Catlin Tucker, Honors English Teacher

*ISTE Workshop: Transitioning to the Common Core with Google Apps – Join me!

Last month I attended a training focused on teaching “complex texts” to address the Common Core Standards. Unfortunately, when I left the training I was no closer to understanding what a complex text was or how I could evaluate the complexity of a given text. So, I decided to do some digging into this phrase to better understand what the Common Core ELA Standards were asking English, history and science teachers to do.

It is important to start by answering the question, “Why are teachers are being asked to teach more complex texts?” The reason is simple…research shows that an increasing number of students are leaving high school unprepared for college level reading. “In 2008 the average score on the SAT’s reading portion fell this year to 496 out of a possible 800, its lowest mark since 1972 and down from last year’s 497.”

The Common Core Standards state that students leaving high school should be able to “read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.“ Although demands for reading in college have stayed the same or risen over the past hundred years, the complexity of the texts students are asked to read in elementary and secondary school have slowly and steadily decreased during that same time period. The result is a higher number of students who are unprepared for collegiate level reading. Many of these students struggle with college work, need remediation or are unable to graduate.

Given this widening gap between what students read in school and what they are expected to read and comprehend in college, the focus on increasing text complexity in K-12 grades sounds like a worthwhile goal. That said, many educators are unsure how to identify a complex text. 

There three aspects of a text that the Common Core measures to determine its “complexity” are:

• Quantitative 
• Qualitative
• Reader and Task

Quantitative

Qualitative refers to word frequency, sentence length and text cohesion. These are difficult elements for a human reader to evaluate. To evaluate the qualitative measures, a teacher can refer to an electronic resource like the Lexile Framework. The Lexile Framework will score a text based on an evaluation of these elements. 

Students who are “college and career ready” should be able to read and comprehend texts that measure 1185-1385 on the Lexile scale. I was curious to compare the Lexile levels of texts students are required to read in high school with this college and career readiness measure.

I was surprised to find that many of the texts taught on my high school campus fall significantly short of the target Lexile level. If you are curious about the qualitative measure of a text, you can enter the text into the Lexile measure to generate a score.   

Qualitative 

Qualitative measures include structure, language conventionality and clarity, knowledge demands and levels of meaning and purpose. The qualitative measures complement the quantitative measure and are easier for teachers to evaluate without the help of technology.  

A group of teachers from a variety of states worked together to design a resource to support teachers in evaluating a text. I have included a screenshot below, but it can be found here.

This evaluation places texts on a continuum, instead of placing texts in a specific stage. 

Complex texts:

• contain more implicit meaning and use unconventional structures. Literary texts make use of flashbacks, flash forwards, and/or multiple points of view. Informational texts may incorporate complex graphics and/or deviate from the traditional conventions and norms for that type of writing.
• use figurative language, ambiguity, archaic or unfamiliar language (academic or domain specific). 
• assume the reader has life experience (cultural, literary and content knowledge) that will contribute to his/her understanding of the information in the text. 
• have literal meaning that is intentionally at odds with the underlying meaning. The purpose of informational texts may be implicit, hidden or obscure. 

Reader and Task Considerations

This final aspect of text complexity is left entirely to the educator. Unlike the previous two elements of text complexity, there is currently no research on reader and task considerations. Instead the Common Core states that “educators will employ professional judgement to match texts to particular tasks or classes of students.” 

Each class is different and classes are increasingly made up of more diverse groupings of students with a range of needs and abilities. Some classes are composed of stronger readers or students who are more motivated, which may impact a teacher’s text selection. Teachers have to decide what makes sense for particular groups of students to assess this final piece of the text complexity puzzle. 

Stay tuned: I plan to follow this post with another blog dedicated to teaching students how to read and understand “complex texts” using a range of strategies and tech tools.  

*ISTE Workshop: Transitioning to the Common Core with Google Apps – Join me!

After attending the YouTube Summit last year, I was inspired by the creativity of the content creators and the quality of videos available. I collaborated with Tina Barseghian, author of KQED’s blog MindShift, on a resource designed to support teachers in using videos effectively. MindShift published my “Teacher’s Guide to Using Videos” today!

In the resource, I specifically cover:

Part I: What’s Out There?

• 5 Awesome Sites for Instructional Videos
• 6 Excellent Sites that Supplement Your Lessons

Part II: What’s Good? Curating and Evaluating Video Content

• Sites the Curate Educational Videos
• What Makes a Good Video?

Part III: Blending Videos Into Your Curriculum

• Ignite Conversations
• Pique Interest, Create Perplexity, and Inspire Inquiry
• Flip Your Classroom: Extend and Engage (& Exercises for Flipped Classrooms)
• Demonstrate Labs, Experiments and Abstract Concepts
• Create Opportunities for Publishing

Additional Info:

• Not Sure How to Sign Up for a YouTube Account?
• Ten Great Examples of Educational Videos

I encourage other educators using videos to share their favorite channels, videos, curating sites and strategies for blending video content into their curriculum! I’d love to continue learning from the creativity of other educators experimenting with videos both inside and outside of the classroom!

I had the pleasure of delivering the Kick Off Keynote at the CUE Conference last week where I shared my technology philosophy. 

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Many teachers have had success with large learning management systems (LMS) that offer an all in one solution to integrating technology. Conversely, I know many educators who have been turned off from technology because of an LMS. I’ve also heard stories from teachers in districts that pay for an LMS and claim to be a “technology rich,” when the reality is very different. 

I equate most LMSs to big virtual backpacks. If you want to use what is inside, you have to take it off, unzip it, unload the contents and find what you need. It holds a ton, but it is heavier, more cumbersome, initially more intimidating to use, and has a steep learning curve if you’re new to technology integration.

My Technology Tool Belt

I like the tool belt approach because in life, where is the LMS? It doesn’t exist. In life different tools work to solve different problems. Technology is the same.

Image credit: Cambria Souza
Check out her online gallery: http://weaslrocks.deviantart.com

When I present, some teachers baulk at how many different tools I use. A few have said, “That is too many destinations for students.” I believe that is our issue. I do not think that is as much an issue for many of our students. Look at their cell phones. Check out how many apps they have. Kids choose from a diverse collection of tools in their daily lives. They are more nimble in their approach to using technology.

It is increasingly important that they build an arsenal of tools they can leverage for a variety of tasks if they are to be at the least technology literate…and at the best, technology fluent. 

Technology Literacy vs. Fluency

Some may be asking, “What is the difference between technology literacy and technology fluency?” Technology literate students are perfectly capable of using tech tools. They know how to use them and what to do with them. In contrast, students who are tech fluent know when to use a tool to achieve a desired outcome, and why that tool is the best tool to get a particular job done.

Cultivating this technology fluency is easier to do with the tool belt approach, because students experiment with different tools for different jobs. They understand each tech tool has strengths and limitations. They are not going to love every tool and that’s okay. We really can’t get too attached to any one tool anyway because they come and go so quickly and are constantly evolving.

I encourage teachers to select a tech tool, experiment with it, make mistakes, learn a ton, then expand. This is how I developed my technology tool belt…one tool at a time!

*ISTE Workshop: Transitioning to the Common Core with Google Apps – Join me!

I am using Google documents for all writing assignments this year. The day I assign a formal essay topic, students must create a doc, title it properly and share it with me. This makes it possible for me to check their progress throughout the writing process. It creates opportunities to provide formative feedback instead of waiting until the final draft is submitted to provide comments.

The challenge? How can a single teacher with 170 students provide feedback to every student multiple times during a single writing assignment?

This is how…

Last week, I reserved the computer lab for two 90 minute class periods. During that time, I opened every document that had been shared with me and spent the entire period working synchronously on each document. 

Click to watch a screencast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhxp1_5pruA

I asked students to use the instant chat feature on their document to send me questions or comments as they worked. It was ironic how much individual feedback I was able to give in 90 minutes with 30+ students working quietly at their computers.

I successfully edited every paper shared with me 2 times before the final draft was submitted. For those concerned about addressing the Common Core Standard that requires students “develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach,” this is a wonderful way to support students in this process. You are also using “technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others,” which is another writing standard!

A new student to my class as of the semester break wrote me the following email: 

Ms. Tucker,

I really want you to know how much I appreciate your constructive criticism and how much it helps me do my work. In the past, whenever I received a graded paper all I really got back was a bunch of red circles telling me what I did wrong. Not only do your comments help me from making these mistakes but they also make me feel like I am doing something right. 

Thank you so much. 

Using technology to create opportunities to collaborate in real time, meet students where they are at, and provide support during their work is an enormous benefit of integrating technology. 

So many teachers worry about technology taking time, but this saved me so much time. It took place during our class period (not at home in the evening or on a weekend), and the final papers are exponentially stronger and require significantly less time to grade.

*ISTE Workshop: Transitioning to the Common Core with Google Apps – Join me!

This week, I took my students to Chinatown on a field trip to complement our Joy Luck Club unit and their study of China in their global studies course. I wanted to design a fun and engaging activity to pique their interest and inspire them to think more deeply about what they were seeing and hearing. 

I decided on an Instagram scavenger hunt! Why not?!? Instagram is emerging as the newest way students connect socially. That said, I was a bit of an Instagram neophyte, so I asked a student to give me a tutorial!

Here is what I learned…

Step 1: Create a list of things you want students to find and document on photo using Instagram. I used my “Notes” app on my iPhone to create my list of 20 items that I challenged students to find on our docent led tour of Chinatown. Then I took a screen shot of my list on my phone.

Helpful hint for iPhone users: To take a screenshot on your iPhone “press the Home and Sleep buttons at the same time. On 2.0, the screen will flash white, while with 2.1, you’ll also get the camera shutter sound, and your screen will be captured.”

Step 2: Create a public account for your school use. This is an account that will be viewable to the world, so it is an account you want to limit to school photos and ensure that you get photo release consent from students if you plan to use these photos.

Step 3: Share your account name and unique hashtag with students and ask them to tag you in their scavengerhunt photos and tag it with your unique hashtag. Your hashtag can be long but once it is entered, it will pop up automatically when students tag the next photo. 

Step 4: Encourage students to include any information they learn about this particular item on the scavenger hunt. Get them thinking deeply and having fun! 

Step 5: Click the hashtag under any photo and see all the photos your students have posted for your scavenger hunt. They can comment and like each other’s photos which allows them to interact socially during the field trip. 

Tip: Remind students who have a “private” account, to make their account public for the day or create a new public account they can use for the day. 

For anyone who wants a great tutorial on how to use Instagram, check out this site with explanations and photos!

Have fun! It is a super simple fun way to engage with kids using technology many of them already use and enjoy. 

*Going to ISTE? Check out my 1/2 day workshop: “Blended Learning: Exploring Tools, Techniques & Resources.”

*ISTE Workshop: Transitioning to the Common Core with Google Apps – Join me!

Teachers who regularly collect information via forms or use forms to create online rubrics can send students emails directly from the spreadsheet with a script called FormEmailer. The screencast below demos how to install and use FormEmailer. 

Just remember you always want to collect the student’s:

• Name
• Email address

You will also want to add a column titled “Feedback” or “Comments.” This is where you will record specific feedback you want to send in the email to students. 

Quick Tip: If you want to process many emails, input the number of the line you want to start with, followed by an asterisk (i.e. 15*) and FormEmailer will process from that line to the end.

I hope this saves other teachers as much time as it has saved me! Please feel free to share your favorite script and any resources that helped you to use it!

*ISTE Workshop: Transitioning to the Common Core with Google Apps – Join me!

What is Project Based Learning?

“Project-based learning is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges. With this type of active and engaged learning, students are inspired to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they’re studying.”

Common Characteristics of PBL:   

• Hands on
• Inquiry driven
• Collaborative
• Student centered
• Relevant
• Tackles real world challenges
• Shared with larger community or audience

How is PBL aligned with Common Core?   

• Emphasizes communication
•  Stresses real world relevance
•  Encourages higher-order thinking skills – analysis, synthesis, evaluation & creation!
•  Values research and problem solving
•  Weaves in technology and media literacy

Goals of PBL:

• Develop flexible knowledge & adaptive expertise
• Motivate self-directed learning
• Teach effective problem solving
• Drive inquiry
• Learn how to communicate & collaborate
• Improve intrinsic motivation
• Shift to active learning

Web 2.o Tools to Support a Blended Approach to PBL:

Project based learning by nature takes time. Time is a luxury many teachers do not feel they have. Web 2.0 technology can make it possible to engage students in active, engaged and collaborative learning online during the various stages of PBL to complement the work done in the physical classroom. If teachers leverage students connectivity beyond the classroom, PBL is much more manageable and can be much more meaningful. 

Linoit.com - Online multimedia post-it board where students can identify what they know, what they need to know, where to find information, etc.

Collaborize Classroom – structured online discussion platform that provides the ideal space for students to explore the problem, challenge or driving question.

Google Moderator – tool for generating a list of driving questions. Groups can vote on the questions they feel are most important.

Google search - search engine for finding great information. This can be done either from Google.com or inside a shared Google doc (click “Tools”>select “Research”).

This phase of PBL is ideal for face-to-face connections, conversations, evaluation, and planning. At this point, individual students should share their research to develop a realistic solution to meet their challenge or answer their question. Supporting this phase with technology – mobile devices, iPads or computers – can help students to be more successful.

Get out of the classroom and put work into action. During this phase, I encourage students to document everything they do with pictures, video, voice memos, Voice Thread, digital notes, etc. Teach them how to use a variety of tools to record the work they are doing for reflection and publication.

Time to evaluate. What is working? What isn’t? Talk it out! PBL is not linear. Groups may need to readjust their approach to tackling this real world problem or challenge.

Plan Your Own PBL Teaching Module:

This fabulous resource from Edutopia that helps you plan an entire PBL teaching module.

http://www.edutopia.org/teachingmodules/PBL/pdfs/Project_Template.pdf

If you have a great PBL assignment you want to share, please post a comment. I also welcome any additional resources and/or tech tools you use when facilitating PBL with your students!

I am presenting a half-day workshop at ISTE 2013! My workshop, “Blended Learning: Exploring Tools, Techniques, and Resources” will focus on extending engagement, fostering collaboration, and leveraging the power of technology to create student-centered classrooms.

We will explore how a blended model can transform the traditional classroom to more effectively cultivate a community of inquiry that combines the advantages of online learning and face-to-face interactions.

Workshop will include:

• hands-on practice with tools like Collaborize Classroom, TED-Ed, Socrative & Lino.it.
• techniques for using mobile devices to promote engagement and collaboration.
• practice designing student-centered learning opportunities to build on the work done online.
• strategies for teaching digital citizenship and creating a safe space online.
• experimenting with flipped instruction as a way to create time and space in the classroom.

Join me for an exciting workshop that will leave you energized and excited to play with educational mediums to provide the best learning outcomes for your students!

February 13, 2013 the ISTE program goes live and you can sign up for workshops!

I’m helping my daughter’s elementary school write a grant for technology. The school is extremely low tech. The first step in their long-term plan to adopt and integrate technology is to outfit the teachers with laptops and LCD projectors.

I stressed the importance of articulating how this technology would translate into improved learning for students. The key to writing any grant is to ensure that the focus stays on the students and learning, not on the technology. The technology is just a vehicle. It should not be the goal.

Since I know many teachers may only have access to a computer and LCD projector in their classrooms, I wanted to share some ideas and strategies for how to use them in creative ways to create relevance, capture attention and connect to resources.

Create Relevance

1. Google Earth and Google Maps – Use maps to inspire storytelling or engage students in solving collaborative math map challenges.
2. Documentaries, TED Talks, news clips, interviews – Streaming video can help make connections between class work and “real life” easier for students.
3. Tackle real world problems or scenarios - Yummy math is a fun site for finding Common Core aligned real world math challenges.
4. Publish student work – If students know they will have to share their work with their peers, they will want that work to be strong. It also celebrates their value as members of the class community.
5. Connect with classrooms all over the world – Use Skype or Google+ to chat with other classes about a variety of topics.
6. Demonstrate citation practices – In our increasingly digital world, it is crucial to show students how to give credit when they use images, videos and information.
7. Graphs, charts, flowcharts and infographics – Project information displayed in a variety of formats and ask students to analyze and discuss.  Their observations, inferences and ideas can be captured on a white board next to the projected image.
8. Project practice quizzes and tests – Guide students in effectively preparing for an exam.
9. Online textbooks and digital writing – Encourage interaction with digital texts by projecting them to facilitate discussions, group annotations, debates, etc.
10. Share personal narratives – Personalize the classroom and encourage students to share their stories using multimedia. Students can project images as they speak. This develops public speaking skills at every age and builds a stronger class community!

Capture Attention

1. Timer - Display a stopwatch to keep kids (and yourself) on track during activities.
2. Warm ups and exit tickets – Project the warm up question as students enter and/or wrap up a lesson by asking students to reflect on what they learned and ask questions about information they still do not understand.
3. Modeling – Show students how to do everything from correctly format a piece of writing to actively read a complex text.
4. Collaborative hands-on activities – Project a timeline, blank map, venn diagram or story board template onto your white board. Then allow students to work together to fill in the timeline, label the parts of the map, and
5. Movies – Show related, high interest films.
6. Music videos – Get creative with music! Use music to inspire critical thinking about language, grammar, and word use; make cultural and/or thematic connections with music; or teach a foreign language.
7. Eye catching screensaver – Easily get your students attention at the conclusion of an activity by displaying a visually interesting image.
8. Prezi or Power Point – Transform traditional lectures with multimedia presentations.
9. Graphic organizers – Project a variety of graphic organizers and allow students to either replicate and complete individually or collaboratively complete as a class.
10. Ditch handouts – Project handouts, instructions, directions, and assignment details to save paper.

Connect to Resources

1. Research – When your students have a question you don’t know the answer to, empower them to search for it and share what they learn.
2. Demonstrations, labs and experiments – If you don’t have the resources to conduct a lab, use online resources like Steven Spangler Science and show students fascinating labs online.
3. Virtual museum tours - Check out some of the best online museum tours and field trips (i.e. The Smithsonian, Planet in Action, National Gallery of Art, The Louvre).
4. Tutorials – If you students are working on a problem and get stuck, they can access quick tutorials on sites like Khan Academy.
5. Art work – Use photography, art work and other images to inspire creative writing, reflection, and analysis.
6. Math manipulatives – Check out sites like Virtual Manipulative or National Library of Virtual Manipulatives 
7. Google apps – Connect to your Google docs, presentations, drawings, forms and spreadsheets in the classroom.
8. Games and online learning tools – project and engage the entire class!
9. Library of Congress – Use primary and secondary resources in your classroom without worrying about formatting them.
10. Online magazines – Grab the best images from resources like The National Geographic or Life Magazine to use in the classroom. 

If you are using your LCD projector in creative and engaging ways, I invite you to share your strategies! I always love learning from other educators. Thank you!

“During discussion learners are not passive recipients of information that is transmitted from a teacher. Rather, learners are active participants” (Larson).

Discussions (online and face-to-face) provide students the opportunity to:

• Articulate their ideas
• Ask questions
• Be exposed to different perspectives
• Make connections
• Learn to “play” and fearlessly interact with new information

The act of telling or explaining what they know cements students’ understanding of concepts. Conversely, struggling students benefit from hearing their peers’ ideas, opinions, and explanations. The opportunity to ask questions can help students begin to deconstruct challenging ideas or concepts.

As teachers shift to the Common Core Standards they will see an emphasis on discussions, both formal and informal. Students must “prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.” They also need to effectively “adapt speech to a variety of contexts and communicative tasks.”

Given how much of our students’ interactions take place via text messages, Facebook updates, instant message and email, it is crucial that students learn how to respectfully, supportively and substantively converse with their peers using different mediums.

Educators must also consider the changing landscape of education. Earlier this week, I read an article titled “UC Online Courses Seem Inevitable” which states, “within five years, students at the University of California will likely take 10 to 15 percent of their courses over the Internet.” Excelling in online courses will require new skills, including the ability to engage in asynchronous academic discourse.

In my 3 years teaching online college courses, virtual discussions were a critical component of the class. Students had to read course materials, watch videos, complete individual and collaborative assignments, and engage in discussions about a variety of topics. Despite the significance of the online conversations, it was immediately clear to me that few students knew how to engage in these discussions in a dynamic way.

I am a passionate believer in the power of discussion as a learning tool. It is a key skill if students are to work collaboratively as well. I remind my students frequently that the collective potential of the individuals in our classroom far exceed any single contribution, myself included.

 Collaborize Classroom

I use Collaborize Classroom - a structured online discussion tool – to facilitate online discussions. These conversations complement my class and extend active learning online. Because I reference this tool in my book and in trainings, educators frequently ask me why I use Collaborize Classroom. They want to know how it is different from the discussion functionality offered by popular learning management systems, like Edmodo or Moodle.

Here are some of the key features I love about Collaborize, which differentiate it from other discussion tools.

1. Variety of Question Types

Structure conversations with different question structures to keep them interesting and varied. Design a Yes/No debate topic to practice argument writing or post a Vote or Suggest to get students brainstorming and voting for their favorite contributions!

2. Results Page

See the outcomes of any discussion, then use those results to draw the conversations back into the classroom for follow up debates, discussion, analysis, etc. This makes blending learning mediums easier for teachers new to a blended approach.

3. Embed Media – Image, Video, Document, PDF

Embed documents to save paper, flip your classroom with video, or use images to inspire!

4. Participation Reports

Quickly access information about the activity taking place on your site. Check to see how many times each student has logged in, posted a response, and replied to a peer. This saves time and creates visibility. The user report also acts as an online portfolio of all the writing each student does in your online discussions.

5. Topic Library

A global repository of Collaborize Classroom topics shared by educators all over the world. Teaching The Great Gatsby? Meiosis vs. mitosis? World War II? Just search by subject, grade level, key words or tags to find content related to what you are teaching right now! It is a wonderful resource that makes it easy to share best lessons and learn from other educators.

Too often the online space is used to simply collect and disseminate information. For a blended learning approach to be viable, the online space must be used to actively engage students in learning. I believe discussions can play a role in making this shift!