Grand Rounds

Open versus Closed

2010-09-21T17:09:00.000-04:00

The focus of the learning this week is on PLE, which are considered “open” and Learning Management Systems (LMS) which are considered “closed.” Examples of LMS include Blackboard, Moodle and other content delivery resources. They are considered “closed” because someone (a teacher) controls the content and the activities, unlike a PLE in which the learner personalizes their learning using the tools and content that suits them.

I hadn’t really thought of LMS as being closed before reading the PLENK resources this week, and in particular this transcript of an interview with several leaders in teaching and learning with technology. I have been particularly interested in online learning for a few years and within the last two have begun to design online courses. One of the things I have done is to incorporate elements of a PLE into those courses - encouraging the creation of delicious and Diigo accounts, using Adobe Connect to have the participants meet and interact with one another in real time, create blogs and wikis, etc. etc. In that manner - I hadn’t considered the courses closed but realize now that if I am providing the learning opportunities - it really isn’t personalized. They are still completing the activities as a matter of completing the course, but I am not sure that it extends beyond that.

What is interesting about online learning is that it hasn't really reached our region yet. I have tried to provide opportunities for teachers and administrators to engage in online learning because I think that they need to experience how different it really it in order to understand how to use it with students. Participation in those is low but loyal. With students, it is mostly being used for credit recovery and I have found in reviewing much of the courses that the activities and assessments are "Google-able." No critical thinking, no collaboration, no creativity.

Which makes me realized that most of our teaching right now is pretty closed - in fact, there are few classrooms (let alone buildings or districts) where I see networked teachers who have all you see in this model*:

The Networked Teacher (Couros, 2008)

From Drexler, "The Networked Student Model for Construction of PLE:Balancing Teacher Control and Student Autonomy

I am pondering how do we help the teacher become more networked so that they can develop a networked classroom? And not networked for the sake of being networked, but because they can't imagine operating any other way?

PBL Thoughts

2010-09-21T08:32:00.000-04:00

I have been spending the past two days working with regional colleagues on Project Based Learning (PBL) following the Buck Institute Model. In wrestling with how to work with teachers around this model, I noticed that PBL also matched the Collegial Circles that I have written about previously.

The seven essential features of a "good" project are as follows:
1. Driving Question and a Challenge
2. Need to Know
3. Inquiry and Innovation
4. 21st Century Skills
5. Student Voice and Choice
6. Feedback and Revision
7. Public Presentation

In looking through the list, I realize that this is the exact process that the teachers go through when developing their focus and plan for learning. What is really intriguing to me is the "need to know" piece. This isn't what content is needed, but the fact that what you are investigating is a real need to know (hoping you can hear the emphasis in my voice!) Meaning you want to learn about it.

Two more districts that I know of are moving towards this model for professional development - which captures the passion of teachers and for me, honors them as professionals.

In the training, we have been wrestling with how to move "traditional" teachers to use the tools in their toolbox and embrace project based learning - at least a few times a year. This model captures the passion of students and for me, honors them as learners.

Maybe if we set the model up for teachers, they will be comfortable with it in the classroom.

Network-Environment-Ecology

2010-09-16T20:14:00.000-04:00

Week 1 of PLENK2010 has my head spinning. Our first task as I understood it was to start to define PLE and PLN which fits into the reasons I wanted to begin the course: to flesh out the differences between PLE/PLN and a community of learners as I know it. Interestingly, between the readings, the conversations and the new readings from the links in the conversations – I am learning that there is no one definition for either PLE or PLN. Instead, they seem to be evolving definitions and points of discussion. (Which means – if I use them, I should define them to give a context to those I am working with!)

As I am slowly distilling it from the readings, a personal learning network (PLN) is just that – the people with whom you interact and learn. What I am discovering in reading and reflecting upon my own practice is that this network might be “one way.” That is – I might consider some people to be a part of my network ( I learn from them) but I never engage with them. While network implies interconnectivity, if I simply follow people on Twitter and never engage with them (reply or even retweet) or they don’t follow me back, I may still consider them part of my network. They inform my learning.

A personal learning environment (PLE) on the other hand seems to be use to define the tools that are used to build and enhance the PLN – to encourage interaction. Most of the reading and links seem to indicate that this environment is mainly “virtual” – meaning that it is not face to face but done by any number of the web tools that are available to connect and collaborate. Wendy McGrath created a list of PLE guiding principles and one really stood out to me: accessible from multiple touchpoints. This makes a great deal of sense to me as I think about how I use Twitter, Facebook, blogs and Ning to connect, learn and interact. I have many of the same “friends” in these arenas but I interact with them very differently depending upon the limitations of the touchpoint.

In reading the week 1 discussion, Josh Underwood suggested the term “personal learning ecology” to try and capture the dynamic nature of PLN/PLE. Jennie Swann added to that by citing Brent Davis’ work* in which he refers to ecologies as “webs of interactions within particular systems.” I am leaning a bit toward this usage as it seems to me that it would expand beyond just the “virtual” connections that can be made when made refer to a PLE.

As an example, I meet with a small sub-group of Communities for Learning three times over the course of a year. Once a year the larger group converges upon Connecticut and we meet together for an entire week. I connect with many of these people face-to-face between meetings and with an even smaller subset of that group virtually. This is not just one learning network for me – it is the hub. However, much of my work within Communities for Learning is also informed by a different group of people with whom I interact online via any number of tools. And yet more of my work is influenced by those I interact with face-to-face on a regular basis. Therefore my ecology, my system of learning, combines both face-to-face and virtual interactions with a variety of people.

*
Davis, B. (2004). Inventions of teaching: A genealogy. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Making Learning Transparent

2010-09-13T20:55:00.001-04:00

For a few years now, I have been interested in the intersection between technology and my work as a Fellow in Communities for Learning. As I have been engaged online through Twitter and delicious and my blogs, the terms "PLN" and "PLE" kept cropping up. And I have wrestled with them - their meaning, their value and how they are similar to/different from the learning community that I engage with.

I am excited to participate in the Personal Learning Environments Networks and Knowledge course which begins this week (it's not too late - you can join!) The course is part of a giant research project on PLEs and will examine the learning that occurs as a result of interaction and participation in a distributed community. I am fascinated by this - both as a learner as well as someone who has encouraged the engagement of others online without really knowing if there are benefits!

I'll use this post to post questions and try to synthesize my thoughts and learning. I encourage you to join the course but if you can't do that - try to engage here. I'll tag all posts that relate to the course with PLENK2010 so you will know when the blog posts are on that versus the other fun things Jenn and I discuss.

I hope to see you somewhere along this learning journey!

A Daily Difference

2010-09-09T18:38:00.000-04:00

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
- Marian Wright Edelman

I think we are too hard on ourselves. In our work, in our daily lives, in our relationships with others - we never think we measure up. That there is something we could always do better. That we could always be better.

The beginning of a new school year is always a bit rough for me. I miss my students. I miss any students. I miss the daily interaction with them, learning from them, feeling like I have a purpose.

Not that I don't think I have a purpose now. Just that it is different.

I left the classroom because I thought I could make a larger difference. That instead of just impacting the students I had that year, I could impact ten times that number by working with their teachers. That I could be a real change agent in the field of education - something that hasn't really changed in 100 years.

Maybe I set my sights too high. Or maybe, I am not looking at the small differences that I make. I'm going to start looking closer. And I am going to start letting others know when they have made a difference for me.

Have a fantastic new school year!

Perseverance

2010-07-27T11:31:00.000-04:00

"It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act. It starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more."

Margie Piercy, "The Low Road"

A political poem, but one this week has me thinking about changes in education. In New York State (as elsewhere) they are happening fast and furious without someone helping teachers understand in the bigger context of things what is going on.

This week, as districts are being impacted by the decision to change cut-scores on the NYS Grades 3-8 assessments in Math and ELA, there is an under-current of panic. Of frustration. Of confusion. And I am not sure that in the end we are keeping the kids in mind.

In theory, these changes that are coming at us are intended to be what is best for kids. I absolutely have to believe that. We do need to look at what we teach and how we assess and ensure that we are producing citizens who will be able to succeed and prosper in life after high school. That is our responsibility as educators.

And as educators, we know what works with our students. They are unique and there are no two classrooms across this state, country or world that are identical. We need to take the "bounded autonomy" we have in our schools and classrooms and serve those students first.

We need to persevere through these changes. More than that - we need to investigate them, question them, implement them and reflect upon them. We need to remember that we serve people - often very little people - and that we have a big responsibility. To them.

To Blog or Not to Blog - That is the Question!

2010-07-20T22:39:00.001-04:00

As a part of my session on growing and enhancing learning communities using technology tools at the NYSCATE Leadership Summit, I am introducing participants to a variety of tools within the context of the dispositions of practice from the ARCS framework of Communities for Learning. One tool that we are sharing is blogs.

For me, blogging has been a way to put my thoughts out to the greater world. Sometimes I get feedback in the form of comments, sometimes I don't. (That makes me very sad by the way! Post a comment! Just don't post spam!) Either way - the very act of putting my question out there, of writing about my thought process helps me to clarify my work and the vision I have for that work.

When I began blogging, there was the initial fear of "what if I say the wrong thing" - particularly as I blogged about my work. Then I ran into the problem that my chose blogging platform was often blocked in district (very frustrating!) However, I persevered and my blogging continues.

I find that I blog less often than I used to - perhaps because I tweet more? - but that I am always reflecting on my work which will usually result in a blog post. As a result, blogging is one of the most important tools that I use.

If you are new to blogging, what are your concerns or questions about blogging? What most intriques you about blogging?

Guest Post:: Thoughts on NYS Scale Score Changes

2010-07-12T09:31:00.005-04:00

The text below was shared by a colleague on the DATAG listserv. It's a worthwhile read for a calm and rationale approach to the (pending) uproar about the changing scale scores.

Colleagues,

I’ve been working with many teachers who are discouraged at the news that SED will raise cut points this year and thrust schools back into embarrassing situations because groups won’t make AYP. As we read the rhetoric from newspapers and politicians who hammer public schools with glee, it is easy to feel like teachers are the whipping boys and girls for so many of society’s problems. The move to value-added assessment and changes in teacher accountability lend credence to this interpretation, since increasing teacher accountability is being sold nation-wide as the key to school improvement. Longer tests are offered as a means to produce better data sets so we can identify our weak teachers and terminate them before they do more harm if we accept the tone of the US DOE. Yes, I’m simplifying, and I’m reminded that DATAG began as a group dedicated to making appropriate use of data to inform professional development and school improvement without playing a blame game. We have to reengage in that effort every year.

My work with DATAG and with local teachers takes quite a different tact that is more positive and recognizes how much success New York has experienced in improving student achievement since NCLB began. I want to reframe the dialog around testing and raising cutpoints: It’s a reflection of our success rather than the notion that we have been ineffective or settled for low performance all along.

First, let’s review that our standards are criterion-based, not norm-referenced. That difference is important here. We have, however, treated our tests as norm-referenced in the ways we have allowed outsiders (and ourselves) to report them. The development of our standards came with extensive work by experts and with teachers who carefully described what they thought a student should do at a given grade level and subject, based on our standards documents. So, we define the kinds of achievement in ELA, for example, that a student in grade 8 should be able to do by the testing date in a given year. When we have a passing rate of 50% in early years (forgive me for not looking up the statewide level 3 proficiency rate when this began, but it was dismal) we were embarrassed and we worked very hard to improve that rate. And, so that we were comparing students on tests of the same difficulty level from year to year, SED and the test developers worked hard to create tests that held the proficiency scale score at 650 for each succeeding year. That process was designed to hold that proficiency level constant even as the tests changed each year. What that grade 8 student had to know to reach 650 was judged to be equivalent from year to year. Folks who understand the IRT models (like our DATAG colleague and frequent presenter Kathy Feller) help us to understand that a 650 in 2004 is the same as a 650 in 2010.

Today, we see the proficiency rates of students and schools rising every year. Since we have different questions on the test every year, we can’t cheat to produce this improvement. Have our tests tended to concentrate on some standards more than others? Yes, but that is because we have too darn many standards and some are more important than others, on which most of us can agree. The point I want to make is that as NY educators, we have done a good job of increasing student success in becoming proficient on the skills we developed, and at the level that we agreed was appropriate for each grade level. We should be proud of that, and there should be regular statements to that effect in recognition of our success.

Let me use a very simple analogy. Think of your gym classes and teaching students to jump over a bar. In grade 3 we want kids to jump over a bar that is 18” high. In grade 4 we raise it to 22”, and by grade 8 kids are jumping over a bar that is 40” high. When we began, our kids were not used to being asked to jump, so many of them couldn’t get to 40” by grade 8. Today, most do, since we’ve done well in getting them in shape. Now, we’ve decided that our initial, well-designed 40” grade 8 target is too small to ensure that students are ready for the real world and high school, so we raise the bar to 44”. That will cause kids to fail, but it sets the whole bar higher and we have to readjust.

Think sports. When I was in middle school the world high jump record was 7 feet. New methods of jumping and better coaching has pushed the record to 8 feet 0.46 in. So if one set a goal in 1956 to be the best in the world, you targeted 7 feet as your goal and if everyone reached it you would be the best coach in the world. A decision to use 7 feet as your target would not be good enough today because 7 fee is not world-class.

Back to our cut points. Our leaders have decided that our goals are no longer world-class. When we set them, they were among the hardest in the nation. The national norm equivalent score for level 4 when we tested only grade 4 and 8 was the 96^th to 98^th percentile, which CTB recognized if you reached the right folks to talk to. We know normed scored for each question because the questions came from nationally normed samples. [Note: norm sampled is not the same as norm-referenced. Norm sampled means the questions were tried out on students across the country before appearing on the final test. Norm-referenced refers to how scores are reported] So, a level 4 student was better than 96-98% of students in the country. And the level 3 kid had to hit the 68^th percentile, which is a full standard deviation above average. We no longer have national norms available for our questions so we can’t make those statements today. But while many states reduced their test difficulty or their cutpoint to improve NCLB passing rates, New York has not. We have held to a 650 cut point for proficiency and we improved year after year. This was a significant success, but now it has been decided that our targets, though higher than most states, should be raised.

I wish that the dialog over raising cut points had focused on the original high standards and on our success at progress toward reaching them. Were we all praised for the progress we have made, we could more enthusiastically accept the idea that the world around us keeps raising their standards and we want to stay ahead of that rising tide. Let’s applaud our progress and reset our standards so that we are encouraged to continue our improvement.

This kind of dialog is not impossible to achieve. I hope leaders who roll this out can be more cognizant of our successes as they raise our cutpoints. We should explain this as a next step arising from our success, not because of deficiency, bad teaching, low standards, etc. After all, we do the same with our students—as they succeed, we raise the bar on what we expect from them because we know they are ready for greater challenges. That’s how I want SED to position these changes, and that’s how I would like to see these changes portrayed in the media by those who lead us in the coming years.

Dr. Brian Preston
Lower Hudson Regional Information Center
Elmsford, NY

ISTE 2010 Reflection: Google Culture

2010-06-29T10:53:00.000-04:00

My Sunday session was an all day session with folks from CUE who are all Google Certified Teachers (a dream I have -if I could only work up the courage to make that video!)

You can read my session notes here if you are interested in what I took away in terms of the tools, but the bigger take away for me happened in the first 10 minutes of the day when Mark Wagner (@markwagner) talked to us about the Google Culture. As a former English teacher, he made some great analogies about teaching and connected them to the Google philosophy. It not only helped to set the tone for the day, it helped set the tone for the conference for me.

What was interesting to me was first, "Google believes no one should be more than 150 feet away from food." I laughed at this as in my office, I think we have modified the rule to substitute chocolate for food. Even our workshop participants are upset when we don't put chocolate out until the afternoons!!

On a serious note, the 20% "rule" was compelling. Googlers devote approximately 20% of their work time to a project that might fall outside of their scope of duties but is a passion they have or something they want to fix with current Google tools. Many of these make it to Google Labs (which is something everyone should check out) and many more become Google tools as we know and love them today. (Read here for an example that I found doing a quick (you guessed it) Google search!)

I wondered how education might be different if we allowed our students to pursue the 20% within our classrooms. What if in my social studies class, I set aside one day for the students to investigate and create something related to the history we were studying. Their choice on the topic and the way they would share the 20%. I know, I know - grading. But I think that might be easily addressed with a well thought out and developed rubric - one thought out and developed with the kid so that they had real ownership over the learning and the process.

What if in providing professional development to teachers, 20% of their day/year was following their own course. If there are 8 hours in a work day, one hour (less than the 20%) wouldn't be about supervision or planning or the other things we do but in the pursuit of what we wanted to learn about. I think the reason that collegial circles have been so successful in the district I worked in is that teachers chose what they wanted to work on and were given the time to do it.

What if in designing professional development, my team were able to devote 20% of their time to pursuing what they wanted to learn. I certainly think they have this time and we have the resources available for them to do it -but I think they might disagree. And the reason that my team would disagree and that students and teachers aren't doing what I suggest is that it isn't part of our culture.

Digging deeper into the Google website, I found their "Ten Things We Know to Be True" list that exemplifies their philosophy. We all have mission/vision statements in our districts, but what if we created similar lists?

Digging further, I found another list related to design (also called "ten principles that contribute to a Googley user experience") - what if we created our own list that would be relevant for designing lessons and professional development?

Thinking about these things - I took a different view of what was being offered at ISTE. How many sessions demonstrated that they had a different philosophy of education - one that encouraged design and creativity and play? (LOTS!) How many teachers were willing to pursue their passions and learn more and learn differently? (LOTS) So I am wondering about the changes the rumored 16,000 folks in attendance will make. If each person makes one small change as a result of their learning here - that's a whole lotta change! And if each person were able to inspire change in just one more person who didn't attend the conference, that's a whole lotta change agents!

ISTE 10 Reflections: Leadership Bootcamp

2010-06-27T20:43:00.000-04:00

Saturday was Day 1 of the ISTE conference for me and I attended the Leadership Bootcamp session. I have to admit that due to the altitude, I was a bit foggy for the whole thing. As a result, I am not sure that I was able to engage the way that I would have liked to. That being said, the sign of a "good" learning experience for me is when I can walk way with some questions.

1. How do we make technology use sustainable?
Before everyone jumps all over me for this - I am NOT talking about the tools and tool use for the tools sake. I am talking about teachers becoming true learners and using technology as it evolves. All too often, I see teachers put on the breaks when it comes to using technology even when it would make their life easier and have their kids more engaged. Why? How do we combat the resistance? What kind of leadership does that take?

I am also interested in how we can use technology to sustain our learning. In this case, there is a Ning available to continue the conversations and the organizers plan some follow-up sessions much like the pre-pre-conference session. Chris Lehman advocated for holding Educon- like sessions locally during the same week and connecting. Having tried to get an unconference going in our region - I know that this is easier said than done. So - what can I do to continue/sustain my learning?

2. When are we really going to start teaching kids to be critical consumers of media?
Time and time again this came up as we discussed kids using content. And when asked who is supposed to teach this - lots of different answers came out. Shouldn't we all be teaching this? Not as a stand alone subject or unit, but integrated into every lesson we teach and every media we use. Why isn't that happening?

3. How do we start moving past connecting to creating Communities of Practice?
During his really great talk, Scott Elias talked about the "strength of weak ties" and the power that connecting with others via Twitter and other social networks brings to our profession. But so far, these are still only in the conversation stage. We haven't really gotten to showing a change or improvement in our practice as a result of these conversations. Sure - I could do this individually but I don't often share that with my network. We don't house those ideas someplace and truly build off of them. As teachers, we still very much have walls around our classrooms. How do we start to break those walls down? Once we start - how do we keep breaking them down?

4. Why are our policies getting in the way of our progress?
Dr. Scott McLeod shared this question at the start of his session and gave us some really great things to think about. The biggest for me was thinking out Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) and what message it sends to our students, parents and community. It made me really think about the policies that our district has in place, and how people just feel comfortable to state that "it is policy" in response to something. How can we have thoughtful and meaningful conversations about policy that are productive and have learners in mind? How can we start with an assumption of trust?

These are rough and I have just started thinking about them but I needed to get them out of my head and onto the blog before the other learning this week fills my brain. If you would like to see the backchannel from the conference and use Twitter, search #lbc10. If you would like to see my unedited notes, look here. If you would like to help me wrestle with these questions, please comment below!

In Defense of Rubrics

2010-06-08T09:42:00.010-04:00

Learning doesn't happen just in schools.
Just because you're in school, doesn't mean you're learning.
A keystone of learning is self-reflection.
Learning is a fantastically messy business.

I think everyone who is engaged in discussions about teaching and learning would agree with the previous statements. At the end of the day, if you're engaged in the discussion, you've already committed to changing the stricture in whatever way works for you. As rubrics come up in discussion again, I am thrilled to engage in discussion with other educators who are committed to change.

As I've shared on my blog, I'm all about addressing my ignorance. I have no problems being corrected when I'm wrong, because the alternative just doesn't make any sense. However, when it comes to rubrics, I'm standing fast. Plus, I've got some pretty compelling strong support on my side.
* rubrics define the features of work that describe quality. (Arter & Chappuis, 2006)
* used to evaluate the quality of students' work. (Popham, 2006)
* a rubric identifies all the needed attributes of quality or development in a process (Martin-Kniep, 2001)

This is not a rubric.

	1 pt.	2 pt.	3 pt.	4 pt.
Sources	Student uses 1 source.	Student uses 2 sources.	Student uses 3 sources.	Student uses 4 or more sources.

This is not a rubric.

	1 pt.	2 pt.	3 pt.	4 pt.
Mistakes	Writing has lots of mistakes.	Writing has a few mistakes.	Writing has some mistakes.	Writing has no mistakes.

How do we know? Rubrics are about quality... and you can't count quality.

A movie doesn't win the Academy Award because it had 4 crying scenes and the others only had 3.
Your favorite book didn't make you feel something 17 times while you're least favorite book only made you feel something 2 times.
Your partner didn't suddenly become perfect for you the 9th time they did something for you.

In life, we don't count quality. I write that as if it's a truth and it can be argued. However, generally speaking when we talk about quality, we talk about attributes and definitions. We don't stop and count and determine what is good. "Sorry, Barb, can't recommend this as a good restaurant. The waiter took 17 minutes to refill my water. I recommend the one next door. They only took 12 minutes." We know, though, the traits of a good restaurant and if a friend of ours opened a new restaurant and asked for feedback, we wouldn't sit there and count.

In school, it is not physically possible to provide all students with feedback all of the time. There will come a moment when a child has to self-assess their work. Without understanding what quality looks like, their efforts are likely to result in guessing. Yes, we tell them. Yes, we give them verbal feedback. But we know students don't remember everything we tell them. A well-developed, thoughtful rubric can help students understand the attributes of quality. Consider this rubric that @russgoerend and I co-constructed. The rubric describes the quality of the presentation - note the top level is all about "breaking the rules" and the bottom of the document contains a checklist.

I think "rubric-esque tables" are developed way too frequently because we think rubrics are better than checklists.But, if you want specific things in order for a student's work to be considered acceptable, tell them what you want in a checklist. Checklists aren't bad or less then. They each serve a purpose in communicating expectations. Personally, I'd like to take a red pen to a certain website and rename 90% of their "rubrics" as "scoring guides". Many oft-shared critiques of rubrics are actually discussing "scoring guides" - and identify major problems with that tool. It seems were in a cycle of critiquing a tool while we're still negotiating a common understanding. My hunch is if we polled 100 lawyers and asked them to define "contract", there would be near unanimous agreement. I wonder what results we'd get if we polled 100 educators about "rubrics"?

If you'd like to read more about what makes quality rubrics, I invite you to check out the rubric wiki. I am always open to discussions of challenges and flaws in rubrics and how we can create better rubrics with and forth students and I would like to extended the invitation to readers who have identified those flaws to ask themselves if their concerns are with rubrics or impostors.

In Defense of SED

2010-06-07T09:04:00.003-04:00

My instinct when I see an article or blog posting that slams SED is to come to their (its?) defense. Granted, if an argument is sound, I'll agree but when it's not I feel compelled to say something. I think it stems from the fact that I used to work for a school improvement team that fell under the SED umbrella. As a result, when I hear "SED", I think of Dawn, Elizabeth, and other educators I've worked with or heard talk and present about the assessments and standards. I truly believe that the vast majority of educators who make up SED have the best interests of schools and children in mind when they go to work. The challenges they face are numerous - one of which is how the public responds to their actions.

Yesterday, complaints about scoring on the math assessment bubbled up in my RSS Reader. Why now? Why this year? We've been using a holistic rubric for years but this year, The Post publishes an article with the frustrating headline of NY passes students who get wrong answers on tests". Let's dismantle that, shall we? (Not hyperlinked by choice.)

1. You do not pass or fail the 3-8 Math NYS Assessments*. It sounds counter-intuitive, but the assessments are designed as large-scale programmatic assessments - not culminating exams. In other words, the assessments are a tool for schools and the state to determine if students are meeting certain performance indicators from our state standards. Consequences for performance belong to the school and district, not the student. Compare this to the Regents. A student scores a Level 2 on a 3-8 assessment, they're referred to intervention services and may or may not receive them based on a review of their classroom, etc. If you get a 3, a magic passing fairy doesn't suddenly appear and grant you admission to the next grade level. A student scores a 54 on a Regents? They fail the exam. Two different types of assessments. (Analogy alert: it's like taking a cholesterol test to find out how good your blood pressure is. Different questions and purposes, different assessment measures.)

2. NYS 3-8 Math Assessments contains short and long-response questions. If one of the multiple choice questions is 2+2 (don't worry, they're not that simple), and you pick 5, you'll get it wrong. So no. NYS is not giving credit for wrong answers. If on a long response, you demonstrate you can correctly do the math - i.e. set up the problem, determine which variables to use, show you understand the concept - but make a computational error, wouldn't you want a child to get partial credit? A student is getting credit for what they do know, and losing points for their mistakes. If an argument is that the "Real World" doesn't work like that, no one is claiming the state assessments are the "Real World." Nor, are they claiming the tests measure creativity, senses of humor, or even if a child is a "good student". They are asking: on this day, at this time, can they students of this school demonstrate mastery of these performance indicators?

3. "This is rocket science." David Abrams, Director of Assessment for NYS. There is a field of study called psychometrics - the design and study of measures in the social sciences, including education. It's a fascinating field and sets the rules and standards for test design. Perhaps I am skewed by my personal connection to SED but I have to ask: Does it make sense that NYS would allow our students to take an assessment that didn't meet the requirements of quality assessments? Does it make sense that NYS would give "partial credit" if there wasn't a sound reason for it? I recommend reading the technical reports about the assessments to learn more.

Yes, there are issues with high stakes testing in the US. I support and follow FairTest. I think we've lost sight of what "data" means and are focusing on numbers to the detriment of multiple measures. I think we as a field have a lot of unanswered - and unasked - questions about standardized testing. All of that being said, this article frustrates me and does not add to the collective conversation around education. The headline was probably designed to get hits. And did it ever.

Here's the hard part for me. Self-reflection. Am I off-base? This argument isn't about how the scores are used, or how the pressure teachers feel around the tests, rather just this narrow band about the irresponsibility of publishing an article that doesn't even begin to address the complexity of a large-scale assessment system. Grumble, grumble.

* Yes. In NYC, a student can fail the assessments. That is a local decision and not how the tests were designed to be used.

What is PD for anyway?

2010-06-04T08:24:00.000-04:00

For the past seven years, I have had the distinct pleasure of working part-time in a district as their K-12 Curriculum Coordinator. While the road has not always been smooth - what I have learned from the "bumps" has made me a better educator and a better leader. With budget cuts, my formal work there will end this year but I leave confident that when it comes to professional learning they are headed in the right direction.

I know this because last week was the last Superintendent's Conference Day of the year and it was one in which the teachers shared their learning from participating in Collegial Circles all year long. It took seven long years and many mistakes in PD for this to happen - but the teachers wanted it, cried for it and we were able to make it happen.

For each conference day this year, thirteen groups of teachers met under the direction of a team appointed facilitator with a team developed agenda to learn about team goals. They ranged from infusing technology in a variety of settings to developing curriculum in areas like counseling and PE to examining middle level transition. These weren't administrative directives, these were teacher selected and teacher led.

Along the way, the teacher leaders on the committee that helped to lay out the PD plan met and reviewed what was happening and tweaked the process and sought additional input. And they were honest with each other about what they thought was effective teaching and good pedagogy and many other things. Brutally honest at times. And incredibly professional.

I know that it seems too good to be true - a local superintendent wanting to replicate the process had her doubts too. But she visited us - so don't believe me, believe her.

It makes me sad that I haven't been able to help replicate the culture anywhere else - at least not yet. But I know now that it is possible and not just me tilting windmills again. And when I read posts like this (and of course the comments that follow) I see complaints and excuses and lamenting galore - but I don't see a lot of "so here is what we are going to do" happening. I'll keep working toward changing the meaning of professional development - what will you do?

Teacher Evaluations and Value Added

2010-06-03T19:36:00.000-04:00

As many may have heard by now, NYS has passed legislation designed to enhance it's Race To The Top (RTTT) application as well as "support the Regents reform agenda to improve teaching and learning, increasing the opportunity of all students to graduate from high school ready for higher education and employment.." We had a fantastic discussion about it at a regional data meeting and it raised many more questions than it answered.

Having watched the May 11th webcast announcing the legislative reforms around the APPR process, it is clear that incorporating student performance into teacher evaluations makes some sense (at least to me!). By looking at growth in both the NYS assessments and locally determined assessments, understanding the impact that teachers have by seeing how their students shows growth makes some logical sense. The key word seems to be growth (rather than achievement.)

Without a doubt - this raises some issues and questions and of course, some concerns. While I wrestle with the impact this might have (positive and negative), the lawyer in me just can't stop thinking about the legal implications of these changes. Or at least the challenges that could be presented.

Fortunately - I am not alone and there are some well thought out arguments that has my gray matter really working. Bruce Baker over at Schoolfinance101's blog teases out his thoughts in "Pondering Legal Implications of Value-Added Teacher Evaluation." Interesting here is whether the proposals to link evaluations to student performance will in fact raise due process challenges due to the idea that "tenure" is in fact a property interest. Many other possible legal arguments are addressed but I find the tenure rights one very interesting (and very complicated!)

At Edjurist, Justin Bathon posted a response to the post above touching again on the due process piece but adding another tidbit that has really been bugging me about the use of quantitative data as well as the quantative way in which New York is proposing to weight the components of the evaluation:

Generally, all this is what happens when you start forcing statistics in the legal system - which is not built for that at all. The legal system is a very qualitatively oriented system, making decisions mostly based on evidence obtained through interviews and the like. The jury, even, is a qualitative system that collectively makes a decision based on all the evidence presented. Statistics throw a wrench in all that because people react differently to numbers. They think numbers don't lie (although, of course, we know that they can and do).

Finally, Scott Bauries responds from the perspective of an employment lawyer and I will warn you - there is plenty of legal speak here. Bottom line on this post - yes there will be lawsuits ("Simply put, if you fire people, and they think their firings were unfair, then you are going to be sued.") but it is going to very difficult for many plaintiffs (i.e. the teachers) to be successful.

I share these to help to continue the discourse around this topic. Many are wondering with data in the mix - will people want to become teachers? Will we lose teachers because we have set this new bar? Or will we in fact begin to have others view teaching as a profession with the same accountability measures that other professions have? Weigh in - I would love to hear your thoughts!

Is professional discourse possible on Twitter?

2010-03-25T10:23:00.006-04:00

Recent “conversations” on Twitter have left me excited, annoyed, frustrated, and thrilled. Very much like any other conversation but there have been some fundamental differences in the nature of the Twitter experiences that inspired me to dust off my blog template.

I adore discourse. Fortunately, I married an amateur elocutionist so I get plenty of practice. Theresa and I started this blog so we could engage with others around what we’re reading or wondering about. My motto (after “The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth”, and Wil Wheaton’s philosophy) is “Seek first to understand then to be understood”. I truly do want to understand different perspectives. There is no benefit to walking around ignorant or wrong so I want to engage with people with different perspectives. It’s not their job to convince me I’m wrong, but my job to seek them out and investigate if I am. Within reason, of course. I’m not actively looking for members of the Flat-Earth Society.

Twitter has opened a whole new world of resources. I have four perma-search columns in Tweetdeck and am constantly tagging new sites and resources as a result of the awesome people I follow. In the past few weeks I’ve been purposefully engaging with other educators who have explicitly stated an opinion I disagree or struggle with and many times, find myself more frustrated than ever before. Almost without fail, the frustration comes from the nature of Twitter itself and not the conversation. If we focus on those moments when educators are directly engaging with each other around challenging issues or topics, there may be cause for some concern.

Which leads me back to my guiding question: Is professional discourse possible on Twitter? A few points of evidence for what might be getting in the way.

140 characters is very limiting. When trying to assert your point of view, one of the first things to go are “unnecessary words” such as please, thank you, I was wondering, tell me more, I agree but am curious about…those words that let the other person know you’re not attacking. As a result, a tweet that we mean as curious and inquisitive may come off as brusque and rude. Some educators solve this by referring to blog postings they’ve done on the subject and others disemvowel themselves or truncate their words to a point where it’s hard to interpret their message.

Twitter moves quickly. Even though there are resources for tracking connected Tweets, it’s my sense that most users are doing other things while Tweeting. As a result, someone posts a Tweet with a provocative question, not knowing their partner had to head back to teach, and wonders if they’re being ignored, their question was too forward, or their partner has gotten bored with them. By the time you return and see that question, four hours has passed and whatever point you wanted to make may have slipped away.

We’re talking about big issues. As a result of working with Adam Fletcher, I still feel a tickle when I talk about student engagement without students. I feel that same tickle when we try and tackle big issues on Twitter. When we have an #edchat where most of the Tweeters are on the same page, there is the potential for it turning into an echo chamber. This by itself isn’t a bad thing but I fear it may lead to atrophy of our discourse muscles. On the other hand, trying to talk about this big beautiful thing called learning in snippets seems to border on disrespectful.

It’s very possible that the problem lies entirely with me. I point to the length of this post as one example of how I struggle with character limits. A friend and colleague of mine has done a great deal of work around discourse and presents the following types and it’s interesting to think about what type(s) are possible on Twitter:

Conversation: Talk where the participants take turns talking and listening but little movement occurs. The talk is congenial. (Mark Lipman) Carefree and effortless discourse. (James Dillon)

Dialogue: (Talk where) “members help one another reconsider, reevaluate, and reassemble bits of information they already have, integrating them into a new, more inclusive whole.” … Dialogue encourages mutual respect and insights that lead to new solutions. (Peter Winchell)

Discussion: Alternately serious and playful effort by a group of two or more to share views and engage in mutual and reciprocal critique. The purposes of a discussion are fourfold: 1) to help participants reach a more critically informed understanding about the topic or topics under consideration, 2) to enhance participants’ self-awareness and their capacity for self-critique, 3) to foster an appreciation among participants for the diversity of opinion that invariably emerges when viewpoints are exchanged openly and honestly, and 4) to act as a catalyst to helping people take informed action in the world. (Brookfield and Preskill, p. 7)

Debate: Participants argue opposing sides of a question with emphasis on winning based on reasoned argument. The winner is usually determined by a judge.

Clearly, I am not advocating for limiting Twitter to just sharing resources but a part of me wishes we had a version of “let’s take this outside”. But with slightly less violence. Should we as educators develop an approach that allows us to start a conversation on Twitter and move it elsewhere? What are your thoughts?

On Being Critical....A Response

2010-03-15T21:01:00.000-04:00

I didn't intend for this to be a full post - but as I was busy typing away in response to Angela's post I realized it would just be better to link my responses from here!! Start by reading Angela's original post - go ahead, I can wait!!

Angela makes a pretty powerful case for the alignment of tech tools with what we are teaching/learning. This has long been a cause of mine - that the technology should serve some sort of pedagogical purpose, not merely be put into a lesson for "fun" or because the district has decided to go with blogs and wikis as a form of PD. I pushed back in a district recently that asked me to use a particular tool that an administrator had seen, but not used, while working with teachers on differentiated instruction. I pontificated on my stance (and I don't say that lightly - I know I did it) and made sure they understood that I would not sacrifice the deeper learning about differentiating for the sake of the technology tool.

And at the same time - I was a hypocrite. The district had also asked me to go virtually paperless in order to model technology integration for teachers. This was not my first time working with the teachers, they had gone through "the fundamentals" with me and I thought going paperless was a grand idea. We were going to spend some time on design and the teachers would all have laptops so the electronic content would make things easier for all.

So - I embedded a poll and a WallWisher wall into the website as a pre-assessment tool. Nothing fancy - just replacing the paper/post-it note activity with one that was virtual. And while we did not get completely derailed - we certainly slowed a bit as the teachers wanted to learn how to use the tool and ask questions about access. Did the use of technology align? Yes - to the going paperless objective. Maybe not to the differentiated instruction.

When the technology gets in the way of the learning - whether because it doesn't work the way we want it to or because it is "dazzling" - learning doesn't happen. Or rather, not the learning we had intended or planned for.

Angela talks about her best work involving a lot of discomfort - I know that I learned a great deal as I developed the website for the teachers and thought about which tools to embed and which to save for another day. But did my learning and the discomfort of using a tool promote the learning of the teachers?

I had hoped for a relatively presenter-free day - one in which I had created a tool for the teachers to use and explore differentiation as they designed for their classrooms with me there to guide them as needed. Instead, the website became the powerpoint and we walked through it together. Was it because I hadn't crafted the experience well enough or was it because after the initial resistance to working on their own, I resorted to "expert" mode?

I have been and continue to struggle with the role that technology should play as I work with teachers. On one hand, I think the use should be purposeful and meaningful. Kim Cofino's recent post on Looking for Learning and her observation rubric has me thinking about making the use of technology more transparent and embedded. Kim Moritz's post on Facebook in schools has me thinking about open conversations with educators about technology that presents both the good and the bad and seeks solutions. And now, Angela has me thinking about alignment and discomfort and change.

I don't know everything there is to know about technology or technology tools - I only know where they fit in my world. I try to promote questioning and exploration - but more often than not am not truly successful. I get a lot of sharing -but not a lot of pushback or discourse.

How do we change professional learning to embrace this?

Changes to New York State Assessments

2010-02-08T15:07:00.002-05:00

An email went out today on the NYS DATAG (Data Analysis Technical Assistance Group) listserv regarding pending changes to the NYS 3-8 assessments. Most prevalent for this (2009-2010) year was the following:

The math exams will move from March to May and will expand to cover performance indicators that: 1) have not been tested before; or 2) have not been tested within the past two years. Over the span of the 6 grades tested, on average, a minimum of approximately 25% of the questions on the 2010 math exams will cover performance indicators that were not covered by the questions on the 2009 Tests. The number of actual test questions will remain the same.

I posted a response to the listserv regarding the implications on instruction, especially for schools that have used carefully constructed historical test maps to determine their curriculum and test prep focus. It's always difficult to figure out what will provoke a response on the listserv and as of this posting no one has replied. (One drawback of listservs - hitting "reply" sends a reply to poster, not the entire listserv. No telling how many comments the original poster of the SED documents received)

Additionally, the issue of similar items appearing year after year was addressed by a variety of media sources (e.g. GothamSchools). It is my hope that these changes were underway before the articles came out, rather than changes being a response to perceived testing flaws. We owe it to NYS students to assess them using psychometrically sound assessments, not assessments that appease the public. In the words of David Abrams, "This is rocket science." If SED increased the item pool based on an article in the newspaper, then a psychometric fairy just lost its wings.

What are your thoughts? Is it fair to include standards that haven't been previously tested? What other implications do you see for the field?

To read more about the coming changes (including mention of vertical scaling and secure tests in 2010-2011), check out the Regents update here.

Racing to the Top

2010-01-31T15:07:00.000-05:00

Education can be a political sticky wicket. I didn't really realize this when I became a teacher, hoping to leave behind the game playing and politics of a different profession. As classroom teacher, I saw the adoption of "Nickle-B" as we affectionately called it and the impact it had on my classroom, the relationship I had with my administration and the need for me to learn even more. Currently, as a leader and administrator, I am looking at the marathon implcations of the Race to the Top applications and perhaps, the revision of NCLB.

I have been reading the applications of various states as they have become available and noting with interest the language of the application writers. Having tried my hand at various grants in the past, I recognized the "this would be a great idea if you fund me" language and the "we think this is what you want to hear but in reality we might not implement it this way" language that was used in various places. Understandable - given the time states had to prepare and submit their application along with the various assurances.

Through Eduwonk, I stumbled upon the application of Louisiana which I had not read yet. To quote the Washington Post Op-Ed piece that led me to the application:

And the plan is beautifully written. It describes each area in which they have already begun implementation and then explains what they will do to continue the work. It then adds other key initiatives to investigate and add to the application to make their work even more outstanding.

"The beauty of Louisiana's reform model lies in its simplicity. The state has taken critical baseline steps, it proposes expanding projects that have shown promising results, and it has ensured that participating school districts will actually do the things that are in the application. "

Some highlights I found (accent mine):

Facilitating the creation and usage of professional learning networks at district and school levels that emphasize,among other things, reflection on and continuous improvement of how teacher and leader practice contributes to student achievement and teacher effectiveness. This is already being piloted by Dr. Michael Fullan in St. John the Baptist Parish, a Participating LEA. (page 9) They had me at Fullan.
Integrating an Instructional Improvement System that will give teachers, leaders, and administrators rapid access to student achievement and teacher effectiveness data through mechanisms such as a dashboard. This integration will vastly increase the use of data to drive instructional improvement and will unequivocally show the effect teachers have on student learning. (Page 10) We hate to hear it, but we know it is true. What teachers do impacts student learning.
To support our strategy (of adopting 100% the common core standards), summative assessment results will be available within two weeks of test administration so they can be used to inform decisions about students and also to aid in the effective evaluation of teachers and schools. The test will be vertically scaled to provide a clear picture of annual student growth. We will extend the blueprint of the K-12 common assessment quickly to science and social studies so that we can ensure a rich view of student progress and the effectiveness of teachers can be measured more reliably. We will also evaluate and implement developmentally appropriate measures of progress for Pre-K aligned to the common core standards to ensure students are on track at the earliest ages. (Page 10)
To implement the state’s ambitious plans and provide a level of service that supports successful reform similar to the responsiveness shown to the RSD, the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) will accelerate a process that began more than two years ago to transform itself from a compliance monitoring bureaucracy to a performance-based and service-oriented school support institution. (Page 12)

There are 251 additional pages of the application but these are some pieces that had me thinking about the work that my state is (or isn't) doing. And while not perfect, it gives me hope that the amount of money being poured into the Race to the Top applications might actually create change.

What does your state application say? If you are from Louisiana, how accurate are the claims made in the application? Inquiring minds want to know...

Pillars of Success

2010-01-28T14:17:00.000-05:00

A recent EdWeek article caught my eye on five keys to urban school success. Based upon 15 years of work in Chicago elementary schools, a new book identifies five "tried and true" ingredients that work, in combination with one another to lead success in urban schools.

Those pillars are:

• Strong leadership, in the sense that principals are “strategic, focused on instruction, and inclusive of others in their work”;

• A welcoming attitude toward parents, and formation of connections with the community;

• Development of professional capacity, which refers to the quality of the teaching staff, teachers’ belief that schools can change, and participation in good professional development and collaborative work;

• A learning climate that is safe, welcoming, stimulating, and nurturing to all students; and

• Strong instructional guidance and materials.

I am not sure I gained any huge "a-ha" in reading the article but it is causing me to think about the role that I play in helping schools to plant these pillars. And it has me questioning about the role that I can play when politically, I am outside of a single district and instead operate among and with 27 of them.

And, as the article suggests, I am thinking about these findings in conjunction with the current Race to the Top initiatives and President Obama's State of the Union speech last night.

In short - I don't want to think alone. What do you think of these 5 pillars? Are they new? Surprising? How do we go about supporting our educational systems to embrace them?

Kayaks and Canoes

2010-01-11T21:19:00.000-05:00

We opened our team meeting today by viewing this TED Talk and talking about the future:

Transparency. Connectedness. Co-dependency.

And as we watched, I thought about how education seems to be lagging behind in even these first 5000 days. While we don't still have the green screens that Kevin Kelly talks about - in many ways, education has barely even begun to tap the potential of the Web.

Then, by linking through a Twitter post to a blog, I found this amazing analogy on the Edge from George Dyson:

"In the North Pacific ocean, there were two approaches to boatbuilding. The Aleuts (and their kayak-building relatives) lived on barren, treeless islands and built their vessels by piecing together skeletal frameworks from fragments of beach-combed wood. The Tlingit (and their dugout canoe-building relatives) built their vessels by selecting entire trees out of the rainforest and removing wood until there was nothing left but a canoe.

The Aleut and the Tlingit achieved similar results — maximum boat / minimum material — by opposite means. The flood of information unleashed by the Internet has produced a similar cultural split. We used to be kayak builders, collecting all available fragments of information to assemble the framework that kept us afloat. Now, we have to learn to become dugout-canoe builders, discarding unneccessary information to reveal the shape of knowledge hidden within.

I was a hardened kayak builder, trained to collect every available stick. I resent having to learn the new skills. But those who don't will be left paddling logs, not canoes."

Which boat will you take to the future?

Making Connections - Creating Alliances

2010-01-04T21:11:00.000-05:00

Graph of Grand Rounds Blog

Hard to believe that Jenn and I started this blog on August 21, 2006!!!

We had the best of intentions - bring together professionals to discuss what they are reading, trends in education and share their expertise. We try to walk a neutral line and post questions rather than answers - although I am sure that some might not read our posts that way. In short - what we have been trying to do is build a learning network.

Since that first post, we have embarked on using delicious and Twitter and Good Reads and Shelfari and other tools to network and connect with others. We have been pretty fortunate to build a great personal learning network - both of local/regional folks and those who we hope to meet some day. (I hope I am not putting words in Jenn's mouth but she will be sure to tell me in the comments!)

But despite it all - I have been a bit disappointed that we haven't had more "conversations" via this blog. Granted - we haven't been all that faithful about posting, but it can be pretty lonely when it feels like no one is listening. Or pushing back. Or asking more questions. Or sharing.

So I was very excited to read a post from a fellow blogger about creating an "alliance." At first blush, I have to admit that the very word scares me. When someone says alliance I think about Survivor and all the amazing things that people did to try and win that game - the back stabbing, the switching alliances, the carrying of undeserving people to the finals. (Did I mention that we try to remain neutral?) But as I read on, and read all the links, I became very intrigued.

So of course, I signed us up!!

It isn't about getting more traffic to the site or winning any awards or making any money - that has never been the intent of our blogging. It is about reaching out to other edu-bloggers, supporting them, having them support us and expand the learning network we have created. We are looking for questions and more questions, not pats on the back or atta-girls. But an open, honest and professional conversation about education.

So - join our alliance or create your own. Connect. Question. Share.

Grand Rounds in Education.

To Blog or Not to Blog - That is the Question

2009-12-07T23:57:00.000-05:00

As a part of our session on growing and enhancing learning communities using Web 2.0 tools at NSDC, we are introducing participants to a variety of tools within the context of the dispositions of practice. One tool that we are sharing is blogs.

For me, blogging has been a way to put my thoughts out to the greater world. Sometimes I get feedback in the form of comments, sometimes I don't. (That makes me very sad by the way! Post a comment! Just don't post spam!) Either way - the very act of putting my question out there, of writing about my thought process helps me to clarify my work and the vision I have for that work.

When I began blogging, there was the initial fear of "what if I say the wrong thing" - particularly as I blogged about my work. Then I ran into the problem that my chose blogging platform was often blocked in district (very frustrating!) However, I persevered and my blogging continues.

I find that I blog less often than I used to - perhaps because I tweet more? - but that I am always reflecting on my work which will usually result in a blog post. As a result, blogging is one of the most important tools that I use.

If you are new to blogging, what are your concerns or questions about blogging? What most intriques you about blogging?

Vision in Education

2009-11-03T15:39:00.000-05:00

A colleague posted the following on Facebook and Twitter the other day:

"Is there any reason for a lack of vision in education?"

At a recent meeting, the keynote speaker asked us several questions about our organization and one of them was:

"Who would you follow?"

Who would you leave the safety and security of your tenure and seniority for? Who is that person in your organization that you want to work with - to plan with - to dream with?

I have been thinking a great deal about vision, or the lack of it, in our educational systems for quite a while. As a Fellow in Communities for Learning, vision is one small part of a Framework that has been developed to look at school improvement. But I am beginning to think that if I had to weight them - it would be one pretty important part.

I am not just talking about a "vision" statement that is created by a committee and done for the sake of compliance. I am talking about an understanding of where we want to be - what it will look like, sound like, be like for students, teachers, administrators and parents. Something that we hold in our sights, revisit and refine regularly, reflect on at the end of a good day and a bad day. Something to move toward.

I am not sure that I have seen one of those. I have met lots of teachers and leaders who are trying but clarifying vision and making it something manageable and achieveable can be daunting. We might speak it once in a meeting and then never again after we have been given "the look" by our colleagues or leaders. Or we might push for it - every day and in every way - only to be disappointed in the obvious lack of vision that we are handed.

I know that I don't have the answers - but I love the fact that more and more people are posing the questions. But the real thing I am interested in is

What are we going to do about it?

Teaching as a profession

2009-10-07T06:12:00.000-04:00

The following is an exchange from an #edchat on Twitter last night:

I am going to be the first to admit that the heat of the conversation and being limited to 140 characters did not highlight my ability to word things well - but what about those bigger questions?

Is there a difference between a learner and a teacher? Between a learner and a student?
What is a profession? Who are professionals?

Why I Love Rubrics

2009-08-21T20:41:00.005-04:00

Theresa and I started Grand Rounds as a place to discuss educational research and professional development. Slowly, I moved away from the blog and into a PLN based primarily on Twitter to accomplish that goal. Several times, I’ve jumped into Twitter conversations around topics of interest but last night, I watched a conversation about rubrics fly by on Tweetdeck and self-censored. Knowing I wouldn't be able to say what I wanted to say in 140 characters, I returned here to Grand Rounds to lay out my argument for why, frankly, I love rubrics.

Seven years ago, I was a new staff developer, fresh from the classroom and attending a series of workshops that my new office was sponsoring. The program was school based, so I sat among teachers that had a long history together and was privy to their student work, curriculum tasks, and conversations. The theme of the program was “Communicating Expectations” and when rubrics were first mentioned, it was as a tool, not as the end unto itself. After a series of activities around expectations and feedback, including a discussion around measuring work that seemingly can’t be measured, we started to work with a task the teachers had recently assigned. It was an authentic task that involved creating, exploring, communicating - a whole slew of skills and tasks. They brainstormed what they expected from their students, organized what students actually did by their approximation to their expectations, articulated the attributes of the work that met their expectations, and slowly but surely, built a rubric. Teachers then took the rubric they wrote, modified it for a future task, and came up with a plan for using it with students. When they returned to the next session, almost every teacher spoke of the improved quality of student work and clarity of language between teacher and students. They used the rubric as a gauge for assessing the distance between their work and what the task required. The teachers weren't using rubrics for all tasks and they weren't treating them as some sort of a holy grail.

I was hooked. Since then, I've seen numerous examples of high quality rubrics being used by students and teachers. I use them regularly in my work and will continue to advocate for taking the time to design high quality rubrics for worthy tasks. When I read blogs, tweets, and books that are anti-rubric, I almost always agree with their dislike of the things they are describing. But frequently, what I see people describing aren't rubrics, they're checklists. So to me:

The rubric itself is the least important part of the process. The sheet of paper is the product of a process articulating expectations of student learning and work.
Any rubric that hasn't been checked against student work, developed with students or gotten student feedback is still in draft form.
The language describes that quality of a piece of work - not the quantity. Some, few, and many are quantitative terms and are slippery terms to define. To me, a rubric's purpose to is articulate expectations of success - so a student working on a task will know what they need to do to improve their work. The language needs to reflect that goal.
The language of the rubric focus what is present, not just what is absent. ("Includes irrelevant material" versus "doesn't stay focused on topic")
The highest level describes what exceeds the standard or expectation, and often includes language about "breaking rules" or "new and unexpected" approach to task.
The task is worthy of a rubric. That's a value loaded statement, so to clarify - not all tasks need a rubric and a well-written rubric does take time to write. Generally speaking, I use rubrics for authentic, process tasks that are similar to real world tasks.
We need to be critical consumers of rubrics that are available in the cloud.

I won't go into the rubrics in writing debate as far better writers than I have tackled it (I recommend reading Ruth Culham and then Maja Wilson for two takes on that particular issue) but I will state explicitly that I think rubrics are among the best tools available for articulating expectations in a way students can refer to when their teacher isn't around.

For a more recent view from both sides, check out TeachPaperless' Why I Hate Rubrics/Rubrics Were Great (especially the comments) and Two Arguments for Using (Some) Rubrics and please share your thinking around the sticky wicket that are rubrics.

Tornado Testing

2009-07-27T06:09:00.003-04:00

While in Connecticut for a Communities for Learning last week, we received the updated, revised testing schedule for the 3-8 assessments in New York. The air was immediately charged as building level leaders let the new schedule sink in and began to think about the implications. After airing our frustrations, we did what we always do and set about getting the work done.

In my region, we have a strong history of regional scoring so these changes mean that my team will need to develop a new calendar of scoring dates to assist the districts. We have sent out a survey to our districts regarding participation and trying to determine the best way to handle the tight testing/scoring window. I am confident that with the input from our districts we will determine a way to get this task done, although I am concerned that we will lose the professional development aspect that has been the cornerstone of what we do.

Working in a position that requires me to pass along information from SED to our districts and then work to make their directives reality, I tend to walk a fairly careful line with my thoughts and actions. Often, I try to put the realities of a state office into perspective for our districts and get to what the true intent of their decisions are, not how they are actually implemented, funded or twisted by media coverage. I remind teachers about the importance of standards - while we wrestle with making meaning of their broad guidelines and inconsistency across grade levels. I remind administrators that the 3-8 testing system over time will give us important information about a cohort of students that we can use to address issues in curriculum as well as remediate using data, while bracing myself for the "Business First" month of coverage. I share, in a user friendly format, the regulations that deal with mentoring, AIS, RTI and every other mandate there is pushing my districts to think outside the box and find where they are already doing these things, while fighting off the complaints that these are all non-funded and how are districts/teachers supposed to do all of this.

But lately - I am feeling a little like the aftermath of the tornadoes that recently hit my area. Changes have come upon us with little warning, the path is unpredictable and the aftermath is going to require a great deal of clean-up.

I am still processing all of the information and trying to help our districts find a way out of the storm. But it is becoming harder and harder to defend the wizard.

Offical Annoucement from SED on 3-8 Changes

2009-06-24T07:26:00.003-04:00

New York State moves 3-8 testing to May

2009-06-23T23:20:00.002-04:00

It started with a question on a listserv, sort of like a rumble in the background. I spent a lovely day doing program design and then visiting The Cloisters in New York City. My cell phone battery died mid-morning so I missed the rumble rising to a dull roar. By time I got home and back on-line, the roar had crested and the conversations regarding implications already in progress.

All New York State students in Grades 3-8 will be taking the mathematics and English Langauge Arts assessments in May beginning next year.

The rumor was confirmed on the DATAG listserv with the following message:

Johanna Duncan Poitier just sent out a special edition issue of News and Notes which provides important updates from the June meeting of the Board of Regents to District Superintendents, Superintendents of Schools, Administrators of Charter and Nonpublic Schools, and Other Partners which included a confirmation of the Regents action earlier today moving the 3-8 ELA and Math assessments to May starting next year.

I’m sure more will be released in the coming days, including guidance on how schools should handle administration, scoring, data reporting, and other aspects of the assessments. To hear what others were thinking, I connected with my PLN on Twitter and Facebook and the responses were similar. Lots of surprise that we went from survey to action so quickly, panic at the thought of 3rd graders sitting through 5 straight days of testing, and bafflement about what it will look like in practice. Talking through the consequences has been fascinating. Some of the comments from conversations are below. I liked to the author's blog when possible:

Positive Consequence: Teachers can now teach Math and ELA all year long. April Spring Break can provide a natural break between teaching content and teaching students test sophistication or test wise-ness.

Negative Consequence: Eighth graders may conceivably be testing (Math, ELA, Science, and SS) more than learning during the month of May. (Angela)

Positive: The assessments can be viewed as a one-shot deal that happens at the end of the year. A chance to show off what you know, like the big kids in high school.

Negative: A nine year old probably won’t see it that way. (Theresa)

Positive: Weather is less likely to impact testing administration.

Negative: Scoring all assessments at the same time might lead to more than one testing and assessment coordinator cowering in a corner, whimpering.

Positive: The media will report on test data once a year, rather than twice. (Erin)

Negative: People may perceive this as a response to the increase in scores. A way to shake things up so students don't get to used to the test.

I expect the conversation will crest again as the press reports the change. I, like many others, have lots of questions. I wonder how students feel about the change. Were students given the chance to respond to the survey? Angela wonders if it's time to combine ELA and Social Studies into one assessment. What about the impact on final exams, especially given the recent article in The Buffalo News about schools using SED scores in student averages? ... and more more.

Your thoughts?

Change or Slight of Hand?

2009-06-04T23:45:00.002-04:00

According to news reports this past week, 46 states including New York State, have agreed to “the process and development of voluntary, common standards.” Said standards would be in draft form for review by July 2009 with grade-by-grade standards available in December 2009. States would have three years to adopt and implement those standards.

Now, I am not against national standards per se, I just want standards that are manageable, measurable and relevant. Having waited anxiously for the revision to the NYS ELA standards since last June, I find it hard to believe that a national group with appropriate representation is going to be able to reach consensus and produce something that will meet those criteria in a matter of a few weeks. Sadly, I became even more skeptical when I read the actual agreement drafted by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices which contains criteria for said standards, which will be:

- Fewer, clearer, and higher, to best drive effective policy and practice;
- Aligned with college and work expectations, so that all students are prepared for success upon graduating from high school;
- Inclusive of rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills, so that all students are prepared for the 21st century;
- Internationally benchmarked, so that all students are prepared for succeeding in our global economy and society; and
- Research and evidence-based.

It has taken a year for NYS to review and develop a plan for their revision of state standards in ELA. The last time I was in Albany I was told the committee was still discussing them and “tweaking” what they had before roll-out for public comment, now scheduled for Fall 2009. We have had some sneak peeks at what to anticipate, such as the fact that we will now have a Literacy and Literature strand and that in addition to Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking, we will now add Viewing and Presenting.

The latter two are very similar to the National Council for the Teachers of English (NCTE) Standards for the English Language Arts which frankly don’t look too terribly different from what NYS currently has in place. So the cynic in me is doubting whether there is going to be any real change when it comes to the standards. If NYS has already spent significant time and energy into developing these revised standards, yet have agreed to develop the national pieces (of which 85% should be adopted by the states voluntarily) – is there going to be real change or are we just going through the motions?

Technically Writing

2009-03-30T22:57:00.001-04:00

I spent last week helping some of my teammates lead the regional scoring of the NYS Assessments in Mathematics. It was quite a relief to just have to "be there" this year as opposed to having to play an active role in the training! And that allowed me to really listen to and think about the conversations the teachers were having about student answers.

Being a social studies teacher with a passion for all things writing, I was struck by how much writing is required of students on the math assessments. Interestingly, it was often the writing that prevented students from receiving full credit on some of the answers. Many of the teachers complained about this, particularly as we moved onto the middle grade levels. Often, I heard comments like these:

"These kids clearly knew the answer - I don't know why we can't just give them full credit."

"These scoring guides penalize the students who can 'do math' in their heads and don't need to show their work."

I understand their arguments but I also know that NYS is trying to emphasize (through the standards as well as the assessments) the power of communicating in math. And in order to communicate well in math - they must do so using the very technical language of math. While these teachers found the issue to be one of math (and sometimes of reading), I really saw these as the students not being able to express themselves in the mathematical language. A few examples:

When asked to express their answer in exponential form, several students would provide the correct answer when writing "three to the sixth power" but could not receive full credit because they did not write it in correct form.

Some students would write to explain how they found a particular answer, but in a somewhat vague manner such as "because you have to find the straight 180 so you would subtract." Teachers would argue that it is evident that the students understood the notion of complementary angles, but in reality there is not enough detail in this statement. The straight 180 what? Subtract what? From what?

Writing in the disciplines is very content specific. I have long held the belief that each content area has its own literacy that goes beyond merely teaching students to use the English language. In social studies, students need to be able to read and communicate about maps using correct terms. They need to understand the symbolism in political cartoons and the trends in charts/graphs. In science, they need to understand scientific notation, the symbols in chemistry and how to write a chemical equation. I could go on and on but you get the picture. Each discipline requires a highly technical language and one that we must explicitly teach our students. Each of us truly is a teacher of literacy.

For my math friends, it didn't seem the appropriate time to share my thoughts about the difference between having students muscle through the math to come up with a correct answer and having them share their understandings of the process and relationship between numbers in written form. But you can bet that I will be learning more about the technical writing in other subjects so that I can help them teach writing there as well.

Cross-posted on Writing Frameworks.

EQ: Teacher Leadership

2009-02-25T20:41:00.005-05:00

What does it take to truly develop teacher leadership?

When this question lept off the page for me at a recent Communities for Learning session, it seemed that three days worth of thinking had found a home. This post has been in draft form for a while but I have decided that examining the research and practice around this essential question will be one focus for me in the upcoming year. Since this post will capture my initial thinking around this topic, it is not heavy in the research but merely my attempt to capture the "problem."

Consider these scenerios that recently presented themselves in my work:

District A has adopted a new series and carved out a 90 minute literacy block. Teachers are struggling with the use of the block and despite having an onsite "coach" do not seem to be making good use of the time. In a planning meeting to discuss the development of the teachers, the idea of starting by coaching those teachers who were closest to the ideal in order to have them lead their colleagues was suggested. Building principal was not sure there were many teachers who were "close" and was concerned about how those teachers who were coached might be percieved by their peers.

District B has slowly been acquiring new technology resources for teachers to use and the building principal has been committed to providing teachers with the use of interactive whiteboards. As teachers see this equipment being used in the school, some are ready to embrace the technology (and the learning curve) and try out some lessons. Building principal asks the early users to showcase how they use the technololgy for their peers at a faculty meeting - none feel they have the expertise to do so and the computer teacher demos something instead.

In the same district, one new teacher (untenured) has slowly been integrating the technology even though she has not been given one of the interactive whiteboards. She researchs sites on the Internet, is taking a graduate course on media literacy, brings her class to the school lab weekly and has integrated quite a bit of technology. She even selected a technology based lesson for her observation with the building principal. She is not asked to present at the faculty meeting and has recently been passed by for the installation in her classroom of a new whiteboard purchased by the PTA.

In District C, a consultant has asked teachers who have been engaged in a long-term professional learning opportunity around discourse to share an instance where they took a risk and were successful. In the reflection around this question, teachers struggled to think of answers where they had been successful.

In each of these examples, I am certain that the district wants to foster teacher leadership and that there are teacher leaders available - yet they have not been tapped. What conditions must be in place in a school system for teacher leadership to be developed, and more importantly, to thrive in a sustained way? What dispositions must teacher leaders exhibit to be effective? In short, the essential question is what does it take to truly develop teacher leadership?

As I work to frame this question and my research better - I would appreciate any warm/cool feedback on the identification of the problem and question!!

Giving “Practice” Math Tests? Read me first. (Part 2)

2009-02-08T23:00:00.009-05:00

Part 1 is here.

Usually, the most common reason for giving a practice math test is to identify students’ weaknesses. Hopefully the first post showed why it’s so critical to determine the weakness you’re talking about: familiarity with format, time, etc. If you’re worried about the math there are particular ways to approach the practice test.

First, ignore how the student did on the assessment. It sounds counter-intuitive but there is rationale reason for it, I promise. It’s more important how your students did on particular items than how they did overall. There are a couple of reasons for this:

NYS Assessments are based on a criterion-referenced model. Typically, when you give a student 25 questions, you mark the correct responses, determine a fraction of correct over total and come up with a score. Generally, we talk about these scores in percentages. Due to the complexity of the NYS assessments and the fact that they focus on performance in relation to a standard or criteria, scores are NOT reported this way. In fact, the number of raw points needed to demonstrate mastery shifts from year to year depending on the standard setting process.

It’s not the real deal. Regardless of the conditions we create, students know it’s not the real deal. Their performance may be inflated or deflated for that very reason and may not reflect their true performance.

NYS Test Design procedures. NYS follows a particular test design model that requires the test include items with varying difficulty. I’m sure you’ve noticed looking through the test that some questions “feel” easier than others. This isn’t a coincidence. Items are strategically chosen for the assessment that reflect a range of difficulty based on how students performed on them on the field testing. It doesn’t make sense to include 25 questions on Book 1 that were missed by most students during field testing. So, the test designers include items with a variety of difficulty – a few hard, a few easy and most middle of the road. This concept of item difficulty is called “p-value” – most simply put, what percent of students responded correctly to a question. In shorthand, we say items with high p-values are easy, while items with low p-values are hard for the particular group of students under discussion. So - two districts side by side may have different p-values on the same item. We need a neutral standard or benchmark to act as judge and jury around item difficulty. That's where the state data come in.

A great deal of data about NYS tests are made public every year – including p-values. These data can tell us which questions are easy and which are hard. It’s not a secret and requires only a smidge of background to use correctly. P-values are provided at a couple of levels. The one that is most important is for our purposes here Low Level 3. In this example, let’s talk about fifth grade. My mental model around scale scores and p-values is to picture a giant swimming pool filled with every fifth grader in the state of New York who took the state assessment last year. Floating above their head is their scale score. Students from the Bronx to Buffalo, from Long Island to Lake Placid. Students with and without disabilities. Levels 1, 2, 3 and 4.

I can look at how ALL the students did on items but included within the mix are students who really struggled and students who did really well (We assume most questions were hard for students at Level 1 while most were easy for students at Level 4.) So, I as the data lifeguard blow my whistle and call out every child who scores Levels 1 and 2. Same for the Level 4’s. Left in the pool are my Level 3’s – every child who met the standard. Because I want the data to be as clean and precise as possible, I’m going to boot out every child who scores above the minimum standard – which in Fifth grade in 2008 was 650. Left in the pool I have a few thousand students – all who met the minimum standard, AKA scale score 650. For each question these students took, I can look at how many got each question right and compare (or benchmark) my students to their performance. The graph below shows you what that looks like:

Out of ALL of the students who scored 650, only 18% of the students got question 7 correct. In other words, that was a hard question. My gut isn't telling me that. My students aren't telling me that. Students from across NYS are telling me that. Take a look and see how your students did on it. Odds are, they didn't do very well. It's not because you didn't teach it or they just weren't listening. It could be because the wording tripped them up - just like 82% of all students who scored a 650. The question is below:

Students are likely to pick A because it practically screams "PICK ME!" at them. Your students may know fractions inside out and sideways. Picking A and not C is an issue of testing sophistication, not mathematics. When reviewing similar problems with students, as much as possible, give them "PICK ME!" choices so they can learn what they look like and how to avoid their siren song.

At the other end of the difficulty continuum are easy questions. The Low Level 3's did pretty well on question 3. If you discover that your students didn't do well on questions like 3 (any item with a p-value higher than 80%), then your warning bells should start warming up.

However, before assuming it's a strength or weakness, look for other evidence that the students understand the concept. Formative assessment can really come in handy here. You can pose a similar question and ask students to respond on their way out the door. This time though, ask:

Anne has completed 87% of the race. What fraction represents that portion of the race she has NOT finished?

If students get the math, they should pick A. If they pick C, it's probably a testing issue. They slid past the NOT. Anyone who picks B or D may have a problem with fractions in general. How did they do on question 15 which taps a similar understanding? (I use Tinkerplots to answer these questions. It's one of my favorite data toys.) The students will form themselves into like-needed groups, depending on what the other instructional evidence shows.

So - if you're going to give the test to identify weaknesses:

Consider how your students do on easy questions (high Low Level 3 p-values) versus hard (low Low Level 3 p-values) questions.
Be aware of what wrong answers students give as that's often more interesting than what they got right.
Consult other evidence (formative and summative) before confirming the students have a mathematical weakness.

I'd love to hear if any of these ideas contradicts what you've heard in schools. Feel free to drop me a line or leave a comment if you have any questions!

Giving “Practice” Math Tests? Read me first. (Part 1)

2009-02-05T21:38:00.005-05:00

Similar to the weeks prior to the ELA assessment, many schools across the state are giving their students old copies of the state assessments to prepare their students for the big day. Based on conversations with schools and fellow professional developers, these practice tests serve several different purposes. Regardless of the reason for giving the assessment, there are several strategic moves that can be made to get the best return on your time investment and hopefully, minimize the impact on instructional time and students' sense of what school is all about.

First things first. Be honest about the reason you're asking students to take the old assessment. "To prepare them for the test" is a big broad topic. A common problem in test prep is trying to tackle two problems in one fell swoop. It's a given a that when you're teaching students a new strategy, you introduce it with familiar content or low level text. You wouldn't ask a middle school student to text-tag for the first time with a college level text. The same holds true for practice tests. It's not fair to ask students to "do their best" on the math content and expect them to notice the format and structure at the same time. Their brain is going to be busy with the math. I'm going to tackle a couple of common reasons for giving practice tests over the next couple of days and highlight the benefits of approaching different purposes in different ways.

If your goal is to expose students to the test format:

There are few students on the planet as test savvy as 8th grade students. They have been been tested since they were in fourth grade. They know what the test looks like. Some could even write it. If you work with middle level students, your time may be better served by telling them what's different in the grade 8 assessment (no editing, but extended writing). If the concern is that they really don't know the format, than give them time to do that - and only that. What do they notice about about the font? About the spacing and the structure? The set up of the questions? What might trip them up on the actual test? Make sure they know how to use the ruler, the protractor and the rules of getting as many points as possible on Book 2 and Book 3.

If your goal is to familiarize your students with timed testing:

Consider chunking the test. First, give your students the appropriate time to take Book 1 - and tell them the purpose of taking the practice test is to give a sense of how much time they'll have. Next, when they're done, take ten minutes to process what happened. A Behavior over Time graph (below) is a great tool for helping students process their stress level. Did they feel more stressed at the beginning of the test? At the end of the test? Finally, give them the support to develop a plan. If they freak out in the beginning, what can do they do to avoid the freak out? What helps them calm down? You'd be surprised the ideas that students generate during these types of conversations. It's also a nice way to reveal "rumors" that kids have heard.

Coming up tomorrow - how to tackle practice tests if your goal is to identify student weaknesses. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

Making a Difference: Three Cups of Tea

2009-01-19T15:47:00.004-05:00

Reflecting upon the dreams of those who came before us and the dreams that we have for our children on the eve of the Presidential Inauguration, I wonder when in our history we took education for granted. As a social studies teacher, my students were always amazed to learn that education wasn't always mandatory. That children would often work in very dangerous conditions to help to support their families. That education was something that people strove to achieve - not something that was expected.

Today, we argue about whether we are preparing our students adequately for the world they will enter when they leave school. Since their inception with compulsory education, schools in the United States have operated under a factory model. We have bells, we have a set curriculum, we churn out graduates like Model T cars. Only we don't, do we?

I am not sure that I have the answer for education - in fact, I am pretty sure that I do not. But after reading Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time I have been thinking very differently about education. Throughout the book, which chronicled Greg Mortenson's struggles to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan against the backdrop of the internal and external conflicts of those countries, Mortenson talks about the power of education to bring peace. The communities where Mortenson built schools worked together to see them constructed - often carrying materials on their backs to the remote areas where the schools would be built. They challenged traditional and religious norms to allow their daughters to attend school. Those schools brought the world to remote villages, for all the good and bad that entails. It brought new perspectives and new opportunities.

We have plenty of schools in this country - but we don't have the passion for them to exist that is described in Mortenson's book. I am struggling with why.

Photo credit: Lewis W. Hine. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Professional Discourse

2009-01-14T09:35:00.004-05:00

So I'm minding my own business doing e-mail today, pulling together a database, having a grand old time listening to the Dr. Horrible soundtrack. I open an email from an international listserv on statistics in education. A member posted a question about a study, unclear on why a particular test had been used to analyze the data. Her question was neutral, well-reasoned and appropriate to the listserv. In effect, a professional said "I don't understand this. Can you people who are in the same field as me help me understand it better?"

The response to her inquiry a few minutes later?

Did one of the authors of this paper steal your boyfriend in grammar school by any chance? As to your question "Am I missing something here?", I would have to say professionalism, scruples, and a LIFE!

So maybe he is the woman's best friend and he has an odd way of teasing her. Perhaps he knows the authors and feels the need to defend their academic honor. Or perhaps he's provided yet another example of why we as a profession so often chose to struggle alone rather than revealing our challenges or struggles in front of others. In any event, I sincerely hope the listserv moderates call him out and give the original author some positive lovin'. Odds are they won't.

The 11th Hour

2009-01-09T08:48:00.005-05:00

New York State opens the testing window the ELA grades 3-8 on Monday. My hunch is that most schools are starting on Tuesday and spending Monday doing a wide variety of "test prep" activities, both helpful and detrimental to students and teachers. I imagine there's going to be a run on Tums on Sunday night and some child will have a hard time falling asleep, convinced that if they fail the test their life, as they know it, is over. In time, I think the pendulum will swing toward the middle. In the meantime, my two cents on how to spend Monday.

Odds are good that by this point, the students are familiar with the format of the test and would not benefit from taking any additional practice tests. This is especially true for 8th graders who could probably write the test by now. An approach that may be more beneficial is to spend some time reminding the students of the purpose of the tests and the intended audience. It is not to find out if Jane or Jose is smart or is a good student or to determine their self-worth or to find out if their teacher is good. The audience is every student, Grades 3 through 8, in the state of New York. In other words, a student's self-check for a correct response might be: is this the best answer or is it best for me?

Monday may best served by reminded them how to translate all of that learning to one particular format. A useful strategy may be to provide the students with a Venn Diagram on the board or chart paper and have a discussion about the difference between Real World behaviors – all of those great things we do when we interact with texts in our “real lives” versus what we do on the day of the test that we do at no other time. To anchor yourself in this mental model, consider how you drove the day of your driver's test. How did you behave when driving while running errands or driving to work (assuming there weren't three inches of ice on the roads - yeah Buffalo!)? There are some things in common (text tagging, using the text to find an answer) but there are lots of differences that are worth highlighting:

The analogy may not work for all students - if that's case - and seriously (even in the most "test netural" schools Monday is a high stress day) what else are you going to be teaching/talking about? - spend some time Venn-ing out behaviors playing basketball versus football, watching TV versus watching movies or eating dinner at home versus eating dinner at a friend's house, then shift to testing and real world behaviors.

In any event, regardless of how the is spent, it's helpful to keep in mind the sage advice of Dr. Seuss in Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!

Miss Bonkers rose. “Don’t fret!” she said.
“You’ve learned the things you need
To pass the test and many more –
I’m certain you’ll succeed.
We’ve taught you that the earth is round,
That red and white make pink,
And something else that matters more –
We’ve taught you how to think.”

Leading for Results, Part 2 – Stretch Goals

2008-12-14T14:37:00.002-05:00

Leadership is hard work. Leadership is lonely work. It seems that for every success and innovation one has, there this someone who attempts to tear it down, bit by bit, eroding that feeling of success. Reflecting on Day 2 of my workshop with Dennis Sparks on the way home from from NSDC, I am realizing that true leaders must accept that it is not going to be easy, but it will be rewarding. And that the power of a support network is absolutely critical to success.

Day 2 of the workshop used the “I want” cards that we began the day before. We brainstormed a few more cards after being reminded that anything we viewed as a challenge or a problem were really thwarted intentions. For example – “The IT guy won’t unblock Blogspot so that I can blog with my students” is really:

1. I want to have my students express their thoughts and opinions, receive feedback on them and reflect on their learning using blogs.

2. I want the IT department to trust that I will monitor my students’ use of the Internet.

3. I want the IT department to work with me to discover alternatives they feel safe with in order to help me meet my objectives with my students.

We were then asked to select one “I want” card that were we to get it on Christmas morning would have a significant impact in our life. We were reminded that as human beings and particularly as educators, we operate from a point of view that when we select a goal if we don’t already have an idea of how to achieve it, then it is not a reasonable goal and therefore we won’t make much progress. We needed to brush that notion aside and remember that it is easier to achieve substantial change than to do it incremental steps. Citing Change or Die (one of my favorite books), Sparks reminded us that a larger goal requires a fundamental change in our belief system and is therefore more likely to result in change. We were going to take our “I want” statement and make a stretch goal.

We started by re-writing the card for paradise. “I want the IT department to trust that I will monitor my students’ use of the Internet” became “I want the IT department to provide me completely open access to aspects of the Internet to use with my students.” We then had to take that card and rewrite it again, only four times bigger. This was extremely difficult to do because frankly, my new statement was Nirvana!! But after thinking about it aloud with my group it became “I want the IT department to provide all teachers and student with open access to the Internet and for all teachers and students to know how to use it responsibly and effectively.” Not sure that it is Paradise times 4 but you get the picture.

The notion of stretch goals is extremely powerful and it is certainly something to think about when creating a clear vision for the future. However, I know from previous experience that goals that are set too big with no measure of how close we come to achieving it or a feeling of little success can often lead to frustration. I know that my stretch goal of looking like Beyonce by this time next year is an extremely ambitious goal. And while amusing – it does seem terribly impracticable. When it comes to health and my weight, it has always been more worthwhile to set a goal of losing X pounds or exercising for X minutes per day. And while in reality I will never resemble Sasha Fierce – it does cause me to think about what I really want as a fitness goal in reality and make that more clear.

No matter what stretch goals I set – I cannot achieve them without support.

Whether it is the IT goal or my fitness goal, I need to have others there to listen, to encourage, to take action with me. And those people will not be able to do that unless I am absolutely clear about where I want to be. It means that everyone needs to practice committed listening. Not active listening, not listening to respond, not listening to defend – just listening.

As we practiced this with others in the room, I realized that this is difficult to do and that I don’t do it often enough. Many of my conversations involve me doing more than one thing: typing an email, checking my feeds, cleaning out a drawer – just about anything than just listening. If I want people to hear me, I need to start to listen to them.

Returning to work tomorrow – I have set some goals for myself:

1. Practice committed listening with at least one other person every day.

2. Be clear about what I want – and turn those goals into stretch goals.

3. Focus on the assets, not the deficits.

4. Work with my signature strengths.

Not a timid list by any means – but it is the time of year for resolutions isn’t it?

Leading for Results - Part 1

2008-12-07T08:37:00.003-05:00

I am at the NSDC Conference in Washington, D.C. and attended the first day of my two-day preconference with Dennis Sparks around his book Leading for Results. Imagine my surprise to walk into a national conference that had no homework in advance of the session, no LCD projector and screen in the room, and no handouts. For many people, these are the hallmarks of a "good" presentation - the notion that when you pay for things (and pay a great deal) you need to have "things" to show the value of what you learned.

Dennis quickly dispelled us of this notion. In going through how he wrote the book (now in a second edition) he talked a lot about his favorite word: perturbed. He used it a great deal and it really resonated with me as I have long been a favorite of the phrase "educational deviant." They mean the same thing : someone who is shaking up the status quo in education. Not in a bad way, not in a "dig in your heels because we are never changing this" way. Instead, in a this is not working, hasn't worked for a very long time and if we don't do something different then we are doing a huge disservice to our students way.

Throughout the course of the day - Dennis asked us to reflect on and write about a problem that if we had the solution would have a significant impact on our life. As we listened to him talk about how to lead for results, he would stop and have us reflect on how using that one tool or idea might help lead to the solution. This was pretty powerful - not just that we were able to take the time and apply it to the problem, but that we started with making an assumption that it just might be the answer.

I believe that in education we work from a deficit perspective- we find gaps in data, we focus on the students who are under-performing, we work to "fix" teachers who are getting it done, we show how we don't measure up to other countries in any number of areas. Rarely do we see a focus on the assets we have in education.

I want to start focusing on those assets. I want to be what Dennis calls a resonant leader: one who creates "virtuous spirals of emotion" in those around them. And that needs to start with me identifying and working on my "signature strengths." We did a powerful exercise do help uncover those. Dennis had us think back to the last day that we were at work. Then think back to the last hour of that day. We then listed our strengths by telling a story of that last hour. I realized that I have some strengths that I often wish were better - things that I am good at but I always look at as in need of improvement.

Finally - we ended the day by taking 100 blank index cards and writing "I want" statements. These could be wants we have in any area of our life: work, family, friends, health, spirit. We had to write as many as we could, one per card. We wrote like this for about 20 minutes and then shared with a small group - one at a time. We then wrote for 10 more minutes. Our homework: double the number of cards we had for this morning.

The point? Sometimes people are a lot more clear about what they DON'T WANT than what they WANT. As leaders, we need to be clear about what we want in order to lead well. We need to speak with the voice of intention and that voice needs to be crystal clear. Clarity is a magnet.

We'll do more with those cards tomorrow - but for now I am just trying to get clear.

Please excuse my class from test prep

2008-12-04T10:33:00.006-05:00

Dear Principal:

Please excuse my class from test prep this month. Between today and the NYS ELA Assessment in January are a two week school recess, a possible snow storm, and lots of celebrating. Rather than giving my students another practice test which is driving us all batty, We're going to go to 25 Days to Make a Difference and have a conversation about the theme of the project (Standard 4.R.2.18: Use specific evidence from stories to identify theme - a skill directly assessed every year on the Grade 4 assessment).

We may read Laura's list of suggestions and decide what makes the most sense for each of us (Standard 4.R.3.14: Analyze ideas and information on the basis of prior knowledge and personal experience) and leave comments (Standard 2-4.CPI.W.14: Develop an idea within a brief text) or perhaps join a community of students and adults dedicated to this simple yet eloquent idea.

I hope this note provides examples of some of the ways I will prepare my students to demonstrate mastery of the NYS English Language Arts Standards (as assessed by one test, given on one day) without donating our learning time to test prep. I promise that I'll spend the six days before the test teaching them the rules of the test and how to put their best foot forward. I assure you they'll get their fill of test prep but right now, at this moment, when our country and world are so ready for change, I'd rather donate our learning time to making a difference.

Sinerely,
A 4th grade teacher

Make a Difference!

2008-12-02T10:58:00.004-05:00

Times are tough - the economy is a bit scary and everyone just seems a bit down. I know how incredibly fortunate I am in many, many ways and so it is only right to share that good fortune.

Last night, I read about the work of two incredible bloggers and what they are doing this holiday to "pay it forward." Over at the Fischbowl, Karl Fisch talks about a great way to support Kiva, which provides loans to entrepreneurs in impoverished communities. He is making his contribution but also purchasing two gift certificates for people to contribute as well. His hope is that the people he gives it to will "pay it forward" and do the same. But more importanty, since so many people read his blog and have seen his "Shift Happens" video - he has a chance through his PLN to make a real impact here. I am joining Team Shift Happens!

Laura started her "25 Days to Make A Difference" campaign again this year and little sister Nina is joining in!! Laura and Nina aren't going to be donating money on behalf of the winner this year - instead they will be doing service work and fundraising. This is a powerful statement about our students - and one that I hope many teachers will join her in promoting. Please consider having your classrooms join her here and spread the word!!

Laura and Nina aren't going to be making monetary donations this year - but I am going to on their behalf. Around this time of the year, it takes a little bit to motivate me to exercise as much as I should so for each day between December 1 and December 25 that I exercise at least 20 minutes a day, I will put $5 in a jar. On December 25th, Laura and Nina can tell me where they want that money to go on their behalf for inspiring me. I'll keep you posted weekly on how I do!! (And I promise I won't let you down!)

So what do you say readers - ready to pay it forward?

Cross-posted on Writing Frameworks.

Notes from the Middle: Formative Assessments, ELA and SED

2008-11-17T11:09:00.004-05:00

Spent the weekend mulling over what I learned at the Fall meeting of the NYS Middle Level Liaisons. Here are some notes and thoughts (remember - this is my interpretation of what I heard and think about what I heard!! If you were there - feel free to correct/add/disagree!)

Ira Schwartz - Coordinator, Accountability, Policy and Administration
Ira remains my favorite SED speaker by far - he is open and honest and I really believe that he is working very hard against incredible odds to make sure that all the accountability pieces that have been put upon us are interpreted in the best possible way for kids and school districts. Ira spoke to us about the Growth Model that is currently before the USDOE and what NYSED hopes will happen, as well as a "growth for all" component that is not a part of accountability measures but makes good sense. In this model - schools will be rewarded (but not penalized) for the growth that students who have already achieved proficiency may make. This is pretty powerful as many of the districts in my region that participated in the Battelle for Kids model noted that the students who made little to no growth were indeed those who had been labeled proficient. I am thinking this is a great step forward in thinking and using the data. I still don't know exactly how they are determining growth - but I will leave that to people far wiser and more astute with numbers! Ira's PowerPoint can be found here.

Howard Goldsmith (Executive Coordinator for the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support) presented with Nancy Noonan (Assistant Superintendent, ONC BOCES) who has served on the ELA Standards Review Committee to update us on the status of the ELA Standards review. This was a pretty brilliant move on Howard's end as we were able to get the perspective of "the field" with Nancy reporting out. Basically - in terms of the schedule that was reviewed again, the ELA standards are now moving from the review to the revision stage - with a first draft of the new standards hopefully available in January for public comment. (No worries - we reminded them that January is a bit of a rough month for ELA teachers in NYS!)

Folks can read the initial report put out by the team here and the PowerPoint slides from the presentation last week are here. Some interesting tidbits:

1. "Without a doubt, NYS is behind regarding standards." Howard made this comment as he was sharing the process the committee used to review the standards and I don't think that it comes as a surprise to anyone, particularly those who have worked at any length with our ELA standards!! What is interesting is that the committee spent a great deal of time reviewing what other states have done and Nancy acknowledged that the group was pretty impressed with those of West Virginia. I have to admit that a cursory glance at them is impressive to me as well! We were also reminded that the regional forums came out with the contradictory charge of fewer Performance Indicators but more specificity. Dealing with that will be interesting! Nancy indicated that at first blush, about 50% of the current PIs will be retained.

2. Which came first - the standards or the test? Howard reminded us once again that it is the standards that drive the curriculum, not the assessments. And when teachers state that they are teaching to the test, they are doing a disservice as it is impossible for ALL standards to be represented on individual tests. No matter how many times I hear this (and this is not the first time I have heard SED representatives say this) and how many times I bring this back to the teachers - I still hear this when I am working in districts. Not sure what else to say on this topic!

3. Literacy needs to be embedded in all content areas - each teacher must be considered a teacher of literacy. I am very grateful that they didn't call them teachers of reading and writing!! I have long held the notion that each content area has it's own "literacy" - as a social studies teacher I have seen this first-hand! Yet, not all teachers see their content area in that way. I have tried for 3 years to run a content area literacy course around this idea just for social studies and I never get enough folks to come. But - with ELA being first up in the review cycle and laying the groundwork for the other content areas, I am hopeful!

4. Viewing and Representing will be included as standards - not too much specificity here but I like the notion of embracing the fact that technology is quickly changing and so the standards will be relatively vague here. Howard was asked about the 21st Century skills and told the group that SED had a contract with the group but that we would be working on integrating those skills into our standards, not necessarily becoming a 21st Century Partner state. Discussions have been held with the group about focusing on things like appropriate use of social networks, understanding audience, validity of sources, and the ethics of communication. IMHO - these sound like pretty interesting conversations at the state level and I am really hoping they translate into the new standards!

5. Assessment, assessment, assessment!! Nancy spoke about the fact that the field seemed to prefer teacher-created (versus vendor created tests) and that the committee would continue to recommend that. Howard reminded everyone that the test development process takes 3 years and that a new RFP would go out after the new standards have been approved. It was here that Nancy commented that we need to use formative assessments on a "minute by minute" basis and Howard added that formative assessment was a misnomer in that formative assessments are a process, not one assessment. I was thrilled to hear those comments from state leaders and am desperately hoping that message filters down - like yesterday!

6. Early childhood development, specificity on text strategies, developing a common terminology and conventions & grammar were all also mentioned but not in great detail. I can't wait to hear more about how these are playing out in the standards revision.

I've tried to weed out the other notes to capture just what started conversation and isn't what folks might already know. We had many other speakers and topics but still digesting those!! Any comments or questions - add them to the comments below!!

Reflections on Social Networking

2008-11-11T21:28:00.002-05:00

I had to laugh as I was searching this blog's archives to link in a new post on Plugging In. What a difference a year makes!

LAST YEAR: "I don't have a FaceBook or MySpace account - mostly because I am old (or at least feel like it) and because I maintain several blogs. I network and connect through those."
THIS YEAR: What on earth was I thinking? I have a Facebook account now and while it is not as addictive for me as for some of my friends, it has been great fun to connect with high school and college friends as well as with my current friends. While I have recently been forced to think about the presence of my family on Facebook (Do I really need to know what my godson is doing in Arizona? Rather - do I want to?), nothing gives me more joy then throwing sheep at people! It is the casual side of my networking.

And having a blog, or two or three or eighty, doesn't mean that I am networking and connecting! The ClusterMaps on the blogs show readers and where they are located but the comments aren't always there. Blogging still feels like a one-way conversation (and fortunately, one I still enjoy having!)

LAST YEAR: "I also am concentrating on tools that I think I can help teachers translate into practice - ones that are worth their time learning. I have to confess - I just don't get the Twitter craze. Who cares what I am doing RIGHT NOW?"
THIS YEAR: After the post I just wrote on Plugged In - I am sure many of my friends (real and virtual) are laughing out loud right about now. I am a Twitter junkie and have found it to be such a valuable resource that I am blushing at my comments from last year. "Ones that are worth their time learning" - how arrogant was I? Sigh.

LAST YEAR: "But I also need to reach those who struggle with the technology and might not have the courage to stray from the traditional. To admit that we are now teaching in a very different world from that which taught us. How do I slow it down and make it more comfortable for them?"
THIS YEAR: Realizing now that teachers don't need to stray too far from the traditional to make use of the powerful tools out there. And have also realized that it isn't about the tools or slowing down (again - who do I think I am?) Instead, it is about bridging the gap between what we as teachers are good at and what many of our students are very good at - meeting them half-way if you will. And it isn't about teaching them, it is about modeling for them. I am not great at this - but I am more transparent in my learning about this.

Now that I have had a hefty helping of humble pie, I am realizing in finding and reflecting on this post how much I have grown and how much more I need to grow. I have become so comfortable with some of these tools and have integrated them into what I do, I realize that I might make some assumptions about the learners around me and their comfort level. I am very comfortable with the tools I know well but my increased networking has helped me realize how much I don't know as well as to start to ask in a very public way.

Funny - I wonder what blogging about my classroom practices (back in the day) and then finding those thoughts a year later would have done that simply reviewing my plan books didn't.

Pondering PD

2008-10-13T21:39:00.008-04:00

This is the third draft of my ponderings on professional development and I hope that I do not sound as cranky as the original. I've decided to go with a bullet like format because I really am not trying to make a point, but to reach out to others with my wonderings and get some feedback (push back?). Bear with me!

Lots of feedback lately about how PD sessions are engaging and "lots learned" but how do we know if it really impacted classroom practice and therefore students. Finding it harder and harder to get districts to commit to long term PD with coaching in order to make that happen due to the "time" factor. What is the tipping point?

Special area teachers - encore teachers - teachers in non-core content areas (or whatever the PC term is in your district) provide feedback that they would like more PD on topics relevant to their content area. How are folks handling this one?How do those content areas "fit" into the larger district work?

Seems like districts are suffering from "initiative overload" from the teacher perspective. I am fairly certain that the administration does have a big picture in mind but it never seems to be shared with the teachers. How do we help them with that? Should we be making that clear if they are not?

Wondering if we really see ourselves as learners on professional development days? I started a recent session with teachers reflecting on their students and learning and then made the connection to their learning for the day. Many seemed surprised that would be the focus. Are we so busy with accountability and mandates that we have forgotten our true purpose?

Help me out - before I burn out!

Photo credits: All photos from Flickr (dominoes, puzzle, transparency, reflection, extinguish)

Blogging the October 2008 DATAG Meeting

2008-10-03T13:25:00.003-04:00

I wrote about the meeting last year here.

This year's meeting has the largest attendence ever at a DATAG regular meeting. That's a whole lot of data heads in the same room. I was tweeting some of David's comments for those following back in Buffalo but it's hard to take what David Abrams says and filter it down to 140 characters. My tweets were:

*Achievement is up in English statewide, except in Grade 8.

*n from 3-8 assessments - 1,200,000 students in ny. Thought it was higher

*"dis-intuitive" new word - describing the role of new language acquisition and NYSESLAT assessment. David has hit his verbal stride.

*"we are persistent because we're New Yorkers. And we're loud."

*12 minutes ago from web what happens when you change standards and implement new exams? Bigger bump at year 2 than expected.(math)

*David just reeled off about 10 different statistics about schools in ny. Sexy.

"degenerative rhetoric" - describing mathematics as a mastery skill

*FYI - David began his presentation by saying he isn't talking to be understood, he expects some won't understand him. "Deal with it."

*NY is one of the most tightly coupled states around testing. Arizona is at the other end of that spectrum.

I think he shared something very important about Algebra but I'll have to listen to the recording to figure it out. If David were hooked up to an MRI machince while talking, I imagine it would look like fireworks at Disney World. In the space of two minutes, he gave a commentary on Pie Charts, an anecdote about students graduating early from High School and comments about the rules of large numbers. He added a quick aside about the fact that someone people wouldn't come back next year because of him and shrugged, pretty much saying "this is the system. If you want to be a part of it, learn how it works".

His PowerPoint is below. I'll figure out a wy to post the audio later.

Datag Annual Testing Accountabilty Discussion 10 081

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: data datag)

WOW!

2008-10-01T19:58:00.002-04:00

I think that the title of this post sums up how everyone is feeling lately. Educators are wondering what "school" will look like in the future and everyone is wondering what our finances/lifestyles/government is going to look like tomorrow. It is a crazy and amazing time to be alive.

I miss my social studies class with everything that is going on in the world right now. The teachable moments, the opportunities to push student thinking and the possibilities are endless right now. I keep trying to pump up the teachers around me to discuss these things in class, but at times it seems like we try to insulate our kids while they are in school.

I've also been in faculty rooms lately where I have heard teachers say they aren't intending to vote - that their vote doesn't matter - that everyone knows how the election is going to turn out anyway. (Do we? I mean really - have people not learned anything from the past?)

I'm not trying to espouse any political viewpoint here - just encourage everyone to be active citizens this November. And this video just summed it all up for me...pass it along to five friends!

How the hell do you get people to dance?

2008-09-17T21:52:00.003-04:00

Constant readers of this blog (both of you!) will recall that Jenn shared the "Where the Hell is Matt?" video with us in June and it is something that sort of set the theme of the summer for me. It really captured the idea that our world is indeed flat, but even more importantly, we can find joy in the smallest of things.

In my feeds today, I ran across the video below where Matt explains how we got people to dance with him using a presentation method called "Ignite": a five minute presentation using 20 slides, each slide advanced automatically every 15 seconds.

There is a lot that I love about the presentation. First, the style which calls into play some real creativity and use of time (21st century skills if I ever heard them!) Second, it was done at a conference called Gnomedex which sound a little like a techie TED conference. And thirdly, the technology and resources that Matt used to make those incredible videos.

Watching Matt in all of the videos, including this one, makes me smile. Of course, Jenn and I convinced some folks to dance with us this summer as well but in a much more low tech and local way. We'll never share that video outside our community but it makes me smile just as much as Matt. How can you get people to dance with you?

New Beginnings - Part 2

2008-09-07T20:27:00.002-04:00

OK - so maybe, just maybe you will find a picture of me under the definition of gullible in the dictionary. But I really did want to believe that the student featured in the last post was genuine - that he created and delivered the speech because he believed. Turns out - he didn't.

But in reading that post and the comments that followed I started to think about what really hit me about that clip. Sure, that kid was a powerful speaker. And yes - it was a great way to start a new school year. But more than that - the message was that we should believe in our students and in each other. Does it really matter that someone else wrote that speech? Does it really matter that he practiced since June to deliver it?

He believed he could do it - he wins contests in public speaking. Somewhere along the way - lots of people did believe in him.

So - if you ignore the nay-sayers out there and the people who say it was a sad display of marketing and get down to the core of the message for educators: Do YOU believe?

Do you walk into your classroom each morning believing in the potential of the students who are sitting there? ALL of them?

Do you believe in your colleagues and their ability to reach and teach - not just their students but each other? ALL of them?

Do you believe in your administration - from principal to superintendent - and their ability to lead your building, your district? ALL of them?

And most importantly- do you believe in yourself? Believe that you make a difference? That what you do matters each and every since day? ALL of them?

And if you don't - why is that? Why aren't you doing something to restore that faith in yourself, your students, your profession? Teaching can be absolutely exhausting. And it can be the most rewarding thing that a person does. I believe in you - why don't you?

New Beginnings

2008-09-03T21:06:00.003-04:00

Driving to work this morning and forgetting about the extra 10 minutes that school buses can add to my commute - I passed the many students waiting outside for the bus. Some in new clothes, most with an incredible air of despondency (for the end of summer) and anticipation (for a new school year) and all preparing for a new beginning.

Depending upon where you work - the first day of school for students can have a very different feel from the first day of school for the teachers and staff. The students some how add an extra level of excitement and anticipation for the school year - it somehow isn't real until they arrive. Each year for me was a time to set new goals for myself and my work, to make it that much better for this group of students than it was in previous years. It was about building relationships with my colleagues and trying new things to engage and inspire our students.

Now that I work with teachers more than students - it still has the same feel for me. I can support and encourage their work and be much more objective about the impact they have on their students than they are. Teachers can and do change the world.

This year is an especially difficult year for a district in which I am honored to work two days per week as curriculum coordinator. We lost a student yesterday - an incoming freshman - in a tragic ATV accident. To begin the school year in such a way is difficult. But the teachers and staff and community have pulled together to help students (and each other) through this difficult time. Neighboring districts have also reached out a hand to lend support and a shoulder to lean on. They are not immune to loss - one district ended their school year the same way that we are beginning.

In times of loss, we often wish that we could have one more moment to say a final "I love you" or "I am sorry" or "You mean the world to me." We don't get those moments back but can learn instead to make sure that we say them to others on a regular basis. As schools in our region come to session this week and we all have new beginnings - I think this student from Dallas has said it to those that matter to him. Will you say it to those that matter to you?

Cross posted on Writing Frameworks.

If not now, when?

2008-08-28T21:09:00.002-04:00

A conversation from a recent professional learning session with teachers, where I was able to learn alongside them (rather than in front of them):

Presenter: What are some of the challenges educators will be faced with in the coming years?

Administrator: I am worried about the fact that with all of the things that kids are able to do outside of school, the only place they are bored is inside of school.

Presenter: Well, Goodlad has said "School is a place where kids go to watch adults work!"

Teacher: And how did they get that way? We trained them that way!

Our two days together started with that dialogue and came full circle today, after investigating learning styles and strategies and hidden academic literacy, when a teacher asked: "Since we have trained them so well to be passive, how do we help teachers persist when our students don't want to think in our classrooms, they want to be told?"

My summer has been full of investigating and researching what people are calling "21st Century Skills." What are they? What do they look like? Are we teaching them? How do we teach them?

My team of staff developers will be joining the team of our neighboring BOCES to explore the various definitions people have created for these skills and try to create a common meaning to use in our region and then begin to model and integrate into our learning. I am excited by this and the possibilities for collaboration and quality work that it can produce. But I am also tempered a bit by reality.

I don't believe that 21st century skills are all about technology. But I do believe that technology is a means to developing 21st century skills and schools. However, I fear that by the time education catches up, it will be the 22nd century and we have absolutely no idea what that will look like! (That may be a bit of an exaggeration on my part but I think it emphasizes my recent frustrations nicely!)

I have worked the past three years on trying to exercise the right side of my brain, to read business literature on what matters for employers and learning how technology can make more work better, faster, more transparent, and more collaborative. Along the way - I have asked others to dip their toes in that same pool. I am not sure that a critical mass has done so and I am not sure how to reach that critical mass.

I am not a well-known edublogger like Will or Sheryl or Gary or any of the many others I follow on Twitter and my RSS feeds. But I have tried to make a small difference in my corner of the world (I can say corner now that the world is flat - right?) And the number one reason that I hear from very busy teachers for not using new technologies to enhance the work of their classrooms and engage their students is time.

I don't have time to learn the tools.
I don't have time in my curriculum to teach that way.
I don't have time to teach kids to think, I have a test to prepare for.

I am growing weary of time as an excuse. And I, too, am growing weary of the digital native/digital immigrant excuse. When I think about the very pointed questions and conversations we have had over the past two days, I think about about our students.

If they are not worthy of finding some time, who is?

If not now, when?

My Great Escape

2008-08-18T22:12:00.004-04:00

Now that I have finally stopped physically traveling and instead spend my evenings in Bejing - I have found some time to play with new technology tools and upgrade some others!! It leaves me constantly in awe of what is available out there to help us collaborate and connect, yet it also makes my work more efficient.

Some recent faves (please be sure to add your own!):

1. The upgrade to delicious!! Careful readers will notice right off the bat that all of the periods have disappeared from the name!! This makes it a bit easier to access but does take all the fun out of it!! And that is the only downside that I can see. I haven't finished exploring all that it can do differently - but I love having an "inbox" for the things that people tag for me right on my screen. I'll post more if I discover anything earth-shattering but in the meantime, you can read what Will Richardson thinks. Oh! And don't forget to join my network and tag something for me (tgray)!!

2. Also enjoying the Beta version of Bloglines that is available - much cleaner way to view my feeds and I can put my favorites on the opening page. Looks a bit more like Google Reader which I like a lot - but don't use much because it is still blocked at work. Certainly worth looking into!!

3. I blame Jenn 100% for my latest addiction - Facebook!! Catching up with old friends, connecting with new ones, creating a flair board like I had in college, throwing sheep - I am having a blast!!

I have more - but I don't want to InfoWhelm as Ian Jukes would say. So - what is your latest technology escape?

Which are you?

2008-07-21T16:43:00.002-04:00

Before I start posting about my week at Communities for Learning, I want to recap some of the powerful learning that happened for me last week at High School's New Face. This conference is an amazing joint effort between our regional BOCES and a great chance to work and learn alongside our districts. The line-up this year was amazing and all the sessions, key notes and panel presentations seemed to really fit and build upon one another. I have to say that for me, the conference hit it's highest note with the speech by NYS Teacher Richard Ognibene from Fairport, NY.

Richard spoke powerfully about his students and his profession and laid out three challenges for educators:
1. We must create family in our schools.
2. We must use assessment wisely (and humanely!)
3. We must promote the teaching profession.

These three really hit home for me as they are the very things that I wrestle with in my position leading professional learning opportunities and some of the very things that I am wrestling with at Communities for Learning.

Creating family - or community - in schools is an important piece if we are to engage our students. Doesn't everyone do more for someone they like and respect? When was it we stopped trying to create and instill a sense of respect between students and teachers? Community for me goes even beyond this - it is a sense that one will work towards bettering the community and the place in which it resides. As Ken Kay and Tony Wagner both touched on at the conference, we do need to teach our students 21st century skills in order to ensure that they can compete globally - but also so that they can leave our globe a better place than it is now. We must help them create their legacy.

Unfortunately, many will blame the mandates of NCLB for the reasons why we cannot or do not create this community. "We must teach to the test" is a line I hear over and over and over again. Readers of my blogs know that I personally subscribe to what I call the Diffendoofer Philosophy and that we must teach our students to learn - that will help take care of the test. Richard spoke wonderfully about the humane use of assessments, not just summative tests and rightly said that the more complex the content or topic, the more we must use formative assessments to determine whether our students are grasping it. Are we creating a generation of good test takers or a generation of thinkers? Are we practicing 21st Century skills ourselves as teachers if the only problem-solving and higher order thinking we do is complain that we can't teach the way we used to because of tests?

I have long been puzzled by the fact that so few in our society view teaching as a profession - including those who are within the profession. Sure - I have run up against the cranky teacher who as 2 years left and wants to dig their heels in and not try something different. But I have also witnessed amazing growth in teachers as they learn something new and become re-engaged in their own learning. How do we create situations for that to happen, not in isolation but in community? How do we show students that we so love our content and our profession that they want to be just like us and become teachers too?

I found this quote while catching up on my feeds today (thank you Passionately Curious!):

"All mankind is divided into three groups: those that are immovable, those that are movable and those that move.” — Benjamin Franklin

I might not know the answers to all the questions that I posed above but I absolutely know which group I want to be in!

NYC Rigor Institute

2008-07-16T20:42:00.002-04:00

I've had the pleasure this week of working with an incredible group of New York City educators around academic rigor. I'm going to hijack Grand Rounds for a bit to use it as venue to share our handouts and links to different files.

If you participated in the LCI Institute, please click here to take the evaluation survey

My turn

2008-06-24T13:08:00.004-04:00

I ddin't like my first one but when I hit random. . . this came up. I like the simplicity of it. Plus it demonstrates my clear love of all things Excel.

As an added bonus, check out the video below. About a minute into it, I actually found myself tearing up. The tears fell when he and the women in India appeared. Raw happiness does that to me, I guess!

Tag - You are IT!

2008-06-22T20:19:00.004-04:00

I have been thinking a great deal about technology lately - more specifically about the role that technology does/should play in education. I was asked recently how I would assess the effectiveness of technology in raising student achievement and was uncharacteristically stumped for a bit. I am not sure that we can attribute increases in student achievement to the use of technology alone because there are so many other things that might happen at the same time as the technology use: a change in teacher pedagogy, increased student voice and choice, increased collaboration, increased motivation (teacher and student) - I could go on and on.

I have been thinking about the increase in my own technology literacy over the past few years. I recently unearthed the typewriter I used in college (yes - a typewriter!). What was super duper cool about this typewriter was that it stored almost a paragraph's worth of work before I hit a key and it typed it out onto the paper. The beauty of this gadget was that I didn't have to fight with the crazy eraser tape when I made mistakes or wanted to edit. What a change from the way that I do business now!!

While that might be a giant leap for mankind - I have made even greater leaps just this past year. Previously a person who could not wrap their head around Twitter - I am now "twitterpated" and get very frustrated at some glitches that have been happening lately. I also start to think that something is wrong when I don't hear what Angela is doing around the house, how the Yankees are doing from Brian or how boot camp was for Jenn. I get updates on my phone and via the web just to stay in touch using 140 words or less.

I think that speaks to the power of my personal learning networks - whether Twitter or Ning or del.icio.us or (gasp!) in person - I learn better with others. Is it the technology that has increased my learning this past year or is it the network that happened as a result of the technology?

I am not sure that I have an answer - but through my network I learned about a very cool technology tool that allows me to reflect on what I have been interested in learning and reading by creating an image that reflects my del.icio.us tags:

Here is the challenge - using Wordle (or any other tool) how you would capture what you have been learning over the past year? Tag - you are it!

DENIED!

2008-05-28T16:02:00.002-04:00

I don't think I realized how connected I am to being connected until I received the image above on my computer. "What was I doing?" you ask?

Catching up on my RSS feeds with Bloglines, Twitter, updating my GoodReads account, posting a new Writing Frameworks post, email, Skyping Jenn and waiting for the cube to stop spinning in the DataWarehouse where I am pulling ELA data that I cannot share.

Except for Skype and e-mail I was in the penalty box for 12 very long minutes!! How was I supposed to get any work done? After laughing and being taunted by Jenn sending me sites to read and getting really frustrated when I couldn't Google an answer, I started to open up Word in order to write this blog post. My mind was pretty quiet - for the first minute. And I swear I could hear the crickets chirping in the school.Then I started to get antsy. Very, very antsy.

Is this a problem or have I just grown used to a different way of working?

Passing the Word (Deadline Noon May 5)

2008-05-05T10:44:00.004-04:00

I've discussed my discomfort for some of the things that have from ASCD before, but discussion isn't action. A superintendent is working diligently to help ASCD think differently. To that end, he is looking for volunteers to sign up on his wiki (huh - just went back to the site to get the link and someone wrote over top of mine). His goal was 50 - the next target is 100!

Playing with Pictures

2008-05-03T14:41:00.003-04:00

It is raining and I am resting up for the Elvis Costello/Police concert tonight so I decided to finally download my camera and play with the photos. Hours later - I have not only ordered some really cool Mother's Day presents, but I messed around with Picasa and ScrapBlogs some more.

Picasa is a Google Application (all you need is a Google account and it is free) that allows you to not only store your photos but add some interesting features. One that I just love is being able to turn your traditional color photos into sepia. I ended up falling in love with this one of my second grade niece - so much so that I ordered copies for the whole family!!

Feeling suddenly artistic - I decided to create a Scrapblog of our recent trip to Aruba. The end result is here:

I thought I would share how easy this was to do because I could think of a million applications for education:
1. Scrapblogs of field trips or other school events
2. Individualized pictures for the end of the year as gifts
3. Photo editing that can go into blogs, newsletter, school calendars, websites
4. Powerpoint presentations for end of year parties

Any others?

NYS ELA Standards Forum

2008-04-26T07:05:00.003-04:00

On April 18, an e-mail went out across New York State announcing the beginning of a conversation about the New York State English Language Arts Standards. I had the same conversation a few times when discussing plans to attend the meeting.

"It's about writing new standards." One person would say.
"New standards? They just re-wrote the standards in 2005!" Always said with a slight hint of disbelief.
"These are the NEW, new standards." Emphasis on the first new.
"Oh for crying out loud" or some such variation.

Although it feels like NYS just released new standards in 2005, what I think I heard come out of the meeting is the documents released in 2005 were a restructuring or repackaging to bring them into closer alignment with the yearly state assessments. Previous standards were clustered by grade level and not grade specific.

So what is about to begin is a rebirth of the standards. I'm sure there are lots of analogies to follow there but I'm going to leave it alone. The first meeting was held here in Buffalo and was well attended. Afterwards, I talked to two people from charter schools who weren't sure if they were allowed to attend. Hopefully, future meetings will have a full representation from as many constituents as possible.

Theresa and I decided to Twitter the meetings. Not with any particular communication goal in mind but just to see if the tool could be used in that way. I was luckier than Theresa as my phone has a full keyboard and web access, making it easier to quickly enter text. The highlight of the Twitter experience was when Theresa began to get all of my Tweets at once - in the wrong order. The Tweets are below and though I think the tool may not work as a note-taking measure, it did cause me to think differently about what I wanted to remember and document. You can see below what I considered "Tweet-worthy".

A few general observations/questions about the new standards process:
1. Where are the students? There was lots of mutual admiration about including as many educators as possible, but not one mention of the group that will actually be (in theory) benefiting from the new standards.

2. The view of technology is an interesting one. Several times it was mentioned that it has to be integrated and included. It would seem to suggest that it's an add-on, rather than a way of doing what needs to be done. Theresa articulates the role of Web 2.0 better than I can. (Sorry, Theresa, I couldn't find the link to your wiki!)

3. If they aren't released with logical, key word linked codes, I am going to throw a temper tantrum of epic porportion.

DataDiva: @ nys regents ela forum in buffalo with theresa, angela, and many others!
DataDiva: Phil Rumore the president of the Buffalo teachers union just arrived. Good to see a union presence!
DataDiva: opening remarks by Don Ogilvie
DataDiva: intent of forum: articulate understandings of the standards
DataDiva: Chancellor Bennett making intros
DataDiva: nys goal is all kids on grade reading by Grade 2
DataDiva: proposal to board by july 1
DataDiva: regents saul cohen (sp?) is coordinating the redesign. Will be transparent, will have a space for comments on website
DataDiva: call to field for help from classroom teachers
DataDiva: principles - 1. Include 3 levles of standards (stdent, teacher, system)
DataDiva: 2. develop a single set for each content areas
DataDiva: 3. Infuse literacy throughout all content
TheresaGray: NYS ELA standards review- "techology must be integrated in all content areas"
DataDiva: 4. Infuse cultural competences
DataDiva: 5. Develop measurable standards.
DataDiva: 6. Review prek-12 standards for seamless curriculum
DataDiva: 7. Integrate technology
DataDiva: website: www.emsc.nysed.gov/cis
DataDiva: Questions. 1. How is the content and substance of the current standards?
DataDiva: 2. How is the organization and format of the current standards?
DataDiva: 3. Are the current standards measurable?
DataDiva: ? From phil r. Regarding % of teachers on committee
DataDiva: a: mostly teachers on writing committee
DataDiva: limited to sharing one bold bright idea
DataDiva: Breaking into small groups
DataDiva: Lots of debate about what teachers need to use the standards the word "suckable" is being used
DataDiva: We identified the need for vertical connections. End of grade 3 should match beginning of grade 4.
DataDiva: tables sharing out - mirrors what our table said
DataDiva: lots of big picture ideas.... need for common training, conversations
DataDiva: here's a nitty gritty idea - if the grade 12 standards reference "main idea" - code that (ie) 12.2.1. p-11 standards that reference main id should also have the code X.2.1
TheresaGray: Interesting how often a discussion of standards moves to testing and often inaccurately
DataDiva: applause for a teacher who said the data from ny state should come faster so teachers can use them *sigh/facepalm*
DataDiva: the train has officially left the tracks!
DataDiva: "WNY is the most important place to start" you know it!
TheresaGray: Great point about need to include GED students in the standards

Deal Breakers

2008-04-01T21:10:00.002-04:00

And people think that I am crazy when I teach rubric development by sharing not only my current dating rubric but the evolution of my dating rubric over time!!

Fish is Fish

2008-03-24T14:55:00.002-04:00

As a social studies teacher, I can trace my love of history back to two things: my grandfather and his amazing stories of the history of our family and my sophomore high school teacher who taught history as a series of stories versus a series of lectures punctuated with answering questions at the end of the chapter. After several detours, when I finally entered teaching I vowed to instill that love of history into my students loudly proclaiming "This is not your father's social studies class."

I am not sure that I was entirely successful with all students but what I was trying to instill in my students was that history is not about memorization but about reasoned thinking using what it is that we know and the assumptions that we make. I wanted my students to think like historians - not just regurgitate things back to me. And my hope was that they would carry these skills over into life - where it was so much more important to understand things than worry about a grade.

Years later, as I lament about how I could have been a much better teacher if I only knew then what I know now, I have been reading and thinking about adaptive expertise. This podcast will help to explain the notion (and the title of this post) a bit better.

Some important thoughts from the podcast:
1. Students are not blank slates - new understandings are constructed on a foundation of existing understandings and experiences. We use what we have already learned to shape new understandings - sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly.

2. Learning with understanding is critical!! It can guide our actions and requires a deep foundation of factual knowledge.

3. Students must become meta-cognitive - that is, we must teach them to monitor and take control of their own learning.

If we want our students to develop adaptive expertise in order to meet the as-yet-unknown demands of the future they will graduate into, won't we have to change the delivery methods of our classrooms? I am not just talking about integrating technology (although that is something I feel strongly about) but about reframing how we teach. Consider this example (complete source found here):

The topic for science class is the human body, in particular veins and arteries. Which class would you rather be in:
a) Stand and Deliver, Mnemonics, Recall
b) Challenge question : How do we design an artificial artery? (understanding/context)

Of course the answer appears obvious - but how many of us actually learned in that type of environment? How many of us can honestly say we teach on a regular basis in that type of environment?

If our students need to develop adaptive expertise - what about us? What about the teachers? How can we develop the adaptive expertise of teachers?

Think Pink!

2008-03-10T20:41:00.000-04:00

I recently finished reading Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future. The premise is relatively simple: the "left brain" jobs that people aspired to in the past (lawyer, accountant, software engineer) will fall by the wayside as a new kind of mind (the right brain thinkers) will emerge as a force for the future. The good news is - teachers are considered right brainers!!

More than laying out a different type of plan for future, the book actually contains a very nice "portfolio" piece after each of the six essential R-Directed aptitudes. This book had a high Post-It note quotient, which makes it a really good read. But as I began to digest some of what I was reading, I realized that writers are really right-brained as well and if we develop some of these six aptitudes, well - writers will rule the future!!

Design: Described as a whole minded aptitude, the focus is on an combination of utility and significance. Granted, most elements of design have to do with the aesthetic and the visual. Being useful without words. But with writing, it also has to do with how the work is presented. What type face is used. Cursive or print. The break of lines in a poem. There can be design in writing, to enhance writing, thereby increasing the significance of the words.

Story: This one is obvious - I thought. But what really struck home is the following passage; "When facts become so widely available and instantly accessible, each one becomes less valuable. What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact." What more powerful reason to create rather than cut-and-paste?

Symphony: The ability to put together all the pieces - to see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields - to invent something new by combining elements nobody else thought to pair. Metaphors are a piece of symphony, as is every great novel that kept you reading because of the unexpected.

Empathy: The ability to imagine yourself in someone else's shoes and to intuit what that person is feeling. Good writers are able to capture that in their writing - great writers help others to feel it tool.

Play: There is great research in this section about the power of joy and laughter and play. The connection to writing for me was that writing has not become something of joy and laughter and play. It has become something that we make kids "do." Think of how many times a student has been punished by having to write something multiple times (including test corrections.) How can we add more play into writing?

Meaning: According to Pink, it is the search for meaning that drives us all. What better way to do that than thru writing? I think about all the problems I have solved by getting them out on paper, how journaling has helped me to think through what I am feeling, how creating a story has helped me to see the path that I must take. This is the power of writing.

My apologies to Mr. Pink if this is not how he intended his book to be used but I have not been able to stop thinking about the connections to writing and what we can do to inspire and grow these six aptitudes in our students through writing. Any thoughts??

Cross-posted on Writing Frameworks.

Reading Online

2008-02-09T14:22:00.000-05:00

Seems that I am being challenged on many fronts around my thinking about technology tools lately. And I don't mean challenged in any sort of a bad way - but rather, a way that makes me think a great deal about why I have personally embraced these tools and the value that I see in them for our students.

Let me preface this post by saying that I am in no way an authority on the use of these tools. For the past year and a half, I have dabbled with them in the course of my own work, integrating them into what I do and attempting to model them for teachers. There are tools I use on a regular basis (wikis, blogs, Google Groups and Reader, del.icio.us), tools I need to learn more about (Google Earth, podcasting, NING) and tools I just don't get (Twitter!!) That being said - I am game to try just about anything thrown my way that I think could have an application to my practice.

Why should someone use these tools when there is so much other work to do? What makes reading blogs compelling when faced with hundreds of emails every day? I am not sure I have the answers that will fit all the challenges here. But what I do know is that I no longer receive the local newspaper at home because I have created my own version of a newspaper online. Through my RSS aggregator (I use Bloglines) - I subscribe to the blogs and news venues that I want to read. I read ones that I have an affinity for, as well as ones that challenge my thinking. I get to pick and choose what comes in my "paper" - I can't do that in the hard copy version. And the best part is that using del.icio.us and the new found tools of Google Reader, I can tag them for future use or share them with my friends and colleagues. Remember those news clippings that hung out on refrigerators? Now they are all stored in my computer and they won't get yellow!

How do you have time to "read" them all? Reading is changing with online tools - no one does "deep" reading anymore. Honestly - I don't read all my feeds completely. I scan to see what grabs my attention or what will fit into my current work. If it gives me pause - I open up the article and read it deeply, sometimes annotating it with Diigo for future use. If I might use it again - I tag it and add to del.icio.us or send it along to a friend. Has it changed how I read? Maybe - but I still read the hard copy versions that pile up on my nightstand and Borders will not be de-activating my card for inactivity any time soon. But I am willing to bet that I read more than I ever have in the past. Maybe not as deeply - but certainly an expanded amount.

So help me out: Why do you read or not read? What compels you to check your RSS feed? Why should someone use these tools?

The loss of a great voice in education

2008-01-28T22:46:00.000-05:00

Richard Wilson Strong, an extraordinary educator, thinker and writer, died January 27, 2008, after a valiant battle with cancer.

Richard Strong was born in NYC on February 26, 1946. He was the co-founder of Silver, Strong and Associates and a member of the Communities for Learning Advisory Council. He was a consummate learner, a selfless listener, and a provocative presenter who deeply touched the lives of thousands of teachers who crossed his path.

He is survived by his wife Sheila and his sons Tom and Danny, by his sisters Alice and Margy, and by his family in heart Ron, Roberta, Jessica, and Giselle.

He will be sorely missed by the Fellows and staff from Communities for Learning and by the educational community at large.

Memorial and contribution information can be found at http://www.richardstrong.legacy.com. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Center Foundation, 130 West 12th Street, MP6, New York, NY 10011.

The Week before ELA Testing 2008

2008-01-06T18:31:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! While Theresa spent quality time with the family and working with Google Docs, I did nothing. Yup. Over the holidays, I've probably spent less than 5 hours at my computer (scandalous, I know!) and even then it was a cursory glance at e-mail or adding music to my MP3 player. I took this neat thing called a vacation and actually did what one does on vacation - nothing. I worked out, hung out with my husband, did some cooking (gasp), saw good movies, and read. I always thoughts "recharging your batteries" was a cliche, but it's one I completely understand right now.

So back to it. Just in time for the latest round of ELA testing. It took me about five hours to get through my RSS feed today - lots of interesting and good stuff going on in the world. Adventures of Data Girl has a nice take on the week before testing. A few of the blogs I follow start each week by previewing upcoming entries. So, here at Grand Rounds, I'd like to propose that this month of months we talk about what's happening the week before, next week what we see during testing, and the following week, the immediate consequences, if any. I'll keep my eye on the media and see if there are any articles or press coverage about the assessments themselves. Let's hope there are no stories about scoring SNAFUs or cheating.

In the meantime, if you're feeling the pressure and looking to set your and/or your students' minds at ease, I"d like to recommend two books. I've loved Testing Miss Malarky since I first read it. The book has several possible implications - test cramming leads to high scores, test cramming isn't that important in the grand scheme - but is a worthy read. I personally love the student who is given fish and the explanation that fish is "brain food". His response? "I thought food went to my stomach."

Theresa gave me a copy of Horray for Diffendoorfer Day and it's a must read for anyone struggling to find what is important amidst all the testing noise. The book was written after Dr. Seuss passed away using notes provided by his secretary. The story itself is wonderfully pragmatic, classic Seuss (Miss Bonkers advises her students: Don't fret! You're learned the things you need to pass that test and many more - I'm certain you'll succeed. . . we've taught you how to think.")

Do you know of any good testing reality check books? Any recommendations for the week before the tests?

Giddy for Google Docs

2008-01-05T10:01:00.000-05:00

I have been using Google Docs for a bit now and am pretty hooked. My team at work uses it to craft our meeting agenda and take notes (which we then transfer over to our Google Groups site), I use it to track student grades with my fellow instructor for the graduate course we teach, and I have shared several documents with folks to get feedback. It's not "new" for me anymore.

So imagine how I had to suppress my grin yesterday while at a planning meeting for our district CDEP team and one of the administrators mentioned that two members "found" Google Docs and wondered if we might be able to use them for the completion of the plan!!

Within half an hour - we all met so that I could give a crash course on actually using it and develop a plan to get everyone registered and set for our meeting next week. We had a minor set-back when our IT guy wanted to just go out and register everyone himself and I pushed back. I was honest in telling them that my secret hope was that if the teachers registered themselves they would learn more (teach a man to fish......)but most importantly - they would know how to teach their students to register when they wanted to use it in their classroom.

Apparently - I lept a little too far forward in time for that particular moment. But I am convinced that once the teachers see the power of the tool with our committee, they will find applications to their own classroom. So much so that I've decided to stop playing chicken and integrate it into the writing work I will do with the teachers later in the month.

Breathes some new life into my planning!! And a good lesson for me - the Web 2.0 world doesn't need to be a mystical place. We just need to enter it slowly...

Two for Tuesday: January 1, 2008

2008-01-01T20:09:00.000-05:00

Happy 2008!!!

I have high expectations for the upcoming year - despite the loss of my beloved Sabres during a very cool and exciting outdoor game!! I am not much for resolutions - I break them too quickly - so you won't see a post full of promises that I know will be broken. Instead - I thought I would take a look back at our past year of blogging and share two of my favorite posts from the year.

First, A Pig Don't Get Fatter the More You Weigh It. This post by Jenn on an assessment book that she read is pretty much what we had hoped this blog would be about: sharing resources, open and honest dialogue (honestly, I giggle everytime I read this post because I can hear Jenn talking!) and provoking comments about education. Sadly - it also reflects the reality of our blog - the lack of comments that engage conversation. Sigh! Read it anyway!!

The second is a post that I did on the use of technology in education. It is something that I have been struggling with in my practice and trying to have become reality. But, like the title of the post I think that fear is still one of the greatest organizational roadblocks we have to really being able to use technology in a meaningful way.

Looking back - this post has been a great sounding board about the work we do and the passion we have for education (if you doubt me, read this post by Jenn!) I feel like we are still developing this blog and developing as bloggers. We have created the kinds of conversations that we hoped for - yet!! Yet - when it is all said and done, I'm hoping that we will be able to quote Lindy Ruff from today's game:

"We had to battle through some elements, but I think that was all part of the program."

Two for Tuesday: December 11, 2007

2007-12-11T20:46:00.000-05:00

Two great tools made specifically for educators this week!!

Teach Collaborative Revision with Google Docs: I have long been a fan of Google docs to create documents with my colleagues. This site uses the same tool to help teachers work with students on revision - and often dreaded element of writing. Partnering with Weekly Reader's Writing for Teens magazine, this page shares a tutorial on Google docs and several writing activities. Check it out for an easy way to incorporate technology tools into the writing classroom!

PageFlakes Teacher Edition: When looking for a simple site to share RSS feeds that was not blocked by school districts, I stumbled upon PageFlakes. They have now added a "teacher edition" that is still simple to use but includes things like a "to do" list, a schedule tracker and even a grade keeper!! A nice homepage for the busy teacher!!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Give us a rating on the tips for this week in your comments!!
5 - WOW! What would I ever do without you? I'll be back every Tuesday!
3 - Interesting reading but I wouldn't use these tips!
1 - Please stop blogging!

Two for Tuesday

2007-12-04T07:55:00.000-05:00

I thought I would borrow an idea from a new blogger I am reading who is really pushing my thinking. Every Tuesday, she posts about two technology tools that she has found that she believes she can integrate into her work. I am thinking that since the purpose of Grand Rounds is not just technology - but really learning and teaching - our "Two for Tuesday" might be technology (as it is this week) or might be articles on a topic, strategies for the classroom or other things. As always - Jenn and I look for additional contributions so if you have ideas that might fit - let us know and we can make you guest authors!!!

So - for this week:

1. Zotero : This is a new bibliographic software (think EndNote) that is actually a Firefox extension (in other words - FREE!!) Billed as being built by researchers for researchers, it has some pretty powerful capabilities that even this non-PhD candidate finds interesting: drag and drop use, works with online tools like Google Docs and it integrates your annotations and notes. Another cool feature?

"[O]ne of the distinctive features of the system is its ability to detect and extract bibliographic information for a range of sources during research. When Zotero senses information on a page you are viewing—a book, a journal article, a filmstrip, a newspaper, or whatever kind of item the system senses—it places a small icon in the location bar of your Firefox browser. When you click the icon in your location bar, Zotero captures the bibliographic information on the page and saves it in your Zotero database. You can then organize the items you capture through the Zotero pane, which you open by clicking on the Zotero logo in the bottom right corner of your browser window. From the Zotero pane, you can organize these items into collections, you can tag them, search them, sort them, annotate and highlight them, take notes, and drag and drop attachments like images and audio and video files onto them."

Thanks to Innovate for the "heads up" on this tool.

2. LiveScribe : This is a "paper based computer platform" (say that three times fast) which includes a a smartpen, paper, and software applications. This tool will record the lecture as you are taking notes - and you can listen to them when tapping on the note page!! You can send the file (including the audio) to classmates via email or post on the web. It also looks like this tool might have ELL applications as it will translate a word or phrase that is written and with the play-back, students can practice their pronunciations. Cost? The pen will be under $200 and the paper will cost about as much as other computing paper products.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Give us a rating on the tips for this week in your comments!!
5 - WOW! What would I ever do without you? I'll be back every Tuesday!
3 - Interesting reading but I wouldn't use these tips!
1 - Please stop blogging!

What if....

2007-12-03T23:08:00.000-05:00

Sitting inside a conference venue in Dallas, Texas during the NSDC conference the following point was made (my notes):

"The power of a meta-analysis is that we can take a bunch of smaller studies and draw richer and more valid conclusions from them because the "n" is larger. When I was getting my PhD, my dissertation involved research using the perceptions and work of 45 teachers. I made determinations or found some trends "inconclusive" because I didn't have enough data. But when we combine research studies - we have a richer base to draw more accurate conclusions."

In this world of collaboration and creation via Web 2.0 tools - why can't we have doctoral dissertations (done on a small scale) become compiled as a meta-analysis in order to draw better conclusions? What are the roadblocks to this happening?

What constitutes educational research?

2007-11-15T19:20:00.000-05:00

For a change of pace, I thought today I'd revisit our original purpose around educational research as it's the content of my class tonight. The course is Critical Review of Research and the professor has asked us: What constitutes research?

We've started with the idea of "cherry picking" research. As a way of framing the conversation, a connection is made between researchers picking the data they want and people using quotes from the Bible to support an argument. As often happens in courses, we've meandered over the idea of the quality of research. Consider - is everything ASCD publishes high quality? Do they review content for books around ethical issues? Do they look for evidence behind a book (excluding Marzano, of course) before publishing it. Let's ignore for a moment all of the discussion about the federal policy around quality research. Are educators even taught how to be effective discriminators of research? Is that what curriculum coordinators and Associate Superintendents are for?

How about you? Do you feel you were/are prepared to filter through research? Do you seek out research to inform your practice?

More from Dylan

2007-11-12T10:30:00.000-05:00

What say you? Fellow Fellows?

What would Dylan say?

2007-11-12T09:41:00.000-05:00

I posted this for response from my C4L Fellows but anyone, anyone, can join in!!

Parallels

2007-11-07T20:39:00.000-05:00

It amazes me sometimes how Jenn and I can be miles apart yet so common in thought. On Monday, while Jenn was hoping to never grow old, I was listening to Will Richardson and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach speak to regional educators to kick off a year long "virtual learning community."

Will reminded us that education seems to move at 5 mph while other professions move at 75-90-100 miles an hour when adapting to change. He wasn't criticizing teaching, but had a point that we are doing a great job at educating kids for today, but what about tomorrow?

Kids have these tools, they use these tools. It is up to us, as educators, as parents, as aunts - to help them leverage these tools. Like it or not - as Jenn pointed out in her post - we can't dismiss things like Second Life or (gulp!) Twitter. I don't get them - but I can't really figure them out if I don't do more than tip my toe into the technology waters. And I certainly can't prepare students for tomorrow without them.

Jenn talks about getting old - I'm not sure it's an age thing but a lack of awareness and "common sense". Just watch this video of Larry Lessig (creator of Creative Commons)and you'll see what I mean. As Larry says, we made mix tapes, our kids are making mash-ups; we watched tv, our kids are creating tv. The Internet is not just for information anymore - it is for creating, publishing, collaborating. What are you afraid of?

Bah Humbug!

2007-11-05T22:44:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I saw this video and like many educators was deeply moved by the statements the students were making. It reminded me why I should bite the bullet and step into Second Life, why we need to take risks and explore technology, even when it seems frivolous or non-educational related. I saw it as a video that put into meaningful images what it means to be a student growing up a time when CD's have ALWAYS existed, Jay Leno has ALWAYS been on TV, and the Berlin Wall was torn down before you were born. I'm not a spring chicken. There are times when I feel old and am now asking all of my friends and loved ones. If I ever badmouth technology, beat me with a printer cable. So, yes, I suppose I'm calling this guy old. Not clever, not witty, but I have lost my capacity for articulate speech.

I re-read his commentary, looking for a quote to respond to and I can't force myself to highlight and copy anything he's written. I can't even find anything reasonable in his argument that makes me question why I adore this video so much. So we're not all fans of the phrase Web 2.0 but calling the professor incompetent? Bashing our profession? That's what he saw? Wow. Wow. Really, that's the extent of my vocabulary right now.

I saw an ad on the NYC subway last week that made me grin. Do we get old when we stop eating peanut butter or do we get old because we stop eating peanut butter? Don't know what it was for (I'll assume peanut butter) but it came to mind when I finally took a deep breath after reading his post.

Are we officially old when we see an articulation of technology that has emerged among the generation after us and bad-mouth the users rather than investigate the possibilities?

I really, really, really hope I never get old.

Larry Ainsworth - Day Two (aka Better Late Than Never)

2007-10-30T10:45:00.000-04:00

Life interupted work and blogging for me this past week. You never realize how you are missed until folks say "Hey - where is Day 2 of that workshop?" or send you volumes of emails wondering why you didn't respond to one!!

But I digress!! Larry Ainsworth on Day 2 was just as great as Day 1 but absolutely more of a work session. For folks with a strong background in item writing, rubrics, and the like - it was light on content and heavy on work. For others - it was heavy on content. I am still surprised at the number of educators who don't know what a rubric is!!

Since our Power Social Studies team (my name, not theirs) had already unwrapped our standard and our fearless leader had already culled all the questions that applied to that standard from previous NYS Assessments - we were ready to roll. We thought...

Turns out that the questions that NYS asks on this standard didn't exactly match the content and skills we had unwrapped!!

Now - before there is tremendous shock and outrage - as we talked it through, we realized in part that it is due to the data format. When we selected a Power Standard to unwrap - we selected an upcoming unit for our lead teacher and one that we knew kids had a hard time understanding. It was a standard that is covered frequently on the NYS Assessments (so it met the power standard requirement) but the standard alone (from the core curriculum) did not give us sufficient information to do a good job in unwrapping it!

Here is how we modified the process:

1. After unwrapping the standard for content/skills, we looked at all the test questions that "matched" that standard.
2. We developed a list of "key vocabulary" (which included not only terms but events and people).
3. We redefined the "skills" we had unwrapped to include any from the questions that were not already there (i.e. recognizing point of view in a political cartoon)
4. We created a secondary set of "essential questions" for the unit - that had an answer and were not quite as broad as the ones we created initially (so should probably be called "guiding" questions).

As we moved on to creating our "assessments" we used the old questions for multiple choice (no sense re-creating the wheel) but developed our own DBQ to answer one of our larger essential questions.

The template that guided our work was helpful - but as I said, we took some libterties with it. Particularly in Social Studies - I think we will need to do this in order to get around the breadth vs. depth issues.

Our end product isn't posted for the world to see yet - Erie 1 BOCES is trying to work out some copyright issues - once it is there, I'll be able to share more. And maybe once I have had more than 3 hours sleep - I'll post more!

Common Formative Assessments - Part 1

2007-10-22T21:39:00.000-04:00

Attending a two-day conference with Larry Ainsworth on developing common formative assessments. The room is packed with 160 teachers and leaders from the region - it is a pretty diverse group. Larry Ainsworth does a remarkable job in working with the crowd and in reminding the leaders in the group that they need to participate as well.

The structure of the day is such that we have an input session, then work in small groups, input session, work in small groups. The goal at the end of two days is that we will have "unwrapped" standards for an upcoming topic/unit and used a template to create some formative assessments.

Some take-aways from Day 1:

- Evaluating your current assessment system can be a simple, but eye-opening exercise. After listing all the assessments we use, we then ranked and coded them to indicate those that make the greatest impact on instruction and student learning, those that aligned to "power standards," those that emphasize literacy/numeracy and others. The purpose? Are we getting the biggest bang for our buck when it comes to assessment?

- We are over testing and under assessing.

- The revised Blooms are back!! The final cognitive piece of create is critical - being able to assess the cognitive load of standards/state assessments in critical to ensure alignment of our formative assessments. (Why ask a "remember" level question if the standards/assessment require "analysis"?)

- If the standards are asking for "lower level" Blooms and our expectations are higher - raise them up! Just notate them as "teacher added" so that someone who reads them afterwards understands. (This happened after it was observed by more than one group that the NYS Social Studies standards are fairly low level.)

- Under this model - essential questions and "big ideas" are not identical to the UbD model. They apply more to the individual units or learning goals - not quite as lofty.

- "Big Ideas" are those things that at the end of the learning activities, we would be happy that kids could articulate in their own language. "Essential Questions" are the questions that would get us the "Big Idea" answer.

Tomorrow - we write assessments!

Information Revolution

2007-10-20T10:03:00.000-04:00

While I have been using technology for the past year and a half to work with teachers, Jenn is more intuitively techie than I. Often - I wait to see what Jenn had discovered and then ride her wake to make it applicable to what I do.

I count it as a major triumph that we led a Skype revolution this past week - getting virtually all of our C4L Fellows ready to go and my one colleague who doesn't necessarily have her laptop glued to her fingertips at all times seeing its power.

But in working with teachers on using technology, I bring up the three roadblocks that I continue to encounter:

1. Lack of technology comfort - note, I didn't say knowledge. We know how to do these things - the new technology tools are extremely logical. It is our comfort level with the tools, clicking on a button with confidence that we will not change the course of history, that seems to be a bigger issue.

2. Lack of school support - I can't tell you how many trainings I am asked to do where I have to email my list of links a week in advance to get them "temporarily" unblocked for the training, only to have the teachers then not be able to access the tools they were trained on a mere 24 hours later. If you want the training, trust the teachers!!

3. Lack of transparency - in other words, we don't want to publish our work, our questions, our classrooms. While we will talk about it with colleagues in the abstract, putting ourselves "out there" will make us transparent - and open to comment, critique, criticism. Who wants that?

We do!! Jenn showed in the previous post the tools that our students are using and asked (begged? pleaded? implored?) you to try at least one. Did you? Why not? If her post didn't compel you to do so - maybe this video will:

How will you find information in the future if you can't use these tools?

A reminder why we do this. . .

2007-10-17T11:50:00.000-04:00

After two days of technology frustration, I wasn't ready to throw out my laptop, but I was ready to give it a stern talking to. Then I saw this. And I remembered why it is imperative that educators ride the wave with the students - not drown in their wake. I ask you to watch this and then commit to mastering one thing that is mentioned in the video. Exploring one idea or tool or thread that will make one of the students in this video bump into you in the sea that is the Web 2.0 and say "welcome, glad you're here." Please.

Blogging DATAG meeting October 5, 2007

2007-10-05T11:19:00.000-04:00

Before leaving for DATAG, this posting on G-Town Talks came up on my feed and I was immediately inspired. One of the other attendees at DATAG also uses Skype and I would have liked to explored Skyping during a meeting as a means of processing the content but it was hard enough to follow David, much less type up notes and follow a Sype conversation.

Below are the notes I took during David Abrams' speech this morning. Any misquotes or misunderstandings are my fault.

There are more people in attendance today than I think I’ve ever seen here. David Abrams is our first speaker – as the Assistant Commissioner for all things testing related, he’s the top of the food chain.

So – before we get started. . . I’m wondering:
Will the rest of the state adopt the model being used by NYC? (3 part report cards based on value-added, parent surveys, and school walk-throughs)
When are they going to pitch NYStart out the window and start again? (Note: 10 mins into his presentation, David said it was no longer his cross to bear. That answers that question.)

Introduction from Brian Preston – yup, it’s the largest attendance. More than the summer conference. Our theme is “state assessment and future models”. Sexy!

Background on David Abrams – Original member of DATAG (from his time in Albany). He was a high school English teacher and I think this shows in his presentation style.

Recognition from David for the work of DATAG (wow – he talks really fast), especially during the changes in testing programs. Apparently, he gets letters from across the state that leads him to believe that not everyone understands the system and reason for the changes. (Good plug for DIG’s – getting people involved in local groups with a more relaxed environment).

For the irrelevant portion of the program – David advised us all to join DATAG so we can “get on the listserv and bitch”. There hasn’t been a lot of that lately but point taken.

It’s official – there is a next generation of the accountability system and is in development.

David’s PowerPoint is pulled together from the Commissioner’s PowerPoints and will highlight the data points that David find interesting. Starting with English. There’s been movement over the last few years in a positive direction. Some discussion about the area of Reading as its own focus (as opposed to literary or reading in the content areas). The idea of students as independent readers emerges in middle school. David is interested in exploring the concept of a middle level literacy profile. Getting those struggling middle level readers what they need. The reality is that there are very few reading teachers at the middle school or high school level.

Comment about tests being built form two primary languages – primary verbal language and primary math language – but I’m not sure what he meant by that. He’s used the phrase not happening "at scale" twice now. This issue of discrepancy of data use and understanding across the state is apparently an issue.

Ah – the testing policy for the ELLs. As a data person, David wasn’t freaked out by the changes in the ELL policy. He wanted the ELA data as an additional data point. He shared he was asked to present at hearings in DC but didn’t want to share what he stance he took. His previous statement leads me to believe that he supported testing of ELL in English after one year, rather than 3.

Native born students – came into system in K or grade 1. District should be getting these kids at grade level by Grade 3.

Newly arrived – some discussion about the role of literacy in Language 1 and the impact on education. Clearly, David has spent a lot of time thinking about this issue. All of his comments make sense in the large scale sense of the testing program. He has the ultimate view of aggregate data.

Students with Interrupted Formal Education – missed the point he was making here but he used the words heterogonous and homogenous about six times in the same sentence.

Test was designed to “get in and get out” – tests have 20-30 MC items but everyone knows “that one item can really make a difference for Level 4’s”. There is a need to refine the tails of the test in order to get better data for the Level 1’s and Level 4’s.

Discussion about Students with Disabilities. Raised the point that diagnosis patterns are not consistent across districts. Mindset about testing SWD has changed but more work is needed around who is being identified and who is not.

Interesting political point – David just referred to the reauthorization of Title 1 “which was called No Child Left Behind”. He said he’s trying to break the habit of calling it NCLB. Hum. . .

So – to summarize the first half an hour. David is a proponent of longer tests that get better data and are more specific at the tails. He’s aware of issues for SWD and ELLs.

Another use of the phrase “at scale” – take a drink of Diet Pepsi.

Just got confirmation the state tests are not designed to tell Mrs. Jones and Apple School how her kids are doing. It’s to assess how New York State schools are doing in implementing the NYS Learning Standards. It is always powerful to hear him say that and I wish he’d said it a little slower.

HS Math. Ok – this year is a baseline of math standards – all together now, “at scale”. The number of students at Level 1 in grade 8 is scary and has major implications for HS programs. Schools should really take a look at the Grade 9 math program. Every HS principal should be looking at how students are being taught math in Grade 9.

70% of LEP population in NYS speaks Spanish. Wow. Students can take the math test in their dominate language so there are minimal ELL issues, but there are still gaps between Hispanic/Black and White/Asian students. Expects we’ll move into incremental movements on the math test.

Continued issue of item density at the tails. The break between Low 2 and High 1 is narrow. Need to identify who is “floating” right above standard cut points. Commissioner won’t talk about Standard Error because it will “break the brains of the press” (ha!) but districts need to be aware of those issues. He just flew through an example of a thermometer in the sun or in the shade but I lost the context, sorry.

Just got confirmation that David supports formative assessment and multiple measures. He said: some districts are buying formative assessment programs and using them as a summative program. This is bad. (I’m paraphrasing)

Review of standard setting process for Integrated Algebra test – I think there was some really important stuff there about pre-equating, post-equating, open-ended and closed responses but I wasn’t able to catch all of it and when I re-read what I did write, it made no sense. So, I’ll infer that David wants a dense test, not long and wants to make sure it’s done right. He just challenged people to prove that the Regents don’t test higher order skills – he can prove that they do. Any takers?

He said “fat data set” when describing data collected during the standard setting process. I'm totally stealing that.

Sample test for the Integrated Algebra will be out by Halloween. He would recommend that every High School in New York State pull together all math teachers and break apart the sampler. What is the range of difficult? What are the standards? DO NOT DROP THE SAMPLER ON A KID’S DESK AND SAY “TAKE IT.” Teach the curriculum. The value of the sampler is for the instructional staff. Have meetings with Grade 8 math teachers. Don’t look at it in isolation. Consider the curriculum, consider the core standards document.

David has been arguing with SED about test design, psychometrics, and protecting the integrity of the test for the students. He confessed that he is scared by the fact that he is extracting measurement from children. Live human children. His job is to protect the individual rights of the individual students. Aww!

The most stable data set for setting a standard is the operational data. David has spent a long time and asked a lot of people about the best way to do standard setting. Unlike 3-8, when your standard setting six tests at a time, David is confident that they can do standard setting within one week for the math test. The entire testing program has been audited and peer review by the USDOE. Arguments that the test is not aligned or unfair do not hold water. Conversion chart should be up by the morning of June 26th.

David confessed that he can’t sit still. Not a surprise.

He went to Pearson and gave them the “hairy death eye” on behalf of NYS. He reviewed their scoring procedures, see their scanning center, and meet with everyone who will be working on NYS assessments. He came out of the trip with several ideas on how to make things go smoothly in June.

He’s drafting a logistic memo that will be release by November. It will say “here are the rules, here’s what will happen, here’s what everything will look like.” This is to cut off (he actually used the phrase CYA) anyone who says they didn’t get notification in time.

Will do a full formal dry run in the Spring to vet any IT problems. Wants to make sure that files are accessible and can be viewed by all BOCES. Don’t worry about structure and format, as he’s given his work that the file formats will be compatible.

Information about the new tests will be posted at: www.emsc.nysed.gov/osa/new-math.htm

Accountability Update: Status versus Growth

Status Model: takes a snapshot of a subgroup’s or school’s level of student proficiency at one point in time and often compares that proficiency level with an establish target. New cohort each time.

Growth: Variation on status. Take a snapshot at each consecutive year and compare to previous year. Lots of different approaches. Lots of discussion and issues of standard error.

Real issue is tension between governance and school improvement.

David likes the New York Yankees. Dislikes Red Sox.
Likes Lobster. Dislikes Liver.
These do not impact his judgment.
He does not like or dislike value- or growth-added. His job to find out what works best and which is the most sound.

The goal is to build from status to growth. What are they doing? He won’t tell us. But he will tell us what he’s exploring.

Growth is not allowed. NYS is not in model because we started a year too late. Other states started a year before NYS.

David has been meeting with USDOE around the NYS model. He shared the name of several places that do models – it’s all about growth NOT value-added.

There is tension in the next generation because people want the system to inform decisions at the school level. “The best way to inform school decisions is through a multiple-measure system of assessment.” However, this system needs a standard “spine”.

David is scared by Margaret Spelling. I wonder if that’s a like or dislike?

NYS is researching if we can build a full vertical scale. No time for discussion today. His PowerPoint at this point summarizes most of his monologue. Note that the new model will start in 08-09. I wonder if this will change after the federal election?

Transparent does not mean easily understandable. A system this complex cannot be easily understood. It’s is rocket science. I think that was a little shout-out to the Geeks in the room.

OK – here’s a question. He said growth NOT value but the slide he just showed that the design is destined to align to value-added in 2010-11. I asked my question aloud – not sure I know the difference between the two. What I got from his response was that one is related to large-scale accountability, one isn’t. Social Studies was used as an example but I’m sure how it fits into my question. I’m hoping the next session will explain the difference between value-added and growth-added at a slower pace.

David will forward four references to the listserv about large-scale assessment. Thung at Michigan State is a recommended author as well as some folks at UCLA.

Lunch break and then value-added.

Can I Get an AMEN!?

2007-09-26T16:55:00.000-04:00

From the Miami Sun-Sentinel:

"...board members on Tuesday told Notter to create a committee of teachers, administrators, parents and students to figure out how to prepare students for the state's high stakes test without hurting other classroom lessons. Notter also was instructed to reduce FCAT hoopla, meaning the pep rallies, banners and T-shirts, and cut back on test preparation for middle and high school students who already perform well on the exams."

Now how about for ALL kids?

Change or Die!

2007-09-23T22:29:00.000-04:00

A scary premise - but a thought provoking one. I just finished this book by Alan Deutschman which begins:

"What if you were given that choice? For real. What if it weren't just the hyperbolic rhetoric that conflates corporate perfomrance with life or death? Not the overblown exhortations of a rabid boss, or a maniacal coach, or a slick motivational speaker, or a self-dramatizing chief executive officer or political leader. We're talking actual life or death now. Your own life and death. What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think, act, feel, and act? If you didn't, your time would end soon - a lot sooner than it had to. Could you change when change really mattered? When it mattered most?"

Now - aside from having an extremely powerful lead that will make its way into many of my writing workshops - the entire book caused me to actually stop, put it down, and THINK about change. So - it took me longer to read than some other books I have picked up lately.

The author indiates that there are three "keys" to change:
1. Relate - you form a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope.

2. Repeat - the new relationship helps you learn, practice, and master the new habits and skills you'll need.

3. Reframe - the new relationship helps you learn new ways of thinking about your situation and your life.

Now - before I lead you astray, let me warn you that there is one, itsy-bitsy piece of this book that directly relates to education. Instead - I found myself reframing the contents of the book to my experiences in education to test the "keys." But I found that in the instances when I have made a real change to my practice, the keys absolutely hold true.

Let's take my adventures into Web 2.0 tools. Summer 2006, I was a participant the High School's New Face conference put on by our regional BOCES. While I was a participant in the Engaging Students strand with Richard Strong and Harvey Silver, we also had the opportunity to have Will Richardson share his experiences at keynote speeches. Meeting and learning from these folks for three days in a retreat-like setting created the new relationship for me. We are not on a first name basis but hearing these folks speak and being able to interact with them and reflect upon my work and practice created that emotional relationship that provided me with hope again - that I really could make a difference. (If you doubt this - ask my colleagues who had to suffer through some pretty emotional bouts in the weeks following the conference.)

After that - I began to investigate the use of blogs and wikis as ways to engage teachers so that they, in turn, could engage their students. Many of the lessons from Richard and Harvey found their way into the tools that were shared by Will. I began to reach out and read other blogs, to cautiously post on the blogs of others, to share my thoughts and practice with teachers. It has been over a year now - and I can honestly say that my practice has changed to the point where I immediately see Web 2.0 connections to practice when I learn something new.

This has caused me to reframe my personal thoughts about learning and about building community. I work hard to share what I have created in the hopes of creating that same type of relationship with others. I think differently about the workshops that I offer and how they are developed. I am constantly driven by the question of what this means in educating our students for the new, flatter world and how it can be used to help build connections. Most importantly, it has helped me to find a personal center and to work to develop my writing skills.

I could think back upon my introduction to Communities for Learning (formerly known as CSETL) as another example of change in my practice that has followed the three keys. And my decision to no longer practice law and enter education. And the first time that I lost weight and became really, truly, physically fit (which has caused me to think about what I need to do differently to once again lose weight!) The keys make sense to me.

Which now leads me to these questions: If I am a teacher/leaders who wants to create the conditions for change, what am I doing to create relationships that inspire and sustain hope? How am I providing opportunities for others to learn and practice the skills they need? How I have supported others who are seeking to "reframe?"

Visual Empathy

2007-09-19T22:49:00.000-04:00

Since Jenn seems to be in a visual display kind of mood lately (and I guess I am also over on Writing Frameworks) - I thought I would share an interesting concept in presentations. "Death by PowerPoint" is a phrase that rings true for me lately. In teaching a graduate level course on Curriculum Design, we ask the students to do Board of Education presentations to lend a touch of authenticity to the course. They have been so painful in the past, that I have taken to doing really bad presentations using PowerPoint to show what they should not do. I don't need to do my gig anymore as I have found this video that is far more entertaining.

But I am intrigued by a Daniel Pink article in Wired about Pecha Kutcha. Japanese for "chatter," Pecha Kutcha is an innovation of two architects which applies a simple set of rules to presentations: 20 slides, 20 seconds each. After that - no more, you're done.

It is an interesting concept and certainly causes the presenter to maximize what they put on a slide visually while minimizing the accompanying chatter. I really like this video by Pink, which attempts the Pecha Kutcha format, and also speaks about the power of empathy in the signs around us:

Data Dislay Tidbit

2007-09-17T12:26:00.000-04:00

This came up on my RSS feed today and I've now watched parts of it three times - not because I'm really all that interested in GDPs and population, but because 1. I cannot get over how amazing the data display is, 2. I completely understand the guy's excitement and 3. he comes dangerously close to "Chicken, chicken" but just when he's about to go there, he deftly avoids it by making a personal connection. His presentation is very powerful and I do feel like I have a better understanding of micro-loans and how we can address poverty around the world. I love how he shared the disconnect between goals and means - simple, clear and how can you not love someone who says "the seemingly impossible is possible", although I'm not planning on ending any data sessions the way he ends his.

I want to figure out how we can make educational data tell such a compelling story. Take out environmental factors and add educational variables - picture student work samples on the GDP scale in place of the homes in India. Wow. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

ASCD + New York Daily News - sound research = Cranky Jennifer

2007-09-08T01:20:00.001-04:00

My husband walked in the door after a full day of technology troubleshooting and making scheduling changes at his school and had to listen to me to rant about an article I read today via the ASCD SmartBrief. Mid-rant, he lovingly reminded me that I have access to a blog. Now you, gentle reader, shall get to enjoy the full wrath of my rant. Because if you can't rant on your own blog, where can you?

Background: every day, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) sends out an e-mail called SmartBrief. According to ASCD's website:

ASCD SmartBrief brings you the K-12 education news that really matters. Our editors handpick key articles from hundreds of publications, do a brief summary of each and provide links back to the original sources. In other words, we do all the research...and you get the news you need, without the fluff.

This statement implies someone trolled the web looking for articles related to education. They ten pick key articles and e-mail a summary and link to a lot of educators (couldn't find the exact number on the ASCD site, please forgive my use of vague qualitative data to prove a point) The article that was picked as the lucky above-the-scroll article on September 7, 2007 is called: Daily News exam finds math scores up when difficulty rating went down. In fact, a version of the article title appeared in the subject line on the SmartBrief.

Let's set aside for the moment the difference between causation and correlation. Let's ignore for a moment that the author is discrediting increases in scores that came about because of improvement in instruction and curriculum. I can even forgive Erin Einhorn for misidentifying p-value (it’s the percent of students who responded correctly to a question NOT “The easy score - called a Probability-value”) or assuring the reader that her conclusions are valid because . . . well, she say it is.

Three experts said The News' findings were valid.

34 kids were given the 2002 and 2005 test. They did better on the 2005 test. Therefore, it's an easier test. I think I'm going to try that approach in my dissertation. The paragraph following the quote above contains a statement from one statistician who talks about the significance of their study. The other two apparently wanted to remain confidential sources or anonymous statisticians. I just got a really big chuckle at the idea of statisticians skulking about in the shadows with copies of SPSS tucked furtively under their coats. Admit it. It’s funny.

What deflects my anger away from the author, besides silently sulking statisticians, is that in a link below the article, the author quotes a researcher who candidly admits that p-value isn’t a good measure of the quality of a test. The author appears to have done some research. In the link, but not the main article, she correctly defines p-value and gives a solid example. Though, I’m baffled why she insists on calling p-value an “easy score”, state assessment "quizzes", and ignores completely the concept of standard setting when she writes:

Kids in New York get the same number of points for correct answers regardless of whether a question is rated easy or difficult. One way testmakers equalize exams is by requiring more correct answers on easier tests. If the 2005 test was easier than the 2002 test, that wasn't done. Kids needed 40 points to pass the 2002 test but only 39 points to pass in 2005.

All of the above transgressions can be forgiven. Quantifying learning is a messy business. Even our state education department acknowledges that standardizing testing has unintended consequences. Einhorn didn’t do a very thorough job exploring the whole picture (i.e. raw to scale conversion, standard setting) and has several glaring errors but Erin doesn’t write for a professional journal. She is writing for her fellow New Yorkers and answering questions (albeit incorrectly) for her readers and raising some powerful questions for us to ponder on the role of evaluation in education. So, Erin can be forgiven. She doesn’t speak for, or represent educators.

That honor, however, does belong to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. My wrath, which has tempered into crankiness, goes out into the blue void at the person who picked this article to be first. I have nothing personal against ASCD. I’m sure the organization is staffed by lovely people. I enjoy their books and journals. I haven’t been a conference yet but I look forward to attending one soon.

I am angry because a professional organization in my field sent its members to an article that is incorrect and misleading. If ASCD wants us draw our collective attention to current news on standardized testing, on the same day that the article was published in the New York Daily News, Gerald Bracey wrote a piece in Education Week reminding educators to look at the bigger picture. (As the author of a book about statistics in education, I’d be curious about his response to Erin’s article.)

What would I have wanted instead? I would have been thrilled to pieces if that editor at SmartBrief had tagged the Daily News article and followed up a few days later to see the impact of the article – and trust me, there has been one. The editor would have found a response from an angry parent, a blogger pleased that the conspiracy was finally being uncovered, a radio show dedicated to the topic, even Bloomberg and Spitzer got in on the discussion, and on the following day, another article from Erin herself calling for a massive external audit of our testing program. I have posted a link to the article on a data listserv that I belong to and am eager to see how people respond.

Edited to add: My anger completed dissolved to resignation when I re-read Erin’s follow-up article. I will sadly point toward the previously mentioned issue on correlation and causation (this time with a British accent) and consider sending Erin an article about standard setting and post-equating but instead I think I’m going to grab my copy of SPSS and go sulk.

Edit #2: Now ELA is under fire. *Sigh*

October 15 is Blog Action Day!

2007-09-05T16:55:00.001-04:00

Hum. . . how to connect professional development and the enviornment? Any suggestions?

Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

2007-09-03T22:08:00.001-04:00

No - I am not talking about Jenn's book reading/blogging binge. Grins! I am very jealous that (1) she was able to get through those professional books and (2) was able to post about them. Sadly- I am ready to make another Amazon book order and can only choose one.....

Instead - I am talking about something that has been the topic of recent posts from me lately, only I have never been brave enough to label what I was talking about here as "fear." Jeff Utecht does though - and offers a great challenge in a recent post:

"I have two more trainings coming up this next week, and the first thing I am going to ask all my teachers to do is to click on something they have always wondered about, always thought “What would happen if….”. I will be in the room to pull them out of the way if their computer explodes. But I want to try and bring them to a place that allows them to explore their machines, allows them for just a minute to be supported as they explore their new technology. We don’t explore enough, we know the programs we know and that’s what we know. As Educational Technology Leaders we must support teachers, parents, and students to expand there thinking on what computers can do. To, like this father, hold them up and all them to bang away for away and see what happens. Without the support they will never do it, they do not know this tool the way a 10 year old does, we are immigrants in a foreign land. We go where we are comfortable, where others like us go to gather: Word, Excel, Publisher." (Bolded text was done by me.)

Fear is a pretty strong word - but I think it nicely summarizes what we feel with these new technologies. And it isn't just the fear of having your computer explode in front of you or of losing all your data. It is the fear that you might be held accountable in some way for what you have written. I have read blog posts where folks have pulled their blogs and made them private because they did not have tenure or their administration did not like what they were writing and they could never be completely anonymous. And blogs where folks change their taglines to include a disclaimer that the thoughts contained do not reflect those of the district (although after reflection that tag was changed.) And at a recent workshop - a teacher asked how to word a disclaimer on a wiki that the sites they sent them to might lead to other sites that might not be "appropriate."

We work so hard in our region to take down the classroom doors, to promote reflection and collaboration, to learn and grow from the wisdom and experience of our colleagues. Technology seems to be the perfect fit for this - yet it also seems to be a tremendous barrier. Or is it?

A Pig Don't Get Fatter The More You Weigh It: Classrooms Assessments that Work

2007-08-30T09:41:00.000-04:00

Title: A Pig Don't Get Fatter The More You Weigh It: Classrooms Assessments that Work
Editors: P. Jones, J. Carr, R. Ataya
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Year: 2007

Apparently, data work and analogies go hand in hand. First, dancing. Now, pigs. I'll have to keep this in mind if I ever get around to writing a book. The author explains the title as an English phrase that refers to farmers repeatedly weighing their pigs "for indications of profit". I think the classroom equivalent would be "kids don't get smarter the more you test them." I apparently really liked this book. I count 9 red tags ("Wow, cool!") and 11 green tags (reference to read) and two big post-it notes to mark entire sections. I say apparently, because every time I look at the bright pink cover, I wonder how good a book can be that uses a picture of a pig in place of an apostrophe. (I'll let these guys articulate my issue with misplaced apostrophes)

Despite their disregard that the most noble of punctuation marks, the book is solid. First, I'd recommend it for anyone who works with classroom assessment, especially in diverse schools. I started to skim the chapter, "Can you listen faster?" on assessments for linguistically diverse learners (LDL) but went back and read it carefully, knowing I had never really read anything on the topic. I would like to talk to friends and colleagues that work with LDL as some of the assessment adoptions they recommend seem a little off, but I did learn a great deal from the chapter. I've read a lot on assessment for students with disabilities, but their chapter on inclusive assessment addresses the need for validity and respect for the learner through the use of portfolios that make a lot of sense. The concept might be overwhelming for a general education teacher with 25-30 students but for a resource room or consultant special ed teacher with a reasonable caseload, it is very doable. These chapter match nicely with Data-Driven Differentiation by Gregory and Kuzmich.

I didn't care much for the anecdotes they use to start each chapter but that's just personal preference. The section on learning communities covers most of the bases (they overlooked the learning community nearest and dearest to my heart) but has some good recommendations for creating and following through on assessment focused collaboration.

The section that was most heavily tagged was called "Performance Assessment in the Elementary Grades". I've been doing a great deal of work around standards alignment and moving from state assessment data to multiple measures and I've been playing around with data collection forms but wasn't happy with any of them. The authors went through the same struggles, I think, because their final product matches where I would have gotten in about three or four more rounds of fielding testing. Many thanks to them for saving me the time. Their form even matches with my color-coding system, so that makes me even happier to have found this book.

The information on rubrics leaves a little to be desired but it's not a book on rubrics, so I forgive them for that. All in all - a good solid book and a worthy addition to any professional library.

I'm now reading Using Data Analysis to Improve Student Learning by Wong - I see detailed steps on building pivot charts in Excel in a future chapter so I think I'm going to like this one, too. But really, think I'll ever meet a book on data or assesssment that I DON'T like?