Measuring Growth in a Language Arts Student

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As my second week of summer vacation comes to an end, I find myself scratching my head and wondering where the summer is going so quickly. Ahhh, such is life. Right now I can’t help thinking about measuring the growth of students in a Language Arts classroom. The Michigan Department of Education and our beloved state government (Sense the sarcasm there?) wants to measure our ability as effective teachers based on the growth in our students. The measurement for this growth will come from a combination of things. One of them being standardized testing. Now, what that test will be is still yet to be determined. In addition, I am confident saying that part of the growth needs to be proven by the teachers as well. Currently a major portion of the teachers at my school give a pre-test at the beginning of the year and then a post test at the end of the year. To be honest with you, I don’t have a real issue with this process. A pre and post test can be beneficial for a math teacher. I have always argued that quantitative data can be used more for math and science. However, it doesn’t work necessarily for a Language Arts classroom. As a language arts teacher I am looking for the qualitative data that can only be found in my student’s writing. Giving students grammar sheet homework daily and the mundane drill and kill exercises only turns them off and I don’t feel it clearly measures their abilities or their growth. When it comes to reading nothing turns me off more than seeing a worksheet packet given with a novel. No wonder our students don’t want to read. Would you want to read knowing every time you did, the worksheet packet was looming over your head? Kelly Gallagher talks about this in his book Readacide.

The argument that I have had in the past with colleagues is I can’t input data into a data collecting system when it doesn’t measure what my students can really do or what they have learned over a school year. It is impossible for me to do that with a student and their writing. On the other hand, I know I can give my students a typical comprehension test over what they read; that is easy. But does it really give me accurate feedback on how my students have grown? I think not. Though I could debate about a student’s growth in reading and find some tools to help me, I am more interested in the writing portion.

Recently, before the school year ended, I met with two of our high school English teachers to discuss Google docs and Schoology. As the meeting progressed we discussed how to measure growth in our students and what is the best way to achieve our goal. We all agreed that writing portfolios are the best way to show the growth in our student writers. We are going to take it one step further and next year we are all going to have the students do digital portfolios. We will use Google docs seeing how our school is going to Google apps. Students can simply make a folder in Google Docs and then take the portfolio with them each year. Obviously you can get more complex with the idea of a digital portfolios. Visit http://www.michiganportfolios.org to see examples, resources, etc. It is a super site for getting started with this idea. I am attending my second workshop in 2 years in August on the idea and I hope I can get it fully implemented next school year. This past year I only began the process and didn’t fully execute it. My principal is in full support of us doing this from middle school to high school and I believe it will be a true reflection on how the students grow as writers. I will publish some blog posts on the subject as I go through the process.

Cheers!

Letting My Students See Me Struggle

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It has been some time since my last post and I apologize to my readers. Fortunately, I have been working on other writing that can benefit me professionally. Today dealing with 21st century learners can be a bit of a challenge for us in the language arts world. It isn’t enough to simply say to today’s learners that class is going to be fun or the topic we are going to write about is going to be of interest to you. Let’s face it, teaching students, especially middle schoolers how to write is a challenge. You add the CCSS to that equation, we now have to be more prepared in our classrooms to teach our students. As I have been spending an absorbent amount of time writing these last 3 weeks, I have given a lot of thought about how to make my students better writers. Though I am confident I do a solid job modeling for my students what I want to see out of their writing, I have failed to show them one side of me as a writer. I have failed to show my students the times I have stumbled or struggled with my own writing. All of the writing my students have viewed that belongs to me have been either finished or close to a finished product.

As I continue to find new ways to better myself as a teacher of writing and my students, I have realized they need to know about the times I struggle and what I have done to overcome those moments. Since the end of April I have been working on a book proposal and as my Thursday night writing group critiqued me and gave me valuable feedback last week, I knew I had to go back and do some major revision to my writing and make my voice more present in my writing. My audience needed to hear me and not a superficial voice that didn’t represent me or my writing. This has been somewhat of a struggle for me, but I have persevered. Then, I remembered, I didn’t share this particular uncomfortable adventure with my students. So, when I return to school, I will take the time to talk to my students about how I struggled with my writing.

So, why do I feel this is important for not just me, but other teachers to do in their classrooms? First, if I want my struggling writers to take the risk of making a mistake, they need to see me, the teacher/expert make mistakes and know that I am a human being who struggles with writing from time to time. I feel there are language arts teachers out there who find it easy to stand in front of a classroom and bark at their students about how a piece of writing should be constructed, but the teacher themselves don’t show how they go through the writing process and discuss with students how they struggle with certain parts of their own writing. Show them your not perfect. Second, modeling is by far one of the most important aspects of teaching. On the other hand, if a teacher actually writes with their students, they send a clear message to their students; writing is important! In my professional opinion, writing with your students is the best form of modeling a teacher can display for their students.

Finally, I want to leave my readers with this final thought, especially if you are a language arts teacher. Think about how many times your have shared your own writing with your students. It can be visually, or orally. If you don’t regularly do this in your classroom, I encourage you to start now. I don’t care if it is nearing the end of the year and you are trying to squeeze in the last of those curriculum requirements, share your writing. There are a lot teachers who lack the confidence to share there writing. I completely understand your position, but we need to be learners too and allow our students to catch a glimpse of what goes on inside of our heads. Who knows, we may gain some valuable insight from our students about our own writing. If a writing workshop classroom is what you desire, you will never gain your students trust if you don’t share your own writing. By sharing our own writing students are not so reluctant to share their writing and we as teachers might learn more about our students, other than the obvious fact they are language arts students in our classroom.

Cheers!

I got My Middle Schoolers to Like Reading and Lived to Tell About it!

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It’s almost May, we are all wrapping up the end of the school year and for some of us, we are already dreaming about the summer days on the beach with a margarita in hand. For this teacher, I am getting increasingly sad as the days go by.

This year has been by far my most successful year when it has come to reading and writing. I have more students reading on their own. Furthermore, I see them having conversations about books without me prompting them. I am not a magician, but boy do I have a lot of students reading on their own this year and they are always wanting to talk about books. Though I am going to share insights into my classroom and some of the ideas I use in my classroom, it may not work for all.

1. Oral read to your middle school students. The idea was introduced to me this past fall during a professional development session I attended on Twitter called #titletalk. Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp co-lead the PD on the last Sunday of each month. I chose to read The Hunger Games to my students and I had countless students check out my copies of the 2nd and 3rd book, not to mention I had countless students order the books through Scholastic. They could not get enough and we had multiple conversations about the books. I even witnessed students talking about it at lunch.

2. Bring in authors. As my 7th graders finished up the myth and legends unit, I was able to bring in a Michigan author by the name of Frank Holes Jr. He talked to the students about the dogman myth and legend that exist here in Michigan and how he was inspired as a writer. It gave the students a unique opportunity to ask an author why he writes. Using a Michigan author helped keep costs down for my school. If costs are a concern, consult your student council leader for help, your librarian, and your principal. Boxtops for Education could potentially help too. I strongly believe this also showed my students that writers are real people instead of individuals who are untouchable.

3. Visit your school library. Early on I coordinated with my librarian for my middle school students to visit the library every two weeks. As the school year progressed, we have not visited it as often, but I still have students who request to go to the library to check out books. In addition, my librarian has done an excellent job of asking staff members, especially the language arts teachers, to give her book suggestions. She has taken our suggestions and put more books on the shelves for the students.

4. Read with your students. Every Monday we have designated time for our students to do silent reading and I make it a point to read with them. As teachers, we can’t preach to our students, especially middle schoolers, to read and not model it ourselves.

I could list a ton of other strategies for teachers to use. In addition to the four strategies I have listed, I am a firm believer in giving enough choices to both boys and girls in your classroom to be successful. More importantly, having a lot of choices when it comes to books is detrimental to their success.

Cheers!

Struggling with Research at the Middle School Level

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When my students return from spring break next week they will be embarking on the research portion of the year. The past few weeks I have really struggled with the term “research paper”. Though I see the purpose of doing a research paper, I am not sure having my students turn in a 4-5 page “research paper” is best practice. To be more clear, I am thinking about my 7th grade classes.

My 8th graders, on the other hand, do a multi-genre research project which I absolutely love and I love their enthusiasm about the project. It also falls under the CCSS because one of the Common Core Standards is doing a “research project”. Please see my multi-genre project on Digital Is. The easy solution would be for my 7th graders to do the multi-genre project as well, but with different expectations. The reason I am not considering this option is because I do not want to grade over 110 projects that could include up to 6 pieces of writing. I wouldn’t sleep this spring if I decided to take this route.

Regardless of what direction I go in, I know that I am going to have an absorbant amount of paperwork and I am fine with knowing this, but having 5 classes doing a multi-genre research project could have the potential of me grading over 500 pieces of writing. WOW! What I really struggle with is knowing if I am going to reach students. In my district, if I don’t do some sort of research with my students, they will not see it again until 11th grade. Besides, I know that I have too. And it would seem with the CCSS, my colleagues at the high school level would have to as well. Why do we do a research paper anyways? I ofter wonder how dumb of a question that really is or do others have this thought too.

At our last department meeting I asked what is the value of a research paper and we had a really great conversation about how it isn’t the paper itself that is important for the students, but rather it is the process that the students go through. For example, students should know how to research effectively, they should know how to site sources and give credit where credit is due, and they need to be able to clearly convey what they learned from that research. So, my question is can I get students to show this without it being a 4-5 page “research paper”? Or is it in the best interest of the students to change my attack on this particular genre of writing. I am a huge advocate for technology being used in the classroom. Google Docs would be a start in the right direction. In addition, I am considering letting the students use cell phones to help with their research. I will explain what my thinking is on that in a later blog post.

So, I wonder, what are other middle school teachers doing in the realm of the research? What are others doing in their classroom? Are there other teachers out there that feel the same as I do? I would love to hear feedback and suggestions. More to come…

Cheers!

Cell Phone Policies

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Okay now that I have somewhat of a routine down with our newest family member, it is time to empty this brain of mine. For those of you who read my blog, prepare for a wave of blog posts this week and next. My brain needs some major dumping and blogging is where it is at!

Recently my principal asked me for my input on our districts cell phone policy. Since the second half of last year, I have been using cell phones in my classroom from time to time as a digital writing tool. This year it has really taken off with the use of Celly. As a result of engaging my 21st century learners and knowing that today’s “screenagers” are “wired”, my principal is looking to make a change. On the other hand, the misuse of cell phones is another cause for my principal to re-examine our policy. It is not just misuse by the students either, it is misuse by the adults, the so called professionals. Now, I am just as guilty as the next person when it comes to checking my phone to see who texted me or emailed me. However, to check my phone and to be on it for an extended amount of time, is different. Just sayin!

Though I have not sent anything in writing to my principal, I have been diligintly thinking about how a school district can find a perfect balance between discipline and usage in the classroom when drafting a cell phone use policy. Some questions to ponder are: Does a school district involve parents when trying to determine a policy? If it takes a community to raise a child, shouldn’t we at least consider what parents have to say with the clear understanding that the school board, administrators, and teachers have the final say? Second, what about the student’s input? In my opinion, students are going to abide by a policy if they are the ones that helped construct it. Obvisously you can’t have every student participate. I think starting with a small survery for students about the use of cell phones in a school setting would be an excellent start. On the other side of the coin, consulting teachers and support staff about changing the policy will provide any district with a substantial number of people who can help develop and draft a policy.

With the help of many different people, I believe it is vital to think about appropriate times students can use a cell phones. In addition, we need to consider the appropriate times adults can use cell phones. Composing a list of safe digital sites associated with cell phone use can help ensure teachers such as myself that cell phones can continue to be used in the classroom as a digital tool. Then, there is the issue of consequences for those students and teachers who do not abide by the rules. Many schools confiscate phones for a day or contact parents. Whatever the punishment, it should be enforced and students, as well as teachers, should clearly understand their boundries.

With all this being written, I may be leaving some things out. I am certain that I am. However, I just want to make everyone think about the current policies in place at their school/district. I strongly believe that a policy, like a piece of writing, is never finished. It will continue to be a work in progress and should be revisted before the start of every school year to be revised. I am confident a majority of schools will be revising their cell phone policies in the future for the good of the cause. If your school doesn’t have a policy and you don’t know where to start, consult school districts around you to see what they have in place and use theirs as a stepping stone.

Cheers!

Enhancing the Classroom With Digital Modeling

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The last few days I have been thinking about technology and how it is truly playing a major role in the classroom. I watched a segment on 60 minutes on Sunday about the Kahn Academy and I read an article yesterday I believe in the Washington Post about teaching kids to be digital citizens. First, I want to make it clear I am not going to ramble on about Kahn Academy. I know for a fact it upsets a lot of people and the idea of flipping the classroom is still in its infant stages or at least I feel that it is. It seems to me there are still some things wrong with the idea and I am not going to get into that here. The only comment I want to make about Kahn Academy is it doesn’t do any modeling of reading and writing in the online sessions. Enough said there.

The other day I sat down and had lunch with my mentor and colleague. I had to give a lot of thought about our conversation prior to our lunch. Despite the fact we want our students to use technology, and there definitely is a place for technology in our student’s lives, we need to remember we are the adults and the teacher. It is true, there are too many adults, including educators that are whipping out their phones and checking them in class, professional development, and while they are in line at the grocery store. I am not saying I am innocent of these accusations from time to time, but what is frustrating is watching professionals who scold students every day about being on their cell phone or keeping their cell phone put away, and then seeing these same adults pull out their cell phone during a professional development session and vigorously text, surf the Internet, or play games. We can’t hold our students to expectations that we ourselves are not willing to follow. It seems digital natives have not been given proper instructions on how to handle the devices they come into contact with each and every day. Essentially, they need digital modeling by teachers, parents, and other important adults in their lives.

In my opinion, if we as educators are crying to use more technology in our classroom, we need to model for our students when it is appropriate. Just today I heard on the news that 62% of students ages 6-15 are more likely to find the answer to a question on Google rather than ask their parents. Upon asking my students about what was more accessible, the Internet or their parents, it is evident students rely more and more on the internet. As troubling as this might seem, we still have a responsibility to teach today’s youth how to be responsible digital citizens. After all, technology and digital tools are meant to enhance our student’s learning, they are not meant to be a toy plopped in front of them for entertainment purposes.

Cheers!

Project-Based Learning for 21st Century Learners

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Though I wanted to blog about my second day at the MACUL conference in Michigan, I couldn’t really bring myself to write anything worthy of posting. So, I began to think about the morning session I attended on project-based learning this morning. It reminded of the conversation I was a part of last night with my writing group. My writing group colleague wrote a piece about how students today are just settling for being average. If you don’t know already, being average is not going to cut it in today’s society. I share my colleagues frustration. To many times I see students just settling for “good enough”. I have often thought of altering my grading scale so if students met the requirements of the assignment, they only earned a “C” grade. It would only be when the learner went above and beyond those requirements would they earn an “A” grade. Anyways, it seems no matter how high our expectations are within our classroom, the students still aren’t pushing there thinking outside of the box.

I wonder if there could be something said about project-based learning with our 21st century learners. Now, let me be honest, I am just beginning to dabble into the realm of project-based learning. At best, I know very little. I do, however, understand the idea behind it and I have seen it work. In addition, my mother-in-law taught project-based learning in alternative education and had success. From what I understand it allows the students to collaborate, inquire, be challenged, think critically, and have the opportunity to have real world connections. Yes, I like all of these and if this is what is going to help my 21st century learners become a better global citizen and more competitive for the job market, I want to at least try it. I did like how the presenters warned this is not the shoe box project at the end of a unit and I can see where that misconception happens. They also shared a Creative Commons video that stated we do operate in a world of projects. To me, that does make sense.

I am seriously considering doing a trial run of project-based learning in my classroom next year. I still need to get my feet wet. I do see the potential for project-based learning being way to do thematic units across the curriculum. Furthermore, integrating technology could enhance students learning within their projects. Having a laptop to use within their groups and composing through Google Docs. Also, they can collaborate about websites through Diigo. I think there are numerous possibilities with incorporating technology.

I am not certain project-based learning is the total answer to getting our students to do more critical thinking or even go beyond “average”. However, I do feel it has real world application and can be implemented into a 21st century classroom where rigor needs to be ramped up.

Cheers!

Not Too Much: Slowly Approaching the 21st Century Classroom

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Moodle, Google Docs, Glogster, Edmodo, WordPress, Blogger, Vimeo, Diigo, and Wikis. Are you out of breath yet? If your not, you are one of the 21st century educators who are implementing digital tools into their classrooms. If you are just laying foot to path and beginning your journey into all of the wonderful digital tools that have the potential to transform your classroom, the choices can be a bit overwhelming. This is just one of the many thoughts I had yesterday attending the pre-conference sessions at MACUL. As I sat through a moodle and a web publishing session, I began to wonder what my prospective would have been if I was new to all of this. Rocking in the corner with my arms wrapped around my legs came to mind. It wasn’t that long ago when I went through the summer writing institute and our director Troy Hicks gave us a plethora of digital tools to use. There were days I had anxiety, but everything in the end worked out. I get excited about challenges and persevered through it all. I honestly believe teachers can transform their classrooms into 21st century portals where the students can once again be excited about learning.

So, how do you begin with this barrage of digital tools being thrown at you? First, simply start by picking just one tool to implement into your classroom. A great colleague of mine Kevin Hodgson commented to me about students and technology users alike are leaving “digital debris”, meaning we try new things out and think it is great, but then we never use that tool again. Students and users have created accounts, used it one time, then never go back. I know I am guilty of doing this very thing this year with Edmodo. By choosing just one tool, you can use it over and over during the school year. Essentially, by the end of the year, your students and you will be become an expert on that tool. Furthermore, you as the leader in the classroom, won’t feel so overwhelmed. Then, the following year you can stretch your zone again and try something new.

Next, after you have chosen the digital tool you want to implement, ask yourself two questions. First, why am I using this in my classroom? Second, why is this tool valuable to my students? The first question was an eye opener for me. I have to thank Troy Hicks again for pushing me in this thinking. Now, I am passing it on to you. Simply using a digital tool because it looks fun or the students like it, aren’t the most important issues here. Some tools are geared towards a language arts classroom, where another one might be more science oriented. In addition, some schools may not have up-to-date technology capabilities that support the tool you want to use. More importantly, with increased rigor and higher order thinking wrapped around the Common Core, it is essential to stop and think about how the tools we are using are helping to develop these very traits within our students.

I leave you with the the advice to go slow, find what is easy and works well for you and your students. We all have to shift our learning styles and our minds to the 21st century and how our classrooms are going to look.

Cheers!

Understanding and Implementing the Common Core

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Michigan is one of many states who have adopted the Common Core National Standards. More and more I read both negative and positive reviews of the CCSS. I am sure the more educators, professionals, and school districts unpack them, there will continue to be the emergence of these types of reviews. It isn’t a secret schools districts will be tested over the CCSS in 2014-2015. To me, schools will not be successful if they plan on implementing and reviewing the standards the year before they are being assessed. I am utterly shocked at the number of schools who have NOT implemented or even looked at the CCSS when my PD partner and I are delivering our breakdown of the informational writing standard. A word of advice to those schools; you better start.

In addition to districts and teachers themselves, I question what is happening at the university and college level in regard to the Common Core. For the past month I have had a mid-tier student in my classroom from a university/college that I will leave nameless in my blog. Mid-tier students have to complete so many hours of observation as part of the teacher-education program. These hours are completed before they begin their student-teaching. I remember having to do the same thing during my undergrad work. Last week my mid-tier and I were having a conversation about a lesson that needed to be taught in my classroom and after establishing it would be a lesson on grammar, I asked what they knew about the CCSS. The response I received just about knocked me down. Though they knew of them, they were not being discussed in the classes they were taking. According to my mid-tier our states Grade Level Content Expectations(GLCE) and something else called the high school content expectations(HSCE) was supposed to be the focus of the students. Now, how is not discussing the Common Core preparing new teachers for the classroom? I asked my mid-tier to go back and ask their teachers about the CCSS and why they weren’t being baptized into the world of the new National Standards.

The following week I had a follow-up conversation with my mid-tier and it according to them there seems to be a lot of finger pointing going on. Education professors are saying the English professors should be covering the CCSS and English professors claim the Education professors should be covering them. It seems we have a failure to communicate people! It’s obvious to me there is a problem. What is it? It’s not being taught. My mid-tier even brought it up in a class and other students wondered too why it wasn’t be addressed with them and the professor told them they wouldn’t be covering it at all. We aren’t doing young teachers-to-be any services if they aren’t being kept up to speed about curriculum and standards. Now, I am not attending these classes my mid-tier is taking, so I don’t know the whole story. All I know is something isn’t stirring the Kool-Aid. I did have an opportunity to fill out an online survey provided by the college/university and expressed my concern pertaining to the Common Core and I did receive an email back and was told my concerns would be addressed.

If individuals are under the impression the CCSS are going away, they are are wrong. The time is now to start thinking and acting and that does include individuals at the college level.

Cheers!

Common Planning Time: Accomplishing Nothing

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Judging by the title of today’s blog post, I am sure people are thinking our common planning time meetings are pointless. Let me clear the air by saying I do believe we have the capability of being productive and, at times, we do incredible work with the hour and fifteen minutes. I work with some amazing teachers and I am no way discrediting or disrespecting them.

Our middle school staff has a very unique situation in being able to have this common planning time where we can all meet at the end of the day to discuss a variety of topics from assessments to lesson plans to discipline issues with students. There are many occasions this time is used for other things. For example, individual student IEPs need to take place, we have a monthly staff meeting during this time, we have department meetings once a month, on certain days teachers need time to correct papers (yes, this includes me), and we even have vendors come in to talk about new products we might be able to use for our school and students. All of the above mentioned are valid reasons for us to miss collaboration time with just ourselves as a staff, and at times, unavoidable. Furthermore, this year has been rather tricky due to new teaching assignments for all of our staff in the middle school.

The days we do meet, we tend to (pardon the expression) bitch about the problems we are having with certain students in our class (again, I am guilty of this too). Others are grading papers while we are meeting, we constantly try to talk over each other and we take advantage of this time to do our own personal chores. What are we doing? I understand we need to vent at times and find out if others are having the same problem, but it doesn’t make the student more successful if we just complain about them. This time needs to be used more wisely.

If we don’t use this time efficiently, we are going to lose the privilege of having a common planning time in future years. Personally and professionally, I want to see this time used to plan cross curricular units and lessons. In addition, I want us to meet about how to make students more successful. We need to be pulling more students in and finding out why they are failing classes or what we can do to make them more successful. We are going to have more students slipping through the cracks if we don’t get a hold of them and help them.

Our own selfish motives constantly come into the picture and it is understandable. It has always been said it takes a community to raise a child. Yes, it does. However, it also takes a teacher, a student, and a parent to educate a child. Not just a teacher, but many teachers. If we want to build relationships with students and at the risk of losing our advisory time next year, this time could be used to help build more relationships with students.

I propose we designate at least 1 day a week to meet as an entire middle school staff. Furthermore, an agenda should be created prior to the days meeting and distributed via email or google doc to allow items to be added. Having an agenda should help to create a more organized atmosphere and keep us on track.

I don’t claim to have all the answers or saying I am not guilty of doing some of the items mentioned. I do know we are heading down the path of negative thoughts and patterns and we need to get back on track and do what is best for our students. I am open to any suggestions from other educators.

Cheers!