EDCI 702: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Thomas Vontz and Lori Goodson

Kansas State University's Center for the Advancement of Digital Scholarship

Manhattan

EDCI 702: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment by Thomas Vontz and Lori Goodson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

This book was produced with Pressbooks.

Contents

- Introduction

- 1. Module 1: Introduction to Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

- Module 1 Guiding Questions

- Why Teach?

- 2. Module 2: Practical Wisdom

- Module 2 Guiding Questions

- Overview

- 3. Module 3: The Personal Attributes and Skills of Effective Teachers

- Guiding Questions

- Overview

- 4. Module 4: The Art and Science of Teaching—Pedagogical Content Knowledge

- Guiding Questions

- Pedagogical Content Knowledge

- 5. Module 5: Content Standards

- Guiding Questions for Module 5

- Academic Content Standards

- 6. Module 6: Curriculum Planning

- Guiding Questions for Module 6:

- Introduction to Planning

- 7. Module 7: Teaching All Students

- Guiding Questions for Module 7:

- Differences That Make a Difference

- 8. Module 8: Research-Based Instructional Strategies

- Guiding Questions for Module 8

- Introduction

- 9. Module 9: Assessment and Classroom Management

- Guiding Questions for Module 9

- Introduction to Assessment

- Classroom Management

- 10. Module 10: Curriculum Mini-Unit

- Guiding Questions for Module 10:

- CIA Mini-Units

- 11. Bonus Module: Legal Issues in Teaching

- Guiding Questions for Bonus Module

- Introduction

- Legal Issues in Teaching

- Appendix

1

Introduction

Watch and listen to MAT graduate Andrea Graham discuss her decision to become a teacher and her experiences in the MAT.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/EDCI702/?p=4

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Module 1: Introduction to Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Module 1 Guiding Questions

1. What is the purpose of this class and how will it help me become an effective teacher?

2. What are the assignments for this class?

3. How is this class organized?

4. How can I be successful in this class?

Why Teach?

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/EDCI702/?p=27

People go into teaching for a variety of reasons but all great teachers are focused on their students. It is appropriate for you to start thinking about how you would like your students to remember you. . . What kind of teacher do YOU want to become? What do you need to do to become THAT kind of teacher? Set high expectations for yourself; just as you will for your students. Great teaching is, among other things, an ART.  That doesn’t mean that some people are born to teach; rather, like artists, great teachers hone their craft by practicing basic skills; apply important principles to new situations; learn from experience; share ideas with others; develop an understanding of your audience; and ??  You get the gist.  There is also a SCIENCE of teaching (as there is to other forms of art–don’t think about that one too much just yet) that is important as well.  We’ll discuss those elements more later in the course and book.

You might also appreciate the perspectives of of a veteran, award winning educator: Heller, Rafael. “WHY WE TEACH: A Conversation with Sonia Nieto.” Phi Delta Kappan 101, no. 8 (May 2020): 31–36.

Effective teachers not only know where they come from, they also know where they are going. They have a clear sense of purpose—from both a personal and societal perspective.

Why did you decide to become a teacher?

Here’s how some of your K-State College of Education students have answered that question.

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Getting Started

You’re joining an amazing profession that will provide you and your future students years of meaningful engagement. Like all teachers, we want to help you figure out the world of around you, specifically the world of students, teachers, and schools. Effective teachers perceive, analyze, communicate, and engage the world in particular ways.

This course is one step in a lifelong journey. You’ll have additional coursework, teaching opportunities, and, most importantly, additional time to identify and articulate the skills and values that define you as a teacher. Great teachers seek balance among the virtues of effective teachers, the ideal and reality; the theory and practice; as well as the art and science.

It’s a wonderful journey, so let’s get started.

Throughout this course, continually ask yourself the following questions:

- What are the central acts of teaching?

- How do effective teachers plan so all students can learn?

- How does assessment frame instruction and aid student learning?

- What techniques, strategies, and methods promote student learning?

- How do effective teachers manage classrooms to create positive learning environments?

- How do teachers improve their instruction?

- What are the attitudes, dispositions, and contributions of teachers with a high level of professionalism?

Focus on these questions in terms of what effective experienced teachers do and in terms of what you will attempt to do as a novice teacher.

Highly effective teachers, those who motivate and maximize learning, vary. There is no single personality type, lesson model, classroom management strategy, or assessment scheme that will guarantee success.

In this course, we are on a quest to explore the concepts, skills, and attitudes that will increase your chances for success. Although we will isolate various ideas (e.g., how do I ask a meaningful question?), it is the unique combination of those ideas that will power your teaching.

Effective Teaching: Big Picture Context

Becoming an effective teacher requires some sense of history (as a history teacher, I would argue being a thoughtful human being requires some sense of history!). Although you are just beginning your career as a teacher, human beings have been teaching and learning for thousands of years.  In short, we have always been involved in some form of conscious social reproduction. Students, parents, and government officials ask, “What is most important to learn and how is it best taught?”

The answers to these questions have varied through the years. Highly effective teachers should have some sense of where they come from. Watch this brief video on the history of education in the United States.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/EDCI702/?p=27

Read: Labaree, David F. 2011. “Consuming the Public School.” Educational Theory 61 (4): 381–94.

Questions?

1. What major developments in education do you anticipate in the course of your career?

2. What do you believe is the primary purpose of pre-collegiate education in the United States?

3. What is your primary role as a teacher?

4. What do you need to become an effective teacher?

How will EDCI 702 Help me Become an Effective Teacher?

Teaching and learning are complex activities that often defy simple explanation or description.  Everyday, teachers face scores of decisions that influence student learning and development.  Even seemingly simple decisions may be more complex than they appear. Should you allow a student to turn in her paper late?  How should you respond to Josh and Steve who are talking, again?  What should you teach next week and how should it be organized?  How should you evaluate your unit on mammals?  This course is based on the assumption that the best teachers critically consider what to teach, how to teach, and how to assess students and their classes–before, during, and after instruction.  In other words, the best teachers are equipped with a well-developed and thoughtful intellectual framework that helps them to make sound educational decisions based upon the myriad of factors that influence those decisions.  ED 702 will enable you to further develop your own framework-of ideas, skills, and dispositions-that will help you make educational/teaching decisions and empower you to act on those decisions.

What are the Learning Objectives for EDCI 702?

Everything we do in this class is connected to one or more of the following learning objectives/outcomes. Effective teaching is, among other things, purposeful.

As a result of the learning opportunities and activities of this course, the learner will be able to:

- perceive, interpret, and evaluate important issues in the landscape of teaching;

- identify, describe, and use the skills, personality traits, and teaching strategies of effective teachers;

- use professional language to describe curriculum, instruction, and assessment;

- use pedagogical content knowledge to evaluate teaching and to make wise professional judgments;

- plan clear, coherent, and standards-based lessons and units consistent with your beliefs about teaching, learning, and schools;

- use a wide variety of resources to enhance curriculum, instruction, and assessment;

- assess student readiness, progress, and mastery;

- identify and describe issues, concepts, and skills that help to create a positive learning environment; and

- appreciate the diverse needs of learners and explain how to address differences among learners.

We will check in on these again at the end of the course and ask ourselves, “Did we accomplish these objectives?”

What are the Assignments for the Class?

The following briefly describes assignments during the course.  All of the assignments further the learning objectives above. More specific expectations will be provided as the course develops.  The grading program I use allows me to weight assignments so that all of your position papers, for example, make up 10% of your grade.  Assignments are due by 11:59 pm on the day indicated by the syllabus.  Late assignments are penalized 10% for every 24-hour period the assignment is late.  Assignments more than five days late are unacceptable.

Module Discussion Questions (25%)

You will post ONE original and TWO reply posts to each discussion threads. The due dates for these assignments appear at the end of this syllabus and on our KSOL website. At a minimum, your original responses should clearly answer the question, explain your reasoning, and provide examples to support your ideas.  At a minimum, reply responses should provide insights/questions/criticisms of your classmate’s posting.  See the “Discussion Question Rubric” for more precise evaluation criteria.

Homework, Worksheets, and Brief Class Assignments (15%)

Homework and brief assignments are designed to check for understanding and refine your thinking about some important aspect of becoming a teacher.   These assignments are related to readings, class discussions, or some other issue that comes up throughout the class.

Online Quizzes (10%)

These quizzes cover content from class sessions, discussion, and the chapters in the textbooks. The questions will consist of short-answer (e.g., multiple-choice questions, true-false, matching) and a few essay questions.

Instructional Strategy Presentation (15%)

Each of you will be assigned a research-based teaching strategy.  You will research, prepare, and teach about your assigned strategy.

Position Papers (10%)

Position papers are two- to three-page papers that express your opinion and reasoning on some important issue in teaching and learning.  You should attempt to be as clear and concise as possible.

Mini-Unit (15%)

You will design a brief unit of instruction (three lessons) that is representative of the ideas, skills, and values you believe are important in teaching.  As a culminating activity for the course, your unit should incorporate and demonstrate your understanding of important principles in education.

Course Participation & Professionalism (10%)

This portion of your grade is related to both the quality and quantity of your participation and interaction with your classmates, other professionals, and me.  The ability to discuss and analyze differences in professional philosophy from an open, honest, and mutually supportive perspective is a key element of professionalism.

How can I be a Successful in this Course and as a Pre-service Teacher?

- Positive Attitude. Every day, every student, and nearly every situation are unique in teaching and preparing to be a teacher. Try as best you can to maintain a positive attitude–even when the chips are down!

- Independence. This is a graduate program and you are experienced adults. We will not prescriptively tell you everything you need to do–that’s called learning to follow directions, not learning to teach.

- Communicate. Keep the lines of communication open and clear with your TA, with your CTs (once you are in the schools), and with everyone else with whom you interact professionally.

- Big Picture. Keep the big picture in mind as you are going through the MAT–you are doing all of this so you can be the very best teacher you possibly become. Great students are able to find value in their assignments and experiences. If you come across ANYTHING in my class that you think will not have an impact on your teaching, contact me immediately and, if you are correct, we will remove the superfluous assignment or activity.

- Work Hard. How much you get out of EDCI 702 or the MAT is usually proportional to the amount of work you are willing to expend.

How Is this Class Organized?

MODULES:

Module 1: Introduction to Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Guiding Questions for Module 1:

1. What is the purpose of this class and how will it help me become an effective teacher?

2. What are the assignments for this class?

3. How is this class organized?

4. How can I be successful in this class?

Module 2: Practical Wisdom

Guiding Questions for Module 2:

1. What is practical wisdom?

2. How does practical wisdom connect to teaching?

3. How does understanding practical wisdom help me become a better teacher?

Module 3: The Personal Attributes and Skills of Effective Teachers

Guiding Questions for Module 3:

1. What personality traits seem most related to effective teaching?

2. What skills seem most related to effective teaching?

3. What personality traits or skills do I currently possess that will help me be an effective teacher?

4. What personality traits or skills will I need to work on most to be an effective teacher?

Module 4: The Art and Science of Teaching—Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Guiding Questions for Module 4:

1. What is pedagogical content knowledge?

2. How does knowledge of student development and learning influence teaching?

3. How does knowledge of content influence teaching?

4. How does a knowledge of methods, strategies, and skills influence teaching?

Module 5: Content Standards

Guiding Questions for Module 5:

1. What is the content scope and sequence for content standards in my subject(s)?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of content standards?

3. What are the most important ideas and skills you will be responsible for teaching?

4. How do wise teachers maximize the use of content standards?

5. What is Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)?

Module 6: Curriculum Planning

Guiding Questions for Module 6:

1. What resources are available to teachers to plan the curriculum?

2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Understanding by Design as a model for curriculum planning?

3. What is Bloom’s Taxonomy and how does it help teachers construct questions and objectives?

4. How do effective teachers plan clear, coherent, and standards-based lessons?

5. How do effective teachers plan clear, coherent, and standards-based mini-units?

Module 7: Teaching All Students

Guiding Questions for Module 7:

1. In what ways are students alike and in what ways are they are unique?

2. How do teachers effectively meet the needs of diverse learners in their classroom?

Module 8: Research-Based Instructional Strategies

Guiding Questions for Module 8:

1. What are research-based teaching strategies?

2. How do effective teachers think about teaching strategies?

3. How do effective teachers maximize the use of research-based teaching strategies?

Module 9: Assessment and Classroom Management

Guiding Questions for Module 9:

1. What key terms are associated with assessment and classroom management?

2. How do teachers assess student learning, mastery, and achievement?

3. How do teachers provide a safe, healthy, and productive learning environment?

4. What important principles will guide your assessment and classroom management decisions?

Module 10: Curriculum Mini-Unit

Guiding Questions for Module 10:

1. How does my curriculum unit represent my ideas about curriculum, instruction, and assessment?

Bonus Module: Legal Issues in Teaching (can be completed anytime or not at all)

Guiding Questions for Bonus Module:

1. What are the sources of laws, policies, and regulations that govern public schools and teachers?

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Module 2: Practical Wisdom

“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” – Aristotle Module 2 Guiding Questions

1. What is practical wisdom?

2. How does practical wisdom connect to teaching?

3. How does understanding practical wisdom help me become a better teacher?

4. What is the Golden Mean and how does it connect to teaching?

Overview

Teaching and learning are complex activities. It follows that learning to become a teacher is also complex. In this book, we attempt to clarify what it means to be an effective teacher, one who motivates and maximizes learning. Our search is not bounded. We will look for good ideas wherever we can find them. They may be old or new, based on research or practical experience, or they may come from teachers or students.

We begin by examining an ancient idea, practical wisdom, and its relationship to effective teaching. In our view, there is no better place to begin. Practical wisdom is knowing what is good, right, or best, given a particular set of circumstances.  The roots of this idea can be traced back more than 2,400 years to to Aristotle in Ancient Greece. Aristotle attempted to distinguish different kinds of knowledge—different ways of knowing. Practical wisdom (what Aristotle called phronesis) was distinct from other kinds of knowledge such as science (what Aristotle called epistime) or art (what Aristotle called techne).

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes (1140a24-1140b12):

We may grasp the nature of prudence [phronesis] if we consider what sort of people we call prudent. Well, it is thought to be the mark of a prudent man to be able to deliberate rightly about what is good and advantageous…But nobody deliberates about things that are invariable…So…prudence cannot be science or art; not science [episteme] because what can be done is a variable (it may be done in different ways, or not done at all), and not an art [techne] because action and production are generically different. For production aims at an end other than itself; but this is impossible in the case of action, because the end is merely doing well. What remains, then, is that it is a true state, reasoned, and capable of action with regard to things that are good or bad for man. We consider that this quality belongs to those who understand the management of households or states.

The knowledge of science was a knowledge of universals (e.g., A2 + B2 = C2), things that were universally true and not bound by place or time. The knowledge of  art (i.e., skill) was a kind of knowledge that could be applied to a task and set aside (e.g., the knowledge a shoemaker possesses). Practical wisdom, however, was a bit more complicated, interesting, and for teachers, important. Practical wisdom is concerned with both the context and reasons for the decisions we make. It is not the kind of knowledge we selectively apply; it is a knowledge we carry with us at all times. It is based on our past experiences, our values, our moral sensibilities, and our knowledge of ideas that might be brought to bear on a particular problem. In short, practical wisdom is doing the right things, for good reasons, in the best ways.

Every day, teachers face scores of decisions that influence stu dent learning and development. Even seemingly simple decisions may be more complex than they appear. Should you allow a student to turn in her paper late? How should you respond to Josh and Steve who are talking, again, during 5th period? What should you teach next week, and how should it  be organized? How should you evaluate your unit on mammals?  The best teachers are equipped with a well-developed and thoughtful intellectual framework that helps them to make sound educational decisions based upon a myriad of factors that influence those decisions.

This book will enable you to construct your own initial framework, of ideas, skills, and dispositions, that will help you make educational/teaching decisions and empower you  to act on those decisions. In essence, one of  the primary goals of the book is to inform and hone your ability to reason practically in and out of the classroom.

Of course, we are not the only people who recognize the importance of  practical wisdom.  Watch the following video and ask yourself how these ideas connect to teaching.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/EDCI702/?p=43

Read: Shulman, Lee S. “Practical Wisdom in the Service of Professional Practice.” Educational Researcher : A Publication of the American Educational Research Association. 36, no. 9 (2007): 560-563.

Read: Bassett, Caroline L. “Understanding and Teaching Practical Wisdom.” New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education, no. 131 (Fall 2011): 35–44.

Questions

1. How, specifically, is practical wisdom related to becoming a great teacher?

2. How can teachers further develop or hone their practical reasoning abilities?

3. To what extent does practical wisdom connect to the subjects you teach?

Searching for the Golden Mean

Great teachers are able to find the balance among competing virtues in teaching.  Aristotle theorized that almost any virtue can become a vice; you can have too much or too little of a virtue or fail to balance a virtue with other virtues.  So, for example, teachers need some level of confidence to be able to effectively lead their students but not so much confidence that they become arrogant.  Confidence should also be balanced with humility, adaptability, reflection, etc. Aristotle referred to this balance as the Golden Mean.  What virtues are most important to you and what are their corrupt forms?

Read: Hostetler, Karl D. “Beyond Reflection: Perception, Virtue, and Teacher Knowledge.” Educational Philosophy & Theory 48, no. 2 (February 2016): 179–90.

How Do We Foster Practical Wisdom in Teacher Education?

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Module 3: The Personal Attributes and Skills of Effective Teachers

Guiding Questions

1. What personality traits seem most related to effective teaching?

2. What skills seem most related to effective teaching?

3. What personality traits or skills do I currently possess that will help me be an effective teacher?

4. What personality traits or skills will I need to work on most to be an effective teacher?

Overview

To be successful, students need effective teachers—teachers who know what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and how to do it well. Our virtues, experience, and prior knowledge inform our perceptions, analyses, and judgments, BUT teachers must have the intellectual, social, and teaching skill to be able to act. Teaching is, after all, a performance art.  So let’s begin with bad teachers and teaching….

What is Ineffective Teaching?

Quick! Think to yourself (no names, please!): Who was the worst teacher you had during your 12-plus years of experience as a student?

Chances are, a name or a classroom experience popped into your head fairly quickly. We all have some awful experiences locked in our brains:

- The teacher who had such a regimented and predictable classroom that it could function whether he or she was there or not.

- The teacher who, in response to one student’s misbehavior, punished the entire classroom…by having all students copy from a dictionary or some other form of mass punishment.

- The teacher who scolded you for coloring outside the lines.

- The teacher who didn’t know his or her content well enough to respond to students’ questions.

- The teacher who was even less thrilled than you to be in his or her classroom.

- The teacher who found no humor in the day-to-day classroom events.

- The teacher who started a movie at the beginning of the class, returned to his or her desk, and shopped online or checked sports scores through the entire period.

- The teacher who made you feel miserable as soon as you stepped into the classroom, but you tried to salvage the semester by stating that you “learned a lot”—even though you can’t come up with anything meaningful that you gained from the class.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/EDCI702/?p=53

OK, so we know what bad teaching can look like from our own classroom experiences. Some of us even entered the teaching field because of those poor experiences—to provide a better learning experience than we’ve had along the way.

But, how do we avoid creating our own bad memories for our future students? How do we become those “other” teachers—the ones you remember who led a lively, engaging, and effective learning environment in his or her classroom?

In this section on Effective Teaching, we’ll discuss some of those “things” that make successful teachers so good…and so memorable, in a positive way.

What is Effective Teaching?

Effective teachers motivate and maximize learning but precisely how they do that is difficult to precisely describe. There is no magic formula or list that will magically transform anyone into an effective teacher. To illustrate, watch below an example of one teacher’s interpretation of a student/situation, analysis, action, and ultimate impact.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/EDCI702/?p=53

What Does it take to Become an Effective Teacher?

Before we dig into specific elements of effective teaching, we recognize that hovering above any of the specific elements we can identify and describe, effective teaching really requires good people doing things for the right reasons. Watch David Brooks (op-ed columnist for The NY Times) discuss the distinction between resume virtues and eulogy virtues.

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Having the right mindset about your role, purpose, and impact on others is prerequisite to effective teaching. That kind of thinking is difficult to describe, reduce to numbers, or use as criteria on teacher evaluations; yet, we all realize its importance.

Still, we have been trying to identify “good teachers” and their characteristics for decades–stressing different elements in different contexts and different periods.

Read: Cruickshank, Donald R., and Donald Haefele. 2001. “Good Teachers, Plural.” Educational Leadership 58 (5): 26.

Although difficult to precisely define the contours of effective teaching, our field strives nonetheless to do just that. In Kansas State’s College of Education, we use the Conceptual Framework below.  As you can see, our Conceptual Framework identifies and combines certain kinds of knowledge, skills, and dispositions for the purpose of effective teaching.

What Does a Framework for Teaching Offer?

- It provides a description of the teacher responsibilities that promote student learning.

- It explains what teachers should know and be able to do, based on research and best practice.

- It provides common language for discussing good teaching.

Right now, looking at the poster below probably seems overwhelming.  However, by the time you end your program, you will not only know and be able to discuss these ideas at a fairly sophisticated level, you will also be able to show how you apply these ideas to your own teaching.

The framework is an attempt to clarify the complex job of a teacher. Like other jobs that involve human beings (e.g., becoming a nurse or a doctor), there is more to it than the average person might think. Across domains, teachers are limited or liberated by what they know and are motivated and able to do. Our next task is to explore the personality traits and skills of  highly effective teachers. These personality traits and skills, like practical wisdom, are applicable to every domain of the framework.

What Personal Characteristics do Effective Teachers Possess?

Intermingled among the 15 standards of the COE Conceptual Framework are a variety of personal characteristics that connect to effective teaching. What kinds of people make great teachers? Of course, the short answer is all kinds of people. We know from our own experience that great teachers may be introverted or extroverted, young or old, or traditional or progressive. Researchers have been studying various aspects of teacher personality for decades. Some of the personality traits that appear to have the greatest connection to student academic achievement include:

- Enthusiasm

- Warmth and Humor

- Credibility

- High Expectations for Success

- Encouraging/Supportive

- Businesslike

- Adaptable

Most people would agree that those traits are probably related to effective teaching. What do these words really mean? How, specifically, do these words translate into the actions of a highly effective teacher? We provide a little additional clarity below.

Enthusiastic teachers. . .

- Appear interested, confident, energetic, and friendly

- Are engaged and dramatic when teaching

- Maintain eye contact with students

- Use varied pitch, volume, and pauses

- Insist that students achieve success

- Have a sense of humor and can laugh at themselves

- Maintain a quick lesson pace

- Use movement to maintain interest and attention

Warm and humorous teachers. . .

- Greet students by name

- Learn about and comment upon students’ life outside of class (e.g., band contest)

- Smile frequently

- Convey personality; are true to themselves

- Encourage students to approach with any topic or problem

- Will take the time to ensure that ALL students are successful

- Although keenly interested in getting to know students, will not lower expectations or “join” students socially

Credible teachers. . .

- Are open, honest, and equitable

- Solicit student input about lessons/course

- Clearly define expectations

- Explain the importance or rationale for learning

- Are concerned about student success

- Have high expectations for success.

- Clearly inform students of lesson objectives

- Provide extended, well-organized explanations

- Set reasonable but attainable expectations

- Consistently adhere to high expectations

- Call upon all students frequently and seldom interrupt

- Provide extensive, frequent, and specific feedback

- Use wait time to allow students time to respond

- Solicit and incorporate input from students as they teach

Teachers who are encouraging and supportive. . .

- Use positive comments about student abilities

- Are aware of and comment upon improvement

- Help students work through their own problems and evaluate their own work

Teachers who are businesslike. . .

- Are goal-oriented, serious, and deliberate

- Are well-organized

- Establish clear academic goals and communicate them to students

- Treat the academic content seriously and respectfully

- Maximize the use of academic learning time

- Are professional educators and maintain professionalism

Teachers who are adaptable. . .

- Carefully consider students’ characteristics, attributes, preferences, and interests when planning instruction

- Systematically and carefully monitor student learning (both verbal and non-verbal) and adjust instruction accordingly (i.e., acumen)

Of course, the above list of personality traits is not exhaustive—these are ones that are based on research. What other personality traits do you think might be important for great teachers?

What Skills do Effective Teachers Possess?

In addition to certain combinations of personality traits, effective teachers also possess specific skills. Like personality traits, education researchers have studied various teaching skills and their impact on student academic achievement.

The skills that seem to have the greatest impact on student learning include:

- Clarity

- Questioning

- Variety

- Use of Time

- Monitoring

- Feedback and Reinforcement

Clear teachers. . .

- Carefully organize and structure lessons, units, and courses

- Identify and share objectives

- Reinforce new information

- Connect new ideas to previously learned ideas

- Connect new ideas to students’ lives

- Provide meaningful examples

- Provide instruction at an appropriate pace

- Monitor student learning

- Modify instruction based upon student learning

Meaningful questions are. . .

- Clear

- Interesting

- Age-appropriate

- Connected to objectives

- Asked to promote higher levels of thinking

- Open-ended

- Connected to students’ lives, experiences, and understanding

Teachers who lead great discussions. . .

- Use wait time

- Avoid rhetorical questions

- Ask questions before calling on individual students

- Use variety in questioning

- Use probing, rephrasing, and redirection

Effective teachers utilize variety when. . .

- Planning lessons and units

- Selecting instructional strategies

- Asking questioning

- Assessing and evaluating student performance

- Introducing lessons and units

- Closing lessons and units

- Providing feedback and reinforcement

Teachers who use time wisely. . .

- Are well prepared

- Are focused on learning

- Maintain an appropriate pace

- Avoid bird walking (focusing discussion on only slightly relevant topics)

- Are task oriented

- Provide smooth transitions between activities

Teachers who effectively monitor student learning. . .

- Use formal and informal means of monitoring student progress

- Are keenly aware of the classroom environment (acumen)

- Effectively end lessons by checking for student understanding

- Adjust instruction based on their observations

Teachers who offer effective feedback and reinforcement. . .

- Provide clear, specific, and varied feedback and reinforcement regarding a variety of student performances (e.g., papers, class discussion)

- Provide feedback and reinforcement often

- Use clear criteria to evaluate student performance

- Identify specific strengths and weaknesses of student performance

- Describe specific ways students can improve

You may well want to download a copy of Stronge, James H., and Alexandria, VA. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Qualities of Effective Teachers, 2002.  This book is available online through our library and explains these skills and personality traits in more detail and adds many more.

Watch this 10-minute teaching episode. How does an understanding of research-based teaching skills help you evaluate this teaching performance?

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/EDCI702/?p=53

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Module 4: The Art and Science of Teaching—Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Guiding Questions

1. What is the academic content scope and sequence for the content standard in the subject(s) that I teach?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of content standards?

3. What are the most important ideas and skills you will be responsible for teaching?

4. How do wise teachers maximize the use of content standards?

Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Effective teachers not only possess certain kinds of personality traits, skills, and dispositions, but they also have a certain kind of knowledge. Effective teachers possess a unique kind of knowledge known as pedagogical content knowledge (PCK).  PCK blends an understanding of content and pedagogy specifically for instruction.  Lee Shulman (1987) coined this term and has written about it extensively. Here is a brief video that aptly explains this concept.

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Very few ideas in the social sciences have a shelf-life longer than a few years. In education, for example, Lev Vygotsky’s (1896-1934) theory of social constructivism, Jerome Bruner’s (1915 – 2016) spiral curriculum, and Lee Shulman’s (1938 – ) PCK are three prominent examples. Below is Shulman’s seminal essay on PCK–an idea that has been used extensively across teacher education.

Read: Shulman, Lee S. “Those Who Understand: Knowledge Growth in Teaching.” Journal of Education. 193, no. 3 (2013): 1-11.

Technical Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Shulman’s ideas about what teachers need to know were powerful enough for others to add to them. In 1986, technology and its applications to teaching and learning were just beginning. As educators began to recognize the potential applications of technology to teaching, Shulman’s original model of teacher knowledge expanded to include knowledge of technology.

Read: Koehler, Matthew J. “What Is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)?” Journal of Education. 193, no. 3 (2013): 13-19.

Is Teaching an Art, Science, or Both?

The intellectual challenge of being a great teacher–whether for kindergartners or graduate students–is partly what motivates us 25+ years after beginning our careers. We are constantly learning, never satisfied, and continually trying to make our courses (and eBooks!) a little better. Watch the video below and ask yourself the age-old question, “Is teaching an art, science, or both?”

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Our Perspective

Effective teaching is both art and science.  Everything that constitutes the knowledge base of effective teaching cannot be reduced to a list of evidence-based practices, strategies, or skills.  That is not to say that those lists are not helpful; they are. But effective teaching is somewhere in the mixture of art and science. Science provides a knowledge base of ideas that are helpful, perhaps necessary, in learning to teach; however, teaching is a performance art that also requires experience, intuition, creativity, and a host of other artistic elements. In fact, great teachers often seek balance between the teaching virtues. Great teachers balance confidence with humility; clarity with creativity; being businesslike with the ability to be warm and humorous, to name a few examples. And, any virtue taken to an extreme may hinder your effectiveness as a teacher; perhaps Aristotle was right, any virtue can become a vice?

5

Module 5: Content Standards

Guiding Questions for Module 5

1. What is the content scope and sequence for content standards in my subject(s)?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of content standards?

3. What are the most important ideas and skills you will be responsible for teaching?

4. How do wise teachers maximize the use of content standards?

5. What is Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)?

Academic Content Standards

Now let’s time travel 12 months into the future. You’ve always dreamed of being a teacher, and now it’s happened. The principal has handed you the keys and opened the door to your new career. You have your new classroom. You have the textbook. You have your favorite coffee mug sitting on your desk.

So, now what? It’s time to teach!

And where do you start? With the standards. Each state has its own curriculum, and each school district usually adopts that curriculum, while adding a few standards that support the district’s own unique needs. We live in and you will teach in an age that places importance on curriculum standards. Some people and teachers believe curriculum standards have improved teaching and student academic performance, while others view them as an unnecessary impediment to powerful teaching and learning. As a teacher, you should be familiar with both sides of the argument….

An Argument in Favor of Content Standards

Read: Muñoz, Marco A., and Thomas R. Guskey. 2015. “Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Will Improve Education.” Phi Delta Kappan 96 (7): 64–68.

An Argument in Opposition of Content Standards

Read: Diane Ravitch’s (2016) The Common Core Costs Billions and Hurts Students.

State Content Standards

Every state maintains sets of curriculum standards for nearly every subject that is taught K-12 (some elective subjects may not have state standards). In Kansas, those standards are referred to as the Kansans Can Curricular Standards. If you don’t live or teach in Kansas, consult your state’s department of education website to find your standards. Find your standards in the link above or at your state department of education and download them to your computer. As a new classroom teacher, you will be expected to address your district/state standards for whatever courses you are teaching (specific to your grade level and content area).

Unpacking Content Standards

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Your Relationship with Content Standards

You are a thinking adult capable of making your decisions about the value and importance of your particular set (or sets) of content standards. However, it would be a mistake to a) accept the value of everything that is included in your standards; b) assume everything included in your standards is of equal importance; or c) dismiss the content standards as irrelevant to your job as a teacher. You should become familiar with the standards you are responsible for teaching: 1) how are they organized? 2) what are their strengths? 3) what are their limitations? 4) how will you use them as a resource? Standards across disciplines provide a place where teachers can begin to think about what is most important to teach. Although the era of high-stakes testing connected to the standards appears to be coming to a close, the content standards serve as one important resource for instructional planning.

Using the Standards

Go to the content standards for the content and grade level you are planning to teach. Select two standards that you will be required to teach. What is one activity for each of the standards that would help you address them in your class?

A New Reform in Education and Framework

A relatively new reform and framework in education is gaining momentum and finding its way into school curricula: Social and Emotional Learning (SEL).  Like other reform efforts and their associated standards, competencies, or frameworks, SEL is controversial.  Visit the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning’s (CASEL) website to learn more about how you might infuse 1) self-awareness; 2) social awareness ; 3) responsible decision-making; 4) self-management; and 5) relationship management into your curricula.

Excellent brief video on SEL. . .

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6

Module 6: Curriculum Planning

Guiding Questions for Module 6:

1. What resources are available to teachers to plan the curriculum?

2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Understanding by Design as a model for curriculum planning?

3. What is Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy and how does it help teachers construct questions and objectives?

4. How do effective teachers plan clear, coherent, and standards-based lessons?

5. How do effective teachers plan clear, coherent, and standards-based mini-units?

Introduction to Planning

Even teachers who taught in the one-room schoolhouses had to answer basic questions about the curriculum.

Today, teachers are not alone in creating their curriculum. A variety of resources exist—state and national standards, textbooks, district-level curriculum guides, statements from professional organizations, and even other teachers within your building. One of the great joys of teaching is planning a lesson, unit, or course and having it succeed—knowing students have learned the right stuff, in best ways, for good reasons.

Planning clear, age-appropriate, engaging instruction is essential to becoming an effective teacher. All teachers must answer WHAT, HOW, and WHY questions about the curriculum. What is most important to teach?  Why? How will content be organized and structured? Why? What strategies are best suited to teach a certain idea or skill?  Why? How will I assess student progress and mastery? Why?

This chapter is designed to help inform your curricular judgments.

Overview of Planning

Instructional planning occupies a central part of  the life of every teacher. Every teacher, of any subject, at any level must make decisions about the curriculum. And, every teacher plans the curriculum in a unique way. The lesson or unit plans of veteran teachers are often focused on a few core elements whereas the plans of a novice tend to include a little more detail. Your professors also require that you plan in more detail than you will when you have your own classroom; your lesson and unit plans allow us to “see” and “hear” your emerging ideas as a teacher. Without sufficient detail, we cannot provide adequate feedback, coaching, and guidance. This is the one time in your career when you are able to benefit from the scrutiny, wisdom, and experience of mentors who all want the same goal: for you to become a great teacher! So, take instructional planning seriously as it requires you to synthesize and apply important ideas in curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

Models of Curriculum Planning

If you took a survey of 100 teachers and asked how they planned the curriculum, you are likely to get 100 unique responses. In time, you will formulate your own model, applying principles and ideas that make the most sense to you and your circumstances, based on your experience and wisdom of practice.

Teachers must consider planning at a variety of different levels. The most general level of planning is at the course level—what do I want students to gain from this course? What knowledge, skills, and dispositions are of most worth?

Course planning is important—it helps teachers carefully consider their long-range goals. Within courses, teachers must consider how their courses will be organized into smaller units. Instructional units are typically two to three weeks of instruction focused on a single theme or question. Teachers must also consider specific lessons that will comprise each unit.

For effective teachers, instruction is purposeful and intentional; never aimless or accidental. Effective teachers carefully consider what content and skills they will teach, how the material will be organized, how students will learn, and what will constitute evidence of student learning.

One of the most prominent models of curriculum planning is known as Understanding by Design, developed Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins. The model requires teachers to ask and answer a number of practical questions:

- What is most important for students to learn?

- What are my short- and long-term goals?

- What essential questions will we be asking and answering?

- How will I know if students have learned?

- How is the content best organized?

- How will students learn this content best?

Read Understanding by Design White Paper from Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development and watch a two-part video from Grant Wiggins explaining his model of planning.

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For a practical example read: Sumrall, William, and Kristen Sumrall. 2018. “Understanding by Design.” Science & Children 56 (1): 48–54.

Essential Questions

One of the most challenging parts of the Understanding by Design model is formulating essential questions. Essential questions help students and teachers focus on the most important information in the most interesting ways. Some of the basic elements of writing effective essential questions include:

- Aiming at the philosophical or conceptual foundations of a discipline

- Having ideas or issues recurring naturally throughout one’s learning

- Raising other important questions, often across subject-area boundaries

- Having no one obvious right answer

- Being framed to provoke and sustain student interest

Watch the following video to gain additional insights into framing essential questions.

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Practical Principles

In addition to operating within some model, teachers also plan the curriculum with certain principles in mind. Years ago, I (Tom Vontz) sat down and constructed a “top ten (twelve) list” of planning principles—big ideas that guided planning decisions:

1. Plan with students in mind.

2. Instructional planning is an inexact science.

3. Teachers enjoy various degrees of autonomy in planning and implementing the curriculum.

4. The beginning and ending of courses, units, and lessons are very important to the learning process.

5. Assemble resources before you attempt to start planning.

6. Remember the big picture/long-range goals.

7. Vary instructional strategies.

8. Plans should be considered tentative.

9. As a guide to instruction and learning, strive for CLARITY in planning.

10. Plan with assessment and evaluation in mind.

11. Keep plans simple.

12. Save your plans and stay organized.

Questions

What principles do you think are the most or least important on the list?

What additional principles would you include on your own list?

Maximizing Resources

Students sometimes ask us, “What is the best lesson you ever taught?” We tend to think of lessons that made some real difference in the life of a student.  Many of  the most memorable moments in our teaching careers had less to do with us than the experiences we arranged for our students. Most of those experiences required an artful use of resources—arranging for a Holocaust survivor to visit school, conducting an archaeological investigation at a local cemetery, or conducting authentic research.

One characteristic of effective teachers is knowing how to maximize the resources available to them. When effective teachers encounter new things, they begin to visualize how they might use them in their classes. The local retirement home becomes a source of local oral historical research; the river on the edge of town becomes data for a lesson on water pollution; a generic software program is transformed into a compelling game for students.

Textbooks

We begin by analyzing the most common and prominent resource in the K-12 classroom: the textbook. How can teachers squeeze the most from the textbooks they are provided?

Of course, there are lots of general criteria teachers use to evaluate their textbooks.  Is the content organized well?  Is the writing lively and interesting? Does the textbook use interesting, controversial, and relevant examples? Is the textbook visually appealing? Does the textbook provide multiple perspectives? Does the textbook invite higher levels of thinking? Is the textbook age appropriate?

Within each of your subject areas, you might also add additional criteria. For example, a teacher of civics and government may well decide that he or she is concerned with having a textbook that helps students conceptualize important ideas such as constitutionalism, democracy, human rights, representative government, and civil society. Watch a critique of textbook publishers below.

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What general and subject-specific criteria do you expect from your textbooks?

How well do textbooks align with standards in your content area?

How will you use the textbook in your classroom?

Non-traditional Resources

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:

“Non-traditional and new-media resources hold a great deal of promise to maximize student learning.”

Why?

As resources, all textbooks are incomplete. Even the best textbooks need to be supplemented with additional resources that bring ideas and skills to life. Watch the brief video below that describes how an anthropologist at DePaul University, Jane Baxter, transformed mobile technology and access to local cemeteries into deep learning for her students.

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Speaking of  resources, while you will certainly find some great ideas for decorating your classroom on share sites such as Pinterest, make sure you extend your search. Include sites with content supported by Common Core or state standards, research-based practices (look at the citations in the reference list), or activities created by curriculum specialists when looking for lesson- or behavior-based classroom activities.

However, if you do stumble across something that seems credible on Pinterest, follow up by clicking on the link and investigating the planning/preparation, purpose, and research behind the thumbnail image.

To get you started, here are a few examples of credible online sources to find curricular materials and activities:

- Readwritethink

- Smithsonian for Educators

- Kids Discover Online

- Annenberg Learning

- Brainpop

- Teaching Channel

Your Turn

Brainstorm a list of specific resources you might use with your students.

Lesson Planning

Although practicing teachers need to carefully plan courses and the units of instruction within each course, as beginning pre-service teachers, we will focus on the most basic component of planning: the lesson.

Like most other important issues in teaching and learning, there is no single, agreed-upon best model for lesson planning. Most teachers eventually develop their unique way of lesson planning. You may hear people talk about the Gagne Model or the Hunter Model or the 5E Model. . . . All of these models are based on some similar characteristics.

In CIA, we are asking that you use a simple and straightforward model of lesson planning that contains the following elements:

STANDARDS

OBJECTIVES

POSSIBLE QUESTIONS

MATERIALS

ACCOMMODATIONS

BEGINNING OF A LESSON

MIDDLE OF A LESSON

END OF A LESSON

Simple guidelines for each of these parts are provided below. . .

MAT

LESSON PLAN FORMAT

Kansas State University

STANDARDS:

- Write out (i.e., cut and paste) the specific Standards, Benchmarks, and Indicators the lesson will address.

- Choose 1 or 2 specific ideas or skills on which to focus the lesson.

- Make sure everything in the lesson focuses on these aspects of the standards.

OBJECTIVES:

- Write 1 – 3 clear, age-appropriate, standards-based objectives.

- Correct Example-The student will compare the colonists’ vs. British perspectives on the American Revolution.

- Incorrect Example-The student will read the chapter and discuss the American Revolution.

POSSIBLE QUESTIONS:

- Write 4-5 interesting, engaging, open-ended, and meaningful questions you might ask during the lesson.

MATERIALS:

- List all the materials required for instructing this lesson.

- Cite resources (basal publisher, website, children’s book) where applicable.

- Attach supporting documents (student handouts, overheads, examples, etc.) if they are available.

- Indicate how technology is used in planning and enhancing instruction.

- Do not list materials that are customary parts of the classroom (e.g., whiteboard)

ACCOMMODATIONS:

- In what ways will you adjust the lesson plan to the unique needs of individual learners?

- If you are planning a lesson prior to having students, how might you accommodate an individual learner?

BEGINNING OF LESSON:

- Clearly describe how you will gain and focus student interest.

- Your goal is to create a “need to know.”

- This part of the lesson should last approximately 3-5 minutes.

MIDDLE OF LESSON:

- Instructional activities and assessment align with stated objectives.

- Key concepts are explained and/or modeled

- Elements of effective instruction are evident – such as:

- opportunities for students to practice, process or participate

- planned transitioning

- application of learning/assessment

- procedures are developed in[…]”

END OF A LESSON:

- Clearly describe what you and the students will do to close the lesson.

- A well planned and executed lesson ending asks students to demonstrate their knowledge or skills in some new way and allows the teacher to assess student achievement of the lesson objectives.”

Writing Objectives

Effective teachers are purposeful–they begin planning with a clear idea of what they want students to know, be able to do, or feel. Teachers write objectives at different levels of generality–course, unit, and lesson. Objectives or outcomes provide focus and clarity to student learning and help to guide instructional practice. Carefully planning for student learning by writing clear and challenging objectives, however, should not limit spontaneity, constrain creativity, or restrict the teacher’s ability to adjust instruction based upon assessment of student learning.

Types of Objectives/Outcomes

Two main types of learning objectives or outcomes exist–behavioral objectives and descriptive objectives. Behavioral objectives state what is to be learned in language that specifies observable behavior. An example of a behavioral objective at the level of lesson would be:

Given a list, students will be able to list five problems of government under the Article of Confederation with 100% accuracy.

Descriptive objectives clearly describe what students are to learn without using language that specifies observable behavior. An example of a descriptive objective at the level of lesson would be:

By the end of the lesson, students will explain the problems of government under the Articles of Confederation.

Depending upon the nature of  the subject you teach, you may utilize both types of outcome statements to guide student learning and your teaching. However, descriptive objectives are most common and are the type we will use in CIA.

Objectives/Outcomes Across Domains of Learning

Although there are various ways to classify learning outcomes, one common way was developed by Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues (1956). Bloom classified learning outcomes into three types: cognitive (i.e., knowledge), psychomotor (i.e., skill), and affective (i.e., attitude). Typically, most K- 12 learning objectives are aimed at the cognitive and psychomotor domains.

Levels of Generality and Specificity

One of the challenges to writing clear and effective learning outcomes or objectives is selecting the appropriate level of generality or specificity. Course objectives are the most general statements of student learning; lesson objectives are the most specific; and unit objectives fall between the two extremes. It is important for teachers to be able to clearly and concisely express the outcomes of student learning at all three levels. The examples at the end of this handout illustrate these three levels.

Tips for Writing Effective Learning Objectives

Learning objectives/outcomes should. . .

1. Be clear, easy to understand, and unambiguous;

2. Guide the selection of content and pedagogy;

3. Be written for student learning, NOT teacher behavior;

4. Focus on the ends (i.e., goals), NOT the means (i.e., learning activities);

5. Promote learning across various domains (i.e., knowledge, skills, and attitudes);

6. Promote a range in levels of understanding and/or performance (e.g., higher-order thinking);

7. Be relevant to the local curriculum and/or state standards;

8. Be developmentally appropriate for the age and background of learners (e.g., both challenging and attainable); and

9. Utilize active verbs.

Examples of Clear Learning Objectives

Course Objective (Psychomotor)

By the end of grade three, students will. . .

become more proficient thinkers, careful writers, critical readers, and better able to discuss important and controversial issues.

Unit Objective (Affective)

By the end of the unit, students will. . .

appreciate the importance of citizen participation in a democracy.

Lesson Objective (Cognitive)

By the end of the lesson, students will. . .

compare and contrast authority and responsibility.

Blooms Revised Taxonomy

One useful tool the teachers commonly use to think about and classify learning objectives and questions is Bloom’s revised taxonomy.

Scroll through the brief sketch of the taxonomy below.

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Beginning/Middle/End of an Effective Lesson

Like a good burger, like a good movie, like a good basketball game, a good lesson…an effective lesson…has three main parts: Beginning, middle, and end.

And like a burger, a movie, and a basketball game, when you assemble all the right ingredients such as objectives, questioning approaches, and activities, you get an effective lesson.

So, to get us started, time travel again. How did your super-amazing/cool/effective teacher in elementary, middle, or high school start his or her lessons? With a thought-provoking question? Bell work? A brief introductory activity? Why was it successful? You may not have noticed at the time, but as you reflect upon it today, did those lessons include a distinctive beginning, middle, and end?

The Beginning

So, how do you start? What are your goals for the beginning?

• Get their attention

• Get them to put away their cell phones

• Get them to stop talking to their friends

• Get them motivated to learn

You need a solid beginning. Wasting time at the beginning of your lesson signals to the students that there is, indeed, time to waste. And, so they gladly help you waste it. Some of those time-wasters can be taking attendance or lunch count or handing out papers and other materials. You need a system to get those necessary tasks done efficiently and effectively without losing teaching time.

You also need some way of capturing student interest and focusing it on your learning objectives. All lesson plan models ask teachers to plan for a good beginning. Lesson introductions are also called “anticipatory sets” or the “lesson hook.”

Read Richard Curwin’s “Your Lesson’s First Five Minutes: Make them Grand” and watch the video below.

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The Middle

Once you’ve established that class has begun and you’ve gotten their attention, you’ll be moving into the heart of your lesson–where students approach the content in full force…through activities to help them learn. Some principles are listed below:

Variety is important within and across lessons. Kids do not want to do the same thing every day or spend the entire class doing one thing. Lesson middles should include a variety of strategies and activities.

Research-based Teaching strategies are valuable components of any lesson. We will discuss here more thoroughly in Module 8, but you should considering how to incorporate:

1. Identifying similarities and differences

2. Summarizing and note taking

3. Reinforcing effort and providing recognition

4. Homework and practice

5. Nonlinguistic representations

6. Cooperative learning

7. Setting objectives and providing feedback

8. Generating and testing hypothesis

9. Questions, cues, and advance organizers

Pacing can be an issue in the implementation of a lesson. The lesson can move too quickly or too slowly, and both can be equally problematic. Much like the fairy tale, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” the pacing needs to be just right.

Staying task-oriented and ensuring learning time are key to helping your students move through the lesson smoothly while addressing the objectives you’ve established for that lesson. And that includes managing time and keeping students focused. Check out the video below for helpful tips and examples.

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Transitions from one activity–or portion of an activity–to another can be another stumbling block in the middle of your lesson. It’s that transition time where students can waste time, get distracted with other things, or generally just not understand that time in a classroom is a valuable thing.

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And, finally, don’t overlook the power of your own enthusiasm. Students want to know that you’re excited about the lesson, and they’ll reflect the enthusiasm they see in you…and the tone of your voice…and your facial expressions and body language.

The End…Sort Of

The thing about meaningful lessons is that they usually have meaningful endings. But how do you accomplish such an ending? The best lesson endings ask the students to demonstrate their new knowledge or skills in some novel way. Just like lesson beginnings, there is no one correct way to end a lesson. Think about some of the more accomplished teachers that you’ve had through the years. How did they wrap things up? How did they actively engage students and check for understanding?

Some possibilities:

- Lead a brief discussion on key ideas

- Ask students to write two interesting, open-ended questions that could be answered from material in the lesson.

- Have students present the results or a project or activity

Check out a teacher’s description of the end of the lesson, which is also known as lesson closure.

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Questions

- What are some things you can do if you notice the pacing of your lesson is too fast and you’re going to end up with several minutes of idle time between the end of the lesson and the bell?

- What is one specific idea for beginning your future class? Why do you think it would be an effective way to start the class period?

7

Module 7: Teaching All Students

Guiding Questions for Module 7:

1. In what ways are students alike and in what ways are they are unique?

2. How do teachers effectively meet the needs of diverse learners in their classroom?

Differences That Make a Difference

You’re standing at the front of your first-ever classroom. Twenty-eight students are sitting in front of you, squirming, looking at their neighbors, giggling, jabbering about their summer. You begin taking roll, and you scan across the classroom. The boys seem to have the same hairstyle, and the girls seem to be wearing similar fashions. Your quick scan triggers the response, “They’re all the same.” You lump them together and begin class. Just as we’re likely to generalize about any group of individuals, we also often generalize about our students…until we get to know them and recognize them as individuals.

It’ll happen to you in the classroom. In a few days, you’re already seeing the differences. Some are talkative—eager to get to know you; others quietly sit at their desk and avoid eye contact. Some cluster together as best friends; others slip into their desks in solitary fashion.  You are making the first step in noticing your students’ differences. The next step is making them more comfortable as individuals by helping them realize differences are a good thing.

And, finally, you will make the major step of determining how to effectively use those differences to help each student get the most out of his or her learning experience in your classroom.

The teacher’s role in promoting a positive classroom environment is critical to effective teaching A student must feel safe and comfortable upon entering a classroom. The components in this domain address the “positive” atmosphere that challenges students to take responsibility for learning and behavior.

If you recall a favorite teacher of yours, at any level of learning, what do you remember most about this teacher? More than likely, you will remember the way the teacher treated you and your classmates with respect. As Danielson states, “all relationships between teacher and students, and among students, should be grounded in mutual respect and trust.”

Teachers who are “distinguished” in this domain have a classroom learning environment in which students are “responsible citizens” who take risks with learning, collaborate with others for meeting the goals of the lesson, and manage their individual behavior with ease. Respectful relationships are practiced the entire school day.  In order for a child to be ready to learn, the teacher must recognize and know as much as possible about each learner.

Teachers spend the first couple of weeks providing students with interest inventories, assessing levels of performance with core subjects, reviewing prior school records, and working closely with those teachers who are serving students with IEP plans. Anecdotal records are critical to the teacher’s success with every learner.

Why is age-appropriate instruction important to student achievement? Children come to a classroom with a wide variety of skills and attitudes. It is the teacher with the acumen to successfully navigate the students’ motivation to learn (intrinsic/extrinsic). How will you create a responsive classroom? How will you find out more about your students?

How will you match your instruction to the developmental, emotional, social, and intellectual needs of your students?

So, let’s begin…at the beginning.

- How are students alike?

- All students are human beings and, therefore, have feelings, needs, desires, dreams, and gifts.

- How do students differ?

- Gender

- Language

- Culture

- Exceptionalities

- Socio-Economic Status

- Military Connection

- Cognitive (Multiple Intelligences, Struggling Learners)

- Affective (Attitudes and Emotions)

- Sexual Orientation

- Physical (Psychomotor)

- Learning Styles

- At Risk

- Others?

Watch for these in your field experiences.

Read: Doubet, Kristina J., Jessica A. Hockett, and Catherine M. Brighton. “A Teaching Makeover Improves Learning for Diverse Learners.” Phi Delta Kappan 97, no. 5 (February 2016): 64–69.

As teachers, we MUST relate to ALL students and help ALL students learn.

We need to develop a new sense of perspective, one that is not limited to our own background and values and one that can shift to match each student’s life. We need to see that each student sees his or her life as “normal,” without making judgments. We need to find the “good” inside every students and build upon those gifts.

Culturally Responsive Teaching

Based on an extensive review of the research literature, Kenneth Zeichner (1992) has identified 12 key elements for effective teaching for ethnic- and language-minority students.

- Teachers have a clear sense of their own ethnic and cultural identities.

- Teachers communicate high expectations for the success of all students and a belief that all students can succeed.

- Teachers are personally committed to achieving equity for all students and believe that they are capable of making a difference in their students’ learning.

- Teachers have developed a bond with their students and cease seeing their students as “the other.”

- Schools provide an academically challenging curriculum that includes attention to the development of higher-level cognitive skills.

- Instruction focuses on students’ creation of meaning about content in an interactive and collaborative learning environment.

- Teachers help students see learning tasks as meaningful.

- Curricula include the contributions and perspectives of the different ethnocultural groups that comprise the society.

- Teachers provide a “scaffolding” that links the academically challenging curriculum to the cultural resources that students bring to school.

- Teachers explicitly teach students the culture of the school and seek to maintain students’ sense of ethnocultural pride and identity.

- Community members and parents or guardians are encouraged to become involved in students’ education and are given a significant voice in making important school decisions related to programs (such as resources and staffing).

- Teachers are involved in political struggles outside the classroom that are aimed at achieving a more just and humane society.

Marietta Saravia-Shore (2008) has developed an extensive list of general strategies for teaching culturally and ethnically diverse students. Major principles are provided below; to dig in deeper go to “Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners.”

Strategies for Teaching Culturally and Ethnically Diverse Students

- Maintain high standards and demonstrate high expectations for all ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse students.

- Show students you care by getting to know their individual needs and strengths and sharing their concerns, hopes, and dreams.

- Understand students’ home cultures to better comprehend their behavior in and out of the classroom.

- Encourage active participation of parents or guardians.

- Tap into students’ backgrounds to enhance learning.

- Choose culturally relevant curriculum and instructional materials that recognize, incorporate, and reflect students’ heritage and the contributions of various ethnic groups.

- Identify and dispel stereotypes.

- Create culturally compatible learning environments.

- Use cooperative learning strategies.

- Capitalize on students’ cultures, languages, and experiences.

- Integrate the arts intothe curriculum.

- Promote students’ health.

- Develop community ties and build community schools.

- Incorporate multiple forms of assessment.

- Establish truly bilingual classrooms.

- Embrace dual-language strategies.

- Use integrated, holistic approaches to language experiences for second-language learners instead of rote drill and practice.

- Teach language through subject matter rather than specific linguistic skill exercises.

- Adopt sheltered English strategies.

- Practice English in flexible, heterogeneous cooperative learning groups.

- Use cross-age and peer tutoring.

- Respect community language norms.

- Organize teaching around thematic, interdisciplinary units.

In addition to these specific principles, being a culturally responsive teacher requires that you truly care about each of your students.

Read: PEREZ, SAMUEL A. 2000. “An Ethic of Caring in Teaching Culturally Diverse Students.” Education 121 (1): 102.

Finally, check out a teacher’s perspective on culturally responsive teaching.

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A Note on Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

Race, ethnicity, and culture are three similar but distinct concepts.

Race is a term that used to describe the physical and transmitted features of a particular people. Most people define race, therefore, as a biological concept. Scientifically, the term has lost much of its power as human beings are genetically similar and scientists have discovered better ways of differentiating human beings (e.g., DNA). Socially and politically, however, racial classifications continue to influence people’s perceptions and behavior.

Ethnicity is a term used to describe the characteristics of a group. Most people define ethnicity as a sociological concept. Things like nationality, culture, language, and ancestry help people determine their ethnicity.

Culture refers to the shared and learned beliefs of people.

So, for teachers, it is important to get to know all students as individuals and not assume certain cultural characteristics based on race; our “race”does not determine our culture. And, as teachers we should also mine our curricula for opportunities to expose racial and other forms of injustice as examples of uninformed, old, and damaging thinking and behavior.

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8

Module 8: Research-Based Instructional Strategies

Guiding Questions for Module 8

1. What are research-based teaching strategies?

2. How do effective teachers think about teaching strategies?

3. How do effective teachers maximize the use of research-based teaching strategies?

Introduction

The act of teaching is a performing art. Like musicians or actors, teachers are always focused on their audience. We aim to engage, inspire, and inform. Like other performers, we know some of our techniques are more effective than others, and we consistently seek to hone our craft. A master violinist practices scales every day to improve her performance. In a similar way, a master teacher attempts to think of more interesting questions, meaningful examples, and useful feedback. The act of teaching is both art and science, imagination and skill.

The Universe of Effective Teaching Strategies

Scores of variations and combinations of teaching strategies exist from which teachers may choose. The best teachers are aware of the universe of teaching strategies and carefully select the right combination while teaching a particular subject to a particular group of students. Again, there is no “magic bullet” or perfect strategy, and all require a skillful, competent, artistic teacher to breath life into them. The first step, however, is understanding something about the universe that is available to you–the article below does just that.

Read: Beck, Charles R. “A Taxonomy for Identifying, Classifying and Interrelating Teaching Strategies.” The Journal of General Education JGE. 47, no. 1 (1998): 37-62.

Research-based Teaching Strategies

Researchers have studied teaching strategies for decades and we now have evidence of those strategies that seem to have greatest influence on academic achievement. Robert Marzano (2017) conducted a meta-analyses of education research on teaching strategies to see which strategies seemed most related to student academic achievement—at all levels and across all subjects. Interesting ideas.

Here are Marzano’s top nine teaching strategies in order of effect size (i.e., actual effect on student achievement):

1. Comparing, contrasting, classifying, analogies, and metaphors. (Effect size=1.61 or 45 percentile points)

2. Summarizing and note-taking. (Effect size=1.0 or 34 percentile points)

3. Reinforcing effort and giving praise . (Effect size=0.8 or 29 percentile points

4. Homework and practice . (Effect size=0.77 or 28 percentile points)

5. Nonlinguistic representation . (Effect size=0.75 or 27 percentile points)

6. Cooperative learning . (Effect size=0.74 or 27 percentile points)

7. Setting objectives and providing feedback . (Effect size=0.61 or 23 percentile points)

8. Generating and testing hypotheses . (Effect size=0.61 or 23 percentile points)

9. Cues, questions, and advanced organizers . (Effect size=0.59 or 22 percentile points)

Read: Hoover, Clara. 2006. “Research-Based Instructional Strategies.” School Library Monthly 22 (8): 26–28.

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Marzano’s strategies, however, are only as good as the teacher employing them. His list of “high-yield strategies” are popular throughout the United States; however, Marzano warns about their possible misuse.

Read: Marzano, Robert J. 2009. “Setting the Record Straight on ‘High-Yield’ Strategies.” Phi Delta Kappan 91 (1): 30–37.

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9

Module 9: Assessment and Classroom Management

Guiding Questions for Module 9

1. What key terms are associated with assessment and classroom management?

2. How do teachers assess student learning, mastery, and achievement?

3. How do teachers provide a safe, healthy, and productive learning environment?

4. What important principles will guide your assessment and classroom management decisions?

Introduction to Assessment

We begin with a brief history of assessment. . .

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Teachers seek basic answers about seemingly simple questions: To what extent have students mastered the lesson, unit, or course objectives? Yet, formulating a plan to answer those questions involves a series of complex decisions.

In this section we introduce you to the purposes, types, terms, and principles of assessment.  In the following section, you will learn about some basic assessment strategies.

Purposes of Assessment

In education, we assess for a variety of purposes. Here are some of the more important purposes of assessment:

1. Instructional Purposes

- To diagnose student learning prior to instruction

- Provide feedback to students

- Make decisions about the curriculum

- M ake decisions about instruction

- Set high expectations

2. Public Accountability State testing

3. Student Accountability Grading

4. Student Placement

Types of Assessments

Teachers choose from a variety of types of assessment.

1. Paper and Pencil Assessment (e.g., essay, multiple choice, short answer, fill in the blank, true/false, matching, rearranging, and ranking)

2. Performance Assessment (e.g., rubrics, checklists, rating sheets, notes, diaries, story completion and logs)

3. Portfolio Assessment

Classroom Level Assessment

Most teachers construct their own assessments–a challenging task.

Read: Fox, Dennis. 2000. “Classroom Assessment Data: Asking the Right Questions.” Leadership 30 (2): 22–23.

Principles of Assessment for Teachers

Finally, every teacher operates from some set of  principles that guide their assessment decisions. Years ago, I committed to paper the principles that guide my assessment decisions.

Dr. Vontz’s Principles of Assessment

1. Clearly explain to students how they will be assessed and the criteria that will be used.

2. Vary assessment strategies.

3. Assess students often.

4. Think of assessment as another learning opportunity for students.

5. Assessment should clearly align with objectives.

6. Assessment decisions should be made with individual students and classes in mind.

7. Set high standards for students.

8. Assess authentic tasks.

9. Help students to become proficient at self-assessment.

10. Do not test trivia!

Read: Gathercoal, Paul. 1995. “Principles of Assessment.” Clearing House 69 (September): 59–61.

Terms of Assessment

Teachers, like other professionals, use a particular language to describe various aspects of their work. Some of the most common terms associated with assessment are defined below.

1. Assessment. The process of finding out what students know and are able to do—the emphasis is on what is happening now (e.g., to what extent can students write the ABC’s correctly?).

2. Evaluation. The process of comparing what is with what ought to be, which normally involves a value judgment (e.g., can students write the ABC’s with no mistakes?).

3. Test. A systematic procedure for sampling some aspect of human behavior.

4. Measurement. The process of obtaining a numerical description of the extent to which an individual possesses some characteristic.

5. Norm-referenced Tests. The results of norm-referenced tests are used to compare one group of students with another group (e.g., Missouri students at grade eight compared to students across the United States at grade eight or I.Q. tests).

6. Criterion-referenced Tests. The results of criterion-referenced tests are used to evaluate the extent to which each student’s achievement has met some standard or criteria (e.g., 85% correct).

7. Formal Assessment. The formal techniques (e.g., paper and pencil tests, performance assessment, portfolios) teachers use to judge the extent to which students are achieving learning outcomes or objectives.

8. Informal Assessment. The informal techniques (e.g., observations, group discussion, questioning, individual conferences) teachers use on a daily basis to judge the extent to which students are achieving learning outcomes or objectives.

9. Formative Assessment. This type of assessment is conducted to diagnose learning difficulties and to plan instruction (e.g., a pre-test at the beginning of the year to assess student knowledge of early United States history).

10. Summative Assessment. This type of assessment is concerned with evaluating the extent to which students have achieved.

11. Authentic Assessment. Assessing students’ ability to perform real world or authentic tasks.

12. Scoring Rubric. A rating scale that describes student achievement in relation to some task.  Rubrics are used assess students and to clarify instruction.

Assessment Example

Read: Ende, Fred. 2014. “Every Assessment Tells a Story.” Science Scope 37 (5): 32–37.

Overview of Assessment Strategies

Let’s time travel again: What types of assessments do you recall in elementary, middle, and high school? College? What kinds did you like? What kinds did you find frustrating? What were some of the issues with assessments? Did you always try your best on every assessment? Some more than others? Why?

Back to the present…in your field experiences, notice the types of assessments your cooperating teachers use? To what levels of success?

Let’s examine some of the types of assessment that are available for you to use in your classroom:

No Assessment

Sometimes an activity or lesson does not merit assessment. Perhaps this is because it is connected to another activity that will be assessed, or perhaps it involves something that simply cannot be assessed.

Informal Teacher Observation

At the very least, teachers are always watching and attempting to gauge the extent to which students understand, are engaged, and so on. While these observations will not be reflected in the grade book, they will help shape the instruction and assessments to follow.

Credit/No Credit

Some assignments are not worthy of a critical assessment for quality, but some kind of value must be attached in order to get students to complete the work. Many teachers, therefore, assign credit/no credit status, and award a minimal number of points (e.g., five or ten) for the adequate completion of the assignment. It is usually necessary to provide some sort of standard for students to understand what is required to achieve “credit” (e.g., “show me you took the assignment seriously”).

Self Assessment

The practice of having students assess their own work. Often this is done before the work is submitted for more formal assessment by the teacher.

Holistic Scoring

Holistic scoring has received quite a bit of bad press of late, but it has long been the preferred method of scoring student writing. The instructor simply reads the work to be assessed, makes marginal comments as appropriate, writes a paragraph or so in support of the final grade, and then assigns a grade. Usually, this is a letter grade, as it is easier to rationalize how a paper can be a “B” as opposed to trying to explain what makes a paper an 86. This method is probably most appropriately used to score essay or short-answer portions of examinations.

Objective Tests

Traditional tests or quizzes using questions with answers that are right and answers that are wrong.

Analytic Scoring

Best applied to extended written work, speeches, projects, portfolios, and the like, this method involves creating a rubric based on the important qualities of the assignment. Each trait listed should include descriptors of various levels of performance so that products of different quality can be distinguished from one another. The six-trait, analytic scale is one example of this type of assessment.

Primary-Trait Scoring

Again best applied to extended works, this methods assesses student work on the basis of a single trait. For example, a poem might be scored on the basis of “voice,” or an employment application might be scored strictly on “mechanics.” This type of scoring helps to focus student attention on one quality, and it is effective for measuring the success of instruction in a particular area. Primary-trait scoring is not particularly useful in providing an overall assessment of student work.

Portfolios

A collection of student work, typically scored using a rubric. These collections can be cumulative (e.g., a writing folder containing all student work) or developmental (e.g., selected artifacts collected over time to show growth) or showcase (e.g., the students’ very best work). Typically a portfolio offers a balance of required and optional artifacts. The portfolio itself might be scored using an analytic scoring guide (rubric).

Standardized Tests

Formal tests developed by the government, commercial test makers, or local schools. These exams are used to compare students, teachers, schools, and states against one another; to assess the effectiveness of educational programs; and to plan curriculum and instruction to meet the needs of students. It is worth remembering that these tests provide another measure of the success of classroom activities.

Key Points on Assessment

- Know what you want to test/assess. Just because you’ve reached the end of a unit or a book or an activity doesn’t mean a certain assessment is required. Think about what you want your students to know or be able to do, and then make your assessment (and, of course, your teaching) directly link to that goal.

- Use assessment to see what your students understand. Assessment is a great tool to determine what your students are learning and what you may need to reteach.

- Use assessment to assess your teaching strengths and areas needing improvement. These assessments provide a view of how you’re doing as ateacher.

- Mix it up; don’t use the same type of assessment every time. (Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences should encourage you to give a variety of assessment types so your students have ample opportunities to showcase what they know in a way that takes advantage of their own abilities and strengths.) Allow your students options regarding the type of assessment they can use.

- Document that your content area standards are being covered.

- Don’t assess out of anger. Assessments are valuable, but don’t use them as a classroom management tool or for punishment. As teachers, we need to see assessments as valuable learning tools…so we need to implement them in such a manner, as well.

- Once your students have been assessed, then it’s time for you to grade those assessments and provide meaningful feedback so your students can progress.

Pitfalls of grading

- Not being consistent in what is considered “right” vs. “wrong,” or “good vs. bad.” Students need to know the benchmarks of quality work; show them examples, if possible, and thoroughly discuss your expectations.

- Putting grades in the grade book just to fill space. Quality  of assessments needs to be balanced with quantity of assessments. Students need multiple opportunities to show what they know, but those opportunities also need to be meaningful.

- Not grading in a timely fashion. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the responsibility of grading students’ work…and by the volume of grading required. However, students need to receive your feedback fairly soon after having completed the assessment so they will receive the most benefit from your feedback. And that leads us to…

- Not providing enough feedback. Smiley faces are nice, but your students need more details. Provide specific ideas on how they can improve and what they should work on for “next time.”

- Providing too much feedback. Let’s face it, a student who receives a paper that has been bloodied by a red pen isn’t going to be eager to share the next one with you. If a student struggles with an assessment, which should mean he or she is also struggling with your daily class work, provide a few areas that he or she can address, as well as ideas on how to improve in those areas. Don’t overwhelm your students by trying to “fix” everything at one time. Learning, like life, is a continual process.

Note on Designing Rubrics

Performance rubrics are commonly used across disciplines and subjects toclarify expectations and aid assessment. Like most things in teaching, there is an art to constructing a powerful rubric.  Watch the brief introduction below.

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Read: “TAME THE BEAST: TIPS FOR DESIGNING AND USING RUBRICS.” States News Service, January 18, 2012.

Note on Designing Multiple Choice Questions

Please consider the following excerpts from various essays regarding instrument item construction. We hope you find the short review helpful.

Question Format

A review of the literature suggests that the strongest format is one where the multiple-choice items are prepared as direct questions. This is in contrast to incomplete statements, or clusters of answers such as a and b, b and c, etc.

Lucy Jacobs (IU) offers suggestions for writing multiple-choice items that measure the higher thinking skills. Not all of these will be applicable for concepts such as the social contract, constitutionalism, or rights, but they may stimulate your thinking:

1. Present practical or real-world situations to the students. These problems may use short paragraphs describing a problem in a practical situation. Items can be written which call for the application of principles to the solution of these practical problems,or the evaluation of several alternative procedures.

2. Present the student with a diagram of equipment and ask for application, analysis, or evaluations, e.g., “What happens at point A if…?” or “How is A related to B?”

3. Present actual quotations taken from newspapers or other published sources or contrived quotations that could have come from such sources. Ask for the interpretation or evaluation of these quotations.

4. Use pictorial materials that require students to apply principles andconcepts.

5. Use charts, tables, or figures that require interpretation.

Multiple-Choice Item-Writing Checklist

Do make sure that:

CONTENT

- The item assesses important knowledge or skills.

- The question (or stem) presents a clearly formulated problem or question.

- There is only one right answer.

- The “distracters” should be plausible and free of clues that might help students easily eliminate one or more of the incorrect choices.

- The wording of the item clearly conveys the intent of the item and does not present obstacles to the students’ ability to demonstrate what they know.

LANGUAGE

- Use simple, basic vocabulary.

- Make sure sentence structure in the item is simple—avoid passive voice.

- The item should include only the information needed to answer the question or complete the task.

- Avoid idiomatic language and terms.

STRUCTURE

- The answer choices should be as brief and simple as possible.

- Always state items and questions in positive terms. Avoid using “negatives” in both the item stem and answer choices.

- All answer choices must be approximately the same in length.

- All answer choices should be similar in complexity and detail. (Avoid making the correct answer overly attractive.)

- Make sure all answer choices are grammatically parallel.

- Verify all answer choices are grammatically consistent with the stem of the item.

- Never use “all of the above” and “none of the above” as answer choices.

BIAS/SENSITIVITY ISSUES

- The item should provide all students with a fair opportunity to demonstrate what they know, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, disability, socioeconomic status, or the region in which they live.

- The subject, issue, or theme addressed by the item should not demean or offend.

How To Improve a Multiple Choice Item

ORIGINAL

1. Freedom of speech does not protect a person who

1. criticizes the mayor in a public meeting.

2. slanders another person publicly.

3. wishes to speak against the government.

4. demonstrates against tax increases.

IMPROVED

1. Freedom of speech protects all of the following EXCEPT

1. criticizing the mayor in a public meeting.

2. slandering another person publicly.

3. wishing to speak against the government.

4. demonstrating against tax increases.

ORIGINAL

1. Which one of the following states is not located north of the Mason-Dixon line?

1. Maine

2. New York

3. Pennsylvania

4. Virginia

IMPROVED

1. Which one of the following states is located south of the Mason-Dixon line?

1. Maine

2. New York

3. Pennsylvania

4. Virginia

ORIGINAL

1. Which is not a safe driving practice on icy roads?

1. accelerating slowly

2. jammed on the brakes

3. hold the wheel firmly

4. slowly decelerating

IMPROVED

1. All are safe driving practices on icy roads EXCEPT

1. accelerating slowly

2. jamming on the brakes

3. holding the wheel firmly

4. slowing down gradually

ORIGINAL

1. What is the major purpose of the United Nations?

1. to maintain peace among the peoples of the world

2. to establish international law

3. to provide military control

4. to form new governments

IMPROVED

1. What is the major purpose of the United Nations?

1. to maintain peace among the peoples of the world

2. to develop a new system of international law

3. to provide military control of nations that have recently attained their independence

4. to establish and maintain democratic forms of government in newly formed nations

Writing Stems

We will first describe some basic rules for the construction of multiple-choice stems, because they are typically, though not necessarily, written before the options.

1.      Before writing the stem, identify the one point to be tested by that item. In general, the stem should not pose more than one problem, although the solution to that problem may require more than one step.

2.      Construct the stem to be either an incomplete statement or a direct question, avoiding stereotyped phraseology, as rote responses are usually based on verbal stereotypes. For example, the following stems (with answers in parentheses) illustrate undesirable phraseology:

What is the biological theory of recapitulation? (Ontogeny repeats phylogeny)

Who was the chief spokesman for the “American System”? (Henry Clay)

Correctly answering these questions likely depends less on understanding than on recognizing familiar phraseology.

3.      Avoid including nonfunctional words that do not contribute to the basis for choosing among the options. Often an introductory statement is included to enhance the appropriateness or significance of an item but does not affect the meaning of the problem in the item. Generally, such superfluous phrases should be excluded. For example, consider:

The American flag has three colors. One of them is (1) red (2) green (3) black

Versus

One of the colors of the American flag is (1) red (2) green (3) black

In particular, irrelevant material should not be used to make the answer less obvious. This tends to place too much importance on reading comprehension as a determiner of the correct option.

4.      Include as much information in the stem and as little in the options as possible. For example, if the point of an item were to associate a term with its definition, the preferred format would be to present the definition in the stem and several terms as options, rather than to present the term in the stem and several definitions as options.

5.      Restrict the use of negatives in the stem. Negatives in the stem usually require that the answer be a false statement. Because students are likely in the habit of searching for true statements, this may introduce an unwanted bias.

6.      Avoid irrelevant clues to the correct option. Grammatical construction, for example, may lead students to reject options, which are grammatically incorrect as the stem is stated. Perhaps more common and subtle, though, is the problem of common elements in the stem and in the answer. Consider the following item:

What led to the formation of the States’ Rights Party?

1. The level of federal taxation

2. The demand of states for the right to make their own laws

3. The industrialization of the South

4. The corruption of federal legislators on the issue of state taxation

One does not need to know U.S. history in order to be attracted to the answer, b. Other rules we might list are generally commonsense, including recommendations for independent and important items and prohibitions against complex, imprecise wording.

Writing Options

Following the construction of the item stem, the likely more difficult task of generating options presents itself. The rules we list below are not likely to simplify this task as much as they are intended to guide our creative efforts.

1. Be satisfied with three or four well-constructed options. Generally, the minimal improvement to the item due to that hard- to-come-by fifth option is not worth the effort to construct it. Indeed, all else the same, a test of 10 items each with four options is likely a better test than a test with nine items of five options each.

2. Construct distracters that are comparable in length, complexity, and grammatical form to the answer, avoiding the use of such words as “always,” “never,” and “all.” Adherence to this rule avoids some of the more common sources of biased cueing. For example, we sometimes find ourselves increasing the length and specificity of the answer (relative to distracters) in order to insure its truthfulness. This, however, becomes an easy-to-spot clue for the test-wise student. Related to this issue is the question of whether or not test writers should take advantage of these types of cues to construct more tempting distracters. Surely not! The number of students choosing a distracter should depend only on deficits in the content area which the item targets and should not depend on cue biases or reading comprehension differences in “favor” of the distracter.

3. Options which read “none of the above,” “both a. and e. above,” “all of the above,” or “etc.” should be avoided when the students have been instructed to choose “the best answer,” which implies that the options vary in degree of correctness. On the other hand, “none of the above” is acceptable if the question is factual and is probably desirable if computation yields the answer. “All of the above” is never desirable, as one recognized distracter eliminates it and two recognized answers identify it.

4. After the options are written, vary the location of the answer on as random a basis as possible. A convenient method is to flip two (or three) coins at a time where each possible Head-Tail combination is associated with a particular location for the answer. Furthermore, if the test writer is conscientious enough to randomize the answer locations, students should be informed that the locations are randomized. (Test-wise students know that for some instructors the first option is rarely the answer.)

Excerpted (with permission) from an essay by Jerard Kehoe Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

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Classroom Management

One third of all teachers leave the profession in the first three years, and nearly half of teachers leave after five years. These statistics are alarming. Of course, a variety of factors contribute to a person’s decision to leave teaching. One of the most common reasons former teachers provide, however, is problems with classroom management and student discipline. Every day, teachers make scores (a fancy word for 20) of decisions that will impact student learning, behavior, and the environment they are creating with their students. This chapter aims to provide you with some initial insights that will grow with additional experience and practice.

Introduction to Classroom Management

Like other aspects of a teacher’s job, classroom management is complex. There is no script to follow, and many of the most important classroom management decisions arise in the context of actually teaching—there isn’t time to carefully and critically reflect. You cannot ask the students for a timeout so you can consult a textbook, a colleague, or a principal about what to do or say. Being a successful classroom manager requires practical wisdom—doing the right things, for good reasons, in the best ways. This section is an introduction to ideas that you will spend a career refining.

The Goal of Classroom Management

The goal of classroom management is to create, with your students, a safe, healthy, and positive learning environment. Every classroom has a climate, a culture, a “feeling tone.” How would you like your students to describe your classroom? Most teachers would hope their students would say things like: focused, engaged, challenging, fun.

For Starters

Much of what constitutes effective classroom management happens before the school year or semester ever begins. Effective classroom managers are proactive; they tend to think of solutions to problems before they happen. Here are a few general classroom management considerations teachers should resolve before they ever meet their students.

Rules

What rules will govern your classroom? Who will create them? How will they be communicated to students? What happens if a rule is broken? As you might imagine, answers to these questions vary widely among teachers. Based on our experience, we offer a few tips about creating rules:

•   Keep them simple and general.

•   Avoid attempting to create a rule for every way a student might misbehave.

•   Provide clear examples ad non-examples Example: Respect me, respect yourself, and respect each other.

Policies

What will be your policy for late work, going to the bathroom, food or drink in class, tardies, plagiarism, cell phones, academic honesty, or forgetting materials? Effective teachers have carefully considered and answered these questions before class ever begins.

Example: 10% is deducted from late assignments for every day an assignment is late, up to a maximum of five school days, at which time the assignment becomes a zero.

Rewards and Punishments

Incentives and consequences are often a part of a teacher’s classroom management program. Although students should be motivated in other ways, what might be some appropriate rewards or punishments in your class?

Example: At the end of the semester, I will add 2% extra credit to your overall grade. I will deduct .5% for every time you 1) use the bathroom,  2) come to class unprepared, 3) come late to class, 4) leave trash in your desk.

Procedures

The classroom is a dynamic place. What procedures will you use to accomplish routine tasks? Read Harry Wong, Rosemary Wong, Karen Rogers, and Amanda Brooks’s Managing Your Classroom for Success. Consider what procedures you will use for:

• Entering the classroom

• Tardiness

• Dismissal

• Quiet work time

• Attention-getting signal

• Calling on students

• Asking for help

• Make-up work

• Turning in papers

• Returning papers

• Leaving your seat

• Leaving the room

• Time when work is complete

• School announcements

• Visitors in the classroom

• Watching videos

• Lunch (if applicable)

• Grading, tests, extra credit

Read: Wong, Harry, Rosemary Wong, Karen Rogers, and Amanda Brooks. 2012. “Managing Your Classroom for Success.” Science & Children 49 (9): 60–64.

Tips for Promoting a Positive Classroom

Read Sprick, Randy, and K. Daniels. 2010. “Managing Student Behavior.” Principal Leadership 11 (1): 18–21.

Compare their tips to those created by Tom Vontz years ago. How are these tips alike, and how are they different?

Vontz’s Tips for Classroom Management

- CLARIFY EXPECTATIONS AND VISION AND SUPPORT WITH SPECIFIC EXAMPLES AND NON-EXAMPLES.

- JUSTIFY YOUR CONCEPTION; PROVIDE A RATIONALE.

- KEEP EXPECTATIONS AND VISION SIMPLE.

- YOU CANNOT CONTROL STUDENT BEHAVIOR.

- ACCEPT THAT THERE ARE BETTER AND WORSE WAYS OF RESPONDING TO STUDENT BEHAVIOR.

- CONSISTENTLY MONITOR STUDENT BEHAVIOR AND ADHERE TO YOUR VISION—USE ACUMEN.

- GET TO KNOW EACH STUDENT WELL—ESTABLISH TRUST.

- STUDENTS SHOULD SHARE SOME DEGREE OF POWER AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR LEARNING AND BEHAVIOR.

- STUDENT TALKING/CHATTER.

- HAVE A GENERAL PLAN.

- THINK OF PARENTS AS IMPORTANT PARTNERS IN THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILD; THINK ABOUT WHEN THEY MIGHT APPRECIATE A PHONE CALL.

- DON’T TAKE YOURSELF OR YOUR CLASSROOM TOO SERIOUSLY.

- REMEMBER THE THREE C’S OF CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT: CLARITY, CONSISTENCY, AND CALMNESS.

The Don’ts of Classroom Management and Discipline

Read: Spitalli, Samuel J. 2005. “The Don’ts of Student Discipline.” Education Digest 70 (5): 28–31.

Classroom Management Strategies

First and foremost, classroom management is not synonymous with discipline, though people often lump them together in the same educational discussions. Indeed, they are related, but we need to understand that the link is cause and effect. Good classroom management means less discipline is required. And less discipline means fewer headaches for you, the classroom teacher, and fewer issues for your administrators to deal with, as well.

As you visit classrooms, or remember your own classroom experiences as a student, what types of behavior issues have you observed? Could some classroom management strategies have eliminated…or, at least, reduced…some of the issues?

Read: 5 Quick Classroom-Management Tips for Novice Teachers

As you gain experience in the classroom, you’ll also become much better at foreseeing what types of behavior issues could appear, based on the type of activity they’re participating in, possibilities of where discussions might lead, and even environmental issues such as a snowstorm headed to your area or the excitement of spring break approaching. All of these require a savviness in the classroom so you can be prepared for all the possibilities.

And with your growing experiences in classroom management, you will have a sense of missteps you might be able to avoid. As one administrator told me early on in my first year of teaching, “You’ll know where that train is headed before it even leaves the station.”

So, in addition to general advice, what tricks work for teachers? Watch the popular video on Classroom Management “Hacks” below.

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Specific problems often require specific solutions.

Read and watch: Classroom Management Strategies & Techniques.

And, finally, always consider the following:

•  Set the tone of your classroom early on.

•  Keep rules simple.

•  Good classroom management means much less need for discipline and much more time for learning.

•  Never respond when you’re angry.

•  Never touch a student, especially if you’re angry.

•  Always remember that the student in front of you is someone’s child and is deserving of respect.

Unfortunately, we, and that includes students and teachers, never respond as well as we would like in all classroom situations. To use one of my daughter’s theater references, each day you “End Scene.” Every day is a new day, where you need to give your students and yourself a clean slate, even after a difficult situation. People—young and old alike—make mistakes; allow yourself and your students to move on with an opportunity for a new, successful day.

Elementary Case Studies

Case #1

Cindy is a very mature 12-year-old sixth-grade student. She is intelligent, and good grades come easily to her. She is the youngest child in the family and is still referred to as the baby. If Cindy does not get her way at school, she sulks and has been known to blurt out obscenities. Her parents are very religious and would not condone such behavior. They feel that some mistake must have been made, since Cindy told them she hasn’t done anything wrong.

What do you do?

Case #2

Shawna is in third grade. She is 9 years old, very pretty, extremely conscientious, and works hard on any assignments. Shawna is an overachiever. On recent group achievement tests, Shawna’s scores were average. Her parents were outraged and insisted she be tested again. Subsequent tests revealed the same results. The parents began putting pressure on Shawna to work harder.

What do you do?

Secondary Case Studies

Case #1

A young teacher is worried about the exuberant affection a junior boy shows toward her. He occasionally puts his arm around her or slaps her on the back when he sees her. The student comes from a large family where much affection is shown, so the teacher feels hesitant about telling the boy how she feels.

What do you do?

Case #2

A group of students frequently talk quietly during instruction. You have asked them to be quiet and warned them not to talk when you are talking, yet they continue. You decide your best option is to split them up. When you ask the first student to change seats, Steve refuses and asks why you are picking on him.

What do you do?

10

Module 10: Curriculum Mini-Unit

Guiding Questions for Module 10:

1. How does my curriculum unit represent my ideas about curriculum, instruction, and assessment?

CIA Mini-Units

“Teachers are designers. An essential act of our profession is the design of curriculum and learning experiences to meet specified purposes. . . Like other design professions, such as architecture, engineering, or graphic arts, designers in education must be mindful of their audiences [e.g., children, parents, administrators]. . . We are not free to teach any topic we choose. Rather, we are guided by national, state, district, or institutional standards that specify what students should know and be able to do. . . In addition to external standards, we also consider the needs of our students when designing learning experiences.”

–Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Understanding by Design

Overview

Effective teaching is rarely accidental. Most often, effective teaching is the result of the thoughtful execution of a well-crafted plan—one that carefully considers the needs of the students, clearly addresses standards, and is consistent with educational theory and practice. Designing meaningful, relevant, engaging, and coherent learning experiences for children is one of the most important aspects of effective teaching. As in other professions, the first few times you do something are often the most difficult; but they also provide the foundation from which you will grow as a curriculum planner. For this assignment, you have the opportunity to design a unit of instruction—one that is reflective of your emerging beliefs about teaching, learning, and students. While this assignment represents a considerable challenge for most students, it is also an opportunity to synthesize, deepen, and refine your thinking about curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

As a culminating activity for the course, your curriculum projects should illustrate your thinking about teaching, learning, students, and your subject area. This assignment helps you to synthesize knowledge, skills, and dispositions learned throughout the course and will help you to further develop a framework from which you can make sound teaching judgments.

Assignment

Working individually, you will be responsible to write three-lesson “mini-unit” on some theme, topic, or question that you will be responsible for teaching. You may want to integrate content from other subject areas to enrich your unit. All projects should include the following:

(1)    Title. (5 points)

(2)    Overview. Overview include demographic information about students, subject, grade level and school as well as a general description of the unit. (10 points)

(3)   Rationale.  Rationale should clearly explain your thinking about the unit. Why is this unit important in the development of elementary or secondary students? What factors helped you decide on content and learning activities? How is your unit consistent with your beliefs about teaching and learning? (35 points)

(4)    Annotated List ofUnit Resources. List of resources should clearly describe unique resources used for the unit and why they were selected. (15 points)

(5)    Central Question/Statement. This question or statement should be the focus of the entire mini-unit. (20 points)

(6)    Lesson Plans. Lesson plans should be written at a level that another teacher could use them to teach from. Your lesson plans should adhere to the guidelines presented in class (50 points)

(7)    Assessment Tool/Evaluation. Your curriculum projects should include one assessment tool you intend to use during the unit. You should create this tool (15 points)

It’s Your Unit

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11

Bonus Module: Legal Issues in Teaching

Guiding Questions for Bonus Module

1. What are the sources of laws, policies, and regulations that govern public schools and teachers?

Introduction

Teachers and students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression (or other constitutional rights) at the schoolhouse gate.” Most of the laws, policies, and regulations that apply in your everyday life also apply in your role as a teacher. The school, however, is a special place with a unique mission. So, the law protects and limits teachers and students— especially in public schools—a little differently. In this chapter, you will learn about the sources of education law, common legal issues that teachers confront, and a few Supreme Court cases that exemplify legal reasoning in the public schools.

Legal Issues in Teaching

Teachers, like other people, are governed by a variety of laws, policies, and regulations. In this chapter, we want to become familiar with the ways in which the law regulates and protects you as a teacher.

Preliminary Issues

The sources and issues of education law differ for teachers at public and private schools. Our constitutions—both federal and state—are designed to limit and and empower the government. In a public school, a teacher is considered an actor of the government. As a government actor, the federal and state constitutions apply to you. So, for example, a public school teacher is constitutionally prohibited from inviting a student to attend church (that would be a violation of  the Establishment  Clause of the First Amendment); a private school teacher is not.

Another preliminary note important for teachers to consider is that law not only limits and regulates your actions as a teacher, it also protects and empowers you as a teacher.

Teachers retain their rights as citizens in a public school environment, but those rights are altered. Public school teachers enjoy, for example, the right to freedom of expression, but they cannot promote a personal political agenda in the classroom. Teachers also enjoy freedom of association,privacy, and a limited right to academic freedom.

Finally, teachers not only need to be aware of how the law affects them, they also need to know how the law impacts their students.

Sources of Education Law

The article below is a great place to start exploring the laws, regulations, and policies that govern you as a teacher.

Read: Stader, DavidL., ThomasJ. Graca, and DavidW. Stevens. 2010. “Teachers and the Law: Evolving Legal Issues.” Clearing House 83 (3): 73–75.

- Federal and State Constitutional Law

- Federal and State Statutory Law

- Federal and State Regulations

- School Board Policy

- Case Law

Common Legal Issues for Teachers

The article below describes the most common legal issues that teachers confront and those that should be a part of teacher preparation.

Read: Eckes, Suzanne E. 2008. “Significant Legal Issues for Inclusion in Preservice Teacher Preparation.” Action in Teacher Education (Association of Teacher Educators) 30 (2): 25–35.

- Student Issues

- Student Expression

- Religion in the Schools

- Employment Issues

- Teacher Dismissal

- Teacher Expression

- Employment Discrimination

- Collective Bargaining

- Other Legal Issues

- Special Education

- Teacher Liability

- Harassment/Abuse

- Student Discipline

- Instructional Issues

Common Legal Issues for Teachers

Read: Umpstead, Regina, Matthew Militello, and Suzanne E. Eckes. “Legal Literacy: Tools to Avoid Litigation in Your School.” Principal Leadership 16, no. 6 (02, 2016): 56-58.

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Bong Hits 4 Jesus: An Example Case

Read: Zirkel, Perry A. 2007. “Bong Hits?” Phi Delta Kappan 89 (2): 158–59.

Do you agree or disagree with the Court’s ruling?

Your Turn

T.L.O. was a high school student. School officials searched her purse suspecting she had cigarettes. The officials discovered cigarettes in the outside pocket of her backpack. They continued to search and found a small amount of marijuana, and a list containing the names of students who owed T.L.O. money. T.L.O. was charged with possession of marijuana.

Was the search consistent with the Constitution?

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