Blog Summary

     I am taking a coaching class this fall that is centered around writing.  I do believe the instructor is going to have everyone develop their own blog to keep posts about how our coaching in writing is going.  This will be the only reason, probably, why I will continue to blog.  I think it would be a very useful tool when thinking about the professional development aspect of my job, but blogging is not a common topic in the district where I work as it is off limits.  Teachers are not allowed to keep classroom blogs, therefore, I'm quite certain they do not know the ins and outs of one, and wouldn't be inclined to follow one for PD purposes.  I probably would be more inclined to continue blogging on a regular basis if someone were inclined to read it!
     I am excited, however, to explore some of the digital media sites that I looked into for the purposes of creating my curriculum.  I think once I learn more about those and how they can expand students' knowledge of writing, I can provide some PD at grade level meetings about them.
     It was helpful to get some of my thoughts about the CCSS and even the summary of my comparison paper of Singapore and US education down.  Putting thoughts on "paper" makes you think more deeply about them and analyze those thoughts with a different lens.  It was also very useful to review chapters 1-4 and summarize them as it had been a bit since I read them (plus many other items).  There was some useful information in them and helped me to form my curriculum plan.
    

Chapters 1-4 Summary

Summaries of chapters 1-4 in Curriculum 21:
Chapter 1- Backwards design is important, curriculum on replay does not work, the need for revision of dated content skills and assessments.
I have not seen much curriculum work in the district for which I work.  It does seem as though we are on replay, especially above grades K-5.  I know the middle school still "teaches" the same books in the same way they did 20 years ago.  Where is your diorama?
Chapter 2- Technology needs to be replaced, not integrated!  Developing curriculum starts with assessment and looking at how we are assessing students and moving towards more modern ones.  Curriculum maps also breathe life into the curriculum, they zoom in on the individual child.
Our viewpoint on technology is if kids are typing up a story they wrote they are using (integrating) technology.  I think this would take some professional development to change our ways and thoughts.  We do not do curriculum mapping in the district I work for.  I've never seen one.
Chapter 3-It is important to update content.  Should we keep what we have?  Cut some or all of it?  Create new?  Or all 3?  What is timeless?  Everyone who works in the school should be involved in reviewing maps in vertical teams.
I think this would be a place to go where I work.  Some of this work was done this summer in math.  Only as it pertains to alignment however (to CCSS).  Teachers were taking the math resource (Scott Foresman) and checking to see what aligned with the CCSS, and what could be cut out. Everything where I work is textbook based, so if it isn't in the social studies book or science kit, it isn't getting taught.  I'm not sure how old these resources are!
Chapter 4- This chapter was about school structures.  Why does a student's school experience always have to be 13 years?  Could it be shorter?  The U.S. has the shortest school year.  Should we change our grouping patterns?  Do all 7 year olds have to be together?
Our system follows the typical US school schedule with a very short day too!  9-3, which is a bit cramped!

Peristent Issues Summary

     A persistent curriculum issue/problem in the district I work for is inconsistent writing workshop/instructional times.  When looking at different teacher's schedules I found as much as 35 hours difference (a year) of instructional time between Teacher A and Teacher B.  On average, it seems as though teacher's have writing workshop between 1.5 and 2 hours a week.  Knowing how heavy the CCSS places on writing as a process and for responding, I thought writing would be a place to start thinking about.
     Writing to Read, published in 2010, clearly articulates the need for consistent writing times and explicit instruction in the area of writing because research has shown that it improves students' reading skills.  The CCSS also advocate for students to be writing on a routine basis for extended amounts of time.  Lucy Calkins and many of her colleagues to include Fountas and Pinnell say that writing instruction should occur daily for about 60 minutes with 45 of that for students to independent write on self-selected topics.  So clearly, the research tells us that writing time each day is important for students.
     I plan on sitting with the administrator for which I work to examine more teachers' schedules to look at not only current writing times, but also figure out in our busy and short day how to fit more consistent writing times in.  Hopefully bringing about an awareness of our inconsistencies if the first step to help solve the problem.  We can't fix what we don't realize is happening!

CCSS

     Wow.  The articles on the CCSS were very enlightening.  The district for which I work has not really delved very deeply into these new standards, so I have done nothing but simply peruse them to know the layout.  We have no real plans to do so either, except to know the broad topics.  I am wondering how much that will really change after giving the Smarter Balanced Assessment next spring.  Judging from a few of the articles I read, some feel the standards are way too high and that most students will fail.  I'm wondering at this point (when admin experiences such high failure rates) if they will chalk it up to, "oh well, the standards are set way too high", or if major reforms will soon follow (like where I work).
     Either way, it is always good to know why something came along.  Too often we are left with the question of why.  The articles I read certainly answered that question.  It was very disappointing to read that educators did not really have any input with the creation of the CCSS and that they were created due to the great cloud of negativity surrounding public schools.  It is also unfortunate that we will not know the effects of the CCSS for another 12 years.  The problem with that is the current rate in which technology changes, our way of life could be completely different by then and the standards may be obsolete.  Like one author pointed out, there is no one currently slated to fix any problems when they arise.

Globalization in Education

     I have not thought much about education beyond K-5 literacy in some time.  The readings this week certainly opened my eyes to the need to change education to prepare students to be able to compete on a global level.  As of right now, I don't think our schools/state/nation does enough to get our kids ready.  Other countries immerse students in another language (typically English) as soon as they begin school.  We are  lucky if students are merely exposed to other languages in high school.  For example, my daughter took French in 7th &8th, Latin in 9th and is switching to Chinese in 10th.  That is certainly not a way to master a foreign language!  We also put heavy emphasis in high school on history.  While this is important, wouldn't it benefit students to learn about other cultures in their current state?  To have knowledge and respect for other world regions and cultures?  It seems as though, like the author suggests, time to redefine our high school requirements to include some of these critical areas that will make our children marketable on a global level.

School Reform

     The article, "The Myth of Charter Schools" was very interesting and informative.  The buzz behind poor performing public schools holding onto tenured "bad" teachers has not dissolved itself in the almost 4 years since the publication of this article.  I don't know if it's because we are in Maine, or in central Maine, but I do not hear much about charter schools or the dissatisfaction of public schools to the degree in which the article discusses.  It was nice to read though that not everyone feels public schools are all doom and gloom.  The author, Diane Ravitch does talk about some areas in which we could improve upon (like other countries- Finland, Japan, Korea) for example, better screening of teacher candidates, higher salaries for retention, and better support systems & mentoring programs for new teachers, she does defend public schools.  It was nice to hear that while teaching can be a small percentage of the issue of student performance (10-20%), nonschool factors make up a much larger % at 60.  And what can we do about poverty?  Working in Bangor, this is a reality of every school day.  One of the K-3 schools has a 93% poverty rate, with others being in the 40-60% range.  Maybe government officials so quick to put all blame on teachers for poor student performance (based on one standardized assessment) should worry more about how to improve poverty rates instead?

Week 3 Thoughts...

I was very surprised indeed when I checked out the resources at the bottom of Moodle...I didn't realize there were so many available!  Or maybe I really did know, but hadn't explored any or gave it much thought.  I will spend more time getting to know some of those because they looked very interesting!
I had never heard about the Cloud Institute Framework before reading chapter 10 in our text.  As I read, I kept thinking how that is what I would like to learn about and in that manner.  The broad topics that students learn about are very current and would interest any child.   Cultural preservation and transformation, sustainable economics, and dynamics of systems and change (to name a few) all sound very engaging.  How interesting to learn about a history topic and think about why it occurred and how we changed because of it.  And then to think even deeper about how it still effects us today and how to prevent repetitive actions in the future.
Chapter 13 seems rather hard for some when thinking about shifting our mentalities.  All 3 areas do need examination however.  We should be constantly evaluating what we teach, how we teach it and the best method for assessing what we just taught.  It would be very irresponsible indeed to be neglectful in self reflection in those areas.  I found areas of the 16 habits to be something students do not complete on a regular basis (like thinking flexibly, thinking about your thinking, trying something in a different way, and taking risks).  Too often students sit there in defeat when they can't accomplish a task the first time or with a method that has been successful in the past.  They take little risk and do not try the problem in a different way.  It seems as these 16 habits should explicitly taught to children, so they do actually become habits.