Library Girl's Picks: The Best Digital Tools for Formative Assessment 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. That said, for my few minutes with the mic, I decided to focus my attention on formative assessment. 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. Obviously, this is not rocket science. Admit/Exit Tickets are a beloved formative assessment strategy. Graphic organizers are another great formative assessment tool. Amen, sister.
Teaching Presentation Skills with Ignite I know that, in my project-based learning classroom, students did presentations all the time for a variety of purposes. One of the key components of a PBL project is the 21st-century skill of presentation or communication. We know that this presentation can take on any number of shapes, from something formal to a podcast or even a poster session. I always struggled with getting quality presentations from my students. I used a variety of teaching techniques and examples, but there is one that I know can really help improve presentation skills: Ignite! Ignite is a specific genre of presentation. Ignite is similar to PechaKucha, where you have 20 slides that change every 20 seconds. Final Product An Ignite session can be a great final product for a PBL project or another unit of instruction. Practice and Scaffolding Although you might demand a more lengthy or formal presentation as a final product, an Ignite presentation can serve as a great scaffolding tool. Teaching Ready? Ignite!
The Best Resources For Learning About Performance Assessment This is the second-to-last in a series of “The Best…” lists related to student assessment. The next, and last, post in the series will related to grading. This post focuses on “performance assessment.” Here’s how Linda Darling-Hammond describes it: For many people, performance assessment is most easily defined by what it is not:specifically, it is not multiple-choice testing. In a performance assessment, ratherthan choosing among pre-determined options, students must construct an answer,produce a product, or perform an activity. Because they allow students to construct or perform an original response rather than just recognizing a potentially right answer out of a list provided, performance assessments can measure students’ cognitive thinking and reasoning skills and their ability to apply knowledge to solve realistic, meaningful problems. Here are other “The Best…” lists on student assessment: The Best Resources For Learning About Formative Assessment Feedback is welcome.
Reading Habits in Different Communities Released: December 20, 2012 By Carolyn Miller, Kristen Purcell and Lee Rainie Reading is foundational to learning and the information acquisition upon which people make decisions. For centuries, the capacity to read has been a benchmark of literacy and involvement in community life. As technology and the digital world expand and offer new types of reading opportunities, residents of urban, suburban, and rural communities at times experience reading and e-reading differently. Several surveys by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project reveal interesting variations among communities in the way their residents read and use reading-related technology and institutions: Book readers: Some 78% of Americans ages 16 and older say they read a book in the past 12 months. Americans and libraries: The majority of Americans ages 16 and older (58%) have a library card and even more (69%) say the library is important to them and their families. About the research Acknowledgements
100 Helpful Blogs For School Librarians (And Teachers) We love librarians. They’re the gatekeepers of knowledge and always looking to explore new ways to enhance the learning experience . I learned about the latest trends in libraries at this year’s CALICON in San Diego and love the move toward open source, cross-library sharing, and going digital. But what if you weren’t able to attend CALICON or simply want to get a regular update on all the fun stuff happening with libraries? Lucky for you, our friends at Online College shared the following post with us. It details 100 great blogs librarians around the world should add to their RSS reader. Looking for great Twitter chats for librarians? NOTE: This is an update of Online College’s previous list , as technology has changed, new voices have emerged, and some previously great blogs have gone dormant, making it necessary to revise and re-curate selections. Librarian Blogs Here you’ll find some amazing blogs written by librarians at all kinds of institutions. School Librarian Blogs Industry News
The Three New Pillars of 21st Century Learning The textbook, The lecturer and the classroom are three pillars of modern-day schooling that date back hundreds of years. Each was invented to solve a problem. The textbook was invented because information was scarce, the lecturer because teachers were few and the classroom because learning was local. These enduring icons persist into the Internet age, shaping our view of learning and driving the popularity of their digital grandchildren, things like iPad “textbooks” and the Kahn Academy “lectures.” There’s just one catch – these problems don’t exist anymore. To put it simply – we need new pillars for learning. Pillar #1: “I’m only one of my students’ teachers, but I’m the most important because I teach them to connect to all the others.” This is perhaps the most fundamental shift in our assumptions – how we envision the role of the teacher in the classroom. Pillar #2: “My students should learn from me how to learn without me.”
ideas about information Edit: Despite my clarifications, people are still misinterpreting my original post as a proposed ‘solution’ to the problem of the Library degree, so I’ve rewritten this to stop that happening. To embark upon a Library Masters in 2014 is a huge undertaking. Assuming you do it part-time, whilst working to support yourself, you’ll spend between ten and eighteen thousand pounds over two years, along with, at a conservative estimate, 1500 hours of your time.[1] The question is, does the Library degree really represent the best use of this investment? What if you were to spend the same amount of time and money on a self-structured curriculum of study, events, conferences, training, and building an online portfolio, whilst continuing to work in an information role. Would you not emerge as a more rounded, knowledgeable, and relevant information professional? I think you would. The problem with the Library degree What do we do about it? If it were up to me, I’d do two things:
Yes, You Can Teach and Assess Creativity! A recent blog by Grant Wiggins affirmed what I have long believed about creativity: it is a 21st-century skill we can teach and assess. Creativity fosters deeper learning, builds confidence and creates a student ready for college and career. However, many teachers don't know how to implement the teaching and assessment of creativity in their classrooms. While we may have the tools to teach and assess content, creativity is another matter, especially if we want to be intentional about teaching it as a 21st-century skill. Quality Indicators If you and your students don't unpack and understand what creativity looks like, then teaching and assessing it will be very difficult. Synthesize ideas in original and surprising ways.Ask new questions to build upon an idea.Brainstorm multiple ideas and solutions to problems.Communicate ideas in new and innovative ways. Now, these are just some of the quality indicators you might create or use. Activities Targeted to Quality Indicators
The Principalship:The Changing Role of the Technology Director Like many educators in my current position—school technology directors, chief technology officers, or others who have responsibility for all things that plug in, use batteries, beep, or depend on a digital network—I never imagined this as a job when I was growing up. My high school guidance counselor in 1970 did not suggest this as a career choice because such a job did not exist then. Even when I was hired by my current school district in 1991, my title was "audiovisual director," and I replaced a fellow whose primary tasks were silk-screening school logos on record players, developing black-and-white film, stocking overhead projector lamps, and supervising the guy who fixed 16mm film projectors. Although my previous experience in education was as an English teacher and librarian, my same-age peers have come to technology leadership positions through a number of pathways, with math and science teaching being the most common. Evolving Challenges Forget about IT as you know it today.
MOOC Mania: Debunking the hype around massive open online courses Illustration by Jacob Thomas In the fall of 2011, Stanford University offered three of its engineering courses—Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Introduction to Databases—for free online. Anyone with Internet access could sign up for them. As Sebastian Thrun, the director of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, tells the story, he assumed just a handful of people would enroll in his graduate-level AI class. That’s when the enormous hype began about massive open online courses, better known as “MOOCs.” Although it’s clear that there’s a flurry of interest in MOOCs among universities, higher-ed students, the tech industry, and pundits, these free online courses are also likely to have a significant impact on K–12 librarians and other educators. The price of popularity Still, the allure of a cost-free education is only part of MOOCs’ appeal. Is this rhetoric or reality? Take edX’s Circuits and Electronics class. Why is the attrition rate so high? Behind the hype
Leadership Lessons: Ten Ideas to Take into 2012 To kick off 2012, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on what I have learned about leadership and being a principal. I am always learning; however, here are the key lessons that I want to remember and apply to this year. Not in any particular order, here are the ways I hope to become a great leader and great principal. 1. I can't say it enough, or in enough ways; that is my motto. 2. I find that I often tell people "how" to do things . . . how to write report card comments, how to conduct parent meetings, how to work with a student, how to organize a classroom . . . and the list goes on. 3. Not your hard drive, your words! 4. I often have teachers and staff approach me and say, "Can I do this?" 5. There are people in my school who are experts at what they do. 6. To be aware, you have to be where the people are. 7. Following up on things I say or ask is a necessary way to add meaning to what I do. 8. 9. 10. A Final Note Live in the moment and enjoy the children.
Tim Fredrick's ELA Teaching Wiki / FrontPage Visit my ELA Teaching Blog at E-mail me with questions at tim.fredrick@nyu.edu How I use portfolios in my classroom Introducing portfolios Making a Table of Contents How to Present the Portfolio During the Conference Criteria for Judging Portfolios Narratives Using a Timeline Using an Event Map Cause and Effect The following lessons use "Super Size Me" as the text Using Cause and Effect Maps, Part I Using Cause and Effect Maps, Part II: Things Get Serious Determining Author's Purpose with Excerpt from Fast Food Nation Beginning Super Size Me Reading Nutrition Guides Fast Food and Kids Playing the Doubting Game - Responsibility for Obesity Concluding Super Size Me and Introducing Audience and Purpose Character Traits Characterization Character Goals, Motivation, and Obstacles Lessons Introducing character goals, motivation, and obstacles Practicing character goals, motivation, and obstacles in literature circles Various Character Analysis Lessons Character Analysis Paper Book sort
Customer Service: Pour Some Sugar On Me - Hillsborough, NC School staff focus on curriculum alignment, differentiated instruction, professional development, college and career readiness, standards, and academic interventions. Is it possible that schools can lose their focus on customer service? Customers include families, community members, and all guests who visit the school website or schoolhouse. Customer service involves the front office staff, classroom teachers, teacher assistants, custodians, counselors, and all staff members. How are customers treated when they enter your school? Ask your school staff, “What does it mean to go the extra mile for the customer?” Six Ways To Pour Some Sugar On The Customer: Website The school website is the new front door. Customer Service Customer service involves phone skills, email etiquette, communication skills, and the way the customer is treated when they spend time at your school. Blog The media may promote your school once or twice a year. Next Steps Questions for School Staff to Consider 1. 2. 3.
Storytelling Is Not Lecturing; Lecturing is Not Storytelling I sit in the lecture hall with 10,000 others waiting for my new teacher to speak. I look at my cell phone and silently groan that this in going to be a long hour; as long an hour as an hour can be as is typically the case when I listen to a lecture. She begins, “Let me tell you about Uncle Willie.” I take a deep breath of relief and settle in to hear her story. I came at the age of three to Grandma and my Uncle Willie in this little town in Arkansas. . . . I am a strong advocate against the use of lecturing for teaching which I discuss in detail in Who Would Choose a Lecture as Their Primary Mode of Learning? So what is it that makes stories such powerful teaching? Stories are different. Brain Activity: Lecture versus Storytelling It’s in fact quite simple. What follows is a graph of a student’s brain activity during a given week. So what happens to the brain when being told a story? Like this: Like Loading...