As has been noted on this blog, the Midland Park School District has contracted this year with IDE to provide our teachers with ongoing professional development on the creation of problem based learning units (PBLs).  As such, all teachers at the elementary, middle, and high school have spent this year in collaborative efforts to produce PBLs that would fully engage our students in academically rigorous inquiry.  In this, they have greatly succeeded.  On the elementary level, one of many wonderful examples of PBLs created involved the study of bears that presented students with lessons on persuasive writing, researching, use of graphic organizers, and the use of technology when creating student podcasts. In middle school, health and physical education teachers collaborated not only with each other but with the world language department in presenting units on healthy food choices and ways through which to reduce the prevalence of obesity.  Individualized exercise programs were also developed in this PBL.  Other middle school PBLs involved the study of viruses and bacterial infections by not only reading scientific journals but also through the interpretation of mathematical graphs showing the rates of infection after the introduction of particular vaccines and/or sanitizers.  On the high school level, teachers, for example, worked together in looking at working conditions and analyzing period propaganda during the Industrial age in both our U.S. and World history classes. General education, special education, and hearing impaired staff also worked collaboratively in designing PBLs that were differentiated and met the needs of all learners.  These are but a few of the amazing examples of PBLs produced this year.  I look forward to seeing how our teachers expand on these ideas next year and observing how our students continue their explorations of these varied topics.   Thank you to all of our teachers in producing such great efforts. 

Midland Park teachers are working hard at ensuring that our instruction is engaging and that students are active participants in their learning. Indeed, teachers have developed some amazing problem based learning activities for our students.  At the same time, however, there are times when a brief mini-lecture is a necessary evil when introducing new material to students. How then can we still ensure that our students are actively participating during lectures?  http://www.thiagi.com/interactive-lectures.html offers some interesting formats to ensure this very thing. However, for those looking for simple strategies that they can implement now, consider the following basic, intermediate, and advanced techniques:

 

 

1) Think-pair-share - students first consider a question posed alone, then work with a partner to discuss their thoughts. After this, pairs present their thoughts to the whole group.

 

2) One-Minute Write - students stop what they are doing to complete an independent one minute write up reflecting on a question or thought presented.  Such a strategy can promote higher order thinking and serve as a formative assessment tool for the teacher.

 

3) Question of the Day - This is the same thing as the traditional do now that students can answer as they enter the class.

 

 

4) Demonstrations - Demonstrate a concept just taught.  Ask students to predict outcomes and reflect by comparing the prediction and actual outcomes.

 

5) Concept Test - Use multiple choice questions to assess student learning during a lecture.  Utilize clickers, red/green cards, thumbs up/thumbs down to gain a quick read on class understanding.

 

6) Role Playing - Place students in the role of decision maker making them apply content when solving a problem.  When done in pairs and small groups, students not only exhibit higher order thinking skills but negotation skills as well.

 

7) Skeleton Notes - Have students complete partially filled out notes during a lecture to ensure intellectual engagement. Save note templates for future classes. This is a good strategy for those students requiring more guidance.

 

 

8) Simulations - Extended demonstrations that offer a broad range of responses.

 

9) Experiments - Active learning that does take time to prepare but which allows students to grapple with complex real world situations.

 

From: http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/typesoftechniqu.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Farhi has written an interesting article in the April/May 2012 issue of The American Journalism Review (AJR).  Farhi argues that, despite all of the talk of failing schools, American schools are actually doing rather well in preparing students for colleges and careers.  Granted, while there is still much to do to ensure that all students in the United States receive an equal high quality education, it is still nice to see positive press on the state of American education.  If interested, this American Journalism Review article can be found at http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=5280

 

 

On March 12th, MPS teachers continued developing their in-class and cross-class PBL (problem based learning and/or project based learning) units during their half day professional development time.  As you may know, this year, MPS has partnered with Ramsey, NJ based IDE Corp (Innovative Designs in Education) in an effort to provide resources in this regard - http://idecorp.com/.   The Buck Institute for Education, based in Novato, CA, also has posted many good resources on PBL - www.bie.org. We in MPS are committed to using PBL as a means through which we can continue to provide instruction to our students that is engaging, rigorous, and differentiated (meeting the needs of the individual learner). 

 

There are several aspects involved in creating an effective PBL that involves meaningful inquiry and engages students' minds:

 

1) A Need to Know - engage students through project based learning by leading with an "entry event" that engages interest and initiates questioning.  Indeed, a 2) good driving question can capture the heart of the PBL project in clear, compelling language.  Students should also be allowed to have 3) choice in developing a culminating activity/project that demonstrates proficiency within the learning objective.  4) Through the inquiry and innovation process,  students should use research that they have gathered to raise new questions and project extensions related to those questions.  It is through this process of students actively collaborating, communicating, and 5) reflecting/revising with one another that we can begin to assist students in developing the necessary 6) 21st Century Skills that they will need to have productive, analytical, and discerning lives.  Lastly, students should be allowed to 7) present their resulting product publicly to other students, parents, peers, and representatives of community organizations.  For additional information, readers should review "7 Essentials for Project-Based Learning" by Larmer/Mergendoller (of the Buck Institute) in Educational Leadership, Volume 68, Number 1, September 2010. 

 

So, how can we then provide choice and/or differentiate the learning to meet the needs (level of difficulty and/or learning style) of all of our students within a PBL?  In working with IDE, our teachers are learning to develop PBL units that include: 1) Written How-To sheets that provide direct instruction for visual learners and/or those learners who want concrete direction and/or How-To Videos/Podcasts that might be used to augment video and/or audio skill lessons; 2) Learning Centers that guide students through self-directed activity; 3)Interactive Web Sites that promote interactive practice and deeper exploration of concepts/themes while also empowering student independence through use of technology; 4) opportunities for Peer Tutoring; 5) Individual and Group Learning; 6) Small-Group Mini-Lessons that allow the teacher to either reteach or extend concepts/skills; 7) Benchmark Lessons which are brief whole-class lessons used to introduce concepts;  and 8) practice through Meaningful and Purposeful Homework.

 

For additional resources and information, teachers should feel free to visit the Curriculum Office.

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Our students have grown up being saturated with media images, and, as such, many young people today might find it easier to analyze film than written text.  While we must continue to have our students writing and reading across the curriculum, the purposeful use of film within the classroom can greatly assist the student when learning new concepts and/or when interpreting themes and ideas.

 

Yet, what can we do as educators that students can't already do on their own by downloading movies at home?  If we are going to take valuable instructional time to present a film then this time must be used in a way where the teacher not only links the film to the curriculum but can develop related learning/viewing outcome goals and measurement  tools/assessments (related activity, assignment, and/or discussion).  As such, here are a few considerations that teachers may want to keep in mind when selecting films for the classroom:

 

1) Before showing the film, consider why you are showing students this film.  What is the purpose?  What learning outcomes can be associated with showing the film?  How will you measure student progress by students watching this film - i.e. what activities are you linking to film use? One idea may be to consider pre-creating a matrix on the above for a select list of films which you may want to eventually use in any given course.  Productive use of film takes time to plan.

 

2) Consider whether or not you will show Hollywood fiction or "true story" or if you will show a documentary.  Hollywood movies may be easier to find but often blur the lines of truth for the sake of dramatic effect. This may confuse students more than it helps them.  Documentaries might be closer to the truth but harder to find.  All films can have bias. How will you, as teacher, work with students to understand this as they watch this film?

 

3) Instead of showing an entire film, in most cases, a specific clip - used as a mini-lesson - can better target a learning point more directly - i.e. characterization, concept/theme, etc.  As instructional time is precious, teachers should aim for brevity when showing film.

 

4) Movie viewing can be aligned to academic rigor if teachers ensure that students are actively learning rather than passively watching film.  As such, the teacher should consider ways to stretch student thinking when watching film by having them think critically about themes, comparing/contrasting film to literary and/or non-fiction text, and/or integrating writing, speaking and other 21st Century Skills in any unit involving film.  Consider using a film as a first step in having students demonstrate creativity when envisioning their own film/story versions.  Another idea may be to show a companion film rather than perhaps a film version of a text being used in class.  For instance, if students are reading a text about a young girl, have students watch a film about a young boy.  This will provide varied avenues by which to stretch students through the analysis of multiple resources both print and media.

 

5) Consider showing film before reading text on same to allow readers a possible expectation of what they may discover when reading.  This may help students who require more guidance when reading.  Students can also "predict" how the book may or may not be different from the film version.

 

6) Teachers can choose clips from many sources - TeacherTube, PBS, YouTube, etc.  If teachers are interested in using a YouTube clip, please see Carole Treta 24 to 48 hours before intended use.  She may be able to capture this video for your use.

 

On Monday, February 5th, I had the opportunity to attend a DOE sponsored workshop on using data to help students progress academically.  The workshop, held at Montclair State University, was led by Monroe Township as representatives from that district shared ways in which they use data to move students upwards.  This workshop has prompted me to discuss ways in which we in MPS may also extend our data collection and usage - particularly, when it comes to checking for understanding and obtaining formative assessment data.

 

Far too often in past education, assessment only came at the end of a class or year.  The problem with this, of course, is that this method provides little opportunity for teachers to address the weak skillsets of their students.  In contrast, MPS now has benchmark testing several times a year, through Performance Series testing as well as the ASK/HSPA, and has also been developing formative testing procedures.  Through the ongoing and repeated formative testing of skills, as students are concurrently developing skills, teachers can automatically reteach - in differentiated ways - any unmastered skills and/or concepts.  One way through which we are encouraging simple and ongoing formative assessment is through teacher developed checking for understanding activities.

 

These activities need not be difficult to do.  Rather than teachers asking the generic question - "does everyone understand this?" or being sidelined by verbally dominant students, teachers can randomly check for understanding and hence get a truer sense of who actually does understand content and who needs further assistance.  By using thumbs up/thumbs down, red/green cards, individual white boards for students, and exit ticket strategies that promote writing, teachers can actually develop ways in which to both record this formative data and know when to reteach on the spot (other students can be given independent work while the teacher takes those students still not understanding to a back table for an additional min-lesson).  To record this data, teachers can use tally sheets, excel charts for exit ticket strategies, etc.  The curriculum office invites teachers to visit to discuss the additional uses of checking for understanding activities.

The most recent issue of Educational Leadership (February 2012) focuses on personalized learning for and by all students.  This has prompted me to discuss some of the instructional actions that we are taking in Midland Park in this regard.  Foremost, our teachers are including academically rigorous classroom activities that assist students to think strategically about the academic choices they make when proving content mastery.  In other words, we are helping our students think about their thinking in an effort to prepare our students to learn without us.  One tool of particular help to teachers has been the utilization of a student learning task matrix that combines both Bloom's Hierachy of Academic Learning and Webb's Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Analysis.  By using this tool, teachers are better able to plan activities that promote student creativity and evaluation that also assist students to think strategically when assessing their own level of learning in a given task.  Also, by posting and referencing classroom objectives in every class/subject, teachers have also been able to reflect upon the current level of rigor that they have embedded in their lesson plans and to determine ways in which they can further extend learning opportunities in every task.  This learning tool will be posted to this blog posting shortly.

 

We are also extending opportunities for students to write across the curriculum in an effort to further help students to reflect and consider their level of academic understanding and meet/exceed the literacy requirements set forth in the new Common Core Standards.  As such, teachers may wish to further consider Robert Marzano's thought piece - Writing to Learn (also in Educational Leadership, February 2012) and/or his larger work - The Art and Science of Teaching.   In both of these works, Marzano divides writing into five distinct phases.  In Phase 1 - Record, students record their understanding and summarization of content such as in notebooks, electronic devices, etc.  The recording phase can be enhanced through the use of graphic organizers/representations of material.  Phase 2 - Compare allows opportunities for students to share with other students what they have learned while the teacher serves as a "guide on the side" walking around to assist with understanding.  In Phase 3 - Revision, students revise and polish their first writing draft and incorporate new understandings from Phase 2.  In Phase 4 - Combine, students colate the products of earlier cycles and defend any generalizations made.  Lastly, in Phase 5 - Review, students individually or in groups review generalizations made in the combine phase and summaries written in earlier phases.  By following this five part process, teachers should find that students have encoded, revised, aggregated and reviewed important information that has been the focus of instruction.

 

 

In a study of educational practices in 50 countries, almost 70 percent of U.S. teachers said that they used homework assignments to calculate grades compared to only 20 percent of teachers in Canada, 14 percent in Japan, and 9 percent in Singapore.  Some of these countries score better in academic progress than the United States.  This same study also found a negative correlation between grading homework and increased achievement (Baker and LeTendre, 2005) as low grades may prompt students to actually withdraw from learning (Guskey, 2011).  So, how then should we use homework?  Cathy Vattermot, Associate Professor of Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has some suggestions:

 

1) While every homework assignment need not be graded, it should still be marked for correctness and students should receive feedback on how they are progressing in meeting the learning objective at hand.  As such, if graded homework remains necessary, schools would do well to separate homework into formative and summative assessment.  Formative assessments, such as vocabulary and/or math problem practice, should not be factored into the grade.  Rather, summative assessments, such as research papers and portfolios, could be factored into the final grade.  Therefore, evaluate each assignment to determine whether to grade it.

 

 

 

From Educational Leadership, January 2012:

 

The International Children's Digital Library has hundreds of digital books which can be accessed by teachers - http://en.childrenslibrary.org

 

Teaching Channel has pedagogy videos organized by age level, subject area, and topic - www.teachingchannel.org

 

The Read Write Think Website contains lesson plans and interactive tools in any content area involving writing - www.readwritethink.org

 

Edmodo is a web based social networking tool - www.edmodo.com

 

Blogs - Education Week's Curriculum Matters - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum

 

You can keep current on blog posts by subscribing through Google Reader - www.google.com/reader

 

Blogs - Turn on Your Brain - http://turnonyourbrain.wordpress.com

 

The Doing What Works Website outlines effective teaching practices - http://dww.ed.gov

 

Social Media Classroom and Collaboratory - http://socialmediaclassroom.com

 

Starfall Education phonics based language arts curriculum - http://starfall.com

 

Quizlet allows teachers to develop flash cards with pictures/text - http://quizlet.com

 

Eduteacher - www.eduteacher.net

 

Free Technology for Teachers - www.freetech4teachers.com

 

 

 

 

From Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman, "Subjects Matter: Every Teacher's Guide to Content-Area Reading", Heineman, 2004 (In Curriculum Office):

 

Some of these multicultural F/NF titles may appeal to one gender over another and may encourage reluctant and/or less fluent students to develop a passion for reading. I also particular like the many literary connections made to the fields of math and science. The curriculum office has additional recommended reading lists inclusive of book descriptions.

 

Multi-discipline Titles:

 

Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (DeGraaf, Wann, Naylor) -Moderate

The Beauty Myth (Wolfe) - Moderate)

The Bully (Langan) - Easier

Confederates in the Attic (Horwitz) - Moderate

The Cuckoo's Egg: tracking a Spy through the Maze of Computer Espionage (Stoll) - Moderate

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things (Glassner) - Moderate

Echo of the Big Bang (Lemonick) - Challenging

E=MC2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation (Bodanis) - Moderate

Family (Cooper) - Easier

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Schlosser) - Moderate

Fasting Girls: A History of Anorexia Nervosa (Brumberg) - Challenging)

Feed (Anderson) - Easier

Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America's Obesity Crisis, and What we Can Do About It (Brownell) - Easier

Food Revolution (Robbins) - Moderate

The Future of Life (Wilson) - Moderate

Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho (Katz) - Easier

Genome: Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters (Ridley) - Moderate

Girls: A History of Growing Up Female in America (Colman) - Easier

Half and Half: Writers on Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural (O'Hearn) - Moderate

The Hot Zone (Preston) - Easier

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Quinn) - Moderate

Left for Dead: A Young Man's Search for Justice for the U.S.S. Indianapolis (Nelson) - Easier

Life and Def (Simmons) - Easier

Material World (Menzel) - Easier

A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (Paulos) - Challenging

Maus: A Survivor's Tale (Siegelman) - Easier

Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives (Gitlin) - Moderate

The Mismeasure of Man (Gould) - Challenging

Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America (Ehrenreich) - Easier

One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism (Greider) - Moderate

Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago (Jones and Newman) - Easier

A Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida (Martinez) - Easier

Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America (Huffington) - Moderate

Postville: Culture Clash in the Heartland (Bloom) - Easier

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (Bigelow) - Moderate

Savages (Kane) - Easier

The Things They Carried (O'Brien) - Moderate

War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Hedges) - Moderate

Zero: Biography of a Dangerous Idea (Seife)

 

Additional Novels:

 

Bodega Dreams (Quinonez) - Moderate

Crispin: The Cross of Lead (Avi) - Easier

Esperanza Rising (Ryan) - Easier

The Eye of the Needle (Follett) - Easier

Fail Safe (Wheeler) - Easier

Fever 1793 (Anderson) - Easier

Foster's War (Reeder) - Easier

The Glory Field (Meyers) - Easier

God's Fool (Slouka) - Challenging

The Joy Luck Club (Tan) - Moderate

The Last Lieutenant (Gobbell) - Easier

A Lesson Before Dying (Gaines) - Challenging

The Middle Passage (Johnson) - Easier

Morning Girl (Dorris) - Easier

Out of the Dust (Hesse) - Easier

The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky) - Moderate

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Taylor) - Easier

A Single Shard (Park) - Easier

Snow Falling on Cedars (Gutterson) - Moderate

Song of Solomon (Morrison) - Challenging

A Step from Heaven (Na) - Easier

Stones from the River (Hegi) - Challenging

Summer of My German Soldier (Greene) - Easier