Resources and Links–Primary Documents Professional Development

Here are a few links that were used and discussed at the professional development that was held at the Central office of Murfreesboro City Schools on April 6th.  Enjoy!

Analyzing_Primary_Sources

http://www.teachtnhistory.org/

TN Ready Blue Prints for Math & R/LA

TN Social Studies Frameworks

A “Convergence” of Circumstances

National Association for Gifted Convention in Baltimore, Maryland.  With a program book that is 174 pages, sessions for time slots that exceed 30 options, choosing what to attend isn’t an easy task.  Keeping your brain from overload and shutting down is no small task either!  Heather Knox (Hobgood), Christy Robinson (Black Fox), and Cherry Ross (Overall Creek), and I rarely cross paths in this convention center that overlooks the Orioles’ Stadium.  You can only image how many ideas we are collecting to bring back to our system.

Tonight we thought we’d share some of our favorite “a-ha’s” from today.

• Concept maps are an avenue to help us make stronger connections to content we already know, both cross-curricular and among grade levels.
• We all need to keep in mind that the realistic path for gifted students is not usually a straight line.
• Math is about problem solving, and the answer is only a small percentage of what we are trying to achieve.  Teachers focus on what they’ve been taught.
• As teachers, we have to be very careful of our words.  Criticism sounds very loud in the brains of our students, especially for students with exceptionalities.  It can shut them down.
• When we say, “Kids these days can’t think,” they’ve learned to answer our questions.
• As soon as you step up out of college, worksheets don’t show up in your “in box.”  You have to problem solve.
• Sixty to eighty percent of elementary math books are review from year-to-year.  With a focus on problem solving and stronger connections to prior learning, we can make more strides in growth.
• For students that are gifted or ADHD, complex information is comprehended very easily through infographics.
• If we know that the “stand and deliver” method of teaching is not effective, why do we still do it?  What’s best for “me” isn’t always best for “them.”  Student interviews make students feel like the curriculum is about “them” and will reveal the truth about student needs.
• Teachers teach strategies, not skills.  Complex tasks will require strategies.
• The more highly gifted a student is, the more wait time they need to think and compose their thoughts.
• Homework has little to no affect on student achievement.  The homework they have should grow study habits.  The MOST IMPORTANT thing gifted kids need (all grades) is 20 minutes of reading at night and conversation at the dinner table.  Ouch!

A final thought for the night…

At the first session this morning that I attended, one of the speakers shared the story of the ship called “Tenacious” that was part of the Fastnet Race of 1979 in England. One of the worst days in history.  A freak storm that struck 300 vessels came with little or no warning. During the storm, everything mattered.  Life or death decisions.

In education, we are at a time when we aren’t sure what’s coming.  During this storm, everything matters.  From the skippers to the direction of our sails, we must be mindful of every choice we make each day.  As the day in 1979 when Tenacious won even in the face of the disaster, we can be certain, those who are tenacious will be a top finisher in the race.  Persisting in existence.  Perhaps we just need to adjust our sails.

Higher order thinking is for all students.  Not just gifted students.  These strategies work for all students.

How’s your ship sailing?

Why Do We Make School Boring?

What boy wouldn’t like doing math if you used LEGOS?  Look what I stumbled upon today.  I love to find those ideas that 1) create instant engagement and 2) make our jobs easier!

Are we afraid kids might accidentally have fun?  Wouldn’t that be a crime.  When did learning become a “school” thing instead of a “life” thing?  Step out of the box.  The world is depending on you.

LEGOs Build Math Concepts

More ideas with LEGOs.

Quest

(This could become an activity to use for curriculum compacting.)

VTS

I’m done after this.  But trust me, you’ll like this.  Check out the video that shows VTS with CCSS.

Visual Thinking

“Caption”less?

Quick cool idea!

What’s Going On in This Picture?

My brain is going crazy with the possibilities…especially since writing and research seems to be such a tough area on TCAP.  Let me know if you use this and how!!!

 

DBQ (plus curriculum compacting)

Bet you don’t know what THAT means.  Neither did I.  I was doing some digging online, looking for resources to help teachers learn more about Curriculum Compacting because the 5th grade teachers at Cason Lane and I are planning to get together this week to collaborate.  I ran into this website, and I really liked what she had to say about curriculum compacting.  So I decided to continue to explore her webpage.

Then I saw the DBQ.  I scrolled through the document because I had never heard of it.  It stands for Document Based Question.  Okay.  The concept isn’t new.  Got it.  But listen to this!!  The assignment was about comparing and contrasting.  The students were given a brief description of an event at the mall.  Several “witnesses” had comments.  The students had to compare and contrast all the statements to decide what REALLY happened at the mall and write a thesis.  How cool is that!!

DBQ_Mall

Since I also mentioned compacting…here’s some good information about it and Carolyn Coil’s website.

Curriculum Compacting

CCSS Units with TEXT Suggestions!!!

The other day, Sheri Arnette told me about a website.  I happened upon it this morning and was amazed at the possibilities it offered.  I haven’t had an opportunity to dig deeply, but from my surface skim, this could give you a plethora of ideas!!  I like how it gives suggested texts, but I LOVE how it breaks the modules into a scaffold approach.

The way I stumbled onto it was through a resource page from another county in the state.  It had some items worth exploring.

Sullivan County

EngageNY is the website Sheri shared with me.  It is found here.

Enjoy!

 

Which Comes First?

Learning or thinking?

While doing some prep work for tomorrow’s appointments, I began searching good ole Google.  (How did I survive all those years?  I LOVE having answers at my fingertips.)  I had questions and wanted to see what the world had to answer them.

Then, I found her (actually she is using HIS work).  An article that defines “reflection.”  It’s long.  It’s scholarly.  So I’ll differentiate.  I’ll pull out some phrases that are AWESOME, and I’ll provide the link.  You can choose your route. (Isn’t choice nice?  How often do you give your students a choice?)  Hopefully these pieces will spark your interest enough to dig into the article called, “Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking” by Carol Rodgers.  Here are some highlights:

• My purpose is, quite simply, to provide a clear picture of Dewey’s original ideas so that they might serve as we improvise, revise, and create new ways of deriving meaning from experiences-thinking to learn.
• “What (an individual) has learned in the way of knowledge and skill in one situation becomes an instrument of understanding and dealing effectively with the situations which follow.  The process goes on as long as life and learning continue.”
• …other kinds of thinking is stream of consciousness. It is the thinking all of us are involuntarily awash in all the time….This is often the only kind of thinking teachers have time for.
• …moves the learner from a disturbing state of perplexity…to a harmonious state of settledness.  Perplexity is created when an individual encounters a situation whose “full character is not yet determined.”  That is, the meaning of the experience has not yet been fully established.
• An additional source of motivation is curiosity, without which there is little energy for the hard work of reflection.
• The store of one’s wisdom is the result of the extent of one’s reflection.
• Formulating the problem or question itself is half the work.  As Dewey says, “A question well put is half answered.”
• Reflection must include action.
• Dewey knew that merely to think without ever having to express what one thought is an incomplete act….The experience has to be formulated in order to be communicated.
• Curiosity about and enthusiasm for that subject matter is essential to good teaching.  Without them a teacher has no energy, no fuel, to carry out reflective inquiry-much less teaching itself.

There is great information in this article.  It helps to define true reflection, its purpose, and the importance of disciplined reflection.  Eye opening.  I hope you’ll take the time to read the article for yourself.

Rodgers, C. (2002). Defining Reflection Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking. Teachers College Record, 104(4), 842-866.

Fabulous Finds

I love it when highly respected individuals share ideas!  It’s kind of like peeking into their brains and seeing how they think or what gets their attention.  It tells us more about them…which explains why they are held in high esteem.

1)  Dr. Garrett (Grizzard) shared a fabulous find today.  She saw these in the  IRA’s Reading Today this month.  It’s a new twist to literature circle roles.  What a match with CCSS!

a fact finder (finds important facts)

a solution suggester (provides alternative solutions)

a passage picker (identifies the emotions of a character within a passage)

a travel tracer (explains how the character’s emotions are represented in a setting)

an investigator (finds interesting words and researches their meaning)

a director (creates questions at four levels for students in the group to respond to)

a journaler (describes why a scene is important)

THANKS for sharing!!  What a useful tool!!

2)  While breaking down a writing standard today, it got a little tricky.  The verb (state) was DOK 1; however, they had to state an opinion.  Uh oh…that’s not DOK 1.

Dr. Brooks whips out her phone and goes straight to the Hess’s Cognitive Rigor Matrix.  This neat tool helps you decipher tricky situations when you are trying to decide the level of rigor.

matrix

What a GREAT day!  Thanks Dr. Brooks for sharing.

SCAMPER for a Book Giveaway???

At a recent conference at Vanderbilt, we discussed the strategy called “SCAMPER.”  Each letter represents a way to think more creatively.  Substitute.  Combine.  Adapt.  Modify/Magnify/Minify.  Put to other uses.  Eliminate.  Reverse/Rearrange.  Before releasing this strategy, it will need to be model with the students, then used for independent work.  (Sometimes we forget to set the strategy up for success.  For example, independent learning plans require research skills.  We need to teach those skills before releasing the ILP.)

I recently received an email from Mrs. Davis at Scales.  This week she used SCAMPER and focused on substituting and eliminating.  (Great way for kids to plan a fractured fairy tale for creative writing.)  A student eliminated the brick house and realized that brought a short life for the 3rd pig.  Another student searched his thinking and worked with eliminating the bond between the pigs.

At the conference, a few of us from MCS began with Pinocchio.  Using the words from SCAMPER, we modified Pinocchio.  He was then Pinocchi “ette.”  We substituted lying with bullying.  Cyber bullying to be exact.  Geppetto was NOT trying to help.  He was actually encouraging her actions which happened to be against (combine) Cinderella.  We adapted the end when Pinocchiette realized how wrong it was to bully…etc.  You getting the picture?  The amount of discussion and flexible thinking was extraordinary!

This could be used in all subjects.  Math included!

I found this  neat rubric to accompany this strategy.  It’s found here.

NOW…all MCS employees…how could you use this in your class?  To all MCS teachers that comment, sharing an idea for using SCAMPER, each will be put into a drawing for a copy of “Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire.”  I’ll have the final give-a-way in January when we return.

Happy SCAMPERING.