Tonight our chat on teachers evaluations focused on the purpose of having an evaluation, how they should be conducted and teacher concerns for student achievement data use in the process. Click the link below to see the archive.
[View the story “5-23-13 #mschat Teacher Evaluations” on Storify]
Author: Sweat to Inspire
Educator and Parent
Writing comics to activate prior knowledge!
Sometimes students need a quick assignment to help them activate their prior knowledge. Over the years, I have used short warm-ups, review readings and videos to help stimulate my students knowledge base. Often, I have felt that the students are not engaged with watching video or reading an article. Students have even commented “we studied this last year” or “I already know this!”
When I noticed that students would need to review the water cycle before studying how humans effect our natural resources, I wanted to find a way to engage my students in a review. After looking at many options I decided on the following assignment:
Water Cycle Comic Strip
You are to develop your own multi-panel comic strip. It will follow one water drop’s journey through the ENTIRE water cycle (also known as the Hydrologic cycle). You will be graded on:
A. Including all 9 vocabulary terms and using them correctly
- Evaporation
- Condensation
- Transpiration
- Precipitation
- Run-off
- Ground water / Aquifer
- Infiltration
- Surface Water
B. Written in story form from the water drop’s point of view
C. Colorful, NEAT, and unique
D. Title that includes:
- name
- period
- Title of book or comic strip
E. Spelling, grammar, & Punctuation
Please do your best…and have fun! Project Due Friday May 17!
Here is an online example of a complete comic strip! another simple example.
If you are working on this activity at home this website will help you.
This assignment is due for my 7th grade students tomorrow. They had 2 days in class and 4 nights to work on the assignment. As I have walked around the classroom. I have overheard students having great conversations about the water cycle. Students have been asking questions about how the order in which the vocabulary should appear. Students appear engaged and interested in completing the assignment. I wish we had access to technology to complete the assignment because many have asked if they can use ToonDoo to complete the project. I encouraged them to use the paper storyboard to plan the comic and use ToonDoo at home. This time of year I dread projects since students just want to be done with everything and lack “grit”. After observing the progress this week, I am excited about seeing what my students create to express their knowledge.
Teachers need to keep looking for ways to activate prior knowledge that engage the students in discussions and reflections. By using project that focus on creation, students will have to be engaged. True learning comes when the students create products that demonstrate their knowledge. This is a simple assignment that will help student be knowledgeable and ready to use their knowledge in the next unit.
5 Reasons not to use Student Achievement as a driving factor in teacher pay!
The State of Michigan is currently debating if student achievement should be the driving factor in teacher pay. The Detroit Free Press ran an article today discussing both sides of the issue. I feel this debate is worth having at a district level but very hard to have on the state level. State Rep. Peter Lund, needs to think carefully about this bill he has sponsored. Here are 5 reasons to vote against this bill:
1. Local control – Long a tenant of the Republican party, recently seems to be lost when talking about schools. Districts have locally elected school boards. They set policy, rules and regulations. If “pay for performance” is something a district wants, needs or desires, the local school board can set it up as a policy. One size does not fit all. Michigan has over 500 school districts ranging in size from 20- 1,000’s of students. Our state is also very diverse. Let the local district decide if this is an issue they want to tackle. Would corporations allow the government to step in and set pay standards for their employees? NO! School districts are no different and should not have to be subjected to Law Makers who have no understanding of how schools are run.
2. No Set Standard – The state wants to pass a law saying that teachers will be paid based on performance but not set a performance standard? No this doesn’t make any sense. Teachers need to know the target they are aiming for! How can teachers reach targets that have not been set? Currently MEAP/MME testing has been show to be unreliable, having social economic biases. The state does not even have a standard for teacher evaluations. Again too complex, all needs to be set at a local district level. With all the laws passing there will be no point in local school boards since all policies seem to be set by state.
3. Create bad environment – Education has been working for years to foster an environment where teachers work together to help educate ALL students. IF teachers feel that they will have an advantage over others, the collaboration will end. Think about it, do salesmen tell others about who and how they get their largest sales? NO! The goal of education is to provide an equal free education to all students. We can’t create a school where teachers keep their best techniques secrets.
4. No enough money – Merit pay systems work well in a sales environment. Why? Salespeople generate revenue to pay for their commissions (extra merit pay). Schools don’t make extra money by performing well (and shouldn’t). How can a district afford teachers if they all desire the top merit pay level? Bottom line is they won’t be able to afford a true merit pay system that will have any value to the teachers.
5. No value for experience or education – Any teacher will tell you that they are a better teacher now than they were the first year. No matter how students score on the test, teachers do get better with time. Sure, some burn-out. administrators can observe this and take actions. The tenure laws have been changed. Student achievement is a factor in all teachers in Michigan evaluations now. Doctors, lawyers, dentists with a more specialized degree get paid more for their expertise why not teachers?
Well that is 5, I could keep going. Poverty is another larger factor that will create unfair results in this equation. There are just too many factors at play that impact student achievement.
What if student has bad day? Can they re-take like drivers test? NO
All student growth is not equal, learning today might not impact student achievement for years. Current tests only measure students academic performance, what about social, physical, emotional growth?
Legislature stop killing our public education system and start focusing on helping our poor students. The teachers are the least of your problems.
Thanks for reading, hope it helps you reflect.
Why bullying won’t end in schools!
We live in a society fully of bullying! In recent years films have been made about how this affects the learning environments in schools. Bullying is a HUGE problem in schools. It needs to be solved. Many states have enacted legislation that make schools follow specific protocol to follow to prevent bullying. These types of actions are just simple window dressing to a complex problem.
Bullying is present in all aspects of our society. It is modeled everywhere. Schools are not where the bullying starts. It starts in the media with advertising. Imagines that place more value on beauty and size infiltrate our culture starting at birth. The most recent example comes from the CEO of clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch, Michael Jefferies. Below are his comments:
Comments like these create bullies! Since when did size determine cool? If our goal is to rid our culture of bullies why would his comments be acceptable? Thankfully some news outlets are taking notice and writing about it. The media attention is only temporary. In time, the stories will fade and Abercrombie will continue to sell clothing and make profits. “Cool” kids will get to wear the popular gear and others will be picked on for not having A&F clothes in their wardrobe.
This is just one small example of how bullying is allowed to persist in our society. Turn on most televisions today and bullying actions are easy to find modeled for our youth. Most reality programming model bullying. MTV, which used to focus on music, now if flooded with bullies. Just watch Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, Buckwild, etc and observe where many grade school students see behaviors that model bullying. How can schools teach that behaviors are not appropriate, when they are modeled everywhere? Bravo’s real housewife series, takes it to another level. Showing that adults should shout and fight about the smallest issues. Why do we let this modeling of bullying exist so predominately in our media? It can be entertaining, funny and makes for good drama, but do we want our youth following these models?
Currently the very legislators who talk about ending bullying in schools are active bullies. Most states are actively attacking teachers, claiming that they are not effective. Saying teachers need more passion for their students and tearing down the traditional American education system. Attacking teacher pay, benefits, unions job security and tenure rights. Teachers feel they are being bullied by the very body that ask teachers to be the first line of defense against bullies.
Many would argue that we have the freedom of speech and expression in the United States of America. By restricting options on television, we would be creating a society of censorship. No good American wants censorship!! How can we address the prevalence of bullying in our media without censorship? Many networks like MTV and the Cartoon Network have used counter programming to help address bullying. Running specials or week/month-long promotions to address bullies. Is this enough? Isn’t it hypocritical to fight bullying while running programming full of bullying? I feel WE can do better!
I am glad that bullying is making it to the forefront of conversations today. It used to be stated that “Kids will be kids.” We are at least trying to change. More certainly needs to occur before we can rid schools of this problem. Society has to recognize bullying behaviors and work hard to not model them. The following poem by Shane Koyczan speaks volumes to how bullying can affect our youth.
#mschat 5-9-13 Hacking Education
Active chat tonight on how teaches can make changes to the educational structure to enhance learning and engagement in our students. Teachers need to be the leaders of change in schools. We need to be empowered by our administrators to find ideas that work in the classroom. Teacher Educational Programs need to be updated and in-fused into school districts to help foster this type of change.
The archive of the chat is found here: http://storify.com/ToddBloch/mschat-5-9-13-hacking-education
Hacking School #mschat
This week’s topic for #mschat is “hacking school!” Thursday May 9 at 8 pm ET.
From John T Spencer from here
The idea is not mine. Nicholas Provenzano, exposed me to the idea when he shared his visual writing prompts for blogging during the MACUL conference in March. Nick shared how he used this prompt with his high school English students. I felt it was a great way to hear the students voice.
Recently, I used the prompt with one of my classes. My middle school students loved the idea of “hacking” school. I shared my ideas about having flexible classrooms, 1:1 technology for students and more individualized instruction. My students took to blogging. I was anxious for the results.
Few of my middle school students took my lead for finding better ways to learn. Most students focused on different kinds of changes. Many wanted different food in the cafeteria. I totally agree here, but the food they desired to replace “school food” contained less nutritional content. Many wanted Taco Bell or McDonald’s to come in an cater. Some students desired vending machines with “pop and candy”. Change is needed for sure, more instruction in nutrition will be coming shortly.
As I moved past the “food changes”. Many post desired a change in the dress code, to no code at all. I asked, “What you want people showing up in underwear?” “NO!!” was the quick reply but students felt that nobody should control what they wear. Our school has a pretty lax dress code. I guess teachers need to share dress standards for different work environments.
Other students voiced their desire for a shorter school year, stating that more learning would occur. How this would be accomplished was not share. As I keep searching for hacks that would improve learning, I started to feel despair. Did my student feel their learning environments were satisfactory in our school? I feel changes could be made to improve learning, shouldn’t they?
As I dug deeper, I found specks of brilliance . One student wrote, “Schedules need to be flexible so student can choose the class order and lunch time based on desire and need.” Now that makes sense, why can’t it occur? Attendance and class size might be limiting factors but with work it can occur. Another talked about allowing students to use their technology for learning with a WiFi network. A student was clearly articulating a BYOD policy.
My students seemed focused on simple rule changes that might not make our school a better learning environment. Student voice is important to listen to when making changes. I feel that listening to it can also show educators knowledge deficits that need to be addressed in our students.
Teachers have seen education from many angles.I hope that by chatting with middle school educators about how to change schools. I can present a complete list of ideas before conquering this assignment with my students again.
If you have ideas about how to change schools to create better learning environments, please join #mschat on Thursday.
Sweat to Inspire 