Third State's a Trend

Well that didn't take long. A week after we noted here that Idaho was joining Montana in refusing to increase its AYP targets for next year as required by NCLB and wondered if a third state would do likewise, making the movement a trend, South Dakota State Secretary of Education Melody Schopp informed local superintendents throughout the state that she was doing just that. (Like their north central neighbors, South Dakota is also a SMARTER Balanced state.)

Schopp cited many of the same arguments as Denise Juneau and Tom Luna about the number of schools identified for improvement overwhelming state resources, but unlike the others, she acknowledged the possibility of losing federal funds as a penalty for noncompliance. So far, however, Secretary Duncan has not made any public statement, much less acted, on Montana, Idaho, and now South Dakota's defiance of NCLB.

Post submitted by David Griffith, ASCD's Director of Public Policy.

The Learning Network

The Learning Network blog, part of the New York Times website, provides teaching and learning materials and ideas based on New York Times content by building on the news and supplementing articles with lesson plans, quizzes, discussion questions, and chats designed to help teachers engage students with the news. One post outlines at least 11 ways to use The Learning Network during the school year.

A recent post jumps off a review of a new production of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible to provide links to article archives and lesson plans on not only the play itself but also related issues, such as McCarthyism and the "birther" controversy surrounding President Barack Obama. Another post lets educators ask questions of teachers profiled in an article about using social media in the classroom effectively.

If you're looking for ways to connect your students with current events and topics, The Learning Networkis a valuable resource.

When We Work Together (1944)

In 1941, in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States and her allies banded together to create the United Nations. Just as these democratic nations were facing a state of emergency, so too were educators, argued Willard E. Goslin, superintendent of schools in the Webster Groves (Mo.) School District.

Read the article: When We Work Together (PDF)

"The United Nations had to get together in order to survive. The emergency in education is not so dramatic. However, the need for the teachers of this country to begin to work together more effectively may be quite as critical from the viewpoint of the long-run welfare of education and our democracy as that facing the United Nations," says Goslin.

The metaphor may have been fresher when it was published in Educational Leadership in 1944, but its grand imagery is still stirring, if a bit overwrought. Goslin describes the implementation of a plan for "group action" in his Missouri school district, in which a diverse group of staff came together to discuss problems in their schools and make recommendations to implement change. He stresses that a feeling of ownership among all involved was a key factor in the program's success.

Although Goslin does not go into detail about any particular changes implemented, he does offer plenty of ideas for groups of educators to run with: advising in the selection of textbooks, mentoring new teachers, and improving school-community relationships. Regardless of the particulars, educators may find themselves stirred by the lofty rhetoric of Goslin to join their colleagues in democratic action—or, at least, to band together in a community of professional learners.

Resistance Is Fertile Ground for Change

If you're getting a "Yeah . . . but" response resisting your ideas for creating more tech-integrated, networked learning environments in your school, that's actually a good sign, said Will Richardson and Rob Mancabelli (authors of Professional Learning Networks) in their #ISTE11 session.

"Yeah . . . but" means you're in the change mode, said Mancabelli. What you do next determines whether you get to implementation and further. Resistance will most likely crush your momentum if you rely solely on rational appeals for change, they said. The key is combining rational and emotional arguments.

Mancabelli outlined a general framework for making emotional appeals:

1. Have a conversation to get to the root of what underlies resistance to change and identify concerns and needs.
2. Identify a person of authority who can share his or her change process, why it's been beneficial, and missteps and how to recover.
3. Set long-term goals with incremental checkpoints and smaller goals along the way.
4. Create a support group for people to tap into when they run into roadblocks.

Attendees volunteered some of the real "Yeah . . . but" conversations happening in their schools. Big obstacles included time, fear, funding, and skepticism.

Mancabelli suggested considering what people are feeling when they say they don't have enough time and what they need to assuage those feelings. Show that you're willing to reallocate resources to support change, he said, noting that it's important to consider opportunity cost when trying something new. Even good ideas can cut into programming and resources elsewhere, so how will the school adjust to minimize the opportunity cost?

To quote Pee Wee Herman, "What's your big (yeah . . . ) but?" Have you combined rational and emotional appeals to push change in your school?

What Are the Elements of An Effective Project?

A project is not just an assignment with added time, Gary Stager quipped at his #ISTE11 session. 

Likewise, technology doesn't make the difference between a project that's crap or one that's true craft; an effective teacher does. "Without good music teachers, we'd just have kids recording their burps in garage band," he added. 

Good teachers guide projects that

• Make the world a little bit better by making your corner of it better.
• Pose specific and provocative questions or problems that are solvable.
• Involve adults and students learning together in meaningful ways.
• Use technology to add depth and breadth.
• Are complex and involve a revision and debugging process that creates a more sophisticated product.
• Create something with purpose that is shareable with others.
• Change from student-to-student and year-to-year (they are not repeated).
• Generate student agency, or are "less us, more them."
  

  (This partial list is more fully fleshed out on Stager's site [PDF].)

Beyond effective project-based learning, Stager's session touched on other "best ideas in education," like Reggio Emilia schools, 1:1 computing, and tapping into the do-it-yourself revolution and making good things. The session was a preview of Stager's forthcoming book fom Jossey-Bass/Wiley.

What's crucial to project-based learning in your classroom?

Fog of Common Core (Lessons from Arizona's Adoption)

Today marks one year since Arizona adopted the common core state standards, but you wouldn't know it based on any information provided by public officials or the press in Arizona. Indeed, you would have an impossible time finding any details about the Arizona State Board's official action to adopt the standards.

Last year, I wrote about the bizarre situation where states that were completely overhauling their K-12 reading and math standards in favor of the more advanced, 21st century common core state standards were not only downplaying this standards transformation, but in some instances, also appeared to be proactively burying the information.

Arizona fell into this last group as I mentioned last July:

"And then there are Arizona, Nevada, and Wyoming—three states that an Ed Week blog reports adopted the standards but whose respective state departments of education make no reference to adopting the standards (Wyoming and Nevada don't even reference the common core) and for which a Google search of newspapers in each state turns up not a single hit of a news story about adoption."

As these questions were raised last year, state supporters of the standards suggested that common core adoption wasn't a big enough deal to warrant the Department of Education to issue press releases. They also pointed out that the minutes of state board meetings are eventually posted to their websites and available to the public (though, it should be noted, after a lag of two to three months).

Which brings me back to Arizona. As you can see by this schedule (PDF) of the Arizona State Board of Education's meeting dates, they were supposed to meet on June 28, 2010. This is the meeting at which it is generally concluded that the Arizona State Board of Education did in fact adopt the common core. But curiously, the June 28 meeting is the only one in 2010 for which the meeting minutes are not posted on the state board's meeting minutes website. To thicken the plot even more, the state board's August 23, 2010 minutes (PDF) report that the state board members approved the June 28 meeting minutes and there is a reference to an executive session on that date. Did the state board adopt the standards while in executive session? Why would they? But who knows? All we do know is that a meeting on that date occurred. What transpired is known only to the board members and the public in attendance.

All of this is surely a simple oversight, but it is an interesting coincidence. It's also a reminder to state officials that not only should the adoption of standards be as transparent as their development, but that implementation activities should also be equally visible.

Petroglyphs to Pie Charts: Getting Started with Infographics

Infographics combine visuals and text to make information easier to understand or present information in a new way. In her #ISTE11 presentation, "Infographics as a Creative Assessment" (available here),  Kathy Schrock noted that students need to study infographics before creating their own. For example, they might

• Investigate the history of infographics (starts on page 6).
• Use the periodic table of infographics to get acquainted with different types of infographics and how they relate to the information they convey.
• Focus on a particular infographic or type of infogaphic and discuss its purpose and similarities and differences to other types (examples at David Warlick's Infographic-a-Day site).
• Have students deconstruct an infographic and translate it to text.
• Have students identify the main idea and secondary ideas in an infographic. How did layout support their identification of main and supporting ideas?
• Have students collect good and bad examples, revise bad infographics (e.g., rate the effectiveness of submissions in GOOD's infographic contest submissions).

 

To create their own infographics, Schrock offered tips for getting students started:

• Brainstorm a list of keywords about topic.
• Pose a question that is not too broad or too narrow.
• List places you want to gather information from.
• Do cursory research to make sure that there's enough information on topic.
• Edit their questions.
• Evaluate or validate information and cite sources.
• Gather images through Creative Commons, which can be found through advanced Google and Flickr searches; there's even an infographic about proper image use.
• Sketch a first draft.

 

Are you teaching students to synthesize information and pose original questions with infographics?

(Shout out to Tara Richerson, whose Prezi on data visualization prompted my interest in this topic.)

Eight Shifts for Teaching and Learning

"Our job is not to figure out this phone; it's figuring out connections," said Will Richardson at his #iste11 presentation (available here). He outlined eight big shifts already affecting learning in the world at large but largely absent from the world in the classroom:

• Talk to strangers.
• Create your own e-portfolio.
• Share widely.
• Manage multiple streams of information.
• Detect misinformation and develop attention literacy.
• Follow your passions.
• Learn for learning's sake.
• Problem solve.

A low-tech synopsis of Richardson's presentation might be that now more than ever, educators must connect students to their passions and help them collaborate productively around those passions.

Clearly, Richardson believes the path to shifting education starts with how educators shift their own learning. "Figure out how to bring strangers into your learning lives so you can teach kids to do it well," he advised.

One of Richardson's key questions lingers in my mind: Are we empowering and enabling students to choose their own teachers or sources of learning? Or are we telling kids education is something you're given, not something you create?

Why I'm Networking Offline

Formerly a teacher, now an administrator-in-training, Chris Canter blogs about his yearlong assistant principal internship at Fulton County Public Schools in Atlanta, Ga. Canter was a 2010 ASCD OYEA honoree.

In these times of increased technology and social networking, there are many outlets for communication. A key question I've been forced to consider this year is: which are appropriate and desirable for my personal and professional development? The school leader walks a very fine line when addressing these issues. While administrators definitely desire and deserve personal liberties, we must remember that we are leaders and public servants 24 hours a day, not just during the hours the schoolhouse is open.

And that's why I closed my Facebook account.

Although I did have privacy controls and the ability to control who was connected with me, I found that the lack of control over those individuals' pages left me open to criticism. When perusing the pages of my connections, I found many comments and pictures on their pages that were unbecoming of a public servant. While I did not make these comments, my association with them had the potential to cast me in a negative light and call my integrity to question. Thus, I discontinued my subscription.

This past year, rather, has been one of making offline connections and working closely with my immediate personal network. My small network of principals and assistant principals with whom I have worked is a very supportive safety net. Although I've had access to many influential people within my school system, I haven't focused on trying to sustain superficial relationships that could advance my career. Rather, I've chosen to focus on those that can increase my knowledge and personal growth. It is from this group of people that I can share laughter, tears, and fears. Even in the midst of uncertainties, I can call upon my network of colleagues for encouragement, support, and a dose of reality.

What networks do you rely on most? Are certain social networks better suited for school leadership?

[Ed. Note: Head to The Big Think and What Ed Said for an argument in favor of educators using a particular online social network, Twitter.]

How 30 Minutes a Day Built a School of Readers

What can you do with just 30 minutes of reading instruction a day?

Not much, feared middle school English teacher and reading coach Kathy King-Dickman. In "Learning to Love Reading in 30 Minutes a Day," she tells how, despite limited time, she and her coteachers turned a group of mostly nonreaders into capable and enthusiastic bookworms.

The "a-ha!" moment in King-Dickman's journey is when she discovers comprehension strategies won't stick unless she's first taught students awareness of their own metacognition—to know when their reading breaks down and when to employ comprehension strategies that good readers use.

From here, small, teacher-led, reading workshop–modeled groups used their 30 minutes a day to grow from learning how to read books to wanting to read books. King-Dickman unpacks this process as well, providing steps for helping students choose books that interest them, tips for monitoring independent reading, comprehension strategy think sheets, and reading list examples for structured literacy circles.

With the right structure and support, limited time did not impede these readers. If you can get students to learn to love reading, King-Dickman found, they will make time for it.

What's your best tool for getting students to love reading?

In Case You Missed It

Check out what's been happening around ASCD:

• Check out a free chapter of the new book Great Performances: Creating Classroom-Based Assessment Tasks.
• Read "PLCs Saved My Career" and more in the most recent ASCD Express on effectively using professional learning communities.
• Do schools need to "ride through" large-scale changes?
• In an age of shifting paradigms, why haven't we accepted the changing role of parents both in their children's lives and in education?
• History in high school is long-forgotten.
• New book, free chapter: How to Teach Now: Five Keys to Personalized Learning in the Global Classroom.
• Think that writing is irrelevant to science and math? Judy Willis says think again.
• Twitter: highly effective or completely useless? Depends on your background, Tom Whitby says.
• Hear exclusive interviews and learn more about your favorite ASCD authors.

Add your own highlights in the comments, and check this spot for our regular weekly digest of ASCD activities.

Klein Hypes Rad and Fab Reformers

Joel Klein praises a new generation of education reformers in a recent Washington Post op-ed while fluffing his own plumage, seeing as how most of the individuals mentioned worked for him in New York City.

The piece is the latest in an increasingly familiar message campaign that I call "Rad and Fab," as in radical and fabulous education reformers who revel in their terrifically rebellious leadership and shared disdain for conventional educators (whom Klein identifies as "union, bureaucrats, politicians" and other assorted "apologists for the failed status quo.")

Filipino Recruits Highlight Plight of New, Urban Teachers

No spoiler alert needed: you already know the biggest classroom-based challenge recently imported Filipino teachers will face in The Learning, a documentary that follows four such teachers during their first year in Baltimore City Schools.

"I feel like a traffic cop," said Dorotea Godinez, an outstanding Filipino teacher whose lessons are continually derailed by student behavior. At the lowest point in her first year, staffing is down and Godinez must take on overflow students.

"I have the picture in my mind of a lesson that's enjoyable and there's learning. It's depressing; the picture in my mind does not show in my class," Godinez lamented.

Although classroom management is a huge challenge, more than this, The Learning conveys how deeply these Filipino teachers care about their students and work to form relationships. It's hard to watch Godinez—who greets students on their first day with a speech about her dedication to them, even singing a line from the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There"—have to bend to a strict disciplinary culture.

Idaho Joins Montana in Break from NCLB; Who's Next?

What is it with those SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium states?

Idaho State Superintendent Tom Luna has followed the lead of Montana chief Denise Juneau in sending a letter to Education Secretary Arne Duncan (h/t Michele McNeil) telling him (not asking) that his state, like Montana's, won't be raising its adequate yearly progress proficiency targets next year as it is required to do under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

Luna's letter closely tracks Juneau's not only in its ultimate pronouncement, but in its recitation of the impressive achievement gains of the state's students, the benefits of the common core state standards, and the frustration over the delay in ESEA reauthorization and the emerging two-track standards and accountability systems.

Most notable about Luna's decision is that he worked in the U.S. Department of Education under Rod Paige from 2003–05, a time that coincided with the implementation of the federal education law Luna is now essentially disavowing.

We've not heard a response from the department about Montana's, and now Idaho's, decision. Will there be a third state that joins the trend of flouting at least some of NCLB's accountability requirements?

"Tell Me How to Fix This"

The Bully Project, a new documentary from filmmaker Lee Hirsch, is a heartbreaking look at the ongoing violence and harassment that plagues school communities. Over the course of the film we meet

• Alex (pictured), whose daily abuse from peers stymies school officials who can't seem to offer much beyond shake-and-make-up solutions.
• Kelby, shunned by her community for coming out as gay; adults and students alike make school unsafe for her.
• Ja'meya, a 14-year-old behind bars for pulling a gun on her tormentors.

But the motivation for The Bully Project is most acutely illustrated by the kids we don't meet—17-year-old Tyler Long, 11-year-old Ty Smalley, and hundreds like them—who took their own lives in response to relentless bullying. Their deaths are the tragic effects of a dysfunction readily acknowledged to be everywhere, but nowhere in particular.

It's like alcoholism, said Tyler Long's mother in a Q & A following the Bully Project screening in Washington, D.C. "Until you admit there's a problem, there won't be a solution," she said. Even after Tyler's suicide, officials in his school district told media that bullying is "not a major concern."

 How could this be?

Is it the overwhelmed frustration of the administrator in Alex's school who, after tending to an injured student, pleaded to the camera, "Tell me how to fix this"? The school personnel discussed in the film clearly do not have the interventions, the resources, and in some cases, the will, to create schools safe for students. But also, the parents of bullied students seem at a loss, both in advocating for their children at the school level and helping them develop resiliency. And then there are the students, many of whom don't know how to stand up to bullies without becoming victims or bullies themselves.

For this to change, schools need to be places where everyone talks about real issues like race and sexual orientation, said one panelist at the film screening. Broader definitions of school accountability that include school climate and are matched with resources, especially bullying intervention training for all school personnel, also seem like good ideas.

To get things rolling,The Bully Project aims to create dialogue that will move communities toward social change. We can change this building by building, filmmaker Hirsch told viewers. The film is slated for wide release November 11, 2011, and will be accompanied by a suite of online resources for teachers, parents, and kids.

As an educator, have you felt frustrated in your attempts to address bullying?

Differentiating "Drill and Kill?"

Education consultant Jane A. G. Kise's article in the summer 2011 online issue of Educational Leadership ("Let Me Learn it My Way!") discusses how each child shows different learning preferences along dimensions connected to Carl Jung's theories of personality (extraversion versus introversion and intuition versus sensing). 

In this blog post, Kise considers how learning styles determine which activities motivate kids.

Let's take a basic question such as, "Will practicing basic math facts improve student retention?" My answer? Maybe. Although I am a huge fan of mastering math facts for the automaticity that provides for more complex problems, I know that students with different learning styles react very differently to repetitive practice.

When I work with teachers, I often have them gather in groups according to their preferred learning styles connected to Carl Jung's ideas about personality. I ask teachers to discuss how, as students, they approached assignments such as diagramming sentences or completing 30 two-digit multiplication problems.

The Let Me Think group, like me, who has a profile of introversion and intuitive—usually reports that they often rushed through such assignments, making lots of mistakes. Some say that the more problems they did, the more they got wrong (this would be me; I wasn't allowed into Junior Great Books in 7th grade because of my low scores on diagramming sentences). Others report drifting off into daydreams while working on repetitive tasks, even as adults.

The Let Me Brainstorm group tackled the assignment if they wanted to please the teacher. Or, if they felt they had already mastered the material, they often refused to complete such worksheets. One said he did 10 such problems and brought it to his teacher, saying, "These are right. I'm not doing the rest."
The Let Me Do Something group reports that they needed the practice, but couldn't sit still. They'd do five problems and get up to sharpen a pencil. Five more and get a drink of water, and so on, five more and get in trouble for talking to a neighbor, and so on.

The Let Me Master It group often did the odd problems, even if the teacher only assigned the even ones, because they knew they would get them all correct. Know that this style includes a preponderance of our math teachers!

Teachers realize that what motivates one group shuts another down. We all need to be able to learn in all styles—a lot of content requires us to shift to a different style, no matter how hard that shifting is. But students by definition aren't mature! If we don't meet their needs, is it any wonder that they don't meet our expectations?

Do Interactive Whiteboards Make a Difference?

Students seem to like using interactive whiteboards (IWBs), but do they improve learning?

In last week's most-clicked ASCD SmartBrief story, teaching with IWBs is praised for opportunities for instant feedback on individual student learning, whole-class participation, visual learning, archiving and saving previous work, and focusing deeply on one piece of instruction. However, it's acknowledged that IWBs are only as good as the teachers who apply them. Teachers need support, training, and time to practice using IWBs.

Some say even that isn't enough: read Bill Ferriter's "Why I Hate Interactive Whiteboards" for a counterpoint to IWB advocacy. Ferriter says IWBs are an expensive PR tool for schools that want to appear innovative, when really IWBs just reinforce teacher-centric learning and essentially make stand-and-deliver instruction easier.

What do you think? Are IWBs worth the investment or a shiny distraction from substantive change?

In Case You Missed It

Here's what's hot at ASCD this week: 

• The free, online, summer issue of Educational Leadership on "Interventions: What's Working."
• Did you know? $1 billion per year is redirected to private schools from voucher/tax credit programs.
• As a culture, do we not-so-subtly suggest that real men don't read? 
• Going to Boston for #ascdsc11? Here's what to see, where to eat, and how to get around.
• Healthy School Communities Director Sean Slade blogs about moving past zero-tolerance disciplinary policies for the Washington Post.
• Neurologist and teacher Judy Willis on how writing helps in comprehension of STEM subjects.
• Every faculty knows their weakest link and nine other education gut-check statements.
• Curriculum leadership involves having a clear understanding of the district's goals. 
• The founder of #edchat on how our online safety policies hold us back from 21st century learning.
• Do we spend too much time on the "if" of education objectives rather than concentrate on the "when"?
• In the digital age, are you and your students looking and listening to one another?
• Zumba class teaches something about the frustration of learning.

 That's it--add your own highlights in the comments and check back here every week for more!

How Do You Choose an Intervention?

The October 2010 "Interventions That Work" issue of Educational Leadership was so popular, we've revisited it in this free, online summer issue of EL on "Interventions: What's Working."

So what's working?

• A program in a small, rural, middle school that's cultivated a schoolwide love of reading.
• Using how kids learn best to differentiate math interventions.
• Behavior supports that focus on changing the behavior, not just rewards.
• Elementary schools students getting an early taste of college.
• Giving 8th graders without a lot of out-of-school supports opportunities for hands-on high school and career readiness.
• A web-based planning and monitoring system for schools implementing RTI.
• Empowering high school English language learners to develop their own positive academic identity.
• Using a 5th grader's wish to stop all bullying to transform school culture.
• Strategies to create stable classroom communities for teenagers.
• Maintaining focus, and keeping students at the center, in an era of intense academic pressure.  

 What's your best source for interventions that work?

Albuquerque's Summer Recreation Program (1951)

When a square dance caller, rhythms and dance director, and hobbies and talent director get together, good things happen. In the case of Albuquerque Public Schools, these recreation personnel were among the staff gathered together 60 years ago to plan the district's summer recreation program, as documented in the February 1951 Educational Leadership.

Read the article: Albuquerque's Summer Recreation Program

Leaders of the program, appropriately enough, were chosen based on evidence of "wholesome recreation attitudes" and drew from K–12 staff as well as students in related fields at the University of New Mexico and the greater community.

Interestingly, the program was started after World War I and grew during the New Deal, under the Works Progress Administration program. The details of radio programs and arts and crafts are both a quaint throwback and a timeless reminder of what educators and their partners in the community can accomplish together—wholesome, productive summer fun.