week+of+mar+9+and+11

March 9 and 11

As we begin this week, I just want to return to one of the three essential questions from this course, namely ... · How do we make it more likely – by our design – that more students really understand what they are asked to learn?

We're going to be working off the end of last week's course goals (as listed on the syllabus), which include the following: We will understand … · The continuum of assessments (informal checks for understanding, observations and dialogue, tests and quizzes, academic prompts, performance tasks) We will be able to … · Frame performance tasks using GRASPS · Draft, share, discuss, and revise performance tasks that we design for our unit
 * Use and connect the 6 facets of understanding to build assessments (especially performance tasks)

For March 9

Writing our way in ... some prompts below (from [|Writer's Digest]):
 * Your name is called: You've won the "Album of the Year" Grammy for your album, (fill in the blank). You step up to the podium to accept your award and, halfway through, the orchestra tries to play you off. You've worked too long and hard to allow this to happen, so you don't--to the surprise of everyone. Write this scene.
 * You're standing outside a restaurant next to a phone booth when, suddenly, it rings. Your gut tells you not to answer it, but with each ring you can't resist. Finally you pick up the phone—and end up having the most amazing night of your life.
 * Write the last line to an unwritten novel that's so intriguing that others won't help but want to read the book.
 * Write a 20-line poem (rhyming or non-rhyming) dedicated to your favorite piece of clothing (could be a shirt, hat, shoes, etc.).
 * Write about your favorite childhood memory of playing in the snow. If you've never been around snow, write about what you dream it'd be like.

__Preview for Thursday's book discussion on your teaching strategy books (using GRASPS)__
 * Goal and Role** = A working group within a network of teachers who want to learn how to better engage students to facilitate their understanding of concepts, processes, texts, etc.
 * Audience** = Colleagues who are in a different working group
 * Situation** = joint meeting of working groups who are debriefing what they've learned and who want to try new strategies in their classrooms before the next time they meet
 * Product** = provide handout for the other group (include steps a teacher would use to teach the strategy; what the strategy might best be used for and how it'll help students; copy of sample text / prompt to use with students) AND model the lesson for the other working group
 * Standards** = accurately represent the strategy; clear summary of the strategy and the steps you'd use; situate the strategy within the text's larger argument about how people learn and how this strategy promotes/reveals student understanding)

Return to the planning charts on our units as a way to begin talking about how to "think like an assssor"
 * Examine Essential Questions and the criteria of effective essential questions (p. 110)
 * cause genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content
 * provoke deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions
 * require students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers
 * stimulate vital, ongoing rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, prior lessons
 * spark meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences
 * naturally recur, creating opportunitites for transfer to other situations and subjects
 * Identifying what we want students to know (content) and to be able to do (processes as readers/writers/thinkers/researchers/etc)
 * Brainstorming the kinds of evidence we might need to check for each of those above (looking at continuum of assessments on page 152)
 * Begin drafting performance task [defining a PT; problems or exercises; GRASPS task design prompts(p159)]

For Thursday ... we'll be meeting in book discussion groups so be prepared to tackle the task above, which means you'll want to think about which of the strategies offered in the text is both representative of the larger argument the book is making and relevant for other teachers to implement with their students.

We'll also spend some time sharing your rough draft of one performance task you might use for your unit.