IH Latin Good stuff in the Middle

Professional Learning Community-My PLC

2012-01-21T16:29:00.000-08:00

Been working with my PLC, and realizing just how good I've got it. We are a group of four Latin teachers: Sherwin Little, Melissa Burgess and K.C. Kless (we call ourselves "Smack", an acronym from our first names, and have the belief that "Latin teachers rule the world." Then there are our Latin-in-laws, the Latin teachers that we are connected to by student-teaching, marriage, and long-term cooperation.

But let's go beyond the obvious (The American Classical League, Junior Classical League, CAMWS). If one was to draw a sociogram of the connection among Latin teachers in Cincinnati, extend it to Ohio, then to the U.S. it would be quite a web. Latin teachers are notorious early-adopters of techniques and technology, we share materials and ideas without shame, and know how to badger each other into friendly competition (because we know that together our students ARE going to rule the world, so we'd better make them the best out there.)

So if you're taking Latin, you should know, you have 10,000 teachers holding you up!

If you're a Latin teacher-just interested-check out #Latchat on twitter, go to the latintutorial.com and http://www.youtube.com/user/MAGraves100. Just a few examples of the people doing it the big PLC way.

Latin is tough, but it helps you take off!

2011-11-13T15:56:00.000-08:00

How to get students to stick with Latin after takeoff: that's the challenge. Sure, getting the plane ready and celebrating the flying of the banner is so exciting, but then you have to settle in for the flight and achieve the cruising altitude. That's not easy and some students bail out.

What will help students know that there really is a cruising altitude and a destination ahead?

1. Sharing the itinerary in terms they can understand.

2. Letting them hear from people who have made the trip before.

3. Showing them highlights from the journey-pictures, awards, goals achieved.

We need our students to not only cheer the takeoff but enjoy the flight. Let's be good pilots.

(All seat backs in an upright position . . . )

Great Parents!

2011-11-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

Having connected with parents of 29 students in the last two days, and 44 over the last three conference days, I am overcome with awe for the wonderful people who parent my students! I've met with close to half of the students' parents, which is just amazing.

I'm lucky enough to have parents who want to meet with me and hear about students' strengths, what they can do to accentuate them, and if there are needs to be met, how we can work as a team to achieve their goals.

Some of the parents who are guiding me now:

1. The parent who said: we know that there is a lot of pressure to be one kind of parent and go for one goal, here is our goal . . . . (I can team with these parents to focus on the same goal that they are using at home!)

2. Here is what you really need to know about my child. . . (he/she) has a specific strength (X) but is struggling in class to use that in tasks that are presented. (Now I can capitalize on the skill and help the child use that enormous ability to process more complex tasks).

3. Mr./Ms. Great Teacher is the one that he/she learned best from and is held as an ultimate educator to my child. (I've observed this teacher before to learn, and I can go back for a refresher to see what they do and use the same techniques for success in my classroom! Heard this about multiple teachers, so I have some visits to make!)

4. What you are calling "lack of motivation" I call "lazy", let's talk about what to do. (Now I know the parent's definition and can set a clear path to the activity that we both call motivation and activity!)

5. Thank you for seeing it as creativity and "getting" the student and not seeing it as misbehavior. (Reinforces my belief in observing the child and his/her actions in context).

6. That is not what I see in other situations, why do you think s/he's doing that in this situation? (Makes me reflect upon how I'm eliciting the response, and how to bring about the deeper thinking that I expect from the student).

All the comments have a theme: These parents know their children and know how to communicate to me what's important. Yes, I have a lot of things to address and change in the next few weeks, but how nice to know the target!

Losing WordChamp?

2011-10-14T17:09:00.000-07:00

WordChamp, the mechanism that makes our lives as 2.0 teachers tick, may be going away. Why? Well, here is the banner on the site: "WordChamp is currently looking for a strategic business partner. We would like to find a way to keep this great website going but if we are unable to find a strategic partner by December 31, 2011, WordChamp will cease operations at that time. We are extremely grateful to all of the teachers and students that have been loyal users and hope the experience with WordChamp has been beneficial. Thank you, and good luck with your language studies!"

We've tried numerous times to reach them-GlobaLinguist is the backing company who started this treasure of language learning. Fred Egan is the chairman of GlobaLinguist and he oversaw the creation of a marvelous platform in which we educators found the best way to direct our students, give them feedback and coach them into becoming lifelong learners. Unfortunately, we cannot even get a response from the company to see what it would take to continue using this valuable tool.

In the meantime, we are exploring StudyBlue, Ediscio and other sites looking for something that can even come close (nothing does).

Daniel Blumenthal seems to be the brains behind the WordChamp, with several patents to his credit. Perhaps we'll see his genius used for good before we lose WordChamp.

Art in the Middle

2011-10-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

John Humphries, an artist and art instructor from Miami University spent an hour with 7^th and 8^th grade Indian Hill Latin students on Tuesday (October 4^th). Cate Yellig, art director with the Phyll is Weston Gallery was instrumental in helping forge a connection between Indian Hill and Mr. Humphries, whose work is displayed at the gallery.

With a background in architecture and a love of the classics, especially mythology, Mr. Humphries combines the ideas of classical architecture and a reflective process of using pencil and watercolor to create unexpectedly polished perspectives.

With the students, Mr. Humphries began by passing around his own work, encouraging them to handle it, give comments, reflect and have conversations with him about how a piece began and evolved. Though a bit timid at first, the students soon were inspired by the creative motivation to just jump in and begin exploring the new art. Since he recently returned from a summer in Italy, many of his works evoke the landscape and color of the countryside, and he brought pieces of clay from Sienna and umber from Umbria for the students to use themselves.

a view of Umbria

With a demonstration of how pencil can act as a control for the sometimes unpredictable medium of watercolor, Mr. Humphries showed the students how the freedom of beginning a work with simple lines can evoke a picture in the mind and begin to emerge through trial and error on the paper. As he showed students the gentle gradations of color, he described the myth of Pelops, incorporating the idea of merging the technical with organic matter.

The students eagerly gathered the supplies and sat down to begin with just a few lines and a single color on their watercolor paper. Each line began or finalized an idea and the students fell into their work vigorously. Some students carefully waited for sections to dry so that they could darken them with more layers of pigment, others created beads of color and dragged them to get different effects. Soon, they began trading colors, one at a time, to adjacent students and the combinations added depth and dimension to their work. As he moved about the room offering suggestions, Mr. Humphries elicited questions about how a student was going to proceed, what had worked, how they had worked around lines and brushes that didn’t quite meet their expectation. Finally, the students used a long accordion-folded watercolor paper to create a collaborative work in which they each contributed, then added, extended and responded to the work of other students.

As they were cleaning up their areas, the students paused to give a round of applause and say thank you to John Humphries for showing them an artful approach to collaborative problem solving in the 21^st century that has its roots in the creative mythology of the ancient Romans and Greeks.

Elmo

2011-08-31T17:32:00.001-07:00

I have a new document camera-an elmo-thanks to my PTO and my principal Kim Miller. I knew I would like it, but after one day, I'm loving it! Switching back and forth between the computer display and the document is easy, and this allows students to bring their work up for display and participation in seconds. Looking forward to a nice year with elmo and watching other teachers as they use their in the classrooms!

Tech Learning

2011-08-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

Students Charting their own Progress

2011-08-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

I'm taking the Summer Tech Tune up class with the fabulous Mark Richardson, and have made a few great discoveries that are going to help students chart their own progress in Latin class this year.

1st, excel now has a quick graph feature that gives selected cells in a graph. So if a student has a template and is recording progress on vocabulary mastery from a pre-test to 1st formative assessment to 2nd assessment, they can see something like this:

The student can clearly see improvement over time (this is a best-case-scenario graph). But have they made the connection between the activities and practice and their improvement? That's what I want to know.

The final step needs to be reflection from the student that helps make the cause and effect crystal clear to them (and me).

So, by responding to some quick questions in a google form will give me the information that I need.

Closing the loop with feedback and getting improved results. That would be nice!

Multitasking Teachers

2011-07-19T12:48:00.001-07:00

The Multitasking Teacher-it's not just the students doing it!

Sorry, what did you say? I was trying to submit attendance while you asked when the assembly begins. In order to be a good teacher I have to slow time and demands down so that I can give attention to doing a good job-it saves time in the end.

Like many teachers, I operate under the assumption that I can do many things at once: monitor students in the hall, take attendance, begin a class warm-up, give students returning from absence their make-up work and answer a question from another student about last-night's homework. Whoops-there's an announcement, 4 students were just called to pick up items in the office at the next class change. Where was I?

While there ARE things that I can do in combination such as record attendance and return papers, there are many things that just cannot be done well if not given enough attention. Routines in the classroom alleviate many of the multitasking issues for me, so that students know when the right time is to confirm make-up work (at the end of the 1st 10 minute chunk when I can answer you individually), when the right time for questions about homework is (second 5 minutes when I'm asking for feedback and questions so that we can all benefit from the answer). Students new to my class in 7th grade take about three weeks to learn the routine, so I find myself saying "Patientia" quite a bit.

Students can learn patience and increase their attention to the task at hand. I've had a few students so accustomed to getting the answer on the spot, having the teacher jump to meet needs immediately, that they will actually follow on my heels repeating the question after I've indicated that I've heard them and will be responding at the appropriate time! Luckily, the neediness for them to be able to "click" on me to get an answer wanes and the trust that the appropriate time will present itself grows. The students slow down the demands and I can focus on each element of my class completely. Happily, when I do slow down, the students relax too and everyone seems to feel more satisfied with the result.

What are some routines that you hope to establish this year so that you don't feel pulled in six directions at once? How do you help students establish their own routines that build their confidence and increase their attention on the task at hand?

Brain Rules

2011-07-09T11:59:00.001-07:00

Brain Rules by John Medina is my current obsession. With a simple set of rules and the neuroscience to back it up, he presents the best ways to learn, the complications that we face in learning and some solutions that make perfect sense given the direction that we need to head in education.

This point, about recognition of vocabulary, in particular attracts my attention as a Latin teacher. I've sung the attributes of Wordchamp, but Brain Rules shows not only why it works but how to make it even better-something that is a constant challenge. We know that when students practice new vocabulary with a picture they hold onto the knowledge longer-but how do we increase the power of the connection and make sure that no matter the context, the learning is maintained? Well, the research here says that one of the options we should be making more use of is showing the picture, and saying the word aloud WITHOUT the text below the picture. Not every time, but definitely at certain times in the learning process. Why? The visual interpretation of the writing of the word can create interference-we can get a stronger, more direct connection by using the picture/sound combo especially if it's got a good emotional trigger.

More cards like this:

So how should I apply this? I have stacks of hundreds of vocabulary "cards" in wordchamp, and I need to examine them to make sure the picture is on the right mark, and also make copies of the sets WITHOUT the text, and assign the students the task of viewing/listening (which is easily done in wordchamp). After they hit okay, the student hears a voice say the correct word.

Next, attention and multitasking.

December solutions

2010-12-18T13:10:00.000-08:00

Formative assessments are good. Lots of feedback on who knows what when.

Issue: Students needing to take and re-take quizzes and assessments to show mastery as it happens-they get lots of feedback and want to DO something to improve!

Solution: Google docs form that lets students sign up for what they are ready to do and when. Can't take credit for the idea, it was K.C. who came up with it. We put a button on our blackboard page with "quiz/test scheduler" that takes them to the form. They fill it out, it notifies us in email and then we can get a list and get things done in an orderly fashion.
It has been pretty miraculous. When you have multiple preps and students at different checkpoints, this is the way to individualize and at the same time puts the student in the driver's seat. On the form, they must indicate what they've done to prepare for the evaluation and also the date and time that they will complete it. So I can have a file with the materials ready at the right place and time and then grade it while they are sitting right there so they get the immediate gratification. Also, they watch while I plug it in to the grade book and they see how the new score changes their grade (or not) and we can set new goals, too.

Sure beats the mayhem of before!

November hodge-podge

2010-11-24T17:18:00.000-08:00

November is an interesting month. The end of a quarter, the beginning of another, you know your students, you are building on their strengths.

Event: The breaking of the Pompeii mug.

At the beginning of 7th period a student saw a spider and screamed, jumping to her desk chair, and several students followed. An intrepid scholar spilled extra pens and pencils from a mug that was serving as a reservoir in order to contain said arachnid. With it captured, the student then heeded fellow-students' urges to "free" the spider outside and in the process, dropped the mug on the slate, breaking the mug. (the spider was fine). Students return to tell me the mug is broken and I ask "which mug? the snow-man one?" "no, the one with the wall-painting" DUH DUH DUNNNN! It's the Pompeii mug. A simple 7 Euro mug, but a fave. So I suck it up, accidents happen, and let's move on-please collect the pieces, we don't want anyone to fall or be cut by the remnants.

Fast forward to Tuesday November 23rd, 2010. Students ask me to step out into the hall and hand me a note (glitter-lettered) and a bag. I asked, "Is this a Thanksgiving gift, how thoughtful!" "No, it's a we're sorry gift." The lovely children gave me a mug that they had hand painted with "semper ubi sub ubi"-a Latin joke meaning always wear underwear. Nearly brought to tears I embraced each one and they explained that they saw that the mug was important and they were moved that I had said "accidents happen" and moved on with class on that fateful day.

I've kept the pieces of that original, broken mug. I think that I will place them in a shadow box frame with the word "patientia". Only through patience do we take steps toward the goal-sapientia.

Conferences

2010-11-05T17:48:00.000-07:00

Has the format of teacher conferences become obsolete? I've just come off a 14 hour day followed by a half-day of conferences and I have to ask the question. Parents sign up for a 15 minute session with their child's teachers in which time they get to ask questions and hear an overview from each teacher. Since I am a world language teacher, I get to attend conferences with 4 different teams of teachers and hear each team's style and approach. More on that some other time. Right now I'm wondering if the concrete schedule is a dinosaur that needs to evolve.

Many parents are taking advantage of having access to their child's work and progress through technology and they can choose how and when to communicate with me about their child. Some parents involve the child as the spokesperson, helping them to set goals, communicate learning needs and take responsibility for transmitting information. Other parents shadow and allow the child the feel of independence while providing an invisible safety net by communicating with me and filtering the information themselves. Of course, there are some things that MUST be handled with a human voice-and face to face interaction needs to be maintained throughout the process.

So, with all that said, is it time to do away with the set "Teacher Conference Days"? An ongoing line of communication in all its forms is coming into play in my classroom. With blackboard, email announcements and the constant back and forth that is being maintained with a large number of students, would we be better off spreading out the conference times throughout the year or having open classroom meetings that parents can attend physically and virtually?

Is the set conference time artificial? It's a good check-in, but I see some parents bewildered by the experience, and attending because they know it's what a good parent does, but they're not sure what they are supposed to walk away with. We offer them talking points to get conversations flowing with their children, checklists of items to help them set goals, and remind them of the opportunities that their children have to meet with us and extend their learning. But I see a lot of dazed parents, and really, the parents are mostly the ones of A-A+ students who are keeping up the good work.

Real change doesn't happen in a 15 minute meeting. It's established and maintained over the entire time of the educational relationship. What should that look like now?

Homecoming in Texas

2010-10-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

I'm heading out on Friday for Texas. I graduated from Baylor University in 1990 and haven't been back since, though I've wanted to. A yell-leader reunion that is including people about whom I really care and stay in touch with was the straw that sent me packing. Man, that squad has expanded-there were only 14 of us when I was there.

At Baylor I turned to a Latin major in the end of my sophomore year, after finding that biology/medicine wasn't where my heart was-it was with words. So with the help of several very good professors, Dr. S. Randy Todd, and Dr. Alan Robb, and the input of Anglo-Saxon specialists and linguistic anthropologists I found my way-thanks Dr. Strite, for forcing me to take those Old English classes, you were right. The honors college embraced the liberal arts and allowed me to complete a concentration in philosophy that cemented a permanent relationship with Hume and the Enlightenment. Thank goodness for Baylor. It's a place that allows a student to explore and find a niche.

And now I prepare to return! It will be a fun weekend catching up with fellow yell-leaders in Dallas, continuing to Waco, then back to Dallas. Many of my comrades remain in Texas (lucky ducks)-and I can see why.

But my place now is in Ohio dispersing ancient knowledge to the open minds of today-and I wouldn't change a thing. It's great to look back and look forward because it's all connected.

Light Bulb!

2010-10-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

On Thursday the bulb went out. . . on my projector. It's ceiling mounted and the lamp light was flashing but it still was coming on at times before it finally died. Our wonderful Vartek technologist came and took it away (I'll fix it up there and bring it back here), but the bulbs are about $200, and we do not have the budget to keep them on hand in our building so we have to wait I don't know how many weeks for it. In the meantime I can use a cart with a projector, but it's not the same.

On Friday, with no projector, I called in the old-school methods that are tried and true-white boards!

Background: Level II teachers that I meet with (Hey, Ms. B) tell me that sight vocabulary continues to be a challenge for 9th grade students and I've used a variety of techniques to improve vocab recognition for the 8th graders. The students will recognize "ponit" he/she puts, but when they see "deponebat" he/she was putting down, they are not putting together the pieces that they know. Add a prefix, change the tense, use what you know to make the new word. Take it further, make it a noun, take it further, make it an adverb: things we do in English when we say "What is it? It's a message." "What are you doing? Messaging." "if you send it again, what are you doing? Remessaging."

I sent the children to the boards in teams, and they had 5 minutes to produce as many forms of a word as possible based off of a single root. We used words like "mitto" send, "verto" turn, "facio" make. Hundreds of forms flew out. Words they didn't know they knew flew out. Here is some video of an aha moment:

Winning teams received: puffy stickers. Yes, they work for puffy stickers because they know that it's worth their time.

During one class, a high school student delivered a jar of pickled peppers (not joking) from a high school teacher, and he was blown away by the hundreds of forms that these 8th graders were putting on the board. He sat down at first, then he rose and said "are you going to tell them that they are using comparatives?" I laughed, "yes, but I won't tell them it's a big deal." He high-fived me, and said, "I know how I got where I am." Before he left he added two words to a team's board-it produced 12 more that vaulted them into first place and I declared a tie.

Surge! Getting up-Vocabulary and more

2010-10-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

Vocabulary. I teach a lot of vocabulary. Sometimes I get punchy about it, and that's never good, because then I don't give it the amount of repetition in class that is necessary. About a year ago in a punchy moment, I used Big Huge Lab's motivator to create class vocabulary reminders for my students-they were created with sarcasm but they came across as just silly, which struck a chord with them.

They were such a hit that the students started making them and sending them to me. It's always scary when kids are creating something with Latin and you didn't even ask them to. I've never made this an assignment, but they still love sending me pictures that are associated with the words that they are learning-and yes, I give them corrections and feedback. They always correct the work and resend it. Then I print it and hang it in my classroom, or post it in blackboard, or use it in a class lesson, and they point and say "that's mine!"

This particular motivator has the word "surgere" which means "to get up". My students love meerkats, so this is a winner, and the tagline is "it is time to get up and to play"-giving extra vocabulary bang with two complementary infinitives. Now hold on while I transition----

Whew, thanks for transitioning with me. I was in a meeting today in which the request was made of my building administrator to make a commandment from on high so that we, as department leaders, did not have to work an issue out with difficult colleagues-or challenge any of the status quo beliefs. It was the old," if the parent says we have to do it that way, blame them." I'm a fan of this technique at home. It gets my kids off the hook at such times as when a video chat goes too long and I hold up a note that says"tell them your MOM says you have to get off" and they are secretly relieved to have the out and someone to blame and not look like a nerd. At some point, we have to share the responsibility, right?

Anyway, the admin had the with-it-ness to say, (paraphrasing), Okay, I'll do that but you have to back me, too. You have to be willing to say that we talked about it and this is what we agreed to. Shoot. I thought "surge!" "get up", tempus est surgere et ludere, why do we have to ask someone to be the bad guy for something that is right in the first place?

If a colleague asks, "who ordered this", shouldn't I say, "Does it matter? It's just right."

No, it wasn't an assignment, and no one is making us do it. It's just good. So that's what I'm going to try out. Go, Meerkats!

Timetoast, and a 24 hour classroom

2010-09-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I began a Timetoast.com assignment with my students. Love Timetoast. In the assignment, they chose 10 Latin sentences from the current story that they are studying and placed them in chronological order. In the description of each event, they provided an English translation, and also had the option of adding a picture to illustrate the event. Then, they published their product and sent me the link in email. From the email I was able to give feedback on my tablet and send them an individualized response to their work. (I used Jing to take a snap of the work).

But eek, Tuesday morning,about 3 AM I was sick, and I was not able to be in the classroom on Tuesday when they were completing their work, so I had to put in for a substitute. Thank goodness for a great sub :) and my instructions already having been delivered on Monday, as well as in print in blackboard, made the difference. The students completed the work, and I received it (in the doctor's office, then home) and was able to write responses to them! We didn't lose a day. Today when I was back, with a little voice and a little shaky, they let me know how much they appreciated getting feedback asap. Yes, a few even asked if I was okay and gave me well wishes!

The image is of a student's work with my comments added, which I emailed back to the students so that they can correct and perfect. For some students I needed to add oral comments, which is no problem with Jing, since it has a movie-screencast recorder and I can walk them through corrections.

Technology saved the day on this occasion.

Thursday with Tullus-Quia

2010-09-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

Guest blogger, Tullus, is in the 6th grade and makes use of online Quia games to help him learn, here are his reflections:

Quia games is a fun, helping website for students to learn about subjects to help them prepare for quizzes and tests, rather than just reading out of the book. Things I like about it: it involves technology, which I like, it has a variety of things so that you don't have to do the same thing over and over again every time you log on. It definitely helped me for my Latin quiz (my father's class), and I've used it for language arts, social studies and science.

Things I don't like: Even though it gives a variety, there are only 4 things, and one doesn't really help me (the crossword), so I'd like different choices, I'm not sure what kinds of things that I would want. The teachers should be in charge of that.

It doesn't give you immediate results (in my opinion) it doesn't tell you at all-you don't see results until you take the quiz in the class. Can my teachers see what I study? Because I don't know.

I wish I got some results sooner.

Clean up

2010-09-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

The reteaching is almost complete, with the students having looked at errors, made corrections, set new goals, completed activities that fill the gaps, worked in small groups and created demonstrations of their improved understanding. Mr. K. and I have given short assessments at each step to make sure that what they are doing is hitting the mark, and everything is coming along.

Probably the best conversations were about test taking strategies, and those came out when students chunked a Latin reading and composed their own comprehension questions. 7th graders developed a completely different insight when they read a sentence "Apollo puellam petit.", then formed a simple question about it, "Quis petit puellam?". Even better was when they made the question multiple choice and decided what a hard wrong answer would look like, and what a stupid easy wrong answer would look like. One student said, "If somebody picked that one, I'd know that they hadn't even read the story!" Message received.

Analyzing a Common Assessment Non-Success

2010-09-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems it was widespread. So let's look at what we found.
1. The students aced the straight vocabulary questions.
2. When the questions asked the students to apply material in an analytical way, they went
with a practiced, memorized answer from an activity rather than looking at the new
question and thinking through the question. (jump to a familiar answer, don't think)
3. We have some test-taking issues. How to cross-reference a test, and how to use context to
produce a higher level answer.
4. We have some GREAT test takers, who marked their thought processes on the tests in
ways that showed us what led to them the precise answer they needed.

Here is a resource that we have used for a few years to help us with common assessments that's based on Marzano's research. It also has a rubric that helps to analyze the questions that a teacher is asking.

Our responses:
1. We are going to break down the objectives and do the reteaching in varied ways so that
they practice analyzing. We'll give feedback on those smaller chunks.
2. We'll put it back together a piece at a time so that we can see when we lose students and
catch them before they fall.
3. Lots of personalization. The students did well when they had used the material in a
personal way (they were great with infinitives following timeo, which means "I fear",
because we had and activity where they shared what they feared to do, but when we
replaced timeo with volo "I want", they fell apart.

Other items:
Mr. K noted that I was flying through material, and I didn't listen. He was right. I should have recognized a red flag when I incorporated venn diagrams and the students could not use the vocabulary that they had mastered to describe the relationships in the diagram. Why? Because they were not at the analysis level, they still were just memorizing. That's the flag that should have stopped me, but didn't.

Lessons learned:
Slow down. Chunk more. Check for transfer, not just recall. Things I know, and thought that I was doing, but I needed more, and these students need more. Shifting gears. I hope the transmission can handle it.

Common Assessment Meltdown

2010-09-16T18:05:00.000-07:00

Was it me, the test, the students or can I please blame my "work husband" (the very wonderful Mr. K)?

Mr. K and I both teach 7th grade Latin at Indian Hill, and like every year, we're giving common assessments after co-planning activities, quizzes, drills, games, readings, all the same stuff. And the test was yesterday. My students took it first, on Wednesday, his took it today (a scheduling issue) and my results were dismal.

So, for 24 hours I have to wait to see if his students do better than mine (in which case it is all on me), or if it's something much more complicated. It's not often that we are caught by surprise on a test because we get a constant flow of input and give feedback daily to our students, so the fact that they did not hit the mark I was expecting (75-100% mastery), and actually fell off a cliff into a chasm (there were scores below 50%), is shocking. We started unpacking the data after school today, and will pinpoint the problem areas and reteach. But what if it's ME?

2nd period tomorrow we'll pore over the results. In the meantime, my students have received their results and completed corrections in class today, and gave me lots of feedback as we went over the questions and the answers. I have an inkling. . . but the facts will be reported tomorrow.

Round 2: Ding

2010-09-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

The Toshiba's hard drive failed after one week. Exchanged it and the young person is back in business. He handled it with grace-much more than I show when one of my machines fails to even do a service boot. I also received my first comment from him on the blog. He knows what I write about him, and gives me lots of input, but now he's out there commenting.

I laughed out loud when I saw this comment from my own son under my blog post:

Tmister said...

My name is Tullus. I am the son of Andrea Weis. I am the one who got the AWESOME laptop for my birthday.

That all changed today.

I was trying to get onto my laptop. The first time I tried, it worked. When I tried the internet, it froze. It was connected to the wireless connection, and all was right in the world.

But, for some reason that I can't explain, when I tried to restart it, it wouldn't get past the standby phase on windows 7.

My mom fooled around with it, being the smartest one in the family dealing with technical issues. Well, she made a few calls, and somethings up with the hard drive or something.

So, tomorrow, I am sorry to report that she will be returning my laptop. It was a good laptop, and whatever went wrong with it....

IT WASN'T MY FAULT!!!!!

September 15, 2010 6:49 PM

He was absolutely right-not his fault, it was the hard drive. So now he's reinstalling his favorite things on the laptop, like Skype and Picasa, and I realized something. I have my own little feedback person right in my own home. Hmmm. You'll be hearing more from him very soon.

Going well, thank you for asking.

2010-09-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

We are now at one week with the 12 year old having his own laptop. So far, so good. Parental controls enforced, and only one reminder necessary. All messages meeting expectations and time restraints honored.

Problem 1: I want to Skype my cousins at all hours. They are family.
Solution: Hours of conversation created.

Problem 2: I am going to volunteer to make a video project in one day for my
social studies group. It has 35 clips that need to be edited.
Solution: You will make a PowerPoint with a few flash clips. Do not volunteer
for a project that takes 20 hours to complete in a 3 hour window.

Problem 3: My sister clicked on a contaminated link that was given by (gasp) her teacher!
Solution: Run virus scan and email teacher so that others do not suffer.

These, I think, are opportunities for learning, not setbacks. But they cost me a few hours. Learn from my mistakes.

Positives: I (young person)can check my web portal with no assistance and get my homework checked off my to-do list!

I (young person)can create a set of online flash cards to study for my quiz!

I've (young person)learned how to use sticky-notes and followed through on what was on them!

So, it's been a good week. Way to go, young person!!!

1:1 in My House

2010-09-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

I believe in 1:1 computer access in schools. My son, who is in 6th grade attends a school that has plenty of computers, but the school is not even investigating a 1:1 program, so my husband and I made the decision in the last week of how we want to handle this as parents. We've been talking about it for years, but the moment was upon us.

It just happens that we are both teachers too, and if I think that all students should have a computer at 6th grade, I'd like to see how that works in my own home.

The boy's birthday is September 8th, and he'll be turning 12. He's a first-born who is the model of responsibility and it's really a little gross how genuinely attuned he is to what his duties are to himself, family, and community. So here is what is going on. He's been saving for half of the money toward a laptop for three years and has about $1000 in his savings account. Also, he has cash on hand that he uses for his entertainment (church festivals, comic books, movies), and has proven that he knows the value of money. He took a babysitting certification class over the summer, paying half for it, and has begun working for other families.

As far as usage at home, we monitor all his e mail communications and texts, and have dealt with a few blips in appropriate language (two incidents a year ago) and have allowed him to Google chat (no video except family), and audio chat as long as he is in family common areas. We bristle at the word "suck", so we're really pretty conservative about what we approve of him saying aloud let alone in print. We're completely aware that in his tree house and playing basketball with friends the conversation will be what they deem appropriate, and that's part of his growing up, etc. But we like that he knows how to censor himself and change gears based upon the situation.

Therefore, with the great deals on laptops at the moment, (and pressure to walk the talk) we decided to go ahead and do it at the time of his birthday with grandparents and us (parents) covering our portion so that he can have a very nice laptop. It's a Toshiba Satellite, 15.6" display with 3 GB of memory (expandable to 8) and a 320 GB hard drive. $500.

We know that we are jumping off into a new world, but we want him to learn to handle information and manage the technology. Anyone else facing this great new leap?

Here is the agreement that he will have to sign on Wednesday. It will have drool on it by the time he signs it, I'm sure. I'll let you know the first time we have an infraction, and the first two weeks are sure to be ugly.

Agreement for Computer Usage

1. 11.Having access to a computer is not a right. I will remember that I may only use my computer for school or entertainment as my parents allow. I will provide all passwords that I use to my parents.

2. 22. Anything that is on my computer may be viewed at any time by my parents.

3. 33.I will use my laptop DOWNSTAIRS. If I want to take my laptop upstairs to my room, I will ask for special permission and explain why it is necessary.

4. I will ALWAYS tell a parent or another adult immediately, if something is confusing or seems scary or threatening, or just doesn’t seem right.

5. I will NEVER give out my full name, real address, telephone number, school name or location, schedule, password, or other identifying information when I'm online. I will check with an adult for any exceptions.

6. I will NEVER set up a face-to-face meeting with someone I've met online.

7. I will NEVER respond online to any messages that use bad words or words that are scary, threatening, or just feel weird. If I get that kind of message, I'll print it out and tell an adult immediately. The adult can then contact the online service or appropriate agency. If I'm uncomfortable in a live chat room, I will use the "ignore" button.

8. I will NEVER go into a new online area that is going to cost additional money without first asking permission from my parent or teacher.

9. I will NEVER send a picture over the Internet or via regular mail to anyone without my parent's permission.

10. I will NOT give out a credit card number online without a parent present.

By agreeing to these terms, I accept responsibility for my actions, and will remember to protect my online reputation just as I protect my reputation in face to face interactions.

Young Person___________________________ Date__________________

Parent/Guardian________________________ Date__________________

Where am I now?

2010-08-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

When students come back to my class in August, I have the luxury of knowing where they left off in June. Either they were in my own classroom, or they were in the classroom of my evil twin working on coordinated assignments and assessments which let me know exactly what they know. It's fun to meet them on the first day with feedback of where they were and how to set goals for the first two weeks-hit the ground running.

So now we are entering week 3 (2nd full week) and it's time for the students to start setting their own goals. For several years I've been working toward having students evaluate their own performance toward mastery and set goals for how to achieve the next level, and we are making a dent. On Friday, the students took a self-test, evaluated it themselves and set goals with specific tasks that will help them get there. And my job, this week, is to help them get it in motion.

Let me be more specific. 8th grade Latin students must know noun endings in order to determine the use of a noun in order to put it in the right place in a sentence in order to determine the meaning of the sentence. (yes, this can work in the opposite direction too, which is the trick). Students figure out how much they know and where the gaps are. Then, I have to provide the practice, steer them to the right one, and help them measure their growth.

I've consulted "On Common Ground"'s section on Assessment for Learning, pp. 76-77, and was fortified by two statements: "Use. . . assessments in collaboration with students to track improvement over time." and "Assessment promotes growth and then verifies it." I'm convinced that students who develop the ability to assess their own performance in middle school will have a distinct advantage in the future. And I'm all about Latin providing all the advantages that it can.

So, after they evaluated their performance we had some basic-middle-advanced discussions and the goals are, certainly, mixed in how useful they are. How am I going to hone this skill? Okay, first, I'm going to send them to the right practice in wordchamp. Second, I'm going to have to use a simple hand-made chart in the classroom for awhile. Third, I'm delving into how blackboard can help me create groups that have a common goal and organize students into smaller learning communities.

I'm asking lots of questions of other teachers in my plc, including you all, and am looking forward to making a big dent!

On a lighter note, gaping void has become a daily destination for me! I urge you to check out the thoughtful cartoonist Hugh MacLeod!

Back to School 2010! Do your Homework!

2010-08-12T16:29:00.001-07:00

Homework! What do I think of homework? Well, first, let's make a few provisions:
1. Homework should reinforce student learning with the necessary practice to master concepts.
2. Homework should offer students feedback on how they are progressing.
3. Homework should give the instructor information about how to help the student.
4. Homework should be timely and not a time-waster.
5. Homework should NEVER be a penalty.

I LOVE homework. This kind of homework is a wonderful tool for me as a teacher and in the last few years I've made some changes that completely altered how I and my students feel about it.

First, the homework that I assign is "outsourcing" and that means tasks that can be done outside of class to give the necessary repetition of items for a student to master a skill. After a few practices in class only a fraction need the drill and kill. The rest should not suffer.

Second, the homework is due within a window of time-meaning that the students have the assignment several days ahead and can fit the homework into their schedules. This is especially great for vocabulary that needs to be mastered within a certain time period. And the rate of completion goes up to close to 100% when the middle school student learns that she can choose to do it on Tuesday after soccer or Wednesday before watching TV. What a great skill for students to learn! In the real world adults have deadlines and set their timelines, and this is how children learn the skill of time management.

Third, the students can see exactly how having done the practice improves their performance. "Gee, because I had practiced and used the feedback to learn I helped my team in class win points on the challenge questions. Hmmmm. Maybe this is cause and effect?"

Thinking hard about good homework assignments isn't easy, but the payoff is HUGE. Students who are meeting expectations on time and are ready to learn at each step makes my job of planning much easier. When the student isn't succeeding, I can address it quickly, provide opportunities to catch up and they are then back with the class having a great experience. The stress level has gone down considerably for everyone involved (parents have noticed), and students are willing to take risks because they know if they fall down, they won't be left behind and trampled.

What set me off about homework anyway? The fantastic book, The Art and Science of Teaching by Robert Marzano. His discussion brings many studies into the question (Good and Brophy; Cooper; Bennet, Finn and Cribb; Epstein) but the bottom line is this: "Small amounts of well-structured homework. . . may produce the desired effect."

Leadership*

2010-06-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

Many years ago one of my favorite colleagues was giving what was then called the "citizenship" portion of the state test. It was the day of the test and she wrote on the board C-I-T-I-Z-E-N-S-H-I-* And turned around to give directions for the first portion of the test to her students. After a minute one of them pointed discretely to the board and indicated that there might be a need for revision. The image is emblazoned so perfectly in my mind that no one can say the word "Leadership" without me seeing it written on the board (with a "t" at the end). Yes, I teach middle school. I'd like to think that if I did that in one of my classes, the class "tablet editor"would walk up and correct my error-or at least highlight it.

Last week we teachers and administrators spent some time talking about what we need to do as leaders in our building to help those who lag or resist moving toward the next goal. We have an "i-team" made up of reps from different departments and grade levels who go back to smaller groups to interpret the message to the teachers who are doing the grass roots work, and then bring their experiences back to shape the goals. It was time well spent. We have a great team that is willing to nurture and kick, cajole and support as we move toward good use of common assessments and measuring valuable skill growth in our students.

Our team is reading Marzano's The Art and Science of Teaching first, and I'm enjoying how much toward the ART it leans in the opening-and yet it's supported by all the charts that are necessary to satisfy the science demand. As we read, we're sharing thoughts in segmented groups, but I'd like to be able to have the conversation as a group. Perhaps a wiki is the answer? Or maybe I should invite my team members to have the conversation here on the blog. Hmmm.

At the same time our technology committee made a 1:1 proposal to the board of education that was warmly met and bodes well for us moving to tablets in the next three years-what enlightenment! So with all this forward movement going on, who wants to sleep? Let's research right now! Or. . . go to the beach for a vacation. Or. . . do both? What an idea!

A Year

2010-06-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

It was a year-was it a good year?

Children with whom I had conversations that involved their lives outside of school: 96 X 4
Children with whom I discussed how they learn: 93 X 4
Children with whom I discussed why they learn: 108 X 2

Incidental conversations about their situations: 93 X n

Success.

One child one connection that will last a lifetime.

These are only the ones that I can document. This is a good year.

Animoto-and a Win

2010-05-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

I like Animoto. It's easy to set up an all-access educator account and then create some engaging items for your classroom.

My last week with Animoto was really pretty good. I used it to make "senior salutes" for the students who stuck with us through 12th grade (Latin V) and began with us in the 6th grade. That's a lot of classroom hours to get to know them, not to mention still like them!

The only tricky thing was downloading the Animoto video, which is an Mp4, into a format that would go with the rest of our hour-long presentation during which four teachers distribute 200 Latin awards.

It needed to be smooth and foolproof, no using two programs clicking back and forth, that was NOT going to work. We switch off who is speaking/presenting, distributing the awards, taking pictures, and keeping the show moving, so it's a tightly mapped hour.

Here are we four, imagine us dancing around each other with awards and ushering groups of children in and out of pictures to the applause of parents and grandparents.

It has to go well.

Here's how I solved the problem:
1. Download and save Animoto to hard drive.
2. Try 8 different programs and formats over three days to get it into a format that will play in ppt. Fail.
3. Eat potato chips and think how the crunchy sound is not unappealing.
4. Upload Animoto videos to private status in YouTube and then watch as it still doesn't work when I try to convert it back because, well, they're private.
5. Upload Animoto videos publicly then use atube catcher to convert them to video files that DO WORK!
6. Delete videos from YouTube.
7. Test-view presentation 5 times the day of event, save it to thumb drive and a copy on school server. OCD much? (Don't even ask me about my cohort who created the color-coded filing system for the awards that was cross indexed by the st udents names and likelihood of where they would be sitting in the event-if I think they're in the back, it will take them longer to get to the dais, so I can put their award further back in the stack.
8. An hour before event, test sound and all connections in event space. In our case, High School with a movie-sized projection screen and my sweet little tablet giving the input.
9. Enjoy presentation with no glitches. Wow. What you thought something was going to go wrong? Nope. All is well in IH Latin-land.
10. Receive thank-you notes next day from parents for keeping things moving and keeping everyone involved!
Until next year. . . .

Wordchamp Wednesday

2010-05-13T05:37:00.000-07:00

Another great success (that originated in failure) occurred over the last 7 days. My 7th grade students had been making great strides with neuter nouns, even to the point of writing their own stories. Matthew Webb once shared a terrific story about monsters and rocks (monstra et saxa, which are neuter nouns) and last year my classes wrote the second war of monsters and rocks with their own graphics. This year we continued the tradition with a third war in which the students could incorporate more characters of their choice. The grammar was coming along beautifully and I thought all was well. Well it was not.

The evaluation asked the students to examine sentences from the stories that they had written themselves and identify subjects (nominatives) and direct objects (accusatives). We had an epic fail. 3 A's, 2 B's, 18 C's, 21 D's, 2 F's.

Not what I anticipated. So, re-teaching was necessary. I designed three wordchamp exercises that isolated the problems separately: English knowledge of subject/direct object, Latin recognition of nominative/accusative, Correlating the term nominative with subject and accusative with direct object. Students completed the exercises until they were scoring in the 90's (it took some 11-12 tries). They recorded on paper their starting scores and final scores in the exercises and reflected upon what they now understood better about the concept. Then, we re-read stories in small groups to practice the skill in context, and I retested (and held breath).

Results? You bet. New scores: 28 A's, 14 B's, 3 C's and 1 D. Targeted reteaching works. What had gone wrong? The idea of English subject and direct object was not clear for a portion of the students, and this combined with a lack of understanding of the Latin terminology for cases compounded the problem. Students were writing the Latin correctly, but didn't know WHY it was correct. Now they have the concept with the terminology and will be able to transfer it to new situations-that's what I wanted, it just took a side alley to get there.

What will I do differently next year? After I pre-test with an English sample that is similar to the 6th grade English curriculum on subject and direct object, I'll have a follow up assignment with an unfamiliar topic to make sure I'm getting consistent results about what they know (in English), not just what they memorized. Also, I'll have activitites prepared for the students who need reinforcement of the basics, and extension ready for the ones who have it mastered. Yes, they had the skill at one point, but it didn't stick and it didn't transfer, so that's what I'm now prepared for.

Wordchamp Wednesday

2010-05-04T17:45:00.000-07:00

Wordchamp is all about WANTING to crunch the data that you get. It gives you so much to work with, it makes me ask the question, "what motivates a teacher to make changes based on this data?" Well, I was in a meeting Monday, and was screen-reading over the shoulder of an anonymous colleague who was multi-tasking /perusing this article,

Enthusiastic and Growing Teachers: Individual Dispositions, Critical Incidences, and Family Supports

about enthusiastic teachers and I was really interested. So, she sent it to me later and it really grabbed me. Here's the quote that turned the key:

"I don't want to be a veteran teacher who's not 'with it'. I want the students to keep learning until I walk out of here. I keep looking for new ideas. Times are changing, students are changing and I'm changing."

I'm lucky to be surrounded by like-minded colleagues, or at least often associate myself with them, so I feel inspired by their growth. Many thanks to my IH comrades who are grabbing everything offered!

So, maybe Wordchamp isn't for you. If you're happy with doing things as usual, and you really don't want to use a new tool to improve student learning, go ahead and ignore it. The rest of us will see you in the 21st century.

Well Thank Goodness It was Friday

2010-05-02T12:29:00.001-07:00

Friday was interesting. The students were burnt out, I was impatient, and it seemed to be permeating the building. No one was hurt, but there were moments when I was stopping for "breathing" and had to take a few students aside to explain, "there is a line you have crossed, and it's one that will earn you a detention if corrections are not made." Luckily, we all held it together and accomplished the day's goals, yet, it was NOT pretty, and it should have been enjoyable.

Not so in other parts of the building where there were student walk-outs, a few instances of disrespect, (students using their words against teachers), and more than a little physical checking in the hallways. Everyone I talked to seemed frustrated and isolated, then relieved to hear that the same thing was going on in other places, and it wasn't just them.

Sometimes I wish I had an emergency valve that I could spring in those situations and "tag in" a fresh teacher who could bring a fresh approach to the situation. Not for the BIG emergencies like fights and injury, just the little smoldering times (impulsive child can't control comments) when one is about to lose it-so that learning can continue for the main group, but the problems can be isolated and corrected without breaking the flow. Why should the whole class have to stop for one student's discipline contract?

Seems like we know which classes need this, and maybe if we had a buddy teacher who was grading right outside the door, and we could say, hey take over for a minute. . . then we could work through those moments more efficiently. Does such a system exist?

Monday will be brilliant, as usual. Everyone will be rested and ready to go, like it is in the adult work world. The difference for schoolchildren and teachers is that they are absolutely stuck when those anti-productive environments hit-there is no escape to the break room for anyone.

Keep breathing deeply.

Latin neuter nouns

2010-04-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

Today the 7th grade students practiced their neuter noun patterns in wordchamp and became adept at using the pattern. One student called me over and said, "Hey, I found a pattern, it's always "a" when it's a plural subject." Yes, he'd heard me say it, watched me write it, wrote it himself, but it wasn't until he was getting a score from the computer that it CLICKED.

I also put a screencast on blackboard so that they could get an overview while studying tonight. Here's what they will see.

Wordchamp Wednesday #2-Hunting and Gathering

2010-04-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

I mentioned "hunting and gathering" in a previous post, and referred to the way that I supply pictures and cues to students early on, make them rely on it and then wean them off the teacher supplying it and help them learn the value of providing their own support information. This is an important part of middle school learning-learning to learn.

Some go hungry for a few weeks, and then in their lean and hungry moments lash out a bit and can be dangerous. I scaffold for them. Makes me think of Caesar before the ides:

(Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.)
Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2, 190–195

Okay, so I want them fat with knowledge. Completely sated so that they don't come after me. Ergo, I teach them to fish. Id est, I lead them through the processes that help them provide for themselves. ENTER: Wordchamp.com

I'll condense a 4 month process:
1. Give them wordchamp activities with pictures and sounds and lots of interesting nuances.
2. Play games in class with them that make them laugh and enjoy the vocabulary and learning.
3. Set up lessons in which the students provide the audio for the vocabulary.
4. Show them correlation between practice and success. Graphs good.
5. Give BLANK (only word) cards, and invite a few students to create their own PICTURES and AUDIO. (Give awards for the most creative, best recycle, best use of siblings, most http://icanhascheezburger.com/ cat picture-celebrate them all)
6. Assign blank cards to groups of students.
7. Remediate and coach students who do not use the system and do not succeed. Find out why and do your best to fix it! Do they need fewer words? Do they need computer time? Do they need a buddy? (Alas, some things we can't fix)
8. Allow students to create individualized word lists and set their own goals.
Repeat. (start with new activities and watch them take off faster each time)

There will be stragglers who will need a teacher-made list longer into the term, but the ones who start producing their own drag the others over to the achievement side pretty quickly! It's a student-led culture of learning that everyone can enjoy. Students e-mail me great wordchamp pics and sentences in the evening, just for the fun of it. Really.

Here's a picture that a student used to learn the phrase "turpis bubo". Well done, M.M.!

Does Technology make Students Lazier or Smarter?

2010-04-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

A question teachers ask me often is about whether I think that students are cutting corners by using technology to perform tasks that used to be done in a traditional method. At the core, reading Latin requires recalling or looking up vocabulary-something that has been done for thousands of years with a good, old-fashioned dictionary. I have a full set of the OED in my house (a gift from former students who knew me well), and I spend many an evening just reading entries. Some evenings, I read 10 pages of Soot-Styx and learn word histories and uses-and then suddenly the next day a question comes up that amazes me in class! I know I'm not the only dictionary reader out there, and I DO worry that kids don't have the reference skills and all the benefits of practicing the skill. With that said, I know that for the majority of students, technology is making material attainable that they would never have tackled before.

One of my favorite digital suppliers, Laura Gibbs (bestiaria Latin blog) addressed the idea of using an online dictionary called nodictionaries.com to read Latin about a year ago http://bestlatin.blogspot.com/2009/06/nodictionariescom.html and inspired me to look at how to use the site in my teaching. If you've never heard of nodictionaries, you should read that blog post up there and get an idea of what it does. Anything you teach has a similar site out there doing work for students.

At first I thought-NO! NO! NO! The students will think that they can just plug in the words and get a polished translation. But her description of the site attracted me, and I began playing with it to see what skills it required and honed, and how a student could use it to negotiate meaning and refine grammar knowledge. It only took me a few hours to devise replacement exercises for several objectives in my curriculum, and I carefully began introducing it to some students at the end of Latin I in 2009. Hand-picked students.

This past week I introduced it to all my Latin I students formally and they had to use it to complete an assignment. Ask me if I'm happy. . . go ahead. Yes. I'm happy.

The assignment? A Latin reading, within their ability, but with new vocabulary and a confusing context. The challenge: use your grammar to get the meaning. The tool: nodictionaries.com

In blackboard I provided a word document of the Latin reading (about 50 lines). The instructions told them to open the doc, save it, then begin reading with a parter. Together they highlighted vocabulary words in the first ten lines that they knew that they would need a dictionary to look up. Yes, they highlighted on the computer. There was a lot of yellow screen. Then, they copied and pasted the section (oh no they didn't! Yes, they did, they felt very naughty indeed) into nodictionaries.com. It works its magic, providing the interlinear dictionary entries with an immense amount of information that they have to sift through to find the nugget that they need. "Hooray" (EUGEPAE) some said. Oh no ("EHEU") lamented others. Then there was a moment of trepidation and silence. "What is this toy that Magistra has given us? Is it a trick? Are we Prometheus, and we'll end up losing our livers?"

Next, the students added a second page to their word document, where they would type their translation-in any font and color that they chose. By bringing up a split screen with nodictionaries on one side and their word doc on the other, they negotiated side by side, talking with their partner, arguing over meanings and grammar uses and finally putting in their final decisions in a good English translation. Yes, we translated (we don't do a whole lot of that in our class). It was amazing. The conversations jumped to a level I NEVER see in the traditional mode.
The example below uses Caesar, no I did not subject them to Caesar, it's just something most people recognize.

The speed with which the meanings were coming and being processed engaged the students, they were locked into deciphering the grammar and getting it right, and high-fived when they smoothly arranged a clause, noted compound verbs with their dative objects and connected pronouns with their antecedents to get the meaning right. Toward the end of class, we projected the work to examine the similarities and differences in what they produced (it didn't matter how MUCH they had, we were looking for quality. Frustration was expressed-what's the right answer? Is there ONE right answer-oh, no, there is not just ONE answer, whatsoever shall we do? It reminded me of when they were in 6th grade and asked is it okay if I say "'The dog chases a farmer.' instead of 'A dog chases the farmer'? And I replied, "what do you think?", and they about died because I didn't give a straight yes or no. We've come a long way.

Without a name on the product, the students recognized their color and font (some had added pictures to help with the meaning, or sometimes a map of the area-information that I usually provide in a spoon-feeding way to them in 7th grade, make them rely on it, and then wean them off and make them hunt and gather for themselves as they are able.) As they processed the material and saw how others had handled the same sentence they grew more confident-it was okay if there was a variety of vocabulary, but the meaning had to come through correctly in the grammar. And who provided the grammar? THEY DID. Not the technology. The students themselves were citing the grammar rules and defending their translations. I got misty.

The next day we analyzed the process that we had gone through, listed what nodictionaries.com is good for, and not good for. Looked at scenarios when it would be a great tool, and when it would be a hindrance. We created horrible, bad, awful, wrong, ugly versions of readings and laughed VERY hard. Yes, we will have many follow-up lessons using it because they have to learn to fine-tune this ability whether they have the computer or not. It's just going to give me one more way to get to the final destination: Latin scholars.

Wordchamp Wednesday

2010-04-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

After discussing Wordchamp with
esteemed colleagues (Kerry Daus and K.C. Kless)
I decided to establish Wordchamp Wednesdays.
Why? Because there are too many accolades
to pile into one post.

Over the past few months, I have kept referring to this article: http://www.encounters.jp/mike/professional/publications/vocabulary.html by Michael P. Critchley, and its profound statements have helped me quite a bit in fashioning formative exercises for my students.

Today, I will be addressing what he calls fine tuning the approximate meanings learned from a word list.

First, here is an example of a student's first try with a set of vocabulary. In it, you can see the student spent about 5 minutes on the words and got 17 right the first time. Wordchamp puts words that are missed back in the stack, and then the student has to get it right two more times in order for it to go into the "correct" category. So, this student missed 10 originally and then made the corrections.

Same student, next attempt. Look at the improvement.

Within Wordchamp, a teacher has access to a webreader which allows a student to hover over a word and see the meanings of that word in a dictionary-style entry. Because there are a variety of meanings provided, the student must use an approach that can elicit the best meaning for the word in context. When a student has memorized a single meaning from a vocabulary list s/he is at a disadvantage, because the flexibility in meaning is eliminated. A methodology which encourages negotiation of meaning helps the student to improve fluency.

Here's a picture of info provided by Wordchamp about a student's reading experience. It's showing me what words the student is having to hover over as she reads along in context. The student can click on those words and practice them, then try the reading again. This student practiced her list and did the reading a second time.

1st try:

2nd try, after practicing the words. Notice, ONLY ONE WORD is a challenge this time.

Anecdotal evidence: Students (17) who spent 20-30 minutes and assembled their own list of associative meanings for words in an original reading scored in the 4-5 range of proficiency as opposed to students (22) who spent 5-15 mintutes and did NOT assemble a word list, and scored in the 1-3 range range of proficiency.

What we are seeing is that students who "hover" and choose a meaning that has context, then practice that meaning, have a better ability to negotiate meaning when they are in situations where the original "memorized" term does not apply.

Wordchamp provides a visual rendition of which words the student "hovered" over, and also a list of "most missed" words from a vocabulary list. The teacher can also assemble contextual sentences to teach various meanings of the same word-the skill that we implicitly employ in our native language.

Furthermore, when presented with the information, even 7th-8th grade students understand the implications. As I presented data about 5 or 6 vocabulary words, the students verbally made the connection and created conditions (individually) for their own re-learning of the words. I'm looking forward to seeing what these children do with the work in 8th, 9th, 10 and nth grades!

End of Year Awards

2010-04-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, when we are planning how to recognize the accomplishments of our students, celebrate their learning and thank the families for their support. The students have put in the hard work, and have already experienced the intrinsic rewards associated with their efforts: pride, satisfaction, pleasure. They know who they are, but this is the time when we let them know that we know that they know, y'know?

The awards ceremony that I'm working on is our Latin Awards Night, an annual gathering that is a venue for presenting several specific Latin awards. We have over 400 Latin students in our program in grades 6-12, and when we incorporate our awards in the other academic ceremonies, it becomes a Latin spotlight, so we have split off, and instead have an hour of our own on a weeknight evening. This year we will be presenting National Latin Exam Awards (about 100 of the students earned this national distinction and we recognize them by level of Latin I, II, III, IV, V) and National Latin Honor Society awards (sorted by grade 6-12) to about 150 students (some overlap). We also recognize our Latin club officers, students who earned significant awards at our Ohio Junior Classical League Latin convention, and our seniors who are graduating after spending 6 years in our Latin program.

When we began handing out awards years ago, (no it was not BC), it was just two Latin teachers and a more intimate gathering. Now, with four teachers and hundreds of students, we're analyzing our format to grow with the demands. Last year I fielded some constructive criticism from middle school parents who mentioned the length of the program, which was 1 hour 10 minutes (we went 10 minutes over), in relation to the amount of time that their child was recognized (2 minutes for a name announced and a group photo). Some parents also were turned off by our senior tributes at the end of the program. The point is to give our students a personalized send-off with anecdotes from their classroom experiences, and a nod to their endurance. However, I can see that if a parent has a 7th grader who needs to get to a soccer practice, you may not want to hear one more time how delightfully witty the insights of "Senior
Susie" have been from Caesar through Sallust, and that she always ends her essays with "Carthago delenda est!"

Igitur, we are working on tweaking the format. I still want the overall message to be that our Latin program is doing a great job of helping kids succeed, and that we go the extra mile to meet individual's needs. But, I want the parents and students to walk out of the room thinking, "that was worth my time", not "that was another endless end of year award ceremony during which I wanted to stab my eyes out with red-hot pokers". (note Oedipus, left) Not that I've ever been to an award ceremony like that with my two delightful children.

As I've gotten started, the first thing that I realize is that we're (the teachers) going to have to collaborate so that we streamline the talking. Second, staging and directions for moving the people from "recognition area" to "picture area" is going to have to be considered. Last, I think that using technology to base the senior recognition is going to be key. We have a large projection screen with sound in the space we use, so I'm playing with Animoto to create a 30-second short for each of the seven seniors. It can be presented while we do the transition between awards, and followed up with 30 seconds of live remarks from an appreciative teacher.

Have you found unique ways of making the awards ceremonies real celebrations (sine ocular desecration)? I'm talking logistics. Things beyond the program, flowers, refreshments, decorations and displays. Because when it comes down to it, you remember the people and the relationships, not the balloons. Suggestions welcome.

Prezi? You're welcome.

2010-04-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

Prezi is a slick little presentation tool, but don't think that it's going to do the work for you, it just makes the work you do look polished. What it does: You set up a layout of pictures and text and design its appearance, then you add a path through which it clicks and zooms. Or, you can go pathless and spontaneously choose a path as needed for a subject.

Keep in mind, Prezi is a presentation tool, so you do the talking and teaching while you're using the images to reinforce and add clarity to your message. So, it's not a replacement for your presentation, it's only a visual aid. I used images from the artwalk in Staines, Adpontes to show my students how ancient art lives with contemporary art in this city. It was good because we could go at our own pace, discuss the pieces and make comparisons. Here's the link to my Prezi: http://prezi.com/kwlpbcpupog3/

I haven't had the children use it yet, because honestly, it can be kind of frustrating getting things just so. But when you don't want a one-path Powerpoint, this could be the answer. The students liked its appearance, but didn't beg for more either.

Here is a Prezi that I really like, about the mind and metaphor, that is much more advanced than mine, and it showcases some of the best features. Try it out, see what you think.

Speaking of Differentiation

2010-04-13T16:27:00.001-07:00

It's the "D" word. Differentiation. (cue music indicating villain approaching). After years of looking at it, trying it, and finally coming to the startling conclusion that it's just good teaching, I found this.

In a post by Rebecca Alber, many of my thoughts were put into easily recognized scenarios: Is it fair? Better keep resource files on hand (graphic organizers and such) because it often has to happen on the spot when you see a student struggling and giving up. Research the students' files until you feel like Sherlock Holmes. And ask questions of the student, his/her former teachers, and the parents at home.

I still think we should call it something like "common sense goals" but since everyone is already using differentiation, I'll keep using the foul language.

Image resources

2010-04-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a great list of image resources that I found as I was looking at through Marzano's instructional strategies. I'm always looking for pictures to reinforce the language that we're using in class and the students hook into the visual images quickly and readily. We spend class time using Latin (and elaborate English) descriptions that connect us to the picture. When the students see the picture again they remember many of the words that we used in class. Obviously, if the student wrote the word, demonstrated the word, said the word, made art of the word, used the word in a dialogue, he/she is more likely to recall it-so it's all in using the image. Technology is giving us many ways to "art" words, like wordle and one of my faves, Big huge labs' motivator.

When the students create something with the vocabulary themselves and use it in class (especially in games) they are highly engaged in the learning. And it's fun!!

Formative Assessment

2010-04-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Getting students used to formative assessment is one thing, and explaining it to parents is another.

I love Graphjam and this one really sums up formative assessment. First you have to figure out what's going to flip the learning switch, then you can actually flip it. The problem is reducing the time fumbling around so that you go straight to the switch.

Bit by bit over the school year I've earned the students' trust so that they know when I say "I just need information about where you are" or "I need a snapshot" they understand that they should just do their best and expect a lot of feedback. Really, it took several weeks for them to get used to papers coming back with lots of ink (in green or purple) that told them what they were doing right, and what they needed to do to master the material. Then, it took a few weeks for them to get used to having follow-up activities based on what they needed (do THIS wordchamp exercise) When it was a matter of basics, they had a basic activity. If they had mastered the material, they had an extension that took them to the next level (but keep in mind, that all we needed was the basic, the extension was whipped cream on top). Then, I would analyze how they did on the specific assignment (how many times did it take them to master the pattern? how many minutes did it take? what kinds of errors are they making, spelling/careless, or substance/reversals?). Finally, when THEY felt they were ready, they could take a second assessment. This involved me saying, "I see you've done the work in wordchamp, and you are getting the answers right about 90% of the time, and we've talked about the problems. Do you feel ready to show your best work?" The answer was "yes" every time, and every time there was improvement.

Now, for the hard part. I recorded the first evaluation in gradebook with no weight, and an explanation as to how it was not a weighted grade, just an indication of our starting point. Also, in blackboard I had a note to parents referring to how I was tracking the students' growth, and that my goal was to get every student to proficiency on an objective, and that time line might be different for different students. Then, a second, weighted grade was put in AFTER the student had participated in the re-learning and mastery strategies.

As a teacher, this has been a challenging idea for me to wrap my brain around: that it's fair to give a student an A when they get it the first time, and it's fair to give another student an A when it takes them an extra few days, reteaching, practice, then mastery is shown. Now, I teach in middle school and I'm not sure that I would feel the same in a competitive high school situation, and from the feedback I've gotten from parents, I'm not sure that they will embrace it in a high school setting either. What are your experiences?

I'm seeing great things from the students. They have a "no one gets left out" attitude and everyone has had to participate in some reteaching and extension activities. In fact, they are starting to track their OWN progress (this was my devious plan all along), and have guessed that I'm going to have them create a record of their learning. The students will be pinpointing what types of activities helped them most, which are NOT always coinciding with their learning styles, by the way, and will eventually be choosing the type of activity that is right for them after a group introduction to a concept. Hmmm. Could I compact it? We'll see!

Wordchamp

2010-04-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

This is (I'm sure) my first praise entry about Wordchamp. We've been using it for three years now. It provides huge advantages. K.C. Kless, my compatriot introduced it after attending a conference. He must be credited with all the leaps that our students have made with this advantage! You create a class, students join and complete the assignments that you post and the best thing-the DATA. It shows you how many times a student practiced the item, the most missed items for the group (reteach these in class) , the easiest items (skim these in class). And read between the lines-it shows you what they said so that you can interpret what mistakes are happening and address them directly with the particular student!

The webreader that it provides allows you to give students passages for comprehension, and, get this-they create THEIR OWN practice list. Completely individualized education in which they practice the vocabulary and grammar that THEY are hovering over-not what someone else might need. Then, the teacher can look at what they did, recognize it, use it to shape new lessons and help them get to the end goal. The student takes control of his/her own learning and this is the best example that I can provide of a student-led culture of learning.

Timetoast

2010-04-09T17:46:00.001-07:00

Today we had a great classroom experience with timetoast, a free service, which allows students to create accounts with an email address and then add events and descriptions in a chronological order.

In our class, the students entered Latin sentences and then translated them into English and provided an image to go along with the story they were working on. The sequential nature of a timeline helps students to understand cause and effect, sequences, and story development. I used a detailed instruction sheet that I revised after the first class meeting to address student questions. All the students were successful with the technology and were able to demonstrate their Latin ability in a 21st century application.

Here' an example: http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/48625

The highlight of my day was observing as students helped each other answer questions and troubleshoot as the classes reached 100% success in emailing me their products! My goal had been 90% and they exceeded my expectations.

Dropouts

2010-04-09T06:48:00.000-07:00

In his blog "dangerously irrelevant" Scott McLeod said:

Should we be ashamed of our ability to predict dropouts?

If we can predict fairly accurately whether a student is likely to drop out in 9th or 10th grade 5 or 6 years earlier, isn’t that a pretty big indictment of our inability as school systems (and a society) to do something about it?

This set me to thinking about what we middle school teachers have power over, and what we don't. We see these children for large chunks of time and can (and do) have a huge impact on where they end up, but what about the parents and the support group at home? Do we have the right and responsibility to intervene when there is a cultural difference? How about when there is a philosophical difference? What is the right balance? Since every student is an individual who is a part of our community we will constantly be in this conversation until we make some decisions.

The motto "e pluribus unum" one from many sums up how our country makes up a single organism out of many individuals, and everyone knows that we want to value individuality and independence. So, how do we set standards of excellence, and yet "leave no child behind"? I know that they are not mutually exclusive, but is our society really capable of having this conversation and making some decisions?

2010-04-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

I love JING. It's a screen capture program that is free. Here's one type of use: If a student is absent, you can record a part of a lesson for the student to view later. Here's a sample.

Or, you can make a screencast of you teaching essential items. Here's a sample.

Let me know what you think of these screencasts. I post them in blackboard and the kids use them for studying, catching up, or just to laugh.

Technology and Latin

2010-04-06T13:59:00.000-07:00

So, should Latin teachers really be tech-savvy? Of course! No one was more into new technology than the ancient Romans, and this type of communication would never have evolved without the Romans to help kick start things.

Learning Latin is all about learning to learn. That's it. Understanding processes and communicating those and helping other people get to the point are skills that our students gain by studying Latin. So, by going through the process of seeing how a language is built, the students understand the scheme of how most things are constructed.

Technology is just a structure that can help our students go through this learning process. Ouch, learning hurts. The frustration that I feel as a teacher when I'm trying to use a new piece of technology keeps me in touch with that overwhelming feeling that my students get when I'm speaking in Latin and asking them questions. But we get through it and at the end we've learned.

familia mea

2009-08-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Familia mea est in pictura. Sum in media et potes videre filiam meam, nomine Iulia et filium meum, nomine Tullus. Etiam in pictura est vir meus, Magister Dean. Prope me est soror mea, et mater mea. Tres alter viri sunt in pictua, pater meus, frater meus et vir sororis meae.