This blog has a subtitle: Reflections on Education, Technology and Learning

My other less-frequently used blog, ‘Practic-All’, is subtitled, Pragmatic tools and ideas for the classroom. Recently I started using this other blog to provide a digital addition to my Principal’s weekly e-mail update. I did 9 of these to end the year off. I called them Dave’s Digital Magic, (or school teams are the Magicians). Recently I’ve done some thinking about education, technology and learning on my Practic-All blog and so I thought I’d share it here too.

I tried to provide within each ‘digital magic’ a few links including some that promoted web2.0 tools, some that were fun, some that were for different curricular areas… and some that made you think. I put these ‘thinking links’ into a category called, THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM… and I ended each post with one of these.

This was a rather passive way to attempt some influence on my staff. I know some of them ignored the link to my Digital Magic, at least a couple of the staff were very regular visitors, and others waited to hear about something useful before venturing to a link or two. We are talking about tiny ripples rather than tidal waves… but, in keeping with the water theme, even the greatest waterfall begins with a single drop.

So now I put a challenge out to you!

Create your own ripples. Pick one of the nine THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM… and share it with your staff. Or create your own (and please share it with me as well as others).

2. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

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3. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

Clarence Fisher, a brilliant Canadian teacher and blogger, wrote this short paper (4 easy-to-read pages), Changing Literacies (PDF).

Being literate is so much more than being able to understand a written text on a piece of paper.

Here is a quote from his section on Access,

“Fast forward to our society and the ability we now have to drown ourselves in
cheap, disposable information from books, television, the internet, radio,
magazines, video, etc. In our time, one of the major skills of being literate is
the ability to access texts in many different forms from many different sources.
Importantly, it is not about searching for texts, it’s about finding them.”

In this article, Clarence describes why I became a ‘technology guy’. Actually, I don’t really care about technology… I just see how these tools, like wiki’s, can engage students in meaningful ways, where they create and share what they have learned in new, interesting ways.

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4. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

END OF QUARTER RUBRIC

NOTE ON THE USE OF THIS RUBRIC: [Check out the link before reading this!]

“Habits of Mind are the characteristics of what intelligent people do when they are confronted with problems, the resolution(s) to which are not immediately apparent. These behaviors are seldom performed in isolation. Rather, clusters of such behaviors are drawn forth and employed in various situations.”

(Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick: 16 Habits of Mind) The purpose of a rubric when assessing student work is to provide benchmarks of achievement based on these habits which allow a student to understand their current level of mastery and discipline in order to set goals for future drafts, assessments, or marking periods. For as long as possible we will refrain from discussing grades, per se, and focus our discussion on achievement and progress. As long as a student continues to set goals, reflect and evaluate their work and habits, set new goals and modify their work, habits and effort accordingly, they will realize increasing success and achievement as the year progresses. Thus, rather than penalizing a student who begins the year as a believer and ends the year with nothing compared to them by averaging a lower earlier grade with a later higher one, the student is evaluated according to mastery and achievement as demonstrated by their ability and mastery by the end of the year. However, a student who may begin the year with the drive and motivation to knock on heaven’s door, but who then slacks off, loses focus and discipline and ends up wondering what they did to deserve this, will not be boosted from a D to a C because first quarter was strong when it is not reflective of the ability or master he or she consistently demonstrated.

Could you use this rubric or parts of it?

How important are these ‘Habits of the Mind’?

What does this rubric look at compared to what our report cards look at?

Do you ‘average’ previous terms or give ’snapshots’ of where students are now?

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5. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

Academe’s Dirty Little Secret

This blog post is written by Darren Kuropatwa, a brilliant high school Math teacher.

Here is an excerpt:

“You can require your students to demonstrate their understanding of what they are learning by having them apply their knowledge analyzing and evaluating relevant novel situations or problems. Better yet, get them to create content that educates an interested learner and they will automatically incorporate all those levels of engagement while they make their learning sticky. I don’t need to tell you that there’s nothing like having to teach a thing to make you really learn it.

Darren walks the talk! His students will go home and spend hours helping to teach others, when it is there turn to scribe the class notes and post them on a blog for the other students in their class. You can see this in his Scribe Hall of Fame… or if you aren’t into Math, just check out the link to the article.

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6. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

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Video’s are a great teaching tool! One way to start collecting them is to sign up for a free YouTube account. When you are signed in, and you find a video you like, just click ‘Favorite’ and you can collect videos there. Then from any computer you can sign in and find all your favorites.

You can also make Playlists, which lets you create video players, like the one seen on this wiki.

I like this because you can show a number of videos without students seeing the comments under the videos (which can sometimes be very inappropriate for classrooms). You can also use playlists to separate your favorites for different uses.

Start with the simple task of signing up for a free YouTube account, and then I’ll be glad to help you.

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7. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

The purpose of homework…

Is homework an effective practice?

What is it intended to accomplish for student learning?

How do you use it effectively?

How do you deal with homework that isn’t done? Is this the same as others on your team?

What feedback have you had from students? Parents?

What I’ve read recently to get me thinking about homework:

Rethinking Homework by Alfie Kohn

Homework, the tip of the iceberg by Harold Jarche

What do you think?

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8. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

The Three E’s

That brings me to the third E, “Empowerment”.

In this approach students are part of the system itself. They participate in decisions about what is taught, what they would like to learn, and what strategies and tools they would like to use in the learning process. Some may decide to work more independently, some in groups; but they are part of the process of deciding what goes on in their own learning.

I attempted something like this with my ScienceAlive Wiki. I reflected on the project and how I would improve on it here: Wikis in the classroom: a reflection.

As we head into June, what can we do to help students leave our school feeling like they are empowered learners?

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9. THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM…

Teaching gifted students compared to teaching every student.

No link for this one, instead, here is a reflection Kari did on having a SHARP, gifted cluster, in her class this year. I thought this was very insightful and also thought about just how much this applied to every student, not just gifted ones!

Top 10 Lessons I Learned Being Involved in SHARP

1. Different is Good: Strategies for differentiation help all students be successful: Gifted, LD, ESL, Non-Categorized.
2. Free Birds Soar: Given the freedom to choose how to present their learning, Gifted students will surpass your, and their own, expectations.
3. Stimulation is Mandatory: Gifted students need to be challenged constantly, or else boredom sets in.
4. Knives and Spoons: Gifted students are not necessarily “gifted” in all areas of the curriculum.
5. Fun and Games: Gifted students are still typical kids- they need to have fun and be accepted by their peers.
6. Be Comfortable with Uncertainty: Gifted students ask lots of questions, but it’s okay if you, the teacher, don’t have all the answers.
7. Stars Are Part of a Larger Constellation: Gifted students need to be recognized for their uniqueness, but still fit in with the rest of the class.
8. Heads May Butt: Your cluster may not always get along or work well together all the time!
9. A Watered Flower Grows: Being involved in SHARP helps you to evolve as a teacher.
10. Hear Me Vent and Brag: Having conversations with other SHARP teachers is valuable and gratifying.

Thanks for your words of wisdom Kari Hotell!

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It’s your turn.

Have you ever spent hours working on something and then looked at the final product only to wonder where the time and effort went? That’s how I feel about the rubric I have been working on for the Graduation Transitions Program (for which I am the coordinator at our school).

Last year, under the old program, the ‘Final Presentation’ was about showing evidence and meeting criteria. This year the ‘Exit Interview’ is more about the journey…

So how do you create a rubric to give feedback to students about their journey? I decided on a few things first:

1. Reflection is important and needs to be valued.
2. This is a big transition… some forward planning also needs to be valued.
3. This is NOT a grade! (The program is not graded, you just need to meet the requirements.)
4. It needs to be ‘different’ enough that the many different teachers doing the interview won’t fall into ‘grading’ mode.

Here is what I came up with… (Link to a larger view)

At this point I can’t decide if this achieves what I want it to, or if I wasted my time… feedback is really appreciated… I have to present this to students on Monday.

As we start to look at different skills, 21st Century Skills, and get kids thinking beyond what is on the test, it gets harder to mark what really counts. Report cards will have to change as our assessment does. How valuable is it to measure a student’s ability to solve a Numeracy Task? How do you weight this evaluation next to quiz and test marks that are based on a student’s ability to follow the steps in adding fractions, or their ability to follow the algorithm for solving an algebra equation? What about their ability to Synthesize and Add Meaning to what they know?

These are questions I am grappling with on a number of levels… but while I think about these things, the reality of having to write report cards is still there. After just completing my second term report cards, I have been thinking of the changes that I have helped to make on our district’s middle school report cards. They don’t directly address my concerns above, but the changes have created an opportunity to look at learning skills as much as we do marks… I think this is a step in the right direction

It wasn’t perfect but it was a chance to say a bit more about a student than a simple work habit evaluation of G, S,or N (Good, Satisfactory, or Needs Improvement).

With hindsight being 20/20, I now wonder how we could have included some 21^st Century Skills into these learning skills? Of course then we would need to ensure that all students were given the opportunity to develop those skills.

The idea behind these Learning Skills was a driving force of what we as not only teachers, but also as parents, wanted to see on a report card. A theme that kept coming up was that we wanted to know that the teacher knew or understood who our kid is! We also wanted to know what areas of learning we, as parents, could help with at home.

We changed the evaluative language from G, S, and N to M-Mastering, D- Developing and E- Emerging. This has subsequently been changed back. I like the more positive description of M, E, and D, but that’s also partially because it signaled a difference in approach from the umbrella term of Work Habits we used to have on our report cards, and also because I think that the old scale carried a bit too much baggage with it. “How does it look when I give a grade of an ‘A’ with an ‘S’ for work habits?” (My response is that what it looks like doesn’t matter! Add an anecdotal comment to explain this.) However, it seemed to me that students who get an ‘A’ and who are still ‘Emerging’ in certain learning skills would have very appropriate feedback if his report card mentioned this. I’ll stab at a more humourous aspect of this after looking at where we are now.

Our district rolled this report out for our first term this year.

It was to be… “The last format we are going to work with”… but it wasn’t. Three key flaws to our design: 1. Teachers hated the Learning Skills; 2. Teachers of individual courses did not have a say regarding behavior and/or work habits in their individual classes;and, 3. Students portray these skills, or lack thereof, quite differently from class to class/teacher to teacher.

What I really hated was the drop-down menu for Social Responsibility, now mandatory for us to report on. Here are the options from the drop-down menu from which we were (and still are) to choose from:

On our current Report Card cover page it states,

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Social Responsibility is reported on in one or more of the following areas: contributing to the classroom and school community, solving problems in peaceful ways, valuing diversity and defending human rights, and exercising democratic rights and responsibilities.”

Even with student input, I found these difficult to use for all but the most inclusive/cooperative students. The menu is based on the BC (Provincial) Performance Standards for Social Responsibility (find the rubric here). Although I like the rubric and use it for students to reflect on, I think the drop-down menu needs to be revised to make the comments more meaningful to students, teachers, and parents. (I couldn’t imagine putting, “tends to be egocentric, apathetic, feel powerless” on a student’s report card!) There is a 65 character space also provided for further explanation by the teacher.

Also from our report card cover we have an explanation of the Learning Skills. For the Term 1 report above the 5 skill areas were simply identified as learning skills, (including social responsibility) whereas there is greater detail in this term’s new cover page, (with Social Responsibility being separated out, as described above). Notice the combining of the learning skills from the Term 1 report:

Older report cards simply had ‘work habits’ to encompass all of these. Before I say that ‘I really like this new format’, let me say that after our school learning team ended last year and I have had nothing to do with these new changes, so this isn’t a case of me tooting my own horn.

I really like this new format! Work Habits & Effort fit well together, as do Behavior & Attitude. Yes a student could have poor work habits and still put in a great effort, or have a great attitude and still be a behavior issue, but these difference can easily be touched on in the anecdotal section of the report card. The separation of work habits from behavior is the most noticeable change for me. As a parent I think this information is much more meaningful, and as a teacher I feel that I can better inform parents as to where I see areas of need and, hopefully as the year progresses, areas of growth.
Also, now the kid with an ‘A’ in a class but with both Satisfactory Work Habits & Effort as well as a Satisfactory Behavior & Attitude can be referred to as an “A with a double S”

Here is this term’s report card. Due to the unexpected change we were told that we did not have to go back and re-fill in the grades/skills for Term 1. This would have been a little challenging and time consuming since we’d have to combine the learning skills that we originally looked at separately.