Thanks to everyone for their active participation in today’s conferences. It was a pleasure to talk with you about your Inquiry Project paper, your thoughts on the Inquiry Project process, and to address some of your questions regarding the upcoming long prac.
We’ll spend our class time on Wednesday, 7 March 2012 going over some important prepatory information for the long prac.
– Lawrence
Thanks to everyone for attending today’s meetings. My goal here was to share some information regarding the upcoming practicum and the role of your FA in the practicum triad. Please see below for a copy of the notes I shared:
Also, here’s the Videotaped Lesson Analysis form I handed out at the meeting. You’ll need a copy of the form to engage in the self- and peer-analysis of your videotaped lesson:
’til Tuesday.
– Lawrence
Group Presentations
Thanks to all those who presented this afternoon’s engaging presentations. Here are the titles along with the supporting files. The handouts should provide a valuable resource during practicum, as you look for ways to engage the learners in your classes:
1. Talk Show – Sarah, Amber, and Tyrel
2. Structured Academic Controversy – Leanne, Christian, and Andrew
3. Brainstorming – Kat K, Sally, and Jennifer
4. Exquisite Corpse – Maria, Lou, and Farisha
5. Find Someone Who (People Search) – Caitlin, Amanda, and Melanie
Unit Planning Conferences
Here’s a copy of the updated schedule (current as of 11:55 pm on Tuesday, 8 Feb 2011):
The goal of this conference is for you to get a chance to talk one-on-one about any ideas, questions, concerns and what not you have with respect to the unit you’ll be planning for the LLED 320 Integrated Unit Plan task. To get the most out of our meeting time, please have bring the following to the meeting:
In addition, you might want to bring along a resource or two that you plan on using as you teach the unit.
That’s all for today.
– Lawrence
Well, today’s class didn’t go quite as I’d envisioned. In my mind, I spent too much time talking and, as a result, we didn’t get done all that I had hoped we would. Anyway, here’s what we did accomplish:
Writing Tasks In
I’ve collected the pieces and will mark them over the next two weeks or so. There’s a lot of them!
Assessment Q&A
I took some time to address some of the assessment questions that you had posed on exit slips at the end of a previous class.
Unit Planning: Individual Conferences
I’ve cancelled class on Thursday, 10 Feb 2011 to set aside some time for 15-minute conferences about your unit plans. Also, to ensure that I had times set aside that suited everybody’s schedule, I also will be holding meetings on Tuesday, 15 Feb and Thursday, 24 Feb. Here’s the schedule (as of 3 Feb):
In preparation for this meeting, please prepare the following items and bring them along to the conference:
Unit Planning: Goals, Performance Tasks, and Differentiated Instruction
I attended a Pro D Workshop last Friday with Cindy Strickland from ASCD. She is a Differentiated Instruction guru doing work playing with and extending the DI thinking of Carol Tomlinson. Seeing as the information I picked up was very relevant to our work on unit planning, I thought I’d share it with you in this class.
Here were my goals:
After showing a short PPT on clouds – Clouds PPT Slideshow– to get you up to speed with what information the students working on this weather unit had been working with, I showed you an example of three summative performance tasks for the weather unit and asked you to determine, by looking at the tasks, what you thought the KUD of the unit was. In other words, what did the teacher expect her students to Know, Understand, and Do that was related to clouds?
After that, you thought of other final product scenarios that the students could complete that would show their KUD but tap into different student interests and abilities. This is where the differentiation piece came in.
How can we, as teachers, provide varied opportunities for students to show us what they know? As we answer this question, we can start to find ways to differentiate our instruction and our assessment in ways that are responsive to the needs of all students.
Here’s the handout we used in class:
Unit Planning: GRASPS Peformance Tasks
Performance tasks are summative assessments that are:
The Understanding By Design (UBD) unit planning model we’ve been working with in 310 class promotes the design of performance tasks based on the features suggested by the acronym GRASPS:
We analyzed the cloud unit performance tasks through the lens of the GRASPS aspects and then did one of two things:
Here’s a handout with all sorts of info related to performance tasks, including a handy dandy list of Possible Student Roles and Audiences in addition to Possible Products and Performances:
Haikus Handed In
As a ticket out the door, I collected your 3 haiku poems. We’ll be revising these in a future lesson seeing as we ran out of time this class.
– Lawrence
Thanks to everyone for being so prepared for today’s 2-Week Prac Unit Planning Conferences.
I mentioned the BC Performance Standards several times in my meetings so I thought I’d post links to the resource here for easy reference.
What are the Performance Standards?
The BC Performance Standards have been developed for voluntary use in B.C. schools. They describe the professional judgments of a significant number of B.C. educators about standards and expectations for the following key areas of learning:
Why use the Performance Standards?
The BC Performance Standards are intended as a resource to support ongoing instruction and assessment. Teachers can use these standards to:
How to use the Performance Standards?
Performance standards describe levels of achievement in key areas of learning. Performance standards answer the questions:
The BC Performance Standards describe and illustrate the following four levels of student performance in terms of prescribed learning outcomes:
NOT YET WITHIN EXPECTATIONS
MINIMALLY MEETS EXPECTATIONS
FULLY MEETS EXPECTATIONS
EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS
In fact, the Performance Standards include a variety of rubrics and exemplars for the assessment of student work. Here’s an example of a simplified rubric, called a Quick Scale, from the Grade 8 Reading Performance Standards:
Don’t, ahem, reinvent the wheel! Use these rubrics and save yourself some time and frustration (a good rubric is really hard to develop.)
See you on Wednesday.
– Lawrence
We started class by considering the EDUC 310 Inquiry Task. I used a PPT slideshow to structure the lesson, and the presentation aimed to answer three key questions:
After recalling your prior inquiry-related knowledge to answer the first question and picking out a few highlights from the EDUC 310 Course Outline and elsewhere to address the second, we discussed the attributes of a powerful inquiry question through the lens of the article “How My Question Keeps Evolving” by Michele Sims.
Here’s the slideshow that supported this lesson:
At the end of this class, I assigned the exit slip – completing the EDUC 310 Inquiry Project One Pager – MIDDLE YEARS COHORT. On the front of the page are some questions to stimulate thinking about research questions, if you’re stuck at the moment, and some sample questions drafted by Elementary TCs. On the back of the page are four questions that you need to answer on the handout and bring to class on Wednesday, 2 December 2010. Please note that, in a manner similar to what Sims experienced, this question may evolve as you think on it and as you spend more time in the field.
If, as Confucius declared, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” consider this your first, tentative foot forward. A baby step. if you please.
Oh, that reminds me. Here’s how Bob (Bill Murray) “baby steps” in the comedy opus, What About Bob?:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JPa2mvSQ4[/youtube]
Bob sails, too:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrbY4hsNh64&feature=related[/youtube]
Here’s the one-pager in electronic form:
In the end, let’s hope your inquiry proceeds more smoothly than this woman’s:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FRVvjGL2C0[/youtube]
UBD Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence
In preparation for the completion of the unit plan you’ll use on your 2-Week Prac, I presented some information related to the assessment of your desired results via this PPT slideshow:
Here are a few key slides from that presentation, for your reference:
Lastly, here’s a good case for assessing beyond the test:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCuHTMHRBS4&feature=related[/youtube]
Bob and I will be meeting with you on Monday to discuss your unit planning. All meetings are in SCARFE 1310. Please bring:
The Conference Schedule is in the previous post.
At the end of class, I asked you to pick up a handout with samples of and information on how to create engaging and well-constructed Performance Tasks. Here’s that handout if you didn’t get one or if your dog ate it:
Check out this link for a website with more details on Performance Tasks. For even more info, use Google to search the Interwebs using search terms such as: “performance task” “rich task” “authentic assessment” and “authentic education”.
I did that and found this site – Authentic Assessment Toolbox – that has a huge collection of information on PTs, including a bunch of tasks created for all subject areas in middle school. Here’s a screenshot so you can see what’s on offer:
That’s all for now. Bob and I look forward to meeting with you on Monday.
‘Til then,
– Lawrence
Microteaching
Thanks to the groups that presented today. Please watch your video, reflect on it, and submit your analysis – done individually or as a group – to me by Monday, 29 November 2010. Please use the format on the task handout and reviewed in previous posts.
Housekeeping
– Microteaching Analysis Due: If you presented last week, your analysis is due to me today. Thanks.
– EDUC 315 Reminders: Please send me a copy of (1) a lesson you taught and your reflection on it, (2) a copy of your SA’s teaching timetable, and (3) your end-of-prac feedback form. This last item should be the focus of a prac-wrap-up conversation tomorrow.
– Upcoming Classwork Items: (1) Read the Sims article and create an entrance slip for it complete with some of your own possible inquiry questions and (2) complete the Desired Results piece for one or more PLOs you’ll be using as you teach during the 2-Week Prac. Bring both items to Wednesday’s class, please.
– Unit Plan Conference Schedule: Thanks for signing up for these conferences. The schedule is below (mine on page 1 and Bob’s on page 2). All meetings are in SCARFE 1310. Please bring your completed Desired Results, your thoughts on possible assessment tools, and any key resources that you may use in your teaching to this meeting.
For your reference, here are a few 2-Week Prac unit planned in previous years. While the template for these units is a little different than the one we’re using, take a look and get a sense of what your finished product might look like:
That’s all for tod… oh wait, I almost forgot. Here’s a beginning-of-class-rant-related reminder about the importance of handwashing:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOeQh2-ci3M[/youtube]
– Lawrence
Administrivia
– Calendar: There’s been a change to the schedule. As such, here’s what the next two Wednesdays will look like:
– Reading: Please read the Sims article, “How my question keeps evolving” and develop an entrance slip for it. As a part of your entrance slip, please jot down a few teaching and learning-related questions that you might be interested in exploring in more detail.
– EDUC 315 Paperwork: There is one formal paperwork requirement as a part of the Tuesdays practicum. The forms are below. You and your SA will each complete the appropriate form and email them both to me. Before you send them off, however, I suggest that you both discuss your completed forms next Tuesday – 23 November, the last school visit of EDUC 315. This conversation can serve to wrap up this prac experience and look ahead to your two weeks in January.
– Microteaching: I handed back the rubrics completed by the peer assessors and a feedback sandwich that summarized my thoughts on your presentation. After you’ve completed your reflection – the post-microteaching task due on Monday, 22 November for those that presented on Monday – take a look at the feedback and see how it jives with your thoughts on your performance.
UBD Unit Planning – Stage 1: Desired Results
Now that you have a good idea of the subject, topic, and PLO(s) that you’ll be working with during your 2-week practicum, we started to look at how to design a unit that will develop student understanding on the topic.
To that end, I presented a PPT slideshow that highlighted how to unpack PLOs to uncover the:
that, when played with in class, will lead to student understanding of the topic under study. Here’s my slideshow:
Here’s a copy of the chart for the HCE 8 Substance Use PLO we unpacked in the guided practice part of the lesson:
… and here’s a blank template you can use to unpack one or more PLOs that you will work with during your January prac:
The unpacking process can be a bit tricky for new and experienced teachers alike. Seeing as the process starts with identifiying the Big Ideas – the concepts, themes, issues, debates, problems, challenges, processes, theoriex, paradoxes, assumptions, and perspectives – that lie at the heart of the topic, here’s a short blurb on how to identify the Big Ideas more easily. This excerpt comes from Tomlinson and McTighe’s book, Integrating Differentiated Instruction + Understanding by Design:
Here’s the complete UBD unit planning template:
We’ll be working with the other sections of it in future classes, namely on Wednesday, 24 November.
The rough draft of your 2-week prac unit is due to your SA and FA on Monday, 6 December 2010. What we expect you to submit at that point is:
Bob and I will be meeting with the TCs we supervise to discuss your unit planning ideas on Monday, 29 November. You will have a chance to set up a meeting time with Bob or in class on Monday, 22 November. For this meeting, you should have a firm idea of Stage 1 – Desired Results and have considered the sort of assessment you’d like to use to determine if the students understand what you’ve been teaching.
Please see the image and PDF below for information about a conference hosted by the Richmond Primary Teachers’ Association. Most of the workshops are aimed at those teaching K- 3 but a few are relevant to those teaching students in the middle years.
Here’s the full PDF with all the details: Extravaganza 2010 Conference Package
– Lawrence
Cheryl and I enjoyed the time we had to sit and talk to you about your management plan, any practicum-related questions, and expectations for the final school experience of the year.
For your reference, here’s a copy of the meetings agenda and the information that we shared regarding the FA’s role during EDUC 419:
Pre-Practicum Conferences Agenda & FA’s Role Info
For your viewing pleasure, here’s a short PBS video clip from their Essential Practices series on Classroom Management:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLIpCJybXLI[/youtube]
– Lawrence