Inspire Instructional Innovations for Elementary Schools

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Inspire Instructional Innovationsfor Elementary
Schools

• With Lin Kuzmich, Senior Consultant
• International Center for
• Leadership in Education
• Winter Symposium in San Diego
• February 8, 2008

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Introduction

• Getting to know each other
• Introduce yourselves at your table
• What is the most critical skill you teach
  children for the 21st century? Why will this
  skill still be significant in the year 2050?
• Select a leader to keep folks on time and target
• Take about one minute or less per person going
  around the table
• Discuss after all of the folks at the table have
  responded to the prompt
• Sampling from groups

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Key Questions for Our Session

• Do your climate and culture initiatives result in
  student relationships that increase academic
  success?
• What type of classroom grows kids who try harder?
• Why does teaching from a rigorous and relevant
  critical question have such high payoff at the
  elementary level?
• Can you truly have a clear focus on literacy
  without integration across content areas at the
  elementary level?

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Student Engagement is at the Intersection for
Results

• How do you assess great relationships, management
  and engagement?
• What distinguishes students who make huge gains
  from others?
• What moves are critical for a teacher to make?
• What assumptions should we avoid?

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Monitoring a Culture of Learning

• Students exhibit purposeful action.
• Students can describe next steps.
• Students appropriately ask for assistance.
• Students questions are about aspects of complex
  thinking rather than procedure.

• Students adhere to class norms.
• Students attitude and demeanor are positive.
• Students collaborate as needed without prompts.
• Students positively reinforce each other through
  various types of interaction.
• Students can self-evaluate work in progress.

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Personal and Background Connections

• It is one thing to access background knowledge if
  it exists many of our students come without
  basic experiences to connect. How do we go about
  making those connections?
• Use of real world materials and documents
• Use of culturally drenched materials
• Powerful images and videos
• Humorous (not sarcastic) or personally meaningful
  experiences
• What else would you add?

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We Learn...
10 of what we READ 20 of what we HEAR 30 of
what we SEE 50 of what we both SEE and HEAR 70
of what is DISCUSSED WITH OTHERS 80 of what we
EXPERIENCE PERSONALLY 95 of what we TEACH
someone else From William Glasser
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How to for Student Engagement

• Design for rigorous and relevant learning
• Personalize the learning by giving choices,
  attending to learning styles, and using
  background knowledge and talents
• Give the right feedback and praise
• Use active learning strategies
• Focus on literacy in ALL classes
• Create the ideal classroom environment
  physically, visually, and emotionally
• From the ICLE Kit on Student Engagement

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Great Feedback that Evokes Growth

• Many people assume that superior intelligence or
  ability is a key to success. But more than 3
  decades of research shows that an overemphasis on
  ability leaves folks vulnerable to failure,
  fearful of challenges and unmotivated to learn.
• Teaching people to have a growth mind set which
  encourages a focus on effort rather than ability
  produces high achievers in school and in life.
• Parents and teachers can engender a growth
  mind-set in children by praising them for their
  effort or persistence by telling success stories
  that emphasize hard work and love of learning.
• Partially quoted and paraphrased from The
  Secret to Raising Smart Kids, by C. Dweck, 2008,
  Scientific American Mind, Vol. 18, Num. 6.

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Rigor and Relevance Framework
Rigor
Relevance
From the International Center for Leadership in
Education
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Critical Questions

• Why?
• What?
• When and Where?
• How?

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Why?

• Great questions help us think in terms of answers
  
• Help us design with the learning in mind versus
  just the teaching
• Todays generation struggles with key thinking
  and critical questions help
• Smaller objectives or outcomes help us with bits
  and pieces, but dont help students connect all
  the learning together

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What?

• Critical Questions have three parts that are
  stated or implied
• A Great Critical Question

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When and Where?

• For the end of the unit what one critical
  question will students need to answer by the end
  of the unit or if they do well on the final
  assessment in the unit?
• For each chunk of learning (big idea or island)
  what critical question will students need to
  answer by the end of that chunk of learning if
  they do well on the ticket off the island?

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How? Elementary Example

• Major Concepts Plant life cycles
• Thinking Level Decide and justify
• What will students do Write and present a plant
  book (focus on care of plants or the environment)

• Critical Question
• Why is a plants life cycle important to you and
  to our planet?

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How? Secondary Example

• Major Concepts Impact of War on Society
• Thinking Level Defend your Point of View
• What will students do Multi-media presentation
  debate

• Critical Question
• What long term impacts will the war in Iraq have
  on the United States and on the World in which
  you live as adults?

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How?

• Turn your final assessment idea into a question
  that tells or clearly implies the big idea, the
  thinking and the relevant or practice application
• Reviewing examples
• Trying it yourself
• More on questioning as a strategy later

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Literacy and Integrating Units

• Start by looking at and highlight common elements
  among standards and grade level indicators for
  the quarter, month or week
• Choose a webbing method
• Write integrated critical questions (not just an
  essential question)
• Design assessments for the end of the unit, the
  larger concepts along the way and remember the
  end of unit assessment should be in Quadrant D
• Follow the rest of the steps for R, R, and R unit
  planning

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Common Literacy Elements on Standards and Grade
Levels

• Thinking - sequence, cause and effect, main idea,
  inferring, etc.
• Concepts - Universal concepts like patterns,
  fairness, freedom, etc.
• Content Areas ELA and Reading, Writing,
  Speaking and Listening in Math, Science, Art,
  Social Studies, etc.
• Themes - Interrelationships, Dependency, Data
  Use, Impact of Inventions and Events, etc.
• Products - Writing, graphing, drawing,
  researching, presentations, etc.

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Recipe for Success in Integrated Unit Design

• Use to focus your web, your assessments and
  scoring
• Use to focus your web and for your critical
  questions and scoring
• Use for your web and sequencing the lessons
• Use for your web focus and critical questions
• Use for your assessments and lesson plans

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Example of a Content Web for an Integrated Unit
Art Patterns in Nature
Math Patterns, Data, and Graphing (Tech use)
ELA Communication to Inform and Cause/Effect
Thinking
Plants and Our World
Social Studies Interrelationships and
Cause/Effect Thinking
Science Life Cycles and the Scientific Process
Critical Question How do plants keep our world
healthy?
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Example of a Thinking Web for an Integrated Unit
Analysis and Evaluation Cause and Effect
Thinking
Analysis Patterns from Data
Comprehension and Analysis Relevant and
Irrelevant Information
Plants and Our World
Comprehension and Synthesis Main Idea
Comprehension, Application, Analysis Sequence
Critical Question How do plants keep our world
healthy?
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Example of a Concepts Web for an Integrated Unit
Interdependence
Patterns
Importance
Plants and Our World
Systems
Cycles
Critical Question How do plants keep our world
healthy?
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Rigor and Relevance Framework
Rigor
Relevance
From the International Center for Leadership in
Education
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Share Your Work

• Share with group
• Group asks questions
• Tips for sailing to success

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Inspire Instructional Innovation Key Examples
from Todays Learning

• Pay attention to and assess culture and climate
  for learning
• Make certain your feedback and praise reward
  persistence and hard work, not ability
• Create and teach with great critical questions
• Integrate units at the web level and use your
  data to infuse literacy

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International Center for Leadership in
Education 1587 Route 146 Rexford, NY
12148 Phone [phone] www.LeaderEd.com
info_at_LeaderEd.com