I'm baaack

I took some unscheduled time off from this blog as I moved, finished my thesis, settled into a new school, and added a new addition to my family.

I am currently in Orlando, Florida where I am attending the ACTFL conference.  It is awesome, and I have loved meeting so many of my virtual friends.  I made a presentation of how to effectively differentiate instruction in a world language class for visual-spatial learners.

One of my favorite sessions so far has been on embedded readings.  In embedded readings, the teacher edits a story into several nested versions of the same story.  Each version is comprehensible to the students, but adds new levels of complexity.  By the final reading, students are able to read complex stories.  If you would like to learn more about this, go to: www.embeddedreading.com  Another great source for this is www.martinabex.com

It's been a long time

I've been swamped with grad school this semester. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of work that teachers expect from their students all in the name of learning. Why do we turn something so fun into so much drudgery?

And why, oh why, do teachers assign an entire book when the assignment deals with the last three pages? The whole time I'm reading I keep asking myself if I missed something somewhere, if I got the assignment wrong... and no, it's the last three pages. Bah Humbug!

Color me green

Years ago we did a personality color test at a Team Building. There are four colors/categories:
Blue - empathetic
Yellow - organized, linear thinking
Red - improvised, fun loving
Green - researching

Now there is more to it than that. And the idea is to see that each person has levels of each within themselves, that we balance ourselves out but also that we each bring diverse skills to a group.

A group that is composed of all blues will spend a lot of time thinking about what they are saying to avoid hurting each other's feelings.

Yelllows will accomplish a lot, but they won't stop. They also might find themselves arguing a lot as different people all try to be the leader.

If a group is composed of nothing but red they will have a lot of fun, but not actually accomplish much.

Now, the greens will spend so much time researching and reading about the problem they will learn tons, but they won't ever get around to solving the problem - writing the paper, etc.

Now when I took that quiz I came up mostly blue/yellow.

Well, color me green these days. My references pages are longer than my actual papers. I have a paper due tomorrow and I am still searching out more references rather than just sitting down and writing. That's it. I'm cutting myself off. In half an hour.

overachievers

Sometimes an assignment is exactly what it looks like and nothing more. And sometimes, gifted students need help seeing that and breaking down this huge monstrosity into a manageable project. Actually, I bet all students could use that help to a degree.

Here I sit at my computer struggling to write this paper for my class. It is this HUGE paper of epic proportions. I have to write about three people who have made significant contributions to the field of gifted education and what those contributions were. The more research I do, the more lost I feel. I can never write a cohesive paper about this - it is too big! Where do I start? How do I tie it together? In my mind, it is three research papers tied together in name only. The teacher said 3 - 5 pages, but really that won't do, she must have been underestimating...

And then comes my husband who says, it's a 3 -5 page paper. Tie it together with the introduction and the conclusion and separate the body with subject headings. Simplify it. And stop overthinking. Get off the computer, take out a piece of paper and put some form to it be it an outline or a cluster map, get it out of your head onto paper.

Duh. And suddenly, in my mind it is a manageable 7 - 10 page paper. Which is an improvement, if not accurate yet.

And that brings me back to that overachieving slacker phrase my student created. Because that's exactly what I was doing. Because I was making this so MONUMENTAL, I could not even begin.

"overachieving slackers"

That's a quote from one of my students. I love it. So do the kids in his class.

But it's a real issue. My students tend to have such high expectations - either of themselves, or imposed on them from an authority (parents or school) - that they often cannot or choose not to live up to them.

I'm supposed to be writing a research paper right now, but for the life of me I cannot figure out where to start. I'm researching three influential people in the field of gifted education and writing a paper discussing how they have impacted the field.

I selected Renzulli, VanTassell-Baska, and Rimm. Renzulli because everything I read has his name cited somewhere - it seems like he is the foundation for everybody's thoughts whether they like him or hate him. It hardly seems like I can consider myself educated in G/T without being familiar with him to some degree. VanTassell-Baska I originally looked at because my professor recommended her. But having done some preliminary research, she has done some amazing work with curriculum development. Which is one of the directions I want to move towards. I am finding her work very interesting. I was not going to write about Rimm. I wanted to write about Carol Ann Tomlinson instead. But everything I was reading, including my textbook, was either written by or cited Rimm. And she focuses on one of my passion areas: underachievement. Which is how I am finally bringing my thoughts back to what I began with: overachieving slackers.

I find that I cannot skim when I am actually interested in the material. So, I have read now several studies, entire chapters, and even a book just to try to get my head around these three people. And what do I have to show for it? A well-polished essay ready to email to my professor? Not even close. I don't even have a page of notes on each person. What I have to show for it is a mental list of students who are underachievers and fomenting thoughts about how to use the material I have just read to help them suddenly become achievers. My brain is churning about ways to help these students set reasonable goals, show them that effort = achievement, etc.

And the funniest part of this is that I am modeling everything I am trying to get these kids to overcome: overachieving slackerhood. I am so caught up in trying to be a good student, a good teacher, a good parent - in trying to reach each of these students individually, etc. that my paper is due in three days and I have not even begun it yet.

Overachieving slackers are us.

workshop

I went to Blaine Ray's workshop today. I'll have more thoughts about it later, but one thing that really struck me was a comment he made about our brightest students and our fastest processors. He said that we are doing a disservice if we underestimate what they can do and do not insist on their achieving that.

As far as my faster processors, he suggested I skip into the level 2 books. I can still shelter my vocabulary by translating whatever comes up for the slower processors, but those fast processors need that grammatical input.

I already have two higher level novels and the Look I Can Talk More readings, so I believe that I will begin experimenting with more Comprehensible Input (CI) next week.

Professional Development

I am going to Blaine Ray's TPRS workshop tomorrow. I went to one in the Spring, and then a three day workshop this summer. I learned a lot. But now that I am using the method in class I can see a lot of places where I need some polishing and practice and filling in of the gaps - so I am excited to be going - even if it does mean missing out on the class party in the afternoon.

Saturday I begin my first class in my MEd program. My textbook is Education of the Gifted and Talented which I just got today. So far I have been too busy posting on here to read beyond page 3, but I'm excited to be in classes again. Speaking of which, I ought to log off and finish my homework assignment.

differentiation... techniques (content and product)

If students are going to learn different material or doing different products, there are several ways to make this fair, equitable and most of all manageable. The hardest part is always having so many *different* things to grade, that and making sure that students are doing equivalent work. :)

The products are the vehicles students use to show us their knowledge. The content is the material they have learned. I'm putting the two together because they can often go together in practical application.

Sometimes content can be differentiated while the product and skills remain the same, i.e. each student picks the topic of their research paper but all the students are responsible for the same type of research paper. In this case the student chooses the vehicle based on interest, but the skills being taught by the teacher and the product are the same for all students. This means that the teacher expectations and grading rubric remain the same for all students.

RAFT and tiered activities can also work well.

Other Menu activities also work well. In my class I used to require personal projects. Students could choose from a variety of assignments to show me learning and knowledge of the different Spanish speaking countries. Each assignment had its own mini-rubric and point values assigned. Students could choose which assignment to do, but their total points had to equal 40. A 5 point project was to make an accurate flag and provide the population statistics on the back. A 15 point assignment was to prepare a typical dish from that country and bring it in to share with classmates. A 40 point assignment was to write a mini-research paper with at least 3 references cited. Students were able to use their talents and interests and I was able to assess their learning. In addition, the other students were able to benefit from their learning when we shared our work. I always had a category for student choice which required talking to me, making a plan, writing a rubric, and assigning a point value for the project.

Independent study

Mentorships

Authentic problem, product and audience

Flexible grouping

Learning contracts

Varied homework

Curriculum compacting

Curriculum enrichment

Portfolio development

Reasons to differentiate

More musings on my upcoming workshop:

When we use differentiation in the classroom we should have clear-cut objectives just as we should have objectives for everything we do in our classroom. Our objectives then guide us in our choice of how to best differentiate and which methods to use. When we keep our goals clearly in mind then we are able to reflect and analyze our own performance and the effectiveness of our strategies. Not only does this help us as individuals in our classroom, but it also provides a way to document the effectiveness of various intervention techniques for individual students.

What are some of the reasons we differentiate?

Medical - if a student has a medical reason to be unable to perform the same work or to learn in the same way as the other students.

Previous knowledge - Students come to us with different levels of knowledge. We can differentiate to accomodate students who have already mastered knowledge their peers are being introduced to, or for students who have not yet mastered material that is foundational to the work the class is preparing to do.

Processing speed - students are able to master material at different speeds. If a student is able to learn the material at a significantly faster or slower rate, then he or she ought to be accomodated in the classroom.

Strengths/weaknesses - (learning styles) we can use students' strongest academic skills to help scaffold and strengthen their weaker areas while also ensuring that they learn the material being presented in class.

Student interest - sometimes students can use a passion area to demonstrate skills or knowledge.

differentiation workshop

My school is hosting a conference on gifted education. I am scheduled to present on differentiation. Right now my main thoughts are that differentiation goes beyond Gardner's learning styles.

There are at least six ways to differentiate:
The pace
The content
The delivery
The product
The environment
The assessment

If you are differentiating the pace then each student can progress at the speed that he/she is able, but they are all learning the same material. I have seen elementary teachers do this very effectively with checklists.

If you are differentiating the content then each child is able to learn something different. This can go as far as independent study, but can also work in a more traditional setting where although groups learn different material they then report back to the class as a whole what they learned.

In delivery differentiation every student is responsible for learning the same material, but the teacher presents the material in different ways to maximize each students' learning potential.

In product differentiation every student is learning the same material, but they show the mastery of the material in different ways. Some students may choose to do posters while others do PowerPoint presentations.

In environment differentiation the physical environment and the conditions the students work in are differentiated. Students may have preferential seating in the classroom, or be allowed the use of certain tools and/or manipulatives.

By differentiating assessments students are still held accountable for the same information, but they are allowed to demonstrate their competence in a way that will best reflect that for them as individuals. Assessments can be modified to show students' individual growth rather than reflecting their mistakes. Assessments can be formative when the teacher uses them to inform future instructional plans.

technology workshop

Well, my workshop went off without a hitch. Or, that's what I'd like to say :)

I didn't plan for how long it would take to get everybody logged on in the computer lab. And I compensated by randomly spewing out way too much information at everybody. And then... the internet went down. LOL

There we were telling everybody how wonderful technology is and how much work time you can save, and... nothing. Absolutely predictable. But all in all, it went fairly well and was not nearly as terrifying as I thought it might be.

Web 2.0

As my colleague and I have prepared for our presentation tomorrow I have had the opportunity to reflect on my own thoughts about technology. In some ways I am no stranger to technology. My step-mother was programming computers before PCs even existed. She taught me BASIC when I was in elementary school. I used to chat on irc (does anybody even remember what that is/was?) and I regularly frequented bbs's (bulletin boards). I remember when the move was first made away from dos - I was upset because now people who didn't know anything about computers would still be able to use them.

But for all that I'm not technologically savvy. I have never cared to learn more than I absolutely needed to know at that exact moment. And, for the most part, I have not used technology in my classroom. Basically, it boils down to the learning curve. I find that I do not have much free time, and the time that I have I am loathe to spend figuring out something else that may or may not work. :)

My colleague and I were discussing Web 2.0 and all the collaborative tools it offers. And I just lit up. I have found new colleagues, some on the other side of the globe, and suddenly I am not an isolated teacher in my classroom anymore. A student asks me a question, and where before my answer would have been I don't know, now I can add but let me ask somebody. And within minutes I have an answer. As I was reading Harry Potter I came across two terms I was unfamiliar with (well that I thought may have been misused - there were many terms I was unfamiliar with!) and from around the world came responses: one was most certainly a mistranslation, while apparently the other was not. I have even met local friends and mentors.

Yes, there has been a small learning curve. No, I'm not the world's most savvy wiki user/blogger/moodler :) But, from my perspective here in a small corner of the universe, the benefits are amazing.

Now, here's hoping that the technology all works tomorrow and that I don't make a complete fool of myself. :)