Vocabulary Reboot

Bulletin boards add color and fun

It's no secret: teachers work in the summertime. In addition to catching up on their "real lives," they attend training, revamp lessons or units, and redecorate their classrooms. In July they hit the back-to-school sales with their classroom supply money, which never seems to go as far as they would like. And summer never lasts as long as they would like, either.

This summer, one of my projects is to reboot a home-grown Greek and Latin root vocabulary program I inherited from the teacher before me, who inherited it from the teacher before her. I want to find research-based practices that engage the students with words and word parts in more meaningful ways.

What are your favorite vocab strategies?

Turnitin's Free, Virtual Conference on Writing Education

"Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!" Job 19:23

Writing is a skill that isn't going away just because the world is changing. I'm excited to tune in to Turnitin's virtual writing/tech conference, The Writing Mindset, next week. Sessions from previous years are posted on the site, including "The Future of Writing: I Wandered Lonely In The Cloud" by Anya Kamenetz, Lead Education Blogger at NPR, a session I listened to avidly this evening. What's coming at this year's conference? "How Writers Read," "Teaching the Writing Brain," "Mimicry and Plagiarism," and "What's the Story Behind Why We Write?" to name a few tempting-looking morsels.

These webcasts would make a great discussion starter for English departments, as well as a resource for new teachers and homeschool parents who aren't sure how to approach teaching writing. Just fill out a simple form and click to view.

What Is True Innovation in Education?

Are the teaching approaches we think of as innovative really innovative? Are students learning anything in our classes? What even is the purpose of school?

If questions like these energize or disturb you, you'll want to read what venture capitalist Ted Dintersmith has to say about his quest for answers to education's biggest problems. Every public school teacher and administrator ought to ponder, as Dintersmith did, whether students in America are learning anything that will truly prepare them for life in the real world.

In this article from The Washington Post, Dintersmith challenges several cherished notions about our schools that haven't been dusted off and reexamined in over a century. He also points out flaws in some "innovations" schools flock to now that are not truly innovative and are not truly growing kids' minds. One example? The flipped classroom.

Dintersmith writes, 'There’s lots of eduspeak chatter about “flipping the classroom” — kids watch boring lectures at home at night, and do low-level multiple-choice questions at school. Hardly a breakthrough. . . ." It's true that the ideal of the flipped classroom has students working in class on problems that require the teacher's assistance, not 'low-level multiple-choice questions,' but the point that none of this is truly innovation is valid. The flipped classroom does the same old thing in a not very different way.

So what is truly innovative education that really does prepare kids for the real world? The article explores approaches by several successful schools across the country.

According to Dintersmith, some 500 "Deeper Learning" schools are doing certain things right:

self-directed learning
a sense of purpose and authenticity in student experiences
trust in teachers to teach to their passions and expertise
a focus on essential skills (collaboration, communication, creativity, critical analysis)
teachers as coaches, mentors, and advisers, not as lecturers
lots of project-based challenges and learning
public display of meaningful student work

Do these objectives reflect your classroom teaching this week? Or is it all about that standardized test in April?

Read more about Dintersmith here and view a preview for his award-winning documentary, Most Likely To Succeed, which has been called the antithesis of Waiting For Superman. 'The film raises important questions,' Dintersmith says, 'but respects each school’s desire and ability to forge a creative path forward. I’m hoping to find change agents in schools, districts, and states across the country, and provide them with a powerful resource to help them have a positive impact on the futures of our children.'

Research-Based Gems

Here are some of the nuggets of evidence-based thinking I've salted away from various teacher trainings recently. Each one can be linked to a Scriptural principle. Each one could be its own blog post, and maybe someday it will be.

*Cultivate a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset
*Cultivate perseverance (or, to use a buzzword, grit)
*Listen to understand
*Foster connections--to the text, to self, to prior knowledge, to the world
*Take time for scaffolding
*View failure as a stepping stone
*Teach precision, especially of terminology and academic vocabulary
*Embrace productive struggle

This list is saved on my phone, so when a PD trainer shares a new gem based on brain research, I can instantly update my toolbox. Hope there's something here for you!

Use What Works

I'm always interested in the latest brain research since it connects immediately with my work in the classroom. As part of a class I'm taking, I recently encountered the magazine Better: Evidence-Based Education. With articles on a broad range of topics in education, the experts at Johns Hopkins and the University of York steer educators toward the latest research and its implications for the classroom. If you are looking for easy-to-digest, this is it. These articles claim to "explain, in plain English, the state of evidence behind informed practice in education." Browse the site for subscription-free samples.