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Dangerously Irrelevant: The good old days before NCLB? points to this post No good old days at Joanne Jacobs
Joanne Jacobs questions NCLB critics romance of the days before NCLB. Since the state I work in was already on a path to standards based instruction and trying to have some coherence in planning and delivery, NCLB ended up being a messy overlay that has skewed that entire process and really complicated matters.
If NCLB is the answer, I wonder about what questions were asked? Continuing on this thread…
2¢ Worth » A Conversation about Failure Annotated David Warlick talks about hearing Henry Winkler (who has a learning disability) who was a speaker at the same event he was talking at. Since both he and Mr. Winkler suffered in schools they attended before NCLB, those environments did not serve them well, but David still finds that NCLB is leaving students behind because it is not well implemented.
NCLB has achieved much. There are certainly children who are learning to read and do math, who were being ignored before. But the real tragedy of the program is the narrowness of its focus, and the lack of vision when identifying skill and talent.
How many of our children are dropping out of high school because they feel unable.
How many of our children are being made to fell unworthy!
dy/dan » Blog Archive » Teaching the Red Dot Right Annotated Brings up what is 2.0 classroom indirectly, when he asks for Web2.0 types to pimp his lesson…
First Ken responds:
If you’re satisfied with the level of student engagement, questioning, investigating, predicting, blah blah and so on down Bloom’s Taxonomy, then what are you really hoping to hear?
Me, I’d just celebrate this lesson.
The 2.0 crowd (and as a Tech Integrator / Instructional Specialist I must be included) surely doesn’t believe that everything needs a zap through the 2.0microwave.
Then, Dan asks Chris Lehman:
Yeah, that’s what I’m looking for. And, not to quibble, but pretty much any inquiry-based project (not just the School 2.0 variety) is gonna push past the hour I’ve budgeted for this unit.
Do you find that you can hit all the state standards and still maintain your project-based stance at SLA?
And continues in the next post…
dy/dan » Blog Archive » Whatever I’m Getting Wrong Annotated
I dunno. Whatever School 2.0 thinks I’m getting wrong.
None of it targets me, I realize, but lecture (by which I mean a teacher leading a classroom, not a teacher talking at a classroom) has become this ‘net-wide punching bag.
The implicit (and sometimes explicit) suggestion in all that pugilism is that anything we’ve been doing (such as lecture) can be done just as well with networks, project-based learning, 21st-century tools, etc.
Even teaching in a computer lab, I lecture. I think Dan has the right attitude it should be leading not talking at the classroom. I also keep it short, and when I had my own class, I would try (not always successfully) to break it up into short lecture, then activity.
Ken on his blog leads me to this…
the why of it all: if these microwaves could talk
Ken builds a really brilliant analogy by starting with the story of the abused microwave that has been donated to the faculty lounge, where everyone uses it, but no one read the directions. The microwave sends out an email saying it’s quitting it’s job.
After softening you up, he then talks about how these same teachers who don’t RTFM (microwave instructions), are shocked, yes shocked, when students fail to read their written directions.
This brings me to a reflection I’m having on my practice related to this. I start each session with students in lab telling them orally, what they need to complete during the session. I’ve had them ask me repeatedly, “What am I supposed to do?” minutes after this. I’ve tried having them confirm my directions (how many sentences? hold up your fingers). Instead of telling one class again, student by student as they ask, I pointed to their screens and asked them to read. I don’t get pissed or shocked, some kids can’t remember what they heard five or 10 minutes ago, so they have it two ways, written and oral. If they still don’t get it, they can ask me or a neighbor. Any other suggestions on clarity of delivery in lesson objectives will be read with interest and care.
AND…
Video: Zombies in Plain English | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English , which is just in time for Halloween!
To end it, what would your staff room microwave say if it could talk?
5 responses so far ↓
1
ken rodoff
// Oct 28, 2007 at 6:29 pm
I’ve used the C3B4ME and I’ve always enjoyed how it plays out, because there’s always that one student who asks a classmate ‘what are we supposed to do?’ and the answer comes off as a ‘Oh, I wish I could say that!’.
In the end, repetition is often needed for people to internalize instructions.
Internalization: I don’t see that on the NETS standards. Hmmm…
2
alicemercer
// Oct 28, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Okay, now I’m gonna put you on the spot, explain how to do it Ken. Thanks for the comment…
3
ken
// Oct 30, 2007 at 8:49 am
Wow! How to get students to internalize, eh???
Well, even though I just love the word ‘internalize’, I’d like to believe that words like ‘process’, ’synthesize’, and ‘inquire’ all fall under the ‘internalization’ blanket, so I’ll move forward here with my own tacit approval.
The easiest answer; and by easiest I mean to say, “the one that is really easy to write, but extremely difficult to demonstrate”, is to create lessons that convince/cajole/sucker-punch kids into thinking that the content is useful.
I’ve seen this. As the coach of the women’s lacrosse team, I created a wiki for the team last year. When I made it, I really had no vision as to how it would be used, or even if it would be used. I set up a home page, typed a couple of introductory phrases and created one page link, “Ideas for Drills”.
Within 48 hours after I had invited everyone to the space, 36 drills had been suggested by 23 different players. Additionally, new pages emerged: Team Building Activities; College Games to See; Scouting Reports; Game Theory; and a host of others. The players populated the site. It was content driven. No idle chit-chat, no Facebook.
Suddenly, I had the most successful wiki I had ever been a part of. But then I became slightly depressed. These kids, kids that also sat in my classes, were not as active in the class wiki. I had done such a whiz-bang job of populating the class wiki that I never afforded them the opportunity to make meaning of the content on their own.
I deleted the wiki and started over. I followed the simplicity of the lacrosse wiki and then, boom!, about a week later, students had populated the site. Pages for each of the novels suddenly emerged. Student-generated discussion prompts grew and grew. All the good stuff.
Now, here’s one problem/obstacle/opportunity: how to assess.
For the lacrosse wiki, assessment wasn’t needed. No one gets graded for lacrosse. When reduced to its core (from a competitive standpoint), it’s about wins and losses. But for an English12 class wiki, students were creating content and I had not put parameters in place to grade their work.
And then I had an ‘ah-ha!’ moment:
I would not grade the English wiki. Lacrosse is measured in wins and losses; English in student-understanding, communication, and other essential skills. If the wiki allowed them to make meaning, to practice communication, to work on analysis, then who was I to tell them that what they were saying was erroneous? Or, more to the point, who was I to tell them they were off-target and then grade them for attempting to do what I wanted them to do all along: work with the literature!? I had plenty of assessments already in place. Not like I needed another one!
All these snazzy-jazzy tech-tools are enhancements (I’m not saying something new here), but when they are subtly infused with the core curriculum, they can work.
I’m 1 for 1 on this one. Now I just have to find a colleague willing to try the same approach.
If I get to that point, I think I’ll be well on my way to a non-BS-doctorate.
4
ken rodoff
// Oct 30, 2007 at 5:48 pm
I composed a fantastic response, replete w/ examples and reasons.
Then, good ole’ Wordpress crashed while processing my comment.
And you know what? Ya can’t go back and retrieve a comment.
Like Keyser Soze, it’s gone!
Maybe when my mood improves, I’ll give it another crack.
5
alicemercer
// Oct 30, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Hey, it’s there Ken!
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