re reading The Outsiders (I have a class set) and doing a comparison with the movie.

*We’re going to be reading scenes from Shakespeare, the most often used screenwriter of all time, and looking at different versions of scenes from some of the greatest performances. We’ll be looking at the crane shot from the end of Branagh’s Henry V and looking at Romeo and Juliet.

So I received an email this morning from a parent whose student is in my class. She claimed that the kid loved the course, and how he now wants me as his Language Arts teacher next year. But she was concerned how the high school would react if they knew I was talking about Romeo and Juliet, and whether middle schoolers really understand the adult themes that Shakespeare wrote about.

And I recalled a time a couple of years ago when my then department chair said that I couldn’t do scenes from certain Shakespeare plays with my ELA class because the high school tends to get testy about it.

So that got me thinking about our purpose as teachers. And as I thought, I found myself getting more and more indignant about curriculum turfiness. Does it really benefit the learner?

Here was my response to the parent:

Thank you so much for your concern, and I’ll be happy to explain my confidence in middle schoolers and their ability to understand the concepts in Shakespeare’s works.

Yes, I am reading excerpts and comparing them to a movie. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, we will also be acting out a number of the scenes from the play as well (Mercutio’s death scene – great swordfight! and one other most likely.) We will then be watching the final scene of Shakespeare in Love . This is not a movie for middle schoolers so I’m just showing the end where they perform R & J in a reconstructed Old Globe set. I think it’s important for kids to learn about the first and still-most-often used screenwriter, Shakespeare, and compare the loud, interactive quality of what live theater was like then to the static quality of the theater-going experience now. And we will then most likely watch a version of the play.

Let me backup about Shakespeare. The Bard is my passion. I am a Renaissance Lit major who also directed Shakespeare with folks, ages 5-60 at the Youth Academy of Dramatic Arts for many years. I don’t know how [our high school] would feel, but I know that I deeply believe that waiting until high school to discover this writer does a disservice to our students. Considering Romeo and Juliet are middle schoolers and Shakespeare is a part of the 7th grade history curriculum, it seems very appropriate to me to be studying it. I only wish we could be doing it during the school year. As it is, we probably will only spend 2 days on it. Nevertheless, we will not be studying the whole book. I will leave that to the high school.

There’s another way to think about this. Books that kids discover early on in a positive way are books they will be eager to explore again and again in a deeper way each time. Even while reading our favorite books, we do not comprehend every theme and chewy piece of dialogue on the first reading. It takes loving it the first time and diving in again and again to pull back the layers of true passion for a book or an author. If anything, I believe that tackling it now, 3 years prior to when the student will see it again, will only serve to help his enthusiasm later.

This is a powerful play and film about tweens. It is about relationships. And while I know some themes will get lost on these kids, they also could end up seeing it through other eyes than they will as their high school selves. This book sits in my classroom library and every year multiple kids discover it. We can’t segregate the classics based on a district’s curriculum choices; it would never allow us to differentiate for each child’s interests and levels.

I really appreciate your thoughtful questions and concerns. I hope I’ve helped in some way here. Think of my class as an introduction to these classics, and then he gets to excitedly await to dive into them deeper years from now.

I know I took a stand here. I know I might take some heat. But there is such a shortsightedness that we can’t be talking about certain pieces of literature multiple times. We loop our history curriculum over and over, our math and science curriculum over and over. So why do ELA teachers get so territorial?

Reading and writing can’t be taught in isolation. We must all be building on the skills, looping as well, introducing AND re-reading. Every teacher brings something new to the conversation, just as every student brings a new dimension of understanding with every year of experience lived. So the eye rolls from a high school teacher are off base.

We are supporting one another in our teachings, for just one teacher does not a successful student make. Each student has a team of teachers behind him.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, education, film appreciation, high school, k12, middle school, reading

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Called “ronin mawashi” in Japan, where it is popular among the pre-collegiate community, pen twirling has its stars, as does any other performance or skill. Accomplished masters of the art form that are well-known — at least among those who follow the sport — have developed a reputation for creation of certain signature ‘moves’. David Weis is credited with creating numerous ‘back’ style moves, such as the “BackAround”. Hideaki Kondoh is generally credited with giving the pen trick “Sonic” its name, because of the way the pen would blur in his fingers.

Pen spinning only recently saw a rapid increase in recognition due to the emergence of internet media websites such as YouTube. From 2006 onwards, the art of Pen spinning has developed subcultures in many countries of the world including the Asiatic-regions and Europe (France, Germany and Poland).

And as the year closes up, I’ve noticed as of late an increase in modified pen spinning, haven’t you? So naturally if there’s an obsession in my class that has little to do with our content, I look to my own practice and what the addition may say about my level of engagement (or lack thereof.)

I wonder if I feel the same way that teachers must have felt about rubics cubes or hackysacks when they came on the scene. This feeling of, “what’s going on around me? When did this start? And Why didn’t I get the memo?” In the past, when something like this occurs, I normally become somewhat efficient in the activity so I can join in the conversation. I’ve gotten a lot of play out of my own World of Warcraft obsession, after all.

But in this case, my fingers just can’t do the darn tricks. My dad has always said he can’t press the little buttons on the iPhone because of his Eastern European immigrant fingers. I’ll chalk it up to that with my inability to do the pen spinning thing too. But even though I can’t do it, at least I can learn about it. And I can touch base with those kids who I may not have reached yet, and when I ask them to put it away (“If you’re spinning your mods, you clearly don’t have pen to paper”) I get more smiles and buy-in because the kids know I’m not after them personally.

I hear of teachers practically having conniption fits when the propelling blurs begin. But I’m pretty calm about it, I mean, I have to ask the bigger questions when the whirring begins: The students claim that they are merely thinking, but really are they bored? Are more of them kinesthetic learners than I thought and this is a true visual indication of just how many students are antsy in their seats each day? Are they desirous of a shop class back on the schedule, something that is about creating, supping up, in this case, pimping their pen? Or are they just struggling to find individuality in a standardized prison, actually showing their own desire for differentiation by modifying anything that they can get their hands on?

It’s also kinda a boy thing, right? And we’re all looking to reach out to those tween boys. Girls have been showing their individuality for a while now: stickers on binders when they are younger, magazine collages inserted into the binder plastic by middle school. But this pen craze seems more like a boy-centric version of the same thing, the need for attention, the need to create their own machine, the need to show off the variables that they changed to accomplish something better than the other guys sitting next to them.

So when I see a tween obsession, my most important question is How can I harness it? Do I have them do a step-by-step assignment on How to modify your pen for ultimate spinning possibilities? So I have them write a guide with links to pages for further resources?

Students will find ways to differentiate themselves. While we all know that tweens desire to be part of a group, they also desire individuality, and the knowledge that they are being evaluated as individuals. So whether it’s whole group or small group work, I need to make sure there are outlets and evaluations for the individuals as well. And even when I have the students working alone, I ask myself how I can allow them the opportunities to tweak their own learning to make it applicable for themselves.

So many teachers are intimidated at the thought of individualizing the curriculum for each student, but maybe the students need to take ownership of that job; let’s call it curriculum modification rather than differentiation, and then it is really up to us, the teachers, to give students the opportunities to modify for themselves.

Back to pen spinning: what do you think, dear reader? I don’t want to fight something that should be exploited. How do we tap into a current obsession and make it something applicable in the classroom?

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Post tags: Curriculum, differentiation, education, k12, pen spinning, pen tricks, tweens

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And, sure, there are test scores of sorts used in any number of other professions. My father used to come home talking about game show Nielson Ratings, my brother in-law looks to see the totals for his opening weekends. (Can you tell I come from a family of entertainment?) But somehow our test scores are different.

Our test scores reflect far more than our efforts and performance. They reflect how much sleep a kid got the night before. They reflect the recent divorce, the boyfriend’s breakup during passing period, the number of days the kid wasn’t at school, apathy, yesterday’s enrollment into the school, and yes, content knowledge.

But test scores are the American way, a game to those who succeed in them, aren’t they? And like any competitive sport, there is the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” And, after all, we can’t all be winners, right?

But that’s just why teachers and schools have begun to circle their wagons and arm themselves with their voices loud against this threat of test scores running the show. Students should not begin their lives in the agony of defeat. We should be equipping them with what it takes to be victorious.

I think the reason why politicians tend to favor the need for competition in school is because it’s a language that’s worked for them, so they are confused about schools’ lack of buy-in. And while I’m all fine with a good healthy dose of financial incentive, we cannot compete unless we are all given the same resources. I mean, in the Olympics, does any swimmer in an antiquated swimsuit really stand a chance against someone decked out in the newfangled sharkskin suit? So is it for the inequity in school funding.

So clearly I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that soon our jobs may be identified and retained in large part to my students’ ability to take standardized tests, a variable which, in my opinion, is only one step up from hire date as a means to retain a position (see my article for Teacher Magazine, “Does Last Hired, First Fired Really Make Sense”). And having just ended our own standardized testing, that good ‘ole CST, I am reminded yet again that one of those factors that affect achievement is the lack of quality of the tests themselves.

So as my students bubbled away earlier this May , I looked at the test booklet to get an idea of what the testing gods felt were important enough to assess this year. The quality of what I saw was truly tragic, and I thought I’d share a little of the asinine quality of these tests as a means to answer the question:

How can my job quality be based on THESE tests?

My recollection of the questions (we aren’t allowed to write them down from the book) is also compounded by the feedback from the students. But just to protect the sanctity of the actual questions which are top secret and must not be discussed at all costs, I’ve replaced all the actual terms with similar ones that hopefully get my point across.) Here are the kinds of questions we observed:

1. They were randomly asked to define the word “yachting” (remember, the actual word is disguised to protect its true identity for fear of offending the original word.) Now my Title I minority students (the majority of my school) had never encountered that word. And I was proctoring the advanced math group. You know, those kids who started Algebra as zygotes? Now, I’m not knocking the students. I’m knocking the test makers who clearly can’t seem to avoid culturally elitist questions.

2. The informational reading selections were, how do I say it? Dated. One was on reading the instructions on how to use an old crank Phonograph.

3. How ’bout the fact that there is a percentage of questions on the test which will be dumped if over a certain percent of students get it right? The fact is that the test makers assume that if a high majority of the students get the question right, (reflecting of course that a high majority of teachers actually taught that standard well) the question is trashed as being too easy.

4. How ’bout the fact that there are questions meant to just be “piloted” during the actual test, with the intention of being too hard for most kids? How does that make a kid feel while testing? Why are they using high-stakes tests to assess the quality of the questions on the tests? How nice that the test makers get to use the tests formatively, but the schools don’t.

5. I also couldn’t help but notice that there was at least one question which asked students to pick a synonym for a word, let’s say it was “brick,” and the choices to choose from weren’t even nouns like giving them “run”, “jump”, “laugh”, “cry.”

Assessments are meant to reflect what has been taught, not how to out-think a tricky question. That is not critical thinking. But in this day and age, tests are actually driving the curriculum itself. That being the case, why can’t our standardized assessments at least reflect the lessons we know are the ones that truly need be taught? (See my recent post here on College and Career Readiness in Assessments.)

If the tail must wag the dog, why can’t the tail at least be well informed about what might be knocked off the table with each swing? If tests have become instructional guides in their own right, should they not at least be good ones?

And most importantly for the topic of this post: if tests are to judge my performance as a teacher, or the quality of my students and their community, should they not at least ask questions that are applicable? There are many reasons why tests are not great ways to evaluate performance. Yes, there are students not putting in the effort or families not doing what they need to help students achieve. But it is also the quality of the very tests that is also setting up our teachers and students for failure.

Bottom line is this: good test scores does not a good teacher make, just as bad test scores does not a bad teacher make.

Care to share any of the bizarre or poorly constructed questions that you saw on the tests this year? Please share below.

____________________________________________________________________________________

And here’s a little Test Score blogroll so you can follow this topic from other edubloggers who comprise our Fellowship of the Ning (Otherwise known as Those-who-spoke-with-Arne-Duncan). Throughout June we will all be involved in discussions and webinars focused on the issues we raise in our series of posts on this topic. Remember, policy affects our practice. And all our voices need to be at the table. Check these out for further reading. Feel free to comment and participate on any of our sites:

Marsha Ratzel – “Reflections of a Techie”

Renee Moore – “TeachMoore”

Mary Tedrow – “Leaving No Multiple Choice Footprint Behind”

Anthony Cody – “Summer of Discontent”

Teacher Letters to Obama -

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=166176941518&v=app_2373072738&ref=ts

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: assessments, education, merit pay, standardized tests, Teachers Letters to Obama, test scores, TLO

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There is definitely a common theme among them all: disappointment. But there’s another common theme as well: hope. We hope this is the start of something. We hope that the door remains cracked open. We hope that our voices can one day be joined with others in offering suggestions, not in asking questions.

Well, it seems that in light of the evidence from the last 24 hours, Arne Duncan and the DOE felt disappointment too and reached out to us in what can only be defined as hope after a very awkward call for us all.

Yesterday afternoon, the phone rang in two classrooms in two different parts of the country: one in California and one in Kansas. And the voice on the other line introduced himself as Arne Duncan. Anthony Cody (read his account of the conversation here) and Marsha Ratzel (read her really beautiful beat-for-beat post here), two educators who have been the executive producers of our recent campaign to get teachers to the policy table, both spoke to Duncan who apologized for uncomfortable and technologically strained call.

He went on to ask about their experiences, he sought input about some key issues, and insisted that he was interested in this being the beginning of a conversation with our group, not the end of one.

We are still at the table, fellow teachers. And it is clear that we have both parties trying to make this dialog work. Sometimes it feels like a Tower of Babel, yes, with two groups trying to speak the same language, but maybe the disappointment of an awkward call becomes our Rosetta Stone.

It is clear that the door is not closed. In fact, it has creaked open ever wider.

I will, of course, update you as I learn more.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, department of education, DOE, education, ESEA Blueprint, k12

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So it was with our call yesterday with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Now, I’m not saying that I thought we were about to make a huge difference in education with one 30-minute call. But I was hopeful that we were on the same page regarding the intention of the call. I was under the impression that they had granted us entry in order to hear suggestions from teachers to better the specificity of the Blueprint. Rather, it was what we had feared; he wanted us to come at him with questions, so that he and the members of the DOE could respond with answers from the Blueprint itself or from the Race to the Top policy.

Disappointing, because I believe that they are so fully neck-deep in Race to the Top, they could never about-face even when presented with the evidence to do so. They have so fully committed outrageous amounts of funds and, worse, so fully invested their reputation in this misguided and harmful program that they answer everything with this “RTTT grin,” like it is the answer to all possible concerns.

But I get ahead of myself. Here’s a rundown of the actual conversation:

It all began with this robotic, antiquated dial in phone conference system which garbled words, created echoes, and dipped in volume. We had suggested using Elluminate. And it got me thinking how ironic this was that we were sitting there, talking to DC about 21st century skills, when we couldn’t even communicate using those very tools. That’s not to say that the 12 of us weren’t doing our best. We had a ning set up to backchat during the process, and frankly that conversational B-story deserves its own post.

Because through our backchat we could pass notes of encouragement, of policy suggestions, of frustrations. And yes, there were many. Starting with the fact that Duncan and the DOE took 10 minutes of the 30 introducing their policies and trying to encourage us with what they were already doing. They threw out words like collaboration, teacher voice, fears about job loss, class size reduction, the fact that we’ve been asked to do more with fewer resources, the fact that we need better evaluations, and that we have been losing a more well-rounded curriculum. He claimed that he realized that in education there seem to be “many ways to fail, but few rewards to success.” They don’t want to micromanage. They felt that NCLB was punitive. It went on. Now, of course he said everything we all want to hear. But his disconnect lies not in what is being said as a goal, but in how they intend to make it all happen.

Ok, so they believe in collaboration. So why don’t we in schools have it? He believes in a more well-rounded curriculum. Well, then why make success still based on test scores? Where are the solutions?

It’s like saying, “We like pizza!”

To which we respond, “Well then, why are we still serving Melba toast?”

“Well, we believe in the power of pizza, so everyone make pizza!”

“Great, we’re with you on this one, we like it too, but how do we make pizza with no dough, tomatoes, cheese, or toppings?”

“Pizza good!”

The Blueprint is not an answer, it’s a goal. That’s where the disconnect lies.

Anyway, after Duncan talked, the robot voice introduced our first speaker, Marsha Ratzel, who had a great intro prepared which unfortunately couldn’t be heard due to the limitations of the technology. Then I was up. ( Beat beat) while I dial in a code to have my mute disarmed, (Beat beat) while the robot-voice introduced me.

I can’t for the life of me remember exactly what happened with my answer. It’s a bit of a blur. And I became flustered with the sound problems so I didn’t come off as eloquent or witty as I would have liked. Marsha Ratzel posted the text of our intended contribution here. But what was frustrating is that at some point, only 30 seconds in, I was stopped, being asked if where I was going with this was the need for critical thinking.

But it wasn’t only about critical thinking, I said. It’s about our assessments not reflecting the skills we all agree will prepare students for college and career readiness. “We’re all here to make suggestions,” I said. And what I suggested is that funds be redirected to the thousands of teachers out there to train them in the development and scoring of more critical thinking assessments.

“Well it just so happens, Heather…” they began, saying that they are planning to funnel $350 million for state assessment systems. But what we’re talking about, I tried to explain, is teacher created and classroom assessments, not state created assessments. He then told me that the funds are to encourage states to bring in teachers to the assessment scoring process. But we are suggesting that the money go to bringing teachers into the creation of assessments that test more authentic, project based skills. Once again, disconnect.

They spoke with much pride about RTTT allowing everyone to be eligible for their funds. But once again, there’s this disconnect, because everyone being Eligible does not mean everyone has Access.

Duncan mentioned his support of NBCT and NWP but never addressed the current threat to either program.

Beyond me, only 3 other speakers were permitted the microphone and each were truncated and answered with responses from the Blueprint or RTTT.

Here are posts from the other speakers and their take on the conversation.

Chuck Olynyk – “Word Game”

Anthony Cody- “Talking Into a Tin Can on a String 3000 Miles Long: Our Talk with Duncan”

Nancy Flanagan – “Speed Dating with the Secretary of Education”

Mary Tedrow – “Monday Chat with Duncan”

I’ll add more as they are produced.

There is definitely a common theme among them all: disappointment. But there’s another common theme as well: hope. We hope this is the start of something. We hope that the door remains cracked open. We hope that our voices can one day be joined with others in offering suggestions, not in asking questions.

For that is our goal here, fellow teacher, to stop asking questions. We can no longer afford to spend our precious time at the policy table asking questions that they control the answer to. The awkwardness of this conversation had more to do with this difference than anything else. They kept answering questions we were not asking. We kept making suggestions to policies they clearly see as their own solutions.

Our path is now clear. We need to wage a battle of solution, not confusion. Each message that is now produced from a teacher should no longer be a Question awaiting a response, as they are comfortable with. No. We must approach the DOE as advisors. Every letter, every video, every sign, must offer solution, disallowing confusion as to our purpose. When Duncan grants us entry again, or when he grants the next group entry, there can be no doubt that we are there not seeking clarification, as they may hope, but seeking to advise as teachers and experts in education.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, Blueprint, department of education, education, ESEA, k12, Teacher Letters to Obama

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Carlton Cruse (Producer): The first really profound moment on the show was at the end of the first season when we had the raft launch.

Daniel Dae Kim (Jin): I thought it was pretty great. Pretty seaworthy, I mean it looked… it was a raft. Those guys made it out of materials that they found that could have been on the island.

Cruse: You know this raft was a real measure of hope for show….the idea that they could actually get off the island.

Kim: I felt it was a culmination of all the work that people had put in for a very difficult year, and I felt that it was a celebration of where the show started from and where it had come.

Cruse: It’s one of those moments when you realize that making a television series is an incredibly collaborative effort. It’s about literally 300 people doing something in unison. You know, we had written the scene, but then you see the film and you see the way Jack Bender executed the scene, you then you see the emotion that all the actors brought. Then on top of that we went to the scoring stage with Michael Giacchino and the cue was so beautiful that when it was over everyone was crying because it was playing and the images of the raft launch was going on, and they all started tapping their bows against their instruments and clapping. It was just this profound, emotional moment.

Kim: To see the magic of television make that into a scene that became as epic as it was…it’s almost mythological…it’s almost like Homer taking off on his odyssey. It’s a heroic journey. It was awe-inspiring…

And so should it be for education. So should it feel for every moment a light bulb goes off over a student’s head or a student receives a hard-earned grade, certificate, or diploma.

For education is a collaborative effort as well. To see a student toward success takes effort from thousands more than just 300 people. It takes members from families, it takes teachers, peers, administrators, members of the school Boards, support from the neighborhood and community, and funding from the government.

If only Michael Giacchino could score each of our hopeful moments and our successes as well. For there are many.

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Post tags: collaboration, education, lost

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From there, the 12 of us flushed out each topic, bringing in what we know about the ESEA Blueprint and other reports, bringing in our own experiences as well as those from fellow educators, and bringing in what has worked and what has not. We have been focusing more on solution then complaint, though it’s been a bumpy path. After all, our strength as a group is in our diversity of thought, tone, and philosophy. But if you work with a group of people who are all like yourself, you forget that you have room to grow in your own ideas. And we all have a few stretch marks to show for it. But we also have produced a great baby of a script for introducing our ideas to the Secretary of Education and members of the Department of Education.

I am encouraged that the door is open to us. But I admit that I will be disappointed if this does not bloom into something other than this call. After all, we are bringing them a platter of topics and possible solutions, but this is by no means a buffet of procedures. Sure we can list solutions, but for true change to take place, we must scaffold reform. Reform is a step-by-step process and one that teachers must be a part of.

Our topics which we will be covering are as follows:

College and Career Readiness

Great Teachers and Leaders

Diverse Learners

Safe and Successful Schools

Complete Education

Innovation

The one I am specifically working on with the wise and awesome Marsha Ratzel is Topic #1, College and Career Readiness. Now, I think this is an important topic (as they all are, of course) because it is something that we can agree on with the DOE’s Blueprint. Our job is and always has been to help our students be prepared for college or career, whatever that career may be. But our argument is that current assessments do not test the very skills that leaders in either business nor higher education are looking for. And the reality is that, in education, assessments drive instruction.

So in a way, we are working in a system where the tail is wagging the dog. Therefore, we need to make sure that the tail is applicable or the dog gets fleas. OK, that metaphor didn’t work at all, but I think you get my drift.

So Marsha and I looked at the Partnership of 21st Century Skills, which provided the results of a poll of over 2000 business leaders who all believed that the following skills are needed for a 21st Century employee:

* Critical Thinking

* Problem Solving

* Communication

* Collaboration

* Creativity

* Innovation

We also looked at such studies as those from the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges who polled professors, many of whom work with freshmen and in introductory courses in the Cal State, UC, and California community college systems who also just happen to mention the same skills as being necessary for entering freshmen to have upon the start of their higher ed careers.

Therefore, if we are to provide a real curriculum of college and career readiness, we must also be assessing those skills and not the drill and kill content that is currently being tested. We also say that there are thousands upon thousands of talented teachers out there who have already been developing better assessments and more critical thinking curriculum, and who are just waiting to have their talents tapped.

By the way, Marsha and I both agree that our current curriculum is engaging or rigorous; it’s just not what we should be testing. Let’s use the content, the rich history, the math, the science. But let’s assess how a student communicates a response to an inquiry or contributes collaboratively to a wiki. Let’s assess how a student performs in a mock job interview complete with cover letter and resume. Let’s assess the growth of a student by looking at a growing portfolio that reflects the best of that student’s work throughout the year or, better, yet, throughout a number of years. Let’s assess a students contributions to a public service project. Let’s assess a student’s executive summary of the results of solving a local community problem.

Additionally, we argue, we cannot make high stakes decisions based on the results of our current assessments because they aren’t testing the very skills the scores are supposed to indicate. How can we call a student NOT college and career ready based on test results that don’t assess those very skills?

Anyway, that’s the gist. And yet, for many of us in our little group, this call is only the B-Story as we try to wrap up this very hard and tiring school year, a year plagued by pink slips and budget cuts. We all still work to make these kids ready for colleges that are becoming increasingly unaffordable and career ready for jobs that are now in drought. But our job remains the same, to help our students towards their futures.

Oh, yeah, and just to keep you guys in the loop, amongst it all, the teacher I was paying to ride the bus with my middle school speech team had to back out so I had to find another willing teacher to take my place in a bus full of excited, yelling debate students. It’s become a photograph of teaching really: A bus of students traveling in front of me, as I drive my CR-V down the 605 with one hand and dial the number for the DOE with the other. But at least my superintendent and principal have agreed to allow me to pay this audio-tolerant, bus-riding teacher out of my Speech funds. Some of the teachers in our advocacy group of 12 have to call in sick tomorrow just to participate in the call.

I’ll update my readers soon of what befalls our little troop of educational reformers.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…” And that includes you, dear reader.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: arne duncan, college and career readiness, department of education, education, ESEA Blueprint, k12

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And her questions are loaded with lessons as well.  Her spin on how to comment using the questioning format is as simple a tactic as when the powers-that-be first decided to change the format of a the normal game show and said, “hey, why not have the CONTESTANTS come up with the questions!”

And so Jeopardy was born.

And so a new blogger is born as well as a new fan.

Puglisi creates commentary in a fresh new way, and I, for one, am hooked.

Enjoy and pass it on.

-Heather

aka Tweenteacher

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Post tags: arne duncan, blogging, education

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Here’s my letter I just posted this morning:

Dear Arne Duncan,

I am a teacher, a blogger, an author, a wife, and a mother. Before I go into what I think we need to do to help education, I want to acknowledge what you have inherited and how difficult it must be to fix a machine where so many cogs are broken. I know too that education feels like a black hole, an inherited problem for your administration, but it has been a culminating failure of multiple administrations, of a society who consistently votes against their own children, as well as a failure of the educational system, which has led us to where we are today.

But I need you to turn your face to us, the teachers in the crowd now, for advice. We need you and our leaders to listen to those of us who have been fighting alongside our children all along. For too long have we been left out of the rooms and away from the tables, and look where we are today. We are the ones you have to focus your attention on now: not the test-makers, not the textbook companies, us.

To simplify my thoughts so that perhaps they might be heard, I have honed in on four main components that I believe are deeply important for educational reform:

1. There is an equation of success for education. It is simple and it can only work with all variables intact and supported:

Student effort + teacher guidance + government funding + family support = school and student achievement

No longer can schools or teachers be solely held accountable for the failures of a broken system. Yes, I see in your blueprint that you are trying to acknowledge that there are elements outside of education that must be addressed, but this must be more aggressive and targeted for true change to begin.

2. Yes, teacher quality is an issue, but it is one that can be solved without villain-ising teachers as a whole. You cannot cut down an apple tree because of one diseased fruit. The systems you criticize: tenure, the seniority list, etc…we all understand your criticisms of them. But they do not define the majority of hard-working, talented, and self-sacrificing troops of experienced and new teachers out there who are dedicated to this profession.

Each of them talk about the complexities of these issues, complexities that you are overlooking, I assume, to appear strong to those who want to see a Democratic bicep. But just because many of your constituents do not understand the subtleties does not mean you need to cater to them, swinging an axe over your head, beating your shield. Change will show strength, Mr. Duncan. And change can only happen with teachers at your side and at your table.

3. The National Standards do not reflect enough the skills our students need for their future. Educational Technology is vital. A student cannot apply for a job without understanding some degree of Internet Literacy. Yet funding for Ed tech has been cut. You claim that students must be “College and Career Ready” but vocational funding has been cut, electives have been cut, student choice has been cut. And student choice and sampling of interests has long been the basis for professional taste testing in the K-12 system. A student who hasn’t tasted Speech and Debate or Woodshop, who hasn’t tried Home Ec or Orchestra, who cannot see through the sea of students in their AP class or cannot get remedial help in Reading will not be “college and career ready.”

4. Teachers, great ones, are always training. Just as students evolve, so must teachers. I understand somehow that education is unique in that you see teachers as the authorities who go through their prep programs and should, somehow, come out (cue microwave ding!) done with our own education. But to maintain the skills of our students’ futures, we ourselves must be proficient in an ever-evolving skill set as well as be brilliant and engaging communicators. Yet funding for our own training continues to be cut time and time again. There must be a shift in how society feels about what it means to desire current training. It is not a weakness, but a strength to be constantly learning. And while I don’t expect society as a whole to believe it, I do expect my Secretary of Education to believe it and support it.

The bottom line is this, Mr. Duncan: the very principals in your blueprint are degraded by the recent cuts and lack of funding. We need you to swivel your gaze back to those who know best. We are here, right in front of you. Our intentions are for the good of the student. We know our missive and we are living it every day. Listen to the teachers.

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Post tags: arne duncan, budget cuts, education, Facebooks, letters to Obama, Social networking

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In it, I explore the history of the classic seniority list, and why we need to keep our experienced veteran teachers, promoting the need for a generational balance in our schools. I also explore why we must reform a system that might end up causing our profession to lose an entire generation of young teachers of great potential to this current pink slip plague. I then muse about what possibilities exist for reform of this deeply embedded but broken process.

Frankly, how can we keep what works and change what doesn’t?

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, seniority list, smartbrief, Teacher Magazine, union

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So when we began using Skype, it seemed the easiest (and free) video conferencing tool to start experimenting with while waiting for our district to bring in more sophisticated tools. This is apparently happening in the near future, but if you’re a teacher looking to engage your students NOW, you find ways to get ahead of the timeline.

We’ve both worked with our students in the past on teaching students to be teachers. (I’ll write more on a unit I’ve developed on the subject at a later time.) So they come to the table with certain skills already in place:

1. Leading a whole class lesson (definition or demonstration)

2. Allowing for Small Group Discussion

3. Developing a Visual (non-linguistic representation) of the subject

4. Creating an Assessment

Two tween teachers

McRae and I decided that in order to do some test prep with our classes, we would split some terms up between the two
classes, and that each class would be in charge of teaching the other. So, let’s say, my class was in charge of reviewing the following terms:

Analysis

Theme

Context Clues

Predicting

My students focused on taking a student-created assessment

Each of my small cooperative groups would be assigned a term and would get to work, assigning each other roles and creating a script for their lesson. They had to teach a review of their term in front of the camera (remember this is for test prep review), dividing up the job amongst the members of the group. It might include a 2-minute lecture, a visual created by the group, and a little worksheet which one of them ran down to the participating room in time for the activity to begin.

On the first day, we began with McRae’s class teaching us our test prep terms, which you can see from the pictures peppering this post. (I know, I know. My room’s a mess. But I like to think of it like creative chaos.) On the second day, my class took over.

One of the most important elements that McRae and I pre-taught were norms in how to use Skype and how to behave while video conferencing. It’s important to set up norms with any activity, especially one that is new. Below is a link to the norms that I developed. Just cut and paste the URL into your browser to download. Please feel free to use them in your own video conferencing experiments.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4234943/The%20Netiquette%20of%20Skype.doc

Check back in and let me know how it goes!

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Post tags: education, k12, middle school, skype, test prep, video conferencing in the classroom

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The definition of hybrid teaching varies, and I guess that’s the point. It defines a flexible career which allows teachers to explore different percentages of their job in the classroom and in other forms of education. For instance, a teacher can be paid to be in the classroom in the morning, but be a mentor teacher or district liaison in the afternoon. A teacher can, therefore, keep one foot in the classroom with the clientèle that are our students and also be paid to work outside the classroom to make the structure of school run at a higher quality.

I’ve heard any number of part-time education positions bantered about: curriculum coach, department head, grade level chair, technology coordinator, author, field researcher, publicist, teacher mentor, master teacher, literacy coach, district liaison, teacher trainer, professional development coach, distance learning educator, online tutor…the list goes on. It’s as infinite as the needs are of the individual district and school site.

The point is, that rather than get a meager stipend to do work in addition to being a full-time classroom teacher (which puts a strain on the quality of workmanship in both areas), a school can create a salaried “Frankenjob” of sorts for a teacher that addresses the needs of the school or district.

You need to train new teachers? Don’t hire an outside resource. Ms. So-and-so is already presenting at conferences on some weekends and has experience in teaching teachers. Let’s put her part-time in the classroom and part-time developing applicable professional development for teachers. Or let’s have her working as a mentor teacher with the newbies at the district. She can observe, guide, help them reflect and better their practice. Working one-on-one over a period of time, she might even have some influence on the teacher evaluation process rather than just leave it to the once-a-year-principal-pop-in observation. (Note to self: while I’ve briefly written on the topic here, a revamped teacher evaluation process is for a different post.)

And when you consider that according to the survey more than 56% percent of teachers agree that there are second career teachers in the classroom, don’t we have to allow for the fact that these people have skills that must be allowed further outlet in education?

But wait, let’s go back. Put aside the second career teachers. What about all teachers? Haven’t we all had skills put on the back burner of usage due to the rigid structure of our current educational paths? Don’t we all have talents we wish could be fully utilized?

I mean, one of the things that I love so much about teaching is the fact that it allows me to use some many of my passions: talking, reading,writing, drawing, etc…But after a few years of teaching, I soon found that I really longed for other outlets for my other interests.

For instance, I like talking to adults, and I long for it sometimes. I enjoy mentoring teachers, passing on what I’ve learned and helping them with their own practice. And, in so doing, I improve my own. For based on my own experience, I’ve noticed how recharged my own batteries get after touching education outside of the classroom in some way. And, as a consequence, I return to my students stronger.

In fact, I beg to differ with the study’s worry that hybrid teaching might lead to burnout. I, for one, see myself as leaving the classroom if I don’t one day find a hybrid role to fulfill me, to keep me stimulated. According to the study, I might fall under their 42% of teachers who want combination roles in education who are “less than very satisfied teachers.” But it’s not that teaching in the classroom isn’t satisfying or fulfilling. It’s just that I’m like my students. Sometimes I need to mix it up to be at my best.

I also have to take issue with this fact that there are “less than very satisfied teachers” and “very satisfied teachers.” What teacher who is reflective, growing in his or her own practice, challenging themselves and their students, working towards bridging that achievement gap and teaching toward the students’ futures is very satisfied right now? In fact, in my experience, the teachers who are totally happy with the way things are are not the ones we should be applauding as success stories. Sure there are the 30-year teachers out there who love teaching with their heart and soul. And I am in awe of them. But even they don’t seem so satisfied these days. So I question the variables used to determine this ambiguous state of mind and the fact that they implicate dissatisfied teachers as somehow wanting out.

In fact, I think that the mere fact that a “less than very satisfied teacher” is still looking for ways to remain in education in a positive way despite their frustrations says a lot about their dedication to the profession. The structure of ed needs to work with us to retain the best in each of us.

There are needs in education that aren’t being filled by those outside of education. We’ve all been to professional development that is empty and meaningless. We’ve all had teachers and trainers, many in our own teacher prep programs, who have distanced themselves from the classroom so much so that their teachings have become antiquated and lite in their message. (You can read about teacher prep program staffing in my Part 2 post on the topic here.)

But there must be an evolution in our profession. The Metlife Survey claims that a percent of teachers are happy with their job. But how long will that last when schools become more and more like prisons for both student and teacher alike? How long will that satisfaction last when we are all expected to be lock-step in our progression through our lessons, our units, and our careers? What will happen if we aren’t proactive and aggressive in styling our profession on the abilities and strengths of those within the profession?

What will happen if we don’t differentiate our professional paths?

If teaching is about the best and the brightest, it must provide an outlet for that which makes a person unique in their abilities. After all, only the best and the brightest can help produce the same.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ed Tech, education, hybrid teaching, metlife survey

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What I’m Hopeful About What I Read

“scores in other subjects could also be used to measure progress” - While students will be tested in math and reading, other subjects scores can still count, so that the accomplishments in the other core classes still have some testing value.

“would place more importance on academic growth then the current pass-fail approach to judging schools.”- AWESOME! GREAT TO HEAR! FINALLY!

“$29 billion in aid for schools, a 16% increase” – Money to schools is always good. Save for the fact that we need more, this is good to see.

Common National Standards – I support the use of standards and feel national standards are long overdue. I’ve taught in schools that didn’t use standards (both public and private alike) and I fear that it becomes a place of what’s important to the teacher to teach. Standards are meant to be a foundation of common, universal topics that all students must know. In theory, a good thing.

What Still Bums Me Out
“All students by 2020 are on a path towards “college and career readiness”- How is this a more reasonable expectation than the NCLB expectation of all students at grade level math and reading by 2014? Especially with cutting vocational ed and ed technology it’s like they’re talking the talk, but not walking the walk. Like NCLB, is this a mandate generated for publicity? Like the title NCLB (who wants to leave a kid behind?) “college and career” bound also has a nice PR ring to it, don’t you think?

“most of the money would be delivered through competitive grants” - Is competing for funds that are meant to provide equitable educational opportunities even constitutional? We aren’t a business. A competition means that there are losers. And the losers here are kids.

“common academic standards…would affect textbooks, curriculum, and teacher training across the country.” = Wasn’t the committee that created these common standards made up of representatives of the textbook and testing companies and not by teachers? And if we’re to prepare our students for college and careers in 2020, then why do these national standards still reflect the standards of 50 years ago? Where are the skills that students will need for their future?

“more sophisticated tests” – …means just one thing: more tests

“replace staff, independently manage, replace principal…” – No mention of accountability of family support or funding’s role in a school’s success. Nobody else is being held accountable to student success save for the schools and their teachers.

“expressed support for a decision to fire the staff of a struggling high school” – Still seeing teacher firing as a silver bullet for school success. But the school belongs to the community and is theirs to own as a success or a failure. The talk is all about the goals, but where’s the promise of support to reach those goals?

“preserving school choice…will be a rally cry and unifier for Republicans.” – But until schools are supported, this will segregate education between those with advocates and those without. We cannot offer choice if we are leaving some students behind in schools nobody would choose.

It’s like Obama and Duncan want to use strong talk and strong language, as if it was what was missing all along. But illiteracy, child abuse, child neglect, homelessness…these resonate far more with educators than some seemingly heavy threats from those so far removed from the trenches.

I mean, I kinda feel bad for Obama. He’s inherited a knot of gargantuan proportions. But rather than tease it apart, strand by strand, until the knot is out, he is standing at the pulpit yelling, “We have a knot! To get this knot out we have to unknot it! We must make the string accountable!”

But this concept of assessing based on growth is promising, and because of this I do sense that they are starting to listen to teachers. But until they resist the pull to grandstand with their language and their threats, education will not truly be reformed.

Nevertheless, I watch. I listen. And I hope.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, NCLB, New York Times, Washington Post

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