Are You 21st Century Skills Ready? Check Out this Teacher Technology Bucket List!

A very special thanks to Crechena Wise, Principal extraordinaire of Tetzlaff MS in ABC Unified for sharing this post with me.  Are you 21st Century Ready?

The Common Core standards require use of technologies. As more districts acquire more learning technologies and apply new strategies to comply, teachers are required to integrate new tools into their classrooms for learning and assessments. What do they need to know?

Brian Byrne – curriculum associate for elementary math in Stamford PS, CT, devised the Teacher Bucket List . “This is what I consider should be the bare minimum a 21^st century teacher should be knowledgeable about and utilize during instruction time with students. The list is in particular order.”

New Web 2.0 tools emerge all the time, and those educators at the cutting edge will find them, test them out, and spread the word about the useful ones to colleagues, who will further refine the list of what works for their students and under what circumstances.  At some point, use of these tools will reach critical mass as they become easy to use, transparent, and an essential component of schoolwork.  Educators will use sound pedagogical judgment to determine which tools – web-based and traditional – are best to use for student learning and when and how to use them.

Teacher Technology Bucket List

A 21^st century teacher should be able to:

1.     Create a Twitter account to communicate with all classroom stakeholders.

2.     Understand how to search for, download, use and remove apps.

3.     Scan a document and save it as a PDF.

4.     Attach a file to an email, post, etc.

5.     Create a blog and update it frequently with relevant information.

6.     Provide a place for students to create digital portfolios.

7.     Use the basic functions of Excel

8.     Put together a quality PowerPoint or Prezi presentation

9.     Understand how to operate and use their interactive whiteboard to enhance lessons

10.  Provide ground rules and expectations for students regarding digital citizenship

11.  Upload pictures from a camera and then use them within various platforms

12.  Support students in being creative and presenting their information in various ways

13.  Upload a video to YouTube

14.  Skype or videoconference

15.  Use Delicious.com and Pinterest to find teaching resources for the classroom.

16.  Collaborate with students via Google Drive

17.  Use a community forum like Edmodo

18.  Speak their language: know understand, and speak with kid-friendly language when appropriate.

19.  Experiment with comfort; accept that students may know more than you occasionally

20. Build a network by participating, sharing, and learning constantly.

Write More and Become a Better Reader!

Love this recent post by my literacy friend, Tim Shanahan.  For years people have asked me about the relationship between reading and "writing".  Repeatedly, I have been saying that explicit teaching and practice of writing (printing and cursive), has a positive impact on one's reading comprehension.  This blog post and reference to Ginger Berninger's research proves my point!

The more students write (frequency and duration) and the better students write (quickly and legibly), the better readers they will become!

Shanahanonliteracy.com

Not All Deconstruction is Created Equal

As I am working with a great cohort of Principals and Coaches in Anaheim City School District, I am reminded of the idea that common sense is NOT common practice.  Knowing and doing are not the same thing. This is obvious, but the obviousness doesn’t prevent us from falling victim to the assumption they are the same. We think once we know something we will always remember or be able to apply that knowledge, but this is definitely not true.  

Deconstructing standards seems like it is something that ALL teachers should do before lesson or assessment planning. The reality, however, is that teachers generally do not deconstruct standards, they just jump in and start teaching the standards.  What is the harm?  The harm is that we may not realize the intimate details of the standards at the particular grade level.  Not accessing those intimate details means that the students may not get what they need to be successful at the next grade or beyond. 

A couple of key questions to ask when deconstructing the standards help us see the standards from an INSTRUCTIONAL perspective.

1.  What do students need to KNOW?
2.  What do students need to DO?
3.  How will students be expected to SHOW their learning?
4.  What IMPACT does this have on instructional planning and delivery?

While we have been deconstructing standards for a few decades now, its important to remember that not all deconstruction is created equal and we need to make sure we are looking at the standards from an instructional perspective.  

Here is a visual I use with educators to assist in this instructional deconstruction. 

Making Sense of Expository Text

As we continue down this Common Core journey, we are reminded again of the need to teach students to understand how to read expository text.  It seems as though teachers in all content areas always assume that the other teachers are teaching students how to read expository text.  As a general rule, it would not hurt any of us to do our part and explicitly teach text structure.  What better way to help readers understand the author's message?  As a part of the pre-read activities, remind students of what they are reading and use a matrix like this one to break down the different structures.  With regular academic conversations about text structure with students, it will become a non-issue.

The Critical Academic/ Tier 2 Vocabulary Words Your Students Must Know for the Common Core State Standards!

Researchers estimate 85% of achievement test scores are based on the vocabulary of the standards. Students from poverty, ELL students, and other at-risk students are particularly in need of learning these words in ways that meet their specific learning needs.
Below are the high frequency Verbs and Nouns of the CCSS and words present in the exemplars provided in Appendix B.

Analyze
Articulate
Cite
Compare
Comprehend
Contrast
Delineate
Demonstrate
Describe
Determine
Develop
Distinguish
Draw
Evaluate
Explain
Identify
Infer
Integrate
Interpret
Locate
Organize
Paraphrase
Refer
Retell
Suggest
Support
Summarize
Synthesize
Trace

Alliteration
Analogy
Argument
Central Idea
Conclusions
Connections
Connotative Language
Details
Evidence
Figurative Language
Illustrations
Interaction
Metaphor
Mood
Point of view
Rhetoric
Simile
Stanza
Structures
Theme
Tone

Parents!! Think the Common Core is Just Common?

Parents! If you have ever wondered if the Common Core State Standards were good for education or necessary for your children, you need to read the alarming statistics about how our current system is preparing students for college and/or careers. 

As American students return to classes in a public education system projected to be majority minority for the first time this fall, new test scores provide alarming evidence that students of color remain far behind their white counterparts.

While only 39 percent of all students who took the ACT college admissions test in 2013 scored well enough to be deemed college-ready by the testing company, the number was dramatically lower for minority students, with only 11 percent of African-American and 18 percent of Hispanic students meeting the bar. Forty-nine percent of white students and 57 percent of Asian students made the mark.

It Takes a TEAM to Collaborate!

It has been said that terms and labels travel easily, but application and practice rarely follow when talking about implementing new initiatives. When it comes to the basic tenets of a PLC, this is certainly evident, particularly when it comes to working in collaborative teams.

In much the same way a cooperative learning lesson assumes putting desks together in groups of 4 will lead to students working as a cooperative group, simply demanding teachers meet weekly does not a collaborative team make.

It takes careful planning and time to make PLC's effective. Do you know the recipe? Let us know if you want to talk about your PLC process.

To Front-load Text or NOT to Front-load Text? That is the Question...

To Front-load Text or NOT to Front-load Text? That is the Question...

Last week, I was asked by a few different people about the need to pre-read/ front-load information for English Language Learners. Should we be doing it or not doing it? Should it be minimized based on Common Core recommendations?

The truth of the matter is that pre-reading or front-loading information for ELLs can allow them to be closer to the level of their EO classmates, however there is a big difference between filling in some cultural and prior knowledge gaps and telling them what the text says before they read it.

If teachers tell students what the text says time and time again before and while they are reading it, then students will rely on the teacher to always tell them ahead of time and will never make any reading/ literacy gains. Tim Shanahan likens it to "translation". If someone keeps translating what was said into your home language, then there really is no purpose in learning that new language.

In this era of the Common Core, the "way" we teach our ELLs has not changed. What has changed is the focus on the types of text and the literacy skills all students need to be successful when they leave the classroom. As teachers, we need to differentiate for our ELL and expose them to challenging text with all the necessary scaffolds including, but not limited to, explicit vocabulary instruction, multiple reading of texts, and opportunities for oral and written engagement with text.