Tim Fredrick's ELA Teaching Blog

Teachers Teaching Teachers Webcast

Here are my notes on the webcast done by Teachers Teaching Teachers.  I'll write a few more thoughts tomorrow - I need to fold some laundry and do a little packing for my vacation.

9:07  Was finally able to get connected and hear what's going on.  Everyone is being welcomed and introducing themselves.

9:11  The moderator, Paul Allison, has been lost.  There seem to be teachers from all over the country.

9:12  Paul is back.

9:14  Something has happened and I can't hear anyone ... oops...

9:15  I got back on, thank goodness

9:16  One participant (Troy - from Michigan - working full time at the Writing Project site there) is doing a writing marathon - using wikis and blogs, etc.  They are using edublogs and using bloglines to read, but that can be cumbersome in terms of being able to respond to one another.  They are looking at how they can use tags and Wordpress.  Paul said he has used group blogs in the past, but never individual blogs.  Another participant is talking about using BlogMeister and is now using EduBlogs.  He liked BM because he had a lot more control over approving posts and comments, etc.  But, when he began to work internationally, the time difference prevented him from approving content in time for it to reach other parts of the world in a timely fashion.  He is now using Superglu - he is still able to supervise by subscribing to the RSS feed.  It seems like students can have individual blogs and combine it into Superglu to get one RSS feed.  He is reflecting on his use of RSS feeds with the students and wanting to use it effectively.

9:21  Paul (I think) had looked at Superglu, but couldn't get it to grab sub-RSS feeds in blogs.  One participant is talking about using Feedburner (my new personal obsession). 

9:25  One thing I like about the SkypeCast is that the person in charge can mute all the microphones and then you can request the "floor" and they can give it to you. 

9:26  Paul is talking about FeedWordPress.  He's talking about using it with individual and group blogs and different feeds going into different places.  A student could have an individual blog for all his classes, but tags each post for each individual class and those posts go to group blogs for each class.

9:29  Now they're talking about really advanced feed stuff and I'm getting a bit lost.  That could be in part because I'm also trying to get into the chat room.  Multitasking at 9:30 p.m. is not easy!

9:34  Paul is talking about having students individually blog for a while and then looking at their categories and comparing those categories to other students and having a group blog "bubble up" from those commonalities.  This could be very interesting and lead to some great conversations.  Finding those commonalities could be such a rich experience.  It reminds me a bit of the controlling idea essay on the NYS ELA Regents exam.

9:36  There's a lot of feedback and it is really hard to hear.

9:38  Now I'm hearing Ahnold.  I don't think he has joined ... Something has gone seriously wrong here.

9:44  After some unsuccessful attempts to rejoin, I heard nothing.  I should be packing for my trip tomorrow ... While I was trying to reconnect, I found a Skypecast about podcasting with students.  Perhaps I'll join that on 7/5 ...

Organizing your teaching stuff

A History Teacher has a good post on what to do with all your teaching resources.  In the comments, there are a lot of good ideas.

I personally like the blog and wiki for that purpose.  I can't tell you how many times I've come back to this blog or my wiki to look at lesson plans, reflections, and ideas.  What I like about these resources is that I can access them at home or at school (or anywhere there is a computer).  I still have a bunch of papers and books and binders and files and stuff that I'd like to scan in and store online.  But, then you are talking about a lot of storage space, not to mention time in scanning stuff in.  I wish they had computer scanners like copiers that have feeders (or perhaps they do?).  That would definitely help.

Electronic revision

Around the World - MGuhlin.net asked an interesting question about revising on the computer versus revising on hard copy and asked for comments.  He also posted his thoughts on the topic.  An important question as we move away from paper and move into digital.

Carnival of Education

Go visit this week's Carnival of Education!

Teachers Teaching Teachers Webcast: Last Day of School

The gang at Teachers Teaching Teachers is having another webcast tonight, Wednesday, June 29, 2006.  I'm going to try to take a listen and see what it's all about - maybe I'll even blog about it in real time!.

Oh, satire!

A funny piece of satire on "Why I hate literature, and why you should too".  A more accessible piece of students than Swift's "A Modest Proposal".  It could be the stepping stone to the more difficult classic.

Is it just me, or can you hear Steven Colbert reading parts of that?

Reflection and the middle school blogger

I ran across a report called "Reflection and Middle School Bloggers: Do Blogs Support Reflective Practices".  The authors read and scored random blogs written by middle school teachers.  The results are not that surprising - the blogs had varying levels of reflectiveness.

What I found interesting was the rubric they created from which to judge the rubrics and the anchor entries for the scorers.  The reflectiveness seems to hinge on the use of examples in the entries. I'm not sure whether I agree with that or not - I can't think of a reason not to, but my gut is skeptical.  It will make me think about my own posting and the reflectiveness.

This week in Ed Week

Two articles in Ed Week [registration required] came to my attention in the past week.

The first, which was co-authored by my graduate school adviser Gordon Pradl, is called "Teacher Education's 'Black Hole'" [registration required].  The premise of the article can be summed up with this ...

Until schools of education can operationally and publicly define (a) what a teacher needs in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes to teach students successfully, and (b) how a teacher best acquires this set of competencies, the goal of systematically preparing highly qualified teachers will continue to be elusive.

Right now, there is no agreement as to what makes a good teacher.  Those who argue for more standards, standardization, and standardized tests are going to look at what makes a good teacher differently than those who argue for less of that nonsense.  Therefore, the best method of preparation is going to vary depending on what you see as a good teacher.  Schools of education, whatever their flaws, look at teaching and learning differently than school districts and politicians, who are mainly looking at 'numbers'.  For those of us who have come from schools of education and are currently involved in schools of education, we see learning as something larger than numbers in a spreadsheet.  We see it as an experience where one learns about themselves and the world they live in.  The kind of teacher needed to facilitate this kind of education is very different from the kind of teacher who needs to get test scores up (and I would argue that the first brand of teacher can do the same thing as the second in terms of test scores). 

Alter and Pradl begin their article citing that "study of 10,000 New York City teachers purportedly showed no relationship between their pathway to certification and their ability to raise student test scores only furthered the erosion of confidence in our current institutions. ("Path to Classroom Not Linked to Teachers’ Success," March 22, 2006.)" [registration required for that one, too]  My problem with that study is that it is basing 'success' on test scores.  Those of us in education know that standardized tests actually test very little and that which they do test is lower thinking skills.  It is not surprising then that it wouldn't make much of a difference which way the teachers came since teaching the skills tested (lower-order thinking skills) doesn't take all that much skill.  What of the other, higher-level thinking skills?  How would the results of that study be different?  What of helping lower level students gain confidence and mastery of being literate members of a community?  How would the results have been different?  What about getting students to enjoy school - and even more, learning! - and not just become robotic test takers? I wonder ...

I'm not one to believe that there is anything wrong with schools of education.  The best teachers I know came from schools of ed.  I question what we consider good teaching - perhaps this is what we need to change.

The second article is a short blurb called "'Boy Crisis' in Academics Overstated, Study Suggests" .  [you guessed it, registration required].  The headline made me shiver.  First reaction is that people are now going to argue that we don't have to worry about boys' performance.  I read on ...

The report, produced by the Washington-based think tank Education Sector, uses data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the Nation’s Report Card. The data suggest that boys have made progress or stayed about the same in most subjects, but girls have made improvements faster on some measures, such as in mathematics, science, and geography. As a consequence, girls have narrowed some academic achievement gaps, creating the appearance that boys are losing ground, the report says.

The whole conversation becomes different when we begin to look at vocabulary.  Here, the whole study hinges on 'improvement'.  I haven't read the whole study yet to know how they are measuring, but I'm going to.  Anecdotally, the top academic students in our school are all girls.  The lower quartile, mostly boys.  Who's written up to go to the dean the most?  Boys.  You can't tell me that the 'crisis' is overstated.

Links:
Ed Week [RR]
"Teacher Education's 'Black Hole'" [RR]
"Boys' Crisis in Academics Overstated, Study Suggests" [RR]
"The Truth about Boys and Girls" from Education Sector [no registration required!!]

Social apps for teachers

Some new "sites" I created for teachers ...

The first is called "Tim Fredrick's ELA Teaching Question and Answer" - a place for teachers to go and ask questions as well as answer other people's questions.  A virtual teachers' lounge, but without all the complaining and bitterness.  I've already posted a question about useful summer PD.

The second is "Tim Fredrick's ELA Teaching Bookshelf" - a place to share books that have been influential for all of us. 

The point of both apps is for everyone to contribute and use.  So, feel free to post your thoughts on the sites.

Something's wrong with high schools

There's got to be something wrong with high schools.  That is the only conclusion one can draw when you look at this report published in EdWeek.  Some important points:

• Nationally, third of drop-outs never get past the ninth grade.
• According to EdWeek, the graduation rate in NYC is 38.9%; according to the city it is 53.2%.
• The city considers a GED as graduation.

From the first point, one could draw the conclusion that the transition from middle school/junior high to high school is not a smooth one and, for 1 out of 3 drop-outs, where they got "stuck".  This says a lot about how well middle schools are preparing students for high schools.  This could be for a variety of reasons, but I would guess that it has to do with a huge lack of communication between the two levels.  Middle schools (at least the ones I've seen) look more like elementary schools than high schools.  I'm not saying that's necessarily bad, but we must certainly be aware that there is a disconnect here.  Something's got to change - middle or high school (or, probably, both).

Also, let's keep in mind that "high school" as it is conceived of now was never really meant to graduate 100% of students.  In my parents' day, many students dropped out to work or join the army.  When "high school" was developed, this was a reality.  Our expectations have changed, but what we do has not.  We expect 100% graduation, but maintain a model of secondary schooling that cannot achieve that.

Now, to New York City.  It will be interesting to see how graduation rates shift in a few years after all the new small schools have been able to graduate a few classes.  My feeling is that we will see a rise in graduation rates because these smaller schools are more able to give students individual attention.  In larger schools, students are easily falling through the cracks.  Not so much in smaller schools.  The small school movement has done a lot to change how we see "high school," but I still don't think it is enough.  Making it smaller does make it more personal.  That's a good step.  But, the instructional models have not changed.  Classes are still largely compartmentalized and students don't see connections between subject matters.  So, they go between classes not seeing how all this learning adds up to changing how they view the world.  Teenagers have lots of questions about themselves and the world, but we aren't answering them in the high school.  This is the next step we need to take.  Move away from departments and more into full-on, no-holds-barred interdisciplinary work.  But, who's willing to take this next step?

Links:
The EdWeek Report
NY Times article on EdWeek Report