By Eddie Antoine - Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources and Staff Support
I invite us to read the attached article and contemplate the utility of on-line gaming to hone leadership skills - how the tools and techniques used will not only change how leaders function tomorrow, but could also make them more effective now.
The 21st Century Learning and Leading blog has moved to a new home. You can now reach the site by visiting the link below.
Let’s continue the conversations!
By Brian Nichols - Principal, Hidenwood Elementary School
Most people don’t aim too high and miss. They aim too low and hit. – Bob Moawad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlyOgVFYLXE
There isn’t one person in a million that can write down his or her most exciting dreams without at the same time telling themselves that “it’s probably impossible.” The truth is, virtually anything is possible and nothing is too good to be true.
I’ve always believed that the answers to every educational problem are in this school district. We have classrooms all around us that have done what many people deem impossible. We’ve all had the privilege of working with people that have closed the achievement gap and truly left no child behind. These people believe that “impossible is nothing” as long as you make every today matter.
This is the time of year when SOL scores begin come in and we begin the process of disaggregating the data and analyzing trends. We also look back at the year that was and begin preparations for the upcoming year.
What if you could fast forward one year from today?
Where will you be on June 25th, 2010?
What will you have accomplished?
The time to answer these questions is today. What are you willing to commit to and focus on today that will ensure that we are where we want to be one year from now?
By Adrienna Mason Davis - Training Coordinator, NNPS
Soon, there will be a huge influx of technology in our schools. Using technology successfully to improve education requires the entire academic community be knowledgeable and proficient users of technology-related tools and telecommunications services. Professional development is critical when expanding the knowledge and skills of administrators, instructors and support staff, as well as increasing their confidence when utilizing these technology tools. Professional development encompasses the understanding and application of technology towards better teaching practices and more effective school management.
Online professional development or “just-in-time training” offers a fresh approach to the traditional, and yet sometimes-antiquated occupational training model. Administrators must find unique ways to encourage professional growth and propel adult learners to a mindset where they are as comfortable working with technology as our students, who dive-in and explore emerging technologies as they go.
Today’s online learning management systems create a more individualized learning environment, unlike conventional workshops where end-users of various expertises join for technology-based professional development that often display their areas of weaknesses. 21st century skills development must be cultivated at all levels of the educational system, if we are to be accountable for producing globally competitive students.
Keys to Successful Online Professional Development:
Here are some questions to help begin the discussion, on what are the best ways to help develop the skills sets necessary, to better integrate new technologies into our curriculum:
Would you use “on-line” training resources to help master and integrate new technologies in your classroom?
How can we better use our internal communication processes to promote online staff development opportunities?
How do we best implement a self-assessment to determine what training resources are needed?
By Tom Hall, Michael Kelty, and Deanna Klein - Teachers, Crittenden Middle School
From e-tickets to online billing, the world is relying less on paper and more on computing. For the technogically and environmentally savvy, it has become possible to manage household finances without a single piece of paper coming into or leaving the house. There are even whispers that minted currency will soon be a thing of the past, being replaced instead by debit cards. Factor in the state of the world’s environment and the irresponsibility of wasting vast quantities of paper and we need to ask ourselves a serious question, are we preparing our students for this future?
Some teachers at Crittenden Middle School have found methods to reduce the paper usage in their classrooms. They have implemented creative methods using the technology tools available to them. They have found that the best paper-saving tip is to put everything online. Many lessons have been created online through the Desire 2 Learn platform, websites, and blogs. Desire 2 Learn is a teaching tool that requires no paper at all. Teachers create lessons, complete them, grade them, provide feedback and give tests and quizzes, all electronically. The platform allows for student discussion groups and individual and group projects. All this can be accomplished in a classroom without using a single sheet of paper. Websites and blogs are great for research and reinforcement of topics. They encourage students to interact academically in an environment in which they are already comfortable interacting socially. This changes the classroom dynamic and has resulted in increased student engagement, improvements in behavior, and completion of their work.
Email is an effective paper reduction tool. By gathering e-mail addresses at back-to school night, the teachers are able to contact parents without sending home a piece of paper. This also eliminates reliance on the student for communication. Teachers have found that it is not necessary to print e-mails they wish to save. Users can create a contact log by archiving parental contacts and saving all important emails to the computer. This will create instant documentation, complete with a return receipt. Another excellent, but paperless, method of keeping parents informed is eSIS. Through the grade book, parents have access to their student’s grades and can contact teachers with any questions. Now that almost all students have access to a computer and internet at home or nearby, it is easier than ever to assign work and keep in contact with parents without using paper.
The available classroom technology has given us an abundance of tools to restrict paper use. SmartBoards and Notebook software make handouts obsolete. They have the further advantage of allowing teachers to e-mail a copy of the day’s notes to absent students and to incorporate multi-media functions into interactive presentations. Senteo and CPS supply a paperless test/quiz format that even grades the tests. These programs use a handheld device that is similar to a remote control, which all students are already used to using. Computer carts and labs are readily available and allow the students to save their work in an electronic format, present it in a professional manner, and to gain practice in using the programs that enrich their career readiness skills.
At Crittenden Middle School we have reduced paper usage by teaching online, contacting parents and colleagues by email, keeping an electronic grade book, and using classroom technology. All of these methods combined allowed one teacher to consume less than five reams of paper for this school year and for one core team to have a 67% reduction in paper usage. While all of this sounds good, teachers know that implementing changes like these in a school setting can be daunting. Hurdles such as access to technology in and out of the school setting, and training for teachers and students are surprisingly easy to overcome once students, staff and parents become excited about digital learning.
As you consider your goal to prepare children for their future, what role will technology play? What can you do to create an environment that is stimulating and academically rigorous while still being environmentally responsible and preparing students for a future that is increasingly free of paper?
By Vivian Vitullo - Supervisor, Special Education
Learning to Use Technology… Using Technology to Learn
A Brave New World-Wide Web video
Twenty-first century learners have access to new and emerging technologies with the potential of connecting them to others in ways never before thought possible. Blogs, social networking sites, multimedia and other “Web 2.0″ tools are creating networked and engaging environments for learning and collaborating that look little like the 20th century classrooms that are familiar to many teachers.
Balancing the importance of using time, energy, and resources on quality programs to teach with and about best practices with the importance of building capacity in teachers, becomes increasingly more challenging. The explosion in networked communication has created an ongoing need to work and interact in new ways and to develop the skills to use an ever-growing list of new tools. This explosion, however, also provides us tools that are uniquely suited to meeting the diverse needs of 21st Century learners and educators. There is no doubt that our students - millennium natives - are ready. Are you ready?
Professional Development - 21st Century Style
1. Online Conference Presentations
2. Webinars
3. Online Video Resources
4. Self-directed Professional Development Resources
5. Online Learning Communities (Social Networking)
6. Free resources for Teachers
By Eleanor Blowe and Barbara Smith - Supervisors, Career and Technical Education
Career Pathways were developed as a response to the new workplace dynamic and to help to provide a broader, more rigorous academic and technical preparation for students leading to a clear pathway into postsecondary education and the modern workplace. The goal of career pathways is to help students see the purpose in their education and help them to make some long range decisions, choose careers, and prepare for education beyond high school. Identifying a career pathway can help in selecting school courses, activities, and part-time employment as well as work-based learning opportunities.
Harnessing applied teaching strategies of career and technical education (CTE) and infusing them into academic courses could help to transform secondary schools into centers of learning where students are engaged, challenged and motivated. Career pathways provides the framework for students to learn math in an Introduction to Engineering course, chemistry and physics in welding, algebra and trigonometry in a Basic Technical Drawing course, biology and statistics in health sciences, art in graphic design, and reading and writing infused in all content areas. Technology and integrated 21st century thinking skills can also be embedded in all content areas.
Are career pathways helping us to finally see that integration of core content and CTE is the way to help our students see the purpose in education? How can we continue to collaborate across content areas to integrate academics and CTE courses to strengthen the relevance of career pathways for our students?
By Betsie Clary - Principal, South Morrison Elementary
We have had an invaluable year of teaching and learning. We have learned so much about technology, web 2.0 tools, and 21st century instruction. A sharing tool that we have found to be priceless in our learning community is the “Did you Know?” quick share. It is our hope that our learning becomes one for you. If you have any new tools or techniques that you have used, please feel free to share them with us!
Did you know?
Share a quick tip, website, tool, or troubleshooting tip that you have found useful in your classroom. We all have a lot of knowledge to share. We are including examples below.
Did you know that Donors Choose is a great site to post projects that you are hoping to find funding for? Submit a project with a lower price total to have a better chance at quick funding.
Did you know that if you are using student laptops and they will not connect to the NNPS network, you can try wiring in laptops with an ethernet cable and restarting the computer while plugged in.
Did you know that there are social networks that are geared for teachers? Twitter, for example, can connect teachers to a learning network. This wiki helps teachers to get familiar with Twitter. Plurk is another online social network. Teachers have collaborated to create this wiki. Good teachers are always looking for new and different ways to teach content and we can learn so much from others.
Did you know that you can subscribe to blogs so you can stay connected? Here is favorite of ours.
Did you know that there are great tech tools to teach vocabulary? This is a great tool to use on the Smart board. Students can learn parts of speech, synonyms, antonyms and meanings.
Did you know that the National Zoo has live animal webcams? This is a great way to take a “nature walk” in your own classroom.
So do you have a “Did You Know?” too? Post it below!
By Pat Franklin - Art Supervisor, NNPS
As educators we are all familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy. To summarize, in 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior considered important in student learning. What is not as familiar, but is gaining in notoriety, is the updated version of Bloom’s Taxonomy. During the 1990’s a new group of cognitive psychologists, lead by Lorin Anderson (a former student of Bloom’s), updated the taxonomy to reflect behavioral skills relevant to the 21st century. With the current trend on 21st Century career skills this revised version is attracting attention. The chart below is a representation of the new verbiage associated with the long familiar Bloom’s Taxonomy. Of particular importance is the shift from Nouns to Verbs to describe the different levels of the taxonomy. As educators it is important to note the shift in the top levels. Note that the top two levels are essentially exchanged from the Old to the New version. In the revised version the top level is now Creating.
Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy
ORIGINAL / REVISED
Evaluation / Creating
Synthesis / Evaluating
Analysis / Analyzing
Application / Applying
Comprehension / Understanding
Knowledge / Remembering
Here are the details of the revised taxonomy (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001) beginning at the bottom and moving to the higher order thinking skill of Creating.
-Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory
-Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
-Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing
-Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing
-Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing
-Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing
The essential question, grounded in the current educational climate of emphasis placed on test scores, becomes how to meet the needs of students to pass the test and also the 21st century need to develop their creative thinking skills? Arts educators are acutely aware that creative thinking involves creating something new or original. This process requires development of a mindset and skills including flexibility, originality, fluency, elaboration, brainstorming, modification, imagery, associative thinking, attribute listing, metaphorical thinking and envisioning forced relationships. The aim of creative thinking is to stimulate curiosity and promote divergent thinking. What better place to promote these practices than the visual arts classroom? In considering 21st Century skill development do not overlook the importance of a strong creative arts program to foster these important habits of mind. These skills can and do transfer to other subject areas. The essential question however remains, in the current educational climate of emphasis placed on test scores, how do classroom teachers meet the needs of students to pass the test and also the 21st century need to develop their creative skills? What paradigms need to shift to create educational environments allowing this flexibility in instruction?
By Felicia Barnett, Dr. Kipp Rogers, and Angela Seiders - Principals, NNPS
My deadline was when? How many of us have forgotten deadlines and received extensions and second chances from our bosses? When you forgot to turn in something, did your boss call and tell you that you couldn’t do it because it was too late? No, in all likelihood, you had additional time to complete the task. If you forget to pay your electric bill, does the electric company tell you that you can’t pay it and shut off our electricity? No, they grant you an extension, sometimes multiple extensions. So why, as educators, are we so reluctant to give kids a second chance? Give that zero! Shouldn’t our objective be to help students succeed?
Real situation: Middle school student struggles in Spanish class. Mom hires a tutor for the class. Student is doing better. Student is nervous about taking the test. He takes the test. Realizes a few minutes after giving the test to the teacher he thinks he missed a page. He asks teacher if he could have the test back because he thinks he missed a page. Teacher tells student, “No, you did miss the page, and you can’t have it back.” Student gets a D on the test. Mom has to email the teacher about the test. Teacher tells the parent he can’t retake it. Mom calls the assistant principal for help. Luckily, assistant principal decides to let student retake the test. What message did we send to this student? Is all this really necessary? What about the student that has no one to call on his behalf? I guess that student would have failed.
For 21st Century Learners it is so it is easy to take a zero. The student gets out of doing work, and the teacher doesn’t have to grade it. WOW! Getting a zero makes everyone’s life so easy. Is that the message we want to send to our students? If Harvard University and Yale give students the Power of the I- why isn’t it good enough for our students?
Knowing that students who struggle in the classroom and fall behind academically are more likely to drop out of school in the future, many schools are testing a policy in which students would receive an “I” (incomplete) for work that was not turned in or did not meet the standards. The idea is to give students extra time and extra help to improve their achievement.
The success of the Power of the I stems from faculty buy-in. Most schools have teachers pilot the program and then report out the results. The entire faculty would need to understand the rationale and full implementation. Obviously, educators would need administrative support for the change.
Once a student receives an “I” on a report card, they have two weeks from the end of the grading period to be retaught and to redo the work. If the student does not redo the work, the grade defaults to a “D” or an “F”.
Schools that provide a pyramid of interventions to assist its students in meeting standards are most successful with the Power of the I.
Some school wide interventions are as follows:
•Teachers post missing assignments in the classroom or on www.engrade.com so students will know what they need to complete. The assignments are posted by student ID number, rather than by name, to ensure anonymity.
•Schools provide an after- school tutoring program. The schedule is posted online for students and parents will know when and where help is available.
•School leaders and teachers talk individually with students who are falling behind. Students seriously at risk in failing must meet with an audit team consisting of the principal, the guidance counselor, and a teacher. Team members use an intervention tracking sheet to guide the discussion and to formulate a plan of action for the student.
The effectiveness of the Power of the I policy obviously increases student performance if implemented correctly. The importance of the Power of the I grading policy is in helping students meet standards and not allowing students to settle for a zero or an F. The whole purpose is to help students learn and to hold them accountable for their own learning. At the end of the day, isn’t that why we all became educators?
