Learning is NOT a Spectator Sport

One of the most frequently used teaching strategies in the classroom is as follows:

1. The teacher asks a question.
2. Student who wish to respond raise their hands.
3. The teacher calls on a student.
4. The student attempts to state the correct answer.

Since this strategy is so frequently used, it is important to ask, “Just how effective is it?” The answer is the teacher is the only person actively engaged with all the questions and answers. Only one student per question is actively engaged in the lesson. The follow up question is - "How can teachers get more students involve during a question and answer session?"

Think-Pair-Share can be used as an alternative strategy for asking your students questions. The process is as follows:

1. The teacher asks a question.
2. The teacher gives all the students time to think.
3. The teacher directs the students to discuss their thoughts with their buddy.
4. The teacher calls on one of the pairs to share their answer.

Notes: Establish buddies before the lesson begins. Also before each question announce length of time for student thinking and discussion.

Please post in the comment section a strategy you use to encourage your students to be actively involved during your question and answer sessions.

Incomplete Student Assignments

Every teacher faces the situation that students do not always complete their classroom or homework assignments. One way to address this problem is to ask the student to fill out an "Incomplete Assignment Log". The log could contain the following:

• Title of the Assignment
• Name of Student
• Date and Period
• Explanation of why the assignment was not complete
• The students plan to make up the work.

After the student completes the Log, file it in the student's folder. The folder will help you at the end of the grading period for determining grades and when conferencing with the student's parents. If you have another strategy for handling incomplete student work please post in the comments section.

Next Steps After Writing

When your Induction Team has completed writing the Induction Plan or even a section of the Plan, what happens next? If you have an idea click on the comment button and add your thoughts.

Study Group Activity: Exploring HRD Podcasts and the Induction e-Letter

Purpose: Help teachers access and explore the Podcast and the Induction-e-Letter Blog on the HRD website.

Preparation: Meeting should be in a computer lab or ask participants to bring their laptops to a wireless location.

Access: Demonstrate how to enter the HRD website.
1. Start at www.browardschools.com
2. Click Departments on left side of webpage
3. Click HRD-Professional Development
4. On the HRD Homepage - Click the Teachers bottom in the row near the top of the page
You are now on the HRD teacher homepage and can enter the Blogs.

Demonstrate Navigating Blogs: There are three ways to navigate a blog. The first method is chronological, assess articles or podcasts as they were entered in the blog; second method is enter a search word or phrase, same process when using search engines on the internet; and third is using the label cloud, assess articles using pre-selected search words.

Activity: Ask the participants to use all three methods to search each blog. Each time they use a search method they will view the podcast or read the article and leave a comment. Once everyone has viewed three podcasts, read three articles, and left their comments; they will recommend one of the podcasts or articles to the group and explain why they recommended it.

Debrief: How can blogs like these enhance a teachers practice?
Approximate time of activity: 45 minutes to 1 hour
Source: Joann Finnagin, South Broward High

SUPPORT GROUP ACTIVITY: Getting Started

I used a technique from The Power of Protocols, at the first meeting of our NESS support group and I think it really helped to set a tone of individual ownership in the process and cooperation in the group.

1. After introductions, and before setting any rules or agenda, group participants into teams of 4 or 5. Ask each team to write down responses to the following prompt: If this support group is the worst experience I have ever had, what will have happened or not happened? [This was really effective. Evidently people were thinking about this!!!]

2. After sufficient time to write the "negatives," ask the participants to write responses to this prompt: If this support group is the best group experience I have ever had, what will have happened or not happened?

3. After members record their responses ask each team to share what they have charted. Discuss the responses and how they should apply to the Support Group meetings.

4. Finally, ask members, “What norms do we need for our group in order to ensure that we have the best experience possible?” Then begin to chart the group norms (ground rules).
Source: Les Baker, South Area Student Services

Rubrics

The rubric is a vital link between assessment and instruction. Rubrics operationalize quality in our minds so teachers can effectively assess student performance. For most educators, a rubric is a printed set of scoring guidelines for evaluating student work and for giving feedback.

RubiStar and Discovery are websites to help the teachers who want to use rubrics but do not have the time to develop them from scratch or need ready-made rubrics on a number of topics.

Source: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
Source: http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/assess.html

Coaching in Stages

Coaches emphasize that many beginning teachers progress in stages. The first stage focuses on practical skills and information -- where to order supplies, how to organize a classroom, where to find instructional resources, what kind of assistance the teacher association can provide, etc.

During the second stage, coaches and clients concentrate more intently on the art and science of teaching and learning and on polishing classroom management skills.

In stage three, the coach and new teachers's relationship evolves from coach - client to peers working together as equals on a deeper understanding of instructional strategies and ongoing professional development that is based on the needs of their students.

Where a new teacher enters this matrix and how long each stage lasts vary according to the knowledge, experience, and skills that the new teacher brings to the job. A skillful coach works with the new teacher to determine what level of assistance to provide and when to provide it.

Source: http://www.nfie.org/publications/mentoring.htm - content

Coaching Styles

The DIRECT STYLE has advantages it is efficient but does little to develop the new educators self-evaluative skills. The direct style should be used if the issue is safety, specific site-based policies, and deadlines. Using the direct style coaches could make statements like:
• I know you feel that students should have the freedom to sit anywhere they wish but….
• This is the way we teach …… here is a sample you can follow.
• I am aware that you are trying to have your materials, chemicals, etc., as close at hand as possible. However, those chemicals are not stored properly. You must move them right away.

The INDIRECT STYLE uses questions to encourage new educators to recognize problems and develop solutions. This empowers the new educator to assume ownership and responsibility for needed change. Coaches make statements like:
• Am I correct in assuming that you have decided to group the students homogeneously next time? When you try this, how will you know if you are successful?
• How do you plan to put that unit together? What outcomes are you looking for?

In the beginning, when working with an educator new to the profession it is necessary to be direct. In most cases the teachers first day of work is only four or five days before the students first day of school. Therefore, new teachers have very little time for discovery method. However, as the year progresses it is important for the coach to recognize that the new teacher is a peer. The indirect style helps new educators develop a more reflective practice an important skill needed to meet the ever-changing needs of their students.

Source: Clinical Educator Training

Plan Do STUDY Act

In previous articles we examined the steps of PLAN and DO in the continuous improvement process (CIP).
Plan includes:
• Identifying the “Desired State”
• Selecting appropriate “Assessment Tools”
• Measure “Current Reality.”
• Determine Goals and/or measurable objectives

DO includes:
• Identifying possible interventions or solutions
• Implementing the interventions or solutions.

The next step in the continuous improvement process is STUDY. In this step impact is measured to determine if the desired results were achieved, what if anything went wrong, and what was learned. When gathering data during the STUDY stage use the same or focused parts of the assessment tools that were used to determine the clients “Current Reality.” After gathering the data take time to organize and analyze the date then publish or share the findings with the appropriate audience.

Source: Dr. Doug Miller

Support Group Activity: Surfing the Net

Objectives:
• To explore the internet for resources on teaching and learning
• To use internet resources and web resources for teaching and learning

Materials:
A computer lab with a computer for each participant (or each pair – of participants)

Essential Question:
How can the Internet be used to improve a teacher’s practice?

Procedures:
Step 1 – The group brainstorms educational terms or phrases for searching the Internet. (Terms such as Classroom Management, FCAT, instruction strategies and so on.) Chart responses.
Step 2 – The group determines criteria for selecting a useful website. (For example, easy to navigate, relevant content.) Chart criteria.
Step 2 - The group has 30 minutes to explore the Internet using the search words from the brainstorming list.
Step 3 - Each participate will use the criteria to select at least two promising sites.
Step 4 – Each participate shares one site they selected and why they selected it as a promising site. (If you have a large group, divide the group into teams of four to share, then the teams can present one of the sites they discussed to the large group.)
Step 5 - Closing Questions: How can this activity help improve a teacher’s practice?

Source: Dr. Amy Tsukuda

Expand the Lines of Leadership

A key element of school self-assessment is “distributed leadership,” a concept introduced by Harvard University’s Richard Elmore that speaks to the need to tap a broad range of competencies within a school. By recognizing the potential many teachers have to improve instruction throughout their schools and by building their leadership capacity, the process can give teachers a powerful stake in school reform and a renewed commitment to self-improvement strategies in their own classrooms.

Veteran teachers also can participate in creative collaborations to analyze and learn from student work. New York University professor Joseph McDonald describes, in the October 2002 Phi Delta Kappan, collaborative processes to review student work that help teachers avoid snap judgments about student abilities. At this time of increasingly severe consequences for failure to meet academic standards, such efforts are especially needed. As Mr. McDonald says, they combat “a century’s practice of classifying students on the basis of premature judgments of their incapacities.” Successful veteran teachers can benefit significantly from re-examining how they view and analyze their students’ work.

Source: Education Week, Veteran Teachers: The Linchpin of School Reform, By Denise Glyn Borders

Schlechty on Education

What is learning? How are skills and knowledge acquired? Learning is a process that requires action and experience, specifically voluntary action on the part of the student. What teachers do is less important than what teachers are able to motivate students to do. Students learn by activities that include “imitating, listening, creating, muddling around, and talking (p. 42).” Yet what matters less than the mode or style of learning is the meaning students attach to what they do and learn. Knowledge and skills cannot be acquired if the material presented is neither relevant nor compelling, and if they cannot be actively involved in both choosing and doing the job of learning

Who is to teach? Teachers must be facilitators, leaders, and inventors. Not only must they be constantly inventing knowledge work, they must understand their students. Many teachers, even the creative and inventive ones, are presently operating in schools intuitively (and sometimes consciously) viewing students as customers. Unfortunately, many teachers seem reluctant to acknowledge that students have the power all customers have: the power of choice.

Teachers need to know.
1) How to interest students in topics they would not ordinarily care about but need to care about.
2) Allow students to make choices that will lead to important, relevant learning.

Because of the great many responsibilities that teachers have, those interested in becoming educators, and those who already are in the profession must be:
1) endlessly motivated to discovering how to challenge students,
2) must be willing to lead as well as step aside when the situations demands it, and
3) must be reflective and self-critical to determine how well the work is being invented for the learners involved.
Source: http://www.newfoundations.com/GALLERY/Schlechty.html