Category: Podcast

Jokes:

Women’s Rights
A girl involved with the women’s libertarian group boarded a crowded bus and one man rose to his feet. “No, No, you must not give up your seat. I insist,” she said. The man replied; “You may insist as much as you like, Lady. This is my street where I get off.”

Initials
Mr. R.B. Jones applied for a position with the government and was accepted. On his first day, the personnel dept processed his records. When asked what the R.B. stood for, he informed the clerk that they stood for nothing. His parents had named him with the initials only. The clerk informed him that his records could not show initials only so they typed his name as R. (only) B. (only) Jones. He got his first paycheck made out to Ronly Bonly Jones!

Barbershops
The reading material at the barbershop consisted entirely of murder stories, mysteries, thrillers, and ghost tales. When Peter asked the barber if he wanted to terrify his customers, he replied, “No. Peter. These books make the customers’ hair stand up and then it becomes easier to trim and cut.”

On Our Mind:

NMSA 2010 Conference

Middle School Science Minute

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)
Chemistry Facts. Cool and useful. Did you know……?

From the Twitterverse:

*gcouros Let Them Speak – Why Student Led Conferences are the Right Choice

*coolcatteacher Vicki Davis “Education ranks 55th out of 55 industries surveyed in the US” in the use of technology. Bob Wise

*web20classroom Steven W. Anderson Using Wikis To Strengthen Vocabulary:

*francesblo Fran Lo How To Get Early Access To ‘Skype Education’ Right Now edudemic.com/2010/11/how-to… via @edudemic #midleved #elearning

* elemenous Learning: Is there an app for that? http://ow.ly/37Uit

* shannonmmiller The Pursuit of Technology Integration Happiness…Great Math Resources http://ow.ly/329S9 #vanmeter

* shannonmmiller Glogster and Gloster.edu as an alternative to PowerPoint http://ow.ly/329re

* Larryferlazzo Elect.io is an easy way to find candidate positions in any US election http://www.elect.io/

This Part for Infamous40000 . . . :
Waiting to hear back from Infamous40000 . . .

NSMA 2010 Session 1:

How to Implement a highly effective RTI Model

Kristin Heckt
Sara Malinoski
Jennifer Webb

Timothy Edwards in Connecticut
1100 kids. 30 kids on Tier 3.

SRBI- Scientifically Researched Based Interventions

Must be Multi-Tiered.

• Tier 1 is 80% of students – this applies to all students.
• Tier 2 is 20% of 6th grade. Becomes less in 7th & 8th grade.
• 74% of kids coming at “Goal”
• 95% at goal at the end of 7th grade.

Highly successful model. By 8th grade, no students are below basic.

Focus on academic interventions.

• Vision
• Clarity
• Coherence
• Courage

See “What Needs to be in Place?” –

• Curriculum
• Standarts-based
• Understanding by Design

Data

• Universal Screens
• CFA’s
• Diagnostic
• Progress Monitoring
• Use for Tier identification

PD
Embedded- into the course of the day. Team meeting everyday.  Moved from compliance issues to PLC practice.

• Literacy
• Technology
• Research based Instructional design
• Instructional coaches do PD weekly

Communication
DDDM at grade level
Students & Families – students monitor their own progress.

Support
Schedule – Flexible block schedule – kinda. Music is crucial to the district. Tier 2 or 3 comes out of encore periods. Needed flexibility from teachers as the kids would come and go throughout the year. Some kids would come out of Social Studies or Unified Arts (life skills, tech ed).
Administration
Personnel – 4 teams at each grade level. Down to 3 grade by grade level. 108 teachers for 1100 students.  Reorganized teachers to include some interventionists as well as the core areas. 6 Intervention Teachers.
Reallocated Resources

Programming
3 Tier Approach
Research based programs
Interdisciplinary teams
PLC’s

Special Education referrals have dropped considerably. Data shows that progress is being made. This leads to fewer students being identified. They went from a discrepancy model to the RTI model.

Including special education teachers now. They were just using interventionists. Special education and regular education teachers are both included into the intervention classes.

45 kids in Tier 2 & 16 in Tier 3 per grade level – approximate.

Email Kristin for her schedule. Teachers cover lunch. kheckt@swindler.k12.ct.us

Topics for embedded PD
Understanding by Design
Literacy
Technology
PLC
Data Driven Decision Making & Data Teams
High Yield Instructional Strategies
Common formative & Summative Assessments
Differentiation
Standards Based Grading

Book study. Change in culture.
Instructional Rounds is next. They want teachers to do the instructional rounds.

PLC/Data Team Structure
Interdisciplinary Teams – includes encores. 6 teachers per team level. Unified Art is “core class”. Encore is PE, music and health.

Tier 1:

• Universal assessments
• Comprehensive & differentiated instruction informed by scientific research.
• Ongoing, embedded PD
• Instructional & Human resources.
• PLC’s / Data Teams
• Material and instruction at instructional levels.

The Assessment Process:

• Screening – identifies students for targeted intervention – 3x a year.
• Diagnostic – Pinpoint instructional needs
• Progress monitoring – Shows whether the instruction is effective and impacting student skill development.

Tier 1 Assesment Questions:
Why is the student not performing at the expected level?
What skills does the student need to learn to be a skilled reader?

See Tier 1 Literacy Intervention Plan

Tier 2

• Small group instruction – never more than 8 kids at a time.
• Additional support (4x out of the 6 day rotation – 45 minutes)
• Homogenous grouping. (Use Read Naturally).
• Interventions are short term.

Literacy Example:
Work Your Way Back: (See handout).

AIMS web norms.

Keeping students aware is a big part of the process.

Tier 3: Customized and Intense.

Programs:

• Word warm ups
• rewards
• Let’s Read

Individual or small group (4 or less).
Homogenous groups.
Interventions require a high degree of expertise on the part of the teacher.

Fidelity of the Program:

• Master teachers
• Scientifically researched-based programs
• Adherence to protocols:
• Time
• Setting
• Grouping
• Progress Monitoring
• Communication

LW5

NMSA 2010:  Summarization in Any Subject
Part One:
Rick Wormeli, 2010  (Handout provided)
email him if we want the Powerpoint presentation of this if we want it.
Break at 10:00 am and the water is behind him.
Housekeeping done
Summarization
College websites have pages and pages of advice that should have been taught in elementary and middle school.
He started teaching in 1981.
Real learning has little to do with instruction.
Learning happens two ways:
They have to use it outside your classroom.

They need to summarize their learning in the middle and at the end of their learning.

Summarizing and debriefing.
What you teach is irrelevant.  It’s what the kids carry forward that matters.
Lectures chunked with summarization increases learning.
It’s revitalizing to do summarizing.
Summarize the brown slide article selection:
Text from the presentation (Courtesy Rick Wormeli):
Take a look at the NMSA’s This We Believe materials, Turning Points 2000, or the on-line research at www.nmsa.org: middle level students are in prime exploration mode.  They require ample opportunities to wrestle with ideas, not have those ideas spoon fed to them.  They should feel safe and invited to experiment and fail in the middle of class or at home as they learn new material.  Unfortunately, the way we’ve set things up in many middle schools, students consider academic struggle as being weak when it could be used as a launching pad for more effective learning instead.
Let’s make it okay to fail in the pursuit of learning.  One of the most vivid ways we can do this is to model it.  We set up real situations in which we do not know answers or how to solve problems – ‘really not know something, not just faking it — then find the answer or solve the problem constructively in front of students so they see what it looks like to not know something, to handle it wisely, and to remain a respected individual in the community.  Many middle school students do not push themselves to explore different talents or new thinking because they are focused on protecting their reputations as the persons who always get the right answers.  What potential is lost because a student needs to protect his personal status quo?
My summarization:
Prime exploration mode for middle school students.
They need opportunities to wrestle with ideas of their choosing.
They need to feel safe to experiment as they learn.  (Free to fail.)
Schools are not set up that way unfortunately.
Policy:  make it ok.
Model it for them.

Construct sandboxes to experiment it.  It helps protect them in the social of transescent learning.

“Share deodorant zones” and tell your neighbor why it is a good summarization.
Person listening:  agree or disagree, but tell why you agree or disagree.
Most of probably did well.  Most kids haven’t done it and so they struggle with it.
What makes a summarization good?
Is it comfortable to share under the scrutiny of others?
Problem/solution structure
Using one’s own words.
Give them a chance to language play to build vocab to summarize.
Jeremy ate pizza.
Embellish as needed.  Give me 10 ways to say a sentence.

Writing process terms:  they have to describe what they are doing/have done with the clay.

“Great books are rewritten.”
It captures the text accurately.
Could our neighbors get all the information in the topic from our summarization?
1.  Read it.
2.  Read it again.
3.  Look for key terms that are critical for understanding.
4.  Find key terms:
Nouns & Verbs
Words that without them, the sentence or passage wouldn’t make sense.
Topic sentence
Things that answer the who, what, when, where, why, and how.
Chris Tovani, “I read it but I don’t get it.”
How was it to give advice on how well someone did on their summarization?
When we defend our thinking, we move into our internal editor.
They’ll remember it for much longer.
Kids will have to be taught on how to critique each other’s summarizations.
Gettysburg Address example
1.  Go sentence by sentence.
2.  Do a compressed poem.
3.  Guided reading.
4.  Visualization:  Draw a picture.
5.  Provide context to the document.
6.  Ask students what their experience is with death and cemeteries.
7.  Read aloud.
Yes, but by someone who knows the context and background.  Don’t read it cold.
8.  Define difficult words.
Rick’s method:
Pull out some phrases and then add them back in to reduce overloading.
Highlight contrast words:  Now/ago for example
One strategy won’t work:  You need 5 or 6 together to make it work.
Poetry Example:  “With hocked gems financing him . . . ”  (Dooling and Lachman, 1971)
•    With hocked gems financing him our hero bravely defied all scornful laughter that tried to prevent his scheme
•    Your eyes deceive, he had said, an egg, not a table, correctly typifies this unexplored planet
•    Now three sturdy sisters sought proof, forging along sometimes through calm vastness, yet more often over turbulent peaks and valleys
•    Days become weeks, as many doubters spread fearful rumors about the edge
•    At last from nowhere, welcome winged creatures appeared, signifying momentous success
-Christopher Columbus
Students must have a frame of reference to understand the metaphor:  “He flozzled his website.”
Is this a good or a bad thing?  Add more context information to add clarity and creating background where there is none.
Tell the story of the Code of Hammurabi before discussing the Magna Carta.
Before studying the detailed rules of baseball, play baseball.
Before reading about how microscopes work, play with microscopes.
“In terms of standards, maybe  a standard for exposure to exploring…”  -A summarization of Bill Ivey and Rick Wormeli.
Before reading the Gettysburg Address, inform students that Lincoln was dedicating a cemetery.
Before reading a book about a military campaign or a murder mystery with references to chess, play Chess with a student in front of the class, or teach them the basic rules, get enough boards, and ask the class to play.
Primary-Recency Effect
See Graph:    (Courtesy Rick Wormeli)
Frontload and backload the hour.
Makes a difference
The bell work is always related to the stuff we’re doing that day.
Stop 7 minutes early and have them summarize what they learned in the hour.  (Gotta do this one!)
Make these cycles with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Free fact:  If you’re not a good student, put your paper under a poorer student’s paper and you’ll get a better grade.
Definition:  Summarization is restating the essence of text or an experience in as few words as possible or in a new, yet efficient, manner.
Sprenger’s Suggestions for Long Term Retention  (How to Teach So Students Remember, ASCD, 2005)  (Preview of the inside of the book:  http://books.google.com/books?id=z5ipcWRLCPYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22How+to+teach+so+students+remember%22&source=bl&ots=fyqpgsXxJ8&sig=VOVU5LOBWF4-gZPA9CNtyzf0o_o&hl=en&ei=swTeTIfEHsbPnAe4_YSvDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false )
Reach:  on an emotional level.
Reflect:
Recode:  put it in terms of their own life
Reinforce:  graphic organizer
Rehearse:
Review:
Retrieve:
Remember who’s doing the learning.
Break Here for Next Show:
Whomever responds to the students/classmates is doing the learning.  Make sure the majority of the time it’s the students responding and summarizing, not the teacher.
Teachers ask 80 questions each hour on average, while students ask only two during that same hour.  (Betty Hollas)  Students learn more when they ask questions.  Find ways to make question-asking so compelling and habitual they can’t escape it.
Have a conversation (with Wormeli) using only nouns.
First one to utter a verb loses.
Prime the brain prior to asking students to do any learning experience.
Priming means we show students:
1.  What they will get out of the experience (the objectives).
2.  What they will encounter as they go through the experience (itinerary, structure)
Avoid Confabulation
The Brain seeks wholeness.  It will fill in the holes in partial learning with made-up learning and experiences and it will convince itself that this was the original learning all along.  To prevent this:
Deal with misconceptions:  Students should summarize material they already understand, not material they are coming to know.
Recall success with individual, unrelated items:

Age of Student
# of Unconnected, Individual Items Successfully Recalled
(plus or minus 2, Wolfe, 2001)

5    2

7    3

11    5

15+    7
Courtesy Rick Wormeli’s PowerPoint.
Summarization tips:
Create or activate personal background.
Prime the brain.
Plan according to the Primacy-Recency Effect.
Use varied summary formats – written, artistic, oral, physical, musical.
Use summary experiences before, during, and after lessons.
Teach students to recognize familiar text structures .
Teach students to recognize familiar writing structures.
Use analogies.
Chunk text and experiences.

Courtesy Rick Wormel’s PowerPoint.
Reading Math

Math books have more concepts per sentence and paragraph than any other type of text.

There is little redundancy in math text.
Words as well as numbers and other symbols are used throughout the text.
Eyes travel in different patterns than traditional left-to-right.
They often have distracting sidebars.

In most text there’s a topic sentence or key idea followed by detailed supports.  In math, we get the details first then the topic sentence – the key idea is given in the form of a question or a task at the end.  Students ahve to read the text agian after seeing this key idea and figure out what material in the text is important and unimportant.

Word Morphology
Teach prefixes, roots and suffixes!
See the list in his handout.
Kids who know their roots and suffixes, can summarize.
Latin is Fun!  – Book example.
Break
Part Two
Summarization Strategies:
Reading Notations
Annotated text is one of the best things we can teach according to research.
(Check Mark)           I agree with this.
X                I disagree with this.
??                I don’t understand this.
!!                Wow!  (‘Elicits a strong emotion)
CL                General Claim
EV                Evidence for the Claim
(These can be numbered to indicate their sequence, too:  EV1, EV2, EV3…)

News:

Oregon School Addresses English Language Learners

http://portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=128942579843364600

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

• National Conference: Thursday, November 08, 2010 —Saturday, November 10, 2010 Louisville, Kentucky.
  • Need a letter to your administrator explaining the benefits of attending NMSA? How about this one?
  • Promotional Materials:
    • Crossword Puzzle! (Maryland Conference)

Other News:

• ISTE Eduverse Talks are the recorded sessions held on ISTE Island every week. Join ISTE in their Second Life conference location for their weekly talks on education.
  • The ISTE Special Interest Group:  Virtual Environments is holding meetings on Mondays from 4:00 – 6:00 pm (SLT) on ISTE Island.
• The Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 17 – 18, 2011.

• • OMLA Registration Form
  • OMLA Presentation Proposal Form

• The Michigan Association of Middle School Educators Annual Conference is coming up March 17-18, 2011 in Coopersville, MI. Coopersville Middle School is a National Schools to Watch School.   (Phone:  (616) 997-3400)
  • MAMSE Exhibitor Form
  • MAMSE Registration Form

• • MAMSE Presentation Form  (Presenter Deadline Extended!)
• The North Carolina Middle School Association’s Annual Conference March 13-15, 2011
  • Conference Brochure
  • Presenter’s Application
  • Who They Are . . .

• Classroom 2.0’s Live Calendar.

• • Classroom 2.0’s Ning Blog: Archived content is available.

• Second Life:
  • Regular Tuesday meetings are scheduled. See the board on the ISTE Island for up to the minute details.  Check frequently this week as the ISTE Annual Convention is this week.
  • Video: Educational Uses of Second Life