Leah Mermelstein: The Power of Write-Alouds

First Your Mouth, Then Your Hands: The Power of Write-Alouds
by Leah Mermelstein (2010) introduced me to a wonderfully useful tool: Write-Alouds.

 "During a write-aloud, you and your students compose a piece of writing together around a shared topic - a topic/story/idea about which the students have the same or almost the same knowledge as you do....The goal of the write-aloud is not mechanics (that's the role of shared/interactive writing) but composition."

This practical piece describes the rationale and role of write-alouds in the context of writing workshop, and includes a "snippet" of a write-aloud that Leah Mermelstein conducted in a classroom in which she and the students planned the development of a character in a story.  The piece also includes helpful advice on ways to integrate write-alouds into instruction.

Noticed and Noted for Math Teachers, Teachers of World Languages and Satire Aficionados:

Check out these additional useful links!

A model backwards-designed Algebra I course from the Alexandra, Virginia public schools;

Evidence of Student Learning in World Languages: A Starting Point for Collecting and Analyzing Data Related to Communication

Education Tweak: A Journal of Opinion, Research and Farce - Special Digital Learning Edition

Reformers Tackle Deficiency in Children's Screen Time

&

Reformers Automate Personalization

Using Neuroscience to Make Standards Work for ALL Students

Vermont Higher Education Collaborative 

Using Neuroscience to Make Standards Work
for ALL Students 

WORKshops Designed by Bill Rich

for Middle & High School Educators & Leaders

Crafting Student-Friendly Learning Targets
Head spinning from all the “new” standards (VT-PBGR, Transferable Skills, Content Standards, Common Core, etc.)? Imagine how our students are feeling! This workshop is designed to help educators unpack standards into student-friendly learning targets that empower students to determine where they are in their learning and what next steps they need to take toward meeting and exceeding the standards that matter most in our setting. (October 7, 2015, Capitol Plaza, Montpelier, VT – Workshop $175)

Designing Performance Tasks to Power Student Learning

Get Your Students Pumped for Practice: What makes athletes engage so seriously during practice? They’re preparing for a Big Game. This workshop will support teachers as they design performance tasks of all shapes and sizes, be it an interdisciplinary performance task a’ la SBAC, a capstone for your school’s graduation requirements, or a simple end-of-unit performance task. After studying models and considering why the brain engages so fully in performance tasks, participants will spend most of the WORKshop designing and creating performance tasks to use with their students, while receiving timely feedback on their work. (November 18, 2015 – Capitol Plaza, Montpelier, VT - Workshop $175)

Getting To (& Surviving) Standards-Based Grading

Most educators recognize that traditional grading practices undermine learning, but how do we make the switch to better grading practices while we wait for our system to make the switch to standards-based reporting? After studying models and considering why the brain learns best when we emphasize standards-based grading, participants will spend most of the WORKshop re-designing their gradebook and writing a letter to their students that describes the why, what, and how of their new approach to grading. (March 10, 2016 – Capitol Plaza, Montpelier, VT - Workshop $175) 

Data-Tools to Keep You in Sync with Your Students
Imagine a suite of simple tools that would organize all your assignments & students’ work in one place, enable you to give more timely feedback to your students, and provide you with summaries of the progress of individuals and classes. After experiencing the power of a range of tools that teachers use to stay in sync with their learners, participants will choose one to learn more about in preparation to use the tool this school year. (May 4, 2016 – Capitol Plaza, Montpelier, VT - Workshop $175) 

Course Option: All 4 workshops + online participation + 1 concluding face-to-face session
Course Cost: $1590  3 credits from Castleton State College
Instructor: Bill Rich
Workshops: All workshops from 9:00 to 3:00 @ $175 each or all 4 for $600
Contact: Bill Rich at redhouselearning@gmail.com

Registration opens August 10th: http://www.vthec.org

Five Online Resources for Global News: from School Library Journal

Global news online – This School Library Journal article recommends five websites that provide free up-to-the-minute news from around the world:

-   Global Voices – http://globalvoicesonline.org - Written, translated, and curated by more than 800 citizen journalists and media experts, searchable by topic or region, 43 languages

-   Newsmap – http://newsmap.jp - Real-time, trending news in 15 countries, color-coded by topic and adjustable by how much detail you want

-   TV News Archive – http://archive.org/details/tv - Televised news clips from over 700,000 shows from 2009 to the present

-   Al-Monitor - www.al-monitor.com/pulse/home.html - News about the Middle East translated into English from Hebrew, Turkish, Persian, and Arabic

-   AllAfrica - http://allafrica.com - Aggregated news from over 130 African news outlets and content from AllAfrica reporters.

 “Five Resources for Global News” in School Library Journal, September 2015 (Vol. 61, #9, p. 19)

PLEASE NOTE: The item above comes from Marshall Memo 603 (September 14, 2015) The Marshall Memo (marshallmemo.com) provides a weekly roundup of important ideas and research in K-12 education.  A terrific resource for busy educators!

M3: Mindset, Metacognition & Motivation

M3: Mindset, Metacognition & Motivation

Audience: High School Students, Faculty, Principals, SAP Counselors, School Counselors
M3: Mindset, Metacognition & Motivation offers a roadmap to prepare students for the shift to higher expectations for independent learning and shared responsibility in their education. Sign up for one of the workshops on October 13, 2015 at Capitol Plaza in Montpelier, VT or October 20, 2015 at College of St. Joseph’s in Rutland, VT. Learn more about this one-day workshop of exploration to build readiness for personalized Learning.
Contact: Helen Beattie at (802) 472-5127 or hnbeattie@gmail.com

Primary Number and Operations Assessment (PNOA) Training Workshops

Primary Number and Operations Assessment Training Workshops

Audience: K-2 Mathematics Educators
The Primary Number and Operations Assessment (PNOA) Training Workshops are designed for teachers who are new to the PNOA or for teachers wanting a refresher with the 2015 version. Participants will learn how to use the current version of the PNOA; explore the Common Core State Standards addressed by the PNOA; and discuss how the PNOA can be used to inform instruction. Register online for September 10, 2015 at the Richmond Free Library in Richmond, VT or the September 14, 2015 at Castleton State College in Castleton, VT.
Contacts: Loree Silvis at lsilvis@cornerstonemathematics.com, Sandi Stanhope at stanhopesmath@gmail.com or Tracy Watterson at tracy.watterson@vermont.gov

The Power of Student Generated Questions

(Originally titled “Let’s Switch Questioning Around”)

            “We are kidding ourselves if we think our questions alone turn students into critical thinkers,” says Cris Tovani (Commerce City, Colorado English teacher and author) in this Educational Leadership article. “Instead of spending time honing our questioning skills, it’s time we help students hone theirs. Giving students opportunities to practice questioning will help them way beyond the classroom. People who wonder set a purpose for themselves. They know asking questions will propel them to continue reading and learning… Asking questions gives learners control.”

            Teachers fire off as many as 120 questions an hour, and by middle school, many students have become expert question-answerers – and perhaps teacher mind-readers. The problem is that with many of these questions, teachers are looking for a single right answer, which leaves little room for original thought. Getting students asking their own questions changes this dynamic. “It’s a lot harder to fake an authentic question than it is to copy an answer from some Internet site,” says Tovani. Here are some strategies she recommends:

-   Using students’ questions to drive the next day’s reading and small-group conversations. “Students’ questions provide a great deal of invaluable formative assessment data that helps me adjust instruction,” she says.

-   Cruising around the classroom as students read and jot questions on their “think sheets,” checking in with individual students and collecting the papers of those she didn’t have time to talk with.

-   Being selective about which student questions she’ll answer. She responds to Who, What, When, and Where questions, but when students ask How or Why questions, she’ll respond with another question, for example, Why do you think that’s happening?

-   Sharing a text she’s been reading and annotating to show the questions she’s asking as she reads and explaining that some questions deserve more effort than others.

“I’m humbled by my students’ questions,” says Tovani. “Often they are better than mine.” They definitely help her differentiate instruction. “If students were all answering the same teacher-generated question, I wouldn’t be able to tell who got it and who copied.”

            Of course Tovani does ask her own questions of students, and she’s noticed that they fall into two categories:

Questions that create awareness:

-   What are you wondering about the book?

-   What are you noticing about how the author is using time? Jumping forward, flashing back, chronological? What purpose do you think it serves?

-   What background knowledge do you have about the book, topic, author, or characters?

-   Did you notice the title? Any ideas on how it connects to the piece?

-   What weird or unusual text structures are you noticing? Why do you think the author structured the chapter that way?

-   What predictions are you making?

-   What questions do you have? Which ones do you care about most?

-   Which character’s perspective are you connecting to most?

-   Are there any objects or colors that keep popping up?

-   How could you look at this information differently?

Open-ended questions that inform instruction:

-   Why do you think that?

-   What do you need?

-   Is this boring or are you stuck? Why? What have you done before to get unstuck?

-   Have you tried what we talked about in the mini-lesson?

-   What’s preventing you from working? What causes you to stop?

-   What might you try tomorrow?

-   What do you know now that you didn’t know before?

-   What’s going on in your head as you read? What is your inner voice saying?

“Let’s Switch Questioning Around” by Cris Tovani in Educational Leadership, September 2015 (Vol. 73, #1, p. 30-35), available for purchase at http://bit.ly/1PHdPLP; Tovani can be reached at ctovani@hotmail.com.

Please Note: This article summary is an excerpt from the Marshall Memo, issue #601.  The Marshall Memo is an EXCELLENT resource for educators. Check it out at: marshallmemo.com

Vermont Standards-Based Learning Symposium coming this fall!

Vermont Standards-Based Learning Symposium 

coming this fall!  

Carol Ann Tomlinson will be there, and so should you!

FRIDAY November 20, 2015

Who? Any teachers, administrators, or other educators interested in Standards-Based Learning

When? 8:00 to 3:30

We (The Vermont Standards-Based Learning Collective) are thrilled to announce that we will be co-sponsoring another fall SBL Symposium with JumpRope and with St. Michaels College Department of Education.  Last year's symposium was a great success and we listened to feedback to create an even better experience this year.  There will be a mix of theory and practice, with session options ranging from brain research to math learning targets!  We are still in the planning stages but want to let you know to mark your calendar and save the date.  The cost will be approximately $75 per person.  We will provide more details soon.

When registration opens, we will send Tweets and emails to advertise -- if you received our emails last year you're all set but if you would like to be added, please let one of us know!  We think we'll open registration in mid to late September.

Oh...and did we mention that our keynote speakers will be Bill Rich and Carol Ann Tomlinson?! They are collaborating to bring us a fantastic two hour introduction sure to educate and inspire. Because of our keynote, we expect to sell out quickly, so keep your eyes and ears open.

The symposium is focused on middle and high school educators, but there will certainly be some relevant sessions for all in education.  We encourage you to bring a team consisting of both teachers and administrators. For more information or questions, please email Laurie Singer at lsinger@ccsuvt.org or Emily Rinkema at erinkema@cvuhs.org

Additional Links Worth a Look!

The Case for the Missing R (this article by VT educators is one of many good ones that can be found in this summer's
FREE online issue of Educational Leadership: Improving Schools from Within)

Towards a General Theory of SRI's Intentional Learning Communities - a thought provoking piece, useful for coaches and participants.

Classroom Pedal Desks! (OK, they ARE expensive...but what an intriguing idea!  Any wellness/PE grants available out there?)

Grant Wiggins Quotes

(post from Kim Marshall in the Marshall Memo, issue 591 - a GREAT resource for busy educators at Marshallmemo.com)

            We lost a great educator and thinker last month. Grant Wiggins’s work with Jay McTighe on backwards curriculum unit design, assessment, and school improvement has made a huge difference in countless schools and elevated the entire profession. Here is a collection of his thoughts from recent years on three major topics:

Assessment and feedback

“Students should be presumed innocent of understanding until proven guilty by the preponderance of the evidence.”

“Results are what counts. You have to measure.”     

“Teachers over-plan and under-assess.”

“The more you teach without finding out who understands the information and who doesn’t, the greater the likelihood that only already-proficient students will succeed.”

“Practicing for a standardized test to raise the scores is like practicing for your physical exam to become healthy. It mistakes measures for goals.”

“Decades of education research support the idea that by teaching less and providing more feedback, we can produce greater learning. Basically, feedback is information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal.”

“Students are entitled to a more educative and user-friendly assessment system. They deserve far more feedback – and opportunities to use it – as part of the local assessment process. Those tasks should recur, as in the visual and performing arts and in sports, so there are many chances to get good at vital work. When assessment properly focuses teaching and learning in this way, student self-assessment and self-adjustment become a critical part of all instruction…”

“If you really understand the topic, you should have no trouble handling a question that looks a little different from the questions the teacher asked. If you learned only by rote, however, a novel question will stump you.”

“Assessment tasks must model and demand important real-world work. Focused and accountable teaching requires ongoing assessment of the core tasks that embody the aims of schooling: whether students can wisely transfer knowledge with understanding in simulations of complex adult intellectual tasks. Only by ensuring that the assessment system models such (genuine) performance will student achievement and teaching be improved over time.”

“What makes any assessment in education formative is not merely that it precedes summative assessments, but that the performer has opportunities, if results are less than optimal, to reshape the performance to better achieve the goal. This is how all highly successful computer games work.”

Improving teaching and learning

“The point of school is not to get good at school.”

“No one masters something they are not passionate about.”

“By the very nature of the job of teaching, we are prone to be insensitive (literally) to the actual daily experience of our students, what they feel, unless we get outside of ourselves by acts of will.”

“For the majority of learners, school is a place where the teacher has the answers and classroom questions are intended to find out who knows them.” (with Jay McTighe)

“Like the music or athletic coach, the classroom teacher’s job is to help the student ‘play the game’ of the expert.”

“Expert coaches uniformly avoid overloading performers with too much or too technical information. They tell the performers one important thing they noticed that, if changed, will likely yield immediate and noticeable improvement.”

“Reform is strongly needed in many schools. Many teachers are just not currently capable of engaging and deeply educating the kids in front of them, especially in the upper grades. Why can’t we just admit this?” (from an open letter to Diane Ravitch)

“[T]eachers can be remarkably thin-skinned when someone questions their methods or decisions, and many of us resist seeking or receiving feedback from students, parents, colleagues, and supervisors. When students fail to learn, some teachers end up blaming the students, without an honest investigation of where student fault ends and teacher responsibility begins.”

“My question is basic, history teachers. Given that most history textbooks are comprehensive and reasonably well-written, why do you feel the need to talk so much? Your colleagues in science and English, for example, do not feel the same urge.”

“Without regular opportunities to consider, observe, and analyze best practice and receive

helpful, non-evaluative feedback, how likely are teachers to engage in continual professional improvement?” (with Jay McTighe)

“Being willing and able to rethink requires a safe and supportive environment for questioning assumptions and habits, as well as a curriculum designed to foster thinking,”

Backwards planning

“When curriculum is defined as a linear march through stuff covered once (and where no pre-tests are ever done), it is inevitable that we end up exaggerating differences and constantly talking (wrongly) about too many kids ‘falling behind.’ Falling behind what? Some mythical average ‘pace’ of teaching in a single way?”

“What we need to see more clearly is that the common learner failure to transfer is not a student weakness or a teaching deficit but a mistake in planning. You have to design backward from the goal of transfer if you want to achieve it… Too often, though, teachers merely teach, then ask in their tests: Did you learn my lesson?”

“To design a school curriculum backwards from the goal of autonomous transfer requires a deliberate and transparent plan for helping the student rely less and less on teacher hand-holding and scaffolds.” (with Jay McTighe)

“We contend that teachers can best raise test scores over the long haul by teaching the key ideas and processes contained in content standards in rich and engaging ways; by collecting evidence of student understanding of that content through robust local assessments rather than one-shot standardized testing; and by using engaging and effective instructional strategies that help students explore core concepts through inquiry and problem solving.”

“Knowing that you’re a novice who’s a long way from true mastery is not inherently debilitating. On the contrary, having a worthy, far-off goal and tracking your progress in closing the gap are key to mastery in all walks of life.”

Vermonters Mandate Multi-State Legislative Consolidation

May 21, 2015

Today, in a move prompted by the desire to save money and improve legislating opportunities, Vermonters called for Legislative Consolidation that could lead to the formation of one state legislature for all of Northern New England.  As one citizen explained: “We’re thinkin’ that having one legislature for Vermont, and say, for Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and maybe also New York and Connecticut, and possibly Rhode Island, would make things simpler and easier to understand.  As everyone knows, bigger means less complex, and less complex is always cheaper and better.”

“This is NOT a mandate”, explained the chair of Vermont Citizens for Legislative Consolidation.  “We’ve simply decided to require that all New England legislators, especially those in small states like Vermont and Rhode Island, shift their entire focus to a participating in a lengthy series of meetings, facilitated by people who think this is a good idea.  If Vermont’s legislators decide NOT to merge with the legislature of at least one other New England State, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns will conduct a Legislative Quality Review (LQR) to determine if the VT Legislature is doing a good job.  If the Legislature’s performance is found to be sub-par, the VLCT will require it to merge, most likely with with a geographically contiguous state (probably New Hampshire, since it already kind of looks like Vermont, only upside-down).”   

When asked how this move would save money and improve legislation, one proponent responded this way: “Well, maybe we’d have fewer legislators, for one thing.  And we’d have one budget for two or more states, and that would be like having a bigger state, and then maybe we could fire at least one governor, and maybe a whole passel of legislators and state workers.  Besides, Vermont’s issues aren’t all that unique.  What’s the diff?”