Keep Growing As An Educator

The following came to me in an email from Cynthia Bahler, a colleague of mine at ESU 15. I appreciated the message and asked if she would allow me to share it with the readers of my blog. She graciously said yes. Her words are below.

“I was taking a moment in my day to inhale a cold lunch when I peered up
and read this amazing poster on the wall of the teacher’s lounge:

Coming to school every day can become a hopeless task for some children
unless they succeed at what they do. We teachers are the sentries against
that hopelessness.

In this month of expressing love and appreciation, I too wanted to thank
you for going the extra mile for kids! It hardly seems possible, but we
are into 2010 and new changes and challenges await for us around the
corner- whether we are ready or not. I don’t know how you feel about
resolutions or even what your success rate is on keeping them. Incase you
are up to it, take on a new challenge to grow as a professional. Now, if
you are knee deep in coursework for your own degree advancement then
ignore this. If not, try finding various resources at your fingertips.
Right here on our very own ESU #15 Website we have a teachers blog where
you can talk to various teachers- ask questions, leave tips and more. In
my profession things are constantly changing. I can’t even claim to
remember half of what is thrown my way, but the stuff I do remember is the
stuff I shared with someone else and actually put into action. About
every 5th article I stumble on I heed it’s advice, attempt it’s
suggestion, share it’s finding. I find myself constantly open to new
ideas and seeking them as well. Perhaps you have an email junkie friend.
Ask them to surf for you and email sites. Check out the NE Dept. of
Education website, a journal for psychology or ask your principal to
suggest one. As always, your librarian would be happy to recommend a
magazine or two to you.

So, with love, I have something for each of you. It is not chocolate to
go to your hips, pop to rot your teeth, flowers to die or money-I’m a
teacher, you know I don’t have money:)
Instead I thought I would share a few great websites with you. ENJOY!
www.behavioradvisor.com
www.quia.com

Art Teachers’ Websites

I’m preparing a job-alike day for Art and Music teachers. During the day, I plan on having them explore a few online resources. Below, I’ve listed the Art websites I found. I do not necessarily endorse all the information found at these sites.

Managing Arts in the Classroom
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/3336/
This How-To offers guidance for managing arts-related classroom projects.

National Art Education Association
http://www.naea-reston.org/
Sections on lesson planning, some online publications.

Increasing Arts Demand Through Better Arts Learning
http://www.naea-reston.org/research/increasing-arts-demand-better-arts-learning.pdf
A Wallace “Knowledge in Brief” summarizes new research on how some cities are working to reverse a decades-long decline in arts education in ways that could also lift demand for the arts overall.

Education at the Getty—Resources for the Classroom
http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/
Lesson plans and lesson guides for K–12 grades and adult ESL learners.

Education at the Getty—Resources for Students
http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/student_resources/
Online games, videos, and activities for students.

National Gallery of Art—Classroom for Teachers and Students
http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/
Access lessons and resources by curriculum, topic, or artist.

2-D Design Notes
http://daphne.palomar.edu/design/
This site contains the design notes for Jim Saw’s Art 104: Design and Composition class at Palomar College. The notes contain design theory as well as the assignments for the class.

Art Studio Chalkboard
http://studiochalkboard.evansville.edu/
These pages are a resource for artists and art students that focus on the technical fundamentals of perspective, shading, color and painting.

The Incredible Art Department
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/
The name of the site says it all.

Arts Edge
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/teach/
the National Arts and Education Network — supports the placement of the arts at the center of the curriculum and advocates creative use of technology to enhance the K-12 educational experience. ARTSEDGE empowers educators to teach in, through, and about the arts by providing the tools to develop interdisciplinary curricula that fully integrate the arts with other academic subjects. ARTSEDGE offers free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, as well as professional development resources, student materials, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment.

Ursus Wehrli tidies up art
http://www.ted.com/talks/ursus_wehrli_tidies_up_art.html
In this comic video from TED, Ursus Wehrli shares his vision for a cleaner, more organized, tidier form of art — by deconstructing the paintings of modern masters into their component pieces, sorted by color and size.

Education Blogs by Discipline
http://movingforward.wikispaces.com/Education+Blogs+by+Discipline
This is a place to list subject-specific P-12-oriented blogs.

Americans for the Arts Public Awareness Campaign
http://www.artsusa.org/public_awareness/default.asp
In partnership with the Ad Council and local and state arts agencies around the country, Americans for the Arts have created promotional ads to encourage parents to ask for more. This site we gives them the tools to do so.

Protocols for Learning from Work, Text, Dilemmas, and Classroom Visits
http://www.nsrfharmony.org/protocol/protocols.html
A collection of protocols to help groups examine texts and work. Some of these can be adapted for use with students.

Music Teachers’ Websites

I’m preparing a job-alike day for Art and Music teachers. During the day, I plan on having them explore a few online resources. Below, I’ve listed the Music websites I found. I do not necessarily endorse all the information found at these sites.

Chorus Teacher Resources
http://www.fva.net/ctr/
Contains information on music advocacy, informational articles, classroom aids, classroom management, clinic/workshop handouts, concert program templates, curriculum, field trip permission slips, sample chorus handbooks, lesson plan templates, and much more.

Owning the Stage
http://www.owningthestage.com/
In this comprehensive blogsite, barbershop quartet champion Tom Metzger explores performance from many different angles.

Foundations of Effective Practicing
http://www.jtimothycaldwell.net/blogs/?page_id=25
Tips from J. Timothy Caldwell, author of Expressive Singing: Dalcroze Eurhythmics for Voice. Explore the links on the right side of the webpage for other information.

The Director’s Face
http://www.choralcoaching.com/wst_page7.html
A short article on facial expressions of directors as they direct. Explore the links on the left side of the webpage for other information.

Music Classroom Management
http://www.mtmusiced.org/MgtExtended.pdf
Contains an pros and cons of various classroom management philosophies, the top 10 classroom management sins, recipes for successful choir and instrumental rehearsals, choir and instrumental rehearsals evaluation tools, music student self-evaluation form, rehearsal “tricks,” etc.

The Twin Foundations of “Pindrop Quiet” Band and Orchestra Rehearsals
http://www.midwestclinic.org/clinicianmaterials/2004/david_newell.pdf
David Newell’s plan for managing band and orchestra rehearsals.

The Happy Classroom
http://www.keynotesmagazine.com/article/?uid=169
Suggestions to help encourage students to stay in music programs year after year.

Arts Edge
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/teach/
the National Arts and Education Network — supports the placement of the arts at the center of the curriculum and advocates creative use of technology to enhance the K-12 educational experience. ARTSEDGE empowers educators to teach in, through, and about the arts by providing the tools to develop interdisciplinary curricula that fully integrate the arts with other academic subjects. ARTSEDGE offers free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, as well as professional development resources, student materials, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment.

MENC—Band Archive
http://www.menc.org/a/band/
Articles related to working with school bands.

MENC—Chorus Archive
http://www.menc.org/a/chorus/
Articles related to working with school choirs.

Lead Like the Great Conductors
http://www.ted.com/talks/itay_talgam_lead_like_the_great_conductors.html
An orchestra conductor faces the ultimate leadership challenge: creating perfect harmony without saying a word. In this charming talk, Itay Talgam demonstrates the unique styles of six great 20th-century conductors, illustrating crucial lessons for all leaders.

Education Blogs by Discipline
http://movingforward.wikispaces.com/Education+Blogs+by+Discipline
This is a place to list subject-specific P-12-oriented blogs.

Americans for the Arts Public Awareness Campaign
http://www.artsusa.org/public_awareness/default.asp
In partnership with the Ad Council and local and state arts agencies around the country, Americans for the Arts have created promotional ads to encourage parents to ask for more. This site we gives them the tools to do so.

Music Education Madness Site
http://www.musiceducationmadness.com/downloads.shtml
Check out this section for some great free downloads, including teaching aids and musical gizmos!

Music Tech Teacher
http://musictechteacher.com/
Student work, pictures and music compositions are on this site. The site is also used to provide music technology links, quizzes, resources and information to all music teachers interested in using technology to enhance music instruction.

Ricci Adams’ Musictheory.net
http://www.musictheory.net/
Collection of lessons, trainers and utilities.

Protocols for Learning from Work, Text, Dilemmas, and Classroom Visits
http://www.nsrfharmony.org/protocol/protocols.html
A collection of protocols to help groups examine texts and work. Some of these can be adapted for use with students.

Using Cell Phones as A Classroom Response System

The ubiquitous cell phone has become the bane of many teachers and administrators. You know the scenario– students with their hands hidden in their laps or pockets, staring straight ahead, while still managing to send and receive text messages from friends in the classroom, or a classroom down the hall, or even beyond the confines of the building. In some districts, this usually leads to seizure of the offending phones or at least a few admonitions.

Maybe it’s time for teachers to look for ways to embrace the cell phone and turn it from a distraction into a tool to enhance instruction. A simple way to start exploring this possibility might be to use those cell phones as a type of classroom response system. A classroom response system allows students to respond to a teacher’s question by electronic means such as a “clicker“.

Poll Everywhere is a website that helps you accomplish the same task, but with student cell phones instead of clickers. Polleverywhere allows you to create a multiple choice poll question along with the possible choices. Students then select one of the choices and text that choice with their phones.

A good way to see the possibilities of using this would be to watch the video of a 9th grade history teacher (Greg Kulowiec) using Polleverywhere with his class. Notice how the graph changes as students text in their votes. The video is found on the blog Teaching With Classroom Response Systems. Also read the pedagogical observations found below the video.

You can set up a free PollEverywhere account for an audience of 30 students. This means that up to 30 people could respond to the poll at a time. For $15 a month, you can set up an account for an audience of 50.

For additional information, refer to the PollEverywhere FAQ at http://www.polleverywhere.com/faq

This Blog Is Mirrored

Several teachers have been unable to access this blog in their schools because of filtering software. If you’ve been having this problem, you can visit my mirrored blog at http://blog.esu15.org/mpruter/. If you haven’t been having trouble accessing the blog, you can continue to visit it here.

Differentiated Instruction Websites to Explore

The following links are placed here for a workshop on differentiation I’m doing this week. I’m not necessarily endorsing the information on any of these sites. I’m merely providing them for teachers in the workshop to explore and then report out on.

• Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)–Differentiated Instruction
• Differentiating for Advanced Learners Personalized Learning
• 11 Practical Ways to Guide Teachers Toward Differentiation
• Instructional Strategies–Differentiated Learning
• Gifted and Talented
• Differentiated Instruction and Anchor Activities
• Anchor Activities
• Partners in Learning–Differentiated Instruction
• Cubing and Think Dots
• RAFT Writing
• Best Practices–Learning Contracts
• How to Create and Use a Learning Contract
• Tiered Instruction
• More Differentiated Instruction Links

Quick Tip: Saving YouTube Videos To Show in Class

Those of you who check my blog on a regular basis have probably noticed I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks.  Conferences and other professional development opportunities seemed to congregate within a two week period in April.  Well now I’m back to begin sharing some of the things I’ve learned over the last couple of weeks.

The most recent conference I attended was the Nebraska Educational Technology Association (NETA) conference.  This is a premier conference attended by over 2000 Nebraska educators each year.  The NETA folks pulled off another great conference this year.

As many of you know, there is a lot of trash on YouTube, but there are also a lot of great resources for school.  YouTube is blocked in many of our schools, but what if you are searching YouTube from home and find a great video you want to use in your classroom.  At NETA I learned one method of saving a video to your computer or to a flash drive so that you can then show it in school.  Here are the steps:

1

You are searching YouTube and you come to a great video you’d like to download and save.  The URL might look something like what you see below:

2

Type the word kick between the www. and the word youtube and press Enter on your keyboard.  This will take you to the site KickYouTube where you will be able to start the process of downloading the video you just found.

3

At KickYouTube you will need to select a file format to save your video.  MP4 works with Quicktime players, FLV works with Adobe Flash Player or Real Player, AVI and MPG both work with Quicktime and Windows Media Player.  3GP works with Quicktime and Real Player.  If you’re not sure which format to choose, just experiment.  If one doesn’t work, delete the file and try a different format.

4

Next, click on the green Go button.

5

Next you will see a blue Down button.  This stands for download.  You will need to right click on the blue Down. You will get a drop down menu.  Choose “Save Link As” and then navigate to the place on your computer where you would like to save this file.

6

Now you can navigate to where you saved the file, open it and play it on whatever player you have installed on your computer.  If you saved it to a USB flash drive, you can take the file to school and play it on a computer there.  I hope this helps a few of you resolve your YouTube issues.

Quick Tip: Take A Number

Early in my teaching career I had the problem of several students wanting help at the same time.  Students would  sit at their desks with raised hands or stand in line at my desk.  Students wasted a lot of time waiting for help.  To address this problem, I used a “Take A Number” strategy.  I made a set of laminated cards individually numbered from 1-20.  The cards rested in a little box on my desk in numerical order with the number 1 card on top. Rather than standing in line or raising a hand, students took a number and then went back to their seats.  Once they returned to their seats they were expected to work on any other tasks they understood until their numbers were called for help.  It worked great for me!  Do any of you have other strategies for this type of problem?

Quick Tip: The Handshake Q & A

I came across a video of a teacher using a handshake strategy at Edutopia.  I used to do a similar Question and Answer Handshake with my students as they left the classroom at the end of the day.  The strategy provides another way to informally assess students, reinforce learnings, and nurture student/teacher relationships.

I tried embedding the video into this post, but didn’t have any luck.  You can find the video at http://www.edutopia.org/teacher-tips-classroom-management-handshake-video

Homework: Subject or Strategy?

I had the good fortune of hearing Dr. Lee Jenkins speak in McCook on March 16th.  Dr. Jenkins is the developer of the L to J process.  I first heard Dr. Jenkins in 2004.  He had a major impact on my teaching.  I used the L to J strategy in my fourth grade math class with great success.

In McCook, Dr. Jenkins brought up homework by asking the question, “Is homework a subject or a strategy?”   He contends that it is a strategy that we use to help students practice and master the skills and concepts we would like them to master.  If the purpose of homework is to practice, then mistakes on the homework should be viewed as temporary rather than permanent.  Students should have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes and correct them.

Dr. Jenkins uses a “referee/coach” metaphor to help teachers think about their dual roles in the classroom.  Most of the time, teachers should be in the coaching role in order to help their students to higher levels of success.  “During coaching time, [teachers] sample items for informational learning and sample students for performance learning” (Jenkins, 2004, p. 107).  Homework and classroom work would be a couple of ways teachers could sample student learning and then coach them as needed.  Every once in awhile the teacher must take on the role of the referee.  In this role, the teacher will more formally assess the student’s mastery of the standard and assign a grade.

So if homework is practice and the teacher is the coach, why do we assign grades to homework?  The referee of a game doesn’t usually show up for the practices.  Therefore, shouldn’t grading take place once students have had ample opportunity to practice alongside a good coach?

Many teachers may think students won’t do the homework if there is not a grade associated with it.  Other teachers might be required by their districts’ grading policies to have weekly or daily grades.  These are legitimate concerns.  Dr. Jenkins offered one strategy shared with him by a high school teacher.  I see some merit in this.  Maybe it will work for some of you.

John McDonald’s Homework Policy

1. I give homework.
2. I don’t collect it or grade it.
3. Every time I give an assignment, the following day the students get a two question quiz on the homework.  I don’t use the same two questions for other sessions of the same course.

The policy isn’t perfect, especially if the students have been practicing mistakes on their homework.  Therefore it is important that students have had an opportunity to identify and correct mistakes before they are sent home with the assignment.  Feel free to share your thoughts on the controversial subject of homework and grades.

Reference

Jenkins, L. (2004).  Permission to forget and nine other root causes of America’s frustration with education. ASQ Quality Press:  Milwaukee