Issue 29: Dec 08, 2008 Connections Newsletter

From Frustration to Understanding

Jim Riedl
Dec 08, 2008

Recently I had the opportunity to work with a Cyber Charter School. I will not go into detail about their structure but I will say they are unique, and I mean that in the best possible way.

As we began a two day project to develop a math curriculum, a high school teacher consistently voiced his opinion that what we were doing was really unnecessary. He said he already had what he needed to teach, his textbook. As we examined the state standards and started to develop topic maps, he began asking questions of other teachers about what they expected of their students at the other grade levels, comparing to what he had been doing for the past several years. Finally, in a state of frustration, he asked me if other teachers involved in this process often discover they are not instructing in alignment with the state standards and state tests. I informed him that he had reached a common level of understanding also reached by many at this same point in the process. His attitude about the importance of what we were doing changed dramatically. He was excited about the alignment of his instruction with the standards and tests. As he continued to work throughout the two days he became more and more enthusiastic about his student learning maps and the quality of the curriculum he would be able to deliver to them as soon as school started again. He realized he now had a curriculum that would drive instruction to guarantee students would have the knowledge, skills and understandings to be successful. He also commented that the course map would keep him on track to deliver the entire curriculum and not run out of time before he ran out of content.

Several weeks later I was back at the school to address the entire faculty regarding the summer curriculum work. As I reached the point where I was making the connection between curriculum and instruction my new found supporter spoke eloquently to the group about his personal transformation and how he believes it has the potential to influence a significant improvement in the quality of instruction. He is convinced the students will be rewarded with instruction that will better prepare them for any assessment they face.

Excerpted from The Amazing Book of Connections for Learning



Using Learning-Focused Strategies in a World Languages Classroom

Debbie Willingham
Dec 08, 2008

We all know by now that using the Learning-Focused Strategies Model can increase achievement, and that the strategies and practices are all research-based evidence-based, and data-proven. However, when it comes down to actually planning lessons, do they always fit every course we teach? The answer is YES, because we know we have to adapt the strategies we use to make them fit our students, subjects, and teaching styles.

This concern is often brought to our attention by world language teachers (formerly called foreign language teachers) because of the way they must continually have students practice newly learned words and phrases. Their needs in teaching a new language to students are in actuality very similar to the challenges primary teachers face in teaching their students to read, write, and speak English correctly. Obviously repetition is important, so teaching single lesson essential questions one at a time and not revisiting previous lessons is not the answer. The components of good lessons (EATS) should be included in every lesson, but previous lesson essential questions should be revisited to continually refine students' use of new words and phrases at the same time they are extending their use of them. Try using some of the variations of strategies listed below to help students be the most successful they can be in learning a new language.

  1. Use family word walls for words relating to a specific topic (family members, household items, classroom items, numbers, months and days, etc.). Continually refer to the word walls as students build their vocabulary, and let them "cheat" by looking at the word walls during sentence drills and when answering questions in the new language.

  2. Have a specific place to post lesson essential questions, and add to the list as a unit progresses. Putting the Lesson Essential Questions on sentence strips is an easy way to write and post them, adding to the list and referring back to previous Lesson Essential Questions as a continuous review of new information previously learned.

  3. Write the Lesson Essential Questions both in the new language and in English, so students can see the correlation and differences in sentence structure in the two languages.

  4. Label items in the classroom with their names in the new language.

  5. Have a systematic weekly review (an adaptation of the systematic monthly review) of information previously taught to continually refine students' use of new words and phrases.

  6. Have students reflect on their own learning by writing about what they are learning, what is difficult for them and why, what seems to come more easily and why.

  7. Always have an activating strategy and summarizing strategy, even in lessons that carry over for more than one period. Research also tells us that what students hear at the beginning and at the end of their lesson sticks with them best.