Delimma One: Proactive and Productive Communication with Parents and Families Completed 12/2006
Dilemma Two: Assessment: Meaningful (or Messy?) Completed 2/2007
Dilemma Three: Differentiated Instruction Completed 5/2007
Dilemma Four: Classroom Management Completed 6/2007

What is a Dilemma?

During the 2006-2007 school year, new teachers participated in online study groups focused on timely topics and needs. They followed a "dilemmas of practice" model in which to situate their discussions. A dilemma is a short, open-ended scenario that poses a question about a specific teaching issue. Mentees and mentors conduct online discussions offering possible solutions to a Dilemma. The nature and structure of a Dilemma invites a wide range of ideas, offers opportunities to exchange and contrast perceptions?and motivates teachers to respond. Dilemmas are optional, and are designed to provide a way for mentees to have a quick, interesting, and useful way to participate in a professional conversation. The Dilemma is posted below along with a facilitator's summary of the discussion.

Dilemma One: Proactive and Productive Communication with Parents and Families (completed 12/2006)

Recently a parent confronted Alicia, a new classroom teacher, about her child's performance on a recent class project. Alicia felt attacked, though she's not sure that was the parent's intention. The experience reminded her to be proactive when preparing for conversations with parents. She wants to be both empathetic to their concerns, and assertive about her own classroom practices.

How would you suggest Alicia prepare for parent conferences in order to demonstrate her proficiency as an educator?

In summary of the discussion, four main themes have emerged from teacher input. The summary includes just a few key points that came up repeatedly, among many of the suggestions.

1. Nurturing a genuine and enduring partnership with parents:

   Actively listen with an open mind.
   Begin with child's strengths.
   Seek input from parents/families.
   Find ways to show your genuine care for the child.

2. Proactive preparation:

   Have an agenda for the conference.
   Have up to date records and rubrics available.
   A variety of student work ready to show.
   Know how student is doing in other school situations.

3. Effective ways to present information:
   

   Give positive information first, before voicing concerns.
   Prepare for and recognize cultural differences.
   Give background info about yourself first.
   Share strategies you've tried, bring suggestions for how to help at home.

4. Follow-up:
   

   Keep notes and send home "minutes".
   Come up with a plan, in partnership with family.
   Provide dates for a follow-up visit or call.
   Invite families to visit the classroom, and suggest ways for them to be involved.
   Keep a log of parent communication.

In our own experiences with parent conferencing our learnings have centered around some of these same themes: contacting parents early in the year whenever possible with positive input; inquiring pre-conference about their concerns and interests regarding their child's education; emphasizing and recognizing students' talents as well as their struggles in the classroom; providing evidence of students' performance (class work, attendance records, assessments. reference to academic standards, . . .).

We have posted some links that you may find helpful, resources directly relating to proactive parent communication.  One link is associated with ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), a non-profit, non-partisan organization oriented to supporting educators.  If you're looking for a professional organization that publishes an excellent journal, this is a good one.

Costa, A.L. and Kallick, B., Eds. (1995). Making Parents Partners in Encouraging Intelligent Behavior (Chp. 5). Assessment in the Learning Organization: Shifting the Paradigm. ASCD: Alexandria, VA.

Multiage-Education.com. Nuts & Bolts: Communication with Parents.

Teachnology.com. Teaching Tips That Work Center: Parent Communication.

Dilemma Two: Assessment: Meaningful (or Messy?) (completed 3/2007)

ASSESSMENT is the topic of our next Tapped In discussion, beginning today. It commences with an assessment 'warmup', a link to an online video interview, and a specified response format.

First of all, as a way to say 'hello' and learn a little about each other, when you first log in make a quick list of six nouns, or more, which describe you and your relationship to assessment/testing. These nouns can have both past and current meaning for you, and no need to explain further unless you choose to do so. For myself, for example, several words come to mind: all nighter, memorization, enlightenment, panic, shame, pride, bluebook. Each of those words has a mini-story attached. So, as you log in send us the key words, with stories if you like, that come to mind for you.

Next, listen to/watch/read the Grant Wiggins assessment interview via attached link. The interview is comprised of seven assessment-related questions. Wiggins' responses are succinct, but contain substantial food for thought, which you may or may not agree with. This interview is our introductory 'reading'.

http://www.edutopia.org/php/interview.php?id=Art_935&key=005 (temporarily unavailable 6/13/2007)

While listening to the assessment interview, make notes (written or mental) in relation to these three prompts: 1. FIRST THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS TOPIC; 2. NEW THOUGHTS/LEARNINGS ABOUT THIS TOPIC; 3. QUESTIONS THAT COME TO MIND. Post your comments. In this way we'll begin to explore assessment from our various viewpoints and seek to find a meaningful focus.

Please note that there are more interviews and assessment-related resources via this same link. (edutopia) Read on, log on, send on your responses. We greatly value your voice, your participation.
Thank you.

Grant Wiggins talks about snapshots in relation to assessment. What are the ways that we take evaluative snapshots throughout our teaching day/ week that contribute to our knowing how/what a student is learning? Indeed, it lets us teachers know how we're doing in conveying the learning!

Participants in our recent assessment conversation have expressed particular interest in two common areas that corroborate Wiggins' point:

1. The use of rubrics.
2. Defining desired outcome, and proceeding to design assessment before/with initial long range planning.

I'll post additional resources and links related to these ideas over the next few of days. I invite mentors and new teacher participants to share a practice, a tool, a source of information that works for you, and that would fit this closing focus on integrating assessment up front, and the use of rubrics.

Please let us know what further information would be helpful, and especially if you have practices &/or materials to share with your group. No need to reinvent the wheel for every project.

Listed below are previously posted and new resources that seem to fit. Edutopia, obviously, is a rich resource. The two links here will get you started, but there is much more to discover. The School Discovery site provides information and many rubric samples that are ready to use. There are a number of excellent rubric sites if you wish to explore further.

Understanding by Design, GrantWiggins and Jay McTighe
Provides theory, justification, and a concrete process for creating curriculum that includes a strong assessment base. Many teachers say that the ideas they've implemented from this book have constructively and dramatically changed their teaching practices, and improved a sense of efficacy about their work.

Tools for Promoting Active, In-Depth Learning, Silver, Strong, Perini (2001)
I'll provide STAR mentors with a copy of assessment chapter from this book which includes several excellent tools.

http://www.edutopia.org/php/keyword.php?id=005
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/assess.html
http://www.edutopia.org/php/interview.php?id=Art_935&key=005 (temporarily unavailable 6/13/2007)

Thank you, and let us know what sorts of 'snapshots' you're taking.
===============================================================================

Hello again. Participants in our recent assessment discussion indicated directly and indirectly their understanding that including formative assessment in all planning is essential. Accomplishing it routinely can be challenging.

Listed below are a few ideas that might complement what you've already started. This is the tip of the iceberg so to speak, but perhaps these will inspire thinking and further preparation in this area. A few online sources have been posted as part of this discussion already, an additional rubric site is included below. Please contact me or your STAR Mentor if you'd like to know more about any of these ideas. We can embellish a little, perhaps help you find a way to bring formative assessment planning to fruition.

1. Silver, Strong and Perini remind us of essential assessment practice: Assessment systems must help students learn to use criteria to assess their own work before, during, and after the performance or the creation of the product. Whenever you introduce a task, make sure you first explain the criteria for assessment clearly. Or, work with students to cooperatively develop criteria that the class feels will best assess the particular type of work the students are doing.

Several of their questions, such as the following, can be powerful guidelines for students and teachers when evaluating student work:
Choice: Does the student's product reflect careful and sound decision-making processes and skills?
Craftsmanship: Does the student's work reflect care, craftsmanship, and high quality?
Completion: Did the student complete work in a timely and responsible manner?
(Silver, Strong, Perini. Mystery, 2000. Thoughtful Education Press. (800) 962-4432.)


2. Rubrics. Acquire or make rubrics (sometimes with students) that define the dimensions of the activity and provide criteria for performance and evaluation for both teacher and students.
http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/assess.html#web

3. Provide checklists that help guide students through the strategy and then self-evaluation if appropriate.

3. Anecdotal records. Make a seating chart with a square for each student's names and room for notes. Use it with a clipboard to make anecdotal notes throughout the day (or, use it one or two hours a week). Some teachers reserve upper, lower, left and right corners of each grid for noting particular behaviors and devise shorthand codes that are efficient and meaningful. This is a good way to periodically assess student academic behaviors, but it can be cumbersome in a busy classroom. Limit to a few students each day or week if necessary, or develop the habit of walking through with clipboard in hand several times daily or weekly, dating and noting behaviors that are not easily measured in other ways.

4. Portfolios. A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work that can be used to describe their efforts, progress, or achievement in a subject area. Students participate in selecting portfolio content which includes guidelines for selection of pieces, criteria for judging learning, and student reflections. The basic aim of collecting students' work into portfolios is to support instruction and learning; without this link to instruction and learning portfolios can be a waste of time.

5. Looking formally at student work. Santa Cruz New Teacher Center at UC California has developed a formal routine for analyzing student work that is a powerful assessment (and differentiation) tool. Teachers sort and analyze student work, identify patterns and trends, areas of concern and success, plan for what is needed next for each group of students.

Looking at student work in this formal way is a profound awakening for some teachers about how students are actually performing on daily tasks and projects. It is a snapshot of performance that moves way beyond marking a page and assigning a grade. It is a little time-consuming the first time through the process (45 minutes or so), but well worth the effort to know what can be discovered about our students' learning via this process. It is a tool to use routinely, but not necessarily for assessing all student work, all of the time.

Please let me know if you'd like more information about this. STAR Mentors have knowledge of this tool as well.

So, a few more ideas to get you thinking about your own assessment practice. If you have something to add to this basic resource list, please do so. Share with us what works for you in relation to a cohesive assessment practice.

==========================================================================

The following article offers a point of view and some ideas about the dilemma of assessment and grading young children. I think it's worth posting in relation to our recent assessment discussion.

Resources - Primary Education
Author: Kathy Davis

For me, one of the most exciting changes to come with the standards movement is the way we grade children. I had been frustrated for a long time as a teacher and a parent myself over the way grades were identified and reported. What does an A really mean? I found that it could be very different from teacher to teacher. So many elements were considered: performance on a specific task, behavior in class, homework, tasks done with other students. It became clearer to me that I needed to communicate exactly what I meant by a grade.

My first attempt to change the way I graded was to write a long narrative report on the skills and understandings of each student. Hours of work followed, and I was writing comments such as, “Drew is beginning to organize his writing for an audience. Additional experiences with vocabulary will help him expand his word choice while writing.” How wonderful, I thought. Now the parents will know exactly which areas are weak and which are strong. Imagine my surprise when the parents were less than enthusiastic! They just wanted to know whether their children were better than average, just average, or below average. They believed that the letter grades were giving them that information. Back to the drawing board; since then, adding pluses, checkmarks, or minuses to the report cards has made the parents feel better about the grading system, but we still have some distance to go before we are all on the same page. What is average in one class, or in one school or in one area of the country, may not be in another.

So how do we grade students? Grades should reflect the degree to which children have displayed skills or understanding. With primary-age children it can be challenging to collect evidence; their writing skills are not developed enough for us to measure what they truly know. So, what’s a teacher to do?

Checklists can be created to match the standards that will be reported to parents and administrators. When we have class discussions or individual interviews with children, we use the checklist to document skills we observe. Anecdotal notes taken during small group reading instruction are transferred to the standards checklist. Children can draw what they know and dictate explanations, to be written verbatim. These become part of the evidence of understanding that allows us to grade and report at the end of the term. We still have to make sure we are collecting evidence of the skills and concepts we will mark as graded on the report card.

What have we eliminated? Lengthy and time-consuming narratives are not needed if the checklist of skills is specific. We have also discovered that anytime we use a worksheet from a publisher, we must identify for ourselves the exact skills that will be recorded on our evidence sheets. This can be tricky, as some worksheets address several concepts or skills. How do we report a grade when the items missed are all in the area of comprehension and all the vocabulary items are answered correctly? Instead of a generic grade that does not clearly define strengths and weaknesses, we may decide that one skill in particular will be the focus of today’s evidence. In this case we might have predetermined that the worksheet was well designed to measure vocabulary, but there are not enough comprehension items to measure that skill accurately. In the end, whatever we decide, and however we collect evidence of learning, we must clearly share our method with those who receive the grades. Only then will our grading system make sense and be truly useful.

Kathy Davis began her professional journey in social studies but became intrigued with elementary school as her three boys went through the educational system. After teaching elementary students and watching some of them struggle, she added coursework in exceptional education, early-childhood education, and reading. Teaching first grade taught her a valuable lesson -- begin even earlier, in kindergarten -- so she began looping from kindergarten to first grade with her students. A year as an exchange teacher in the United Kingdom provided insight into international education issues along with many rich and humorous experiences. National board certified as an early childhood generalist, she now teaches at Florida State University, remaining active in local classrooms and collaborating with the Florida Center for Reading Research. Although she frequently travels to work with teachers around the country on Big Ideas and curriculum development, she sets aside time each year to travel for pure pleasure, taking along no cell phones, computers, children, or pets.

Dilemma Three: Differentiating Instruction

Teachers in differentiated classrooms begin with a clear and solid sense of what constitutes powerful curriculum and engaging instruction. Then they ask what it will take to modify that instruction so that each learner comes away with understandings and skills that offer guidance to the next phase of learning. Essentially, teachers in differentiated classrooms accept, embrace, and plan for the fact that learners bring many commonalities to school, but that learners also bring the essential differences that make them individuals. Teachers can allow for this reality in many ways to make classrooms a good fit for each individual.
(Tomlinson, Carol Ann. The Differentiated Classroom. ASCD, 1999.)

Differentiation Resources

Dilemma Four: Classroom Management

Though we don't want it to be so, classroom management often requires more attention and daily energy than is given to planning and instruction. *Professional Practice Standards require that we address management efficiently, and doing so with twenty-five, thirty, or more, students can be daunting.

In John Dewey's quote referring to a quietude in the classroom, he infers that rules imposing quietude will inevitably be broken, that imposing required postures and behaviors invites deviation. We now desire more than quietude in our classrooms, but what are the best ways to maintain a certain order while sustaining engaging learning environments for our students?

There are two links in this posting. One, just below, will be a quick reference and provides an answer to a question posed last week: When asked to reveal their most useful classroom management tool in a recent online poll, the majority of teachers across the country gave the same one-word response. Can you predict what it was?
http://www.edutopia.org/node/4074

The other link is to an Educational Leadership journal from 2003, Building Classroom Relationships. This will require more of your time, but so worth it. The articles focus on building community with individual students and a classroom. Collectively they provide an excellent base for reflection and discussion of Classroom Management as well as strategies and resources.

Take a few minutes to read and/or skim a couple of these articles, each is three-four pages in length. The first three or four articles are particularly insightful. You may disagree with some, that's fine too. Let us know.
http://tinyurl.com/yqkwmn

After reading an article or two, reflect and respond in the following way:
1. Tell what you already feel pretty confident about in relation to classroom management, or your first thoughts about this topic;
2. Something you learned and want to think more about;
3. What questions do you now have?

Finally, assess your comfort level with the Classroom Environment Standards listed below (*).
4. Which might you be most interested in exploring further?

In these past few months your anecdotal comments and questions have provided thoughtful, even wise direction for our discussion. So much appreciated.

More later. Thank you.

========================================================================

* The Classroom Environment:

In addition, four articles on Building Relationships are still available via the site below, and they are full of management/relationship-building strategies.

http://tinyurl.com/yqkwmn

You might also find some of the instructional resources available in the On Demand Information section of the STAR Web site (go to "Instructional Resources-->New Teacher Help and look for "Classroom Management" and "Student Behavior"). Click here to go there now.

Enjoy your well deserved summer respite.