Matthew McConaughey's Speech - translated to education

From 2 Sister's Newsletter:

Matthew McConaughey gave his acceptance speech for best actor. It was at that moment that I realized this year's Oscars ceremony was leaving me with more than just a few hours of mindless entertainment.

In his speech, Matthew said he needs three things to survive: someone to look up to, something to look forward to, and someone to chase. He acknowledged the first by saying he looks up to God, who taught him to be grateful. He looks forward to being with his father, who is celebrating in heaven with gumbo and who taught him how to be a man; his mother, who taught him how to respect himself and others; and his wife and children who give him courage.

The person Matthew is chasing is a future version of himself. He has set his sights on who he wants to be 10 years from now. He acknowledges that he might never catch up with that hero, but he wants to find out who that guy will turn out to be if he tries. It was this third thing that resonated with me as an educator. It's this kind of motivation that keeps us going and provides us with the drive to be successful and to become better versions of ourselves.

Finding a way to become better versions of ourselves can be hard to do. What if we adopted Matthew's strategy? What if we chased ourselves? What if we clearly envision the kind of teachers we want to be a day from now, a year from now, and even 10 years from now, and then pursue that version with fervor? Like Matthew, I can't wait to see what I'll be like if I try.   What if this was our goal to instill this idea in students.  Education helps us to get closer to the best, future version of ourselves.

Instructional Framework

What is an instructional framework?

• For teachers who seek to improve their practice and their students' achievement, the instructional framework is a  foundation for our professional knowledge that informs, guides and elevates our professional development andhelps us to classify, clarify, and reflect on our learning. Unlike CCSS that focuses on student learning,  the  an instructional framework (IF) is focused on teacher practice, learning, and growth.

Domain #1

Domain #2

Domain #3

Domain #4:  Norms for PLC work should come from here.  Norms define what the work can look like and creates conditions for learning so that it does.

Instructional Framework & 5Ds of Teaching and Learning

We have learned about, been exposed to, and are connecting the 5Ds from CEL, Danielson's  4 dimensions, 5 key strategies of formative assessment, and other systems of instruction and learning.

Instructional Framework

1. Planning and Preparation
2. CEC (B-RtI)
3. Instruction - all the domains are in service of instruction!
1. Always the area of focus
4. Professional Responsibilities - NORMS
1. Key words:  relationships, inquiry and collaboration, feedback, improved instruction, and student advocacy

AREA OF FOCUS - Cycle of Inquiry:

• We support teacher cycles through targeted feedback walk-throughs, studio, PLC work, and coaching cycles

Also, check out the Thoughtful Classroom - Teacher Effectiveness Framework.

James Heibert et all in Making Sense - Teaching and Learning Mathematics with Understanding  write about the "dimensions and core features of classrooms" this way:

• Classroom instruction, of any kind, is a system.  It is made up of many individual elements that work together to create an environment for learning.... The elements interact with each other. ... It is difficult, if not impossible, to change one element in the system without altering the others.  ... Instruction is a system, not a collection of individual elements, and the elements work together to create a particular kind of learning environment.  ... None of these dimensions, by itself, if responsible for creating a learning environment that facilitates students' constructions of understandings.  Rather, they all work together to create such environments.  Each of them is necessary, but not one, by itself is sufficient.  (They) provide guidelines and benchmarks that teachers can use as they reflect on their own practice (7).

After our first overview of the 5 Dimensions of Teaching and Learning, this is what different content areas said that an actualized classroom would look like.  (Document can be found and downloaded 1/2 down the page under 5 Dimensions of Teaching and learning.)

Marzano's diagram is very similar in concept.

5Ds connected to 4 Domains:

1. Purpose / Domain #1 - Planning
2. Engagement / Domain #3 - Instruction
3. Curriculum and Pedagogy / Domain #1 and 3 - Planning and Instruction
4. Assessment for Student Learning / Domain #1 and 3 - Planning and Instruction
5. CEC / Domain #2 - Classroom Culture
6. n/a / Domain #4 - Professional Responsibilities

1.  Purpose:  All roads lead back to purpose!

• Standards/Strategic Learning Goals:  The lesson is based on standards and help student learn and apply transferable knowledge and skills.  The lesson is intentionally linked to other lessons.
• Teaching Point or Learning Objective:  The teaching point is based on knowledge of students' learnng needs in relation to standards.  It is clearly articulated, linked to standards, embedded in instruction, and understood by students.  
• Knowledge Targets - What do I need to know?
• Reasoning Targets - What can I do with what I know?
• Skill Targets:  What can I demonstrate?
• Produce Targets:  What can I make to show my learning? (EL, Nov 2011, Vol 69, No 3, pg 73)
• It is measurable and criteria for success are clear to students.
• Begin class with introducing the Learning Target/Objective and Success Criteria/Dos.  Conclude class with the Learning Target activity.   (C:  PDSA!)
• Daily-ish chart:  Learning Target written and below are the Criteria For Success (Dos!).  The criteria for success are written as measurable goals.  The verbs are underlined.  
• Ex:  Learning Target:  To be able to describe studio classroom-based cycles and individual roles.  (connected to content + reading, writing, speaking, listening, group work)
• Ex:  Success Criteria/Dos:  
• Read goals and mark one that is most important to you.  
• Explain to a partner 3 roles you will have during a studio.   
• Describe your responsibilities to your group.   
• Write 3 questions.  
• Connect your learning today to your practice.
• (skills and strategies to teach, reteach, review, etc..)
• Consider also Effort Criteria: This thinking might be more associated with norms.  What effort will allow you do to the task at hand?  Effort Article.

• Conclude class with the Learning Target self-assessment activity. 
• Draw three concentric circles.
• Chart your learning of each of the Success Critera/Dos on the target.
  
• You can use a Rubric to emphasize your Learning Target:
• Spend time understanding the rubric and checking back in with the rubric
• Co-Construct a rubric
• give student sample work to rate on the rubric or to construct a rubric from
• Highlight work along the way - 
• ML for each section of the rubric...
• From Josef Pieper’s Guide to Thomas Aquinas:

  . . . all knowledge of any depth, not only philosophizing, begins with amazement. If that is true, then everything depends upon leading the learner to recognize the amazing qualities, the mirandum, the “novelty” of the subject under discussion. If the teacher succeeds in doing this, he has done something more important than and quite different from making knowledge entertaining and interesting. He has, rather, put the learner on the road to genuine questioning.

2.  Student Engagement:  (For articles and more reading, click here. On-task - Engaged blog post.  Also, see Yorkville School District's plan)

• Intellectual Work: substantive intellectual engagement (reading, writing, thinking - problem-solving and meaning-making) based in student choice and ownership of their learning to develop, test, and refine their thinking.
• Blooms Question grid - ? usefulness?? 
• "We can increase the level of the task by increasing the level of accessibility."
• What is the nature of student work?
• What is the level of the work? (Think Blooms)
• Check out this TED video
• Critical Thinking - how to teach it.
• Learning Task:  SAGE = Student Choice + Authentic Context + Global Significance + Exhibition to an Audience
• RIGOR = Raise the level of content (paired reading, research) + Increased Complexity (riddle instead of definition) + Give Appropriate Support and Guidance (Model, questions, Graphic Organizers) + Open Focus (launch with discovery instead of statement - give three examples of the concept and have students guess) + Raise Expectations ~Barbara Blackburn video, podcast
• Rigor is that there is an expectation that all students will raise to higher levels of learning.  Rigor means that support will be given to students to achieve at these levels so that students can demonstrate learning at higher and higher levels.
• Teachers ask higher level questions, but they accept low level answers.  They need to probe and understand what the answers mean about learning.
• Simple ways to provide extra support:  graphic organizer - helps to chunk the material in all contents, different levels of text (however they are not left in lower levels of text) - use layered meaning - read lower level of text on a topic first and then move back to the higher levels of text.  
• Demonstrates learning - using appropriate assessments.  Each student demonstrates learning....using formative assessment with ALL students.  EX:  individual white boards, Exit tickets, clickers!
• When we talk about "every student" it is easy to lose the focus on the "ONE"...  
• Are we challenging all of our students to work at higher levels?  Rigor is for everyone.  Do lower level classes teach students to not understand the same information over and over again? 
• Every teacher is responsible for increasing the rigor in his/her classroom.
• CCSS - "Excellent way to raise expectations for students.  ...(They) are outlines of practice they need to be brought to life in classrooms.  Teachers and students take risks.  Where minds are challenged.  Where learning and learners are valued.  Rigor is insuring that each student you teach is provided the opportunity to learn and grow in ways they could never imagine."
• Place to find more on Rigor:  White Paper on Eye on Education - "4 Myths about Rigor in Education", RigorInEducation.blogspot.com (monthly newsletter - November on CCSS).
• STRUGGLE:  Why have students struggle?
• Learning Velcro:  such frustration is a precursor to deep, lasting learning. That's right, students' grasp of new concepts and skills is often better when they struggle through the process of learning those concepts and skills than when teachers error-proof that process.
• Helping students troubleshoot their errors like this should be a primary role of every teacher. There's nothing to troubleshoot, though, if kids never run into trouble. Lesson planning should thus be more about anticipating students' errors and preparing to help them learn from those errors than trying to develop presentations that prevent all errors. Provide students activities that involve applying information, and be ready to help them when they get tripped up.
• Another way of thinking about this is reflected in the common distinction in recent years between "sage on stage" (i.e., lecturer) and "guide on the side."
• An article about being special and the gift of struggle....

• Engagement Strategies:  Activate and build background knowledge, experiences, and responses to support rigorous and culturally relevant learning.  Encourage equitable and purposeful student participation and ensure all students have access to learning and are expected to participate in learning.
• Restoring Engagement - 4 easy fun ideas.
• Student Engagement Strategies - great website about what students need to be able to do and if they can't, ideas you can try.
• What specific strategies are in place? (small group, partner talk, writing)
• Do all students participate in all activities?  Why? Why not?
• How do you create quality group work?  Excellent Coop Learning Site - roles, PIES
• Engagement Strategies from B-RtI
• Want to hear from everyone?  
• Chalkboard Splash - prompt and students all write answers on board, chart paper, etc
• Quick draw or write - (pass it around - like "written conversation")
• Bounce Cards - #d cards to bounce to 3s, Letters to bounce to..., Multiple Choice answers
• A-Z wrap up - summarize considering a letter from A-Z.
• Hold Ups - white boards, papers, colors, thumbs, etc...
• 4 Corners...
• Cup/Signal Card Monitoring:  Green, Yellow, and Red cups - put the cup on top to indicate your level of understanding.
• (Anonymous) - Question Hat - put questions into the hat.
• TALK  (see posts on Rationale for talk and 3B- Student Talk) :  
• "First we learn to talk; then we talk to learn."  
• "Being human is dependent on our use of language to shape our ideas and the ideas of others. The classroom, withits potentialities for cummunity interchange, is the right place for deep reading, deep writing, and face-to-face discussion with others (p 149)." ~Robert P Waxler and Maureen P. Hall in Transforming Literacy:  Changing Lives Through Reading and Writing.  
• Talk should lead to something more than you could get to on your own.  Talk reflects discipline-specific habits of thinking and ways of communicating (including but not only word choice).  Student talk embodies substantive and intellectual thinking.  GREAT article on ACADEMIC CONVERSATIONS...
• What is the frequency of teacher talk vs student talk?
• What does student talk reflect about their thinking?
• What role does a student's native language play in student talk?
• How does the teacher encourage students to share their thinking with each other, build on each other's ideas, and assess their understanding of each other's ideas?
• Where is the locus of control over learning in the classroom?
• Ways to talk:
• Storytelling - recounting events and passing along narrative, create context
• Agenda Setting - planning the talk
• Problem Solving - identify the problem and futher talk atttepts to generate and select ideas that might solve it.
• Brainstorming - talk devoted to creating ideas
• Decision Making - choosing among alternatives requires identifying and applying criteria and then committing to the results.
• **Debate:  Check out NYTimes Room for Debate link.

• Try on some TALK MOVES (from Dorothy)
• Pose (great questions) - Pause (PTT, Writing, TT, Think-Pair-Share, Written Conversation...ways to give access to the conversation) - Pounce (no hands) - Bounce (x4++ - Consider the 5 core conversations skills:  elaborate and build on, support ideas with evidence, clarify and/or challenge (with nonexamples), paraphrase, synthesize (create something new out of everything people have said))
• Goals for Bounce:  
• Work toward something bigger than you could have come up with alone.  Seek something thematic, bigger ideas, more than a summary.  Create new ideas out of shared ideas.  
• Apply thinking to life - right now!
• what more do I need to learn?  What am I wondering about now?
• PTT - give Private Think Time to allow all students to formulate their thoughts before being asked to share with others.  Students may write or just think.
• DYAD  - AB - put kids into partners.  Partner A starts and talks for ?? minutes.  Partner B may ONLY listen.  Partner B should not indicate agreement or disagreement.  Then it is Partner B's turn.
• GO AROUND - the facilitator has the group GO AROUND the table and share thinking.  Someone new should start each time as going first and going last are two different experiences.  This ensures "Everyone participates and is heard."  Number students and call on each number throughout the class period.
• TABLE ROLES:  Facilitator, Team Captain, Recorder/Reporter, and Resource Manager.  Possible use:  number students off and assign a role to a number, have seats in desks indicate the role (ex:  front, left is the facilitator)
• MONITOR "Air" TIME - "Finish your sentence, not your paragraph!"
• Create common actions for "I'm ready"(thumbs up) and how much time we need (fist, one or two fingers). 
• Other Protocols
• Protocols for LA Classroom  - click here
• Other Articles about Student Talk:
• Project GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Development)
• Article about Increasing Student Talk from CreatingLifeLongLearners.com
• Article about getting students to ask their own questions from Harvard Education Group.
• What question is worth PTT, TT (Turn and Talk) and Go Around Share with Group, and sharing with the class?
•  (For articles and more reading, click here.)
• Check out this link: http://thoughtsonteaching-jdunlap.blogspot.com/2007/06/beyond-debates-and-conversational-roles.html?m=1  
  

  
  

  I think the hatful of quotes (in your case - hatful of questions!) could be fun. And, I love the idea of small groups (homogeneous) talking and having a designated listener. That DL would then go into the fishbowl and represent the group. His/her group could assess whether s/he represented.  

  
  

  
  
  

  Also, check out the list of discussion ideas here: 

  
  

  http://www.teachingscience20.com/2010/09/discussion-moves-and-protocols/
  
  
  
  

  How do we develop better listeners?

  • Strategies for Developing Listening Skills - NCLRC.org
  • Article:  listening vs hearing, Active listening skills, benefits of listening (could be used with students)
  • ***Great Resource:  Listening skills, Compare effective and noneffective listening skills, How to..etc, etc.  Strategies for before, during and after listening...
  • Teaser for book - introductory chapter - Listen Here! 25 LIstening Comprehension Strategies.  by Michael Opitz (Danielle's husband??)
  • Lesson from Discovery Education online...

3.  Curric and Pedagogy

• Thinking Through a Lesson Protocol (TTLP)
• Personalized /Powerful Teaching and Learning System (PT&L): PT&L is based on extensive research conducted in more than 1,000 schools and 15,000 classrooms across the country. It is characterized by active inquiry, in-depth learning, performance assessment, reflection, relevancy, and rigor, all supported by strong relationships between the student and teacher and among students.
  
• Student Centered Learning - Edutopia article focused on math but transferable to other subjects.
• After talking with business leaders about which of these skills were most important, he distilled these down to the “four Cs”—critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.  Well into the second decade of the 21st century, Kay said he has grappled with the question: Should we still be calling the concept “21st-century education” at this point? To answer this question, Kay suggesting posing another: “Do you have a model of education that is preparing kids for the jobs of the future?”

4.  Assessment for Student Achievement

• See assessment post (it has it's own category!)
• From Effort Article:  And just as importantly, that mistakes are part of good learning. As a Wired article (great article about praise...) recently reported about why some are more effective at learning from mistakes, “the important part is what happens next.” People with a “growth mindset” — those who “believe that we can get better at almost anything, provided we invest the necessary time and energy” — were significantly better at learning from their mistakes.

5.  Classroom Environment and Culture

• Video ("Math is a Social Activity" in Edutopia) showing how to create a classroom environment in the service of learning.
• Educating the Whole Child - many ideas from What Works - WholeChild Education 
• How can ethics create a better environment and culture...
• Engagement strategies from B-RtI - to build a better environment
• Building Respect Article - ASCD from ED Magazine themed Promoting Respectful Schools.  (book recommended:  The Skill-ionaire in Every Child)
• From Donna Santman, Shades of Meaning, "An atmosphere of accountability is a product of relationships - kids' relationships to people who are significant to them. ... remind students how it feels to be in a relationship where participants expect great things from each other.  This relationship involves both participants being visible to each other and each participant feeling known by the other.  Teaching is a dialogue, as assessment and instructions represent opportunities for each party, student and teacher, to speak and be heard (xiii)."
• Quality group work... Excellent site for Cooperative Learning - roles/PIES
• Bully video and response....an 8th grade class did a response to this.  Could be powerful?
• building qualities that lead to LEADERS in the Future.  Article:  From Math Student to Community Organizer - Harvard Ed Review.
• MENTORS?  Tiger program

Reflection questions for teachers (Link to Whole Article):

Here are some reflection points for educators from Jim Dillon:

• Ask yourself if you have ever enjoyed the experience of being controlled and manipulated by someone with power and authority over you. The answer most would give is a resounding NO. If this is true for most people, it is also true for students.
• Ask yourself why students need to be controlled. Humans are wired to learn. It is synonymous  with being human. Learning in school is different than learning outside of school. If students are not motivated, they are not the problem. It is what we are teaching and how we  are educating them.
• Ask yourself what school would be like if learning was meaningful, purposeful and valued without arbitrary timelines for demonstrating mastery. What if students has some choice and voice in how they learned?
• Ask yourself if the experience in schools has to be an individual experience based on meeting the expectations of one teacher and the prescribed curriculum. Why is learning together, where the social is integrated with the intellectual, not considered as a legitimate way to learn in most schools?
• Ask yourself why learning in school has to be joyless or tedious. Shouldn’t asking and answering intriguing questions be an exciting experience?
• Ask yourself what learning experiences in your own life were the most positive and the most negative. Where did those learning experiences occur? What made them positive and what made them negative?
• Ask yourself what is stopping you from asking students if they need to be controlled or better yet asking them how they would like to educated.

ITEMS THAT SHOULD BE THE CENTER OF EVERY SCHOOL SYSTEM

1. Passion: Everyone should feel passionate about what they are doing in the schools. Nothing else matters if the passion isn't there.

2. Imagination: This one scares people, but it's absolutely essential. Get messy, take risks and go out on a limb.

3. Music, dance, drama and art in every school: This is like breathing. Without it you have nothing.

4. Everybody reads and reads and reads and reads: Turn off the television, pull the earplugs out and get a good book.

5. Write a lot: Not one paper a year or a semester, but dozens.

6. Debate with one another: Get kids arguing, learning how to defend a position and how to respect an opponent. Do the same for the adults, too.

7. Have some manners: If adults and kids can't be kind and caring to each other, they should leave, and I don't mean for a day. Get out until you know how to say "please" and "thank you."

8. Don't show up if you're not prepared to work: Be present beyond simply occupying a desk. This goes for the adults as well.

9. When you do show up, show up on time: This goes along with item No. 8. If you can't be there and be on time, don't come.

10. Don't fear failure: Get a thicker skin. We all learn best by messing it all up.

_____________

Michael Kennedy is the author of "Teacher to Teacher: An Off-The-Record Handbook for Teaching High School English by Mister Kennedy."

Instructional Strategies

Overview:
WEBSITES for Ideas:

• Creating Life Long Learners

PURPOSE:
TEACHER STRATEGIES:

1. Graphic Organizers / Thinking Templates

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT:

Cooperative Learning videos:  Cooperative Learning Strategies - good ideas/weird animated video!
1. 10 Steps to Better Engagement from Edutopia - excellent tips.

2. Article from Education.com

3. Quick article. Notes from article:
To get more engagement: Learning time in the school day has been divided into four categories: (a) scheduled time - the amount of time the teacher plans to spend on various subjects; (b) allocated time - the amount of time actually devoted to the learning activities; (c) academic engaged time - the time students are actually on-task in a learning activity (e.g, taking notes, listening to teacher, solving a problem); and (d) active academic responding time - the time a student spends making responses that are active and observable (e.g., discussing tasks).
What gets in the way of engagement?poor learning design and poor classroom management.


1. An essential question (frames students' reading and thinking)
2. cluster questions (unit questions - tie the unit selections togther and helps students relate to essential question
3. Thinking skills - directly tuaght and applied throughout unit
4. End-of-cluster activities - help students synthesize what they hare learned
5. Writing prompt -
6. Assessment options - essay test, vocabulary quizzes, rubrics for individual projects, WIDA- PMIs

Teachers:
1. activate pk
2. model and teach thinking skils
3. develop thematic vocabulary
4. use writing to integration literature and thinking skills
5. assess students' knowledge using appropriately differentiated assessments - WIDA's PMIs


Rereading Classroom Instruction that Works (Marzano) after all this training is really interesting!!!

Key aspects of teaching and learning:

1. Creating the environment for learning
   1. Setting objectives 
   2. Providing feedback based on objectives
   3. Reinforcing effort
   4. Providing recognition
   5. Cooperative learning - provide opportunities to interact with one another in ways that enhance their learning  (Goal:  connect students to teachers and one another in productive ways)
2. Helping students develop understanding (reflection and communication)
   1. cues, questions and advanced organizers - enhance their ability to retrieve, use, and organize what they already know about a topic.
   2. Nonlinguistic representations - enhance students' ability to represent and elaborate on knowledge using mental images
   3. Summarizing and note taking - ability to synthesize information and organie it in a way that captures the main ideas and supporting details.
   4. Assigning homework and providing practice (fluency) - extend the learning opportunities for student to practice, review, and apply knowledge.
3. Helping students extend and apply knowledge - enhance students understanding of and ability to use the knowledge by engaging them in the mental processes that asks them to...
   1. Identify similarities and differences
   2. Generating and testing hypostheses

Teachers move beyond teaching content to teaching students how to learn!

The process of acquiring and integrating information:

1. construct meaning / construct a model of steps required of the process or skill
   1. recall PK
   2. make and verify predictions
   3. correct misconceptions
   4. fill in unstated information
   5. identify confusing aspects of knowledge
2. organize and store information
   1. by recognizing patterns in the information
   2. store si most effectively by creating a mental image of it.
3. Develop a conceptual understanding of the process and understanding
4. Practicing its variations
5. Using the process or skill fluently or without much conscious thought
6. *move byond "right answer" learning to an expaned understanding and use of the concepts and skills in real-world contexts
   1. more flexible and efficient in using twhat they have learned
   2. Complex reasoning prcesses

21st Century Skills:

1. set personal learning goals,
2. self-check for understanding
3. access tools and resources for enhancing thier understanding
4. use what they have learned in real-world contexts.

Conley emphasizes that students develop these skills over time through intentional practice and use, and the skills ultimately lead students to "think about the world in complex ways" (xix).

good relationships:

• care about students as people and learners
• hold high expectations 
• convey tehse expectations to their students
• help students meet those expectations
• design learning activities that are workth students' efforts
• relevant to their lives
• require higher-order thinking
• warm and empathetic
• establish a sense of community
• respect students and stduents respect thema nd each other
• GROWTH MIND SET - effort = growth
• help to develop mental determiniation to continue improving and learning