Mobile Learning

Today, in most of the student homes they have access to mobile devices like tablets, smartphones or kindles. The students learn how to use this device very early, is not surprising that a 4 years old child drive with a tablet or smartphone with fluency. Also, the number of apps increase very quickly and we have access to multiple options.

In our classes we have a new generation of students with more knowledge of technology. I remember my days in elementary and the computers were an unknown world. Today, I can see how my kindergarten students use tablets and smartphones for fun. Our challenge as teachers is use these devices to teach in a different way that the students enjoy.

Currently, we have millions of apps but probably we do not know what app we can use in our class. I think that our first step is research what apps are available in our topic. We could ask other teachers about recommendations or try to find ideas in google or teacher platforms. After this research, we can decide what is the best for our lesson.

Other attribute of the apps is connecting persons; some apps provide the opportunity use them at the same time for many users and share information between them. I imagine a kindergarten class solving math problems at the same time collaboratively using a math app, the students share their ideas to solve it and try to find the answer. Also, the apps give us the opportunity to save the work and continue working later.

The apps include many audiovisual materials, for this reason they would be useful for language learners. The combination of images and audio help the students who are learning the language. For example, it is easier learn the word "bird" when you see an image and listen the "tweet". Also, many apps include audio books that could be using in our classroom to complement the instruction with language learners.

Also, the apps are at home, so the learning work can go home. As teachers, we can involve families in the process of learning of our students promoting the use of some apps at home. The families could use math applications to play at home while the students are learning math. Many families are waiting for tools to use at home to support their children learning, so the teacher could provide some apps to use at home and monitoring. One example that I use is raz-kids, the students can read books and interact with the books at home and I can monitor the student progress.

Teacher Evaluation

We as teachers frequently evaluated our students, but this blog is focused in how is evaluated the teacher practice. First, I would like to explain two systems of teacher evaluation. Then, I will mention some of the problems in the evaluation systems. At the end, I propose some elements on which I think should be judged us as teachers.

Currently I work in the District of Columbia Public Schools DCPS, so I would like to share my experience with IMPACT. IMPACT is DCPS’s system for assessing and rewarding the performance of teachers and other school-based staff. More information in http://dcps.dc.gov/page/impact-overview. This system evaluated the teacher practice in three components: Formal observations in the classroom, grades (growth) of the students and school involvement. There are three components but formal observations are the 75% of the final score. At the end of the year each teacher receives a score, this score establishes a “grade” for the teacher, you could be (Highly effective with more than 3.5, effective with 3 to 3.5, Minimally Effective and Ineffective). According to the score, the teachers with higher scores receive incentives. I feel that this process not measure the real work of the teachers, a 30 min visit of a person who do not know about your students and your classroom determine your score. Also, I consider that the most important part of the system is find ways to continue improving our teacher practice, label the teacher work is not the best way.

Reading about the State of Ohio teacher evaluation, (more information in http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Teaching/Educator-Evaluation-System/Ohio-s-Teacher-Evaluation-System) they have a system that evaluate the teacher 50 percent student academic growth measures and 50 percent performance. The focus is providing more professional development for the teachers. Also, include other options like: student surveys; teacher self-evaluations; peer review evaluations and student portfolios.

The evaluation systems for teacher vary between countries, states and also between public and private schools. I was working in a Charter School in DC and the process was focused in the professional development of the teacher, I received two formal observations and more that 200 hours of professional development. Also, in other countries like Mexico they do not have evaluation system for teachers yet, they are working in create a system but the teachers refuse to have it.

As systems, the teacher evaluation process have some problems. As mentioned the article Teacher Evaluation 2.0 produced by the new teacher project (Available in the following link: https://docs.google.com/gview?url=https://platform-user-content.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/M4U4A3_Teacher-Evaluation_2.0-20150707115740.pdf) the evaluation system are unfocused, teachers are often evaluated based on superficial judgments about behaviors and practices that may not have any impact on student learning—like the presentation of their bulletin boards. Other problem is the scores, this are not undifferentiated, the teachers pass or fail. All our work is not represented in a score; we are more that a number. The evaluation systems also are inconsequential, the results of evaluations are rarely used to make important decisions about development, compensation, tenure or promotion. In fact, most of the school districts we studied considered teachers’ performance only when it came time to dismiss them.

Base on my experience and listen other teachers, I think that the goal of a teacher evaluation system is improve the teacher practice. The results could be used to create plans for professional development base on the teacher’s needs. The feedback could be accompanied with solutions and resources to implement changes. We as teachers are waiting for spaces to growth and learning, we are not waiting for spaces to be judged.

Planning for English Language Learners

In this blog I am going to share some strategies and steps that we could use as teachers in order to include ELL students and support their active participation in learning activities.

The unit that I would like to develop is about the different cultures in countries where the people speak Spanish.

These are four examples of ELL students:

Martin is a Colombian boy. He is 6 years old and this is the second year in the school. He is in the stage of Speech Emergence. He can communicate with simple phrases and sentences. He asks simple questions, that sometimes may not be grammatically correct. Also, he initiates short conversations with classmates. He is able to do some content work with teacher support.

Strategies:

1. Teach new vocabulary about the topic, using visuals and repeat the words many times.
2. Write simple sentences using new vocabulary. Teacher can provide some examples.
3. Work with a partner who is English dominant. The ELL students could practice his/her speaking skills interacting with others.
4. Compose personal stories related to the topic.
5. Read short and modified text about the topic.
6. Watch videos about the topic to familiarize with the content.
   
   

Hi Shu is a Chinese girl. She is 9 years old. This is her fourth year in the school. She is in the stage Intermediate Fluency. She is beginning to use more complex sentences when speaking and writing. She frequently asks questions to clarify what they are learning in class. She works in grade level in math and science classes. She writes with many errors, but she is able to express her opinions.

Strategies:

1. Work in comprehension activities.
2. Practice grammar, the teacher can provide some activities to improve writing grammar. The student could write about her culture to complement the topic of this unit.
3. Guiding reading with the student and share with her some books to read at home.
4. Provide to the student more complex concepts to express her ideas and use when she is speaking in class.
5. Provide time to the student to share orally about her culture, family and traditions.

Juan is a Mexican boy. He is 8 years old. This is the first year in the United States and he is new in the school. He is in the stage of Pre-production. He has a limited vocabulary and he is not speaking yet. He is able to repeat sentences and words. He always is paying attention. At the end of the day, he always is tired, because the new language is a challenge for him.

Strategies:

1. Provide simple vocabulary accompanied with visuals.
2. Use many gestures and expressions (corporal language) when the teacher is explaining.
3. Write sentences and main words in the whiteboard in each unit. It is better is the teacher use visuals with the new concepts.
4. Promote working in a groups with English speaker students.
5. Provide technological tools that help the student to learn new vocabulary, pronunciation and phonetics.
6. Use audio-visual materials in the lesson.

Amal is a Philippine girl. She is 5 years old. This is the second year in the school. He is in the stage of Early Production. She speaks in one- or two-word phrases. She can use short language chunks that have been memorized although these chunks may not always be used correctly

Strategies:

1. Promote the participation of the students in all activities in the class.
2. Modify the content information to a simple language level.
3. Teach new vocabulary using visual or videos. Provide context of the new words.
4. Provide technology to work in listening activities.
5. Focus the content in key vocabulary and concepts.
6. Use simple books and invite the student to participate in small groups to have guiding reading.
7.  Use a frame to scaffold writing.
8. Repeat, repeat and repeat.

Pre-Assessment for Differentiation

In this blog, I am sharing a differentiation and assessments for a unit about addition and subtraction for kindergarten. The target of the unit is “Students will be able to solve addition and subtraction problems using different strategies.” The common core standards (www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/K/OA/) for this unit are:

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.OA.A.1 Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings1, sounds (e.g., claps), acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.OA.A.2 Solve addition and subtraction word problems, and add and subtract within 10, e.g., by using objects or drawings to represent the problem.

Kindergarten is a grade level where the students come from different educational backgrounds, some students come from Pre K programs and for others is the first time in a school. This background and other student’s experiences bring to the kindergarten classes a variety of academic levels. For this reason is important that teachers collect information about the students to differentiate the instruction. For this specific unit, the tool used to collect the initial screen about the knowledge of students in addition and subtraction is a pre-assessment.

The pre-assessment for this unit was created in Quizlet. The assessment contain 9 questions including different types of question (Written, matching, multiple choice, and true/false). The assessment is available in the following link:

https://quizlet.com/143029698/test?written=on&matching=on&mult_choice=on&tf=on&prompt-with=1&limit=10

Before started the instruction, all students took the pre-assessment. The information collected was:

• 5 students answered most, including the most difficult, of the pre-assessment questions correctly.
• 12 students have some knowledge about the topic as shown in their score, but need to develop higher order thinking skills.
• 5 students appear to have limited knowledge about the topic.

For each group, I have planned the following strategies and assessment to measure the process. The details of the strategies are in the following mind map: 

https://atlas.mindmup.com/jasolca/innovative_differentiation_strategies/index.html

The data tells one story

I would like to start this blog with a question that help me to introduce the topic, the question is “What is the role of high stakes assessments in the schools?” There are many answers to this question but I would like to focus in the role that the assessments play in the evaluation of the education system. As a system, the education needs to be evaluated. As mentioned the American Psychological Association, and National Council on Measurement in Education (1999) “Measuring what and how well students learn is an important building block in the process of strengthening and improving our nation's schools… Some public officials and educational administrators are increasingly calling for the use of tests to make high-stakes decisions, such as whether a student will move on to the next grade level or receive a diploma.” This role of evaluation of the system and data to improve the education in a country is helping to create adequate public policies in education. In my experience when I was working in the area of education in an international organization, I can noticed the interes of the countries to participate in standardized assessments like The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to evaluate their Public Education System and compare their systems with other countries. The problem is the information collected with the assessment, the data tells one story, and these test can only provide a "snapshot" of student achievement and may not accurately reflect an entire year's worth of student progress and achievement.

The data tells one history, but our students have many important strengths and areas of need that are not collected in the assessments. As teachers we know that children develop at different paces and in different areas, our students have varied previous schooling activity, language background and personal needs, but the assessment are the same for all. These data from the assessments could show some needs of the students and teachers needs to translate this information in effective information that help them to create their educational plans for their students.

Continue in the teacher’s level, the assessments a variety of roles but I would like to refer specifically to the role of collecting academic data and evaluate the teacher performance. Students’ assessments collect students’ data depending on the grade level and area of knowledge. For example, in my case as a Spanish kindergarten teacher in a bilingual school, I only have to test my students two times a year to know the reading level in Spanish calls EDL (Spanish Reading Assessment for dual language, bilingual, and immersion classrooms that helps Spanish-speaking students become independent successful readers with tools to assess reading engagement, fluency, and comprehension. EDL2 is the Spanish equivalent of DRA2 http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZwK4) but in math we do not have a specific assessment. When the students goes to other grades the number or assessment increase, for instance in third grade they need to take the PARCC exam and a multitude of different assessment for each area of knowledge. Also, the students’ assessments are part of the evaluation of the teachers’ performance in some countries or states. In the District of Columbia the results of the students’ assessments are part of the evaluation of the teacher performance as a component of the IMPACT (http://dcps.dc.gov/page/impact-overview) that is system for assessing and rewarding the performance of teachers. The results of the students’ assessments are the 10% of the evaluation and could help the teacher to be rewarded.

In a teacher daily life the assessments require a lot of time. For example, in a class of 30 students (like my current kindergarten class) the teachers can spend around 20 minutes per student making a reading assessment or 1 hour in the higher levels, so the total time to complete all the assessments is 600 to 1800 minutes, and more time to evaluate them.

The other perspective of the assessments is the influence of the score in the students. Some schools or teachers can use incorrectly the data collected and define the students in a number or letters establish by their score. For this reason, some parents are organized to request an education without assessments, one clear example is the United Opt Out National (http://unitedoptout.com/) which has the goal to help educate parents on how to protest high-stakes testing tied to school accountability and student progress.

Finally, I thing that the education and educator need to rethink the evaluation process of their students. Our goal as a teacher is help the students to learn and the current assessments is not helping us in our goal.

Resources:

American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, and National Council on Measurement in Education (1999). Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1

Opt Out National http://unitedoptout.com/

Formative Assessments in Kindergarten

As a teacher in kindergarten, I consider that is very important to include formative assessments in the lessons to check the students understanding, especially before the students start their independent work. In this blog I am going to share some examples of formative assessment in a math lesson in kindergarten.

The objective of the lesson is: 

Students will be able to identify the total in an addition problem using their fingers.

Picture by: http://www.special-and-determined.com/

Formatives assessments:

1. Ask the students to show with their fingers the total of an addition problem. This formative assessments could be implemented at the beginning of the explanation to check the previous knowledge of the students. The teacher can observe the students responds to introduce the topic. Also, the teacher can observe if he need use more time in the explanation because the majority of the students had difficulties to use their fingers to solve the problem.
2. After the explanation, the teacher can invite the students to solve some addition problems using their fingers with a partner and record the results in a small white board. This formative assessment help the teacher to check the understanding of the students. When the students finish, the teacher invite some students to share the results and explain the process to obtain it. The teacher can observe the students work and re-teach some concepts if it is necessary. Also, the teacher can observe if the students are ready to work independently.
3. During the independent work the teacher could use the observation of student’s work as a formative assessment. The teacher could have a class list while he/she observes the students and checks if the students reach the objectives. The information collected with this information is useful to plan next actions, for example create a small group to practice more or plan some activities to reinforce previous skills learned. 

Picture by: www.theappliciousteacher.com

Understanding and Applying Standards

The initial preparation of our class lessons can be a journey in which we do not know where to begin. For this reason, we need to get familiarized with specific terminology such as the words: standards, unpacking standards, backwards mapping and objectives to make our journey of planning easier. Also, it is important to realize that each lesson that we plan is not independent from other lessons, but there is a relationship between each lesson which aligns to achieve a final objective.

Teachers are expected to help students meet standards that are part of a curriculum created by a school, state, or national entity. In my case, I am a kindergarten teacher in the District of Columbia Public Schools and we follow the common core standards http://www.corestandards.org/. The first step in the planning process is to identify the standards for the grade and the teaching area I have been assigned to teach. For example, I would like to teach addition and subtraction in kindergarten, so one of the standards related to this is teaching students to “Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings, sounds, acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations.”

Picture by: http://www.corestandards.org/ 

Once you identify the standards, next is to translate them into lessons, which is the process of unpacking standards. This concept assist teachers in the planning of lessons and identifying strategies that address the standard. Also, unpacking standards helps teachers to have clear understanding about what the standard actually means. This unpacking process requires you to identify what students need to know and what they need to do to demonstrate that they are meeting the standard. Initially, we can focus in the verbs of the standard, these help you to identify what students need to do to meet the standard. In the example of the addition and subtraction for kindergarten, the verb is to “represent”, so students need to represent addition and subtraction. Moreover, the nouns in the standard helps you know the content that students should be learning. Going back to the same example, the nouns make reference to the different strategies to add and subtract that students needs to learn such as how to use “objects, fingers, mental images, drawings, sounds, acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations” to represent addition and subtraction.

After this deep understanding of the standard, we need to continue planning, and more specifically proceed to next step: backwards mapping. This approach of backwards mapping, which was designed by two educational experts Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, proposes to begin planning with what students should know and be able to do at the end of a lesson or unit. So, we begin stablishing what is the desired result, this could be the standard that students need to accomplish. Then, we determine how to know if students are meeting the goal or standard, the assessments.  Finally, we plan learning experiences or activities that will help students meet the goal or standard. In my opinion this approach helps you to clarify the route to follow in the planning and to include the crucial knowledge and skills to reach the standard. 

Picture by: http://library.gsu.edu/search-collections/lesson-plans/

After the process mentioned above, we proceed to the small part of the unit, the planning of the lesson. Now, it is time to define the objectives of the lesson, which are tied to the standard and should motivate student learning. The objectives identify what a student will be able to do as a result of our instruction, so these are focused in the students’ outcomes. When writing the objectives, it is very important to use a clear and adequate language taking into account the age of our students. Also, many teachers use the mnemonic acronym SMART as a guide for the design of the objectives. SMART refers to Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Target to learner. Having strong objectives affect the quality of students’ work.