AnnoTango

A few weeks ago, I published a collaborative blog post on “Annotexting,” which involved the close reading of text, annotations of text, and evidence based reading practices but involving 21st Century technologies and web tools.

This week, I’d like to offer an update, or perhaps a companion, that I’m calling “AnnoTango!”

Annotexting still relies on a balance between what is teacher-led and what is student-driven. A teacher would still be “directing traffic” in a specific way as they utilize web tools and focus students on deep reading, finding evidence for claims, and drawing conclusions.

Once the Annotexting becomes part of the habitual way in which students read text closely, it’s time to shake it up, and let the dance begin!

This involves shifting more responsibility to the students and thinking of the learning process as a ballroom dance. Read. Annotate. Learn. Switch. Read. Annotate. Learn. Switch. The teacher is still the in-room coach, but the students take on the responsibility of collaborative and communicative learning in a web-enhanced but still Socrative way.

This is the “AnnoTango.”

The students read and annotate (with web tools!) and they begin processing what they are learning with a partner or small group. When the students switch, they “annotate their annotations,” deconstructing and reconstructing their thinking as they switch groups. All of the collective information is curated in the web tools that they are using as a demonstration of understanding. (In fact, you could use the web tools to collect the entire conversation rather than just the annotations or singular thoughts.)

The assessment of their work could be around the thoughtful analysis of a new work, the defense of their thinking around what they curated alone and in groups, or even a collaborative creation that demonstrates how this level of access to information and its analysis by the group leads to critical thinking and strong conclusions drawn about a claim or thesis statement. (based on collected and discussed evidence.)

I’d also like to add that a natural extension to this would be taking it global. (Common Core College and Career Capacity #7!) If the students are already using web tools, then inviting in another classroom or students anywhere in the world would be pretty easy, as long as you know where to connect to these students. Around the World with 80 Schools and Skype In The Classroom would be a good place to find those connections.

Also of note: Skype In the Classroom, just this morning, shared the “collections” area of their website that represented exceptional “Skype In The Classroom” projects worldwide: http://education.skype.com/collections

So that’s the “AnnoTango” in a nutshell. It can be an extension of “AnnoTexting” or a stand-alone way to let the close reading of text be more student-driven. The next step? I think David Bowie says it best in his late 80’s hit:

“Let’s Dance!”

Mike on Twitter


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Strategic and Capable

Choices.

Kids need access to choices in instruction so that when the moment arises they can make discerning decisions about what they will do.

I just watched that happen. At a conference with adults where kids were invited.

I just watched magic happen.

Heidi Hayes Jacobs keynoted at edJEWcon in Jacksonville, Florida this week to a national group of participants from Jewish Day Schools. The keynote was attended by over 200 people and included several dozen middle school students.

Heidi engaged the backchannel, the background conversation, during her keynote so that the information wasn’t just being delivered, it was being nuanced and discussed and explored to greater depths. This is the 21st Century dialogue symphony. Everyone is an instrumental piece of the orchestra and collectively creates an interactive performance.

Heidi used a web tool, Today’s Meet, to collect the backchannel as an “in the room” conversation. Additionally, the #edJEWcon hashtag was used on Twitter to capture the “out to the world” conversation.

Heidi hit a snag though, when she went to create the Today’s Meet room in the moment, during the keynote. The “EdJEWcon” room had already been taken.

By the students in the room.

On their own, they created their own backchannel so that they could capture the conversation and interact around the message they were receiving. This tool was already in their toolbox, and they made a decision in the moment to do their thing. Isn’t that cool?

This is precisely what it means for students to use the Internet and digital media strategically and capably. They had choices and they made a decision. They used it the right way and it was the exact right tool for the task. (Because the task is key, remember the Drill Slide!)

Here is a link to a transcript of the student room and their interactions.

Note the progression of cognition in the conversation. It started with the collection of soundbites and descriptions of the presentation. Then it segued to questions and then interaction and metacognition around Heidi’s message. So, so awesome.

Heidi had to create a separate room so that the entire audience could participate. What a great problem to have!

You can read the transcript of the whole group here.

Note that the adults jumped right into the interaction, sharing salutations and then responding to Heidi, each other, and the students who were dually participating in the whole group room.

I was so impressed by the way this worked. It invited everyone to be strategic and capable with the use of technology, specifically engaging strategies that help these students be college and career ready, and give educators examples of what this looks like in practice.

Big, big kudos to the middle school students at Martin J. Gottlieb Day School. You didn’t know it, but this was an assessment, one that happened in the moment but allowed you to prove your skills. You gave a performance, a recital of your capabilities...and you SHINED!

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Edupocalypse

It was too tempting to outright call this “Pineapple-Gate,” but I love that the issue of the ridiculous nature of assessment is getting attention. The stakeholders need to be discussing this and those in power need to be listening.

At issue specifically is the ridiculous testing practices that have been allowed to go on for years, collecting data that is skewed to this result or another, depending on what is chosen for inclusion or exclusion, and how we ultimately measure student learning - something that may or may not be as quantifiable as we think.  Just a simple Google search for “How do we measure student learning?” offers results around measuring objectives, Bloom’s, or achievement. Not learning.

How do we know for sure that learning has occurred? And how do we know specifically what a teacher’s impact is?

In New York State, English Language Arts testing was last week, and even the students knew something was amiss. THE NEW YORK TIMES published an article about the testing situation with metaphorical pineapple drama (Pineapples don’t have sleeves!) and a NEW YORK CITY PRINCIPAL chimed in with her assessment of the situation.

What I think is pretty cool is that the students are proficient enough to assess the assessment. What might that say about student learning?

With many states upping the ante for not only more rigorous assessment and more frequent assessment, we are presenting the idea to students that learning = testing. If you don’t have to prove it, why attempt to learn it?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against standardized assessment. When I go to the doctor and he checks my cholesterol--I want that normed against what is acceptably healthy. I’m not a winner with a higher number! Likewise for blood pressure and weight. During the assessment of my health, I want there to be conversation and if a specific diagnosis is required, I want differentiated (more specific) assessments based on the information that was gathered.

But we don’t treat education in the same diagnostic way. It’s one size fits all.

There’s a funny cartoon making the rounds on Facebook and Twitter recently that speaks to this, asking a DIVERSE GROUP OF ANIMALS to participate in the same assessment. (noted that there is NOT a pineapple in the mix...)

What’s really happening is more about keeping federal Race to the Top Money than it is kids.

The fact is, systemic change takes time.

Education itself, even outside of current assessment practices, has needed an overhaul for awhile. It seems of late that the necessary upgrades and changes that are swiftly being (somewhat thoughtlessly) implemented are “good for the masses,”  but it also feels like, to quote Elton John, “a bullet in the gun of Robert Ford.”

Is what we’re doing a brave and courageous thing with Race to the Top? Or is this just an attempt at cherry picking the best of what we think will work and piling it on top of an old system? That is never going to work.

Our “application today, better tomorrow” mentality is seriously flawed, and I have a feeling that things are going to implode if we don’t address some major inconsistencies in the successes we’re planning. Implode on an Apocalyptic level. It starts today with ridiculous pineapple test questions, and tomorrow--the whole system could fall apart.

I’m sure there are more things to consider, and would welcome anyone reading this to add to the list, but these are some of the major issues that I’m seeing in real schools across our country, even in states that have received millions of RTTT dollars:

• the millions of dollars are going to less than well planned professional development that is frustrating schools and preventing them from systemic growth. The PD is creating a system of compliance instead. “Too much, too soon,” “dump and run,” and “drive by” are not great adjectives to describe what a lot of states are doing with their professional development. But that is how teachers and administrators feel.
• The money trail is leading not to children, programs, and teachers. It is leading to assessment vendors, online teacher evaluation programs, and brand new textbooks. (Textbooks which may address/reference the new standards, but hardly represent 21st Century mindsets or College and Career Readiness--many schools purchasing new textbooks would never in a million years consider a digital text.) Additionally, many of the “exemplar units” from states represent the awesomeness of 1981, not 2012.
• Teachers are being given the new standards and expected to unpack, translate, design, and implement around them with little time for the critical foundational pieces of collegial dialogue, collaboration, and consensus. (And perhaps, buy in?)
• Time is not being addressed. Time for curriculum work, time for deepening instructional design and practice, and time for planning and assessment are major roadblocks not being dealt with. This will be true for administrators too as they suddenly must deal with overwhelming and cumbersome teacher evaluation plans, while being instructional leaders, running their buildings, and navigating a daily schedule of the hundreds of little decisions that have to be made on a daily basis.
• The assessments are not really living up to the measurement of much beyond flawed teacher evaluation systems and a misalignment of priorities around what students know and are able to do. If it were me--those students that identified some of the flaws in the recent NY state test should get honorary mastery level scores. Beyond answering those flawed pineapple questions correctly, what else says “learning has occurred” like a demonstration of the deconstruction of the validity of the test. By kids.

We are not necessarily heading to a better place. We are heading toward a standoff. It’s not okay to push through so much change with the expectation of lawsuits and compliance. It’s not okay to use the variability of “one moment in time” tests to determine student achievement or teacher effectiveness. It’s not okay to call all of this innovative when we are really just bolstering the traditional.

Real change means new forms and different ways of thinking. Growth should not be punitive.

We are dealing with the lives and learning of children. We need to make better decisions.  (I say “we” to mitigate responsibility...but I mean State and Federal Governments!)  Let the people start making decisions and not the money.

An Edupocalypse is imminent if we don’t start thinking forward.

Leverage The Web for the Common Core!

Are your students consumers of information? Collectors of information? Contributors of information? Cognitive about information?  Learn how web tools can help students become content curators, collectors of information with purpose and discernment, and how these lead to supporting the Common Core.

The archive of the live event is below, hosted by LiveBinders and the Knowledge Sharing Place.

In this webinar, we will explore web tools, including LiveBinders, and some examples that exemplify what content curation looks like, so that your students can begin to think in new ways and extend their learning to College and Career Readiness!

The companion LiveBinder CAN BE ACCESSED HERE!
 

More on Curation and integrating 21st Century Tools can be found on Curriculum21's WEBINAR SERIES PAGE.

Storybird Awesomeness...

Any of the folks that follow me regularly know that I already have a very deep love for Storybird.com.

In the last few months, the company has been putting pieces into place to deepen that love a lot. A whole lot. Teachers need to pay attention here, big time! While there are a lot of free tools on the internet, there's a lot of tools that offer super mega upgrades for minimal prices. Storybird has stepped into that zone with a paid version of their product for teachers.

Low cost and high return have always been friends in my book, and Storybird has created a low cost option of awesome with mega levels of return. I remember talking with the higher ups there a year or so ago about the realities of the economy and what teachers/districts could really afford to spend. They've totally hit a home run with their paid upgrade--I'm so impressed I'm blogging about it!

Those of you that have been in workshops with me have likely already seen what the PDF download looks like on my iPad. I've probably also shown you the printed out books from Storybird. In this age of digital devices and anytime accessibility, the digital download is where it's at, and at 34 cents apiece, you can't beat it. Storybird's options for teachers include a plan that's roughly a hundred bucks, but gives you up to 300 PDF downloads and a slew of other options including grading, student accounts, and multiple class tools.

Their service just keeps getting more and more awesome and because it's based on writing, I'm using it a lot in my work with teachers around Common Core implementations. Using the service forces some of the College and Career Readiness capacities such as attending to different audiences, tasks, purposes, and disciplines. It also demands that students be discerning in their use of the technology and offers opportunities for global conversations and interaction.

Students could use it to write narrative works, persuasive and argumentative pieces and informational text, all situated with stunning visuals and an easy to use editor that most kids can master in seconds.

If you're interested, here are my previous posts on Storybird. I just can't say enough good about them. I can say though that I've got to run--I'm playing on Storybird the rest of the evening!

New on Storybird!
Exciting Storybird News!
Storybird for Christmas...
So Easy, A Grownup Can Do It

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Teacher Appreciation Day in May

Teacher Appreciation Day is rapidly approaching the week of May 7-12.

 From Teacher-Appreciation.info:

• "Teacher Day is a remarkable occasion for all of us to show our teacher appreciation, whether we are students or we wish to compliment a former teacher, or our kids’ teachers."

More than any other time in my career as an educator, I feel that teachers should be lifted up and celebrated. This year, for teachers across the country, has been a harrowing one. They are responsible for new standards, new forms of data driven instruction, articulating specifically the connections between instruction and assessment, new teacher evaluations, and more! Oh, and they also have TEACH THE KIDS IN THEIR CLASSROOMS!

Much of what teachers do goes unnoticed, because much of it happens outside of school. Teachers put in their 8 hours, and then many work as much as 4 or 5 hours more when they get home: writing detailed lessons, planning for future instruction, grading papers, evaluating writing, and more. Teachers today also have roles beyond the ones that outline their jobs: they are sometimes parents, counselors, coaches, and they may be the only smile a child sees all day.

Teachers are one of our most important national treasures. With the spotlight that is currently on the entire profession and the microscope under which all educators work, it is important to continue to let them know how appreciative we are that they do the jobs they do. Without them, we'd have no doctors, no lawyers, no presidents, no anything. Teachers prepare kids for the world and the second week in May is good time for the world to show some love.

If you or your school or your local PTA is interested, a friend in Georgia is sponsoring a national campaign to unite teachers in "appreciation solidarity!" Please click here to visit For Educator's Only, for more information about you can show your appreciation to a teacher this year!

ANNOTEXTING

Collaborative blog post by Mike Fisher and Jeanne Tribuzzi, of the Curriculum 21 Faculty.

The companion LIVEBINDER OF INTERACTIVE TOOLS IS HERE.

Expecting students to read deeply and draw meaningful conclusions is at the heart of the Common Core ELA standards. Students are asked to read closely, cite evidence, and make evidence based inferences when they read. They are expected to deepen their learning by valuing textual evidence and reading critically.  Annotating text is one way students can cite textual evidence, infer and deepen meaning as they read..

Annotations make thinking visible for teachers and students. We can use the words and features of a text to better comprehend it, ask questions, and note our thoughts while reading. One goal of comprehension is that students will be proficient annotators of texts to understand more deeply by interacting and making thinking transparent while they read.

There are many reasons to ask students to annotate text: for basic comprehension, to show evidence of conceptual understanding, to show what is implied, to identify the claims in an argument, to read like a writer and identify characteristics of genre, to notice the nuance of language...and many other reasons.   Giving guidance as to what we want students to annotate for will be beneficial for the reader. Otherwise, they will annotate everything that comes to mind, and the work may not be helpful to the reader or the teacher.

Annotations are often a singular, individual experience. Annotexting ups the ante all around.

Annotexting is a process that involves the collection of thoughts, observations and reactions to reading that show evidence of critical thought. These annotations, rather than being on paper, can be collected with different web tools so that students can collaborate, both locally and globally, around the conclusions that they will ultimately draw from their reading.

Students submit their annotations via their smart phones or other digital devices, and then analyze each other’s notations collectively.  They could be looking for main ideas, thematic and literary elements, or big ideas from the work.   They could be looking for evidence of connections to other texts, their own experiences, or world issues. They could simply be searching for meaning to support them when reading complex texts.

In addition, students could reflect on the collective evidence as a metacognitive activity to assess their own learning.  Perhaps the collaborative exercise raised new questions for them or offered them new ways of thinking about the text. Perhaps there is something else the student wants or needs to know?

Metacognition can be strengthened when citing evidence in text.  Textual evidence that supports the thinking behind what they are thinking is a gigantic first step into the depth and complexity that the Common Core is asking of students.  Annotexting kicks that up a notch by engaging task specific tools that offer opportunities for strategic thinking and globally connected opportunities.

Consider THIS ANNOTATED TEXT.

The student wrote all over this poem. The student underlined specific words and wrote annotations about them in line with the text. This student is engaging in a thoughtful, albeit singular, analysis of this poem.

What changes with multiple perspectives?  

We have our own ideas about squat pens and writing utensils as weapons  (based on the student’s annotations) but they are different than this student’s collection of evidence. What would have changed in the interpretation of this poem if our perspectives were woven together? Does the collaborative process of conversation yield a greater product? Does the thinking extend when multiple perspectives are mixed? Does the evidence yield to strategic thinking when multiple viewpoints are involved?

Besides the strategic and capable use of digital tools, annotexting offers students the opportunity to value evidence, think critically and engage with different perspectives.  Rather than working independently to read, comprehend and analyze text, annotexting will allow students to engage with other audiences in tasks with an expanded purpose, supporting college and career readiness.

We’ve created an example of what this could look like in Corkboard using William Blake’s poem, “The Tyger.” (Click on the Corkboard tab in the Livebinder. The example is in a subtab.) You can see other examples in several of the tabs in the binder. We would also like to share this DISCUSSION RUBRIC (2007) that you can use as students submit annotations and begin to draw conclusions about what their evidence is pointing to.

In order to get students to own this process, we have to relinquish some control. Let them think, let them make mistakes and respond. Let them draw conclusions even they are not the conclusions we would have drawn. We can be there to coach them through misconceptions.

The college and career ready student (on page seven of the ELA Common Core document) is expected to attend to audience, task, purpose and discipline in both reading and writing. The standards also expect students to think critically and value evidence.  The document goes on to explain that the college and career ready student should use digital media strategically and purposefully.  Annotexting is at the intersection of all of these capacities.

In addition to collecting evidence with web tools, there are also digital APPS that we’ve come across that would work for Annotexting too. (These are represented in the LiveBinder as well.) Some are notetaking apps that let you collect evidence and annotations with a digital device and some let you edit and annotate PDF files and documents. There are resources in the binder for both iTunes and Android Market Apps.

Some Youtube tutorials for a few of the tools referenced in the binder:

GoodReader app
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIrBS8d_CCA

PaperPort (this one's free)  it let's me import my pdf files...and annotate them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yu1Fg4xu9E

Note Shelf- for notetaking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H7es6CkE8k&feature=related

iAnnotate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHoAGbQcp2o&feature=related

Phatpad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t55Y6M-hriQ

If you would like to explore this and other Modern Learning moments more in depth, check out Curriculum21’s Webinar Series and our all new LEAD21 Academy at this year’s Curriculum Mapping Institute.  We will also be exploring the Common Core as it relates to Curriculum Design at the upcoming Ohio Regional Conference in May. (Space is limited!)




Fisher, Michael L., Jr. and Nancy Cook.  "Notice, Think, and Wonder: New Pathways to Engage Critical Thinking." IN TRANSITION: Journal of the New York State Middle School Association. 25.1 (2007): 15-18. Web. 25 Feb. 2012. .

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Common Core for Art Teachers

I've been working on developing resources for Special Area teachers around the Common Core standards. As I work with teachers who teach these subjects, it's becoming apparent that while there may be a willingness, there is not a path.

I put together a Pinterest page of resources for Art teachers. I'm still adding to it, but wanted to go ahead and share it. There is still much to consider and I'll be adding to it as I find relevant resources, but I hope that Art teachers will be able to start using what is there already.

The Common Core is asking all teachers to be Literacy Support for students. If they can't read well, then everything they do will be more difficult. Those of us that are doing this work honor the fact that training in literacy may not have taken place in some of the content areas, thus we are providing as much relevant information as possible as this gets rolled out to teachers.

To access the resources, CLICK HERE.

I'll be adding additional Unit Plans / Lesson Plans and resources as I get them from teachers. Also, if you'd like to contribute to the Pinterest Page, please either message me your email address so I can add you as a contributor, or leave your email address in the comments below.

I've only been using Pinterest for a short time, but the nature of it as a "Visual Curation Tool" was too difficult to ignore as the appropriate web tool for collecting/curating web resources around Art and the Common Core. If you haven't experienced Pinterest yet, I encourage you to give it a go. It has a lot of implications for curating and amplifying information for teachers AND students!

Follow Mike on Twitter for even more resources!

Loved this tweet...

Thought this was awesome, from Twitter, yesterday:

Ditch Test Prep

It’s that time of year again. The emails are already starting to roll in from the Test Prep companies offering gigantic gains on state assessments if you purchase and implement their products. Everybody wants a piece of the Race to the Top pie and they know that test scores are the cherry on top.

In his recent State of the Union Address, Barack Obama told the audience that teachers should not be teaching to the test. Then he turned and said that No Child Left Behind waivers would require teacher evaluations based on high stakes tests. Arne Duncan recently thought it would be a great idea to link teacher preparatory programs and high stakes testing, exploring how we can get teachers to really hone in on what it takes to do well on these tests.

Enter “fix it” companies to sell a product to help teachers help their students master the tests. (Not master the content or skills--just the test.) Sigh.

What if, and I know this may sound radical, but what if we just engaged in Deep Teaching?  In a previous blog post I talked about Andrew Chen’s quote,"in America, the standards are the ceiling. In most other countries around the world the standards are the floor.”

There are many lenses through which we can look at curriculum practice and curriculum design and one of the big ones is being prepared for any test at any time. In many of the curriculum mapping books or curriculum texts I’ve read, this is one of four lenses along with readiness, leverage, and endurance through which we prioritize the content and skills that we will teach. In Larry Ainsworth’s book, Rigorous Curriculum Design, he explains that the “Any Test, Any Time” lens is about, “those concepts and skills that are most heavily represented on external, high-stakes assessments.” (2011)

In terms of ditching test prep, I’d like to re-frame the “any test, any time" lens to refer to teaching at a level of complexity and depth that the kids are prepared no matter when the assessment happens or what the assessment includes.

But teachers will say that they have no time. They will say that there is too much to cover. That may be true, but it seems a large number of schools find the time to do weeks of “test prep.”  It is time to ditch these traditionally held notions of getting ready for the assessment. Teach Deeper. Uncover the curriculum.

Test prep is wasted instructional time. There is absolutely no reason in the 21st century for students to learn how to take a test. While I do believe that there are good reasons for teaching students test taking tips embedded within instruction throughout the course of the year, I do not think that it is at all good practice to stop instruction to beat information into a kids head when we could be using that time for learning.

Test prep is good for one thing: lining the pockets of the companies that are taking advantage of teachers and their students. Deeper and more rigorous instruction are what’s needed in America's classrooms. The testing situation that we have is out of control. Unfortunately for the time being, it doesn't look like our method of assessing children is going anywhere.

What is actually happening is that NCLB waviers, Teacher Evaluations as a part of the Race to the Top grants, and the newly formed opinions around teaching teachers to teach to the test are going to have unintended consequences when they are based solely or even in part on high stakes testing:

• students will acquire basic application of content and skills to do well on the test, but not master the skills in a strategic or extended way to serve future learning, connections, and critical thinking. (We are basically patching up/fixing a house with no real foundation.)
• we are putting a lot of pressure on kids and teachers for that test score. If that score is tied to performance pay or even keeping a job, how long before opportunities arise to manipulate the data? (...pushing good people to consider cheating in order to keep their jobs...)
• we are valuing achievement over growth, neglecting individual learners and reinforcing 19th century curriculum constructs and applying them to 21st century kids. (For instance, if a student starts a school year at 95% proficient and ends the year scoring 95% proficient--the kid looks great on paper and his teacher is found to be highly effective. But that kid didn’t move academically over the course of the year.  Likewise, a student that comes in at 0% but at the end of a school year tests at 50% proficient looks terrible on paper and the teacher is rated Ineffective. But this kid moved, the teacher grew this kid 50% over the year. Where’s the fairness in this system?)

Our current system of assessment is borderline cruelty but at the moment there is little that can be done about it, until those in power see that they are funneling America’s children into a drone-like state of testing compliance.  I’m not saying that there aren’t good assessments out there or that assessment is bad. I’m saying that we are wasting time and resources buying test prep materials and shutting down instruction for test preparation because we are driven by that one score captured in one moment.

Those resources and time could be better spent digging deeper in instruction, concentrating on more formative assessment moments multiple times through the school year that could guide students and shape instruction well before the high stakes testing moment.

Ditch the test prep. Ditch the testing pep rallies. Ditch the focus on the high stakes test. (Don’t Ditch Assessment, though!)

Focus on deeper and more rigorous teaching. Focus on learning that is explorative, authentic, and meaningful for students. Focus on increasing complexity from one learning moment to the next--day to day, month to month, year to year. Focus on frequent assessments for the sake of individual student growth and performance, not the one size fits all summative test.



Ainsworth, L. Rigorous curriculum design, how to create curricular units of study that align standards, instruction, and assessment. Lead Learn Pr, 2011.

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Exciting Summer PD News!

I've already mentioned this to some of you, but plans are set in stone now for a new type of PD / Academy at the Curriculum Mapping Institute this summer. 

Click image to expand.

I am excited about the opportunity to be a live presenter at the 2012 Curriculum Mapping Institute LEAD 21 Academy on July 10 and 11, 2012 in Saratoga Springs, New York.  I'll be joined by several colleagues that I'm really looking forward to working with, including Bill Sheskey, Silvia Tolisano, Angela Maiers, Richard Byrne, Adam Bellow, Daniel Newman, and Cathleen Richardson. This 2 day academy brings together some of the top education bloggers and network leaders in the United States. These hands on work sessions will guide you in creating a vision of who a school network leader must be, why the school leader must lead the network, and how you can design diverse social network connections infused with knowledge and powered by passion.  As a school leader or teacher you will have the opportunity to design your own personalized social network that will connect your local and global learning communities.  

This Academy is just the seed for all that will bloom AFTER the Academy is over. This Academy is creating a true 21st Century "Lifelong Learning" moment for all participants, leading by engagement, by participation, by passion, and by leveraging popular social technologies!  

For early bird discount registration information (by Feb. 1st!) please visit www.cmi2012.com or click HERE to register directly.

Also of note: This is our third year in Saratoga Springs. If you've never been there, it's definitely a hidden treasure. In the past we've enjoyed the warm evenings with collegial conversations at world class restaurants, Southern Style Porch Socials, Sidewalk Astronomy, Film Screenings, and more. I look forward to seeing you in July and can't wait to bring this new form of Professional Development to the Academy!

Access the full four page brochure here.

Assessments for Common Core

Several things related to assessment around the Common Core/PARCC/S-BAC have come across my plate recently and I thought I would share.

The unifying factor here is that there are multiple stakeholders developing performance tasks, unit plans, assessments for different purposes and the main take away is that it is all relative until we get more specific information from PARCC or S-BAC, depending on which your state is participating in. I would encourage anyone looking at the assessment component of the Race to the Top initiative to check out the PARCC Model Frameworks Document or S-BAC’s Overview Presentation.  You can also follow PARCC on Twitter for more informal updates.

That said, there is evidence that the Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (DOK) levels are in the mix, though much of the assessment work is still hovering in DOK level 2, in my opinion. (And still emphasizing what I would consider level 1)  Anything, in general, that I see that asks students to explain their reasoning or even construct a response based on evidence is moving more toward the strategic thinking or DOK level 3 zone that I thought was going to be more apparent in the new assessments.  If you need some guidance on Webb’s Depth of Knowledge levels and/or its relationship to Bloom’s, there’s some info on Ann Johnson’s Mapping to the Core page.

The following are just links I’ve found over the course of the last few months that I think are interesting, if for nothing else than just being FYI. Many districts are already doing some work on Formative Assessments or Common Assessment moments to guide instruction throughout the year.  Perhaps some of these links will provide fodder for your own development or assessment conversations!

Mathematics Assessment Project (MAP)
The project is working to design and develop well-engineered assessment tools to support US schools in implementing the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS).

Common Assessments: More Details Emerge (from Education Week online)
Happy New Year, and welcome to the Year of the Common Assessments. Or at least the year of common-assessment procurements.

Student Work Tasks/Unit Plans/Performace Tasks from NYC DOE
To support schools in meaningfully implementing the  Instructional Expectations for the 2011-2012 school year, NYC educators and national experts worked throughout the 2010-2011 school year to develop Common Core-Aligned Tasks embedded in a unit of study.

SBAC Overview PPT
This overview of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium’s plan includes some sample questions and performance tasks.

Assessments for the Common Core
PDF booklet that explores the new assessments.  An updated resource on the comprehensive assessment designs and related activities being launched by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC).

Common Core Standards: Building Assessments of College Readiness
This is a webinar from the American Council on Education around assessments for College and Career Readiness.

Thoughts on Assessments of Common Core Standards
This is a resource document from Pearson Education.

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