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I found a really cool resource that helps teachers create various assessments over a range of domains and platforms. Web based assessments are graded instantly.

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Assessment Maker OR Generator | Make/Create Assessment Tool | QuestBase

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QuestBase is a web-based, cross-platform assessment maker or assessment generator tool that provides everything you need to make or create your assessments, both on-line and printed.

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Explaining Executive Functioning Skills to students.

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Explaining Executive Functioning Skills to students.

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Posted by Joey Monforte

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Executive-Function Skills: Important Skills for Childhood Development

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Teaching Goal Setting Strategies in a Title 1 Elementary School

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Teaching Goal Setting Strategies in a Title 1 Elementary School

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Posted by: Samantha Kirby

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Understand

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Helping Students Develop Executive Function Skills

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Helping Students Develop Executive Function Skills

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This will be helpful for working on CSTP 2.4

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Simple classroom strategies can assist students with deficits in executive function skills like time management and active listening.

©Shutterstock/T. L. Furrer

Executive function is an umbrella term in neuroscience to describe the neurological processes involving mental control and self-regulation. Executive functions control and regulate cognitive and social behaviors like controlling impulses, paying attention, remembering information, planning and organizing time and materials, and responding appropriately to social situations and stressful situations.

Experts believe executive function is regulated by the frontal lobe of the brain-the prefrontal cortex. Because humans are born with brains that are not fully developed, children are not born with these skills, but they have the potential to develop them.

Some students do not develop executive functions to the same degree as their peers. For these students with deficits, additional support in the classroom may improve their development of executive function.

Offering Teaching Support

Addressing a deficit requires understanding the type of deficiency the student faces. If a student lacks knowledge, he or she does not know what to do or how to do a task. For example, if students lack the ability to regulate their impulses to speak while others are talking, the behavior of active listening should be explicitly taught by identifying examples of active listening. Educators might also create a chart with what it looks and sounds like when students are engaging in active listening.

A student may know what to do to complete a task, but may have trouble knowing when and how to apply the appropriate skills. For a student with this type of deficit, the teacher may confirm that he or she has all the required materials to complete a task. The teacher could provide a checklist with the necessary materials. For older students, the teacher could ask the students to generate the list and then gather the appropriate materials.

Metacognition: Another strategy for addressing deficits in executive function is using metacognitive language. For example, with a younger student, articulating the challenge could be useful. "I see that you are missing a pencil. You will need a pencil to complete the assignment. Where could you find one in the classroom?"

Displaying the steps or questions that students could ask themselves in the classroom is also helpful to promote independence with a skill. Students can repeat directions to a partner and then have a volunteer repeat the direction for the whole class. This process takes less than a minute but allows additional time for auditory processing and repetition for any students who may need it.

Time management: Posting schedules can be a useful tool in developing time management skills. A classroom schedule outlines the entire day and prepares students for what's coming next. An activity schedule breaks down a block of time into smaller chunks and outlines how each period will be used and in what order activities will be presented. These schedules are commonly placed in spots where every student can refer to them during the day.

Long-term assignments can be particularly challenging for students with deficits in executive function. One way to address this issue is by directly teaching students how to map out larger projects and break them down into smaller, more manageable pieces. Use a calendar to determine when each smaller assignment will need to be finished, and place the smaller benchmark goals on the calendar.

Review before new learning begins: Provide opportunities for students to review previous learning. This review may be a quick oral presentation, or teachers can pair students and have them share what they remember from the previous day.

A review might also take the form of a mind map or concept map created in small groups. Concept maps are useful graphic organizers for note taking, comparing/contrasting, and writing. Graphic organizers can be particularly helpful for students with executive function deficits because organizing thoughts can be as difficult as organizing time and materials.

Teacher interaction: Teacher behavior is also influential in supporting students who may have deficits in executive function. Teachers should check in frequently with students who are known to have deficits and provide discrete support when needed. In addition, having a caring demeanor and using positive reinforcement with students with deficits can positively affect their school experience.

Offering Environmental Support

Post a daily schedule. Clear and consistent routines and procedures offer structure to students.

Provide visual supports such as posters with problem-solving steps or routines, and color-coded schedules and folders. Consider highlighting key words and ideas in texts.

Minimize clutter and create clearly defined areas in the classroom.

Environmental support means creating a space where children can thrive. Some easy ways to help students improve executive function include:

Potential for Growth

Executive function takes time to fully develop, and it develops at different rates in different children. The prefrontal cortex of the human brain is constantly growing and changing in young children as well as adolescents. Because of the human brain's plasticity and enormous capacity for learning, it is possible to improve the executive functions of students with deficits through classroom strategies and support.

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Helping Students Develop Executive Function Skills

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Simple classroom strategies can assist students with deficits in executive function skills like time management and active listening.

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Using ReadWorks to assess reading comprehension

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Using ReadWorks to assess reading comprehension

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I use this website to find leveled reading in social studies topics. I use the articles to assess their reading comprehension as well as their annotating skills.

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ReadWorks | Award-Winning, EdTech Nonprofit Organization

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ReadWorks is an edtech nonprofit organization that is committed to helping to solve America’s reading comprehension crisis.

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15 ways to spark student reflection in your classroom 

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15 ways to spark student reflection in your classroom 

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15 ways to spark student reflection in your classroom

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Posted by Destiny Tambouris

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Five guidelines can build students' higher-order thinking skills.

Productive classroom discussions-those that enable students to invent, create, imagine, take risks, and dig for deeper meanings-can only take place in a climate in which students feel safe to offer their ideas. Teachers can create such a climate by being mindful of the essential conditions of interactive teaching.

Listen, Attend, Apprehend

On the surface, it seems like a no-brainer that teachers should listen to what students say. But in the real world of the classroom, with its many pressures and demands on a teacher's time, it can be difficult to pay full attention.

"Of course we listen to our students!" protested one teacher. But the combination of listening + attending + apprehending has dimensions that go beyond merely hearing a student's words. It includes carefully observing the student's nonverbal behaviors, voice inflection, and word choice, as well as what the student emphasizes or leaves out. Teachers who attend to all these dimensions are doing what Friere (1983) calls apprehending-taking in and making meaning of the totality. Here's an example from a 6th grade social studies class in which students are discussing the electoral process:<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: Now that you've all read the case, perhaps you can tell me-what factors, do you suppose, influence a voter's choice in making a decision about voting for a candidate?<EMPH TYPE="5">Simon: This may sound a little bit weird, but I think that person's appearance has a lot to do with how voters feel about him.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: ( reading into the student's statement from his facial expression and from the first part of his response) It doesn't make a lot of sense to you that voters would choose a candidate on the basis of how he or she looks.<EMPH TYPE="5">Simon: Well, I remember my father saying that "democracy is dependent on an informed electorate," and if people are basing choices on the kind of haircut a candidate has, or if he has zits, or is wearing uncool clothes-well, yes, that makes me worried.

It's not easy to pay such close attention to students' words amid all the background activity and noise of a normal classroom-when the teacher is worrying about what Melissa is saying to Dennis in the back of the room and interruptions from the school office are coming over the intercom. But a commitment to listen, attend, and apprehend means that nothing gets in the way of complete and full concentration on what the student is trying to communicate.

When teachers make this commitment, it gives them the information they need to formulate an appropriate response that will promote interactive dialogue. It also creates a climate of respect for students, making it safe for all to offer their ideas. Some people might leap to the conclusion that while the teacher is thus engaged with a single student the rest of the class will lose interest; but happily, the opposite is true. When the teacher's attention is riveted on a single student, other students become more attentive, knowing that such concentrated focus will inevitably come around to them as well.

Clarify What Students Mean

Can you help me out here, William? I'm not sure I've understood you.

Frances, I'm going to try to say that back to you, and you tell me whether I've understood you correctly.

Once the teacher fully grasps what the student is trying to say, that teacher can formulate an appropriate response so that the dialogue can continue on a productive course.

Give Students Time

So much to be done! So little time! The pressure on teachers to get everything done by the end of the school day is formidable. That race with the clock often forces teachers to speed up lessons and makes them lose patience with students who need more time to say what's on their minds.

I know that pressure intimately. Like many teachers, I have had nightmares about finishing the school year with too much left undone. Nonetheless, I am suggesting that we give students time to think.

In the following example, 5th grade students in science class discuss the decline in fish stocks due to overfishing and contamination, and the consequences of limited supplies of these fish for the industry and the economy.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: How is it possible, do you suppose, that some fish like cod and salmon that were once abundant are now in short supply? ( There is no student response. The teacher waits for about 10 seconds, and then comments.) Perhaps you need a little more time to think about that. It's not an easy question. ( The teacher waits until a student raises her hand.) Ah, yes, Lin. I see you are going to make a stab at it.<EMPH TYPE="5">Lin: Well, I'm not sure this is right, but I remember a waitress in Sandy's Restaurant telling us that the reason that there were so few lobsters available now was greed. That's what she said.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: So what did you take that to mean, Lin?<EMPH TYPE="5">Lin: Well, I think that meant that instead of the fishermen being careful not to be greedy, they just went along catching everything-just so that they could make more money. I mean, they caught the little fish and everything and didn't give them a chance to grow.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: You're saying that the fishermen caught even the little fish, and so the fish could not grow to replenish the fish stocks. They did not limit their catch to fully grown fish only and that's how the supplies became depleted.<EMPH TYPE="5">Lin: Yeah, that's what I mean, and I think it's a shame.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: Thank you Lin, for being the first to open this discussion. I really appreciate that. So now, who'd like to add to what Lin has said, or offer another idea?

We cannot have it both ways: quality of thinking and speed are anathema to each other. In conducting effective classroom discussions in which we ask students to offer their ideas, waiting for students to think must trump the rush to finish. In the end, teachers have to choose which goal is more important.

Appreciate Students' Ideas

How do students become fearful of offering their ideas? We've known for many years that a major barrier to productive classroom discussion is teachers' natural tendency to judge, evaluate, and approve or disapprove of students' contributions (Rogers, 1961).

Consider the following dialogue, in which students discuss a photo of a weather station at the Arctic Circle. The teacher's ongoing evaluative responses limit thoughtful examination of important ideas, stressing "answers" rather than allowing students to dig for deeper meanings.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: What did you see in the photo?<EMPH TYPE="5">Frank: Snow and ice.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: Right! So what does that tell you about the weather?<EMPH TYPE="5">Phillippa: It's cold there.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: Right! Good! So what does that mean about what life is like there? Anybody? Lillian?<EMPH TYPE="5">Lillian: No response.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: Anyone else?<EMPH TYPE="5">Eva: Maybe you have to dress warmly.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: Yes, but I was wondering about the way people live there, Eva, not their clothes.

Some teachers still cling to the belief that a big part of their job is telling students when they are right or wrong. Such judgments, however, work against a climate in which new and innovative ideas flourish. Students who fear being judged or penalized will rarely if ever, participate. The small group of students who are confident that they know what the teacher wants to hear may end up dominating the discussion, carrying on a private dialogue with the teacher while the rest of the class tunes out.

It may be asking a lot of teachers to shed the critic's mantle and replace "Right!" and "Good!" with responses like "I see," "Tell me more, Shawana," or "Thanks, Eva, for sharing your ideas with us." But when the teacher gives students a chance to expand their thinking and comments on their ideas without judgment, students feel safe to continue to examine and to go further in their thinking. In the following example, notice how the teacher accepts and appreciates Frank's contribution:<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: What observations did you make about the photo?<EMPH TYPE="5">Frank: Cold.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: Tell me a little more about that, Frank.<EMPH TYPE="5">Frank: Well, I see a lot of snow and ice.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: So the snow and ice tell you how cold it is.<EMPH TYPE="5">Frank: Yeah. It's got to be freezing for there to be icebergs.<EMPH TYPE="5">Teacher: Where the climate is very cold, you may find some icebergs. Thanks, Frank. Does anyone else want to add an observation?

Accept Lack of Closure

The need for certainty seems to be part of our human makeup. When we've wrestled with dissonance and have finally brought a situation to closure, we feel relief, a sort of psychological "Whew!" Answers make us feel safe.

Even experienced teachers may feel a sense of accomplishment when our students can tell us, with certainty, that Ottawa is the capital of Canada and that Paul Revere designed the state seal of Massachusetts. Questions that have no "right" answers, on the other hand, make us feel unsettled.

This, of course, is the domain in which effective discussion occurs-the uncharted territory where we have to suspend judgment, put scrutinize nettlesome problems, offer new ideas, weigh alternatives, and consider different points of view. For teachers taking their first steps into effective classroom discussion, the prospect can be intimidating. For teachers who are comfortable in such territory, the experience is exhilarating.

When teachers talk too much, give too much information, express their personal opinions too frequently, or tell students what to think, all these seemingly innocuous responses seriously curtail opportunities for students to exercise their own brain power. When teachers instead respond with "Tell me more," "I'm wondering how you figured that out?" or "Perhaps you have some data to support your idea," they are inviting students to further examine their thinking. These responses insist on clarity of thinking, on reflection about a position, and on examples and data to support an idea. The ensuing discussion is likely to build deeper understanding.

Balanced Classroom Instruction

Teachers who have used the kinds of discussion teaching strategies described above have been enthusiastic about the results (Barnes, Christensen, &amp; Hansen, 1994). It's important to remember, however, that the key elements of effective classroom discussion are not present every moment of every teaching day. Sometimes a teacher needs to offer his or her own ideas ("I think that we all need to pitch in and help someone out who is having difficulty"). Sometimes a teacher will want to make an evaluative comment to a student who has done an exceptionally fine job ("Mona, I loved your story. It was so touching it brought tears to my eyes."). Sometimes students need to learn addition facts, multiplication tables, or grammar rules. And sometimes it's appropriate for a teacher to agree or disagree with a student, provide information, or explain certain procedures.

The art of teaching requires being clear about our goals and using teaching strategies that are in concert with those goals-consistently connecting our means with our ends. The goal is to bring teaching strategies into sync with our teaching objectives for that lesson. Productive classroom discussions are an excellent means when the objective is to promote students' intelligent habits of mind.

References

Barnes, L., Christensen, C. R., &amp; Hansen, A. J. (1994). Teaching and the case method. Boston: Harvard University School of Business.

Friere, P. (1983). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Continuum.

Rogers, C. (1961). On becoming a person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

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Productive classroom discussions-those that enable students to invent, create, imagine, take risks, and dig for deeper meanings-can only take place in a climate in which students feel safe to offer their ideas. Teachers can create such a climate by being mindful of the essential conditions of intera

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Michael Linsin- Smart Classroom Management

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Michael Linsin- Smart Classroom Management

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Michael Linsin posts weekly articles on classroom management. I will be using this for 2.6, but it's applicable to any standard involving management.

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There is a simple thing you can do right now to ensure better classroom management next school year. It only takes a few minutes. The way it works is to list the five most disruptive, annoying, and stressful misbehaviors you witnessed last school year. ... Read more

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There is a simple thing you can do right now to ensure better classroom management next school year. It only takes a few minutes. The way it works is to list the five most disruptive, annoying, and stressful misbehaviors you witnessed last school year. ... Read more

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https://app.easycbm.com/
This website allows for easy administration, tracking, and reporting of student progress.

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I will be using this to relate to my 3.4

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Adapting Reading and Math Materials in the Inclusive Classroom

Access to the mainstream reading and mathematics curriculum is not about place. Simply placing students with mild disabilities in the general education classroom and issuing them a grade-level textbook is not enough. To ensure the individual student's the basic right to learn, teachers need to provide appropriate and reasonable adaptations. But how can this be accomplished? How can the busy professional implement adaptations for the individual children while maintaining the equilibrium of the class as a whole? The answer is flexibility.

Listed below are eight principles for making adaptations in the elementary classroom. These principles are derived from years of research in general education classrooms that included students with disabilities. The principles have been organized using the acronym FLEXIBLE. Each principal is accompanied by a set of questions in the Making Adaptations for Disabled Students chart for the teacher to consider.

1. Feasible
Successful adaptations must be feasible for classroom teachers to implement.

The first principle of making adaptations is that adaptations must be feasible to use. Although teachers may recognize the desirability of an adaptation for promoting student learning, if the adaptation is not "doable," it is less likely to be implemented on an ongoing basis. For example, rewriting mathematics word problems using more readable terminology and bullets to highlight key steps may be desirable in helping a student read and understand, but the feasibility of the teacher's being able to rewrite texts week in and week out is not very high.

Some adaptations are naturally more practical to implement than others. Adaptations such as establishing appropriate routines, providing reinforcement and encouragement, and establishing reasonable expectations are relatively easy to accomplish. Others, such as regularly rewriting materials, using alternative materials, and individualizing instruction, require some consideration of logistics. View the Making Adaptations for Disabled Students chart to see a list of questions to consider before selecting potential adaptations.

2. Lively
Successful adaptations must be lively, engaging, and fun.

The more lively, engaging, and fun the adaptation, the more likely it is that students will like it and will tolerate its continued use. One common criticism of remedial teaching practices is that they are dull, repetitive, and uninviting, and that they cause students to become disengaged and discouraged. The same holds true for adaptations for students with disabilities in the general education classroom. View the Making Adaptations for Disabled Students chart while searching for lively adaptations.

3. Eliminated
Successful adaptations must be developed with the goal of working toward independence, with a gradual fading and eventual elimination of the adaptation.

Ideally, an adaptation should serve as a temporary scaffold to support student leaning. If the scaffold is not gradually removed, the student does not have the opportunity to work toward independence. Adaptations should be thought of as a temporary support – a support that will eventually be faded and eliminated with supplemental instruction. The Making Adaptations for Disabled Students chart has questions to guide you in thinking about eliminating adaptations.

4. e Xplicit
Successful adaptations must have a definite purpose – a purpose that is made explicit to students, other professionals in the classroom, parents, and, if necessary, the student's peers.

Adaptations are most effective when they are purposeful. If students understand how the adaptation will help them learn and are aware of its potential benefits, the adaptation is more likely to be well received and sustained. The purpose also should be made clear to other professionals working in the classroom and to parents. The more key stakeholders who are informed and supportive of the additional help, the better.

Explaining an adaptation to a student's peers can be a sticky matter. At the elementary-school level, adaptations can be implemented without taunting and discord if the teacher maintains a positive classroom climate in which individual differences are tolerated and even appreciated.

At times some students think that getting extra help, extra time to take a test, or less difficult homework is simply not fair to the students whose work is expected to meet a different standard. In such cases, a simple, direct explanation may be needed. For the most part, students tolerate adaptations and appreciate teachers who take the time to implement them. Questions to consider related to the issues of explicitness can be found in the Making Adaptations for Disabled Students chart.

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Adapting Reading and Math Materials in the Inclusive Classroom

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Access to the mainstream reading and mathematics curriculum is not about place. Simply placing students with mild disabilities in the general education classroom and issuing them a grade-level textbook is not enough. To ensure the individual student's the basic right to learn, teachers need to provide appropriate and reasonable adaptations.

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Effective Classroom Management and Positive Teaching

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Effective Classroom Management and Positive Teaching

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Posted by : Samantha Kirby

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To engage students in productive mathematical conversations , teachers can orchestrate discourse and structure learning environments to deepen engagement and support learning. Using effective strategies will support students as they learn to participate in mathematical discourse.

Below are six strategies from mathematics expert Dr. Gladis Kersaint to help you address these core areas and promote mathematical thinking and discourse in the classroom. For more, please download Dr. Kersaint's new whitepaper: Orchestrating Mathematical Discourse to Enhance Student Learning.
Dr. Gladis Kersaint
Strategy 1: Help students work with and rely on one another.

Rules such as "Ask three before you ask me" can help establish classroom expectations by encouraging students to seek assistance from peers before defaulting to the teacher.

The teacher can also designate student experts (students who have demonstrated depth of understanding about a particular problem, concept or procedure) whom other students can consult before approaching the teacher.

Strategy 2: Allow students to work independently before sharing in small or large groups.

Students need time to gather their thoughts and identify what they know or do not know before they are exposed to the influence of other students. Then they can compare and contrast their approaches and solutions with those shared by others during the mathematics discussion.

Strategy 3: Use questions strategically to engage students in mathematical discourse.

Teachers can engage students in mathematical discourse by posing questions that encourage discussion and debate. Strategic prompts and questions require students to attend to particular aspects of the learning process, explain and justify their thinking, and deepen their understanding in the process.

For strategic question examples, see Talking Math: 100 Questions That Help Promote Mathematical Discourse .

Strategy 4: Acknowledge the importance of mistakes in learning and understanding by:

Learning mathematics is not just about getting the right answer. It is also about learning from previous mistakes. Encourage students to take risks in mathematics by:

Recognizing that students will make errors because they are exploring and making conjectures.

Reminding students constantly that errors are expected and natural and that they can be a good thing because they lead to enhanced learning.

Helping students recognize what they have learned by analyzing their mistakes and identifying misunderstandings.

Encouraging students to ask questions to clarify and critique the reasoning of their peers and establish the correctness of solutions.

Empowering students to reach and justify conclusions based on their own mathematics knowledge without relying on the authority of the teacher.

Strategy 5: Use collaborative learning strategies.

When students work with peers or in small groups, they are able to take risks and build confidence on a small scale before they present solutions to the whole class. Strategies include:

Think-pair-share . This approach can be used in a variety of instructional circumstances to encourage students to engage in mathematics independently and then share their results with a partner.

Numbered heads . When students are working in groups of three or four, each can be assigned a number. Students know that any member of the group may be called on to provide a response, so everyone must have the same level of understanding.

Strategy 6: Take a creative approach to engaging all students in whole class discussion.

Teachers can use a variety of methods to gather information from the whole class or individuals that simultaneously allow them to assess individual and collective student understanding:

Thumbs up/thumbs down . Teachers pose a question or problem that has a dichotomous answer (yes/no, true/false, X or Y) and ask students to respond, using thumbs up to represent one choice and thumbs down to represent the other.

Response sticks . Teachers write each student's name on a Popsicle stick or similar item, place the sticks in a container, and randomly select students by choosing a stick.

Classroom response systems or other digital tools . Teachers can use classroom response systems to gather immediate feedback from students by asking them to respond using a clicker, website or text message and display results as a chart or graph.

We hope you've enjoyed our Mathematical Discourse blog series and are ready to begin this journey in your classroom. We strongly feel everyone benefits from mathematical discourse in the classroom: teachers are better able to access, monitor and evaluate students' mathematical understanding and development; and students can reflect on their own understanding while making sense of and critiquing the ideas of others in a collaborative and supportive learning environment.
This blog is part of a three post series on the importance of mathematical discourse from For more on mathematical discourse and Curriculum Associates, check out: Dr. Gladis Kersaint is a Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of South Florida. Stay in-the-know with all things EdTech and innovations in learning by signing up to receive the weekly Smart Update Curriculum Associates , a Getting Smart Advocacy Partner, and Dr. Gladis Kersaint, the author of the recently published whitepaper Orchestrating Mathematical Discourse to Enhance Student Learning. Download your free copy

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Talking Math: 6 Strategies for Getting Students to Engage in Mathematical Discourse

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To engage students in productive mathematical conversations , teachers can orchestrate discourse and structure learning environments to deepen engagement and support learning. Using effective strategies will support students as they learn to participate in mathematical discourse. Below are six strategies from mathematics expert Dr. Gladis Kersaint to help you address these core areas and promote mathematical thinking and discourse in the classroom.

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On demand webinar by APEX learning.

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El Dorado Charter SELPA Professional Development

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El Dorado Charter SELPA Professional Development

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Writing Grade Level Standards-Aligned Compliant IEP Goals Focused on Outcomes

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Students may experience trauma at any grade-level, living in any community, and within any socio-economic status. Trauma manifests in a v... Read More

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Professional Learning Catalog | El Dorado Charter SELPA

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Students may experience trauma at any grade-level, living in any community, and within any socio-economic status. Trauma manifests in a v... Read More Registration: Registration Coming Soon

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Using Webb's Depth of Knowledge Levels to Assess student learning

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Using Webb's Depth of Knowledge Levels to Assess student learning

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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An Enrichment Program for All Students

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Who gets the coveted seats in enrichment classes? In many schools, it's the students who are academic stars or labeled as gifted. That's the model my school followed for many years-academically proficient students were selected for classes such as math and word mastery competitions.

But then we reframed the question: Who deserves those seats in enrichment classes, and what enrichment classes should we be providing? Our philosophy evolved, and a program that had been an extension of academic classes evolved into one designed for all students that tapped into a wider range of interests.

Roots of Change

Several years ago, our academic intervention teachers took on the additional role of teaching students identified as needing enrichment in grades 3 to 5. Teaching two groups of children on opposite ends of the academic spectrum was an important learning experience for my colleagues and me.

We knew that the remediation we provided was an invaluable way for some students to strengthen their skills and that, in many cases, it was mandated by state regulations. We regularly collected lots of observational notes and data on each student.

At no time did our observations or data show that students who were receiving remediation would not also benefit from enrichment classes. As we thought about these two groups of children, we could not say that one group was more worthy of enrichment than the other. Could enrichment, in fact, provide the motivation and engagement that many of our students who were receiving remediation needed?

Planning and Logistics

We considered how to provide remediation and add an enrichment class each week without lengthening the school day or cutting services. Fortunately, we have one period a day called core extension, during which no new classroom instruction takes place-instead students travel to remediation, enrichment, instrument lessons, or English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) instruction.

Since academic support teachers were also teaching many of the enrichment classes, we realized that we didn't need to add time or cut services. We just needed to provide the remediation within the enrichment classes. We could help students decode just as effectively using a text on building a computer as we could with leveled fiction. We could emphasize the importance of math conversions as students learned that computer-aided design is created in millimeters.

Students would still receive standard interventions on other days, but on enrichment days, real-life applications could provide context and motivation.

Choice and Challenge

Each semester, students choose their enrichment class-we have options in the sciences, technology, and the arts. In Fibonacci Art they can create a mathematical spiral or a board game; they do nighttime stargazing in Space Class; and they fully construct and program their own creations in Gizmos and Gadgets.

They get to decide for themselves whether they want to build a computer in one class or tap into their musical talent in another-there are up to 12 choices per semester, spanning many interests.

We carefully considered parameters that included, at every level, challenge. We were committed to including all students, and just as committed to providing a range of challenging experiences.

The art teacher would include a writing component in her classes, and the librarian's coding class would end in reflective practice. The garden would be expanded to teach environmental stewardship. Highly motivated students would be encouraged to peer tutor and lead their own research.

Tapping into multiple interests across disciplines while maintaining a high level of challenge stayed central to our focus. In the first two years of the program, we continued to include those math and word competition classes, but today students have a greater choice, and each semester they can challenge themselves in new ways.

Inclusive and Supportive Practice

Over the last five years, we've offered dozens of different classes through our school-wide enrichment program. They've been developed through teachers' interests and newly discovered passions. Children delighted in Skyping with the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in Space Class and a wind-and-solar farm in Energy Class. They've also hosted professional scientists and engineers at the school.

A grassroots program that started as a conversation among a few teachers has developed into a full, rich program. Teachers and students have learned together, not only about the skills needed to build a computer or create a mural but about the value of choice and inclusivity. They have learned to respect and admire each other's previously hidden talents.

We have the data to show the positive impact of the program on student growth. But just as important are the little moments we've witnessed that showed what we had hoped to see: a boy with an IEP showing his high-achieving classmates how to build a wind turbine, stargazers with different primary languages looking to the sky in awe, and children learning from each other through hands-on discovery.

Fluctuations in funding and staff have changed the program from year to year. Still, the core of the program remains the same: choice, rigor, and inclusion through enrichment for all, not just the few.

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Who gets the coveted seats in enrichment classes? In many schools, it's the students who are academic stars or labeled as gifted. That's the model my school followed for many years-academically proficient students were selected for classes such as math and word mastery competitions.

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Solving Real-World Issues Through Problem-Based Learning

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The perfect problem connects content, student interest, and an authentic context.

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Lesson Planning and Instruction for English Language Learners

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Lesson Planning and Instruction for English Language Learners

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Presented by Christie Lillard, English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher, New York City
Sponsored by Squiggle Park®
WATCH THE EDWEBINAR RECORDING
This edWebinar is designed to provide educators with concrete strategies for lesson planning and instruction for English language learners. Christie Lillard, an English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher in New York City, presents research-supported instructional practices, scaffolding, and methods of differentiation that can be used across grades levels to support English language learners at various proficiency levels.

After watching this session, viewers will not only have strategies that they can apply in the classroom, but they will also be more familiar with several theoretical frameworks that may be useful for teachers of English learners. All K-8 teachers, librarians, specialists, and school leaders interested in strategies for lesson planning and instruction for English language learners will benefit from watching this recorded session.
About the Presenter
Christie Lillard is an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher in a New York City public school. Christie received bachelor's degrees in international affairs, Spanish, and linguistics as well as a minor in Portuguese from the University of Georgia. After college, she taught middle school oral English in Hunan province, China, and helped prepare students for the TOEFL English proficiency exam. Christie has a Master's of Education in human development from the University of Maryland, College Park and her master's in teaching english to speakers of other languages from the City College of New York. She is now beginning her fourth year teaching ESL in grades K-5 and she is a member of Squiggle Park's teacher team this summer. Christie's educational interests include social and emotional well-being, international education, blended learning and the science of language acquisition.

Join the Helping ELL/ESL Students Succeed community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view past edWebinars to earn CE certificates.
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Squiggle Park is an innovative EdTech company using the power and engagement of video games to help close the literacy gaps in North America and around the world. Their apps for PreK-Grade 6 kids and ELL students combine music, poetry, phonics, and the principles of gaming with a unique pedagogy proven to lead to mastery of reading skills 5xs faster than traditional instruction.

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Strategies for Lesson Planning and Instruction for English Language Learners

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Presented by Christie Lillard, English as a Second Language (ESL) Teacher, New York City Sponsored by Squiggle Park® WATCH THE EDWEBINAR RECORDING This edWebinar is designed to provide educators with concrete strategies for lesson planning and instruction for English language learners.

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Turning High-Poverty Schools into High-Performing Schools

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Turning High-Poverty Schools into High-Performing Schools

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Chapter 8. "Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment: How HP/HP Schools Do It"

by William H. Parrett and Kathleen M. Budge

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by William H. Parrett and Kathleen M. Budge

I don't care about all the things that went wrong in your other school. They're history. Now you're here. You go to work, you show us what you've got, and believe me, we'll get you there ... you'll catch up and walk across that stage.

-Pat Swift, assistant principal, Port Chester Middle School

To learn, children and adolescents need to feel safe and supported. Without these conditions, the mind reverts to a focus on survival. Educators in high-performing, high-poverty schools have long recognized the critical importance of providing a healthy, safe, and supportive classroom and school environment. At Port Chester Middle School and other HP/HP schools, this means all forms of safety and security while at school-food if hungry, clean clothes if needed, medical attention when necessary, counseling and other family services as required, and most of all caring adults who create an atmosphere of sincere support for the students' well-being and academic success. When students who live in poverty experience comprehensive support that works to mitigate the limiting, sometimes destructive poverty-related forces in their lives, the likelihood for success is greatly enhanced.

Comprehensive support uses the needs-based approach and "whatever it takes" mind-set discussed in Chapter 7. Striving to create and maintain a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment for every child, leaders in HP/HP schools adhere to the key principle of continuous improvement-acknowledging that the work is never completely done-and ask questions such as these to guide their actions: Is our school safe? Do we understand the influence of poverty on student learning? Have we fostered a bond between students and schools? Do we engage parents, families, and the community in authentic ways?

In this chapter, we provide background helpful in answering these questions. These same questions serve as leverage points for improving the learning environment in any high-poverty school.

A healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment enables students, adults, and even the school as a system to learn in powerful ways. Such an environment promotes innovation, inquiry, and risk taking. Moreover, such an environment reinforces and enhances the leadership capacity in the school because competent, excellent, and dedicated educators want to work under such conditions. Is your school fostering a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment? Use the self-assessment rubric in Figure 8.1 to focus your reading and reflect on your school's current situation.

Figure 8.1. Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment

Figure 8.1. Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment (continued)

Is Our School Safe?

I was scared at times when I first arrived here. The gangs seemingly had control of the place. Teachers were afraid to discipline kids because their cars would get keyed. Neighboring schools had to hire security folks to escort their teams here for athletic events, and the worst was that a lot of our kids did not have a safe place to learn.

-Principal, HP/HP high school on the West Coast

A school must be safe. Creating this condition requires thoughtful and constant attention to the security and safety of the facilities; creation of clear policies and procedures for student and staff conduct; frequent and effective communication with parents, families, and the school community; and attention to classroom management as well as the requisite professional development. Without these conditions in place, learning cannot become a school's focus.

The knowledge base on HP/HP schools is consistent with the practices of the schools we studied, particularly the secondary schools, in which leaders emphasized safety for students and staff as a prerequisite for learning. At Port Chester Middle School, the previous principal, Carmen Macchia, explained, "In the beginning, kids would hold their bladders all day out of fear of what might happen to them in the bathrooms." To help students become accountable for their actions, the school established structures, such as the frequent presence of school staff in bathrooms and hallways. By clearly setting expectations and modeling appropriate behavior and good citizenship, staff encouraged students to help promote school safety, which authentically contributed to changing students' perspectives from one of "ratting out" their friends to one of civic responsibility to their school.

Every student needs and deserves to feel respected and free from physical harm, intimidation, harassment, and bullying. To ensure a safe learning environment, leaders attend to all aspects of daily life in schools. They ensure safety at bus stops and on playgrounds, as well as in lunchrooms, bathrooms, hallways, and classrooms. Matthew Mayer and Dewey Cornell (2010) refer to teasing, hateful language, and social exclusion as factors of "low-level incivility that impact a student's adjustment and psychological well being" (p. 8). Through daily vigilance, consistent consequences, and continual monitoring of progress with frequent midcourse corrections by the adults, HP/HP schools wage war on such low-level incivility. Still, leaders of these schools report that the school did not become truly safe until the students came to believe that destructive behaviors would not be tolerated. Only then did they feel comfortable enough to trust each other and to join the adults in collectively working against inappropriate behavior. As a principal of an HP/ HP school on the West Coast explained, "Once the kids let the other kids (particularly new kids) know that we don't do that stuff in our school, it all began to change. They were taking responsibility for their school and liked the way that felt."

Leaders in the HP/HP schools we visited and those in other studies report that their concerted mission to eliminate aberrant behavior required daily attention in the early weeks and months. Their tenacity in successfully addressing students' negative behaviors paid off. Discipline referrals dropped, overall behavior improved, and relationships of mutual respect became the norm in the school culture.

They also explain that as instruction became more focused and relevant, student engagement in learning improved, which in turn had a positive effect on behavior. When children and adolescents willingly engage in productive learning experiences in their classrooms, such as solving a challenging math problem or writing a compelling introduction to an essay or grasping how a consonant blend works, they begin to see value in learning and experience success, and their need to act out or disengage diminishes. The negative behavior is replaced by a newfound confidence that success in a classroom or course is something they can attain. This phenomenon accounts for why, even in a highly dysfunctional school characterized by rampant misbehavior, some teachers are still able to maintain respectful, productive classrooms. These environments become islands of safety for the kids fortunate enough to be in them. High-performing, high-poverty schools strive to create a similar atmosphere of safety and security schoolwide.

Ensuring school safety goes hand in hand with the development of optimal working conditions for teachers and staff. In 2006, Eric Hirsch and Scott Emerick examined working conditions for teachers in North Carolina and produced a report entitled Teacher Working Conditions Are Student Learning Conditions. Not surprisingly, they found that student learning increases when schools create safe, supportive, and trusting school climates. They also found that teachers and staff viewed such a climate as directly related to their working conditions; when safe and trusting, they felt compelled to do all they could to enhance student learning. Leaders in HP/HP schools optimize the link between professional learning and student learning. They understand that teachers' working conditions are students' learning conditions, and as such, ensuring safety for all learners (students and adults) becomes a priority.

Once the establishment of a safe learning environment is under way, the challenging work of improving instruction can happen. As an HP/HP high school principal in the West explained: "Once we reestablished law and order, we were poised to take off. It's our foundation ... we had to get it fixed, and we did."

THE DISTRICT'S "AD-VANTAGE POINT"

Expect Safety-Support Schools

Do We Understand the Influence of Poverty on Student Learning?

This morning I was asked to join two officers from our county health and welfare department on a visit to the home of three of our kids. What we found was a small trailer house where our three students, their baby sister, two of their adolescent siblings, and five adults were living-11 people in a two-bedroom trailer. There was very little food, a blaring TV, a blue haze of cigarette smoke, and a very unhappy baby. I wanted to cry. How in the world can we expect these three kids to come to school every day ready to learn? Yet they do ... and we will teach them!

-Principal, rural HP/HP school

A second question that drives the establishment of a safe, healthy, and supportive learning environment relates to understanding the effects of poverty on student learning. Although the concept of a culture of poverty has been refuted (Gorski, 2008), too many educators continue to believe that people who live in poverty share a common set of beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors (such as a poor work ethic, alcohol or drug abuse, or apathy toward school). To counter these myths, leaders in the schools we studied and in other HP/HP schools use data and research to support high expectations of students.

How Does Poverty Influence Lives?

Although some scholars and practitioners contend that educators can better understand the daily realities of poverty by focusing on "patterns or traits" ascribed to people who live in poverty, this stance can be a slippery slope that perpetuates damaging stereotypes. No one theoretical framework can completely describe the life experiences of those living in poverty. People in poverty are as diverse as people in any other socioeconomic class (Bane & Ellwood, 1994). They present, like other groups, a wide array of values, beliefs, dispositions, experiences, backgrounds, and life chances. This diversity makes ascribing specific characteristics to people who live in poverty at best challenging and at worst harmful.

A better approach considers the constraints that poverty often places on people's lives, particularly children's, and how such conditions influence learning and academic achievement. As witnessed in HP/HP schools, this approach is not about "fixing" students; rather, it is about transforming schools so that they better serve students who live in poverty-students who are as worthy of excellent schools as are their middle-class peers.

As we've already noted, living in poverty does not inherently result in a shared culture. Rather, poverty affects intervening factors that, in turn, affect outcomes for people (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997). These intervening factors or constraints are wide ranging and complex, and they can compound one another. They can be experienced directly or indirectly as an individual, a family, a neighborhood, or a community (Calkins, Guenther, Belfiore, & Lash, 2007). What do we mean by intervening factors? They can include students' health and well-being; literacy and language development; access to physical and material resources; level of mobility; and degree of continuity between home and school in terms of expectations, values, and beliefs.

On a fundamental level, for instance, with an income at or below the federal poverty level, it is very difficult to provide for one's basic needs. Under such circumstances, choices in housing and the quality and quantity of food available as well as access to health care are all severely circumscribed. Uninhabitable living conditions, perpetual hunger, and sporadic access to health care can result in poor physical and emotional health, which in turn can inhibit cognitive development and one's readiness to learn. As also noted in Chapter 3, one in five children comes to school living in such circumstances.

Having money provides a sense of power and control over one's life and the means to make choices for one's self and family. This situation contributes to the development of personal agency, which is a belief in one's capacity to effect change or action and in one's ability to act on behalf of one's self, family, or community. By definition, people who live in poverty have limited economic capital (money). Nonetheless, it is not only lack of money that can compromise the ability to develop personal agency. Three other types of capital often affect personal agency: human, social, and cultural. Limitations in each of these forms of capital can also adversely influence students' success in school.

Limited Opportunity to Develop Human Capital. Human capital refers to the skills, abilities, and knowledge that an individual brings to the table, including the "capacity to deal with abstractions, to recognize and adhere to rules, and to use language for reasoning" (Putnam & Feldstein, 2003). Poor communities offer fewer opportunities to develop human capital than do wealthy communities because, for example, they often have inadequate schools, libraries, and medical facilities to promote healthy development.

Limited Opportunity to Develop Social Capital. Social capital can be a valuable resource to parents. It is gained by forming relationships in formal and informal social networks, although participation in such networks necessitates understanding the group's norms and gaining members' trust (Coleman, 1987). These networks often benefit parents with middle and upper incomes as they negotiate the bureaucracy of schools and advocate for their children. People who live in poverty, for a variety of reasons, are often isolated from such networking.

Limited Opportunity to Develop Cultural Capital. Students living in poverty often do not begin school with the same kind of cultural capital as their more affluent peers. Upper-middle- and upper-class students have a cultural advantage because they have often been socialized to the cultural benefits of exposure to libraries, museums, books on Western civilization, theater, or travel. Such knowledge is rewarded in schools (Parker & Shapiro, 1993). Studies have shown that parents, regardless of income level, often share similar aspirations for their children in terms of cultural capital. Some families simply have more means (money), leisure time, and resources (such as transportation) to achieve their goals (Lareau, 1987).

How Does Poverty Influence Learning?

In general, children and adolescents living in poverty are not nearly as prepared to benefit from school as their more affluent counterparts. Poverty-related factors that intervene in students' ability to learn include health and well-being, limited literacy and language development, access to material resources, and level of mobility.

Health and Well-Being. As previously mentioned, these factors are interrelated, and one factor can compound another. For instance, substandard housing, inadequate medical care, and poor nutrition can affect the rate of childhood disease, premature births, and low birth weights, all of which affect a child's physical and cognitive development. Such factors influence students' ability to benefit from schooling. Living in daily economic hardship can also adversely affect students' mental health (Winters & Cowie, 2009), self-efficacy (Conrath, 1988, 2001), self-image (Ciaccio, 2000a, 2000b), and motivation to do well in school (Beegle, 2006).

Language and Literacy Development. Children who live in poverty often come to school behind their more affluent peers in terms of literacy and language development. In Educating the Other America, Susan Neuman, (2008) states that more than 50 years of research "indicates that children who are poor hear a smaller number of words with more limited syntactic complexity and fewer conversation-eliciting questions, making it difficult for them to quickly acquire new words and to discriminate among words" (p. 5). A significant body of literature also points to differences in access to reading materials by students from low-income families in comparison to their more affluent peers (Allington & McGill-Franzen, 2008).

Material Resources. Poverty often places constraints on the family's ability to provide other material resources for their children as well. For example, they may have limited access to high-quality day care, limited access to before- or after-school care, and limited physical space in their homes to create private or quiet environments conducive to study. They may not own a computer or have the fiscal resources necessary to complete out-of-class projects.

Mobility. Poverty often places another kind of constraint on families-the ability to provide stable housing. Students often move from one location to another because their parents are in search of work or are dealing with other issues that require them to move. Frequent moves almost always have a negative academic and social impact on students.

Much is known about the far-reaching influences of poverty on a student's learning. An understanding of these factors provides invaluable knowledge to educators in their efforts to support and teach students who live in poverty. Like HP/HP schools, every school that enrolls such children must seek to acquire as much understanding as possible about the life circumstances of their students.

Have We Fostered a Bond Between Students and School?

If my kids don't get through this class, they won't graduate, and that means losing their dreams. We have to help them keep those dreams ... we have to. It's the most important work we do.

-Principal in a rural HP/HP high school

It's 6 a.m. and three kids are waiting at the door for their math teacher to arrive. They had each received a call on their cell phones the night before reminding them that their work was late and they needed to get in early to finish it before zero hour. Reminders like these are not unusual from their math teacher. The kids know he keeps close track of their progress, and while not always appearing appreciative of those reminders, they show up.

SCHOOL CULTURE ALERT

Foster Caring Relationships

"They didn't know my name; they didn't care if I slept in class or even if I came" is a statement that reflects a common refrain voiced by students in large comprehensive high schools of the United States. Yet this refrain is not heard in HP/HP schools, where a premium is placed on relationships.

Start Student Advisories

I love my advisory-it gives me a chance to keep track of where I am and know what is important for me to be doing. [My advisor is] also great to talk to ... she cares about me.

-11th grade student in the Northwest

Positive, productive, and caring relationships are indeed possible in secondary schools; but they don't just happen, as illustrated by the case of one small school in the rural western United States. Although the school served fewer than 400 students, many of the kids felt disconnected from school. A principal's commitment to making the school more personal for kids led the staff to reorganize the school day to include a well-designed advisory program. All professional staff members, including the principal, advise a small group of 18 to 20 students four days each week and stay with those students for four years, navigating their path toward graduation and beyond.

UNCOMMON SENSE

Create Smaller Learning Environments

We are saving 90 of our kids that we used to lose every year when they moved from our middle schools to our large 1,700-student high school. Starting our new 9th grade Academy is all we had to do!

-Superintendent in the West

Many HP/HP schools provide additional protective factors, such as restructuring into small learning communities. These schools create focused learning environments that help keep smaller groups of students connected with each other as well as to a smaller group of core teachers throughout the day. In large or moderately sized high schools, this approach may be in the form of 9th grade academies. In effect, these academies "protect" 9th graders from the impersonal nature of the large, comprehensive high school experience in which it is too easy to get lost. Academies are a strategy for easing the transitions from middle school to high school. Creating smaller learning environments and communities of practice has the potential to authentically connect students with adults every hour of every day.

Increase the Likelihood of Participation in Extracurricular Activities

When we removed the fees to participate and supplied the outfits, the number of girls who came out to join our cheer squad quadrupled!

-Principal in the Southwest

High-performing, high-poverty schools provide a protective factor when they find ways to ensure that their students living in poverty will be able to participate in extracurricular activities. The importance of such participation to the creation of a bond between students and school has long been known. Whereas middle-class children have opportunities to develop their skills and talents through private lessons and participation in community-based activities in their elementary years, kids who live in poverty generally do not. Poverty poses a variety of barriers to participation for many students, such as the cost of fees, equipment or instruments, uniforms, and transportation home after participation.

In addition, kids who live in poverty often face responsibilities that prevent participation, such as holding down a job and caring for younger siblings. Highly competitive "cut policies," which dramatically reduces the number of kids allowed to make the team, pose another barrier to participation. Waiving fees, supplying equipment or instruments, covering the cost of uniforms, providing transportation, partnering with community-based entities to offer scholarships for specialized skill and talent development, and eliminating "cut policies" are a few of the ways in which HP/HP schools work diligently to ensure that all kids have access to the benefits of extracurricular participation.

Do We Engage Parents, Families, and the Community?

I was headed to the home of one of my 2nd graders to let the parents know that Luis was coming to after-school tutoring on time and doing well. When I knocked on the door, Grandma and Dad greeted me warmly in Spanish, inviting me in. Luis's mom was preparing dinner. Dad asked me to come directly to the kitchen to show me what Luis had begun doing at home since he started the tutoring program. On the cupboards were taped a mishmash of cereal boxes, pasta containers, dairy product holders, and simple drawings. All were in English. Dad smiled and explained, "He's teaching all of us to read English! We learn 5, maybe 10 words every day!

-Elementary teacher, HP/HP school in the Northwest

The story of Luis is a good example of the benefits of engaging parents and families. A simple home visit by the teacher revealed how, previously unbeknownst to the school, a young ESL student was connecting his tutoring and schoolwork with his family. In turn, Luis's family was most appreciative of their son's progress in school and welcomed his newly gained English skills that were helping them learn. His family was also both surprised and pleased that the teacher had come to their home.

The success of HP/HP schools in addressing the learning needs of their underachieving students who live in poverty does not always solely focus on academics. Instead, helping students' families meet their basic needs, which include housing, food, medical attention, and in some cases safety, can be part of teachers' or administrators' jobs. Leaders in HP/HP schools are not naïve about their inability to solve the myriad of problems their kids face, but they often can help families connect with the community resources available. They do not concern themselves with whether or not such a task is in their "job description." If it helps kids learn, they do it.

In HP/HP schools, educators commit to engaging other stakeholders-parents, families, community members, patrons, and anyone else who holds an interest in the student or the school who may be a potential source of support if engaged in a positive manner. Families living in poverty often work multiple jobs, may have limited English language skills, and in some cases may have had few positive experiences with their children's teachers or schools. These factors frequently work against a school's attempts to form relationships with families who live in poverty and authentically engage them in their children's education. Even in high-performing schools, this problem is an ongoing concern. Leaders in HP/HP schools continually look for ways to provide opportunities for involvement and to gain back their trust.

The Critical Importance of Trust

In a recent study of the Chicago public schools, Anthony Bryk, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and his colleagues concluded, "Relationships are the lifeblood of activity in a school community" (Bryk, Bender Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010, p. 137). Their previous work targeted trust as the essential building block in the positive relationships that foster authentic school improvement. He concludes, "In short, relational trust is forged in day-to-day social exchanges. Through their actions, school participants articulate their sense of obligation towards others, and others in turn begin to reciprocate. Trust grows over time through exchanges in which the expectations held by others are validated by actions" (p. 139). This pervasive sense of trust characterizes the relationships found in HP/HP schools among educators, students, families, and other stakeholders.

In one HP/HP elementary school, a teacher remarked, "Without a trusting environment in our classroom and with the families of my kids, it's all uphill. We never make the progress we could ... we never can 'click.' Trust is what makes it all happen for us."

The development of trusting relationships lies at the heart of successfully engaging parents, families, and the community. To do this, HP/HP schools employ a variety of strategies and practices. They operate full-service schools, hire school/family/community liaisons, offer adult mentoring, connect the school and community through service learning, conduct home visits, ensure effective two-way communication between the school and the family, and use the school as a community center.

Create Full-Service Schools and Safety Nets

Many HP/HP schools connect needed social and medical services with their students. These "full-service schools" typically provide services such as social workers, physicians, dentists, vision and hearing specialists, and mental health and family counselors on site. Some schools provide a child care center and a family resource center to assist families in meeting their basic needs. Joy Dryfoos, noted scholar and longtime advocate of full-service schools, has studied these models for decades and concludes that when a full-service school works well, student achievement increases, attendance rates go up, suspensions drop, and special education placements decrease (Dryfoos, 1994; Dryfoos & Maguire, 2002).

Another critical purpose of a full-service school is to provide needed safety nets to catch kids in crisis and keep them from falling through the proverbial cracks of life. Leaders in HP/HP schools develop processes through which needs can be identified in a timely manner. Homelessness, hunger, medical issues, social and emotional distress, imminent physical danger, and coping with illness and death can interfere with learning. High-performing, high-poverty schools often establish networks within their school community to stay on top of these issues on behalf of their students. Once challenges are identified, teachers and staff move quickly into intervention mode, using all of the resources available to them.

Create Links Between School and Home

Strengthening the family's ability to support their children's academic achievement and other forms of success in school is a priority in HP/HP schools. One school organizes a learning academy on Saturday mornings to assist families of refugee students. Other schools employ school-family liaisons who connect families with schools in a variety of ways. Sadowski (2004) identifies six activities a school might consider to establish linkages between students' homes and school: (1) dual-language classes for students; (2) English as a second language, GED, and parenting classes; (3) home-school liaisons (with fluency in the home language); (4) preschool and early literacy programs; (5) early assessment; and (6) community and school activities and events.

THE DISTRICT'S "AD-VANTAGE POINT"

Offer Adult Mentoring

Mentoring works. Most educators have long known that a meaningful relationship with an adult is what kids want and need most. Mentors provide such a relationship. The National Dropout Prevention Center identifies mentoring as one of the most effective strategies to keep kids engaged and in school. The Western Regional Center for Drug-Free Schools and Communities identifies five positive outcomes of mentoring programs: (1) personalized attention and care, (2) access to resources, (3) positive/high expectations for staff and students, (4) reciprocity and active youth participation, and (5) commitment (Jackson, 2002). Many HP/HP schools draw from this knowledge to create and operate their own programs with local staff and volunteers; others access the help of Big Brother/Big Sister programs, local YMCA/YWCA services, and a host of other community-affiliated programs that offer adult mentoring.

Provide Opportunity for Community-Based and Service Learning

Our kids actively work to support their community. Through clubs and classes, they raise money for families in need, work on a "coats for kids" project, plant trees, build park benches, help with efforts of the Northwest Blood Center, Children's Miracle Network, American Cancer Society, March of Dimes, Red Cross, and many others. They rake leaves in our parks and do yard work for our elderly folks in need. Our students feel better because of these efforts, and our community values the extra help that the school gives back to them. When everyone is supporting one another, it makes Tekoa a great place to live and raise children.

-Wayne Roellich, principal, Tekoa High School

At Tekoa High School, all kids are expected to participate in community service. Noted for connecting academic learning to real-world problems beyond school, community-based learning, particularly service learning, has become common in HP/HP schools. Many benefits accrue from service learning, including the following: enhanced academic achievement, increased school attendance, improved student motivation to learn, decreased risky behaviors, increased interpersonal development and student ability to relate to culturally diverse groups, and improved school image and public perception (Billig, 2000a, 2000b).

Community-based learning also provides an excellent means to initiate career exploration, internships, shadowing, and in some cases jobs.

Conduct Home Visits

I was worried and very nervous about visiting my students' homes. But I've learned that making that connection with the family has made all the difference in how well my kids are doing at school. I now view them as part of my work ... my job.

-Elementary school teacher, HP/HP school in the Northwest

Many HP/HP schools encourage and conduct some form of home visits. Ten years ago, test scores in the Mason County School District in Kentucky ranked in the lowest quartile of all districts in the state. Inspired by a theory of action that held that to improve achievement, educators had to build closer connections to students' home lives. Therefore, the district, with a cadre of volunteer teachers, embarked on a goal of visiting every home of the 2,800 kids enrolled. Maintaining this commitment over the years, together with positive administrative and collegial support and the requisite professional development, has resulted in every family's receiving at least one home visit from their child's teacher annually.

Since the home visits began, the district has experienced consecutive years of student achievement growth and a 50 percent drop in discipline referrals, as well as reduced achievement gaps and increased attendance. Mason County leaders consider "getting to know the individual talents and interests of the students" to be the "true benefit" of the home visits. "These visits go a long way toward bridging the barrier created when predominately middle-class teachers find themselves teaching in a system where 57 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-priced lunch and an even greater percentage are from single-parent households," explained the assistant superintendent. "By taking the time to actually go to the homes to meet the students and their families, we begin to build the relationships that research suggests are a foundation of student success" (Middleton, 2008, p. 58).

Sometimes these visits have a truly transformational effect on teachers. Here's a descriptive account from an elementary school teacher:

I stood at the front door of the small clapboard house. Black garbage bags were stacked beside me. A barking dog was chained to a post in the bare yard behind me. The weathered door didn't seem to completely latch. I had sent a note home indicating that I could come by after school since she had missed our conference at school. As my student's mom opened the door and smiled, I wondered what kind of life this family had. I was invited into a front room-more garbage bags in the corner along with a mattress on the floor next to a TV, which sat on an empty shipping box. We sat at a bare table with three rickety chairs and had our conference. Three younger kids ran through the house as we talked about Michael. Mom said she didn't like coming to the school. But she appeared pleased that I had come to her home and truly cared about her son, and was happy to hear he was improving. We had a good talk. I learned that Michael had no father at home, that his mom had never finished elementary school, that his older brother was in jail, that his family-mom and three other siblings-lived on state assistance, and that he had no positive relationship with another adult male in his life. As I walked down from the front stoop to my car, I realized that I had been teaching a kid whom I didn't know really anything about. I left in a strange state of unrest, but also one of hope. I knew that when I looked at Michael tomorrow I would see him differently, and that alone would help us develop a better relationship to guide his learning. I was glad I went.

Ensure Effective Two-Way Communication

We had to figure out how to make sure that the family understood what we were trying to do. The telephone was disconnected, translated letters mailed home yielded no response, and notes sent through the student didn't work either. Two attempts to drive by the apartment and knock on the door found no one home. Finally, we reached them through a neighborhood connection one of our paraprofessionals had with the family. We had our conference in the community building at their apartment complex. It went great!

-Middle school teacher, HP/HP school in the South

We know that a "whatever it takes" attitude prevails in HP/HP schools. This is especially true in their efforts to communicate with the parents and families. Despite often limited resources, educators in these schools do not make excuses or settle for less than authentic connections with students' parents and families. The goal of fostering two-way communication between school and home requires leaders in HP/HP schools to be relentless in their insistence that communications be respectful, honest, and timely.

Use the School as a Community Center

Many HP/HP schools engage parents, families, and other community members by opening their doors and expanding their schedules to offer clubs, parent support and education, early childhood activities, GED programs, advisory groups, community education classes, and a host of other events and activities of interest to the community. These HP/HP schools partner with community or city organizations, local foundations, state and municipal agencies, service clubs, universities, and businesses to host these valued endeavors in their buildings, as well as offer services at times that better fit families' work schedules.

As an example, in partnership with the City of Saint Paul and the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, Dayton's Bluff Elementary provides students and families with a recreational facility and the services of a nurse practitioner, dentist, and social worker at the school. According to the principal, "The payoff has been huge ... our parents and kids see us as way more than a school. It helps in so many ways that all connect to learning."

The Principal's Role

Principals, working with teacher-leaders and staff leaders from various vantage points within the school, are positioned to address the wide spectrum of environmental needs that confront high-poverty schools. Figure 8.2 (p. 133) describes the actions that principals in HP/HP schools take to ensure that every student is surrounded by the positive supports and scaffolds necessary to ensure his or her individual success.

Figure 8.2. The Principal's Role in Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment in HP/HP Schools

The principal-

Relentlessly ensures the school is safe.

Initiates conversation and supports professional learning about the influence of poverty.

Organizes collaborative efforts to address student mobility and other poverty-related factors that negatively influence learning.

Initiates and promotes policies, structures, and practices that link students and families with medical, dental, and mental health services, as well as other sources of support in the community.

Promotes the development of positive relationships and a bond between students and school by doing the following:

Modeling caring;

Facilitating strategies that strengthen the student-adult connections, such as advisories and small learning groups; and

Examining data related to barriers to student participation in extracurricular activities and leading collaborative efforts to address them.

Initiates and promotes policies, structures, and practices that develop trust between school and family, such as hiring a school-home liaison and visiting homes.

Initiates and promotes policies, structures, and practices that connect schools to families and the community, such as service learning and using the school as a community center.

Ensures effective, frequent communications between school staff, students, families, and the community.

High-performing, high-poverty schools don't go it alone-and they don't reinvent the wheel. They access support, resources, and guidance whenever and wherever they can to foster a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment. The resources and organizations listed in Figure 8.3 (p. 134) can guide a school's efforts to build strong relationships with parents and families.

Perhaps the most widely respected and accessed of these organizations is the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University. This network of more than 1,500 schools originated from the work of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and its founder and senior scholar, Joyce Epstein. Guided by more than two decades of research and practice, the network offers what Epstein calls "a new way" to authentically incorporate parent and community involvement into a school's improvement process. The network helps member schools organize and implement action teams within their school communities, with the goal of increasing quality partnerships. In addition to creating new partnerships and supporting existing ones, the teams-composed of 6 to 12 volunteers, including the principal, teachers, staff, and parents-review school data to determine and prioritize needs.

Many HP/HP schools belong to the Johns Hopkins Network or other similar organizations to support their work. Any school concerned with furthering efforts to engage parents and families and associate activities at home that support a child's learning might consider Epstein's conclusion regarding the value of these partnerships and endeavor to create something similar in their school. According to Epstein, "The greatest impact on student achievement comes from family participation in well-designed at-home activities-and this is true regardless of the family, racial, or cultural background or the parents' formal education" (Jones, 2001, pp. 18-22).

Fostering a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment is an essential function of leadership in HP/HP schools. Creating such an environment is inherently connected to its paramount mission-the improvement of learning.

ACTION ADVICE

Relentlessly monitor data related to ensuring a safe learning environment. Are we making sure every student is always safe?

Build a commonly held understanding of the influences of poverty on learning among the adults in the school. Do we all understand how living in poverty may negatively influence the ability of our underachieving students to catch up?

Plan for mobility. Are we ready for mobile students' arrival-providing welcome packets, diagnostic testing, and appropriate placements? Do we develop "catch-up" plans if needed? Do we provide built-in opportunities for new friendships with peers? Do we make it a practice to communicate with parents during the first six weeks after enrollment? Do we address transportation issues if a student is mobile within our district? Have we marshaled schoolwide support from staff?

Make sure all students are connected to a caring adult. Do we know which students come to school without the support of a caring adult?

Start student advisories. Is every secondary school student connected to an adult at school who regularly monitors his or her progress?

Personalize relationships through creating small learning environments and communities of practice. Is the size of our school presenting problems for some students and preventing us from forming caring relationships?

Provide opportunities for all students to participate in extracurricular activities. Do our students have an equitable opportunity to participate?

Work to engage every family with school. Do we have a plan in place to guide our efforts to build trust and connect with our families?

Personalize the connection between school and the student's home. Who among our staff visits the homes of our kids?

Initiate an effective adult mentoring program. How are we connecting students with caring adults and positive role models?

Offer community-based learning and service-learning opportunities to all students. Are we connecting students with the community? Are we teaching students about the value of giving back? Are we providing opportunities for students to explore career options in the local community?

Visit every student's home. Do we have a plan in place to guide us in conducting productive home visits?

Ensure two-way communication between homes and school characterized by the following:

Language-appropriate written and verbal contacts

Translation assistance when needed

Respectful and clear communications

Frequent contact through the most effective mode

Authentic requests for feedback/response

Willingness to help with requests and family needs

Personal invitations to participate in school conferences

Timely invitations to activities and events

Open the school to the community. Have we created a plan to provide welcome and needed services to our community?

Join a network to enhance school, family, and community relationships. Can we improve our connections with our families and communities?

THE DISTRICT'S "AD-VANTAGE POINT"

Creating Full-Service Schools

Action Planning/Next Steps

Use the action planning template in Figure 8.4 to help you and your colleagues reflect on the information and ideas in this chapter. What commitments do you need to make and what actions do you need to take to foster a healthy, safe, and supportive learning environment?

Figure 8.4. Action Planning Template for Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment

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Fostering a Healthy, Safe, and Supportive Learning Environment: How HP/HP Schools Do It

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by William H. Parrett and Kathleen M. Budge I don't care about all the things that went wrong in your other school. They're history. Now you're here. You go to work, you show us what you've got, and believe me, we'll get you there ... you'll catch up and walk across that stage.

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Promote critical thinking through socratic seminars

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Legal seminars for IEP's and 504. I took a great class on mental health in the classroom and adjusting curriculum.

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Continuing Legal Education | National Business Institute

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NBI offers over 18,000 in-person and OnDemand resources for legal professionals. Earn your continuing legal education on your terms.

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Creating and Supporting Classrooms where Mathematics Makes Sense

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Creating and Supporting Classrooms where Mathematics Makes Sense

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This resource will help with creating effective learning environments specific to mathematics

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ASCD Webinar: Creating and Supporting Classrooms Where Mathematics Makes Sense

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Productive and Positive learning environment

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Productive and Positive learning environment

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by Becton Loveless

Positive, productive learning environments are key to students' academic, emotional and social success in school. Unfortunately, positive learning environments don't just happen on their own-they must be created. There are many components that go into making a positive learning environment for students. For starters, positive learning environments should offer a climate of safety, where risk-taking is encouraged, there is open authentic conversation, trust and respect are fostered, and positive interaction is the norm.

The best time to start developing a positive learning environment in your classroom is during the first days, weeks, and months of the school year-but it's never too late to get started. Below, we'll explore positive action strategy, and several simple tips, that teachers, educators, and even parents, can use for creating a positive, productive learning environment for students. By implementing these strategies, you'll be able combine the need for positive learning environments that foster improved academic performance, with the ability to promote students' social and emotional wellbeing and progress inside and outside the classroom.

Step 1 - Make learning relevant

The more relevant a topic or subject is to students' own success and happiness, the more engaged they'll become in the learning process. On the whole, when teaching math, science, social studies, even history, find ways to adapt the lesson or lecture to the interests of students. It's also helpful to discover the interests, talents, and learning styles of each student if possible. As resources permit, adjust teaching methods and strategies to meet the needs of students on an individual basis and you'll see students become more attentive and engaged.

Step 2 - Develop a Code of Conduct

If students don't have a clear and agreed upon understanding of positive and negative behaviors, it's difficult to create a positive learning environment in the classroom and at school. The first step to establishing a code of conduct is to ask students how they like being treated. From this question students should be able to brainstorm a list of behaviors they believe are respectful, kind, fair, and appropriate. At this point, together students and teachers should be able to agree that treating others the way we each want to be treated is the best code of conduct, and should set the stage for appropriate classroom behaviors.

Step 3 - Employ a Positive Actions Curriculum

While it would be nice if all students shared the same understanding of positive behaviors, they don't. Children come from diverse family, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. All these influences, and others, shape students' perspective of what's appropriate, and what is not. It's important that students are taught positive behaviors in a consistent and systematic way at school and in the classroom. Developing a Positive Action curriculum is one of the most effective ways to teach and instill in students positive behaviors. Positive action curriculum should teach students:

That positive actions lead to a good feeling and positive self image.

Positive actions such as nutrition, property exercise, and sleep that lead to a healthy body.

Positive actions such as problem-solving, decision-making and thinking skills develop the brain and make us smarter.

Positive actions such as kindness, living the Golden Rule, and being respectful allow us get along with others.

Positive actions such as time management and managing our emotions help us better manage our own affairs.

Positive actions such as admitting mistakes and taking responsibility for our actions allow us to be honest with others and ourselves.

Positive actions such as goal setting lead to personal growth and improvement.

Positive actions lead to positive behaviors, which help children feel good about themselves and others.

Step 4 - Help Students Develop Intrinsic Motivation

Feeling good about themselves is an intrinsic motivator to students-especially elementary age students-and positive actions help children feel good about themselves. So, how do you help students consistently engage in positive actions? First, actions are always preceded by thoughts. Second, actions and behaviors are typically consistent with thoughts. Third, feelings, children experience about themselves, are based in large part by their actions. Helping students learn that by changing a negative thought to a positive they can produce positive actions, and that positive actions will help them feel good about themselves is a powerful intrinsic motivator.

Step 5 - Reinforce Positive Behaviors

Recognizing and reinforcing positive behaviors is one of the most effective ways to produce positive actions in students, strengthen intrinsic motivation, and create a productive and positive learning environment. Certificates, stickers, toy prizes, tickets, tokens and other reward systems are great ways to recognize students and reinforce positive behavior and achievement in the classroom. However, it's also important to help students make the connection between positive behavior and the good feeling it produces (not just the physical award). As students make that connection between positive behavior and good feelings, and continue producing positive actions, they'll feel good about themselves, the intrinsic motivation is strengthened, and students will continue producing more positive actions and exhibiting positive behaviors.

Step 6 - Always Respond With Positivity

Positivity is a key component of a positive learning environment. Interacting with students in a positive manner, exhibiting positive behaviors, and maintaining a positive attitude is one of the most important steps for creating a positive learning environment and producing successful students. Regardless of the situation or circumstance, there is always a way to respond to and interact with students in a positive way. Teaching students how to communicate and interact with each other in a positive manner is also key to fostering a positive learning environment in the classroom. Positivity is one of the most powerful agents of change for establishing and maintaining a positive learning environment at school and in the classroom.

Simple Tips and Strategies for Building Positive Learning Environments

The Positive Action strategy we introduced above is one of the few character education programs recognized by the U.S. Department of Education's What Works Clearinghouse to produce positive results in students' academic performance and behavior. But it isn't the only strategy. Below is an additional list of simple strategies and tips from teachers, educators, and even parents, that have proven useful and effective for creating a positive, productive learning environment at school and in the classroom.

Relationships first, school second. Don't jump straight into school work the first day of school. Break the ice and help get students out of their comfort zone at the onset by playing some interactive games and holding some team building exercises. This helps students get to know each other on a personal level, and experience the "human" side of their teacher.

Share some stories from the summer. Before you transition into the school year have the students share some of the fun things they, or their families did over the summer. Also, take a moment to share with your students what you did over the summer. This helps the students get to know each other and their teacher, and helps you build rapport with your students.

Get to know each student. At the beginning of the new year, or term, ask parents to write a "in a million words or less" letter describing their child. Once you have received letters from all the parents, take some time to read each letter and learn about the unique character, desires, needs and talents of each child. Reading these letters at least once, if not regularly, will help you see each child in a different light.

Write an introduction letter. Get to know your students and let them get to know you through introduction letters. Write a letter telling your students about yourself, your likes, your hobbies, loves and aspirations. For their first assignment, have students write a letter about themselves for you.

Create an Internet Meme. Internet memes are a fun and effective way for communicating important expectations, rules and concepts with students without coming off mean or overbearing. They can include media, catch phrases, jokes and funny images.

Lean on Your Colleagues. Being a good teacher and creating a positive learning environment takes a lot of work-so don't go at it alone. Reach out to other teachers, educators and people who will support you, build you up and who have been successful at creating positive learning environments.

Plan for the Future, Live in the Moment. As you work toward creating a positive learning environment for your students, stay focused on the present. Creating a positive working environment is a process, it won't happen overnight. Don't get so caught up with the end goal that you are not able to savor the moment.

Get Students Involved in the Process. Creating a positive learning environment should involve all your students. Have students help decide how to design the room, where pictures should go, what pictures should be used, etc. Allow them to take ownership of their learning environment.

Create a Creative Bookmark. Create a laminated bookmark with your contact information on it. This is a fun way to invite your students to stay in touch with you. Include your email address, school web page URL or any other info you want students to have at their fingertips.

Create a Classroom Newsletter. Having your class develop a newsletter is a great way to keep students engaged, entertained and parents involved. But don't you do it! Have your students do it. Make your newsletter a student driven project and you'll engender a positive classroom learning environment.

Connect Using Social Media. Social media can be a great way for teachers to connect with students-especially given the propensity that kids have these days to access social media. Take pictures of class projects, awards, activities and events and post them on instagram for kids and parents to enjoy. Or maybe you can set up a class twitter account to keep students and parents up to date on what's going on in the classroom throughout the year.

Create a Blog. Create and maintain a classroom blog. This is another great way to keep students and teachers up to date and involved in what's going on in the classroom. It's also a great place to post upcoming projects, guidelines, study guides and resources for students and parents.

Keep it Green. Use digital technology to decrease reliance on paper products and to facilitate online communication between teachers and students, and their parents. Much of what was traditionally communicated using paper can now be communicated digitally online using Twitter, Facebook, or a class web page. Going digital saves time, is more effective than paper (which can be lost), foster a positive learning environment, and protects our world's environment.

Start with Relationships. As tempting as it is to get a headstart on academics, keep the focus of the first day of school on establishing relationships and building a sense of community within your classroom. Let each student know that the most important part of their education is them. Do some team building activities. Show students that they are valued for their contribution. There will be plenty of time to focus on academics tomorrow.

Be Enthusiastic. Be enthusiastic! Smile! Let your students know that you're excited to be there and that you're excited they're there. Everything you say or do the first week of school should communicate your enthusiasm for the new school year. Your positive attitude and enthusiasm is key to creating, and maintaining, a positive learning environment in the classroom.

Stay Optimistic. After the enthusiasm of the first few weeks of school starts to wear off and you get down to the nitty gritty of dealing with the challenges of being a teacher, you must stay committed to maintaining a positive attitude and a high level of optimism throughout the year. Students will pick up on any negativity or bad moods immediately. Your ability to maintain a positive attitude, and stay optimistic, is at the core of your ability to establish a positive learning environment.

Treat Each Student As If They Were Your Own Child. Are you a parent? Have you experienced those struggles and fears that your own children have experienced as they've gone to school each day? Have you ever hoped or prayed their teacher would be sensitive to their needs and be understanding? Treat each of your students with the same love, respect and level of attention that you'd want for your own child. It takes work, but it will bring out the best in each child and foster a positive learning environment.

Focus on the Positive. There is something positive to be found in even the worst student. Each day find something good in each student and point it out to them. Focusing on the positive in every student will enable you to create and maintain a truly positive learning environment for your students. And more importantly, you'll help each student build esteem and self worth that will last a lifetime.

Sometimes... Just Wing It. Humans are unpredictable. Children are even more unpredictable. Now matter how well you planned over the summer, once your children arrive in the classroom, and you start getting to know them, you really can't make a concrete plan. Take a little time to get to know your students. After the first few days of school, you may need to re-evaluate your plan and go back to the drawing board to fix a few things. Have fun. It's okay.

Review the Basics. Academics are important, but if students know proper classroom etiquette it's difficult to have a successful learning environment. Don't assume that your students know anything-review the basics. During the first week of school review with your students how to ask for help, provide help to other students, work together, collaborate, be respectful, etc. Reviewing the basics sets the stage for a positive and productive learning environment in the classroom.

Reconnect at the Beginning of Each Year. Plan a school wide social event or activity to be held the week before school starts. This provides students, teachers, parents and faculty the opportunity to reconnect without the pressures of school. Keep the event low key and focused on socializing and getting to know one another.

Establish Positive Parent Relationships. The last thing you want to do is wait until there is an issue or problem with little Tommy before you attempt to establish a relationship with his parents. At the beginning of each year, reach out to the parents of each child in your class in a personal way. Introduce yourself, let them know who you are, that you're excited to start working with their child, and what your plans are for the year. Building a relationship with parents early on sets the stage for a positive learning environment with their child the rest of the year.

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Strategies for Building a Productive and Positive Learning Environment

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by Becton Loveless Positive, productive learning environments are key to students' academic, emotional and social success in school. Unfortunately, positive learning environments don't just happen on their own-they must be created. There are many components that go into making a positive learning environment for students.

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New teachers sometimes struggle with establishing relationships with students, so a veteran shares a few tips on how to get started.

©Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images

How do we get the best out of our students? By building a rapport with them. We hear that over and over again, but do we really know what that looks like or what that means?

It's not about preaching to them or trying to make them better people. It's about learning who they are, accepting and celebrating their uniqueness, and really listening to them.

Strategies for Getting to Know Your Students Better

1. Stand in the hall between classes. Take a little break to chat with students as they pass by. Smile, say hi, comment on that cute new haircut. Make yourself actually notice the kids. I know it seems like you could get work done at your desk, but really, what can you accomplish in that three minutes?

Standing in the hall outside your door allows you to be seen and chat with students as they walk by. You'll always find that one tough nut, but I bet if you keep at it, they will greet you before the year is over.

Standing in the hall also lets you welcome your kids to your room every day, and it's wonderful for them to enter a place where someone is glad to see them.

This is also the first step in making your class a safe and welcoming place. Don't stand for bullying or belittling of anyone for any reason. Don't do it yourself, and stop it if you see it.

2. Advise a club or open your room for study sessions. Coaching a sport is one way to interact with students outside of class, but it's far from the only way. If there aren't any clubs in need of an advisor, ask your students if there's anything they want and propose a new club. Or just host an informal book club with interested students.

I'm an early bird, so I open my room up for students before the school day to work on a computer, print things out, or do whatever they need. I'm already there, so why not?

3. Go to school events if possible, but try to see students outside of class. The kids will love to see you at their games. I set a goal to go to one event for each sport. Even if I can't stay the whole time, the students appreciate that I came out. Plus, when I say, "Hey, nice hustle last night," they know I actually saw it.

You also have students who don't participate in sports but may be in 4H or ride a skateboard-try to see these students in their element.

I'm deathly afraid of birds and my students know it, so the look on a student's face when I came to his poultry show at our local fair was worth the blood I drew squeezing my husband's arm. A lot of the time-as with that fair-I was going to go anyway. But you can also stop at McDonald's and buy a coffee if that's where a student works.

And if you can't make it to events outside of school, just asking how they went will let the students know that you think of them as people beyond their academic work.

4. Pay attention to and respect their nonverbal behavior. Students are entitled to their personal space just like you are. If they keep their arm over their work or move away from you as you walk by, respect that and don't take it personally. If they don't want you to look over their shoulder, don't. Try asking them to show you what they're working on.

5. Always, always look for the good in them. I start each year with a notebook that I carry to every meeting and always have on my desk. It's my lifeline for the year. I fill it with ideas, due dates, etc., but most importantly, a few weeks into the year I make a list of students who I believe have had little or no positive communication from the school. I look up their addresses and phone numbers so I have them ready.

And then I wait and watch, staying on the lookout for something positive. I can then easily and quickly call home or write a note-I always send these by mail so that families have a physical copy. So many students have said to me, "Thank you, I got extra allowance," or "My mom put it on the refrigerator."

I don't ignore the "good" kids-it's easy to see their accomplishments, and I contact their homes as well, but I make myself look for something positive in the students who haven't had the best school experiences.

6. Last of all, be sincere. Teenagers can spot a phony from miles away. You became a teacher because you have a passion for your subject area and a passion for young people. Let them know that however you can.

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New teachers sometimes struggle with establishing relationships with students, so a veteran shares a few tips on how to get started.

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Differentiating for All Students- Online course (2 weeks)

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Differentiating for All Students- Online course (2 weeks)

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Free Online Course: Differentiation: A strategy for all students from Canvas Network | Class Central

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Learners will explore definitions and examples of differentiation within the classroom, including the domains of content, instruction, and performance tasks. Opportunities for collaboration and reflection will exist through participation in discussion forums and completion of short quizzes.

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20 Tips for Creating a Safe Learning Environment

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20 Tips for Creating a Safe Learning Environment

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By Rebecca Alber
Helpful quick-reference list

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Teachers at King Middle School in Portland, Maine, make these sentence starters easily accessible by taping a talk moves printout to students' desks. King Middle School developed these talk moves inspired by Classroom Discussions: Using Math Talk to Help Students Learn, Grades 1-6, Second Edition, written by Suzanne H. Chapin, Catherine O'Connor, and Nancy Canavan Anderson (Math Solutions, 2009).

This video is part of our How Learning Happens series, which explores teaching practices grounded in the science of learning and human development.

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Encouraging Academic Conversations With Talk Moves

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Sentence starters that students use to join a class discussion encourage both academic thinking and social connectedness.

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The ever changing world of technology has not overlooked the education system. New forms of technology find their way into our schools everyday. Whether using an Ipad, an Android tablet, a laptop or an interactive handheld game unit, there are many forms of technology that can be used to advance educational lessons. Technology for educational purposes can be found free of charge or for a minimal fee and there are types of technology that can address every level of education from kindergarten through graduate school.

Technology and special education classrooms

In developing new technology, software and hardware companies have not overlooked the spectrum of special needs and special education students. Technology in special education classrooms is an industry within an industry and it is constantly developing and improving products for special needs.

1. Operating Systems: Just about every operating system available has something for people with special needs. Both Microsoft and Apple, the creators of the two most prevalent operating systems, Windows 7 and OS X, offer a number of enhancements that enable users of different impairments to use the system. Microsoft's 'Ease of Access' center in the Windows operating system, as well as Apple's OS X, offer options that allow for using the computer without a monitor for the blind, adding visual prompts and eliminating sounds for the deaf, and alternate input devices for those with mobility deficiencies. These options are available in the base design of each system and do not cost users anything extra.

2. Braille displays: There is no limit to what technology in special education classrooms can accomplish. Braille displays offer the ability read text that is sent to the machine by activating pins on a multi-cell display. They are available cheaply for reading text line by line while more expensive versions can read text, allow for text input and SMS texting, and help with navigation around the computer. They work with a cable and also come in a Bluetooth wireless version. Some Braille displays are even able to operate with smart phones and PDA's.

3. Word prediction software: Word prediction software simply predicts the words that are being typed to reduce the number of keystrokes used to input the word. Once several letters of the word are typed, a list of words pops up and the student selects the correct word. Some versions of the software base the list of words on the letters keyed and other versions will base the choice on context and grammar.

4. Tablets and iPads: Tablets and iPads are the hottest must haves in the technology market. These devices can be used like a computer, an imaging device, a camera, a projector, a mouse, a keyboard, and a remote device for a white boards. The use of tablets and iPads as technology in special education classrooms is limitless and app developers, parents, specialists and doctors are always searching for more unique ways to employ these devices.

5. Apps - Apple's App Store and Google's Android App Market both offer a number of apps designed to assist in the use of technology in special education classrooms. Though sometimes they may be a little difficult to locate, Eric Sailers, a speech-language pathologist who has developed several apps for special needs children, has compiled a list of apps available in Apple's App Store and provides a short description of each. This list will assist teachers in finding useful apps quickly so they may work with their children more effectively. Alternately, the website BridgingApps has developed a community of people directly concerned with the education of those with special needs and helps people to develop and share ideas about programs, apps and the use of technology in special education classrooms.

The use of technology in special education classrooms is still in its infancy. As developers see new markets for their technology and educators and specialists create new ideas that develop into hardware and software, the choices will grow. But, there are currently many options to choose from and a simple search can produce a number of ideas that can be employed in the classroom right away, with little investment.
With Concordia University-Portland's Inclusive Classroom concentration, you'll find an emphasis on instructional strategies used to serve students with disabilities and special needs in inclusive general education classrooms. Click here to learn more.
Learn More: Click to view related resources.

Tags: Educational Technology, Special Education

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5 Ways to Use Technology in the Special Education Classroom

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The ever changing world of technology has not overlooked the education system. New forms of technology find their way into our schools everyday. Whether using an Ipad, an Android tablet, a laptop or an interactive handheld game unit, there are many forms of technology that can be used to advance educational lessons.

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National Association for Gifted Children |

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NAGC works to support those who enhance the growth and development of gifted and talented children through education, advocacy, community building, and research

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Prompting students to use physical gestures like high fives in the classroom helps build a sense of community.

All good teachers strive to build a sense of community in their classrooms, and they know from experience that creating and strengthening bonds between students isn't a one-time event. In the real world and in school, fellowship and mutual respect among peers are fostered-or frayed-over days and months, not during the first week.

Because class time is precious and passes too quickly, strategies that leverage small moments in instruction have great potential for helping students gel as a community.

Group Salutes

One quick, low-prep, high-impact approach to cultivating community is something we call Group Salutes. A salute is a gesture of recognition or respect when people meet or say goodbye. In the classroom, a Group Salute is a teacher-prompted social or physical gesture shared between two or more students at the beginning or end of an interaction. Group Salutes can be used with students of all ages, including ones who are shy or struggle with social skills, and English language learners.

At the outset of an interaction, Group Salutes help break the ice and lead students to connect in a non-academic way. At or toward the end of a dialogue or task, they provide a sense of closure or accomplishment.

Opening Group Salutes

Have students introduce themselves: "Tell your partner your first, middle, and last name" or "Share your birthday with the group."

Ask them to share favorites: "Before starting, share your favorite ice cream flavor" or "To begin, tell your group mates how spicy you like your salsa."

Give them options to choose from: "Rainy days-thumbs up or down?" or "Poll your group: pizza or tacos?"

Closing Group Salutes

Remind them to say goodbye: "Say, 'See ya real soon!'" or "Say goodbye in [another language]. Here's how: ________."

Ask them to express gratitude: "Finish by saying, 'Thank you for working with me.'"

Have them wrap up the lesson: Have group leaders end a discussion with "So, in summary, we think _____."

Invite them to celebrate: "Whisper to your team, 'We did it!'" or "Turn to your partner and say, 'Good job, partner!'"

Group Salutes can also involve physical interactions such as handshakes, fist bumps, one- or two-handed high fives or low fives, or hand claps. Variations that don't involve contact include an actual salute, a wave, or a quick individual dance move ("When you're done, face each other and dab or floss").

Combining oral and physical responses works too. For instance, ask students to huddle up and put their hands in the middle, like a sports team, and repeat a phrase or chant. Or say, "Raise your pen or pencil in the air" and follow with a teacher- or student-led toast. Teachers should use prompts that make sense with their own and their students' personalities.

Benefits of Group Salutes

Group Salutes are not simply clear signals for starting and stopping activities-they're a subtle and effective strategy for teaching students how to exercise courtesy, be cordial, and use good manners. In fact, the Latin root of salutation, salutare, means to "pay one's respects to," which is essentially what the teacher is asking students to do through words and gestures.

Evidence from real-world situations suggests that Group Salutes can contribute to team success. A study produced by the University of California, Berkeley, found that the NBA teams whose players touched the most (via high fives, fist bumps, etc.) in an early-season game had the best records for the season. The researchers attributed this to the increased trust, goodwill, and camaraderie experienced by the players.

And Google's Project Aristotle found that the company's most successful teams were those with a sense of psychological safety-those whose team members trusted one another enough to take risks without fear of judgment. In the classroom, Group Salutes are a concrete step toward establishing that kind of trust.

We're not suggesting that every interaction between students should involve a Group Salute. Students of all ages appreciate a balance of predictable and novel routines. Responding to the same social or physical cues day in and day out can get stale or feel robotic.

For that reason, consider using Group Salutes frequently with tasks that involve short interactions in the beginning of the school year; later on you can reserve them for tasks that involve more sustained or in-depth peer interaction or collaboration. Or do the opposite: Use Group Salutes sparingly at the beginning of the year and ramp up to launching or closing most quick connections (turn and talks, or Think-Pair-Shares) with them.

We recommend keeping Group Salutes brief, fresh, and age-appropriate. This might involve giving a time limit ("You have 10 seconds each to share whether you've seen and liked any Star Wars movies"), asking students to contribute ideas for prompts, or having a volunteer tell the class what to do or say.

The long-term goal is for students to use Group Salutes on their own, without prompting. When they transfer the underlying social and affective skills to their everyday interactions, we can be confident that we're building a community.

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Prompting students to use physical gestures like high fives in the classroom helps build a sense of community.

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Videos on Translanguaging in the Ofelia Garcia website. 

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Videos on Translanguaging in the Ofelia Garcia website. 

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https://tc.yuja.com/V/Video?v=263364&node=1256867&a=733909154%20%5Btc.yuja.com%5D Translanguaging, Multilingualism, and Education. Teachers College, Columbia University -November, 2018 Revisiting the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 at the American Educational Research Association Conference - April, 2018 -- Diálogos. Anuario de Glotopolítica, Glotopolítica.com, with Lara Alonso & Laura Villa. -- Mike Mena on Translanguaging pt 1. Mike Mena on Translanguaging pt 2.

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LIST OF UNREVIEWED TEACHER'S APPS - New to the List Classroom: 1.8 Million free Books Amazon Kindle Bigwords DoReMemory Evern...

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PBS Teacherline by Anna Avalos

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Disclaimer from the California Department of Education The resources available in Digital Chalkboard (www.mydigitalchalkboard.org) are sourced from many different high quality content providers, and in some cases have been contributed by the individual or group creator of the resource.

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Introduction: Designing Learning Objectives :: Effective Instruction: Improving student achievement through effective teaching strategies. :: Digital Chalkboard

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This module demonstrates how to design learning objectives and is divided into three (3) parts: Introduction to Designing Learning Objectives, Four (4) Steps to the Learning Objectives, and a Conclusion.

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5 tips for using art to cultivate imagination and wonder in your classroom

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The primary goal of art is to introduce wonder. Unlike other subjects, art strives to leave us with a sense of open-endedness and revelation. Art reveals patterns and connections that would otherwise remain unnoticed.

Wonder motivates everyone to learn and dig deeper. In a learning ecology that focuses on wonder, an artful approach can be introduced in any subject area, especially when lessons are framed by big questions that remain unanswered or even are unanswerable. Every subject is full of surprising connections and patterns that invoke meaning for us.

John Seely Brown introduced the idea of a "learning ecology" in his essay Growing Up Digital. In this essay, Brown uses the web as a platform to explore the ways that a community of learners creates -- giving and taking in a way that enriches the learning environment. Brown shows us how web culture encourages users to share information for free with the expectation that they will be able to access free help and information when needed.

Brown's learning ecology is driven by information as its most precious resource. Like in a natural ecology, this precious resource is cycled through the environment so that all organisms benefit.

Our job as educators is to make our primary resource -- wonder -- the essential learning incentive and outcome. This precious resource of wonder will feed our students, and in turn, our students will enrich their communities when they graduate with future public projects, businesses, cultural opportunities, and the exchange of ideas that in turn will foster wonder and curiosity for future generations. Our students and communities will pass on wonder in much the same way oxygen, water, and nutrients cycle through a well-balanced ecosystem.

How do we do this? Here are several ways to use art to cultivate imagination and wonder in a learning ecology.

1. Develop Your Art Programs

Not only is it important for students to have the benefit of art education, teachers in other subject areas can also benefit from the way art introduces wonder into any subject area. Art is a way of thinking and not just doing. It involves changing perspectives (both literally and metaphorically) and reframing how we think, feel, and see a subject or an idea.

2. Begin and End With the Big Questions

Once, when Albert Einstein was a child, his mother wished him goodnight and turned off the lights. Einstein wondered, "Where does the light go?" This is a question that any child or adult can wonder about, and although it takes genius and hard work to answer it, it is the type of question we should not be afraid to share with our students as a way to introduce wonder at any grade level.

3. Model Curiosity for Your Students

As an art educator, I sometimes wonder at the way we perceive color and how it changes depending upon the surroundings and light. I share this sense of wonder with my students despite knowing that it might seem childish or make me appear unwise and unsophisticated. So what? What are the big questions you have about your subject area that might seem risky to share? What are the odd, strange, or mysterious aspects that still draw your attention despite years of experience in your subject area?

4. Create Assessments That Reward Good Questions, Not Just Good Answers

What if we framed our exams as a series of answers and asked our students to ask questions? How do we take rote, clichéd statements such as, "Columbus discovered America in 1492," and reveal them to be fraught with more misinformation than relevant information. Asking the right questions is the basis of good scholarship and query, and these questions are motivated by wonder.

5. Develop Different Ways for Measuring Success

Success in our culture is modeled on the person with answers, but maybe we should look towards models and people who allow themselves to get lost, explore, and to readily say those three magic words: "I don't know."

6. Find Solace in the Arts

Teaching our students to live with unanswered questions can be difficult, and many of us find a remedy for our suffering in music, literature, poetry, and cinema. Yet the remedy we find in the arts is not in the answers they provide, but it's with the measure of solace that comes when we feel at peace with wonder and the unanswerable.

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The primary goal of art is to introduce wonder. Unlike other subjects, art strives to leave us with a sense of open-endedness and revelation. Art reveals patterns and connections that would otherwise remain unnoticed. Wonder motivates everyone to learn and dig deeper.

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To teach critical thinking, consider applying six definitions of that discipline to the practices of authentic inquiry, PBL, and integrated studies.

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Borrowing ideas from game construction can help teachers with both assessing student projects and constructing rubrics.

Courtesy of Louisa Rosenheck

Teachers play a game designed to encourage deep thinking about what rubrics are and how they work.

Let's say a student builds a trebuchet -a siege catapult-for a makerspace or a science classroom, and it fails in functionality. Perhaps the support structure is too weak, and it snaps and breaks as the student tries to use it to catapult a projectile. The prototype has failed, but the student still might understand the physics of simple machines that undergirds his or her project.

When we teach students iterative design approaches to project-based learning, or-better yet-ways to apply Mitch Resnick's creative learning spiral, how do we assess students' content and skill mastery, particularly when lots of prototyping, iterating, and creativity are embedded in the process?

One approach being explored by researchers is playful assessments, which both measure student understanding and honor the iterative design process used in creating projects.

Embedding Stealth Assessments in Projects

Recently, I spoke with Stephanie Chang, director of programs at the nonprofit Maker Ed, about approaches to assessments that involve creative work. She suggested a game-like approach. After all, games have embedded assessments that gauge player mastery throughout the learning experience. (All games are learning games-you have to learn the game's system to navigate through it.)

Good games don't pre- and post-test players, as teachers might; instead, games seamlessly assess as people play them. Val Shute, a professor of education, calls this stealth assessment. "Teachers can design assessments to do just that," Chang suggested. "We often try to capture a moment in time, and that's not always useful."

Whether student work is digital, as with Minecraft or Scratch, or is made with arts-and-crafts materials such as hot glue and cardboard, or involves a combination of both, as with physical computing (e.g., Makey Makey, littleBits, or Micro:bits kits), the assessment question should not focus solely on the artifact a student produces for a particular (and often arbitrary) due date.

"Look at the process it took for [the student] to get there as a learner, and how he or she reflected on that experience," Chang recommended.

In other words, ask students to reflect about how and why they made their design decisions. Processes of reflection create opportunities for students to think about their thinking, a hallmark of good constructionist learning. Aside from written reflections, students can also document their work using digital portfolio tools such as Seesaw or Flipgrid. (For more ideas, check out the free online course Digital Portfolios with Maker Ed at KQED Teach.)

Make Assessments Playful

Like a good game, assessment itself can be playful. That's not just my opinion: Research on game-based assessment has been around for a few years now.

"Assessment should start with a sense of [student] agency, and should include student participation," Yoon Jeon (YJ) Kim, a research scientist at the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, explained. "It's like good game design, where there are interesting problems, and different pathways within it. And there is the sense of competence right away."

Kim suggested embedding project directions in rubrics and encouraging students to use the rubrics as project instructions. Rubrics should be designed so that students can record their learning accurately-they should be leveled or scaffolded, like games, to accommodate differences in skill or content complexity among students. "We can apply playful learning in the design of assessments to provide an engaging experience, rather than one of anxiety," Kim continued. "Learners can then see multiple entry points and visible paths that each lead to competencies and skills."

This might all sound more theoretical than practical, so Kim-along with Louisa Rosenheck, a research scientist from the MIT Education Arcade-created a game-like activity for teachers called MetaRubric. A free printable download, MetaRubric is a playful learning experience about making rubrics. You just need the deck of cards and small groups of three to five people to get started.

The MetaRubric cards guide the action. First participants are asked to draw a "good" movie poster. (The cards intentionally leave that phrase ambiguous-does it refer to good movies or good posters?-so teachers share the experience of how it feels to have unclear expectations.)

"These drawings serve as the basis for the subsequent rubric construction, and set players up to have the experience of assessing with a rubric and being assessed by one," Kim explained-just the experience students have when they first assess themselves and then are assessed by a teacher.

Players next list criteria for what they think a good movie poster should have, identifying the elements and skills they deem most important. "From there they are asked to share and discuss their criteria, in order to come up with one group rubric with a set of criteria they all agree on." Finally, they make a rubric for rubrics (hence the meta in MetaRubric).

Playing MetaRubric together, rather than designing rubrics in isolation, gives teachers opportunities to share ways to iterate and improve on praxis. "An outcome from playing MetaRubric may not be the perfect rubric," Kim continued. "But the perfect outcome may be the conversation about how to playfully assess."

Aside from professional development training, or settings like pre-service education courses, experienced teachers can create playful assessments together, too. Students should also get involved, as they work on open-ended projects. "Students should be part of the broader assessment conversation," Kim said. "Then they talk about what they think is important when demonstrating success. Assessment needs to be participatory. And playful. It's about a sense of agency and mutually understood communicative values."

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Borrowing ideas from game construction can help teachers with both assessing student projects and constructing rubrics. Courtesy of Louisa Rosenheck Teachers play a game designed to encourage deep thinking about what rubrics are and how they work. Let's say a student builds a trebuchet -a siege catapult-for a makerspace or a science classroom, and it fails in functionality.

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UCD Mathematics Seminar Series

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UC Davis Mathematics Project :: UCDMP 2018-2019 Saturday Series

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Teaching mathematics requires teachers to facilitate instruction in ways that empower students to develop a deep understanding of mathematics.Unfortunately, teachers do not always have that "specialized" content knowledge which includes a deeper understanding of the concept as well as knowing and understanding a variety of representations and strategies related to that concept.And, frequently, this specialized knowledge is not something that we, as teachers, have previously learned.

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Competency-based education personalizes how students show mastery by giving them choice in how they're assessed.

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Behavior Intervention Plans | El Dorado Charter SELPA

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In some instances, behavioral challenges pose a major impediment to educational success. Behavioral issues negatively impact attendance, suspensions/expulsions, engagement, equitable outcomes, and school climate and culture. Students with challenging behaviors or intensive social-emotional needs may require the support of a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) to function successfully in the school setting.

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A face-to-face chat provides an alternative for students who struggle to show what they know on tests.

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Crash Course is one of the best ways to educate yourself, your classmates, and your family on YouTube!

From courses like Astronomy to US History and Anatomy & Physiology it's got you covered with an awesome variety of AP high school curriculum topics. With various witty hosts at your service, you won't even notice you're getting smarter.

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Research suggests that flexibility and a sense of ownership make a real difference for students—but it's not the furniture at work.

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Research suggests that flexibility and a sense of ownership make a real difference for students—but it's not the furniture at work.

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https://www.edutopia.org/video/can-flexible-classrooms-boost-student-achievement

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Presented by Terrie Noland, Vice President, Educator Initiatives, Learning Ally
Sponsored by Learning Ally
REGISTER HERE JOIN THE LIVE SESSION edWeb members can download a personalized CE certificate from their edWebinar transcript the day after the presentation. Join here!
Words flood our world each and every day. We use words to navigate, to communicate and to share knowledge. For struggling readers, words can be a thief: a thief that sneaks in and isolates students from classroom discourse and from the rich, deep knowledge that is contained in the pages of a book.

In this edWebinar, the following information will be shared to help restore the connection between words and struggling readers:

Why reading is so hard for struggling readers

The importance of word exposure and what it means for lifelong success

When to use words at a student's decoding level and when to use words at their cognitive level

How to bring the right words to students that inspire continued learning

This session will benefit K-12 teachers, librarians, and school and district leaders. There will be time to get your questions answered at the end of the presentation.
About the Presenter
Terrie Noland's greatest strengths lie in the ability to motivate, inspire, and create enthusiasm in others to be passionate educators that support the diverse needs of students. Terrie serves as the vice president of educator initiatives for Learning Ally, where she works to develop engagement programs, professional learning services and communities for educators. Her passion is working with educators to create dynamic classrooms, and recognizing educators in their tremendous efforts. Terrie has more than 25 years of experience as both a motivational leader and developer of content for educators and administrators. Her focus for the past six years has been on the pedagogical practices needed to create effective environments for struggling readers and students with dyslexia. She has the opportunity to lead and facilitate groups numbering in the thousands, helping to build better understanding of working with struggling readers and students with dyslexia. Terrie is certified as an academic language practitioner and is currently working towards a Ph.D. in literacy, with an emphasis in educational leadership from St. John's University.

REGISTER HERE JOIN THE LIVE SESSION
To participate in the live edWebinar, log in with current version of Google Chrome or install the meeting app prior to the edWebinar on your computer, your Apple device, or Android device. If you have a firewall in your location, you can participate on your mobile device using your cellular data (not your local network).

The edWebinar recording will be posted to this page the day after the presentation. Join the Empowering Struggling Readers community community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming webinars, and view past webinars to earn CE certificates.

Learning Ally is a leading ed-tech, nonprofit proven to transform the lives of struggling readers. We provide access to grade-level content to bridge the gap for students with learning differences who can cognitively comprehend the information but read below grade level. Our high-quality, human-read audiobooks coupled with a suite of teacher resources is a cost effective solution for your school.

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Help Struggling Readers Connect with Words and Reading - edWeb

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Presented by Terrie Noland, Vice President, Educator Initiatives, Learning Ally Sponsored by Learning Ally REGISTER HERE JOIN THE LIVE SESSION edWeb members can download a personalized CE certificate from their edWebinar transcript the day after the presentation. Join here! Words flood our world each and every day.

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Critical Thinking Wins at One KIPP High School

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Suggestions from educators at KIPP King Collegiate High School on how to help develop and assess critical-thinking skills in your students.

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How to have strong classroom management while holding one-on-one conferences

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One-on-one conferences with students are a valuable use of class time-provided the other students are able to work quietly on their own.

©Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images

Student conferences are a valuable way to connect with students and target our teaching to the individual needs they have when it comes to developing the skills we're trying to teach in our classrooms. But one important logistical concern often gets in the way: Since we're talking with individual students during class time, how do we ensure that the rest remain on task?

Over the years, I've developed some ways to establish norms for independent work time, and while there's still the occasional student I need to redirect, I'm able to have productive individual conversations with my kids on a daily basis.

Students Don't Start Out Knowing Our Expectations

I've learned the hard way-and don't we all?-that I cannot assume my students know my expectations when it comes to their behavior in the classroom. Early in the school year, I discuss with my classes the different modes of activity we'll use in the classroom: whole class, small group, individual, and transitions. We write and talk about the purpose of each and come to a consensus on guidelines for each type of activity.

How I structure this process: I begin the conversation with my class with a five-minute quick write on the following questions: "What are the different types of work you normally do during English class? What makes that work easier or harder?"

As we talk about students' experience with things like reading, writing, and discussing in English class, I get to know them a little better-a crucial endeavor as I'm starting to develop relationships with them at the beginning of the year. And they begin to think about the purpose of what they'll be doing in my class and how to accomplish that better.

We then turn back to the four modes of activity. For each of these modes, we talk about the purpose of it and then brainstorm specific guidelines for best accomplishing that purpose. I have students create a two-column chart with the headings: "Looks Like" and "Sounds Like." Using this framing is important because it helps make the expected behaviors concrete and thus easier to understand and practice.

If students happen to miss a guideline that I think is important, I'll add it and explain to them why it will make the activity more effective.

Building Independent Work Norms
Independent work looks like:

Electronics turned off and put away, unless being used for a specific assignment, such as research, writing, or reading an ebook. (Depending on the activity, I may allow headphones, but this requires another conversation-some students focus better with music, using headphones, and others find it distracting.)

Heads up. (It's tough to tell if students are awake if they have their heads down on their desk.)

Focusing on an assignment we're working on.

Working on alternate assignments once we're finished with current assignments.

Hands up for questions.

Independent work sounds like:

Silence, unless conferring with teacher in a whisper voice.

Walking quietly.

Not making a lot of noise with food or school supplies.

Students understand that the independent work mode is for just that: working on something by themselves. They agree that they need to be able to focus and think, and for that to happen, certain guidelines need to be in place. Of course, this varies for different students, but we usually come to an understanding about guidelines.

Practice Is Key

Practicing the different modes is crucial. We'll do short bouts of each at first-10 to 15 minutes-and then reflect on how well we followed the guidelines and if we need to alter the list to make it more effective. For example, we demonstrate and practice what a whisper voice sounds like.

This does require a few weeks of work at the beginning of the year, but it pays huge dividends for the rest of the year because students require less redirecting and are much more productive.

Troubleshooting With Debrief and Reflection

What if the norms you've created aren't working? Teachers know that every new activity we use in the classroom needs fine-tuning. We need to occasionally redirect students and reach into our classroom management toolbox to deal with the little everyday challenges that arise when a group of diverse humans work together.

One of the best ways I've learned to make any new endeavor work in my classroom is to regularly debrief and reflect with my students. After establishing our norms and practicing independent work time for a short chunk of time, I'll have the students spend about three minutes writing about how it went and how we can make it work even better.

As we discuss their insights, I'll mention what I noticed, leading with the positive, and little by little, day by day, our classroom becomes a place where we think, and talk, and work together to make wonderful things happen.

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One-on-one conferences with students are a valuable use of class time-provided the other students are able to work quietly on their own.

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Interactive Science/ Social Studies Experience

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Interactive Science/ Social Studies Experience

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http://www.ports.parks.ca.gov/

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Tools for inclusion workshop Child Mind Institute 

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Tools for inclusion workshop Child Mind Institute 

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It's time to improve literacy skills during social studies instruction and ensure that readers of all abilities have what they need to access grade-level social studies concepts.

Join us on Thursday, December 7 for a look at scaffolded materials that provide extra literacy support while building key social studies concepts and skills.

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Newsela | Content and assessment platform

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Content Aligned To National & State Standard, Flexible To Support Relevant Curriculum. Find the Perfect Piece Of Content For Lessons. Go beyond the book.

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For CSTP 3.3
Helpful charts beginning on page 5.

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This is a really awesome individualized math program that allows students to be apart of their own assessments and progress.

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Zearn Math | Top-rated Math Learning Platform

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Learning with Zearn helps math make sense. Students explore math through pictures, visual models, and real-life examples. Log in to your Zearn account.

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Has also other resources such webinars, articles regarding special education

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Common Core Resources for Special Education - Special Education (CA Dept of Education)

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Resources and guidelines on the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for the Special Education Community.

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Engagement Strategies - for kinder but useful for higher grades too

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Engagement Strategies - for kinder but useful for higher grades too

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https://www.edutopia.org/classroom-student-participation-tips

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Effective, Equitable Learning Environments for All Students

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Effective, Equitable Learning Environments for All Students

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https://home.edweb.net/webinar/supers20190311/

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Writing Grade Level Standards-Aligned Compliant IEP Goals Focused on Outcomes (professional development) 

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Writing Grade Level Standards-Aligned Compliant IEP Goals Focused on Outcomes (professional development) 

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This PD will go over ways to make student IEP goals meaningful and connected to grade level standards. The PD will also help you Learn techniques and practices to engage general education teachers and parents in the data collection process.

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Students may experience trauma at any grade-level, living in any community, and within any socio-economic status. Trauma manifests in a v... Read More

Registration: Registration Coming Soon

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Professional Learning Catalog | El Dorado Charter SELPA

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Students may experience trauma at any grade-level, living in any community, and within any socio-economic status. Trauma manifests in a v... Read More Registration: Registration Coming Soon

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Use DIBELS to identify and progress monitor student reading levels.

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dynamic indicators of basic early literacy skills

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Professional Development : UO DIBELS Data System

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UO DIBELS Data System Training and Professional Development. Professional Development for DIBELS, IDEL, easyCBM Math, The Schoolwide Model and Big Ideas in Beginning Reading. Videos and Presentations.

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Designing Culturally Responsive and Relevant Individualized Educational Programs

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Designing Culturally Responsive and Relevant Individualized Educational Programs

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Using Monitoring Strategies in the Science Classroom

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Using Monitoring Strategies in the Science Classroom

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https://blog.learningsciences.com/2017/12/01/five-monitoring-techniques-that-deepen-student-learning/

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monitoring student learning

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What kids wish their teachers knew | Kyle Schwartz | TEDxKyoto

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A framework for giving students choice for demonstrating their understanding.

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Imagine a classroom where the students understand that they are unique, where their individuality is not simply accepted but celebrated; where their differences are not hidden, but rather used to expand learning in the class. A quiet, artistic student's interests are not only known, but purposefully included in the curriculum. Another student's active, bold temperament is not extinguished, but rather used to help elaborate her and others' understanding.

One technique that teachers can use to foster this kind of learning environment is called BAWD (Build, Act, Write, or Draw). It allows students to demonstrate their understanding of a concept-big or small, abstract or concrete-by choosing how they can best represent it, whether by building a model, acting it out, writing about it, or drawing it.

BAWD has a wide variety of applications. It can be used to assess prior knowledge and act as a formative or summative assessment. It is applicable in every content area and can be used with students of any age.

Students differ in how they learn and express their knowledge. The purpose of this strategy is to allow students to choose how they show their comprehension of a topic in a creative way.

One of us (Neisa) observed this strategy in action in Kristin Downs' eighth-grade English language arts classroom at Chandler Woods Charter Academy in Belmont, Michigan. Downs learned it in a professional development session over a decade ago, and we have not been able to track down the person who developed it.

Setting It Up

Prior to using BAWD, make students aware of guidelines-and the fact that this strategy only works if they are respectful of materials and other students.

Explain to your students that the letters in BAWD stand for:

Build: using anything in the class or materials you provide

Act: create a skit with or without words, sing a song, or dance

Write: products can include an essay, how-to, narrative, poem, list, song

Draw: draw an image on paper or whiteboard, create a map, use a virtual drawing app

Designate a corner of your classroom for each activity. Then follow these steps:

1. Present your class with the topic (examples below).

2. Let them pick which element of BAWD they will use.

3. Allow your students 10 to 15 minutes to prepare their creation.

4. Give each group one to three minutes to describe or present.

You'll need to leave some time for cleaning up at the end.

In our experience, most students tend to choose to build or draw, and only a few students choose writing or acting. Use your discretion in guiding how the students divide, but keep in mind that the ultimate goal is for students to choose how to demonstrate their understanding.

Putting It All Together

Elementary school: In an elementary classroom, students could use BAWD to demonstrate their understanding of photosynthesis.

Children might stack books to create an imaginary plant, with the top book open to represent the leaves, which take in light and water. Green crayons could be placed in the crease of the book to symbolize the chlorophyll absorbing the sunlight.

Students who choose to act might personify sunlight, water, carbon dioxide, a plant, and oxygen to show the process of photosynthesis. A short paragraph explaining the process might be written by students who prefer to write. Those who choose to draw might create an illustration with images of the sun, water, leaves, and air.

Other elementary topics could include bullying, respect, math operations or factors, money, community, and safety.

Middle school: In a middle school English class, students' understanding of point of view can be assessed using BAWD.

Builders might turn chairs in different directions and peer through them at different angles, showing a narrator's point of view. Other learners might create a short skit with the narrator using "I" or "he." Writers might make a bulleted list of the definitions of point of view or create a found poem from a first-person text from the classroom. Artistically inclined students might create a picture of a narrator with word bubbles describing what characters are doing using first-, second-, or third-person point of view.

Other upper elementary and middle school topics include compassion, plot lines, the Pythagorean theorem, and the amendments to the Constitution.

High school: In a high school psychology or communications class, students can demonstrate their knowledge of the communication process with BAWD. Some learners might use pencils to build a representation of communication in which erasers model interference in the process. Students who prefer to act might create a skit performing each step of the communication process and possibly some problems that might occur in an ineffective cycle. Other learners might write an example of the communication process using an analogy of a football team with players and moves. Those who choose to draw might draft an image of a dog and owner on a whiteboard.

Other topics for high school include oppression, civil rights, geographical warfare, financial literacy, coding, and digital citizenship.

Benefits for Special Populations

BAWD supports English language learners through modeling, collaboration, differentiated environments, and components of the SIOP (Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol) framework, such as building background and comprehensible input.

Also, the BAWD approach integrates various Universal Design for Learning principles through student choice-which not only supports English language learners and students with learning differences, but all learners.

Assessing students is necessary, but how students are assessed should be intentional, authentic, and creative. BAWD offers the opportunity for students to learn and express their understanding in a unique and engaging way.

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Imagine a classroom where the students understand that they are unique, where their individuality is not simply accepted but celebrated; where their differences are not hidden, but rather used to expand learning in the class. A quiet, artistic student's interests are not only known, but purposefully included in the curriculum.

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10 ways that we can make an impact outside of simply teaching.

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This is a good resource for 2.4

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Let's start by clearing up a misconception: Rigor isn't unfriendly. Adding it to your class doesn't mean you become boring, a techie, or an overseer of a fun-free zone.

In fact, done right, rigor fills your class with Wow!, those epiphanies that bring a smile to student faces and a sense of well-being to their school day.

Rigor provides positive experiences, is an emotional high, and engenders a pervasive sense of accomplishment students will carry for years--and use as a template for future events.

Rigor is NOT lots of homework, projects, resources, or rules. When those four nouns are used to define rigor, the teacher is flailing, thinking quantity is quality. Rigor is not about adding a column of data or remembering the main characters in a Shakespeare play. It's seeing how knowledge connects to life, to circumstances, and to daily problems.

Simply put, adding rigor creates an environment where students are:

Expected to learn at high levels.

Supported so they can learn at high levels.

Cheered on as they demonstrate learning at high levels.

It also helps students understand how to live life using brainpower as the engine. Sure, it will ask them to collect evidence and draw conclusions with which their peers may find disagreement. But it will insist they defend a position or adjust it to reflect new information, and it will often move them outside their comfort zone. It will also prepare them to solve the problems they will face in the future.

How do you as a teacher add rigor? Here are some ideas from my PLN colleagues:

1. Make it easy to decode words by adding an online dictionary or a backchannel that students can access with unknown words.

2. Build grit in students. Let them know they are capable, competent, that thinking hard does not mean they didn't understand. It means they want to understand.

3. Expect inquiry. Be prepared. Make time for it.

4. When you ask a question, pause. Let students think before answering. This wait time isn't delaying your lesson. In a rigorous classroom, it is the lesson.

5. Expect rigor -- don't allow students to be satisfied with a superficial answer. Build habits that look for understanding.

6. Face unknown questions with a smile. Make the classroom a safe, non-judgmental learning environment where students can practice their critical thinking skills.

7. Require students do projects with a high degree of precision and skill.

8. Make it normal to invent solutions that haven't been thought of before, but satisfy requirements.

9. Expect students to doublecheck both the approach and result (according to Grant Wiggins -- great article).

10. Create an environment conducive to personal growth. Know what that means for each student.

11. Focus on exceptional expectations.

12. As students participate in class conversations, expect them to use academic and domain-specific vocabulary. If they use words like "something," "you know," "that," or "like," prod them to come up with specifics. Like what? No I don't know. This immerses them in learning, discovering, and thinking critically.

13. As students answer questions, expect evidence to support their answer. This can come from personal experience, but more often will find relevance from learning resources.

14. Listen to student answers. Pay attention. Challenge them to be thorough.

15. Don't draw conclusions for students. Present them with evidence. See where it takes them.

16. Expect students to build on classmate comments and understand their perspectives.

17. Support students so they can reach high expectations. If they are thinking outside the box, don't pull them back in. Ask questions: Is this approach going to meet expectations, solve problems, achieve desired results? If it is, let them do it!

18. Provide a way for each student to demonstrate learning even if it isn't a way you've thought of. Applaud them if they devise an approach that works for them.

19. Differentiate for student needs. If you have a project that seems to fit everyone, it doesn't. How do I know that? Because no project does.

20. Expect students to analyze data during reading. Ask why -- determine if the author provided proof or simply made a statement -- and know the difference.

21. Expect problem solving. Don't jump in to solve problems. Provide students with strategies they can use and let them try them.

22. Remind students that "easy" occurs through hard work. Discuss this -- how they excelled at soccer, piano, or the violin through tenacity and drive. Have students share their experiences.

For more on higher-order thinking, check out NWEA's education blog. As I researched this post, I kept running across Barbara Blackburn's name. You might want to check her out for more in-depth materials.

has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor of a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum, and creator of dozens of technology training books that integrate technology into education. She is webmaster for six blogs, CSG Master Teacher, an book reviewer, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, a tech ed columnist for , and a weekly contributor to .

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Let's start by clearing up a misconception: Rigor isn't unfriendly. Adding it to your class doesn't mean you become boring, a techie, or an overseer of a fun-free zone. In fact, done right, rigor fills your class with Wow!, those epiphanies that bring a smile to student faces and a sense of well-being to their school day.

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Positive Environments for Special Education Classrooms

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Positive Environments for Special Education Classrooms

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http://www.pent.ca.gov/

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Provides standard element, source of evidence and how that evidence might demonstrate the standard.

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How to Use Real-life Connections in the Classroom To Increase Engagement

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How to Use Real-life Connections in the Classroom To Increase Engagement

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https://resumes-for-teachers.com/blog/interview-questions/excellent-teachers-use-real-life-connections-in-the-classroom/

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How would your students rate your ability to engage them in the learning process? This one measure of how you connect with students will determine how you perform in all aspects of your duties as a teacher - lesson plans, behavioral management techniques, collaboration in the classroom, and the ability to create a safe and supportive learning environment.

Before students apply this all-important measure to you, evaluate how effectively you use real-life connections in the classroom to increase engagement.

Is The Golden Measure of Teaching Engagement?

The positive link between student engagement and academic achievement is so strong that Canada's annual student engagement survey has become an international standard. The results of this hard measurement of your ability to connect with your students are not only used in teacher evaluations but also in:

developing curriculums

delivering lessons

implementing classroom management strategies

determining class size, and

allocating technology and other resources.

Highly rated teachers use real-life connections in the classroom to make the learning experience fun, engaging, and meaningful to optimize engagement and learning. This involves moving away from lecture-based lessons and making lessons interesting and interactive.

Make Learning Fun

Your lesson plans should inspire creativity, imagination, and the motivation to pursue self-initiated learning in the student. To this end, the following points are all interconnected. They all have the same objective - engaging the student. Making learning fun and meaningful for students requires developing different strategies for each grade level. A high school teacher requires different elementary school teachers' strategies to keep the attention of restless teenagers.

Make Learning Meaningful

The lessons a teacher implements should have relevance to a student's life. If they can't see the point in learning a topic or are totally uninterested in it, they won't sit quietly and attentively, patiently waiting to be filled with knowledge. At the start of any topic or lesson, you need to give your students as many reasons as possible for listening to what you're about to tell them. When you give them enough reasons as to why they need to hear something, there is more chance they will listen.

There's no point in just rambling on about a topic, expecting them to want to learn it. If your answer to the question "Why do we have to listen to this?" is "Because it's on the exam" or "Because I say so," then you have a disinterested class.

Explaining why a lesson is meaningful is particularly important to science teachers, math teachers, and those teaching other complex topics. With media, technology, and mobile apps, it has never been easier to connect lessons with real-life examples. If students can't see the point in learning a topic, they will soon switch off. They'll get bored, stop listening, act out or break the rules. The way to avoid bored students is to ask yourself the same question while developing a lesson plan - Why do students need to learn this?

Involve Students in Lesson Development

Once you've prepared a few constructive reasons why the lesson is important, you can then put the question to the group at the start of the lesson.

Avoid simply telling students why the information is relevant to them - get them to come up with the answers themselves. This will increase engagement because learning the material will make perfect sense. Moreover, you are empowering the students - the main pathway to engagement. Students are now involved in structuring the lesson based on objectives they have identified. Some teachers make the mistake of equating engagement with alternative teaching methods. In fact, structured lesson plans minimize student boredom.

It's a sad fact that a lot of the information provided in some schools is of little practical use to a broad sector of the student population - particularly with the less academic students who are less likely to progress into further education. For this reason, you need to develop lessons that meet student interests with their help.

Bring the Real World Into the Classroom

Students will engage more deeply in structuring lessons if the classroom material relates to their real-world/ everyday life. Always strive for high practical relevance. Students need to be shown concrete examples and see how academic topics related to them, thus making the concepts less abstract and scary.

You can talk about your experiences, bring up current events or ask students to talk about family values or beliefs. Current events are not only tools for Social Studies teachers! Incorporate guest speakers to discuss the subject and demonstrate how children can apply what they have learned in the classroom to real-life or a potential future career. Field trips are among the creative ways to energize and engage students to optimize learning.

Media is the main tool used by teachers to bring the real world into the classroom. With the help of YouTube, streaming videos, podcasts, and news feeds, it is much easier to bring the material to life and gain the students' interest. Students can satiate their natural curiosities by researching related topics via the Internet. You may also want to use national or international online news networks to discover topics of interest and open the classroom to the wider world. Leverage social media to make their interactions with the real world interactive. They can add comments to articles and tweet and blog their opinions on global and local issues. Seeing their comments read by thousands and having others respond - possibly from across the globe - will empower them!

Make a Real-Life Connection Through Technology

Employ Gamification in the Classroom

Gamification is the latest buzzword for saying, incorporating games into lessons. Depending on the grade level you teach, it can be hard to get certain students interested in current events. If the topic does not include movies, games, or pop stars, you may be hard-pressed to grab students' attention. Encouraging students to be active, mentally and physically, is the best way to make a real-world connection.

You can find games, interactive lesson plans, and many other teacher educational resources to make real-life connections in the classroom to increase engagement online.

There are many ways to relate your lessons and activities to the real world to increase student retention, student motivation, and interest in subject matter while maximizing learning opportunities. Using a real-life connection in lessons will dramatically reduce classroom management challenges because engagement will increase. If students have an interest in learning something, they are less likely to act out.

In what ways do you develop and implement creative lesson plans? Understand what components make a great lesson.

Learn more about Candace Alstad-Davies by reviewing this about me page. From that page, you can review testimonials and frequently asked questions.

Need some writing help making a stellar teaching application letter, cover letter, resume, or CV curriculum vitae? Take the time to review and order one of our resume packages or individual services.

Have questions, please connect by sending an email to Candace or call toll-free at 1 877 738-8052. I would enjoy chatting with you.

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How to Use Real-life Connections in the Classroom To Increase Engagement

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How would your students rate your ability to engage them in the learning process? This one measure of how you connect with students will determine how you perform in all aspects of your duties as a teacher - lesson plans, behavioral management techniques, collaboration in the classroom, and the ability to create a safe and supportive learning environment.

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Scaffolding Discussion Skills with a Socratic Circle

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Scaffolding Discussion Skills with a Socratic Circle

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https://www.edutopia.org/video/scaffolding-discussion-skills-socratic-circle

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"Teaching a Class With Big Ability Differences" 4.5

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"Teaching a Class With Big Ability Differences" 4.5

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Differentiated Instruction

Techniques for meeting the needs of students with diverse abilities and interests.

Differentiation is a method of instruction designed to meet the needs of all students by changing what students learn (content), how they accumulate information (process), how they demonstrate knowledge or skills (product), and with whom and where learning happens (learning environment).

Differentiation is not an assortment of instructional recipes. Rather, it is "a way of thinking about teaching and learning" to ensure that children receive appropriate classroom experiences, writes differentiation expert Carol Tomlinson.

How do you teach the same concepts and skills to students with diverse abilities and interests? Different learning profiles? And how do you do that in real classrooms, with limited time to plan?

Differentiated instruction is one answer that has been extensively documented (see "Recommended Resources" at the end of this post). I want to share two fundamental tenets of DI before describing specific tactics:

With that in mind, here are specific techniques you can use to meet the needs of students with a range of abilities.

1. Start Slow

Experiencing comprehensive student-centered instruction for the first time makes some kids uneasy. I'll never forget the high school girl who ate an entire roll of cherry Tums the day I introduced my choice-based syllabus. Gradually integrate a student-centered curriculum, says Dr. Kathie Nunley, by asking learners to " choose between two or three assignments " that can be completed before the end of class.

2. Introduce Compacting for High Achievers

Compacting curriculum lessens the tedium that elite achievers experience when they master concepts faster than their peers. The Gifted Program at the University of Connecticut recommends using pre-assessments to determine how these learners can skip specific chapters or activities. Then offer "mini-courses on research topics" or "small group projects" as alternatives in a compacting contract.

how they learn with others-individually, in pairs, in small groups, or with the whole class.

the difficulty levels of assignments,using menu-based tools like choice boards, or activity menus. The digital version, Interactive Learning Menus, provide links to in-depth assignment descriptions, examples, and rubrics. Content can also be curated and remixed into Learning Playlists with online tools like MentorMob and BlendSpace.

what content they study. With Literature Study Circles, an entire English class can investigate and discuss "gender and identity" by selecting one of several books hand-picked to address that theme.

what quiz questions they answer. Page one of a test might say, "Pick three of the following five questions that you're most confident answering." Students can also vote on when to complete an exam.

what, where, when, and how they learn, via individual learning contracts. Be forewarned that students need intensive instruction and patience as they compose their own contracts.

3. Provide Choice

Choice is motivating and empowering. Let students choose:

Educator Chandra Manning recommends two graphic organizers, "Who I Am" and "All About Me Gazette," for collecting information about students' interests.

Kids complete the "3-Minute Pause" reflection protocol after a lesson concludes.

Teacher-student conferences can quickly help teachers determine how learners are progressing and what further support they need.

Differentiation expert Deborah Blaz reports that student-created rubrics help instructors identify schema strengths and gaps. For advanced learners, Blaz adds an extra column with challenging criteria to her rubrics.

When creating tests, include different question types that might address students' preferences: multiple choice, short answer, timelines, matching, true or false, graphic organizers to label, and sentences that are partially completed.

Have students visually document their academic progress "by creating a 'benchmark timeline' of weekly tasks. Each Friday, students initial the timeline, indicating where they are in the task sequence."

Professor Helen Barrett defines the learning portfolio as "a purposeful collection of student work that exhibits the student's efforts, progress, and achievements in one or more areas."

4. Bake Assessments Into Every Class

Rewordify, a text compactor, simplifies and shortens readings so that students with diverse comprehension abilities can comprehend and discuss the same article.

To find readings that are adjusted for high, medium, or low Lexile levels, use the informational texts in Newsela, the Smithsonian's Tween Tribune, or News in Levels-the latter also provides audio versions of the articles for additional support.

Distribute Comprehension Bookmarks (see pp. 13-26) to readers who might struggle with a complex text.

Student-centered instruction is only as consequential as its assessment. Teachers need to know where kids are in their academic journey, how they learn best, and what interests them. These assessments can help:

For academic writing, temporarily supply a word bank of transitions, an essay structure graphic, or sentence frames.

The free SAS Writing Reviser, which integrates beautifully with Google Docs, analyzes essays for sentence economy, variety, power, and identifies clarity and grammar issues. Ask advanced writers to analyze and assess their compositions' sentence variety and use of passive voice, while struggling writers can use the SAS tool to diagnose fragments, run-on sentences, and dangling modifiers.

5. Provide High- and No-Tech Scaffolding for Reading

6. Offer Targeted Scaffolding for Young Writers

If learners haven't adapted to our classroom, classroom instruction should adapt to learners by experimenting with student-centered strategies.

Recommended Resources

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Teaching a Class With Big Ability Differences

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Techniques for meeting the needs of students with diverse abilities and interests.

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Data Walls for Differentiating Instruction

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Data Walls for Differentiating Instruction

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Thought starters

1. How does the leadership team support teachers' use of data walls?

2. What do you think about using data walls as a strategy for improving instruction?

3. According to the principal, why do data walls work?

School Details

Shaw Middle School
4106 North Cook St
Spokane WA 99207

Data Provided By:

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The faculty at Shaw Middle School realized that its analysis of formative and summative assessments failed to surface the learning needs of individual students. In response, the school's leadership team designed data walls. Teachers and coaches use data walls to discuss each student's strengths and areas in need of improvement and to plan instructional responses.

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Closing the achievement gap for the high-needs, predominantly minority student body is a priority here, and an emphasis on student engagement and social activism "teaches students to have a voice and make a difference," says Head of School Rose Mary Grant.

"Education is the civil rights issue of our own time-especially for children living in poverty or subjected to inferior education," says Grant. "We want to level the playing field [at Highlander] and provide access to equitable and excellent education [for all our students]."

At the school, teachers provide individualized, differentiated instruction to help each student reach his or her potential. In coursework from kindergarten through high school, students are pushed to understand others' experiences and points of view and to advocate for their own beliefs.

Equally important is preparing students for active citizenship. Highlander's students are made to feel connected to and part of a community through opportunities to engage in real-world projects that can lead to civic action, such as testifying about school funding or campaigning for animal rights.

There's plenty of evidence to show that Highlander's strategies are working.

Students typically outperform the state average in key disciplines, helping close the achievement gap for students of color, English language learners (ELLs), and students with disabilities. In 2015, for example, students in four groups outperformed their same-group peers across the state in math: ELLs by 110 percent; African American students by 125 percent; students with disabilities by 192 percent; and low-income students by 35 percent.

Building an Inclusive Culture From the Ground Up

Highlander's inclusive culture is no accident and starts in the classrooms of its earliest students.

One deliberate culture-building strategy is the morning meeting. Every elementary class at the school begins the day with a 15-minute circle time that helps children transition to school and feel "ready to learn."

Based on the Responsive Classroom model, morning meetings center around peer-to-peer greetings, sharing, a fun activity, and a review of the day's schedule. During greetings, students choose how to greet their peers-with a handshake, a high five, or a wave-and are invited to talk about what's on their minds.

"Before any learning can take place, students need to feel safe and feel like they are seen and cared about," said Valerie Gallagher, a first-grade teacher at the school. "The real impact of morning meeting is that classes [become] true communities, where we're learning from each other's strengths and we're helping each other."

Helping Every Student Thrive

In elementary classes, a model of differentiation called station rotation allows children to learn for 20 minutes at time in at least three different modes. As they move from station to station in small groups, they might watch online videos, create a hands-on activity, or take part in teacher-led discussions. Teachers adjust activities and groupings based on children's readiness to stretch, or their need for support.

"Being able to move through those stations, it's just another level of helping the students learn as much as they can each year," said Jane Piccotti, the assistant principal. "They definitely feel excited when they make that growth."

Personalization continues into middle school and high school with more emphasis on blended learning. Each Highlander middle schooler, for example, spends one period a day in a blended classroom, where teachers support individualized online learning. Teachers create activities and playlists tailored to each student's needs and proficiencies, and personal dashboards track an individual's growth and areas for improvement.

Taking a Stand

By high school, students shaped by this supportive environment have the academic mindset to dig into controversial topics. Highlander added the high school-on a separate campus-in 2013 to continue students' "work on social justice beyond K-8."

In Soljane Martinez's civics class, 12th graders engage in discussions about difficult hot-button social and political topics like immigration and rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Students take sides on issues, conducting research that helps inform arguments and positions they'll use in classroom debates with their peers.

Martinez says she challenges students to consider perspectives different from their own as they learn to support their opinions and beliefs.

"At Highlander, we want students to be able to look at something critically," said Jessica Blanco, the assistant head of school. "They need to know how to advocate for themselves, but they also know they have to take in various perspectives."

Highlander is a good reminder that activism can lead to meaningful results.

A former student of Martinez's named Domingo was among the high school's first graduates last June. He credits Martinez and his Highlander experience with preparing him to tackle whatever challenges await next.

"We live in a world where people feel it's acceptable to just look at your skin and believe who you are," Domingo said, reflecting on Martinez's class. "For me to see that somebody was just like me and able to succeed-she has inspired me to be a better person, to believe that I can do anything I want."

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Building a Community of Learners-and Citizens | Edutopia

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Closing the achievement gap for the high-needs, predominantly minority student body is a priority here, and an emphasis on student engagement and social activism "teaches students to have a voice and make a difference," says Head of School Rose Mary Grant.

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Many articles/strategies/resources for differentiation in the classroom!

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Differentiated Instruction

In this collection of tools and advice from Edutopia and the web, find resources to help you adjust instruction in response to diverse learner needs and interests.

Levels of Understanding: Learning That Fits All: Learn how to develop a framework to support creating homework or practice to meet the needs of all learners. (Edutopia, 2015)

Making Failure Harder Work Than Passing: Discover how one chemistry teacher uses incremental learning goals, formative assessments, and differentiation to inspire students to work hard and reach their potential. (Edutopia, 2015)

5 More Ways to "Remove the Walls" From Your Classroom: Explore five ways to rearrange students across the usual groupings and grade levels while differentiating, hitting the standards, ensuring proficiency, and boosting engagement. (Edutopia, 2015)

Students Matter: 3 Steps for Effective Differentiated Instruction: Check out three strategies for differentiated instruction: knowing students' strengths, involving them in planning, and leveraging the strengths of fellow educators. (Edutopia, 2014)

3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners: What Teachers Do: To differentiate learning in the classroom, focus on content, process, and product. For more planning tips, also see 15+ Readiness Resources for Driving Student Success, which provides resources to help teachers meet the readiness needs of all students. (Edutopia, 2014)

Understanding Differentiated Instruction

Make Learning Last: How Diverse Learners Can Process Their Understanding: Find out how quick reflections, surveys, and diverse-perspective assessments can help students to process more deeply and check their own understanding. (Edutopia, 2016)

How Learning Profiles Can Strengthen Your Teaching: Explore ways that collecting data about learners can inform differentiation. (Edutopia, 2014)

3 Guidelines to Eliminating Assessment Fog: Break through assessment fog by identifying and communicating clear learning targets, separating logistical guidelines (like following directions) from academic learning targets, and providing students with different ways to demonstrate their learning. (Edutopia, 2014)

Dipsticks: Efficient Ways to Check for Understanding: Within this primer to formative assessment, you'll find a printable list of 53 ways to check for student understanding. For more ideas, you might also want to check out David Wees' community post with 56 Examples of Formative Assessment and Edutopia's formative assessment page. (Edutopia, 2014)

Tools for Teaching: Ditching the Deficit Model: Read about how to gain knowledge of students' strengths, interests, and hidden talents in order to best determine out how to meet their needs. (Edutopia, 2013)

Planning and Implementation Ideas

Equity vs. Equality: 6 Steps Toward Equity: Explore seven steps toward classroom equity: knowing every child, celebrating their potential, recognizing their challenges, becoming flexible, acknowledging inequity, and using culture as a resource. (Edutopia, 2016)

Serving Gifted Students in General Ed Classrooms: Consider do's and don'ts for meeting the needs of gifted students. (Edutopia, 2015)

Bridging the ADHD Gap: To support the needs of children with ADHD, make the learning child-centered, differentiate, integrate movement and mindfulness, create supportive learning environments, and document the process. (Edutopia, 2015)

Integrating ELL Students in General Education Classes: Learn about differentiated-instruction and formative-assessment strategies that can help general-education teachers of English-Language Learners (ELLs).

The Power of Introverts: An Essential Understanding for Teachers: Understand the characteristics of an introvert to better serve shy and quiet students. (Edutopia, 2013)

Knowing and Assessing Students

Integrating Technology and Literacy: Explore digital tools for text and video annotations, teacher feedback, and formative assessment. (Edutopia, 2016)

100+ Tools for Differentiating Instruction Through Social Media: Find out how social media can enhance differentiated instruction if the tools are selected with a careful eye on individual students' readiness, interests, and learning profiles. (Edutopia, Updated 2016)

Mixing it Up With Mangahigh: Using Games to Differentiate Instruction: Learn how one teachers uses the online math game site Mangahigh to better differentiate instruction. (Edutopia, 2014)

Enhancing Learning Through Differentiated Technology: Discover three tech tools -- SAS Curriculum Pathways, Newsela, and EDpuzzle -- that can help differentiate instruction by showing where students are and offering appropriate formative assessment. (Edutopia, 2015)

Teaching Diverse Learners

Tools for Differentiating Instruction in PBL: Differentiate the content, process, and product of your PBL lessons with tools and practices like Learning Profile Cards, narrative feedback, and design thinking. (Edutopia, 2016)

6 Strategies for Differentiated Instruction in Project-Based Learning: Learn about six simple, effective approaches to differentiated instruction in project-based learning. (Edutopia, Updated 2016)

How Does PBL Support Differentiated Instruction?: Understand how PBL can be designed and managed to factor in students' readiness, interests, and learning profiles. (Buck Institute for Education, 2012)

Differentiating With Technology

Differentiation in Project-Based Learning

Examples and Downloads From Schools That Work

Sample Student Exit Tickets -- Download sample exit tickets that Humboldt teachers use as a quick check for comprehension of that day's lesson; these tickets let teachers know who might need additional help in a small group setting.

Edutopia's flagship series highlights practices and case studies from K-12 schools and districts that are improving the way students learn. Below, find downloads used by practitioners at featured schools, and dive into real-world examples of differentiated instruction.

Small Group Work With "I Choose"
When teachers began asking for time to work with students in small groups, Humboldt Elementary in Dewey-Humboldt, Arizona found the time, adjusted the schedule, and empowered students by mixing scaffolded supports with a variety of student-friendly elective enrichments. Watch the video, and download sample exit tickets used by teachers:

Academic Success for All Students: A Multi-Tiered Approach
At P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School in Gainesville, Florida, Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) enables teachers to differentiate and provide each student the right level of instruction to succeed. Learn more, and check out one of this school's tools:

How do you approach differentiated instruction in your classroom? Share tools, resources, experiences, or advice in the comments.

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In this collection of tools and advice from Edutopia and the web, find resources to help you adjust instruction in response to diverse learner needs and interests.

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Summary of Major Concepts Covered by Harry K. Wong 2.

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Summary of Major Concepts Covered by Harry K. Wong 2.

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Procedures, procedures, and more procedures!

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"Marjan...You are making a difference in the lives of students and in the world." Harry Wong. Author The First Days Of School
1. The three characteristics of an effective teacher are: has good classroom management skills teaches for mastery has positive expectations for student success.

2. Your expectations of your students will greatly influence their achievement in your class and in their lives.

3. Treat students as though they already are what they can be, and you help them to be capable of becoming what they will be.

4. Call (or write) each home before school begins and again within two weeks. Teachers + Parents = Good Students

5. What you do on the first day of school will determine your success for the rest of the year.

6. Have the room ready for instruction, and make it invitational.

7. Stand at the door and greet the students.

8. Give each student a seating assignment and a seating chart.

9. There must be an assignment posted, and in a consistent location, when the students enter the room.

10. Start each class with an assignment - immediately. Do not take roll when class begins.

Click Here to:
Listen as I interview Harry Wong on Classroom Management, Discipline Behaviour Problems and more.
11. Position yourself in the room near the students: problems are proportional to distance.

12. Credibility: Display your diploma and credentials with pride.

13. Dress in a professional manner to model success and expect achievement.

14. The three most important things that must be taught the first week of school are discipline, procedures and routines.

15. Discipline: Set rules, consequences, and rewards immediately.

16. State your procedures and rehearse them until they become routines.

17. The family as a support group, is the guardian and disseminator of culture. The school and the church help the family to disseminate culture.

18. Learning is most effective when it takes place in a supportive community of learners.

19. The greater the time students work together and the greater the responsibility students take for their work, the greater the learning.

20. Cooperate with each other, compete only against yourself.

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Listen as I interview Harry Wong on Classroom Management, Discipline Behaviour Problems and more.
21. Cooperative learning will prepare students for the competitive, global world economy.

22. Academic Learning time (ALT): The greater the time students spend working successfully on task, the greater the student's achievement.

23. The greater the structure of a lesson and the more precise the directions on task procedures, the lower the error rate and the higher the achievement rate.

24. To increase assignment completion, state your assignments as a set of criteria or objectives.

25. Use criterion-referenced tests to evaluate the performance of the students.

26. The more frequent the tests, the higher the achievement.

27. Grade on percentage attained, not on the curve. The curve has done more harm to education than any other technique.

28. Mastery learning plus tutorial instruction results in higher achievement than students taught in a conventional manner.

29. If a student masters a criterion, give the student enrichment work. If the student does not master a criterion, give the student remediation and corrective help.

30. The shorter the assignment, the higher the achievement rate.

31. Intersperse questions throughout a lesson. Ask a question after 10 sentences rather than after 50 sentences and you increase the retention rate by 40 percent.

32. Wait Time: Wait five or more seconds after asking a question.

33. Reading: Use short lines and paragraphs. Note how periodicals and junk mail are written.

34. Determine the learning style of your students. Student achievement is greater when the teaching style matches the learning style.

35. Students score higher on a test measuring attitude towards school and attitude towards a subject when they learn from an activity-question approach than from a textbook-lecture approach.

36. Most teachers teach as they were taught in college, a non-validated model of teaching (book, lecture, activity, test).

37. Learn to make CHOICES to enhance your life. Stop DECIDING what to do because others are doing it.

38. When you see in a given situation what everyone else sees, you become so much a part of that situation that you may become a victim of that situation.

39. 80/20 Principle: 80 percent of the teachers are complainers or survivors; 20 percent of the teachers are happy and successful. 80 percent of the teachers expect the teachers' organization to bring them rewards; 20 percent of the teachers create and strive for their own rewards.

40. Workers are concerned with time and money. They sit at the back of meetings and put in time. Leaders are concerned with enhancement and cooperation. They have a career, are talented and are professionals. Some teachers are workers, others are leaders.

41. The four stages of teaching: Fantasy, Survival, Mastery, and Impact.

42. There is no nobility in being better than someone else. The only nobility is being better than who you were the day before.

43. Self-esteem results from school achievement. You cannot give someone a better self-esteem. The role of a teacher is to engineer student success.

44. Teachers can only give what and who they are themselves.

45. You may be the only stable adult your students will ever see in their lifetime. You may be their only hope and dream for a brighter tomorrow.

46. Each person has unlimited potential. Humans are the only species able to improve the quality of their lives.

47. You can have your achievements or you can have your excuses.

48. You are the only person on the face of the earth who can use your ability. It is an awesome responsibility.

49. The most important factor to a professional is the quality of the work and the commitment to the craft.

50. A professional is someone who does not need supervision and regulation to: have a continuing growth plan to achieve competence and continually strive to raise the level of each new group of students.

Click Here to:

51. I believe that every teacher can be effective.

52. Inside every great teacher there is an even better one waiting to come out.

53. Those who dare to teach must never cease to learn.

54. The teacher enhances the life and spirit of people.

55. It is the teacher who makes the difference in what happens in the classroom.

56. By far the most important factor to school learning is the ability of the teacher. The more capable the teacher, the more successful the student.

57. Stop asking, "What am I supposed to do?" Start asking, "What must I know that will help me to accomplish what I need to do?"

58. There is an existing body of knowledge about teaching that must be know by the teacher. Power comes to those with the knowledge.

59. Since there is no one best way to teach effectively, the teacher must be a decision maker able to translate the body of knowledge about teaching into increased student learning.

60. There is no accomplishment without RISK.

61. LOVE.
Listen as I interview Harry Wong on Classroom Management, Discipline Behaviour Problems and more.
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Printed with permission from Harry K. Wong HarryKRose@aol.com

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Harry Wong Characteristics Of An Effective Teacher - The Busy Educator

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"Marjan...You are making a difference in the lives of students and in the world." Harry Wong. Author The First Days Of School 1. The three characteristics of an effective teacher are: has good classroom management skills teaches for mastery has positive expectations for student success. 2.

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Learning to Breathe:  A Mindfulness Curriculum for Adolescents to Cultivate Emotion Regulation, Attention, and Performance

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Learning to Breathe:  A Mindfulness Curriculum for Adolescents to Cultivate Emotion Regulation, Attention, and Performance

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for CSTP 2.3

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Learning to BREATHE | A Mindfulness Curriculum for Adolescents

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Since its publication nearly a decade ago, the L2B program has transformed classrooms and has been used by educators, parents, and mental health professionals alike. This fully revised and updated second edition offers the same powerful mindfulness interventions with special emphasis on compassion a…

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I will be using this to integrate station rotation for my kindergarten science class 

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I will be using this to integrate station rotation for my kindergarten science class 

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https://catlintucker.com/2015/07/creating-small-learning-communities-with-the-station-rotation-model/

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https://www.teachingchannel.org/video/mingle-count-a-game-of-number-sense

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We empower educators to reimagine and redesign learning through impactful pedagogy and meaningful technology use. We achieve this by offering transformative professional learning, fostering vibrant communities, and ensuring that digital tools and experiences are accessible and effective.

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We create practical, timely, affordable professional learning to help educators and instructional leaders provide students with a modern, equitable, and quality education.

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#EngineerGirlShow

This video series highlights amazing women in engineering to inspire the next generation. This series was produced by George Retelas with his digital art students at SAE Institute. Here are just a few...

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The EngineerGirl website is designed to bring national attention to the exciting opportunities that engineering represents for girls and women.

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https://laugheatlearn.com/building-vocabulary-through-ccd/

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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This module examines the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework and discusses how educators can apply UDL to proactively design learning experiences that are flexible enough to challenge and engage all students and that promote learner agency (est. completion time: 2.5 hours).

This module was developed in collaboration with CAST.

Work through the sections of this module in the order presented in the STAR graphic above.

Related to this module

Copyright 2023 Vanderbilt University. All rights reserved.

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Universal Design for Learning: Designing Learning Experiences That Engage and Challenge All Students

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This module examines the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework and discusses how educators can apply UDL to proactively design learning experiences that are flexible enough to challenge and engage all students and that promote learner agency (est. completion time: 2.5 hours). This module was developed in collaboration with CAST.

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One of the many hopes that we as educators have for our students is that they become lifelong learners. We want them to explore their passions, which in time might turn into career opportunities. Through conversations, books, and media, we plant ideas that may someday grow into something useful in a student's life journey.

I often refer to the stories told by Steve Jobs in his 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University graduates as an example of a lifelong learning journey. Jobs discussed how following his "curiosity and intuition" led to "connecting the dots" of self-exploration, which led to professional opportunities and success.

Jobs's words in that speech inspired over 27 million views. Through practicing lifelong learning, we can connect the dots with learners and model how they can accomplish much by following their curiosity and intuition.

Meeting the needs of all learners does not have to be difficult. Any instructional practice or system we explore that attends to student voice and agency can be personalized to individuals and groups-which is differentiation. I've written a book on differentiation, So All Can Learn, but you can get ideas on the topic from all sorts of sources. To that end, here are readings that encourage reflection and conversation about effective practices that we might include in our toolbox.

"Free Is Good"
This article by Bethany Rayl is packed with ideas for accessing open educational resources (OER). Use it to differentiate by flipping its ideas and showing students how they can revise, remix, and redistribute content, sharing their voice with a public audience. Use the wealth of materials to personalize activities for individuals or groups in order to meet the needs of your learners.

Classroom Instruction That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
This classic book by Ceri B. Dean, Elizabeth Ross Hubbell, Howard Pitler, and Bj Stone covers nine practices that can provide high yields in learning. All of them can be differentiated by simply giving students options so they can make their own choices. Here are examples for differentiating each practice.

Developing Natural Curiosity Through Project-Based Learning: Five Strategies for the PreK-3 Classroom
With this book by Dayna Laur and Jill Ackers, explore how young kids can do project-based learning (PBL) with strong authentic experiences beyond the traditional classroom. For example, the authors' take on unpacking standards into powerful learning experiences is gold. Relating curriculum to students' lives leads to differentiation connections by fostering voice and choice-key elements in PBL-and helps learners see relevance and purpose in assignments.

The Space: A Guide for Educators
Rethinking and reimagining classroom space setups can develop a culture of learning if we include students in the shaping of the environment. Student voice is a powerful differentiation tool. This accessible book by Rebecca Hare and Robert Dillon provides a thoughtful way to rethink classroom space based on what students determine is valuable to their learning experiences.

Creating Cultures of Thinking: The 8 Forces We Must Master to Truly Transform Our Schools
Be prepared to be challenged by what students need versus what is comfortable for adults. The ideas in this book by Ron Ritchhart, backed by powerful examples, will challenge most educators about what we know is best for students, and our perceptions of what can be done. If you believe that students should be at the center of all decisions, use this book to become an innovator of a can-do philosophy.

Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn
This treasure trove of research-backed ideas by John Hattie and Gregory Yates will challenge cherished practices and inspire permission to expand one's teacher toolbox to meet each student's needs. The chapter "The Role of Feedback" alone makes this book a necessary read if we are to help all students achieve.

Breathing In, Breathing Out: Keeping a Writer's Notebook
Joy Write: Cultivating High-Impact, Low-Stakes Writing
What a Writer Needs
Ralph Fletcher is an essential mentor for all who teach writing. It's hard to choose just one of his books, so here are three that help teachers understand the perspective of students, who typically do not view themselves as writers. Teachers can address the needs of diverse learners by using Fletcher's concrete ways to transform fearful students into confident writers.

As Yoda says, "Do. Or do not. There is no try." Being a lifelong learner requires perseverance and a willingness to be vulnerable with oneself. Choose a couple of these suggested readings. Find affirmation of what you already know is important, and explore ideas that might shift your thinking. Reflect with honest self-assessment on the weaknesses in your practice-we all have them. No apologies need be offered for being a flawed human being. So long as we strive and struggle to become better than our past self, there is renewed hope.

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A Reading List for Differentiated Instruction

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One of the many hopes that we as educators have for our students is that they become lifelong learners. We want them to explore their passions, which in time might turn into career opportunities. Through conversations, books, and media, we plant ideas that may someday grow into something useful in a student's life journey.

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https://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

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TONS of Math Resources for the Classroom

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TONS of Math Resources for the Classroom

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Songs and games can be used to teach the basics of computer science to young students in age-appropriate ways-without a screen.

Teaching computational thinking to preschool and kindergarten students? This may sound out of sync with what we know about developmentally appropriate activities for 4- and 5-year-olds, as computational thinking refers to the skills, concepts, and behaviors used in computer science to solve problems or complete projects. But my state of Virginia and others now require computational thinking instruction in grades K to 12.

Why? Schools must constantly look ahead to see what skills will be necessary in in their students' lifetimes. The ways they will work, interact, and communicate will continue to evolve, and the young children of today will need to be fluent in the types of thinking that will drive many of the tools and services of tomorrow.

Much of the content in preschool and kindergarten is taught with hands-on manipulatives, games, and songs, and with thoughtful planning, young children can engage in such activities and develop computational thinking in age-appropriate ways. For example, at this young age, we can begin to scaffold an understanding of algorithms, sequencing, events, conditionals, and repeat loops.

Teaching Computational Thinking in Preschool and Kindergarten

An algorithm is a set of instructions used to complete a task, and the sequence, or order, of the steps is important. You can teach this concept by acting out or describing the instructions for any familiar activity-putting on shoes, brushing teeth, feeding a pet.

Ask children to create picture cards to sequence a "program" for that activity. Demonstrate what happens when the sequence is changed. Or read a picture book in which a character travels to a clear sequence of locations. Write a "program" for the character's movement, and then, using a map and a doll, run the program by moving the doll to each location on the map.

An event is a trigger that causes an algorithm or program to run, and conditionals define the set of conditions that must be present to run the program. Ringing bells, clapping hands, and turning lights on or off are all familiar events that teachers use as signals for classroom transitions. They can easily be turned into conditional statements: "If it is raining when the bell rings for recess..." or "If I am standing by the door when I clap my hands...." Age-old games like Red Light, Green Light and Simon Says can also be adapted to teach the concept of events and conditionals, while incorporating movement and playfulness.

Repeat loops signal how many times a command or sequence of commands should be repeated. In students' lives, each meal is a repeat loop of delivering a bite of food to the mouth, chewing, and swallowing. Our daily routines are repeat loops of waking, dressing, eating, going to school, returning home, playing, eating, undressing, and going to bed.

These routines can be turned into "if, then, else" statements: "If the bowl has cereal in it, then repeat the eat loop, else put the spoon down." "If it is a weekday, then repeat the school loop, else sleep late and play all day."

Songs and dances can be an active and fun way to teach the concept of repeat loops since many have repeating lyrics and movements.

These concepts can be further reinforced through work and play with age-appropriate programming apps and robots, but do some detective work on the research that went into their development. Determine if they foster passive use or, preferably, active problem solving and creativity. The ScratchJr programming app and the Kibo robot are both supported by a hefty amount of research and were carefully designed to match the abilities, interests, and developmental stages of preschool and primary grade children. They provide children with opportunities to plan, take risks, problem solve, iterate, and perhaps most importantly, persist as they design, build, and solve problems in a playful way.

If you decide to add screen time to the classroom, limit the amount and be aware of how much screen time is happening in other classes and at home. Children need a healthy balance with other kinds of age-appropriate activities. The American Association of Pediatrics and Common Sense Media offer screen time guidelines and suggestions for each age group.

Developing computational thinking is important, but perhaps more important is developing behaviors for working with others and dealing with frustration. By asking children to work with partners or in groups, we can nurture communication, cooperation, and empathy.

If we wait until children are in middle school to begin working with code and robots, we've missed out on an opportunity to make it easy and fun. The bonus of starting early is the opportunity to teach some important social and emotional skills along the way. As we become more adept at building and programing machines to do our work, these skills play a large part in helping us make the ethical decisions about what these machines can do, how they will do it, and who will have access to them.

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Songs and games can be used to teach the basics of computer science to young students in age-appropriate ways-without a screen. Teaching computational thinking to preschool and kindergarten students? This may sound out of sync with what we know about developmentally appropriate activities for 4- and 5-year-olds, as computational thinking refers to the skills, concepts, and behaviors used in computer science to solve problems or complete projects.

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Golden Rules for Engaging Students in Learning 

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Golden Rules for Engaging Students in Learning 

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Posted by Ingrid Moon
Rather than learners getting hung up on how they can fail a project, just give them the criteria to succeed, and let them self-evaluate (or teacher can use to evaluate).
Single Point Rubric

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Problems of the Week - National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

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(CSTP 3.5)A useful online lesson with tools that help make the lesson accessible for all students.

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We have launched the new ReadWriteThink.org and we would love to get your feedback: Give Feedback

Students learn about the purposes and techniques of annotation by examining text closely and critically. They study sample annotations and identify the purposes annotation can serve. Students then practice annotation through a careful reading of a story excerpt, using specific guidelines and writing as many annotations as possible. Students then work in pairs to peer review their annotations, practice using footnotes and PowerPoint to present annotations, and reflect on how creating annotations can change a reader's perspective through personal connection with text.

Making Annotations: A User's Guide: Use this resource guide to help students make connections with text through definition, analysis of author purpose, paraphrasing, personal identification, explaining historical context, and more.

In his English Journal article " I'll Have Mine Annotated, Please: Helping Students Make Connections with Text" Matthew D. Brown expresses a basic truth in English Language Arts instruction: "Reading is one thing, but getting something of value from what we read is another" (73). Brown uses the avenue of personal connection to facilitate the valuable outcomes that can result from reading and interacting with text. He begins with student-centered questions such as, "What were they thinking about as they read? What connections were they making? What questions did they have, and could they find answers to those questions?" (73). Brown's questions lead to providing students with instruction and opportunities that align with the NCTE Principles of Adolescent Literacy Reform: A Policy Research Brief by "link[ing] their personal experiences and their texts, making connections between the students' existing literacy resources and the ones necessary for various disciplines" (5).

Further Reading

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.

2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.

3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).

4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.

5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.

6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.

7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

1. Find sample annotated texts to share with your students. Shakespeare's plays work well since many of his texts are annotated. Red Reader editions published by Discovery Teacher have great user-friendly annotations geared toward young adult readers. Look for selections that are engaging-ones that offer more than vocabulary definitions and give a variety of annotations beyond explanation and analysis.

2. Alternatively, search Google Books for any text with annotations. A search for Romeo and Juliet, for example, will bring up numerous versions that can be viewed directly online.

3. While much of the work will be done by students, it is useful to take some time to think about the role of annotations in a text. You will have students identify the functions of annotations, but it is always helpful if you have your own list of uses of annotations so that you can help guide students in this area of instruction if necessary.

4. Make copies of all necessary handouts.

5. Arrange for students to have access to Internet-connected computers if they will be doing their annotations in an online interactive.

6. Test the Literary Graffiti and Webbing Tool interactives on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tools and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page.

Students will:

examine and analyze text closely, critically, and carefully.

make personal, meaningful connections with text.

clearly communicate their ideas about a piece of text through writing, revision, and publication.

1. Begin the session by asking students if they are familar with the word annotation. Point out the words note and notation as clues to the word's meaning. If students know the word, proceed with the next step. If students are unfamiliar, ask them to determine what the word means by seeing what the texts you pass out in the next step have in common.

2. Pass out a variety of sample texts that use annotations. If you are using Google Books, direct students to texts online to have them examine the annotations that are used.

3. Have the students skim the texts and carefully examine the annotations. Encourage students to begin to see the variety of ways that an editor of a text uses annotations.

4. Working with a small group of their peers, students should create a list that shows what effective annotations might do.

5. Once the small groups have created their lists, share these out in a whole group discussion, creating a list that shows all the ways a reader of a text can annotate that text. This list can be used as a rubric for evaulating/responding to student annotations later in the lesson. Students typically point out how annotations

give definitions to difficult and unfamiliar words.

give background information, especially explaining customs, traditions, and ways of living that may be unfamiliar to the reader.

help explain what is going on in the text.

make connections to other texts.

point out the use of literary techniques and how they add meaning to the text.

can use humor (or other styles that might be quite different from the main text).

reveal that the writer of these annotations knows his or her reader well.

6. The process of generating this list should move into a discussion about where these annotations came from-who wrote them and why. Guide students to think about the person who wrote these ideas, who looked at the text and did more than just read it, and who made a connection with the text. It is important here that students begin to realize that their understanding of what they have read comes from their interaction with what is on the page. You may wish to jumpstart the conversation by telling students about connections you make with watching films, as students may be more aware of doing so themselves.

7. Discuss ways that a text can affect readers and ways these effects can cause readers to connect with texts. Feel free to include visual texts in the conversation. Students begin to talk about how stories that they read can

touch them emotionally, making them feel happiness as well as sadness.

remind them of childhood experiences.

teach them something new.

change their perspective on an issue.

help them see how they can better relate to others around them.

help them see the world through someone else's experiences.

Point out that these effects are also valid ideas for annotation and add them to the list from earlier in the session.

8. Before beginning the next lesson, create your Annotation Guide reflecting the different functions of annotation the class discussed today (or use the Sample Annotation Guide).

1. Pass out "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros or any other text appropriate for your students and this activity.

2. Read and discuss the story as needed, but resist spending too much time with the story since the goal of annotation is to get the students to connect with the text in their own ways.

3. Pass out the Sample Annotation Guide or the one the class created and review the various ideas that were generated during the previous session, helping students to begin to think of the various ways that they can begin to connect to the story "Eleven."

4. Pass out the Annotation Sheet and ask the students to choose a particularly memorable section of the story, a section large enough to fill up the lines given to them on the Annotation Sheet. (NOTE: While you could have the students create annotations in the margins of the entire text, isolating a small portion of the text will make the students' first attempt at annotations less daunting and more manageable. You can also use ReadWriteThink interactives Literary Graffiti or Webbing Tool at this point in the instructional process, replacing or supplementing the Annotation Sheet handout.)

5. Share with students the Student Sample Annotations from "Eleven" and use the opportunity to review the various purposes of annotating and preview directions for the activity.

6. Pass out the colored pencils. Make sure that students can each use a variety of colors in their annotating. Sharing pencils among members of a small group works best.

7. Have the students find a word, phrase, or sentence on their Annotation Sheet that is meaningful or significant to them. Have them lightly color over that word, phrase, or sentence with one of their colored pencils.

8. Students should then draw a line out toward the margin from what they just highlighted on their Annotation Sheet.

9. Now students annotate their selected text. Using the Sample Annotation Guide, students should write an annotation for the highlighted text. They can talk about how they feel or discuss what images come to mind or share experiences that they have had. Any connection with that part of the text should be encouraged at this entry-level stage.

10. Repeat this process several times. Encourage students to use a variety of annotations from the Sample Annotation Guide. But, most importantly, encourage them to make as many annotations as possible.

11. At this point, make sure that students reflect on this process. Ask them to write briefly in response to these questions:

What did they get out of writing annotations?

What did they learn about the text that they didn't see before?

How might this make them better readers?

12. Students should take the time to share these reflections with each other and with the whole class. Collect responses to evaluate levels of engagement and to find any questions or concerns you may need to address.

1. Return annotations from the previous session and address any questions or concerns.

2. Explain that, working in pairs, the students will examine each other's annotations and look for ideas that have the potential for further development and revision.

3. Distribute copies the Annotation Peer Review Guide and explain how it will help them work together to select the best ideas that they have presented in their annotations. Peer review partners should label each annotation, comment on it, and look for several annotations that would benefit from revision and continued thinking.

4. Have each pair narrow down their ideas to the four or five most significant annotations per student.

5. Once this is done, give the students time to start revising and developing their ideas. Encourage them to elaborate on their ideas by explaining connections more fully, doing basic research to answer questions or find necessary information, or providing whatever other development would be appropriate.

6. Circulate the room to look at what the students have chosen so that you can guide them with their development and writing. If you see the need to offer more guiding feedback, collecting the annotation revisions during this process may be helpful.

1. Once students have revised and developed a few of their annotations on their own, students should begin work toward a final draft.

2. Have the students use a peer review process adapted from the work of Joseph Tsujimoto:

The students exchange their revised annotations.

They write three comments on the set of annotations in response to the following questions:

What is one thing that I really liked in this set of annotations?

What is one thing that I found confusing, needed more explanation, etc.?

If this were my set of annotations, what is one thing that I would change?

3. Encourage students to rely heavily on the Sample Annotation Guide and the Annotation Peer Review Guide to make these comments during the peer review process. They should be looking to see that there are a variety of annotations and that the annotations dig deeper than just surface comments (e.g., definitions) and move toward meaningful personal connections and even literary analysis.

4. This work will have brought a students to the point at which they can create a final draft of their personal responses. Getting students to the point of revision and publication will add another level of authenticity to the student's work. Sugggested formats for publication include:

5. As a final step, have the students reflect on the process of creating these annotations.

What did they learn by doing this activity?

How did these annotations change their perspective on the text?

In what ways did their thinking change as they worked through the drafting, rewriting, and revising of their annotations?

6. Make sure that students are given time to share these reflections with each other and with the whole class.

Once students are comfortable with annotating small sections of text, there are a number of ways that annotations can be used in the classroom. They could, for example:

annotate a whole text, using the margins for annotating

use sticky notes in textbooks or novels as a way to annotate larger works

use annotations as part of a formal essay to provide personal comments to supplement the analysis they have written.

The following ReadWriteThink lessons could also be used as extensions based on the ways that they ask students to connect with text:

Student Assessment / Reflections

Review and comment on student reflections after each step of the annotation drafting and revision process.

If you use this lesson as an introduction to the idea of annotation, the focus of the assessment should be on the variety of annotations a student makes. Even so, teachers should be able to observe if students were able to move beyond surface connections (defining words, summarizing the story, and so forth) to deeper connections with the text (personal feelings, relating evens to past experiences, and so forth). Use an adaptation of the Annotation Peer Review Guide in this process.

For those who take this lesson to its completion by having students generate a final published draft, the focus should move from just looking for a variety of annotations to focusing on the quality of the annotations. By working through the writing process with these annotations, students should have been able to comment meaningfully beyond what they began with in their "rough draft." This should be most evident in the reflections students write in response to the process of creating annotations. Again, a modified version of the Annotation Peer Review Guide would be suitable for this evaluative purpose.

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Teaching Student Annotation: Constructing Meaning Through Connections

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We have launched the new ReadWriteThink.org and we would love to get your feedback: Give Feedback Students learn about the purposes and techniques of annotation by examining text closely and critically. They study sample annotations and identify the purposes annotation can serve.

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http://dc-transition_guide.frameweld.com/page/studentled_iep_toolkit_introduction_

This is a student-led IEP tool kit. They have resources for parents, teachers, and students. Super helpful!

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Links to numerous articles, interviews, and other resources related to assessment.

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Now that you've established the basics of assessment, you're ready for part two. On this page, you will find a wide range of activities that introduce assessment ideas and provide help in creating rubrics, to get workshop participants thinking and talking about the many ways student learning can be assessed.
1. Prepare Participants for Critical Viewing of Case Study Videos
Before watching a set of videos that demonstrate alternative methods of assessment, ask participants, "What questions do you have about assessment that might be answered by looking carefully at a video of students being assessed in different ways?"

Suggest that participants view the videos shown with particular questions in mind. For example, they can be asked to watch the Aviation High School video while looking for a list of different ways the students were assessed during the course of the project.
2. Watch Case Study Videos
Choose a video from the following list to share with class participants, based on their grade level interest. There are links to accompanying articles from the video pages for more information.

After a brief small-group discussion and reflection, engage the larger group of participants in conversation about what they saw. Ideas for post-viewing questions include:

"What kind of pre-planning was required for the teacher to use alternative methods of assessment?"

"How did the students get involved in the assessment process? How did their involvement affect their learning outcomes?"

"How is learning measured differently than when only test-based assessment is used?"

3. Grant Wiggins' Article on Assessment
Have participants read the article "Toward Genuine Accountability: The Case for a New State Assessment System" and then follow these steps:

Ask participants, "What did you think of the analogy Grant Wiggins makes between basketball and state testing? Explain."

Have the class discuss the blueprint Wiggins suggests for state assessment, and ask participants, "Do you agree or disagree? How would you improve it?"

Have the class discuss Wiggins's proposal for a state performance system and the five guiding principles that underlie his proposal.

Direct participants to take a position, either pro or con, for the proposal, create a presentation defending their position, and present it to the group.

4. Expert Interviews

Introduce participants to the article Comprehensive Assessment: What Experts Say on Edutopia.org

Suggest that small groups (2-4 participants) read and talk about the questions and responses of one expert, or assign particular experts to small groups. There are several options: focus on national experts such as Grant Wiggins or Bruce Alberts, concentrate on individual school personnel (principals and/or teachers and/or students), or assign two or more experts within a category so participants can compare and contrast their comments.

Suggest that participants conduct external research on their expert to see what else he or she has to say about assessment.

Have the class discuss each expert interview, and ask participants, "Did you agree with the expert? Why or why not?"

In groups, have participants discuss the views of the interviewees with whom they most agreed or disagreed and explain their position.

Have the small groups present their findings to the large group. Participants may develop a presentation, role-play an interview, or report their findings in other ways.

5. Assessment for Understanding

Ask participants, "What did you think of the article?"

Have participants discuss the section or sections of the article that affected them most, and ask them, "Why did they affect you?"

Have participants take a position, either pro or con, on the assessment model, create a presentation defending their position, and present it to the group.

6. Measuring What Counts: Memorization Versus Understanding

What three elements factor into the creation of a project?

What are some of the benefits, according to the article, of project-based learning?

What are recommendations for beginning projects in the classroom?

7. Project-Based Lesson and Rubric
Ask participants, "What do the experts have to say about alternative forms of assessment?"

Introduce the concept of performance assessment to the class, by having participants read " Assessment for Understanding," and then follow these steps:

Introduce the ways project-based learning can be assessed by having participants read the article " Measuring What Counts: Memorization Versus Understanding" and then discuss these questions:

The following activities are designed to give participants experience in creating a project-based lesson and a model rubric for assessing it. For more about designing projects, visit the How Does Project-Based Learning Work? page of our Project-Based Learning Guide.

Present Your Idea

Write a reflective paragraph and present it to the group.

List projects that would be likely to engage your students.

Create a chart or presentation to present your project ideas to the group.

Design a Project and Rubric

Choose a project idea.

Choose a topic or question for the project-based lesson.

Develop the objectives of the project and the tasks.

Design a rubric for the project-based lesson.

Decide whether the rubric is going to be an example of a teacher-created rubric or one created by both the teacher and the students.

Create RubricsPresent the Rubric

Present to the group one of the rubrics you have created.

How does it fit the assessment needs of your students?

How does it fit your assessment needs as a teacher?

Discuss Rubrics

Discuss why it is a teacher-created rubric or one created by both the teacher and the students.

What thoughts went into the process of creating the rubric?

Why would one use rubric templates?

List the pros and cons of using a template.

When would you be more likely to use a rubric that did not employ a template?

8. Assessment Research

Visit our Comprehensive Assessment Research page for the latest findings about assessment.

Download the PDF files of the research reports or view the research websites.

What do you think? Discuss your thoughts in small groups.

9. International Assessment
Continue to the next section of the guide, Resources for Assessment.

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Now that you've established the basics of assessment, you're ready for part two. On this page, you will find a wide range of activities that introduce assessment ideas and provide help in creating rubrics, to get workshop participants thinking and talking about the many ways student learning can be assessed.

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For CTSP 2.4

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Barbara Blackburn, on her website, has a great definition of "rigor" that I think most educators can get behind, and that I certainly appreciate:
Rigor is creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, and each is supported so he or she can learn at high level, and each student demonstrates learning at high level.
For me it connects to both the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and formative assessment where students are expected to, supported in, and demonstrate higher-order thinking.

Rigor is about helping students learn at higher levels. For me, this translates to designing opportunities for students to take more responsibility for their own learning and to support their peers in their learning. Blackburn also talks about questioning both what teachers are asking of students and responding to those students. How to do both at higher levels is going to be a key piece of creating the environment that supports increased rigor in the classroom.

As a teacher, I have to work on not only asking better questions but also asking questions better. And I have to be figuring out how to teach my students to do the same two things. Both of these include planning:

+ How can I make better use of hinge-point questions to help me know what students need to move on in their learning?

+ What question will I ask and when in the lesson to provide scaffolding to support the higher expectations?

+ How do I want students to demonstrate their learning at high levels? This requires that I am familiar with the "critical words" we use to ask students to demonstrate their learning, whether on an assessment or in class conversation

+ What strategies will I use to increase student engagement, to involve all students in responding to the questions not just to the teacher but amongst themselves as well, to push their thinking higher (or deeper)?

More often than not, classroom discussions consist of lower-order questions that are answered by a few motivated students. These questions are not rich enough to provide detailed information about student thinking and learning and responses are not systematically collected from all students in the class.

Does it work? Tobin and Capie, two education researchers at Florida State University investigated the use of higher-order questions in conjunction with increased wait time and its effect on student engagement in 13 middle school classrooms. Teachers in the study were provided with guidance in the choice of higher-order questions, the enhancement of wait time, or both. Students in each of the classrooms were then observed for engagement (e.g., attending to a task, responding to questions, collecting data, explaining information) and academic achievement. The researchers concluded that both the use of higher-order questions and increased wait time significantly contributed to increases in student engagement. ( Relationships between classroom process variables and middle school science achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1982, 74(3), 441-454.)

In another research experiment examining the relationship between classroom evaluation practices and student outcomes, Terence Crooks from the University of Otago reported similar findings for the use of higher-order questions and student interest. More specifically, Crooks (citing Barak Rosenshine and Robert Stevens in 1986) suggested that the use of questions to actively engage a high percentage of students may explain the positive relationship that is generally found between increased use of classroom questioning and student achievement. The author suggested that to obtain the full benefit, classroom questions should be directed to as many students as possible. ( The impact of classroom evaluation practices on students. Review of Educational Research, 1988, 58(4), 438-481.)

How are teachers and educators in your school using higher-order questions and formative assessment to support and implement the rigor necessary for Common Core success? We'd love to hear your thoughts, so leave a comment below.

Kathy Dyer is Manager of Innovation and Learning, Professional Learning at NWEA. Kathy has more than 25 years in education, many spent designing and facilitating learning opportunities for educators. Coaching teachers and school leadership on getting better at what they do is her passion. Follow Kathy on Twitter at @kdyer13 or read her blogs here on Teach. Learn. Grow.

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Higher-Order Questions, Rigor, and Meeting the Common Core State Standards

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Barbara Blackburn, on her website, has a great definition of "rigor" that I think most educators can get behind, and that I certainly appreciate: Rigor is creating an environment in which each student is expected to learn at high levels, and each is supported so he or she can learn at high level, and each student demonstrates learning at high level.

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(CSTP 3.5) A good article about using current technology in the classroom to help make curriculum accessible for ELL students.

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Features

To improve reading skills, many teachers are harnessing the technology they already have

Instead of investing in prepackaged software programs, many teachers are harnessing the technology they already have-such as webcams, audio recorders, blogs, and other Web 2.0 tools-to boost literacy in students.

"With schools being so cash-strapped, we can't go around and buy a new program all the time," says Adina Sullivan, a 4th grade teacher at the 720-student San Marcos Elementary School in California. "You can go with something that you can find a lot easier at no cost and make it work for what you need, rather than [using pre-packaged software.]"

Sullivan, who is a lead technology teacher at her school, works with English-language learners to help build vocabulary and fluency.

"When you start with the learning standard and match the tool to the learning standard and then to the student's level, it's easier if [teachers] have more flexibility. Sometimes prepackaged materials can be a little limiting," she says.

For instance, in her classroom, Sullivan uses photos licensed under creative commons, an alternative to copyright that allows varying degrees of sharing, as a jumping-off point to start a conversation with her students.

"It gives them a mental image to connect to," she says, "a familiar, relatable scene so we can discuss what we see in the photo as a class and build the vocabulary."

Then the students can transition into a writing exercise, says Sullivan.

Sullivan also uses audio recorders to have student-teachers read sets of vocabulary words, then she creates matching PowerPoint presentations with the words and burns them onto DVDs for the students to take home and listen to.

Most students in her classroom do not have computers at home, but they do have DVD players, says Sullivan. And having a variety of student-teachers record the words makes students more adept at recognizing what they are.

Sullivan also uses audiobooks in her classroom.

"Hearing a model reader helps with the fluency and the comprehension," she says.

Recently, her class listened to the audiobook of James and the Giant Peach, and at the end of the unit, only two students did not pass the test-a vast improvement. When Sullivan gave her students a choice of reading their next book out loud or listening to the audiobook, they chose audio.

Webcams and Podcasts

Timothy Frey, an assistant professor of special education, counseling, and student affairs at Kansas State University, has been researching how to use webcams to improve reading fluency and comprehension in elementary school students.

Working with two elementary schools in Kansas, Frey observed 27 2nd through 4th graders over 16 weeks as they used webcams to see themselves reading and then he identified their mistakes.

Within the first five weeks of the experiment, all of the grade levels made at least two fewer mistakes per minute.

"New technologies are making amazing inroads into helping students overcome some of the challenges that have prevented people from keeping up with reading," says Frey. "The technology is just a tool that is engaging and allows [students] to do the instant playback."

Lisa Parisi, a 5th grade teacher in New York's 4,000-student Herricks Union Free School District, on Long Island, and co-author of the forthcoming book Blogging in the Middle Years, places a major focus on her students' reading skills.

"The last two years I really looked at the data to see how the kids were doing using all of this technology, and in both the past two years, I ended the year with no children below grade level in reading," she says. "I do think that technology has a very large part in that."

Parisi uses podcasting to help her students practice fluency.

"One of the really neat things to do is have the kids edit their own podcasts," she says. Then they can literally see the pauses or mistakes they made in the editing program and correct them.

Parisi also uses blogs to engage her students in reading and writing.

"They have contests to see who can get the most comments," she says. And what most students have figured out is that the better their writing is, the more visitors and comments they receive.

Authentic Audience

Hooking her class up with students from other parts of the world also motivates her students to focus on their grammar and pronunciation, says Parisi, especially if the students they are working with are not native English-speakers.

"It just makes them work harder," she says. The Internet allows her students to engage with an authentic audience, says Parisi, which motivates them to record podcasts or write blogs that are more polished than what they might create for just the teacher.

Teaching students to read in an authentic context is a key part of being literate, says Jeffrey Wilhelm, a former middle and high school teacher who is now at Boise State University, where he does research on struggling readers.

"Being literate has always meant the capacity to use a culture's most powerful tools to create and communicate meanings," he says. "If you're not teaching with [technology], you're not only not preparing the kids for the future, you're not preparing them for the present moment."

Technology, such as the Internet and Web 2.0 tools, makes it easier for teachers to tap into students' interests and personalize what they are reading, he says.

For instance, during a unit about satire, Wilhelm had his students post jokes to a wiki. Afterward, the class read through the jokes and identified what made each one funny.

"We were defining satire, pastiche, misdirection," he says, and because it was in the context of funny jokes, the students were engaged.

"Most of the technological [interventions] that I see are decontextualized," he says, "but it's only going to help [the student] comprehend better if [he or she] is inquiring about something [he or she] cares about."

Katie Van Sluys, a member of the Urbana, Ill.-based National Council of Teachers of English and an associate professor of literacy at DePaul University in Chicago, also believes that using technology to connect students with meaningful audiences and resources can promote important literacy skills.

Using the Internet to go over the daily weather report with kindergartners, for example, or reading through current events with middle school students can engage children with authentic, personalized information, she says.

And using technology also provides an opportunity to teach other kinds of literacies, such as digital and media literacy, says Van Sluys.

"You have to be a savvy reader and consumer-perhaps even more so because of the types of information and the amount of information you can access," she says. "You need to be able to say, 'What does this mean for me? What does this mean for the world?' That's part of the reading curriculum."

'Thoughtful' and 'Intentional'

Internet resources can also help teachers in other content areas incorporate literacy lessons into their classrooms.

For instance, Teachers' Domain, an online repository of free media resources for teachers run by the Boston-based WGBH Educational Foundation, provides multimedia-rich science and social studies curricula infused with literacy lessons.

"It's really designed to give content teachers who do not necessarily know literacy strategies ... some simple guidelines on comprehension skills and building vocabulary," says Carolyn Jacobs, the national accounts manager for Teachers' Domain.

The lessons include a glossary of terms, videos, interactive Flash activities, and text boxes for students to submit answers in.

So far, there are about 15 lessons, with plans to create 25 more in 2011, says Jacobs.

Technology can help "extend a teacher's reach" says Gail Lovely, a former K-8 teacher who started her own company, Lovely and Associates, to help teachers integrate technology into curriculum. However, teachers need to be careful to integrate it thoughtfully and intentionally, she says.

"My bias is that a caring adult will always read a book aloud better than a computer can," she says. "We have to be thoughtful about where the technologies fit best."

Using VoiceThread, for instance-which allows users to create collaborative, multimedia slide shows with images, documents, and videos-is an innovative Web resource that can be used in a thoughtful way, says Lovely. And another Web resource, Storybird, allows students to tap into a library of illustrations to create digital books, says Lovely.

"One of the cautions is that it's not about doing the same thing with new tools. It's about doing new things or difficult old things with tools that make it easier," she says. "We want to use these tools in intentional ways to make a difference."

Published in Print: February 9, 2011, as Boosting Literacy

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Classroom-Tested Tech Tools Used to Boost Literacy

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Features Instead of investing in prepackaged software programs, many teachers are harnessing the technology they already have-such as webcams, audio recorders, blogs, and other Web 2.0 tools-to boost literacy in students. "With schools being so cash-strapped, we can't go around and buy a new program all the time," says Adina Sullivan, a 4th grade teacher at the 720-student San Marcos Elementary School in California.

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This article provides some amazing tips and resources for both parents and teachers

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Higher order thinking (HOT) is thinking on a level that is higher than memorizing facts or telling something back to someone exactly the way it was told to you. HOT takes thinking to higher levels than restating the facts and requires students to do something with the facts - understand them, infer from them, connect them to other facts and concepts, categorize them, manipulate them, put them together in new or novel ways, and apply them as we seek new solutions to new problems.

Answer children's questions in a way that promotes HOT

Parents and teachers can do a lot to encourage higher order thinking, even when they are answering children's questions. According to Robert Sternberg, answers to children's questions can be categorized into seven levels, from low to high, in terms of encouraging higher levels of thinking. While we wouldn't want to answer every question on level seven, we wouldn't want to answer every question on levels one and two, either. Here are the different levels and examples of each.

Level 1: Reject the question

Example:
"Why do I have to eat my vegetables?"
"Don't ask me any more questions." "Because I said so."

Level 2: Restate or almost restate the question as a response

Example:
"Why do I have to eat my vegetables?"
"Because you have to eat your vegetables."

"Why is that man acting so crazy?"
"Because he's insane."

"Why is it so cold?"
"Because it's 15° outside."

Level 3: Admit ignorance or present information

Example:
"I don't know, but that's a good question."
Or, give a factual answer to the question.

Level 4: Voice encouragement to seek response through authority

Example:
"Let's look that up on the internet."
"Let's look that up in the encyclopedia."
"Who do we know that might know the answer to that?"

Level 5: Encourage brainstorming, or consideration of alternative explanations

Example:
"Why are all the people in Holland so tall?"
"Let's brainstorm some possible answers."
"Maybe it's genetics, or maybe it's diet, or maybe everybody in Holland wears elevator shoes, or..." etc.

When brainstorming, it is important to remember all ideas are put out on the table. Which ones are "keepers" and which ones are tossed in the trashcan is decided later.

Level 6: Encourage consideration of alternative explanations and a means of evaluating them

Example:
"Now how are we going to evaluate the possible answer of genetics? Where would we find that information? Information on diet? The number of elevator shoes sold in Holland?"

Level 7: Encourage consideration of alternative explanations plus a means of evaluating them, and follow-through on evaluations

Example:
"Okay, let's go find the information for a few days - we'll search through the encyclopedia and the Internet, make telephone calls, conduct interviews, and other things. Then we will get back together next week and evaluate our findings."

This method can be equally effective with schoolwork and with everyday matters such as how late an adolescent can stay out on Saturday night or who is getting to go to a concert. For example, polling several families that are randomly or mutually chosen may produce more objective results than either parent or child "skewing" the results by picking persons whose answers will support their way of thinking.

Strategies for enhancing higher order thinking

These following strategies are offered for enhancing higher order thinking skills. This listing should not be seen as exhaustive, but rather as a place to begin.

Take the mystery away

Teach students about higher order thinking and higher order thinking strategies. Help students understand their own higher order thinking strengths and challenges.

Teach the concept of concepts

Explicitly teach the concept of concepts. Concepts in particular content areas should be identified and taught. Teachers should make sure students understand the critical features that define a particular concept and distinguish it from other concepts.

Name key concepts

In any subject area, students should be alerted when a key concept is being introduced. Students may need help and practice in highlighting key concepts. Further, students should be guided to identify which type(s) of concept each one is - concrete, abstract, verbal, nonverbal or process.

Categorize concepts

Students should be guided to identify important concepts and decide which type of concept each one is (concrete, abstract, verbal, nonverbal, or process).

Tell and show

Often students who perform poorly in math have difficulty with nonverbal concepts. When these students have adequate ability to form verbal concepts, particular attention should be given to providing them with verbal explanations of the math problems and procedures. Simply working problems again and again with no verbal explanation of the problem will do little to help these students. Conversely, students who have difficulty with verbal concept formation need multiple examples with relatively less language, which may confuse them. Some students are "tell me" while others are "show me."

Move from concrete to abstract and back

It can be helpful to move from concrete to abstract and back to concrete. When teaching abstract concepts, the use of concrete materials can reinforce learning for both young and old alike. If a person is able to state an abstract concept in terms of everyday practical applications, then that person has gotten the concept.

Teach steps for learning concepts

A multi-step process for teaching and learning concepts may include (a) name the critical (main) features of the concept, (b) name some additional features of the concept, (c) name some false features of the concept, (d) give the best examples or prototypes of the concept (what it is), (e) give some non-examples or non-prototypes (what the concept isn't), and (f) identify other similar or connected concepts.

Go from basic to sophisticated

Teachers should be sure that students have mastered basic concepts before proceeding to more sophisticated concepts. If students have not mastered basic concepts, they may attempt to memorize rather than understand. This can lead to difficulty in content areas such as math and physics. A tenuous grasp of basic concepts can be the reason for misunderstanding and the inability to apply knowledge flexibly.

Expand discussions at home

Parents may include discussions based on concepts in everyday life at home. The subject matter need not relate directly to what she is studying at school. Ideas from reading or issues in local or national news can provide conceptual material (for example, "Do you think a dress code in school is a good idea?").

Connect concepts

Teachers should lead students through the process of connecting one concept to another, and also putting concepts into a hierarchy from small to large. For example, if the concept is "Thanksgiving," a larger concept to which Thanksgiving belongs may be "Holidays," and an even larger (more inclusive) concept could be "Celebrations." By doing this level of thinking, students learn to see how many connections are possible, to connect to what they already know, and to create a web of concepts that helps them gain more clarity and understanding.

Compare the new to the already known. Students should be asked to stop and compare and connect new information to things they already know. For example, if they are about to read a chapter on electricity, they might think about what they already know about electricity. They will then be in a better position to absorb new information on electricity.

Teach inference

Students should be explicitly taught at a young age how to infer or make inferences. Start with "real life" examples. For example, when a teacher or parent tells a child to put on his coat and mittens or to get the umbrella before going outside, the adult may ask the child what that might mean about the weather outside. When students are a little older, a teacher may use bumper stickers or well-known slogans and have the class brainstorm the inferences that can be drawn from them.

Teach Question-Answer Relationships (QARs)

The Question-Answer Relationships (QARs) technique (Raphael 1986) teaches children to label the type of questions being asked and then to use this information to assist them in formulating the answers. Two major categories of question-answer relationships are taught: (1) whether the answer can be found in the text - "In the Book" questions, or (2) whether the reader must rely on his or her own knowledge - "In My Head" questions.

In the book QARs

Right There:
The answer is in the text, usually easy to find; the words used to make up the questions and words used to answer the questions are Right There in the same sentence.

Think and Search (Putting It Together):
The answer is in the story, but the student needs to put together different parts to find it; words for the questions and words for the answers are not found in the same sentences; they come from different parts of the text.

In my head QARs

Author and You:
The answer is not in the story; the student needs to think about what he/she already knows, what the author tells him/her in the text, and how it fits together.

On My Own:
The answer is not in the story; the student can even answer the question without reading the story; the student needs to use his/her own experience.

The QAR technique helps students become more aware of the relationship between textual information and prior knowledge and enable them to make appropriate decisions about which strategies to use as they seek answers to questions. This technique has proven to be especially beneficial for low-achieving students and those with learning differences in the elementary grades (Raphael 1984; Simmonds 1992).

Clarify the difference between understanding and memorizing

When a student is studying, his parents can make sure that he is not just memorizing, but rather attempting to understand the conceptual content of the subject matter. Parents can encourage the student to talk about concepts in his own words. His parents can also play concept games with him. For example, they can list some critical features and let him try to name the concept.

Elaborate and explain

The student should be encouraged to engage in elaboration and explanation of facts and ideas rather than rote repetition. His teachers and parents could have him relate new information to prior experience, make use of analogies and talk about various future applications of what he is learning.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Students should be encouraged to make a visual representation of what they are learning. They should try to associate a simple picture with a single concept.

Make mind movies

When concepts are complex and detailed, such as those that may be found in a classic novel, students should be actively encouraged to picture the action like a "movie" in their minds.

Teach concept mapping and graphic organizers

A specific strategy for teaching concepts is conceptual mapping by drawing diagrams of the concept and its critical features as well as its relationships to other concepts. Graphic organizers may provide a nice beginning framework for conceptual mapping. Students should develop the habit of mapping all the key concepts after completing a passage or chapter. Some students may enjoy using the computer software Inspiration for this task.

Make methods and answers count

To develop problem-solving strategies, teachers should stress both the correct method of accomplishing a task and the correct answer. In this way, students can learn to identify whether they need to select an alternative method if the first method has proven unsuccessful.

Methods matter

To develop problem-solving strategies, teachers should give credit to students for using a step-wise method of accomplishing a task in addition to arriving at the correct answer. Teachers should also teach students different methods for solving a problem and encourage students to consider alternative problem-solving methods if a particular strategy proves unrewarding. It is helpful for teachers and parents to model different problem-solving methods for every day problems that arise from time to time.

Identify the problem

Psychologist Robert Sternberg states that precise problem identification is the first step in problem solving. According t o Sternberg, problem identification consists of (1) knowing a problem when you see a problem and (2) stating the problem in its entirety. Teachers should have students practice problem identification, and let them defend their responses. Using cooperative learning groups for this process will aid the student who is having difficulty with problem identification as he/she will have a heightened opportunity to listen and learn from the discussion of his/her group members.

Encourage questioning

Divergent questions asked by students should not be discounted. When students realize that they can ask about what they want to know without negative reactions from teachers, their creative behavior tends to generalize to other areas. If time will not allow discussion at that time, the teacher can incorporate the use of a "Parking Lot" board where ideas are "parked" on post-it notes until a later time that day or the following day.

Cooperative learning

Many students who exhibit language challenges may benefit from cooperative learning. Cooperative learning provides oral language and listening practice and results in increases in the pragmatic speaking and listening skills of group members. Additionally, the National Reading Panel reported that cooperative learning increases students' reading comprehension and the learning of reading strategies. Cooperative learning requires that teachers carefully plan, structure, monitor, and evaluate for positive interdependence, individual accountability, group processing, face to face interaction, and social skills.

Use collaborative strategic reading

Collaoborative Strategic Reading - CSR (Klinger, Vaughn, Dimino, Schumm & Bryant, 2001) is another way to engage students in reading and at the same time improve oral language skills. CSR is an ideal tactic for increasing reading comprehension of expository text in mixed-level classrooms across disciplines. Using this tactic, students are placed into cooperative learning groups of four to six students of mixed abilities. The students work together to accomplish four main tasks: (1) preview (skim over the material, determine what they know and what they want to learn), (2) identify clicks and clunks (clicks = we get it; clunks = we don't understand this concept, idea or word), (3) get the gist (main idea) and (4) wrap up (summarize important ideas and generate questions (think of questions the teacher might ask on a test). Each student in the group is assigned a role such as the leader/involver/taskmaster, the clunk expert, the gist expert, and the timekeeper/pacer (positive interdependence). Each student should be prepared to report the on the group's conclusions (individual accountability).

Think with analogies, similes, and metaphors

Teach students to use analogies, similes and metaphors to explain a concept. Start by modeling ("I do"), then by doing several as a whole class ("We do") before finally asking the students to try one on their own ("You do"). Model both verbal and nonverbal metaphors.

Reward creative thinking

Most students will benefit from ample opportunity to develop their creative tendencies and divergent thinking skills. They should be rewarded for original, even "out of the box" thinking.

Include analytical, practical, and creative thinking

Teachers should provide lesson plans that include analytical, practical and creative thinking activities. Psychologist Robert Sternberg has developed a framework of higher order thinking called "Successful Intelligence." After analyzing successful adults from many different occupations, Sternberg discovered that successful adults utilize three kinds of higher order thinking: (1) analytical (for example, compare and contrast, evaluate, analyze, critique), (2) practical (for example, show how to use something, demonstrate how in the real world, utilize, apply, implement), and (3) creative (for example, invent, imagine, design, show how, what would happen if). Data show that using all three increases student understanding.

Teach components of the learning process

To build metacognition, students need to become consciously aware of the learning process. This changes students from passive recipients of information to active, productive, creative, generators of information. It is important, then for teachers to talk about and teach the components of the learning process: attention, memory, language, graphomotor, processing and organization, and higher order thinking.

Actively teach metacognition

Actively teach metacognition to facilitate acquisition of skills and knowledge. It is important for students to know how they think and learn. Teach students about what Robert Sternberg calls successful intelligence or mental self-management. Successful intelligence is a great way to explain metacognition.

In his book entitled Successful Intelligence, Sternberg lists six components of successful intelligence:

1. Know your strengths and weaknesses

2. Capitalize on your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses

3. Defy negative expectations

4. Believe in yourself. This is called self-efficacy

5. Seek out role models - people from whom you can learn

6. Seek out an environment where you can make a difference

Use resources

Several resource books by Robert Sternberg are available on higher order thinking. The following books should be helpful and are available at local bookstores or online.

Consider individual evaluation

Many students with higher order thinking challenges benefit from individual evaluation and remediation by highly qualified professionals.

Make students your partners

A teacher should let the student with higher order thinking challenges know that they will work together as partners to achieve increases in the student's skills. With this type of relationship, often the student will bring very practical and effective strategies to the table that the teacher may not have otherwise considered.

Evaluation/Assessment

If consistent use of some of the above strategies does not seem to help a student, it may be worthwhile to consider having a comprehensive neurodevelopmental evaluation conducted by a qualified professional. Problem identification is the first step in problem solution; thus, if the problem is not accurately identified, the solutions that are attempted often will not reap rewards for the student and those working with him.

A comprehensive neurodevelopmental evaluation performed by a licensed psychologist should serve as the roadmap for parents, students and professionals working with the student. It should provide a complete picture of his attention, memory, oral language, organization, graphomotor/handwriting skills and higher order thinking. It should also include an assessment of the student's academic skills (reading, written language and math) and his social and emotional functioning. The evaluation should not only provide an accurate diagnosis but also descriptive information regarding the areas of functioning noted above.

When seeking professional services for an evaluation, it is important to understand what constitutes a good evaluation and also the purpose of the evaluation. Evaluations conducted by public school systems are generally for the purpose of determining whether a student meets criteria for a special education classification. Evaluations conducted by many private professionals are performed for the purpose of determining whether the student meets diagnostic criteria according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) published by the American Psychiatric Association. While both of these types of evaluations are helpful in their own ways, they are generally not sufficient for providing the best roadmap. Therefore, parents should be informed consumers and ask questions about what kind of information they will walk away with after the evaluation has been completed.

The focus of an evaluation should be to address concerns and provide answers to specific questions asked by the parents and the student, and to identify the underlying causes of problems. For example, if the student has problems with reading comprehension, is it because she cannot decode the words, she has insufficient fluency or vocabulary, or she cannot understand discourse because of difficulty with attention or memory? It should also identify the student's strengths as well as challenges and specific strategies for managing these challenges.

A good evaluation should glean information from multiple sources such as interviews, questionnaires, rating scales and standardized tests. Contact CDL for more information about neurodevelopmental evaluations at (504) 840-9786 or learn@cdl.org.

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Higher order thinking (HOT) is thinking on a level that is higher than memorizing facts or telling something back to someone exactly the way it was told to you.