An article in the Washington Post, Schools Look At Providing More Time For Teachers caught my eye recently which looks at teacher planning time. As you might imagine, teachers feel they lack planning time.... and they may have a point. The amount of planning time has stayed constant while requirements for inclusion and accountability have increased. My question is do we design curriculum to address these challenges from the onset or do we expect teachers to plan lessons, adjust their instruction for a variety of diverse learners, grade assignments, connect with parents and other colleagues, make copies in a 40 minute planning period? Why not differentiate the curriculum from the beginning? The graphic to the left depicts the Curriculum Planning Pyramid (Schumm, Vaughn, & Leavell, 1994) which represents how curriculum might be organized to meet the needs of all learners. The base represents the most important concepts you want ALL STUDENTS to learn. The middle layer represents...
We recently hired a new secretary. We required the all applicants to take the advanced assessment for Microsoft Office Excel, Word and Outlook. We do this because from experience we have learned that our office is too busy for people to learn on the job. They need to enter the job with a high degree of competency. We offer a personal interview only to the candidates that demonstrate they are tech savvy. This led me to pondering whether or not the same is true for new teachers. Is the classroom just too busy of a place to learn on the job? Should teachers enter the classroom with a high degree of technology competency. Should we assess technology skills in a systematic way in the same vein we look at pedagogy and communication skills? If the answer is no, how much further into the 21st century before we might consider technology assessment as a necessity? If the answer is yes, what technology skills would we assess and how would we assess them?
Back in the fall I posted, Who's On Your Network , which discussed Will Richardson's article in Education Leadership entitled, Footprints in the Digital Age . One of his recommendations was to join Facebook and to be perfectly honest... I didn't get it. What could I learn as an educator from Facebook? As luck would have it, my husband's family is very active with Facebook, with Will's urging and their availability I decided to take the plunge. I have to say I am impressed. I have reconnected with family members, friends from high school and college, and colleagues from previous positions. With Facebook the past and present intersect, letting me in seconds catch up with friends and family. As an educator, Facebook gives me insight into the why and how students use social networking tools. In fact, I can see why students crave these tools. When you consider that building positive relationships is the corner stone of school improvement, how can we not investig...
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