Archive for the ‘
student achievement ’ Category
The last time I shared with you dear readers, I was deeply immersed in reacquainting myself with high school culture. As I said before, the experience, both being new to teaching and rising early in the morning, was a shock to my system. Since, I have adjusted to my new early-morning schedule and have left what had become the familiar foundation of high school to the often warbling ways of the middle school.
I remember the first conversation I had with an inquiring person in reference to my teaching pursuit:
Person: “So, what do you want to teach?”
Me: “English and Social Studies.”
Person: “How nice… what grade level are you thinking?”
Me: “I think I would be a great fit in a middle school.”
Person: “Middle school?! I could never do that! No way.”
This is an exchange I have encountered many times since. So I have been left questioning myself: “Why does the mere mention of middle school carry such a stigmatized reaction?” (more…)
Category:
student achievement, teaching strategies |
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Tags: boring middle school, Middle school, teaching in middle school
As part of my student teaching experience, I am teaching a unit on world religions with a focus on the Abrahamic Faiths (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). From this, we are narrowing in on the conflict in Israel and Palestine and examining conflict resolution. We are then exploring how this can be tied into Romeo and Juliet (the other unit I am teaching) and the feud between the Montagues and Capulets.
With that being said, I felt compelled to write about an experience I had while teaching this unit that I found to be unique to the type of school I am teaching at. During our examination of the beliefs and practices of the Abrahamic Faiths, I arranged a field trip for our class to visit the places of prayer and worship of these faiths. We visited a Jewish synagogue, Islamic mosque, and Eastern Orthodox Church, and religious leaders in each very graciously hosted us.
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Category:
student achievement |
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Tags: charter schools, church and state, community learning, conflict resolution, field trips, Israel, Joshua Tabshy, Palestine, place-based learning, religion in the classroom
In reflecting on my practicum experience at the high school level, the one thing that stuck with me above all else did not involve grading, lesson plans, or even classroom management. It was something that went beyond the curriculum and beyond the standards. It was something that even in my relatively brief teaching career will forever change my own perception of myself as an educator. It was a connection. A connection between a teacher and his students, which, in turn, fostered a similar connection between the teacher and his students’ parents—a mutual respect that blossomed through the desire to go above and beyond.
As I sat in the classroom, anxiously awaiting my opportunity to sit-in on my first parent-teacher conference, a myriad of thoughts swirled through my mind. What if they ask me how their son is doing in class? “Why is my daughter scoring so low on your quizzes, and what are you going to do about it?” or “my Johnny is not being challenged in your class.” Granted, I was only observing, but what if? In reality, this was most likely going to be a fairly dull two hours with discussions about absences, missing assignments, and low test scores. I was sure there would also be highlights about aced quizzes, perfect attendance, and “what a joy Lucy is to have in class.”
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Category:
parent involvement, student achievement, student success, teacher appreciation, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies |
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Tags: Joshua Tabshy, parent teacher conferences
Here it comes…the first day of school! Walking through the doors, you can feel the exhilarating mixture of excitement and nervousness in the air. Kids will be meeting new teachers, seeing old friends, and showing off their stylin’ new clothes. It’s fantastic fun for some, but for students with high geographic mobility, the prospect of yet another new school, filled with unfamiliar faces isn’t exciting—it’s scary. How can teachers help these kids feel welcome, and make their transition into another new environment a little easier?
Students with high geographic mobility are those who have attended many schools during their K-12 years due to frequent moves. For some families, moving more than once in the course of a single school year is common. Usually these moves are associated with employment, housing, or relationship problems, and can be a contributing factor in low academic achievement (http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/student-mobility/).
Every child is different, and deals with change in his or her own way. I spoke with several friends who moved around a lot, attending as many as 11 schools during their K-12 years. They were all affected differently.
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Category:
student achievement, student success, teaching strategies |
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Tags: classroom tactics, new students, student achievement, student engagement, student mobility, teaching strategies
I may be revealing how much television I watch, but those K12.com Oregon Virtual Academy commercials are everywhere these days. Issues of school choice aside, their refrain of praises for online learning has me thinking more and more lately about the role of technology in education. How will new technologies help students’ learning? How will digital tools change the classroom? Will all these developments help create critical thinkers and global entrepreneurs (with “21st century skills”), or will they disconnect people from each other and create a generation of frenzied consumers of the overwhelming digital stream of information?
In our current ChalkBloggers poll, not one person has selected “Utilizing new technologies” as the most important element of classroom instruction. That’s a relief to me. I would never want a teacher to sacrifice real interactions (like providing constructive feedback and creating a positive and open learning environment, the two top answers) to let a computer do it for them. No one wants robotic teaching.
But certainly, lessons can be enhanced with new digital resources—and more and more, this and future generations of technology-steeped children will need to be reached with constructive interactive tools in the classroom. No one can completely shut off to new technologies and risk being left behind. The trick is finding a balance and carefullychoosing the most effective tools that will enrich, not distract from, student learning.
But how to sort through the myriad options that seem to be growing and changing even faster everyday? It seems like a full-time job just to keep up. But I’ve found a few new online resources (of course) that look to do the work for you.
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Category:
education technology, innovation, student achievement, student success, teaching strategies |
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Tags: classroom tactics, innovation, resources, student achievement, student engagement, teaching strategies, technology
I love reform. I’m excited that as a state and nation we are looking at making changes to public education. But sometimes in moving forward, it’s good to look back.
I’ve been moved to look back at my earlier career by the publicity around Jose Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and product of the California middle school where I taught. I’ve been thinking about the Jose days (mid-90s) and the staff and organization of that school. Of course, he is only one student, but there were many new immigrant kids who did quite well there. So what were we doing there that worked?
One thing that we did have was lots of faculty communication across the grade levels. I taught an intense and rigorous program partly because it was jointly developed by all the teachers on the 5th grade team. We met every Wednesday during prep, opened our plan books and shared. As a 5th grade teacher in a 5-8th grade school, I was reminded in staff meetings and in passing about where kids needed to be in order to be successful in later grades. There was a mindset that we were preparing kids for college. It helped that we were a Silicon Valley school sitting in the shadow of Yahoo, Netscape and SGI, where innovation and hard work were cultural norms in the neighborhood.
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Category:
education reform, professional development for educators, student achievement, teaching strategies |
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Tags: classroom tactics, collaborative culture, education reform, innovation, learning styles, professional development for teachers, reflection, student achievement, student engagement, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies
There are some very inspirational leaders in the education profession. These are the people who seem to have the capacity to view the big picture and articulate so clearly what they see and hear. Linda Nathan, headmaster of Boston Arts Academy, author, and Harvard instructor in democratic schools, is such a leader.
Linda came to Oregon in May as the keynote speaker at the Oregon Small Schools Leadership Institute in Ashland. The theme of the one day Institute, led by E3 Small Schools Director Kathy Campobasso, was “moving forward.” Linda spoke with rich and vivid examples on the importance of leadership with a strong and clear vision and about the complexities of sustaining the work of personalizing education through the power of small. Principals, teacher leaders, teachers, superintendents, and board members from 22 small high schools participated in a variety of break-out sessions. They shared outstanding practices that are happening in their schools and celebrated the positive results.
Students from southern Oregon small schools presented a panel on their small high school experiences. The concluding forum was presented by Duncan Wyse, Executive Director of E3, Barbara Gibbs of Meyer Memorial Trust, and Linda Nathan on the importance and challenges of moving forward with positive school change on the state and national level. All were inspirational!
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Category:
small schools, student achievement, student success |
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Tags: class size, collaborative culture, innovation, inspiration, Oregon schools, student achievement
Story #1: I teach International Relations at West Linn High, a course juniors and seniors can take to fulfill a social studies requirement. Part way through the spring semester, I was discouraged to realize that over half my 100 IR students were missing assignments. Considering we’d averaged only one homework assignment per week, and a couple of the assignments were quite easy, I was troubled. It is my goal only to assign homework I believe will benefit students, and when they don’t complete homework it hampers their ability to succeed.
So with complete parental and administrative support, I sprang a surprise on students: If you do not complete every assignment, you will not pass this class. Even if you’re earning a passing grade, if you have even one missing assignment, I will enter “incomplete” in the gradebook and you will not receive a credit. Some were shocked, realizing that no credit could mean not graduating.
I was nervous about the new policy. I wondered whether all students would pull through, and if they didn’t, if I’d be willing to be the one obstacle that stood between them and graduation. I wondered whether at crunch time a parent would challenge the policy.
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Category:
parent involvement, student achievement, student success, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies |
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Tags: at risk students, reflection, student achievement, student engagement, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies
Here’s my bottom line: The most important task of a school leader is to embrace the challenge of having a clear and shared vision of equitable outcomes for all students. It is the democratic principle of fairness upon which our country is founded and the basis for truly changing the achievement gaps that now prevail.
With the recent news that only 66% of Oregon students graduate high school, it’s clear that this vision does not “just happen.” It has to be owned and shared by the whole school community. It must be intentional, planned, implemented and supported to be sustainable. It must be evident every day, every week and every month in every classroom. All students, teachers and parents need to know and own a common vision of outcomes at their school. What must each student know and be able to do when he/she graduates? When this is clear and held dear, there is a true school spirit.
All students come from somewhere special, each with different backgrounds, different experiences and different circumstances. The whole of their differences is the beautiful mosaic of school. And when they come through the school doors, they are in a place where equity can happen. But there must be a roadmap for success for each student in each classroom across these differences.
Teachers must lead the way for the students. They must know their students well, understanding them across all their differences. They must ask the question: What does it take for a student to enter a school at one level of achievement, move forward, and then graduate with the highest potential achievement? That’s the daily challenge of teaching, at every level.
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Category:
education achievement gap, equity, student achievement, student success, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies |
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Tags: achievement gap, at risk students, classroom tactics, creativity, education reform, inspiration, learning styles, reflection, student achievement, student engagement, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies
There have been a number of different studies that explored the impact of educators on student achievement. Now many researchers have turned to the question of measuring effective teaching. How do you know it when you see it? What can we learn from highly effective educators?
A recent study by Tom Kane, Eric Taylor, John Tyler, and Amy Wooten set out to answer the question: Is there a correlation between teacher gain in classroom observation scores and gains in student achievement?
Using data from Cincinnati’s teacher evaluation system from 2000 through the end of the 2009 school year, the researchers found, in short, the answer is yes.
The Cincinnati evaluation system entails four separate classroom observations per school year during a teacher’s evaluation cycle. Teachers are graded on 1-to-4 scale on a number of different standards. With teachers that achieved an improved rank at least one point up on the scale, researchers also saw some gains in the reading and math achievement of their students.
The research seems to indicate, then, that there is a correlation between improved teacher evaluation scores and improved learning. The conclusion suggests that classroom observations and evaluations may actually be a good measure of teaching as it relates to student achievement.
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Category:
research, student achievement, teacher effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations |
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Tags: research, student achievement, teacher effectiveness, teacher evaluation
