I have a secret...

I am leading a session on use of specific apps on the iPad for teachers in my building tomorrow and I am NOT an expert on any of the apps I'm sharing. That's right. I'm showing how to use them, giving ideas of how they can be used and I don't know everything about each of them and I probably can't answer all the questions that may be asked of me.

But, I do know that if there are any questions I can't answer I can tweet them out and am 99.9% sure that someone in my Twitter PLN will have the answer for us.  I have used Educreations in 4 classrooms, showing the teacher and the students all at once how to use it.  Each time, a student (or the teacher) discovered something new or came up with a tip to help everyone.  Every time I use it, I learn something new.  Even if I did become an expert on any one of these apps, the developers are constantly listening to feedback from the users and updating the features, so I would have new features to learn about each time they are updated. I also know that as teachers begin using the apps in their classrooms they will come up with great new ways of using them for student learning and share them with others.

We do not have to be experts at the tools...we have to be experts at learning and show students what it is like in real life to not know the answer or not know how to do something.  To be successful in life you need to know how to find it out.  Or as Will Richardson says we have to be able to "learn, unlearn and relearn."

Why School?

Image from Edtechworkshop

This weekend I downloaded the book Why School? by Will Richardson after seeing numerous educators on Twitter recommend it.  It was a whopping $2.99, but one of the best reads (and a quick read) to challenge our thinking about school.

Here is a TEDTalk given by the author, Will Richardson, talking about how the internet resources available to us today are making learning different.  Even if you don't watch the entire video (which is 14 minutes) please watch the first 1:28 minutes of it as he tells the story of his daughter learning to play Journey on the piano.



I cringed when he told about the piano teacher saying his daughter wasn't ready to play Journey yet.  I then wondered if there are any times that we put similar limits on our students?

Why School? is a great summary of why schools must be different than they were when we went through school.  Schools are no longer the place to go to receive information and then memorize it to regurgitate it on a worksheet or a test.  That is the type of school that prepared children for factory work.  We are now preparing students for jobs that do not even exist today.  Richardson quotes psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy who predicts that "the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write. The illiterate will be those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."  I had to think deeply about that quote, but really can connect to how true it is with changing technologies. Think about how many times you have had to change something you do technology-wise because the program has updated (Microsoft word is the perfect example) or had to completely stop using a program and learn a new one (ex: change of gradebook to a new student information system).  At the rate web 2.0 tools are coming out, this learning, unlearning and relearning can happen daily!

In the video clip above (which was from 2011 so I'm sure the numbers have changed), Richardson says that by using their phones, a student could have access to 2 billion potential teachers...no, not certified teachers, but people who can teach them how to do something.  Information and knowledge is everywhere, not just in the teacher's heads to impart to students.  I just checked the web history on our home computer and found that we have learned the following in the past month from youtube/google:

• How to manage your browsing history in google chrome
• How to embed a video in powerpoint
• How to use storify
• How to use conditional formatting in excel
• How to merge two images in Photoshop
• How to make paper airplanes
• What is Geocaching?
• How to make a redstone elevevator in minecraft

For our students to be successful, they will need to know how to find accurate information, think about and solve real world problems, be able to create and share with others and collaborate with others...not just in the classroom but at a global level.

Here are some of the "nuggets" I highlighted in Why School?:

• "Remaking assessment starts with this: Stop asking questions on tests that can be answered by a google search." 
•  "Performance-based assessments, where students actually have to do something with what they know, tell us volumes more about their readiness for life than bubble sheets or contrived essays."
• "We can raise the teaching profession by sharing what works, by taking the best of what we do and hanging it on the virtual wall. Many would argue that it is now the duty of teachers to do so."
• "We have to stop delivering the curriculum to kids. We have to start discovering it with them." 
• Be a master learner..."in times of great change, learners will inherit the earth, while the learned will be beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists." (quote from philosopher Eric Hoffer).  
• "There's no competitive advantage today in knowing more than the person next to you. The world doesn't care what you know. What the world cares about is what you can do with what you know."
•  Do real work for real audiences.

•  "Don't teach my child science; instead, teach my child how to learn science -or history or math or music."

Is there a basal series for Daily 5?

Here is a cross-post from  "Monday Musings" post on my staff blog this week...

Recently a principal from Twitter contacted me regarding Daily5/Cafe and asked if I could recommend a reading basal series that is conducive to Daily5/Cafe.  Once I got over my immediate cringe at the word "basal" I asked why were they looking for a basal?  This principal was worried about the amount of time required of teachers to plan to teach with Daily5/Cafe,because it is much easier for them to open up a basal and teach from it.

We had a great discussion on the impact I have seen in our building since implementing Daily5/Cafe and I just wanted to share with you some of my reflections on this, because it does all come back to the work that YOU all have done and continue to do each day...

Teaching from a basal is easy.  Everything is in there ready to go for you, aside from possibly having to make additional copies of worksheets and decide what components will be used, because a basal series typically has too much planned for 1 week.  Essentially, all you have to do is open it up each day, read the teacher notes and teach from it.

There is a great deal of research that supports the notion that this is NOT good for kids.  Stephen Krashen says "we are denying students access to the one activity that has been proven over and over again to increase their language acquisition and competence as communicators: free, voluntary reading." (The Book Whisperer, page 51).  A reading basal is "one size" and we know that one size does not fit all.

Since we dropped our basal series and implemented Daily5/Cafe, here's what I have seen change...

• Students reading and writing.  That's it.  No more drill-and-kill worksheets with low level comprehension questions that have minimal transfer to actual reading. 
• Teachers continuing to read/learn to become experts at literacy and teaching struggling students to read and higher readers to comprehend/discuss higher level texts. 
• Classroom libraries continuing to grow so they are filled with high interest books that students want to read.  These libraries are filled with a variety of genre that are often organized by the students which helps them to know what books are there and where to find them.
• Students (and teachers) enjoying reading.  I recall a teacher saying that reading used to be the worst part of the day, because it was SO boring.  Now, that teacher says Daily 5 time is the best time of the day.
• Students and teachers talking about and recommending books to each other. 
• Teachers sharing their "reading lives" with students, being a reading role model.
• Teachers using what they know about student strengths, goals and interests to find books to "hook" students that haven't quite found the right book to get them to enjoy reading. 
• Teachers using mini-lessons with a variety of picture books or parts of novels to model the meta-cognition that happens while reading text, creating Anchor charts with student input to refer back to in future lessons and giving students time to practice applying newly learned skills with teacher feedback.
• Teachers introducing new authors through read-alouds that lead students to expand their reading to new genres and authors.
• Students giving mini book-talks/book recommendations to their peers to help others expand their reading choices. 
• Teachers conferring with students 1:1 for reading and writing, giving individual coaching sessions on what students are doing well and creating next step goals for what will help that student continue to become a better reader/writer.  Using this conference to model for the student and give practice again to provide feedback to the student, continuing to check in with the student on this goal until it becomes mastered.

Image from Clark Chatter

Yes, this is all much more work than opening up the reading basal, but it is SO much better! You are not just teaching children to read, you are teaching them to enjoy reading, which we know leads to more reading and builds their background for all future learning.  

Thank you for all that you do to lead our students to be readers and writers!

The #WIAmigos are at it again...

Wisconsin is a state filled with farm land and small school districts across rural areas.  Each district can feel like it's own island, but the educators on Twitter are working to connect those islands.  Over time as many of us Wisconsin Educators have become closely connected we have coined ourselves the #WIAmigos.  It is a great time to be an educator in Wisconsin!

During the past 4 years on Twitter, I have been fortunate to become connected with so many great educators and especially enjoying connecting with Wisconsin educators that I eventually get to meet in person at conferences.  I have presented with my principal colleagues Curt Rees, Matt Renwick and Jay Posick numerous times at conferences to help spread the word.  This week we were excited to have the following article published by ASCD:

Building a Professional Learning Network to Save You from Admin Island

Here's what else the #WIAmgios are "up to" when it comes to connected learning:

• Curt, Matt and I will be presenting next week at #2013AWSA, the Elementary Administrators Conference. You can find handouts for our session here:

A Little Birdie Told Me: The Why's and How's of Twitter

• You can find other Wisconsin Educators to follow (and add yourself to this list) at http://bit.ly/WIEducators
• Wisconsin DPI is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WisconsinDPI DPI has also started a Twitter account specifically for the Common Core State Standards: https://twitter.com/WisDPICCSS
• The #WIAmigos have started a regular chat for Wisconsin Educators.  You can join the conversation using the hashtag #wischat on Sunday nights at 8pm. A huge thank you to John Gunnell for moderating this chat. 
• A great day of awesome and FREE learning will take place on February 23 in Sun Prairie for #EdcampMadWi.  You can find out more about this awesome edcamp HERE
• How fun are we?  We even have a t-shirt!  Huge thank you to Tom Whitford for putting this together!

Pathways to the Common Core: Part 3

Here is Part 3 on Pathways to the Common Core that I shared on my staff blog in my Monday Musings Post.
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Monday Musings - Pathways to the Common Core: Part 3

I've finally made it to the section on Writing in Pathways to the Common Core.  I will be completely honest with you all and admit that when I taught in the classroom, writing was my least favorite subject to teach.  Ironically, I've now grown to love writing and think if I were teach again it would probably be my 2nd favorite (right along with reading).  This is only because I continue to write myself on a regular basis and enjoy it just as much as I do reading.

Prior to the CCSS, there really hasn't been much for writing standards, because NCLB put emphasis on phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.  If you sit down and look at the writing standards in the common core, you will find that they are organized into three broad categories or types of writing:

• opinion and argument
• informative/explanatory texts
• narratives

While we often put our focus on the writing process in our classrooms, the # of pages in the CCSS for writing actually devote 1/2 of the pages to the 3 types of writing. In addition, the standards call for a "distribution of writing experiences that gives students roughly equal amounts of time and instruction in argument, informative, and narrative writing" (p. 104-105).  Just like the reading standards, the common core standards for writing have a "shared responsibility" for other subjects to incorporate writing into daily learning. 

At Dodgeland, we have done a great job of shifting our literacy time to provide students with the time to read so they can become better readers.  The common core standards also call for students to write often; "write routinely" to make writing a habit.  

I was surprised to learn how specific the standards are on expectations for what students should produce in a sitting. For example, 4th graders are expected to produce a minimum of one typed page in a sitting, and fifth graders, a minimum of two typed pages in a sitting!

As I reflect on what I'm learning about the common core writing standards I wonder if our current instructional time allows for students to practice writing daily, not just for narratives (which I know we're probably best at in the elementary)?  What does writing across the curriculum look like currently for our students throughout the day?

What should student writing look like at each grade level?  You have all of the annotated examples at each grade level in your binder from Appendix C (also found online HERE), but I'm going to include a snapshot from each grade level. Please note that for some of them, the pieces are more than a page and this is just a snapshot.

Pathways to the Common Core: Part 2

Here is Part 2 on Pathways to the Common Core that I shared on my staff blog in my Monday Musings Post.
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Monday Musings - Pathways to the Common Core: Part 2

Last week I shared my first reflection with you as I am reading Pathways to the Common Core. This week I'll share what I've learned about Reading Informational Texts. (I will warn you, since it is informational text, it is a "heavier" read than previous Monday Musing posts...at least it is for me!)

The common core standards have increased our expectations of how much informational text students read. They provide the following recommendation for reading

One important clarification here is that this does not mean  that the CCSS call for dramatically more nonfiction reading within the ELA classrooms/literacy block.  This literacy expectation should be shared responsibility across the content areas, meaning that 50% of a 4th grader's day (using the chart) would be reading informational text.

So, what is the CCSS expectations for reading informational text?  The CCSS emphasizes synthesis, evaluation, and comparative textual analysis. 

Got that?

I didn't.  What exactly does that mean?

Let's look at each standard...

The first 3 anchor standards for reading informational texts are the foundation for the rest of the reading work students will do.

Standard 1: Read closely and make logical inferences
This means reading the informational text to determine what it says and NOT focusing on how you can make connections to it.  This was a surprise to me, because I always taught my students to think of what they already know about the topic and make connections as they read.  However, the CCSS don't concern themselves with what you know, think you know, or how you feel about the topic.  You need to focus on what the text says explicitly.

Standard 2: Read to determine central ideas and themes
This standard asks readers to determine central ideas and summarize the text, linking key ideas and details.  This is hard to do if you didn't do standard 1 very well and you may have to go back and reread. (I found I had to go back to standard 1 several times as I read this book!)
To get to standard 2 you can ask yourself the same question that you would if you were reading fiction, "What is this article starting to be about?" Then as ideas emerge, gather up some of the information in the text as evidence for those ideas.

Standard 3: Reading to analyze how individuals, events and ideas develop and interact 
Here is where you need to notice the sequence of events, analyze relationships and connects and determine cause and effect.  As readers, you should be able to analyse all of the individuals and events and be able to see how they are connected.

I'm sure you've read enough by now, so here's a short summary of the rest (you can borrow my book if you want to read more!):
Standards 4-6 get into the the craft or how the text is written.
Standards 7-9 require the reader to integrate knowledge/ideas by reading other texts on the same topic.
Standard 10 read/comprehend those informational texts at grade level

If you've read this far, then I'd ask that you reflect on informational reading in your classroom...Are your students spending 50% of their reading each day in informational text? Are you teaching your students to apply reading skills aligned to these common core standards as they read informational text?  How do you support students that are reading below level to read and analyze informational text?

Pathways to the Common Core: Part 1

Each week I share a "Monday Musings" post on my staff blog.  I use this weekly post to share my own professional learning/reflections with staff.  I am currently reading Pathways to the Common Core and plan to share what I'm learning in several parts with staff.  Here is what I posted for them last week.
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Monday Musings - Pathways to the Common Core #1

I am currently reading the book Pathways to the Common Core, which I am finding to be an incredible resource to gain a better understanding of what the ELA Common Core Standards really mean.  Wait, don't close this yet, I know you're sick of hearing about the common core, but at least save it to read later when you have time!  If I could, I would buy this book for everyone to read, but there's probably not enough $ and I know that many of you would be worried about when you'd have time to read it. For now, I plan to share some of the "nuggets" from my reading in my next few Monday Musings posts to share my learning with you.  By doing this, it is also helping me to process what I'm reading.

My first take-away from reading this book is that it is not enough for us to have our Common Core binders and remember there are 10 anchor standards in ELA or even to know the CCSS really well for our grade level.  We need to really dig into what it means to apply each of the skills in the standards...How often do we we actually read complex text and apply the skills in the standards? You'd be amazed at what the common core expects!  We also need to know the standards for the grade level above and below so that we can differentiate for the variety of readers we teach.

A great way to think about the ELA standards  reading standards is to picture a ladder, with standards 1 and 10 as the crucial struts that form the two sides of the ladder.  Standard 10 carries increasing levels of text complexity up the grade levels and into College and Career Readiness.  Standard 1, the other side of the ladder, asks readers to "read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it."  The remaining reading standards form the rungs of the ladder.  The authors write that it is the rungs linking the 2 main standards that are important, because "although it is crucial for students to be able to handle increasingly complex texts, reading must never be mere word calling; accuracy without strong literal comprehension is not reading."

As I read the authors' section on implications for instruction, it affirmed all of the literacy work that we have been doing.  The following steps for schools to put in place are things we are already doing with Daily 5/Cafe:

• Assess your readers and match them to books that can be read with 95% accuracy, fluency and comprehension.
• Make reading plans with students and help support them to reach those reading goals.
• Provide students with an extensive collection of high-interest books and allow them choice. 
• Provide students with long blocks of time to read. 
• Provide students with explicit instruction in the skills of effective reading.

If you made it this far in reading...good for you and Thank you!  Next week I'll share what I've learned about Reading Informational Texts.  I am also considering using one of the reading activities (for teachers to get practice in the standards) in our next grade level meetings.

On another random note, I wrote a post on using Goodreads, which is one of my Reading Resolutions. You can find it HERE if you're interested in learning what Goodreads is.