1. Making Instructional Decisions
1.1. Diagnostic Assessment:
1.1.1. Determining the starting point for instruction, initiating introduction at the right curricular junctures
1.2. Backward Design:
1.2.1. Developing curricular units and lessons from the same instructional goals/objectives that are used to develop the assessment tools for that curriculum
1.3. Bloom's Taxonomy:
1.3.1. Hierarchical classification of cognitive learning objectives
1.3.1.1. Knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation
1.3.2. Cognitive Verbs
1.3.2.1. Remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, creating, evaluating
1.4. Universal Instructional Design:
1.4.1. Instructional system designed and delivered with the needs of the least independently able students in mind, results in instruction that is accessible and effective for all students
1.4.1.1. Letting Students Hack Their Lesson by Zoe Branigan demonstrates significance of the use of universal design in the classroom (Inked attached)
1.5. How People Learn Framework:
1.5.1. Knowledge-centredness, learner-centredness, community-centredness, assessment-centredness
1.6. Direct Instruction:
1.6.1. Clear learning objectives, well-planned lessons, explicit teaching, lots of practice
1.7. Inquiry-based Learning:
1.7.1. General --> specific question = student understanding
1.7.2. Students will: forecast, explain, hypothesize, direct their tasks, reflect and refine questions
1.8. Problem-based Learning:
1.8.1. Engage, investigate, evaluate explanation, report findings
1.9. SOI Information-Processing Model:
1.9.1. Select relevant information, organize the information, integrate the organized information with prior knowledge
2. Assessment for Learning
2.1. What's your learning style?
2.1.1. Visual, Auditory, Tactile
2.1.2. Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire would be useful in assessing your student's learning styles, especially within the first few weeks of school (Link attached for Questionnaire)
2.2. The Agricultural Model:
2.2.1. If we plant lettuce and the lettuce does not grow, we don't blame the lettuce, we look for reasons why it isn't doing well
2.3. Big Idea #1:
2.3.1. Assessment serves different purposes at different times
2.4. Big Idea #2:
2.4.1. Assessment must be planned and purposeful
2.4.1.1. Backward Design: What do I expect students to be able to do at the end of the course (curriculum)? How will I know that they have learned these things (assessment)? What lessons will be most effective in helping students demonstrate that they have learned this things (Instruction)?
2.4.1.1.1. Stage 1: Identify desired results
2.4.1.1.2. Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence
2.4.1.1.3. Stage 3: Plan learning experiences and instruction
2.5. Enduring Understandings:
2.5.1. Enduring value beyond the classroom, resides at the heart of the discipline, required un-coverage of abstract or often misunderstood ideas, allow for strong culture of instructional practice
2.6. Understanding by Design:
2.6.1. Teachers should tell students about big ideas and essential questions, performance requirements, and evaluative criteria at the beginning of the unit or course
2.7. Screening & Assessment:
2.7.1. Early ID, phonological awareness, grade 1 literacy, DRA, speech and language screening assessment, insight - grade 4 TVDSB, WIAT - School personnel (LST), WISC - Psychologist, other
2.7.1.1. Productive Response to Assessment: I understand the target, I understand the results, I know what to do next, I'm ok, I choose to keep trying
2.7.1.2. Assessment Done Poorly: No formative process, targets unclear, no student involvement in the process, no discussion of the results, one shot deal, no exceptions or flexibility, humiliation
3. Individual Differences-Intellectual Abilities and Challenges
3.1. Big Idea #4:
3.1.1. Assessment and instructions are inseparable because effective assessment informs learning
3.2. Who Are Your Students:
3.2.1. Know your students, know where they are in their learning, knowing where they need to go in their learning, knowing how to get to where they need to go in their learning, knowing what steps to take when they don't
3.3. Trifecta of Support
3.3.1. School, systems and communities
3.4. What is intelligence?
3.4.1. Ability to learn from experience, ability to adapt to one's environment, ability to acquire and use knowledge for solving problems and adapting to the world
3.5. Carroll's Hierarchical Model of Intelligence
3.5.1. Fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, general memory and learning, broad visual perception, broad auditory perception, broad retrieval capacity, broad cognitive speediness, processing speed (decision speed)
3.6. How is Intelligence Measured?
3.6.1. Aptitude tests, WISC-IV, achievement tests, WJ-III, WIAT, measure what the student has learned or the skills they have mastered
3.6.1.1. Does School Kill Creativity is a Ted Talk performed by Ken Robinson (link attached) speaks the idea of creativity being pushed to the side, behind that of more factual knowledge
3.7. What is Special Education?
3.7.1. Accommodating the special learning needs of students with exceptionalities, specialized instruction based on the assessment of students' abilities
3.8. Exceptionalities
3.8.1. Low-Incidence: moderate and severe disabilities
3.8.2. High-Incidence: mild disabilities
3.9. Access to Curriculum
3.9.1. Physical: sensory and motor access
3.9.2. Cognitive: understand assignments, plan and execute approaches to tasks, cognitive barriers exist
3.10. Guiding Principles for School Process for Identification and Support:
3.10.1. Best interest of the student, collaborative, communicative, school/board procedures, circumstantial (TVCC rule)
3.11. Inclusion:
3.11.1. Acceptance of differences, instruction focuses on appropriate teacher interventions, material being taught is made accessible to all students
3.11.2. UNESCO: process of addressing and responding to diversity of needs of all learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities, and reducing exclusion within and from education
3.11.3. Evolution & integration
4. Socio-Cultural Considerations
4.1. Increasing Diversity in Schools includes:
4.1.1. Language spoken, aboriginal students, one-parent families, same-sex couples, newcomers to Canada, religions practiced
4.2. Student Dilemmas:
4.2.1. Individualism: act within a unique identity and exclusive purpose
4.2.2. Collectivism: act within a shared identity and common purpose
4.3. Critical Consciousness:
4.3.1. Political values and beliefs, and ideological clarity, a socio-cultural consciousness
4.4. Building a Culturally Responsive Practice
4.4.1. Teachers must know: their own cultural assumptions, how to inquire about students' backgrounds, how to develop teaching approaches and curriculum to meet needs of culturally diverse learners, how to establish links across cultures
4.4.1.1. LINK TO ANOTHER CLASS: In my Aboriginal class we spent a lot of time focusing on how to "decolonize the classroom." This included practicing a culturally responsive outlook in your classroom.
4.4.2. Making Connections: achieving, believing, caring
4.5. Stereotype Threat:
4.5.1. Fear that one's behaviour will confirm a negative stereotype about one's identity group, those with strong ties to their identity group are most vulnerable, can be brought on by seemingly innocuous comments
4.6. Socio-Economic Status:
4.6.1. Compared to all other social or cultural attributes, an individual’s socio-economic status has the greatest impact on scholastic achievement
4.6.2. Children from SES Homes: development is at risk, economic hardships, scarcity of resources, more likely to experience authoritarian parenting style
4.6.3. How Teachers Can Offset Negative Influences of SES on Student Achievement:
4.6.3.1. Develop a genuine relationship, be empathetic, be respectful, recognize shared humanity, be open-minded, recognition of the difficulty of living in poverty, have realistic expectations for me and my family, remember just because I am poor does not mean I am a bad parent, remember just because I am poor does not me I am incompetent, do not discriminate against me, be an advocate
4.7. Dimensions of Multicultural Education:
4.7.1. Content integration, equity pedagogy, empowering school culture and social structure, prejudice reduction, knowledge construction process
4.8. Aboriginal Education:
4.8.1. Risk Factors: early school failures, moving from school to school, lack of parent support, lack of teachers with knowledge of Aboriginal studies, living in remote communities, lack of resources, special needs
4.8.2. Protective Factors: early intervention, resiliency, positive self-image, family engagement, community involvement, relevant programming, aboriginal role models
4.9. Instrumental Value of Education:
4.9.1. Degree to which students believe that doing well in school produces benefits
5. Planning For the Upcoming School Year
5.1. Reflective Practice:
5.1.1. Open-minded, embrace self-inquiry, ethical responsibility, self-reflection on practice in order to improve
5.2. 4 Commonplaces of Education:
5.2.1. Teacher, topic, setting, student
5.3. Curricular Planning:
5.3.1. Top-down approach: determine curricula for the year, determine curricula for each term, break curricula down into units, determine what will be taught on a daily basis
5.4. Instructional Planning:
5.4.1. Teacher-centered approach & student-centered approach
5.4.1.1. "Don't connect the dots collect the dots" (Stop Stealing Dreams YouTube linked)
5.5. Link Research Findings to Instruction & Learning:
5.5.1. Observation of phenomena, formation of questions, application of research methods, development of guiding principles, development of theories
6. Considering Developmental Differences
6.1. Principles of Development:
6.1.1. Orderly progression, periods of rapid and slow growth, quantitative and qualitative changes, individuals develop at different rates, genetics set developmental potential, environment determines potential realized
6.2. Instructional Approaches:
6.2.1. Universal design for learning, differentiated instruction, response to intervention
6.3. What Needs Planning:
6.3.1. What will be taught? When will it be taught? How will learning be assessed? What teaching methods and materials should be used? How to establish the type of learning environment needed
6.4. Results of Effective Planning:
6.4.1. Excellent instruction, enhanced student learning, exemplary environments
6.5. Constructivist Views of Learning:
6.5.1. Learners are active in constructing their own personal knowledge, social negotiating is important to knowledge construction, self-determination is needed to further knowledge development
6.6. Piaget Basic Learning Instinct:
6.6.1. Schemes/schemas organize behaviours & thoughts into coherent systems, adaptation is adjusting to one's surrounding environment
6.7. Vygotsky:
6.7.1. Zone of proximal development, social interaction, scaffolding
6.8. Applications of Constructivist-based Classrooms:
6.8.1. Dialogue & instructional conversations, inquiry learning, problem-based learning, teacher and peer learning, cognitive apprenticeship, collaborative learning
6.9. Classroom Environment
6.9.1. "the world needs more childish thinking"(Adora Svitak's Ted Talk is linked)
7. Theories of Learning:
7.1. Cognitive:
7.1.1. Mental processes exist & they are important in learning, learners are "sources of plans, intentions, goals, ideas, memories and emotions actively used to attend to, select and construct meaning form stimuli and knowledge from experience", learners bring knowledge to each new learning situation and that affects what they learn from that situation
7.2. Behavioural:
7.2.1. Understanding learning, contiguity and classical conditioning, operant conditioning, applied behaviour analysis, putting it all together, thinking about behaviour, problems and issues, diversity and convergences in behavioural thinking
7.3. Social Cognitive & Construcitvist:
7.3.1. Learners are active active in constructing their own personal knowledge they actively seek meaning, social negotiating is important to knowledge construction/learning, learning includes developing skills to solve problems, think critically, answer questions, accept multiple views, self-determination is needed to further knowledge development
8. Establishing a Positive Learning Environment
8.1. How Teacher Affects Student Achievement:
8.1.1. Designs classroom curriculum to facilitate student learning, makes wise choices about the most effective instructional strategies to employ, makes effective use of classroom management techniques
8.2. Features of Communities of Learners:
8.2.1. Job-embedded, collaborative, collegial, ongoing, require active learners, student-centered, reflective dialogue, engage in socially constructivist learning process
8.3. Exemplary Learning Environment:
8.3.1. Academic success dependent on learning environment, good planing and classroom management, provide students with optimum opportunities for learning, important for students with exceptionalities
8.4. Self:
8.4.1. Self-Efficacy
8.4.1.1. Good self-esteem, sense of competence, optimistic, personal control, motivated to learn
8.4.2. Self-Regulation
8.4.2.1. Tasks, control, self-evaluation, collaboration
8.5. When planning consider:
8.5.1. Learning profile (compilation of diagnostics), interests, readiness
8.5.1.1. You cannot simply teach to the "average" because no-one is average as Todd Rose brings up in his Ted Talk (link attached)
8.6. Bump System:
8.6.1. Proximity, touch, student's name, gesture, the look, the pause, ignore, signal to begin, deal with the problem not the student
9. Standardized Achievement Tests
9.1. Contain the same questions for all test-takers, are administered to all test-takers in same fashion, are scored in systematic and uniform manner, are different from teacher-made tests and aptitude tests
9.2. Test Types:
9.2.1. Criterion-Referenced: Student’s score determined by comparing performance to established criteria
9.2.2. Norm-Referenced: Student’s score determined by comparing performance to that of other students
9.3. Criticisms:
9.3.1. Biased Tests, stressful for students and teachers, results in teaching to the test, takes up to much time, does not enhance student learning, content of tests does not reflect instruction
9.3.1.1. The Ted Talk by Dan Pink called The Puzzle of Motivation (Linked), speaks to the criticisms of standardized testing. He introduces the candle problem and speaks about an experiment using it. The results of the experiment showed that the group that was told it was a standardized test did 3.5 minutes worse on average than the group that was told just to complete the task. Obviously the pressures of achieving less than average are evident in this experiment. So why are standardized tests still being used?
9.4. How Classroom & Large-Scale Assessments Should Be:
9.4.1. Be based on the same curriculum framework, address the same cognitive demands, incorporate similar tasks, use common standards for judging quality of work, use same benchmarks to represent learning over time
9.5. Standardized Tests Should:
9.5.1. Enhance teaching and learning, improve curricular design, be minimally intrusive
9.6. Preparing Students for Standardized Tests:
9.6.1. Convey positive attitudes about testing, teach test-taking skills, stimulate use of time limits during testing, familiarize students with types of questions used, involve students in marking questions of each type
9.7. Interpreting Standardized Test Scores:
9.7.1. Does the student's score make sense? How does the score compare to the student's other achievement indicators? Does the score reveal growth in learning? Did the student just have a bad day?