Chapter 2
Do we know where we are going when we start a school year? Do we know where our students are? I like the Cat in the hat scenario that introduces this chapter.
We are all schooled in objectives for our class but the challenge of creating these objectives to see if our students have achieved them is huge. The Principle about driving from NY to California is good. It requires planning just as our classrooms do. Planning is the key in our personal lives as well as our professional. Is this what makes the great ones great?
Unpacking our standards to detremine if they are content goals or procedural is helpful for the students. There is much cause for confusion here because of the overlap.Try This-page 61-Interesting in looking for the verbsused
Concrete learning goals are determined by how we measure it. How do students master it? Good point on page 63 about how we set learning targets. Maximum instaed of minimum. The scenario of jumping over a string two feet high for students is great because can easily master while others never will.
Yes, but.... PAGE 66- teaching to the final test- Is this where we are today?
Yes, but..... PAGE 67- Asessments are so important
Yes, but......PAGE 70- Matching activities to goals
Try This-page 73- I think all of this is relevant to great teaching
Finally, how well do we communicate learning goals to all involved, our students and our parents?
I think that because I am one of the "older" teachers, I have a bad habit of teaching what I know the students are supposed to learn (having taught the subject matter for some years). In the past couple of years I have had to really remind myself to look at the standards, the "tests", etc. So rather than just "jumping in the car and heading to California with the kids", I need to spend a little more time in the planning stages. I'm very organized in my own mind about what I'm doing....I just need to be more organized about mapping it out following the guidlines. Assessment has always been important. What I have not utilized in the past are pre-tests. I give them, but usually just look at the overall picture; see who scores really high and who scores really low. I will look more closely at these pre-tests to see what I can skip and what I need to spend more time on (p. 67). I like what it says on p. 73 about stopping and asking the students to explain how they will use an objective. I am going to do more with communicating this objective to the students as well as parents
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm still being very "blonde" about this...I just posted some comments and it came up that Ben posted them....it was me!
ReplyDeleteKim Lovelace! I have no idea where Ben came from!!!!
I am identifying with The Stockdale Paradox, as summed up on p. 90: unwavering faith that we will prevail with our students (values) while staring the difficult truth in the eye, and having the discipline to confront the reality of the students in front of us (beliefs)is very essential in succeeding with our students.
ReplyDeleteI am prioritizing what is most important, while facing the brutal facts of myself, and
soon...my students.
IN reading into chapter 4, I really like the proactive approach of intervention...not waiting to see who or what problems occur, but anticipating them and being ready early with intervention.
On p. 109 in the gray box, the expression, "word splash" is used. Does anyone know what this is? I'm not familiar with this term.
Currently typing out lesson plans...using the "Try This" on p. 110 as I try to be proactive in intervention.
Finding it helpful.
Hope everyone is enjoying the last of summer vacation...it sure is nice!
Christie
I really found the string analogy to be very useful. So often, I catch myself leaving that string at the same height. It is important to remember that not all students can "jump" as high as others. When we as teachers forget to adjust that string, we are leaving many students out. Then there are also the ones that find jumping over the string a piece of cake, and they soon become bored. In doing so, we only reach maybe 1/3 of our students. I am going to make it my goal this year to move that string, so that it is an appropriate challenge for each student.
ReplyDeleteAlso, like Kim (or Ben haha!) I want to better at communicating the objectives to the students. When I simply display the objectives on the board, my students don't give them a second look. I want my students this year to UNDERSTAND what we are learning and why it is relevant to their education.
Hope you all are having a great summer! Only a few short days left!!
Well, this will be a repeated attempt for me to post regarding this chapter. This chapter was quite relevant given the fact I spent 2 days knee deep in the new standards. I think given the new standards, it is a great time to implement some of the principles in this chapter. I continually thought of the new math standards when I was reading the "try this" section on page 62. I think it will be especially important to break down the math objectives into discrete steps given the many gaps that will occur.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chelsea that we do a great job of posting objectives, but do the students even know they are there? I also want to do better with my expectations for my students. I am getting a little ahead of myself. That is chapter 3.
I did like the idea of a learning contract as mentioned on page 65.
Time is fleeting. Will try to post some more while I am at the beach in South Carolina!!!
Micah
I think Christie and I are thinking a lot alike! The Stockdale Paradox really hit me like a ton of bricks. I am taking a hard look at those brutal facts about myself and my teaching, and yet I WILL keep the faith that my students and I will prevail in the end!
ReplyDeleteIntervention before problems occur is very powerful. While I have used pretests, spot checking for understanding, etc. I recognize that I need to do more with that information. I plan to have an organized plan of action for providing intervention for my students.
I thought this was a great thought provoking chapter. Unpacking the standards made great sense as a starting point. Then determining objectives appropriately as well as making sure they are worded so that students understand them seemed a natural progression, as well as making sure assessments are designed to verify if students have reached those objectives. Try this on pg 73 caught my attention for a few minutes. I agree with Micah that this is a great time to implement some of the principles from this chapter. Hope all enjoy these last few days.
ReplyDeleteSorry, not sure why it didn't list me as Penny instead of cafezinho54. I guess Kim and I are "twins".
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I tagged from chapter 2 was the quote from Alice in Wonderland:
ReplyDelete"Would you tell me please which way I should go from here?"
"That depends a great deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where-" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the cat.
This excerpt really hit home with me. Not only do I have to have the end goal in mind during every aspect of my lessons, my students need to have an end goal in mind, as well. Students and their parents should be informed of learning goals and how we are going to reach those goals so that they can take a deeper ownership of their own learning and the education of their child.
I also like the idea of a learning contract found on page 65.
Enjoy the last few days of summer!
Laura
Unpacking the standards is great advice. You can't afford to lose teaching time on things that will not be tested. You must know your standars and how they will be tested. Our state dept. could really help us out by releasing the test, like many other states do! Communicating learning goals with students and parents is something that we should all be using our websites to do. It is the easiest and fastest way to reach the majority of our school community.
ReplyDeleteUnpacking the standards....Whew....haven't we been doing that since last Spring?!!! I'm ready to see if we are getting 24 touches this year... Yes, I think we all have been up to our chinny chin chins to deciphering the new language in these standards. Kudos to everyone--I know we all have been working hard on this trying to get ready for the new year!
ReplyDeleteHowever, I will admit I have it all in my head what standards I want the students to accomplish and yet I write them on the board along with the TLW list. But am I really communicating with them what I want for us to be able to accomplish during that 50 minutes? I will be working more on this this year.
Teaching to the test...lots of thoughts on this one---will come back to it later.
Communicating goals effectivly - had thought about making a list of the checks for understanding and making a link to the document on my website. That way it is there for the students to print their own copy for them to mark off and date when the material was covered. Maybe a little overboard...but we'll see.
Also like that the students were calling the teacher out when the activity was not in line with the objective being taught. Man, those kiddos knew their stuff and had ownership over their learning. Two sides to this for me - 1. I hate being called wrong especially by a student 2. Would love to see it happen in my room!!!!! That way I know the students are engaged and taking ownership of what they are learning!!!
I too enjoyed the string analogy. I will incorporate this idea with the use of my white boards. Letting students choose from easy, medium, or difficult problems and correctly answering one of the problems will allow those students who need to be challenged an opportunity to try the difficult problems.
ReplyDeleteI have some questions on telling the students that they will earn a C if they do this work that is assigned, but their grade will improve if they do the extra assignments. Any thoughts on this idea?
As I read over the "Getting Started" on page 76, I realized, once again, we really are teaching to the test. I guess that's where we are people!
ReplyDeleteThe standards, and therefore standardized tests, really dictate what we teach. I guess this can be good, if we embrace the idea. The positives are: we are given specifics to teach, we know exactly what we are expected to teach, we are good if we stay the course, and we need not deviate from the mastering of goals. I suppose all this does take the guess work out. That is good... isn't it?
Maybe it does narrow our point of requirements and
it does allow for time to focus our teaching into smaller segments. This can be good for students who are able to compartmentalize learning.
I do like the idea of analyzing how to determine whether our students have mastered a goal.
I agree with Heath. It would be great if Tn would allow us to see the tests, or better yet, support the teachers more with a "practice test" system which could be utilized throughout the year. Anything that would truly give specific examples and practice runs would be great. This, in turn, would help us to better "unpack" the given standards.
I really liked the story about the three teachers putting together a lesson unit on page 69. I could relate to these teachers. Sometimes I can become so consumed with how much fun an activity will be or how creative an activity is and don't consider how it actually relates to my objectives. While I do think time should be taken for fun, we don't need to waste time with things that don't correlate with our standards (we don't have enough time to get it all in anyway).
ReplyDeleteI also love the jumping over the string analogy. It is a great way of thinking about differentiating our instruction.
I agree with Heath about TN releasing test items like other states. The wording of the standards, especially the new ones, is very unclear and broad. It would be nice to know what they meant in several cases. I don't think most teachers would begin only teaching to these questions; they would just have a direction.
In reading into Chapter 5, Using Effective Feedback, I remember what they taught us at UU over 2 decades ago! Use automatic feedback with students for greater success. This is true. I often use a highlighter system in class to allow students to immediately see how they succeeded on mastering the skills of the hour. Then, I pull those that struggled (red flagged students) and strike while the iron is hot! I go over with them their mistakes, and we complete more examples together in small groups setting. What are the others doing? Pre planned enrichment activities.
ReplyDeleteThis really benefits the students at the almost or non-mastery level.
I like the grading ideas of A,B, and not yet reported by Saphier and Gower 1997. THe explanantion of grades to our students at the bottom of page 137 is needed, but also needed clarification to our parents. I agree the focus should be on mastery of skills, not letter grades. However, I'm not opposed to letter grades, we need guidelines to tell us if we are succeeding or not. Years ago, when I taught music, a first grade student was crying in class. She finally admitted to me that she was afraid her parents would be mad because she didn't have all A's on her report card. She had made one B! This is true of alot of parents' understanding. I will strive to educate and persuade my parents this year to view grading differently.
The difference in coaching feedback is vitally important. I really want to use this method more in my feedback to students this year. I think we focus too much on Evaluative feedback and forget how necessary is the coaching feedback. Also, I feel pushed that there isn't time to meet individually and go over every needed response. I've developed a time each day to go over as whole group what the majority might not have mastered, and then pull into small groups based on the part of the skill not mastered by the other students. This has helped with the time factor. I still find that there aren't enough hours in the day! Perhaps using a color coded grading system with the rubric, as stated on page 142 would help. I'm thinking of trying it in Writing this year.
Hope you're enjoying the last day or two. Anyone like bannana muffins? I'll put them in the office for the morning of the 11th to give us a jump to the day. See you then.
Christie
Rebecca, I really like the idea of posting "checks for understanding" for students to use as benchmarks for their learning. One of the "try this" suggestions on page 73 mention giving students a graph to chart their progress. I think that students are more engaged learners if they know the end goal and can clearly see that they are mastering the smaller goals that will get them there.
ReplyDeleteChristie, thanks for the muffins. I'll try one in the morning. Yum!
Well, there are lots of mentions of standards...and I will say that I feel that it is my responsibility to make sure my students know those standards and know them well and nothing else. We may be teaching to the test, but the test is straight from the standards...so we are really just teaching the standards the state tells us too. I think the main thing is they we make sure they understand before moving on and not getting in a rush. I too like Rebecca's idea...a way of not making sure that we covered the standard as 24 touches does, but a way of making sure they understand each part of the standard individually.
ReplyDeleteJust testing.
ReplyDelete