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 | 3 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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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!

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: edutopia, project based learning, project based writing, test prep

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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!

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: authentic assessments, authentic learning, education, PLP, professional development, project based learning, project based writing

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So began my schpeel on writing an Executive Summary for this DARPA/NASA Project I’m doing with my students (see earlier posts, “The Power of Teaching Something you Know Nothing About” and “DARPA project con’t: Research and Questioning.”)

I have decided that even though the NASA/DARPA video conferencing event is on Friday, Sept 30, there should be one last period at the end of this sentence for all students involved, not just those who were selected as panelists to speak on camera. So the following week, each of the small groups will be presenting in their own panels to their classmates. The classmates will be given mock checks in the amount of 1 million dollars, and at the end of the week, the students need to give their check to the group that they feel most deserved their funding.

It’s incorporating business with education, the reality of funding with Project-Based Learning. After all, while we may not run education lock step like a business, there is no reason not to be teaching some elements of business as we prepare our students for their future.

The most substantial part of my students’ writing contribution for their overall project is the Executive Summary. Yes, they also incorporated the science they learned into a science-fiction narrative. Yes, they have been doing research and taking Cornell Notes. But their end result must be presented in the form of an Executive Summary.

The Executive Summary is an interesting writing genre in that it hits many marks that make it applicable to life outside of school, which is why I’m choosing to teach it this year. For one thing, students can find examples of Executive Summary that exist in many industries. Can you say the same thing about the 5-paragraph essay?

Also, to prepare for it, I still teach the standards that are necessary for test scores. The genre, however, applies to both masters: meaningfulness and standardized performance. It uses Summarizing, Persuasive Writing, Research Skills, and Computer Literacy.

It also demands rigor in the form of simplicity, which can be uber-challenging, because it insists on concise writing and the role-play it connects to a real life scenario. In our case: our real-life scenario is speaking to a ballroom of scientists to convince them of our findings (Friday) and presenting in panels in front of our philanthropic peers (the following week.)

Yet the true rigor of this unit is the fact that it mashes so many genres of writing together. After all, life is not categorized. Scientists applying for a grant must summarize their findings and recommendations and still Persuade in order to receive it. Small business owners looking to present at a conference must Summarize their session, create a bio, and Persuade a committee to select their topic. A graduate student ready to venture out into the world must create both a Cover Letter and a Resume: both of which are versions of summaries using different methods of summarization (prose, bullets, numbers, headings, subheadings, paragraphs, bolded text, etc…) in order to Persuade potential employers to hire him or her.

So it is not surprising that presenting this writing unit is more rigorous than a more traditional unit. It is, in fact, more real. Which brings to light a question about our tendencies in education: if categorization of topics is easier to understand, but isn’t as true to life outside of education, are we really preparing our students for the expectations of real life by breaking our writings down into simple blocks of learning?

Look, the fact is that categorized, linear teaching is easier to comprehend. I get it. But it’s not life. So the best we can do to help each other is perhaps break down the components of the complexity of the job that we do as teachers every day. For it is complex.

To help break down a little about this particular writing genre, I thought I’d provide a brief outline that might help simplify what is far from simple. If you are interested in teaching Executive Summary, a simple order of the writing might be:

I. Why is this issue important?
II. Give a little background of the issue
III. Present some evidence of past/current methods
IV. State your own recommendations.

Remember with Executive Summary that the goal is short and sweet, max 3 pages. A person who knows nothing about the topic shouldn’t be slammed by a wall of dense text. The student needs to break up the information using Headings, Sub-headings, bold text, bullets, etc…The student can insert graphs, charts, and other simple visuals as well. It is a combination of fact-based, irrefutable evidence presented with no voice. Let the facts do the talking. Then, in the recommendations section, that’s where students can throw in more persuasive language and opinion. Of course, the whole piece takes a clear stance, which is opinion in itself. But it uses the strength of fact and summary to do the heavy lifting.

Overall, an Executive Summary should be positive, persuasive, and punctuated by simple and visual text design elements.

So here’s a snapshot of where we are in the whole project: I collect their Executive Summaries this Monday. Their multi-media presentations are also due on that date. The websites or PowerPoints are a collaborative, visual-based version of their Executive Summaries combined into one presentation where each panelist provided 2 slides to represent the main ideas of their research. The students will begin practicing this week for next week’s panels in order to earn the blank checks. In the meantime, the students will also be developing high-level questions using Costas and Blooms in order to grill their peers who were chosen this week to speak on the Sept. 30 panel to Florida. This way, the selected students can practice recalling their research and citing evidence on the fly when the time comes for the Q & A portion of our session.

Oh, yeah, and somewhere in all of that, we have to read the assigned short story in the textbook for a reading assessment bubble test the following week.

How’s the old Sesame Street song go? “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong…”

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: authentic assessments, darpa, education, k12, middle school, NASA, project based learning

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In this case, my students have applied to sit on a panel in an upcoming DARPA and NASA conference in Florida. It was a mythical session at the time I designed the unit, but the amazing thing, as many of you may know, is that we were actually contacted by NASA in order for my students to Skype in as a session to the actual conference.

In preparation of this event, we are doing a lot of research. To frontload for this, we talked a lot about Internet Literacy. Some of the topics we have discussed are:

1. Google Advanced Searches
2. Recognizing biased Websites
3. Citation of various online sources
4. Norms of blogging and video conferencing
5. Tracking down more resources using the bibliographies of current resources

We’ve also begun a classroom resource library broken down by the strands of research each student is conducting. The students bring in their bibliographies and selected articles copied or printed out, and put them in their corresponding files. This library then becomes possible resources for other students assigned to that strand.

So the bulk of this past week or so has been research, and as a component of that, my students had the opportunity to interview some professionals in the field. JPL (Jet Propulsions Laboratory) found some very kind and willing volunteers who offered to be interviewed by email. This then blossomed into a full-on Skype session last Friday where my students could interview, face-to-face, scientists who are actually involved in the development of interstellar space missions.

My students, clipboards in hand, took Cornell notes as the scientists listened, answered, and even asked their own questions. Needless to say, it was cool.

I was particularly proud of the questions that the students developed to take advantage of these scientists who were willing to donate their time to share their expertise. We’ve talked a bit about the Levels of Inquiry and developing high-level questions. We’ve talked a bit about asking questions in an interview that are not easily answered with Google. We’ve talked about how asking great questions is an indicator to great comprehension. The result was great, and the time spent with the professionals gave us some richly researched, primary resources for our DARPA arguments that are due on Sept 26 as final drafts.

Here is the list of questions my students developed and agreed upon to send:

1. Do we currently have the technology to create an atmosphere?
2. What would be the most efficient way to generate electricity?
3. Where would we store waste?
4. How can you prevent contracting diseases from other planets?
5. What importance is there to human life suspension?
6. What ready and reliable fuel sources already exist that can be used to get off the surface?
7. What speeds, with today’s technologies, are we able to accelerate up to? And how will we maintain that speed?
8. If possible, are we going to use the properties of black holes/wormholes to our advantage? (sling shot-ing, portal traveling, etc.?)
9. In your opinion, would it be better to first send probes to new destination options, or take journeys of faith with real people?
10. How do you think we could fit all the materials (food, water, etc.) in the star ship?
11. How can we keep the public interested in the project throughout the course of time?
12. What use of media/ technology is best to project the endeavor throughout the US and the entire world?
13. In terms of selecting a planet, what would you look for as required qualities of a habitable planet?
14. What type of people should first try to colonize on the planet? EX: researchers, scientists, athletes, or regular humans/civilians?
15. What are the mental ramifications of being at/in one place (i.e. planets) for too long?
16. Would it be more economical to change the environment of the planet that we may find habitable or create an artificial area to inhabit?
17. How do you get knowledge of the new scientific discoveries out to countries that don’t have the technology we have?
18. What kind of environmental toxins are in outer space that we already know we need to plan for/avoid/utilize?
19. Is there another source of energy besides solar power that can be used on a planetary colony?
20. What are the most important qualities that a colony needs to be self-sustainable?
21. Do we currently have any technology that makes it possible to prevent bone loss?
22. Which medicines (from over-the-counter to powerful anesthetics) will be needed to carry on board to the starship?
23. Please describe a sleeping chamber on a starship and the process of waking up and going back to sleep with daily check-ups in between.

One can clearly see that while they are asking questions, they needed to have a level of research conducted and a level of understanding before asking these levels of questions. Wouldn’t you want to know the answer to some of these? Well, I tell you the responses that came back were as detailed as the questions asked and fascinating. As you may know from my last post, I am learning along with my students.

I’ve given them the scaffold of writing necessary to mimic those found outside of school. From there, the universe is theirs to discover.

I’ll keep you all in the loop as it happens!

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: curriculum integration, darpa, education, k12, middle school, NASA, PBL, project based learning

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As a result of this shift, and mind you, it’s only been a couple of weeks since school began, I’ve found that not only do my students enjoy learning more, but I enjoy teaching more. The strange thing is, however, that it is mostly due to the fact that with PBW, I’m not limiting myself to only teaching what I know. I’m learning with them, and in so doing, am modeling how to learn. In other words, I am the writing authority, but not the content authority.

Let me give you the best example I can. Right now, as we speak, I am in the midst of a fantastic unit called The Darpa Project. It all began this summer when my husband told me of a cool symposium going on in late September in Florida for which DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) was seeking presenters. They were asking scientists, futurists, ethicists, and science-fiction writers to apply to be a part of a forum to brainstorm ways to colonize a planet within 100 years. The project itself is called the 100 Years Starship Study. Incidentally, I can hear Star Trek music in my brain scoring that title every time I write or type it.

The conference would be segregated into 7 tracks, all focused on different aspects of what it would take to colonize: the time-distance issues, economic challenges, medical considerations, communicating and publicizing the rationale, etc…

As I read over the website, it occurred to me that applying to speak at a conference was a sort of a persuasive writing exercise. It also occurred to me that studying these different “tracks” and synthesizing one’s research into a proposal was a sort of an executive summary. And lo, a Project Based Writing Unit was born.

So I whipped together an iMovie introducing the concept with some dramatic suspense music thrown in. I threw together a pacing guide for myself and a packet with checklist for them. The packet gave details of how each small “professional community” of experts would be broken down into groups of 7 students. Each student would be responsible for becoming an authority on one of the “tracks.” The packet also contained various assignments and due dates leading up to a mock panel that would take place during lunch, where students from all over the school could come to our symposium to learn about colonizing the stars. And then I had a thought: hey, what if I called my friend in the CalTech patent office and asked if she knew of anyone who could come over during these lunchtimes to be an authentic audience for my students? Perhaps that person(s) could ask questions like a Q & A, or evaluate the presentations in some way? Wow, wouldn’t my students be excited, I thought.

So I sent out the email to my buddy, who responded and said she’d ask around and get back to me, and two weeks later I got a call…from NASA.

It seems that there is now an additional group added to the agenda for the DARPA 100 Years Starship Study: my students. It’s true. A small panel of my students will be presenting via Skype (or WebX, TBD) to an audience of those very same scientists, futurists, ethicists, and science-fiction writers my students will be researching. My students will be presenting not as scientists, but as experts with a unique invested interest in this project. After all, the adults in the room are planning for the generations that will come after the generation after us. My students, on the other hand, will have a hand in building the future for their own children. They will be leaving a legacy behind when they leave 8th grade.

But the import of what this unit has become is not what makes it so fun to teach. What makes it so fun to teach is how little I know about the content I’m asking my students to learn.

Sure I know a lot about writing and reading comprehension and research skills and internet literacy; and that’s ultimately what I’m responsible to teach. However, that’s not what the content of this unit is focused on. What that means is that we get to learn together. This is different than reciprocal learning, which is when I learn from them and they learn from me. This is going on a journey with my students, emailing and exploring and discovering and having head scratching moments and eureka moments along with them. We enter the classroom with ideas together, we sit and brainstorm together, and ultimately we will come away from this experience richer and more knowledgeable together.

I’ve got a few units already in the works for other genres later this year: Literary Analysis and Narrative to name two. But my goal now for this year is not to teach what I know, but to fold in what I know with what I don’t so that modeling learning becomes part of my job.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: authentic assessments, darpa, education, k12, project based learning, test prep

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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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So think about it. Pretend budget isn’t an issue. Pretend there are no barriers. Fantasize away. Here are just some of my la-la-land dreams for fixing the schools:(...)
Read the rest of How do we “Fix the Schools?” (1,024 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: assessments, education, project based learning, school reform, standards

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I’m presenting the following sessions:

“Podcasting with 50 Middle Schoolers – RU Crazy?!” – I’ve done this session in the past to great success, so I won’t go on too long about it.  But I will say that this session will cover beyond the question of ”What is Podcasting.”  It will take it to the application level.  It covers how to create a Standards-based podcasting class, across multiple curriculum strands, for a diversity of learners in order to reach and inspire an entire community.  Podcasting can be not only educational for those students involved, but can also be educational and unifying to an entire district community.  Bulldog Radio demands high-level thinking and problem solving from its students, with the goal of communicating with families of many different backgrounds and learning levels.  

You also come away with great strategies on student-created rubrics, project-based learning, and student management and organization in both the classroom the computer lab.

“Collaboration-Blocked by a Firewall Near You” - We know about the success of collaboration and peer-feedback in the K-12 classroom.  We talk about the need to bring our students into the 21^st century by teaching them Internet literacy and responsibility.  But what happens when what we know we should be teaching is blocked by firewalls and a fear-filled district Internet policy?

In the session, I will teach educators how to get around this issue using XWiki Workspaces, a Free and Open Source program that allows a classroom to become its own World Wide Web.  Using XWiki Workspaces, a teacher can easily set up a student blog, wiki, photo album, etc…that can only be read and commented on in the secure environment of a school site, classroom, or lab.

While there are some programs available out there (i.e. Echalk) that provide teachers with similar abilities, these options come at a cost: a high district price tag and dependency on tech coordinators and web builders.  Using XWiki Workspaces, a single teacher without tech experience and without educational red tape can use a single computer, desktop, laptop, Mac or PC to act as the server for their projects.

The key is that the program runs behind the school’s firewall.   That is why it is not blocked by it.  Also this guarantees that there is no access to the sites you create outside of that firewall.  Therefore, a district with fears of posting student work online doesn’t have to worry about the work being compromised or preyed upon.

We know that student online transparency important, but the fear that dictates district firewalls block student collaboration. We need to find a way around such fear.  With XWiki Workspaces a teacher can address the literacy and responsibilities that need to be taught while still following district policy. 

Down the line, of course, by showing a district how successful online collaboration can be, a teacher may open the doors to greater online transparency.  Sometimes it just takes showing the more nervous administrators the benefits before they buy-in to the future.

Hope to see you all in Palm Springs in March.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog, classroom management, CUE, Ed Tech, education, ELA, k-12, k12, learning, life long learners, metacognition, middle school, project based learning, rubric, writing

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