Sunday, April 24, 2016

Grading Practices: A Courageous Conversation

With our conversations the last few months about grading, I have been reading bloggers that spend time writing just about that.  This blog is from Alan Miller.  Click here to read it.  He calls the conversation about grading a "courageous one" to have.  I agree.

The article is a bit longer....please don't stop here...than what I usually have in this PD blog.

Here are some questions to consider:

1.  He says that he doesn't grade any of his formative assessments.  What does he consider a formative assessment?  How does he gauge student learning?
2.  He deviates between assessment and grading.  Do you agree with his deviation?  Can this help you?
3.  "My students cared more about the points than they did the class."  His direct quote.  How did he address that?

Sunday, April 17, 2016

"This One Is For You Sir"

This week I am going to ask that you watch a short 2 minute clip from Dr. Adolph Brown.

Click here to see the video clip.  The clip is a small piece of a bigger talk that Dr. Brown was giving.  Even though it is a small piece of the whole talk, I think it has a some important items to think on.  I realize that he references gangs in the clip as an obstacle for learning in the setting he is in.  That doesn't affect us but we can insert any learning obstacle there.

Here is a bit of information about Dr. Brown.
http://www.docspeaks.com/


Questions To Think About:
1.  Do you connect to the video clip at all?
2.  What can you put in place of the learning obstacle of gangs in our setting in Henry County?
3.  Can you use the "communication style" that Dr. Brown did when the man was leaving the building?

Sunday, April 10, 2016

50 Online Resources In One Tweet- Personal PD Pays Off Again...

This week I am going to feature a link tweeted by SimpleK12 (@SimpleK12).  The tweet is titled 50 free tech resources for your classroom.  You can take the time to look at the whole list.  I want to feature a few of them.  The interesting idea for me is that as I read the list, I know we have a number of them that are being used in our classrooms.

Click here to see the link.

Blabberize (make pictures that talk)-http://blabberize.com/
We all know how much students like to add un-needed items to the presentations for class.  Maybe this can be used to let them do that but add content to the "funny" part of the presentation.

Spiderscribe.net (organizing notes and idea)
This tool looks to have endless application for students or even adult students.  The site allows you to organize thoughts and ideas in a practical way.  The organization comes in the way of organizing files (google, word etc..) over a topic.  This may not be for all students but it seems it could be beneficial to some.

Littelbirdtales.com (digital story telling)
Are you looking for a new way to assess student learning?  Is taking a summative assessment just not fitting all your students????  This site helps students in the digital story telling area.  Students can create their stories, papers etc digitally for assessment.  The site is extensive and has some other great tools.

Enjoy

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Differentiation For Instruction

The information presented this week comes from the ASCD publication "Classroom Instruction That Works."
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/classroom-instruction-that-works.aspx

Click here to view part of an article that was published by John McCarthy called
"Mythbusting Differentiation: Solutions to Make Differentiation a Reality"


Questions to Consider:

1. The suggestion to teach students multiple note taking strategies and let them pick what one to use is very interesting.  Just last week I was in a post conference with a teacher and they were talking about this very practice.  How can you differentiate note taking in your classroom?

2.  What is growth mindset language?  That would be a great item to Google and read about.

3.  At the top end of learning "synthesizing."  Think about how you can have students generate and test hypotheses?  This seems easy in a science classroom but how about an English/Math/SS classroom?