Drive

A lot of the "Drive" article made sense and spoke to my teaching sensibilities. I loved the idea of giving students autonomy, helping kids see the big picture, turning students into teachers, etc. But the idea that most spoke to me came from the "praise" section:

"Praise effort and strategy, not intelligence." I absolutely loved this quote! One of my favorite quotes is by Albert Einstein, who says, "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." I know I'm an idealist whose ideas are not always all that practical, but I can't help but thinking that Albert Einstein did something right here.

As teachers, we have to find the way to find and bring out the genius in all of our students---whether they read at the second grade level or whether they can decipher Ulysses. It doesn't matter. And to be honest, while it's an idea that I've always liked, it's always an idea that I thought was easier said than done.

Praising effort and strategy over intelligence seems like one pretty decent, simple step in helping me bring out the genius in all my students. I have to make sure to help them find their own internal genius, not transcribe some farfetched concept of it onto them.

More Musings about DI

Thanks to Mrs. Shea's presentation, my understanding of DI has become a bit clearer. First, the reason why a teacher uses DI is to get to know his/her students at a deeper level, both academically and relationally. The teacher will structure the lessons to be where students are at individually. Second, readiness should be determined for each unit. This made a lot of sense in class. A new student from out-of-town may never have read Shakespeare in his class, but he is a great reader. He might ace the poetry unit because he already learned how to read poetry last year and possibly be bored. I can see how DI almost inherently is based on engaged learning. Being bored is not an option. The expectations will not be too high. The academic level will be at an appropriate difficulty level that the student will want to take on the challenge. That interest in the challenge equals engagement!

One caveat should be mentioned. Mrs. Shea taught elementary grades. She has her thirty-odd students for the entire day and, understandably, gets to know them better. We high/middle school teachers will have probably four times as many students and will only see them for one period. Getting to know your students and incorporate DI on a regular basis just got a whole lot harder. I'm not throwing in the towel, but it's a different ball game at the secondary level. I'd like to know how we get to the place of knowing our students' academic levels and readiness before doing DI in full. I personally want to know my students well both academically and personally. We are trying to engage the "whole person," not just the "student." Kids are more than their grades. We have to act like we believe that. I think DI is one way to achieve that, may I say, deeper understanding of each student.

“We’re Bribing Kids into Compliance Instead of Challenging Them into Engagement”

This quote pretty much sums up what is happening in the standardized testing world of public schools and what Millersville is doing to help prevent this from happening in our classrooms. A few key themes that I took away from reading the article are 1) student CHOICE 2) homework that is NOT FORMULATED 3) real-world RELATABILITY.

If we give students autonomy in lesson planning and assessment, then we are teaching towards intrinsic motivation. If we give students risk-taking assignments and make them think outside the box, then we are teaching towards engagement. If we give students a classroom that relates to their lives, then we are teaching towards success.

If I had to choose a school that I could have attended, it would have been the Tinkering School. Which school would you have liked to have attended?

More on Motivation

The art of motivation for students has always been something I love to research and during my research, I came across this RSA video based on a speech by Dan Pink. I recommend everyone check it out as it is filled with valuable information (plus the presentation is pretty sweet!).

Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Applying the Three-Part Type 1 Test to our Unit

I plan on implement the three-part type 1 test for homework throughout the course of my unit, for I find it to be extremely valuable and insightful.

The three questions to ask for a homework assignment (or I believe for any assignment) are:
1.) Am I offering students any autonomy over how and when to do this work?
2.) Does this assignment promote mastery by offering a novel, engaging task (as opposed to rote reformulation of something already covered in class)?
3.) Do my students understand the purpose of this assignment? That is, can they see how doing this additional activity at home contribute to the larger enterprise which the class is engaged?

The first question shows the importance of allowing students to have some control over their work. This conveyance of power, as we discussed in class, gives the ability to feel as though they have a say in what goes on in the classroom. This can be extremely beneficial when promoting student engagement and the even student-teacher relationship. Also, this is a great way to slightly incorporate the differentiated instruction, for it is allowing student choice.

The second question essentially promotes creativity by asking students to not only take what they’ve learned in class but extend above and beyond it. An example of this can be our Unit Plan in this class. We all helped construct and examine a model unit that uses Macbeth. We then were asked to create our own individual/partner unit plans, in which we would follow the template of our class model but would then branch off in unique and various ways. Thus, we use the model as a sort of springboard into creating something new and different. I hope to incorporate this technique of modeling and extension within my poetry unit by having students examine poetry and its elements but then be able to create their own unique poems.

The final question shows the importance of students understanding the purpose and goal of an assignment. This can fall under the category of relevancy, for students must see the value of the assignment and how it can be applied to their own lives. If they cannot, they will be likely not to see it as meaning or purposeful. Differentiated Instruction can help achieve this by allowing students’ interest to come into the picture. Once the assignment becomes relevant to the students it will become purposeful to them.

Overall, by answering each of these three questions for my lessons and assignments, I can have a constant awareness of the goals, level of creativity, and student understanding.

Drive: Which way are we headed?

Much like Taz's response below after reading Daniel Pink's chapter from Drive. While I found myself reading, agreeing with the ideas and taking notes, the more and more I pushed through the chapter I began to feel defeated. I also see the limits this has on a public school and it kind of breaks my heart to see it that way. But then I began thinking... how could this work in a public school? Surely there has to be a way? There is. It's what we've been learning throughout our ed classes.
Below I decided to include some of the ways I'd like to see work in future (public) classrooms.

- Homework should become homelearning. I think this can be the easiest way to actual encourage the engagement rather than the compliance that Pink talks about. We all know how much we hate busy work and homework that's given but then never collected. (Or when it is collected you just get points for doing it or not.) What about thoughtful homework? Homework with a purpose? I think the three questions that are proposed for the homework test are some of the best pieces of advice!
- Project-Based Learning. I'm pretty sure we all had to complete a plan for our own project based learning in tech class during block. This is exactly what Pink's FedEx day proposes. Learning discovery through projects.
- DIY Report Cards. This isn't a new or novel idea. Pink is simply proposing the idea of having students self-reflect. We've all had the assessment talk and we've all come to the conclusion that it needs to be more than tests and quizzes. What better way that student progress, improvement and reflection?

As I began reflecting on these ideas that Pink lists, I realized this isn't anything remotely new. These "amazing" schools that he lists have just gone to the extreme with it. Yes, they're far off in the future and they're doing great things, but that doesn't mean that those of us (perhaps in public schools) left behind can't get there eventually too. I know it seems far fetched, but it's already beginning to happen with the Common Core. We're changing gears and still moving forward. These ideas just need to be placed into action already. And what better way than with a new batch of progressive teachers at the forefront?

Reflections on DI

For me, differentiated instruction will be something I don't attempt in my first year of teaching. It seems like the next step after UbD. In fact, the "three areas of possible modification" seem to connect or parallel with UbD:

• Content--what a student is to learn (Stage 1: Big Ideas and Understandings)
• Process--how the student is to learn this content (Stage 2: how we lead students to the understandings)
• Product--how a student is to display what he/she has learned (how we assess student development of the understandings) (King-Shaver and Hunter, p. 4)

To quote from one of our Issues readings, teaching by DI requires "with-it-ness." We need to know our students to best develop our instruction. "If there are 25 students in a class, there are 25 people with different prior knowledge" (p. 45). Thankfully, we can use the examples found in Chapter 5 without going completely DI.

As for the "Drive" reading, there was a lot of lingo from the book that I didn't know (ex. Type Is and Xs, Motivation 3.0). I do like the 3 question test for making homework. I think it follows nicely with Stage 1 considerations. I like the DIY report cards. The midterm self-evaluation that Tim used for Teaching Writing was helpful for me to see where I was and where I needed to go. The mix of student and teacher grades removes the "Teacher-as-Ultimate-Authority" role. Self-assessment is essential for whatever kids do after graduation.

The advertisements for alternative schools at the end of the excerpt seem far-fetched. I'm not against different approaches to education. (If I was, I would be against DI.) There is a tendency for these types of schools to be so far on the "be creative and do what interests you" idea that I question if those students can read and write well, for example. If we are preparing students for jobs that don't exist yet, we need students to be, for lack of a better term, well-rounded. It's already hard enough to get a job these days. We can't have "specialists" that can only do one exact thing. That might be a bit of a stretch, I know.