In March of 2015 (your first year teaching), all of the 11th graders in
your school will be taking the Common Core Exam online. Student performance on this test will
determine:
- whether or not your district will move closer to being taken over by
the state.
- whether you will be deemed ineffective, provisional, or professional
(two consecutive ineffective ratings is grounds for termination).
- the public perception of your school, which will impact enrollment,
which will impact budget ($7000-ish per student), which will impact your
livelihood.
School profile:
1200 students
60% have access to computers at home (90% of those share the computer),
70% have smartphones
3 computer labs with 2001 model Dells
Three LCD projectors to be used on a check-out basis only
No technology budget
No mandatory typing class
40% of teaching staff will be retiring within 5 years and thus are
resistant to what they view as the latest “fad” (Common Core and Smarter
Balanced)
In a nutshell, what would our action plan be to prepare for this assessment? I gathered with my fellow future English teachers and we began brainstorming. One of the ideas I (we) liked the most was the concept of a "digital classroom discussion" day. In our minds it would take place in one of the school's computer labs, where the teacher would set up a chat room where students would then silently type their responses to teacher or student prompts. Thus instead of having a typical verbal discussion everything would be typed and printed for the students to read and contribute to. Sounds kinda cool right? But there are a few kinks that need to be worked out: where will the chat take place online? Google Docs? Would each student be only recognizable to the teacher? What if several students are hogging the "conversation" with their typing? Would this really help the students understand and comprehend the day's lesson? When thinking back to the presented dilemma we were thinking this would be helpful to develop the typing skills that would be necessary for the written portions of this new online assessment. In addition, it plays into the idea of teaching with technology that we've been discussing throughout the semester.
One thing I've really liked about this class so far was the opportunity to collaborate with my English teacher colleagues. I thought it was great to bounce ideas off of one another or to just giggle in the corner of the room since we can select and read morbid stories in a class and somehow call it a lesson. Especially when it comes to implementing technology in the classroom, collaboration is pretty crucial to figuring out what might work and what doesn't in order to facilitate student learning. I'm excited to see what else this class has in store for us come fall!!
I love our English corner sessions too! It's important to facilitate cross-discipline cooperation, but sometimes it's just fun to go off on a tangent about "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" without boring anyone ( :
ReplyDeleteI had a question, which I'm not sure I could answer myself, so no pressure, but it's nice to get a little English perspective... The Smarter Balanced Assessment, like most standardized tests, puts a lot of emphasis on literacy skills. I realize that those skills are every teacher's responsibility, but as English teachers, I feel like we have extra pressure to make sure our students do well in those areas. How do we handle this, then? (Again, I'm not sure I know, but it's interesting to consider)
Hi Kelsey! I REALLY liked your (and your group's) idea about the "digital classroom discussion." The one thing I thought about is using the same idea in other disciplines. Maybe in the math classroom, students could talk to each other and explain their reasoning and answers to problems through typing. I felt that this could really force the students to use clear and concise phrases and terminology in order to explain concepts to other students. In terms of addressing some of your questions, I remember seeing these "chat boxes" that are types of widgets you could add to websites. The moderator (or teacher) can control the chat box, and you can set rules to where posting several times in a row too quickly will make that person wait several seconds before they're able to post again. I think this could be a great tool to use, or you could even use forums to post. It wouldn't be as quick but you could easily moderate it as well. Thanks for the post!
ReplyDeleteHey Kelsey! I logged onto Ctools today and this popped up as part of the advertisement bar at the top. It reminded me of you and rest of the English teacher's ideas about discussion something only through a chat room or blogging. Not exactly the same, but still some cool ideas about using technology for discussions in the classroom! http://www.crlt.umich.edu/node/705
ReplyDeleteKelsey,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience of our last class and your group's solution to the Teaching toward SBA/computer proficiency exercise we did. I agree with you that my favorite parts of this class (and the MAC program in general) is the opportunity to generate ideas with fellow interns. I love that we can share our creativity and perspectives and gain so much more than what we as individuals could imagine and produce. It seems to come back to emphasis of the professional community of educators being a place for development, support and collaboration. I loved your group's idea about the "online discussion day" and am trying to imagine how I could fit that into a chemistry lesson!
Laura
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. I found your idea of the "digital classroom discussion" to be very intriguing. I think its a great way to build in practice of typing skills with critical reasoning discussion. Like you say, I think moderating the simulation would be difficult, but I do think you could compensate this with clear norms. For instance, "step up, step back" would be a good norm to implement in this context because it would teach students to listen to others views before responding. Further, I think that it could really help students acclimate to online discussions.
So much of what dialogue is today is digital. I'm not saying that people don't communicate face to face, but the rise of digital conversations, whether commercially, socially, or personally occurs on the web. Therefore, I think that implementing a forum for students to practice instantaneous dialogue with each other is an important way to build students' comfort with conversing in this mode of communication. I don't have any specific ways to add to your thinking right now, but I'd be glad to serve as a thought partner with you in the future.
Best,
Ben
My measly little comment is going to be dwarfed by Ben's superstar comment, but I wanted to say that I agree with your contention on collaboration. Things I will definitely carry into teaching: "Bouncing ideas" is up there on the list. It has been great to work through ideas and problems with my fellow colleagues both inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary. I've noticed a positive correlation in classes that allow for about 30 minutes of discussion and walking out of class with a new/better understanding of something. I'm not sure what the beta coefficient is for discipline related discussions, but I really enjoyed the plans you English people came up with. Very interesting stuff. I'm always interested in other realms' thinking and planning in hopes of creating a lesson that can touch on multiple subjects. Thanks for the post!
ReplyDelete"Gettin' Straight A's" Hmmm. that god me thinking. This past weekend, I visited some family members in Rochester. All I kept hearing was that ze (notice my use of the gender neutral pronoun) was "gettin' straight A's." To which I replied, but ze is going to a private school, where the tuition approaches $20,000 per child per year! Do you really think, from a business perspective, that the school would give a child whose parents pay that kind of money anything less? It would be bad for business. Can you imagine spending out that kind of money each year (x 4 kids) and go around telling folks that, yes, my child goes to X school, and receives below average grades? The parents would demand that the school give them (and their child) their money's worth. In fact, I taught at an elite college prep school, where my department chair told me to make sure that my students received, on average, a 92.5% grade point average. Was that equitable?
ReplyDelete