Comings and GoingsDena Eban, Dan WeissmannON CLARK STREET Audrey Donaldson, recently tapped to head the Office of Curriculum, Instruction, Professional Development and Research, has been moved to head up Teacher Renewal and Recertification. The new office will coordinate implementation of revisions in teacher certification that go into effect next year. John Frantz, director of teacher accountability, succeeds Donaldson as Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development officer.
MOVING IN/ON Todd Rosenkrantz, a researcher on school finance issues for the Chicago Urban League, has joined the Consortium on... > Read More |
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Challenging assignmentsDena EbenAlice Brent
Foundations Elementary
Alice Brent proudly shows off the posters her students created for the Cloud Fair, the culminating event of a two-month lesson on weather. Diagrams of storm cycles. Drawings showing how a tornado develops. The mostly hand-drawn charts and illustrations spout technical terminology— precipitation, troposphere, stratus clouds.
Definitely the work of at least a 5th-grade class. But Brent's students at Foundations Elementary are only in 1st and 2nd grade. "They like big words," she says.
Now the class has moved on to... > Read More |
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Boston distributes Chicago studyDebra WilliamsA study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research on the quality of student work is better known in Boston than in Chicago.
Last school year, the Boston Plan For Excellence, an independent school reform organization, published excerpts of the report in Focus, a newsletter that goes to all Boston public school teachers and administrators. The headline was: "What Boston Can Learn from Chicago."
The Boston Plan also published excerpts in a four-page report to the community, entitled Great Expectations, that it distributed in an issue of the Boston Globe.
In Focus,... > Read More |
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'People started sharing, letting their guards downDebra WilliamsOn a Thursday afternoon in October, Maria Goslin, a 1st-grade teacher at Corkery Elementary School in South Lawndale, gathers her students on the floor in front of an over-head projector.
It's time to look at "math messages," the results of a weekly assessment Goslin uses to find out whether her students are learning what she has been trying to teach them.
She begins by going over the scoring system, or "rubric" in educational jargon. "OK, this is a math rubric. Remember? If you turn in a math assignment with no work on it, you will get a zero. See, a zero means no work was... > Read More |
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How Boston is doing itDebra WilliamsThe following are excerpts from the Boston Public School Plan for Whole School Change. They address the objective of examining student work and data in relation to the citywide learning standards. The goal is to identify students' needs, to improve assignments and instruction, to assess student progress, and to inform professional development.
Key Activities
train teachers to look at student work and create time blocks in the daily schedule for this activity.
fully assess student work to find out students' current aptitudes, where they need to go, and how to get... > Read More |
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Student work a citywide focus in BostonDebra WilliamsAs in many cities across the country, Boston has a plan aimed at rejuvenating all of its schools. For schools themselves, the first step is examining student work.
"We had to think about how to make this plan functional and figure out an entry point," explains Gloria Woods, a principal who is overseeing the change effort in the first two waves of schools.
For Brown, the challenge of where to begin sparked a memory, "I remember sitting with a group of 1st-grade teachers at my school who were telling me they were concerned about their students' writing. We were sitting with... > Read More |
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For more informationDebra WilliamsThe following organizations provide training or information on creating challenging assignments for students and analyzing student work:
Annenberg Institute for School Reform
Looking at Student Work
This web site provides explanations, resources and examples.
www.aisr.brown.edu/LSW.htm
In Providence, R.I., (401) 863-7990
Chicago Annenberg Challenge
"Throwing Down the Gauntlet: How Quality Curriculum Challenges Students"
This collection of... > Read More |
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Learning to teach better by examining student workDebra WilliamsFor 30 years, Christine Franzen taught in the same school, in the same classroom, in the same way.
"I'd lecture, give my students a test, collect homework, grade it and give it back," says Franzen, who teaches math at Senn High School in Edgewater.
That pattern changed last year, when Franzen began working toward certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. (See story on page 12.)
Now, says Franzen, she examines students' work for clues to what works—or doesn't work—in her own teaching. "I look at the kinds of mistakes my students make,"... > Read More |
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