Answering Your Burning Questions
What are your fellow teachers buzzing about? What are the hot-button topics in your district? Leave a commment. As for me, advice solicited from my colleagues at Roth Middle School dictated my choice of the sessions "Where The Boys Aren't" and "Teaching the Levees." Piece of Conference Advice #4: I would highly recommend this democratic approach as a means of making conference attendance useful to one's school and district.
Actually get out there to your kith and kin in your building and say, "If you were going to this, what would you attend?" (But don't hand them the list of 500 sessions like I did. Overload!) That way, you nearly guarantee bringing something back that at least one other teacher will be interested in.
Dana Huff also asked me to lob a question to ASCD bigwig Robert Marzano about his opinion on Understanding by Design, authored by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. Both Dana and Grant Wiggins also blog, by the way, at the terrific Faculty Room. It was easy to do, given Dr. Marzano's engaging and clear-cut presentation on a similar topic, The Art and Science of Teaching. Marzano's own Classroom Instruction That Works was the basis for his talk, although I found it deeply enriched by Marzano's additional treatment of two principles not included in his books: the scientifically supported importance of both teacher expectations and student engagement. Classroom Instruction That Works is also often presented in a dry, bare-bones checklist, so it was essential for me to see how Marzano organically links his material together. As for UbD, Marzano recommends it as a "superordinate framework," one that can usefully contain Marzano's own instructional recommendations.
Attending "Teaching Writing to Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic Learners," my next session, was driven by my own need to figure out how to lift writing off the page for kids who don't have natural verbal tendencies. The session itself wasn't quite the smooth ride of others--beset by tech problems, below its advertised 70 percent interactive rate, and ended early. However, I learned a handful of strategies I didn't know beforehand and came away with the knowledge that there exists a cube for tossing with whiteboard sides. That alone was worth the session.
Eduwonkette also asked this question when I canvassed her for session suggestions: "Does research really matter?" If you read her blog you'll know that asking this question is akin to the bravery of throwing herself bodily into a alligator-infested Louisiana bayou--all she *does* is talk about research. She'll be happy to learn that my last session, "Interpreting and Using Research," answers with a big fat affirmative. I wish she had been there.The presentation itself, which will be posted here shortly, made a convincing and objective argument for how to use research effectively and how to become educated consumers of research and offered up this gem for teachers in the trenches: Doing What Works. I suppose it says something that out of all the session I've attended so far, this is the one that got my heart literally racing with interest and excitement. Yep. I am officially a geek. Or an "anomaly," as Cheryl Lemke (pictured) teasingly labeled me when I kept plying her with questions.
As always, drop me a note if you're interested in details on anything I've written about here. I'm off to attempt the Herculean task of getting a ticket to Preservation Hall's concert tonight. Wish me luck.
Submitted by edblogger and English teacher Dina Strasser.
