KELLOUGH Chapter 7: Assessing and Reporting Student Achievement

You need to Buck the system!

As a parent and an educator I had been involved in multiple student project based learning and problem based learning experiences, but it wasn't until I was novice-teaching that I recognized the challenge with constructing valid rubrics for grading student performance.  I discovered a resource online that helped organize my process and provided me with assessment tools that I could adapt to my lessons. The Buck Institute for Education (BIE) is a not-for-profit organization that focuses on project based learning through professional development workshops, but many of their materials are "FreeBIEs" - such as planning forms, student handouts, rubrics, and articles for educators to download and use to design, assess, and manage projects.  My cooperating teacher even asked that I bookmark the site on her computer so she would have it after my placement ended.

KELLOUGH Chapter 6: Preparing an Instructional Plan

Do Schools Kill Creativity?*

The premise behind blue school (a progressive independent school located in New York City's lower Manhattan founded by the members of Blue Man Group) is that children today are growing up in a world that is currently neither sustainable nor harmonious.  Children taught through creative learning experiences, can be nurtured into leaders with innovative solutions for the world's problems.  The Learning Experiences Ladder (page 232) of the text demonstrates this form of self-discovery teaching.

During the years I worked and went to graduate school in Rochester, NY, my husband (an art educator) and I spent a great deal of time at the Strong Museum researching lesson plans. They had a preschool based on the Reggio Emilia approach:

The curriculum at the National Museum of Play's Woodbury Preschool is Reggio Emilia-inspired and is therefore responsive to the interests of the children in the class. This approach uses an “emergent” curriculum philosophy that encourages teachers and students to work together to plan the curriculum and create projects. Guided by teachers who facilitate their explorations, children delve deeply into topics that fascinate and stimulate learning. Small and large group activities involve art, music, cooperative games, movement, pre-reading, math, and other age-appropriate experiences. Parents have the opportunity to see how their children learn through student art, photographs of students at work and play, video recordings, and projects.

Both these schools are aligned with the theory of multiple intelligences.  In the Peoria area, there are unique teaching opportunities for those who are interested in authentic learning: Bradley University's Worlds of Wonder program, The Sun Foundation in Washburn, ICC's College for Kids, Camp Innovation at St. Philomena's, and the educational offerings through local art/science centers or park districts.  All programs offer teachers a chance to design their own creative courses and make a little money in the summer, evenings, or weekends.

*Ken Robinson says schools kill creativityTED2006

KELLOUGH Chapter 5: The Curriculum

How Did You Do This?

I love the scene Jurassic Park when composer John William's theme reaches a crescendo, Sam Neill drops to the ground, and we see the island teaming with dinosaurs. In that moment, both the characters and the movie viewer are filled with amazement and want to know more. Integrated thematic units and great movie themes are dynamic because they summarily communicate what the experience means.

In January 2012, I attended an Illinois state conference for social studies teachers and had the opportunity to participate in a workshop put on by Lincoln-Way East High School. Their Civic U.S. History Curriculum is thematically based under eight headings and one introductory unit. One example is the Enemy Within: To what extent should individual freedom be compromised to ensure national security? Under which 19 different historical moments in U.S. history are covered, from the Salem Witch Trials to Sputnik to the Democratic National Convention of 1968. Having never attended a school where central themes were used to teach major concepts, I was excited by how I could use this method in my own lesson writing. In addition, it struck at the heart of my teaching philosophy and procedures (which incorporate the theories of Jerome Bruner) - that instruction should be pragmatic and use images/symbols for simplification and ease of memorization.

KELLOUGH Chapter 4: The Learning Environment: Planning and Managing the Classroom

What is Fun Theory?

(Click on the Blue Button to find out!)

The thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.

In 2009, I conceptualized a play sculpture, secured funding, and oversaw its installation in order to attract a new generation of children to a revitalized historic city park.  The land had been donated to the children of the City of Pekin in 1916 (the first year Congress had passed child labor laws) and I was inspired by a popular game from that same year - marbles.

Kellough discusses creating a positive ambiance in your classroom and just as I wished for all children to feel welcome at James Field, every student, parent, and administrator should feel welcome in your classroom.  Allowing fun into the classroom doesn't mean that the standards for acceptable behavior are less stringent.  The reality is that it takes a well-prepared teacher who is an accomplished classroom manager to introduce unexpected activities into the day's lesson.

KELLOUGH Chapter 3: Thinking and Questioning: Skills for Meaningful Learning

If the lion thinks that "I am so powerful animal, king of the forest. Why shall I work?"

Therefore, it is said that if he does not work, then he'll have to starve. Even though he's a lion. Because he may be lion, but if he sleeps, that "I am king. Let me sleep and my food will come automatically in my mouth," that is not possible.  Attributed to the Bhagavad Gita

Questions immediately change what students are focusing on.  A riddle can be used as a way of teaching, because it involves students as individuals and as a class, stimulating them to learn and search for answers (Richard Altork).  In my Intervention class, I focused the students each day with a riddle designed for a rational argument.  One such riddle was:

In order to leave a haunted house, a man must exit through one of three rooms. The first is full of zombies, the second is full of ninjas, and the third is full of lions that haven't eaten in three years. Which room is the safest way out?

A student who is not engaged is like a sleeping lion hence the benefits of this "direct teaching for thinking and intelligent behavior" were: 1)  students developing the ability to think logically, 2) improved classroom behaviors and student organization, 3) increased classroom participation by all students, and 4) increased rapport with students learning English as a second language.

KELLOUGH Chapter 2: Professional Responsibilities of Teachers of Young Adolescents

Zombie-Based Curriculum?

Teaching style (Kellough definition):  the way teachers teach, their distinctive mannerisms complemented by their choices of teaching behaviors and strategies.

Last semester, during my novice-teaching experience at a local gifted middle school, I was given the opportunity to design an engaging curriculum for a fifth-grade Intervention class made up of 45 students.  One of the challenges was that the classroom did not have enough desks, so a third of the students ended up sitting on the floor.  There was no available technology; in fact, there was no defined space on which I could regularly write where all students would be able to receive instruction.  Two of the students in the class were enrolled in a foreign language course, being simultaneously taught in the same room by another instructor.  Last, half the class would attend only every other day due to their participation in band.  It was a class ripe for creativity and divergent thinking.

I was aware of the research on increasing children's comprehension, engagement, and attention to details through high novelty stories - such as those which have surprise twists and endings, more intense and active verbs, colorful adjectives, and unfamiliar characters.  I worked on designing an interdisciplinary unit of study that supported literacy, math/science, social studies, and the Arts.  One of the problem-solving, higher level thinking projects I planned was a geography lesson on sustainability through the scenario of a zombie apocalypse (we started the first week learning about honey bees and Colony collapse disorder).

Kellough states that "style develops from one's beliefs and experiences, and from one's knowledge of research findings" - and I concur.  The Characteristics of the Competent Classroom Teacher (pages 57-59) and the Behaviors Necessary to Facilitate Student Learning (pages 60-65) contain the ideas I assessed daily while constructing this unit.  

Reference:
Beike, S. M., Zentall, S. S. (2012, February 13). The Snake Raised Its Head: Content Novelty Alters the Reading Performance of Students at Risk for Reading Disabilities and ADHD. Journal of Educational Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0027216

KELLOUGH Chapter 1: Teaching Young Adolescents: Recognizing And Understanding the Challenge

What is Middle School?

On July 17, 2012, PBS program Frontline added to their coverage of the national high school dropout crisis with a piece called Middle School Moment (13:34 minute video), featuring the research of Dr. Robert Banfalz.  According to Dr. Banfalz: 

The data showed that if a 6th grade child in a high-poverty school attends school less than 80 percent of the time, or fails math or English, or receives an unsatisfactory behavior grade in a core course, that absent effective intervention, there is a 75 percent chance that they will drop out of high school.

The "Environmental Influences on Development" (PPT slide) highlights the external influences that play a role in these statistics: 1) family relationships, 2) teaching strategies, and 3) student opportunities for diverse, enriching life experiences.  The Kellough book targets middle school's role in dropout prevention under responsive practices (p. 11).  To truly recognize and understand the challenge of what middle school is, it is imperative that educators recognize the role middle school plays in a district's early warning and intervention system.