FYI #11: Interesting Pictures, an ELL Activity, Silent Reading, Getting Student-Centered, Laughter in the Classroom

This week in the Academic FYI:

- A picture that really makes you think about how important education is to some people in other countries, an ELL activity, some SSR- Silent- Sustained reading activities, making sure your classroom is student-centered, a  & the power of laughter in the classroom.

Here's an interesting picture during MCAS season to remind us just how important high-stakes testing is to people in some other countries. These family members in India are actually climbing up the school walls to give their children cheat notes so that they can do better on state exams that could change the lives of millions growing up in poverty. This became a major scandal in one town in India. 

 PHOTO: Family members and friends climb walls to give answer sheets to students undertaking exams   

1- Think Aloud: Your Turn for ELLs and any other students! 

Below is a picture I took during my last SEI-RETELL class. I think it is a really good activity for a few reasons. 1- it involves reading 2- it is student-centered and 3- you can use it with your ELL students or in any class including Honors and AP Level. It really makes two students focus and engage in this paired activity. Try it out!

2 - SSR- Silent Sustained Reading Activities
http://goo.gl/3TJLek

Here is a great downloadable PDF on ways to promote Quiet Time reading. As a teacher I used to think that chalkboard dust had to flying and heavily engaged students discussing things out loud was needed every minute of class. While that is still important there is certainly a place for silent reading activities. This is a great way to support and reading skills and get kids to relax and really think about what they are reading. That is a great form of engagement in itself.
This is a particularly good way to start or end a class to give you some time to organize everything else you have going on as well.

3- How Student Centered is your Classroom?
http://goo.gl/yATHNp

This article probably takes 2 minutes to read but has a great list of guiding questions to ask yourself if your classroom is truly student-centered. This is a great quick read.

4- April Fool's Day & Classroom Laughter

This timely article written more in an elementary sense still can remind us of the power of laughter in the classroom. Some of the best classes I have seen use laughter as a hook for student learning. 

Next week: 

I will be breaking down the lessons I learned from covering those classes for teachers after the holiday. I am calling the blog entry the "Best PD Any Administrator Can Have".  It was a great reminder of what it is like to have students in front of you for a full 58 minutes. It is something that every Administrator IMO would benefit from doing at some point. 

FYI #10: March Madness- Check for Understanding- A GREAT writing assignment

This week in the Academic FYI:

A thought provoking tweet on assessment, a great March Madness in the Classroom activity, 53 Ways to Check for Understanding Chart, and a must-do writing assignment I just learned in a PD workshop called Make-It-Worse/Make-It-Better

As always your feedback on these educational pieces is appreciated. Enjoy! 

Here is an interesting take on averaging grades. Provided you weigh all those Units tests equally it is interesting to see how consistent performers can potentially be averaged the same as students who are really up and down... Maybe it should say "This is why it's wrong to ONLY average grades"?

Dr. Justin Tarte‏@justintarte

This is why it's wrong to average grades: via @tguskey

March Madness in the Classroom

A timely short article about having books, historical figures, mammals,  etc. compete in bracket form much like the NCAA "March Madness" tournament. Students can debate about the best books, most important presidents, use statistical analysis of the actual teams in math classes,etc. Looks like a great educational connection to the actual tournament. 

53 Ways to Check for Understanding

A simple and to the point list of 53 ways to check for understanding (formative assessment) all on almost one sheet! Click the download button after you go to the link.

Make-it- Better/Make-it-Worse writing assignment

Make-It-Better/Worse

Make-It-Better/Worse Rationale

I am currently having lunch at a professional development workshop entitled "Writing Matters" with two AV staff members. One great writing activity that we discussed that really seems great is called Make-It-Better/Make-It-Worse. This could be a great activity for any class writing lesson and depts. may want to use it for their grade 10 Open-response blitz activity. 

Would love to hear if you try this out....

Here's how it works:

1. Have students respond in writing to any prompt
2. Have students grade themselves (1-10 scale), keeping in mind it's their first draft.
    **You could also use our own AV 1-4 MCAS open-response rubric
3. Talk about how they scored themselves, and what a draft with a lower score would look like.
        For example, if a student gave himself a 7, what would a 5 have looked like?
4. Have students write a second draft, this time making it WORSE. Also have them make a list of        what they did to make a second draft worse.
5. After discussing, have students go back to their first draft, and write a final draft, this time making it BETTER. Again, have them make a list of what they did to make the final copy better than the original one.

It was great to see the lists that students made about their understanding of how they made it better and how they made it worse. This really showed a higher level of thinking for these students.

Student statements for Making it Better

• Made the intro more engaging 
• Included more details in body
• Used better wording throughout writing

Student statements for Making it Worse

• Non-engaging intro
• spelling issues (not an MCAS concern for us but still relevant)
• No definite conclusion
• strayed from line of thought 

Academic FYI #9- Lesson Planning, HW, & Assessment

Getting back to some pedagogy discussions this week... 3 very good blogs-- Quick reads...

Shared the article below with new teachers and mentors last week. The author hits upon the most critical times each class period: the beginnings and the endings. Are you engaging students right away and are you checking that your goals were attained in the end?

The first 4 minutes and the last 4 minutes are critical. See the article for some great ideas on those 8 minute activities.

8 Minutes that Matter Most

This blog has brought up the importance or non-importance of homework in the past. This short article and chart just shows the average amount of homework students in various countries get per week. Both China and Finland score in the highest percentage year after year on the internationally recognized PISA test. However, China is #1 on time spent on homework while Finland is dead last. We are somewhere in the middle. Interesting information.

Where Teenagers Have the Most Homework

The grading system norms from this one high school mentioned in the article below I stumbled upon via Twitter.

The opening line really grabbed me:

• We believe that each student learns at a different pace and we believe that ‘when’ a kid learns isn't nearly as important as ‘if’ a kid learns. 

Another interesting take:

• retakes will be encouraged and will be allowed after the relearn process for full credit in all content areas up until the last week of the quarter. Click on the relearn process link for the actual sheet they use. 

Some very debatable ideas: 

• non-academic indicators, such as simple classroom participation, behavior, work completion, attendance & other non-academic indicators, will not be included in a student’s academic grade. 
• extra-credit is NOT accepted 

Lots of interesting assessment norms and ideas in this short article.
The Grading System our Students Deserve


Hope you enjoy these articles.

Have a Great Weekend!

Super Bowl Lesson Plans

From Monday, January 26th 




Some Excellent Super Bowl lessons for this week! Weather permitting! 

Here are a couple of timely Super Bowl lessons you may find enjoyable to share with your students (if we ever get back to school this week!)

7 Super Bowl lessons and activities for the classroom:

www.edutopia.org/blog/super-bowl-lesson-plans-matthew-davis?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=blog-super-bowl-lesson-plans-link

A Pathfinder Tech student does his own experiments on DeflateGate. Check out the video below

http://blog.masslive.com/patriots/2015/01/deflategate_patriots_footballs.html

Enjoy your weekend and the game. Go Patritos!

Academic FYI #8- Happy Holidays!!

In the Holiday spirit of giving I would like to invite everyone to take part in a fun little Holiday activity where I teach your class for a day and give you a much deserved period off.

Over the next four weeks I will have Diane pull one name each week from a hat of interested staff. Those teachers can then let me know what day and period they would like me to cover.

I can either cover the class in your room or take them somewhere else so you have access to your room. Makes no difference to me.

I look at this activity as a way of showing staff some appreciation and it doubles as a way for me to connect with kids. Each year as an administrator is another year away from the classroom. I believe it is important for me to constantly remember what it is truly like to be in a classroom for a full 58 minutes with students.

I do not look at this as a lost period of curriculum. I can either oversee an assessment period for you or I will bring in my own fun type of lesson that is cross curricular (preferred).

If you are interested in being a part of this please call or email Diane with your name. We will start drawing names next week.

This Week’s FYI:

One helpful app and two good articles: Hope you enjoy.

During walkthroughs this week I talked to 3 different students who each told me that they remembered to do their homework or an important due date because there teacher sent them a Remind text over the weekend. Remind is a safeway for teachers to text students. Check it out in the link below or come see me with any questions. I can point you in the direction of teachers who are having success with it.

https://www.remind.com/

Unleash the Power of Post-Its

This a short blog article with some great ideas for using simple Post-Its in your daily lesson. This is particularly a great idea for those quiet and shy students you may have.

Post-It Power

11 Alternative to Round Robin Reading (RRR)

Reading in your classroom is a GREAT practice. However, Round Robin Reading has gotten a bad rap and has led to some serious debate in educational circles. At one time or another we have all run a classroom lesson where we choose individual students to read a passage from some textbook or book. This short article gives teachers some others alternatives for this practice. I particularly liked the idea of “Partner reading”. See the article below for some new ideas:

11 Alternatives to Round Robin Reading

Academic FYI #7- Happy Thanksgiving! Thoughts on Appreciation and Gratitude

A special Thanksgiving’s Day Academic FYI. A little bit on the touchy feely side but its a great time of year to reflect upon all the great parts of this profession.

Just two quick articles on the importance of Appreciation and Gratitude that all staff and students can benefit from….  

This is a nice and timely article around Thanksgiving. This is certainly the time of year with everyone working so hard where the Holiday break is a much needed time for relaxing and reenergizing yourself.

There are some great ideas here for increasing appreciation in your work life. And if I haven’t said it to you enough: Thank you for all you do.

Teachers: Finding Appreciation at Work

Nothing is perfect but students and staff have a lot to be thankful for working at such a great school. At first I wondered if the article was too elementary but then realized gratitude is something that all students need to think about at all times. Here is another great idea for writing in your classroom which doubles as a fantastic way to start your class with positive thoughts and ideas:

Gratitude: A Powerful Tool for Your Classroom

FYI #6 - Enjoy the Weekend & Happy Veteran's Day!

Had some great walkthroughs this week. It is encouraging to see staff doing more and more stuff with literacy in mind.

This week: A helpful lesson plan template, one video, one list of journal prompts, and one more short article on working with ELL students. Enjoy! Have a Great weekend!!

1. We have been talking a lot about Unit Plans in terms of our Rubicon Atlas curriculum initiatives.

However, one thing that cannot be overlooked is a good, solid daily lesson plan. A lesson plan which has the most important components to running a good class:

Warm-ups, a good balance of teacher-centered and student-centered activities, reading and writing activities, formative assessment, and exit strategies is critical to every class.

I have been working on this lesson plan template which I hope to break down into one page. I think it is important for teachers to see the ideas below each section of the lesson plan. This is a 58 minute plan which hits upon the 5 classroom indicators Administrators are looking for. If you decided to use this template let me know how it goes:

http://goo.gl/Lw7iUm

1. A quick little video on simple Exit Tickets. You should always end your lesson each day with a simple exit strategy to see if the students have learned the objectives you planned for:

http://www.theteachertoolkit.com/index.php/tool/exit-ticket

2. 180 Journal Prompts for every day of the school year. This is an excellent list for all teachers to use. Journals are a great DO NOW activity regardless of what you teach:

http://www.dailyteachingtools.com/journal-writing-prompts.html

3. Another excellent and short article on accommodating ELL students in your classroom:

http://theeducatorsroom.com/2013/02/esl-students-in-the-general-education-classroom/