Iowa ASCD: The Source - Brief of January 6, 2012

12Volume 12, Number 1 The Source

January 6, 2012

Webinars: Opportunities for Professional Learning

Effective Co-Teaching in the Inclusive Classroom

Presenter: ASCD
Provider: ASCD
Date: January 10, 2012 (2:00 P.M. CST)
Register Free

Everyone Says Principals Need to Be Instructional Leaders - But What Does that Mean?

Presenter: Leadership Series based on new book by Karin Chenoweth and Christina Theokas, Getting It Done: Leading Academic Success in Unexpected Schools
Provider: The Education Trust
Date: January 12, 2012 (3:00 P.M. CST)
Register Free

It's 2 O'Clock - Do You Know Where Your Computers Are?

Presenter: George J. Weeks, Director of Technology
Provider: Absolute Software
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 (1:00 P.M.)
Register Free

Ask Dr. Judy: What Neurological Emotional Interventions Promote Growth Mindset, Academic, Social, and Emotional Success?

Presenter: Dr. Judy Willis
Provider: ASCD
Date: February 8, 2012 (2:00 P.M. CST)
Register Free

Designing Learning Activities in a Standards-Based System

Presenter: ASCD
Provider: ASCD
Date: February 15, 2012 (2:00 P.M. CST)
Register Free

Iowa ASCD Curriculum Leadership Academy - Mark Your Calendar for April 11-12

Be among the first to learn about the Iowa Department of Education's expectations for RTI! Learn the relationships among the Iowa Core, RTI and Iowa's Blueprint! Learn from school districts currently implementing RTI and seeing results!!

All of this will happen at the 11^th Annual Iowa ASCD Curriculum Academy on April 11 and 12 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Johnston, IA.

Iowa ASCD, in collaboration with the Iowa Department of Education, is featuring Connie Maxson, Dave Tilly, and the State's RTI team throughout the Curriculum Academy. Jason Glass, Director of Education at the Iowa Department of Education, will present an afternoon keynote on the relationship of Iowa's Blueprint and RTI. The Cedar Rapids, Mason City, and North Polk School Districts will provide information about their use of data teams and professional learning communities in managing RTI. Lynnville-Sully Elementary will present their RTI program which includes programs for advanced learners. East Sac School District will report on their continued progress in the implementation of RTI.

In addition, come learn with Dr. Troyce Fisher, Director of Cohesive Leadership Systems with School Administrators of Iowa, who will address leadership, change and RTI. Mary Schmitt, Gifted Consultant with Heartland AEA, will describe programming for gifted learners in the RTI process, and the impact of instructional coaches in RTI will be the focus of a presentation by Amy Russell from the Cedar Rapids School District.

Join your colleagues from across the state in the learning on April 11 and 12.

Technology Tool: Edmodo

Edmodo is a favorite of many educators, including ASCD Emerging Leader, Stefanie Rosenberg Wager. Not only is this tool entirely free, it is also a one-stop shop for many classroom digital needs. It is perfect for teacher and student collaboration, but also includes a parent component. Parents can log on and see student grades, work samples, and easily connect with the teacher. In addition, students love this tool because it's easy to use and looks like Facebook- a format many of them are already familiar with.

Here's just a sampling of what Edmodo can do:

Assigning and turning in work: Teachers can virtually assign work and students can upload assignments directly to the teacher.
Annotate student work: Teachers can open, easily annotate and comment on student work.
Calendar function: Students are able to stay up-to-date on important class due dates. Students can also add notes to the calendar that only they can see.
Messages: Students and teachers can easily post messages to each other or other classmates for easy communication
Groups: Teachers can easily create student groups of any kind. This is perfect to group classes, study groups, or any other kind of group.
Class discussions: Edmodo is the perfect format for discussions of any kind.
Web 2.0 tools: Edmodo allows the teacher to easily embed other Web 2.0 tools such as Wallwisher, Animoto, Glogster, etc. through the use of its embed code feature.
And much more....

Questions? Contact Stefanie Rosenberg Wager at stefanie.rosenbergwager@dmps.k12.ia.us or through Twitter @srwteacher.

Book Review: Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning by Michael Schmoker (2011)

Iowa ASCD Director Kevin Vidergar shares the following summary of Focus by Michael Schmoker.

Focus on three things: (1) reasonably coherent curriculum, (2) effective lessons; and (3) purposeful reading and writing in every discipline (p.2)

Reasonably Coherent Curriculum

Guaranteed and viable curriculum (Marzano, 2003) means that it's actually taught
It includes "literacy, problem-solving, and deep knowledge of the human condition" (Schlechty, 1997).
Content and thinking skills are in equal parts; the ability to analyze and think critically requires extensive factual knowledge (Willingham, 2008).
Acquisition and use of knowledge to develop and communicate creative combinations of ideas, applications, and strategies to solve problems are a must (Friedman, 2005.)
Students should be able to identify concepts and skills, and then for each to identify the level of cognitive complexity using Revised Bloom's Taxonomy.
Four skills should be achieved by students: (1) read to infer/interpret/draw conclusions; (2) support arguments with evidence; (3) resolve conflicting views within original documents; and (4) solve complex problems with no obvious answer (Conley, 2005).

Effective Lessons

Teachers must begin with clear, precise learning objectives in kid-friendly language.
Anticipatory sets to build background knowledge and connect with prior learning should be included in introduction to the new learning.
Teachers must model and demonstrate and then provided guided practice for students.
Formative assessments are used often to check for understanding and adjust teaching to achieve the intended learning.
One strategy is the interactive lecture:
- At least every 5 minutes, students have an opportunity to process their learning through some type of discussion activity such as "think, pair, share" or "think, write, share." Teachers use short writing prompts and ask students to draw conclusions or make inferences about what they are hearing/seeing/thinking/connecting.
Another strategy is whole class discussion and debate:
- Teachers insist that students cite the sources in the text when making an argument; students must also be concise and focused in their argument.
- Students begin by writing notes to clarify their thinking.

Purposeful Reading and Writing in Every Discipline

Please refer to chapters 4 through 7 for content-specific ideas in English language arts, social studies, science, and mathematics.
Literacy lesson: (1) teach unknown or potentially new vocabulary; (2) establish purpose for reading (includes background and prompt for reading); (3) model higher order reading; (4) provide guided practice and formative assessment; (5) assure independent practice and assessment.

Professional Development Goals

(1) Direct teams of teachers to create and help each other to implement a quality common curriculum for every course.

(2) Direct teams of teachers to ensure sound, ever-improving instruction and lessons. Teachers should ensure implementation and test hypotheses on lesson design and use common formative assessments.

Access the study guide for Focus!

The Teaching Channel

Be sure to check out The Teaching Channel. It has great videos for content (i.e., English/Language Arts, Math, Science, History/Social Studies), in all grade levels, and around numerous topics, including planning, class culture, behavior, engagement, differentiation, assessment collaboration, common core, and new teachers. You can even see video by Iowa's own Sarah Brown Wessling, National Teacher of the Year in 2010.

The Good School: Opportunity to Partner with Parents

Even for those in education, arriving at a common picture of what quality looks like in our classrooms can be a complex conversation. For parents, judging whether their child's school is a "good one" can elude them for all 13 years of the process.

A new book written by The New York Times bestselling author Peg Tyre strives to give parents the right questions to ask when evaluating effectiveness in the classroom. The Good School: How Smart Parents Get Their Kids The Education They Deserve has potential to serve as a valuable discussion tool for School Improvement Advisory Committees, school boards, parent-teacher organizations and others who want to have respectful dialogue about what quality in the classroom should and shouldn't look like.

Two Iowa educators reviewed Tyre's book to help those considering it: Dr. Leslie Moore, School Improvement Consultant with Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency and current president of Iowa ASCD, and Beth Strike, APR, Communications Specialist with Area Education Agency 267, and former president of the Iowa School Public Relations Association (ISPRA).

"I absolutely empathize with parents who want the best for their children but struggle to know whether they are getting the best education possible," says Moore, who has two elementary-aged children. "But how do we define 'best education possible'? What matters to me are not only standardized test scores but whether my kids like their teacher or feel included and a part of the class. Are they going to bully or be bullied at school? Do they have support in and beyond academics? While No Child Left Behind has shone a spotlight on math and reading proficiency, as a parent, I have a higher expectation for what a quality education can do. It can help support a child on the way to becoming a good person, a contributor, a citizen. How do we measure that?"

The Good School is divided into eight chapters covering key topics such as testing, class size, reading, math, and teacher effectiveness. Each chapter spends time providing a history of the reform efforts for that topic and an almost Reader's Digest format review of the research on best practices. Chapters end with "take-aways" for parents, which summarize the most critical nuggets of information and suggested questions to ask teachers and administrators.

For the most part, Moore and Strike say, the tone of the book stays away from blaming schools or insinuating that schools are trying to hide inadequacies from parents.

"The goal is to agree on what quality looks like in partnership between parents and the district and then decide how much control the district has in reaching that given the budgetary restrictions the majority of Iowa districts are facing," Strike says. "We may all agree that it would be nice to have class sizes under 20 kids, but what does the research really say about the importance of that? Even if we wanted class sizes that small, could we afford to as a district? These are great conversations to have in terms of deciding what our priorities are and then figuring out how we can fund them. If we don't have the resources in our state to fund our priorities in education, having educated parents as third-party advocates with legislators can be powerful."

How sound are the best practices discussed in the book?

"Which practices have the most potential for improvement is an ongoing conversation undergirded by the research," Moore says. "The best use of the book is as a guide for discussion. If your district is not doing some of the approaches the book suggests, it would be interesting to discuss with parents which practices you are implementing and why. If I'm a parent and I'm making special arrangements for my child on the days the district is using for professional development, I'd be interested in knowing what teachers are working on and how that will benefit my child. I think we underestimate how many parents would be interested in that."

Overall, both Moore and Strike agree that the book has great potential for furthering the conversation between home and school.

"We are starting to come out of a period of labeling schools which has been fairly unproductive and even more confusing for parents," says Moore who spends a portion of her work providing technical assistance to school districts and buildings labeled "In Need of Assistance" under federal No Child Left Behind standards. "There can be better practices going on in a DINA [District in Need of Assistance] or SINA [School in Need of Assistance] school than in a non-labeled school, but few people understand that because of the stigma that comes with the label."

"We need more intelligent conversations about what works," Strike says. "Perhaps this book, or others like it, can help us get started or continue down the path. It's worthy of consideration."

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Iowa ASCD is the source for developing instructional leadership. Serving more than 780 educators - teachers, principals, superintendents, directors of curriculum, technology specialists, college professors, AEA staff - Iowa ASCD strives to develop the collaborative capacity to impact the learning of each and every student in Iowa.

In This Issue

Webinar

Iowa ASCD Curriculum Academy

Technology - Edmodo

Elevating the Essentials

The Teaching Channel

The Good School

Iowa ASCD Twitter!

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