my version of transparent, collaborative leadership...with a Teamann twist

Homework Headaches

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Homework, homework, homework! We all give it, we all grade it, we all have our purposes behind it. As we move into the spring, and the time of many an educator head ache, I want us to REALLY think about what we’re sending home and why. Thanks to my PLN, (8amber8), I came across a great articlethat looked at homework from a parent’s perspective. There were a couple of different sentences that jumped out at me…

So often, what comes home seems either mind-numbingly excessive (25 long division problems, anyone?) or beyond the scope of what is reasonable (three-page book reports, typed please, and make a diorama to go with it). My experience as a mother of four and as a teacher with 18 years’ experience has led me to the realization that practicing something, or being asked to produce something for which one lacks the skill, does not breed perfection, or even learning. It breeds frustration.

I can tell you from experience how homework is done in my world. If MT is at home it is completed, checked, discussed, rechecked, rediscussed and then put away. Nice and neat. If I’m home, I think I usually remember to say “Hey, did you finish your homework?’ She says yes, I say great, and we’re done. Nice and neat. 🙂 And I’m the former teacher, remember!

I want you to think about the homework you’re assigning. Just repeating something does not automatically strengthen learning. If you’re unsure of a skill or concept, actually doing it wrong repetitiously may do more harm than good! There is no research that supports homework as a tool for increasing academic achievement in the primary grades. Are you assigning it because you want them to practice? How many times do they genuinely NEED to do something in order for you to feel better? Do you have a goal? Is there a way to assess what they were “practicing” and see a correlation to what you are doing in class? Because if there isn’t, you’re creating headaches…we discussed at the beginning of the year students sitting out from recess because they ” didn’t do their homework”. We don’t like to see that happen, especially when in some students you’re depending on the self starting initiative of an 8 year old to get it completed.

 

ASCD had a great article in it’s September Educational Leadership magazine (hush, I’m behind in my reading!) that provided an awesome chart that gave some homework alternatives.

 

 

In This Learning Situation. . . Instead of This Try This
You introduced new material in class. Assigning a question set so we will remember the material. Ask us to think up a homework task that follows up on this material and to explain our choices.
You want us to read an article before a class discussion. Making us answer questions that prove we read it. Ask us to write down two or three questionswe have after reading the article.
You want to see whether we understand a key concept (such as literary irony). Making us complete a worksheet. Ask us to demonstrate the concept for the class in small groups, using any medium.
You want us to see how a math procedure applies in various situations. Assigning 10 word problems that involve this procedure. Ask small groups to choose one word problem that applies this procedure in a real-world situation, solve it, and present it to the class.
You want us to memorize facts (such as dates in history). Handing out a list that we will be tested on. Ask each student to share with the class a memorization trick (such as a visual cue) that works with one item on this list.
You want us to remember what you taught last month. Assigning a review sheet. Give frequent short pop quizzes about earlier material. Go over each quiz, but don’t count the grade.

 

 

I would love to see you experiment with some of these options. In the same way that the dynamics of the way we’re teaching has changes, let’s think about homework in a different way as well…

 

Homework HelpN,

Amber

To ipad or not to ipad…

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Am posting this here in hopes my PLN can convince me one way or the other…and am cross posting on our Connected Principals site as well.
Techie Teamann, technically yours, yadda yadda yadda…techie toys make me happy. I love my macbook…I love my iphone…my ipods…my itouches…sigh.
Now we have this iPad…toy. A toy I don’t have…for a myriad of reasons. I’m going to go through my pros and cons and I truly want to hear what you think. As in comment. Vote. Tell me (and er, MT) what ya think…
Do you see my dilemma? Is there a dilemma? It all boils down to the very simple fact that I WANT it. I hate that I think I might be grownup enough to resist it.
iPad puzzled,
Amber
Pros (go buy it!!) Cons (No! No! Resist!)
seriously? It’s cool. It’s expensive! For the smallest (which is plenty big) without 3G, I’d be out $500.
For the 3G version, $629. That’s a lot of allowance!
It’s so portable. I have an i{Phone, an iTouch, and a Macbook. What more can I fit in a travel bag or trendy purse?
It’d fit in my purse! As does my phone. And my iTouch. Depending on the bag, so does my Macbook.
It’s the newest and the coolest. Really Amber? Did you just write that? (sigh.)
All your friends have one. No, they don’t. They may have a work one, but really? They don’t HAVE HAVE one. As in they decided it was worth the $$$.
I can use it in the car! And its a bigger screen than my phone! (oooohh ahhhhh) Only if you pay more. AND YOUR PHONE WORKS IN THE CAR TOO!
The sheer annoyance of having to pay a seperate data package annoys me.
If I just get the cheap one (cough cough) it’ll only work where there is wifi. Which I might add, is also where YOUR MACBOOK ALSO WILL WORK

 

appleY,

Amber

Bad bully, bad!

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It’s no secret that bullying is a bad bad thing. One of our rockstar teachers put together some awesome resources and I thought I’d share the wealth here. I did several sessions a few years ago on CyberSafety for different campuses and they involved different videos that I’m going to post here as well. Keep in mind that the week we do the book fair, have grand parents day and our Reading and Technology night, we’re going to have CyberSafety week…we’ll have fun announcements and a couple different activities planned.
Here’s a cute readers theater called Crocodile And Ghost Bat Have A Hullabaloo which is all about name calling. I also found a good website with bullying lessons and powerpoints.
This article discusses characteristics of bullies and how every level of a school can handle and recognize a bully. At the end it lists several other articles that can help you in your classroom…
This site is amazing! Several webisodes on bullying situations that you can show your students as well as games. There is information for students as well as adults…
This site offers coloring sheets (cough cough), contests, stories, and celebrity messages to help students understand that bullying must be stopped!
Bullying won’t be tolerated here at Luna. Let’s do what we can to educate and prevent!
informingly,
Ambully

Data dets!

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While we are waiting on a collective decision on how we’re going to be utilizing Edugence for intervention tracking and SST support purposes, let’s not forget how very useful the data that is already there can be.
You have student test scores from previous years. You have curriculum assessment data from this year, in all areas. You have the ability to look at your class as a whole, see which questions were the most missed, what your commended rate was, and how your grade/class did compared to others. If we’ve run your scantrons, you’ll find a district comparison in your box, showing how well we did compared to the district average and individual campuses.Take advantage of all the information at your finger tips.
What do you do with the data that you see/collect? Do what you do best. TEACH. Pat those students who did well on the back. Work in small group interventions within your classroom. While we do have an intervention teacher that assists, YOU are the expert. YOU are the most valuable resource on our campus. YOU are going to be what helps that student improve.
Additional help: once you’re through with IPM in SuccessMaker in the lab with Math, we can set up isolated strands for practice. It can be what they’ve shown difficulty with in the past, or what they are struggling with today. TECHNO TEAMANN TIP: Check the questions they missed on their math CA, check your key, pull that TEK and ask Mr. Martinez to set up a practice strand, just 3-5 minutes long. Watch them get better….
You could also see which question was most missed on your CA and use this document on searching Safari strands by TEK to have a whole group video to show to your students. Safari is like United Streaming…just better, 🙂

Download file "Safari Standards Search.pdf"
I’ll start pulling your students early next week for some podcasting pointers if you’ve sent me names. Get ready, they’re going to come back FIRED up about creating something for you, and I want to see what they can come up with!
It’s going to be good to get back, my LL’s! Hopefully I’ll be able to put this instructional leadership business to good use!!
ILD’ed,
Amber

Be THAT teacher….

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Did you watch the Emmy’s? Noooooooo, this isn’t a red carpet review…I’m just wondering if you noticed/remember the two different winners that referenced teachers and education.

The creator of Glee thanked all of the teachers that let him finger paint in school (encouraging creativity). The best supporting actor Emmy winner, David Strathairn, made the comment “that all of us had teachers that recognized something in us” and “opened a door”. He said he felt privileged to play that role.

As an educator, do you feel privileged? Do you appreciate the fact that you are touching students lives? I hope so. It made me reflect on what is really important in our roles…it isn’t about a “test”, or a reading log, or the signing of a form. It’s about young people…children. In some cases, it’s about making them feel secure, making them feel valued, and providing a door to their future.
I’ll never forget a student that I was lucky enough to have in one of my last years teaching. I won’t go into details, but just say that I invested more of my time, energy, and personal $$$ than I ever had before. He was known as a discipline “challenge”, but I tell you what…when he smiled, it lit up my classroom. It was a powerful lesson in that some students needed love and security from me more than they needed to memorize their multiplication facts. I had to think outside of the box to get ANYTHING from him that year, but it was so worth it. When he looks back on his academic experiences, wherever he has ended up, I hope he remembers me as someone who cares about him, rather than someone who felt the need to control and confront, just because I was the “adult” in the relationship.
I asked a good friend of mine if this “love’em all” expectation was unrealistic, if I was thinking with my admin eye, instead of a teacher one. We agreed that if you were able to develop a relationship with your students and truly make them all feel successful…show that you genuinely care about them, each one individually, then you could accomplish both your academic goals and these personal points. I know that there will be many who disagree with me here, but anyone who knows me, knows that relationships are my “thing”. I think it all starts there…you can always try to close an academic gap…but how can you even make a dent if the student thinks you don’t care? With our students that need that little extra attention, doesn’t it stand to reason that they already know what failure feels like? Why don’t you be THAT teacher? the one that shows them what it feels like to feel good about themself…
I challenge my LL’s to be THAT teacher this school year…
HopeN,
Amber