This post originally appeared on CompetencyWorks, a group designed to support the development of a community of people knowledgeable about competency education. View Original >
Competencies have the potential to truly shift assessment practices in the classroom. If you took a sampling of the current assessment practices, including grade-books, you would see a variety of system in place. From elaborate weights and point systems, to standards-based and rigorous, assessment practices rub the gambit. With a competency-based assessment system, we have the opportunity to create exemplary, equitable assessment practices for our students.
Objective Targets – Competencies are hinged on targets in the content area. When designed well, they are aligned to state, national, or common core standards, and explain clearly the evidence needed to master. The competency promotes evidence of learning, regardless of how the learning is shown. Because of this, students are allowed to show learning in a variety of ways, because the competency isn’t hinged on the product of learning, but rather what needs to be in that product. Teachers who use competency-based grading system must truly understand what evidence of that learning is. In other words, the target must be clear. When teachers are creating assessments, they aligned to objective targets, not subjective products. With this, we can be confident that the assessment is accurate and objective, regardless of product.
Embedded 21st Century Skills – Districts and schools across the nation, and internationally are quickly embracing 21st century skills as a critical learning parter to content standards. From critical thinking and problem solving, to communication and collaboration, these skills are transferable across content areas and learning environments. Competencies must articulated these skills, and, more importantly, thereby leverage them as crucial to the assessment process. When teachers create and plan assessments aligned to competencies they are targeting 21st century skills. They are assessing them, and including evidence of those skills as well as the content knowledge.
Freedom to Fail – Much of our current assessment practices are still anchored in antiquated grading of practice. Much of the work that occurs in the classroom is formative, intended to check progress of students, encourage differentiation, and give targeted feedback to students. Why is it often graded? I know where this comes from. As teachers, we need leverage to encourage student work, but this is the wrong way to go about. What happens if a student does mediocre, but then performs well on the summative assessment? When the formative is counted in the grading, then the summative, which is supposed to show mastery of competencies, is negatively impact. This is bad assessment practice. It does not reward students at their best. When we embrace Competency Based Assessment, we reward students at their best, and allow them the freedom to make mistakes and improve along the way.
As schools and districts continue to adopt competency based assessment systems, they will be forced to wrestle with old, and often inequitable assessment practices. This work has the potential to be a catalyst for assessment reform that serves all students, rewards them for rigorous work, and honors them at their best.
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 >
As educators, we are always looking for management strategies to try in the classroom. Note I said “strategies” — not “solutions.”
When picking strategies, we have to know that because they are strategies, some may not work. But we can still build our toolkit so that we have something to try in any context.
However, there is a larger, more important issue to consider before venturing into management strategies to solve a problem in the classroom: engagement! I hinted at this in my PBL management post, but the best strategy for management issues is engaging curriculum and instruction. When I experience frequent management issues in my classroom, I first look to myself: “What is my role in creating this situation? Why are my students not engaged?” I ask.
It is crucial to focus on engagement rather than management. In fact, Daniel Pink articulates this point when he talks about the workforce. It still rings true: “Management is good if you want compliance, but if you want engagement, self-directed is better.”
Here, Pink is talking about the three things that are needed for engagement, but they still hold true when we think about our classrooms and what we are asking of our students.
Autonomy
If you want your students to be engaged, facilitate self-directed activities and learning models. In PBL models, students are encouraged to take ownership of their work, but you can create self-direction through flipping the classroom, differentiating instruction and other best practices. Create spaces in your classroom where students direct their own learning. Use goal setting sheets, logs, reflection, and planning forms so you can hold students accountable to the learning, while still allowing autonomy.
Mastery
Our students like getting better at stuff. This “stuff” is skills, knowledge of content, and the like. Obviously, we have important content our students need to master, but we have to let students see the process of improvement. To engage students in mastery, we have to create rubrics that show the progress from novice to master. We can also create quality indicators for those objectives that students can understand, and we have to reward students for their work with performance and public celebration.
Purpose
Students need to find purpose in their work, and teachers need to create authentic contexts, tasks, and audiences for their students to display their work. Create units or projects that have an authentic purpose and audience. Students may or may not do things for me the teacher, but when experts are part of the process and product, they will engage in the work because it matters. Have students create products that have real impact. Use principles of the flat classroom to collaborate with classrooms across the world to solve problems together. The possibilities for purposeful work are endless.
Engage Students in the Classroom
As you start your new school year, find ways to create spaces where students have autonomy, pursue mastery, and engage in tasks that have meaning. Start small at first, because as it may be challenging for you as the teacher, it may be the same for students. Often, students are disempowered in their learning and do not have the opportunity to engage in these three strategies for engagement.
Empower your students by focusing on engagement, and the management issues will dissipate.
This post originally appeared on MindShift a site dedicated to replacing familiar classroom tools and changing the way we learn. MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions – covering cultural and technology trends, groundbreaking research, education policy and more. View Original >
GameDesk, an organization that’s developing a variety of game-based learning initiatives, is venturing into new terrain with the opening of a new school and the development of new digital tools, with millions of dollars in funding from both the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and AT&T.
The PlayMaker School, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will open in Los Angeles on September 7, with 60 students in 6th grade, and will operate as a “school within a school” at New Roads, an independent middle school.
Like Quest to Learn, the game-based school in New York, PlayMaker will incorporate principles of game-based learning into the entire instructional model, but with an additional focus on making and discovering. The goal is to engage students in both high-tech and low-tech games and modular, instructional activities. Individual students will work with an “Adventure Map” that will guide them to choose their own path, allowing for students to control how they learn and when they learn it. These modules will be not only individual tasks, but will also include group work. In a unit on kinetic and potential energy, for example, students will watch videos, play games, create digital roller-coasters, and create real-life models.
With ongoing formative assessments tied not only to the Common Core, but also practical digital skills, collaboration, critical thinking, and social emotion learning principles, the focus is meant to go beyond traditional schooling goals. Instruction will focus on providing context for the content, whereby students understand the relevance of what they’re learning. Teachers will play the roles of questioners, facilitators, and reflective agents.
More information will soon be released about the specifics of the program.
SCALING UP
Lucien Vattel, the executive director of GameDesk, said he wants to scale the company’s tools and learning models to schools and other groups across the country. To that end, the company received $3.8 million from AT&T to fund two new initiatives: a learning laboratory called Learning Center, which will include a “classroom of the future” where new digital tools will be developed, tested, evaluated, and aligned with academic standards; and free access to an online portal of digital learning content, as well as support for teachers to learn how to integrate it.
“We see this as being a clearing house for all the best work in this space and we want the entire education community to contribute content to the site, from the professional developer, to the educator in Kansas, to the creative and tenacious parents and kids at home,” Vattel said.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
As part of the professional development for the PlayMaker School, GameDesk also initiated a collaborative called DreamLab focused on not only creating many of the GameDesk’s projects, but also how to implement and sustain them. Instead of simply creating and implementing, however, they design in collaboration with student and teachers, to ensure that real needs are being met well.
Although still in its infancy as a component of GameDesk’s work, DreamLab hopes to provide professional development for teachers on site. In addition, they hope to build a portal where teachers can collaborate on lesson design and share their ideas for implementing the games in the classroom. In the past months as they prepared for the new school opening, new teachers received intensive professional development, learned to design games, played games, and understood the pedagogical principles around using games for learning.
GAMES IN STEM
GameDesk is also creating and collaborating on games that target the Common Core standards. Mathmaker, which GameDesk created, is focused on having students take on the roles of engineers to learn math concepts. This game, as well as others, is directed at amplifying STEM curriculum, and is being piloting and used in large urban high schools.
Another unique game is Dojo, which uses play and biometrics to work on emotion regulation (not to be confused with Class Dojo, which helps teachers with classroom management). So far, it has been used successfully with diverse populations and even youth within or exiting the juvenile justice system. Players experience real-life challenges that test their emotions, but also gives them strategies and feedback on how to overcome these challenges.
This post originally appeared on Education Week. Editorial Projects in Education Is the independent, nonprofit publisher of Education Week and other high-quality print and online products on K-12 education. EPE’s mission is to raise awareness and understanding of critical issues facing American schools. I was honored to be quoted.
Benefits and drawbacks seen in replacing lectures with on-demand video
By Katie Ash
A growing number of educators are working to turn learning on its head by replacing traditional classroom lectures with video tutorials, an approach popularly called the “flipped classroom.” Interest in that teaching method was in full view this summer at the International Society for Technology in Education annual conference in San Diego, where almost every session on the topic was filled to capacity.
The movement was inspired partly by the work of Salman Khan, who created a library of free online tutoring videos spanning a variety of academic subjects, known as the Khan Academy, which many view as a touchstone of the flipped-classroom technique. But, much like the Khan Academy itself, the approach is attracting increasing scrutiny—and criticism—among educators and researchers.
The term “flipping” comes from the idea of swapping homework for class work. Students typically are assigned the video-watching for homework, freeing up class time that used to be spent listening to lectures for hands-on activities and application of knowledge, which used to serve as homework. However, as most educators who have begun to use the technique are quick to say, there are a multitude of ways to “flip” a classroom. Some teachers assign a video for homework, while others allow students to watch those videos in class. Still others make videos for the lesson, but do not require students to watch them at all, giving students a variety of resources and allowing them to choose what they utilize to learn the required information.
But just as the Khan Academy has recently come under fire from some in the education blogosphere for what critics say is flawed pedagogy, the flipped-classroom technique has also garnered criticism from some who believe that flipping is simply a high-tech version of an antiquated instructional method: the lecture.
“My concern is that if you’re still relying on lecture as your primary mode of getting content across, … you haven’t done anything to shift the type of learning that’s occurring,” said Andrew Miller, an educational consultant who works with the Alexandria, Va.-based professional-development group ASCD and the Novato, Calif.-based Buck Institute of Education, which works to promote project- based learning in classrooms. “That’s not how all of us learn,” he said. “Just because you flipped your classroom doesn’t mean your students will watch the videos. How are you engaging your kids?”
Ramsey Musallam, a chemistry teacher at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, a private Catholic high school in San Francisco, shares Mr. Miller’s concerns.
“Everyone initially thought that [flipping] was an innovative way [to teach] because we’re so rooted in this idea that students don’t like homework,” he said. “However, when you step back a little bit, what you’re looking at is simply a time-shifting tool that is grounded in the same didactic, lecture- based philosophy. It’s really a better version of a bad thing.”
Mr. Musallam, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco’s college of education, began flipping his classroom in 2006, but after noticing little difference in student learning despite the extra in-class time for labs and hands-on activities, he shifted his perspective. He still uses flipping as an instructional technique, but instead of giving students the video initially, they first go through an exploratory, guided inquiry-based period. Next, the students receive basic instructions and materials to complete lab work and observe the phenomena they are studying. Only then, “when I feel that they can’t form any more ideas on their own,” does Mr. Musallam make videos to address misconceptions and provide instruction, he said.
Delaying the direct instruction as much as possible increases students’ curiosity, he said. Using the flipping technique is not necessarily negative, Mr. Musallam said, but teachers should be realistic about what it really is. “I say keep the flip alive, but lower the volume and think about it like we think about anything,” he said. “It’s a thing you do in the context of an overarching pedagogy,” not the pedagogy itself, he said.
Sharing Questions
Jonathan Bergmann, the lead technology facilitator for the 600-student K-8 Kenilworth school district in Illinois, is considered one of the pioneers of the flipped movement. He and his former fellow teacher Aaron Sams began using the flipping technique in 2006 at the 950-student Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, Calif., to teach chemistry.
Tips for Flipping
1. Don’t get hung up on creating your own videos. While some believe that students prefer to see their own teacher in the videos, others recommend harnessing the educational content that is already available on the Web. Resources such as the Khan Academy, YouTube EDU, and PBS can provide well-produced video content for your students.
2. Be thoughtful about what parts of your class you decide to “flip” and when. Deciding to flip part of your lesson will not automatically make it a better lesson. You have to be intentional about when to flip and clear about what the benefit will be for students.
3. If possible, find a partner to create videos with. Students enjoy hearing the back-and-forth conversation of two teachers, especially when one teacher plays the role of mentor while the other plays the role of learner.
4. Address the issue of access early. Survey your students to find out what technology they have at home, and find alternatives for students who lack Internet access. Alternatives may mean burning the videos onto DVDs or creating lists of places where students can go online.
5. Find a way to engage students in the videos. Just having students watch videos instead of listening to lectures doesn’t guarantee that they will be more engaged. Requiring students to take notes on the videos, ask questions
about the videos, or engage in discussion about them will help ensure that they watch and absorb the material.
The pair created videos of their lectures and posted them online for their chemistry and Advanced Placement chemistry classes during the 2007-08 school year. They required the students to take notes on the videos and come to class with one thoughtful question to share.
The teachers found that the technique allowed them to spend more time with students one-on-one and to provide just-in-time intervention when students needed it. They also noticed an uptick in test scores in the students using the flipped-class technique.
Soon they began visiting other schools that were curious about the method and hosting conferences on flipping. They recently co-wrote a book called Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day, published in July of 2012 by the International Society for Technology in Education and the ASCD.
“You need to figure out the answer to the question: What’s the best use of your face-to-face instruction time?” Mr. Bergmann said.
After the first year, he and Mr. Sams made adjustments to the flipped classroom, moving from what they call the “traditional” flip to the “mastery based” flipped classroom.
In the mastery-based model, students are not required to watch videos at home on a specific day. Instead, they are given an outline for each unit that includes all the resources they might need for each objective, including videos, worksheets, and textbook excerpts. They can then work through the material at their own pace, even taking tests and quizzes and performing labs when they are ready rather than as a whole class.
Using technology to create test-question banks that could be randomized, so that no two students receive the same test and may receive completely different questions altogether, made the mastery flipped model possible, said Mr. Bergmann.
‘Self-Paced Became No Pace’
Deb Wolf, a high school instructional coach for the 24,000-student Sioux Falls district in South Dakota, also uses the mastery technique. Instead of letting students have complete control over their pace, though, she sets deadlines to keep everyone on track.
“For students who had not been challenged in the classroom, this was an opportunity for them to just fly,” she said. “For others, it was an opportunity to take the time that they needed to move slower. And for some, self-paced became no pace,” and teachers had to step in and create deadlines.
Ms. Wolf began flipping her chemistry class at Roosevelt High School in the spring of 2008 after hearing about the technique from Mr. Bergmann and Mr. Sams. During the 2008-09 school year, all the chemistry teachers in her school flipped their classrooms, and the next year, the district applied for a federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant, which Ms. Wolf facilitated, that provided professional development for the district’s 35 math and science teachers around technology in the classroom.
“Most of them took away from that grant the idea that they could use technology to help provide students opportunities to master content in a variety of ways so that time became the variable, … not learning,” she said. “We didn’t have 35 teachers that all suddenly flipped their classrooms, but the take-away was that by harnessing technology, they provided students the opportunity to master what they didn’t master the first time.”
Still, engaging reluctant learners continues to be a challenge, said Ms. Wolf. “[Our teachers] realized that we were dragging [such learners] along. They may have been in class, but they weren’t engaged. I know that we weren’t meeting all of their needs in the traditional classroom, and I’m not sure that we were meeting their needs in a flipped classroom either,” she said.
Like Mr. Musallam, Ms. Wolf emphasized that flipping is one approach in a wider framework of instructional methods to help reach students.
“You can’t just hand the flipped classroom off to an ineffective teacher and say you’re going to transform the classroom,” she said. “It’s not going to make a bad teacher a good teacher.” Students and teachers at the Havana Community Unit School District’s 1,100-student high school in rural central Illinois will try their hands at the flipped technique when the entire school flips this fall. In a district where 65 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, Superintendent Patrick Twomey hopes that flipping the school will help address the inequalities that hamper the high school’s population of students deemed at risk academically.
“[In the current model], one student goes home to educated parents who can help him with his homework, while another student goes home and gets no help,” Mr. Twomey said. “In the flipped model, both of those kids come back to the classroom after receiving the content, and now all of the help with the homework is given by the expert in the field.”
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 >
Earlier this summer, the Institute of Play (famous their work in gamification of education and the Quest to Learn school model), announced the launch of the GlassLab (Games Learning and Assessment Lab). With support from a variety of leaders in education and technology, this non-profit focuses on many aspects of games and learning.
Being an avid game-based learning (GBL) and games for learning (G4L) advocate, I was particularly interested in how this might impact larger education reform. I had a chance to talk with the GlassLab manager Michael John about the project. This post will cover what I learned, as well as some of my reflections.
Games
The GlassLab will in fact be creating educational games for the classroom. These games, often called “serious games,” balance the learning of content with engaging gameplay. MJ told me that these games will be field-tested for a long time, and we most likely would not be seeing anything from them for a while.
Games can provide a lot of data, and the GlassLab hopes to refine and create these games with careful intention. As MJ put it, “We view teachers as the audience for our work in the same way as we view the students — if the game isn’t useful to the teacher, then our work isn’t done.”
It’s exciting to see that teachers will be part of the process in developing these learning tools. GlassLab games will be created through collaboration by teachers, experts and game designers from Electronic Arts.
Research
As a crucial part of the design process, the GlassLab will be focusing much of their effort in the area of research. By tracking student achievement on the Common Core, collecting in-game data, and much more, the GlassLab seeks to provide credible evidence on Games for Learning with the specific intention of proving these three hypotheses:
Digital games with a strong simulation component may be effective learning environments.
Game-based formative assessments may be well-suited to detecting learning gains and offer ethical assessment environments, insofar as they capture learning in the environment where it occurs.
Game-based assessments may yield valid and reliable assessment measures. In order for Games for Learning to be leveraged more in educational settings, research by the GlassLab and other organizations will be needed.
Common Core
MJ told me that the GlassLab games will be targeting standards, specifically the Common Core, and that they will be designed for use in the classroom. As games are natural tools for assessment, it will be interesting to see what specifics are not only learned through gameplay, but also assessed. Being very familiar with the Common Core, I can attest that the standards lend themselves well to game design. In the past, I have seen many Games for Learning targeted to low-level Bloom’s thinking — they offer nothing more than simple drill and kill. The Common Core Standards ask for more that that; words like “analyze,” “real world,” “create” and “higher order thinking skills” are the focus of learning. Let’s hope that by aligning to the Common Core, the games will be targeting higher order application and thinking around the content of the Common Core.
21st Century Skills
In the press release, it seems that content knowledge alone is not enough for these games. “GlassLab reflects a major shift in the way students learn and acquire knowledge. Students today are expected to learn new skills, such as creative problem-solving, collaboration and systems thinking, and master new technologies. GlassLab will address these new challenges by exploring how digital games can be effective environments for learning.” The GlassLab will be creating games that focus not just on knowledge acquisition, but on the 21st century skills that are associated with them. GBL can be used to create situated learning where problem-solving and collaboration can occur.
I believe that the GlassLab and other related organizations have the potential for helping to push along the conversation of education reform, although MJ did not admit it as one of their goals. “We’re not really thinking in terms of systems reform at the moment — that is perhaps too ambitious! We’re thinking in terms of creating some really cool, really effective learning games that excite us and that both teachers and students find engaging and valuable,” MJ said.
Ironically, however, they will be creating educational tools that may cause experts to reflect and think about how we learn, and what these learning environments could look like. Through a grassroots effort by the GlassLab and other related organizations, Games for Learning will continue to gain clout not only as effective tools for learning, but also as a critical learning model in education reform.
Check out the interview with Executive Director Katie Salen and GlassLab General Manager Michael John as they discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by the project.
This post originally appeared on Getting Smart, a community passionate about innovations in learning. By covering important events, trends, products, books, and reports, Getting Smart looks for ways that innovation can help reframe historical problems and suggest new solutions.
If you want students to collaborate it is imperative that educators establish this as a norm at the beginning of the school year. Great teachers leverage group work and collaborative activities and projects in their curriculum and instruction, but oftentimes teachers “push-back” with the difficulties of having their students collaborate. I agree, it is a daunting task, but I always respond, “How have you taught them to collaborate and providing scaffolding of that skill?” This is the key! If you want your students to collaborate effectively, you must give the opportunity to do so, as well as give the necessary instruction in skills and scaffolding.
Team Building: Most teachers take time at the beginning of the to do team building activities to create a community in their classroom. These are great activities that can be intentionally tied to creating a culture of collaboration. Have students participate in an activity like the “Human Knot,” and then reflect individually and in a discussion about the effective and non effective ways they collaborated. After many activities like this, have students create or co-create the norms for collaboration in the classroom. When students create the norms, through reflective activities, they are more likely to own them.
Explicit Instruction: Teachers must model good collaboration. There are many ways to do that. Perhaps you get a group of teachers together and do a fishbowl activity where students watch for effective collaboration. Another lesson might be watching videos of examples and non examples of teams working together to analyze the best ways for students to collaborate. To build authenticity, consider bringing in adults from a variety of fields to share how they collaborate. Through this and other activities, teachers can give explicit attention to the collaboration in the instructional design and build the relevance for the skill itself.
Technology: There are many tools out there that can help foster a culture of collaboration. Whether Edmodo, TitanPad, or Twitter, use technology tools to push students thinking of what it means to collaborate. In addition, you the teacher now have documentation of that collaboration that can be used in the assessment process. Make you choose the best times to use these tools throughout curriculum, but also model and teach students how to use the tool. Teaching collaboration through technology can help build the 21st Century skill of Digital Citizenship. In fact, collaboration is leveraged in the ISTE NETS for Students, further espousing collaboration as critical in person as well as digitally.
Assessment: Coupled with instruction, collaboration must be assessed along with the content in the class. This leverages this as a true 21st Century Skill that is transferable across content and tasks. Using rubrics for collaboration, teachers gave give focused feedback to students on what they are doing well, and how to improve. As 21st century skills like collaboration gain more and more clout, they can be included in the grade-book, as a standard to be met and built upon. Great schools are assessing not only critical content, but also collaboration as crucial to student achievement.
As educators plan for the next year, it is critical that they use some of the strategies above, as well as others, to create a culture of collaboration. Through intentional instruction and scaffolding, we can set our students up for a successful year of collaboration with their teachers, their peers, and experts in the field. We can empower our kids to be effective collaborators in and outside of school!
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 >
Before the start of the school year, many of us want to use the remaining weeks of summer to learn some new skills — such as project-based learning (PBL). One of the things we stress for new PBL practitioners is, as I say, “don’t go crazy.” It’s easy to go “too big” when you first start PBL. I have heard from many teachers new to PBL that a large, eight-week integrated project was a mistake. So how do you start PBL in ways that will ensure your success as a learner and teacher? Here are a few tips to consider.
Start Small
As I said, “Don’t go crazy!” Instead of targeting a million standards, focus on a few power standards. Concentrate the learning on one subject rather than multiple disciplines. PBL emphasizes in-depth inquiry over coverage. Leverage this principle in designing your first PBL project. Make sure that project won’t take more than two to three weeks. Instead of doing real-life fieldwork, consider having the learning occur in the classroom. Ensure authenticity and public audience, but keep it focused.
Plan Now
One of the challenges of PBL, but also one of the joys, is the planning process. In PBL, you plan upfront. By using the backwards design process, you can effectively map out a project that’s ready to go in the classroom. Once you plan it, you’re free to differentiate instruction and meet the immediate needs of your students rather than being in permanent crisis-mode trying to figure what will happen tomorrow.
Limited Technology
We love technology, but sometimes we get too “tech happy.” When first doing PBL, you should focus on mastering the design and implementation process; technology is another layer to the work that can complicate things. If you plan on using technology, stay limited in your choice. As you get begin to master PBL as a teacher, you can then use technology to manage the process. But as a PBL beginner, focus on the PBL process itself.
Know the Difference Between PBL and Projects
This is the big one! I can’t stress this enough! With PBL, the project itself is the learning, not the “dessert” at the end. If you are doing projects in the classroom, you may or may not be doing PBL. In fact, many teachers think they are doing PBL, but are actually doing projects. Again, in PBL you are teaching through the project, not teaching and then doing the project. If you want a quick way to see if you’re meeting the essential elements of PBL, I highly recommend the Buck Institute for Education’s PBL Project Checklist. It helps to make sure that you are focusing on aspects such as inquiry, voice and choice, and significant content.
We are all learners, and when we start something new, we start small. We limit our focus to help us master the bigger thing step by step. Through mastery of manageable goals, you can be well on your way to becoming an advanced PBL practitioner. Since you are learning a new process, your students are learning one as well. They need a manageable experience just as you do! Start your own learning and planning process now in these last remaining weeks of summer so that you have time to unpack what PBL can mean for your teaching, and implement it in a manageable way for you and your students.
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 >
One of the critically mentioned components of the Common Core is the complex text. This need for complex text came out of studies that students were not arriving at college ready to read college-level texts independently. The Common Core documents also indicate other reasons and rationale. One of the most startling claims is: “Despite steady or growing reading demands from various sources, K–12 reading texts have actually trended downward in difficulty in the last half century.” Overall, the common core believes our students are not only ill-prepared to read complex texts, but also not receiving exposure and instruction coupled with complex text.
Credit: Common Core State Standards Initiative
One of the challenges of the “complex text” is gaining a real understanding of exactly what it is. When reading the prefaces and explanations in one of the Common Core appendices, the case is made for students to read increasingly complex texts, as it has been found that when students reach college they are not as prepared to understand the texts required at that level. Often our students are required to read these texts independently, so it makes sense to arm students not only with the skills to read these texts, but also give them practice in doing so.
But what exactly is a complex text, and how can you ensure that you are using age appropriate texts in the classroom?
Standards of Measurement
The Common Core measures complex text with three aspects.
Qualitative
When examining a text qualitatively for text complexity, you consider a variety of factors. You examine the text to see how much of the language is conversational and how much is academic. In addition, you should examine the language to see how much is literal and how much is figurative. When looking at literary texts specifically, you examine whether the text demands singular to multiple themes or themes that are complex. You should examine the text for singular to multiple perspectives. You also should consider if the text requires everyday or familiar knowledge and/or cultural knowledge outside of the familiar. These are some of the indicators to look for qualitatively. A text may rank high in some and low in others, but higher indicators overall are a good sign that a text is more appropriate for educating your students.
Quantitative
In terms of quantitative texts, there are many things to consider, and the Common Core acknowledges there is no perfect method for examination, rather there are many effective methods. Methods such as the Flesch-Kincaid and Dale Chall are mentioned as possible measurement standards. Although this data might be researched, there is no specific way for teachers to “score” a text independently. Rather, teachers should consider how these factors mentioned next might create challenge for readers. You should examine the text for syntactic complexity, sentence structure and word length. You might also examine for level of vocabulary and Lexile level. One of the most interesting points brought up from the Common Core is that we must demand appropriate Lexile scores to College and Career Readiness standards, as articulated by this chart:
Credit: Common Core State Standards Initiative
Readers and Tasks
To me this is all about instructional design; that we teachers are demanding rigorous and complex tasks for the work we ask our students to do with the text, while creating tasks that are appropriate for their learning objectives. The Common Core emphatically states that students must be engaged in complex texts, but — no matter how rigorous — this is not enough. We must scaffold the learning and reading skills needed, and demand high quality, authentic tasks for students. Educators also need to consider when it is appropriate to remove the scaffolding so students can read and perform independently, hopefully by the end of the year.
A Work in Progress
It is critical to note that the Common Core document states: “The Standards presume that all three elements of the complex text will come into play when text complexity and appropriateness are determined.”
However, I would push back on the idea that all texts need to have them equally at all times. Yes, we need to make sure we are arming students with the skills and stamina to read texts that are complex; where the task assigned to students is rigorous, the quality level of the text is high, and the Lexile levels and other quantitative indicators are high as well. But I know texts requiring rigorous reading that may be low on the quantitative score. Consider the poem Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins, a text I often gave my secondary students. The vocabulary is not too complex, nor is the length of the text too long. Yet it measures high in the qualitative area, because the thematic aspect and the figurative language in which it’s written require critical reading. In addition, it would be crucial to give my students a task for this poem, whether formative or summative, that is rigorous and requires critical thinking. Make sure you are intentional in your choice of texts, regardless of how they measure up in terms of the indicators of a complex text.
Other documents on the Common Core site go into further detail on the ideas explained, and also give examples and contexts. In the Common Core document, texts are also suggested for grade level. These can be used as a guide, but only just as such. As our students come to us with different reading abilities, grade levels and cultural backgrounds, we must differentiate instruction through the texts we pick as well. As the Common Core is implemented more and in more in districts and schools, we as educators need to understand what the “complex text” is both in terms of what is good for our students and what the Common Core might dictate. We must not only carefully choose what they read, but also carefully choose what we are asking in terms of tasks and objectives when students read.
Regardless of whether not you are implementing the Common Core, these considerations and framework can help you intentionally pick texts to challenge your students. I hope this blog helps you to weed through the complexity of complex texts (pun intended)!
This post originally appeared on MindShift a site dedicated to replacing familiar classroom tools and changing the way we learn. MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions – covering cultural and technology trends, groundbreaking research, education policy and more. View Original >
Video game company Valve is going deep into the education world with a new initiative using Steam, their free online game platform where users can download games and communicate and play with other players. The initiative is called Steam for Schools, and a free educational version is now available to teachers to use in the classroom.
What makes it unique for schools is that all functionality unrelated to education is disabled and only certain games are made available for teachers and students.
The first major games used in Steam for Schools are Portal and Portal 2. In the games, the main character solves puzzles and problems in a three-dimensional world. As it’s explained on the site: “Players primarily interact with the world by using a hand-held portal device to place interconnected portals on walls, floors, or ceilings. Once a pair of portals is positioned any object entering through one portal will exit though the other.” In addition to these two versions of the game, there’s also a Portal Puzzle Maker, whereby teachers can make their own puzzles for students to solve.
For those willing to experiment with games in class, some ideas on how to use Portal:
PHYSICS: One of the most obvious targets of Portal is the use of concepts in physics. From exploring gravity and friction, to terminal velocity and conservation of mass, there’s a wealth of specific sub-topics within general physics that can be targeted explicitly. In addition to learning and exploring these concepts through playing the game, students can create their own games.
MATH: With the puzzle-maker, students learn about parabolas, volume, and even statistics. Students can play games created by other students and collect and chart data on a research question . Even spatial reasoning, an early-years math target, can be learned through both playing Portal and creating puzzles. It’s all about targeting a specific math learning objective, and creating a lesson plan that uncovers that target through the gameplay and game creation.
LANGUAGE ARTS: Portal has a narrative arc and story. There’s a protagonist, setting, plot, and other literary elements. Teachers can focus on one or many of these elements and have students track and analyze, for instance, how the choices they make as the character affects the story; or perhaps creating a plot map for the first few levels of the game. In this way, Portal can be used to support lessons crafted by teachers, engage students in a different way of thinking about these elements, and help teachers scaffold learning for look at a text later.
CRITICAL THINKING, PROBLEM SOLVING: Portal is a puzzle game, so players are continually thinking critically about solving problems. In addition, students work together to play and design games.
Valve has set up a site called Teach With Portals where teachers can not only submit their own ideas, but look for others.
Have you tried teaching with Portal? Tell us about lessons plans and challenges in classroom implementation.
Check out the video showing how the company promotes the use of the game for learning. Portal in the Classroom
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 >
Game-Based Learning, and particularly serious games that teach content, are fast becoming utilized in the classroom. Frequent success stories are appearing, from Minecraft in the elementary classroom to games that teach civics. There is curriculum that pairs World of Warcraft with language arts standards, and many other variations where the gaming focus is on content. What about 21st century skills? Yes, games can be used to teach and assess 21st century skills! As the conversation in education reform moves forward, and educators are increasingly leveraging 21st century skills, we need to consider how to couple games with reform. Let’s take a look at what many consider the top three 21st century skills and how games can teach and assess them.
Collaboration MMOs are hugely popular. As an avid gamer myself, I see a new MMO almost every month. The brilliance and appeal of games like World of Warcraft is the requirement for collaboration with others to complete quests, raid enemy territory and destroy bosses. In addition to MMOs, games with online team battles like HALO, Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty utilize the team to complete goals. You survive together, plan attacks and work together. These games, coupled with instruction and other assessments, could be used in and outside of the classroom. A teacher can “translate” the game experience to classroom teams through written reflections and discussions, as well as hands-on gameplay in a fishbowl, where the classroom observes and documents elements of successful collaboration.
Communication
All of the games above, which require collaboration, also require communication. Whether written in the chat window or via oral communication through a headset, gamers constantly communicate to each other. This is because there is a clear goal and purpose for the work. Why do students often appear disinterested about communicating in class? Because, to them, the purpose of the classroom situation seems inauthentic. By design, games create the authenticity that attracts them. Getting your point across in a chat window or generating effective team directions and communication can be used in the classroom as lessons to demonstrate the challenges and teach the skills of effective communication.
Critical Thinking/Problem-Solving
Well-designed games require players to solve a variety of complex problems, some of which require standards-aligned learning and some that simply require general critical thinking and problem-solving. Consider a couple examples. Angry Birds (which also doubles in teaching perseverance), progressively gets more and more complicated. Each level adds newer variables and aspects to increase difficulty, leveraging effective gameflow. Your brain must evaluate, analyze, plan ahead, try new ideas and more to solve these levels. You can use reflection and other techniques to have students demonstrate and document their critical thinking skills. Pocket Law Firm, a game which helps players learn civics content in the Bill of Rights, requires explicit critical thinking through the content learned. Teachers can use the game to teach the standards content, as well as critical thinking and problem solving. Through successful planning of the law firm, evaluation of incoming cases and more, players are using critical thinking to get the highest score. Great games require critical thinking with a great “flow.”
We must find time for students to play these games in and out of the class to teach content and 21st century skills. To make it easy and save time, pick a game that develops a relevant area of content learning as well as building 21st century skills. In addition, you can target one or two of the 21st century skills that you intend to teach and assess, as games require many skills to play. In the end, if students are successful in the game, hasn’t the game assessed the skills and content required?
One of the biggest misunderstandings about games, and people who play them, is that games don’t “teach” anything. It’s assumed that there is no value in the experience. Hopefully, others can see that the skills utilized in games can be translated from the gaming experience to the real world through a skillful teacher. When you plan to teach and assess 21st century skills in the classroom, consider games as a valuable method for engaging your students.
This post originally appeared on CompetencyWorks, a group designed to support the development of a community of people knowledgeable about competency education. View Original >
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. 
This post originally appeared on MindShift a site dedicated to replacing familiar classroom tools and changing the way we learn. MindShift explores the future of learning in all its dimensions – covering cultural and technology trends, groundbreaking research, education policy and more. 
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