Donate Rice...Rock The Vocabulary

Yesterday I came upon the blog Thriving in School and was really interested in many of their posts. Last night, I was intrigued by their post titled Do Good While Learning. In this post they referenced a website that presents vocabulary and donates rice for every word that is answered correctly. Below is how they described the site:

"FreeRice is a site that lets you do good while getting smarter! How cool is that? For every vocabulary word you get correct, it donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. Here's how it works:

FreeRice automatically adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. You then determine a more exact level for yourself as you play. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.

There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48.
In addition to boosting vocabulary skills in students with language delays, this site can be a nice break for some of our students with advanced verbal skills. Kids with aspergers and NLD need opportunities to build their strengths, something we forget to add to their day. This would be a great built in break for them!

The website cautions potential players - WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance..."

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Santa, I have been a bad blogger

Yes, it is true my last post was October 3rd. The good news is I am back and ready to resume blogging. Where did I go? Why did I not post? Goodness, I do not know nor does it really matter at this point. But, I do know that I trained and finished the Honolulu Marathon, I completed my second term as a graduate student, and I made progress on some of my fellowship projects. I am glad to be reunited with my much neglected blog.

A couple of days ago, my husband attended a retreat for technology resource teachers. During the retreat, they completed an activity that led to each person creating a list of their top five strengths. One of my husband's strengths was input. I too have this strength; I love to learn and collect new bits of information, but I am challenged when it comes to the output. This blog is to help me with this particular weakness. Ironically, part of my job this year is to help students self-assess, advocate, and find ways to accommodate both their strengths and weakness. So, output here I come; it is time that I address my own weakness.

For two months, I spent hours in and out of classrooms, observing teaching and learning. It was great to sit in a desk and watch the class unfold from a different perspective. This new perspective made me reflect on my own practice. What do I want my students to feel like in my class? What do I value the most about learning? What type of opportunities do I provide for my students to demonstrate their learning? Most of all, what type of learning environment do I create? I found this checklist referenced on my husband's blog in a post titled Checklist Stoke: Creating a Caring Classroom. I like this list, but I can't help but feel its generic quality. Meaning, all of these aspects of teaching and learning look great on paper, but from my experience they look even better when you observe them. I think all teachers can make a list like this, but I am more interested in seeing the list come to life. All in all, I hope that these items extend beyond paper, becoming a reality in practice.

* I provide opportunities for success to each child in the classroom, encouraging growth from wherever they start.
* I assess student ability and adjust instruction to maintain an appropriate level of challenge for each.
* I offer students a variety of ways to demonstrate their knowledge, intelligence, and mastery.
* I attempt to build interpersonal skills, positive social behaviors, character skills, and resistance to failure.
* I attempt to accommodate a variety of interests, motivators, modality strengths, and learning preferences in my directions, instructions, and assignments.
* I attempt to accommodate tactile, kinesthetic, visual, verbal, and auditory learners.
* I make sure kids have ample opportunities to move around and help them learn to maintain an appropriate level of alertness without disturbing others.
* I avoid using humiliation, sarcasm, ridicule, anger, impatience, or manifestations of disappointment in dealing with students.
* I honor students' needs for respect, dignity, purpose, success, acceptance, attention, and motivation.
* I model standards of behavior, language, and tone of voice that I expect from my students.
* I work to eliminate prejudice toward students based on racial or cultural background; physical appearance; sexual orientation; academic, artistic, or athletic competence.
* I strive to stay aware of put-downs or slurs expressed by students or staff, responding immediately.
* I sometimes allow and encourage students to make decisions about their learning (what, where, with whom, how, or how much).
* I sometimes allow students to create, design, or renegotiate assignments to make them personally meaningful.
* I motivate through access to positive outcomes, rather than avoidance or fear of negative outcomes. I emphasize the positive consequences of cooperation.
* I consciously anticipate what students, teachers, and parents will need in various situations in order to prevent problems from occurring.
* I follow through immediately, avoiding warnings and threats.
* I make students and their parents aware of changes in behavior or performance that could affect grades or promotion.
* I utilize parents, administration, and support staff for feedback and support (not for punishing students).
* I attempt to meet students' needs for attention in positive, constructive, and proactive ways.
* I reinforce positive behavior with positive outcomes.
* I communicate with parents, regularly and frequently, about what their children are doing well.
* I respect students' affective needs and am committed to listening and supporting their feelings and problem-solving skills in positive ways.
* I respect confidentiality to the degree that doing so will not put anyone in danger.
* I immediately respond to incidents involving any form of bullying, harassment, or threat to safety.

Instructional Strategy - Stations

Wow, my last post was September 18th. Time flies when your working on different projects simultaneously. Lately, my fellowship work has been focused on observing different classrooms, sneaking a peek at different instructional strategies. Yesterday I observed a geometry class. This was an interesting experience for me as I proved to be a very unsuccessful student in my own high school Geometry class. (See previous post - A New Perspective) Oh, Ms. G still haunts me, but her purpose in my life is starting to make sense now. When I observe a math class, I am probably at the same level of our struggling students. I think this is a good perspective as it helps me to better understand where our struggling mathematicians are coming from. After observing the Geometry class, my first thought was how to better structure the use of class time by incorporating stations catered to different learning styles. Stations are a great differentiated instructional strategy. Carol Ann Tomlinson, the author of differentiated instruction, provides a sample of how a math teacher, Ms, Minor, uses stations. The following is an abridged version of what is in the text (please come see me if you want the full explanation for each station):
Station 1 - The Teaching Station - Students have direct instruction with teacher. Students work at the board with the teacher and record their work by summarizing the kind of computation they worked one.
Station 2 - Proof Place - Students use manipulatives or drawn representations to work with number computations and to explain and defend their work.
Station 3 - Practice Plaza - Students practice with the computation on which they need additional experience.

Other stations ideas based on my own observations:
Million dollar questions - Students are challenged with questions that are brain twisters.
Homework Corner - Very applicable to BCP where homework time is given in class.

More suggestions for station ideas? Or, how stations might apply to other content areas? Please send any ideas my way.

One more thing, I found this site with fun Geom activites.

Understanding difficult text in a Web 2.0 way

Clay Burell's blog Beyond School is a great resource for ideas, insight, and web talk. While perusing his blog today, I came across his Legacy Project. I like this project because it takes students beyond the traditional English assignment of translating difficult text. It allows for team collaboration, online publishing, and sharing of material with others for future benefit. Below are the details.

In one of the great ironies of my life, I'm probably the only HS teacher at KIS not to have a 1:1 classroom, since I teach only AP Lit for seniors - the only grade level not required to buy MacBooks for school this year. But yesterday, I jumped in anyway with a project that incorporates the constructivist and 21st century literacy / web 2.0 ideas of having students create a "legacy product" for their assessment, instead of turning in stale homework to teacher.

Here's the scoop: We're reading Shakespeare's greatest and most difficult tragedy, King Lear. The syntax and diction of the play are over the students' heads, with a couple exceptions, but they have to become proficient at reading 16th century English for the AP Exam. So that's the learning objective: give them practice at accurate comprehension of 16th c. English.

So here's the "Constructivism 2.0" project to work toward that goal:

1. I created a wiki on Wikispaces (free for teachers), entitled "King Lear Street Talk." We'll use this wiki to create a student-written modernized prose translation of Shakespeare's play. (Setting up the wiki took only ten minutes, max. An eight-year-old can do it.)

2. In teams of two, students have to write a translation of one page of the play into today's English. Accuracy counts, and so does the quality of the script they're re-writing. If any team has a disagreement about how to translate any section of their page, they have to cover their butts by explaining, in the wiki page "Discussions" page, what they disagree about. Pedagogically, we all know that to translate archaic language into modern language, we have to comprehend that archaic language. So this is practice and close reading and comprehension on a line-by-line, focused level.

3. We'll keep translating the play until we have the full 5-act play translated. We'll publish that as a free e-Book using Lulu.com, which anybody can download to read.

4. We're also going to record "radio performances" of our modern translation of the play on GarageBand podcasts, and upload them to Librivox.org, a literature podcast site that is a library of readings of copyright-free, public domain world literature. Senior citizens, blind people, and people who just like audio-books use this site to listen to 1,000's of different titles. This can also be used by future classes as an intro to the tragedy - ESL students, younger students, and others can benefit by listening to these podcasts before reading the original version. So the students are becoming teachers of future students with this product.

So this will give students practice in all the AP Lit and Language Arts skills on our Standards and Benchmarks - reading, writing, speaking, listening, critical thinking (which comes when they debate opposing interpretations with their teammate, as well as when they decide how to act out different lines when they record their radio play podcast).

But instead of doing that in the old, stale way - handing in their translations to teacher, and performing a giggly mess in front of the class - they're making a real product that they can share with the world, and - for the excellent performers - mention on their college applications as an example of their best work as part of their "digital portfolio."

The Landmark School

Today, I came across The Landmark School. I find their mission extraordinary. They seem to epitomize what it means to be a school-centered school. How can we do what Landmark is able to do with an Academy enrollment of 1200. Watch the video and let me know what you think.

Factoid Friday

Happy Friday everyone. Here are my two interesting research articles:
Reading Process Is Surprisingly Different Than Previous Thought
Back To School: Cramming Doesn't Work In The Long Term

Move seats, bodies, and minds

Both my husband and I keep educational blogs. He takes "edublogging" more seriously. In fact, at our school he is known as the blog guru. Because of his blogging reputation, I do visit watsoncommon from time to time to revel in his postings. I was really intrigued by one of his more recent posts about classroom design. Before coming to Punahou, we both taught in a public middle school for four years, helping us to understand the implications of making small changes in the structure of a class. He speaks to these design and instructional changes in the following excerpt:

...what I learned as a first-year teacher is that students at this level (in my case, first semester freshman) need to transition often to remain engaged, even if it's just breaking the same activity into several parts). First, we continued a small group activity from the previous class, which involved creating an Inspiration web of direct quotes from the story "Powder" and the inferences, observations, assumptions, questions, and connections that accompany them. These were posted as forum topics on our class Ning. Next, the students transitioned to solo work. We don't have private offices so we simply turned the desks to face out (we normally sit in a circle of desks). I also allowed them to plug in headphones and listen to music. The assignment was to read each group web, and build on the ideas in the forum, including a new direct quote that relates. What I saw was: every single screen at once and total engagement. Lastly, we moved from the formal, directed, solo work to the floor space in the middle for a more casual slide show I had put together about a man I met in Costa Rica who showed me the power of story. End of class.
As a follow-up, I posted a forum question about how the students liked the arrangement and asking them what other ideas they have for classroom design.

For the past couple of days I have been observing different classes. From my observations two simple strategies seem to be extremely effective:
1. Break up the class into small, diverse activities that require the kids to demonstrate their learning.
2. MOVE the desks, MOVE the bodies, MOVE the brain. Kids need transitions, change, and movement.

Lunch Table Conversation

A couple of years ago, a friend told me never to go the lunch room, describing it as a place full of perpetual complainers. I guess I am just too social to not visit the Hala Tree Cafe once a day. My time in the lunch room has made me realize that the majority of people are not complaining, rather they are looking to have conversations about the nuances of teaching, learning, and life. Please understand that I am not naive to the fact that there are a minority of people who do not fit into the previous statement. But, instead of creating two groups of people, I assume that ALL teachers want to have a conversation about helping students and the lunch room may be the perfect venue for that conversation.
Over the past couple of days, I have had some really insightful conversations over the lunch table. The other day, a colleague of mine talked about helping a student who really struggles academically. She talked about how, in a small group setting, this student showed extreme interest and excitement for the material. The conversation then moved to talking about having a particular class for struggling English students. I questioned how can we replicate this positive experience for more than just one student in one particular class? How we can manipulate our instruction to help meet the needs of all students in all classes? I believe we can learn from the success of each other, replicating solid instructional strategies for all students.
Yesterday the lunch room conversation centered around our own experiences as a student. I shared a story about making my Chemistry teacher, Sister Justine, cry (not one of my prouder moments). I also shared a story about a Geometry teacher who told my mother there was something wrong with me because I could not learn the material. This last story really has impacted my desire to work with struggling students. I believe that students do hold a certain degree of ownership in their own learning, but teachers should provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning in a safe, comfortable way. Mrs. G, my Geometry teacher, assumed I was dumb because I didn't get the material. I know I have been frustrated with students because they just didn't get something. I think the key question to address is did I provide my students with an opportunity to demonstrate their learning at their level, not mine?
I really do love lunch, and I love that my colleagues challenge, question, and share pieces of themselves in a constructive and sometimes humorous manner. Don't get me wrong, our conversations are not all "teacher talk." Just sit down with our funky French teacher and you will go places you have never been before. I love professional lunch development.

Factoid Friday...Interesting Research

Every Friday, I will post interesting research and/or articles I find pertinent to my current fellowship work. Here is a list of my factoid Friday articles:
Impact of non-medicinal invention on ADHD
Techniques for better learning
What is over learned is often forgotten

A New Perspective

For the past ten weeks, I have been busy completing my first quarter as a graduate student. These past weeks have provided me an opportunity to see teaching and learning from a student's perspective. What have I learned from my new role as a student?

1.) Constant and consistent feedback is crucial.
2.) Developing critical thinking skills are extremely valuable.
3.) Clear expectations about course objectives and necessary skills are imperative.
4.) Teach the material, not the book.
5.) Love what you preach and teach.
6.) Frequent assessment of knowledge helps students retain material.


Along with reading The Differentiated Classroom and researching Communities of Practice, I started perusing through Classroom Instruction that Works by Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock. The focus of their book is to provide research-based strategies for increasing student achievement. The first chapter covers the instructional strategy of identifying similarities and differences. This past quarter, one of my professors constantly told us to focus on beginning points, commonalities, and simplicity. Every week, he would have us write short essays on certain topics. First, we would have identify how these two subjects are alike and then explore their differences. I like his commonality approach, as I realized that too often we just focus on how things are different. Nonetheless, drawing comparisons through identifying similarities and differences has been found to be basic to human thought. Making these connections are considered to be the "core of all learning." The following are four generalizations Marzano and his colleagues were able to conclude from their research on the impact of identifying similarities and differences, as an instructional strategy, on student achievement:
1.) Presenting students with explicit guidance in identifying similarities and differences enhances students' understanding of and ability to use knowledge.
2.) Asking students to independently identify similarities and differences enhances students' understanding of and ability to use knowledge.
3.) Representing similarities and differences in a graphic or symbolic form enhances students' understanding of and ability to use knowledge.
4.) Identification of similarities and differences can be accomplished in a variety of ways: Comparing, Classifying, Creating metaphors, Creating analogies.

For examples of specific ideas applicable to your class, templates, and /or samples for identifying similarities and differences please come by my office or email me and I can come to you. From my own perspective as a student, this strategy works and fosters a level of thinking that promotes linking ideas and retaining information.

Communities of Practice

This week I have been reading information about differentiating classroom instruction and creating communities of practice. The latter is what I would like to focus on the most during first semester. Through communities of practice, enriching instructional strategies will emerge. Today I read Transforming Education Through Communities of Practice by Tony Wagner. This article made some really valid and well supported statements about the need for communities of practice.
Wagner first points out that good coaches for teaching and leadership are virtually nonexistent, and our performance is rarely critiqued by others. In my personal experience, my first four years of teaching were never truly evaluated. I remember having an administrator come into my classroom once a semester to do a 1/2 hour evaluation. After the evaluation, we had a post evaluation meeting where we discussed performance, not instruction. Currently, my students are responsible for my evaluation. I also complete an annual report at the end of each year that I discuss with one faculty member. While I think evaluation of practice is important, I don't think that my true performance as a teacher has ever really been discussed with others in a collaborative, supportive environment. With that being said, how can we improve or learn our practice if we rely only on ourselves or the limited feedback of others. How does a skilled musician, doctor, athlete learn? They do so through the coaching, collaboration, and critiquing of others. So, why do we not do this as teachers? Really, that question does not matter. What does matter is that we need to start collaborative communities not only to help our own practice, but to benefit others and our students. In his article Wagner states that "nearly every profession has reinvented itself to create forms of collaborative problem-solving except education." He also makes the point that people work in teams at all levels of organizations, helping to embrace challenges and find solutions more effectively. We want our students to interact, collaborate, problem solve, question, and we don't expect them to do that alone. So, why should we?

Where to start...First steps

In my previous post, I identified one of my underlying assumptions. Our challenge as teachers is to provide students with opportunities to discover their learning preferences and create activities that help nurture and develop those preferences. I believe all students are capable and willing to learn. Therefore, our task is to create a student-centered environment that allows for exploration and growth.

So, where do we begin? Currently, I am reading The Differentiated Classroom by Carol Ann Tomlinson, focusing on meeting the needs of all learners. In chapter two, Tomlinson explores the dynamics of a differentiated classroom.
The first step in creating differentiated instruction is to identify the "essentials." What are the major concepts, principals, and skills that we want our students to leave our class with? The next step is to address the learning preferences or needs of our students. This can be done through learning style test, inventories, surveys, etc. After processing the essentials and preferences, we can begin to differentiate our content-what we want our students to learn, process-how we want our students to learn, and product-how we want our students to demonstrate their learning. Naturally the next question is what strategies are used in differentiated instruction? Tomlinson lists just a few that I would like to explore in more detail throughout the semester. They include: jigsaw, taped material, anchor activities, varying organizers, varied texts, literature circles, tiered lessons and products, learning contracts, small and large group investigation, orbitals, independent study, varied questioning strategies, interest centers and groups, varied homework.

Getting to know learning styles

Instead of focusing on differences, I think it is important to see our classroom as being filled with an eclectic mix of learning preferences. Just like when we go to a restaurant, we are all hungry but some of us prefer fish over steak. So, I think it is important to figure out early on what type of instruction our students prefer. I found this fun, interactive Multiple Intelligence Snowflake. Try it and tell me what you think. Is this something you could use in your class to understand the learning preferences of your students?

What am I doing and where am I going?

This year I have been asked to work on an Academic Support Fellowship. When I first tell people this they give me a puzzled look. So to clarify for myself and others here is a summary of what my work will focus on first semester.
The two main goals of the fellowship are:
1.) To serve students who may or may not have been diagnosed with a learning difficulty.
2.) To support teachers in creating environments that foster differentiated instruction, helping to meet the need of ALL students.
Now, how am I going to meet these goals? Well, I am not quite sure but one of my ideas is to create this online repository, hoping to share and gain insight from anyone who wants to add to this conversation. Hopefully, this could be a place where people can catch a glimpse into my mind as an educator, see the wonderful work that others are doing, share insight on research, give ideas about best practices or strategies, or just "talk story"about teaching. I am excited to see where this year takes me.