Making Differentiation Doable

In this short video, renown educator, author, and ELL expert Larry Ferlazzo simplifies differentiation. He also leaves us with something to think about regarding what is most important in making differentiation doable.

What's similar about bowling & inclusive ed?

Classroom composition and diversity is a given. But how do we reach more students? Shelly Moore, from the University of British Columbia, has a clever idea.

What exactly do teachers do?

Educational researcher Dr. David Sousa answers this question succinctly: we teachers are "brain changers." 

Learning more about the brain can boost your teaching productivity and efficiency, plus it can be inspiring. Edutopia has a 5 minute film festival page on a variety of subjects that pertain to teachers, including learning about the brain, like this one, How Youth Learn: 

Not Child's Play

Ever ask your students to represent their thinking with a cartoon? It's definitely not child's play. A worthy challenge, it can be fun too.

 "Inside a Cartoonist's World" by Liza Donnelly

How do we create life-long learners?

Teaching curiosity is key to creating life-long learners. The links between curiosity and creativity and critical thinking are undeniable. This short video poses some interesting ideas and strategies for teaching all three. What will you inspire your students to be curious about this year? And how will they inspire you?

Chicken or Egg? Egg or Chicken?

John Antonetti's Engagement Cube

We've all been asked which came first: the chicken or the egg? One of the reasons this question engages us is because it provokes debate. It challenges and exposes our thinking about a variety of things, and everyone seems to have a different theory. 

Speaking of engagement, Dr. Douglas Willms asks a great chicken-egg type question for us educators. In the great debate about how to best engage our disengaged youth, he poses this: does engagement increase achievement OR does achievement increase engagement? 

Dr. Willms' research reveals that "achievement begets engagement." What do you think? 

But first, seek strengths.

Surviving the Polar Bear Plunge

As teachers, we all experience students who challenge us: our patience, our thinking, our beliefs, our routines. Buttons DO get pushed.

These sorts of experiences can be very difficult yet also incredibly formative and no matter the outcome, they help prepare us for future challenges. It may seem impossible at the time but sometimes these sorts of conflicts can even result in surprising outcomes where students return one day and say, "Thanks for not giving up on me."

But in the middle of it when it seems like there's simply no patience left, how do we foster positive change? There's a saying: "You don't drown by falling in the water, you drown by staying there." Challenges require action for change to occur especially when we feel overwhelmed. So what next?

Don't face this alone. Seek support. Then seek strategies. But first, seek strengths.

Strengths? Really? In his book Hanging In, veteran educator Jeffrey Benson recommends beginning with a total shift in thinking: identify the student's every possible strength.

Think about that.

It's easy to see what a student can't do but what can a student do? Start there. Start there with any student. When we begin with strengths we can create a relationship and with a relationship we can have influence.

What do learners pay attention to?

source

This past July, SHIFT published their 10 most effective engagement strategies for e-learners. However, they seem quite applicable to any type of classroom.

Based on our teaching experience, our top five favourite go-to engagement strategies were
1. stories
2. visuals
3. emotions
4. controversy
5. contrast

Which ones are your favourites? And to switch things up, what would you like to try next?

For more information and resources linked to each strategy, click here.

Time for Words?

In her book Active Literacy, Heidi Hayes Jacobs cites research that "35% of all test errors are reading errors." She specifically links that research to gaps in vocabulary.

To prep for final projects and exams, many teachers are using some time in June for summarization and reflection. Consider focusing on vocabulary. For example, Robert Marzano recommends this simple strategy called "Connect 2." 

1. Develop a list of subject-specific vocabulary.
2. Place students in pairs or small groups.
3. Engage students to choose two vocabulary words from the list and discuss how those two terms are related, then write about those words using a format such as this:  _____________ and ____________ are connected because _____________________.
5. Repeat this process with two more words and so on.

It's a simple strategy, isn't it? Yet, if you've ever tried this, it truly requires thinking and absolutely encourages deeper understanding of words and concepts.

There's a joke about words that goes "at least taste your words before you spit them out." No matter the subject or grade level, students need time to taste, savour, and internalize words. The research says that taking time for this totally pays off.

Got Test Anxiety?

Many of our students experience test-anxiety or lack confidence when faced with any type of assessment. These issues speak to the need for students to learn about perseverance and problem-solving and develop personal strategies around them. One such strategy might be a brain purge (sometimes called a brain dump) Despite the odd name, it could really be quite helpful.

 

So how does it work?

After learning new material over a period of time, have students do a "brain purge" on a blank page. Essentially, they dump everything they know about what they've learned. This has many uses:
1. It helps students articulate their learning.
2. It allows teachers to see "gaps" in learning.
3. It allows for teacher/peer feedback.
4. It creates a study guide before tests.
5. If done for a few minutes immediately before a test, it becomes the study guide during the test.

All of these approaches may be quite useful in removing anxiety and developing confidence in learning and assessment. What do you think?

Find out more information here at Edutopia.

The Day they Discovered Pi...

It's Pi Day again tomorrow! (In fact, since this is the 3rd month of 2014 doesn't that make this PI MONTH?!)

Sometimes nothing engages students more than a cheesy song about math, right? Especially BECAUSE they know they can create something MUCH, MUCH better! And that's exactly what should happen to push that learning into long term memory:

"They rhythmic repetitions and content-packed nature of music make it a very effective mnemonic device for learning new material...[or summarizing learned material]. Remember that the students' creation of the [song], not it's presentation to the class, is where the greatest learning occurs." Rick Wormeli

For Pi Day and other resources check out Edutopia. Happy Pi Month!

What's that say?

Do your scholars endeavor to comprehend clauses with brobdingnagian vernacular? Er, what?! What we mean to say is this: do your students struggle to read passages with big words?

Recently, a teacher recommended Rewordify, a website that provides reading level and vocabulary options for digital text. And, it's very user friendly. We really hope you research it check it out.

Austin's Butterfly-The Power of Feedback

The video about Austin's Butterfly made us wonder about each student's potential when given feedback. What can a kid actually do if we don't accept his first try?

Consider using these questions to reflect on how you might use feedback in your classroom:

• How do we know, and when do we decide, what is a student's best work? 
• What role does feedback play in offering students the opportunity to achieve mastery?
• How can we use feedback to push students beyond their perceived ability level? 
• What role do peers offer in providing quality feedback?
• Are we born talented or do we develop our talents?

5 Ways to Make Stuff Stick?

At our ATA PD day last week, Rick Smith shared strategies from his presentation 50 Ways to Leave a Lecture.

We appreciated this slide for its use of differentiation and its potential for tiering. It highlights some of those strategies and the five modalities teachers can use to pause the lecture and have students interact with the material presented. In other words, five ways to make stuff stick.

7 Things about Feedback

Educational researcher and leader John Hattie teaches that feedback and metacognition are the two biggest drivers of learning. Those two instructional components are key to assessment for learning. This prezi offers 7 short ideas for educators about feedback. How might these ideas be useful in your classroom context?        

Inquiry Minds Want to Know...

Source (and great resource): What Ed Said Blog

     "Inquiry is the process of finding answers to questions. The skills of science inquiry include asking questions, proposing ideas, observing, experimenting, and interpreting the evidence that is gathered.
     An inquiry may be...based on a question brought to the classroom by a teacher or student; or it may arise out of an activity, an interesting observation, an unexplained event or a pattern that appears worth pursuing." ~Alberta Education Science Curriculum Front Matter (c) 1996
     And speaking of the unexplained...what makes the world's largest volcano invisible?

But is there a format for teaching inquiry? Or a procedure that could be used as an anchor project? Consider using the F.E.R.A. cycle...

F-FOCUS on a topic generating interest and engaging a student's background knowledge.
E-EXPLORE objects, organisms and scientific phenomena that build on that prior knowledge.
R-REFLECT on observations and data, revisit prior ideas and develop or refine explanations.
A-APPLY understanding of science concepts to new situations and prepare to repeat the learning cycle.
-strategy developed by the Smithsonian Science Education Center 

P.S. Get your "science fix" here.

Math: Three Different Ways

Exploring all techniques, exploring all answers, these Grade 3 math students are problem-solving without anxiety in an inclusive learning environment. Cool.

High, medium or low?

Many teachers have strategies intended to elicit deeper thinking. One teacher in our school division was willing to share her high-medium-low strategy.

Maybe this could work for you too? Based on Blooms, the verbs on each poster say it all: moving from red to green students increase their ability to connect, infer, apply, demonstrate and evaluate their learnings. Posted in her classroom, she challenges students to think, question and apply their learning on these three different levels.

It reminds us of a questioning strategy useful for any grade but especially younger ones: thick and thin questions. Click the links for more information or to see a teacher-created poster using thick and thin questions.

HFCRD37 teachers can also search for strategies and resources in our coaching toolbox on the S Drive. Or check out our prezi on questioning.

Motivation and Mindset

In the words of classic underachiever Homer Simpson, "the first step to failure is trying." Yup, it makes us chuckle too. Yet, how often and to what depth does this sort of negative self-talk impact our students and even ourselves? It's classic fixed mindset thinking.

One of the leading researchers in the field of motivation, psychology professor Carol S. Dweck's book Mindset has real insight on how to increase motivation in our classrooms--a very big challenge that all teachers face. How many of your students give up? How many persist? And why? Teachers need strategies to create growth mindsets and build perseverance.

Using information from Dweck's book, the following prezi (free to share created by Jen Schones) has motivation strategies for teachers that can help students improve their mindsets.

Minute Earth - A Useful Resource...

Take a minute and explore the fascinating Science and stories of this Earth we call our backyard. The Minute Earth YouTube Channel has various videos that might complement many lessons (and links to other educational YouTube channels as well).