How to Be An Education Innovator - Education Outside the Box...Part 4

If you do a Google search for innovations in education, you will find articles on technology, classroom materials, classroom management, school design, and creative lesson planning. All of these innovations are dependent on teachers and adminstrators who have a vision of what education can become.  For true innovation to occur, teachers need to be Educators "Outside of the Box".   It is easy to talk the talk about wanting to try new lessons, new technology or new learning approaches in your classroom. It is much more difficult to actually walk the walk.  Sometimes teachers are our own worst enemies.  We let the fear of change stop us from trying something new. We worry about what other teachers or administrators will think of what we are doing. The end result is that we become Educators "Inside of the Box" by closing the door to our classrooms and keeping our innovative ideas to ourselves.

Here is the challenge that Stan Heffner has given to all of us, find ways to break out of the box.  Open your classroom doors.  Make it a priority to collaborate with colleagues.  Read education blogs. Join your content area association.  Talk about what is working in your classroom with your colleagues when you can - even if it is in the office before school, in the hallway between classes or over a lunch in the teacher's lounge.  Support your peers who are trying new ways of teaching, even if it is outside of your own comfort zone.  Focus on what you have control over - YOU! What can you start to do as a teacher to begin to be an innovator?

Part 4  Innovative Ways to Approach Teaching

Co-Teaching
Marilyn Friend is an authority on effective co-teaching.  She describes true co-teaching as a partnership between a content specialist and a differentiation specialist.  The role of the content specialist is to focus on the content area material for the class, share information on what a "typical" student should be able to do as a learner in the class and work on the pacing for the "typical" students.  The differentiation specialist focuses on helping the content specialist adjust the content for a wide range of learners, provides ideas for alternative ways to teach the content and helps the content specialist understand the pacing for students at either end of the learning spectrum.  All students benefit from this partnership and both teachers in the partnership should be able to learn from each other.

Facilitator
Teachers who act as facilitators of learning in their classrooms focus on formative instructional practices. They regularly assess their students learning and collect data that helps them to plan instruction and learning opportunities.   Facilitators use a variety of technology and other lesson resources to help students acquire new knowledge, apply the knowledge and demonstrate their understanding.  Facilitators encourage collaboration and help student groups work effectively together.

• Article on Facilitative Teaching
• Article on Contructivist Facilitation - this is a little older (2001) but the ideas are still applicable

Brain Based Learning
Innovations in the field of brain studies have allowed us to gain new insights into how the brain learns new information, accesses old information and makes connections to form new ideas.  The research has been applied to a variety of education topics including how the brain learns math and how the brain learns to read.

• Eudutopia Blog on Brain Based Learning
• Video of Brain Based Learning in the Classroom  Key Large Elementary School
• David Sousa - Author of a series of books on How the Brain Learns

Marzano Strategies for Effective Teaching (the Marzano 9)
Marzano is one of the leaders in teaching reform. His focused research on the 9 strategies that a teacher can use that have the largest impact on student learning is a good starting point for a teacher who wants to have a framework to build innovative teaching strategies around.

• Basic overview of the Marzano 9  from Middleweb 
• Applying the Marzano 9 to the use of Interactive Boards
• List of Additional Teacher Resources  - Marzano 9 eMints site.

How to Be An Education Innovator - Education Outside the Box...Part 3

Over the past two weeks I have shared ideas for using your classroom time and materials in innovative ways. But, if we really want to embrace Stan Heffner's challenge to be Education Innovators, we need to be willing to also look at innovative ways to grade our students.   Grading is the elephant in the faculty lounge. Occasionally teachers will take up the topic for discussion, but examining our grading practices and how effective they are can quickly become a heated debate.  I have been involved in long discussions on the impact of giving a student a "zero" rather than an 59% on an assignment.  Schools all have agreed upon grading scales, but there are many ways teachers approach their classrom grading policy.   Traditional letter grades and point systems do not always help students to monitor their learning.   I came to this understanding after hearing over and over statements like "She gave me a B" or "How many points is this worth"   Grades should not be perceived as something the teacher is "bestowing" on a student.  This allows students to be disconnected from the quality of the work that they complete in a class, since their perspective is that what they do has no real bearing on what grade they will receive. A letter grade or points alone does not always provide  specific feedback to help students adjust their learning goals or make corrections.   The second statement is also tied to the quality of the work students are willing to do for a class. By asking how many points it is worth, often what they really mean is how much time and thinking do I need to put into this assignment.  Formative assessments  add another dimension to the discussion about what to do with traditional grading practices.  Should students be graded on practice work or only mastery work? How can a rubric grading system fit into a traditional letter grade structure?  Are you ready to begin the grade discussion? 

Part 3 Using Innovative Classroom Grading- finding new ways to think about evaluating students.

Guiding Questions for Beginning Discussions About Grading

The following questions help ensure that grading practices are productive for all

students. (from Carol Ann Tomlinson.  Reconcilable Differences? Standards-Based Teaching and Differentiation. EdLeadership, Sept. 2000.)

• How do learners benefit from a grading system that reminds everyone that students with disabilities or who speak English as a second language do not perform as well as students without disabilities or for whom English is their native tongue?  
• What do we gain by telling our most able learners that they are "excellent" on the basis of a standard that requires modest effort, calls for no intellectual risk, necessitates no persistence, and demands that they develop few academic coping skills?  
• In what ways do our current grading practices motivate struggling or advanced learners to persist in the face of difficulty?  
• Is there an opportunity for struggling learners to encounter excellence in our current grading practices?  
• Is there an opportunity for advanced learners to encounter struggle in our current grading practices?  

Alternative Grading Resources and Articles To Get You Thinking

• Seven Reasons for Standards Based Grading -  Measures student proficiency or mastery of standards based learning targets.
• Grading Students With Disabilities
• Marzano Interview on Standards Based Grading (print)  YouTube Interview
• Using Grade Contracts is another alternative grading practice.  The teacher works with the students to define quality work and helps them to identify learning targets they will be working on mastering each quarter. Students commit to doing a certain level of work.  This is defined on a rubric (see an explanation of a grade contract(ppt) I used in MS/HS science)  The rubric based grade can be converted to fit into a traditional grading scale ( a "4" or challenge level work can be the equivalent of an "A")  No student is allowed to contract for a grade lower than the basic level work - this is the minimum required level of learning or work toward a learning target.  All class work is considered part of the grade contract. No class work is given a point value.  The teacher does differentiate the work and may provide examples or definitions of what the finished work might look like at each contract level.  See an example of a grade contract from my MS science class.
  
  
  

How to Be An Education Innovator - Education Outside the Box...Part 2

The New Year brings with it the need to start fresh, make some resolutions and, in my case, the need to stop eating leftover Christmas cookies and get back to excercising!  January also brings the end of the first semester of school in most districts. This is a great opportunity to step back and reflect on how the year is going so far.  What new lesson ideas have you wanted try?  How are you doing on using formative assessment strategies in your classroom?  What technology skills have you been able to integrate into your teaching? 

In my last post, I took up the challenge being put forward by our State Superintendent, Stan Heffner, to think outside the box.  Part 1 focused on changing the way we think about the use of time in a traditional classroom. Now let's take a look at what "out of the box" classroom materials are available to us.

Part 2 Using Innovative Classroom Materials - finding new ways to think about lessons.


Google Apps   Gone are the days when you need to carry home bags of papers to be graded and commented on.  With Google Docs, teachers and students can now collaborate in real time on documents, presentations and spreadsheets.  Students can use the revision history tool to see their past edits. Teachers can focus on specific areas for improvement by using immediate feedback. No more email, no more jump drives and no more lost papers.  Google apps tools also include a calendar, which can also be shared or published for others to view, video uploads, audio recording, a survey tool, and a blog tool - which is what I use to publish this blog!  Teachers and students in Bay all have access to a Google Apps account. Click HERE for directions on how to use Google Apps.

Ck12.org   Textbooks no longer need to be expensive or one size fits all.  Ck12.org is an open source project that is providing high quality content created by educators to anyone who would like to use it.  The innovative concept is the ability to "customize" the content of the textbook you want to use by re-organizing the chapters, pulling in chapters from other books or creating a unique book using chapters from lots of different books to fit your lessons.  Accounts are free. Students can view the book online, as a pdf or even download it to an e-reader.  Teachers guides are available for many of the books as well.  The majority of the texts are math and science, but there are a few English, Social Studies and SAT prep books as well.  Click HERE to view a custom text I created for a unit on HS Evolutionary Biology

Thinkfinity.org   As more students have access to the internet from school, home and their personal devices, they can take advantage of web based interactive tools, manipulatives and  lessons.  Thinkfinity.org is a k-12 resource site that hosts educational resources from 7 content partners including National Geographic, The Smithsonian, Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and the National Councils of Teachers of English and Math.  The site is searchable by topic, grade level and type of resource.  You can find interactive activities for students to do individually or as a group on an interactive board HERE.    Thinkfinity.org homepage is a great place to start if you are looking for new lesson ideas, primary source materials or student resources like maps and charts. Another great place to find standards based lesson ideas is the Ohio Resource Center.

Edutopia.org   This website was designed by the George Lucas Foundation to encourage and support out of the box thinking in k-12 education.  I like to go to this site to read about how other teachers are using technology in unique and effective ways.  The site also contains videos to watch, a series of blogs by outstanding educators, ideas for Project Based teaching and formative assessments.  You can subscribe to their weekly newsletter or follow the site using an RSS feed.

How To Be An Education Innovator - Education Outside of the Box

Stan Heffner, Superintendent of Schools for the State of Ohio, is challenging districts to think outside the box and begin to change the way education looks in Ohio's schools. (article link)   Educators like to talk about change, but the focus usually is on how students, budget, parents or curriculum needs to change in order for learning to change.  Teachers who are innovators in their classrooms move past the limitations they face and look for ways to use their resources in new ways. Over the next few weeks I will focus on strategies innovators are using to change the way education looks moving into 2012.

Part 1 Using Time Resources In A New Way
Traditional schools have standard class periods or segments of the day devoted to one specific content area.  Students in traditional classrooms spend class time focusing on learning new information, then go home to practice or apply the new information. 


Flipping the classroom - In this innovative approach to class, the teacher uses video and audio technology to record the "lecture" component of the lesson.  This is posted on a class or school website.  Students watch the video at home.  Actual classroom time is then spent on applying the lesson material to real world problems, guided practice, collaborative group work and formative assessment to measure student mastery.
Article Links

• http://www.economist.com/node/21529062
• http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html
• http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/08/five-ways-to-flip-your-classroom-with-the-new-york-times/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viYH05_J0MY

Integrated Instructional Units - This approach has been around for a long time, but still has a lot of potential for innovation.  The classroom teacher uses a content web to map connections between science, math, social studies, language arts and fine arts standards.  From this content map, the teacher than develops a teaching unit that helps students see connections across contents and to real world applications.  This kind of unit planning allows teachers to focus key standards without having to "short change" a content area. This type of unit planning also works well with Performance Assessments and Service Learning.
Article Links

• http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/integrated-curriculum-guide.pdf
• http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/Standards/5031TG_DevelopingaStandards-basedUnit.pdf
• http://pals.sri.com/
• http://palm.sri.com/
• http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may92/vol49/num08/toc.aspx

Flexible Scheduling - Teams of teachers are given a block of time to divide up as they feel is necessary to accomplish the learning targets established by the team.  This means that one day, more time might be allotted for a science lab to be completed, with less time for other content areas, the next day more time might be spent on a social studies presentation etc.  A related concept is Block Scheduling, where students can complete the curriculum for a year long course in a semester, allowing them to take a wider variety of courses each year. The blocked class is usually 80-90 minutes long. Teaching in the block allows teachers to spend some time on direct instruction, time on guided practice or cooperative learning and time on individual learning and enrichment or support.
Article Links

• http://www.amle.org/Research/ResearchSummaries/FlexibleScheduling/tabid/1140/Default.aspx
• http://www.lab.brown.edu/pubs/ic/block/block.pdf
• http://www.ascd.org/publications/researchbrief/v2n10/toc.aspx

Virtual Classroom - this concept can take many formats, from using web based collaborative tools like Google Docs that allow students and teachers to work together outside of the boundaries of the standard school day, to a true web-based classroom.  By offering students opportunities to participate in an online course, schools can go outside of the 7:30-3:00 school day and meet the needs of a diverse group of learners. Florida is now requiring that students participate in an online course as a way to prepare them for the types of learning they will be doing as college students or professionals.  Students and teachers participating in an online course may meet at a regular time during the day for live chat, but then also have the flexibility to post comments and assignment responses during a defined time window.  Districts can use tools like Moodle to help teachers create an online course component in their traditional classes.  Some districts are working in partnership with their teachers and outside agencies to develop hybrid courses where students spend some time in an actual classroom and some time in the virtual classroom.
Article Resources

• http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5izGveUglx3QJu6ktbYIyQvvnL8TA?docId=62c6be593e774f8ebab3ff6fd0f1d49c
• http://jolt.merlot.org/currentissue.html
• http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tsot.php
• http://www.csuchico.edu/celt/roi/
• http://www.edutopia.org/online-learning-overview-video

How to Provide Effective Feedback...When A Smile Sticker Just Isn't Enough

Great Job!

How many times have you read through a stack of student papers and provided a smiley sticker, star, check or point total as the feedback for the student.   Kids love stickers, even high school students get excited when you take the time to put a sticker on the paper.  But what purpose do stickers serve, and what message are they sending to the student?  Point totals tell students a value for the "right" information they provided, but don't really help them identify what they may need to continue to work on.   Stickers let students know that we "like" their work or that we acknowledge the effort that they put into completing it.  Stickers are a type of feedback, but they are not effective feedback. As teachers, we need to ask ourselves how our feedback will help our students grow in their learning.

There are three categories of feedback:

• Effective feedback - moves learning forward
• Success feedback -helps students focus on what was done well
• Intervention feedback - helps student focus on what needs work and provides guidance for what to do about it.

Stickers are SUCCESS feedback.  They let students know what was done well.  Stickers can be used when students are working on developing  mastery of a learning target and may need the success feedback to help them identify areas of strength. With success feedback, the focus is on reinforcing existing knowledge or past knowledge.

EFFECTIVE feedback needs to be specific and related directly to the learning targets. Effective feedback helps to move learning forward, so the focus is not just on existing knowledge but on building additional knowledge or deepening existing knowledge.  Rubrics are one way to provide effective feedback.  A rubric contains clear descriptions of learning expectations. Student input on the development of the rubric makes them even more powerful as feedback tools.  Providing a rubric at the beginning of an assignment allows students to adjust their learning and their work to meet your clear targets.  Another type of effective feedback is to provide students with examples of strong and weak work samples.  Spend time discussing these samples.  Compare them to the rubric. Asks students how they would improve upon weak samples or what characteristics make a sample "strong". Finally, Jan Chappuis, in her book Seven Strategies of Assessment For Learning, uses an approach called "stars and stairs" to help students identify areas where they are showing mastery and areas where they may need additional practice, revision or support.

Why Performance Assessment Is Effective...Christmas Concert Season

For the next two weeks, hundreds of student musicians will take to the stage in our district to perform their holiday concerts.  Countless hours have been spent in music classrooms teaching rhythm, pitch, volume control, technique, interpretation and how to blend with a group.  Many more hours have been spent outside the classrooms practicing these skills.   Concerts are a great opportunity for these musical learners to demonstrate their level of mastery of their skills.  They get immediate feedback from their peers, teacher and parents who attend the performance.  Performing a piece of music with a group allows the musicians to compare themselves to those around them.  Finally, performing a piece of music in concert allows a musician to apply all of their knowledge of rhythm, pitch, form and interpretation to a real world situation.

We are not all musicians, but all students can benefit from the opportunity to take the knowledge they are building in a class and apply it to a real world scenario.  This can be simple, like using math knowledge of measurement to make a fall craft project or using persuasive writing techniques to write a letter to the editor. Performance Assessment can also be done on a larger scale as students develop their own research projects, propose service learning opportunities or work to solve real world problems.   One group of high school science students in Columbus took what they learned in chemistry and created a simple water filtration system that could be used by earthquake victims.  Students from Westerly Elementary in our own district worked with local businesses to create a rain barrel project.

As we move toward aligning to the common core curriculum, we need to also consider ways to integrate performance based learning and assessment, and service learning into our classrooms.  By giving students the opportunity to apply what they learn to real world situations, we not only reinforce their understanding of the concepts, but we give them the chance to see how their skills can benefit people in their community.

Resources for Performance Based Learning and Assessment and Service Learning:
National Clearing House for Service Learning
North Olmsted SITES Program
Performance Assessment Ideas - Science
Performance Assessment Ideas - Math
Teacher's Guide To Performance Based Learning and Assessment. K. Michael Hibbard et. al. ASCD Publications.
NETS-S Performance Tasks - Technology integration tasks. Developed by the Georgia Dept of Educ.
Jon Mueller Authentic Task Toolbox
Performance Task Research - Lerner.org

How To Help Your Students Experience Success...What We Can Learn From Football

I watched the Ohio State vs Michigan game this past weekend.  I saw what happens when a coach miscommunicates with his team. I saw what happens when players are asked to make plays they may not be ready to make.  I saw what happens when all the players on the field are not all on the same page of the playbook. I saw what can happen when players don't work together to make big plays.   It was not a happy day in the Shryock household. 

As teachers, I think we can learn a lot from the game of football.  As we work on interpreting the new Common Core standards over the next few years, we need to deconstruct those standards into learning targets, much like a coach breaks down plays to teach his team.  We need to figure out the best way to communicate these standards to our students.  We need to look at our students as players who must be able to master these standard "plays" and apply them in real world situations, often with a lot of outside distractions and pressure affecting them. How can we set up practice situations that will allow them to develop mastery and build confidence in their knowledge?   Just like a football team, we have students who are good at some things, and not so good at others. They come to us with a variety of prior experience and knowledge.  There are always all-stars and bench players. How can we take advantage of each learner's strengths to help them work collaboratively to accomplish our learning goals?  Our role as teacher in the new Common Core model is to truly be more of a learning coach, developing a game plan, communicating expecations, providing  specific feedback, cheering our students on and making sure that they are prepared to succeed when they are asked to apply their learning in new ways or in real world scenarios.

It was a hard weekend to be a football fan in Cleveland, but this week is a great time to start to build a winning game plan for your classroom!  To learn more about the Common Core, or find resources for your classroom - use the Common Core tab at the top of this blog, or the resources links in the right sidebar.