Engrade is Enstyle

I've just used engrade, the stylish on-line grade book at http://www.engrade.com/. The blurry (sorry) image above is the teacher page where I inserted the student grades. Overall, I liked it. It was easy to sign up, a teacher can weight projects and other assessments, including formative observations. For example, a written test may be weighted as only 15% of the whole grade and authentic projects may be worth more. The decision is up to the teacher. One can calculate extra credit, export the document to excel to do more individual work and the grades can be easily changed. Actually, the math calculations are done by the program so human error is only possible if the grades are inputted incorrectly. A copy of the assignment can be attached and the parents and students can both access their own grades and any missing assignments are listed as such. Parents or students cannot say they "did not know" an assignment was missing nor do they have to wait for a teacher to return their telephone calls. Each student is protected by an individual access code that is designed by the teacher. A teacher can look at the average grade for each assignment and decide if a lesson should be retaught or other changes be made. (If the grade average is abnormally low then something is either wrong with the instruction or the assessment.)

The negative aspects of this site is a much shorter list than the positives. The parental/student access ability is a double edged sword. A parent may not comprehend how the grades are calculated or the theories why a project may be worth more than a written test. There may be some complaints to the teacher and needed explanations. I based all of my grades on 100 points because most people seem to understand this form. This system may requires a teacher to input grades in a timely manner so all grades are available when parents go to the site.

One thing I would like to see is a calculation for mode and an option to print grades on a bell curve. I would like to evaluate how the grades lie for each class.

The News comes in many different forms

I just created my first class newsletter on LetterPop.com. It was not a bad experience but it did take me longer than I thought. Just like learning a new language, I will have to practice and then keep using it or lose it. Please be kind when judging my effort, it was my first try. Here is the link to my LetterPop page.

Encourage Success

The Most Trusted Man in America

I was watching State of the Union today on CNN. They were recapping the news that long-time news anchor of CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite had passed away. As a former photo journalist, I felt was moved at the news of his passing. They stated that with the passing of Cronkite so too went the last vestige of an era.

Cronkite was known as the Most Trusted Man in America. With the onset of twitter, blogging and other instant communications the era when everyone had to wait for the news to "come on" disappeared. CBS and NBC were the only networks where you could get the news on the same day as it happened because the broadcast was in the evening. Now, no longer is it only one person who delivers the information but a world wide network of people around the world. The news was once mystified and revered. It is now an ordinary occurrence to call/email/twitter a network/station and let them know what is happening. (I've done it.)

We no longer have the Most Trusted Man in America but the Most Actively Involved People in America. Good bye, Walter. I will miss your authoritative voice and unbiased reporting, but my melancholy is somewhat attenuated as I add my own authoritative voice to the news.

I was barely a teacher when I became a principal!

I was given the hypothetical question: How are the steps of the 5 E lesson plan aligned with the inquiry process and if I were a school principal would I encourage my tea hers to use the 5 E lesson plan?

For those who don't know, A quick review of a 5 E lesson plan follows:

1. Engage: The teacher will ask a riveting question, define a problem or illustrate a surprising event to get the student's attention.

2. Explore. Students get directly involved with materials and work in teams, sharing and communicating.

3. Explain: The students make observations and tell what they see/notice; the teacher uses this opportunity to correctly name/describe what they notice.

4. Elaborate: The students make connections to other related concepts and to the world around them. Further inquiry by the student and new understandings occur. Ex: A child notices that a flagpole shadow changes position throughout the day. Later the child rotates a beach umbrella to protect from the sun.

5. Evaluate: This is an on-going process throughout. The students as well as the teacher evaluate their end products using rubrics, interviews and portfolios.

The lesson process is open-ended and open to change.

With some not-to-creative thinking, the commonalities between the 5 E's and the inquiry process are clear.

In an inquiry lesson the teacher tells the students what they will be learning about and tells why it is important/interesting or in other words, engages them.

Then each student forms a hypothesis and justifies their theory in small groups and forms a plan to find the answer. In other words, they explore.

Data is collected and recorded by the students in an inquiry lesson and such data may explain why their hypotheses are correct or not. (I know, this is a little flimsy.)

During the analysis phase of an inquiry lesson the students will elaborate on what they have found.

Finally in the conclusion the students will discuss their results with one another and interpret or evaluate them. What do the results mean?

This may lead to further questions and the process may begin again. Does this sound like it is open-ended and open to change? This sounds familiar.

As a principal I would encourage my teachers to use the 5 E lesson plan. I believe it is a trim version of the inquiry process but does the exact same job. It may also be easier for some to accept in other content areas because the inquiry process is usually associated with science. It is interesting that when our group was trying to decide on a topic for our 5 E lesson plan project, most wanted to do a science lesson.

I believe the 5 E's are important for students because as I mentioned in a previous blog, students need to be taught how to think and keep their brains active. This will give them practice as critical thinkers so they can make intelliegent decisions later in life. Evaluation and other higher order thinking skills take time and practice to develop. Teachers and students alike need an alternative to direct instruction.

I see in many of my observations that most teachers use direct instruction. I believe it is because it is a lot easier and a lot less time consuming. Furthermore, since so many classrooms are now inclusion classrooms and include exceptional students who require direct instruction, teachers most likely believe it is easier to just teach one lesson using DI than to teach two lessons for the same topic. I also believe it is easier. However, if direct instruction is always used, who is being cheated? It is the high mastery students who may become disenchanted with school and although they have the ability to be productive life-long learning members of society, there may be a greater chance they will not flourish and learn to their full potential.

How will they learn to think?

The above image (I hope you can see it clearly) is my classification of technologies and how they are aligned with the 4 Instructional Models. As you can see (I hope), most of the Web 2.0 tools are in the Social Interaction Model. Most of the technologies on the other end of the spectrum, in the Behavioral Model, are Web 1.0 technologies. Web 2.0 is far more interactive and therefore supports social learning, inquiry learning and can be tailored to personalized instruction.

As a teacher, the Web Inquiry Projects and Webquests will be used to make my teaching interesting, interactive and give students a choice in the direction of their learning. I would hope to build inquiry skills that they will use their entire lives to be life long learners. I believe we are all born with observant and curious minds. These wonderful gifts must be nurtured and exercised or they will be lost in the hum-drum and passive learning trenches of "old school" teaching. The interactive media and social networking of Web 2.0 will be the brain gym for our future educators, policy makers, parents, and artists.

Common Sense is often very complicated

It always amazes me when I read an article that makes a simple, commonly used (or underused) concept seem so complicated. The article Introduction to Instructional Design and the ADDIE Model by Kevin Kruse described a way to design instruction. However, I can see this system in effect every day and in many circumstances. Kruse made an analogy to a car cruise control that changed speed based on feedback, keeping the car at a steady speed. A simple conversation is also guided by the same ADDIE principal, analysis, design, development & evaluation. We begin a conversation with someone after we have discerned they are open to an idea, perhaps based on a lecture or comment to another comment (analysis). Then we quickly think of how we will phrase our thought to best convey our message (design). Development of the first comments and opening statements ensues and we keep adding more thoughts to make our point-of-view clear. Finally, we evaluate if the person or people we are talking to have the same opinion as yours or if their opinion has validity or if we should change our opinion. The conversation may not be as rigid (a complaint of the ADDIE system) but it is the same.

As teachers we will evaluate our lessons using one of the models discussed in this chapter. We determine what background knowledge the students have about a topic (analysis), followed by our planned lesson (design). We teach the material (development), adding information constantly evaluating student understanding. Teachers increase their own knowledge and behavior by looking for ways to alter their lessons based on feedback.

To me (and this is only my OPINION) this is Common Sense. Feedback, re-evaluation and implementation of a change is essential in all parts of life and teaching is no exception. One must constantly evaluate the students understanding and alter or maintain a lesson plan. Without an instructional design system, a teacher would teach the same exact lesson the same exact way year after year. (I know, there are teachers who do this.) The outcome is either bored students or overwhelmed students. It would be like a furnace constantly blasting the heat throughout all four seasons.

This Cross Word Puzzle has made me Cross

All right...All right...All right...I completely understand how literacy and technology can be joined to create a double use lesson.l Yes, I did learn even more about Excel from doing this assignment. Yes, I learned another tidbit about the American Revolution to increase my already vast repertoire of facts. I enjoyed that portion of the assignment very much. However, I worked 4 hours last night and 4 more hours today. Now, I can't submit it or post it to my website. At this point in time, I think I would like to post a few pictures and use voice thread, or it that dread, to let everyone hear my disquiet.

The first thing I did to start this project was to go to a puzzle making site. I created a CWP and then used that as my template instead of doing it by hand and graph paper. I can't remember the first site I used and that is because I did not like the results. The puzzle was ugly and difficult to create and save. Then when I finished my Excel CWP I went to Discovery Education. Their puzzle maker is user friendly. The only drawback was it made the choice not to use all of my words; I had no say in the matter. The benefit of using Excel is you can delete the words you want and add others that may fit better.

Once I find out how to save and finish this project I will be able to voice my rational view that this is a fun and beneficial assignment for students. In many of my lesson plans, I often give the early mastery students a game to create using the lesson content. I learned this from one of the teachers I observed. However, I think I will have a booklet or steps that explain how to complete all aspects of the project as well as how to submit it for grading. Students will be able to choose for themselves if they want to explore on their own or (as a last resort) use the instructions. That way my students will not become disenchanted due to frustration and they still learn about the program. In a few hours (days) you can go to my website: http://www.mrsfigue.tripod.com/ and see the results of my labor.

If anyone out there can tell me how to save an excel document as a .jpg or .jpeg, please comment and let me know. I went under the paste icon and was able to cut and paste the entire document as a picture, but then I cannot save it to any file as a j.peg.