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Name of organization which hosted/facilitated webinar: Education Week

Name of webinar: High-Impact Instructional Strategies: Two Perspectives on Aligning Literacy Initiatives With Higher-Order Expectations

Date of webinar: On-Demand but originally presented on 1/12/2017

Name of webinar presenter(s): Douglas Fisher, professor, educational leadership, San Diego State University, Calif.

Shawn Mahoney, chief academic officer, McGraw-Hill Education

Moderator: Jeff Ohmer, senior national literacy curriculum specialist, McGraw-Hill Education

Link to the webinar: http://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/console/EventConsoleApollo.jsp?&eventid=1333130&sessionid=1&username=&partnerref=TOC&format=fhaudio&mobile=false&flashsupportedmobiledevice=false&helpcenter=false&key=CEAC6A50E1C9D19A62E44B91BDA3CE9C&text_language_id=en&playerwidth=1000&playerheight=650&overwritelobby=y&eventuserid=171180821&contenttype=A&mediametricsessionid=137152848&mediametricid=1922311&usercd=171180821&mode=launch

I chose this because the title of this webinar had two ideas that I really wanted to work on when it comes to teaching in my class and those are literacy and higher order thinking.  I find that it is so hard to get kids to want to think about the essential questions (or any questions for that matter) in my class.  If they have 2 great ways to bring literacy and higher-order thinking together, then I would love to hear what they have to say.

I saw that Doug FIsher was one of the presenters and I have heard great things about him but I didn’t think it was connected to literacy.  I remember hearing of Doug FIsher when it came to embrace students through collaborative staff effort (Circle of Courage) and so I was intrigued to hear what would be introduced in this webinar.

I saw that both the co-presenter and moderators were both people who work for McGraw-Hill Education.  I really wondered if this was going to be something beneficial for me to watch or if this was going to be an endorsement for some book or classroom curricula.  I was once again intrigued so I decided to watch it.

What I learned as a result of participating in/watching this webinar and how I will apply my learning to my current/future teaching :

1. Dr. Fisher mentioned that he had a website about his work with literacy.  I was really surprised that he said that people could send him messages at any time.  I think I might do this and see if he could give me pointers on what to do.

2. Dr. Fisher talked about the difference between difficulty and complexity.  This was great for him to do because he states that difficulty is a measure of effort needed to complete the job whereas complexity is the thinking, action, and knowledge needed to do a task.  Also, when it comes to assessment, difficult assessments have 1 way of doing them whereas complexity is about how many ways the assessment task can be completed.  This made me thinking back to my classroom teaching and my curriculum project, I began asking myself if my unit was complex enough or if it was just difficult.  Great point to bring up and such a great point to encourage self-reflection.

3. Doug Fisher was talking about this matrix and what it would mean for us and our lessons.  He said that students do many skills in the fluency area but that should not be the only area they work out of but that should be the aim.  Teachers and students should aim for things to happen automatically.  He was saying that something that requires stamina today with practice and more practice moves towards the fluency quadrant in order to free up the brain for other thinking.  His mention of this makes me think of the things I have asked for my students to do and now reflect on whether they were difficult or if they were complex.

1. He mentioned 5 points he would talk about as connected to student learning and reading of complex texts.  He jumped off into each area after this slide.  In looking at this list of 5 access points, it makes me think of our training that is going on for teachers on the 5D+ development model (evaluation tool) that focuses either on most of if not all of these areas.  I am excited for him to talk about it some more so that I can use it in my teaching next year to be a master teacher but also to help my students become better readers.

2. He mentioned purpose and modeling and said that students should know what they’re learning.  This idea has been around for years and it is amazing that we still need to tell teachers to let the students know what they’re going to be taught.  The best point he made though was that the purpose of a lesson should be on learning rather than an activity, assignment, or job for them to do.  Once again, he made me self-reflect on what I have done and ask myself if it has been for novelty or if the focus was truly on student learning.

3. I like that he brought up that when teachers have been had their principals walk through their classrooms for evaluation and ask the students what they’re doing and that students respond with a task.  He suggests that it should be changed to asking the students what they are learning instead and he believes that at anytime, students should be able to say what they are learning, why they’re learning it, and how they will know that they learned it.  I think that I will have to look at my daily learning targets and see if they are too vague that a student wouldn’t be able to tell my administrator these 3 questions.

4. He said if you get the students reading a lot they will learn a lot and get better at reading. At my school, I have a lot of barriers to overcome with this point.  At my school, i have students in 11-12 grade who either can’t read, are at the elementary level, and others are at the junior high level along with them being a “hands-on” learner who came to our school to do the “fun” stuff and not the “boring” academics that I am trying to teach them.  How do I accomplish this when so many of our students are not able to read and if some people would shun the idea of their class having a fun fiction text to read in their automotive, hospitality, or construction classes.

5. He mentioned how there is a difference between teaching a text and assigning a text.  He mentioned how his school teacher assigned Beowulf to be read by him and his classmates and she gave comprehension tests, but that she didn’t teach them how to look at the text and really understand it.   I got my teaching degree in 2008 after I had student taught in an English classroom and remember the HSCE’s used before common core and the list of “required books and readings” we had to use.  Do we still have to use those books on the reading list from the HSCE’s or are they gone altogether?  Also, if there is a school that is still having students plow through all of those books in a year, how could they really do the close and critical reading that Dr. Fisher is talking about?  Would it be permitted to just take one of the books or a book and use that to teach many to all of the CCSS standards for literature?  I’ve been in this position since 2012 and they changed to the CCSS since then, but I have been in a CTE environment and I am unaware of how things are working outside of CTE.

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Websites:

Association for Career and Technical Education: http://www.acteonline.org/

Short description of the resource

This website helps people who are connected with CTE know more about policy changes, the up and coming jobs that schools are beginning to adopt in their training programs, and also has articles about important information for CTE educators and programs such as Common Core State Standards and studies and surveys that have been performed.

How did you establish/find/create/use this resource?

I found this website while looking for information on Career Technical Education online in my college class last year when we made our own PLN.  I really just stumbled upon it and since I did not originally teach in Career Tech Education, I had no clue about processes for adopting new programs, new legislation, or that there was a magazine I could get sent to me until I found this site.

How will you benefit from this resource in your future teaching?

By joining this organization or bookmarking this website, I will keep up to date on the newest information and legislation that will affect my job and my students.  In my previous college class, I reviewed some articles that were on this website and talked about the application of this new study or research discussed in the article and how it would affect my teaching.

Why I chose to Explore this Organization and how I will benefit from this resource:

I chose to explore this organization because I was never a career tech student, I was not training to be a career tech educator in college, but I was eventually thrust into CTE (Career Tech Ed) out of necessity (job layoff).  I always feel behind other teachers in my school who have their vocational certification and know their CTE standards and how they would teach them.  For me, it is a shift I had to do in my teaching to think about how I could incorporate more English concepts into CTE, but I do believe it is very possible.  If I was to follow this website a little more, I might just be able to know what is the newest concerns, reviews, technology, or other issue that has arisen and be aware of how it may or may not affect career tech education and my job.

Other websites to follow:

http://www.readwritethink.org/
https://www.teachingchannel.org/
https://www.tolerance.org/

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Education blogs are becoming a means for educators, students, and education administrators to interact more effectively than ever before. They are also a great resource for those searching for the best online education programs to jumpstart their teaching careers. Technorati currently tracks 63.1 million blogs. More than 5,000 of them are about education. It is likely that there are hundreds, if not thousands, more education-related blogs on the Web. ( UPDATE: There are over 30,000 blogs hosted at edublogs.org alone. Thanks James Farmer!) Here is a list of our staff's 100 favorites.

Please note that this is by no means an exhaustive list of all of the great education blogs out there. Chances are you may have favorites that are not included here. Also note that this list is not ranked but rather is ordered alphabetically within each topic.

Blog Topics

E-Learning | Education News | Education Policy | Internet Culture | Learning | Library and Research | Specialty | Teaching | Technology

E-Learning

Technology-assisted learning and online learning are topics discussed in these blogs.

Education News

This blog is a good starting point to read more about the latest news in the world of education as well current happenings at the best online colleges.

Education Policy

These are blogs written by activists who are looking to reform our school system or education in general.

Internet Culture

Internet applications, such as RSS and blogs, and how they can be applied in a teaching/learning environment are discussed in these blogs.

1. absolutely intercultural

2. Adventures in Educational Blogging

3. BionicTeacher

4. Digital Writing, Digital Teaching

5. Full Circle Online Interaction Blog

6. Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

7. Infinite Thinking Machine

8. learning.now

9. Learn Online

Learning

The focus of these blogs is on learning theory, informal learning, and knowledge.

Library and Research

These are research-based blogs, some of which are library-based or written by librarians.

Specialty

Music, history, science, and law are discussed at these blogs, respectively.

Teaching

The following blogs deal with issues facing teachers, including teaching methods, lesson plans, aids, and tools.

Technology

Bringing technology to the classroom and using technology to learn and teach are topics discussed within these blogs.

As with any list of this nature, there are bound to be flaws. These are just our personal favorites. If you would like to contact us with your own suggestions, please e-mail [email protected] .

Update: Many bloggers who have appeared on this list have requested that we provide them with a badge that they could proudly display on their blog. Well, there it is to the left.

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Education blogs are becoming a means for educators, students, and education administrators to interact more effectively than ever before. They are also a great resource for those searching for the best online education programs to jumpstart their teaching careers. Technorati currently tracks 63.1 million blogs. More

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Kent TLA
Kent Learning Community

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Name of Professional Blog #1:
Texas A&M Career and Technical Special Populations: http://ctsp.tamu.edu/blog/

Why I chose to follow this blog:
○ This blog related to my teaching and also had a blog post about how to increase
student literacy in the CTE classroom and provided strategies.
○ This blog also had an article which was about increasing collaboration, agency,
and discussion between teachers to students and students to students.

What I’ve learned so far from following/reading this blog :
○ I have come to find out that there are more places where someone like me (a
transfer into CTE) can find more information about CTE, new legislation, and
strategies for teaching literacy in CTE.
○ This site not only has a blog but other valuable resources such as websites,
instructional videos, and online courses all to help you teach literacy specifically
for the CTE classroom.
○ This group also has a twitter page so if I follow them, then I could receive
updates on posts they have put that may significantly impact my teaching.
○ Despite this blog being from Texas and being about CTE instruction in their state,
it had a great blog post about how CTE can save students from dropping out.
They stated that students that had 2 or more CTE classes had a graduation rate
of 95.91 compared to other TX high school students. That’s quite a telling sign of
how powerful CTE is but we have some schools that force their students into our
programs, which messes up their credits for graduation, which makes us teach
ELA while doing CTE classes, and then my class becomes the hated class and
their content area class is the fun one because it’s “hands-on.”
○ Despite there being some blog postings on increasing literacy in CTE, there was
only 1-2 articles so far that have brought up literacy, increasing agency, or talking
about college and career readiness. The rest of the blog is about transition
planning, important findings about CTE, and special education students (SPED)
and CTE.

Professional Blog #2:
● Name of Professional Blog #2: My Life as a Middle School Literacy Teacher
● Link to Professional Blog #2: http://crazyladyteacher.blogspot.com/
● Why I chose to follow this blog :
○ While I work in CTE, I thought it would be good to look back and see what some
people were doing to foster critical literacy and higher level thinking in their
classroom.
○ When looking through the blog, I see some great creative ideas for teaching
critical literacy and getting the students to look critically at the world around
them.
● What I’ve learned so far from following/reading this blog :
1. That real lessons that students can connect to could be controversial. They are
beneficial but teachers have to dangerously mingle with what could get them in
trouble.
2. There are some other ways I could have the students present or demonstrate
their learning. On her website, she had book covers, lyric analysis, and other
way to demonstrate called, “Heart, Hands, and Feet, “ which I am still to read
more about from her blog posts. It looks quite interesting.
3. I have never taught an AVID class but it looks to me that they have better ideas
and more creative lessons to get their students more into the subject matter. I
think I will use her methods to get more students involved in what I teach.
4. I also was intrigued reading her blog post from Sunday, February 26, 2017. She talked about losing boys in her reading program and her researching the male and female achievement gaps between boys and girls. This made me think about what I see in my class which is of the same nature. More girls get into writing, speaking, and presenting while the boys shy away or avoid it at all cost. It was both good and bad to see another teacher experiencing the same problems that I do.

Other Teacher Blogs:
MindShift

Teach Like A Champion: Field Notes

Global Conversations in Literacy Research on YouTube

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Kirsten Foti

I am an AVID coordinator and elective teacher for seventh and eighth grade students. I taught English for 13 years and moved into my new AVID position in November 2016. I am currently in the process of becoming a reading specialist and am pursuing a doctorate in reading.

View my complete profile

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My Life as a Middle School Literacy Teacher

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Kirsten Foti I am an AVID coordinator and elective teacher for seventh and eighth grade students. I taught English for 13 years and moved into my new AVID position in November 2016. I am currently in the process of becoming a reading specialist and am pursuing a doctorate in reading.

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Link to my Twitter account: https://twitter.com/DebraWeberRaj

Having a Twitter account and connect to other "experts" twitter feeds is just like being connected to someone's blog through an RSS feed.  It alerts you to new information when it is posted and you can view and respond to the posts, opening up possibility of collaboration.

MiELANetwork: https://twitter.com/MiELANetwork

This website is devoted to helping teachers understand and keep up on new information and trainings in ELA

How did you establish/find/create/use this resource?

I knew that someone within my district when they have given trainings before mentioned it and when I typed in English Language Arts on Twitter, it came up.

How will you benefit from this resource in your future teaching?

I will possibly use this connection on Twitter to find out about conferences that I could go to learn more information about ELA that I could use in my classroom.

Other people/organizations I follow on social media (such as Twitter) are:

1. Adaptive Schools--https://twitter.com/AdaptiveSchools

2. Steve Seward--https://twitter.com/sewardstephen
3. MiELANetwork: https://twitter.com/MiELANetwork

4. Michigan Reading Association: https://twitter.com/michiganreading

5. Literacy Center of West Michigan: https://twitter.com/LCWM

6. Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning: https://twitter.com/MACUL

7. Mark Raffler: https://twitter.com/markraffler

8. We Are Teachers: https://twitter.com/WeAreTeachers

9. Daily Writing Tips: https://twitter.com/writing_tips

10. Ron Houtman: https://twitter.com/ronhoutman