Yesterday you watched a video about a CFG, filled out an anticipation guide and discussed your reactions. We never got to discuss the last two questions on the guide. So, what do you think?1. "In the best schools, teachers collaborate." Agree/disagree? Discuss this and also how closely your school approaches this measure.
2. "In the schools of today, we should only consider curriculum to be successful based on how well students perform on tests." Do you think that this is true and do you think this is right? What are your own beliefs and how do you think the teachers in the video would have responded to this question?
3. In Chapter 6 of Beers, she talks about the value of anticipation guides. How effective do you think that this was for preparing for and debriefing yesterday's video? Do you or would you use anticipation guides with your students in class and/or colleagues in a workshop?
Erika says...
ReplyDeleteI will have to admit that I do agee with the first statement. When teachers collaborate they share a wealth of information with each other which may be beneficial to both their students and their teaching practices as well. In my current school, my colleagues and I all share a common prep which allows us the opportunity to collaborate as a team. During this time we discuss ideas, lesson plans, strategies that worked and those that didn't work. Unfortunately,this is not necesssarily the case in the entire school. Despite the benefits of collaboration other teachers still prefer to work alone.
As far as the success of a good curriculum is concerned it should not be dependent of students test scores. If all teachers were to rely on their students test scores alone it would be very difficult to assess what form of differentiation strategies to utilize. Its become very evident in the classrooms today that there are many different types of learners. Because of this we are forced to modify the material(curriculum) that is being introduced in order to promote successful learning. In the end, its not a "good" curriculum that helped studens perform well on tests but rather "good" strategies implemented throughout the curriculum.
Like Beers, I agree that anticipation guides are beneficial to students by activating their prior knowledge. I have never utilized this strategy before but as a second grade teacher I would begin to introduce this guide during small group instruction such as guided reading.
I do agree with the first statement. I believe one of the reasons a school is successful is because of the collaboration that exists among the educators in that building. Everyone is talented in one area more than another. If teachers share ideas, successful strategies and techniques with one another the students will end up benefiting from this collaboration. Success of a school does depend on the collaboration of its teachers. The teachers at my school meet by grade each week. At my school we collaborate and plan out the units together. Each grade meets once a week to plan out the units as a grade. Two weeks ago I suggested we begin our meetings with 10 minutes of sharing. It could be a sharing of a lesson that went well, or techniques and strategies that have worked in our classrooms. Everyone was opened to the idea. I was the first one to share. It went well. They listened and took notes on what I was sharing with them. I am hoping someone else will volunteer to share at our next meeting. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I don't think we should consider the curriculum to be successful based on how well students do on the standardized tests. There are many variables that come into play and must therefore be considered and evaluated. For example, the population of the school, family background, economic status of the families...the social factors. I think the teachers of on the video would have disagreed with this statement as well. From what I got out of the video, they tend to change things around and introduce material that would peak the students' interest. If they want to go in a different direction, they do so. They seem to have the opportunity to experiment and change things around. They want to lead the students to a higher level of thinking. So it might not be the curriculum that causes the high scores, but the process in which the teaching and the investigation was done. Reading chapter 6 of Beers prepared me for the study guide that was used prior to watching the video. I felt like I had a purpose for watching this video. I was looking for evidence. I wanted to see if my answers would remain the same, or if they would change as I watched the video. It made me curious. I do want to use the anticipation guide with my students. As soon as I have the chance to create my own anticipation guide, I will use it with my students. I won't use it with my colleagues until I am more familiar with it. I can't present something that I am not ready to use. I have to try it out first.
ReplyDeleteThe name of my school is The Professional Development School and the philosophy is that all teachers create a community of learners and we are to meet, collaborate and implement the best practices throughout the year. Teachers in my school meet not only during the common preps, but also during the extended time on Mondays and faculty and grade conferences. The supervisors now also give us an opportunity to meet on Saturdays and look closely on the new Common Core Standards. We just began working on designing new curriculum maps for the next year. Was it easy to get everyone on board? No, it was not… but as the time has been passing by, we all now understand the benefits of working as a team. Each year in June, we come together for our Retreat Workshop and two years ago, we came up with a list of ideas of how we can assist each other. One of the proposed ways was creating CFG. Each teacher has a friend with whom they work very closely. It could be a teacher on the same grade level or a teacher who works with the same content or population. We plan not only horizontally but also vertically. These meetings focus on identifying tasks that inform instruction, designing the timelines and assessments. The assessments vary. We as a community have a clear understanding that our students learn in many different ways and come from diverse backgrounds. In my second grade class, I invite my students to prove to me what they have learned not only through paper-pencil assessments, but also through projects, booklets, reports, or/and oral presentations. I would not be honest if I were to say, that we do not pay attention to the test scores… and only because I have the freedom of informing my instruction through these kinds of assessment, it does not mean that teachers in testing grades are allowed to do the same. Unfortunately, the education system is the way it is nowadays and certain data is being focused on. I like what Lucy mentioned I her blog about taking into consideration the social factors influencing our students while curriculum planning. Each school has a different population and each teacher faces different group of students on daily basis. And even though there are some similarities, there are also differences. Then, how to know what has to be done in order for the curriculum to be valid and learned? One way of doing so is through the anticipation guide. I learned this technique last year when I signed up for a class at CCNY. Ever since then, I incorporate it in my introductory lessons in science and social studies. It gives me a lot of information about the prior knowledge of my students. Even though the data is informal, it is very useful while lesson planning. I highly recommend it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the statement "In the best schools, teachers collaborate." At my particular school, I feel this is one reason why we are not making AYP for some of our subgroups. Although each grade meets weekly to discuss curriculum and/or best practices, many times the meetings are so managed that no one has a chance to talk. It appears that the facilitator is talking at you, not with you. It's obvious that the principal has a clear agenda that is being sent down through the coaches and then spit out at us teachers. The meetings often lack meaning and many teachers rarely use what was talked about in their classroom. The meeting is just another thing to be crossed off the list for the day. If a school is to become successful the way teachers engage and collaborate must be meaningful and self-guided.
ReplyDeleteAs for the second statement "In the schools of today, we should only consider curriculum to be successful based on how well students perform on tests”, I disagree. As an ESL teacher, I’ve seen students make great strides in their oral, written, and spoken English, and then score a level one on the NY STATE ELA and MATH exams. Does this show that the curriculum was unsuccessful? I would say “no” because it doesn’t take into account where the student was at when they started their respective grade. I think it’s important to look at students’ end of unit exams, their writing portfolio pieces, and their reading levels to get an accurate look at how they are performing.
In class, the anticipation guide was useful, but I felt that many of the statements prompted similar “disagree” or “agree” responses from the group. I would use an anticipation guide in a PD, but might be less enthusiastic to use it with my second graders.
I agree that in the best schools teachers collaborate. I have been working in a school where we have had to collaborate in terms of sharing curriculum, asking for feedback, suggestions, etc. It is the best way to improve and make a difference in how we teach and what we are doing with our students. We also ask students to share their work with each other, so I feel that we need to do the same for ourselves. Otherwise, we do not see the growth within our own curriculum and ways in which students are perceiving it.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of testing, I do not think that we can only assess teachers or students based on tests. Exas are just one form of assessment, and for my students (an all ELL population), sometimes the worst. I feel like many of them perform better on outside writing assignments and our portfolio presentations. There are so many ways that people learn and I cannot imagine only using tests to assess all of our multiple intelligences.
In terms of anticipatory guides, I use them all of the time, especially to draw interest and create sweeping statements for my students. I like using them also to assess what students know about a certain subject - they can be a great way to begin discussions!!