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10. That you are a teacher who teaches not content but process. You teach children to be information literate, digitally literate, media literate, and visually literate. The skills that you teach, the dispositions that you help children to develop, the responsibilities that you foster, and the self-assessment strategies that you instill will serve children not only in school but also in life. You are, first and foremost, a teacher!

9. That you are an information specialist, the original, most powerful search engine, able to decipher the most cryptic reference question and connect that child or that teacher with the information needed. You know the resources; you know your patrons, and you connect the two.

8. That you are an instructional partner who works collaboratively with all other educators in the building to teach critical information skills in the context of content curriculum. You are there to partner with that teacher who wants to present a lesson in a different way or who wants to have children create a more authentic product to demonstrate real learning. Because of your participation, the lesson is stronger and more effective.

7. That you are an instructional leader with a view and perspective of the school like no other. You see across grades and across content areas. You work with all students and with all teachers. You are well versed in the latest technologies and are able to integrate them effectively into instruction, and you're able to provide professional development on library resources and technologies for your colleagues.

6. That you are a program administrator who does a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes to make sure that the library program runs smoothly. So much of your job is invisible, and your principal needs to know that.

5. That you empower students to become critical thinkers. Through lessons in the library students experience everything from comparing and contrasting nonfiction and fiction works on the same topic to creating in a makerspace to evaluating information found on the Web.

4. That you empower students to become enthusiastic readers as you do everything in your power to help them develop not only skills in reading but also a lifelong love of reading. You provide books in various formats (print, audio, ebook) and in various genres to meet students' information and recreational reading needs. You host reading promotions, and you stress the joy of reading.

3. That you empower students to become skillful researchers. You teach children to unpack information using text features in books. You teach children how to summarize and how to synthesize, and you teach them the differences in the two. You teach children to narrow topics, develop research questions, and search effectively to answer those questions.

2. That you empower students to become ethical users of information. You teach the concept of intellectual property, of citation, and of giving credit where credit is due. You help children to understand what plagiarism is, and you teach them how to extract and process and synthesize information to create a new product.

1. That school librarians transform student learning and that this is much easier to accomplish with administrative support. An administrator's support can come in many forms: a healthy budget, a schedule that allows for common planning time with teachers, affirmation to faculty of the important role of the library program in the school and in student learning.

If your administrator already knows these things, wonderful! You or a librarian with whom they've worked in the past has demonstrated what a 21st-century school librarian does! If your administrator is not so knowledgeable about the key role that you can play in the instruction that takes place in your school, now is the time to speak up and share. Be the librarian that delivers that message!

Categories: Advocacy/Leadership, Blog Topics, Community, Presidential Musings

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Audrey Church, Leadership Development Committee Chair and 2017-2018 AASL Past President

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Ten Things Your Administrator Needs to Know as the School Year Begins | Knowledge Quest

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10. That you are a teacher who teaches not content but process. You teach children to be information literate, digitally literate, media literate, and visually literate. The skills that you teach, the dispositions that you help children to develop, the responsibilities... Read More ›

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American Association of School Librarians (AASL)

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The following position statement is currently under review to align with the National School Library Standards:

The following position statements have been sunsetted by the AASL Board of Directors effective January 27, 2019:

Common Core College and Career Readiness Standards

Digital Content & Ebooks in School Library Collection

Quantitative Standards

Role of the School Librarian in Senior/Capstone Projects

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Appropriate Staffing for School Libraries The Critical Need for and Responsibilities of District-Level School Library Supervisors Definition of an Effective School Library Diversity in the Organization Instructional Role of the School Librarian Labeling Practices Policy on Confidentiality of Library Records (ALA) Preparation of School Librarians Role of the School Library School Librarian's Role in Reading School Library Scheduling Strategic Leadership Role of School Librarians The following position statement is currently under review to align with the National School Library Standards: Suppo

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SC Study Shows Link Between School Librarians and Higher Test Scores

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Trying to convince administrators of your value? This study, unique because it documents the contribution of school librarians through the use of test results for specific ELA and writing standards, provides ammunition.

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Bringing Inquiry-Based Learning Into Your Class

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A four-step approach to using a powerful model that increases student agency in learning.

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10 Tips For Launching An Inquiry-Based Classroom | KQED

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Inquiry-based techniques are challenging conventional ways of teaching and empowering students who might otherwise get overlooked.

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Resources and Downloads to Facilitate Inquiry-Based Learning

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Find information, strategies, protocols, and tools to promote curiosity and engage students in asking questions, thinking critically, and solving problems.

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Samantha Viotty's activity for visualizing data networks has gummy bears
representing people and toothpicks signifying their relationships.
Photo courtesy of Samatha Viotty

Data is all around us, from the output of your Fitbit to interactive maps that track voters to the latest visualization of the New York Times front page. With the rise of mobile devices and wearable technology, data is more available to general audiences, and the amount being generated has also exploded. According to IBM, 90 percent of the world's data has been created in the last two years.

This vast pool of information is being used to advocate for change, justify decisions, and suggest personal action plans-such as the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard, which offers students data to help them choose a college. It is vital that our students understand and interpret the data, infographics, and visualizations they encounter.

One reason data literacy is vital is that "[i]n what some are calling a 'post-truth world,' students seem to focus on numbers a lot," says Jo Angela Oehrli, learning librarian/children's literature librarian at the University of Michigan Libraries. Students believe that if a number is connected to information, "it has to be a fact. But numbers are manipulated all of the time....We want students to have a tool kit of questions that they can use to question the data that is out there."

To this end, Oehrli and Kristin Fontichiaro, clinical associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, have been leading an IMLS-funded project called Supporting Librarians in Adding Data Literacy Skills to Information Literacy Instruction. Through data literacy programs and data science training, librarians can ensure that students develop the skills to question and interpret data in the news or that they generate through their day-to-day activities. They might even set some students on the path toward a career in the expanding field of data science.

What are data literacy and data science?

Data literacy refers to the ability to understand, generate, and use data. This can mean everything from being able to sort through the results of a survey to being able to understand the meaning of a complicated graph or chart. It also includes the ability to critically evaluate data and visualizations.

Data science goes beyond data literacy. The term "data science" has been around for decades, but its current usage was advanced by Chuien-Fu Jeff Wu at the University of Michigan in the late 1990s, where he was a professor of statistics. It has exploded in popularity recently, with the rapid increase of accessible sources of data and the tools to work with it, such as Google Forms, which makes it easy to collect data, and Google Charts, which allows users to visualize results. In the face of this burgeoning interest, many colleges and universities are adding programs in response to the growing demand for trained data scientists.

At its heart, data science refers to the analysis of data, usually through automated means, and the interpretation and application of the results. Frequently, it is closely related to computer programming and statistical topics. In fact, much of the current rise in popularity of data science has to do with greater interest in computer programming skills and new hardware and software that makes this work approachable for people of all ages.

As more folks master coding languages such as Python, they also learn how to use coding skills to manipulate, analyze, and interpret the reams of data we produce every day, with popular training sites like Codecademy (codecademy.com) and Lynda.com offering tutorials related to data analysis.

Activities for kids and teens

Many libraries are stepping up to offer programming for students and patrons. At the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, librarians are always on the lookout for ways to integrate data literacy topics into their services for children and teens. The results range from incorporating local data into activities featured in their Super Science Kits, which provide a collection of materials and lesson plans on a particular STEM topic for use both in the library and at outside programs that they organize, to partnering with the University of Pittsburgh on an IMLS grant about youth data literacy.

Their work extends beyond the library, too. "We've been bringing data literacy activities on the road when we table at different community events," says Eleanor Tutt, open data and knowledge manager at the Carnegie Library. "A recent activity that was popular was a data keychain-we selected 10 yes/no questions relevant to the event, and participants chose a color of pony bead to represent 'yes' and a color for 'no' and then created a coded keychain representing personal data about themselves." In the end, each participant has a unique keychain with a pattern that represents their responses to the list of questions. These simple activities get participants thinking in new ways and realizing that "they and their families are creating data, perhaps unknowingly, through their actions," Tutt says.

Samantha Viotty, a graduate student at the Emerson College Engagement Lab, has partnered with the Boston Public Libraries on her DIY Data Art program, which aims to teach data literacy through self-guided worksheets incorporating hands-on visualization activities.

In one, called Emoji Data Stories, teens are asked to visually represent answers to a question, such as their favorite activity or food, using only emojis in order to prompt them to consider "the concept of isotypes and how to display information in a visual way," Viotty says. This process makes them consider how information can be conveyed without words-and it's fun for them to play around with emojis. The Gummy Bear Networks activity has teens build network visualizations that show how a group of people are connected to one another, with gummy bears representing the people and toothpicks signifying the relationships between them.

In the Cell Phone Data Paper Pie Charts activity, teens create a pie chart representing the data usage of each app on their cell phones. This exercise "includes a conversation about which applications use their data and how the data is being collected and used," which can add an interesting dimension to the exercise, Viotty explains.

This topic can also be combined with computer programming instruction to create events with wider appeal. Robyn Allen, an MIT graduate and licensed technology teacher, has partnered with four Boston-area public libraries to offer hackathon sessions on data science for teens. These half-day events introduce participants to the Python programming language and teach them how to use it for a data analysis project. Since so much data is publicly available, the events can offer opportunities to work with everything from sports data to data from educational apps. As Catherine Halpin, youth technology coordinator at the Boston Public Library, where one such program was recently offered, notes, the goal is that participants "walk away feeling this subject material is demystified, that they know they are capable, and confident to continue this path of learning."

Teaching tools and resources

There are many resources that support teaching data literacy, no matter your background. Tools such as Mentimeter, Socrative, and Poll Everywhere allow you to collect responses from students on the spot and generate visualizations that represent the information graphically.

Easy-to-use infographic tools such as Infogram and Piktochart can be used for projects about data advocacy and storytelling. These tools make creating a compelling infographic straightforward through a combination of intuitive features and online tutorials.

When you're ready to venture into data analysis projects, Databasic.io 's suite of tools offers web-based ways of exploring and understanding data, complete with activity guides designed for use with teens. Best of all, there is an increasing amount of open data available from local groups and government agencies that can offer relatable and interesting datasets for teens to analyze.

All of these tools can serve as the basis of a larger conversation about the role of data in public discussions, such as the way that schools use student data to make curriculum decisions or how local governments track traffic data to make decisions about signage and stoplights, and what questions students should ask when they encounter data and visualizations in their daily lives.

For those who want to go even further, the University of Michigan initiative Supporting Librarians in Adding Data Literacy Skills to Information Literacy Instruction has brought together a group of data and curriculum design experts to create professional development resources for librarians. Under the guidance of Fontichiaro and Oehrli, this team hosted a free virtual conference in the summer of 2016, and they are preparing for a second one scheduled for July 20-21 2017.

The team has also written two books due out this fall, Creating Data Literate Students, which collects chapters by the curriculum experts on teaching data literacy in the classroom, and Data Literacy in the Real World: Conversations and Case Studies (both Maize Books), which will collect approximately 40 case studies about data literacy. The duo is also presenting a poster about their work, "Real Strategies to Address Fake News: Librarians, Data Literacy, and the Post-Truth World," at the 2017 ALA Annual Conference this month.

The overarching message from all and other data initiatives? Don't be scared by it. The goal is that "high school librarians will start to feel comfortable talking about data literacy issues with their students and fellow teachers," Oehrli says.

"So many librarians were humanities majors with little exposure to data, and so many classroom teachers think of data in terms of test scores," adds Fontichiaro. "By focusing on high-impact strategies, we want librarians and teachers to feel empowered by data, not victimized by it. Our early efforts show that a little knowledge has significant impact."

Seven Places To Find Public Data

Data.gov The U.S. federal government's portal for open data provides access to a lot of datasets and offers the option to browse by topics, such as health, public safety, and agriculture. The site also links to data collected by cities, counties, and states.

UNData For projects with an international perspective, the United Nations' data portal not only provides access to international datasets on topics from agriculture to tourism, but also has links to the data portals for many countries around the world.

NYC Open Data Though far from the only city with an open data portal, New York City has one of the nicer, more user-friendly sites. Through this portal, you can find city-wide data about education, recreation, local government, and more.

U.S. Department of Education This site collects data related to the Department of Education, which means that it offers a number of datasets that might interest students, librarians, and teachers. It also offers a link to the National Center for Education Statistics' Create-A-Graph tool (nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph), which is aimed at younger students.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Public health data can offer many interesting possibilities in working with data, and the CDC's website provides access to a variety of health topics and tools and resources related to the datasets.

Global Health Observatory Data Repository For health data at a global level, you can also look to the World Health Organization's data site, called the Global Health Observatory. Here you'll find datasets of health problems around the world and related topics, such as air quality and road safety.

Open NASA Space exploration is always an exciting and inspiring topic, so why not incorporate NASA's work into your data and visualization activities? With the open datasets available on NASA's data portal, your data project can visualize meteorite landings or analyze NASA's patents.

Carli Spina is head librarian of assessment and outreach at Boston College Libraries.

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Why Kids Need Data Literacy, and How You Can Teach It

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Samantha Viotty's activity for visualizing data networks has gummy bears representing people and toothpicks signifying their relationships. Photo courtesy of Samatha Viotty Data is all around us, from the output of your Fitbit to interactive maps that track voters to the latest visualization of the New York Times front page.

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The impact of internet is such that children are overwhelmed by the ample information they can get and so they often forget the importance of salient determination.

Web has marked an important presence in every student's life and so, for every confusion students tend to Google it be it academic or not. However, what amuses me is that this integral part of every student's life is being ignored. Research and analysis is important to teach our kids the right web consumption.

There are millions of links for every word you search and one cannot go through these million links. But one should know how to pick the right resource and make their search more accurate.

While my research for the piece I came across this quote by a Teacher at College Board School, speaks, " The Internet is empowering, but it's empowering everyone's opinion and everyone wants to get their information out there, and we need to try to teach the students to be more discriminators - have greater discrimination about the quality of the information they're accessing. "

This statement is appropriate for the way we acquire information. Students need to learn to discriminate the quality of the information that they access in order to make the ethical use of web for their own good. And not just this there are a lot many aspects to this skill like compiling information, citing resources that are being used and more such that needs to be addressed.

Pew Research Center showcases a post on their site titled "Teaching Research Skills in Today's Digital Environment" by Kristen Purcell, Lee Rainie, Alan Heaps, Judy Buchanan, Linda Friedrich, Amanda Jacklin, Clara Chen and Kathryn Zickuhr. This post addresses middle and high school students in regard to the skills they will need to be smart information seekers in the digital age. Teachers in this study place tremendous value on research skills, with most reporting assigning a research paper to their students for an academic year and spending the class time teaching various research skills to their students. Most notable among these is the inability to judge the quality of information, a skill the vast majority of teachers deem "essential" for their students' future success.

Based on the report, the following skills are essential and should be taught to students in order to help them make the best use of web.

1. How to evaluate the quality of information,

2. How to recognize what information is and is not relevant to the question at hand, and

3. How to synthesize information from multiple sources into a coherent piece of work.

Valuing the skills teachers emphasized on various skills they believed that today's students will need in the future, "Judging the quality of information and writing effectively". These two skills were described as "essential" by 91% of the teachers who participated in the survey. Other skills relevant to the current digital culture also ranked high, with large majorities of teachers saying that "behaving responsibly online" (85%) and "understanding privacy issues surrounding online and digital content" (78%) are "essential" to their students' later success in life.

What we have concluded from the report is that it is essential for students to have an understanding of the right and efficient use of web and for this, the skill of Information Research and Analysis is crucial. The digital life that we live today makes it important to use web and consume information with responsibility and hence it is important to teach students the art of doing so. Students must know the righty resources, the right keywords they need to use to optimize the search, how to find these keywords, picking up the quality and reliable links, understanding of the copyright to the information, their limit to the use of information, right citations and maintain the balance of authenticity while creating their piece of work.

What can be done to help students gain this skill?

To help students acquire these skills it is essential that they are taught the strategies to make the efficient use of web. Educators can help students develop these skills with their daily assignment by making slight changes. Educators can spend class time teaching and developing these skills, and by designing assignments that require students to use new or different approaches. Also, schools should consider making this a part of the digital citizenship curriculum where students are taught the importance of using the right resources form the web and enables them to differentiate the many resources on the basis of the quality. Also it is important that students understand that the work they do must be authentic. They can use the information from the web to have an understanding and learn about things but they can't use someone else's work without permission and to an extent only with permission with citations.

All in all, it is essential that authorities give this need a though and consider including this as one of the crucial skills that we need to teach students like others. What is your take on this? Do you think that educators should make a move to help students understand about the importance of using the information and research skills efficiently?

Share with us in the comment section below.

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Information Research & Analysis: Needed Skill for Students

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The impact of internet is such that children are overwhelmed by the ample information they can get and so they often forget the importance of salient determination. Web has marked an important presence in every student's life and so, for every confusion students tend to Google it be it academic or not.

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Fake news has been all over the real news lately. From Mark Zuckerburg to Pizzagate, fake news is a huge problem, and it's not going away on its own. According to a recent study from Stanford University, approximately 80 percent of students struggled to evaluate the credibility of an online resource. This is a little disheartening, since this is a huge part of what we teach as school librarians, and it appears we've not been very effective. There really isn't a magic formula or checklist that replaces the critical thinking needed to determine if information is credible.

Based on the recent surge of fake news and the results of the Stanford study, we decided to overhaul our website evaluation lessons by doing the following:

Changing website evaluation to resource evaluation. A small shift in perspective expanded our scope to include content like memes, links posted on social media, native advertising, as well as traditional website evaluation.

Using worksheets from the Stanford study to assess our students' online skills to see if there was an area that stood out as especially problematic.

Showing students memes and asking them to prove if the meme is true or false.

Asking students to show us memes from their social media feeds to see if we can spot fake news while students research to see if we are correct.

Making our own memes to show students how easy it is to create and spread content online.

Experimenting with different evaluation methods. We gave students the Common Sense Media Website test as an example and asked them to create their own test.

Giving students chances to test their resource evaluation methods. We've been setting up a laptop with some type of online content displayed. The rules are students can use any resource available to assess the displayed content as credible or fake. The decision is written on a slip of paper and put in a box. We don't ask for names, but we use the slips to decide how much time to spend on discussing the resource.

We have also decided to gently explore and introduce some political content while teaching fake news. This gives us the chance to reinforce respectful culture and positive discourse while discussing real-world topics. I think some of the political ideas really hit home with students when they find out information they have seen (and believed) on social media is actually fake news.

Fake news has always been around, but now it feels more threatening. As a school librarian, I feel like I should almost be the first line of defense against the spread of fake news. Perhaps the most recent change we've made to our resource evaluation program will become the most effective. We've asked students to politely speak up about fake news if they see it or hear it, and if they aren't sure, research it, and if they still aren't sure ask a librarian for help. How are you addressing fake news, and have you made any changes to your program?

Categories: Blog Topics, Community/Teacher Collaboration, Technology

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School Libraries Fight Fake News | Knowledge Quest

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Fake news has been all over the real news lately. From Mark Zuckerburg to Pizzagate, fake news is a huge problem, and it's not going away on its own. According to a recent study from Stanford University, approximately 80 percent... Read More ›

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Curriculum mapping is a process for collecting and recording curriculum-related data that identifies core skills and content taught, processes employed, and assessments used for each subject area and grade level. The completed curriculum map then becomes a tool that helps teachers keep track of what has been taught and plan what will be taught.

Creating and working with curriculum maps is a 7-step process involving:

Phase 1: Data collection.

Phase 2: A review of all maps by all teachers.

Phase 3: Small mixed group reviews, in which groups of five to eight diverse faculty members share individual findings

Phase 4: Large group comparisons, in which all faculty members gather to examine the findings of the smaller groups.

Phase 5: Identification of immediate revision points and creation of a timetable for resolution.

Phase 6: Identification of points requiring additional research and planning, and a timetable for resolution of those points.

Phase 7: Planning for the next review cycle.

The purpose of a curriculum map is to document the relationship between every component of the curriculum. Used as an analysis, communication, and planning tool, a curriculum map

allows educators to review the curriculum to check for unnecessary redundancies, inconsistencies, misalignments, weaknesses, and gaps;

documents the relationships between the required components of the curriculum and the intended student learning outcomes;

helps identify opportunities for integration among disciplines;

provides a review of assessment methods; and

identifies what students have learned, allowing educators to focus on building on previous knowledge.

Bear in mind that curriculum maps are records of implemented instruction -- of what has been taught during the current school year. Projection maps, or pacing guides, on the other hand, project what will be covered in the future.
Explore it
To learn more about curriculum mapping, explore this website:
Learn more about it
To extend your understanding of curriculum mapping, visit this website:
Sample curriculum map
To see an example of a curriculum map, visit the Utah Education Network.

For more information, see Mapping the Big Picture: Integrating Curriculum and Assessment K-12, by Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs ( Mapping the Big Picture: Integrating Curriculum and Assessment K-12, ASCD, Alexandria, VA, 1997).

Copyright © Education World 2016

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Curriculum mapping is a process for collecting and recording curriculum-related data that identifies core skills and content taught, processes employed, and assessments used for each subject area and grade level. The completed curriculum map then becomes a tool that helps teachers keep track of what has been taught and plan what will be taught.

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*Anderson, L.W. (Ed.), Krathwohl, D.R. (Ed.), Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Complete edition). New York: Longman.

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Anderson, L.W. (Ed.), Krathwohl, D.R. (Ed.), Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Complete edition). New York: Longman.

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It's no secret that kids learn better when teachers provide learning activities that keep them engaged. Teachers work tirelessly to plan engaging lessons that capture and keep the interests of their students, thereby making content more accessible. However, teachers continue to feel the daunting pressure to compete for their students' attention amidst the ever-evolving and rapidly-hanging mass media, social media, and entertainment industry, as these elements do a stellar job of keeping students highly engaged outside of the classroom.

Although it is vitally important for us to know and understand our students' interests and the best conditions under which they learn, there is good news: It's not necessary that we focus our efforts on competing with the devices and activities our students engage in during their downtime outside of the classroom! Recreation, entertainment, and downtime for students outside of the classroom are just that: recreation, entertainment, and downtime. Students expect to come to school to learn and to be challenged (although they may never tell us that).

If we want such activities to produce genuine student growth, instructional design must focus on learning outcomes as opposed to the activity itself.

Nonetheless, students also want to enjoy learning. They want to be intrigued and to generate their own ideas and solutions-as when they predict how the plot will unfold in the next episode of their favorite television series. They want to explore and discover new concepts in uncharted territory-as when they spend countless hours advancing to more challenging and difficult levels in their favorite video game. They want channels of communication that give voice to their opinions and ideas-as when they regularly post and comment on others' posts on social media platforms. And yes, they want to be engaged.

Providing activities that relate to students and capture their interests is a best practice. However, if we want such activities to produce genuine student growth, instructional design must focus on learning outcomes as opposed to the activity itself. Just take a look at the infographic below. What do you notice is different about these two text conversations, where a student shares what they've been doing at school?

Let's look at tools first. There are many tools that turn learning into game-play, simulating online games and game shows (e.g. Kahoot!, Quizziz, Quizalize, etc.) in which students choose correct answers, accumulate points, and earn a score. We often use these tools for reviewing content and formative assessment. Nevertheless, if the pinnacle of the activity is to repeatedly respond to questions that are at low or similar levels of difficulty requiring basic memorization or minimal thought, the activity will lose its novelty. Students may prefer this activity over completing a worksheet, but the impact on learning will leave much to be desired in the areas of productive engagement and student growth.

Furthermore, most recreational games played outside the classroom provide a progressive challenge as students advance through each level of the game. Remember Alex Trebek's Jeopardy? The questions begin with easy, low-dollar questions; the more questions answered correctly in each category, the more difficult and higher the dollar amount for each question. Could we be more deliberate when using game-simulating tools by ensuring we solicit responses from our students that progressively challenge their thinking? Perhaps we could also provide opportunities for students to generate their own questions and use apps like Kahoot as a means to "think-pair-share" their questions to challenge each other! (Students don't have to learn game-design to create a Kahoot quiz and share the code with classmates.)

Could we be more deliberate when using game-simulating tools by ensuring we solicit responses from our students that progressively challenge their thinking?

After discovering how active my students were on Facebook, it was a no-brainer for me to incorporate social learning platforms like Edmodo to facilitate class discussions online. Students would post their thoughts from assigned readings, and respond to posts made by their peers. They'd have lively online discussions about the text. It was great-until I realized the need to evaluate how I was using this resource. Although the activity allowed students to have class discussions in a similar fashion as posting and commenting on Facebook, the activity alone had done little to support academic discourse or to develop inquiry and thinking skills.

Also, unless a subject is discussion-worthy, or of high-interest to students, they're not genuinely interested in writing about it, even if it is through an online platform. The ceiling for engagement shouldn't rest upon the activity itself. I had to ask myself, "What is the expectation of this task, and how will it impact learning outcomes?" I often found that expectations were either too general or too vague, and although I could use language to justify the relationship of the task to learning outcomes, when I was honest with myself, I saw little to no substantial impact on student growth in the way I was using the tool. I had to shift my focus from what I was using to how I was using it.

Hence, I began to craft more meaningful questions that prompted critical thinking and academic discourse through online discussion (e.g. "What might this object from the story symbolize, and what parallels might be drawn from the text to current events today?"). I also discovered the power of using these types of tools as a vehicle for peer-editing and peer-publishing through student blogging. Student motivation skyrocketed when they performed research and published their conclusions on relevant topics when doing so online alongside other classrooms-from other countries! The possibilities were endless!

As edtech expert, Tony Vincent, would say, "Date the tool, but marry the ability." There will always be multiple edtech tools, programs, and products that provide similar principle functions to support student engagement. However, to achieve engagement that exceeds the element of surprise or novelty, which is often necessary as an instructional "hooking" tool, it is imperative that we place the brunt of our instructional design efforts towards building thinking skills and cognitive growth within students.

Student growth is a result of the practice, not the product.

Nira Dale (@MrsDale_Edu) is an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE), English teacher, and K-12 instructional specialist in Alabama.

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Why Instructional Design Must Focus on Learning Outcomes, Not Learning Activities - EdSurge News

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It's no secret that kids learn better when teachers provide learning activities that keep them engaged. Teachers work tirelessly to plan engaging lessons that capture and keep the interests of their students, thereby making content more accessible.

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Members of the Girlfriends Book Club of Baltimore.
Photo courtesy of Tonya Wright/The Girlfriends Book Club of Baltimore

Eight-year-old Ezri Blau likes to read all kinds of books, but reading isn't the only reason she returns to her book club at the Naperville (IL) Public Library. "My favorite thing was when we read Rowan of Rin and had to defeat the hanging spider maze," Blau says. "Well, and the cookies. I love cookies."

Tasty snacks and conquering book-inspired obstacle courses may seem far from the traditional tasks of a book club, but Naperville's Book and Cookie Club exemplifies exactly the kind of creative engagement one can expect from today's successful book clubs for kids and teens. A book club, one of those bread-and-butter library services, is as adaptable as it is stalwart. It can be boisterous and active or quiet and small. It can grow and change, serving the same group from the pre-tween years through adolescence, or welcoming a different crop of readers each new school year.

A good book club may run itself once it gets going, but starting and sustaining one through discouraging moments-a dismally attended first meeting or a poor book match-can be difficult. Persistence, flexibility, and above all, knowing and responding to your readers can make a book club work in any place and with any age group.

Fox River Grove (IL) students design a conveyor belt after reading the John Henry legend.
Photo courtesy of Fox River Grove Memorial Library.

Start small

An intimate size allows club members to get comfortable with one another and helps create a group identity. It also minimizes the worry of coordinating discussion among a large group. When Tonya Wright started the Girlfriends Book Club of Baltimore in 2014, she set out to create a stress-free environment where her second-grade daughter could discuss books. She wasn't looking for a big crowd. "I said, 'Baby, if we get one of your friends to say yes, we've got a club!'" Seven girls from her daughter's class joined.

Early on, Wright just wanted to help the girls find their voices. Discussions were simple and focused on likes and dislikes, clarifying confusing sections, and listening to one another. Occasionally, Wright would bring in a multiple-choice survey about the book to get the conversation moving or offer a relevant game to break the ice. The book discussion was a vehicle for building confidence in sharing opinions and being respectful listeners.

As the girls have grown older, Wright has needed to adapt to their busy lives to be able to continue the club. Now in sixth grade, the preteens meet on weekends instead of after school and limit their time to only one hour, down from the more open-ended schedule in the early years. When the members started forgetting meetings, Wright began sending out Evites as reminders.

Activities To Augment Book Clubs

Tweens' "book face" photo at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library in Western Springs, IL.
Photo courtesy of Heather Booth
* Create art based on the title or topic * Cast the movie based on the book * Take "book face" pictures (above) * Write shelf-talkers for favorite titles * Make snacks based on the book's themes
* Rework a favorite scene into a mini-reader's theater
* Take a field trip to a local author event * Arrange a video chat with an author * Host a used book swap * Compile a playlist for the book * Conduct Pictionary battles * Play character charades * Create a trivia quiz -Bridgett Kaiser
Find a partner

Bridgett Kaiser of the Fox River Grove (IL) Memorial Library wanted to start a science club, but when the local Rotary Club offered a literacy-focused sponsorship, a book and science club was born. The library purchases individual copies of books that relate to science experiments for children to keep. Rotary members have even pitched in to help when extra hands are needed.

Seed to Plant by Kristin Baird Rattini paired easily with a hands-on planting project. Magnets: Pulling Together, Pushing Apart by Natalie M. Rosinsky had the kids exploring the library with magnets on wands to figure out what was magnetic and what wasn't. Reading the story of John Henry led to one of the group's favorite activities: Inspired by the legendary race digging through a mountain, the kids worked in groups to design and build a conveyer belt that could move rocks.

The club, called It's Elementary!, brought kindergartners through fourth graders flooding into the small library, regularly packing the program. "It was like we had opened up a door that they didn't know existed," says Kaiser.

"They're never quiet. They're always engaged. That joy is so real, and so is their interest in being here at the library. They're interested [in learning more] way beyond the day of the club."

Partnerships can draw participants who might not otherwise be interested. At the Downers Grove (IL) Public Library, teen services coordinator Lynette Pitrak found a partner in a publisher, forming a mutually beneficial relationship. Pitrak can attract teens to her book club with the novelty and access of advance reader copies from Bloomsbury, and the publisher gets frank feedback from the teens on its titles. This cache of pre-publication books is something teens can't readily access elsewhere and provides a great motivation to join the library book club.

Some of the most beneficial collaborations happen when librarians work together. Danielle Jones of the Multnomah County (OR) Library and Paige Battle, teacher librarian at nearby Grant High School in Portland, have joined forces for Half-Blood Printzes, a mock-Printz book club. Battle can connect to and recruit club members through her work with teachers and students, and Jones hosts and facilitates the discussion through surveys, moderated conversation, and, of course, snacks.

Parents can be partners, too. The Book and Cookie Club at the Naperville (IL) Public Library brings in parents with their third through fifth graders for a snack, conversation, and activities. "It's a good thing to get families reading and talking about books together," says children's services librarian Emily Bayci. "I really try to build relationships with the parents. I'll send out emails after the book club to anyone who misses with suggestions on how to talk about the book with their child and a reminder that I'm always around if they just want to stop in."

A green screen photo booth at a Book and Cookie Club event at the Naperville (IL) Public Library.
Photo courtesy of Emily Bayci/Naperville Public Library

Be an opportunist

Sometimes creating a book club is a matter of being in the right place at the right time and applying a little bit of librarian magic. North Carolina school librarian Tomi Black was helping a boy find a copy of Kwame Alexander's Booked at his friend's suggestion. "On instinct, I grabbed two copies of the book and returned to the two boys, suggesting they could read it together. Immediately this generated interest from two additional boys seated at the same table. Luckily we had two more copies of the book and voilà...an impromptu book club was formed!"

Go multimedia

Media tie-ins are a hit for Noelle Spicher, the teen librarian at the Lisle (IL) Library District. Cautioned by coworkers that teens hadn't come to book clubs in the past, Spicher took a chance and started one at the request of a few of her regular teen patrons and teen advisory board (TAB) members.

"I hesitated at first, but once the teens mentioned it again, I figured I would try it out," she said.

The group began with the core TAB members who requested the club but has grown to seven participants. With guidance from Spicher, they decided to focus on books with movie adaptations, beginning with Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon.

Their Friday evening meetings begin by watching the movies, which adds to the fun and social feel of this teen event and gives them even more to discuss. Spicher occasionally has to gently redirect conversation back to the topics at hand but notes that the teens are able to self-regulate quite well, even in lively discussions.

When kid lit makes it to the big screen, as Wonder did in 2017 or as A Wrinkle in Time will this year, librarians can leverage the heavily marketed events and host media-themed book clubs. Even if it's a one-off event, media-themed discussions bring participants into the library and help kids see the library as a place where their views are important. Tapping into popular fandom can also bring in participants who already have something in common.

Books That Got Them Talking

Kids books

Charlotte's Web by E. B. White Cry of the Sea by D. G. Driver I'm Just No Good at Rhyming by Chris Harris The Isle of the Lost "Descendants" series by Melissa De La Cruz Narwhal by Ben Clanton Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda Salt in His Shoes by Deloris Jordan and Roslyn M. Jordan Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan Teddy Mars Almost a World Record Breaker by Molly B. Burnham "Upside-Down Magic" series by Sarah Mlynowski

Tween books

Be Light Like a Bird by Monika Schröder Booked by Kwame Alexander "The Books of Elsewhere" series by Jacqueline West Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz The Worst Class Trip Ever by Dave Barry

YA books

Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds Most Dangerous by Steve Sheinkin Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Lead by letting go

Taking a step back and letting participants lead can be a recipe for success. Kitty Felde, creator and host of the Book Club for Kids podcast, has been talking to youth book clubs across the country since 2000. Book clubs are best served when adults are comfortable taking a back seat, she says.

"Step back. Let the kids pick the book. Try not to be the adult in the room," she says. "Kids will tell you anything if you listen to them and are interested in what they have to say. And follow up."

The follow-up is key, gently encouraging participants to think and say more. "You just want to get it started and make yourself as unobtrusive as possible," she says.

Facilitators are there to set a tone of respect, and participants respond in kind.

"I've never run into an issue of students not being respectful of one another," says Beth Ebenstein Mulch, school librarian at the T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA. Sometimes, that means respecting a student's need to be a quiet observer instead of a vocal participant.

"It's OK for students to be quiet," she says. "Sometimes it's enough that students want to come to each meeting and not feel pressured to talk. I try to incorporate questions that allow for students to answer as a group (thumbs up, thumbs down) as opposed to singling out individuals. I will often email ahead of the meeting and ask students to think of a book they would recommend and share."

Spicher credits the burgeoning club's success to the autonomy of her teens.

"This group is very enthusiastic about reading. Essentially they started the book group, and I'm just here to facilitate," she says. "They even talk about having a Google chat going about book group. I think the success is due to the group's level of interest and feeling of ownership."

Focus on the end goal

Ultimately, a book club can take any form that works for the group, so long as the guiding focus is clear. The goal for these clubs is often about much more than a book.

"I want them to be comfortable with their own voices and stand in their own power without being disrespectful to other opinions," says Girlfriends Book Club founder Wright. In addition to nurturing their love of reading, "I want them to have an open discussion and debate and feel comfortable knowing that they can still walk away as friends. Those skills are going to help them in everyday life."

Felde says that a good book club is a little like her Girl Scout troop.

"They might not all be your best friends, or people you have a lot in common with, but you have this one thing that's important to you and you share," she says. "I remember so much being 12 and wanting an adult to treat me like an adult. I had opinions and wanted to voice them." Felde adds, "I find that works with this age group. They have some experience with the world. They're unafraid. They're smart! They're full of heart; they're not cynical. It's a joy to hear them speak, like peeking into the brain of tomorrow's leaders. And it's hopeful."

Heather Booth is head of teen services at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library in Western Springs, IL. Her clubs include a Next Chapter Book Club for young adults with special needs.

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Members of the Girlfriends Book Club of Baltimore.Photo courtesy of Tonya Wright/The Girlfriends Book Club of Baltimore Eight-year-old Ezri Blau likes to read all kinds of books, but reading isn't the only reason she returns to her book club at the Naperville (IL) Public Library.

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The traditional book report that asks students to critique the books that they read is a staple of many classrooms. If you would like to add a new element to book reports try having students add visual and audio components to book reports by having students create book trailers. Book trailers are short videos designed to spark a viewer's interest in a book. A great place to find examples of book trailers is Book Trailers for Readers. If you would like to have your students try to create book trailers, here are five free video tools that are well-suited to that purpose.

Animoto makes it possible to quickly create a video using still images, music, video clips, and text. If you can make a slideshow presentation, you can make a video using Animoto. Animoto's free service limits you to 30 second videos. You can create longer videos if you apply for an education account.

Stupeflix is a service that allows user to quickly and easily create video montages using their favorite images and audio clips. In many ways Stupeflix is similar to Animoto and Flix Time, but there are a couple of differences that are worth noting. Adding text to the images is slightly easier in Stupeflix than it is on Animoto. Stupeflix offers only one default soundtrack so you have to upload your own audio clips. That said the advantage of Stupeflix is that you can use more than one audio clip within the same video.

Shwup is a service similar to Animoto and Stupeflix for creating videos based on your images and audio files. At its most basic Shwup is a place for creating collaborative private photo albums. As the creator of an album you can select the best images and create a video for the group. You can choose to share your videos privately so that only those you invite can see them or you can share your videos on Facebook, Twitter, or embed them into your blog.

Flixtime is a video creation service that is quite similar to Animoto and Stupeflix. Flixtime gives users the ability to create 60 second videos by mixing together images, video clips, and music tracks. You can use your own images, video clips, and music tracks or you can choose media from the Flixtime galleries. Flixtime also gives you the option to record voiceovers for your videos through their site.

Masher is a free tool for creating video mash-ups. Masher offers a large collection of video clips from the BBC's Motion Gallery and Rip Curl video. There is a large music library, an effects library, and a good selection of video player skins. If you don't find content that you like in Masher's library, you can add your own images, video clips, and music clips through the Masher uploader. Masher also gives you the option to insert text throughout your videos. Creating with Masher is a simple matter of dragging elements from the media gallery into the timeline editor. From there you can arrange the sequence of elements using the drag and drop interface. When you're happy with the sequence, publish and share your production.

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5 Free Tools for Creating Book Trailer Videos

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The traditional book report that asks students to critique the books that they read is a staple of many classrooms. If you would like to add a new element to book reports try having students add visual and audio components to book reports by having students create book trailers.

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Elena Aguilar

Transformational Leadership Coach from Oakland, California

As a classroom teacher, nurturing a love of reading in my students was almost an obsession. This continued when I had a child. Here are twelve ways to nurture a love of reading in kids.

1. Reflect on reading. We will only do things that we enjoy doing or feel are worth it. When kids have a positive reading experience -- one in which they learned something or felt deeply engrossed in a story -- guide them to name those positive experiences. They need to think and talk about the experience, to mentally register the positive impact, as this may motivate them to repeat the activity.

2. Listen to audiobooks. There are so many benefits we can glean from listening to audiobooks. We can set aside the mechanical skills we need to read and just focus on plot, characters, and accents; we can lose ourselves in a story. For struggling readers, this is a treat. This is one way to give them occasional access to age-appropriate texts and to get them hooked into reading.

3. Identify reasons for reading. We aren't going to do something we don't see a purpose for doing. The more we can engage kids in thinking about why they're doing something, the more chances we have of increasing their investment. When I taught middle school, at the beginning of the school year, I always did an activity called, "Why Read?" I asked students to generate as many reasons as they could think of for why we should read. It was fun. I challenged each class to come up with more reasons than the other classes (a light, competitive element generated sixth-grade energies). We kept these up on the wall all year.

4. Generate excitement about words. When reading with kids, identify a word or two per reading session that you can get them excited about, a new word, one that they might, or might not, want to use. Find the joy in discovering a new combination of sounds, of a word that precisely describes a feeling or place. Then, repeat it aloud, and use it in different ways. Just play with it, and have fun. Don't identify too many words per reading session, just one or two will do. Reading is all about words. (On that note, for younger kids, see this beautiful picture book, The Boy Who Loved Words.)

5. Learn about what boys need. My approach to teaching reading in middle school changed radically after I read, Reading Don't Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men by Michael Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm. As I implemented ideas based on this book, I saw my male students' interest and appreciation for reading skyrocket. I've applied these same ideas while raising my son. Essentially, it's offering them lots of nonfiction and texts that have practical application -- and it has worked for my son, too.

6. Read educational graphic novels. Offer kids a variety of genres, including educational graphic novels. Two very popular and exceptionally well-written graphic novels are: Resistance, a three-part graphic novel about the French resistance to the Nazis, and Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang, a three-part graphic novel about the Boxer Rebellion. My son has read each of these several times.

7. Read books over and over. Many young children love hearing the same book over and over. Continue this practice as kids get older. Give older kids permission to read books again and again. Ask them what they're experiencing as they reread books: What new insights do they get from the story? How do they see things differently? What did they appreciate this time?

8. Ask kids for their opinion. Ask kids how you think you could nurture their love of reading. Engage them in this process as an active participant. Ask them what gets them excited about reading, what makes them love it. The next suggestion was my 12-year-old son's suggestion when I asked him for his opinion.

9. Talk about the story. During the story, stop and talk with kids about what's happening. Talk about the characters. Ask them to make predictions. Ask them to make connections. These are all basic reading comprehension strategies, but they are also strategies to get kids more deeply engaged in the reading.

10. Teach kids how to read. When I began teaching sixth grade, I undertook a three-year action research project about how I could nurture a love of reading in my students. One of the unexpected findings I arrived at was that I needed to make sure I was explicitly teaching my students how to read. Appreciating narratives, words, character development, or whatever we learned from nonfiction texts wasn't enough. My kids wouldn't love doing something that was really hard. I had to make sure I knew their reading levels and that I helped them fill the gaps in their reading skills.

11. Model being a reader. Teachers and parents: read in front of your kids. Talk about reading. Talk about why you read. Make connections between your life and the world and things you've read. Model how reading enriches your life -- maybe through your ability to read recipes, or to assemble a piece of furniture, or to research a question on the internet.

12. Take fieldtrips related to reading. Go to the library for a field trip, (or go on the weekends, parents). Go to a bookstore just to hang out and browse the books. Walk around and talk to kids about what you're seeing in the library or bookstore. What calls your attention? Which titles? Which book covers? Ask them what they notice. Read the backs of books. Get excited. Flip through books. Wander into a section you'd never go to. Send kids on a treasure hunt: find a book about stamp collecting, find a book about ancient Rome, find a memoir by someone with whom you have something in common.

What has worked for you to nurture a love of reading in your students or children? Please share in the comments section below.

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Elena Aguilar Transformational Leadership Coach from Oakland, California As a classroom teacher, nurturing a love of reading in my students was almost an obsession. This continued when I had a child. Here are twelve ways to nurture a love of reading in kids. 1. Reflect on reading.

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A MiddleWeb Blog

The metaphor "thinking outside of the box" has recently been brought to my attention in a number of situations as people have reached out to say, "We need your 'out of the box' thinking on this..."

After hearing this statement a number of times over the last few weeks, it made me think about what we are actually saying when we use this fairly clichéd expression.

Of course thinking and learning are contextual - and there are times when thinking inside the box may be appropriate. But overall, thinking out of the box has gained momentum as a valued way of creating solutions.

OK, so you guessed it: I am going in the direction of co-teaching and the need for co-teachers to allow their thinking to be stretched and empowered!

Before you read on, take a moment and guide yourself to think about finding solutions through a fresh perspective. Check out this nine dots puzzle to exercise out-of-the-box thinking skills. Are you feeling the excitement of creating solutions and expanding your ability to think divergently?

Out of the Box Co-Thinking

The opportunity for two teachers to combine their thinking when making instructional decisions can result in some incredibly powerful learning experiences for students.

In fact I'm thinking when two teachers are in the room and in-synch, there's no need for in-box or out-of-box thinking. It can become an experience where there is no need for a box at all! We are talking a barrier-free co-teaching experience! What would that look like? Here's some of my thinking.

No Boundaries Co-Teaching

For every apparent limitation or frustrating scenario in a co-teaching relationship, there can be a solution. Here are my top three thoughts for today.

Be free to express EACH co-teacher's expertise.

In general, this level of application should happen regardless of grade or subject area. Without boundaries, each teacher has an important role in an active instructional process. I'm talking about if one of the teachers needed to step out of the room for a moment, he or she would be missed! This means each co-teacher does his or her homework to know the content and to expand strategic repertoires to meet the strengths and needs of variable learners.

Make co-planning happen - No matter what!

All too often, teachers just do not have a specified co-planning time in their official schedules. So the question becomes, what are you going to DO about it? Sure, complaining about it might provide some temporary relief. But if no change is forthcoming from on-high, you'll often find yourself slipping into a negative venting cycle.

So why not be more productive? Use that same energy to seek solutions. For starters, replace the absence of official planning time with consistent communication strategies that create ongoing, informed understandings between both teachers.

Create a log: open up a shared Google Doc (a tabular format works) where each day's big lesson ideas are tracked and expressed. In addition, delineate a role for each co-teacher on each day. Decide on which co-teaching model will best serve for the context of each lesson. This takes the mystery out of working together each day.

Use post-it communications:Each co-teacher could jot how the lesson went from their perspective and pass the post-its to one another as they rush off to their next class. This takes no time at all. It is naturally embedded within the context of class time and can guide each to plan ahead for the next day.

Email: Let's not lose sight of good old-fashioned email! It can serve as timely feedback in a feed-forward kind of way to reflect and proactively plan ahead.

Strive to focus on the positive aspects of what you and your co-teacher bring to your co-teaching experience. We all know of positive, negative, and indifferent co-teaching narratives. Move beyond the negative tangling of thoughts that could lead to frustration. Find at least one thing to hold on to - and find a way to apply divergent thinking - to make the relationship work within the classroom.

Divergent thinking typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing, 'non-linear' manner, such that many ideas are generated in an emergent cognitive fashion." Source

Assert yourself. Respect and accept your co-teacher's practices. Facilitate a blending of the best that you both have to offer.

Need a nudge to sift through to find the positive? Check out my post at Brookes Publishing: A Deeper Look into Co-Teaching Success I hope it will spark your ability to see beyond the established view of what success looks like in any co-teaching setting.

If you're looking for more thoughts on what it takes to achieve co-teaching success, check out and sign in for this archived Education Week webinar: Ten Tips for Co-Teaching Success where I share more details for co-teaching success.

What are you finding to be the most positive - or the most frustrating - of your current co-teaching experiences? Share your voice here. Let's not just think out of the box together - let's remove it completely!
Make it your mission to forget about the box and co-create barrier-free co-teaching experiences this year.

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A MiddleWeb Blog The metaphor "thinking outside of the box" has recently been brought to my attention in a number of situations as people have reached out to say, "We need your 'out of the box' thinking on this..."

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"It's a conservator's occupation," Evans said. "Tons of what we do in school are about values that don't, we hope, change. It's not just about things that do change."

These tensions inherent to the system mean that what educators most need is not constant change, which can be off-putting and stressful if sustained for too long, but creativity. There is value in much of what schools currently teach, but there's also plenty of room for creative teaching strategies to reach all students.
CHANGE BEGETS CONFLICT
One of the most difficult things about leading change in schools, according to Evans, is that there often aren't clear structures to deal with conflict or disagreement. Leaders usually try to sell change as though it will be good for everyone, but that isn't true. At first, there are winners and losers. In other professions people hash out these types of conflicts, addressing them head-on, but that's rarely the case in schools. The maxim, "it's not personal, it's business," doesn't work in schools because teaching is a very personal profession.

"In school, everything is personal, which is how we want it," Evans said. Many of the most powerful aspects of school community, relationship-building and support develop out of a work environment that is, and must be, personal. "But when it's only personal it's very hard to talk about, is it working out, is it not working." The result is a lot of conflict avoidance.

Evans draws on the work of Roland Barth, who describes the difference between congeniality and collegiality. Barth says congenial relationships are personal and friendly. Positive interactions with colleagues are a crucial part of why teachers come to school each day. And congeniality is a requirement for the even more important, and elusive, collegial relationships that indicate the educators in the building are working together.

"If you take the congenial out of the school, you strip it of all the connective tissue that makes it a decent place to be," Evans said. "But you can be the most congenial school in America and not talk about teaching and learning."

Evans acknowledges that creating a school culture that encourages productive conflict, the hashing out of ideas and differing opinions, is particularly hard because the qualities that make someone a great teacher -- nurturing, extending beyond themselves, pulling out the best in people -- are not typically the characteristics of someone who is skilled at adult conflict. And yet, Evans encourages change leaders to think about structures that allow adults to disagree constructively. Without a forum for disagreement, grumbling about change moves underground and can undermine the whole project.

But no matter how productively colleagues can disagree or how much they work to improve, schools are only one part of the achievement puzzle. Evans wants education leaders, policymakers and the public to be aware that educators can only change so much about a child's life. What happens outside of school and at home is as important, if not more important, for educational outcomes than anything within the control of teachers.

"The correlation between money and scores is tighter than it has ever been," Evans said. How well students will perform on standardized tests is much more correlated to income than what school they attend. "It's possible to be a school that's doing lots of really amazing things for kids and see slower progress than anyone who is busting a gut hopes for."

While Evans doesn't pull punches about the challenge of effectively leading and implementing lasting changes in schools, he has seen it happen. He's well aware that most school leaders have an "overloaded change agenda," and that they are trying to implement it on a ridiculously short time line. He advises leaders to choose one big thing to change at a time, and to think carefully about what other things will compete for colleagues' time.
COPING WITH THE HUMAN SIDE OF CHANGE
Evans shared several tips on how to manage change.

Have a set of non-negotiables. There will always be resistance from staff, but when they understand what is negotiable and what isn't, it's much easier to move on and actually start making change. "As long as people imagine that if we keep talking about this it won't really happen, they don't have any motivation to do anything," Evans said.

Change requires the deft use of both pressure and support. Without pressure no one will change; without support all the resistance will go underground, where it often lives in schools. Getting buy-in is important, but it can't hold up action. "Buy-in is an end state, not a beginning condition," Evans said. "The bigger the change you want to promote and the more loss it will cause, the less likely people will voluntarily bereave themselves to get into it."

Evans cites a headmaster he worked with at an elite private school who struck a good balance between pressure and support. The headmaster decided that in order to attract more students the school would start a mini-term between semesters, but he wanted staff input on how to do it well. At first all the meetings focused on whether they should do a mini-term, but the headmaster quickly stepped in and made it clear the school was implementing the change -- that was a non-negotiable.

"Almost all of us would rather work with someone who disagrees with us, but who is clear, than with someone who seems to agree with us, but isn't clear," Evans said. That's why it's important for the leader to draw clear lines and then back them up. He also noted that far too often the people tasked to lead change in schools don't actually have the authority to apply pressure, which isn't fair or effective.

Leaders need to tell teachers they are asking to change what, how and why. Evans has watched many leaders explain what staff will be expected to do and how they will do it without offering any explanation of why it is important. "The why is far and away the most important because this is what bears on the motivation of people," he said. However, it's also what causes loss, a necessary condition to begin making change. Evans advises leaders be direct and honest about why change is imperative, but to do so in ways that don't demonize or humiliate those who are experiencing a loss. Leaders can't let them off the hook, but they can be respectful.

Recognize that flexibility is required. Evans likes to cite a retired school superintendent from Massachusetts, Matt King, who says there's a difference between problems and dilemmas. Problems can be solved, but dilemmas are revisited. The issues educators face in schools are more akin to dilemmas than problems with easy fixes.

"Most things we're trying to fix in American education were once the solution to something else," Evans said. The issues are often cyclical and require patience. And, because the work is difficult and stressful, it's even more important that change leaders celebrate small successes and compliment staff along the way.

"The evidence is clear that the most productive, the most successful, the most engaged and happiest people are those who have someone who cares about their development, and people who get to do every day what they're best at instead of dwelling on what they need to change," Evans said.

A positive school climate helps teachers feel like change is possible. And when school leaders can help teachers build on their strengths, instead of only remediating weaknesses, everyone will feel more competent and able to continue pushing for change.

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How School Leaders Can Attend to the Emotional Side of Change | KQED

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"It's a conservator's occupation," Evans said. "Tons of what we do in school are about values that don't, we hope, change. It's not just about things that do change." These tensions inherent to the system mean that what educators most need is not constant change, which can be off-putting and stressful if sustained for too long, but creativity.

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Differentiation is responsive teaching rather than one size fits all teaching (Tomlinson, 2005). This means that teachers proactively plan varied approaches to what students need to learn, how they will learn it, and/or how they will show what they have learned in order to increase the likelihood that each student will learn as much as he or she can, as efficiently as possible (Tomlinson, 2003).

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The Differentiated Instruction Model

Students come to our classrooms with unique differences as people and therefore as learners. Our students have varied degrees of background knowledge and readiness to learn, different life experiences, cultural orientations, languages, interests, and preferences for how they learn best, and different feelings about themselves as learners and about school. Just as medical doctors don't prescribe the same medications for every one of their patients, teachers who differentiate instruction are mindful of the varied learning needs of their students and plan instruction accordingly.

Differentiated instruction is both a philosophy and a way of teaching that respects the different learning needs of students and expects all students to experience success as learners. Learning activities may be differentiated on the basis of students' readiness for learning the specific content or skill, their interests or their preferred ways of learning. In a differentiated classroom, students experience learning in many configurations -working in small groups (with peers having similar or different readiness, interests, or learning preferences), with a partner, individually, and as a whole group.

The Differentiated Instruction Model is based on effective educational practice (research base for DI) and is framed around several key elements:

High-Quality Curriculum

Continual Assessment

Respectful Tasks

Building Community

Flexible Grouping

Teaching Up

High-Quality Curriculum

High-quality curriculum means planning with the end in mind. It begins with clearly defining where we want students to go before thinking about how we want them to get there. What do we want them to Know, Understand, and be able to Do (KUD) as a result of the learning experience?

Designing good curriculum starts with identifying the essential Understandings - the concepts, principles, or big ideas of the unit topic. Understandings that are meaningful, intriguing, and thought provoking allow students to see the relevance of what they are studying to other subjects and to the world around them.

Knowledge includes the key facts (names, dates, places, etc.), vocabulary, and examples that you want students to know. In isolation, this knowledge is easily forgotten. But when linked with the Understandings, the knowledge items help students to uncover and make sense of the Understandings.

What you want students to be able to do might include basic skills such as literacy and numeracy, thinking skills such as reasoning and synthesizing, discipline-based skills such as graphing, planning skills such as goal-setting and project planning, and social skills such as collaboration and leadership.

High-quality curriculum engages students in exploring important ideas and challenges students to develop the skills and attitudes needed to do rigorous, quality work.

Continual Assessment

Assessment is the element that steers instruction in the differentiated classroom. Using ungraded tests or surveys to pre-assess students' readiness and interests before or at the start of a unit will help you determine where each student is in relation to the unit KUD's and guide you in identifying initial student groupings and task assignments in the beginning of the unit.

During the unit, continually assessing each students' progress toward the learning goals (KUD's) guides the teacher in planning the next instructional steps in the classroom. Formative assessments such as exit cards, questions for the day, journal prompts, observation and one-on-one conversations with students all help in identifying when there is a need to re-teach something to certain students or to raise the challenge higher for some students. Formative assessments can be differentiated as long as they are aligned with the unit KUD's.

Summative assessments can also be differentiated based on readiness, interest and learning profile. It is critical, however, that all variations of the summative assessment allow students to demonstrate what they have learned in reference to the unit KUD's.

Respectful Tasks

Students come into our classrooms seeking affirmation, contribution, challenge, power, and purpose. Respectful tasks are responsive to those needs.

In any classroom, it is critically important that the task we ask students to do is respectful - that it is challenging, interesting, and worth doing. In a differentiated classroom, students often work on different tasks simultaneously. The tasks may be adjusted for different readiness levels, interests, or learning preferences, but regardless of which task a student is assigned to (or selects) it should be respectful. If some students look like they are doing a task that is challenging, engaging, and thought-provoking to them while other students work on filling in a simplistic worksheet, the activities are not effectively differentiated and will affect how students perceive their status in the classroom.

Building Community

In an effectively differentiated classroom, the teacher focuses on building a learning community where students feel safe, accepted, and supported. One where students treat one another with respect, help one another to be productive, and share in one another's successes.

In a differentiated classroom, students understand what differentiation is all about and everyone feels they play an important role in the community. Students have a voice in how the community works and take responsibility for identifying and solving problems in the classroom.

Flexible Grouping

An effectively differentiated classroom is characterized by the practice of flexible grouping. This means that students work in a variety of arrangements - students may work

in small groups with students of similar readiness, interest, or learning profile,

in small groups with students of different readiness, interest, or learning profile,

with a partner of similar readiness, interest, or learning profile

with a partner of different readiness, interest, or learning profile

individually

as a whole class

Grouping assignments may be selected by the teacher, by the student, or randomly. In this way, students have the opportunity to work with a variety of students on a frequent basis.

Teaching Up

Teaching up means raising the 'ceiling' for all students. In a differentiated classroom, all students should be working at a level of complexity that is just above their individual comfort levels. By providing each student with reasonable levels of challenge and instructional scaffolding as needed, students learn that hard work results in successful growth.

One tip for achieving this is to plan the most complex learning activity first - one that would challenge the most advanced learner in your class. Then modify that activity for students who are currently at lower readiness levels.

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Differentiation is responsive teaching rather than one size fits all teaching (Tomlinson, 2005). This means that teachers proactively plan varied approaches to what students need to learn, how they will learn it, and/or how they will show what they have learned in order to increase the likelihood that each student will learn as much as he or she can, as efficiently as possible (Tomlinson, 2003).

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https://www.edutopia.org/blog/differentiated-instruction-social-media-tools-john-mccarthy

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100+ Tools for Differentiating Instruction Through Social Media

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Social media can enhance differentiated instruction if the tools are selected with a careful eye on individual students’ readiness, interests, and learning profiles.

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Check out these resources created by the AASL/ALSC/YALSA Interdivisional Committee on School/Public Library Cooperation. Public Library & School Library Collaboration Toolkit Both public and school libraries are community centers at heart, with the same goal: to provide a safe, welcoming environment…

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This is part of a Digital Differentiation model, my way i of weaving a web of flexible tools together for teaching and learning. To keep the model relevant, frequent updates are required, as new tools and trends emerge.
To access the most current resources, please click on the tab at the top of this blog:

Ten months ago I published a Digital Differentiation model on this blog. I've been using the model to guide the work I do each day and I've been sharing it via webinars and hands-on training sessions.
Of course, ten months is a long time in the world of edtech, and I've added some new tools and resources to my personal teaching toolkit, so I decided it was time to update the model and tweak it just a bit. The original article and interactive graphic can still be found on this blog. Here is the new post:

Technology is a tool that can be used to help teachers facilitate learning experiences that address the diverse learning needs of all students and help them develop 21st Century Skills, an idea supported by the Common Core.

At it's most basic level, digital tools can be used to help students find, understand and use information. When combined with student-driven learning experiences fueled by Essential Questions offering flexible learning paths, it can be the ticket to success. Here is a closer look at three components of effectively using technology as a tool for digital differentiation.

The goal is to design student-driven learning experiences that are fueled by standards-based Essential Questions and facilitated by digital tools to provide students with flexible learning paths.

3 Components:

Essential Questions

Student-driven learning experiences should be driven by standards-based Essential Questions. These questions should be open-ended to allow for flexible learning paths. Devise question by looking at the standards that determine what we teach.
Click on the tiny circles in the graphic for more information.

Flexible Learning Paths

Teacher as Facilitator

The role of the teacher shifts to facilitate student-driven learning experiences. This new role allows teachers to maximize instructional time because the classroom structure provides opportunities for frequent interaction with individual students for assessment, modification, reteaching and enrichment.

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An Updated Digital Differentiation Model

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This is part of a Digital Differentiation model, my way i of weaving a web of flexible tools together for teaching and learning. To keep the model relevant, frequent updates are required, as new tools and trends emerge.

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A few years ago, I came across "10 assessments you can perform in 90 seconds" by TeachThought and really enjoyed the formative assessment strategies they outlined. Using formative assessment strategies in class during instruction-or "simple assessments," as they call them-is easy and provides the instant feedback teachers need to identify which learners need more help and adjust their instruction and lesson plans accordingly. Visit the blog above to get more detail on the following techniques:

1. New Clothes

2. Dos and Don'ts

3. Three Common Misunderstandings

4. Yes/No Chart

5. Three Questions

6. Explain What Matters

7. Big Picture

8. Venn Diagram

9. Draw It

10. Self-Directed Response

Combining these 10 with 10 others we've blogged about in the past gives teachers 20 great formative assessment strategies for checking on student learning. Be sure to click through to learn more about these formative assessment strategies.

Want more? Here are seven more strategies you can use to elicit evidence of student learning.

1. Entrance Tickets. We've blogged about and explained the Exit Ticket, so why not have an Entrance Ticket? Here, the teacher asks a question at the start of a lesson, and students write their responses on index cards or strips of paper. Answers are used to assess initial understanding of something to be discussed in that day's lesson or as a short summary of understanding of the previous day's lesson. The teacher designs the lesson around the fact that information on student learning will be coming in at the start of the lesson and can be used to improve the teaching and learning in that lesson. Be sure to write the question so it is easily interpreted and analyzed, allows time for you and/or the students to analyze the responses, and leaves space for you to adjust the lesson, if needed.

2. Keep the Question Going. With this formative assessment strategy, you'll ask one student a question and then ask another student if that answer seems reasonable or correct. Then, ask a third student for an explanation of why there is an agreement or not. This helps keep all the students engaged because they must be prepared to either agree or disagree with the answers given and provide explanations.

3. 30-Second Share. With this strategy, students take a turn to report something learned in a lesson for up to 30 seconds each. Connections to the learning targets or success criteria are what you'll be looking for in the language used by the student. Make this a routine at the end of a lesson so all students have the opportunity to participate, share insights, and clarify what was learned.

4. Parking Lot. This is an underused strategy for students and one that can surface questions before learning, as well as during and after. This tool also offers an anonymous place for questions that may be directly related to the content or tangential to the current topic and provide insight into student thinking. Simply save a spot on your whiteboard to write down ideas or questions that aren't completely relevant in the moment but should be revisited later.

5. One-Minute Paper. This might be considered a type of exit ticket as it is typically done near the end of the day. Ask your students, either individually or with a partner, to respond in writing to a single prompt. Typical prompts include:

Most important learning from the day and why

Most surprising concept and why

Most confusing topic and why

Something I think might appear on a test or quiz and why

3-2-1. At the end of the learning, this strategy provides students a way to summarize or even question what they just learned. Three prompts are provided for students to respond to:

3 things you didn't know before

2 things that surprised you about the topic

1 thing you want to start doing with what you've learned

Assessment Reflection. This strategy is a post-assessment reflection completed individually first and then shared in a small group. After an assessment, the teacher provides a list of questions so learners can reflect on their assessment experience. During group discussion, ideas are collected as new information to support students to better prepare for and engage in future assessments. Consider the following or similar questions. You might also use strategies such as Plus, Minus, Interesting, or Plus/Delta.

How engaged were you with this assessment? Why?

What did you feel most confident about? Why?

What did you do that led to your success or confidence?

What was the most difficult part of this assessment? Why?

What would you do differently next time?

What was the most confusing? Why?

What do you know about the topic that the assessment didn't allow you to show?

Dig in

All 27 of these formative assessment strategies are simple to administer and free or inexpensive to use. They'll provide you with the evidence of student learning you need to make lesson plan adjustments and keep learning on target and moving forward. They'll also give your students valuable information so they can adjust their learning tactics and know where to focus their energies.

If you're not quite sure where to get started, the following discussion questions can help.

Questions for teachers

How do you use formative assessment data to inform instructional decisions?

How can formative assessment strategies foster a learning environment of collaboration and engagement?

How do formative assessment strategies elicit evidence of student learning?

What is one strategy you could try tomorrow and why?

How do you use formative assessment data to drive school-wide instructional academic decisions?

How can you model formative assessment strategies in staff meetings, PLCs, and meetings with teachers?

What are three formative assessment strategies you could bring to your teachers and staff? Why do you feel these would be most effective at your school?

Get more formative assessment tips and tricks in our e-book "Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice."

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27 Easy Formative Assessment Strategies for Gathering Evidence of Student Learning

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All 27 of these formative assessment strategies are simple to administer and free or inexpensive to use. They provide the teacher with the evidence of student learning needed to make lesson plan adjustments and keep learning on target and moving forward.

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The Best Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

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Updated: Oct 10, 2018

On Monday, I had the opportunity to participate in another fab edition of the TL Virtual Cafe webinar series. This month's PD offering was an "Edutech Smackdown" featuring the Queen of All Things Library: Joyce Valenza. I love these smackdown sessions because they are the ultimate crowdsourced PD. Everybody grabs a slide (or two or ten) and when their time comes, takes the mic to share something they love. They are fun, fast paced and the cream always seems to rise to the top. Delish!

That said, for my few minutes with the mic, I decided to focus my attention on formative assessment. As much I love tech toys, (and I do. I really, really do), I grow weary of gadgets for the sake of gadgets. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that technology is not going to improve student learning, boost achievement or save education - only good instruction will do those things. That's not to say that effective technology use can't enhance that instruction Of course, it can. But technology is but one vehicle by which we can deliver our content and pedagogy. What's more, even the best tech tool is only as good as the instruction it supports.

Which brings me back to formative assessment.

When incorporated into a lesson, formative assessment provides the teacher librarian with a snapshot of the teaching and learning while it is still happening. This is valuable for so many reasons. First, the activity itself can provide the students with extra practice. Secondly, when done effectively, formative assessment offers a quick and more reliable check for understanding than the old "raise your hand if you have a question" technique. Third, and probably most importantly, formative assessment provides the teacher librarian with instant data that can be used to adjust instruction "on the fly" in order to better meet student needs. And, finally, formative assessment can help guide future lessons. All all good stuff.

Obviously, this is not rocket science. Great teachers have been using formative assessment since the first prehistoric student blamed a hungry T-Rex for his missing homework. That said, today's teachers and students have a plethora of digital teaching and learning tools at their fingertips that makes incorporating formative assessment in the learning process both really easy and super fun!

So... here are some of my picks - along with a few others that were suggested by members of my PLN. Big thanks to Steven Anderson, Nancy Mangum, Neill Kimrey and Angela Monk for sharing your expertise with me. You guys rock!

Admit/Exit Tickets are a beloved formative assessment strategy. Indeed, I cannot even begin to count the number of post-it notes I've used over the years to gauge my students' progress, interest or prior knowledge. Of the digital tools available for this type of formative assessment, is my favorite. I use it all of the time. It's easy, reliable, is available as both a web tool & an APP and your boards can be easily saved and/embedded. It's a win-win. I also like the APPs iBrainstorm and Perfect Caption as well as the webtools and Wallwisher - although, increasingly, there seems to always be a glitch in the Wallwisher matrix.

Graphic organizers are another great formative assessment tool. Asking kids to organize/prioritize a set of data is an effective way of gauging their understanding of those concepts. The standout in this category, for me, is . With both a web based and APP version that allow kids to collaborate, adjust the map as their thoughts evolve and save their popplets for later use, I am a fan. and SimpleMind are also useful tools with similar functionality. However, if you're looking for premade organizers like venn diagrams, four corners, etc., the APP Tools for Students is a great option which features hundreds of existing organizers that kids can edit and share.

Taking a quick survey or poll is an AWESOME way to find out, quickly, what your students know, before moving forward in the lesson. What makes today's digital versions of these mini assessments so effective is the ability to view/share the results in real time. My favorite tool for this purpose is . Like the description says, Socrative, literally, turns any internet ready device into a set of clickers - teachers can give both students and teacher paced quizzes, the results are instantly graphed and shared AND there's a feature which allows students to vote on the responses that are captured. Amazing. Of course, if you're lacking netbooks/laptops or Smart devices in your school, Poll Everywhere offers a similar service using text messaging and Google Forms can be a great web based alternative - although teasing the data out of a Google Form requires a bit more work.

I can still remember the first time I was able to put an individual whiteboard into each of my student's hands. I simply could not believe how powerful having them write the answer to a question on their own board and hold that answer up for me to see could be. I thought, this is going to revolution my teaching - and in some ways it did. One thing is for sure, it didn't take long before all those boards were stained and smudged and cracked from hard (but important!) use. That said, today there are a plethora of individual whiteboard APPs out there that offer the same instant glimpse into what your students know that their hard plastic counterparts did PLUS so much more. My favorite of these offerings is Educreations - an APP that let's students draw, write, create, narrate, record and share what they know. They can record (and play back!) the steps in solving a math problem, label the parts of a plant or identify places on a map by annotating a preloaded photo and the final products can be embedded on any webpage. and Whiteboard Pro offer similar products, but Jot! is a really simple APP that more resembles the individual whiteboards of yore. is not fancy, but it's reliable.

My favorite tech tool right now is an APP called Reflection. Essentially, Reflection allows you to "reflect" multiple mobile devices on a desktop computer - which can then be projected and shared via a data projector/apple TV, etc. So... no matter what your students are working on - maybe they are playing Cyber Bully Zombies as part of a digital citizenship unit or perhaps they're creating digital timelines or writing their own ebooks. Either way, you can see it all, in real time. A-MAZ-ING. The down side? It's pricey. Right now, I am rocking the free trial and will gladly fork out the $14.99 once that runs out, but that's a stiff price tag for schools sporting carts and carts of devices. That said, I recently learned that offers a similar service, (and is free!) but I've yet to see it in action, so I am keeping Reflection at the top of my list.

For more information on Formative Assessment in the library, I'd suggest a reading of this School Library Monthly article from 2011 by Kristin Fontichiaro. This resource provides some stories from the trenches - that is to say examples from librarians currently using using formative assessment as an instructional strategy. My favorite part of the article though is when Kristen says: "To be blunt, if school librarians are to call themselves teachers, then they too must ensure that students are learning, not just "doing."'

For me, formative assessment acts as a reality check. Regardless of how many virtual light bulbs I *think* I see going off above my students' heads, until I truly and accurately check for understanding, I am just fooling myself. So, whether delivered through a pack of post it notes or a cart full of tablets, formative assessment remains a crucial part of the instructional process - and one that belongs as much in the library and lab as it does in the traditional classroom.

On Monday, I had the opportunity to participate in another fab edition of the TL Virtual Cafe webinar series. This month's PD offering was an "Edutech Smackdown" featuring the Queen of All Things Library: Joyce Valenza. I love these smackdown sessions because they are the ultimate crowdsourced PD. Everybody grabs a slide (or two or ten) and when their time comes, takes the mic to share something they love. They are fun, fast paced and the cream always seems to rise to the top. Delish!

That said, for my few minutes with the mic, I decided to focus my attention on formative assessment. As much I love tech toys, (and I do. I really, really do), I grow weary of gadgets for the sake of gadgets. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that technology is not going to improve student learning, boost achievement or save education - only good instruction will do those things. That's not to say that effective technology use can't enhance that instruction Of course, it can. But technology is but one vehicle by which we can deliver our content and pedagogy. What's more, even the best tech tool is only as good as the instruction it supports.

Which brings me back to formative assessment.

When incorporated into a lesson, formative assessment provides the teacher librarian with a snapshot of the teaching and learning while it is still happening. This is valuable for so many reasons. First, the activity itself can provide the students with extra practice. Secondly, when done effectively, formative assessment offers a quick and more reliable check for understanding than the old "raise your hand if you have a question" technique. Third, and probably most importantly, formative assessment provides the teacher librarian with instant data that can be used to adjust instruction "on the fly" in order to better meet student needs. And, finally, formative assessment can help guide future lessons. All all good stuff.

Obviously, this is not rocket science. Great teachers have been using formative assessment since the first prehistoric student blamed a hungry T-Rex for his missing homework. That said, today's teachers and students have a plethora of digital teaching and learning tools at their fingertips that makes incorporating formative assessment in the learning process both really easy and super fun!

So... here are some of my picks - along with a few others that were suggested by members of my PLN. Big thanks to Steven Anderson, Nancy Mangum, Neill Kimrey and Angela Monk for sharing your expertise with me. You guys rock!

Admit/Exit Tickets are a beloved formative assessment strategy. Indeed, I cannot even begin to count the number of post-it notes I've used over the years to gauge my students' progress, interest or prior knowledge. Of the digital tools available for this type of formative assessment, is my favorite. I use it all of the time. It's easy, reliable, is available as both a web tool & an APP and your boards can be easily saved and/embedded. It's a win-win. I also like the APPs iBrainstorm and Perfect Caption as well as the webtools and Wallwisher - although, increasingly, there seems to always be a glitch in the Wallwisher matrix.

Graphic organizers are another great formative assessment tool. Asking kids to organize/prioritize a set of data is an effective way of gauging their understanding of those concepts. The standout in this category, for me, is . With both a web based and APP version that allow kids to collaborate, adjust the map as their thoughts evolve and save their popplets for later use, I am a fan. and SimpleMind are also useful tools with similar functionality. However, if you're looking for premade organizers like venn diagrams, four corners, etc., the APP Tools for Students is a great option which features hundreds of existing organizers that kids can edit and share.

Taking a quick survey or poll is an AWESOME way to find out, quickly, what your students know, before moving forward in the lesson. What makes today's digital versions of these mini assessments so effective is the ability to view/share the results in real time. My favorite tool for this purpose is . Like the description says, Socrative, literally, turns any internet ready device into a set of clickers - teachers can give both students and teacher paced quizzes, the results are instantly graphed and shared AND there's a feature which allows students to vote on the responses that are captured. Amazing. Of course, if you're lacking netbooks/laptops or Smart devices in your school, Poll Everywhere offers a similar service using text messaging and Google Forms can be a great web based alternative - although teasing the data out of a Google Form requires a bit more work.

I can still remember the first time I was able to put an individual whiteboard into each of my student's hands. I simply could not believe how powerful having them write the answer to a question on their own board and hold that answer up for me to see could be. I thought, this is going to revolution my teaching - and in some ways it did. One thing is for sure, it didn't take long before all those boards were stained and smudged and cracked from hard (but important!) use. That said, today there are a plethora of individual whiteboard APPs out there that offer the same instant glimpse into what your students know that their hard plastic counterparts did PLUS so much more. My favorite of these offerings is Educreations - an APP that let's students draw, write, create, narrate, record and share what they know. They can record (and play back!) the steps in solving a math problem, label the parts of a plant or identify places on a map by annotating a preloaded photo and the final products can be embedded on any webpage. and Whiteboard Pro offer similar products, but Jot! is a really simple APP that more resembles the individual whiteboards of yore. is not fancy, but it's reliable.

My favorite tech tool right now is an APP called Reflection. Essentially, Reflection allows you to "reflect" multiple mobile devices on a desktop computer - which can then be projected and shared via a data projector/apple TV, etc. So... no matter what your students are working on - maybe they are playing Cyber Bully Zombies as part of a digital citizenship unit or perhaps they're creating digital timelines or writing their own ebooks. Either way, you can see it all, in real time. A-MAZ-ING. The down side? It's pricey. Right now, I am rocking the free trial and will gladly fork out the $14.99 once that runs out, but that's a stiff price tag for schools sporting carts and carts of devices. That said, I recently learned that offers a similar service, (and is free!) but I've yet to see it in action, so I am keeping Reflection at the top of my list.

For more information on Formative Assessment in the library, I'd suggest a reading of this School Library Monthly article from 2011 by Kristin Fontichiaro. This resource provides some stories from the trenches - that is to say examples from librarians currently using using formative assessment as an instructional strategy. My favorite part of the article though is when Kristen says: "To be blunt, if school librarians are to call themselves teachers, then they too must ensure that students are learning, not just "doing."'

For me, formative assessment acts as a reality check. Regardless of how many virtual light bulbs I *think* I see going off above my students' heads, until I truly and accurately check for understanding, I am just fooling myself. So, whether delivered through a pack of post it notes or a cart full of tablets, formative assessment remains a crucial part of the instructional process - and one that belongs as much in the library and lab as it does in the traditional classroom.

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Library Girl's Picks: The Best Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

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On Monday, I had the opportunity to participate in another fab edition of the TL Virtual Cafe webinar series. This month's PD offering was an "Edutech Smackdown" featuring the Queen of All Things Library: Joyce Valenza. I love these smackdown sessions because they are the ultimate crowdsourced PD.

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Student Self-Assessment Practices That Work

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Understanding how we learn best is one of the keys to growth as human beings. This essential metacognitive skill is not innate and must be modeled and taught in school starting as early as possible.

The way it looks for different age groups will be different, obviously as younger students are not always cognitively ready to do this kind of thinking. However with the right scaffolds in place, reflection and self-assessment can be a rich way to extend the depth of independent learning and also aid in informing the teacher about valuable data around growth and understanding.

As we put more and more of the control into student hands, it's not enough to just tell them to reflect or self-assess; it is imperative that we give them tools to do these practices well and then offer many opportunities to practice and get better at it.
Here are some ways teachers can start to implement meaningful self-assessment into classes:

At the beginning of a unit, consider having students set goals for themselves based on projected outcomes and objectives. These goals will drive reflection and tracking of progress throughout each student's journey.

Scaffold the process by starting off with a google form with a list of questions that walk them through the process of thinking about their learning like:

What do you think this assignment was about? or What was your understanding of the assignment?

What did you have to do?

What steps did you take to complete the assignment?

What kinds of challenges did you face? How did you overcome these challenges?

What did you do well in this assignment? How do you know?

Did you meet the success criteria? How do you know?

Wording for these questions will likely be adjusted for the age of the students you are working with.

It's a good idea to have students reflecting throughout the process. Not just at the end. So consider allowing them to think about each day's learning as an exit ticket or something they keep in their notebooks for daily summary. In their own words they can think about what they learned in class that day and how it connects to something they learned before or how it could connect to other skills or subject areas.

Once students get a handle on these kinds of questions on a sheet or form, ask students to start sharing their learning in other formats, more narrative. Some will prefer to write, others may prefer to use multimedia options like Voxer or Screencast-o-matic.

At the end of major assignments, students should be asked to reflect on their learning and self-assess what they've learned based on exemplars and standards. As they are working through assignments, standards should be transparently connected to the learning outcomes and while they are learning specific skills, the teacher should help with the connections to the standards. It makes sense for younger students to rewrite the standards in "kid-friendly" language or if students are too young, the teacher can simplify the standards so they understand, keeping each part simple.

Self-assessments based on standards should be written like an argument paper (also aligning with the Common Core). When they say they are approaching, meeting or exceeding the standards, the student should show in their work support for this assessment. Where in their own work is there evidence of the skill at work? Showing students examples of what this looks like and providing them feedback early in the year to develop these skills is also extremely helpful. For example when I read student self-assessments and reflections, I comment on the quality of each paragraph in the narrative. If they did a good job explaining what was expected on the assignment, I write "good understanding of the task" while highlighting part of the work. If there standards aren't evident, I might say, "Good evidence of process, but need to tie evidence of learning to the standards. Make sure to review the assignment sheet where standards are listed." Sometimes I even share student examples if I notice a child isn't getting it.

Over all, self-assessment is a valuable tool as it gives students the ability to really consider their learning and equally as importantly, share that understanding with the teacher. Once we understand what students know and can do, both demonstrated in the work and their ideas about the work, we can adjust instruction and/or class pacing as needed. The more adept students become with this tool, the better tailored class time and assessments can be.
How do you teach students to self-assess? What is the greatest lesson you've learned for teaching them to do so? Please share

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Student Self-Assessment Practices That Work (Opinion)

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Self-assessment is a valuable tool as it gives students the ability to really consider their learning and equally as importanly, share that understanding with the teacher. Once we understand what students know and can do, both demonstrated in the work and their ideas about the work, we can adjust...

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3 Ways to Manage the Messy Middle of a Project

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After the entry event to launch the project, it’s time to start managing the workflow. And that’s where things can get a bit tricky.

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By Jennifer Rita Nichols

Teachers are incorporating more and more projects into their curriculum, allowing for much greater levels of collaboration and responsibility for students at all levels. Project- based learning is a popular trend, and even teachers who don't necessarily follow that approach still see the benefit to using projects to advance their students' learning.

Projects can be wonderful teaching tools. They can allow for a more student-centred environment, where teachers can guide students in their learning instead of using lectures to provide them with information.

The increase in classroom technology also makes projects more accessible to students. Research no longer requires a trip to the library, and displaying information no longer requires a poster board. Instead, students can access endless amounts of information with a few clicks, and create all kinds of creative final products (such as slides, videos, cartoons, ebooks, blogs, websites, graphics, and much more).

Despite general agreement about the benefits of using projects and project-based learning in general, it must be noted that all projects are not created equal! It is quite possible to create projects that remove creative ability and control from the students and places all the power of decision with the teacher.

This may happen fairly often because teachers are wary about being able to assign grades to the final assignments handed in to them by students. If all students aren't given the same components to work on, with similar topics, and the same final layout to create, then how can the projects be accurately compared by the teacher? In short, they can't - but also, they shouldn't!

Students do not need to be compared against each other, but to the standards they need to achieve for their level. How each skill is demonstrated can differ from one student to another, yet each student can succeed nevertheless. A teacher who knows the program will know what skills each student needs to acquire, and present them with situations to help develop those skills. A teacher can also gauge whether a student has developed each skill regardless of the way they choose to create and present their project.

When students are engaged and interested in the work they are completing, the final product will be much better than when they feel forced to complete a task.
...but how can you make sure that the project you assign is engaging to as many students as possible - if not to all of them?
Here are some great tips to keep in mind when putting together your next project.

1) Better project-based learning has students work in small groups or pairs whenever possible.

Don't underestimate the power of collaboration. Working alone can be great at times to place a student's level of ability on their own, but it can be frustrating to a student when they run into parts that they are less adept at. Peer support can help keep things running smoothly, and also help students to build the skills that they are lacking by learning from each other.

If groups are too large, students are given the opportunity to shrink back and leave the work to others, but pairs or groups of three allows everyone to share input and really take on a role within the project. Don't be afraid of assessment from projects, you will be able to tell how each of your students are developing by maintaining a constant presence in your classroom and observing/interacting with your groups.

Being able to work together will definitely keep students more engaged in the work, especially since they become responsible to each other and to themselves for the completion of the project. There is less chance of students giving up or giving in mediocre work when they are being counted on by peers and are having fun.
2) Better project-based learning chooses skills to be worked on instead of specific topics.
The goals of education focus on helping students to build the skills that they will need for their future. These skills involve being able to collaborate, write well, read between the lines, infer meaning, organize information, find solutions to problems, research effectively, and learn about their place in the world.

When forced into specific topics, students are limited in their ability to be creative and to focus on learning information that they find relevant to their lives. Instead of asking students to all complete projects on an animal, for example, why not decide on a few target skills and build a project guideline that can be used for many different topics instead? That way, students can focus in on something they would like to learn more about, while following your guidelines to make sure that the skills you are targeting are being developed.

If you want students to define a set of problems associated with something and work together to try to find plausible solutions to those problems, there is no need for every group to be working on exactly the same topic. This will also make things much more interesting when it comes time to present the projects, instead of listening to each student's version of the same thing!
3) Better project-based learning gives students guidelines that allows for individuality.
After choosing the skills or content that you would like to be the focus of your project, build guidelines that support student individuality and creativity. Instead of making a list of specific questions with specific answers (such as 'what is the habitat of the grizzly bear' questions), lead students towards more open-ended answers in your guideline.

Using questions such as 'list three facts that you found surprising while researching the topic and explain why they surprised you', 'based on the information that you gathered, explain why you think ____ happens', and 'explain what the top ten things people need to know about your topic are in order to understand it well' can really lend themselves to multiple subjects.

Your guideline should list the skills that students are working on, so they are aware of them and can actively work on developing them. If you want students to learn about democracy and how the government works, as well as to develop their problem solving skills, then telling them to build their own country - similar to the USA or Canada in structure and government - but with their own flair added in, can be an engaging way to do it. Allow for some crazy bits included in their constitution, or even elections where voters submit to X-rays instead of bringing ID.

In order to complete the project, they will need to research the government you want, and take it even further by using the information as a basis for their own creations.
4) Better project-based learning encourages students to take on different roles while collaborating.
In order to get all students involved in a project, don't allow them to simply break it up and then put it back together after each student has individually covered a section of it. Collaboration in the real world involves being able to work together on each part of a task, while learning to compromise and solve problems as they arise.

We rob our students of some great practice when we split tasks! Depending on the needs of the project, you can have graphic designers, managers, organizers, researchers, etc. While one student would be named 'in charge' of graphics, for example, they would still be working with the input of the rest of the team - much like how adults collaborate on projects in the 'real world'.

Encourage them to switch roles as needed, based on the strengths of their team, or on the skills each student needs to develop. No one student should always be 'in charge' or 'approving' all the work.
5) Better project-based learning allows students creative choice when it comes to the final result.
Do you really need that project to be presented on a piece of cardboard? If so, then make sure you have a good reason for it! There are so many ways for students to demonstrate learning, especially with the integration of technology, that it seems rather ridiculous to rob them of the chance to decide for themselves how to showcase their work.

What you really want is found in the content of the project, not in a piece of paper or cardboard. When students take ownership of the method of presentation, you are sure to be blown away with some extremely creative and innovative presentations. Allow them to make eBooks, videos, movies, animations, mind maps, skits, game shows, talk shows, newscasts, magazines, podcasts, blogs, or anything else they can come up with!
6) Better project-based learning changes the way that projects are presented/displayed.
Even if every group in your class presents in a different way, you will be able to assess each and every one of the projects, based on the skills/content that students need to show you. Students will also look forward to presenting their project, and seeing the presentations made by others!

Also, instead of just pinning projects up on a board, or sending them right home after being presented, consider displaying them in more creative ways. Ebooks, articles, videos, and other media can be incorporated into a class website or blog, where other members of the community can access and appreciate the work.

If students know that their work will be shared online or in the school/community, they will likely be more excited about putting their best foot forward. When you know your work goes directly into the recycling bin once it's finished... well, less effort tends to go into it!
7) Better project-based learning grades projects based on the targeted concepts and skills.
Create grading rubrics or charts for yourself that help you to focus in on the specific skills that you are looking for in each project. Since each group may have a different final format, you won't be able to compare them with each other very well (which we shouldn't really do in general when assigning grades). Students are supposed to be graded on their level of development when compared to curricular goals, not based on comparisons with each other.

Try to avoid assigning grades based on how great one group's video was when compared with another group's poster board. While one might stand out more, the other may just have better content!

Letting students know exactly what you will be looking for beforehand will make it much easier for you to see what you need, as they will usually make sure to show it to you!

Besides, let's face it, if a university professor didn't explain exactly what was required of an assignment, but graded you based on what they were mysteriously looking for, you would be frustrated and have a hard time doing as well as you could in that class. Our younger students appreciate the guidance too!
8) Better project-based learning considers cross-curricular activities and/or work with another class.
Projects tend to be more engaging if students have the chance to immerse themselves in them as much as possible. Seeing similar content appear in multiple subject areas helps to reinforce what students are learning, as well as make the learning more relevant to them.

In many cases, mathematical or scientific learning can be added to English projects. History is another subject that lends itself well to cross-curricular projects.

Working with another class can also be fun for students. With today's technology, it is even possible for students to collaborate on projects with classes in other schools - or even in other countries. Doing this definitely helps to prepare students for their futures, as we often find ourselves working/collaborating with coworkers in other departments or cities. It can add an extra challenge to organizing work and getting things done efficiently!
9) Better project-based learning gives the project a purpose beyond the classroom.
If possible, try to build connections to the outside world into projects. If students can work on something that will directly benefit the school or community (such as planning and implementing a fundraiser, or creating books/movies for a community centre or home, or even planning a special lesson for younger students) it can really help to build engagement in the class.

Knowing that your work will do more than get you grades - that it will actually be used to help people - can be a powerful motivator. Students will also help to motivate each other when they know that their work is important and useful.
10) Better project-based learning incorporates the project into the students' digital portfolios.
While not all projects can directly impact the community, they can at least be used as evidence of learning in students' working digital portfolios. The great thing about digital portfolios is that they follow a student as they advance through the grades and paint a picture of progress over time.

Once again, doing this can help curb the de-motivation of knowing that work will just be thrown away once completed. Incorporating student reflections and teacher/peer/parental/community feedback can also be a nice way to follow up on the learning that has taken place, as well as provide some future goals to work on in order to improve on skill development.

Beyond just tracking learning, the allure of being able to go and watch a video project you created years ago seems too good to pass up; I can remember a few of my own projects I wish I could see again.

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10 Practical Ideas For Better Project-Based Learning In Your Classroom

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By Jennifer Rita Nichols Teachers are incorporating more and more projects into their curriculum, allowing for much greater levels of collaboration and responsibility for students at all levels. Project- based learning is a popular trend, and even teachers who don't necessarily follow that approach still see the benefit to using projects to advance their students' learning.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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April 2, 2015

After yesterday's post on " Flipped Learning Resources " one of our readers emailed us this beautiful visual outlining the six main steps involved in the creation of a flipped classroom. These steps include: planning, recording, sharing, changing, grouping, and regrouping. Read the graphic for more details on each of these steps.

As a refresher for those who are not yet familiar with the concept of a flipped classroom. F lipped learning or Flipped classroom or is a methodology, an approach to learning in which technology is employed to reverse the traditional role of classroom time. If in the past, classroom time is spent at lecturing to students , now in a flipped model, this time is utilized to encourage individualized learning and provide one-on-one help to students, and also to improve student-teacher interaction. While the instructional or teachable content is still available in class, however this content is mainly designed in such a way to be accessed outside class which is a great way for struggling students to learn at their own pace.

via Daily Genius
Courtesy of eLearning Infographics

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The Flipped Learning Process Visually Explained

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April 2, 2015 After yesterday's post on " Flipped Learning Resources " one of our readers emailed us this beautiful visual outlining the six main steps involved in the creation of a flipped classroom. These steps include: planning, recording, sharing, changing, grouping, and regrouping. Read the graphic for more details on each of these steps.

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Research, the very word, can draw shudders from teachers and audible sighs from students. If you are one of those shuddering educators dreading that next research project, then you are truly going about research all wrong. Take it from this elementary school librarian! I have been an elementary educator for twenty years and a certified library media specialist for the last seven years. I am so pleased that Rachel has let me be your virtual librarian today on Minds in Bloom.

How about a few insider secrets to turns those sighs into high fives? I have six not-so-secret secrets. Be warned! I am NOT a purist in research theology! A TRUE research project follows certain steps, is written in a certain format, and is followed with a perfect bibliography. The ability to complete a TRUE research project independently should be a requirement for those career and college ready. But guess what? I work with kids, and some pretty little ones at that. I strive to make research fun and engaging! Wouldn't you like to, as well? Well, here we go...

1) Your librarian should be your best resource. But, research is NOT just for the library.
Research is just a word used to describe the process of discovering new information, seeking answers, and studying a topic deeper. As an educator, you are ALREADY guiding your students to research. Every. Single. Day. Each time that a student learns a new fact, they have performed a baby step along the research journey. Often, I find that teachers place too much emphasis on the concept of research. They make it heavy. They turn it into a burden when, truly, research is happening a dozen times a day. Let your students know that each time you say the words, "Let's look it up," you are completing research. It's just that easy!

2) You can easily teach inquiry-based research skills in short bursts of time.

Research projects do not need to be long, drawn out, or take days upon days to complete. For example, during a lesson, one of your kids asks an interesting question that you don't quite know the answer to. Don't say, "Let me get back to you on that." Instead say, "Well, let's take a second to research that." Don't just look up the answer and share it. Talk out loud. Explain the steps that you are taking. What resource are you using? What keyword did you choose? How did you know which page/website link to go to? Model it for them. There, now you have completed a shared research task. Won't Common Core be happy?
3) I believe that it is our job to set our students up for success.
Research is hard work! I often compare it to a treasure hunt: You can do a whole lot of digging for just one gold nugget. BUT, when our kids are first trying out their research wings, we don't want them to be weighed down and frustrated.

Scaffold the project. Don't just tell your kiddos that they are going to research bats. Instead, prepare some graphic organizers that require them to research types of bats, their habitats, diet, and life cycle. These types of graphic organizers help to create a foundation for their future research skills. With time, students will adapt bits of your organizational methods as their own.

Provide strong resources. Treasure hunts are NEVER fun if you are digging in the wrong spot. They are simply too hard and too discouraging, and they will lead you to NEVER want to pick up another shovel. Don't do that to your students. If they are researching bat habitats, then be sure that you lead them to a resource that will have great facts about habitats. There are still a great many research skills that are being met in reading, comprehending, and deciphering the text. There is nothing wrong with pointing them in the right direction. One of the best ways that I have found to support my students is to create clickable interactive PDF bibliographies. Here's an example of one that I created for students working on animal research projects.

Simplify the citation process. ALL researchers should cite their sources, even if you are just a seven-year-old freckle-faced kid. In saying that, I firmly believe that there is not enough time in our day to force said seven-year-old to locate each and every aspect of the publication's details. I have seen students who have NEVER even got to read the text because it took them so long to copy down the citation. This is a tedious task that is once again sending the wrong message to our fledgling researchers.

Kids just need to keep track of WHERE their facts come from. This process can easily be simplified in many ways. Take a peek at my FREE resource, It's Elementary-Bibliography for the Youngest Students. You can learn even more about encouraging kids to record where their research facts are coming from, without burdening them!

4) Successful research inquiries begin with strong keywords!

Keywords are needed for utilizing printed table of contents and indexes AND for researching websites and databases. Students need to be able to look at a question and decide what the keywords are. I like to explain to kids that a keyword will UNLOCK the answer to their question, just like a key unlocks a door. This is a skill that needs lots and lots of practice.

Some people, even a few librarians, think that simple fact-finding questions lack depth and complexity. Well, sure they do, but there are still many benefits to finding the answer to, "Who was president in 1882?", "How many legs does a spider have?", and "What is the capital of Zimbabwe?" Those simple research questions require students to read for comprehension, identify the keyword, locate pertinent articles by using that keyword, scan for the keyword in the text, and seek out answers. Not bad for just a simple question, huh?

Each time that you are seeking text-based evidence with your kids, ask your students to identify the keyword. Use the word "keyword" in your daily discussions. Again. And again. I have found that the youngsters with a strong sense of keywords are the best researchers.

5) Create a final product that is fun and exciting.

It is possible. Really! You will be hard-pressed to get your kids excited about a research project if the end result is going to be a five-paragraph essay with an introduction, three detail paragraphs, and a conclusion. Just saying! How about shaking things up a bit?

Utilize task cards. Use apps to create a storyboard or a comic strip. Invite students to create an A to Z report. Have students pretend that they are a reporter breaking a news story. Record them. Create a file folder report or a research poster. How about an interactive report, similar to interactive notebooks? I have created state and country reports that utilize many interactive elements. Students are excited to conduct the research and even more excited to put together the project. One of my students said it best when he said, "I am definitely NOT letting my mom throw this away."
6) Don't get hung up on the word "research"!
Research reports shouldn't be a "unit" that you teach; they should be an ongoing, daily process. Isn't that our reality today? We have the internet in our hands, a fingertip away! We use it a hundred times a day. Show your kids. Model. Model. Model. And, most importantly, have fun with it. It really is possible.

Sonya is an elementary school librarian who has a genuine passion for what she does. She loves books, kids, and technology! She is excited about all of the opportunities that threading these three things together brings each and every day. Sonya tends The Library Patch, where she can be found on Teachers Pay Teachers, Facebook, Pinterest, and a librarian-inspired blog.

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6 Secrets to Successful Research with Kids - Minds in Bloom

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Research, the very word, can draw shudders from teachers and audible sighs from students. If you are one of those shuddering educators dreading that next research project, then you are truly going about research all wrong. Take it from this elementary school librarian!

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A THOROUGH, MULTI-STEP APPROACH. Research is not a one-step process. It has distinct phases, each with its own requirements. The first stage is inquiry, the free exploration of a broad topic to discover an interesting avenue for further research, based on the student's curiosity. Web search, with its rich cross-linking and the simplicity of renewing a search with a single click, is ideally suited to this first open-ended stage. When students move on to a literature review, they seek the key points of authority on their topic, and pursue and identify the range of theories and perspectives on their subject. Bibliographies, blog posts, and various traditional and new sources help here. Finally, with evidence-gathering, students look for both primary- and secondary-source materials that build the evidence for new conclusions. The Web actually makes access to many --

but not all -- types of primary sources substantially easier than it's been in the past, and knowing which are available online and which must be sought in other collections is critical to students' success. For example, a high school student studying Mohandas Gandhi may do background reading in Wikipedia and discover that Gandhi's worldview was influenced by Leo Tolstoy; use scholarly secondary sources to identify key analyses of their acquaintance; and then delve into online or print books to read their actual correspondence to draw an independent conclusion. At each step of the way, what the Web has to offer changes subtly.

TOOLS FOR UNDERSTANDING SOURCES. Some educators take on this difficult topic, but it's often framed as a simple black-and-white approach: "These types of sources are good. These types of sources are bad." Such lessons often reject newer formats, such as blogs and wikis, and privilege older formats, such as books and newspaper articles. In truth, there are good and bad specimens of each, and each has its appropriate uses. What students need to be competent at is identifying the kind of source they're finding, decoding what types of evidence it can appropriately provide, and making an educated choice about whether it matches their task.

DEVELOPING THE SKILLS TO PREDICT, ASSESS, PROBLEM-SOLVE, AND ITERATE. It's important for students to ask themselves early on in their search, "When I type in these words, what do I expect to see in my results?" and then evaluate whether the results that appear match those expectations. Identifying problems or patterns in results is one of the most important skills educators can help students develop, along with evaluating credibility. When students understand that doing research requires more than a single search and a single result, they learn to leverage the information they find to construct tighter or deeper searches. Say a student learns that workers coming from other countries may send some of their earnings back to family members. An empowered searcher may look for information on [ immigrants send money home], and notice that the term remittances appears in many results. An unskilled searcher would skip over words he doesn't recognize know, but the educated student can confirm the definition of remittance, then do another search, [ remittances immigrants], which brings back more scholarly results.

TECHNICAL SKILLS FOR ADVANCED SEARCH. Knowing what tools and filters are available and how they work allows students to find what they seek, such as searching by color, domain, filetype, or date. Innovations in technology also provide opportunities to visualize data in new ways. But most fundamentally, good researchers remember that it takes a variety of sources to carry out scholarly research. They have the technical skills to access Web pages, but also books, journal articles, and people as they move through their research process.

Centuries ago, the teacher Socrates famously argued against the idea that the written word could be used to transmit knowledge. This has been disproved over the years, as authors have developed conventions for communicating through the written word and educators have effectively taught students to extract that knowledge and make it their own. To prepare our students for the future, it's time for another such transition in the way we educate. When we don't teach students how to manage their online research effectively, we create a self-perpetuating cycle of poor-quality results. To break that cycle, educators can engage students in an ongoing conversation about how to carry out excellent research online. In the long term, students with stronger critical thinking skills will be more effective at school, and in their lives.

What do you think it is most important for students to know about online research? Please share in the comments section below.

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Building Good Search Skills: What Students Need to Know | KQED

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Getty The Internet has made researching subjects deceptively effortless for students -- or so it may seem to them at first. Truth is, students who haven't been taught the skills to conduct good research will invariably come up short.

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The Simple Four is a problem-solving research model developed for South Carolina and works with the research and inquiry standard (Standard 6) in the 2007 ELA Academic Standards.

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If you can see or hear the materials on the Library of Congress website, you may view or listen to them on the site. We are making them available to you for that very purpose.

If you want to use or reuse the materials beyond our website, though, you need to be aware of copyright and other rights restrictions. (Just because we've put a work online doesn't mean that you can freely reuse it.) You need to decide for yourself whether the way you plan to use the materials is allowed under copyright law.

For a few questions that will help you decide, visit this section of the Library's Understanding Copyright page:

For more about copyright, including how to register a copyright claim, explore Engage Your Creativity from the U.S. Copyright Office.

FAQs for Students about Copyright and Creativity

Does copyright protect my ideas? Actually, copyright law does not protect your idea. Instead, copyright protects the tangible expression of your idea or system. Let's say you come up with a new skateboard jumping technique, and you write a book about the trick. The copyright of your book will prevent other people from publishing the text and illustrations describing the technique. But it will not give you any rights to prevent others from using your new jump.

I found old photos in my garage. Do I own the copyright? Probably not. You can register copyright in the pictures only if you own the rights to the work, for example, by will or by inheritance. Copyright is the right of the creator of the work or the creator's heirs, not of the person who found or possesses the photos.

If it's on the Internet can I use it? Copyright protects text and pictures on websites just like books, CDs, DVDs, and works in other media are protected. You might not see a copyright notice on a website, but that doesn't mean you're free to copy what you see or hear.

Is it ok to use up to 5% of someone else's work? Under certain circumstances, "fair use" allows you to use parts of someone else's work. There's no magic formula, though. Scholarly criticism, teaching, and news reporting may be valid reasons for reproducing a copyrighted work. A number of other factors also need to be considered. (SeeFair Use). When in doubt, it's always a good idea to ask the copyright owner for permission first.

Can anyone ever use my work without my permission? It's always best for people to ask your permission first, but under certain circumstances (SeeFair Use), it's ok for other people to use parts of your work. Usually, parody, scholarly criticism, teaching, and news reporting may be valid reasons for using a small portion of your work.

Do I have to register my copyright to secure protection? Copyright protection actually begins at the moment the work is created on paper, recorded, or otherwise made permanent. However, for certain types of works, registration may be a good idea because you get certain additional benefits. Registration establishes a public record, which is necessary if you need to sue someone in court for infringement. If you win your case, you may also be eligible for statutory damages and attorney's fees.

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Copyright and Primary Sources | Getting Started with Primary Sources | Teachers | Programs | Library of Congress

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If you can see or hear the materials on the Library of Congress website, you may view or listen to them on the site. We are making them available to you for that very purpose. If you want to use or reuse the materials beyond our website, though, you need to be aware of copyright and other rights restrictions.

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Copyright for Educators is a series of videos designed to help educators learn about what they can and can't do within the category of "Teaching" in the...

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How to Find Public Domain and Creative Commons Images