School Wiki

I am working on the wiki.

It is open for now but will be private when school starts.

Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum for Grades 9-12

http://www.commonsensemedia.org//educators/curriculum/9-12?utm_source=educator06.27.11&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=highschool-promo

5 Traits of 21st Century Educational Leadership

Mr. Keenan’s blog post examines the leadership roles that develop among peers and socially within a school.  He lists 5 traits as being essential for an educational leader in the 21st Century.

1. Be An Active Listener
2. Be A Connected Leader
3. Be An Authentic Conversationalist
4. Be Inspirational and Empowering
5. Be A 21st Century Learning Specialist 

Some things for us all to aspire to do.  Read more from his blog.

Preparing the children for tomorrow

What are your core beliefs?

As part of our 2011-12 planning meeting this morning, we were given the task of identifying our personal core beliefs before we began working on the school’s core beliefs.

Our first assignment was to complete the following prompts:

I believe that…

• schools should teach
• a good school is one that
• a successful student is able to
• an effective classroom is one in which
• a good school staff member (i.e., teacher, paraprofessional, adminstrator) is one who
• an effective school faculty is one that
• a quality instructional program includes

The second assignment was to Describe Your Ideal School

If I were watching the activities in your ideal school, what would you see?  Using phrases, describe what you would see students doing, teachers doing, administrators doing, visiting parents doing, or visiting community members doing.

Differentiated Instruction =s Fairness?

How do we make sure that all of our students are treated fairly?

 

Is it fair to assume that all of my ‘students’ can climb a tree?

Obviously not!! Not all of them are able to for whatever reason: no arms, short arms, etc.

 

How do we help allll of our students pass the test?  What do we do to ensure that we are serving everyone in our class?

 

Differentiated instruction is one way.

It is necessary for all teachers to create and use assessment strategies to determine the backgrounds and achievements of all learners in our classes.  We then need to create activities that address their social, intellectual, and personal development.

 

To assess our students fairly and equitably, we must create ample opportunities that require students to engage in assessment, teacher assessment as well as self assessment.

 

How do we get there?

• PD to help use multiple assessment tools and strategies to achieve important goals for instruction that are aligned with methods of instruction and the needs of students.
• PD on how to use the results of multiple assessments to guide and modify instruction, the classroom environment, or the assessment process.
• PD to use the results of assessments as vehicles for students to analyze their own learning, engaging students in reflective self-analysis of their own work.

 

 

Why is Data Important?

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 holds states, districts and schools accountable for student achievements.

Effective teachers use data daily to aid in the decision making process:

• as a way to discern who is learning and who is not
• because teachers are more effective when they use test performance to guide and improve their teaching
• knowing that testing data is important; but how we use the data is even more important

How do we do this?  What should it look like?

Ideas generated:

• teacher access to student data for all students
• creating and use data walls
• pre/post testing
• PD in reading data
• PD in developing strategies to raise test scores

Protection from Adverse Consequences of Initial Failures

Phillip Schlechty identifies Design Qualities that affect student engagement in his book Working on the Work.

 

Another quality that Phillip Schlechty identifies as affecting student engagement is protection from adverse consequences for initial failures. Failing is scary and when we are afraid of failing at something, we don’t give our best effort because failure seems certain.

Students are provided opportunities to practice and learn by doing. They may be provided with feedback and additional opportunities to be successful without being penalized for initial failures associated with lack of knowledge and skills. Instead, when failure occurs, the reasons for the failure are diagnosed by the student and the teacher, and new efforts are encouraged.

 

Check for Protection from Adverse Consequences:

• Are students provided feedback throughout the project other than at grade time?
• Are persons other than the teacher invited to give feedback on the students’ work without it affecting their grade?
• When a student fails to meet the standards, is the student offered additional opportunities to complete the goal without the first effort affecting his or her grade?

How can I do that?

Checklists, PrePlanning activities, Pre/Post/Re-tests and mini Progress Reports are a good way for students to gain feedback to help guide their performances.

1. Require that students use tools and perform activities that allow for teachers to easily provide feedback
2. Provide sample work items so that students can compare their attempts against other final products.
3. Require that students do pre-planning so that their progress can be evaluated and redirected if necessary: a storyboard is needed for stories, presentations, etc.; a rough draft is required before an essay can be turned in; and peer reviewing/commenting is done when possible so that the student can get feedback from other students about the effectiveness of their work.

Clear and compelling product standards

“Real improvements in academics can only occur as authentic engagement increases.”
-Phillip Schlechty, Working on the Work

One of the keys to successful learning is engagement. In his book, Working on the Work, Clear and Compelling Standards is a design quality of context.

Clear Product Standards Affect Engagement

According to Phillip Schlechty’s book, Working on the Work, a quality that affects engagement is clear product standards.  Students do a better job when they understand exactly how their project or performance will be evaluated.

When problems, issues, products, performances, or exhibitions are a part of the instructional design, students need to see and understand the standards by which their work will be evaluated. Furthermore, they need see them as fair, and see a real prospect of meeting these standards if they work diligently at the tasks assigned.  Students know what quality work looks like through the use of tools like rubrics, checklists or models.

Check for Clear and Compelling Product Standards:

• Are students provided with concrete examples of the product?
• Are students able to assess their progress throughout the project?
• Do students perceive that they can realistically accomplish the product?

How can I do that?

Create work samples, rubrics and checklists so that students know exactly what their work should look like, what is required of them and when it is due.  Rubrics can be generated using the following sites:

1. RubiStar
2. Recipes4Success’s Rubric Maker
3. Teachnology Teacher Rubric Makers
4. Kathy Shrock’s Listing of Assessment Rubrics

Product Focus

Phillip Schlechty identifies Design Qualities that affect student engagement in his book Working on the Work.

Product Focus Affects Engagement

Engaging Tasks often focus on a product or performance.  As explained in Working on the Work, product focus is one of the design qualities of choice that affects student engagement. Having something tangible to share with others gives students motivation.

Work focuses on a product or performance of significance to students. The activities the students are to complete are clearly linked to problems, issues, products, performances, and exhibitions that are of interest to them.

Check for Product Focus:

• Is the work clearly linked to some product?

• Do students understand the connection between what they are doing and what they are expected to produce?

• Do students care about or see meaning in the product they are being asked to produce?

What will it look like?

Students will create publications: essays, blog posts, wikipages, photomovies, movies, posters, brochures, etc.

While studying NonFiction material, students can…

Create informative wikipages that are biographical sketches, lesson summaries for other students or an online notebook with notes and annotations

Create Faux Facebook pages that highlight interesting facts about important people (Student 1,  Student 2,  Student 3)

Produce a photo-movie highlighting dates and facts

Narrate a slide show that goes through the steps of … math and/or science problems

Record a podcast about an article read or a piece of admired artwork