Literacy Loving Gals: Hack Learning

Showing posts with label Hack Learning. Show all posts

Schedule Revealed for the Upcoming #D100bloggerPD Book Study on Hacking Engagement: 50 Tips & Tools to Engage Teachers and Learners Daily!

The #D100bloggerPD book study schedule for James Alan Sturtevant's Hacking Engagement: 50 Tips & Tools to Engage Teachers and Learners Daily is ready for reveal, so mark your calendars! Some gals in my school district have banned together and are excited to get things underway. The kickoff for the book study starts Thursday, October 19, 2017 right here on Literacy Loving Gals.

Each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for the duration of October through the start of November, a #D100bloggerPD crew member will post a reflection on their chosen hacks from the book. The book study culminates on Reading and Owl of the Above Thursday, November 9, 2017, which is the 2nd anniversary of #D100bloggerPD!

Feel free to join in on the book study by hopping from blog to blog reflecting within the comments section. I will be linking the crew's posts down below, so once the book study has been completed, all links to the study will be in one place for easy access. To view the Table of Contents taken from Hacking Engagement, peek below.

Happy Reading!

Reading and Owl of the Above

Hacks 46-50

Hacking Homework (Part 2): Favorite Quotes, Tips, Advice from Hacks 5-10 & the Conclusion

I'm back to share more from Connie Hamilton's and Starr Sackstein's amazing book, Hacking Homework: 10 Strategies That Inspire Learning Outside of the Classroom. This post is dedicated to Hacks 5-10, as well as the Conclusion. If you missed my previous post from the first part of the book and are interested in reading it, please click HERE. Before I begin, below are a few tweets and articles from the authors regarding homework.

LOVE THIS! #LOL

Click the image to read the article!

Hack 5: Encourage Students to Play- Support Innovation and Creativity

Play, though extremely valuable for a student's learning progression, isn't considered "real work" that can substitute for content that needs to be covered (p.86).

Play can encompass a range of activities; not just games or outdoor sports, but all structured and unstructured activities that students choose to do on their own time, such as reading, music, or painting (p.86).

The more we offer students opportunities to do the things they love outside of school, while connecting those activities to what was learned, the more they will approach learning from a fresh and engaged perspective during the day (p.87).

Throw out worksheets (p.87). (This one is my all-time favorite!!)

...ask students to tinker with writing, an art project, or a science lab for one period and then ask them to reflect on what skills were being used (p.88).

... there are many standards that can be taught through different forms of play (p.91).

Because school has gotten much more serious even for younger students, play is essential to helping connect learning to life in a meaningful and enjoyable way. These connections are what will make lifelong learners out of our kids (p.93).

Homework doesn't have to be onerous; it can be enjoyable and should be (p.99).

Hack 6: Spark Curiosity Before the Lesson- Make Connections That Generate Interest in Learning

Some teachers use homework exclusively as a means of practicing skills taught in class, overlooking potential opportunities to spark excitement about learning (p.101).

Start to drop hints about future lessons, with the goal of getting students to explore upcoming material outside of class (p.103).

Triggering curiosity can be as simple as creating a series of agree/disagree statements that ask students to make judgement calls connecting prior knowledge with upcoming information (p.104).

When we allow students to approach a topic before we do so in class, they grow curious, follow their own lines of inquiry, and practice independence skills (p.106).

...practice shouldn't always mimic what has been done in class. We want to push students to apply ideas, skills, and concepts to new learning, developing the depth of their content understanding as well as their analytical abilities (p.106).

Creating interest should be a primary goal of teaching. Our job as educators is to make learning fun so that students become adults who are lifelong learners; curiosity plays a huge role in this (p.106-107).

Hack 7: Use the Digital Playground- Harness Social Media for Learning

We have to stop avoiding the digital shift and start embracing technology, as it is vital to how today's students learn in school, but even more so at home (p.111-112).

Rather than force students to approach education the way adults always have, schools must meet them where they are, integrating technology and social media into learning both in and outside of the classroom to further digital skills that will be carried with them in the future once they are done with school (p.112).

Students need to learn early about the magnitude of their digital choices (p.113).

The more we fill their [students] toolboxes, the more resources they have to explore their interests and extend lessons beyond the classroom (p.114).

For younger students, closed platforms like Edmodo, Meetup, or Kidblog help students practice good digital citizenship in class. For older students, use Twitter or Google Communities as a way to backchannel discussions both in and out of class (p.117).

Social media, however, has the power to make the world a much smaller, more connected place. This is a medium with which students are already engaging, and often not for the best purposes, so teach them to use it effectively (p.120).

We would never take kids to an unsupervised location and leave them alone, with no instruction, so why should that happen with social media (p.120)?

Social media helps to marry the technology with the face-to-face experiences we encounter and helps develop interpersonal skills and literacy skills at the same time (p.126).

Hack 8: Amplify Student Voice- Incorporate Choice in How Kids Learn at Home

Education generally uses a top-down model, ignoring the most important voice- the student's (p.127).

The less ownership we give students, the less they have the ability to think for themselves (p.128).

When we don't allow students to have a say, the purpose of the home learning is often unclear (p.128).

When given the opportunity to make choices about home learning, most students develop sound options; sometimes even better ones than teachers (p.129).

Instead of only one assignment for home, offer a "choose your own adventure" option in which students decide how to demonstrate their knowledge but still fulfill learning objectives (p.129).

Sometimes it's a good idea to let students follow their own paths, even if you suspect it won't work out the way they plan. Failure serves as a wonderful learning experience in itself (p.132).

Try not to limit kids to what works for you as a teacher. Offer suggestions, but be okay if they don't take them (p.132).

Any time we highlight or showcase brilliant student work, we show kids that their ideas matter (p.133).

We know that when interest is high students will create their own inquiry around a topic (p.133).

Hack 9: Team Up With Families- Model Instructional Strategies for Parents

Without proper communication and explanation, parents won't understand the approach today's teachers are taking to meet the needs of 21st century learners, both in and out of school (p.141).

All parents want their child to succeed, but success is often based on right answers and not deep understanding of concepts and skills (p.142).

Changing parents' conceptions of learning is an important step toward teaming with them so students extend learning opportunities everywhere (p.143).

Instead of predicting what you think your parents want or need, create a survey and solicit their feedback (p.145).

Provide experiences for parents that will give them both a frame of reference for how they might support students at home and a better understanding of how learning occurs in your classroom (p.146-147).

Provide strategies to parents (p.147).

When you solicit parent feedback, you should share a summary of that feedback with the entire parent community, along with your plan for how you will use feedback to influence your future decisions (p.150).

If we provide parents with tools for facilitating student success, honoring their key roles as co-educators in their children's lives, we--the teachers and the parents--convey a consistent and powerful message to students (p.156).

Explicit examples, experiences, and concrete tools are all ways to help parents broaden their perspectives on how their kids learn (p.156).

*** Side Note: If you want more information on how to team up with families in their child's education, check out my post from Hacking the Common Core, dedicated to Hack 10: Involve Parents- Clarify Their Role.

Hack 10: Display Growth- Empower Students to Track Their Improvement and Display Progress

Along with mandatory nightly homework assignments, many schools require that homework be graded, assuming that grades are what motivate students to do the work and that grades communicate what students learned (p.157).

Students often receive little to no feedback for their homework, as there is just too much of it for teachers to make meaningful comments (p.158).

As we stop forcing kids to comply with policies that don't facilitate learning and start making out of class work meaningful, we need to help students develop an understanding of who they are as learners, so they are able to express what they know and can do (p.159).

Stop collecting and grading every assignment (p.159).

Enrich student growth with only purposeful assignments (p.159).

Track progress on concepts and ideas (p.161).

In using reflection as a tool in class, students learn to evaluate their tracked progress, discuss their goals and describe how they were able to meet or exceed standards, with specific reference to the strategies employed (p.162).

Students need to receive targeted, personalized feedback that lets them know they are moving in the right direction and identifies areas in which they must continue to grow (p.163).

Progress isn't about short-term points and compliance; it's about mastery and achievement over time (p.164).

Feedback coupled with teacher- and peer- provided strategies and reflection facilitates student ownership (p.169).

As we continue to reimagine what homework can be, we need to remember what the point of education is: to help students become more independent and engaged in their own learning by shifting toward a more student-centered experience (p.170).

Conclusion: It's Time to Rethink How Learning Happens Outside of School

Mistakes happen (p.172).

Filling students' time with oodles of work beyond the school day sends a negative message about how we value what students do outside of school (p.172).

After reading the quotes, tweets and articles above, do you believe it's time to start #HackingHomework? As I mentioned in my previous post, anyone who assigns students homework must read this book. It certainly provides valuable insight on what truly matters when trying to extend students' learning outside of the classroom. Ponder the tweet below. I certainly think it's time for a change. ;)

Happy Hacking!

Hacking Homework: Favorite Quotes, Tips, Advice from the Introduction & Hacks 1-4

Are you familiar with the Hack Learning Series of professional development books? Back in March of last year, I participated in the #D100bloggerPD Crew's book study dedicated to Mark Barnes' and Jennifer Gonzalez's book Hacking Education and then, more recently, another book study dedicated to Michael Fisher's Hacking the Common Core. Both books were amazingly helpful in navigating what teachers are faced with in the classroom.

Currently, I am part a Voxer group created by my colleague Leah O'Donnell from Responsive Literacy. She and I are co-leading the discussion on Connie Hamilton's and Starr Sackstein's book, Hacking Homework: 10 Strategies That Inspire Learning Outside the Classroom. Anyone who assigns students homework must read this book. It certainly provides other perspectives and valuable insight on homework and what truly matters when trying to extend students' learning outside of the classroom. If you're interested in joining the Voxer group, click HERE to request access from Leah. :)

Below are a few of my favorite quotes, tips and/or advice found on Twitter, within the Voxer group, as well as throughout the first half of Hacking Homework.

I'll be honest. When I was a classroom teacher just over 8 years ago, I was guilty of assigning homework just because it was part of the supplemental material packs in the basal and math programs at the time. The work sent home wasn't always meaningful and it certainly wasn't differentiated. That was the norm back then for many educators. The assigned homework was pretty much geared toward those students who were considered on grade level. A lot has changed over the years, especially in terms of differentiation, peer collaboration, flexible seating, technology use in the classroom, and now homework as well.

Nowadays, as a Reading Specialist, mother and educator who has grown a tremendous amount professionally over the past 21 years of my career, I can genuinely say I now know better. Since I know better, I do better. My journey in becoming a more impactful teacher will never cease because I have a passion and inner-drive to use research-based best practices. I'm hoping this post will guide you in reconsidering what is best practice for homework assignments.

Introduction: It's Time to Reimagine Homework

If homework is assigned, it must be purposeful, transparent, and tied to learning experiences (p.17).

Homework is one of the most misused tools in education (p.19).

After being in school for seven hours, shouldn't a child have the opportunity to reflect in a manner that is meaningful to him or her, allowing new learning to sink in before adding more practice (p.19)?

Traditional homework is an insidious practice that often ruins the learning process for children and puts a damper on playtime and learning as a positive experience (p.20).

We strive to shift the perspective on learning at home to be more exciting and relevant than what we experienced as students (p.20).

Hack 1: Break Up With Daily Homework- Work Around the Policies

We send mixed messages to families when we promote family time, extracurricular activities, and student jobs, then infringe upon that time with nightly required homework (p.24).

Expecting children to continue their "work" after long school days, {which} doesn't support what we know about child development (p.25).

Distinguish between "required homework" and recommendations to support learning (p.26).

Being explicit about your intentions and rationale helps parents and students understand the reasons for deviating from the status quo (p.28).

We can shift parents' perspectives by explaining the purpose and expectations of the new policy, arming them with clear strategies to support learning both when assignments are and are not provided (p.30).

Investment is the most important thing parents can give their children. For a kid, spending time enjoying his or her family's company is more beneficial to the home environment than being stuck at the kitchen table completing required assignments (p.32).

Expanding the definition of nightly homework allows us to celebrate the learning that occurs in a diversity of formats (p.33).

Hack 2: Teach Organization and Responsibility in Class- Ramp Up Accountability and Time Management Skills

Of course we want students to be able to manage their time, meet deadlines, do quality work, and take ownership of their learning, but simply doling out assignments doesn't achieve these goals (p.37).

In order to effectively tackle poor habits, we should provide direct instruction and models of best behavior, teaching students how to keep track of deadlines and class materials; how to manage time efficiently; and how to be accountable for their work (p.39).

...let's look for opportunities to introduce and strengthen organizational and accountability skills, expanding beyond the traditional approach of assigning homework (p.40).

If you find yourself saying, "I shouldn't have to teach my students to _____; they should know how to do it by now," that's a good indicator that you do have to teach or re-teach expected behaviors (p.45).

...organization is a precursor to the ability to hold oneself accountable and act responsibly (p.54).

Hack 3: Cultivate Rapport- Establish Positive Relationships to Motivate Learning

When learning is viewed as "work" and students are expected to do it to avoid negative consequences, the message about learning becomes twisted (p.56).

Teachers who connect with students are more likely to get quality work from them. Authentic conversations about progress and growth occur when there is a trusting relationship (p.56).

Stop praising students for their intelligence. Compliments like "You're a genius" suggest students either have the ability or they don't. These comments do not promote hard work or desire to become intentionally thoughtful about learning (p.58).

Fair doesn't mean equal (p.61).

There is a missed opportunity if we don't find some time to guarantee that all students have reflection time on their academic progress (p.61).

It's not always an expensive speaker or new curriculum that helps students see the value in learning, including learning at home (p.69).

Hack 4: Customize to Meet Student Needs- Be Flexible With Assignments and Timelines

Understanding the broader purpose and the transferable life skill helps students see how their work connects to short-term learning goals and long-term outcomes (p.72).

Delaying out-of-class assignments that require application of a new skill- until there is a high level of certainty that students have sufficient foundation to execute the task- makes students' time more productive (p.73).

When teachers are clear- not only about the task and how to complete it, but about why the task helps them learn, what they are expected to learn from it and how they will know they have learned it- students focus more on the learning intention and less on completing the task (p.77).

Invite students to contribute to the conversation about customizing their learning and the pace in which they learn (p.79).

Each day we should be assessing for learning, taking what has happened and adjusting accordingly the same way we expect students to do (p.80).

Most students will consider traditional homework a waste of time when it isn't relevant, is redundant, or is beyond what students can do independently and appropriate scaffolding isn't available (p.84).

Have these quotes sparked any new thinking towards homework? I'll be back for another post to share additional favorites from Hacks 5-10. Check back at some point, if you found this post helpful in some way.

Are you on Twitter? If so, join the #D100chat on Hacking Homework coming up next week. It's a chance to change your views on homework. Co-authors Connie Hamilton and Starr Sackstein will be joining us, too! Make sure to also check out the hashtags #HackingHomework and #HackLearning on Twitter for little tidbits of useful tips that can alter the way you view happenings in Education.

Happy Wednesday!
Colleen
@Litlovegal1

#D100bloggerPD's Book Study on Hacking the Common Core, Hack 10: Involve Parents- Clarify Their Role (with Parent Resources!)

Welcome back for another #D100bloggerPD crew book study! I like starting the book study posts with an introduction of the crew. We consist of an assortment of Berwyn South School District teacher and administrator learners who enjoy blogging, are smitten with social media and make use of our PLNs as an irreplaceable source of powerful content, hence the hashtag #D100bloggerPD. We devote ourselves to staying globally connected. The crew embraces change, strives to better ourselves professionally and desires to join forces with others to share what we learn because...together we are better!

This #D100bloggerPD book study is dedicated to Michael Fisher's Hacking the Common Core. To read the hacks already discussed in the book study thus far, click HERE. You will be able to access crew members' reflections and discussions leading up to this final post in the study.

Before I jump in, I must first say Michael Fisher is one of the most down-to-Earth people I've ever had the chance to meet virtually. He has been nothing but sensational throughout this book study, offering resources, commenting on crew members' posts and even taking the time to be part of the #D100bloggerPD #D100chat co-moderated by Kristin Richey and me. Click HERE for the Twitter chat Storify (Thanks, Leah!). He's extraordinary. #ThankYou

If you haven't already read Hacking the Common Core, I recommend you do. It's yet another invaluable book in the Hack Learning series. Just as Mark Barnes and Jennifer Gonzalez conveyed practical and user-friendly ideas and tools for each hack in their book Hacking Education, Michael Fisher dispenses solutions to problems that seem to go hand in hand with the Common Core. He "debunks the mythology surrounding the standards and provides amazing strategies that will help you bring fun back to learning, even in our standardized world (p.11)." I believe Fisher's hacks have the power to unlock student engagement and enlighten teachers and parents about the Common Core. Who wouldn't want that?

This post is dedicated to Hack 10, which is different than Hacks 1-9. It's slightly less geared toward just the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), but still delivers resources to support parents with them. Hack 10: Involve Parents- Clarify Their Role is more about teachers and administrators building positive relationships with parents (and the community), as well as informing them on their responsibilities in supporting their child's learning. According to Fisher, Everyone needs a seat at the table (p.114) when discussing the Common Core. In order to do this, teachers and administrators need to build significant relationships with parens and invite them into the CCSS discussion.

If you're in the field of Education, you know how impactful it is for teachers, administrators and parents to collaborate and clearly communicate with one another. For this reason, it is beneficial for educators to resolve any confusion or sweeping misguided information parents may be faced with. Since the CCSS and their breadth can be overwhelming, parents may be unclear about their role. No longer can students just memorize and repeat information. They need to be able to analyze, discuss, synthesize and apply their learning to the real world, which is perhaps different than when parents attended school. Nevertheless, it absolutely makes sense. We have to prepare students for jobs that don't even currently exist!

As we know, social media platforms have become quite popular as a go-to place for information. Fisher states,

With new tools like Twitter and Facebook, parents have found efficient and convenient ways to communicate their opinions about standards, schools, evaluations, and assessments. Some of the information has been accurate, but much of it has deteriorated into hearsay, conspiracy theories, and widespread misinformation (p.113).

Since this is the case, educators need to find ways to correct and/or prevent these types of roadblocks because fabricated hearsay has the ability to sour our efforts in joining forces with parents and building crucial connections. A former (now retired) colleague named Marilyn McManus always said, If you can predict it, you can prevent it. The image below is posted next to my desk at school and serves as a useful reminder in many life situations, but is also applicable to the CCSS.

Fisher mentions his colleague, Marie Alcock, and what she calls having a *culture of connection*, rather than a *culture of correction*. He states,

If we were to focus on students and preparing them for the future, consider what would change in terms of our conversations. Perhaps our essential questions would center on invitation and collaboration. Perhaps instead of identifying roadblocks, we could figure out how to move past them (p.114).

With this being said, if we shape positive relationships with parents, it will establish the foundation for all other parent involvement. That's our goal, right? Preparing students for the future is going to take everyone's best efforts. Children are always the only future the human race has, so we need to be committed to building strong partnerships with everyone involved.

Involve Parents:

Fisher offers a handful of good practice tips on what educators can do (starting tomorrow!) to invite parents into the Common Core conversation:

Believe that parents are on your team. Figure out how to engage them.
Become a customer service specialist. Make positive calls home, including personal invitations to school events.
Share your work. Transparency is a must-do. Show student-created work and successes. SHARE! I'm a huge fan of using Twitter to highlight classroom happenings and resources.
Model the behaviors you desire. Administrators should model collaborative behaviors with the community at large the way they want their teachers to collaborate with parents (p.115).

After reflecting on these four good practice tips from Fisher, I feel the teachers and administrators in my school (and district) have been successful in our efforts to invite parents and the community into the schools. We provide a variety of ways to keep the community abreast of the happenings related to school events, as well as curricular decisions.

Besides monthly opportunities to attend School Board meetings, we offer Parent University courses, in addition to monthly Parent Coffees, to communicate details regarding academic programs being implemented, measurement of student progress, standards-based grading particulars and more. Additionally, we have a Parent-Teacher Association and Parent Liaisons program where parents and community members are welcomed into schools to provide all types of support. Most recently, we had our very first Bring Your Parents to School Day, which was a huge success!

Thanks for the pictures, Ms. Bailey!

Our program called Watch D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students) and Super M.O.M.S. (Moms of Marvelous Students) has really sparked engagement with the parents in our school. Dads and Moms sign up to attend school on a particular day to help out in their child's classroom and throughout the building. We especially love when they make return appearances! We also offer opportunities for parents and community members to be Guest Readers in the classroom. Both of these programs are fun, informal ways to promote positive home-school relationships.

As a Reading Specialist, I am particularly fond of promoting literacy. I love reaching out to parent volunteers to organize a date and time for them to be a Guest Reader in my classroom. The 3rd grader in the white Cubs shirt below (Go Cubs!) was thrilled to have his grandmother be a Guest Reader during his group time in my classroom. He was beaming with pride.

Clarify Their Role:
Since teachers and parents have an obligation to prepare kids for the real world, schools need to provide clear, consistent expectations of what their child should be learning at each grade level. Teachers need to be resourceful by providing parents with helpful information that better prepares them in supporting and reinforcing the skills defined by the CCSS. The CCSS help facilitate conversations between all members sitting at the proverbial table.

A vital component of student learning is what and how they learn at home, not just in a school setting. The CCSS define exactly what students need to know, so parents need to be in-the-know. The Instructional Shifts for Students and Parents resource below is from Fisher himself. He shared it to pass along for the book study. See what I mean? He's awesome. :) Click on the link or the image below to download a copy of your own to pass along to others.

While doing additional CCSS research, I came across two further resources below to support parents. The first one outlines the CCSS Shifts in English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics, on top of explicitly informing parents what they can do at home to support their child in school. The resource was extracted from the Parent & Family Library on a site called EngageNY.

The second resource I obtained is the National PTA's Parents' Guide to Student Success. It is broken down by grade level, sharing precise activities for both ELA/Literacy and Mathematics, and explains how parents can talk to their child's teacher regarding academic progress. Hope you find at least one of the three resources in this post helpful.

For further information on clarifying the role of parents in schools, as well as on any of the information found in Hacks 1-9, I highly suggest you buy, read, highlight and tab the book. In Michael Fisher's words, It's more of a 'practice informs better practice' book (p.15). I utterly agree. After reading this book, I am both enlightened and relieved about teaching and impacting student achievement with the CCSS. I will end this post with some first-rate tips from Fisher's Blueprint for Full-Implementation and Overcoming Pushback sections in Hack 10:

Plan events multiple times throughout the school year to share information about standards, curriculum, and assessment, and conduct panel discussions and question/answer sessions (p.116).

Clarify any concerns or questions the parents have (p.116).

Anything they {parents} are able to offer--showing up for a teacher meeting, participating in a school-wide event, joining the Parent Teacher Association, speaking at a board meeting, whatever it is--sincerely appreciate it and make that parent feel like royalty for contributing to the betterment of the school (p.116).

Also worth mentioning is that the Common Core is about divergence in thinking, not just the way the vendor or teacher is teaching. Students need multiple ways to solve problems, not just a predictable way (p.118).

Students can't "Think, Pair, Share" their way to successful creative problem solving in a job setting (p.119).

Teachers should be considering how they can become more contemporary in practice, whether these standards are impetus for change or not. We do not want a Race of Mediocrity, nor do we want a nation of compliance (p.125).

A sincere thank you for stopping by Literacy Loving Gals to learn more about inviting parents into the conversation surrounding the Common Core. When parents, teachers, administrators and the community band together for the betterment of students, everyone is the victor.