March 13th, 2012 | guest blogger

When it is all said and done

Sharon Baum spent thirty-three years in public education as a physical and health education teacher, a school counselor, an assistant principal and principal.  She has worked in several districts in Oregon and taught high school in Winterhaven, California.  She retired in 2010, and finished her career with the North Marion School District as the principal at North Marion Middle School from 2000-2010.

Alex Haley said that folks like to hear a story over hearing a lecture.  He shares that you should start out by saying “I have a story to tell.”  People like stories.  I would like to tell my story.

I was a middle school administrator for 16 years.  Two of those years were as an assistant principal, and the remaining 14 years as a principal.  Prior to that, I had been a teacher and a counselor.  I went into administration because I wanted to be a teacher of teachers, and I felt that the time I spent as a counselor helping teachers with students and observations would benefit me as an administrator.  I felt I had a good foundation in observational skills and I loved to observe teachers teaching, and help out where I could in improving the delivery of curriculum.  I kept abreast of all the teaching strategies through professional development activities, workshops and books, and felt I had a good handle on how to help others be the best they could be.  I also loved having conversations with students about the importance of learning and finding their niche to embrace their own style of learning.

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Category: curriculum, professional development for educators, teaching strategies | 2 Comments »
Tags: Alex Haley, budget cuts, drop-in visits, observation, professional development, Sharon Baum

February 27th, 2012 | Shawn Daley

Every student needs an iPad yesterday

The other day I was talking to a colleague when he referenced how a teacher he supervises had been in a conundrum.  Wanting to be innovative, that teacher had assigned a film project but did not have enough cameras for her students.  My colleague had walked in and seen her angst, but then suggested that she ask if any students had a smartphone.  Surprised that he would suggest this, she asked her class and several students raised their hands.  My colleague then told her, “problem solved.”

I wish that more administrators were like my colleague.  While I have been fortunate to work with schools that have been taking strides to update their technological infrastructure, my experience walking through many schools is unsettling.  In an age where technological expertise is a select ticket to rapid employment and economic opportunity, our schools are rarely beacons of progress. As tech geeks like myself eagerly await the promise of the next round of iPads, schools are still hampered by draconian rules that ban smartphones and a teaching community that crawls rather than bounds toward technological integration.

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Category: education technology, professional development for educators, Teacher Effectiveness, teaching strategies | 15 Comments »
Tags: education technology, iPads in the classroom, Roosevelt High School, Shawn Daley

January 18th, 2012 | guest blogger

Teacher Evaluations: What We’ve Learned from NCLB

T.J. Chandler is the founder of EdZapp, Oregon’s statewide online employment application, and is  now the Regional Director of Operations for Netchemia, LLC working with K-12 teacher and  administrator evaluations.  T.J. was formerly the Director of Business Applications for the New  York City Board of Education, and has worked with over one hundred school districts across the  country on operational and human capital issues.  T.J. holds degrees from Willamette University  and Princeton University.

As some celebrate the 10th anniversary of NCLB and others curse it, I ask, “What have we learned from it?”  In particular, I am intrigued by certain parallels between evaluating “student achievement” and “teacher performance.”

Some Parallels

Like the discussions 10-15 years ago about students “falling behind” and “dropping out,” policy-makers realize that there is a problem with teacher effectiveness and attrition.  The tough part for both problems, of course, is specifying–in meaningful and legally-defensible terms–which individuals are having trouble, and even more importantly how to help them improve.

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Category: curriculum, Early Learning, education achievement gap, education reform, student achievement, Student Success, Teacher Effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations, teaching strategies | 1 Comment »
Tags: Danielson Framework for Teaching, EdZapp, Head Start, INTASC, NCLB, New Teacher Project, T.J. Chandler, teacher evaluations, value-added model, VAM, Widget Effect

January 16th, 2012 | Ruth Wallin

A teacher’s perspective on NCLB

When it first came out in 2001, I, like most teachers, saw NCLB as a direct threat to public education. The day after the Obama presidential election, there was a movement afoot among teachers in my building to print out ESEA/ NCLB and have a burying ceremony in the school garden. Our ceremony never came to fruition, and neither did the immediate revision of the act that has all but buried educators.

The Negatives

The problem with NCLB was its reliance on one test to judge the quality of schools. The judgments were harsh and extreme; they ranged from mandatory tutoring, to closing schools. There were no funds provided to mitigate poor programs. If politicians really had student success in mind, there would have been more money to help struggling performers, or, the measure would have targeted individual student progress over time. The punitive nature of NCLB focused on what we in teaching try to stay away from: motivation through threats.

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Category: education reform, funding, student achievement, Teacher Effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations, teaching strategies | 1 Comment »
Tags: achievement gaps, Blueprint for Reform, ESEA, evaluation teaching, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, Quality of Schools, Ruth Wallin

December 7th, 2011 | Sandy Ludeman

The proof is in the thinking

Colleges of Education are being challenged to “prove” that their graduates can improve student learning. At Pacific University in Eugene, our students (called candidates) student teach for 18 weeks. During that time they work with the classroom teacher (called the mentor teacher) during the first few weeks and then ease into the full planning for and teaching of the children. In some cases, the mentor feels they need to give the student teacher his or her plans and tests to ensure the reliability of the lessons. (In fact, this decision is being made more frequently as the mentor is being held to test results.) Some teachers feel comfortable allowing complete independence; however, some are always in the classroom and will make changes or intervene. In all cases, our candidates are expected to create units and lessons that assess their students’ learning.

This background information should raise some questions about the ways Pacific can actually prove that it is our candidate who is making the difference in student learning. Given the present collaborating system, we need ways to identify what the candidate actually knows and has done him or herself to improve learning. Certainly each teacher (candidate or mentor) should be held accountable for improvement in learning while in his or her class. The devil, as always, is in the details: the measurements we use.

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Category: Teacher Effectiveness, teacher preparation, teaching strategies, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Tags: Beginning Educator Support and Training, BEST, College of Education, NAEP, Pacific University, Performance Assessment for California Teaching, Sandy Ludeman

November 22nd, 2011 | guest blogger

Teaching at the Core

Originally a part of the New Teacher Center’s November Policy E-Newsletter, the following commentary is from Liam Goldrick, the Director of Policy at NTC.  Archived newsletters can be found here.

Liam Goldrick joined the New Teacher Center as director of policy in June 2006. In that role, Liam leads a range of initiatives designed to accelerate new teacher effectiveness and strengthen the quality of new educator induction and mentoring policies at the federal and state levels. Prior to joining the NTC, Liam served as education policy advisor to Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and as a senior policy analyst in the Education Division at the National Governors Association in Washington, DC.

Category: education reform, teacher compensation, Teacher Effectiveness, teaching strategies | 1 Comment »
Tags: Liam Goldrick, Marc Tucker, New Teacher Center, Tom Freidman

August 31st, 2011 | guest blogger

Poll Results: Which Element of Classroom Instruction Do You Think is Most Important?

New school year, new ChalkBloggers poll. In the righthand sidebar, we’d now love to hear from you about what concerns you most about education in Oregon (and if there’s an option we haven’t included, let us know in the comments and we’ll add it).

But in the meantime, as teachers and students head back to the classroom, it also seems an appropriate time to check out the results of our last poll: Which element of classroom instruction do you think is most important? 70 readers responded and told us:

1. Positive, open learning environment (13 votes, 19%)
2. Creative ideas and inspired techniques (11 votes, 13%)
3. Rapport and relationship-building (10 votes, 14%)
4. Individualized attention (8 votes, 11%)
5. Classroom management and structure (8 votes, 11%)
6. Utilizing new technologies (0 votes, 0%)

As I mentioned in last week’s post about the role of technology in education, not one person selected the use of new technologies as the most important factor in classroom learning. Instead, the interaction between students and teachers is at the top along with simply good ideas and teaching strategies. Of course, none of these elements of instruction exists in a vacuum, and they really all work their best when they are in concert with each other.

What do you think about these results? Is there another important factor that you think we missed? How can teachers use all of these qualities and skills to lead a dynamic classroom this year?

Category: Chalkboard Project, teaching strategies | No Comments »
Tags: classroom tactics, poll results, student achievement, teacher effectiveness, teaching strategies

August 30th, 2011 | Jennifer Singleton

Teacher Tips: Welcoming New Students to the New School Year

Here it comes…the first day of school! Walking through the doors, you can feel the exhilarating mixture of excitement and nervousness in the air. Kids will be meeting new teachers, seeing old friends, and showing off their stylin’ new clothes. It’s fantastic fun for some, but for students with high geographic mobility, the prospect of yet another new school, filled with unfamiliar faces isn’t exciting—it’s scary. How can teachers help these kids feel welcome, and make their transition into another new environment a little easier?

Students with high geographic mobility are those who have attended many schools during their K-12 years due to frequent moves. For some families, moving more than once in the course of a single school year is common. Usually these moves are associated with employment, housing, or relationship problems, and can be a contributing factor in low academic achievement (http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/student-mobility/).

Every child is different, and deals with change in his or her own way. I spoke with several friends who moved around a lot, attending as many as 11 schools during their K-12 years. They were all affected differently.

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Category: Student Success, teaching strategies | No Comments »
Tags: classroom tactics, new students, student achievement, student engagement, student mobility, teaching strategies

August 26th, 2011 | guest blogger

How to Use Education Technology to Enhance Classroom Learning?

I may be revealing how much television I watch, but those K12.com Oregon Virtual Academy commercials are everywhere these days. Issues of school choice aside, their refrain of praises for online learning has me thinking more and more lately about the role of technology in education. How will new technologies help students’ learning? How will digital tools change the classroom? Will all these developments help create critical thinkers and global entrepreneurs (with “21st century skills”), or will they disconnect people from each other and create a generation of frenzied consumers of the overwhelming digital stream of information?

In our current ChalkBloggers poll, not one person has selected “Utilizing new technologies” as the most important element of classroom instruction. That’s a relief to me. I would never want a teacher to sacrifice real interactions (like providing constructive feedback and creating a positive and open learning environment, the two top answers) to let a computer do it for them. No one wants robotic teaching.

But certainly, lessons can be enhanced with new digital resources—and more and more, this and future generations of technology-steeped children will need to be reached with constructive interactive tools in the classroom. No one can completely shut off to new technologies and risk being left behind. The trick is finding a balance and carefully choosing the most effective tools that will enrich, not distract from, student learning.

But how to sort through the myriad options that seem to be growing and changing even faster everyday? It seems like a full-time job just to keep up. But I’ve found a few new online resources (of course) that look to do the work for you.

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Category: education technology, innovation, media, student achievement, Student Success, teaching strategies | 2 Comments »
Tags: classroom tactics, student achievement, student engagement, technology

July 28th, 2011 | Ruth Wallin

Teaching Memories: What Worked in the Past Could Work in the Future

I love reform. I’m excited that as a state and nation we are looking at making changes to public education. But sometimes in moving forward, it’s good to look back.

I’ve been moved to look back at my earlier career by the publicity around Jose Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and product of the California middle school where I taught. I’ve been thinking about the Jose days (mid-90s) and the staff and organization of that school. Of course, he is only one student, but there were many new immigrant kids who did quite well there. So what were we doing there that worked?

One thing that we did have was lots of faculty communication across the grade levels. I taught an intense and rigorous program partly because it was jointly developed by all the teachers on the 5th grade team. We met every Wednesday during prep, opened our plan books and shared. As a 5th grade teacher in a 5-8th grade school, I was reminded in staff meetings and in passing about where kids needed to be in order to be successful in later grades. There was a mindset that we were preparing kids for college. It helped that we were a Silicon Valley school sitting in the shadow of Yahoo, Netscape and SGI, where innovation and hard work were cultural norms in the neighborhood.

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Category: education reform, professional development for educators, student achievement, teaching strategies | 1 Comment »
Tags: collaborative culture, college readiness, education reform, inspiration, professional development, reflection, student achievement, student engagement, teacher career paths, teaching strategies