I have always been a bad standardized test taker.

I have always been a bad standardized test taker.  Growing up I tended toward creative and artsy projects.  I hated math because I didn't believe that anything ever had one correct answer.  I didn't think the world was clear cut, and I hated that math always challenged me to find a clear cut answer.  I worked with my hands and learned visually.  I didn't really understand mathematical concepts as they were written on paper, and found manipulatives made the math going on in my head overly complicated.  So, I was always stuck between not really investing in a lesson I found too boring and clear cut, or really overwhelmed and confused by what was happening in the lesson.

Consequently, I am a bad standardized test taker.  Now, people that usually do well on standardized tests often claim that the math in standardized testing is "basic" and "simple".  I beg to differ.  Imagine sitting down to do the thing you find most frustrating for 3 hours at a time.  Imagine then being told you have to do an overwhelming volume pf tasks regarding that thing you hate, and that you have to do every task within a certain time period.  Then, imagine that this thing that you hate, this thing that gives you incredible anxiety, this thing that is the source of most of your frustration, determines whether you pass to the next grade.  Oh, and did I mention that it accounts for half of your score on college entry exams?

So, when we began talking about standardized test taking in my graduate classes I was quick to rip them apart.  I was also quick to seek out alternate sources for standardized testing that didn't involve bubbling in one right, and only one right, answer.  I found this website on authentic testing in math. Authentic testing is testing that reflects on the metacognitive process and how you arrived to your answer.  It addresses different learners and different learning styles in attempts to make testing and assessment easier and more comfortable for some students.

Since I struggled in math, this resource really provided me some ideas as to how I can approach worry-less math assessments with my students.  Questions ask students to explain answers and thought processes, allowing for partial credits if their final answer doesn't fit exactly to the problem.  I would have greatly benefited from this as a middle school student.  I am hoping to cater to my students by approaching their needs, especially in assessment, by assisting them to be comfortable.

Cyberbullying: A growing problem or a natural part of maturing?

I was recently tasked with developing a lesson plan for an advisory, or homeroom, class in middle school.  Our parameters were broad: focus on a social issue.  My partner and I decided to focus on cyberbullying.  I think too often we as teachers falsely assume that our urban youth may not have the same access to technology that their more affluent peers have.  Many of my third grade students possess cell phones and Facebooks despite their socioeconomic backgrounds and stigmatized "poor" neighborhoods.

Though middle schoolers are often seen as hormonal, unpredictable, or still maturing, they should be taught to be aware of others' feelings and how their actions impact other students' self worth.  Cyberbullying is a growing problem, and as technology becomes more advanced I can only imagine it will soon grow to be a bigger problem.  Though cyberbullying typically references Facebook, Twitter, e mail, blogs, and other social media sites, cyberbullying can be perpetuated through technology as simple as texting.

Our advisory lesson will focus on the start and spread of rumors.  How do rumors spread? How often are they true?  We will then jump into a case study on the Stubenville, OH rape trial.  How did cyberbullying affect the victim and  the perpetrators? How does cyberbullying threaten everyone's sense of success?  Students will have time to analyze a news article covering the case and to analyze causes and effects in the case.  Students will close by reflecting on their own involvement in cyberbullying and how they may better act as advocates against cyberbullying.  The plan is listed below:

Title: What is cyberbullying?

Objective:

SWBAT identify how rumors begin and spread.

SWBAT will be able to explain how social media contributes to the spreading of rumors

SWBAT define and define cyberbullying and its negative effects.

SWBAT identify their role in preventing cyberbullying.

Appropriate Grade Level: 7^th-8^th grade

Timeframe: 15-25 minutes

Materials Needed: projector, computer, handouts, and writing utensils

Lesson Procedures:

1.  Telephone Game (5-7 minutes)

A.    Split into two groups of equal size. Explain how to play the telephone game:

a.       Select one person from each group to be the leader, or the starter of the telephone chain

b.      Explain that the leader should pick a short phrase, no more than 5 words, that they would like to pass around the circle.  The phrase must be respectful of everyone in the room and must follow the golden rule.

c.       The leader will begin by quietly whispering their phrase to the person to their left.  The phrase should be whispered so that nobody in the circle, except the intended recipient, can hear the phrase.

d.      The recipient, or the person to the leader’s left, will only get to hear the phrase one time and will then repeat the phrase they think they heard to the person to their left. THE PHRASE MAY NOT BE REPEATED.

B.     Play a game of telephone in each group. Teacher sits in the middle of the group to keep the game going and to stir/start up a rumor into the mix.

C.     Rules will be implemented. No negative statements and follow the golden rule.

2. Discussion (5-7 minutes)

 A. Lead and facilitate discussion asking the following questions.

a.       What did the message begin as?

b.      What did the message end up as?

c.       Do you think someone intentionally messed it up or was it unintentional?

B. Explain how messages can be distorted or misconstrued intentionally or unintentionally.

            a. What is cyberbullying?

3. Stubenville Discussion (7 minutes)

A. Distribute handouts of the Stubenville Article

            a. Allow students 2 minutes to read the article.

            b. Allow students 2 minute to discuss with a partner.

            c. Allow students 3 minutes to discuss as a class.

B. Questions that should be answered during this THINK-PAIR-SHARE

            a. How does social media contribute to the start and spread of rumors?

            b. Students plug concrete steps into graphic organizers.

4.  Exit Slip

A. Check for Understanding (4 minutes)

a. Students will receive a piece of paper with the following question on it. They will have    3-4 minutes to answer it.

b. What role can you play in preventing/resolving the spread of rumors via social media?

           

One Million Homeless

I am currently in the process of writing a paper on homelessness in Chicago Public Schools.  This project has been both eye-opening and shocking.  During the 2008-2009 school year the US public school system catered to nearly 1 million homeless students.  I have learned that Chicago has an incredible number of homeless students as compared to other states.  Homelessness is defined as living in a shelter, between homes, or doubling up with other families.  A majority of homeless youth in Chicago Public Schools experienced some sort of emotional or physical abuse at home, meaning their relationships with adults are often fractured or non-existent.  90% of homeless youth in Chicago are African American.  The statistics go on and on; however, my main takeaway was that homeless youth face more challenges but can persevere with the right support.  Homeless youth are dedicated and resilient.  If you are interested in learning more about homeless youth you can review the sources for my paper:

•    Adams, C. (2013). One Million Students Homeless. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com.

• Aviles de Bradley, A.M. (2011). Unaccompanied Homeless Youth: Intersections of Homelessness, School Experiences and Educational Policy.  Child and Youth Services, 32, 155-172. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com
• Bowhay, A., & Sloss, C. Homeless children are 8% of 31,438 students impacted by Chicago Public Schools’ closing/merger plans. Retrieved from http://www.chicagohomeless.org.
• Canfield, J.P., Groton, D., & Teasley, M.L. (2013) Working with Homeless School-Aged Children: Barriers to School Social Work Practice. School Social Work Journal, 37(2), 37-51. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.
•  Murphy, J.F., & Tobin, K.J. (2011) Homelessness Comes to School: How Homeless Children and Youth Can Succeed. Phi Delta Kappan, 93(3), 32-37. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.

Teacher Toolbox

I have found that as a teacher in her first weeks of teaching it is often difficult to remember how I was taught what I'm trying to teach my students.  I have used a variety of instructional strategies in my 3rd grade classroom including the age-old Venn Diagram and T Chart. However, sometimes I am stumped when I try to brainstorm a new graphic organizer or instructional strategy to teach my 3rd graders how to organize and analyze the information they read every day.  I stumbled upon this website that not only provides a list of instructional strategies, but it provides links to each instructional strategy with resources teachers can utilize to engage students and check for understanding.  It also, as you can tell, translates into high test scores (an unfortunate, but very real concern). This would be a great thing to add to a new teacher's toolbox and to reference as you plan! http://www.tltguide.ccsd.k12.co.us/instructional_tools/Strategies/Strategies.html

Where to?

 

During the past week I have really mulled over how to keep my students engaged.  Every morning I have students walk into the cafeteria and tell me about all of the games they own for their Wii, basketball games on TV, and the videos the songs they listen to after school. This may date me, but I never reflected on how technology impacts so many aspects of their lives.  I am from the tech generation, though I never owned a cell phone until high school and only briefly got into Mario Kart.

Tonight I viewed a webinar on just how much technology impacts the lives of our students. The presenter began by introducing her son, who as a one-year-old was already engaging with technology on a day-to-day basis. She then explained that, on average, a teacher is tasked with teaching 255 standards and 3,968 benchmarks. If we spend 30 minutes per benchmark we would need an additional 9 years of schooling to cover every topic. The webinar then explained how we can marry technology and benchmarks not only to plan lessons and units by backwards design, but to engage students on a deep, challenging level. Discovery Education hosts a tool that links teachers to technology resources based on their state standards.

Once you have standards linked to resources you really need to consider how technology can be used in every part of your lesson to engage and captivate your students beyond a surface-level interest. My presenter used the acronym WHERE TO to describe how technology can be integrated into curriculum:

 W: What misconceptions might exist? 

 Technology can help us introduce a topic by offering a gauge of where our students stand, especially with English language learners. By middle school students are at various stages of development and have had a variety of past experiences. This helps them assess where their background knowledge places them without a fear of being wrong.

Ex: “Half the story” – Zoom in on a small detail of a photograph and have your students use prediction skills to guess what they think the whole picture might show. This engages students at all levels of the development spectrum, which, as we discussed, is often typical in middle school.

 H: Hold Attention 

This is probably the most intuitive piece. I won’t spend much time on it because seeing where technology really hooks students is fairly easy.

 E: Experiential learning 

Middle School students are usually funneled from a few elementary schools and can often have very different primary education experience. Experiential learning through technology, especially in urban classrooms, can help expose students to science experiences and cultures they may otherwise not be able to experience. Interactive learning tools also help teachers adjust to ever-evolving content and current events.

 R: Rethinking, Revising, Refining learning 

 Checking for understanding can be a challenging aspect of this work. By middle school students have likely grown tired of the “Think, Pair, Share” dialogues and classroom sharing. Technology can help us assess whether learning is successful by providing checks for understanding for a diverse, and sometimes angsty, group like middle school.

 Ex: Silent Video – Play a silent video to students. Talk about relevant vocabulary and have them make predictions. Discuss strategies used to make predictions and other inferences. Play back video with sound and have students summarize or change a story ending by using the literary strategy you discussed.

 E: Evaluate and reflect 

 I felt this point was a bit redundant. See above point for evaluating and reflecting.

 T: Tailor content to levels and interests of kids 

This may perhaps be the most applicable use of technology. Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory states that students learn in a variety of ways, especially during adolescents. Technology provides us access to visual, auditory, and other tools to help various learners engage at the level of rigor they are able to engage with.

O: Organize and sequence the learning 

Perhaps the most important application of technology to us. Assignment builders can help organize, sequence, and group lessons as they relate to similar topics and foundational skills. Organization tools can also help students learn how to organize and convey their thoughts.

Ex: “Glogster” – a website that allows students (and teachers) to create virtual presentation posters complete with videos and sound.

 At the end of the day, what I’m trying to say with this blog post is that technology can help us conquer some of the diversity and subsequent difficulty with middle school learning. Technology can be incorporated into every aspect of our lesson and can help our students engage with content at a level of rigor that we may not be able to provide through our own differentiation.

Cold call sticks with student names on Popsicle sticks help me check for understanding randomly to gauge what individual students, what level of students, or whether the whole class is clicking with what I'm bringing. 

The clothespins are definitely a better tracking method than the sticky notes I have been using on my behavior chart. They can't fall off in one swift gust of wind and maker forget all about a student who may need a one-on-one talk or a call home!

They just used your mind and they never give you credit. -- Dolly Parton

I spent my Saturday making a chart for classroom jobs for my summer school students. I tried my best to jazz it up with cute pictures, but didn't really realize what a large role it would play in my classroom until I took a moment to Google other classroom job charts. I stumbled up on this article that explains how students cannot begin to be responsible until you give them something to be responsible for. The article also states that "in order to develop decision-making and reasoning skills, children need opportunities to exercise and practice doing those things." I also love that it gives students an active way to be involved in the classroom. It reinforces that the classroom is our space as opposed to my space.

"I make a difference, now what about you?"

Exactly one year, one month, and five days ago I was part of the Teach for America 2012 corps awaiting to enter a classroom in Atlanta.  I had grown up in Atlanta, attended public schools in Atlanta, was taught poorly in Atlanta, and, by the saving grace of my parents, allowed to leave Atlanta for a top 10 university.  Many of my peers did not have the luck that I had.  They attended community college where they were unprepared for the workload and ultimately dropped out to work at our local grocery store.  I grew up knowing I wanted to change the world, knowing I wanted to empower people to speak for themselves, knowing I wanted to tell my classmates that they were smart, that they were worthy of what the world had to offer, and that they deserved everything I was so lucky to have. I am now in Chicago, very different from Atlanta, though facing the same challenges of empowering intelligent urban youth to realize that deserve everything I was, and am, able to achieve. Exactly one year, one month, and five days ago I saw this video. I am so inspired to join a community where I can help, and work alongside kids, to realize that they are worthy.