Texting- The new form of writing?

Taken from the ASCD Smart brief 10-26-2009

Texting may help students improve informal writing skillsDespite a myriad of concerns about the increasing use of text messaging by teens, some teachers and researchers say texting does not interfere with students' ability to use language properly and may in fact help students better express themselves through informal writing. "Writing is good. Writing is expressing thoughts. Expressing thoughts is good. We just don't like their modality," says Larry Rosen, a researcher and author of a book on the issue. Charlotte Observer (N.C.), The (10/26)



Some people on staff responded below....what do you think?

Beth said:
"I think that kids/people learn through a variety of facets. This is just one. There is a great deal of thought that has to go into texting in order to make sure that your point gets across. I can see where the shift has left people "text abbreviating" words, myself inluded...but it is a new form of literacy and our children have to be literate in more than just book and traditional print to survive in todays society.
Gone is the day of paper and pencil...we have to expand our horizons! "

Michelle said:
"Very interesting...Aside from the safety issues, I don't think we need to worry about texting degrading our language. I've used comics in my teaching and have students make their own comic strips. The style of language and vocabulary is not always the most advanced in a comic strip but reading and creating them involve a lot of higher-order thinking. Also, we ESL teachers explicitly teach the difference between formal and informal English and the times that each is appropriate. I love the suggestion from the article about having students "translate" classic literature into text language to demonstrate comprehension! "

Lisa said:
"We discussed this in my technology through literacy master's class. Although informal, it is a new style of writing and we as adults better learn how to do it or we will be left behind. At least the students are writing in some form . . ."

What is new in school?

Well, we are getting ready to finish up our first quarter of the 09-10 school year. I think it has been a great start of the year despite the little hiccups we have had along the way. We have felt some growing pains, shrinking budgets, and expectations for more gains when we are getting less support.

Our Teach 21 group and other technology groups are in full swing. If you have not checked out the teacher or class blogs, you really should. I just found out about one today and as I was reading it, I laughed so hard I was crying. I have enjoyed reading all the blogs I know about. The student responses are great and the insights from the teachers are amazing. I always knew we had a fantastic pool of talent. The blog is a great way to show it from our students to our faculty. If you are one who has a blog and using in your class, please let me know so I can let others know to follow it. I think it is important for the students to receive feedback when they post things. It encourages them to blog even more.

Our theme this year is " A Firm Foundation Builds A Nation". By using even the scant amount of technology we have in our building, you are helping your students develop a firm foundation that will enable them to build on their technological skills and be successful when using technology for more advanced applications later. We have Education City, which is up and running and ready to use. We have Rosetta Stone that is ready to use. We have Orchard and AR. We will also be using FirstinMath with our upper grades. This is a pilot program based of the math game 24. We are moving quickly to the more advanced technological equipment but we need to be comfortable in using what we have before we can become experts in using the new stuff.

Respond with some strategies that you have used with technology this year. Also, share some ways you have used Blogger with your class.

Three Steps for 21st Century Learners

Three Steps for 21st Century Learning

I thought you would enjoy this short video on how the 21st Century demands new approaches to the learning environment.

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yCB4i7GJuM

Check it out form home. We can't log onto youtube from school. It is really worth the time to watch.

How to Handle Parent Volunteers in Class

How to Handle Parent Volunteers in Class

Posted using ShareThis

Home - Learning Village 2.0.9.16

Home - Learning Village 2.0.9.16

2nd week of school

So far so good. The opening of school has been rather smooth. Everyone seems to be settling in and our students are doing a great job with practicing the 3 R's. We just need to keep practicing and reinforcing our expectations for them and for ourselves.

I have seen some excellent connecting activities and I really appreciate those that have remembered to post them on the school wiki. At last count we had about 17 activities. That is 17 weeks worth of connecting activities for your class. If you have not posted yet- please do. It will be great to have enough activities to get everyone through the year. That would be 42 submissions.

I really like the third grade taking up the bricks idea on their hallway. The students are beginning to understand the we need to build upon the foundation to make a strong community and we are doing that by following the 3 R's- Respectful, Responsible, and Ready.

The learning team meetings went very well today. Kindergarten and 3rd grade did a wonderful job working through the process of unpacking a standard. The more we do it, the easier it will become and it will make your job easier in the classroom. I am looking forward to seeing what the other grade levels do this week with unpacking one of their standards. I have been very impressed how the staff has internalized the Single School Culture concept, not only with the academic part- that we have just begun, but also in the climate and behavior piece. You all have just taken up the focus and process naturally. We just need to keep that going and continue to hold our students and each other to higher standards to meet out goals for this year.

Keep up the good work, remember to laugh daily, and make it fun. The scores will come when we remain focused and using high yield strategies in all of our instruction-challenging our students and teaching them to think.

Have a great week.

Trish

Welcome Back South Fork Staff

School starts on Tuesday, August 25th. We have had to make a lot of changes right before school started so I have been very busy hiring new staff and switching staff around to accommodate the changes. I am excited at the new additions but sad to see some people move on to bigger and better positions within the system.

Please welcome Barry Hill to our 4th grade, along with Beth Hodges. It will be the "H" team as it is Mrs. Higgins, Mrs. Hodges, and Mr. Hill. We have also added a new kindergarten teacher, Ms. Rachel Hicks. Her assistant has joined us from Kimberly Park ES. Her name is Carol Green.

Ms. Cheryl Wright has taken the position of the Summer School Academy and the SES Coordinator for Title One Schools. She will be great at this position but we will miss her more than we can imagine. Angie Anderson, from 4th grade, has taken on the challenge of being our new Tech Facilitator. Ms. Wright and Mrs. Anderson have been working night and day to get technology lab prepared for the classes to start.

We have made several grade level changes. Mrs. Sanchez moved to 1st grade. Mrs. Quigley moved to 2nd grade, Ms. Allen moved to 3rd grade, and Ms. Knote moved to 5th grade. We have also added Ms. Revelle and Ms. London to our primary reading support staff. Mrs. Hunt has joined out staff for the mornings for ESL. She will be at Brunson ES in the afternoons. Mrs. Dixon will be in a full time support role working mostly with 2nd grade to begin with and then pick up small reading and math groups as the need arises. Please welcome and help all the these new additions and people new to these different grade levels.

It is going to be a fantastic year. We have incorporated the theme this year as, " A Firm Foundation Builds a Nation". This is how we will include the "Essential Skills of the 21st Century", which is our overall school theme for the county school of choice. We had a great beginning of team building with our staff on the 17th. The Theme Team that went to the Teacher Academy this summer, worked on this idea all summer to help unite our staff, students, and community. By all of us working together, our students will become the leaders one day that we need them to be. More to come on that later....

Remember that we will use the blog and wiki to communicate ideas, discuss staff development ideas, and share instructional strategies with each other.

I will be glad to have all the students back at school. It will be nice to have a routine in place.

Trish

Opportunities to improve- What can you do?

We are embarking on a week long trip of enrichment and OTI- other opportunities to improve. This is for all the students who did not pass the EOG's the first time. Most of our students missed the cut off by 2-5 problems. I feel sure they will meet their goal this second time around.

Thinking about OTI- what can you do to improve on what you did this year in the classroom? We had good scores. Some would even say we had great scores in some areas. But, we all have room for improvement. No one teacher in our school can do this alone. It is a matter of building upon what each teacher did beginning from pre-K through fifth grade and beyond. Each one of us adds to the foundation of each student who attends South Fork. Preparation for the end of grade exams do not begin in third grade...it starts the minute they enter our doors and it doesn't stop once they leave us...it continues, I hope, for the rest of their lives. It takes all of us and we are all doing what needs to be done to prepare our students- or not prepare them- if that is the case. We are all in this together. Where one fails, we all fail- We are a TEAM. Where one succeeds- we all succeed- We are a TEAM. Where one receives a bonus- we all receive one- not because of just the one but because we all had a hand in the success of the students. If you believe otherwise- come see me. We need to have a chat.

So, what can you do now and through the summer as opportunities to improve your teaching in science, reading, writing, or math? What can you do to help strengthen the foundations of our students next year? How can you help them build better character, or build more empathy or sympathy for others? Are you a good role model for your students? What opportunities do you need to improve?

Share your thoughts and ideas. The blog has been quiet for too long.

EOG week

It is End of Grade week this week at South Fork. We have had three tests- including Science- and we have one more tomorrow in math. It is a short day for testing and the last day for most of the students. We have about 7 students who will completing make up the rest of this week. Then we have a long weekend before we hit the ground running- again.


I have been amazed at how hard the students worked so far this week. I have never seen a group of kids stick with the reading test as ours did on Monday. We had several students who took the extra time to finish. It was truly awesome to watch. I hope the scores reflect how hard the kids worked. They should all have fours- if it does. Today, I saw so many students using all the strategies they have been practicing all year. It was a good day for testing today.


We are winding down the year but we still have three weeks to go. I hope now that testing is essentially over, we can take the time to do some activities with our students that fit into our curriculum but is not related to testing. Our multicultural week is the last week of school. Now would be a good time to do some hands on, fun, learning activities that involve the different cultures represented in our school.

Have fun with the end of school. Keep the kids engaged and pull out all those activities you used to do that made teaching fun. Let's end this year with a bang!

Good afternoon,

Ok Here is the website I spoke about this morning. It is a great resource for you as a teacher and for our parents- if you want to include it in your news letters.
http://school.familyeducation.com/working-parents/parents-and-school/51326.html?detoured=1&mail-04-07

We hope you enjoy this school.familyeducation.com page.

Also, as promised...the powerpoint is on the s: drive for you to look at. It will be a good resource to read through.

Now for your assignments for April 29th- Your assignment is to work with your table group(from today) to prepare to teach your strategy of writing summaries or note taking to the whole group on April 29th. This should only take about 3-4 minutes at the most for each group. I checked and found that you did not have the books that I was reading from so I will make a copy of the strategies and put them in your group leaders box to share( for those who did not get a sheet today). I will have copies of all strategies for everyone on the 29th so you only have to give info to people in your teaching group.
Group 1- Cindy Wright Summary Frames: The Argumentation Frame, The Problem/Solution Frame, The Conversation Frame
Group 2- Kathy Jackson Rule Based Strategy
Group 3- Blanca Oliver Summary Frames: Narrative Frame, Topic- restriction Illustration Frame, and the Definition Frame
Group 4- Betsy Truscott Combination Notes: Landmark college and the Cornell Two column Notes
Group 5- Connie Allen Webbing Notes- Extreme Notes
Group 6- Jennifer Mickey Roman Numeral Outline
Group 7- Amy Guthrie Post card summary
Group 8- Charlene Wellborn Picture Summaries

Update: All handouts have been put into the team leader's box as of this afternoon.

If you come across any websites or programs, or other user friendly ideas that will help us with the summaries and note taking process- please add it to the blog.

Any suggestions or things you have used is most welcomed too.

Back to Marzano...Writing Summaries and Taking Notes

Before we begin on this section of Marzano's High Yield Strategies...What are some things that you already do for teaching how to write summaries or to take notes? Do you teach your students how to take notes or to write summaries?

My daughter, Megan, has a hard time figuring out what is important enough to talk about when she is telling me about a book she has read or a movie she has watched. I have always said that she can't see the forest because she is so busy looking at each and every tree. So, when I ask her about a book or a movie- I tell her she has to tell me about the plot in only three sentences. This is extremely hard for her but after a while- I did notice that she was getting better at picking out the main ideas from the stories. Her book summaries are still just a recap of the entire story in her own words. We are still working on ways for her to shorten them and still get all the important information.

One way that was helpful to me as a student and what I did with my students for note taking was to provide a sheet with the information I wanted the students to know with blank spaces. As I went over the material or we came across the information in a book, an article, movie, etc. I would point it out to them and they would fill in the information on their study note sheet. After we used this for a while, they knew when they received the sheet they needed to read over it before class got started so they would recognize the information they needed to fill in the blanks. I found that to be helpful to them.

Another easy thing- I did for note taking- was to point out vocabulary in bold print. That was usually a clue that they should pay attention to. I included those in my note taking sheets as well.

What are some of the things you have done with summaries and note taking?

The Biggest Loser hits South Fork ES Staff

Beginning Tuesday, March 17th, we will be doing our own "Biggest Loser" at South Fork. Each person will weigh in on Tuesdays at 7:30. To participate you need to bring in your $10.00 for the first weigh in.

We will be basing it on the highest percentage of weight lost and the winner will be determined after 8 weeks. We will not do teams because we have such a small group- but if you did not sign up and you are interested in joining- come ready on Tuesday with your fee and a big smile. If you are not participating in the actual contest- you can join in by being a cheerleader for all of us. It takes everyone's encouragement.

I have heard that if you put a goal in print and put it out there for everyone to see- it holds you more accountable- so here is my goal- to lose 25 pounds in 8 weeks. That would be 10% weight loss for me (if I figured that correctly).

Good luck and I hope we are all "The Biggest Loser" at South Fork.

New Methods for Getting Deep Math Achievement- a summary

On Feb. 25th I took a group of teachers from South Fork to a half day staff development from Dr. Ron Boykins. It was a half day program and relatively cheap- $65.00 per person if you take 3 or more people. I went hoping to get just one usable strategy and to have my teachers come away with a few other strategies as well.

What we got was so much more. Although it was a half day seminar- Dr. Boykins held our attention, got us motivated, and ended up giving us so many ideas- I couldn't write fast enough to keep up. I will give you some of the ideas he gave us and the website so if you are interested in learning more- you can see for yourself- what his story is all about.

I tried to explain to a group of Elementary Principals what I had heard and seen from this staff development but I couldn't do it justice so hopefully- I will do better at describing the strategies and ideology here in the blog. This is part one of a series- there is way too much to write in one blog. This one will concentrate on the getting the focus and getting started.

Dr. Boykins started off by giving a history of his background and how he got to where he is now. He talked about the school that he moved from #17 in the system to #1 in two years. Here are a few of the things he did to do that.

How to create a breeding ground for Mathematics... The Set Up.

Focus on the NEST- your environment- Expectations that already exist or are established here
Focus on the Nurture- Growth and development of the focus or goals.
Focus on the duplicity- Multiply- everything reproduces from itself- it must reproduce to keep going. Lasting change needs to be fueled consistently.

1. Change our environment- What is your focus? Make the decision to become the best at........! Then do everything you can to build the program around that idea/focus.
Questions to ask:
What are we trying to build?
What kind of school are we now?
What do we want to become?

Once the decision is made to make the change- Everything you do builds or supports that focus.
You will have to control the visuals...What is on your walls in your school that supports the focus? Do you have walls that teach in your classrooms, in the hallways, in the cafeteria?

Control the vision- ID the goal, pick "change" leaders to head it up, Design or find the ACCELERATION programs and materials.

Remember: Control hearing and seeing....leads to "thinking and believing".....which leads to ACTIONS....which leads to "LASTING CHANGE". Good images and proof images= change environment.

2. STOP the 3 R's...Move to Acceleration- We need to move away from retention and review and move towards Acceleration

Retention- retain the kids who do not master the skills- Does this work? Has it worked for you?
Review- Reteach what was not mastered- If we are reteaching everything not mastered- we will never move forward and learn what is coming next.
Rigor- Rigor is gone- How do we get it back? We get it back with FOCUS and keeping it simple.

3. A way to Accelerate!

Small ideas- can spark big change....brainstorm and use ideas that jump out ...

A. Establish your goals- IE- to raise test scores by 10% each year. Post your goals out front and share the accountability with parents and students. Make it known to everyone what it is you are doing.
b. Develop a time table for the test and set goals for each child for the test. Talk to them about the tests and where you want them to be. They may not all be able to make a 3 or a 4 but they can set their goal to increase their score or percentage by 20%.
c. Conduct test staff development- Do we know how to help kids take tests? Do we know how to use formative assessments to lead our instruction for each student?
d. Conduct pre /post assessments- formative assessments on each objective and goal from SCOS
e. Dis-aggregate data until you are blue in the face...know all that you can about the strengths and weaknesses of the students and in yourself as far as teaching and mastering the objectives. What do you need to do to make sure they get what they need? How do you know when they get it? Who in the building can be a resource to get a student in the position to meet the goals set for him.her?
f. Focus Test Prep- Teach the students to read the questions first, Practice Timed drills, Teach them the process of elimination and item analysis.
Process of elimination of test questions-
Item analysis:
1- correct
2-Close, but wrong
3-opposite
4-Way off

Have student write own examples to remember item analysis/ elimination process

g. Simulate "game day"- Eliminate all surprises- Students should know what test day looks and feels like.
h. Put students in test maker role- let them write their own questions for each objective- test each other.
I. Create your own assessments/ use released tests- released test item banks- Examination copies from publishers
J. Motivate them- Give them a purpose to do their best- competition- We can't be number 1 until we BEAT number 1. All kids like to win!!!

4. Instead of remediation- head towards acceleration- For those who have not mastered skills- go for OTI- Opportunities to Improve. The purpose is to get students refocused so they will stay on the right track. OTI- use a set of interventions that begin the day after important milestones from your time line- like progress reports,EOQ's, or EOG's.
Interventions can include:
-Mandatory meetings with parents to develop solutions
-Establish monitoring systems to track performance week by week
-Use clubs/organizations to intervene
-Conduct immediate counseling sessions with student- Admin meets with student to expectations and criteria: show him/her the work, the goal, and what needs to be done to get back on track
-Assign peer mentors
-Assign detention or work detail for students who fail to complete assignments.
-Isolate students during lunch to provide additional interventions- tutoring
-tutor before and/or after school

That is enough for now, I think. If you want to visit the website- go to http://www.mathstaffpd.com/

Next entry will describe a few of the math initiatives he incorporated in his school- MAP and the stock market.

Feel free to add comments or ask questions.

South Fork's new theme- What is our focus?

If we were to change our theme what would our focus be? What do you see South Fork's specialty as?

Let's brainstorm our ideas and see what we come up with.

What have you done well lately?

I have just finished my mid year conferences with all of my certified staff members. It has been a great time of reflection. I have not only been able to see and hear what people think have gone well for them this year...I have had the chance to reflect on what I have done this year well and what I need to rethink.

Some of the things I have done well: I like the staff development we have done this year. The Marzano's Strategies have been very helpful and has kept us focused on the higher order questions that stretches the learning of our students. I am also proud of all the staff who have taken the SIOP strategies and incorporated them into each of their lessons.

I also like the Awards program we have done after each quarter. I hope it grows into something that the students all strive to participate in. We salute perfect attendance, honor roll, and any special recognitions the teachers submit. I hope we have so many awards to give out that we have to do individual grade level awards programs.

The Grandparent's breakfast was a success as well. I hope that the Donuts for Dads and Muffins for Moms will be as, if not more, successful this year. It is my hope that these will grow into events that everyone looks forward to each year.

What are some of the things that you have done well lately? It can be a specific lesson you feel good about, getting all your conferences complete, all your students on grade level, or anything you feel good about in school. Please share with us. It is always good this time of year to see all the good things that are happening in our school(s). It helps make these long winter days go quicker and might inspire others to do the same.

I look forward to hearing from and reading your success stories.

Staff Development Q & A

I thought it would beneficial to post the questions and responses to today's staff development on our blog in case other teachers have suggestions, comments, etc. that they wish to add. For those who did not attend this morning's session please feel free to provide your suggestions and comments as well.

Setting Objectives

• How do you currently share your class's current objectives? Essential questions on the board; Teachers goes over verbally; Have children read questions to each other;
• Do you currently set a language objective along with your content language? Vocabulary; Language objective covered in essential question;No-but we think about it; Yes-because of SIOP training; It is embedded in daily reading and writing-building background knowledge helps to integrate language instruction into content areas;
• What was one idea about setting objectives that really jumped out at you? Projecting brainstorming ideas for students; Surveys for parents & students; Created rubrics (generic, teacher or student created); Student/Teacher generated scavenger hunts;
• Do you think South Fork should consider setting reading goals as a summer enrichment initiative? If so, what ideas do you think would help in accomplishing this? Funding for (PreK-5) books; Check in, check out program; Communication with families; Packet to go home-picked up by parents; Book mobile to coincide with summer feeding program; Include Math and Writing; Prizes; Look at objectives students are weak in;

Providing Feedback

• What are your thoughts about using peer feedback? Have you used it in your classroom? Have students tell each other what they learned; Share writing and ask how they can improve; Teacher question students while in line;
• Feedback to your students...how have you done it in the past? How will you do it now? Share an example. Conferencing and quick score results (immediate feedback); Summarization-write in journals; What they did well in and what they need to work on; According to grade level-age appropriate; Immediate feedback as well as incentives for long term goals; Writing conferences; Comparing work samples from earlier in year; Graphing how many sight words they know; Graphing minute math
• Are you currently using technology in the classroom that generates immediate feedback to students? If so, provide an example. Online assessments; AR; Games (give answers);
• What are your thoughts about granting a student who does poorly on a classroom assessment an opportunity to make corrections based on feedback? Do you agree or disagree? Support your answer. Yes; Older students also need to be prepared for middle school; Based on teacher judgement; May be an issue with teacher, necessary to RETEACH; Gives students a chance to learn from mistakes; Take home to do; Give extra points/grades averaged;

Setting objectives and providing feedback

We had another good session on setting objectives and providing feedback with the specialists and the second grade team. Although we talked about different objectives, we still found that we could use similar strategies to receive feedback from the students when we are checking for understanding.


We talked about ways to write the essential question. We found that we could have one broad question for a unit and then more specific questions for lessons within the unit. We would keep the unit EQ up for the duration of the unit and the day to day EQ's would change based on the desired objective. These can be displayed on the board, on sentence strips, or posted on a unit board.

We then talked about ways to check for student understanding in closing the lesson. There are several good ways to assess if students learned the objective. A few of those are: 1. A ticket out the door- ask students to write down a sentence answering the essential question. They then hand it to you on their way out the door. 2. Think-Pair- Share- Students are asked to think about their answer to the essential question, or whatever objective you are checking. Then they turn to their neighbor to share their answer, then- they chose which answer to share with the group. 3. 3-2-1- You ask students to think about three things they learned in this lesson, write down 2 of them in their journal, paper, card, then share one thought with a partner or the group.



What other ideas do you have to add to closure activities to check for understanding of objectives?

Feedback from TWC Survey

Thank you to all who filled out the questions for the TWC Survey. Your responses were very specific and informative. I have and will continue to take your responses, suggestions, and criticism to heart and incorporate what I can for next year. If you did not turn in your responses- please do. I would like to hear from all of you.