The Kujawski Plan
Geometry teacher Zina Kujawski—in every way a mathematical thinker—has such an elaborate Study Island plan for her students that it deserves a name: The Kujawski Plan. Here’s what she does:

At the beginning of the semester, she assigns due dates for SCOS goal-based Study Island assignments.. They don’t even have to turn anything in. Kujawski just checks the report, determines who has completed the assignment, and writes a score in her grade book. If they earned a blue ribbon for the goal, they get 100%. If they earn all of their ribbons, she adds extra points to the six-week grade.

Kujawski admits her plan requires a lot of work, but the results speak for themselves. Her geometry students all made level IV this fall.

The Wallen Plan
English teacher Julie Wallen—as diligent a teacher as you will meet—has a plan of her own. Last semester she discovered the value of the class grade book report on Study Island’s School Stats page. The report makes it easy to determine which students are successful with which areas, and where each student is struggling.

Prior to exams, Wallen used SI reports to identify two or three areas of weakness for each student and gave each student an individualized task to complete on Study Island. Chandra needed to work on main ideas and organizational patterns, while Junior needed help with parallel structure and agreement. By allowing students to focus their attention on just a couple of basic skills at a time, she gave them the opportunity to eliminate weaknesses without burdening them with work to enhance skills they had already developed.

Wallen’s students were not required to complete the individualized assignments, but most chose to. Students reported that the plan helped. It certainly didn’t hurt; 100% of Wallen’s students were proficient.

Study Island v. Homework Drills
Study Island provides instant feedback, along with answer explanations. Homework from a textbook or worksheet does not offer feedback. Study Island scores students’ performance and provides an analytical report. Homework from a textbook or worksheet requires the teacher to evaluate and analyze student and class performance. Study Island has a “Game Mode.” Homework is work. Students can’t copy Study Island answers in the hallway three minutes before class.  They can and do copy homework.

Look Out
Study Island has limits, not least of which is the way it reduces intelligence to the 25% probability of ABCD multiple choice. It doesn’t show a teacher WHY little Madeline can’t calculate the measure of an interior angle or why Obadiah can’t make his verbs agree with their subjects.

What’s missing is student work—work to solve the problem, the essay containing grammatical errors. Neither Kujawski nor Wallen have entrusted this sort of work to Study Island. Both remain outstanding classroom teachers. For both, the program is merely a tool to help students master the essential skills of their courses and—let’s face it—pass their EOCs.

My first period class (I’m sooooooooo proud of them) have learned how to love and affirm a particular student in the class and, as a result, have developed a higher level of tolerance and understanding for one another…. (I believe, too, that it’s part of because of how I treat the particular student)… D— has become very dear to our hearts…. his theatre nickname is “D-fresh”….  and; when he comes in the room the entire class heartily greats him (he comes in a little late each day, and we’ve usually started)… they cheer, call his name and applaud…. You should SEE his face light up!!!!!  It’s awesome!!!!!   And it has really helped his self-esteem and his willingness and ability to participate!!!!!  What more can we ask for?  Everybody wins!!!

Today, my 9th graders settled down and participated successfully with our daily grammar mini-lesson.  When I said, “Praise…” ( I stopped before I said “God”),  they said, “ You sound like Mrs. Moore; she says ‘Praise.’”  I felt that was a great compliment.  Then they did their practice work quietly so that I could conference with individuals and do so me one-on-one review of the tricky “lie-lay”  verb forms.  It was a great day.

In 4th period we disected raw chicken wings. We are covering the muscular system and students were able to identify the skin, muscle, fascia, tendons, ligaments, joints, and parts of bones from our last unit on the skeletal system such as the medullary cavity, red and yellow marrow, spongy bone, &compact bone. I think seeing it up close and personal helped them understand how muscles and bones work together to produce movement.

A student, B,  who has skipped my class often and whom put his head down during the quiz the first 15 minutes of class, settled down, raised his head up the rest of the class, and was the lead responder to questions during 4th period. He answered questions a lot of the others could not figure out.

Today we started a new chapter in Spanish I.  A student that I’ve had trouble with getting interested in the language (usually falls asleep during class, forgets his materials, skipped class a few times, and missed a few other days for OSS for other classes, etc.)…well, he’s actually trying to get more involved in class.  He normally “zones out” during the new vocab practice, saying the words aloud and writing down the new vocabulary, but he actually participated.  I’ve had one-on-one discussions with him over the past few weeks, encouraging him to stay involved and just put forth some effort.  I feel like I touch “at least” one student today and I’m headed home pretty happy!

Teaching Civil War battle tactics: army maneuvers and flanking movements. Took US history class to the Commons to simulate a frontal attack. Then, put one line perpendicular to the other and set them in motion. Best way to show how maneuvers in battle and flanking battle lines is always what battlefield commanders try to do. Frontal attack is always brutal – high casualties. Flanking demonstration shows how the compromised line RUNS instead of fighting. Students get to see how battles are won – make the other side run. Also did the difference between rifled muskets vs. smoothbore muskets. Demonstration plan was to show the difference between the two. After explaining what rifling is and how it works, take students outside and have an athlete throw a basketball and a non-athlete throw a football. Football wins every time in distance and accuracy.

I told my Algebra classes that if anyone would make up a rap/song about the ‘rules’ learned in Chapter 8 about polynomials I would add 5 points to their test grade. I have offered this before in previous years but no one has ever taken me up on it…until now. P__ B__ wrote a rap in a matter of minutes. She included vocabulary we learned in the chapter as well as what my student’s call ‘Mrs. Moore lingo’. I encouraged her to partner with another student who is very good at ‘beat boxing’. ( I really don’t know if that is the correct spelling or words:) but it’s when a person makes a beat using sounds made with their mouth) J__ G__ is very good at it. They stayed after school Tuesday and planned to stay again today to finish it up. With a few tweeks it will air on Rampant Report (thanks to Johnny Armstrong!)on Tuesday…now maybe Wednesday. Praise!! Learning is actually fun!!!!Who’d have thunk it??!!

Conclusion: Rose High is a great place to learn.

Last year the county began training all teachers in Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. Within the SIOP initiative, they identified two particular goals: SIOP objectives (content and language objectives) in every classroom and 90% student engagement.

What it’s not
Ninety percent student engagement might be difficult to define, so let’s start with an antonym. It doesn’t mean that 27 students have their eyes open, while the other three drool on their desks. It doesn’t mean that for 83 minutes of a class period students listen to a hearty lecture on parthenogenesis.

90% Engagement in Culinary Arts
In culinary arts, where students learn the ins and outs of working in a professional kitchen, 90% student engagement often means that students spend the vast majority of a class period working in the kitchen. In Chriselyn Beresheim’s class, students wear white coats and scrub-in like culinary surgeons. They roll green fondant for elaborate birthday cakes, peel ginger for ginger carrot soup, view videos before trying new cooking techniques, and scrub pots clean, singing, talking and laughing while they work.

Ms. B’s students are as engaged as any class I’ve seen all year—90%, without a doubt. But what about that other 10%?

The concept of student engagement suggests that students are sometimes actors and sometimes receivers in their learning. If they are 90% engaged—90% actor—then they are, presumably, 10% receiver (and hopefully not 10% snoozer). This 10% might be the most important 10%. Without it, students don’t know what to act upon. If they don’t receive information about the safe preparation of chicken, somebody goes home with salmonella. At the same time, if they don’t act on their knowledge about preparing poultry, then, eventually, somebody still goes home with salmonella.

From an Education Expert
Years ago paideia pedagogue Mortimer J. Adler argued for this ratio in instruction: 15-20% Socratic seminar (students engaged in discourse about texts), 65-70% coaching (students producing while teachers guide them), and 10-15% didactic (teacher talks while students listen).

It’s not that easy
Ms. Beresheim’s class can only cook about half of their days; the rest is content heavy. And it really is heavy, just like any biology or world history class. The challenge for Ms. B is the challenge for every teacher: how to achieve a high rate of student engagement and still cover all that info? That, I believe, depends on the teacher, the course, and even the students.

Here are few things to try as you consider this goal of 90% engagement:

• As you plan ask your students, “What can my students do with this information?” How can they apply it? How can they reprocess it? What can they create with it? We aren’t talking about projects for the sake of pretty walls here. We’re talking about making your content stick in kids’ brains.
• Gather data. Better yet, invite me into your room to gather data. Tally the minutes students are actively engaged and the minutes they are receivers.
• Split your lesson plans into columns. Rather than listing only what you will teach, use one column to list what you will do and another to list what your students will do.
• Ask me about brain-based instruction. We can work on some strategies to keep kids’ minds moving without leaving the content of your course behind.

Not possible, you say!
I won’t disagree with you. Ninety percent student engagement, unless you defy your SCOS/OCOS, seems like a pretty lofty goal, but working toward it might pay off in student learning, which is the point of this whole thing to begin with. I’d love to collaborate with you in pursuit of the 90% goal. E-mail me: flinchm.rose@pitt.k12.nc.us.

Ukraine\’s Got Talent 2009

Yesterday I watched this amazing You Tube video of the winning performance on Ukraine’s Got Talent 2009—that’s right, Ukraine—and immediately thought of art teachers Steve Donald, Mary Tucker, and Randall Leach. I wondered how our art teachers might use the video with their students; however, the video IS on You Tube and, therefore, NOT accessible at school. Of course, if you are at school and clicked the link above, you already know that. Not only could they not show the video to their students, but I couldn’t even show it to them without sending them a link to watch at home. No fun.

The same has probably happened to many of you. You find some cute, clever, inspiring video to introduce a concept or add humor to your instruction, and, what do you know, you have no ability to show it to your students. Proxy programs get blocked. You Tube has no download feature. You’ve got nothing.

The answer is here—You Tube Downloader. (For those of you who already knew this, please don’t think I’m slow.)

Six Quick Steps
Step 1: go to http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/

Step 2: click the download now icon

Step 3: review the specs. The program appears to be Windows specific, so I’m not sure it will run on your Mac. If the specs match your computer, click the download icon

  Download Now

Step 4: click save, and choose to save the program to your desktop. Doing so will download a setup icon, which, once you double click it, should set up the You Tube Downloader program on your desktop.

Step 5: open You Tube Downloader.

Step 6: Copy and paste a You Tube url (obviously, you will need to be in a place where you can access You Tube at this point) where it says, “Enter Video url.” Duh.

It will take a few minutes, but once it’s finished, you should be able to view the video from your computer without any problems—no Internet required. You can also insert it in a Power Point presentation.

Trouble shooting
If you cannot play your converted You Tube video, don’t worry. Click the convert video button. Select a different format—probably Windows Media Player—and hit OK. You should be ready to rock. And if you aren’t, call me for help.

Even cooler—you can convert just a segment of the video instead of the whole thing, which means you could break up long videos into segments, or save only what you need.

But be careful
Video files take up a lot of space. If you are going to save more than a couple, do not save them to your system folder or the common folder. Your flash drive or a CD might be better choices for video storage.

Leave me a comment and let me know how it works.

Happy teaching.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122765890

No wonder Alg. II is so hard!

But changing students’ seats is beneficial, and there is a good time to do it. Instead of waiting for the end of a grading period, change your seating chart each time you begin a new chapter or unit. There’s actually a good reason for it, beyond placating students who complain that they want to sit somewhere else, which just happens to be where their best friend is sitting.

Episodic Memory
Much of our long-term memory is episodic. The brain stores time/place memories in the hippocampus, and when information—the content of your course—is attached to those episodic memories, it is easier for the brain to store and recall. When we think about important events in our lives, we almost always return to a physical setting. Third grade in the seat by the window—watched the balloon I got for my birthday sail into the sky because my mother, who was cleaning, accidentally let it slip out the door. Mid-afternoon sitting in the corner of the bench beside the front windows of my high school—discovered Holden Caulfield narrative voice in Catcher in the Rye. Recalling those places helps us recall the events or information we associate with them.

So the idea behind changing seats at the beginning of each unit is this: we create mental bullet points each time our students move. Slope, first seat by the door. Parabolas, near the windows next to the girl who ate erasers. Scatter plots, right in the middle of the room surrounded by people I don’t really know. Those dividing lines—those mental bullet points—can help students scan more efficiently and effectively through the mass of information they received in your class. It won’t make them smarter, but it might help them recall content just a little bit better.

Source: Mindful Instruction: Using Brain Research to Differentiate Classroom Instruction. North Carolina Teacher Academy. Morrisvile, NC, 2009-2010.

In the spirit of the New Year, and with the imminence of the new semester, perhaps it is time for all of us to set new goals and make new professional resolutions. Maybe your New Year’s resolution will be to try a new strategy in the classroom.

Monica Edwards
I recently met with veteran theater teacher Monica Edwards, who seems excited about trying something new next semester. Edwards knows her courses well enough that she could teach them blinded, ear-muffed, and barefooted—ok, maybe not barefooted—which is exactly why she wants to try something new. To figure out how she wanted to improve her teaching, Edwards started with a problem: a combined theater 1/theater 2 class with students ranging from OCOS to honors. The strategy she selected to solve this problem is differentiated instruction. She will help students set their own individual goals for assessment, incorporate reflection and self-assessment strategies, and hold conferences with her students. It’s a strategy that will probably feel uncomfortable at first and will require some risk. It’s also a strategy that could help her better meet her students’ vast range of needs.

Start with the Problem
It’s easy, I think, to say we are going to try something new sometime soon. It’s not as easy to actually get started. Try these steps to get yourself going:

1. Identify one problem you face in the classroom—restless, sleepy or apathetic students, low test scores, slow transitions, low comprehension, inability to apply knowledge, heterogeneous grouping.
2. Use that problem to help you identify a strategy that might help solve the problem. Keep it simple. Focus on one thing.
3. Set a date to try your new strategy in the classroom.
4. Evaluate the strategy, revise it, and try again. If it works, keep it going. If it’s a flop, figure out why.

Here are a few goals you might consider:

• Add one new piece or technology (CPS, Smart Board, Study Island, PowerPoint, Learn 360) to your repertoire
• Build a class website to communicate with parents
• Use cooperative learning strategies
• Try problem-based instruction
• Design a new project
• Use thinking maps or graphic organizers
• Incorporate writing-to-learn strategies
• Incorporate reading strategies
• Use behavior contracts with perpetual offenders
• Teach students classroom procedures during the first week of school

The New Year is here, but the new semester is not, which means you still have a couple weeks to think about it. If you have a resolution and want help implementing it, contact me. And if you don’t have a resolution for the new semester, contact me anyway. I can help you figure it out. Happy New Year.

Comments
Now you can post your comments to flinchlass.com. I hope you will share your own professional resolutions with our faculty.

What was really cool was seeing students communicate in sign language for thirty minutes. Mr. Lupo signed questions about students’ Thanksgiving activities, and students responded in sign language, demonstrating knowledge of vocabulary, sentence structure, and other concepts an outsider like me wouldn’t readily perceive. The goal was basically to get the students to communicate in the specialized language of the course.

Isn’t that what so much of our content instruction is about? If our students can talk about poetry in the specialized language of the poet—or something close to it—then haven’t they developed some level of competence in that field? And if a student can talk about physics in terms of mass and force and newtons, then haven’t they become, in some slight way, junior physicists? And if they can’t communicate in this language, have they really learned what they need to know?

Mr. Lupo’s class was a clear reminder to me of just how much we broaden our students’ understanding of the world by broadening their vocabulary, whether in American Sign Language or in the specialized vocabulary of another content area. On the more practical side, students cannot succeed on end-of-course tests without competence with the language of the subject. Check out some of the phrases they might encounter on EOCs:

• “y varies directly as x”
• “initial upward velocity”
• “amino acids are synthesized into proteins”
• “evolved from a common ancestor”
• “equal access to public recreational activities”
• “special interest groups”
• “factor of production”

So what?
That’s a tough question. I think the answer is that we must think like language teachers (sounds like SIOP training, doesn’t it?). If we want to assess our students’ comprehension of our particular areas of study, then we have to assess their communication skills in that field. More specifically, we have to incorporate into our instruction writing tasks that require students to communicate in the content and the language of our fields. Answering “C” on the multiple choice test is not enough.
Next time you find yourself talking in the language of art, music, economics, grammar, ecology, or geometry, and your students are responding in the same language—or something like it—know that they are learning. That’s what foreign language teachers like Mike Lupo do every day.
If you want any ideas for teaching content vocabulary, just ask.

flinchm.rose@pitt.k12.nc.us

So who’s ready?

First, let me say this: I doubt 120 high school teachers are going to jump at the chance to sit through hours of training. I know us better than that. I’ve got a different proposal—read on.

What are Thinking Maps?
Thinking Maps are eight simple visual representations of eight basic thought processes. Most of us would call them graphic organizers. But when they are taught and used consistently, they help students think and demonstrate learning in visual models that help them express both information and the thought process—whole-part analysis, classification, description, describing in context, sequencing, etc.

Thinking Maps are designed to work with any student, in any content area, at any grade level. They are intended to be used over and over. And they are intended to make our students better thinkers.

Enough of the sales pitch; here’s my proposal…
I’m looking for a few partners. If you would like to make your class a Thinking Maps class—no matter the content or level—I would love to work with you to teach the maps to your students, assist you in implementing them in your instruction, and assess the effectiveness of our collaboration. If you want to sign on, come visit me in my office or send me an e-mail.