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