Our school system recently purchased a GoogleDocs license, quite honestly, it has a lot of pros and cons. To be fair, we purchased it as one of many options to give students and staff as we try to create, save, and share documents and other electronic products, so nobody is forced to use it. My students and I have been experimenting with it as we work on finishing drafts of their free-verse poems, and although I don't love it, I did have a fun experience with it today.
One guy has had a very difficult time transitioning from prose to poetry and understanding the difference, even. Not surprisingly, then, line breaks are very challenging for him, and today I noticed him sitting in front of a screen with a huge block of prose on it. He had done some wonderful writing about a night-time road trip in El Salvador. Reading his piece with him, I explained again about the concept of breaking the lines, but he really wasn't getting it, so I went over to my work station and pulled up the document, which he had already shared with me, and began to add the breaks. Like magic, he saw his prose start to transform into something resembling a poem.
"How did you do that?!" he asked.
"GoogleDocs," I explained.
"But how did you know where to put the breaks?" he continued.
"I'm so glad you asked," I told him, and it wasn't too long before he was working on his own.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
What a Waste
My English classes are in the computer lab today and tomorrow. The students are typing their final drafts of the free verse poems they have composed over the last several weeks. Any teacher will tell you, at length if you let us, how much easier the revision and editing process is when the students have computers. Just today I had to reassure quite a few kids that they didn't have to completely re-type their work to make the changes I was suggesting, and their transition from anxiety to relief was visible. As a consequence, this was one of the most productive days of the year so far. I wish we could use computers all the time.
Ours is one of the most affluent school systems in the state, and our school has three computer labs and two lap top carts for a total of a little over 100 units for 650 kids. Reserving screen time for our students can be competitive and frustrating to a teacher, because we all understand how technology can assist our students in achieving their educational objectives. It's tight, but with cooperation, kids get a fair amount of lab time.
Recently we were informed that our school system has decided that starting next year, all students K-8 will complete an online quarterly benchmark assessment in language arts, math, and science. In my mind, that is four class periods that students will not be learning, not to mention all the lab time that will be taken by adding even more testing to the year. I can't imagine what kind of data we will collect that could possibly justify this use of time and resources.
Ours is one of the most affluent school systems in the state, and our school has three computer labs and two lap top carts for a total of a little over 100 units for 650 kids. Reserving screen time for our students can be competitive and frustrating to a teacher, because we all understand how technology can assist our students in achieving their educational objectives. It's tight, but with cooperation, kids get a fair amount of lab time.
Recently we were informed that our school system has decided that starting next year, all students K-8 will complete an online quarterly benchmark assessment in language arts, math, and science. In my mind, that is four class periods that students will not be learning, not to mention all the lab time that will be taken by adding even more testing to the year. I can't imagine what kind of data we will collect that could possibly justify this use of time and resources.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Sleight of Hand
Years ago, our school system took the progressive step of having teachers design their own professional development plans as the major component of our evaluation. The object was to encourage and empower teachers as researchers and collaborators who, in consultation with an administrator, used their observation, data, and reflection to improve their practice. In my opinion, the concept was never fully realized, mostly due to time constraints on teachers and administrators alike, but the PDP, like so many things in education, was something that the more you put into it, the more you got out of it.
Flash forward to these times of connecting teacher evaluation (and in many places, teacher pay) to "performance." Much has been written about the difficulty of finding an objective, much less fair, measure of teacher performance. Everyone agrees that student achievement should be the primary consideration, however the variables impacting a given student's achievement as well as the absence of an effective tool to measure it, can make any discussion of such rather contentious.
In addition to a rather cherished reputation for progressive best practices, our school system also has a less celebrated habit of going through the back door to implement key policies and procedures. Call me cynical, but I have sat through a lot of meetings of several committees where, by the end of the process, it seems as if the conclusion was foregone from the beginning and the group merely convened to put that stamp of collaboration on a top-down decision.
Re-enter the PDP. This year we are all being strongly encouraged, if not required, by our administrators to tie the results of our classroom-based research to "student achievement" in the form of high stakes, standardized test scores.
Yes. Our system is so progressive, they are forcing us to use the flawed measures available to evaluate ourselves.
Flash forward to these times of connecting teacher evaluation (and in many places, teacher pay) to "performance." Much has been written about the difficulty of finding an objective, much less fair, measure of teacher performance. Everyone agrees that student achievement should be the primary consideration, however the variables impacting a given student's achievement as well as the absence of an effective tool to measure it, can make any discussion of such rather contentious.
In addition to a rather cherished reputation for progressive best practices, our school system also has a less celebrated habit of going through the back door to implement key policies and procedures. Call me cynical, but I have sat through a lot of meetings of several committees where, by the end of the process, it seems as if the conclusion was foregone from the beginning and the group merely convened to put that stamp of collaboration on a top-down decision.
Re-enter the PDP. This year we are all being strongly encouraged, if not required, by our administrators to tie the results of our classroom-based research to "student achievement" in the form of high stakes, standardized test scores.
Yes. Our system is so progressive, they are forcing us to use the flawed measures available to evaluate ourselves.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Scaring Up Donations
I remember when I was a kid being a little bit jealous of those children who came around, even before dark, to collect for UNICEF-- it seemed like they got double trick-or-treating time, and where did they get those cool paper banks that jingled so solidly with all that change? I still can't answer that question, and even today I myself have never stood on any threshold chanting trickortreatforunicef!
The same cannot be said for my homeroom students. Each year our school sponsors the ToTfU campaign, and so they can be the lucky ones who go to door to door for this good cause, if they choose. Of course, given my own history with the program, I'm always a little surprised by the lack of enthusiasm, and the first time I heard one kid telling another that they could just keep the money, I was genuinely appalled.
I have a sweet bunch of kids this year, (don't get me wrong-- they're not so nice that they skipped the petty larceny angle altogether, but they had the decency to blush a little when I reprimanded them for considering such fraud) and they were all pretty excited about the whole UNICEF gig as I handed out the bright orange boxes. Even so, a few were a little unsure of how to approach their public.
"What do we say?" someone asked.
"What do you say?" I repeated incredulously. "Why, just those five magic words... trickortreatforunicef!"
"But what if people say no?" somebody else asked. "What if they just say, Not today, honey?"
"I guess you should tell them thanks anyway," I suggested.
"And Happy Halloween!" said someone else. "Don't forget that."
They seemed satisfied with that advice.
The same cannot be said for my homeroom students. Each year our school sponsors the ToTfU campaign, and so they can be the lucky ones who go to door to door for this good cause, if they choose. Of course, given my own history with the program, I'm always a little surprised by the lack of enthusiasm, and the first time I heard one kid telling another that they could just keep the money, I was genuinely appalled.
I have a sweet bunch of kids this year, (don't get me wrong-- they're not so nice that they skipped the petty larceny angle altogether, but they had the decency to blush a little when I reprimanded them for considering such fraud) and they were all pretty excited about the whole UNICEF gig as I handed out the bright orange boxes. Even so, a few were a little unsure of how to approach their public.
"What do we say?" someone asked.
"What do you say?" I repeated incredulously. "Why, just those five magic words... trickortreatforunicef!"
"But what if people say no?" somebody else asked. "What if they just say, Not today, honey?"
"I guess you should tell them thanks anyway," I suggested.
"And Happy Halloween!" said someone else. "Don't forget that."
They seemed satisfied with that advice.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Evening Constitutional
The snow had stopped but there was still a little sleet spattering against the windows tonight when I set aside my book, banked the fire, and tied my boots on to take the dog out for a walk in the bluster. At six o'clock it was dark and the weather had almost everyone inside, and so we walked alone through the aroma of woodsmoke and apple muffins carried on the cold, our way lit by the reflection of jack o'lanterns and street lights in the shallow puddles on the sidewalks.
Friday, October 28, 2011
NaNoWriMo Cometh
Yesterday, we held the inaugural meeting of the new writing club at our school. My sister-in-law, the art teacher, sponsors an afterschool art club for kids who either can't take art or who wish they could have more, so I figured why not apply the same principle to writing? Kids frequently complain that they don't have a chance to do their own kind of writing in school, so we aim to give them the opportunity and the audience. Even so, when I explained the idea to a couple of my former students, they dismissed it as just another version of study hall or homework club.
Still, we persevered, and four kids actually showed up for the first meeting. Since National Novel Writing Month starts Tuesday, we hooked them up with the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program, and boom, boom, boom, boom, four novels were born. The young authors were particularly taken with the "Dare Machine," a random generator of crazy curve balls you might try to work into your novel. Example: We dare you to add a waterfall, fireworks, a unicycle, a wrestling match, and a poetry slam to the next chapter.
Heck! You can create a couple of characters and write a novel based on the challenges alone.
By the end of the day today, we had a couple of more novelists signed on, simply by word of mouth. It looks like it's going to be a fun month.
Still, we persevered, and four kids actually showed up for the first meeting. Since National Novel Writing Month starts Tuesday, we hooked them up with the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program, and boom, boom, boom, boom, four novels were born. The young authors were particularly taken with the "Dare Machine," a random generator of crazy curve balls you might try to work into your novel. Example: We dare you to add a waterfall, fireworks, a unicycle, a wrestling match, and a poetry slam to the next chapter.
Heck! You can create a couple of characters and write a novel based on the challenges alone.
By the end of the day today, we had a couple of more novelists signed on, simply by word of mouth. It looks like it's going to be a fun month.
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