The Power of a Question

"Cause I know the power of a question," shouts Rage Against the Machine songwriter Zack De La Rocha and advocating revolution; however can we extend this idea with students in our classroom? "How do we become strong readers?" This might be an essential question that can be explored to frame a particular unit. We as teachers must become strong facilitators of dialogue and discourse in our classrooms. We have opportunities to allow students to express ideas, challenge the opinions of others and develop a classroom environment where healthy conversation can exist. To begin to answer this question and to explore the others inherit in this framing question, lets begin by thinking about how are we as facilitators in our own classrooms? Can we create a forum for all voices to be heard without students speaking over one another?

What if the secret to success is failure?

Paul Tough of the New York Times has published a rather interesting article, entitled, "What if the secret to success is failure?" that considers failure much more important that succeeding. Stanford Design School, arguably the worlds leading design institution, encourages their designers that the most important part of finding the most accurate solution to their partners needs is to "fail early and often." Its a mind-state that runs completely against how students are taught in schools. Furthermore, how do we train our teachers to help students to use their mistakes as a path towards the right solution or even better, the "answer" that best meets the needs of the users or community? Its important that if we were to embrace this idea of failing early and often, then we must model that behavior. What does that look like to fail early and then to use our mistakes to redesign our learning, our schools, or even our lives? Most of our educational policies are designed to punish schools for failing to make Annual Yearly Progress or if you are a Detroit school, you end up getting shut down. Encouraging failure is only going to work if this mindset has the proper environment. In some schools, failure is an act of being "cool" especially when acting "white" is often associated with doing well in school. So rather than take a position of embracing failure lets make sure that is properly supported with strong teaching that helps students to take those "failures" as opportunities to redesign and assign new directions for learning experiences. This involves proper discourse and healthy mindsets that insist that our work has only just begun towards finding the "right" solution.

Five Tips on Classroom Management

There are certainly many more tips on classroom management

The top five tips that I have come across working directly in the classroom, observing other teachers and working with administrators goes something like this (in no particular order):

1. Relationships, Relationships, Relationships
We have probably all heard Harry Wong describe building relationships as essential and the phrase, "students do not care how much you know until they know how much you care" has been repeated repeatedly for the last, oh, I don't know ten years or so. But digging even further, its building relationships with each and everyone of your students. Its really looking deep for

2. Positive Call Homes

3. Words are the Great Equalizer

4. Assign Classroom Roles to Help

5. Building Community Together

What is Competency Based Learning?

Competency based learning addresses what learners are expected to do rather than what they are to learn about. The U.S. Department of Education defines competency based learning as a "performance based process leading to demonstrated mastery of basic and life skills necessary for the individual to function properly in society."

Two Validity Questions to Frame a Performance Task

Sometimes as educators we get students who are thoroughly engaged in a particular topic, activity or experience but in the end their is no transfer of knowledge or new skills developed. An defensive lineman may hit the tackling dummy over and over again in practice, however, when the running back breaks through and makes a quick cut in a game, the lineman does not transfer the skills he developed in simulation over to real-life situations. A soccer player who consistently practices passing the ball in practice has to also have the ability to make that switch over to a game situation, when defensive players rush, the weather conditions are less desirable, rainy or even snow, to kick the ball with a certain kind of intensity. This also occurs in far too many of our classrooms, my former one included. What happens is we as teachers think we have "taught" a particular skill or reading comprehension strategy or the Pytharogem Theorem, but when students are given a problem in which the strategy was to be applied or using the Theorem to solve a problem, students respond with "what am I supposed to do? I don't know how to do this?" Often times because what we thought we taught students was never completely understood. To understand new information students must be connected to their prior knowledge, provided multiple examples of how to apply and use the information, and then given guided practice to demonstrate an understanding of the new concepts so that the teacher can make adjustments to the learning conditions. Two questions that are essential when creating and designing performance tasks, those just not based on rote memorization, but based on how the student creates, designs, or synthesizes new information, are the following: 1) Could the assessment and/or test be passed without understanding? and 2) Could the specific test performance be poor, but the student still reveal understanding in various ways before, during and after? The goal for both of these questions is for you to answer, "no" as a designer and author of your unit and/or lesson. Again, using backward design, from what your goals and lessons are, you can then begin to design the work that you want to have students to do. In the end, these questions are incredibly powerful to help and support you in a way that creates more than just exciting and engaging lessons for youth, but simultaneously, valid assessment tools to ensure that there is a transfer of knowledge that meets your learning outcomes.

Blog Post 5

Blog Post 4

Blog Post 3

Blog Post 2 (RLL 4430 Spring 2011): The Presence of the Past leads to the Art of Discovery

We know more about how the brain works now than we have perhaps, at any time in human history. We know that in order to incorporate new knowledge we must have an experience that connects with something we think we already know. Our brain stores information into chunks and we associate words, whether we realize it or not with other words, visual images, and with our prior experiences. How we store, how we learn and how we remembered what we have learned has huge implications for us as reading teachers. Keene spends an entire chapter recalling her reactions to Maya Angelou's, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and associated experiences with Southern segregation, "dresses into dreams," and her realization that two folks can read a story and have entirely different experiences. I believe Keene shares these pages not only so we can see that readers have different experiences but to show the richness that each one of our students brings to the reading process. This takes time. Getting students to discuss literature in such way simply takes time and patience. As much as I do appreciate spending time in the classroom activating students prior knowledge, we also must be careful when planning instruction for students reactions potentially sensitive topics such as 9-11, so-called "terriorism," and ideas about equity. Its important for us to share our personal stories when helping students connect with new information. Chapter 5, provides us a way to have these conversations with students, and an underlying assumption is that teachers know the readings that they share with kids. How do you plan for these conversations as a teacher? What does that look like? Furthermore, who has time in the day to creating a voluntary study group with teachers? I especially value this idea of creating professional learning communities as it is essential to the life blood of the school.

Blog Post 1 (RLL 4430 Spring 2011): Creating a New Mosaic in Changing Times to Help Our Mindful Readers

What is it that helps to remember what we read? As a matter of fact, when is the last time we read something that really left a deep, down-felling of personal transformation, some heart-felt tears, or left us with a laugh so hard it hurt? Do we have these experiences with us when we teach reading to children? Can they feel that deep love and passion for words, language and experiences? I believe on a very basic level we understand that it is essential that we help students to read in our specific content areas but as Chapter 1 presents, its not that our students, particularly those at the elementary grades do not know how to read, its can they have experiences and make connections and build upon what they have read. Can we give students choice in what they read when it comes to teaching topics in U.S. History such as Reconstruction, the Extermination of Native Americans (see: Brother Eagle, Sister Sky) or even, dare I say Algebra concepts? By giving students choice in what they read, we are not only empowering youth but we are also structuring our classroom to incorporate multiple perspectives on a particular topic (see: Literacy Circles). This contributes to what Keene refers to as the "thoughtful classroom" in which students can score high on standardized tests and work is "interactive and conceptual" rather than prescribed and worksheet and text-book driven. We can begin to create these classrooms and environments with by having students continously speak, think, act, write, share what they are reading. The strategies that we learn in this course are really secondary to the underlying pedagogy we employ. If we believe that students should have choice and multiple opportunities and platforms to express their ideas and reactions to what they are reading, then we will see huge returns on the strategies presented in this and other progressive courses. This is when we do need to become aware of the challenges that children experienced when working with reading strategies and how we can best support. In Chapter 2, Keene speaks to "four reasons" why students often "complain" in response to working reading strategies. We must help students to see the value in this work but using a gradual release method and leveraging our personal relationships to motivate and encourage. Students must know that when encountering a text like Jamaica Kincaids, "Girl" or technical manual for assembling a bike, its important for kids to have tools to use. We can teach the tools and we must create the proper environments; our environment must be rooted in a love for reading, proper tools for helping students understand what they are reading and deeply connected to the real-world and the larger community.

Eight characteristics of effective school boards: At a glance

Eight characteristics of effective school boards: At a glance

Understanding Vocabulary, For Real This Time....

Think real hard: When is the last time that you learned a "new" word and why did you learn it? Chances are that you were interested in the new word or perhaps, you had a use for it. Language acquistion occurs for us as young children in a much more organic and natural way. As Dr. Feathers states in her chapter, " memorizing a definition is not the same as understanding a concept" and often times, in our schools for a variety of reasons our students are forced into "breadth" rather than "depth" as it relates to learning. How do we let our students naturally explore a topic like the Math teacher described in this chapter, yet still find time to make sure that we are hitting our pacing charts and preparing for standardized tests? There is substantial data demonstrating students begin to have a loss for a love of learning between the fifth (5th) and eighth (8th) grades. I believe much of this decline in student learning is the gradual loss of curiousity that is fostered between these years in the lives of youth. As a father of 13-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old daughter, as an example, I can certainly see differences in how they interact with the world. While my 13-year-old, a seventh grade student, certainly does a great job asking "interesting questions" per her Reading Teacher, my conversations with my 7-year-old are a bit more curious and spiraling in nature. No question is unasked and I often find myself taken away by how stiff and uncurious I become the more older I get. Learning must not be done in isolation and for a large part of this chapter, language and vocabulary acquistion follow a similar pattern. I particularly like the strategies of "context clues" and thinking about whether we should teach vocabulary "formally." My former students performed well with context clues and I think this particulary paid dividends when it came to preparing students for the American College Test (ACT). Whenever students would come to a passage they did not understand, they would usually encourage each other, or use the voice inside their heads, to tell them to "use context clues" to aid in comprehension. I think to this day, if I were to ask them what context clues, was they would do a great job of explaining the strategy. I also strongly believe, as you heard during Mid-Term Demo's, that I am a big fan of culturally responsive teaching and code-switching when it comes to learning new vocabulary. Many of our students will use slang or African American Vernacular to speak, talk and to understand the world around them. Its not right to say one way is right or wrong but how might we aid and increase students vocabulary by tapping into our students use of language so that they might adopt new words and apply them in situations that are appropiate. What are some of your thoughts as it relates to this chapter? What challenges do you think that you will face when you are working to build students vocabularly as it relates to your content area and grade level? How do you plan to create a classroom that is rich in language and ensures students are prepared to both comprehend and understand new words? How can you provide "depth" and not "breadth" as it pertains to student learning? I will be interested in hearing and learning from you all as this topic will be timely with our guest lecturer this week.

Bringing Text to Life: Using Sensory and Emotional Images to Enhance Comprehension

The old adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words" is certainly one that we are all familiar with. Regardless, of whether you are young or old, from Detroit or Osaka, images play a powerful part in all aspects of our daily lives. Its no wonder that using images in the classroom has tremendous learning opportunities regardless of grade or content level. In her book, entitled, Mosaic of Thought, Keen and Zimmerman present the case for increasing the use of images in the classroom to advance comprehension, build community and to increase engagement in the classroom. This idea of creating images has tremendous value in even traditional science and math classrooms, while abstract topics can have pictures or images to aid in comprehension. Images are particularly important in the social studies, world history or civics classroom, where images such as September 11 (who can forget the images of planes crashing into the Twin Towers), war-torn, Third-World countries and war-stricken areas such as the Congo and Iraq can not only add in comprehension but also engage youth in social justice. While I appreciate Keene's belief that "text comes alive through the creation of sensory images" its critically important to note that the teacher should facilitate the conversations that take place afterwards. I appreciate her paraphrasing exactly what a teacher should say but I also believe that it is essential that there a prepared set of framing questions help to guide the conversation. I also found it helpful to have a set of standard questions to facilitate conversations or even more importantly a set of positive responses for when students shared their thoughts. "Great, thinking," or "I really like the way that you.... (include specific example)" and craft a set of framing questions just in case the conversation gets stagnate. I would like to hear others speak to the other concepts and experiences presented in this particular chapter, especially related to the composing sessions, the characteristics of such sessions, some of the challenges and opportunities that rest in implementing these strategies, how these ideas build on the ideas of previous chapters, how you might implement these particular strategies in your content area? I also really appreciated the section entitled, "Beyond Reporting on the Book" as this is SO important for our work with youth that students have the opportunity to see there final products as having real value in the world. How might students create authentic pieces of work that might bring value to communities? Please really try to stretch your mind and practice and think about how you might engage students with businesses, non-profit organizations and public and private institutions so there work has value.

How Writing and Reading Processes' are Subject Specific and Demand Unique Teaching Methods

How Can a College Dropout Prevent Dropouts?

Former Microsoft Chairman and now Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Billy dropped out his second year at Harvard University to pursue his dream and completely revolutionalize the word by creating software that runs on virtually every single computer in the world. He dropped out. He stopped going to college. Why is he so intent on promoting a formalized, standards-driven, merit-pay, school system that forces marginalized youth into the same system that he rejected? Bill, you rose to prominesce because you were allowed to be creative, to dream, to invent, to work with others who shared in your dream and made you one of the most powerful and richest persons in the so-called free world. So, Bill the next time you start talking about what you know about education be sure to mention that you know that school ain't for everybody, especially those who wanna' make a bunch a money and live a life of power.

Common Core Standards Leaves Us Without a Core

All of this push lately towards what has been coined "Common Core Standards" is an attempt to organize the total variation in how states decide what and how each student learns in our public school system. A noble act, yet somehow one may wonder how does this really improve education at all as this process is for sure to take years if not an entire decade to complete. One has to question perhaps, just perhaps, there is a possibility that there is some advantage to having a variation in state standards. Creating one system does not allow for what many teachers call for in their classrooms: flexibility, autonomy and the creativity to meet various standards. Just because we have made the attempt to align every single states standards there will still be teachers who need help in creating innovative and engaging ways to present materials to students who are often several grade levels behind. We often spend our time working in circles and we must take greater call to address urgent, pressing issues, particularly those issues where student engagement, relevancy, and personal qualities and character development are shouting for our attention and resources. All of this push towards a common core is simply a poor use of resources and time.

Students Who Fall in Between the Cracks, Friday, Jan 28

For many youth, particularly those young men of color, their fate in America is almost destined to be confined behind the black steel in our nations prisons. An overwhelmingly percentage of young Black men are incarcarated in a criminal justice system that often presumes that you are guilty until proven innocent. The amount of money that is poured into this system and into the prison system to house, feed and cloth these young men is not only big business its big and ugly. But what happens to these young men and women when they are release to a society that created those conditions in the first place. This is not a release of responsibility for many youth who need to be responsible for the decisions that they make and learn from them, but it is also taking a close examination of the historical and social racism that lives strong in an era of our first Black president.