Monthly Archives: March 2013

I’m so much more than a test score!

As Student Growth is becoming a pivotal part of teacher evaluation, teachers need to become data experts.  Baseline data, formative assessments, and artifacts and evidence will be central to measuring student learning.  Standardized and district-created tests yield data that can be sorted and separated.  Teachers collect daily data from students in the form of student work, exit tickets, and observation.  For some great ideas for formative assessment strategies, visit this link.

So, the question is… do all of those data points paint a complete picture of who your learners are?  I think not.  There is so much more to know about our students beyond just test scores.  What are some ways you can collect data about student interests and learning preferences?

I’ve assembled a variety of resources on the topic of Knowing Your Learners on my wiki called Dare to Differentiate.  There are many tools that have been created, both low and high tech to collect information about our learners in terms of their interests and learning preferences which are customized to the age/grade level of the students.  There are even multiple intelligence and learning styles surveys that can be administered to World Language students in the target language.

Two of my favorite tools were developed by a colleague.  The first, “Where Does Your Intelligence Lie?,” is an Xcel worksheet on which students indicate True or False to a series of statements.  Once you have the student data, you use the second tool, “Class Intelligence Profile,” where you input the two strongest intelligences for each student in a particular class.  The results are then created in a chart and also in the form of a pie graph.

Many teachers with whom I have worked love this tool!  They print out the pie graph for each class and keep it in their plan books.  As they plan lessons for their classes, they refer to the graph to align activities they are planning with the students’ intelligences.

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Another great resource I’ve found recently is called a “personality array.”  You compare your personality with the characters from Winnie the Pooh.

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Happy data collecting!

Student Engagement: A Hot Topic

It seems everywhere you look, student engagement is a hot topic.  Engaging students in learning in the 21st century is very different from the way we engaged students in the past.  We know that many students are “cooperating” and “complying” in our classrooms, and some are downright angry about how disengaged they are.

If you are interested in exploring the topic of Student Engagement, I would like to direct you to a wiki I created called “Let’s Get Engaged.”  On that wiki, I have accumulated a considerable amount of resources on topics relating to student engagement, originally based on a multi-session workshop series.

On the page called “What is student engagement?,” I include a variety of resources in multimedia on the topic.  One of my “go-to” resources on the topic is the Schlechty Center.  You may know Phil Schlechty from his popular book, Working on the Work.  Schlechty describes several levels of engagement:

  • engagement
  • strategic compliance
  • ritual compliance
  • retreatism
  • rebellion

For a pdf description of the levels of engagement, click here.

I have created a tool I call the “Engage-O-Meter” for teachers to use when reflecting on activities they plan for their students.  No one activity is likely to meet all of the qualities of engagement.  When teachers try out a new activity with a class that students do not seem to engage in, the Engage-O-Meter can give some direction to the teacher as to how the activity might be re-engineered to increase student engagement.  Here is that tool:

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An important point of discussion is the difference between engagement and entertainment.  Do I have to wear a clown nose and juggle to get my students to engage?  Not at all.  Quite simply put, entertainment is what the teacher is doing, engagement is what the students are doing.  Engaging with each other, engaging with the content, engaging in discussions with the teacher.  How do your lessons measure up on the “Engage-O-Meter?”

My first foray into the blogosphere

3-2-1- Lift off!  Creating a blog is something I’ve been thinking about for a very long time.  I consider myself somewhat of a “resource specialist”… I love to find and use or adapt new strategies, ideas, and tools.  I’ve mentored many young, novice teachers and have a passion for creating meaningful, strategy-rich professional learning experiences.  I’m a modern day hunter-gatherer, as are many of my colleagues.  Through this blog, I hope to share my passion for everything relating to education, teaching, and learning and hear from you about what keeps your love of teaching and learning alive.