Category: Uncategorized

Last Friday, our 8th-grade students to their penultimate field trip to the Florida Holocaust Museum in Clearwater.

It was a great trip with much learning on the part of students and teachers alike. Not everyone experienced the same levels of engagement. They are, I must remember, 8th graders.

One student in my group said she wished we had been able to roam and read rather than listen to our docent (I must admit that I took some teacher liberty and lagged behind to read placards we had missed). I noted that this student had perhaps decided early to reject the idea that this woman had something to share and had tuned out early.

Then, and this is the point, she turned to me and said very earnestly, “I know what she said, Mr. Chase. If you give me a quiz, I could get a 70.”

A 70?

Now, when I was in school a 70 was cause for concern – mostly concern over my parents’ reaction. And yet, this student saw what we will call “minimum proficiency” as the level at which she would prove she had learned all she could.

You see where I’m going with this?

Her remark took me out of the moment for a bit.

In Florida a level 3 out of a possible 5 is considered proficient on the math, reading and science portions of our standardized tests, the FCAT. Parents, students, teachers are all working very hard to have as many students as possible at that level 3.

Friday was the first evidence that “minimum proficiency” wasn’t just the standardized standard.

Do we worry now?

More later.

technorati tags:FCAT, standards, standardizedtesting, testing, education, teaching

Big day here on campus.

I was happily displace 2nd period so that my room could be used for ESOL testing. This meant I taught that class in Mr. Timmons’ room. After some initial lag time in getting adjusted to another room, we were up and running.

To add the pressure, Phoenix welcomed the President of the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee was on campus observing classrooms. Then, we welcomed Bob Hansen the director of technology for Sarasota County Government and Sarasota County Schools. Big day.

The thing was, it wasn’t a big day because of the visitors. I’m coming to get used to them.

The big day was the “clicking” that was going on in my classroom. Bellwork today was a quiz reviewing the verbs we learned about in class yesterday. It was self-grading and on ANGEL so my students got immediate feedback on their practice. From there, I showed the movie below to introduce irregular verbs, not the most engaging topic, but there was silence as the video played. I’ve also posted the video to Myspace, Revver, and Google Video. Let’s not forget ANGEL. They can download it and do whatever they want. I’m really working toward the award for nerdiest teacher.

Now, usually I’ll end the year with poetry and a poetry slam. This year, for whatever reason, I decided grammar would bring the most soul and life to the classroom. Here’s the thing, it has. My students are asking questions, trying harder and pouring themselves into learning more than I’ve ever experienced with 9 days of instruction remaining. Crazy.

One other development. I’ve argued for a long time that we (educators) could be using Myspace to our advantage. Only recently have I started following through on my claim. I set up a Myspace page accessible to my students a while back and left it dormant. I was tired of students asking if I had a page.

The last couple days, I’ve started posting bulletins on the page. Nothing jazzy, just homework reminders and links to class notes and presentations. Last night, after finishing today’s video, I added the video to my page. I know it’s silly and most students won’t view it, but I’m trying it out.

Here in Sarasota, a popular weekend hangout for my students is outside the multiplex on Main St. I can only imagine the fear they strike in our elderly population with the sheer force of their magnitudes. I’ve wondered for a few years now what would happen if I infiltrated their mob, if I began ad hoc tutoring on Friday and Saturday nights. Myspace is similar to that. I wonder if they’ll appreciate the transparency.

On last thing. My friend Sgt. Jenny Morgan is stationed in Iraq and I had my students record their questions about the war and life in Iraq as podcasts for her. A few days ago, she replied to the first of their questions. It’s an interesting read and a much different perspective than my students get at home or on the news. Check it out.

technorati tags:revver, myspace, phoenixacad, learning, teaching, verbs, google, ANGEL, education2.0

Yes, we’re 168 days into the school year. Yes, we have 11 class days remaining. Yes, the children remain shocked every day when they see I expect them to continue learning.

All those truisms aside, I’m nerdy excited about tomorrow’s lesson. I completed my ActivBoard flipchart for tomorrow’s class, and it’s a good one. My students are working on understanding how verbs work to better grasp what they’re looking for when they edit others’ work and their own.

There’s something to be said for building a common language.

We’ve attacked the ignorance from several fronts. Still, some vestiges remain. Never fear, United Streaming to the rescue. I found a not-altogether-campy video from US to use as an intro./review to the basics of verbs and stuck it in the presentation. Finding something useful about grammar on United Streaming felt like a bit of a coup. From there, some great interactive practice is built into the flipchart.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. Upon completion of the flipchart, I exported it as a PDF. You may ask, “Why, good sir, would you do such a thing?”

First of all, what’s with the “good sir”?

Second of all, I posted the PDF on my ANGEL page for those students who will be absent tomorrow or will need to review what we cover.

But wait, there’s more. I also created an online formative assessment that is self-grading and includes a link to the day’s PDF in the quiz’s instructions.

Each of these pieces creates a foundation on which I can then build to create authentic assignments through which my students will be able to exhibit their new vocabulary as well as spread the learning. Watch out blog.

I’ve just got to remember all of this at the top of next year so it doesn’t take me 168 days to get so close to synergy.

technorati tags:unitedstreaming, phoenixacad, english, teaching, ANGEL, PDF, school2.0

In an earlier post, I wrote about a community forum our school board put together to address community questions and concerns surrounding NeXt Generation Learning, our district’s strategic plan.

Though pleased to see the district making a serious effort to engage the community in an open, transparent discussion about NGL, I also left the forum feeling frustrated. I wanted to write about the frustration earlier, but it’s not my style to complain without offering a solution. There’s enough of that in the world already.

After stewing on the subject for a bit, I think I’ve found the true cause of my frustration – time. There’s simply not enough of it.

As I was sitting through the presentations offered for community members, I found myself thinking, “Yes, show them ActivBoards, but don’t forget to mention Kagan and McREL‘s High-Impact Strategies. We mustn’t leave out Web 2.0 and our focus on fostering meaningful relationships between learners and educators as well as learners and learning. Show them the data on the importance of engagement in the classroom and the work that’s being done to bring gaming and play into formal education.”

It wasn’t that the information being shared was unimportant, it was that all the information that didn’t get shared was so important too.

Each of these new tools and tactics works in concert with the others in creating a concert of learning. Cooperative learning without technology will work. Podcasting without cooperative learning will work. Cooperative learning and podcasting will each work without non-linguistic representations. But, all these used together will create an exponentially more powerful learning experience. It’s difficult to make that argument in one evening. Thank goodness we’re trying.

Will Richardson recently blogged about some frustrations in the discussion of technological integration and digital literacy:

Recently, in the middle of a presentation to about 500 teachers, one woman raised her hand and said something along the lines of “Look, I’m not the most technologically savvy, but I have to tell you that in a lot of ways I think all this technology is the devil. I mean my kids plagiarize stuff left and right, they don’t learn how to spell because of spell check, and I just think we’d be better off without it.” And a number of people applauded.

And also recently, after finishing with another group of school leaders who I had been working with over the last eight months, I was surprised to learn that many of them had begun deleting their blog posts and blogs citing fears that they would somehow come back to haunt them. And so much of our conversations focused on all of the reasons why we can’t make change in our schools. The “yeah, buts” once again.

I can see both sides of the conversation, though I stand with Will in the end. Technology is not the answer in the same way that a Vitamin C tablet will not equip you with the vitamins and minerals you need to make it through the day. I need a multi-vitamin, and it better include Vitamin C. The thing is, we must also take into account those among us who don’t trust vitamins and are sticking with a daily dose of cod liver oil.

An argument could be made that I’m expecting things to happen too quickly – that this is education and progress, no matter how slow, is an improvement. See that’s the thing. It is an improvement, I’m with you. But this is not big business where a failure to respond to the market will lower our quarterly earnings by a few percentage points. This is biggest business and the capital on our ledgers is students; quantifying our losses means much more than upsetting our investors with weaker earnings projections.

technorati tags:education, phoenixacad, NGL, web2.0, school2.0, willrich

At dinner tonight with Jason, Jessica and friends, I said something that’s been knocking around my brain for a while – I don’t feel like I’m at the end of my school year. I’m not ready to let these kids go.

Yes, I still have my down days. Yes, there are still those class periods that finish with my head spinning and me sure I completely missed the mark. But, those days are few and far between.

This year, for the first time, I’m not rounding out my 4th quarter on my last fits and spurts of energy. I’m finishing as though we’re just getting started. Jason said he was feeling the same and we stared at each other for a second unclear of what to make of this feeling.

I’m still not certain of what to think. All I know is that 12 school days from now, I’m going to have the bittersweet feeling of seeing my kids move on to something new and leave our time behind.

More later.

technorati tags:education, teaching, Phoenixacad

For those not based in Sarasota, I should explain before I expound. Two years ago this April, our superintendent unveiled his strategic plan for closing the achievement gap and giving our learners the skills and tools they will need to thrive and shape the world they will inherit. He called the plan NeXt Generation Learning.

The capital “X” is part marketing/part symbolism acknowledging different learners take different paths. Good message, no?

In fact, the entire plan is a worthwhile. It is a vision for the future of education in Sarasota that challenges teachers, administrators and community members to analyze the usual way of doing business (something we don’t often consider).

Unfortunately, it is a difficult thing to make a vision reality – especially when there are thousands of stakeholders and especially when dealing with a culture in need of transparent communication structures.

Tuesday morning, I received a call from the head of Instructional Technology for the district asking me to participate in the second of three community forums being held across the district to begin building the lines of communication between parents and community members and the school district.

The first forum had not gone well at all, I have heard from many people and the district was wanting to refine the second based on lessons learned. As one of a small group of pilot teachers trained in what the district is calling NeXt Generation Teaching, I was asked to come and model the use of ActiVotes in my classroom. I was told I had 5 minutes.

The forum was opened with our current school board president announcing the event as evidence of the Board’s renewed committment to working with the Superintendent and his staff in making NGL a success.

He was followed by a 10-minute presentation by our Associate Superintendent for NGL in which much of the presentation below was used. Imagine viewing slides 4, 5, and 6 from the back of a crowded cafeteria – imagine.

Next our Instructional Technology chief was up for 10 minutes explaining what a digital learner is and wants.

Then, we watched a video of two colleagues using ActivBoards in their classrooms. This was followed by one of those colleagues demonstrating the ActivBoard for 5 minutes and my 5-minute ActiVote demo.

From there, a supremely brief Q&A and those in attendance forming breakout groups to discuss the evening’s critical questions. I’ve quite a few thoughts floating in my head from the evening, but I think I need to let them settle a bit before blogging. Next post, perhaps.

What are you thoughts on the slideshow? If you were at the forum, what were your thoughts?

More later.

technorati tags:NGL, Sarasota, Phoenixacad, school2.0, nextgen, education, learning, schoolreform

It will come as no surprise that I’m not the world’s biggest NCLB supporter. I’m as big a fan of unfunded mandates as the next guy. For some reason, though, this one just doesn’t engender my full-throated support. It does seem to engender my use of sarcasm. (Six of one half-dozen of the other?)

Like it or not, standardized, high-stakes, one-shot, the pressure’s on, don’t screw this one up, for all the marbles testing is thriving in Florida. We’re thinking of ditching “The Sunshine State” and adopting “#2 Pencil Only State” as our motto. And so, when Phoenix Academy’s writing results came in yesterday, I held my breath.

Principal Cantees rounded up my team leader and I and announced the news. I say this in all sincerity, I jumped up and down like a little, tiny girl and screamed like one too. Let me explain…

The test is 45 minutes and students are given one of two possible prompts – expository or persuasive. They are to plan, write and revise during that time. Accomodations are made according to IEP and 504 documentation. The test is scored by two people and assessed on a scale of U (unscorable) to 6.0. Each scorer assigns a value to the essay and the two scores are compared. If Scorer A gave an essay a 3 and Scorer B did as well, then the essay rates a 3. If there is a difference of one point (Scorer A rates an essay 3 and B rates it a 4) then the essay earns a score of 3.5. If the difference is any larger than one point, a third scorer is called in and the whole thing begins anew.

Right, so “proficient” essays are those scoring a 3.5 or higher. Anything better than a 3.5 is good. The difficult piece here is students are only tested on their writing in grades 4, 8 and 10. I’m finding my students have had little to no writing instruction since 4th grade. I think that’s as good an explanation as I can muster.

Here’s the breakdown:

04-05:
49% proficient

05-06:
Mean score: 3.7
3.5 or higher: 71%
4.0 or higher: 45%
5.0: 4 students

06-07:
Mean score: 4.0
3.5 or higher: 82%
4.0 or higher: 75%
5.0: 7 students
5.5: 2 students

Today was a day I enjoy. I got to call each of my students back to my desk one-by-one and hand them a Post-It note with his or her individual score on it. The thing is, I was proud of each and every student. Even my students earning a 2.5 or 3.0 made my heart swell. These were the students who would have earned a U at the beginning of the year. Though they may not be “proficient,” they are growing, finding their voice and realizing the power of the written word.

The challenge now is not only to do the whole thing over with next year’s 8th graders, but also to build a 9th and possibly 10th grade program that includes writing instruction as a key component. I say this not because of the lurking test, but because of the lurking future for which we are charged with preparing these students. If they cannot write, if they do not write, then we have failed them. We cannot afford to fail.

More later.

technorati tags:FCAT, florida, testing, writing, teaching, education, LA, phoenixacad

I’m not entirely sure how much of this I’ve written about and how much I’ve just thought about writing about. Thusly, here goes.

Sometime early last summer, I was hanging at my local haunt Metro Coffee & Wine. They were going to have an event to introduce a new menu section and wanted to incorporate a fundraiser. Ever on the lookout to hook people up with Phoenix, I began the sell. They bit and that was that.

Until.

One day, again at Metro, I was talking with my friend Debbie who works there and is also a filmmaker. I ws talking to Debbie about how grea it would be for my kids to be able to get involved in telling their stories and experiencing writing in an authentic way.

We were off to the races. Debbie spoke to some people she knew at the Sarasota Film Festival, we had a series of meetings and the pilot of the Young Screenwriters Program was built. For three months, six of my students met twice a week after school to create screenplays of their own. It was an amazing thing to watch more than any assignment I have ever given, these screenplays pulled in my students.

Last week, in conjunction with the festival, there was an event to honor my students. We included a staged reading of their screenplays as well as a Q&A portion. The place was packed. Each of the students came and all but one brought their families and extended families (that’s pretty big for my kids).

The video below is a taste of what happened. The entire process was amazing. The story was picked up by this local paper, this local paper and this local paper. It was awesome.

The idea is that, somehow, we’ll be able to actually raise money so that we can purchase some minor film equipment in order that our students can take their concepts all the way from the page to the screen.

Here’s hoping.

More later.

technorati tags:SRQ, SFF, phoenixacad, education, screenwriting

This won’t get posted until I’m safe at home, but I’ll look past that for the moment. I can’t fathom why LAX doesn’t have free wireless, but that’s neither here nor there.

This was an amazing weekend. It had the possibility in the beginning, but it’s still nice to see plan come together.

Aboce all was the blending of the two groups of pilot Freedom Teachers. We were two familes, now we’re married. If anything, I know I didn’t get enough time to meet with Mike from Philly or Robert from Atlanta or Gail from Cali.

The same feel of being recharged and repaired after spending quality time discussing what my life centers around has settled on me. Over and over this weekend we have spoken of the worth of finding and connecting with other teachers who “get it.” I’m feeling as though that’s going to need to be a post allon its own.

This weekend was about bonding, but was about building as well. Ours were valued voices in how to build the Freedom Teacher program and how to tweak what’s already in existence. We’ve also been given the opportunity to help edit and contribute to the forthcoming teacher’s guide to The Freedom Writers Diary.

It feels good to be a part of something.

And so I sit. Here. Purple yarn tied around my left hand as a reminder of ties strengthened and ties created. My mind is processsing and planning and exhausted.

I’ll step off my plane tomorrow morning at 6 am, wait an excrutiating amount of time for my baggage and then drive the 70 miles home. I might get a short nap before heading to school to teach at 9 am.

Coffee? I think yes.

More later.

technorati tags:lax, FreedomWriters, redeye, phoenixacad, srq

What a day.
I’m not entirely sure where to begin. I’m successfully in Long Beach, CA. I got in two nights ago and haven’t stopped moving yet. Yesterday was spent mainly catching up with Freedom Writers Teachers I met when I was here in October. Each has such exciting stories to tell about his or her students.
I also spent a sizeable portion of yesterday in iMovie cutting and pasting a short video from last Monday night when my six students who participated in the Young Screenwriters Program through the Sarasota Film Festival were honored and got to watch a staged reading of their screenplays.
How fitting that last night’s event here in Cali. was to go to Paramount Pictures for a private screening of Freedom Writers.
We also ate dinner in the studio cafeteria where the famous Taco Cart from the last Freedom Writers Weekend made a triumphant return.
What was best about the screening, though, was having a chance to watch the movie with an actual Freedom Writer on my left and one of the guidance counselors from Wilson High School who worked with the FW on my right. This was their truth, told on film and I got to share in experiencing it with them. Brilliant.
Today, we’ll be on the Cal State, Long Beach campus workshopping how to teach the film with the book and getting our hands dirty helping to revise the teacher’s guide due out this fall.
I cannot wait to collaborate with this dynamic group of teachers once again.
This trip is different because groups 1 and 2 of the pilot FWT are here.
Before meeting the members of Group 1, some of the other Group 2 members and I discussed our wonder at how the two would mesh. Ours was such a tight group that achieved cohesiveness so quickly, what if we didn’t have the same chemistry with this other group?
I’m due to meet some of them in a few minutes for breakfast if that answers any questions.
I’ll be sure to post again tonight with a more thoughtful reflection.
I’ll also be starting a Flickr feed with the tag FWW0407 along with posting the screenwriters movie to Revver.