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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 and school. Some weeks there will be a mix of articles in the mailer; other weeks we will follow a theme. We are all working with the same goal in mind, continuous improvement in student achievement.
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National LEARNING-FOCUSED Conference
February 2-4, 2009
Cobb Galleria Centre
Atlanta, GA
Registration Fee: $125.00 per person/day
Includes all conference materials (notebooks, flipcharts, handouts)
Registrations after November 1, 2008: $150.00 per person/day
Sessions and registration now available at www.LearningFocused.com.
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Test Taking Strategies:
Start Them Early!
by Carol Brewer
Test Taking Strategies are the plans or procedures used to prepare students for taking tests. These specific Test Taking Strategies should start early in the year and continue throughout the year. Many times teachers wait until a month before their state tests to begin this preparation instead of incorporating it into their everyday lessons. This does not mean giving the students a test every day, but it does mean planning for questions that might better prepare the students.
A test taking schedule is important for administrators and teachers to create and follow. There should be two sessions, one for taking the test and the other for reviewing the test. (Detailed procedures for reviewing tests may be found in the Reading Strategies for Assessments book.) Many teachers have been very successful in creating tests that correlate with the content they are teaching. For example, if they are teaching a unit on rocks and minerals, they create a test and use it for their test taking strategies. The only difference is that they focus on the structure of the test as well as the content. This helps prepare students for the reading test by using nonfiction text.
Start preparing your students for testing now! This will build confidence and stamina.
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The Learning-Focused Strategies Notebook is now three different notebooks!
 In order to provide you with additional examples and strategies the Learning-Focused Connecting Strategies
and Planning Learning Units notebook (item 536) has been discontined and is now three different notebooks. Effective immediately, the previous single notebook (item 536) is no longer available for purchase. It is now three different books with the addition of over 200 pages of new content. Together, all three notebooks are The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model Set. This set of notebooks provides the resources and instruction for implementing the #1 Framework for thinking about, planning, and delivering instruction using exemplary practices that focus on learning consistently and pervasively. The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies model is a framework for connecting all the components that define quality standards-driven instruction. It is the most comprehensive model available for connecting curriculum, instruction, and assessment in a logical, manageable planning framework.
The Set of All 3 Notebooks (Item #800): $90.00
YOU SAVE $10 BY PURCHASING THE COMPLETE SET!
The descriptions of each book of The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model:
The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model
Connecting Strategies Notebook
(Item #801): $40.00.
This notebook is part 1 of 3 for The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model. This notebook provides instruction and resources on the Model Overview, Activating Strategies, Graphic Organizers, Acquisition Lesson Framework, Acceleration, Summarizing, and Model Implementation.
The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model
Connecting Extending Thinking Notebook
(Item #802): $40.00.
This notebook is part 2 of 3 for The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model. This notebook provides instruction, resources on the Model Overview, Extending Thinking Activities and Lessons, and Model Implementation. Extending Thinking is the #1 strategy for increasing achievement. Implementing The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model ensures that all teachers include extending thinking lessons and activities consistently and pervasively in their instruction.
The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model
Planning Units for Learning Notebook
(Item #803): $20.00.
This notebook is part 3 of 3 for The Learning-Focused Instructional Strategies Model. This notebook provides instruction, resources on the Model Overview, Learning Units, Rubric Assessment, and Model Implementation. This is the notebook for "putting it all together"!
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What is Scaffolding, Exactly?
by Denise Burson
What do you think of when you hear the word 'scaffolding'? When most of us hear the word 'scaffolding', we think of a tall building needing repair. A scaffold is erected outside the tall building to assist workers so they can climb up and repair the building. From the ground below scaffolding sometimes looks like an external skeleton. These external structures (scaffolds) are temporary structures that physically support workers while they complete jobs that would otherwise be impossible. Scaffolds provide workers with both a place to work and the means to reach work areas that they could not access on their own. Instructional scaffolding is a teaching strategy that was named for the resemblance it has to the physical scaffolds used on construction sites.
The term 'scaffolding' comes from the works of Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976). It was developed as a metaphor to describe the type of assistance offered by a teacher to support learning. In the process of scaffolding, the teacher helps the student master a grade level skill or concept that the student is initially unable to grasp independently. The teacher offers assistance with those skills that are beyond the student's capability. The teacher provides extensive instructional support or scaffolding, to continually assist the students in building their understanding of new content and skills. A scaffold is provided to help the student with the task that is just beyond his/her current capability so he/she is able to achieve the task. As the student achieves success the teacher begins the gradual removal of the scaffold to reveal the impressive permanent structure of student understanding. It is important to remember that scaffolding is used with grade level content and expectations.
Some scaffolding strategies:
- Use 'think alouds', or verbalize your thinking processes when modeling a task.
- Activate or build background knowledge, giving tips, strategies, cues and procedures.
- Provide visual support.
- Use pictures and props to build vocabulary.
- Teach selective underlining and highlighting techniques in text.
- Provide diagrams.
- Provide writing frames and graphic organizers
- Provide opportunities for speaking and listening with peers.
- Break the task into smaller, more manageable parts
Scaffolding Grade Level Learning and Scaffolding with Technology are handbooks that provide teachers with strategies and a framework that can be used to design effective instruction for all students.
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Why is it Important for Administrators to Empower Teachers?
by Barbara McSwain
The excitement of a new administration, a new year, or a new goal can make people feel excited and enthusiastic about school improvement initiatives. Blanchard, Carlos and Randolph have referred to this as the "orientation stage" in their book, Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute. During the orientation stage is the time for administration to set the agenda and organize the team's efforts. Leadership must be strong and clear from the very beginning.
As principals begin to prepare for next steps for school improvement initiatives, they need to realize that they must provide clear guidance up front, because stage two, "dissatisfaction" is coming quickly around the corner. School districts are faced with standards driven curriculum. How do administrators change attitudes from the mistaken idea that, "I can go page by page in my text book and be successful" to "Instruction must match state curriculum standards to be successful"? It is not enough for the building administrator to provide an agenda with clear benchmarks. Teachers and staff need to know that they have the support of their administration. This support for schools includes the professional development and materials needed for a standards driven curriculum. Once people are trained and given the necessary materials to do the job, it is imperative that they are held accountable for results. In this type of process, gradual control for problem solving is given to the teams.
Leadership and Board of Education members may find that the dissatisfaction stage is often an uncomfortable position. However, everyone should remember that this is an important part of the change process, to reach the ultimate goal of becoming a high performing student achievement driven culture. According to Blanchard, Carlos and Randolph, a team coordinator often emerges during this time. In the school business, we often allow the discomfort of this stage to upstage our progress and give up too easily before the results of our efforts can be realized. It is when we stay in the middle of the fray that progress speeds up the movement of self-directed teams, even if, as the administrator, you are unsure of how to help. People tend to come forward when it appears that no one has the real answer. Persistence is paramount to the change process.
Part of the solution may be the "asking memo" It would include the pertinent information regarding the pertinent information of a school problem and the department's or grade level's portion of the problem. For example, some school districts have initiated data rooms where pertinent assessment information is posted and discussed. One question for data rooms is, "How do the data empower teachers so that it becomes an assessment for instruction and not of instruction only?" This is a difficult question that often depends on timing. If data are not received in a timely manner, teachers can run out of time in a given year. How do this year's scores affect the following year's instruction? Teams must have rules and procedures in place so that everyone can have a voice. The result of this type of team discussion would be solutions that the teachers could implement and decisions on what will be done.
Resources: Blanchard, Ken, Carlos & Randolph, Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute, Berrett-Koehler Publishers. San Francisco, 1998.
The authors of Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute referred to the third stage as the "resolution stage." It is at this point that the team begins to work together, and the role of the team coordinator changes to one of support and facilitator. This position becomes a rotating position among the teachers with each preceding coordinator training the next. As everyone's capabilities and contributions increase, the whole becomes greater than the parts. This is when everyone just keeps getting better and better because each person involved is developing new skills and abilities. Each teacher is growing!
The bi-product of this type of team development is an increase in job satisfaction. I think of all the stories out of Silicon Valley where employees were working because they "wanted to" and not because they "had to" when technology was being birthed in the late 80's and early 90's. Communication improves between the administration and teachers with a more efficient decision making process. The result is greater student achievement. The end result also promotes cost efficiency, when we set the agenda for school improvement and are not side-tracked with issues that are not focused on the School Improvement Plan. To keep moving forward is the goal. Team empowerment is the way, but it will take more than a minute. It takes persistence.
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We Want You to Make "Connections"!
Subscribers, feel free to share the information, tips and strategies
that you receive in Learning-Focused Connections with your colleagues.
Administrators and coaches, pass them on to the teachers in your school;
teachers, share them with your teammates and leadership team. The
newsletter can be the basis for discussion in team meetings or provide
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Past Connections Articles
Past Connections articles are available through the archive tool of this newsletter. Please click here to view the resources.
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Have an Idea for a Connections Article?
If
there are questions you want answered or strategies you want to know
more about, please let us know by emailing info@learningfocused.com.
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