Yeah We Made It!

Hopefully everyone that was part of our blog was granted tenure! How exciting that we made it, we should celebrate and maybe even continue to share cool stuff we are trying in our classrooms. I hope that everyone is having a great start to the new school year. I look forward to hearing about the great new stuff you are trying!

End of year anxiety

This year I have 7 seniors on my case load, and 6 of the 7 have already been accepted to post-secondary programs or enlisted in the military. I think they are all starting to feel some anxiety though about leaving high school and moving on to the unknown. When they walked in the doors on the 1st day of their 10th grade year, many of them probably weren't thinking about what they really needed to do to walk out of here with as much as they possibly could on that last day of their senior year. We really do have so much to offer them, but for some of them they realize it too late. This is a really good group of kids, sure they had many struggles, but I still don't think they took much time to look at "the big picture" as they went through high school. Did we, when we were their age? I often think about what the kids were like in my high school and what was I like at their age. What was different for me and how can I help these kids reach their full potential and push them to do their best? I am feeling some anxiety for these kids as well. Did I help them build enough of the skills they are going to need to be successful adults in school and in life? I know that the responsibility did not lie solely on me, but I've worked very closely with them for 3 years. Although I am excited for them to move on, I am definitely sad to see them go.

So we have less than 2 weeks of class left and, despite doing weekly grade checks, with all of my students, some of them still seem shocked that they are not passing certain classes. When we do grade checks we talk about the missing assignments and if they have them (for some reason some of my students have this problem where they do their homework but don't turn it in), if they started them, if they need to talk to their teachers about them, and what they need to do to turn future assignments in on time. Missing homework is not the only reason they are failing, though. Some students actually complete their homework, but they do not perform well on tests. We talk about study strategies all year, and despite the fact that their study strategies haven't worked they still refuse to try new suggestions. Or if they did try something that was suggested once and they didn't see dramatic results they aren't willing to try it again. How can I change their thinking? We go over homework, study and test taking strategies every year (several times a year). They reflect on what they did or do not do well and how to change the things they did not do well every semester. However, even though doing my homework and studying for tests is something they always say they are going to improve, most of them still end up with the same results. We've talked about SMART goals, but it's just frustrating when they don't understand when they didn't change anything but expected a different result.

Offering Student Choice

I collaborated with CarolAnn last year in planning some English 10 assignments and learned a lot from CarolAnn. I also now have a few projects for English 10 that I love assigning and students love working on. One of the projects that I enjoy is a differentiated poetry assignment titled “Your Turn!”

During the spring semester of English 10 we have a unit where we read short stories and poems and study poetry devices/figurative language. Students study figurative language terms and practice identifying the terms in poetry. Students then need to analyze the function of figurative language in poetry. For example, a student may identify a simile in a poem, but then he/she needs to analyze the simile’s influence in the poem.

After reading poems by Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Carl Sandburg in class students choose from a list of poems a poem that they would like to do the poetry project for. The Your Turn assignment calls for students to complete a number of activities for the poem that they have selected. All students must analyze the theme and the figurative language used in the poem. After those two required assignments, students choose from a list of other activities. Students may write a poem in response to their chosen poem, they may create an artistic representation of their poem, they may recite their poem, and they may also choose an activity of their own to react to the poem. Students do an awesome job with this assignment and I am always impressed with what they come up with. One of my favorite artwork creations was done for the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The poem is all about the masks that people wear to hide how they are truly feeling. A student chose this poem and used clay to create four different colored masks.

I like offering students choices with assignments and I have definitely found that students like being able to share what they have learned in their own way.

Procrastination

Last Tuesday my fourth hour was able to go listen to a motivational speaker named Jermaine Davis. Jermaine talked about how procrastination gets in the way of you achieving your goals and dreams. He also talked a lot about how important it is to surround yourself with people who only push you forward and lift you up, and not people who get in the way of your dreams and goals.

I was interested to hear what my class would have to say about the message. They were actually pretty impressed with the speaker. One girl mentioned that it was a good reminder to her to only surround herself with people who are a good influence on her.
I know that high schoolers are learning how to not procrastinate and that this is something that is a real struggle for many of them. For the research paper in English 10, the teachers really try to break up the paper into smaller parts so that the students are able to be successful with the assignment. I assign due dates for the smaller sections of the research paper. I am able to give feedback on the smaller sections of the paper this way. Another goal with these due dates is to encourage students not to procrastinate. Some students, however, still procrastinate and do not turn in anything on the due dates. Sometimes these same students turn something in as a final draft, but they don’t usually get a good grade. It is frustrating that even with our assistance with breaking things down, creating due dates, and providing work time in class, that some students still procrastinate.

Has anyone had success with getting students to not procrastinate with big papers/projects? I will continue to encourage students to break big assignments up into smaller, more manageable chunks, but sometimes I feel like this is one of the most difficult life skills to teach. Any suggestions?

Retain 10% of knowledge

I just read an article for my Grad school class regarding how much students actually retain in a class period. Remarkably it is only 10%. I find this kind of shocking. But I do kind of see it as well. Students these days have roughly 7 classes, work, sports, and of course TV and cell phones. Some are just not that interested in school. And especially with only 3 weeks left, it is getting hard to motivate them.

I have been trying to do more Inquiry learning in the classroom. This is a tool that will hopefully help students remember more than just 10% of what went on in class. Getting students to generalize a problem, figure out a solution and analyze the data at hand will hopefully get them to remember what occurred in class. Students get sick of taking notes and looking at power points all day. If they are out of their seats and moving around the room trying to figure out a solution to a question that they have to discover is a wonderful solution to a typical class period.

During these last couple of weeks we really need to motivate students to want to come to class, get ready for finals, and pay attention during the school day. I have multiple labs left to cover during my final unit of Chemistry class. Which gets them out of their seats, and gets them using lab materials and testing on lab equipment. How are other classes keeping students motivated these last couple of weeks of the school year?

I found this website with some helpful hints. It is nice that as a school we are doing most of them. Or at least in my department we are.
1. Start Class with a Mind Warm-Up
2. Use Movement to Get Kids Focused
3. Teach Students How to Collaborate Before Expecting Success
4. Use Quickwrites When You Want Quiet Time and Student Reflection
5. Run a Tight Ship When Giving Instructions
6. Use a Fairness Cup to Keep Students Thinking
7. Use Signaling to Allow Everyone to Answer Your Question
8. Use Minimal-Supervision Tasks to Squeeze Dead Time out of Regular Routines
9. Mix up Your Teaching Styles
10. Create Teamwork Tactics That Emphasize Accountability

http://www.edutopia.org/classroom-student-participation-tips

KEEP YOUR STUDENTS MOTIVATED :-)

Bullying

In the January/February issue of Nea Today, there was an article on bullying. As a parent and a special education teacher, this is a very important issue for me. My son, who will be 8 on Wednesday, is sweet, smart and sensitive. He has many friends and a great sense of humor, but he has already been bullied. Last year a student repeatedly told him, "I'm going to kill you if you don't give me your toe tokens" (little plastic feet that he earned for running laps around the track at school). I can't remember how I found out about this, but when I talked to him and told him we needed to tell his YMCA teacher, he did not want us to. We had previously talked to him about bullying-why it's not nice to bully others, how it makes people feel, and what to do if you are being bullied, but he didn't want us to intervene and didn't really want to share it with us in the first place. We of course met with his teacher and she made him feel good about sharing the situation with her and she explained why it was important for him to tell an adult. There had been other instances of this student bullying other kids and this started in Kindergarten-YIKES. the Nea article stated that bullying usually starts just as kids are learning about and trying to form relationships so that's when we need to start the dialogue with students-in preschool. It makes sense to me, and I think students definitely need to be educated about bullying during school. I'm not sure all parents would feel comfortable explaining all the different aspects of bullying and how to prevent it or what to do if you are bullied. Parents definitely have an important role, but we need to get a consistent message out to kids at an early age and work toward a bully-free culture. It's not just a part of growing up, and it won't make you stronger. Bullying can have lasting affects on its victims and because of today's technology it's much easier for people to gang up on the bullied. It's very sad that so many young people are commiting suicide because of the torment they've gone through. I hope I can keep communication open between my children and my students about bullying, how to stand up for people who are being bullied, and what to do if you are being bullied. I also hope that as teachers we will not look the other way when we see bullying or pass it off as "normal".

(September) Beadwork

Whew. This class, while incredibly entertaining, was a learning experience! I felt as though I was less than a half step ahead of the students and I tend to like to be 100 yards in front of them.

It was my first time teaching a course like this so I wanted to be sure I did good job and kept my head above water. I worked really hard to revamp all the course materials and find newer, more helpful directions for projects. If I couldn't understand the instructions, how could I expect students to understand them? Also, I wanted to update the rubrics to more accurately capture what the project expectations were. Overall, I was happy with the rubrics and will make more changes next year, incorporating standards.

One of the first projects we tried were making beads out of paper. A simple and easy way to introduce students to bead making. We then moved to more difficult projects and I figured out really quick that students worked WAY better when they had a larger practice simulation. Meaning, instead of practicing with little beads we practiced with huge pony beads, straws and yarn. It helped students master the techniques before moving to the more tedious smaller beads. The practice time was essential to having them produce a high quality product with less frustration.

When reviewing our content, I noticed there was overlap between the practical arts class and the beadwork class. I sat down with Rachel and talked about her curriculum and compared it to FACS. What I determined was that beadwork needed to reflect our national standards and should not overlap with another department's curriculum. And thus......

I proposed the course be changed to Textile Arts next fall. Using beadwork projects as a base, integrate more projects with more textiles.



Lazy Stitch


Lazy Stitch



Wire Crocheted Bracelet

(Oct) Literacy Strategies

Literacy Strategies

Of the many goals I have for myself professionally each year, this year I chose to, focus on literacy strategies. I was familiar with Jigsaw, so I began with that strategy but tried to implement additional reading strategies on a regular basis. I was directed to Kristin Moak's (literacy coach at the MS) website for more information on strategies she had available. (http://www.rschooltoday.com/se3bin/clientgenie.cgi?butName=For%20Teachers&cId=&permission=3&username=) .

According to Kristin’s website there are 7 “big” literacy strategies which are supported by literacy tools (jigsaw, graphic organizers, etc) – which I used to call strategies as well. I think they can still be called strategies but the “big 7” really should be a focus

1. Making Connections – This involves activating prior knowledge of a concept in order to connect new knowledge to old knowledge (schema). Assist students in making connections to previous learning, their daily lives, their community and world issues. For students who have no schema for a concept or have misconceptions, it is important to build background knowledge for them before they begin reading the text.

2. Questioning – Good readers are always asking questions while they read. Some ways readers use questioning are: to clarify meaning in the text, to help understand vocabulary, to find specific information in the text, to connect to an idea, to understand the author’s choices when writing the text, to help understand text features, and to summarize what was read.

3. Inferring - Proficient readers use their prior knowledge about a topic and the information they have gleaned in the text thus far to make predictions or a hypothesis. Teachers model inferring by “thinking aloud” as they read to show how and why inferences are necessary to good thinking while reading.

4. Determining Importance – In the sea of words that is in any text, readers must continually sort through and prioritize information. Teachers assist readers in analyzing everything from text features in nonfiction like bullets and headings, to finding clue words that indicate important ideas. Looking for these clues can help readers sift through the relative value of different bits of information in a text.

5. Visualizing – Visualizing is the process of creating mental images in the mind based on information from a text. Good readers constantly create mind pictures as they read. Visualizing is a way for readers to check their understanding of information and a useful tool to assist the recall of information.

6. Monitoring Comprehension – Proficient readers don’t just plow ahead through text when it doesn’t make sense – they stop and use “fix-up” strategies to restore their understanding. One of the most important “fix-up” tools is rereading, with teachers demonstrating a variety of ways to reread text in order to repair meaning.

7. Synthesizing Information –With this strategy, students move from making meaning of a text, to integrating their new understanding into their lives and world view.

So far, I've tried the "Insert" strategy, backwards book walk, reading guide (pre, self-monitor, and reflection), the TSC reading strategy (triangle, square, circle) and a couple of others. I’ve been much more mindful about helping model reading and cognitive processing during reading. I’ve tried to help students understand how the literacy tools can aid them in their thinking process. Not being a reading specialist or having been trained in this area, I think this is something I would like to continue developing and refining over my teaching career. As new strategies and ideas come to surface, being mindful to incorporate them into each unit I teach will be very important.

(November) Professional Development Cake Decorating

I love my alma mater. However, it did not teach me about how to decorate cakes and that is an essential component of the Foods 2 curriculum map. We have a competition – top chef of cakes – and students compete in kitchens for best in show!

Last year, we had one set of cake decorating tips for a class. It made it extraordinarily difficult to have students practice the techniques with different tips. I tried to teach the basic techniques but didn’t like saying “just do whatever you want” without guidance. I, too, at that time was learning how to use the tips and practiced a lot. However, this year I put in a grant application for cake decorating supplies and I was awarded the full amount! I was able to purchase a complete cake decorating tip set for every student as well as other cake decorating supplies to further develop their skills. With all of these new supplies, I needed to learn myself how to use the techniques to make awesome cakes!

So, to learn how to use all these new tools, I took an 8 hour cake decorating class. We worked with fondant and gum paste. Fondant is used to cover cakes and doesn’t dry as firm as gum paste. Gum paste I used to make those beautiful flowers on cakes and once dried can be painted/dusted with dust to make colorful flowers. I learned how to create mums, roses, daisies and other flowers out of gum paste and use fondant to create other shapes.

Overall, it was a worthwhile experience but I know I have much more to learn about this subject. Now, I have additional ideas to incorporate into class and help students figure out how to make better cakes.

(April) Differentiation: A Learning Choice!

I went to a conference on Differentiation took away some good information. Basically, differentiation is not giving more work to students who “get it” but it’s understanding where each of your students are at and providing them a learning experience to foster growth.

For example, if a student is struggling with basic concepts and you assign them 10 questions and it takes them 1 hour to complete the work, you would then assign the student who is extending his/her learning more challenging questions (maybe just 3) but it should take the same amount of time as the other students – 1 hour. It’s not about dumping more work onto the kids who get it, it’s about getting them to the higher levels of thinking. Does that mean students who are struggling at the basic level shouldn’t get higher level questions? NO WAY – they absolutely need to work on stretching and developing higher order thinking skills.

According to research, students are more engaged in the learning if they have a choice in it as well. Rather than giving them a standard assignment, teachers should consider developing various options for students to meet the learning goal. There are various ways to do this. One, you could base the tiered assignment on Bloom’s Taxonomy and create assignments that fall into each category. Two, you could create assignments based on multiple intelligences. However, whichever category you choose, should require students to stretch outside of their comfort zone and knowledge level. For example, a student shouldn’t just answer knowledge level questions or should work only in the kinesthetic intelligence but be encouraged (creatively required) to expand their knowledge outside of their zone of preferential learning. I’ve done a Tic Tac Toe activity in the past and have been mindful of where I place what activities I place on the chart. It has gone well and I think the students enjoy the variety of options they have, though, they often ask if they can choose any three to which I say “you can select any three squares as long as they make a tic tac toe”.

So, based on what I learned at the conference and the desire to give students more choice in their learning I created a ladder assignment (Annie has done a pyramid assignment before so that got my brain thinking). It is broken up by Bloom’s Taxonomy and assigned a point value based on that question level. Students are asked to select any activities that total up to 12 points. It can be any combination, however, if you’ll notice, there aren’t enough options in each section for a student to work only in that thinking level. A student who wants to take the “easy” way out will still have to step up their level of thinking to complete the assignment.

I haven’t yet tried it with my class but I hope to this spring. At this point, it’s a very general outline that can be tailored to each specific class. Below is the example (to be uploaded during the work week). Feel free to use or modify as you see fit!

Ladder Assignment

Menu Planner

Student Choice Grain Activities

(March) Prezi

I thought I was pretty technologically savvy but when I saw the PGO for Prezi, I thought to myself “well what the heck is that? Surely I must sign up!”. And, I did.

And….

It was awesome! The technology is a much more visually appealing than PowerPoint. In fact, it makes PowerPoint looks like the ditto machine of the 70’s and 80’s, it’s just that cool.

Prezi is a free program to teachers (you need to use your school email address). It is definitely easy to navigate and teach yourself how to put a very cool presentation together.

What I love about it is that Prezi, at its root, functions as a PowerPoint but is way more interactive and engaging for students (and I’m sure, the visual learners!). You begin with a blank template or page. If you aren’t a linear thinker, this tool is for you! You can put all of the information down on the screen in whatever order you think of it or copy it. You can upload pictures and videos. You can even zoom in to parts of the picture or uploaded document to really emphasize an aspect of it. You can make your text huge or teeny, rotate it 38 degrees or even “send it to the back”. You create “paths” that link all of those pieces together!

Prezi makes PowerPoint seem incredibly archaic. I’ve started to convert my PowerPoints to Prezi’s. They are pretty basic at this point but I plan to update the information over the summer to include more links, images and interactive pieces! I think it’s an incredibly exciting technology with total creative or artistic freedom.

https://prezi.com/secure/1ffcd7bdd052caeb64eea309f8d1f419a5f02337/

(May) New Adventures in my Content Area

I recently attended a Fabric Arts workshop thanks for grant money from Perkins. I am ever so thankful that our content area has a grant program like Perkins. This year, we aligned the FACS curriculum in beadwork to the national standards and differentiate between the art curriculum(i.e. modified the course so it better reflects our content area’s focus on textiles). Next year the course will be titled “Textile Arts”. There are many options to engage students in learning about this but limiting the options to something that is feasible to do in a classroom and is cost effective is difficult to understand unless you try it first. So, with the grant money, I attended a two day workshop filled with 10 different techniques. I learned so much within these two days, my head hurt! However, there were definitely techniques I knew I would NOT want to have students do. Some were just too messy and some were very expensive.

Things I learned that I will definitely be applying to textile arts class:

1. How to make silk paper (strong enough to sew into a project)

2. Monoprinting – using cardboard, potato sacks, chicken wire, household goods) to create a printed image onto fabric

3. Dynaflow – watercolor textile paint to create your own fabric

4. Image Transfer – using acrylic gel medium transferring images on transparencies to fabric)

5. Fabric Beads – using WunderUnder on the backside of any fabric (store purchased OR created using dynaflow) and roll into beads to put on projects or make into jewelry!

6. Lutrador (upholstery filler in vehicles) - so thick it is indestructible and can be sewn down the middle and create a children’s book!

7. Discharge/Bleach – Using stencils to change the image of the fabric.

Overall, it was a fantastic two days! I learned a lot of techniques that I can incorporate into my classroom next year that will help students explore textile arts! I can’t wait to go to more classes and further my learning of this topic.

“Teenage Wasteland”

We just finished reading a short story in English 10 titled “Teenage Wasteland” by Anne Tyler. This is an interesting story about a high school boy who does not pass classes and who gets in trouble. The parents don’t know what to do with their son and feel like failures as parents. A psychologist recommends a tutor for the son to work with. This tutor has some interesting techniques and basically tells the parents to give the boy freedom. The boy eventually gets kicked out of school and runs away from home.

The story prompted conversations with my English 10 students about why some students have a hard time in school. I had the class imagine that they had a high school aged child who was failing classes. This was hard for some of them to imagineJ One of the students thought that he would probably be around 70 years old by the time he had a high school aged child. I asked them what advice they would give and they had a number of funny responses. One student said that he would just yell at his child to “do your work,” because that is what his father does to him. I asked the student if the yelling and lectures that he got, got him to do his work. He said “no, the lectures didn’t really work.” The students shared what “worked” for them and what didn’t really work. It was really interesting to hear students talk about this.

I told the class that teacher and parents want to see students be successful. I then shared with the class that occasionally both teachers and parents have no idea how to “reach” or motivate certain students. I have never really had a conversation like this with a group of sophomores before and I was pleased with how interested in topic the students were. The students were excited to share what advice they had been given before and were really interested in talking about this. Early on in “Teenage Wasteland” the parents are told to check in with their son every single night and to sit down and do his homework with him. The students came to the conclusion that the boy was not learning responsibility that way. The class wasn’t able to come to a conclusion about what the son really needed from his parents or teachers, but they did connect with the story and shared their thoughts that every student is different.

Contacting Home

I am wondering how often you all contact home about student progress? I try to email or call parents of students who are failing, but it is not always something that I am very good or regular about. Usually about a week before I need to update the Student Intervention Database I make my emails and calls, but it takes a lot of energy and time and I don’t always get responses from parents. I also don’t always notice a difference in how students are performing in my class. I know that I need to contact home but sometimes I get very frustrated with the process. I occasionally feel like parents and teachers care more about a student’s grade than the student does.

Even though I get frustrated with this, I do “get” that being a parent must be so hard at times. I have had many conversations w/ parents who say that they check in with their children about homework and grades but that their kids don’t always tell them the truth. I would like to find a way to make sure that I keep parents informed, but that I also have students take more responsibility for their grade.

Do you send grade print-offs home? I’ve thought that having the students physically bring home their grade print-off and having a conversation with their parents is good because the students are then more apart of the process. I have a handful of students who are not passing English 10 right now. I have sent emails home and have made phone calls, but these students have not pulled up their grades. This week I think I will try having the students bring their grade print-offs home to their parents. I plan on also including a note about the final unit that is coming up and the work that parents should see their students working on.

Has anyone found a method that really works with keeping parents informed and student’s involved in the process?

Help with a Standards-based Gradebook

I really want to figure out how to set up a standards-based grading system for next year. I am struggling on what it should actually look like in Ties though. Has anyone taken on this challenge and feel like they are being successful?

These are the things I am torn on:
Should I be entering benchmarks, standards or objectives in the categories as opposed to have the typical tests, homework, etc categories?
Do I note the standard/benchmark that is being addressed in the "notes" so for every assessment, parents and students can see what standard is being addressed?
Do I switch to a 4 point system and if I do, how will that translate into letter grades for entering at the end of each quarter?
Do I use the same system for SpEd students?

These are just some of my questions. I have read the research, I love the idea, it makes complete sense, but I just can't wrap my head around the logistics of it.

I would really appreciate input/ideas if you have any.

PLC's Galore

I love the idea of PLC's. As educators, of course we should collaborate, share ideas, compare data, brainstorm together, create common assessments, etc. Let me tell you though, I feel like I am PLCed out right now. Maybe it is because I am split between two schools and I have PLC's at both. It is so hard for my brain to stay focused on which PLC is doing what and keeping track of all of the tasks that I am responsible for completing.

I know that it is cliche for an educator to say that we are not given enough time to get everything done. If only we could get some more time that is set aside solely for PLC work time though. I feel like there are so many things that we are expected to accomplish in our PLC's and trying to meet over lunch or having one meeting a month is not sufficient. There is no way that we can get what we want to get done done in that amount of time.

Speaking with teachers in other districts, it sounds like, overall, the same problem is present in many. However, I have heard of some districts that set days aside and even pay for subs to come in so teachers can create lesson plans and assessments, collaborate and look at data. How nice would that be?

I know it is not likely for this to happen, especially with the budget right now. I will keep my fingers crossed that maybe some day in the future this could happen though.

Making AYP

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/04/28/30ayp.h30.html?tkn=ULLFf%2FbulXNHp4SaL0d4io7ESkQxSWCHDAuB&cmp=clp-edweek

Schools not making their AYP rose 5% this past year. Luckily Minnesota dropped their AYP number by 4%, from 54 to 50 percent of the schools not making the AYP. Over the past 4 years Minnesota has gone from 38% in 2006 to a huge increase to 50% for 2010. Looking at the data all of the Shakopee schools failed the AYP except for one Elementary school.
Who really understands the AYP anyway? If close to 40% of the nation is failing the AYP shouldn’t something really be done about it?

Some states have tried to improve their AYP, and that has backfired for some states. New York tried to make tougher restrictions and there AYP went up over 24%. NY raised their cutoff marks, now who thought of that cleaver idea? If you already had 12% of the schools not making the cut why raise it? Many states more than doubled the schools that failed the

The main point of the article comes in the last sentence where it states that if we want to compare states we need to have common assessment. Don’t know where we can get all the numbers from if we don’t have tests and evaluations that are all the same, and can show us how each states compare.

I do agree with NCLB, because no child should be left behind. But I think to test for AYP there needs to be set guidelines that are the same throughout the country. Different tests for students with disabilities, ELL, and ESL students. Some students that have only been in the country a couple of years should not have to take the same or similar tests to those who have spent their entire lives here. Students need to be tested for showing improvement and track there learning, but some of these tests are just outrageous.

With dealing with testing, MCA’s in Minnesota is just weird. Students can take the test up to 3 times and if they don’t pass on the third time, who really cares. IF failing 3 times and students can still graduate from high school is pointless. Why give them the test in the first place? We spend all this money on it, and the students half of the time don’t care what they get on it. State money can be placed in better areas.

So who should we test?

Reasons to Blog

So I have been attending some PGO’s in regard to getting the students more involved with technology. OR getting the teachers more involved with technology as well. Having blogs, community pages, places where students can talk and create presentation, etc. But I am looking more at blogging today. Blogging is new to me, really have never done it till this year. And most of my friends really haven’t started blogging pictures and trip information till this year. So why has it gotten so popular with this generation? And why is it so important to do it with our students?

I found this article on Educator Week – Teacher edition regarding Blogs
http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2011/04/27/tln_ratzel_courage.html?r=1460108215

The article gives 8 tips on how to use blogs in the classroom and what you should be prepared to do as a teacher / parent.

Starting with tip #1, which is covering the rules. If there is a class blog make sure that rules and regulations are posted, on your blog, website and sent to parents. Making sure that items that are on the blog are appropriate, worth reading and geared toward higher learning. Taking time and showing students how to post, learning how to respond and find information regarding the topic at hand is very useful as well.

Practicing without computers is the pretty cleaver tip that is recommended. Have the students practice with post-its and writing comments on them and post them around the room. Students are learning how to comment appropriately and seeing how their posts can be linked to others in the classroom. Practicing first with the teacher at hand will help going out on their own and actually doing an assignment with fellow classmates.

This article really emphasizes safety, either with usernames or contacting parents.
This is a great idea, but I am still stuck on the computer time. I teach some low level classes and yes most of them have computers but I still have a few that don’t. They ride the bus to and from school, don’t have a study hall, and are usually the free and reduced lunch crowd. So what would be a source or back-up idea for these students? And finding computer lab time is sometimes very difficult.

I found this article very informative, and has helped me get a better understanding of how and what to predict when hopefully I start Blogging with my students.

“When Cheating Makes us Think We’re Smart”

I get an email from turnitin.com occasionally that points out new ways to use the website and oftentimes has links to articles having to do with student writing. In the April 20th turnitin email, there was a headline titled “When Cheating Makes us Think We’re Smart.” This caught my attention and I decided to read the post. The article was a blog post written by Nate Kornell, Ph.D. and was published on March 28th, 2011. The blog post details a study by Zoë Chance, Michael I. Norton, Francesca Ginob, and Dan Ariely. The study focused on how individuals interpret and feel about their own cheating. The study had two groups of participants.

Here is the breakdown of how the two groups were different:

“Participants in the control group:
• Took a test.
• Made a prediction about how they'd do on a second test.
• Took a second test.
Participants in the "cheating" group did the same, but during the first test, the answers were printed at the bottom of the test.

• Took a test on which they could cheat
• Made a prediction about how they'd do on a second test.
• Took a second test.”

The study found that the people who were given the opportunity to cheat on the first test, “thought” that they would do better on the second test. These findings were the opposite of what I expected the study to find. The group that was able to cheat made predictions that were “significantly higher than were the control group's. In other words, getting answers right by cheating made people think they were smart.

The authors put it this way:

We find that those who exploit opportunities to cheat on tests are likely to engage in self-deception, interfering that their elevated performance is a sign of intelligence. This short-term psychological benefit of self-deception, however, can come with longer-term costs: when predicting future performance, participants expect to perform equally well—a lack of awareness that persists even when these inflated expectations prove costly.
These results add to ample evidence that people are adept at deceiving themselves” (Kornell).

Even though I don’t think the study was very clear, I still think that this is something interesting to share with students. I plan on sharing this with my English 10 students next week when they need to submit more of their writing to turnitin.com. It is scary to think about how much cheating may actually take place at school. This would just be something to share with students to show them how they really will not get anywhere with cheating.


The blog was written on the “Psychology Today” website and can be found here:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/everybody-is-stupid-except-you/201103/when-cheating-makes-us-think-were-smart?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonv63PZKXonjHpfsX%2B7%2BwoXaag38431UFwdcjKPmjr1YQIT9QhcOuuEwcWGog8yRxZCOGRdYdN6Q%3D%3D

Here is a link to the study if you are curios in checking it out:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/03/02/1010658108.abstract

Classroom Arrangement

I have had 3 different desk arrangements in my classroom so far this year. Two of which, I have really enjoyed. I have tried really hard this year to have students in a position where they could easily collaborate and communicate with one another. I was worried at first that it would cause more behavior issues because of the ease to socialize.
My first desk arrangement had students grouped in trios. I think that overall, I enjoyed this arrangement the most. Everyone could easily see the front of the room and everyone had plenty of personal space around their desks and could easily get in and out of their desks. The only thing that I disliked about this particular arrangement was that I had 7 groups of 3 in my classroom so it took up a lot of floor space.

The second desk arrangement was one that the teacher that I share my room with came up with. She had the desks in 2 long, curved rows. There were 10 desks in one row and 11 in the back row. I disliked this arrangement immensely. It did not foster student collaboration because the desks had to physically be moved in order to work in groups. This took up way too much precious class time. The other reason that I disliked this arrangement was because students were very close to one another and it was extremely difficult for some students to get into their desks since another one was right next to theirs. I also found that there were more behavior issues with this arrangement. Students were touching each other and there were a couple times when a student farted and a huge disruption was caused.

The last arrangement that I tried was having the desks in groups of 4. I brought in 3 more desks for this arrangement so I could have 6 groups of 4. Again, this takes up a lot of floor space, but with the extra desks in the room, less students have to sit at a lab table. This is also great because if a student is absent, there are still 3 other people who can work together.

No matter what arrangement that I put my desks in, one thing that bothers me is the fact that I don't have enough desks for each of my students. There are always at least 5 students who have to sit at a lab table. In an ideal world, every student would have their own desk so the lab tables would solely be used for labs and activities. I like the physical transition so students can switch their frame-of-mind as well as get up and move so they can better stay focused for the duration of a class period.

One other thing to note is that when I put desks into groupings, I always have a seating chart which I have put a lot of thought in to. I arrange students differently depending upon the unit of study. If it is a math intense unit, I group students heterogeneously based on their MAP math scores. I hope that students utilize the help of their peers in this situation. If it is a unit where the 9th grade science department has a lot of leveled readers, I group homogeneously based on MAP reading scores. This way group members can use the same leveled book at each grouping.

I know that I will never have a "perfect" situation when it comes to classroom arrangement. Space, number of desks, number of students, and many other reasons keep this from happening. I do feel like I have learned a lot this year from trying different things and I am confident that I am headed in the right direction when it comes to what is best for my students and their learning.

(February) Love and Logic

I really enjoyed reading this book. I think, in part, I enjoyed it so much because I very much come from this “perspective” on how to deal with kids. Having worked in an alternative school my first two years of teaching, I found ways to engage students in their learning despite their background or circumstances. While I very much come from a perspective of having students find their own solutions and their own consequences, this book was helpful in aiding me to build more structures for dialogue.

Main Ideas:

· Offer choices. Choices you are okay with.

· Rather than creating a list of rules, establish with the class – baseline values from which you run your class. For years I have done with my class and I present it to them on the first day and explain how I feel a successful will look and sound like:

Our classroom will be

a COMMUNITY of learners,

a RESPECTFUL HOME where we use APPROPRIATE LANGUAGE

in a non-offensive manner,

a place of SUPPORT and EXCHANGE of knowledge,

a community who comes PREPARED TO LEARN,

a community who accepts RESPONSIBILITY for his or her actions,

a community of SELF-ADVOCATES.

· Engage in a healthy problem-solving dialogue, not a power struggle or counseling session. You are not to solve all of their problems nor their consequences.

· Develop techniques/interventions: The “evil eye”, moving in on the student, proximity, eye contact w/ a “no” headshake, “let’s talk about this later”, “Can you save that? Thanks!, changing locations, “I” messages, enforceable statements, providing choices, giving an appointment, informational letters and a few more.

One of the last chapters talked about a conference the author was at and the woman who was presenting had a very “canned’ speech. Someone in the audience told her to tell them just ONE thing they could take away from her presentation. She said….make your students fall in love with you. Because when they don’t love themselves, they won’t do anything for themselves.

You need not be their best friend but having them enjoy you as a person and enjoy learning about what you teach. I think back to my most favorite teachers, the teachers that I wish I was still in school so I could learn more from, I adored them. I adored them for who I thought they were and everything they knew or did for the community. I adored professors who could tell a great story in a way that was not only entertaining but completely relevant to the course content. I distinctly remember Professor Caron on my freshman year of college introducing a required class in my major “Intimate Relationships”. I didn’t know what to expect but what I learned is that he really put his heart and soul into teaching. We all learned a little bit about his past from the examples he used from his personal life. He taught other classes and I took every single one of them. And, likewise, in every single class I thought I would change my area of focus he was just that good at teaching. I wanted to be a marriage therapist, then a gerontologist and then ….really whatever he taught.

I think if you can sell students on who you are as a person and explain your perspective or thinking process to them, it’s a whole other ball game. Everyday each of us (staff and students) are dealing with life’s issues but we come together to work and learn. I can’t expect all of my students to be on their top game everyday but what I can do is facilitate a conversation to get them to be on top of their game. This interest in their lives from a teacher, builds rapport and respect.

One last thing I found very interesting in the textbook. If a student decides they want to argue with you about any topic, you could say, “That sounds like an argument. I schedule arguments at 7:15 am and 3:15 pm daily. Feel free to come back at that time.” Never before have I thought to use that phrasing in my classroom. I have, however, said “I can understand you are upset. Let’s both take a break and talk about it when we are more calm.”

Overall, it was a great book to read. While it resonated with my views on classroom management and student intervention, I learned a lot of new tips that I will carry with me in my classroom.

(Jan) Grading: Part 2 - Being the Change I Wish to See in the World

Grading: Part 2 -

Based on standards based grading, I revamped my grade book. Well, I created a skeleton grade book to experiment with and try next fall. I am not the type to wait – I like to try things as soon as I am ready, however, since there are less than 2 months left of school, it is not possible to change the structure under which I grade students. Imagine walking into a classroom and say, “I just wanted to let you all know that I’ve completely changed how I will be grading you from this point forth and the grading structure will completely affect your current grade.” Students would be in an uproar (I’m guessing those who have earned high marks at this point would NOT like the option of potentially lowering their grade). Therefore, next fall – I will see how the process of standards based grading plays out.

Until then, let me describe how I created my skeleton grade books (one for Foods 1 and one for Foods 2). It’s pretty easy, in fact. What you need is a list of your current assignments/projects and a copy of your standards and a critical mind of what you truly are assessing. I began by typing all my major national standards and language arts standards on a sheet of paper (if yours are electronic, I’d recommend copy and pasting). At this point, it was necessary to weigh which categories/standards were to be given more weight. I thought the standards we spent the most time on in our department (i.e. nutrition which is almost a month long) would likewise be given a similar value in weight. I then went through my assignments and figured out which assignments fell under which standard. I then made decisions about which assignments/project were formative and which were summative. The formative assignments were still put under the proper standards but were given no points assigned to them and were simply marked with a *T (turned in). At this time, I haven’t changed the point values for the larger assessments but I know I need to reevaluate the rubrics I have on file for them to better reflect the overall standards and use a 4 point scale. *Example

(Dec) Grading: Part 1 - Building background knowledge

Grading - It's been a highly debated topic and I'm curious to dig deeper into the issues. The JH made it a major focus of last year but because I was mostly stationed at the HS for inservice days, I missed most of the dialog. At the MS, it is something some folks have chosen to explore, via book studies, however I chose to read the book "Love and Logic" (to which I'll post a blog about later).

Therefore, in helping to prepare the staff development day on April 22nd, I went looking for intriguing articles on homework and grading - two very different but inextricably linked topics.

When I first started teaching, back in the day, I allotted participation points. Why? I suppose I thought I needed to hold kids accountable for bringing their supplies, being on time, and remaining on task. To me, the tracking of participation points became burdensome. It was a daily entry and required many comments in the online grading book. And, really......are those things something students should even be graded on.....this was my evolution of thinking at the beginning on my teaching years.

In reality, what items fell under participation were just a general expectation I had for our class and we discussed at the beginning on the term and kids understood. Did they come prepared all the time? No. Did they problem solve and ask a neighbor for a pencil - sure. Did the students who were engaged remain on task - yes. Did the students who had no interest in my class change their behavior because I gave them participation points - no. Really, giving participation points was ineffective and not something I had wished to continue.

Fast forward a few years after being in the classroom. Now, I'm looking behind at my experiences and feeling pretty good about that decision. Research points to the fact that grades should not include participation! Woot Woot.

Now, I'm curious what other aspects of my grading do not reflect research best practices and if I changed them could it be sustainable based on the larger system (meaning, would I be able to do what I wanted to do or would it need to be a change of school culture entirely?).

On a side note, when I reviewed application for admissions in a university, I did not find GPA's accurate or informative. Every school and within that, every teacher, has a different idea of rigor and relevance. How could I, as a reviewer, assess if an A really meant that particular student had mastered the content of that course? Realistically, I couldn't.

The applications I most enjoyed reading where holistic reviews of a students ability, not at all attached to a grade. Yes, this posed challenges in the review process because it wasn't a cookie-cutter situation. But, what I found was that I felt I could truly get a feel for what kind of student he/she was and how well his/her skills would translate at a university level. The critiques/grade report from each teacher was long and very detailed. It gave praises in areas of student's strengths and pointed out areas of struggle. This way, while something might be completely bright they could struggle working in groups and develop meaningful relationships. If I were an ideal world, I would remove GPAs and A, B, C, D, and F's and provide written progress reports. According to the "Reforming Grading Practices in Secondary Schools" only 8 percent of school report using a nontraditional system of grading and 1 percent of schools do not assign grades. Clearly, it’s not a popular thing to do.

According to the article, grades can be grouped into 3 categories: product, process and progress and most teacher’s grades fall into all of those three categories. Often teachers use various methods to assess learning – diagnostic, formative, and summative. The articles suggests to put only summative assessments in the grade book. With formative assessment, the key is that there should be no grade, just comments as feedback is essential to help student’s learning evolve. Feedback should be easily understood, specific, provides choice to the students, can be compared to sample or models, is about the performance not the student, and is part of an ongoing conversation about learning (p.4).

Standards-based grading: indicates levels of performance on essential benchmarks. It’s moving from a grading system of “tests, projects, and assignments” to a grading system of “conceptual understanding, application, analysis and evaluation, and formal writing”. It’s about finding a way to indicate that a student can exceed requirements in one area but fail to meet requirements in another area. How realistically can this happen in a system which isn’t set up to support this?

How do I as a FACS teacher move from a “projects, assignments and tests” gradebook to one connected to national standards? (I know it’s more than just typing up the categories). How do I manipulate or use the online gradebook to somehow “grade” on this standards based approach accurately? How does this impact the assignments I have designed (homework: a later blog)?

Stay tuned… as I explore possible answers to these questions in an upcoming blog!

laziness/motivation

Some students these days just seem lazy and have no energy to do anything. Just getting homework done seems like a huge chore. We had conferences last night and I kept repeating over and over again that the parent’s child needs to do homework. But then I start to thing, does homework really help? Yes it keeps the students busy but does it really help?

I personally think it helps to some extent. A few problems here and there to get the point across would work, maybe 5-10 problems. But I remember in math class I kept doing the same thing over and over again for 30-40 problems a night, this occurred in science as well. I like giving somewhere around 10 problems; they might be more difficult and use more items we have covered in class. But it seems to me that it is actually working. So do more repetitive problems help students learn?

I am seeing laziness in the classroom as well. I teach two classes that are mostly participation. If you show up and get your work done you get credit for it, so little to no homework. I have some students who just don’t do anything in class, sit there like a lump on a log. Is there a way to motivate these students? When I ask other teachers about them, they are doing the same thing in their classes as well. So no one is winning here. Have students these days just don’t care about school? Do they like to sit there and have everyone wait on them? I just don’t like doing more work than they are doing in class. Why should I put more effort into helping them pass the class if they don’t want to?

What is happening to motivation these days?? Too much TV, video games, cell phones, what is happening to the youth?

Behavior

Blog – behavior
My goal for this year was to work on classroom behavior. So far it has gone really well. My chemistry classes are going very smoothly. Start the day off with 4 questions, objectives and goals for the day. Take some notes and do an activity or have some work time. It is going very well. On the other hand my Applied Chemistry class this semester is giving me some issues. It is a class with a very different crowd. Many students are on an IEP, in ESL or just plainly have behavior issues. This class is a perfect fit for students on IEP’s or with a language barrier. But the students with the behavior issues are the ones giving me a problem. I have two students who are very low in there over all GPA’s and currently aren’t doing very well in there classes. They are talking back and forth to each other, they are on different sides of the room and labs are on different sides of the room as well. But they still give me a headache every day……too bad it is how I have to start my day.
I feel like I have tried everything to get these students to behave and listen to me. Detention doesn’t work because they won’t attend, and if they don’t attend they get a day off of school. This just means that they have a free day off of school. Sending them to the office doesn’t work as well, just means they can leave class. I have warned them, and suggested some tactics, but anything will help. PLEASE HELP ME. Some great suggestions would be greatly appreciated.