Sep

1

School starts next week so it’s time to dust off my Web 2.0 tool kit.

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Behaviour Management, Blogging in and out of the Classroom, Computers In The Classroom, Engaging Assignments and Activities for Students, Learning Strategies, Reading, Special Education, Web 2.0 tools and technologies, motivating students, underachieving students | 1 Comment 

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School starts next week, and it’s time to dust off my tool kit I use to engage my reluctant and struggling readers and writers. I need to remind myself that there are lots of reasons why my students are reluctant to read and write- learning disabilities, competition from other activities, lack of interest, school not valued. Some of my students have told me they don’t read and write outside of school. Of course they do. They just don’t realize it. I have to make them aware that they read and write outside of school everyday. I need to help my students make a paradigm shift and so they can realize when they text message, email, surf the net or are on YouTube they are reading and writing all the time. My students are very comfortable online. they spend hours and hours on line. I try to use that to my advantage when trying to engage my more struggling and reluctant students.

Good pedagogy states that I should start where our students are. Where are my students? The BBC reported recently that today the average kid spends 44.5 hours a week on-line. Imagine. I can hardly believe that, but when I asked my students whether they thought the statistic was accurate they seemed to think it was pretty accurate.
given that my students practically live online, I decided to build a Web 2.0 tool kit to use in class.

I’m going to share with you a slide show I used at a presentation last year to introduce the Web 2.0 tools I use and why I use them. I also give an example of how I used them. Hope you find the slide show useful.

View more presentations from Elona Hartjes.

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Aug

30

It’s September and the beginning of a new school year.

Filed Under Behaviour Management, Goals, SOS for Teachers, Teacher Support, The way I see it | Leave a Comment 

It’s September again and the beginning of the new school year.   I think of each September as the beginning of a new adventure or a new journey.  Just like any journey, there’s always so much to see and do.   I know my journey as a classroom teacher will provide me with many expected and unexpected opportunities to explore, experience and  contribute  to the landscape of school.   I also know that in order to enjoy the journey, I can’t over extend myself.  I need to limit what I do even though I might want to do it all. So while I’m thinking of what I need to do at the beginning of the school year and how I want to contribute to school life, I also need to think about how to limit what I will do and how I will do that. I have decided to say yes more slowly and even to say no sometimes.

Thanks to Brenda, I have some strategies. When someone asks me to do something, I can ask

May I ask why you’re asking me?

Have you asked anyone else?

Have you considered asking X? She’s got some experience with this.

When you say “urgent,” what does that mean? What’s the latest it can be done by?

How much time will this take?

If I could do only part of this, what part would you like me to do?

What does “finished” look like for this?

What should I not do so I can do this?

(Excerpt from Do More Great Work, p. 90-91)

Depending on the answers I get, I  can decide what new tasks to take on.  Like so many other busy people, I’m often asked to do more and more. Usually, I don’t mind, but sometimes it gets to be too much. Then life isn’t fun any more. I guess people subscribe to the old adage if you want something done give it to a busy person. If I get too busy though, I’m not effective- so what’s the point.

How do you prevent yourself from getting too busy? What strategies do you use to help limit yourself so that you can be the most effective.

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Aug

8

Most popular blog about common teacher misunderstandings.

Filed Under SOS for Teachers, Special Education, Teacher Support, The way I see it, positive climate, underachieving students | 1 Comment 

There are misunderstandings about what teachers are supposed to do. In this blog post I explore these misunderstandings about what teachers need to teach.

I don’t know about you, but in the last few years I’ve been to so many educational conferences, lunch and learn workshops and professional development sessions during and after school I’ve lost count. I’m not complaining. Far from it. I’m absolutely delighted that my Board is making it possible for me to meet people who have made the commitment to be life long learners and share strategies and insights that they value. When I leave these sessions , I feel energized by what I’ve learned and by the people I’ve met. I usually come away with an insight or strategy that I can use in the classroom for the benefit of my students. I love the internet for that reason, too. I can just google any topic and find the latest developments. When I find something really cool, I take it back to school with me and share it with my colleagues. It gives us something positive to talk about. The internet really makes every day a professional development day.

Oh yes, getting back to all the exciting ideas that have come away during all the PD sessions I’ve attended.. It seems to me that at the end of every PD session, as I walk out the door I hear some teachers saying that they don’t have time to do whatever it was that we’ve just been introduced to because they have so much content to cover the content in their course. They hardly have enough time now to do what they have to.They could never take the time to do x, y or z because they would never get through the textbook. When I hear this argument, with all due respect to all those teachers who tell me this because I do respect them, I think that can’t be the case. But, I’m told time and time again that teachers have to finish teaching all the content which is usually the entire text book so their students will be prepared for the next grade and the next textbook- I presume.

Why does it have to be that way? Do students really have to learn all those facts? Who made that decision anyway? I keep asking that question every time I hear the ” I have to cover the content and textbook” argument. So, when I came across Chapter 5 of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe’s book Schooling by Design: Mission, Action, and Achievement I was intrigued. I’ll admit I was a little brain dead when I started to skim through chapter 5. It had been one of those more interesting days in the classroom.You know the one that sucks all the energy out of you and leaves you feeling like a zombie.

When I got to the section titled Teacher Misunderstandings and read ” Misunderstanding 1: “My Job Is to Cover the Content”, my brain came to life. What was that? The system was overloaded with content because when content standards committees at the different levels met to decide what was essential, they came up with an overly ambitious list. I can see that happening. When you really love a subject area, it’s hard to draw the line between what’s really necessary to know and what would be nice for students to know. One summer not too long ago, I was on a curriculum writing team for the school district I work in, and we had a really difficult time cutting things out. We sat around the table for a long time debating what to leave in and what to take out. Everyone had their pet area that they wanted included- me too.
Wiggins and McTighe explain that the ‘my job is to cover the content” misunderstanding stems from the best of intentions. The various standards committees are including more content than is absolutely necessary and the text books publishers are trying to include all of the content in their textbooks so that the textbook adoption committees will choose their textbooks over their competitors. Then there is the tendency for some teachers to think that they should only use the textbook to teach the content of the course.

I was at a series of workshops last summer and met someone who was going to teach at a brand new school and the department she was in was not going to use textbooks. They were going to use teacher created materials. I don’t know how that worked out. I do know that I haven’t been totally happy with any textbooks I’ve seen, and if I was forced to use just a textbook, I would hate it. I like having the textbook as a resource, but I also like developing my own resources to meet the needs of my students. Fortunately, my Board offers lots of opportunities for professional development. so that I can do this. It’s actually very exciting.

Why do some teachers think they have to cover what’s in the textbook ? According to Wiggins and McTighe, some teachers think that’s what their supervisors want , but they found no evidence to support this. Nor have they seen a teacher’s contract that has stated that a teacher’s job is to cover the textbook. Clearly, it’s a misunderstanding to believe that the textbook has to be covered. The textbook should only be a resource, not the syllabus.

What is a teachers job then if it’s not to cover all the content in a course and not to cover the text book? Wiggins and McTighe argue it is

to cause understanding, as reflected in worthy accomplishments…. facilitating the learners’ insights and coaching them to transfer their knowledge and skill, as reflected in significant performances involving such transfer.

You know, just reading that quotation is inspiring. Yes, that’s what I want in my classroom. I want all of that. I want understanding reflected into worthy accomplishments. I want skills and knowledge to be reflected and transfered into significant performances. I want all that, but I’m not always getting it. What I got this week was three of my almost- eighteen year old male students throwing Lego pieces at one another behind my back. Don’t ask! I think they’re bored with the topic at hand. To be honest, so am I. It’s time for some thing new. The flying Lego made that clear.

OK, let me move on to the second teacher misunderstanding. While some teachers mistakenly believe that the textbook is the syllabus, and they must teach all the content in the text book, other teachers feel that they shouldn’t use the text book at all and prefer to develop their own interesting resources to engage students. Wiggins and McTighe argue that this is all well and good, but sometimes teachers “get lost in the activities and lose sight of purpose as well as results… activities must be seen as a means to important learning ends and not ends in themselves. They go on to suggest that teachers need to ask questions like the following ones about the activities they plan for their students to ensure that the activity is the means and not the end in its self.

  • Are the learning outcomes clearly identified and embodied in the work?
  • Do they reflect important enduring outcomes( big ideas in the discipline) or simply “nice to now”?
  • Do students know the intended learning outcomes and spend time processing the activities in terms of those goals and the purpose behind various activities?
  • Can students explain the purpose behind various activities.
  • Do we have appropriate evidence of learning important ideas and in meaningful ways?
  • Were the time and energy devoted to the activities commensurate with the resultant learning and a wise use of time given all other obligations?

You know, these questions are very useful ones to ask, especially for me. I like activity based lessons and asking these questions would help me stay on track. I certainly don’t want the intended learning outcomes to get lost in the activities I have my students do. Quite the contrary. I want the activities in my classroom to be engaging and effective. That’s one of the challenges of teaching that I relish.

The final misunderstanding Wiggins and McTighe talk about is the one where some teachers think a teacher’s job is to teach to the test. Let me just say something here. I’m on the Literacy Committee at our school and the pressure is really on. Since the government has decided that all students must pass the provincial grade ten literacy test in order to get a high school diploma, there have been meetings ad nauseum on how best to prepare students for the test. Students need to get a grade of 75% on the literacy test in order to pass it. There’s something I don’t get about the provincial standards though. 75% is the provincial standard for passing the literacy test , yet students only need to get a grade of 50% to pass their other courses. I’m sure someone has an answer. If you happen to, please tell me .

Some teachers argue that we should teach to the test so the students will be as prepared as possible for the Literacy Test. What happens then, as far as I’m concerned, is that the test hijacks the regular curriculum, and class time is spent practicing test questions like the ones on the literacy test. It becomes a “drop everything else and teach to the test endeavour”. At my school, we did a blitz where every subject teacher spent one class teaching to the test in some way. Let me tell you the teachers who said they had too much content to cover before we had to teach to the literacy test were outraged. They argued that they don’t have enough time now to cover everything so why was valuable time taken from their class to prepare kids for the literacy test. They’re not English teachers they said, and teaching literacy is the job of English teachers. I guess they don’t really get it. Do they? Every teacher in every subject is a literacy teacher.

Now there is a more compelling argument against teaching to the test than the one I just discussed. Teaching to the test is not best way to go. As Wiggins and McTighe so eloquently noted it, the best way to raise the test scores in the long run is to :

teach key ideas and processes contained in content standards (content that is purportedly tested) in rich and engaging ways; collect evidence of student understanding and transferability of that content via robust local assessments; and, raise standards and quality control for local assignments to gather evidence of all that we value, not just what is easiest to measure.

In closing now, I just want to review the teacher misunderstandings that Wiggins and McTigne discuss. One misunderstanding is that a teacher’s job is to cover content. Another misunderstanding is that a teacher’s job is to engage learners with interesting activities( no flying Lego, please) , and finally a teacher’s job is to teach to the test. If these are the misunderstandings about what a teacher should do, what then is a teacher job?

It’s to cause understanding, as reflected in worthy accomplishments … facilitating the learners’ insights and coaching them to transfer their knowledge and skill, as reflected in significant performances involving such transfer.

 

Let me say that again- a teachers job is to cause understanding, as reflected in worthy accomplishments … facilitating the learners’ insights and coaching them to transfer their knowledge and skill, as reflected in significant performances involving such transfer. I just love the eloquent way Wiggins and McTigne define our job as teachers. They make it sound so noble. I especially like “worthy accomplishments ” and “significant performance”. Of course, Wiggins and McTigne apply these terms to students, but I want them to apply to teachers as well. I want them to apply to me- worthy accomplishments and significant performances. That’s my goal for myself and my students. My worthy accomplishments and significant performances are their worthy accomplishments and significant performances and vice-versa.

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Aug

1

Most popular blog about teachers and parents working together to help underachievers

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Learning Strategies, Teacher Support, The way I see it, underachieving students | 3 Comments 

This is one of my most popular blogs about parents and teachers working together to help underachieving students.

Teachers and parents need to work together to help students who are dependent underachievers. Underachieving students have learned to manipulate the people around them to get them to do their work. They’ve come to believe they’re not capable of doing the work and that they need someone else to do it.

Teachers and parents can work together to help the dependent underachievers become independent achievers by supporting the efforts of one another by

1. Encouraging students to make the effort to complete their work independently at school and at home.

2. Letting students struggle to complete the work. Reassure them that most students, even good students, struggle a bit when doing assignments. It’s normal . Make sure, though, that students are capable of doing the work by checking test scores in the school record. I check these scores whenever I have a student that I suspect is underachieving.

3. Insisting that you will only check their work after they have completed it and then you’ll give them feedback.

4. Focusing first on the quantity of work the student has done and then on the quality.

5. Giving honest praise to students about how much of the task they have completed. I say things like- good, you’ve started the assignment; good, you keep working at it etc. I’m encouraging the process of doing the work at first and then later I’ll focus on the quality of the work.

6. Using positive rewards such as stars, stickers, or other rewards. I teach high school kids and they still like stickers. I go to my local dollar store and get stickers of different themes suitable for boys and girls and I’ll let them choose the stickers they want or I’ll just put some on that I think they’ll like as a surprise. I’ve used car and motorcycle stickers, basketball, baseball and hockey stickers, hearts, butterflies and happy face stickers. I’ve had grade 12 students complain only half kidding that I forgot to put a sticker on their work. I also ask students what they would like as a reward. I would prefer it if my students were self motivated, and I didn’t have to give rewards. But, they aren’t yet and I have to teach the students I have.

7. Sending completed work home with positive comments.

8. Inviting parents to reward students for completing work independently . This could include time alone with a parent on some activity like a movie. Again, I would negotiate the rewards with the student. Each student and situation is different.

9. Guarding against stepping in too soon to help the student. Helping too quickly is not helping at all. I’m guilty of doing this sometimes, especially if I’m rushed. Find a strategy that helps you not step in too soon. One thing I do when students ask me to check their work all the time, I’ll respond by say something like do you think it’s OK. I want them to use their judgment, and I have found that by putting the onus back on the students they will eventually come to trust their judgment.

If you’ve found some ways to help students become independent achievers, I’d love to hear about them. Please share them. thanks.

It’s really ironic that I write on this topic at this time because I have one of the most dependent students I’ve had in my new class for a long time. Every few minutes the student asks me for approval. I’m taking my own advice and even the other students are encouraging him in a positive way to complete his work independently. I hadn’t thought of me being a role model for other students on how to deal with dependent learners. You just never know what you’re teaching. I do know however, that it’s going to be a long haul.

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