#SOL18: March 9
Day 1
N wrote 2 paragraphs. (Approximately 11 lines)
I was there.
Day 2
N wrote 6 paragraphs. (Included dialogue and was 15 lines)
I was there.
Day 3
N wrote 4 paragraphs. (Approximately 10 lines)
I was not there but had left a video and a page of my writing.
So what’s my plan?
I’m a goal setter and a “UbD’er” (Understanding by Design – backwards planning).
Here’s my goal for next week. Use this paper and see if N can write at least one complete story of 3-4 pages with some conferencing each day.
Thank you, Melanie Meehan, for sharing your opinion and information scaffolded paper. The items in the box are from the third grade checklist. (link)
If he writes approximately 50 lines, that will be 333% increase over previous writing.
Success Goal:
Two of these stories in a week. Then remove the checklists from the paper and see if the writing volume remains high and constant.(Previously his writing work ranged from 2-4 lines in a day.)
To recap our work (or you can read here)
Week 1
Conference
Shared Writing
Shared Writing
Pseudo-Shared Writing via video
??? Student Choice
Week 2
Scaffolded Checklist Paper – Narrative Story Writing – Repeat 5 days
Week 3
Write Using “Regular” Writing Paper
What would you add to this plan?
What would your measure of success be?
How have you increased volume of writing for students?
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here. 
Trusted Resources
What was your “Most Trusted Resource” for 2017?
Who do you turn to?
I listened to the local meteorologist this morning to hear that the temperature was -10 with a wind chill of -35. I did not turn to the Weather Channel. I did not want to see an entire country enveloped in cold. My little region with the ticker of church cancellations across the bottom of the screen was sufficient. It met my needs. I did not need a second source. I already had verification when Mya was outside for less than one minute. It’s cold! It’s REALLY cold! Right now Iowa is as cold as the South Pole.
So if the local TV weather and my dog’s reaction were “enough” today . . . how do I typically make decisions about resources? Here’s the process that I typically use with my criteria.
1. What’s my learning goal?
Begin with the end in mind. What is the end point learning? What do I want to be able to know and do after the use of the resource that adds to my knowledge base? Because I value this thinking, I often search for UbD resources, Understanding by Design – Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. Resources built on a UbD framework already encapsulate some basic learning principles that I value as shown in this ASCD resource. How well does this learning goal align with the standards, assessments and learning targets? How will I measure learning. All of these questions and more are evaluated in the UbD process!
2. Are the resources accurate, useful, efficient, and relevant?
Putting four criteria together is daunting because these can and should all be evaluated separately. But here’s the deal, if they aren’t all present to a high degree, the resource is really useless. Not needed. Not wanted. Not going to be in a “fixer-upper” pile as life is too short to be re-working resources that are not accurate, useful, efficient, and relevant.
3. Have the resources been written, taught, and vetted using a process/protocol to improve them?
How were the resources developed? Were they written by persons who haven’t been in a classroom since they were students? Or are they written and reviewed by teachers who are constantly striving to improve their teaching practices and who are willing to work collaboratively and diligently to appropriately give credit to original authors for their ideas? Was a template or framework used so developed materials align vertically within the content area and horizontally across grade levels and content areas? What information is available about the process? What information is available about the review?
What resources meet this criteria?
One FREE source is found with the Massachusetts Department of Education. You will need to create an account (good for 30 days) and agree to honor copyright – you can’t profit from the work! Here’s the link – doe.mass.edu
“Why these resources?”
- Massachusetts is getting results in literacy.
- This resource comes from their state department of education website and was the result of a collaborative process Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe and hundreds of teachers.
- You can begin by using a unit and adding or subtracting learning activities based on the needs of your students.
- There is a TRANSFER goal in every unit.
- FREE
- Outcomes, Assessment, Standards, and Instruction are aligned. Resources are the last to be chosen. That’s a part of the UbD model!
- The resources are accurate, useful, efficient, and relevant.
- FREE
- The materials reference sources and are not plagiarized intellectual property.
- The units only require a registration (and renewal after 30 days).
Check out the resources NOW!
Access to multiple grade levels can help you with pre-requisite skills and learning expectations!
Grade 2 Example ELA Units:
Grade 9-10 Example ELA Units:
What are YOU waiting for?
How could using these units as “mentor” units help you increase student learning?
What process are you using when you search for learning resources?
#DigiLitSunday: Purpose
Check out other #DigiLit Sunday posts at Margaret Simon’s Reflections on the Teche here.
Purpose: The End or the Beginning?
In the process of getting ready for #NCTE16, I was considering not blogging about this topic today. And yet, here I am because of three different conversations this week. I vacillated between:
What’s the “purpose” for assessment?
What’s the “purpose” for instruction?
What’s the “purpose” for digital tools?
- What does the research say?
Doug Fisher and John Hattie both shared this effect size for “Teacher Clarity” in Iowa in separate October, 2016 professional development sessions. That’s well about the “.40” that is touted as a “cut score” and is almost the equivalent of TWO YEARS of learning for students. Therefore, Teacher Clarity is important in instruction, and equally important in assessment aligned with instruction and perhaps has the greatest importance in the selection of digital tools for students.
2. What do teachers need to consider in the planning process?
Teachers spend hours poring over lesson plans and planning for instruction that will meet ALL students’ needs. Searching for the right resources, planning that delivery that will empower students and most of all trying to make learning purposeful and engaging. That’s not easy as some content is hard for students to really “grapple with” for real understanding ans not just rote memorization. However, if the goal is “LEARNING” and is focused on Teacher Clarity, won’t that require the teacher to BEGIN with “What will the students know and be able to Do after they complete this learning? So the teacher process might include some or all of these steps depending on the curriculum that exists and the expectations of any given curriculum.
Retrieved from ict/lesson plan
Each step in the process above has ideas for “possible tools” to use during the planning and / or learning process.
3. But what about the learning environment?
Which classroom promote accelerated learning for students? How and where are students preparing for today, tomorrow and life “after school”?
What should classrooms look like?
4. What tools should the teacher and the students use?
The learning purpose should determine the possible range of tools that both the teacher and the students will use. Will the students ALWAYS have a voice in selecting the tools? Probably not, YET. Should the students have a bigger voice in selecting the tools that will showcase their learning? YES! Students should be allowed encouraged to showcase their learning in a variety of ways. Learning should not always look like “cookie cutter” factory models.
As I’ve thought about purpose and its role in learning, this is the way that I have viewed it . . . with “purpose” as a critical factor at each level.
But now I wonder if “PURPOSE” should be the circle that houses the other four circles. Maybe purpose really is all encompassing and is the “driver” behind all decisions. So are the learning targets the center and purpose the frame for all learning?
Where do you believe “Purpose” lives in the daily decision-making processes involved in instruction?
#SOL14: Pushing Ourselves
Tuesday is the day to share a “Slice of Life” with Two Writing Teachers. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here. Thanks to Stacey, Anna, Beth, Tara, Dana and Betsy for creating a place for us to work collaboratively.
As professionals, how do we show that we are learning and growing?
Is it in our annual professional growth plan?
Is it a part of our daily work?
For those of us who are PD providers, how do we maintain that trust with teachers that is evidence that we are continually learning and growing?
How do I continually push myself?
My evidence would include:
- over two years of blogging here at Resource-Full
- daily participation in the March 2014 Slice of Life Story Challenge (My goals and my writing)
- weekly participation in Slice of Life 14
- regular participation in weekly #TCRWP chats
- regular participation in the #Fallinginlovewithclosereading chats and blogs
- infrequent participation in #ira, #noticeandnote, #ncte, and #educoach chats
- daily responses to questions and concerns that arise from teaching situations
After a two day UbD training opportunity, my partner and I received the following comment from a teacher: ““This was very beneficial. It was one of the best PD experiences that I have participated in. I can walk away saying that I learned a lot. This is the first time that I have actually been able to put the Iowa Core Standards into action!” What a compliment for both of us! One reason that we both “pushed” for the UbD work was to literally help our teachers gain a deeper understanding of the Iowa Core as they aligned the desired results with the assessments and the learning plan!
Where did the question about learning, growing, and pushing ourselves come from?
A tweet last week . . .
“If we aren’t pushing ourselves everyday to be a better version of ourselves, how can we ask kids to do that for us?”
The author of that tweet was @venspired shown below!
How do you continually push yourself? What does your evidence look like?
#OLW14 Meets #SOL14
Tuesday is the day to share a “Slice of Life” with Two Writing Teachers. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here. Thanks to Stacey, Anna, Beth, Tara, Dana and Betsy for creating a place for us to work collaboratively.
My One Little Word (#OLW14) for this year is
Our focus for curriculum development for all content areas is Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design (UbD). UbD is one of three models typically used in Iowa. Since June, we have worked with four different groups of ELA teachers and administrators to begin development of “units” through the UbD planning process. We have also worked with two content area groups on how to use the ELA Standards for all content areas as required by the Iowa Core Standards. Jay McTighe will be in Iowa next week for the fall ASCD conference to work with educators on unit design to improve understanding. What a great opportunity to increase our own understanding of UbD.
In the UbD model, what is transfer?
Grant Wiggins says it is the “Point of Education” as teachers plan, teach and assess for transfer including long-term goals. In a post that includes that phrase, Wiggins defines transfer as:
“[Transfer is] the ability to extend what has been learned in one context to new contexts. Educators hope that students will transfer learning from one problem to another within a course, from one year in school to another, between school and home, and from school to workplace. Assumptions about transfer accompany the belief that it is better to broadly “educate” people than simply “train” them to perform particular tasks.” (“Transfer as the Point of Education”)
Does transfer happen automatically?
As a teacher have you ever taught something, given students time to practice, used a formative assessment, but still had students fail the summative task? I think that the typical ubiquitous spelling list often led this category for many students. Transfer can only happen when there is reflection, analysis, and generalization from the lessons learned as “rote memory tasks” do not typically “transfer” learning.
So are hands-on projects conducive to “transfer” of learning for students?
Wiggins says, “The typical hands-on project – done for all the right reasons – does not assess for transfer if the student 1) gets help all along the way in completing the project, 2) the work is highly contextualized, and 3) little demand is typically made whereby the student must draw general and transferable lessons from the doing of this and other projects.” The thought that projects are often not about transfer can also be a reason to stop and think about the purpose of the performance task that is being used. Is it a new, real, and relevant situation? (“Transfer as the Point of Education”)
What does transfer look like?
In this UbD video, Wiggins talks about soccer and education. “The goal is not to see if they got what you taught; the goal is to see if they can use it when you are gone. The goal is NOT to be better at school.” Specific information about Transfer Goals can be found in this video by Jay McTighe. Additional articles and blog posts include:
From Common Core to Curriculum: Five Big Ideas
So how does transfer fit into my life as a Reading Specialist? What are my expectations?
Considering Transfer and Professional Development. . . .
I will model a lesson / strategy / practice and then:
- Teachers will practice and use modeled lesson in PD..
- Teachers will use lesson in classrooms.
- Teachers will independently use lesson in other content areas/situations in their lives!
Considering Transfer and Students . . . .
Teachers will model a lesson / strategy / practice and then:
- Students will practice and use the lesson in class.
- Students will use the lesson in other classrooms where not taught.
- Students will apply the learning on their own, in any situation, without help!
Possibilities for transfer . . .
There are many paths for instruction, further work with UbD and even this post by Anna Gratz Cockerille, “Using assessment tools to teach transference”. with my “One Little Word” I am looking for transfer every day.
What is your understanding of “transfer”? Do you see teachers or students “transferring” their learning?
Resource - Full 