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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qC9CWcHobG5kdceb_08xupmeSTvhR9TAvoCagSmjUvA/edit?usp=sharing

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Help students make connections to real-world through opportunities for l leadership in schools, organizing fundraisers, reflecting on their learning. 

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Help students make connections to real-world through opportunities for l leadership in schools, organizing fundraisers, reflecting on their learning. 

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-Growth mindset
-Character isn't taught. It is something that is practiced and then reflected on.

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What is said about teacher collaboration?

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What is said about teacher collaboration?

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"When educators plan, teach and inquire together, we model the 21st century learning skills we hope to develop in our students"

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This article by Jon Nordmeyer, originally published in the EARCOS Tri-Annual Journal, Winter 2015, is one of two articles that will close out the Collaboration for ELs series.

Teaching can be a lonely profession. It can be said that, as teachers, our
greatest hope and greatest fear is that someone, someday will discover what
actually happens in our classrooms. There are days when we witness a miracle of creation and joy of discovery, and lament that no one else was there to share it with us. And then there are days of catastrophic failure: turn off the lights, close the door and go home. By making private practice public, professional collaboration holds the promise of realizing our hopes and eroding our fears.
Fortunately, collaboration is emerging as a new norm in today's international schools.
When educators plan, teach and inquire together, we model the 21st century
learning skills we hope to develop in our students. However, professional
cooperation requires both will and skill; making the "transition from rigid
individualism to an acceptance of interdependence" requires effort (Garmston &
Wellman, 2013). Unfortunately, professional collaboration is neither easy nor natural in most schools, which are historically isolating institutions haunted by the "legacy of the one-room schoolhouse" (Glickman, 2003). Teachers need to see the value in working together, and schools need to dedicate the time to develop the tools and processes for effective collaboration.

Structural and cultural support for collaboration can engage all learners in the core curriculum while developing essential academic language and literacy skills. In thriving learning communities, the important work of collaboration can provide valuable opportunities to not only ignite student learning but also fuel teacher growth. Barth asserts: "One incontrovertible finding emerges from my career spent working in and around schools: The nature of relationships among the adults within a school has a greater influence on the character and quality of that school and on student accomplishment than anything else" (2006).

Collaboration is not an end in itself, but in order to realize the full potential of professional cooperation to improve student learning and transform schools, we need to understand and nurture collaborative cultures and structures.

Supporting English language learners

The evolution of English as an Additional Language (EAL) programs has established a new role for EAL teachers, and new opportunities for collaboration. Since English language learners (ELLs) need to develop content and language skills at the same time, EAL support has been increasingly viewed as an integrated process rather than a discrete discipline. When disciplinary boundaries overlap, it introduces powerful new ways of engaging with colleagues (Nordmeyer, 2010). Many schools have moved towards a program of sheltered immersion or inclusion in the past decade (Honigfeld & Dove, 2010) to meet the needs of ever-growing numbers of ELLs.

Greater integration and collaboration challenges teachers to view ELLs along a developmental continuum of academic English, which reframes the role of EAL teachers. This evolution represents a shift away from a 20 th century paradigm (Figure 1) of viewing ELLs as a small, separate group of students who are the responsibility of EAL teachers. In other words, ELLs were considered a "problem" for the EAL teacher to "fix" so they could return to the mainstream to learn the "regular" curriculum with other students.

In the in the 21 st century paradigm (Figure 2), teachers share responsibility for students. From this perspective, ELLs are viewed along a continuum on which all students are developing academic English proficiency. ELLs are not different but with a wide variation of English proficiency, and continue to move along this developmental continuum (Freeman, 2005). Davison, Leung, and Mohan (2001) observe: "differences notwithstanding, both ESL learners and native speakers are learning language for academic purposes, and both groups are using language to learn" (p. 218). When we recognize our collective responsibility to serve all English language learners, collaboration is not a luxury but a necessity.

As EAL programs in international schools continue to become more collaborative, EAL teachers can also serve as team members and professional resources. This paradigm shift can be seen in changing hallway conversations which reflect shared ownership.

The 20th century paradigm sounds like: "Isn't Ji Won one of your students? He was really lost today." (implication: you need to fix it).

The 21st century paradigm sounds like: "Can we figure out how to help Ji Won? I wasn't really reaching him today" (implication: our collaboration can support this student's learning).

In many international schools, in addition to pull-out classes focused on English language development, EAL teachers offer in-class or "push in" support. Yet without time and structures to support co-planning and co-assessing, the EAL teacher is too often relegated the de-facto role of the "language whisperer," a silent partner who shadows students and stays out of the way. This restricted version of collaboration limits the opportunities for both teachers to scaffold language and content learning or expand the use of formative assessment to move learners forward.

Building specific tools for collaboration allows EAL teachers and mainstream colleagues to work in concert to support student learning. Working agreements can help to build relational trust by articulating some of the assumptions we make about one another's classroom or teaching style. For example, some teachers are comfortable with a co-teaching partner using time strategically and only joining for part of a class, while others prefer a commitment to the entire lesson.

Some teachers relish a colleague's impromptu restatement of a concept by drawing a concept map on the whiteboard, others prefer this explanation shared with a small group later. Another useful tool is a "menu" of support options and co-teaching structures; this allows both teaching partners to expand the realm of what is possible and provides a convenient tool for co-planning.

While finding time to plan together is a challenge in every school, electronic tools such as shared calendars, Google docs and collaborative curriculum maps on Atlas can support asynchronous co-planning to complement face-to-face meetings. These structures can help to establish a trusting relationship by facilitating the intentional examination of how teachers work together and revisiting these tools periodically helps to maintain mutual respect.

Next Week

We will continue with Jon Nordmeyer's second guest post article next week to continue learning about how to scaffold collaboration for ELs.

Jon's Bio

Jon Nordmeyer has been an international educator and consultant for 25 years. He has taught in Quito, The Hague, Taipei, Istanbul, Shanghai and Bangkok and has presented at international conferences in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. He has written for International Schools Journal and Journal of Staff Development, andco-edited the Integrating Language and Content (TESOL 2010). He is the International Programs Director at WIDA and serves on the editorial review board of Globally Informed, a peer-reviewed journal for international educators. Jon earned a BA in Classical Archaeology from Dartmouth College and MA in TESOL from School for International Training. He is pursuing his PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

References

Garmston, B. & Wellman, B. (2013). The Adaptive School: A Sourcebook for Developing Collaborative Groups . Rowman and Littlefield.

Glickman C. (2003). Holding Sacred Ground: Essays on Leadership, Courage and Endurance in Our Schools. Jossey-Bass.

Gray, B. (1989). Collaborating: Finding Common Ground for Multiparty Problems. Jossey-Bass.

Honigsfeld, A. and Dove, M. (2010). Collaboration and Co-Teaching: Strategies for English Learners. Corwin.

Nordmeyer (2010). "At the Intersection of Language and Content" in Nordmeyer & Barduhn, S. (eds.) Integrating Language and Content. TESOL.

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55. Teacher Collaboration: Scaffolding Learning and Teaching | ELL Strategies | Empowering ELLs

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This article by Jon Nordmeyer, originally published in the EARCOS Tri-Annual Journal, Winter 2015, is one of two articles that will close out the Collaboration for ELs series. Teaching can be a lonely profession.

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engage students with real world data, tools, and experts that they will encounter in life

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-Emphasizes deep understanding rather than shallow knowledge

-focuses on 21st century skills, content knowledge, and expertise

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1083656.pdf

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Effects of a 21st-Century Curriculum on Students’ Information Technology and Transition Skills

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Effects of a 21st-Century Curriculum on Students’ Information Technology and Transition Skills

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A study looking at 257 students (randomly assigned experimental and control groups) that utilized a web-based curriculum using IT skills in transition-planning activities from high school.

Findings in experimental group:
-"significantly greater gains in IT literacy"
-"showed greater gains in several transition skills, including goal setting, knowledge of how to find jobs, and information about college"

Vreeburg Izzo M, Yurick A, Nagaraja HN, Novak JA. Effects of a 21st-Century Curriculum on Students’ Information Technology and Transition Skills. Career Development for Exceptional Individuals. 2010;33(2):95-105. doi:10.1177/0885728810369348

Angela Marshall and Melissa Crain

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building understanding across and among core subjects

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Project-based learning & public products
Feedback/rubrics
Authentic learning opportunities (like Geometry in Construction classes)
Traditional testing
Portfolios
Technology

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Erin’s Experience with Student Centered learning: allowing students to be part of the whole process and the actual creation of the learning.

Research: A large piece of this is that we look at where the student actually wants to go, and it examines their personal learning goals. Allow students to serve as their own educational advocates.

https://xqsuperschool.org/rethinktogether/what-is-student-centered-learning/

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Personal development is built through goal setting and becoming aware of their own progress. Ex. Reading Scores
Character can be built through leadership opportunities.
Teacher is a positive role model for the character traits we are hoping to build in students.

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Student centered learning involves changing how the classroom itself works. The teachers moves to the facilitator role while the students are actively learning, collaborating and participating in the learning of others.

-Teachers can give up control and allow students to pick and choose what they want to learn about or show their learning.
-Form a relationship with students to understand their likes/dislikes and incorporate those within the classroom.
-"Admit you do not have the market cornered on knowledge" (Powell, 2013).
-Assessment tools: reciprocal teaching, jigsaw, reading roles.

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What interests you? Sports? Historical novels? Cars? Finding crafty ideas on Pinterest? For adults, making choices is the norm. We're motivated by stimuli that we value, by our passions. If ideas hold no personal interest for us, we often quit, unless a relationship or reward is involved.

Our students aren't so different. Expert teachers know how to give students choice and voice, finding ways to design learning experiences that tap into what students value. This isn't always easy, especially if our preparation experiences didn't frame learning this way. Here are five questions that can help us develop and refine the teacher strengths needed for creating a student-centered classroom. Use them to start the new year off right!

1. How does the classroom environment promote interaction among learners-and how do you operate in that environment? Student-centered classrooms are big on collaboration, which means they don't usually have rows of desks facing a teacher lectern or desk. Instead, desks or tables are arranged so that it's easy for students to collaborate on projects or on analyzing readings (rather than listening to lectures). And whether teachers are leading lessons on protein synthesis or the issues leading up to a world conflict, we make the most of these possibilities.

Teacher strength: giving up absolute control. The teacher becomes a participant and co-learner in discussion, asking questions and perhaps correcting misconceptions, but not telling learners what they need to know.

2. What kind of assessments do you use? Student-centered assessments ask open-ended questions that force learners to reflect and synthesize what they have learned. They demand that students access higher orders of thinking.

For example, traditionally, students might learn about velocity by reading (or listening to a lecture), completing worksheets, then answering multiple-choice questions. But if a student maps a local route and tracks the time for different legs of a journey using something similar to MapMyRun, they can determine average velocities for each segment of a journey. The data will be individualized, as will the route and the calculations. Assessment can be a creative product and process that involves student choice.

Teacher strength: valuing student engagement over convenience. It's easier to scan a bubble test, or run it through a script like Flubaroo. But these assessments do not tell us nearly as much about critical thinking-or students' progress toward the Common Core State Standards. Creating and completing meaningful assessments is hard (but worthwhile) work for both teacher and students.

3. How do you respond to a lack of buy-in? No matter how well-intentioned we may be about student engagement, we sometimes miss the mark.

This past week, when studying sound waves, my 9th grade science students created instruments-flutes, pan pipes, wind chimes, and water bells, all tuned to specific frequencies. For the first time in years, kids didn't care for this assignment, but I noticed they loved using Audacity to record their instruments. Even after completing the day's assignment, they kept looking at different tools in the program.

I thought about it on the way home and the next day I shifted gears. The original plan had been to continue our study of frequency, wavelength, and sound concepts by creating a class concert (as in years past). But instead, I decided to ask students to explore autotune and show choir mash-ups, studying the same concepts. Students still recorded songs using software, changed the sound characteristics, and played the resulting jams for one another.

Teacher strength: honoring student passion and interest. Both approaches would have taught my students what they needed to know about sound. But learning must matter to the learner; in this case, I realized my students were less interested in creating their own instruments than in understanding how technology can influence personal musical taste.

To activate this strength takes flexibility, resourcefulness, sensitivity to student needs, and a deep understanding of content-all of which require even the most experienced teacher to stay on his or her toes.

4. Which is more important to you: compliance or knowledge? Occasionally we come across learners who drive most of their teachers crazy. They text on the sly, don't hand in homework, read unrelated books during class time. Backing them into a corner is an understandable reaction: "Dude, you're in my class to do my work." It can be almost infuriating when this learner takes the test and aces it: He or she understands the content and is competent at what you have to offer.

What happens when you meet these learners? Does a yearlong power struggle begin ... or do you rethink your plans, looking to online resources like MIT OpenCourseWare to challenge even your most advanced learners?

Teacher strength: admitting you do not have the market cornered on knowledge. The truth is that 21st-century learning is focused more on creation and critical thinking than on compliance. Most of us were formed in a teaching crucible that emphasized our wisdom and students' compliance. Shifting our perspective means that students take on more active roles as learners and that our roles change, too. We must decide whether to think and act as facilitators who empower (and learn from) our students-or as the people guarding the vault.

5. If learners weren't required to come to your class, would they? Ask yourself this difficult but honest question: Is there joy in the journey we are taking together? It's one of the most difficult tasks in teaching, because it asks us to consider the learner as a part of our community, rather than just a mind to fill. Asking this question-and responding to the answer-requires a combination of flexibility, humor, and the ability to try new things, fail, and laugh when things work out ... and when they don't.

Teacher strength: developing healthy relationships with learners. You've heard all the warnings before: Don't let them see you smile, don't communicate with them via social media, don't let them know that you aren't the expert. But it just doesn't work that way in our own lives. If we sincerely believe in lifelong learning and commit to modeling it, we'll be honest with one another, cajoling, encouraging, and mentoring with challenging and appropriate dialogue.

Here's the great news. These strengths can be developed! Pick one that you aren't doing as well as you want and work on it for 2014. Ask a colleague to be an accountability partner. Grant yourself extra reflection time. And start with small changes. If you are in a leadership position, empower another to take a chance and build a better classroom for students. Inspiration, interest, and happy learners-isn't that a great resolution for the upcoming semester?

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5 Ways to Make Your Classroom Student-Centered (Opinion)

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Teachers can build on student interests and increase engagement by developing these five "teacher strengths," says educator Marcia Powell.

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Team Up for 21st Century Teaching and Learning

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Team Up for 21st Century Teaching and Learning

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"We have the opportunity to capitalize on the changing workforce to create intergenerational learning teams that will provide new opportunities for collaboration among novice teachers and their accomplished colleagues."
https://www.clarku.edu/centers/adam-institute/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/sites/48/2018/11/TeamUp-CE-Web.pdf

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media and technology skills

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life and career skills

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-Learning and Innovation Skills (4C's) = critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity

-Core Subjects (3R's = reading, writing, arithmetic) and 21st century themes

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Participate in PLC
Engage with instructional coaches / mentors
Do team teaching

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Character/Personal development is incorporated to teach students life skills. 

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Character/Personal development is incorporated to teach students life skills. 

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More formative assessments being used instead of summative

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Student choice