C4T Post #3

C4T Post #3

I read posts in Mr. Bernia's blog, Principal's Principles.


3 words for years; hope, opportunity, and courage

He talked about importance of three words, hope, opportunity, and courage. First, he insisted that teachers have responsibility of giving their students hope and dream for their future although students come to school without hope now. Second, he declared teachers have to think a great deal of experiences and opportunities which they can provide for their students. He gave us examples including trips to a museum, to the art institute, a concert, or a sporting event. Third, he said teachers should have the courage to primarily focus on their student before focusing on themselves.

Smarter Balanced Assessments, change for the better?

He talked about the Smarter Balances Assessments. His school held Daytime Staff Meeting and he and his teachers discussed released items from this assessments. In this meeting, they thought of the following question, "what does the learner need to know and be able to do to successfully complete task?" In the discussion, they realized this assessments could play an important role in reading better professional practice and giving their students better education.
They discuss the following items related to the assessment;

• Give students appropriate opportunities to write, require them to support answers with evidence
• Give students the chance to use technology
• Teach kids to look at multiple data sources and synthesize/analyze them
• Teach kids the skill of taking notes, planning, and revising
• Be intentional. Teach kids the skills listed above and model them in our own practice
• Teach the process of approaching and answering a question
• Break tasks down. Teach kids how to break a complex task into components for themselves (also called “chunking.”)
• Create and assign performance task
• Provide real world examples in student work
• Teach kids to be good note takers
• How do we move away from “the right answer” obsession some kids have?
• Help kids develop better capability for time on task
• Provide students think time
• Teach kids about informational reading
• Change our interventions – less on work completion, more on learning
• Change our mental view of assessment – think of them as “thinking assessments.” Less multiple choice questions