Posts Tagged 'Model'

Creating Imaginary Worlds in the Class

Published May 8, 2009 21st Century , Imagination , learning , Project-based , Science , Shakespeare , Simulation , Student , Virtual , Web 2.0 Leave a Comment
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Some educators feel strongly that schools should use virtual worlds to engage today’s youth. I remember a distant time when teachers had the power to create imaginary worlds in the class. A Social Studies would tell about the Civil War from the viewpoint of a teenager as his middle school students enter in that teenager’s struggles.  An English teacher used A Midsummer’s Nights Dream to explore young love for high school students. They understand the world of crazy love, mistaken love, and true love. The play becomes a vehicle for them to explore an important issue in their lives.  A science teacher had the students adopt a local stream; they tell the stream’s story throughout the school year. They write as if they were the living stream.  Teachers have the power to create wonderful worlds in the classroom.  Students can be transported to other places, times, and events and see through the eyes of others. They learn more in-depth and more comprehensively.

Can you create imaginary worlds in your class so that students enter into a different world? Do you transport them to a different realm of seeing and thinking?  Get your Merlin’s wand out!

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students, is available through Eye-on-Education.

Reponding to Your Students

Making the learning stick

Published November 17, 2008 Achievement , Activity , Answer , Class , Content , Curriculum , Education , Engagement , Experience , Formative , Formative assessment , Growth , Guide , Instruction , Learn , Learner , Lesson , Material , Meaning , Model , Participation , Teach , Teacher , Teaching 2 Comments
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When I was putting the insulation on my windows, I had two different products. One had the instruction of waiting fifteen minutes before I removed the backing to the two sided tape. The other did not have that instruction. The fifteen minute wait tape was far superior to the other.

I wonder how much time we give our students to stick to their new learning before we ask them to use it. Fisher and Fry suggest in Better Learning Through Structured Teaching that when we give our initial modeling of the new learning, we do not ask students to actively participate but, instead they are to think about this new learning. If they do not firmly understand the modeling before we ask them to practice it, then there is a high likely hood that they will do it incorrectly. Their first steps of doing it wrong will be cemented into their brains. Instead, we can model the learning for them and go over an exemplar of it. We can let them think about the new learning and then scaffold them through it.

Let’s organizing our teaching so that we allow students plenty of time to think about the new learning before they are asked to do it. Let’s let them get firmly stuck to the new learning before they use it.

For any one who is interested in implementing formative assessment in the classroom, my book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students is available through Eye-on-Education.

Exemplar Collecting and Using For High Quality Learning

Published October 18, 2008 Accountability , Achievement , Assess , Assessment , assessment for learning , collaboration , Content , Curriculum , Education , Empowerment , Engagement , Evaluate , Example , Exemplar , Learn , Learner , Model , Proficiency , Proficient , Quality , Success Leave a Comment
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At one of the colleges I teach at, I had to submit material for a course review. I was pleased to receive not only a perfect 3/3 but also to be asked to send some of my material in as exemplary work. However, I became even more interested when I found out that this college that has at least six different campuses is collecting exemplars. My question becomes “When are they going to share these exemplars with the faculty so that we can improve by seeing the excellent work that our colleagues are doing?”

I would suggest that we all collect exemplars at our schools and use them to improve our teaching and our students’ learning. Have each teacher submit his/her best student paper, project, etc. For example, each English 9th grade teacher can submit one excellent student paper for the major types of writing. The teachers can physically put them in a cabinet or even better they can put them onto an English Wiki so that teachers at any given time can access these exemplars. These instructors can discuss with each other what makes each exemplary. They can all come to the same idea about what exemplary work is. Furthermore,They can use these exemplar papers to raise the learning level of their students. The instructors will have many exemplars for their students so that the students can realize that the high quality can be shown in many diverse ways.

Get your team to start collecting and using exemplars now!

For any one who is interested in implementing formative assessment in the classroom, my book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students is available through Eye-on-Education.

High Quality Student Work Early in the Semester

Published October 2, 2008 Accountability , Achievement , Assess , Assessment , assessment for learning , celebrate , Content , Model , monitor , Rubric , scaffold , Structure , Student , student learning , Success , Teacher Leave a Comment
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My students have given their first speech in my college oral presentation course. I analyzed their entering speaking skills and adjusted the curriculum. We have gone over the speech rubric, analyzed three speeches using the rubric, analyzed the text of one speech, and created a template that incorporates good presentation. They organized their ideas with a graphic organizer. We spent time going over techniques for relieving nerves. They did a practice speech to a partner who gave feedback. As my students gave their first speeches, I was in shock. Wonderful Shock. Their speeches were actually at the same high level as the final speeches of my students from last semester even though this semester’s students are only in the third week of class. I had raised the bar for these students, they understood the high expectations and they had the tools to help them reach that high.

I congratulated the class on a superior job in presenting. I look forward to hearing their other speeches as they shine even more.

How do you structure your class so that your students soar in their learning? What do you do so that this year’s students do drastically better than last year’s?

If you are interested in implementing formative assessment in the classroom, my book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students is available through Eye-on-Education.

Making a Think-Aloud: A Challenging Task

Published March 29, 2008 21st Century Skills , Assess , Assessment , assessment for learning , Formative , Formative assessment , Model , Think , Think aloud , write , Writing 1 Comment
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I’ve spend several hours this morning working on a think-aloud about writing a contrast paper that I will, hopefully, record tomorrow and post to YouTube. I have found that as I went to create charts to represent my thinking about how to write a contrast paper, I had to insert more details. I would have to stop myself and say, “What am I thinking now?” I had to add details one by one to represent how a student would think. What are three main differences? The first is … The second is… Also, as a teacher, I had to think of where the students were likely to make mistakes and to emphasize those points. For example, often writing students write down evidence without thinking of how it provides a contrast to the evidence already existing for a certain category.

It is a challenging exercise to do a think-aloud in which I, as a teacher, have to think through each mental step a student needs to make. I now realize that, in the past, I made some mental leaps in my instruction and I now understand why  numerous students did not leap with me.

Have you created a think-aloud?

Greater Learning Through Same Model and Technology

Published March 26, 2008 Academic , Accountability , Achievement , Assess , Assessment , assessment for learning , Curriculum , ELA , English , Formative , Formative assessment , Model , scaffold , technology 2 Comments
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I talked to a student who had been in the same English classes with several friends from 9th through 12 grade. Each year they had a different teacher and each year that teacher taught them “their” way of writing. When the students got to 12th grade, they just said to the teacher, “Tell us how you want us to write.” She taught them her “official” way of writing. These students are living proof that constantly changing what we expect of students results in less than proficient writers.

How can we expect students to improve in their writing if we constantly change how they should write? They will only improve when we build on one consistent model. They same is true for all subjects.

Do you get together with your department (K-12) to talk over what you expect of students and what model the students will follow? Do various teachers produce Power Points, emovies or podcasts to demonstrate that consistent model? Do other teachers help develop scaffolded handouts or Power Points that guide students through the model?

Modeling Think Alouds with Emovie

Published March 18, 2008 21st Century Skills , Assess , Assessment , assessment for learning , Model , TeacherTube , Think , Think aloud , YouTube Leave a Comment
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How do we model the thinking for students so that they learn how to think in our subject area? We can do think-alouds in which we think aloud “When I.., I..”  or “What if ….” .However, if we do an in-class think-aloud then our students have nothing to refer to do as they work at home. What if we do an emovie of our think-aloud where they hear and see our thinking? We can show how we complete a graphic organizer or draw a model of something.  We could put the think-aloud up on Youtube, Teachertube, or our district server. Students can view our think-aloud so that they can develop the same thinking process. They will begin to think in a scientific fashion, a language arts fashion, a mathematical fashion, etc.

Homework Feedback Using Models/Exemplars

Published November 12, 2007 Accountability , Achievement , Assessment , assessment for learning , Feedback , Formative , Formative assessment , Homework , learning , Student 2 Comments
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We spent numerous classes going over the outcome of writing a persuasion letter. I had my students write (“word process”) several persuasion letters for homework. When they came into the class with their homework, I gave them a model/exemplar written answer for each of the homework letters. I asked them to compare their own letters with the model letters. They wrote in the margin of their letters what they now would do to improve their letters. I gave them the option of redoing their letters before they handed them in.

Their students offered great self-reflections. “I realize by their listing the items, they are easier to read.” “They started off by really getting their attention. I just made a general statement.” “The letter made me really want to buy the product. They showed how my life would be so much safer with it. I had listed some advantages but did not emphasize the emotional appeal of these advantages.”

How do give your students feedback on their homework through models?

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