Bedömning för lärande och andraspråksutveckling, del 1 Robert Walldén, som arbetar inom vuxenutbildningen i Borås, kommer i tre blogginlägg beskriva utmaningar och möjligheter med att arbeta med bedömning för lärande. Här hittar du del 2 och del 3. Hela artikeln finns även nedladdningsbar som .pdf-fil. Det är nu snart tio månader sedan jag skrev min första text om hur vi arbetar med bedömning för lärande i Borås, och mer specifikt inom vuxenutbildningen. I denna uppföljande text kommer jag att lämna det övergripande perspektivet och flytta fokus till mitt eget klassrum, och beskriva hur arbetet har fungerat med mina vuxna elever i svenska som andraspråk på grundläggande nivå. Jag kommer vid upprepande tillfällen hänvisa till bedomningforlarande.se, där utgångspunkterna för bland annat Borås kommuns BFL-arbete finns presenterade. Det bör sägas med en gång att detta inte kommer att vara en rosenskimrande framgångssaga om hur bedömning för lärande har fört min undervisning och elevernas kunskapsutveckling till oanade höjder.
Webb's Depth of Knowledge Rigor. Text Complexity. Difficulty. What do these words all mean in the world of thinking? Teaching? I learned about Webb’s Depth of Knowledge just last year when I was at a Larry Ainsworth Professional Development workshop about unwrapping Common Core State Standards and aligning our instructional sequences to those standards. So, what is Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and what’s the big deal? Branching off of a “flipped classroom approach” and because I don’t pretend to be an expert on Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, click here to review (or learn about) the four levels of Webb’s Depth of Knowledge continuum: DoK1. DoK3. DoK4. I believe that each unit needs a mixture, or a balance, of all of the levels above. How do we apply Webb's Depth of Knowledge into our classrooms? If we are asking students to research, for example, here are some ways that we might be able to integrate DoK into a research unit sequentially: DoK1. DoK2. DoK3. DoK4. How does that look in Writing Workshop? DoK1. DoK2.
Five-Minute Film Festival: Digging Into the Common Core It's been nearly two years since I first wrote up "Resources for Understanding the Common Core State Standards," Edutopia's roundup page for all things Common Core, and the demand for tools and resources only grows as we get deeper into implementation. Like any major (and mandated!) educational initiative, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have their fans and their detractors, but if you're in one of the 45+ states that have signed on, they are here to stay. I highly recommend reading an excellent recent opinion piece from The New York Times, by Charles M. Blow, "The Common Core and the Common Good," which provides a compelling and succinct summary of the potential problems and the opportunities around the Common Core. Edutopia's team of bloggers have been exploring every corner of the Common Core. Video Playlist: Digging Into the Common Core State Standards Keep watching the player below to see the rest of the playlist, or view it on YouTube. see more see less
Betyg - Så funkar det! Det här är en film för vårdnadshavare i grundskolan om hur betygssättning går till. Den fungerar bra att visa på föräldramöten eller för föräldrar att titta på hemma. Filmen är helt fri att visa och sprida på det sätt ni tycker är lämpligt. Creative Commons-licensen finns längst ner på sidan. Svensk, arabisk, somalisk och engelsk textning går att slå av och på med "Subtitles/CC" nere till höger i videofönstret. Filmen finns också i en teckenspråkstolkad version. Filmen bygger på de frågor om betyg och kursplaner som Anna Karlefjärd (lärare och betygsforskare) och andra lärare har fått från elever och föräldrar. Det här tar filmen upp: Nytt skolspråk Nya styrdokument för skolan gör att skolspråket förändras en del och det kan göra att det blir svårare för elever, vårdnadshavare och lärare att förstå varandra. Varför ny läroplan och ny betygsskala? Filmen beskriver vad som är nytt och varför förändringarna med läroplanen och betygsskalan har gjorts. Kunskapskrav Kommunikativ kursplan
Books That Tweak (Not Twerk!) Great Classics Originally posted on Kirkus Writers are always borrowing from one another, across centuries and continents. It’s the writers who aren’t just borrowing but building on what previous writers have created who we’re interested in. Ronald Frame’s novel "Havisham," for example, puts the jilted malefactor from "Great Expectations" on center stage, imagining the life of a woman Charles Dickens left a mystery. "Havisham" is newly released in the United States but check out the other enticing sequels of a sort in this week’s list. For more from Kirkus, click here! "Havisham" by Ronald Frame "An intelligently imagined Dickens prequel." "Hardly a false note in an extraordinary carrying on of a true greatness that doubted itself."
Common Core in Action: Writing for an Audience What is new and different in the Common Core? When it comes to the writing standards, a heavy emphasis on audience for one thing, and this is very good news. The "audience" for student writing was once the lone teacher sitting after school with her cup of coffee, a red pen, and a stack of essays or other writing projects. And sadly, she might have been the only one, besides the student writers, that ever read them! Let's take a look at the Common Core Anchor Standard in Writing that highlights audience. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.4: Produces clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. When asked, many kids, and even adults, might tell you the main difference between "school" writing and real-life writing is that the latter has an audience and the other does not. Keeping It Real Back to anchor writing standard 4. So let's consider then some ways to engage students in real-life writing, starting in second grade:
GUYS READ History Lecturer : On the stretching of brighter history pupils The education twitter-sphere has been all a-buzz today with stuff about helping (or failing) bright pupils. I am not at all qualified to contribute directly to the debate; I can only recount my own experiences, and anecdotal evidence is not very valuable in such a case. Because of my work as an examiner I meet history teachers from scores of other schools every summer, and I do not think my approaches were in any way unusual. Yes, I taught at an independent school, so it was selective in terms of ability to pay fees. However, I think I do have some credentials when it comes to helping bright history pupils make good use of their time in school. We laid great emphasis on free reading, both quantity and quality. This emphasis on free reading started with the juniors (and we had three years before exam-pressure kicked in). As far as A2 work is concerned serious reading of adult history was taken for granted. At this point I am going to chuck in an advert. Back to the advert.
Research: How SEL Classroom Management Techniques Build Academic Achievement Respect, responsibility, and a community-based learning atmosphere promote success at Mount Desert Elementary School, a K-8 public school in Northeast Harbor, Maine. An important aspect of the culture at Mount Desert is allowing students and teachers autonomy to determine what works best in their classrooms for promoting students' learning. Credit: Alyssa Fedele Mount Desert Elementary School is a small, K-8 public school in Northeast Harbor, Maine, that has successfully created a strong learning community that is the basis of the school's academic success. Responsive Classroom An Approach That Helps Build Positive Relationships The foundation for a community-based learning atmosphere at Mount Desert begins in the earliest grades, where a Responsive Classroom approach is used in all K-3 classrooms. Every morning, the entire class comes together as a community to greet one another, share news, and warm up for the day ahead. Using Discipline Challenges as Learning Opportunities Galantino, M.
Make Your Students “Poetry Geniuses”! by Abi Frost I recently discovered a web resource called “rap genius”. This Brooklyn-based startup allows users to explore and understand the meaning behind song lyrics, poetry and literature. The long term vision is to annotate all text, including news stories and long-form works like War and Peace. Teachers have started using the platform to teach students critical reading skills, so I decided to try it out in my small seventh grade reading class for struggling readers. RL.7.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama. I designed a review lesson for my poetry analysis unit using the Poetry Genius tab on the Rap Genius website. I was very happy with how the lesson turned out because the students were actually engaged in deep text analysis! Like this:
Grammar and Comprehension: Scaffolding Student Interpretation of Complex Sentences I'm a fourth grade special education teacher in NYC. Our school has acquired a new reading/writing program and has discontinued a grammar program we've used for several years. In the new program the grammar component is virtually non-existent. On a gut level I feel that students are struggling with test questions, even math ones, due to lack of practice/knowledge of grammar. Great question. Also, readability measures are able to predict how well students will comprehend particular texts on the basis of only two variables: vocabulary sophistication and grammatical complexity. There are also experimental studies that show that there are ways that grammar can be taught formally that improve reading comprehension. That doesn’t necessarily justify a lot of grammar worksheets and the like, but it does argue for teaching students about sentences as they meet them. It is a long sentence (44 words), and it has lots of embedding (witness the author’s use of 2 commas and an em-dash).