Tuesday, April 25, 2017

T's of Teaching


Time-Texts-Teach-Talk-Task-Test



TIME:
      Reading and writing should be the time priority getting at least 50% of the day's time.
      The other 50% of the day's time could be spent on other subject areas, such as social studies, math, and science.
      In many classrooms reading and writing are not the priorities which produces less proficient readers.
      In the classrooms where reading and writing are being given most of the day's time, more proficient readers are being produced.
      A good way to incorporate more reading and writing into the class time and keep the subject matter content is to have the focus or topic of the reading and writing projects be of science, social studies, and other time consuming subject matter.

TEXTS:
Student need a consistent, rich supply of text with appropriate complexity:
      Doing so will promote higher success rates in their reading proficiency.
      Teachers need to focus on grade appropriate vocabulary.
      Teachers often have to go against organizational grain and buy books themselves that are not state issued - this further benefits their students because not all books are suitable for lower performing students.
      By doing so, these teachers actually accelerated their students reading levels.
      Students can't only receive appropriate reading materials when they qualify for special instruction because some that don't qualify also need help.
      STUDENTS NEED CONFIDENCE AND MOTIVATION

TEACH:
Assign and Assess vs Modeling
      Modeling, demonstrating, and giving examples- provides new learning for students, teaches strategies gives instruction to know how to do something.
      Assign and assess- the teacher assigns the work and expects the students to complete it independently, there is no new learning involved.

Useful teaching strategies :
      decoding, composing, self-regulating as separate lessons to the whole class, to targeted small groups and to individual students as side by side instruction.
      Teaching requires knowing not only how to teach strategies explicitly, but also how to foster transfer from the structured practice activities to independent use.

TALK:
Classroom talk allows the students to process the information in their own words:
      should be encouraged within the classroom - teacher -student and student- student.
      should model and encourage purposeful discussion, that offers problem-posing, problem- solving related to subjects.
      needs to pose questions that are open-ended thought provoking.
      should use classroom talk to discuss ideas, concepts, hypotheses, strategies, responses with others by both teachers and students.
      should have questions that are open-ended  where multiple responses would be appropriate, not just one right or wrong answer. This helps students share ideas and experiences - helping them create a positive learning experience.
      leads to improved reading comprehension.
      is still under researched.
      effective classroom talk should not be interrogational and only have one correct answer.

TASKS:
      In the classroom there is an emphasis on the greater use of LONG ASSIGNMENTS.
o   Not so much centered around multiple, shorter tasks.
o   Example: Students often worked on a writing assignment for ten days and not just in one sitting.  Read entire books and did group research projects.
      Work completed is more substantial and challenging to the students.  The work was more self regulated.
o   Students seemed more on task due to complex tasks
      The students also had a choice in the assignment that they were doing. (managed choice)
o   Focused on one topic. Students did similar but different tasks. Example: insects- students were able to choose their insect.
      These types of student choices have been documented to show that students have a greater ownership in their work and a greater engagement.

TEST:
Achievement based grading
       the best performances get the best grades
      traditional type of test
      higher level students don't have to put forth much effort to get good grades

Rubric-based evaluation
      measuring from where students started to where they are now
      earning grades is students responsibility
      gives students information needed to improve grades
      teachers must really know their students
      little test preparation activity, instead teachers rely on good instruction to enhance test performances

The bullet points were taken from Allington’s article, What I've Learned About Effective Reading Instruction FROM A DECADE OF STUDYING EXEMPLARY ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM TEACHERS. He provides us with good reminders of what strong teachers do everyday in their classroom. Take time to read is paper.

Full Article found:

Richard L. Allington . What I've Learned About Effective Reading Instruction FROM A DECADE OF STUDYING EXEMPLARY ELEMENTARY CLASSROOM TEACHERS. Phi Delta Kappan, Volume 83, Number 10 (June 2002), pp. 740-747, <http://ejournals.ebsco.com.access.library.eou.edu/direct.asp?ArticleID=42ACB8C7BB85FBE63370>


Friday, April 7, 2017

Don’t Blame if You’re NOT Going to Fund!



Watching the news the other evening one of the lead stories I saw was about the failing schools in our state in comparison to other states and countries. The story went on to imply that the schools were responsible for our students failing.  Legislators even took a stab at the teachers implying that teachers were not doing their jobs. As an educator this was disturbing knowing the hours teachers put into their planning for their students.

Later in the broadcast these same news anchors were reporting on the state budget and sharing the proposed cuts to the state’s education funding.  Million dollar cuts! As I listen they showed interviews of legislators explaining we are just spending too much money on education and to balance the budget, cuts would have to come in the Department of Education.

What comes first the chicken or the egg? If you are not going to fund education then don’t blame the schools for not doing their job because of low performance scores. There is a reason the ride in the Cadillac is smoother and quieter than the ride in the Chevy Cruz. People who bought the Cadillac paid for the technology and engineering  to make that ride smoother and quieter.  Those who chose the Chevy Cruz received a dependable car that provided them good transportation.

Wake up lawmakers! You can’t pass regulations without support. Educating our youth is expensive if you want all schools to be preforming at high levels. You can’t cut funding and expect high-performing schools. There is a significant difference when the teacher to student ratio is lower. Teachers are able to have more contact with each student and provide specific support for their success. This has been supported through research. Buildings and materials are just as important for schools to be successful.


If you kill the chicken for dinner, don’t expect eggs in the morning.

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Building Thinking and Language Skills


Did you ever think that getting students to expand their thinking skills and increase their language skills at the same time could be easy? It all comes down to the questions you ask and how you have the students express their answers. With just a couple of little changes many instructors can increase their student engagement along with developing deeper processing and language skills.

One of the main ways to build language skills in everyone is by using the language in conversations. Classroom instructors providing students with many opportunities to speak has been shown to impact not only the students’ comprehension but also their language skills (Hassinger-Das, Toub, Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2017).  As simple as it sounds, it is very daunting if they are not allowed to practice.

This is where classroom expectations need to be established.  The instructor must know and share with the students what he/she is expecting. Having clear signals for the students so they know when to talk and when to listen should be established (Krkovic,, Wüstenberg, & Greiff, 2016). Will the students be discussing in small groups or in pairs? How will they share with the whole class? These are just a couple of questions that should be answered prior to implementing student discussions.

Conversation not only builds language skills but it can also have an impact on building students’ critical thinking and comprehension skills (Krkovic,, Wüstenberg, & Greiff, 2016).  A major key is in the questions the teacher asks the students to discuss. Lin et al. (2015) provided evidence that when the teachers kept the questions open-ended and less specific the students expanded their discussion deeper into the topic. The key is to use carefully thought-out questions, which allows the students to draw their conclusions. It is also important to provide the students with time to reflect with each other after everyone has shared (Lin, etal., 2015).

Steps in implementing classroom discussions
 First, will the students be discussing in small groups or partners? How will the students provide you with feed-backs? Then, teachers should  have higher-order questions ready. Also teachers should make sure they have set their expectation for the class discussion. Below are some ideas teachers might consider using to implement class discussion to the build thinking and language skills in their classrooms:

·      Have a pre-made list of higher-order questions for the students to discuss.
·      When reporting back have the students share what their partner or group said.
·      Use follow-up questions such as, “Can you expand on that?”
·      Have the students unpack their thinking by explaining how they arrived at their answers.
·      If they are incorrect, ask them if this aligns with what the other groups are saying, before simply filling in the correct answer.
·      Make sure you have the students verify how their information is correct.
·      Have them make life connections to the situations they are discussing.

  After you have heard from the students about their discussions and they have heard from others in the class, provide the groups with time to finish their discussions addressing how other groups agreed or disagreed with them and allow them time to modify their responses in their groups.

By using these strategies you will not only build your students’ critical thinking skills and language skills but you will also increase your student engagement during your lesson which should equate to increased learning during class.


References

Hassinger-Das, B., Toub, T. S., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2017). A matter of principle: Applying language science to the classroom and beyond. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 3(1), 5-18. doi:http://dx.doi.org.access.library.eou.edu/10.1037/tps0000085

Krkovic, K., Wüstenberg, S., & Greiff, S. (2016). Assessing collaborative behavior in students: An experiment-based assessment approach. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 32(1), 52-60. doi:http://dx.doi.org.access.library.eou.edu/10.1027/1015-5759/a000329

Lin, T., Jadallah, M., Anderson, R. C., Baker, A. R., Nguyen-Jahiel, K., Kim, I., . . . Wu, X. (2015). Less is more: Teachers’ influence during peer collaboration. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(2), 609-629. doi:http://dx.doi.org.access.library.eou.edu/10.1037/a0037758