Expectations For Student Learning: ACADEMIC

Expectations For Student Learning: ACADEMIC Central High School Students will demonstrate: 1. Responsibility for their own learning. 2. Ability to research and to synthesize information. 3. Effective reading, writing and speaking. 4. Competence generating solutions to authentic life situations. Expectations For Student Learning: SOCIAL Central High School students will demonstrate: 1. Appreciation for the unique contributions of each individual. 2. Cooperation in achieving a common goal. 3. Understanding of basic social values that promote moral and ethical conduct. 4. Skills that lead to non-violent conflict resolution. 5. Connections between education and life-choices.

Stephen Anderson

An example of higher order thinking

Higher-order thinking

Are students using higher order thinking operations within a critical framework?

• Explanation
• Continuum of practice
• Example

Explanation

Higher-order thinking requires students to manipulate information and ideas in ways that transform their meaning and implications. This transformation occurs when students combine facts and ideas in order to synthesise, generalise, explain, hypothesise or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. Manipulating information and ideas through these processes allows students to solve problems and discover new (for them) meanings and understandings. When students engage in the construction of knowledge, an element of uncertainty is introduced into the instructional process and makes instructional outcomes not always predictable; i.e., the teacher is not certain what will be produced by students. In helping students become producers of knowledge, the teacher's main instructional task is to create activities or environments that allow them opportunities to engage in higher-order thinking.

Lower-order thinking occurs when students are asked to receive or recite factual information or to employ rules and algorithms through repetitive routines. Students are given pre-specified knowledge ranging from simple facts and information to more complex concepts. Such knowledge is conveyed to students through a reading, work sheet, lecture or other direct instructional medium. The instructional process is to simply transmit knowledge or to practise procedural routines. Students are in a similar role when they are reciting previously acquired knowledge; i.e., responding to test-type questions that require recall of pre-specified knowledge. More complex activities still may involve reproducing knowledge when students only need to follow pre-specified steps and routines or employ algorithms in a rote fashion.

^ Top of page

Continuum of practice

1. Students are engaged only in lower-order thinking; i.e., they either receive, or recite, or participate in routine practice and in no activities during the lesson do students go beyond simple reproduction.
2. Students are primarily engaged in routine lower-order thinking a good share of the lesson. There is at least one significant question or activity in which some students perform some higher-order thinking.
3. Almost all students, almost all of the time, are engaged in higher-order thinking.

^ Top of page

Example

The topic of a year 2 Maths lesson was classification and grouping generally and, more specifically, set theory. The teacher brought in a range of diverse objects. Students, in groups, had to categorise them according to criteria which the students themselves determined in their groups.

At the end of that part of the lesson, the groups rotated around the classroom and in groups suggested the basis of classification. The teacher then gave hula hoops to each group and asked them to place them in an overlapping set fashion. Instructions were given as to what was desired, with the request that objects in the overlapping or intersecting set had to have characteristics in common with each of the hoops. The groups did this and again rotated and discussed the basis of the classification.

The basis of the classification was determined by the students and could be determined for a variety of reasons for example, they were all yellow, or all dirty, all cubes etc. Students simply had to articulate reasons and justify their classifications. The lesson concluded with the teacher making comments regarding the use of symbolic representations in Maths.

 

 

Stephen Anderson

Teaching the way YOU Learn

Think about how you learn best.  What motivates you?  Excites you?  Encourages you to know more about a subject?  If you could learn using any instructional strategy you wanted, what would you choose?

Next, think about how you teach.  What is comfortable for you?  What strategies do you enjoy using most and are your “Go-to” instructional methods?  If you’re having a tough day and didn’t get the time you wanted to plan a stellar new lesson, what practices do you rely on? What methods do you struggle with, enjoy using the least, or possibly avoid?

Now, think about how your students learn.  What motivates them?  Excites them?  Encourages them to know more about a subject?  If they could direct how you teach, what would have you do?

For some students, how they learn and how I learn fit very well.  When I plan lessons and think about learning, I feel I can do pretty well by them.

For other students who learn differently than I do, it can be a struggle.  I have to consciously make an effort to include instructional strategies that I don’t like, because I don’t learn that way.

I am more of a visual and auditory learner.  It’s pretty easy for me to come up with teaching techniques that utilize these types of learning.  I am not a very good hands-on learner.  I have to work pretty hard to come up with something that engages my students who learn this way.  I have been lucky enough to work with some fantastic colleagues who are hands-on learners.  They have helped me to develop a better understanding of this learning style and how to better integrate it into my own teaching.

When I discuss with students what works for them and what they’d like to see more of in my classes, competition is almost always one of the responses.  I struggle with competition.  I am not a competitive person and I don’t understand this mindset very well.  It’s actually something that can set me on edge.  When I think about the students I have difficulty motivating or don’t connect with as well as I’d like, many of them have a competitive nature.

So I’m asking for your help.  I am looking for resources and instructional strategies on how to better reach my competitive students.  What works in your classroom?  Are you someone who enjoys competition?  How do you leverage that for your own learning or teaching?  What instructional strategies do you find comfortable or challenging?  Do you find yourself teaching how you learn?

Stephen Anderson

Teaching Students with Asperger to Deal with Anxiety

        “Anxiety can be understood as a hidden disability,” say Jessica Minahan (a Newton, Massachusetts special educator) and Nancy Rappaport (Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance) in this Kappan article. They believe anxiety is the culprit in many of the behavior problems experienced by children with Asperger syndrome. Standard behavior modification approaches (stickers, points, praise) are ineffective and can make things worse, say Minahan and Rappaport: “If students with Asperger are to succeed in school, they need a prescribed behavioral intervention plan that addresses anxiety, explicit instruction in underdeveloped skills leading to anxiety, which helps them learn alternative, more appropriate responses to use when they’re flooded with anxiety, and includes accommodations that teachers can use while students learn new skills.”

        Some students show obvious signs when they’re anxious – flushed cheeks, tense muscles. But with others, there aren’t clear signs until they act out and anxiety is expressed indirectly – increased insistence on routines and sameness, preference for rigid rules, repetitive behavior, anger outbursts, and silly behavior. Minahan and Rappaport use the analogy of a shaken can of soda: you can’t tell it’s been shaken by looking at it (the student looks fine); you only find out when you pop the can open (the student inexplicably explodes). Anxiety also undermines students’ academic performance by the effect it has on working memory, attention, and other abilities.

        “A student’s anxiety-related behavior is often motivated by escape or avoidance,” say Minahan and Rappaport – asking to see the nurse when a writing assignment is handed out, or cursing just before a math test. “If the teacher responds with a time-out or sends the student to the office,” they say, “this may accidentally reinforce the avoidant behavior…” What’s needed is explicit instruction in the following underdeveloped skills:

• Self-regulation – the ability to calm oneself and manage frustration;
• Thought-stopping and thought-interruption – the ability to short-circuit a cycle of negative thinking by refocusing attention on a replacement thought;
• Thinking traps – the ability to recognize common thought patterns that can increase anxiety and learn how to manage those thoughts;
• Social skills – the ability to take another person’s perspective and use conversation skills;
• Executive functioning – the ability to think before acting and follow sequential steps to complete a task effectively;
• Flexible thinking – when anxious, this can help a student avoid becoming upset when things don’t turn out as expected.

“These skills must be explicitly taught if the student is to change his or her behavior over the long term,” say Minahan and Rappaport. “Sadly, many behavior plans/programs don’t address these skills.”

        It’s critically important for teachers to backtrack from a behavior meltdown and find the antecedents. These might include unstructured times (cafeteria and recess), transitions, writing demands, social demands, and unexpected events. “Ninety percent of every behavior plan should be dedicated to antecedent management,” say Minahan and Rappaport. “Students will continue to require accommodations until they develop the skills to cope and can succeed without them.” For example, a student might be given two 10-minute anxiety-reduction breaks during each day, and these shouldn’t have to be “earned” by good behavior. Academic accommodations are also important – for example, previewing a math worksheet early in the day and doing the first problem with the student, or providing a list of commonly misspelled words. Students need to be coached from statements like “I’m a horrible speller” to saying “I’m not a great speller, but I have a strategy.”

        Students with anxiety issues also benefit from cognitive behavior coaching. It’s a big step when they can understand that emotions start small and grow larger – from calm to an explosion – and what the outward signs are. “Once students understand this,” say Minahan and Rappaport, “they can learn to catch themselves at the frustration point and practice a coping strategy to regulate themselves before becoming explosive or shutting down.” A teacher might say, “I notice your face is scrunched, your shoulders are up near your ears, and your fist is clenched. You’re frustrated right now.”

The authors also recommend using an “emotional thermometer” with pictures of various facial expressions and matching emotions and steps to take. Teachers can also provide a “calming box” containing small items the student can use to calm down – putty, a good-luck charm, a “lucky penny”, or noise-reducing headphones.

 

“Anxiety in Students: A Hidden Culprit in Behavior Issues” by Jessica Minahan and Nancy Rappaport in Phi Delta Kappan, December 2012/January 2013 (Vol. 94, #4, p. 34-39),www.kappanmagazine.org

 

 

Stephen Anderson

Why Some Students Are Silent in the Classroom

        Silence in the classroom can be good and it can be bad, says Katherine Schultz (Mills College, CA) in this Educational Horizons article. Getting quiet is wonderful if a class has been rowdy, but silence in response to a teacher’s discussion question can bring a lesson to a grinding halt. Schultz says we may have notions of stereotypically silent students – timid girls and Asians or Native Americans – but should consider other reasons students don’t speak up:

• The student is shy at that particular moment.
• The student lacks the knowledge or facility in English to join in a group conversation.
• The student is following cultural norms of not speaking when there’s nothing to add.
• The student may be momentarily daydreaming.
• The student might be uncomfortable talking about the topic (race, for example).
• The student may need more time to think through an idea.

“Rapid-paced classrooms favor students who can respond quickly and accurately,” says Schultz; “other students may need time to reflect and the opportunity to try out ideas in small groups or through writing. Teachers may need to learn to read students’ nods and facial expressions to understand silence as a form of participation and to understand that students who are silent may be as engaged in learning as the student who speaks frequently, dominating the conversation.”

In her observations of classrooms, Schultz has come to appreciate students who are silent most of the time but have thoughtful comments that drive the discussion forward. This makes her wonder, “Do students have a responsibility to contribute to the silence of a classroom so that others can talk, along with a responsibility to contribute verbally to the discussion?”

Of course some students’ silence means they are opting out of participating in class and missing out on important learning opportunities. There are several techniques teachers use to get silent students talking and broadening class discussion:

• Cold-calling, which may increase the number of students who speak in a class – but doesn’t address the underlying issues that make some students silent.

• Having students turn and talk with a “shoulder partner”, or write silently for a few moments, before sharing thoughts in an all-class discussion. “Writing and talking informally may give students the courage they need for speaking aloud in class and provide them with practice and time to gather their thoughts,” says Schultz.

• Giving students a few moments to reflect and then going around the circle asking everyone to contribute a few words.

 

“The Role of Silence in Teaching and Learning” by Katherine Schultz in Educational Horizons, December 2012/January 2013 (Vol. 91, p. 22-25)

http://pilambda.org/horizons/the-role-of-silence-in-teaching-and-learning/

 

 

Stephen Anderson

Three Case Studies on the Widening Achievement Gap

Three Case Studies on the Widening Achievement Gap

        In this sobering front-page New York Times article, Jason DeParle reports on three young women who were inseparable as high-school students in Galveston, Texas. They were determined, despite humble backgrounds and a high school named “academically unacceptable” by Texas state education officials, to be the first in their families to graduate from college. “I don’t want to work at Walmart,” said one of them. “We wanted to do something better with our lives.”

With the support of Upward Bound, all three graduated from high school and at this point, their stories seemed to validate the American ideal of education as the great equalizer. One was headed for Emory University, another for Texas State University, the third to a local community college. “I felt like we were taking off, from one life to another,” said the first. “I felt like, ‘Here we go!’”

        Four years later, their stories provide sad testimony to how difficult upward mobility is in an age of soaring inequality. “Not one of them has a four-year degree,” says DeParle. “Only one is still studying full time, and two have crushing debts.” The young woman quoted just above dropped out of  Emory and is working as a clerk in a furniture store. “Each showed the ability to do college work, even excel at it,” DeParle continues. “But the need to earn money brought one set of strains, campus alienation brought others, and ties to boyfriends not in school added complications. With little guidance from family or school officials, college became a leap that they braved without a safety net.”

As DeParle tells each young woman’s post-secondary story in depressing detail, these factors stand out:

• One chose an “under-matched” community college, graduated, but passed up an offer to attend a nearby four-year college.
• One missed opportunities to get a much better scholarship deal at Emory because she made errors in her application, and university officials refused to make a retroactive correction.
• The colleges they attended were expensive – there’s been a 60-percent increase in tuition and fees over the last two decades.
• Living in single-parent homes meant there were no fathers to get involved and help out. This may have made the young women more dependent on their boyfriends, some of whom were less than supportive.
• Despite the heroic efforts of a dedicated high-school counselor, the young women didn’t have anything approaching the level of support that most middle-class students have when applying to college and figuring out financial assistance.
• Two of the young women had to deal with crises at home; investing in education was seen as “selfish” by some family members.
• The young women had some ambivalence about rising above their social stratum and leaving Galveston.

These and other factors conspired to sabotage an upward trajectory that had seemed so promising four years earlier. All is not lost, but the news is not good.

“The story of their lost footing is also the story of something larger,” concludes DeParle, “the growing role that education plays in preserving class divisions.” Thirty years ago, the difference in college graduation rates between well-off and poor Americans was 31 points; today it’s 45. While both groups have improved, the affluent improved much more rapidly, widening the gap. There’s also a wider income gap: a generation ago, Americans in the richest 90^th percentile had five times as much income as those in the 10^th percentile; now they have ten times as much. The extra resources at the upper end of the income continuum pay for enrichment programs, travel, college prep, SAT prep, and support applying to college.

 

“For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall” by Jason DeParle in The New York Times, Dec. 23, 2012 (p. 1, 28, 29), http://nyti.ms/UmzwHn

 

 

 

New Factors for College-Bound Students to Consider

        In this ASCA School Counselor article, Don Fraser of the National Association for College Admission Counseling suggests that high-school counselors research the following criteria for students to help them become more savvy consumers of higher education:

        • Academic services available – The level and sophistication of support for struggling students is important, even if applicants don’t think they’ll need it.

• Retention efforts and student advising – What is the college equipped to do to help students get through to graduation?

• The retention and graduation rates for the student’s demographic – Overall retention rates aren’t very helpful, says Fraser. If the college hasn’t broken the data down by race and sex, that’s a red flag.

        • Career services available – Are drop-in appointments the extent of support? If so, the college isn’t very invested in helping students find a job after graduation.

• The employment rates for similar graduates – “If your student wants to be a psychology major, then he or she should ask about the post-graduate outcomes for students who graduate with a psychology degree,” says Fraser.

        • Average debt upon graduation – Applicants need to know how well students are funded, on average.

       

“Beyond the Traditional Factors: Learn How You Can Help Your Students Construct a Better

List of Potential Colleges” by Don Fraser Jr. in ASCA School Counselor, November/December

 

 

Stephen Anderson