Thoughts on the Framework for K-12 Science Education

I've been looking at the Framework for Science Education since it was published online last week. I like that it's not just the science ideas but also speaks to how we should go about taking those ideas and making them into standards.

This section in particular (ch. 12, Guidance for Standards Developers, p. 221) stood out for me:
"That is, for a given core idea at a given grade level, standards developers should include guidance not only about what needs to be taught but also about what does not need to be taught in order for students to achieve the standard. By delimiting what is included in a given topic in a particular grade band or grade level, boundary statements provide insights into the expected curriculum and thus aid in its development by others."

This is such a powerful statement. So much of what plagues science education deals with getting caught up in the little details. Not that details aren't important, but we want to avoid continuing to make science about memorizing facts when it is really a PROCESS and a way of thinking. Yes, kids should know the key ideas and explanations of real-life phenomena (why do we look the way we do? why do we have seasons? Why do some places have earthquakes and others don't?), but it is SO easy to get caught up in minutiae and lose track of the bigger picture...especially when one considers standardized multiple choice tests.

This issue came up at the Science Instructional Leadership Team meeting this summer. We were utilizing the STeLLA science storyline program to come up with main learning goals for an investigation in the FOSS module, and there was a distinct division between some of the groups. My group had focused on the idea of food webs and feeding relationships, determining that the introduction to Mono Lake (in part 1 of the investigation) was a hook for the next few investigations and thus not central to the main learning goal. Another group disagreed, and - rather than using the standards and the big idea (food webs/energy flow) for which the Mono Lake ecosystem was merely a vehicle - they had gotten caught up in the defining characteristics of the Mono Lake ecosystem. Do students need to know about the salinity of Mono Lake in order to diagram a food web and to understand the feeding relationships that it encompasses? No, they don't. And yet these teachers - with the best intentions, I am sure - had gotten distracted by those details.

I think it goes back to what we learned at PEAK as well. As teachers, we need to prioritize. Start with the standards/the core ideas in science, then break that down into learning goals and unit objectives, then break that down into your lesson objectives. Once you have all those many objectives, you need to determine which are "essential" for understanding the core ideas, which are "important" for understanding, and which are "nice to know." Sure, it would be nice for my sixth graders to understand salinity and the effect it can have on ecosystems, but it's not essential....especially as we don't even live in a region where that's an environmental issue.

Puzzle Pieces

So I always mean to be better about blogging here, as this is a much better venue for going on about teaching than at my personal blog where my friends are far more interested in my thoughts on Captain America: The First Avenger than in the newest strategy that I'm trying.

At the moment, we've got just over two weeks before the kids come back, and it seems that the summer has just flown by. Of course, I imagine that has something to do with the two week-long conferences I attended (PEAK Learning Institute in Vail, Colorado, and the GE Foundation's Developing Futures NASA/NSTA Math-Science Integration Conference in Cocoa Beach, Florida) and the Berwick Buddy trip to Maine (also a week). It's left me with a lot of amazing ideas, but now I have to fit all the pieces together. CARE for Kids, PEAK, the 5 E's, BSCS's Science Storylines (from a district science leadership training), and several other things all need to fit into a seamless whole.

I have managed to edit my Understanding by Design Unit Template (backwards planning all the way, y'all), type up a PEAK topic planner, and merge my CIF lesson planner with a PEAK lesson planner. The last of which was the most difficult, though honestly even that wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. I realized that all the sprinkles, showers, and drips (more on that below) fit in as transitions between the pieces of the lesson that belonged in the CIF lesson. The PEAK soak is the same as the CIF-for-science guided practice. The one awkward spot is where I have a section that could be Making Meaning (i.e. Explain) OR a sprinkle/shower/drip transition, but I suppose that really would vary just based on whether you had a lab-type explore activity that day, which would definitely require a making meaning section to the lesson, or whether you had been working on something that might not need that component. I honestly think I will tend far more to the making meaning portion of that choice, but I am hoping to be more creative with my strategies there than I have been in years past. I'd like to utilize various discussion and notebooking strategies there, as well as some PEAK engage learning strategies.

At this point, I suppose I should outline the whole PEAK water metaphor, which was a key focus in this conference that is just totally mindset-changing. The gist of it revolves around the necessity of exposing kids to content multiple times, as research has shown over and over that they need 28 or 41 or more exposures to really retain and deeply understand content (I'm sure we are ALL familiar with the never learning or crammed-for-test-and-then-forgot learning that goes on in classrooms across the country). In order to do that - to achieve what PEAK calls 28/3 (28 exposures over 3 weeks) - you need to use both pre-instruction and post-instruction. The pre-instruction primes the kids for the main content instruction, while the post-instruction reinforces the information and helps deepen their understanding. The terms are as follows (exposure is deeper each time):

Cloud - this involves having content posters up at least a few weeks ahead
Sprinkle - ex: point out posters & have kids discuss what they notice, choral repetition from visuals, brainstorming around big ideas
Shower - deeper than sprinkle, ex: content songs, choral repetition of important content, and various other strategies where kids become familiar with the basic foundational ideas for the future unit
Soak - this is the actual unit of focused instruction (this is where labs and the like would fall for science)
drip, Drip, DRIP - post-instruction of increasing depth where you intentionally revisit a topic at deeper and broader levels (they call this incremental development)...this includes a great variety of active learning, notebooking, and reflective strategies, among other things

I don't think I've really encompassed how amazing the idea is, as the training just totally opens your eyes and changes how you think about planning, but I think I've got the basics at least. I am not diving all the way into the deepest levels of planning using the PEAK ideas, as it is a bit much to do the first year, particularly with the FOSS and STC modules to juggle as well.

I think I will post more about my ideas for implementation later this weekend. I am trying to pare down my ideas so that it will be realistic. There are a great many techniques I want to try, as well as different strategies and tools, but I also need to ensure that I don't overwhelm myself. The idea is to pick just a few things to try and make sure you get down well, so I want to prioritize. Luckily, there are some things I had already started with last school year, as one of the teachers I work with had shared some of the ideas with me, so those just need to be tweaked a bit, and then I can pick out the new (to me) things that I want to implement.

Article: Do We Need a Hero?

This article was in Teacher Magazine. It really articulated an issue I've always had with movies about teachers (as much as I usually enjoy inspirational films), especially Freedom Writers. They ignore the reality of most school systems in favor of cliches (bright new teacher triumphs in spite of all the lazy/stubborn/prejudiced long-term teachers). Plus they're not often sustainable - Erin Gruwell only taught in public schools for four years, after all.

Article below (and online here):

Do We Need Another Hero?

By Patrick Ledesma

You’ve seen them: the education movies about a driven principal who goes to a school to shake things up. Some teachers and parents are portrayed as resistant, but thanks to his charisma and force, the principal endures and makes changes. People eventually buy into the new culture and test scores improve.

If the movie was anything like Lean on Me with Morgan Freeman, the test results would be announced in some dramatic fashion in front of a large, energetic, and supportive crowd of students with the small group of detractors watching quietly from the sidelines. When it’s learned that the test scores have shot through the roof, just about everyone cheers, and it’s a happy ending as the music plays and credits roll.

Unfortunately, real life is never as conclusive. There's always another side to the story—although sometimes it has less immediate appeal.

On July 6, The Washington Post published two interesting articles about education reform. The front page piece, originally published under the headline “Sousa’s Middle March of Progress,” portrayed Principal Dwan Jordon’s “hands-on, data driven tack (as) transforming a D.C. school but also ruffling feathers.” Another piece in the editorial section highlighted the significant role played by Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools, in the D.C. mayoral race. The piece argued that the upcoming election could be about her “100 miles an hour, the children can’t wait” approach to school reform, characterized by “school closings, teacher layoffs, spending decisions, and principal reassignments,” versus the approach of a mayoral opponent who favors a more cautious and sensitive strategy that emphasizes “community collaboration and buy in.”

Ultimately, we learn, the mayoral race will be about opponents with a “different sense of urgency in reform.” This ongoing story unfolds, according to this editorial, in the context of a city with a long history of troubles with officials who lack the political will to implement and sustain school improvements. Contrast that with the Time magazine cover in December 2008 that featured Rhee with a big broom, ready to sweep the D.C. schools clean—and her quote featured in the Waiting for Superman trailer: “You wake up every morning and you know that kids are getting a really crappy education right now.”

Leading Change

In a movie like Lean on Me, the audience hopes for the principal to be successful. Morgan Freeman just has that voice and aura that’s too powerful to resist (even if he is condescending and rude to the educators in the film). From the point of view of most people in the audience, the improvements in student achievement validate the “reform can’t wait” urgency and negate any ill effects caused by the ruffling of teacher feathers.

The Post story about Sousa Middle School echoes movies like Lean on Me. The article describes how Principal Jordon fired many of his staff, micromanaged classroom teaching, handpicked teacher replacements, and emphasized the rigid use of test data for instructional planning. Like in the movie, test scores rose. Unlike the movie, the story isn’t over.

Critics of Jordon’s leadership style continue to highlight the high turnover of teachers and a feeling of “humiliation” the reporter describes this way:

If students are improving at Sousa, teachers from Jordon's first year—almost none of whom kept their jobs this year—seem almost traumatized. One teacher accustomed to getting good evaluations said she felt "humiliated" by Jordon's constant scrutiny. Others said they'd come in at 5 a.m., trying to meet his demands, but still left school in tears.

Critics of Jordan's approach would argue that lasting change only results from consensus building and the development of organizational capacity. They could cite school leadership experts like Michael Fullan and describe the importance of relationships, knowledge building within an organization, and establishment of a learning culture. As Fullan argues in his book Leading in a Culture of Change:

Charismatic leaders inadvertently often do more harm than good because, at best, they provide episodic improvement followed by frustrated or despondent dependency. Superhuman leaders also do us another disservice: They are role models who can never be emulated by large numbers. Deep and sustained reform depends on many of us, not just on the very few who are destined to be extraordinary.

Critics of Jordan's style would also emphasize the importance of treating teachers as professionals whose expertise and energies would be required for steady and sustained improvement in all areas of learning, not just what’s measured on the tests. Recently, Post education writer Jay Matthews, in a column titled “Hero or Bully?,” commented on Mr. Jordon’s assertive tactics, noting that “his second year scores, soon to be released, better be good, or any powerful enemies he makes will have more than enough witnesses for their case against him.”

There are other interesting factors that could be discussed in connection with the Sousa Middle School's recent success—specifically, the school’s new renovation and very low student-to-teacher ratio (56 adults for 230 students). What if the renovation and additional resources had been carried out in concert with a consensus building approach? What if the previous faculty had received more professional development and guidance? Would these school-strengthening efforts be enough to produce results similar to those being hailed by the “reform can’t wait” proponents? More importantly, would the change last?

There are other unknowns. What if Mr. Jordon gets promoted and leaves Sousa? Will the success go with him, or, will the improvements endure since he largely handpicked staff who share his philosophy?

Powerful Stories and Numbers

Whatever might have been done or might happen in the future, one thing is certain, and it’s something educators need to understand in the public debate. The “reform can’t wait” movement has powerful stories involving emotional charismatic leaders who save kids. They have the “hard numbers” that test data provide to justify their bold actions. It’s a simple, direct, convincing story that is compelling and easy to understand and doesn’t require supporters to have any knowledge of education pedagogy, statistics, leadership philosophy, or policy. Results are more immediate, and don’t require years of building consensus while resistant or “burned out teachers” decide if they want to get on board. And the cultural references—like Morgan Freeman’s charisma, documentaries about charters, or Michelle Rhee’s magazine cover stare-down—are easily at hand.

From the public’s perspective, for better or worse, the expectation for story-telling has been set. Educators and policymakers who argue for the slower consensus-building approach will need equally convincing stories to sway the public. They will need to publicize or create movies of real examples of schools where change occurred internally, within a school, with the same staff, demonstrating that test scores increased and the improvement lasted. Some compelling examples like this would advance the discussions on how to improve schools.

Without this alternate storytelling, the public may not find teacher accounts of feeling humiliated or unprofessionally treated very compelling. That’s unfortunate, because lost along these hardened battle lines are hard working and dedicated educators who strive daily to make a difference. But in the public debate, they get lumped together with the resistant, burnt out, or ineffective teachers.

So does the public portrayal of urgency for school reform trump teachers’ defense of professionalism? Maybe the answer depends on which character you identify with in the movie.

Patrick Ledesma is a school based technology specialist and Special Education Department Chair with Fairfax County Public Schools. He is a National Board-certified teacher and a doctoral student at George Mason University, where he is focusing on teacher education, technology, and education policy. He has been a member of the Teacher Leaders Network since 2003.

The wonders of small class size

Now districts are always trying to say that studies don't conclusively prove that class size makes a difference, but anyone who has struggled to control a full class of students in a room that really isn't big enough and then seen them miraculously change when a few kids are absent/in ISAP and 5 more are in a special reward knows how smaller classes do make a difference. We had 20 kids in AAA on Friday, rewarding them for acheiving the triple threat of good academics (As and Bs), good attitude (all S's), and good attendance. And my 4th period, which is usually loud as anything comes in and sits straight down and there's no more than a low murmur. And the worst, loudest kid is even there! Coming in with all her friends! I was in shock! I was confused! I was ecstatic! They were amazing, and I was so proud of them and really glad I'd happened to bring in dum-dums that day as a reward for the fastest runners in the races we had between measuring shadows the day before (we're studying the Sun-Earth-Moon system at the moment). I really could not believe the difference. Because it wasn't the worst kids missing - it was the best kids. And yet they were still SO much better.

It's the kind of thing that makes me wish I taught at a private school. I covet small class sizes. And large class rooms. An area of desks in the front and lab tables in the back! It would be oh so lovely. I don't even have room to set up the desks in pods. Or rows. Yep, no one considered the size of the classrooms when they ordered the new lab desks for the science classrooms.

Of course, on the other hand, I really do enjoy working with the kids I have. They frustrate me. A lot. But I'd miss working with them if I was gone. It just would not be the same if I were elsewhere. I just wish that I could teach them in a better situation. One where there we had small class sizes, and we had enough room for setting up the tables for easy group work. Where there were enough computers for us to use them without having to book WAY in advance. Where I had more than one computer in my classroom for easy access.

Ah, the dreams of an inner-city public school teacher.

************

In other news, though, there is apparently something written about me in the latest edition of my high school alma mater's magazine, BA Today, or so The Mom says. Inquiring minds want to know. What does it say? And where is my copy? I will be mightily annoyed if it is not in the mailbox come Monday.

Edited to Add (3/26/08): This USA Today article cites several studies that show that "size alone makes small classes better for kids," whether the teacher makes changes in her teaching or not. Of course, it makes more of a difference for high achievers than low achievers. The gap is just so frustrating, and it seems so difficult to bridge it.

"Setting Limits in the Classroom"

So it has been awhile since I last posted, but things have continued to be busy as always. It's getting down to crunch time, as there are only about 11 (and a half?) weeks of school left, and my final assignment for my final MAT class is due mid-April (the big assignment is due April 1st, though, the same day as my KTIP portfolio will be assessed).

I've been told that I have shown great improvement. I certainly recognize that things are going FAR FAR better than they did last year, despite the fact that there are still what one might call "problem students." Of course, there are always going to be "problem students." Dealing with them is likely my biggest issue, though not my only one (struggling to find time for student use of technology is another). As such, I am always trying to find better ways to "do" classroom management, and I picked up a book this evening at Barnes & Noble because of that.

The book is Robert J. MacKenzie's Setting Limits in the Classroom (revised): How to Move Beyond the Dance of Discipline in Today's Classrooms. I am two chapters in, and I've come to a bit of a realization. Since starting an action research project on classroom management (specifically student "time on task"), I've realized that I have a bit of a problem with consistency. (I also noted that student placement in the classroom is an issue as well, but that's a topic for another day.) The book has really highlighted for me what this problem is. MacKenzie notes that there are 4 ways teachers deal with teaching rules about behavior:
1) the permissive approach (cajoling students into behavior)
2) the punitive approach (yelling, threatening, shaming, etc.)
3) the mixed approach (cajoles until explodes into punitive)
4) the democratic approach (gives a choice, lets student know of consequence of continued misbehavior, follows through)

As much as I would like to say that I am right there with method 4, that is really not the case. I think I'm more of a method 3. This is likely based off of my own childhood. Of myself, my two sisters, and my younger brother, there were little behavioral problems. I think this leads me to feel (subconsciously?) that it should be pretty easy for the kids to understand that cooperation is what they should do (because it's "the right thing to do"), so I just start off warning them. And maybe it's just easier to warn them than follow through with writing a note or calling parents or what-have-you. Of course, it really isn't easier in the long run, which should have been enough convincing for me (but sometimes you need a little help to realize what you are doing). Anyway, I start of with the cajoling, but - as we all do - I get frustrated that they don't "do the right thing" and start behaving, and that's where the punitive approach (and the yelling et al) come in. As MacKenzie points out, this is not consistent, and it doesn't have good effects with the kids. How can they know what to expect out of you? They either think they can get away with it, or they get angry that they are getting punished when people normally aren't.

I really hope that I can try method 4 and get it to work. It's hard to change those basic habits. If you aren't used to being a certain way, and the students aren't used to it either, it is going to take some effort to make that change and get them to realize that you have. But as a teacher, one has to be willing to change in order to improve your teaching and students' learning. So here's hoping that I can manage to move from the problematic "mixed bag" approach to the (hopefully successful) democratic approach. I just wish I had realized the problem sooner. Sometimes it's hard to see what should be in front of your own face, especially when what you hear from others is that you are improving. But it's never to late to make a change (and I haven't even finished my second year of teaching so it's not that late in the game), so I'm going to do my best to make it now.

Thoughts on Articles

So I've recently subscribed to ASCD's "SmartBrief," which sends you headlines and links to the "most important" education articles/news every day. I came across 3 different articles today that really made me think.

1) "Teaching Secrets: Organizing Middle Schoolers"

Organization is something I really struggle with. I tend to either be very disorganzed or hyper-organized to ensure that I'm not disorganized. I tried a new system this year to see if it would work better than just using a notebook last year. I asked them all to get binders, and that really fell through since the principal ordered the district-created workbooks (which I had said I didn't want but have actually been insanely convenient so far). A binder and a workbook was just too much to give them every day, as these are REALLY thick workbooks.

It's been a lot easier on me and them with the workbooks, as all the worksheets are already in there in order. Last year they would lose print-outs or would write in the notebook all out of order. Having the pages already in there makes it so much easier for me to grade and really keeps them from losing anything. Of course, getting print-outs in there is annoying - you either staple or tape and it just wastes time. So I ordered some of those 3-clip pocket folders, and I'm hoping to hand those out next week (or the week after, I think) to use for bellwork sheets and other worksheets that we work on. They can place the folder inside the workbook, and they can be collected together every day at the end of class and passed out the next day - I think that should hopefully work well. *crosses fingers*

Anyway, the suggestions in the article I thought were rather helpful, though some were ones I alread utilize.
1)I've fallen through on checking agendas, so I'm going to need to reinforce that soon, especially with the changes in the ECE (special-ed) workings. I'm going to have some new kids in that will REALLY need the organizational help, and so it will be a good chance to hit everybody and figure out who doesn't have an agenda (I think I know one in my homeroom already).
2) I've got the class website and the binder for make-up work, so that's good. It needs some re-emphasis, though, as there are some kids who are just not making up the work. When I collected bellwork sheets yesterday, though, I had several over at the computer at the last minute filling in the missed dates, so that's good - they were using it to get their work done.
3) I like the idea of the IOU board, but I don't have a lot of posting space in my room, and I just don't even know where I'd put something like that. And I just worry that I wouldn't be able to keep up with it. It's something to think on at least, especially for bigger projects (tests and the like).
4) In related news, I DO need to keep up with the table of contents sheet - I need to laminate a piece of poster board and post that to let the kids know what should be completed and where it should be. That will go along with getting them folders, but I think it will have to have 2 Tables of Contents - one for the folder and one for the workbook, which hopefully will not be too confusing for them.

2) "School Boards Debate Sex-Offender Access"

This was an interesting issue. Obviously as a teacher I worry about the safety of my kids - from outsiders, from insiders, from each other, sometimes even from their families. We have the "Stranger Danger" lady come in every year with members of her organization, and she talks to the kids about keeping themselves safe. It's incredibly important. But what about parents and their child's sporting/whatever events. Sex-offenders aren't just child molesters, and what if a person has totally turned their life around? What about how this is punishing the child for their parent's past criminal, horrible act? And then, on the other hand, a voice says in my head "are you freaking kidding me? Letting people around kids that we know can do wrong?" Of course, if that's one's thought - why are they even allowed around their own children? They have to stay away from all children but their own - that just seems really rather hypocritical. Overall, though, it made me think, but I'm really not sure what to think. Do they make exceptions on a case-by-case basis? Or no exceptions? Or all people with their kids? I really don't know.

3) "Creating Readers, Part I"

As a person who continually struggles while teaching reading (I know very little about how to actually teach it, as I'm a science teacher), this was something that just amazed me. 40 books! I don't even know what to say. It's an amazing expectation, and that the lowest any kid had ever read was 22 is even more so. I admire what she's done, and I really wish I could capture even just a little bit of that ability.

I like that she's got a huge classroom library, that she reads aloud books they like, that she gets them to read independently. But I was confused at how she balances out independent reading and shared reading (i.e. the whole class or a group reading one novel). At first it seemed that they only read independently, and then she mentioned "share-reading" where the students read along. So they obviously do both, but I would really love to know the logistics. I'm hoping to get novels so that we all start off the day with independent reading of the same book, but I don't really know how to balance out giving them a chance to read on their own, making sure that we/they can discuss the books (and so are thus at a similar place in the narrative), and modeling reading by reading aloud. How does one manage all 3 without having kids miss portions of the book or get bored because they've heard/read the same section multiple times?

What makes us and our teaching effective?

While Richard Allington's "Effective Teachers, Effective Instruction," I decided I was going to respond about "managed choice" (p. 278) and the importance of self-reflection (p. 279, #1), but then I read the following line as I finished up the essay:
"We can continue to craft curricular plans that will ensure some students will have to struggle. Or we can craft curricular plans that reduce the struggle for almost all students." (p. 287)

This brought - unsurprisingly - the differentiated instruction conference to mind. This is what good teaching is about. As teachers of our students, we must recognize that they all come into our classrooms at different places, and that they have different prior knowledge and different abilities. We need to find out where they are and who they are in order to figure all this out. We can't teach toward the middle and hope everyone does okay or teach toward the top and say that our high expectations will win out. We need to have the same expectations for all (everyone can and will be able to know, understand, and do x, y, and z), but we need to scaffold them up from wherever they are. Give everyone an equitable fighting chance - they all deserve it.

However, I have to say that I disagree with Allington's wording here. Struggle in the classroom is not an innately bad thing - students can engage more with a topic and learn more about it if they have to struggle with the issues and their depths in order to gain an understanding. However, we must ensure that they have the tools, the abilities, the motivation, and the encouragement to make them capable of winning; we must ensure that they have the self-efficacy to know that they can win the struggle and also have the desire to do so. It's hard to find a balance - when is it too easy? when is it too hard? - when we are trying to differentiate for our different students, but I think that it is vitally necessary.

Writing Strategies

I thought that pairing the writing strategies from Content Area Writing: Every Teacher's Guide with new technology tools was a really effective way to encompass these important issues. All the new things that I've been learning have become rather overwhelming - differentiated instruction at the ASCD conference, technology from EDTP 504 and EDTP 620, reading/writing from EDTP 620, etc. It's so much new and exciting information that a girl can have a little trouble juggling it all.

Recognizing that we can pair these new (to us) strategies and tools together makes utilizing them a lot more feasible; it allows us to start small (the best way to make effective change) and still start off with more than one new idea. Additionally, it allows us to show our kids that these areas can be paired together, that reading and writing go hand-in-hand with technology, that they can go hand-in-hand and make what we do more successful than if we approached them separately.

I think that book trailers work in a similar way. They make a connection between technology and reading, and in this case technology does heighten the reading as it promotes it and can also send a message about reading itself. It opens people's eyes to let them see that we can respond to reading via technology - whether it's through blogging, podcasts, book trailers, you tube reviews, or anything else. The two (reading and technology) are in no way separate.

Differentiating Instruction Conference

I had all these images of posting from the conference about the many, many, many things I learned. But conference sessions and school bonding got in the way a bit. There were so many connections to be made between our class and differentiation, and I was able to make some new mental connections as well as have some "a-ha" moments. For example, 2 other teachers at my school and the principal went to a session just on RAFTs, and I was able to say that I already knew what they were. The same with many of the technology applications - the LA teacher on the other team was much impressed with my and Kristin's book trailer.

But beyond these a-ha moments, I was able to make those new connections. I hadn't realized how easily so much of what we learned about reading, writing, and technology strategies could lead so easily into differentiated instruction. Different products allowed, different processes (allowing them to use different strategies), different ways of starting off. I really think that what we've learned in this class has just opened my eyes to the many possibilities that there are for me to use in teaching. I am really excited to implement them all as I piece together the way that reading, writing, technology, differentiated instruction, classroom climate/management, and my content all fit together - teaching for me and hopefully learning for my students will be a lot more interesting and successful next year.

Reading, Writing, and Science

I came to the conclusion today while reading about great strategies to improve the performance of underachieving adolescents* that I have some sort of block in my brain surrounding science and literacy. We have learned about so many great strategies in this class this month, and I am really excited about the possibilities of using them in my classroom. I want to make my science students better readers/writers in general, as well as better science readers/writers. And yet... Every time I read about something in the texts or hear about something in class, my first thought is: what a great idea for reading enrichment class. Not for my 4 sections of science, but for my lone reading enrichment class.

I'm not really sure what it is. I know that these strategies would work great for my kids in science, but I can never quite grasp how to utilize it. I believe this is the same for many science and math teachers. With all the content we need to teach, the basing of our testing around so many facts, and the way that we've been taught to learn science, we just can't make that final step to where we need to be in this world of 21st century literacy. I could say that writers need to include more examples from science and math classes (and I think they do), but in part it's me - us - just being stuck in how we were socialized to learn and teach our content.

The question I'm left with then is: how do I break free? Because I need to, and at the moment I just can't figure out how.

*(Yvette Jackson & Eric J. Cooper, "Building Academic Success with Underachieving Adolescents")

Chew on This

I am going to try to keep this short(ish), in contrast to my general verbosity.

I really enjoyed the book - I had a really hard time putting it down, and now that I've been done with it for almost a week, I still keep thinking about it. It just really resonated with me, and I was just disturbed by the pervasiveness of this issue. There are just so many problems with it all: marketing to kids, "Americanization" of the world, obesity, animal maltreatment, the economic exploitation of farmers/ranchers/etc, the pollutive effect of bringing food from so far away...

It came to my mind while perusing the "nature market" and organic fruit/veg section at the Kroger. I was looking at some organic cherries, and they'd been shipped all the way from California. Wasting of gas and the inevitable pollution even though they were organic. And who knows what the working conditions of the pickers were and how much the orchard owners made before selling to the company. Even the Stonyfield Farms yogurt that I bought (which is made back home in New Hampshire with no artificial anything) used up a lot of resources getting here to Kentucky...I know the 2-day trip well. Though their business practices look quite good, wouldn't it be better - more environmentally concious - to buy local yogurt?

But is there even local yogurt? And for what local stuff there is (Kroger had bread made in a local bakery)...what do we know about the ingredients they use? Where did their wheat come from?

How can we possibly get it right in a world taken over by corporations and monopolies?

"Of Times, Teens, and Books"

I have to say that by the time I got to the end of this chapter, I was so interested and enthralled in the multiple ideas and changes described that I'd completely forgotten what I'd just read in chapter five. We had already talked in class about graphic novels, and I read Maus (books one and two) when I myself was in middle school (in social studies class, actually, even with us using an interdisciplinary unit with english class).

The change in the way young adult literature is written is just so amazingly exciting. Multimodal, multigenre, multivoice - YA writers and the teachers that use these books are revolutionizing literature itself. We are on the way to throwing "the western canon" out on it head. While there are canonical books that I do believe are incredibly worthwhile reads - Catcher in the Rye and The Lord of the Flies are two - the heirarchy of literature was just as bad as any heirarchy. By devaluing certan types of literature we were devaluing certain parts of culture and certain people. We were saying to our kids that they weren't readers unless they read x, y, and z. What a way to turn kids off on reading.

With works like the ones Lesesne describes, we are catching our students right where they exist and making readers out of them (or reinforcing their existence as such). This is 21st century literacy, baby - there's more to it than dusty old books. That is great for everybody, not just for our kids.

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Additionally, I really love the idea of book playlists - not only using the author-provided ones but having kids create their own. The former enhances the process of reading, comprehension, and understanding for our students, but the latter requires that higher order thinking that is so important for our students' success. They have read the book, "read" the music they listen to, and then find a way to connect the two. A person has to develop a in-depth understanding of character/scene/event/etc and the music to do.

This whole idea brings to mind a really great piece of fiction I came across online. There was the text itself, but there were also images, video, and music. The multimodality really enhanced the final product.

Understanding Language

In my 6 years at a small private school, I spent several years doing weekly vocabulary/spelling tests throughout the entire school year (except for 10th and 12th grades). We were given 10 words on Monday and went over them as a class. On Friday we were tested on our ability to spell the words, define the words, and use each of them in a sentence. I think this is a valuable activity that is getting lost in the morass of portfolios and testing skills. Our team language arts teacher started off with spelling tests at the beginning of the year, but she ended up not following through because "the kids just weren't doing well and so it was a waste of time" (in the words of our team special ed teacher).

But if Janet Allen is right, the study of words is important. More than just how to spell them, but learning what they mean as well. If our students don't understand key words in a text, how can they comprehend it? The answer is, of course, that they can't, not beyond the surface level anyway. Vocabulary is especially important in my own content, science, because there are so many specialized words...or, even harder, words that my students do know (like population or community) that aren't used in science in the same manner as they are in the wider (here's an example right now) educational community.

So we need to fnd a happy medium between the too and accentuate it with effective, efficient strategies. Not learning vocabulary at all is unacceptable and unhelpful, but learning 10 random words - or 10 words off of a "words that 6th graders need to know" list - isn't the best strategy either. We need to connect the vocabulary to the context of the current class topic of study as well as giving the words further real-world context; students need to understand that there is a real-world context/reason for learning vocabulary.

I have to say that I really appreciate this chapter because it not only shed light on my own education as a secondary school student but also on how the study of vocabulary was done in the structured Read XL class I taught this year (learn the word so you can do the reading). I really appreciate reading something that gives me insight on my own teaching practices. I just have to admit that while I find it very easy to apply all these readings to my reading enrichment class (Read XL), I'm still struggling with the issue of application in my science classroom.

BPR chs 4&15: You need flow before you can (want to) understand

Wilhelm and Smith devote their chapter to the issue of inquiry. I find this particularly interesting because the science modules that I teach with in Jefferson County are based on inquiry learning. We are asking questions and finding answers. There's interesting hands-on activities that we do, but the question I have at times is "what is the question," the big overarching one? We would perform the activities and do the work, and it often seemed that they weren't really comprehending the meaning of what they saw. There was no over-arching question that held all this material together, and that left me struggling along with them, as I couldn't recall ever learning about geology (even when I was in middle school). This wasn't even real inquiry learning as Wilhelm and Smith define it; we were "just moving from one activity to the next," or at least the scaffolding and reinforcement I was doing wasn't enough to make it more than that in their minds (235).

Wilhelm and Smith have, in some way, illuminated the problem for me. I need to find the question, that thing that holds it all together, and make it something that seems relevant and genuinely important to my students. At the moment, I really have no idea how to do that with rocks, but at least it gives me a starting point. I can go from there to "build[ing] over time" (235) as W&S recommend to make the unit meaningful, engaging, and something that my students will actually understand (in the Keene sense) and remember.

Now if only Jefferson County would take into account that we need to "move beyond the idea that all students must study the same thing at the same time" (Keene, 37). Of course, the desire for them to do that all across the district is exactly one reason why they bought the modules in the first place.

Note: It occurs to me now that writing a post that is critical of the district I work for - and really love - is not the best thing to do. I really have no desire to get dooced.

But the modules really are handy - I love all the materials and movies provided with them, and they were a lifesaver for a first year teacher. We can only criticize what we care about, right? And considering all this should make me a much better educator in the future.

Alterna-Lit

The experience with the RAFT assignments today was really intriguing (and fun!). It was interesting to hear about the different assignments: the apostrophe writing a persuasive letter to the comma on how it was just as important and could be just as formal; the color red writing to the public on its importance in art and life; a fetus writing a speech to its mother about mercury poisoning in fish (or the fish writing a letter/speech to the companies producing mercury waste). These were all really creative ways for kids to get engaged in a topic, show what they know, and express an opinion.

It would have stayed on my list of things to try in my classroom next year, and I might not have made any more mention of it until then. But then I heard Brad Paisley's "Alcohol" on the radio on my way home. It's a song written from the pov of alcohol about its influence not only on individual lives but history as well. It really got me thinking - these creative ideas are more than just ways to get our students engaged; they're out there in the larger world saying something to a lot more people than just class of students or someone's teacher. They got out there because this alternative format allows the information to get across in a different way that can have a much larger effect on an audience than a five paragraph essay.

Like the poem we read in class that was far better at achieving the final goal than the same student's five paragraph essay, or Taylor Mali's slam poem "What Teachers Make," these more authentic formats are what we need to have our students do. They are what we need to use to have our students learn. A textbook may be the easiest way to get across as much information as policy makers have decided our students need to know about science - or whatever our content area is - but that's not the best way.

It was a convergence of forces that made me have this realization about reading and writing in science. The coincidence of that song coming on the radio at just the right time allowed Brad Paisley to activate my new knowledge, my new schema, and make that connection. I don't have a typical textbook. I don't need a typical textbook. What I need is to figure out how to integrate these new aspects of 21st century literacy, these more authentic uses of literacy, into my science classroom - that's what I need to do.

ETA: examples (ideas from here)
R: planet
A: advertisement readers (or something more creative?)
F: personal ad
T: description of self

R: Mountain (landform)
A: Canyon (another landform)
F: Journal entry
T: How it was formed

Flattening the World thorugh the New Literacy

As a person with multiple blogs, a youtube account, a facebook account, a digital camera, two laptops, and many other assorted pieces of what make up our new technological world, I had realized the importance of teaching our students how to utilize technology. However, the idea that this technology itself is part of our framework of literacy is not something that had coalesced in my brain until just now. Jim Burke outlined that use of discussion boards in the chapter, and I remembered using something similar for English, Women's/Gender Studies, and Biology classes in undergrad; I thought of it then as a tool for discussion, and it is, but it's also more. Technology has its own type or branch of literacy, and it's extended our traditional understanding of literacy - or at least it should. I'm still struggling with this idea, of how it all really clicks together, but I think this process of stumbling to understand is important. Because when I finally do have that epiphany, that moment where it all clicks, it will resonate all the more after my confusion.

I think that all of our teachers need to grapple with this issue and the changing nature of literacy and all education and learning and thought and knowledge in our "brave new world" (165... the amazing Aldous Huxley before that). Alison said it herself in her EDTP 504 blog: "what is important is not always easy." In fact, what is important is often what's hardest for us to understand, and that struggle to understand adds an extra depth to our knowledge. The point I'm trying to make is that we as teachers need to struggle and work to expand our understanding of literacy so that we will be successful in this flattened world and can help our students be the same. We and they cannot afford to fall behind.

Of course, now comes the issue that Lauren brought up in her blog: how do we figure out what is "enough" for us to teach our students? How do we figure out what it is they really need to know? How do we stay on the "cutting edge" when we things change so fast that we can't figure out what and where the cutting edge is?

21st Century Literacy vs. The Current "Measure of Our Success"

I will admit that I left class with a similar feeling to Maria's as she noted in her blog tonight. I wasn't sure what we were meant to understand by "adolescent literacy" - I assumed that we would need to consider how reading other than what is found in textbooks and writing other than the answers to the questions at the end of those chapters. How would we incorporate stories and novels and such into my classroom? I thought about how I read The Magic School Bus: Lost in Space to my 6th grade science students before they began their planet projects, and I wasn't sure how you would ramp that up and how it would really fit in with the science modules Jefferson County mandates for their middle school science classrooms. And while I'm still unsure on the issue of how I will fit literacy into my own classroom, I recognize that it's far more than reading science-related stories together to enhance my students' learning.

In particular, it threw my issues with my reading enrichment class into a revealing light. I was assigned a group of students about 2 years below grade level in reading, and I was to use Scholastic's reading program Read XL to help my students learn the reading/writing skills they lacked. They were supposed to read through series of short stories, each section devoted to a different skill but with the exact same structure as all the previous sections. They were bored out of their minds and totally uninterested (as was I), and because of that they were not engaged in learning. Like with Collin in chapter 1 of Adolescent Literacy, my students did not connect with their subscribed "low-level" reading class. They sense that the administrator's - and by extension I as a new science teacher who had no idea how to teach reading - are "just completely out of it" and have "no clue" what they're capable of (10), and so they don't connect and they don't engage. Not only do we need to teach our kids more than simple academic literacy skills (i.e. 21st century literacy skills), we need to treat them with respect. Not only are these "catch them up" texts not engaging, they send a message that keeps our students turned off - "we don't expect you to be able to learn and utilize literacy skills in anything more complex than a short story." That doesn't do anything for their learning or their self image.