by Andrew K. Miller | Jul 18, 2014 | ASCD, Blog
This post originally appeared on InService, the ASCD community blog. ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization with 160,000 members in 148 countries, including professional educators from all levels and subject areas––superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.
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I’m really excited to be part of the FIT TeachingTM Cadre. It’s a group of amazing practitioners that build a culture of achievement, design purposeful lessons, and implement effective formative assessment practices. These are three components of the upcoming ASCD Summer Academy on FIT Teaching (The Framework for Intentional and Targeted TeachingTM). This is one amazing way to make sure you are “FIT” when you return to the classroom in the late summer and fall. However, if you missed out on your opportunity to reserve a seat at the ASCD Summer Academy on FIT Teaching, there are many other ways you can get “FIT” this summer.
Start Reading: The summer is one of my favorite times to catch up not only on light reading, but also on some educational reads I’ve neglected during the year. We have some time during the summer to focus our learning. Perhaps you’d like to learn a bit more on one or more aspects of FIT Teaching. You could start with the Formative Assessment Action Plan or Checking for Understanding if formative assessment is your area of learning. Or, you could read How To Create a Culture of Achievement in Your School and Classroom, if you’d like to work on build the best culture you can in your classroom or school. These books are great for a book study or even a primer before related professional development, as they have very practical strategies. Or, consider some ASCD AriasTM publications—short books that can be read in one sitting with strategies that can be put into practice right away.
Watch a Webinar: Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher presented a webinar on June 4. They will be going over the framework and explaining what it looks like in the classroom, as well as sharing resources. In addition, they will align FIT Teaching to existing teacher evaluation frameworks, a concern for both classroom teachers and education leaders. Watch the webinar to get not only the basics, but also the rationale.
Take Time to Reflect: Take some time this summer to reflect intentionally on your use of formative assessments in the classroom. How have you used formative assessments to meet the needs of all students? How have they changed the way you teach? What steps did you take to build a classroom culture of achievement? How will you make sure your lessons are targeted to not only content goals, but also language and social goals? These are just some of the reflection questions to ponder that connect to FIT Teaching. Great teachers reflect on their practice, and you can use FIT Teaching to focus this reflection.
FIT Teaching may seem like a lot, but I’ve found it really ties all the great practices I’ve done as a teacher, as well as great practices I’ve seen, up in a nice little package, where everything connects and makes sense for not only instruction, but our students as well. If it feels like a lot, focus your learning on just one of the areas. It will surely ensure that you become a more “FIT” teacher.
by Andrew K. Miller | May 26, 2014 | ASCD, Blog
This post originally appeared on InService, the ASCD community blog. ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization with 160,000 members in 148 countries, including professional educators from all levels and subject areas––superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.
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We already know about best practices in assessment. We know that we should use formative assessment to look for patterns in errors and adjust instruction. We also know that we need to have clear learning targets to assess, and that these assessments can be common. We know a lot. One area we don’t yet know as much about is how time factors into assessment.
Time is always an issue for educators. We never have enough, and we often feel we must rush through the material. Great educators try not to let time get in the way of good instruction. But even then, time can get in the way of better use of assessment. We use some sort of formative assessment exercise to check for understanding at the end of the day’s lesson; we give end-of-unit assessments; and our districts and states often take a specific week to give an end-of-course exam or grade-level assessment. What’s interesting here is that time is still the inflexible piece.
Why do we always assess students at the same time and let that be the governing factor for student achievement? We know that students each learn at their own pace. Some take longer; some take a shorter amount of time. We have the same high expectations for our students, but we also know students take different amounts of time to get to those high expectations. One critical element of personalization is that time is no longer the driving factor. Instead of relying on the Carnegie unit, students show mastery and are assessed when they are ready. Granted, so many outside forces are demanding our time, but how might we move past them to meet students were they are in the assessment process?
Create Rigorous Competencies
To start being more flexible with when to give assessments, you need to begin with the end in mind. Many schools that have become more flexible with when they give critical summative assessments create rigorous competencies from standards, including the Common Core. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey also advocate for this:
“Grade-level teams or departments usually specify course competencies and corresponding assignments. Competencies should reflect the state standards while offering students an array of ways to demonstrate mastery, not just paper-and-pencil tasks. The competency assessments should be numerous enough that students can adequately gauge their own progress at attaining competencies; generally 7 to 10 per academic year is best” (2009, p. 24).
Competencies are built from standards and include measurable and transferable learning objectives. When designing a competency, you keep both academic and 21st century skills in mind so that the competency moves toward applied learning of multiple learning objectives. When you cluster standards and objectives like this, you can be more comfortable designing flexible assessments to meet these synthesized objectives.
Be Flexible When You Summatively Assess
It is perfectly appropriate to formatively assess the whole class after giving a lesson, and often educators formatively assess students individually. Through the formative assessment process, we can differentiate, give feedback, and meet the needs of students. When we formatively assess, we know when students are ready or not ready for the next steps. This is where time often gets in the way of good intention. If students are not ready for the summative assessment, why should we make them do it? It may be appropriate to allow some students to take the summative assessment after other students have taken it. Again, this should be a rigorous performance assessment that demands construction and application of knowledge. Summative assessments should only been given when students are ready, and, therefore, we must personalize when we give them.
Allow for Late Work
This is probably one of the most challenging shifts for veteran teachers. On the one hand, we want to foster good work ethic, which means adhering to deadlines; on the other hand, we want to be flexible to meet the needs of all students. The key here is to know what are you are assessing. Are you assessing work ethic or content? Students should never be punished for not learning content in a specific amount of time, hence allowing work to be late. Some educators find it appropriate to assess the 21st century skill of work ethic, but they in turn do not let that affect their content learning grade. Once you allow for late work, you can have students complete assessments, mostly summative, at various times.
The movement toward flexible time for assessment is obviously challenging, but these steps can make the shift more manageable—even in the face of immovable educational demands on our time. If we begin with the end in mind when designing assessments, we can use personalization to keep time as a malleable component to meet the needs of all students. This is a move toward true personalization of assessment.
Reference
Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2009, November). Feed up, back, forward. Educational Leadership, 67(3), 20–25.
by Andrew K. Miller | Feb 12, 2014 | ASCD, Blog
This post originally appeared on Edutopia, a site created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, dedicated to improving the K-12 learning process by using digital media to document, disseminate, and advocate for innovative, replicable strategies that prepare students. View Original >
I am of course a huge project-based learning (PBL) nerd and advocate. I am also an advocate for the flipped classroom, yet at the same time I also have my concerns about flipping a classroom. This model still hinges upon great teachers, and engaging curriculum and instruction. So why not combine PBL and the flipped classroom? It can be an excellent match when you consider some of the following tips. Even Salman Khan believes that the flipped classroom can create the space for PBL.
1. Short Content Videos
The key piece here is short. Kids do not want to be watching hours of content. However, short five- to ten-minute videos could be used to replace lectures in the classroom and free up space for more PBL time. These videos might be introductions to learning the content, or possibly content review. Students who enjoy the flipped classroom often comment that their favorite part is being able to watch videos over and over again as needed. Find or create these videos, and make sure to align them to the significant content you intend to teach and assess in your PBL project.
2. Collaborative Virtual Work
I love it when students assign their own homework. Many times in a PBL project, the team might not quite finish all they want to do in class, and some of this work relies on collaboration. There are many digital tools out there that allow for collaboration, and this could be your chance to “flip the collaboration,” whether it’s joint research and documentation, or even reflection as a group. This virtual work can also be great documentation for assessing collaboration as one of the 4 C’s in the 21st century learning aspect of a PBL project.
3. Virtual Labs and Games
Flipping isn’t just videos, because — let’s be honest — videos can get boring after a while. As you go through the PBL process with students, use other types of virtual activities as both components to learn content and a means of formative assessment. For example, if students need to learn about parts of the body, use an interactive digital lab for them to do a dissection. Or, if students are learning about some math component, have them play a math game outside of the brick-and-mortar setting that still allows you, as the teacher, to check on how they’re doing.
4. Product Production
If you are concerned with students taking an excessive amount of time in actually constructing the PBL product, give a technology choice or choices as an element of the final product. These products can be produced and edited in the cloud, where individual students and teams can have access to them 24/7. You can ask students for these links and give them your feedback to help improve their work.
5. Consider Tech Equity
Not all of our students have access the technology. Some of us are lucky enough to have 1:1 classrooms, but not all. Because of that, you need to truly consider equity as a core issue if you intend to flip your PBL classroom. It’s difficult for students to collaborate digitally, for example, if some have access to the technology while others do not. In cases like this, consider your flipped components as optional for those students able to use them.
PBL and the flipped classroom model can play well together. In fact, PBL can make it better when students are engaged in authentic work and given voice and choice in how and what they want and need to learn. What are some of the ways you’ve used both the flipped classroom and PBL? How do you see them complementing each other?
by Andrew K. Miller | Dec 30, 2013 | ASCD, Blog
This post originally appeared on InService, the ASCD community blog. ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization with 160,000 members in 148 countries, including professional educators from all levels and subject areas––superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.
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We often send teachers and teacher leaders to attend professional development workshops to learn best practices and share ideas—to become part of larger conversations in order to ensure innovation in instructional practice. This is a great intention and a great way to build collaboration, cultivate teacher leadership, and build reflective practice. However, there is a major pitfall that can occur even with this amazing intention. It goes something like this:
A teacher is asked to attend a workshop or training to become an expert in that area. The expectation is that the teacher will then train teachers in that practice, and that, in turn, will lead to good implementation at the team, school, or even district level.
I can’t be kind about this. This is one of the most unrealistic and ineffective practices for professional learning. The intention of providing good professional learning gets lost in translation as it is implemented. Here’s why this doesn’t work:
– There’s an expectation that the teacher, after one dive, is an expert. Teachers will become experts, but only after time—time devoted to their own implementation, design, reflection, and, of course, mistakes. Learning is a process, and to become a master, there must be an extended process of revision and reflection. The teacher must be given additional support and cultivated by a leader of that instructional practice.
– The word “training” comes with baggage that often looks like the “sit and get” type of learning. There is a time and place for a lecture, but good professional learning needs more. It needs collaboration, revision, protocols, data analysis, and the like. Expecting teachers to simply relay the content will not ensure effective implementation.
– Professional learning is being instituted in a “drive by” manner. When a teacher comes back and teaches that content in a short period, the one being taught isn’t provided with ongoing processes and protocols to learn, make mistakes, and grow in practice. Instead, schools should commit to ongoing conversations in professional practice where teachers are given the freedom to fail but also to grow.
– Teachers may or not have “the chops” to facilitate good professional learning. If the intention is to build teacher leaders, then teachers need to be given support and professional learning IN professional learning.
– This type of professional development may just be “another thing.” Often when we ask teachers to come back and share the learning, this is on top of many other initiatives. Imagine that a teacher comes back from one workshop and teaches the staff, and then another teacher comes back and teaches the staff. This could go on and on. We know that “bombardment of initiatives” does not work. Instead a deep dive into targeted learning is needed to ensure reflection, growth, and change in practice (Fullen, Michael. Leadership for the 21st Century: Breaking the Bond of Dependency. Educational Leadership. Volume 55, Number 7. April 1998. 6-10).
Sharing ideas and reflecting is different than expecting effective implementation. It is totally appropriate to have teachers come back from a professional learning experience and share their learning and growth from it. But to expect them to arm their fellow teachers with all the tools needed for effective implementation? That isn’t feasible. Let’s instead commit to professional learning best practices, where the learning is focused, ongoing, reflective, and collaborative. This will lead to sustainable improvement!
by Andrew K. Miller | Dec 28, 2013 | ASCD, Blog, Whole Child Blog
This post originally appeared on The Whole Child blog, an ASCD initiative to call on educators, policymakers, business leaders, families, and community members to work together on a whole child approach to education. View Original >
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How do we help each student succeed? One promising way is to personalize learning and put each student at the center of her learning experience. Broader than individualized or differentiated instruction, personalized learning is driven by the learner. Ensuring personalized learning for all students requires a shift in thinking about long-standing education practices, systems, and policies, as well as significant changes in the tools and resources. To address students’ abilities, interests, styles, and performance, schools need to rethink curricula, instruction, and technology tools to support giving learners choices and schools flexibility.
In our last episode of the Whole Child Podcast, we discussed personalized learning in the 21st century global marketplace with professor Yong Zhao, author of the ASCD book Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization. In this episode, we take a look at personalizing learning on the ground and in schools and the importance of relationships in activating students to take charge of their learning. You’ll hear from
Jennifer Eldredge, a Spanish teacher at Oconomowoc High School whose district is a member of the regional Cooperative Educational Service Agency #1, which is committed to establishing personalized learning as the prevailing approach in southeastern Wisconsin.
Andrew Miller, former classroom and online teacher and current educational consultant, ASCD Faculty member, National Faculty member at the Buck Institute for Education, and regular ASCD and Edutopia blogger.
Beth Sanders, a high school social studies teacher at Tarrant High School in Alabama who is also the cofounder and codirector of Youth Converts Culture and was named an Apple Distinguished Educator Class of 2013 and 2013 Teacher of the Year for Tarrant City Schools.
by Andrew K. Miller | Dec 19, 2013 | ASCD, Blog
This post originally appeared on InService, the ASCD community blog. ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization with 160,000 members in 148 countries, including professional educators from all levels and subject areas––superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.
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While implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), many educators—both in leadership and in the classroom—are experiencing some bumps along the way. This is to be expected, but there are some specific “pain points” that are leading to common areas of need.
Here are some of the most common pain points we see as we work with districts and schools across the country, and a few ideas to relieve them.
Pain Point: Ensuring common practices and strategies for implementing the CCSS in the classroom
Expert Tips: Of course, we want to make sure we are all on the same page in building a common understanding of what effective implementation looks like. At the start, you should understand that the standards aren’t the whole curriculum. Then assure that your curriculum is aligned to the standards. Also, have teachers and leaders identify specific instructional practices and strategies that will be used in all classrooms. These can be schoolwide practices that are already working, as well as new practices that will support student learning. Make sure that these practices focus on teaching for understanding, and that everyone really knows how to use them with fidelity. Through modeling, demonstration and lab classrooms, and effective use of reflection and feedback, the entire team will be on the same page about what the selected practices “look like” and how to use them.
Pain Point: Using formative assessment effectively while implementing the CCSS
Expert Tips: Just as there needs to be a common understanding of instructional practices, there also needs to be a common understanding around the use of classroom formative assessment practices. Make sure teachers are integrating formative assessment for learning and checking for student understanding practices into what happens in the classroom on an ongoing basis. What the standards are requiring of students makes a balanced approach to classroom formative assessment even more important. These formative assessments should include self and peer assessment, performance tasks, projects, and constructed responses. In addition, formative assessments should support students in making the leap to apply what they have learned to new and different concepts, situations, and subject areas. Whether your state is a member of PARCC, Smarter Balance, or developing their own summative assessments, adopting a balanced approach to schoolwide formative assessments will help ensure student success.
Pain Point: Including schoolwide, collaborative, and job-embedded professional learning practices supported by teachers and leaders
Expert Tips: It is crucial that staff members are given time to learn together and to collaboratively develop units, lessons, and assessments aligned to the CCSS. These collaborative opportunities also help to build common instructional practices and classroom “look fors.” Part of making sure collaborative work is successful includes the use of selected protocols for examining student and teacher work and creating instructional decisions as a result. The use of common protocols across the school helps to build community and keep the focus on instruction and student learning
Pain Point: Integrating the use of technology effectively while implementing the CCSS
Expert Tips: It’s easy for technology integration to become fluff, rather than targeted toward effective instruction and assessment. Make sure to align technology to formative and summative assessment best practices. Use technology to increase collaboration in professional learning. Also, make sure that technology is used to enhance the common instructional practices that have been agreed upon by the professional learning community. The standards require instructional rigor that supports integrating technology tools in the classroom, so make sure you are targeting technology integration practices aligned to ensuring intentional learning. Create policies that support the use of technology as a tool for opening classroom doors, encourage collaboration and classroom visitation, and build a community of sharing and learning.
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