Who is the Average Learner?

In a culture that values individuality, our educational practices haven’t adapted.  Our classrooms are based on average. In the following Tedx video, Harvard professor Todd Rose addresses the problem of average in the classroom.  

The myth of average learners is just that. A MYTH. There is no such thing as average when it comes to people. Just as each person in unique in how they look, no one is the same when it come to how they learn. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. No one is just "average". Todd identifies this concept as a "jagged learning profile." Learning profiles are unique, just like fingerprints or snowflakes. While two students may be similar, no one learns the exact same way. Understanding there is no average student is important as a teacher. As Todd points out, teaching to average hurts everyone. It destroys our brightest students by not letting them challenge their potential and it destroys the morale of our weakest students because average is still above their learning level (Tedx Talks, 2013)

As teachers the responsibility of the banning the average lies on us. We need to be willing to break free from traditional strategies and incorporate more individualized learning for students. Flexible learning environments nurture student's learning potentials. When students are able to learn in a way that addresses their strengths and weaknesses, we are creating a safe learning environment where everyone can learn.
There are many different ways to ban the average in your classroom and teach to the edges. I believe that a flipped classroom is one of the best ways. By allowing students to listen to lectures and complete major reading assignments outside of class, that gives you as the teacher the entire class period to work with students in a way that meets their academic needs. Other than the obvious monetary means it take to support technology in the classroom, the biggest barrier to teaching to the edges is time. In a typical high school class, it is difficult to spend individualized time with the 25-30 students in a fifty minute class period.  That's two minutes or less per student. That is not enough time to sufficiently meet their academic needs. That is one of the many reasons I feel that a flipped classroom would be a possible solution.

What are your thoughts? What strategies would you use in your classroom to teach to the edges and ban the myth of average?


References: Tedx Talks. (2013, Jun 19). The myth of average: Todd Rose at TedxSonomaCounty [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eBmyttcfU4&t=210s

The Road to Teacher Leadership

Leadership is a buzzword in any profession, but it is becoming increasingly popular in education. Teachers are natural leaders; they lead their classrooms after all. But there is a difference between leading a classroom of twenty high school students and leading other teachers. How is an educator supposed to know when they have enough experience or leadership qualities to become a teacher leader? Marsha Ratzel, a National Board—certified teacher discusses several ways teachers know they are ready for the next step in her article “5 Telltale Signs You’re Becoming a Teacher Leader.”

While Ratzel (2012) lists five ways teachers can know they are becoming teacher leaders, she also stresses that “there is no ‘correct path’ to becoming a teacher leader” (p. 40). Leadership looks slightly different to everyone based on their personality and personal goals, but Ratzel does a good job of describing five general signs of budding leadership potential: desiring a bigger impact, being consulted on a regular basis, finding solutions, desiring to mentor, and hungering for more educational knowledge. (2012, p. 39). In addition, Ratzel also cites The Teacher Leader Model Standards as indicators that describe seven different domains of teacher-leadership.

These signs of leadership encouraged me to examine my own teaching practices, and evaluate the progress I am making toward becoming a teacher leader. I think that the desire to have a bigger impact should be true of all teachers. As a first-year teacher, sometimes it feels as if my dreams are too big for my situation. Christine Watson (2015) encourages young teachers to pursue leadership roles in schools by stating that “today's schools will offer you many options. Collaborating with your colleagues, being open to opportunities, and leading in your classroom will allow you to discover your own passions and guide your future as a teacher lead” (p. 30). Leadership does not have to come with some fancy new title; leadership can be a simple as starting a blog to share your educational experiences or sharing lesson ideas with other teachers.  Since I am the English and history departments at my school, to me this means sharing with other teacher general instruction strategies that have worked in my classroom and helping them adapt them for their classroom and age group. A similar trait of leadership is the desire to mentor younger teachers. This is one of the traits of leadership that can be hard for new teachers. My school’s elementary and high school program consists of five teachers, and four of us are first-year teachers. We worked cooperatively and learned from each other and the veteran teacher. I was scared to make suggestions at first because I was the newbie, what did I know? As I became more comfortable in my position, I gradually began to share my experiences with other new teachers on social media ad well as student teachers that I knew.

Being a life-long learner is another sign of developing leadership. Pursuing my Master’s degree is one of the many ways that I am continuing to study education. Retzel(2012) describes this curiosity for knowledge as “you are eager to dig deeper into pedagogical strategies and/or your content area. You read. A lot” (p. 39). I am constantly on the hunt for educational books. My “to-read” shelf is rapidly growing with books on general education to more specific topics concerning English. Teachers who desire to become teacher leaders should pursue professional development in their weak areas in order to be the best possible teachers they can be.

Coggins and McGovern (2014) state that in order for teacher leaders to be effective they must be “viewed by their peers as more effective and as having the knowledge and skills to help others improve” (p.19). Becoming a teacher leader does not have to correlate with the number of years of experiences you have; it has more to do with what you can offer to others. I am working in a small school. My opportunities for leadership are going to look quite different than opportunities at a larger school. Even though I may not have a formal leadership position, I can still demonstrate leadership in the small things, and maybe one day, it will lead to a more formal leadership role.

References

Coggins, C., & McGovern, K. (2014). Five goals for teacher leadership. The Phi Delta Kappan, 95(7), 15-21. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24374713

Ratzel, M. (2012). 5 Telltale signs you’re becoming a teacher leader. In Curriculum leadership: Readings for developing quality educational program (10th ed., pp. 38-41). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Wastson, C. (2014). Beginning teachers as leaders. Educational Horizons, 93(2), 30-30. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24635460

Top 10 Tech Tools to use in Your Classroom (Part 2)

This is part 2 of a post about technology tools to use in your classroom. In case you missed part 1 you can find it here. This part will focus on tools I have researched and think would be a good addition to my classroom but I haven't actually been able to test them out yet.

Tools I Want to Try

Storybird—Storybird is a digital story telling platform. Students select a picture that that enjoy and write about it. Students publish their writing to the class you have set up. As the teacher you are able to see all projects and add comments. Peers can also leave comments on work. A great feature is the ability to share the class link with parents so they can view their student’s writing. You can also order a hard copy of the class book. The major limitation is there is no option to upload your own graphics. I think this would be a great tool for a poetry or short story unit. I also love the option to order a hard copy of the book.

WriteWell— Some students do not have a problem organizing their thoughts for a writing assignment, but let’s be honest, many students struggle with how to organize their thoughts. WriteWell provides students a visual platform for their thoughts Assignments are “chunked” into small sections, and students can reorganize as needed. Write well also allows students to create notes and add audio. While the end result is similar to Easy Bib, I like the visual layout of WriteWell better.

Realtime Board—Collaboration is a foundational skill for today’s learners. Realtime Board provides a virtual whiteboard for collaboration. Unlike Google Docs, students can draw, upload videos and insert virtual sticky notes straight onto their whiteboard.  Students can also chat directly in the application. The share feature allows students to share their work with one another and with you as the teacher. The program is easy to learn with little learning curve.

A sample of boards

EduClippler—Portfolios are a great way to show student progress. EduClipper is an online portfolio system. Think of it as Pinterest without the need for images. Students can create multiple portfolios, one for storing articles for research, one of final projects, etc. Teachers can also pull documents from multiple portfolios into their own to show student achievement. Portfolios can be shared easily through many networks or downloaded directly to your computer. I think it would be great if a whole school utilized this program. That way when students graduated they would be able to see how much they have progressed.

Animato—Animato is a web-based movie production program. Students can create digital stories using music, photos, videos, text and audio recording. This platform was more user friendly than others that I tried, but there is only a free trial version. It has more options than iMovie, and is easy to share. I believe that this would be a great tool to promote digital literacy and an alternative to traditional book reports and presentations.

Well, there you have it–my top 10 tech tools. Which ones have you used before? Do you have any other ideas that I should incorporate into my highschool classroom?

If you are interested in more tools for your classroom, I highly recommend  The Teacher’s Guide to Tech  by Jennifer Gonzalez.

Top 10 Tools to Use in Your Classroom (Part 1)

There has been a change in our classrooms—a substantial change. This change has altered everything about the 21st-century classroom, yet the education system wasn’t designed for this change. This change is students.  In his article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” Marc Prensky (2001), claims that “today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors.”  Our students think differently because of technology. They are “all ‘native speakers’ of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet” (Prensky, 2001).

Technology has forever changed the way that our students learn. It is up to us as educators to “speak the language” of our students. Here are my top technology tools for the classroom.

Tools I have used before

Google Classroom—I am a huge Google Apps fan.  I love the Google Chrome browser. For students and teachers who are already familiar with the Google platform, Classroom is easy to use with little to no learning curve. Classroom is Google’s Learning Management system. Because it integrates Google’s other products, it essentially provides a paper free classroom. Tracking student progress is simple, and teachers can sync their grade book with Classroom. It does require a free Google Apps for Education account, but it is fairly easy to set up.  Watch this video to learn more.

Easy Bib EDU—It is research paper time. Your students can barely keep track of their everyday classroom supplies, let alone their research notecards. Easy Bib helps eliminate that problem. Not only will Easy Bib create accurate MLA reference pages, but the new EDU site allows students to make virtual note cards with text or audio. Easy Bib will also sync with your Google Drive account allowing students to access their resources and type their papers from anywhere.

Screencast-O-Matic—You have a class of 30 students, and it is presentation time. If you want each student to give a 10-minute presentation, you are losing a minimum of 6 days of instructional time, and other students will not be engaged. Screencast-O-Matic is an easy tool for students to record their presentations and add audio. This is also a great tool for you as the teacher to record your lessons whether for a student who was absent or a flipped classroom environment. One of the best things about Screencast-O-Matic is that you aren’t limited to just recording a presentation; you can record anything on your screen. The free account limits your recordings to 15 minutes, but the Pro account is only $15/year and is well worth it. Watch this video for a quick overview.

audioBoom—This is a great resource for audio recording that is available on web, iOS, and Android platforms. Students and teachers can create their own channels where all of their recordings are stored. Students can create podcasts on specific topics and share via many social networks. Audio files can also be downloaded straight to your computer.

Poll Everywhere—Poll Everywhere is a great tool for informal assessment. Teachers post a question or survey and students can respond via text, twitter, web, or smartphone app. Data is shown in real-time in the form of graphs or word clouds. The Educator account allows for up to 40 responses per poll. The biggest limitation, in my opinion, is that every student must have access to a device in class. If you know ahead of time that not all students will have access, you might want to consider Plickers. 

To keep this post a reasonable length, I have separated it into 2 parts. Look for the next part soon.

References:
Prensky, Marc. (2001) Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the horizon, 9(5), [PDF]. http://marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Christian Education and Common Core

Common Core State Standards.

These words elicit a myriad of opinions to those who know anything about education, and quite frankly, to those who don't know anything about education as well.

Throughout my college education classes as well as my experiences as a teacher, I have studied the Common Core English Language Arts (CCSS ELA) on numerous occasions. I don't want to get into the pros and cons of government imposed standards today. I want to address a bigger issue.

How should Christian schools respond to the Common Core standards?

The following Washington Post article describes opposing viewpoints that Catholic schools take when it comes to the CCSS. This isn't just a debate among the Catholics; it's a debate in our schools as well.

Let me start off by saying, I am the most familiar with the high school ELA standards since that is my content area. I am not familiar with the other content areas or even the lower ELA standards. These opinions are based on my experiences and research.

I do not have a problem with the ELA standards. In some areas are the grade level standards weak? Possibly, but there is nothing wrong with exceeding a standard. Teachers just need to be able to show that their students can at least meet the standard.

My school does not use CCSS, but does that mean I ignore them? No. I am constantly comparing my students' knowledge to the standards to see if they are on track. My goal is for my students to meet the grade level standards. The CCSS give guidelines for what a student should be able to do upon completing high school. Since the goal of secondary education is to prepare students for life after high school, I think that meeting a common set of standards is a very good thing. I personally believe that students who graduate from a Christian school need to have received an education from a Biblical worldview that not only matches state schools but also exceeds it. If students can't meet the same basic standards as public school students, what does that do to the  Christian testimony and reputation of a school?

The controversy arises not from the standards themselves, but from how states and school districts implement the standards. Do I think that Christian high school students need to be reading The Stranger, The Kite Runner, or The Catcher in the Rye? Not necessarily. There are many other appropriate novels that can be used to teach about other cultures and philosophies as well as key elements of literature, yet many schools dictate these novels as part of the curriculum because they are "required by Common Core." The ELA standards never state what novels must be taught. Sure, they give suggestions on what novels to teach, but they aren't requirements.

The standards themselves are amoral, and, being such, I think that Christian schools should use them as best they can in order to prepare students for a world outside of Christian education. But like in all areas of life, the standards need to be implemented from a Christian worldview.


References
Strauss, V. (2015, September 20). Why Catholics are fighting each other over the Common Core standards. Retrieved March 08, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/09/20/why-catholics-are-fighting-each-other-over-the-common-core-standards/?utm_term=.fe69b2467e5f