Monthly Archives: March 2012

More on the Flipped Classroom

It’s called “the flipped classroom.” While there is no one model, the core idea is to flip the common instructional approach: With teacher-created videos and interactive lessons, instruction that used to occur in class is now accessed at home, in advance of class. Class becomes the place to work through problems, advance concepts, and engage in collaborative learning. Most importantly, all aspects of instruction can be rethought to best maximize the scarcest learning resource—time.

Flipped classroom teachers almost universally agree that it’s not the instructional videos on their own, but how they are integrated into an overall approach, that makes the difference. In his classes, Bergmann says, students can’t just “watch the video and be done with it.” He checks their notes and requires each student to come to class with a question. And, while he says it takes a little while for students to get used to the system, as the year progresses he sees them asking better questions and thinking more deeply about the content. After flipping his classroom, Bergmann says he can more easily query individual students, probe for misconceptions around scientific concepts, and clear up incorrect notions.

Counterintuitively, Bergmann says the most important benefits of the video lessons are profoundly human: “I now have time to work individually with students. I talk to every student in every classroom every day.” Traditional classroom interactions are also flipped. Typically, the most outgoing and engaged students ask questions, while struggling students may act out. Bergmann notes that he now spends more time with struggling students, who no longer give up on homework, but work through challenging problems in class. Advanced students have more freedom to learn independently.

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“Enforcement and Consequences”

Every morning for years I listened to KNX 1070 at 6:55 am to hear Michael Josephson’s Character Counts segment.  It lasts only a couple of minutes, but often speaks volumes to me.  I would like to share one of his commentaries with you.

The character counts strategy of character building embodied in the acronym “TEAM” stands for: Teach, Enforce, Advocate and Model.  Today, I want to talk about enforcement, the idea that the consistent and conscious imposition of positive and negative consequences is a critical part of defining, upholding and instilling values.

For example, people come to know how highly we regard honesty in our personal relations by the way we deal with dishonesty.  If it’s important, we are friends only with honest people and those who deceive us will pay a high price.  Similarly, if being treated with respect is essential, no one will be permitted to get away with less.

The same principles apply in school, sports and the workplace.  Every teacher, coach and supervisor has the necessary tools to inculcate values that help eliminate unacceptable conduct and encourage desirable behavior.  If used consistently, small things like expressions of approval and disapproval, symbolic awards, notes home or in the personnel file can powerfully influence values.

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Teaching Older Children to Say No to Peers

The word “no” often seems to be one of the first words out of the mouths of young children. In fact, parents may hear the word no far earlier and far more often than they prefer.  But as children grow older and want to fit in and belong with other children, they may continue to say no to adults, but have increasing difficulty saying no to their peers.

Many young people feel tremendous peer pressure on a wide front.  That’s why saying no to their peers is not a simple matter for them.  They may fear that they will be rejected or branded in negative ways if they do.  As parents, teachers, and other caring adults we need to give students some strategies for saying no, and suggest appealing and convincing words they can use in the various situations they face.

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Using All Your Strength

A young boy was walking with his father along a country road. When they came across a very large tree branch the boy asked, “Do you think I could move that branch?” His father answered, “If you use all your strength, I’m sure you can.” So the boy tried mightily to lift, pull and push the branch but he couldn’t move it. Discouraged he said, “Dad, you were wrong. I can’t do it.” His dad said, “Try again.” This time, as the boy struggled with the branch his father joined him and together they pushed the branch aside. “Son,” the father said, “the first time you didn’t use all your strength. You didn’t ask me to help.”

The story is derived from one told by David Wolpe in Teaching Your Children About God (Harper Perennial 1995)

This is an important lesson. There are many things we can’t do alone, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get them done. Resources that can be mobilized to help us achieve our goals including family, friends and faith surround us all. I am continually amazed at the things I can accomplish when I ask for the help. Sometimes we fail to ask for help because of pride or stubbornness. Sometimes we think it’s a sign of weakness to admit we need a hand. And sometimes we don’t even think about asking for help. Whatever the reason, it’s a waste.

It’s important that we learn to use all our strength and that we teach our children to do the same.  This includes inner resources such as discipline, courage, faith, and even love. But it also includes outer resources. Just as we should be willing to help others we should be willing to ask the help of others. It’s one of the great things about being human. Just think about it, if we were all secure enough to lean on others to compensate for our weaknesses and to offer service to those around us using our strengths we could accomplish amazing things.  If only we were secure enough to admit we need help.

Think about your areas of strength and offer to assist in those areas this week.  On the other side, think about an area where you could use some help and ask.  Ask a friend, a co-worker,  or a family member. You will be amazed and what happens when you take the time to ask. This is something that I have focused on for my entire educational career, encouraging my staff, our students and their parents to identify areas of strength and to use them for the good of the school.  At the same time, I strive to make it safe and to model asking for support in areas that are not my strength.  This has created a culture of mutual support and an educational environment that encourages us to be honest and makes it okay not to be perfect.

 

 

The Educational Importance of Playground Scuffles

Conflict is a part of everyday life, no matter how old you are.  Conflict resolution should be viewed as a positive force in our development as human beings. It is the process of resolving an unsatisfactory issue or encounter in a positive and constructive manner. Conflict resolution skills begin to develop the moment we are born, when infants attempt to relieve physical and emotional distress.  Being able to resolve conflicts in a positive way is  a resource that is developed over time. How one handles and interprets conflict leads to either constructive or destructive outcomes (Sweeney & Carruthersm 1996).

In so many instances, parents and educators often forget that learning to resolve conflicts is part of the developmental maturity process.  Instead of trying to shelter children from normal everyday conflicts we need to work together in using these moments as growth opportunities for the child.  initial attempts at resolving conflict, and the events that initiate these attempts at conflict resolution are the roots of the developmental process. According to Johnson and Johnson (1995), “conflict can increase achievement, motivation to learn, higher-level reasoning, long term retention, and healthy social and cognitive development.”

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Words That Hurt, Words That Heal

Every now and then you run across an idea that changes the way you look at things. And sometimes it’s really annoying because if you change your perspective you often have to change your conduct. That’s the way I felt after reading a book called, “Words That Hurt, Words That Heal” by Joseph Telushkin. It’s all about gossip and other uses of words that hurt people. He makes a powerful case for the advice of moms everywhere: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” And to prove how hard it is, he challenges his reader to go twenty-four hours without saying an unkind word about or to anyone.

He reminds us about the awesome power of ego-destroying criticism, brutal anger, nasty sarcasm, hurtful nicknames, humiliating betrayal of secrets, malicious rumors or careless gossip. “Unless you’ve been a victim of terrible physical violence,” he says, “chances are the worst pains you have suffered in life have come from words.”

Ethical speech — speaking fairly, respectfully, responsibly and carefully about others — is an easy duty to neglect. For one thing, talking about others is kind of fun and often quite interesting. Even if you don’t start such conversation it is easy to play into it. But we have to remember that what we say about a person often has a significant impact. It affects attitudes, dispositions and conduct. It shapes reputations.

Chiding us for choosing our clothes more carefully than we choose our words, Rabbi Telushkin urges us to use our words as we would a loaded gun. At the very least, we can moderate the harm we cause by thinking about how the person we’re talking about would feel if he or she overheard the conversation.

As parents and teachers we work tirelessly to help our children learn these truths.  Developmentally students go through stages and this type of language is sometimes used.  Working together we strive to model appropriate responses to our children teaching them to be caring and understanding when communication or resolving conflict with others.

Thanks for Telling Me the Truth, Dad – Middle Grades are Hard

Jenny was 14 and miserable. Her freckles and braces were bad enough but now her face was breaking out. Her dad saw her looking in the mirror and sobbing. She was in such pain. He stayed up all night writing a note he slipped under her door.

“I wish I could tell you everything is all right,” he wrote, “but I know it isn’t because you’re genuinely unhappy. I wish I could tell you that looks don’t matter and that everyone will see the incredibly beautiful person inside, but at your age it does matter.”

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Learning a New Language, “Social Networking”

I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently about the needs of today’s learners, the “21st Century Learners”.  Much of my reading has focused on how learning has changed with the onset of the digital growth, leading to those that “have” the “digital natives”, and those that are the “have nots”.  Of course anyone over the age of 14 technically falls into the category of “have nots”.

So, as I attempt to live in the world of the “digital natives”, I have decided to write this educational blog and I am attempting to learn a new language, “social networking” all at the same time.  Please help me meet my goal of education and informing parents and teachers on current educational thought about learning and today’s learners by sharing my blog posts through Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and sharing my blog site, www.JanieAndrich.com.

Harvard EdCast: The Great Teacher Checklist | Harvard Graduate School of Education

According to its website, the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project is “designed to find out the best way to give teachers the information and support they want.” Through its research, MET hopes to discover the evaluation methods that can best aid teachers in discovering which among their skills are most effective in the classroom, and also to help school districts identify strong teaching.

via Harvard EdCast: The Great Teacher Checklist | Harvard Graduate School of Education.

I couldn’t agree more with the premise of this very informative article.  As school superintendent is a small Lutheran school, approximately 400 students preschool through 8th grade, teacher evaluation has been a major focus for us.  Several years ago we re-designed our entire teacher job descriptions as well as the evaluation process. This re-focus has created a collaborative model that focuses on clearly identified teacher standards and benchmarks that focus on improving student learning.  It is a collaborative process that includes all teachers from preschool through 8th grade in peer observations, creating teacher standards and benchmarks, and setting clear and measurable goals that are individualized for the needs of the individualized teachers.

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Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge, Students’ Perceptions, and Teachers’ Perceptions

Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge.

In the second year of the project (2010-2011), participating teachers took assessments to measure their ability to choose appropriate strategies and to recognize and diagnose common student errors.

Classroom pedagogy (instructional practices) is one of the most important yet least understood factors in student achievement. This study sought to demystify effective teaching practices and provide insights into teacher evaluation and professional development.  Dr. Robert Marzano has identified nine teaching strategies that have the highest impact on student learning:

1. Identifying similarities and differences                     
2. Summarizing and note taking
3. Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
4. Homework and practice
5. Nonlinguistic representations
6. Cooperative learning
7. Setting objectives and providing feedback
8. Generating and testing hypotheses
9. Cues, questions, and advance organizers:

 

Student perceptions of the classroom instructional environment.

All students in participating teachers’ classrooms completed surveys about their experience in the classroom and their teachers’ ability to engage them in the course material. Recent education research has begun to explore whether students’ perceptions of the teaching they experience help in predicting how much those students learn.

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