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An exciting new tool is available for Learning-Focused Classrooms. The Giant Student Learning Map (7' x 4') and its sibling the Classroom Student Learning Map (4' x 3') are available for pre-order. They are made of a heavy duty "Thermoplast" sub-strate with a "dry-erase" surface and metal grommets for easy classroom display.
Both of these items are available for pre-order by calling 866-955-3276. The Giant Student Learning Map is $295.00 and the Classroom Student Learning Map is $185.00. The delivery estimate for these items is 2-4 weeks after the order is placed.
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The Learning-Focused Connections Newsletter is a weekly link to exemplary practice and ideas that will help you as an educator to increase achievement in your classroom, school and district. Some weeks there will be a mix of articles in the mailer, other weeks we will follow a theme. If there are questions you want answered, or strategies you want to know more about please let us know. We are all working with the same goal in mind, continuous improvement in student achievement.
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Why "Connections"?
 Over twenty years ago Dr. Max Thompson was conducting school
improvement research and he found that many schools were having some
minor successes raising achievement by implementing one or two
exemplary practice strategies. The problem, he found, was that teachers
had difficulty knowing when to do the strategies, how to plan for them,
and how to have students use them most effectively. Dr. Thompson also
discovered that when combined, exemplary practices have a much greater
impact of achievement. Thus, he set out to make connections between all
of the most effective exemplary strategies. After years of development
finding the best combinations for student performance, a framework for
learning was in place. The framework and the exemplary practices
connections are known as the Learning-Focused Schools Model.
It is with this in mind, that we are offering additional resources that will make "Connections" for teachers, administrators, and students. |
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New Learning-Focused Website Launched Today!
Interested in learning more about Learning-Focused? Visit our updated website. Connect to the Learning-Focused Toolbox, browse Learning-Focused Solutions and purchase Learning-Focused publications at the online store.
Learning-Focused Website
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Just Teach Them to Think
by Carol Gardner
"If only my students would think!" All students can become proficient in using the thinking skills necessary for academic success, but only if we teach them. Extending Thinking to Raise Achievement provides numerous lessons for explicitly teaching thinking skills. It also provides suggested picture books that can be used to introduce and reinforce higher level thinking within content areas.
Dateline Troy by Paul Fleishman is a wonderful resource for introducing abstracting to secondary students. On one page the author paraphrases a story from the Iliad. On the facing page is a collage of contemporary news articles reflecting the same theme as the literature excerpt.
My Teacher for President by Kay Winters is a great model for constructing support. The author constructs support as to why her teacher should be President (The book includes a lesson plan for this one).
Inductive and deductive reasoning are often confused. The Web Files by Margarie Palatini and Richard Egielski begins as inductive when Ducktective Web and his partner try to "quack" a case of missing peppers. The detectives put the clues together to name a suspect. Deductive reasoning is used to prove the guilt of the "dirty rotten rat".
Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young is another good choice for teaching inductive reasoning. This simple picture book clearly makes the case for collecting numerous observations in order to see a pattern and reach a conclusion
For many more ideas and strategies take a look at Extending Thinking to Raise Achievement. |
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The Search for Real Rigor
by Debbie Willingham, Ed.D.
How many years in a row do students learn to identify verbs and adjectives, trace the journeys of early explorers, and label the parts of a plant? The teacher in the "next" grade justifies the time taken for this by saying that they come to her not knowing it and she has to start at the beginning, or that the content is in this grade's state standards. Both may be true, but we cannot continue to teach the same thing over and over, losing valuable time we should spend extending students' thinking and taking them to deeper levels of understanding of the concept.
The search for real rigor should lead us to a clear understanding of the vertical progression of a concept through the grades and consistently high expectations for every student to continually reach more sophisticated depths of understanding of a topic. Standards as written often do not provide enough information for teachers to determine exactly what they should teach or the level to which they should take a concept until they look at where it was previously taught and at what level it will again be addressed. Teachers should then take what they are responsible for teaching and strive to have an intellectually-charged classroom climate that intentionally encourages students to "stand on their mental tiptoes" throughout the year. In addition to high expectations for students, teachers must also use a variety of instructional strategies that address various learning styles and aptitudes on a consistent, ongoing basis. They must make assignments that reflect a wide variety of high level skills that extend student thinking and that require challenging and meaningful use of knowledge and skills to provide evidence of deep understanding of content, concepts, and relationships.
Rigor is not a goal in itself; rather, its impact is seen as the result of learning experiences in which students internalize, refine, and extend knowledge and understanding through a wide variety of high-level critical thinking skills and inquiry. The resulting high quality products and performances that continue or culminate a study are evidence of students' understanding of enduring concepts and overarching ideas. Expectations and attitudes on the part of both students and teachers should reflect the excitement of pushing far beyond the typical minimum requirements that are tested and aiming for an internalized ethic of quality work.
Teachers can self-assess the degree of rigor they require by asking themselves four questions as they plan for instruction:
- What is the most sophisticated depth of knowledge and understanding of this topic my students should reach this year?
- How can I incorporate a variety of instructional strategies in teaching new content/skills for this topic?
- How can I vary assignments throughout the study of this concept to meet my students' abilities, interests, and learning styles while pushing all to stretch just beyond their comfort level?
- How can I ensure that my assessments require students to use high levels of thinking and skills to demonstrate their deep understanding of the topic under study?
When teachers thoughtfully plan with these four questions in mind, they will see in their planning the end of the search for real educational rigor: the blending of standards-based curriculum, instruction, assignments, and assessments with high expectations and high level reasoning processes in every subject and at every grade level in ways that challenge all students to reach more sophisticated depths of knowledge and understanding.
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Elaboration in Vocabulary Instruction
by Cindy Riedl 
Many of the traditional memorization techniques teachers and students use to learn vocabulary do not work because most students, not just those with learning difficulties, rarely remember the meanings of new words beyond the test.
From research, we have learned that new words and concepts must be examined using explanations, descriptions and examples that are already familiar to students. The more ideas and connections found in their background knowledge with which the students can associate the word or concept, the more likely the new word/concept will become a permanent part of memory.
There are a variety of elaboration techniques that teachers can utilize to help students comprehend and remember new words, as well as significant information. Although we have encouraged teachers to teach new terms in the context of the lesson's content knowledge, we still need to emphasize how important it is that they spend time facilitating student discussion that centers on the use of the new word/concept and relating them to broader applications. Although providing opportunities for students to elaborate about new words requires a significant amount of class time, it is clearly a worthwhile instructional practice. In order to make this practice work, teachers must reduce the number of words and select only the most critical ones. Then, considerably more time is invested in developing a greater depth of understanding of those words that are really essential for students to know. Teaching fewer words, key concepts or ideas that are critical to the topic of study, creates a foundation upon which a great deal of information will be built on over a long-term basis.
This process requires teachers to demonstrate and model elaboration techniques and to provide immediate feedback to students as they practice. After students become comfortable and successful with this process, it becomes automatic. Once this process becomes more automatic, collaborative pairs provide the feedback the teacher once did, which means the instructional time is shortened and students take on the responsibility of their 'learning'.
The first step requires teaching students how to paraphrase the new word's/concept's definition or description and identify its main idea and specific details that clarify it. While teaching the new word, it is important for the teacher to make background knowledge connections, while teaching the new word in the context of the lesson. Students must relate the word to something that is already familiar to them. For example, they can identify how the word is related to previously studied content or they can identify something from their personal life experiences that the word reminds them of. Also, they can create metaphors or similes for the word. The most essential part of this process is that students must be able to explain the connection.
Furthermore, comprehension is greatly enhanced when students can identify examples or applications as well as non-examples and non-applications related to the new word's meaning. Think in terms of the Frayer Model. Having students collaboratively discuss of what the word is not an example, or other concept with which it should not be confused with, causes a greater depth of understanding of the word or concept.
Having students elaborate the meaning of a word in their own words both verbally and in writing is also greatly enhanced when students create a non-linguistic representation or mnemonic picture/story that will help them recall the information stored in their memory for future use and connections. The goal is to create a mental web of relationships and connections that is constantly expanding to allow a greater depth of understanding about what fits together and what doesn't.
Teachers can have students create their own formats, whether a matrix or 4 box arrangement that allows them to record their thoughts about new words as they are introduced, to reflect a written elaboration where they paraphrase the words meaning, an area for personal connections or text connections as well as a space for a non-linguistic or mnemonic representation. This is one of the most practical ways that students can develop in-depth and thorough understanding of words and concepts. It is a pathway for raising student achievement for all students. |
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Did You Know?
In 2007 alone, Learning-Focused provided solutions for:
20 States,
290 School Districts,
3200 Schools,
92,000 Classrooms,
111,000 Teachers and Administrators,
impacting about 2,800,000 Students
through 1450 direct contact workshops, coaching and conferencing sessions.
In over 20 years, Learning-Focused has been implemented in more than 5000 schools.
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Monthly Review = Achievement + Fun
by Denise Burson
Monthly Review and reinforcement is a proven
strategy for helping students retain information and skills students might not
use every day. All 90-90 schools have
some type of Review Schedule. (See Learning-Focused Notebook: ConnectingStrategies and Planning for Learning:How to Review for
Achievement). Instead of hurrying through the curriculum and stopping 2-5 weeks
out for a state test, distribute the review across the year. Begin this school year with a schedule for
review days. Structured Monthly Reviews
helps to solidly the essential content, so students can draw on them readily
when the state test rolls around. Reviewing doesn't have to be tedious for you
and boring for students. Teachers have
shared a number of ways to add some excitement to your Review Days. Try
livening up your Review Days and reinforcing previous taught curriculum with
one of the games below. You will find this in Exemplary Schools!
Friendly Feud
"Friendly Feud" is an adaptation of the Family Feud game show students
might see on television. The game is easy to adapt to almost any subject or
curriculum topic.
Start the game by arranging students into teams of four or five players.
Determine the sequence in which teams will play. Determine the sequence in
which the players on each team will play. Have each team select a captain who
will act as the team's final-decision maker and spokesperson.
After the teams are organized, prepare to pose the first essential question
of the game. Questions are generated
from previous Student Learning Maps. In the first round, the captain of each
team will be the only one who can answer the question. Read aloud the first
question; call on the team captain who raises his/her hand first to answer the
question. To earn a point, that captain must correctly answer the question
within 10 seconds. If the captain who was called on does not answer the
question within the time limit or if he or she gives an incorrect answer, the
next team can "steal" the question. Members of that team can talk
among themselves, then they must agree on the correct answer. The captain
serves as spokesperson for the team. If the captain says the correct answer,
his/her team earns the point. If the answer is incorrect, the next team has a
chance to steal the question and earn the point, and so on.
The team that correctly answers the question earns the first chance to
answer the next question -- which is posed to the second player on the
team. An incorrect answer passes the question to the second player on the next
team. A correct answer earns another point for the team and the first
chance to answer the next question, which is posed to the third player
on the team. The team can keep earning points until team members get a wrong
answer or do not respond within the time limit.
At the end of the game, the team with the most points is the winner of
"Friendly Feud."
Tic-Tac-Toe
Draw a tic-tac-toe grid on a board or chart paper. Choose the questions from
the previous taught Student Learning Maps.
Arrange the class into two teams; Xs and Os. Flip a coin to see which team
will go first. For example, it the X team wins the toss, pose a question to a
student on that team. If the student on the X team answers correctly, he or she
places an X on the grid. If the student answers incorrectly, the O team does
not automatically get to put an O in that square. To earn an O, a member of
the O team must correctly answer the question. If the O player answers
correctly, his or her team puts an O in the square and earns the first chance
to respond to the next question. If the O team answers the next question
correctly, they get to place another O; if the answer is incorrect, the
question is posed to the X team.
Keep track of how many games each team wins.
Web Sites that will help you spice up your review:
Funbrain.com
Jeopardy Games
Jeopardy Template http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/ekowalcz/jeopardy/template.htm
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| Past Connections Articles
Past Connections articles are available through the archive tool of this newsletter. Please click here to view these resources.
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New and Upcoming Products and Resources:
1. An English Language Arts Model Curriculum
This is a K-12 ELA Curriculum that has a complete year of Student Learning Maps for each grade, a complete unit for each grade (including all of the lessons and activities) all driven by YOUR STATE STANDARDS!
2. Leadership Academies
Over 20 sessions make up our Leadership Academies. Academies are designed for Superintendents, Assistant Superintendents, District Curriculum, Instruction, and Professional Development Directors, Principals, Assistant Principals, School Leadership Teams, and School Boards.
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Have an idea for a Connections Article?
Email us at info@learningfocused.com with your suggestion. Please insert "newsletter article request" in the subject line.
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