Linda H. Mason, Robert Reid and Jessica L. Hagaman's masterful book, Building Comprehension in Adolescents: Powerful Strategies for Improving Reading and Writing in Content Areas, was a great read. The book starts with a description of teaching how to teach strategy acquisition and self-regulation. We know that many of our struggling learners lack self-regulation skills. These skills impact every moment of the school day. It behooves us to teach them, yet often we merely expect them or say it is not part of the curriculum and we have no time for it. We need to make time because students who have self-regulation skills allow us to teach more effectively and learn more efficiently.
Self-monitoring is the first self-regulation routine discussed. The authors describe a step-by-step process for teaching self-monitoring. After all, teachers who are busy teaching cannot effectively monitor each student's progress the way each student can monitor themselves. They describe taking baseline data, obtaining buy-in, teaching the skills of self-monitoring and then implementing the activity. Every other strategy illustrated in the book uses self-monitoring. Knowing that goal setting is an important feature of maximized learning and motivation, they also discuss goal setting. It is made realistic by using baseline data and modeling obtainable, intermittent goals rather than end goals (i.e. 100% of the time). They talk about self-instructions as a way to help moderate behavior. They also address self-reinforcement. Clearly the authors' goal is to develop skills that students can independently implement across a variety of settings.
The authors share strategies to address three areas: reading to learn, writing to learn and homework. A section of the book is devoted to each topic. There is a description of the importance of the activity and when to use the strategies, a series of semi-scripted lessons to teach the strategies and pages of reproducibles to use with the lessons.
In the reading section one key aspect is the focus on reading level. In todays CCSS age, we are asking students to read increasingly complex material. When teaching strategies, it is essential, however, that the reading material be at the student's independent reading level- not at the instructional reading level or at a challenge reading level. Knowing your students and having a variety of readings at a range of levels is important when teaching the strategy. Once the strategy is taught, more complex material can be introduced. It is important to note that many reading strategies are designed to improve a students ability to gather information from text at or near their reading level. If a student is reading significantly below grade level, they need different strategies to approach and learn from readings. The authors introduce TRAP, TRAP IDEAS, and TWA strategies for reading. TRAP is a strategy for students reading at or about at grade level. This will not be a successful strategy for students struggling with the text itself.
TWA is a strategy to encourage students to Think before, Think While and Think After reading. This concept encourages active rather than passive reading which is essential for learning from reading. By asking students to internalize thinking around reading, we give them a strategy they can use everywhere to improve their skills. The strategy, like all the others, is taught with a self-monitoring and goal setting approach: baseline data is obtained, students set goals for improvement and monitor and record progress.
One of the ideas that I found useful was how to evaluate oral or written retellings. The authors provide a series of reading passages accompanied by a sheet with the main idea of each paragraph and supporting details spelled out in a checklist. Students can evaluate success on retellings against the checklist. This alleviates the teacher or student from needing to evaluate success with identifying main idea and supporting details while the retelling is occurring. It takes the vague concept we sometimes are using to evaluate students and puts it in a quantitative format that can be easily used to gauge progress.
This book would be useful for a group to use to assist students with reading and writing in the content areas. A school-wide set of strategies could be adopted to help students become more proficient in addressing language in the content areas. If a school does adopt the strategies, teachers must be aware of who the strategies will not be as useful for so that alternative strategies can be found and taught.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
The Key Vocabulary Routine
Joan Sedita's The Key Vocabulary Routine: Content Vocabulary Instruction is a designed as a workbook. While the intent seems to be to buy/attend a workshop and read the material, it does stand alone. The first part of the book is a rationale for teaching vocabulary especially as it impacts comprehension. The second part introduces her routine for vocabulary instruction- one that she proposes be adopted by a school or district to minimize the need to spend time teaching the routine. The book also contains a comprehensive appendix of reproducible forms and one of sample student work. Most of these templates are readily available online. Each chapter begins with a graphic organizer illustrating the key elements of the chapter and ends with a summary.
Her five step routine is as follows:
I have used scaling in the past. I paired it with a visual- paint sample strips- to demonstrate gradations. The students immediately grasped the concept because they could see the intense color verse the pastel and connect it to variations in meaning. A number line might be a way to present the ideas to very numerically oriented students and a musical scale for musicians.
Important to note is her distinction between previewing vocabulary and selecting words/terms for in depth study. Sedita recognizes that students can be directly taught (to the point of actual learning)about 400 words a year. Not a year per subject, but a year. That means that teachers must be very careful in selecting words to teach. Her guidelines for selection are words that are:
As you can see, this modifies Cornell notes and requires extensive work on a word. It would not be practical to complete such an entry on the 35 words in the science chapter that includes this word, but, as a multi-meaning word that is used in both conversation and is a major science concept, it might make sense to apply this much time for this word. After students complete the notes, they could pair share their work and then splash on the blackboard, white board or chart paper their sentences to share with the class. Alternatively, small groups could be given different words to complete and then either share out loud or on chart paper with a gallery walk after groups were done.
The vocabulary routine then goes beyond the specific in depth words to teach strategies for figuring out words. First the author suggests explicit instruction in context clues with the direction that all troublesome words cannot be figured out through context clues. Then she suggest teaching word analysis through roots. You can refer to my last posting about Latin and Greek roots for additional information about teaching this skill.
Lastly the author recommends developing interest in words. Activities like reading and comment on unusually interesting or bland words or phrases, discussing how you went about learning a word and using your vocabulary are recommended. She also advocates word play: games, riddles and mainpulatives to reinforce the learning. She sees extensive classroom libraries as essential to vocabulary development- if students are directly taught 400 words and they learn 1200-2000 words a year through middle school, that leaves 800-1600 words for them to learn on their own. Learning words through exposure is important. For struggling readers this word exposure can be verbal or written language. That means we need to read to them as well as have them read.
This book is a quick read that discusses an approach to vocabulary instruction. Many other texts exist on this topic, several of which I have blogged about here, here and here among others. Marzano has a three book set on vocabulary instruction. For someone trying to think about changing how they approach vocabulary instruction, this book might be a good starting place.
Her five step routine is as follows:
- preview difficult vocabulary
- use activities to connect vocabulary to background knowledge
- select specific words to teach in depth
- identify opportunities to teach word learning strategies
- promote word consciousness
I have used scaling in the past. I paired it with a visual- paint sample strips- to demonstrate gradations. The students immediately grasped the concept because they could see the intense color verse the pastel and connect it to variations in meaning. A number line might be a way to present the ideas to very numerically oriented students and a musical scale for musicians.
Important to note is her distinction between previewing vocabulary and selecting words/terms for in depth study. Sedita recognizes that students can be directly taught (to the point of actual learning)about 400 words a year. Not a year per subject, but a year. That means that teachers must be very careful in selecting words to teach. Her guidelines for selection are words that are:
- essential to instructional goal
- major concept words that are key for making connections and building schema
- frequently encountered in reading material
- unlikely to be learned independently through context or word analysis
- provide good opportunities to practice word learning strategies
- unique and increase curiosity p. 68-69
word
weathering
|
definition: mechanical and chemical processes that
cause exposed rocks to decompose or
break down
part of speech: noun
synonym: erode, break down
antonym: remain the same
category/related words: geology, weather
example: water gets into the cracks in the rock, it
freezes and expands which cause the rock to break
nonexample: rain rolls off the window of the car
multiple meanings: weather strip (as
in around a door or window); state or condition that is common; to make heavy
weather
sentence: As a result of weathering, the marble
tombstone has worn down so that the writing can no longer be read.
illustration:
|
As you can see, this modifies Cornell notes and requires extensive work on a word. It would not be practical to complete such an entry on the 35 words in the science chapter that includes this word, but, as a multi-meaning word that is used in both conversation and is a major science concept, it might make sense to apply this much time for this word. After students complete the notes, they could pair share their work and then splash on the blackboard, white board or chart paper their sentences to share with the class. Alternatively, small groups could be given different words to complete and then either share out loud or on chart paper with a gallery walk after groups were done.
The vocabulary routine then goes beyond the specific in depth words to teach strategies for figuring out words. First the author suggests explicit instruction in context clues with the direction that all troublesome words cannot be figured out through context clues. Then she suggest teaching word analysis through roots. You can refer to my last posting about Latin and Greek roots for additional information about teaching this skill.
Lastly the author recommends developing interest in words. Activities like reading and comment on unusually interesting or bland words or phrases, discussing how you went about learning a word and using your vocabulary are recommended. She also advocates word play: games, riddles and mainpulatives to reinforce the learning. She sees extensive classroom libraries as essential to vocabulary development- if students are directly taught 400 words and they learn 1200-2000 words a year through middle school, that leaves 800-1600 words for them to learn on their own. Learning words through exposure is important. For struggling readers this word exposure can be verbal or written language. That means we need to read to them as well as have them read.
This book is a quick read that discusses an approach to vocabulary instruction. Many other texts exist on this topic, several of which I have blogged about here, here and here among others. Marzano has a three book set on vocabulary instruction. For someone trying to think about changing how they approach vocabulary instruction, this book might be a good starting place.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Greek and Latin Roots
I have often heard both sides of the debate- "Latin helped me understand English" and "Latin did not help me understand English." In Greek & Latin Toots: Keys to Building Vocabulary, Timothy Rasinski, Nancy Padak, Rick M. Newton and Evangeline Newton make the case that learning Latin roots is a crucial tool for students trying to learn the academic vocabulary that we know is essential to school success. Throughout the book they cite the fact that 90% of all English words of two or more syllables are based on either Latin or Greek roots. Knowing this, how can people say that knowing Latin did not help them learn vocabulary? This question is not addressed in the book, but I believe it boils down to a) they were not taught to look for cognates, b) they were not taught how to use what they learned in Latin and apply it to English vocabulary and c) they did not learn Latin very well.
The book spells out its rationale for using root study to expand academic vocabulary. Other than the high percentage of English that is based on the roots, they note that current memorize for the test methods are unsuccessful and that vocabulary learning is essential to school outcomes.
The authors go into an in depth discussion of what is a root- base, prefix and suffix, and some of the rules for dividing words up and how prefixes in particular are added to bases. While the authors skimp in the area of suffixes, their role in changing the part of speech rather than the meaning of the word makes their job easier for people comprehend. For me, I learned that when using roots to define words, you must start with the base and move to the prefix (sort of backwards). Presoak means to wet before washing. I also learned about the assimilation of prefixes and why the change or have different forms for the same meaning and how it impacts spelling. (For example, words with double consonants near the beginning often have a prefix that has been changed to assist with euphony and pronunciation. con + rect = correct ) As a book and word lover I found this interesting.
The authors also discuss using dictionaries as sources of etymology. This helps us understand spelling and meaning at a deep underlying level. I taught in one school where the staff were offered a variety of choices for a reward and selected an unabridged dictionary. During their break times they would often gather and explore the origins of words they were curious about. While the English teachers may have spearheaded this activity, all the staff participated. having such curiosity about the words they used helped them be more specific about the words they used and helped them with vocabulary instruction they delivered.
The authors list games and describe examples of learning activities that involve word study and practice. While this book does provide an example of how to teach the words, Marzano's writings on vocabulary instruction provide greater depth of detail if one is curious. I very much enjoyed the variations that were provided for the activities. I think the odd word out game could be interesting when applied to root word study. I have used variations of this activity for vocabulary instruction in math, science and social studies classes. One example was:
One implied thought in the book is that direct instruction of roots is a slow process. Teaching a list of roots and expecting students to memorize it for the test is no different from common ineffective vocabulary teaching methods. If you present one root a week and provide exposure to and focus on that one root at a time, you can vastly increase student understanding. To master the common roots would require a cross grade level plan with reinforcement of learned roots along the way. This is an achievable goal, it has minimal cost and can provide huge outcomes.
The book includes excellent appendixes. There are resources for teachers and students, a list of common roots, lists of non-Latin or Greek words in English and ideas for professional development. The later would be a good way for a group to begin thinking about vocabulary issues with their students even without reading the book.
We know our students need to expand their vocabulary. The CCSS reaffirm this concept with their emphasis on academic vocabulary. Many researchers have demonstrated the importance of vocabulary to comprehension. We need to help our students understand the multitude of words our common English vocabulary is comprised of. This book presents one tool for such instruction.
The book spells out its rationale for using root study to expand academic vocabulary. Other than the high percentage of English that is based on the roots, they note that current memorize for the test methods are unsuccessful and that vocabulary learning is essential to school outcomes.
The authors go into an in depth discussion of what is a root- base, prefix and suffix, and some of the rules for dividing words up and how prefixes in particular are added to bases. While the authors skimp in the area of suffixes, their role in changing the part of speech rather than the meaning of the word makes their job easier for people comprehend. For me, I learned that when using roots to define words, you must start with the base and move to the prefix (sort of backwards). Presoak means to wet before washing. I also learned about the assimilation of prefixes and why the change or have different forms for the same meaning and how it impacts spelling. (For example, words with double consonants near the beginning often have a prefix that has been changed to assist with euphony and pronunciation. con + rect = correct ) As a book and word lover I found this interesting.
The authors also discuss using dictionaries as sources of etymology. This helps us understand spelling and meaning at a deep underlying level. I taught in one school where the staff were offered a variety of choices for a reward and selected an unabridged dictionary. During their break times they would often gather and explore the origins of words they were curious about. While the English teachers may have spearheaded this activity, all the staff participated. having such curiosity about the words they used helped them be more specific about the words they used and helped them with vocabulary instruction they delivered.
The authors list games and describe examples of learning activities that involve word study and practice. While this book does provide an example of how to teach the words, Marzano's writings on vocabulary instruction provide greater depth of detail if one is curious. I very much enjoyed the variations that were provided for the activities. I think the odd word out game could be interesting when applied to root word study. I have used variations of this activity for vocabulary instruction in math, science and social studies classes. One example was:
- precook
- preheat
- premixed
- pretest (p. 79)
One implied thought in the book is that direct instruction of roots is a slow process. Teaching a list of roots and expecting students to memorize it for the test is no different from common ineffective vocabulary teaching methods. If you present one root a week and provide exposure to and focus on that one root at a time, you can vastly increase student understanding. To master the common roots would require a cross grade level plan with reinforcement of learned roots along the way. This is an achievable goal, it has minimal cost and can provide huge outcomes.
The book includes excellent appendixes. There are resources for teachers and students, a list of common roots, lists of non-Latin or Greek words in English and ideas for professional development. The later would be a good way for a group to begin thinking about vocabulary issues with their students even without reading the book.
We know our students need to expand their vocabulary. The CCSS reaffirm this concept with their emphasis on academic vocabulary. Many researchers have demonstrated the importance of vocabulary to comprehension. We need to help our students understand the multitude of words our common English vocabulary is comprised of. This book presents one tool for such instruction.
Monday, August 11, 2014
Drive
Daniel Pink's book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, has been increasingly noted in much of the literature I read. I finally have gotten around to this book that, although designed for more of the business world has interesting applications across education and all realms of life. His premise is that our motivational schema is flawed for twenty-first century living. In the beginning, mankind was solely motivated by survival. Then with the advent of the twentieth century we saw an upsurge in research and identification of what motivates people. Frederick Winslow Taylor and B.F. Skinner brought their ideas of rewards and punishment to increase likely behaviors- they motivate us. This brought on the education world's behavior management programs that I and many others were taught in our education programs. It has also resulted in pay for performance reforms in both the business and education worlds. (Interestingly enough, no legislator wants a pay for performance program for themselves, but they will legislate it for the teachers in their state.)
Pink describes what he calls Motivation 3.0 with the research of Edward Deci, Richard Flaste and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, among others. In this form, he describes what motivates us as Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. We need autonomy or choices to decide what, how, when, and where to do things (task, time, technique and team). Mastery is not the complete expertize of an item but the ability to work towards it in the state of flow (complete absorption of attention). Purpose is the why of doing something. The why needs to match something in us, not something in someone else. Motivate 3.0 is required for creative tasks. Routine tasks are improved by the motivational methods of classic behavior management (i.e. carrot and stick).
In some areas and in some aspects, education has latched on to these ideas. We talk about giving kids choices about what to do. We talk about knowing why we need to learn things. We talk about using methods kids enjoy, such as the computer or cell phone, to engage them. Yet, somehow we only skirt the fringes. The choice about what to do is not what to study, where to study or often even who to study with. We sometimes use the rationales of kids need to learn it because it is on the test, they need to understand it for later classes, or because it is in the book or the Common Core. We use technology often as merely a gimmick, underutilizing the powerful and expensive tools we insisted we needed in the classroom. We march them to a time honored, age-based, agrarian society schedule that has little to do with learning and much to do with the convenience and comfort of others.
How can education truly embrace some of these elements? First of all we need to recognize that some activities are truly routine tasks- anything with the standard related to fluency is probably related to routine tasks: math facts and decoding are likely to be incented by rewards after achieving mastery. More complicated activities that include terms like understand why and create are going to be concepts that need to be looked at from a Motivation 3.0 way. This does not mean that students can be allowed to not learn how to compare fractions, decimals and percents or what are the cause of the Civil War if they choose not to. It may mean that they get some choice in how they demonstrate understanding of these concepts or who they work with in groups or if they read the text, listen to a lecture or watch a movie with the same information. It may mean that when we give them time to work, they need long enough blocks of time to achieve flow- so much for our 42 minute periods. It may mean that we as teachers need to better understand the reasons why students might need to know the information today not at some ambiguous time in the future or for a test.
We know much of this because we work with students every day. They ask us why. They say they want choice in their group selection. They point out that they like to research on the computer, but may not like to type on the device. They share that they do not like to be interrupted to go to the next class because they have just gotten "into" the assignment. They show enjoyment or apathy at different methods of presentation. We need to listen to them when we design lessons.
What about how does this impact the profession of teaching. First is showcases how off base pay for performance or time in grade is toward increasing skills. If I know I need to achieve x to get a raise, I will stop at x. Similarly if all I need to do to get a raise is continue breathing and not abusing my students, I am not motivated to improve my skills. Second it means that we may need to explore alternative school times to meet the needs of both teachers and students. If we need to abide by the current times, what about changing when teachers need to be in school. Establish the critical at school time as time with students or at meetings and give teachers flexibility to come in early, leave late or work at home. Third we need to look at any attempts to script instruction and scrap them. We are professionals who need the flexibility to meet the needs of the kids who come to us with differing ability levels, interests and skills. Scripts benefit only those who cannot teach, and those people need to not be in the classroom. Next we need to look at the teams we put together. A third grade team may be necessary even if you have better friends in the fourth grade teachers. PLCs however should be self selected. When a school establishes a team to work on something, like a wellness plan, let teachers choose to participate based on who else is interested. Teachers get the idea of flow. We have all had a lesson that was going so wonderfully the end of the class was a disappointment. Perhaps we need more flexibility within our schedules. If the elementary kids are really going after the research on arctic animals perhaps that can intrude on the 90 minute dedicated ELA block. Perhaps the middle school team can each take a group on a series of days so that the social studies teacher can spend half a day working with small classes on mock trials without being told to leave at the bell. We might need to collaborate more and be less defensive of our time and space so that we can enhance the learning across the board, not just within the four walls of our classroom.
There are so many options. We need to start thinking outside the box in order to tap in to the Motivation 3.0 our children have so that they can work to excel in the creative and novel tasks we set before them. We need our employers to trust us enough to let us be flexible and do what is best for our kids and ourselves. We can do it.
Pink describes what he calls Motivation 3.0 with the research of Edward Deci, Richard Flaste and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, among others. In this form, he describes what motivates us as Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. We need autonomy or choices to decide what, how, when, and where to do things (task, time, technique and team). Mastery is not the complete expertize of an item but the ability to work towards it in the state of flow (complete absorption of attention). Purpose is the why of doing something. The why needs to match something in us, not something in someone else. Motivate 3.0 is required for creative tasks. Routine tasks are improved by the motivational methods of classic behavior management (i.e. carrot and stick).
In some areas and in some aspects, education has latched on to these ideas. We talk about giving kids choices about what to do. We talk about knowing why we need to learn things. We talk about using methods kids enjoy, such as the computer or cell phone, to engage them. Yet, somehow we only skirt the fringes. The choice about what to do is not what to study, where to study or often even who to study with. We sometimes use the rationales of kids need to learn it because it is on the test, they need to understand it for later classes, or because it is in the book or the Common Core. We use technology often as merely a gimmick, underutilizing the powerful and expensive tools we insisted we needed in the classroom. We march them to a time honored, age-based, agrarian society schedule that has little to do with learning and much to do with the convenience and comfort of others.
How can education truly embrace some of these elements? First of all we need to recognize that some activities are truly routine tasks- anything with the standard related to fluency is probably related to routine tasks: math facts and decoding are likely to be incented by rewards after achieving mastery. More complicated activities that include terms like understand why and create are going to be concepts that need to be looked at from a Motivation 3.0 way. This does not mean that students can be allowed to not learn how to compare fractions, decimals and percents or what are the cause of the Civil War if they choose not to. It may mean that they get some choice in how they demonstrate understanding of these concepts or who they work with in groups or if they read the text, listen to a lecture or watch a movie with the same information. It may mean that when we give them time to work, they need long enough blocks of time to achieve flow- so much for our 42 minute periods. It may mean that we as teachers need to better understand the reasons why students might need to know the information today not at some ambiguous time in the future or for a test.
We know much of this because we work with students every day. They ask us why. They say they want choice in their group selection. They point out that they like to research on the computer, but may not like to type on the device. They share that they do not like to be interrupted to go to the next class because they have just gotten "into" the assignment. They show enjoyment or apathy at different methods of presentation. We need to listen to them when we design lessons.
What about how does this impact the profession of teaching. First is showcases how off base pay for performance or time in grade is toward increasing skills. If I know I need to achieve x to get a raise, I will stop at x. Similarly if all I need to do to get a raise is continue breathing and not abusing my students, I am not motivated to improve my skills. Second it means that we may need to explore alternative school times to meet the needs of both teachers and students. If we need to abide by the current times, what about changing when teachers need to be in school. Establish the critical at school time as time with students or at meetings and give teachers flexibility to come in early, leave late or work at home. Third we need to look at any attempts to script instruction and scrap them. We are professionals who need the flexibility to meet the needs of the kids who come to us with differing ability levels, interests and skills. Scripts benefit only those who cannot teach, and those people need to not be in the classroom. Next we need to look at the teams we put together. A third grade team may be necessary even if you have better friends in the fourth grade teachers. PLCs however should be self selected. When a school establishes a team to work on something, like a wellness plan, let teachers choose to participate based on who else is interested. Teachers get the idea of flow. We have all had a lesson that was going so wonderfully the end of the class was a disappointment. Perhaps we need more flexibility within our schedules. If the elementary kids are really going after the research on arctic animals perhaps that can intrude on the 90 minute dedicated ELA block. Perhaps the middle school team can each take a group on a series of days so that the social studies teacher can spend half a day working with small classes on mock trials without being told to leave at the bell. We might need to collaborate more and be less defensive of our time and space so that we can enhance the learning across the board, not just within the four walls of our classroom.
There are so many options. We need to start thinking outside the box in order to tap in to the Motivation 3.0 our children have so that they can work to excel in the creative and novel tasks we set before them. We need our employers to trust us enough to let us be flexible and do what is best for our kids and ourselves. We can do it.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Lead with a story
Paul Smith is a wonderful storyteller. His book, Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire, is a threefold good read. First, it is an engaging read. Over one hundred stories are presented, some inspiring, some more like fables. Second, the stories are about people dealing with business related challenges and describe good business practices. Third, the book details elements of good storytelling. Taking this book intended for the business market and applying its lessons to education made me think of the good and not so good things I know about teaching, teachers and my boss.
One of the story strands was about matching the corporate stories to corporate policy. He told about a CEO who arrived at a door with other upper management and was not allowed in by a young security person. One of the accompanying managers tried to get the guard to let the CEO in because he was the CEO. The CEO said, "No, he is doing his job," and sent someone to go get his badge so that he would be let in. This story would certainly discourage others from letting people into the building without their badges. Do the stories of your organization talk of special privileges for some people or of everyone following the rules? I had a boss who did not agree with our new punching in policy but explained that she had to do it as well. For someone who often did not start in her primary location, it meant many extra notations because we were only allowed to punch in at our primary location. On the flip side our professional office staff often leave the building and take longer lunches or extra breaks at restaurants that clerical or teaching staff are never allowed to do. As an itinerant teacher, I am booked so tightly that if I were to stop for a drink between locations, I would be late. How demoralizing when my boss comes in to observe me with a fresh coffee from the Tim Horton's on the corner. Her behavior is counter to policy, she gave herself an extra break, but was OK because she was able to leave extra time to get wherever she wanted to go. As an itinerant teacher, I am in the community all the time. Teachers want to be treated as professionals. How professionally should we be taken when my colleagues in the department show up in jeans and flip flops? Professionals do not need to wear suits, but they do need to dress at least as well as the private school dress code for students.
The storytelling advice was useful. The idea of using surprises to capture attention and memory was insightful. One interesting thing he pointed out was a style element. In our age of Common Core we are being asked to teach students to learn to write for college and career. Often this means we teach writing that eliminates parallelism in favor of rich vocabulary and descriptions. While the idea of writing for different audiences is presented, guidelines for some audiences is difficult to locate. For communication that will be shared amongst a group of people, especially, but not exclusively, if it is oral, Smith advocates short sentences with less than 15% of the words being greater than two syllables, writing in active voice, getting to the point quickly and omitting needless words. The average reading level of statements should be about 8th grade. Instead of using powerpoint bulleted slides to make a point, use stories to demonstrate a point. He argues in favor in running written statements through a readability test. Alternatively he presents a clarity test from Effective Writing for Army Leaders: calculate the average number of words per sentence and the average number of words with three or more syllables, add the two numbers together. The target is 30, 20 is too abrupt and 40 too complex (p. 123-4). If we are preparing students for career where presentation skills are important, this is certainly a style of writing we need students to master. They should be able to get the basics down in middle school.
The book is a rich resource of stories that can be used to illustrate points and motivate in times of challenge. Smith encourages us to use and modify his stories to the situations in which we find ourselves. In teaching we sometimes use stories to do this. We should probably do it more often. Good storytelling is inspirational. It can answer the perennial "Why should we learn this?" question. I was working with a seventh grade girl, introducing the concept of volume of a cylinder. I started the lesson this way: I want to bake a cake. The recipe calls for a 9 inch circle pan that is one inch high. I do not have this pan. I do have an 8 inch circle pan that is 1 and 1/2 inches high. Is it big enough to hold the batter? This story seemed like one she might encounter in her life, left her curious and put purpose behind an often seemingly meaningless activity.
Stories can also explain complex ideas in ways that are simpler to our students or make seemingly abstract ideas memorable. I am reminded of my middle school English teacher trying to teach us the helping verbs. She told us of the king AmIsAre WasWere BeBeingBeen and his wife, ShallWill BeBeingBeen who lived in the land of CouldShouldWould. They had children HaveHasHad, DoDoesDid and MayMustMight. They solved problems with words. She said the names quickly really linking them together. I still remember the story and the verbs- 35 years later. I make up the problems because they are lost in my brain but the story made the verbs memorable. It is a way of adding novelty to the information and helps create a foundation for learning- we have structures for learning stories in our brain. If we structure our learning like stories, it is easier to recall.
We do not have to be the best at writing or creating stories. They are all around us. The internet is a resource that can provide unparalleled ideas. Give credit where credit is due and tell stories.
One of the story strands was about matching the corporate stories to corporate policy. He told about a CEO who arrived at a door with other upper management and was not allowed in by a young security person. One of the accompanying managers tried to get the guard to let the CEO in because he was the CEO. The CEO said, "No, he is doing his job," and sent someone to go get his badge so that he would be let in. This story would certainly discourage others from letting people into the building without their badges. Do the stories of your organization talk of special privileges for some people or of everyone following the rules? I had a boss who did not agree with our new punching in policy but explained that she had to do it as well. For someone who often did not start in her primary location, it meant many extra notations because we were only allowed to punch in at our primary location. On the flip side our professional office staff often leave the building and take longer lunches or extra breaks at restaurants that clerical or teaching staff are never allowed to do. As an itinerant teacher, I am booked so tightly that if I were to stop for a drink between locations, I would be late. How demoralizing when my boss comes in to observe me with a fresh coffee from the Tim Horton's on the corner. Her behavior is counter to policy, she gave herself an extra break, but was OK because she was able to leave extra time to get wherever she wanted to go. As an itinerant teacher, I am in the community all the time. Teachers want to be treated as professionals. How professionally should we be taken when my colleagues in the department show up in jeans and flip flops? Professionals do not need to wear suits, but they do need to dress at least as well as the private school dress code for students.
The storytelling advice was useful. The idea of using surprises to capture attention and memory was insightful. One interesting thing he pointed out was a style element. In our age of Common Core we are being asked to teach students to learn to write for college and career. Often this means we teach writing that eliminates parallelism in favor of rich vocabulary and descriptions. While the idea of writing for different audiences is presented, guidelines for some audiences is difficult to locate. For communication that will be shared amongst a group of people, especially, but not exclusively, if it is oral, Smith advocates short sentences with less than 15% of the words being greater than two syllables, writing in active voice, getting to the point quickly and omitting needless words. The average reading level of statements should be about 8th grade. Instead of using powerpoint bulleted slides to make a point, use stories to demonstrate a point. He argues in favor in running written statements through a readability test. Alternatively he presents a clarity test from Effective Writing for Army Leaders: calculate the average number of words per sentence and the average number of words with three or more syllables, add the two numbers together. The target is 30, 20 is too abrupt and 40 too complex (p. 123-4). If we are preparing students for career where presentation skills are important, this is certainly a style of writing we need students to master. They should be able to get the basics down in middle school.
The book is a rich resource of stories that can be used to illustrate points and motivate in times of challenge. Smith encourages us to use and modify his stories to the situations in which we find ourselves. In teaching we sometimes use stories to do this. We should probably do it more often. Good storytelling is inspirational. It can answer the perennial "Why should we learn this?" question. I was working with a seventh grade girl, introducing the concept of volume of a cylinder. I started the lesson this way: I want to bake a cake. The recipe calls for a 9 inch circle pan that is one inch high. I do not have this pan. I do have an 8 inch circle pan that is 1 and 1/2 inches high. Is it big enough to hold the batter? This story seemed like one she might encounter in her life, left her curious and put purpose behind an often seemingly meaningless activity.
Stories can also explain complex ideas in ways that are simpler to our students or make seemingly abstract ideas memorable. I am reminded of my middle school English teacher trying to teach us the helping verbs. She told us of the king AmIsAre WasWere BeBeingBeen and his wife, ShallWill BeBeingBeen who lived in the land of CouldShouldWould. They had children HaveHasHad, DoDoesDid and MayMustMight. They solved problems with words. She said the names quickly really linking them together. I still remember the story and the verbs- 35 years later. I make up the problems because they are lost in my brain but the story made the verbs memorable. It is a way of adding novelty to the information and helps create a foundation for learning- we have structures for learning stories in our brain. If we structure our learning like stories, it is easier to recall.
We do not have to be the best at writing or creating stories. They are all around us. The internet is a resource that can provide unparalleled ideas. Give credit where credit is due and tell stories.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Eyewitness to the Past
I enjoy history. It is the tale of our struggle to civilize ourselves, human failings and the wonders that can exist. It is the story of freedom and independence and how it stumbles. It is the story of how we can be great, imperfect beings who triumph and fail sometimes seemingly independent of our efforts and sometimes only as a result of focused perseverative work. Mostly it is stories. In college I did not pursue a history degree, though I did get a minor in it, partly because the AP US class gave me credits in a form of history I had deemed boring. The European and Russian histories fascinated me. As an adult who has read and listened to stories of our past, I have developed a fondness for the American past as well as the colorful past of other continents. When I encounter teachers and students who hate history, I know they have been poorly taught it.
Over the past few months I have read three tomes on teaching history: Lesh's Why Won't you Just Tell us the Answer, Burgess' Teach Like a Pirate, and now Joan Broadsky Schur's Eyewitness to the Past: Strategies for Teaching American History in Grades 5-12. They all address the idea of trying to make history come to life for students and do so in a way that provokes and requires higher levels of thinking than the memorization of lists of facts that comprise some history classes. As a trilogy, these books work very well together. Schur and Lesh wrote their books before the release of the CCSS, so they never refer to it, but both talk of using primary source documents to dig into the subject and require writing. The standards document lists the main standards as including analyzing how and why individuals, events or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text, integrating and evaluating content presented in diverse media and formats and analyzing how two or more texts address similar themes or topics to build knowledge or to compare the approach the authors take (CCSS. R3 , 7, 9). History class is the ideal place to focus on these activities.
Schur presents six methods of using eyewitness viewpoints within the history classroom: diaries, travelogues, letters, newspapers, election speeches, and scrapbooks. Each is carefully detailed with a general explanation of historical relevancy, her general and then more specific application in a classroom, ideas for alternative time frames to use with the strategy, presentation ideas to share what was done and assessment rubrics. The rich appendixes offer a huge variety of sources for primary documents and tools to help students examine and learn from the documents.
Presenting the study of history as a mystery that needs to be uncovered from the variety of sources, comparing the conflicting viewpoints and writing and publishing the results for the class help bring history to life. It reveals how the individual stories are used to build the greater concept of what happened. Schur does not discount the textbook. She uses it as a source for big picture events. For example, a student may be writing a diary entry about his life as a New York publisher while another as a slave in Virginia, in 1776 and both need to include the minutia of daily life as well as thoughts and opinions about the Declaration of Independence. It is not an activity devoid of learning about the big events, it just frames the big events in meaningful ways. When they make their presentations, they get to analyze how they each address the topic of becoming a free nation. Further, since they only write after reviewing both primary sources such as other diary entries and the textbook account of the event, they ground their understanding in ways that are more meaningful.
This approach cannot be used for every topic over the course of the year, it is too time consuming. It can, however, bring interest and life into critical junctures over the course of the year. If our goal is for students to develop skills analyzing primary sources, develop individual knowledge and form informed opinions about events, this approach is valuable. Alternatively, if all we are concerned about is how many facts we can cram into their brains, the approach will be found lacking.
Over the past few months I have read three tomes on teaching history: Lesh's Why Won't you Just Tell us the Answer, Burgess' Teach Like a Pirate, and now Joan Broadsky Schur's Eyewitness to the Past: Strategies for Teaching American History in Grades 5-12. They all address the idea of trying to make history come to life for students and do so in a way that provokes and requires higher levels of thinking than the memorization of lists of facts that comprise some history classes. As a trilogy, these books work very well together. Schur and Lesh wrote their books before the release of the CCSS, so they never refer to it, but both talk of using primary source documents to dig into the subject and require writing. The standards document lists the main standards as including analyzing how and why individuals, events or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text, integrating and evaluating content presented in diverse media and formats and analyzing how two or more texts address similar themes or topics to build knowledge or to compare the approach the authors take (CCSS. R3 , 7, 9). History class is the ideal place to focus on these activities.
Schur presents six methods of using eyewitness viewpoints within the history classroom: diaries, travelogues, letters, newspapers, election speeches, and scrapbooks. Each is carefully detailed with a general explanation of historical relevancy, her general and then more specific application in a classroom, ideas for alternative time frames to use with the strategy, presentation ideas to share what was done and assessment rubrics. The rich appendixes offer a huge variety of sources for primary documents and tools to help students examine and learn from the documents.
Presenting the study of history as a mystery that needs to be uncovered from the variety of sources, comparing the conflicting viewpoints and writing and publishing the results for the class help bring history to life. It reveals how the individual stories are used to build the greater concept of what happened. Schur does not discount the textbook. She uses it as a source for big picture events. For example, a student may be writing a diary entry about his life as a New York publisher while another as a slave in Virginia, in 1776 and both need to include the minutia of daily life as well as thoughts and opinions about the Declaration of Independence. It is not an activity devoid of learning about the big events, it just frames the big events in meaningful ways. When they make their presentations, they get to analyze how they each address the topic of becoming a free nation. Further, since they only write after reviewing both primary sources such as other diary entries and the textbook account of the event, they ground their understanding in ways that are more meaningful.
This approach cannot be used for every topic over the course of the year, it is too time consuming. It can, however, bring interest and life into critical junctures over the course of the year. If our goal is for students to develop skills analyzing primary sources, develop individual knowledge and form informed opinions about events, this approach is valuable. Alternatively, if all we are concerned about is how many facts we can cram into their brains, the approach will be found lacking.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Teach like a Pirate
Dave Burgess' Teach Like a Pirate: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator made me think about some of the classrooms I have worked in recently. The science teacher I worked with left late in the year and was replaced with a university professor seeking to re-ground herself in the classroom. She did a fantastic job immersing herself in the activities the students were doing. She was racing around from person or group to person or group, bringing lab supplies, asking questions and helping students participate in the activity. During a video she stopped and asked questions and commented about the content. Immersion is one of the big parts of Burgess' PIRATE program. It was inspiring to be part of an activity with a teacher so immersed in the class.
One place this teacher struggled, however, was with capitalizing on the enthusiasm of the moment. The school we worked in had teachers rather than students moving from classroom to classroom. This meant it was often hard to start the class on time because a teacher had to unpack materials and set things up. Poor technological infrastructure made any time she wanted to show a video a nightmare of trying to get everything going. Wasted time and disengaged students followed. More experience in the building would resolve some of these issues, but they were an impediment to progress. I would step in and wing some engagement questions and discussion, but it was often less focused because I had not planned it. A group without direction is not only gone, but often disruptive.
Burgess established a mnemonic to describe his strategies for increasing engagement
I really liked his description of passion. He explains that we all have favored and less favored things to teach, but the critical point is to teach them all with passion. If that means bringing in your personal hobbies to link to a less preferred activity, do it. If it means faking it- do that too. We can all be actors at times. If we want students to be engaged and invested, everything we do with them must be enthusiastic and passionate.
Another area of the text that I relished was his idea that success encompasses failure. Great teachers fail and adjust. They learn from their students of the moment what works. Monitor what you are doing and adjust. Decades of teacher preparation have taught that concept, but sometimes we forget and plow ahead because there is so much to cover. Part of what monitor and adjust means is that we do not just dust off previous lesson plans, but we adjust them based on what we know about our kids, what their baggage of the day is, and how they grasp what we are teaching. Great teachers will never take a packaged program and deliver it verbatim. They will say, "I cannot do that because Johnny and Susie needs to build prerequisite skills and I know that my three soccer players will respond better if I include an analogy to the game. I have a mute child who cannot participate in a verbal discussion so I need to ensure that she can draw her input,... " Half way through a preplanned lesson, they will skip ahead or come up with more examples because the students' responses tell them that is the direction the lesson needs to go.
The transformation section hit a chord as well. I really liked his idea of write a letter from a fictional student describing what is great about your class- how you want your class to be viewed. This then is the goal of how you need to evaluate what you are doing.
I really like coming to your class because I always know what I will be asked to do- you tell us. It is safe and I never feel like you are going to ask me to do something that I cannot do. It may take me lots of tries and hard work, but you will be with me through it all, explaining as many times as I need it and encouraging me when I am ready to give up. You never let me give up. I know that I will learn new things and you will help me feel proud of my accomplishments.
This is the sort of thing that I hope my students can say about me. It took lots of thinking to verbalize what I want students to get out of being in my class. This is more than just learn or have fun or pass the class. The exercise showcases your best class, not the class in which you sometimes fumble because you are as imperfect as the rest of the world. It is a great exercise because once you know your goal, everything you do needs to take you closer to that goal. For me, when I am working with students in a resource room, I spend as much time or as little, going over a concept so that I am sure the student has it. I document success and share it with students. I can explain things 101 different ways and know that sometimes I will need to figure out explanation 102.
This book is an engaging and easy read. It highlights some of the best engagement techniques. Some people may be challenged to frame his examples in their classrooms, the majority of his examples are secondary historical ones. Making yourself think about how the concepts- for example, how do you build enthusiasm and passion into every lesson? How do you mix it up so that blood flows to the brain? is important to personalize the information. While on teacher can do it all at once, every teacher can tweak something to make it better.
I was at a Paula Kluth workshop. She made us chant "novelty" and "joy" in rounds and according direction to remind us that these are the key items to make our brains turn on and remember. Burgess may not put it that way, but much of what he shares is about novelty and joy. Judy Willis, a neurologist, author and teacher, has produced a number of webinars and videos about this topic here and on ASCD here as well. His work is grounded in research, even though he does not frame it as such. If we want to have our kids really learn and remember, we need to increase engagement so that their brains will attend and learn for the long term.
One place this teacher struggled, however, was with capitalizing on the enthusiasm of the moment. The school we worked in had teachers rather than students moving from classroom to classroom. This meant it was often hard to start the class on time because a teacher had to unpack materials and set things up. Poor technological infrastructure made any time she wanted to show a video a nightmare of trying to get everything going. Wasted time and disengaged students followed. More experience in the building would resolve some of these issues, but they were an impediment to progress. I would step in and wing some engagement questions and discussion, but it was often less focused because I had not planned it. A group without direction is not only gone, but often disruptive.
Burgess established a mnemonic to describe his strategies for increasing engagement
- P- passion
- I- immersion
- R- rapport
- A- ask and analyze
- T- transformation
- E- enthusiasm
I really liked his description of passion. He explains that we all have favored and less favored things to teach, but the critical point is to teach them all with passion. If that means bringing in your personal hobbies to link to a less preferred activity, do it. If it means faking it- do that too. We can all be actors at times. If we want students to be engaged and invested, everything we do with them must be enthusiastic and passionate.
Another area of the text that I relished was his idea that success encompasses failure. Great teachers fail and adjust. They learn from their students of the moment what works. Monitor what you are doing and adjust. Decades of teacher preparation have taught that concept, but sometimes we forget and plow ahead because there is so much to cover. Part of what monitor and adjust means is that we do not just dust off previous lesson plans, but we adjust them based on what we know about our kids, what their baggage of the day is, and how they grasp what we are teaching. Great teachers will never take a packaged program and deliver it verbatim. They will say, "I cannot do that because Johnny and Susie needs to build prerequisite skills and I know that my three soccer players will respond better if I include an analogy to the game. I have a mute child who cannot participate in a verbal discussion so I need to ensure that she can draw her input,... " Half way through a preplanned lesson, they will skip ahead or come up with more examples because the students' responses tell them that is the direction the lesson needs to go.
The transformation section hit a chord as well. I really liked his idea of write a letter from a fictional student describing what is great about your class- how you want your class to be viewed. This then is the goal of how you need to evaluate what you are doing.
I really like coming to your class because I always know what I will be asked to do- you tell us. It is safe and I never feel like you are going to ask me to do something that I cannot do. It may take me lots of tries and hard work, but you will be with me through it all, explaining as many times as I need it and encouraging me when I am ready to give up. You never let me give up. I know that I will learn new things and you will help me feel proud of my accomplishments.
This is the sort of thing that I hope my students can say about me. It took lots of thinking to verbalize what I want students to get out of being in my class. This is more than just learn or have fun or pass the class. The exercise showcases your best class, not the class in which you sometimes fumble because you are as imperfect as the rest of the world. It is a great exercise because once you know your goal, everything you do needs to take you closer to that goal. For me, when I am working with students in a resource room, I spend as much time or as little, going over a concept so that I am sure the student has it. I document success and share it with students. I can explain things 101 different ways and know that sometimes I will need to figure out explanation 102.
This book is an engaging and easy read. It highlights some of the best engagement techniques. Some people may be challenged to frame his examples in their classrooms, the majority of his examples are secondary historical ones. Making yourself think about how the concepts- for example, how do you build enthusiasm and passion into every lesson? How do you mix it up so that blood flows to the brain? is important to personalize the information. While on teacher can do it all at once, every teacher can tweak something to make it better.
I was at a Paula Kluth workshop. She made us chant "novelty" and "joy" in rounds and according direction to remind us that these are the key items to make our brains turn on and remember. Burgess may not put it that way, but much of what he shares is about novelty and joy. Judy Willis, a neurologist, author and teacher, has produced a number of webinars and videos about this topic here and on ASCD here as well. His work is grounded in research, even though he does not frame it as such. If we want to have our kids really learn and remember, we need to increase engagement so that their brains will attend and learn for the long term.
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