Focus on Learning

November 4, 2012 Maureen M. Cohen, Ed.D. Grading

Here is an excerpt from Brad Kuntz’s ASCD Education Update article: Focus on Learning, Not Grades, May 2012, p. 3

“I used to hear this often from students: ‘I didn’t do very well on the test. Is there any extra credit I can do to raise my grade?’ Or: ‘I’m so close to a B in class, how can I earn some more points?’ Less often did students inquire about improvement upon a particular component of the unit’s content.

The past decades of education have trained students and teachers to focus on grades rather than learning. Unfortunately, grades are generally an account of points earned through various activities that are influenced by aritficial deadlines, grade inflation, extra credit, and subjectivity. It’s time for us to change the student mind-set currently focused on reaching a particular percentage and instread empower them to take charge of their learning and measure their own success.

Proficiency-based education focuses on specific learning targets and the demonstration of a student’s proficiency with the content. It allows students multiple opportunities to prove their understanding, and incorporates flexibility for individual learners rather than pushing all students through the content at the same pace regardless of their comprehension of the material. It creates a partnership between the teacher and student with regard to a student’s progress, and it increases a student’s ownership of her own learning. At that point, grades actually do indicate what a student has learned and is able to do.”

Suggestions:
–Put the standards into learning goals for students to understand
–Provide students with a checklist of these target goals
–Review these targets daily and each time you cover new material
–Label all homework and classroom activities with the learning target so students understand the focus
–Give the students opportunities to show proficiency on each target
–If they don’t meet a satisfactory level of performance, provide another opportunity

Discussion Question: Please share any strategies you currently use that match up with this proficiency-based system.

Rigorous Prompts

November 4, 2012 Maureen M. Cohen, Ed.D. Assignments

The following is a reflection activity from the book: “Assignments Matter” by Eleanor Dougherty, p. 32.
Have you ever gone back to closely reflect and review on the types of assignment prompts you are asking of your students?

“Consider each of the following prompts by analyzing the 1) content and skills involved in each and 2) demands and qualities. What makes one prompt more demanding than the other? What qualities would you expect to see in the student work for the more demanding tasks?

Elementary School:

Less Demanding: Create a diorama for Mother’s Day about something you and your mom like to do.
More Demanding: Interview your mother about an event in her life that was important to her and write it up for her to keep on mother’s day.

Middle School Example:

Less demanding: Draw a book cover for To Kill a Mockingbird.
More demanding: Write an essay in which you discuss the relationship between Scout and her father. How does this relationship help tell the story?

High School Example:

Less demanding: Draw a picture of an electron
More demanding: Why is it difficult, unless you are a trained ninja, to break through a table with yoru hand? Expalin and provide illustrations or graphs, using what you’ve learned int he unit on electrons.”

Discussion Question:

In looking at these above examples, what makes the prompts more demanding than the others? In applying this to your own practice, choose a couple of prompts on current assignments and reflect on the level of demand and quality of work you are requiring of your students.

21st Century Learning

November 1, 2012 Maureen M. Cohen, Ed.D. 21st Century Learning, Grafton Public Schools

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Blogging as Critical Thinking

November 1, 2012 Maureen M. Cohen, Ed.D. Blogging, Critical Thinking

Every week I receive an electronic update of all of the blog postings of teachers automatically sent to me. I wanted to share two blogs by two music classes by Stephen Trombley. I know many of you have been working on curriculum revisions as well as embedding essential questions. Additionally, we’ve talked about increasing our interdisciplinary opportunities. Finally, with a continued focus on 21st century learning skills of critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity, global awareness, and digital literacy, I ask you to look at the following blog posts through the lens of all of these best practices. These offer great examples.

Jazz and the Modern Age

Music and Popular Culture
Discussion Board: Please comment on how these blogs provide evidence of:
Essential questions
Interdisciplinary Learning
Digital Literacy
Relevant Learning
Global Awareness
Collaboration
Communication
Creativity
Critical Thinking

Sylvia’s Super-Awesome Maker Show

November 1, 2012 Maureen M. Cohen, Ed.D. Creativity

his is a video that was shown at the NASSP conference last month in Tampa, FL to illustrate the power of using videos for learning and for one of the highest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy–creation.
This is a video series done by a young girl named Sylvia who learns how to make things and shares her knowledge through her online series. This will wow you!

Discussion Question: How do you think you can use videos to raise the level of learning for our students? Just imagine what our students could make and teach us like Sylvia!

Focus on Learning

November 1, 2012 Maureen M. Cohen, Ed.D. Grading

Here is an excerpt from Brad Kuntz’s ASCD Education Update article: Focus on Learning, Not Grades, May 2012, p. 3

“I used to hear this often from students: ‘I didn’t do very well on the test. Is there any extra credit I can do to raise my grade?’ Or: ‘I’m so close to a B in class, how can I earn some more points?’ Less often did students inquire about improvement upon a particular component of the unit’s content.

The past decades of education have trained students and teachers to focus on grades rather than learning. Unfortunately, grades are generally an account of points earned through various activities that are influenced by aritficial deadlines, grade inflation, extra credit, and subjectivity. It’s time for us to change the student mind-set currently focused on reaching a particular percentage and instread empower them to take charge of their learning and measure their own success.

Proficiency-based education focuses on specific learning targets and the demonstration of a student’s proficiency with the content. It allows students multiple opportunities to prove their understanding, and incorporates flexibility for individual learners rather than pushing all students through the content at the same pace regardless of their comprehension of the material. It creates a partnership between the teacher and student with regard to a student’s progress, and it increases a student’s ownership of her own learning. At that point, grades actually do indicate what a student has learned and is able to do.”

Suggestions:
–Put the standards into learning goals for students to understand
–Provide students with a checklist of these target goals
–Review these targets daily and each time you cover new material
–Label all homework and classroom activities with the learning target so students understand the focus
–Give the students opportunities to show proficiency on each target
–If they don’t meet a satisfactory level of performance, provide another opportunity

Discussion Question: Please share any strategies you currently use that match up with this proficiency-based system.

Demonstrate You Care

November 1, 2012 Maureen M. Cohen, Ed.D. Building Student Relationships

“What is learned in school depends far less on what is taught than on what one actually experiences there.”—Edgar Friedenberg.

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in my classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or honor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.

—Haim Ginott, child care expert in Between Teacher and Child.

Some tips for communicating to your students that you care:

Greet the students at the door as if you would a guest in your home. Call them by their preferred nickname.
Use attentive, active listening when talking to students, even during informal conversations.
Attend school plays, games, and other activities of your students
Criticize in private; praise in public
Acknowledge student progress, accomplishments, efforts…and birthdays.
Inquire about their health after an absence.
Use their name when writing comments on assignments. (“Great improvement, Jenn.”) (Lavoie, 2007, p. 59-60).

Discussion Question: What do you do to demonstrate you care for your students?

The Power of Twitter

November 1, 2012 Maureen M. Cohen, Ed.D. Twitter

For those of you who have not discovered the power of Twitter as a learning tool for you, please consider checking out my Twitter Feed @GHSAPrincipal. You go to Twitter, create an account and follow that account and then click on who I follow. Recently, I have received numerous tweets from people I follow on various ipad uses in the classroom.

Check out the following on why to use Twitter for professional development. (By the way, I found this link from using Twitter).

Twitter for Teachers
If any of you use Twitter, please share how it has expanded your personal learning network (PLN).

Bloom’s Taxonomy

November 1, 2012 Maureen M. Cohen, Ed.D. Bloom's Taxonomy, Student Engagement

As we walk through classes we are very focused on the engagement levels of our students. In most cases, we will find that all students are often on-task and appear engaged, but the question we ask as we look closely at the students is “what type of activities are they engaged in?” We refer to Bloom’s Taxonomy to evaluate the type of learning activities students are engaged in. We are looking for students to move beyond the lower level thinking skills to higher order thinking skills.

Discussion Question: Please share with your colleagues examples of classroom activities you have had students participate in so far this year that has moved beyond understanding and remembering?