Fostering Thinking Skills for Today's Students

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600 to 1,000-word essays on the theme "Fostering Thinking Skills for Today's Students." The theme description is below, and guidelines for submissions are here. Send us your submissions by June 23, 2010. 

Higher-order thinking skills have been part of education ever since Bloom gave them an explicit hierarchy in 1956. In recent years, such complex thinking skills have become tied to state content standards, making it necessary for every educator to understand them. Does higher-order thinking—such as logic and reasoning, problem solving, and creativity—go beyond Bloom? What are the best ways to teach students how to think? In which subjects do complex thinking skills fit best, and do certain activities promote or hone their usage? How do teachers know their students have developed sufficient thinking skills and an understanding of how to apply them? This issue will look at how to develop, use, and assess higher-order thinking at the elementary and secondary levels.

Common Core Muddies Waters Between MD & VA

More so than the Mason-Dixon line, the Potomac River demarcation between Maryland and Virginia typifies the country's North-South, Blue-Red, political split: Maryland's reliably liberal yin to Virginia's traditionally conservative yang.

Such perceptions are once again being reinforced by the separate directions the two states are taking in education policy.

After sitting out the first round of the Race to the Top (RttT) competition, Maryland announced on Tuesday that not only was it going to submit a round 2 RttT application but, in an attempt to show Secretary Duncan how committed the state is to winning a grant, next month the state board of education will also adopt the Common Core K–12 standards in reading and math that will be publicly unveiled on Wednesday, June 2, 2010, in Atlanta.

On the flip side and across the river, Virginia governor Bob McDonnell announced that his state would not reapply for a RttT grant after finishing 31st (out of 41 applications) in the first round. Moreover, McDonnell blamed the grant criteria's emphasis on adopting the Common Core as a primary reason for the state’s decision.

McDonnell’s announcement was notable on a number of levels.

Speaker Spotlight: Heidi Hayes Jacobs

When it comes to designing and implementing effective "curriculum that marries pertinent ideas and purposeful practice," Heidi Hayes Jacobs has been doing just that for almost three decades. She has also openly questioned whether students are engaged in real 21st century curricula or just recycled content. In her ASCD books, The Curriculum Mapping Planner and Curriculum 21, Jacobs asserts that schools are lagging in their responsibility to provide focused, updated curricula to drive subsequent learning outcomes.

"I often wonder if many of our students feel like they are time traveling as they walk through the school door each morning," Jacobs writes in Curriculum 21. "As they cross the threshold, do they feel as if they are entering a simulation of life in the 1980s? New essential curriculum will need revision—actual replacements of dated content, skills, and assessments with timely choices."

In a recent two-part interview with Visual Thesaurus, Jacobs points out that literacy instruction must make changes to recognize dramatic changes in students’ technology use. And she insists that "Web 2.0 applications, or any uses of digital tools, should come through the curriculum door."

• Read Part One: Making Literacy Instruction Work
• Read Part Two: The Challenges of the 21st Century Classroom

Jacobs is a key presenter on curriculum and instruction at ASCD’s Summer Conference in Orlando, Fla. from June 22 to 24. But she also welcomes real-time questions and comments from educators around the world on Twitter and ASCD EDge.

Is your school practicing a 21st century curriculum?

Telephone Tops Congress Playlist Today

With 300,000 educator jobs in limbo and $23 billion proposed in emergency funds for education on the table, today's the day to voice your support for an infusion of federal aid to schools. Follow the steps, listed after the jump and on our Congressional Call Day web page, to reach your representative, and let them know where your support lies.

While ASCD is part of the effort organizing this national call-in day, it's hard to ignore some of the balking around the Harkin and Miller bills that will convey the $23 billion in new funding. (It's also hard to ignore the number of districts resorting to teacher furloughs and shortened school weeks, cuts to summer school and other programs, and increased class sizes and large-scale layoffs.)

Check out the National Journal Online's debate for a good, wonky roundup on whether the edujobs bill will provide lasting aid to cash-strapped schools and whether it should be used to leverage changes to tenure- and seniority-based layoff policies.

Part of the seniority issue is pure economics: new teachers are at the low end of the salary scale, so schools with seniority-based staffing would have to fire more new teachers to match the cost of employing a tenured teacher. The other point, and the one gaining the most traction in "reform" circles, is that last hired, first fired rules are a blunt instrument that don't take into account teacher quality, or school leaders' abilities to make nuanced decisions about staffing.

Do you think Congress should okay the $23 billion stimulus package for schools? If so, should there be strings attached regarding how the money is spent and/or seniority-based layoffs?

Reading by 3rd Grade is Make-or-Break Benchmark

The reading crisis is widespread (68 percent of all 4th graders scored below proficient on the 2009 NAEP), worse than we think (only 16 states set their proficiency standards at levels that meet or exceed NAEP’s lower "basic" standard), and exacerbated for children living in poverty (and even worse for low-income students attending high-poverty schools).

The Annie E. Casey Foundation compiles this evidence to make the case for better alignment and focus in reading programs targeted at the birth to 3rd grade demographic. After 3rd grade, instruction shifts from learning to read, to reading to learn. Students who hit 4th grade without the ability to read are more likely to drop out and face associated challenges in work and life.

Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters sets the tone and makes recommendations that will ideally take shape in the foundation's forthcoming 10-year initiative to raise reading proficiency levels by 3rd grade.

Holding on to Gen Y

"They're still certain they can change the world. They're just not sure it can happen from the classroom."

"Holding on to Gen Y" surveys young teachers and finds clues for how to retain them in their descriptions of the teaching profession they seek.

Too often, new teachers enter a system that presumes what they want, and this creates a professional stereotype that marginalizes and squanders new talent. Teachers are

• in education for love of kids and content,
• have no interest in policy,
• accept that expanded opportunities and rewards are reserved for senior members, and
• effective teachers have no interest in teaching in the most challenging schools.

These generalizations don't speak to teachers who believe the classroom is the greatest lever for social change, want to see a direct line from practice to policy, and are looking for opportunities to take on challenges and be acknowledged for hard work.

While widespread hiring freezes and seniority-based layoff policies, in response to the economic downturn, are throwing up plenty of obstacles to those entering teaching in the United States, this article addresses cultural changes schools can enact to build on new teachers' potential.

For more on this topic, check out Public Agenda's nationwide study Supporting Teacher Talent: The View from Generation Y.

Out from the Comic Shop

Around the world, teachers use comics in the classroom, and ASCD has covered the phenomenon in Education Update ("No Laughing Matter: Comic Books Have Serious Educational Value," October 2009) and Educational Leadership ("Going Graphic," March 2009). For those educators who want to get more resources and creative ideas about using comics for educational purposes, we recommend the blog Out from the Comic Shop.

The blog's most prominent feature is a weekly roundup of new kid-friendly comic releases, ranging from Amazing Spider-Man #627 to the curriculum-friendly comic Political Power #9: Bill Clinton. The roundup includes links to previews when they're available.

Educators looking for recommendations for their students or librarians, or simply looking to bolster their classroom collections, will enjoy the lists as well as the occasional lesson suggestion, such as this recent tip: "If you're interested in having students do a cultural study of comics over time, or maybe even [look at] how the pop culture of specific time periods has changed, check out the newest Batman Chronicles (Vol. 9). This series reprints every Batman story in exact chronological order."

You'll also find reviews, book trailers, and links to articles from other sources dealing with comics and visual literacy in the classroom.

The Pink Version of ADHD

Post submitted by Educational Leadership Senior Associate Editor Amy Azzam

An excess of "boy" data has skewed how we think about ADHD. In her presentation at the recent Learning and the Brain Conference, developmental pediatrician Patricia Quinn said that the model we use to describe and assess for ADHD doesn’t really apply to girls.

That's because the data on ADHD are boy-dominated. And it's easy to see why: Students depend on their teachers for referrals, and who do teachers overwhelmingly refer? Boys. Their hyperactivity is easy to spot; it sticks out like a sore thumb in the classroom. Teachers have a far tougher time identifying the girls, which means that their data never get into the mix.

So what kinds of behaviors do girls with ADHD tend to exhibit?

• They often internalize. If a boy with ADHD fails a test, he's likely to say that the test was "stupid" whereas a girl with ADHD is likely to say that she is stupid.

• They compensate better than boys do and often manage to get decent grades. If they remember at the last minute a project that’s due tomorrow, they’ll often coerce their mothers into helping them get it done on time.

• They often blame themselves and have low self-esteem, factors that may lead to depression.

• Their hyperactivity often expresses itself as hyper-talkativeness.

• They may have few or no friends.

• They have a big problem with time management.

Quinn suggests that schools look at ADHD before asking a girl to repeat a grade. "Repetition is no solution for ADHD," she said. She advises screening any girl who has siblings with the disorder and more carefully assessing girls who have received speech interventions in the past, because speech difficulties can be a red flag for the disorder.

Teachers Are "Different" (1944)

Sure, being a teacher isn't always the easiest path, and one must deal with a host of stereotypes and assumptions—but at least today's new teachers don't face the same personal regulations as teachers once did. Some former educators had to answer to local school board restrictions on dating and religious beliefs!

So begins Margaret E. Harris's 1944 Educational Leadership article "Teachers Are 'Different'," (PDF) which is comprised of a colorful list of "community feelings" toward teachers that she says generally occur across the country.

Harris explains that since the community thinks teachers are dull and directs them only to activities dealing with children, they're often cut off from "normal association with other adults having varied interests." Teachers, in fact, do have diverse interests, but are often not given the opportunity to indulge them, Harris says.

She states that the community believes, generally, that young teachers are only interested in marriage, so you "cannot expect good work from them." Harris also notes that the community feels "married women should not teach." Harris takes pains to point out that women of all ages, married and unmarried, have much to contribute to the profession.

The last two items on Harris's list of educator stereotypes are perhaps the most interesting and relevant to discussions that continue today: first, that teachers "should be able to do with and for children all of the things which parents and community have not been able to do"; second, that teachers are not leaders and "show no sense of daring."

Today, teachers are seen as leaders more than ever before, and communities work with schools on collaborative solutions to problems. But it's interesting to consider how much these two assumptions persist and how we might continue to disprove them.

When Failure IS an Option

Post submitted by Educational Leadership Senior Associate Editor Amy Azzam

"How did I know I’d turn green and die?" We all know the context—some kid is talking about a video game. And what does he do when he sees himself disintegrating on the screen? He brushes off the failure and starts all over again.

So why can't kids do that in school? That was the question that Daniel Willingham posed in his keynote address at the recent Learning and the Brain conference. It's a matter of gains versus losses, he explained. Losses loom larger than equivalent gains. For example, if there's a 50 percent chance of losing $20 and a 50 percent chance of winning $30, many of us will choose not to play because the psychological pain of losing $20 is greater than the joy of gaining $30.

And what are losses for students? Failure and shame—with no clear-cut and comparable gain.

Willingham suggested a number of approaches that can mitigate these losses and make failure a more acceptable part of the learning process.

Calling All Reflective Leaders

In "Summertime Reflections," Principal Joanne Rooney considers the importance of slowing down and taking it all in:

Although much is written about "reflective leadership," principals' hectic schedules rarely yield time to ponder the underlying issues of our professional lives or to engage in meaningful conversation with teachers.

I know the busyness saps my reflective self. An honest work-friend once told me, "Your frenetic pace causes you to miss what's going on here; you run right past it." She added, "But in those rare moments when you are present to those around you, you do your best work." Her advice hit home.

In summer, doors to reflection unlock. We have time to rummage around in our heads, unearthing deep-rooted beliefs about students and schools. We can ponder fundamental questions: Why am I in this business? How can I focus my time and energy on that which is truly central to the interests of students and teachers?

As summer approaches and you reflect back on the challenges and triumphs of the past year, consider recognizing the work of teachers and administrators in your district. Odds are, you know a young educator committed to

• Teaching the whole child by helping to ensure each child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.
• Demonstrating educational leadership in their classroom, school, district, and community.
• Showing a positive impact on student achievement.
• Illustrating significant contributions to the education community.

Seize the moment to nominate that person for ASCD's Outstanding Young Educator Award. Applications close August 1, 2010.

Everything you need to know, including the nomination form, is available online. Winners will receive a check for $10,000 and be honored at the 2011 ASCD Annual Conference in San Francisco, Calif., March 26–28, 2011. Honorees receive monetary awards and will also participate in a yearlong program of professional development and networking.

As the traditional school year winds down, help us celebrate the hardworking individuals that made everything possible.

Urban Schools That Work

ASCD Express is looking for short, 600 to 1,000-word essays on the theme "Urban Schools That Work." The theme description is below, and guidelines for submissions are here. Send us your submissions by June 9, 2010. 

Top-notch urban public schools have been around for years—even centuries, if we include some storied schools in Massachusetts and New York. But to deal with the effect on students of the pervasive urban issues of poverty, crime, transience, family dysfunction, and school overcrowding or mismanagement of resources, school staff require almost superhuman strength. Despite the odds, what are K–12 schools in large, diverse cities doing to overcome challenges and give their students the well-rounded education they desperately need to succeed in the world? How are urban schools defying the stereotypes by increasing academic achievement in core subjects, inspiring and training staff for the unique challenges of urban school careers, and graduating students truly ready for college or employment?

When Firing Teachers Is the Right Thing to Do

Post submitted by Frederick M. Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

I am a loyal reader and contributor to Educational Leadership (EL), and I find it a rich resource for diverse ideas and meaningful discussions. I have enjoyed the May issue, which focused on why supporting good teachers instead of firing them is the right choice. But I don’t think that is always true—I believe that sometimes firing teachers is exactly the right thing to do.  Recently, I’ve been writing a lot about a specific example where thinning teacher ranks should improve overall teacher quality for better learning outcomes. 

Last Friday, I penned a modest op-ed for the New York Daily News which argued that, in light of New York City's budget crunch, it was reasonable to lay off up to 6,400 teachers (potentially 8% of the teacher workforce). Done right, thinning the teaching ranks could be a good thing.

From 2001 to 2009, NYC teaching ranks grew by more than 12,000, and the average teacher salary rose 35%. I wrote, "If the UFT wants to protect all those new jobs, a simple way to forestall layoffs is to simply give back a modest portion of those hefty raises."

The reception from NYC teachers was not enthusiastic. But what caught my attention was the degree to which their tone brought to mind Greek protesters rioting against the notion that a nearly bankrupt government had to trim jobs, generous salaries, and unaffordable benefits. You'd have thought that NYC didn't have a teacher for every 12.5 students or that only agenda-driven crazies would seek to trim jobs and/or salaries in a grim fiscal environment.

Not off the Press: Shifting Ed Journalism

Education journalism is undergoing a transformation. While the cold reality is that there are far fewer trained journalists on the education beat these days, a recent Brookings report puts a sunnier spin on financing and staffing the production of an increasingly free and abundant commodity.

Tuesday afternoon, Brookings convened a panel of veteran ed journalists to discuss,"Re-Imagining Education Journalism: How Innovative Business Models Could Save Education Media."

Inside Higher Ed founder and editor Scott Jaschik laid out a few major shifts that are currently transforming education journalism:

• from print to online
• from reaching an audience based on geography to interest
• from paid to free
• from ivory tower reporting to creating community

For many publishers, these shifts mean print circulation is declining while they're reaching more people than ever with online content. What do you do when all of your growth is online but most of your revenue comes from print?

Alternative business models that were discussed included content subsidized by grant money, firewalling a portion of online content for premium access, advertising revenue, and bundling content from multiple sources into a subscription package. Nonprofit-funded education news outlet Gotham Schools, for example, provides investigative reporting and analysis of the New York City ed beat online, totally free. They're small, focused, and the go-to source for NYC school news.

Papa Bear Jay Mathews doled out some more good news for education reporters (and their audiences):

• We're no longer confined by word counts (and print circulation).
• We can do more with databases.
• We've got a better story. (Mathews credited entities like KIPP schools and Teach for America for positively shaping more young professionals' worldviews by putting them in K–12 classrooms for even a short amount of time.)

While no one floated any radical new direction for ed journalism, it was good to be in a room full of writers and editors committed to serving high quality ed news daily and without a lot of fanfare. Don't forget to tip your waiter, and ditto to Jaschik's request: "Don't let linking to news replace news gathering."

No More Valentines

Today, Harrison School District Two in Colorado Springs, Colo., announced it will be structuring teacher pay based entirely on observations of teacher practice and student achievement results (via Education Week). Principals will adopt a similar performance pay program in 2011–12.

Central to tightening the link between observations of teacher practice, improved instruction, and student achievement are fair and useful teacher evaluation systems, a point Morgaen Donaldson hits home in the Educational Leadership article "No More Valentines."

When evaluations of teachers manifest vague, platitudinal observations (a.k.a. "valentines"), schools squander a powerful tool for school improvement. Typically, Donaldson writes, teacher evaluations are plagued by

• Poor evaluation instruments.
• Limited district guidance.
• Lack of evaluator time.
• Lack of evaluator skill.
• Lack of evaluator will.
• Absence of high-quality feedback.
• Few consequences attached to evaluations.

In Harrison School District Two, any one of these pitfalls could derail their whole effort. Currently, Ed Week reports, "principals use teacher-performance standards, tightly integrated with the district’s goals, to determine areas of weakness in instruction and to address them individually and through professional-learning communities."

As Harrison School District Two revolutionizes teacher pay—and potentially, teaching and learning—the instruments and methods they use to do so also step into the spotlight.

The Myth of Multitasking

Post submitted by Educational Leadership Senior Associate Editor Amy Azzam

According to noted neuropsychiatrist Richard Restak, multitasking isn't all it’s cut out to be. In his presentation at last week's Learning and the Brain conference, Restak poked holes in our sometimes glorified view of the process:

• Multitasking looks like people are doing several activities at the same time. They're not. They're doing them sequentially, switching rapidly between them.
• Substantial interference effects occur when you try to use the same channel. For example, if you're on the phone, you may be able to read a note that someone has passed you even while you’re listening to the person on the other end of the line. But you won't be able to fully understand someone who starts talking to you while you’re listening or talking to someone else.
• Mental channels—such as what's at work when you’re listening to someone on your cell phone—can interfere with physical channels—such as what you're looking at as you navigate rush-hour traffic on your way to the office. You can’t fully attend to either. Not only is this not a good time to tackle that difficult relationship issue or a challenging problem at work, but also you’re driving at your—and others'—peril.
• The more you multitask, the worse you do those tasks and the more distractible you become.
• Those who do too much multitasking often have trouble distinguishing relevant from irrelevant information.

Most of all, said Restak, multitasking impairs our ability to think in a human way, to go into depth, and to develop our own ideas because it takes time and focus to form meaningful associations and connections.

Restak pointed to Isaac Newton. When asked how he came to formulate the three laws of motion, Newton replied, "I did it by thinking about them all the time." It’s a sure bet he wasn’t multitasking.

Which brings us to Newton’s third law: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. We may think multitasking is speeding us up. But, hey, it just might be slowing us down.

Was That ADD—or AAD?

Post submitted by Educational Leadership Senior Associate Editor Amy Azzam

We can't Velcro our minds to boring for the long term. Whether we're children or adults, we end up allocating our attention to the things we really like.

That was the gist of developmental cognitive neurologist Martha Denckla's presentation at last week's Learning and the Brain Conference in Washington, D.C.

Denckla quibbled with the acronym ADD (attention deficit disorder) because it implies a deficit in attention. And that's really not the case, she said. Things of interest, intrinsically rewarding activities, grab a student's attention. She prefers to use the acronym AAD: attention allocation deficit. The student's attention is there; it just depends on where he or she is allocating it.

Denckla discussed the two subtypes of ADD/ADHD: the type that's mostly characterized by inattentiveness and the type that's mostly characterized by hyperactivity. In the first case, it's not that students are inattentive; it's just that they have trouble switching their attention away from what currently interests them toward the new thing that you, as a parent or teacher, want them to do.

TLN Teaching Secrets Series Kicks Off

Last week, the Knights Templar at the Teacher Leaders Network unveiled the first in their "Teaching Secrets 2010" series, with a 10-spot of tips targeted to new teachers of tweens.  

Middle school math and science teacher Marsha Ratzel's list has insight for getting acclimated to your new school's culture, curriculum, and community members. It includes advice for balancing engagement with order:

"Figure out how you will capture students on the first day of school. Going over the rules or what they’ll be learning is not the way."

. . . and knowing which battles are worth fighting and which can be settled for about $5.

Got a secret you'd like to share with new middle school teachers?

What You Get in the Free E-Book Keeping the Whole Child Healthy & Safe

Filling out online forms can be a pain, but we want to reassure you that taking 90 seconds to download our e-book, Keeping the Whole Child Healthy and Safe, is totally worth it. A must-have for any guidance office, there's also something for education community members of every stripe.

Here's what you get, for free, through May 17, 2010:

Part 1: Back to Whole

What Does It Mean to Educate the Whole Child?
by Nel Noddings
Why learning and health go hand in hand.

Healthy and Ready to Learn
by David Satcher
A former surgeon general suggests ways that schools can improve the health environment.

Part 2: Promoting a Healthy Life

Finding Our Way Back to Healthy Eating: A Conversation with David A. Kessler
by Amy M. Azzam
Are "designer foods" making our kids unfit? And what can schools do about it?

A Supersize Problem
by Eric K. Gill
Why cafeteria food, vending machine policy, P.E. programs,and even cooking classes merit scrutiny.

Sleep: The E-ZZZ Intervention
by Christi A. Bergin and David A. Bergin
Healthy sleep habits can boost students’ memory, self-control, and speed of thinking.

A Place for Healthy Risk-Taking
by Laura Warner
Challenge and choice are hallmarks of the new physical education.

Keeping Teachers Healthy
by Rick Allen
As role-models and for themselves, educators, too, need to take care of themselves.

Part 3: Protecting Students, Working with Bullies

Observing Excellence

Teacher-turned-principal Deirdra Grode is in the classroom observing her teachers, but she wonders, how useful are these observations for both evaluation and professional growth? Can you really determine a teacher's classroom management skills when the principal is in the room? Will teachers feel comfortable asking questions or exposing challenges?

She's considering supplementary observation techniques—like peer evaluations; having teachers film themselves and critique their performance; or having teachers conduct peer observations using a categorical frequency instrument, measuring how often different behaviors (e.g., wait time before calling on a student, students off-task, higher-level questioning) occur.

How has your school enhanced teacher observations so that they're both more accurate and useful for improving instruction?