Sometimes we are so focused on teaching literacy skills to students, we lose track of how our own language might be influencing student learning. The Responsive Classroom has some tips on using language to reinforce, remind, and redirect in the classroom:
Growth Vs. Fixed Mindset
Our particular mindset is something that touches each of us no matter what role we are in in our jobs and personal lives. It is especially crucial when thinking about our work in education with students. Carol Dweck published her work on mindset back in 2006, but has been receiving a great deal of attention lately.
The infographic below is an excellent summary of growth vs. fixed mindset and I've copied a brief definition from Brainpickings:
A “fixed mindset” assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can’t change in any meaningful way. A “growth mindset,” on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. Out of these two mindsets, which we manifest from a very early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness.
What is your mindset?
How does it influence the work you do in education?
Upcoming Literacy PD at WISD
Writing Collaborative (grades 4-12):
February 6, 7, and March 7, 2014 at WISD 8:30-3:30
With the added snow day, I hope everyone has had a chance to re-charge and get ready for the rest of the school year. Please check out these reflective writing prompts for the new year (for you and your students), children's and young adult must reads for 2014, and our upcoming literacy professional development offerings at WISD.
Questions to Ask for New Year
( Eric Liu FROM CNN) -- Here's a New Year's resolution that's easy to keep, good for your health and beneficial for your relationships. And it won't cost you a penny. Sound too good to be true? Read on.
In recent months, I've been working with a group of creative thinkers who are mining the meaning of a good life. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Bill Damon and Howard Gardner are renowned psychologists who've collaborated to create the Good Project, which explores the behaviors and mindsets that add up to good work, good play and good citizenship.
Together, with Lynn Barendsen, we've developed a simple set of questions for the New Year. They're catalysts for reflection rather than formulas for imitation. Their purpose is to get us thinking about our purpose, in both private and community life.
We originally developed these questions for young people, on the belief that the new generation doesn't get enough structured opportunities to explore meaning and values. But the truth is, it's not just millennials today who might lack purpose, feel uncertain about shared beliefs and goals or wish they could be part of something greater than themselves. It's people ofall ages.
We Americans rarely get to make a truly mindful assessment of who we are, what's shaped us and why we hope to change. If we did that first, we'd probably be more capable of making wise resolutions and keeping them. We'd become more conscious of the web of relationship and mutual obligation that holds us together and that makes our freedom truly worth cherishing. And we might just end up being better humans.
So I invite you, whatever your stage of life, to explore these questions. Ask them of yourself. Talk with family and friends about them. Write and share your reflections. Feel free to adapt and revise the questions to suit your circumstances. And let us know on Twitter what the experience is like for you and those close to you.
If you make it your first resolution to consider these questions well, your other resolutions will almost certainly end up being more honest, more meaningful to you and more useful to others. Enjoy reflecting, and may your new year be happy -- and deeply good.
Who you are
1. Think of something (an activity, a job) to which you're really committed and that takes up a lot of your time. Why do you do it? Do you consider it time well spent? Why or why not? What would make you stop being involved?
2. Who or what do you consider your community? What do you do for the community? What would you expect the community to do it for you?
3. To whom or what do you feel responsible? What does that entail? What happens when you don't meet that responsibility?
4. Are you a good worker? A good citizen? A good person? How do you distinguish among them? Which is most important to you?
Influences
5. Who's influenced you, and how do you pass it on?
6. What individuals and institutions do you admire and why (current or past)?
7. What/whom don't you admire and why?
8. What and whom do you love?
Aspirations
9. What would it mean for you to be successful? How important is recognition, through money or esteem? What about unheralded acts or contributions?
10. What would it mean for you fail? Who or what will make that judgment for you and about you?
11. What kind of person do you want to be right now?
12. What should -- and shouldn't -- be written in your obituary?
Children's and YA Reading Lists for 2014
This list from the American Library Association (ALA) for Notable Children's Books for 2014 is worth a read if you get an opportunity to purchase new books for your classroom or library. Notable is defined as: Worthy of note or notice, important, distinguished, outstanding. As applied to children’s books, the term “notable” includes books for all age levels (through age 14) of especially commendable quality, books that exhibit venturesome creativity, and books of fiction, information, poetry, folklore, and picture books that reflect and encourage children’s interest in exemplary ways. The evaluation criteria to be used are:
Our Study of Early Literacy (SOEL) group here at WISD has been deep into reading recent research and learning from top experts at local universities. Dr. Tanya Wright from MSU shared this video illustrating the importance of teaching more than just vocabulary words. Look below the "tip of the iceberg" to reveal what is included in truly understanding the meaning of a word.
Writing Collaborative: Addressing Instruction for 21st Century Writing Skills
Writing Collaborative was developed at WISD by five Washtenaw County teachers. The mission of Writing
Collaborative is to understand writing in content areas in order
to make explicit the processes and strategies needed to expand and improve
student writing. Writing Collaborative believes that:
Teachers should maintain
ownership for their students’ writing in their content area.
An interdisciplinary approach is
key to improving student writing.
Content area teachers who
understand their own writing processes are the best mentors for their student
writers.
Teachers are the best teachers of
other teachers.
Educational practice should be
balanced with theory and research.
Students should have flexibility
and choice when writing.
Reading Apprenticeship provides a
foundation for better writing instruction.
Interested in training?
During the initial 3-day
training, Writing Collaborative helps teachers help their students determine:
ØWhat we do when we write
ØThe practices of successful writers
ØHow to help students attend to their metacognition and make
thoughtful choices as writers
ØFour Sure Things Teachers Can Do to
Improve Student Writing
·Mind
the GAP:genre, audience, purpose
·Use
models and modeling
·Increase
opportunities for students to write
·Give appropriate feedback
*See the bottom of this post for dates and registration info.
*We are interested in learning more about the needs of teachers in the area of writing instruction. Please take this SHORT SURVEY to help us continue quality professional development in this area.
*Have you already been trained in Writing Collaborative? If you are a secondary science or social studies teacher looking to work more on your content area writing instruction, Dr. Chauncey Monte-Sano and Dr. Leah Bricker at the University of Michigan are offering opportunities. Contact Melissa Brooks-Yip at mbrooksyip@wash.k12.mi.us or 734-994-8100 ext 1266
In Reading Today, Lauren
Aimonette Liang (University of Utah), Naomi Watkins (University of La Verne),
and Deanna Day (Washington State University/Vancouver) suggest ways to find
challenging, high-quality texts that match the criteria of the Common Core
State Standards. “Be aware of the various types of nonfiction, and strive to
include a variety in classrooms,” they urge. Teachers should also consider
different formats: picture books, magazines, novels, how-to guides, and a
variety of informational texts.
Using Argument as a Tool for Integrating Science and Literacy
Erin Washburn and Andy Cavagnetto share an instructional framework aimed at integrating best literacy practices for science learning. They argue that being scientifically literate is more than being able to “read” science texts and recognize scientific vocabulary, rather it is the ability to comprehend, interpret, and analyze.Through PONG cycles (Problem/Question, Observation, Negotiation, Goal), teachers can facilitate thinking:
1. Teacher poses a problem or shares a focused question.
2. Students make observations.
3. Students make evidence-based or reasoned claim(s).
4. Students share and critique claim(s).
5. Students revise their evidence based claim(s).
Click HERE for the entire article from The Reading Teacher, a publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).
Reading Like a Historian
Check out the Stanford History Education Group for Reading Like a Historian. This free resource was created for teachers to access material that engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features sets of primary documents designed for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities. This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues. They learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence. See research on Reading Like a Historian here.
*Thanks to Brandon Szwejkowski for sharing this valuable resource!
Is there a Purpose for Teaching Cursive Today?
When an administrator posed this question to me a few weeks ago, I did some investigating on this topic with my colleagues at Red Cedar Writing Project at MSU. It was a very lively discussion, and one teacher made a live binder for our collection of shared articles and conversation on the topic.
It's a little difficult to find an article that is 100% against cursive. They are either completely for cursive or share equal (or less) time to an opposing side. While most agree that students need to know how to read cursive writing, most also agree that we cannot justify spending loads of time on it in an already pressed- for- time school day. What do you think?
The 30th Annual MSU College of Education Technology conference will be held on Saturday, November 16th, 2013 at Michigan State University in Erickson Hall from 8:30 am - 3:00 pm. The theme of this year's conference is online and mobile education. Through a continued collaboration between the College of Education, the MSU College of Education Alumni Association and the Master of Arts in Educational Technology Program, this year's conference will be FREE OF CHARGE to all attendees. Light breakfast items will be available as well as coffee, tea, and juice.
