With all the DA visits and FCAT approaching, it’s time to Kick It Up A Notch! Make sure you are mentoring and giving feedback. Where should you start? Here are a few suggestions:
1. Are your teachers writing measurable objectives? Be sure to check objectives in your teachers’ lesson plans. Remember, objectives need to have a measurable verb. Make sure teachers are not using terms like: to know, to understand, or to appreciate. If the teacher’s goal is for students to produce a book report, this is an activity.
Objectives should be instructions about what teachers want the student to be able to do and what degree the students will be able to demonstrate mastery of the task. Do objectives reflect high levels of cognition according to Bloom’s Taxonomy?
2. Are Test Specifications being utilized? Why not print the test specifications for students? Teachers could use the latest BAT data and print the specs for what most students missed. Students could read the benchmark, check out how the benchmark will be assessed, see a list of distracters that could be used, and then try to answer a sample question. Also, your PLCs should be sharing ways to use Test Specifications.
3. Are word walls student generated? Word Walls take time. Remind your teachers that great web resources are available for students to use for their words. Introduce your teachers to the following websites:
• Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.
• Shahi is a visual dictionary that combines Wiktionary content with Fickr images.
• Wordle generates “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.
(Links to these websites are listed under Kick It Up A Notch Resources on the right-hand side of this blog entry.)
I hope this will give you a starting place for mentoring and giving feedback for the next month. If you have any Kick It Up A Notch suggestions for mentoring and giving feedback that you have used at your school, please share.
2 comments:
I used a football/sports concept to get my teachers ready to think about crunch time. This is what I had them do:
Directions: Translate the following phrases in terms of FCAT preparation:
1. "It’s not a sprint but a marathon" (endurance and conditioning)-
Examples of answers that were generated: Students’ mentally prepared for a long test, sustaining high levels of concentration, methods of pacing and prioritizing time.
2. "Home field advantage / Knowing your opponent" -
Examples of answers that were generated: Creating familiarity with the test questions, verbiage, formulas, math reference sheet, calculators, number of questions, length of the test.
3. "Game time situations"
Examples of answers that were generated: Practicing under time constraints. Understanding the format of the test, the questions, answer sheets. Test preparation tips.
4. "Putting your game face on"
Examples of answers that were generated: Concentrating in class. Focus on the test questions. Seriousness of understanding and what is at stake.
Some ideas that I use with our teachers at this time are geared to getting them ready for crunch time including planning as a team and coming up with multiple creative writing activities. These become fun ways to display the work within the classroom. In addition, students are encouraged to brainstorm and develop creative incentives for the class that scores the highest on the FCAT writing test.
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