heidi - ASCD EDge - A Professional Networking Community for Educators

From: Tim_Ito
Description:

How will we remember 2012? Once again, it has been a challenging year for many in education. The school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., shocked and saddened educators worldwide, and reawakened the discussions as to what role schools can play to best keep their children safe. At the same time, the shooting reminded everyone of the commitment and love that teachers and principials have for their students, as they put their energies, their focus and their lives on the line for kids on a regular basis.

Seeing that kind of commitment, bravery and dedication from educators is what makes us most hopeful for the future. In the United States, teachers and adminstrators are pushing boldly in many areas to reform schools and improve student learning. Already, many districts have begun adopting new curriculum and assessment frameworks tied to Common Core State Standards. Worldwide, educators have moved to try new instructional approaches such as flipped classrooms and blended learning. And they are beginning to increasingly implement new technology strategies, establishing bring-your-own device programs and one-to-one iPad programs -- all the while improving upon core instructional best practices and techniques.

We salute all those who are dedicated to improving student learning and achievement -- and are truly making a difference in the lives others. In particular, as we do at this time every year, we would also like to tip our hat to our own community leaders -- those who have detailed their vision and ideas in the blogs below, and who have put thoughts out in the public domain for scrutiny and praise. As we look back at the past year, we hope that, in some small way, it can provide the impetus for helping you look forward, as you implement your own new ideas in 2013.

Thanks to all of you who participate in our great ASCD EDge community. Have a safe and happy holidays. And without further delay, we present...The Top 10 Blogs of 2012.

The ASCD EDge Team

The Top 10 Blogs of 2012

10. A Bucket List for K-12 Students   by Steven Weber

In 2007, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman starred in The Bucket List. In the movie, Nicholson and Freeman make a list of things they wish to do before they die...

9. 12 Alternatives To Letter Grades In Education by Terrell Heick

Few artifacts of formal learning are as iconic as the letter grade...

8. Getting Ready for the Start of School Part II: Why Some Teachers Have Smooth Running Classrooms   by Muriel Rand

I have observed many, many teachers in elementary and early childhood classrooms and the ones that have the smoothest-running classrooms all do the same thing: they teach procedures...

7. 5 Top Resources for Aligning Your Social Studies Curricula to the Common Core by Robert Zywicki

Social studies supervisors and teachers across the country are revising their unit plans to meet their state’s content standards, as well as, the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in History and Social Studies...

6. Eight Types of Instructional Strategies That Improve Learning in a 21st Century World   by Elliott Seif

In today’s world, with its rich and overwhelming amount of accessible information, bewildering career options, uncertainty, and change, five skill areas stand out as important for lifelong learning...

5. 10 of the Best Apps for Educators by Ryan Thomas

Whether you're an educational technology wonder, or a little slower on the draw, apps for your iPhone and/or iPad can make your job a lot easier...

4. What I Wish I Had Known about Student Motivation by Bryan Goodwin

“You’re a smart kid; I just wish you’d apply yourself in my class.” Most teachers have uttered a similar phrase. I know I did. I remember one student particularly well; we’ll call him Jerry....

3. Five Reasons I don't Assign Homework by Mark Barnes

The homework debate is one that has permeated education for many decades, and it shows no signs of slowing. Homework proponents perplex me, because the research is so overwhelmingly against homework's effectiveness...

2. The Seven C's of Effective Teaching    by Muriel Rand

I recently attended an educational assessment conference in which Ronald Ferguson from the Harvard Kennedy School was the keynote speaker. He is an educational researcher who presented his work on teacher effectiveness...

And the number one blog of 2012 is:

1. SOCRATES FAILS TEACHER EVALUATION    by Heidi Hayes Jacobs

So, it came down to one day, one test, at the Acropolis as the young men of Athens took out their #2 chisels to answer 30 questions on stone tablets...
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5 months ago
Views: 2653

ASCD in Myrtle Beach: Digital ASCD in Myrtle Beach: Digital Portfolios

From: Michael_Fisher
Description:

In Chapter 9 of Heidi Hayes Jacobs’ Curriculum 21, David Niguidula shares the importance of considering evidence of student proficiency through digital portfolios.

While portfolio assessment is nothing new, the ways in which we collect or curate the portfolio contents is evolving on a daily basis. The are myriad tools online to aid in the creation and collection of digitized media that reflect a more holistic view of student learning beyond the multiple choice exam.

This week, at ASCD’s regional Professional Development Institute in Myrtle Beach, I’ll be discussing upgrades to the curriculum including assessment practices, focused largely on bringing assessments into the 21st Century. If you are interested in a sneak peek of the Digital Portfolio portion of the PD Institute, please click below to visit the LiveBinder of resources I’ve compiled for the event.

Digital Portfolios

Additionally, if you know of great examples of Digital Student Portfolios (first names only, please!), please share them in the comments section below and I’ll add them to the LiveBinder.

I’m looking forward to this week’s institute in Myrtle Beach, primarily because I’m typing this right now from Buffalo, New York, where it is currently snowing. If you are planning to go to Myrtle Beach this week for ASCD, let’s have a tweetup! My Twitter name is below or we can coordinate through ASCD Edge! Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Mike on Twitter: @fisher1000

Upgrade Your Curriculum: Practical Ways to Engage Students and Transform Units coming in February 2013 from ASCD.
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6 months ago
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Heidi_Lindsay

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Professional Responsibilities Professional Responsibilities Mapping: Advancing Curriculum Mapping

From: Michael_Fisher

Description:

In the past, when I’ve written about curriculum mapping, it has always been in terms of curriculum and the intended audience was teachers or curriculum and instruction administrators. Recently, I’ve been doing quite a bit of work with administrators around the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium, or ISLLC Standards, in light of principal and administrative evaluations related to Race to the Top grants in multiple states.

The states that are using ISLLC as a basis are doing so because they provide functions that illustrate the responsibilities of school leaders around six areas or domains. If you aren’t familiar with the ISLLC standards, you can access the PDF of the document here.

What does this have to do with curriculum mapping, you might be asking? For the effective administrator, it has everything to do with mapping. When there is an expectation for others, it stands to reason that modeling would be a good idea. In other words, in schools that are mapping, the teachers are doing almost all the work with curriculum. How much more might they buy into the initiative if their administrative team was doing it too?

In terms of mapping for administrators, there are some easy associations to make. In mapping curriculum, we map out content pieces that represent what a student has to know and skills that a student has to be able to do. We map assessments as evidence that students know and do what we intend for them to know and do.

When we think about what our professional responsibilities are, we can make specific associations based on how we map curriculum. Our responsibilities are our content, our actions are our skills and the evidence is the assessment.

A colleague of mine, Carol Bush of the Orleans/Niagara Board of Cooperative Educational Services, came up with a self-assessment based on the ISLLC standards. In it, she asks school administrators to rate themselves according to each function, as well as assessing how important an administrator believes a function to be.

When Carol and I work with administrators around the ISLLC standards, we ask them about potential evidence of the standards (functions) being met. Over the course of the past year, we’ve compiled a list of potential evidence generated in our staff development.

Because the functions and the potential evidence are major portions of a professional responsibility map, we thought it would be a good idea to share these pieces as the roots of that map. All an administrator would need to come up with are the actions that got them to the evidence. Thus, the map may look something like this:

Responsibility (Within each domain, an administrator should address responsibilities within each of the functions.)	Actions (What actions should be in place around the responsibilities already identified?)	Evidence (What is acceptable evidence that the responsibilities and actions have been met?)
1: Vision		*See Attached Potential Evidence
2: Culture		*See Attached Potential Evidence
3: Safety		*See Attached Potential Evidence
4: Community		*See Attached Potential Evidence
5: Ethics		*See Attached Potential Evidence
6: Context		*See Attached Potential Evidence

This map is on the generic side and in order to be more specific, it would need to address prioritized functions as they relate to specific ISLLC standards. Those prioritized functions would likely address the most important functions that relate specifically to an administrator’s role in a school district and not necessarily be inclusive of every single function. Additionally, an administrator would want to address actions that would delineate the responsibilities as steps in a process.

It bears mentioning that in New York state specifically, the ISLLC standards are the basis of the principal evaluation system. The approved rubrics in New York (and in some other states) are ALL based on the ISLLC standards. Some of them, like the Multi-Dimensional Principal Practice Rubric (MPPR) have the functions of the standards blatantly represented in the language of the levels of the rubric. Also, the ISLLC standards are a broad measure of an administrator’s responsibilities. The rubrics are meant to be more specific and help an administrator with understanding not only what the standards and functions are, but what different levels of action within those functions looks like.

I hope this is helpful as principals navigate some of the evaluation territory alongside their teachers. While there are a lot of standards and functions to consider as best practices, I still think it all boils down to doing what is best for our students and these standards are a means to that end. If you are interested in learning more about mapping roles and responsibilities, I encourage you to check books by some of my colleagues, including “The Curriculum Mapping Planner” by Heidi Hayes Jacobs and “An Educational Leader’s Guide to Curriculum Mapping” by Janet A. Hale.

Follow Mike on Twitter

Cure for the Common Core now available on Amazon

Upgrade Your Curriculum: Practical Ways to Engage Students and Transform Units coming in February 2013 from ASCD.

*originally posted on SmartBlog's Smart Blog on Education

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7 months ago
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Heidi_Pfannenstiel

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Debra Hill Welcomes You to the Debra Hill Welcomes You to the 2013 Annual Conference & Exhibit Show

From: Tim_Ito
Description:

ASCD President Debra Hill welcomes you to the 2013 Annual Conference & Exhibit Show in her hometown of Chicago, IL, March 16-18. Registration is now open: www.ascd.org/annualconference
8 months ago
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Heidi_Bruhn

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Heidi_Kerchenski

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Top 10 Blogs of 2012 Top 10 Blogs of 2012