Twenty Days

First the turkey was stuffed, and then we were.  Black Friday has come and gone.  The Christmas decorations are in the stores and starting to pop up in the neighborhood.  We find ourselves on the far side of Thanksgiving with exactly four weeks left in this semester.  We must be having fun because time certainly seems to be flying by.

I want to take a few minutes to have you think ahead about the next 20 school days and make sure you keep some things in mind.

• Extended Observations: If you are a first or second year teacher in the HSE District, you need to have your extended observation completed before the end of the semester.  Check with your primary evaluator this week if you fit into this category.  If time permits, others of you may also have the extended observation take place before the holidays.
• End of Course Assessments: On December 11-14, we will give the End of Course Assessments for English 10 and Algebra I to students who did not pass in previous attempts, students who transferred in from out of state and still need to take the Indiana tests, or any student finishing up the second semester of Algebra I.  You will get the specifics on these tests soon, but keep these dates in mind.  These tests are stressful for the student who struggles to pass the exams and for teachers who have to assist in giving them.  It will also mean some schedule changes as we make adjustments necessary for testing. 
• Final Exams: This schedule has already been posted, but as a reminder, final exams will take place on December 19-21.  Periods 1 and 2 test on Wednesday, periods 3 and 4 on Thursday, and periods 5-7 on Friday.
• Class Student Learning Objectives: You should complete the summative assessment for your Class SLO before the end of the semester.  In the next few weeks you should take some time to revisit key concepts and make connections between present learning and past learning whenever possible in order to have all students ready for this summative assessment.

I saved Class SLOs for last in this list because I wanted to end with a few ideas that may help you prepare students for the summative assessments:

• Cramming vs Chunking: Research is clear that “cramming” as a form of review is ineffective.  Rather, review should be “chunked” over time.  Consider using bell work or exit tickets on topics taught in August, September, and October.  These are formative assessments to let you know which skills and content need more review.  Handing students a review worksheet several days before the exam may help some of your stronger students, but it is of almost no use to a struggling learner.
• Stand-Alone vs Connected: As much as you can, connect current content with previous learning.  This is good practice and mentioned in the Teacher Effectiveness Rubric in several places.  Students in the “High” bucket seem to know intuitively what is most important and how to make connections between old and new learning.  Many students in the “Medium” bucket, and most in the “Low” bucket will not make these intuitive leaps.   As you prepare your students for the summative assessments, consider ways to highlight key ideas and concepts and to make clear connections.  Concept maps, illustrations, timelines, and analogies help all students, but are essential to struggling learners.
• One Time vs Over Time: When teaching a new skill, think of a bar code label with most of the lines grouped tightly together at the beginning of the label and then spread out later.  This illustrates the formula for practicing a skill.  Have students do lots of practice early, but over time return to the skill intermittently to embed and strengthen it.  We are now “later” in the semester, so it is a good time to return to key skills that will be assessed on your final exam.

Keep having fun, Southeastern.  Twenty days will go by quickly.  Use them well.

Have a great week.

Phil

Some Whiffling and Burbling

Read the excerpt from Lewis Carroll’s poem and answer the questions below.

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
--from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There(1872)

1)      What were the slithy toves doing in the introduction to this poem?  (1 point)

2)      Were the borogoves or the mome raths mimsy?  (1 point)

3)      The “father” in this poem warns his son against three creatures.  Name these creatures. (1 point for each creature.  Extra credit if you can identify what makes any of these creatures dangerous.)

4)      What did the protagonist do while beside the Tumtum tree? What did this prepare the hero to do later?  (1 points for each complete explanation.)

5)      What kind of sword did the hero carry? (1 point—Use a complete sentence.)

6)      Name two things the Jabberwock did as he came through the tulgey wood.  (2 points possible.)

I saw a version of this test at some point early in my teaching career.  It took me about five minutes to re-create this version.  It’s just like riding a bike….

The point, of course, is that it is entirely possible to have students get “right” answers and not understand a thing they have read.  If you have students read a text and then use a worksheet or quiz that is similar to this 10-point assessment I just gave you, I have a challenge for you: Do something else.

The next time you have students complete a reading, try something like this:

• Summarize: Have students summarize in one sentence an entire section or chapter.
• Compare and Contrast: Have students write analogies.  For example: A cell membrane is like a….because…..
• Compare and Contrast II: Have students look at two problems or examples and tell what they have to do differently in order to solve the problems.
• Cues: Have students come up with an acrostic to remember the most important parts of the reading or lesson.
• Questions: Project answers on the overhead and have students write the questions.
• Nonlinguistic Representation: Have students draw (and label if needed) the main concept included in the text.
• Summarize and Question: Have students narrow it down and then write the three most important questions they can possibly answer about the topic.  Have them share and defend their questions.
• Graphic Organizers: Have students create concept maps making as many connections between topics as possible.

All of these assessments could be done individually, in pairs, or in groups.  My contention is that it would be very difficult to do any of these assignments without understanding the text.

Mike Smoker, an educator who stresses the importance of simplicity, clarity, and priority in teaching, claims the best worksheet is a blank piece of paper.  Have your students do something with one and see if you agree.  I would love to hear what you did and what worked well.

This week take some time to stand in uffish thought beside the nearest Tumtum tree.  Then take out your vorpal pen, pencil, or iPad and create a lesson that will impact the learning of even the most frumious bandersnatch or burbling Jabberwock.

Have a brillig week, HSE.

Phil

What Was I Thinking?

What was I thinking?

My son-in-law, Cassady Feasby, plays bass guitar for the talented and popular country musician, Dierks Bentley, so my wife and I have become country music fans.  One of the reason Dierks has done so well is that he is a first-rate song writer, and his songs tend to resonate in lots of ways.  One of Bentley’s hit songs is “What Was I Thinking,” which has a catchy tune but lyrics you might not want your children singing along with in the car.  Once you hear it, however, the chorus tends to stick with you and pop up in all kinds of situations.

This week, I asked you to email answers to my question about Rock Solid Questioning after Wednesday’s late start.  As my inbox began to fill up with your responses, the chorus to Bentley’s song started running through my head.  By Friday afternoon, the dinging of the email alert started to match the rhythm of the ticking of the schoolhouse clock hanging in my office.

What were you thinking?

The emails you sent were fantastic.  Let me give you a short summary:

·         I received over 130 responses.  A few were a few sentences long, but most were several paragraphs in length, and many took up several pages.  (Turnabout is fair play!)

·         Many, many of you took a great deal of time to respond and were incredibly thoughtful and insightful.

·         You shared stories about experiences you had with a variety of questioning strategies.  You shared questioning simulations, entrance activities, exit activities, and group activities of all sorts that you use to engage students.

·         About one third of you reported that you experimented with new questioning strategies on Thursday and Friday of last week, and were overwhelmingly pleased with the results.  (A handful of you even changed things up on Wednesday for first hour!)

·         You asked questions of me and deepened my understanding of some of the questioning strategies.

What are we thinking?

I found it relatively easy to summarize common themes from your emails.  This is what you tend to believe about questioning, HSE:

·         Questioning strategies, when used well, improve both student learning and student engagement.  Your emails are crystal clear about this.

·         Many of you prepare ahead of time a list of key questions and try to find ways to make sure every student in the class thinks about and answers these questions.

·         One key to improved student learning is to have many different questioning strategies in your instructional toolbox.

·         Teaching is both an art and a science.  Part of the science of teaching is having many strategies at your disposal.  Part of the art of teaching is knowing your students well and knowing which strategies will be most effective.  It is knowing how to use the questioning strategy.

·         Building a safe, supportive, and nurturing classroom community will open opportunities to use a whole range of questioning activities.  (This may be my personal favorite.)

I may not rush to have you email me responses soon (at least not until my inbox gets back under control), but I did appreciate learning your thoughts about questioning and about your ongoing efforts to grow in this area.

I have no question that your hard work will make a difference in student learning.

Have a great week, Southeastern.

Phil

The Perfect Storm

The Perfect Storm

Last week I followed in fascination as Hurricane Sandy headed north along the east coast and then veered left onto the mainland.  I heard various weathermen use the “Perfect Storm” metaphor in reference to the combination of meteorological events that made Sandy so unusually powerful and destructive.  I was especially interested about its impact on Ocean Grove, New Jersey. 

Ocean Grove has a special place in my family’s history and heart.  My grandmother Lederach vacationed there as a child.  I grew up hearing stories of her family making the trip from her home near Philadelphia to the Jersey Shore (long before Snookie and the Situation made that term infamous) and we have pictures of her as a little girl on the dunes near the beach.  My father then visited Ocean Grove as a child, and in turn took my siblings and me to the same shore. 

Last week as Sandy churned up the coast, I went online and found several pictures of the fishing pier at Ocean Grove.  I have included these below.  The first is a picture of the pier as I remember it from my youth, and the second is right before the storm hit.  As you can see, the waves that are normally a few feet in height are close to topping the pier, which is usually a good 30 feet above sea level.

  

I feel for all the people impacted by Sandy and marvel at the help that is pouring into the hardest hit areas.  When faced with difficult times, as a country, we do seem to rise to the occasion and come together in support of each other. 

HSEHS

Since this weekly email is about our school, you might have guessed I was going to bring this storm home.  You weathered one perfect storm in the first month of this school year when events and circumstances combined to create perhaps the most stressful beginning to a school year that many of you can remember.  You needed to do all of the things you normally do to start the school year: prepare for the first days, learn to know your new students, plan daily lessons, grade papers and assignments, and pretend you had a life outside of school.  Then on top of the normally stressful start to school came the demands of Class SLOs and TEDS.  The Perfect Storm!

The good news is that the initial blast of Hurricane TEDS has moved on.  The bad news is that eventually, just like the Jersey Shore, we will get more stormy weather.  Believe it or not, I am telling you this not to discourage you, but to encourage you and to prepare you.  My experience has been that the stressors of a new evaluation system do tend to come in cycles, but the cycles actually get easier rather than worse.

You will not face another perfect storm again this year, but you are going to feel a bit of the stress of TEDS several more times:

·         In December as you finish up first semester and Class SLOs.

·         After Winter Break as you start up your new classes and work on your Targeted SLO.

·         At the end of the year as we move into testing season (a tsunami all its own), finish the evaluation process, and finish the semester.

Let me repeat: You have weathered the worst of this storm.  I think you will find these next cycles much, much less stressful, but it is better to be forewarned and forearmed.  Do a little planning ahead. Keep in mind that these are times when high winds may blow.

There will be no need to board up the windows and head to higher ground, but you might want to be ready to for the stress—and ask for help when you need it.  When faced with difficult times, as a school, we do seem to rise to the occasion and come together in support of each other.

Have a calm week, HSE.

Phil

A few words of wisdom to end:

“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what the storm’s all about.”  Haruki Maruakami

“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm” Willa Cather

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”  Vincent Van Gogh