Periodic Table of Band

I’m pretty sure her other intellectual abilities would have assured not only her acceptance but the free ride she received. She shared this essay with me, and I loved it so much that I asked, and she granted, permission, for me to share it here.

Spectacular new advances have been made in the periodic table in the past couple of months. A grand total of 34 new elements have been discovered in the most unlikely of places: high school band rooms. A new alkali metal (Directorium, 119) and an alkaline earth metal (Band Geekium, 120) are the most prominent of the new discoveries followed by 32 others which form the Instruminide Series. Research is underway to determine the properties and habits of these elements, as well as why they had not been discovered before, and while there is still much to learn, what has been deciphered of these mysterious elemental additions is fascinating.

There’s no better place to start than the beginning. Directorium (Dr), as element 119 has been named, was discovered in trace amounts near directors’ podiums and in batons. Through further study, it has been found that the highest concentrations are located in the brains of band and orchestra directors, with small amounts present in those of section leaders. Why this element is present only in these locations is currently unknown. It retains many of the properties of alkali metals such as a low melting point and low density, however, the most fascinating aspect of this substance is not in its properties on its own, but in the properties of its compounds. Directorium forms an organic compound that replaces dopamine in in the brain in much of the same manner as that of some drugs such as cocaine. This is thought to cause the compulsive speaking of the phrase “One more time” and a director’s tendency to stop rehearsal to tell unrelated stories. Further studies are being performed to better understand exactly how this compound forms, and why it reacts in such a way.

The element about which the most has been learned is Bang Geekium (Bg). It also retains most of the properties that would be expected of it: It’s denser than Directorium, has a shiny, metallic luster, and is not often found in its pure elemental form. It is mostly present in dimly lit practice rooms and pizza parlors, on school buses, and in the brains of band students in varying concentrations. It is also quite odd in its bonding patterns. As an alkaline earth metal, one would expect it to primarily form ionic bonds, but this is not the case. In fact, it rarely forms ionic bonds and there are only a few known cases of occurrence. Band Geekium most commonly bonds with other Band Geekium atoms, Directorium, and elements in the Instruminide Series. These metallic bonds are actually stronger than would be expected in light of the elements’ electron configuration and the mechanism that makes the bonds (especially those between Band Geekium and elements in the Instruminide series) are not fully understood.

Very little research has been made into the Instruminide Series, if for no other reason than the sheer multitude of elements within it. The most exciting thing about this series is that it has proven the existence of g-orbitals, and that there are 18 electrons located within those orbitals. The elements containing g-orbitals and those containing another layer of f-orbitals compose the Instruminide Series. All of these elements were discovered in the blood of various band geeks and were named for the instrument that was most common amongst the musicians in whom the element was found. Some instrumentalist had as many as 25 of the elements present in some amount.

One scientist has hypothesised that musicians who have a higher concentration of Band Geekium will also have a wider variety/larger concentration of Instruminides. Another has projected that one possible source of Directorium is a nuclear decay of Band Geekium. There is not sufficient evidence to support either claim.

Despite being so-called “super-heavy elements”, these new discoveries are surprisingly stable. It had been predicted that element 120 would have a “magic nucleus” and in turn would be very stable, but it is unknown as to why the surrounding elements also have this stability. “It’s simply remarkable!” proclaimed one chemist. “This is the biggest scientific discovery since the Higgs-Boson!”

Appendix: The Instruminide Series (elements 121-142), in numerological order: Piccolon (Pc), Flutium (Ft), Oboium (Ob), Engornium (Eh), Bassoonium (Bs), Clarinetium (Ct), Saxmium (Sx), Tubax (Tx), Trumpetium (Tp), Fluglion, (Fg), Frenornium (Fh), Trombonium (To), Euphonium (Ep), Tuban (Tu), Malletium (Ml), Tympanum (Ty), Snarium (Rv)*, Bassdrumon(Bd), Auxpercion (Ax), Seton (Dr)**, Theramin (Tr), Kazooium (Kz), Bagpipium (Bp), Ocarine (Oc), Harpium( Hp), Organ (Or), Pianon (Pn), Gamelan (Gn), Violininium (Vi), Violon (Vo), Cellon (Ch)***, and Basson (Bn).

*Snarium’s symbol is derived from Ravel, whose symphonies are notorious for giving snare players carpal tunnel.

**Seton’s symbol is derived from the full name of the instrument, “drum set.”

***Cellon’s symbol originates in its pronunciation, not in its spelling.

Souls of Pe bring water for purification.

It’s pretty clear to me, perhaps because I’m looking for it, that however one views creativity, one has to know something to be creative in a productive sense. Rigorous content is part of most models of PBL and creativity models. I’m not sure this is obvious to everyone, though. I’ve always known that before kids can create productively, they have to know something. Granted, some world problems appear to be solvable on the surface by 6th graders playing with plastic cups and sand models of water purification systems, and 6th graders should play with these things. At some point, however, rigor and expectations need to stretch. How can this be done?

It’s my take that both project-based learning and problem-based learning, done well, could do this. Both require a huge amount of front-end planning for the teacher to properly scaffold content and build in opportunities for analysis and application of new skills and learning. I’m currently working on my first really carefully planned project-based learning, hoping to use a few more yet this year in my classroom. At first, the identification of content seems easy. I had to let this part simmer a bit, because in chemistry, concepts build, and I kept forgetting something. I’m still pushing around details. Several sessions were quite helpful as I determined how this might look in high school chemistry.

Finally, I found what turned out to be the first of several definitions:
Christine Carter’s semi-official definition of creativity:
“take bits of information and synthesize them into novel/original ideas or products that are in some way useful or adaptive.”
Kind of reminds me of an ole Mike Vance tape about creativity.  Mike Vance worked for Disney before starting his own creativity company. I wasn’t sure if he’s still in business as I heard his tapes about 30 years ago, so I of course looked him up.  He’s changed a little.

It’s been meaningful to see that creativity isn’t as wild and unbounded as I originally believed. An underlying layer to every presentation I’ve attended so far has been, for lack of a better term, content. These experts, promoters, of creativity seem to be taking for granted that in order to create, you have to know something first. Some openly state this idea. I’m feeling better about the whole thing.

Creativity and Science, Part 1
Creativity and Science, Part 2

Creativity?

I’m starting to form a more clear picture of how I see creativity as a part of science.

I don’t care if it’s considered to be right or wrong by brain scientists or by educators.  It’s my synthesis at this time in my learning. If you’d like to help me with it, please do.

I’m still having issues with those who are of the school that creativity must be done in collaboration.  I have the same issue with those who state that true creativity takes place in total solitude. Maybe this is because I’m a Libra.  Maybe it’s because each learner processes, synthesizes, and constructs knowledge in his own way.

It would seem some types of creativity are best done with others – playing jazz, for example. Sometimes, though, the brain needs quiet, reflective, processing time. The challenge for me will be to learn to understand when a learner or a process or a process for a learner needs one or the other.

Whether you’re a member of the loner camp or the collaborative camp, it seems to be agreed-upon that creativity takes time. Again, the trick will be showing students how to make the time to process and synthesize on their own. How can we best help them set up the environment that lets their thinking flow? How can we help them learn to put their brains in this state? How can we help them learn when they need quiet time, or when they need collaboration? And most importantly, how can we provide the space in our classes for these processes to take place?

Divergent thinking captured my interest. I’m considering how to make divergent thinking part of projects.Perhaps, as Suzie Boss suggested at dinner, we look at authentic questions a scientist might ask. I’m working on a list. I can see that it might be used to consider new uses for products, a new way to do a process, a new means of comparison.  That’s all I can think of right now.

It would seem the same brain processes that are used to “create” might also be used to synthesize information.  The difference would be, as I postulated yesterday, that to be creative in science you have to know something, and you need to work within parameters of valid research.

My mission on Friday is to find ways to do all these things. Stay tuned.

Science and Creativity, Part 1
Science and Creativity, Part 3

I’ve been creative before.  Several of my quilts were chosen for an exhibit at an art museum

Brain

in Ohio. I’ve been creative in my classroom for years. It takes a great deal of creativity to keep teenagers engaged as they learn an abstract subject such as chemistry. I’ve created lessons, labs, projects, presentations, lab stations, grant proposals, graphics, models, rubrics, assessments, and a few bazillion things I’ve already forgotten about. Oh, and a dissertation, the production of which is fundamental to my question: What does it mean to be creative in science?

I often get the picture that the creativity-promoters (I keep wanting to call them Creationists) envision a learner walking into a science lab, usually portrayed as a physics lab, with ramps and cars and more recently, robots, and inventing world-changing gizmos. These learners would not necessarily need to know how to measure precisely, how to wire a circuit, or know anything about the structure of the materials they work with. Their creativity alone would compensate for all those holes. The creativity-promoters with whom I am familiar are not scientists.

I don’t want this creativity movement to become Activitymania 2.0, with its endless cries for hands-on learning regardless of the mental engagement.  I don’t want it to become the next shiny edu-toy project-creator for projects portraying flash but little learning.

Tomorrow, I will begin to get answers.

Creativity and the Brain, Part 2
Creativity and the Brain, Part 3

I’ve answered more than 100 emails this past week, asking for renewal help. As I write, there are almost 30o hits to this blog from searches for national board renewal help – just in the last month. As a result, I’ve decided to post a few items from the Renewal workshops I facilitate and a rationale for renewing.

My philosophy of a workshop emphasizes work.  Teachers in attendance are accomplished, busy, and I will not waste their time. Renewal candidates can expect to spend the bulk of the 8-hour time working on their Profile of Professional Growth. Most leave with Component 1 roughed out, at least 1 PGE drafted, and a plan for the remaining 3 components.

First of all, you’re renewing your certificate, not recertifying.  Recertification is what you must do should you allow your certificate to lapse, and it involves doing the entire initial certification process, again.

Here’s a graphic overview of the renewal process:

Professional Growth Experience (PGE)

You are already an accomplished teacher, or you would not have certified 8-9 years ago. You now will demonstrate that you are still learning and growing in your profession in a way that directly or indirectly impact student learning. You now must show sufficient professional growth. Sufficient.  From the PPG directions, here is a description of sufficient professional growth:

Many candidates have found using a chart an efficient way to organize their contributions to learners using a chart and post-it notes. You might want to start by writing down every professional activity you’ve ever done on a post-it, considering why you did each one (AKA the need), and grouping the activities according to the whys, or needs, you identified. Once you’ve got a pile of lists, and this will take awhile.  NBCT is another name for overachiever.  You’ll have way more post-its than you’ll be able to write about. That’s okay. You can pare this down later.

Once you’ve grouped the activities by the needs they met,  you’ll use a set of criteria from the Renewed rubric to write. The charts, below, along with the prompts in your PPG directions, will guide your writing.

Small PGE chart

Large version of PGE chart

Component chart

As with your initial certification, emphasis is on showing impact on student learning. This is the part that is clearly ignored by those wanting to use student test scores alone to evaluate teachers. To earn National Board Certification, you must show not only that your students learn, but that you know your students, how to help them set appropriate and meaningful learning goals, how to help them reflect on their learning as you reflect on the same, and how to help them set new, higher goals.  Anyway, this time impact on student learning is both direct (Component 2; your work in a classroom) and indirect, through your leadership and contributions to the teaching profession.

Read the portfolio directions carefully. A few mistakes will probably make your PPG unscorable. Be absolutely sure that you appear in the Component 2 video. And be sure that the class you teach is from your initial certification area and age group.

Now, go strut your stuff. Renew. You don’t want to have to say ‘I used to be a National Board Certified Teacher.”

That’s the message sent by many who are trying to fix whatever’s wrong with education. I don’t buy it.

Our school is on an AB block schedule.  I see students at most 3 days a week (when we have a full week of school), so more often twice a week; sometimes 4 times in 2 weeks, and sometimes 6-7 days pass without meeting as a class when we have long weekends.  (Yes, I use electronic communication as much as possible, considering 20-25% or my students have neither an Internet connection in their homes nor a a smartphone). To that end, my teacher-gut tells me that students who have deeper conceptual understandings and own their skills are the students who have stayed connected to their learning. I’ve become a fan of a few types of assignments to help students stay connected.  Some are most specifically, homework. Other assignments are directly connected to an upcoming inquiry or project lab. Other work is investigative, calculation practice, synthesis, or preparation for discussion.  Outlined below are some general types of “homework” students may expect to best support them as they learn science. 

Preparation homework usually consists of one or more of the following, depending on the time interval between classes and how much a student or group can accomplish during class:

1. 15-20 minutes between class times looking over the upcoming learning – an outline, skimming a section of text with a set of direct instructions and specific learning targets.
2. considering where new learning will fit with what they already know and can do
3. jotting down questions they have, unfamiliar terms, or confusing concepts to ask about,

Just doing this much provides a huge advantage when class reconvenes. A student who enters class and asks “What are we going to do today?” is at a clear disadvantage, and within a few class meetings, he knows it. When students are already familiar with our work, even minimally, they jump into discussion with meaningful comments, share with their peers, and ask thoughtful questions. They’re ready for a bit of direct instruction, and a bit of group discussion, generally POGIL-style. It is at this time that students are presented with explanations of concepts and calculations in a question-and-answer class discussion, are guided through sample calculations, and try a few tasks on their own in class.  They are introduced briefly to the inquiry or project lab they will construct. They receive their next assignment, and reflect on what they learned, what they still need to learn, and devise a specific plan for attacking the assignment.  They know they are not expected to complete it for a grade, but that it will form the basis of their work next class.

As students delve more deeply into the content needed for inquiry or project-based lab work, they need to to start to think. The first step is command of some practice skills, usually calculations or one-step written tasks leading to multistep problem-solving. In chemistry, commonly this first assignment takes the form of a calculation practice continuum:

1. calculation practice continuum – tasks are labeled basic skill, mastery, challenge, or exceeding.
   • basic skill tasks are foundational to the content involved in the lab or project.
   • mastery tasks demonstrate the minimum skill or understanding a student needs to complete a minimally proficient project or inquiry.
   • challenge tasks
2. The redundancy rule is invoked when the practice is distributed. It might look like a directive to start where  you feel comfortable, and when you think you’re ready, skip to the next section.
3. Students should usually not expect to do every task, nor should they spend more than 20-30 minutes at a time with the tasks. This is tough for the overachievers, until they realize that selecting a challenge or exceeding task demonstrates they have mastered the mastery and basic skills tasks.
4. All problems are either worked in class, checked by a student in a peer group with a key, or explained individually by me when the student is ready. This provides students with meaningful feedback about their understandings.
5. An answer key is always available in class.

Such work helps students figure out what they know and can do,on their own, by themselves, without their group members, and what still needs their effort. In class, they can work with group members for further support, look at sample problems, and complete what wasn’t clear. They know that I am there for clarification, and as I talk with students, I gain valuable information on what I should re-teach and to whom, or who needs more practice time on which learning target. Yes, there are sometimes mistakes and misunderstandings and misconceptions. This day’s reflection includes the written identification of errors and misconceptions, and the corrected conceptions, explained.  More information on the upcoming application of this learning (usually an inquiry or project lab) is revealed, as some groups will be ready to begin.

Preparation, planning, analysis, revision, analysis, presentation, and reflection on work may be completed in class by some groups and individual group members, or may be done outside of class. Factors influencing this decision may be students’ choices of experimental design, time needed in lab to carry out their physical work, or the amount of preliminary research and trials needed, number of revisions needed, technology available, or simply student choice of work location.

Finally, each student demonstrates his own level of understanding and learning in a common assessment proficiency.

To state that “homework” is never appropriate is as dangerous as worksheet-driven assumption that learning must look the same looks the same for every student. And I don’t think I’m alone in my view – thanks, Marsha Ratzel.

Who taught you something today? What did you learn?
To whom did you teach something? What did you teach?
Tell me about something that you created today.
Tell me about a person to whom you spoke for the first time today.
Tell me a question that you asked.  Tell me about the answer.
Tell me about a question that you answered.
Tell me what you expect to learn tomorrow.

Ask these questions frequently, and watch how the answers change.

Levels of Understanding

There’s much research on brains and learning and such available now.

My colleague, Pete, has this interesting poster in his classroom. He made it, I think. It’s small.  He gives a copy to students each year.

He’s been working on a revision.

Then, we need to work on making this all authentic.

It’s at that point that students will buy in, and that’s the most important piece.

And that’s my current quest. Ideas?

That said, making a good latte is chemistry. I’ve been watching the local box store/grocery (hey, I live in a small town) for pumpkin spice creamer. I am still in disbelief that it wasn’t me who thought of dumping a slice of pumpkin pie in a blender with a cup of good coffee and them topping it with shipped cream. Instead, I’ve come up with a pretty palatable substitute.

First, concoct pumpkin pie spice. Mix together:

• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cloves

Add to a 16-oz mug (now you understand why I was tweeting at warp speed while perfecting this recipe):

• 3 tsp canned pumpkin (I used plain pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling.  Will try that next.)
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 3 drops vanilla

Add coffee – about 8 oz, depending on then amount of milk you want.

Then add 2 oz hot, frothed milk, your choice of fat content, or even soy or rice milk.  I used almond milk and it was pretty good. If you don’t have a way to froth the milk, at least heat the milk first.  Or add the milk before the coffee and microwave it for 45 seconds or so.

Grate more nutmeg on top.

I froze the rest of the canned pumpkin in 6-tsp portions in ice cube trays so I could that one at a time and make 2 lattes.

Yum.

Soon after arriving in Washington, I was invited to a roundtable for NBCTs. Marilyn Simpson introduced to a pretty cool project of hers, called Planning in Action (occasionally referred to as PIA, but I digress….). Based on peer-reviewed research, it looked to us like the accomplished teaching we’d had to demonstrate to achieve our National Board certification.  Marilyn asked us to pilot the idea in our schools. I participated in the pilot as a classroom teacher and as a trainer-in-training.

It was pretty simple.  Students learned to reflect on their learning and figure out how to make it more meaningful, how to get better at learning. Teachers met in groups of 4 every few weeks for 30 minutes. During that time, all 4 teachers shared student progress, reported in student voice. We gathered feedback from one another, and modified the lessons shared for next time.  We made decisions on where to take our students next based on the data we’d gathered.

I liked the response I got from my students.  They were more engaged than I’d ever seen them. Perhaps coincidentally, their scores went up on standardized tests across the board (I worked in a small school and populations were not necessarily uniform from year to year.) I convinced my school board and principal to let me offer the 21 hours of collaborative work to my colleagues in our PLCs. Being as how it was voluntary, open across the district, and carried clock hours, I got quite a few takers. Again, student engagement increased for those who implemented this with fidelity. Scores increased again.

Past year participants wanted to bring the program building-wide.  One non-participant came to me and said, “I guess I’m in.  Joe said he’d learn health much more easily if we did learning targets and had to assess ourselves like we do in your class.” We made a decision as a staff to use this program for our mandated staff development the next year.

Enter a new principal, with new ideas about “developing her staff.” We convinced her to allow the program to continue into the next year, and again, scores increased. More importantly, student engagement increased. Happy students, happy parents, happy teachers. Only the principal wasn’t happy. She sat in on our work, pretended to already know all about what we were doing, engaged in her own, much more important work. The plan, slated to become standard for teacher collaboration in teacher education programs and in the professional certification program in our state, was scrapped with a simple statement, “We aren’t doing THAT anymore.”

Perhaps coincidentally, we got a new state superintendent of education, who chose to change things up a bit.

We stopped sharing our students’ work with one another.  We stopped listening to students reacting to their progress. Sadly, students stopped sharing and reflecting, too.

Most importantly, no one was getting rich from this practice. No one was even making any money, unless it was a few trainers working outside their home districts.  Marilyn Simpson probably got a small stipend for her work. No one was selling computers, or tablets, or other student devices. Students were in classrooms, working with their peers and human teachers; there were no badges to be earned. There was no money to be made by selling this to districts as online training. In short, the only people to profit were students.

Would you have guessed as much?

via http://www.mitchell20.com/

The movie is Mitchell 20.  Nancy Flanagan reviewed it much more thoroughly than I ever could.

I propose that everyone with a stake in education (children, for example) find a screening of this movie or view it at the website (Watch a preview there. You can get a 7-day pass for $5.00 and can make a DVD if you wish).  Then watch it again, because the first time you see it, you’ll be too amazed/shocked/sad/angry/uplifted for the meaning to sink in.

In short, the teachers, led by one amazing colleague who had just achieved National Board Certification, decided to work as a team to pursue this level of certification. Watching this teacher in her classroom, with her colleagues, and discussing her practice with the reporter leaves you no doubt that you’d want her to teach your children. I won’t post any spoilers, but I can say that not every teacher in the building was able to pursue certification. Not all had the necessary years of experience.  A few had family circumstances that prevented them from investing the time and energy during this particular year. The work of the 20 teachers who completed the process impacted the practice of those who did not. The energy of this group as they worked to provide the best learning environment for their students is palpable.  It’s contagious. No matter what else happened, children learned. Children learned.

I’d like to call your attention to this particular clip, posted on Youtube by the producers of Mitchell 20 and linked because for some reason, I can’t embed the video. It’s short, 42 seconds.

The Secretary of Education of the United States appears a few times in the movie. In this clip, Mr. Duncan is referring to the efforts of the wonderful, dedicated teachers at the Mitchell school as they worked together as a collaborative team,  their pursuit of National Board Certification.

Listen closely. Mr. Duncan credits the National Board process for this school’s success in turning the school around to meet AYP? He openly praised the efforts of these teachers, and credits them with successfully turning their school around. Lastly, Mr. Duncan stated that if every school would follow in the Mitchell 20 footsteps, schools would be so successful that he could retire to the Bahamas.

I think we’re on to something.

I’m challenging every school to follow the lead of the Mitchell 20.National Board Certification is the best professional development available, magnified when a cohort of teachers in the same building undertake the process together.  If you are a teacher, you will become a more accomplished teacher.  If you are a parent, your child will have a teacher who can provide him with the very best. And if you are Mr. Duncan, you get to retire to the Bahamas.

Most importantly, children learn. And that’s why we’re here. Are you ready for the challenge?

and then Bryan said

Jason replied, and @druinok responded:

A little later, this tweet popped into the conversation.

I squinted at the name, searched my Olympic-fan brain, and did a quick search to confirm.  Yes, this is THE Nancy Hogshead-Makar, now a professor of law and  Senior Director of Advocacy at the Women’s Sports Foundation.

Oh.  That makes sense. I wasn’t sure she’d read the blog post that started this whole thing, and asked.

A few hours later, after finishing a bike ride (no, I did not ride the Seattle-to-Portland. I rode only about 30 miles), Nancy tweeted me back that no, indeed, she’d missed the article.  I re-sent it. A bit later, Nancy declared, “Jacobs doesn’t know what she’s talking about. quotas impossible 4 gender-blind admissions. Sports r sex-segregated, by contrast.”

Nancy sent me this article: Five Myths about Title IX.  (I’m not sure if she didn’t realize I had already recognized her as an Olympic gold medalist, or if it simply didn’t matter. She proceeded to teach me a great deal I didn’t know about Title IX, but she never made a point of telling me who she is. Her goal was to help me learn.  Wow, again.) If you believe that men’s sports are cut from athletics programs because there isn’t the same offering for women, you must read this article. If you think that men’s athletic programs always support women’s programs, you must read this article.

After a bit more discussion, Nancy sent me this link:  Senate HELP Examines Impact of Title IX . I watched all 1 hour, 43 minutes, 17 seconds. I watched testimony from Billie Jean King (you probably know who she is), Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Mae Carol Jemison, physician and retired NASA astronaut (Dr. Jemison’s version, abridged for PBS, is here); and Rear Adm. Sandra L. Stosz, superintendent, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, New London, Conn. Title IX was enacted while I was a senior in high school. I’m disappointed in myself for not being a stronger advocate for myself. I wonder where I might be now if I had. I cannot begin to thank these four women and those who worked alongside them in advocating athletics and physical education for all. It’s not about gender.  It’s about all of us; to make it not so would be unconstitutional.

John Dewey in 1902

1. Teachers should have a strong background in any subject they will each.  This is easier for secondary teachers, because we deal with at most a few content areas.  K-6 teachers need to know social studies, health, how to teach reading, wipe noses, and a zillion other things that don’t exist in my world. They also need to know far more mathematics and science than they want to believe (shamelessly cites own dissertation).
2. Teachers need a strong and extended practicum; one semester with an accomplished teacher, at the very least. This is my biggest concern with Teach for America.  Their preparation seems to be a 5-week pep talk and some support during the school year while attempting to manage a classroom.
3. At the end of the practicum and coursework, the university practicum supervisor and cooperating teacher recommend the aspiring teacher for licensure, or not. Pre-servire teachers also take some kind of exam(s). So, here, we have a test and a clinical component, too. (Oh. Wait.  Isn’t this how we do it now?)
4. Newly licensed pilots and SCUBA divers are told that their certification is no seal of approval on their expertise. It’s a license to keep learning.  That’s what our newbie teachers need to understand. So do their new employers and their new mentors. For the first year, a new teacher should share a classroom with an accomplished teacher.  Not a teacher who’s simply got a lot of years of experience; an accomplished teacher, such as a NBCT. During this time of co-teaching, the new teacher should have no other responsibilities.  No evening classes, no coaching responsibilities, nothing but time to become immersed in his or her students’ learning.  They are free to seek the means to grow professionally as suits their needs.
5. Year 2 teachers, if deemed worthy by their mentor and administrator, may now have their own classrooms.  Again, no night classes or coaching; the support to seek needed individual professional growth experiences.
6. Year 3 teachers are ready to actively participate in professional growth. Choices might be a masters degree or, after year 3, National Board Certification. Many states offer an alternative route to professional or continuing certification that approximates National Board Certification but has less rigor and more busywork.
7. National Board Certification is ideal, because it must be renewed every 10 years. As soon as an NBCT’s eyes grow accustomed to the glare on the shiny, new certificate, thoughts turn to carefully choosing professional growth opportunities that can be translated into direct or indirect impact on student learning.  And therein lies the evaluation.  Reflective self-evaluation of one’s own practice is the most rigorous measure of effectiveness.

Not much new here, is there? The only real differences I suggest are very strong mentoring and support to work consistently, clearly, and convincingly at a high level, and the expectations of hard work and the modeling of continuous learning and improvement. No going through the motions.  Mentors, university supervisors, principals – step it up, please.  Jus do your best.

Your thoughts, please?

This group of teachers, all National Board Certified, are in their eighth or ninth year following initial certification. In order to remain NBCTs, they are faced with the task of renewing their certificates.  Most look forward to this process with residual fear and trembling from their initial certification experience. As one who completed the renewal process fairly early in its evolution, Washington Education Association asked me to develop a facilitation protocol and workshop to support NBCTs through the renewal process, so I did.  And that’s where I was today. Here’s why it’s the best path to growing accomplished teachers. And here’s why it’s the very best renewal, ever.

The renewal process is much shorter and sweeter than initial certification. Compared to the initial certification work, renewal a very open process, allowing NBCTs to truly showcase the ways they’ve chosen to grow professionally since the beginning of their teaching careers. The portfolio itself is 23 written pages (as opposed to nearly 100 in the initial certification process) and has 1-2 videos and 8-16 pages of products for 4 entries. There is no assessment center in renewal, where initial certification has a very rigorous written assessment. The renewing NBCT selects any 4 professional growth experiences and describes each.  One PGE demonstrates the teacher’s application of content and/or pedagogical learning in his/her classroom and the direct impact on student learning that occurs as a result of the teacher learning.  A second PGE can demonstrate more of the same, or it might demonstrate the NBCT’s learning and work with adult learners in a mentoring others, in university courses, as a member of a PLC or committee. Again, always, the focus is on the impact on student learning, more indirectly this time. Finally, the NBCT writes a 4-page reflection on his or her practice. Reflection.  What worked well? What didn’t?  What modifications will be made? Why?

The Profile of Professional Growth is independently assessed by at least two NBCTs who hold the same content and developmental level certificate as the renewal candidate.  If there is not sufficient evidence that the candidate’s professional growth in content knowledge, pedagogy, technology, diversity, and equity of access for all students resulted, directly and indirectly, on student learning, the candidate will not be renewed. 

This Profile of Professional Growth is the most useful bit of information I’ve ever experienced as a window into my students’ learning. It’s far more useful than a set of standardized test scores, which never seem to give me enough information. Using the standards and reflective practices learned in the initial certification process, a teacher can mine a complete picture of student learning and can make informed decisions on how to help each student grow in his/her learning.

Washington State will award an NBCT or renewed NBCT a continuing certificate for staying with this process.  Most state certificate renewal, for example my current state, Oregon, will allow me to renew the Continuing certificate I was awarded, just by attending all my district’s “sit-and-git.”  I don’t have to do a thing to show that I actually learned as opposed to sitting through sessions while Facebooking on my phone. (Which I would never do, BTW. I’d more likely live-tweet the whole thing.)

The difference in renewing a National Board Certificate and any other teaching license is that to renew the National Board Certificate, the actual, honest-to-goodness impact on student learning must be demonstrated. To insure that every child has an accomplished teacher who is continually learning and growing, perhaps it’s certificate renewal that needs a higher level of accountability. I’ve renewed certificates in 3 states, usually by jumping a hoop such as obtaining a masters’ degree (in educational leadership, in a program in which I really didn’t learn much.) I renewed once by simply documenting my attendance at workshops and “professional development” events sponsored by my district. Again, I did not have to document that any student learning occurred as a result of my participation.

I propose that states accept the National Board renewal process as sufficient professional growth for their highest level of certification. For teachers who are not National Board Certified, I propose a similar means of documenting professional growth; one that does not necessarily include standardized test scores except as an option for the teacher to use in reflection and appropriate modification of his or her practice. 

I reworked the list a little to reflect some things my students knew or in which they had shown interest.  The first few years, the kids worked in groups and competed to see which group could collect the most items the most quickly.

Why should the seniors have all the fun?  asked the Chemistry 1 juniors.  I gave them a go, and they had a great time with the project for a few years.  I saw for the first time, students making genuine connections in their learning and the real world. On their own. Wow.

A parent made me re-think the group work portion.  In a scathing phone call she told me how impossible this project was, adding that I was indeed insane and had no business in the classroom. I still remember her words. Why would I assign such a “difficult and time-consuming grade” at the end of the year, when her son had lots of family plans?   Interestingly, her niece had completed the project the year before and loved it…. the phone-call-mom’s son, notsomuch.  He had a reputation of not holding up his part in a group in any classroom and contributed very little to his scavenger hunt group, I observed during class work time.   I’d seen a group of 3 AP Chemisty students complete the assignment in 4 class days after their test, with each student reporting 1-2 hours out of class to do some collecting.  I hadn’t thought this was unreasonable; the Chemistry 1 students worked in groups of 4, had 8 class days encompassing 2 weekends. The only “homework” was the actual collection of items; the tagging, weighing, measuring, collaborating, etc were all done in class. But I digress.

Group grades, once respected as a means to measure collaborative skills, began to fade from my classroom in 2001. This, and other, projects evolved to encourage collaboration, but each student produced his own collection and rationale.  I expected to see more identical items with identical explanations than I did. The authenticity required in the project made cheating difficult, as in a student couldn’t copy without understanding.  If the identical items and explanations met the criteria, I was just appreciative that learning had taken place.  If the duplicate work was incorrect, it got called out during the classroom defense described in the scoring guide.  Students wisely made sure they could defend each choice they made. Interestingly, if someone came up with a really unusual item, he generally stayed quiet about it.

Six years ago, I wrote a Biology version. After the first year, as technology was becoming more available, I reworked the instructions and wrote a set of suggestions for using technology to record and display student findings. I handed it to an honors biology class. Here are links below are to their work in Spring, 2010.

http://morganbbiology.wikispaces.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51008932@N08/

http://s1043.photobucket.com/home/intellectual_b-a/index

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50931876@N05/

http://kristenlarsenbio.wikispaces.com/

Revisions are in the works. There are a zillion scavenger hunt versions on the Internet now, as del as completed versions of student work. I’m evolving this project into something else, something I haven’t quite figured out yet. Ideas?

About 2 years into my career, I figured out that if students arrived in class already knowing something about the day’s learning, they took away a deeper, more satisfying, understanding. We were able to use class time differently, in ways that helped us learn more authentically.

I did not need standardized tests, value-added evaluations, or clever new names for the method to figure this out, by the way.

I also noticed that if reading from a textbrick textbook was assigned (suffice it to say that I’ve been teaching a while), students tended to dutifully “read” through the sentences as though they were reading a novel, because that’s how they had been taught to read.  They’d show up in class the next day and say, “I read it but I don’t get it.” And yes, I think that’s the title of some book that I probably should read.

I also began to notice that students needed not just to “read,” but to construct some kind of model representing the knowledge they were constructing. (Wow, what a novel idea…..) So, I structured some methods to help students get the learning they needed from nonfiction text. Disclaimer: I’m not a reading teacher. I know only what helps me learn and what other students tell me has help them learn. It’s mostly the suggestions one hints from other students I pass along. The reading involves either the structured outline I provide, or some kind of model the student begins to construct and modifies as we work through a concept.  We work through the structured outline at least once, together in class, so students have an idea of the kinds of learning they need to be extracting from the text, then they move on to another type of model of their choosing. I’m still learning how to help students read so please share anything I should know.

The students who read using one of the suggested strategies made unsolicited comments about how much this helped them understand whatever we did in class. (At that time, I was still lecturing on a regular basis. As I moved away from lecture, students continued to make the same comments.)

Sometimes, for various reasons, students did not read. Most of the time, a student who didn’t read found classmates to catch him/her up on the reading, so they would come to class with some background preparation. I was OK with that. The reading prep was meant to take no more than 20 minutes, but sometimes, even that was too much. The catch-up-via-friend method served its purpose. Both friends learned from such a sharing experience.

At my current school, there are a number of students who can’t read, or can’t read English. I’m using more and more video options for these students. I also offer the options My district adopted new textbooks this spring, a textbook that includes videos and animations. I’ll use some of them, some of the college-level open courseware for AP Chemistry, and, inspired by this idea from Peter Pappas, will this year ask students to make and share their own videos.

When the new textbricks textbooks arrive, I’ll re-work my reading guides to fit their delivery, and add options for using the online materials as well. And I’ll add an update to this post when that’s done.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my “flipped classroom.”

I’ve loved Evernote  for a while.  I recommend it to students, and colleagues, and pretty much everyone I see.  I’ve also loved Omnifocus on my Macbook Pro for a good long time. I check it on my phone more times than a 10th grader checks Facebook. The iPad version is finally out. It appears to be a huge improvement over the iPhone version that simply runs on the iPad. It ought to be; with a price tag of $39.95.  I don’t begrudge OmniGroup a profit.  It’s just that I’ve purchased the Mac desktop app (about $40 ed pricing, when it was available), and the iPhone app (19.95).  I’d like a break here…… I’ll honestly be a bit sad to say goodbye to Omnifocus.

Then, I read this blog post about a grad student using Evernote in a few unusual ways. (If you don’t already use Evernote, just trust me and do it.)  I’m not sure I could do without notebooks as the author does, and I still find that I want to title things rather than just using tags in the title.  I scrolled along the post until I came to the calendar section.  I’ve never been successful with either paper or electronic calendars. I always write too much stuff on the calendar.   I have to look at the calendar and to-do list separately, and my ADHD brain just does not compute.  I’ve made it work for just over a week now, and am very pleased.

The solution:

1. Each day, open a new note.  Title it like this:  03-18-12 Log Sunday. (The creator of this system titles his daily notes “Journal”, but I”m already using that tag for something else, so I chose to use “Log.”)
2. List all the things you want to accomplish that day.  I like the checkbox format, the article guy used – and replaced it with X when completed, but he is probably also using checkboxes now.
3. As you complete each item, check it off.
4. Something you didn’t finish?  Just copy and paste them to the next day’s note.
5. When an engagement, appointment, meeting,etc appears, open a new note (title  for that date) and paste in the time, place, other info. It looks like this:
   

   Evernote To Do Notebook

I’ll add more info about the event as I get it.

When a day is complete, I will rename it MMDDYY Archive Dayoftheweek and move it to the Log Archive notebook.

Advantages to this system:

• all information for one event is in one place. Think: Linked notes, if needed.
• Within the notebook, they can be sorted on my iPhone, iPad, or desktop app.
• I didn’t have to learn and come to love a new app.
• My calendars are nice and clean.  I can still open a calendar to get a big picture. I’m wondering if a day’s note could even be linked to Google Calendar.
• Notes about the day can be added on the fly, so long as you have a device.  Notes written by hand can be typed in later, or added with a photo or app like CamScanner or Whiteboard Share.
• Notes can be linked.
• I have a premium account, so can share editable project and grocery lists with my husband.
• It’s free, unless you use it as much as I do.
• It’s available everywhere.  (I love you, Evernote!)

Disadvantages:

• I already use Evernote for just about everything.  If you don’t, you need to learn the app.  The learning curve is pretty low.
• Eventually, I will have to delete stuff, or archive things massively.

To be perfectly honest, I have only set up the system within the past week, so I’ll be learning for a while.  Please, please, add your input and tweaks.  I will, as well.

Please comment including any other resources you’d consider if you were us.  Also, please comment on individual resources if you have experience or thoughts that might help us make a decision.  This list does not include all of the traditional hard-copy textbooks and support materials we’ve been sent.  I don’t want this post to take a year to read.

Resources under consideration:

Here is a list of open source and free content and curriculum for consideration.  Each source meets related Oregon State Science Standards and so far as I can see, meshes well with the Next Generation Framework. No one source, open source of paid textbook, will meet all standards. This is not a review, only an annotated list of links for my colleagues to explore.  The list and commentary will change over the next several weeks as we consider options.

Science, math, and engineering:

• CK12 Flexbooks – Free, open-source content.  Updated frequently;  the content won’t get old. Customizable. I accessed it from my iPhone and iPad. PDFs can be customized, downloaded to any computer, stored on removable media, or even printed for students who don’t have electronics. Many choices of chapters and editions for Biology, Earth Science, Anatomy, several options for Chemistry, two options including videos for Physics, Engineering, and (I love this) Nanotechnology.TE and SE; workbooks available for most.Contain videos from KA. Enough said. According to my contact at CK12, the videos can be stripped.

Biology:

• National Institute of Health: Nstional Institute of General Medical Sciences distributes classroom sets of materials to teachers. Three that meet standards are The Structures of Life, Inside the Cell , and The New Genetics.
• Northwest Association for Biomedical Research – Curricula for genetics research, bioinformatics, stem cell research, bioethics, consumer awareness.
• Evolution and the Nature of Science Institutes – Research-based materials produced and reviewed by scientists; tested and modified by teachers. Engaging for students.
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute – each December, a group of Howard Hughes fellows deliver lectures to an audience of high school students.  Lectures are 20-minute segments with Q&H between the students and the scientists.  Humorous and engaging.
• Experimental Biology by Catalyst Curricula offers excellent units for Biology and Anatomy. Not free, but affordable.
• POGIL – the high school Chemistry and Biology resources are now available. I have copies of each. Not free, but affordable.

Chemistry:

• many AP chemistry sources will be implemented in Chemistry as well.
• CK12 Flexbooks – see above.
• World of Chemistry Videos – Applications of concepts in chemistry (also biochemistry and biology) to real-world situations.  Much engineering design throughout.
• Merlot (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) Animations, inter actives, courses, textbooks, and all you’d want to go with them.

Physics

• CK12 Flexbooks – see above.
• HyperPhysics – also available as a DVD.
• The Physics Classroom – my students and I used this resource regularly.  Much great content.
• Light and Matter - thanks, @fnoschese.  Also, software.

Marine Biology

Forensics

Human Anatomy and Physiology

• CK12 Flexbooks – see above.

AP Chemistry

• Chemical Education Digital Library – That. Is. All.
• ChemReview.net – review/tutorials and summer assignments; free to download; print copies available for a small charge.
• Chemistry Experiment Simulations, Tutorials and Conceptual Computer Animations for Introduction to College Chemistry - Chemical Education Research Group, Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University, Ames, IA

And lastly, how to make your own textbook, without Apple.

Added 3-14-2012:
How did I just now find this gold mine of open-source texts?

Added 3-17-2012
Teaching Physics without a Textbook: What David Andrade uses instead.

Added 3-26-12
How to add a microscope to your iPad

My thoughts on devices:

Devices are simply one means for students to access content.  Any content that has only one delivery option opposes my standards for equity of access.  My preference for student devices is that they facilitate:

• easy access to open source materials and content from the web
• collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data
• student creation of content using text, photos, audio and video recording, and art.
• sharing of student-created content

What would you add?

Recipe:  Supersaturated Sucrose Solution

Response: Documenting the Process

Results: 

Most recently, I’ve incorporated the work began with Linda Christensen (from Lewis and Clark) and the Oregon Writing Project. Freshmen begin keeping all lab and inquiry work in a bound theme book, AKA fondly as “my lab book.” My vision for the appearance of student lab books has morphed over the years.  Some things change very little, though, because good science is good science and good science writing is good science writing. At my current school, I’m blessed with like-minded colleagues who have helped me refine my vision as it is shared in this post. Here’s our current plan…..

Students have been introduced to basic lab safety, wearing chemical splash goggles whenever heat, glassware, or chemicals are present on their shared lab bench.  They’ve measured volume and mass, and viewed wet mounts of their own construction with a compound microscope. This first lab will be their introduction to inquiry in high school science. It’s designed to model hypothesis testing as inquiry, and includes all the components needed to show that state standards for inquiry are met.  The lab is written in a format found in peer-reviewed science journals and shared as such so that students have a guide for future independent work.

In this investigation, students test various foods for organic molecules in this first inquiry; protein is identified by its reaction with Biuret solution, starch by its reaction with Lugol’s iodine, and simple sugars by their reaction with Benedict’s solution. Students have built models of each of these organic molecules, drawn structures, learned a bit about the importance and function of each in cells and in living things, and know something about food sources of each from their health classes.  Bored yet?  Thanks for hanging in with me.

And now – the inquiry:

Day 1: Using a prewritten introduction, students identify types of information gleaned from the introduction. We compare a list of their observations to a pre-fab criteria sheet, constructed to align with the criteria sheets used by language arts teachers.  Students color-code the model introduction using crayons, colored pencils, hi-lighters, or colored pens to provide a visual of the criteria, all included and working together. This is also a review of the content our state expects students to master. We discuss together their choices for placing particular statements in particular categories.  We notice, for example, that definitions may be strategically placed throughout their writing, making explanations available to the reader as needed.  We learn what type of statements belong to each listed criteria, and we learn that sometimes a statement might belong to more than one criterion. Each test is demonstrated. (This may also take place again on Day 2.)

Day 2: Students learn to prepare a lab book.  They use MSDS to identify and record safety hazards, and learn what must be done prior to going to the lab bench; we don’t just get a handout from the teacher and cookbook our way to a few correct answers to submit. This time, and this time only, the prefab introduction may be stapled into the lab book – after this, each student group will do their own research and write their own introductions according to the general criteria sheet format. Students add the materials lists, procedure, and data tables to their books, and draw out a diagram for each test they will do in the procedure to give them a visual anchor.

Day 3: Lab day.  Students are encouraged to photograph their results, and I do as well. It’s helpful if any labels on test tubes are clearly visible.

Day 4: We discuss results, with photos of lab results projected on a screen for reference.  Students answer analysis questions and write a conclusion using the Conclusion Criteria Sheet (page 3 of Materials, Procedure handout).

Day 5: Labs are peer-reviewed using the criteria sheets as guidelines.  Students read one anthers’ lab books, write strengths and suggestions on small slips of colored paper (Post-its are nice but too expensive), and return the work to the author for additions and revisions.  Revisions are written on slips of another color and attached in the appropriate place in the lab.  There is no scoring penalty for making these revisions.  The point is to learn.

What’s wrong with this plan?  Nothing, I suppose.  It has all the components students need to learn to write and  perform an experimental inquiry. Students have a sample format with all the components, all the content they really need to know, a list of materials needed, a sample procedure, and sample data tables.

Here’s what they DONT have:  resources beyond one selected textbook or an opportunity to collaborate or learn from one anothers’ work.  An opportunity to add creativity to their work based on their own personal questions or observations. The “Four ‘Cs” of 21st Century learning, Collaboration, Creativity and innovation, Communication, and, t a large extent, Critical Thinking. They also must meet new Common Core Standards in language arts with pencil and paper. Most labs also involve measurement and quantitative analysis, incidentally supporting math standards.

These students need access to technology, both for information procurement and content creation.  Desperately.

The actual work sample this year can be found here. Stay tuned for results.

Direct from the whiteboard, courtesy of our principal

It’s clear that we were brainstorming.  Our ideas jumped from broad, general skills such as “predicting” and “graphing” to general big ideas such as structure/function and patterns.

We have some questions.

What’s missing?  What doesn’t belong?  What needs to be rearranged?

I just began year 23 of classroom teaching.  My goal is never to become one of those “old” teachers, sneering at innovation while pulling an ancient worksheet from a dog-eared folder. I’ve asked younger colleagues to alert me should they observe these tendencies in my practice.  I actively seek and provide a variety of professional development for myself and my colleagues.  I’m active in various professional learning communities. My paper and electronic files are pruned and revised regularly.  And I listen to students, with a focus this past year on the learning skills of a particularly interesting class of intentional non-learners.  You know the type.  They enter the classroom with their minds on everything else; pencils and paper, it they have any, remain in their backpacks. Their faces say, “Teach me.  I dare you.”  They have little respect for anything, often including themselves.

Not wanting to characterize myself as one who resists change, I strive for a balance between actively seeking out and employing practices that merit trying because they likely will help students learn and having the good judgment to recognize strategies I recognize as unlikely to result in a successful outcome with students for some reason.   I’m also pretty willing to take risks in my classroom so long as the risks lead to student learning, er, being able to meet a standard. Lately, though, I’ve been questioning more and more teaching practices that are new to me. Is the voice in my head directing me to the retirement line or is my well-seasoned malarky detector speaking?

The newest, loudest voice questions the new (?) practice of assessing (read: grading) students strictly on the meeting of a standard. Time is not a factor, nor work ethic, not academic integrity. Multiple retries on all tests and quizzes must be allowed. The number 50% replaces zeros in gradebooks, because a zero is mathematically invalid as a score and puts the student so far behind that he loses all hope of success. Homework is never part of the grade, if students are asked to do it at all, because practice should never be graded. Much formative assessment is done and perhaps checked off but like homework, is never a part of the grade. Change your assessment, they promise, and presto! student learning increase measurably – by a new assessment standard. A huge piece of this puzzle is missing: student learning. Where, in this new system, do students learn?

The past few years, I implemented some practices promoted by well-known and respected, but apparently pretty much self-proclaimed, assessment gurus.  According to them, my grading practices are broken and need to be fixed, because some students still “fail”. Failing as defined at my school is not achieving an average of 70%, or having earned 70% of the points available to be earned. Nevermind that every opportunity to accumulate points was also demonstrating the degree of mastery of a standard; my method of measuring student success is broken because failure is a possible outcome. So, I allowed due dates to be extended into infinity, recorded so many I’s that our school secretary hunted me down prior to closing grades, and made many formats of assessments for retakes.

I’ve honed my assessment system over the years, changing it appropriately with an eye toward showcasing student achievement with each upgrade. I’ve made changes based on feedback from parents, practiced teachers, most of all, students.  My late work policy is not without compassion for a student who is genuinely working hard for mastery or who has extenuating circumstances.  I will excuse a student if an assignment is clearly busywork for him/her. I offer options for students to demonstrate mastery of a standard. I know my students as people and am a trained professional; I am skilled in making decisions about what is best for each student, at this time, in this setting. My intent is to help each student show success. Fixing broken grades assumes that all assignments are scored on a weighted 100% scale, that students make a fairly continuous and honest effort to learn, and that there is no compassion or second chance.  None of those assumptions are true in my classroom. Every student who is willing to engage in a way demonstrating the meeting of standards not only passes, but by default earns a “good grade” on his or her report card. I ask, then, what is broken?

Proponents of this system are making a lot of money selling professional development (of the sit-n-get variety) and accompanying resource materials to school districts harboring large numbers of low-achieving and/or failing students.They draw crowds of educators and administrators desperate to mask the clear evidence of student disengagement.  In numerous conversations this past summer with academic and industrial scientists,all mentioned serious concern about the changing focus of incoming college freshmen. A common theme was the lack of preparation with respect to thinking skills, unwillingness to engage in more difficult academic work, willingness to put in the hours needed for understanding, and interestingly, a complete disregard for due dates (to be addressed in a later post, so please save your comments for that post .

If this tactic were employed in the private sector and school districts were retirees, the salespeople would be branded as scam artists. There is no solid, empirical research to support the methods these people promote.

By the way, my experiment with these “fixes” did not result in a difference in student grades.I’d wager that significantly less student learning took place with these policies in place. I only regret that I hadn’t been so consumed with producing a zillion alternative assignments and assessment retakes that I had no time to gather any meaningful data.

Stay tuned for my fix.

My goals for the school year are to bring more relevance to our learning, better help each student reach his/her potential, and to do so without working 23 hours a day and all weekend. This partly stems from the stress last year of finishing the dissertation while starting a new job. I was either teaching, grading, planning, writing, crunching data, moving, or sleeping, in that order. (I ate while working on something. Couldn’t figure out how to work in my sleep.) I’d like my classes and my life to move at a pace that allows time for reflection and revising and laughing at least a little.  And I never, ever want my desk to look like this again:

Here’s my first day so far:

Learning Targets:
1. Science: Remember that? (A little science on the first day never hurt.)
2. Learn roles and protocols for group work (because 9th graders usually don’t know what to do in a group.)
3. Explain what we will learn this year, why and how we will learn it.

Most of all, I want students to learn and have some fun. The learning targets are to keep students engaged (and to keep their notebooks from looking like this:).

I shamelessly stole the Subversive Lab Grouping Game from @fnochese. I will use it much as he does. Students are given one card when they enter.  Biology classes will use this set, and Chemistry classes will use this set. (Enter subject area content.) Students will learn to form groups while having a little fun, and then we’ll learn to have a whole-class discussion.

We will discuss what they learned about the groups, both the obvious and the subversive, about science in general.  Biologists will discuss the characteristics of some major groups of living things. Chemists will note they grouped themselves by locations on the periodic table and understand that they are grouped in this way because they have some things in common. (Learning Target 1)

Each group will receive an appropriate set of role cards as described here.  Today’s task will require the Leader/Manager, Reader, Document Control Specialist, and Communications Specialist. Students will work through this activity, meeting Learning Target, 2 and 3. Here is the Career Skills reference. Prepare a basic version of the standards you are using (don’t get me started.)  Student advice is on your own, collected at the end of last year. Always frank; Frequently hilarious.  If you email me, I’ll get some to you.

Reminders about roles throughout helps keep everyone contributing and helps make sense of collaborating.  Roles also make is clear that everyone’s input is not only needed, but welcomed. At the end of each part in the What, Why, How work, we stop and share responses, making a list on the board. Perhaps this year, we will also write some specific, individual goals to check in with occasionally.  I tried this once with SMART goals.  I love goals that are achievable and specific, but get lost after that.  Maybe we’ll just do SA goals.

These activities will also let me see quickly who are leaders, clowns, academics; who is quiet, who might not know much English, who will need help focusing, who is willing to read aloud in a group, you get the picture.  Students understand quickly that they are to do their best, listen to others, that it’s safe to speak up, and begin to see that mutual respect is the MO in my classroom.

Neurology Students in Berlin, a long, long time ago.

My introduction to assigning student roles in group work came in 1994 at a Project Discovery summer workshop. I didn’t question the value of this practice. More experienced teachers and university professors shared their expert guidelines.  As teacher participants in the workshop, we used these canned roles as we worked our way through canned labs intended to inspire student discovery. They appeared, we decided, to be a pretty effective method for managing students in lab settings and for facilitating student communication about their work. The checkpoints added strategically to canned procedures helped me check for understanding while students were working.

The system seemed to be pretty slick. I implemented the practice and revised the duties for each role a few times over the years.  I was careful to rotate roles among students so everyone had the opportunity to hone his or her skills. Groups always had the flexibility to re-create roles so long as they were safe, equitable, and productive. Once the basics of working together were clear, the mechanical roles that had perhaps played a part in their learning were done automatically, while student thoughts were occupied with learning.

Recently, someone who I remember as teaching physics (please refresh my memory, whomever you are!) on Twitter asked about group roles.  I replied that yes, I found them helpful but didn’t really use them much in 12th grade Physics…. and then it struck me. I’ve worked in 2 small school settings since adding the use of roles to my practice, so I get to see students more than one year during their high school careers.  I noticed that it took a while to teach 9th graders how to work with one another in lab.  When I saw them again as 10th graders, many already had great lab group skills.  Lest I give the impression that I am a drill sergeant who believes that compliance = success, I’d like to clarify that often after a few months, student groups were coming up with their own norms for group roles.  So long as their norms embraced safety and learning, I encouraged this. When I saw students again in 11th grade, I spent almost no time dealing with group communication skills.  By 12th grade, kids had  perhaps learned enough about collaboration to transfer that learning to a new lab situation on their own.

Something is still missing. I want to help students learn to work together in settings outside of the laboratory.  Students could use role guidelines to learn to be supportive, contributing members of a collaborative group learning experience. By modeling roles for other types of collaboration, will students be able to transfer those skills to other situations, courses, and real-world situations? A colleague at my new school gave me a copy of a set of roles she uses in implementing POGIL activities.  I reformatted them and am fairly pleased with the way they feel at this time.

Suggestions for use:
There are currently 8 roles in all, allowing a teacher or students to choose the roles needed for a collaborative group to begin working together. One group member can play more than 1 role.

1. Choose a random way of assigning the leader/manager.  Ask the student in each group who has his back to the door, the oldest, youngest, first alphabetically by last name, or some other criteria to be the Leader/Manager.
2. The Leader/Manager can then distribute the remaining roles.  Early in the year, I sometimes choose in such a way that each student has a chance to play each role at least once during the first few weeks.
3. The first time role cards are used, I will ask all the Leader/Managers to raise their hands.I ask one of them to read aloud the purpose and responsibilities.  Often we will do a mini-fishbowl with an example of one of the responsibilities.
4. When finished with Leader/Manager, chose another role.  Repeat, until each role you are using has been explained.
5. I will sometimes call all the Leader/Managers together for a moment to check progress or to ask if there are questions.  This gives the students a chance to hear what others with the same responsibilities are doing.  I’ll sometimes ask Time Managers to hold up 1, 2, 5 fingers to let me know how much more time they might need with a certain task.

The current draft is now open for public comment I’d like permission to incorporate your ideas into my work, with credits, of course.  I’ll publish word or google docs of the final product, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License as always. Please share your thoughts.

Pre-service elementary teachers showed a statistically significant gain in their learning about the moon and teaching elementary students about the moon by inquiry.

And this supporting statement:

The study shows that pre-service teachers average gain scores from pre-test to post-test increased by 7 points on a 21-item test.

If this were taken as the only finding from my dissertation, these pre-service teachers obviously demonstrated significant learning. All is well.

But wait.

Another look, from a perspective otherwise easily missed, is this finding:

While there was a significant increase in constructed knowledge among the experimental group, the mean posttest score of 11.17 out of 21 possible is only 53%.

And then there’s this:

At the individual student level, these data are of even more interest….. The experimental group, however, had 15 out of 24 pre-service teachers (or 63%) who ended the semester with more misconceptions than they had at the beginning.

At this point, the story needs a disclaimer.  I did not teach this class.   The study took place in 2002-2004.  The instructor of record is no longer teaching at this university. The course has been taught in a very different, and, it is hoped, more successful manner for several years now.

This is human subject research, folks, with many uncontrolled variables and many stories not easily measured with numbers. Using data from standardized student tests alone is very, very dangerous. I’ll stand unwaveringly on that position until this whole NCLB/RTTT/evaluation madness goes to the grave.