Kelly's Curriculum Corner

Today I was catching up on some reading and ran across an article in Ed Week entitled, Experts Begin to Identify Nonacademic Skills Key to Success . “[T]he biggest predictor of success is a student’s conscientiousness, as measured by such traits as dependability, perseverance through tasks, and work ethic. Agreeableness, including teamwork and emotional stability were the next-best predictors of college achievement, followed by variations on extroversion and openness to new experiences.” What caught my eye was not the actual article, although I did find that interesting, rather it was the reaction to the article in the comments section. Many of the comments were rather negative, defensive even. Some even stating it is only through Charters and other private education institutions that these skills can be emphasized. Others were critical indicating this is not the job of schools, rather parents and community members should take the lead. Why is it that so many of us think it ...

  Over the last few months I have posted research on boys and reading . Shared some ideas for engaging all students, but especially boys in reading. These ideas included podcasts and five big ideas of reading , leveraging technology as a means to active literacy with before, during and after reading strategies, and most recently digital book reports . Pennsylvania is fortunate to have PAIUnet, a private network that literally nearly all 500 school districts and IUs have access. It’s a safe network where students and teachers can collaborate, publish, share and interact. We currently have access to several services and products through Keystone Commons , Safari Montage , and VoiceThread . Note some of these services have a subscription fee, while others are at no charge. In thinking about promoting reading in boys, what other kinds of services and supports could we leverage in this private network for PA students and teachers? Some ideas already shared have been a digital...

Kudos to Recorded Books for launching an innovative contest encouraging students to read. Their Digital Book Report Contest is promoting their new literature curriculum, Book Jams . According to the the Book Jam website a digital book report would look like this… “Have your students pick their favorite book or a book from your lesson plan and create a song, performance, or debate. Get creative and win! Use music, props, and costumes! But make sure that it covers the core standards. We’d love to see rap songs about grammar, interactive presentations highlighting setting and symbolism, plays about conflict starring Hester Prynne to Harry Potter, and whatever else you and your students dream up!” The contest is innovative and engaging. The entries are diverse and captivating. Students cleverly used pictures, audio, music, original music, costumes, props and much more…. Finalist are now posted. Be amazed! Visit the Contest site , create an account and give these kids the feedb...

During a recent school improvement training we asked, “Why is the wild owl population in India decreasing?” After suspending disbelief that this question had anything to do with school improvement, the audience called out possibilities such as: Pollution Migration patterns Loss of habitat They seem plausible, but to pursue them would be folly as none of those would address the cause for the dwindling owl population. Unfortunately too often school improvement teams, in their sense of urgency to “fix” the problem ,  forget to study the problem and possible solutions. They forget that they likely need more data to confirm or deny any of their hypotheses. Time consuming work for sure, but better than the alternative… working on solutions that will have little to no effect on the issue. Victoria Burnhart in her article Multiple Measures indicates that Demographic and Achievement data are insufficient to identify root cause e.g. Number of owls this year compared to...

We did an exciting program this summer in looking at the nexus of boys, reading pedagogy and the role of technology. The basic premise is if some students prefer more action based literacy activities, could technology fill that role? We came up with technology tools that could be used as Before, During and After reading strategies. All participants read the book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney as the back drop of looking at how reading pedagogy could be enhanced by technology tools. Before During After (focus retelling) Multi media text sets Blog Digital story telling   Wallwisher Movie Maker   Voicethread     Wordle     Glogster     Flip Note Studio   Teachers then embedded these technology to...

Must watch video that looks at engagement, motivation and student learning. Presuming student capability. Click here to open up the video. Thanks to Michelle D. for sharing this. What do you think?

Last week I summarized Kylene Beers research on the continuum of readers . At the end I asked some questions regarding instruction on each type of reader. Turns out Dr. Beers followed with another article detailing tips and techniques to working with aliterate students. “We must realize that whatever motivates an avid or dormant reader probably won’t motivate an uncommitted or unmotivated student. Motivating Readers (p. 112) reveals the same activities that encourage readers in fact discourages nonreaders, intimidating them and confirming negative feelings. The activities that uncommitted or unmotivated readers preferred were limited, but specific” (Beers, 1996, p.111). 1. Personal Choice – They want to choose their own books from a limited selection. They were wary of being overwhelmed with a large library. 2. Nonfiction – Many reluctant readers prefer nonfiction over fiction. 3. Illustrations – Pictures and illustrations were very important to these students. Time agai...