Formative assessment #1

Title:	Formative Assessment Techniques to Support Student Motivation and Achievement
Personal Author:	Cauley, Kathleen M.; McMillan, James H.
Journal Name:	The Clearing House
Source:	The Clearing House v. 83 no. 1 (2010) p. 1-6
Publication Year:	2010

This article is about Formative Assessment, one of our school focuses this year.  This article will start a series of articles around this idea, as it is one very near to my heart.

There is a brief summary:
    Formative assessments are best when the are linked to a clear learning target
    Formative assessments provide opportunities for offering feedback in a timely matter about progress toward the explicitly stated learning target
    Make explicit the link between success on the formative assessment and student effort
    Encourage students to engage in self-reflection around the formative assessment
    Use formative assessments to help set goals for students so improvement is expected and measurable

Additionally, there is a conversation about low level FA tasks vs. high level FA tasks.  Which do you employ on a regular basis?

First Weeks of School - Guskey

This week was the first week of school for many of us.  How did it go?  Guskey, a leader in education, provides us insight that might help us.  Here is some advice from him:

1) Students come into the year with their most uncertain view of themselves.
2) Give students meaningful success, and they will continue to see themselves as successful.
3) Successful momentum can build to a successful year.  Better attendance, better behavior, etc.
4) The degree to which the parents can help build success at home that helps support the success at school will build positive results.

How did your first week go?  How can you build on this?

TheMathProphet

After your first week back

After some first day jitters (which I get every year) things are looking great!  I have a large Physical Science class with some interesting students (nice kids but immature) and some great math classes.  Did some wonderful problem solving and team building exercises and set up notebooks.  Even started notes in my physical science class and next week we have labs!

What was great (and not so great) about your first week of school?

Organization Change part 1

http://www.joe.org/joe/2010october/tt2.php

Kinsey, S. B. Quiet Leadership: How to Create Positive Change Without the Noise and Negativity. Journal of Extension (ASCII Edition) v. 48 no. 5 (October 2010)

As my school undergoes huge amounts of change it is time to think about how we as a group handle change.  This article is about quiet leadership.  The three elements of quiet leadership as laid out in the article are tenacity, modesty, and restraint.  How you use those three elements are important in the spaces between big decisions for administration and for most decisions for teacher leaders.

The article outlined six principles that are necessary for quiet leadership:

1. Don't overestimate how much you understand about a situation or how much you control.
2. Expect your motives to be mixed or even confused.
3. Count your political capital, and spend carefully.
4. Buy time before jumping into action when dealing with uncertain or hazardous situations.
5. Search for ways to bend the rules without breaking them.
6. Drill down into the technical and political aspects of a situation.

How do you see yourself as a quiet leader?  Who else do you see as a quiet leader at your school and why?  What can you do to be a better quiet leader (if you see yourself as needing to become one)?

First Day Back

Tough day back today.  Interesting room situation, I had a science room on the 4th floor and a math room on the 7th floor.  I requested my math room switched to a vacant room across the hall on the 4th floor and that set into motion a big deal that ultimately nothing.  Things are going to be weird this year!

What were your first impressions about your first day(s) back?

What do your Facebook posts say about you - an aside

I have a theory.  If you want to know more about yourself look at your Facebook posts.  What would they tell you?

Are they jokes?  Maybe you're the person people look to for humor in their lives.
Are they complaints?  Maybe you're a bit of a crybaby.
Are they about your family?  Good or bad?
Are they about your job?  Do you do what you love or complain about it?

What do you talk about on your FB page and what does it say about you?

New School Year

As the school year starts, we all have to decide what you are going to do (your priorities) and the things you are not going to do (things you'll let others do).

What are your priorities and things you're going to let go?  I'll post mine later!

My Engaging Assessments

Okay, so I've been looking for ways to incorporate Social Justice into my curriculum and here is what I've got.

Pre-Algebra:

• We are going to look at Integration Aid - It is set to end in 2013 and will be debated for the next couple of years.  A discussion with the gang of 12 committee? Let's see!
• We will look at the composition of Saint Paul and compare wealth, health, and other distributions.  This will look like the books If the World Were a Village and culminate in posters for downtown.

Algebra:

• We are going to analyze crime trend data for the neighborhoods the students live in for linear patterns and write an article about what is going well, what isn't, and what problems are being stubborn.  We'll also look at what would happen if the trends continue and look at ways to slow them.  We might even be able to work in Supt. Silva's SSSC program!

What do you think?  Any ideas or willingness to help?

Curriculum Writing

Working on Curriculum Writing for OWL.  Have a few new classes to teach next year.  I have Pre-algebra and Algebra 1 and they are part of a blended middle school model.  Trying to think about how I want to do it.

Any ideas how I can incorporate The River (Mississippi) into pre-algebra and algebra in meaningful ways?

End of Year

End of the Year!

New building next year.  Half the staff.  New leadership.  Less technology.

It ought to be interesting?


Tom

Super Busy

I apologize to my follower (Marty) for not posting lately.  I've been super busy and I'll try to do better in the  future.  Look for a new literature study this week.  Any ideas you want The Math Prophet to look for articles about?

The Math Prophet

Literature Study April 3, 2010

This week's literature study continues an important theme - homeroom.  As I am looking to write an article and book on the subject, I thought it pertinent to combine my required research with my blogging.  So here we go:

AUTHOR:	Jing-qiu (Jane) Liu and Ruth Barnhart
TITLE:	Homeroom Teacher and Homeroom Class: The Key to Classroom Management in China's Schools
SOURCE:	The Educational Forum 63 no4 380-4 Summ 1999

Highlights:

• All students are part of a homeroom, from elementary to high school.
• Homeroom teachers have many roles, and new teachers and soon-to-retire teachers are not considered candidates for homeroom teachers.
• All teachers take a class or two in pre-service education classes to prepare them for homeroom.
• Homeroom teachers "loop" with teachers so that they can build strong relationships with the students (and the students with the other students).

How does your school do homeroom and what ideas do you have to make it better?

Literature Study - March 25, 2011

TITLE: Homeroom: An Updated Classic
SOURCE: Principal Leadership (High Sch Ed) 9 no3 N 2008

http://ezproxy.hamline.edu:2060/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e52524b6a7a73d197d63c163083cd776d0975212c27324993a313048d6fec665d&fmt=P Vitale, J. A. Homeroom: An Updated Classic. Principal Leadership (High School Ed.) v. 9 no. 3 (November 2008) p. 24-7


This writers of this article started a new school that would hold up to 4000 students.  They knew that in a school this large students could get lost if they didn't create a system that would help students build a relationship with a caring adult.  Here are some highlights:

• Advisory lessons are taught based on needed themes
• Advisory lessons are built around longitudinal ideas
• Advisories banished anonymity in the school by creating a personal relationship for each student
• Homeroom lessons were very memorable for students (as measure on exit surveys)
• Teachers are key for implementing this initiative

What ideas do you have for homeroom?  Do you have lesson ideas?  What do you think?

ELNC and MNASCD

Expeditionary Learning National Conference went well.  The Crew lesson was a Grand Slam and the SBG&R was a homerun.  We really challenged people and people left with lots of ideas around this idea.

MNASCD went so well that teachers brought it back to their school and their principal wants us to present to the whole staff!  Ott and Totushek are on their way!

Next Up - Portland

MN ASCD went very well.  I am describing it as a stand-up triple.

Next week I have two presentations in Portland.  We are pretty much ready for them, with a few loose ends to clean up.  I'm looking forward to it.

Hans and I have also talked about next steps.  This will include the launching of a website, seeking consultation opportunities, getting published, and teaching at area colleges and universities.  A tall order, but I think we can pull it off.

Any hints out there?

MN ASCD

This coming week Hans and I will be at MN ASCD talking about the role that SBG&R can play in enrichment and intervention.  We will focus on synchronous and asynchronous intervention.  The middle school principal's meeting went well, but you could tell they were interested in immediate results.  Hopefully the people at MN ASCD will be interested in a system that will yield results in the long term.  I'll post about the experience later.

TMP-TT

Middle School Principal's Meeting

Hans and I gave a SBG&R overview at the middle school principal PLC meeting yesterday.  It went pretty well.

Hans and I had a few ideas on the way back to school:
1) Perhaps we should make ourselves available to pre-service educators to talk about SBG&R, because...
2) We talked about how the research is decided about the fact that SBG&R is the way to go, so why don't more teachers/schools use it?  Because we not taught about grading and systems are handed down by tradition.  Therefore pre-service education is the one way to break the cycle.

Perhaps we should make a class about it . . .

Do other people have ideas about why grading methods are so hard to change?

Study of the week Feb 16th

Sorry there has been a delay, but I'm back!

This week we look at Competency-Based Learning.

Short article, here are the highlights.

1. In a forward-looking move, New Hampshire passed a law allowing students to receive credit for individualized learning experiences that bring the learning to life for them.
2. The move is from seat time to proof of learning based on students' needs and interests.
3. Teachers and schools are embracing this slowly but surely, and there is concern for teacher workloads if this continues to expand.
4. Anecdotes provided in article.

How is what we're doing with EL (or in the district) supporting or hindering this kind of learning?  What kinds of kids do you see this working for?

TMP-TT

Literature Study January 22, 2011

This week's article study is on using new literacies to teach writing in secondary schools.

Sweeny, Sheelah M. (2010). Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy Vol 54 Issue 2, p121-130


Highlights of the study:

• Relates ELA standards to Technology standands.
• Many students are already experimenting with "new" online communication (especially for creative and collaborative purposes and self expression) and the key is translating that experimentation into useful skills for learning.
• Suggested strategies for using technology for writing (from the piece):

1. Using songs (from an iPod, etc) to set a mood for a writing piece (immersion into emotion),
2. Using the internet to find a painting that has an untold story,
3. Internet workshops for collaborative writing,
4. Receiving mentorship from authors, and
5. Learning how to critique their and others' papers

• When students post their work online it goes from an audience of one (teacher) to many (the world).
• Text messaging as a paraphrasing tool.
• Twitter as a means of building community.
• Social sharing of content creates positive peer pressure to do a good job.
• Students still take it seriously as they understand the different roles.
• Teens who have their own blogs tend to be prolific writers.
• Wikis and cloud computing are good good options for housing community knowledge or a collaborative writing piece (the author suggests assigning members specific roles).
• When using new technology in the classroom we must do two things:

1. Expect to make mistakes.  Make sure you learn from them, and
2. Remove distinctions that you might have about in-school technology and out-of-school technology.

What do you think?

Midwest Leadership Follow-up

If you're went to the retreat in Chicago and want to talk, here is a meeting spot.  Hope your commitments are going well!

TMP-TT

Literature Study January 16, 2011

Been a tough week for those of us at Open World Learning Community.  Sorry no updates (not that anyone is currently reading them anyway) but I've been busy in meetings.  This weeks study is about developing relationship with students who are frequently suspended.  I know, not an issue many of us deal with (all of our kids are angels), but some people out there may need this.  Here we go:


Gregory, Anne and Ripski, Michael B. (2008) "Adolescent Trust in Teachers: Implications for Behavior in the High School Classroom." School Psychology Review 37(3). pp 337-353.

Article's review of literature:

• Suspensions vary a lot by teacher, study designed to figure out what the teachers who don't suspend students a lot do differently
• High rates of suspensions correlate with high rates of other bad things (incarceration, drop-out, etc.)
• Defiance, disrespect, and disobedience cites as most likely causes and Black students are disproportionally suspended suggesting that fixing this issue would help the achievement gap.
• Adolescent view of the legitimacy of the person in authority affects how the student responds to that person.
• A review of different strategies (including PBIS) and their relative effectiveness.
• Trust is important in all the other relationships throughout a building, a well-researched idea, why not trust between teacher and student (focus of study)?

Study Aspects:

• Most students in suspension in this study were Black males
• Most teachers in study were white females
• Two types of teachers were invited to participate in the study - teachers who referred large numbers of students and teacher nominated by the suspended students as teachers they got along best with.

Results:

• 15 of the 17 teachers nominated by the students used the relational approach to discipline.
• Teachers who report using the relational approach have less defiant behavior because students have trust in the teacher's authority.  The students saw themselves as more cooperative in these classes.
• In situations where adolescents are unclear about the intents of the authority figure, trust in the authority figure helps the students to not read hostility into the other's actions.
• Teacher who use the relational approach to discipline can detect early student disengagement and intervene early enough to limit disruption, as well as tailor strategies to students when larger disruptions do occur.
• Teachers that had greater suspension problems focused on structure and organizational mechanisms to maintain classroom order, which helps students stay on task and do better work, but may need to be augmented by relational strategies to help those students who work outside of this order.
• It may be that the relational approach is more important for Black students than other types of students as others (Whites and Asians in this study) assume the best intentions of their teachers.

What do the results of this study mean for you and your practice?

Literature Study January 8, 2011

Title:	Getting It Right: Building a Bridge to Literacy for Adolescent African-American Males
Personal Author:	Boone, Jennifer; Rawson, Casey; Vance, Katy
Journal Name:	School Library Monthly
Source:	School Library Monthly v. 27 no. 2 (November 2010) p. 34-7

Above is the article reference for the summary below:


Highpoints:
1) A summary of statistics about the need for literacy for this population.
2) Engaging this population with books by authors that are black isn't enough, we have to do the following:
     A) View academic success as a possibility and expect it.
     B) Confront and contradict stereotypes.
     C) Have students work collaborative with challenging texts
     D) Select text purposefully.
     E) Use appropriate teaching techniques to address the issues of this population.
     F) Do whatever it takes to reach out to this population, some suggestions listed in article.


What do my readers think?  As reading amongst our African American boys is one of our biggest problems I thought this might get some responses.


TMP-TT

Math Remediation

Why do we expect the same growth results in math and reading when we throw so much more money at reading?  I guess it is just because math teachers are better!

Literature Study - January 1

Teaching Electrolysis of Water Through Drama by Hakan Saricayir ISSN 1648-3898

In this article the writer, based in Turkey, goes over a scenario where 7 students act out the creation of 2 water molecules from a double bonded Oxygen molecule and two single bonded Hydrogen molecules.  It is clever in the way covalent bonding and equation balancing is introduced (one oxygen atom complains of being lonely if his/her friend leaves him so the Hydrogen molecule calls in a friend).

If you want full text I'll email you the article (for non-OWL persons).

Major Findings:
1) Drama is a teaching model that is often utilized in other content areas with great effect, but not often science.
2) Teaching using Dramatic Arts has been shown in multiple studies to increase student understanding and root out misconception.
3) In this study, using pre- and post- tests, students engaged in drama to understand this process did much better than their peers who did not.

Implications?  I can think of many, I'll add some as my readers do!

TT

Politics and Money

One thing that I learned in the year 2010 is that politics is like money; a lot of people are incapable of making rational decisions about either.  People make decisions about money emotionally, and I think that this last year people made emotional decisions about their elected leaders as well.

So the question I ask is this: Are their aspects of education where the decisions we are making are emotionally based instead of rationally based?  What do you think?