Thursday, February 17, 2005

Changing Instruction / Behavior

There is nothing wrong with any of the following and in fact may be great ideas:

<<>>

BUT, am I the only one that thinks this has something to do with instruction or the educational interaction between the crew leader and student?

For example:
>>"We agreed that every teacher will have a specific concept in mind (as a learning goal) when they are conferencing with a student and will go through the I DO/You WATCH through YOU DO/I WATCH model." OR

>> "We agreed that all students will be in cooperative learning groups and each will be taught explicit roles to play as they check in on each other's learning with crew leader facilitation." OR

>> "We agreed that a 'bridging' activity will be used with every major concept (2 or 3 per quarter) to help forge a connection between new concepts and prior knowledge. The Building Background Knowledge sequence can be used as a bridging activity."

These samples address teacher behavior in the instructional interaction. I don't see any of that in the recommendations. Either that's because (1) y'all don't really think that's at issue -- fine, then let's discuss further or (2) y'all think you ARE doing it by doing the above -- then I need to understand better or (3) y'all agree but it's hard and all the above is a form of work avoidance.
I'm interested in where people are at with this.Michael

2 comments:

Michael said...

EDUCATIONAL INTERACTIONS. I think this is where we need to spend our time. Thinking of how to develop the staff's abilities in this area is the hard part. HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO THAT?

I think of this stuff as the “norming” of explorations that Michael started before he got arrested. Michael's suggestions are interesting, though I think they are more examples than serious suggestions. Is that true, Michael? What are some real suggestions? How about these?

Instructional Practices (Educational Interactions) we all need to adopt:1. Conferencinga. Make sure that individual conferences happen at least once a week with each kid

b. In Explorations, crew leaders should look at each kid's learning plan and choose 3 big concepts (from the Performance Expectations) that the crew leader commits to teaching the kid over the course of the quarter (the crew leader and student should design the project that teaches the kid those concepts together)

c. Crew leaders should use some sort of certification to say when the kid has learned the concepts (i.e. Starr has been certified in paragraphing and transition sentences)

2. Questioninga. Crew leaders need to help students design projects built around guiding questions (of the type we’ve studied in PD)

b. Crew leaders need to provide a forum for curiosity building exercises in their crews. (I NEED SOME HELP WITH THIS!!!)

Procedural Systems Here are some things that we can do to make sure things are happening in Explorations. These are Procedural Systems that I think will keep everyone focused on creating projects and earning credit. Crew leaders should:3. Have three mentor meetings a quarter (with each mentor):a. Opening meeting (that designs the project)

b. Middle meeting (that checks in on the project’s progress)

c. End of quarter meeting that wraps up the project

Obviously those meetings can be moved if the project is longer than one quarter.

4. Use Learning Plansa. There should be a “learning plan meeting” (ideally with the crew leader, kid, parent and mentor -- but let's make sure that, at least, it happens with the kid and crew leader) at the beginning of each quarter.

b. The apprenticeship project is on the plan and driven by a guiding question

c. Each project has a deadline that is committed to

d. Each kid can only work on the projects on the learning plan (but can add to the learning plan at any time)

5. Use the Gridsa. Each crew leader must meet with their 9th and 10th graders at least once a quarter and go over their grids

b. Each crew leader must meet twice a quarter with their 11th graders to go over their grids

What do you all think? WHAT ELSE SHOULD WE BE DOING?!?!?

Peace,
Al

Michael said...

Al and Michael met today for a few hours. We took all of Al's suggestions and fine tuned them into actions to take. Those actions will be sent via email and posted here.