From Scott McLeod

I am really digging the work that Scott McLeod is doing via his blog.  Over the last few months he has recognized great commentors, blogs that deserve a bigger audience, and sponsored a button making contentst for NECC.  But what really grabs me is his call to leaders in our field to “get it,” and do so quickly.  This button sums it up for me.  How are you making something happen?

Great Example of Writing as an Assessment Tool

How can you tell if your students, and in my case, teachers, understood not only the content you asked them to study and apply, but also your assessment itself?  Our job is really simple when we get responses like the one below.  We asked our new teachers to blog about their use of cooperative learning in the classroom in response to last month’s session on that topic.  But we asked them to do it using the RAFT method where we gave them choices as to their Role, Audience, Format and Topic.  The choices ranged from the traditional to the non traditional, as you will see here.  Without further adieu:

Blackboard Rafting

Cooperative Learning R.A.F.T. – The blackboard speaks

Dear Resistant Teacher,

I know I’m kind of breaking the rules a bit here.

Most of the time you guys write to me. Or to be more accurate, you actually write ON me.

But I just wanted to shoot you a quick letter, and let you know what’s been going on in that idiot Jones’ class lately.

Some of this stuff has to be seen to be believed.

I know that you don’t really like Coop Learning, so I just thought I’d pass on this story to encourage you to keep a closed mind about it and keep all that mumbo jumbo out of your classroom. Believe me, it’s a complete waste of time.

You’re my last best hope. I know you’ve got the hard-headed sense to resist. Not like that damn hippie-wanna-be Mr. Jones. He actually buys into all that crap that Higgins and Sutherland keep pushing on him. What a loser!

So check this out.

Last week Jones is giving a test, right. Normal everyday kind of stuff.

But instead of cracking the whip and getting the kids to sit down, shut up, and work on their own – he’s got this whole touchy feely Cooperative Learning thing going on.

He has the kids playing some kind of review game. There all broken up into groups and coming up with questions to try to stump each other.

Of course, these little brats get all excited and start raising the volume. “Oh, I’ve got a great question!” and “Oooh, they’ll never get this one!”  It’s like a 3-ring circus in here. Everyone talking over eachother, raising their voices, learning on their own! What the hell?

First of all, isn’t it the teacher’s job to come up with questions? And aren’t the students supposed to keep their voices down in a classroom? I mean - really!

What is Jones thinking? That slacker’s working the room, stirring the kids up, letting THEM do all the work, while he sits back and does nothing. And they actually pay him for this.

And here’s the best part of the whole thing: Not a word is written on ME. Not a word!

I mean, hey, I don’t want to sound like a prima donna or something, but everybody knows I’M the star of the show, here. Am I wrong? Did I miss something?

The information is supposed to get written on ME! All eyes are supposed to be on ME, waiting for what I have to offer. But no. Not in Jones’ class. Kids are coming up with their own questions, writing on their own sheets of paper, challenging each other – with Jones sitting off to the side like some high school drop out in need of some direction.

Sure, the kids are excited and engaged – but that’s not what school is supposed to be about. Has everyone forgotten what school is for?

Teachers teach and kids shut up, listen, and take notes. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

And the Blackboard should be filled with notes, not sitting up here empty and out of the loop.

Kids these days! They’ve got no respect. And teachers are the worst of all. Because they should know better.

Anyway, I’m glad to know that you’re not going in for all this crap. It’s good to see that some of you guys still know how to treat a black board.

Times are tougher than ever. The pressure is on from every angle – especially those young rebels Higgins and Sutherland. But I’m here to tell you…don’t give in. Stay strong, man. You’re our last hope.

Yours truly,

Mr. B. Board

Exit Comments from New Teacher Induction

I’ve been going through the comments left by the New Teachers the other day in their exit cards and I thought I would take the time to post them for review here. Regardless if they are read by a large audience or not, they are already proving useful to me. To continue along the “be the change you want to see in others” vein, the information we are getting from these comments is already shaping the format for next month’s meeting. What amazes me is how easy it was to elicit feedback that is useful to my planning. I remember being in the classroom searching for meaningful information to help me plan my lessons, and the last thing I thought of was asking the students what they thought and what they needed. But when I did, the results were exactly what I needed. I hope these are of some value to anyone who has been reading the last few posts.

“What I Learned:”

• To have students come up with their own goals and feedback–triggers brain to work and students assess themselves
• The information of timely feedback was very interesting. It makes sense, but it’s good to see the research to back it up.
• I learned a lot of interesting ways to have students self-evaluate–mostly from talking to colleagues who are doing great things.
• Students can effectively monitor their own progress and this form of feedback is strongly affective
• Feedback should be corrective and provide discussion of why the response was correct or incorrect and what makes a response correct or incorrect.
• There are some very creative and productive ways to modify my objectives and goals
• Feedback should be immediate after a test
• How important it is to have student input
• How to incorporate several structures in a seamless way.
• It is important to set flexible goals; kinesthetic learning is more fun
• Student self-assessment is important and should be included in lesson planning.
• Setting goals and objectives can be negative. Students sometimes miss the big picture.
• There are many ways to set goals with students.
• Feedback should be provided rapidly in various forms
• Learned the RAFT technique
• I learned that other subject areas have students self-assess in a similar manner. This is truly a universal method.
• Goals are more effective when they are student driven.
• I learned that there are many ways to get information across. I like incorporating the different styles of learning–kinesthetic, intrapersonal, verbal, doing group activities.
• I have the students set goals and give feedback, but not consistently. In my class it could work to do it everyday. I could structure my class all around this if I remember.
• Have students involved in setting the learning objectives.
• The real importance of feedback and the timeliness of it.
• Goals should not be too specific; allow students to personalize them.
• To focus on making my goals attainable and not to forget that students should be involved in goal setting.
• Give feedback in a timely manner
• That goal setting in the kindergarten level is not much different than the High School level.
• I learned that it is really important to provide students with goals for each lesson. I sometimes am not consistent when I do this and when I do remember, I know they get more out of the lesson. I also learned that timely feedback is important.
• When given the opportunity, students can assess themselves and provide feedback to themselves directly. This is an example of becoming a mature person who is capable of self-reliance and growth. We should, as teachers, provide this often and encourage it in other situations.
• I learned it was important to be more specific when providing feedback–target particular areas.
• That goals need to be more personal.
• Today I realized how important quick feedback is to students.
• I learned how amazing it is that different grade levels and subject areas can use the same “modified” ideas to attain goals in student achievement.
• The fluidity of groups to increase learning.
• Importance of setting goals. Impact of immediate feedback.
• I learned that it is really important to set specific goals in planning. I also learned that feedback is more influential in learning than I previously thought.
• I found the idea of students creating their own learning objectives interesting. My curiosity is piqued about incorporating this into the novels I teach.
• Corrective feedback has a “shelf-life” and if I wait too long, the lesson is lost.
• Goals need to be more general and not too specific otherwise students get so focused on the specific goal that they miss out on the other learning.
• New ways to include students in their learning and assessment.
• The description of goal-setting is similar to backward design in the sense of general direction and fundamental understandings.

“What I would change:”

• I think the structure of the lessons have improved already since September.
• Wow, I liked actually trying the strategies rather than talking about them. I wonder if we could have some concrete examples of how teachers use goals and feedback.
• Wow! I liked the flexibility of today’s lesson.
• I liked the session–It would be helpful to debrief the reading so we understand your perspective on the readings.
• The “Wow,” exercise was easy to do, but the “wonder,” part was hard to do about the same statement.
• Walk and talk was difficult because you had to write, too!
• I wonder if you could have let us in on your lesson plan. I had no idea what we were learning about until it was all over.
• I wonder if my students feel the same way about doing group work?
• Thought it was very well done. More geared toward the elementary level?
• At first it was difficult to understand your goal for the lesson.
• At this point–no questions. I really enjoyed going through each of the structures.
• The activities were useful, but I think there were a bit too many. I wonder how this would have worked if we cut one or two out?
• Very organized; I enjoyed it very much.
• How can you get the students to strive for their goals and feedback when it is lacking choices and options. Loved being able to talk with other teachers–more personal info and helpful to grow.
• So far this has been one of my favorite professional developments. I liked actively testing out the different strategies and giving and getting feedback to different groups. The activities made the learning more fun. Thanks!
• We touched on it, but perhaps one or two more lessons and even some demos of differentiated instruction
• I wonder if we could have new teacher meetings everyday. I learned a lot about goals and differentiated instruction.
• I enjoyed moving around. I wonder if we could have established an overall goal at the beginning of the session.
• I enjoyed today’s time. Although at times the activity seemed confusing or the guidelines for completing the activity seemed vague it all came together nice and clear in the end.
• Spend more time outside.
• Provide every teacher with a MacBook!
• Practicing group activities was beneficial.
• More time to develop lessons and activities using some of the concepts presented.
• I feel a lot of the topics discussed would be more beneficial with some veteran teachers instead of all 1st year teachers–they know what works better.
• I thought the first chart we had to fill out was confusing.
• It’s good to talk to peers in different grade levels and subject areas to learn new ideas.
• The first part of the meeting was confusing, but then it was really clear and helpful.
• I enjoyed moving and talking/collaborating with other teachers. More of the same would be fantastic.
• I did not feel that the instructional goals section had much value. The readings were widely interpreted and more guidance was needed.
• Liked the way the lesson was guided and not completely structured. This allowed for more creativity and interaction between colleagues.
• Make sure reading was done ahead of time and then we could recap.
• I really liked this meeting because I am a big fan of cooperative learning. I learned a lot of different structures today that I will definitely implement in my classroom.
• Enjoyed the co-op groups and actually met new people!
• Being active is important to me. I learn so much more when i play a role in the lesson.
• I liked the different activities we did today. It was interesting to meet with other teachers at different levels and subjects.
• There were too many activities today. Hard to take it all in.

Image Credit: “Teacher,” by Paradox Blue

Using Cooperative Learning Structures to Teach Teachers

from animoto.com posted with vodpod

Each month, we meet with our first year teachers in the district to help them adjust to the expectations and the rigors of being in the classroom everyday. I have spoken about this before, but the program uses Marzano, et al’s, book Classroom Instruction That Works as a framework for teaching strategies that are research-based and effective. More than anything we do instructionally, the workshops always help the teachers come together to discuss success and failure in their classrooms; it provides them with a support structure in which they can reflect on their practice and share their uncertainties about what they are doing.

Last month we spent some time with cooperative learning structures and how to use them to help students take responsibility for their own learning through collaboration. The feedback we got from that meeting was really positive, so this month we decided to use the structures as a means to teach the next theme in the book: Goal-Setting and Feedback.

One of the most significant parts of my own learning this year has been to make every attempt I can to be a practitioner of what I teach. You have read it here before: “Be the change you want to see in others.” So when we were planning this month, Dan and I created the sessions entirely around learning structures and reaching as many intelligences as we could. Here is a list of what we did and the accompanying structures:

• Clock Buddies: as soon as they walked in we handed them appointment clocks on paper and asked them to make appointments at 12 (with someone not in your building), 3 (with someone in your building), 6 (someone in your subject area), and 9 (random). We used these throughout the session to organize ourselves.
  • this got them moving and engaging and really set the tone for their activity level for the day.
• RAFT: Sternberg created this concept based on his three intelligences. What we did is ask the teachers to write an entry on their blog using the idea of choosing a Role (object in their classroom, a student in their classroom, an observing administrator), an Audience (a parent, an administrator, a reluctant c colleague, etc.) a Format (classified ad, instruction manual, letter to the editor, observation narrative, etc.) and write about a Topic (why should we use cooperative learning structures in the classroom?).
  • immediately it got them thinking differently because we asked them to reflect via a different modality then they were used to. A little cognitive dissonance is a good thing!
• Walk and Talk: They read a section of the book on their own, then we used our 12 o’clock buddies and asked each group to do some guided reflection using a graphic organizer. However, we asked them to do it while on a Walk and Talk. Since yesterday was a gorgeous day here in New Jersey, we allowed them to walk anywhere on the school grounds, inside or out, and asked them to discuss the reading and fill in the graphic organizer as they strolled.
• “Wows and Wonders:” More reading was done independently and then we used our 3 o’clock buddies and paired the groups up to form larger groups. Since we were talking about goal setting, we asked each teacher to write a brief statement about how they use goal setting in their classroom. We then used a Round Robin format where they passed their statement to the left. Each person was responsible for writing a “Wow,” on the page and then passed it along to the next person in the circle until eventually they all received their own page back. We did the same again, only this time we asked each person to write a “Wonder,” statement on each other’s page.
  • This allowed everyone to get positive feedback, but also framed the constructive feedback in the form of a suggestive question, which works a lot better than a “you should have done this” statement.
• Four Corners: After reading the feedback section in the book, we asked the teachers to pick one of the four research points made in the reading as the one that they would like to have a discussion about. Each corner of the room represented a different point. They moved to that corner and were asked to use a graphic organize to lead their discussion about that point.
• Numbered Heads: as they discussed, we walked around and gave numbers to each group member. When it came time to wrap up, we picked numbers randomly and asked that that person tell us what their group discussed about a certain point within their topic.
  • this gave everyone time to add additional information to their organizer and hear points that pushed their own thinking.
• Parking Lot: also as they were discussing feedback, Dan and I circled the room and distributed a blue and a yellow post-it not to everyone. We asked that on the yellow they tell us something about their own learning from the day’s session–what did you learn today? On the blue, we asked that they help us with our learning–what could we have done differently today? As they left the room for the day, they put the yellows on one wall and the blues on another.

We are in the process of sorting our notes out and going over the feedback (it was just yesterday), but I could already see that the teachers were engaged with one another at a level that we’d seen glimpses of before but couldn’t sustain. Also, on a selfish note, I did so much less talking, used so much less tech, and spent so much more time listening than I had in any of the the previous meetings.

If we are truly about changing the way our schools work, about reforming our practices to meet the needs of students, modeling said practices and methods should be the first order of business. Think of your next factulty meeting. How much will you move about the room to discuss an issue or concern or theory (trips to the food area don’t count)? Will the dialog be one-way, two-way, or circular and constant?

I realize that all meetings and sessions vary, and that decisions about presentation and lesson design are germane to the material itself, but when we can we should use what we know to produce lessons, meetings, professional development courses that we would want to sit through. Ask yourself, would you want to be in your class?

On “Becoming a Better Teacher”

Today, I spent a good portion of the day preparing for tomorrow’s monthly meeting with our first-year teachers. In doing so, Dan and I often enter into conversations about what the ideal situation would be for our first-year teachers to find themselves in a few years down the line. Mostly, the conversation centers on asking teachers to share what they do, as we have some extremely talented educators not only in our district, but also within this crop of new teachers.

Darren Draper’s latest post, which pulls a page from Carl Glickman’s book Leadership for Learning: How to Help Teachers Succeed. I’ve recopied the page here because Glickman makes points that I couldn’t possibly state any better.

ah44j8d3ksr8_313f3wgp2cw_b (image) via kwout

As Darren quotes at the bottom of his post:

“How do teaching and learning improve? The answer is no mystery. It’s as simple as this: I cannot improve my craft in isolation from others” (p. 4).

Our push with the teachers we work with is not to call them out or catch them doing something wrong: it’s quite the contrary. We want to catch them being competent, and we don’t necessarily need to be the ones doing the “catching.” The concept of peer review, or as Glickman notes above “welcoming visitors with experience and expertise,” into classrooms, is, in my view, essential to the success of both teachers and the schools they work in.

What troubles me is how to proceed. What are the steps you take to get your staff to the point where they want feedback from others in their room? I don’t think it’s inconceivable for many teachers out there to be leery of having visitors come into the classroom without specific criteria in place, but in the same vein, Glickman makes a great case why we need collaborative professional contact.

Tomorrow’s meeting is one I am looking forward to, as we’ve planned the class completely using Kagan’s Structures. Lately, it’s gotten into my head to, as if I haven’t said this enough this year, be the change. Instead of talking about what good teaching should look like, I’d like to model it in the work that I do with other teachers. Tomorrow is a first step of sorts, and I am sure it will give me much to reflect about, whether or not it succeeds.

• Glickman, C. (2002). Leadership for learning: How to help teachers succeed. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Editor’s Note: Without realizing it, I totally ripped off Darren’s post title.  I apologize for that.  Since the initial posting last night, I have changed the title.  Sorry for the oversight.

World War II Interviews: Student Reactions

Our students, led by their teacher Steven Schels, had the opportunity to participate in a project that led them to capture the stories of World War II veterans. My reactions I will save for a different post, but I found some time to interview a few of the students after the project to take their “temperature” after participating and speaking with the veterans. The audio isn’t the best, and neither are my editing skills, but listen to the reactions that the students had to the project. Truly amazing.

from www.gcast.com posted with vodpod

Timeliness

Regardless of your spiritual persuasion, it is difficult to deny the serendipitous nature of life as it affirms you at just the right moments. Entering what I view as one of the most pivotal stretches of my career, albeit still abbreviated, doubts and some other scions of stress have been creeping into my mind lately. Is this the right decision? Can this be done without alienating some of the stakeholders? I am struggling with questions that don’t have exact answers.

Then this email arrives on Sunday from a former student of mine, who is now a senior in high school. Granted, since I’ve jumped around in the last few years, I don’t get many of these, so some of you might find this commonplace, but for me it landed in my inbox at the most opportune moment.

I actually am writing to thank you, because it was your class that showed me
what I want to do with the rest of my life. If you remember we did a huge unit
on human rights and the Burmese conflict. Ever since then my eyes have been
opened to the world. I’ve developed a passion for human rights and developing
countries and just plain helping people. I’m graduating this year, and in the
fall I will be enrolled at The University of Chicago as an International Studies
and Arabic double major (and a softball pitcher). One day I want to work in the
field of economic development and human rights. I’d want to work in Southeast
Asia (the Arabic is just because I love languages—I take French, Spanish and
Latin in school) and also join the Peace Corps. I hope to one day help further
the peoples’ struggle for democracy in Burma and similar conflicts all over the
world, anyway I can. In fact, this summer I’m going to Thailand, Cambodia and
China to volunteer at refugee camps, schools and orphanages. I’m very excited
since for four weeks I’ll primarily be working with Burmese refugees on the
Thai-Burmese border. Last summer I went and worked in Thailand for two weeks; it
is the most beautiful and peaceful place I have ever been. So basically, I
wanted to let you know that you were my favorite teacher ever and that you’ve
really made a difference in at least my life and indirectly made a difference in
the lives of those people you’ve convinced me I need to help and hopefully will
succeed in helping. Supposedly teachers like to hear that sort of thing, so I
thought I’d track you down and let you know.

Often we forget role we play in the lives of students, and the wonderful thing about them is that they often don’t forget that role. I couldn’t be more proud of this student, and after reading this letter. Proud that she’s looking at her future as a connected and global undertaking; she’s looking “big-picture,” and proud that I had the ability to be a part of her growth as a learner.

At the same time that the US News and World Report released their claim that teaching is one of America’s most overrated careers, we need more discussion of the intangibles that separate what we do from any other career.

Image Credit: “Global Warming,” from chatirygirl’s photostream

“This, I Believe” Meme

Barry Bachenheimer started this on a whim today, and tagged me with it to get it going. Most memes have very definitive rules for passing along or posting certain material, but Barry has given this one some really free “legs.” It’s description is simple:

National Public Radio does a piece called “This We Believe” where individuals share essays they have written that enumerates their philosophies. With this concept in mind in terms of curriculum ideas, (with apologies to the National Middle School Association and National Public Radio), “This I Believe”:

• I believe that assessment and grades are not the same entity.
• I believe the purpose of schools is still to “turn the lights on,” but not in the sense it meant for our parents; schools should never cease to inspire, challenge, and engage students in ideas and topics they might otherwise have missed on their own.
• I believe the driving force behind curriculum should be the essential understandings behind the content.
• I believe that we teach students first, and content second.
• I believe in creating multiple outlets for students to demonstrate understanding. As long as we are committed to differentiating instruction, we must also be committed to differentiating the way we allow students to show us they’ve learned.
• I believe that the best way for students to learn from our teachers is to see them as practitioners; model learning and curiosity for them in your own practice and you will soon see it in your students.
• I believe our social technologies that allow for anyone to publish require that we create curriculum that maximizes the role of audience. Today’s students will grow up in a world where the content they create will be accessible by far more people than solely their classroom teachers.
• I believe that when it comes to information overload, we need to educate our students on the difference between what is noise and what is symphony.
• I believe in erring on the side of depth when writing curriculum, rather than breadth; fewer topics covered critically are far more meaningful than many topics covered in brief.
• I believe that students in high school should have the same enthusiasm for learning that students in 3rd grade do.

So, now for the requisite tagging part. To continue this meme, I tag:

• Brad Davis
• Bill Ferriter
• Dina Strasser
• Carolyn Foote
• Ryan Bretag

Image Credit: “Believe,” from ’s photostream

Radiohead and Your Classroom

What does this announcement, via Read/Write Web, say to us about the types of consumers our students are or will become?

Rock band Radiohead has already pushed the envelope in the past year by first releasing their new album under a pay-what-you-want price scheme in October, and then calling on fans to create a music video
for any of the album’s songs in March. Now the band is at it again,
teaming with Apple, makers of iTunes and GarageBand, to launch a public
remix contest.

The contest offers up the single “Nude” from the album for remix.
The band has for sale on iTunes “stems” for the bass, voice, guitar,
strings/fx and drums for the song and anyone who purchases all five
gets access to a GarageBand file that can be opened in GarageBand or
Logic.

Until May 1st, the public can vote for their favorite remix, and
remix authors can use a MySpace or Facebook widget to allow fans on
social networks to vote for them. The prize, though, is just that
Radiohead promises to “listen to the best.”

To me, it speaks to everything Larry Lessig was talking about a few years ago at TED, when he told us how these generations would interact with electronic media.

This also points us to the fact that our students today have an altogether different view of intellectual property. Is what Radiohead is doing counterproductive to our efforts to teach responsible copyright? Does it muddy the water?

Common sense and an appeal to my preferred view of the future of copyright (heavily focused on the use of Creative Commons) tell me that this is not so, that Radiohead is onto something here that more and more artists will do to capitalize on participatory culture.