Laura+Gordon

Name:Laura Gordon Email: lgordon@ais-r.edu.sa Unit: Exploring the West-A Region of the United States



 ||  || Nice work Laura!
 * **Question** || Response || Posted By ||
 * Stage 1 - Identify Desired Results : //To what extent are the targeted understandings... // ||  ||   ||
 * Aligned with appropriate goals (standards, benchmarks)?    || Wise not to have selected too many goals. Makes their effective assessment a realistic goal. It might help to include the standard(s) to with the benchmarks relate. BD You have selected good goals--they really help drive your unit. Your school has very defined learner outcomes. M.Cooke ||   ||
 * Big ideas at the heart of the discipline (as opposed to basic facts and skills) in need of // uncoverage? // || Yes these are lofty ideas covering the knowledge and conceptual aspects. Might you add a targeted understanding for the skill-based objective strand? BD ||   ||
 *  Framed by provocative // essential // and // unit // questions?    || These are great examples of essential questions. BD I love the question you posed that asks about how we know whose side to believe. Sounds like great discussion could come from this. MC  ||   ||
 * Linked to valid and relevant knowledge and skills? || Clear alignment with benchmarks. Look forward to see how they pan out in the assessment blueprint. BD Your skills outcomes are great--I'm looking forward to see what assignments you give to match these. || M. Cooke


 * **Stage 2 - Determine Acceptable Evidence** || **Response** || **Posted By** ||
 * **//To what extent are...//**
 *  Students asked to demonstrate their understanding through authentic performance tasks?
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB"> Appropriate criterion-based scoring tools used to evaluate student products and performances
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB"> A variety of appropriate assessment formats used?
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB"> Assessments used as feedback for students and teachers, as well as for evaluation?
 * Students encouraged to self-assess<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold"> ||  ||   ||
 * **Stage 3 - Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction** ||  ||   ||
 * **//To what extent will...//**
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB"> Students know //where// they're going (the learning goals) and //why// the material is important, and //what is required of them// (in terms of unit goals, performance requirements, and evaluative criteria)?
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB"> Students be hooked and //engaged// in digging into the big ideas of the unit (through inquiry, research, problem solving, and experimentation)?
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB"> Students receive explicit instruction on the knowledge and skills needed to //equip// them for the required performances?
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB"> Students have opportunities to //rehearse//, //revise//, and //refine// their work based on feedback?
 * <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB"> <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Students //self-assess// and set goals prior to the conclusion of the unit? ||  ||   ||

= = Response Journal #1: My name is Laura Gordon and I teach at the American International School-Riyadh. My husband is the high school principal and I have two children, ages 7 and 5. This is my second year in Riyadh and I am very happy to be here. I am a 4th grade teacher with a class of 21 students; 14 boys and 7 girls which makes my days busy, interesting, and tiring. I have two colleagues that I work with at this grade level and I always appreciate the opportunity to pick their brains and learn from them. I have been an educator for 18 years and have mostly been in the classroom, with the exception of being a K-12 Librarian for two years in Jeddah. From those two years I learned a lot: being a librarian is hard work and requires a true balancing act. I also learned that one needs to have the personality and skills of an administrator; most dealings are with the adults in the building, the budget, and working with assistants and staff within the library. I learned that I loved the part of my day when I got to teach the kids and interact with them about books. I also learned that administration is not for me...So I am very happy to be back in the classroom working with 9 year olds all day long. I have been hearing about UbD for years now, both back in the states and here in the international schools. There is an element of it that makes so much sense to me; that deepening my students' understanding should be the core of what I do. I believe it will help me to work smarter in my pursuit to create lessons plans that aren't just at the surface, but will really challenge my students to deeply know what they are learning and why. Intellectually, I know this will ultimately help my students grow as learners. On the other hand, bad habits are hard to break. With the push to "get through" curriculum, some days it feels nearly impossible to get real understanding from the subjects I'm teaching. This is the bad habit I want to break. I know I need to really understand the implications of designing lessons which allow my students to experience deeper understanding. This is what I hope to get from my class. Response Journal #2: The author, David Perkins, makes a very strong case for the knowledge arts. By providing a "report card" of effort on the parts of schools and teachers to teach to one of these four arts, I feel like he does a good job of showing where we come up short. Indeed, his point of view is that educators need to provide ample opportunity for their students to show what they know beyond the traditional methods. I felt like this article made so much sense to me. However, that would be my intellectual side responding because physically, I responded like I often do when I read or hear something that makes me question what I do as a classroom teacher: I get that little knot in my stomach that lets me know that I'm not doing enough to support those ideas of deepening understanding. Articles like this reawaken my sense of duty that I must do a better job and that is good because that will have far-reaching effects in my classroom. I feel like I do an adequate job of helping kids deepen their learning, but "between the oases of glory stretch deserts of neglect." (I loved that line...) This article goes hand-in-hand with what we talk about in the elementary school when dealing with authentic reading and writing. And for sure, those discussions need to broaden to math, science, and social studies. It is like taking it all on with one little baby step at a time. Curriculum designers should be pleased that the knowledge arts are written out so straight-forwardly. This gives them ample opportunity to look at curriculum as a way to help teachers define what the deepening the understanding can look like. The four knowledge arts; creating, communicating, organizing, and acting on it, are a powerful way to organize the curriculum. Instead of a curriculum moving everyone from one skill to the next, it can define what that means at a deeper level. Eisner states that instead of preparing students for tomorrow, schools should prepare students for the present. The skills needed to function in a future society that will be a mystery to us only makes for a stronger point that the five aims Eisner writes about should be a focus. The five areas of focus are judgement, critical thinking, meaningful literacy, collaboration, and service. Each of these aims strives to help kids and teachers think and react at a higher level to the curriculum being taught. The most compelling is meaningful literacy as it is always assumed that "literacy" has to do with just reading and writing. Eisner makes it very clear that literacy of the arts is equally important. Moreover, to keep kids from engaging in this kind of literacy will leave a large hole in the development of the other aims. In my experience, the factors that give rise to the "prepatory" and "hoop jumping" conception of education is that teachers and administrators are satisfied with the status quo. It's easier to say, "Well, that's how it's always been done," than it is to rock the boat. I think in every school I have ever taught in, whether it is in the states or overseas, there is a pervasive feeling that change is hard and so it's just easier to keep doing it the way it's been done. This kind of thinking and practice doesn't allow for the five aims that Eisner is talking about. If getting through the curriculum is everyone's focus, then there is certainly no room for making sure that students are dedicated to solving problems using critical thinking skills, collaboration, and good judgement. I have to admit, that though I love the ideas that Eisner puts forth, it feels nearly impossible to make sure I cover these aims in my own classroom. I'm a bit contradictory in my thinking, but at least I know I have something to shoot for when I plan my lessons. Because I often plan with two other grade level teachers, and we each have a different style of teaching, it is hard to break away from needing to cover material in such a general way. The best approach I know for introducing new concepts into my own teaching is to do it in little tiny steps; that way I don't feel so overwhelmed. What I also know is that my students, at 4th grade, are very uncomfortable with the idea that questions may have more than one answer. They are used to asking if something is right or wrong, and then they want my opinion. They often bristle at me asking them, "What do you think?" Reading articles like this always keeps that sense of disequilibrium for me that is necessary for change in my own way of planning and running my class. Response Journal #3: There seem to be many benefits to the constructivist model. The first and biggest benefit is that kids are in charge of their own learning. They are actively involved and are being guided by what interests them. Another benefit is that students working in a classroom that uses a constructivist method learn with and from their peers. Students are able to collaborate and exchange ideas with one another which broadens and deepens their understanding of a subject. Transfer of knowledge is an important benefit of the constructivist classroom as well. If the students are learning and inquiring at a deeper level, then the information learned will stay with them and they can build on it later. After reading the article and watching the video interview on constructivism, I think that educators need to be cautious about a few things. One is that constructivism doesn't really allow for the (sometimes) need of basic skills. For example, students could construct their knowledge about what multiplication is, test their theories, build it and work it out in groups. But the fact of the matter is that the kids also need to memorize those facts so that they can complete the problems automatically. Building what the 4 times tables look like will not help a student later on when he has to solve a long division problem on a standardized test. Also, I think teachers need to be aware that while constructivism helps students think about and construct their learning, the students need to be aware of expectations, time limits and assessments. I realize the article was an overview of the constructivist theory, but it can come across as "loosey-goosey" if the theory is not handled right in the classroom. Response Journal #4: An example of my teaching in each one of Brandt's "Conditions for Powerful Learning" are: 1. People learn what is meaningful to them: One of the writing projects in 4th grade is procedural writing. I teach them the structure through use of "how-to" books from the library and by modeling a write on chart paper. However, they get to choose what they want to write about and to teach the class. I find that it is highly motivational for them and they always try to do their best because they know they got to choose. 2. People learn when they accept challenging but achievable goals: One of the challenging goals in my class right now is building "stamina" in their use of the Daily 3. Building stamina means that they work everyday to see how long they can sustain focus in their everyday reading to self, writing, and reading with a partner. Some days are better than others, but they know it's an achievable goal and so they are willing to retry even when they haven't got it right. 3. Learning is developmental: This one is simply put to use in math class whereby repetition, day by day, of the multiplication facts leads to the long term goal of feeling comfortable with long division. These facts are developmental and you cannot skip a step to hurry to the next. 4. Individuals learn differently: Each one of my kids has an individualized spelling list. I go through the week's writing and write their frequently misspelled words on an index card. I then have them put those words on their weekly spelling list. If they are misspelled on the test, they go back onto next weeks list. If they are spelled correctly, they go into their personal spelling dictionary, and they are now responsible for correctly spelling the word in their writing. 5. People construct new knowledge by building on their current knowledge: During literacy time, I try to make sure I activate my students' prior knowledge, as I am always surprised by how much their perceptions and my perceptions differ. I talk about their schema and ask them to, for instance, preview a book by reading the blurb, looking at the pictures, asking questions, and making predictions. I am finding more and more that this is the biggest help in getting the students brains "ready to learn". 6. Much learning happens during social interaction: Because I have a class this year that is "boy-heavy", I provide social interaction in a very structured way. I use the teaching strategy called "Reciprocal Teaching" which helps a small group of students work through a non-fiction text. Each group begins with a discussion leader, and the discussion leader guides the group using a set of pre-written cards so that each group member can participate fully. When the first discussion leader gets through the cards, it gets passed to the next person in the group so that he or she can have a turn. 7. People need feedback to learn: A few weeks after school started, I was able to work with each one of my students and administer an IRI. I got back to each student as soon as I could so that they knew what they needed to work on at the beginning of the year. It was important for them to declare their goals with me and to recognize what their strengths and weaknesses were. I think it set them at ease knowing where they were headed. 8. Successful learning requires the use of strategies: Strategies are tools that the kids can use to help them when they get have a question. During literacy time, I talk a lot about the strategies that good readers (and writers) use: good readers ask questions; good readers visualize; good readers make connections (text to self, text to text, text to world). 9. Positive emotional climate strengthens learning: This one is the most important, and for me this year, the hardest because of the dynamics of my classroom. Everyday is a new day, and it's my job to make sure that the kids in my class feel safe within our community of learners. Right now, I am taking a lot about how to treat others with respect. 10. Learning is influenced by the total environment: Until I changed the physical space of my classroom last spring, I never would have believed that it made a difference. I toned down the busy-ness of my bulletin boards, I took out odd and unneeded furniture. I hunted down new (old) desks that fit groups better, I added carpets, plants and curtains. I even took the legs off of a table and put cushions around it. Now my classroom feels good...the kids want to be there to learn. I think many, if not all, of these conditions are viable in my current teaching environment. It's important to look at them however, not as ten individual conditions, but as overall classroom conditions for powerful learning. I am certainly stronger in some areas than others, but knowing that each of these conditions is needed in the classroom makes it easier to keep my teaching, and my thinking about my teaching, well-rounded. Response Journal #5: The best lesson and unit designs are "backwards." For those of us who have gotten into the bad habit of activities based-learning and deciding what the "cutsey" stuff will be for the unit before any sort of planning takes place, this mind-shift can be altering. The backwards design concept states that we must start from the end to know our beginning; that carefully looking into our standards and benchmarks provides a perfect opportunity to decide what ideas and abstractions should be taught. From there, we need to decide what wide variety of assessments will be best to get our students to that place of understanding. Not just surface, factual understanding, but the kind of understanding that comes with transfer of concepts and the ability to use the knowledge in context. Only after these two things have taken place should a teacher plan careful instructional activities...ones which allow students to use their knowledge and skills through the collection of resources and materials to accomplish the goal. "Backwards" design does, in fact, feel backwards. But it is a system through which a better understanding of unit design can take place. Response Journal #6: The behaviors I associate with student understanding begin with the questioning skills of students and my ability to answer those questions. I often look at the questions students ask as an indication that 1. they understand what is going on and 2. that the questions generated show that the students are thinking beyond the subject. If the student themselves are asking well thought-out questions because of the way I was presenting it makes them question it so, I feel like I'm helping them create a deeper understanding. In addition, student understanding can be displayed in their explanation of their thinking whether on paper or verbally. A 9 year old can either think in the abstract and write about their understanding beyond what I have taught them because they can build upon some prior knowledge, or they can only operate in the "here and now" concrete world of facts and recall. The questions the students ask can give me a good insight as to what type of understanding they have. Distinguishing between students "knowing" and "doing" versus "understanding" what they are studying is a difficult thing to nail down. I think it may come down to the higher level thinking in Bloom's Taxonomy. The way a test question is written or the performance task I have a child do should be the best indication of that knowledge; but I'm left wondering if those "higher level questions" actually are transferable knowledge throughout the child's schools years. As I read more and more of this UbD book, it's a wonder that any of my students made it through the rest of their schooling....I would like to think that I see the difference between "doing" and "understanding" but maybe that's just wishful thinking. The jury is still out...